He dutifully registered as a sex offender with the Police Service of Northern Ireland, reporting in when he was required to do so for the next year.
And then he vanished.
The investigating officers had done as much as they could, questioning everyone who knew him—and there weren’t many who did—and had come up with nothing. He’d behaved himself since his release, and resources were tight, so his disappearance was not given a great deal of attention after a few weeks.
The aunt had sworn blind she had no idea where he’d gone, the accountant who filed his last tax return had died of a heart attack, and the building contractor who gave him most of his work had pulled up stakes and moved to Spain as soon as the housing market started to deflate.
Which left Lennon back at the start of the trail, at the home of Sissy Reid, Paynter’s aunt, whom he had lived with when he first came to Belfast.
He stashed his phone away and opened the car door. A blast of cold made him curse and shiver. He climbed out, his feet crunching in snow that had not yet turned to the grayish-brown slush he was more familiar with, and locked the car.
No footprints blemished the white covering on the garden path. He was the first to call here since the snow had begun in earnest that morning, and it looked like no one had exited by the front door in that time either. The windows showed no light.
Was there even anyone here? The notes had said the aunt had no other family, but perhaps she was spending Christmas with a friend.
“I guess we’ll find out,” Lennon said to himself, his lone voice sounding hard and dry in the winter air.
He opened the gate and trudged up to the door.
No bell.
He knocked and waited.
50
HERKUS FOUND THE cab driver playing a quiz machine in a chip shop on the Antrim Road. The drive there had been quick now that the Christmas shoppers were deserting the city for their warm homes. Even so, Herkus’s patience had worn so thin it had almost disappeared. It wasn’t helped by the throbbing that developed behind his eyes.
Gordie Maxwell had said the driver’s name was Mackenzie, that he’d be recognizable by the crude UVF tattoo on the back of his hand.
When Mackenzie realized he was being watched, he turned to Herkus, raised his eyebrows, and said, “Jesus, Gordie said you were a big fucker. He wasn’t joking.”
Herkus took the envelope from his pocket and showed it to Mackenzie. “This man. Who is he?”
Mackenzie turned back to his game. “Gordie said there’d be a couple of quid in it for me.”
“Depend what you tell me,” Herkus said.
Mackenzie smirked. “And what I tell you depends on what the money’s like. Christmas costs an awful lot these days, and these is hard times and all.”
The pain scratched at the inside of Herkus’s skull. He cleared his throat. “I ask one time more. Who is he?”
Mackenzie faced him. “Listen, you Polish cunt, I’m not some hood you can fuck about. You ask anyone around here about me, they’ll tell you—”
Herkus punched him in the balls. Hard.
Mackenzie collapsed in a breathless red-faced heap.
The girl behind the counter squealed. Herkus pointed a scowl and a thick finger at her, and she became quiet and still.
He crouched down over Mackenzie, who lay in a fetal position, his hands cupping his groin.
“I am not Polish,” he said. “Now tell me who is this man.”
Mackenzie went to argue, but Herkus seized his face in one huge hand.
“I am bad mood,” he said. “Very tired. Don’t make fight with me or I hurt you very bad. You understand?”
Mackenzie nodded.
Herkus released his face from his grip. “Okay. So tell me.”
“All right,” Mackenzie said. “I don’t know for sure if it’s him or not, but there was this fella I used to pick up from some of Roscoe Patterson’s places. You know, where he runs the girls out of. He never used to say nothing, he was always quiet.
“One of the girls told me he never wanted to do nothing with them, he just wanted to talk to them about religion and stuff, you know, try to convert them. I never thought much of it. There’s some people’s just odd, like.
“Thing is, he always used to get me to drop him somewhere different. Always somewhere round the Cavehill Road, but never at the one place. Like he didn’t want me to know where he lived.”
Herkus pushed the envelope with the drawing into Mackenzie’s face. “This man? This is him?”
“I think so,” Mackenzie said. “Looks like him, anyway, with that scar and all. But this one time, I picked him up from somewhere out near Newtownards and brought him back to the Cavehill Road. The fare was like twelve pound or something, and he gave me the money and got out. But then after I drove off I sees, fuck, he only gave me a fiver and two ones.”
Mackenzie raised himself to a sitting position, keeping his knees apart so as to avoid aggravating his already tender groin.
“So I turned round to see if I could find the cheeky bastard,” he said. “I saw him cutting up an entryway to the next street over, one of them as faces onto the waste ground, and I caught up to him outside this house just as he was about to go inside. The way he looked at me when I called after him, I thought he was going to go for me. I swear to God, I thought, this fella’s a nut job.”
Herkus stood upright and hauled Mackenzie to his feet.
“Where is this house?” he asked.
51
ITOLD YOU LOT before, I don’t know where he is.”
Sissy Reid peered through a six-inch gap at Lennon, “ keeping the door between them. A Pomeranian barked at him from behind her legs. She kicked it back with her heel.
“I didn’t know two years ago, and I don’t know now,” she said, and went to close the door.
Lennon blocked it with his hand. “Even so, I’d like to have a quick chat with you about Edwin. Inside might be better.”
She scowled. “On Christmas Eve? Have you nothing better to be doing?”
“Yes, I do,” Lennon said. “But I’m doing this instead. The sooner you let me in, the sooner I’ll leave you in peace.”
She sighed and stepped back.
He followed her through her hallway and into the living room. She sat down on an armchair facing the television, on which an old Doris Day film played. Colored lights blinked on a small Christmas tree that sat on the hearth, an open tin of Quality Street chocolates beside it. Half a dozen Christmas cards stood on the mantelpiece.
When none was offered, Lennon took a seat anyway, facing her from the couch. A puff of stale urine odor escaped from the cushion, displaced by his weight. The dog yipped at him all the while, dashing in circles.
“Shut up, Dixie,” she snapped.
The dog whined and settled by her slippered feet. It continued to glare at him, low growls coming from its throat.
Sissy reached for the remote control, muted the sound, but continued to stare at Doris’s flirtations with Rock Hudson.
