The Priest (22 page)

‘And guess whose phone number he gave the desk sergeant?’ Cassidy scoffed. ‘Dermot bloody Kennedy.’

There was a groan of recognition around the room. Every cop in Dublin knew of Kennedy, one of the city’s longest-serving,
most conniving and disagreeable solicitors. He could be relied on to make life as uncomfortable as possible for Brogan, although
there could hardly be any question that she could keep Scully in custody on the possession charge, given his previous form.

‘It proves one thing,’ Whelan remarked. ‘Scully’s no full-time student if he can afford Kennedy’s fees.’

‘Right, but I don’t suppose the bench will see it that way,’ Brogan said. Whereupon she turned towards Mulcahy and said in
rather brighter tones, ‘The inspector here seems to be the only one who’s actually made any progress today. Would you care
to share what you were telling me about this possible earlier victim, Mike?’

There was a rustle of interest and a scrape of chairs as one or two of those present perked up and changed position to get
a better view. But the noise didn’t quite cover the muttered sigh of ‘Jaysus, not the feckin’ Priest again’ that escaped one
pair of lips in the room.

‘Sergeant,’ Mulcahy said, staring Cassidy down and waiting for the rest to settle, ‘if you can’t bring any ideas of your own
to the table, then my advice is keep your mouth shut.’

Cassidy glowered back at him and muttered something very like, ‘I don’t take advice from you, tosser’ beneath his breath.

‘What was that?’ Mulcahy stiffened.

‘Eh, “If that’s your view, sir”,’ Cassidy said, grinning inanely around the room, eliciting a feeble titter from one or two
of the others.

‘Okay, now, everybody,’ Brogan intervened. ‘Inspector Mulcahy is right, we need all the ideas we can get here. So shut up
and listen to what he has to say. You might learn something.’

Mulcahy outlined the details of his visit to Grainne Mullins earlier in the day and was gratified to see that everyone in
the room, even Cassidy, seemed to take its significance on board.

‘Thanks, Mike,’ Brogan said, when he’d finished. ‘That’s really good. I think we all agree this is a very interesting development.’

She walked away from him and addressed the small group from the front again. ‘Okay, lads, so it’s beginning to look like Scully,
or whoever, has done this before. Donagh and Brian, first thing tomorrow I want you to talk to this Branigan character – get
his details from Inspector Mulcahy – and find out what happened to the files on his original investigation.’

The two detectives groaned at the idea of having to confront a fellow officer about a botched, or probably deliberately buried
case, with Hanlon moaning he might as well be working for Internal Affairs.

‘That has nothing to do with it,’ she snapped back at them. ‘If anything, we’re doing him a favour by not passing it straight
on to IA. So don’t go accusing him of anything. If he kicks off, make sure he knows that if any of what this
Mullins woman says stacks up he’s going to get a rocket up his arse from somewhere. And emphasise to him that any assistance
he gives us now could make the difference between getting a slap on the wrist or a full investigation and all that brings
with it. I have a feeling we’ll find that all the original case notes have disappeared, but see what you can get, and then
bring Grainne Mullins in to make a formal statement on the original attack, and her allegations about Branigan.’

The two detectives didn’t look any happier but murmured their assent.

‘And make sure they’re separate statements,’ Mulcahy added. ‘Don’t let her mix up what she says about Branigan with the attack
itself – for now that’s what we’re most interested in.’

‘It sounds to me like Inspector Mulcahy already did a thorough job,’ Brogan continued, ‘but you never know what else she might
be able to give us to tie it in with Scully, so dig deep. Alright, I think that wraps it up for tonight. Let’s hope Technical
come up with something useful overnight and we have some hard evidence to pin on Scully in the morning. Anything else?’

There was a low murmur of negatives and chairs started clattering as everybody began to get up and drift out. Brogan dispatched
Cassidy on some errand with a whisper, and then turned to Mulcahy as he was leaving the room.

‘Thanks again for that, Mike. This’ll certainly strengthen our case against Scully if anything comes of it.’

Mulcahy wasn’t so certain. ‘You don’t think it would be worth widening the net a bit at this stage, to look into suspects
other than Scully?’

‘I wasn’t aware that we had any suspects other than Scully.’

‘Come on, Claire, you know what I mean. Surely it’s worth a go, rather than keeping all our eggs in one basket. I mean, if
there is some serial attacker running around out there, wouldn’t it be as well to cover our arses, just in case? You know,
get the word out, and pull in some of the usual suspects?’

‘What do you think we’ve been doing for the last few days?’

‘I know, but don’t you think maybe we should look at them all again now, in light of this new information?’

Brogan halted in the corridor and treated Mulcahy to one of her more piercing stares.

‘Look, Mike, I meant what I said. I’m grateful you went out and got us that lead. But don’t forget that’s all it is – a lead. We
still have to establish a connection, don’t we? So for now, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves, yeah? I have a suspect in
custody who I still fancy for this. So I can’t see the point of continuing to rummage around in bushes when I’ve got the bird
I want right in the palm of my hand. As you can see, I have very limited resources. I want to use them as best I can to get
a proper bead on Scully. If I fail to do that, then obviously I’ll direct them elsewhere. But not until then, okay?’

Mulcahy had to concede the point. The evidence was there at every briefing.

‘I was only suggesting it might be better to get a head start, so you’re not left staring at nothing should Scully go tits
up.’

‘And I just told you. I haven’t got the resources for running two lines of enquiry. It’s as much as I can do to keep up with
this one.’

‘So why not get me to do it? I’d handle it on my own.’

Brogan seemed surprised by the suggestion, as if using him productively was still the last thing she’d consider. In the end
there was more exasperation than enthusiasm in her response.

‘Alright, Mike, why don’t you do that? Look around all you like and, if you find anything, come back and let me know. But
until then just let me get on with my own enquiry in my own way, okay?’

‘Great, I’ll be happy to.’

She pushed her hair back behind her ears and swept it round in a loose plait over her right shoulder. In any other circumstance
it might have seemed self-conscious or even flirtatious but not, as it was, accompanied by that steely glint in her eyes.

‘Just one more thing, yeah?’

‘What?’

‘I’m pretty amazed that the press haven’t got wind of this thing yet – even after all Healy’s warnings. I don’t suppose you’ve
heard any stirrings?’

Mulcahy looked at her, his thoughts immediately flying to
Siobhan. He’d thought it through and decided there was no merit in telling either Brogan or Healy about Siobhan’s approach.
It would only complicate matters for him, and while he had no doubts that she’d dig deeper and break into the story soon enough,
he was confident she wouldn’t bring his name up in connection with it.

‘No, nothing,’ Mulcahy shrugged.

‘It’s amazing,’ Brogan went on. ‘The more I thought about it, the more I was inclined to agree with what you said the other
day, about how mad Healy was thinking he could keep something like this under his hat. Especially with the political edge
to it. It’s incredible nobody’s got a sniff. You’d have thought that the Spanish press at least would be making a fuss about
it.’

‘The silence on the Spanish side is easy to explain,’ Mulcahy said. ‘The Ambassador went on at length about it to me this
morning. He said Salazar is willing to take out as many injunctions as it takes to keep this out of the media over there.
For the girl’s sake. The privacy laws in Spain are a good bit tougher than they are here, especially when it comes to minors.’

‘So it’ll be down to us if it leaks, then?’

‘Or the hospital, I guess. Like I said, I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see. Are you heading home now? You look like
you could do with a break.’

Brogan shook her head. ‘I’m here for ages yet. I just got a call to say Scully’s solicitor is coming to see his client,
tonight
. Says he wants to meet the arresting officer.’

‘What’s the problem?’

‘I’m not aware there is one,’ Brogan said. ‘But you know what a slippery creep Kennedy is. He’s bound to have something up
his sleeve. We’ll just have to wait and see what bollocks he’ll try to push past us.’

‘Do you want me to hang around?’

Brogan smiled. ‘Thanks, Mike, but I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to handle him.’

But the evening only went further downhill for Brogan. She’d just about been able to square Hanlon’s cock-up over the van
ownership with Superintendent Healy – at least there was someone else to blame for that. But when Dermot Kennedy came marching
in downstairs in his Louis Copeland suit, all arrogant gloating and bluster, waving a copy – God knows where he’d got it from
– of the search warrant, claiming it was invalid because Cassidy, the authorised officer named on it, hadn’t been on the premises
when the drugs were seized, she nearly had a stroke.

It was a small point, one for which most judges would not throw out a warrant. Not on its own. But when added to the cock-up
over the van, it meant the whole search – and the drugs seizure made on the back of it – might now be fatally undermined.
And even though Kennedy didn’t seem to have spotted the issue over the van yet, she couldn’t afford to take the risk of provoking
him into looking any closer at that warrant. So, humiliating as it was, she’d had to agree to Kennedy’s request that his client
be allowed home for the night on the understanding that he would attend for interview
again at ten the following morning to be formally charged for possession under the Misuse of Drugs Act. Healy’s reaction to
being caught on the hop like this had not been good, not good at all.

Absorbed as she was, the rap on her door startled her. What in the name of Christ could it be now?

‘Come on in,’ she shouted, a bit sharply.

‘Boss?’ A cautious head peered around the door. ‘Am I interrupting?’

‘Maura, what is it? You weren’t at the briefing, were you? I thought you were long gone. You must be exhausted.’

McHugh shook her head and waddled up to the desk, standing side on to it rather than facing forward. The curve of her belly
was getting more prominent by the day.

‘You know you told me to get on to UCD and find out what they think of Scully down there?’ she asked.

Brogan listened as Maura related how she’d got nowhere on the phones so she’d driven over to the university herself and been
lucky enough to catch the History Department’s administrative secretary just as she was leaving and, even better, hit it off
with her straight away.

‘She’d just found out she’s expecting and she took one look at me and, well, you know yourself how it is,’ she continued.
‘Anyway, turns out she doesn’t like our boy Scully much. Thinks he’s way too far up his own arse. My guess is they must’ve
had a run-in over something some time. But y’know, it meant she was only too happy to lay the goss out for me.’

‘Good girl,’ Brogan smiled. Maura could winkle the grit from an oyster, she was so chatty.

‘Well, he’s definitely doing the PhD, anyway – although this girl did say he’s takin’ a bit longer at it than most. Getting
on for three years, or something. So I asked her what sort of stuff Scully is studying and she says, far as she knows, his
specialist area is medieval Christianity.’

‘Religion?’ Brogan said, her mind jumping immediately to what Mulcahy had been banging on about earlier. When, in interview,
she’d asked Scully what he was studying he hadn’t been evasive, only said it was medieval history and implied that it was
way too complicated to go into. He hadn’t mentioned anything about religion. Christ, why hadn’t she thought to follow up on
that?

‘He doesn’t look the type, does he?’ she said, almost to herself.

Maura wasn’t so sure. ‘I wouldn’t know. I always thought students were supposed to be poor. One or two of the ones walking
in and out of the department today looked like they’d come straight off a catwalk.’

Brogan said nothing, still cursing herself for not following up that line of questioning. Scully was such a cool little shit,
how had he got that under her radar?

‘Anyway,’ Maura continued, ‘so I push a bit further and she eventually looks up his file and gives me the title of his doctoral
thesis. Get a load of this, it’s called “Ireland’s Inquisition: Echoes of Bernardo Gui in the Annales Hiberniae”.’

She’d tripped over the Latin a bit but Brogan got the picture. ‘The Inquisition?’

‘I know, that’s what I thought, too,’ Maura said, her face lighting up like a beacon. ‘That was all about burning people at
the stake, wasn’t it? I couldn’t help thinking of young Jesica.’

‘Well, sort of,’ Brogan said, trying not to let her own somersaulting thoughts get the better of her, fighting against them,
trying to think it through. The Inquisition was definitely all about religion, she knew from the little she could remember
learning about it in school. But it was in Spain, wasn’t it, not Ireland? Jesus,
Spain
? Surely there couldn’t be a connection?

‘Did she say anything else about it?’

‘Nah, she didn’t know any more, but the thing is, she gave me a phone number for Scully’s thesis supervisor or whatever they
call her.’ Maura consulted her notes again. ‘Dr Aoife McAuliffe, a lecturer in medieval studies. So I give her a call. In
her fifties, I’d say, from the voice, and a right snooty attitude on her. This one was a lot meaner with the info. I got the
impression that herself and Scully were dead tight, that she saw him as her star pupil or whatever.’