Living Death (12 page)

‘And you have no idea why Maureen Callahan wants to rat out her own family? Surely she’d be risking her life, wouldn’t she? Those Callahans, they did for Fergal Ó Brion, I’m sure of it.’

Jimmy O’Reilly gave her a minimal shake of his head. ‘You’ll have to ask her that yourself, won’t you?’

Katie waited for a moment, looking at the young woman’s name and number on her iPhone. Something about this didn’t quite fit, although she couldn’t decide what it was. It was like looking at one of those pictures of a hundred cartoon snowmen, and having to spot the single penguin among them. She knew it was there, but she couldn’t see it yet.

‘Something wrong?’ asked Jimmy O’Reilly. ‘You’re looking suspicious.’

‘That’s because I have no reason to trust you about anything whatsoever.’

He shrugged. ‘You don’t have to trust me. You can talk to Maureen Callahan and make up your own mind about whatever it is that she tells you. If you don’t believe her, fair play to you. Don’t forget your coffee.’

Katie picked up her cup. Before she left, though, she looked around Jimmy O’Reilly’s office and said, ‘I haven’t seen James Elvin in a while.’

‘That’s because he doesn’t work here any more. Not for over a week now.’

‘You’re not getting any threats about his debts, are you? None of the casinos have been after you?’

‘I’d say that’s totally none of your business.’

‘Of course it’s my business. You’re the Assistant Commissioner and I’m the Detective Superintendent and if you’re being maced for money I need to know about it.’

Jimmy O’Reilly stood up and walked around his desk so that he could open his office door wide and keep it open. Detectives Roche and Ó Connail were walking past and they stared at them, because it was common knowledge in the station how frosty their relationship was, although nobody knew exactly why.

When they were out of earshot, Jimmy O’Reilly said, ‘Listen, Katie, why don’t we continue to work together on a purely professional basis and keep our snouts out of each other’s personal problems? I’m sure you have plenty of your own to take care of.’

‘All I’m saying, sir, is that it would be fierce bad publicity for the force if some casino bouncer was to catch you in the street one night and give you the mother and father of all clatters. Come to that, I don’t think
you’d
enjoy it much, either.’

Jimmy O’Reilly closed his eyes for a moment, as if he were praying that when he opened them again Katie would have disappeared, or better still, never existed.

‘Joseph and Mary and all the saints, Katie, will you forever stop vexing me and the sun splitting the rocks. I can tell you this for nothing—’

He stopped himself abruptly, and jerked his head towards the corridor, indicating that Katie should leave.

‘Go on,’ said Katie. ‘
What
can you tell me for nothing?’

‘Nothing,’ said Jimmy O’Reilly. ‘I’d appreciate if you’d let me know when you’ve arranged to meet Maureen Callahan, if that won’t be too much of a bother for you.’

‘Are you
sure
you don’t have something you want to tell me?’

He didn’t answer. Katie looked at the expression on his face and realised that he couldn’t answer, because he couldn’t trust himself. His lips were tightly pursed and the muscles in his cheeks were flexing, as if he were grinding his teeth.

‘Right then,’ she said. ‘I’ll be away.
Slainté
.’

She lifted her coffee cup as if she were toasting his health. She knew that it was petty, and vindictive, but if it hadn’t been for him, John wouldn’t have lost his legs, and she wouldn’t be feeling so bitter, and confused, and she wouldn’t be sick to her stomach with such agonising guilt.

Detective Dooley was waiting for her outside her office, leaning against the open door and talking to Moirin. They were laughing about last night’s
Naked Camera
, in which one of the actors had gone for a haircut but then told the unsuspecting stylist that he was pathologically afraid of scissors.

‘How’s the form, ma’am?’ he smiled, as Katie sat down at her desk and opened her coffee. ‘You got my message about the dogs okay?’

‘I did, yes. Any more progress since then?’

Detective Dooley checked his watch. ‘I’m just heading on to see this feen who’s advertising two pedigree dogs online. He only posted them this morning, and they fit the description of two of the dogs that were buged from the Cassidys’ kennels.’

‘What breed are they?’

Detective Dooley flipped open his notebook. ‘One’s a German Shepherd and the other’s a Vizsla. Both pedigree. He’s asking a thousand yoyos for the German Shepherd and seven hundred for the other one.’

‘That’s a little on the dear side, I’d say, but – you know – not totally outrageous, if they really are pedigree.’

‘His name’s Mulvaney and he has a kennels down at Riverstick. He calls it a boarding kennels but that’s just a front. He’s a fence for stolen dogs, and he specialises in top-class pedigree animals, although he’d find a scratty mongrel for you if you really wanted one. He sells most of them on his website but he exports them, too, mostly to some other dodgy dog dealers in the UK. The Brits pay way over the odds for quality dogs.’

‘Mulvaney? Gerry Mulvaney? I think I heard his name mentioned before, when all those rough collie puppies were stolen last Easter from Ballygarvan,’ said Katie. ‘We’ve never charged him, though, have we?’

Detective Dooley shook his head. ‘He always swears blind that he comes by his dogs legitimate. I don’t exactly know the science of it, but the registration details on their microchips always tally, or else they don’t scan at all, so we’ve never been able to prove that the dogs are not his. I’m sure Bill Phinner or one of his technical experts can tell you how it’s done.’

Katie said, ‘It’s not so much the dogs themselves that I’m interested in. What I want to know is who gave them to him.’

‘I don’t think for a moment that Mulvaney will tell me. Even if he
does
give me a name, the odds are that he’ll give me a false one, and I know what he’ll say. “I swear on the Holy Book that was the name that was given to me by the feller who sold me the dogs and I never saw him before so how was I to know that it wasn’t kosher?” But, you know, it’s worth having a shot at it.’

‘When are you heading on?’

‘In about ten minutes. I’m taking Scanlan along with me. I just have to wait until she’s finished talking to those Travellers who were driving their horses down McSwiney’s Villas.’

‘Oh, stop. Serious? I haven’t heard about that.’

‘The Travellers said it was a protest, like, but two of the horses ended up in a cycle shop, right down the bottom of Blarney Road, and apart from the damage, three four-hundred-euro mountain bikes mysteriously went missing.’

‘Mother of God,’ said Katie. ‘You couldn’t make it up, could you? I suppose they’re making out that the horses rode off on them.’

She thought for a moment, and then she said, ‘I might come with you to Riverstick. I have a pure strange feeling about this dognapping and this feen who got his head shot off. I have to ring Inspector O’Brien at Bandon but I’ll be ready to leave after that.’

‘Okay, then, ma’am,’ said Detective Dooley, although he didn’t look particularly thrilled at the prospect of taking Katie along with them. Maybe he had been looking forward to some time alone with Pádraigin Scanlan. ‘I’ll see you in a few minutes so.’

Katie’s iPhone had been pinging incessantly, and there was a stack of unread files on her desk that urgently needed her attention. Not only that, she was due to make an appearance in the District Court shortly after lunch, and at 5:30 pm she had a strategy meeting with Chief Superintendent MacCostagáin and Superintendent Pearse. But a visit to Mulvaney’s kennels took priority, as far as she was concerned. These two dogs being offered for sale online were the only serious lead they had so far to the possible identity of the gang who had raided Sceolan Kennels, but there was almost no chance that Gerry Mulvaney would willingly tell Detective Dooley and Detective Scanlan where the dogs had come from. If he could scan the animals’ microchips and show that they now legally belonged to him, the two detectives would have no way of putting any pressure on him, but Katie reasoned that the presence of a Garda officer with a little more seniority might impress him enough to co-operate. She could threaten him with a forensic tax audit by the Revenue Commissioners, or an ISPCA inspection, with possible closure on health grounds.

Maybe another reason she wanted to go was because she wanted to get out of the station for a few hours, and keep her mind occupied with anything but paperwork, and Assistant Commissioner Jimmy O’Reilly, and John.

Moirin tapped on her door and said, ‘Would you care for another a cup of coffee in your hand, ma’am?’

‘Thanks, Moirin, but I won’t have time to drink it. I’m going to be flat till the mat all day.’

‘I’ve finished all the filing now, including the Gerrety case. If you like I can go through all of these folders for you, and sort out which ones need answering and which ones are information only. I’ve nothing else to do.’

‘That would be such a blessing, Moirin, believe me. I swear you must have been sent by the Lord God Himself.’

‘Well, I was Judge McDonagh’s secretary for two-and-a-half years, as you know, and
he
believed that he was the Lord God Himself, even if nobody else did.’

Once Moirin had taken all the folders away, Katie picked up the phone and called Inspector O’Brien in Bandon. He took a long time to answer and when he did he sounded out of breath.

‘Terry? DS Maguire. Are you okay?’

‘Oh. Sorry. I’ve been doing my press-ups. The doctor warned me that my circulation’s sluggish. It’s sitting at this desk all day that does it.’

‘I have your message about Cleona Cassidy. Have you found out who’s put her in the family way?’

‘Not for definite. But my officers have been taking a picture of Mrs Cassidy around and about Bandon, into all the local pubs and restaurants and so forth. The owner of the Beglan Inn on Kilbeglan Hill reckons she’s stayed there twice at least overnight with some fellow he took to be her husband. At least he was seventy-five per cent sure it was her.’

‘When was this that they stayed there?’ Katie asked him.

‘Once in mid-July and then again at the end of August.’

‘Did he give a name, this supposed husband?’

‘Killick, he thinks, or Cullip. He paid in cash so there’s no credit card record.’

‘Doesn’t the owner have a register?’

‘My officer asked him that of course but he said that he’s running a sports pub with a couple of bed-and-breakfast rooms upstairs, not the Munster Arms Hotel.’

‘Could he describe your man at all?’

‘That was why I called you. He said he remembered what the fellow looked like because his barmaid called him the Grey Man. He had grey hair and a grey suit and even his shoes were grey. He said he looked the bulb off that actor Peter O’Toole. Even had the same poofy way of flapping his arms around, do you know what I mean?’

‘Yes,’ said Katie. ‘But the owner hasn’t seen him again since August, either with or without Mrs Cassidy?’

‘He said he saw him once sitting in a car outside the Watergate bar on Watergate Street and the only reason he noticed him was because the fellow was puffing away at a fag so hard and blowing the smoke out of the window and he thought at first the car was on fire.’

‘He didn’t remember what type of car it was?’

‘No. He thought that it might have been green. But I’d say there’s a reasonable possibility that the fellow’s local. You wouldn’t be likely to go to the Watergate unless you were.’

‘All right, Terry. Is that all you have so far?’

‘So far, yes. But we’ll carry on showing Mrs Cassidy’s picture around the town for a while, and we’ll also be taking it around Ballinspittle and Kinsale. We might even try as far as Halfway. The pair of them might well have gone further afield for a bit of the jiggery-pokery, where nobody was likely to know them, do you know what I mean, like? But now that we have at least one description, I’m quietly confident we’re going to track down this fellow. It’s true that he may not have been involved in any way with this dognapping, but at least we’ll be able to tick him off the list of suspects.’

Katie said, ‘Yes – but think about it, Terry. The alarms at the kennels didn’t go off, did they? And I don’t believe Eoin Cassidy forgot to set them. Cleona said that he was religious about it, setting the alarms. Somebody might well have found out how to switch them off, and I would be pure interested to know if they did – and if so,
how
they did, and who they were.’

‘I’ll be in touch with you, ma’am, any road,’ said Inspector O’Brien. ‘Meanwhile we’re still keeping the Sceolan Kennels under twenty-four-hour surveillance, just in case the dognappers come back looking to even the score.’

‘Okay, Terry,’ Katie told him. ‘Although to be honest with you I’m beginning to wonder who has the strongest motive for revenge, and against who. The dognappers, or Eoin Cassidy.’

She was buttoning up her raincoat when Detective Sergeant Begley knocked at her door.

‘What’s the story, Sean?’

‘The dead dognapper,’ said Detective Sergeant Begley, holding up a print-out. ‘Doctor Kelley’s completed her post mortem. She’s just emailed me through her interim report.’

‘Go on. The primary cause of death wasn’t too hard to miss, I imagine.’

‘Well, no, I’d say not. “A shotgun wound to the upper section of the deceased’s face, resulting in the explosive disintegration of his skull and the forcible expulsion of almost his entire brain, leading not unexpectedly to instantaneous death.”

‘Anything else of interest?’

‘“Deceased was a white Caucasian male, 1.78 metres in height when his head was intact, weighing just under 81 kilograms. He was a heavy cigarette smoker and he was suffering from hepatic steatosis, or fatty liver. This was almost certainly caused by years of excessive alcohol consumption. His blood tested 93 milligrams per 100 millilitres for alcohol, 43 milligrams over the legal limit for driving, which indicated that he had been drinking for some hours before his death. Apart from alcohol, his stomach contained the half-digested remains of a cheeseburger and fries. His forearms and his chest bear a number of historic criss-cross scars, thirteen altogether, and these strongly suggested that he might have been attacked in one or more knife fights sometime when he was younger. Also the tip of his left index finger was missing. His arms, chest and back are heavily tattooed but all of these tattoos are quite faded and appear to have been done at least ten years ago, depending on the deceased’s exposure over the years to sunlight.”’