‘They never reported Mawakiya for any of the rackets he was running, like drug-dealing and fencing stolen goods, and they never reported him for pimping underage girls. What makes their misconduct all the more serious is that these girls had been passed on to Mawakiya by Michael Gerrety. Gerrety had refused to handle them himself because they were too young and might have jeopardized his Green Light campaign.’
‘And they didn’t speak up, these two, even when Mawakiya was found murdered?’
Katie shook head. ‘Neither of them said a word. If they had spoken up and told us who he was, we could have been spared hours of work. We might even have been able to arrest this Angel of Revenge woman before she murdered Mânios Dumitrescu.’
‘Do you know who they are?’
‘Only their first names, Ronan and Billy.’
‘Descriptions?’
‘Apparently Nok said that all Irishmen looked the same to him. But he had seen them both in uniform in the city centre, on patrol together.’
Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll slowly sat down. ‘I’m pretty sure I know who they are,’ he said. ‘Ronan Lynch and Billy Daly. Both of them have been in trouble over the years for various alleged transgressions. A couple of times for being overenthusiastic with the baton at public demonstrations. Another time they suggested to a motorist they might let him drive home drunk if he paid them an on-the-spot fine of two hundred euros. Then there’s been some cases of inappropriate sexual advances to the wives of men in jail, or to young women facing charges of theft or prostitution.’
He leaned back and looked up at Katie with an expression like a regretful old dog.
‘They’re not what you’d describe as rotten to the core, Katie. Not at all. They’ve both done some excellent work, especially when it comes to community policing and dealing with young offenders. Let’s just say that they’ve tended to take too much advantage of the privileges that go with being a guard. They seem to consider it’s the perks of the job, like. If they accept some free hospitality here and there, or pocket a little money for turning a blind eye when a councillor’s been speeding, they can’t understand why anybody should be disapproving. Keeps the wheels greased, that’s their attitude.’
‘But they knew about Mawakiya, and what he was up to, pimping underage girls, and they did nothing.’
‘Well, we can both guess why that was. If they’ve been hanging around with “Mister Dessie” O’Leary, then their ultimate paymaster must be Michael Gerrety.’
Katie said, ‘I’m going to be talking to Kyna when she comes back, to see if she knows any more about Ronan and Billy, and then I think I’ll have to talk to the two of them myself. Any evidence at all that Gerrety was aware that he was passing on underage girls for the purposes of prostitution will be absolutely invaluable. Reckless endangerment, at the very least.’
‘It’s a sad day, this, Katie,’ said Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll, and she knew that he wasn’t talking only about Ronan Lynch and Billy Daly.
‘What I was really asking you is, how should I bring this up with Bryan?’
Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll stood up again and resumed his packing. He said nothing for a while, but Katie waited patiently for him to answer.
At last he said, ‘Talk to Lynch and Daly before you say anything to Bryan. Tell them what you know and insist that they cooperate with you in nailing Michael Gerrety. If they don’t, you’ll make absolutely sure that the fertilizer hits the fan and they could end up losing a whole lot more than their jobs. Tell them you’d like to see how two bombos with Garda tattoos get treated by the residents of Rathmore Road.’
‘And if they refuse?’
‘That’s when you go to Bryan. But not before.’
‘Dermot, I know you don’t like him. Neither of us do. But don’t you trust him?’
‘I told you, Katie. He’s a decent officer and he’s done a lot for Limerick. He’s well-connected, too, and you’d be a fool to yourself if you fell out with him.’
‘But?’
‘Talk to Lynch and Daly first, and give them some time to consider. I don’t think we’ll ever get Michael Gerrety behind bars, but I still want to make sure that he’s convicted.’
At that moment, Katie’s iPhone played And it’s no, nay, never – no, nay never no more—
‘I trust that phone of yours isn’t gloating,’ said Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll.
She had hoped it was John calling her back, but it was Bill from the Technical Bureau.
‘We’ve unlocked the phone we found in the workshop,’ he told her. ‘Are you going to give me an early Christmas bonus?’
‘It’s still July, Bill.’
‘Oh, I know that, but you wait till you see what we’ve got there. The phone is registered to Owoye Danjuma, Top Flat, 33 Oliver Plunkett Street. Don’t worry, we’ve checked, he doesn’t actually live there. In fact, nobody does at the moment.
‘You only have to look through a few of Owoye’s messages to realize that he’s usually known as Bula.’
‘So that’s who he is. Bula-Bulan Yaro. The Fat Man, in English.’
‘You know him?’
‘Oh yes, we know him all right. He mainly works for “Mister Dessie” O’Leary as a gofer and general odd-job man.’
‘Well, that makes sense. There’s about five million messages on this phone from “D”, telling your man to do this and do that and go to the airport and pick up somebody’s dry-cleaning and fix a door and God knows what else. I’ll bring it on up to you anyway, and you can go through it for yourself. There is so much incriminating evidence in this thing, and so many names, you’ll be arresting half of Cork.’
Katie said to Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll: ‘The mobile phone they found in the workshop, it belonged to Bula, that big fat Nigerian gom who runs around for Dessie O’Leary.’
‘I know, the one we can never get rid of. He sticks around like a bad smell, that man.’
‘Well, he does now, I can tell you. That body in the workshop, that’s almost certainly him. But you know what that suggests, don’t you?’
‘I don’t entirely, apart from the fact that all three of them were scumbags.’
‘It suggests a pattern. All three of them were scumbags, yes, but all three of them were directly connected to Michael Gerrety. It’s too early to say for certain, but that young girl Lolade said that the perpetrator called herself the Angel of Revenge. I have a strong feeling that she may be carrying out a vendetta here, picking off Michael Gerrety’s people one by one.’
‘She could be a prostitute herself,’ Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll suggested. ‘Maybe she feels that she was mistreated, or cheated.’
‘She’s probably Nigerian, because she actually called herself Rama Mala’ika, which is Hausa for “Angel of Revenge” – or at least that’s what Faith told me. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s a prostitute. I’ve been watching those CCTV sequences of her, over and over, and there’s something about the way she carries herself. She’s very attractive, and she’s very confident in the way she walks. She’s wearing a juju necklace, which may indicate that she’s a practiser of juju rather than a follower. In other words, she’s somebody who’s controlling, rather than controlled.’
‘That’s interpretating a hell of a lot from a straight back and a seashell necklace. You ought to be a detective.’
‘It’s her entire body language, Dermot. She’s determined, she’s alert, she knows what she intends to do and she knows how to do it. She managed to get Bula into that furniture workshop somehow and cut off his hands with a circular saw. That wasn’t done by any woman who’s had her spirit broken.’
‘It gives me the tingles in me wrists even to think about it,’ said Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll.
‘There’s one thing more: she uses a very unusual weapon. The way Lolade described it to me, it was very small, and she had to reload it after only one shot. There are several handguns that can fire shotgun shells, like the
Taurus Judge or the Smith & Wesson Governor, but both of those can fire more than one shot without reloading, and you could hardly describe either of them as small. So I’d be interested to know what kind of gun our perpetrator was using, and where she got it from.
‘Her ammunition was very up to date, as you saw from Dr O’Brien’s first report. So I may be wrong, and I may be totally misjudging this young woman, but I don’t think she’s a hooker, or ever was a hooker. All the same, there’s no doubt in my mind that she’s going after Michael Gerrety and his not-so-merry men, starting with the not-so-merry men and working her way upwards. What odds will you give me that “Mister Dessie” O’Leary is next on the hit list?’
‘That gun could be a very good lead. Have you canvassed all of the gun traders?’
‘Every single one from here to Dungarvon. No result at all. I’m meeting with Eugene Ó Béara tomorrow, but I doubt if I’ll get anything out of him.’
‘Oh well,’ said Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll. ‘It doesn’t do any harm to keep in touch with the boys of the old brigade.’ He paused, reflectively, and then he said, ‘What are you going to do about Dessie O’Leary? Are you going to warn him that he might well be a target for this Angel of Revenge? And what about Michael Gerrety? Are you going to warn him, too?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Katie – and she really didn’t. ‘I honestly think she’d be doing us a favour if she offed those two, don’t you?’
‘We’re guardians of the peace, Katie, not judges. Remember your oath.’
‘I do. I can still recite it word for word. But my oath doesn’t include anything about my going out of my way to save callous and sadistic bastards from the consequences of their own criminality. Come on, Dermot, the oath has always been open to interpretation. We swear to God that we’re not members of any secret society, don’t we? – but half the senior officers at Phoenix Park belong to the stone sculptors down at the end of Molesworth Street.’
Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll shrugged his shoulders. ‘I leave it up to your discretion, Katie. But be very careful how you handle this. Be doggy wide. It’s beginning to look like two trains approaching from opposite directions, so don’t get caught in the middle.’
She watched him pack the very last of his belongings, the silver clock that his parents had given him when he first graduated from Templemore.
‘I’m going to miss you, Dermot O’Driscoll,’ she told him. ‘Without you, I’d still be trying to find out who hobbled the collection money from the Holy Family, or who’s been pinching the knickers off Mrs O’Gallagher’s washing line.’
He nodded. ‘I’m going to miss you, too, Katie Maguire. I fought to have you promoted because I always believed that women have a much better nose for bullshit. Ha! I don’t know how much you’ve learned from me, but I can tell you for nothing that I’ve learned a whole lot from you – mostly about the opposite sex. My wife says I’ve been a much better husband since you were promoted. She says I actually listen to her when she’s talking. I have to admit that listening to her hasn’t made her any more interesting – in fact, it’s reminded me why I stopped listening to her in the first place. But there, you can’t have everything.’
‘You’ll be back,’ said Katie.
Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll looked around his office. There was nothing on the walls now except the rectangular marks where his photographs had hung.
He didn’t answer, but his mouth was puckered tight and his eyes were glistening, and they both knew that he would never be sitting in this office, no, nay, never no more.
Twenty-six
It was nearly 11.00 p.m. before Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán came back to the station, and she looked exhausted. She slumped down in Katie’s office and said, ‘Jesus, I’m knackered.’
‘Any luck with witnesses?’
‘No. I must have talked to more than forty people, but nothing. I interviewed all of the staff at the Mutton Lane Inn and most of the stallholders in the English Market, and quite a few shoppers besides. Not one of them could remember seeing an obese African man accompanied by a thin African woman.
‘One of the butchers said that he’d seen a really fat African woman with three thin kids, if that was any good to me. In fact, he said the kids were so thin he offered the woman some buckshee sausages to fatten them up a little, like her. After that, she screamed at him for almost five minutes, giving him a hard time for insulting her.’
‘Let me get us some coffees,’ said Katie. ‘I think I’m badly in need a caffeine fix.’
‘I’ll go,’ said Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán.
‘No, no. You’ve been on your feet all day. I want to see how Horgan’s getting on, anyway.’
On her way back from the canteen with a tray of five coffees, Katie pushed her way into the squad room. Bill from the Technical Bureau had brought up Bula’s iPhone and Detectives Horgan and Nolan were hunched over it together, making a record of every text and every email on it, and copying out its list of contacts.
Katie came across and set down a cup of coffee in front of each of them. ‘How’s it going?’ she asked them.
‘Oh, feck,’ said Detective Horgan, leaning back in his chair. ‘There’s so much here, ma’am, it’s going to take us all night and half of tomorrow, too.’
‘Anything interesting?’
‘So far, there’s nothing that you could call directly incriminating. On the other hand, we might be able to link up some of the dates and times of the messages on here with cases that we haven’t been able to close yet. For instance, your man was told to go to Spur Cross at 5.00 p.m. on the fifth of June to pick up a shipment of computers. Now what’s in Spur Cross? Just a scattering of private houses, that’s all. But on the third of June fifty-five Acer computers were stolen from Lee Electronics and there hasn’t been a sniff of them since. So this could be a lead to who took them, and who fenced them, and where they went.’
‘Any mention of Michael Gerrety?’
‘Not so far. But there’s loads from “D” telling your man that “M” wants him to do something. Here, look, on the twelfth of May “D” says that “M” wants him to go up to the airport and pick up “R” and two other passengers off of KLM 3173. Now, KLM 3173 is an evening flight from Brussels, and as we know, Brussels is a regular staging-post for trafficking girls from West Africa. After he’s picked them up, your man is supposed to take them to Washington Street so that “M” can meet him there later to have a sconce.’
Detective Horgan sat back and stretched. ‘It’s all supposition, but that could well be an instruction from Michael Gerrety telling Bula to pick up a courier and two young girls, and that Gerrety will come along later to give them a once-over.’
‘You’re right,’ said Katie. ‘It is supposition. But keep at it. The more circumstantial evidence we collect, the better, and if there’s anything in that phone that proves that “M” is Michael Gerrety, I’ll buy you an iced doughnut next time.’
‘Oh yes. Thanks a million for the coffee. I was gasping.’
Detective O’Donovan had arrived by the time Katie returned to her office. On the large side table where she usually spread out her maps he and Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán had laid out more than thirty large photographs. All pieced together, these formed a 360-degree panorama of the interior of the workshop, complete with Bula’s headless, handless body lying on the couch in the middle of it, like a giant beige slug.
‘That’s grand,’ said Katie. All of these photographs had been taken by the technicians to record any forensics they might have found – any blood spatters or fingerprints, any smudges or scratches – but Katie liked to use them to reconstruct the scene of the crime. To her, it was like an empty stage set after the play had finished and all of the actors had gone home. All except for Bula, of course.
She had often found that it was possible to work out what had happened, and in what sequence, by noting the position of the furniture, and where the bloodstains were, and other small
details, like a knocked-over vase or a broken window pane. From the angle at which Bula had been shot in the knee, and the blood that had sprayed from the wound, she could see that the perpetrator must have been standing where the table saw had been located when she shot him. That meant that she must have dragged the saw up close to him after she had made sure that he was unable to escape.
She was still studying the photographs when Detective Ryan knocked at her door, looking more than ever like a schoolboy who has just finished all his homework. He was holding up half a dozen printouts.
‘Got her,’ he said.
He spread the pictures out on Katie’s desk. They showed the south side of Patrick Street in between Burger King and Oasis. In the first picture, Bula could be seen emerging from Burger King in his yellow floral shirt, holding his takeaway box. In the next, a nun was talking to him, but the young Nigerian woman was standing by the window of Claire’s fashion store, only a few feet away, and she obviously had her eyes on him. She was dressed in the same outfit of black T-shirt, black leather waistcoat and jeans that she had been wearing when she was tailing Mawakiya.
As Bula reached the corner of Mutton Lane, the young woman stepped up close behind him. He turned, and they appeared to be exchanging a few words. Although the image was fuzzy, Bula could be seen to be frowning. A man appeared from Mutton Lane and spoke to him, and then walked away. Bula then turned into Mutton Lane and the young woman followed him.
‘I don’t think there’s any question now who we’re after,’ said Katie. She pointed to the clearest picture of the young woman and said, ‘Have that one circulated as soon as you can, would you? I’ll make sure that the press office gets it. Somebody must know this woman, and where she’s staying. I mean, she’s striking enough. You wouldn’t miss her, would you, even in a crowd?’
‘Depends what it was a crowd of,’ said Detective O’Donovan. ‘If it was nothing but African lashers, then maybe you would. By the way – talking of African lashers, I checked on the letting agents for Gerry O’Farrell’s furniture workshop – Carbery’s, on Grand Parade. There was an African girl working there and she was quite a looker. Red hair she had, almost the same colour as yours. She said that nobody could have had access to the keys to the workshop because all of their keys were kept in the office safe. So maybe O’Farrell was right and our suspect did take them out of his jacket and have copies made of them. I’ll check with Cunneen’s the locksmith’s later.’
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