Apple Seeds and Murderous Deeds: An Irish Mystery

by Kathy Cranston

  “What do you think it means?”

  Their mother shook her head. “Danger. HQ. Dash,” she read. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “I know,” Fiona said. “It’s some kind of cry for help—we can all agree on that, but I have no clue apart from that. Not that we need to decipher it—I’ve told the guards about the man he was with and even though there’s no clear picture of him, they think I might be able to help by working with an artist to do a photofit of him.”

  “And who was there when Declan wrote this?”

  Fiona shrugged. “Loads of people. Noel Cassidy. Mrs Flannery. Will Connolly. Gerry Reynolds. Mary and Pete Prendergast... No, wait. The Prendergasts left before Dec could have hidden the—”

  “Gerry Reynolds,” her mother said thoughtfully. “And I was never a big fan of that Prendergast.”

  “That’s been well documented through the years.”

  “Less of your sarcasm,” Mrs McCabe huffed. “Sure I’m only trying to help.”

  “There’s not much point, Mam. It all seems to point to this guy. Gerry and Dec had a few words the night before in the pub, but show me one person in this town who hasn’t had a run-in with Gerry Reynolds.”

  “He’s no good.”

  “I know that. But he’s clever about it, unfortunately. They’ve never been able to pin anything on him. Anyway, the guards are convinced it’s this fella with the glasses.”

  “Where’s he from? Let me have a look at him. Sure how do they even know it was him and not Gerry?”

  “No, Mam, come on. I’ve got things to do here.”

  “Sure I’ll just go look at it and you can be getting on with your work down here.”

  Not likely, Fiona thought. You’ll have a good look at my search history and sign me up to God knows what dating sites while you’re at it. “I’ll bring the laptop over tonight. You can look at it then.”

  “You’re trying to fob me off.”

  “I am not!” Fiona cried. “I didn’t open at all last night and if I’m to open this evening I need to get started now. You can stay and give me a hand if you like.”

  “Sure didn’t I spend years raising you and I still make you lovely dinners. What more do you want from me?”

  “What if she’s right?” Marty said, as the door closed behind their mother and she locked up after herself with the keys that she was only meant to use in emergencies.

  “What do you mean?” Fiona asked absently as she started chopping lemons.

  “Well, what if it’s not this guy in the video?”

  Fiona stopped. The guards had been so convinced that there was only one suspect and she hadn’t seen fit to question that. What did she know about investigations? And she believed them too, on this occasion. She shrugged. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? This guy shows up in town and then a few hours later Dec is dead. If it was someone local, then why wouldn’t they have killed him before now? He’s been home for weeks, you said. The timing is just too suspicious.”

  “Yeah,” Marty said, nursing his now-cold coffee. “You know there’s something familiar about him too.”

  Excitement and dread shot through Fiona in equal measure. “You mean you spotted his face in the video? This is massive! We’ve got to tell someone.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head slowly. “It was more to do with his… I don’t know—his presence?”

  Fiona gasped. “You mean he might be from one of those crime gangs? Like a crime boss?” She immediately froze in horror. “A gangster in my bar. My God, Marty; and I was short with him too. What if he comes back for me?”

  Marty’s smile was long gone. He stood, alert and imposing. “He won’t get near you.”

  “He will if he’s a crime lord, Marty. They’re devious. He could be in here right now and we wouldn’t even know. Didn’t I tell you he just appeared in here? I thought I’d been distracted but what if some of his henchmen disabled the bell?”

  “Right,” he said decisively. “That’s it. We’re going to that Garda station and we’re not leaving until they have that artist come and draw his picture. Then I’m sure they can run his picture through their systems and whatnot.”

  “But what about the bar? And the shop?”

  “They can wait. Your safety is more important.” He crossed his arms and stared her down. “Come on. We’ll go now.”

  Marty McCabe was in full-on protective big brother mode, and for once Fiona didn’t object.

  10

  SERGEANT BRENNAN STARED across his neat desk at them as if they were solely responsible for interrupting the police activities of all of Ireland.

  “I’ve put in a call to my superiors and requested an artist. I haven’t heard back yet.”

  Marty sat back in his chair and crossed one long leg over the other knee. The sergeant was intimidated by him and he used it to his best advantage. “Sure what else are you doing? There’s not another murder investigation going on in town that no one’s aware of, is there?”

  Sergeant Brennan smiled a tight-lipped grimace. “Luckily there’s not, Mr McCabe. I don’t know how you can joke about such a thing.”

  Marty sat forward. “And I don’t know how you can sit there and act so unconcerned. There’s a murderer on the loose and he was in my sister’s pub on the night of the murder. She could be in danger.”

  Fiona shivered. Was it true? Was it possible that he’d come after her? It wasn’t like she’d seen anything… she froze. Of course, she’d seen his face, hadn’t she? She could identify him.

  “Has anyone else mentioned him to ye in the course of your investigation?”

  Sergeant Brennan shook his head. “A few people talked about seeing Dec at the bar, but no one mentioned his companion. I’m afraid you’re our only lead here.”

  Fiona gripped her chair. “So I’m the only one who can identify this guy,” she said faintly. “Meaning he could come after me to make sure you never get your photofit.”

  “This isn’t a film,” Sergeant Brennan sneered. “Nor is it inner city Dublin.”

  “Oh yeah?” Fiona said, rankled. “Well my friend was murdered a few days ago. So things around here aren’t as happy clappy as you make out.”

  “Miss McCabe—”

  “What we’re saying is,” Marty interrupted smoothly. “We’ve expressed our concern for my sister’s safety. Now if anything was to happen to her, I’d naturally see to it that all the newspapers were made aware of your indifference to the threat against her life.”

  “Mr Mc—”

  Marty continued as if the sergeant hadn’t spoken. “And I don’t think there’s any amount of political clout that’ll get you off the hook for such negligence. You’ll be stuck holding a speed camera until you can collect your pension.”

  By now, Sergeant Brennan was red with frustration and sullenly silent. “I have other cases,” he said finally.

  “Oh yeah, like what?” Fiona probed. “Clancy’s missing gate? Who drew the graffiti on the old schoolhouse?”

  “It’s confidential Garda business.”

  “Career suicide if anything happens to my sister,” Marty said, as casually as if he was commenting on the latest results from the Premier League.

  MARTY’S WORDS had the desired effect. Within two hours, they were ushered into a small interview room and joined by a man with laptop and drawing tablet. Fiona closed her eyes and described the man’s features as accurately as she could. She was dismayed to see that the artist’s impression looked nothing like the man she had seen in the pub.

  Little by little, however, he made changes and a resemblance began to form. It took two hours before she sat back and nodded decisively.

  “That’s him,” she said to Marty as much as to the Garda artist. “That’s the guy who was in the pub that night. It’s exactly like him down to the hateful smirk.”

  THEY RETURNED TO THE PUB, intending to open. Mrs McCabe had clearly had other ideas.

  “I don’t believe this,” Fiona said, as she tried t
o turn her key in the lock for the third time.

  She knew there was no point, but she could scarcely believe that her parents had had the gall to do it. The shiny new brass lock told her all she needed to know.

  “Are they serious?”

  Marty shook his head solemnly. “They must have gone to the shop while we were at the Garda station. I’ve got ones just like this in stock. I hope they left money for it—they’re expensive yokes.”

  “Hardly the point, Mart.” She smiled as she thought of something. “But they can’t have locked me out of my own home—even our parents wouldn’t be that mad.”

  She abandoned the pub door and walked around the side of the building to the entrance that led directly upstairs to the flat. For a moment she was apprehensive, but then she saw with relief that the lock was as dull and tarnished as it had always been. She smiled back at Marty and disappeared upstairs.

  The flat seemed untouched. She hurried through, calling back to Marty. “They’re not as clever as they thought they were.”

  The smile soon vanished from her face. The door to the pub was closed as usual, but there was a sign hanging from it that hadn’t been there that morning.

  “What is it?” Marty asked, coming up behind her.

  Fiona read it through gritted teeth.

  WE’RE NOT GOING to sit by and let you put yourself in harm’s way alone at night.

  “WHAT THE HELL?” she hissed.

  “They have a point,” Marty said, sounding reluctant.

  “But you said you’d stick around,” she cried. “I’d already decided to reduce my opening hours until they catch the guy.”

  She tried the door knowing it was futile. There was a shiny new lock on that door too.

  “I know, but I suppose it’s safer this way.” Marty wouldn’t look her in the eye as he said it.

  IF SHE WAS EXPECTING any contrition from her parents, she was disappointed. For starters, it was her father who answered the phone—he never usually got near the thing in time to answer it.

  “Oh it’s you,” he said, sounding almost sullen.

  “Yeah it’s me,” she snapped. “You know, the tenant of your pub who you’ve illegally locked out of the premises. I should call the guards.”

  “We did it for your own good. There’s a murderer out there.”

  “And what about my bank balance, ha? That’ll be murdered too if you force me to keep the pub closed.”

  “That’s in poor taste, Fiona McCabe,” her father shot back.

  She rolled her eyes. This was coming from a man who makes tasteless jokes at expense of most people in the town. “So is changing the locks. You can’t do that! I pay rent!”

  “You need to cop on.”

  Fiona groaned and threw her head back. “I need to cop on? I’m twenty-nine years old. This is my business; my livelihood. You can’t just lock the doors and keep me out.”

  “No? Well that’s what I’ve done. And I’m not giving you the keys until this whole affair is straightened out.”

  “But that could be weeks,” she groaned. “You know what the guards are like here.”

  “So be it,” he said simply. “I’ll give you a rebate of your rent to cover the time you’re closed. You can’t get fairer than that.”

  She groaned. “I don’t want a handout! I want to be able to run my business as normal like any other business person.”

  She heard a click and knew immediately that it was her mother on the other phone. “You wouldn’t be able to run your business from the grave, now would you?” she said testily.

  Fiona’s hand shot up to her temple to massage away the beginning of a tension headache. “That’s a stupid thing to say. Obviously I wouldn’t, but I’m not going to die.”

  “You don’t know that. You said yourself that this guy could be dangerous.”

  Fiona flipped around to face her brother and narrowed her eyes. “I don’t remember saying that to you, Mam.”

  Marty wouldn’t meet her eyes. For a big guy, he looked pretty awkward at that moment. Fiona sighed. She finally realised she wasn’t going to get anywhere with them on this. “Fine,” she muttered. “I’m not happy about this, though,” she said before hanging up.

  “HAVE YE FOUND HIM YET?”

  Sergeant Brennan groaned on the other end of the line. “Not in the half an hour since you last called, no.”

  Fiona stared at the clock above the kitchen table in dismay. Had it really only been half an hour? Despite her family’s protests, she had insisted on staying in the flat that night. She saw their reasoning but nothing could have made her spend the night in the family home, not after they’d infantilised her to the extent that they’d changed the locks on her own pub so she couldn’t open up.

  It was turning out to be a long evening, though.

  “Nothing?” she asked, despairing. “You must have run him through your systems by now.”

  Sergeant Brennan laughed. “Have you actually seen our systems?” he asked, in the most cordial tone he’d addressed her with since she’d met him.

  “No of course not,” she snapped. “I’m not a guard or a computer hacker or whoever else has access to your systems.”

  “Well,” he said, sounding noticeably cooler now. “They’re not that advanced. I did assure you that we’d be in contact when there’s a development in the case.”

  Fiona managed to stop herself from responding that his word was as good to her as a hole in the head. She needed him at the moment and didn’t want to cause even more bad blood between them.

  “I want to know the minute you get him.”

  “It doesn’t work like that,” he said with a pained sigh. “Look, I need to go. The taxpayers aren’t paying me to sit here and coddle you.”

  “Fine,” she said quickly. “I’ll call you in an hour to see if there’s an update.” She hung up before he could respond.

  11

  BY EIGHT O’CLOCK, Fiona was going out of her mind. There was nothing on TV and none of her friends or siblings were answering their phones, probably at the behest of her mother. It was just like Mrs McCabe to intimate those around her into silence so she had no choice but to return to the family home to alleviate her boredom.

  The problem was, every show that Fiona landed on invariably had something to do with crime or criminals and she was already far more frightened than she’d let on to anyone. It was only indignation at her parent’s actions and her extreme stubbornness that stopped her from running to her parents’ house like a baby.

  Why wouldn’t she be scared, she thought as she looked around the room scanning the nooks and crannies under the furniture for lurking hitmen. But she wouldn’t give her family the satisfaction of telling them. They had babied her for too long—she was going to show them by standing on her own two feet—even if in order to do that she had to down an entire bottle of Jameson and get legless in the process.

  She sighed and checked the clock. It was five past eight, a whole thirty minutes since she’d last called Sergeant Brennan. Far too long, she decided, pulling the phone closer.

  The phone rang for so long that she thought he must be screening her calls. Finally he answered just as she was contemplating ending the call and dialling again.

  “Sergeant Brennan,” he said in his efficient way.

  “Any word?” Throughout the course of the evening, she had gradually stopped introducing herself and started getting straight to the point.

  “Fiona,” he said, sounding like a long-suffering teacher. “It’s you.”

  “It is,” she said impatiently. “And you’re you. Now, can you tell me what’s going on? Have ye got him?”

  Her finger hovered over the end call button, so convinced was she that he’d tell her there was no news and that she should leave him alone.

  This time, however, he didn’t say anything of the kind.

  “I can’t discuss the details of an—”

  “You do!” she cried, relieved beyond words. “If you didn’t, y
ou would have told me to stop calling just like you did the last few times.”

  “It wasn’t a few times,” he said coldly. “It was more like twenty. I should charge you with wasting Garda time.”

  Fiona rolled her eyes. “Sure you’re probably sitting there with your feet up watching cat videos…” she squeezed her eyes closed—she could have kicked herself. She figured that was exactly what he was doing, but she needed him right now. “Oh, and highly important Garda business, of course. Now, what’s the latest?”

  “You’re all charm, Miss McCabe. But I can’t—”

  She shifted in her chair. Against all odds, she found she was enjoying this conversation with Robocop—maybe it was down to the fact that there had been a development in the case. “Well, if you won’t tell me over the phone, how about I come down to the station and you can tell me in person?”

  Her threat had the desired effect. He sighed long and low. “That won’t be necessary, I assure you.”

  “Well tell me so, otherwise I’ll have no choice.”

  “Fine,” he snapped. “But you’d better not breathe a word about this to anyone.”

  “I won’t.”

  “We’ve had several reports on our tipline. People convinced they’ve seen a man identical to the one in the photofit image.”

  “You’ve got him then?”

  He cleared his throat. “Not a word to anyone, Miss McCabe. Yes, it appears that way. A unit has been sent to an abode in south Dublin.”

  “YOU MAY GIVE me those new keys,” Fiona said by way of greeting as she let herself into her family home.

  Ben looked up. “I didn’t expect to see you here this evening—thought you’d be sulking in the flat over some rom-com.”

  She pulled a face at him. Even Ben’s jibing wouldn’t ruin her good mood. “You were in on it as well? That’s great—nice to know you were all keen to gang up on me. I’ll remember that when I’m rolling in money and you come to me asking for a loan.”