Bleed a River Deep (Inspector Devlin Mystery 3)

by Brian McGilloway

  The hearing had been quick and uneventful, apparently. A PSNI officer who introduced himself to the court as Inspector Sweeney outlined the facts of the case and stated that he could connect the four accused with the break-in.

  Leon Bradley spoke only long enough to confirm his name and age. The magistrate set bail at £2,000 for each of the accused, to reappear again on the 28th. Sweeney in turn suggested that Bradley might pose a flight risk following an incident in Donegal and requested that he be refused bail. However, instead the magistrate ruled that his bail be set at £5,000 and that he report to Omagh PSNI station once a day until the trial.

  Fearghal organized the bail as quickly as he could, and later that morning we collected Leon from the Gortin Road station where he was being held. Fearghal asked to speak to Leon alone before he was released, and I guessed he was preparing him for my presence.

  While I waited in the station foyer, I read through the local newspaper, the Tyrone Herald, and was surprised to see a story about Ted Coyle, the Carrowcreel prospector. He claimed to have been attacked, at his campsite by the river, and had been admitted to hospital with fractured ribs and a broken ankle. Gardai believed that the attack was a mugging; someone perhaps looking for his gold nugget. Supt Harry Patterson appealed to people to stay away from the campsite, stating that, in the time that prospectors had been working the river, only Coyle had found anything worth mentioning. The level of human activity on the river was also having an adverse effect on local wildlife, he said, as well as permitting the type of lawlessness that had resulted in the attack on Mr Coyle.

  *

  Leon smiled at me sheepishly as he was led out from the holding cells. His hair was even more dishevelled than the last time I had seen him and his clothes smelt of the smoke of both cigarettes and wood fires. I noticed he wore faint eyeliner around his eyes and this, coupled with his thin build, the paleness of his skin and his prominent cheekbones, gave him a vaguely feminine appearance – in marked contrast with the bear-like physique and sanguine colouring of his elder brother.

  ‘Ben,’ he said, raising his head.

  ‘Leon,’ I replied, folding the newspaper and replacing it on the seat where I’d found it.

  ‘Right,’ Fearghal said, rubbing his hands together. ‘Let’s get some food, men, shall we?’

  We went to a café on the outskirts of Omagh. While Fearghal and I ate cooked breakfasts, Leon contented himself with coffee and a rolled cigarette, despite having not eaten in almost a day. He said little as Fearghal admonished him for his actions and, every so often, read and replied to text messages he received on his mobile.

  ‘What the fuck were you thinking?’ Fearghal asked. ‘Bad enough the stunt you played in Donegal, never mind breaking into a bloody missile factory.’

  ‘It was a protest,’ Leon shrugged.

  ‘Against what?’ his brother replied with exasperation.

  ‘Against whom,’ Leon corrected him. ‘Hagan.’

  ‘What about him?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s a major shareholder in Eligius,’ Leon replied. ‘Another finger in another pie.’

  ‘What have you got against him?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s an arsehole. He funded terrorism over here for years, and now he’s trying to stifle debate in the US over Iraq.’

  Neither Fearghal nor I spoke.

  ‘Of course, what nobody says is that Hagan is part-owner of a company that sells parts to the US Army. He has a vested interest in keeping the war on terror going for as long as he can.’

  ‘People responsible for wars generally do,’ I said. ‘Breaking into their offices or shooting starter pistols at them won’t make a difference.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Leon replied darkly.

  ‘You used to think it did,’ Fearghal protested, turning to face me. ‘When we were young. You used to think stunts like that could make a difference. You did it yourself, for Christ’s sake!’

  I was taken aback by the shift in the tone of the conversation, and realized I had ignored the cardinal rule that blood is thicker than water. Fearghal could take digs at his brother, but when an outsider did so they closed ranks.

  I felt I had to defend my position. ‘The only people it affects are those doing it. The university didn’t change its recycling policy because of us, Fearghal, and America won’t change its foreign policy because Hagan had the shit scared out of him with a starter pistol.’

  ‘You used to have a bit of spirit about you, Benny.’

  ‘Did you protest against Weston being given Kate? Or Weston giving it to Hagan? Would it have made a difference?’ I knew it to be a sore point with Fearghal. He did not respond. ‘I make what difference I can in my own way,’ I concluded.

  The Bradley brothers looked at each other.

  ‘You hardly expected a cop to understand, did you, Ferg?’ Leon said, looking at his brother. ‘Sure, he’s one of them.’

  Fearghal dropped me back home after lunch. We exchanged pleasantries and agreed to keep in touch, though I suspected, and even hoped, that I wouldn’t see him again after our conversation.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Saturday, 14 October

  Debbie and I spent Saturday morning with the kids, shopping in Derry. On the way to town, Penny complained of being thirsty, so we stopped at the shop on the border and I took her inside to buy drinks for the family.

  As we waited in the queue to pay, I recognized the man at the front. Dressed in a suit and bow-tie, his hand covering his mouth as he attempted to stifle a yawn, stood Karol Walshyk. He apologized to the girl at the till, lifted his milk and bread and turned towards us. His eyes were slits in his face from lack of sleep and I guessed he had just completed another night shift. As he passed us, he smiled in semi-recognition, then seemed to realize how he knew me and stopped.

  ‘Inspector Divine?’ he said, pointing at me.

  ‘Devlin,’ I nodded. ‘Good morning, Doctor. Late night?’

  ‘Busy night,’ he replied. Then he looked down at Penny, who was peering up at him, one hand gripping the front of my trouser leg.

  ‘And who’s this young lady?’ he asked.

  ‘This is my daughter, Penelope,’ I said, ruffling her hair as I spoke. She squinted up at me, then glanced back at Walshyk.

  ‘How do you do?’ Walshyk said, extending his hand. Penny looked at me once more, smiled uncertainly, then shook his hand quickly before wrapping both her arms around my leg.

  ‘I called to see our mutual friend,’ he said, straightening up. ‘Her house was burnt down.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said.

  ‘Do you know where she is now?’

  I shook my head, uneasy about the direction our conversation was taking, both because I was reluctant to discuss the case with him professionally, and also because I was aware of the fact that it had been my fault that Natalia had vanished.

  ‘Did you not help her?’

  ‘I did,’ I protested. ‘I tried to. She – we lost her,’ I said, as quietly as I could.

  ‘You told her you would help her,’ he stated, his gaze steely. I was aware of Penny looking up at me with concern, seemingly following the direction of our conversation. ‘You promised her you’d help,’ he continued, the accusation clear.

  ‘I tried my best.’

  ‘Is that so? I was wrong to trust you.’

  I felt Penny’s hold on my leg loosen slightly.

  ‘I’m sorry you feel that way,’ I said, my face flushed. ‘I have to get my daughter a drink. Excuse me.’

  *

  In the car afterwards, Penny asked me about the conversation. Debbie looked at me quizzically and I attempted to shrug off her concern as I started the engine.

  ‘Why was that man cross, Daddy?’ she asked, twisting the lid off her drink.

  ‘He . . . I told him I would do something and I wasn’t able to.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s complicated. He asked me to look after someone and I wasn’t able to do it.’
/>   ‘He said you promised. Did you break a promise?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s complicated,’ Debbie said, though the response did nothing to reduce the judgemental look I saw reflected in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘You have to keep your promises, Daddy.’

  ‘I know, sweetie. I know.’

  I attempted to forget the events of the day before, though the comments of Fearghal and his brother had stung me more than I cared to admit. I had convinced myself that joining the Guards was the only way I could make a difference and apply my own beliefs and principles in a manner that would have a real and lasting impact. But increasingly I was beginning to suspect that that was not the case. Caroline Williams, my former partner, had taken a leave of absence because she no longer felt that the rewards of the job justified the risks. Increasingly I was aware that, no matter what we did or how we acted, it didn’t stop crime, and it certainly didn’t stop people like Cathal Hagan delivering hawkish speeches about the need for military intervention while lining his pockets with the prof its of such action.

  I tried to explain this to Debbie as we drove back home that afternoon, the two children asleep in the back.

  ‘You can’t change the world,’ she said, fiddling with the radio. ‘You can only make your little corner of it a nicer place to live.’

  ‘Is that good enough?’ I asked.

  ‘It has to be,’ she stated with a simplicity of reason I found difficult to dispute.

  She found a station to her liking, turned the volume up slightly, and settled down in the passenger seat, pulling her knees up against her chest and resting her feet on the dash in front of her.

  I was considering what she had said when the news headlines were read on the radio. The first headline concerned the discovery of a dead body near Orcas goldmine. A man’s body had been pulled from the Carrowcreel.

  Five minutes later, Fearghal Bradley phoned my mobile to tell me that he believed the body was Leon’s.

  *

  He called at our house and collected me before driving on towards the Carrowcreel.

  ‘Leon has been missing since last night,’ he explained. ‘I called the Guards and that arsehole Patterson told me he couldn’t help me, but that a body had been found out by the river. It was too early to tell anything, he said.’

  ‘He said that?’ I asked, a little surprised. It seemed a fairly callous way to deal with a concerned relative, even by Harry Patterson’s standards.

  ‘He didn’t say it was Leon as such. He said Leon wasn’t gone long enough to be considered a missing person. He might just have gone to a friend’s, or something.’

  ‘Might he not have done?’ I asked.

  Fearghal shook his head, then, as we drove, explained his concerns.

  After we had parted company yesterday, he had taken Leon back to his hotel and booked a room for him. He said he had wanted to keep him away from the crusties at the campsite for a while, in the hope that Leon might keep his nose clean long enough for the events of the past week to settle.

  He and Leon had argued; Leon felt his brother was treating him like a child. Fearghal told him he had fallen in with a bad crowd. He reasoned with Leon, telling him that he would get in trouble if he breached bail and went back over the border. And he explained to Leon that, having stood his bail, it would be Fearghal who would bear the financial burden if he broke his bail conditions.

  Finally, Leon had agreed to book in to the hotel but explained that he had someone to meet out at the Carrowcreel. He would come straight back after the meeting. He gave Fearghal his word.

  ‘You might be worrying over nothing, Fearghal,’ I reasoned. ‘Maybe he lied when he said he would come back.’

  Fearghal shook his head curtly. ‘Leon always keeps his word. Especially after yesterday. He was so pleased at me sticking up for him he wouldn’t let me down. Something’s happened to him, I know it.’

  ‘Have you tried his mobile?’

  ‘Dead,’ he replied.

  ‘Did you contact any other Garda stations? Or the PSNI? Maybe he’s been lifted doing something else?’

  ‘Patterson said he’d have heard if they’d picked him up. But he was being awkward about it, probably because of what Leon did to Hagan at Orcas. I was hoping you might come with me to the site. Maybe you might find out if it is Leon. They’ll tell you things they won’t tell me.’

  I believed Patterson would be no more forthcoming with me, but I said nothing; I wanted to help Fearghal, despite all that had happened. And if I was honest, I missed my work and was eager to be at the scene.

  When we pulled into the campsite beneath the giant pines, a Garda cordon had already been set up. I could see several officers I knew questioning the occupants of the various camper vans and mobile homes. Patterson was nowhere to be seen, but I suspected that we were still some distance from the site of the body and he would probably be there.

  I spotted Helen Gorman standing guard at the far end of the cordon. She was standing laughing with a young male officer I didn’t recognize. As I approached, she parted from him and waved to me.

  ‘How’s the time off?’ she asked, careful not to use the word ‘suspension’, as if I were on voluntary leave.

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t keep away from you all, though,’ I added, tentatively raising the scene tape to step to beneath it.

  Helen smiled uncertainly, then looked around her before lifting the tape and gesturing with a flick of her head that I should come in.

  ‘Thanks, Helen,’ I said. ‘Bradley’s brother’s being kept in the dark. He’s afraid it’s Leon in there.’

  She lowered her gaze slightly and pursed her lips, and I guessed that they had already identified the corpse as belonging to Leon Bradley.

  I approached the scene from the west, in the hope that I might get as far as Leon’s body before encountering Patterson. Within a few hundred yards I spotted a huddle of Guards and, on the ground, a clothed body over which knelt a woman I took to be the medical examiner, whose job would be to officially pronounce death.

  As I came closer, one or two of the Guards looked across. A few nodded and smiled in recognition, but others glared. I turned my attention from them to the body lying on the forest floor and my breath caught in my chest a little, even though I had been prepared for the sight of Leon’s corpse.

  His hair lay in wet tangles across his pale and slightly bloated face. His eyes were open but clouded, and leaves from the river were lodged in his gaping mouth. Seeing small black marks along his neck and jawline, I moved a little closer. The ME looked up at me from her work, her gloved hands holding Leon’s arm.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Inspector Devlin,’ I replied. ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘Gunshot,’ she stated bluntly, continuing with her work.

  ‘Shotgun?’ I guessed, gesturing towards the black spots on his neck.

  She nodded. ‘The main wound’s on his back. That’s just pellet spray.’

  ‘How long ago?’

  She twisted her mouth. ‘Hard to tell. That’s the pathologist’s job.’

  ‘Rough guess?’

  She looked up at me with annoyance. ‘I don’t do rough guesses.’

  I didn’t get a chance to continue our conversation, for someone gripped my arm from behind. I turned to face Harry Patterson.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ he asked.

  ‘He told me he was an inspector,’ the ME added helpfully from behind me.

  ‘I am,’ I said. ‘I’m also a friend of the victim’s family.’

  ‘You’re on suspension,’ Patterson said. ‘That’s all that matters to me. When I want you at a scene I’ll send you to one. Otherwise, piss off – unless you want another week off.’

  ‘You’d better tell his brother he’s dead. He’s up at the cordon, waiting to hear.’

  ‘He’ll be told in due course,’ Patterson said, letting go of my arm.

  ‘Have a fucking heart, Har
ry,’ I said. ‘He’s lost his brother.’

  ‘His brother got what he deserved. He’s caused nothing but trouble since he got here. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s a friend of yours.’

  With that, he stalked off, though I noticed that when he had gone some distance, he changed his direction and headed up towards the cordon and Fearghal Bradley.

  I made my way back along the path I had come, to where Gorman was standing.

  ‘It was him, then?’ she said.

  I nodded grimly. ‘What happened?’

  She shrugged lightly. ‘I haven’t heard it all. He was shot in the back somewhere upriver. One of the prospectors was on the riverbank when the body floated past. It got snagged on some branches over the other side and a couple of them managed to pull him out.’

  ‘Any leads on who shot him?’ I asked. ‘Or where it happened?’

  ‘Not so’s I’ve heard,’ she said.

  ‘Thanks, Helen,’ I said.

  She nodded and pulled her cap down a little over her forehead, then turned away.

  I stood by Fearghal’s car and had a smoke while I waited for him. I guessed Patterson had taken him somewhere to break the news of Leon’s death. Over to my left the group of crusties with whom I had occasionally spotted Leon were sitting in a circle outside their vans, each with a can of beer. In the middle someone had lit a fire and they watched in silence as the smoke curled upwards. Several of them were crying, leaning against each other for support.

  I finished my smoke, glanced around to make sure none of my colleagues was nearby, then approached the group. One or two of them looked up at me when I reached them; the others continued staring at the flames, as if in a trance. Their mongrel barked at me lazily, raising its head an inch off its front paws then lying down again when its owner, an older man with lengthy matted grey hair, whistled through his teeth at it.