Those We Left Behind (23 page)

FATIGUE HAD CAUGHT
up with Flanagan as she drove home from the funeral. Thirty-six hours without sleep had weighed down her mind, like sand drifts behind her eyes. She had wound down the car’s windows as she merged onto the motorway, let the rush of air wash over her, keeping the urge to sleep at bay.

The house felt more than empty when she let herself in by the back door. A quietness deeper than silence. The home she had renovated with her husband stood at the end of a country lane outside Moira, far enough from the M1 that the rumble of traffic seldom drifted over the fields. It had taken more than a year to get used to the stillness and dark out here. Both she and Alistair were townies – she from Banbridge, he from Dungannon – and they had been used to the constant intrusion of cars and street lights.

Now she relished the quiet. That dead-of-night emptiness as if the world held its breath. She still didn’t like the darkness, but she had stowed that irrational fear away, put a wall around it. When she drove home from work each evening she felt the grubbiness of the job wear away, like dirt washed from beneath her fingernails.

Flanagan dropped her house and car keys on the kitchen table and contemplated fixing herself a gin and tonic. She checked her wristwatch and saw it had only just gone two, though it felt much later. Alistair would be home with the kids by four-thirty. The time between would be better spent catching up on some sleep, so she forgot about the drink and made her way upstairs.

The bedroom overlooked the back garden, a plain lawn with Alistair’s best efforts at gardening spread around it. Poorly tended shrubs, a flower bed that never seemed to be free of weeds, and a patch for herbs that produced nothing of any real use. Every year, Alistair tried anew to raise the garden from the level of barely presentable to something more impressive, and every year he failed.

She pulled the blind, shutting out the view and the sunlight, and threw her jacket onto the chair by the bed. Kneeling down, she opened the wardrobe to reveal the safe bolted to its floor. She unclipped her holster and placed it and the Glock 17 inside, locked the safe door, and closed the wardrobe.

When she kicked off her shoes and flopped onto the bed, her limbs felt suddenly sore and heavy, as if she had run a marathon that morning instead of standing at the back of a draughty church. She rolled onto her side, closed her eyes, and tried not to think of Penny and Ronnie Walker or how they died.

Sleep took Flanagan within minutes, and she dreamed she held the pillow over Penny’s face and whispered to her, shush, don’t worry, it’ll be over soon . . .

The chime and buzz of her mobile phone pulled her from the warm void, a tumbling, rolling sensation as she rejoined the world. She squinted at the time on the phone’s screen. A little over ninety minutes had slipped away. The display said Paula Cunningham.

Flanagan blinked the last of the sleep from her eyes, cleared her throat, and brought the phone to her ear. ‘Paula,’ she said.

‘He broke into my house,’ Cunningham said.

‘What?’

‘I came home and found the place smashed up. Stuff thrown everywhere, things broken, drawers emptied.’

‘You said, “he”. Who do you mean?’

‘Thomas Devine,’ Cunningham said. Flanagan heard the tremor in her voice, knew she barely had control of herself. ‘He did it. He tried to kill Angus.’

‘Who’s Angus?’ Flanagan asked.

‘My dog,’ Cunningham said. ‘Thomas Devine broke into my house and tried to kill my dog. I took him straight to the vet. It was a screwdriver into his side. It punctured his lung. The vet had to drain the chest cavity and reinflate the lung. He’s lost so much blood. The vet doesn’t know if he’ll survive. That bastard did this.’

Flanagan eased herself upright, lowered her feet to the floor. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m okay,’ Cunningham said. ‘I’m shaking all over, but I’m fine.’

‘I can come over if you want.’

‘No. Thank you, but no. But can you lift Thomas? Question him?’

‘You don’t know for sure it was him.’

‘Yes I do,’ Cunningham said. ‘And you know it too.’

‘All right, maybe he left some physical evidence this time. Something that will put him away.’

‘There was blood on the handle of the screwdriver. I saw it. There were fingerprints on that.’

‘Okay,’ Flanagan said. ‘That’s something. What did the responding unit say?’

Silence.

Flanagan asked, ‘When you called the police to the house, what did they say?’

‘I didn’t,’ Cunningham said, her voice suddenly small and far away. ‘I called you.’

Flanagan sighed and covered her eyes.

‘I needed to get Angus treated before anything else,’ Cunningham continued. ‘You’re the only one who’ll take this seriously. You know who we’re dealing with. So I called you.’

‘All right,’ Flanagan said. ‘Get off the line and dial the non-emergency number right now. Just get a car to your house as quickly as you can. I can’t help you any more with this. I’m off the case.’

‘I know. Your boss told me this morning. He talked my boss into not revoking Ciaran’s licence.’

‘I thought he might,’ Flanagan said. ‘Now get off the phone. Call the police.’

‘Okay,’ Cunningham said. ‘Thank you.’

‘Look after yourself,’ Flanagan said.

A tone sounded in her ear and the line died.

‘Shit,’ Flanagan said to the empty room.

The idea of a gin and tonic resurfaced, even shinier than before. Half an hour to an hour before Alistair and the kids get home. Time to make the drink, maybe take it out to the garden, decompress a little.

Flanagan nodded as she made the decision. She got to her feet, eased into her slippers, and crossed to the window to open the blind. She blinked against the glaring sunlight then went to the stairs. They creaked under her weight as she descended. Tiredness still dragged at her mind, but she’d had enough sleep to get her through until tonight. Maybe she would check the fridge and the cupboards, cook something nice for Alistair and the kids. She seldom got the chance, Alistair mostly took that responsibility, and it’d help her unwind. Something with lots of preparation, something that required lots of pots bubbling and the oven humming, something to focus her mind on other than her work.

A smile found its way to Flanagan’s lips as she opened the kitchen door.

She froze in the doorway.

Ciaran Devine stood on the other side of the table. His brother Thomas rummaged through the fridge. He turned to smile at her.

‘Got anything to eat?’ Thomas asked.

CIARAN STANDS STILL,
as if his feet are locked to the floor. He stares at her. Thomas says something, but Ciaran can’t hear. Tiny golden flecks of dust move through the light from the windows.

‘You promised you’d come back for me,’ he says.

Serena looks at him, fear and confusion on her face.

Then she turns and runs.

Thomas says something.

Ciaran watches her go for the stairs.

Thomas says something.

Ciaran turns to him. ‘What?’

‘Go after her.’

Ciaran runs. He’s fast, always has been. He covers the distance between the kitchen and the stairs in seconds. Serena is stumbling at the top when he mounts the bottom step. He takes them three at a time as one of her slippers bounces past him. She disappears into a bedroom. He catches the door before it slams shut. She’s diving for the wardrobe.

‘Stop,’ he says.

She doesn’t. She opens the wardrobe, reaches for something on its floor. Something that beeps when she presses the buttons. A safe. He grabs her, pulls her away.

Serena slashes at him with her nails, scratches his forearm through his shirt. He raises his fist and she shrinks down, presses herself against the wall. She stares up at him, breathing hard.

‘You promised you’d come back for me,’ Ciaran says.

She shakes her head, her mouth opening and closing.

‘What’s in the safe?’ Thomas asks from behind him.

She shakes her head again.

‘What’s in it?’

‘Nothing,’ she says.

Thomas crouches down beside her. ‘You were in an awful hurry to get nothing.’

‘What do you want?’ she asks.

Thomas points to the safe. ‘Is that where you keep your gun?’

‘Please, just tell me what you want.’

‘I want you to unlock the safe, but don’t open the door. Then I want you to move away from it.’

‘There’s nothing in there,’ she says.

‘Open the safe.’

‘No.’

‘Open it or I’ll tell Ciaran to hurt you.’

She looks back up to Ciaran. ‘He won’t,’ she says.

‘Oh, he will,’ Thomas says. ‘He’ll hurt you. He’ll do whatever I tell him to do.’

‘He won’t,’ she says again. ‘Not me.’

‘Ciaran,’ Thomas says, and Ciaran knows what he has to do.

He kicks her hard beneath her ribs. Feels the give in her flesh, the expulsion of air.

She folds in on herself, curls into a ball, coughing and groaning.

Ciaran watches her, wants to take it back. He wishes he didn’t have to hurt her.

Thomas laughs. ‘Told you. Now open the safe.’

Serena gets to her hands and knees. ‘No, I won’t.’

‘Ciaran,’ Thomas says.

Ciaran doesn’t move.

Thomas says his name again, his voice harder.

Ciaran kicks her in the side, feels the flex of her ribs, almost feels the pain himself. Once more, she curls into a ball. Coughs, her face red, spit hanging from her lip.

He wants to crouch down, take her in his arms like she did for him, tell her he’s sorry, so sorry. But he can’t.

‘Open the safe,’ Thomas says.

She shakes her head.

Thomas reaches down, grabs her hair, lifts her face up to meet his. ‘Ciaran will beat you to death if he has to. And after that, we’ll wait for your husband and your children to come home, and then he’ll do them too.’

‘No,’ she says. ‘He’s not a killer. I know the truth. I know it was you killed Daniel Rolston and his father. You let your brother take the blame to save yourself. Now whatever you need to do, you go on and do it.’

A laugh starts in Thomas’s belly and works its way up to his mouth. ‘You know nothing,’ he says.

‘I know you,’ she says, the words forced between her teeth.

Thomas laughs harder, then goes very quiet. He watches her for a moment, then says, ‘Tell her, Ciaran.’

Ciaran doesn’t know what to say. His mouth is dry.

Thomas looks up at him. ‘Go on, tell her.’

Ciaran takes a step back, rubs his hands on his jeans, feels suddenly ashamed. Like when Thomas made him tell that girl in the park about playing with himself.

He hates Thomas. He loves Thomas.

He doesn’t know what to do.

Thomas’s face darkens. His voice softens. ‘Tell her.’

Ciaran’s legs are shaky. He sits on the edge of the bed. The whole world feels bigger and brighter, the air thicker, the light harsher than he can ever remember it being. He takes a breath. Then another.

‘I killed Mr Rolston,’ Ciaran says.

‘I don’t believe that,’ Serena says. ‘I never believed that. Don’t take the blame for him any more, Ciaran, please don’t.’

‘But I did kill him,’ Ciaran says. ‘I took the book thing, the iron cat, and I smashed him on the head. He stopped moving after the first couple of times, but I kept going.’

Ciaran remembers the feeling, the hard skull going soft as it collapsed under the force of the blows. The heat of the blood, on his hands and arms, and in his veins.

Serena shakes her head. ‘No, Ciaran.’

‘Tell her why,’ Thomas says.

‘Because Thomas told me to. He said Mr Rolston would hurt him again if I didn’t.’

‘There was never any proof of that,’ Serena says. ‘I don’t believe Mr Rolston ever touched your brother. Did you ever see him touch your brother?’

‘Thomas told me he did,’ Ciaran says. ‘Thomas doesn’t tell me lies.’

‘Oh God, Ciaran, he’s been lying to you your whole life. He’s been using you. Can’t you see that?’

Thomas says, ‘Tell her about Daniel.’

‘Oh Christ,’ she says.

‘I had to do it,’ Ciaran says.

‘You didn’t,’ she says. ‘Please tell me you didn’t do it.’

‘I had to. He was going to make trouble and put us in jail again. Except it’d be the big prison, and I wouldn’t be able to see Thomas.’

She covers her face with her hands.

‘Tell her how you did it,’ Thomas says.

‘We watched him,’ Ciaran says. ‘We followed the bus in Thomas’s car. We saw him get off in town. Then I stayed with him. Far enough away so he didn’t see me. But I saw him. I watched him getting drunk in the park. There were too many people to do it then. The police came and talked to him. I followed him through the streets until he went into an alley. I snuck up behind him. With a knife from the supermarket. I didn’t mean to do it so many times but once it started I couldn’t stop.’

Ciaran remembers now, the whirling rush of it, the knife in his hand. In and in and in and in, sometimes the blade meeting bone, sometimes not, until Daniel went still and quiet, and then in and in again because there could never, will never be enough, not ever.

Serena sits huddled against the wall, one hand covering her eyes, the other pressed against her side. He wishes Thomas hadn’t told him to hurt her.

‘You promised you’d come back for me,’ Ciaran says.

She lets her hand drop. Her eyes are red and wet. ‘I wanted to, but I couldn’t. My boss took me off the case, told me to leave. I swear to you, I would’ve come back if I could.’

Thomas smiles. ‘She disappointed you, didn’t she, Ciaran? She was all talk, pretending to be nice to you, and then she goes and leaves you alone. That’s why you had to come and see her now. Isn’t that right?’

‘Yeah,’ Ciaran says. ‘You told me you’d take me to the seaside.’

She stares at him for a moment, breathing hard, then she says, ‘It’s not too late. We can still go. We can go now if you want.’

‘She’s lying again,’ Thomas says. ‘Trying to get you to trust her. Then she’ll try to turn you against me.’

‘It’s too late,’ Ciaran says.

‘No,’ she says, getting up onto her knees, her hands reaching out to him. Then she points across the room. ‘In that drawer, the top one, right at the back. Underneath the other papers.’

Ciaran looks to the chest of drawers. It looks old, chips and scratches in the dark-stained wood. ‘What?’ he asks.

‘The letter,’ she says. ‘Remember you sent it to me? I kept it. Because I cared about you, Ciaran, I always did.’

‘She’s lying,’ Thomas says. ‘She never gave a shit about you.’

Ciaran stands and crosses the room to the chest. There are two drawers at the top. He points to the left. ‘This one?’

‘The other one,’ she says.

‘Leave it,’ Thomas says.

Ciaran ignores him, opens the drawer. It’s full of jewellery boxes, hairbands, clips, a sewing kit. He reaches in to the back, to a stack of envelopes and folders. He lifts them out. Letters from insurance companies, a car registration form, birth certificates, medical cards.

‘I said, leave it.’ Thomas is getting angry now, Ciaran can hear it in his voice. Still he ignores him.

‘It’s hidden in an envelope,’ Serena says. ‘It’s addressed to me, marked from the Family Planning Clinic.’

Ciaran finds the envelope, opens it, reaches inside. His hand closes on another smaller envelope, and he slips it free. There, upper-case letters in his own childish handwriting.

TO SERENA

THE POLICE STATION

LISBURN

He doesn’t hear Thomas cross the room, is startled when the envelope is snatched from his fingers. Thomas stuffs it into his jacket pocket.

‘That’s mine,’ Ciaran says.

Thomas pays no attention. ‘Now,’ he says, hunkering down beside Serena once more. ‘Enough messing about. Open the safe.’

‘No,’ she says.

Thomas looks back to Ciaran. ‘She tried to break us apart. You saw that letter from court. She wants to keep us apart, and we can’t let that happen.’

Thomas takes a small knife from his pocket. A kitchen knife, the kind you’d use for peeling an apple. Its blade is shiny new. It cuts the air. Thomas holds the knife by the metal, the handle towards Ciaran.

Ciaran pauses.

He hates Thomas. He loves Thomas.

Ciaran reaches for the knife.

‘All right,’ Serena says. ‘I’ll open it.’

Ciaran turns the knife in his hand. The blade glints in the sunlight from the window. He tests its edge with his thumb. It leaves a line of tiny red beads on his skin.

She crawls to the safe, takes a breath, puts her finger to the keypad.

‘Remember,’ Thomas says, ‘unlock it, but don’t open it. Move away as soon as you’ve put the number in.’

She presses a number. Then another. And another.

She presses a fourth. The safe whirrs and clicks. The door opens an inch.

‘Serena?’ a voice calls from downstairs. ‘You up there?’

Thomas looks to the bedroom door.