Gallows Lane (Inspector Devlin Mystery 2) (26 page)

Late that evening, I sat in the back garden having a smoke, watching the sun dip behind the massive cherry tree at the top of my lawn. It was just past ten o’clock and the night would probably not grow properly dark. The sky would remain a charcoal grey right through till morning. Before too long the days would be on the turn, I thought, the air soon sharp with the tannic smell of autumn. But for yet, there was still much summer to enjoy.

I was roused from my thoughts when my mobile phone rang. I did not recognize the caller ID. Nor did I immediately place the voice.

‘Seamus Purdy here, Inspector.’

‘Mr Purdy,’ I said. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘I hear on the radio you’ve arrested someone. For what happened to Rebecca. And the other girl.’

‘Karen Doherty,’ I said.

‘Yes. I hear you’ve arrested someone. I thought you would have phoned me.’ The comment was not accusatory, rather a simple statement.

‘I apologize, sir,’ I said. ‘I should have. We have someone under police watch in hospital. We have every reason to believe that he is Rebecca’s attacker. We don’t know for definite, though, sir. He was shot during his arrest, and he hasn’t woken yet. I would have called you when we were certain he was the man we wanted,’ I added. ‘We might need Rebecca to identify him at some point, if that’s okay?’

‘Who is he?’ he demanded.

‘I can’t tell you that yet, sir. The victim liaison team will keep you up to date with everything as soon as they can.’

‘You said he was shot?’ Purdy said, more a question than a statement.

‘Yes, sir – that’s right.’

‘Is he going to die?’ he asked, his voice animated for the first time in the conversation.

‘No, sir,’ I said, ‘I don’t believe he will.’

‘Oh,’ he said, the disappointment in his voice palpable. Then the line went dead.

*

I knew that I had not told the man what he wanted to hear, but I hoped that the knowledge that someone would be held to account for the attack on his daughter would offer him at least some relief from the anger he felt. And from the guilt I suspected he felt for not being there for his girl when occasion demanded it.

Still, the call spurred me to contact Agnes Doherty and tell her that her sister’s killer was, I hoped, now off the streets. As it transpired, she too had heard about the arrest on the radio.

‘I heard someone was injured. Was that you?’ she asked.

‘Slightly,’ I said. ‘Nothing to keep me off my feet,’ I added, laughing a little. My injuries were minor in comparison to the injury against her and her family.

‘I’m sorry you were hurt,’ she said. ‘Your wife must have been very worried about you.’

‘Honestly, Miss Doherty: it’s nothing.’

‘It’s something to me,’ she stated simply.

I didn’t know what else to say. ‘I . . . I just thought you should know that we—’

‘Thank you for catching my sister’s killer, Inspector,’ Agnes Doherty said.

As I sat in the twilight after the phone call and considered what both Williams and Agnes Doherty had said, I looked back on all that had happened over the past few weeks, and all those who had died. I sat there, alone, for a few more minutes, then I went inside to my family.

Daniel McLaughlin regained consciousness at five-thirty in the morning. By eight o’clock, after being checked by his doctors and conferring with his lawyer, the ubiquitous Gerard Brown, he was ready to be interviewed in his hospital room. Dempsey and his two sergeants were there, along with myself, Costello and Helen Gorman, whom I had contacted in case we got a result on the drugs theft.

I had called in with Caroline before I started. She was propped up in bed, eating her breakfast. She hoped to be released in time for the weekend. Peter had made a get well card for her with Debbie the night previous. He had drawn a stick woman and child and written simply, ‘I Love You, Mummy’, at the top of the page.

McLaughlin was similarly sitting up in bed, his back supported by a number of pillows. His hospital gown just about reached around his shoulders; his back was bare and his muscles rigid. His hands rested on his lap, his fingers intertwined. The tattoo of Cuchulain was clear on his arm, the colours bright. But it was McLaughlin’s face which affected me most. His face was cruel. His eyes were narrowed, heavy-lidded like a reptile’s; his nose was wide and flared, and slightly out of place where it had been broken at some stage. His mouth was thin and his teeth were misshapen. His jaw flexed with tension whenever he wasn’t talking.

Once I had sat down, Dempsey turned on the tape recorder that had been set up and I introduced those present in the room. I then explained to McLaughlin that he was being questioned in connection with a number of serious crimes in the area. He did not respond, only flicking his head ever so slightly as if to nod.

‘Firstly, Mr McLaughlin, we’d like to ask you about Karen Doherty.’

He looked at me in bewilderment for a second, then glanced at his lawyer who sat beside his bed, then looked at me again. He mimicked a frown and pouted.

‘Never heard of her,’ he said.

I placed a photograph of her on the bed in front of him. It had been taken several months earlier; Agnes had given it to a liaison officer.

‘Don’t know her,’ he said with a shrug. His shoulders seemed to relax slightly, his whole body language shifting in a way I could not explain.

‘You’re sure?’ I asked, pushing the photograph closer to him.

‘Asked and answered, Inspector,’ his lawyer, Brown, said.

‘You didn’t pick up this girl in Letterkenny on Monday, 31 May?’ I continued.

‘I believe we have established that my client doesn’t know this person, Inspector.’

‘This girl, Karen Doherty, was found dead on a building site in Raphoe on Tuesday, 1 June,’ I said. ‘I believe you’ve heard of her from the news, Mr Brown. And I believe you knew her too, Mr McLaughlin.’

‘Believe what you like,’ he grunted. ‘Never seen her before.’ He sniffed, once. ‘Not really my type.’

‘Someone spiked her drink with paint stripper in Club Manhattan in Letterkenny. Paint stripper like the stuff we found in your garage.’ I waved away his protest before he had a chance to articulate it. ‘We know you’ve been at that club. A doorman identified you as a regular. And I believe we almost met there ourselves a week or two ago. I still have the bruises to prove it.’

‘Yeah, I go there. Doesn’t mean I know what’s-her-face.’

‘We have CCTV footage of her climbing into a sports car. We have a clear shot of the arm of the driver, sporting a tattoo identical to yours.’

‘It’s a small world too, isn’t it?’ he said, his lawyer placing a quietening hand on his forearm which he shook off.

‘If that’s all you’ve got, Inspector, I see no reason to keep my client any longer’, Brown said. ‘The man is sick, shot by Gardai, based on the evidence of a photograph of a tattoo. You’ve got to be kidding me.’

‘We also have your fingerprints at the murder scene, Mr McLaughlin. You opened a condom to use as you assaulted the girl; you left it in the same room as the body. With your fingerprints on it. Then, of course, you left your handiwork all over Karen Doherty, too, didn’t you?’ I said, placing now a number of the crime-scene photographs on the bed in front of him.

McLaughlin looked at the pictures one after another, but if he felt anything he did not show it. Finally he looked at Brown but did not speak.

‘The doctor who pronounced her dead said she was hit with force similar to that of a car hitting her. That level of violence can only be inflicted by someone with immense strength, Mr McLaughlin. And with immense rage.’

‘The Doherty girl wasn’t sexually assaulted from what I understood,’ Brown said. ‘Is that right?’

None of us answered, which was response enough in itself.

‘Why would my client open a condom he wasn’t going to use? Perhaps it was lying there from another occasion. You can’t actually be sure that the item was left at the time the girl was killed, can you?’

‘In addition, of course, you left something else at the second scene; a witness. We have spoken to the second girl you attempted to assault, Mr McLaughlin. A fifteen-year-old, whom you also battered with your fists. Fifteen years old. She suggests you were physically unable to complete your planned assault. Is that true, Mr McLaughlin?’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ McLaughlin said bluntly.

‘Why are you using Viagra, Mr McLaughlin?’ Gorman asked.

‘What?’ he snapped, with enough venom to startle even Brown.

‘Viagra. We found traces of it in your blood. Along with steroids. Oh, and breast cancer drugs,’ she continued. ‘Any explanation?’

‘No crime taking Viagra,’ Brown said. Are we moving on, now?’

‘The crime was in the theft of tamoxifen,’ Gorman said. ‘We have matched the trainers you were wearing, Mr McLaughlin, with a footprint found on the door of Lifford pharmacy, the morning after it was broken into and a batch of breast cancer drugs stolen. Drugs which we found in your room, and in your blood. Drugs which a competitor in a local kick-boxing tournament says you sold him.’

Brown seemed completely unprepared for this departure, and I wondered what exactly he and his client had discussed in preparation.

‘Shall I tell you how I think this all went, Mr McLaughlin?’ I said. ‘I believe you have been abusing steroids in order to enhance your physical state. As a result of this, however, you suffered what is commonly called “moobs”. Fortunately, you somehow learned that tamoxifen reduces these; certainly that was what you told Darren Kehoe when you sold him some last week; something to which Mr Kehoe will attest. Of course, two of the other known side effects of steroid abuse are impotence and extreme rage. I believe that you went out that evening, armed with a bottle of paint stripper, looking for a woman. Having spotted Karen Doherty in Letterkenny, you spiked her drink and waited for her to be separated from her friends. You picked her up outside the club and drove her to the building site outside Raphoe. There you attempted to rape Karen but were unable to perform. In a rage you beat her with sufficient force to kill her. Then you calmly cleaned up and left.’

‘You repeated this again with Rebecca Purdy. Again, you were unable to complete your planned assault, so you beat her as well, though luckily she survived. She later identified you in Club Manhattan, on the same night I chased you out into the alleyway and you almost knocked me down in the silver BMW which you were driving the night of your arrest.’

‘Has the girl positively identified my client?’ Brown asked, having listened to all that was said, not giving McLaughlin a chance to speak.

‘She will as soon as he is well enough to join an ID parade.’ Brown nodded. ‘I’d like to speak to my client.’

We turned off the tapes at that point and went outside, obliged to give Brown the time he needed. Gorman, Dempsey and I went down to the hospital canteen for a coffee, then outside for a smoke.

Gorman seemed fired up by the imminent cracking of her first solo case; the kind of break that would serve her well when she applied for Detective. She talked continuously, dragging nervously on her cigarette. She was halfway through her second by the time I stubbed mine out.

Dempsey’s mobile phone rang. He looked at the caller ID, then stepped away from us, putting his hand against his left ear to help him hear. While Dempsey muttered away in the background, Gorman discussed station politics and asked about the Superintendent interview. Suddenly, we heard Dempsey swear excitedly.

When he came back over to us, he was more agitated than Gorman had been. ‘Well, don’t keep us in suspense,’ I joked.

‘You’re not going to believe this. We got a match on McLaughlin’s DNA swab. Not a sex case, though. His fucking DNA matches that found under the fingernails of James Kerr.’

The mood in McLaughlin’s room had changed by the time we returned. It changed again once Dempsey took over the interview and revealed the DNA information. McLaughlin’s relaxed demeanour vanished and I suspected that he had expected to be questioned about this all along. He had visibly relaxed when I asked him about Karen Doherty. Now he was tensing up again, and even in his injured state, I wondered at the damage he could inflict in this room if he lost his temper again.

‘So,’ Dempsey said, ‘I think this changes things a bit. Don’t you, Mr McLaughlin?’

‘It proves nothing,’ his lawyer argued, clearly perturbed that the interview had taken another turn.

‘It proves plenty. How else might you account for a dead man having your DNA under his fingernails? Were you friends?’

McLaughlin glared at Dempsey from under his eyebrows. His biceps seemed to pulse involuntarily.

‘Take it easy, son,’ Dempsey said. ‘Remember what happened the last time you got carried away,’ he added, winking as he tapped his right shoulder.

‘I think—’ Brown began, but Dempsey interrupted him.

‘You think nothing,’ he said, then turned to McLaughlin. ‘We have you placed at the scene of a crucifixion, son. In fucking Donegal. As well as beating little girls and ripping off chemists. You are going to be hung out to dry. Now, added to that, we’ve got your sister’s ex-husband and Declan O’Kane, your ex-boss. Something tells me that when we dig deep enough, we’ll connect you with every one of those.’

‘Not forgetting the armed robbery in Castlederg that Jamie Kerr did his time for,’ I added.

McLaughlin looked at me.

‘Why not charge him for sinking the
Titanic
while we’re at it?’ Brown said.

‘He’s certainly big enough,’ Dempsey retorted. ‘So, Mr McLaughlin. Let’s start at the start, shall we? Which crime do you want to discuss first?’

Brown appeared increasingly harried. ‘After consultation with my client, I feel we need a psychiatric evaluation of his ability to answer questions on these accusations. I’d like him to speak to someone before he says anything further.’

‘Fine,’ Dempsey said, snapping off the tape recorder.

‘The fucker’s going to claim he’s insane,’ Dempsey said, once we were outside.

‘Diminished responsibility because of the drugs, possibly,’ I said. ‘Will he get it?’