Those We Left Behind (2 page)

Purdy, a DCI then, led her through the house. A detective sergeant for almost five years, Flanagan had seen many murder scenes. The ugliness of the act, the indignity of it. And the intrusion of strangers into the victim’s home, his or her life laid bare in all its banality and oddness. Evidence of personal habits that would shame the victim if he were alive to know they had been discovered. Slovenliness, loneliness, addiction. Sudden and violent death rarely visited those with stable lives, with loving families, with purpose to their days. More often than not, murder happened on drunken nights between friends brought together by their mutual dependencies, petty arguments exploding into bloodshed, kitchen knives buried in throats, heads cracked open by heavy objects. No planning, no intent, only rage unleashed.

But this was different. Purdy had told her about it on the drive over. A prosperous middle-aged couple on a good street on the outskirts of the city, one son of their own, fostering dozens of less fortunate children over the years. Now two of them had apparently turned on David Rolston.

They pulled up outside the house, saw the two marked cars blocking the road. Through the tinted glass, Flanagan saw them, a boy in the rear of each car, waiting to be brought to the Serious Crime Suite in Antrim station by the officers who had arrested them. An hour ago, they had been children. Now they were killers, their lives burned away by one terrible act.

In a downstairs sitting room, Purdy and Flanagan met the two uniformed officers who’d found the body, and the boys just feet from it. Good furniture in the sitting room, a three-piece suite, well used but fine quality. A large flat-screen television, well-stocked bookcases, tasteful ornaments on the mantelpiece. Over the fireplace, a large landscape painting in oil. Somewhere along the north coast, Flanagan guessed, a local artist. Probably at least fifteen hundred pounds. Photographs here and there. A handsome couple, their one son smiling with them. Decent people, people of substance. Flanagan took it all in within seconds, building an image of the lives destroyed, and felt a small and aching mourning for them.

The uniformed policemen looked grey like ghosts, the younger of them struggling to contain his emotions.

‘From the start,’ Purdy said, ‘just as it happened.’

The older officer spoke. ‘We got here a few minutes after the call. We found the neighbour on the doorstep, the one who’d dialled 999. He said he’d heard a commotion, a lot of shouting and banging, then it had all gone quiet and no one was answering the door. We tried knocking too, but no response. We were able to force a window and get in through the kitchen. The neighbour had told us the noise seemed to come from upstairs, so we went straight up there. We found the body in the master bedroom, and the two boys lying on the bed. I checked for signs of life, not that there was much point.’

Flanagan saw the reddish-brown beneath his fingernails, in the creases of his knuckles.

‘Then we took the two boys into custody and called for the second car.’

The younger cop lost his grip on himself as his colleague spoke. He sniffed and rubbed his hand across his eyes.

‘Your first killing?’ Purdy asked.

The young cop nodded and wiped at his cheeks.

‘Cry all you want. I’d be more worried if it didn’t get to you.’ Purdy turned to Flanagan. ‘Let’s take a look.’

As they left the room, the older cop called after them. ‘It’s bad. Just so you know.’

Purdy and Flanagan exchanged a glance, then made their way up the stairs, Purdy leading. More paintings on the walls, smaller than the one in the living room, but probably valuable nonetheless. And photographs. Flanagan looked at David Rolston’s face in each as she passed, him and his loving family ageing frame by frame, knowing the life she observed had ceased to exist.

Purdy entered the bedroom first, stopped, breathed in and out once, a long sigh of an exhalation. Flanagan imagined him expelling a little of his soul, a piece of him for ever lost.

She had prepared herself for the smell. Always the same. But she could never have been ready for the devastation she saw when she looked into the room.

One side appeared normal. The neat conservatism of any middle-class couple, the décor clearly chosen by the wife. Tasteful floral wallpaper. More good quality furniture and fittings. One antique dressing table, probably an heirloom.

But the other side of the room, beneath and around the window. Walls slashed and smeared by madness and hate. Red arcs across the wallpaper. Spattered on the window, drops too fine to be visible from outside.

There, where he’d retreated into the corner, what remained of David Rolston. One arm hooked up and over his head at an unnatural angle making him look like a rag doll that had been thrown in a childish rage. Skull fragments. Flaps of skin, strands of hair. One eye gone, the other open and dull.

On the stained carpet, between his splayed legs, a cast iron bookend in the shape of a cat. Its pair remained on the dresser beside the body, books spilling onto the floor.

‘Dear Christ,’ Purdy said. ‘Children did this. Children.’

Flanagan’s hand went to her stomach, an instinctive motion. She had not yet told anyone other than her husband that she was pregnant. She said a silent prayer that this horror would not seep through her flesh and touch the growing life within.

Flanagan first met Ciaran Devine in his cell at Antrim Serious Crime Suite. The doctor had finished his examination, passed her in the corridor. A custody officer held the cell door open for her. Ciaran was sitting on the bench that served as a bed when she entered.

So small.

He looked up at her, startlement in his eyes. He had not expected a woman, she realised. His blood-soaked clothes had been removed, replaced by standard issue dark navy sweatshirt and joggers. Too big for his skinny frame, they sagged on him, the cuffs draping over his hands, revealing only his fingers. Slip-on plimsolls like Flanagan had worn as a child at school gym classes. Blond hair cut close to his scalp.

The custody sergeant had told Flanagan about the bruises, both fresh and fading, on Ciaran’s arms. Some of them like teeth marks. Self-harm, the custody sergeant had said. The boy had a history of it. Young for that, the sergeant observed. Flanagan told him biting was the most common form of self-harm amongst younger children. The custody sergeant had shrugged and said, young for killing people too.

Ciaran’s hands shook. Tears ready to come at any moment. He had been as calm as could be expected so far, the custody sergeant had told her, even when he was booked in. But Flanagan could tell the boy’s composure was a thin veil that might slip or be torn away in an instant. The staff in the custody suite had a nervous resolve about their work. They hated to have children locked up. So many dangers, so much to go wrong.

Flanagan took a breath, reminded herself once more that Ciaran was a child undergoing an experience more terrifying than most adults would ever have to endure. She gave him a shallow smile and spoke with the friendly but firm voice she had practised and refined over many hours.

‘Ciaran, I’m Detective Sergeant Serena Flanagan. I’ll be interviewing you in a little while, once your social worker gets here. Right now, I have to take a DNA sample.’

She showed him the clear plastic tube in her hand, the cotton swab inside.

‘Is that all right?’ she asked.

He blinked, and a tear rolled down his cheek. ‘Where’s Thomas?’ he asked.

Not even a whisper, barely a croak in his throat.

‘Thomas is in another block, in a cell like this one.’

‘Can I see him?’

Flanagan shook her head. ‘No, I’m sorry, you can’t.’

Ciaran’s control began to break. His hands danced in his lap, fingers grabbing at air, at cloth, at skin. His shoulders rose and fell as his breathing quickened. Panic creeping in, taking over. Panic blots out reason, lashes out, causes harm. It must be held at bay.

Flanagan crossed the cell to him, hunkered down so her eyes were level with his.

‘Ciaran, listen to me. I know you’re frightened, but I need you to try to stay calm. I know this is a scary place, but you’re safe here. You’re going to be all right, I promise. I’ll make sure of it.’

‘I want Thomas,’ he said, his voice a despairing whine.

‘You can’t see him, I’m sorry.’

He brought his hands to his face, bent over, curling in on himself. Weeping like the lost child he was. Even though she knew he had been involved in the most brutal violence, even though the blood still dried on his palms, Flanagan felt a piercing sorrow for this boy.

She did the only sane and reasonable thing she could imagine: she dropped the plastic tube and put her arms around Ciaran, gathered him in close to her. Rocked him as his tears soaked through her jacket.

Dear God and Jesus help him, she thought.

An hour later, in a cold interview room, Flanagan sat opposite Ciaran and a social worker. Michael Garvey wasn’t the brothers’ case worker; rather he had the misfortune to be on call for out of hours duty. Flanagan had sat at an interview table with him many times before, but never for anything like this. Garvey looked pale and uneasy. She couldn’t blame him.

Flanagan composed herself and arranged her notes on the table. No sooner had she released the boy from her embrace than she regretted the impropriety of it. She instructed herself to firm up, remember the victim, not to let her empathy cloud her judgement. This interview was the First Account. No time to be distracted.

She studied the boy for a moment. Ciaran Devine, only twelve years old. Father killed in a hit-and-run by a joyrider just yards from the family home when Ciaran was four years old. His mother had died five years ago from heart failure caused by endocarditis, not uncommon among heroin users. She’d lost custody of her boys eighteen months before that, mental health issues compounded by drug and alcohol abuse. The brothers had been shunted around the care system ever since, had nobody but each other.

A shitty start to life, Flanagan thought, but no excuse.

She and the social worker went through the ritual of opening sealed cases, examining blank CDRs, before she inserted them into the audio recorder. She cautioned the boy, and Garvey double-checked that he understood.

Then Flanagan began.

‘Ciaran, do you understand where you are?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, the word no more than an expulsion of air.

‘The detained person has replied in the affirmative,’ Flanagan said. ‘Try to speak up, Ciaran, so the microphone can hear you. It’s important. So where are you?’

‘The police station.’

‘Yes. The Serious Crime Suite at Antrim Police Station. How old are you?’

‘Twelve,’ he said.

‘And what is your brother’s name?’

Ciaran hesitated. He knew she was aware of the answer. But he couldn’t know about cognitive interviewing, the information funnel, the art of beginning with vague, open questions, narrowing down over time to the hard root of truth.

‘Your brother’s name, Ciaran,’ she said.

‘Thomas.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Fourteen,’ Ciaran said. ‘He’ll be fifteen in May. He didn’t do it. It was me.’

Flanagan inhaled. Garvey put his hand on Ciaran’s thin arm.

She gave the boy a smile she intended to be reassuring, but it felt tight on her lips. ‘We’ll come to what happened to Mr Rolston in a while. Right now, we need to—’

‘Thomas didn’t have anything to do with it,’ Ciaran said, his voice rising. ‘It was me on my own.’

Flanagan looked to Garvey. He stared back at her, his eyes wide. He turned to the boy and said, ‘Ciaran, you’re entitled to have a lawyer here. Do you want me to get one for you?’

Ciaran did not react to the words, as if they were spoken to some other boy in some other room.

Flanagan leaned forward. ‘Ciaran, I want you to think very carefully about what you’ve just said. It’s very important that you tell the truth. Even if what you said is true, Thomas was still there with you when it happened. He’ll still be in trouble for it. You won’t spare him anything by lying about it.’

‘He was there in the room,’ Ciaran said, staring at his hands. ‘But he didn’t do it. It was all me.’

‘Ciaran, I saw the blood on Thomas’s clothes. He was as covered in it as you were. You’ll not convince anyone he wasn’t at least alongside you when it happened. But now’s not the time to—’

Ciaran looked up at her, and she noticed for the first time how blue his eyes were. ‘I’m not lying,’ he said. ‘He tried to stop me. But I didn’t want to stop. He didn’t do it. It was me on my own.’

‘The time is eleven minutes past six,’ Flanagan said. ‘I’m suspending the interview now.’

She reached for the audio recorder, hit the stop button. She left Ciaran alone with the social worker, headed out into the corridor and found Purdy leaving the room where he had been watching a video feed of both the boys’ interviews.

‘What did Thomas say?’ Flanagan asked.

But she already knew the answer to that question.

CUNNINGHAM WALKED ACROSS
the open ground towards Phil Lewis. Lewis waited with his hands in the pockets of his corduroy trousers. He wore a shirt and tie beneath a V-neck sweater. He looked like he worked in just about any public sector job, that smart but slightly frayed look all but the highest paid civil servants tended to have.

Except for the heavy bunch of keys chained to his belt.

Buildings clustered around them, flat roofs, high walls and fences, enclosed yards. Behind the main complex stood a trio of greenhouses set in their own gardens.

Young men looked up from their digging and planting to watch her. Some looked closer than others, let their gaze linger beyond casual glances. Many of the boys were unnaturally bulky; a fervent gym culture thrived among the inmates, passing their hours of tedium lifting weights. A dangerous combination: the petulant immaturity of young offenders and the physical strength of grown men. Cunningham ignored the burning sensation their attention left on the skin beneath her clothing. She tightened her grip on the folder under her arm, the ever-present cigarette craving drying the back of her throat.

Lewis extended his hand as she approached. His fingers were soft and cool on hers. He didn’t look at the visitor’s tag she wore clipped to her jacket. They had met many times before.

‘He’s in the Offender Management Unit,’ Lewis said.

She followed him towards the blue two-storey prefab building.

‘How is he?’ she asked.

‘Quiet,’ Lewis said. ‘He’s always quiet. He’s a decent enough young fella, considering.’

Considering.

Jesus, Cunningham thought. Considering he’d killed a human being.

‘Is he using?’ she asked.

‘No, not that we know of. Thomas, his brother, kept him out of the way of all that. Kept him clean.’

‘Not even cannabis?’ She couldn’t mask the surprise in her voice. Lock up a young man for hours upon days upon weeks, pen him in with dozens of other boys, all as bored as him. There were only so many ways to pass the time.

‘Not even a bit of blow,’ Lewis said. ‘There was a worry he might start once Thomas left us, but he didn’t. Or if he did, he kept it well hidden.’

‘When did he last see his brother?’

Lewis paused at the door, pursed his lips as he thought.

‘Maybe a fortnight ago. He was getting fidgety ’cause he hadn’t seen Thomas for a few weeks. They had an hour together, and Ciaran settled down after that. He always does. You’ll want to make sure they see each other as soon as possible. Thomas always seems to put Ciaran back on track. You ready?’

Lewis hit four digits on the keypad. The red light turned to green. He pushed the door inward, held it for her, followed her inside.

The corridor’s low ceiling made it feel like a tunnel, the fluorescent lighting bleaching the life from everything it touched.

‘This way,’ Lewis said.

He led her to another door, another keypad.

A rectangular window set into the wood, segmented by wire mesh. Two figures at a table, one broad and round-shouldered, the other thin like a blade. Both sat with their hands folded on the wood. Neither spoke.

The larger man looked up when Lewis knocked the glass. Cunningham recognised him as Joel Gilpin, a senior prison officer who’d worked the Maze and Maghaberry before coming to the Young Offenders Centre.

Lewis tapped in the same four digits and entered the room. Cunningham followed and closed the door behind her, stayed there as Lewis approached the table. The lock whirred and clicked as it sealed them in.

Lewis placed the fingertips of one hand on the table, some clandestine signal that the life of the young man in front of him had now changed. ‘Ciaran, this is Paula Cunningham, your probation officer.’

The young man looked up from the tabletop. His eyes met hers for no more than a moment. Long enough to send a crackle from the back of her skull to the base of her spine. She shivered as she exhaled.

‘Hello, Ciaran.’

The tip of his tongue appeared from between his lips, wet them, retreated.

‘Hello,’ he said in a voice so small Cunningham couldn’t be sure if she’d heard it at all.

He wore a T-shirt with some meaningless logo splashed across the chest, cheap jeans and a light hooded cardigan. The kind of clothes you’d buy in a supermarket or a chain store, with made-up brand names that any teenager would refuse to wear. A holdall lay in the corner.

‘Do you mind if I sit down?’ she asked.

His narrow shoulders rose and fell in a timid shrug. He brought his thumb to his mouth, teeth working the nail. Cunningham noted the stubs of keratin at the tip of each finger, the red raw skin.

Lewis remained standing, his back against the wall, while she took the seat opposite and placed the file on the table. She sat still, let the silence thicken, waiting for him to glance up at her once more.

When he did, she asked, ‘Has everything been explained to you? About what’s going to happen?’

Ciaran nodded.

‘Good,’ she said, offering a firm smile when he gave her another fleeting look. ‘As soon as I’ve signed the forms, I’ll take you to my car, and I’ll drive you to the hostel. Okay?’

Ciaran nodded.

‘I’m told you’ve had two stays in the hostel.’

She waited, listened to him breathe.

‘Ciaran, I said you’ve had two stays in the hostel. Is that right?’

He shifted in his seat, understood she expected a response. He nodded.

‘How did you like it?’

‘S’okay,’ he said.

‘Good. So you’ve met Tom Wheatley, the manager there. You know their rules. What they expect of you.’

‘Yeah,’ he said.

‘Good. Shall we go?’