Katie shook Superintendent Molloy’s hand, and nodded, and said, ‘Yes. We’ve met before, briefly. It was at that seminar in Tip on dealing with Travellers.’
‘Well, that’s right,’ said Superintendent Molloy. ‘I seem to remember DS Maguire here proposing some kind of a softly-softly approach to the Knackers. Winning their confidence, learning their cant, making sure their children go to school and stay there for more than five minutes.’
‘I don’t usually refer to them as Knackers,’ said Katie. ‘I think there’s enough alienation between the Travelling community and the rest of us without that. I don’t think ‘softly-softly’ is how I treat them, though. If any Traveller breaks the law, they get jumped on just as hard as anybody else.’
Superintendent Molloy let out a noise like a party balloon just before its neck is tied up. ‘I love hearing female officers getting all disciplinarian! Fifty Shades of Blue!’
Katie remembered Superintendent Molloy very well. He had not only opposed all her suggestions for improving relations with the Travellers, he had stood in the bar all evening, loudly denigrating the appointment of women as senior Garda officers, well within earshot of Katie and her team.
She could remember almost everything he had said. ‘Every Garda station needs somebody to make the tea and keep the place spick and span and blow the noses of the beaten wives who come in cribbing about their drunken husbands. That’s what women are for! What are we going to do if they all get promoted upstairs? Make our own fecking tea, is it?’
Katie was rarely judgemental about looks. Michael Gerrety might be handsome, but he was far from pleasant. Superintendent Molloy, on the other hand, had all the appearance of a bully and he was one. His prickly hair was cut very short, grey at the sides and black at the top. His blue eyes protruded, even when he wasn’t in a temper, and he had a way of staring at people in a belligerent way when they were talking to him, as if he couldn’t wait for them to finish so that he could disagree with them.
He had a snub nose, with black hairs growing out of his nostrils, and a pugnacious mouth. His ears were large and unusually crimson, and Katie couldn’t keep her eyes off them when he was talking to her. She kept meaning to google ‘very red ears’ to see if they were a sign of high blood pressure.
Superintendent Molloy said, ‘Dermot has been giving me the background to these two homicides you’re investigating, the ones with their hands missing and their heads blown to smithereens. How’s that progressing?’
‘Oh, it’s all coming together,’ said Katie. ‘We have a possible suspect, although we haven’t yet identified her. I think we’re coming close to a motive, too.’
‘And what would that be, do you imagine? The suspect is African, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, and I think that could explain the way the victims have been mutilated, but I don’t think it has much bearing on why they were killed. As far as we can establish, the African victim was a local pimp and all-round low life nicknamed Mawakiya, while the white victim was probably a Romanian pimp called Mânios Dumitrescu.’
Superintendent Molloy raised his eyebrows. ‘Ah … so you think that this African woman might be a brasser, taking out her revenge on two pimps who had cheated her? It does happen. We had a case exactly like that in Limerick last summer. Three of the local hookers decided they were sick of paying so much of their hard-earned wages to their minder. They trapped his head in the door of some old fridge that was standing in his own front yard, and then drove a car into it. Didn’t quite decapitate him, but nearly.’
‘I have no evidence that our suspect is or ever has been a hooker,’ said Katie.
‘Oh come on, what else? African, and going after pimps like that? It’s the logical conclusion.’
‘It’s an assumption and I don’t make assumptions. It’s assumptions that get cases thrown out of court. Look at those charges that were brought against those brothel-keepers last year in County Louth. The Gardaí failed to identify themselves when they entered the premises because they “assumed” that the brothel-keepers would know they were the law. The judge agreed that by failing to identify themselves they had nullified their entry warrant. Case dismissed.’
‘Dah – that was nothing but a legal technicality!’ said Superintendent Molloy, flapping one hand dismissively. ‘What we’re talking about in this case is a motive so obvious that you’d have to be lying in your scratcher with your head under the covers to miss it. All you have to do is find out which girls were working for those two scumbags – and that shouldn’t exactly tax your pretty head too much. Just check their websites, if they have them, and their ads in the local papers, and you’re halfway there.’
‘We’re doing that already, of course,’ Katie told him. ‘With Mawakiya it’s a little more difficult, because he’s been keeping himself under the radar.’
‘Meaning what, exactly?’
‘Meaning that a few people in the city have been aware that he’s around, but for some reason he’s never come to our attention before. There’s a chef who works in one of the African restaurants on Lower Shandon Street, he saw him quite often, and apparently he always had a number of very young girls with him. A couple of minor drug-dealers knew him, too, as well as some juvenile offenders who were caught stealing tyres from Smiley’s. But that was about his level. Petty pimping and petty drug-pushing and petty thieving, that’s all. It seems extreme, to say the least, that one of his girls would go to the lengths of forcing him to cut off his own hand, then amputating his other hand, then blasting him in the face with two shotgun shells.’
She paused, but before Superintendent Molloy could interrupt her, she said, ‘That’s another thing. She shot them with quite a new type of Winchester shotgun shell, fired from what was probably a fairly newish type of handgun. A personal protection weapon, rather than some long-barrelled shotgun like you’d be taking out to shoot clay pigeons with. We have to ask ourselves where she acquired it – or how she even knew such weapons existed.’
Superintendent Molloy shook his head. ‘There you are, Dermot! What I have always been saying? Give a woman a perfectly straightforward case to solve and before you know it she has it all tangled up like her knitting!’
Katie said, ‘Well, Bryan, we can discuss this later if you like. I can show you all the pathology reports we have so far, as well as all the witness statements and forensic evidence from the technical lads.’
‘Perhaps we could talk about it over dinner tonight,’ said Superintendent Molloy.
‘Excuse me?’
‘I said, perhaps we could talk about it over dinner. I’m staying at Jury’s at the moment until they can fix me up with somewhere more permanent. It would give us a chance to get to know each other better, and for you to brief me on everything that you have in hand.’
‘I’m sorry, Bryan, I have a prior engagement this evening.’
‘Oh!’ said Superintendent Molloy, turning around on his heel as if he were appealing to a sceptical jury. ‘And is this prior engagement more pressing than you and me discussing how we’re going to tackle two high-profile homicides, with the perpetrator still at large? Not to mention a host of other serious criminal activities in this not-so-fair city?’
‘I’ve said I’m sorry, Bryan, but it’s an engagement I really can’t break. I’m supposed to have a day off tomorrow but, if you like, I’ll come in around eleven and do whatever I can to get you up to speed.’
Superintendent Molloy blew out his cheeks. ‘That’s the first time in my life a woman has ever turned me down. I’m shaken! Shaken to the core!’
‘I’ll see you tomorrow morning,’ said Katie.
She picked up her briefcase and her sandwich and Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll opened the door for her.
Outside in the corridor, Katie said, ‘How are you feeling, Dermot? You’re looking a little washed out, if you don’t mind my saying so.’
Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll gave her a weary smile. ‘I’m bearing up, Katie. I’ve packe
d my pyjamas ready for hospital, tried to give Bryan all the background he needs, but I know that you’ll give him your support.’
‘Of course I will, Dermot. It’s my job.’
Chief Inspector O’Driscoll reached behind him and closed the door so that Superintendent Molloy wouldn’t be able to hear him.
‘I know he won’t be that easy for you to get along with. There are still too many in the force like him. But one of the reasons he got this job so promptly was because he has influential friends at Phoenix Park. Let me tell you this, Katie: if you really want to get ahead, try to stay on his good side. He could help you go a long way. If Noirin O’Sullivan could make it to Deputy Commissioner in Charge of Operations, so could you. You might even make Commissioner.’
‘I can manage Bryan Molloy,’ said Katie. ‘I was married to Paul, remember, and he thought that women were only good for two things, one of which was washing the dishes. It’s you I’m worried about, Dermot. Promise me that you’ll keep in touch and let me know how things are going, I’ll come and visit you in the Bon Secours and bring you some of Ailish’s barmbrack.’
Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll held out his arms for her and gave her a hug and kissed her. When he stood back, he had tears in his eyes.
‘Do you know something, Katie,’ he said, ‘in all my thirty-five years in the Garda, this is the first time I’ve ever been scared.’
Twenty-three
She finished her coffee and was debating with herself whether she needed another cup when Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán knocked at her office door. She was wearing a faded denim jacket and a denim skirt, but her blonde bob was immaculate and shining.
‘Ah, Kyna,’ said Katie. ‘I got your message about the tattoo parlour. I’ve just had to organize all these technical reports for Superintendent Molloy to go through. Have you met him yet?’
‘Not yet. He’ll be after introducing himself to everybody this afternoon. There’s a special meeting in the canteen at three o’clock. But – yes – I know of him by reputation.’
‘And?’
‘And I know of him by reputation, that’s all. He’s an outstanding officer, that’s what they say. He’s one of the reasons they don’t call Limerick “Stab City” any more.’
Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán looked as if she were about to say something else, but instead she stayed silent. Katie looked up at her and said, ‘Is that it?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘You know that if you work with me you can speak your mind. I don’t give anybody down the banks for having an opinion.’
‘No, ma’am.’
Katie was tempted to tell Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán exactly what she thought about Superintendent Molloy, but she had learned a long time ago not to give hostages to fortune, especially when it came to promotional politics. It was highly likely that Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll would never return to duty and that Superintendent Molloy would take over permanently, and also that Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán would be seeking to make her way higher up the ladder. Better to say nothing at all.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘What’s all this about Mawakiya’s tattoo?’
‘Well, it’s very sensitive. I’d nearly given up, to tell you the truth. Then I visited this tattoo studio on French Church Street and one of the artists told me that he’d heard of a Thai tattooist who was operating out of a massage parlour on Grafton Street. He said he’d seen some of his work and it was very similar to Mawakiya’s. A dragon or a snake starting at the genitals and winding its way around the body.’
She took her notebook out her jacket pocket and flipped it open. ‘The massage parlour is called Golden Fingers and it’s one of those advertised on Michael Gerrety’s website. They have three Thai girls working there. They give legitimate massages, but for sixty euros extra they’ll go the whole way.
‘There’s a back room there where this Thai tattooist does tattoos and piercings. He didn’t want to speak to me at first, but then I told him I came from the Immigration Bureau and after that I couldn’t shut him up. He said his name is Nok. I showed him the photographs of Mawakiya’s tattoo and he said that he had done it, about eighteen months ago. He had known him only by the name of Kola.’
‘That fits. Young Lolade heard him called Kola. Lolade, by the way – that’s Isabelle’s real name.’
‘Nok said that Kola had been brought to the massage parlour by three of his friends. They were all regulars – like they would come in two or three times every month, at least, and sometimes they would bring more of their friends in with them. A couple of them had tattoos, but mostly they came for the massage. The full massage.’
‘Did this Nok know who Kola’s friends were?’
‘The three that brought him in, oh yes. He knew them well. One of them was called Mister Dessie and he represented the owners of the massage parlour. He came in every day to collect the takings. The other two were called Ronan and Billy. Nok knew that because they both came to him for tattoos while their friends were having a massage. In fact, they both had the same tattoo, right between the shoulder blades. Guess what it was?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Katie. ‘A dragon? A picture of Bono?’
Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán passed over her open notebook. ‘There – Nok drew it for me.’
Katie picked it up. The tattoo design was a Celtic cross with a circle in the middle, and two curly intertwined letters in the centre, G and S. Around the outside of the cross were the words Gharda Síotchána na h-Éireann.
‘A Garda badge,’ said Katie. She was shocked. ‘Don’t tell me they were both gardaí?’
Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán took her notebook back. ‘That’s how Mawakiya appeared to stay unnoticed for so long. He wasn’t unnoticed at all. He was simply being shielded by Ronan and Billy. Nok told me that he knew for sure they were guards because he had seen both of them in the street, in uniform.’
Katie frowned. ‘If Ronan and Billy were friends with Dessie O’Leary, that means they must have known that Mawakiya was being used by Michael Gerrety to farm out any girls who were under the age of consent. Ten to one Gerrety was paying them to keep quiet about it – if not directly, then indirectly. Settling their mortgages for them, something like that. Paying for their kids to go to school.’
‘I won’t have any trouble identifying them, Ronan and Billy,’ said Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán. ‘I just thought you ought to know about them first.’
‘Well, good thinking,’ said Katie. ‘We don’t want Michael Gerrety to find out yet that we’ve established a connection between him and Mawakiya, or Kola, or whatever he called himself. It could well put Ronan and Billy at risk, and whatever they’ve done, I don’t want them ending up in the river.’
‘One more thing,’ said Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán. ‘I checked on the Dumitrescu house again this morning. The whole lot of them have definitely fled the nest. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’ve already left the country.’
Katie said, ‘That definitely increases my suspicion that our dead Romanian is Mânios Dumitrescu. And, of course, Dumitrescu did business with Michael Gerrety, too – mostly doing the direct opposite to Mawakiya and taking the older brassers off his hands.’
‘That still doesn’t bring us too much closer to who killed them, does it?’
‘It could do.’ Katie told Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán what Lolade had said about juju, and why Mawakiya’s hands might have been cut off and his face obliterated.
Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán looked thoughtful and then she said, ‘Our perpetrator did the same to the white victim, didn’t she? That could be further confirmation that she’s Nigerian and believes in juju.’
‘How do you work that out?’
‘It’s only logic. If she had punished Mawakiya like that only because he believed in it, then she would have punished the white victim in a way that was appropriate to his beliefs. Since it’s likely that he was Romanian, he was probably Eastern Orthodox, and the
y believe that sin is its own punishment, so all she had to do was kill him and he would have gone to hell anyway. He wouldn’t have needed to have his hands cut off and his face shot away.’
‘That’s very erudite of you,’ said Katie.
‘It’s just that I always try to put myself inside the mind of the perpetrator. If I can understand how they think, it usually helps me to work out who they are.’
Katie stood up, shuffling together the papers that she had been preparing for Superintendent Molloy. ‘If you can discreetly find out for me the identities of Ronan and Billy, we’ll have a further meeting to discuss what our plan of action is going to be. Your tattooist mentioned that they brought in other friends, so it’s conceivable that there may be other officers involved. Until we know the extent of this, we need to handle it like an unexploded bomb, believe me.’
As Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán turned to go, Katie’s mobile phone played And it’s no, nay, never – no, nay never no more—
‘Patrick?’
‘Yes, ma’am. They’ve found another one. African male with his hands missing and his head shot to buggery.’
‘Mary, Mother of God. Where?’
‘He’s in a furniture workshop in Mutton Lane, in between the Mutton Lane Inn and the English Market.’
‘When was this?’
‘Only about twenty minutes ago. The owner came back from his holliers a couple of days early and found him there, like. Bring your strongest scent. The stink’s enough to make a maggot gag.’
‘Give me ten minutes,’ said Katie. Then, to Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán, ‘I hope you don’t have any plans for the rest of the day. We’ve got ourselves another one.’
Twenty-four
It had stopped raining and the streets were glistening in the sunshine. Three patrol cars and an ambulance and a van from the Technical Bureau were already parked at angles along the south side of Patrick Street. Gardaí had closed the street to westbound traffic and cordoned off the pavement between Princes Street and Market Lane. There were crowds at either end, silently waiting like guests at a funeral for the deceased to be carried out.
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