‘I’m sorry,’ said Katie. ‘They’ve found a family murdered, just like the Langtrys were murdered. Shot and buried under the floorboards.’
‘Jesus Christ.’
‘Well, I don’t think He had anything to do with it. More like the UDA.’
‘I heard you. You want your breakfast?’
Katie shook her head. ‘I haven’t much appetite now. Sorry. Maybe you can make them for me some other time.’
‘All right. But I’ll come into the city with you and start poking around to see what I can find out about Bobby Quilty. That’s unless you want me to stay here and take Barney for his walk.’
‘No, Jenny will do that for me. I think I’ve given her enough gossip by way of compensation.’
Alan scraped the eggs into the waste-disposal unit, rinsed out the mugs and put them into the dishwasher. Katie could tell that he wanted to say something to her, but he stayed silent. As she had told him, what had happened that morning could never come back.
Thirty-four
She dropped Alan off at the corner of Merchant’s Quay and St Patrick’s Street. He leaned across the car to give her a kiss, but two uniformed gardaí were strolling towards them and she placed her hand on his shoulder to keep him away.
‘I think we’ve caused enough of a stir already.’ She smiled. ‘But call me later and don’t get yourself into any trouble. You know yourself what Quilty’s people are like.’
‘I will, and I won’t,’ he promised, as he climbed out of the car. Once the gardaí had passed them by, however, he turned around and blew her a kiss.
Katie drove across St Patrick’s Bridge and up Summerhill to Military Road. She wasn’t at all sure what she felt about Alan. She found him comforting and reassuring and very masculine, but at the same time she wasn’t entirely convinced that he was everything that he seemed to be. She wondered if he regarded her as more of a conquest than a companion. Or maybe she was just being hypersensitive, and feeling guilty about John.
Military Road was crowded with vehicles when she arrived. Two vans from the Technical Bureau, four patrol cars, two ambulances and six or seven other cars. She was relieved to see that RTÉ’s outside broadcast van hadn’t arrived yet.
Detective Sergeant Begley met her at the Dohertys’ front gate, along with Detective Dooley. When she went inside the house she saw that Detective Scanlan was in the kitchen, talking to Celia, the Dohertys’ cleaner, and Mrs Doody from next door. Clearly she wasn’t finding it easy because Mrs Doody was still holding Corky and for all the whishts awhile, will you, he wouldn’t stop barking.
Katie went into the living room. Bill Phinner was in there, as well as Eithne O’Neill and Tyrone Daley and two other technical experts, all wearing white Tyvek suits and masks. Seven of the oak floorboards in the centre of the room had been prised up and stacked against the wall by the fireplace. In the space under the floor, Katie could see the four bodies, all tightly wrapped up in vinyl sheeting and bound around with silver gaffer tape. The vinyl was transparent enough for her to be able to make out their pale faces and the colour of their clothes, and also the rusty bloodstains around their heads. Not only that, but she could smell the distinctive faecal odour of recent death.
‘What’s the story, Bill?’ she asked him.
‘Two adults, a man and a woman, and two children, a boy and a girl. Without taking that plastic off it looks pretty clear they’ve all been shot in the head. There’s bullet fragments in the front-door panel, so that would confirm that a gun was involved.’
‘Do we know their names?’
‘We won’t be able to tell for sure if they’re all from the same family until they’ve been formally identified, but we’re assuming for the moment that they are. The Dohertys – Kevin and his wife Órla, Tom and Sibeal. Kevin’s an estate agent for Thomas Mahoney’s down on South Mall.’
Detective Sergeant Begley said, ‘Their cleaning woman found them. Well, actually it was that dog from next door that sniffed them out.’
‘Clever dog,’ said Katie. ‘He should come and work for our canine support unit.’
‘I don’t think they could stand the noise,’ said Detective Sergeant Begley. ‘He’s been yapping ever since I got here. He’s worse than her I married, I’ll tell you.’
‘We’ve taken all the pictures we need, ma’am,’ said Bill. ‘It was washed off, but we’ve also found blood spatter on the wall here with the infra-red, and some in the hallway, too, by the stairs. We’ll be lifting the bodies out now, but we’ll be keeping them parcelled up like this until we get them to the mortuary. You’ll be calling the pathologist.’
‘Of course, yes. The woman next door – did she not see anybody unusual visiting the house? Didn’t she hear anything?’
‘She said that the Dohertys were very quiet last night, that’s all. She can usually hear their telly. But of course she didn’t imagine there was anything wrong. Nothing like this, any road.’
‘Come and take a sconce at the door,’ said Bill. ‘I’d say that it was hit by fragments from a soft-nosed bullet, but only fragments, which could mean that it had passed through something else first – like a human skull, for instance. The blood spatter we found by the stairs would verify that. According to the cleaning woman, there was a shopping list pinned over the door to hide the damage.’
‘How often does the cleaner come?’
‘Once a week.’
‘So if it hadn’t been for our doggy friend, the Dohertys may not have been found for days?’
Katie took a close look at the splinters in the front door and then went back into the kitchen to introduce herself to Celia and Mrs Doody. Celia was red-eyed and tearful, and twisting a handkerchief in her hands.
‘They were such a lovely family. I’ll tell you, Kevin and Órla, they had their arguments sometimes, but they were lovely people. Why would anybody want to do such a terrible thing to them?’
‘They had arguments?’ asked Katie. ‘What about?’
‘Oh, nothing serious, like. Maybe they couldn’t agree on what colour they were going to paint the bedroom. Or Kevin was getting on her nerves because he was never ready in time for Mass. Or he kept giving Tom those orangey sweeties even though they made the little fellow go stone-hatchet mad.’
‘So, Órla used to confide in you?’
‘Well, yes, we always had a bit of a chat when I was done with my cleaning. Only about women’s stuff, you know, and family gossip.’
‘Thank you, Celia. We’ll probably want to talk to you again later. You too, Mrs Doody. In the meantime, I think you can go. We have the sad business of taking out the bodies and I don’t think you’ll want to witness that.’
Katie went back into the living room. ‘Do you have that note?’ she asked Detective Dooley.
He handed her a plastic evidence envelope. She read and re-read the message that had been left with the bodies, and as she did so an idea began to form in her mind.
‘If the offenders really were UDA, they must have come down from the North especially to do this.’
‘They could have been local, though, ma’am, and only signed it Quis separabit? to put us off the scent, like.’
‘Well, you could be right,’ said Katie. ‘It just seems a bit too clever for that, that’s all. If they were trying to make out that they were UDA, or UFF, but they weren’t, I wonder if they wouldn’t have simply signed it that way, UDA, or UFF. Like, if I was a murderer and I was trying to make out the Garda had done it, I’d sign it “Garda”, not “To Achieve the Highest Level of Personal Protection, Community Commitment and State Security”.’
‘I’m glad you can remember all that, because that’s more than I can,’ said Detective Sergeant Begley. ‘Mind you, I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast.’
It’s all right for you, thought Katie. At least you had some.
‘We’ll start knocking on doors along the road, then,’ said Detective Sergeant Begley. ‘If the old doll next door didn’t see or hear nothing,
though, I doubt if anybody else did. They keep themselves to themselves around here.’
Katie looked down at the vinyl-wrapped bodies and crossed herself. She just hoped they hadn’t suffered. As she turned to leave the room, Tyrone said, ‘Oh! By the way, ma’am. We should have had the DNA results back by now on those bloodstains we found in that bedroom on Leitrim Street. I’ll call you later so, as soon as I get back to the lab.’
Katie close her eyes for a moment. John, she thought. I haven’t abandoned you, don’t worry.
‘Thanks a million, Tyrone,’ she told him, and stepped outside.
*
She had very little to say to the media waiting in the road – only to tell them that four bodies had been found in the house and that they had almost certainly been murdered. She declined to confirm that they were the Doherty family and she didn’t mention that they had probably been shot. Neither did she say that a note had been found with the bodies.
‘Was this some kind of domestic tragedy?’ asked Fionnuala Sweeney from RTÉ. ‘I mean, like, the father killing the family and then himself? Or are you looking for somebody else?’
‘It wasn’t domestic, no. We’re looking for a person or persons who might have visited the house sometime yesterday afternoon after three o’clock or later in the evening. If anybody in the locality saw anything suspicious or unusual, or has any other information, obviously we’d be very grateful to hear from them.’
‘Who found the bodies?’ asked Roisin Magorian from the Examiner. ‘And can you tell us where exactly in the house they were located?’
‘I can’t answer that for you just yet, Roisin. I’ll be asking the press office to get in touch with you as soon as I can give you more information.’
‘Any further thoughts on the other matter we talked about?’
‘No, Roisin. Not yet. But I haven’t forgotten what you told me.’
Thirty-five
Driving back down to Anglesea Street she kept thinking: Quis separabit? The killers hadn’t been able to resist taking the credit for what they done and they had made it clear that their revenge had been not only personal but political.
The more Katie thought about the wording of that note and the way it was signed, the clearer her next plan of action took shape in her mind. It wasn’t an orthodox plan by any means, but hadn’t Alan said that they were faced with a fierce unusual problem – a problem that called for some fierce unorthodox measures?
She was fully aware that she might be placing her entire career in jeopardy, but on the other hand it could be the making of her. Noirin O’Sullivan hadn’t been promoted to Garda commissioner by being cautious or indecisive.
The first person she met as she walked along the corridor to her office was Chief Superintendent Denis MacCostagáin, looking even glummer and more preoccupied than usual.
‘Ah, Katie. You’ve been up to Military Road, then? Any ideas?’
‘It’s a little early to say yet, sir. But believe it or not, there was a note left with the bodies claiming that they were killed in revenge for the Langtry family. It said that the Dohertys were blood relations to the members of the IRA who shot the Langtrys, and that “we never forget”. It was signed with the motto of the UDA. Quis separabit?’
‘Jesus, it’s unbelievable. After all these years? Were there any witnesses at all?’
Katie shook her head. ‘Not that we’ve found so far. But I’ll be putting out a media statement later. Look, I’ll have to postpone our meeting with Jimmy O’Reilly. Maybe we can rearrange it for tomorrow morning.’
‘Well, that suits me,’ said Chief Superintendent MacCostagáin. ‘I’m up the walls right now, to tell you the truth. It’s like I’m personally taking the bang for all these attacks on elderly folks out in the rural community that we’ve been having lately. For God’s sake, it’s not my fault we’ve had to close so many local Garda stations! Then there’s these ridiculous water meter protests, and on top of that, how are we going to cope with all these migrants? Bobby Quilty and his cut-price Lucky Strikes are about the last thing on my mind. Do you want to fix up another time with Jimmy or shall I?’
‘Don’t bother, sir,’ said Katie. ‘There’s a couple of other things I want to talk to him about, so I’ll do it myself.’
‘Thanks a million. I’ll talk to you later so.’
Katie continued to walk along the corridor towards Assistant Commissioner Jimmy O’Reilly’s office. As she approached it she saw that the door was already a few centimetres ajar and she could hear voices – quite loud, too, as if they were arguing. She was about to knock when she caught what they were saying and hesitated, and listened.
‘You’ll be the ruin of me, you know that.’ That was definitely Jimmy O’Reilly talking.
‘But Jesus, Jimmy, you know full well what they’ll do to me if I don’t—’ The rest of that sentence was unclear, but it was a young man’s voice. Katie thought that she recognized him, but she couldn’t be absolutely sure.
A long pause, and then Jimmy O’Reilly said, ‘You know it can’t go on like this. You’ll have to find a way to stop yourself.’
The young man was almost whining now. ‘I can’t, Jimmy! That’s the whole trouble! It’s not like giving up the fags or coming off coke. At least with coke it’s a physical thing, do you know what I mean, like? You can just stop snorting it. But this is...’ The voice became indistinct. ‘This is like it’s inside my brain. No, it’s more than that. It’s me. It’s what I live for. Without it, do you know, I might as well be fecking dead and buried.’
Another long pause. Katie was ready to knock when Jimmy O’Reilly walked across the room and she saw his reflection appear in the glass-fronted bookcase that stood against the left-hand wall of his office, quite close to the window. It was a very dark reflection, like a reflection in a pond, because the shelves inside the bookcase were lined with leather-bound volumes of Clarus Press case law. Nonetheless, there was no mistaking him – the curved new-moon shine on the top of his head, and his glasses.
She lifted her hand yet again, but then she saw the young man’s reflection appear in the bookcase, too. He crossed the room and stood close beside Jimmy O’Reilly, and from his brushed-up hair and his height she realized now who it was – James Elvin, his senior personal assistant.
‘So, come on, tell me,’ snapped Jimmy O’Reilly. ‘How much?’
‘Only three thousand this time. Well, three thousand seven hundred. Three thousand seven hundred and thirty-two.’
Very long silence this time. Katie could see Jimmy O’Reilly turn his back on James Elvin and stare out of the window.
‘All right, then,’ at long last. ‘I’ll have it for you by tomorrow morning.’
‘No chance of tonight? I can’t go back there till I pony up. Can’t even put my foot through the door.’
‘It wouldn’t do you any harm at all to take a night off. It might do you some good.’
‘Oh, please, Jimmy. Please!’
‘I don’t know. I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Oh, thank you, Jimmy. Thanks a million million. You’re my gold-plated angel.’
‘Angel? You think? More like your gold-plated handpump.’
It was then that Katie saw Jimmy O’Reilly turn back from the window so that he and James Elvin were facing each other. To her disbelief, they put their arms around each other and embraced. At first it seemed like nothing more than a manly hug, but they remained holding each other closely for almost twenty seconds. Katie couldn’t see from their reflections if they were actually kissing, but neither of them spoke. Even after they had eventually parted, they said nothing further, and both of them walked back across the room, so that their reflections disappeared from Katie’s sight.
Only two or three times in her career had Katie come across critical evidence by accident. Once she had been investigating the embezzlement of public funds from City Hall and a taxi driver had handed in to the Garda station a briefcase that had been left in the back of his cab. I
t had contained all the duplicate accounts books of the official against whom she had been trying unsuccessfully to gather evidence for months.
Another time she had been drinking with her husband, Paul, in the Old Oak in Oliver Plunkett Street when a man sitting close behind her had boasted to his companion that he was responsible for beating up a car dealer from Togher who had almost died and would have to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
She could hardly believe what she had just seen and heard in Jimmy O’Reilly’s office. If she had arrived a split second earlier she would have heard nothing at all, knocked and walked in. Perhaps God has been watching me today, she thought, and forgiven me for putting John and Kyna in such jeopardy. Or at least granted me the means I’ve been looking for to set them free.
She tiptoed hurriedly back about twenty metres down the corridor, then bustled back to Jimmy O’Reilly’s door, rapping sharply on it with the gold Claddagh ring on her right ring finger.
‘Who is it?’ called out Jimmy O’Reilly.
Katie stepped into his office and he said, ‘Oh, it’s you, Katie,’ with all the enthusiasm of a man who has just seen the prospect of hours of tedious deskwork walk in through the door.
James Elvin was gathering up papers on Jimmy O’Reilly’s desk and sliding them into a green manila folder. He looked up and grinned boyishly at Katie, as if he were flirting with her, and said, ‘DS Maguire! What’s the craic with those murders up at St Luke’s?’
‘We’ll know more when Dr Kelley has had the chance to examine the bodies,’ Katie told him in a dismissive tone of voice. Then she turned to Jimmy O’Reilly and said, ‘I’m sorry, sir, I’ll have to call off our meeting about Bobby Quilty. Perhaps we can reschedule it for tomorrow sometime.’
‘That’s fine by me,’ said Jimmy O’Reilly. ‘James, what’s my diary like for tomorrow?’
‘You’re in Limerick at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning, sir,’ said James. ‘Garda Sergeant Mulligan’s funeral. Then you have a meeting at two-thirty in the afternoon with Kieran Fitzgerald from the Garda Ombudsman. Then at six-thirty there’s that reception for the Cope Foundation.’
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