Taken for Dead (Kate Maguire) (21 page)

In spite of that, she had been feeling rejected and frowzy for so many months now, ever since John had left her. She had put on over two kilos in weight and her hair never seemed to behave itself. Even if she couldn’t trust him, David had reassured her that she was still attractive and sexy.

She said goodbye to Barney and drove into the city. The day was blustery but bright, which made her feel even more confident. Today I’m going to sort out Bryan Molloy, and today we’re going to make some real progress with the High Kings of Erin, or whoever it was that was responsible for murdering Garda Brenda McCracken and Micky Crounan and kidnapping Derek Hagerty.

She switched on the radio and it was playing ‘Banks of the Roses’ by the Barra MacNeills. O Johnny, lovely Johnny, don’t you leave me, they sang, but this time she remained dry-eyed.

***

Bryan Molloy was out when she arrived at the station, which she found partly frustrating and partly a relief. His secretary, Teagan, said that he had gone for a meeting at the city council offices about the Cork Foyer housing scheme for homeless young people, and that he probably wouldn’t be back until very much later.

‘All right, thanks, Teagan,’ said Katie. She glanced around Bryan Molloy’s office and noticed that his golf clubs were missing from the corner where he normally kept them propped up. She had been meaning to confront him as soon as she came in, but she could use some extra time to prepare her case more thoroughly.

There were three folders waiting for her on her desk – a report on yet another drugs ring, which had been operating out of Knocknaheeny, and an update from social services on three young Nigerian girls who had been brought into Cork last week by Michael Gerrety, allegedly to work as ‘escorts’. There was also a warning from Garda headquarters in Dublin that hackers were locking people’s computers, then sending them an official-looking demand, which appeared to come from An Garda Síochána, telling them that they had been logging in to unauthorized websites, or child pornography, and would have to pay a 100-euro fine to have them unlocked. This scam was called ‘ransomware’, which Katie thought highly appropriate, considering the cases she was working on.

She had picked up her phone to call Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán when Kyna herself knocked at her office door and came in.

‘What’s the story, Kyna? I was just about to ring you. Have we sent Derek Hagerty home yet?’

‘No, he’s still here. He’s afraid to go home for what he thinks these High Kings of Erin are going to do him.’

‘You’ve told him we’ll give him protection? We can even arrange for him and his family to go to a safe house if he’s that freaked.’

‘He knows that, but he seems to think that they can get to him wherever he goes. He kept saying, “You guards can’t keep me safe, you’re worse than they are.” I asked him what he meant by that, but he wouldn’t say. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a man as scared as he is. He’s like shaking with terror. Absolutely planking it.’

‘Did he give you any more clues that he might have been faking his abduction?’

Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán said, ‘I still haven’t asked him outright about the bruises that Norman Pearse said were washed off. That’s if our informant really
was
Norman Pearse. I haven’t asked him about his mobile phone, either. Well, you did say not to.’

‘I want us to interview the Pearses again before we do that. I’m sure it must have been them. How many other drivers called Norman drove past the Cineplex at that particular time, do you think? I can understand that they’re probably just as scared as Derek Hagerty, but we can protect them, too, if we have to.’

‘One problem,’ said Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán. ‘O’Donovan and Horgan went to Ballinlough only half an hour ago to talk to them, but they’re not at home. Most likely they’re out shopping or something, so they probably won’t be long. O’Donovan said that they’d hang around and wait for them to come back.’

Katie checked the clock on her desk and said, ‘All right, we’ll give them an hour or so. I’ve a rake of paperwork to get through, anyhow.’

At that moment, Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán’s iPhone let out a shrill, high-pitched ringtone. She took it out and said, ‘Yes, Patrick?’

There was a lengthy pause while Detective O’Donovan spoke to her. She nodded a few times and said, ‘Right,’ and then, ‘Right you are. Right. Just hold on a second, would you? I’m here with the super right now.’

‘What is it?’ asked Katie. ‘Have the Pearses come back home?’

‘Still no sign of them. But a woman just turned up at their house and when O’Donovan asked her what she wanted she said that she was a friend of Mrs Pearse from the same church, Our Lady of Lourdes. She said that Mrs Pearse had invited her for coffee this morning.’

‘Any chance she might have simply forgotten?’ asked Katie, and Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán repeated the question to Detective O’Donovan.

‘Very doubtful,’ she repeated. ‘According to this friend, they meet for coffee at the same time every week.’

‘Tell O’Donovan to go all the way round the house. Tell him to look in all the windows and see if any of the doors have been left unlocked. Check for any signs of a struggle or a hurried exit, like carpets rucked up or furniture knocked over.’

Detective Sergeant ó Nuallan waited a little longer, and then Katie could hear Detective O’Donovan talking to her again.

‘He says there’s an electric leaf-blower in the back garden which is lying in the middle of the lawn. It’s still plugged in with an extension lead that goes through the open kitchen window.’

She paused, and then she said, ‘The back door’s unlocked, and there’s washing hanging half in and half out of the washing machine.’

Another pause, then, ‘Horgan says that there are two cars still inside the garage – the green Audi A3 and a mustard-coloured Peugeot 208.’

Katie stood up. ‘Jesus,’ she said, ‘they’ve been taken. I’ll bet you money they’ve been taken.’

‘O’Donovan’s had a quick sconce inside the house and it doesn’t appear like there’s any indications of a struggle. If they have been taken, they must have gone without any kind of a fight.’

‘Take Quinlan and get out there,’ said Katie. ‘I’ll go down and see Denis MacCostagáin and see how much manpower he can muster. After that, I’m going to have that talk with Derek Hagerty, and this time it’s no more Mrs Good Cop.’

‘Don’t you think this is jumping the gun, like?’ asked Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán. ‘I mean, they’re a grown-up couple and they’re only late for a coffee morning. It’s not like they’re missing children.’

‘Perhaps it is,’ said Katie. ‘But I’d rather risk the money and the man-hours than give Bryan Molloy another chance to say that I’m always two steps behind. Did you hear “Morning Ireland” this morning? They quoted him almost word for word. “Detective Superintendent Maguire and her team still have a fair amount of catching up to do.” Thanks for nothing, Molloy.’

‘You shouldn’t let him get under your skin so much. He’s just an old-fashioned misogynist and everybody knows what a great cop you are.’

‘The trouble is, Kyna,
he’s
a great cop himself, and there’s no two ways about it.’

‘Well, I know he made a reputation for himself in Limerick.’

‘He deserved it. The way he stamped out the worst of those feuding gangs – the Ryans and the Keane-Collopys and the McCarthy-Dundons. The Duggans, too. The Duggans were pure bogmonsters. You only had to look at them the wrong way and they’d feed you to their pigs, and you’d be lucky if they’d shot you first.’

‘Oh, I know all about the Duggans, for sure,’ said Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán. ‘Niall Duggan, wasn’t it, and those terrible twins of his, Aengus and Ruari? My friend Paul Dannehy was attached to Henry Street for a while, looking into some car-theft racket, and Ruari Duggan spat in his face and told him she’d hang his danglers on her Christmas tree.’

‘That sounds like her all right,’ said Katie. ‘But as much as I hate to admit it, nobody was able to lay a finger on those scumbags before Bryan Molloy went in there with all guns blazing. As far as most of his fellow officers are concerned, he’s still the chief boy.’

***

Superintendent Denis MacCostagáin was on the phone when she went downstairs. He was an angular, gangling man who always stooped because of his height. He had a high crest of wavy grey hair and a large, complicated nose, so that he looked like some extinct flightless bird. He was obviously harassed. The television in the corner of his office was showing a rowdy crowd scene, although the sound was turned down. The caption running underneath the picture was ‘Violence Erupts At Anti-Water Demo In Cork’.

‘No, no, Sergeant, for feck’s sake,
no
!’ he repeated. ‘You absolutely
have
to keep it low-key. RTÉ are showing it live. Yes, Inspector Rooney’s on his way to you now and I don’t want this getting out of hand, do you deck it?’

He put down the phone and shook his head.

‘What’s the story?’ Katie asked him.

‘It’s that demonstration outside County Hall against Irish Water installing smart meters on the estates. About fifteen minutes ago one of our patrol cars knocked over three protestors. Only by accident, like, and none of them was seriously hurt, but the crowd didn’t see it that way.’

‘So what’s happened?’

‘They’ve smashed the patrol car’s windows and rolled it over on to its roof. Now the whole thing’s turned ugly. They’ve started tearing down fencing and tossing rocks and Sergeant Mulligan’s just asked me if they can use batons. Jesus! And all over water meters! You know what the protestors are saying? They don’t want water meters because they think they’ll make the water radioactive and they’ll all die of the radiation poisoning, like Chernobyl. Every time Irish Water dig a hole and try to install a water meter the goms come along and stand in it, so that they can’t.’

‘I’m looking for as many feet on the ground as you can spare me,’ said Katie. She told Superintendent MacCostagáin about Derek Hagerty and the Pearses, and that she urgently needed gardaí to back up Detectives O’Donovan and Horgan out at Ballinlough. ‘Maybe half a dozen officers for door-to-door inquiries. I think there’s a strong possibility that the Pearses have been abducted by these High Kings of Erin. If they have, they could be in serious danger.’

‘You don’t think these High Kings of Erin could be all a hoax? Just some eejit ripping the piss?’

‘It’s possible. So far we don’t have any evidence one way or the other. But whoever they are, they seem to know what we’re doing almost before we’ve thought of it ourselves, and that’s what worries me more than anything. They knew that Shelagh Hagerty had told us about her husband being abducted, although God alone knows how. Because of that, they booby-trapped Mrs Hagerty’s car and Garda McCracken lost her life.’

‘You’re not suggesting they have a stoolie here in the station?’

‘No, Denis, I’m not, but I’m keeping an open mind, and I’m trying to get a step ahead of them, whoever they are, instead of being two steps behind.’

‘Well, I don’t honestly know how much manpower I can spare you,’ Superintendent MacCostagáin told her. ‘I might be able to send out a couple of cars from Togher and Carrigaline. Jim Rooney obviously has his hands full at the moment, but I’ll see what I can arrange for you.’

‘Thanks, Denis. Whatever you can do, I owe you.’

As she was walking along the corridor back to her own office, Katie heard her phone warbling. She hurried to pick it up, and said breathlessly, ‘Yes?’ It was Detective O’Donovan ringing again.

‘Still no sign of the Pearses, ma’am, but Horgan’s just been talking to an aul wan who lives across the road. She said she was cleaning the windows in her lounge and she saw Norman and Meryl Pearse climbing into a black van with two big fellers.’

‘What time was this?’ Katie asked him.

‘Half ten, quarter to eleven, thereabouts, that’s what she thought. She said she usually listens to the Niall Carroll show on the radio and that hadn’t started yet.’

‘Could she describe the van at all? Did she know what make it was? I don’t suppose she managed to lamp its registration?’

‘All she said, it was black with black windows along the sides. So most likely it was a people carrier of some sort.’

‘All right. I’ll have an alert put out for it. There can’t be too many like that. There’s a couple of units coming out to help you with the house-to-house and anything else you need, but they can’t spare any more than that because there’s some kind of a public-order problem at County Hall. Anti-water-meter demonstration. It looks like it’s almost a riot.’

‘Gollun, don’t these eejits have anything better to do? Why don’t they go and fall on their arse somewhere and make themselves some compo?’

‘I’ll get back to you, Patrick,’ said Katie. ‘I’m going to question Derek Hagerty again, see if I can’t get more out of him.’

‘Well, good luck to you so.’

Derek Hagerty had just finished his lunch when Katie went down to see him – bacon and cabbage and boiled potatoes, although he had hardly touched it and it had now gone cold. He looked haggard and his eyes were rimmed with scarlet.

Katie pulled out a blue plastic chair and sat down opposite him, laying her iPhone down on the table and setting it to record. Derek Hagerty glanced up at her and then continued to stare down at the plate of food in front of him.

‘You know that you’re free to leave any time you want to?’ Katie told him. ‘You haven’t been formally charged with any offence and we can’t legally hold you here any longer without making a special application to the court.’

Derek Hagerty gave an almost imperceptible nod, but didn’t answer.

Katie said, ‘You’ve told us that you’re in fear for your life from your abductors and that’s why you’re reluctant to return home. We’ve offered you protection, but you haven’t given us any clear indication that you’re prepared to accept it.’

‘Everything’s a mess,’ said Derek Hagerty, closing his eyes and shaking his head. ‘It’s all such a fecking mess. I never dreamed that it would turn out like this. I never fecking dreamed it.’