by Menon, David
‘Patricia Knight and Detective Constable Collette Ryan of the Victoria State Police?, ma’am’
‘Yes? How did you know?’
Jeff treated her to his best appeasing smile. ‘I had a call from Ryan last night, ma’am and she filled me in on a few things’
‘Well in that case I’m sorry you had to find out that way’.
‘Well what matters now are the implications of what she told me’ said Jeff. ‘Padraig O’Connell has a sister in Australia who was an active member of the IRA until she left the province in nineteen seventy-six. Why did she leave? Was she forced to do so? And why did our colleagues in the Victoria state police receive a message from special branch here to go and tell Patricia Knight that her brother was dead when they didn’t deem it fit to tell us, ma’am?’
‘Yes, I agree Jeff there are some bewildering unknowns in all of this’ said Chambers. ‘But we are all supposed to be on the same side’.
‘Isn’t it the same definition though, ma’am, as the so-called special relationship this country is supposed to have with the USA? We’re on the same side when it suits them? I’m particularly recalling Argentina at the time of the Falklands, and Grenada. I seem to recall the USA seemed to need reminding of that special relationship in both those cases’.
‘Oh God!’ Chambers cursed. ‘Why do you have to be a good police officer and think as well? Why can’t I just bark orders out at you like in the old days?’
Jeff smiled. ‘Because it wouldn’t suit you, ma’am. It’s not your style’.
‘I don’t know so much sometimes’ said Chambers. ‘Anyway, sit down, Jeff’.
Jeff sat down in front of her desk. It had already been a morning of developments in the investigation, not least of which was the apparent suicide of poor Carol Anderson. Jeff felt sorry that she’d taken such a drastic step. She’d seemed such a sad character. But he was also convinced that she could’ve told them more about the elusive Chris O’Neill and that’s why he was having her flat done over by the forensics team. He had the distinct feeling that they would find traces of someone known as Chris O’Neill in the flat.
There was a knock on the door and another man came in. He was stocky, somewhere in his thirties and dressed in a light blue suit with white shirt and dark blue tie. He looked for all the world like an air steward who’d eaten perhaps one or two too many leftover passenger meals. Jeff recognized him from somewhere and then the penny dropped. He held out a hand and shook it.
‘Detective Superintendent Jeff Barton, this is Detective Inspector Howard Freeman from our special branch unit’.
‘Yes, I remember you’ said Jeff, standing up and turning to Freeman. ‘Weren’t you at DI Rebecca Stockton’s funeral?’
‘Yes, I was’ Freeman confirmed. ‘Rebecca and I were old mates from way back. We actually went to high school together in Denton. I still can’t grasp that she’s gone’.
‘No’ said Jeff, trying to hide his feelings. ‘A lot of us feel the same’.
‘I’m sorry, gentlemen’ said Chambers. ‘I didn’t put two and two together before’.
Both Jeff and Freeman made all the right gestures to tell Chambers that it didn’t matter and then Freeman got down to business. ‘Sir, we’re following your investigations into the murders of Padraig O’Connell and Barry Murphy’.
‘Then you’ll know we’ve issued a warrant for the arrest of Chris O’Neill on suspicion of the murder of Padraig O’Connell?’
‘Yes, sir’ Freeman confirmed. ‘But I expect you want me to talk to you about Patricia Knight?’
‘Well it’s a bit late in the day but it might be useful, yes. Why did you ask the Victoria state police to inform her of her brother’s death and yet you didn’t tell us?’
‘DSI Barton’ said Chambers in a warning voice.
‘No, it’s a fair point, ma’am’ Freeman conceded. ‘Patricia Knight, or O’Connell as she then was, wasn’t just any old member of the IRA. She was a member of the IRA Army Council and as such she would be complicit in all IRA activity in Northern Ireland during the early days of the troubles. Nothing that the IRA did during that period would’ve escaped her attention and probably approval either by herself or as part of a wider command structure. But of course she ended up betraying them, including her best friend Deirdre Murphy and her boyfriend Fergal. She betrayed them all by taking up with one of our agents, James Carson’.
‘The one whose body has never been found?’
‘Yes, although Padraig O’Connell was sent down for his murder’.
‘Are there any standing charges against Patricia O’Connell/Knight?’
‘No, sir, there aren’t’.
‘No cold cases held by the PSNI or even the Garda in the Irish Republic that directly or indirectly involve her?’
‘No, sir’.
‘Then why are you flushing her out now? You’ve known where she’s been all these years and I’m sure the Australian security services have kept an open file on her all this time that remains empty?’
‘Correct’ said Freeman. ‘You have a second murder case on your hands. That of Barry Murphy?’
‘And?’
‘We want to see if any of the old connections are being made’ said Freeman. ‘Because we know that Barry Murphy had been laundering money through his business for dissident Republican groups for the last two years’.
‘So why would that have anything to do with Patricia Knight now if she’s been clean for all these years? And why would Barry Murphy want to do any kind of business with the woman who betrayed his mother to such an extent that it got her abducted and murdered?’ Oh but wait a minute, I get it. You’re using her as bait. You think if she comes sailing into town with her past in her bag then she’ll draw out any of the IRA senior citizens who worked with her then and might be working with the dissident groups now. Am I right?’
‘That’s something I can neither confirm nor deny, sir’.
‘I knew I was right’.
‘And you also know that the mission is classified’.
‘I know that it was money from the IRA that set Barry Murphy up in business because his brother Kieran told us’.
‘And I’m sure he told you that the rest of the family wouldn’t take the IRA’s so-called offer of compensation over their mother’s disappearance and subsequent death when Barry did? But what if Kieran is lying about that? What if he has also been working in some way for dissident republican groups then that would be rather embarrassing considering he’s spent the last decades fighting the IRA’s silence over what happened to the disappeared’.
‘Isn’t that a bit tabloid logic? Somebody is doing some good for their community so we’ve got to try and dish up some dirt on them so we can destroy them? I don’t believe Kieran Murphy is using his organization to mask something more sinister. I do believe that the man known as Chris O’Neill could’ve killed Barry Murphy and it could be because I suspect that he was having an affair with Murphy’s wife Tabitha. Everyone at O’Neill’s pub knew that he was having an affair with a woman they described as some posh bird from out Cheshire way and who they believe was married. When we initially interviewed Tabitha Murphy it was clear she’d had both feet out of her marriage for some time. And it looked like she was expecting someone, looking round all the time, checking her mobile’.
‘Hardly the grieving widow then?’ said Chambers.
‘Anything but, ma’am’ Jeff concurred. ‘DS Bradshaw and DC Alexander have learned from her sister that Tabitha Murphy is planning to go away somewhere and leave her daughter behind to be looked after by her sister. If Tabitha Murphy is planning something with the man we know as O’Neill that she could very well lead us to him. It would seem logical that they would be planning to abscond at some point but that’s why I don’t want to bring Tabitha Murphy in and make a big fuss in case it scares O’Neill into hiding. Keep our enquiries low key and he won’t be put off. I’ve got the house watched, ma’am. We’ll be able to move in fairly quickly’.
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‘Sounds like you think he’ll try and contact her sooner rather than later’ Freeman opined.
‘I’d put money on it, Howard’ said Jeff. ‘And I think that’s where the focus of special branch should be. You should be helping us find the man posing as Chris O’Neill because I believe that he’s the clear and present danger here, not some suspected dissident groups who may be drawn out of the woodwork by a woman who’s been living on the other side of the world for the best part of forty years’.
DSI Jeff Barton was pushing is team to find out who the man posing as Chris O’Neill really was. Special branch claimed not to know but he didn’t know if he really did believe that. Not all the relevant facts are known at the outset of an investigation. That’s a given because of the nature of what an investigation is. But on the other hand it did seem rather incredulous to Jeff that some stranger who isn’t known to the police or the security services should just pop up and murder potentially two members of the local Irish community in cold blood. The trail of that had to have started somewhere.
‘Why am I here exactly?’ demanded Kieran Murphy as he sat across the desk in the interview room from Jeff and DI Ollie Wright. A young solicitor who also looked like she was descended from Irish stock with her curly red hair and bright green eyes on a freckled covered face sat beside Murphy. Her name was Helena O’Riley which did kind of give the game away about her heritage. Jeff hadn’t seen her before though. She must be newly qualified and eager to help her ‘community’.
‘We need you to answer some questions for us, Kieran’ said Wright. ‘There’s nothing for you to be frightened of if you genuinely don’t know the answers to them’.
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Really Kieran, hold your fire’ said Wright. ‘We haven’t even started yet’.
‘Oh I know what you’re doing’ Kieran asserted. ‘I know what you’re up to’.
‘And what’s that, Kieran?’
‘You coppers over here are cut from the same cloth as those back home’ snarled Kieran, pointing his finger at Wright. ‘You can’t bear any of us on the nationalist side of things to get any justice or any closure for the things that were done against us. So you’ll pick at a man like me who’s worked his bollocks off to get that justice and get that closure and you’ll keep on picking until you find something to charge me with real or not’.
‘I can assure you that’s not what we’re doing here, Kieran’ said Wright. ‘If that’s your comfort zone when dealing with the police isn’t it rather old hat now? I mean, your group has received the utmost help and assistance from the PSNI and from forces right across the mainland to help you find the disappeared IRA members, including your own mother which is why you made that visit back to Northern Ireland last week. So let’s not start looking gift horses in the mouth if you don’t mind’.
Kieran laughed sardonically. ‘Oh you’re good. You’re bloody good. The top brass must bloody love you and you’re black which means they get to fill their targets for recruits from ethnic minorities with quality such as you. You’ll be the first black chief constable of Greater Manchester if you don’t screw up along the way, son’.
Ollie just ignored all that crap although he wouldn’t mind being Chief Constable one day. ‘When was the last time you saw your brother Barry, Kieran?’
‘I told you before it was twenty years ago when the family found out he’d taken the IRA’s blood money’
‘And when did you last have any contact with him?’
‘I don’t understand? I’ve answered that already’
‘When did you last speak to him on the phone for instance?’
‘I told you it was twenty years ago! I can’t remember the damn date!’
‘You’re lying’.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You’re lying to us, Kieran’.
‘What do you mean by accusing me of something like that?’
‘We have your mobile phone records’ Wright went on. ‘They show you made several calls to Barry’s phone in the last couple of weeks, one of which lasted twenty-one minutes. Care to explain?’
The look on Kieran Murphy’s face said it all to Wright and DSI Barton. He was struggling with the weight of the words. Both Wright and Barton could see that so clearly. He was torn. But between what exactly?
‘Why did you make those calls, Kieran?’ Ollie pursued.
‘Who said I did?’
‘They were from your phone?’
‘That doesn’t necessarily mean that I made them?’
‘Oh so who you are you going to blame it on? Your wife? One of your kids? Are you going to be that desperate to absolve yourself of all responsibility?’
‘You’ve got a fucking nerve’.
‘Have I? I’d have thought it was you who had the nerve to lie to the police about your brother who ended up shot dead in cold blood!’
Kieran pushed his chair back and slumped his head forward into his hands. How had everything come to this? His solicitor Helen O’Riley placed a hand on his shoulder and whispered instructions to her client but he didn’t seem eager to accept them.
‘Are you at last willing to tell us the truth now, Kieran?’ Wright asked. ‘There could be a lot riding on it’.
‘For who?’
‘For the truth of who murdered your brother! I’d have thought you’d have wanted to know that’.
Kieran ran his hands through his hair and brought them to rest at the back of his neck. He rocked forwards and backwards and then he straightened himself up and spoke.
‘I needed money’ said Kieran. He wiped his mouth with the cuff of his shirt as if just speaking the words he’d just used would render him dirty.
‘Say that again?’ said Wright.
‘I needed money. Look, I’ve had to re-mortgage the house twice in the last few years and I’ve had to almost give up working full-time. My wife works but what she brings in barely covers our expenses. We’ve been in debt for bloody years now. It’s so bloody unfair that when you try and help people you only end up in deep strife yourself. Don’t try and convince me there’s a God up there because, quite frankly, I think He’s a sick, bloody joke’.
‘So did you turn to your brother Barry for money, Kieran?’
Kieran started to cry. ‘Yes, I did. I was desperate! I couldn’t think of anyone to turn to except our Barry because nobody else in our family has got any money. They all just survive from month to month. But I’ve been shelling out all I’ve got on this campaign and I’m one mortgage repayment away from losing the house’.
‘Why did you lie to us before, Kieran?’
Kieran stopped crying but still struggled to regain his composure. ‘Because I was so fucking ashamed! Don’t you see that? Or are you so intent on hanging me out to dry?’
‘That’s some persecution complex you’ve got there, Kieran’.
‘Really? You think so? Well you try standing in my shoes with the memory of your mother being dragged screaming from the table when we were all having our tea and you tell me how to avoid a persecution complex, officer. You just come back and tell me to rise above it all and let it all go like all the other shite I get told by people who’ve never had anything go wrong in their life except for a fucking Christmas card go missing’.
‘Kieran, do you know Patricia O’Connell?’ Jeff intervened.
‘Of course I do. She was the one who made out to the IRA that my mother was a traitor when in fact it was Patricia who was the traitor’.
‘So what would you do if you saw her?’
‘If she was crossing the street in front of me I’d put my foot down all the way on the accelerator and make straight for her’.
‘Thank you’ said Jeff. ‘That’s just what I thought’.
‘Why? Has she surfaced? Do you know where she is?’
Jeff’s questions and Kieran’s questions were enough to prove to Jeff, and to Wright, that he didn’t know about any contact between Barry and Patricia rece
ntly.
‘Kieran, how did you know about the whiskey on the night of your brother Barry’s murder?’
‘Because he rang and told me that it was ready and waiting for me’ Kieran blurted out and then started to cry again. ‘Yes, I was due to be there that night. Barry had agreed to loan me the money I needed to get myself out of trouble’.
‘But somebody got there first’ said Jeff, quietly.
Kieran’s tears were streaming down his cheeks now. ‘I saw them’.
‘You saw who, Kieran?’
‘I’d just pulled up in the street where Barry’s showroom is’ Kieran explained, wiping his face once again with his cuff and his sleeve. He’d been waiting to relieve himself of what he’d seen that night but he’d been caught between a desire to tell the truth and a reluctance to involve himself in whatever his brother Barry was involved with. But it had gone way beyond that now. The police were looking for a killer or killers and he could see that they weren’t going to be satisfied with anything less than everything he knew.
‘And what did you see, Kieran?’ Jeff asked.
‘I saw that guy you’re after’ Kieran confessed. ‘I saw him, that Chris O’Neill. I saw him running from Barry’s showroom and into a car that then sped away’.
‘Did you see who was driving the car, Kieran?’
‘Yes’
Jeff was excited. It was that moment in an investigation when you know as a police officer that something mightily important was about to become clear.
‘And who was it, Kieran?’
‘It was a woman’.
‘Can you narrow that down a little?’
‘She’s been on the TV news lately in relation to Barry’s death’ said Kieran. ‘Though not because she was his wife’.
‘What do you mean?’
‘The woman who was driving the car was his wife’s sister. It was Jade’.
THROWN DOWN TWELVE
