“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 lights 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 hypothermia 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.
“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 muc
h 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.
The Galway Homicides Box Set 2 Page 26