Death in Dublin

by Bartholomew Gill

  They had only just arrived, he could tell, and were still in some shock at what they had discovered.

  Playing the beams of strong handheld lights above them, they were staring at the headless corpse of a woman who had been strung up, like the carcass of a sheep, from one ankle. Her other leg and arms were hanging akimbo, and her two large breasts had lolled out from under her blouse. Dark, old blood had pooled everywhere, it seemed.

  There was a note pinned to the garment at crotch level. In large letters with a Celtic flare, it said, “Oh, Dan-Oh Boy.”

  A uniformed superintendent turned to Ward. “Hughie—what are you doing here?”

  Eyes scanning the rest of the office, Ward said nothing.

  “You shouldn’t be here, you know.”

  “Have you looked around yet?”

  The man shook his head. “Just got here.”

  “Mind if I take a peek? I have an idea who did this.”

  The man thought for a moment, then, “Only if I come with you.”

  In the far corner of the building, they found Ray-Boy’s Celtic paraphernalia, along with the green walls, the skulls, the battered door, the video camera—everything out of the ransom tapes.

  “I’d say, bingo. But we would have found it anyway.”

  “The person who called it in?” Ward asked. “Strange, gravelly, Darth Vadar–like voice?”

  “The same.”

  Ray-Boy Sloane, Ward wanted to say. Guilty of patricide, at least three other murders, participating in the theft at Trinity, and now this.

  But he had also noted the surgical gauze, bandage plasters, and scissors on the floor near the cot, the sheets that were stained with other rather fresh-looking blood. Four indentations on the breastplate that had probably been made by small-caliber bullets.

  Ray-Boy had been injured in his exchange with the man, Stu—or, rather, “Dan-Oh Boy”—and Ward wondered where he would seek shelter.

  Home to mum and the two sisters? Perhaps, if only briefly. One of them was a nurse, Ward remembered from the information that the squad had assembled.

  After that, maybe 24 Spancel Court, Ranelagh.

  “Thanks.” Pivoting, Ward made for the door.

  “Where’re you going? Do you know who this is? Hughie, you’re not telling us everything.”

  Ward quickly moved toward the blossom of brilliant, achromatic light flooding through the shattered bay door.

  CHAPTER

  14

  “DRINK!” SWEENEY KEPT SHOUTING AS THE OLD Sikorsky limped home. The roar of the engine firing up had awakened him. “What a fookin’ debacle. A debacle!”

  McKeon told McGarr where the medical kit was, but even after three tablets of a painkiller/sedative—the maximum allowed, according to the instructions on the vial—he was still giving out.

  “You lost me fookin’ money, me fookin’ eye, I’m sure. And the fookin’ books to boot. Whatever got into you, man, to think you could rush them? What we wanted, needed, had to have, was a clean exchange, nothing more, nothing less. We should have left when I said. But there you had to fookin’ go and play fookin’ cowboy.”

  McGarr was sitting near Kara or, at least, near where her remains lay.

  “I’ll tell you here and now—I don’t know how any of us is going to get over this,” he continued. “But I’m going to try, and let the chips fall where they may.”

  It was then Sweeney discovered whatever was left of his second flask. Throwing back his head, he finished the last drop, then squeaked the silver cap into the top. “And another thing, McGarr—”

  McGarr leaned across Kara so he wouldn’t have to shout over the beating of the rotors, the roar of the engine. “I want you to listen to me now, and I won’t say this again. Don’t say another word. Not one.”

  “Who the fuck do you think you are,” Sweeney began saying, “to talk to me like—” when McGarr slammed the barrel of his Walther into the side of the larger man’s temple.

  “I should shoot you now and drop your body into the sea. That would be better for him”—McGarr swung the barrel toward McKeon—“and me. And her.” He meant Kara. “It was your idea, we helped you, but—like her—you did not survive.” McGarr waited a moment. “Got that?”

  Sweeney looked away drunkenly, his head swaying. But he did not respond.

  McGarr’s sorrow, his guilt, his remorse—no, his bloody anger—at Kara’s death was boundless, infinite, world-darkening. Now he did not care what happened to him in the particular; that Kara, like Noreen, had died because of their mutual involvement with him made him fearless.

  What had Bernie said? Crash and burn? He would crash and burn, but he would bring whoever had slain Kara and made a fool of him down. It had come to that.

  Dawn was breaking by the time they got back to Dublin Airport, and the moment the helicopter touched down, three men stepped out of the Garda office there and approached the aircraft.

  “Open the fookin’ door,” Sweeney said groggily. “And help me up.” Once down the ladder and onto the tarmac, Sweeney had to steady himself before setting off on a stagger toward the terminal building.

  Said McKeon to McGarr, “You’ve enough trouble already. Get yourself gone. I’ll deal with this, and, remember—I’m with you. Maybe you have an idea?”

  McGarr raised his hand; McKeon’s met his firmly.

  At his car, McGarr gathered himself. He tried to remember everything he could about the blast and its aftermath—what the two from the helicopter had said, one wanting to kill him and the other saying that wasn’t in the cards, that they’d agreed to keep him alive. Why? Agreed with whom?

  As well, one had called the other Stu, as had Sweeney the man with him on the railway platform at the delivery of the second ransom tape. Kara’s husband was—or had been—named Dan Stewart. He was Scottish; the Stu on Iona had a Scots burr.

  Could Stu be “Stew” instead? it now occurred to McGarr. Could Kara—with her husband, Dan Stewart—have been in on the theft and murders all along? And could what McGarr thought he had shared with her have been nothing more than an element of the scheme? For a share of 50 million quid many people could be made to do just about anything, he knew all too well.

  But why, then, would the husband plan and carry out her execution in such a barbarous way? And why the need to bait and entrap McGarr himself?

  Yet the Stu at the meet in Iona had not thought it necessary to check the ransom payment, and he had equipped himself with just what was necessary to carry the bulky packet. And obviously all along, the two of them had planned to blow up the books anyway. Or a facsimile edition of the books. McGarr now remembered the confetti of paper around the meadow.

  Where to begin? Twisting the ignition key of his Mini-Cooper, McGarr thought he had an idea. The small, fast car, accelerating, forced his back into the seat, reminding him that he should tend to whatever wound was there, and perhaps get some rest.

  Pulling up in front of Kara’s flat not far from his own house in Rathmines, McGarr reached into Kara’s handbag, which he had thought to take out of the helicopter, and found her keys.

  But he had only closed the gate and turned around when he found Orla Bannon in front of him.

  “I know, I know—like a bad penny, and so forth. But I was—am—worried about you, McGarr, given how you seem to be the target of the government, the New Druids, and certain dangerous women, meself included.” It was a cool early morning, and she had dressed accordingly in black leather slacks and jacket that was tight on her torso and seemed to mound her breasts, which were swathed in a white cashmere jumper in the open top. She had her long dark braid in her hands.

  “I mean, your HQ is shut down, and you were not at home, Nuala told me—we had a nice long chat in the kitchen, looking out at your garden. So I figured the only other place apart from Flood’s you might wash up is”—she swung her head to the house—“and here you are looking haggard, I must say. Where’ve you been?

  “And what’s that smell? Cordite?
Or have y’been near a fire?”

  McGarr looked up at the windows of Kara’s flat and suddenly felt as desolate as he had on the helicopter. That he had again exposed somebody he cared for to the lethal dangers of his profession—and she, not he, had paid the ultimate price—was so…upsetting that…“I’d like your help.”

  “Name it.”

  “Would your paper have file photos of Pape, Gillian Reston, and your man Sweeney?”

  “He’s not my man in anything but pay packet. And who knows for how long.”

  “Could you get hold of them and meet me at Foyle’s? It’s a pub—”

  “Sure, I know where it is. The deceased Raymond Sloane frequented the place, I was told.”

  “Can you do it in”—McGarr checked his watch—“two hours?”

  “Mais oui.” She smiled in a way that made her jet eyes sparkle and dimples appear in her cheeks. “It’s a date. Yet might I wonder—is there some small chance that there’s a story in it for moi? From the killer look of you, I’m thinking there is.”

  McGarr stepped by her and moved to the door with the key out. “Be there. I won’t forget it.”

  “I like your purse. Is it new? I have a key for you too, keep in mind. Whenever you’re ready.”

  Climbing the wide staircase with its carved banister reminded McGarr of the two other occasions on which he had received the love of she who had been very special to him, no matter what he might discover about her. And he now hated himself for having doubted so much about her.

  The door to her flat, however, was partially open, and the photos, which he had come for, had been removed from the long table against the wall in the den. Or, at least, all those that pictured her husband, Dan Stewart.

  It took McGarr about an hour to search the apartment without finding another representation of the man. Pouring himself a malt, he moved into the bedroom, where, standing before the three-way mirror of her dresser, he pulled off his jacket, which had a large scorch in the middle that had also burned through the shirt and left a perfectly round patch of darkened skin in the middle of his back, a black spot the size of a fist.

  Was it a sign? And what to do about that? Nothing without going back to his house, and McGarr did not think he could do that unless and until he exculpated himself in some way. Nuala might understand, but what could he possibly say to Maddie?

  He had noticed several men’s shirts in the hall closet, along with three jackets, slacks, and shoes in a size far larger than his own. He could roll up the sleeves of a shirt, and one of the jackets might be close enough in fit.

  Perhaps it was the alcohol and the fact that he could not remember when he had last had food, but as he stepped away from the closet, the sense of loss and his own gross incompetence welled up and stopped him in the middle of the sitting room.

  Tears burst from his eyes, he hung his head, and he remained like that for whole minutes, not knowing how he could possibly carry on. But it was essential, before he was further humiliated by being locked up.

  As he raised his head, his eyes fell upon the purse, which was blurred through his tears. In the wallet, he found a surprising amount of cash, more than 5,000 Euros, along with a snapshot of Dan Stewart, the husband, and—even more surprising—a photo of McGarr himself, which had been clipped from a newspaper.

  But when? Before the theft of the Kells book? Or after? McGarr did not read everything written about him, and he was usually uninterested in any of it.

  After, he could only think. It had to be after.

  In the toilet, he bathed, shaved with a razor he found there, and donned the shirt and jacket, which proved longish in the sleeves and tight on his arms and shoulders. In the car, he remembered, he had a hat.

  But what to do about his eyes, the gray color of which made the abiding red all the more apparent?

  With Kara’s keys in his pocket, McGarr locked the door behind him and moved quickly down the stairs, remembering suddenly, as he approached his car, the artist’s rendering he’d ordered of the man who had met with Raymond Sloane in Foyle’s a fortnight before the theft. A man who had been seen with a complementary woman who McGarr hoped had not been Kara Kennedy.

  He reached for his phone.

  It was fully midmorning when McGarr pulled up in front of Foyle’s, where the door had been propped open. The footpath was wet, and Annie Foyle, wearing a bib apron and heavy black shoes, was sweeping it down.

  McGarr pulled into a no-parking zone and lowered the visor with a Garda shield attached to the back. At least he still had that.

  The damp weather of the night before had passed, and overhead the sky was freighted with a line of high white clouds rolling in from the north. Otherwise, the fall sun, rich and golden, was warm where it fell.

  “I wouldn’t trust that sky. There’s been an edge to the wind for days now,” she said, without looking up from her work. Her eyeglasses were nested in her steely hair. “The others you sent for is in at the bar, Orla—a darlin’ girl if ever there was one—among ’em.” She glanced up at McGarr, taking him in. “And one of us. Have y’not had your breakie?”

  McGarr tried to smile.

  With broom now over her shoulder, she tilted her head at the open door. “Come in, I’ll get you a nice fry and a cuppa. Make you a new man for a new day.”

  Which was something his mother had said.

  Stepping in from the sunlight, the pub was dark, and McGarr could barely pick out the three lone figures in front of the taps. The only light was from a television over the bar.

  Orla Bannon and Ruth Bresnahan were sitting on either side of John Swords. Only Swords had a drink, explaining, “Been up all night, Chief.”

  McGarr nodded, then, “Ruthie?”

  “Rang up John here an hour ago, said I’d like a quiet word.” Her eyes swirled to Bannon. “He said he was coming here to see you, and since it’s only around the corner…”

  There was a long moment and then, “We think you’ve been keeping something from us, Peter,” said Bresnahan. “Where’s Bernie?”

  “And Kara Kennedy?” Bannon put in. “Without her purse. May I make an observation?”

  Beyond tired now—exhausted, really—McGarr waited.

  “Your tailor should get his eyes checked. Or maybe he has a higher opinion of you than is necessary.” Her dark eyes smiled up at him mischievously.

  Said Swords, “Sheard’s been asking after you, and there’s a report of a Garda helicopter having gone missing overnight, only to return banged up with a body inside.”

  “Here now’s your tea,” said Foyle. “I’ve got the niece on the fry, so I’m all yours. You’ve something to show me, Orla says?”

  “Well, I only assumed.”

  McGarr moved toward the tea, which she had set on a table away from the bar, and the others followed. “Tell me, have you ever seen either of these people before?” He placed photos of Kara Kennedy and her husband, Dan Stewart, before her.

  Sitting, the old woman pulled down her eyeglasses and fitted them over her nose. She turned them into the light from the doorway, then held them at various distances.

  Finally, “She’s only ever been in here once. She was with the infamous Chazz Sweeney, which was the only time he ever darkened our doorway as well. And that fella was with them too.” She pointed at the photo of Stewart.

  “With Sweeney drunk and saying to the other two, ‘Ah, sure—aren’t you two the best son and daughter-in-law a father could have.’ He even sang feckin’ ‘Danny Boy’ with nobody but me daring tell him to shut his bloody big gob, the little good it did.”

  The others stepped closer to get a look at the photographs.

  “When was that?”

  “All of a year ago. No, I’m probably wrong about that—it’s two, I’d say. Or more. Time ramblin’ on as you get up in years, don’t you know.”

  McGarr nodded. He knew, and he wanted to know, that it had been at least two years ago. “They were here to meet Raymond Sloane, the Trinity guard?”r />
  She pursed her lips and glanced out into the street. “He could have nipped in, like, since the door is closed apart from me checking for drinks. But he wasn’t among them that I recall.”

  “What about the man and woman you told me about, the two who came in here two weeks ago and met with Sloane?”

  “Him it was, for sure. The one who was in here with Sweeney.” She pointed to the photo of Stewart. “The woman, like I said, I saw little of, since it was Raymond who ordered and carried the drinks in. But the artist you sent round? Two of the lads said they got a look at her, which I don’t doubt, gawkers and stalkers that they are. And what he came up with wasn’t too much unlike her.”

  Swords opened an envelope and slid the artist’s mock-ups of a man who looked not unlike Stewart. The rendering of the woman, on the other hand, bore only a vague similarity to Kara and could more easily have been Gillian Reston.

  “What did she drink?”

  “Wine. All the upmarket lassies drink wine these days. I’ll have to remind meself to get more in, now that we’ve been discovered.” She winked at Orla Bannon.

  McGarr’s eyes passed across the bottles in back of the bar. Far from tea, he could use something stronger, although what he needed, he well knew, was absolute clarity. He had the feeling he’d been in over his head from the start without knowing.

  “What about these?” Orla Bannon pulled two photos out of her purse and placed them before Foyle.

  “Them two are in here near weekly, the Duke and Duchess we call them. Gin for him, vodka for her. Bitter lemon, the both of them. And the Duke, he can get nasty. We hear him right through the door, lashing into her with his tongue. One time, I sent a lad in to check on her.”

  “Sloane join them?”

  “I never knew he did until once I opened the door without knocking first, and there he was, standing by them with an envelope in his hands. Like embarrassed. Or caught. Guilty.”

  A young woman in an apron appeared beside them holding a hot plate in a towel.