Gallows Lane idm-2

by Brian McGilloway

  As I stood, I became aware of a figure to my right. Absurdly, for just a second, the idea struck me that it might be Jamie Kerr. I shuddered away the goose-bumps that had risen with the thought. It was not, however, Kerr. The man who stood in front of me was tall, his head docked like a monk’s, his face flushed with burst blood vessels, his nose bulbous and red with years of drinking. His forehead was tall and heavy browed, his eyes hooded and difficult to read. He wore a tan shirt, a tie hanging loosely round his neck. At the collar line I could make out the ragged edges of a scar.

  My initial thought was that he was a mourner, here to pay his respects as I was. But he carried no flowers. Perhaps a journalist, then. But he had no camera, no notebook. I thought of Christy Ward’s comment about his mysterious visitor and the pieces fell into place.

  ‘Mr Bond,’ I stated. ‘Nice to meet you.’

  ‘And you, Inspector,’ he said, smiling lightly in recognition of my having identified him. ‘I’ve been tailing you for a while. I thought I’d never get a moment alone with you.’

  ‘I was playing hard to get,’ I said.

  ‘You shouldn’t,’ he cautioned. ‘You might win.’

  I tired of the exchange and got straight to the point. ‘Did you have anything to do with the killing of Peter Webb?’ I asked.

  He nodded once. ‘No,’ he said.’ Far from it. We were the ones got him out of that arms charge.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You don’t need to know everything about Webb, Inspector,’ he said. ‘But I will tell you what I can. Peter Webb was an informer in the 1970s. Moved over here, played the whole anti-English thing. Wasn’t much use, to be honest. His handler died in the late nineties — had a heart attack — and I took over. I had almost no dealings with the man. He was given my number as a contact, if he ever heard anything, or needed anything. In fact, the first time I saw him in years was just a couple of weeks ago, after he was lifted with that guns find. Called me and asked for our help.’

  I nodded my head, but did not speak. After a second, Bond continued. ‘He had nothing to do with those guns, you know.’

  ‘So I believe,’ I said. Bond angled his head slightly, as a bird might, as if trying to tease out the meaning of my words. ‘What about Jamie Kerr?’ I asked.

  Bond stared blankly at me. ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘You visited Webb the night he died, though, didn’t you?’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘Didn’t even know where he lived, for Christ’s sake. We met for a drink, Webb went through the whole guns thing with me; that was that.’

  ‘Webb was named as a suspect in the Castlederg Post Office robbery in 1996. Do you know anything about that?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I believe one or more of the gang members killed both Webb and Jamie Kerr.’

  Bond pointed towards the tree in front of us. ‘I know the name now; the guy who was crucified.’

  ‘Webb and Kerr were part of a gang. Both are dead now and there are two gang members left.’

  ‘I can check the files in Strabane, if you want,’ Bond offered casually; so casually, in fact, that I didn’t realize it was a trap until I walked into it.

  ‘No point; the important bits are missing,’ I said bitterly.

  ‘Now, how would you know that, Inspector?’ Bond asked, his voice betraying a sharper edge than before. I began to suspect that I had underestimated the man.

  I ignored the question. ‘Why would that be done?’

  The man didn’t miss a beat. ‘To protect our sources, I’d say. Now, who showed you our files?’

  Neither of us spoke for a moment or two. I said a final prayer for Jamie Kerr and turned to leave. ‘It was nice to meet you, Mr Bond,’ I said, extending my hand.

  ‘Likewise,’ he replied. ‘I’ve told you as much as I can, Inspector. Webb had nothing to do with those guns. And I can tell you nothing about Castlederg Post Office.’

  ‘Was he involved in anything serious enough that someone might come back and kill him?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Bond said. ‘In his thirty years here I don’t think he managed one big break.’

  ‘Not much of a spy, then, was he?’ I said.

  ‘Not much of anything,’ Bond agreed. ‘The only information he told me of interest the night he died was that someone was bopping his missus.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘We’ve figured that much out ourselves.’

  Bond shrugged at me helplessly, then turned to face the flowers I’d placed where Jamie Kerr died. I turned again and walked towards the side of the house, my hands in my pockets.

  Bond called after me, ‘I’ll tell Jim Hendry you were asking for him.’

  I did not look back.

  When I returned to the station, Donal Dempsey and his two sergeants were in the car park having systematically stripped the interior out of a green Toyota Celica. The seats stood side by side against a wall, while Dempsey, in paper forensics suit, stood smoking a cigarette, occasionally shaking his head and wiping the sheen of sweat from his face.

  Caroline stood to one side, watching, her arms folded, her expression impossible to read behind her sunglasses as I told her about my meeting with Mr Bond. I could see her roll her eyes when I told her that was the name he had given me. ‘Men,’ she said.

  Several other members of the station stood against the wall, watching silently, or calling instructions and encouragement, cheering when the odd piece of interior was thrown out on to the ground.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

  ‘The tip-off we got this morning said Kerr had been spotted in Declan O’Kane’s car. The Dublin boys here have just impounded said vehicle and are currently taking it apart looking for forensics.’

  Dempsey came over, tearing open the paper suit and stepping out of it.

  ‘Feckin’ waste of time, that’s what. We’ve gone through it with a fine-tooth comb. Nothing. It’s clean as a whistle; you’d swear the bastard had it valeted before we arrived. We found nothing.’ he repeated and spat on the ground in disgust.

  ‘Maybe’, I said, nodding towards the wreck, ‘that’s because that’s not Declan O’Kane’s car.’

  It transpired fairly quickly that Dempsey and the NBCI squad had landed at O’Kane’s and served the search warrant they had secured.

  ‘Is that your car?’ they’d asked Decko, pointing to the green Celica sitting on his driveway.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ he’d replied, with some degree of honesty.

  And so they’d lifted the green car and taken it with them, not realizing that it was, in fact, a second-hand car traded in at his dealership and which he was using for the day.

  Williams told me all this later, though she was unable to describe the return trip to Decko’s and the appropriation of the correct, red Ford Puma, as Dempsey told her he didn’t need her, suspecting, perhaps, that she had known all along that they were dismantling the wrong car.

  And so, three hours later, having rebuilt the green Toyota Celica and swearing violently through their embarrassment, the NBCI team arrived back at the station with Decko’s red Puma. Within five minutes, without removing any seats, and with a significantly smaller audience, they discovered the religious tract I had placed in the passenger door pocket. A quick phone call to Charles Bardwell confirmed that it was indeed the property of James Kerr.

  By eight-thirty that night, Decko O’Kane was in custody, protesting his innocence and shouting from the holding cell that he’d been framed. For my part, I went home to my wife and children and tried to forget all that had happened, attempting to ignore the guilt and unease that gnawed at my guts over the whole Decko affair. All that was needed was for his DNA to match that found under Kerr’s fingernails, I told myself, and my small deception would yield a big result.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Tuesday, 15 June

  The NBCI team had taken turns through the night questioning Decko, having taken a cheek swab for DNA testing. Despite their better efforts, as yet
he had confessed to nothing, claiming not even to know James Kerr.

  At ten o’clock, Dempsey asked me if I wanted to have a go. To be honest, I had nothing to say to him. My own belief was that if he could be held long enough for the DNA test to come back, the comparison would be enough to charge him.

  The sample had been taken almost immediately after Decko had been brought in for questioning the night previous. These things normally took a week or two, but Dempsey assured me that, as the request was coming through the NBCI, we’d have a result within days.

  Decko’s lawyer, Gerard Brown, had been with him most of the night, ensuring he got his obligatory breaks and cups of tea. He was still with him, his normally heavy set face even puffier than usual with lack of sleep and the heat of the holding cell. Some time earlier that morning he had requested a fan be brought into the room, likening the conditions to torture. The fan had been duly placed and, though it was directed fully in his face, even with his jacket and tie off and his shirt-neck wide open, his face was slick with sweat.

  Decko looked flushed and a little unkempt, in stark contrast with his previous debonair style. His hair gel had long since dried in the heat, causing his hair to stand in clotted spikes. His eyes were baggy and red-rimmed and he spoke nasally, a handkerchief held against his running nose. ‘Hayfever,’ he explained.

  White flecks of tissue paper were caught in his moustache and he bit continually at his lower lip.

  ‘Oh, you’re here,’ he said when I came in. I handed Decko and the lawyer a can of cola each and opened one for myself.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said, opening the can. ‘You’re Good Cop, I take it,’ he laughed. ‘After those Dublin bozos.’

  ‘Neither good nor bad, Mr O’Kane. Just a fresh pair of eyes, looking to see if we’ve missed anything.’

  ‘I think this is just ridiculous, now,’ Brown said. ‘Either charge my client or release him, but this continual coming and going with no real purpose is getting us nowhere.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ I said, taking out my notebook. ‘Mr O’Kane, where were you on the night of Wednesday, 9 June?’

  ‘In the house, same as I told the others.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘No, actually, you know, now you’ve asked twice, it’s all coming back to me. I was up a field somewhere crucifying some nutter with me mates.’

  ‘Really?’ I asked, deadpan.

  ‘What the fuck do you think?’

  ‘I think you probably were. How did James Kerr’s religious tract get into your car?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ he said, and for once I knew that he was being wholly sincere. ‘Maybe I. .’

  The conversation was cut short by Brown’s mobile phone ringing. He looked at the caller display and said, ‘Excuse me,’ getting up from his chair and standing in the corner of the room.

  ‘You were saying, Mr O’Kane, about the leaflet,’ I urged him, but it was to no avail. He was watching Brown, or, more correctly, I think he was attempting to piece together the content of the conversation from Brown’s hushed responses. Certainly that’s what I was doing.

  Then Brown snapped the phone shut and came back to us, smiling broadly. ‘I think it’s time my client had a break, Inspector. I’m expecting something quite significant within the next ten minutes or so; I think it’s important that I have some time with my client to discuss his case, based on this new information.’

  I began to feel more than a little uneasy. ‘Fair enough,’ I managed to say.

  ‘A package will be delivered here shortly. Perhaps you’d let me know when it arrives.’

  ‘Fine,’ I said.

  ‘I think we’ll need a TV and video as well, Inspector,’ he said, and my guts contracted so forcefully that I believed I would be sick.

  At that moment, I heard a commotion outside in the corridor.

  ‘Where is he?’ I heard, and just as I pulled open the door to see what was happening, Patterson appeared in my field of vision.

  ‘You fucking prick,’ he spat, and before I had time even to raise my arm in protection, he swung and punched me full in the face, taking my feet from under me and knocking me on to the table in the interview room, spilling the cans of cola over myself and the floor.

  The room spun as I tried to reconcile all the physical sensations I was feeling. I caught Decko’s face, laughing, and Patterson, spitting at me, held back by Burgess and Dempsey. Colhoun was behind, looking pale and sickly. Finally Costello appeared, his face aghast, his skin red and flushed. I heard someone groan, and realized it had come from me. Then I tasted blood in my mouth and became aware that my nose was aching. I knew it had been broken. I tried to stand up, but the world seemed to give way under me, and I fell again, like a drunk man.

  Dempsey and Caroline, who had just come in, helped me to my feet, while Patterson was ushered out of the room and forcibly led down the hallway.

  ‘I’ll fucking kill you,’ he shouted. ‘You’re dead, Devlin, you prick.’ His voiced echoing down the corridor towards me. ‘You’re fucking dead.’

  Finally the room was quiet. I heard Dempsey ask if I was all right, felt his arm grip the crook of my elbow, helping me up from the floor. The other people in the room seemed to be frozen in a still, grey light. I nodded uncertainly.

  ‘He’s just been suspended,’ Dempsey hissed at me. ‘Being investigated over claims he deliberately hid arms in a local field, then pretended to find them.’

  I looked at Caroline, but she did not speak. She simply returned the look with concern, and I believe it was not entirely because of the attack I had just suffered.

  I went into the toilets to clean the blood off my face and, more importantly, to escape the glare of my colleagues, most of whom presumably believed that Patterson and Colhoun had been suspended because of me. My eye was already puffing up, my nose clearly out of joint. Biting hard against the flesh at the base of my thumb, I cracked my nose back into place. A fresh clot of blood splattered into the sink, and all at once, I felt hot and cold, shivering and sweating simultaneously.

  I sat in the toilet for some time, feeling slightly absurd, waiting for Patterson and Colhoun to leave. I couldn’t tell them that I had lied in my interview — that I had nothing to do with their suspensions. I knew that they would not believe me.

  Finally, someone knocked on the door. Inspector Dempsey came in hesitantly, standing in the doorway.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked. ‘Do you need another minute or two?’

  ‘No, I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’

  His concern however was not wholly altruistic. ‘I need you in here. We have a problem with O’Kane.’

  I had momentarily forgotten about the video that was on its way. I heard myself groan, involuntarily.

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ Dempsey asked again, looking at me quizzically.

  This time I said nothing, but stood up unsteadily and followed him out of the room.

  Several people walked past me on the way to the interview room. None looked me in the face, nor inquired as to my state. Someone had ratted on Patterson and, despite his crass behaviour and offensive attitudes, you never turned on your own. As quickly as possible I made my way to the interview room.

  The others had already watched the tape, for it was paused at the end of the shot: a single figure, half lit, was scurrying away from Decko’s car.

  ‘Play it again,’ Dempsey said, gesturing with his chin towards the TV. Brown, who had replaced his jacket and tie ahead of his imminent departure from the station, obliged.

  I hardly needed to watch the tape for I knew what would happen. It seemed odd watching myself from above, as though I were an observer in my own life, a thought which recalled the sensation I had experienced earlier of floating outside of myself. Best not think of that, I told myself.

  Throughout most of the tape, the image was too distant and too obscure for any possibility of identification. Only in one frame did the figure turn towards the camera, the light catching his
face and half-revealing his features; but even then, the image was so blurred that no one could tell it was me.

  ‘I think this puts things in a new perspective, gentlemen,’ Brown said, pausing the tape again.

  ‘That doesn’t prove anything,’ I argued. ‘Someone trying to steal your car. I don’t see the link between the two.’

  ‘It looks to me like someone putting something into the car, not trying to take it,’ Brown said. ‘Someone is seen acting suspiciously around my client’s car. Then you get an anonymous tip-off and this piece of evidence inexplicably appears in that very car. After what we’ve witnessed here today, I think that the grounds for detaining Mr O’Kane any further are very shaky.’

  ‘Recognize who that is?’ Dempsey asked me, pointing towards the screen.

  ‘Could be anyone,’ I said.

  ‘That’s what I thought you’d say,’ Dempsey replied. He turned to Brown and the custody sergeant standing at the door. ‘Let him go.’

  Decko left the building shouting about false imprisonment and compensation, though it was unconvincing bluster. I contented myself with the thought that his release was a temporary thing. I had succeeded in getting a DNA sample from O’Kane. When his sample matched that taken from Kerr’s fingernails, his next detention would be a more permanent one.

  That afternoon, Jim Hendry called me back. ‘I believe you met Mr Bond?’ he said.

  ‘Sorry, Jim,’ I said, immediately. ‘I let slip that I knew the files had been edited.’