The White Gallows (8 page)

He stabbed at the stereo, flipping between channels until he found something he recognised – Dancing in the Dark by Bruce Springsteen. It was only a couple of years since Maggie and himself had seen The Boss at the RDS. He started to mumble along.

_{* * *}

It had just gone
eleven thirty
. All of his cases had been reported on the news bulletin along with another killing in
Limerick
, four fatal car crashes in which nine people had died, and over two hundred and fifty dead in an earthquake in
Peru
.

He turned the stereo off and sat in the dark and quiet. He massaged his tired eyes before pushing open the car door and stepping out into the damp night air. Off to his left the engines of an approaching aircraft were droning, one of the last planes flying into
Dublin
that evening. He headed towards the locked gates of
Collinstown
Cemetery
.

As he levered himself up and over the black railings, the plane screamed overhead only a couple of hundred feet above him. He made his way to Maggie’s grave, crouching down on the damp sod to clear autumn leaves away, feeling guilty that he hadn’t visited for a couple of days. He still couldn’t believe that she was gone; that lung cancer had eaten her from the inside out before taking her from him and Gemma. She’d barely made it past her fortieth birthday.

He stayed for a few minutes, talking to her headstone, before reluctantly heading back to his car. He set off to pick Gemma up from his sister.

Monday

There was a loud knock at the door. Hannah Fallon glanced at her watch – 8.06 – stuffed the last of a slice of toast into her mouth and headed out of the kitchen, dressed in a smart business suit. As she neared the front door – the shape of a person visible through the frosted glass – a long, black metal pipe was pushed through the letter box. The person dashed to one side, the pipe clattering to the floor.

It took a moment before she realised what was happening. The pipe bomb exploded as she dived left through the living room doorway. The blast blew the glass out of the front door and shrapnel cut through her lower legs, twisting her body as she fell and slamming her into the door frame and wall. She landed awkwardly on the arm of a two-seater sofa, tumbling backwards onto the wooden floor.

Instinctively she tried to pull herself further into the room, afraid that her attacker would enter the house to finish her off. The pain from her legs was excruciating, her head pounding, ears ringing. She felt herself slipping towards unconsciousness as a figure appeared in the doorway.

‘Jesus Christ!’ her next door neighbour snapped, recoiling at the sight of the bloody stump that had been Fallon’s lower right leg, the other a mess of deep cuts, a portion of snapped bone sticking out through the skin. ‘Hannah? Hannah, are you alive?’ She moved forward to try and help. ‘Call an ambulance!’ she shouted over her shoulder.

‘Is she okay?’ a male voice asked.

‘No, she’s not fuckin’ okay. There’s blood everywhere.’

‘Fuck. Yeah, ambulance,’ the man said, turning away.

‘And tell them to hurry. She’s bleeding to death.’ The woman knelt down on the floor, leaning over Fallon’s torso. ‘Hannah? Are you okay, love?’

‘Don’t touch anything, okay,’ Fallon mumbled, feeling nauseous, drifting on the edge of darkness. ‘I don’t want any evidence fucked up.’

_{* * *}

After checking in on Gemma, McEvoy had reluctantly left her sleeping at his sister’s knowing that he would be leaving home early the next morning. He’d left the house shortly before seven o’clock and had made good time.

He turned right through a metal archway into the Ballyglass GAA car park, passing a couple of early birds from the media, and parked next to a van from the Garda Technical Unit. His plan for the day was to interview Koch’s children, his business manager, Stefan Freel, and Martin O’Coffey, the farmer with whom Koch was in dispute, and to deal with whatever else turned up.

He levered himself out of the Mondeo and headed for the main door. The day had barely started and already his eyes ached and he felt washed out. As he reached the building his phone rang. He dug it from his pocket.

‘Barney?’

‘Have you heard?’ Barney Plunkett, the last remaining detective inspector on the Raven case, said excitedly.

‘Heard what?’ McEvoy said, not sure whether he should be feeling buoyant or down, but hoping that Plunkett had good news.

‘Someone shoved a pipe bomb through Hannah Fallon’s front door. It blew off one of her legs.’

‘Someone tried to kill Hannah?’ McEvoy said slowly, doubt in his voice.

‘She was just getting ready to leave for court.’

‘For fuck’s sake!’ McEvoy spat, the news finally sinking in, jogging back to his car. ‘Is she okay?’

‘She’ll live, but apparently there’s nothing they can do about the leg. I don’t know the full story, but it seems that two men wearing motorcycle helmets arrived at the house on a motorbike. They shoved a pipe bomb through the letter box. The only reason she’s alive is because she dived through a doorway. They’ve taken her to Connolly Hospital.’

McEvoy started the car, reversed quickly and drove through the gateway, speeding along the potholed road towards Athboy. ‘I told Bishop this would happen! You get rid of Hannah and you get rid of the main forensic witness in a dozen or more cases. Charlie Clarke obviously didn’t fancy taking his chances with her.’

‘Is that who you think it was?’ Plunkett asked.

‘His trial starts today. It’ll be a couple of his boys or hired help. Clarke would kill his own mother if he needed to. Who’s in charge of the case?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve only just found out the news. Harcourt Street is buzzing,’ Plunkett said referring to the headquarters of
NBCI
.

‘Well, if you find out anything else, let me know. I’m on my way there now.’ McEvoy ended the call and pressed the accelerator down as far as he dared.

As he left Athboy his mobile phone rang. ‘McEvoy.’

‘Colm, it’s—’

‘I told you this would happen!’ McEvoy snapped, interrupting Bishop. ‘We left her too exposed.’

‘Don’t tell me what we should and shouldn’t have done, Colm,’ Bishop said, angrily. ‘We’d no god damn choice! What else could we have done?’

‘Shifted the work around more people,’ McEvoy said, not backing down. ‘Hannah’s worked practically every Dublin gangland killing for the last six months!’

‘Look, Colm, stop before you say anything you’ll regret,’ Bishop warned.

‘We need to bring in Charlie Clarke’s gang,’ McEvoy continued. ‘They’ll be holed up in West Finglas somewhere. And you’d better call in armed response; they’ll probably try and fight their way out.’

‘I’m ahead of you already. You stay with Koch and your other cases; I’ll worry about Charlie Clarke.’

‘Who have you assigned to it?’ McEvoy asked, swerving round a tractor and cutting back in quickly, narrowly avoiding an oncoming lorry.

‘I’m dealing with it personally.’

‘You?’ McEvoy said in disbelief.

‘I was a detective superintendent for six years before taking on this job,’ Bishop snapped. ‘And a DI for ten years before that. I know how to investigate a case. You look after yours and I’ll deal with Charlie feckin’ Clarke.’ Bishop ended the call.

McEvoy continued for another mile or so, raging at the attack on Hannah. Along with everything else, they were now coming under personal attack. The situation with gangs in Dublin and Limerick was spiralling out of control; if a check wasn’t put in place it would disintegrate into chaos. It would be open warfare with the guards meekly caught in the middle. Eventually he slowed and turned around, heading back to Ballyglass, his anger still simmering.

_{* * *}

There was nothing modest about Marion D’Arcy’s house. Barely two miles from her father’s, it was a wide, white, two-storey structure with a central portico of four Ionic columns rising to the height of the roof, surrounded by well-tended gardens. In the fields on either side several horses watched the car’s progress up the wide drive. Off to the right, thirty yards from the house and screened by a row of rowan trees was a small square paddock of twelve stables.

McEvoy pulled to a halt at the front of the house, levered himself out his car and stared up at the classic columns before striding to the door.

After a short wait it was opened by James Kinneally.

‘Superintendent,’ Kinneally stated without opening the door fully.

‘I’d like a word with Mrs D’Arcy, please,’ McEvoy said puzzled by Kinneally’s presence.

‘I’m afraid she’s in bed under sedation. She’s not taken the news of her father’s death at all well. Perhaps tomorrow would be better?’ Kinneally offered.

‘Perhaps,’ McEvoy conceded. Marion D’Arcy was probably suffering the mother of all hangovers. ‘I need to build up a picture of her father and any enemies he might have had. You must have known him well, being the CEO of Ostara Industries?’

‘I thought Dr Koch was killed by a thief he’d disturbed?’ Kinneally replied, deflecting McEvoy’s query.

‘That’s one possible scenario, but there might be more to it than that. Can I come in, please?’

Kinneally hesitated and then stood back, holding the wide door open.

McEvoy entered into a large hallway with a white marble floor. A marble staircase rose in front of him, twisting back on itself. Hanging on the landing halfway-up was a large classical painting – a Roman market scene set in a large plaza.

‘Are you here alone with Mrs D’Arcy?’ McEvoy asked, turning to face Kinneally.

‘No, no,’ Kinneally replied defensively, heading through a doorway into an opulent living room. ‘Her brother’s here as well. He’s out riding. Her husband is on business in France. He’s flying back later today. I’m… I’m a friend of the family. I’m just… well I’m trying to help out, given the tragic death of Dr Koch.’ He sat down and pointed to a seat.

McEvoy lowered himself down. ‘So how long have you worked for Ostara Industries?’

‘Thirty-five years next September. I started straight after graduating from Trinity and worked my way up.’

‘Dr Koch was a good employer?’

‘He knew how to run and expand a business and how to reward people who shared his ambitions.’

‘But he was a difficult man personally?’

‘He… He wanted things… Look, I don’t see what this has got to do with anything.’

‘I want to know what Albert Koch was like as a person; get a sense of the man. How would you describe him?’

‘Driven. He was determined to make Ostara all it could be, but on his terms. He didn’t want shareholders messing him about.’

‘And yet he lived quite modestly,’ McEvoy observed.

‘He wasn’t really interested in material wealth. He wanted to create a legacy; a great company. With the exception of the farm, he hardly spent any money on himself; just the bare necessities. And the farm pays for itself as a going concern.’

‘Not like his daughter,’ McEvoy motioned at the room. ‘She likes the finer things in life.’

‘And why not?’ Kinneally asked. ‘She can afford them. She’s built up a very successful law company. And without her father’s help.’

‘He didn’t share his wealth around then?’ McEvoy asked.

‘Not exactly, no. Dr Koch believed that everyone should make their own way in the world. He gave them a good education; after that it was up to them.’

‘So neither of his children work for Ostara?’

‘No, no. If they proved themselves elsewhere, then they could apply to join the company like everyone else. Marion went into law; Charles into academia. He’s a professor of chemistry at
NUI
Galway.’

‘Chemistry runs in the family?’

‘To an extent,’ Kinneally stated, ‘but I’ve always had the impression that Charles was a little bit of a disappointment. I think Dr Koch was expecting Oxford or Harvard and Nobel prizes. Instead there was a slow journey through a small, provincial university.’

‘So he didn’t see fit to pass the business on to either of them when he retired?’

‘Dr Koch never really retired,’ Kinneally smiled wanly. ‘He simply devolved some of his power to a board of executives while at the same time diversifying his interests. He started to invest in property and shares. He must own half of London at this stage, plus he has significant property and business interests in Ireland, Germany, the US, and the Far East.’

‘And Ostara was wholly owned by Dr Koch?’

‘Yes. We have significant borrowings from a variety of investment banks, but Dr Koch never floated the company or brought in other partners. With no shareholders he was free to run the business as he saw fit. Everyone in the company was on a salary, including himself, though certain key individuals could obtain modest profit bonuses.’