The Broken Shore (6 page)

Chapter Nine

Annette put down the phone to Davy and glanced at the file. It was Sunday and even though she was on duty, making the phone calls about Lucia’s case from home seemed more appropriate somehow. This wasn’t a murder, and going behind Craig’s back was one thing, going behind it in full view of his glass office, even when he wasn’t in there, felt like quite another.

Davy was on board to help Lucia, and Nicky too. She’d felt bad about asking them but she’d explained Lucia’s reasons for by-passing Craig under the heading of ‘over-protective big brother’ leaving out all mention of the assault when Craig was seventeen. That was Lucia’s business. They’d been eager to help and Davy had started tracing the texts and letters already. Meanwhile Lucia had kept her part of the deal, telling her parents a small white lie and moving back home. The unmarked patrols would keep an eye on her apartment for a few days and report back. Now she just had to come up with a list of possible suspects and they could start to eliminate them one by one.

A cup of hot tea was placed in her hand, breaking into her thoughts. She looked up at her benefactor and smiled. Pete was making a real effort nowadays; he had been since they’d had their traumatic almost-split five months before. The jury was still out on whether they could make their marriage work, but he was trying hard and she was willing to let him. Whether it worked or not she knew she would survive now, with or without him. She loved her job and making Inspector wasn’t bad but she wasn’t stopping there. After all, if Melanie Trainor could be an ACC then there was nothing to stop her from reaching the top. She smiled across the room at her husband, grateful that he couldn’t read her thoughts. Inspector was high enough at the moment, but whatever she decided in the future, Pete wouldn’t be allowed to stand in her way.

***

Craig parked his black Audi in front of a row of modern terraced houses near the Coleraine Road. They looked about five years old. Children’s toys and bikes were scattered in front of two of them, indicating that they were family homes. A battered car and a gleaming BMW motor bike were parked in front of another. Even if he hadn’t known which number Jonno Mulvenna lived at, the bike would have given it away. Once an adrenalin junkie, always one. Anyone who’d taken planted bombs to kill high value targets like the army and police wouldn’t have any problem with a bit of speed.

Craig climbed out and joined Andy beside the boot, holding the file photo of their interviewee in his hand. They’d called in advance and instead of Mulvenna being reluctant to speak to them as they’d feared, he’d been positively welcoming. Craig had no idea why but they’d soon find out. He glanced at the black and white headshot and grudgingly admitted Mulvenna had been good looking in his youth. Or a ‘big honey’ as Nicky had described him.

With his jet-black hair and bright blue eyes he had the ‘black Irish’ look of many born in the North-West. Some said it was a legacy of the Spanish Armada’s sailors washing up on the West coast, others of the American’s stationed in Derry during the war. Wherever it came from it was the stuff of matinee idols and the favoured portrayal of terrorists by Hollywood, romanticising their murderers to make the reality more palatable.

But there was nothing palatable about Jonno Mulvenna’s record. Four successful car bombs planted in six years with the deaths of sixteen police and soldiers to his name, not to mention the prison officers he’d picked off through his sights. Only fifteen years prison for all those deaths. Mulvenna was a bad, bad man and Craig could understand why someone had thought framing him for Jarvis’ murder was justice. But it was a rough justice that had just come back to bite them on the ass.

Andy slipped on his jacket and they walked to the door of number fourteen, then knocked and waited, their reflection warping back at them in the BMW’s shining chrome. The door was opened a minute later by a man whose only concession to the years was some greying at his temples that made Craig think of Richard Gere. He was shocked. If this man’s evil was written anywhere it wasn’t on his face. Dorian Gray must be missing a portrait. Mulvenna was in his fifties but he looked almost as young and fit as he had in ’83. He smiled at them and Craig stared back unyieldingly. He flashed his badge and Mulvenna shrugged, waving them into a neat front room with a series of oil paintings on the walls.

The paintings subjects were varied. A bird, a man who resembled Mulvenna and a stunning woman caught Craig’s eye. He glanced at Mulvenna’s hand but there was no ring. That meant nothing nowadays. Men like him didn’t wear them, always free in their minds. He turned to look at the other wall where a painting of Portstewart Strand held pride of place. An aide-mémoire of Jarvis’ murder? No, he doubted it; there was nothing dark about the image. The painting was just like the others: beautiful. Whoever had painted them had real talent, and Craig said so. He was surprised by the faint blush that coloured Mulvenna’s face.

“I did them. I’d always drawn, but prison art classes taught me to paint. I’m getting my Masters at the moment.”

It figured. It suited the Hollywood romance. Any minute now Mulvenna would try to justify his past as a war, seeing himself as a warrior of some kind. Something about the scene bothered Craig and then he worked out what it was. Mulvenna was a romantic. The murder of Ronni Jarvis didn’t fit his approach to life. Mulvenna waved them to a seat and poured them a waiting coffee as Craig reluctantly drew closer to the conclusion he didn’t want to reach. Mulvenna started talking before he had a chance to speak.

“I know why you’re here and before you even ask, the answer’s no. No, I didn’t kill Ronni Jarvis, no matter what the courts decided. And no, I had nothing to do with the death of the girl on the beach last week.”

Andy went to interject and Mulvenna stilled him with a look. Craig saw its steel and nodded inwardly. This was the menace he’d expected to see. He was shocked by Mulvenna’s next words.

“I deserved to be put away in ’83, and for a lot longer than I was.”

He paused, not as if he was expecting an argument but in thought. “I killed a lot of your lads and army as well, but…” He stared at them earnestly, as if challenging them to disagree. “Whether you believed it was or not, we saw it as a war. We didn’t have the guns and tanks and uniforms you had so we did what we could, how we could, to get the British out.”

Craig interrupted angrily. “You’re trying to justify what you did?”

Mulvenna shook his head slowly. “No. Not justify. Explain.”

He stared Craig straight in the eyes, as if begging him to understand but knowing he never would. After a moment he sighed and shook his head. “I don’t feel guilty about killing them but I regret every man that I killed. Every one of them. I’m sorry they’re dead and I’m sorry for their families, but I can’t turn back the clock.”

Andy leaned forward, spotting a gap. “And what about every woman?”

They were surprised by the strength of Mulvenna’s next words. “NO! I’ve never harmed a woman, never.”

Andy went to continue but Craig quietened him imperceptibly, wanting to hear what Mulvenna had to say. Their coffees sat untouched, as if to drink them would be a betrayal of their dead colleagues. If Mulvenna noticed he didn’t say, he was long past sticks and stones in the pain stakes.

He sipped at his drink and dropped his eyes to the floor as if remembering the women he had known. When he spoke again it was falteringly, his voice quieter than it had been since they’d arrived.

“I didn’t even know Veronica Jarvis, and I know what you’re going to say. Lots of men kill women randomly, women that they don’t know, so why not me? Well here’s why not. I was in love, really in love for the first time in my life. I was happy. Why would I kill some woman I’d never even met?”

His eyes were hidden, but Craig knew what they would hold. Tears. He could hear them in his voice. The romance hadn’t ended well, that much was clear and Craig thought that it wasn’t just because he’d been sent to prison. Andy shot him a puzzled look. This was totally unexpected. They sat in silence waiting for Mulvenna to restart. Finally he did, in clearer tones. His voice was curious, a mixture of soft country tones and hard Belfast picked up from his colleagues in jail. Craig could imagine some women finding the contrast attractive.

“If Ronni Jarvis was an informer then the IRA could have been to blame, but we usually claimed our kills.” He looked at them defiantly. “And rape wasn’t our weapon of choice. Ronni Jarvis was killed by someone who had nothing to do with the IRA, mark my words. And if they could have got their hands on him in ’83 he would have been dead for getting them and me the blame.”

His eyes dropped to the floor and he sat in silence for so long that Craig wondered if he would restart. He finally did. “Before you ask, the person I loved left me around the time I was charged and no, I won’t give you their name. I owe them that much for all the hurt.” Craig gazed at him and saw the last glisten of tears. Mulvenna sniffed. “Ronni Jarvis’s murder is thirty years old. What is it you want from me?”

“There are strong similarities between her death and the woman found this week. And other links that I can’t tell you about.”

Mulvenna bristled. “I had nothing to do with either death.”

Craig raised a hand, stilling him mid-defence. “I believe you. But we still need to know your movements last week.” He did believe him and a glance at Andy said that he believed him as well.

“I don’t want to complain about my sentence for Jarvis. Like I said, I deserved it, for all the others I killed.” He shuddered as if remembering the things that he’d done then stared straight at Craig.

“When was the woman killed?”

Craig thought for a moment, calculating the benefit of telling him.

“Sometime between last weekend and Thursday.”

Mulvenna nodded. “I’ve an alibi for that whole time.” He half-smiled to himself, as if having an alibi was a novelty for him. “I was on a residential art course up in Ballymena with forty other painters. It ran from Friday 25
^th
for a week. I only got back two days ago. You can check.”

“We’ll do that.”

Craig paused, calculating how to use the man’s faux-chivalry to best effect.

“Trying to overturn your conviction would take years and you don’t seem to want it. But if it wasn’t you who killed Ronni Jarvis then it could have been the man who killed this latest victim, so we need your help with a few questions. OK?”

Mulvenna nodded. “I’ll give you anything I can.”

“I know it was a long time ago but tell me what you remember about the period around your arrest.”

Mulvenna cut across him. “It was yesterday to me. I remember where I was when the news came in that Ronni Jarvis had been found. In Whiterock, off the Falls Road. I didn’t know her so it wasn’t that that made me listen, it was the burying in the sand. That caught everyone’s attention. When the news said the IRA had claimed it there was uproar.” He gave them a wry look. “Not that I would have put it past some of the bastards I knew. Every organisation has its psychopaths, men who take pleasure in the kill. We had our fair share of those.”

“Anyone stand out as capable of doing this to a woman?”

Craig knew as soon as he asked that the answer was yes. The look in Mulvenna’s eyes said he only had one name in mind. Mulvenna nodded.

“A bastard called Declan Wasson. Evil little fucker. I couldn’t stand him. He lorded it over the young recruits like he thought he was God and we all knew that he beat his wife. The word was that he was protected, but it only after he died in ‘89 that we found out who by.”

“Who?”

Mulvenna’s stare gave them the answer immediately. The Police or MI5. Craig looked at Andy and nodded. It was impossible to fight a war without information, and informants were highly prized assets. They were hated by their own side and often despised by their handlers, but their information saved lives.

Mulvenna read their minds and shook his head. “Wasson didn’t inform out of any sense of integrity, if that’s what you’re thinking. This was about power and money for him, pure and simple.”

“How sure are you that he killed Jarvis?”

“One hundred percent. He bragged about it once because he thought he was flameproof. I think he thought he was immune to prosecution because of who he knew, but who he knew got him killed.”

“He’s dead?”

Mulvenna nodded. “Found shot in the head in ‘89. You didn’t get the IRA blamed for something they didn’t do and walk away from it for long.”

Craig’s heart sank as he realised what it meant. If Wasson had killed Ronni Jarvis and been shot in ’89, it would explain why there’d been no similar murders since then. Lissy Trainor’s murder was a copycat. But by whom?

Mulvenna read his train of thought. “Someone’s fucking with you, lads. I’d lay my life that someone just copied the murder because the method was so dramatic they knew it would get in the press. Was it the same in every detail, or just in the obvious ones?”

Craig didn’t answer but his glance told Mulvenna everything he needed to know.

“Well, it’s just my amateur sleuthing but I’d say, look at what the two cases have in common apart from the way she was killed. Someone’s telling you something. And look at why Wasson was protected and I was framed. ”

Something in Mulvenna’s eyes told Craig he already knew the answer to the last part, but he needed more information before he was sure. Craig nodded and stood. Andy followed and Mulvenna walked them to the front door. Craig turned before they left.

“We may need to talk to you again.”

Mulvenna nodded. “That’s fine. Just don’t waste your time asking me anything about the IRA. Old loyalties die hard.”

***

Craig drove along Strand Road then pulled up outside a café. They drank their coffee in the car, each man mulling over his thoughts. Finally Andy spoke.

“Mulvenna basically said he was framed by one of us.”

“Yes.”

“But why
then
? And why for a case he was likely to be acquitted on? If they’d wanted to frame him successfully a shooting or bombing would have been a much better bet. Much more his style.”