Proof: Garda file 37204-A.
“As you can see, I plan to use your own file against you. You’re a good policeman and you’ve built a solid case against yourself.”
“What’s my motive?”
“Patriotism. You are a covert agent of the IRA.” Horrigan opened the middle drawer of the writing desk and pushed a button on a portable tape recorder.
McGarr heard his own voice saying, “I support the IRA.”
Another voice, Horrigan’s, then asked him, “Well, how much, you know, theoretically?”
“Right down the line. Some tactics, of course, I deplore. For instance, the bombing of any target other than military. Cops are paid to take their chances. But as for the violence itself, have they any option?”
Horrigan stopped the machine, removed the cassette, and put another into it. The machine played a recording of the conversation McGarr had had with Spud Murphy about running to ground in Dingle. Murphy’s allusion to McGarr’s not as yet being in the IRA had been deleted, however.
McGarr was surprised. Since Horrigan had tapped his phone, he probably knew everything about McGarr’s investigation but the false confession.
“Didn’t think I’d be so thorough, did you?”
“Don’t think for a moment that I underestimated you.”
“I didn’t include your practice of letting many IRA suspects, like Murphy, off lightly, how you didn’t arrest Ovens when you learned he was an arms smuggler, the sheet of oak tag which implicates your wife and gives the name of your contact, Muldoon, in the North, to whom you probably rushed a photocopy of the Bombing Report via Murphy in Galway, and the bank teller who will swear that you purchased that cashier’s check, which has your fingerprints on it, because I know you realize any good lawyer, like myself, will raise all those issues.
“And what do you have, Chief Inspector?” Horrigan leaned back in his chair. His curly hair seemed greyer now, his fleshy face and bulbous nose were blotched. McGarr knew he had stomach trouble. Having removed his suit coat, Horrigan was plainly fat.
“Your wife has confessed in her father’s presence, and he did not deny her statement, which she signed.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“She had just come from the Dublin Horse Show. She had on white gloves, white shoes, and a flower-print dress. She found Ovens on the dock somewhat drunker than usual, staring at Virelay as though the vessel were a dying thing to which she had delivered the mortal blow. And, as usual, he ignored her.
“She started in on him. That day he wouldn’t even listen to her. He got up, boarded Virelay, and went below. When Hubbard and O’Brugha saw her take the handle from the winch and follow Ovens, they immediately went to his aid. As they approached the boat they could hear her berating him, working herself up into a fit. They got into the cabin just in time to grab her arm and diminish the effect of the blows somewhat. Otherwise, Ovens would be dead.
“Ovens blundered up the companionway and fell onto the deck. Hubbard went for the phone to call an ambulance, at the same time leading Leona away from the vessel. O’Brugha ran for a litter and first-aid kit. No sooner had they gotten down on the dock than Ovens scrambled to his feet, fell again, got up, tripped over the hatch to the ice chest, and tumbled into the slip. The moment that O’Brugha got a boat hook on him, Captain Moran, who was watching them through binoculars from his bungalow up on the hill, set off the emergency siren and called the police.”
McGarr reached for the telephone on Horrigan’s desk. “What’s the Taoseaich’s phone number?”
Horrigan consulted a circular file on the desk. “834157.”
McGarr dialed the number and handed the phone to Horrigan. “Ask for O’Shaughnessy. Have him read the brief of the report, then the confession itself.”
After listening for a while, just as McGarr had expected, Horrigan said, “Put the Taoseaich’s secretary on, please.” He paused for a moment and said, “This is Minister for Justice Horrigan, Gerald. Does Superintendent O’Shaughnessy have an appointment to see the Taoseaich? Four-thirty and with McGarr. I see—thank you.” Horrigan’s face was now ashen and drawn.
He got up from the desk and moved to a sideboard. There he bent and drew a decanter from below. He poured a very full glass and handed it to McGarr. “How did you do it? I never doubted for a moment Leona’s will to survive or that Mairtín would cave in in any way.” Horrigan sat at the desk.
McGarr leaned against one of the long tables.
“You didn’t have any real proof before that, did you?”
McGarr shook his head. “All the blood-spattered shoes and dress did was to place her at the scene of the crime. We had a photo too, but that’s not proof, since it would be impossible to get an exact time on it. And we couldn’t arrest either Ovens or Leona for the gun grease on the hull of Virelay.”
“And the old man admitted to the crime?” Horrigan asked.
McGarr nodded.
“That was the plan, you know. If you discovered his identity.”
“Did she know about the plan?” McGarr drank from the tumbler.
“Is this off the record?”
McGarr shook his head. “Of course not. Nothing is ever off the record with a policeman.”
“What does it matter, really?” Horrigan rubbed his knuckles across the stubble on his cheek. “She came to me right after it happened, and we worked it out together. It was the first thing we had done, you know”—he glanced at McGarr—”together in a long time. Years and years. She wanted my help. That meant something, but we really didn’t have time enough to plan properly.
“If only that blasted Moran hadn’t touched off the horn. The minute the police arrived, however, it was quite another story.”
McGarr thought briefly of the afternoon on the dock. If the weather hadn’t been so pleasant, he would have let Hughie Ward and Bernie McKeon handle the junket to Bray. The other two, in a rush to establish themselves at the bar of the Khyber Pass, would have reported Ovens’ injury as an accident. So much the better that would have been for all parties concerned, he mused.
“When I found out you were on the case, I panicked.” Again Horrigan looked up at McGarr. “Your reputation is formidable, Peter, and deservedly so.”
McGarr drained the glass. “Do you still love her?”
Horrigan’s brow furrowed. “I certainly must. At least it appears I shall have given up a very great deal for her, enough perhaps to call it love?”
There was a question in Horrigan’s voice. McGarr did not want to answer it. He pushed himself off the table. “Have you released the Bombing Report to the papers yet?”
“Unfortunately—this morning.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Yes—I hope it doesn’t ruin you, Peter, now that there’s no advantage in it for me.”
“It certainly won’t, if you have the decency to tell the Taoseaich the truth. Otherwise, I’m sure that I can get Driver to crack. We’ll dry him out and apply pressure. Now that he can’t use the money you gave him, he’ll come around.”
Horrigan raised his eyebrows.
“I’ll impound it as evidence. The trial could drag on for years. Driver will never be able to post bond, and he’ll come around in jail. He’s the sort of person who needs his”—McGarr looked into his glass—“freedom. In return for reduced charges he’ll testify against you.” McGarr could be sure of none of this. In the meantime, however, things would become very sticky for the chief inspector. From the very pith of his being, McGarr wanted to convince Horrigan that not owning up to the theft of the Bombing Report now would only bring Horrigan further trouble in the future.
McGarr continued. “But I meant that the real shame is your having let the thing go. If you hadn’t been so hasty, I was willing to let all your”—McGarr fished for the right word—“peccadilloes drop. After all, we understand each other now.”
“You were?” Horrigan reached for the phone. “What if it’s still possible?”
McG
arr placed the glass on the desk. “Good luck, David.” He turned to go.
Horrigan tugged at the sleeve of his raincoat. He took the tape cassettes from the middle drawer of the desk and handed them to McGarr. “No hard feelings?”
“Not now—no.”
They shook hands and McGarr left.
In the lobby of the Shelbourne a small boy was ripping the cords off a parcel of Heralds that announced the release of the Bombing Report.
CHAPTER 9
IT WAS TWILIGHT by the time the Cooper crested Dalkey Hill. Setting behind a cloud bank, the sun suffused the western sky with a magenta glow. The Irish Sea was still, save for a fishing boat that was making for Greystones. Its starboard beacon cast a finger of green light on the glassy water. The gentle curve of shoreline from Killiney to Bray Head was dark now.
Even before McGarr geared down the steep hill from the Khyber Pass Hotel, past Captain Moran’s white bungalow, and toward the complex of slate roofs, which was the yacht club, he could see the glow of Ovens’ cigarette on the dock.
He was seated on the soft-drink case, staring at Virelay as she swayed on her dock lines in the wind that now began to blow shoreward with the approach of night. He had a smudge of grease on the bandages that wrapped his head.
McGarr pulled another wooden case off the afterdeck and sat beside Ovens, who handed him a half-empty bottle of rum.
When they had drunk that, Ovens stood. “What’s going to happen to my boat?” he asked. Strangely, his voice was mild, his accent refined.
“Captain Moran and I will sail her back to Dun Laoghaire. Brud Clare can complete the repairs.”
Ovens looked at McGarr.
“Leona Horrigan will pay the bill, I’m sure. It’s the least she can do for you.”
While speeding down the short stretch of dual carriageway in Shankhill, the program of popular music McGarr had switched on was interrupted. An announcer came on with a bulletin that Minister for Justice Horrigan had resigned.
Ovens turned to the window and looked out at the rock walls and empty fields they were passing.
About the Author
Bartholomew Gill is a journalist and the author of the Edgar-nominated Irish Detective Inspector Peter McGarr mystery series. His books sell internationally, and he divides his time between Dublin, Ireland, and Cranberry Lake, New Jersey.
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Praise for Bartholomew Gill and Chief Inspector Peter McGarr:
“Gill highlights the rugged vibrancy and anachronisms of Ireland and its citizens without ever succumbing to cliched Emerald Isle sentimentality.”
Publishers Weekly
“The Peter McGarr detective series continues as heavily imbued with Irish wit and wonder as ever.”
Dallas Morning News
“Gill’s novels are quite a bit more than police procedural…They are distinguished by the quirky integrity that makes McGarr a vivid individual, by Gill’s ability to render the everyday speech of Dublin as music, and by the passions so keenly felt by his characters on both sides of the law.”
Detroit News
“I haven’t had this much fun since—well, since Sherlock Holmes.”
L.A. Times
“Gill offers a provocative plot and an intriguing look at an Ireland few tourists ever see. A fine choice for mystery lovers.”
Booklist
“The author has a keen eye for social conditions and change…It is a cunningly constructed and hugely enjoyable whodunit.”
The Morning Star [UK]
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Copyright
THE DEATH OF AN IRISH POLITICIAN. Copyright © 1977 by Mark McGarrity. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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The Death of an Irish Politician Page 16