‘How about the footprints?’ Katie asked him.
‘They were a bit of a jumble, I have to admit, but I put young Phelan on it and he has a very sharp eye for detail, that boy. Apart from the victims, there were four other people on the beach, all of them men, judging by the size of their feet and what they must have weighed. One was wearing Irish Setter RutMaster rubber boots, size ten. Another was wearing Cofra Somalia safety boots, size eleven. A third was wearing a standard pair of Dunlop wellingtons, also size eleven. The fourth was wearing an ordinary smooth-soled leather shoe, but with quite a distinctive pointed toe.’
‘So if we found the people who were wearing them, you could positively identify those boots and shoes, and match them to their owners?’
‘No trouble at all. Every boot and shoe impression has its own unique markings, caused by wear and tear. And every boot and shoe has perspiration inside it, and perspiration gives us DNA, just like mucus and earwax and urine and faeces and vomit – and even tears.’
‘Yes, thanks a million, Bill, I know all about that, but I’ve not long ago had breakfast. What about the cigarette butts?’
‘We’ve tested those for DNA, too, but like I say, we’ve not yet had the results back and I can’t say I’m particularly hopeful that we’ll be able to make a match – not until you bring in a suspect we can match them with. We’re still checking the Saint Nicholas medallion, but again I don’t think that can help us much until we have a suspect who might have been seen wearing it. Even then … you know, there are thousands of them.’
‘Well, thanks, Bill,’ said Katie. ‘Anything else you can tell me?’
‘Not at the moment. Once we’re able formally to say for sure that it’s Mr and Mrs Pearse, we’ll be able to go through their house inch by inch for forensics and that may give us some more.’
Bill Phinner picked up his printouts and left. Katie quickly finished sorting through her messages, but there was nothing urgent that she had to attend to. An update from Detective Dooley, telling her that he had interviewed the last of the wedding guests from the Gallagher–O’Malley ceilidh, but hadn’t been able to glean any more information about who might have brought the cake with Micky Crounan’s head in it. An invitation to talk to the sixth-year students at Christ King Girls’ Secondary School in Douglas about women’s careers in law enforcement. A lengthy memo from Finola McFerren, the state solicitor, about the Michael Gerrety hearing, with a list of proposals for future prosecutions.
There was also a report from Sergeant Ni Nuallán about the continuing search for Roisin Begley. Three members of the public had reported seeing a girl who answered her description – one in Togher, on the south side of the city, and two in the city centre. This increased the possibility that she was still alive, and unharmed, but they were no nearer to discovering what had happened to her or where she might be.
She switched off her desk lamp, but before she left her office she went over to the window and stared through the raindrops at the Elysian Tower, the tallest building in Ireland, pale green and almost ghostly in the gloom. Only a few of its windows were lit up, because so many of the apartments were still unoccupied, but the lights near the top were shining. That was where Michael Gerrety lived. She could imagine him up there, talking and laughing, and she found herself breathing more deeply and narrowing her eyes, like a predatory animal. She would get him one day.
***
Katie went downstairs to Interview Room Two where Derek Hagerty was waiting for her. He was sitting at the table in the centre of the room with a polystyrene cup of tea in front of him, looking weary and unkempt, an old dog that no longer has the energy to groom itself.
In the corner of the room, a young female garda was tapping at her mobile phone, but as soon as Katie came in she dropped it in her pocket and stood up.
‘That’s all right,’ Katie told her. ‘You can take a bit of a break, if you like. I’ll call you when I’ve finished.’
She drew out the chair opposite Derek Hagerty and sat down. He glanced up at her once, and then lowered his eyes again, staring at his cup of tea.
‘Hello, Derek,’ she said.
Derek Hagerty grimaced and nodded, although he didn’t say anything and he didn’t look up.
There was a long pause, but eventually Katie said, ‘Well? Aren’t you curious to know what’s happened to the Pearses?’
Still he didn’t look up. ‘Have you found them?’ he asked, with phlegm in his throat. He coughed to clear it, and then he said, ‘Are they back home now?’
‘Oh, we’ve found them all right, but they’re not back home. They’ll never be going back home now, except if their families decide to hold a wake there.’
Now Derek Hagerty did raise his eyes. ‘They’re dead?’ he said.
‘They were taken to the beach at Rocky Bay. They were half buried in the sand, and then they had petrol poured all over them, and they were set alight. We’re not one hundred per cent sure if they were still alive when they were burning, but it seems unlikely that anybody would go to the trouble of burying them up to their chests if they were already dead, don’t you think?’
Derek Hagerty pressed his hands to his ears as if he couldn’t bear to hear any more.
‘Oh God,’ he said. ‘Oh Jesus, dear Jesus, what have I done?’
Katie leaned forward. ‘I’ll tell you what you’ve done, Derek. You’ve got yourself mixed up with some very evil and heartless criminals. You can’t blame yourself entirely. I don’t think you had any conception of how vicious they could be. You were naive, and you were foolish, and now Norman and Meryl Pearse have both been murdered because of your naivety. But you do have a chance to redeem yourself.’
‘I can’t tell you anything! I can’t! What if they take my Shelagh and set fire to her? What if they catch up with me one day, which they will, and burn me to death? Oh God, I can’t stand this any more! That poor, poor woman! And her poor husband! God! All they wanted to do was help me!’
‘Derek, you said that Meryl had a friend with her when she found you by the roadside.’
Derek Hagerty pulled a tissue out of the box on the table and wiped the tears from his eyes. ‘She did, yes,’ he sniffed.
‘Do you have any idea who he was? We’re worried that if we don’t protect him, he could be in danger, too. It’s quite clear that these people are determined to eliminate anyone who could testify against them.’
Derek Hagerty shook his head. ‘I don’t know for sure. I think he might have been an old boyfriend of hers. They’d been out together for a drink or something, so far as I could tell. I heard them arguing about what she was going to tell her husband. She dropped him off at Anderson’s Quay before she drove me back to her house.’
‘Can you describe him?’
‘Not really. Not bad-looking. Brownish hair. He was wearing a dark blue coat with a light blue sweater underneath it. She called him Eoghan.’
‘Eoghan? You’re sure about that?’
‘She said something like, “Nothing happened between us, did it, Eoghan?” Something like that.’
Katie said, ‘Good. That’s a start. Now tell me how you first got involved with these people who were supposed to have abducted you. Did you know any of them before this was all fixed up?’
‘I’m not saying any more. I’ve told you about Mrs Pearse’s friend, but that’s only in case they try to kill him, too. If I tell you any more, and they find out about it, I won’t stand an earthly.’
‘You know that I could arrest you now and charge you with conspiracy? You could be facing years in jail.’
‘At least I’d be safe.’
‘Safe? In jail? I hope you’re not serious. You don’t know how many friends your co-conspirators have in jail – friends who might be only too happy to do them a favour and stick a chiv in you, or cut your throat with a razor-blade glued to a toothbrush.’
Derek Hagerty said, ‘No! I’m not saying another word! You can threaten me as much as you like, but I’m not
telling you anything more! Look what happened when I let it slip about the Pearses. Mother of God – they did that? They really burned them alive?’
‘Yes,’ said Katie. ‘They really did. You’ll see it on the news this evening.’
‘Holy heart of Jesus. I can’t bear it.’
‘Derek, I’m giving you one last chance. Tell me who these people are who kidnapped you. Even if you’re afraid to tell me their names, at least give me something to go on. It needn’t come out that it was you that told me. Otherwise I won’t have any alternative. I’ll have to arrest you.’
‘Then arrest me. And tell the media that you’ve arrested me. And tell them why – that I’ve refused to give you any information about the gang who abducted me.’
‘Derek,’ said Katie. ‘I’ve no doubt at all that they’re going to do the same thing to somebody else, and that more innocent people are going to be killed as collateral damage, like the Pearses, and like poor young Garda McCracken. Do you want to have those people on your conscience, too?’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Derek Hagerty. ‘I can’t be persuaded. Nothing that you can do to me would be as bad as what those fellows could do. They pulled out my teeth with pliers, for Christ’s sake, with no anaesthetic at all except for half a bottle of Paddy’s, and that almost fecking killed me. And that was when I was cooperating with them.’
‘So you were cooperating with them?’
Derek Hagerty looked up again, startled at his own admission. ‘I never said that. I never said that I cooperated. I didn’t cooperate.’
Katie lifted up her iPhone. ‘You did so. I have it on here.’
‘Well, I didn’t. I deny it. I totally deny it. I was taken by force against my will and it was only by a pure miracle that I escaped with my life. That’s all. From now on, I’m keeping my mouth shut, and you can’t force me to incriminate myself. If you’re going to arrest me, I want to call my solicitor.’
‘Have it your own way,’ said Katie. ‘Derek Hagerty, I am arresting you under Section Seventeen of the Criminal Justice Act 1994, for conspiracy to demand money with menaces. You are not obliged to say anything, but if you wish to do so whatever you say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence.’
Derek Hagerty said nothing. Katie sat staring at him for almost half a minute, giving him one more chance to change his mind. The only sounds were the rain pattering against the window and the distant echoing of somebody shouting. A door slammed. Somebody walked along the corridor outside, whistling, their rubber-soled shoes squeaking. Another door slammed.
Katie stood up. ‘I don’t exactly know what you’ve got yourself into, Derek, but I can promise you that this is not the way out of it. An officer will be with you shortly to read the charge sheet against you.’
Derek Hagerty remained silent and completely motionless. Katie had the feeling that he wanted to stay like that for ever. If time stood still, then he would never have to suffer the consequences of what he had done. But the minute hand of the clock on the wall behind him shuddered to twelve – and at that moment Pat was locking the door of his music shop on Oliver Plunkett Street and stepping out into the rain.
***
Katie found Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán in the canteen, eating a messy corned-beef sandwich and talking to Detective Garda Nessa Goold, who had joined Katie’s team only three weeks before. Detective Garda Goold was a dark-haired girl, pretty but slightly plump, with dark brown eyes and eyebrows that could have done with some plucking, and a dark brown mole on her upper lip. She stood up as Katie approached their table, but Katie waved her hand to indicate that she should sit down again.
Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán held up her half-eaten sandwich. ‘This is my last night’s supper,’ she explained. ‘And this morning’s breakfast, and my lunch, too. I was wallfalling with the hunger.’
‘How’s it going?’ asked Katie, smiling at Detective Garda Goold.
‘Oh, surviving, ma’am! I think I may be getting somewhere with Roisin Begley. I have a fair description of the fellow that her school friend saw her with, or his car anyway, because they were involved in a bit of an altermacation with another driver who was coming out of the car park on Patrick’s Quay. The fellow in the pay booth said it was a silvery-green Renault Mégane with a dinge in the rear offside door. All I have to do now is locate it.’
‘Well, good luck with that, because Jim Begley’s been ringing about every ten minutes, accusing us of gross incompetence. When I told him that we were devoting as much time as we possibly could to finding his daughter, he said we couldn’t find the time in a clock shop. Well, I can hardly blame him. He and his wife must be worried sick.’
Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán finished her mouthful of sandwich and said, ‘Did you have any luck with Derek Hagerty?’
‘I’ve formally arrested him on a charge of conspiracy to demand money with menaces. I don’t think it’s going to persuade him to talk, though. He’s so scared of these High Kings of Erin that he’d rather face jail than tell us who they are – especially now he knows what they did to the Pearses. But … he did give me one little bit of information that might give us a lead. Meryl Pearse had a friend with her when she found him by the side of the road, and from what Hagerty heard them saying to each other, it sounds like he was an old boyfriend of hers. She dropped him off at Anderson’s Quay before she drove Hagerty home, so that her husband wouldn’t find out that she’d been out with him.
‘His name was Eoghan, but that’s all Hagerty heard. Brown hair, medium build. Quite good-looking. That’s not a whole lot to go on, I know, but if he was a former boyfriend, it’s likely that her family knows who he is. We’ve already warned them, haven’t we, that the dead woman on Rocky Bay Beach was probably her?’
‘Yes,’ said Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán. ‘Her widowed mother lives in Glanmire and one of her brothers in Douglas. Sergeant Devitt went round to visit them first thing this morning and had a word with them.’
‘All right,’ said Katie. ‘As soon as she’s been formally identified, pay them a visit yourself, would you, and offer your condolences, of course, but make sure you ask them about this Eoghan. I’m not saying that he’ll have anything new to tell us, even if we can find him. The odds are that he won’t. But on the other hand, he might have noticed some detail when he and Meryl Pearse picked up Hagerty – something that seemed like nothing at all at the time, but that might really assist us to make a breakthrough. You never know.’
‘Okay,’ said Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán. ‘But what happens if I do find him, and he does have some really vital clue?’
‘In that case, he’s going to need us to give him some close protection. If he saw anything at all that could help us to convict the High Kings of Erin when we bring them to court, then, of course, we’ll have to declare it in the Book of Evidence, and that could put him at extremely high risk. But don’t let’s be dancing till the music starts up.’
27
They drove for about fifteen minutes, mostly uphill, which led Pat to guess that they were heading north. The acrid tobacco on the blindfold made him sneeze twice, but he had nothing to wipe his nose on except the back of his hand. The bouncer-type sitting on his right-hand side shifted uncomfortably and said, ‘Don’t be blowing any of your gulliers on me, boy, I just had this suit cleaned. Fecking twelve ninety-nine it cost me.’
It was still raining hard and the car’s windscreen wipers squeaked monotonously. The car lurched left, and then right, and then left again; then its tyres were crunching over shingle and they came to a stop. The bouncer-type took hold of Pat’s arm and helped him to climb out of the car, into the rain, and then led him across the driveway by his elbow. He tripped twice on the shingle, but each time the bouncer-type gripped his arm tighter and prevented him from falling,
‘There’s a step up here, boy, that’s it. Then another one.’
They had entered a house now. It was warm inside, although there was a musty smell of damp wallp
aper and of dust that had been heated up on rarely used radiators. The front door closed behind them and the crimson-faced man said, ‘You’re all right now, Pat. Let’s take that blindfold off of you.’
He untied the knot at the back of Pat’s head and dragged the scarf away. Pat blinked and looked around. They were standing in the gloomy hallway of a large old house. The floor was covered with rumpled Indian carpets, red and blue originally, but mostly worn down to the string. There were pale rectangular patches on the yellowish walls where pictures had once hung, and the outline of a clock, too. On the opposite side of the hallway a wide staircase led up to a half-landing, dimly illuminated by a tall stained-glass window. The window had a picture of a distant grey castle on it, with rooks flying around its turrets, and a river, with bulrushes.
A side door suddenly opened and the young carroty-curled man appeared, wringing his hands together in apparent satisfaction. ‘Well, Pat, you made it, then!’ he said, in that high, throaty voice. ‘Good man yourself!’ He was wearing a speckly grey polo-neck sweater and tight black jeans that emphasized how skinny his legs were.
Behind him, Pat could see a high-ceilinged living room, sparsely furnished with an antique ottoman and two tub-like armchairs. Through the living-room windows he could see only oak trees with their wet leaves turning rusty, so it was impossible for him to tell where they were. From the time they had been driving, he guessed they were close to Watergrasshill, but he had never seen a house of this size or age around that area, only farms and bungalows. This was more like the houses you would expect to find in Montenotte or Military Hill, but they were only minutes away from the city centre.
‘He was a shade reluctant, like,’ said the crimson-faced man. ‘Said that he’d changed his mind and didn’t want to be kidnapped after all. But we managed to persuade him otherwise.’
‘I still don’t want to go through with this,’ Pat interrupted. ‘I don’t see how we have any chance at all of getting away with it, and I don’t want to be ending up in jail.’
Taken for Dead (Kate Maguire) Page 22