The White Gallows (47 page)

Marion D’Arcy glared at him angrily but remained silent.

‘And why would my client have done such a thing?’ John Rice asked.

‘Deep insecurity,’ McEvoy replied. ‘She’d been adopted by Albert Koch when he married her mother. She knew that the will had been recently altered and she wanted to make sure she was still a beneficiary; that she would still inherit what she saw as her share of Ostara Industries. She killed or had Peter O’Coffey killed to ensure his silence. She probably didn’t realise he had his own guilt to protect.’

‘So now she had Peter O’Coffey killed?’ Rice said, seizing the opening.

‘No. Yes.’ McEvoy said, floundering. ‘I’m not yet sure.’

‘You’re not sure? You’re accusing my client of killing a man in cold blood and you’re not even sure if it was her that killed him? This isn’t evidence, Superintendent, its speculation!’

‘Mrs D’Arcy was at her father’s house in the early hours of Saturday night,’ McEvoy repeated again, feeling uneasy.

‘And my client insists that she wasn’t. So, what’s your evidence that she was there? One of your supposed witnesses is dead!’

‘She was seen by Ewa Chojnacki and Tomas Prochazka pulling into the gateway.’

‘Those two scandal-mongers!’ Rice exploded. ‘You can’t trust anything those two family wreckers say! Jesus, they’re hardly impartial witnesses, are they? They’re out to try and destroy the Koch family.’

‘Nevertheless, they saw Mrs D’Arcy’s dark blue Mercedes arrive at the farm. And Mrs D’Arcy cannot account for where she was on the night of his death,’ McEvoy persisted.

‘That’s it?’ Rice said dismissively. ‘That’s your evidence? Two unreliable witnesses who have an unsubstantiated vendetta against my client’s family, and the lack of an alibi because she was by herself?’

‘I don’t drive a Mercedes,’ Marion said, her face creased in a puzzled expression. ‘I drive a Range…’ she trailed off.

McEvoy felt his heart skip a beat. He was doomed. ‘But I saw it parked in front of your father’s house when I first arrived there. A dark blue Mercedes. And I saw the same one parked outside the front of your house on Monday morning.’

Marion stayed silent.

‘You don’t own a dark blue Mercedes?’ McEvoy pressed, drowning slowly. He should have got the registration plate checked before he rushed in. He was so tired and stretched and keen to wrap the case up that he’d made an elementary mistake. He was going to be hung out to dry by Tony Bishop and what was more he deserved it.

Marion D’Arcy glanced nervously towards John Rice, a realisation opening in her own mind, and in that moment McEvoy gained fresh hope. She knew whose car it was.

‘If it wasn’t your car, whose car is it?’ he asked urgently. ‘James Kinneally’s? … Stefan Freel’s?’

She stayed silent, giving him a disdainful look.

A thought started to emerge inside his mind. ‘Your brother’s?’

She cast her glare down at her hands.

‘It was your brother’s,’ McEvoy said as an accusation. ‘You borrowed his car. Oh, sweet… It was your brother’s car,’ he stated, the penny finally dropping.

McEvoy pushed back his chair and headed for the door. Charles Koch had been at his father’s house in the early hours of Sunday morning. Just as James Kinneally had lied for Marion D’Arcy, Patricia Kinneally had lied for Charles Koch. O’Coffey had tried to blackmail Charles like he had his son. His reward was a bullet to the head. He turned at the door. ‘Where’s your brother now? Mrs D’Arcy?’

Marion D’Arcy raised her eyes and stared fiercely at McEvoy but stayed silent.

McEvoy shook his head in frustration and headed from the room. He took a couple of steps and returned to the doorway. ‘We’re not finished yet. I’ll be back shortly.’

‘I’m sorry, Superintendent, but we are,’ Rice said firmly. ‘You have no reason to continue to hold my client.’

‘Fine, but you might as well make yourself comfortable, Mr Rice, because as soon as I find her brother, I’ll be bringing him here for questioning.’

‘You’ll be wasting your time, Superintendent. You have no evidence against him either, just the sighting of a car which could have belonged to anyone.’

_{* * *}

There were no journalists left at the gates of Marion D’Arcy’s house. McEvoy sped up to the house still furious with himself.

He leapt from the car, rushed to the front door, knocked loudly and waited. There was no response. He knocked again but there was no sign of life. He walked quickly to the side of the house and headed towards the stables. The horses in the neighbouring field stared at him with mild curiosity before lowering their heads back to the lush grass. A dark blue Mercedes was parked at the entrance to the stable yard.

The car was empty and so was the yard. A couple of horses watched his progress round the stables from their stalls. One of them neighed loudly.

As he started to make his way out of the far side of the yard Charles Koch came into view a hundred yards away approaching on horseback. The horse was walking sedately, breath snorting in clouds from its nose, Koch gently rolling from side to side.

‘I’ve been told to expect you,’ Koch said as he neared. ‘My lawyer tells me not to say a word until he’s present.’

‘Shit,’ McEvoy muttered to himself. He could feel any hope of wrapping the case up in the next couple of days starting to slip away. And unless they could find forensic evidence on Koch himself or his clothes – traces of cordite or blood or mud – they were in trouble. Everything else rested on circumstantial evidence that John Rice would systematically shred or cast doubt on. Even if they could prove that Patricia Kinneally had provided a false alibi for the night Koch’s father died it wouldn’t be enough for a safe conviction – it wouldn’t prove that Koch had killed Peter O’Coffey.

Koch passed McEvoy and made his way into the yard. He dismounted slowly and gracefully.

‘I need to ask you some questions,’ McEvoy said, more in hope than actual expectation of answers.

Koch stayed silent tugging at the girdle strap that kept the saddle in place.

‘Why did you go to your father’s house in the early hours of Sunday morning?’

‘I didn’t.’ Koch pulled the saddle free and hung it on an open doorway. Steam rose from the horse’s sweaty back.

‘Your car was seen arriving at two o’clock in the morning.’

‘It wasn’t my car.’ Koch moved back to the horse and started to work on the bridle.

McEvoy shifted his feet and decided to try another line of questions. ‘Why did you kill Peter O’Coffey?’

‘First you try and frame my son for murder and now me?’ Koch said evenly, lifting the bridle over the horse’s ears and slipping the bit from its mouth. ‘Why would I kill Peter O’Coffey?’

‘He was blackmailing you,’ McEvoy said without confidence.

‘Blackmailing me! Why would he want to do that?’ Koch draped the bridle over the saddle and took a brush hanging from a nail.

‘Because he knew that your son had killed your father and he was desperate for money to save his farm.’

‘My son did not kill my father, Superintendent. Peter did, and it was an accident. The last few days have been a nightmare because of that accident.’ Koch started to brush the horse’s coat.

‘Is that why you killed him?’

‘I’ve already told you. I didn’t kill him!’

‘You drive a dark blue Mercedes that was seen arriving at your father’s farm at two o’clock in the morning the night he died.’

‘I don’t think so, Superintendent. I was at Patricia Kinneally’s house.’

‘About which you’ve already lied. Why should we believe you now?’

Koch stopped brushing the horse, turning to face McEvoy. ‘Because it’s the truth. Do you know how many people own dark blue Mercedes around here? That’s why my uncle is a very rich man. And how do you know it was dark blue in any case? At two o’clock in the morning it could have been any dark colour – black, blue, green, red. They’d have all looked the same.’

‘So whose car do you think it was,’ McEvoy asked sarcastically.

‘I don’t know. How about Stefan Freel? He drives a black Mercedes 320. Or…’ Koch trailed off.

‘Or who?’ McEvoy prompted.

‘Nobody.’

‘Nobody,’ McEvoy repeated, aware that Koch was right; the car at The White Gallows that night could have belonged to any number of people. ‘This isn’t over yet,’ he said weakly. ‘I’ll be getting in a forensic team to go over your car. If they find any evidence that you were near to where Peter O’Coffey was killed…’ He petered off, reluctant to make the threat.

‘You won’t find anything, Superintendent. I didn’t kill Peter,’ Koch reaffirmed.

_{* * *}

Stefan Freel dropped his tall, thin frame down heavily onto the leather chair behind his desk and pointed to a seat with one hand, the other scratching the side of his prominent nose.

McEvoy sat where directed and crossed his right leg over his left. ‘Working on a Saturday?’

‘I work every day and now there’s even more to do. Establishing Ostara Trust demands time. I was back in work immediately after the funeral.’

‘You didn’t go on to Marion D’Arcy’s house afterwards then?’ McEvoy asked, acknowledging the little love lost between the pair.

‘She wouldn’t let me into the church; I’d say the chances of getting into her house were zero.’ Freel shrugged. ‘That’s okay; Dr Koch wouldn’t have wanted the fuss. If the tables were turned and we were burying Marion he would have been back working before the first sod hit the coffin lid.’

‘No point letting grief get in the way of making money,’ McEvoy said sarcastically.

‘You may mock, Superintendent, but money makes the world go round. Grief is just a distraction. Why waste time on the dead when life is for living?’

‘Clearly you’ve never loved anyone,’ McEvoy said bitterly.

‘Perhaps not, but I’m not sure I’ve missed anything.’

McEvoy shook his head sadly. Freel’s emotional depth was skin deep. He might have material wealth and wield a certain amount of power but he knew nothing of the finer things in life, like love. ‘You own a black Mercedes 320?’ he asked getting to the point of the interview.

‘Yes.’

‘It was seen parked outside The White Gallows at two o’clock in the morning, the night Albert Koch died.’

‘I don’t think so, Superintendent,’ Freel said with an amused smile. ‘Not unless it was stolen from Dublin Airport. It was parked in Area J in the long term car park Friday and Saturday night. I’m sure their surveillance cameras will confirm that. Besides I thought Francie Koch has confessed to his grandfather’s death?’

‘He’s confessed to leaving him for dead. Someone else carried him back up to his bed and left him to die.’

‘Well, it wasn’t me, I was in London completing a deal.’

‘You won’t mind then if we re-check your story?’ McEvoy said without conviction.

‘You can check it as many times as you like, but I have several witnesses. I had dinner at an investment banker’s Thames-side apartment on Saturday night and I stayed in the Dorchester.’

‘And what about the car parked at Dr Koch’s house?’ McEvoy asked.

‘What about it? I’ve already told you that mine was at Dublin Airport.’

‘I meant, whose car could it have been if it wasn’t yours?’