The White Gallows (2 page)

‘That’s what I’ve been trying to sort out,’ Boland replied, instantly becoming annoyed at McEvoy’s reception. ‘Three of my lot are off playing for the local GAA. I’ve been trying to draft in replacements from Navan. They’ll be here in fifteen minutes.’

‘A murder takes precedence over some local game,’ McEvoy said sourly.

‘Not round here it doesn’t,’ Boland countered. ‘Especially when it’s some little gobshite no one’s ever heard of.’

‘What?’ McEvoy said, taken aback at Boland’s statement.

‘He’s probably just some feckin’ immigrant who’s got too big for his boots. They’re always causing some disturbance round the town. The stupid eejits can’t hold their drink, then they start looking for a fight. Some nights it can be bedlam round here, especially after they’ve been paid.’

‘What makes you think he’s an immigrant?’ McEvoy said obstinately, challenging Boland’s xenophobic assumption and prejudice.

‘The look of him.’ Boland glanced down at the victim and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Bad haircut. Cheap jacket, jeans and trainers. The knife. The fact I don’t recognise him.’

‘A town like this must be full of blow-ins; loads of new estates full of commuters to
Dublin
,’ McEvoy observed. ‘It could be some young
Dublin
hood.’

‘Yeah, well,’ Boland conceded. ‘That’s where I’d start, that’s all I’m saying. Don’t worry; the boys from Navan will be here shortly – we can get started then.’

‘We’ll get started now; here’s the technical unit.’ McEvoy nodded his head toward where two white vans were parking across the river. ‘Do we know when Elaine Jones is likely to arrive?’ he asked referring to the state pathologist.

‘
Ten thirty
,’ Whelan answered flatly.

McEvoy nodded. He’d wait for her to arrive and give her initial assessment, then he’d head over to Ballyglass to view Albert Koch.

‘I want to talk to the poor sod that found him. If he does turn out to be a foreigner you’ll need to bring in GNIU,’ McEvoy continued, referring to the Garda National Immigration Unit. ‘They’ll be able to help you contact his relatives and work with the relevant community – organise access, translators and so on.’

Without waiting for an answer he started to head back toward the bridge to meet the new arrivals. Two new cases on the same morning and he was already in a sour mood; though that was nothing unusual these days, he reflected. He seemed to get out of the wrong side of the bed almost every morning.

_{* * *}

Hannah Fallon gathered her auburn hair together and pulled it through a black scrunchy, letting it fall in a pony tail over her luminous yellow coat. In her late thirties, she was in charge of the three-person, technical crime scene team. She opened the rear door of the van and started to unload equipment, passing it to the overweight figure of George Carter, grey-haired and in his late forties. Chloe Pollard, the third member of the team joined them, readjusting the paper suit covering her hour-glass figure. In her early thirties, her dyed, long blonde hair was already pulled into a pony tail and covered in a hairnet.

McEvoy crossed the bridge and headed to where they were parked. Fallon had just slipped off her coat. She eased her right foot into the leg of a paper suit and then her left, easing it up her frame. McEvoy arrived as she slotted her right arm into her sleeve.

‘Colm. What have we got?’ she asked.

‘Dead male – late teens, early twenties – clutching a blood-stained knife. He’s been badly beaten and possibly stabbed.’

‘Lithuanian,’ Fallon said matter-of-fact, slipping her arm into the left sleeve.

‘That seems to be the consensus.’

‘Hopefully it’s going to be straightforward enough. I have the Rory Nesbitt murder trial starting tomorrow and I need to do some prep work. To tell you the truth, I’m not looking forward to it; Charlie Clarke gives me the creeps big time.’

Rory Nesbitt had been a precocious teenage thug with a drug habit. He’d been feeding it by working his way into the membership of a
West Dublin
gang, running errands, pushing heroin and cocaine, threatening and roughing up those in debt. Then he got ahead of himself and decided that he could go into the drugs trade for himself. Eight months previously he’d been shot in the chest with a double-barrelled shotgun on wasteland near to Clonee on the outskirts of
Dublin
. Unbeknown to the killer there’d been a witness – a farm labourer clearing out a copse that bordered the site. He identified Charles ‘The Enforcer’ Clarke, a well known criminal thug thought to have been responsible for at least eight deaths in the past three years. The witness had since withdrawn his statements, but forensic evidence still linked Clarke to the murder.

‘They have to be put away, Hannah. Charlie Clarke should have been locked up years ago. Hopefully you should be finished here in a couple of hours.’

‘God, I hope so; things are pretty manic at the minute. I’m going to be in and out of court all week. Plus all those other gangland killings are coming up over the next month or so. Nesbitt is the first of six. We also have a load of lab work to catch up on and now I’ve got this one to worry about as well. Anyway, enough of my moaning; how’s Gemma?’ She tugged a hairnet over her auburn hair and pulled up her hood.

‘She’s fine,’ McEvoy replied, referring to his twelve-year-old daughter. ‘It’ll be a year since Maggie’s death this Friday. Her sister’s organised a memorial service. It’s been the fastest and slowest year of my life, if that makes any sense. I think Gemma’s coped with it better than I have to be honest.’

‘You’ve both been through a lot.’

His phone rang and he held up a hand to signal apology as he answered it. ‘McEvoy.’

‘There’s been another one,’ said a
Dublin
accent belonging to DI Johnny Cronin.

Fallon picked up an aluminium case, waved her free hand and trailed after Carter and Pollard.

‘Another what?’ McEvoy asked, turning away from her.

‘Another banknote scam; the same as the laundering suicide.’

Four weeks previously a shopkeeper in
County
Cavan
had driven to an isolated laneway near
Virginia
and handed over fifty thousand euro to a man dressed in a smart pinstriped suit. He was expecting to receive back one hundred thousand euro in used banknotes from a two million euro bank robbery committed two weeks previously. The conman had been charm itself. For fifty thousand clean notes, the shopkeeper would make fifty thousand in dirty money. He needed the cash – his business was in trouble, unable to compete with the chain supermarkets. He ended up losing the lot. A week later, bankrupt, ashamed and depressed, he committed suicide.  So far they knew about three other people caught by the scam. No doubt there were half a dozen others who were too embarrassed to come forward.

‘How much this time?’ McEvoy asked.

‘Thirty grand. A farmer in
North Tipp
.’

‘Well you’ll just have to deal with it by yourself, I’ve just picked up a new murder case and it looks like there’s been another one.’

‘Jesus Christ! This is ridiculous; we need more people.’

‘What we need is for people to stop killing each other.’

‘I don’t care which it is as long as I stop working fifteen, sixteen hour days,’ Cronin griped.

‘Get yourself down there, Johnny, and see what you can find out. I’ll talk to you later.’ McEvoy ended the call and stared up at the lead grey sky. It was turning into a hell of a Sunday.

_{* * *}

McEvoy left the warmth of the garda station and stood on the steps admiring the view of the castle. The elderly woman who’d found the battered body on the river bank had little of value to offer; she’d simply been the first person to walk along the path that morning. The attack had probably taken place in the early hours, not long after the pubs and clubs closed.

The pathologist’s van drove past slowly heading for the castle car park. McEvoy set off after it at a brisk pace along the deserted road. He hoped that she’d be able to tell him something that might give them some kind of head start.

Professor Elaine Jones was standing at the back of her van talking into a mobile phone when he arrived. In her mid-fifties, and five foot two, her shoulder-length grey hair framed a joyous face, her eyes bright and lively, edged by crow’s feet, her red lips by laughter lines. She was wearing black trousers, and a brown, round-necked jumper over which hung a large amber necklace. Her assistant – the tall, thin, bald-headed figure of Billy Keane, known to all as Igor due to his gothic looks and lurching walk – hovered nearby looking bored. She waved a greeting as McEvoy approached, said a final few words into her phone and snapped it shut.

‘You look stressed, Colm,’ she said as a greeting.

‘That’s because I am stressed. People are being killed faster than we can investigate them. We’re at full stretch.’

‘Well, I blame the Celtic Tiger. People got greedy and stupid. Stupid enough to kill each other over drugs or money or land. Now the bubble’s burst, those three have become even more potent. Ah, ah, come on, the continental thing,’ she waved at McEvoy who had halted a couple of feet away. ‘Come on, you promised.’

McEvoy shuffled forward, leaned down and kissed her on both cheeks, feeling awkward and embarrassed. It was a routine that Jones had instigated during the Raven case, but he still wasn’t comfortable with the greeting. It was far too intimate for an Irish man who’d grown up in the shadow of Catholic conservatism.

‘That didn’t hurt, did it?’ Jones teased. ‘And were you watching, Billy? I’ll train you up yet.’

Billy Keane stared down at his enormous feet, unsure of how to respond to his boss.

‘For God’s sake, lighten-up will you! You’re like a pair of teenage schoolboys unsure of how to handle their mad aunt.’ She laughed at her ribbing. ‘So, Colm, what have we got?’

‘A young man beaten to death, possibly stabbed. The consensus seems to be that he’s probably East European.’

‘And you think you might have another one up in Athboy?’

‘Apparently so; a multi-millionaire. I’ll be heading up there once you’ve had a look at the body here.’

‘You might as well go now; I’m not going to be able to tell you much about the victim here until we’ve done the post-mortem. I’ve spoken to the local doctor in Athboy and he thinks the man died of natural causes. Perhaps you can cast a professional eye over it and see what you think? If you have any suspicions I’ll come up straight away and I can do the two post-mortems together in Navan this afternoon.’

McEvoy nodded his head. ‘Right, well, I’ll leave you get on then,’ he said, feeling like a spare part. ‘I’ll go and find Jim Whelan and then I’ll be on my way. Give me a call if you find anything significant, okay?’

‘Don’t worry, Colm, you’ll be the first to know. Come on then, Billy, let’s get this show on the road.’

_{* * *}

McEvoy passed through a tunnel of tall copper beech trees and turned left into a wide gateway; large stone pillars each supporting a golden eagle taking flight. ‘The White Gallows’ was etched into the left-hand column. He coasted up the curved gravel driveway, framed each side by a row of lime trees, to the front of a large farmhouse and parked in behind a dark green Audi A4. Three other cars were parked nearby: a silver Mercedes 180, a dark blue Mercedes 320 and a marked garda car.

The farmhouse was a two-storey structure covered in Boston Ivy that had recently lost its bright red leaves. Three steps led up to a Georgian door, a semi-circle of clear glass above it. There were two Georgian sash windows to the left of the door, one to the right. A single-storey structure continued past the house to the right, interrupted along its length by a high archway. From McEvoy’s experience it almost certainly led into a farmyard that would be framed all the way round by outbuildings. It was a modest house for someone reputed to be one of the richest men in
Ireland
.