Silence

by Anthony J. Quinn

  They went back to the car and drove off.

  ‘Agnew was the last surviving policeman from the Loyalist gang,’ said Pryce. ‘I interviewed him a while back. He was an alcoholic, and completely unrepentant about his past.’

  If the comment was meant to jar Daly, it failed. Instead, he felt a sense of peace. The men responsible for his mother’s murder had suffered and were dead. Agnew had hanged himself in an empty orchard. Does that mean I’ve won? That I can give up this search for the truth? That I am no longer bound by any obligation to pursue her killers? At the very least, he had been released from the limbo between procrastination and revenge. The sense of relief made him look all around the landscape. The late-afternoon sun gave the rolling hills of apple orchards an air of peace. There was a shine upon everything that felt strange after the brooding greyness of the morning.

  However, Pryce did not appear to share his mood. She ignored the signs at crossroads, unwilling to stop. She was riveted by something, her expression rigid, her eyes impervious to the shifts of light in the sky, the restfulness of the landscape.

  ‘Now we might never discover why they targeted your mother, or who set her up in the first place.’

  Daly realized that Agnew’s suicide might have raised more questions than it had answered.

  ‘We might never know if these murders were willed at a higher level.’

  Her eyes flicked across his face, hardened, and focused straight ahead on the road with a tunnelled gaze. Daly began to feel travel-sick. Perhaps it was more than physical nausea; it was the strain of locating himself repeatedly in the spider’s web of roads on Walsh’s map, jarred by the perspective of slanting fields and thorn hedges, and Pryce’s vicious regress into the past. Another empty cottage materialized before them: a gate hanging open in disrepair, the roof dipping in places and spiky weeds sprouting from the drainpipes. Someone had been digging in the overgrown garden, fashioning neat drills out of the black earth. He jolted with surprise when he realized she had taken him home.

  That night, Daly found it hard to settle in the cottage. He paced back and forth over the floorboards. A biting wind blew in from the lough, and made the windows rattle. The frames had loosened over the winter and needed fixing. He walked outside to the turf shed and filled a basket with turf. He usually enjoyed puttering about the back yard but he felt cold and tired. He cleaned out the fireplace in the living room, the ashes enveloping him in their soft stink. He picked out pieces of crumbling mortar that had fallen down the chimney. The stack needed repairing and the roof needed new insulation. Everything about the cottage required something done, he grumbled. It was in mortal danger of becoming one of the ruined, forgotten cottages of Walsh’s murder map.

  The thought of the mounting odd jobs vexed him. Why had he not sold up and moved into a brand-new house? Everywhere he looked in the cottage, he saw accusing fingers pointing at him, demanding his care and attention: the dilapidated furniture, the peeling walls. Would it not have been easier to run away, to seek the comforts of a modern apartment? But there were other fingers oppressing him. What else did he lack? What else had he left undone? Where was his thirst for revenge, the determination to have the people who orchestrated his mother’s death brought to justice? He gritted his teeth. He felt annoyed with his fate, the story of his mother’s murder and now this dire sequel, his search for the truth, and the unravelling of his career as a detective.

  Perhaps Pryce was right. The story was his story, and he could not escape the tale, no matter how dark the telling grew.

  21

  That Sunday morning, Daly needed time and space to think. He did something he had not done in a long while. He drove to early-morning Mass at his parish chapel. All his life he had aspired to being a good and careful human being, and when he went to Mass he was usually reminded of how much he had failed, and that his life was little more than a tortuous journey through regret and shame. However, within that huddled Maghery congregation, it was a comfort to feel he was not the only one.

  He made sure he was early for the service. He liked the silence of the altar before the priest appeared, a silence that the mind could truly baulk at. He walked up to the chapel doors, feeling like a creature that had hidden for too long in the darkest reaches of a hole, hoping that the shadows of history would pass it by. He blessed himself at the double doors, and closed them gently behind.

  Almost an hour later, he re-emerged, blinking in the early-morning sunlight. He sat in his car and waited for the other churchgoers to leave. His mobile phone beeped into life. He checked the number that was calling him and sighed. It wasn’t God who had him firmly in his grip, he realized, it was a darker force entirely.

  ‘Hello,’ he said.

  ‘I apologize for being curt on the phone the last time we spoke.’ It was Hegarty. ‘I ignored the fact we have so much in common.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘We are both victims of the Troubles.’

  ‘You were a paid informer in the IRA. How does that make you a victim?’

  ‘Everyone’s story is special. Their struggle, their pain. When the complete history of the Troubles is told, everyone will have their say, including you and me, rest assured of that.’

  ‘You might see yourself as a victim, but I don’t.’

  ‘Your mother was murdered by a gang of rogue police officers being manipulated by the intelligence services. Doesn’t that change how you view things?’

  ‘I still don’t know that for sure.’ Daly disliked the way Hegarty was trying to pin down his mother’s fate in history. ‘Until I find the hard evidence I’ll always believe those officers were operating alone, and shot my mother in a case of mistaken identity.’

  ‘Then you’ll be pleased to know that I have in my possession the hard evidence that disproves that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘A few months ago, I obtained a set of intelligence files from the 1970s. You might have heard of them. Special Branch refer to them as the secret books.’

  ‘What’s in them?’

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Do they mention anything about organized death squads?’

  Hegarty laughed grimly.

  ‘They talk of nothing else. During the Cold War, that was how the army dealt with internecine conflict. Palestine, Oman, Kenya, one bloodbath after another. They even had a killing quota.’

  Daly kept his voice flat.

  ‘How much?’

  ‘About one victim per ten thousand of the native population. But with a certain flexibility, usually upward in the aftermath of a rebel strike. The military aim was to tear apart the fabric of community life, to make the victims appear complicit in their fate. Nineteen seventy-nine was a hurricane year. An upsurge in organized violence to sow mayhem and fear. The details are in the secret books. You can read them for yourself.’

  ‘I’d rather not.’ He wondered if Hegarty could sense his fear, the inner recoil.

  ‘You want to work it out for yourself?’

  ‘I’d rather not know the details at all. Are we clear about that?’

  ‘But it’s important for both of us to uncover the truth.’

  ‘You’re suggesting that our interests in my mother’s death are identical? Forgive me for sounding cynical.’

  ‘You’re a police detective, trying to solve the riddle of your mother’s murder. The files will abolish all the inconsistencies of the past. They are what you want most of all.’

  ‘What else is in them?’

  ‘Evidence of a cover-up. Officers were made to resign from the police force on the day they were charged with terrorism offences. The prosecution ensured they were described as factory operatives, farm labourers, part-time barmen. There’s enough evidence in the books to tilt the balance of any further investigation and send senior Special Branch officers to jail.’

  ‘Now I understand where our interests coincide. You want to have your former bosses put away.’

  Hegarty g
ave a short, bitter laugh.

  ‘That’s how the deal works.’

  The spy was obsessed, like Pryce, thought Daly with rising indignation. These people are living in the shadowy world of the past and I’m their last chance at salvation. They’re putting their hope in my grief, my need for vengeance. With Walsh dead, they no longer had a focal point to lead themselves out of the labyrinth. They needed a propaganda tool, a victim, but the idea of shouldering that responsibility left him cold and tired. The anger he felt over his mother’s murder diminished.

  ‘What I want most’ – Daly spoke more sharply than he intended – ‘is for everyone to stop bringing up my mother’s death. I’m not burning with anger and I’m not desperately seeking revenge. I’ve spent most of my life coping with her loss. Let me deal with these new revelations in my own time.’

  ‘Are you saying you are going to wait and do nothing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The phone was silent.

  ‘You’re scared,’ said the spy. ‘You don’t want to revise the details of her death. You’d rather pretend her murder was an accident.’

  ‘What do you expect me to do? Other than bringing those officers back to life and interrogating them there’s not much I can do. I suggest you bring these files to a solicitor or a priest, and let them pass them on to the authorities.’

  ‘I don’t believe you, Daly. You won’t be able to ignore the files. Otherwise, what will the future hold for you? Nothing but uncertainty, your life trickling away in guilt and regret.’

  Daly felt resentful. The temptation to be led by Hegarty’s whispering words, their solid assurance, troubled him. But he resisted the urge. He needed time to think things through. He would not go running to Hegarty like a child lunging at the truth, eager to hear all the answers.

  ‘Where are the files?’

  ‘Someone is looking after them for me. I’m due to meet him very soon.’

  ‘You worked for Special Branch. You were an informer. Why should I believe you?’

  ‘It’s true. I am compromised. More so than most in this country. The same people who orchestrated these murders paid me. But in all this murk doesn’t the man with one eye have a duty to lead the blind?’

  Daly said nothing. They hung on in silence.

  ‘Do you know the healing glen close to where Walsh had his accident?’ asked Hegarty.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can meet you there tonight.’

  Daly hesitated and then ended the call without replying yes or no. It was a reflex gesture, but one he hoped would buy him more time to think.

  22

  The road seemed empty. Mist sizzled on the tarmac and cloaked the hedges. Hegarty eased his car through the still landscape and pulled into a lay-by. He sat at the wheel and watched the bus shelter at the other side of the road. He was alert, his eyes cold and hard. In his inside pocket, he could feel the muzzle of his gun, sniffing to get out. After a while, a ginger-haired boy appeared in a school uniform carrying his schoolbag and a small holdall. The spy checked for any suspicious cars, scrutinizing the twisting roads as though they were the wires of a live detonator.

  He thought it prudent to wait several more minutes before he got out and walked over. He allowed himself a flicker of a smile. It had been a stroke of luck that he’d spotted his niece’s son at the wedding in the Clary Lodge Hotel. Their chance meeting had transformed that stressful morning waiting for Walsh, fearing the worst. It had rescued him from the trap the journalist had set. Now that the boy had turned up as requested, he knew his judgement had been correct. His grand-nephew had been the one person he could trust that morning to look after the secret files.

  ‘How’s your mother?’ he asked as the lad sat down beside him.

  ‘She said she doesn’t want to see you. She’s told you that before.’

  Hegarty sighed. Surely he had a right to see his nearest relatives from time to time.

  ‘She said you shouldn’t call again. It’s too dangerous.’

  He seized the holdall next to the boy, and ruffled his hair. The child lowered his head but not before Hegarty saw in the glimmering whites of his eyes a nervous glance along the road. He sensed that something was wrong. The boy fidgeted with the strap of his bag. Hegarty checked the road in both directions. He had been given a secret sign but he didn’t know what to do with it.

  ‘Tell your mother I’ll send her some money soon,’ he said, trying to look deeper into the boy’s reluctant face.

  ‘She said she doesn’t need your money. She has a new job.’

  ‘Not working in the Sinn Fein centre any more?’

  ‘She had to leave when they found out about you. She said people are looking for you. They’re calling you a traitor.’

  He swallowed at that. Some more schoolchildren arrived at the shelter. A bus trundled by. He stared at the destination sign on its front as though the answer to this new dilemma might lie somewhere along its route. The children stared at him as though they had never seen an old man waiting like this, a look of unease growing on his face, uncertain of what to do next.

  The boy climbed on to the bus, and Hegarty contemplated following him. The children jostled around him and then the bus left. He waited another while. A car pulled in at the bottom of the road. A sleek, dark-coloured vehicle. He got up and climbed into his car, tossing the holdall into the passenger seat. He contemplated the changed nature of the morning. Someone was watching him, he was sure of that. He stared at the dark car, trying to think of a new plan. The driver did nothing. The tension increased in Hegarty’s body as he started the engine. Thinking that it was too late to slip away unnoticed, he drove towards the watching vehicle at speed.

  The driver’s face was a blur through the tinted windows. After Hegarty passed him, the driver wheeled the car sharply and turned in the opposite direction. Hegarty heard the tyres lose rubber against the tarmac. The driver’s getaway technique, his haste, the determined expression on his face were odd enough to increase Hegarty’s alarm. He pivoted in his seat. The road was empty again. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. He turned on to a minor road and checked the rear-view mirror. No one was following him. The car rocked over a series of potholes that seemed to spell out a warning message. He knew what he had to do. He rolled down his window, lifted the briefcase and flung it as hard as he could. The case arced through the air and sailed over a field wall. For a second he watched it in his wing mirror, suspended over a group of cows, which, surprised, lifted their heads to follow the strange flying object before it flared in an explosion of red and yellow flames and descended in a slow-motion spiral of what felt to the spy’s tired eyes like red-hot blood. His foot pressed the accelerator pedal flat.

  He drove deep into the dark hills and secrecy of border country, wondering when it might be safe to abandon his car. Along the road, the houses petered out until there were no more. He pulled into a narrow culvert half-hidden by overhanging trees. Below him, the shadows of the valley hid the healing glen. He waited for a long while. When he was satisfied that no one had followed him, he got out and put on his backpack. He stood and listened carefully. The only sounds were the stirring of branches and the rushing of water somewhere. What will I do now that the secret books are gone? What options do I have without my only bargaining tool? He walked down to the holy well and stared at the tree’s sinuous branches. Somehow, it seemed to entangle all his fears in its silence. He watched the river. He hunkered down beside it. His breathing and his thoughts began to settle. Strange that so much moving water could induce this sense of stillness, he thought, as though the river itself was more of settled thing than any human being. He felt helpless. He said some prayers but forgot to bless himself. Peace eluded him. Some Catholic I am, crouching next to this dark river with just the violent past for company.

  When it was almost dark, he rose and climbed the side of the glen. He followed a hidden path until he came out on the exposed mountainside. He feared that someone might be watching him
from the trees below. He waited and stared back into the glen, and at the river coiling through the thorn thickets. All was still. He kept walking until he came to an old cottage surrounded by a flock of half-wild mountain sheep.

  Ever since he was a boy, the cottage had appealed to his fugitive’s mind. Its remoteness – the nearest road more than a mile away – made it feel like a highwayman’s refuge. His grandfather had once lived here and tended to his flock of mountain sheep. Since his death, it had lain abandoned. Hegarty pushed through the sheep and stepped inside. To his surprise, the sheep followed him into the damp rooms. He prowled through them, smelling their fetid odour. He shouted at the sheep, waved his hands, but now that night had fallen, they were reluctant to leave the shelter of the cottage. They stalked him through the rooms. He took out his sleeping bag, made his bed as far away from them as he possibly could, and waited, thinking through his options.

  Perhaps Special Branch did not want him dead after all, he began to hope. They could have killed him back then, but instead they had delivered a warning in the form of a firebomb. Was it because they still planned to use him? But for what purpose? They had orchestrated Father Walsh’s death, of that he was sure. Perhaps that had been a warning, too. He looked through the doorway at the dark shape of the mountain.

  He picked up his phone and dialled Daly’s number, but there was no answer. He thought of the detective, his stubborn defiance and his pitiful naivety about the past. He’d detected a loneliness in Daly’s voice, the sense that he was marooned in a detective’s limbo, frustrated and paranoid. Perhaps to Daly, he was just another lost shadow from the Troubles, babbling about the past, about a story that was of little importance to anyone any more, a story of murder and the fog of war that was both dangerous and pointless.

  But untold stories had a way of hanging in time, unfinished, haunting.

  He took out his phone again and rang Major Hannon.

  ‘Where are you?’ snapped the major.

  ‘I’m in a difficult spot.’