The Rising (22 page)

I considered the offer. I knew Caroline Williams needed someone to blame for her son’s death. I also personally wanted to see Cahir Murphy held accountable for his actions. But I also knew that, even if I pursued a case against him, it would, in all probability, be dropped by the DPP. If Murphy was prepared to make a statement against a dealer, it would take out someone higher on the scale and would provide Caroline with some sense of justice.

‘Your client will make a statement to that effect?’

‘Obviously,’ O’Hare stated.

I glanced at Joe McCready who shrugged his shoulders.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Who sold to you?’

Murphy glared at O’Hare, clearly unhappy about what he was being forced to do. His father, eager to avoid his son being charged with dealing, slapped his arm with the flat of his hand.

‘Tell him,’ he said.

‘Some guy Hamill in Rossanure Avenue,’ he muttered.

‘What?’ I asked, leaning across the table.

Murphy raised his chin. ‘Rossanure Avenue, near the back. I don’t know the number. The one with the green door.’

‘No, the name,’ I snapped. ‘What was the name?’

‘Hamill. Ian Hamill.’

‘You’re lying. Ian Hamill is dead,’ I said. ‘He died a few weeks ago.’

Murphy smiled and shook his head. ‘Must be a different Ian Hamill then. The one I know was alive and well and selling coke two nights ago.’

A thought struck me and I retrieved the photograph of Martin Kielty from my coat pocket.

‘Is this the man you’re talking about?’

Murphy took the picture from me and looked at it. He nodded and held the image up to me, as if I were stupid.

‘That’s him,’ he said. ‘Ian Hamill.’

While Joe McCready took Murphy’s statement, I called the Letterkenny station and had them fax me down a copy of Kielty’s file. I recalled that he had had an address in Sligo and it took only a few moments to confirm that it was indeed in Rossanure Avenue. Kielty had clearly decided to use his house to keep dealing, albeit in Hamill’s name rather than his own. And I guessed he had brought his stash with him – and presumably his girlfriend. And I could guess who had helped him move both.

‘I want Rory Nicell arrested,’ I told Patterson when I called at his house that morning. It was just past 6 a.m. and the sky was dark and clear, the stars bright, the first glimpse of false dawn barely a sliver on the horizon.

‘Come in,’ he shrugged, tramping from his front door into his kitchen. He wore leisure pants and a T-shirt under his towelling robe. Dirty dishes were piled in his sink and he rooted through them to find a cup which he rinsed as he waited for the coffee machine to begin percolating.

‘I think I’ve found Martin Kielty and I believe that Rory Nicell had something to do with the events surrounding his disappearance.’

‘Is this based on anything?’ Patterson asked. ‘Beyond your usual distrust of your colleagues.’

‘The white van that was seen on two separate occasions – once when Kielty supposedly died and once when his girlfriend packed up house. Jim Hendry managed to get me a registration number. It traced back to An Garda, the Drugs Unit, specifically.’

‘And?’

‘Someone is operating out of Kielty’s house in Sligo using Ian Hamill’s name. I believe Kielty is alive and, for some reason, Rory Nicell has helped move him to Sligo from the border. More importantly, Nicell must have known about, or actually been involved in, the killing of Ian Hamill and the staging of Kielty’s death. If we’re lifting Kielty, we need to be sure that Nicell isn’t going to fuck it up for us.’

Patterson placed a cup of coffee in front of me though I had not asked for one. The contents sloshed over the lip of the cup onto the white Formica of his breakfast bar.

‘You lift Kielty, if it’s him. I’ll lead a team and bring Nicell in for questioning –
if
or
when
Kielty implicates him. You’d better be sure of your facts, though.’

‘I am,’ I said. ‘Or as sure as I can be.’

‘And don’t mention this to anyone,’ Patterson continued. ‘We’ve been taking enough shit recently without adding this to it. I’ve told you I’ve had the Assistant Commissioner on the phone warning us to keep our noses clean. That bullshit at the rally the other night is hammering us. We need to be squeaky clean for the next few months, until this all blows over, so keep this whole thing between us, you hear?’

I was back in Sligo before nine that morning. McCready had agreed to gather a team of uniforms to support us in lifting Kielty. We drove in several unmarked cars into the Rossanure estate. Though it was almost 10 a.m., the morning air was fresh and the cars lining the streets washed with dew.

The streets of the estate were relatively quiet: a few mothers pushing prams; the odd truant schoolchild risking a sneaky smoke. There was a single corner shop which, by the looks of it, had closed down sometime earlier. The front window was boarded up and a metal grille hung on one hinge from the front door.

The housing in the estate was terraced in groups of five: squat, grey, pebble-dashed blocks. Kielty’s house was the centre house in a row, located quite far back in the estate, the block itself bordered on both sides by alleyways running adjacent to the outer houses.

The car I was travelling in parked a hundred yards up the street from the block, while McCready split the uniforms into two teams, one of which waited along the alleyway, while the other was positioned immediately behind Kielty’s property, obscured by a hedge. I had a smoke and scanned the street. One of the houses looked deserted, though curtains still hung in the windows and children’s toys were scattered on the small front lawn. I noticed that a pair of trainers hung from an overhead cable.

Kielty’s house looked no different from the others, except for the fact that his front door looked newer; the other houses on the row had four panels on the door, Kielty’s had two. It was PVC, whereas the doors of the other houses were painted wood.

Our plan was a relatively simple one. As I was not in uniform, I would approach the house on the pretence of delivering a parcel. The rest of the Gardai present would take positions on either side of the doorway. Once the door was opened, they would storm the house. While I hoped that no gunfire would be involved, we knew that Kielty had killed Hamill, so we had come armed and equipped with Kevlar vests.

I called McCready and gave him the go-ahead. His unit began to make their way across the gardens of the houses to the left of Kielty’s, crouching low under the level of the windows, until they were positioned outside Kielty’s, flush against the front of his house.

I got out of the car and shouldered a box we had taped up in the station, before making my way across to the house. Rather than ringing the doorbell, I knocked on the door. The dull thud of my knocking confirmed my suspicion.

‘It’s reinforced,’ I muttered to the man to my immediate left, Finn McCarron, who passed the word back. It simply meant we had to be quick.

I had to knock a third time before I saw any response from the house. The curtain covering the window above where our officers were hidden shifted slightly and a face peered out. Though it was only for a second, I saw Martin Kielty, bearded now, but still recognizable from the picture McEvoy had given me.

The curtain closed again and I heard the thud of a dead-bolt being snapped open. The door opened an inch or two, enough only to reveal the security chain still hanging in place and the soft features of Elena McEvoy.

‘Yes?’ she asked.

‘I have a parcel here,’ I said, shifting the box to try to conceal part of my face, but it was too late. I saw the flash of recognition, the exclamation caught in her throat as she struggled to shut the door on me.

I wedged my foot between the door and the jamb and shouted. The officers beside me moved quickly, throwing their weight against the door until McEvoy gave up and ran into the house screaming to Kielty. Finally the security chain snapped and we spilled into the hallway.

Ahead of us I could see McEvoy taking the turn on the stairs. Kielty was behind her, but facing us, the pistol in his hand already levelled in our direction. He fired off one shot which spun the man to my right sideways with its impact on his vest.

‘Stay back!’ I shouted, as the team behind me took cover on either side of the door. But Kielty was already moving on up the stairs.

I heard a crash from the rear of the house and three officers appeared from the kitchen, having broken in the back door.

‘Check the rooms here,’ I shouted. ‘We have two upstairs.’

I started taking the stairs, cautiously. Kielty had tossed a child’s walker across the top step in a vain attempt to impede our progress. Four rooms opened out from the landing. To my immediate right was a bathroom. I reached the door and glanced in. Empty. The room to the far left looked like a junk room. Again the door was open and I saw McCready move across and snatch a glimpse around the door. He looked at me and shook his head to indicate that it too was clear.

The doors to both middle rooms were closed. I approached the one closest to me and laid my hand on the handle. I depressed it and pushed lightly; the door offered no resistance.

‘Martin!’ I shouted. ‘You’re trapped. Give it up now. Peacefully.’

Nothing.

‘No one wants this,’ I said. ‘No one wants to get hurt. Put down the gun and come out of the room.’

I pushed the door further open and stepped back.

Nothing.

Putting my face close to the jamb I stole a glance in through the gap at the hinges. The room was empty. One bed, made, a few pieces of furniture.

I glanced again at the walker lying at the top of the stairs. I hadn’t seen a cot in the bedrooms we’d checked, which meant that Kielty was holed up in the remaining room with his girlfriend and their baby.

‘His daughter is in there with him,’ I hissed at the men standing with me.

‘Should we move out?’ McCready asked. We didn’t want this degenerating into a hostage situation.

‘Come out, Martin!’ I shouted, desperately trying to remember the name of the child. ‘I know your daughter is in there. Bring her out – none of you will be hurt. I give you my word.’

Kielty did not reply, though from the room I could hear a low murmuring, and the soft whimpering of a child.

‘Elena!’ I shouted. ‘Even if you don’t want to come out, hand us out your daughter. I promise you I’ll keep her safe.’

The voices from the room now were more animated and I suspected that McEvoy wanted to give up but Kielty was holding out. Suddenly the name came to me.

‘Elena. Think of Anna. Do what’s right for Anna. Bring her out. Anna shouldn’t be caught up in this.’

I heard movement in the room, then the click of the lock. The handle depressed as the men around me raised their guns. The door began to open and I saw Elena McEvoy, her face smeared with tears, her child bundled in her arms. I raised my weapon into the air to show that I meant no harm to them. She moved towards me, shuffling slowly, as the child in her arms began to mew.

At that moment, I saw Finn McCarron, who had been standing beside McCready, glancing towards the open door of the bedroom. Pushing past Elena McEvoy and the child, his gun raised, McCarron shoved his way into the bedroom. We all heard the pop of a pistol, echoing within the confines of the room, followed by a second, louder bang. The men on the landing scattered, some moving for cover, some moving into Kielty’s room to support their colleague.

McEvoy held out her child to me, her expression changing as I saw the blood begin to seep through the front of her dress and mark the pink blanket her daughter had been wrapped in. McEvoy’s gaze followed mine to the widening stain below her breast and she opened her mouth silently even as her body began to sag.

Supporting her, I frantically rummaged through the blanket, to check if the bullet which had hit her had passed through to her child. The baby seemed unharmed. McEvoy, however, swayed unsteadily for a second then collapsed onto the floor at the top of the stairs as the bloodstain between her shoulder blades widened.

Above her, Martin Kielty, cuffed now and himself bleeding profusely from a wound in his shoulder, looked down on her, uncomprehendingly.

Elena McEvoy was in surgery for less than thirty minutes before the medical staff officially pronounced her dead, though there had been little hope in my mind. Kielty had been rushed into surgery where doctors worked on the wound to his shoulder. There was nothing to do but wait for word that he was well enough to be interviewed.

I contacted Patterson as soon as we returned to the station. His only concern was that we discover as quickly as possible whether the bullet that killed McEvoy came from Kielty’s own gun or from Finn McCarron’s. I knew that McCarron was already in one of the interview rooms with his union representative, writing his statement.

I had just finished speaking with Patterson when Joe McCready came into the room, a manila folder in his hand.

‘The information you asked for on Cunningham, sir,’ he said.

‘Great, Joe. Thanks.’