Free One by One in the Darkness by Deirdre Madden Page A

taking it badly, isn’t she?’ Because of the familiar way she spoke, Rosemary assumed she must be a close friend of the sisters, and replied, ‘Yes, but Helen’s taking it worst of all, if you ask me.’ She was shocked when, a short time later, she saw the woman writing in a notebook, and realised that she was a reporter, not a family friend. But worst of all had been the British tabloids, where the death was reported coldly and without sympathy, much being made of Brian’s Sinn Fein membership, and the murder having taken place in his house. The inference was that he had only got what was coming to him. At their mother’s insistence they’d made a formal complaint which was rejected. Helen had known it would be: her legal knowledge told her, after a close study of the texts, that they’d been damn clever: the tone was hostile, but no specific accusations were made, it wasguilt by association. But they all took it to heart, especially their mother, a person for whom bitterness had hitherto been an unknown thing.
    The morning after the party, Helen thanked Owen for having asked her along.
    ‘Ah, give me a break, you had a lousy night, admit it. I saw you getting stuck into David McKenna. He’s not a bad guy, Helen, believe me. He’s had hard times himself.’
    ‘You’re breaking my heart,’ Helen murmured.
    ‘Listen to me: Mary’s known him since they were children, they grew up in the same street.’ Usually, Owen and Mary didn’t like to talk about Mary’s background. Helen knew that she’d started out in a tiny terraced house in a street off the lower Falls; knew too that it wasn’t to be mentioned, so she was surprised at what Owen said. ‘David’s father was shot too, a man that never was in anything, and David was just a wee fella when it happened. His mother was left with five of them to rear. Nobody knows better than I do why you don’t like journalists, and you’re right, insofar as some of them are arseholes of the first order. But David’s a decent guy. He’s not the worst, not by a long chalk.’
    Helen heard Owen out in silence. She thought about what he had said on and off during the day, and when they were closing up the office that evening, she asked for David’s phone number.
    ‘I owe you an apology,’ she said, when she rang him that night.
    ‘I know you do,’ David replied. ‘You owe me an explanation, too, and if you’ve any decency you’ll buy me a drink.’ She was grateful for his hard, dry tone, for she’d had a bellyful of people oozing sympathy at her by this stage; and when they did get together a few nights later in a city-centre pub, the tone was still sharp and unsentimental. They ordered two double Bushmills, for which Helen paid.
    ‘I know what happened to your father,’ he said bluntly. ‘I saw the reports. Now I’m going to tell you about what happened to mine. He was an electrician, and he worked some of the time with another man, a friend of his, who was a carpenter. They were going to a job just outside the city, up in Hannahstown, one morning in winter, and they were ambushed. Their van wasforced over to the side of the road, they were taken out, shot in the head and left there. Nobody was ever arrested or charged for it. My da’s friend was in the IRA, a big shot, as it turned out. He had a huge paramilitary funeral. My father wasn’t in the IRA or in anything else. He left five kids. I was the eldest; I was twelve. He was the same age that I am now, thirty-six. My mother was nearly demented. She told me later it wasn’t just that she missed my father, it was more than the loneliness, although there was that. They’d got on great together; I don’t ever remember them arguing or fighting. She told me she’d been terrified at the prospect of bringing up five children on her own, having to provide for us and get us educated and keep us out of trouble. Anyhow, that’s another story in itself. The thing was, in the press reports of the case, my