The Silent Dead

by Claire McGowan

  ‘You’re no better than he is,’ said Paula steadily. ‘You’re a murderer too. Don’t make things any worse than they are. Let me call someone and we can sort all this out.’

  ‘Shut up. What would you know about it?’

  ‘Plenty. My mother’s been gone for seventeen years. Most likely killed by the IRA, though I don’t think I’ll ever know.’

  ‘And if you had them here –’ he pointed with the gun to where Flaherty sat behind bars, his head bowed – ‘if you had the person who killed her, and no one would find out, are you telling me you wouldn’t take your revenge?’

  ‘No. Because we’re not like them. They killed without remorse or regret, but there has to be some end to it, Lorcan. To the killing. Or else there’ll be no one left alive.’

  The gun was pointing at her again. She clenched her fists. Thought of Maggie. ‘You won’t hurt me.’ She tried not to look in his violet eyes. ‘You were nice to me. I know you understand how it’s been for me . . . if anyone can understand me, you can.’

  ‘A word, Lorcan.’ Dominic dragged him by the arm to the corner, along with Lily. Kira sat in the window, very still, watching them all. Lily stood awkwardly, her feet wide apart, looking back at Paula. She looked beautiful, and very young. Paula heard whispered words – knows too much, she’ll go right to them – she tried to keep steady. She’d been in worse situations. These were good people, if hopelessly damaged. She did her best not to look at the caged terrorist. Kenny was, mercifully, totally out of it. Blood ran down from his nose.

  Lorcan was back, still holding the gun.

  ‘Let me ask you this, Dr Maguire.’ He pointed the gun at Kenny. ‘What if I told you he knew something about your mother? What if, by doing the right thing to him, and in the right way, you could get all the answers you’re looking for?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You don’t want to know what happened to her?’ His face mocked.

  ‘I want that more than anything. But he would tell me anything I wanted to hear, and I wouldn’t know the difference. The only confession you can trust is one that comes for the right reason. Not fear. Remorse.’

  ‘Men like him don’t feel remorse,’ said Lorcan. ‘He’s a monster. He’s no better than the Mayday lot, for all his fancy suits. So you’d have no use for him? Is that what you’re saying? If I said, here he is, do what you want with him?’

  ‘I wouldn’t torture him like you did. For God’s sake, you’re just as bad as they are.’

  ‘So no then?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t have—’

  ‘OK,’ said Lorcan, and lifted the gun, and shot Kenny in the head.

  Paula flinched. She looked down at the red matter sprayed on her jumper and the wall. Kenny’s eyes had flown open in death, surprised. Blood leaked from his mouth.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Lorcan,’ said Dominic faintly. ‘We can’t hurt her. She’s done nothing wrong.’

  ‘She’s in our way! I want to finish this!’ He was snarling. ‘The plan was to pin it on Kenny.’

  ‘And how do we do that now you’ve blown his damn head off?’

  Lorcan waved the gun at Flaherty, who hadn’t stirred at the noise of the shot. ‘Make it look like him. A shoot-out. They’re old mates. Get rid of them both – who’s going to look into it?’

  ‘Give me that, for Christ’s sake.’ Dominic moved towards him. ‘We’ll finish it. We stick to the plan. Dr Maguire knows what we went through. She’ll do the right thing.’ He turned to her. ‘We just wanted to get their voices heard, the people who died . . . my daughter, Lorcan’s sister, and Rose . . . they couldn’t speak, and the people who killed them get to walk around free, saying what they like – it isn’t right.’ He turned again. ‘Come on, Lorcan. This is too much.’

  ‘I don’t trust her.’ The gun was still pointing right at Paula. ‘No, she has to go.’

  Dominic held Paula’s eye, steady. She’d never see so much contained sorrow. I’m sorry, he seemed to be saying, and she felt the first dart of panic under her ribcage. He wasn’t going to help her.

  There was a creaking noise; everyone looked round. The door of Flaherty’s cage was swinging open and he was coming out. It was open from the inside.

  It seemed to take a moment for Lorcan to process events. He sprang back, a slow dawn spreading over his face as he looked round them all, coming to rest on Dominic. ‘You. You . . . traitor!’

  ‘Lorcan, we can explain—’

  Flaherty was coming out. He looked tired and unkempt, his grey hair dirty, his face unshaven. But he drew the eye. This commander of men, this general in a war everyone else had long stopped fighting. ‘Put the gun down,’ he said to Lorcan. His voice was hoarse, as if he hadn’t spoken in weeks.

  Lorcan hesitated, and Dominic stepped in and took the gun from him, easily, lightly, like a pass in Gaelic football. Lorcan was struggling. ‘Someone better explain this to me. Now. Why the hell isn’t he locked up?’

  ‘He wanted to come!’ Kira burst out. ‘He . . . he helped us. He told us where the others would be that day.’

  ‘What are you telling me? Is that why we didn’t pick him up with the others – you lied to me all along?’

  ‘The wee girl,’ said Flaherty, in a hoarse voice. ‘She came to see me. She said it was a way to do . . . something.’

  ‘We were going to take him,’ Kira babbled. ‘But he said he’d come, he said he wanted to end things. He said he was dying and he couldn’t meet his maker that way. He said he’d help us get the others. That’s how we – that’s why it was easy. He told us where they’d be.’ She turned to Paula, tearful, frantic. ‘Miss, we never thought Lorcan would hurt them so much – it was just meant to be some justice, so we could come to them and show them what they’d done. We thought maybe they’d turn themselves in, go to prison. So Mr Kenny said he’d help and he’d send some men and Lorcan and Dominic went and lifted them and we did it. But – Lorcan just lost it, and Liam, Siofra’s brother, he kept punching one of them, he wouldn’t stop, and the guy’s face like exploded and there was all blood everywhere – oh God.’ She swallowed thickly. ‘I didn’t think it’d be like this. I just wanted them punished. It was Lorcan. He said we should kill them like our people died, so Kenny helped us lift them all, and we were in the caves, and Lorcan and Dominic took Doyle into the woods and hung him up, and with Brady, he wouldn’t stop cutting him – they were going to cut his head off in the caves and the noise – it was like in a butcher’s shop, and then he really lost it, he put Lynch in the van and they burned him – he was still alive . . . then the woman, she ran away, and she’d hardly any clothes on – that was Lorcan too, he said we had to make them suffer, take everything they had – and . . . she just kept crying and saying she had to go back to her baby, her children – and Lorcan just shouted she’d killed children, so why should she get to be with her own. Then we had to move them, we had to keep taking them to new places to hide them . . . It was awful, miss.’ Kira caught her breath in her throat. ‘And it was me. I started it. Lorcan was there at the court and he spoke to me, he said it didn’t have to be this way. We could punish them. We were planning it for ages – then that journalist, her book came out and they said there might be another trial and Lorcan said we have to do it now before it’s too late . . . And I . . .’

  Flaherty spoke again, wearily. ‘Leave it now, girl. It’s too late.’

  Lorcan seized Flaherty’s wrists and pulled the cuffs. They fell away easily, clattering to the floor. ‘All this time?’ Lorcan was in disbelief. ‘Why didn’t you fight back?’

  ‘I gave my word.’ The contempt sounded in Flaherty’s voice. ‘As did you. Not to take anyone who didn’t deserve it. And you’ve brought this woman here all the same.’

  ‘You can say that? You?’

  ‘Aye. Because I know what it’s like to have your soul burned out. You wanted to kill – well, this is how it is, son. Every time you kill you put the knife in yourself too. Think on that. Now finish it.’ He looked at Dom
inic, who was holding the gun. ‘Finish me. I’ve had enough of this. I’m dying anyway, and I’ve done my piece, so let me go.’

  Kira was moving towards him. ‘Mr – I . . .’

  Flaherty looked at her, his eyes almost kind. ‘You started it, wee girl. This is how it ends.’

  ‘But I didn’t know – I never thought this would happen . . .’

  ‘Unforeseen escalation,’ said Flaherty. Kira was crying. He shut his eyes. ‘Finish it, man, for God’s sake. You promised.’

  Dominic had the gun trained on him, but his arm shook and Paula saw it in his eyes – he can’t do it. ‘Look, maybe we should just . . .’

  Then Lorcan was behind Paula, squeezing her neck with his arm. ‘This doesn’t end here. Not like this.’

  Paula tried to buckle, kick back with her booted feet, but he was strong, much stronger than she’d imagined, and she was so weak from her stitches, and he didn’t even flinch. His breath was in her ear, his smell of panicky sweat reeking from under the aftershave, and she couldn’t believe she’d ever thought him attractive.

  ‘Lorcan,’ said Dominic quietly. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I won’t go to prison. Not when those animals got away with it. She said we can sort it out. You know what that means. She’s going to shop us.’

  The pressure on Paula’s windpipe increased. She gasped. She thought of Maggie, Maggie in her cot, clutching her fists, eyes jewel-bright. She thought of Guy watching her feed and Aidan holding the baby in his arms. A thousand futures began to spin away. This wasn’t how it ended.

  Dominic was trying to keep his voice calm. ‘I trust Dr Maguire. She’s known loss. She’ll help us. We can stick to the plan, stage a shoot-out like you said.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ He tightened his grip. Paula felt a tattoo of panic release into her blood – he isn’t stopping. Oh God, he means this.

  ‘Lorcan!’ Lily screamed. ‘You’re hurting her! For God’s sake, Dominic, do something!’

  With her fading vision, Paula looked to the man with the gun for help, and saw he was just as helpless as her.

  She wasn’t sure what happened next. There was a loud noise, and she felt Lorcan sag and release her, and she fell to her knees, panting. When she looked up Flaherty was somehow holding the gun. Lily was screaming on and on. Flaherty held the gun to his own chin. ‘No –’ Kira said, swallowing it down into a cry. She was standing in front of the terrorist. ‘Stop, I take it back.’

  ‘You can’t take things back, girl,’ said Flaherty. ‘That’s what I kept trying to tell you. Do you feel you’ve got justice now for your Rose?’

  ‘No . . . I didn’t mean . . . this wasn’t . . .’

  ‘God bless you, child. None of this was your fault.’ And he fired.

  The whole thing took seconds, the space in between heartbeats. She blinked and Lorcan was on the floor slumped against her legs, clearly dead. Blood seeped from the perfect black hole in his forehead – Flaherty, the expert marksman, had not missed his target. Her throat was raw and bruised. Flaherty had fallen to the ground, and Kira was scrabbling at his bloody throat. ‘I killed him.’ Her voice was empty with shock. ‘I killed him. It was me. It was all my idea.’

  Lily’s screaming had become a background drone. Dominic was frozen. After what seemed like hours he gave a shuddering sigh and took a phone from his pocket. He wiped blood from it – Flaherty’s had sodden him – and handed it to Paula. ‘It’s up to you. I don’t know any more. I don’t what we’re doing. Lorcan – he had you – all I could see was your baby.’ His hands were bloody, and when he raked them over his face he looked as he had on the day of the bomb five years before, staggering up to find his child’s dead body beneath him. ‘He had you and I did nothing – I couldn’t shoot.’

  It was a cheap phone, disposable. Paula looked at the number he’d keyed in. ‘Dominic – I—’

  ‘I know. Do what you have to.’ He bent to Kira, who was also as covered in blood as she’d been after the bomb. She was cradling the dead terrorist in the same way she’d held her sister – her mother – on the day of the bombing, howling and wailing. Lily was the only one not blood-soaked, and she was keening, rocking herself in a corner. Dominic lifted Kira to her feet, half carrying her, and put out his hand to the other girl. ‘It’s over. Come on, Lily, love. It’s over.’

  She crept to him, dazed as a child. ‘What will happen now?’ She averted her eyes from all three dead bodies.

  ‘Dr Maguire is going to ring someone to get us.’

  ‘OK.’ Lily was shaking. ‘Can we go home? I want to see my mum.’

  ‘Yes, pet. It’s over.’ He met Paula’s eyes over Lily’s smooth head, and nodded. She looked down at the phone. Plastic, cheap, the same as the one meant to trigger the bombs, setting off so many shockwaves that they were still detonating. It seemed crazy that such a little button, pressed in the space of a heartbeat, could bring down a mountain, topple onto you, rebound back and keep on rolling until nothing stayed standing. She thought about what Guy had said – how you could lose your ability to judge, to say who was right and who was wrong, and that was why we had the law, so we didn’t have to make those choices ourselves, in all our human weakness and pain. She looked at Flaherty. The terrorist’s face seemed strangely at peace. From the way the gun had torn his mouth, he could almost have been smiling.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said – she wasn’t sure who to – and she pressed the button.

  Epilogue

  ‘What will happen to her?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Guy. They were watching Kira Woods through the window of the hospital room where she was currently in bed, looking tiny amid the medical equipment. An officer was posted just inside the door. ‘I’ve sent for a juvenile liaison officer. She really planned the whole thing?’

  ‘It seems so. She was the one convinced Kenny to help them, and Flaherty to bring the others in, make amends. Or at least what he thought amounted to that. I don’t think she had any idea Finney was planning to kill them all. I don’t think the other families knew what was going on – or at least not enough. Maybe they let it happen, turned a blind eye.’

  ‘You were very lucky.’

  She knew he was looking at her, but she couldn’t bear his gaze. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You need to get yourself checked out. Finney choked you, you said.’

  ‘A bit. What will happen to Corry?’

  As soon as Paula had broken the news, Corry had confessed to her relationship with Finney, who had been able to derail the investigation from within and leak information to the press. Guy winced. ‘I don’t know. There’ll be a standards hearing to see just how far her misconduct went.’

  ‘It’s not fair. She couldn’t have known. No one knew who he was.’

  ‘Still, it could have been a lot worse. Are you sure you’re OK?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me before you run off and do these things? There’s Maggie to think of now.’

  Paula bit her tongue. She remembered Corry’s words about the unit possibly closing – what was Guy not telling her? ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll get myself checked out. Since you’re so concerned.’

  As she turned she saw a young man had approached. He was dressed in oil-stained overalls and his face was with raw with shaving over acne. ‘I . . . is Kira . . . is she OK?’

  ‘She’s fine, physically at least.’ Guy frowned at him. ‘Could I take your name, sir? We’re waiting for Mrs Woods to arrive and no one can see her until then.’

  ‘I’m . . .’ He was twisting a baseball cap in his nervous hands. ‘I’m Jamesie . . . James Carter.’

  ‘Are you some relation to Kira?’

  ‘Well, yeah. I’m her dad.’

  Aidan sighed. ‘Bit sick of this, Maguire. Seeing you in a hospital bed, I mean.’

  ‘I’m just sitting on it this time.’ She pointed to it. ‘It’s only a bruised neck, I’m fine.’

  After Maggie had been fed
, PJ and Pat had taken her to the canteen, perhaps tactfully giving Aidan and Paula a bit of space.

  ‘A man tried to strangle you. You asked me for help and I wouldn’t give it.’ He shuddered. ‘It’s only a miracle you didn’t take the wee one with you. Christ. Doesn’t bear thinking about.’

  ‘Well, I did tell you to fuck off.’

  ‘Not for the first time. But I deserved it.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘What about wee Maggie?’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake . . . I don’t have to listen to you pontificate. It wasn’t my fault – the girl tricked me, OK?’ She wondered what they’d do with a thirteen-year-old girl who’d somehow masterminded the kidnap and murder of five hardened terrorists. Dominic was doing his best to take the blame, but with Lorcan dead and clearly the leak they’d been looking for, she thought he’d probably get away with Accessory to Murder. Either way, Lily wouldn’t be seeing him for a while. She might get away with it herself, though she’d obviously been involved. Paula wondered if it had made things any better, taking their retribution.

  ‘Woah now.’ Aidan held up both palms. ‘I’m not a, whatever you said, misogynistic dinosaur from the dark ages. Incidentally, they didn’t have dinosaurs in the dark ages. I’m not going to say you can’t work because you’ve a child and you’re a woman. But Maguire, you’re all that wee girl has. She has no da. And you of all people know what it’s like when you’ve only the one parent to depend on.’

  ‘So you’re saying I need to get the DNA test, is that it? And a father will magically appear for her? Cos it’s that simple.’

  ‘Jesus, Maguire. You’re a terrible woman for jumping ahead in rows. I’m on my best behaviour here. George Mitchell and his peacekeeping team have nothing on me. Did I say anything about a test?’

  ‘Fine, fine,’ she said grouchily. ‘Just make your point. As you say, Maggie has no one else, so I have to get back to her.’ The several hours she’d been gone from her that morning had seemed like forever.

  ‘What if she did have someone else?’