In the Morning I'll Be Gone (14 page)

“What’s this about, Mrs. Fitzpatrick?”

“Lizzie’s dead, Inspector Duffy. She’s lying in the Arghall graveyard in Toome. My youngest daughter killed, her neck broken, by person or persons unknown.”

“When was this?”

“Four years ago this December.”

“And the RUC had no leads?”

“Leads? Well, there were three men in the bar, three suspects if you will, but there was no proof. No proof at all. I think one of them killed her and the other two are covering up for him. I need to know which one of the three did it. And I need proof. I need to be satisfied. It won’t bring her back. Nothing’ll bring her back, but the law, the old law, the Brehon Law, gives me the choice of penalty. Allows me to settle this score for her.”

She grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard.

I stared at her. Her eyes were fierce and her scarlet hair was straining at the clips that were holding it in place. “Do you get me, Inspector?”

“I don’t know. Are you saying . . . Let me make sure that we’re talking about the same thing, Mrs. Fitzpatrick. If I find your daughter’s killer and give you sufficient proof of this person’s complicity, then you’ll . . . you’ll—”

“I’ll give you Dermot McCann,” she said with a cold smile.

Mary reached into her bag and took out a packet of Benson and Hedges. She offered me one but I declined.

“The story’s all there in the file but I’ll tell you the gist if you want.”

“Please do.”

“My husband used to run a wee bar in Ballykeel. Just on the edge of the village there. The Henry Joy McCracken.”

“Named after the rebel?”

“Exactly. We still have it but Jim will never open it now. Not since what happened to Lizzie.”

She took a sip of her tea and lit her cigarette. “Lizzie and all the girls used to serve there now and again to earn some pocket money. And then Lizzie went away to England to study law. She wanted to be a lawyer like she’d seen on TV. Defending the weak, all that, you know?”

“Yes.”

“She was at the University of Warwick. Doing very well for herself. She’d come home in the holidays and sometimes work in the bar, but she was also interning at a solicitor’s office in Antrim: Mulvenna and Wright, a top-notch firm, so we didn’t see her much when she was back. Anyway, she was home at Christmas in 1980 and she wasn’t supposed to be working in the pub at all . . .”

She sniffed and shook her head before continuing.

“Anyway, it was 27 December.”

“27 December 1980?”

“Yes.”

I wrote that in my book while Mary went on: “Jim was in the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, for surgery on his left knee. Arthritis, you know?”

“Sure.”

“He had the surgery that afternoon and he’d wanted to close the pub but Lizzie said she could handle it. I said OK because I could see she wanted a wee bit of responsibility. I’d been down to Belfast to see Jim and he was good and I came back to Ballykeel around ten thirty. I gave her a wee call in the pub and told her that her dad was doing fine. She was so glad to hear that. I asked her if she needed any help down the pub and she said that it was no bother because there were only three customers in the place. Well, closing time was in half an hour so I didn’t think anything of it.”

“Were the police able to trace the customers?”

“Oh yes, the police found them. Very ‘respectable men,’ all of them. They weren’t locals. They were all from Belfast. Come here for the fishing.”

“So then what happened?”

“Well, Lizzie didn’t come home. It only takes ten minutes to lock up and walk to our house from the pub, so I was getting a bit anxious from eleven fifteen onwards.”

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. I just waited. I thought maybe she was having trouble with the locks or something.”

“Then what happened?”

“Then at eleven thirty I got a call from Harper McCullough. He asked about Jim’s operation and then he asked to speak to Lizzie. So I told him that I hadn’t seen her yet. And he was quite concerned because she’d told him that she would be back home by eleven thirty at the latest.”

“Who’s Harper McCullough?”

“Harper was her boyfriend at the time. Very nice lad. A Protestant, mind you, but we liked him all the same. Very close friend of the family.”

“Where was
he
when Lizzie was killed?”

“Oh, he was in Belfast at his rugby club’s annual dinner. He was accepting some prize on behalf of his father. He was there from nine until he called me at half past eleven.”

“So what happened next?”

“Well, I told Harper I had no idea where she was and he said that I should call the police and that he was going to drive there immediately.”

“And did you call the police?”

She shook her head sadly. “I got on my coat and I went down to the pub to see what was going on. Well, sure enough, it was locked up and the lights were turned off but there was no sign of Lizzie. So I knew something was wrong. At the time I thought that Lizzie had locked up the pub and something had happened to her on the way home.”

“How far is it from the pub to your house?”

“About three hundred yards.”

“Through the village?”

“You could go through the village, or you could take a short cut along the Love Lane, but she didn’t take either of those.”

“What
did
she do?”

Mary stubbed out her cigarette and took a handkerchief from her purse. She dabbed her eyes and fought to keep the tears away. She resisted the urge to cry. This was Ulster, where even good Catholics like Mary had been infected by the Protestant sickness for repression of emotion.

“I got home and I called Annie. She was still living in Derry then and she told me to call the police straight away. I was a bit reluctant to do that because we’ve had our wee run-ins with the police, as you may know.”

I did know. I had done my research and I had found out that the Fitzpatricks of Ballykeel were a prominent Antrim-area Republican family. Maybe not active IRA but certainly moving in high Republican circles. Mary Fitzpatrick had stood as an Independent Republican MP in the 1970 election and knew a lot of players back in the day.

“Harper arrived back from the rugby club about a quarter to twelve out of his mind with worry and the police came shortly after that from Antrim and we all went looking for Lizzie. After midnight one of the policemen shone his torch into the pub and he thought he saw a body lying in there. We couldn’t get in of course because Lizzie had the key, so they had to break the front door down with a sledgehammer. And that’s where we found her. Lying on the floor, dead. All curled up there with her hair across her face. My God, I’ll never forget that! I wanted to go to her and hug her and make her come alive again, but they wouldn’t let me touch her!”

Mary lit another cigarette and I put my hand on her arm. She genuflected and I made the sign of the cross with her and together we said “God and Mary and Patrick.”

She took a sip of her cold tea and continued her account. “At first we all thought it was natural causes because a crime didn’t make any sense. The pub was locked from the inside. The windows had iron bars on them, the bolt was across on the front door and the back door. Both doors were locked and the key was in her pocket.”

“But it wasn’t natural causes?”

“No. There was a light bulb out above the bar and there was a new light bulb broken in her hand. For all the world it looked like she had stood on the bar to change the dead bulb, slipped, fallen, and broken her neck. Well, that’s what the eejit police on the scene thought. But the next day the pathologist at Antrim hospital, a Dr. Kent, told the police that he thought it looked very suspicious. He conducted the autopsy and he wasn’t happy with the broken vertebrae in her neck or the wound on her head. And later at the coroner’s inquest Dr. Kent said that her broken neck was not consistent with having fallen off a bar.”

“What was it consistent with?”

“He thought that she had been struck on the head and her neck snapped by an unknown person. The police would have none of that but he was so adamant that the coroner had no recourse but to return an open verdict.”

“Did the police open a murder investigation?”

“It was half-hearted at best. I could tell that they didn’t believe she was murdered. The place was locked, the broken light bulb was in her hand. Case closed.”

“They interviewed the men in the bar of course?”

“Oh yes. It’s all in the report. They all have the same story. They say that Lizzie kicked them out at eleven o’clock sharp. One of them, a man called McPhail, had his car parked in the village. They walked to the car and drove to Belfast.”

“What did the police make of their story?”

“The police believed them.”

I rubbed my chin and considered it all. “There was no one else in the bar?”

“No.”

“Is there any other way in?”

“No. A front door and a back door and they were both locked and bolted.”

“And the windows?”

“The windows are covered with cast-iron bars.”

“Can you take them off?”

“No. The police checked anyway. They were all intact.”

“Slip through them?”

“The gap’s too narrow even for a child.”

I leaned back in the chair and skimmed through the police report. It was detailed and a nice job of work. The investigating officer, an Inspector Beggs, laid out the evidence in his conclusion. He was not convinced in any way that a crime had been committed. “It’s a tough one,” I said.

She nodded in agreement and blew out a thin line of blue smoke.

“You’re certain she was killed?” I asked.

“I know it in my bones.”

“I’ll look into it but I can’t promise anything.”

She nodded and got to her feet. “When you come to my house don’t mention Dermot at all. Tell Annie and Jim that you’re looking into Lizzie’s death. I’ve told them that you came to see me once already. That’s how I was able to bring your name up with Annie. Listen to me now, Inspector Duffy, if you ask about Dermot they will tell you nothing and you will queer the pitch. Do you mind me?”

“I do.”

“Do not ask about Dermot!”

“I won’t.”

“And when the time comes, if you fulfill your part of the bargain, I’ll fulfill mine.”

“How will you be able to find out where he is?”

“Oh, don’t you worry about that. I have my ways. My contacts.”

“You’d really give up your daughter’s husband?”

“Ex-husband. I am as good as my word, Duffy. If you do this for me, I’ll give you Dermot McCann.”

“I should tell you . . . I’m not an assassin. I want to arrest him but Dermot may not come quietly . . .”

“I’ll tell you where he is. What happens next is between you and him.”

“I can promise you that if I have anything to do with it, I will give him a chance to surrender.”

“Very good.” She offered me her hand and I shook it.

“And if I need to get in touch with you I can come by the house?” I asked.

“And if I need to get in touch with you I’ll write to you.”

“That’s probably the safest policy if they’re tapping your phones.”

“Good day, Inspector.”

She walked out of the back room into the café proper; I put the files in my briefcase, waited a decent interval, and followed in her wake.

The first thing I did on Monday morning was drive to Antrim RUC to talk to the investigating officer. He was now Chief Inspector Beggs and he had moved from CID to admin. He was a ruddy, saturnine character with black hair and a moustache. He was about thirty-nine or forty, and if his heart or the booze didn’t get him he would probably end up an assistant chief constable. He greeted me without suspicion, listened to my pitch, took the entire case file, and asked a reserve constable to copy it while we adjourned to a nearby pub.

“Just a pint of Bass for me,” he said, and I got the same.

“So why are Special Branch interested in a four-year-old accidental death case?” he asked, taking a sip of his pint.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss that, sir.”

“Oh, it’s one of those, is it?” he said good-naturedly.

“Yes, it’s one of those, I’m afraid, sir. What can you tell me about the incident?”