Deadly Intent

by Anna Sweeney

  Nessa told herself she had been eavesdropping long enough. Guilt gave way to anger, which burned in her stomach like vinegar, both at her daughter’s lies and at her own naive stupidity. Yes, Sal was eighteen years old and Nessa could not be sure what she got up to at music festivals or friends’ parties. But it was quite another thing to abuse her parents’ trust at home, and in the midst of all their current troubles.

  Marcus laughed as he moved back closer to Sal, his words dripping with casual charm. ‘Fact is,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t ask who else gets to frolic with you in the tub, eh, Salomé? See, I’d sooner have fun with you than waste our precious time arguing.’

  The bubbling sounds got louder as the two figures in the water intertwined. Nessa put her glass down on the ground and banged the door loudly. She stepped out towards the tub and heard herself shout hoarsely, ordering Marcus to get the hell out of Cnoc Meala. As for Sal, she had better get ready to account for herself in the morning.

  EIGHTEEN

  Thursday 1 October, 9.30 a.m.

  An urgent search was underway, involving gardai in Cork city, Tipperary and west Cork. On Wednesday afternoon, four days after Oscar Malden’s funeral, Maureen had left hospital without a doctor’s say-so, and neither she nor Dominic had been seen since then. Redmond and Conor were on their way from Castletownbere station to Derryowen, to play their part in the hunt.

  The Garda Forensic Laboratory in Dublin had confirmed earlier on Wednesday that fibres found on Oscar’s jacket matched the woollen jersey worn by Dominic, providing strong evidence that both men had physical contact on the day of Oscar’s death. But it was three o’clock by the time two Cork city gardai went to Dominic’s hotel to request his assistance with their questions, only to find that Dominic had checked out and paid his bill an hour earlier. Maureen’s hospital ward was contacted to see if he was with her, but instead, it became clear that Maureen was also missing. According to staff, she walked out the front door of the hospital in her dressing gown shortly after lunch, her cigarette packet in hand, and did not come back. When her room was examined, it was discovered that all her personal belongings had been taken away, presumably by Dominic at the end of his morning visit.

  Blame and accusation soon swirled among gardai, hospital authorities, media and others. Superintendent Tim Devane demanded to know why city gardai had not acted more quickly and indeed maintained discreet surveillance of Dominic. In turn, they declared that hospital staff had promised to let them know of any change in Maureen’s situation. They did not have enough on Dominic to arrest and charge him, and needed his cooperation, however reluctant, to question him yet again.

  Meanwhile, a rumour got out that a garda in Dublin had tipped off a journalist about the forensic evidence, and that the same eager journalist had alerted Dominic by phoning him to ask for a comment. The pressure was already piling on himself and Maureen since publication of Jack Talbot’s exclusive interviews the previous Sunday. Much hype had ensued: for example, one tabloid claimed on Wednesday morning that the couple had been overheard arguing bitterly in a hospital corridor, while a radio commentator claimed the opposite, that the pair were seen on Tuesday cuddling affectionately on a bench in the outdoor smoking area.

  ‘Now, what did I tell you, boy? Our friend knows that he’s facing a guilty verdict and he’s done a runner to prove it.’

  ‘A guilty verdict?’ Redmond glanced at Conor. ‘That depends on us catching him first. He and Maureen could be halfway across the continent by now.’

  ‘Yerra, I don’t think so. The ports and airports have been all eyes since last night. They’ll be run to ground pretty soon.’

  ‘But the new forensic evidence wouldn’t survive a challenge, would it? Who’s to say which day the woollen fibres transferred from Dominic to Oscar, either directly or via contact with Maureen? And anyway, Dominic could hardly be convicted of murder on the basis of a few strands of wool. Reasonable doubt is all that’s needed, as we know.’

  ‘What we also know is that whatever the feck happened to Maureen on the boreen, it wasn’t an assault for the sake of money, because her handbag was found intact.’

  ‘But the DNA tests on those cigarette butts that were found nearby showed that they were all hers, isn’t that true, even though Dominic is a smoker too?’

  ‘We should’ve agreed a bloody good bet on this from the start, Garda Joyce, with stakes upped every time new evidence appeared for or against Dominic.’

  Redmond smiled, happy to be back in Conor’s company after a few quiet days in Bantry. The investigation had been crawling along for a while, he felt, but the forensic breakthrough was not the only new development since the funeral. Malden’s housekeeper had walked into her local garda station on Tuesday and signed a damning accusation against him.

  ‘What I bet is that you’ve been pumping your ever-reliable sources about the housekeeper’s statement,’ Redmond ventured then. ‘So tell me all.’

  ‘Well, what I’ve been told is that she’s Ukrainian and her name is Irina. Her English is very limited, but a friend persuaded her to talk to the gardai in Tipperary this week, and an interpreter was brought in. Her story is that her employer raped her, not just once but on three occasions in the past year.’

  Redmond frowned, trying to measure the news against other evidence. ‘Can her statement be linked directly to the message sent to the radio programme? Did she come forward because she had heard of other allegations of rape against Malden?’

  ‘That’s a fair assumption, except that this woman Irina and her friend were asked about the message and they denied knowing anything about it.’

  ‘So we still have no idea where it came from?’

  ‘No, but the word is that Irina is a credible witness. She says she was terrified to say a word against Malden while he was alive, because he threatened to throw her out of the house and not to renew her work permit, the bastard.’

  ‘The story takes the gloss off Malden, that’s for sure. You’d think he was a role model for society, what with a bishop on the altar praising his good deeds.’

  The two men fell silent for a while. Their bosses would now decide how much information to release about the rape allegation, to see if any other woman came forward with a similar story. Fergus Malden was being interviewed once again too, to probe whether he had known anything about Irina’s trauma.

  Conor smiled grimly as they passed a signpost for Derryowen. ‘I suppose you’ll argue now that this new information makes it even less likely that Dominic was the guilty party?’

  ‘You’ve said it, not me. If Malden was capable of such violence himself, there could be any number of people who had a motive to kill him.’

  ‘It’s an argument based on speculation, my friend. Yes, we’ve a new insight on Malden’s vicious character now, but you hardly think this poor housekeeper travelled all the way to Beara to commit the fatal deed? Motive is not the same as opportunity, as I’m sure the cig would remind us.’

  ‘No, but what you’re trying to do is to fit the existing suspects to the available evidence, and I’m not convinced that it works.’

  ‘Well, let me put it like this, then.’ Conor’s easygoing manner was no bar to his enthusiasm for a good argument. ‘If Oscar Malden went out that morning with an appetite for sexual gratification, forced or otherwise, wasn’t Maureen his most likely target? She’s the woman he’d flirted with all week, and my belief is that Dominic arrived on the scene in time to see him pushing up her skirt and getting ready for action, God help us. So Dominic seized yer man by the throat, and the fibres of his woolly gansey got caught on Oscar’s zip …’

  ‘It seems remarkable that a few fibres can be linked so definitively to the clothes Dominic was wearing. I know it was a multicoloured jersey, or gansey as you call it, but still …’

  ‘But still nothing, because you see it wasn’t any old item of clothing that Dominic bought off the rail in a shop. My understanding is that it was a gansey knitted by Dominic’s auntie many
years ago, and if she knitted another one of the same pattern for someone else who happened to wear it in Beara on the same day, well, we might as well go home and eat all the fecking ganseys, jumpers and jerseys that we possess.’

  Conor grinned in satisfaction, but after a few minutes, he spoke in a more subdued tone. ‘You know, of course, that I’m only making light of this to stop me thinking about the horror of it all. And there was one detail of the housekeeper’s statement that really struck me. She said that on the first occasion Oscar attacked her, last Christmas Eve, he was singing to himself when he came into the room. He didn’t even pretend to seduce her, he just looked at her for a few minutes, still humming to himself, and then he took hold of her and got on with it in a slow, deliberate kind of way.’

  Redmond turned left towards the sea before they reached Derryowen. He and the sergeant had agreed to start their search for Dominic and Maureen at the hotel. A low bank of clouds lay over the water, shrouding the horizon in a grey blur. There were a few cars parked at the side of the hotel, but they did not include the couple’s navy-coloured BMW. Conor went into the hotel to check whether they or their car had been seen in the area.

  While he waited outside, Redmond tried to analyse why he was unconvinced by his colleague’s arguments. The murder seemed premeditated, that was the main reason. If Dominic took a fit of anger against Oscar, he was surely more likely to have strangled him with his bare hands? But instead, some smooth and as yet unidentified material had been used. Conor had also not explained why Oscar put up no resistance, and there was also the issue of where the body lay hidden for a day and a half at least.

  Before leaving for Derryowen that morning, Redmond heard that Patrick Latif was being interviewed in Bandon. He wondered whether Latif would be as stubborn and unhelpful as his wife. Clearly, he was associated with fringe political groups and could have provided valuable help to a person or persons intent on assassination. All he had to do was to hand Oscar over to other conspirators, and then continue on his way to Bandon.

  But Trevor O’Kelleher had outlined an alternative conspiracy theory, which entailed an unknown individual or group getting help from Fergus Malden. The young man might not have known that his father was to be murdered – it was only necessary for him to provide vital information, such as Oscar’s whereabouts at a particular time. This could also account for the son’s palpable fear and anxiety, Trevor said, on the basis that the killer or killers may have threatened to shut him up for good if he betrayed the truth to gardai. In his usual enigmatic way, however, Trevor did not add his own view on whether it was a plausible theory.

  Redmond was stretching his legs in the car park when Conor appeared at the hotel door.

  ‘They’ve been here,’ he shouted, beckoning to Redmond. ‘I spoke to a barman who thinks he saw them pass. Going towards the golf course, ten minutes ago at least.’

  Redmond almost banged the car door on his hand as he hurried to drive off. ‘Could they get to Pooka Rock from here? Is that what you think?’

  ‘The track by the golf course will bring us close to it. What the barman noticed …’ Conor pointed out directions as he spoke. ‘He thinks the car swerved a couple of times. He couldn’t confirm it was a BMW, but it was a large black or navy saloon.’

  Conor phoned Superintendent Devane’s office and Redmond tried to steer along a narrow track while keeping his eyes peeled on all sides. The golf course was almost deserted. On a chilly day at season’s end, tourists were few and far between.

  They arrived at a fork in the track. Down to their right, they could see a dark vehicle parked between a clump of large shrubs and the shoreline. Conor said they were still half a mile from Pooka Rock, off to their left.

  ‘Let’s check out this side first, though,’ he said, indicating right. As they approached the vehicle, they saw that it was a van rather than a car. Redmond was about to reverse, but Conor nudged him forward. A small pier lay beyond the van and a navy-coloured car had stopped on the pier.

  Dominic and Maureen. The two of them taking the sea air, admiring the scenery from the comfort of their car.

  Redmond realised in an instant that his first impression was deluded. The wheels of the BMW had begun to turn. Dominic and Maureen were heading for the water.

  He jammed on the accelerator, but eased off just as quickly. His thoughts were in a ferment. If he rushed at the other car, the pair inside might panic.

  He jumped out of the car, throwing off his jacket and signalling to Conor that he would run down the pier. His companion was back on the phone, calling for more gardai, ambulances, the coastguard rescue. ‘Get them all down here!’ he shouted. ‘We haven’t a fucking second to spare!’

  The navy car reversed suddenly and then lurched forward again. It skidded and hit the pier wall. The driver’s door was opened but it was hemmed in by the wall. The passenger door was opened and Maureen’s head appeared.

  She bent over and seemed about to fall out. She might have been trying to vomit.

  She dragged herself out of the car. She was dressed in a cream-coloured silky outfit. It was loose and flowing, and part of it had snagged in the car door. Then Redmond realised that Dominic was trying to pull her back inside by holding on to the material.

  She was unsteady on her feet. She looked around like someone awaking from a nightmare. She tried to support herself by leaning on the car, whimpering softly.

  Redmond was getting close. He was fifty feet from her at most, driven on by a ferocious surge of energy, body and mind in unison, consumed in a moment of pure action.

  The passenger door swung open wide, hitting Maureen hard. She fell on one knee and Dominic tumbled out after her. She pulled herself up and they struggled. Her long white sleeves flapped like sails in a scant wind.

  Redmond tried to grab hold of them both. They were shouting at each other but he could make little sense of it. They all teetered to the edge of the pier. The water was streaked black and green.

  Dominic bellowed and Redmond hooked his arm around his neck. But the other man jabbed his elbow in his stomach.

  Redmond saw Maureen fall into the water. She seemed to flop sideways like a doll. Redmond lunged out to stop her but Dominic kept tugging at him, his face red and puffy. Redmond punched him under the chin. He could not tell whether Dominic had pushed Maureen off the edge.

  He saw Conor arrive just behind him. He kicked off his shoes and dived into the cold dark water. Maureen’s head was down, her silky clothes billowing from her limbs. A few strokes and he could save her.

  But the sea erupted around him as Dominic hit the water and Conor dived in after him. Redmond’s ears were filled with the water’s tumult. He lifted his head but was unable to see Maureen for a moment. He gulped for air, holding his head up, and saw her pale sleeves drawn away by the current.

  He swam strongly, dipping his head under once again. His fingers were numb. He felt his own clothes dragging at him. He was pounding the water but his energy was waning.

  Maureen seemed to be moving very fast and he found it hard to catch up. She was almost on the rocks when he realised that someone else was involved. A strong swimmer in wetsuit and goggles was manouevring Maureen over slippery seaweed. He grasped a rock and hauled himself up to help her. When they managed to get Maureen onto a fairly flat slab of rock, the other person pushed her goggles off and he recognised Darina O’Sullivan.

  ‘You’d better …’ She nodded urgently towards the pier. ‘I think they’re in trouble over there …’

  Redmond turned and saw Conor, gasping for air and diving under again. ‘Can you manage?’ He wished he had realised sooner that his efforts to save Maureen had not been needed. He was in the wrong place, wasting valuable time.

  ‘I can go,’ said Darina. ‘I’m in the gear.’ But Redmond gestured for her goggles. She handed them over wordlessly, holding Maureen’s head at the same time to help her dribble out seawater. He could see that she knew what she was doing, so he pulled on the goggles a
nd swam away. He could not bear to sit on the rocks with Maureen while Conor was in danger.

  The water near the pier was agitated. Even with goggles on, it was hard for Redmond to make out the shapes underwater. Dominic and Conor close together, moving as if in slow motion, rising towards the surface and sinking again. They seemed to be struggling but he could not make out who had the upper hand.

  His eyes got used to the blackness as he neared them. Now he saw one man in a heap on the seabed, and the other doing his utmost to drag him up.

  The rest of the day passed in a blur. Emergency services on land and sea, gardai of assorted ranks and roles, a confusion of onlookers, helpers and the media horde who swept back into Beara as soon as the whiff of a big story reached them.

  Conor was brought to hospital once he was out of the water. Word came in the afternoon that he would be kept in for a few days, under orders to rest completely and receive no visits except those of his wife and of Trevor O’Kelleher. Maureen was back in Bantry Hospital too, confused and shocked but in no serious danger. Dominic was in a different category, however. The rescue helicopter had landed on the golf course to transport him to intensive care in Cork Regional Hospital, but a rumour seeped out after some hours that he had suffered a heart attack or a stroke on his way there and was on a life-support machine as a result.

  Redmond was tired and sore from his own time in the water. Dominic had collapsed onto the seabed by the time he arrived to help Conor, and it took a great effort from both of them to get him to the surface. Redmond had been interviewed at length by senior gardai following a medical examination. Afterwards, he sat around in Derryowen and Castletownbere awaiting news of the people brought to hospital. He was offered a lift home to Bantry a few times, but decided instead to return to the golf course pier to pick up his car. He felt restless, unsure how he wanted to pass the evening.