Knocking back the last of his coffee, he tried to push all that from his mind as he got to grips with the upcoming Joint Task Force meeting. Rosscarbery Bay wasn’t the only case they would be reviewing, and there were a number of policy issues up for discussion that also required his input. It was getting on for ten thirty when a knock on the glass partition wall made him look up.
Sweeney, looking pleased with herself.
‘Boss, I just had a long chat with that German woman I told you about last night, name of Erica Farber. Everything she says checks out. She was definitely there the night of June seventh because she flew back to Frankfurt the following day for her eldest daughter’s birthday. She’d even gone to the trouble of digging her plane ticket out after seeing the TV programme, so she could read me the flight number to check it myself.’
‘How very Teutonic and efficient of her.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ Sweeney replied. As ever, irony glanced off her like a ricochet.
‘So did you get anything useful from her?’
‘I’m not sure, but maybe, yeah. I was thinking about what you said last night – you know, about why she took any notice of this vehicle going down to the pier in the first place. So I asked her and she said it was because the trailer was so new-looking.’
‘And?’
‘She said she was sitting out on the verandah, enjoying the last sunset of the holiday, when a flash from the road caught her eye. It was this shiny trailer being towed by an ancient green Land Rover. Seems she was amused by the contrast between the manky Land Rover and the spotless aluminium trailer. Then she noticed how long the thing was – about five or six metres, she reckoned – and she could see it was completely empty. Why go to the pier with a big, long, empty trailer? Especially when he almost got stuck going round the next bend.’
Mulcahy had been out on that road to Rosscarbery Pier. The day after the Atlantean was seized he had driven down to Cork and out west along the coast to Baltimore, the harbour to which the seized yacht had been brought by the navy. He wanted to inspect the yacht for himself and witness the extraordinary quantity of cocaine that had been retrieved. All the time thinking this could have been his gig, how he could have been the senior investigating officer on the biggest drugs seizure in Irish history – would have been, if it hadn’t been for getting caught up with Sean Rinn and Siobhan bloody Fallon the year before. Then he’d driven back to Rosscarbery with a couple of lads from the Cork investigation team, taken a look around the wide, scenic bay they reckoned was the intended landing place, with its pretty beach on one side and pier and slipway on the other. A perfect, secluded spot for offloading a large consignment of narcotics.
‘Couldn’t the trailer have been for a boat?’ he said to her. ‘There’s a slipway down by the pier.’
‘Well, no, that’s just it. She was very specific. Said it wasn’t a boat trailer but more of a flatbed type. A “landwirtschaftliche Anhänger” was the phrase she used, meaning “agricultural trailer”. Which, again, you know, is weird, because there is no farm along there. She says hers was the last house out on the pier road.’
‘It’d have to be one hell of a coincidence, that night of all nights, especially with the light failing when she saw it. The Atlantean was sighted just before dusk.’ Mulcahy rubbed a contemplative paw around his chin. ‘And it definitely came back empty?’
Sweeney nodded enthusiastically. ‘That’s what she said.’
‘Christ, they’d never be cheeky enough to transport the best part of a tonne of cocaine on an open trailer, would they?’
‘Why not?’ Sweeney shrugged. ‘It’s not like anyone would have recognised what it was. Those bales off the Atlantean could’ve been anything. Lots of fertiliser goes out wrapped like that – peat moss, manure, silage. It all looks the same wrapped in white plastic. And anyway, he could’ve had a big tarp in the back of the Land Rover for all we know.’
‘Or maybe they weren’t planning on moving it very far,’ Mulcahy added. ‘You keep saying “he”. Did this woman get a look at the driver?’
‘No. That’s just how she put it. I did ask, but she said she didn’t see who was driving. There could have been others in the Land Rover for all she knows. She couldn’t say either way.’
‘Damn.’
‘Yeah.’ Sweeney nodded. ‘There was one other thing, though.’
‘There’s more?’
Sweeney grinned. ‘She said when the guy got stuck going round the bend, she went into the house to get her binoculars for a better look.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Yeah, but don’t get too excited. By the time she came out he was on his way again. All she got a look at was the back of the trailer. She didn’t get a number plate, but she did say there was some kind of logo on it – a big red “H”, with a name across the middle.’
‘Which was?’
‘She couldn’t remember. But I was thinking, if it was printed on the trailer, it could be some kind of brand name, or distributor, maybe. In which case, it shouldn’t take too much tracing. I mean, how many people make and sell that kind of trailer? Not many, right?’
‘Absolutely,’ he said, getting out of his chair now. ‘And if it was that new, maybe it was bought locally. If we trace a dealer, they might have a payment record.’
He brushed his fingers through his hair, thinking hard, then looked over at Sweeney standing there, grinning back at him. ‘Jesus, well done, Aisling. This could be really useful.’
On the way to Walker’s office, Siobhan stared out of the car window at the Georgian terraces and ornate Victorian mansions lining so many of the residential streets. It wasn’t all that different from some of the nicer parts of Dublin, she supposed, except that more of these houses were on a grander scale. She had flicked quickly through an in-flight magazine while the plane was landing, read the intro to a dull piece about how Bristol had become enormously wealthy, centuries before, on the back of the slave trade and the Industrial Revolution. On this evidence, the entire population must have been loaded.
‘These houses are something else. Is all of Bristol like this?’
Walker laughed. ‘You must be kidding. Most of Bristol’s a tip, with a few nice parts scattered in between, mostly around here – Clifton, Redland and Cotham. What’s Dublin like?’
‘Oh, much the same. There’s good and bad in it. You’ve never been?’
‘Always meant to. I hear Ireland’s a lot of fun.’
‘Maybe if you’re visiting,’ Siobhan said, less enthusiastically than she intended, and they both laughed.
For the rest of the short journey Siobhan filled Walker in about Gemma Kearney. The policewoman listened attentively and nodded or shook her head now and then, but said little other than that she’d had a look through the items found in the car but hadn’t come across any reference to Gemma, or any indication that Horgan hadn’t been alone. The paperwork relating to his flights and hotel contained nothing to suggest he’d been travelling with someone else. As far as Walker was concerned, she’d found nothing to suggest the case needed further examination, but of course if Siobhan could present her with evidence to the contrary … For the first time, Siobhan wondered if maybe she wasn’t the one being played here.
Five minutes later Walker’s opinion of Bristol appeared to be borne out when they got to the bottom of a steep hill and drove into what felt like the centre of the city – an ugly, bustling, traffic-choked, mishmash of every kind of building imaginable, with the exception of anything fine or pretty. They pulled into a yard at the back of a hulking grey 1960s office block.
‘Home sweet home,’ Walker said, locking the car and punching a security code into a numerical keypad beside the building’s steel-reinforced back door. Inside, she signed Siobhan in at reception and took her up to the fifth floor, then asked her to wait in a small interview room while she went off to get something.
Almost immediately, as Siobhan sat there in the empty, airless room, with nothing to d
istract her, a creeping sensation of tiredness began to overtake her. The early flight, like the journey to Cork the day before, had sapped her energy. It was like all the vitality was earthing out of her, straight into the floor. She thought of how much energy she used to have, how it was what had marked her out from her fellow journalism students in Rathmines. Her determination, her persistence … Her eyelids were beginning to flutter when the door opened and Walker entered with a small cardboard evidence box in one hand and a leather holdall in the other, both of which she placed on the table.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked, scanning Siobhan’s face. ‘Can I get you some water or something?’
‘No, I’m fine. It’s just the early flight. I’m not … I mean, it’s okay, honestly.’
‘I’d get you a coffee from the machine but you might not survive it. It’s pure swill.’
Siobhan smiled, amused by the thought of swill in a cop shop, and began to feel livelier just imagining what might be in that bag, that box. ‘I’m fine, really. Don’t think you have to be nice to me. The Gardai never are.’
‘I’m not usually this helpful, either,’ Walker said, ‘but after we spoke, the first time, I looked you up online. Just to be sure of who I was dealing with, you know? And I saw what’s up there about you. What happened to you, I mean. On the cross and all that. Are you sure you’re okay?’
Siobhan lifted her head. The last thing she felt like talking about now was that. ‘Thanks, honestly. It was just the early start. We gotta move on or we get nowhere, right?’
Walker didn’t take the hint. ‘I read your articles on the Net. It’s a horrific thing to happen to anybody. I just wanted to say that, as a woman, I think you’re extraordinary. To have survived it, I mean, and to be back at work so soon.’
That took Siobhan by surprise. The ball of stress that was lodged in her gut clenched momentarily, then eased noticeably. ‘Thank you,’ she said, with a gasp, almost laughing from the relief, ‘but to be honest, I didn’t have much to do with the surviving of it. That was down to the guys who rescued me and the doctors and nurses in the hospital.’
‘No way. That I do not believe,’ Walker said, jabbing the air with both hands. ‘Most people I know, man or woman, would be off work for ever after something like that. A colleague of mine was stabbed three years ago, nothing like what you went through, and she’s still out. No, you were the one who got you back on your feet. You were the one who decided not to let it stop you.’
Siobhan had to think about that one. She’d spent every day for a year now promising herself that she wouldn’t let what Rinn did to her ruin her life, but at this precise moment she wasn’t so sure she hadn’t been fooling herself all along. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said, ‘but it’s not what I want to be remembered for, you know?’
‘You wrote a book about it, didn’t you?’
Siobhan shrugged, unsure whether Walker was being sarcastic or not. ‘Yeah, I did. It’s out next week. I thought it might put the lid on it for me.’
‘Closure, like?’
Siobhan nodded. ‘That was the idea. Sometimes I think the door’s still wide open.’
‘No, no, it’s not.’ Walker reached over and placed a hand on Siobhan’s. ‘I see victims every day. Most of them grab the stick they’ve been hit with and hold on to it like it’s their most precious possession. It beats them up from inside. That’s so not you – I know it. Seriously, I’m going to be first in line to buy your book when it comes out over here.’
Siobhan smiled and pulled her hand away as politely as she could.
‘No, don’t go buying it,’ she said. ‘I’ll send you a copy myself.’
‘I’d really like that,’ Walker said, taking a step back and smiling. ‘Anyway, enough of the sisterhood stuff, yeah?’ Instantly her voice was more brusque and businesslike, and she turned towards the table and swept her hand over the leather bag and the evidence box. ‘Like I said, I absolutely wouldn’t do this normally, but I’ve got a meeting to go to, so I’m going to leave you here for half an hour while I’m gone and you can look through this lot, if you like. I’m only doing it ’cos I’ve already gone through it carefully myself and I know there’s nothing personal in here that you shouldn’t be seeing, okay? And because I know you’re not going to rat me out by writing that you had unsupervised access to these items – which you won’t, by the way.’ Walker pointed a long, confident finger at a CCTV camera mounted just below the ceiling in one corner of the room. ‘It’s on, so nothing leaves the room, Siobhan. Not even for a second. Right?’
‘Right,’ Siobhan said. ‘Whatever you say.’
Walker went back to the door and smiled again as she opened it. ‘So long as that’s understood.’
8
The sun beat pleasantly warm on his back as Mulcahy hurried through the newly opened Garda Memorial Garden at the back of Dublin Castle, past the high glass entrance to the Chester Beatty Library of Oriental Arts and round the corner to the doorway of the old Ship Street Barracks, a pre-boom-time restoration project that had produced the only offices in the castle complex considered swish enough for Assistant Commis sioner Donal Murtagh. As head of the Garda National Drugs Unit, Murtagh was the closest Mulcahy had to an immediate boss. He was also, to all intents and purposes, Mulcahy’s saviour.
It was Murtagh who, on being promoted to his current eminence the year before, had rescued Mulcahy from suspension and the threat of being stuck in a dead-end Sex Crimes post. It was he who had insisted that the GNDU should have a dedicated International Liaison Unit, and who had appointed Mulcahy to head it up. Why squander the talent of the only Garda inspector ever to spend seven years with Europol’s Narcotics Intelligence Agency, Murtagh had argued to a resistant Garda review board. Just because he’d had one lapse in judgement? Amazingly, the review board had agreed with him.
Mulcahy trotted up the stairs to the second floor, just in time to meet Murtagh emerging from his outer office, still rattling orders to his PA inside. He was a man who radiated authority in uniform despite his comparatively short stature and narrow, acetic frame. He couldn’t have been more than five ten, but the bristling sense of energy that emanated from him always seemed to add a couple of inches in sheer presence. He shot his hand out as soon as he saw Mulcahy approaching, giving him a brisk but warm handshake.
‘Good man, Mike. Come on, we’d better get inside. The rest of them are here already. But remind me I need to talk to you about something afterwards, okay?’
Murtagh’s office adjoined a massive meeting room that had a table long enough to seat all twenty-two regular members of the Joint Task Force on Drugs, as well as the video-conferencing facilities needed to cater for members who, inevitably, couldn’t always make it in person. This was the monthly forum in which all the news, enforcement strategies, policy initiatives and major drugs investigations were debated by senior members of the Garda Siochana, the Revenue Commissioners and the Naval Service, the main objective being communication, intelligence-sharing and just plain keeping everyone up to speed.
Today’s meeting, though, was to be a more intimate affair, a Garda-only offshoot dealing specifically with the Rosscarbery Bay case, a number of other policy matters raised as a result of it and a string of more minor seizures made along the south coast over the summer. Mulcahy’s role would be to provide an update on the intelligence he’d received from the Dutch regarding the identification of the Atlantean. It was a role the Southern Region investigation team could have fulfilled just as easily, as they were doing the follow-up, but for some reason Murtagh had insisted on him being present. As they entered the meeting room, the hum of conversation dropped as Murtagh did the rounds and sat down at the head of the table. There were only nine people present out of the usual cohort, plus, Mulcahy noticed, a couple of faces from the Cork team sitting in via the video link on the wall.
He pulled up a chair and zoned out momentarily as Murtagh embarked on the preamble, concentrating instead on what he was planning to say
and wondering whether to share Aisling’s discovery regarding the trailer on the pier road or, as instinct nudged him, to wait and let her make something more of it herself first. He looked up and cleared his throat as he heard Murtagh mentioning his name.
‘Okay, moving on to the first item, gentlemen. I’ve asked DI Mulcahy from the International Liaison Unit to give us an update on some potentially exciting intelligence he’s received from our colleagues in the Netherlands regarding the Rosscarbery Bay seizure. And while we’re at it, thanks, Mike, for the briefing paper you sent around last night. If only all our colleagues would show such consideration and concision, we’d get through these meetings a hell of a lot quicker.’
A ripple of hearty laughter rumbled through the room, undercut somewhat by the steely glare Murtagh swept around the table, leaving no one in any doubt that despite the smiles, he was making a serious point. Mulcahy, meanwhile, was doing his best not to look mortified for being made to look such an arse-licker, especially when most of the work that went into it hadn’t even been his.
‘Okay,’ Mulcahy said, leaning forward in his chair and waiting for everyone to look up again. ‘Those of you who read the brief will be familiar with this. Those of you who didn’t but want the details, you’ll find them in there. The main point is this: when the Atlantean was seized off Rosscarbery Bay back in June, the initial assumption was that she’d sailed up from either the Caribbean or West Africa, just like the other seaborne cocaine consignments we’ve intercepted in recent years. However, over the succeeding months not a single shred of evidence emerged to back up that assumption. Not from the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre in Lisbon, or the US Drug Enforcement Administration, or the Caribbean port authorities. Not even from our good friends in Interpol. In fact, this was possibly the coldest trail ever left in the wake of such a major seizure, and certainly in terms of our experience. Fortunately, though, thanks to the work of our colleagues in Southern Region, a partial serial number retrieved from the Atlantean’s engine, which we circulated a few weeks ago, has now led to what could be our first major lead in this regard.’
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