Murder on Pay Day

by David Pearson

  Lyons watched helplessly as she was sure she was about to see her partner gunned down in cold blood.

  As Geraghty started to tighten his finger around the trigger of the shotgun, a single shot rang out, shattering the early morning peace like a thunderbolt.

  Geraghty’s body convulsed as a red mist spread out from his shoulder. His gun went up in the air and both barrels discharged harmlessly into the brightening sky. He fell with a clatter to the ground, yelping in pain, his right hand now cradling his bloody shoulder.

  T1 stepped out of the hedgerow where he had been concealed, and walked over to the prone form of Anselm Geraghty writhing on the ground. He pointed his M4 carbine at the man’s head, and told him not to move.

  “Thanks, Tom. Nice one,” Hays said to the ARU officer.

  “You’re welcome, sir, it’s what we do,” he said coolly.

  Just as they were all calming down, the younger Geraghty ran from behind them and crossed the hedge into the adjacent field, emerging a few metres further up onto the driveway and hopping into a blue Peugeot that had been parked at the side of the avenue close to the main road.

  The engine in the little car roared as it took off, but not before R1 had fired a single shot in through the back window of the car. His bullet, though, failed to hit the target, and the Peugeot accelerated away swerving left and right, with its tyres squealing, towards Clifden.

  Lyons, who had been on the phone calling an ambulance for the beleaguered older brother, finished the call quickly, and redialled Clifden Garda station.

  “Séan, it’s Maureen. We have a blue Peugeot 208 registration number 02 G 96202 heading your way with an armed and dangerous criminal inside. Can you get some road blocks organised quickly, and get the other stations in the area to do the same? We need to box this guy in before he gets away again.”

  “God, righto Maureen. Is everyone OK?” Mulholland said.

  “I’ll fill you in later. There’s no time to waste.”

  Lyons finally got a chance to talk to her partner.

  “Jesus, Mick, that looked pretty bad for a few moments there. Are you OK?” Lyons said taking his hand briefly.

  “I’m fine. But do you know what was going through my mind as I faced the little toe-rag?”

  “Go on,” she said, thinking this should be good.

  “I haven’t made a will. If he shot me as he intended, you’d get nothing – not the house, my boat, my paltry pension – nothing,” Hays said.

  “Ah, away with ye, Mick Hays, sure what would I be doing with all that junk anyway?” She squeezed his hand a little more tightly.

  As they stood around waiting for the ambulance to arrive, Hays’ phone started to ring.

  “Inspector, this is Lionel Wallace. We heard shots. Is everything OK?”

  “That depends on who you ask. We’re all OK thanks, but there’s a thief here lying on the ground that has been wounded, and he’s definitely not OK. The ambulance is on its way,” Hays said.

  “Oh, gosh. And dare I ask about the lodgement?”

  “Safe and sound, Mr Wallace, safe and sound.”

  “Do you think the driveway could be cleared soon? Some of our guests are keen to get underway. Understandable, I suppose,” Wallace said.

  “It will be another hour or so before we can let any cars up or down. Is there no other way out of the hotel?” Hays said.

  “There’s a footpath that goes down to the harbour, but these people have cars.”

  “I suggest you offer them some complimentary refreshments and explain the situation to them. I’m sure they’ll be understanding. We’ll get the access clear as soon as we can, and I’ll let you know when you can come and take your car and the lodgement into Clifden.”

  * * *

  When Hays had finished the call with the hotel manager, he could hear the wail of an ambulance approaching. When it came to a halt at the entrance to the hotel, two paramedics jumped out and trotted over to where Anselm Geraghty lay on the ground.

  Lyons recognised the female paramedic from previous encounters.

  “Morning, Jean,” she said, watching the girl getting to work on the injured man.

  “Oh hi, Inspector. What happened here then?”

  Lyons explained the circumstances of the shooting to the paramedic, although it was hardly necessary as Tom was still standing over Geraghty pointing his gun at his head.

  “Could you put that thing away please, officer, before someone else gets shot?” Jean said edgily.

  “If you’re happy that he no longer represents a threat,” Tom replied.

  “Look at him. What do you think?” Jean said.

  “Hmmm, OK. Will he live?” Tom said.

  “If you’d clear off and let me get on with my job here, then yes, probably.”

  Jean didn’t like guns. She had seen first-hand the damage they could do to a body, and this was just another instance as far as she was concerned.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Emmet Geraghty drove the small blue Peugeot like a man possessed. Although he was a tough young criminal, seeing his elder brother gunned down in front of him was something he never expected. He didn’t know if Anselm was dead or alive, but either way, he wouldn’t be seeing him for some time to come.

  Emmet still had most of the proceeds of the post office van robbery in the boot of the Peugeot, now liberally sprinkled with broken glass thanks to the ARU officer who had fired at him.

  The car was pretty useless anyway, and he’d have to swap it soon before it gave up the ghost entirely. He knew exactly where to go.

  Tadgh Deasy had his head under the bonnet of an old Nissan Primera when the blue Peugeot came skidding into the yard and slid to a halt on the oily concrete. Geraghty jumped out and looked at Deasy who had by now straightened up and was staring curiously at the state of the car that Geraghty had arrived in.

  Before Deasy could open his mouth, the agitated Geraghty shouted across the yard, “I need a new car, and I need it now!”

  Deasy didn’t like the look of this at all. He had already been in trouble with the local Gardaí for supplying this lot with the Pajero, and he had been stripped of the proceeds of the transaction in any case.

  “Sorry, mate. You’re out of luck. I have nothing here that goes at the minute,” Deasy said, and he turned to go back to work on the ageing Primera.

  Geraghty returned to the Peugeot, retrieving something from the back seat, and walked back over to where Deasy was working.

  “Is that so?” Geraghty said, pointing the business end of another sawn-off shotgun at Deasy’s temple.

  Shay Deasy, Tadgh’s son, was in his bedroom, and heard the commotion in the yard below. He looked out to see his father being held at gunpoint by Emmet Geraghty. He wasted no time in calling Pascal Brosnan in Roundstone Garda station.

  When Brosnan got the call, he knew exactly what to do. He locked up the little Garda station, leaving the usual note pinned to the front door. “Station unattended at present. In an emergency, contact Clifden Garda station.” Numbers were listed to allow for that eventuality.

  At his home, which was just a few hundred metres from the station, Brosnan took the gun that Maureen Lyons had lent him out of his gun safe. He primed the chamber and set the safety catch, tucked the loaded gun down the front of his jacket, and then set off as fast as he dared towards Deasy’s yard, which was only a couple of kilometres on the Recess side of the village. It took him no more than four minutes to cover the distance.

  * * *

  “OK, OK, Jesus, take it easy. I’ll get you something, but it will take me a few minutes to make sure it has fuel and is good for the road,” Deasy said.

  Geraghty seemed to calm down a little, but still kept the gun trained on Tadgh Deasy as he went about selecting a vehicle from his seedy stock to give to the young man.

  As Tadgh Deasy was unlocking a rather tired looking Ford Focus with an 05 plate, Brosnan’s multicoloured squad car drove briskly into the yard, its blue light
s illuminating the dreary, overcast sky. At exactly the same moment, Shay Deasy opened the back door of the house looking out onto the yard and shouted, “Hey, you, leave my dad alone!”

  Geraghty didn’t know which way to turn. In the confusion, he aimed the shotgun at Shay who was now standing about twenty metres away, a likely fatal distance if the gun was discharged.

  Brosnan was out of his car with the driver’s window rolled down, and using the car’s door for protection, he took careful aim and fired a single shot from Lyons’ gun.

  His aim was good. The bullet entered Emmet Geraghty’s right knee cap, shattering the bone, and causing its owner to crumple quickly to the ground. He dropped the shotgun as he fell, and it clattered harmlessly away.

  Geraghty was rolling in agony on the dirty yard floor, shouting obscenities at the Garda who had brought him down, but Brosnan didn’t care. He carefully removed the magazine from his gun, and emptied the chamber, before placing it back in the boot of the squad car, and locking it. Then, putting on vinyl gloves, he retrieved the shotgun, breaking it, and removed the two twelve bore cartridges, placing them in an evidence bag.

  With the scene secured, he called his sergeant in Clifden.

  “Sergeant, it’s Pascal here. I’m over at Deasy’s yard. I have a wounded suspect here on the floor. He needs an ambulance.”

  “Would that be the younger Geraghty by any chance? What ails him anyway?” Mulholland said.

  “It would, Sarge, and he’s been shot. He was threatening the life of a civilian, so I had to disable him in a hurry. I shot him in the knee.”

  “Good man, Pascal. That will be bloody sore for a while. Right. I’ll get an ambulance out to you now. When they get there, you’ll need to accompany the suspect back to the hospital in Galway to provide protection for the ambulance crew, and if there’s any nonsense, shoot him in the other knee. We don’t want this nasty bugger getting away again. Bring all the weapons with you in the ambulance, and I’ll get forensics out to Deasy’s. Tell them not to touch anything, and not to clean up – as if,” Mulholland said.

  The ambulance took nearly half an hour to get from Clifden to Deasy’s yard on the outskirts of Roundstone. Geraghty was lucky. Brosnan had a very comprehensive first aid kit in the squad car, and was able to make the lad as comfortable as possible while they waited. He wrapped his knee in a pressure dressing; gave him some paracetamol for the pain, and covered him in a thermal blanket to stop hyperthermia setting in following the shock.

  All the while he was administering to Geraghty, the Deasys were offering unhelpful suggestions as to how they thought he should be treated.

  * * *

  When Séan Mulholland had finished summoning the ambulance and the forensic team, he called Hays to update him on the new developments.

  “That’s good news, Séan. Pascal did a fine job. Looks like we have them both sewn up nicely now. Any sign of the money?” Hays said.

  “Oh, God, I never thought of that. It’s probably in the car the younger one brought to Deasy’s. I’d better get Jim Dolan out there to recover it and take statements from the Deasys too,” Mulholland said.

  Mulholland contacted Garda Jim Dolan on the radio. Dolan was down at Ferris’s garage fuelling the squad car.

  “Jim, it’s Sergeant Mulholland. Can you get out to Tadgh Deasy’s yard, pronto? One of the Geraghtys has turned up waving a loaded gun around. It’s OK, Pascal has sorted him out, but the money from the Paddy McKeever robbery may be still in Geraghty’s car, and we need to recover it before it disappears.”

  “Understood, Sergeant. I’m on my way,” Dolan said, finishing up his business with the petrol station briskly and setting off out along the old bog road to Roundstone.

  Dolan arrived out to Deasy’s yard to find that the ambulance had departed with Geraghty and Brosnan. Brosnan’s car was still in the yard, locked up, and the two Deasys were inside the house recovering from their ordeal.

  Dolan knocked on the back door of the house.

  “Yes, Guard, what can we do for you now?” Tadgh Deasy said as he answered the door.

  “Can I come in, Mr Deasy? I need to take a statement from you and your son about the goings on here this morning.”

  “Ah, can ye not leave us in peace? We’ve both been nearly killed by that madman. It’s like Dodge City round here these days,” Deasy said, still blocking the door.

  “It won’t take long, Mr Deasy, and then we’ll be done and can leave you alone,” Dolan said, advancing into the doorway in a manner that indicated he was not to be put off.

  Deasy reluctantly stood aside and let him into the kitchen of the house. The room was dark and smelled vaguely of cooked bacon and boiled cabbage. The bare wooden kitchen table had two large mugs and a milk carton on it, and what had been a packet of biscuits lying empty beside the sugar bowl. A single bare bulb suspended on a wire from the ceiling provided the only rather feeble illumination.

  Ragged curtains drooped in front of the single dirty window, and a gas cooker caked in grease and black stains stood beside the earthenware sink that was piled high with dirty crockery.

  Dolan sat down on one of the four bare wooden rail-backed chairs and took out his notepad.

  The statements were written out longhand and read back to each of the men, who signed and dated them.

  “Is that you done, so?” Tadgh Deasy said.

  “Almost. I just want to have a look in this bag underneath the table,” Dolan said, bending down to collect the item that Shay had hurriedly placed there while his father was obfuscating at the door earlier.

  “You can’t do that! You need a warrant,” Shay said with some alarm in his voice.

  “I don’t think so, Shay. Probable cause and the proceeds of a crime. No warrant required.”

  Dolan lifted the bag onto the table and examined its contents.

  “Looks like the money from the post office van robbery to me. What’s it doing here?” Dolan asked.

  “It was in the blue car yer man was driving,” Tadgh Deasy said rather grumpily.

  “And how did it find its way to underneath your kitchen table?” The Garda said.

  Tadgh Deasy and his son exchanged worried glances.

  “Eh, we took it in for safe keeping, didn’t we? With the back window out of the car, anyone could have taken it. We were doing you lot a favour,” the older Deasy said.

  “Very thoughtful. I hope it’s all here?” Dolan said.

  “What! Are you accusing us of theft? And me nearly getting me head blown off by that scumbag!” Tadgh Deasy said.

  “Take it easy, Tadgh. I’m not accusing anyone of anything – I just asked the question. Now, I’ll be taking this in to the station in Clifden.” Dolan stood up, clutching the plastic bag full of money tightly.

  “I don’t suppose there’ll be any reward for finding the cash?” Shay said.

  “Reward indeed. Be thankful I’m not doing you for handling stolen property,” Dolan said, letting himself out of the old musty kitchen into the relative fresh air of the grimy yard.

  When they heard Dolan’s car leaving the yard, Tadgh said to his son who was looking a bit glum, “Could have been worse, lad. At least we got the fifteen hundred that they paid for the old jeep back!”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  At the Abbey Glen, Sinéad Loughran, the forensic team lead attached to the Galway Detective Unit, had arrived with two others. They made an odd picture strolling around in their white suits, examining the ground and taking what seemed like endless photographs from every possible angle.

  Loughran approached Lyons as her two colleagues continued to gather evidence of the earlier events, removing her face mask and hood, allowing her blonde ponytail to fall down her back.

  “Hi, Maureen. You two don’t do things by halves, do you?” she said cheerfully.

  “Tell me about it. Have you much more to do here?”

  “No, we’re just about done. There’s not much for us here. The ARU guy says he discharged his
weapon at the man believing he was about to kill Inspector Hays. The bullet went straight through the guy’s shoulder – it’s probably lodged in the undergrowth somewhere, but we don’t need to find it anyway,” Loughran said.

  “Do you need to get a statement from Tom – that’s his name, by the way.”

  “No, not when he’s official ARU. They answer to a higher authority,” Loughran said, rolling her eyes to heaven.

  “When can we re-open the road? The hotel guests are getting restless,” Lyons said.

  “Give me another five minutes, then we’ll leave you to it. Are you OK, Maureen?”

  “I dunno, Sinéad. I think I might look for a job in admin after this. It wasn’t nice,” Lyons said.

  “Not at all girl. You’re a born thief taker – always will be. Go get yourself a strong drink and you’ll be as right as rain by the afternoon.” She leaned in and gave Lyons a hug, noting that she was beginning to well up.

  * * *

  As the forensic team packed up the tools of their trade, and Tom bid them goodbye, Hays and Lyons got back into the manager’s Audi and reversed it back down the drive, bringing it to a halt outside the door of the hotel.

  Lionel Wallace came trotting out as they got out of the car.

  “Show’s over, Mr Wallace. All done and dusted. The lodgement is safe and sound in the boot of your car, and you can tell the guests that the driveway is now re-opened. There’s a fairly large patch of sawdust up near the gate where the gunman bled out a bit, but other than that, it’s all as before,” Hays said.

  “Crikey. Was anyone killed?” Wallace said, his natural morbid curiosity getting the better of him.

  “No, nothing so dramatic, though it was a close call. Inspector Hays nearly got it in the gut,” Lyons said, recalling her own private horror as she watched Anselm Geraghty level his gun at her partner.

  “Well, I’d better let the guests know that they can leave now, and then I’ll be off to the bank. Do you think there’s any more danger?” Wallace said.

  “No, you should be fine now, but if you like we’ll come as far as the bank with you just in case,” Hays said.