Dublin Dead

by Gerard O'Donovan

  At last she made him understand that, at about 8.30 p.m. last night on returning to the B&B she had booked into on Bridge Street in Skibbereen, she had been intercepted at the door by two uniformed Gardai, one male, one female, and promptly detained for questioning. At first they wouldn’t even tell her what it was about, just stuck her in a freezing-cold empty interview room and kept her waiting over an hour until eventually she kicked up so much of a stink that two plainclothes detectives came in and informed her that she was being interviewed in relation to the discovery of a dead body earlier that evening.

  ‘A dead body?’ Mulcahy said, fully alert now. ‘What body?’

  ‘They wouldn’t tell me, just kept banging on about what I’d been doing in Glandore and who I’d been talking to. I honestly didn’t have a clue what they were on about until I mentioned talking to this guy Hayes down at the harbour and I saw them share one of those ultra-dumb ‘Oh yeah, now we’ve got her’ looks. Then they buggered off again and didn’t come back for another couple of hours. This time they had some real big cheese with them. Murtagh, he said his name was—’

  ‘Donal Murtagh? The assistant commissioner?’ Mulcahy broke in, trying to fit the other side of the picture together in his head. If Murtagh was there, it had to be to do with Rosscarbery Bay.

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure he was at least that,’ Siobhan said dismissively. ‘He looked like he had that kind of clout, and he was a lot less of a dickhead than the others. Laid it all out for me: how Conor Hayes was found dead in the water down at the harbour at six o’clock or so. Jesus, I must’ve been one of the last people to talk to him, or even see him alive.’

  ‘Conor Hayes is dead?’ Mulcahy had only heard the man’s name for the first time twelve hours earlier, but the significance of his death zapped into his central cortex like a shot of adrenaline to the heart. He threw the duvet back, swung his bare feet onto the cold, shiny fake-wood floor, held a hand to his mouth in the bleak dark of morning, goosebumps on his forearm, a chilly glissando running down his back. Ronson. Horgan. Begley. McTiernan. Now Hayes. When was it going to stop? But he knew the answer to that already: Kearney. An image of a tall, blond, tanned man squeezing a double trigger. Unless, of course, that act of vengeance had already been wrought, unknown, alone, elsewhere.

  ‘How did the lads even know you were there?’ Mulcahy asked, almost by way of distraction. ‘I thought you said you were in Skibbereen.’

  An audible intake of breath, followed by nothing. The tiredness would be getting to her by now, he thought.

  ‘It wasn’t you who told them?’ She sounded genuinely confused by that. ‘I thought it must’ve been you, after I spoke to you earlier.’

  ‘No, I was tempted, but I thought it would make even more trouble.’

  ‘Oh shit, Mulcahy,’ she said. ‘I’m really sorry. I think I might have really fucked things up for you. That guy Murtagh, he said he remembered my name from last year and the Priest and stuff, and he mentioned your name, and then he said he’d been speaking to you earlier about this case and I just assumed … ’

  Even with the last stretch of the M8 open and the traffic thin in the early morning it took Mulcahy four hours to get there. Much of it in darkness. As the glare of his headlights picked out the names of the towns and villages he sped past – Newbridge, Kildare, Monasterevin, Abbeyleix, Durrow, Urlingford – it felt like he was leaving the dawn behind him rather than driving into the light of a new day. He remembered reading in the Irish Times about it being the autumn equinox that night, when the sun’s power took its focus off the northern hemisphere for the year and tilted away to the south, when day and night fell into balance for a moment before darkness got the upper hand and winter fell. Equinox. Equal night and day. And he thought of the southern hemisphere, of a bright day drawing to a close on a city in South America just as the sun would be rising over Cork. As he sped along the high road past Cashel, the heavy clouds parted and he saw the harvest moon gleaming down on the Rock’s towers and ancient buildings, and his heart lifted momentarily in awe. Then the sky closed up again and plunged him back into darkness

  It was ten past nine and the sun was well up by the time he cruised into Skibbereen, a bustling, prosperous little market town previously known only to Mulcahy for its touristic fame, and as the location of pits containing the bones of 10,000 victims of the Great Famine. He drove slowly past the old courthouse, looking for an empty space in the glut of Garda cars and media vans parked on the main road out front. He’d spoken briefly to Murtagh on the way down, knew he’d been due to hold a press conference there at half eight, and he was sure he spotted, as he passed, Siobhan’s cropped black hair among the mob of reporters now streaming out from the tall double doors to film their spots or write up their copy. He found a parking place further down the road, past the hulking grey cathedral, and was walking back towards the courthouse when he saw her again, chatting to some plain-clothes man, her reporter’s notebook in hand, dashing down notes. He waited a moment, until the cop sensed his presence and looked over, annoyed by the intrusion, and only got more so when Siobhan, following the guy’s line of sight, shut her notebook, thanked him quickly and walked straight over.

  ‘Mulcahy,’ she laughed, ‘am I ever glad to see you.’ She fell into step beside him, linking her arm into the crook of his elbow, and the zing of her touch pulsed through him. She seemed not even to notice, and the wide grin on her face utterly transformed her from the woman he’d met over the last couple of days. As if the anxiety she had given off then was just a skin to be shed and now, here she was, back to her old self completely.

  ‘Your humour’s improved,’ Mulcahy said, finding it impossible not to let his own rise with it.

  ‘Why wouldn’t it? I’m already in the middle of a cracking murder story and now you’re going to give me the inside track on it. Short of there being nuclear Armageddon tomorrow, I’m guaranteed the front page. What’s not to be happy about?’

  He resisted the urge to remind her of the early morning rant, and the massive bollocking he would inevitably get from Murtagh for involving her, but she seemed to interpret his silence only as hesitation.

  ‘You are going to give me the inside track, aren’t you?’ she said, eyebrows arched reprovingly. ‘You promised, Mulcahy.’

  He pulled up, removed her arm from his and looked her in the eye.

  ‘It’s probably better if we’re not seen getting too cosy together out here. I’ve got to go check in with Murtagh, which is going to take a while. Can we meet up in an hour or so, maybe? I’ll give you everything I can then.’

  ‘Everything you “can”? You said “everything you need” last night.’

  ‘And that’s what I meant, too, Siobhan, but there are limits to everything. I promise I’ll give you more than enough, though, okay? Look, go and find somewhere we can talk privately and I’ll meet you there as soon as I’m done, yeah?’ He turned to go, but stopped. ‘What the hell were you doing in Glandore yesterday, anyway? How did you even know about Hayes?’

  ‘Someone in Skibbereen told me he ran a boating business with Horgan. I didn’t remember seeing him at the funeral. I was just wondering why he didn’t go. Looks like I was right to, doesn’t it?’

  It did, but that wasn’t what Mulcahy had been getting at. ‘I don’t see why you were so interested in Horgan still. I thought it’s Gemma Kearney you’re looking for?’

  ‘It is. But it’s a kind of different story now, isn’t it? I mean, even with the drugs run to Bristol, Horgan’s story was blowing up, but with a murder involved now, I mean—’

  ‘Hang on, Siobhan,’ Mulcahy broke in, his voice a low whisper of disbelief. He put his hand on her upper arm and steered her into the doorway of the vacant shop they were outside, as if this would afford them some kind of auditory shelter. ‘What are you talking about? What drugs run to Bristol?’

  She looked up at him, whether trying to figure out how much he knew, or just amused that she knew something he didn’t, he couldn�
�t tell. ‘Well, I don’t know for certain that’s what it was. I told you Horgan went to Amsterdam, didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes, but … ’ He didn’t even bother finishing the sentence.

  She quickly outlined to him what she’d discovered about Horgan’s flight to Amsterdam and subsequent overnight drive down to Calais and on to Bristol, with Mulcahy looking more exasperated with every detail.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this before, Siobhan?’

  ‘I tried,’ she said indignantly. ‘You were the one who told me I’d been given a bum steer and that I shouldn’t go jumping to conclusions. Anyway, I wasn’t sure what it meant myself until you told me about Gemma and this guy Begley being involved and then, well, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist, do you?’

  Mulcahy blew out his cheeks, ran both hands back over his head, then cupped them over his mouth as he tried to figure out how all this slotted into the investigation.

  ‘Have you told anyone else about this?’ he asked eventually.

  She shook her head. ‘Not a soul.’

  ‘Not while you were being questioned last night?’

  ‘Are you mad?’ she said, giving him the look. ‘And let those fuckers give it to some other reporter?’

  She was so different to him, so sharp sometimes it hurt.

  ‘Right, of course,’ he said, still slightly thrown by how much she knew. He looked at his watch, remembering Murtagh. ‘I’ve got to go. Look, we’ll figure this out later, okay?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ she said. ‘Just confirm one thing for now – you’re working on the assumption that both Hayes and Horgan were involved in drugs smuggling, yes?’

  ‘We’re not sure of it yet.’ He hesitated a moment. ‘But that’s part of it, yes.’

  Now it was her eyes that were widening. She even licked her lips in anticipation. ‘Part of it? You mean there’s more?’

  It was Mulcahy’s turn to smile. ‘You ought to have more faith in me, Siobhan. I told you it was a big story, didn’t I?’

  He made his way up the steps of the courthouse, a solid, stone-porticoed neoclassical heap that echoed inside with the sound of hurrying footsteps. There was a general air of energy and urgency he suspected wasn’t the norm around there. He asked a uniform where the incident room had been set up, and was directed upstairs to a big, shabby, high-ceilinged meeting room that took up most of the upper floor. In the ceiling rows of dirt-streaked Victorian skylights let in a murky light that had to be supplemented by hanging pairs of harsh fluorescent tubes. Beneath he saw Murtagh standing at the centre of a huddle of uniforms and detectives, the shortest man there, but instantly identifiable as the most important.

  Mulcahy hadn’t even made it halfway across the room before the assistant commissioner spotted him and detached himself from the group, hand extended in greeting as ever. He was looking remarkably hale for a man who had been up most of the night, and the energy came off him in waves as Mulcahy shook his hand.

  ‘You got here in good time,’ Murtagh said, steering him over towards an area in which a number of freestanding whiteboards had been set up in a wide semicircle. Facing them were a couple of rows of desks, most as yet unoccupied, where a desktop computer network was still being organised by technicians from the IT Unit.

  Murtagh pointed at the central whiteboard, which was already festooned in maps, scene-of-crime photos and other documents, as well as a list of names scrawled in marker pen. ‘I want you to come down to Glandore with me in a minute,’ he continued, ‘but first take a look at these photos from the scene. The local lads fished your man Hayes out of the water last night – he was attracting quite a crowd – and we’re expecting an initial assessment back from the state pathologist this morning. Not that there’s much to assess. Half the man’s head was missing from the blast. Tell me what you think.’

  ‘Shotgun, obviously,’ Mulcahy observed, studying one of the grim close-up photos that had been pinned up, its vivid colours and runnels and ridges of blasted flesh more like a violent expressionist painting than the remains of a human head. He knew there would be far worse in the folders lying on the nearest desk. They only ever pinned up the least offensive ones, for fear that someone unauthorised might wander unchallenged into the incident room.

  ‘I’d say so,’ Murtagh said, ‘but too much damage for a sawn-off, we reckon, unless it was totally point blank. Looks like it was from behind, to the left. Even if he had more face on him, I’m sure we wouldn’t see anything but surprise on it.’

  Mulcahy turned his attention to another photograph, taken earlier, when the body was still in the water, floating face down, arms and legs spread out like a starfish, only the bloody red mush of the head and shoulder wound, and the slick of corporeal matter that had oozed from it, spoiling the picture’s weird sense of tranquillity.

  ‘Not much for the lads from Technical to get their teeth into,’ Mulcahy said.

  ‘No, not on the body,’ Murtagh acknowledged, ‘but he was up forward on his boat when it happened, so there’s a fair bit of evidence to be collected from there. The boys think he didn’t go straight into the water, but took it in the back on deck and then rolled over the side. C’mon, I’ll take you down there now. There are a couple of other things I want to ask you about on the way.’

  The huddle in the middle of the room had broken up after Murtagh abandoned it. Now he approached three men in crumpled suits who had continued in deep conversation and told them he was going over to Glandore again, with Mulcahy. The men gave Mulcahy an assessing glance and he recognised a couple of them from the video briefing he’d given the day before. They returned his nod perfunctorily, then assured Murtagh they’d call in the event of any developments.

  Murtagh was eager to get going, so Mulcahy suggested they go in the Saab. The sun was high, the sky a storybook blue graced with an occasional cotton-ball cloud rolling in from the west. Once they turned off the main route to Cork and out towards Glandore, the road ran alongside a long seawater inlet, narrow like a fjord, that glittered a dark sapphire blue in the sun. The steep land either side looked glorious, quilted in rich green vegetation, peat-brown earth and pale grey rock – with the road a darker shade of grey spreading out before them. Even Murtagh was temporarily quieted by it, although it didn’t take long for him to get back to what he wanted: explanations.

  ‘I know I said this earlier, Mike, but notwithstanding your tremendous help yesterday, that’s some coincidence, you giving us the drop on a suspect who’s never even blipped our radar before, and a couple of hours later he’s dead. Especially when it’s your lady friend who turns out to be the last person ever to see him alive. That’s a hell of a tough one to swallow, you know?’

  Mulcahy had already tried to explain it to him over the phone in the early hours after Siobhan called him, and would have tried again now if it hadn’t been for his surprise.

  ‘Does she know she was the last?’ Mulcahy said.

  ‘Maybe not,’ Murtagh grunted. ‘I doubt the lads who did the interview wanted to hand her another headline.’

  Mulcahy nodded. That made sense.

  ‘The thing is, we think she might have seen the killer, too.’ Murtagh fixed him with a sidelong stare, as if suspecting Siobhan might have said something to him about it. ‘I’m pretty sure she doesn’t realise that, either, though.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ Mulcahy gasped, knowing she wouldn’t have kept that to herself.

  ‘She didn’t say anything to you about it?’

  Mulcahy glanced involuntarily at him, calculating the chances of Murtagh having seen them together on the street earlier, putting them at nil. He had to be referring to the early hours phone call, which had prompted Mulcahy’s call to him.

  ‘No, not a word. Why do you think she was?’

  Murtagh shifted in his seat before replying. ‘The killer struck less than half an hour after Fallon left Glandore. She told me she’d spoken to you on the phone and you told her to get out of there. Not the brightest thing
to tell a journalist, Mike.’ Murtagh gave him a disparaging glance before continuing. ‘Needless to say, she went straight back to Hayes and started quizzing him again, which led to a stand-up row on the quayside according to a couple of witnesses. I think she only left in the end out of frustration. We think the killer must have been sitting in his car all the while, watching and waiting for things to calm down again. It worked, to the extent that not a living soul saw the actual shooting, but we do have two people who say they saw a stranger sitting in a car down by the pier. A man in his late thirties with long, blond hair, one of them said—’

  ‘Shit!’ Mulcahy cursed, unable to stop himself. ‘Was the car a pale blue or green Honda Jazz, something like that?’

  Murtagh gave him a hard, suspicious look. ‘An old-style VW Golf, we were told. Light green. How the hell would you know that?’

  They were coming into Glandore now and Mulcahy pulled in at the first spot he could, opposite the harbour in the lea of what seemed to be a high old churchyard wall with a tall screen of yew behind. Across the road an ugly new-build hotel looked cramped and uneasy, hopelessly out of place, yet another testament to the greed of the boom years. Ahead of them, on a rise of land where the inlet opened out into a wide, tranquil bay, was the most picturesque location for murder Mulcahy had ever seen: a cluster of old white houses winding up the hill, the squat stone pier’s protective sweep enfolding a scattering of small fishing boats and tenders to serve a flotilla of larger craft moored in the blue-green waters beyond.

  Mulcahy switched off the engine, and putting a hand up to stave off the broadside that would inevitably follow, he told Murtagh everything he hadn’t in the briefing the day before. About how Siobhan Fallon had approached him regarding Gemma Kearney. And more particularly about McTiernan’s murder, and how a more dangerous killer than Murtagh imagined could well be on the loose.

  ‘And are you seriously expecting me to believe that we could have a Colombian hit man running around here in West Cork?’ Murtagh didn’t so much ask the question as spit it.