The White Gallows (38 page)

‘And what about air and dampness? This must be fifteen feet underground.’

‘There seems to be an air pump in the far press. The pipe must come up on the outside of the housekeeper’s quarters. Probably made to look like a bathroom pipe or gutter. The walls and floor must be a few feet thick and damp-proofed. There’s a small bathroom in the corner at the bottom of the stairs.’

‘Did he leave any message?’

‘Only the annotations he’s written on things. Unless it’s hidden in here somewhere.’ Carter cast his hands about.

‘Why would someone be looking for this place?’ McEvoy asked, speculating as to why Koch’s house was being searched on the night he died.

‘Because it reveals Koch for who he really was? My guess is all his personal papers are in here somewhere as well. I haven’t been near the filing cabinets yet. It’ll take someone years to sift through it all.

‘But no Nazi gold?’

‘Would I tell you if there was?’

‘No, but you wouldn’t still be here!’

McEvoy stood in front of one of the bookcases. He scanned the titles, pulling a couple of the books off the shelf, flicking through the pages. ‘Right, well, I better make a couple of phone calls. Call me if you find anything. People have been told to keep their mouths shut, right?’

‘There’s no way you’re going to keep this a secret,’ Carter warned. ‘This is the biggest Aladdin’s cave of all time.’

_{* * *}

There was no news from Trim and he’d decided not to travel the few miles to the town, staying at the farm to wait for Professor Moench. He’d told Vickers that he wouldn’t be available the following day either and that he was in charge until the weekend. They would have a team meeting early Saturday afternoon to go through the search protocols for that evening – the pubs would be at their busiest and more likely to be populated by immigrants out partying away some of their weekly wage, assuming they had a weekly wage. If Vickers needed anything urgently in the meantime he was to contact Jim Whelan. McEvoy doubted that Whelan would be getting a call.

As he walked around under the white gallows oak he pulled up another number. His mobile phone had seemingly become an integral part of the side of his face in the last few years. Heaven knew how his job had been done prior to its invention. It must have been a logistical nightmare. And he didn’t even want to consider how much damage was being done to his brain, constantly being fried by microwaves.

‘Sir?’ John Joyce said.

‘Well?’ McEvoy asked, kicking at wet leaves.

‘Bloody terrifying,’ Joyce said, the adrenalin still in his voice. ‘I know you said it would be like the Spanish inquisition, but I didn’t realise you meant it literally. There must have been over fifty of them there plus TV cameras and photographers. You’d think I was Albert Koch the way they were questioning us.’

‘You have information they want,’ he said flatly, ‘unless you give it to them they’ll quiz you like you committed the murder yourself.’

‘Well, they seemed pretty pissed off at the end. I told them feck all and so did Kevin Boyle. He tried to read them the riot act but they just railroaded right over him. He’s threatened to sue them all if they continued to report that Koch was a Nazi. That really set them off. What they really want is to talk to Koch’s family and Ewa Chojnacki and Tomas Prochazka. I made sure they were unavailable as you suggested – moved them to a new hotel. They weren’t happy with the move and they’re not happy at not being able to follow up today’s papers in person.’

‘Tough,’ McEvoy said without sympathy.

‘The media are probably just going to make stuff up. They were asking all kinds of questions; fishing for anything that might make a headline.’

‘As long as you didn’t give them one,’ McEvoy warned.

‘I stuck to the script. Barry Traynor wants me to do a one-on-one with Paul Reynolds,’ Joyce said, referring to the crime reporter for RTE, the Irish national broadcaster, ‘in twenty minutes’ time for the nine o’clock news – which is kind of exciting and scary at the same time. My wife’s told half the country. Oh yeah, and they want to know if they can get exclusive access to the church tomorrow?’

‘Not a chance,’ McEvoy said kicking at a stick. ‘The family have said strictly no press.’

‘Barry seems to think it might be a good idea. Let just one in to get pictures for everyone else.’

‘Well he needs to talk to Marion D’Arcy. My guess is she’ll tell them to go to hell.’

‘Well that’s her prerogative, but if she doesn’t, then they’re all going to flock there and try and find a way in.’

‘Probably will regardless,’ McEvoy observed. ‘They want to dig for dirt and I doubt they trust RTE to get it for them.’

He saw the large, looming figure of Professor Moench being led from the farmyard towards him by a uniformed guard. ‘Look, I’ve got to go. We’ve discovered Koch’s secret vault. It’s full of Nazi memorabilia and books about the Second World War. It’s unbelievable stuff. And keep that to yourself, okay?’ McEvoy said, cursing inwardly for telling Joyce. ‘Last thing we need is that splashed across the feckin’ papers. We’ll have every Nazi treasure hunter on the planet swarming round here.’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t say a thing.’

‘Good. I’ll talk to you later. I want to talk you through tomorrow. It’ll be a big day for you and Kelly. We’ve done all the plans and Terry Macken knows what he’s doing, but I’m relying on you to keep the whole thing on track. Don’t say anything stupid to RTE, okay.’

McEvoy ended the call. There was no getting around the fact that he was going to need to be at Koch’s funeral; partly for his sanity and partly in case anything untoward happened. He couldn’t take the risk of leaving a detective sergeant in charge of things, especially when he was also trying to do the job of dealing with the press. Terry Macken had operational experience but lacked authority now he’d retired. And there was no way he was leaving Galligan in charge – an incident would be guaranteed. The real question was how he was going to ease himself away from Maggie’s commemoration without seeming like a callous fool.

He turned to greet Professor Moench. ‘If you thought the Yellow Star files were interesting, wait ’till you see this.’ He led Moench to the derelict shed and down into the bunker. ‘If there’s any confession in here, or any confirmation of Koch’s real identity, we need to find it.’

_{* * *}

He passed the exit to Finglas and continued along the M50, the city lit up in orange to his right, the faint silhouette of the Wicklow Mountains beyond. He’d spent another couple of hours rooting through Koch’s secret bunker, but hadn’t found anything that revealed very much more about Koch than he already knew.

Professor Moench had spent the time browsing the books and papers, unsure where to make a start. He was in equal parts fascinated and appalled. At times he had been very animated, becoming angry and shouting in German as he read Koch’s annotations in the margins of some of the books. They seemed to confirm that Koch had been present at some of the events discussed, including the Jewish Skeleton Project. In places Koch had made corrections to some of the authors’ speculation and filled out missing details. From a volume of Primo Levi’s,
If This is a Man
, it was clear that Koch had known Levi, who’d been a slave chemist in Monowitz.

After an hour or so the professor announced that he needed some air and had disappeared up into the cold night. He had returned some twenty minutes later, his long, grey hair framing a determined face. All he’d said as way of explanation for his short absence was, ‘This man was a fuckin’ monster. A fuckin’
ungeheuer
!’

McEvoy knew that by staying on in the bunker he had become isolated from the world, his mobile phone redundant inside the thick subterranean walls. He was just killing time, putting off having to head home to see his parents and Maggie’s family; to prepare for the following day.

He continued to Collinstown cemetery, parking near to the wrought-iron gates. He headed for the entrance as a plane roared in low to land at Dublin airport. He levered himself up and over the fence and headed for Maggie’s grave. This was how he wanted to commemorate her, the two of them together, not in a service with tens of other people, half of them strangers.

He didn’t need to articulate his thoughts in a eulogy to know how much he missed her. He remembered her every day. He barely slept because he couldn’t cope with the empty space in the bed beside him. Their daughter was the spitting image of her mother – every time he looked at her, Maggie stared back; her joy for life replicated in Gemma’s personality.

He crouched down and placed his right hand on the grave, the stress of the last few days washing over him, making him feel nauseous. He whispered a greeting and started to tell her about how he was getting on.

Friday

‘Dad! Dad! Wake up!’

McEvoy slowly became aware of Gemma’s insistent pleas, her hand shaking his shoulder. He could barely remember such a deep sleep.

‘We’re late!’ Gemma snapped.

‘Jesus.’ He slowly twisted his legs off the bed and sat up. A pile of scribbled notes and an empty glass reeking of whiskey were sitting on the bedside locker. ‘What’s the time?’

‘Ten to nine. The service starts at ten.’

‘Oh, shit,’ he mumbled. ‘You look… pretty,’ he hazarded, unsure whether twelve year olds were pretty or beautiful – at what stage girls became young adults. 

Gemma was wearing a dark green, velvet dress over a black polo neck top and thick black tights, her hair held back off her face by a velvet band studded with fake diamonds.

‘Colm, do you have a clean shirt?’ Maggie’s sister called from the landing.

‘Yeah, yeah, it’s all under control,’ he answered back, not sure whether there was one in the wardrobe. ‘I’d better have a shower,’ he said to Gemma, easing himself up.

‘You need to hurry,’ Ciara warned, anxiety in her voice. ‘We can’t keep everyone waiting. There’s a funeral in the church at eleven.’

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Gemma said. ‘Do you want toast or cereal?’

‘I don’t think we’ve got time for that, pumpkin,’ he said rising to his feet and trudging to the door.

‘You have to eat, Dad. Look at you, you’re like a stick insect,’ she chided.

‘Toast then. Thanks.’

McEvoy slipped off his pyjamas and stared at himself in the mirror. Gemma was right. He had wasted away to six foot three of skin and bones. He’d lost three stone in weight since Maggie had become ill and then died. He just couldn’t seem to muster much of an appetite and, as his daughter kept telling him, he got so wrapped up in his work that he forgot to sustain himself.

He showered and shaved. The piping hot water at least made him feel clean, washing the whiskey sweat away, but his head felt dull and weighty, unable to focus. He dressed hurriedly, putting on a cream shirt, a black tie and a dark blue suit. He grabbed his piles of notes from the bedside locker and headed downstairs.

Ciara was waiting in the hallway. ‘Jesus, Colm, are you okay?’ she said taken aback at his pale and gaunt appearance.

‘Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I just forgot to set the alarm clock. Look, I’m sorry, about last night. This case is taking up all my time. I guess we better get going.’

‘Your toast, Dad!’ Gemma cajoled from the kitchen doorway.

‘I can eat it on the way. Come on, let’s get this over with. Not that… you know what I mean.’

_{* * *}

The day was unseasonably mild for November, a blue sky dotted with light grey clouds. McEvoy tugged down the sleeves on his suit and cast a nervous glance across the car park at the side of Finglas church. Gemma and Ciara had disappeared towards the church entrance the moment they arrived, leaving him stranded. He’d used the opportunity to briefly check in with Kelly Stringer. Everything seemed to be in hand for Koch’s funeral later that day.