Gallows Lane (Inspector Devlin Mystery 2)

by Brian McGilloway

  As Castlederg receded in the rear-view mirror James felt the mood in the car lighten and he too began to relax. This was his part of the plan. The others had done their bit; he was in control now – they were counting on him. His new-found confidence encouraged him and he egged the motor on a bit, edging the dial towards seventy despite the narrowness of the unapproved road they were travelling. James sensed the man beside him tense a little, his hand edging almost instinctively to grip the dashboard in front of him, and James felt a wave of heat inside him. The man was scared. Who was a gay boy now?

  ‘Did it go all right?’ he heard himself ask, almost without a shake in his voice.

  ‘Fucking perfect, Jame’s, one of the men in the back said, his Northern accent clear. This had been the man James hadn’t recognized. Yet there was something familiar about him that he couldn’t put his finger on. It began to annoy him that the men had still not shown him their faces.

  ‘We didn’t have to fire a shot,’ the man continued and held aloft a black bin bag, visibly loaded with blocks of something.

  ‘How much did we get?’ James asked and he sensed the man beside him snorting derisively.

  ‘Plenty, James. Plenty.’

  James did not speak again as they coasted through Clady. They were close to the border now; a few hundred yards away lay one thousand quid guaranteed – the RUC couldn’t follow them into the South even if they had been on their tails. James’s mind flicked to The Great Escape and Steve McQueen. The bike trick. Fucking weird the things you think of in a moment like this.

  ‘Stop along here,’ the man beside him said, and James glanced in the mirror, noticing that the others had loosened their seat belts. ‘We get out here.’

  Kerr slowed, looked around him. They were on a final stretch of road before the border; each side of the road shadowed by tall narrow pine trees, their lower branches bare of needles. Maybe this was where they were to burn the car. His momentary panic subsided; the car had been stolen in the South, so it made sense to burn it in the North, well away from the Guards.

  He pulled to a halt along the side of the road, the car on the edge of a ditch which dropped down to the forest floor ten feet beneath them. His passengers had got out of the car in the time it took him to cut the ignition and release his own seat belt. The one with the dark eyes had come round his side of the car and was opening his door for him. James leaned half out of the car, smiling. But the man did not return his smile. He raised his foot, using it to shove James back into the car. Then he lifted his shotgun, snapping a shell into place. Then everything exploded in colour, and sound, and shadow, and heat and burning. Through his own blood which stippled the windscreen James thought he saw a flock of crows take to the air soundlessly, their wings beating almost a reverberation of the blast.

  The rest Costello had already told me. Village gossip concluded the story thus.

  The car was discovered halfway down the ditch, in a wooded area just north of the border. Three of the gang had run into the South on foot and so were safely out of the jurisdiction of the RUC. The fourth – the driver, James Kerr – had been left in the car injured with a gunshot wound to the shoulder. At first the RUC officers who found him suspected that he had been shot in pursuance of the robbery. But soon they learned that no shots had been fired during the heist. The only logical, but confusing, conclusion was that the boy, Kerr, had been shot and left for dead by his own associates. It was presumed that they deliberately left him on the North of the border to keep An Garda out of the case. Relations between the two police forces – North and South – were famously frosty. Even if Kerr survived and fingered his associates under interview, they were fairly safe from extradition to the North. As it was, Kerr was unable to name anyone, either through misplaced loyalty, or because they hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him who they were. It looked as though, from the beginning, they had intended Kerr to take the blame, dead or alive. The RUC got their arrest, which meant they eased off pressure on the case. Many wondered why the gang had hired Kerr in the first place; the only reason seemed to be that he knew how to drag race cars around the borderlands better than anyone.

  ‘But that’s not wholly true,’ Bardwell said, as we walked along the River Foyle, the strengthening sun sparkling in shattered light off its surface. ‘When Jamie worked out that he’d been set up as a fall guy for the gang, he named Webb, loud and clear, to the RUC. Yet Webb was never arrested, never questioned; his name never appeared during the trial. It was as if the police didn’t believe Jamie, or didn’t want to believe him.’

  ‘Did he have any idea why?’

  ‘None. Except that the cops set him up. But it seems a bit unlikely; Jamie Kerr was small potatoes.’

  ‘So – could it not be that he’s lying? Trying to pin the blame on someone else. I have to be honest with you, Reverend – and I’ve tried to believe James Kerr is on the level with this – Peter Webb didn’t strike me as the kind of man who held up post offices at gunpoint.’

  ‘But he did strike you and your colleagues as the kind of man who’d stash guns and drugs on his property? Why not armed robbery then?’

  I could not answer him and he smiled in response, nodding his head and squinting against the sunlight.

  I offered him a cigarette. ‘How did you get in contact with Kerr anyway?’

  ‘I visit the prisons as part of my mission. God chose to call James – and, more importantly, chose for me to be the vehicle of his conversion. I keep a close eye on all that my flock does. James had nothing to do with Webb’s death.’

  ‘What’s he doing back in Lifford, then?’ I asked.

  ‘He wishes to forgive those who sinned against him. In doing so, he prays that God will forgive his sins.’

  ‘He’s not looking for revenge?’

  ‘Vengeance is God’s, not ours, Inspector. Don’t tell me you’re one of the capital punishment brigade; an eye for an eye.’

  ‘No – the gallows were destroyed long ago in Lifford,’ I quipped. ‘You didn’t think to advise him against tracking down three armed robbers? Has he not considered the possibility that they might not be too enamoured to see him?’

  ‘Christ was not always welcomed either. That is James’s choice. It would be sinful for me to impede his path to righteousness.’

  ‘So what did you do?’ I asked. ‘Behind all this biblical talk, what are you atoning for?’

  He turned to look at me with open suspicion. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, cops can spot ex-cons just as easily as you can spot us. What did you do?’

  He paused for a second and I could see he was trying to gauge how I might react. ‘I murdered a man, Inspector,’ he said, looking me level in the eye as if defying me to make any gesture or sign of condemnation or judgement. ‘I cut his throat with a butcher’s knife for a bet. Because he was one of you – a Catholic.’

  ‘And has God forgiven you for that?’

  ‘I believe he has, Inspector, yes. Whether the rest of society chooses to forgive me is their prerogative. Excuse me,’ he concluded, then strode back to the players, grin in place, hand outstretched. I watched him joke with the men, Catholic and Protestant alike, and wondered at the thoughts or evils which pushed men to do the things they did to each other, and the possibility that such darkness could be dispelled in a place as unremarkable as a football field.

  Chapter Ten

  Monday, 7 June

  When I got into the station on Monday morning, Burgess told me that Jim Hendry had phoned and had left a mobile number, should I want to contact him. I phoned straight away.

  ‘Inspector Devlin; you’ve been looking for me, I believe.’

  ‘I need help, Jim. Something to do with your side of the fence.’

  ‘Enough to spoil a good day’s golfing?’

  ‘Is there such a thing as a good day’s golfing? I thought you were doing something important – like solving crimes.’

  ‘No, no, Ben – something much more serious than t
hat: eighteen holes with the Chief Super – I hope to be a CI soon.’

  ‘Just make sure you’re aiming for the right hole, Jim.’

  ‘That’s why you’ll never make it past Inspector . . . Inspector!’ Hendry replied, his laugh fizzling on the static of the mobile’s reception. ‘Now – what can I do you for?’

  ‘I’m investigating a suspicious death over on our side.’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘Peter Webb.’ I guessed, correctly as it transpired, that Hendry would have heard about Webb’s death.

  ‘I thought that was suicide,’ he said.

  ‘It is at the moment, if anyone asks. My problem is a young fella named James Kerr. Just out after doing a stretch for armed robbery—’

  ‘Castlederg Post Office?’

  ‘That’s him. The thing is – he claims that when he was lifted for that job, he named Webb as one of the gang members; in fact, as the organizer of the gang. Yet he says nothing was ever done about this.’

  ‘When did he tell you this?’

  ‘He didn’t. His religious adviser did.’

  ‘Jesus!’ Hendry laughed.

  ‘No – just his representative, apparently. Anyhow, I was wondering if, very unofficially, you could take a look for me and see what you have on Webb – find out if he was involved.’

  ‘And in return?’

  ‘I’ll let you get back to brown-nosing your way to success.’

  ‘It’s a deal. I’ll be in touch as soon as. Oh, and Ben,’ he said, before hanging up, ‘don’t underestimate the power of being a company man, as they say. Lifford can’t hold you forever.’

  On my way home I took a detour via Gallows Lane. As I drove down the lane into Webb’s home, a car passed me on the road, so closely in fact that I had to drive along the border of the path, the heavy heads of the rhododendrons smearing against my window. It was the red Ford Puma I had seen parked outside Webb’s house the day his wife had reported the prowler; the car which, I was fairly sure, belonged to her gentleman lover. I made a mental note of the registration number and, unable to find my notebook, when I parked outside Webb’s house, I scribbled it on the back of my cigarette box instead.

  I knocked at the front door twice, then, realizing that it was ajar, I pushed it fully open and stepped into the hallway.

  ‘Hello,’ I called.

  ‘Did you—’ Sinead Webb began, coming downstairs. She stopped when she saw that I was not who she had expected.

  ‘Mrs Webb, sorry to bother you,’ I said. ‘I think we need to talk.’

  She poured herself a drink while I told her the findings of her husband’s autopsy. When I concluded that we were now investigating a murder, she sat.

  ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘You’re wrong. Who’d want to kill Peter? There’s been some kind of mistake, Inspector.’

  ‘No mistake, I’m afraid, Mrs Webb.’

  ‘But . . . why? Why would someone kill my husband? The thought of him killing himself was hard enough to take, though with the guns and so on being found I thought perhaps it had pushed him over the edge. But . . . I’ve no idea why someone would want to kill him. It might have been a robbery or something, gone wrong?’

  ‘We don’t think so, Mrs Webb.’ I took out my cigarettes and gestured a request to smoke. She nodded, then asked for one too. ‘Was that your friend I saw leaving here, Mrs Webb?’

  She looked at me over her cigarette as I lit it for her, finally having to break her gaze when the smoke made her eyes water. She wiped at her lower eyelid, pulling it down a little as if an eyelash were irritating her. Then she sat back in her seat and crossed her legs.

  ‘I’m sure you already know that it was, Inspector.’

  ‘Family friend?’

  ‘Personal friend, actually; and nothing whatsoever to do with you – or my husband’s death,’ she added, with a nod of her head, signalling, I realized, the end of our meeting.

  After I left, I phoned through to the station and left a message for Williams to follow up the registration number as a matter of urgency.

  I got home just after six and Debbie was cooking dinner. She gestured with a Bolognese-covered spoon to an envelope on the kitchen table, marked Special Delivery. The letter inside informed me that my application for the post of Superintendent had been received. I was to prepare for an interview in Sligo on Monday, 14 June. Among the names on the interview panel was one I recognized: that of our newly elected local representative, Mrs Miriam Powell, who had signed the letter as Chairperson of the Appointments Panel.

  I showed the letter to Debbie as she spooned the spaghetti from the pot. Shane and Penny were running around the garden with Frank, tugging on his one remaining ear.

  ‘Miriam Powell? You always keep coming back to her, don’t you, Ben? Let’s hope you didn’t prove too much of a disappointment last time.’

  For the remainder of that evening, Debbie was a little rankled with me and I could understand why. Miriam and I had been involved once and had not parted on good terms. I suspected she held me accountable in some way for the death of her husband during a case I had been investigating. I dreaded to think how my interview would actually progress or the comments or questions she might choose to raise. And I was also reluctant to allow her, however peripherally, to re-enter my family life once more.

  I slept badly that night, waking every hour or so. Indeed, I was already up and dressed when, at 5.30 a.m., I got a phone call to say that it was suspected that the man who killed Karen Doherty had struck again. Except this time, his victim had survived.

  Chapter Eleven

  Tuesday, 8 June

  Rebecca Purdy was fifteen years old, though she could have passed for much older, which is presumably how she managed to gain admittance to Club Manhattan.

  By the time we saw her, her face was so badly bruised and swollen that her parents struggled to recognize her. There were livid purple abrasions around her neck where her assailant had tried to strangle her during an assault in a field just outside of Letterkenny.

  Rebecca had told her parents she was going to a birthday party; instead she and her friends had managed to sneak into Club Manhattan. This she told us while her mother sat by her bedside, holding her hand tightly, her eyes red, her face drawn with concern. Her father paced alongside her bed, his jaw set, facial muscles flexing.

  ‘Those bloody places should be closed down,’ he said, when his daughter mentioned the club. Although as a father myself, I understood his anger, it was clear that his daughter would not feel able to speak freely while he was present.

  I took him and his wife for a coffee in the hospital canteen while Williams spoke to the girl. They sat, hissing at one another in whispered tones as I got some food for the three of us. When I returned, Mrs Purdy was immediately apologetic.

  ‘This is awful bother, Inspector,’ she said for the third time, as I unloaded a tray of coffee and pastries. ‘You’re very good.’

  ‘It’s my pleasure,’ I said. I suspected that the woman’s facade of politeness allowed her to keep control, to retain a semblance of normality that her life now lacked. Who was I to rob her of it?

  Her husband, however, did not speak for a few moments. He sat, turned slightly in his seat, staring towards the door of the hospital, through which the sun streamed. He lifted his cup and blew violently across the surface of the drink to cool it, yet did not take any sips.

  Finally, having reconciled himself to the topic he dreaded facing, he placed the cup on the table and turned to confront me.

  ‘Have you any children?’ he asked, though I guessed as a prelude to something altogether different.

  ‘A girl and a boy,’ I said. ‘Still only infants, really.’ That was not entirely true. Penny was seven now. I had assumed that the time for her going clubbing and drinking was at least a decade away – more if I had my way. Rebecca Purdy had forced me to accept that, in terms of age, my own daughter might already be almost halfway towards that particular threshold.

  ‘The
y grow up so fast,’ Mrs Purdy said, smiling wistfully.

  ‘What would you do?’ Mr Purdy demanded. ‘If it was your daughter?’

  ‘Seamus, that’s enough,’ his wife said soothingly, placing her hand on the crook of his elbow.

  He shook her arm away. ‘If some bastard did that to your girl?’

  ‘I understand your anger, Mr Purdy. Trust me – we’ll do all we can to catch the person who did this.’

  ‘Did he . . . ?’ he began, finally getting to the topic on his mind. ‘Has she been . . .’ He could not find the words, though we all knew the question he was attempting to articulate.

  ‘We don’t know, Mr Purdy,’ I said honestly, then reflected on Karen Doherty. ‘If it’s the same man we’re already looking for, I suspect he may not have. But I don’t know.’

  The man stared at me angrily, then his eyes shifted and he began to blink. He sucked in his cheeks slightly, but I could see by the movements along his neck that he was attempting to swallow back his tears.

  ‘How am I meant to look at her if . . .’ he began, flushing with embarrassment, even as he said it. ‘How can I make it up to her?’

  ‘Shush, Seamus,’ Mrs Purdy said and I saw, for the first time, the strength of character the woman possessed which allowed her to remain calm in the face of all that had happened to her family. Not for the first time in my life, I was left slightly in awe at the resilience of some mothers and wives under the most horrendous circumstances.

  My mobile rang in my pocket. Williams wanted me to come up to the ward. Rebecca Purdy was ready to tell us what had happened.

  She and her friends had managed to get into Club Manhattan because one of them was having an affair with one of the – married – door staff. Rebecca had been drinking alcopops all night. She’d gone off dancing and when she came back to the table someone had bought her a new drink. She drank half of it, then an overzealous suitor, dancing beside her, had knocked the bottle from her hand and it had spilt on the ground.