Taken for Dead (Kate Maguire) (14 page)

‘I don’t know what to tell you,’ said Derek Hagerty. ‘I have no idea who they were.’

‘You never saw them?’

‘Only two of them, when they first grabbed me, and only for a few seconds even then. I was too scared and too confused to take a good look at them. They blindfolded me from the moment they first took me and I was kept locked up in a coal-black room for most of the time, except to go to the toilet. Even then they guided me there and back, and the window was painted over black so I couldn’t see out.’

‘Did they speak to you at all?’

‘Oh yes, they spoke to me all right. They were always in and out, pounding my ears, but they wouldn’t answer any of my questions. The first thing they told me was that they were asking a quarter of a million euros for my release. They said that if they didn’t get it within seventy-two hours they were going to start cutting bits off me and sending them in the post to my wife.’

‘As it is, they pulled out eight of your teeth. When did they do that?’

‘I’m not sure. Like I say, it was dark all the time and they took away my watch so I didn’t know whether it was day or night. But I’d say that it was less than twenty-four hours after they grabbed me.’

Katie was about to say, ‘They let you keep your mobile phone, though?’, but she decided to leave that question until later. For the moment, she didn’t want Derek Hagerty to think that she suspected him of complicity in his own kidnapping. After all, his front teeth had been wrenched out, and not by a professional dentist, and she found it difficult to imagine that he had voluntarily agreed to anybody doing that.

‘When did they snatch you?’ she asked him.

‘Tuesday afternoon it was, about twenty past three. I was on my way to the AIB in South Mall to lodge the previous week’s takings, like, and to have a word with the manager.’

‘What about?’

‘What do you mean, what about?’

‘What were you going to have a word with him about, your bank manager?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Nothing specific, like. This and that.’

‘So where did they snatch you?’

‘I ordered a taxi from ABC. When it arrived I thought it was the genuine article, like, because it was yellow and it had the ABC light on the roof. But instead of taking me straight to South Mall, the driver went up Pana and over Patrick’s Bridge. He said there was some kind of roadworks on Grand Parade so he had to take a diversion. He drove halfway down McCurtain Street and then he stopped and two other fellows got into the taxi, one on each side of me. They forced a pair of handcuffs on me, and then they tied a blindfold over my eyes.’

‘Did they say anything to you?’

‘I was protesting, like, and shouting at the driver to stop, but one of them said that I needed to shut the eff up or else he’d box my effing head.’

‘So you stayed silent?’

‘Yes,’ said Derek Hagerty, ‘I didn’t want to beaten up, did I? And they might have had a knife or even a gun for all I knew.’

‘Then what?’

‘I stayed silent and so did they. I had the feeling we were driving uphill, so I guessed we were heading north. We drove pretty much straight for maybe half an hour, like, which made me guess that we were heading in the direction of Fermoy. After about half an hour we turned three or four times and then I heard shingle under the tyres and we stopped. I guessed then that we were in somebody’s private driveway.’

It was at that moment that Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán knocked at the door and came into the first-aid room. She said, ‘Sorry to interrupt you, ma’am, but may I have a quick word with you?’

Katie left Derek Hagerty with Detective O’Donovan and went out into the corridor. Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán held up a sheaf of bank statements in one hand and a maroon accounts ledger and a small green notebook in the other.

‘We’ve just finished going through his books. Hagerty’s Autos is over one hundred and seventy-five thousand euros in debt, most of it to the AIB and the tax commissioners. We’ve found a notebook, too, listing Derek Hagerty’s debts to personal friends, and even to his mother, and they amount to well over sixty-five thousand.’

Katie took the bank statements and briefly leafed through them, shaking her head at page after page of O/D balances. Then she said, ‘This doesn’t make any sense at all, does it? If you’re going to extort money out of people, you choose somebody who has some, like Denis O’Brien or Dermot Desmond or one of the O’Reilly family. You don’t choose some bankrupt car mechanic from Bishopstown.’

‘Not unless he’s involved in it himself,’ said Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán.

‘Well, you’re right, and it’s looking almost certain that he was. The only thing that I can’t work out is why did he escape, or pretend to escape? I’m really beginning to wonder who’s been fooling who. If he was part of a scam why didn’t he just wait until the money had been paid over? And if something had gone wrong, and he’d fallen out with his alleged abductors, why didn’t he just call for help? He still had his phone. And why did he cover himself in all of those pretend bruises?’

‘There was no pretend about his teeth being pulled out.’

‘Maybe that was done simply to throw us off. I don’t know. Maybe he thought that having his front teeth pulled out with pliers was better than losing his livelihood. It’s interesting that Micky Crounan had some of his teeth pulled out, too, although only the three of them.’

‘Why don’t you let me talk to him?’ said Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán, glancing in through the window. Derek Hagerty was sitting up now, and talking to Detective O’Donovan.

Katie thought about that for a moment. Kyna was relentless with her questioning – persistent and thorough – and if she believed that a suspect was guilty she never let them off the hook until she had persuaded them to confess. Quite often she had them breaking down in tears, and at the station they called her ‘Sergeant O’Polygraph’. For now, however, Katie wanted Derek Hagerty to think that she completely believed his story that he had been nothing but an innocent victim.

Before they started to question him more aggressively, she wanted to trace the man who had driven him into the city, and talk to him and his wife. She was hopeful that Crime Prevention Officer Tony Brennan would be able to find CCTV footage of him dropping off Derek Hagerty at Grand Parade. There might even be footage of Derek Hagerty’s abduction in McCurtain Street, if he was telling the truth about that.

‘All right, then, understood,’ said Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán. ‘I have to return these accounts to Detective Horgan, but maybe I could come back and sit in while you question him? I’d like to get a sense of the fellow.’

‘I’ve no problem with that. Good idea.’

Katie went back into the first-aid room. ‘How are you feeling now?’ she asked Derek Hagerty,

‘Fair to Midleton, except for my gob.’

‘Yes, that’s what I wanted to ask you about next. Did your abductors tell you
why
they were pulling out your teeth?’

‘Partly to prove to Shelagh that they really had me, that’s what they said, and partly to punish me.’

‘Punish you for what, exactly?’

Derek Hagerty gave a lopsided shrug. ‘They kept harping on about the economic crash, like. They said it was small businessmen like me who had borrowed far more money than they could ever pay back, and because of that we had brought down the whole Irish economy.’

Katie thought,
That’s
e
xactly what Micky Crounan’s abductors had said to Mary Crounan
. Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán glanced at her and she could tell by the expression on her face that she was thinking the same.
Almost word for word, the same justification for murdering her husband that had been given to her by the High Kings of Erin
.

Katie looked across at Detective O’Donovan, too, narrowing her eyes to signal to him that he shouldn’t say anything. Detective O’Donovan gave her an almost imperceptible nod, to show that he understood.

‘Did they mention the names of any other small businessmen who had done the same?’ asked Katie. ‘Anybody else they wanted to punish?’

‘No, they didn’t. But from the way they were talking, yes, they did give me the feeling that they were on some kind of crusade. Like it was revenge they were after, more than the money.’

‘So, from what they said, you think they might do this again?’

‘Couldn’t say, like. Maybe.’

Detective O’Donovan said, ‘The two fellers who grabbed you in the taxi. Could you describe them at all?’

‘Like I told you, I was too shocked to notice much. One was wearing a black leather coat, the other some kind of khaki combat jacket. Mid-thirties, I would say, both of them, and both of them unshaven.’

‘And when they were holding you hostage in that house, you’re absolutely sure you never got a sconce at any of them? Not even a sneaky one ?’

‘No. Nothing at all. Like I say, they kept me blindfolded, and most of the time in total darkness. They even made me eat my meals wearing a blindfold, so I couldn’t see what I was putting in my mouth. Soda bread and leek and potato soup they gave me, mainly. Well, after they’d pulled out my teeth I could only manage to eat the bread by sucking it until it was soft.’

‘Did any of your abductors have a distinctive smell?’ asked Katie. ‘Aftershave, body odour, anything like that?’

Derek Hagerty shook his head. ‘No – not that I can remember. One or two of them stunk of fags, and sometimes I could smell beer on their breath, but that was all.’

‘When you say “one or two of them”, how many of them do you think there were?’

‘Three at the very least. Probably more like five.’

‘How about their voices? Did you recognize any of them? Is it possible that one of them might have been somebody you knew?’

‘No, I didn’t reck any of them. I dare say I would, though, if I ever heard them again.’

‘No distinctive accents? Kerry, Tipperary, Limerick, anything like that?’

‘No. I would have said that they were all Corkonians, but I was under a whole lot of stress, as you can imagine. I was thinking more about my throbbing gums than anything else.’

‘Southsiders? Norries?’

‘Norries, I’d say. They definitely spoke with a bit of a Mayfield whine.’

‘None of them ever called any of the others by name? Not even a nickname?’

‘No.’

‘Did you hear any other distinctive sounds when you were being held hostage? The sound of a road, maybe, or cattle, or trains, or aircraft?’

‘Crows I could hear, and sometimes a car on the shingle. A TV playing now and then, and voices, but that was all.’

‘All right,’ said Katie. ‘Now I’m going to ask you how you managed to escape.’

Dabbing repeatedly at his lips, as if he were afraid that the scabs were about to flake off, Derek Hagerty explained to Katie how he had forced open the toilet window with a spoon, and climbed out.

‘I was scared shitless, I can tell you. But I was seriously beginning to think that I wouldn’t be coming out of that house alive.’

Katie nodded. She thought his story sounded plausible, but the flat tone of voice in which he recited it made her feel that he had rehearsed it – as if it hadn’t really happened, but he was trying to remember every invented detail. She had interviewed enough liars in the course of her career to notice the way in which his eyes kept darting from side to side, as if he were reading from some memorized script.

The lip-dabbing allowed him to pause now and again to collect his thoughts, and possibly to make sure that he hadn’t left out anything important.

‘I’m surprised your kidnappers didn’t come after you,’ she told him. ‘It couldn’t have been too long before they began to wonder why you were spending so long in the toilet.’

Derek Hagerty shrugged. ‘I climbed over a fence and into a field. I ran along a hedgerow, keeping my head well down, and then I went into a wood. They may have come looking for me for all I know, but they didn’t find me, thank God. I’m sure they would have given me another beating, or worse.’

He stopped dabbing his lips and looked at Katie directly. ‘Thinking about it now, I suppose it was a stupid thing to do. Maybe I should have waited till I heard that the ransom was paid. On the other hand, I had no idea how Shelagh was going to be able to raise enough money for them to release me. I didn’t want them to start cutting bits off me – as if having those teeth pulled out wasn’t painful enough. You can get false teeth, but you can’t get yourself an artificial mickey.’

‘So, anyway, a woman found you lying by the side of the road and took you back to her house?’

‘That’s right. She was a saint. Well, she and her friend, they were both saints.’

‘She had a friend with her?’

‘Some feller. He wasn’t her husband. They must have been out drinking somewhere, I could smell it.’

‘What was her name?’

‘I can’t tell you that. I swore to those fellers who took me hostage that I wouldn’t report any of this to the guards, and that I wouldn’t say a word to the media, or anybody else at all for that matter. They swore that if I did they’d come after me. They said they’d come after my family, too, and that I’d sorely regret it. Not only that, they’d soften the cough of anybody else I told about it. So one way or another they need to know that
I
didn’t report it to you. It wasn’t me, for sure. Shit, I can only guess that Norman must have called you.’

‘Norman?’ asked Katie. ‘Was that the woman’s friend, or her husband?’

Derek Hagerty blinked and looked confused. ‘I didn’t say “Norman”.’

‘You did. You said that Norman must have called us. Who’s Norman?’

‘I can’t tell you that.’

‘Derek,’ said Katie, leaning forward, ‘this is a murder inquiry. You’re not in any trouble yourself at the moment, because it appears that you were nothing but an innocent victim. But let me make this clear to you – if you refuse to answer my questions or obstruct our investigation in any way at all, then believe me, you will be.’

Derek Hagerty became suddenly angry. His nostrils flared and he spoke in gummy, barely intelligible honks. ‘If it
was
Norman who called you – Jesus! he doesn’t have the first idea what he’s let us all in for! Not only me and my family, but himself and his wife! I mean what a fecking eejit! I specifically told him not to say anything to the cops, or to anybody else! I told him and I told him and he swore
blind
that he wouldn’t! God alone knows what those people are going to do to us. They blew up Shelagh’s car, didn’t they, blew it up, for feck’s sake, and killed that young garda? They’ll murder us! I know they will! They’ll only fecking murder us!’