The Redemption Cut E-Book

Pat Gray

• Herausgeber: Dedalus
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Belfast, 1976. The city is rife with rackets. Paramilitary gangs, the British Army, Police and Intelligence struggle for control. A young man vanishes and his severed arm is discovered in a refuse dump. Haunted by the failure of an earlier investigation, Inspector McCann is led to the Sceptre Bar.But there he is assaulted and his constable, the sassy, wild Sinead Donnelly is abducted. Who can he trust to back him up?A desperate bid to free Donnelly leads to McCann's torture and a deal of sorts with his captor points him to the discovery of the young man's remains. But how much further can McCann go to break the wall of silence that surrounds the victim's last hours? Will McCann be able to redeem himself by solving the case that haunts him? Will those above him allow him to do so?Pat Gray's second Inspector McCann mystery goes to the heart of the moral darkness that was Ulster's troubles. It is a worthy sequel to Dirty Old Tricks.

Leseprobe

Dedalus Original Fiction in Paperback

THE REDEMPTION CUT

Pat Gray was born in Belfast.

He is the author of five novels:

Mr Narrator, The Political Map of the Heart, The Cat,

Dirty Old Tricks and The Redemption Cut.

He has worked extensively in Eastern Europe, but now lives in London.

TO JANE

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Copyright

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to many authors whose books have helped me in writing The Redemption Cut and its forerunner Dirty Old Tricks. Particularly to Martin Dillon for ‘The Dirty War’ and ‘The Shankill Butchers: A Case Study of Mass Murder’, and to Patrick Radden Keefe for ‘Say nothing: a true story of murder and memory in Northern Ireland’. Memoirs of RUC men were also useful, in particular Edmund Gregory’s ‘Not waving but drowning: the troubled life and times of a frontline RUC officer’.

As always my brother John has tried to keep me straight where fictional imperatives diverged from historical accuracy. The Redemption Cut is a work of fiction and any errors are my own.

Chapter One

Belfast, 1976

Because it was raining there was not much for the man that hosed the dust to do, except to watch rubbish cascading down the chute. Occasionally he would use a broom to sweep up anything that fell from the compactor while the seagulls wheeled and fought for scraps around him. The man was almost mesmerised watching the rotting food, newspapers and cardboard, bottles and discarded clothing. His senses were blunted by the noise of the machinery, so much so that he did not at first realise that he had seen what looked like a human arm amongst the refuse. He hit the red button, a hooter sounded, the machinery stopped. He leaned over the railing, squinting down into the jaws of the compactor. A bloodied red hand seemed to be clutching at the air down there, as if reaching up for him.

The men from the nearest refuse truck were called to help. One of them volunteered to clamber down amongst the garbage to get a closer look. When he came back he was carrying the arm like it was something delicate and placed it gently on the concrete wall by the compactor, wiping his hands on his overalls to remove any trace of contact with the dead human flesh.

McCann was awakened by the sound of the phone jangling in the hall. When he got to the receiver a voice he knew but couldn’t place asked was that Inspector McCann?

‘Aye,’ he said, peering out at the weather through the window, scratching his head.

‘Mr Arbuthnut asked me to call. You’ve to be in right away.’

Irritated by the early hour, the lack of breakfast or even tea, the cold in the hallway, McCann became short, officious even, despite himself: ‘Who am I speaking to here?’

‘It’s Deirdre here, Inspector. Did you not recognise my voice?’

Deirdre! The Superintendent’s secretary. And Arbuthnut of course was the new man who’d taken over from the Poet.

‘Ah Jesus, Deirdre, of course. I’m sorry, I’ve been that long away.’

‘Did I wake you Inspector? You don’t sound yourself.’

‘Not my best first thing. Yes right, I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

When he put the phone down he stood for a moment thinking, watching the silver birch trees outside bending to the wind off the lough. Then he went back to the bedroom, opened the cupboard, pushed the hangers back until he found his uniform and took it out into the light. He rubbed a patch of dust from the lapel, laid the uniform out on the unmade bed. Then, whistling a noiseless but cheerful tune, he went to the bathroom, cleaned his teeth and shaved. He peered at himself in the mirror; the heavy brow, black eyebrows sprouting and in need of a trim, mouth turning down at the corners, eyes quizzical. He tried a smile and wondered was it the same McCann there in the mirror as it had once been. He wondered why they’d bothered calling him. Four months ago they’d let it be known they’d be happy if he stayed on gardening leave, meaning they hoped he would never come back at all.

The minicab driver was surprised to see him in his uniform, opened the rear door for him like he was some kind of VIP, or was putting a safe distance between himself and his passenger. McCann ignored the offer and climbed into the front seat next to him.

‘Not a bad day to get back to work Billy,’ he said.

‘Not seen you in a while, Inspector,’ said the driver, getting some of his clutter out of the way so McCann could stretch his legs in the front.

‘How have you been yourself?’ asked McCann, to stop the prying.

‘As well as could be expected.’ McCann smiled at the classic Ulster answer and watched from the window as the car accelerated down the motorway into the city, the flat grey water of Belfast Lough leaden under a cloudy sky. Then onto the Shore Road, Carlisle Circus, the no man’s land between the tribes; burned out gable ends, half demolished Victorian streets, an army patrol droning past, two Saracens with their drivers peering through armoured slits at the commuter traffic. They drove up the Shankill Road, festooned with fading union flags and then left and up to Division, a high wire palisade around it and a heavily sandbagged sentry point watching the road outside. The driver pulled up short and let McCann out to walk the last few yards, like he’d reached the edge of the land of Mordor and would go no further.

‘On the tab, OK, Billy?’ said McCann, stepping out.

Outside the police station there was a familiar figure with a sandwich board handing out tracts. ‘Repent ye because the judgement is near,’ said the message on his back.

‘That judgement of yours not come yet Bertie?’ quipped McCann, as he went past. The fellow had bottle-lens spectacles, with wire frames. Behind them his brown eyes were huge and round. Despite the mild weather he was bundled up; the vee of several jumpers showing under his tightly-belted gabardine mac, a thick pair of Donegal tweed trousers the turnups of which hung over his very highly polished black shoes. They’d always got the polished shoes, as if God had explained to them that they’d not be let into heaven with dirty boots.

‘It’ll come soon enough Inspector. Can’t be far off,’ he said with absolute confidence, like he was predicting more rain before the end of the week. ‘Here’s a little something for you,’ and he tried to give McCann a pamphlet.

‘I’ve no need for that, Bertie, thanks all the same,’ said McCann. He knew that Bertie had been a featherweight boxer, twice married, time in the forces, five children, an alcohol problem, until suddenly he had discovered God and everything had made sense. How could all that chaos suddenly make sense just through the application of a bit of mumbo jumbo? McCann tried to give the pamphlet back, but the man’s hands were clenched, so McCann had to stuff the pamphlet into his own pocket.

‘You’ll be needing that Inspector, not now maybe, but one day.’

McCann hitched up his trousers and walked past the sentry point into the Division.

Once inside, he leaned through the hatch into the duty room, taking in the scuffed furniture, peeling walls, the pin board overlain with layer upon layer of notices. The Desk Sergeant seemed flustered as if she wasn’t sure he was authorised, one eye glancing at the rota to see if they’d been notified he’d be back on duty, but pleased nonetheless to see him again.

‘Hullo stranger. Not seen you in a while.’

‘I’ve not been here in a while. I’ve been called in to see Mr Arbuthnut. Deirdre gave me a call,’ explained McCann. ‘How are things anyway?’

She made a long face and McCann laughed.

Back at C Division everything seemed the same; the stairs with the linoleum taped down with gaffer tape in the same spot, the overhead strip light that flickered a nicotine yellow glow over everything, the smell of sweat and the swab of the cleaner’s daily disinfectant. That ripple of anxiety as he climbed the stairs, pausing to catch his breath before passing along the top corridor to the Superintendent’s office. They had nicknamed the new man Paper Clip, or so he’d been told. McCann grinned. There was something great about the Province that Mr Arbuthnut had hardly taken over and already the men had summed him up and cut him down to size.

Halfway along the corridor a Constable crossed McCann’s path. She was youngish, unfamiliar, smartly turned out in her uniform like it was new, not frayed or faded or shapeless yet with over-use, like she was maybe still proud of it. She looked at him closely, as if wondering who he was, hesitated in her step as he passed.

‘Morning!’ said McCann.

‘Sir.’

‘You new?’ It was always good to have someone new, someone fresh, a new set of eyes. It was because they didn’t last long that there were always new faces. McCann made it his business to know them all in the hope they would stay.

‘Sinead Flannery, Sir.’

‘Flannery!’ McCann was taken aback at the Catholic name, unusual in a police force that generally wasn’t.

The woman seemed to find his surprise amusing.

‘Inspector McCann,’ he introduced himself.

‘Oh, so you’re Inspector McCann’ she said, like she’d already heard all about him.

‘Not sure if the Inspector bit still applies,’ he said. ‘Just going in to see Paper Clip to find out.’

She smiled at his use of the Superintendent’s nickname.

‘Well, good luck with that then,’ she said and tripped away lightly up the corridor.

There was silence as Deirdre ushered McCann through into the Superintendent’s office. Head bent, Arbuthnut’s fingers moved a paper from one side of his desk to the other, selected another paper and held it in his hands. He had a narrow face, with high cheekbones, a small, precise mouth and protruding chin, grey hair almost the same colour as his face. No one knew his first name and since the epithet ‘Paper Clip’ had become attached to him, most had forgotten his surname too. He returned the compliment in dealings with his men, by failing to remember their names too.

Then he looked up and said: ‘There is something useful you could be doing you know. We’re short of people, forty percent down on establishment, forty-two percent as of yesterday. We’ve had a very nasty report in of a severed arm at the waste transfer station.’ McCann nodded, gave him what he hoped would seem keen attention. Paper Clip peered at the missing person’s report in his hands, read the first few lines: ‘Raymond Small. Young lad from up the Shankill Road, up near Woodvale Park. No body as yet but the mother’s very insistent. It could be related.’ McCann reached up, took the report, a single call logged by the Duty Officer. It was hardly the recall he’d been expecting, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

‘You told the military yet?’ McCann asked. Paper Clip sucked in his cheeks at that, waved his hand at McCann as if it had been stung by a wasp.

‘Can’t do that. There’s a new initiative at HQ to bring the police back into the front line. Let the army pull back, a return to normal policing. It’s called ‘The Way Ahead’1 and it’s why we need every man we can get.’

‘Oh aye,’ said McCann, as neutrally as he could manage.

Normal policing? That would be the day, with Ulster sliding into some kind of desperate civil war, the death toll mounting. Where would they find the normal policemen and women to do the normal policing?

‘There’s restructuring that’s going on, new crime teams at Castlereagh which will be better integrated, with better forensics.’

‘I know. I applied and wasn’t shortlisted,’ said McCann. Paper Clip would have known that, having been on the panel. He’d have known about McCann’s last case; the two murdered girls and the way he’d tried to charge a fellow officer. That hadn’t made him popular. That had given them a reason to restructure him out.

Paper Clip’s eyes flicked back to a heavy folder on his desk which McCann now recognised as his own service file.

‘So you’ll be waiting for redeployment.’ It was not a question, but a statement of fact. No reply was expected and McCann gave none, letting the silence lengthen and deepen. ‘What age are you now?’ he flicked into the folder. ‘43? Too early to take severance then, but a fine age for a serving officer. There’ll be a process of course. Officers who haven’t been appointed to the new structure may still be interviewed for any remaining vacant slots that may come up.’ Paper Clip looked at a point in the middle distance, to the left of McCann and about a foot above his head, as if admiring a heavenly organisation chart from which McCann would be absent. ‘A job like this could show us what you can do. Give you another chance until a position comes up.’

‘And when will that be?’

‘Now McCann I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.’

‘Who’ll I have with me?’ asked McCann, fearing the worst, that there’d be no one, or worse than that, a few of the station’s other cast-offs, B-men2 absorbed into the mainstream like some kind of virus.

‘I could give you a Constable, bit of a wild one though I gather, a Catholic too. You could get her on this for a start. It would break her in.’

‘What happened to Sergeant Thompson?’ asked McCann, wanting a friendly face he could trust. Thompson had supported him and kept him going throughout his last investigation. Starting without her was a disappointment.

Paper Clip’s hand searched autonomously around the desk, like that of a blind man, found a sheet with a list of names on it.

‘Moved to one of the crime teams at Castlereagh3 under Taylor. He’s a good man. I gather it was well deserved.’

‘That’s great. She’s a good officer.’

‘I’ll ask Deirdre to show you down.’

Paper Clip reached forward, pressed a buzzer on his desk and almost immediately Deirdre’s head appeared around the door.

‘Oh Inspector. Are you back now?’ she asked outside, her nose twitching with the scent of gossip.

‘Seems like it,’ said McCann.

Deirdre unlocked the room for him, handed him the keys. The room was narrow and smelt damp, with one small window set high up in the wall. There were four chairs and two tables pressed together between the shelving that rose on either side. Dead files bulged and buckled from them. McCann thanked her, sat down, read the note of the call about Raymond Small that had come in, frowning, turning the page over. There was scant information, but concerning enough. No firm evidence yet that the arm and Raymond Small had been connected though. Then a knock came on the door and he opened up to Constable Flannery.

‘The Superintendent said you might need a hand down here.’

‘Did he now?’ said McCann, moving back to let her in.

She was scrubbed almost bright as a new pin, thought McCann, her hair tied back neatly with a green hair band that matched her uniform. Short for a policewoman, but he’d heard they’d relaxed the rules to fill the vacant posts.

‘This doesn’t look right,’ said McCann, passing over the report on Raymond Small. ‘Got all the signs: disappearance out of character, would normally have kept in touch his mother says. Been gone three days. Just check it out, talk to the family. Get a list of contacts and we’ll see if there’s anything in it.’ Flannery took the report, scanned it, looked up at McCann, then around the narrow room.

‘It’ll get you out of here,’ said McCann. ‘We’ll sort things out later.’

She looked down at the address and McCann knew what she was thinking, that it would not be safe for a Catholic officer, up the staunchly Protestant Shankill Road. But she had to start sometime. It might even be safer if she didn’t mention her name at all when she was up there.4 But people were entitled to their names and the respect that went with them.

‘I’ll do that straightaway, Sir,’ she said. As the door closed behind her McCann thought maybe that’s why Paper Clip had sent her to him along with Small’s file, knowing she’d have to go up the Shankill Road where a Catholic officer might be in danger. That would maybe be the final push for him, a young recruit lost on his first day back, two jobs done in one day. But it wouldn’t do to start the day on the dark side. Maybe he should have gone with Flannery, but you couldn’t be mollycoddling. So he followed her out into the wet Belfast morning. He’d to get onto the arm at the transfer station before it started to fester, before anyone messed with it. Flannery would have to face up to the reality of Ulster alone, like they all had to, if she was to be of any use to him.

The smell of garbage was everywhere, even though the office door was closed. Looking down, McCann could see the line of Corporation lorries belching diesel backing up on the quayside leading to the compactor, waiting to go up the ramp and deposit the day’s rubbish. A week’s garbage from one street reduced to a cube of filth, then another cube, until there was enough to fill a container and enough containers to fill a small ship, to be taken out into the Irish Sea and dumped in the deepest trench that could be found. The forensic team were already down by the chute in their white suits, sifting through the waste. One of the lorries was parked up alongside and taped off awaiting inspection.

‘How long are you fellows going to be?’ asked the head of refuse. He bulged out of a tweed suit, with a face like a beef tomato, sweat gleaming on his forehead.

‘We’ll be done soon enough, Sir,’ said McCann.

‘Aye, but how long will that be?

‘It’ll take as long as it takes.’

‘No doubt I’ll have the public health people all over me too, after this. And if you boys hold us up much longer there’ll be half of north Belfast on the phone, their councillors too.’

‘We need the arm,’ said McCann. ‘And to check there’s no other bits and pieces.’

‘Legally, it’s all the property of the Corporation.’

‘Is it now?’ said McCann, standing by the window, studying the scene outside for a moment before turning to him. ‘There’ll be putrefaction to consider if there’s delay. You’ll be destroying evidence and that could be hindering the police in their enquiries. You could be jailed for five years for that.’

‘Five years!’

‘You’ve had body parts here before?’

‘Not that I’m aware of, Inspector. We’ve had other things though. You’d be amazed what people think they can get away with.’

‘Such as?’

‘Pets.’

‘Pets? You’d think they’d bury them.’

‘You’ve got to be joking. Once had a whole donkey in the trade waste. That’s an offence against the fallen animal regulations.’

‘Is that so?’ said McCann, encouraging the fellow to ramble while he watched the forensic team outside seal the arm in an evidence bag.

‘What time did they find it?’

‘About half eight when they came back in to do the first dump.’

‘And the round? When did that start?’

‘Let’s see, its Reggie Simmonds’ turn, so that would have been round number twelve. Would have been off the yard at half six, on the round by seven.’

‘Show us the route,’ said McCann. The big man walked over to a map of the city hanging on the wall divided into districts, each district divided into refuse rounds identified by coloured boundaries, the boundaries mapped onto the religious majorities in each zone.

‘Round twelve, Shankill Road mainly. Here, I’ll give you the exact way they go.’ He reached over to his filing cabinet, pulled out a duplicated sheet, handed it to McCann. They were familiar streets, his beat as much as theirs, up one, down the other.

‘So let’s say they started at Shankill Parade at seven and they were back dropping the first load at half eight, that would have been the whole route would it? Seems quick, doesn’t it?’

‘It’s up to them how fast they go. They’re paid for the round, the sooner they’re finished the sooner they can knock off. Now if we’re done here, Inspector?’

McCann thanked him, asked him to keep a watch out, to keep in touch and climbed down the steps to the forensic team. They had four fellows still working on it, had brought everything up from the compactor. They had emptied the lorry contents out onto a big tarpaulin. The air was thick with flies. McCann flicked a squashed tomato off the sole of his shoe.

‘Filthy job boys.’

‘You can say that again.’

His eyes ranged over the festering jumble sale that lay on the ground before him.

‘Find anything else?’

‘Nothing Sir. We’re nearly done.’

‘And where was it? The arm? Where in the load?’

‘We’ve blood on a few items, just here.’ The officer took McCann over to a place where the first of the compacted bundles had been opened up. ‘Stands to reason it’d be where they stopped the machine.’ McCann looked back to the beginning of the line of uncompacted refuse, estimating something in his head.

‘Thanks anyway,’ he said, strolling away to the gates of the yard where his Land Rover was waiting, turning the pages of the route he’d been given as he walked, noting the small gap between where the arm had been collected and Raymond Small’s home.

Why had she joined up? Sinead Flannery had wondered as she did every morning; showering, removing make-up from the night before, dressing like she was going to some office job at the Electricity Board or at Anderson and Macauley, then breakfast alone in the police-house kitchen. Better than at home though, with her Mother there at breakfast with her face strained by anxiety: ‘Why couldn’t you do something normal? You’re a bright girl Sinead? You’ve you’re GCEs, seven of them.’

She had first considered becoming a civil servant or maybe a teacher or librarian, while pulling pints part time in a local bar. There had been constant harassment: a wee touch here, a feel there, furtive but somehow entitled to whatever they wanted because it was a man’s world and more or less lawless. She’d stood apart from the marches for Civil Rights, though schoolfriends were sucked in, became strident, outraged by the turn that events took. And there had been encouragement for Catholics to join the police, recruiting officers had been to her school with their glossy brochures, their promises of sport and excitement. By the time the Army came in it was just too late for her to back out: she had already joined the police, almost perversely, to show she’d an independent mind and an eye on a solid career.

She took the bus through the City centre. In the morning it was a normal, busy scene outside, like any city with its double decker buses, nose to tail commuter traffic, pavements thronged with bustling and jostling crowds. But there were queues at the security gates for bag searches and above the shopfronts the windows were taped over against the blast from bombs. At Division she completed a transformation in the locker room, peeling off the jeans and top, her suede jacket, swapping them for the thick woollen tights, the green serge skirt, the sludge coloured shirt, gradually buttoning herself into the person she had become.

And this morning it was Raymond Small she had to find. She had one of the patrols drop her at the end of his street, jovial men beside her, secure in their territory, pulling over, opening the door to let her out, the smell of diesel heavy in the damp morning air. The uniform was always a help, like she was one of them, like it was some kind of armour. But the moment the Land Rover pulled away, she felt the protection of her colleagues slip away, found herself alone on a street that felt strange to her, in a place where she was unsure if she would be welcome, though she’d grown used to that, been trained for it. She had always supposed it was the same for RUC men who were Protestants entering Republican areas.

‘If you worry about that, love, you might as well give up,’ as her training officer had told her when she first started.

On her first posting she’d been out on patrol with two UDR5 men – both brothers. Big, friendly lads, one of them just married, with the kind of bluff decency that farmers had. They’d shown her the wedding photographs; not a big family, but close, she’d seen that. His new wife was smiling with her wedding dress held just off the ground so it wouldn’t get dirty, himself with a huge brimming smile overflowing across his face, his brother in the best man’s rig-out with the white carnation in the lapels.

‘How long you been married, Will,’ she’d asked.

‘Two months.’

‘Big change, eh?’

And then his brother had butted in, leaning across the floor of the darkened Land Rover as it swept out up the Coagh road.

‘Getting it regular, eh, Billy?’

And he’d smiled shyly.

‘Come on, there’s ladies present,’ he said, checking the magazine on his gun, pulling the bolt back, peering out the front at the road ahead, white in the headlights, twisting up and away under the darkened trees, the land either side infinitely pitch-dark. In daylight she knew it was a mess of tumbling hills, brooks, clusters of beech and alder. At night the Land Rover was an island of light, sailing through that sea of darkness.

They had stopped at a dip in the road between Killylea and Caledon. It was a good straight section of road, with a view of cars coming either way, nowhere they could turn when they saw the patrol.

‘OK?’ said the driver.

‘Looks good.’

She’d got down and was checking the field one side, then the other while the two brothers set up the roadblock. She remembered the smell of the grass, the sound of cows munching softly in the darkness. Then the bomb went off underneath the Land Rover.

There’d not been much left of the vehicle – the driveshaft was found in the far field, the chassis had been thrown into an oak tree and hung there along with bits of both brothers, their torn uniforms fluttering like death flags.

Flannery shook her head to try to clear the memory, took a breath, wished she’d had a cigarette on the way up in the Land Rover. But now the street lay in front of her; a Protestant street which should be safe for any RUC officer, provided they’d not get her Catholic name. The house was in the middle of a long terrace, with slate roofs, coal smoke leaking from the chimneys, the front doors leading straight onto the street. The homes were well-kept and neat, with scrubbed doorsteps, painted boot scrapers set in the wall, pavements swept and washed clean. Bunting had been strung back and forth from the streetlamps, fluttering over the cobbles. Flannery hesitated before knocking on the door.

It was opened by a small woman in curlers under a paisley headscarf, an apron tied around her waist, duster in hand. She peered at Flannery. She flashed her warrant card, withdrew it before the woman had a chance to read the name.

‘I’ve come to talk about Raymond,’ she said. ‘To see if I can help you find him.’ Trying to divert any suspicion, to close in on what would matter more to Mrs Small. She seemed grateful, ushered Flannery through into the parlour, offered her tea, said she had been demented with worry, her words bubbling out as she clattered the teapot, cups and saucers.

‘When did you last see Raymond?’ she asked.

‘Saturday night. He just said he was going out.’

‘That would be the 10th, then?’

The mother’s hands kneaded the duster she held as she sat on the low sofa.

‘Aye, about seven.’

‘And no word since?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Did he say where he was going?’

‘He just said he was going out with his mates.’

‘I’ll need a list of their names,’ said Flannery, going through the missing person’s routine, relaxing as she did so, sympathising with this woman. The mother nodded, sniffed, pulled a handkerchief from her apron, her distress welling up. Flannery paused, let her compose herself, trying not to let it affect her because that wouldn’t be helpful. She made a neat and careful note of the names.

‘And you’ve rung round, contacted everyone.’

‘Of course, I’ve been desperate.’

‘Has he ever gone off before without telling, staying away?’

‘Never.’

‘Where did he work?’

‘He was a fitter at Harland and Wolff.’

‘So, were they his mates then?’

‘Some of them.’

‘He had others?’

A faint look of distaste lingered around the mother’s mouth, turning the corners down.

‘He’d been hanging around with some lads from the Sceptre. That’s where he was the night he disappeared.’

‘The Sceptre?’

‘It’s where the hard men go.’

‘Did he mention any names, of people he met down there?’

‘He kept all of that to himself.’

‘I’ll need names, any names he might have been with on the 10th. And I’ll need to see his room.’

Flannery followed her up the stairs which were so narrow her shoulders touched the walls on either side on the way up. At the head of the first flight of stairs were two bedrooms and a further flight.

‘We had him up in the attic because of the noise. He likes that music you know, hard rock or whatever they call it.’ She paused on the landing. ‘I try not to go up there, to leave him alone.’ She made a gesture that Flannery should go first. The stairwell was dark, a thin panelled door leading off into the attic. Flannery moved up carefully, called out as she rapped on the door: ‘There’ll be no one there. Haven’t I told you he’s gone?’

Flannery pushed the door open, reached in and turned on the light. Across one wall hung an Ulster flag, a Linfield scarf over the mirror, football cups on the chest of drawers.

Flannery moved further into the room where there was an unmade bed, khaki fatigues thrown on top, black boots underneath.

‘He liked to wear the kit. They all did, God love them.’