‘Yes. That’s my day job.’
‘A private detective?’
‘No – the other sort. I’m a public detective.’
‘Well – that’s a pity.’
‘My thoughts exactly about five times a day. But why is it a pity for you?’
The two groups of three were now one of six. Professor Calder was speaking and the others were looking at him and listening. A stranger coming over the hill would have imagined he was watching amateur naturalists on a field trip.
‘We’re not done yet. We still have fifteen or twenty to go, depending on how you define ‘missing’. We could do with a fresh pair of eyes. We have a little money…’
When he looked closely at her, he could see that she was serious.
‘Thank you. But I’m afraid that if you knew how those GPS coordinates came about, you would not approve.’
She shrugged as she said, ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’ve cut some pretty sharp corners myself since I began this. It’s not a business in which you can have too many principles.’
‘Which ones do you have?’
Like any sensible person, she hesitated before she answered such a question.
‘In this particular business? That the amount of time we have left to put things right grows a little shorter every day. Maybe you could help us in your holidays? No – I’m only joking there! But if you should change your mind, here’s a card. I’m not going anywhere soon.’
She gave him the card, and he read it before putting it away. The letters after her name told him that she was a lawyer.
‘And now,’ she said, ‘I have to go down there and explain to them what happens next. The police will come and ask a standard set of questions – they already know we’re here but they also know now to keep their distance in case we’ve been unsuccessful. And I’ll have to go down to the farm and tell those poor people what’s about to hit them, too. But thank you, detective.’
Smith watched her descend the hill – a slight but determined figure, someone who had suffered a great wrong, without a doubt, and who was devoting her life to helping others put things right before the tide of time finally ebbed away, leaving them stranded on the shores of regret. For a moment he felt that poetic about it all, and then he remembered those “poor people” down at the farm, the ones she thought she ought to prepare. That flint-eyed old man in the barn needed no preparation. No-one could have driven through the buildings and then up this private track onto the hill yesterday afternoon without the owner’s knowledge, just as no-one could have dug a grave like that in the open thirty years ago without its being noticed by those who worked this land every day of their lives. Were there others buried on this hillside or down by that stream? Given time, those were the questions he would ask these poor people.
The students were making their way back up towards the truck. He guessed that there would be some geophysics next, a scanner that would begin to peer beneath the surface of the soil, to see in more detail what had become of Brann O’Neill. And then there would need to be some sort of confirmation that it was him; dental records, hopefully, though he remembered Brann having those perfect-looking teeth – if not, the maternal DNA although that would take some time. But there are occasions Smith, he said to himself, when you have to go with your instincts, and those were telling him that they had found the man – the boy – that they were looking for.
The two students approached and then passed him. The boy did not meet his eyes but the girl did briefly. He could see that she didn’t know whether to give him the look of sympathy that was customary in these situations. Who was he? Not family or he would have gone down with the others. Not someone from the Inquiry or he would be busy with Helen Reece. Not the police, though they would be here within the hour, no doubt. Just a small man with a collar and tie, looking a little of place in the afternoon sunshine on a hillside in County Monaghan. So then she gave him the look of sympathy anyway.
Chapter Twenty One
There was an early sailing of the ferry at a little after seven o’clock the next morning, and Diarmuid said that he would take him there; faced with Cati, Lia and Bradey as well as the boy, Smith saw that resistance was useless and agreed. Mrs Greene got up and made him some toast and coffee – she would have done the whole cooked breakfast if he had not convinced her that such rich and wonderful food would not go down well with his stomach quite so early as that. At six fifteen, Diarmuid was at the door of the boarding house, and the landlady accompanied her guest outside to say goodbye.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I thought you meant you had a taxi booked. I’d no idea you had family here as well.’
Both of the men laughed, and Smith said, ‘No, not family, Mrs Greene. Young Mr Kelly here is just one of the people I was doing business with.’
She said, ‘My mistake, Mr Colgate, and I’m sorry for any embarrassment. But if you ever have to visit us again to buy more coffins and you don’t stay in this very place, I will be mortified.’
‘Mrs Greene, it has been a pleasure. If I come again, yours will be the only number that I call,’ and then he stepped forward and gave her a brief peck on the cheek. She scolded him with a blush, and made one or two more remarks in a similar vein, for which Smith was grateful – he was doing his best not to catch Diarmuid Kelly’s eye until they were well clear of Milford Place.
When they were, Kelly said, ‘Mr Colgate? As in toothpaste?’
‘Not my idea. I can’t say any more. It’s a matter of national security.’
There was a short silence then which he knew was deliberate on Kelly’s part, building up the tension before asked the next and wholly predictable question.
‘But – coffins?’
‘Yes, it’s a sideline of mine. More of a hobby these days but you don’t get many opportunities to examine Irish oak at first hand. I thought I’d look into it while I was over here.’
Kelly was watching him and wondering, despite himself – Smith’s face was straight and the voice gave absolutely nothing away. Eventually Kelly looked back at the road ahead and shook his head.
‘No way. No bloody way!’
Smith said, ‘How long to get to the ferry?’
‘No more than twenty minutes. We have plenty of time.’
‘Can you make a short detour, if there aren’t too many one-way streets?’
‘To where?’
‘The Ulster Hall. It’s somewhere I meant to go while I was back here, and I never got around to it.’
Kelly was driving now, smoothly but quickly through the back streets, never needing to think or even look where he was. He was back in the Impreza, and if the not-driving had been on medical advice, he must have decided that it only needed to apply for two days.
‘The Ulster Hall at half past six in the morning? You know it will be closed.’
‘Yes. If you could just pull up in front – I’d like to see it, that’s all.’
‘Rory who?’
‘Gallagher. He was one of your own, born on the other side of the border, I think.’
They were sitting in the car, parked right outside the concert hall. Smith looked at the grey stone building, the balcony and modest late-Victorian pillars, and pictured the long queue of people outside on that winter’s night in 1974.
‘And he was a guitarist, you say. Like a proper rock musician, with a band and all that? Like Queen and Freddie Mercury?’
The look that followed Kelly’s effort to relate this to something that he knew would have shrivelled a bowl of grapes.
‘You managed to get guitarist right. Nothing like Freddie Mercury. Gallagher was a blues man – one of the best. Some would argue that he was the best. In January 1974 he recorded one of the finest live blues-rock albums ever made, and most of it was done here.’
‘So this place is a sort of shrine, then? Did you see it yourself that night?’
‘Hardly! I was fourteen and probably doing my maths homework. Just exactly how old do you think I am, by the way?’
>
‘So you never did get to see him?’
‘I did. In the late 1980s, back in England. I’m glad I did; he died in 1995.’
Belfast was waking up as they sat in front of the Ulster Hall. The first business people were making their way to offices, and a mechanical street sweeper briefly obscured their view before it passed noisily on towards the city centre.
‘Ma was telling me that you can play a bit yourself.’
‘When was she telling you that?’
‘Last night, after you’d gone. They talked for a long time about those days, way past her bed-time! I think yesterday was… I think it broke a sort of dam, if you know what I mean.’
Yes, he knew alright. His own night’s sleep had been a strange phantasmagoria of the past and the present and the in-between.
‘So, do you still play?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s good.’
‘And why is it good? Are you thinking of booking me for the wedding?’
‘You’ll see why. But which wedding is that?’
‘The one that Mairead is planning.’
Kelly laughed and coloured.
‘No wedding plans there just yet!’
‘Take it from me, you could do a lot worse. Anyone that suspicious of me has to be taken seriously.’
‘She’ll get over it – when I finally tell her the whole story.’
‘Do you think that you know the whole story?’
It was a different kind of question, delivered in a different tone of voice. Kelly could see that Smith was watching him closely as he considered his answer. When it came, he gave it slowly, looking directly back at the man who had asked him this unexpected thing.
‘I think I know most of it, don’t I?’
No, thought Smith. I don’t think you know even the half of it, thank God. He smiled and looked back at the Ulster Hall. It was time to leave.
Kelly said, ‘Well, at least I know more than when I started out – even today. I know this Rory Gallagher was a great guitar player, eh?’
‘I didn’t quite finish that story. He was more than that. As I said, he was one of your own, an Irishman. In the 1970s, Belfast was a war zone, the whole country was. Every band that toured Europe crossed this place off the list for years except Rory Gallagher. He kept coming back and playing in Northern Ireland. It made him a legend here. That’s why he still matters – as much as the way he could play. He made music take a stand against terrorism, and he probably made a lot of young people see what real courage is. I think he was a great man as well as a great guitar player.’
Kelly waited for a few moments, and then he started the engine and pulled slowly away. It wasn’t the time to say anything else. Smith was looking away from him still for a reason.
At the main gate to the terminal there was another peculiar silence and then Kelly said, ‘Oh, now I almost forgot. Why is it a good thing you still play the guitar? Here we are!’
He opened the boot of the Impreza and took out the solid black case that Smith had graciously declined when it was offered to him yesterday evening – Adriana’s own guitar from thirty years ago. Kelly said, ‘I wasn’t going to argue with her – it’s up to you if you send it back by parcel post. But there’s no-one else in the family, she said, and I think it would mean something to her if you took it and played a tune on it sometimes. She wanted to give you something.’
It was a vintage Fender Newporter in dark rosewood, the one with a C neck. Cleaned up and re-strung it would fetch six or seven hundred pounds. He could do just that, of course, and send them the money. Diarmuid’s business notwithstanding, things were a little tight in the O’Neill household just now. And she already had something of a surprise on the way. So he took the case, and Kelly grinned more than he needed to at the small victory.
Smith said, glancing at Kelly’s bandaged hand, ‘What about you? When Tommy Blake finally comes round, he’s bound to start asking questions.’
‘Oh, I’m not too worried. Martin’s already made a couple of phone calls to explain it was a misunderstanding. His word carries more weight than he imagines.’
‘An elder statesman…’
‘Something like that.’
‘And your mother doesn’t know what happened?’
‘Car door.’
‘Are you certain? She’s not a fool.’
‘Certain. Like you, when I have to tell a lie, I make it a good one.’
They were done. Smith held out his right hand and Kelly took it.
‘Thank you, Mr whoever-you-are at the moment. You didn’t have to come but I’m glad that you did. That weight has been pressing down on them for thirty years, and they’ll be freer without it when it’s finally done.’
Smith wanted to say, well, if you ever need anything but he did not do so. There was so much to say now that he was about to leave that he had no idea where to begin, and so he said nothing more. He watched the car as it turned around in the junction and put up a hand as it drove away. His old watch told him that the ferry left in fifteen minutes, and it felt like an eternity.
He stayed on the deck and watched as Carrickfergus swung gradually away to the left and behind. Then they were sailing east into the risen sun, and the water was green and glassy calm, the only disturbance the wake that the ferry left behind. Scotland, Stranraer, was ahead to the left now, and the Isle of Man was already a low, faint smudge on the horizon – it seemed impossible that the journey would take another seven hours but flight has made us impatient. Smith thought about history then, as well as geography; this is the speed more or less at which we discovered and conquered most of the world. It’s good to be reminded of that at times.
He had wondered about this moment, the sailing away from Belfast again. In his imaginings, whether or not he had found the resting place of Brann O’Neill, this was an end to it all, a proper end and not a thirty year postponement. The space over the water would open up behind him, and open up and open up until finally the tie would snap and then it might as well be a million miles away because he would never go back a second time. Now he could feel it stretching and pulling but it might never break – he could sense that and it surprised him. Even if he took a slow boat to China, it might never break now.
The best thing to do was to find some coffee. It would not be good but it would be a start. With his travelling bag over his shoulder, the guitar case in one hand and the walking cane in the other, like some itinerant, ageing busker, he turned away from the sea and followed the signs towards one of the on-board restaurants – if he had seen a sign that said café he would have followed that instead but there was none. No more than half a dozen people were already in the restaurant, two reading papers and the others on their phones or iPads. Apparently the wifi was free but he knew from experience that his chances of success in logging on such situations were no better than eighty twenty against. There was no phone signal either. He was marooned at sea if such a thing was possible and might as well make the most of it.
He found a table to himself easily enough – if the ferry was fully booked, it certainly didn’t look it at the moment. A black coffee in a paper cup and two pieces of flapjack wrapped in cellophane, one for now and one for later. He could not countenance the thought of having a sit-down lunch on the boat, and there was food enough in the freezer when he finally got home this evening. That thought cheered him up. Home. Open all the windows to air the house and then switch on the sound system. Maybe the Irish Tour 1974, full blast…
‘Excuse me, sir. We’d like a word. Would you mind accompanying me?’
He looked up. She was smiling and her eyes were the colour of his favourite Columbian dark roast. Tight jeans, ankle boots, and a short, dark red leather jacket.
‘That rather depends on who we are.’
She never hesitated and the smile never faltered.
‘Customs and Excise, sir. We won’t keep you a moment. If you could follow me, please.’ She was showing him a badge now and it looked
genuine enough.
The ‘we’ certainly included the man standing and watching a few yards away. Somewhat more formally dressed, when his career with Customs and Excise was over – assuming that was actually true in the first place – he had all the attributes necessary to make it again as a high-end paving slab for a Russian billionaire – no expression and no doubt that his shoulders were as wide as he was high. Smith concluded that he would be going along and decided to save the banter, along with the flapjack, for later.
She led him away from the restaurant, the silent, surly fellow making up the rear. That she was mixed race as well as very attractive he had registered immediately, and that C and E were not doing census work as a sideline was a given, but none of that worried Smith at all – what worried him was that he had seen her before, a long time ago, and that he could not remember where.
She turned down a flight of steps past a sign that said no members of the public beyond this point, and then they were walking along another corridor somewhere beneath the restaurant. A turn right, a turn left and then she stopped in front of an unmarked door.
‘Just a routine check, sir. We’ll take you back up in a few minutes. If you’d like to go in, you will find a seat. Make yourself comfortable. My colleague will be along in just a moment.’
Received pronunciation and a highly educated voice – Customs and Excise must be moving up in the world. He had worked alongside them in the docks at Kings Lake over the years but none of them had ever looked or sounded like this one. He studied her face closely then, to see if she showed any sign of recognising him, and got back only a convincing smile; whatever she was doing here this morning, it was not the first time that she had done it.
She closed the door after he entered, and he heard her steps walking away. He did not need to open it again to see whether the concrete man was still there – he would be, arms folded or standing at ease, eyes forward. There was a table and there were three chairs, two on one side, one on the other. It was a familiar enough set-up to a detective. Smith put down the guitar case, leaned the stick against the table and sat in the single chair. This was rather irritating – he was going to miss those lovely views of the Isle of Man if they didn’t get a move on.
In This Bright Future: A DC Smith Investigation Page 24
