She looked up at Ana-Maria, who was holding herself tightly now, as if she were cold, or badly needed a hug.
The woman came back from the living room, holding her mobile phone. ‘Ten minutes, they said. They’ll be sending a car first, with a paradermic. They said to keep him warm and not to move him.’
‘Christ, this has given me the fecking gawks,’ said Cathal Kilmartin. ‘I can feel them bangers coming back up like fecking Mount Etna.’ He lumbered off to the toilet, his shoulders thumping drunkenly against the walls on either side.
Katie stood up and held out her hand for the woman’s phone. The woman coughed and said, ‘Here you are, girl. But make sure the shades know this is nothing to do with me, any of this shite,’ and gave it to her. She took a packet of Marlboro out of her dressing-gown pocket and held a cigarette against the bar of the electric fire to light it.
Katie put one arm around Ana-Maria and held her close. At the same time, she rang the station at Anglesea Street. Ana-Maria’s eyes were filled with tears, but she didn’t sob. God in Heaven, thought Katie, as she gently rocked her, nine years old, but tonight you’ve learned to fight back like a woman.
*
The duty officer at Anglesea Street asked Katie to hold on for a moment, and then put her through to Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick.
‘Robert? I’m just calling to let you know that we’re safe, me and Ana-Maria.’
‘Thank God for that, ma’am.’
‘Lupul took us all the way down to Skibbereen, to Kilmartin’s Pig Farm, a couple of kilometres west of the River Ilen bridge. We’re here now, and like I say we’re safe, although Lupul himself is in a bad way. We’ve called for an ambulance for him.’
‘That’s a fierce relief altogether, I can tell you. Most of all because we’re almost at Kilmartin’s Pig Farm, too. We’re heading up the boreen and we’ll be with you before you know it.’
‘What? You’re codding me.’
‘Step outside and see. We’re coming through the gate right now.’
Katie took hold of Ana-Maria’s hand and the woman stood aside and held her cigarette out of the way as they went along to the front door and opened it. Three Garda squad cars and two unmarked cars were arriving in the farmyard with a crunching of shingle, their headlights criss-crossing the farmhouse and lighting up the pig sheds.
Katie and Ana-Maria stood in the porch as Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick and Detective O’Donovan walked across the farmyard towards them, their breath smoking in the cold. Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick came up to Katie and looked at her with those steel-grey eyes that never gave anything away.
‘Delighted to see you’re not hurt, ma’am. Neither of you.’
Katie nodded and bit her lip. It hadn’t been part of her training at Templemore, but she knew that detective superintendents weren’t supposed to cry – not in front of their fellow officers, anyway.
54
On the way back to Cork, sitting with Ana-Maria in the rear of Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick’s car, Katie tried ringing Conor, both on his mobile and at home. She rang and rang but he didn’t pick up. She guessed that he had forgotten to recharge his battery, or that he had spent the night somewhere else. Either that, or he had drunk himself into a stupor, like Lupul.
As they passed through Bandon, Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick received a message from the gardaí who had stayed at the piggery that an ambulance had arrived to pick up Lupul. Because of the severity of his brain injuries, he was being taken directly to CUH.
Cathal Kilmartin and his woman partner had both been arrested and would be taken first to Clonakilty Garda Station, although they would probably be sent up to Anglesea Street sometime later in the day.
Less than fifteen minutes later, as they reached Halfway, another message came through that Aleks and Gheorghe had been arrested, too. They had been trying to drive north to Bantry but had only managed to get as far as Ballydehob before they had driven drunkenly into a ditch.
Katie tried ringing Conor twice more before they arrived at Anglesea Street, but he still didn’t pick up.
‘Do you want to be taken back to Cobh first, ma’am?’ asked Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick, turning around in his seat.
‘No, not yet. We should have at least a preliminary debriefing before I go home. What’s the time now – five to eight – let’s all get together at nine. Can you tell Chief Superintendent O’Kane, please, Robert, and Superintendent Pearse? And Mathew McElvey, too. We need to discuss how we’re going to present this to the press.’
They all climbed the station steps into the reception area and Detective O’Donovan went to find a garda to drive Ana-Maria back to Glanmire. Katie gave Ana-Maria a hug and gently brushed her hair back. She was white-faced and shivering and still in shock from what she had done and Katie knew that she would need some serious counselling in the days to come. First of all, though, she needed affection and reassurance and warmth and a good long sleep.
‘Mătușă?’ she said, miserably.
‘It’s all right, sweetheart. It’s been a desperate night but you’re not in any trouble. Look – this nice lady garda is going to take you back to Sadhbh and Michael’s house. I’ll come and see you myself tomorrow, when we’ve all had a rest.’
*
Katie had a long, hot shower and changed into a cream cotton blouse and a navy-blue sweater and black trousers. Even then, she imagined that she could still smell cigarette smoke on her, so she squirted herself with primrose and rye cologne.
She tried ringing Conor again. He still didn’t pick up his mobile, but when she rang her home number, Jenny Tierney, her neighbour, answered.
‘Jenny, it’s Kathleen. Conor isn’t there, by any chance?’
‘No – no, he’s not, Kathleen. And it looks like he hasn’t been here since yesterday. I’ve just come in to take Barney and Foltchain for their walk, and they’re both starving and thirsty and I’m afraid they’ve done a bit of a mess on the kitchen floor.’
‘Oh. Has he left a note anywhere?’
‘Not that I can see, Kathleen.’
‘I have a meeting to go to, Jenny, but I should be home in about an hour or so. Don’t bother about the mess. I’ll clean it up when I get back.’
‘It’s no bother, Kathleen. I’ve had to clear up worse. I worked at that old folks’ home in Youghal, remember.’
Katie put down the phone. She couldn’t understand why Conor wasn’t answering his phone and why he hadn’t been in touch. Usually he rang her two or three times a day to ask how she was, and what she wanted for supper, or if she wanted to go out for a meal. Lately he had been ringing her even more frequently, because he was bored.
She went down to the conference room. Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick was there already, as well as Superintendent Pearse, Inspector O’Rourke and seven of her team, including Detective Sergeants Ni Nuallán and Begley and Detectives O’Donovan, Walsh, Cullen, O’Crean and Caffrey.
‘First, I have to thank you all for tearing down to Skibbereen so fast to rescue us,’ said Katie. ‘Bless you for trusting your instincts and there’s me always telling you not to rely on hunches. DI Fitzpatrick has told me how you managed to find us, and when I see Bill Phinner and his technical experts I’ll be thanking them, too.’
Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick put up his hand. ‘I’m happy to say that I have more positive news, ma’am. While you were changing, we questioned Eamon Buckley and Thomas Barry again, in the light of the information that we’d retrieved from Lupul’s notebook.’
‘And? What did they have to say?’
‘Buckley refused to answer any questions without his lawyer present. But young Barry spilled the whole jar of beans. Crying his eyes out, he was, saying that he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in prison. He admitted that on two separate occasions he’d helped Buckley to take human bodies down to Kilmartin’s Pig Farm in his van. He couldn’t describe them because they were all wrapped up in black bin bags, but he’d seen their hai
r and their feet and he was sure they were both women.’
‘One of them was Ana-Maria’s mother, most likely,’ said Katie. ‘Maybe the other one was Máire O’Connor – that young druggie girl who went missing from Cook Street. We still haven’t found any trace of her yet.’
‘Barry said that they carried the bodies into a shed at the back of the pig farm. There was a butcher’s block in there, he said, as well as a gammon boiler and an industrial mincing machine and bone miller. The first time he saw the mincer he thought it was a washing machine, because he’d never seen one as big as that before.’
‘Mother of God,’ said Katie. ‘Why didn’t the officers from Skibb see it, when they searched the place? They told me they couldn’t find anything suspicious.’
‘Well, yes, but a mincer like that, it’s not unusual on a pig farm. They use it for grinding up the pig feed.’
‘Did Barry see for himself how the bodies were disposed of?’
‘No. Buckley told him to go into the house and watch TV until he was finished. It took him nearly two hours altogether, that’s what Barry said. When Buckley came out his apron was all stained with blood and he was carrying a big white polystyrene box with a lid on, the same type they got their meat deliveries in.’
‘Didn’t Barry realize what was inside of it? He must have done.’
‘He did, yes. But he said he was so scared of Buckley that he didn’t dare to say anything. He was sure that if he told anyone, Buckley would kill him and he’d end up as mincemeat, too.’
‘That’s perfect, Robert,’ said Katie. ‘You’d best contact Barry’s solicitor and have him repeat all that word for word in front of her, because we’ll be charging him with murder on the basis of that. And then you’d best contact Buckley’s man, Frank Lyons, and tell him the good news. That pompous hoor. I can’t wait to see the look on his face.’
*
Katie went over their abduction in detail, describing at the end how Ana-Maria had drilled into Lupul’s skull. She could see Kyna wincing, and Detective O’Donovan shaking his head, because he had seen the injuries for himself.
Afterwards, Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick laid out all the pages of Lupul’s notebook.
‘So – we have a fierce strong case already,’ said Katie. ‘I’d be prepared to present a book of evidence to the court with what we have now – but if we can find DNA from Sorina Bălescu and Máire O’Connor in Cathal Kilmartin’s mincing machine, or his butcher’s block, or anywhere else on his farm, that’s going to make it watertight.’
‘I’ve been in touch with Superintendent O’Shea, and the farm is cordoned off now,’ said Detective O’Donovan. ‘He’s arranged for another local farmer to feed the pigs. There’s more than forty of them and we don’t want them dying, too. Not before their time, anyway.’
‘I’ll have Bill Phinner send a team down as soon as we’ve finished here,’ said Katie. ‘The filthy state of that farm, there’s a good chance that Kilmartin didn’t manage to clean away every last trace of evidence.’
While she was talking, Katie had noticed that the door of the conference room had opened, and that Chief Superintendent O’Kane was standing outside. She beckoned for him to join them, but he stayed where he was until the briefing was over. He could probably hear what was being said, but she wondered why he didn’t come in.
As she left the room, she said, ‘Sir?’ She had never seen him look so grim.
‘Could you come to my office, Katie,’ he said, and it wasn’t a question.
‘What’s wrong, sir?’
He didn’t answer, but led the way to his office and opened the door, allowing her to go in first.
‘You’d best sit down,’ he told her.
She was suddenly filled with dread. His tone of voice reminded her of all the times when she was a uniformed garda and she had knocked on doors to tell wives that their husbands had been killed in road accidents, or parents that their children had drowned.
She remained standing. She had to remain standing to stay strong.
‘It’s Conor, isn’t it?’ she said.
Brendan said, ‘Yes.’
She listened numbly while he explained what had happened. A postman had called at Foggy Fields less than an hour ago to deliver a parcel and he had seen that the front window had been blown out and that there was shattered glass all over the driveway. Two gardaí from Midleton had been sent to investigate and they had found Caoilfhoinn’s torso underneath the Land Rover. When they had looked in through the farmhouse window they had seen the remains of several other people inside, although they were so badly mutilated that it was difficult to work out how many there were.
‘They found an Audi SUV parked by the side of the road not far away,’ said Brendan. ‘It was unlocked, and there was a letter on the driver’s seat. The letter is addressed to you.’
Katie was beginning to feel swimmy now, but still she didn’t want to sit down. ‘Did they open it?’
‘Under the circumstances, yes.’
‘What does it say, this letter?’
‘They’ll be fetching it down here so that you can read it for yourself. But it’s signed “Conor” and the gist of it is that it’s a suicide note.’
‘I see.’
‘They checked the Audi’s number plate and it’s registered to Conor Ó Máille, with an address in Limerick.’
‘That’s Conor, yes,’ said Katie. She took three or four deep breaths, and then she said, ‘What do they think happened? It sounds like somebody set off a bomb.’
‘Yes. They’ve called in the bomb squad from Collins Barracks and the fire brigade from Ballyvolane and of course we’ll be sending a forensic team up there. I’ve already informed DI Mulliken so that he can start to get an investigation under way on your behalf.’
He paused, and then he said, ‘After what you’ve been through last night, Katie – I’m sure this is the last thing you want to be dealing with yourself.’
Katie looked up at him and swallowed. Detective superintendents don’t cry. Detective superintendents don’t cry. Not in front of fellow officers, and not in front of former lovers.
‘The letter,’ she said.
‘Of course. As soon as it arrives I’ll make sure you get it. What do you want to do now? Do you want to go home?’
‘I need a drink,’ she said.
Without a word, Brendan went over to the sideboard next to the window, opened it up and took out a bottle of Smirnoff. He half-filled a glass and brought it over to her.
‘I’ve no ice, I’m afraid, but I could fetch you some.’
Katie shook her head. She lifted up the glass and said, ‘Sláinte mhaith, Con.’ She took a mouthful of neat vodka, closed her eyes for a moment and then swallowed it.
*
After about ten minutes, there was a knock at Brendan’s office door. Sergeant O’Farrell came in, holding a white envelope in a clear plastic evidence bag.
‘I’m supposed to give you this, ma’am.’
Katie was sitting by the window now. Brendan was sitting beside her with his arm along the back of the couch. They had said almost nothing at all, but Brendan had been looking at her sympathetically and that was all she needed.
‘Thanks a million, Ryan,’ she said. She took the envelope out of the evidence bag and opened it. The letter inside was written on her own headed notepaper from Carrig View.
‘My darling Katie,
I am not asking for forgiveness because I know you will think that what I have done is unforgivable.’
She lowered the letter, took a deep breath, and held out her empty glass. Brendan brought over the Smirnoff bottle and filled it for her.
‘We never know what the Almighty has in store for us but I have always believed that He gives us what we deserve. I have always tried to do good in my life by helping animals, but in helping animals I ignored too often the human beings who needed my help and my love even more.
‘God reminded me of my indifference by taking away my ab
ility to become your husband and possibly the father of your new child.
‘I have accepted God’s judgement but in ending my life I have at least struck a last blow for what I passionately fought for, the protection of helpless animals from the cruelty of human greed.
‘I love you, Katie Maguire, and wherever I am now I will always hold you in my heart. You are the most special woman that I have ever known, so kind but always so brave. I know that you have the strength to bear the pain of what I have done to you, and forget that I ever was.
‘Your loving Conor.’
Katie read the letter again, then folded it and tucked it back in its envelope. There goes my future life, she thought, and the baby who will never be.
‘Are you okay?’ Brendan asked her. ‘Is there anything I can get you? Anybody you want me to ring? One of your sisters maybe?’
‘No. No, thanks. I’ll tell them in my own good time. I’m just finding it hard to believe that the man I was supposed to be marrying has blown himself up, like one of those terrorist suicide bombers. Jesus, it would almost be funny if it wasn’t so sad.’
‘What do you want to do?’
‘Sit here for a while and try to think about nothing at all.’
‘All right, then, whatever. I have some paperwork to be doing but that can wait. You’re more important than paperwork.’
Katie finished her drink and held out her glass again.
‘You’re sure?’ asked Brendan.
‘I’m in need of a little anaesthesia, sir. And I don’t think I’m sufficiently anaesthetized yet because I can say “anaesthesia”. And “sufficiently”.’
Brendan filled her glass again. ‘You can call me Brendan,’ he told her. ‘If only for today.’
‘Yes, sir. That’s pure understanding of you, sir.’
She was still sitting by the window when Kyna came in. Kyna came over and stood in front of Katie with her hands clasped tightly together because her natural instinct was to throw her arms around her and hug her and kiss her and tell her how much she loved her, and how sorry she was about Conor. With Brendan present, of course, she had to restrain herself.
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