The Broken Shore

by Catriona King

  “Who then?”

  Craig shook his head. “That’s what we need to find out. But first of all we need to talk to the man the jury blamed.”

  ***

  Melanie Trainor stared unseeing into the fire, lit earlier than usual in an attempt to drive the cold from her bones. It didn’t work so she pulled the heavy mohair throw around her, huddling in further as she blinked back the tears. She stared at the happy picture in her hand, trying to burn the image of Lissy into her mind to replace the one she’d seen earlier that day.

  The Lissy in the photograph smiled up at her, her eyes as brown and large as her own, her long dark hair shining and tumbling down her back. Her arms were full. A certificate in one hand, a bouquet in the other; newly degree-ed and ready to take on the world of law. She’d wanted to be a barrister, full of the oratory and wigs inspired by ‘take your daughter to work day’. Watching her from the gallery while she testified in court.

  A tear rolled down Melanie Trainor's cheek and she let it fall, watching as it splashed on the costly slate hearth. The room was full of expensive things paid for by hours of study and work. All meaningless now. She would give them all to hear Lissy’s voice again. She listened, trying to recall her youthful tones. They came through loud and clear, but how long would she hear them for? How long before she couldn’t recall her voice or hear her laugh at all? She gulped down her brandy and made herself a vow. Whoever had done this would pay with the rest of their life. It was no comfort at all.

  ***

  Craig raked his hand through his hair in exasperation then closed the file in front of him. He couldn’t believe the sparseness of its contents, but who was he to judge? At a time when there’d been tens of murders each week and a police force under siege, he could understand that things might have been forgotten, and handwritten memos misfiled. It was difficult to imagine a world without computers, but he remembered using an old typewriter in London, twenty years before. Things hadn’t been so efficient then, even there, and they hadn’t been dodging petrol bombs every day. It had been a dark time in Northern Ireland’s history. He glanced again at the thin file in his hand. But even so…

  He turned to see where Andy was and found him in a corner of the records room. They were at Headquarters in Belfast and they’d been lucky, the records sergeant had heard of the ACC’s loss and been willing to throw open his archive doors at the weekend. There were plenty who wouldn’t have been so cooperative, especially at half-term.

  He watched as Andy’s eyebrows rose as he perused a buff file with a red stripe on the front, signifying it was probably a terrorist offence. Andy had studied law before he’d joined the force, just like he had, and he was fascinated by court reports. It was probably why they were both so hard on Barristers; it felt like they’d sold the law out for the highest price.

  Andy had been in fraud and vice before drugs, so the details of terrorist atrocities had been through the spin cycle of the evening news before either of them had heard. The men on the ground through the worst of it had different stories to tell. An image of Liam in uniform flashed into Craig’s mind and he gave him a mental salute.

  “What have you got, Andy?”

  Andy shook his head and screwed up his face. “Nothing you’d like to read. There were some real bastards running around back then, hey.”

  “You’ll get no argument from Liam on that one. Any particular bastard leap out at you?”

  “Aye. The one convicted on Ronni Jarvis’ murder. Jonno Mulvenna, a really nasty bit of work.”

  “Mmm…”

  Andy stared at Craig questioningly. “Was that mmm…yes, or mmm…no?”

  “Yes, he’s a nasty bastard, but no, I don’t like him for Jarvis’ death.”

  “Why not?”

  “Mulvenna’s one of the few from back then that I remember. He targeted the police and army but he wasn’t part of a punishment squad.”

  He pulled out his mobile and pressed dial. A moment later the call was answered by a laughing Nicky and he smiled at the sound of her voice.

  “Docklands Murder Squad, can I help you?”

  Craig smiled again. She hadn’t noticed his number coming up so he decided to have some fun. He made his voice as gruff as possible. “Mrs Morris, it’s ACC Murphy here, what’s so amusing?”

  Nicky gave the phone a look of panic and the laughter stopped dead as the others caught the look on her face.

  “Good afternoon, ACC Murphy. I’m sorry, sir. One of the men was just cracking a joke.”

  “You don’t get paid to tell jokes. Where’s Superintendent Craig?”

  She was about to reply when something about the voice seemed familiar. Craig’s mix of Italian and Northern Irish gave his voice a warm quality that was hard to disguise, even behind his mock anger. Nicky squinted at the phone and then spoke.

  “Oh him. He’s off gallivanting again, sir. Or in the pub. It’s impossible to get him to do any work at all.”

  The others stared at her aghast until she laughed.

  Craig joined in. “OK, you’ve caught me, Nick. Glad to hear someone’s having fun. Is Davy there?”

  “I’ll transfer you now.” She’d barely covered the handset before she yelled. “Davy, pick up your line. It’s the chief.” Craig pulled the phone back from his ear in pain. Nicky might only be five-feet-three but she had a voice a town crier would envy.

  Five seconds later Davy’s softer voice came through. “What can I help with, boss?”

  “Davy, could you go back through the archived files on The Troubles and search out everything you can find on a Jonno Mulvenna, please? He might be under John or Jonathan as well, but Jonno was what he was known by.”

  “IRA?”

  “Yes. Provisionals. His usual targets were police and army officers, but he was probably involved in other things as well. There was a murder case in ’83 that put him inside until the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. See what you can find on that.”

  “Is it linked with your case up north, s…sir?”

  “Yes, unfortunately. I’ll let you know more when I do.” Craig paused then continued with a note of envy in his voice. “You sound like you’re having fun.”

  Davy glanced over at the small group he’d just left. Jake was amusing Nicky and Annette with card tricks. He was good at them but Davy thought he’d better not give Craig the details when they were working so hard up north.

  “Jake just told us a joke.”

  Craig smiled wryly. “Oh, I thought he might be showing off his magic skills. He’s a champion magician you know, I saw him perform last year. “

  Davy said nothing and Craig smiled again.

  “Enjoy yourselves. It’s a Saturday, even though we are on call. And tell Annette to send everyone home anytime she likes. There’s no point all your weekends being spoiled as well.”

  “Thanks, boss. I’ll check Mulvenna right now and s…send you what I find.”

  The phone clicked off and Craig turned back to Andy, tapping the folder in his hand.

  “This is the investigation of Veronica Jarvis’ death.”

  Andy peered at it; it was thinner than any murder file he’d seen. Craig walked to a table and laid the contents out. Apart from a charge sheet there was only a summary sheet containing details of Mulvenna’s conviction and sentence, and one page from forensics. Andy turned it over. It matched Mulvenna to a partial print from the tape covering Ronni Jarvis’ mouth. His mouth fell open.

  “They convicted Mulvenna on that? I know they were under pressure to clear things up quickly back then, but hey!”

  Craig nodded. It was exactly what he was thinking but something else was nagging at the back of his mind. He closed the file and sat down, then he put his phone on speaker and dialled Liam.

  “Hello, boss. What can I do for you?”

  “We’ll meet later for an update, Liam, but I’ve a quick question. You policed during The Troubles, didn’t you?”

  “Man and boy. So?”

  �
�In your opinion, how often were ordinary crimes labelled as terrorist offences?”

  Liam let out a low whistle before he spoke. “Plenty of times. And vice versa. A lot of unmarked weapons were ‘signed out’ from terrorists on loan to ordinary citizens for a few hundred quid. They’d be dumped after the crime, whatever it was, and they were impossible to trace. We used to joke that The Troubles saved the divorce courts a lot of work. But we were so busy with the bombs and bullets that some things were let slip.”

  “OK, thanks. And how easy would it have been back then to frame a terrorist for something they hadn’t done?”

  Liam gave a loud laugh. “You mean one of them got banged-up for someone they didn’t kill? Happy days.”

  Craig raised his eyes to heaven and smiled. Liam’s political incorrectness was legendary. It had been dialled down considerably in the run up to his recent promotion board but it was back now, alive and kicking hard.

  “Seriously, Liam. Would it really have been that easy to frame someone for murder?”

  Liam swallowed another laugh and attempted a serious voice. “I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t been tried, boss. There was a lot of frustration back then and the pressure was on to get these bastards off the streets. But…”

  “Yes?”

  “Unless there was some evidence, it would have been thrown out at trial. They’d never have been sent down if the evidence hadn’t been there. Who do you think was framed?”

  “A Provo called Jonno Mulvenna.”

  Liam’s tone changed to anger. “A cop-killer like Mulvenna was fair game. He would have been lifted as often as we could. What do you think he was framed for?”

  Craig sighed. The more Liam said the more he became convinced that Mulvenna had been a dupe.

  “The murder of Veronica Jarvis, back in 1983. I’ll update you later, Liam. Thanks for your help.”

  Before Liam could say any more Craig cut the call and turned to see the objection on Andy’s face.

  “No, Marc. We can’t do this, hey. We can’t re-open an old case. If Mulvenna didn’t kill Ronni Jarvis he killed plenty more. If we start questioning his conviction it will open a can of worms that will go on for years.”

  Craig stared at the file and turned to a black and white photo of a twenty-something man staring unsmiling at the camera. They could see the naked hatred in his eyes. He was a killer without a doubt, but was he Veronica Jarvis’ killer? And if he wasn’t then why had he been convicted for her death? Was it just exhausted police work or had he really been framed?

  He shook his head, trying to push away his doubts. The last thing he wanted was to defend a terrorist, but if he was innocent of this it had ramifications far beyond this case. If Mulvenna had been framed for Ronni Jarvis’ murder then Lissy Trainor’s murder mightn’t just be a copycat, the same man might have committed both. He could have been out there, running free for thirty years.. But if he had been free all that time then why hadn’t he killed between 1983 and now?

  He looked at Andy and nodded, ignoring his objections. He didn’t have the answers but he knew that the questions had to be asked, whether people wanted him to ask them or not.

  Chapter Six

  The man watched from a distance as the woman in uniform climbed into the car and her husband indicated left at the end of the street. He knew where they were going, by the grave expressions their faces wore. To choose a way to remember their beloved child. Bury her or burn her, it didn’t matter. She was still dead. He smiled at the woman wearing her uniform. Nothing would get in the way of her career, not even her daughter’s death. Good to know that she hadn’t changed. She was still a cold, hard bitch.

  He cast a glance around the street and then crossed it stealthily, slipping down the house’s driveway to push open the garden gate. The flowers stood upright in neat borders, the hedges cut back to within an inch of their lives. She even controlled her garden. No sentiment, disposing of anything that wasn’t of use.

  He slipped a knife between the patio doors then entered the suburban house, wandering casually from room to room. A single picture of Lissy sat on a dark-wood desk in the study. Her husband’s desk. A smaller pine desk sat alongside, with only a book on top. The bitch didn’t even display a picture of her child. He wasn’t shocked; he just wondered how long it would take her to forget that she’d ever had her at all.

  He lifted the photo and stroked the glass, half-smiling at the dark-haired girl beneath. He’d been sorry when she’d begged him to let her go and he was sorry about her death. She’d seemed nice, very nice, her whole life just waiting to be lived. But she’d had to die, or the truth would never come out.

  ***

  Hugh Trainor fingered the pink silk interior then stroked his hand down the side of the coffin’s pale wood. Lissy would have liked it, it was pretty. Even in death she would have wanted style. He thought of her wide impish smile and her habit of calling him ‘Pops’, too old now for Daddy and always too much fun for ‘Father’ to pass her lips. He choked back a sob at the memory and pictured her when she was young. Dancing along the street and holding his hand. Gazing up at him as he if had every answer in the world. The sob became a tear joined by others and he turned his back hastily on his wife. She wouldn’t approve. An elected official crying in public, an MLA with genuine emotion. Whatever next?

  He sniffed hard and wiped his face then turned back to the anteroom and nodded to the man behind the desk, ignoring the disapproval in his wife’s eyes. He wondered how long their marriage would last now that the glue between them had gone. Not long, if he had his way. He’d always known Melanie hadn’t loved him, she’d just thought him a ‘suitable’ match, an asset to her career. God forbid anything should get in the way of that. He would be no great loss to her; even less than Lissy was.

  He pulled out a chair and sat down, as far from his wife as he could, then he filled in the forms to arrange the last party his pretty daughter would ever attend.

  ***

  “I’ve s…sent you everything I can find, so far, boss. There’ll be more on Monday when everything’s open again. I found some stuff on the case in ’83, but there isn’t a lot. Record keeping back then s…seemed to be pretty thin.”

  Craig nodded. “I know. Thanks Davy, that’s great. Now go home. It’s the weekend.”

  “I’m happy to come back in if you need me.”

  “Be careful of what you offer…”

  Craig shut his phone and tapped the computer keyboard, pulling up the files Davy had sent. He pressed print and then sat back to read. He was halfway through the Jarvis notes when his phone rang again. It was John.

  “Hi John, what can I do for you?”

  He glanced at his watch. It was four-ten. They were meeting in under an hour. What couldn’t wait?

  “Marc, I know we’re meeting soon but I just thought I’d let you know that the Trainors visited the morgue thirty minutes ago. I asked if they would speak to you but they said tomorrow would have to do.”

  “How were they?”

  “The father was as you’d expect. Really cut-up. But she barely blinked. There was none of yesterday’s emotion at all.” He paused, shocked by what he’d seen. “She was in uniform and he was driving her into work when they left. Can you believe that?”

  Craig nodded. He wasn’t surprised. Melanie Trainor was very cool. He corrected himself. No, she wasn’t cool, she was cold and everyone knew it. She was bright but not that bright and there’d been questions many times about how she’d made it to the top. Especially from cleverer women who’d fallen along the way. Some of the complaints could be dismissed as jealousy, or chauvinism in a country where women spent too much time chained to the kitchen sink. But unfortunately he knew that the rumours were true. Melanie Trainor had used her pretty smile to take her places her brain couldn’t reach. She was promiscuous and strategically so; a strategic shagger, in the parlance of the day, targeting men of power who could take her to the top.

  He’d worked opposite her
on a case three years before, and watched as she’d spent late nights ‘in conference’ with businessmen and politicians. She’d dismissed any man that she didn’t consider useful and disappeared upstairs with the lucky lad, only to reappear with him at breakfast the next day. She was open about it, arguing that she was playing men at their own game. Perhaps she was, but she was already married to Hugh Trainor, a well-respected politician tipped for the First Minister’s post someday. How much higher did she need to go in Northern Ireland’s small pond?

  “That’s not a shock, John. She’s very driven. She wants to be Chief Constable someday and she may well get there.”

  “Her husband seemed like a nice man. He looked like he really loved Lissy. I have to say, they weren’t the warmest couple I’ve ever seen. Frozen waste as Natalie would say.”

  Natalie Ingrams was John’s long term partner and Craig’s money was on her soon being his wife. She was lovely girl and a brilliant surgeon, but subtlety had never been her strong point. She and Liam had both gone to the JCB School of diplomacy.

  “OK, thanks John. I’ll try to speak to them tomorrow.” He glanced at his watch again. “Listen, we’re debriefing at five. Fancy meeting before then for a quick drink?”

  “Good idea. See you in the bar in twenty.”

  Craig read for five more minutes then rolled up the Jarvis file and put it in his pocket. Then he headed for the hotel bar and a well-earned beer.

  ***

  Annette wandered through Victoria Square’s House of Fraser and rifled through rails of clothes, searching for an outfit for her sister’s wedding in four weeks’ time. It was her second time round and she was holding it on the pitch at her husband-to-be’s rugby club, where they seemed to spend every Friday nights. Annette couldn’t see the attraction herself, but live and let live.

  She was wondering idly whether she could persuade her to change the dress code to jeans and trainers when her phone rang, disturbing her thoughts. It was a number she didn’t recognise but then that wasn’t new. People from cases gone by often called her, long after she’d forgotten she’d handed them her card. She wandered into the lift area and pressed answer, giving plain ‘Annette McElroy’ as her name. The voice on the other end surprised her and for a moment she wasn’t sure it was who she thought. It seemed so unlikely that she would call.