It was 9 p.m. as Joe Dempsey pulled his BMW M6 Gran Coupé hire car into a parking space in University Square. Late, but the place was buzzing.
He stepped out of the car and into the crowd. Young men and women of varied nationalities streamed back and forth. The academic world continued, unhindered by the international drama that had its roots in these very grounds.
The majority of the activity centred on a single building. A classic, imposing red-brick structure. Dempsey watched a swarm of maintenance men come and go through its main entrance. It was the right place.
Dempsey remained in place. Watching. Taking in the impressive view of the six-floor building. His gut told him that this could be where the trail would warm back up. The past twenty-four hours had taught him a lot, but without evidence what he knew – what he thought he knew – was next to worthless. He needed something tangible and he hoped he would find it in the life of Eamon McGale.
Motionless for a few more moments, Dempsey’s mind was racing nonetheless. Finally his legs caught up, coming to life as he strode towards the building’s entrance. Taking the short staircase to the raised main door two steps at a time, he just avoided a collision with two workmen carrying a shattered office door.
Dempsey ignored their mumbled annoyance. He made his way through the reception, towards the building plan that sat on the far wall. He ran his finger down it and found McGale’s name and room number.
The caged elevator was in use on a different floor, so Dempsey made for the ornate staircase. The presence of the workmen had already intrigued him and his curiosity only increased as he climbed the stairs. His suspicion that the men were working on the sixth floor was gradually confirmed.
The sight as he reached the top of the staircase was unexpected. Dempsey had anticipated seeing the workmen gutting McGale’s now-empty office. No doubt the university would want it erased from its history. It was why he had been in such a hurry to get to the office before more potential evidence was lost. But as he reached the final step Dempsey found far more than a single whitewashed room.
Serious damage had been done to all but the first two offices on the sixth-floor corridor. Of those rooms that had been hit, not a single door was left standing. Some had been removed by the workmen. Others lay open, badly smashed and almost all free from their hinges. It was a familiar enough sight, but not one he expected to find in these halls.
Dempsey walked into the closest office: room 6.6.
He flashed his DDS credentials as he spoke. It guaranteed an answer.
‘What the hell happened here?’
‘Bloody vandals by the look of it. Brainless little shites!’
The room’s only occupant was in his early sixties. Small. He spoke as he swept up broken glass.
‘Probably came to see Professor McGale’s office and then got overexcited. Little ghouls!’
‘Maybe.’ Dempsey was unconvinced. ‘Did you know Professor McGale?’
‘A little, yeah.’
‘What did you think of him?’
The small man stopped sweeping. He stood upright. His body language told Dempsey that he was not used to his opinion being sought. Not here, at least. When he spoke his voice was hesitant, which sent much the same message.
‘What I think is that it’s a tragedy. You couldn’t hope to meet a nicer man than Professor McGale.’
‘So it was a surprise, then? What he did in London?’
‘God, yes. To us all. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t doubt what he did but I’ll tell you this: Professor McGale must have had his reasons.’
‘How so?’
‘Well, you’ll have never met a brighter man in your life. So clever, and yet a lovely man with it. Time for everyone, he had. Whether you had letters after your name or a broom in your hand. And all he wanted to do was help. Whether it was just helping one of us, one of the staff, even with the smallest thing. Or all the way up to helping Ulster itself with his work. Professor McGale was a peaceful man. So if he tried to kill someone, it was because there was no other way.’
Dempsey nodded. The opinion matched what he already knew. But perhaps more importantly, it was at odds with what Dempsey had seen McGale do in Trafalgar Square.
‘What about after his family were killed? Was he the same man after that?’
‘With all due respect, sir, of course he bloody wasn’t! He wasn’t happy. He wasn’t chatty. He was darker. But can you blame him? What else did he have left?’
‘Did his attitudes change?’
‘From the little we spoke after that, yeah, they did. The optimism was gone. He seemed like he no longer thought the Troubles could be stopped by talking. And I remember something else, something I didn’t really understand when he said it. He said that they were different this time. The Troubles. Different to before. Like I said, I didn’t really understand it.’
Dempsey thought for a few moments, considering what had been said. Then, with thanks, he walked out of the office. He took a few minutes to look from room to room. Noted the similarities and differences between them. They told him much. Room 6.11 had been ransacked. This was unsurprising; it was McGale’s office, after all. Most of the others had seen forced entry, but little else besides. And then there was room 6.3. This one looked very different. Like the scene of a pitched battle, with the remnants of a large bloodstain in the centre of its carpet.
A few more moments and Dempsey had completed a moving mental image of the previous night’s events.
The small man was still in room 6.6 when Dempsey returned.
‘So what makes you think that this damage was done by vandals?’ Dempsey asked.
‘What other explanation is there? Doors smashed off of their hinges. Offices smashed to pieces. I don’t see who else could have done it.’
‘Who was the first person to find it like this?’
‘Danny McKee. The building’s caretaker. I spoke to him earlier. He came in about 7 a.m. and found the place like this; the entry system smashed, the alarm pulled from the wall and all this damage done. Look, I’ve already answered all of these questions once. I don’t see why I have to answer them again.’
‘Who were you speaking to before me?’
‘The police. They do tend to ask a few questions when we call them, you know. That’s why we’re clearing up so late. They wanted everything left until they’d examined it.’
‘Right, OK.’ Dempsey nodded again. The answer made sense. ‘Just one more question: what did Danny McKee say he found in room 6.3? Because there’s a hell of a blood stain on that carpet.’
‘That’s what I thought. I told Danny it was blood but he wouldn’t listen. Said it was there when he went in but that there was no sign of anyone bleeding, and that it had been cleaned up a lot before he even got there. He figured Professor Rodgers – that’s Professor Rodgers’ room – had spilt a bottle of wine or something and had tried to clean it up.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously.’
‘If you don’t mind me asking, this Danny guy. Not the sharpest tool in the box?’
‘No, sir.’ The small man laughed as he answered. ‘No, sir, he is not.’
‘Doesn’t sound like it. But anyway, did he say there was anything unusual in the room? Other than the stain?’
‘Not a thing.’
Dempsey stood for a moment and replayed the mental images he had just watched.
He was already fairly sure of what had happened the night before. The damage to the doors bore the hallmarks of a professional area search. Which meant that the otherwise untouched rooms had been empty.
But room 6.3 had not been empty. That much was clear. It was the last of the doors to have been hit. Even if it had not been, the bloodstain in the middle of the floor told its own story. What it didn’t say – what Dempsey still did not know – was who was searching and who was hiding. Nor did he know who had covered the whole thing up. There had been no report of a body found in the university, and yet the size of the stain meant the certain death of whoever’s body had previously held that blood. No reported death meant that information had been suppressed.
‘Is that everything?’ The small man’s voice broke into Dempsey’s thoughts. ‘Only I’ve got more to do and I’d like to get home tonight?’
‘Sorry, sorry. Yeah, that’s all.’
Dempsey thanked the small man for his time, left the room and walked towards the far end of the hallway.
Room 6.11 looked to Dempsey just as it had looked to Michael and Sarah. It appeared to have been ransacked, but Dempsey recognised the work. The search patterns left by agents of the world’s intelligence agencies were familiar.
Unlike Sarah, Dempsey was confident he could find what they could not.
He moved around the room. Slowly. Deliberately. Taking in McGale’s personal photographs, Dempsey noted the differences between the man portrayed and the one he had tackled in Trafalgar Square. No more time was spent on the subject than necessary. Instead, Dempsey moved to the desk. Searched the open drawers. Found nothing.
Closing the final desk drawer, he moved McGale’s chair backwards and took a seat. From here Dempsey surveyed the office, adopting the view of the room that the professor had created for himself. It was a honed technique which put Dempsey in the shoes of his subject. It rarely failed. Now was no exception. Dempsey had barely settled into the seat before his gaze fell on the newspaper clippings that were pinned to the nearside wall.
Dempsey was up in an instant. He moved towards the clippings, his eyes scanning from one story to another. The pattern told him a story; a montage that extended out from a central core, recounting the death of the McGale family.
McGale’s past – the fate of his family – was by now well known. To Dempsey and to the general public. There was nothing to be gained from dwelling upon it and so Dempsey’s eyes just skimmed the central headline.
Instead they searched the branches that spread out from the centre. Studying them for extra information. He found it quickly, in the cutting from the 18th November edition of the Belfast Chronicle. A news report that contained a detail found nowhere in McGale’s dossier; the fact that McGale’s lucky escape from the restaurant, just moments before the blast, had been due to a call from one of his students. A student named Benjamin Grant.
Dempsey did not believe in coincidence. Chance, yes. But not coincidence. It was cynical to suspect a person just because they pulled a friend clear of a bomb with moments to spare. But cynical was not the same as wrong. The odds that Benjamin Grant knew nothing about McGale’s fate were low. Dempsey had his next step.
A few more minutes were spent surveying the cuttings. The name ‘Grant’ stayed on Dempsey’s mind, but something else was eating at his gut. Something he could not quite grasp. Finally he stepped away from the wall. Unable to pinpoint what bothered him, instead he gave what was left of the office a half-hearted search. There was nothing more to be found and so Dempsey headed for the doorway.
He was halfway there when it hit him.
Spinning on his heel, he rushed back to the wall and reviewed the remaining clippings. Dempsey had already searched for any mention of President Howard Thompson. For something that might justify the shooting. In doing so he had missed the obvious.
Dempsey read the clippings in a new light. Report after report. The same name appeared in every news article that was not directly related to terror. Dempsey could finally see the pattern. McGale’s montage dealt with terrorist attacks and with Neil Matthewson. Not because he was an obsessive on two distinct subjects, but because he viewed them as the same subject. Intrinsically and inseparably linked. Realisation hit Dempsey like a wrecking ball.
The intelligence had been wrong. The security threats incorrect. And the claim of responsibility from the True IRA? Bogus.
Whoever Stanton was, he was not behind the failed attempt on the life of Howard Thompson. No. Stanton was behind the entirely successful assassination of Sir Neil Matthewson.
And Dempsey was going to find out why.