Deadly Intent

by Anna Sweeney

  10.20 a.m.: Oscar went for a walk along a coastal path near Derryowen Hotel, where he was seen by two other tourists.

  10.30 a.m.: Oscar texted Fergus to ask him to book a taxi for him for 2.00 p.m., from the car park at Scannive Strand, a few miles from Derryowen. Fergus texted back soon afterwards to confirm that he had done so.

  11.30 a.m.: Oscar had a coffee at the hotel; he mentioned to the barman that he planned to try the Coomgarriff Walk; he had a conversation with Maureen Scurlock, as seen through the hotel window by the two sisters and fellow guests, Stella and Zoe.

  11.50 a.m.: Oscar left the hotel to go walking; he had a conversation with an old man, Ambrose, outside his house on the road out of Derryowen, and mentioned that he was on his way to Coomgarriff Walk; Ambrose also gave evidence that Oscar’s phone rang and that he spoke to someone for a few minutes. Gardai did not know yet who had phoned him.

  1.40 p.m.: Phone text from Oscar to Fergus asking him to cancel the taxi booking.

  Mid-afternoon, perhaps 3.00 p.m.: Oscar was seen walking at a location about three miles from Coomgarriff, according to an English tourist who contacted gardai. No confirmation of this sighting by other witnesses.

  Fergus agreed with the times noted, in so far as his own involvement was concerned. His mobile had already been taken away for forensic examination of the texts he had received from his father. Gardai were particularly interested in the 1.40 p.m. text, and whether the style or wording could suggest that Oscar wrote it under duress or threat of violence.

  Redmond had the wording off by heart. It was brief and to the point: ‘Change of plan, work reasons, have lift, cancel taxi.’ Fergus had no idea who or what gave rise to the change of plan. But he had already discussed the text with gardai on Friday, when they were trying to contact Oscar about Maureen’s incident, and he said that he was not at all surprised at it. Oscar generally did as he pleased, and felt no need to justify doing so.

  ‘Did your father have a car at home in Tipperary?’

  ‘No, he didn’t. But I thought I told you already …?’ Fergus seemed more weary than impatient. His face was pale and haggard, as if he had not slept for a week. ‘My father didn’t like driving and gave it up years ago. He often worked while he was travelling, so he employed a driver for business trips.’

  ‘And you drove him to Beara last Sunday? But you didn’t offer to drive him home when he had to leave early?’

  ‘Yes, we came here in my car. But no, he didn’t ask or expect me to leave early along with him. It was no problem to him to pay for a taxi.’ Fergus sighed and looked out at the grey rolling waves. ‘As well as that … I don’t know this for sure, but I think he quite liked to have other people at his beck and call, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘What about baggage? What did Oscar carry with him on Thursday morning?’

  ‘Surely I answered these questions yesterday? He had a small rucksack with him when he left Cnoc Meala. The rest of his stuff was in his room and I’d agreed to bring it home this weekend. But I thought his rucksack …? Your colleagues told me yesterday that you haven’t found it yet?’

  O’Kelleher eventually suggested a short break. Supplies had been provided on a side-table and he went over to put the kettle on. Fergus had brought his own mint tea, as he was still having stomach trouble, and just asked for hot water. Redmond watched the young man standing by the window. Slightly built, with unremarkable looks and light-coloured hair cut very short. But there was something missing too, Redmond decided. It was as if his blood ran too thinly, or the light in his eyes had gone out.

  ‘OK, let’s go back over last Thursday one more time,’ said O’Kelleher when they resumed their places. ‘You’ve told us you stayed in bed all morning, Fergus, because you were feeling ill. Around midday, you got up and sat around in the guests’ living room, as Nessa McDermott has verified. At half past one, she offered to drive you to Castletownbere to buy some medicine from a pharmacy. You both returned to the house shortly after three o’clock, and you stayed in the living room for the rest of the afternoon, along with two Dutch visitors.’

  Redmond took a gulp of black coffee as he listened. He hoped the bolt of caffeine would help him to concentrate.

  ‘Let’s suppose you’d set out to guarantee yourself a good alibi, Fergus,’ said the inspector. ‘You knew that your father was in danger, maybe, because his business enemies had pressurised you to help them?’

  ‘I don’t understand what you mean.’

  ‘What I mean, my friend, is that you made a very good job of your alibi for Thursday, isn’t that so? You spent most of the day in company, in spite of your claims that you enjoy time alone. When you and Nessa McDermott returned from Castletown, you didn’t try a spell of fresh air on your own to improve your health, did you? Instead, you stayed nicy and cosy in Cnoc Meala where other people were sure to see you?’

  Fergus shook his head in silence. O’Kelleher sipped his tea for a moment, his mild blue eyes regarding him steadily. When he spoke again, his voice had taken on a razor-sharp edge.

  ‘It seems very strange altogether,’ he said, ‘that you knew so little about your own father’s business affairs, or who phoned him or why he might have altered his plans, either when he decided to leave Beara on Thursday morning or when he changed tack again that lunchtime. For God’s sake, son, you lived with him in Tipperary, you worked with him for a while, and you came on holidays with him. But yet after all that, you still haven’t a notion in the world who might have wanted to kill him or why?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m doing my best …’ Fergus shoved his hands into his armpits. ‘I’ve answered every question as well as I can.’

  ‘Well, so you say, but let me tell you now that if you’re keeping information to yourself, or protecting somebody else, you’ll be more than sorry when we find out about it!’

  Fergus made no attempt to answer this time. Redmond glanced out at the wide waters of the bay. The tide itself was at a standstill, it seemed to him, as they tried to dredge answers from the young man sitting across the table.

  ‘We’re here to help you unravel what happened,’ said O’Kelleher then. His voice was still sharp, but he sounded tired too. ‘You told us previously that Oscar was in a good humour when you saw him for the last time on Thursday morning, even though he had just been confronted with some major business problem – something so pressing that he had to leave Beara that day in order to deal with it?’

  ‘I’ve tried to explain to you.’ Fergus became more animated, making a real effort to answer decisively. ‘My father was never happier than when he had a work problem to sort out. He wasn’t like other people, that’s what you have to understand. It always seemed to me that … You see, an easy life was the last thing he wanted.’ His voice became stronger. ‘I used to worry about it, to be honest, that he took too many risks and maybe even … Sometimes I was afraid he actually courted danger, just for the sake of it.’

  ‘What kind of danger?’

  ‘I don’t know, not in detail. I mean, if I knew that, I’d have told you all about it. But I picked up earlier in the week that he was expecting a phone call, and that it was about a business problem abroad. So when he told me on Wednesday night about leaving early, I assumed that was the reason. But I’ve no evidence, so it’s just an impression …’

  Fergus paused as he had many times previously, and then spoke in his firmest tone yet. ‘On Thursday, when I got word that he’d arranged a lift home, I thought the person who was supposed to phone him had arrived in Ireland and that they had arranged to meet. And now … Now I think my father was in terrible danger from that person, and didn’t pull back from the brink in time.’

  TEN

  Monday 21 September, 5.45 p.m.

  Redmond was glad to leave the interview room. His head was exploding after two long days of questioning. Images and words popped in his mind like fireflies: Nessa McDermott, for example, who gave him a poisoned look every time he asked her a question; one of t
he sisters, Zoe, who made political speeches instead of answering simple questions; and the other sister, Stella, who said she had met Oscar Malden once before at a conference in the Middle East, while she was doing academic research in the Gulf States. Wrestling with taciturn interviewees took up a lot of time too – not just Fergus Malden but also the likes of the young lad who worked in Derryowen Hotel, who was so absorbed in a silly mobile phone game that he had no idea what time Maureen Scurlock had left the place.

  Redmond inhaled the evening air as he walked westwards out of Derryowen. The interviews were hard work but they were satisfying in their own way. He should not allow Nessa or anybody else get to him. He noticed how shafts of sunshine were breaking through the clouds, making the colours of the hills so much sharper as they alighted here and there.

  He was surprised to feel his mood lift unexpectedly, as if a breeze had caught him. The joy of doing really challenging work, that was the sensation bubbling up in him. His heart was pumping with the adrenaline he craved.

  The day’s work was not yet over, which pleased him all of a sudden. He and Sergeant Fitzmaurice were to question the young taxi driver, Marcus O’Sullivan, whose previous interviews did not add up. O’Sullivan had been parked at a well-known beauty spot, Scannive Strand, awaiting Oscar’s arrival as instructed, but claimed he returned home as soon as the booking was cancelled, at about quarter to two. Nessa McDermott and Fergus Malden drove past the same parking spot shortly after two o’clock, and said it was deserted. But according to a further witness, there were at least three cars at the Strand at half past two, and Marcus was in his taxi with another person.

  Scannive Strand was less than two miles from Derryowen, on the road between the village and the main Beara routes. If Oscar had walked from Derryowen up to Coomgarriff, he could have taken a different route back towards the sea, looping around the hill and down to join the main road near Scannive Strand. It was a two hour walk, for a fit, active man like Oscar.

  Redmond had arranged to meet the sergeant on the road towards Scannive, to give him a chance to stretch his legs after spending the day indoors. He paused for a few moments to watch three television crews prepare for their evening bulletins, at a layby with enticing views of the coastline. He remembered a remark made by O’Kelleher at lunchtime, that the media crowd were like dogs gnawing at the decomposing meat of the dead, but it gave Redmond quite a buzz to watch them at work. The reporters were pacing to and fro, each memorising a little script while their camera people adjusted equipment and looked anxiously at the changing sky. One reporter made several false starts, speaking confidently to camera and then cursing loudly when he stumbled on a word. Clearly, it was a job that required its own brand of patience.

  Sergeant Fitzmaurice was outside a house at a crossroads, with an elderly man whose hair was like a thatch of decayed straw. Redmond realised that this must be Ambrose. He was probably a little deaf, because when the sergeant tried to introduce them, Ambrose paid no attention and gabbled on.

  ‘What that poor man intended, God rest him, was to go off looking at the old stones lying about on the slopes of Coomgarriff, that’s what he told me anyway, and he seemed a very genuine man, and keen to know all about the wonderful memorials we have in this area to remind us of our ancestors long ago. Well indeed, I says to him, if that’s what you’re looking for, you’ll find a lifetime’s worth of ancient slabs in every corner of the peninsula—’

  ‘Ambrose is telling me about the conversation he had with Oscar Malden,’ said Conor Fitzmaurice quickly. Redmond looked around as the old man chattered on. The house was perfectly situated for somebody who liked to observe the comings and goings of his neighbours. It was on a rise, looking east down a gentle incline towards the sea and the village, and west in the direction of Scannive Strand and the mountains of the main Beara peninsula. There were two small roads leading inland from the crossroads too: the first, the route taken by Oscar, dipped and rose towards the pointed summit of Coomgarriff; and the second, almost parallel to the coast road, twisted out of sight among trees.

  A flow of words continued to pour from Ambrose. ‘As I was telling you a short while ago, sergeant, I was standing here by my own little gate, keeping an eye on the road the same as I do every blessed day, when Oscar Malden came by, holding a map in his hand. Well, may God and his Holy Mother protect us, but I had no idea then what tragedy lay in store for him, the poor man! So I’d certainly like to help your inquiries to the very best of my abilities.’

  ‘If everyone was as alert to the world as you are,’ said Fitzmaurice to him, ‘there’d be little or no work left for the guards, that’s the truth of it. So tell me about the phone call Oscar got, just before he set off on his way?’

  ‘All I heard was a few sentences, sergeant, and maybe it’s a pity I didn’t listen more carefully but of course I knew the man was having a private conversation. He turned away from me for the first few minutes, but then he turned back and spoke plain and clear on this very spot. “We’d better talk it over”, that was the first bit I heard, and then he mentioned that it would be just as well to avoid trouble.’ Ambrose leaned in to Fitzmaurice, happy to recite every detail. ‘Yes, and he ended the call by saying: “I’ll be with you shortly”. Now, I’ve been thinking over this ever since, and wishing I could tell you I witnessed his meeting with the other person. But Oscar bid me goodbye after another minute, and that was the last I saw of him, Lord rest his eternal soul.’

  ‘And who else walked past your house after Oscar? I know you’ve been through all this yesterday …’

  ‘It’s no trouble, sergeant, but the only people I saw soon after were the same neighbours and friends I see every day. The postman stopped by for our usual chat, and then my friend Darina came by. The Egg-girl, that’s what I like to call her, and I can tell you she had a fine clutch of eggs to deliver to me that day. What’s that radio advertisement they had – “an egg a day is OK”, isn’t that it?’ Ambrose allowed himself a little chuckle as he looked up at the sergeant. ‘Well, it was time for my egg of the day, because it was coming up to one o’clock by then and I was getting hungry for a bite to eat.’

  ‘I’m sure you were, my friend, but I wonder whether you also saw another woman who was walking around Derryowen the same day? She was wearing a silky blouse and a short skirt, and had been staying above in Cnoc Meala.’

  ‘Well, she sounds like someone who’d make an impression alright. But was that before dinnertime, or a while later?’

  ‘We’re not sure, Ambrose, and of course, you might have gone indoors to get your food ready and missed her at that very moment.’

  ‘I might, but as you know, sergeant, I don’t miss much. I eat my dinner at one o’clock exactly, the same minute the national news comes on the radio, sitting at my little table by the window so’s I can keep an eye on the road, up and down the whole time.’ Ambrose raised a hand in greeting to a passing driver. ‘That means I could swear on the holy book that no such woman as you mention came this way, wearing a short skirt or a long dress either. Nor did I see poor Oscar again, in case you were about to ask me that selfsame question I was asked yesterday. No, indeed, I did not, which leads me to the conclusion that he didn’t return from Coomgarriff by the same route he took up the hill.’

  Redmond gave a quiet sigh of relief when Fitzmaurice finally said goodbye to the old man. Trying to follow his rigmarole was more of a challenge than the formal interviews.

  ‘Honestly, isn’t he a great lad altogether?’ said the sergeant, as he turned the ignition in his car. Redmond folded the empty crisp packets he had picked up from the passenger seat. He could see signs of his colleague’s family life on all sides – a pile of football magazines at his feet and a broken doll in the car door pocket.

  ‘But is Ambrose’s evidence reliable?’ he asked. ‘If it is, Oscar must have been murdered somewhere between the crossroads and the top of Coomgarriff, which leaves a big question about how his body came to be found fifteen or twenty mi
les away. Or else he went to Coomgarriff and returned to Scannive Strand via the far side of the hill? And then he met his killer later that day?’

  ‘Well, now, I’d say that Ambrose’s evidence is sound enough as it goes, fair play to him. But I wouldn’t push him into a witness box in court, all the same. We can believe what Ambrose says he saw, but that doesn’t mean he saw everything and everyone who passed his house all day long.’

  ‘You mean he’s not as observant as he thinks? So his evidence proves nothing about where Oscar or Maureen were at specific times?’

  ‘That’s the gist of it alright. After all, Ambrose has to turn his back on the outside world a few times a day, if only to attend to his natural functions. Added to which, I’m of the opinion that his advanced years are getting the better of him, poor divil. When he’s grand and comfy by the window, and well fed on those tasty eggs of his, I think he dozes off to sleep in spite of himself. A few times recently, I’ve noticed gaps in his accounts of the afternoon comings and goings around Derryowen.’

  Sergeant Fitzmaurice slowed as they approached Scannive Strand’s parking place. Beyond the shingly beach, the sea glinted under broken skies and Beara’s dramatic contours rose against the sky. They turned right just before the beach, and when Redmond checked the map, he saw that they were at the Scannive end of a stretch of land jutting out to sea between Derryowen Hotel and the strand.

  ‘It wouldn’t surprise me one bit,’ said Fitzmaurice suddenly, ‘if this whole case was solved by the end of the week.’

  Redmond hid his surprise by saying nothing. His opinion of his colleague had changed in the past few days. Rather than smug self-importance, what he saw now was an easy unselfconscious manner. He did not hanker after the kind of lifestyle Fitzmaurice had: chatting to lonely people at their rural gateways and driving his children to afterschool activities. But it was obvious that Fitzmaurice was master of his own domain – a person and a place suited to each other.