‘I am a detective. I’m not playing the role. I believe your brother was murdered, possibly by an individual you and he knew.’
‘Believe me, if it turns out Sammy was murdered I wouldn’t be able to live with the thought of it. We didn’t get on that well in recent years, but he still meant everything to me. He wasn’t just my brother; he was the last connection I had with my roots, my land, my people.’
Daly sat quietly, waiting as the politician grew more tense, his folded hands turning into claws, his shoulders hunched and ready to spring forward.
‘Listen, Inspector, I don’t think you understand how serious this is.’ Reid’s throat grew rough. ‘If, as you believe, Sammy was murdered by someone, then it won’t be long before they strike again.’
‘Who’s next on their list?’
‘Me, you bastard.’ Another part of the mask slipped from Reid’s face, revealing the frightened man beneath. ‘You need to talk to Thomas O’Sullivan. If his people hadn’t stuck their noses in Sammy’s business, none of this would have happened.’
‘You’ve taken a while to express your suspicions about the travellers.’
‘I’ve been distracted.’
‘What were the distractions?’
A flush rose through his features. ‘I will have no more discussions about this matter,’ he said, rising to his feet.
‘Sit where you are, Mr Reid,’ ordered Daly. ‘I have more questions to ask you.’
The politician lowered himself into the seat with a glowering expression. All his faculties were engaged now, his eyes fully alert and focused on Daly.
‘Tell me about the Strong Ulster Foundation.’
‘Is this something the police need to know?’
‘I’m not sure until you tell me the details. Harry Hewson had been digging around the organization before he was murdered. My understanding is that he found out you are one of its directors.’
‘Was, Inspector. I resigned my position a few years ago, when the property boom collapsed. In those days, everyone was throwing money at houses.’ He bared his teeth in the form of a painful smile. ‘I was exposed personally to some bad investments and was forced to hand over everything to do with the foundation.’
‘Who took over for you?’
‘The people who stumped up the cash in the first place. The foundation was really an investment vehicle for a group of retired security force personnel. It bought up properties and then rented them out while waiting for the market to pick up.’
‘Give me the names of the investors.’
He grimaced and stirred in his seat. ‘That’s confidential business information. All you need to know is that there are a lot of highly trained military operatives in this country surviving on very small pensions, who were keen to build up a property portfolio.’ He gestured to the tapestry and banners hanging on the walls as though they were a battlefield from which he had just emerged. ‘I don’t think you understand anything of my people’s culture, Inspector Daly, what we went through during the Troubles. Seeing our family members murdered one after the other, watching our communities falling apart. Some of us had to make a stand and form organizations to protect and support our people.’
‘And did these organizations ever cross the line?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Were they engaged in violence against their enemies?’
Reid sighed and rose from his seat. He stood with his back to Daly, contemplating the tapestry on the wall, and then he turned back to the detective.
‘Let me tell you something about border country, Daly. It’s a bottomless labyrinth. I’m not talking about its landscape of winding roads, or its interlocking sectarian parishes. I’m talking about border people themselves, both Protestant and Catholic, their unfathomable minds, the dark turmoil of their history. They are the true labyrinth.
‘Even if there was a united Ireland, the Republicans living there will always belong to border country,’ he added. ‘Their fight is with authority of any kind, not just the British Army or a civilian police force.’ He stared meaningfully at Daly. ‘And that is why some of us will always have to take matters into our own hands to protect our community, no matter the political outcome. The Strong Ulster Foundation was set up, as the name suggests, to lead my community through times of weakness and confusion.’
Reid turned his back on Daly again. He opened a drawer and removed a file of documents. He faced Daly and carefully handed him one of the sheets, as though he were transferring a wafer of ice. Daly read a long list of farming properties, agricultural land and abandoned building sites, entire terraces of houses alongside contentious parade routes, as well as disused churches and police stations from border villages clinging on to existence. He could not imagine a bleaker property portfolio.
‘But this isn’t the complete story of the foundation’s history,’ said Daly. ‘You’re holding something back. Hewson was on the trail of something sinister linked to the foundation’s past. Something so sinister he was prepared to risk his own life in bringing it to the light.’
‘Then finish his work.’ Reid glared at him. ‘Bring it into the light, if you feel that’s what this country needs at this present time.’
Daly chose his words carefully. ‘We have a twisted view of our leaders in this country. We know that some of our politicians once operated at the margins of society, doing violent things with guns and paramilitary gangs, but still we keep voting them into power. We put them into positions of responsibility where they feel so threatened that they have to hunt down every shadow from their past, every secret that threatens to be revealed.’
The politician stared at Daly, wide-eyed. ‘I’ve done nothing violent. I’ve broken no laws.’
‘But for years you lived on a vision of violence. And now because of that vision, you are a hunted man. That’s the reason for all the security here, isn’t it? You’re in fear of your life.’ Reid might never have pulled a trigger, thought Daly, but the clamour of conflict had always been at his back. He had much more to lose than his reclusive brother, a border hermit, eking out his final days on a lonely farm.
A knock came from the door and Reid’s PA stuck her head into the room and gave the politician a look as if to ask whether the meeting was going as planned. Reid shook his head slightly, and she hesitated, unsure of what to do next.
She exited when Daly cleared his throat. The detective posed another question. ‘What if the travellers thought that your brother was connected to an unsolved crime in the past?’
‘You’d have to ask Sammy that.’
‘Unfortunately, we can’t find out what fears were preying on your brother’s mind. His words will never be heard. We have to go back to what you know about your brother’s connections with the travellers. What earlier involvement did he have with them? Did he ever meet a woman called Mary O’Sullivan?’
Reid did not react to the name. Instead, he appeared to be expecting it. ‘I don’t remember.’
Daly could see that Reid clearly did remember. The politician stiffened to attention, and the mood in the room seemed to darken and contract to a point. Even the horseback figures on the tapestry appeared to rouse themselves from the wall and lean into the room, their swords glinting.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Jack’s kidnappers hauled him from the car the next morning and bundled him through the door of a dingy caravan. Inside stood the girl with the black plait, studiously paying no attention to the three rough men as they undid the ropes that bound his body. She barely flinched, a calm, composed figure putting on make-up before a mirror perched on a filthy stove, as though this world of violence and disorder could not touch her. She leaned forward a little and stared at Jack through the mirror, her eyes bright and curious as if she were peering into a very dark well. Before he could say or communicate anything to the girl, the men steered him into a small bedroom and locked the door.
He was alone again. All he had to set against the gnawing fear that his
life was in great danger was the conspiracy of the mute exchange with the girl, the nagging sensation that she was transmitting something coded and important through her eyes. He waited, listening for the sound of the men transmitted through the caravan, but all was silent. Overcome with the feeling that he was on an excursion into someone else’s nightmare, he banged on the walls of the caravan with his fists and shouted until his hands and throat ached. After a while, he gave in and lay down on the cramped bed. He slept fitfully through a gloomy afternoon; rain glistening on the caravan window; black leaves clinging to the wetness and then whirling away in the wind. Dark clouds poured across the sky. The caravan rocked to the movements of men coming and going, disturbing his sleep, but no one entered his room.
He awoke to the sound of a radio blaring from the front of the caravan, and the movement of his captors. Then a noise from outside his window made him look up. From the radio, he heard the roar of a horse-racing crowd, and the rising tones of the commentator. Someone turned the volume higher. Closer to the window, he heard his name whispered, followed by a set of fingernails rapping on the glass.
‘Shit, he’s going to win it,’ yelled one of the men in the front of the caravan as the commentator’s voice grew more excited.
The noise from the window came again, harder, more urgent. Someone was using the sound of the radio as cover to contact him. For a second, the commentator’s voice died to silence, and when he spoke again, the men roared in unison and the caravan rocked to their movement. Jack pulled back the curtain. On the other side of the window was the girl, beckoning him to open it. Her face was deathly pale, and her knuckles raw and red-looking in the subdued light.
The window had been screwed shut, and would not budge more than a centimetre or two, but it was enough to hear her urgent breathing. She stared at him with her dark eyes, her plait drenched in the rain. So deep was her imploring look that he thought she might be deaf or mute.
When she spoke, her words jammed together in a stammer. ‘You… have to escape, Jack,’ she said. ‘Something… bad is going to happen.’ She shivered with more than the cold. He saw in her white-faced fear the dreadful things her uncle was capable of doing.
‘What do you have, Jack? What is so… important to them?’ She did not move or speak, waiting for his reply.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Then why did the travellers steal you from your… parents?’
‘The McGinns didn’t steal me. They took me on their journey.’
‘But they took you to a place no one would find you.’
‘They were meant to take me to my dad.’
‘There’s a… man here I’ve never seen before.’
‘What does he look like?’ For a moment, he hoped it might be his father.
‘I only saw him from behind. They say he is an important… policeman. He was carrying a gun and shouting. I thought he was going to cause trouble and arrest someone, but then I saw him paying money to my uncle. He was doing business. He kept asking questions about you.’
‘Did he mention my name? Jack Hewson?’
‘Yes. And I heard them talking about your dad.’
‘Your uncle shouldn’t have taken me. He should have waited until my dad showed up.’
‘Do you want to go home now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then tell me what it is you have.’ She looked him straight in the eye, challenging him.
‘I keep telling you, I don’t know. Why are you speaking to me at all? Aren’t you afraid of your uncle?’
‘I don’t fear him. I… hate him.’ She stared at him in defiance.
He still had no idea why her uncle had kidnapped him. What had started as a harmless adventure with some friendly traveller children had turned into a rootless journey from one camp to another with disaster looming ever closer like the constant threat of rain and wind.
‘I want to go home, now. Help me get out.’
‘You’d better listen or I won’t help you at all. If we leave now, they will find us very quickly. Wait until it’s dark, and in the meantime, do everything my… uncle asks you. Eat what he gives you; answer his questions; pretend to go to sleep when he tells you. You must not raise their suspicions in any way.’
When he did not reply, she asked, ‘Do you want my uncle to catch the two of us together?’
‘No.’
‘Right then. I’m going to wait until night-time and then I’ll come back.’ She instructed him to have a bundle ready to place under the duvet so that it would look as though he was fast asleep in bed.
In the front of the caravan, someone lowered the radio, and then the caravan shifted as the men began moving. He glanced at the door, cringing at the thought of them entering the room. He looked back through the window, but the girl had disappeared. He stared through the glass at a campsite strewn with ugly rubbish. His childhood was over. He knew that now. All that confronted him were intimidating shadows and the thick cursing voices of the men outside his door.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The afternoon light flashed along the windows of the police building like a blind gun fired in random directions. Daly hurried from his car, catching glimpses of the sun’s burning reflection. Amid the usual careful figures standing and chatting behind the glass, Daly spotted Special Branch Inspector Fealty, leaning against a railing on the third floor and staring down at the car park, as if waiting in ambush. Was it his imagination or did Daly see a smile form on his lips?
The blazing sun followed Daly, filling the glass pane behind which Fealty was standing. The Special Branch inspector looked imprisoned in the light, a tall thin insect in amber. When Daly looked back up again, another figure moved casually into view behind Fealty. It was Commander Sinclair, hanging back a little in the other man’s shadow. Before Daly slipped through the entrance doors he glanced up again at the third-floor window, but the figures were now invisible, the glass filled with a radiant darkness.
Detective O’Neill was waiting for him in his office. Her expression was grim, yet an excited light shone in her eyes. ‘O’Sullivan called to say he’s found out who is holding Jack Hewson,’ she told him. ‘He claims that a traveller gang led by a man called Black Paddy McDonagh kidnapped him from the McGinns last night.’
Daly took off his jacket and digested the news.
‘But there are complications. He doesn’t know where they’ve taken the boy or what they plan to do with him.’
‘How did he sound on the phone?’
‘Tired and worried. I think he was telling the truth.’
‘Do we have any record on this McDonagh character?’
‘He’s just returned from America, where he’d been jailed for low-level criminality, mostly assault and intimidation. The intelligence understanding is that since his return to Northern Ireland, he’s been muscling in on Thomas O’Sullivan’s territory, breaking the travellers’ normal code of conduct. O’Sullivan is now offering to intervene on our behalf and negotiate the boy’s release. He’s promised to get back to us as soon as he has more details.’
‘Sounds like a long process. Meanwhile, the boy is in the hands of this dangerous gang. Why should we trust him in the first place?’
‘If we bring him in for more questioning we run the risk of losing his help in finding Jack.’
Daly and O’Neill lapsed into silence, going through the possibilities in their heads. The tension in the room increased as they considered the new and sinister directions the search for Jack, which had been dragging for days, might now take.
‘If what he is saying is true,’ said Daly, ‘then the boy is in the middle of a war between rival traveller gangs. The danger level could not be any higher.’
He came to a conclusion. ‘O’Sullivan’s claims might look dubious, but this is the closest thing we’ve had to a breakthrough. For the time being, we have to behave as though we believe him.’
He asked O’Neill to go over the details of the police surveillance on O’Sullivan’s camp tha
t day. However, nothing of interest had emerged.
‘Has he made any demands or placed any conditions upon helping us?’
‘There was just one. He wants to deal only with you.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘We assume he’s still at the camp. There have been no reports of him leaving.’
Daly asked O’Neill to send out an alert to all police patrols to search the local halting sites, and then he grabbed his jacket and strode along the sunlit corridor towards the nearest exit. However, a burly-looking silhouette stepped out to block his way. He stopped in his tracks, surprised to see the figure was Detective Brian Barclay.
‘I’ve something confidential and urgent to discuss with you,’ said Barclay. His face looked sharper in the afternoon sunlight. Even his eyes had a cutting attitude that Daly had not noticed before. He was smiling but there was an unpleasant edge to his grin.
‘Do you want to speak somewhere private?’
‘No. Here is fine. As long as Special Branch aren’t listening in.’ He glanced around, and then he faced Daly squarely, as though trying to shield him from the light streaming through the windows. ‘I haven’t seen you around for the past few days, Celcius.’
‘I’ve been busy.’
‘Irwin is spreading stories about your mother,’ he said in a low voice.
‘What stories?’ Daly had been keen to push on, but now he lingered, suddenly on the defensive.
‘I’m just alerting you,’ Barclay replied flatly. ‘He’s telling his colleagues that she was involved with the IRA, and that’s why she was murdered.’
‘My mother had no links with any political or paramilitary group,’ said Daly in a thick voice.
‘It’s clear to me that—’ Barclay cut himself short. He manoeuvred himself so that he was completely silhouetted against the tall windows, the sun shining directly into Daly’s eyes, making him squint.
‘What’s clear to you?’
‘That Irwin has a personal vendetta against you.’
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