“Right, boss. What are you up to?”
“Oh, we’re just going to do a spot of fishing out near Roundstone, see you later.” She hung up before Bolger had a chance to ask anything more.
* * *
Lyons drove the squad car up to the car park opposite the Roundstone House Hotel. She didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that they were intending to set to sea, although in fairness, she guessed that it would be all around the town by evening.
Down at the harbour, Paddy Lavelle had the engine on his fishing boat going, and pale blue diesel smoke was rising up out of the rusty pipe that ran up the side of the wheelhouse into the clear air above.
The boat was an old wooden boat, but Paddy maintained it in reasonable condition, and it had a fairly fresh coat of navy-blue paint on the hull, finished in white along the gunwales. Forward of the wheelhouse there was a chain locker set into the deck, where the anchor chain was stored, and there was another hatch that opened into a large storage area below decks that could be used to store freshly caught mackerel.
Behind the wheelhouse, on the main deck of the boat, the rusty paraphernalia of sea fishing was stacked: a tangle of wire, netting and large iron pieces, each with its own special purpose. A few dirty fish boxes were piled on top of each other in the corner at the stern, smelling rather ripe. The boat rose and fell gently on the waves, its rubber fenders squeaking against the harbour wall from time to time.
“Well done, Pascal, this is just the ticket,” said Hays, patting the younger Garda on the upper arm.
It was decided that Pascal, the only uniformed officer amongst them, should remain on dry land and co-ordinate efforts via the radio. He had a small but powerful hand-held set, and Paddy assured them that the boat’s radio was in good working order.
“We’ll use channel 44, Paddy, unless an emergency develops,” Brosnan said to the boatman.
“Right so, where are we off to?” Lavelle asked.
“We want to head out towards Carna, Paddy. How long will it take us to get to Carna Bay?”
“The tide will be with us on the way over, so not more than an hour at most, I’d say.”
“When we get close in, is there somewhere the two of us can hide on board, Paddy?” Lyons asked.
“There is. There’s a galley below. It’s small, but two can fit in there handy enough, and you’ll be right out of sight,” Lavelle said.
“Grand, thanks, Paddy. Let’s get going,” Hays said.
They untied the boat, and Paddy manoeuvred it deftly out of the tiny harbour as he had done thousands of times before. There was a gentle swell on the sea as they crossed Bertraghboy Bay, and occasionally a wisp of spray was thrown up over the bow of the little boat and splashed on the windows of the wheelhouse.
When they reached the more open sea out of the lea of the land, the swell increased a bit, and Eamon Flynn began to feel decidedly queasy. It wasn’t long before he was leaning out over the side of the boat retching up his lunch, much to the amusement of the skipper who had the good sense to say nothing.
The little vessel ploughed on, and after three-quarters of an hour, they rounded the headland guarding the entrance to Carna Bay. Lyons used the boat’s radio to check in with Brosnan.
She rotated the knob on the front of the radio till the number 44 was illuminated in green figures on the display. She pressed the button on the side of the microphone and said, “Lyons to Brosnan. How do you read, over?”
“Brosnan to Lyons. I read you well, boss. Over.”
“Standby on this channel, Pascal. We’re just entering Carna Bay now, over.”
“Any sign of the target? Over,” Brosnan asked.
“Negative. Not yet anyway. I’ll let you know, over.”
When Paddy Lavelle’s boat got into the shelter of the land, the sea became quite calm, and he brought back the throttles, so that the vessel moved more slowly in towards Carna. A sailing boat, anchored well off the coast, came into view. It was a single-masted yacht with the mainsail stowed along the boom, and the foresail furled around the forestay, with the sheets leading back to the cockpit.
“It looks as if he has it set up for single-handed sailing,” Hays said.
“Can you get between him and the shore, and approach him from the leeward side?” Hays asked.
“I surely can. Are you planning on boarding her?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Better put out the fenders, then. I wouldn’t want to scratch her paintwork now, would I?” Paddy said.
Lyons took the hint, and went out on deck to push the large plastic fenders over the side of the boat on the starboard side.
When she was back in the cramped wheelhouse, Hays said, “Can you go below with Eamon in case Williams is keeping a lookout.”
“Hmm, OK, but if he pukes all over me, you’ll be doing the laundry,” Lyons said.
As she turned to leave the wheelhouse, Hays gave her a friendly pat on the rear. She smiled to herself as she struggled to lower herself backwards down the steep metal ladder into the bowels of the boat. Once they were actually down there, it was roomier than they had been led to believe, and was surprisingly tidy and neat. There was a two-ring gas stove, gimballed, so it could be used as the boat rocked about at sea; a small gas-powered fridge, like the ones you see in caravans, and a tiny circular sink. A hinged table could be lifted out and secured against the floor that allowed two people to sit and eat. A round opaque glass light fitting was mounted in the ceiling that shed sufficient brightness into the room to allow for the preparation of simple food in the galley.
As Lavelle skilfully brought the fishing boat alongside the sloop, Hays stood up on the gunwale and reached out to grab the shroud of the sailing boat. He transferred his weight to the gunwale of the yacht, and swung his legs over the handrails one at a time, to land on the deck forward of the cockpit.
Boarding the sailing boat in this way had caused it to heel over considerably, and as Hays went aft towards the hatch, it opened and the top half of Derek Williams appeared in the companionway.
“What the fuck’s going on, and who the hell are you?” Williams said.
Hays produced his warrant card, and introduced himself.
“You’ve no right to board my boat. Get off, before I throw you off. I know my rights,” Williams blustered.
“I don’t think so, Mr Williams,” Hays said, gesturing towards the fishing boat alongside, where Lyons and Flynn had emerged on the deck.
“Now, I want you to let me pass, Mr Williams. I need to see inside your yacht,” Hays said.
“No chance. This is private property, now piss off and leave me alone.”
Hays put his hand behind his back, and waved slightly at the two detectives on the other boat. Lyons read the signal, and turned away, taking Flynn by the arm, and turning him away too. Then Hays lifted his foot, and gave Williams a firm push in the chest. The man fell backwards with a yelp and slid along the floor. Before he could get up, Hays jumped down into the cabin and brought his foot to rest just below Williams’ neck.
“Thank you for inviting me on board, sir,” Hays said, looking around, examining the inside of the spacious craft.
“What’s through that door, Williams?” Hays asked, nodding towards a closed wooden door in the forward end of the yacht.
“Nothing, just an empty cabin.”
Hays, still keeping his foot on the prone form of the teacher on the floor, turned and shouted out through the open hatch, “Come aboard, Inspector; Sergeant.”
He felt the boat sway under his feet as the two Gardaí boarded the boat following Hays’ example. Hays reached out to a shelf that ran along the length of the cabin to steady himself.
“Look, can I get up now please?” Williams asked.
“No, not yet. In a minute.”
As the two other detectives came down the steps, Hays said to Flynn who was in front, “Sergeant, look after Mr Williams for me.”
Williams scrambled up and sat on the bench se
at at the side of the cabin. Hays went forward and tried to open the end door, but it was locked.
“I need this open, Mr Williams,” Hays said.
“I told you, there’s nothing in there, it’s empty,” Williams protested.
“I’ve had enough of this,” Hays said losing patience. He took a step forwards, raised his foot to knee height, and kicked the door hard. The wood splintered at the lock, and the door flew back on its hinges.
“Christ,” exclaimed Williams.
As the door flew open, the girl that was lying on the bed, gagged with gaffer tape, with her hands tied behind her back, looked at Hays with pure terror in her eyes.
“It’s OK, love, I’m with the police. You’re safe now. It’s over. Maureen, in here,” he said loudly, turning towards the broken door. Lyons came in to attend to the girl.
Hays turned back to the cabin where Williams was sitting on the settee with his hand in his head.
“Eamon, arrest him on suspicion of abduction, kidnap, assault, being a prick – anything else you can think of. Cuff him, and get him on board the fishing boat. Try not to drop him in the sea, but not too hard. I’ve a good mind to put him in the fish hold,” Hays said.
Lyons had untied Amy Cunningham’s wrists, and carefully removed the gaffer tape from her mouth. She was holding the girl around the shoulders, and Amy was sobbing uncontrollably as she buried her head in Lyons’ shoulder.
When Flynn had manhandled Williams onto the other vessel, without dropping him in the sea, Hays said to Lyons, “We’ll take this boat back into Roundstone. We can follow Paddy. Can you get on the radio? Ask Pascal to get Sinéad out. We’ll need her to take fingerprints, and whatever samples she can get off the sheets on that bed. And tell him to lock Williams up in a cell till we get back.”
“OK. I’m on it,” Lyons said.
Chapter Twenty-four
Hays made his way to the front of the yacht and used the windlass on the foredeck to bring up the anchor, stowing the long chain in the locker provided. Williams had left the key in the ignition switch, and Hays started the engine on the first turn of the starter. He engaged forward on the gear selector, and advanced the throttle. The yacht came around under his direction, and fell in behind the wash from Paddy’s fishing boat, heading for Roundstone.
Amy Cunningham was feeling a bit better once the yacht was underway. Maureen Lyons fetched her a drink of water, and the girl had stopped crying. Lyons used her radio to call Pascal Brosnan, and asked him to contact the Cunninghams and tell them that Amy had been found safe and sound. Lyons wasn’t quite sure about the last bit, but it would do for now in any case.
When they reached Roundstone, the weather was noticeably cooler as evening set in. Hays brought the yacht alongside a blank spot against the harbour wall and tied it off forward and aft, leaving enough rope to ensure that the boat wouldn’t hang itself when the tide went out.
Lyons helped Amy up the slippery metal ladder built into the side wall of the harbour.
In the time it had taken them to motor back to Roundstone, Sinéad Loughran had arrived out with another forensic officer to examine William’s boat. As soon as Lyons, Hays and Amy had disembarked, Loughran took over the boat. She wrapped it in blue and white Scene of Crime tape, and went on board with the second forensic investigator.
Brosnan had taken Williams away to lock him up in the local Garda station, leaving Flynn standing on the dock. Hays asked Flynn if he had found out where Williams had left his car.
“I asked him all right. You’ll never guess what he said,” Flynn said.
“Go on,” Hays said.
“‘You’re the fucking detective – you find it!’”
“Charming! Right,” Hays said, “let’s get you back home, Amy, Inspector Lyons will go with you. We’ll need to talk to you tomorrow about all of this, but we’ll leave it for tonight, let you get over your ordeal.”
* * *
It was nearly nine o’clock by the time Lyons arrived home to the house she shared in Salthill with Mick Hays. Hays had taken a tray meal for two out of the freezer, and when Lyons came in, he put it in the oven to cook.
“How long will that take?” she asked, giving him a kiss on the cheek as she took off her coat.
“Half an hour or so,” Hays said.
“Great, I’m going to have a quick shower – I stink of dead fish! Have we a nice bottle of red?”
“Yep, I’ll dig something out.”
Half an hour later they sat and ate the meal, washed down with a bottle of Montepulciano D’Abruzzo that Hays had found in the sideboard.
“Mmm, that’s a lovely wine,” Lyon said.
“I must try and get some more of it. It wasn’t even that dear – about twelve euro if I remember rightly.”
“Thanks for your help today, by the way. I was beginning to feel a bit out of my depth,” Lyons said.
“No trouble. But in fairness, you had it more or less under control all along. I didn’t do much,” Hays said.
“I’m not much good at breaking down doors, Mick. And I loved the way you kicked Williams in the boat. Very macho!”
“Oh, you’d have got him just the same. Remember Lorcan McFadden? Not to mention the bank robber on Eyre Square. You haven’t let one slip through your fingers yet, kiddo.”
“Still, it was good to have you along. I dunno – I just feel so much more confident when we’re working together. Oh, and by the way, what are we going to do about Bolger?” Lyons said.
“I’ll talk to him over the next few days. Do you want him on the team?”
“Not really. Is that terrible? We’d better be careful not to upset Plunkett though.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll convince Finbarr that the force would be much better served if we were exploiting Mr Bolger’s cerebral talents. We’ll get him a nice desk job doing research or something,” Hays said.
“Do you think that will fly, Mick?”
“I’ll make it fly if that’s what you want.”
“It might be best. He doesn’t fit in, and some of the team think he’s just a joke. I don’t think he’s happy either. Probably the right thing to do if you could move him on.”
* * *
Williams was brought into the city early the following morning. The detectives were conscious that they only had a limited time to question him, and from experience, they knew that it could fly by amazingly quickly.
It had been decided that Hays and Flynn would interview Derek Williams, and that Lyons and Fahy would deal with Amy Cunningham. Lyons asked James Bolger to assist John O’Connor with the computer stuff, to see if real evidence of a connection between Emma Fortune and her form teacher could be established.
While the two female detectives went out to the Cunningham’s house to bring Amy into the station, Hays and Flynn got busy with the teacher.
Amy Cunningham was up and dressed and having breakfast with her mother in the kitchen when Lyons and Fahy arrived. Mrs Cunningham invited them in, and offered them tea and toast, which they gratefully accepted.
“We’d like to thank you so much for getting Amy back safely, Inspector. What’s going to happen to that terrible man?” Mrs Cunningham said.
“We have him in custody for now, Mrs Cunningham. My colleagues are interviewing him as we speak,” Lyons said.
“Amy, we’d like you to come with us to Mill Street, if you wouldn’t mind. We need to get a statement from you about the events of the last couple of days, if that’s all right?” Fahy said.
“Do I have to come in today?” Amy said rather shakily, looking to her mother.
“That would be best, Amy. You see, we need your statement to charge Mr Williams – otherwise we’ll just have to let him go this evening, and we’d rather that didn’t happen,” Fahy said.
“Oh, I see. Well, can my mum come with me?” the girl said.
“I don’t see why not. Why don’t you get ready, and we can go in our car?” Lyons said.
They cleared the
breakfast things into the kitchen sink, and Mrs Cunningham disappeared for a few minutes, reappearing with her make up done and her hair neatly brushed.
When they got to the station, the two detectives took Amy into the nicer of the interview rooms and arranged a soft drink for her, and coffees for themselves.
“Now, Amy, thanks for coming in. I just want to say you’re not in any trouble here. We just need to get to the bottom of things, so if some of the questions we ask seem a bit strange, please bear with us. Is that OK?” Lyons said.
“Yes, I suppose so,” Amy said.
“Right then. Let’s start with how you ended up on the boat. Tell us what happened,” Lyons said.
“Well, the other night, I had gone up to bed at about ten, I think, when I got a text message on my phone. It was Mr Williams. He said he needed to see me, and that it was important. I replied saying I would contact him the next day, but he came back and said, no, he needed to see me that evening, and told me not to say anything to anyone. He said it was something to do with Emma.”
“Do you still have that string of messages on your phone, Amy?” Fahy asked.
“I don’t know, I think so. My phone is in my coat outside. Do you want me to go and get it?”
“Not just now, we can get it later. So, what happened then?”
“I got dressed and sneaked out of the house without Mum and Dad hearing me, and I went to meet Mr Williams at the entrance to the lane that runs behind our houses. That’s where he asked me to be.”
“And when you got there?” Lyons said.
“He asked me to get into his car, so I did. We drove out a bit into the country. He wasn’t saying anything, so I asked him what it was all about, but he wouldn’t say. Then he stopped the car in an entrance to a field, and reached over and put that tape on my mouth. I tried to get out of the car, but he was too strong, and he had these plastic things that he put around my wrists. He told me to stop struggling or he’d have to hurt me. It was awful.” Amy started to cry as she recounted what had happened to her.
The Galway Homicides Box Set 2 Page 41