The Priest (2 page)

‘I’d say it probably does,’ he said finally. ‘To the Minister, at least. But, look, I’ve only just been pulled in on this,
so I really can’t say. All I know is that, generally, if there’s any kind of politics involved, it’s as well to know exactly
what we’re dealing with. Right?’

She held his gaze. He could see her thinking it through. Then she nodded.

‘I don’t know the details but he’s in the Spanish government and this thing’s really rattled the brass. Not enough for any
of them to come down and handle it themselves, of course.’

‘No chance,’ Mulcahy agreed. ‘They’ll all steer clear for as long as they can. Or at least until they know which way the wind
is blowing.’

She didn’t respond to that, didn’t need to.

‘So how’s the girl?’ he asked. ‘Well enough to be interviewed, anyway?’

‘Hard to say. She’s out of immediate danger, according to the doctors. Whether she’s really up to questioning is another matter.
Healy says to push it, if we can. Got to have something for the Minister.’

She looked away and tucked a loose strand of hair back in line behind her ear, a flicker of uncertainty on her face now.

‘Her name is Jesica – with just the one S, they said. Doesn’t sound very Spanish, does it?’

Mulcahy shrugged. He’d heard the name occasionally in Madrid, the distinctive pronunciation of the J making it sound as natural
in Spanish as in English. He thought Brogan was going to leave it at that but then she pulled out a notebook from her coat
pocket.

‘Family name’s Me-laddo Salsa, or something like that,’ she said, leafing through the pages. ‘I’ve got a note of it here somewhere.’

Me-laddo Salsa? What the hell sort of name was that? Then it hit him.

‘Me
lla
do?’ he blurted, pronouncing it halfway between a J and a Y, as the Spanish would. Now the name was instantly recognisable.
His heart thumped hard in his chest. ‘Are you saying her father’s name is Mellado Salazar?’

‘That sounds about right,’ Brogan said, frowning at him like she thought he was being a smart-arse correcting her pronunciation.
‘You know it?’

‘It’d be hard not to, where I was working,’ he said, trying to keep the alarm out of his voice. ‘Alfonso Mellado Salazar is
the Spanish Interior Minister.’

El Juez
, they called him. The Judge. A notorious hardliner – zero tolerance, Spanish style. A throwback to the old regime. Jesus, if
it was his daughter there would be trouble for certain.

‘Let’s just say it was immediately obvious she’d been seriously sexually assaulted.’

Brogan was showing Mulcahy up to the ward now, explaining how the girl had been spotted on the Lower Kilmacud Road in the
early hours, half naked and in terrible distress, by a motorist who stopped and rang for the Gardai and an ambulance. ‘It
took them a bit longer to figure out she was Spanish. She was in an awful state, completely incoherent. Meanwhile, Dundrum
Garda Station took a call from a couple worrying because the sixteen-year-old Spanish student lodging with them hadn’t come
home from a night out. It was only later they thought to mention whose daughter she was.’

She looked at him closely, letting him put it together for himself. ‘It took a while for the pieces to fall into place but,
once they did, it didn’t take long for panic to break out in the Park.’

Mulcahy nodded sympathetically. Few if any from the upper echelons of the force would have been on duty at the Garda Siochana
headquarters in the Phoenix Park on such a sunny Sunday morning. He could imagine the riptide of career anxiety that must
have washed out along the phone lines to Dublin’s fancier suburbs. Healy had called him from his home out in Foxrock. How
many other Sunday lunches would this news have spoiled?

‘Have the press got hold of it yet?’ Mulcahy asked.

‘No,’ she said. ‘And Healy’s determined to keep it that way.’

‘He can’t seriously think he’ll be able to do that?’

Brogan shrugged. ‘Well, nobody here in the hospital
knows whose daughter she is. Whatever English she had, it’s been knocked out of her. So, beyond the brass and us, it’s only
the Dundrum lads who know. Healy’s made it quite clear it’s a one-way trip to the sticks for anyone who breathes a word.’

Mulcahy thought about it. Being transferred out of Dublin to man some godforsaken small-town station would be a fate worse
than death for most guards. But he doubted it was Garda tongues wagging that Healy needed to worry about. Hospitals are big
places, and Healy could never control that side of things.

‘Of course, the Spanish embassy’s been informed as well. But they’re not very likely to go blabbing to the papers.’

‘Have they not been down here yet?’ He was surprised about that. When it came to protecting one of their own, diplomats were
usually even quicker off the mark than cops.

‘On their way, I’m told. Probably not many of
them
around on a Sunday, either.’ Brogan checked her watch again. ‘Which is why we need to get cracking, or they’ll be trying
to tie us up in red tape before we can get anything out of her.’

As they pushed through a door leading on to the ward, Brogan put a hand out, stopping him. ‘Before we get into this, I need
you to know that I’m the one who’s directing the interview, not you.’

‘Fine with me,’ he said. Territoriality was part and parcel of life in the Garda Siochana, everybody guarding their own patches
like chained dogs. ‘It’s your bag,’ he added. ‘And by
the sounds of it you’re welcome to it. I might need a minute or two to build a rapport with the girl, y’know, but otherwise
she’s all yours. Like you said, I’m only the translator.’

‘Good.’ A brief smile lit up Brogan’s face, only for it to darken again. ‘Look, there are a couple of ground rules I need
to go through with you before we go in. But first I’ve got to warn you. I’m sure you’ve been in the job for years, Mike, and
you’re a hard man and all. But I’m telling you, this guy did a right job on the poor kid.’

S
iobhan Fallon waited outside her apartment while the delivery guy clattered down the stairs. Only when she heard the downstairs
door slam shut did she go back in and close hers behind her. As far as she knew, there’d never been any actual intruders discovered
in Ballsbridge Court. It was much too nice a block for that. But the busybodies in the residents’ association would be on
her back about ‘security’ if she didn’t toe the line. And the last thing she needed was to rock the boat in this, the one
place she could retreat to for a bit of peace and quiet. Hampered by the huge basket of flowers in her arms – pink and white
roses, starburst lilies, and God knows what else – she gingerly made her way over to the small pine dining table by the living-room
window. Setting it down beside the newspaper already laid out there, she thought about getting her camera to record the moment,
then noticed the envelope taped to the basket. No one but Harry Heffernan, her editor, could have organised a Sunday delivery.
Still, she wanted to see it for herself in black and white.

As it was, the card was a bit of a let-down: ‘To our very own top striker! Love and appreciation – Harry.’ How lame was that?
It was worse than his duff headlines.

Siobhan stared down at the copy of the
Sunday Herald
spread out on the table. A classic paparazzi shot took up most of the tabloid front page, the colours washed out by the flare
of a flashgun in the night: soccer international Gary Maloney frozen in time, exiting an elegant Georgian doorway, his dyed-blond
hair tousled like a sleepy six-year-old’s, his eyes rimmed red with excess of one sort or another – or quite possibly more.
But, from a news point of view, all the magic was in the background where, peering out, caught in the act of blowing a kiss,
could be seen the easily recognisable, blonde-haloed face of Suzy Lenihan. As in the celebrity, ex-model wife of Maloney’s
boss, the Republic of Ireland team manager Marty Lenihan. Which might have been fine, even quite charming, had it not been
for those two perfectly lit curves of shoulder and hip also jutting out from behind the door, attesting to the fact that Suzy
was buck naked. In the circumstances, the blaring headline – splashed in reversed-out 72-point white down the left side of
the picture: MALONEY SCORES WITH MANAGER’S MISSUS – was pretty much surplus to requirements.

All the other words on that page were Siobhan’s. She looked them over, if not exactly with pride, then at least with a heartfelt
sense of satisfaction. In particular, she liked the four words picked out in bold at the head of the story:
Siobhan Fallon
,
Chief Reporter
. It had taken a heck of a lot
to win that title, and all too often it was only when, as now, she saw it in print that she felt it was worth it. Every element
of the story was down to her. She’d sniffed it out from one of her best sources, tracked down the lovers, told Franny the
snapper where to meet her. All he had to do was sit in the car with her and wait until Maloney came out. Flash, whirr, flash
– pics in the bag. And then she’d dived in with the voice recorder. No hassle, no fists, no abuse. Maloney was too startled,
or too coked out of his tree. And when she asked him for a comment, the dim hunk gave her one to die for. ‘Did the wife send
you?’ he’d asked. Christ, you couldn’t make it up. If she was the editor, that would have been the headline.

Not that it mattered. It was the biggest scoop of the day by a long shot. Siobhan grinned to herself, ran her eye over the
page again, and went to fetch her camera from her bag. The story had been picked up by every newsdesk in the country and it
was one of the lead items on RTE radio’s
Ireland on Sunday
, to which she’d contributed by phone earlier. After which, it was prominent on every other radio and TV bulletin she’d seen
and heard. Even made it as high as the number-three item on Sky News at one point. And still Harry thought he could palm her
off with a bunch of flowers?

She tried to hold out against the thought, didn’t want to spoil the moment. She looked again at the profusion of blooms in
the basket. Flowers were all well and good but they wouldn’t pay any bills. She wondered what Heffernan would have sent one
of her male colleagues in the same
circumstances. Tickets for a big match, probably. At least you could flog those on eBay. But she pushed the idea away impatiently.
It wasn’t about that. It was about getting her due. That long-promised pay rise, she thought, as the frustration began to build
again.

She flopped on to the sofa, feeling suddenly defeated. Around the room, newspapers and magazines, most weeks out of date,
were strewn everywhere. The few sticks of furniture she possessed were buried under stacks of unironed clothes, half-read books
and discarded packaging from things she mostly couldn’t recall buying. It was worse in the bedroom, where stuff got dumped
and left for weeks on end before being washed or else picked up, brushed down and re-worn after a decent interval. Every moment
she had, she gave to her job. There never seemed to be time for all the other bits and pieces.

Siobhan stared up at the white, uncluttered ceiling. The only trapping of success that would mean anything to her right now
was a cleaner. If only for one or two mornings a week, just to tidy up, do some ironing, take a tiny bit of the burden of
living from her. But the mortgage payments, even on this shoebox, were already crippling. She’d bought at the height of the
boom and, even if she wanted to, wouldn’t have a hope in hell of getting rid of it now without losing out big time. If she
were chief reporter on the
Irish Times
or
Irish Independent
her finances would be very different. But on the piddling, cash-strapped
Sunday Herald
…? Dream on, Siobhan, dream on.

*

Brogan hadn’t been exaggerating.

Mulcahy stopped by the metal bed-end and drew his breath in sharply on seeing the mottled mass of bruising, clotted blood
and stitches that was Jesica Mellado Salazar’s face. The dark, purpling flesh around her eyelids was so swollen, he couldn’t
tell if she was awake or asleep. The nurse sent in to supervise the interview, a thin, careworn but kindly looking woman,
went over to the far side of the bed, smoothing her pale blue uniform under narrow hips as she sat down. The plastic name
tag on her chest said, simply, Sorenson.

‘Dr Baggot said to remind you to keep this short, Inspector,’ she warned Brogan. ‘Jesica’s not really well enough.’

Brogan muttered something about the need to act fast and that she’d keep it as brief as possible. Then she took a chair and
placed it in a position by the bed where she could be in the girl’s eyeline. She drew another over beside it, for Mulcahy.
Cassidy remained standing by the door. As Mulcahy sat down, he felt a momentary flicker of uncertainty. His Spanish was fine
for most situations. He’d lived in Madrid for seven years, worked, socialised, and even romanced in the language. But could
he be subtle enough for the delicate handling this situation would require? He’d just have to keep it simple. By the look
of her, the girl wouldn’t be able to say much anyway. He could always shut the interview down if it wasn’t going well.

Mulcahy looked up to make sure Brogan hadn’t spotted
his hesitation, but she was busy asking Nurse Sorenson to wake up Jesica.

The nurse nodded and touched her patient gently on the shoulder. ‘Jesica, love, some people are here to see you.’

A low moan came from somewhere deep inside the girl, but she didn’t move. Mulcahy coughed gently, to clear his throat. The
narrow adolescent body beneath the sheets stiffened visibly, and the girl’s head jerked round on the pillow. One puffed eyelid
flickered open fractionally, then the other, fixing on Brogan who was first in her sightline.

‘Hello, Jesica,’ Brogan began. Calm, soft and steady. She smiled at the girl. What little white was left in Jesica’s eyes
shone with anxiety as they flicked from Brogan’s face to Mulcahy’s.

‘
Buenos días, Jesica
,’ Mulcahy said, trying to keep his voice low and reassuring. Even so, she flinched when she heard his voice.