by Anna Sweeney
He’d seen them outside the shop in Derryowen early that morning. Caitlín O’Donovan hurrying out of her car, and someone else in the passenger seat, head bent low. He guessed it was Nessa McDermott, even before he identified her reddish hair through the long lens on his camera. Redmond had already seen the news online about her husband. Patrick Latif’s actions since the day of Malden’s murder certainly gave cause for suspicion, especially as McDermott seemed to be unwilling to help gardai to contact him.
Redmond decided to follow the two women as they drove out of Derryowen. He wanted to do something, anything, to play a fuller part in the investigation. The morning’s briefing session in Bantry had been cancelled and he had driven to Derryowen on a whim, having two hours to spare before meeting a colleague in Castletownbere for a door-to-door assignment. Of course, the women could be off on a shopping trip to Killarney or Cork. But suppose Latif had returned to Ireland and was lying low to see how the wind shifted? McDermott could be on her way to meet him secretly, and if so, the super would be very grateful for that information.
Luckily, Redmond was driving his own Renault and not a marked police car, which Caitlín O’Donovan would have spotted instantly in her rear-view mirror. Even so, it was quite difficult to tail her unnoticed. When she pulled in just before the Healy Pass, he had to drive past her, sunglasses in place, to park on the far side of the gap. Then the two women delayed interminably as they chatted and gazed at the view, while he froze to the marrow behind a hillock fifty metres away.
When they finally set off again, he followed them at a cautious distance and pulled into a layby when they drove down to the bridge. He could watch them from his car window, using the long lens on the camera as binoculars. At first, he had no idea what they were up to, but he almost dropped the camera when he saw them fling a large black item from the parapet of the bridge.
As he drove down the hill at speed, his memory of finding Oscar Malden’s body rose up like bile. According to the pathologist, one or two animals had been on the scene before the birds of prey arrived. The double plastic bag might have torn on stones when it was thrown, and as the morning grew warmer, the ripe smell of flesh had attracted a fox or a badger. Redmond knew he would never forget the image of a human hand protruding pitifully from the ragged heap by the stream.
The women’s car was still parked by the bridge but there was no sign of them. He tried to keep his footing as he ran down the uneven slope. ‘Stay where you are!’ he shouted. ‘I saw you throw a bag, and then something else.’
Drops of rain spat on his face. He hoped the women were not playing a game of hide-and-seek, hiding under the arched bridge and hoping to reach their car by dashing up the slope on the far side.
He glanced upstream. A lone tree was crouched against the wind and black clouds had obliterated the mountain tops. He turned back towards the bridge and called out again just as Nessa McDermott stepped out from under it, carrying a long navy-blue sports bag in one hand, and a torn black binliner in the other.
‘I can explain what we’re doing. We just wanted to understand—’
‘You can keep your explanations until we’re at the station. A murder investigation is underway, as you know full well, and as a member of the Garda Síochána, I have the authority to request …’
Nessa opened the bag’s zip brusquely and removed an old towel. Several large stones lay underneath. ‘We wanted to find out how much strength it took to get Oscar’s body over the parapet, and whether a woman could do it, for example.’
‘As I’ve just said, you may explain your little games to Inspector O’Kelleher at the station.’ Redmond was getting angry. These women were making a fool of him.
‘We’re really sorry about this, Garda Joyce, but we didn’t realise we had an audience.’ Caitlín O’Donovan’s voice was friendlier than McDermott’s. ‘I’m sure your technical people have carried out these tests already, but we’ve worked out a few useful points.’
‘Whatever your intentions, I will be obliged to inform the inspector that I encountered you here in suspicious circumstances.’
‘And will you inform him that you followed us for miles, as I presume you did? What was your garda authority for that particular decision?’ McDermott’s eyes were glinting like bullets. ‘Or alternatively, instead of wasting Inspector O’Kelleher’s time, maybe we could try helping each other?’
‘It is a garda matter to decide what constitutes time-wasting, Mrs McDermott.’
The women regarded him silently. The rain was getting heavier, and Redmond was afraid they would walk past him in disdain. He was also burning with curiosity to know what they had found out.
He tried for a more conciliatory tone. ‘Of course, we welcome the cooperation of the public in our investigations, and I can accept that your intentions were good. I may have to mention this incident to the inspector, but nevertheless …’
He was rewarded with a hint of a smile from Caitlín O’Donovan.
‘We’re all out of sorts, Garda Joyce, on account of this business,’ she said. ‘But for what it’s worth, we’ve confirmed that only a very strong person could have dumped poor Oscar’s body where it was found.’
Redmond nodded at her encouragingly, relieved not to feel intimidated by at least one of the women.
‘If the bag was dropped from the centre of the bridge,’ Caitlín continued, ‘it should have landed directly in the water and not up on the bank. So it’s more likely that the person stood further along, by the lower part of the wall. The snag is that there’s a level patch of ground just below that, and therefore only a really strong person could have thrown the body in such a way that it would have rolled down the slope.’
Nessa McDermott did not bother to smile as she added her own observation. ‘An alternative scenario is that the bag was carried down the slope to where it was found, but again, that would require strong muscles, and would be pretty difficult in the dark. However, it’s always possible that two people were involved, either in the murder itself or in the act of disposing of the body.’
Redmond did not get an opportunity to speak to Inspector O’Kelleher until teatime. He spent the day calling to all the guesthouses and B&Bs in the Castletownbere area. Superintendent Devane was hoping to collect phone numbers for everyone who had visited Beara during the week of the murder, in order to check whether any of them had been in contact with Oscar. A garda team was still combing the lists of numbers provided by the phone companies, showing every single call made in the area that week: the young barman in Derryowen Hotel calling his girlfriend in Glengarriff on Thursday evening; Nessa McDermott on the phone on Friday to Derreen Gardens over in Lauragh; Sal texting friends about the party that night. A snapshot compilation of community life, along with tantalising evidence of Oscar Malden’s final hours.
Redmond had a copy of the calls involving Oscar, and in particular those for which gardai did not have a satisfactory explanation:
12.02 p.m.: Call from Patrick Latif to Oscar, answered, duration three minutes.
01.05 p.m.: Call from unknown phone to Oscar, not answered, voice message left.
01.20 p.m.: Call from Maureen Scurlock to Oscar, not answered, voice message left.
01.35 p.m.: Oscar listened to his voice messages.
01.37 p.m.: Call from Oscar to the same unknown phone as above, answered, call duration four minutes.
01.43 p.m.: Text from Oscar to Fergus, telling him to cancel the taxi booking because of a change of plan. Ten minutes later, Fergus phoned Marcus O’Sullivan’s hackney company.
Clearly, Oscar Malden had been busy around the time he disappeared from sight. But while phone records showed which calls had been made, they could not reveal what was said. And at a quarter past two on Thursday, the telecommunication signal from his mobile phone had ceased, suggesting that the SIM card had been removed or damaged. No further record of his phone or his movements had been identified. On the second day of the investigation, an English tourist had come forw
ard to say he saw Malden around mid-afternoon on Thursday, in the hills east of Coomgarriff. But when he was questioned again, he apologised and withdrew his statement, saying he had mixed up the days, and had seen Malden on Tuesday. It was difficult to remember one day from another while on holidays, he said.
Superintendent Devane had not told the garda team whether he was confident of speaking to Patrick Latif soon, to hear his explanation of the call to Oscar. However, Latif’s own movements on Thursday were being tracked via other calls he had made, as well as his mobile phone signals. Maureen Scurlock had been interviewed several times – she now admitted phoning Oscar after leaving the hotel, but stuck to the line that she had failed to speak to him.
There was also the mystery of the unknown phone. It was a prepaid rather than a bill-paid mobile phone, and therefore no owner’s name had been registered for the number. Gardai had found out that it was purchased in France, and they were trying to pinpoint the exact date and place of purchase. The purpose of Redmond’s door-to-door work was to establish whether the phone belonged to someone who had stayed in a local hotel, guesthouse or rented accommodation in Beara that week.
It was repetitive work, asking the same questions time after time. There was no problem getting B&B proprietors to open the door – the majority of them were women who loved to talk, and had ample opinions on the case. Some had clearly prepared their answers in advance, so Redmond and his colleague came to the conclusion that a chain of neighbourly phone calls preceded their every move from one B&B to another. Of course, the proprietors were also professionals when it came to offering tea and apple tart, not to mention a nice warm spot by the fire ‘to toast your feet after being out in that terrible rain’, as several of them put it.
After refusing all such offers, Redmond found himself ravenously hungry by midday. He had decided a few weeks earlier to tackle his thickening waistline, and was on breakfast rations of a half litre of water plus a piece of crispbread. In order to prevent himself succumbing to the comfort food on offer, he allowed himself a lunch of two bananas, an apple and a litre of water, followed by oat biscuits at four o’clock.
By that time, he and his colleague had visited at least twenty B&Bs and two hotels. They had been told about visitors who had changed plans at short notice, or washed their car on the Friday night or Saturday morning, or done anything else remotely akin to suspicious behaviour. But they had nothing new on the unknown phone; and the word on the grapevine was that their colleagues had drawn a blank in other parts of Beara too.
‘I wonder if I could have a word with you privately?’
Redmond felt nervous as he put his question to Inspector O’Kelleher in Castletownbere station. He was not at all sure how best to explain the incident at the bridge, but he felt equally nervous of not mentioning it. But O’Kelleher countered with another question.
‘Have you ever been to the the Buddhist Centre a few miles from here?’ When Redmond looked at him in surprise, O’Kelleher continued. ‘It’s called the Dzogchen Beara, and there’s a fine hostel there, as it happens. They also rent out a few houses to their visitors, so we could check out this business of the phone numbers with them, and have a quiet chat ourselves. It’s some place, I promise you that, and now that the sky has cleared at last, we’ll see it at its best.’
They drove southwest of Castletownbere on the Allihies road, and eventually took a minor turning towards the sea. The inspector talked about the pathologist’s report, which was to be discussed at the following morning’s briefing. Unfortunately, he said, the report gave no new indication of the time or place of death. Nor was it possible to identify precisely the material used to strangle Malden. The nearest the pathologist could suggest was a smooth cable, or perhaps a thin scarf of silk or other cloth that did not leave telltale marks, as a rope would, for example. It was confirmed, however, that Malden had been seated and his killer standing at his shoulder, as indicated by the angle of the injury on his throat; it was also clear that Malden had offered no resistance when approached from behind.
‘Why do you think the pathologist was unable to determine clearly the time of death?’ O’Kelleher spoke in his usual soft voice, but Redmond realised that his senior officer was testing him, and he was glad he could answer promptly.
‘If a body is found within a day of death, its temperature indicates the number of hours since death, plus or minus two to three hours. But once twenty-four hours have elapsed, the temperature is so low that it’s irrelevant as a factor. The evidence of rigor mortis also ceases to be useful, I believe, because after a day or two, depending on the air temperature and so on, the muscles loosen again.’
Redmond tried not to sound as if he was reciting from a book. ‘I presume, inspector, that as a result of these difficulties the Patrickhologist can only say that Oscar was killed on Thursday, some time between lunchtime and late that night.’
‘Very good, Redmond. You can move on from beginners to the intermediate class.’ O’Kelleher was clearly enjoying his role as examiner. ‘Now, what might the pathologist have searched for, in order to determine where Malden was killed?’
‘The type of soil on his clothes, perhaps, if he had been lying on the ground outdoors for a period? But if Malden was seated, as you said …’
Redmond paused, worried that he did not have a pat reply this time. He knew that seeds and other such material could be very important, but O’Kelleher might expect him to be able to name the likely plants. Just in time, however, he remembered that insect evidence was crucial too.
‘It would be very helpful to determine whether death took place indoors or outdoors, inspector,’ he said carefully. ‘So if Malden’s body was placed in the plastic bag indoors, it’s possible that a housefly got into the bag at the same time, and laids its eggs on the body. And in that case, the number of eggs or maggots could give some indication of the time period too.’
‘So it could. But unfortunately, our helpful fly didn’t make it into the bag, and we’re left wondering whether it would have been a housefly or one of its hardy country cousins.’
They parked in a large carpark and walked through woodland to the Buddhist Centre. Redmond half-wondered whether they would see barefoot monks in prayerful chant. But when they emerged on the far side of the trees, he gasped at the view that lay ahead: a series of green and russet slopes tumbling and curving down to the sea along Bantry Bay, whose wide waters glistened in the pink evening light. Other than the centre’s neat buildings on the cliffside, no human habitation could be seen.
O’Kelleher led him to a tranquil garden high above the rocks. Redmond felt as if they were perched on the edge of the known world. He vowed silently that he would return on his own to absorb the utter peace of the place, which he found seductive and terrifying all at once.
O’Kelleher said nothing for a while, and it occurred to Redmond that perhaps he practised meditation regularly at this very spot. If so, that would explain the unusual calm of his working methods.
‘We’ll have a word with someone in the centre’s office shortly,’ said O’Kelleher then. ‘But our precious phone evidence may not really amount to much.’
‘Is that because one person could have two or three mobile phones, for example? So the unknown phone may belong to someone we’ve already questioned?’
‘That’s entirely possible, Redmond. And it’s also difficult to rely on telecom evidence in a place like Beara, where masts are sparse and inconvenient mountains get in the way of straight lines. In an urban area, we might be able to pin down Oscar’s location at a particular time by checking how his phone had tuned in to the nearest or most powerful mast in the area. But really, he could have been anywhere within a few miles of either Derryowen or Coomgarriff when he was in contact with our mystery caller.’
Redmond found it strange to discuss the mechanics of murder in a lovely garden by the sea. He finally made himself recount the incident with the two women, giving the impression that he had chanced upon them by t
he bridge.
‘I’m grateful to you for telling me this, Redmond,’ was O’Kelleher’s bald comment when he had finished. The inspector pondered in silence for several long minutes, while Redmond glanced anxiously at his lean profile. ‘Tell me something else,’ the inspector said then. ‘I sensed a particular tension between yourself and Nessa McDermott when we interviewed her, and I wondered why that might be?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re getting at.’
‘My own impression is that she’s a shrewd woman, and very alert to the world around her. But she certainly has a rather direct manner, and maybe you found that difficult?’
‘Well, no, but I thought—’
‘In our job, as you know, it’s important not to make instant judgements about people, whether we like them or not.’
‘I thought you were wary of her yourself, inspector, and didn’t trust her?’
‘What gave you that idea?’
‘You said something last week about expecting trouble from her …’
‘Did I? Well, maybe I didn’t mean it quite as literally as you assumed at that instant.’ O’Kelleher smiled gently, to take the sting out of his words. He interlocked his long thin fingers, and hunched his shoulders in a way that reminded Redmond of his father.
‘One of the great challenges of garda work,’ he continued, ‘is how to be wary of people and still win their trust. Without that mutual trust and respect, they won’t tell us anything, but of course we can’t be such fools as to believe every word we hear.’
Redmond nodded, to avoid saying the wrong thing again.
‘I’d like to mention another little thing, Redmond, now that I have this opportunity. We’ve been in each other’s company quite a lot recently, and yet you still call me by my fine official title, as if we’d only met the day before yesterday.’ Redmond looked quickly at his companion and saw the kindness in his eyes. ‘For goodness sake, just call me Trevor, the same as everyone else does!’ He laughed lightly. ‘Or cig, if you prefer the Conor Fitz way of doing things.’