Murder on Pay Day

by David Pearson

  “Oh, yes, thank you, that would be wonderful. Hold on here, I’ll be back in a jiffy,” Wallace said, disappearing back inside the luxurious lobby to give the all clear.

  Moments later Wallace re-appeared at the door with a solemn procession of anxious guests trailing behind him towing their wheelie suitcases.

  Hays drove behind the hotel manager’s car into Clifden, and they waited in their own vehicle till he had disappeared inside holding his bag of money close to himself.

  “You know, I’ll bet he’ll dine out on that story for years. Where to now?” Lyons said.

  “Let’s drop in to Séan on the way back. I could murder a cup of coffee, and I bet he has a brew going.”

  They drove the short distance out to Clifden Garda Station. Lyons felt that the place seemed so normal after the events of the morning. People were just going about their regular business, although the town was quiet, it being between Christmas and New Year.

  “Ah, Inspectors, come in. I was just about to make a cup of tea. Will you join me?” Mulholland said as they entered the station.

  Lyons and Hays exchanged an amused glance.

  “Lovely, Séan, and you might have a little something to put in it – we’ve had a tough day,” Hays said.

  “Oh, right, of course. Come in and sit yourselves down while I get it ready.”

  A few minutes later and Séan Mulholland reappeared with a tray holding three good sized mugs, a large teapot, a carton of milk and a bottle of expensive whiskey. Hays picked up the bottle, and looked at the label.

  “Wow, Séan, you’re pushing the boat out a bit. This is good stuff.”

  “A present from a grateful customer, Inspector. His tractor was stolen a couple of weeks ago and we managed to get it back for him before it left the county. Almost brand new it was too. He was lucky, there’s too much of that sort of thing going on round here these days. Some of those machines can be worth as much as twenty thousand euro you know,” the sergeant said.

  “Yes, I know. But I bet he had almost no security in place. The farmers give out about the rise and rise of rural crime, but they’d never think about doing anything for themselves to prevent it,” Hays said.

  Hays poured a generous tot of the amber liquid into all three mugs.

  “So, I hear you got your man?” Mulholland said, keen to change the subject.

  “Well, sort of. To be honest, if it wasn’t for Tom from the ARU, I wouldn’t be sitting here now. Those guys certainly seem to know what they’re doing,” Hays said.

  “I never had much truck with them out here to be honest. But I’ve heard they can be handy enough. Oh, and by the way, Jim Dolan has recovered a good deal of the stolen money that they took off poor Paddy McKeever. It was found under the kitchen table at Tadgh Deasy’s place after the younger Geraghty was carted off.”

  Hays raised an eyebrow.

  “Do you think Deasy had anything to do with it?” Lyons asked.

  “No, I don’t think so. He says it was in the car young Geraghty was driving, and he took it into the house for safe keeping. I’m inclined to believe most of it. That kind of thing is way out of his league,” Mulholland said.

  “Still, he could have helped himself to a few bob and we’d never know,” Lyons said.

  “Maybe, but he’s careful enough to keep on the right side of us. He knows we could make his life a misery if he stepped too far out of line,” Mulholland said.

  “Fair enough, and he was a bit out of pocket over the jeep after all, so probably best to let well alone. But get the local traders to keep an eye out all the same. If he did pocket some of the proceeds, we can’t just let it go,” Lyons said.

  “Will do. Paddy McKeever’s funeral is on tomorrow out in Roundstone. He was from there originally, and he still has a brother who works the land at the edge of the village. Will someone be out for it?” Mulholland said, changing the subject deftly.

  “I’ll talk to the Super, but I guess it will be us two again. Will it be a big affair?” Hays said.

  “God, it will. He was very well liked and respected, and sure he knew everybody around. The church will be full. It’s following ten o’clock mass, I’ll be going in myself,” Mulholland said.

  They chatted on for a while about the events of the past week, and after a second cup of tea – this time without reinforcements – the two detectives left Clifden, saying that they would probably see Séan again tomorrow at the funeral.

  * * *

  On the way back to the city, the day had brightened up considerably. It was still cool, but the sun was breaking through in places, and the road had dried out, allowing Hays to maintain a good pace. Conversation inevitably turned to the events of the morning.

  “Christ, Mick, what a day. Are you OK?” Lyons asked.

  “Yeah, I wasn’t too scared. I knew Tom and Ronan had me covered, but it wasn’t nice. You?”

  “A bit shook up, but I’ll get over it. It wasn’t nice seeing that gun aimed at your chest. And it was horrible because I couldn’t do anything about it without making the situation worse for you.”

  Hays leaned across and squeezed her hand.

  “And what was that business about Joey?” she said.

  “Oh, that. I was puzzled myself at first, but now I remember. Joey Geraghty was a bad lad I was responsible for putting away about twenty years ago when I was a humble detective constable. It was that time when robbing post offices and cash in transit vans was all the rage. We nabbed Joey following a tip off when he was blagging a cash van. The driver got shot, but survived, and Geraghty got fifteen years for attempted murder. Then, about two years into his sentence, he was found dead on the floor of the toilets with his throat cut. He must have made a lot of enemies. Joey was Anselm’s father,” Hays said.

  “Wow. Do you think they set out to trap you?”

  “I doubt it. I’d say it was opportunist. But he knew who I was all the same. Anyway, he got his.”

  “That was some shot Tom took,” Lyons said.

  “Sure was. I talked to him after and he said it was a ‘maximum debilitation, minimum lethal damage’ shot. Bloody hell!” Hays said.

  “Anyway, it did the trick, thank heavens,” Lyons said.

  “That reminds me, you’d better get your gun back from Pascal. Give him a call later and we can pick it up tomorrow. No doubt the lovely Inspector Nicholson will want to talk to him about shooting Geraghty in the knee,” Hays said.

  “Hmm. I hope he’s up to dealing with that. He won’t be used to being assumed to be in the wrong in that odd way that Nicholson works,” Lyons said.

  “Yeah, I think I’ll step in and provide some support to him. It’s not fair to hang him out to dry when he probably saved Deasy’s life,” Hays said.

  “So, do you think we should go into Mill Street now?” Lyons said.

  “I’d prefer to go home to be honest. I need to have a shower and relax for a few hours. Why don’t I call the office and see if Plunkett is around? With a bit of luck, he’ll be off for these few days, and if he’s not there, we can bunk off too,” Hays said.

  Hays was correct. Superintendent Plunkett was available on an emergency basis only till next week – the first week of January.

  “Excellent. Let’s go home!” Lyons said.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Paddy McKeever’s funeral was, as Séan Mulholland had predicted, a large event in Roundstone. The weather was overcast and cold, with a stiff breeze blowing in from the Atlantic, but the rain appeared to be holding off – at least for the moment.

  The Gardaí were represented in numbers, with Hays, Mulholland and Brosnan all in full uniform, and Lyons dressed in a neat navy suit with a smart white blouse beneath.

  At the front of the church, Paddy’s wife, Breeda, sat forlornly with their two daughters on one side, and Paddy’s brother Tommy on the other with his wife and family. In the second pew, just behind the family, workmates from An Post in Galway along with a number of managers from the organisation
, squeezed in.

  The priest spoke eloquently about Paddy’s years of service to the community, coming out in all weathers to deliver and collect the mail, and often bringing errands to some of the less able-bodied parishioners who were living in some of the very remote cottages out by the coast along what was now fashionably called the Wild Atlantic Way.

  Tommy spoke from the altar of how Paddy had selflessly left the small family farm many years ago, realising that it was unable to sustain both brothers, and had gone to work in the city, where his sacrifice had been rewarded by his meeting with Breeda, and the wonderful happy life that they had had together, producing two lovely daughters, before he was so cruelly cut down. Tommy thanked the Gardaí for bringing the culprits to justice so quickly, and expressed his hope that they would be incarcerated for a very long time indeed.

  The priest eventually brought proceeding to an end, advising the congregation that the family had extended an invitation to all present to join them in the Roundstone House Hotel for refreshments after the burial.

  Paddy McKeever was wheeled slowly out of the church, and as he was being manhandled into the hearse for the short journey to the local graveyard, Ivan, Paddy’s nephew, opened the boot of his car and served generous glasses of whiskey to the mourners, in time honoured fashion, “just to keep out the cold”.

  The funeral procession made its way slowly from the church, out along the old bog road for about a mile, before turning down towards Gurteen Bay, and the graveyard that stood on the high ground between the Gurteen and Dog’s Bay beaches. As Lyons walked along sombrely behind the slow-moving hearse, she couldn’t help but recall the last time she had visited that same graveyard when Oliver Weldon had been discovered, alive, in a freshly dug grave during the pony show murder that they had solved the previous year.

  As Paddy’s coffin was lowered into the rocky earth, the sunshine finally gave in to a blustery shower. The priest invited the mourners to recite a decade of the rosary as a final farewell to their friend and loved one, and the grave was covered over before several wreaths were placed on top.

  Hays left Séan Mulholland to represent the Gardaí at the hotel, while he and Lyons set off with Pascal Brosnan to the young Garda’s house to retrieve Lyons’ weapon.

  “We won’t keep you long, Pascal, you’ll want to be joining the rest of them in town, but we need to get Maureen’s gun back and hand it in,” Hays said.

  “Will there be any bother over the shooting? After all, the gun wasn’t even assigned to me,” Brosnan said as they entered his neat detached bungalow situated just a few hundred metres from the one-man Garda station in Roundstone.

  “I was going to talk to you about that. Inspector Lyons has been getting a bit of heat from Internal Affairs over the shot she fired at the departing jeep the day I got hit in the leg, so you can expect a visit from an Inspector Nicholson at some stage, unless we can head him off,” Hays said.

  Brosnan collected the pistol from the locked gun safe he had in his kitchen, and gave it to Maureen Lyons. Lyons counted the bullets, confirming that just one had been used, and ensured that the magazine was removed and the chamber emptied before placing it on the table.

  “I lifted the spent bullet case off the floor of the yard too, Inspector,” Brosnan said, producing the shiny brass item from his jacket pocket.

  “Good man, Pascal. It all helps,” she said.

  “So, this is what we’re going to do, Pascal. If you get a call from Nicholson, or anyone else from IA, let me know at once, and set up the meeting for a day or two after the call. I’ll come out, and we can do the interview together. That way I can cover your back, and make sure he goes away with nothing. Be sure to tell Séan of our plan to keep him in the picture,” Hays said.

  “There’s nothing in it anyway. If I hadn’t fired at Geraghty, we’d be going to Shay Deasy’s funeral tomorrow, plain and simple. I don’t see why we have to be so defensive about it,” Brosnan said, rather annoyed.

  “Easy, Pascal. No one is saying you didn’t do exactly the right thing, but these IA boys have their job to do too. They are very often officers who had some issues or just couldn’t cut it in the front line, so they have a chip on both shoulders. And I know Nicholson – he can be slippery enough, so just go with the flow and let me deal with anything awkward if it arises. Have you written up a report of the incident yet?” Hays asked.

  “Not yet. Séan wants it in by tomorrow.”

  “Right. Well do yourself a favour. Email it to me first before you file it. It’s not so much what is said in these reports, as how it is said that counts. Put plenty of emphasis on the unstable state of the gunman, the unpredictability of his actions, that sort of thing. If it needs a bit of tweaking, I’ll polish it up a bit. Is that OK?” Hays said.

  “Yes, thanks, that would be great. I’m not that good with these reports and the like,” Brosnan said.

  “Good man. Now, away with you to the hotel, and let us get back into town before the weather really sets in.”

  * * *

  Lyons and Hays got back into Mill Street Garda Station soon after lunch. There were mounds of paperwork to be generated around the entire episode, and they both spent the afternoon writing it up in their respective computer systems.

  Lyons took both Sig Sauer P220s back to the armoury and signed them back in. The officer noted that two bullets had been fired, and reminded her that a full report would have to be completed and filed before the week was out.

  As she continued with the boring job of typing up the long and detailed account of the original crime, and the subsequent pursuit of the Geraghtys, she tuned into Galway FM radio, where news of the events of the day were making headlines. A member of the Garda press office was on the case, and told a convincing tale of how the two criminals had finally been run to earth and apprehended through the bravery of a crack team of detectives and other officers from the Galway station.

  They had managed to get a taped interview with Lionel Wallace as well, and he was obviously enjoying the limelight, and dramatized the whole thing like an episode of EastEnders, much to the delight of the journalist involved.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  It was the first week of January, and things were slowly returning to whatever ‘normal’ was in the headquarters of the Galway Detective Unit. The Geraghtys remained under close arrest at the hospital, and would be taken, as soon as they were sufficiently mobile, before a judge where they would inevitably be held on remand while the Gardaí prepared their book of evidence.

  Hays had arranged a meeting with Superintendent Plunkett for eleven o’clock, and at quarter to the hour, he walked into Lyons’ office.

  “I’m going up to see himself in a few minutes. Is there anything we need to watch out for?” Hays said.

  “Nothing special, Mick. Just see if you can find out what IA have said and if there’s anything coming at us from that quarter,” Lyons said.

  “Righto. I’d forgotten about the fragrant Inspector Nicholson. And I never heard anything from Pascal about an interview either. I’ll ask himself what the story is. See you later,” Hays said, and disappeared upstairs.

  “Come in, Mick. Happy New Year to you,” said Finbarr Plunkett, obviously in a cheerful mood.

  “Thanks, sir, many happy returns.”

  “Coffee?”

  “No thanks, sir, I’ve just had one downstairs. Did you have a good break, sir?” Hays said.

  “Well, a good bit better than yours, that’s for sure. That was a bad business with those two lads. Are we sound for a conviction?” the superintendent said.

  “We will be. We should have enough to get them life anyway, at least the older one. Young Emmet may get away with ten or twelve if he has a good brief,” Hays said.

  “We’ll try and get them up before Judge Meehan. He has very little sympathy for those types, and if he’s doing it, I can have a word in his ear in advance,” Plunkett said.

  “Good idea, sir. So, what’s on the agenda for now?�
� Hays said.

  “We need to get moving on our new plans now that we’re into the new year. You’d be surprised how time goes by with these things. Have you figured out how you want to arrange things yet?”

  “More or less. I still have to talk to Eamon Flynn, but that apart, I think I have everything more or less ready to go. I haven’t heard from the OPW yet though. Have you?” Hays said.

  “Not at all, dozy lot. I’ll get someone to give them a nudge this week. I’ll need you to set aside a couple of hours for me later in the week to start work on the budgets, shall we say Thursday afternoon?” Plunkett said.

  “Yes, Thursday should be fine. By the way, did you hear anything from Internal Affairs? Nicholson should have written his report by now.”

  “No, no I didn’t, now that you mention it. I think I’ll give the chief a call later on. A sort of pre-emptive strike, if you know what I mean,” Plunkett said.

  “Good idea. Inspector Lyons is a bit anxious until it’s all cleared up.”

  “OK. Well I’ll let you know if I find out anything. I wouldn’t be too concerned if I was her. Once the final outcome was positive, they might huff and puff a bit, but I doubt if it will lead to anything.”

  “Thanks, sir. Will that be all?” Hays said.

  “Yes, Mick. See you Thursday. Thanks.”

  * * *

  When Hays had left to go upstairs, Lyons was still working on the seemingly endless paperwork associated with the Geraghtys when her phone rang.

  “Hi, Maureen. It’s Sinéad. Look, this may be something and nothing, but I thought I’d give you a call all the same,” the forensic team lead said.

  “Sounds ominous, Sinéad. What’s up?”

  “Well, an ambulance crew were called out to a deceased in one of the yards down by the docks this morning. Some rough sleeper succumbed to the frost and apparently died of hyperthermia. But they found a Post-it Note stuck to the front of his coat with just two letters written in pencil on it, and they called it in as being potentially suspicious,” Sinéad said.