Darragh was always very dramatic and he liked to play the tortured and troubled artist at times. Perhaps that was why he drank so much. He had a romantic notion of himself as the drunken Irish artist living in the remote hills of Sligo, just like all the other writers, poets and artists who moved to the west of Ireland to find inspiration to feed their creative souls.
Darragh had often talked about how all the greats 'checked out', as he called it, at twenty-seven: Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and his hero, Jim Morrison. The mythical 27 club. Darragh and Conor had travelled to Paris together back in 1985 and had visited the grave of Jim Morrison in Père Lachaise Cemetery. Darragh had an unhealthy obsession with Jim Morrison and had this ridiculous idea that he wanted to die in his prime like Morrison, in his twenties, before he became middle-aged, fat and washed up. In the words of Neil Young, “It's better to burn out than to fade away.”
Well, Darragh was twenty-seven years old now, but Conor had thought all that rubbish he had spoken about not wanting to live beyond twenty-seven was immature and drunken bullshit. He hadn't taken him seriously. Darragh was always babbling on about nonsense when he was drunk.
While Sarah was drying her eyes, there was a knock at the door. Conor answered it. It was a Guard, the same young Guard who had accompanied Detective Mulcahy into the house on the previous day. He was nervous and polite.
He took off his hat and asked if he could come in. “Ah, sorry to bother you both. Detective Mulcahy just radioed to tell me to ask you if you wouldn't mind going down to the Garda station in Castlederry to make an official statement as soon as you can.”
“Sure, no problem. Has Darragh been located yet, do you know?” Conor asked.
“I'm sorry, I've heard nothing yet. I'm sure Jim—I mean Detective Mulcahy—will fill you in. I could run you down in the squad car, but unfortunately we have been told to wait here in case Mr Lonigan comes back. If you want, I can radio the station and they will have a car up here in twenty minutes to bring you to Castlederry,” the young Guard said as he clenched his hands tightly around his hat.
“No, it's fine, I'll drive down in about an hour. Is that okay?” Sarah asked.
“Yes, yes, that's probably a better idea. You probably would prefer to travel in your own car and not in the back of a squad car. Okay, I'll radio ahead to say you'll be there in an hour or so,” the Guard said as Conor closed the door.
“I wonder why they want us at the Garda station so soon,” Sarah said to Conor.
“I suppose it's just routine. They just want to complete the paperwork, I imagine.”
“Do you think they have found Darragh yet?” Sarah wondered.
“I dunno. I suppose they wouldn't be keeping that Garda car outside here if they had him in custody.”
“What about that note I found in Darragh's coat pocket? Do you think I should show it to the Gardai in case it is some kind of suicide note?” Sarah asked as she read the note again.
“I suppose you should, if you're okay with them seeing it.”
At around twelve midday, Sarah and Conor reached the Garda station in Castlederry. There were about twenty squad cars parked outside. The place looked extremely busy for a small-town Garda station. It showed how seriously the Gardai were taking the matter. The Castlederry station was the base for the entire operation.
Sarah decided to park her car down the street from the station and walk up to it. Conor and Sarah walked in the front door. They told the Ban Garda at the front desk that they wished to speak to Detective Mulcahy. The Ban Garda asked them who they were and as soon as they mentioned their names, she sprung to life and told them to follow her down the hallway into an office. She informed them that Detective Mulcahy would be with them in a few minutes.
Jim Mulcahy arrived into the office ten minutes later and apologised for keeping them waiting. He told them that he was just going to record their statements on a tape recorder so they would have an official record. They both agreed that it was okay.
Sarah tried to remain quiet and calm, but naturally, she had to ask, “Have you located Darragh yet?”
“No, Miss Gallagher, not yet. We have searched all the properties we know of that belong to the Lonigan family in the area. We called to the friends' home in Shemore that you told us about and we have checked all the public houses he usually frequented and nobody has seen him. We contacted his sister Anne in Strandhill and she informed us that he called to see her and his mother last Monday. They spent some time together and he informed them he was planning to immigrate to Boston to make a 'fresh start', as he called it. He told his mother and sister that he was going to ask you, Sarah, to go with him and that he was going to contact your brother in Boston to find suitable accommodation over there.
“Darragh's mother told us she had given him a substantial amount of money to pay for airfare and to help tide him over for a month or so in Boston until he found work and got established. She informed us that she gave him a cheque and so far, that cheque has not been cashed. Along with that, Darragh's sister lent him her car, a 1987 Silver Volkswagen Golf. He said he would return it to her as soon as he got his own car repaired at a garage.
“At this point, we haven't located the Golf. We have informed Gardai across the Republic about the car and we have also informed our good friends in the RUC in the North. The photographs you gave to us have been photocopied and faxed to Garda stations across the country. Port authorities have also been notified to watch out for Mr Lonigan and the car.
“Now, perhaps he might have ditched the car because he realised we might trace it to him, or he may have taken a ferry to Britain in the early hours of Tuesday morning. We have checked security cameras at the ports, but so far we haven't detected the Silver Golf. If we hear of anything else, we will let you know and naturally, if you can think of anything—it doesn't matter how trivial you might think it is—please pass it on to us. It might help to locate him.”
Sarah reached into her handbag. “I found something, Detective. A note in a coat pocket Darragh left behind when he came back to the house on Tuesday morning. It might not be anything, but I was afraid that it could be a …” Sarah paused and began to cry. “A suicide note.”
She handed the note across the desk to Jim Mulcahy. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a pair of reading glasses and proceeded to read the note. He put the note into an open file on the desk in front of him.
“Thank you, Sarah, for giving us such a personal item. It's hard to determine if it's a suicide note; it's quite vague. But we will have to, of course, consider this option. Did Darragh suffer from depression? Did he ever talk about matters such as suicide?” Detective Mulcahy asked.
“No, he was generally quite good humoured and easy going. He got a bit down from time to time, but no more than anybody else. I just thought that considering what has happened, maybe Darragh wasn't thinking straight,” Sarah said.
“Well, as I said, Sarah, we will unfortunately have to consider this possibility,” Detective Mulcahy replied.
Sarah and Conor were then brought to separate interviews rooms, where they were cross-examined about their knowledge of the events in question. After about an hour, they were allowed to leave and thanked for their cooperation.
Upon leaving the Garda station, the pair went to a pub up the street beside the space where they had parked the car. They had lunch and washed it down with a couple of stiff brandies to calm their nerves. They drove back to Ballinastrad and called into Maguire's shop to buy some groceries and two bottles of wine. From there, they headed back to the cottage in Rossbeg.
Chapter XIV
Dusk
Thursday, 5th January 1989
Conor woke up from the cold. He pulled the blankets up around his shoulders, but he couldn't warm himself.
Sarah was sleeping beside him in the bed. He looked at the clock; it was 8:30. He decided to get up and went over to the bedroom window to look outside to see what kind of day it was.
The place was
gleaming white with a thick covering of snow that was still coming down heavy. He hadn't noticed that it was snowing when they went to bed the night before, but there it was.
After getting dressed, Conor walked into the freezing cold kitchen and decided to light the stove. There were no sticks in the wicker basket. He put on his coat to go outside to the shed at the side of the cottage to get fuel for the fire.
As he opened the front door, the view across to the Rossbeg Hills was breath-taking. The pure white snow made even the rough fields of rushes and whin bushes appear beautiful. It was a thick layer of snow; about four inches had fallen in a few short hours. The clouds overhead were still dark and heavy with the promise of more.
Conor noticed that the Garda car was still parked nearby and he felt sorry for the two Guards, who must have been freezing. He went over to the driver's window and tapped it. The Guard in the driver's seat rolled down the window.
“That was some fall of snow, lads. You must be freezing sitting there. Are you here all night?” Conor asked as he shivered.
“It's a heavy fall, all right. We're only here about two hours. Our shift started at seven o'clock, but it's cold enough, surely. The heater isn't great in this patrol car,” the Guard replied in a strong Donegal accent.
“Look, it's not that warm in the house either. I'm just going to light the stove. Will you come in for a tea or coffee in half an hour when the heat builds up in the kitchen?”
“Sure, okay. That would be great, thanks,” the Guard replied.
Conor turned around, went to the small shed and filled the large wicker basket he was carrying with some sticks and turf. He went back into the kitchen and got firelighters from the cupboard under the sink and lit the fire. He made some tea and toast for Sarah and himself and brought Sarah's breakfast down to her in the bedroom on a tray.
She was already awake and was getting dressed. He handed her the tray and she lay back to enjoy the treat of breakfast in bed. Afterwards, they both lay on the bed and held each other tightly for warmth and for comfort. Both of them were afraid of what the next few days would bring.
“I'm due to fly back to England in two days' time. I have to be back at work in London the next Monday. But I don't know what to do. I feel bad leaving you to face this nightmare alone. I think I'll contact a travel agent to see if I could defer the flight for an extra few days. I'll have to arrange further leave from work, too,” Conor said.
“You don't have to do that, Conor. I'll be okay. I'm going to move out of here as soon as I can. The cottage belongs to Darragh's family. They won't want me staying here now.”
“Where will you go? I'm sure you could stay here for a few more months.”
“No, I want to get out of here as quickly as possible. I might rent an apartment in Ballygalvin. It would be handy for work. Maybe I should just go over to my brother in Boston. Myself and Darragh had planned to immigrate, you know. We saved up the money in the spring of last year, but Darragh changed his mind. He got cold feet and decided that he didn't want to go. He never really explained why. Instead, we blew the money we had saved on a holiday in Scotland.”
“What about your job?” Conor asked.
“I'm sick of that fucking bank. I'm sick of this whole fucking place. Oh, I'm sorry, Conor. I don't know really what I want. I can't think straight.”
“It's okay, Sarah. Look, I meant to tell you that it is snowing heavy outside and I felt sorry for the two Guards in the squad car. I invited them in to warm themselves by the fire.”
“Look, I don't feel very sociable. You can entertain them. I think I will soak in a warm bath for a while to try to get my head together.”
The stove in the kitchen was blazing and the room was getting warmer when Conor returned from the bedroom. There was a knock at the door. Conor opened it. One of the Guards stood outside.
“Come in, sorry. I was just about to call you in,” Conor said as he stepped back to let the Guard in.
“Thanks very much, Conor, for your offer, but unfortunately we have to leave. We just thought we would let you know that we were just radioed that a silver Golf matching the description of the one Darragh Lonigan was last seen driving has been located in a wooded area not too far from here. We have got our orders to go there, as we are the nearest patrol car to the location. Another Garda car may be sent here shortly to take our place,” the Guard said.
“Oh, right. What? Where? Whereabouts? Which wooded area?” Conor was shocked.
“We were told that if you turn right outside the house here and keep on this lane for two miles, there is a crossroads at Shemore Church. You take a left and travel on there for about a mile and that brings you to a large forest called Dunmadden Woods, I think. Does that sound familiar to you?” the Guard asked.
“I'm not that familiar with the area around here, to be honest,” Conor replied.
“Okay, look. Thanks for the offer for the tea, but we better be off. I just thought I would let you know. We will keep you informed if it turns out to be the car we are looking for.”
When Conor passed on the information to Sarah, they decided to travel down to Dunmadden Woods to see if it was true.
“Do you know where the woods are, Sarah and how to get there?”
“I know those woods very well. Myself and Darragh often went there for walks around that area. He loved that place; it is about two miles away from a sandy shore of Lough Oughter where we used to go swimming on warm summer days. During the wintertime, Darragh would often go there as well to just stare at the lake. He said it had a calming effect on him.”
As she told Conor, she suddenly burst into tears. “Oh God, why did he leave the car there? Where is he? Do you think he might have…?”
Conor tried to console her. “Look, firstly, it might not be the car he was driving. Or maybe if it was the car, he might just have broken down and left it there.”
He was finding it hard to convince himself, never mind Sarah. Like her, he was thinking the worst.
The snow was falling heavy outside as they left the cottage and went out into the yard. Conor cleaned the heavy coating of snow that covered Sarah's car with a brush. He insisted that he would drive because Sarah was so upset.
He started the car and put the heater on to try to clear the windscreen. It took nearly ten minutes before they could see out through it. During that time, Sarah just stared blankly at the windscreen; she was too consumed by her own thoughts to respond when Conor tried to speak to her. He couldn't find the right words to say anyway.
Finally, Conor was able to drive the car out of the yard and onto the narrow road. The wheels spun as he tried to get traction to climb the slight rise onto the road. The journey was going to be difficult in more ways than one.
The hills around Rossbeg proved a challenge for the Ford Mondeo. Fortunately, it appeared that other vehicles had travelled the route earlier; they had cut a path through the heavy snow.
Conor was too transfixed in his own thoughts to notice the brilliant white winter scene around him. He kept hoping that maybe Darragh had ditched the car in the woods and travelled on somewhere else. He kept hoping for impossible outcomes.
He hoped the confession that Darragh had made to him in the hotel in Galway was just drunken ramblings from a very intoxicated man. He hoped there was no proof to link Darragh to the murder of Tom Kearns. That it was all a big mix up, a misunderstanding. He hoped Darragh was somewhere else far away, maybe standing at a bar, laughing and joking, being cool, confident, and happy. That's the way Conor wanted to picture him.
However, he knew this was just an idle fantasy. The reality was too hard to handle. Was Darragh lying cold, lifeless and alone somewhere in deep Lough Oughter, or within the dark and grey, leafless trees of Dunmadden Woods?
Conor drove on slowly and carefully even though he was eager to reach Dunmadden to see if the Guard's information was true. The window wipers were battling hard to keep the heavy falling snow at bay. Eventually, he reached the church at Sh
emore and from there, Sarah directed him to take a sharp left at a junction down a very narrow lane that would bring them to the woods and beyond that, Lough Oughter.
The lane showed little evidence of previous travel by cars that morning. Driving the Mondeo was proving even more difficult as Conor navigated endless tight corners and steep hills. In the end, the car could go no further, as the wheels spun, unable to get a grip on a hill that felt like a mountain.
Conor made several attempts to get up it by reversing back down and trying to build up speed to climb. They were only about a third of a mile from their destination, so instead of continuing to try, Conor and Sarah decided to pull the car off the road and into a gateway beside a field and make the remaining part of their journey on foot.
The pair got out of the car and wrapped their coats tightly around them as they faced the blowing wind and bitter flakes of snow. Conor held his arm around Sarah's shoulder to support her as they walked up the hill. From the top of it, they could see a large wooded area, maybe forty acres of forested land.
“It's a very old wood planted by a Lord Dunmadden back in the mid-nineteenth century. He was the local landlord in the area. Local people say that it was planted to cover a Famine mass grave and that there could be thousands of poor souls buried under those tall oaks,” Sarah told Conor as they walked towards the woods. “If you look over to the right of the woods, you can see Lough Oughter. It's the largest lake in the county. I think I read that it is twelve miles long and at its widest point, it's four miles. It attracts anglers from all over the country and from overseas.”
Conor heard a vehicle coming up behind them. He looked back to see a grey Range Rover. It drove towards them and stopped. The window on the passenger's side was rolled down. Conor recognised the face inside; it was Detective Jim Mulcahy.
The Whole of the Moon Page 11