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‘O’Connell had just got back from a trip to Belfast this afternoon, barely three hours ago in fact. It was no secret why he was over there. About a year before he murdered the RUC officer James Carson, O’Connell was identified as one of an IRA gang who abducted a woman called Deirdre Murphy from her home in front of her children. She’d been accused by the local IRA masters of feeding information to the British about local IRA operations. She apparently screamed her denials at the time of her abduction and her family have protested her innocence to this day. She became one of the so-called disappeared, sir’.
    ‘People who were taken off by the IRA for interrogation and never seen again’ said Jeff.
    ‘That’s right, sir’ Ollie confirmed. ‘Now her family had been pressing O’Connell into telling them where their mother was buried and eventually a few weeks ago he agreed, hence the trip to Northern Ireland. However, he took them to a beach in county Antrim where he said she was buried but couldn’t pinpoint exactly where. Apparently her family were pretty angry about it as you can imagine and O’Connell was rushed back here because they were ready to lynch him’.
    ‘Do we know where her family live, Ollie?’
    ‘According to the PSNI they all moved over to the Greater Manchester area, sir, and live at several locations across the city and into Cheshire’.
    ‘And did they all make the trip back to Northern Ireland this week?’
    ‘That’s what I’m going to investigate next, sir’.
    ‘Good work, Ollie, thanks’
    ‘He certainly doesn’t let the grass grow under his feet’ said June Hawkins as she stood with Jeff watching Ollie Wright run down the stairs. ‘He was on the phone constantly before you arrived’.
    ‘He’s a good lad, alright’ said Jeff. ‘But then I’d always known that which is why I’d wanted him promoted’.
    ‘How’s it going without Rebecca?’
    ‘Well as far as the team is concerned we’ll be fine’ said Jeff, optimistically. ‘Although Adrian Bradshaw being promoted to DS has put Joe Alexander’s nose out of joint after it came down to a choice between the two of them. We won’t be having a new DC starting for a while yet if at all because of all the financial cutbacks they’re throwing at us’.
    ‘I can’t help but feel a bit sorry for poor old Joe’ said June.
    ‘I feel sorry for him too, June. He’s had a lot of bad luck in the last few years. But like we all do he’s got to pick up and carry on however hard it is’.
    ‘And what about you and the woman that was Rebecca and not the police colleague?’
    ‘I hesitated and I lost’ Jeff admitted. ‘We might’ve been good together but I didn’t give it a chance. Then I lost. So put it this way I won’t be making that same mistake again if someone else comes along’.      
     
    Jeff decided to have a quick look round the flat before going downstairs. He’d seen so many flats like this that looked like they’d been put together to satisfy the needs of life’s accidents. From the garishly patterned carpet to the curtains so thin you could probably see through them at night. These kind of flats were intended for people who no longer had any pride in their surroundings and didn’t care much beyond making it through each day. Jeff thought it must’ve been perfect for Padraig O’Connell who could sit here of an evening and be anonymous in a neighbourhood of anonymous people living in put together flats. There wasn’t much to distinguish this one from any of the others. A stack of newspapers showed that he liked to take the Independent as well as the Irish times. There were no books or pictures. He clearly hadn’t been sentimental in that way.
    ‘Jeff!’ June called out. ‘DI Wright wants you downstairs!’
    ‘Okay, I’m coming!’ Jeff called back. Why wait? Jeff wondered as he took a last look around. Why wait five years before you try and put the Murphy family out of their misery?