Joe McCready called my mobile as I headed back to Lifford station.
‘I’ve spoken with Bryant,’ he said. ‘He’s remembered something else from that night. He said Cleary was holding a page from a newspaper when he was on the phone.’
‘What?’
‘He came out of O’Hara’s with a sheet of newspaper in his hand.’
‘A page? Not the whole paper?’
‘A page,’ McCready echoed. ‘One page. He carried it out with him into the car and was looking at it as he spoke on the phone.’
I recalled that the post-mortem for Cleary had commented on ink and paper fibres on his hand. More importantly, I recalled the newspaper lying on O’Hara’s study desk, the serrated edge where one page had been cut out, and the scissors still sitting on the desk. I suspected I knew from where Cleary had got the newspaper page.
‘That’s good work, Joe. I think I have an idea how to follow it up. I need you to do something else for me. Can you check up with Letterkenny Hospital for children born during the seventies with Goldenhar syndrome? We’ll need names and addresses.’
‘Why?’
‘The Commission dig on Islandview has unearthed more corpses with facial malformation consistent with the illness. They won’t let us do forensics on them, but if the condition runs in families or that, we might be able to generate some leads.’
‘Are we not meant to be steering clear of Commission-related stuff?’
‘Apparently,’ I said.
‘Then why are we looking into this?’
‘Someone buried seven children out on that island, at least one of whom was murdered. What’s to say that all of them weren’t killed? I don’t really care what the law says. Someone needs to answer for that. Will you do it?’
He paused a second. ‘Of course.’
O’Hara’s house had not been touched since the SOCO team had worked through it. Grey dustings of fingerprints were still visible on walls and door handles, and chalk circles remained on the carpet where fragments of the bullet which killed O’Hara had been found. The tumbler of whiskey remained beneath the sofa in the living room, never to be drunk. The smell in the house was a strange mixture of damp, blood and defecation that the closed doors and sealed windows had allowed to build and bloom. I opened wide the window in the living room, then moved into the study. Sure enough, the newspaper still lay open on the desk, the tear where a page had been removed obvious. It was a local free paper, comprising photographs and the occasional news report buried among all the advertisements for nightclubs and car dealerships, trying to convince us all that the party wasn’t over and that we could still buy our way back out of the country’s collective economic hangover.
I checked the date on the top of the next page: 15 May. O’Hara had held on to the paper for almost six months. The sheet which had been removed was pages 17 and 18. I knew the paper’s office was in Ballybofey; it would not be difficult to get a copy of the paper.
Twenty minutes later, the receptionist of the Donegal Reporter offices led me into a small room. On a desk sat a thick leather-bound ledger which held six months’ worth of newspapers. I flicked through the various copies until I found the one dated 15 May. I opened it at page 17 and scanned the page quickly, looking for anything that might suggest why O’Hara would have given it to Cleary, but nothing stood out. The upper half of the page was an ad for a car-sales showroom in Letterkenny. The bottom half ran an advertorial for a double-glazing company.
I turned it over and glanced down page 18. The whole sheet consisted of old photographs. The banner line across the top ran ‘This was the day that was . . .’, beneath which were arranged twelve photographs taken on various 15 May dates during the previous half-century. A number were of groups of first communicants; one was of a church social-club meeting. The one which most interested me, however, was the second from the bottom in the left-hand column. It was a picture of a charity presentation. A tall, angular man in a suit stood smiling at the camera as he presented an oversized cheque to a younger woman. The hair style had changed, the face was more careworn now, but I recognized her as Sheila Clark. Four young men stood around the central pair, their hands clasped behind their backs. I read the caption that ran beneath the picture: ‘Local businessman Alan Martin presents a donation of £10,000 to Shelia Clark, St Canice’s. Also pictured are staff members Declan Cleary, Seamus O’Hara, Dominic Callan and Niall Martin. May, 1976.’
I studied the faces of the young men. Cleary smiled broadly, his head cocked slightly to one side. Callan stared directly at the camera, his expression stony. I wondered if either of them could have guessed that they would both meet violent deaths within six months of the picture being taken. I wondered why Alan Martin would make so big a donation to a mother-and-baby home in Donegal. And, most importantly, I wondered why Niall Martin had claimed not to know Sheila Clark when we spoke.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Despite my reluctance, we dropped Penny in Strabane for the bonfire, while we took Shane to Derry to watch the fireworks display. We had to start trusting her to behave like an adult, Debs reasoned. Eventually I acquiesced, but not before I’d warned Penny to avoid trouble, to stay well back from the fire and, in particular, not to be drinking.
‘I don’t drink, Dad,’ she said. ‘I’m not stupid.’
‘I never suspected you of being stupid, Penny,’ I said. ‘But I’ve seen what happens at these things.’
‘Why won’t you trust me?’
‘I do trust you,’ I said. ‘It’s other people I don’t trust. Don’t let anyone . . .’ I faltered as I struggled to complete the order.
‘Don’t let anyone what?’
‘Do anything to you,’ I managed, though it did not express what I had intended.
‘Dad!’ Penny shrieked. ‘I’m going to the bonnie. That’s all.’
After we’d watched the fireworks in Derry, I dropped Debs and Shane back home and cut across to collect Penny again at ten, before things got too out-of-hand with the fire. I parked along Beechmount, not far from the playground where Sean Cleary had been found, and waited. Penny had said she would be standing at the main gates to the old factory site at ten on the dot. When she was still not there ten minutes later I went looking for her. Just as I entered the site I saw her coming towards me, her head down, her hood pulled up despite the wall of heat emanating from the fire.
Behind her I could see the skeleton of the bonfire through the thick flames which bloomed around it. Black circles of car tyres were being flung into its heart, each impact causing a shower of embers to flare from its top. The flickering of the flames and the movements of the crowds shifting around the site caused the shadows to play across Penny’s face so I could not properly read her expression. She stumbled as she walked and I at first assumed the uneven ground had caused her to lose her footing. Then she did it a second time and put her hand out to steady herself.
I moved across to her. Her face was still in semi-darkness, though she seemed unusually flushed. She stumbled a third time and staggered against me.
‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ she mumbled.
‘You’re late,’ I said. ‘What kept you?’
Her response disappeared into a mumble.
‘Have you been drinking?’
‘Dad!’ she shrieked and moved away from me quickly, stomping across to the car as if she were still an infant, her hands balled at her sides.
I opened the door and she climbed in without a further word, sitting in the back seat instead of up front beside me.
Once she was in I turned on the interior light and twisted in my seat.
‘Now what’s going on?’
She recoiled from me. In the shadow of her hood her face was slick with tears.
‘Penny, what’s happened?’
She angled her head slightly towards the light, even as she began shuddering, her tears beginning in earnest, slipping unbidden from a swollen black eye.
‘Jesus Christ, what happen
ed?’
‘I want my mummy,’ she sobbed.
‘What happened?’
‘I want Mummy!’ she screamed. ‘I want my mummy!’
I spoke to her as soothingly as possible as I drove her back across the border, but I could not keep at bay my own fears. What had been done to her that was so bad she could not discuss it with me? Her clothes looked undisturbed, but she would not speak to me, would not explain how she had come to be injured.
Debs looked up when we came in, her expression freezing as she caught sight of Penny’s face.
‘What happened?’
I shrugged. ‘She wouldn’t tell me. She only wants to speak with you.’
Penny flopped on the sofa beside her and buried her head against her mother’s neck, her body racked with sobs. Over the course of the next hour she explained to us what had happened.
Her friends had met her at the bonfire, as planned. A few of them, however, had arrived with blue carry-out bags of drink that one, Claire, had convinced her older brother to buy for them. They had sat around the smaller fire which had been used to light the torches for the main bonfire, and several of them, though not Penny herself, she stressed, had been drinking.
Sometime later a group of boys had come across to join them, including Stephen Burke, who had brought more drink with him. It had been good humoured at first, the boys teasing the girls about being under age, the girls pretending to be annoyed at their comments, but secretly delighted with the attention.
Bit by bit a few of them had begun to pair up, sitting together around the fire, sharing beer cans and cigarettes, huddled up despite the heat of both the small fire before them and the larger bonfire off to one side of them.
Claire, however, had begun to struggle. She had drunk too much too quickly, encouraged by the attentions of the older boy and buoyed up with pride at having secured the alcohol in the first place.
In turn, Stephen Burke had begun getting more adventurous in his attempts to get her to yield to him. While Claire had sat on his knee by the fire, he had attempted several times to put his hands inside her top, eventually succeeding. He must have noticed Penny watching him, for he said, ‘You’re the cop’s daughter, aren’t you?’
‘He’s a guard,’ Penny managed, her mouth dry.
‘He’s a guard,’ Burke repeated, mimicking her in a mincing voice. ‘He’s a prick,’ he added suddenly.
‘I think we should go, Claire,’ Penny said, but her friend did not respond.
A few minutes later, Claire had fallen off his lap, landing in a drunken sprawl on the ground. Burke had sat where he was, laughing at her. Penny and her friend, Elaine, had helped Claire to her feet. It was clear that Claire was in no fit state to stay any longer; she was tripping over herself, her legs seemingly beyond her control. She felt sick, she said, and suddenly dashed towards the rear of the factory site, where the last remains of the building were intermittently illuminated by the flickering of the flames from the bonfire.
As Claire stumbled away from them, the two girls followed, but Burke stood and pushed them to one side, saying he would see she was all right. Penny, without the support of anyone else in the circle but Elaine, acquiesced, against her own better judgement. Still, over the next quarter of an hour, she looked constantly into the shadows, where she could see Claire, bent double, vomiting onto the factory rubble. Penny continued to watch, even when some of the boy’s friends commented on her fascination with what was going on.
Finally, when she saw Burke heft Claire to her feet and pin her against the perimeter wall of the site, she got up and went across to them. As she got closer, even in the murk of the shadows, she could see that Claire was semi-conscious while the boy was opening the button on her trousers.
Penny had shouted at him as she approached, telling him to leave her alone. He had continued, his fumbling becoming more aggressive even as Claire slumped to the ground. Finally, in fury, the boy turned to face Penny.
‘What do you want, you nosey bitch?’ he spat. Then he added, ‘Just like your da,’ as he punched her in the face, knocking her to the ground.
‘No one helped me get up again,’ she said, her sobbing subsided now, but her tears still flowing freely.
‘The little fucker,’ I spat.
‘Ben!’
‘I’m going over to get him,’ I said, grabbing the car keys.
Penny shrugged. ‘Don’t, Dad. Stop being such a cop.’
‘I’m not being a cop, Penny, I’m being your father.’
‘Claire will get into trouble, Dad. Her folks will kill her if they find out she’s been drinking.’
‘They’ll be more concerned if they find out she’s been sexually assaulted,’ I said.
‘Leave it for now, Ben,’ Debs said.
I swallowed down my rage as I thought not of what the boy had done to Claire but that he had struck my daughter. As a father, I didn’t want the boy arrested; I wanted to beat him senseless myself. I wanted to pummel his face for what he had done.
‘He didn’t try anything with you, did he?’ I asked.
Penny shook her head, her eyes not quite reaching mine, as though embarrassed. ‘He punched me, Dad.’
‘How do you feel now?’ Debs asked.
‘Okay. A little shaky.’
Debbie angled Penny’s head upwards, her face towards the light. ‘Let me see your pupils,’ she said.
‘I told you I wasn’t drinking, Mum,’ Penny said.
‘And I trust you,’ Debs replied. ‘But you had a brain injury and this boy hit you on the head. I want to be sure he hasn’t damaged anything inside this beautiful little skull.’
Penny managed a smile and wiped her face with the sleeve of her jacket.
‘I’m very proud of you, honey,’ Debbie said.
‘For not drinking?’
‘For standing up for your friend when no one else did. Even if it meant you got yourself hurt.’
‘She still had him pawing all over her. I should have gone over to her myself at the start.’
‘You did just fine,’ Debs said.
I heard something in the hallway and looked out to see Shane crouching on the stairway, listening to the conversation. As he stared at Penny’s swollen face, his expression was drawn, his skin pale. When he noticed I was watching him, he stood and padded back up to his room without a word.
I went up the stairs, ostensibly to check on him, though also because I wanted to phone Jim Hendry. Penny had said she didn’t want her friend to get in trouble, but I had no intention of allowing someone to punch my child with impunity.
As it transpired, Hendry was ahead of me. Claire had been lifted by an ambulance crew that had been on standby in case of any burn injuries suffered at the fire. Her parents had been contacted and the girl was already giving a statement to a female officer from the Public Protection Unit.
‘It’s Burke,’ I said. ‘Penny was with the girl. She tried to intervene and he punched her.’
‘Jesus, is she all right?’
‘She has a black eye. She’s a little shaken, but she seems to be coming around.’
‘It wouldn’t have any implications on her . . . injury, you know, her brain thing.’
‘We’re going to take her to the doctor and get her checked out.’
‘We’ll be looking for Burke. I’ll head down to the hostel where he stays myself and see if I can pick him up. If Penny feels up to it, a statement would be very useful.’
‘As soon as she’s at herself I’ll bring her across,’ I promised.
‘Ben,’ Hendry began. ‘If I find Burke tonight, do you want to know about it before I bring him in?’
I was taken aback at the baldness of the question and, more so, by the time it took me to say, ‘Thanks, Jim. Best not.’
Shane was standing in the doorway of his own bedroom when I came out of mine.
‘Is Penny okay?’
I nodded. ‘She’ll be fine. She got hurt.’
‘Did someone hit her?’
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak as I considered the pain and self-doubt that marked his expression.
‘I didn’t mean what I said about her,’ he said, his tears already gathering.
‘Forget about it, partner,’ I said.
‘I don’t want anyone hurting her,’ he blubbed.
‘I know. Penny knows that, too.’
He was not to be convinced, though, turning angrily and going back to his bed. I could hear his mutters as I went back downstairs to where Penny and Debbie were still sitting together on the sofa.
Thursday, 1 November
Chapter Thirty-Three
We sat in Accident and Emergency at Letterkenny General Hospital until 4 a.m. before Penny was seen. My parents had come up to watch Shane, allowing Debbie and me to take Penny in together. Once she had told us her story, she had settled somewhat. Still, considering her recent head injury it seemed prudent to get her checked following the blow to her face.
She grew sleepy while we sat, and despite our best efforts to keep her awake, she stretched out across the two chairs beside us and laid her head on Debbie’s lap. I covered her with my coat and sat with her legs across my own knees.
Despite being mid-week, the ward was busy. Opposite us a young boy sat with his mother, his arm hanging limply in a sling. She explained to Debbie that he had fallen while getting out of the car and she thought he had broken his wrist. To her left sat a man in dress trousers and a white shirt. The front of the shirt was spotted with blood and he held a bloody wad of tissue to his mouth. He looked across at me and winked happily, his face breaking into a smile that revealed the gap where two teeth were missing and the split in the lip below where they should have been.
Around 1 a.m. the burns injuries started appearing. Most were teenage boys who had been handling fireworks. Some were minor scorches from mishandled sparklers, others more serious burns from firecrackers. One held his hand against his chest, the thick bandages wrapped around it unable to disguise the absence of several fingers. He was wheeled through immediately and no one else was called in for treatment for some time.
Brian McGilloway - The Nameless Dead (Inspector Devlin #5) Page 13
