The Broken Shore

by Catriona King

  “I did them. I’d always drawn, but prison art classes taught me to paint. I’m getting my Masters at the moment.”

  It figured. It suited the Hollywood romance. Any minute now Mulvenna would try to justify his past as a war, seeing himself as a warrior of some kind. Something about the scene bothered Craig and then he worked out what it was. Mulvenna was a romantic. The murder of Ronni Jarvis didn’t fit his approach to life. Mulvenna waved them to a seat and poured them a waiting coffee as Craig reluctantly drew closer to the conclusion he didn’t want to reach. Mulvenna started talking before he had a chance to speak.

  “I know why you’re here and before you even ask, the answer’s no. No, I didn’t kill Ronni Jarvis, no matter what the courts decided. And no, I had nothing to do with the death of the girl on the beach last week.”

  Andy went to interject and Mulvenna stilled him with a look. Craig saw its steel and nodded inwardly. This was the menace he’d expected to see. He was shocked by Mulvenna’s next words.

  “I deserved to be put away in ’83, and for a lot longer than I was.”

  He paused, not as if he was expecting an argument but in thought. “I killed a lot of your lads and army as well, but…” He stared at them earnestly, as if challenging them to disagree. “Whether you believed it was or not, we saw it as a war. We didn’t have the guns and tanks and uniforms you had so we did what we could, how we could, to get the British out.”

  Craig interrupted angrily. “You’re trying to justify what you did?”

  Mulvenna shook his head slowly. “No. Not justify. Explain.”

  He stared Craig straight in the eyes, as if begging him to understand but knowing he never would. After a moment he sighed and shook his head. “I don’t feel guilty about killing them but I regret every man that I killed. Every one of them. I’m sorry they’re dead and I’m sorry for their families, but I can’t turn back the clock.”

  Andy leaned forward, spotting a gap. “And what about every woman?”

  They were surprised by the strength of Mulvenna’s next words. “NO! I’ve never harmed a woman, never.”

  Andy went to continue but Craig quietened him imperceptibly, wanting to hear what Mulvenna had to say. Their coffees sat untouched, as if to drink them would be a betrayal of their dead colleagues. If Mulvenna noticed he didn’t say, he was long past sticks and stones in the pain stakes.

  He sipped at his drink and dropped his eyes to the floor as if remembering the women he had known. When he spoke again it was falteringly, his voice quieter than it had been since they’d arrived.

  “I didn’t even know Veronica Jarvis, and I know what you’re going to say. Lots of men kill women randomly, women that they don’t know, so why not me? Well here’s why not. I was in love, really in love for the first time in my life. I was happy. Why would I kill some woman I’d never even met?”

  His eyes were hidden, but Craig knew what they would hold. Tears. He could hear them in his voice. The romance hadn’t ended well, that much was clear and Craig thought that it wasn’t just because he’d been sent to prison. Andy shot him a puzzled look. This was totally unexpected. They sat in silence waiting for Mulvenna to restart. Finally he did, in clearer tones. His voice was curious, a mixture of soft country tones and hard Belfast picked up from his colleagues in jail. Craig could imagine some women finding the contrast attractive.

  “If Ronni Jarvis was an informer then the IRA could have been to blame, but we usually claimed our kills.” He looked at them defiantly. “And rape wasn’t our weapon of choice. Ronni Jarvis was killed by someone who had nothing to do with the IRA, mark my words. And if they could have got their hands on him in ’83 he would have been dead for getting them and me the blame.”

  His eyes dropped to the floor and he sat in silence for so long that Craig wondered if he would restart. He finally did. “Before you ask, the person I loved left me around the time I was charged and no, I won’t give you their name. I owe them that much for all the hurt.” Craig gazed at him and saw the last glisten of tears. Mulvenna sniffed. “Ronni Jarvis’s murder is thirty years old. What is it you want from me?”

  “There are strong similarities between her death and the woman found this week. And other links that I can’t tell you about.”

  Mulvenna bristled. “I had nothing to do with either death.”

  Craig raised a hand, stilling him mid-defence. “I believe you. But we still need to know your movements last week.” He did believe him and a glance at Andy said that he believed him as well.

  “I don’t want to complain about my sentence for Jarvis. Like I said, I deserved it, for all the others I killed.” He shuddered as if remembering the things that he’d done then stared straight at Craig.

  “When was the woman killed?”

  Craig thought for a moment, calculating the benefit of telling him.

  “Sometime between last weekend and Thursday.”

  Mulvenna nodded. “I’ve an alibi for that whole time.” He half-smiled to himself, as if having an alibi was a novelty for him. “I was on a residential art course up in Ballymena with forty other painters. It ran from Friday 25th for a week. I only got back two days ago. You can check.”

  “We’ll do that.”

  Craig paused, calculating how to use the man’s faux-chivalry to best effect.

  “Trying to overturn your conviction would take years and you don’t seem to want it. But if it wasn’t you who killed Ronni Jarvis then it could have been the man who killed this latest victim, so we need your help with a few questions. OK?”

  Mulvenna nodded. “I’ll give you anything I can.”

  “I know it was a long time ago but tell me what you remember about the period around your arrest.”

  Mulvenna cut across him. “It was yesterday to me. I remember where I was when the news came in that Ronni Jarvis had been found. In Whiterock, off the Falls Road. I didn’t know her so it wasn’t that that made me listen, it was the burying in the sand. That caught everyone’s attention. When the news said the IRA had claimed it there was uproar.” He gave them a wry look. “Not that I would have put it past some of the bastards I knew. Every organisation has its psychopaths, men who take pleasure in the kill. We had our fair share of those.”

  “Anyone stand out as capable of doing this to a woman?”

  Craig knew as soon as he asked that the answer was yes. The look in Mulvenna’s eyes said he only had one name in mind. Mulvenna nodded.

  “A bastard called Declan Wasson. Evil little fucker. I couldn’t stand him. He lorded it over the young recruits like he thought he was God and we all knew that he beat his wife. The word was that he was protected, but it only after he died in ‘89 that we found out who by.”

  “Who?”

  Mulvenna’s stare gave them the answer immediately. The Police or MI5. Craig looked at Andy and nodded. It was impossible to fight a war without information, and informants were highly prized assets. They were hated by their own side and often despised by their handlers, but their information saved lives.

  Mulvenna read their minds and shook his head. “Wasson didn’t inform out of any sense of integrity, if that’s what you’re thinking. This was about power and money for him, pure and simple.”

  “How sure are you that he killed Jarvis?”

  “One hundred percent. He bragged about it once because he thought he was flameproof. I think he thought he was immune to prosecution because of who he knew, but who he knew got him killed.”

  “He’s dead?”

  Mulvenna nodded. “Found shot in the head in ‘89. You didn’t get the IRA blamed for something they didn’t do and walk away from it for long.”

  Craig’s heart sank as he realised what it meant. If Wasson had killed Ronni Jarvis and been shot in ’89, it would explain why there’d been no similar murders since then. Lissy Trainor’s murder was a copycat. But by whom?

  Mulvenna read his train of thought. “Someone’s fucking with you, lads. I’d lay my life that someone just c
opied the murder because the method was so dramatic they knew it would get in the press. Was it the same in every detail, or just in the obvious ones?”

  Craig didn’t answer but his glance told Mulvenna everything he needed to know.

  “Well, it’s just my amateur sleuthing but I’d say, look at what the two cases have in common apart from the way she was killed. Someone’s telling you something. And look at why Wasson was protected and I was framed. ”

  Something in Mulvenna’s eyes told Craig he already knew the answer to the last part, but he needed more information before he was sure. Craig nodded and stood. Andy followed and Mulvenna walked them to the front door. Craig turned before they left.

  “We may need to talk to you again.”

  Mulvenna nodded. “That’s fine. Just don’t waste your time asking me anything about the IRA. Old loyalties die hard.”

  ***

  Craig drove along Strand Road then pulled up outside a café. They drank their coffee in the car, each man mulling over his thoughts. Finally Andy spoke.

  “Mulvenna basically said he was framed by one of us.”

  “Yes.”

  “But why then? And why for a case he was likely to be acquitted on? If they’d wanted to frame him successfully a shooting or bombing would have been a much better bet. Much more his style.”

  “Why then was probably because Wasson did it and they wanted to keep him out of jail. Why choose Mulvenna to frame is the interesting bit.”

  Craig reached into the back seat and lifted Mulvenna’s file, opening it to the charge sheet.

  “They charged him with every shooting and bombing they suspected him of when they convicted him for Jarvis.”

  “So?”

  “Well, the last one before her death had been two years before in ’81. Mulvenna was low profile in ’83, so why suddenly pull his name out of the hat to cover Wasson’s crime?”

  “Why was he low profile for two years?”

  Craig flicked through the pages until he found a reference in the file to the United States. Mulvenna had been over there fund-raising for the IRA from ’81 to ’83, on and off.

  “That’s why he was keeping his head down. He was raising money for ‘the war’. It wouldn’t have done to have him all over the papers here for killing policemen while he was busy glad-handing the yanks.”

  “OK, so then why frame him in ‘83? They could have framed him in ’81 before he left.”

  Craig closed the file before he spoke. “Because someone wanted him out of the way in 1983 for a specific reason and we need to find out who and what that reason was.”

  Chapter Ten

  Monday 8 a.m.

  “Do you need some money, love? Is that what it is?”

  Lucia smiled at her father. He looked so healthy that no-one would ever have believed he’d had a heart attack just seven months before. They were in the kitchen at her parent’s home in Holywood, sitting at the worn trestle table where they’d eaten breakfast since before her feet could reach the floor. Mirella was fussing around her, getting to spoil her baby again and loving it.

  Tom Craig smiled at his wife then raised an eyebrow at his daughter. She was as pretty as ever, her face scrubbed clean of make-up and her tawny hair falling heavily down her back, with the year round tan she and her brother had inherited from their Mum. But she looked exhausted, as if she was carrying a heavy weight. She’d spent an hour on the phone the night before with Richard, so that could be part of it, but she looked more tired now than when she’d gone to sleep. He shook his head in sympathy.

  Richard was a concert pianist with the prestigious London City Orchestra and that entailed touring for eight months of the year. He knew from experience what that meant for the partner left at home. Mirella had been a pianist when they’d met in Venice over forty years before, and she’d always toured. Less after the children were born, but still… She wasn’t selfish, she just needed to perform the way the rest of the world needed to breathe. He’d been the Lucia left at home, except with two small children to care for.

  Mirella had toured for part of every year until she’d retired. It had been lonely and tiring and more than once he’d wondered if it had been worth it for him and the kids. Evenings had been spent on long calls before her concerts, with her nervous and fraught in case her one wrong note spoiled the performance of the whole team. Then late night calls afterwards, on a high if it had gone well, or a low on the rare occasion it fell flat. They’d talked for hours because she needed to, leaving him exhausted at work the next day. Then there were the hours and hours of practice, even when she was home.

  He smiled across the kitchen at his vivacious wife, watching as she piled eggs on a plate and placed them in front of her daughter, chiding her to eat. If he hadn’t managed to get through those years he wouldn’t have Mirella now, and he couldn’t imagine life without her. But he sympathised with Lucia; no, more than that, he empathised. Richard wasn’t being deliberately selfish, any more than Mirella had been, music was just his life and there was little room for anything else.

  He repeated his question and smiled at his daughter, awaiting her reply. He already knew that whatever emerged from her mouth wouldn’t be the truth, he just hadn’t worked out yet why she was going to lie. They’d been thrilled when she’d asked if she could come home for a few days while a leak in her bedroom ceiling was being repaired. Mirella had started baking immediately. But he knew the ceiling wasn’t the truth. He’d always been able to tell when Lucia was lying, even when she was very young. Her nose wrinkled-up in a particular way, just like it was doing now.

  And there was something more. The old Lucia would have camped out in her living room while her bedroom ceiling was being repaired. Anything rather than give up her independence and move home. There were only two reasons she wasn’t doing that. She was broke, or worse, something was frightening her. He prayed it was the first and waited for her reply.

  “No, Dad. I’m fine honestly. In fact I got a pay-rise last week.”

  He nodded, knowing it was the second reason. She was afraid of something. He thought about how to frame his next question without making her bolt. Lucia had been independent since she was three, or had thought she was. He remembered her stomping around the front garden, railing about not being allowed out into the street. Passers-by had laughed at the angelic looking toddler ranting about the injustice of it all. It explained her urge to march every weekend, righting the wrongs of the world. Marc did it too, but in a different way. He shook his head, wondering how they’d bred two such strong-minded kids. A glance at his fiery wife gave him a clue.

  Mirella walked over to the trestle carrying a pile of toast. He knew that his plate of bacon sat on the sideboard, but she knew better than to uncover it while their vegetarian daughter was sitting in the room.

  “Lucia, why you not eating?”

  She stared at her daughter’s small hand pointedly. “Look how thin you are. Richard will not find you when he returns.”

  Lucia laughed at the image and quickly lifted a piece of toast. “Look, Mum, I’m eating. I promise you that by the time I move back to my apartment I’ll be fat. OK?”

  Mirella threw her a sceptical look and laughed. Tom Craig watched as his daughter continued to neatly avoid his eyes, confirming his conclusion that something was worrying her. He just couldn’t work out what it was.

  ***

  Craig gazed at the two files in front of him, his eyes shooting back and forth between them as he jotted things down on a list. It was headed ‘similarities 1983/2013’ and so far it was five items long. Woman, strangled, buried, Portstewart beach and Melanie Trainor, first as the senior investigating officer and now as a parent mourning her child’s loss. No matter how he cut it, it was too big a connection to dismiss. He yawned, then took another sip of coffee and glanced at his watch, startled by the time. Eight-fifteen, he promised to meet the others at breakfast fifteen minutes before, although he reckoned Saturday night’s hangover followed by a da
y’s work might have slowed them down a bit.

  He grabbed his jacket and headed for the door then stopped and turned back, lifting the page. It was a working breakfast and it was time to gauge their reactions to a few things. Two minutes later he was in the dining room gazing at two bleary faces. John hadn’t arrived yet and when did he’d probably look as rough as the rest. Liam was holding his head moaning.

  “Now I know what weekends are for. You don’t notice the benefit until you don’t have one.”

  Craig shot him a rueful look. “Sorry Liam. We’ll take time off when this is over, I promise.”

  “As long as I can spend my time here. Sleeping. That way I’ll get some rest. I swear our Rory has the best pair of lungs this side of the Irish Sea and he seems to think our bedtime is the signal to try to them out!”

  Liam had a three-year-old daughter and a ten-month-old son, so two days sleep in a bed sixty miles from home was a holiday for him.

  Andy laughed and slapped him on the back. “We’re planning our first, hey.”

  “Well, keep practicing and pray you don’t succeed, that’s my suggestion. ‘Cos when you do your bed will never be your own again.”

  Liam gave a martyred look that made them all laugh just as John wandered in with a folder in his hand. He dropped it on the table without preamble and grabbed a seat, turning it round so that his arms were hanging over the back. His hangover seemed to have worn off quicker than theirs had.

  “Good morning, gentlemen. I’ve just been for a walk on the Strand.” He cast a look at their grey faces. “By the looks of you, you should all try it. It’s a lovely day out there.”