“No problem, sir, after all it’s not often that a man gives a girl a present of a BMW, even if it is somewhat fire damaged! I’ll get two of the boys onto it straight away. Should have preliminaries for you by this evening.”
“Great, thanks. I owe you one.”
“No, sir, you owe me many more than that,” she said, laughing, and hung up.
Sally Fahy knocked on the door of Hays’ office. She had a slip of paper in her hand.
“Yes, Sally, come in. What’s up?”
“It’s the car details, sir. I have them here. It’s owned by a Mr Rory O’Keeffe from Limerick. He reported it stolen from outside his house earlier in the week.”
“Well, could you get onto Limerick and tell them we have it. Talk to Detective Aidan Phelan if you can get him, he knows me. Ask them if they could stay off it and let us handle it, as it may be connected to another enquiry here. Oh, and see if you can get a phone number for Rory O’Keeffe, his insurance company probably have his mobile number on file,” Hays said. He then noticed that Sally looked distinctly uneasy.
“What’s up, Sally?”
“Nothing, sir, it’s just that a lot of this is police work. Are you sure it’s OK for me to be doing it? I’d hate anyone to get into trouble,” she said.
“Sit down for a minute, Sally, let’s have a wee chat, shall we?”
Sally sat down not quite sure what was coming.
“Sally, I don’t know if you realize this, but you’re better at police work, as you call it, than half the people at this station, except of course for my team that I have selected very carefully over a few years now.”
Sally blushed and wriggled a little in her chair, not knowing how to respond.
“If you wanted to become a detective Garda, you’d make a good one. But don’t say anything now, just think it over.”
“Thanks, sir,” she said, getting up from the chair and feeling about two feet taller. As she left the room she turned at the door and said to Hays, “Thank you very much, sir, it means a lot.”
Hays studied the piece of paper that Sally had left on his desk. It had O’Keeffe’s address on it, as well as his occupation and a few other relevant details about his driving license, and the fact that his wife was also a named driver on the policy. He lifted the phone and dialled the number on the page. It answered promptly.
“Rory O’Keeffe,” said the voice at the other end of the line.
“Good morning, Mr O’Keeffe. This is Detective Inspector Michael Hays from Galway. I’m calling about a car.” He read out the registration number from the page in front of him.
“Great, you’ve found it! Where is it?” O’Keeffe asked.
“Firstly, sir, can you confirm that you are the registered owner of that vehicle, and that you reported it stolen earlier in the week?” Hays asked.
“Yes, yes. But have you found it? Is it OK? I know it’s only an 07 but I really love that car,” O’Keeffe replied.
“Well, yes, sir, we have found it. But it’s not all good news I’m afraid. Firstly, it may have been involved in a crime, so we need to keep it here for a while. It may be evidence,” Hays told the man.
“I see. That’s not good. What type of crime?”
“I’m sorry, Mr O’Keeffe, I’m not able to discuss that aspect of things just yet. But there’s more. An attempt was made to burn the car out. Now fortunately a fire appliance was driving past at the time and put it out quite quickly, but there is some damage.”
“Oh shit. Sorry. Yes, I see. So, it sounds like I’ll have to claim on the insurance then.”
“Probably best. We’ll give you a crime report in respect of the theft, and if we can help in any other way, let me know. Was there anything in the car that you need?” Hays asked.
“Nothing much. A few CDs and a small jar of parking coins, but I’m not bothered about any of those. It’s the car I’ll miss. And the insurance will give me bugger all for it. Sorry. I really liked it.”
“Yes, well I’m sorry for your loss, Mr O’Keeffe. If it’s any help, I can send the tax disc back to you. There’s almost ten months unexpired on it, so you’ll get quite a bit back.”
“Yes, thanks, that will help a bit. The tax is quite high. How did they take it? BMWs are supposed to be burglar proof.”
“These scallywags do this all the time. If they want it, they take it. Nothing is burglar proof. OK, I’ll get my sergeant to send on the tax and insurance discs. Just one more thing, Mr O’Keeffe, where were you the night before last?”
“Aw, c’mon. You can’t be serious?” O’Keeffe protested.
“Just routine, Mr O’Keeffe, just routine.”
“As it happens, I was at a work do. I had to get a lift of course, but I was out till about half past one, then got a taxi home. It was on the company’s account, so there will be a record.”
Hays thanked the man and said they might have to be back in touch at some stage, but that he shouldn’t worry. He might just be asked to make a statement.
Chapter Eleven
Garda John O’Connor and Sally Fahy were working with the little bag of paper scraps that had been found in the burnt-out shell of Paddy O’Shaughnessy’s cottage. There were about twenty-five pieces in all, not any one of which was big enough to make sense. One fragment was definitely a bank statement, just as Sinéad had said, but the account number was missing, and just the first two digits of the branch sort code could be deciphered.
“It’s nine seven,” said Sally, “that means it’s a National Bank account,” she said.
“How the hell do you know that?” O’Connor asked.
“It’s easy. Nine seven is National, nine three is AIB, nine zero is Bank of Ireland, and so on.”
“But what actual branch?”
“That’s the tricky bit. Logically, it should be Clifden, but that’s already been checked out, and his account isn’t there. Maybe we could get on to National Bank’s HQ and ask them?”
“Not likely. How many Paddy O’Shaughnessy’s, P. O’Shaughnessy, Peadar O’Shaughnessy etc. do you think they have? They’d just laugh at us.”
“OK then, let’s keep going, see what else we can find,” Sally said, a little disappointed with the rebuke.
“You keep going, I’m off to lunch. See you later,” he said, getting up and putting on his uniform jacket. “Want anything brought back?”
“No thanks, you’re OK. I’ll take a break myself in a while.”
Sally was determined to find something useful before he got back. She had been made to look silly with her suggestion about calling the bank’s head office, and it didn’t sit well with her.
Some of the paper fragments had handwriting on them, and some of that was pretty shaky, as you would expect from an old person. Some of it was even in pencil. As she fiddled with the tiny scraps of paper, trying to line up the torn edges, suddenly she saw it. It wasn’t all on one piece, but in the same shaky hand, numbers. Numbers that made up the six-digit sort code of a bank branch. Nine seven, six one, zero six.
Sally went to the nearest PC and called up a sort code look up programme. When she put the numbers in, the programme promptly returned “National Bank, Westport.”
“Bingo,” she said to herself, “gotcha!”
Sally was tempted to go straight to Hays who was still in his office with the news, but then on reflection, she decided not to do that. It would be better, she felt, to let John O’Connor take the credit for the discovery, and if he decided to mention her efforts to the boss, all to the good. After all, she wasn’t a detective – yet.
* * *
When O’Connor returned from a short lunch break, Sally shared the news with him.
“Amazing, Sal, how do you do it? But are we sure that’s what those numbers are? It could be part of a phone number or something,” he said.
“Well, let’s check. Call the bank and see if they can confirm that he has an account there,” Sally said.
O’Connor looked up the Westport branch of
the National Bank on a PC and placed the call. When he told the girl of his enquiry, she put him through to the manager, who was disinclined to impart any information about one of his customers. After some persuasion he eventually confirmed that they had a customer by that name with an address in County Galway, but he would give no further details of any kind.
O’Connor knocked on Hays’ door.
“Come in, John. What’s up?” Hays said.
“We found O’Shaughnessy’s bank account, sir, or, to be accurate, Sally found it. The bank has confirmed the existence of the account, but won’t give out any further information on the basis of the Data Protection Act,” O’Connor said.
“Data Protection Act my arse! But well done you two, that’s great. Did you get the name of the person that you spoke to?”
“Yes, boss. It’s a Mr Neville Watson. He seemed to want to help, but he was very guarded.”
“We’ll see about that. Did you tell him O’Shaughnessy is dead?”
“No, sir. I wasn’t going to give anything away as he was being so awkward. Should I have?”
“No, you did right. That’s great work, John, and Sally too. Well done.”
Sally continued to work on the remaining bits of burnt paper that had been recovered from the house. She had a feeling that they had more to tell, and after another hour working with tweezers and sticky tape, her efforts were rewarded. She found some other fragments that she was able to put together that seemed to come from a flyer or small pamphlet. It had been issued by one Jerome Kelly, who described himself as a QFA, which Sally knew to be a qualified financial advisor. Sally was curious to know why Paddy O’Shaughnessy would have such an item in amongst his meagre belongings, but she wasted no time in reporting it to her boss.
“Hmm,” mused Hays when she brought the information to him. “It’s probably nothing, but we need to follow it up just the same. Is there a phone number on the leaflet?” he asked.
“Yes, but it’s incomplete, and it’s a mobile. There doesn’t seem to be a landline number, unless it was burnt in the fire,” Sally replied.
“OK, Sally, well dig around a bit more and see if you can find anything on this Jerome Kelly fella, and let us know.”
Chapter Twelve
The entire team were back in the incident room by four that afternoon. After a quick introduction, Hays asked them one by one to give details of what they had learned during the day.
Lyons started with all the information she had extracted from Mary Drinan that morning. The team were impressed with the amount of detail that Lyons had collected, and Hays said that they could now start to build a picture of the victim.
O’Connor told the team about the bank details that Sally had unearthed. She had been right to give it to O’Connor, and not directly to Hays, as John was now singing her praises instead of thinking she was out to better him. “Good call,” she thought to herself.
Finally, Eamon Flynn, who had spent much of the day over with the forensic team working on the car, shared his story.
“The car thieves had clearly meant the BMW to burn out completely, destroying any evidence that they may have left behind in it, but as we know, that was not to be,” Flynn reported.
“The good news is that there are quite a few clear fingerprint images in the car, and even some potential DNA from a half-eaten sandwich in the passenger’s footwell. Forensics are lifting the prints now, and should be able to try and match them overnight.”
Just as the briefing was coming to an end, Sally Fahy piped up. “There’s just one other thing,” she said, hesitating a little.
“Yes, Sally, what is it?”
“Well it’s just that other piece of paper that was found, you know the Jerome Kelly thing.”
“Oh yes, anything on that?” Hays asked, a little impatiently.
“Well I managed to figure out the rest of the phone number, and I looked up the register of QFAs that the Central Bank keeps online. Kelly was a QFA up to about five years ago, and then he was de-listed. There’s no information on why, but he’s no longer a QFA.”
“Well maybe that leaflet is older than five years. You know how these old codgers like to hang on to everything.”
“No, sir, that’s not it. You see the mobile number on the leaflet is a Tesco Mobile number, and they have only been in Ireland for three years, so it has to be more recent than that.”
“Did you get a chance to see if we have anything on file for Jerome Kelly QFA? Anything on Pulse, or whatever?” Lyons asked.
“No, boss, not yet. But I’ll have a look before I go tonight. And I’ll contact the Central Bank and see what they can tell me too,” Sally said.
“OK, good work. Let us know what you find,” Hays said.
“That’s great progress, thanks everyone. OK. Tasks for tomorrow then. Someone needs to go to Westport and give that stuffy bank manager a good shake up. I want O’Shaughnessy’s bank statements for the last two years, and any other details that we can dig up. Who’s up for that?” Hays asked.
They all looked from one to another, but no one volunteered.
“Very well, that’ll be you then, Maureen. I know you love the wild west so much,” Hays said.
“Thanks a bunch, boss,” she said.
“Next, we need someone to work on whoever stole the BMW. I’m expecting the fingerprints will match some well-known scrotes, so, Eamon, can you follow up on that when the information comes through?
“John, you and Sally, our new ‘A’ team, can you dig into O’Shaughnessy’s brother? Look up RIP.IE and see what you can find out about family connections, that sort of thing. That’s it for now folks. We’ll have another briefing at one o’clock tomorrow. Maureen, if you’re not back by then, can you call in? Thanks.”
* * *
Hays didn’t go home straight away, and he noticed Maureen hanging around for a while too. He called her into his office.
“Sorry about the job in Westport, but to be honest, you’re the best person for it. You have a way of getting people to talk that no one else on the team can match.”
“Now you’re trying to butter me up,” she said.
“No, I’m not. You know me better than that. In fact, I was just saying the same thing to Superintendent Plunkett earlier.”
“Oh, so you were discussing me then. I thought my ears were burning.”
“We were saying that you would make a great detective inspector.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet, Mick. Do you really think I am?” she asked.
“Yes, I do. I’ve been really impressed with your work, and your ability to delegate and manage the younger, less experienced members of the team. Talking of which, what do you think of Sally Fahy?”
“She’s a topper. Would make a good detective. That Tesco Mobile thing wouldn’t have occurred to most people. Why?”
“I was thinking exactly the same. Why don’t you have a word with her, you know, woman to woman, as it were?”
Maureen’s eyes flared.
“Oh, and about Westport,” Hays added, “would you like me to come out with you? You can lead, it’s just for the company.”
“Tell you what. Why don’t we go and get a bite to eat? We can talk about this inspector thing, and maybe you should come to Westport with me,” she said.
“There’s just one thing ... it’s a very early start,” she said with a smile.
Chapter Thirteen
They set off for Westport at eight o’clock the following morning. Hays had stayed over, and before they left Maureen had made them both a good plate of scrambled eggs and bacon and some strong hot coffee.
They talked more about Maureen becoming an inspector on the journey. Hays told her that she would have a lot of support from within the ranks, which was even more important than the exams. Maureen expressed concern about how they would handle it at a personal level, and they agreed that the rank didn’t really make a difference, in fact, if anything, it would be easier if they were of equal
rank.
Lyons leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
“You’re a good man, Mick Hays.”
They travelled on in silence, but both could feel that the bond between them had grown a little closer. It was a good feeling.
They arrived in Westport at quarter to ten and easily found the National Bank branch and parked outside. To fill the fifteen minutes before the bank opened, they went for coffee in a nearby café.
By ten o’clock there was a small queue outside the bank. They joined the back of it and filed in along with the other customers. Once inside, they asked the nearest floorwalker if they could see the manager, Mr Watson.
“Do you have an appointment, sir?” she asked politely.
Hays didn’t reply but reached into his pocket and produced his warrant card, holding it up so that the girl could see it clearly.
“Right. I’ll see if he is available. Just wait there a moment, please.”
When the girl returned she ushered the two detectives into a small gloomy office at the rear of the building. The room was painted in the wrong colour of sickly yellow, and there was just one small barred window high in the wall behind where Neville Watson sat at a desk straight out of the 1970s. The only other furniture in the dingy office were two chairs, upholstered in black vinyl, facing the desk, and a set of bookshelves packed with large plastic-bound training manuals that were too big for the shelves, so that they looked as if they might fall to the floor at any moment. Lyons noticed that the grey carpet in front of the visitors’ chairs was worn through, and the paler sisal backing was showing.
“Good morning, officers, how can I help you?” Watson said, standing up and extending his hand to Hays. Hays said nothing, allowing Lyons to do the talking as he had promised he would. Lyons introduced them, and when they were all seated, continued, “Mr Watson, can you confirm for us that you hold an account here for a Mr Paddy, or Patrick O’Shaughnessy with an address at Derrygimlagh, County Galway?”
Hays was relieved that Lyons was leading. He had taken an instant dislike to the bank manager, which was unusual for him, so he was pleased to be able to remain silent.
The Galway Homicides Box Set Page 17