Taken for Dead (Kate Maguire) (25 page)

‘Ah stop, Superintendent. You know you can’t ask us that.’

‘If knowing the name of your informant will help me solve this crime, then I’ll have you for obstruction, I promise you.’

‘Well, you’re more than welcome to try, but I don’t think you’ll get very far with it. Not after
Keena and Kennedy
.’

He didn’t need to explain to Katie what he meant. In the legal action to which he was referring,
Mahon Tribunal vs Keena and Kennedy
, in 2009, the Supreme Court had upheld the right of Irish journalists to keep their sources confidential.

‘So,
is
it them?’ asked Branna MacSuibhne, holding out her mobile phone to record Katie’s answer.

‘I’m saying only this: two deceased persons were found on the beach here at Rocky Bay Beach early this afternoon and currently we’re making every effort to identify them and determine how they lost their lives.’

‘But you suspect that they’re Norman and Meryl Pearse, the couple from Ballinlough who found Derek Hagerty by the roadside after he had escaped from the High Kings of Erin?’

‘We’re pursuing several different avenues of inquiry, but that’s all I’m prepared to say for the time being.’

Fionnuala Sweeney said, ‘Can you confirm that they were burned alive?’

Katie was beginning to grow angry again, although she tried hard not to let it show. She thought that Acting Chief Superintendent Molloy had been rash and untypically unprofessional when he told the media about the High Kings of Erin and how a married couple from Ballinlough had rescued Derek Hagerty, even if he hadn’t identified them. But it was clear that these reporters knew a lot more than that. Somebody was leaking them information, and that made her job ten times more difficult. She always liked to give the media the impression that she was telling them every inconsequential detail about a crime and exactly what progress she was making in solving it, but in reality she was very selective with her press releases. She had always believed in keeping criminals in the dark about how much the Garda had found out about them, right until the very last moment when they were arrested – and even then it was important to hold back some critical details until she finally had to put together the Book of Evidence and present it to their solicitors.

She had seen too many cases in which vital evidence had gone missing or been tampered with retrospectively, and too many cases in which witnesses had been intimidated or beaten, or even killed, like Norman and Meryl Pearse.

‘We’ll be arranging for a post-mortem examination, of course,’ said Katie. ‘After that I’ll be able to tell you an exact cause of death.’

‘But they
were
burned?’

‘I’m not saying anything more today, except to appeal for witnesses. If anybody was walking on the cliffs or the seashore around Rocky Bay this morning, would they please contact us, even if they believe they saw nothing out of the ordinary. Also, if anybody was driving on the road between Spruce Grove and Rocky Bay this morning, and passed one or more vehicles coming in the opposite direction, would they please let us know. The road is very narrow and most of the time vehicles have to slow right down and pull over on to the nearside verge to pass each other.’

Dan Keane had stuck another cigarette between his lips and lit it. He looked at Katie with one eye closed and said, ‘Do you want to explain to us why you’re being so unforthcoming about these murders, Superintendent? This is not like you at all. I mean usually you’ll be telling us the colour of the victim’s undercrackers, if he was wearing any, and what his star sign was, and what his mother-in-law cooked for her supper last night.’

‘I didn’t say these people were murdered, Dan. I said only that they were found deceased.’

‘But they
were
murdered, weren’t they?’ put in Branna MacSuibhne. ‘They were buried in the sand and doused with petrol and set fire to.’

‘Absolutely no comment, Branna. I’ll have Tadhg McElvin get in touch with you all as soon we’re ready to give you more.’

‘Well, I hope it’s soon,’ said Dan Keane, blowing out smoke. ‘Otherwise tomorrow morning’s banner is going to be “Why Are Garda So Secretive About Horrific Double Homicide”?’

Katie left them and walked up the slope to her car. Her feelings were more and more mixed up and she was beginning to lose confidence in her own authority. Even worse than that, she was beginning to mistrust her fellow police officers at Anglesea Street. She badly needed to know who was leaking information to the media before she had approved it, especially since the premature release of that information was making it almost impossible for her to find out what was really going on.

She climbed into her car, reversed sharply, and then started the half-hour drive back to the city.

As she drove, she found herself chanting the little jump-rope song that she had learned in high babies:

Are you a witch or are you fairy?

Or are you the wife of Michael Cleary?

Walking along the corridor, she saw that the door to Acting Chief Superintendent Molloy’s office was ajar and that his lights were on. She knocked and opened the door wider. Bryan Molloy was sitting at his desk, talking on the phone. He was wearing a sandy-coloured tweed jacket and a pale green turtleneck sweater that was too tight for him around the neck. He nodded towards the chair on the opposite side of his desk, indicating that Katie should sit down, but she remained standing.

‘All right, Denis,’ he was saying. ‘I’ll see what I can do for you. No promises, mind. I may be the Acting Top Cop here at the moment, like, but I haven’t been promoted to Acting God. Not yet, anyway.’ ‘All right.’ ‘Yes. Good. Good luck to you so.’

When he had finished his call, he kept the receiver held up in his hand, which gave Katie the impression that he was about to dial somebody else and that she was interrupting him. ‘Yes?’ he said.

‘I’ve just come back from Rocky Bay Beach. We haven’t yet formally identified the victims, but I’m certain that it’s Mr and Mrs Pearse.’

‘I see. Bang goes our evidence, then, that Derek Hagerty might have been faking it.’

‘Not entirely. I still think there’s a strong chance that we can persuade him to admit it.’

‘Oh, I think you’ll be fierce lucky to get him to do that. He’s bricking it. And what else do you have? Norman Pearse was the only one who claimed to have seen Hagerty’s bruises washed off, and Norman Pearse was the only one who heard him talking on his mobile phone.’

‘I realize that. But Meryl Pearse had a friend with her when she found Hagerty lying by the road. We don’t know who it was yet, but we’re working on it, and whoever it was might be able to help us.’

‘Well, good luck with that. If Hagerty doesn’t dare to speak, you don’t think this friend will, do you, always supposing that you can find them? So, any road, how was the crime scene? Any good forensics?’

‘Forget about the forensics for the moment – the media only showed up. Dan Keane, Fionnuala Sweeney, and that Branna girl from the
Echo
.’

‘And? It was a major crime scene, on a public beach, what did you expect?’

‘I expected no media at all, not until I was ready for them. I urgently need to find out who tipped them off.’

Bryan Molloy pouted out his bottom lip and shrugged. ‘Could have been anybody. You know what these journos are like, they have eyes and ears everywhere.’

‘No – they knew details that only somebody on the inside of this investigation could have given them. They already knew that it was Norman and Meryl Pearse and they already knew that they’d been half buried and burned.’

Bryan Molloy said nothing, but shrugged again, with his index finger still poised over his telephone keypad.

‘Bryan – ’ Katie demanded. ‘Are you not worried in the slightest that somebody inside this station could be passing confidential information to the media? If this carries on, my investigation into these High Kings of Erin could be seriously compromised. It’s causing me enough complications already.’

Bryan Molloy shook his head from side to side as if he were patiently trying to explain something to a young child. ‘Katie, the security of your investigation is your responsibility, not mine. Believe it or not, I don’t only have crime to take care of. I also have national security and immigration. I have traffic management and road safety. I have community relations and antisocial behaviour. I have inter-agency cooperation to improve the quality of life for people in Cork. I have strategic planning. If we have a mole here in the station, then it’s entirely down to you to sniff him out – him or
her
– and deal with them. In any case, it’s most likely that it’s somebody on your own team, in my opinion. Somebody with a gambling habit? Somebody who’s looking for a little extra grade?’

‘My team are irreproachable. All of them.’

‘Oh yes? What about that detective sergeant what’s-her-name? Ni Nuallán? She’s an odd wan, if you ask me. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if she was a carpet muncher.’

Katie said, ‘
Bryan
– Kyna Ni Nuallán is a very effective and highly respected member of my team, and I won’t tolerate you talking about her like that.’

‘So what are you going to do? Report me? Come on, Katie, don’t act so grim. I was only rowling with you.’

‘You think it’s a joke, do you, to call one of my detectives a lesbian?’

Bryan put down his phone with a bang. ‘You listen to me, Detective Superintendent Maguire, I was an inspector when you were still waving on tractors and helping snotty little kids across the road. It’s not my fault that you’re making a fecking bags of this investigation. I know it’s complicated, but sorting out complicated, that’s your fecking job. You’ve been wrong-footed right from the very beginning, so don’t come cribbing to me about somebody leaking information. It’s up to you to cover your own arse.’

Katie could think of at least three different retorts to that, but she knew that it was pointless. The only way to deal with a man like Bryan Molloy was to let him think that she had given him the last word and then wait patiently for him to become overconfident and make some foolish mistake
. If you wait by the River Lee long enough
, she thought, misquoting the Chinese warrior Sun Tzu,
you will see the body of your enemy float by
.

She took a deep breath, and then said, ‘I’m putting a call in to Dr Reidy. Then I’m calling it a day. You wouldn’t want to be paying me overtime for making such a pig’s dinner of things, would you? I’ll be talking to the media tomorrow, as soon as we’ve formally identified the victims.’

‘Is that it, then?’ said Bryan Molloy, picking up his phone again.

‘Yes,’ said Katie. ‘That’s it. I’ll see you in the morning. Good luck to you so.’

It was cold and foggy when she left Anglesea Street and by the time she was driving down beside the river towards Cobh the fog was so thick that she had to slow down to 10 mph. The streetlights looked like dandelion clocks.

She turned into her driveway and was annoyed with herself for not having switched the porch light on. She still hadn’t quite become accustomed to living alone – drawing the curtains in the living room if she expected to be late back, taking a Tesco ready meal out of the freezer in the morning to defrost, tidying the bed. Out of everything, that was what saddened her the most, coming back to find the bed exactly as she had left it when she woke up. Idle as he was, even Paul used to straighten the quilt and plump up the pillows.

In the darkness of the porch she had to jab her key two or three times before she found the lock. As she turned the key, a ship leaving the harbour let out a long, mournful hoot, as if to emphasize her loneliness. When she pushed open the door, however, Barney came snuffling and waffling and tail-wagging up to her. At least somebody’s pleased to see me, she thought.

She went through to the nursery and locked her revolver in the chest of drawers. Looking around at the baby-blue wallpaper, she wondered if it was time to stop calling it the nursery and redecorate it, so she could use it as a home office.
Everything comes to an end
, she thought,
even though you never believe that it will. People die, lovers walk out of the door. All that remains is the rain
.

She went back into the living room, switched on the television and poured herself a large glass of Smirnoff Black Label. RTÉ’s nine o’clock news would be starting in a few minutes and she wanted to see if Fionnuala Sweeney had filed a report on Rocky Bay Beach. Barney trotted over and sat close to her, resting his head on her lap. She stroked his back and tugged at his ears, which he always liked. She would have to take him for his walk later, even though it was so foggy.

The news was just beginning when her doorbell chimed. ‘Out of the way, Barns,’ she said, and went to answer it.

‘Who is it?’ she called out, standing to one side of the door. Her previous chief superintendent, Dermot O’Driscoll, had recommended that she install CCTV in her porch, but she had never got around to arranging it.

‘It’s me,’ said a man’s voice. ‘David.’

She opened the door and found David Kane standing outside with a smile on his face, holding up a bottle of champagne.

‘Bolly,’ he said.

‘David. It’s late. I have a very early start tomorrow.’

‘Oh, come on. It’s never too late for a glass of bubbly!’

‘What about Sorcha?’

‘Dead to the world, as usual, with her medication. She won’t wake up until eight o’clock tomorrow. Thank you, clozapine, I love you!’

‘I’m sorry, David. I’m serious. I’ve had a very long and difficult day and I really do need to have an early night.’

‘Well, we don’t have to drink the bubbly now. Maybe we could have it for breakfast.’

‘You can’t stay the night, David,’ said Katie. ‘Apart from anything else, I’m not in the mood. I’m extremely tired and I haven’t even eaten yet.’

‘So what were you thinking of having for your dinner?’

‘I don’t know. Something simple and quick, like an omelette.’

‘Oh, Katie, my darling, you should taste my omelettes. I’m a master chef when it comes to omelettes. I’ll make one for you and you can have a glass of bubbly while you’re watching me cook it. And this is the good stuff, not your Tesco Prosecco.’