The Lazarus Bell, an Irish Murder Mystery

by Patrick Dunne

  ‘No. He was a loner. I think Big Ben was the nearest thing he had to a friend.’

  ‘Was he gay, do you know?’

  ‘I sometimes thought maybe he was. But the night of his birthday he told me he had a date with a woman – sort of.’

  ‘Sort of?’

  ‘It was pretty noisy in the pub, so it was all a bit garbled. And Terry was quite drunk. He came and put his arm around me and began singing one of his ballads in my ear. It’s called “The Good Ship Kangaroo”, and one of the lines says something about a Hottentot; he stopped at that point and said, “That reminds me – must be off. I’ve a bit of hot totty lined up. My birthday present to myself.” It sounded kind of sleazy, like he was picking up a prostitute or something. Then he frowned and said, “Come to think of it, she’s just like the Hottentot Venus. Nothing’s bloody well changed in two hundred years.”’

  ‘Did it sound like he was meeting her in Castleboyne?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. But he was hardly going anywhere else at that stage.’

  Then I remembered Terry, on the way to hospital, explaining that he had no money because he’d spent it all carousing with a woman.

  ‘Something else just came back to me,’ said Gayle. ‘I was having a bottle of beer, and I remember him tapping it and saying, “You’ll be looking for a cure tomorrow. I’m going to get mine now.” Again, it all sounded a bit sordid, so I was happy when he left soon after. I didn’t really speak to him again until the day of the accident.’

  ‘And his birthday was on the Monday, right?’

  ‘Yes. I remember because I wouldn’t normally go out drinking on a Monday night.’

  ‘Did you get to see him before you left Castleboyne on Friday?’

  ‘Yes. I called into the hospital. He was rambling a bit.’

  ‘What did you talk about, do you recall?’

  ‘I described the carving to him, how beautiful it was. He just said, “I’ll bet it’s hidden inside it.” It made no sense to me. But, then again, Terry’s thinking had got harder to follow lately.

  Except that, in this instance, his observation was echoed in Ross Mortimer’s asking if the carving was hollow.

  ‘And that was it, that was all you talked about?’

  ‘There’s just one other thing,’ said Gayle. ‘As I was going down the corridor on my way out, that reporter Darren Byrne passed me. I looked around to see where he was going, and he went into Terry’s room.’

  ‘Oh? Strange.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  What had Byrne been doing there? I would have to give that some thought. I ended by asking Gayle if she knew anything about Terry’s family or next of kin. She said she didn’t, so we chatted about her holiday for a few minutes and then said goodbye.

  I put down the phone. Darren Byrne had called in to see Terry Johnston in hospital. Ben Adelola – the nearest thing to a friend that Terry had – had met Byrne the following day and subsequently disappeared. What was the link between the three men – four, if you counted Mortimer? Was it the carving?

  I had just gone into the house and put on some coffee when a white car drew up outside, and a burly man with hair the colour of a Cape orange got out of it.

  ‘Well, well, Matt Gallagher,’ I said, opening the door to him. ‘What brings you here?’

  ‘I’ve come to rescue a wee damsel in distress,’ he said. ‘Eamon Doyle told me you were having a spot of bother. So let’s just say I’m returning a favour.’ Gallagher and I had found ourselves together in a tight spot a few months previously.

  I smiled. ‘Would you like some fresh coffee?’

  ‘I’d kill for it.’

  ‘You’re not the only one around here prepared to do that.’ I pointed to my gathering bruise. ‘Self-inflicted while avoiding an oncoming car less than an hour ago. Same car used by whoever poured petrol into my living room last night. And let me show you something else while we’re waiting for the coffee.’

  We went around to the garden while I told him about my encounter with Stephen Bolton’s parents and the subsequent phone call.

  Gallagher turned over the burnt-out nest-box with the tip of one of his blue boat-shoes. He was wearing jeans and a blue-and-white checked shirt. ‘Did you recognise his voice, the one who threatened you on the phone?’

  ‘No. He was so angry, he was practically spitting out the words.’

  ‘Or disguising his voice. Bolton had spoken to you only a few hours earlier, remember?’

  ‘He might also have been trying to sound like Kevin Bolton.’

  ‘Hmm. That’s possible too. Whoever it was went a bit heavy on the symbolism, don’t you think?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘First of all, spilling the petrol on your floor – reminding you it was a spillage that killed the boy. Then the nest-box being torched, as if to say: This is what we could have done to your house. It’s a bit too…what’s the word…overwrought.’

  ‘Maybe whoever it was got cold feet – didn’t want to commit arson, but felt they had to set fire to something just to emphasise their point.’

  ‘Hmm. I don’t suppose they obligingly left a petrol can for us to get prints off?’

  ‘No.’

  We walked back to the patio and I suggested we take our coffee there. ‘When I come back out, I want to hear what you’ve been up to and why you got put on this murder case.’

  ‘Why don’t I tell you as we go along?’ he said, strolling into the house with me. The last time he’d come through the back hall, it had been to arrest a suspect in what the media had subsequently dubbed the Solstice Murders.

  Gallagher told me that, following that investigation, he had been in charge of a successful hunt for an individual who was wanted in England for carrying out an honour killing. As a result, he had been appointed to head up a Garda unit that could be readily assembled when a murder had the hallmarks of one of Ireland’s new immigrant cultures.

  ‘We’re trying to recruit more members with non-Irish backgrounds into the force,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, there’s a red-haired Donegal man in charge. And when there isn’t an investigation going on, I’m a sort of roving Ethnic Liaison Officer.’

  ‘How are you finding Peter Groot?’ I asked, as we headed back to the patio with our coffee.

  ‘Pete? It was a good call of Doc Sherry’s to send for him.’ Gallagher’s Donegal accent was peppered here and there with American usages. ‘I’m on my way to see Pete again shortly. Looks like I’ll be here as long as this quarantine is in force. We’d set up an incident room in Navan, but I had to decamp with a bunch of detectives to continue our investigations in Castleboyne. We’re going to use the restrictions on travel to our advantage. I’ve been given permission from on high to carry out voluntary DNA tests on the African population in the town, to find out if the dead woman had relatives here, and if so why they haven’t reported her missing and aren’t claiming her body. We’re working with clergy and community leaders to get maximum co-operation.’

  ‘And why do you think she’s from Castleboyne?’

  ‘The location of the body. The stream runs parallel to the road for a stretch, so in theory anyone could have dumped her body in it, but it’s a minor road that’s not on the way from any centre of population. To reach it from Navan or Dublin you’d have to drive through the town and out again, with the body in the boot, which wouldn’t make much sense. The likelihood is she was murdered in the town and then dumped on the outskirts. The alternative is she was killed along the banks of the stream, in which case we’re still looking for a Castleboyne-based killer.’

  ‘Groot said he had some doubts about it being a muti killing.’

  ‘Yes. He had a confab with Sherry this morning, and they’ve agreed that some of her injuries were misinterpreted initially.’

  ‘In what way?’

  Gallagher cleared his throat. ‘It has to do with…you heard that she was genitally mutilated?’

  ‘Yes, I’m aware of tha
t.’

  ‘Well, it’s true, she was. But, because of the decomposition, it wasn’t obvious at first that it had happened long before the killer carved her up.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand…’

  ‘She’d been circumcised, probably when she was a child. FGM – I’m sure you’ve heard of it?’

  ‘Female genital mutilation, yes, but…’

  ‘And the most severe kind. Infibulation – pharaonic circumcision, it’s sometimes called. Complete removal of the labia minora and clitoridectomy. The labia majora are then cut and sewn together to cover the vagina, apart from a small opening for urine and menses. Sorry if I made you wince, but better to get it all said now so I won’t have to mention any of it again.’

  I set my coffee mug down on the table. I was feeling a little sick.

  ‘Anyway, as Pete points out, this makes a big difference to the case. Because, while FGM is practised by Africans of different religious faiths, it’s most commonly found in Islamic cultures. But they, on the other hand, would be less given to muti-type practices than people with animist beliefs. These are just broad generalisations, but taken together they’re making us look at the case in a new light. So let’s say she’s Islamic, she wasn’t a muti victim, and her killer came from within her own community. That would point towards a Muslim male of African extraction living in Castleboyne.’

  ‘But that’s still just speculation. And if she wasn’t murdered for her body parts, then why did the killer mutilate her?’

  ‘Good question.’ Gallagher fished a packet of cigarettes out of the top pocket of his short-sleeved shirt. ‘Mind?’

  ‘Go ahead. Have you cut down on them?’

  ‘Yeah. One every four hours.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  He lit up and exhaled. ‘As long as you remember when the four-hour period began. I get a bit confused sometimes. Now, tell me about this incident with the stolen car.’

  I described being followed and how I’d stopped and decided to confront my pursuer. Gallagher took a long drag and blew the smoke out of the side of his mouth, squinting at me with what I took to be disapproval. ‘As a friend, I can tell you straight, Illaun. That was a damn stupid thing to do.’

  ‘I don’t like being bullied.’

  ‘That I understand. But better be bullied than buried.’ He took a sip of coffee. He had made his point. ‘The car was taken from outside a house around nine last night.’

  ‘Whoever stole it already knew about the quarantine.’ I explained my reasoning.

  ‘So the main objective was to get you out of the house in order to have the scenario set up for you on your return? Seems a bit far-fetched to me. I’m not denying they wanted you absent for a short while, but maybe the arson threat was a decoy to distract your attention. Did you check to see if anything was missing from the house?’

  ‘That didn’t occur to me.’

  ‘Have a quick look around.’ He took out his notebook and started writing.

  It took less than five minutes for me to establish it beyond doubt. Nothing had been taken, with the exception of the key to the Heritage Centre.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Gallagher checked with Castleboyne Garda station: the library had reported an attempted break-in. The lock on the outer door of the building had been damaged, but the would-be intruder had failed to gain entry.

  ‘That puts things in a different light,’ said Gallagher, when he had relayed the information to me. ‘But why did your key not work?’

  ‘It was the key to the Heritage Centre, which is inside the building. The keys to the outer door are held by the chief librarian. I only needed access to the Centre during working hours.’

  ‘Why was someone trying to break in?’

  ‘To get at a wooden carving we found last Friday. It’s a polychrome statue of the Virgin and Child.’

  ‘Valuable?’

  ‘It’s probably worth a great deal, but I think whoever stole the key was more interested in finding something inside it.’

  ‘And what might that be?’

  ‘I have no idea. And I don’t know if it can be accessed without destroying the artefact.’

  ‘What makes you think that’s what they were after?’

  ‘Two people – neither of whom ever examined it, mind – have suggested that it was hollow or that there was something inside it. One of them is dead, the other is a former associate of the dead man.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Ross Mortimer, staying at the Dean Swift Hotel.’

  Gallagher scribbled it down in his notebook. ‘Has anyone else expressed an interest in the carving?’

  I smiled, although the side of my mouth nearest the injured jaw didn’t quite make it. ‘You bet – the National Museum, the Town Council, the parish priest, the Church of Ireland rector – all claiming it’s rightfully theirs. But I don’t think any of them would go as far as stealing it.’

  ‘Hmm. I’ll make sure the library people change the lock on the inner door – someone could use your key during the day and do damage to the statue. And I don’t want you having the key to the new lock. It’s too dangerous. You’ll also have to close your windows at night, even when you’re here.’

  ‘It wasn’t for the key I was nearly run down today,’ I said, gently probing my neck with my fingers.

  Gallagher reflected for a moment. ‘True. Unless the driver was mad as hell at being foiled.’ He stood up to leave.

  ‘There’s another… No, forget it.’ I was about to tell him that Ben Adelola and Darren Byrne were also possibly linked in some way to the carving, but it wouldn’t make much sense to Gallagher at this stage.

  ‘What is it?’

  I stood up too. ‘Nothing to do with this. It’s just – I never asked you how things were … you know…’

  ‘The divorce came through. I get to be with the kids. I’m not seeing anyone. How about you? Getting married soon, I believe?’

  ‘Hmm. We haven’t set a date yet.’

  ‘Well, don’t let it drag on,’ he warned. ‘Thanks for the coffee. When I’ve finished my business with Pete, I’ll give the Boltons a call. Even if they’re not directly responsible for threatening you, I want the word to get about that if there’s any further intimidation there’ll be hell to pay.’

  As I walked him to his car we noticed a massive thunderhead towering in the clear blue sky on the far side of the town, its cauliflower cranium resting on a column that had the solidified-water appearance of alabaster.

  ‘Looks like a change in the weather,’ said Gallagher.

  ‘I hope it doesn’t rain before tonight. Finian’s having a barbecue at Brookfield. Why don’t you come along?’

  ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘Get there about seven.’

  I went back inside to phone Fran and Finian.

  At five o’clock it began to rain, and two hours later it was still at it – not a light drizzle, but a tropical downpour that hammered on the glass roof of the conservatory and cascaded in sheets down the sides. Finian and I stood looking out at it, finding it hard to believe the sudden change in the weather. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  Around six, he had abandoned the idea of holding the barbeque and rung as many people as he could to tell them it was cancelled. I arrived as he was in the middle of making his calls and shared the task with him. Having failed to reach some of those invited, we estimated that most of them would figure it out for themselves; but for those who might turn up, we decided to bake some frozen pizzas, and I threw together a couple of bowls of salad.

  In the event, only two people came – Fran and Matt Gallagher. She was at a loose end anyway, not being able to leave the town for work. Gallagher said he’d come to give me a report on his meeting with Ross Mortimer; but I knew that he was also unable to resist the promise of a meal and a few glasses of wine away from his colleagues.

  No time at all after they were introduced, Fran and he were deep in conversation in the large farm
house kitchen while they waited for the pizzas to bake. Arthur was asleep in the living room – it seemed to me that he spent as much time asleep these days as did Bess, who was at his feet.

  ‘You’re still staying over, aren’t you?’ said Finian, his words peppered by the rat-tat-tat of the rain. When I had phoned to tell him about the incident at the bridge, he’d insisted I stay overnight at Brookfield.

  ‘Most likely,’ I murmured. I felt my neck, now quite stiff as well as sore. I had attempted to get some rest before setting out for the evening, but found it impossible to lie comfortably. ‘By the way,’ I said, raising my voice, ‘I read the stuff you pulled out of SIV for me last night. Thanks.’

  ‘I didn’t take in much of it myself. Was there anything of interest?’

  ‘Confirmation that the image of Our Lady was publicly burned. And that confiscation from the shrine contributed handsomely to Henry VIII’s coffers.’

  ‘Maybe we’ll get a clue to the background of this other statue if we go back to the beginning.’

  ‘That’s what I was thinking. But for now, let’s just go back into the kitchen. It’s hard to talk here.’

  The two guests, sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table, were laughing loudly at something when we came in. Gallagher tried to compose himself when he saw us, but Fran ruined it by raising her glass and saying, ‘Meet Sir Matt Gallaghad, rescuer of damsels in distress and sexually starved women!’ She was quite merry.

  ‘Illaun, I have to talk to you,’ said Gallagher, somewhat embarrassed. He looked from me to Finian. ‘Should we…?’ He nodded to suggest that we go somewhere private.

  ‘No. We’re all friends here, Matt. You can talk openly.’ I sat down beside Fran.

  Finian went to select another bottle of wine from the rack. Fran leaned her willowy torso over to the oven and opened the door to check the pizzas.

  ‘Before I came here, I called to the hotel to see Ross Mortimer,’ said Gallagher. ‘I found him having a drink at the bar, we had a bit of a chat and, to be honest, I think we can count him out as a suspect. For one thing, I don’t think he would have been physically capable of climbing in through your window; for another, he can’t drive.’