‘Thank you,’ said Keirns. ‘I just think, y’know, they’ve seen enough today already.’
Valentine closed the car door behind Keirns and moved to the driver’s seat. As he was stepping inside, his mobile rang out.
‘Yes, Valentine.’
‘Hello, boss.’
‘Phil, what’s up?’
‘Well, there’s good and bad news, sir. You said you wanted it all, didn’t you?’
Valentine perched his shoe on the car’s door sill. ‘Go on.’
‘We got the oil drum out, an old ICI number with unusual markings, but I doubt a trace on it will do us much good. It’s likely just been a convenient size and shape.’
‘And the contents? Tell me the body is on its way to Wrighty.’
‘I’m coming to that. It weighed a ton, sir. It was weighted down with rocks, big ones, and some smashed-up slabs.’
‘Makes you think it wasn’t intended for the ground – sounds like it was going overboard.’
‘We needed to use the JCB to get it out the muck. I wouldn’t have thought it moveable without that. Anyway, the boy’s body came out easier, and it’s gone up to pathology in Glasgow. But we have another problem now.’
Valentine watched DS McCormack get out of the car and approach him; she appeared to sense something. ‘What is it?’
The DI flagged her down. ‘Go on then, Phil, what did you pull out of the barrel?’
‘We haven’t pulled anything else out of there yet. You see, we had to call back the doc and the fiscal . . .’
‘What are you saying?’
‘There’s a second body in there.’
Valentine lowered the mobile and glanced in the car; Garry Keirns was gesturing for them to get going.
‘Boss, what’s up?’ said McCormack.
Valentine’s voice was a confused rasp. ‘We have another body.’
6
May 1982
I’m still hungry but not so cold now. Mammy used to say I was always hungry, that it must be the hollow legs I had. I miss those things she said.
The bus carriage rattles on the bumpy road. I’ve no idea where we are or why I’m sat up at the back by myself with the horsehair from the burst chair poking at my bare legs. Shorts – what manner of dress is that for a boy of my age? I’m nine and haven’t worn shorts for years – at least two anyway.
The man with a nose like a hawk keeps turning round to look at me. He takes a quick glance, without so much as a smile, and then turns back to the driver. They talk about the football like it’s a subject for grown-ups only, but I know about the World Cup.
I want to say about the lad Rossi who plays for Italy, how he always scores the winner. I want to say about the Polish players, Boniek and Lato, the deadliest strikers in the finals. And I want to say about Norman Whiteside, the Irish lad from the north, who was only seventeen when he pulled on the green jersey for the first time.
Mammy was Irish, the man with the hawk nose told me. He said it made me the stock of navvies and whores and then he said he’d call me Taff because of my name. Donal Welsh is my name, but I don’t think I’m really Welsh at all.
The coach leaves the road and starts up an even bumpier one. I thought the first road meant we were in the country, but now I see it only meant we were on our way to the country. This is the country; the branches of the trees scrape the windows as we go by the bright green fields.
The beak told me I was going to be sent here. He had a name for the place, a fancy one, but I wasn’t listening. I find it hard to pay much attention to grown-ups when they’re giving out at me. I switch off; that’s what they say anyway.
That was after the hospital. I don’t know how I got there, not really anyway. But I remember Mammy had passed by then. It was me that found her with the needle in her arm at the squat. I told a grown-up there but he only swore and left. I think he was Mammy’s boyfriend.
In the hospital they had a needle in me too, in my hand though, feeding me they said. They sheared off my hair too. I don’t know why they would do that. I remember the hospital well. I loved the tight white sheets, the smell of the soap on them, and the feeds they gave you. Sometimes I had custard. I didn’t want to leave but they made me.
‘The boy is a delinquent,’ the woman said. She was talking to the beak, but I don’t know who she was. ‘By any definition of the word.’
‘Is it your opinion that the boy is in danger of criminality?’ said the beak.
‘It’s not a matter of opinion; it’s a matter of fact. The boy has already engaged in criminality. Would you like my colleague to expound?’
‘If you consider it useful.’
That’s when the Old Gannet read from his notebook; they called him that because he used to take scoops off your plate if you didn’t eat fast enough. He didn’t need the food, the size of the belly on him, but he took it to be a bastard.