BENEATH LOST GROUND

by G. D. Higgins

  “What’s going on here?” he said with authority larger than his size.

  “I’m a detective from Waterford City Station.” The nurse looked closely at the card. “I wanted to see if Mr Scully was awake so I could ask him some questions about an ongoing missing person case.”

  “Well, I think it’s obvious he’s not awake,” said the nurse, gesturing with his head. Brophy followed his head movement and winding up to turn away and say something to the nurse; Scully raised his head from the pillow a few inches.

  Brophy did a double-take. “He’s awake. Just one minute, that’s all I ask,” he said and brushed past the nurse. He opened the door and entered with speed and agility enough to give himself a few seconds, then locked it after him. He heard Scully’s mother cry her protests outside but dared not look back might he have a change of heart.

  “Maurice, hello. How are you feeling?” he said on reaching the side of his bed.

  The nurse was banging on the door now, shouting at him. Scully, clearly confused by the ruckus and appearance of a stranger at his bedside, blinked rapidly as if it might help him make sense of things. His eyes were sunk deep like lugworm holes on wet sand, his skin a sickly greenish-blue. Every strained breath revealed the contours of his trachea. His hair, a deep black, looked as though it merely rested on his head, ready to blow away at any moment. Brophy couldn’t figure out if it was from the overdose or years of addiction. Likely both, he conceded.

  “Who are you?” he said in a raspy half-whisper.

  Brophy leaned over, revealing himself more directly to Scully. “Don’t you remember me, Maurice? You said you admired my side-line-ball strikes in your playing days.”

  His eyes focused more on Brophy, and recognition flickered. “What do you want?”

  “I want to give you one last chance to do the right thing. I met Mrs Fanning recently. She used to be good friends with your mother, didn’t she? Childhood friends, I believe. You should see her now, Maurice. Lost all hope of ever knowing what happened to her seventeen-year-old daughter, her only child. She’s a shell of a woman.”

  Scully sniggered, a ragged wheeze of a laugh. “I told you-,” he paused to take a laboured breath. “That I have no idea what happened to that girl.” He smirked and turned his head to look out the partition window. His mother was banging on the glass, attempting to clear Brophy out of her son’s room.

  “What about my ma? Look what this has done to her?”

  “I know, Maurice. Nobody wins in a situation like this. But Foylan seems to have done well enough for himself.”

  Scully turned back to Brophy, and his anger was palpable. “Surprised any of us come out the other side with what you and your crew done to us. Didn’t show myself outside the door for two years, you bastard,” he spat at him.

  “That’s because people know what happened, and they’re disgusted. There’s still a chance to set things straight. Release everyone from this, your mother included. Isn’t that what you’re trying to do with this overdose, anyway? Why not give that chance to a dozen others too?”

  Scully’s rage was beginning to soften, and Brophy thought his eyes were tearing up. He went with it. “You know, Rob called me a couple of days before he passed away? He wanted to meet up and talk to me.”

  “I know,” he said, the tears and grief now pouring down his face. “And he couldn’t even get that right. Left me here all by myself, that coward.”

  “You can change it all. Just tell me where she is.” Brophy didn’t notice the large security guard jostling with his set of keys in the lock. He barged in with a whoosh and a crack.

  “What the hell are you doing in here with that man? He’s in a critical condition,” shouted the guard in a cockney accent.

  Brophy paid no attention and tried again. “Where is she, Maurice?”

  The guard grabbed his upper arm, but Brophy pulled back to await Scully’s answer. He was positioning to say something. Twenty years in the job and Brophy knew that look.

  “Fuck off, you pig. I don’t know a thing.”

  By now, the guard had his two hands on Brophy, and he angrily shook free and shouted that he was a cop. He fumbled and pulled out his warrant card. “Here. See. Look,” he said, his heart rate fluttering.

  “I’m gonna have to ask that you leave, Sergeant Brophy. He’s a sick man. He can’t have any more stress right now.”

  Scully’s mother was shouting blue murder at Brophy, the nurse trying to calm her down.

  “Okay, I’m leaving.”

  Scully started screaming at the top of his lungs, and after a few seconds, Brophy realised he was laughing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Monday morning brought no relief from the heat, and humidity levels were at a point Brophy had only experienced once, on a trip to Thailand, courtesy of the county board for winning the Munster Final in ‘01. Mixed with his displeasure was the fact that he’d barely managed three hours sleep the night before, the chaos of the last few days playing hard on his mind. He wore a black polo-neck to offset the brightness of the beige linen pants he put on, the lightest item of clothing in his possession.

  He arrived at Glencairn Industrial Estate at a little after nine. The car park of the one-storey flat-roofed white building was all but full. Business as usual. McCall had called him a while earlier to say she’d be running late and pleaded with him to wait until she arrived to question the employees. In his foul mood, he begrudgingly agreed to hold off on the second interview with the board member, David Hughes. But first, he’d interview the receptionist by himself.

  The lobby was more like that of a hospital; one of the very expensive private ones like where he was taken if he had an injury during the inter-county championship. The walls were white and adorned in places with white PVC panelling, the name of the company spattered here and there in blue letters. At first, he thought there was no one at the reception desk but as he drew closer, heard sniffling coming from behind it. He leaned over and saw a young lady with her head rested on her crossed arms on the desk.

  “Am, excuse me? Are you Clíodhna Devlin?”

  She raised her head from her arms, and her face was all puffy and streaked with make-up infused tears like she’d been crying for days. “Yes,” she said in a trembling voice. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Detective Brophy. I’m investigating the death of your boss, Jordan Walters.” Her face quivered, and he anticipated an explosion of grief. However, she managed to hold it together.

  “Oh, yes. I was expecting someone at some stage today. I just thought it’d be more than one person, and they’d be wearing uniforms, is all.” She dabbed at the tears with a red hankie, and for a brief second, he saw what Walters must have been attracted to. Although not conventionally beautiful, her big blue eyes and doll-like face gave her a hidden magnetism most men would find difficult to deflect.

  “Do you think we’d be able to go somewhere to have a chat, Ms Devlin?”

  “Of course,” she said, braving an attempt at a smile, revealing yet more of her strange allure. “We can go to the waiting lounge across the hall there.” She got up and walked around the desk, and in a business-like manner, ushered him across the lobby to a room beside the security doors, leading into the labs. Brophy sat on a two-seater sofa facing the door, and she sat on a swivel chair across from him.

  “Firstly, I’m very sorry for your loss. How well did you know Jordan Walters?”

  “Oh, not that well,” she said, not making eye contact as she spoke. “But he was a very good boss. Took good care of all the staff.” She trembled again.

  “Have you ever seen anyone here with Jordan who wasn’t connected to the company?”

  “Let me see?” she said, overemphasising her attempts at recollection with head tilts and ‘Em’s.’ “No, not that I can think of now.”

  “We will be able to find any irregularities on the sign-in ledger we took as evidence, you know?”

  “Really? Oh. The only person I’ve ever signed in
that wasn’t here on business was that Barry Donahue man. Bloody creep, he is.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He tried to hit on me every time he was leaving.”

  “That must be frustrating, especially given that he’s a married man.”

  She forced an awkward smile. “Except that one time, a few weeks ago. He left in a bit of a tear.”

  “Any idea why?”

  “Jordan said he was trying to get out of a deal.” The guilt flushed down her face. She knew she’d slipped up.

  “You seem closer to him than a receptionist usually would be unless there’s some kind of personal relationship you’re withholding from us.”

  “Withholding?” she said, clutching the red hankie with two hands now. “That sounds very serious.”

  Brophy put on his best concerned-friend voice. “But if you have no connection with the crime itself, there’d likely be no need to have your name brought into any potential future court case.”

  “Oh, my god! My mother will kill me. She thought this job was the best thing for me, getting away from Limerick for a while. If she found out I was involved with my boss, and now he’s been murdered along with his wife... Oh, for cryin’ out loud, what’s happening?” She broke down again. “It’s not like that, Detective. We were very close. I never meant for it to happen, but he was so charming and good looking. We fell for each other. That’s all. I’m sorry,” she said and wiped her eyes.

  “It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”

  “He had a very unhappy marriage. I think he wanted to leave her.”

  “Did he tell you that?”

  “Not exactly. But he often talked about selling up shop and taking me to Bahrain to live the high life. One of the things I found so cute about him was that he thought he was some kind of big-shot gangster or something the way he talked some times.”

  “What do you mean by that? What would he say?”

  “Oh, just silly things, like if he’d an argument with a client or supplier, he’d tell me in private later that he could have the person and his family wiped out if he wan-” Her face turned to one of shock realisation. “And that’s what happened to him, isn’t it? Someone came after him and his family.”

  “On Thursday, he left at eleven-thirty to pick up his son from hurling camp.” Her eyes shot to the side. “Are you sure he didn’t bring the boy back here?”

  “I’m certain.”

  “He was gone for almost two hours. Have you any idea at all where he might have gone?”

  She didn’t say anything, just gazed ahead, doughy-eyed.

  “What is it, Clíodhna?”

  “He didn’t pick up his son that day.”

  “What? How do you know?”

  “Because he was with me the whole time. We went to a Hotel 6 on Cork Road. I left with him and returned with him. We were never out of each other’s sight.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the officers who questioned you on Friday?”

  “They never mentioned him picking up his son. They just asked me what time he left and returned, so I told them.”

  “Okay. That’s fair enough. But you might need to make an official statement to that effect at some stage.”

  “You said you’d keep my name out of it.”

  “I said I’d try my best, and I will. I don’t think there’ll be any need to make this public.”

  “I can’t believe he’s actually dead,” she said and broke down crying again.

  Ten minutes later, Brophy met a leaden-faced McCall out in the car park. She was smoking a cigarette and wearing a black skirt and white blouse, making her look quite business-like.

  “What did the receptionist have to say for herself?” she said and took a deep draw from her smoke.

  Brophy edged in close as if someone might be listening in. “He didn’t pick up the boy at hurling camp.”

  “You serious? How do you know?”

  “As expected, they were having an affair. She said he was with her at lunchtime on Thursday. They went to a cheap motel for a bit of a mid-afternoon roll.”

  “Jesus. So who?”

  “Send a message to everyone on the team. Let them know we still need an I.D. on the car that picked him up.”

  McCall rested the cigarette between her lips and began pounding on her touch screen with a speed that dismayed Brophy. “And tell someone to call the Motel 6 on Cork Road to verify their presence.”

  She finished the two messages and took another couple of drags, then threw the butt at Brophy’s feet.

  “Hey! What did I tell you about that?” he said with a wry smile. “Let’s go in to talk to this Hughes character, see what he has to say.

  They entered the lobby and were greeted with a big smile from Clíodhna Devlin. Good morning, how may-” she said before becoming self-conscious, discovering it was Brophy returning. The sunny disposition drained from her face. “Detective. Mr Hughes will be waiting for you. Third door on the left.”

  She buzzed them through, and McCall gave her a sarcastic smile as she passed.

  Brophy stopped outside the office door and looked down the empty, silent hall. The left side looked to be taken up by offices, and meeting rooms, whilst along the right were secured, tightly shut lab doors. Music played over unseen speakers giving the place a new-age vibe. He gave a nod to McCall and she knocked three times on the black door.

  “Come in,” came a muffled voice from inside.

  McCall entered, followed by Brophy.

  The room was larger and brighter than Brophy had expected, the back wall an expansive patio window with a door that led out to a quad garden, ornately laid out with Japanese style plants and wooden furniture. Hughes sat in a black leather chair. His hair was light brown and coiffed, and he wore a brown pinstripe suit with a blue shirt and red tie. Attempting to maintain an air of cool, he glared at the detectives as they entered, sitting cross-legged, his elbows resting on the sides of his over-sized chair, fingers tented in front of his chest. Brophy saw right through the calm guy act.

  “Take a seat there, please,” he said without moving from his position.

  The office didn’t have much in the way of filing cabinets or shelves, but Brophy assumed maybe those things were now obsolete in the corporate world. Unlike the station, where everything they had seemed to be stuffed into a filing cabinet somewhere. They sat on the two chairs facing Hughes.

  “I’m Detective Sergeant McCall and this is Detective Sergeant Brophy.”

  “Terrible thing, what happened to Jordan and Maura.” His eyes showed a deep sadness. “We’ve all known each other for many years, you know?”

  “Yes, we know. And we’re very sorry for your loss. It must have been difficult to come into work today,” said McCall.

  “Truth be told, I didn’t want to come near the place for a while, but the other board members pleaded with me. They thought, because of our closeness in age, I’d be more of a comfort to the technical staff. A show of solidarity, if you know what I mean?” He hardly took his eyes off McCall as he spoke.

  “And did it work?”

  “Did what work?”

  “Were you a comfort to the employees?”

  He puffed out his cheeks, and regret was plain in his features. “To be perfectly honest with you, I don’t think they care all that much. The few of them who said anything showed more concern for their jobs than anything else.”

  “I take it Jordan didn’t have the greatest rapport with his staff,” said Brophy.

  “You could say that.”

  “How about you and he?” said McCall. “Did you have a good working relationship?”

  “As I said, we’ve been close friends for years.”

  “That’s not what she’s asking,” said Brophy. “She means did you work well together? Always on the same page and things like that?”

  He looked a little stumped by the question. “It’s a high-pressure industry. We need to be very precise with things. Deadlines can be quite intense
, and tempers definitely flare up at times. Mostly Jordan and I worked very well together.”

  “You’re the accounts manager as well as being on the board, is that right?” asked McCall.

  “That’s right.”

  “How is the financial state of the company?”

  He smiled, proud of himself. “It’s excellent. We’re one of the most profitable homegrown companies in Waterford. We’ve won numerous awards from the Chamber of Commerce.”

  “Can we have a list of your investors?”

  “I’m afraid that’s confidential. We couldn’t possibly give out that information.”

  “We can have a summons within forty-eight hours, so it’s better to hand it over now,” said Brophy.

  “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll wait to see that summons.”

  “Fair enough.” Brophy looked around the office again, thinking about how relaxing it would be to work in a space like that. “Did you go to school together?” he asked, focusing on making eye contact with Hughes again.

  “Yes. Secondary school and university,” he said with slight irritation.

  “Then I take it you’re also pals with Bobby Quilty?”

  The strain of faking a smouldering resting face, drained from his features. His lower lip quivered. “I-I came across him from time to time. Never cared much for him though. Even in secondary school, he had notions of big-time crime.”

  “When we check the financial records of the company,” cut in McCall, “I assume we’ll be able to account for all the great profits that come your way?”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t you?”

  “What about the offshore accounts?” said Brophy firmly.

  Hughes’s face reddened. No way could he hide his fear now. “Please. I had nothing to do with anything. I just did what I was told. Every account I cleared had the proper paperwork and invoices.”

  “What are you so afraid of then?” asked McCall.

  “Are you fucking serious? I have a family. A wife and two daughters. That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “There was a large amount of drugs found in Jordan’s garage,” said Brophy. “And if you want us to protect you, no bullshitting. From now on, if we think you’re not giving us a straight answer, we walk out.”