“OK, I understand, thanks, Mr Normoyle. Any thoughts on anyone who might have had something to do with it?” Lyons said, thinking it was worth a try in any case.
“None. Mr Fortune has done a lot for this club. He’s well liked here, and I don’t know anyone who would want to do him harm. He’ll be sorely missed.”
“One final thing, Mr Normoyle, I’ll need to get your fingerprints for the purpose of elimination,” Lyons said.
“That’s no problem.”
Lyons took the neat little electronic fingerprint machine out of her bag and Normoyle obliged.
The two of them strolled back across the apron of the airport to the hangar where the Cessna had now been completely unloaded. Lyons beckoned Bolger across to the door, out of earshot of the others.
“James, get over to the old bar at the far side of the apron. Have a snoop around inside – see if there’s any plastic tubing kicking around, you know, like attached to the old beer coolers or anything. Or if there’s any evidence of any having been removed recently,” she said.
Bolger ambled off in the direction of the old terminal building.
“Will you be much longer here, Mr O’Dwyer?” she asked the IAA man.
“This is where my work really begins, Inspector. I need to label all the loose bits, and examine everything very carefully. I’ll need to write it all up too – we have to produce very detailed reports on every one of these accidents. It helps the manufacturers improve the safety of their machines, and especially where there has been loss of life, they will be looking to be exonerated,” O’Dwyer said.
“I see. Well, I’d better leave you to get on with it then. I’d appreciate it if you could let me know if you find anything else of interest,” Lyons said, handing the man her business card.
Lyons walked out of the hangar, and met James Bolger coming back across the apron.
“Well?” she said.
“Nothing, boss. It’s all locked up. I couldn’t get in.”
“For heaven’s sake, James! Could you not just use your loaf and get inside – it’s hardly Fort bloody Knox!” Lyons said.
“Go back to the car, and wait for me there,” she barked.
Bolger slinked off, feeling quite miserable. Did she really expect him to actually break in to the terminal building?
Lyons circled around the old deserted terminal till she found a window that had been boarded up; the plywood was rotting at the bottom corner. She pulled at it, and it gave way easily, allowing her to scramble up onto the sill and climb inside.
The old place was damp and musty, with discarded papers, empty bottles and other debris strewn around. She figured she wasn’t the first person to break in. She found the bar in the half light – there was no electricity connected, so she used the torch in her phone to help her to see what she was doing.
Behind the bar she found the beer coolers, covered in dust and grime and beginning to rust. She pulled at them, but found them still attached with thick plastic piping to the taps that had once dispensed cool pints of beer to thirsty travellers. All the pipes were intact.
Chapter Thirteen
Derek Williams, Emma Fortune’s form teacher, had arranged to come in to Mill Street to meet Detective Eamon Flynn at ten o’clock. Flynn showed him to the most comfortable of the station’s interview rooms, and asked if he would like tea or coffee. Williams opted for a coffee, and Flynn came back a few minutes later with drinks for them both.
“Thanks for coming in, Mr Williams. This is a very sad business. I won’t keep you long. We’re talking to anyone who has connections to the family, just to be thorough,” Flynn said.
“Of course, that’s no problem. How can I help?”
“Well, just how well did you know Emma? Have you ever met her parents, that sort of thing?” Flynn asked.
“I know – sorry knew – Emma pretty well. She was a bright student, and was also fairly heavily involved in sports. I help out with the girls’ hockey team as well, and Emma was a bit of a star on the hockey pitch,” Williams said.
“I see. So, was she popular then?”
“Oh yes, very. She had lots of friends at the school. She hung around with a group of about five other girls in particular.”
“Was there any one of the five that she was particularly close to?” Flynn said.
“Well, I can’t be completely sure, but I’d say Amy Cunningham was probably her best friend – her ‘bestie’ as they call them these days. They were always in each other’s company.”
“Do you have an address for the Cunningham girl?” Flynn said.
“Not on me, but I can get it from the school of course. Why do you need to speak to her?” Williams said.
“Ah, you know how it is. We have to cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s in these cases. Three people died after all.”
“Yes, I know, but you can’t think it was anything to do with Emma, surely?”
“No, of course not. What do you know about her father?” Flynn said.
“Just that he was a big noise in the building trade. But he was good to the school. He helped us with some building work at a very reasonable price. And those portacabins we put in last year are his. They’re on loan till we get proper buildings put up,” Williams said.
“Did Emma ever have any trouble in school, Mr Williams?”
“Trouble. What sort of trouble?” Williams said.
“Oh, you know how teenage girls can be sometimes. Was she ever bullied, or picked upon by anyone? Maybe some of the other girls were jealous of her, that sort of thing.” Flynn said.
“No, there was nothing like that. You have to understand, Emma was a very nice girl. She had a genuinely lovely personality. She’ll be sorely missed in the school,” Williams said, and looked down at the floor. Flynn thought that he saw the start of a tear in the man’s eyes.
“OK. Well, thanks again for coming in, Mr Williams. We’ll leave it at that for now. If you could just get me Amy Cunningham’s details and phone them through, that would be very helpful,” Flynn said, standing up and giving the man a card.
“Yes. Yes, of course,” the teacher said, regaining his composure.
* * *
It was late afternoon by the time Lyons brought the team back together to discover what had been revealed about the victims of the crash.
Flynn filled them in on his discussion with Emma Fortune’s form teacher. Then Lyons asked Sally Fahy what she had discovered about Barbara Fortune.
“Quite a bit actually, boss. Firstly, it looks as if she was about to get a divorce from her husband,” Fahy said.
“Wow, how the hell did you get that little nugget of information?” Lyons asked.
“A very chatty daily help. Margaret Guilfoyle by name. I rang the house to see if Mrs Fortune had returned from Dublin, and she answered the phone, so I dropped out to see her. As we sat, drank several cups of tea and ate delicious homemade rock buns, Mrs Guilfoyle told me the whole story.”
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense then, what did she say?” Lyons said.
“It seems Barbara Fortune has been having an affair with a solicitor from Dublin for some time. And Ger Fortune knew about it too. Guilfoyle said that she witnessed several heated arguments between the two of them in the house when she was cleaning the place. Pretty nasty stuff, she said,” Fahy reported.
“Did Mrs Guilfoyle say that there were any threats made by either of them against the other?” Lyons asked.
“No, not directly, but she did say that Mr Fortune had threatened his wife with never seeing their daughter again if she left him, and Mrs Fortune had replied to the effect that she didn’t care about that, ‘she’s not even my daughter, anyway’ she had said.”
“I see. What did you make of that remark?” Eamon Flynn asked Fahy.
“When I got back to the office, I did some more digging. It turns out Ger Fortune was married before, and Emma was his child from his previous marriage. His first wife died tragically in a car crash when Em
ma was only five, and he went on to marry Barbara a few years later. She had been his secretary in his building firm it seems. I got all that from the local paper. It was quite big news at the time,” Fahy said.
“Crikey, well done you, Sally,” Lyons said. “And of course, that does sort of give us a motive, in a way.”
“How do you mean, boss?” Bolger asked.
“Well, if Barbara Fortune was going to divorce her husband, presumably she would only get a portion of his accumulated wealth as a settlement, and maybe not a very big portion if it turned out that she was the cause of the split. Whereas now, I presume she’ll inherit the lot. Tomorrow, Sally, I want you to see what Ger Fortune’s estate runs to, if you can. Are there are any big insurance policies? And have a look at whatever he has tied up in the company. Meantime, James, I think someone had better have a chat with the grieving widow, don’t you?” Lyons said.
“Yes, boss. Good idea,” Bolger said.
“Liam, what did you get from Fortune’s office?” Lyons said.
“Quite a bit, but I haven’t had a chance to go through it yet. I got Ger Fortune’s laptop; it was in his office, and I got the diaries like you asked – they go back a good few years, so it will take me a good bit of time to go through them, even with Mary’s help,” the young Garda said.
“OK. Well, give the computer to John and let him at it, see if he can find anything of interest,” Lyons said.
“What exactly are we looking for?” Bolger said.
“Anything that could give us a clue as to who disliked Ger Fortune enough to sabotage his aircraft. Correspondence, emails, that sort of thing.”
“Oh, right, I see what you mean,” Bolger said.
“Right, well that’s enough to be getting on with. Sally, will you contact Barbara Fortune and make an appointment for her to come into the station some time tomorrow for a chat? Don’t be too heavy handed with her – we don’t want her to take off – but make it clear we’re serious all the same,” Lyons said.
“James, I want you to help Liam go through the paperwork from Fortune’s office. And while you’re at it, why don’t you arrange to drop in on his current secretary at his office tomorrow and see if there’s anything she can tell you?” she continued.
* * *
When Lyons got back to her office, she put a call in to Mick Hays.
“Hi, how’s it going?” she said.
“Ah, you know. More bloody spreadsheets. Oh, by the way, I have to go to a thing in town later on. Some gig the mayor is hosting. I won’t be late, but I’ll have to put in an appearance for an hour or so,” Hays said.
“Ooh, does that mean you will have to dress up in your sexy Superintendent’s uniform with a crisp, starched white shirt? I really fancy you in that outfit, you know,” she said softly into the phone.
“Behave, Maureen. But don’t wait for me for dinner. See you later!”
“See ya!”
When Lyons had finished talking to Hays, she decided she would go back out to the airport and have a snoop around. She had found in the past that being close to a crime scene had helped her to figure out what had actually happened, and that broken plane was the nearest she was going to get. Besides, with Mick out for the evening, there was nothing to rush home for.
She drove out through the evening traffic, and turned into the airport compound. The hangar door was pulled tight across the front of the space where the plane was being stored. Lyons parked up and got out of the car. There was no one in the portacabin used by Charlie Willis. Neither was there any sign of Normoyle or O’Dwyer – they must have all gone home for the night.
Lyons walked across to the hangar and tried the large concertina door at the front, but she couldn’t budge it. She walked around the building, down along the side through the grass that was growing up against it, and turned the corner to take her along the back. She found a small door at the rear of the building that didn’t appear to be locked, but it was very stiff, having fallen down slightly off its hinges through disrepair. Lyons heaved at it, and managed to get it open just wide enough to slip in sideways into the hangar.
Inside, the place was in half darkness, the only light coming in through a few sheets of what had once been clear Perspex set into the roof. The broken Cessna took up most of the available space. Parts had been removed, and were laid out in neat rows along the ground beneath the plane’s one good wing. Lyons noticed that labels had been attached to identify each part. There was a very strong smell of fuel in the hangar. She hadn’t remembered the smell being so strong the first time she was there, but reckoned that the fact that the place was all closed up probably accounted for it.
She edged her way along the side of the fuselage, making for the open door near the front of the plane. She wanted to look inside. As she reached the door of the plane, she leant into the cockpit to look at the floor and search in the narrow gaps between the seats. Behind her, she heard a whooshing sound, and as she turned to see what was causing it, a lick of blue flame shot across the canvas towards her. Lyons turned to go back the way she had come, but there were now flames spreading quickly all over the canvas that the plane was resting on. The plane’s tyres had started to burn too, and there was acrid black smoke beginning to fill the space.
Lyons had, at one time, dated a fireman from Galway, and she remembered him telling her that if she was ever caught in a fire, in a house for example, to get down low and get out fast. She got down on all fours and tried to see through the increasing smokescreen where the door was that she had come in by. The fire had really taken hold by now, and the flames were consuming the available oxygen in the enclosed space, making breathing difficult. She started coughing, the fumes from the plastic parts, now well ablaze, catching the back of her throat. Her eyes were streaming, making it impossible to see anything at all. She had to try and get out by feel alone. Lyons knew that she had to make it out of the building, otherwise she would be burnt alive. She dropped to her belly and crawled further back, wriggling along in the dirt. She thought she could see a crack of light that must have been coming in through the back door of the building. She wriggled on, desperate to get away from the advancing flames.
She managed to get to the door and squeeze herself out into the open air. But she wasn’t out of danger yet. The hangar was now fully ablaze, and large bits of debris, some of it still burning, crashed down around her as she lay on the grass struggling for breath. She staggered away and finally got to the safety of the concrete apron, where she sat down, coughing and gasping, her hands, face and clothes black with soot from the fire.
When she had recovered sufficiently to speak coherently, she reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out her phone. She called the fire brigade first and summoned them to the airport. Then she called Mill Street, and asked Sergeant Flannery to get in touch with Detective Inspector Bolger and Detective Sergeant Sally Fahy and get them out to the airport. Only then did she relax sufficiently to realise just how close to death she had come.
Chapter Fourteen
It took the fire brigade, who had deployed four appliances to the scene, almost two hours to extinguish the blaze at the airport. There was very little left of the hangar, apart from the four walls, now blackened and cracked from the heat of the fire. The roof was all but gone, with just a few arcs of twisted steel reaching up towards the evening sky like the ribs of some dismembered animal lying on its back.
Bolger and Fahy had arrived at the scene soon after Lyons had called them, and Bolger had gone off and found some hot coffee which he gave to Lyons who was sitting sideways on the passenger seat in the doorway of her own car, shivering, more from shock than cold. Several uniformed Gardaí were also in attendance, but there was little they could do, other than secure what was left of the building.
“You’d better get Sinéad Loughran out here too,” Lyons said to Fahy, “there may be some forensics to be found, although I doubt it to be honest.”
“Do you think someone knew you were inside?”
Bolger asked.
“Who knows. It was clearly more of an effort to destroy evidence than murder a Garda, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes, probably. But still, it escalates matters somewhat, doesn’t it?” Bolger said.
“It certainly does that, Inspector, it certainly does.”
* * *
Lyons arrived home just as Hays was parking his car in the drive of their house in Salthill. When he saw his partner, her face still blackened from the smoke, he couldn’t believe his eyes.
Inside the house, Lyons explained the events of the evening to Hays.
“Bet you didn’t have as much excitement with the Mayor?” she said, pouring them both a stiff brandy.
“God, Maureen, it’s no laughing matter. You could have been killed,” he said, “anyway – who says I didn’t?”
“Go on.”
“Well, our old friend James McMahon was at the do. He gave me what may turn out to be some useful information, as it happens,” Hays said.
“Not just the name of some tasty Eastern European tart then?” she said.
“Now, now. Don’t be like that. He’s changed his ways since then. No, he said we should have a look at a Tony Fallon. Apparently when the crash came, Fortune left him badly stuck. He used to run a company called Fallon’s Floors and Doors. McMahon used him for some of the fancier houses he was building during the Celtic Tiger. But it went bust in 2010, largely thanks to our Mr Fortune, it seems. Anyway, that’s not what matters for now. Thank heavens you’re OK,” Hays said.
“Ah, look on the bright side, Mick, it would have saved you the cost of a cremation if I hadn’t managed to get out!”
“Come here,” he said, drawing Lyons close.
The Galway Homicides Box Set 2 Page 35