Darkest Truth

by Catherine Kirwan

  What did matter was that, according to Tiernan, Donnie cleaned up Gill’s messes.

  And that Gill and his mother were saying that Donnie had forced Esther Gill to drive him to Rhona’s house where he had murdered her.

  I thought it through. It was certainly plausible. From what Tiernan was saying, Donnie had to know about his boss’s sexual appetites. And it was highly likely that Pawel the security guard reported to Donnie rather than to Gill directly – Lenihan would need to check that to be sure of it. But assuming that’s how it had happened, Donnie could have heard from Pawel about me visiting Rhona. He could have seen the danger and taken the initiative. And killed Rhona. To protect his job, his position? To protect Gill? A jury might go for that story.

  Then I remembered what Tiernan had said: ‘He wasn’t involved when we were making the short film.’ How would Donnie have known the significance of me visiting and talking to Rhona Macbride unless he had discussed it with Gill? He might have put it together eventually. But so fast? She was murdered barely twelve hours after I’d met her.

  Gill, on the other hand, would have spotted the risk immediately. The three of them – Esther, Donnie and Jeremy – had to have planned Rhona’s murder together.

  But how was I ever going to prove it?

  When I went back inside, Lenihan and Sadie were still in the interview room. They’d been joined by two other members of the murder team that Lenihan didn’t waste time introducing.

  ‘Well, Fitzpatrick,’ he said. ‘Any idea where we might find Bryant?’

  ‘Bryant?’

  ‘Christ,’ Lenihan said. ‘Rhona Macbride’s murderer, remember him? Donnie Bryant. US citizen. Still in this fair land, for now at least, as far as we know.’

  ‘Why do you think he’s still in Ireland?’

  ‘Because we found his passport. One of ye lads show her, for fuck sake.’

  The taller of the two detectives pulled a plastic evidence bag from his suit jacket and handed it to me. The bag contained a blue American passport issued to Donnie Bryant, date of birth 4th March 1978.

  ‘Is it real?’

  ‘First thing we checked. It’s real but …’ Lenihan said.

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Then the date of birth could be real too. But he must have an Irish passport as well. Look at the place of birth: Ireland.’

  ‘That’s the second thing we checked. There’s no record of a Donnie or Donald or Donal Bryant born in Ireland on the 4th of March 1978. The passport’s real but he must have got it under an assumed name. We’ve put in a request and we’re waiting for info on him to come back from the American authorities. But I reckon he built up a false identity. He could have done it over years, maybe.’

  ‘It makes sense,’ I said. ‘He changed everything about himself. Of course he’d have changed his name too. But you need to be searching for him under his original name now. Donnie Bryant may have acquired US citizenship, but he’s not American. He’s Irish. He’s the ex-education officer of Cork Film Festival. And his real name is Daniel O’Brien.’

  46

  Marie Wade had been right in her recollection: the former education officer was from Clare, from the Gort Road in Ennis. Estranged from his family following his parents’ acrimonious separation, he had studied art in Limerick and worked a succession of short-term jobs before meeting up with Jeremy Gill in Cork in 1998.

  The guards found Donnie Bryant at Shannon Airport, in the queue for a Ryanair flight. If he had made it to Lanzarote, he could have lived very comfortably at Esther Gill’s holiday apartment for a long time without being caught. He had enough cash on him to last several months and he had dyed his hair dark brown. He had on Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses and a ‘Dodgers’ official merchadise baseball cap turned backwards. But his Irish passport gave his name as Daniel O’Brien. And he was going nowhere.

  Disappointingly, the station didn’t have one of those two-way mirrors you see on the TV cop shows. Instead, Sadie and I were hunched over a laptop in Lenihan’s office, watching a live feed from Interview Room 3, now occupied by Donnie Bryant and his solicitor, and Lenihan and one of the detectives Lenihan hadn’t introduced me to.

  I was glad that Donnie had been caught, but I wasn’t at all happy with what he’d been saying ever since. Still talking in that ridiculous Californian accent, he had made a full confession, taking on all responsibility for Rhona’s death; for everything, it seemed. Lenihan hadn’t yet asked Donnie if he knew where Shergar was, but I had a hunch he’d admit to the horse’s kidnap if he thought it might help Jeremy. Donnie absolved the Gills of all guilt, including the allegations of sexual misbehaviour made by Christopher Dalton. Donnie had never seen any of that: Jeremy was a gentleman who never laid a finger on anyone. That part would be easy enough to disprove, and would damage Donnie’s credibility, but he was sticking solidly to the story that he had acted alone, and that Esther had driven him in fear of her life.

  ‘Why did you kill Rhona, Donnie?’ Lenihan kept asking.

  ‘I did it,’ Donnie kept replying. ‘It’s none of your business why I did it. Jeremy and Esther had nothing to do with it. It was my idea. They just got caught up in my madness. I want to do everything I can to make it up to them. They’ve been so good to me. I don’t want them to spend another second in this awful place. I want you to charge me with the murder of Rhona Macbride. I know my rights. You have to charge me or you have to release me. You can’t keep a suspect here indefinitely when you have enough evidence to charge.’

  Unfortunately, Donnie was right. The clock was ticking. If there wasn’t a break soon, he’d be heading for court, charged with Rhona’s murder, and Esther and Jeremy would be released and their file sent to the DPP. They might end up being charged with nothing. The DPP only brings forward charges where there’s a reasonable chance of conviction. The way Donnie was talking? I wouldn’t bet on ever seeing the Gills in the dock.

  In fairness to Lenihan, he was dogged. He was walking Donnie back through his story for the tenth or twelfth time, excavating any inconsistency, hoping he might start to become complacent.

  ‘Tell me again how you got to Shannon.’

  ‘You know this already.’

  ‘Humour me, Donnie. I’m just doing my job. And this is the last time, I promise.’

  ‘Okay, Inspector Lenihan,’ Donnie said. ‘As you well know, I drove to Shannon.’

  ‘What kind of car do you drive?’

  ‘As you well know, I drive a 2013 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sportiva.’

  ‘Small,’ Lenihan said.

  I sat up. Lenihan was going off script.

  ‘It’s a beautiful car, Inspector Lenihan. Beautifully designed. Anyway, I’m not here in Ireland much. I drive a bigger car back home in Los Angeles.’

  ‘Another Alfa?’

  ‘Yes, as it happens.’

  ‘I drive a Passat,’ Lenihan said. ‘Very reliable.’

  ‘Reliable but dull,’ Donnie said.

  ‘You can’t beat the Germans, though. When I’ve some money, I’m getting a Merc.’

  ‘You’ve no romance in you, Inspector. I’ve always driven Italian cars.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Even when I hadn’t a bean, I had style.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘My first car was a Fiat, a yellow Cinquecento,’ Donnie said.

  ‘Hang on,’ I shouted. ‘A yellow Cinquecento. That’s the car Joey O’Connor saw him driving. Dropping Deirdre off at her house …’

  ‘What?’ Sadie asked. ‘What has this to do with anything?’

  ‘Where did I put my fucking phone?’

  ‘Here’s your fucking phone,’ Sadie said. ‘Are you okay? You look …’

  I grabbed the phone from her and started scrolling through my pictures until I found the one I was looking for. My fingers shaking, I enlarged it.

  ‘Thanks be to God,’ I said. ‘Poke your head in the door of the interview room, Sadie – I can’t do it, Donnie would recognise me – and tell Lenihan I’ve got somethi
ng and that I need to talk to him now.’

  ‘What have you got?’ Sadie asked.

  ‘Proof that Daniel “Donnie” O’Brien stayed in Muskerry Castle with Thomson AdGroup in 1998. He signed the guest book. I have a photograph of his signature. The 12th of December 1998. The same night Jeremy Gill raped Deirdre Carney. Joey O’Connor saw Donnie – Daniel O’Brien, as he was then – dropping Deirdre Carney home in his Cinquecento. Joey can’t say when he saw it happening, but Donnie doesn’t know that. And I know in my heart and soul it was the morning after the rape. That fucker Donnie, he’s not just protecting Gill now, he’s been protecting him, enabling him, all along. For years. Donnie’s the organiser, the manager. He must want to tell that story.’

  It took a little longer than I’d hoped to convince Lenihan, and it took even longer than that for Donnie to start talking. Sadie and I were watching the interview on-screen in Lenihan’s office and for a while we were losing hope.

  ‘I know you’ve explained before,’ Lenihan said. ‘But I still can’t figure out what your job was.’

  ‘Assistant, like I’ve told you about fifty times.’

  ‘Like some kind of a secretary?’

  ‘No. I was Jeremy’s personal assistant.’

  ‘Picking up his dry-cleaning kind of assistant?’

  ‘That was not my job. I had no domestic duties.’

  ‘O-kay,’ Lenihan said. ‘Putting petrol in the car, maybe?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t get it. Not a secretary. No domestic duties. No general duties. Nothing that sounds like anything. Oh, hang on, am I missing something here, was it some kind of a Rock Hudson scenario?’

  Donnie sighed.

  ‘I might have expected you’d be homophobic as well as stupid,’ he said. ‘For the record, Jeremy Gill is not gay and neither am I.’

  ‘For the record could you tell me what the fuck you were getting paid for, so?’

  ‘We had a strictly professional relationship.’

  ‘Professionally doing sweet fuck all by the sound of it.’

  ‘No no no,’ Donnie said. ‘I worked hard. Nothing happened without me.’

  ‘You mean you were like a producer or something?’

  ‘It’s a simplistic analogy but you could put it like that, I suppose.’

  ‘Have you a better way of putting it?’

  ‘Maybe first assistant director is a better analogy.’

  ‘Sounds menial.’

  ‘Only someone who knows nothing about the film business would think that. A first A-D runs the set, the logistics, the whole fucking thing, you fucking dope.’

  ‘And that’s what you did?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But for Gill personally.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Lenihan sat back in his chair and scratched his head.

  ‘I still don’t understand it,’ he said. ‘But it sounds like some cushy number.’

  ‘Cushy is the last thing it was, you fucking ignoramus,’ Donnie said. ‘Jeremy would have been caught years ago only for me. He thinks he’s invincible and that he can do anything but he needs a support team. Genius is genius, but genius needs help. His mother knew that too. You know, right at the beginning, Jeremy didn’t understand why Rhona had to die. With the arrogance that makes him a great director, all that certainty, he was sure she’d keep quiet, like she had done all these years. But the risk was too great. Eventually he saw that, eventually we persuaded him. Well, his mother did. She made him see that Rhona had more on him than any of the others. He was still doing it DIY back then with Rhona, doing the collecting in his own car, that old Toyota, doing the drop-off after. That was the very first thing I changed. Right from what’s her name, the girl in Cork in that great hotel, Muskerry Castle. It was really nice being back there recently, actually.’

  ‘The girl from Cork? You’re talking about Deirdre Carney?’

  ‘Yes, Deirdre, that was her name. She was a fighter. All talk about reporting Jeremy on the way back from the hotel. Until I explained to her that no one would ever believe her. And told her what would happen if it ever went to court. In intimate detail. You know, all the usual stuff, about how it’s the victim who’s on trial, really.’

  He paused.

  ‘Tell me I’m wrong.’

  Lenihan shrugged.

  ‘You see, you can’t,’ Donnie said. ‘That’s what I told Deirdre, how she’d never recover, all of that. I was good at it and I got better over the years. I had to. I learnt on the job. A steep learning curve that was, I can tell you. Jeremy, well, he’s a handful. Once he gets a fixation on one of them, he has to follow through. That Carmel from the workshop, she was next in line, once the coast was clear. He wasn’t going to do anything until it was, obviously. He’s got his, em, well, weaknesses, but he’s not a fool. He was able to wait, he was always able to wait once he knew that it was going to be worth his while.’

  ‘And Rhona? Her death?’

  ‘She would have ruined everything if she’d talked. That’s why she had to go. He knew we were right. He saw it. He was grateful. And Esther … We were, we are, so close.’

  ‘Who planned it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Rhona’s murder?’

  ‘Well, Jeremy did, of course. Something big like that? I know my limitations. No, Jeremy was reluctant at first but once he’d decided, he swung into action. And it worked with military precision, right down to the last detail. I was really nervous. But having Jeremy on speakerphone in the car all the way to Rhona’s house and back, my nerves disappeared. He’s a great actors’ director, you know. Everyone says that.’

  ‘I’m sure he’ll be a great addition to the prison drama group,’ Lenihan said.

  47

  Stone built, with classic proportions, Ionic columns, and black cast-iron gates and railings to the front, the place looked innocent enough, if you didn’t know better. But Green Street Courthouse was a fortress, set squat on a narrow street, easily controllable at both ends. There were two small front doors, but only one was open to the public, and that could be closed fast at the first hint of trouble. The side yard was surrounded by walls too high to climb and topped with metal spikes in case anyone was foolish enough to try.

  Inside, the bitter tang of disappointment tainted the air. If you were in the dock here, you were probably going down. In the old days, that meant hanging, transportation to Van Diemen’s Land, or maximum security in Portlaoise Prison. More recently, since the Special Criminal Court had moved to Parkgate Street, the place had gone soft. Drug Court was held here now, where judges and probation officers worked with long-term addicts who wanted to get clean, stay out of jail, and live a better life.

  But Drug Court had finished for the day. It was after five, and it was night. I gazed through the Georgian windows at the black of the sky. There is a very particular atmosphere in a courtroom after dark. During regular daylight hours, anyone might ramble in for a look: tourists, schoolkids, nosy pensioners, underemployed lawyers, time-killers of various kinds. When it’s late, it’s different. All the people in the courtroom have a stake in the proceedings. At a special sitting, a case that can’t wait till morning, everyone knows that something important and extraordinary is about to happen. I could taste it, that peculiar combination of anticipation and privilege. We would know the story before anyone else, see it, and hear it. Along with a small number of favoured reporters and court staff, legal teams and guards shuffled papers, exchanged looks, or talked quietly in the body of the court, but the scene wasn’t as Gill would have directed it. There had been no waiting supporters, no cheers, no rounds of applause. I had watched the Garda van as it drove into the side yard. Television cameras had filmed its arrival, but there would be no shot of Gill walking in, and no photography was permitted in the building. There wasn’t even a court artist, though there would be one at the trial. For now, Gill had lost control of his image. He would enter the court the same as any ordinary accused person. I sat alone on a ben
ch, in a high corner of the public gallery, and waited.

  At about ten past five, the door at the far side of the court opened and a female Garda in uniform walked through, followed by Esther Gill, and Sadie O’Riordan. A hush fell over the room. Whoever had chosen Esther’s court clothes had done her no favours. She must have asked for a suit, but she couldn’t have meant this one, a baby-blue spring wedding coat and dress with a thin flower print chiffon scarf that did nothing to protect her from the biting cold. Despite the make-up, her skin was almost the same colour as her outfit, but she had two faint spots of pink blusher on her cheeks, like an antique china doll. Her hair, normally big and over-styled, was so flat and thin that I could see her skull. The crowd parted before her. The first Garda helped her up the steps to the dock, and sat behind her. Sadie stood on the floor below, in silence.

  A few minutes later, Gill climbed the stairs from the cells and emerged in the dock. He was wearing a dark grey business suit, with a mid-blue shirt and a navy and red striped tie. Were it not for his trademark long hair, he would have been indistinguishable from the male lawyers present. He took his place beside his mother. I had a side view of his face. His jaw stiff, he stared straight ahead at the vacant judge’s chair. His mother whispered to him, he nodded, and resumed staring at the same spot. His solicitor left his seat at the front of the courtroom below the judge’s desk, walked down to the dock, and muttered something to Gill. He bent to listen, but didn’t reply. It was unnerving, the silence, the fixed gaze, so different from his garrulous public persona. Proceedings hadn’t started but, when they could bear to drag their eyes away from him, the journalists were already scratching at their notebooks.