Taken for Dead (Kate Maguire) (31 page)

‘Oh, come on now, Michael, don’t be so depressing. The day’s dark enough,’

‘No, it’s true, Katie. No matter how wonderful life is, no matter how exhilarating, no matter how filled it is with joy and love, in the end it’s always over.’

Katie looked up at him again and this time she saw that there were tears in his eyes. She reached across the table and laid her hand on top of his.

‘Michael … what’s wrong?’

He shook his head and took out his crumpled handkerchief and blew his nose. ‘Sorry … sorry. I shouldn’t have intruded. It’s just that my mother passed away last week and now I can recognize sadness wherever I see it. I never realized before how much of it there was about.’

This time Katie managed a genuine smile, although it was more a smile of understanding than of good humour. ‘You and me both, Michael. You and me both.’

***

On her way back to the station she received a text message from Detective Sergeant Ni Nuállan, asking where she was, and by the time she walked into the office, shaking her umbrella and taking off her raincoat, Kyna was already there waiting for her. Her blonde hair had been cut even shorter than usual, shaved up the back of her neck, which emphasized her sharp cheekbones and her strong, almost masculine jawline.

‘I talked to Mrs Collins, Meryl’s mother,’ she told Katie. ‘She’s in bits about Meryl, but she still wanted to help as much as she could. She lost her husband to throat cancer and her only son in a motorcycle accident, both within three months of each other, so she doesn’t think that fate has been very fair to her this year, to say the least.’

‘Strange you should say that,’ said Katie. She sat down at her desk and quickly leafed through the messages on it. ‘I was talking about fate not half an hour ago with Michael Dempsey from the university history department, how unkind it can be. Anyway, did you have any luck with Eoghan?’

Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán took out her notebook. ‘Eoghan met Meryl when they were kids at school. Carroll his surname is, Eoghan Carroll. Mrs Collins said that she and her late husband both liked Eoghan. He was always polite, she said, and he always held his knife and fork properly, and he came from a very respectable family. His father worked for the county council. Everybody assumed that Eoghan and Meryl would be married when they were old enough.’

‘So, what happened?’ asked Katie, standing up. ‘How did Meryl end up marrying a travel agent more than twenty years older than she was?’

‘Usual story,’ said Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán. ‘Eoghan went off to find a job in England and met somebody else. Well, met somebody else and made her pregnant.’

Katie was standing by the window now. She pressed her fingertip to the glass where a raindrop was dribbling down but, of course, she couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t help thinking of John. He must have found some other woman by now. He was too attractive a man not to. Some other woman he would marry, and cherish, and make pregnant.

‘Mrs Collins told me that Meryl rang her three days ago to say that she had bumped into Eoghan,’ said Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán.

‘So Eoghan settled back to Ireland?’

‘No, no. He only came over from England for a couple of weeks to visit his parents, but his wife didn’t join him because of their kids having to go to school. His meeting with Meryl was pure accidental. He’d walked into Eason’s looking to buy some pens or something, that’s all – didn’t even realize Meryl was working there. He asked her to go out with him for a bit of a catch-up, like, but she told her mother that she wasn’t sure if she ought to go. Norman was very possessive, mostly on account of their age difference.’

‘But if Eoghan was over here for a couple of weeks, he may
still
be here?’

‘Oh, for sure, I’m almost certain that he is. Mrs Collins gave me his parents’ address in Carrigaline and a couple of the local garda went round there for me and took a sconce. There was nobody at home at the time but there was an Avis car parked in the driveway, so they noted the number. Eoghan Carroll rented it from the airport ten days ago and he’s not due to return it until Saturday. This afternoon he’s probably out somewhere with his parents, but I think he’s still here in the country all right. Crannagh, The Grove, Carrigaline, just off Church Road.’

‘Is somebody from Carrigaline keeping an eye on the place for you?’

‘Sergeant Barry said that he’s pushed for manpower at the moment but he promised to send a car past the house every hour or so, just to check. He’ll call me as soon as they see that the Carrolls are back home.’

‘Okay, Kyna, that’s grand. Like I said before, I still shouldn’t think that Eoghan can tell us anything useful, but you never know.’

Just as Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán was leaving Katie’s office, Inspector Fennessy came in. ‘Ma’am?’ he said. ‘You’ll be delighted to know that I found Fergal ó Floinn.’

‘Well done! But of course he denied everything. I’ll bet he denied even knowing that a bomb had gone off.’

‘No, he didn’t, he knew about it all right. But I very much doubt that he made it or planted it himself. He’s in Blair’s Hill Nursing Home and the staff are surprisingly intolerant when it comes to the residents bringing in Semtex and timing devices and putting bombs together, even in the quiet room.’

‘Well, I suppose that lets
him
off the hook.’

‘Amazingly, he tried to be helpful,’ said Inspector Fennessy. ‘I don’t know if he’s mellowed as he’s grown older, or if he’s turned to religion since he’s been at Blair’s Hill. Maybe he’s seeking absolution for all the innocent people in Belfast he’s blown to bits over the years, now that he’s so close to meeting his maker.’

‘He tried to be
helpful
?’ asked Katie. ‘I wouldn’t mention Fergal ó Floinn and a helpful man on the same day.’

‘You say that, but he gave me a hint about the Merchants Quay bomb. He said that one of his visitors had seen Clearie O’Hely in the centre of Cork the day before.’

‘Clearie O’Hely? There’s a rave from the grave.’

‘That’s no proof in itself, Clearie just being here in Cork. But of course Fergal ó Floinn trained him in bomb-making back in the seventies. He was always a prime suspect for that Palace Barracks bombing in Holywood, wasn’t he, although the peelers could never prove it?’

Katie frowned and said, ‘I don’t think we’ve ever had the slightest sniff of Clearie O’Hely operating in Cork. If you’d asked me, I would have guessed he was dead by now.’

‘I was surprised myself when Fergal told me he’d been seen around here. Apart from that time he spent in Belfast, O’Hely’s a Limerick boy through and through. He used to work for the Duggans more than anybody, didn’t he? They had him blowing up ATMs and building society safes and the doors off security vans. Well, that’s until the sainted Niall Duggan got what he so richly deserved.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Katie. ‘Shot dead wearing his mistress’s white satin dressing gown, if I remember – much to his wife’s annoyance. I seem to remember that she was only angry because somebody else had shot him before she had the chance to do it herself.’

‘I doubt if his mistress was best pleased, either,’ said Inspector Fennessy. ‘But I’d say we have to accept that times have changed. There’s much more cross-pollination between the gangs in Cork and the gangs in Limerick than there ever used to be.’

‘“Cross-contamination”, I’d call it,’ Katie put in.

‘I blame all those improvements to the N20 myself. You have to admit that since they’ve made the road better, we’ve seen more scobes from Limerick in town than we ever used to. In fact, we’ve seen a general increase in scobes from all over.’

‘Go and tell Bill Phinner, in any case,’ said Katie. ‘It could very well help the technical boys to identify the bomb-maker if they know that Clearie O’Hely might have had a hand in it. It always surprises me how bomb-makers can’t help themselves leaving their own telltale trademarks on their handiwork, like the way they twist the wires, or the type of tape they use.’

She turned away from the window. ‘As for me … I’ll go and have a word with Bryan Molloy, reluctant as I am. If anybody knows about Limerick gangs, then he does.’

‘Rather you than me, that’s all I can say.’

When she knocked at the door of Bryan Molloy’s office, he surprised her by looking up from his desk and waving her inside with a smile on his face.

‘Katie!’ he said. ‘What’s the craic? Fancy a cup of coffee? I’m just about send Teagan to fetch me one, and some of them Kimberley biscuits, too. I think I’m addicted.’

‘No, thanks, I’m grand altogether,’ said Katie, sitting down opposite him. ‘I had coffee only an hour ago. I was meeting with Professor Michael Dempsey from the university history department.’

‘Oh yes?’ said Bryan Molloy. ‘And what was all that about?’

Katie had never seen him so breezy before. She almost preferred him when he was being openly unpleasant, but here he was, smiling at her and cheerfully rubbing his hands together as if he couldn’t wait for her to give him the latest update.

‘He specializes in Irish mediaeval history and so he knows as much about the High Kings of Erin as anybody. I’ve asked him to see if the real High Kings ever killed any of their enemies in the way that the Pearses and Micky Crounan were killed. I’m trying to establish if the fellow who’s been ringing me up is the genuine article or if he’s bluffing.’

‘That’s good thinking, Katie. Yes, that’s very astute, I’d say. I’ll be interested to see what your professor comes up with. So, what other lines of inquiry do you have going? Did you manage to wring any more out of Derek Hagerty yet? He’s still with us, isn’t he? We’re going to have to decide what to do with him. He can’t stay here at Anglesea Street for ever – not unless we start charging him rent!’

Bryan Molloy let out a sharp bark of laughter and sat back in his chair, his fingers laced across his stomach, clearly pleased with himself.

Katie said, ‘I don’t know if it’s going to lead us anywhere, but he gave me enough information for us to track down the friend that Meryl Pearse had with her when she found him by the roadside.’

‘Oh, well, that’s something, I suppose,’ said Bryan Molloy, although he didn’t look very impressed. ‘Hasn’t he come out and named any of these High Kings of Erin, or given us some idea of what they look like?’

‘He’s too scared. It was as much as I could do to get the name of Meryl’s friend out of him. He may have been party to his own kidnap to begin with, but now he’s totally terrified and he won’t say a word.’

‘So who
was
her friend?’

‘An old flame of hers, her childhood sweetheart as a matter of fact. Apparently they were out for a drink together for old times’ sake. Eoghan Carroll his name is. He lives in England now but just at the moment he’s visiting his parents in Carrigaline. He was out today, but as soon as he gets home DS Ni Nuallán will go round and see if he can help us with any new information.’

‘Eoghan Carroll? His da’s not
Brendan
Carroll is he, by any chance? I play golf with a fellow from Carrigaline called Brendan Carroll. Lives just off the Ballea Road.’

‘No,’ said Katie. ‘Eoghan’s father is called Paul and his mother is called Mary and they live in The Grove.’

‘Oh. Can’t be him, then!’ Bryan Molloy gave another bark of laughter. Katie had the feeling that she was trying to have a conversation with an exuberant dog.

‘I’m not giving up on Derek Hagerty yet, not by any means,’ she told him. ‘I’m hoping that his sense of guilt will win through in the end. He’s quite aware that if he colluded in his own kidnapping then he’s just as responsible for Garda McCracken’s murder as the rest of the gang. I can’t keep him under arrest for very much longer, though, not without moving things forward. I have to get him into the District Court by noon tomorrow.’

Bryan Molloy leaned forward again, and for a moment Katie thought he was going to say something sarcastic. But he kept on smiling and said, ‘Listen, Katie, I’m sure you’ll crack this one. You’re a great detective and you have a grand team working for you. I know we haven’t always got along together as well as we should have done, and mostly that’s been my fault, like. I can only plead stress. It hasn’t been easy, taking over from Dermot at such short notice, and Cork is not the same kettle of fish at all as Limerick – like, I don’t know half the councillors here, or the clergy. I don’t know half the fecking criminals, for that matter.’

‘You’re a stonecutter, though,’ said Katie, nodding towards the triangular Masonic clock on his desk. ‘That must help.’

‘Of course,’ said Bryan Molloy. He didn’t seem offended in the least by Katie saying that – or if he was, he wasn’t showing it. ‘Nothing like the old secret handshake to open doors for you. Not that we really
do
have a secret handshake. We don’t sacrifice virgins, either.’

He pushed his chair back and stood up. ‘What I’m trying to say to you, Katie, is that maybe you and me can call a truce, like. I’ll support you one hundred and ten per cent, and maybe you can stop your detectives poking around in my private accounts. They won’t find anything untoward, because there’s nothing untoward to find, which makes the whole exercise a provocation and nothing more.’

‘It’s not really in my remit, Bryan,’ Katie told him. ‘The Public Accounts Committee asked us to look into the financial affairs of several officers in the division, and that’s mostly been done with their full cooperation. You know what it was all about. There were so many allegations of favours being done, especially after that penalty points affair, and the Kieran Boylan drugs business.’

Bryan Molloy didn’t answer immediately, but slowly licked his lips, as if he could taste something vaguely disagreeable. She could almost hear him thinking what Commissioner Martin Callinan had said about Garda whistleblowers before he had decided to resign: ‘
disgusting
’.

Instead, he nodded and said, ‘Very well. But if you have any questions, you could come directly to me, you know. I’d be only too happy to help out. I’ll let your people have my bank statements if you want them, but they’ll only see that I’ve been spending too much money on golf club subscriptions.’