The White Gallows (43 page)

‘Possibly. I don’t know. I don’t think Francie killed Peter O’Coffey though.’

‘Why not?’

‘He seems too in shock. Too afraid for himself.’

‘So who the hell did kill Peter O’Coffey then?’

Before he could continue, the door to the garda station burst open and John Rice, Marion D’Arcy’s lawyer, barrelled in. ‘Where is he?’ he commanded.

‘You’re too late,’ McEvoy said, pulling a tight smile. ‘He’s just confessed to killing his grandfather.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ Rice snapped. ‘He’s confused. He’s just buried him for God’s sake! I need to see him.’

‘He’s down the hall. Tom, can you show Mr Rice the way.’

‘What have you charged him with?’ Rice demanded.

‘Nothing yet. I’m thinking about it. The minimum will be manslaughter. You have ten minutes before I return. Do you want coffee?’

‘Tea. White. No sugar. And make it twenty minutes.’

_{* * *}

Thirty minutes later and John Rice had still not emerged from the interview room. McEvoy had used the time to make some initial notes and to have quick chats with Tony Bishop and John Joyce.

A large group of journalists had gathered outside Athboy garda station demanding to know what was happening. Joyce was working with Barry Traynor to prepare a short statement confirming that the man who had died earlier that day was Peter O’Coffey, one of Albert Koch’s neighbours; he had been killed by a shot to the head and a man was being held for questioning in connection with the deaths of Albert Koch and Peter O’Coffey.

He’d also spoken very briefly to Jenny Flanagan. Given the evidence to date, she hadn’t been able to decide whether it was Brian O’Neill or his mistress that had killed Kylie O’Neill, so she had released both of them without charge late the previous evening. She’d instructed them that they were not to leave the locality. She had spent the day canvassing the area again, while a forensic team combed the O’Neill family house and surrounding land for evidence that would identify which one was the killer and who was the accomplice. She sounded frustrated, but hopeful. If they didn’t discover anything else she would try to persuade the Director of Public Prosecution’s Office to proceed with a case against Brian O’Neill based almost entirely on circumstantial evidence.

McEvoy looked up from his notebook as McManus approached.

‘After y’man comes out, we’ll charge Francie, then go and talk to the East Europeans and see what they have to say for themselves,’ McEvoy said. ‘I can’t see them tidying up after Francie and Peter – they’d have nothing to gain from it. So, the question is, who benefited most from making Koch’s death look natural? It has to be a member of his family, right? They knew Ewa and Tomas were asking questions and the last thing they wanted was a murder investigation that raked over and exposed his past.’

‘Marion D’Arcy,’ McManus said. ‘She has no alibi and was insistent that he died in his sleep. She’d even got the doctor to go along with it.’

‘And it probably would have worked if Roza hadn’t discovered the body first and called us,’ McEvoy said, nodding his head in agreement.

‘Do you want us to go and collect her?’

‘No, no. We don’t have any firm evidence yet. If we jump in too soon her hotshot lawyer will be all over us and she’ll totally clam up. Let’s see if George Carter can come up with something from either site first; we’ll go and talk to Ewa and Tomas. Come on, hotshot’s twenty minutes are long up.’

McEvoy headed back along the corridor, knocked on the door and gently eased it open.

John Rice had pulled a chair round to Francie’s side of the table. He snapped his head round at McEvoy’s interruption. ‘Five more minutes,’ he barked.

‘Okay, okay,’ McEvoy backed out into the corridor and leant on the wall opposite. ‘Touchy bastard.’

Three minutes later John Rice left the interview room. ‘I want my client released immediately with no charge,’ he demanded. ‘He made his statement under duress and he withdraws it in its entirety.’

‘He confessed to killing his grandfather,’ McEvoy said patiently. ‘He was searching the house with Peter O’Coffey when they disturbed him. They cracked him on the head and left him to die.’

‘He admits to being on the farm and searching for a secret vault, but he swears he did not kill his grandfather. Perhaps that was Peter O’Coffey. He can’t say and you can’t prove otherwise.’

‘I thought you just said he withdraws his confession in its entirety,’ McEvoy said, an amused hint to his voice.

‘Don’t try and mess with me, Superintendent,’ Rice growled. ‘You were questioning him without legal representation present at a time of deep emotional distress. That confession will stand up in court for half a second and you know it. You have no evidence linking my client to the death of Albert Koch.’

‘Except that he confessed in front of two officers and on the record. He hadn’t asked for legal representation and he didn’t object to us recording the conversation. We were simply asking him some questions. He confessed to killing his grandfather and he vehemently denied killing Peter O’Coffey. That’s good enough for me.’

‘Well, it isn’t good enough for me. I want him released immediately.’

‘Well, that isn’t going to happen. I’m about to charge him with murder.’

‘Murder! That’s… Look, Superintendent, we both know that charge’s not going to stick. At the absolute worst what he supposedly confessed to was manslaughter. And we both know that I’ll make sure that doesn’t stick either. Either you come up with some concrete evidence or you let him go.’

‘He smashed a vase on his grandfather’s head and then left him to die, trying to divert suspicion from himself by throwing a noose over the gallows tree. He could have called the emergency services. He could have stayed and looked after him. Instead he fled. The killing itself might not have been premeditated, but everything that came afterwards was done to deliberately try and cover his tracks and ensure that Albert Koch died. I’m charging him.’

McEvoy stepped past Rice and back into the interview room, Rice and McManus trailing.

‘You’re making a big mistake, Superintendent,’ Rice warned. ‘You’re just wasting everybody’s time and costing the taxpayer money.’

‘Says you, who bleeds the taxpayer dry every time he goes to court!’ McEvoy snapped back.

_{* * *}

His mood had soured since tangling with Marion D’Arcy’s lawyer. He knew that John Rice was probably right. Unless they could find some convincing evidence that Francie Koch had smashed the vase over his grandfather’s head, he was likely to be set free. The confession would be picked apart and enough reasonable doubt cast to make any prosecution unlikely. The best they might achieve would be a conviction for accessory to manslaughter, assuming they could make it stick that Peter O’Coffey had killed the old man. And his wife’s lawyers would probably do their best to cast doubt on that.

He pulled up outside of Kells Garda Station and climbed out, Tom McManus clambering from the passenger side. Ewa Chojnacki and Tomas Prochazka had been collected from their hotel and were waiting for him inside.

Cathal Galligan was lurking at the entrance. ‘You’ve got a fuckin’ nerve coming here,’ he barked at McEvoy, blocking his path.

‘Stop acting like a child and get out of the way,’ McEvoy demanded, not in the mood for Galligan’s games.

Tom McManus took a step backwards, unsure of the situation. The duty officer looked on amused from behind a counter.

‘This is my station, McEvoy, and things will be done my way. If you want to interview anyone here, I want to be present.’

‘Like hell you will, now get out of the way before I make a couple of phone calls.’

Galligan held his ground, his eyes blazing.

‘I’m not going to fight with you, Galligan, but I will bring the world down around your ears.’

After a few moments Galligan stood to one side having come partially to his senses. He kept his head held high, his eyes boring into McEvoy. ‘This isn’t over yet,’ he warned. ‘And you’re history,’ he said to McManus.

McEvoy bundled past Galligan and let McManus overtake him to show the way.

‘What an eejit,’ McEvoy snapped. ‘Don’t worry about him,’ he said to McManus’ back. ‘If anyone’s history round here it’s him. He’s a dinosaur.’

McManus stopped outside of a dark blue door. ‘They’re in here.’

McEvoy knocked gently and then entered. The guard who’d been keeping Ewa and Tomas company nodded at him.

‘Detective Superintendent Colm McEvoy. Thanks for babysitting them.’ McEvoy held open the door and the guard passed through. ‘We meet again,’ he said to the couple.

‘Why have you brought us here?’ Ewa asked, standing up. ‘We’ve done nothing wrong.’

‘You lied to us,’ McEvoy replied, sitting down.

‘Lied? We told you the truth,’ Ewa said collapsing to her chair again, casting a nervous glance at McManus who had stayed standing by the door. ‘Your newspapers all believe us.’

‘You lied to us about where you were on the night Albert Koch died. You were at his farm. It
was
you the bed and breakfast owner heard returning in the middle of the night.’

‘No.’

‘We have two witnesses that saw your car parked near to the farm at two o’clock in the morning. One of them is now dead. The other admitted to accidentally killing Dr Koch. You were there and I need to know what you saw.’

‘You are arresting us?’ Ewa asked, her face crumpling with concern.

‘That depends. You lied to us, now we need the truth. Why were you at the farm?’

Ewa shared a look with Tomas before gathering herself. ‘We were looking for Adolf Kucken’s secret vault. He was an avid collector of Holocaust and Nazi memorabilia. It would be a valuable find and it would confirm that Koch was Kucken and that he was a war criminal. It probably held other papers that we have not been able to locate.’

‘How did you know about the vault?’

‘There were the rumours and he had to be hiding his collection somewhere. We knew that Roza wouldn’t be there on Saturday night, so it was a good time to explore.’

‘And did you find it?’

‘No.’

‘But you did see two other people searching the house?’

‘No.’

‘You saw nobody?’

‘We saw a Mercedes car arrive as we were leaving. It pulled into the drive and parked.’

‘And did you see who got out?’ McEvoy asked, aware that Marion D’Arcy drove a Mercedes.

‘No. Nobody got out. We didn’t want to be seen there, so we climbed over a fence and cut across a field to the road.’

‘Tomas?’ McEvoy prompted the silent Slovakian.

‘It is true. We saw no one.’

‘And you didn’t enter the house?’

‘No,’ Ewa answered. ‘We looked in the yard and outbuildings. We thought it was a more likely hiding place. We heard movement in the house, so we decided to leave.’

‘But you didn’t see who was in the house?’ McEvoy pressed.

‘No. It was dark and we did not want to be seen. We left.’

‘And that’s when you saw the car arrive?’

‘Yes.’

‘And could you see into the car? Could you see who was behind the wheel?’

‘No, they were in darkness.’