Someone You Know

by Brian McGilloway

  He held out his hand, gesturing that Lucy should lead the way. ‘I’m sorry for the loss. Did you know her well?’

  ‘I’d met her in one of the care homes a few times,’ Lucy said. ‘Her mother’s an alcoholic; Karen would be taken in anytime her mother went on a particularly long bender. She was a nice girl.’ Lucy’s placement with the Public Protection Unit of the PSNI meant that she primarily worked cases involving vulnerable persons and children. As a result, she spent quite a bit of time in the city’s Social Services residential units, in one of which Karen Hughes had been an occasional inhabitant.

  ‘How do you like the PPU?’ he asked, as they walked. ‘It’s a strange posting for a young DS. I’d have thought CID would have been the obvious place for someone like you.’

  What did he mean, someone like me? Lucy thought. Young? Female? Catholic? All of the above?

  ‘I’d rather work with the living than the dead,’ Lucy said a little tritely, though she knew it was not entirely true even as she said it. The dead motivated her as much as the quick. More perhaps.

  Burns nodded. ‘I’m afraid in this case that will prove a little difficult. There’s no doubting which she is.’

  They had reached the body now, which lay across the tracks so that the girl’s neck was supported by one of the metal rails. It could easily have been mistaken for a suicide attempt, had it not been for the knife wound that had severed her windpipe. A handful of SOCO officers continued to work the immediate scene. One documented the area with a hand-held video, while a second used a digital camera to take still shots.

  The girl lay on her back. Her clothes were as described in the Missing Person’s alert that Lucy had released just three days earlier. She wore a white hooded top, too long for her, over flower-patterned leggings. The top was soaked in blood now, but the material near the hem still retained the original white.

  Lucy couldn’t really see the face too clearly. Part of it was smeared in the girl’s own blood, the rest covered by the loose straggles of her hair. She could make out, on one side, the soft swell of her cheek, still carrying puppy fat. A smattering of freckles was more vivid now, against the pallor of her skin.

  Her hair had also become stuck to the blood that was already congealing at the edges of the wound at her throat. Lucy didn’t look too closely at it. No doubt she’d be treated to all manner of post-mortem pictures over the coming days without having to look at it here, too. She resisted an urge to push Karen’s hair back from her face, instead gently touched it with the tips of her gloved fingers. ‘Jesus,’ she said, softly.

  She tried to dissociate the memories of Karen alive from the scene before her as she examined the body. ‘She used to wear a cross and chain around her neck,’ Lucy said. ‘It might have been lost when her throat was cut.’

  ‘Any other identifying features?’ Burns asked. ‘Or do you want to wait until she’s cleaned up?’

  Lucy lifted the girl’s left hand. She noticed that the tips of each of her fingers were scored with deep gashes.

  ‘Defence wounds,’ Burns said, watching her. ‘She must have tried to grab the knife as he was slitting her throat.’

  ‘He?’

  ‘Most likely,’ Burns said.

  Lucy turned the dead girl’s arm. She wore a number of leather wristbands and friendship bracelets. Lucy recognized them. She pushed them up the girl’s arm, exposing the skin of the wrist, finding what she was looking for: a series of criss-crossing scars in broken lines traversed the girl’s lower arm.

  ‘That’s Karen Hughes, all right,’ Lucy said, tenderly laying the girl’s hand back onto the grey gravel.

  Chapter Three

  Burns walked back up the tracks with them to Lucy’s car. The breeze off the river had risen now, bringing with it further flecks of rain and a sudden chill that heralded the first grumble of thunder overhead.

  ‘We’ll need to get her covered before the rain hits,’ Burns said. ‘So, what’s the story with the girl, then?’

  ‘She’s been in and out of care for years now,’ Lucy said. ‘She’d be in the residential unit for a few months at a time, then out home again.’

  ‘What are the home circumstances?’

  ‘As I said, the mother is an alcoholic. Every time she’d be taken in to dry out, Karen ended up in care. Plus, occasionally, Karen would be hospitalized for self-harming and would be kept in care until her mood stabilized.’

  Burns nodded. ‘And I don’t need to ask about the father.’

  The element of the story the media had focused on, despite Lucy’s best attempts to keep it all about the girl, was the fact that her father was Eoghan Harkin, a man coming to the end of a twelve-year stretch for murder. He’d been part of an armed gang that had robbed a local bank in a tiger kidnapping which had left the bank’s manager dead.

  He’d done his time in Magherberry, in Antrim, only to get moved closer to home a few months earlier, to Magilligan Prison in Coleraine. He currently resided in the Foyleview unit there, which prepared offenders for release. As the girl had used her mother’s surname, it hadn’t been an issue when Lucy had drafted the first press release on Friday expressing concern for Karen. By Sunday, one of the trashier papers had somehow made the connection and ran a front-page story under the heading ‘Killer’s Girl Goes Missing’.

  ‘Who found her?’

  ‘A poor sod working for the railways,’ Burns said. ‘He was called in because someone stole cabling. The late train is stuck down at Gransha. Lucky really. The bend she was on, the train would have been straight into her before the driver would have seen her.’

  ‘Was that the point? Lay her on the tracks so that, when she gets hit by the train, the damage it’d do would hide the wound to the throat?’

  ‘Make it look like suicide,’ Burns agreed. ‘We’d have thought nothing of it with her having been in care and that.’

  ‘Whoever did it knew she was in care then,’ Lucy ventured.

  His face mask down now, Lucy could get a better look at Burns. He was stocky, his features soft, his jawline a little lacking in definition. But his eyes still shone in the flickering blue of the ambulance lights.

  ‘Maybe.’ He huffed out his cheeks. ‘Look, I appreciate you coming to ID the remains, folks. We’ll be another few hours here at least and we’ll have the PM in the morning. Maybe you could call to the CID suite about noon and we’ll take it from there.’

  ‘Of course, sir,’ she said.

  Burns pantomimed a winch. ‘And a second favour. Seeing as how you already know them, perhaps you’d inform the next of kin.’

  They stopped first at Gransha, the local psychiatric hospital, where Karen’s mother, Marian, was being held while she dried out after her latest two-week session. She’d be in no fit state to talk to them for some time. At that moment, they were informed, she was insensible.

  As they left the ward to return to the car, Lucy glanced across to the secure accommodation where her own father was a permanent resident. The block was in darkness now, low and squat. Her father had once been a policeman too, but had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for the past few years. Lucy’s estranged mother, the ACC of the division, had sanctioned the man’s incarceration in the secure unit following the events in Prehen woods a year earlier.

  ‘Will we get the prison officers to break the news to the grieving father? Or do you fancy a drive to Magilligan?’ Fleming asked.

  ‘We’d best tell him ourselves, sir,’ Lucy said, deliberately turning up the heat in the car.

  It had the desired effect. By the time they were passing the road off for Maydown station, on their way to Coleraine, Fleming was already swaying gently asleep in the front seat. Lucy flicked on a CD of the Low Anthem, turned it up enough to hear without wakening the DI beside her, and let her mind wander.

  Chapter Four

  Their voices echoed in the emptiness of the visiting room. Eoghan Harkin had been brought in, dressed in his own clothes, evidence of the relaxed regime in F
oyleview wing. As he took his seat opposite Lucy and Fleming, he’d already guessed the nature of their visit.

  ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, Mr Harkin,’ Lucy said. ‘I’ve just left her.’

  He wiped at his nose with his hand, sniffing once as he did so, glancing at Tom Fleming. He raised his chin interrogatively. ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘This is DI Fleming, Mr Harkin,’ Lucy said. ‘He’s my superior officer.’

  Fleming stared at him steadily. ‘I’m sorry for your loss, Mr Harkin.’

  Harkin accepted the sympathies with a curt nod. ‘Where’s her mother? Has she been told yet?’

  ‘Not yet. She’s in Gransha at the moment. They felt she might not be receptive to the news until morning.’

  Harkin accepted this, likewise, with a terse nod. ‘So what happened to her? Did she cut herself again?’

  ‘No. We believe she was murdered,’ Lucy said.

  Harkin initially seemed unaffected by the news then, at once, reached out to grip the back of the chair nearest him. He missed and the prison guard, Lucy and Fleming had to grapple with him to pull him back onto the chair from the floor.

  ‘I’ll get him a drink,’ the guard said and, crossing to the wall, lifted the receiver of the phone attached there and passed the request along. A moment later, someone knocked at the door and, opening it, the guard accepted a clear plastic cup of water and brought it across.

  Harkin accepted it and sipped. ‘Sorry, George,’ he said to the man, his head bowed. His back curved as he inhaled deeply, then he straightened himself, puffing out his cheeks as he released the breath. Finally, he looked up to Lucy. ‘How?’

  Lucy moved and sat in the seat next to him. ‘The postmortem won’t be till the morning, sir, but it appears she died from a knife wound.’

  ‘A stabbing?’

  ‘Not quite,’ Lucy said.

  Harkin processed this piece of information, considering all the alternatives. Finally, he settled on the right one, for his face darkened.

  ‘Who did it?’

  ‘It’s a little early—’ Fleming began.

  ‘You must have some fucking ideas,’ Harkin spat, rising from his seat in a manner which caused George to immediately stand to attention again. Aware of his reaction, Harkin raised a placatory hand then slowly lowered himself into his seat again. ‘You’ve been looking for her since Thursday. Where did you find her?’

  ‘On the railway line. At St Columb’s Park.’

  Harkin stared at the tabletop, his breath heavy and nasal. ‘Was it me?’ he asked finally.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Was it because of me?’

  Lucy shook her head. ‘We’ve no reason to believe so, Mr Harkin. Your daughter hasn’t shared your name since she was a child.’

  ‘She still was a child,’ he retorted, though without rancour. He sat a moment in silence, before speaking again. ‘That trash rag ran the story about her today. About her and me. If I thought it was done because of me, I’d ... You read all this shit in here, educating you. Sophocles and that. You know, the daughters die because of who the father was. You start ... you know, you can’t help ...’ He stared at them, his mouth working dryly, though producing no sound.

  Lucy shook her head, but did not express her own thoughts. The girl was missing until the papers ran with the connection to Harkin. Suddenly, she turned up with her throat cut, set up to look like she killed herself on the train line. Except the train never came. They couldn’t discount the idea that her death was connected with her father, even if she didn’t believe the two things to be related.

  ‘Can you think of anyone who might want to get back at you, Mr Harkin?’

  ‘You mean apart from the family of the poor sod I shot?’

  ‘Anyone else?’ Lucy continued, silently considering the possibility as one she’d need to mention to Burns.

  If there was, Harkin wasn’t going to share the information with them.

  ‘When did you last see Karen, Mr Harkin?’ Fleming asked.

  Harkin looked up at him, then dipped his head again. ‘About a fortnight ago. She’d started visiting after I wrote to her a while back. She was here three times, I think.’

  ‘Did she mention anything to you during any of her visits? Anything that suggested she might have been in trouble?’

  ‘She barely knew me. She was four when I went inside.’

  His expression darkened suddenly, his eyes hooded by his brows where they gathered. Lucy felt Fleming’s hand rest on her arm on the desk. She glanced at him and he shook his head lightly. They would get nothing further of use from Harkin.

  ‘Is there any thing we can do for you, Mr Harkin?’ Lucy asked, standing to indicate to the prison officer that they were concluding their visit.

  ‘I’m out of here next Saturday. If you find out who it was, give me half an hour with whoever killed her.’

  ‘Careful, Eoghan,’ George called from the corner. ‘I’m sorry for your news, but we don’t want you back in here again too soon, now do we?’

  ‘Half an hour,’ Harkin repeated to Lucy.

  The prison officer, George, walked them back out to the main reception area where they returned their visitors’ badges, crunching on an apple as he walked with them.

  ‘You found her on the train line?’ he asked, clearly having overheard.

  ‘Just at St Columb’s Park. There’s a dark bend on the line.’

  ‘Oh, I know it surely,’ the man said. ‘I’m from Londonderry myself. I get that train in the evenings if I’m doing the day shift. When did you find her?’

  ‘Sometime before midnight,’ Lucy said. ‘A little before that, maybe.’

  ‘The body can’t have been there too long then.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There’s a train that leaves Coleraine about 9.10 p.m. I aim to make that if my shift finishes on time. It gets into the city for just shy of 10. If I miss that, I have to get the late train, hanging around Coleraine till 10.40. It makes it in for 11.30. If the body had been lying for a bit, the 10 o’ clock train would have run over it. Whoever put it there must have done so between 10 and 11.30.’

  ‘What about trains coming out of Derry?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘The last Londonderry train is at 8.30,’ the man replied. ‘There’s none after that.’

  He took another chunk off the apple, chewing happily as he said. ‘If you need me to solve the whole case for you, just let me know.’

  Monday 17 December

  Chapter Five

  The smoke was so dense, Lucy could barely see in front of her. She felt the burning in her lungs, the need to take a breath, but she knew she had to resist. Somewhere, below her, the heat was rising, its presence marked by a vague yellow glow from the living room, the splintering of wood as the door cracked.

  To her left she saw Catherine Quigg’s closed door. The woman bolted it from the inside; Lucy remembered that. She reached for the door, tried to open it. Locked. Raising her boot, she kicked at the spot below the handle where she knew the sliding bolt inside had been screwed. Once, twice, a third boot at it before it too splintered and she tumbled through the doorway into the room. Empty. She didn’t stop to think how an empty room might be locked from the inside; didn’t find it strange.

  Where was Mary’s room? Ahead of her, at the end of the corridor. She looked up. Cunningham had fitted a brass bolt on Mary’s door too, but on the outside so he could lock her and her brother Joseph into the room when he stayed over with their mother. She fumbled with the bolt. It wouldn’t shift. She felt across its length with her fingers, then found the heavy padlock attached to it.

  From inside the room, she could hear the muffled cries of the baby, the sounds indistinct. She knew this was because Mary had wrapped towels around the child’s head to protect him. She’d used all the towels on him, left none for herself. Lucy hammered on the door.

  ‘Mary? Mary? Can you hear me?’

  She heard a reciprocal light t
humping from the other side.

  ‘Mary?’ she screamed.

  She heard the alarm ringing. Finally she thought. After all this smoke and it’s only starting to ring. Maybe help would come.

  The thumping from the other side seemed to intensify in frequency, though not strength.

  ‘Mary, I’m here,’ Lucy cried, tears streaming down her face now.

  Suddenly, the thumping stopped.

  ‘Help me,’ Mary whispered in her ear.

  Lucy looked down to her arms, where she held the baby, Joseph, his swaddling clothes frayed towels, singed and black with soot.

  The alarm grew louder, pulling her away from the door.

  ‘Help me,’ the child repeated.

  Lucy jolted awake, almost falling off the sofa where she’d lain down when she finally got home after 4 a.m. She put her hands to her face, felt the wetness of her cheeks. The tears, at least, were real.

  She sat up, glanced across at the clock on the mantelpiece; it was already gone 7 a.m. The sky beyond was beginning to lighten behind the miasma of rain misting the windows.

  The house was quiet, save for the creaking of the floorboards upstairs and the occasional rattling cough of the water pipes when the timer switched on the central heating at 7.45. Lucy had yet to redecorate, had yet to see this as her own home, rather than her father’s home in which she was staying. She showered, then clattered about in the kitchen, pouring herself out cereal, eating it in front of the TV, watching the news.

  She thought again on what Harkin had said, about Sophocles and his being to blame for Karen’s death. It seemed unlikely somehow. The man had not been a feature of the girl’s life. Indeed, she had jettisoned his surname at the first opportunity, just as Lucy had retained her father’s name after her mother reverted to her maiden name, Wilson. Even when Lucy had met Karen, in the months before when she was still in care, she’d never once named her father. It had struck Lucy more than once that they had that disowning of a parent in common. It was, perhaps, why Lucy had been drawn to the girl. That coupled with the fact that, as her mother had quite correctly commented, Lucy had an affinity for the vulnerable, for all the little lost girls she encountered. None more so than Mary Quigg, the girl about whom she had recurrent dreams who had died along with her mother the year previous.