A Box Full of Darkness (Wilson Book 5) (7 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

They parked in the same spot they had done the previous day. Wilson wanted to walk the area again. Belfast was a very different place from the day when a car had stopped at the corner of Beechmount Parade and ended the life of two young men engaged in an innocent game of football. Although he hadn’t yet received any communication from McDevitt, he was willing to bet that the two deaths didn’t merit more than a few column inches. In modern Belfast such events were impossible. A lot of innocent people had to die in order for the public to recognise that the perpetrators of such horrors were indeed monsters needing to be removed from society. Wilson and Jackson walked slowly along Beechmount Parade until they reached the house occupied by the Lafferty family. They pushed open the small cast iron gate and walked to the front door. Wilson pushed the bell and waited. He could hear a shuffling inside and when he glanced to the right, he saw the curtain flutter on the window. He waited patiently until the door was finally opened by a woman who looked to be in her seventies wearing a flowery housecoat.

‘Mrs Lafferty?’ he said.

‘Aye.’ Her grey hair was tied back. She was small and slight and had a curvature of the spine, which caused her to crane her head to look into Wilson’s face.

Wilson removed his warrant card from his pocket and held it out to her. ‘My name is Detective Superintendent Ian Wilson and this is Sergeant Jackson. I wonder if we could have a word with you and your husband.’

The woman looked confused. ‘We’ve no truck with the Peelers. We’re quiet folk here.’

Wilson withdrew his warrant card and replaced it in his pocket. ‘We’re from a PSNI task force, and we’re looking into the death of your son, Sean.’

‘Sean’s been dead these many long years,’ the woman said. ‘You’d best come in. The neighbours’ll be wonderin’ what’s goin’ on.’ She opened the door fully to admit them and stood aside.

Wilson was obliged to duck his head as he entered the doorway. He and Jackson stood inside the entrance hall and waited while Mrs Lafferty closed the door.

‘Michael,’ she called from the hall. ‘Two peelers lookin’ into Sean’s murder.’

Wilson noticed the use of the word ‘murder’.

A voice came from a room on the side of the corridor. ‘Tell them they’re forty-two years too late.’ There was a racking laugh and then a fit of coughing.

‘Michael’s not well,’ Mrs Lafferty said as she led the way down the hallway. The Lafferty residence was in that state that estate agents would call ‘a bijou residence requiring some updating’. A flight of ceramic ducks of different sizes flew along the wall beside the stairs leading to the upper floor. The wallpaper was at least twenty years old and in places it had started to come away from the walls. It was matched by the carpet which Wilson could see hadn’t been cleaned since the day it was laid. Wilson and Jackson walked the few steps toward the rear of the house and Mrs Lafferty led them into a small room, which was dominated by a single bed of the type found in hospitals. A pale and emaciated man lay on the bed. Michael Lafferty wasn’t just ‘not well’ he was at death’s door. And Wilson could see from his face that he knew it.

‘I’m glad I lived to see this day, ‘said Michael Lafferty as he tried to push himself up to get a better look at his visitors.

‘I’m Detective Superintendent Wilson.’

‘I heard you at the door,’ Lafferty said straining. ‘My ears are about the only part of my body that are still in perfect working order.’

Wilson walked forward and assisted Lafferty to sit upright.

‘Thanks,’ Michael Lafferty said. ‘Sinead, we’re not inhospitable people. Go you and make the superintendent and his pal a cup of tea. ‘Virtually every word was accompanied by a wheeze. ‘Sit you down, Superintendent.’ Lafferty cast his eyes in the direction of the single chair in the room. ‘The hospice loaned us this bloody bed but it takes up the whole of the room. I want to die in my own house, you see.’

Wilson sat in the chair. ‘We’re taking another look at Sean’s murder.’ He felt good using the right word.

Lafferty laughed and the effort seemed to tire him because his head went back against the pillow.

‘I said something funny?’ Wilson said.

‘Yes.’ Lafferty moved his head forward again. ‘You said another. That should mean that it was already looked into thirty-eight years ago but that would be a lie.’

‘You mean there was no investigation?’ Wilson looked at Jackson who had his notebook out.

‘Divil the one,’ Lafferty smiled. ‘You’re the first peeler that we’ve seen who mentioned Sean’s name since the ambulance picked him up off the road outside.’

‘No one interviewed you after the murder?’ Wilson asked. He saw the mottled nature of Lafferty’s skin.

‘Isn’t that what I said, man?’ A flash of anger crossed Lafferty’s emaciated face. ‘I’ll say it one more time. You’re the first peeler we’ve seen investigating Sean’s murder. Mind you we had plenty of visits from the peelers and the military after Sean died. But none of them were investigating his death.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Wilson said.

Lafferty took a deep breath. ‘For months after Sean’s death, this house was raided and torn apart by RUC men and soldiers. They were supposed to be looking for evidence that Sean was a member of the IRA.’ A gob of spittle crept out of the corner of his mouth. ‘They broke every stick of furniture we owned but none of them ever asked for a statement on my son’s murder.’

There was a box of tissues at the side of the bed. Wilson removed one and handed it to Lafferty.

‘But perhaps your son was a member of the IRA,’ Jackson said.

‘Wash your mouth out,’ Lafferty said dabbing at the corner of his mouth with the tissue. ‘The boy’s head was full of football and girls. There was no room inside for politics or trouble.’ He glanced to his right at a photograph of a young boy on the wall. ‘He had a head of woolly black hair and could run as fast as the wind. He thought that he was going to be the next George Best and have girls hanging off him. The only consolation I have from the cancer is that I’ll be seeing him soon.’

‘You remember that night?’ Wilson asked.

‘That’s not the question, Superintendent. It’s whether I could ever forget it. Do you have any children?’

‘No,’ Wilson said. In that moment he realised that he had lost someone.

‘Then you a lucky man. You’ll never have the grief of picking up the broken body of your only son in your arms in the middle of a street. Over the years, I’ve watched pictures on television from places I’ve never been and seen people just like us crying over their dead children. Every time I’ve seen those pictures, I’m back in 1974, and I only have to stand at my window and I can witness the horror all over again.’

Sinead Lafferty returned and handed Wilson a saucer with a teacup already filled. ‘I’ve no place to put a teapot and cups down so I had to doctor the cup with milk and sugar myself. I hope it’s all right for you.’

‘It’s fine.’ Wilson took the cup.  ‘Tell us what happened?’

‘The boys were having their usual kickabout on the street.’ Lafferty wheezed as he spoke. ‘I was standing at the window watching them and hoping that a ball didn’t come flying through my window. Can you pass that glass of water?’

Wilson handed his tea to Jackson and reached for the glass of water that was beside the bed. He held it so that Lafferty could drink.

‘Thanks.’ Lafferty took a sip of water. ‘You’ve got a kind face, Superintendent. I rushed out of the house and ran to Sean. He was lying on his back and his chest was covered in blood. I didn’t have to check to know that he was gone. I just cradled him and cried.’

‘You heard the shots?’ Wilson asked.

‘There was a burst of machine gunfire from the top of the road and suddenly all the players were on the ground.’

‘How do you know it was machine gunfire?’

‘I was in the army, five years,’ he said looking at Jackson. ‘Like that bloke there. I know the type. It was a Stirling. No, it was two Sterlings.’

‘Simultaneous firing?’ Wilson asked.

‘No, one slightly behind the other.’

Wilson did a simple calculation. The Sterling held a magazine of 9mm Parabellum rounds; two bursts meant that a maximum of sixty-eight rounds had been fired. ‘Did you look towards the top of the road?’ Wilson retook his tea and sipped. He noticed that Jackson had also been supplied with a cup.

‘I did. I only saw the tail of a blue car disappearing. Whoever fired the shots must have been in that car.’

‘Did you tell the police about the car?’ Wilson asked.

‘I tried but nobody was listening to me.’ Lafferty’s head was back against the pillows.

‘Did you follow-up with the police enquiry team?’

Lafferty made a noise in his throat. ‘Police enquiry team my arse. I went to the station every day for a month. They left me sitting for hours before telling me to be off home.’

Wilson finished his tea. He wasn’t sure that they had learned anything but he was bothered by the absence of a proper enquiry and the callous way the grieving family were treated. And then there was the absence of a ballistics report.

‘Will you promise me something, Superintendent?’ Lafferty said.

Wilson nodded.

‘You look like an honest man. I think you might stand a chance of finding out who murdered my son. Promise me that if you find the name of the man who murdered him and I’m still alive that you’ll come back and tell me.’

Wilson passed his cup to Jackson. ‘Be a good man and give those cups back to Mrs Lafferty.’ He turned back to the bed. ‘It’s the coldest of cold cases. There’s no evidence collected or left. I’ve got to be honest with you. There’s very little chance of me finding out who murdered your son. But I promise you that if I do find out I will be back.’

Michael Lafferty lifted up a skeletal right hand and extended it toward Wilson. ‘Thank you.’

Wilson shook the bony hand. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’

Lafferty let his hand go. ‘It’s a little late but it’s appreciated.’

Wilson turned and saw that Jackson was at the door. Sinead Lafferty was nowhere in sight so they made their way to the front door by themselves.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

They exited onto the footpath of Beechmount Parade. Wilson thought about the lives of the people in the house he’d just left. One was turning the key on Heaven’s gate and the other looked bent and beaten by life. They had suffered the ultimate tragedy. They had lost their only child and it hadn’t been through accident.

‘Do you think that was wise, sir?’ Jackson asked as soon as they were on the footpath.

‘Do I think what was wise?’

‘Making a commitment like that.’

Wilson hadn’t been aware that Jackson had overheard his final conversation with Lafferty. ‘I wasn’t conscious that I had made a commitment.’

‘You used the word “promise”, sir.’

‘Then I suppose that I must have meant to use it.’ He was well aware of what he had just done.

‘I just don’t think it was wise.’

‘Well, thank you for your observation, sergeant. It has been duly noted. What do you think of the interview?’

‘Sir?’ Jackson replied.

‘You listened to Michael Lafferty’s story, what do your well-honed investigative instincts pick out of his narrative?’ Wilson started walking back towards the street where their car was parked.

Jackson’s face looked blank. ‘Nothing new, we already knew that the boys were fired upon from the top of the road, possibly by someone in a car. Am I missing something, sir?’

‘There were two bursts from a Sterling machine gun. Sixty-eight possible rounds fired and not one single bullet or spent cartridge collected. A blue saloon car disappears, and there’s no search record for the car in the file. Was a blue car found burned out anywhere close to the attack? That was the normal pattern for a UVF/UDA attack. Steal a car in some Loyalist area, kill a few Catholics and burn out the car. I’ve already concluded that the investigation was a shambles. What I really want to find out is, why was it such a shambles?’ He pulled out Jackson’s list from his coat pocket. There were four more names but only one of them was a Mallon. ‘Who is this Ciaran Mallon, Cormac’s father?’

‘Brother,’ Jackson answered. ‘The parents are dead.’

‘And the other three on the list?’

‘Players in the football game.’

‘What about the guys who were hit?’

‘One was hit in the spine and is a paraplegic. He moved to England, lives in some village close to Birmingham.  The other one hit was Mallon.’

‘Then let’s go see Ciaran Mallon.’ He looked at the address on the list. Mallon lived in Omagh in South Tyrone.
Not exactly around the corner
, he thought. It was about an hour’s journey by car from where they were standing to the centre of Omagh. He had no desire to spend an hour in the car with Jackson but he knew that if he insisted on travelling alone, Sinclair would hear of it immediately. And probably forbid it. It was best to keep relationships cordial.  ‘Give him a call, tell him who we are and tell him we’re on the way.’

Jackson took the list and moving aside, dialled the number for Mallon. After speaking for some minutes he rejoined Wilson.  ‘He’s at work but he can see us in about an hour and a half.’

‘Where?’

‘Christian Brothers Grammar School, he’s a teacher there.’

Omagh is the county town of Tyrone and it situated where the rivers Drumragh and Camowen meet to form the Strule. The town has a population of around 20,000 and was the site of one of the worse bombing atrocities carried out by the IRA. Although what the locals call a “garrison town”, the population of Omagh is predominantly Catholic. The journey from Belfast had been uneventful and silent. Wilson spent the time watching the landscape of Ulster flying by. It was a normal Irish day with the sun trying bravely to pierce the clouds and the occasional shower of rain sprinkling the journey. The countryside was green and lush. They passed through some of the best land in Ireland and the reason the original Gaelic inhabitants had been expelled to make way for Scottish Presbyterian settlers. Jackson steered the car into the car park on Kelvin Avenue across the road from a shopping centre.  The sign at the entrance to the car park said “pay and display”. Jackson parked and placed a sign on the dashboard indicating that the occupants were police on official duty. They walked around the corner at the top of Kelvin Avenue and found themselves almost in front of the Christian Brothers Grammar School. A large sign hung over the entrance announcing that the school was celebrating 150 years of educational excellence. They were approaching the entrance when a man in his late fifties came through the door and walked towards them.

‘Ciaran Mallon,’ he said holding out his hand. ‘I thought that it might be better if we didn’t meet in the school proper, and I wasn’t sure whether you knew Omagh well enough to give you an alternative meeting place.’

Mallon was perhaps six inches shorter than Wilson, and was of slight build.  If it could be said that people grow to resemble their jobs, then it would be true to say that Mallon looked like a teacher right down to the horn-rimmed glasses and leather patches on the elbows of his herringbone tweed jacket.

‘Detective Superintendent Ian Wilson.’ He took Mallon’s outstretched hand and shook it.. ‘I completely understand.’ He noticed several faces in the windows of the school overlooking the entrance. ‘This is Sergeant Jackson.’

Jackson simply nodded and made no attempt to shake hands.

‘Teaching is a very sensitive profession at the moment,’ Mallon said moving them away from the school and towards Kelvin Avenue. ‘The headmaster is hypersensitive about abuse, and the appearance of two senior police officers to talk to me would undoubtedly start tongues wagging. I’m dying for a coffee and there’s a
Subway
around the corner and I’d be delighted to treat you if that’s alright with you.’

‘Absolutely,’ Wilson said heading back the way they came. He’d seen the
Subway
at the corner of the shopping centre close to where they’d parked the car. ‘As I’m sure Sergeant Jackson has already explained, we’re from a PSNI task force and we’re investigating the shooting of your brother in 1974.’

‘After forty-two years,’ Mallon said. ‘I’ve heard of cold cases but this one must be well and truly frozen.’

‘A murder case is never closed,’ Wilson said. ‘You’re the only member of your family in Northern Ireland?’

They had reached the small commercial centre and the
Subway
was directly in front of them.

‘My parents are dead.’ Mallon pushed in the door. ‘My sister is a nurse in Australia. She never comes back, wants to forget about Ireland. She’s made a new life for herself and her family, and more power to her. My brother’s in Canada. He’s an oil engineer out in Alberta. Coffees?’

Wilson looked at Jackson who remained stoic. ‘Speak up, sergeant. Would you like a coffee?’

‘Yes please, Americano, black.’

‘White with sugar for me,’ Wilson said. ‘What do you teach?’

Mallon ordered the three coffees. ‘English,’ he said passing two piping hot cardboard cups to Wilson and Jackson. ‘Can we sit?’

‘Of course,’ Wilson said and they moved to a table in the corner well away from the other patrons. ‘I hope we’re not interfering with your schedule.’ Wilson said as soon as they were seated.

‘I’m on a free class at the moment, and I’ve arranged with a colleague to fill in if I’m not back in time. How can I help you?’

‘You were one of the players in the football game?’ Wilson blew on his coffee.

‘I was,’ Mallon said.

‘I’m trying to get a feel for what happened that evening,’ Wilson said. ‘I’ve already spoken to Michael Lafferty.’

‘How is Mr Lafferty?’ Mallon sipped his coffee. ‘I heard he wasn’t well.’

Wilson stared at Mallon. His hair was almost totally white and curly. He had a chubby open face that might be considered attractive by some women. But the impression he gave was one of extreme gentleness. Wilson could see him being a popular teacher with teenagers. ‘I’m afraid he‘s not too good. Can you remember what happened that evening?’

‘Like it was yesterday.’ Mallon sipped his coffee. ‘It was our nightly habit to have a football game. The streetlights were the goal posts and were generally stoutly defended. Some of the lads played in a local league and had the smell of themselves, but mostly we just enjoyed the kickabout. We didn’t take much notice of traffic that passed on Beechmount Avenue. The game was in full flow and suddenly there was the sound of gunfire. I thought that it might be a few streets away but then I felt something hit my left hand. It was like a bee sting only a lot sorer.’ He held up his left hand to show a middle finger was missing. ‘I felt another sting in my right side and I fell down. A lot of the lads hit the deck as soon as the firing started. Cormac and Sean were a bit slow at getting down. They turned to see where the firing was coming from. I shouted at Cormac to get down, but just then he was hit and fell anyway. Same for Sean. Then it was chaos. People flooded out of the houses and there was wailing and shouting. I can’t remember whether I passed out or not, but I woke up in hospital the next day.’

‘Did you see who did the shooting?’ Wilson asked.

Mallon closed his eyes. ‘I saw the flashes before I was hit. They came from the top of the road and I remember a dark car just idling.’ He opened his eyes.

‘Were you interviewed by the police?’

‘Not that I can remember. I came to before they put me in the ambulance and there was a brusque RUC sergeant pushing people around.  My father was already dead and my mother was out that evening. She had to go to the morgue to identify Cormac. She told me that there was an RUC sergeant there who simply whipped the sheet off my dead brother’s body. It sounded like the same fellow who was organising things on the street. My mother never used bad language but she described the man as a callous bastard.’

‘No one took a statement from you?’ Wilson asked.

‘No,’ Mallon finished his coffee. ‘I was in hospital for going on a month. As soon as I got out, we moved to Omagh. My mother was from the town and my grandmother was still here.’

Wilson was trying to think of another question.

‘Sir,’ Jackson said. ‘I’m away to use the toilet.’

‘Off you go,’ Wilson said.

Mallon waited until Jackson was out of hearing. ‘I don’t like your sergeant. He has the look of Brutus about him. I’d watch out for him if I was you.’

‘Are you psychic?’ Wilson smiled.

‘Somewhat.’ Mallon returned the smile. ‘Maybe it’s something that happened to me when I was shot.’ He removed a small box from his pocket and pushed it across the table. ‘Put this in your pocket now.’

Wilson did as he was instructed. ‘What’s in it?’ he asked.

‘Something I’ve been keeping for a day like this. I don’t know much about you but I had a chance to Google you and you seem to be a decent policeman. There’s a bullet and a cartridge in the box. My sister picked them up during the chaos, and she gave them to me before she left for Australia. She had an idea that they might come in useful some day.’

‘What happened to the rest of the bullets and cartridges?’ Wilson asked watching the door to the toilet.

‘I don’t know but my mother said the place was swept clean by the next day. You wouldn’t even know that two young men bled out their lives on the street.

‘You weren’t angry that Cormac never got justice?’

‘I was sixteen-years-old, Superintendent. We moved to Omagh as soon as I was out of hospital and I was into a new school and facing my GCSEs. I had a deformed hand, which was the subject of a lot of bullying. So my plate was pretty full. I felt Cormac’s loss. He was one year older than me and was my best friend. You talk about psychic, but I could feel him around me for years after he died. And strangely, I felt him close to me when I woke up this morning. If he’d lived, he would have been fifty-seven next week. Yes, I want justice for him, and knowing this Province as I do, I have no great expectation of getting it.’

‘Is there any possibility that either Cormac or Sean was involved with some branch of the IRA?’

Mallon laughed. ‘People used to say that my brother and I were joined at the hip. Wherever he went I went and vice-versa. If he’d been involved, I would have been the first to know. I can state categorically that he had no political affiliation at all.’

Jackson returned from the toilet and retook his seat.

Wilson felt the weight of the small box in his pocket. ‘You never know when justice might arrive,’ he said standing up. ‘We’ve taken up enough of your time and I’m sure you have a classroom full of kids waiting.’ He extended his hand. Mallon took it and the handshake was firm. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

Mallon nodded.

Wilson watched the slight figure as Mallon headed back to the school. If this were the investigation of a current crime, he would have felt that it was the start of what could prove to be momentum. He had real evidence of the crime in his pocket. It was not evidence that would stand up in court. The bullet and shell could have come from anywhere. There was no chain of evidence. There was no proof that they were collected on Beechmount Parade on the day of the shooting. Sixty or more rounds had disappeared. Sixty or more shells had disappeared. It was a hell of a coincidence, and Wilson didn’t believe in coincidence.