The Lost (14 page)

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said quietly. For all of it, she meant – his son and his job and the paper, and having to see Cathy Carr’s poor broken body.

‘Did they catch the killers?’

‘Yeah. Seventeen year olds.’ He shook his head. ‘They got two years each.’

‘And Tess – she’s really gone, then?’

‘She came with me here. We thought, a new start . . . But she was lonely and cold and I suppose she felt we’d left Jamie behind. As if we’d forgotten him. She’s selling the house in London now. Can’t stand living there any more, with the memories.’

All Paula
could think of to say was to offer her own story, the thing she carried round on her own back like a hod full of stones. But she’d spent too many years trying not to, and anyway, he’d find out soon enough. ‘That’s awful for Katie,’ she said instead. ‘She’s been through so much, and now this with her schoolmate too.’

‘Yes. She seems very shaken up about Cathy. They didn’t really know each other that well, she said, but I think it just reminds her. Of Jamie.’

‘You said she’d made some friends?’

‘She went to Siobhan’s again yesterday. I think they’re planning a memorial for Katie.’

Funny, then, that Paula had seen her in the Mission. It wasn’t her place to say anything though, was it? Guy’s shoulders were hunched, his face haggard. She wanted to touch his hand, kiss him – anything to make it better. ‘How old was Jamie?’ she asked.

He said nothing for a long time. Then: ‘He’d have been ten the week after.’

Paula stood up. ‘I need to go out, is that OK? I’ve something to do.’

‘Fine.’ He was still staring at the photo as she left. If she couldn’t kiss him, she decided, she was damn well going to do the next best thing.

‘There you are, Maguire. Looking good. Always liked you in – well, black, and more black.’

‘What the fuck’s this?’ Paula slammed down the newspaper on Aidan’s desk.

She had pushed her way into the empty open-plan office on the first floor of the paper’s HQ. The ground floor had once been smart, glass-fronted, but now the paint peeled and the window was smeared with handprints from many years of passing schoolchildren. There seemed to be no other staff in the building.

Aidan squinted at the paper. ‘Oh, you bought it? Thanks for supporting us!’

‘Aidan.
Fuck off.
’

‘Jesus, don’t let my mammy hear you talk like that.’

‘Tell me what the hell this is.’ She rattled the paper in his face.

‘It’s a serious investigation into a public body that’s not fit for purpose.’

‘We’re looking for two missing children, how’s that not fit?’

‘And what have you found? One of them’s dead, and as far as I can see, no one gives a flying fuck what happened to the traveller girl.’

She opened her mouth and shut it again. ‘Guy Brooking’s a good man. He’s doing his best.’

‘Maybe that’s not good enough. Ballyterrin needs better.’ Aidan tapped at his computer, pencil held in his teeth.

‘Well, you got a fact wrong.’

‘Always happy to correct errata.’

‘The reason he left London – he wasn’t asked to. He wanted to go. You know why?’

‘Felt a wee bit guilty, did he?’

‘Yes. But because his son died, not because of what you think.’

Aidan’s fingers stopped.

‘You didn’t find that out in your, what was it,
exclusive in-depth investigation
? I mean, Christ, Aidan, it’s not the
New York Times
.’ She turned to go. ‘Look it up. Jamie Brooking. I’m sure a top-notch journalist like yourself can easily find out.’

He looked at her. ‘Is that true?’

‘Of course it is. You’d have found it if you’d the slightest modicum of journalistic impartiality.’

‘Those are some big words, Maguire.’

She sucked in her breath. ‘You haven’t changed a bit, have you.’

‘Listen, I . . .’ He fell silent and she rounded on him.

‘If this
is all to get at me, it’s a bloody spineless way of doing it.’

‘What? No, it’s not about you. Christ, I’m just trying to make this place something real. A proper paper, not just, you know . . . pictures of people holding up those stupid big cheques.’

‘By running a hatchet-job?’

‘No, it’s not—Ah, Maguire, you know what I’m about.’

‘I used to.’ It was all there between them, the sharp edges of the past, unblunted by time.

‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Just trying to make it – you know. Like the old days. When Da was alive.’

She sighed and stopped in the doorway, mid-dramatic exit. Even after everything, she owed him more than that. ‘I know. I get it, OK? It just seemed a bit pointed, with me starting the job.’

‘It wasn’t about you.’

‘You swear?’ She forced herself to look him in the eye.

‘Cross my heart, Maguire. I’m just trying to run a paper.’

She sighed and looked around her. ‘Some paper. Where’s the staff, for God’s sake?’

‘You’re looking at it, Maguire. There’s a few old-timers doing the ads and classifieds still, and the odd local column, but, well, times are hard.’

‘You don’t mind working in here?’

Aidan shrugged. ‘He’s here with me.’ It was a strange thing for a self-professed atheist to say, but she knew what he meant. John O’Hara’s typewriter still stood on the desk, his sharpened HB pencils in a jar, even his hat where he’d hung it up the last night he came into the office, never to leave alive. The problem was, bits of his blood were also probably still in the floorboards behind where Aidan sat.

‘You don’t . . . think about it?’

Aidan turned on her, eyes
very dark. ‘You think about your mammy every time you’re in your kitchen?’

Paula swallowed. ‘Yes. Every time.’

‘Well then.’ He paused. ‘I was sitting under there when they came in.’ He pointed to a heavy wood table against the wall, stacked with back issues of the paper. ‘Playing with my soldiers, which is sort of funny ’cos at first I thought the men were soldiers too. The guns, that’s why.’

They’d never know if the IRA gunmen who came for his father had just missed Aidan (balaclavas not offering much in the way of peripheral vision), or if a seven year old wasn’t seen as a ‘legitimate target’. Either way, he’d been there for two hours before anyone found him, his father’s shattered head leaking blood all over the floor. When asked why he hadn’t moved, all Aidan could say was that Daddy had told him to
sssh
.
When the men did the bangs
, Aidan said,
he did shh
. And the little boy had put his finger to his lips, as a dying man might when his only thought was to save the son he thought he’d never have.

‘He always had Polos, your dad,’ Paula said after a moment. ‘That’s what I always think of.’

Aidan’s face twisted. ‘You’d hardly remember him, Maguire.’

She’d been six. Just the hat, the smell of mint, and the voice saying,
There’s a good wee girl, Paula
. She shook herself to clear the mist of the past. ‘So you’re taking the paper back to the investigative style.’

‘My dad got shot for what he wrote. Seems the least I can do.’ He stared fiercely at his screen.

‘Mmm. Sort of a shame though. I mean, who’s going to cover the golf dances and car rallies now?’ She was relieved to see him laugh, finally, and that in itself brought a gush of memory to her chest, the sound, thinking,
It’ll be OK, he’s laughing, I made him happy. It’ll be OK.

Aidan gave
her a strange smile, one she couldn’t quite fathom. ‘No bother, Maguire. We’ll do those too.’

Chapter Fourteen

Guy was in his office on the phone as Paula hurried back in. She was so behind on her work, but she’d barely turned the computer on when he opened his door, indicating to the rest of them that they should listen as he talked into the receiver. ‘I appreciate your saying so. Thanks. Good to speak to you.’ He hung up and smiled. ‘Well! That was unexpected. The
Ballyterrin Gazette
wants to do a profile on us – our side of the story. I want to let them know exactly what we’re doing to find Majella, put the word out.’

Round the room there were looks of surprise, and from Gerard Monaghan a deep scowl. ‘We should tell him where to go,’ he said.

‘Well, I think it’s good,’ said Avril decisively. ‘He’ll see we really do care about the cases, and he’ll write something nicer.’

‘Sure. You believe that if you want,’ Gerard sneered.

‘Not everyone’s out to get us!’ she shot back.

‘Aye, and what would you know. You think you can solve crime with spreadsheets.’

‘Come on, everyone.’ Guy had his public face back on. ‘Let’s help him.’

‘So long as he keeps a civil tongue in his head,’ said Bob Hamilton, who had glared at his niece for her outburst. ‘He’s always effing and blinding, that O’Hara lad.’

‘Will there
be photos?’ asked Fiacra, wide-eyed. ‘Only I need to get me hair cut.’

Guy laughed, then quickly stopped when he saw that Fiacra was serious.

‘Will there?’ Emerging from her sulk, Avril bit her lip.

‘It’s about policing, not vanity,’ said Bob the killjoy.

‘I don’t want that fella taking pictures of me,’ said Gerard, folding his arms. Suddenly he gave Paula a dark look. ‘Bet you wouldn’t mind. Thick as thieves with him, you are, I hear.’

Guy held up his hands. ‘
Please
, everyone, be professional.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Ignoring Guy, Paula glowered back at the dark-haired detective.

‘I heard you and him go way back. Getting the ride off him, weren’t you?’

‘
Were
you?’ Avril gaped.

Paula snarled at Gerard. ‘I know him, yes. It’s a small town, everyone knows each other.’

‘
Can we stop this, please!
’ Guy’s tone made them all look up, quarrels subsiding. She’d never heard him speak that way before: it made your spine spring to attention. ‘I don’t want to hear these kinds of personal comments in my team, OK? Now get back to work.’

But as she went out she saw him cast her a look, and his face wasn’t happy.

An hour later, Guy and Aidan were holed up in Guy’s office, doing another
in-depth exclusive interview
. Paula was supposed to be writing reports, but kept looking up, wondering with irrational panic if they were talking about her. She did her best to ignore them and get under the skin of the 1985 cases.

To all appearances, the
two girls who went missing twenty-five years ago had nothing in common either, just like Cathy and Majella. Rachel Reilly was a tall healthy girl with strawberry-blond hair and freckles on her nose, who’d left school at fifteen and worked for her parents on the family farm, as well as part-time in a petrol station. She’d been going to discos since she was old enough to use her tractor licence as ID. Reading through the files, it struck Paula that Rachel’s parents hadn’t seemed all that surprised she was missing, or even especially upset. There were hints at rows, late nights, a wayward girl who’d likely run away. The RUC seemed to have the same assessment, based on the avenues they’d explored. Paula stared at the old typed pages, wishing she could interrogate the girl’s family.
Did Rachel take anything with her? Did she seem strange before she went?

Alice Dunne, on the other hand, had been small, fragile, fair-haired. According to her parents, who’d clearly been frantic when her car was found abandoned beside a nearby river, Alice had never even had a drink, let alone a boyfriend. And yet the Gardaí seemed to have come to the same conclusions as the RUC had about Rachel – there must have been a boyfriend. Paula wondered why. Was there something in the files she hadn’t been able to interpret?

As for the third girl, who may not have been the third girl at all, she was little more than a name: Annie Miller. There was nothing online and the files had long since been archived away, the case dismissed as a straightforward teen suicide, if there was such a thing. All Paula could discover was that Annie had been sixteen, an only child whose father died when she was five and whose mother didn’t last much after Annie was found hanging in woods outside Ballyterrin. Only the fact that the girl hadn’t been discovered for a week had led her into this case at all.

Paula struggled
to come up with ideas. How could she, when she didn’t even know if these cases were linked? If there was a killer, it would be someone in at least their mid-forties. A man. Nearly always a man. Someone with a car, to pick the girls up as they made their way to school or home or out for the night. How to explain the gap of twenty-five years? It could be someone who’d moved around a lot, who’d maybe left Ireland for a while, leaving a trail of missing girls behind him wherever he went. It happened.

She sighed and tried to remember what she knew about 1985. A bad year, a year of killings, riots, blood on both sides, Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street, and by the end of it the Anglo-Irish Agreement, allowing the South a formal say in the future of the North. Everything fracturing into deep fissures. No surprise if people fell through them.

Unable to settle, she got up. ‘Tea, Avril?’ The younger woman was now the only person left in the office, the others having been dispatched to their various tasks.

‘You can’t.’

‘I’m sorry?’

Avril looked up from her terminal, her nails clacking without pause on the keys. ‘If you turn the kettle on, the electrics in here short out.’

‘You’re joking me.’

‘No. If you wait till I’ve finished with this here scanner, I’ll have one. Thank you.’

Avril had been busy, filling the table in the centre of the office with stacks of paper: all the open cases from the past forty years, North and South of the border. Earlier than 1997, most weren’t computerised. The team were trying to establish some kind of order so cases could be re-investigated. In reality all they could do was ask for new evidence, examine DNA in some cases. It wasn’t likely many of these lost could be found.

‘Ow!’ Prowling about, Paula had stubbed her toe on something round and heavy.

‘Microfilm
reels,’ said Avril darkly. ‘It was somebody’s genius idea to put a load of the files on there. And do we have a single microfilm reader in the whole of E region? We do not.’ She stretched her neck and pushed back her wheely chair, walking over to where Paula was. ‘It’s a mess, is what it is.’