The Broken Shore

by Catriona King

  “Davy, this is dynamite and it can’t go outside the team. Don’t forward the e-mails, please, save them in a protected folder and download everything onto a CD then have a car bring it to me. Brief Annette and Jake to be discrete as well please.”

  “But w…we can’t ignore this, boss. It can’t be covered up!”

  Nicky glanced across the room at the sound of Davy’s raised voice and wandered over to see what was up. Craig went to snap his head off then stopped himself. He would never cover something up but he could see how it appeared. Davy would understand what he’d meant in a second. He did.

  “God, I’m s…sorry, boss. I didn’t mean that. I…”

  “Don’t worry, Davy. I know what you meant. We’re not covering anything up, the very opposite in fact. There are people in the force and MI5 who won’t want this to go any further and they may already have killed Lissy to prevent it. If it’s just on your computer drive it could be wiped. We need to keep it safe. When we have more facts, I’ll go to the CC myself.”

  “Yes, yes. You’re right. Tell me what you w…want me to do.”

  “Just what I said before and send the disc up now. Can you keep the de-coder at The Met in the dark?”

  “Yes, no problem. He only worked on fragments of the code, he never saw the whole thing.”

  “Fine. Good work, Davy. Very good work. Now I know Nicky will be standing beside you trying to find out what’s going on, because she’s nosy.”

  “Can I tell her you said that?”

  Craig laughed loudly. “Not if you value your life. Just put her on. I’ll talk to you again later.”

  Davy transferred the call to Nicky and started to tidy his files.

  “Well, sir?”

  Craig could picture her wry look all the way from Portstewart. Her tone said that she expected to be updated on what he and Davy had been talking about. She was caught on the hop by Craig’s next words.

  “What’s Annette up to, Nicky?”

  ***

  Lucia locked the front door of the shop and turned the ‘Gone for lunch. Back in thirty minutes’ sign towards the street, then she sat down with a copy of ‘Elle Decor’ and the tub of pasta that Mirella had forced into her hand at eight a.m. She had to admit living at home had its perks.

  She was perusing the living-space pages, wondering which lurid colour her Mum was going to paint the house next, when she heard a noise behind her. A single loud bang was followed by the shop’s back door scraping open. She froze for a moment as she heard an unfamiliar voice calling her name, then quickly relaxed at the sight of Ross Devlin, the charity’s new regional manager.

  “Lucia? Hello, is anyone here?”

  He was standing in the doorway of the storage room, wearing a wide smile and carrying a file of papers in his hand.

  “God, Ross, you scared the life out of me.”

  “Sorry. I know I should have phoned, but I was just passing and thought I’d drop in.”

  He pulled up a stool and sat facing her across the counter, waving her on with her lunch. Lucia nodded towards the coffee pot and poured him a cup.

  “Was it me you wanted, or Joan? She’s on a day off for her daughter’s wedding, so I said I’d cover.”

  He smiled and a strange expression crossed his face. “Yes, I know. It was you I wanted to talk to.”

  Lucia handed him the coffee. “OK, shoot. What can I help you with?”

  She watched him as he sipped the drink. He was new to the charity and they’d only met a couple of times before at management meetings. He was about forty, slim and pale, but not unattractive. They all wondered why he wasn’t married, but then why not? Marc and John were his age and they hadn’t tied the knot. Maybe he wanted to do it once and forever, instead of divorcing because he’d married too young. Devlin drank his coffee then opened the file in front of him, turning to a page near the back.

  “There’s a discrepancy in the shop’s inventory, Lucia, and I’ve been sent to check it out.”

  She was surprised. It was one of the charity’s biggest receiving shops, where people left donations every day. Joan had the system for sorting the goods and selling them on, down pat. She tried to read the page upside down and gave up.

  “What sort of discrepancy? Joan Irwin’s one of our best shop managers, Ross.”

  He smiled tightly. “Your defence of her is admirable, and I’m sure you’re right. But I still have to do an audit. We need to sort through all the donations brought in this week and check if they’ve been entered correctly in the book.”

  “That will take hours! I’m opening again in five minutes.”

  He shook his head. “Sorry, no. We’re closed for the afternoon.” He glanced at her pasta. “When you’ve finished your lunch we’ll start. No hurry.”

  She shrugged and took another drink then got ready to roll up her sleeves.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Right Liam, get the uniforms to lift O’Carolan ASAP and I need to see you and Andy before he arrives.”

  “It’s past lunchtime and my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut, boss. Can we meet over a bite to eat?”

  The pleading in Liam’s voice made Craig laugh and he glanced at the clock. He was right. It was almost two o’clock and he hadn’t noticed.

  “Fine. But we can eat while we work. Ask the desk to send in some sandwiches and tea and get Andy down to the interview room.”

  It was on the tip of Liam’s tongue to say ‘keep your hair on’ then he thought of Craig’s hair and smiled. It was so thick it stood on end sometimes, especially when he raked his hands through it, like he did nearly every day. Nicky’d bought him some girly hairspray as a joke once to keep it flat. He grinned, remembering. He’d never heard Craig use language quite that bad before.

  His thoughts remained private and instead he said. “Give me five” and ordered O’Carolan’s lift, then he wandered to the interview corridor to see what was rattling the boss’ cage. Five minutes later he and Andy were gawping openly at Craig.

  “You can’t be serious, hey? You think the ACC took a hit out on her own kid? No way. You’ve lost it, Marc.”

  Liam grinned at Andy’s turn of phrase. They were both D.C.I.s but Andy had never worked directly for Craig and somehow it gave him a different approach. He might think the boss had lost it as well, but he’d never say it in quite that blunt a way. He watched Craig closely to see how he took the words. He just shrugged and took another drink of tea.

  “I didn’t say that she did it, Andy. I said that we have to rule her out.”

  Craig wrapped up the remains of his sandwich and potted it into the bin then turned to face them both.

  “Look. Lissy didn’t get on with her mother, that much we know. She was also keen on Human Rights Law. Maybe she saw the O’Carolan case as a way to get back at her Mum, or get her attention somehow. God knows it sounds as if she had little enough of that growing up.”

  “But if she re-opened Mulvenna’s conviction she could have ruined her Mum. Surely she couldn’t have hated her enough for that, hey?”

  Craig shook his head slowly. “Young people have strong feelings about things, Andy. Lissy was obviously passionate enough about Human Rights Law to do a Masters in it, so maybe she wanted to right a wrong and her Mum getting hurt in the process was acceptable damage in her eyes. Who knows?”

  Liam wiped his mouth and joined in. “What if someone else, Wasson’s handler, found out what Lissy and O’Carolan were about to do and took out a hit on her. MI5 have been known to get their hands dirty before.”

  Craig squinted in thought. “It’s a possibility, I suppose, but Wasson’s handler’s long retired. The man I spoke to said they sanctioned Wasson getting off for Jarvis’ death, although they’d taken a bit of persuading, but they hadn’t sanctioned Mulvenna being framed. They said the decision to frame him was local. Very local.” He shook his head. “I really doubt they would kill Lissy thirty years later to protect Wasson’s memory or Melanie Trainor’s career. Th
is doesn’t feel like a government hit.”

  He sat in silence for a moment, half-expecting Liam to jump in with a quip, but nothing came. Andy restarted.

  “The other rape cases have drawn a blank. Either the victims and their families have died, moved away or are unable to testify, or they have solid alibis for that week. That leaves us with a short-list of James O’Carolan, the ACC, Jonno Mulvenna or his young doppelgänger.”

  Liam shook his head.

  “Nah. O’Carolan wouldn’t have killed Lissy if she was helping re-open his mother’s case and why would Mulvenna have bothered killing her? He didn’t even object to being convicted. My money’s on the ACC or this Mulvenna lookalike, whoever he is. Uniform are saturating the town with his photo now.”

  Craig nodded and stood up. “Good. I agree. We’ve narrowed the field to two with one of them in the wind and the other too senior to interview until we’ve exhausted every other avenue. Now, let’s see what O’Carolan has to say about giving a false alibi and what he can tell us about Lissy’s last day.”

  ***

  James O’Carolan was just as angry as the first time they’d interviewed him. His face was red and he was drumming his fingers on the table so hard that they could hear it through the interview room’s wooden door. Craig signalled Andy to watch from the viewing room then he nodded Liam on. He was holding the disc Davy had sent up from Belfast thirty minutes before and Liam set a laptop on the table’s Formica top, opening its lid theatrically and booting it up.

  O’Carolan thrust his head forward as Craig sat down, stopping an inch from his face. Craig didn’t flinch. He’d faced real hard men too often in his career to let a yuppie rattle his cage.

  “Hello again, Mr O’Carolan. Do you know why you’re here?”

  He waited thirty seconds for the reply that didn’t come then carried on, turning the disc over in his hand.

  “Do you know what this is, Mr O’Carolan?” Silence. “No? All right then, I’ll tell you. But first, would you like a solicitor present? It is your right, although if you’ve nothing to hide then why would you want one?”

  O’Carolan locked eyes with him and Craig stared back, unblinking, with all the confidence of the upper hand. O’Carolan broke the gaze first and Liam silently punched the air. He loved it when prisoners tried that one with Craig, they always lost. He reckoned he’d practiced staring into the mirror when he was a kid.

  O’Carolan wasn’t a prisoner, he could walk out any time he liked, but he didn’t have the wit to work that out. Finally the computer booted up and Craig handed Liam the disc to insert. As he clicked it open O’Carolan finally spoke.

  “Why am I here, again?” He spat the last word out as if it somehow underlined their incompetence for not having asked everything the time before. Craig smiled and waved at the computer’s back.

  “Why were you in e-mail contact with Lissy Trainor? And before you start denying it we have all of your e-mails here, decrypted.”

  Instead of looking shocked as they’d expected him to do, O’Carolan yawned.

  “I wondered how long that would take. Well, if you’ve got them then you know what we were talking about, without me having to spell it out.”

  “You were planning to work together on re-opening the Veronica Jarvis case, to show that Declan Wasson had killed her and Jonno Mulvenna was framed.”

  O’Carolan applauded slowly. “Give that man a prize. Got it in one.”

  Liam leaned forward angrily. It was all right them taking the piss out of each other but not some scrote who worked in IT.

  “Watch your mouth, son.”

  O’Carolan jerked forward. “Or what? You’ll beat me up like you usually do? Is that it?”

  Craig motioned Liam back imperceptibly and smiled. “You seem to have a very low opinion of the police, Mr O’Carolan. Is that because of your mother?”

  “Amongst other things. I was lifted too often for being drunk as a student as well.”

  “Weren’t we all.”

  The room fell into tense silence and Craig shifted his body language to a more conciliatory stance. When he felt the atmosphere calm he motioned Liam to turn the screen towards their guest and give him back some control. O’Carolan scrolled quickly through the pages until he reached the last one, then he nodded. The e-mails were all there verbatim, including the one where he’d arranged to meet Lissy the Sunday before she died.

  “She didn’t turn up.”

  “Sorry? Who didn’t?”

  O’Carolan smiled wryly. “You know who. Lissy. We’d arranged to meet on the promenade at six o’clock, but I waited for two hours and she never showed. I got pissed off and left. The first time I knew she was dead was when I heard it on the news.”

  “How did you communicate six o’clock? It’s not in the e-mails.”

  “Yes it is.” He pointed to a sentence. ‘Meet you at the front then.’ “Six words, six o’clock.”

  Another code.

  “Why didn’t you tell us you’d arranged to meet? Why give us a false alibi?”

  O’Carolan snorted sceptically. “Same answer to both. Once I’d heard she was dead I knew how it would look for me, and your track record with framing people isn’t great.”

  “Fair enough. Did you ever get to meet her?”

  The young man shook his head. “Never. We just e-mailed each other. It was a pity, I was looking forward to it. She sounded like a nice girl. Better than her bitch of a mother.”

  Craig ignored the comment and motioned Liam to shut down the computer while he carried on. “Who approached who first?”

  “Lissy e-mailed me at work. She’d seen a piece I’d written for a magazine and looked into my mother’s case. We e-mailed back and forth a bit and I told her about my suspicions on the Jarvis case in ’83. She dug a bit more on Wasson and said she felt there was something there and she wanted to write her Masters on it. Maybe help me get some peace.”

  And get back at her mother as well… O’Carolan’s account fitted with everything Davy had said. Ten more minutes of questions didn’t reveal anything that made him a viable suspect in Lissy’s death. When they finished questioning him, he looked sad. Nothing like the belligerent man who entered the room an hour before. As Craig walked him to the front door of the station, O’Carolan turned and spoke.

  “Lissy was kind and brave. I’m sorry she’s dead. My Mum would have liked her.”

  He was right. The more they discovered about Lissy Trainor the sadder her death became. She’d had a great future ahead until someone had taken it away and Craig knew they were finally closing in on who that someone was.

  ***

  By three o’clock, the shelves in the charity shop’s storage room had been emptied onto the floor and the items arranged into four large piles: toys, clothes, household goods and bric-a-brac. Lucia took the list Ross handed her and started to tick off the items in the toy pile one by one, while he did the same with household goods.

  The room was stifling hot, despite the fact it was November. Lucia opened the door onto the street and slipped off her heavy jumper, revealing a black t-shirt underneath. If she was this hot, she had no idea how Ross was coping in his suit. She knelt by the door and carried on with her count, completely missing the look in Ross Devlin’s eyes. He scanned her slender body slowly, taking in each curve and inch of tanned skin, until his glance finally fell on her legs. Lucia felt his eyes before she felt his touch. She turned just in time to see him reach out to stroke her leg.

  She recoiled in shock. “What are you doing, Ross?”

  He didn’t answer, lunging towards her instead. She went to jump up but he grabbed her ankle and pulled her towards him across the floor. She scrambled for some purchase but the floor was slick and she could feel herself sliding, knowing exactly what she was sliding to. She reached frantically for the edge of the metal shelving and grasped it, then clung on, kicking hard at his face.

  She used all her breath to shout a ‘No’ so loudly that he momentarily los
t his grip in shock and she managed to struggle to her feet. She rushed through the open door into the yard pushing her way past the rubbish bins and towards the code-operated gate.

  Ross Devlin watched her run, smiling to himself. He’d been watching her for weeks, waiting for the moment he could get her alone. He’d planned it for night time and her flat, but she’d moved to her parents this week and put paid to that. The shop was the natural alternative and Joan Irwin’s wedding invitation had given him the perfect chance.

  Lucia ran without looking back, afraid to see how close he was. She’d just reached the latticed fence when she felt his hot breath on her neck. Ross wrapped his arms around her lifting her off her feet and she knew that if they re-entered the shop she’d no hope of escape. She pushed her full weight back against him and they toppled together onto the ground. His head cracked the concrete with a sickening thud. He was dazed but he was still gripping her hard, so Lucia did what she’d learned in the self-defence class Marc had insisted she take. She stamped as hard as she could on his instep with her heel and elbowed him in the stomach, winding him. He loosened his grip for a moment and she leaped to her feet and stamped hard on his groin. Then she ran to the gate and punched in the code as fast as she could. Five seconds later she was in the street, free, screaming at the top of her lungs and waving frantically at the patrol car outside to come.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Jake pushed the gallery door open and stood scanning the white walls while he waited for attention from the bored looking girl at the desk. She flicked her eyes over him in a quick up-and-down then smiled, assessing his net worth as worthy of the effort of rising from her seat. She cat-walked her way towards him like an expensive figurine come to life, her grey silk dress and long blonde hair reflecting the gallery’s location at the elegant end of the Lisburn Road. She smiled briefly then spoke in an affected voice.