“And where is the car now?” Hays said looking around to see if he could see it.
“Well that’s the funny thing. They gave me an extra hundred if I promised to take the car to the crusher, so I did.”
“For fuck sake, Tadgh. Where did you take it?”
“That place down by the docks in Galway. They scrap anything. Then it gets shipped out to Germany where it’s all melted down to make new BMWs,” Deasy said with a wry grin.
“Stay there,” Hays said, turning away and calling the station.
He got through to Sally Fahy very quickly and told her to take Eamon with her and get down to the scrap yard at the docks and see if they still had the old Mondeo. If they had, she was to secure it and get it taken back to Mill Street.
“Mr Deasy, I have to inform you that the money that you lodged in Clifden today came from the proceeds of a robbery in which a man was murdered. So, I’m afraid we’ll have to take you in for questioning. For now, I’ll not arrest you, provided you come quietly.”
“Jesus, Mick, I never had nothing to do with that. Sure, wasn’t I the one who came out and took the van away? You can’t think I’d be involved in any of that stuff,” Deasy protested.
“Well, let’s see, but for now, I want you to go with Pascal to Roundstone Garda station, and we’ll be along in a few minutes. As far as anyone is concerned, you’re helping the Gardaí with enquiries.”
* * *
Sally Fahy used the blue lights and sirens on her Hyundai i40 to get down to the scrapyard as quickly as she could. The two detectives screamed into the yard where cars were piled one on top of another to a height of ten metres in several stacks. All around, piles of crunched up metal stood waiting for the next part of their journey, and in the very middle of the yard a huge crane with a large round magnet dangling from its steel ropes swung from side to side. High up in the cab, an old man with thin grey hair and a large beer belly, with what had once been a high visibility jacket, but was now an unpleasant shade of grey, sat at the controls.
Dangling from the magnet, a pale blue Ford Mondeo swung wildly about as the operator edged the crane towards a huge car crusher.
Fahy leapt out of the car and ran across to the crane holding up her warrant card. She made sideways movements with her hand left and right across her throat in the universal signal to kill the machine. The operator behaved lazily, but gradually the din of the crane’s engine faded, and the black smoke that had been belching from its exhaust petered out. The man climbed down awkwardly from the cab, and stood beside his behemoth of a machine.
“Thank you, sir. My name is Detective Garda Fahy, and this is my colleague, Detective Sergeant Flynn. May I ask when that car came in?” Fahy said pointing to the Mondeo dangling precariously from the crane.
“Friday,” the man, clearly not much of a conversationalist, said gruffly.
“We believe that vehicle may have been involved in a crime. I wonder if you could release it from the crane for us. We need to impound it.”
The man said nothing, but turned his back on the two detectives, and climbed laboriously up the metal steps of the crane back into the cab. The machine wheezed and coughed before the engine roared back to life.
The Mondeo swung crazily towards them, and descended towards the dirty yard. When it was about six feet off the ground, the man released the magnet, and the car crashed to earth with a noisy thud, the jolt causing the boot to fly open and a door mirror to detach and roll on the ground.
Flynn looked up at the man with a scowl. He made a twisting motion with his hand, indicating that he was looking for the key. The man signalled from the cab of the crane to a large metal bin over beside the shed that served as a very scruffy office. Flynn walked over to find the bin more than half full with what must have been several hundred car keys.
“This is hopeless, Sally. We’ll never find the right one, and that’s assuming it will still be driving. But we can’t leave here without it – anything could happen. Let’s improvise.”
The two detectives scouted round the yard till they found a stout piece of rope that was about five metres long. Flynn used an old sack on the ground to protect his clothes, and bent down, tying the rope around the front axle of the old Mondeo. He tied the other end to the towing eye of the Hyundai.
“You’re in the Mondeo,” he said to Fahy.
“Oh, thanks a lot. And I don’t want to hear a word about women drivers. Go slowly now, won’t you?” Fahy said.
They made a peculiar little convoy driving the two kilometres back to Mill Street. Flynn in front with the blue lights flashing, and the old beaten up Mondeo crabbing along at the end of the tow rope. It took them just ten minutes to make the journey, and they were glad to get the vehicle back into the secure yard at the rear of the station.
Once they were back inside the station, Flynn called Sinéad Loughran.
“Hi Sinéad. It’s Eamon Flynn. We’ve brought in a blue Mondeo that we think may have been used for the heist out at Roundstone where the postman got shot. Could you come down with a couple of your guys and give it a good going over for us? It’s in the yard at the back.”
“Sure Eamon, we’ll be down in a few minutes, and let’s hope we get something from it. I hope there isn’t a dead sheep in the boot!” Sinéad said.
“Ha – very funny! They obviously thought it would be crushed by now, so they may not have been too careful about it. Anyway, we’ll see. Thanks.”
Then Flynn called Lyons and told her that they had managed to rescue the Mondeo from the jaws of the crusher, and had it back at the station with forensics ready to start work on the car.
“Great, well done you two,” Lyons said.
Chapter Ten
Tadgh Deasy sat very uncomfortably in the little place that had been set up as a makeshift interview room in the small new Garda Station at the edge of Roundstone village. Hays had shown him in there, and told him to stay put while he went to get two cups of coffee and a notepad.
“Look, Inspector, this is nuts. You people know me. I wouldn’t get involved in anything like that,” Deasy said as Hays re-entered the room and placed the drinks on the table.
“A man has been murdered, Mr Deasy. There are procedures that need to be followed. And you were, of your own admission, in possession of money from the proceeds of an armed robbery. So, if you’ve any sense, you’ll answer my questions honestly,” Hays said.
Deasy wriggled a bit in his seat and reached for his coffee without saying a word.
“Now, who were these two boyos that traded the Mondeo for a jeep on Friday? I need names, addresses,” Hays demanded.
“I dunno, do I? They just came in like, and I’ve had that old jeep for ages. I was delighted to be getting rid of the thing, and they gave me good money for it. It wasn’t worth much.”
“Names?”
Deasy shook his head, looking at the floor.
“Well what did they look like? You must remember that at least,” Hays said, losing his patience.
“Just average blokes. The younger one had a woolly hat, and the older one was very scruffy with dirty fair hair,” Deasy said.
“God give me strength! You do realise it’s an offence not to complete an RF105 form when you sell a vehicle, Mr Deasy, don’t you?”
“Ah, look, things don’t always get done like that out here in the country, specially with a couple of old jalopies,” Deasy said.
“The age of the vehicle is not the issue here. Now, what was the make, model and reg. number of the jeep?” Hays asked.
“It was a Mitsubishi Pajero, green it was, and it was 98G something or other.”
“I’ll need the full number, and I need it now,” Hays said. He was getting very fed up with Deasy’s attitude.
“Let me ring Shay, he’ll have it. He always remembers them things.”
Hays nodded, signalling that the man could use his mobile phone to make the call. Shay, Deasy’s son, did indeed remember the number of the Pajero, and Deasy rel
ayed it to Hays, who wrote it on his pad. He then called Pascal Brosnan in from the outer office, and gave him the vehicle description, asking him to circulate it as soon as possible, and to be certain to add “approach with caution – occupants may be armed” to the bulletin.
Hays continued the questioning when Brosnan had left to put the word out on the old jeep.
“Why did you take the vehicle into Galway to the scrap yard?” he asked.
“They gave me an extra hundred euro for that, so I wasn’t going to complain, was I?” Deasy said.
“But surely you must have been suspicious about it. Why didn’t you report it?”
“Look, Inspector, you’ve seen my place, I’m not living the high life now, am I? Money is hard to come by doing what I’m doing, so when a couple of guys come in and offer me over the odds for an old heap, and then sweeten the deal with a few extras, I’m hardly going to turn it down, now am I?”
“And when they peeled off a pile of crisp new fifty euro notes, you still didn’t think that there was anything fishy? C’mon, Mr Deasy, you’re not an idiot, now are you?” Hays said.
“I was concentrating on getting as much as I could for the Pajero. I wasn’t focussed on the money till the deal was struck. To be honest, the whole thing did smell a bit off, but who was I to look a gift horse in the mouth?” Deasy said.
Hays had some sympathy for the man. He knew that Deasy’s operation was marginal at best, and he could easily see how the transaction with the Mondeo and the jeep could have seemed almost too good to be true for him. And he didn’t really believe that Deasy was directly involved with the robbery, but he wasn’t going to let his prey off the hook too easily.
“Well, we’ll be confiscating the cash – it’s obviously the proceeds of a crime. The bank will debit your account. And I want you to think very carefully, Mr Deasy. If you know anything, anything at all, about who these two clients are, or where they might be staying, you need to come forward with that information urgently. If I find out later that you knew them, even vaguely, and you’ve held anything back, then I promise you, it will go very badly for you. Is that clear?” Hays said.
“Yes, yes of course, but I promise you, I never seen them before. But if they come back, I’ll let you know, promise.”
“Right. That’s all for now. Off you go, and consider yourself lucky that I didn’t charge you,” Hays said.
When Deasy had left the station, Lyons told Hays about the recovery of the old blue Mondeo from the scrapyard.
“Well that’s something at least. Has Sinéad got hold of it yet?” Hays said.
“Yes. She’s working on it now,” Lyons said.
“Good. Let’s get back to town before dark. Maybe Sinéad will have something for us.”
* * *
They arrived back in Mill Street and brought the team together for an update. Hays outlined the interview that they had had with Tadgh Deasy.
“Do you think he’s involved?” Eamon Flynn asked when he heard the story of how the stolen notes had turned up in Deasy’s lodgement.
“I doubt it, at least not in the robbery, but it was dumb of him not to report what was obviously a seriously suspicious transaction. Let’s keep an eye on him for a while, see if anything else comes to light. I’ve asked Pascal Brosnan to keep us posted,” Hays said.
Hays looked at Lyons indicating that she should take over.
“Sally, will you give Sinéad a call and see if she’s got anything from the Mondeo?” Lyons said.
“Right, boss.”
“Eamon, I want you to call Pascal and Séan and see if there’s been any sightings out west. Maybe one of the checkpoints has turned up something. And if anyone has anything, bring it to me immediately, don’t wait till our next meeting. It’s imperative we apprehend this lot quickly or we’ll be slaughtered in the media,” Lyons said.
When they had dispersed, Hays and Lyons went to his office.
“Any thoughts?” Lyons said.
“It’s a bit odd, don’t you think? They appear to have gone to ground somewhere in the Roundstone area, but why haven’t they hightailed it out of there?” Hays said.
Sally Fahy knocked at Hays’ door.
“Come in, Sally. What have you got?” Lyons said.
“Sinéad found some interesting stuff in the Mondeo, Inspector. They must have thought that Deasy would have it crushed long before we got to it. As well as a reasonable crop of fingerprints, she found a plastic wrapper on the floor that came from a five thousand euro bundle. It has distinct prints on it, and branding from the bank and the post office.”
“Nice one, Sally. Have you run the prints yet?” Hays said.
“Yes, sir. They belong to an Anselm Geraghty, he’s well known to us. In fact, he’s just finished a five year stretch for aggravated burglary and actual bodily harm. Apparently, he beat up the owner of a petrol station quite unnecessarily during a robbery when the man was closing up for the night. He was caught on CCTV, as was his brother, Emmet. It seems they often work together,” Fahy said.
“Nice. OK, well get a bulletin out to all stations – you know the usual, ‘approach with caution – may be armed’, and see if you can get it into the local papers for tomorrow too. I take it we have some reasonably good mug shots?” Hays said.
“Yes, sir, that’s no problem,” Fahy said.
“Oh, and there’s one more thing, sir. The younger brother’s prints were found on the spent shot gun cartridge we recovered from the scene too, so it looks like it’s the two of them again.”
When Sally Fahy had left the office to attend to the notices, Lyons asked Hays, “What do we do now?”
“Let’s see where these two bozos hail from. Where’s their family home. Then we can get the local Gardaí to keep an eye out for them in case they have a strong homing instinct. Can you do that? Give them the details of the Pajero too. I’m going to update Plunkett,” Hays said.
* * *
On the way home in the car, Lyons said to Hays, “How did you get on with Plunkett? You didn’t say.”
“He’s pretty up tight. He thinks if we don’t get a quick result on this that Dublin will insist on taking it over, and that could affect his master plan quite badly. But apart from that, he was pretty supportive, though of course he wasn’t best pleased that we had half the force staked out in Clifden at enormous expense when the blag was going off somewhere else. Those Armed Response guys really know how to charge for their services. I know it’s only ‘funny money’, but that little caper cost the boss eighteen thousand euro straight out of his already depleted budget. He said he’d have to push it into next year.”
“That’ll be you next year, you know. All spreadsheets and reports, budgets and resource management. You won’t have a minute for us poor coppers out lifting thieves and murderers, wait till you see,” Lyons said.
“You’ll be grand without me getting in your way, Maureen. Give you a chance to shine even more than you have already.”
Lyons said nothing.
Chapter Eleven
They had been in the station for about an hour, and were sitting in Hays’ office reading the overnight activity logs together, when the phone on Hays’ desk sprang to life.
“Inspector Hays? It’s Séan Mulholland here from Clifden.”
“Good morning, Séan. How’s things?”
“I’ve just had the manager of the bank here in Clifden on to me. He’s been opening the night safe bags, and he’s found a couple more of those fifty euro notes in the lodgement from O’Dowds out in Roundstone,” Mulholland said.
“I see. Did you tell him to put them away somewhere safe for us?”
“Sure, of course I did. He’s got them set aside in a plastic bag, and he says he’d debited the O’Dowd account with the hundred euro too.”
“Always the banker, eh? Right, listen I’ll come out directly with Inspector Lyons. Could you get one of your lads to meet us at O’Dowds?” Hays said.
“Right, no bother. I’ll get
Jim Dolan on it in about half an hour. That’ll give you a chance to get on the road. He’ll meet you there,” Mulholland said.
Hays filled Lyons in on what Séan Mulholland had told her.
“Let’s get out there sharpish. Those blaggards must still be in the area.”
* * *
The Christmas frenzy of shopping for presents and cards was well underway in Galway. Even at that early hour of the morning, the streets were busy, and cars had been parked all over the place, ignoring the yellow lines and disabled space signs, so that navigating through the narrow streets was a chore. Several times Hays had to give a quick blast on his car’s siren to get a vehicle to move out of the way, but at least the weather seemed to have taken pity on the shoppers. It was grey, overcast and breezy, but the rain was holding off, for now at least.
It took them a full hour to reach Roundstone, where commerce seemed to be moving at a more relaxed pace. They spotted Jim Dolan’s squad car parked directly outside O’Dowds Pub, and Hays pulled his silver Mercedes in behind it.
“Good morning, Jim,” Lyons said as she got out of the car.
“Morning, Inspector. You got here quickly,” Dolan said.
“Yes, Mick doesn’t hang about. And the car knows the way by now in any case,” Lyons said.
The three Gardaí went inside O’Dowds, where the staff were cleaning the place and setting the bar up for the day ahead. Even in the depths of winter, O’Dowds enjoyed a reasonably brisk trade at lunch time, and again in the evening, although, of course, nothing like the number of customers that frequented the place in summer, when they often spilled out onto the street, and had to queue for their meal.
A bright young Polish girl came over when she saw the group entering the place.
“Good morning,” she said with just a slight trace of an accent, “how may I help you this morning?”
Hays introduced the trio and asked if there was a manager around.
“Not yet, I’m afraid. He doesn’t come on till half past twelve today. But I’m sure I can help you,” she said confidently, “my name is Anika, and I’m in charge when the boss isn’t here.”
The Galway Homicides Box Set 2 Page 19