“Aren’t you a woman? Sorry. The skirt made me think, you know…” Garrett continued blinking to schedule. “You prefer ‘officer’?”
“It’s customary.”
“What do you prefer though?”
“Whatever is customary.” Garrett didn’t display a flicker of emotion. It was like talking to a fridge. No one at personnel would be tempted to strong-arm Garrett into Family Liaison.
“Hm.” Paddy sat back. “This empty office, away from everyone, waiting. We are waiting, aren’t we? For someone. Someone more senior than you.”
Garrett wasn’t unattractive but she had gone to a lot of trouble not to make the best of herself: shoulder pads emphasized her square body, the skirt didn’t fit her and her haircut was boxy, the blond streaks fooling no one. She didn’t have a smear of makeup on.
“Miss Meehan, why were you at Kevin Hatcher’s flat yesterday morning?”
Paddy told her the truth, aware that the stuffy office was isolated from the rest of the station: no one passed in the corridor outside, the lift didn’t ting as it reached their floor.
Garrett asked pointless questions, things she already knew the answer to, about Paddy’s claims regarding an Irishman who had come to her house, descriptions of the man who had been at her son’s school yesterday. She didn’t seem to be coaxing information out of Paddy but rather keeping her busy.
She made Paddy go over the details of finding Kevin, of going to his house on Sunday night, but cut her off whenever Paddy mentioned Liberia or the IRA. She didn’t even want her talking about the missing photograph from the portfolio so Paddy pushed it, starting to answer a question innocuously and then veering off to speak about the Irishman, naming him as McBree, mapping Garrett’s reaction when she said it. McBree. The name made her blink out of sequence.
“So you went there yesterday morning expecting Kevin Hatcher to-”
“Would a police officer ever wear a Celtic top?”
“Just answer the question-”
“McBree. He’s an important man in the IRA, very, very high up. International profile. Why does that not interest you?”
No one spoke.
“My family are Irish and my mum thinks the police’ll arrest you for being in possession of a potato. Why am I getting no interest in this guy? If I told you one of the Guildford Four had done it, would you pull them in? A big man in the IRA is in the city and that’s of no interest to you? What, because you already know?”
Before Garrett had the chance not to answer, the door behind the officers opened and Garrett sat up, her face warming. “Afternoon, sir.”
Knox was standing in the doorway, face pinched, shoulders square, ready to make his mark. He turned to the officers beside him. “Wait in the corridor.”
Suddenly sweating, Paddy stood up. “I’m leaving.”
He smiled calmly. “You can’t.”
“I’m not under arrest.”
“I want to talk to you.”
Knox shut the door slowly, listening for the secure click of the mechanism, and turned back to the room. As he sauntered over to Garrett’s seat she backed out of his space, standing subserviently at the side. He sat down, looked out of the window and back at her, overplaying his insouciance.
Paddy took out a cigarette, lit it, and blew the smoke at him.
“No one will believe you,” he said coldly.
“That you brought me to a deserted part of the building to menace me?”
His eyes flickered in Garrett’s direction. “About Hewitt,” he said casually.
Paddy uncrossed her legs. “Terry’s murder.”
“The officers told me what you said this morning. You’re wrong. The IRA have denied responsibility. The gun has been found and traced to a drugs murder in Easterhouse last year. We have evidence that it was nothing to do with the IRA.”
She took another draw on her cigarette, listening to the hum of the buffer slowing to a dying whine. She could hear the plug being snapped out of the wall. The lift tinged and she heard the doors slide shut after the cleaner. They were alone on the floor.
“Why am I here?”
What little color there was in Knox’s face drained away. He craned towards her, the skin so tight she could see the hammering of the pulse in his neck. “You’re here because you ran away yesterday morning. You should have come straight here as the officers requested. It makes police officers suspicious when someone they want to question runs away.”
“If it was such a big deal why didn’t they come to my house last night? Everyone knows where I live. The police found me easily enough on Saturday night. And by the way, where is Kevin? I spoke to all four casualty departments yesterday and couldn’t find him registered as a patient.”
“Kevin Hatcher is dead.”
He watched her face, taking a clinical interest in her reaction as the news sank in.
“When? When did he die?”
Knox cleared his throat, tipping his head back to Garrett. She stepped forward and spoke, her voice softer than before. “Kevin was dead on arrival at the hospital. They register a death differently, that may be why you missed him.”
“No, they don’t. I was on the calls-car shift for six months. I went around the hospitals every night, twice sometimes. They register a death on arrival in the same book as casualty admissions.”
Knox’s face didn’t move, but as he looked at her his eyes softened in amusement. This is how big we are, he was saying: we can make a man disappear. I could make you disappear.
He was expecting her to shout at him, to meet his play and issue impotent threats, but Knox was as hardened as Donaldson and her threats would be just as flaccid. Instead, she made the one move he wouldn’t have an answer to: she covered her face and pretended to cry, muttering about poor Kevin under her breath. She was only acting, and when her face was good and wet she looked up at Garrett, who blinked twice, for her the equivalent of an emotional flurry.
Knox had a stale smile stapled to his face. He rubbed the desktop with his fingertips, trying to worry off a small stain.
Paddy took a shaky draw on her cigarette. “McBree. He killed them both.”
Knox shook his head. “No.”
“How can you possibly know he didn’t?”
“Nothing links the two deaths. One’s a shooting, one’s a stroke, one’s indoors, one’s outdoors, neither man was involved in politics.”
“Why would Kevin leave out a line of cocaine to inhale when he’d swallowed enough to make him have a stroke and vomit? It’s like finding a glass of whiskey next to someone who died from drinking vodka, for fucksake.”
Knox stood up calmly and made for the door. The interview was over, though she couldn’t see what he’d got out of it. She stood up too. “You’re refusing point-blank to look at McBree?”
He stood, rolled his head back, and turned to face her.
“They spent the night before Hewitt’s death at the casino. A lot of strange people visit casinos. We’re interviewing several of the people who were there that night.”
“But not McBree?”
“You will get the wrong end of the stick and keep chewing, won’t you?”
She meant to give a cavalier laugh but it sounded like a hysterical sob. “You’re concerned that I may be slandering the IRA?”
“We’re concerned that you may be spreading fear and alarm, Meehan.”
Paddy stubbed her cigarette out on the desk, picked up her bag, and brushed past Knox at the door. Outside, the two officers turned as she opened it, looking back into the room for guidance. Someone gave them a nod to let her go and she pushed through them.
