Mulcahy went on to explain how one of his contacts in the Criminele Inlichtingen Eenheid – the Dutch criminal intelligence service – by giving the matter considerably more than the usual effort, had traced the engine’s serial number, partial as it was, to a private boatyard in the southern Netherlands port of Vlissingen, where an identical yacht, sailing under a different name, was laid up for a couple of months, only to set sail again a few days before the Atlantean was spotted off the Cork coast.
‘We are pretty confident now,’ Mulcahy emphasised, ‘for the technical reasons I’ve detailed in the brief, that this was the same thirty-six-foot ocean-going yacht that we all know as the Atlantean. And, as a result of further information retrieved last week regarding specific damage that appears on the Atlantean’s engine casing, Southern Region will now be sending members of the Cork investigation team over to requisition the relevant supporting documents and take statements with the help of the Dutch authorities. Probably the most interesting single item of information we’ve unearthed so far, but not yet confirmed, is that the Dutch manager of the boatyard had the impression the owner of the yacht, who he didn’t deal with directly, could well have been Irish. And he knows someone he thinks can provide us with a description.’
That was the bombshell Mulcahy hadn’t put in his briefing paper and he was gratified by the murmur of surprise and interest it elicited around the room. He let it linger for a moment or two longer, before looking up towards the screen on the wall, at the now irritated-looking individual whose face occupied the right-hand side of the video-conferencing link. Detective Superintendent Sean O’Grady was the senior investigating officer on the Cork team. He was also the man who’d got the head of Southern Region job, and the promotion, when Mulcahy had been forced to withdraw his candidacy the year before.
‘Is there anything you’d like to add to that, Sean?’ Mulcahy smiled, knowing he’d scored a direct hit with that one.
*
The leather holdall was expensively made, as were the few items of clothing it contained, bearing labels from design houses like Zegna, Boss, D&G and Guess. Horgan certainly liked his clothes. The same could be said for his brogues. Beautiful, barely scuffed tan leather, they looked to be handmade and Siobhan wondered idly what he’d had on his feet when he stood on the parapet wall at the suspension bridge, contemplating his end. There was nothing else in the holdall, nothing of any interest at any rate, not even a toilet bag. So she moved on to the evidence box, tipping its contents carefully out onto the table. These were the loose items taken from the car. A pair of aviator-style Gucci sunglasses, a burgundy passport with the Irish harp in gold on the cover, a small Moleskine notebook, a couple of blister packs of paracetamol, an unopened can of Red Bull, some road maps and a bundle of receipts and printouts held together with an elastic band.
Siobhan was immediately drawn to the passport, which was clean, smooth and unmarked externally, and obviously of fairly recent issue, or re-issue, more likely. She opened it and stared for a while at the photo of Cormac Horgan. He’d been a reasonably good-looking guy. His face was nicely made, the eyes blue, the hair a sandy blond in a nondescript, estate-agenty, country-barber cut. If it hadn’t been for that and the slightly receding chin, he might have been almost handsome in a wet, Robert Pattinson kind of way. There had been a nicer shot of him, younger, smiling, published alongside her story in the Sunday Herald, but he hadn’t looked particularly happy in that, either, despite the smile. She studied the passport photo again and for a second saw his features morph into a scream, felt the air rush over his skin and hair as he fell, as she had fallen, then shuddered and looked away. She focused on the other details on the page: his date of birth – 17 November 1980; his place of birth – Cork; his middle name – Patrick. Finally, she flicked through the pale blue, empty visa pages before putting the passport aside, a vaguely sick feeling in her stomach.
She picked up the notebook, hoping it might be some kind of diary, but she was disappointed. Its pages were unused apart from the first two, which were covered in lists of letters and numbers. She flicked through the book of road maps for the British Isles and Europe. It looked to be fairly well thumbed. He certainly hadn’t bought it just for this trip. There were notes and addresses scrawled in his indecipherable handwriting on the inside covers, front and back. Tucked in between the pages were AA Route Finder printouts of journey instructions, one from Amsterdam south through Belgium and France to the ferry terminal at Calais, another describing the route from Cork to somewhere called Liscannor in County Clare. But there was nothing relating to Bristol, or anywhere else in the UK.
Except for the four loose leaves of paper, folded and tucked under the cover: three printouts and a car-hire agreement. The first two were electronic boarding passes for round-trip flights from Dublin to Bristol, outbound on Friday 3 September, returning on Sunday 5 September. She wondered whether that in itself, the return flight, wasn’t an indication that he had never actually planned to kill himself, but then decided it probably meant nothing; people with suicide on their minds probably weren’t the most rational to begin with, anyway. The third piece of paper was an online hotel reservation for the Lennox Hotel, Berkeley Square, Bristol. Pre-paid, for two nights, Friday 3 and Saturday 4 September. Nothing strange there. But when she opened and examined the last item, the Avis car-hire agreement, one thing did strike her immediately. It was an original docket, not a printout like the others. Which meant he probably hadn’t decided to rent the car in advance, that he must only have decided to do so after arriving in Bristol, and at considerably more cost than booking online.
She looked more closely again at the agreement, saw that the car had been picked up at eleven o’clock on the Saturday morning at Avis’s ‘Bristol Centre’ office. That chimed with the last-minute idea: if he’d planned to hire a car, why hadn’t he done so at the airport the night before? She turned her attention to the bundle of receipts. The man had clearly been an accountant to the core, asking for and keeping paperwork for every expense. She rummaged through them, looking for one that might be a taxi fare for the journey from the airport into town. There was one taxi slip, but obviously it had been only a short hop. Nothing like the amount she had paid to come in from the airport that morning. Horgan didn’t seem like a man who’d contemplate using public transport, but even if he had, there was no bus ticket, either. Had someone collected him from the airport?
She stared at the pile of receipts, looking for a revelation, but all she saw were a few restaurant bills and corner-shop purchases, and a scattering of others for items she couldn’t readily make out. On top was a bar bill from somewhere called the Gold Bar. It looked a bit pricey for drinks for one person. She checked her watch. Already twenty-five minutes of her allotted half-hour had elapsed. No time for taking notes. She pulled out her phone, flattened the receipt on the table between her outstretched finger and thumb, took a snap of it and then moved on to the next, framing each with her fingers, working her way through them.
‘I know none of ye need me to tell you that this stretch of coastline has been targeted for years as an easy route for narcotics into the EU, but having worked the frontline down there for a decade myself, I can honestly say we’ve made some real, tangible headway in recent years. Thanks in large part to this Task Force’s strategic initiatives in relation to effective naval patrols, better intelligence-gathering on the ground and, more than anything, increased awareness and cooperation from the public.’
Assistant Commissioner Murtagh was winding up the meeting with some motivational spiel. ‘So, while it’s important not to forget that Rosscarbery Bay represents a significant victory for us in prevention terms, it’s equally important from a public-perception viewpoint that we don’t allow the organisers of such high-profile smuggling ventures to be seen to escape justice.’
Murtagh drew a long breath as everyone around the table nodded in agreement. ‘Right, that about wraps it up for this session, unless anyone has anything else
to contribute?’
There was a murmuring of negatives from around the table, then the usual commotion of coughing, sniffing and chatting as everyone stood up to leave. Mulcahy was pushing his chair back in place when he saw Murtagh break off from greeting the deputy head of the Criminal Assets Bureau.
‘Mike, hang back. In my office for a minute, yeah?’
‘Sure.’ Mulcahy nodded, remembering what Murtagh had said to him before the meeting about wanting a chat. He ambled down the corridor and into the large, comfortably appointed office, past Murtagh’s stony-faced PA.
‘I’m going to wait for him inside,’ he said to her, giving her no chance to object as he strode into the inner sanctum and over to the window beside Murtagh’s impressive carved oak desk. He stared out at the sun-drenched view the window afforded of the Memorial Garden, wondering if the good weather would last until the weekend. All that talk of boats and coastal waters had fired him up to get over to the marina in Dun Laoghaire and take Seaspray out on one last run before laying her up for winter. For the first time since early morning he thought of Orla, how at home she’d been on the boat, loving the wind and salt sea air almost as much as he did. In memory he could even taste it on her skin. Why hadn’t they done more of that over the summer? Why hadn’t the urge for fun and tenderness won out against this obsessive need to work?
‘Thanks for waiting, Mike.’ Murtagh gusted into the office like a sudden squall, pulling out his desk chair and bouncing into it like he was testing its hydraulics. ‘You’ll never make a politician, anyway, that’s for sure. You couldn’t resist giving O’Grady a poke with that thing about the Dutch boatyard man, could you?’
‘O’Grady’s big enough to take it,’ Mulcahy countered.
‘But not thick enough to just laugh it off. He’s an okay lad, Mike. And you, above all, should appreciate the value of having friends in high places. It’s not his fault he got the job you wanted.’
‘I know, Donal, but Liam and myself had to work the Dutch damn hard to get that lead. I didn’t want him taking the credit for it.’
‘Hmm, maybe you have a point,’ Murtagh conceded. ‘That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about, sort of – about showing people that the International Liaison Unit is doing something worthwhile.’
Mulcahy almost choked. Where the hell had that jab come from?
‘I’d have thought that was obvious to everyone, given that we’ve just made the first break the investigation’s had in weeks.’
‘I’m not talking about the Rosscarbery case, or even us on the Joint Task Force, for that matter. I’m talking about the people higher up. Does the commissioner know it, or the minister … ?’ Murtagh trailed off, scratched distractedly at the back of his neck.
‘You’d be in a better position to know that than me, Donal.’ It sounded a bit glib, a bit arsey, and he instantly regretted saying it, but he also wanted to know where this was going now.
‘Look, I’m not trying to get at you, Mike. I’m just trying to warn you. About that meeting that took place last week, over in the commissioner’s office?’
Mulcahy said nothing, baffled but unwilling to admit it. He’d heard the rumours about some big-brass pow-wow in the Phoenix Park, but he’d been too busy, head down, working, to take much notice.
Murtagh cursed beneath his breath. ‘It was a budget meeting, the budget meeting, the one about the cuts.’
‘Okay,’ Mulcahy said, although he was definitely thinking now that it wouldn’t be.
‘You’ve seen the news. They’ve doubled the deficit-reduction targets – €15 billion instead of €7 billion off public spending over the next four years. Christ, that’s you and me, Mike, and it’s not like there’s anything left to cut.’
Murtagh sat back in his chair, and for the first time ever Mulcahy thought he looked almost defeated. ‘I thought I’d have some clout when I was promoted. Instead I step into the job just as the whole country’s going bust, and all I end up with is an axe and instructions to lay waste all around me.’ He broke off again, wiped his palms and fingers down over his cheeks and jaw before bunching his fists and quietly but firmly striking the leather on his desk. ‘We’re not talking thin slices, Mike. All the fat’s gone already. Now it’s amputations. And before we even got in the room last week, some fucker had convinced the commissioner that the Drugs Unit could take more pain.’
‘But that’s bullshit,’ Mulcahy said. Staff numbers were already so depleted much of the time the GNDU offices looked half empty.
‘Of course it is. And like a complete novice I made the mistake of trotting out the line about false economies. The commissioner totally lost his rag. Had a real go at me, said even he knew of examples of where “substantive economies” could be achieved. Which is when he mentioned the ILU.’
‘What?’ Mulcahy was staggered. ‘But we’ve only been up and running nine months.’
‘Which, from his point of view, makes it all the easier to shut you down again. Look, the economy’s fucked and we’re all fighting over the same dwindling pot of cash. There’re no easy decisions left. Your problem is that you’re not the most visible of presences. Like you said yourself, other people get the credit for your hard work. And axing an entire unit looks great on the balance sheet. The minister won’t even know there’s only four of you in it. All he’ll see is the headline figure.’
‘Is that it, then? We’re finished? Jesus, Donal, you’re talking like it’s a done deal.’
‘No, I’m not. That’s what I’m saying. Nothing was settled. Everyone else at that meeting got it in the neck as well as me. And yours was far from the only unit mentioned. I know how valuable your work is, Mike. For me, that’s not an issue. What I’m saying is, if you ever had a back-of-the-drawer plan to convince the big boys you’re a vital cog in their machine, now’s the time to dust it off and put it into action, okay?’
9
‘Any idea what this is about?’ Siobhan asked, holding up the Moleskine notebook, open on its two used pages, when Walker came back into the room.
The sergeant peered at it like she hadn’t really given any thought to it before, then shrugged. ‘Road directions, looks like. There’s “M4” and “M32” written there – those are the main routes into Bristol.’
Siobhan looked again. It made sense: roads, junctions, directions. Horgan had hired a car, brought his map book. Maybe he planned a journey. She could check it out later, see if he’d gone anywhere interesting. She took a picture of the two pages and did her best to look confused when Walker raised an eyebrow.
‘When I said nothing leaves the room, I meant it,’ Walker said, irritated.
‘Oh, of course, yeah, sorry,’ Siobhan said, feigning a well-practised innocence. ‘I only took a couple. I’ll delete them if you like.’
As if.
But Walker didn’t seem to be listening to her, like she was distracted, making her mind up about something else. Siobhan slipped her phone into her jacket pocket. Out of sight out of mind.
‘So that was it?’ she asked, as much to fill the silence as anything. ‘There was nothing else in the car?’
‘I wasn’t going to show you this,’ Walker said, holding out something that Siobhan hadn’t noticed she’d been clasping in her hand all along. Something rigid, oblong and black, wrapped in a clear plastic evidence bag. Siobhan’s heart leapt when she recognised what it was: a mobile phone. She shot her hand out to take it, but Walker pulled back.
‘No way, Siobhan. I can’t let you have this. We found it in the side pocket of the car, out of power, but I charged it up overnight. Everything’s on here since Mr Horgan died, or went missing, which is what most of these people thought he was. Missing as in a he’ll-turn-up-soon kind of way. Emails, phone messages, texts. There’s some distressing stuff on here.’
Siobhan was suddenly conscious of the fact that she was salivating. She could visualise it already, laid out across a cracking two-page spread. The story of a suicide’s phone. All the pain. Al
l the heartache. All the grief. It would be such a shit-hot story. She could see Paddy Griffin getting a hard-on just hearing about it.
‘And way too sensitive and personal for any journalist to get hold of,’ Walker said, smashing that fantasy to smithereens.
Siobhan could barely contain her disappointment, but she could see from the set of the policewoman’s jaw that there was definitely going to be no wavering on that point. Walker had no intention of walking out of the room and leaving her alone with this one.
‘So why show it to me?’ Siobhan said, not quite pouting but the implication was there.
‘Because I had another look, just now, and there was one thing on here that I thought you should see.’
‘What?’ Siobhan asked, eyebrows rising, clouds parting again. ‘Something from Gemma?’
‘Not as such.’ Walker was peering through the plastic, tapping at the screen on the phone. ‘Just this.’
She held it up so that Siobhan could see the backlit screen through the evidence bag. It looked like a page from the phone’s contacts book, but what she saw made Siobhan’s hopes die as quickly as they’d risen again. All that was there were Gemma Kearney’s name, address and phone details, exactly the same ones Mrs Kearney had given her the day before.
This time Siobhan didn’t bother concealing her feelings. She tutted loudly. ‘I’ve got all that already.’
Walker ignored the display of petulance. ‘I thought you wanted proof that they were still in touch. That’s it, isn’t it? The phone’s a recent model. He can’t have had it for very long.’
‘Yeah, I guess,’ Siobhan said, thinking that was actually a good point. But it didn’t get her any further, did it?
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