Thrown Down

by Menon, David

  ‘Well from what you’ve said he didn’t deserve for anyone to be there for him’.

  ‘No, he didn’t, he didn’t deserve it. I was glad when they came and told us he was dead. I jumped for flaming joy. We were all free, especially Mammy’.

  Patricia felt a strange kind of elation. This had been the first time she’d ever told anyone about what she’d done to her father, except for Padraig, and though she’d been dreading ever having to it hadn’t actually felt all that bad. The only thing about it was that it was only the tip of the iceberg. There was so much more to tell and she didn’t know if she could manage unburdening herself of the rest.

  ‘Patricia, how did you meet the kind of guys who’d do that to your Dad?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Dennis, I was a working class Catholic girl. We all knew guys of that kind, especially those of us who were going out with a member of the IRA’.

  ‘Excuse me? Say that again?’

  ‘His name was Fergal’ said Patricia, ignoring the sense of horror in her husband’s voice. ‘He was on the IRA Army Council. The British were after him for years but he was always able to outwit them. Not that it was hard. Most of the upper levels of the British Army were upper class private school British establishment pricks who wouldn’t know a sense of justice from a sense of smell. I sometimes used to feel sorry for the ordinary foot soldiers who it seemed to me were like lambs to the slaughter. Don’t get me wrong, they were the enemy and I viewed them as such and I can still remember every one of the petty humiliations they dealt out to us on the streets almost every single day’.

  ‘What happened to Fergal?’

  ‘He got an OBE’.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘One between the ears’ Patricia explained, calmly. ‘A bullet in the back of the head. The IRA accused him of having passed on information to the British and they executed him over the border in the Republic somewhere. That’s when I knew I had to get out. Sooner or later they’d have tried to put something down to me. Guilt by association and all that and I wouldn’t have had Fergal there to protect me’.

  ‘Dare I ask if you loved Fergal?’

  ‘I thought I did’ she answered before looking up at him. ‘Until I met you and realised just what real love was’.

  ‘Do you really mean that?’ Dennis questioned. He was struggling to feel reassured by his wife’s declaration.

  ‘Don’t start doubting me now, Dennis, please’.

  ‘Or was I just a rebound job?’

  ‘No!’ she answered emphatically. ‘Dennis, I married you for all the right reasons and you’ve got to believe that’.

  ‘Well I don’t know, Patricia’ said Dennis, gravely. ‘You tell me you were the girlfriend of someone who organized the death of innocent people’.

  ‘It wasn’t like that, Dennis!’

  ‘He was a terrorist, Patricia!’

  Patricia slapped Dennis’s face and immediately regretted it. The look in his eyes broke her heart.

  ‘Dennis, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry, I didn’t mean that’.

  ‘Get in the car’

  Dennis drove them the short distance to the hotel where they booked in for the night. They were shown up to their room and then Dennis said he was going for a walk to get his head together and he’d see her later.

  ‘Do you want me to come with you?’ asked Patricia anxiously. Denis had never given her the silent treatment before and if she could turn back the clock and stop herself from having slapped him she so would. How on earth was she ever going to get this back? How was she going to convince him that although she’d never forget Fergal he’d never been the King of her heart like Dennis was.

  ‘No’ said Dennis. ‘I want to be by myself’.

  ‘Dennis, please, you’ve got to let me explain’.

  ‘I don’t have to let you do anything’ Dennis replied without looking at her. ‘I’ve never been that kind of husband. We’ve always been a partnership. Or so I thought’.

  ‘But we still are!’ she insisted. ‘Nothing about what’s happened today need change anything about us unless we let it. Dennis, please!’

  ‘I need some time on my own, Patty. I’ll see you later’.

  A couple of hours later when Dennis had walked round the local neighbourhood which was mainly to do with highways and open countryside, he got back to the hotel and found Patricia in the bar making what looked like light work of a bottle of shiraz.

  ‘You think that’s going to solve all this?’ said Dennis, gesturing to the bottle which was on a small table in front of her.

  ‘I don’t care whether it does or not’ said Patricia. ‘But it’s helping me right now especially when you look at me like that’.

  ‘I’ll get another glass’ said Dennis. It was getting on for eight o’clock and he was getting pretty hungry. But dinner would have to wait. There were more answers he needed and when he came back from the bar with a glass he poured himself some of the wine and gulped some down. It tasted good but there wasn’t much left. He ordered another bottle.

  ‘Getting stuck in for the night?’ said Patricia. ‘Or do you just want to block it all out?’

  ‘Patricia, how did they know where to find you?’

  ‘That’s what I’d like to know’.

  ‘So it is true that you’ve never had any contact with your family since you left Ireland?’

  ‘Yes, Dennis. I swear to you that’s true’.

  Dennis wondered if she was still lying to him. ‘But the police constable said they’d been contacted by your sister Josephine?’

  ‘I know’.

  ‘So how did she know?’

  ‘I don’t know, Dennis, I really don’t know’.

  ‘And what would they think was so special to you about Padraig’s death? I mean, I presume there’ve been other deaths in the family the last forty years? Like your mother for instance? Why didn’t they let you know about any of those? Why did they wait till now, Patty? That would seem to be the most significant thing we need to know. I mean, do you have any idea?’

  ‘Can we take this back to the room, please? I don’t want to discuss it in the bar here’.

  ‘Did you ring any of the kids?’ asked Patricia once they were back in room 26 on the second floor of this very modern three-storey hotel. She slumped down in the IKEA style dark blue armchair and glanced out of the window. It was still fairly light. The countryside seemed to go on for infinity. That’s what she’d fallen in love with about Australia. It was a vast, open space where people could get lost and never have to return to the source of their pain. It was so different from her days back in West Belfast where nobody could make a move without the whole bloody neighbourhood knowing about it. A shiver went down her spine. She suddenly felt vulnerable. Was someone out there watching her? Is that how they’d managed to track her down? Had they always known where she was and had just been waiting for their chance to reach out and get her?

  ‘No, I didn’t ring any of the kids’ said Dennis almost exasperatedly. ‘Why would I do that? We’ve got to work it out between ourselves first. Or rather you’ve got to tell me the truth’.

  ‘Don’t you think I’ve done that already?’

  ‘No I don’t’ said Dennis who sat down on the end of the bed.

  ‘Thanks’ said Patricia who sounded more confident then even she thought she had a right to be. ‘Glad to hear you haven’t lost your faith in me’.

  ‘Oh for crying out loud, Patty, I don’t blame you for what you did with regard to your father because it sounds like he didn’t deserve any mercy. But you’ve also admitted to having been in a relationship with a terrorist and that’s knocked me for bloody six. I don’t fully understand the cause because I’m not Irish and I didn’t have to live through what you had to. I accept that. But you’re lucky I’m still here to be honest’.

  Patricia suddenly felt very frightened. ‘You wouldn’t leave me?’

  ‘Tell me the rest of your story, Patty’ said Dennis. ‘It’s already begin
ning to sound pretty sordid’.

  ‘Sordid? Well now there’s a nice wee word for what went on back in Northern Ireland when I had to grow up so fast I could barely take notice of anything’.

  ‘Is that when you were going out with Fergal? Did his associations show you things you never should’ve seen? Is that why you ran?’

  ‘Being involved with Fergal wasn’t what made me run, Dennis’.

  ‘Then what did? And where does your brother Padraig come into it? Was he friends with Fergal?’

  ‘Oh yes’ Patricia confirmed. ‘They were as thick as thieves. They were more like brothers’.

  Dennis was beginning to put two and two together. For it all to have ended so dramatically and with Patricia cutting herself from her family all this time must mean that the close bonds between players must’ve been compromised potentially in a fatal way. Patricia, his wife and the mother of his children had already revealed herself as being a totally different woman from the one he knew and loved so dearly. She’d admitted to having gone out with someone who must’ve been involved in the killing of innocent people. Like a lot of Australians who couldn’t claim Irish descent his only knowledge of the Irish ‘troubles’ was from what he’d seen on the nightly news and read about in the paper. He knew there was a peace agreement over there now that had brought much of the violence to an end but he also knew that many had fled from the North of Ireland during the seventies and eighties to a new life in Australia where they’d found peace and an opportunity to leave all that stuff behind them. He could understand if that’s what the story was with Patricia. But she was stirring it up. She was making her own situation sound far more sinister than he’d ever heard before and he wondered just how close she’d come to being part of the IRA herself.

  ‘Did you cover for Fergal or Padraig, Patricia? Is that what this is all about?’

  ‘No’.

  ‘Then what the hell is it all about?’

  ‘They covered for me!’ Patricia blurted out.

  Dennis thought the world had stopped spinning for a moment. ‘Would you mind explaining yourself, please?’

  ‘If you’re looking for the one with blood on their hands then look no further because that was me’ Patricia admitted, tearfully. ‘They paid the price. I got away with it’.

  ‘What? Are you talking about Fergal and your brother Padraig?’

  ‘Yes! And a woman called Deirdre Murphy. Let’s not forget her’.

  THROWN DOWN FIVE

  Detective Superintendent Jeff Barton had little experience of dealing with crimes that carried a sectarian connection to the Northern Ireland troubles. In fact he’d had only one such case to deal with during his career and he was still at school when the IRA bombed Manchester back in 1996. But the more he looked into where he was going to find the answers to the murders of both Padraig O’Connell and Barry Murphy the more he believed that there was a link between the two cases that would make finding those answers all the more difficult.

  ‘This looks like a professional hit to me’ said the pathologist June Hawkins as she stood in the middle of Barry Murphy’s office and looked at the blood stained scene of his slaying. His eyes were still open. The whiskey he’d been holding had spilled all over the floor. ‘Look at the way it was done’ she continued. ‘Right in the middle of his forehead’.

  ‘I agree, June’ said Jeff who was standing with her and DI Ollie Wright. They were surrounded by a forensics team that had begun to trawl every inch of the place for clues of some other identity. The identity of a killer.

  ‘And no sign of a forced entry, sir’ Ollie reminded his boss. ‘And it looked like he’d prepared a glass for his visitor. He was planning to drink with him’.

  ‘So why would someone with whom he was on such friendly terms want to walk in here and kill him?’ Jeff speculated. ‘What had he done to so mortally offend someone that he must’ve previously been on good terms with? This is going to be messy. I just know it’.

  ‘What a waste of all that lovely Irish whiskey now spilt all over the floor’ said June Hawkins. ‘What a criminal waste. I once got very drunk at a pathologists conference in Dublin a few years ago on gallons of Irish whiskey. I don’t remember much but I think I had a rather good time and that it involved the Norwegian delegate in some way. I can’t think how but I’m sure his name was Carl’.

  ‘No, of course not’ said Jeff, smiling.

  ‘I never heard from him again though’ said June, suddenly disappointed. ‘Its funny how that sort of thing happens isn’t it’

  ‘I know’ said Jeff. ‘But can we get back to the bits of Barry Murphy’s brain splattered all over the wall, the floor, his desk and his chair’.

  ‘Sorry, love’ said June, smiling at Jeff. ‘You know how detached we become in this business, Jeff’.

  ‘Yes I do and that’s why we love you. Keep up the good work!’

  ‘She’s quite a case, isn’t she?’ remarked DI Ollie Wright in the car. Jeff was driving them out to Alderley Edge to see the family of Barry Murphy.

  ‘Who? Our June Hawkins? She certainly is. They broke the mould when they made her that’s for sure’.

  Ollie scrolled down his email messages that he was reading on his phone. He’d had an argument with his father last night about the internet. His father said all this technology was taking over the world and the simple way human beings needed to live their lives. Ollie had disagreed saying that his work as a police officer would be made so much harder without access to the internet and computer systems at work. They’d had to beg to differ in the end.

  ‘Now this might be interesting, sir?’ said Ollie as his attention was taken on a particular email from a contact he’d made in the PSNI. ‘Apparently, Padraig O’Connell’s murder victim, the RUC officer James Carson, was shot dead using his own gun’.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yeah’ said Ollie who was reading the rest and taking it all in. ‘The only gun they found with O’Connell’s prints on it was Carson’s official issue handgun’.

  ‘Do they know how that came to be?’

  ‘Yeah’ said Ollie who was reading at the same time as explaining. ‘Apparently at the trial O’Connell claimed that Carson had pulled his gun on him but that they’d got into a scuffle and the gun went off when it had been pointing at Carson. The prosecution never pushed it any further because they were happy to be able to put O’Connell away for a long time without having to clarify any details that might get in the way of that’.

  ‘Where could they have pushed it further to I wonder?’ said Jeff.

  ‘Do you think they might have known but didn’t want to go there for some reason?’

  ‘It’s a possibility’ said Jeff. ‘I tend to think there was probably a lot going on with the justice system in Northern Ireland at that time that even police officers like us wouldn’t get to know about. After our experiences with other recent cases I would not be surprised at anything the establishment did to get its own way and dish something up to the public in the way they want it to be. But there are probably more hidden agendas when it comes to the political affairs of Northern Ireland than there are hidden snakes in a South American rainforest and we’ll only get to know about them when we tread on them’.

  ‘Is that what you think might be happening here, sir?’

  ‘Ollie, we’ve had two murders in the last three days. One victim was a former IRA gunman who murdered a serving police officer and the other was someone whose family suffered at the hands of the IRA when they abducted his mother. I’d bet my life that there’s something going on here that we’ve yet to find’.

  ‘You’re convinced the two cases are linked then, sir?’

  ‘Yes, I am’ Jeff replied. ‘I just don’t know how yet’.

  ‘Well coming back to O’Connell and Carson … O’Connell made a full confession which formed the basis of the prosecution case but the shadow that’s always hung over it all is that the body of James Carson has never been found’.

  ‘Re
ally?’

  ‘Padraig O’Connell had always refused to say what he did with it’.

  When they got to the address they had for the late Barry Murphy neither Jeff nor Ollie could resist being impressed by the appearance of such a grand property sitting behind wrought iron gates on a private road that nobody would just ‘pass by’.

  ‘It looks like BM Cars served its owner well, sir’ said DI Ollie Wright. ‘The company had a turnover that ran into millions after Barry Murphy had built it up over the last twenty years’.

  ‘You say that the rest of his family weren’t involved in the business?’

  ‘No they weren’t, sir’ Ollie confirmed. ‘There seems to have been some kind of rift between Barry and the rest of his family. None of them were employed in the company in any way and the only investment had come from Barry Murphy. He was the sole shareholder’.

  ‘So where did he get his initial investment from?’

  ‘That’s not clear at the moment, sir’.

  ‘But if I know you it will be before long’.

  Ollie smiled. ‘Thank you, sir’.

  The door was opened by a young woman in a white shirt that she was wearing outside her short black skirt. She introduced herself as Tabatha Murphy’s sister Jade Matheson and she led them through into a large round hallway with a high ceiling and doors going off to the left and right. Straight ahead of them was what looked like the lounge area and just to the left of that was a circular staircase going up to the first floor landing which was visible above them as it went all the way round. It wasn’t the biggest of such houses that Jeff had ever seen but it was certainly one of the most ostentatious. Everything about the decoration and the furniture shouted loudly that the people who lived here had pots of money but not necessarily much taste. He and his late wife Lillie Mae had often said that even if they won the lottery and had millions at their disposal they wouldn’t use some of it to fund a move out to a house like this in an area like this. They wouldn’t have felt right although since she’d passed away he’d had more time to reflect on what their future might’ve looked like. And they would’ve been happy anywhere as long as they were together with their son Toby.