Bleed a River Deep (7 page)

‘Taste that,’ he said, offering me the spoon as I backed away.

‘No thanks,’ I said, raising my hand.

‘Go on,’ he persisted, raising the spoon to my mouth. ‘It won’t kill you.’

‘Is this her actual stomach contents?’ I asked, trying hard not to gag.

‘Jesus, Ben, we’re not mad, you know. One of the botanists here made it up from modern ingredients. It’s as close as she can get it to the original. Try it.’

I took a small mouthful of the gruel. The initial taste was malty, though very quickly a bitter aftertaste developed. Suppressing the urge to spit, I grimaced and swallowed.

Bradley laughed loudly, tapping the remains of the gruel off the spoon back into the container. ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘Would you eat that voluntarily?’

‘Fair enough,’ I said.

‘So that’s that. Plus, of course, the fact that she’s a woman suggests something to do with fertility – which is why I think she was sacrificed to Aine. Which, in turn, would suggest that she was killed on her feast day, Midsummer’s Eve.’

‘What age was she?’

‘In her early twenties. She’s measuring in at 154 centimetres, though she’ll have shrunk in the bog. Plus it dyed her skin and her hair; she may not have been a redhead in real life.’

‘Linda told me it would have been a great honour for someone to have been sacrificed.’

‘She was right,’ Fearghal said. ‘Her family would have been very proud. Her death would have been one of great dignity.’

‘Any damage to her hands?’ I asked, angling my head slightly to examine them.

‘Nothing much,’ he said, interested now.

‘If she were strangled, you’d imagine her fingers would be damaged from fighting against the noose. You’d expect her fingernails to have broken at least. She didn’t fight it.’

‘She may well have been drugged beforehand.’

‘Maybe,’ I agreed. ‘Might be worth doing toxicology.’

He laughed. ‘This isn’t a murder case, Ben.’

‘You’d just like to know, though. Wouldn’t you?’

He nodded. ‘I guess you would, Ben,’ he said.

We stood by her body for a moment in silence, then I announced I’d better get back to Patterson.

‘What did you say had you down here?’ Fearghal asked as we mounted the stairs back up to the street.

‘Security conference,’ I said.

‘Must be big,’ he said.

‘Cathal Hagan, the US senator, is coming to Orcas next week to officially open the place.’

‘Hagan,’ Bradley said. ‘Isn’t he the one that—’

‘Yep,’ I said, glad to see the final flight of steps ahead. ‘He’s that one.’

‘Good luck to you,’ he said. ‘You’ll need it with that bastard,’ he laughed, standing on the top step, hand held aloft in a farewell salute.

Chapter Six

Friday, 6 October

Friday morning dawned to blue skies, with a thick bank of white cloud low to the east. The forecast promised rain by evening, but until then a fine day stretched ahead.

Natalia Almurzayev had told us that the rent collector, whom I had christened Pony Tail, would be calling to collect his payment after 8 p.m. on the first Friday of the month. I had mulled over the problem all week; to tell Hendry would almost certainly result in the immigrants being shipped back to Chechnya. To say nothing would leave them at the mercy of whoever was exploiting them. I figured if I could trace whoever the rent collector delivered to, I might be able to direct Hendry towards him without necessarily landing Mrs Almurzayev in trouble with the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Not for the first time, I missed my old partner, Caroline Williams, who had left both An Garda and Donegal following our last case together. I needed help – in particular a woman’s help. My plan was to have Natalia Almurzayev removed from the house before the collector arrived. I would then watch the house and follow him when he left.

In the end, I contacted Helen Gorman. She had proved herself hard-working and sensible enough; plus she was involved to some extent in the case already, having mistakenly broken the news of ‘Mackey’s’ death to his wife. I didn’t know how discreet she would be, but I had little other choice.

I caught up with her in Letterkenny over coffee. She agreed to help in any way she could, but in fact all I needed her to do for now was baby-sit Natalia for an hour or two.

I met Helen at 6 p.m. in Lifford and we drove in two separate unmarked Garda cars to the house in Strabane where Karol Walshyk had brought me the previous week. The man who opened the door to us immediately tried to slam it shut again, perhaps thinking we were Northern police. With luck and speed, I managed to wedge my foot in the doorjamb, then used my considerable weight to force the door back. Realizing he was on to a loser, the man let go of the door and scuttled into the house shouting a warning. I, in turn, fell through the doorway and found myself sprawled on the floor.

I was aware of a number of people running to the kitchen to escape through the back door. A hand helped me to my feet and I turned, assuming it was Helen Gorman. Instead, Natalia Almurzayev stood before me.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

She nodded as if she understood, not just what I had said, but why I was there. I pointed to Helen. ‘Go with her,’ I said. Natalia looked at Helen who, in turn, smiled sheepishly and waved from the doorstep.

Natalia looked from Helen to me and spoke in Chechen, then rubbed her fingers together in a gesture of money, before pointing at her watch. She was referring to the money collector.

I pointed to my chest. ‘I’ll take care of it,’ I said. ‘Go with Helen.’

She looked doubtful still, but finally called to some of the others in the house and a few faces peered out from the kitchen. One woman called something back and, whatever Natalia’s response was, it seemed to placate them, for they began to move back into the body of the house again.

Natalia placed her hand on my arm as she walked past. She nodded and said something approximating ‘Thank you.’ She smiled sadly, then lowered her head and allowed Helen Gorman to guide her out to the car.

I followed them and watched as they drove away. In my turn I went over to my own car, broke open a new packet of cigarettes, and sat and waited.

At just after 8.15, a silver Ford Fiesta pulled up outside the house. From where I was sitting, I could make out two men in the car. The passenger door opened and Pony Tail climbed out and shuffled up towards the house. His accomplice, who wore a baseball cap, remained in the car. Exhaust fumes continued to escape from the back of the car – the engine was still running. The visibility of the fumes also suggested the engine was cold; the men had not driven far. Unfortunately, the driver was facing me, which made it difficult for me to watch him openly, not to mention follow them unnoticed. I could, however, jot down the registration number.

I slid down a little in the seat and stubbed out my smoke. I felt certain the driver was watching me watching him. Soon, though, he got bored and leant back to retrieve something from the back seat.

A few minutes later Pony Tail came out of the house and I got a proper look at him. He was wiry-framed with greying hair. His face was thin and lean and he chewed gum as he walked, blowing and popping a bubble as he reached the car.

The driver said something to him and he looked back at the house he had just left. Then, as he turned to get into the car, he glanced directly at me for a second.

As he closed the door I phoned Gorman, who had taken Natalia for a drive, patching the call through the hands-free set so that the two men in the car opposite would not see me using my phone. I explained the situation.

As the Fiesta drove off, I was aware that both men were looking across at me as they passed and I had to resist the compulsion to look back. I’d know Pony Tail if I saw him again but I’d no idea what the other man looked like, beyond the feeling that he had black hair beneath his cap.

When they turned the corner I started the car and drove after them in the same direction. They knew they were being followed, so it made no difference if they saw me behind them. I only needed to know which direction they were going when they got to the bypass which would take them either north towards Lifford, south to Omagh, or else straight ahead into the centre of Strabane. Helen Gorman had dropped Natalia at a local fast-food place on the edge of town and was making her way up the bypass. If they headed towards Omagh or into Strabane, she’d catch them; if they headed towards Lifford, I’d have to follow them.

At the lights they indicated right, in the direction of Omagh. Gorman had just reached the junction opposite and slowed sufficiently to miss the traffic lights, thereby ensuring she’d be behind them when she got a chance to pull out. The lights changed and they drove out onto the junction and up the bypass. Following them at a distance, I stopped at the lights, although they were green, so that they would think they had lost me. When the lights changed, Gorman pulled out and drove up the bypass after them.

We followed them like that for over an hour as they visited three other houses in the surrounding area. Gorman was able to stay fairly close to them without being spotted, she assured me.

The last house they visited was an old bungalow about two miles outside Artigarvan. To reach it, they had had to turn off the main road and drive up a country lane. Gorman had been following at a distance, but when the men reached their destination, they stopped so abruptly that she had no choice but to drive past the house and continue on up the laneway. Whilst she wanted to drive back down and follow them back out onto the main road when they left again, it was too dangerous. She would be exposed on a country road and, more importantly, isolated and alone. I told her to sit at the top of the lane in case they continued on up the road. If they came back down the way they had gone, I’d wait for them at the bottom and try my best to pick up the trail from there.

I picked the most inconspicuous spot I could find along the main road with a view of the junction they would have to pass through if they came this way. Sure enough, a few moments later I was able to make out the car coming back down the laneway. I started the engine and drove past the junction, fairly sure that their final destination would be Strabane. All I could do was drive ahead and keep track of them in the rear-view mirror.

As expected, they pulled out onto the road behind me. The road ahead was straight and clear and I hoped I was far enough ahead of them that they wouldn’t recognize my car as the one they had seen outside Natalia’s house.

However, I was aware they were approaching the rear of my car very quickly. Just when I thought they were going to ram me, the car indicated and began to overtake. I decided to risk a look at the men.

I turned, glancing to my right, just as Pony Tail lowered his window and stuck a sawn-off shotgun out. I slammed on my brakes as he fired off a shot which peppered the side of my car, spider-webbing the reinforced windscreen. I twisted the steering wheel and my car jerked out of control and hit the grass banking to my left. The impact happened as if in slow motion and I watched my glasses hit the steering wheel, just before the airbag inflated and enveloped my head.

Gorman decided it was more important to check on me than chase the shooter’s car. It was the right decision; having already opened fire on me, I had no doubt they would have done the same to her.

I sat for a few moments at the side of the road and smoked a cigarette. Beyond being a little shaken, I wasn’t hurt, though I was acutely aware that I would have to explain to Patterson why a Garda car was shot at north of the border. In turn I would have to explain about the immigrants and the fact that I had ignored his instructions; there seemed no other way out.

After managing to get the car started, I drove slowly behind Gorman to the fast-food restaurant where she had dropped Natalia. We learnt that she had left an hour earlier, walking in the direction of the Urney Road, according to the boy serving at the counter.

We returned to the house where the immigrants lived, but there was no response to our banging on the door. No lights shone from any of the windows, despite the encroaching dark.

I sat outside the house until 2 a.m. waiting for someone to return. When it became apparent that this was not going to happen, I reluctantly made my way home, wondering what further suffering my actions had caused Natalia.

Chapter Seven

Saturday, 7 October

The following morning I finally did what I should have done all along and contacted Jim Hendry, my counterpart in the North, asking him to meet me at the house. I was not wholly surprised when I drove over in my own car that morning to find the remains of Almurzayev’s house charred and smouldering, the heat still palpable from the ruins. A fire tender was still there, finishing what had been several hours’ work for the local fire service. Panic rising, I asked one of the firemen at the scene about fatalities and was relieved to learn that there had been no one in the house. It did not, however, remove the dread from my conscience that something would happen to Natalia. In attempting to save her from deportation, I had left her to a much worse fate.

Hendry arrived a few minutes after me. We sat in my car, watching the last firemen picking up pieces of debris and throwing them out into the garden. I explained what had happened the night before and all that had brought me to that point. He was, unsurprisingly, pissed off, both at our incursion into the North and at my failure to tell him about the house or its occupants.

‘We got reports of gunfire last night, outside Artigarvan. One of our men spotted the accident site where your car must have hit. We figured it couldn’t be that bad if the car had been able to drive off again,’ he said, bitterly.

‘I’m sorry, Jim. I didn’t know what else to do,’ I explained.

‘Ignorance is no excuse. You should have told us you were coming across here, Devlin. Following suspects; withholding information relating to a crime; losing a houseful of illegal immigrants,’ he said, counting each incident off on his fingers. ‘You’ve royally fucked this one up.’