The Final Silence (21 page)

‘What about you?’ Calvin asked.

‘I’m heading back to the office. I want to go over my notes for the morning.’

That was a lie. Flanagan knew that if she went home now, Alistair would still be up. They would have one or two glasses of wine, maybe a gin and tonic, and talk about things. She would have to tell him about Dr Prunty and his cold hands, about the surgery she would have in less than a fortnight.

Was she a coward? After all the things she had seen and done in her life, all the horrors she had witnessed, was she now finally revealed?

Flanagan couldn’t imagine anything more terrifying than telling her husband about the cancer. To say it out loud to him would make it real. Their life together would be split in two for ever: the time before the words were spoken, and the time after.

If Serena Flanagan was a coward, she could remain so for another day.

LENNON HEARD AN
alarm clock from upstairs as he pulled the Uprichards’ front door closed behind him. Darkness had begun to ease away, black sky ceding to deep blue and grey, frost touching everything. This was a decent part of East Belfast. Not the most expensive, but not bad. Good hard-working middle-class families doing the best they could. Uprichard’s home stood midway along a pleasant avenue that ran between the Cregagh and Ravenhill Roads. A few lights went on and off behind the curtains and blinds of neighbouring homes, but mostly the street remained Sunday morning quiet.

Lennon felt an ugly sore of resentment at the good lives these people had, and he hated himself for it.

His breath misted as he walked west, head down. Even if no residents paid attention, he risked being seen by a passing patrol car. And Ladas Drive station was less than a mile in the other direction. He tightened his jacket around him as he worked his way towards Ormeau Park, the expanse of green that stretched along the eastern side of the River Lagan.

Lennon wanted to get off the streets. A lone man on a Sunday morning, even one without battered features and a pronounced limp like his, would be noticed. The longer he stayed visible, the more likely it was that some concerned resident would put a call in to the police to report a suspicious loiterer. The park was his best bet. Lose himself among the trees and wait the early morning out.

Only one man could help Lennon right now, a man he could hardly bear to be in the presence of. And when he planned to call at his door begging for assistance, it would do him no favours to arrive too early.

Lennon checked his watch as he crossed the Ravenhill Road. Quarter past six, at least three hours to kill. He reached the iron fence that bordered the eastern side of the park and golf course. It stood no more than five feet high, and before his injuries Lennon would have been able to scale it easily. But not now.

He walked north until he found a litter bin next to a lamp post he could use to hoist himself over. A quick glance around to make sure no one was watching, and he climbed, careful of the spikes on top of the fence. He landed hard on the other side, his shoulder taking the brunt of the fall, and lay there for a while to recover. When the cold got to him, he struggled to his feet and moved.

Lennon felt exposed, almost naked, as he crossed the fairway of the golf course, heading for the clusters of trees at the other side. Once hidden within their shelter, he hunkered down, hugging himself to combat the shivers that rattled through him.

He never would have believed he could sleep in such conditions. But he did.

It had gone nine by the time Lennon was on the move again. He had woken with a start, freezing cold, his teeth chattering. A few golfers were already on the course getting an early round in, so Lennon stuck to the treeline as he headed north and out of the park. He needed a taxi to get him to Sydenham, but he saw none as he worked his way from street to street. He couldn’t risk turning on his mobile phone to call one, so he relied on luck to hail a passing cab.

Tattered Union flags hung from lamp posts, marking out territory, leaving no question who these streets belonged to. Lennon had lost track of his direction, given up telling north from south, had only a vague idea of where he was. The street names didn’t mean anything to him. He felt a quiet relief when he emerged onto the Woodstock Road, knowing a taxi would be easier to chance upon here, or failing that, a bus stop.

As he headed north, he heard the rumbling waves of voices from a church service. There, isolated in a sea of Protestantism and red, white and blue flags, was St Anthony’s Catholic Church. An early mass, attended by a full congregation by the sounds of it.

Lennon wondered if it was a feast day, given how early the mass was under way. Then he remembered: Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. He stopped, stared at the church doors, a strange and light feeling at his centre. For no reason he could fathom, he walked towards the doors and in to where the voices swelled and resonated.

He almost passed the font before he remembered his duty. He dipped his fingers in the water, made the sign of the cross, and struggled to recall what he was supposed to say. It had been decades since Jack Lennon had attended a mass. Even the handful of funerals he’d been to in recent years had been at Protestant churches.

He found a space near the back of the congregation and squeezed in beside an elderly gentleman, who smiled and nodded at him. Others glanced at the marks on Lennon’s face, judgement behind their eyes.

What am I doing here? he thought. This place had nothing for him. No belief should have drawn him into this cold building. But still he remained, standing and sitting when others did, saying, ‘And also with you,’ or ‘Amen,’ along with the faithful.

He did his best to ignore the ache in his lower back, in his shoulders and hips, and the dull throb behind his eyes. The painkillers would have eased him, but he’d left the blister strip in the bin beneath the Uprichards’ kitchen sink, the two remaining pills untouched.

Lennon’s mind drifted as the priest read from the Gospel of Luke, chapter twenty-two, the story of a betrayer’s kiss. He thought of the wretchedness his life had become. His home and daughter gone, forced to sleep beneath a tree in a park, or beg a friend for shelter. And even that friend didn’t want him around. Decent people believing him to be a murderer.

Perhaps he should have listened to Susan, gone to see a therapist. He knew all about post-traumatic stress disorder, he recognised the symptoms, but that didn’t mean he had it. But it wouldn’t have hurt to talk to someone. Tell them about the nightmares, the panic attacks, his inability to live with himself, let alone anyone else.

He shut out the sounds around him, the voice of the priest, its echoes rising up through the church, the coughs and sniffs and yawns of the parishioners.

In the quiet sanctuary of his own mind, Lennon began to pray. Even though he had not a shred of faith in his heart, he prayed that God would reveal a way out of the darkness that had swallowed him, some light to follow. He prayed that God would bring his daughter back to his arms, allow him the chance to be a better father. He asked that Susan would find the happiness she sought, that they could forgive each other. Finally, he prayed that Rea Carlisle’s killer be found so that this curse could be lifted from him.

The congregation around Lennon said, ‘Amen.’

He said it too.

Lennon looked up to the vaults of the ceiling, his gaze following the voices as they rose and were trapped there. He realised his prayer, too, was caught in that ceiling, like a fish trawled in a net, never to escape heavenward.

With the pain in his joints ringing louder than the worshippers around him, Lennon got to his feet and limped outside once more, the sun warming some of the church’s chill from his skin.

What use was a prayer?

A taxi passed, and he raised his hand.

FLANAGAN HAD SET
her phone’s alarm for seven, but she had woken long before it went off. Alistair had been lying snoring on his side of the bed, Eli sandwiched between them since he’d wandered in during the early hours. The collective heat of their bodies had caused her to sweat, her nightclothes clinging to her skin.

The children would be awake by eight. Alistair would get up with them, offer to let her sleep on, seeing as she’d worked late. When she came down for breakfast, they would talk. He would ask what was bothering her, just as Ida Carlisle had. The sickness must have shown on her, and Alistair would see it too.

He would ask in front of the children, not realising how terrible the answer would be.

So at 6:55 she had lifted her phone from the bedside table, cancelled the alarm, pulled the duvet aside, and eased out of bed. Her bare soles made little noise on the carpet as she slipped out of the bedroom and down the short flight of stairs to the bathroom.

She washed quickly and quietly before putting on the clothes she had left there the night before, then down the stairs, closed the front door behind her without a sound. Perhaps Alistair would stir as he heard the car’s cold diesel engine bark and clatter. Even if he did, he would roll over and go back to sleep, guessing she had gone to work to get an early start.

Which wasn’t entirely untrue.

She found CI Uprichard in his office, watering a pot plant that perched on the windowsill.

‘You’re Flanagan,’ he said.

‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Can I have a word?’

‘About Jack?’

‘Yes.’

He pointed to the chair in front of his desk. ‘You’d better sit down, then.’

Uprichard’s office was smaller than the temporary one Flanagan had been given, and less well equipped. He must have pissed someone off, she thought as she took the offered seat, or maybe he didn’t suck up to the right people. Which was probably why he had been lumbered with an early Sunday shift.

His white uniform shirt looked crisp enough to snap at the creases, his epaulettes deep black, the buttons gleaming under the fluorescent light. He touched the tip of his tongue to the centre of his upper lip as he wiped each of the plant’s broad green leaves with a damp cloth.

As quickly and absolutely as Flanagan had taken a dislike to Dan Hewitt, she realised she liked Uprichard. It was illogical, she knew, but her gut instincts had always served her well.

‘He didn’t do it,’ Uprichard said as he set aside the cloth. ‘I don’t care what you’ve got on him. I don’t care what anyone else told you. And by anyone else, I mean Dan Hewitt. Jack Lennon did not kill that woman.’

Flanagan watched him as he took his seat. ‘What makes you so sure of that?’ she asked.

Uprichard folded his hands on his desk. ‘I talked to him last night.’

‘Where?’

He hesitated for the briefest of moments. ‘In my home.’

She sat forward. ‘He came to your house and you didn’t call it in?’

‘He stayed the night,’ Uprichard said, not taking his gaze away from hers.

Flanagan felt her jaw tighten, a pulsing in her temples. ‘You do realise what kind of trouble you could be in, don’t you? The kind that ruins careers. How close are you to retirement?’

‘Not bloody close enough,’ he said.

Flanagan leaned forward. ‘You’d better explain yourself before I go to the ACC with this.’

‘Jack and I talked last night. Not much. Just a few words, really. But enough to see the sort of shape he’s in. That man’s no killer.’

‘He killed a fellow officer not much more than a year ago, and—’

‘A corrupt fellow officer who’d been paid money to kill him and the girl. Jack took three bullets to protect a young woman who’d been held captive and gone through God knows what in—’

‘A young woman who was herself a suspect in a murder case.’

Uprichard’s face reddened. ‘She killed one of the bastard thugs who’d trafficked her to Belfast. She did it to save herself from being raped by him. If Jack hadn’t got her out of the country, she wouldn’t have lasted another day. He nearly died to save that girl. He threw away his career for her. Now you’re going to tell me he battered this ex-girlfriend of his around the head just because she wouldn’t let him have his way with her?’

Flanagan felt heat spread from her neck up to her cheeks. She closed her eyes and breathed deep through her nose, flushed the anger away like dirty water from a sink. When she opened her eyes again, Uprichard still stared back. He spoke before she could.

‘When I left Jack in my kitchen last night I told him to be gone before the morning. I didn’t sleep a wink. I lay there all night, thinking it through, looking at it from every side I could imagine. Yes, he’s not always been the most noble of men. Yes, it looks bad that he was there in the house with her. Yes, he touched the crowbar that killed her. But it’s all circumstantial. You sent all the clothes you took from his apartment to Carrickfergus, right? I’ll bet you my house they don’t find a single spot of blood from that woman. I’ve known Jack Lennon since he was in uniform. I know he can be a hard man to like, but I also know he’s got shot on two separate occasions trying to help someone else. And I know he didn’t kill Rea Carlisle.’

‘Everything points to Lennon,’ she said. ‘Everything. The fingerprints on the weapon, the witness who saw him leave, the history he had with the victim.’

‘Who are you trying to convince?’ Uprichard asked. ‘Me or yourself?’

‘If you were in my position, you’d have him for the murder too.’

‘Maybe I would,’ he said. ‘But I’d be wrong. And so are you. You’ve got a press call this morning. Are you going to name him?’

‘I’m considering it,’ she said.

‘It’s a hell of a risk.’

‘You think I don’t know that?’

‘You seem to know plenty,’ Uprichard said as he got to his feet. He retrieved the cloth and went back to his plant. ‘Who am I to question a detective’s judgement?’

Flanagan simmered for a few moments before she stood. ‘All right. Thank you for your time.’

She headed for the door. As she reached for the handle, Uprichard said, ‘One thing to remember, though. Some people in this station can be trusted more than others.’