“Not until we get the file, so I’ll know later on today. And Sally, you’re going to contact that crowd in Boston when they arrive at work, aren’t you?” Hays asked.
“Yes, boss, I reckon around two o’clock should do it,” she said. “I have an address for that QFA guy, Jerome Kelly. He lives in a small house on the Shantalla Road. Not at all what you’d expect for a high flyer in financial services. I looked it up on Google Earth. It’s a terraced house with a bright yellow door.”
“Excellent, well done,” Lyons said.
“Right. Well let’s meet back at four and see what we have by then,” Hays concluded, dismissing them.
* * *
At ten past two, Sally put a call through to Irish Catholic Investments in Boston. She was put through to a Mr Bob Jefferson. She explained who she was, “I’m with the police in Galway in the west of Ireland, Mr Jefferson. We’re looking into the death of a Mr Paddy O’Shaughnessy who had some dealings with your firm. I wonder if you could tell me anything about that, please?”
“Hold on a second till I get the records up here on my PC. I know Galway a bit. My grandmother was from Athenry. Oh yes, here it is. Mr O’Shaughnessy, here we are. Well I can see we send him his dividends on his Coca Cola shares every quarter. Let’s see, what else. Well he changed his bank and his postal address about eight years ago, he’s now in Derry… Eh Derrygim…”
“Derrygimlagh,” Sally helped him out.
“Yes, Derrygimlagh. That’s about it really. There’s just one other note on the file here. Seems we had an enquiry about six weeks ago from a relative asking if the shares were still held by Paddy.”
“Did you by any chance record who the enquiry was from?” Sally asked.
“Let’s see, I need to dig a little deeper, just a moment. Ah, here it is, yes, it was a Ciaran O’Shaughnessy. I hope that helps?”
“Yes, thank you, that’s a big help, Mr Jefferson. All the best.”
* * *
Sally was the first to provide an update. She told the team that she had validated the payments in US dollars into Paddy’s account, and that they were dividend payments from the Coca Cola shares. She also told them about the enquiry from Ciaran O’Shaughnessy.
John O’Connor had received the file from the probate office. Donal O’Shaughnessy had died of natural causes in the hospital in Cork according to the death certificate. He left a house valued at 220,000 euro, some cash, and 3,700 Coca Cola shares. Probate had been granted last October, and the funds had been disbursed in November.
“Right,” Hays said when the information had been shared, “Eamon, can you get onto your new best friend in Limerick and see what’s happening with Torchy and his mate? I’m not bothered one way or the other, but it’s a loose end we need to tie up.”
“And as for you and me, Sergeant, we’d better hit the road again. I’m starting to get interested in this Ciaran guy.”
“Can we leave it till the morning, boss?” Lyons asked.
“Yeah, sure. There’s no rush. But I’d like to surprise him. Sally, can you phone his place of work and just say you have a delivery for him that has to be signed for personally, and will he be there in the morning around eleven-thirty?”
“Sure, boss, I’ll call him now.”
“Where does he work, anyway?” asked Lyons.
“He has an I.T. company in Cork. He’s on LinkedIn. Looks like he owns it, or at least is the MD. It’s called ITOS,” Sally said.
“Thanks, Sally. Just give me the address for the sat-nav, and let’s know when you have confirmed that he’ll be there.”
“And you and I, dear Sergeant, are going house calling on the Shantalla! Mr QFA should be just about getting home by now,” Hays added.
* * *
The traffic in Galway at that time was merciless, so they decided it would be quicker to walk round to Kelly’s. Thankfully the rain had eased off, and although the pavements were still slick, the clouds had cleared, and it was starting to look like a pleasant if cool evening.
The Shantalla Road was a terrific mixture of residential properties. Much of it had once been built and let out by the City as social housing as it was now called, but they had left significant gaps between the terraces, and these had been bought by property developers who had built larger, mostly detached houses in the spaces, and had no difficulty selling them, given the road’s proximity to the city centre. There were also some very old workmen’s cottages, arranged in terraces along the road, dating back to the nineteenth century. These were very modest dwellings, but solid all the same, if inclined to a bit of damp.
The social housing had been sold off by the city in the 1980s as the council didn’t want to spend ever increasing amounts on repairs. They had been eagerly purchased, mostly by the occupants who were provided with very soft loans for the transaction, and several had opened up the small front garden to allow for off street parking, a luxury not required by the original occupants who would not have been able to afford a car.
Number seventy-four, sporting its bright yellow door as described by Sally, was in the centre of a block of four of the old social houses. It was in reasonable order, but the owner had not upgraded the windows to PVC or aluminium, as many of the others had done, and the brown paint on the frames was peeling nicely. This house still had its tiny front garden, which was unkempt, with long straggly grass and weeds growing up through the broken concrete path.
“Sally was right, very down at heel for a QFA. Let’s see if he’s in,” Lyons said.
The doorbell was obviously not functioning, so they knocked on the glass panelled door, and stood back. After a moment they could see the shape of a person advancing down the narrow hallway towards the door, and it was opened by a thin man of about forty-five years with an open necked shirt, no tie, and crumpled navy trousers.
“Mr Kelly?” enquired Hays.
“Yes, that’s me. Who are you?”
“I’m Inspector Hays from Galway Detective Unit, and this is my sergeant, Sergeant Lyons. May we come in?”
“Well it’s not very convenient, I’m just about to have my tea.” The man paused for a moment, and then relented, “But if you must.” He turned away and walked back down the narrow corridor to the kitchen which was at the back of the house. Hays and Lyons followed.
The kitchen was old, very untidy, and none too clean. The small table was festooned with dirty crockery and cutlery, and in the centre there was an open Domino’s pizza box, with one triangular wedge already removed. A bottle of beer stood beside it.
“Sorry to disturb you, Mr Kelly, we won’t take much of your time,” Hays said, not meaning a word of it.
“So, what line of business are you in then?” he went on.
“I’m a financial advisor, investments, pensions, that sort of thing.”
“A QFA, qualified financial advisor, isn’t that it?”
“Yes, that’s it. Why do you ask?”
“Well, not to delay you too much, Mr Kelly, we’re investigating the death of a man out in Connemara. Sad case really, he was very old and lived alone near the Alcock and Brown memorial. Do you know it at all?” Lyons said.
“Well, I know the area a little. I have a few clients out that way. Devil of a place to get to. It takes me all day to do the trip, and I’m usually wasting my time.”
“And do you know the man we’re talking about? His name was Mr O’Shaughnessy. Maybe he was one of your clients?” Lyons went on.
“O’Shaughnessy, no, I don’t think so. But I meet lots of people in this line of work. That’s what my job is all about. I may have met him at some stage. Why, what’s the story?”
“That’s it you see, one of your leaflets was found at his house,” Hays said, and let the sentence hang.
“That’s perfectly possible. I may have called on him at some time, who knows? But he’s not, or wasn’t, I should say, a client.”
“Do you have dealings with many of the old bachelors living out in the west, Mr Kelly?” Lyo
ns asked.
“As a matter of fact, I do. They’re nearly all small ticket items – you know, a life policy worth a couple of thousand to pay for their funerals. Some of them have a few bob saved, and want to get a better return than just putting it in the bank, but that’s unusual. It’s hardly worth my while servicing the area really, but it’s a nice drive when the weather is fine, and I get fed up pounding the city streets.”
“So, when would you have been out there last?” Hays pressed on.
“Let me see, about three or four weeks ago I think. I’m due back out there to finish out a few deals in Clifden next week, so yes, it would be about four weeks ago.”
“Do you keep a diary, Mr Kelly?” Lyons asked.
“Yes, of course. Why?”
“May we see it, please?” she asked.
“Now look here, what’s all this about? I’ve told you I didn’t know this Paddy O’Shaughnessy bloke. I don’t know how he got to have one of my leaflets – maybe a friend gave it to him, or maybe I did call on him, but that’s it. Can you leave me alone now please? My tea is getting cold.”
“Very well, Mr Kelly. But I’d like you to produce a full list of all your clients for us and hand it and a copy of your diary in to Mill Street Garda station before 6 p.m. tomorrow evening for my attention,” Hays said, handing the man his business card.
“Good God, Inspector, as if I haven’t enough to be doing. Very well, I’ll do it, but I don’t see the point.”
“Thank you, Mr Kelly, we’ll leave you to your meal then,” Hays said.
* * *
Back outside, Lyons said to Hays, “Well what do you think of our Mr Kelly?”
“Not much. He didn’t correct us about the QFA thing, and how come he knew O’Shaughnessy’s first name? Neither of us mentioned it.”
“Yes, I picked that up. There’s more to him than it seems. I think I’ll get Sally to do a root and branch check up on him tomorrow and see what we can find. I bet he rips off those poor old men out in the west – funeral policies my eye!” she said.
“And what about his car, did you clock the reg number?”
“Yes of course I did, I have it written down. I presume it was that none too fresh Peugeot parked halfway up on the footpath outside his house with the out of date NCT and bald tyres.”
“That’s the one. There was a Peugeot key on the draining board in his kitchen. If he is ripping off the old timers he’s not splashing it about, is he?” Hays replied.
“No, he’s not. But that could be all part of the master plan. We’ve seen that before. Do you fancy him for it?” she asked.
“I can’t see why he’d beat up and kill O’Shaughnessy, unless Paddy had let it slip that he was sitting on a fortune in Coca Cola shares, which I doubt. But let’s wait and see.”
Chapter Twenty
ITOS occupied a unit on the Hollymount industrial estate in Hollyhill, County Cork. It was a grey, soulless building with a cracked concrete apron outside where four car spaces were painted in large white letters with the company name.
Hays had set off with Maureen Lyons from her house at eight o’clock, and with the traffic around Galway, and having to go via Limerick, it had taken them over three hours to reach their destination. When they arrived in Cork they were both gasping for a coffee. They sought out a small independent coffee shop and had an americano apiece.
ITOS didn’t really have a reception area. Inside the front door there was an unoccupied desk with an electric doorbell screwed into the top and a typed note saying, ‘Ring for service’.
Lyons pressed the bell and they waited.
After a couple of minutes, an inner door opened, and a young guy in scruffy denim jeans and a black T-shirt came into the hall. Hays introduced them, and told him that they were there to see Ciaran O’Shaughnessy.
“I’ll see if he’s in, hold on there a minute,” the young man said. Before he could escape back to whatever lay behind the inner door, Hays asked, “What kind of car does he drive?”
“A blue BMW 3 Series,” replied the young man.
“Then he’s in,” Hays said.
The young man disappeared, and the inner door closed with a sharp thud.
“Shades of the bank,” said Lyons.
“Exactly, and I’m in no humour to be pissed about after that drive.”
Lyons looked around the small vestibule for some indication of what ITOS actually did. Usually such areas were covered with posters extolling the virtues of whatever services the company provided, but not in this case. The walls were totally bare.
Just as they were becoming impatient, the inner door opened again, and a man in his mid-forties appeared. He was roughly five foot nine inches in height, chunky, rather than overweight, with dark receding hair and a sizeable bald patch on the crown of his head. He was dressed in a black suit that was somewhat crumpled, and a pale yellow shirt with a button-down collar.
“Brown shoes,” Lyons thought to herself, and wasn’t disappointed.
“Inspector, Sergeant, how can I help?”
“Mr O’Shaughnessy, I presume? We’d like to have a chat with you, please. May we use your office?” Hays enquired.
“I’m sorry, much of our work here is highly confidential. We can’t admit the public beyond this area,” O’Shaughnessy replied, using a little speech that appeared to be well rehearsed.
“OK, Mr O’Shaughnessy, I guess we’ll have to adjourn to Anglesea Street Garda station then, we’re not so fussy, we entertain all sorts there.”
“Perhaps on this occasion it’s OK to bring members of the force inside. Follow me.”
O’Shaughnessy’s office was located up a flight of steel stairs. On the way, they saw a number of metal cages, each one packed with stacks of black Dell servers with flickering green lights. An electronic hum filled the space, fighting with the noise of two large air conditioning units that were struggling to keep the temperature down to manageable levels.
The office was cramped and untidy, but not especially small. There was a desk, several chairs, and two white bookcases against the walls standing about a metre high. The tops of the bookcases were cluttered with bits and pieces of equipment and parts. O’Shaughnessy’s desk was untidy, covered in what appeared to be stacks of jumbled up papers. The single window, dirty and barred on the outside, was to the side of the desk and behind it. A bare fluorescent tube lit the room.
When they had taken their seats, Lyons began the proceedings.
“Mr O’Shaughnessy, as I’m sure you know, your uncle Paddy O’Shaughnessy died suddenly at his home in Derrygimlagh recently. We’re looking into the matter and wonder if you could tell us something about the man, his background, his past, you know, that sort of thing?”
“I’m not sure how much I can tell you. We weren’t close, not close at all. I think the last time I saw uncle Paddy was at dad’s funeral last year.”
“Were they close, your father and Paddy?” Lyons asked.
“Yes. They certainly had been. Of course, they had grown apart more recently when Paddy stopped driving. It’s not easy to get from here to Connemara, you know.”
“It seems that both your father and his brother were in possession of a quantity of Coca Cola shares. Do you know how that came about?” she asked.
“Oh that. I didn’t know Paddy had them too,” he said, “but the two of them worked for an uncle in Sligo years ago. He had a pub, and he gave them both a job after they had finished school. For some reason, the uncle gave my father a hundred dollars’ worth of Coca Cola shares as a leaving present. They were only worth a few quid then. I didn’t know he had given Paddy some as well, but it stands to reason.”
“Did you inherit your father’s shares?” Hays asked.
“Yes, well, sort of. They were sold, and the proceeds split between Caoimhe and me.”
“How much did they fetch?” Lyons asked.
“I’m not sure, to be honest. Quite a bit though, I was surprised. Why the interest, anyway?”
<
br /> “Was your sister in touch with Paddy to your knowledge?” Lyons asked.
“Oh no. To be honest, she doesn’t bother with any of us since she moved to Scotland. But of course she came back for Dad’s funeral, just for the day.”
“Can you think of anyone who would have wished your uncle harm, Mr O’Shaughnessy?” she asked.
“Good God, no of course not. Why, what do you mean?”
“Just making enquiries. There are certain aspects of your uncle’s death that are not entirely straightforward, Mr O’Shaughnessy.”
“I see. Well of course if I can be of any further help,” he said without finishing the sentence.
“Just one more thing, Mr O’Shaughnessy. Have you been here in Cork for the past two weeks or so?”
“Oh heavens no. I travel around a lot. Dublin, Sligo, Belfast, even Galway sometimes. Our business is well scattered.”
“What exactly is it that you do here?” Lyons asked looking around the room for clues.
“I’m afraid if I told you that I’d have to kill you,” he replied with a big grin. The two detectives stared back at him totally straight faced.
“Sorry. We provide network services and hosting for companies and government departments. Lots of companies don’t have the expertise or the interest in running their own I.T., so we do it for them. Naturally, security is to the fore. That’s what all the locked cages are about downstairs. We have to keep each client’s stuff quite separate, and totally secure of course.”
“Is the business doing well?” Lyons asked, getting up to leave.
“Very, thank heavens. We went through a rough patch during the crash of course, but now everything is back on track. Yes, we do very nicely.”
They made their way carefully back down the metal staircase and out to the little reception room at the front. O’Shaughnessy bid them farewell and handed Hays a business card, and soon the two were back out in the open.
When they were inside the car, Hays said, “Let’s get some lunch, I’m starving.”
“There are some good restaurants in Blarney. Let’s head out there. And I’ll drive back, give you a break,” Lyons said.
The Galway Homicides Box Set Page 21