Anna stood up. She went over to the kitchen counter, where her handbag had been sitting. She reached inside and took something out, put it on the table in front of them. It was a memory card.
‘I had to leave Tilly with Niall every night when I went to work. I was worried. He was doing well, but what if he went back on the drugs? I mightn’t have realised straight away.’
‘You got a camera,’ Cormac said. He tried to stop his hands tightening into fists, couldn’t stop staring at the little square of plastic on the table.
‘They call them nanny cams. You just plug it into the wall, like an air freshener. When someone moves, it starts recording.’
‘Have you looked at it?’ Cormac asked.
She nodded.
‘And?’
‘It’s all there.’
Half an hour later, Cormac was ready to go. The snow had finally stopped, though the roads were still horrendous, but he couldn’t wait with this. He needed to get to Dublin now, today. This time there would be no messing around. He was going straight to the Commissioner. He’d loaded the memory card onto his own phone and watched the video. All the evidence he needed was on that little card. He said goodbye to Anna and Tilly inside and shook Peter’s hand on the doorstep.
‘You’ll need to stay here,’ he said. ‘Once I get to Dublin, things will kick off. Keep them safe. No one knows they’re here, so I’m sure everything will be fine, but just in case.’
Peter looked troubled.
‘You’ll keep me posted?’ he asked now, as Cormac took his leave.
Cormac nodded. ‘As soon as I can, though I’ll have to stay off the phone for the time being. This may move very quickly.’
‘It might be a long road,’ Peter said. ‘Unpicking the threads, figuring out who was involved and who wasn’t.’
‘Yes,’ Cormac said. ‘But we’ll get them all, Peter. Every last one of them.’ He was absolutely sure of it. Cormac looked back at the house once more.
‘What were the chances of meeting Anna here? I’m not a religious man, Peter, but I swear to god, this is nearly enough to make me believe.’
Peter shook his head. ‘Luck,’ he said. ‘Coincidence.’ But his eyes were dark.
Cormac paused on the doorstep. ‘What is it?’ he said.
Peter hesitated. ‘Nothing,’ he said. Then again – ‘Nothing.’
‘Well, thank her for me, will you? She was the key to everything in the end.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
After Cormac left, Peter returned to the kitchen. He cleaned up after breakfast, thinking all the time. Anna brought some breakfast up to Maggie, came back downstairs in a lighter mood.
‘She’s eating her toast,’ Anna said. ‘She said she wants a cake for afternoon tea.’
Peter smiled at her. ‘That’s brilliant. Are you any good at baking?’
‘I’m terrible,’ she said. ‘The worst.’
‘Ah well, you can’t be good at everything.’
She gave him a crooked smile. ‘What about you?’
He closed one eye, screwed up his face in an exaggerated effort of thought. ‘I can make a pretty solid chocolate mud cake thing. Particularly if I have a packet.’
She laughed at him. ‘Well, you’d better go shopping so.’
‘I will,’ he said. ‘I’ll walk down into the village, see if I can get my car moving. Worst case, I’ll pick up a few bits from Horan’s, be back in an hour.’
Peter took his time walking into the village. He wasn’t the only one out and about. A man with a shovel helped him dig his car out. The damage to the front was worse than he’d thought, but it was driveable at least. He went on to Horan’s. Sharon was dealing with a queue at the till, and the shelves were already half empty. He filled his basket with whatever he thought would be useful, including one Decadent Chocolate Cake packet mix – ‘Just add one egg’. He paid for his shopping, and pressed on, very carefully, to the station.
Des was still there, at his desk, drinking coffee. He looked like he was feeling every pint he’d sunk the night before.
‘About bloody time,’ he said.
Peter leaned against the doorjamb and looked at his father. ‘No Jim today?’ he asked.
‘He’ll be here,’ Des growled. ‘In the meantime, I haven’t had a bite to eat all morning, except a few bloody biscuits. You took your time.’
Peter nodded. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘it occurs to me that you never told me the full story about how you came to meet Anna.’
Des looked up sharply. ‘I told you.’
‘No,’ Peter said. ‘You didn’t.’ And he stared his father down.
Des held his gaze for a long time, and then his face flushed and his chin rose in anger. ‘What is your problem?’
‘It never really made sense to me. You aren’t the kind of man who does something out of the kindness of your heart. For you it’s all about tallying it up. All your little favours.’
Des shook his head. ‘You know, Peter, you talk some amount of shite.’
‘She was followed, wasn’t she? From Dublin. And you got a phone call. Someone asked you to keep an eye on her, to report back and you did exactly what you were told. You parked Anna and Tilly at Maggie’s and you watched them, and you reported on them and it never occurred to you to ask why. You never wondered, Des, who you were working for, when you did that good turn?’
Des’s eyes were opaque now, all expression wiped from his face.
‘A bunch of murderous fucking drug dealers, and their corrupt friends. That’s who.’
Des shook his head again, an instinctive rejection.
‘Oh yes,’ Peter said. ‘Yes indeed.’
‘That’s rubbish. I kept an eye on them, yes, for a friend. The same friend I called when I needed to get you out of trouble.’
‘Brian Murphy,’ Peter said. ‘Who is as corrupt as it gets and a puppet for the McGraths. But you knew that, didn’t you, Des?’
Des was rocked by that, by the McGrath name, and maybe by Peter’s confidence. Peter felt like a different person today. In control.
‘You didn’t care,’ Peter said. ‘You should be very grateful that the McGraths were happy with what they heard, when you made your little reports. If they hadn’t been, they would have sent a man down to kill Anna and Tilly, and probably Maggie too while they were at it. And what would you have done then?’
‘You’re making this up,’ Des said. He waved a hand. ‘All this crap about the McGraths. That’s all bullshit. Just one of your fantasies.’
Peter jerked his head towards the cell at the back of the station. ‘Just like that was one of my fantasies?’
Des was silent.
‘Did you talk to Barrett last night?’ Peter asked.
Des hesitated. ‘I did,’ he said eventually.
‘What did he tell you?
‘Enough.’ Des blinked, looked down at his hands, his half-empty coffee cup. ‘He claims Miles set him up. That Miles spread the rumour about the rezoning to entice him into the deal, all the while playing the naive country farmer. It might be true. Once the contracts were signed and the deposits paid, the truth came out. The rezoning was never going to happen. Barrett was in trouble. He’d overextended, planned on borrowing at least half the money to complete the deals, and the bank wouldn’t lend him a cent once the land value tanked. He would have had to sell his house to honour the deal on the farms. And everyone would know that he’d tried to take advantage of Miles and instead he’d been played. He was humiliated and he was furious. Afraid that he was about to lose his home and his reputation. He lashed out.’
‘If it’s true, the con only worked because he was greedy. He thought he was the one fooling them.’
Des nodded. He was silent for a long moment. Then, eventually, he said, ‘About Anna. I didn’t know. I didn’t know about the McGraths. At least, I didn’t know everything.’
Peter nodded. He could almost feel sorry for his father, if it weren’t for the fact that he was the thin
edge of the wedge. It was justice, in a way, that they’d sewn the seeds of their own destruction. If the McGraths and Brian Murphy hadn’t reached out to Des to have Anna tidied away and watched so that she couldn’t cause trouble, then he would likely never have met her. Cormac would never have met her. And the evidence she’d gathered would never have been found. He looked forward to the moment when Brian and Trevor Murphy realised that they were the architects of their own destruction. How very sweet that would be.
‘Go home,’ Peter said. ‘Go home and sleep it off.’
Des stood up, very slowly. ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.
‘I’m going to clean it all up,’ Peter said. ‘Every last bit.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Deirdre Russell sat at her desk in the squad room of Mill Street Station, a sinking sensation in her stomach. To her left was Rory Mulcair. He was leaning forward, filling her in on all the gossip. ‘They took Healy in yesterday,’ Rory was saying, his voice pitched low, but not that low. What he was telling her might be a secret, officially, but a glance around the squad room told them that they ran a very little risk of being overheard. Every other garda present was also deep in conversation with someone, almost certainly about the same topic. ‘He’s in the cells now. And the Super’s leading the interview.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Deirdre said. ‘You said Sergeant Reilly was there. At the incinerator?’
‘Yeah, but he wasn’t supposed to be,’ Rory said. ‘Moira says he’s deep in the shit now. Apparently he had some side op going on, off the books, while he was on suspension. Some cobbled-together thing with a few old cronies.’
She shot him a look and Rory held up a hand. ‘Her words, not mine.’
‘So what happened then?’ Deirdre asked.
‘The Super had words with him, Moira said. She says Reilly’s definitely screwed now. There’s no way he’s coming back from suspension after this.’
‘Oh Jesus.’ Deirdre felt like she might be sick.
‘What?’ Rory said, leaning in closer. ‘What’s wrong?’
It was her fault. She’d told Reilly about Anthony Healy and Trevor Murphy’s plans for the incinerator. It was because of her that Reilly had been there. Deirdre thought back to Thursday morning. The information about the planned drug destruction had come to her from the Superintendent’s office. Brian Murphy’s aide had come to her desk and asked that she make herself available to provide additional support to the task force, if required, during Anthony Healy’s and Trevor Murphy’s absences from the station. The aide then made a point of telling her the reason for the absence. But there’d never been any need for any additional assistance, had there . . . and no reason in the world for the aide to explain why Healy and Murphy would be in Dublin for a few days.
‘It was a set-up,’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ said Rory, looking puzzled. ‘That’s what I said.’
‘You don’t get it,’ Deirdre said. She felt like she might cry. Reilly gone, never coming back. The black mark against Peter Fisher’s name never to be lifted. And that wasn’t even the worst of it. There was no one now to carry forward the investigation into Jason Kelly and Francis Loughnane. Loughnane had known about the abduction, she was sure of that. Whatever fate they’d had planned for Peggah Abbassi, Loughnane had been part of it. And what would he do now? Lie low for a while, certainly. But as the months passed and no one knocked on his door, would he look around for a new target? Maybe not. It was possible that his involvement had been peripheral. Maybe he’d never have done anything without Jason Kelly to talk to, to bond with. Maybe even with Kelly he’d only been a bystander. But deep down she didn’t believe it, and she couldn’t rely on it.
‘Where’s Moira?’ she asked.
‘Moira Hanley?’ Rory asked. He looked around. ‘I don’t know. She was here earlier.’
Deirdre stood up. She couldn’t live with this.
She felt a bit shaky, but she was determined not to show it. She took her jacket from the back of her chair. ‘I’ve an interview to do,’ she said, as casually as she could manage. ‘Moira asked me to follow up on something. Do you want to come along and give me a hand? I could do with someone to take notes.’
Rory looked pleased. He stood up quickly. ‘I’ve got some time,’ he said.
They took a squad car from the basement. Deirdre let Rory drive, directing as they went. It would be better if he was distracted. She made sure of it by keeping him on the topic of Anthony Healy’s arrest, encouraging him to speculate on who else might be involved. The roads were well gritted and traffic was light. The conversation continued right up to the moment that they pulled in outside Jason Kelly’s house. They got out of the car. Rory started up the path towards Kelly’s front door, where blue-and-white garda tape had come loose and was fluttering in the wind.
‘Not that one,’ Deirdre said. She walked up Loughnane’s drive and Rory followed.
‘A neighbour?’ Rory said. ‘A witness?’
She pressed the doorbell. ‘Something like that,’ she said.
The door was opened by a man in his late fifties. He had curly grey hair at his temples, a nose that was too small for his face, and lips so thin they’d almost disappeared.
‘Can I help you?’ he said.
Deirdre flashed her ID at him. ‘Garda Deirdre Russell,’ she said. ‘And this is my colleague Garda Rory Mulcair. Do you have a few minutes, Mr Loughnane? We’ve just a few loose ends we need to tidy up.’ She smiled at him as sweetly as she could manage and he relaxed a little.
‘About Jason?’ he asked. ‘I don’t know if there’s anything more I can tell you, but whatever I can do to help.’
Deirdre shivered, glanced towards the sky. ‘If we could talk inside, that would be brilliant.’
He stepped back, held the door for them, then led the way into a neat living room. The furniture was blandly matching and everything was very clean and tidy. There was a fire burning in the grate and a movie paused on the TV.
‘Not working today?’ Deirdre asked.
‘No, well, the weather’s too bad for it,’ Loughnane said chattily. ‘I’m doing a bit of roofing work at the moment, for a developer out on the Clybaun Road. We haven’t worked all week. Can’t say I’m sorry.’ He took a seat on the couch and gestured towards the armchairs. ‘Can I get you a drink or anything?’
Deirdre took a seat in one of the armchairs and Rory took the other. ‘We won’t be with you long, Mr Loughnane. As I said, we’re just following up a few loose ends from the investigation into the abduction of Peggah Abbassi.’
‘Right, right. Well. Anything I can do to help.’ Loughnane spread his hands, the picture of cooperation.
Suddenly, Deirdre felt panicked. She should have given this a few minutes’ thought, at least. She wasn’t sure where to start, was conscious of Rory sitting in the other chair. He’d taken out a notebook, but he was obviously relaxed, not expecting anything more than a few soft-ball questions and a quick departure. Deirdre took a breath.
‘How well did you know Jason Kelly?’ she asked.
‘Not well at all, I’m afraid.’
‘You lived next door to him for the last few years. Is that correct?’
Loughnane shrugged. ‘Longer. I bought this place back in 1992, before the boom went bananas. Kelly moved in a couple of years later, I think, but I don’t remember the exact date. He was renting.’
‘Did you spend time together? Maybe head to the pub for a drink every now and again? Call over to watch a match?’
Loughnane wrinkled his nose. ‘It wasn’t like that. We’d nod hello if we were bringing out the bins. We had a chat once because one of the neighbours – Number Four – rented their house out to a bunch of students and after the third party we’d all had enough. Someone called you lot, actually, to the last one, to break it up. Jason and I had a chat about that, about whether or not the students had moved out. Other than that one conversation I don’t think we ever exchanged more than a few w
ords.’
Loughnane was all confidence. He was bouncy with it.
Deirdre allowed a look of confusion to cross her face. She retrieved her own notebook from her jacket pocket, leafed through a few pages, looked back at Loughnane. ‘You didn’t phone each other? Didn’t exchange text messages?’
‘No,’ Loughnane said. He was a good liar. His only tell was that his facial expression, which had been very animated, stilled.
‘And you never worked together?’
‘No.’
‘And just to confirm, Mr Loughnane, am I right in thinking that you live here alone? You’re not married, are you? No girlfriend? Boyfriend?’
‘No. I mean, that’s right. I live alone. I’m not in a relationship.’
Deirdre smiled at him, a small bit of reassurance. ‘That’s what I thought,’ she said. ‘So any phone calls or messages sent from this house to Jason Kelly. If they were sent from this house, they’d have to have been sent by you, wouldn’t they?’
Loughnane’s whole body had stilled now. He was being careful . . . trying to think ahead and consider which of the possible answers would help him and which would box him into a corner. He was wondering what Deirdre could possibly know, trying to figure out if she was bluffing. But while all those thoughts ran through his head, while he tried to be clever, his body gave him away. The silence had gone on a little too long now. Deirdre raised an eyebrow, and Loughnane felt the pressure.
‘I . . . I’m not sure what you mean.’
Rory was sitting forward now, paying much closer attention.
Speaking slowly and carefully, Deirdre asked the question again.
‘I’m just asking you to confirm that if calls or text messages were sent from this house, no one else could have sent them? You haven’t had any regular guests, or anyone to stay for a few nights in the last six months, for example?’
‘Well, I’ve had the odd guest. I mean, six months is a long time. I don’t remember everyone I’ve had to stay off the top of my head.’
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