Irish Secrets

by Paula Martin

  "There were reasons why I—"

  "Reasons?" She spat the word out, and shook her head. "I thought we had something special, but you didn't trust me. And after all this, how can I ever trust you again? After what's happened tonight, turning up at the door to arrest Guy and Conor—"

  "Because last night I found a large stash of stolen property in the cottage."

  "Last night?"

  "Yes." He couldn't avoid making things worse, and let out a quick huff of breath. "All right, yes, I admit it was because you told me you saw a light in the cottage. I went there after I finished my shift, and found dozens of electronic items, hidden in boxes of cables and conduits."

  "And that proves Guy and Conor are involved? This is a joke, isn't it? I don't know how Irish police work, but I do know the New York police need far more conclusive evidence than that before they charge someone."

  Now wasn't the time to tell her the evidence had disappeared. "As you heard, I've given the order for Guy to be released and—"

  "But the harm's been done. The shock has caused Jenna to go into premature labour, so if anything goes wrong, it'll be on your conscience. If you have one."

  "I'm sure she'll be okay. She's in good hands now." He hesitated. "And maybe we can sort everything else out tomorrow."

  "Everything else? What else is there to sort out?"

  "You and me? Where we go from here?"

  Her jaw dropped as she stared at him. "You really think—? Oh no, there isn't anywhere to go from here." She took a deep breath in an obvious effort to steady herself. "Well, I guess I should thank you for your help with the search for my grandparents, which I do. But, apart from that, there's nothing more I can say. There's no way I can forgive you for everything else. Goodbye, Detective O'Neill."

  Her voice rang with contempt as she turned and stalked back to the front door. Liz put her arm around her, and they went into the house. The door closed, and he was left standing alone.

  He heaved a long sigh. He didn't blame her, couldn't blame her. She was right. He should have trusted her with his secret other life. But it was too late now, and he swallowed hard several times before trudging down the driveway.

  He should be relieved his taxi driving life was over. Instead, his shoulders slumped in heart-aching dejection. He'd met the woman with whom he wanted to share the rest of his life, but lost her because of his job. And now he had to face Enya's wrath as a result of tonight's fiasco.

  * * * * *

  Scalding tears trickled down Kara's face as she went back into the house with Liz and Maria. The only consolation was that she'd held them back while she talked to Ryan. Her anger had helped, but now the devastating hurt threatened to overwhelm her.

  Back in the staffroom, Maria switched off the television which was showing the credits at the end of the drama they'd been watching before all hell broke loose.

  "Well, we've missed that episode," she said, "although Upton Manor's romances, intrigues, and disasters have nothing on us. Perhaps we should commission a series about Mist Na Mara." She refilled the almost empty glass Kara had left when the Gardai knocked at the door. "Here, get that down you. You need it. In fact, we all need it tonight."

  Kara wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand and sank down on the couch. She took a big gulp of wine, while Maria sloshed wine into another two glasses. Liz was on her phone, and they both looked at her when she ended the call.

  "Conor's waiting for his lawyer to arrive before he says anything, and Guy's gone with Jenna in the ambulance to Galway."

  "Thank God for that," Maria said. "I hope she'll be all right."

  Liz nodded. "She's three weeks early. Plenty of babies survive even when they're born ages before that, and this might be a reaction to the shock of Guy being arrested. It doesn't necessarily mean the baby will be born tonight."

  "Jenna's problem makes mine seem trifling by comparison," Kara said, nursing her glass in both hands. "I told Ryan it would be on his conscience if anything went wrong for her."

  "Fingers crossed she'll be okay," Liz said as she sat on the couch. "But your problem isn't trifling. If I discovered Conor was an undercover cop and hadn't told me, I'd go ballistic, too. When you get involved with someone, you need them to be honest with you."

  Kara nodded. "I'm not sure what hurts more, him not trusting me, or him using me to find out what was happening at the cottage."

  "I don't understand where the cottage comes into this," Maria said. "Why does Ryan think it was linked to some stolen goods?"

  "He said he found various electronic goods there last night."

  "You mean from burglaries?" Liz asked. "There was something in the paper about some laptops being stolen from the school in Ballyconneely last week. Do you suppose they were in the cottage?"

  Kara shrugged. "Or perhaps it was the stuff from Waterside. Remember how we talked about it when we were there, and someone – I can't remember who – said thieves sometimes kept things until the police were no longer actively looking for them."

  "And a derelict cottage would be a good place to hide them, until Conor started to renovate it, of course." Liz's eyes widened. "Hey, you don't think this is connected with Mick Leary in some way, do you? He was well-known for petty thieving in his teens, and was caught stealing timber from here a few years ago. What if he's held a grudge against Guy, and is trying to frame him?"

  Maria gave her a doubtful smirk. "I think you're letting your imagination run wild, Liz. Anyway, I thought Mick was in Belfast now?"

  "He is, but I bet he still has contacts in this area, and he came back here about a month ago, remember? And the cottage originally belonged to the Leary farm, until Guy bought it from them."

  "Does Mick have some kind of grudge against Conor, too?"

  "Not that I know of. Well, except he couldn't use the cottage to hide anything once Conor started work there." Liz took a quick slurp of her wine, and laughed. "All right, so my imagination might be working overtime, but I'd love to know what evidence Ryan thinks was enough to arrest Guy and Conor."

  Kara only half-listened to the conversation as a blanket of despair enveloped her. She tried to hold on to her anger, but it ebbed as the stark truth hit her. This was the end of her relationship with Ryan.

  She drained her glass and stood. "I'm going up to my room, but let me know if there's any news about Jenna."

  In the privacy of her room, she sat by the window for nearly an hour, vacillating between anger at Ryan's deception, and the need to bury her head in her pillow and surrender to her tears. Too many memories crowded her mind, and she worked her way through them, picking out the ones that should have alerted her to his real identity, if only she hadn't been so damned trusting.

  Eventually she stood up, pulled off her clothes, and went into her bathroom for a shower. As the warm water gushed over her, she exhaled deeply and painfully. The man she'd started to think was her soul mate had deceived her. Everything was over between them.

  * * * * *

  When Ryan arrived at the station, the desk officer told him Conor McBride's lawyer had arrived, and they were waiting for him in the interview room. Sergeant Byrne accompanied him, and the next half hour proved to be the most embarrassing he had ever experienced.

  Conor denied all knowledge of any stolen goods. His lawyer asked for evidence, and Ryan fumbled his response about the items he'd found the previous night until he had to admit the stuff was no longer there. His question about the boxes being only half full of electrical cables was answered quite logically by Conor.

  "I spent most of last week installing the cables. The job's almost finished, apart from the fuse board and circuit breakers I picked up in Dublin today. What's left in the other boxes is surplus."

  "And why were you at the cottage this evening?"

  "I couldn't remember the number of sockets I left there last week and I wanted to double-check."

  "At nine-fifteen?"

  "I was late getting back from Dublin, because I went to vi
sit an aunt and uncle while I was over there."

  When Ryan moved on to questioning why he had been driving an unmarked transit van, Conor's answer was equally plausible. "Someone smashed into the back of my van in Galway at the beginning of May. They tried to claim it was my fault, not theirs, so it's taken a couple of months for the insurance claim to be sorted out. I couldn't get my own van repaired until the beginning of last week, so I rented one in the meantime. You can check that with my insurance company, the rental firm, and O'Hara's garage in Galway."

  Ryan nodded, and went on to the question of why Ryan delivered Patrick Walsh to the taxi office every Monday morning. Conor's response caused a heavy weight to drop in his stomach.

  "Paddy delivers plants from the Waterside nurseries to a garden centre near Roscommon most weeks."

  "Why doesn't he use his own transport?"

  "His wife, my sister Fiona, is a Community Nurse, and needs their car for her work. Paddy works at Waterside Hall, and usually goes there on his motorbike, but obviously he can't carry a large box of plants on a bike, so I offered to take him into Clifden, since we both live at Skelleen. We stopped off at Waterside for him to pick up the plants, and then I dropped him off at your – at the taxi office. I assume you can check that with the head gardener at Waterside, or with the garden centre."

  This was turning into an even worse nightmare than he'd envisaged, but he had another question. "What do you know about Michael Leary?"

  "That loser? He came around one day asking if I needed another labourer."

  "Meaning himself?"

  Conor shook his head. "A mate from Cleggan, he said, but I knew enough about Mick Leary to know any mate of his could spell trouble. So I said thanks, but no thanks. Anyhow, I have Tommy working for me."

  "Who's Tommy?"

  "He's Paddy and Fiona's son, and he's what they call a slow learner, and borderline autistic, too. I took him on when he finished school last year, and he's a good worker, so long as I explain things carefully to him."

  "And you trust him?"

  "Of course I do."

  Ryan turned as the desk sergeant peered around the door. "The Chief has arrived, sir."

  "Tell her I'll be a couple of minutes." He directed his next words into the voice recorder on the desk. "Interview concluded at eleven-fifteen."

  He clicked the button, and looked up at Conor. "You're free to go."

  The lawyer, a sandy-haired man in his fifties, raised his eyebrows. "No bail?"

  "No bail, no charge, but we may need to speak to you again at some point."

  Relief was visible on Conor's face as he stood. "Thanks, Ryan. I hope you can get to the bottom of all this."

  Ryan nodded. "So do I. If you or Tommy recall anything that might help, anything you've noticed in or around the cottage, even if it seems insignificant, let me—" He corrected himself. "Let Chief Superintendent Quinn know, or the District Super here in Clifden."

  It was pointless telling Conor to contact himself. By tomorrow, he would no longer be working on the case.

  After Conor and his lawyer left, he shot a wry grin at Joe Byrne. "And now I'm in for the bollocking of the century from the Chief." He blew out his cheeks and stood. "Okay, may as well go and get it over with."

  As he anticipated, Enya was fuming, and he accepted the blame as calmly as he could, despite the nauseous weight that pressed on his stomach. Yes, he should have taken photos of the contents of the boxes; yes, he should have returned to his hiding place outside the cottage much earlier in the day. The only thing he didn't admit was spending half the day with Kara. He couldn't face the Chief laying into him again for being distracted from the job by a woman.

  Finally, she leant back in her chair and thought for a minute. "Let's see if we can pick up any pieces from this debacle. Tomorrow's Monday, the day when, according to Conor McBride, he picks up Paddy Walsh and his box of plants, and takes him to the taxi office. I'll send someone to intercept them, to check the box does contain plants, and the District Super can call both Waterside Hall and the garden centre in Roscommon, although I suspect they will confirm Conor's information."

  "What do you want me to do?"

  Enya raised one eyebrow. "You? You've done enough damage, haven't you?"

  Her sarcasm stung, but he managed a tight-lipped half-smile. "I'd appreciate the opportunity to do whatever I can."

  "In that case, go to Mist Na Mara House tomorrow morning and find those earrings you said looked like the ones that were stolen from Waterside. It's a long shot, but worth a try."

  He cringed inwardly at the prospect of returning to Mist Na Mara, but maintained his professional detachment. "With or without a search warrant?"

  "Use your charm, Ryan. It'll be quicker than applying for a warrant."

  * * * * *

  He let out a deep, despondent groan as he went out to his car. In one evening, his whole world had splintered into a million pieces. He'd screwed up badly, perhaps even more so than he'd done with the McGuffin case. This time, he couldn't blame anyone else for blowing his cover, and at the same time, he'd destroyed any chance of solving the stolen goods racket.

  He'd ruined everything with Kara, too. He winced as her angry words echoed in his mind, and glanced at the clock on his dashboard. Just after midnight, too late to call her now. There was nothing else to do except go home, pour a large shot of Jameson's, and work out what he could say to her tomorrow when he had to return to Mist Na Mara. If, of course, she was willing to listen to anything he said.

  He reached the car park exit, and waited for two cars to pass before he could turn left. On the other side of the main road, headlights approaching from the direction of the town centre caught his attention. A car was travelling fast, much faster than the built-up area speed limit.

  "Whoa, he's in a hurry," he muttered.

  The car slowed as it passed the Garda station, and he allowed himself a half-grin at the driver's caution before something jerked inside him when he recognised the car. Tom Wild's white saloon, but without the taxi sign on the top.

  Before he even had time to analyse his reaction, instinct made him yank his steering wheel to the right. He waited for another car heading out of town to pass, and pulled out, keeping the other vehicle between himself and Wild. As luck would have it, he'd also removed his taxi sign before he left his car near Mist Na Mara earlier, so hopefully Wild wouldn't realise it was him.

  They soon left the outskirts of Clifden and continued on the road toward Galway. Ryan blessed the other driver who kept going at a good speed through the wilds of Connemara, matching Tom Wild's speed. At least Wild was being sensible while negotiating the twists and turns in the dark road.

  It gave him the chance to think. If Paddy Walsh's regular trips to Roscommon were, as Conor said, simply to deliver plants to the garden centre, was Tom delivering other goods to somewhere else in the town?

  Snatches of memory returned. Tom telling him the run to Roscommon was his run and to keep his nose out. Seeing Tom's car heading for the Leary farm the night he dropped off the four women at Mist Na Mara, followed by Tom's outright lie that he was at least forty minutes from Cleggan, when he was less than fifteen minutes away. Tom dropping Paddy off at the garden centre and continuing elsewhere for twenty minutes or so before returning to pick up Paddy.

  And now Tom Wild was heading out of Clifden, without the taxi sign on his car.

  "Jaysus," he breathed. "I got it wrong. I shouldn't have been suspecting Conor and Paddy. It's Tom Wild who's been running this racket."

  Chapter 23

  Following Tom east toward Galway was relatively easy, even when the car in the space between them turned off on the minor road south from Maam Cross. There were enough bends in the road for Ryan to keep his distance, although every so often he speeded up to ensure the red tail lights were still ahead of him. It didn't surprise him when Tom drove straight through Oughterard. Now he was sure the other man was heading for Galway. After that, it was anyone's guess.


  Once they reached Galway's ring road, there was more traffic, and twice he thought he'd lost Tom's car before he caught sight of the white saloon again. He glanced anxiously at his fuel gauge. If Tom intended to take the motorway toward Dublin, he'd either have to abandon tailing him, or stop to fill his tank and hope he could catch up with him.

  When he caught sight of Tom signalling left toward Tuam, he caught his breath. Ten minutes later, he gave a satisfied nod when the white car turned again, this time onto the N63 to Roscommon.

  The road was straighter than the one through Connemara, and he kept a good distance away. He could always catch up later, because now he was sure where Tom was heading.

  His mind worked quickly. Was the boot of Tom's car crammed with all the goods from the cottage? And should he alert the Gardai at Roscommon? But what if he was wrong? He risked getting more egg on his face if it turned out Tom had nothing in his car. Better to follow and hope he could get some photos of the handover, even if he had to keep watch all night.

  He'd just passed the village of Mountbellew Bridge when the fuel warning light started to flash on his dashboard.

  Dammit!

  He was still about thirty kilometres from Roscommon, and the last thing he wanted was to run out of fuel in the middle of the town. His satellite navigation system told him the nearest filling station was about twenty kilometres further on, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it was still open. The irony struck him that if he hadn't taken Kara for lunch at Roundstone, he would have plenty of fuel in his tank, but now he had no alternative but to pull into the station and fill up.