He looked around the small room critically, slapping the palm of one hand with the leather gloves he was holding in the other, as if searching for somewhere to sit down. Surely he could figure that one out for himself?
‘Is there something I can help you with, Brendan?’
Healy frowned. ‘The Minister’s been on to me.’
Mulcahy glanced at his watch. Five minutes to go before he was due to call the Spanish embassy. Nothing to do with that, then.
‘About the investigation?’
Healy nodded. ‘The Ambassador called him this morning, asking about progress. Said he’d been informed last night we had somebody in custody. Was that you?’
‘Sure, I rang First Secretary Ibañez as soon as Brogan told me about Scully. She said you’d approved it.’
‘Did she now?’ Healy replied, cryptically. ‘Well, the Minister wasn’t happy about it. At least, not when I had to tell him how little progress we’ve made with this character, Scully, so far, if you catch my drift.’
Mulcahy not only caught it, he was already trying to figure out what the hell he’d be expected to do about it.
‘You must be pretty sure that this Scully character is involved,’ Healy continued.
‘I can’t take any credit for that. It was Brogan’s call. I haven’t had much to do with that aspect of the investigation myself.’
‘Haven’t you?’ Healy frowned even deeper. ‘Well, you’d better get up to speed on it before we have any slip-ups with the Spanish.’
Mulcahy gritted his teeth. ‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘No? Well there better not be any, Mike. I’ve told the Minister you’ll go over to see the Ambassador in person this morning and use these diplomatic skills of yours to explain why they shouldn’t be expecting anything too dramatic to happen any time soon. And while you’re there, would you please impress upon them again that you are the official liaison officer on the case – at their request, remember – and not the Minister or his private secretary. Do you understand me?’
‘Yes, sir.’ What’s not to understand, Mulcahy thought, feeling his heart sink. He wouldn’t be getting out of this place for a few more days yet, then.
‘Good man. Now, where’s Brogan?’
‘Probably questioning the suspect in the interview room downstairs. They had him brought over from Blackrock earlier.’
‘Right. I’ll call in on them on my way out – see for myself if this fella Scully is as guilty-looking as everyone says he is.’
She was just grabbing her bag to run out for a coffee, when the ping of an incoming email drew Siobhan back to her screen. She sat down again, shoulders slumping when she saw the message was from Vincent Bishop, not wanting even to think of him on this of all mornings. But she was unable to resist the lure of a potentially good tip, especially one headed: ‘I know you’ll like this…’
She clicked on his name and the email opened, but it was blank. It took a couple of seconds for her to notice there was a pdf file attachment, then she double-clicked on it and was gobsmacked by what unscrolled before her eyes – a scan of a flight ticket from Dublin to the Seychelles, departing the following Monday. In her name. Beside it was an itinerary for a week’s stay at some hyper-luxurious resort called the Banyan Tree. This, though, was not only in her name but Bishop’s as well.
If the sound of her hand slamming down on the keyboard didn’t draw much attention in the newsroom, the string of four-letter ordure that exploded from her mouth did. Paddy Griffin raised an eyebrow, rose from his desk and ambled over.
‘What is it?’ he said, leaning in towards her screen.
‘Oh, Jesus, nothing that would interest you, Paddy, trust me.’ She closed the attachment before he could read it and hurriedly quit the entire email programme for good measure. ‘It’s just someone taking the piss.’
‘About what?’ he said, disappointed, not quite ready to believe her.
‘It’s nothing, honestly. Go on, get back to work,’ she said, batting him away with her hands and standing up. ‘I was just going out for a coffee, do you want one? My treat?’
Even more in thrall to the bean than she was, Griffin smiled an affirmative and let her pass. Only when she got outside onto Burgh Quay did Siobhan allow the anger to take hold of her again. Ducking into an alleyway round the corner, the one place that offered enough shelter from the street noise for her to use her mobile, she leaned back against the brick wall and noticed her hands were shaking. She jabbed at Bishop’s number, determined to exert some control over the situation.
He answered immediately.
‘Hi, Siobhan—’
‘Vincent, what in the name of Christ do you think you’re doing?’
10
Nodding a comradely farewell to the security guard closing the iron-studded door behind him, Mulcahy stepped into the sunshine and pulled out the cigarette pack he’d been clutching in his jacket pocket for over an hour. He sparked up a cigarette and drew the smoke deep into his lungs, exhaling with a heartfelt sigh of relief, and tried to forget the polite mauling he’d received at the hands of the Spanish Ambassador and Ibañez.
‘My government expects the Garda Siochana to treat this case with an urgency appropriate to the status of the individuals involved, Inspector,’ Ambassador Escriva had complained. Tall, fair-haired, his manners even more impeccable than his suit, he cut an altogether more impressive figure than his miniature First Secretary.
‘I can assure you it is being given every priority, Ambassador,’ Mulcahy had responded, and a hundred more variations on the same as the diplomat repeatedly drove home the point.
Mulcahy looked around again as he walked towards his car, unable to ignore the splendour of his surroundings, the colonial-style house behind him, the lush, carefully tended gardens. Like most of the older diplomatic missions in Ireland, the Spanish embassy occupied a sprawling mansion in the heart of Dublin 4. Whether by coincidence, astute speculation or the glamour that came with diplomacy, this was one of the few areas of the city that hadn’t suffered the recent catastrophic drop in property prices. Snobbery always seemed to hold its value, even in recessions.
Suddenly, his mobile shattered the tranquillity around him. He looked at the screen, recognised Javier Martinez’s number, and cursed as he answered.
‘Jesus, that didn’t take long,’ Mulcahy said.
A brief, Scooby-style grunt of confusion came from the far end of the line. ‘What are you talking about, Mike?’
‘I’m at the embassy, Jav, I’ve just been updating—’
‘I don’t know anything about that,’ Martinez interjected, a hint of defensiveness in his voice. ‘I am calling to update you, actually. After we spoke the last time, I asked an investigation team to reassess any recent threats made against Don Alfonso.’
‘And?’
‘And they think they may have discovered something that has relevance to your case.’
‘Seriously?’ Mulcahy didn’t bother trying to conceal his surprise.
‘I really don’t know yet,’ Martinez said. ‘It is little better than anonymous, from an ETA cell who say they will kill Don Alfonso or his family members any opportunity they get, when he least expects it, at home or abroad.’
Mulcahy let out a deep sigh. ‘Christ, that’s not exactly specific, Jav. Do you really think—’
‘I don’t know what to think,’ Martinez cut in again. ‘My men are thinking that, you know, historically, ETA has links with the Provisional IRA, and so Ireland… Like I said, I don’t know. But this man you have in custody, he isn’t IRA, no?’
‘Scully?’ Mulcahy gasped. ‘No, he’s not. I mean, not that we know. And from what I’ve heard, I can’t imagine that he could be. But we’ll check it out, now, obviously.’
‘Good,’ Martinez said. ‘Let me know what you find out.’
Mulcahy hung up, shaking his head in disbelief. An ETA/IRA connection? Jesus, this thing was getting crazier by the minute. He had to be able to do something
. He was taking his car key from his pocket when his fingers brushed against the scrap of paper on which he’d scrawled Grainne Mullins’s details. She was the only lead he’d managed to come up with so far. He looked at the address again. It was only a mile down the road. He turned the car around and set off towards Irishtown.
It might have been less than a mile away but the street Grainne Mullins lived on seemed light years from the sedate, tree-lined avenues of embassy row. A council estate built on landfill on the fringe of the East Link development, in the shadow of the Pigeon House power station, it sat jammed between the wastes of the river’s southern docks and three busy arterial routes. A bunch of thin, crop-haired youths in chav caps and knock-off trainers stared sullenly as he drove by, clocking him instinctively as a cop. He parked outside No. 18, the last one in the terrace, locked his car and rang the doorbell, feeling the youths’ eyes on his back, hearing the confidence in their cackling jeers. One voice, louder than the others, called out: ‘Goan’ta get yer rocks off, are ya, pig?’
He ignored them, noting the feeble, wind-blasted hedge that straggled around the side of the house, behind which the report said the assault had happened. Even if she hadn’t been gagged, he doubted whether anyone round here would have responded to a cry for help.
The smell of stale milk and mildew hit him before she’d got the door open wide enough for him to see her. She was small, no more than five foot two, wearing a loose pink scoop-neck top and pale blue jeans, thick hanks of bleached blonde hair flopping around a face that not so long ago must have been pretty, but now looked hollowed out and emptied by life.
‘Grainne Mullins?’
‘Yeah, what about it?’
She eyed him suspiciously, folded one arm across her chest, and flicked at her fringe self-consciously with the other. Mulcahy froze on the spot. Beneath her hair, slashed across her forehead, was a pale scar. He couldn’t take his eyes off it. Nobody could argue that wasn’t in the shape of a cross. How the hell had it not been mentioned in the report?
‘Is there something you want or are you going to just stare at me all day?’
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m from the Gardai.’
‘Yeah, I gathered that, but what d’ya want? I got a baby in there needs feeding.’
As if on cue, the wail of an infant escaped from within the house. He looked in past her, saw wallpaper peeling away from walls, a staircase with dirty pink carpet on the treads, a doorway into a kitchen that looked like a swamp.
‘I was wondering if I could have a word with you about the assault,’ Mulcahy said.
Her reaction took him completely by surprise.
‘You’re havin’ a fucking laugh, aren’t ya?’ Her face curled up in a snarl and she grabbed the door to slam it in his face. He only just got his foot into the gap in time.
‘No, wait, Grainne, please,’ he pleaded.
‘Go fuck yourself.’ Inside, she leaned her minimal weight against the door. ‘Youse lot are fuckin’ unbelievable, you are. Why can’t you just pay for it like everybody else.’
‘I only want to talk to you.’
‘Yeah, right, just like that other fucker did, I suppose?’
‘Look, I don’t know what you’re on about, Grainne, but I swear this is important. I think the fella who attacked you has done it again. But worse this time. I need your help – to stop him.’
He felt the weight coming off his foot, saw the shadow of her body lifting away from the glass pane. Her face appeared around the door: just her eyes and that scarred forehead.
‘Was it another workin’ girl?’ she asked. ‘I’d’a thought I’d’a heard about that.’
‘No. Just a kid.’ Even as he said it, he was aware of the irony that this woman could be barely four, five years at most, older than Jesica Salazar.
‘Well, you better come in, then, I suppose.’
It didn’t take him long to work out why her case hadn’t been investigated properly. Prostitutes never got a fair deal from anybody, least of all the Garda Siochana. She didn’t come right out and say it, but Branigan, the detective who’d been assigned to her case, had obviously decided he could trade some kind of protection for sexual favours, and when she wouldn’t play ball any more after the first couple of times, he made sure the case got buried – for his own sake. Grainne Mullins had just assumed that life had given her one more kick in the guts and got on with it, unaware that Branigan had been transferred, and convinced that if she ever pursued the matter he’d only try the same thing again.
Mulcahy told her he’d try to do something about it, but didn’t hold out much hope. She wasn’t impressed. Cynicism was dyed deep in her by now. The only thing that got through to her at all was the idea that the man who attacked her had done it to somebody else, and might do it again.
‘Seems like ages ago,’ she said, pointing at the infant in the rocker beside her. ‘Had this little one since. I’d only just been given this place because I already had the other two.’
The baby was asleep, a soother in its mouth, no sign of the other children. She’d brought Mulcahy into the tiny, sparsely furnished living room. A blue foam sofa, an armchair and a small television on an upturned plastic storage box took up what bits of floor weren’t strewn with baby gear and toys. Everything was cheap, filthy and falling apart. He looked again at the scar on her forehead, and shuddered to think what her other injuries must look like. How had she even been able to keep on doing business?
She read his mind.
‘You’d be surprised what some creeps get turned on by. There’s fellas now I can charge extra just to take me top off for them.’ She snorted at the stupidity of it. ‘The rest of them are usually so blathered by the time they get down to it, they never even notice.’
‘What about the man who attacked you?’ Mulcahy asked.
‘You must be jokin’ me,’ she hooted, mistaking his meaning. ‘That bastard wasn’t interested in doin’ anything. All he did was fiddle about uselessly, then got on with carving me up.’
‘He cut you because he was angry at not being able to do it?’
‘How would I know?’ she said. ‘It might sound kinda obvious, but I was more scared of the knife than anything else. Once he got me down and got me hands tied, he never tried to touch me that way. It was weird. It was only when he cut me bra that he started fiddlin’ with himself, but y’could see his heart wasn’t in it. But his eyes lit up when he went to cut me. I was so scared I didn’t even feel it, just saw the blood comin’ out. I lost it completely then. Can’t remember much after that, except trying to scream and not bein’ able to cos he’d stuffed a cloth in me mouth.’
‘What happened to the cloth?’ Mulcahy asked.
She looked at him like he had two heads.
‘It’s evidence. It might give us a clue,’ he said. ‘I mean, did anyone come and examine the scene afterwards, or collect evidence?’
The look of scorn only intensified on her face. ‘Jesus, you’re really working in the dark, aren’t you? Look, the only fella who came out here was that pig, wassisname?’
‘Branigan.’
‘Yeah. And, like I said, the only thing he was interested in collecting was his rations. Once he heard I was a workin’ girl, that was it. Fair game, that’s what he said. Always the bleedin’ same.’
‘Can you tell me what you were doing before the attack?’ Mulcahy asked, deciding it was better to avoid that issue for the moment.
‘What’s the fuckin’ point – you’re not going to catch him now, are you? And how d’ya know it’s even the same fella?’
‘I don’t, but I’m kind of hoping there’s no more than one freak going around doing this kind of thing.’
‘Okay, look, I was just comin’ up to the house, lookin’ for me keys. I’d been out doing an at-homer out in Glasthule. The fella’s a regular – always pays me a taxi home.’
‘Could the taxi driver have seen anything? Didn’t he drop you to the door?’
‘Yeah, well,
that’s just my bloody luck, isn’t it. The driver said he was runnin’ low on petrol and asked could he drop me off at the bottom of the road so he could go over to the garage on Bath Street. I wasn’t bothered. Saved me tippin’ him. Course it’d have to be the one night a pervert was on the loose.’
‘Were you aware of the attacker beforehand? Did he follow you up the street?’
‘Haven’t a clue. He came at me from the back, as I was putting the key in the lock. It was like he hit me with his chest or something, at a run. My face went smack into the door and I was nearly knocked out. Keys and everything went flyin’. Next thing I knew, I was on the ground, hands tied behind me back, and he was stuffin’ this rag into me gob. I thought I was going to puke but when I saw the knife I just froze. I was too terrified to move.’
‘So you saw his face?’
‘For fuck’s sake, what do you think? He’d just knocked me halfway into next week. The only thing I was seein’ was stars.’
‘But you must’ve got some impression of him?’
‘Not really.’
‘What about his age? Was he young or old?’
‘Jesus, I don’t know. Like I said, I was too groggy and all my attention was on the knife.’
‘Well, what would your gut say, your instinct?’
She shrugged. Clearly, this question hadn’t been put to her before.
‘Well, not a kid, like, but not too old either. He was strong but not huge, y’know.’
‘It says in the report that you didn’t know the man? What was it made you so sure? Did he say something, is that it – was it his voice you didn’t recognise?’
‘Are ya kiddin’ me? Jesus, ya wouldn’t hear that voice twice and not know it. Soft, like, and a bit educated, too, now I think of it. Not from around here, for sure. An’ he was mitherin’ all the time. Especially after he cut me. He just kept on, low like, not so much excited as fuckin’ mad. Cursin’ and mumblin’ all this crap, like he was sayin’ his prayers or some shite.’
‘Prayers?’
‘Ah, I don’t know.’ She shook her head again. ‘It was double Dutch to me. All I knew was he was a mad shite and he was doin’ a bleedin’ good job of cutting me up.’
The Priest Page 16