‘Don’t worry – it doesn’t have to come out that you tipped us off about your Darragh,’ Katie told her. ‘In any case, we wouldn’t be able to get him convicted on your say-so alone. We’d need to find some corroborating evidence first. Otherwise, Darragh could simply deny that he ever said it, or make out that he was joking. There’s no law against joking, although sometimes I think that there ought to be.’
‘What do you mean, like? What’s – what is it? – corrugated evidence?’
‘It just means proof that we can show to a judge that your Darragh was actually driving the vehicle at the time that Detective Barry was killed. You know, like fingerprints, or shoe prints, or DNA, or eyewitnesses picking him out and saying it was him. But at least we know now who it is we’re trying to identify, and that’s going to make our job a whole lot easier, I can tell you.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Neala, worriedly. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have told you. I have Donna and little Petey to think about and I’m frightened enough as it is that Darragh’s going to find out where we are and come after us.’
‘You’re safe here, I promise you,’ Katie reassured her. ‘They never let anybody into the house without checking them first and if there’s any trouble they have an alarm connected directly to the Garda station.’
Neala started to gnaw at her thumbnail. All Katie could do was lay her hand on her shoulder and say, ‘Please don’t worry. Neala. We’ll protect you, I promise.’
She waited for a few moments, then she smiled at Donna and went back downstairs to talk to some of the other women in the house. She looked through Blathnaid’s notes on the families that Walnut Tree had taken in that week, and then, ten minutes later, she left. When she climbed back into her car, however, she didn’t drive off immediately. She sat staring at her sea-green eyes in the rear-view mirror, feeling both angry and frustrated.
If she could have put out an arrest warrant for Darragh Murphy immediately, she would have done. But she knew that she would have to handle any inquiry into Detective Barry’s murder with extraordinary caution. She couldn’t arrest Murphy on suspicion because he would guess where she had got her information, and she had nothing else to back it up. She would only be putting the lives of Neala and her children in extreme peril – and John’s life, too. She couldn’t even bring him into the station for an identity line-up. As soon as Bobby Quilty got wind that she was still investigating him, God alone knew what revenge he would take. He would believe that he was justified, too – ‘You broke the treaty, DS Maguire, not me.’
Even if she could find enough evidence to put Darragh Murphy behind bars for killing Detective Barry, and Bobby Quilty for inciting him to do it, Neala and John would still be in danger of retribution from other members of Quilty’s gang, or his so-called Authentic IRA. In the last week of January, the A-IRA had murdered two suspected members of Oglaigh na hEireann who had attempted to hijack a lorryload of Bobby Quilty’s cigarettes. In trademark Quilty fashion, they had both suffered shotgun blasts between the legs before being bound and gagged and thrown off Daly Bridge into the River Lee so that they would float through the city centre at the busiest time of the day.
Katie had seen the bodies for herself and the thought of them still made her stomach clench.
She could fully understand that Neala wanted Darragh to be punished for beating her, and to have him locked up so that he could never threaten her again, but she didn’t think that she appreciated what this would mean for her and her children. They would have to spend the rest of their lives in witness protection, under assumed names, even if they left the country and were relocated somewhere in England. Bobby Quilty’s most lucrative trade came from the cigarettes that he smuggled from Ringaskiddy into Swansea, or from Dundalk into Liverpool, and he had scores of English cronies who would be only too happy to do him a favour and see that Neala was made to suffer for touting on him.
And John – what would they do to John? She might never see him again – or, if they blinded him, he might never see her again, even if she managed to rescue him alive.
She had just started her engine when her iPhone pinged to tell her that she had a text message. It was from Kyna and it read simply, I’m in. GHMOMS.
Katie knew what GHMOMS meant because Kyna had used it before when she was caught up in a situation that was critical or dangerous or deeply unpleasant. God Have Mercy On My Soul.
She was tempted to tell Kyna to pull out if there was too much risk, or if her position was becoming untenable, for whatever reason. But now that she knew for certain that Bobby Quilty was behind Detective Barry’s murder it was even more urgent that Kyna should infiltrate his empire even further.
She drove back to Anglesea Street. She had intended to go up to the canteen and have a ham and salad roll, but now she felt too nauseated to eat anything.
Eighteen
Bill Phinner and Eithne came up to her office together. Eithne was carrying a large transparent plastic folder, while Bill was sucking at an unlit pipe.
‘Bill!’ said Katie, looking up from her paperwork. ‘I never knew you smoked a pipe!’
‘I don’t, as matter of fact,’ Bill told her. ‘Hardly ever, any road. I can’t smoke in the lab, and I can’t smoke in the pub, and the missus won’t let me smoke indoors at home, and most of the time it’s raining and believe you me there’s fierce little pleasure in standing down the end of the garden trying to keep your pipe alight when it’s lashing down. The only good it does me, it stops me from grinding my teeth. My brother says it makes me look halfway intelligent, too. You can point at things with a pipe and look as if you know what you’re talking about.’
‘So, what have you got for me?’ asked Katie.
Eithne held up the folder. ‘Final DNA results on the bodies from Millstream Row. There’s no question about it. They’re the Langtry family all right.’
‘I won’t bore you with the minutiae,’ said Bill. ‘But the charts for all four of the family are here and you’ll be able to see for yourself that the segments we’ve tested are well above the threshold for IBD.’
Katie took the folder and opened it up. She had taken the eight-day refresher course in forensics early last year and she knew that IBD meant Identical By Descent. It was sometimes possible that DNA could be IBC, Identical By Chance, but in the case of the Langtrys she could see from a cursory glance at the charts that the samples had been triangulated with Ronan Fitzgerald and that the matches were undeniable.
‘All right, thanks,’ she said. ‘Of course that leaves me with the question of how Stephen Langtry managed to send letters and postcards from America when he was lying dead under the floorboards in Blarney.’
‘A ruse, I’d say, so nobody would find out for a while that they’d been murdered,’ said Bill, taking his pipe out of his mouth. ‘Their bodies would have stunk for a few weeks but sure most people’s houses would have stunk in the 1920s, what with the lack of personal hygiene and the peat fires and the smoking indoors, and the same pot of tripe bubbling on the hob for days on end. And, of course, their killers were haunted that their bodies dried out the way they did, what with the atmospheric conditions under those floorboards being the way they were. I don’t suppose they envisaged for a moment that they wouldn’t be discovered for another ninety-five years.’
‘Well, I think it’s pure obvious that somebody else apart from Stephen Langtry sent those letters,’ said Katie. ‘I’d just be interested to know who, and exactly why. I mean, there was a war going on and people on both sides were getting killed, but usually it was done quite openly. When Michael Collins was shot they didn’t hide his body, did they, and send letters from New York to make out that he was simply fed up with politics and had decided to emigrate?’
‘Now that would be a grand idea for a film,’ said Bill. ‘Especially if they could get that Liam Neeson playing Collins again.’
‘I’ll have Mathew arrange for a media briefing later this afternoon,’ Katie told him. ‘I expect Fionnuala
Sweeney will be crowing, but it can’t be helped. Maybe we’ll be able to jog somebody’s memory and they’ll remember something they were told by their grandparents about the Langtrys.’
‘You never know,’ said Bill. ‘My old grandfather was always rattling on about the time his older brother hid guns on his farm at Inniscarra for Captain Frank Busteed and his boys. From what he said, you’d have believed the Phinners won the war of independence single-handed.’
‘Like you say, Bill, you never know. I’ll also get Detective Ó Doibhilin to contact US Immigration. It’s a ten million to one chance, but their historical records are fantastic and they might be able to tell us if somebody calling himself Stephen Langtry was admitted to the USA in 1921, with or without his wife and children. And the New York State police may be able to discover if a Stephen Langtry ever really worked for Glenside Woollen Mills, especially if Glenside Woollen Mills is still in business.’
‘So you think some other family could have gone over to America and pretended to be them?’
‘I really have no idea, Bill. I don’t think it’s very likely, but we have to consider every possibility. The Langtrys might have been murdered a long time ago, but they deserve justice and whoever shot them needs to be named and shamed. Grand work with the DNA, by the way.’
Bill looked towards the window. ‘It still looks nice and bright out there. I reckon I’ll go and have a smoke to celebrate.’
*
The media briefing was called for 4.30 p.m. to give RTÉ and the local radio stations plenty of time to include their reports on their six o’clock news bulletins, and the newspapers time to write it up for their morning editions.
Fionnuala Sweeney was there, of course, sitting right at the front, and so was Dan Keane from the Examiner with his usual half-smoked cigarette tucked behind his ear, and Branna MacSuibhne from the Echo with her blonde hair sprayed into two rigid buffalo horns. Katie could see a new face there, too: a very thin brunette with enormous brown eyes. She had a tapestry bag slung around her shoulders and a Newstalk badge on her lanyard, although she looked almost too young to be a radio reporter.
At the last moment, Chief Superintendent MacCostagáin came into the conference room to join Katie at the top table, looking even more distracted and out of sorts than usual. Although she had already given him the details of the DNA results, and he didn’t often make an appearance at routine news briefings, he shared Katie’s concern about the political implications of the Langtry case and he obviously wanted to hear what the media’s response was going to be.
Katie stood up and said, ‘Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Our Technical Bureau have now completed DNA tests on the four bodies discovered beneath the floorboards at Millstream Row in Blarney, and they have established beyond any reasonable doubt that the four were indeed Stephen and Radha Langtry and their two children, Aideen and Clearie.’
She could see Fionnuala Sweeney nodding her head in self-satisfaction, but she ignored her and looked instead at the young woman from Newstalk.
‘Based on this evidence, we’ll continue to pursue our investigation into how the family were murdered and who might have been responsible, but I have to emphasize that I am not regarding this case as a high priority. My detectives have many more pressing investigations on their hands, particularly in the areas of drug-trafficking, prostitution, property theft and serious fraud, so the public can rest assured that we’re giving our full attention to present-day inquiries.’
Fionnuala Sweeney raised her hand and asked, ‘Have you found any evidence yet to confirm or deny that Radha Langtry was having an adulterous affair with a British army officer?’
‘I’m aware of that so-called “local legend”, Fionnuala, but so far we haven’t found any conclusive evidence to back it up.’
‘But you do have some evidence?’
‘No.’
‘A British army cap badge wrapped in a love letter?’
‘Yes, we have those, but as yet we have no conclusive proof that they actually belonged to Radha Langtry.’
The young woman from Newstalk put up her hand. ‘If they were hers, though, and she’d been having an affair with a British officer, that could have given the British the motive to shoot them, couldn’t it?’
‘What’s your name?’ Katie asked her.
‘Muireann. Muireann Bourke.’
‘Well, let me say this to you, Muireann, whenever somebody’s unlawfully killed, it’s part of my job to have theories about who might have done it and why. But I test each of those theories to the very limit and make absolutely sure that I have irrefutable evidence before I start making public pronouncements about them.
‘Whatever the “local legend” suggests, it’s impossible for me to say for certain if Radha Langtry was having a liaison with a British officer or not, and I certainly have no grounds at all to suggest that the British army was responsible for killing the Langtrys because of it.’
‘If you found out that they were, though, that would be shattering, wouldn’t it? Like, think of the repercussions!’
‘Muireann, I can comment only on facts, not wild suppositions, and you should know better than to ask me a question like that.’
Muireann Bourke flushed and looked down at the floor in embarrassment. She’ll learn, thought Katie. She remembered asking similar questions herself when she was a green young garda and being slapped down for it.
Dan Keane said, ‘Even if do discover who murdered the Langtrys, though, what earthly use will that be? What about you, Chief Superintendent MacCostagáin? Don’t you sometimes think it’s wiser to let sleeping dogs lie?’
‘Sleeping dogs, maybe,’ said Chief Superintendent MacCostagáin. ‘In this case, though, the dogs weren’t sleeping. They were shot dead, as were the Langtrys.’
‘Of course, yes, but it was a very long time ago.’
‘There’s no statute of limitations on homicide, Dan, even if the offenders have passed away themselves. If you take a life, you will always have to answer to the law, even as you always have to explain yourself to God.’
‘Sure, I have you,’ said Dan Keane. ‘But if we’re talking about answering to the law, and to God, can you tell us what progress you’ve been able to make into finding out who it was that murdered Detective Barry – if any, that is? It’s his funeral tomorrow.’
Katie turned her head to give Chief Superintendent MacCostagáin a sharp, cautionary look. She was all too familiar with Dan Keane and his interview techniques – ‘Keane by Name and Keen by Nature’ was the way the Examiner described him under his byline. He rarely asked a question unless he already had a good idea what the answer was going to be.
Chief Superintendent MacCostagáin was very guarded when he answered. ‘We’re still in the process of examining the forensic evidence and collating eyewitness statements,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow morning we’ll be making a fresh appeal for information on all news media, and I understand that Assistant Commissioner O’Reilly has been given approval from Phoenix Park to offer a reward for any information that leads to a conviction. The exact amount hasn’t been confirmed yet, but I expect it to be in the region of ten thousand euros.’
‘You haven’t located the Land Rover that ran down Detective Barry, then?’
‘I’ve no comment to make about that, Dan. Not at this time.’
‘But you’ve located at least one abandoned Land Rover?’
‘I’ve no comment to make about that, Dan.’
‘Well, fair play to you, Chief Superintendent. I fully understand that your inquiry is still ongoing and that you can’t be releasing every doonchy little clue that you come across. But if you’d found the Land Rover that killed Detective Barry, I’d say that was quite a substantial clue, wouldn’t you? So would it be safe for me to assume that this particular Land Rover has nothing at all to do with his murder and that’s why you’ve announced nothing to the media about it?’
Katie didn’t like the way this questioning was going at all, and sh
e knew that Chief Superintendent MaCostagáin wasn’t going to be able to get away with answering ‘no comment’ to every question that Dan Keane put to him.
‘Which Land Rover exactly are you talking about, Dan?’ she asked him.
‘Well, it doesn’t really matter, does it, if it has nothing at all to do with your investigation into the killing of Detective Barry?’
Dan Keane’s left eyebrow was lifted and he had a calm, superior look on his face because he was confident now that he had Katie cornered.
Katie paused for a moment and then she said, ‘A Land Rover was found yesterday on a farm track north of Boycestown. It was totally burned out, with the result that it probably won’t yield any meaningful forensic evidence, although our technical experts are still going over it. Apart from that, we’re continuing to make inquiries into where it came from and who might have been driving it.’
‘You’re not denying then that it could be the same Land Rover that killed Detective Barry?’
‘I’m not denying it and I’m not confirming it, either.’
‘But DS Maguire, it still had its number plates attached. So how could you possibly not be certain, when you have CCTV footage of the Land Rover following Detective Barry across the Brian Boru Bridge?’
‘Excuse me, Dan, but how you can be so sure that it was still carrying its number plates?’ Katie retaliated. Although this briefing wasn’t going out on live TV or radio, she was becoming seriously worried now. She was counting on Kyna finding out where John was being held before the evidence against Bobby Quilty became so damning that she had no choice but to arrest him. For John, the consequences of her doing that were likely to be disastrous. She had no doubt at all that only minutes after her detectives turned up at Bobby Quilty’s door with a warrant John would be dead, or worse, and that she would never see him, or his body, ever again.
Dan Keane held up his iPhone. ‘Just as I was leaving the office on my way here today my picture editor caught up with me and said that two Dutch cyclists came in to see him this morning. It seems like they were on a tour of Cork and Kerry and while they were cycling across country on their way to Kinsale they saw a Land Rover on fire, and there were two fellows standing watching it. They took a few pictures, but being Dutch they never watched the TV news or read a paper, so they had no idea that they might have witnessed anything significant.’
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