“One less job for us to do. I’ll start packing up. Are you going to call this in then?” the fireman asked.
“Jaysus, I’m not looking forward to that,” Flynn replied, walking back towards his car.
Chapter Five
Hays arrived at Maureen Lyons’ house down by the river in Galway at just after half past ten. The drive in from Connemara was tiring, and at various stages he had to slow right down, the visibility was so poor. Hays was conscious that there were often sheep loose on the road out that way, and if you hit one with your car, it led to hours of delay while you went off to find the owner and then haggled over the price of the beast. Most people wouldn’t bother, but Hays wasn’t like that.
Lyons let him in on the first ring of the doorbell. She lived in a small terraced house that had been divided into two flats, and hers was on the upper floor. Although it was small, with the kitchen, diner and lounge all in one room to the front, Maureen had it nicely done out.
“God, you look worn out,” she said when he had taken off his coat and settled on the sofa.
“Can I get you something?”
“A drop of whiskey would be great, if you have it,” he said.
“Sure, water, ice?”
“No, just as it comes. Thanks.”
Hays explained the events of the evening in as much detail as he could remember. Lyons apologized for not being able to take his calls. One of the civilian workers from the station was leaving to go on a world hiking tour with her boyfriend, and a few of the people from the office had gone to Doherty’s after work to give her a send-off.
Hays reassured her that there was no need to apologize, and finished the story. They both got some amusement from the fact that their colleague Eamon Flynn had been left out in Derrygimlagh to guard the house.
When Hays had finished relating the events of the evening, he asked Lyons, “Any initial thoughts?”
“It’s a difficult one. I can’t see what anyone would have to gain from killing an old guy like that. And it’s not exactly an easy place to find, so I’m sorry, so far nothing springs to mind.”
They talked on for a while longer. The whiskey and the long day had started to get to Hays, prompting Lyons to say, “You look exhausted. You’d better stay over, don’t you think?”
“Thanks, I’d like that, but I’m afraid it will just be company tonight. I’m all in.”
“But of course,” she said, smiling, and winking at her boss.
* * *
Hays’ iPhone started jumping up and down on the night stand on his side of Maureen’s double bed. Hays woke, and picked up the phone, seeing that it was quarter to six in the morning, and the caller was none other than the beleaguered night watchman, Eamon Flynn.
“Yes, Eamon, what the fuck is wrong?” he croaked into the phone.
“Jesus, boss, it’s bad. The fecking place is burnt to the ground.” Flynn went on to describe the events of the past hour that had seen Paddy O’Shaughnessy’s house reduced to ashes.
Hays was out of the bed now, scrambling for his underpants as he continued to listen and talk to Eamon Flynn.
“Stay there. I’ll be out as soon as I can, and I’ll try to get Sergeant Lyons out too. Can you make sure the firemen are still there? I’ll need to talk to them. Oh, and Eamon, are you OK?”
By this time Maureen Lyons had tuned in to the conversation, and was putting on her own clothes in a hurry.
* * *
As they drove out at speed with no traffic at all at that early hour, the daylight was breaking through.
“What do you make of it?” Hays asked as they passed Moycullen.
“Hard to say till we see the place. This whole thing is kinda weird. I mean what could an old guy like that have that was worth killing him for? And how the hell did it burn down, unless Flynn was playing silly buggers with a box of matches!”
“I don’t think so. He said he was asleep in the car when the fire broke out, and I’m inclined to believe him.”
When they reached Derrygimlagh they could hardly believe what they saw. What had been a rather modest and run-down cottage was now gone. Instead, four grey walls streaked with soot stood with charred rafters reaching upwards towards the early morning sky. The smell of burning pervaded the air, and pools of dirty black sooty water lay around where the fire crew had sprayed the burning hulk. Flynn’s car was parked about twenty-five metres away from the house, and a red Volkswagen Passat with FIRE written in large white letters on the door was standing nearby.
Hays stopped their car and they both got out.
“Jesus, Eamon, what a mess. How the hell did this happen?”
Flynn went back over the story, including where he went into the house and took the blanket from the old man’s bed, and how some papers had fallen on the floor. Hays felt that Flynn’s story was genuine, although he was still shocked at how this could have happened with him parked just feet away.
Lyons had introduced herself to the fire officer who told her his name was Paul Staveley. He explained that they had to send the fire tender back to Clifden in case it was needed, but he could stay on for a while if he could be of any help. He walked Lyons to the back of the old house and pointed to what was left of the back door – basically a couple of charred boards hanging off their hinges.
“I’m fairly certain it was arson,” Staveley said, “there are some patches of what I believe to be petrol here and there, and there’s some more spilled on the grass going up the bank behind the house.”
“How certain can you be?”
“I’ve seen enough of these in my time, Sergeant. Of course, your forensic team will be able to confirm it when they get here.”
On the way out in the car, Lyons had called the station in Galway and asked that the forensic team be hurried along, given the new situation. She was assured that they would be mobilized as soon as possible, and would be there before nine o’clock.
Hays was still talking to Eamon Flynn.
“Do you need to go home and get some sleep?” he asked.
“No. I couldn’t sleep now anyway. What do you need me to do, boss?” Flynn replied.
“OK. This whole thing is a mess. There’s more to it than it looks. Can you get yourself into Clifden? Get some breakfast, and then get Mulholland out of bed. Ask him to lend us Jim Dolan. Then I want the two of you to comb out every shop, pub, chemist, and as many private houses as you can cover. I want to build a profile of Paddy O’Shaughnessy. And then get your arse back into Galway for a full briefing at five o’clock. OK?”
Lyons got contact details for Paul Staveley, thanked him for his input, and for waiting till they got there, and said he could go. Then the two detectives got back into Hays’ car.
“The fire guy reckons it was definitely arson. He says there are traces of petrol on the grass behind the house, and in the house near the back door. He seems to think the arsonists came down the bank at the back, and they spilled some as they approached. Even if Eamon had been awake, he probably wouldn’t have seen them.”
“OK. Let’s drive up to the monument and see if we can find out how they got here.”
Hays drove back up the rocky track to the road, and instead of turning right, he turned left up towards the monument itself. The road looped around to the left, and soon they found that they were looking down on the back of O’Shaughnessy’s house from above. Hays stopped the car in the middle of the road and got out.
“If I was using this approach to the house, I’d pull my car well in to the side of the road just about twenty metres on from here in case another vehicle came past,” Hays said.
“Let’s see if we can see any traces at the side of the road. I think I can see where the grass has been trodden on leading down to the house. Stay on the road though, we don’t want to contaminate any evidence.”
The edge of the road was covered in loose limestone chips, and then it bled away into the tufty, boggy grass and reeds. There was no kerb as such, and it was clear to see t
hat there had indeed been a vehicle here recently, and that it had left tracks in the mud.
“When forensics get here, bring them up to look at this. In the meantime, I’ll tape off the road,” Hays said.
The forensic folks arrived on time at nine o’clock. There were three of them, led by a short girl with shoulder-length mousey-coloured hair, tied back in a ponytail.
“Hi Sinéad. Sorry to interrupt your beauty sleep, but we’ve got a right puzzle on here for you,” Hays said to her as she climbed down out of the unmarked 4x4.
“Nothing new there then! Why can’t you arrange these crime scenes a bit nearer the city, Mick? You know I’m allergic to fresh air, and where’s the nearest coffee shop?” Sinéad quipped.
“That’s OK then. The whole place stinks anyway, so you should feel quite at home! How many white suits have you got with you?”
“Just the three of us. If you wake any more of them up at dawn, they spontaneously combust!”
“Ouch!”
“Sorry, bad joke.”
“Can you get someone up on the road behind the house? There’s some possible tyre tracks up there and maybe more. Maureen will show you the exact spot,” Hays said.
“Trying to take my job now are ye, ye blaggard, Mick Hays? OK. I’ll get Simon onto that. He’s good with rubber!” Sinéad smirked.
The forensic team, all suited up in white paper suits with face masks, started to work on the site. They bagged up small morsels of potential evidence from both outside and inside the house.
Lyons had gone off with Simon to deal with the tyre tracks further up the road when Sinéad came over to Hays who was standing off, leaning against his car. She was holding out a plastic evidence bag with some singed pieces of white paper inside.
“You might want to have a look at these,” she said, holding it out in front of her. “Don’t open it, but you can see through the bag there’s the corner off what looks like a bank statement, and some kind of advertising pamphlet. They’re badly singed, but we may be able to get something off them.”
“Nice. Can I keep them?” he asked.
“For the moment, but if you’re handling it use plastic gloves, there may be still something useful on the paper.”
At half past ten, with the forensic team going about their painstaking, methodical work, Hays and Lyons set off again for Galway. As neither of them had had any breakfast, they were both famished, and stopped at Keogh’s in Ballyconneely for a cooked breakfast and lots of coffee. As they sat there over their second cup, Hays said, “When we get back to Mill Street, can you see about setting up an incident room? Dodd is doing the PM on the old guy at two o’clock. See if you can delegate so you can come along.”
“Sure, boss,” Lyons replied.
“Oh, and set up a team briefing for five o’clock too,” he added.
There was still very little traffic about as they drove back through Oughterard and Moycullen. The Newcastle road was slow as usual, but they were back at the station by midday, and Lyons set about organizing the incident room on the third floor of the station.
There were currently rumours circulating that the government had approved the construction of a new regional headquarters for Galway that would house the major crime teams and an armed response unit, as well as the main detective unit, leaving Mill Street as the central public office for the city. For the moment though, all these functions were squeezed into the old 1980s building, so space was at a premium.
Chapter Six
Dr Julian Dodd had started work on the emaciated corpse of Paddy O’Shaughnessy when the two detectives arrived for the post mortem. The body had already been cut open in the familiar ‘Y’ style, and the major organs were being removed and weighed before being preserved in large glass jars.
Lyons felt distinctly queasy at the sight of the poor man who had obviously been dead for quite some time before being found by Nurse Drinan. Her unease was not helped by the strong smell of disinfectant struggling to cope with the putrefaction being given off by the body on the shiny aluminium slab. As usual, Dodd had equipped himself with two assistant pathologists, along to learn the trade and benefit from his self-appraised infinite wisdom.
“No doubt you want me to solve the case for you as usual, Mick?” Dodd said as he moved around the table, followed eagerly by a female student who was much too interested in the proceedings for Hays’ liking.
“Just tell us what you know, Doc. We’ll let you solve it for us later,” Hays replied.
“A gentleman in his late seventies or early eighties. Generally in good health, apart from the obvious. Meagrely but fairly well nourished with good muscle tone for his age. I’d say he walked a good bit. No sign of any serious arthritis which is unusual given his living conditions; a non-smoker, or at least he hasn’t smoked for over twenty years. He took a drink, but not to excess. His liver is, or was, in good order,” Dodd said in a slightly haughty manner. “Now to the bits that will interest you two. He died about ten days ago. It’s terribly difficult to be any way accurate in these cases. But I’ve looked at the ambient day and night temperatures for the area for the last two weeks, and plotted these against the degree of decay, and give or take a day or two either way, I’d say ten days is about right.
“Initially I thought he had just passed away, but that’s not the case. There’s blunt force trauma damage to the left side of his head that caused quite a severe internal bleed. I’d say the poor old man died from a stroke a few minutes after that was administered, it was pretty forceful.
“Oh, and as you know, his hands and feet were bound to the chair where he was found. Apart from being very unusual, we can tell a little from the bindings that were still present.”
Dodd signalled to the junior assistant, a young female student with surprisingly ruddy cheeks given the circumstances. The girl went to the side table and brought forward a plastic evidence bag containing four plastic tie wraps. She gave the bag to Lyons.
“I suppose they just look like any old tie wraps to you, Maureen,” Dodd said, teasing the sergeant, “but they’re not. These are branded ones, and for once they’re not from China. These were made in the USA and are a brand favoured by those who dabble in computers, or should I say I.T. as we’re supposed to call it these days,” Dodd said.
“Any particular type of computer?” she asked.
“I haven’t a clue. That’s what we employ detectives for, so over to you on that one,” he replied. The young assistant couldn’t help but stifle a giggle at the way Dodd had dismissed the woman. She had been dismissed in the same way many times by the good doctor and was glad that his sarcasm had been sent in a different direction on this occasion.
“Anything further, Doc?” Hays asked.
“Nothing more for now. There’s no prints on the tie wraps, or any DNA that is useable. I’ll file them under ‘G’ for gruesome murders,” he said. “I’ll have a full report to you by tomorrow evening.” He returned to his unenviable task, the Dr Dodd show being over for the moment.
Hays and Lyons left the pathology suite glad that they hadn’t had a big lunch before the post mortem.
“What I can’t figure out is ‘why’?” he said. “What’s the motive? In these cases of remote solo dwellers being assaulted, it’s nearly always robbery. But this poor devil didn’t seem to have anything worth taking, not that we know of anyway.”
“He might have had a pile of cash hidden in a biscuit tin, I suppose,” Lyons said.
“I doubt it. And if so, where’s the tin? They never take it with them. Plus, he had thirty euro in his trouser pocket. If robbery was the motive, that would have gone too,” Hays said.
“And it’s not as if you’d just happen across that house either. It can’t be seen from the main road. Someone must have known it was there and targeted it deliberately,” Lyons said.
“Let’s get back and see what we can find out about Paddy O’Shaughnessy.”
Chapter Seven
At five o’clock, the team
assembled in room 310 where Lyons had arranged for an incident room to be set up. It wasn’t spacious, but all the essentials were there. A large whiteboard on casters dominated the space between the two windows. There were two desks, one against each wall left and right, each with a PC and a telephone, and the remaining space in the middle of the floor had a further three chairs that had frankly seen better days. They were wooden, upholstered in a kind of sickly green tweed fabric, now stained and frayed at the edge of the seats.
The team consisted of Hays, Lyons, Flynn and a young uniformed Garda, John O’Connor, whom Hays had found useful in the case of the murdered Polish girl the previous year. This time they had been assigned a civilian as well to keep the paperwork in order. Sally Fahy was a bright young girl with blonde hair that she wore in a bob. She had worked with the Gardaí for over a year, and had earned a reputation for great thoroughness and order when collating and arranging files. In truth, she had made herself indispensable.
“Right. Let’s get started everyone, or we’ll be here all night,” Hays said.
“Again,” mumbled Flynn.
“Yes, all right, Eamon. Your medal is in the post,” Hays quipped to a murmur of subdued laughter.
Turning to the whiteboard, Hays pointed to the picture of the deceased.
“Paddy O’Shaughnessy, at eighty-one, killed in his own home in Derrygimlagh near Clifden following a beating and more. We know very little about the man at this stage, unless Eamon has discovered that he won the Lotto or something. Eamon?”
Flynn stood up. “I’ve been all round Clifden today with Jim Dolan from the station out there. Before I came back in, Jim and I compared notes, and I’ll summarize what we now know,” he said.
“O’Shaughnessy was a very private sort of person. He had a few acquaintances in King’s Bar in the town, but only to have the odd pint with. Seems he returned to Clifden about eight years ago after his mother passed away and left him the house. We called to both banks in the town, but couldn’t find an account in his name. Nothing at the Post Office either which means that his pension must be paid directly into some bank account somewhere. We were told that he used to drive the white van until about two years ago, but since then he’d used the bus to come and go, or got lifts.”
The Galway Homicides Box Set Page 15