“Have you got your driving license then?” the Garda asked.
“Eh, no, sorry. It’s at home I’m afraid,” Lorcan said.
“You know you’re supposed to carry it on you now, don’t you?” Dolan said.
“I’m sorry officer, I just left in a bit of a hurry this morning. I’m running late to be honest,” he replied.
“Right. Well I need to look in the back. Can you open it up for me please?”
Lorcan had a moment of panic. He didn’t know if the back doors to the old van were locked, and of course he had no keys. He hopped out and walked to the rear of the van and tried the back-door handle. Thankfully, it yielded, and the door opened to reveal nothing but a few paint tins and some old rags.
“Doing a bit of decorating then Tommy?” Dolan said.
“Oh, yes. I’m just giving my sister a hand to do her place up now the good weather is here,” he lied.
“And what did you do to your face? Looks nasty,” Dolan asked.
“Oh that,” Lorcan said, putting his hand up to the cuts and bruises at the side of his head. “It’s nothing really. One of the machines at work. A belt broke and whipped up and caught me. It was careless of me. I should have had the guard on it,” Lorcan said.
“Right so. I’ll not keep you any longer then. Off with you, but no speeding now and watch for the sheep on the road,” Dolan said.
Lorcan couldn’t believe his luck. He tried not to look too relieved as he got back into the driver’s seat of the van. The engine was still running, and he drove slowly around Dolan’s car and off down the road. After such a close call, Lorcan decided his best bet was to avoid Galway completely and head for The North of Ireland. He had a good mate in Belfast and he could lie low there for a few days and then maybe get the boat to England.
Before he got to the city, Lorcan turned left, and using the small roads that skirted the base of Lough Corrib, he navigated his way to the N84, and across to the N63 and away towards the north.
The border between the Irish Republic and The North of Ireland is virtually non-existent these days. Since the Good Friday Agreement came into force, all of the border posts that had marked the change in jurisdiction were dismantled, and now the only way you could tell that you had crossed into the United Kingdom was when the speed limit signs changed from kilometres per hour to miles per hour, and the road surface improved measurably. But even so, Lorcan didn’t want to take any chances. He would need to swap vehicles before he crossed over in case he met a patrol. He was fairly certain the cop at the roadblock had noted the registration of the van, and it wouldn’t be long before they realised it was stolen, so he needed to get rid of it and find a replacement.
Chapter Nine
Maureen Lyons drove out along the old bog road towards Ballyconneely. She was always taken with the sheer beauty of the area, and in the morning sun it looked as good as ever.
She wasn’t relishing the task ahead. She had often had to tell parents that their offspring were deceased, usually following a road accident, or sometimes resulting from a drug overdose, but it was never easy. Recently, an increasing number of single vehicle car crashes that often happened in the dead of night, were also suicides. The Gardaí were often able to identify such cases, as there were normally no skid marks on the road, indicating that the car had been driven at speed into the obstacle that subsequently took the young person’s life – almost invariably a young man in his late teens or early twenties. Somehow these notifications usually fell to the women in the force, the perception being that they could handle the delicacy of the matter more sympathetically. But try as she would to park her own emotions at these times, Lyons still struggled hard to remain professionally detached.
“I’m just a big softy at heart,” she said to herself.
She found the Craigue’s house easily and she pulled her car up onto the steep driveway in front of the bungalow. It was as spectacular as she had been led to believe. It sported fresh white paint and sparklingly clean windows, which were not easy to maintain in that condition with the frequent westerly winds that blew in from the Atlantic carrying salt laden spray.
The door was opened by Bernard Craigue.
“Good morning, sir,” Lyons said, “are you Mr Craigue?”
“Yes. Who are you?” he responded rather curtly.
Craigue was a short man, no more than five foot seven by Maureen’s calculations. He was largely bald, with just a smattering of dark brown hair at the sides of his head that looked suspiciously like it had been dyed. He had a pair of horn-rimmed glasses with thick lenses, and was overweight, with a belly that protruded sufficiently to stretch the fabric at the front of his dark green polo shirt taut.
Lyons held up her Garda warrant card in front of the man’s face and at the same time introduced herself. Before she could ask if she could go into the house, Bernard Craigue snapped back.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Lyons was taken aback by the man’s attitude. OK, so he’s English she thought, and London at that, but this was not at all what she was expecting.
“I wonder if I might come in for a moment, Mr Craigue?” she asked.
“Well, it’s not very convenient just now, but if you must,” he said, standing aside to let her in. Bernard Craigue directed Lyons into the lounge with an amazing view out across Ballyconneely strand, looking magnificent in the morning sunlight.
“What’s all this about?” Craigue asked when they were seated.
“It’s about your son, Jeremy,” she said, watching his face and eyes carefully for some indication of what the man might be thinking.
“May I ask where he is right now, sir?” she continued.
“Of course. He’s in bed asleep down the corridor. He was out rather late last night, and he often lies in when we’re on holiday,” Craigue said.
“I see,” Lyons said, reaching into her pocket and fetching the driver’s license she had recovered at the scene of the car crash.
“Is this Jeremy’s?” she asked, offering the man the little plastic card bearing the boy’s photograph.
The man took the license and held it between his thumb and forefinger. He was silent for a moment.
“Oh, yes that’s Jeremy’s. He must have dropped it somewhere.”
Bernard Craigue stood up, signalling the discussion was over.
“Thank you very much for bringing it back. He’ll be glad to see it,” he said.
Lyons stood up too but wasn’t quite sure where to direct the conversation next. Did this man really think that his son was asleep down the corridor? It seemed highly unlikely to her. Just as she was about to broach the subject again, a woman came into the room. She had clearly been crying and she was wringing her hands. Before she could say anything, Bernard Craigue started talking again.
“Oh, Hannah. This is Inspector Lyons. They found Jeremy’s driving license and the inspector is just returning it. Isn’t that kind?” he said, moving towards the door with his hand behind Lyons as if herding her out of the house.
Hannah Craigue was a small, wiry woman with short grey curly hair and a drawn, wrinkled face. The wrinkles extended to her hands, where Lyons noticed her knuckles were enlarged, showing signs of arthritis. She too was short, standing no more than five foot one or two, and although Lyons calculated that she couldn’t have been much older than her mid-fifties, a casual observer would have added ten years or even more to that estimate.
“For God’s sake, Bernard, tell her!” the woman almost screamed at her husband.
Craigue looked perplexed, as if he wasn’t sure what to do next. After a moment filled with tense silence, he said, “You’d better sit down again Inspector, please,” gesturing towards the sofa where Lyons had just been sitting.
“Jeremy isn’t here. He didn’t come home last night,” he said.
“I see,” said Lyons.
“And there’s more,” the man went on, “we got a phone call at five o’clock this morning. Some guy tel
ling us they were holding Jeremy, and if we wanted to see him alive again we are to get a hundred thousand euro together in used notes and await further instructions. They said not to contact the police or Jeremy would be killed.”
“Have you heard any more from this person since?” Lyons asked.
“No. But I’m sure he will be back with instructions about the ransom,” Craigue said.
“Did he call the house phone, or your mobile?”
“House phone. We leave it connected all year round for the burglar alarm,” Craigue explained.
Lyons paused a moment before going on.
“Mr and Mrs Craigue, earlier this morning I was called out to attend a road traffic accident near Roundstone.” She went on to explain how the body of a young man had been found at the scene, and that she herself had recovered the license from his wallet.
Hannah Craigue let out a chilling wail and buried her face in her husband’s shoulder. She started thumping his chest with her puny fists, shouting, “No, no, dear God, no.”
Lyons did her best to comfort the Craigues. They had no relatives nearby, and with the kidnap still in train, there was a need for secrecy, so neighbours could not be called upon. Lyons found a bottle of whiskey in the kitchen and made them both a coffee, generously laced with a good measure of the liquor.
As soon as the couple were settled with their drinks, Lyons went out to the front of the house and called Mick Hays. She outlined the situation to him. When he had digested the new information, he asked, “Do you need me on it, Maureen?”
“Yes, I do, Mick. We still might be able to knobble the kidnapper. It sounds as if there are a few people involved, and some of them may not know that their hostage is dead.”
“OK. It will take me a few hours to get out there. But let’s get Sally out to the house. We need you back at the station in Roundstone to co-ordinate things. In the meantime, get Flynn out there too in case they ring back. Give me the Craigues landline number, I’ll get John O’Connor to see where the early morning call came from. Are you OK?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m fine thanks. Sorry to ruin your day off!”
“Ah what the hell. I’ll see you later.”
Maureen Lyons summoned the two detectives as Hays had instructed and sat down with the Craigues in an uneasy silence to wait for their arrival. Again, she was feeling unsure of herself. She felt she couldn’t manage this situation on her own without calling in her boss. She wasn’t happy.
Chapter Ten
Flynn arrived out at the Craigue’s house, and Lyons set off back into Roundstone. She stopped at the crash scene to find that Dr Dodd had arrived and was busy examining the body of Jeremy Craigue at the roadside.
Lyons parked her car and wandered over.
“Morning, Doc. Anything for me?” she asked.
“Good morning, Inspector. Well the lad is definitely deceased if that’s any help,” he said.
“Not really, Doc. Believe it or not, I had managed to work that out all by myself already,” she said. “I’m more interested in time and cause of death. Anything?”
“I thought you might be. Time is very difficult, Inspector. It’s not like in the movies where we find a conveniently smashed watch face stuck at the time that death occurred. No, this is much harder. You see, it seems he was inside the boot of the car for most of the night, so the usual curve of body temperature cooling will have been distorted. Now if they’d had the decency to leave the boy out in the road, we’d be in business.”
Lyons interrupted, “Could you just cut to the chase, Doc?”
“Oh yes, right, sorry. I’d say between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. approximately, give or take.”
“Thanks. And what about the cause of death?”
“Oh, that’s simple. The tape around his mouth was partly obstructing his nasal passage, and he’d been drinking quite a bit – beer or lager by the smell. He vomited and choked on it. I’m sure I’ll find vomit and a good measure of beer in his lungs when I open him up.”
“Lovely. Anything else?” she asked.
“Well, you may get some prints off the duct tape or the bindings on his ankles and wrists. You can’t easily apply that stuff while wearing gloves. But I’ll leave that to your lot to sort out.”
“Right. When will you be doing the PM?” Lyons said.
“0900 tomorrow, Inspector. See you then?” Dodd said.
“Yes, Doc, I’ll be there. You know how much I love them!”
The doctor went back to his business, and after a short while the body of Jeremy Craigue was lifted off the road and into the back of an anonymous black Mercedes van that was standing by, before it drove off in the direction of Galway.
Deasy was given the all clear to haul the wrecked car as far as Roundstone Garda station, and told not to handle it if possible so that it would not become contaminated with greasy paw marks.
Just as he pulled away, the small white van containing Joe Mason and Brutus arrived. Lyons walked over and greeted Mason as he climbed out of the van.
“Good morning, Inspector. Lovely bright morning out here isn’t it?” he said, full of cheer.
“For some, Joe. Thanks for coming out. How’s Brutus?”
“Ready for work, I’d say, after an hour cooped up in the back of this thing. I’ll just give him a drink and let him do a wee and then we’ll be with you.”
“Grand, thanks,” Lyons said.
Brutus hopped down out of the back of the van where he had been travelling in a sort of metal cage. He was immediately alert and started sniffing around as soon as he landed on the tarmac. He headed off with Joe for a scamper in the long grass at the side of the road to do his business. When Mason and Brutus came back to where Lyons was standing, she couldn’t help but admire the dog. His ears were fully pointed, his eyes bright and his nose wet, and although she really wanted to pet him, she knew better than to confuse the dog.
“OK Joe, here’s what we know.” Lyons went on to explain the events of the morning.
“We can tell from the blood on the airbags that there were two people in the car, apart from the boy in the boot who died. It looks like the driver and passenger made off after the crash, but I don’t think they could have got very far. Can you get Brutus to follow their scent and see if he can find them?”
“No problem. There’s enough blood on the road to give Brutus a good start, isn’t there boy?” Mason said, stroking the animal’s head. Brutus responded by licking his handler’s hand and giving a slight bark – more like a grunt really. The two headed off with Brutus pulling on his lead, his snout close to the ground.
“Joe, before you two vanish, can we do a radio check?” Lyons called after him.
“Oh sure, sorry,” he replied, and they checked their radios to see that there was a clear signal.
When Mason had gone off with Brutus, Lyons asked Pascal Brosnan to drive out to where Jim Dolan had set up the roadblock and let Dolan leave for an early lunch. She wanted to keep the roadblock in place, at least until Joe Mason and Brutus had finished trying to find the occupants of the car.
Brosnan was just driving through Roundstone when the call came in advising him of the stolen van. He pulled over to take the details from the distraught owner, asking him to make sure that a relative hadn’t borrowed it. The owner was adamant that he had left the van where he always did, down by the harbour, and that it had definitely been taken.
“Was the vehicle locked?” Brosnan asked the owner, knowing that the locals in Roundstone rarely secured their vehicles, and often even left the keys in them.
“Not at all, Pascal, not sure who’d be bothered with it,” came the reply.
But it was clear to Brosnan that someone had indeed been bothered with it, and more than likely, that someone was connected to the events of earlier.
When Brosnan had all the details, he got on the radio and put out the information on the stolen vehicle. He then continued out to where Jim Dolan was manning the roadblock.
“Hi Jim,” B
rosnan said as he got out of his own car and sat in the passenger’s seat of Dolan’s Mondeo. “Anything doing?”
“Jesus, Pascal, I’m in a spot of bother now. You know that stolen van? Well it came through here a couple of hours ago. Looked perfectly normal to me. Just a young fella heading into Galway for work, so I let him go,” Dolan said.
“Christ, Jim. You’d better tell Lyons immediately. She’ll go ape shit, but it will be worse if you don’t tell her.”
When Lyons heard the story about how Dolan had let the man slip through his hands she didn’t go ‘ape shit’. There was no point. She told Garda Dolan to get onto Galway so that they could circulate details of the vehicle, hoping to intercept it before it got to the city. Then she told the two Gardaí to go and get some lunch and go back to the station at Roundstone afterwards. She would meet them there as soon as Mason and Brutus were done.
When they had all gone about their business, Lyons was left on her own at the roadside at the top of the lane leading down to the magnificent white sandy beach. Birds sang in the warm midday sun and the scent of the bright yellow gorse wafted by on the light breeze.
“What a place to die,” she said to herself.
* * *
Brutus had no difficulty picking up the scent from the blood on the road surface. Joe Mason had a special lead for the dog that allowed Brutus to go about thirty metres away from his handler but remain under his control. To Brutus, it felt like he was completely free, but Mason could still rein him in if required.
The dog headed down the lane towards the sea, its snout close to the ground, following the trail left by Lorcan and Sheila as they made their escape from the upturned car. About half way down the narrow lane Brutus stopped, and looked back at Mason as if to say, “C’mon Joe, keep up!”
“All right, I’m coming, take it easy,” he said, knowing exactly what the hound was thinking. When Mason caught up with Brutus, the dog set off again, this time leaving the lane, ducking under a wire fence, and taking to the rough, rocky ground to the left of the track. Mason scrambled over a small dry-stone wall so that he could follow.
The Galway Homicides Box Set Page 32