‘And why weren’t we searched?’ asked Pooley.
‘Because bloody MOPE protested to Dublin, Belfast and London about the indignity they suffered. Garda harassment, they called it. And of course authority caved in as usual. It was your woman de Búrca in the lead on all that. She’s certainly paid a heavy price for being a pain in the arse.’
‘Were the police and the army searched?’ asked Pooley.
‘No,’ said McNulty heavily. ‘And I appreciate you being ingenious and all, but if ye don’t mind, I’ll concentrate for now on slightly more likely suspects.
‘Now we can be pretty sure, because of the dogs, that the hotel was clean before everyone arrived. No one left the place on Saturday night, but everyone did on Sunday and there isn’t one of ye, in theory, couldn’t have taken delivery of a grenade on Sunday night.’ He chuckled. ‘Though from your evidence, Rollo, several of them would have blown themselves up before they ever got inside the door.’
‘Look,’ said Pooley hesitantly, ‘I’m sure you’ve thought about this, but don’t we need to know more about what these people were really up to behind the scenes?’
‘You mean when they weren’t spouting peace and culture were they up to any funny business?’
‘Involved in internecine warfare, for instance?’
‘Sure, even as we speak isn’t there a fella from the RUC Special Branch on his way here to give us a confidential briefing on the corpses and any of the suspects they know about. It’d be a help, for instance, to know if de Búrca was the Virgin Mary or…’ He paused. ‘Well, no, she wasn’t the Virgin Mary, obviously. But it’d be a help to know if she was a Jezebel.’
‘Come again?’
‘If she was involved.’
‘Involved?’
‘Actively involved in the IRA. A Volunteer, as they dignify themselves. But while I’d like to have you along when I meet him, to tell you the truth, I daren’t take the risk. As I said to your boss this morning, I don’t want you known about yet. I’m uneasy about those gobshites in Dublin and I don’t want to give any hostages to fortune. The boyo from the RUC’s here on the sly as well.’
Pooley paused, cocked an ear, ran over to the window and opened it.
‘What in the name of God is that racket?’ said McNulty.
‘Sounds like “Rent-a-mob” have arrived to protest about something.’
They ran out of the room, down the stairs, across the drawbridge and down the drive. There, at the gates, was a line of police and soldiers holding the gate against a dozen or so shouting protesters, who bore banners saying ‘DISBAND THE GARDAí,’ ‘GARDAí COLLUDE IN MURDER OF NATIONALISTS’ and ‘IS THIS PEACE? IT LOOKS LIKE WAR.’
McNulty pushed his way through, opened the gate wide enough to get out and closed it behind him. ‘SS Gardaí, SS Gardaí,’ chanted the crowd.
McNulty stood there patiently until they ran out of steam. ‘Now look it, ye’re upset and that’s only natural. But we’re doing everything we can and this doesn’t help anyone. All you’re doing is wasting police time which would be better spent trying to find out who murdered your friends—if they were murdered. Would you ever be sensible people and go back home?’
Shouts of ‘Shame, shame,’ ‘Gardaí colluders’ and ‘SS Gardaí’ echoed through the twilight. The accompanying media surrounded the demonstrators gratefully, clicking their cameras, pointing their microphones and shouting their questions. Then, as if in answer to a prayer, the heavens opened yet again and the rain came down in a deluge. As McNulty and Pooley ran for shelter the protesters and the media could be seen doing likewise. Only the police and the army were left to endure the force of the downpour.
‘Jaysus,’ said McNulty, as they shook themselves down, ‘and here’s me having to sneak out the back and go on foot to where I’m meeting this fella.’ He reached into a corner and pulled out a pair of rubber boots and a vast waterproof cape. ‘At least I’m prepared. I hope that shower get soaked.
‘You’d better get back to the hotel when I’m gone. Have a rest and a bite to eat. I’ll give you a ring the minute I’m back.’
Pooley stayed on for a few minutes, waiting until the downpour slackened. As he was about to leave, Sergeant Bradley came in and grinned at him. ‘Tell me, Rollo,’ he said, ‘did ye ever hear the one about the IRA man who was killed in a bomb blast?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘He meets St Peter at the pearly gates. “I’m Kelly of the Belfast brigade,” he says.
‘“Well, you can’t come in here so,” says St Peter. “We don’t want trouble in heaven.”
‘“I don’t want to come in,” says Kelly. “Ye’ve got ten minutes to clear the place.”’
Pooley managed a titter. Bradley laughed uproariously, picked up the kettle and filled it at the sink.
***
‘It’s just been on the news, Ellis,’ said Amiss. ‘It was a loyalist grenade, apparently. Some outfit called the Protestant Defenders, who allege they’re a splinter group of Orange Volunteers, who’re a splinter group of the Loyal Volunteer Force who’re a splinter group of the…Or am I getting confused?
‘Anyway, whoever they are, they say they executed Laochraí in revenge for Billy.’
‘But how in heaven’s name could they get access to the castle, let alone to her room?’
‘You’re the cop. Not me.’
***
‘Christ, this is a right snake-pit,’ said McNulty to Pooley. ‘First, there’s all that codology about them loyalists, which I don’t believe for a minute.’
‘You don’t think that maybe Willie Hughes or Gardiner Steeples…?’
‘Hughes is shaking like a kitten. He was frightened enough when Billy Pratt was knocked off. He’s terrified now. And it’d be pretty daft for a fellow with an explosives record to blow up someone he’d be suspected of blowing up even if he hadn’t the faintest reason to want to do it. Which he had, being as how he couldn’t stand yer woman, for all that she was so pally with Billy.
‘Anyway the RUC are convinced Willie’s clean. And as for Steeples, he hasn’t had as much as a parking fine in his life. But what I’ve got to tell you is that that Laochraí de Búrca, her with that pious mouth on her, is only a double killer—part of a team who shot two off-duty policemen. And that only a few years ago.
‘They know she did it, they had a witness, but she produced ten people to claim she was somewhere else and then didn’t the witness have a mysterious and fatal accident?
‘That’s why she goes on about police harassment so much. It’s a ploy. Lots of them do it to stop the cops following them. Any time they’re pulled up by us or the RUC or questioned about anything they plead police harassment, get in some of those gullible human rights groups to take up their case and bingo, they’re martyrs instead of unrepentant murdering villains like she was. Jaysus, but it’s an Alice-in-Wonderland world all right when you get within spitting distance of the feckin’ North.’
Pooley felt quite shocked. ‘Would Father O’Flynn have known about this?’
McNulty shrugged. ‘Who knows? If he had, no doubt he’d have excused her and her a freedom fighter and all. The fella was an eejit anyway. Would have believed anything she told him. I’d say on balance she wouldn’t have. Most of these types keep their mouths tight shut.’
‘Liam?’
‘More complicated. From what you’d call an aristocratic republican family. That means that every generation some of them end up in jail and murder people, leaving the next generation feeling guilty if they don’t do the same. It’s one of the curses of this bloody country. Normal people want to leave their kids enough money to pay off their mortgages. Our fanatics want to leave their kids a licence to kill anyone who stands in the way of a United feckin’ Ireland even if they die in the attempt. Liam’s family was like that.’
He attacked his moustache. ‘MacPhrait’s been pretty lucky, all things considered. All right he was remanded in custody a few times, but though he was certain
ly active and almost certainly led two bombing campaigns in England, he always got off on some technicality or other. They’ve great lawyers, these lads.’ He pulled the moustache so hard that he emitted a yelp. ‘There’s been a family split though, since this peace process stuff started, with a major falling-out a year ago. Him and his mammy took the Sinn Féin line and were in favour of doing a deal. Two of the brothers and the daddy were die-hards. Nothing short of a United socialist Ireland for them. One of the brothers is in jail now. The two of them were caught doing an armed robbery and one of them was killed when being arrested. Some say that a garda informer was responsible, others think one of the peace crowd sold them out.’
‘Could that have turned him against Laochraí and the mainstream?’
‘Anything’s possible. But the word is there’s no sign of it. He hasn’t been to see the brother and he still doesn’t see the daddy.’
‘Anything on Kelly-Mae?’
‘I’ve got lines out to the FBI. Nothing back yet. Now I’ll have to leave you to your own devices. I’ve forensic reports and all sorts to deal with. Tell you what, though, you can expect to be back behind the arras first thing tomorrow morning. If I were you, I’d have a quiet evening with your friends and get to bed early.’
As Pooley was leaving the caravan, feeling anti-climactic, McNulty called behind him. ‘Don’t forget to lock your door.’
Chapter Eighteen
‘So how are you this morning, Rollo?’
‘Much, much better, Inspector,’ said Pooley. ‘As are most people, I think. Well, more rested anyway. I saw a few of them at breakfast and they seemed calmer.’
‘Well, I suppose it was a plus that the night passed without another corpse, but that’s about all we’ve got to be pleased about. Have you seen any newspapers or heard the news?’
‘I’ve heard the news, but I haven’t seen a paper.’
‘I can stand most of it. I expected all these MOPE demands for a public enquiry. I can stand all the accusations of collusion. But the hypocrisy gets to ye sometimes.’ He threw a newspaper across to Pooley, who scanned the three pages devoted to the story.
There was a huge interview with Laochraí’s husband, with a large photograph of their wedding. O’Flynn’s ordination was pictured too, along with an encomium from one of his Jesuit contemporaries. A Belfast nun recalled his inspiring music-making in their ‘Healing the Hurt’ group. There was a ‘why-oh-why?’ cry of pain from an Irish columnist who wanted to know how any people could be so evil as to have murdered the best and the bravest of those in the forefront of the struggle for peace.
‘Nothing’s said about their affair, I see. Isn’t that odd?’
‘Not in Ireland, it isn’t. It’s not just that we like to speak well of the dead—publicly that is—but you wouldn’t believe the libel laws.’
‘But they’re dead.’
‘Mightn’t stop the husband suing on the grounds his good name was being impugned and a jury giving him hundreds of thousands. Mind you, I hear some English journalist asked a question about the relationship at a press conference yesterday and was bundled out of the place by MOPE heavies.’
Pooley was shocked. ‘But what about freedom of speech?’
‘Let’s not get into that. The RUC are sure the husband knew all about the affair. But he can hardly be a suspect. How could he have got through that security blanket to murder them over two nights?
‘No. Our murderer is here, so we’d better get down to the interviews. But first, they’re working on it still, but it’s definite yer woman’s wardrobe was booby-trapped with a grenade.’
‘How?’
‘Well, I’m no expert, but what our fella thinks is that someone stuck the grenade to the pole inside the wardrobe, screwed in a cup hook at the back of the door and attached a wire from the pin to the hook. Fiddly, but not that difficult.’
‘Still, you’d need to know what you were about.’
‘You would that. And plenty of nerve.’
‘Right. Now to sources of supply. We’ve checked out Nelligan’s and the owner and his wife knew everyone in the pub on Sunday night—apart from yourselves—and there weren’t any suspect characters at all.
‘Of course that doesn’t rule out someone passing a grenade to one of your contingent, but it makes it less likely.’
‘Gardiner’s friends?’
‘Possible. If you believe that a Presbyterian elder who has lived peaceably in the same Irish village for his whole sixty years running a grocery store and who is almost notorious amongst his neighbours for his respectability, honesty and belief in the supremacy of the law is a likely recruit to loyalist violence, then yes. But there’s the slight problem that he’s also known for driving miles to attend funerals of victims of loyalist violence on both sides of the border in order to show his contempt for murderers of his own religion.’
‘MOPE’s pals?’
‘More promising in one sense. No one in the house they visited has a record, but there are serious suspicions of the older son and the local guard believes some IRA guys on the run have used it as a safe house. What does that prove? After all they were friends of Laochraí’s, which make them an unlikely source for the weapon that killed her. On the other hand there were several visitors that night—a couple of whom were definitely on the most benign interpretation ex-IRA—and who’s to say one of them didn’t provide Liam or Kelly-Mae or Laochraí herself with the means to blow her up.’
‘Because we can’t ignore the possibility that she had the grenade and someone else used it on her?’
‘Far-fetched but possible. The lads are questioning all the neighbours as well as everyone who set foot in that house on Sunday or Monday night but sure there’s nothing to be got out of them. Either they’re innocent and they’ve nothing to tell us or they’re guilty and won’t tell us. Of course we’ll rough them up a bit over the next few days if we have to, but as it stands no one saw anything suspicious and all deny being part of any splinter groups. What more is there to say?’
‘Nothing.’
‘In that case, Bradley, go and get Pascal O’Shea, and Rollo, go and hide yourself.’
***
It was not surprising that O’Shea was charm itself for, as Pooley had been able to report to McNulty, his hairs of the dog had already run to at least four large gins-and-tonic.
‘Ah, is it yourself, Inspector?’ he enquired genially. ‘God, this is terrible. Those poor people. And their poor families. Dreadful. Dreadful.’
‘Could we just run through your movements at the relevant times, Mr O’Shea?’
‘Of course you could. Not a bother in the world. Now what would you like to know about?’
‘What were you doing on Sunday morning?’
O’Shea concentrated hard. ‘Whenabouts?’
‘If you remember, the morning began with a session on what you think of other cultures.’
His face cleared. ‘Oh, yes. Jaysus that was good crack. I was glad I was up for that one. It was great being able to have a go at these people. I wouldn’t want to say these things out loud, but you can be too nice. And you can let off a bit of steam when it’s anonymous.’
‘So you were on time for that?’
‘I was indeed. Didn’t I have breakfast with yer man Hamish about eight thirty and went straight into the room with him and stayed the whole time? And then there was coffee and that was an end to what we had to do that morning. So I went to the bar with a newspaper.’
‘And you went to the ecumenical service.’
‘I did indeed. Though given a choice I wouldn’t have gone within an ass’ roar of it. Are you a religious man yourself, Inspector?’
‘Since you ask, I go to mass usually, Mr O’Shea.’
‘Well to tell the truth, religion bores the behind off me, Inspector. Sure I have a bellyful of weddings and funerals that the wife drags me to without going ruining a peaceful Sunday morning listening to Protestant and Catholic clergy going on about love. But
I went to it until I couldn’t stand any more and ran for the bar. Then after lunch we heard about poor Billy Pratt.’
‘And the night when Father O’Flynn had his accident?’
‘Sure I was a walking Guinness bottle meself, that night. Or should I say, a rolling Guinness barrel? I couldn’t tell you a thing that happened that night after about midnight till I woke up around eleven the following morning.’
‘You’ve no evidence, no suggestions, no insights?’
‘Arra, Inspector, look it, sure I’m an alcoholic and they don’t make the best detectives. I only came to this conference because no one else would go. I’ve a decent pension since they eased me out of the civil service on medical grounds and they give me the odd bit of work like this, but I’ve as much interest in Northern Ireland as I have in your left toecap. And the same goes for the Scots, the Welsh, the English, the Indians and the Japs—in fact the whole heap. I like a night out, plenty to drink, a good sing-song, a bit of gas like we had on Sunday night and the rest of them can all go hang.’
‘I gathered from your questions about the flagpole that you’re not very technically-minded, Mr O’Shea. Would I be right there?’
‘I never looked properly at a feckin’ flagpole in my entire life. I thought they were just things you tied flags on to. Ask my wife. She’d tell you I’d a better chance of being a ballet dancer than a handyman. I can’t even drive a bloody car and I gave up the bike after I fell off it twice in the one week twenty years ago. Which pretty well looks after the explosives as well.
‘God in heaven,’ he said, as if the idea had just struck him. ‘Sure I’d be terrified out of my wits just looking at a bomb.’
‘It was a grenade.’
‘’Tis all the same to me. I was never cut out to be a man of action. Jaysus, we didn’t even have toy soldiers when I was a kid. And me own kids can’t even get me to go to James Bond films because they frighten me with all that violence.
‘Now, I’ll grant you that I might have managed the bottles escapade, but it’d be pushing it to think I could change a light bulb. In my house, that kind of thing is women’s work.’
Anglo-Irish Murders Page 19