The platform was a strip of unsheltered concrete sitting in a large tract of overgrown land. To the north, beyond some low-level buildings, was a view of the city, right to the cathedral and the Drygate high flats. Behind the peaks and spires of the city they could see the clean, snowcapped hills. The wind hurtled across the flat land, coming from the town, making those waiting turn their backs and look away. Together the sisters turned into the wind, narrowing their eyes tightly, catching the dust and grit on their eyelashes, and walked the length of the platform, arms linked and still laughing.
Mary Ann squeezed Paddy’s arm. “I’m glad that fight’s over.”
Paddy knew it wasn’t. “I didn’t do it, you know.”
She squeezed again, harder this time. “I don’t care if ye did. I sometimes wish someone would do something and just-” But she stopped herself.
The train arrived, and Mary Ann waited until it was pulling out of the station, waving to Paddy and laughing, acting as though she was going away for a long time. Paddy waved back and giggled until Mary Ann was out of sight. She knew the fight would never be finished. She’d never belong in the heart of them as she had before.
VI
As Paddy sat on the shuddering train into town, she remembered Meehan and his family and the unbridgeable distance between them.
After seven years protesting in jail, two books about the case, and a television documentary, Meehan had been offered parole papers.
“Sign them,” the officer said. “Put your name there and you’ll be out by the end of the week.”
“Do I have to say I’m guilty?”
“You know you do.”
Meehan had been in solitary for seven years, had got to walk in the yard for only twenty minutes once a fortnight. They wanted an excuse to release him, but it had to be on their terms. Meehan took a chance and said no. They wanted him out. Ludovic Kennedy’s book about the flaws in the case had raised his profile so much that keeping him in was bringing the justice system into disrepute.
Five days later he was standing in his wife Betty’s front room, holding a whisky tumbler in one hand and his royal pardon in the other, raising a glass with his family of strangers. It hurt his eyes to look at them. The colors they wore were so bright and their faces closed to him. His daughter was thin and gray, left weak by the treatment she had received for her nervous breakdown. His eldest son’s jaw was clenched even when he drank, a rope of muscle cutting across his face. And there was his big stupid cousin Alec and his ugly wife, neither of whom had ever liked Meehan much. They didn’t care whether he was guilty or innocent. They were only there because he’d been on telly.
Meehan knew he looked bad. He had the dry, gray skin long-term prisoners always had, and he had lost three stone over the years. He was a skinny old man now. Out of all of them only Betty looked good. She had dyed her hair blond, and it softened her. She was dressed in a white cotton pantsuit and red sandals, and she had been using a sunlamp: she had a faint white stripe across the bridge of her nose from the goggles. Before he went in Betty dressed dowdy; she used to be afraid of color. Now he watched her over the rim of his glass as he drank and saw a cheerful spark in her eye. Someone had put it there, and he knew it wasn’t him. He didn’t even have the heart to feel jealous. He had depended on Betty his entire adult life- he half despised her for being so dependable- but now she was moving away he felt nothing but admiration. He wished her well, he really did. He felt that she had got out too.
This was Betty’s front room, not theirs. This little square room with a window that looked over the river, it rightfully belonged to her. She had made it clear that he was welcome and would be sleeping on the settee. He would get digs as soon as possible and give her peace.
Cousin Alec and his wife left, and the kids went down to the shops for half an hour to leave them alone. Betty and Meehan sat in silence side by side on the settee, drinking tea and slowly eating biscuits.
THIRTY . THE MR. PATTERSONS
I
Terry was waiting in his car, his arm slung over the back of his seat, mock casual, watching the station door for her. She was twenty minutes late, and he looked as if he’d been there for a while. He had washed his hair and shaved, taking the shadow from his chin, making him look boyish and eager. Paddy felt her skin bristle excitedly at the sight of him. She looked away and took a deep breath as she crossed the road. He leaned across the passenger seat and opened the door for her. She slid in next to him.
“Hiya.”
“Hiya.”
They looked at each other for a hard moment, their eyes locked.
“How’s the knee today?”
“Fine.”
They sat in silence. Terry’s hand moved forward, invisible under the dashboard, covering hers. “I had an amazing time last night.”
“Me too.”
His hand pressed on hers. “Actually, I had four amazing times last night.”
“You don’t need to boast to me, Terry. I was there.”
“I know.” He bared his teeth. “But it’s a personal best, and I can’t tell anyone else. Shall we go?”
Paddy nodded, dreading his taking away his hand, savoring the heat from the heart of his palm. He turned to face the road, put both hands on the steering wheel, and sighed contentedly.
Neither of them knew which police station to go to, nor could they recall which division had done the questioning. They drove up to the Press Bar, which was open on Sundays, a fact that Paddy had never noticed before. It opened in the afternoon, Terry explained, for the staff who were getting Monday’s edition together, and he was sure that someone there would know which station had been handling it. He drove down Albion Street slowly, with Paddy sitting low on the seat, checking for the grocery van.
A smattering of cars were arranged near the front of the car park, and the News delivery vans were parked along Albion Street, locked up and waiting for the next edition. Still concerned for her safety, Terry stopped at the door to the bar and let her climb out through the passenger door and run in while he went off and parked. She arrived breathless with nerves, an agitated face in a room of drink-softened men.
Richards was sitting alone at the bar, boring McGrade with second-hand jokes and commonplace observations. A team of three printers were sitting at a table together, relaxed, chatting just enough to keep the beer company. Dr. Pete was alone at a table near the back. In the three days since she had seen him his skin seemed to have aged a decade. He sucked in his cheeks as he drank, and the withered skin around his mouth puckered into radial lines. It was warm in the bar, but he had his overcoat pulled tight around him.
Paddy walked over. She had meant to work her way around to inquiring after his health, but it was so obviously wrong for the man to be sitting in a pub in his condition that she blurted it out.
“You look fucked.”
He smiled up at her and blinked slowly. “Fucked, is it?” he drawled, hands in pockets, pulling the tails of his coat around his thighs. “I’ll tell you fucked. Thomas Dempsie, murdered in 1973, found at Barnhill by the train station. Father Alfred Dempsie, found guilty, hanged himself, sad case, blah, blah, blah.” He smiled at her again and gave a jaunty little salute. “See, yeah? I remember you, remember what you were asking about. I remember it all.”