The Final Silence (28 page)

He put his hand at the centre of Flanagan’s chest and pushed hard. The back of her head glanced off the fridge door.

‘Get the fuck out of my house, I don’t have to—’

Ida said, ‘Graham.’

He spun towards her voice, his hand up and ready to strike. ‘What do y—’

Silence then, as if Flanagan had gone suddenly deaf, leaving only the rushing and pulsing in her head.

As Carlisle stood frozen, his mouth open, Ida moved once more, something bright flashing between her and her husband.

Too late, as the red spilled out from his belly, Flanagan understood. Again, Ida’s hand withdrew the blade, drove it back, then again, and again.

A whining expulsion of air from Carlisle’s mouth broke whatever bound Flanagan in place. She threw herself forward, grabbing for Ida’s wrist, pushed her away.

The knife rang on the tiled floor, the blade breaking away from the hilt. Ida stumbled backwards, tripped over her own feet, and fell against the cupboards on the other side of the kitchen. She dropped down and curled her knees up to her chest, staring back at Flanagan.

The patter of blood on the tiles drew Flanagan away from Ida’s gaze, back to Carlisle. He remained upright, swaying. His hands went to his stomach. He looked down, saw them drenched red, then leaned against the fridge, leaving bloody smears across its polished white surface. His knees cracked on the floor and he settled back with a wheeze, facing his wife.

Carlisle’s face crumpled in grief and regret.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Ida, I’m sorry. Tell Rea I’m sorry.’

Ida remained still and quiet for long seconds, then screamed, ‘She’s dead!’ She threw herself forward, hands clawed and outstretched. ‘She’s dead, you killed her, you killed—’

Flanagan grabbed her shoulders, hauled her back across the room, shaking, sobbing and kicking.

‘Tomorrow,’ Graham said, the word thin in the air between them.

Flanagan turned to him. ‘What?’

‘To . . . tomorrow. Howard . . . the Spark . . . the Sparkle.’

She crawled across the floor, through the warm tide of blood. ‘What? Were you seeing him tomorrow?’

‘Vic . . . Vic . . . toria . . . Sq . . .’

‘Victoria Square? Were you to see him at Victoria Square? Where in Victoria Square? What time?’

His eyes widened as he opened his mouth to speak.

Then, silence.

Flanagan put her fingers to his throat, felt for life. She found none. She turned her head, saw Ida reach for the broken blade, bring the metal to her wrist.

‘No!’

Flanagan dived across the floor, hands outstretched. She knocked the blade from Ida’s grip before she could find a vein. Ida went after it, but Flanagan took her in her arms, gripped her tight, rocked her just as she had been rocked by Ida the day before.

THE SPARKLE WOKE
early, his bare room lit a dim grey by the coming sunrise. He lay on the top bunk, huddled against the wall, blankets wrapped tight around him. Ordinary beds had never suited him. Too soft, like sinking in mud. He preferred the firm cots of his merchant navy days. This bunk bed had been rescued from a youth hostel in Downpatrick that was being renovated some years ago.

Most of his possessions had been acquired this way. Taking cash-in-hand wiring jobs around the country, gutting old houses and office blocks, threading new veins into their walls, collecting whatever he found useful in the site skips.

The Sparkle pushed back the blankets and lowered himself to the bare wooden floorboards. He went to the small window and pulled aside the sheet of linoleum that served as a blind.

Quiet and still on the street outside.

It had been anything but, last night. The students that shared most of the houses along this street had been drinking on the pavements until the early hours, moving threadbare couches and armchairs out to the footpaths despite the weather not being quite warm enough yet.

A few hardy types remained by their front doors, coats and hooded tops wrapped around them, two-litre cider bottles in their hands, or Buckfast fortified wine. Litter everywhere, empty beer cans, the remains of takeaway meals.

He hated them all, spoiled brats pissing their parents’ money up the walls, expecting the city council to come and clean up after them. Most ordinary residents had fled, selling their homes to the property investors and landlords, leaving the streets to this invasion of vermin.

They called this part of Belfast the Holylands. Nothing holy about it.

But the Sparkle had stayed in the house he’d rented under a false name for more than a decade. He came and went quietly. The students barely noticed him. Few stayed longer than a year. He lived like a mouse behind the skirtings, watching them go about their wasteful business.

While the revellers had shouted and sung to the heavens last night, the Sparkle had packed a bag. Not much. A few changes of clothes. Some wash things. A few of his favourite drawings rolled up and bound with a rubber band. Four-and-a-half thousand pounds in sterling notes, a little over two thousand in euros.

He needed one more thing.

The pistol lay on the peeling top of the child’s bedside locker. He crossed the room to it, lifted the gun in his right hand. It had been years since he’d pulled a trigger. He didn’t like such weapons. Too loud, too sudden, too easy. But he liked the weight of the pistol in his hand. The cold and the hard of it, the power held tight within the metal.

The springs of the lower bunk creaked beneath his weight as he sat down to wait beside the bag. He had much to do today, but not yet. He set the gun aside, lifted a pad of lined A5 pages and a pencil, began to draw, starting with diagonal slashes, building them up until they formed the shape of a tower of boat-shaped platforms. Circles and lines representing people standing on and climbing over them. How many levels were there in the shopping mall? Three? Four? No matter.

The Sparkle would arrive at Victoria Square a few minutes before noon so that he could be there waiting for Graham. He was confident Graham would not go to the police; he didn’t have the nerve. He would either come or he wouldn’t.

If Graham came, all would be well. He would hand over the money, and the Sparkle would walk the short distance to Central Station, take the next train to Dublin, and all this would be over and done with. For him, at least.

And if Graham didn’t come? Well, then his fate was laid out before him, just like he’d always imagined it.

He turned the page, began a new picture. A pistol, much like the one that sat on the bed beside him. A finger, much like his, on the trigger.

LENNON FOLLOWED FLANAGAN
to the conference room, a Styrofoam cup full of coffee in his hand. The same room he’d spent an hour fidgeting in last week while the Police Federation lawyer read notes.

He’d managed only a brief sleep, and a shower, every cell of his body craving the warm blanket of painkillers, before the call came. Flanagan looked like she’d had none at all. Lennon checked his watch as they made their way along the corridor. Ten past seven. As they approached the door, two passing officers saw him approach, surprise clear on their faces. Apart from his meetings with the lawyer, he hadn’t been seen in this station for more than a year, so he could hardly blame them.

The chatter and bustle in the room ceased as Flanagan entered, followed by straggling whispers at the sight of Lennon. He felt his skin burn at their attention. Officers from E Department, Special Operations Branch. Surveillance, undercover work, often tasked with investigating their colleagues on the force. Lennon guessed some of them had been digging into his own case.

Adhering to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, Flanagan had put a request to mount the operation in to the ACC at four a.m. The nine-strong team had been sent over from Palace Barracks in Holywood. Most of the men hadn’t shaved. One of the three women sat applying make-up.

Flanagan took her place at the head of the room. Lennon took a seat facing DS Calvin at the far wall. Calvin nodded. Lennon returned the gesture.

‘Thank you all for coming at such short notice,’ Flanagan said. ‘We don’t have a great deal of time, so I’ll keep this brief. As of yesterday afternoon, we have a firm suspect in the killing of Rea Carlisle. I’m sure you’re aware of the case from the news reports.’

The officers exchanged glances and murmurs. Calvin stood and opened the folder he’d been holding on his lap. He took out a bundle of A4 pages and handed them to the nearest cop, who took one and passed the pile along.

Lennon got the last page. A grainy blown-up image of the Sparkle’s face, copied from the photograph Rea had given him only four days before.

‘Howard Monaghan,’ Flanagan said. ‘This photograph is around thirty-five years old. Monaghan is about sixty now. I believe he has killed two people in the last few days, one of them Rea Carlisle, the other Roger ‘Roscoe’ Patterson, a career criminal who I’m sure was well known to some of you. There is also reason to believe Howard Monaghan has killed a further eight people across the British Isles since the early nineties.’

Another ripple of hushed words across the room.

‘Quiet, please,’ Flanagan scolded. ‘Last night, between eleven and eleven-fifteen, I called at the home of Rea Carlisle’s parents, hoping to speak with Mr Carlisle. Largely due to information brought to light by Detective Inspector Lennon, I had reason to believe there was some connection between Graham Carlisle and Howard Monaghan, dating back to their youth. Mr Carlisle wasn’t there when I called, but he arrived a short time after. There followed an altercation, and before I could intervene, Mr Carlisle was stabbed by Mrs Carlisle with a large kitchen knife.’

More voices, louder now.

Lennon kept his silence. Flanagan had told him everything in her office half an hour before, her hands still shaking.

‘Quiet. Quiet, please.’

She waited, her gaze stalking the room like that of a schoolmarm.

‘Mr Carlisle was pronounced dead on arrival at the Royal Victoria Hospital just after midnight. Mrs Carlisle is now in custody. This is being kept out of the press for the time being. It will not be mentioned outside this room. Am I clear?’

They nodded their assent.

‘Good. Before Mr Carlisle lost consciousness, he was able to speak a few words. Two of them were “Victoria” and “tomorrow”. It is my belief that he had been in contact with Howard Monaghan, and that he intended to meet him at Victoria Square today. I don’t know where. I don’t know what for. I don’t know what time. But I believe Howard Monaghan will be there today.’

She looked at her watch.

‘It’s now coming up to seven-twenty. The centre opens at eight. That gives us forty minutes. We do this quietly. Everyone in radio contact, it’ll be an all-informed net, recorded as per usual. Keep chatter to a minimum. Who’s your comms operator?’

A slender man with dark short-cropped hair raised his hand. ‘Sergeant Beattie, ma’am.’

Lennon recognised him, wished he hadn’t. He’d noticed Beattie hanging around the hospital corridors when he’d been recovering from the shooting. Watching who came and went, using his mobile phone one time too often to cover a radio conversation, drawing the kind of attention only another cop would give.

‘Okay,’ Flanagan said. ‘DS Calvin will pair with you. Stab vests are mandatory, but keep them concealed. There’s an Out-of-Bounds order on the centre extending to fifty metres from each exit, so no other police units will get in the way. We’ll be split into pairs, one per level, including the car park underneath the main complex. You can see all the main street entrances from the platforms in the central tower, and the connecting walkways. Between the lot of us, we should be able to keep the entire centre covered.’

Calvin raised his hand. ‘What about using the centre’s CCTV? I’m sure the management will cooperate, let us use their control room. Surely they’ve everything covered from there?’

A groan went around the room.

Beattie said, ‘We never tell anyone an operation’s in place. For one thing, we’re not required to. And more importantly, if the centre management know about it, their staff will be shitting bricks all day waiting for it to kick off. Your target will twig the second he sees a security guard sweating, and he’ll be away.’

Calvin nodded and looked down at the floor, his cheeks glowing red.

Beattie turned back to Flanagan. ‘And how exactly do we recognise this guy? You said this photo was thirty-odd years old.’

Flanagan looked to Lennon. ‘Jack?’

Lennon grunted as he stood, kept a hand on the back of the chair for balance. ‘I saw Monaghan yesterday afternoon, up close. His hair has greyed, a little thinner on top, his face is more heavily lined, but other than that, he hasn’t changed too much. He’s about five-six, five-seven, slender build, wiry, very agile, despite his age.’

Flanagan said, ‘DI Lennon will be with me, ready to confirm Monaghan’s identity if and when any of you spot him. We’ll stay on the upper level to try and avoid Monaghan seeing DI Lennon.’

‘I thought Lennon was on suspension,’ Beattie said. ‘For shooting a colleague, no less.’

He did not look at Lennon.

‘DI Lennon will not be part of the arrest operation, he will be there purely to identify the suspect. I’ve cleared this with the ACC. I expect the full cooperation of every participant in this operation. Is that clear, Sergeant Beattie?’

The cop nodded. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

She had told Lennon about her conversation with the Assistant Chief Constable that morning. The ACC hadn’t appreciated being woken in the early hours to be spun a yarn about some mad killer who might decide to go shopping that morning. He had begrudgingly given Flanagan permission to pull together a small team to stake out the place for the day, but no more than that. He wasn’t going to waste resources based on the dying whispers of Graham Carlisle, even if he was a politician.

Lennon knew that even if Flanagan had another day to prepare, rather than a few hours, the ACC still wouldn’t give her the manpower she really needed. She was making do, and it showed.