Someone You Know

by Brian McGilloway

  Gun in one hand, torch in the other, she crested the earthen embankment, moving over the top quickly, expecting to see Bell on the other side. Instead, the wide eyes of a cow rolled towards her as it struggled to raise its heft off the sodden ground in which it was trapped. The sudden movement of the creature caused Lucy to start and she lost her footing a little, sliding down the embankment towards the stream.

  Suddenly, from among the trees to her right, Bell appeared, launching himself at her. He made to grab at her hair, managing only a loose grip. It was enough to pull her off balance, though not enough for him to retain hold of her as she fell.

  She scrabbled along the ground, reaching for his feet, even as he kicked out at her to shake her loose. She grabbed one leg and tugged as hard as she could, effectively pulling Bell over the top of her and forcing the two of them to roll into the freezing water of the stream.

  Lucy fell awkwardly, the motion of the roll resulting in Bell lying above her, pinning her down beneath the surface. She could taste mud in her mouth, her ears filled with the rush of the water, her hands grappling with the slimed stones of the stream bed in an attempt to gain purchase enough for her to push upwards and dislodge Bell from where he lay on top of her.

  She could feel again his hands gripping at her hair, the back of her neck, trying to force her head downwards, further into the water. Bell shifting his position now, straddled her, his knees either side of her body as he tried to drown her, leaning his weight onto her. She managed to shift a little, onto her side, moving her head enough to manage a gasp of air, before Bell pressed harder, scraping the side of her face against the rocky stream bed.

  By angling herself, however, she’d freed her hand a little. Scrabbling along the ground, she managed to find a solid enough surface to press against to lever herself. She pushed as hard as she could, her lungs feeling as if they would burst, her body suddenly aware of the chill. She bucked her body upwards, unseating Bell sufficiently for her to repeat the manoeuvre a second time, more forcibly. Bell, reaching out to arrest his fall, lost his balance sufficiently that Lucy was able to drag herself from under him. Gripping a rock from beneath her, she turned sharply in the water and swung upwards. The rock connected with the side of Bell’s face, stunning him enough momentarily for Lucy to push herself away from him and struggle to her feet.

  Bell, too, was rising to his feet, cursing in the dark. He lunged for Lucy now, but she sidestepped him, swinging the rock a second time, connecting with his temple.

  The lunge, combined with his weight and the slippery surface on which he stood, conspired against him and he fell into the water. In an instant, Lucy was on him, straddling him now, holding his head into the water. She gripped the back of his hair, pulled his head upwards sharply then slammed it downwards, his face connecting with the stones beneath the water with each strike.

  She felt something rising inside her, felt a rage she had not felt since the night Mary Quigg died. She tightened her grip, holding his head under now with both hands as he thrashed in the water beneath her.

  Suddenly, she was being lifted up and away from him. She felt arms constricting across her chest and she realized that the uniform had arrived and was pulling her away from Bell.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she said, twisting to look at the man. Only when she saw his expression did she understand that he had dragged her away for Bell’s protection, not for hers.

  She stepped quickly away from him, holding her hands aloft to indicate she would not touch Bell again.

  For his part, Bell rolled onto his back. He struggled to pull himself out of the stream and lay on the embankment, retching as he brought up the water Lucy had forced him to swallow. His hair was plastered to his scalp, his face smeared with dirt, his nose and lips oozing fresh blood and saliva down over his mouth and chin. He lay back finally, his breaths coming in laboured pants in between fits of laughter.

  Lucy leaned over him, the movement causing the uniform to step towards her. Around Bell’s neck he wore a leather necklace on which hung a green holographic pendant. Shining her torch on it, Lucy saw, at its centre, an eye.

  ‘Get up,’ she said, pulling him by the shoulder.

  ‘I want to speak to my father,’ he said, not to Lucy, but to the uniform, twisting his head to look past her at the man. ‘Call my father. Call Jackie Logue.’

  Saturday 22 December

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Bell and Tony were bundled into the back of the police car, the other uniform and Lucy taking Bell’s car, still blocking the roadway, in which sat Annie Marsden.

  When she sat next to her, the girl offered Lucy back her coat.

  ‘You’re soaked,’ she explained.

  Lucy smiled, taking it and wrapping it around herself. After the initial buzz she had felt, first in overpowering Bell, then in his arrest and the revelation that Jackie Logue was his father, Lucy now began to feel the chill, the sodden clothing clinging to her with a damp heat that she knew would eventually sap her energy. She rifled through her coat pocket and took out her phone.

  Handing it to the girl, she said, ‘You should phone your parents. Tell them you’re with us.’

  The girl hesitated, her hand stretching out towards but not touching the phone. ‘What should I tell them?’ she asked, unconsciously pulling at the hem of the skirt she wore.

  Lucy looked across at her, smiling a little sadly. ‘Tell them you’re safe. That’s all that they’ll care about for now.’

  An hour later, Lucy sat before her own mother. A Response Team had brought with them a change of clothing and Lucy now wore one of the unit’s boiler suits.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Lucy reassured her, as her mother asked for the third time how she felt.

  ‘That’ll need stitched,’ Wilson said, touching the gash on her face with the tips of her fingers.

  Lucy shifted her head away sharply from her touch. ‘You knew about Bell, didn’t you?’

  Her mother raised an eyebrow quizzically. ‘How would I have known? You only made the connection yourself today.’

  ‘Not about now. About Louisa Gant. He killed her, didn’t he?’

  Wilson stared at her a moment. They were sitting in one of the upper bedrooms, the one in which she had found Gavin Duffy. She moved across and closed the door softly, then turned and leaned her back against it. Lucy, sitting on the edge of the bed, stared at her, waiting for her to speak, determined to stay silent, determined not to allow her a way out.

  Her mother coughed to fill the silence, then pushed herself off the door with her rump and moved towards her daughter. She sat next to her, their bodies not touching, both staring straight ahead.

  ‘He never admitted to it, but I knew Bell had been with her on the day she died,’ her mother said, finally. ‘I found a picture of him with her in an album she kept.’

  ‘I saw it,’ Lucy said.

  Her mother turned. ‘You visited Gant’s? How is he?’

  ‘Broken,’ Lucy said. ‘How would you expect him to be? So you knew?’

  ‘I started investigating. Bell was only fourteen at the time. His mother was still with Logue at that stage. Once I connected his name to Bell, Special Branch took over.’

  ‘Why?’

  Wilson shrugged.

  ‘Don’t pretend to be stupid. Why?’

  Wilson took a deep breath, held it a moment, then released it slowly. ‘It was the new age of policing. They needed to be sure they had some support in those communities that hadn’t backed the RUC before the change. Gary Duffy was set against the Peace Process and especially against the police, even with the changes. He was threatening to target Catholics who joined, the whole bit. Logue was known to be more sympathetic to policing change.’

  ‘By the police covering up the fact that his son had killed a child, he became even more sympathetic, I’d imagine.’ Lucy had been told Gary Duffy had been a hawk. He’d never have supported the newly formed PSNI and, as a community leader, would have ensured that the residents i
n the area would not cooperate with them either. From her searches for Cunningham, Lucy knew just how damaging that lack of cooperation could be to an investigation. If Duffy could be discredited in the community’s eyes, and a more sympathetic community leader, like Jackie Logue, put in his place, the PSNI would find policing the area much easier. By covering up for Jackie Logue’s son, the PSNI had managed to make Logue a puppet himself, she reflected.

  Wilson nodded. ‘I’d assume so.’

  ‘And Gary Duffy was put in the frame to take him off the picture?’

  ‘Arresting him for terrorist activity would simply have strengthened his reputation, strengthened his position in the community.’

  ‘Label him a paedophile, though, and he’ll be ostracized,’ Lucy said.

  ‘Presumably.’

  ‘Why not give Gant back his daughter’s body?’ Lucy asked.

  Her mother remained silent. Lucy studied the circling floral pattern of the carpet beneath her feet, piecing it together. ‘Because then there’d have been forensics that Gary Duffy could have challenged in court, that would have implicated Logue’s son,’ she said, turning to look at her mother.

  If the woman heard the comment, she did not react.

  ‘So what role did you play in all this? Was this how you were groomed for success? Turning a blind eye?’

  ‘No,’ Wilson said, looking at Lucy directly for the first time. ‘The case was taken off me. I was a young officer, told to hand over what I had. I simply did as I was told.’

  ‘And what happened to Bell? Jackie Logue told me he’d had a son that he’d lost when the boy was a teenager. I assumed he meant the child had died.’

  Wilson shook her head. ‘He and his mother were forced to move away and change their names to Bell. In the hope that he wouldn’t reoffend.’

  ‘Because that’s worked so well in the past,’ Lucy spat. ‘You knew —’

  ‘I knew nothing for certain, Lucy,’ Wilson said sharply. ‘Nor do you.’

  ‘You. You and your ... secrets.’

  Wilson’s mouth tightened as she sat more erect. ‘We all have secrets, Lucy. That’s what happened. Doing deals with bad people to try to do some good. On all sides.’

  ‘And that justifies it?’

  ‘That Finn girl went missing and you could go into that community to investigate it, without fear of being shot. Because of those deals. That’s the price we pay for peace.’

  ‘So what will happen to Jackie Logue now?’

  ‘If he was involved in this ring, he’ll face charges,’ Wilson said. ‘If he wasn’t, he won’t.’

  ‘About Louisa Gant, I mean?’

  ‘Nothing. He didn’t do it. Peter Bell will face charges if any forensics taken from her remains implicate him.’

  ‘Jackie Logue’s an accessory.’

  Wilson dismissed the statement. ‘So too is Special Branch then. And every officer who benefited from our having Logue on the ground, arguing on our behalf.’

  ‘That’s rubbish,’ Lucy muttered.

  ‘Don’t you judge me. Not until you’re able to make the hard decisions too.’

  ‘John Gant deserved to know the truth about his daughter. That’s not a hard decision. The man’s living in a museum,’ Lucy said, aware as she said it that Gant was not the only one refusing to let go of past grief. Was the picture of Mary Quigg, pinned to her office wall, any different from Gant looking at E-FIT images of the girl his daughter might have grown up to be? ‘He deserves the truth,’ Lucy repeated.

  ‘Well now he’ll get it. Some of it at least,’ Wilson said.

  ‘A father deserves to know who killed his child,’ Lucy stated. ‘It doesn’t matter the cost.’

  Wilson shook her head and stood. ‘Go back to Derry and get changed. Get that wound on your face checked.’

  Lucy borrowed one of the squad cars that had come down from Derry. It was after ten in the morning by the time she left the house. She reached the front of Magilligan and parked up on the verge where she had sat the night before when they had waited for Bell.

  Just after 10.45 a.m., the front gates swung slowly backwards and a single figure stepped out into the watery sunlight, his hand raised above his eyes as he glanced up and down the roadway. A little distance down the road, there was a bus stop and he started walking towards it, hefting his bag onto his shoulder.

  As he drew abreast the car, Lucy leaned across and opened the door. Eoghan Harkin leaned down.

  ‘Officer,’ he said. ‘Whatever it was, I didn’t do it. I’ve only just got out.’

  ‘I thought I should give you a lift,’ Lucy said. ‘We should talk.’

  Harkin looked up and down, as if judging whether there were any potentially better offers, then nodded and, pushing his bag over the shoulder rest onto the floor of the back seat, got in.

  Tuesday 25 December

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Lucy went to first Mass on Christmas morning. The air was sharp with the promise of coming snow, despite the sky being clear of cloud. The other parishioners smiled at her and offered her a Happy Christmas. She returned the wishes, even as she struggled to feel the joy they should have carried with them.

  After Mass, she drove to see her father. She had dug out a picture of the garden with the fountain from the laneway behind Prehen and had it framed. When he unwrapped it, he smiled and thanked her, but she could tell from the blankness in his expression that he did not recognize the place. Another of his memories had passed beyond him forever, the wisps of her childhood diminishing one by one with each day his illness progressed.

  ‘What’s this for?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s Christmas, Daddy,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve not got you anything,’ he said, his eyes rheumy.

  ‘That’s OK,’ she said.

  She sat next to him, her hand on the arm of her chair, his hand, soft and warm, lightly balanced on top of hers.

  ‘Are we having dinner?’ her father asked suddenly.

  ‘No, Daddy,’ Lucy said. ‘I’ve got to go soon.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘The cemetery,’ Lucy said.

  The man snorted, derisively. ‘What’s a young girl like you doing going to visit the dead?’

  Lucy stared at him, surprised by the lucidity of the comment.

  ‘You want to take Lucy somewhere nice today, love,’ he said, winking against the light coming in through the window of his room.

  ‘I am Lucy, Daddy.’

  He squinted at her, then patted her hand lightly. ‘Isn’t that funny? I thought you were your mother for a minute,’ he said.

  As she was leaving, Lucy was surprised to see her mother’s car pull into the small car park in front of the block where her father was being held. In truth, she had assumed that the woman did not visit her father. She moved quickly across to the squad car that she was using until her own was replaced, but struggled to get the door open, her movements clumsy because of the bandage on her hand. By the time she’d managed to pull it open, she had no choice but to speak to her.

  Her mother approached, walking crisply across the scattered leaves that blew around their feet.

  ‘Happy Christmas, Lucy,’ she said.

  ‘And you,’ Lucy said. They leaned awkwardly towards one another, briefly pressing their cheeks lightly together.

  ‘I didn’t know you visited him,’ Lucy said.

  ‘Well, I do.’

  ‘He’s not well,’ she said, unnecessarily.

  Her mother nodded absently. She glanced around, pulling her coat tighter around her against the bracing wind. ‘So, what are your plans for the day?’

  ‘I’ll see Robbie. Then Tom Fleming asked me to help out with a soup kitchen he works in for the homeless and that. Part of his Christian group.’

  ‘You could call for some dinner later with me, if you wanted,’ her mother said. ‘I’m having some friends around. But you’d still be welcome.’

  Lucy smiled. ‘Thanks, but I’m OK.’

&nbs
p; ‘You’d rather eat with the homeless?’

  ‘I’ve things to do,’ Lucy said, suddenly pained that she had inadvertently offended the woman.

  ‘On Christmas Day?’

  Lucy shrugged. ‘It’s just a day,’ she said, feeling her eyes fill. The gash on her cheek, stitched up a few nights previous, throbbed angrily.

  ‘I see,’ her mother said. ‘I’ll go on.’

  Lucy nodded and turned to fumble with her car keys again.

  ‘Oh, we found Jackie Logue last night,’ her mother said, turning on her step.

  ‘Really?’ Lucy asked. Logue had vanished soon after his son, Peter Bell, had been arrested in Magilligan. They’d assumed someone had tipped him off that the PSNI would be coming for him. ‘Where’s he being held?’

  ‘The morgue. He’d been stripped naked and shot in the head. His body was laid out on the train tracks where they found Karen Hughes.’

  ‘That’s ... terrible,’ Lucy said, aware of how insincere the words sounded.

  ‘Yes. Eoghan Harkin gets out of prison, Logue goes missing, then he’s murdered on the spot where Harkin’s daughter was found. You’d swear someone had told Harkin that Logue was involved in Karen’s death.’

  Lucy felt the wound in her face throb again.

  ‘And you were so moralistic,’ her mother said.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Lucy mumbled, her face flushing.

  ‘You were spotted picking up Harkin outside the prison. What did you tell him?’

  Lucy shook her head but said nothing.

  Her mother stepped closer to her again. ‘I put you in PPU because I didn’t think you’d be able to handle the politics of CID. I thought you were better than that. It seems I was wrong.’ She regarded Lucy a moment coldly, as if appraising her anew. ‘You’re more like than me than you want to admit.’

  With that, she turned and strode off. Lucy stood watching her, her face so hot and sore, she felt as though she had been slapped.