Brutus was sniffing around among the rushes and stumpy grass, concentrating intently, going this way and that, before he picked up the trail again and moved forward. Soon they arrived at the half-built cottage, and Mason could see that there was a lot of debris and broken glass around. He stopped, called the dog to him and fitted protective leather bootees to Brutus’s paws. Brutus knew the drill, and licked Mason’s face as if to thank him while Joe was putting his front paws into the little boots.
With his new footwear in place, Brutus approached the house, and soon found the open back door. Mason had him on a short leash now. He wanted them to stay close in case they encountered a hostile situation. It didn’t take Brutus long to locate the lifeless body of Sheila lying on the dirty old mattress. The dog lay down on the wet floor and whimpered.
“Good boy, Brutus. Good boy, it’s OK,” Mason said, patting the dog’s head, “there’s nothing either of us can do for her now.”
Lyons’ radio crackled into life.
“Inspector, this is Mason. Do you read?”
“Loud and clear, Joe. What’s up?”
“You’d better come down here. The old half-built place near the end of the lane on the left. You can get in by the back door, but be careful, there’s a lot of broken glass. Over”
“OK. I’m on my way. Out”
Lyons arrived a few minutes later, and entered the dark, damp back room of the little house.
“Jesus,” she exclaimed, “this just gets worse and worse.” She checked the side of Sheila’s neck for a pulse, but the only sensation was that of cold, clammy skin.
“I’ll have to call the doc back. I hope he hasn’t got too far. And we’ll need the forensic team too. Can you see if Brutus here can pick up another scent? The girl wasn’t on her own, and the other party may have left some evidence before he got away. Call it in if you find anything,” she said.
* * *
“Dr Dodd, this is Inspector Lyons. I’m still out at Dog’s Bay. Where are you?”
“Just having a spot of lunch at Lahinch Castle, Inspector. It’s very good. Would you care to join us?” Dodd said.
“Well, sorry to break up the party, Doc, but I need you back out here asap. We’ve found another body. A girl this time,” Lyons replied.
“For heaven’s sake, Inspector, this is too much. Perhaps you could make an effort to find them all at once for me,” Julian Dodd said.
Lyons ignored the sarcasm. She gave the doctor instructions on where to find the body and went and sat on a rock outside in the sunshine, trying to soak away the chill she was feeling. As she sat there trying to make sense of all that had happened that morning, her mobile phone rang. It was Mick Hays.
“Hi,” she said as she answered the phone, “where are you?”
“I’ve just arrived at the station here in Roundstone. Pascal and Jim are here. Where are you?” he asked.
“I’m outside a deserted cottage on the lane leading down to the beach. Joe Mason is here with Brutus, and they’ve found the body of a girl. I think she may have been the passenger in the kidnap vehicle.”
“Shit. What a mess. Is Dodd there too?”
“He’s coming. Fortunately, he’d stopped at Lahinch Castle for lunch on his way back to town. He’ll be here in a few minutes. I have Joe, or should I say his dog, sniffing around for any evidence the driver may have left behind,” Lyons said.
“Hmm. Pascal and Jim told me about how the driver almost got a police escort away from the scene. Not their finest hour,” Hays said.
“I’m going to wait till the doctor has looked over this poor lass, see what she can tell us. Then I’ll come back to the station. Can you set up a briefing for, say, three-thirty?”
“Yes ma’am. Anything else you’d like me to arrange for you?”
“Well a fortnight in the Caribbean on a luxury liner would be good,” she said.
“See you soon,” Hays said, hanging up.
Dr Julian Dodd arrived just as Lyons was finishing the call with Hays.
“Well, Inspector, long time no see. How many more cadavers are you going to turn up for me around here today?” the doctor said.
“Let’s just get on with it, Doc, shall we? She’s in here,” Lyons said gesturing towards the house.
Once inside the doctor kneeled down beside the prone form of the dead girl. He examined her head, the degree of stiffness in her limbs, and he took her body temperature.
“She died in the early hours, Inspector, probably around 4 or 5 a.m. Cause of death: loss of blood from the wound you can see plainly at the side of her forehead, coupled with hypothermia. If she’d received medical attention sooner, she would have been fine. But there you go.”
“PM tomorrow morning along with the other victim?” Lyons asked.
“Yes indeed. Two for the price of one, as it were,” the doctor said.
“So far,” she said, giving the doctor a sardonic stare.
Chapter Eleven
Detective Garda Sally Fahy arrived at the Craigue’s house in the early afternoon. Jeremy’s parents were in an awful state, and Sally set about making strong sugary tea and a light lunch which she insisted that they should at least attempt to eat.
Fahy had been a civilian worker with the Gardaí in Galway up to a year ago. She loved the work, and after a few heart to heart chats with Maureen Lyons, she had been persuaded to sign up. She was clever, and had passed through the basic training in Templemore with distinction. Hays had wasted no time in drafting her into the detective unit, and she had proved her worth. Lyons got on well with her too, although she was aware that as a pretty, smart blonde, she could present some competition for her with Hays. So far, her fears hadn’t come to anything.
“When can we see our son?” asked Hannah Craigue, seated at the kitchen table sipping tea.
“Maybe later today. But we need you to stay here for the moment in case the kidnappers call back. They may want to continue with the kidnap, and it’s our best chance of catching them,” Sally said.
“Surely not. They couldn’t be that callous,” Bernard Craigue said.
“Depending on how this thing is set up, they may not know everything that has happened, so let’s see shall we?” Fahy said.
The two detectives decided that Sally could handle the situation at the house on her own, and that Flynn should go back to Roundstone for the afternoon briefing. The Craigue’s house phone had a speaker and a recording feature which would allow her to record any further contact from the kidnappers.
For Fahy and Jeremy’s parents the time dragged slowly in the surreal atmosphere. Fahy did her best to engage the Craigues by talking about Jeremy, but they weren’t in the mood, so after a few attempts she remained silent.
It was late afternoon when the Craigue’s phone suddenly burst into life. Sally let it ring three times before asking Bernard to pick up. She made sure that it was set to ‘record’.
“Is that Bernard Craigue?” the man’s voice said in a London accent.
“It is.”
“Right. Now listen carefully if you want to see your boy again. At exactly eleven-thirty tonight, take the money, packed into a supermarket bag, and drive out to the old deserted seaweed factory on the Mannin peninsula. Leave the money on the ground inside the front door and drive off. No funny business. No police if you want to see your boy again,” the man said.
Sally nodded to Bernard Craigue.
“Wait, wait,” he pleaded into the phone.
“I need to speak to my son. Put him on the line.”
The phone went dead.
“Well done, Mr Craigue. That wasn’t easy. You were very convincing,” Fahy said.
Bernard Craigue buried his head in his hands. Tears flowed from his eyes, and he shook his head silently from side to side.
Sally waited for Hanna Craigue to join her husband on the sofa. Hannah put her arm around his shoulders to try to comfort her husband.
“It’s all right, Bernard, it’s all right.”
/> Sally called Roundstone and updated the team on what had transpired.
Chapter Twelve
Just after half past three Lyons brought the briefing to order. Hays was happy to let Lyons run the meeting. She stood at the top of the small room where a whiteboard had been set up with photos of the dead faces of Jeremy and the girl, with a red line drawn in coloured marker between the two pictures.
Flynn had arrived back and together with Jim Dolan and Pascal Brosnan they sat attentively, with Hays standing at the back of the room.
“Right folks,” Lyons said, tapping her pen on the hard cover of her notebook, “let’s see what we’ve got.”
After she had outlined the events of the morning she summarized the position.
“It looks like the girl might have been used to get the boy’s attention, and then the driver pops out and gives him a smack on the head, before they both bind and gag him and put him in the boot. Have we got any forensics from the car yet? Prints, whatever,” Lyons said.
“They’re working on it now. They say they’ll probably be able to lift some prints from the steering wheel and maybe the boot lid. The driver wasn’t expecting to crash, so he probably didn’t think to wipe it clean,” Garda Dolan said, anxious to make a positive contribution following his earlier mistake.
“Good, Jim. Follow that up for us as soon as we’re done here, will you?” Lyons said.
“So, they have the lad in the car, and presumably they’re going to take him somewhere to hold onto him till the ransom is collected. Probably not too far away either,” Lyons said.
“That’s a real needle in a haystack,” said Brosnan, “there are literally hundreds of empty houses around here just now. They might even have rented one.”
“Hmmm, you’re right. Not much point trying to follow that up unless you get a lead. Any word from Mason?” Lyons said.
“Yes, boss. He called in about ten minutes ago. Brutus followed a trace over to the car park at Gurteen Bay, and then picked it up again. It led down through the village to the harbour, and then went cold,” Brosnan said.
“OK, so that will be where he stole the van then, just like the owner said. Thanks, Pascal, you can tell Mason to stand down and be sure to thank him for us. Without him and Brutus we would never have found the girl.” Lyons said.
“Right then. Tasks for the rest of the afternoon. Jim, you’re going to follow up with forensics on the car. Eamon, will you call Dr Dodd in another half hour or so? See if he can tell us anything about the girl. We need to identify her. Pascal, can you go for a stroll around the village. Chat to the locals, see if you can pick up anything useful, but don’t tell them too much. Remember this is an ongoing situation. There may be more to be done out here tonight yet. Let’s meet here again at seven for an update,” she said, bringing things to a conclusion.
When the team had left to set about their assignments, Hays and Lyons sat down in Pascal Brosnan’s office.
“Tea, Mick?”
“Thanks, yes please.”
Lyons returned a few minutes later with two mugs of tea and a half-finished packet of chocolate biscuits.
“What do you reckon then?” she asked.
“It’s a bit of a mess, Maureen. Two dead bodies, one escaped suspect, and still no clue who’s behind it all. Have we done a profile on the Craigues? That might give us something.”
“Haven’t had a chance, but I’ll get John O’Connor working on it back in Galway straight away,” she said.
“And ask him to look up any recent kidnappings. I thought all this shit had stopped when the freedom fighters hung up their boots, but maybe not.”
“Do you think there could be a subversive connection?” Lyons said.
“It’s possible. They are British after all. But we’ve had none of that crap out here for a good few years now, so I bloody hope not!”
Lyons was uneasy. She sensed that Hays felt that she’d made a mess of things so far, and it didn’t sit easy on her. She went back over events in her mind, and apart from the business of Jim Dolan and the roadblock, she couldn’t see how she could have done things any differently, and even that wasn’t her fault.
Hays was having similar, unspoken thoughts. Had he given her too much responsibility? Was she out of her depth on this one? It was difficult for him as her partner and senior officer to be totally objective. If he’d been out here this morning, would the driver have got away so easily?
“Stop it Mick,” he said to himself, “if my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle.”
The ringing of the phone on Brosnan’s desk broke into his thoughts.
“Hays.”
“Oh, hello sir, this is Sally Fahy. I’m out at the Craigues house.”
Fahy went on to give details of the phone call that had been received from the man with the ransom instructions. She then played Hays a recording of the phone call.
“OK Sally, that’s good work. Why don’t you take the Craigues into Galway now to let them identify Jeremy formally for us? Get them to go ahead of you in the Jag in case the place is being watched. You can follow about fifteen minutes behind them and keep a sharp eye out. Then, when you get to the hospital, bring the Craigue’s car back out here. We’ll need it later on for the drop. Are you OK to lend them yours?”
“Yes, sure boss, that’s no problem,” she said.
“And get them to stay in the city overnight. The last thing we need is some heroics from a grief-stricken parent getting in the way. Book them into the Imperial and charge it to me.”
“Right, boss. See you later then, and will I leave the TV and some lights on in the house?”
“Yes, good idea. Cheers.”
Chapter Thirteen
By lunchtime Lorcan McFadden had driven most of the way to the border with Northern Ireland. As he drove along, making sure to stay within the speed limit, he reflected on the events of the previous night and morning. He knew he was in a lot of trouble. Sheila’s death had been an awful blow to him. He wasn’t that close to her, but still, he was devastated by the way she had died, and he blamed himself for it. They had met at a homeless shelter in Galway a few months earlier and had done some shoplifting together from time to time. Sheila would act as a decoy, creating a fuss about the price of an item in a clothes shop while Lorcan filled his back-pack with four or five garments which they would sell later in a pub for a few euros. That’s what had given him the idea of using her to entrap Jeremy Craigue after they had been approached by the man. She had been a very pretty girl and had a great figure too, so they were sure Craigue would stop to help her at the side of the road.
Lorcan was supposed to collect the ransom for the man too. But he figured that Jeremy would have been discovered alive and well in the boot of the car at first light and was probably back with his parents in Ballyconneely by now, telling the story of how he had been duped and knocked out at the side of the road.
“Oh, yes, fella,” he thought out loud, “that story will be worth an endless supply of pints in Clifden once your cronies get to hear of it.”
With their quarry no longer in captivity, the whole gig had gone pear-shaped in Lorcan’s mind, so all he had to do now was try and get himself safely away without getting caught.
Lorcan didn’t want to cross into Northern Ireland in the van. He thought that there might be CCTV or even a patrol that by now would have been alerted to the stolen vehicle. He decided to swap the old van, which was running low on fuel in any case, for something a bit smarter.
He pulled into a shopping centre car park on the outskirts of Manorhamilton and parked near the road where he had a good view of everyone coming and going. The centre was a single story, modern building, with a central entrance door, and boasted several of the usual brands for fast food, clothing, and household wares. There was a large supermarket occupying pride of place all along the back of the building. The car park was about half full, with some forty or fifty cars, mostly parked in the marked-out spaces that were inevitably too narrow for
the bigger SUVs that had become popular over the recent past. After a few minutes he spotted a woman arriving in a clean looking Ford Focus with Leitrim registration plates. The woman parked the car carefully and got out. She was carrying a shopping bag, and she locked the car and made off into the shopping centre. Lorcan followed her at a discreet distance.
When the woman got inside, she made straight for the café that served the centre on the ground floor and joined another woman of much the same age who was already seated at a small round table.
“Perfect,” Lorcan thought, “they’ll be chatting for ages and then she’ll go shopping. I’ll get a good hour out of it before she realises her car is gone.”
Back outside, Lorcan had a look round for something he could use to open the car. Over in the corner of the car park, where some rubbish had been discarded, he found an old wire coat hanger.
“Perfect,” he said to himself. He used the coat hanger as he had done many times before to spring the lock on the driver’s door; he sat inside and hot-wired the car, all within the space of ninety seconds. A minute later and he was back on the road heading for Northern Ireland.
The Focus was good to drive and Lorcan was delighted to see that it was almost full of fuel. Unusually for rural Ireland, it was a petrol model, which made it a bit zippier than the usual diesel cars.
As soon as he was a few miles inside the North, Lorcan figured that he probably needed to change cars again. But he liked the Ford, and it was still three-quarters full of petrol, so if he kept it, it would see him right as far as Belfast, and perhaps beyond if needs be. He decided on another plan. He knew that there was quite a big car breakers’ yard just outside Enniskillen who weren’t too fussy. He had had a few dealings with them in the past and he knew the man that ran the place.
Lorcan turned into the yard and brought the car to a halt abeam a dirty old caravan. The door of the caravan was open, as were the windows, and tattered old curtains blew around in the breeze. A mean looking black Alsatian perked up when he saw the visitor, and started barking like crazy, baring its teeth, and straining on the stout chain that was anchored to the jockey wheel of the caravan. A man in his late fifties, massively overweight and dressed in greasy jeans that had once been blue and a filthy grey T-shirt emerged from the caravan and stood at the door.
The Galway Homicides Box Set Page 33