The Irish Scissor Sisters (37 page)

The following day, the Divisional Search Unit attached to the Dublin North Central Division went to Harry Byrne’s house in Castle Park to dig up the river embankment at the end of the house. The embankment consisted mainly of earth, on top of two or three layers of sand and rubble, on top of plastic sheeting. At the edge where the river and the embankment meet, there are layers of plastic sheeting, metal strips and sand. Garda Gavin Dunphy recovered a number of items of potential evidence during the dig. A Dublin Corporation envelope, dated 10 June 2005, was recovered along with a Scooby Doo picture frame with a picture of Adolf Hitler inside. A Meteor mobile phone receipt from the Esso garage on Richmond Road was found, along with a brown degradable bag containing hair and maggots. A blue plastic bag was also dug up, containing a pair of gloves, a cigarette lighter from Gala stores in Ballybough, a bathroom towel and a chain. A large knife with a black handle was also found. Detectives were sure that the Liffey find was linked to the murder. They believed that John Mulhall had stored the duvets and other items he’d removed from the Ballybough murder scene in his shed for a few months before deciding what to do with them. When Harry Byrne went on holidays, they were sure that Mulhall had decided that the river at the back of his house would be the perfect place to dispose of the bags of evidence. He wasn’t very clever in getting rid of the evidence, however, and hadn’t realised that he was spotted carrying out the early evening dumping exercise. Allowing the wheelie bin to fall into the water was a particularly amateur error, considering his house number was on the side of it. It wouldn’t take much investigation to lead gardaí straight to him.

John Mulhall was questioned in his house in September 2005 about the Leixlip dumping and admitted that he had thrown bags into the river. He told Sgt Liam Hickey that he did casual work for his boss Harry Byrne at his Castle Park house. He’d often cut the grass, trim the hedges and do general maintenance at the house. He said he’d been cutting the grass and watering the plants in Harry’s garden. He admitted he had brought a green wheelie bin, with the number thirty-one on the side, from his house in Tallaght, with him. There was normal domestic rubbish at the end of the bin but his son Andrew had partially filled the top of it with gravel. John claimed he had been tipping the bin over the riverbank, to put some hedge cuttings in it, when he’d lost his balance and let it drop into the water. It had floated downstream, too far away from where he was standing, and he couldn’t recover it. He added that there was an old duvet cover from his house, which had been left out in the rain, and that this was also in the bin. Four separate strips of carpet, about 4 feet by 2 feet long, in a black plastic bag, John said were also probably in the bin. John denied that anything that had ended up in the river came from the murder scene in Ballybough.

Gardaí were never able to definitively link what was found in the river to material taken from 17 Richmond Cottages but there is no doubt, in the investigators’ minds, that these items came from the flat. One senior detective estimated that gardaí only know about 70 per cent of what really happened on the night of Farah Noor’s murder. It is possible that half a dozen knifes were used to kill him but were disposed of elsewhere.

With the help of pressure from John Mulhall, Linda finally rang Detective Inspector Christy Mangan on 19 August and told him that she wanted to meet. She did this because John had wanted her to tell the truth and face up to the consequences of her actions. Linda had confided in her dad over the previous few months and he knew that she wanted to clear her conscience, but the pressure Kathleen and Charlotte put on her to say nothing was making it difficult for her. The pair had discussed the horror of the events at 17 Richmond Cottages in detail and John knew exactly what had happened, even if he wasn’t telling the gardaí. When he had met DI Mangan and Sgt Hickey on 17 August Linda had failed to keep the appointment. During the following forty-eight hours, John put a lot of pressure on Linda to meet with the detectives.

That evening it was John who answered the door to the two gardaí and brought them to Linda’s room in the extension at the back of the house. After she had opened her heart, confessed and agreed to drive with the two officers to the crime scenes, John was there waiting at the door to hug his tearful daughter and tell her that everything would be OK. He was waiting at the door of the house again, hours later, when the unmarked garda car pulled up with Linda inside, and he shook the two gardaí’s hands.

During the first few difficult weeks after she had come forward to try to atone for what she had done, John looked after Linda. He took an unfailing interest in the case. For example, in one instance after the gardaí had spent a full day searching for the head at Killinarden Hill, he asked Sgt Liam Hickey, ‘Have you found it?’ He urged the Sergeant to keep searching the field, because, he said, ‘I’m 100 per cent accurate that’s where it is.’

John Mulhall continued to have regular contact with the police. He was interviewed again on 10 November at Kilmainham Garda Station by DI Christy Mangan and Sgt Liam Hickey. He admitted that he called to the murder scene at around 1 a.m. and stayed there a couple of minutes, but he said that he had left in disgust and gone back home to Tallaght. He swore that he wasn’t in Richmond Cottages the morning after the murder but conceded that he did remove Kathleen’s TV, video, CD player and dishes later on. He said that ‘to my knowledge’ these didn’t end up in the Liffey at Harry Byrne’s house.

After Linda and Charlotte were charged with Noor’s murder, it was John Mulhall who picked up the pieces and took over looking after Linda’s four children. He tried to give them as normal a life as possible during the very traumatic period in their young lives. When his two daughters were brought before the courts it was a very awkward time for John and his other kids. Friends and neighbours were constantly asking them about what had happened and the case was the talk of Jobstown. Linda’s children also had to put up with the stigma of having a murderer for a mum. From August onwards, everyone was under a lot of pressure, especially John, who started to withdraw into himself, struggling to comprehend the events that had led up to his family being ripped apart.

John Mulhall was working with his brother Eric on the Castle Park Construction site in Cork Street in the south inner-city. The two men had worked for City Glass for nearly sixteen years and were very close. They were happy when they were given the same jobs because they could catch up and spend some time together. It was Thursday, 8 December 2005, three months since Linda had been charged with Farah Swaleh Noor’s murder and nearly seven weeks after Charlotte had been charged. John had been depressed and in bad form at times since Linda and Charlotte had admitted killing Noor. Those close to him understood. He was devoted to his family and blamed himself for what had happened. He had urged Linda to confess as he knew that ringing Detective Inspector Christy Mangan was the right thing to do. She probably would have said nothing but for that and now his two girls were facing the prospect of life behind bars. This ate him up inside. He also couldn’t live with the guilt of knowing that they had killed a man.

John and Eric finished work at about 5 p.m. that night and John drove his van back to Tallaght, while thirty-two-year-old Eric went to his house in Kimmage.

Marie Mulhall rang Eric at about 7 p.m. that night and asked him to go with her to the vet on the Old Kilmainham Road because her dog was sick. John drove Marie and the dog there and Eric met them outside. When the vet had treated the dog and given it a clean bill of health, the three decided to go for a drink. They headed to Ryan’s pub on James’s Street and had a few pints together. John was in great form. He met a couple of old friends he hadn’t seen in years and was laughing and joking with them. It was as though he’d finally managed to put the hell of the last few months firmly behind him.

The group left the pub at about 10 p.m. and John and his daughter drove to the Texas Fried Chicken takeaway in Crumlin. Eric followed behind them in his car. They were all hungry, as they hadn’t had dinner, and they bought some food to take back to Tallaght. John also bought snack boxes for Linda and his four grandkids and they all went back to Kilclare Gardens to have a meal.

When they arrived, Linda was there with her kids but she was very drunk. She had obviously spent the evening drinking vodka and was in a shocking mood. It was obvious that she was going to take it out on somebody. Sure enough she turned on John and started laying into her father: ‘It’s your fucking fault that we’re in the trouble we’re in. You’ve never fucking done anything for us.’ As she shouted at her father, they all looked on in shock. John was used to such displays from his wayward daughter and knew that it wasn’t wise to respond. Instead he put his arm on her shoulder and tried to calm her down but she just got worse and started calling him every name under the sun. She stormed from room to room, turning the place upside down, saying that Charlotte had stolen her Christmas money for the kids. Christmas was less than three weeks away and she said that she’d planned to go down to the Square to get Santa presents. Her dad told her to calm down and promised he’d get the money back from Charlotte. Linda said it must have been Charlotte who had taken the money because she was the only one who knew where it was hidden.

Eric and Marie had gone upstairs during the fight but they could still hear all the screaming. Linda eventually relaxed a bit and seemed happy enough that she’d get her cash back. ‘I only want to get Christmas toys for the kids, Da,’ she said.

‘I know you do, love. You’ll get your toys; don’t worry,’ he told her and she went outside to the garden extension to have a rest and calm down.

John sat in the front room for a few minutes and then he walked upstairs to his bedroom. Eric went out to the landing and asked him if everything was okay. John said he was going to go out and find Charlotte and get Linda’s money back. Eric asked if he wanted a lift but John refused and said he wanted to go by himself. He took the keys for the van and went out the door with a vacant look in his eyes.

Eric decided to stay in Tallaght that night to make sure that things were all right and no more trouble kicked off. When he woke up the next morning, he went to wake up John but his bed was empty. His heart sank. It wasn’t like his brother to not come home. He was a devoted family man who was always up early to go to work and get Linda’s kids off to school. Eric immediately felt that something wasn’t right but hoped that his brother had found Charlotte and stayed with her. He thought John might be trying to talk some sense into her about stealing money from the family.

When John hadn’t turned up after a few hours, Eric rang Tallaght and Rathfarnham Garda Stations to see if his brother had been arrested but they had no record of coming across John Mulhall at all. Eric also contacted the Mater and St Vincent’s hospitals in case his brother had had an accident in the van and had been brought there by ambulance, but they had no information either. In the end Eric drove to work with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He spoke to Marie a few times during the day but John still hadn’t come home or made contact with anyone.

After work Eric went back to Kilclare Gardens but there was still no sign of his missing brother. He finally drove up to Tallaght Garda Station and officially reported his older brother missing. When a plainclothes detective knocked on the door later that night, Eric knew that he’d never see his brother again.

The row with Linda had been the last straw for John. All he wanted to do was look after his family and he’d failed. His two daughters were facing a murder trial after admitting they had killed and cut up their mam’s boyfriend; two of his three sons were in prison for serious crimes. What had he done wrong? He drove the van around Tallaght looking for Charlotte but didn’t have a clue where she might be. They’d hardly seen her since the charge and it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. As he drove aimlessly around the city, he thought about his life. He had been wild in his younger days and got in trouble with the law but he had tried to steer his children onto the right path. What hope did they have though? His own wife had up and left him for a refugee after twenty-nine years of marriage. He was hopeless, worthless and had let everyone he knew and loved down. The thoughts went round and round in his head until he had finally made up his mind.