04-The Final Silence

by Stuart Neville

  38

  HE SAT ALONE in the cafe, a cup of black tea in front of him, dry toast and a fried egg to eat. A television chattered from its place on the wall. No other customers. The owner sat at the counter, her fat chin rested on her hand, empty eyes pointed towards the screen.

  The toast crunched between his teeth. He had stayed inside all morning, feeling the pressure of the walls around him. That voice in his head, telling him what a terrible mistake he’d made. How the anger had got the better of him, how he might have lost it all. He listened until he could stand it no longer. He had to get out and away.

  The local news played on the television, the earnest presenter rattling off the headlines. Rea Carlisle’s death was no longer the lead item, but second. He felt a mix of relief and resentment.

  ‘And a development in the murder inquiry into the death of Stormont politician Graham Carlisle’s daughter,’ the newsreader said. ‘A suspect has been named. Lauren McCausland has more.’

  He dropped his toast. The knife clattered from his other hand, splashing egg yolk across the plate. His gaze locked on the screen.

  Footage of the house from the day before. Men and women in white overalls coming and going. He held his breath.

  ‘The hunt for the killer of Rea Carlisle took an unexpected turn today,’ the voiceover said.

  The air tight in his chest, pushing out against his ribs. A ringing in his ears.

  Then a still image. An identity photograph, the man’s face against a plain white background.

  He exhaled. Stared.

  ‘Police leading the investigation have named one of their own colleagues, Detective Inspector Jack Lennon, as a person of interest.’

  Jack Lennon. The policeman. The number on Rea’s phone. He felt a smile twitch on his lips.

  Cut to a news conference outside a police station. The woman detective. Her name flashed on the screen. Microphones and voice recorders lined up beneath her chin.

  ‘We believe this person is still in the Greater Belfast area, and we wish to question him urgently. We appeal to anyone who knows of Jack Lennon’s whereabouts, or has had contact with him in the last forty-eight hours, to call us immediately. However, we urge members of the public not to approach him as we believe him to be potentially dangerous.’

  Potentially dangerous. The twitch turned to a grin, died again just as quickly.

  The woman cop, Flanagan, continued: ‘Instead, if you see him, please contact us directly. Thank you, that is all.’

  A flurry of questions from the reporters as she turned away from the camera.

  Poor Rea. She thought a policeman could help her. No one could help her now. But the policeman had the photograph.

  What to do about that?

  What to do about any of it?

  Perhaps he should run. Get away. Leave everything and go.

  Or was that madness talking?

  There was a time, long ago, when he could have chosen a different path. He’d had his chance to keep the blood from his hands, and he did not take it. The choice not taken ceases to exist once that decision is made. A person might as well regret the direction of the wind, or the shape of a cloud.

  He thought of Raymond, and sadness pierced and clawed at him.

  Raymond and he had never had a choice.

  Not in this world.

  The Driver

  19TH MARCH 2003

  DO YOU REMEMBER the driver? How we left him there, the engine still running? Do you remember the blood slashed across the windscreen? The look in his eyes when he saw, when he knew what was going to happen to him?

  That was more than twenty-five years ago. I still think about it. I dream about it. Sometimes I wonder how things would be for us if that night hadn’t happened. Would we have had normal lives? Can people like us ever have normal lives?

  I couldn’t. I was always going to be this way.

  Do you remember how we lay together that night, talking about it? You were shaking. I had to calm you, hold you tight. You cried, said you couldn’t ever do it again, you’d thought you could, but it was too much, too real. Too hard to see it up close. So I had to do it for you.

  We should have been born in a different place. This country was far too small for us. It still is. The minds of the people too closed. They look at us and say, ‘They are not the same.’ And they hate us.

  I felt it when I was a boy. I know you felt it too. They beat everything that was different out of me. They beat me so hard, tried to bend me to their shape so often, that I didn’t know what I was any more. I am neither man nor beast, fish nor fowl. I am the dark place in between. They made me that.

  How can they expect me, us, to behave as normal human beings if they treat us this way? The names they called me. I pretended I didn’t mind, but I did. I’ve stored the anger and hate up until it glows and burns in me, searching for release. Of course it shows itself. Of course others suffer. That is inevitable.

  I have been indoors for a month now. I go outside to buy tinned food, bread, enough to keep me alive. The smell doesn’t bother me. It’s better if I stay inside. The wicked is rattling around inside me, trying to break loose. But I can’t do anything here, not so close to home. It’s too dangerous. I need to be away, some other place, where no one knows me. But there’s no work to take me away.

  One day, I’ll make a mistake. It’s only a matter of time. The wicked will get the better of me. I will be seen, reported, caught. What then?

  Will you abandon me?

  Will you pretend we never lay together in the dark, whispering our secrets? When you see the news report, will you look away as if it’s some stranger’s photograph? Will you become a human being like the rest of them, put the beautiful things we shared behind you?

  That’s the only thing that frightens me. That you will leave me alone, that you’ll go and become one of them. And then who will keep me right?

  I will die before that happens.

  39

  IDA CARLISLE WAITED in the hall for her husband. The good wooden floor creaked beneath her feet. It had cost thousands to put down. And the wallpaper. They’d called it wall covering in the fancy shop where she’d bought it, but it was just wallpaper really. And the bevelled mirror, and the telephone table, and the ornamental crystal.

  So much money squandered on things, just things, nothing that truly mattered. She remembered the feeling of pride when the sales girl had told her the price of the wallpaper – per roll, mind, not for the whole lot – and realising she could afford it. Graham worked hard, she thought. We deserve nice things.

  He was working now. Even as his only child lay on a slab with frost on her eyelashes, Graham Carlisle had gone to work. To see some people, he said. Important matters to attend to. He said he’d be back after lunch. The clock on the wall read close to three.

  Ida had been standing here for an hour and a half. Waiting.

  She heard the Range Rover’s engine. Tyres on the gravel, the engine dying. The car door opening and closing.

  Ida closed her eyes and whispered a small prayer. When she opened them again, she saw her husband’s silhouette through the glass of the door. He turned his key in the lock, let himself in, closed the door behind him.

  Graham Carlisle froze, staring at Ida.

  She raised her right hand, aimed the pistol at his chest.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came. His tongue worked behind his teeth, clicking wetly.

  Like most politicians, Graham was allowed to keep a personal protection weapon. He had shown Ida how to use it, proud of himself for having such a thing. And pride was a sin. The Lord was punishing them both for their sin.

  She indicated the good room. Where they hosted visitors. ‘Go in there,’ she said.

  He swallowed, found the nerve to speak. ‘Ida, what are you doing?’

  ‘Just go in there and sit down,’ she said.

  Graham stepped towards the open door, his eyes locked on her hand. ‘Please listen to me, Ida.’r />
  ‘No, you’re going to listen to me,’ she said, following him into the room. ‘Sit down.’

  ‘No, Ida, please listen—’

  ‘Sit down!’ The words tore at her throat.

  Graham dropped onto the couch, his hands raised.

  ‘Ida, you could kill me with that.’

  ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Now shut your mouth.’

  Graham went quiet, and very still. She could barely hear his breathing as he stared up at her.

  ‘Why did you do it?’ she asked.

  He wet his lips. Shook his head. ‘Do what?’

  She couldn’t keep the tremor from her voice. ‘Why did you kill our daughter?’

  His mouth opened. His eyes glistened.

  ‘Why?’ she asked.

  ‘Do you really think I did that?’

  ‘Don’t lie to me,’ she said. ‘Not now. You’ve lied to me for all the years I’ve known you. For the love of God, don’t lie to me now.’

  A tear rolled down his cheek. ‘How can you think that?’

  ‘You’ve killed before,’ she said as she battled to keep control of herself. ‘You can do it again.’

  ‘That was a lifetime ago,’ he said. ‘I was a different man then. A boy, really. But you’re talking about my child. My own daughter.’

  ‘Your daughter,’ Ida echoed. ‘You never treated her like your own. You never really loved her, did you?’

  ‘Of course I did.’

  ‘Well, you never showed it. You cared more about your career than you did about her. Or me. You were never there for us. I raised her by myself.’

  ‘I was building a life for us.’

  ‘Not for us. For you.’

  ‘For us. Look at all the things you have. This house. All these things. You and Rea never wanted for anything. I slaved my guts out for the both of you.’

  ‘No, it was never for us. It was all for you. And you thought our daughter would ruin it for you, so you killed her. You bastard, you beat her to death so she wouldn’t go to the police.’

  Graham slid from the couch, down to the floor, onto his knees. ‘No, I didn’t, I swear to our Lord Jesus, I did not harm our Rea. Didn’t you see the news this morning?’

  ‘What news?’

  ‘They named a suspect. That policeman Rea used to go out with. You said you’d met him. They named him this morning.’

  Ida took a step closer. ‘They’re wrong. They’re all wrong. I know you did it. Don’t tell me you didn’t.’

  ‘I didn’t kill her. I swear to you.’

  ‘Then where were you when she died?’

  ‘I told you, I was swimming.’

  ‘You weren’t,’ she said. ‘I know that’s a lie. Tell me the truth.’

  He closed his eyes for a moment, breathed deep, opened them again. ‘All right. You want the truth.’

  She kept the pistol trained on his forehead. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I never left the Brigade.’

  She lowered the pistol a few inches. ‘What?’

  ‘I’m not active any more. Back then, before we married, I told them I wouldn’t be involved in any actions. But they asked me to stay as an adviser.’

  ‘You’re still …’

  ‘Just as an adviser. On political issues. I liaise between them and the party.’

  ‘But they’re criminals,’ Ida said. ‘Drug dealers. Murderers.’

  ‘We’re steering them away from all that. Trying to engage them. Trying to get them to think of their communities and what they can do for them.’

  Ida raised the gun once more. ‘You’ve been lying to me all this time. You told me you were out of it.’

  ‘I’ve been working with them. Getting them away from all the sectarian nonsense, getting them to see past all the bigotry and the flags and the fear of the other side. Getting them to think about jobs, their children’s education, the things that really matter.’

  He held his hands out before him, gesticulating to emphasise his point. Like a speech in the Assembly. Always the politician.

  ‘That doesn’t explain anything,’ she said. ‘That doesn’t bring my Rea back.’

  ‘I’m trying to tell you where I was that evening, and why I had to lie to the police. I was at a Brigade meeting. In East Belfast.’

  Ida’s hands quivered. Tears blurred her vision. ‘You killed her. I know you did. You were afraid she’d go to the police with that book. With that photograph. Don’t you dare tell me any more lies.’

  He shuffled forward on his knees. ‘I’m telling you the truth. Do you know how hard it is for me to tell you this? Please believe me, I am not lying.’

  Ida stepped backwards. ‘Don’t come any closer.’

  He got one foot under him. Reached out a hand. ‘You have to listen to me, Ida. Please give me the gun.’

  ‘No,’ she said. Tears hot on her cheeks. Her words rising from a growl to a shriek. ‘No, I’m not listening to you any more. I’ve listened to you for thirty-five years, and you’ve never once told me the truth. I’ve taken your abuse, your putting me down, your controlling me, suffocating me, I’ve taken it for a lifetime and I’m not going to take it any more.’

  Her voice rang between the walls, consonants and vowels sharpened by hysteria.

  ‘Give me the gun,’ Graham said. ‘Ida, give me the gun.’

  ‘No. I won’t. Now you’re going to listen to me,’ she said.

  His hand swiped towards hers. She lifted the gun away before he could grab it, brought it back to aim at his chest.

  ‘Give it to me,’ he said.

  ‘Shut your mouth, you lying bastard.’

  He reached once more for the pistol. Once more, she whisked it away. Again, she aimed for his heart.

  His face hardened. ‘Ida, one last time, give me that gun.’

  ‘No, I—’

  He launched up and forward, grabbing. His hands locked around hers, strong and hard. He pulled the pistol towards his chest, pressed the muzzle against his sternum.

  ‘You really think I killed Rea? Then go on. You do what you have to do. Punish me for it.’

  The pistol held seventeen bullets. Ida had counted every one. All she had to do was squeeze the trigger and send one ripping and tearing into his heart.

  ‘Do it,’ he said.

  ‘I hate you,’ she said.

  Her grip softened, and her finger slipped out of the trigger guard. He removed the gun from her hands, popped out the magazine, checked the chamber, then threw the pistol to the floor.

  The back of Graham’s hand made fireworks explode in Ida’s head. As she fell, her cheek coming to rest on the carpet, she saw the small black hole of the gun barrel, a dark tunnel disappearing into infinity.

  40

  THE BMW M5’S firm suspension did Lennon no favours. Every pothole jarred up through the wheels, through the floor, and up into his side. He tried to keep the pain from his face. If Roscoe Patterson noticed from the driver’s seat, he didn’t let on.

  ‘So who’s this friend of yours?’ Lennon asked.

  ‘An auld hand,’ Patterson said. ‘Dixie Stoops. He’s from before my time, but there’s nothing he doesn’t know.’

  Patterson steered the car through the estates and side streets that branched off the Upper Newtownards Road, to the east of the city. Union flags everywhere, the kerbstones painted red, white and blue.

  Lennon had patrolled these streets back when he wore a uniform. Hatred and distrust of the police wasn’t as overt as in republican areas of the city – he seldom had stones thrown at him – but cops were nonetheless unwelcome. The people were as likely to clam up when asked if they’d seen or heard anything.

  ‘Here we go,’ Patterson said as he steered the BMW into a walled yard lined with sheds and a Portakabin. Timber lay stacked along one side, pallets of bricks and concrete blocks along another. The sign over the gate read MORRIS MCREA & SONS CONTRACTORS.

  Patterson pulled up alongside a low prefab building where a heavy-shouldered man wait
ed by the door. He got out, and Lennon followed, suppressing a grunt as he hauled himself out of the car.

  ‘You rightly?’ Patterson asked the man at the door.

  ‘Aye. Yourself?’

  ‘Aye.’

  The man opened the door and stepped back to allow Patterson and Lennon to enter. The interior was lit by dimmed bulbs, the walls painted black, decorated with flags and banners, a signed Glasgow Rangers football shirt, framed photographs of loyalists who had been killed, whether by republicans, the security forces, or their own people. A dozen round tables, each with an ashtray. A pool table. A poker machine. At one end, a makeshift bar and a row of coolers filled with bottles and cans lined up behind it.

  There were illegal clubs like this scattered around Belfast, all of them run by paramilitaries of one stripe or another. Places where hard drinking was done by hard men, day or night.

  At one of the tables, in the darkest corner, sat a lone man. Patterson headed towards him, Lennon following. The man stared at them both as they approached, his face like red-veined marble. Pushing seventy, Lennon guessed, but still strong. He kept his thick tattooed forearms across his belly, didn’t offer to shake Patterson’s hand.

  ‘This is Dixie Stoops,’ Patterson said. ‘Dixie, this is the fella I was telling you about.’

  Dixie let his gaze crawl from one man to the other while he lifted a can of Harp lager from the table and took a swig.

  ‘I know your face,’ he said. ‘You were all over the news at lunchtime. They said you killed that wee girl.’

  ‘I didn’t do it,’ Lennon said.

  Dixie cracked a smile. ‘Funny, I said the same thing when they put me away.’

  Lennon felt the urge to slap the beer can from his hand, throw his weight around like he used to. Show Dixie who he was dealing with. But Lennon didn’t have the strength any more. Even at his advanced age, Dixie Stoops would eat him alive.

  ‘You arrested me one time,’ Dixie said.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Aye. You and some uniform boys stopped the car I was in. We had a rifle and some rounds in the boot. You gave me a hiding.’

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Lennon said. ‘I must’ve been having a bad day.’

  ‘Not as bad as me.’