The Silent Dead

by Claire McGowan

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

The third in the crime series featuring forensic psychologist Paula Maguire by Claire McGowan acclaimed as 'Ireland's answer to Ruth Rendell' by Ken Bruen.

Victim: Male. Mid-thirties. 5'7".
Cause of death: Hanging. Initial impression - murder.
ID: Mickey Doyle. Suspected terrorist and member of the Mayday Five.

The officers at the crime scene know exactly who the victim is.
Doyle was one of five suspected bombers who caused the deaths of sixteen people.

The remaining four are also missing and when a second body is found, decapitated, it's clear they are being killed by the same methods their victims suffered.

Forensic psychologist Paula Maguire is assigned the case but she is up against the clock - both personally and professionally.

With moral boundaries blurred between victim and perpetrator, will be Paula be able to find those responsible? After all, even killers deserve justice, don't they?

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 320

Sample

Praise

Praise for The Dead Ground:

‘Fast paced and engaging’ Evening Echo

‘Enthralling . . . evoked wonderfully’ Sunday Mirror

‘Claire’s novels deal with all sorts of modern moral issues’ Belfast Telegraph (online)

‘Claire McGowan is a very good thriller writer . . . It’s a gripping and gory read and shows McGowan to be a thriller writer of exceptional talent’ Irish Independent

‘Harrowing’ Image (magazine)

Praise for The Lost:

‘This thriller is fresh and accessible without ever compromising on grit or suspense’ Erin Kelly, author of The Poison Tree

‘A brilliant portrait of a fractured society and a mystery full of heart stopping twists. Compelling, clever and entertaining’ Jane Caey, author of The Burning

‘A keeps-you-guessing mystery’ Alex Marwood, author of The Missing Girls

‘A gripping yarn you will be unable to put down’ Sun

‘A clever and pacey thriller’ Sunday Mirror

‘McGowan’s style is pacey and direct, and the twists come thick and fast’ Declan Burke, Irish Times

‘Engaging and gripping’ Northern Echo

‘Taut plotting and assured writing . . . a highly satisfying thriller’ Good Housekeeping

‘Claire McGowan is a writer at the top of her game’ www.lisareadsbooks.blogspot.co.uk

‘An exciting, enthralling and tense read’ www.thelittlereaderlibrary.blogspot.co.uk

Praise for The Fall:

‘There is nothing not to like . . . A compelling and flawless thriller’ S.J. Bolton

‘A cool and twisted debut’ Daily Mirror

‘She knows how to tell a cracking story. She will go far’ Daily Mail

‘Chills you to the bone’ Daily Telegraph

‘The characters are finely drawn, and it’s concern for them, rather than for whodunnit, that proides the page-turning impetus in this promising debut’ Guardian

‘A brilliant crime novel . . . worthy of its label – “gripping”’ Company Magazine

‘Hugely impressive. The crime will keep you reading, but it’s the characters you’ll remember’ Irish Examiner

‘It’s a clever, beautifully detailed exploration of the fragility of daily life . . . The genius of this story is that it could happen to any of us, and that’s why it hits so hard’ Elizabeth Haynes

‘A writer of great talent’ Michael Ridpath

‘Immediate, engaging and relevant, The Fall hits the ground running and doesn’t stop. I readit in one breathless sitting’ Erin Kelly

‘Highly original and compelling’ Mark Edwards

‘Sharp, honest and emotionally gripping’ Tom Harper

‘Stunning. Beautifully written, totally convincing and full of character. Really, really good’ Steve Mosby

‘An amazing first book’ www.promotingcrime.blogspot.co.uk

‘Intelligent and absorbing . . . Highly commendable’ www.milorambles.com



Acknowledgements

This book would be substantially different (or possibly flung into the sea by now) without the insightful, comprehensive, and generous feedback I received from my agent Diana Beaumont and my editor at Headline Vicki Mellor. Thank you both so much for all your time and energy. Thanks also to everyone else at Headline, especially Caitlin Raynor and Jo Liddiard.

Thank you to my parents and sister, brothers, and brother-in-law, who put up with me doing a final edit at home, staring at the laptop and muttering to myself, and forgetting to use coasters on the Good Table.

Thanks to Debs and Bob for hosting me at Retreats 4 You in Devon, where I was able to nail down a first draft thanks to all the peace and quiet and wine delivered to my desk.

Thanks to the two lovely bookshop-owning Davids – David Torrans at No Alibis Belfast for all his support, and David Headley at Goldsboro Books London, scene of many a party.

Thank you to Kate Pearson for the loan of her lovely Edinburgh flat.

Thanks to Jamie Drew for some fantastic headshots (and lunch).

Thanks to City University, especially Jonathan Myerson, for offering me gainful employment, and everyone who’s hosted me for a talk or teaching session, especially Arvon Lumb Bank, Guardian Masterclasses, the Belfast Book Festival/John Hewitt Society, and the Derry Verbal Arts Festival. Thanks also to Brian McGilloway and William Ryan for generously including me in events.

Thank you to Dr Laurance Donnelly, forensic geologist and police search adviser, for geology help (any mistakes all my fault of course!)

Thanks as ever to the crime fiction world and all the lovely people in it. Jake Kerridge and Stav Sherez for gruesome lunchtime chat. Katherine Armstrong, Anya Lipska, and Jamie-Lee Nardone for drinks. Theakston’s Old Peculier festival in Harrogate and Crimefest for top-notch book festivals. Imogen Robertson and Ned for dinners and wine. Tom Harper for Scooby Doo inspiration and whiskey. Kevin Wignall for all the fine dining. Thanks to Stuart Neville and Adrian McKinty for including my story ‘Rosie Grant’s Finger’ in the anthology Belfast Noir.

To my non-criminal friends, for all your support during what has been something of a turbulent writing period – I couldn’t have done it without you. Thanks to Gareth Rubin for help with the title and to everyone who read early drafts, offered me house room, and generally helped me along, especially Alex, Sarah, Angela, Kerry, Kelly, Beth, Hannah, Isabelle, Jillian, Sara, Freya, and Jo.

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read or review my previous books – it really does mean the world to the writer plodding away on their own. If you have any thoughts on this one, you can contact me at www.ink-stains.co.uk or on Twitter at @inkstainsclaire (or find me on Facebook).



Chapter One

Ballyterrin, Northern Ireland, April 2011

‘We are gathered here today to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony.’

Paula’s lilies were wilting already. She shifted on her swollen feet. The bulk of her belly meant the only way she could comfortably stand was with one hip jutted out, leaning on it, and she didn’t think such an insolent pose would cut it before the altar. She’d already seen the priest’s eye travelling over her stomach and then pointedly not looking at it. Catholics – they were good at pretending things that did exist didn’t. And vice versa.

She stared straight ahead, her legs buckling under the cool satin of her dress, glad that its length hid her puffy ankles and enormous underwear. What am I doing here? The church smelled of incense, and cold stone, and the slightly rotting sweetness of the flowers.

Across from her, Aidan was also staring rigidly ahead. He was tricked out in a new grey suit, clasping his hands in front of his groin in that position men adopted during moments of gravitas or penalty kick-offs. She wondered if, like her, he was having to stop himself mouthing the too-familiar words of the Mass. Lord have mercy (Lord have mercy) Christ have mercy (Christ have mercy) Lord have mercy (Lord have mercy). The phrases found a treacherous echo in her bones. She heard Aidan cough, once, in the still, heavy air of the church. On that warm spring day, it was full of the ghosts of candles, and dust, and long unopened hymn books. What are we doing here? She wanted to catch his eye, but was afraid to.

‘Do you have the rings?’ Aidan stepped forward and deposited them on the Bible, two hoops of gold, one large, one tiny. Then he moved back into position, eyes downcast.

‘Repeat after me,’ said the priest. The bride and groom arranged themselves in suitable positions. ‘Patrick Joseph Maguire, will you take Patricia Ann O’Hara to be your lawful wedded wife, for richer for poorer, for better for worse, in sickness and in health, to have and to hold from this day forth, forsaking all others, as long as you both shall live?’

Paula’s father – PJ – spoke in a rusty voice. ‘I will.’ His bad leg was stiff but he stood up straight in a new black suit bought for the occasion. Paula suspected he was hating it all, but he’d have done anything for the woman standing next to him in an ivory suit from Debenhams, several nests’ worth of dyed feathers attached to her head.

Aidan’s mother, Pat O’Hara, said her vows quick and earnest: ‘I will.’

They would. They were both so sure. How could you be sure? Paula stole a glance at Aidan – what was he now, her stepbrother? – and saw his dark eyes were wreathed in shadows, his hair tinged with grey over the ears. She’d never noticed that before. He saw her watching, and both of them looked away, her belly as big and unavoidable as the lies between them. Oh Aidan, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

Then it was done, and Pat and PJ were wed, and they trooped down the aisle like a bride and groom in their twenties. Aidan grasped Paula’s arm without meeting her eyes, escorting her out, because that was what you did. His hand was cool on her hot, fat skin. Everything about her was squeezed. The ridiculous lilac bridesmaid dress, strained over newly discovered breasts, was like a cocoon she might burst from at any moment. Aidan could barely look at her. She didn’t blame him.

They were out now, and posing for photos taken by one of Pat’s friends, who couldn’t work the camera, and Pat was all smiles and tears, kissing Paula with her five layers of lipstick. She’d had her colours done for the wedding, plunging into manicures and spa days and shopping trips like a first-time bride. Paula had tried to play along, because she loved Pat, but it was hard to be excited about a wedding when its very occurrence hinged on the fact that your mother, missing for seventeen years, had been declared legally dead. And maybe she was dead – dead as Pat’s husband, who’d been shot by the IRA in 1986. But maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t.

Maybe. When you got married you did not say ‘maybe’. You said ‘I will’, you put your feet on the good, solid stone of certainty. ‘Maybe’ was like shifting sand. She wished so much there was something, anything she could be sure of. Whether her mother was alive or dead, for a start.

It was warm outside, and the sunlight played around the old church, which was painted in crumbly lemon-yellow. Paula had made her First Communion here, and they’d also chosen it for her mother’s memorial service back in the nineties – no funeral, of course; nothing to bury. Now Pat’s friends had gathered to throw confetti, twittering women in their Sunday best suits, lilacs and yellows and blues covering crêpey arms, hats pressed out of boxes and set atop tight-curled hair. Many greeted Paula – hello, pet – some kissing her cheek, though she barely recognised them. She knew they’d be looking at her vast pregnant belly and bare left hand, and speculating about her and Aidan and what might be going on there. He’d been her boyfriend when she was eighteen and he was nineteen – was he the father of the wean? Honestly, she’d have told them if she knew.

Suddenly it was too much, all of them there, and the kiss of the sun on gravestones, and the sight of a small plaque in the vestibule bearing the name Margaret Maguire. In loving memory.

‘Maguire?’ It was Aidan, speaking his first words to her all day. In months, in fact, since she’d told him about the baby. She realised she was sagging gently down to the steps, like a deflating balloon. ‘You all right?’

‘It’s just the heat – the sun . . .’ It wasn’t especially warm – it never was in Ireland, of course – but her body seemed to produce its own waves of heat now.

‘Sit down.’ Aidan led her inside to the incense-scented dark. She slipped off her tight lilac shoes and the stone floor was cool under her feet.

‘Thanks. I’m OK.’

Aidan sat beside her in a pew, leaning forward so his tie flopped between his knees. ‘Weird day.’

‘It is that.’

He looked at her, and the old ache came back. ‘Are you feeling well? I mean in general.’

She shrugged. ‘I’m like a beached whale. Still, won’t be long now.’

Aidan said, ‘We need to talk. I know that. I’ve been meaning to see you.’

‘I’ve been here.’

‘I just couldn’t . . . you know, after you told me it was either me or him. Christ, it was such a shock. It was like you’d done it on purpose almost. To punish me.’

‘Yeah, you’re right. I got pregnant and I’m the size of a cow just so I could make you feel bad. You’re totally right.’

He made a noise of annoyance. ‘I know, OK? It was just a lot to take in. And him – you see him every day, like, you must be close.’

She tried to explain. ‘He’s my boss. He – well, it’s complicated too. It’s not as if we’re—’ With spectacular bad timing, that was when her phone went, trilling in the depths of the (also lilac) clutch bag Pat had forced on her. ‘Oh, sorry. I better get this.’ It echoed in the silent church. She pressed the green button. ‘Hello?’

‘Paula?’

Her heart sank at his voice. She could see Aidan had recognised the name which flashed up; he was once again scowling intently ahead.

‘What’s up?’

‘I know you have the wedding today, and I wouldn’t bother you if I could help it, but—’

‘Something’s happened?’

‘There’s a body. I thought you’d be annoyed if I didn’t tell you.’

‘Is it one of them?’

‘We think so, but—’

‘Where?’

‘Creggan Forest. But listen, Paula, don’t—’

‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’

‘No, Paula, that’s not what I—’

She ended the call. The menu of Poached Salmon, Roast Beef with Julienne Vegetables, and Summer Fruits Pavlova would have to wait, and after the day she’d had she was almost weepingly grateful for the certainty of human flesh, a crime scene to analyse, a case to solve.

Aidan spoke bitterly, still not looking at her. ‘You’re going then.’

‘I have to. It’s one of the Mayday Five, we think.’

She offered it as a small sop – Aidan, editor of the local paper, knew the significance of the case more than anyone. But he didn’t budge. ‘If you think that’s more important than today.’

‘I don’t. I’ll be an hour, tops – anyway, they’ll be snapping photos for ages yet.’ He wouldn’t move to let her out, so she clambered awkwardly over him. ‘Aidan.’

‘Oh, it’s OK. Go to him. Don’t mind me.’

She bit down the enraged retort that he’d ignored her for the best part of four months. ‘Where’s your car?’ she demanded.

‘You’re not really going to feck off during a wedding?’ But he sighed and slapped the keys into her hand, on a football key ring Paula knew had to have been a present from Pat. Unless someone was getting done on corruption charges, Aidan had zero interest in sport.

‘See you later. Look, I’m sorry – try to understand?’

‘You’ve made your choice,’ he muttered. She pretended not to hear. Then she ran down the aisle in her bare feet, shoes in one hand, bag and wilted flowers in the other, her lilac dress rustling around the folds of her unwieldy body.

Soon she was heading out of town, on her way to a small village in the shadow of the Mourne Mountains. Stone houses, Lego-green fields, the sea opaque with light. As she drove she felt her shoulders, crunched up all the way through the ceremony, gradually relax.

Her father was married. To Aidan’s mother. Even when he’d told her about it months back – told her he planned to have her mother finally declared dead so he could marry Pat – it somehow hadn’t sunk in until now, seeing them before the altar. Everyone else was moving on, and after seventeen years you couldn’t blame them. So why could Paula not give up? Why did she have her mother’s case file in her desk at home, full of questions and blind alleys and no answers at all, after all this time?

The car park near the forest was full of police cars and vans. Paula was beginning to realise her bridesmaid’s dress was not the most practical of garments for a crime scene. No matter. She wasn’t going to miss this.

She parked and staggered up to the police cordon on the path leading into the forest. DC Gerard Monaghan, an ambitious Catholic recruit in his twenties, was on his mobile nearby, and burst out laughing when he saw her. ‘Jesus, Maguire. Are you lost on your way to a formal?’

She was panting already, slick with sweat under the man-made fibres. ‘You found something.’

‘A walker phoned in a body in the trees. Some local uniform was first on scene.’

‘And how did we get in on it, if he’s dead?’ They were walking, so she tried to tuck up the hem of her dress.

‘Well, Corry and Brooking are on bestest terms right now.’

‘Hmm.’ Paula wasn’t sure how she felt about this rapprochement between DCI Helen Corry, head of Serious Crime at the regular PSNI in the area, and DI Guy Brooking, their boss at the missing persons unit, seconded in from London. At first the two had thoroughly trampled on each other’s toes, but lately Corry had been nice as pie about sharing jurisdiction. Paula wasn’t sure why.

But none of that mattered right now. ‘Is it definitely one of the Five? Which one?’

‘I doubt they can tell.’ He was leading her to the cordon and nodding to the uniformed officer at the tape. ‘Here’s Cinderella, late for the ball.’ She glared at him and he laughed. ‘She’s with us, pal. Dr Maguire, forensic psychologist.’

The officer eyed her sweaty face and bulging belly, but let them pass.

‘Why can’t they tell?’ Paula asked, as they trotted up the forest path. Dappled sunlight fell on them, and a warm pine scent filled the air. She knew that Gerard, six foot four in his socks, was shortening his stride for her, but even so she felt dizzy with the effort. Around them was the silence of the forest, small clicks of insects and leaves rustling.

‘You’ll see,’ said Gerard. ‘It’s a grim one. You don’t have to be here, you know.’

‘I do. I can’t get a sense of it otherwise.’

‘All right.’ Gerard gave an on-your-head-be-it eye roll and directed her down a small side path. She lifted her skirt to step over roots, her flimsy shoes already in flitters. This was stupid. This was, in a competitive field, one of the more stupid things she’d ever done.

Trees parted to reveal a small gap in the woods, and a cluster of CSIs and detectives surrounding something she couldn’t quite see. Corry and Brooking had their heads together, looking at a piece of paper.

‘Look who turned up,’ said Gerard cheerfully.

Helen Corry was the type of woman who, whatever they had on, you looked at it and realised – that’s exactly what I should have worn. Her short-sleeved white shirt and grey trousers were cool and fresh. She wore gloves, and a stern expression. ‘So I see. Being seven months’ pregnant can’t detain you from crime scenes, Dr Maguire?’

‘Or being at your father’s wedding?’ added Guy.

Paula sighed. They were awful united, much worse than any of their disagreements. It was like being looked after by an extra set of cool, young parents. ‘Who is it?’

Corry peeled off her gloves. ‘We think it’s Mickey Doyle. Hard to tell from the face, but we’ll know soon enough.’

‘So they didn’t leave the country then, the five of them? Do we think they were kidnapped?’

‘Should you really be here, Paula?’ Ignoring her question, Guy moved towards her. He too looked cool in a blue shirt and red tie, his fair hair brushed back from a stiffly controlled face. ‘I mean, the baby—’

‘The baby’s fine.’ She pushed forward, irritated. ‘Let me see him.’

Then she did.

Hanging victims all had a look in common. Eyes popping, tongue protruding, face red and livid. That would be why they couldn’t identify him yet. Also common was the loosening of the bowels, which Paula could now smell on the fresh pine breeze. She’d seen it lots of times, so it was strange and very bad timing that this particular victim should cause her to black out suddenly, the forest floor swimming up to meet her.

‘I told you.’ Guy had caught her before she fell. ‘Look, you’re not up to this. Sit down.’ He marched her to a tree stump. ‘I’ll get you some water.’

Paula acquiesced, breathing and blinking hard. His expression, she realised, was exactly the same one Aidan had adopted towards her, stoical and distant, with just a touch of resentment. Perfectly timed to remind her that, while the pregnancy had granted her a temporary reprieve, as soon as this baby was out, all three of them were going to have to find out which of the two men was the father.

Kira

When she woke up, she was covered in blood again. In that second when you’re still mostly asleep, when you’re sure everything you’ve dreamed is true – like when you look in a mirror and can’t recognise your own face – she could only see the blood all over her arms and feel it warm on her skin, going into her mouth even, metallic and hot.

Rose’s blood.

She put on the little light beside her bed. She’d tried to sleep with it on after what happened, but Mammy said she was too big for it, and always came in to turn it off. Mammy and her slept at different times now, as if they couldn’t both be awake at once. She imagined that even now, as she staggered up, heart hammering, Mammy’s eyes would be closing in front of the TV. She’d find her there when she got up for school, the bottle of vodka slumped so low it would be spilling on the carpet.

In the light she could see herself in the mirror. No blood. She’d just been crying in her sleep again, big, spurty tears that drenched her pyjamas. And her arms, it wasn’t blood on them, of course, it was the scars. She was glad about the scars, even though people made comments behind her back – oh, poor wean, she was the one, you know the sister, blah blah. She was glad of the scars because it showed she survived.

On her dresser was the photo of Rose and her. Rose was hugging her tight in it, the two of them on a sea wall down on the coast. After that they’d had salty chips and ice creams with flakes in, two each, because Rose said sure why not?

Today was the day. Today it was finally going to happen. She knew she wouldn’t sleep again, so instead she sat cross-legged on the carpet in the dark and wondered when it would start.



Chapter Two

‘Come on, everyone, shake a leg!’ It was Monday morning and the small team that made up the Missing Persons Response Unit was filing reluctantly into the conference room, cups of coffee in hand, suppressing yawns. It had been a long weekend – it had been a long week, in fact, ever since the disappearances.

Guy waited until they were settled. His deputy, Detective Sergeant Bob Hamilton, ex of the RUC, still of the Orange Order, was blowing his nose loudly on a cotton hankie, the others reluctantly shuffling papers and slumping in seats. Guy frowned. ‘Where’s Avril?’ He looked at Fiacra Quinn, a young Detective Garda from over the border who was their liaison with the South.

‘How would I know? Got her nose in some wedding magazine again, no doubt.’

‘Would you fetch her? We need to start.’

‘Monaghan can go,’ said Fiacra grouchily.

Gerard, sleeves rolled up and tie askew, gave a sort of grunt. ‘Nothing to do with me.’

‘Sorry, sorry!’ Finally in came Avril Wright, flustered and dropping papers, revealing the magazine she was carrying in among her briefing notes. A woman in lace and silk smiled out, radiant, and Avril hid it, blushing. The young and pretty intelligence analyst, who did her very best to overcome the disadvantage of being Bob’s niece, was getting married in the summer and had gone from being efficiency itself to an airhead with her nose never out of bridal magazines. Between her and Pat, Paula never wanted to hear the words ‘three-tier red velvet cake’ ever again. She herself was the sixth team member, though the bump of the baby was so huge it could probably count as a seventh for health and safety purposes. As Avril sat down, both Gerard and Fiacra shifted slightly in their seats, Fiacra to watch her, Gerard to pointedly ignore. Several months before, Paula had caught Gerard and Avril in some kind of strange, intense moment in the corridor. She’d never got to the bottom of it, and didn’t want to.

It was no accident that this joint team was situated in Ballyterrin, biggest border town in the North, a crossroads of smuggling, terrorist activity and general shiftiness. No-man’s-land, they called it. The team was supposed to coordinate missing persons’ cases north and south of the border, make sure the right people were looking for the lost, see that no one fell down between the imaginary lines of the border. But sometimes, as with the case in front of them, it was difficult to understand why anyone would want to look for those who were gone.

Guy gripped the back of his chair and launched into it. ‘Mickey Doyle.’

A small sigh went round the room. Relief, maybe, or something else.

‘Definitely?’ Gerard.

‘He had his driving licence in his pocket.’

‘Did he hang himself?’ asked Fiacra, who hadn’t been at the scene.

‘He died by hanging in Creggan Forest Park, yes. But whether it was suicide or he was forced we don’t know yet. The car park has CCTV, which shows a white van driving up into the forest around two a.m. last night. It left again half an hour later, and Doyle certainly wasn’t driving it. No number plate visible, but it’s a start. There’s also this.’ Guy switched on the projector, illuminating something on screen. ‘The autopsy hasn’t been done yet, but the FMO found this in Doyle’s mouth.’

On screen was a scrap of lined paper, and written on it in big, shaky capitals were the words: COLLATERAL DAMAGE. ‘Does anyone recognise that wording?’ asked Guy.

‘It was in their statement,’ said Avril, with her forensic recall of documents. ‘Ireland First. They made a statement after the bomb saying it wasn’t them, but even if it was, some loss was always inevitable in a war, something like that. Collateral damage, they said.’

Bob Hamilton was shaking his head. ‘Terrible thing. Terrible, terrible thing.’ Paula knew he’d been working on the day it happened, back in 2006. So had Helen Corry, for that matter. Everything about this case was too close to home.

But the idea of Bob working on it, or any case, made doubts worm in her mind again. She tried to focus.

Guy was nodding. ‘So this seems to rule out suicide, and also the idea that the Five skipped the country together.’

‘It was kidnap then,’ said Paula. ‘I thought it must be. I knew Catherine Ni Chonnaill wouldn’t have left her children like that.’

Finally, Guy looked at her, in that sideways manner he’d developed, as if holding up his fingers to block out her bump. ‘I agree. But who took them? With the memorial service coming up too, I don’t like the timing.’

Gerard leaned back in his seat. ‘I guess Jarlath Kenny’d want them out of the way. Talk is he’s going to run for Westminster.’

Paula saw Bob’s face contract at the mention of the name. The fact that Kenny, Ballyterrin’s Republican mayor, was a former member of the IRA did not sit well with her either, even though you weren’t supposed to mention these things in this post-conflict, all-friends-here Ireland.

‘What about other dissident Republicans, sir?’ asked Fiacra.

Guy said, ‘You know what they’re like. One mad man and a dog, some of them. No one’s claimed responsibility.’

They all considered it for a while. After the ceasefires and Good Friday Agreement of 1998, when Paula had been taking her A-levels, the Republican movement in Northern Ireland had fractured into several smaller groups, intent on keeping up the fight which the IRA had stopped. The peace of those past years had wobbled several times – defused bombs, shootings of police officers, the odd riot or two – but had held, so far held, thank God, and they did every day, whichever God you believed in or even none. It was over. They weren’t going back.

But for the people whose pictures Guy now showed on screen, the past was still alive, and pumping hot as fresh blood.

Guy switched the p. . .