Roly and I look at each other. “Trying to hurt herself?”
“She was like, pulling at her hair, like she was trying to pull it out.”
Suddenly, I remember Erin crying, pulling at her hair. I’m sorry, Mags. I’m sorry. If I can just—When was that? Why was she crying? The memory unnerves me. I have no context for it. It just comes out of nowhere.
Roly says, “Why didn’t you tell the Guards that?”
O’Hanrahan’s wife is pacing around the room, picking things up and putting them back down. He carefully places his hands on his thighs, then turns and snaps, “Would you stop walking around? Go get me a Bushmills, if you would.”
“Get your own fucking Bushmills,” she says. We listen to her clatter up the staircase in her high heels.
“Sorry,” O’Hanrahan says. “I was … I didn’t think it mattered. I guess I was embarrassed. I didn’t want people to think it was, you know, because of me.” He’s lying, but he’s embarrassed too, I think.
“What else?” Roly asks.
“My family thought … Well, I received legal advice that it might make it look like something had happened when we were together. I was counseled not to say anything about it. My father was … his businesses. He was concerned about his reputation. Our reputation.” He’s very nervous now, his hands tapping out a fast rhythm on his knee.
“Is that why your father had me followed?” I ask him. “Because he was concerned about his reputation?”
I can feel Roly’s surprise. He didn’t know I was going to ask that. When O’Hanrahan looks up, there’s genuine surprise on his face, too. “Did he?”
“That day that I waited for you outside your apartment. After that, you told him my name and you told him I’d been asking questions. He had me trailed.”
“He thought you were going to try to get me up on charges or something,” he says. “I didn’t know he had you followed. He was probably just protecting me.” He stands up. “I don’t know anything more than what I’ve told you,” he says. When I look up at him, he’s pale in the sunlight coming through the windows. “If you need more information, you’ll have to speak to my solicitor.”
“Okay, Mr. O’Hanrahan. We’ll leave you alone now. You’ll be hearing from us if there’s anything else.”
I see the wife watching from an upstairs window when we leave the house.
We stop and look at the view one more time before we get into the car. The sea reflects the sun; the water is full of diamonds. “That’s the thing about Ireland,” Roly says finally. “One minute it seems like the arse-ugliest spot on the earth, and the next it’s the most beautiful fucking thing you’ve ever seen.”
40
TUESDAY, JUNE 7,
2016
In a coffee shop in Bray, Roly and I check the online sites for the Irish Times and the Independent. There’s no real news about Robert Herricks, but Stephen Hines and the other reporters stretch it out as much as they can. The Guards are searching properties in Wicklow that Herricks has been associated with over the years. I imagine them approaching sheds and barns and basements, hesitating every time. This could be it. This could be the one.
Niamh.
She’s been gone seventeen days.
“What was that about the fella following you?” Roly asks.
“I told you that, back then. I confronted him with a screwdriver.”
“Ah, yeah. I thought you were mad, you know. I thought you were making that up.”
“Well, I was a bit mad by then. But listen, I just realized. Something about O’Hanrahan made me think of it. Remember I told you that John White looked familiar to me when I first met him? I was asking you about him? Well, I’m ninety-nine percent sure he’s the guy who followed me.”
He’d ordered himself a fancy-looking pastry with lots of frosting and a cherry on the top. He stops demolishing it for a minute and looks up at me. “Are you saying O’Hanrahan hired Johnny White before Johnny White was a guard?”
“I don’t know, but I’d swear in court it was him.”
He thinks for a minute. “Ah, shite. I knew he worked private security before he went to Templemore. You think he was working for O’Hanrahan?”
“I don’t know, but someone leaked to Stephen Hines to put me in the shit, and I’m the only one who can ID him from back then.”
“Ah, fuck.” He covers his face with his hands. It’s the worst-case scenario, a trusted colleague, a suspicion, no evidence of corruption, though. He’ll have to go to internal affairs. Or not. Either way, it’s bad. “I can’t even think about that now, D’arcy. Just fucking keep it to yourself, like, okay?”
“Of course. What do we do now, Roly?”
“I don’t know.” When he looks up at me he has a dollop of white on his nose. “But I’ve been thinking about something. That receipt. It shows she was in Dublin on the eighteenth. But it doesn’t show she was in Dublin on the seventeenth. Other than your woman at the bed-and-breakfast’s word that she was getting a bus back, we don’t actually have anything. The son was kind of a dodgy fella, but we couldn’t find anything on him. What do you say we head down to Wicklow and try to talk to her? Before the shit hit the fan, Joey gave me the address of the woman who remembered Katerina Greiner staying at the Glendalough Youth Hostel. Her name is Alice O’Murchú. We could talk to her as well.”
He seems better now, more himself, as though the conversation with O’Hanrahan had reminded him of the battle.
“Okay,” I say. “But you’d better wash your face first.”
“Why?”
“You’ve got frosting on your nose.”
“Ah,” Roly says happily, running a hand over his face. “Fuckin’ disgrace I am. But I think we’ve got something, D’arcy. I’m not sure what it is yet, but I think we’ve got something.”
* * *
It looks only vaguely familiar to me, a long whitewashed cottage with an addition, the dark forested hills rising behind it.
A woman with white hair answers the door and I search her face for a moment to find Eda Curran in it. Failing, I stick my hand out, introduce myself and Roly, and say, “Is Mrs. Curran here?”
“I’m sorry, she’s not well enough for visitors.” Only then do I notice the woman’s pale yellow uniform and white leather nursing shoes.
“It’s very important that we talk to her. It’s related to a police case. We’re detectives.” It’s not a lie. Not really.
“Is this about the girl who went missing?” the nurse asks. Her accent’s not Irish. Eastern European, maybe.
Roly and I glance at each other. “The girl who went missing?” I prompt her. I can’t tell if she’s talking about Niamh Horrigan or Erin. I want her to tell me.
“It was long time ago, I think, but she talks about it all the time.”
“Could we just come in and speak with her?” I say. “I would really appreciate it if you could let her know that I’m here and would like to speak with her.”
“Wait here.”
The sun is bright and climbing in the sky. Roly and I wait in silence.
“She isn’t very good today,” the nurse tells us. “You can come in, but just for a short time.”
The house seems shabbier, slightly darker, as if time has left a coating of dust on everything. Mrs. Curran is on the couch in the sitting room, wrapped in blankets despite the sun streaming in through the windows behind her.
A look of alarm spreads across her face when she sees us.
“I’m Maggie, Maggie D’arcy, Mrs. Curran,” I tell her. “My cousin Erin was the girl who went missing twenty-three years ago. I came to talk to you then. Do you remember me? This is Detective Inspector Byrne. You would have talked to him as well.”
“Of course I remember you.” She tries to smile a little and I can see how sick and how old she is. Her face is pale and she’s so thin I can see the shape of her skull. “Hello, I’m sorry I can’t get up to meet you. I’m not well.” She shifts on the couch and winces a bit. The nurse
steps forward to put a pillow behind her.
“We won’t take up very much of your time, Mrs. Curran,” Roly says. “But we were wondering about something. Erin Flaherty stayed overnight with you on September the sixteenth, 1993. I know it may be difficult to remember, but you told us that she was taking a bus back to Dublin that next morning. Did she tell you that directly?”
“I think so.” She closes her eyes, because she’s thinking or because of the pain, I can’t tell. “She said she had to go. The bus was going to leave, she said.”
Roly and I look at each other. That seems pretty definitive. “And you said she didn’t seem upset about anything. She didn’t tell you she was scared of anyone, did she?”
“No, no, I don’t—” She winces.
The nurse steps forward, giving us disapproving looks.
“We’ll leave you,” I say. “There’s just one more thing. Do you have any memories of a young German woman who may have been hillwalking near here, right around the time that my cousin Erin disappeared? All those years ago.”
“A German woman…” She thinks for a moment. “I don’t know … I’ve had lots of tourists stay with me over the years, Germans, Japanese. But that was before…”
“I don’t think she stayed with you,” I say gently. “They would have checked all that in your guest log. We’re wondering more about whether you might have seen her around, walking on the road or the trails.”
“I don’t know. Have they, have they found your cousin?”
“No, Mrs. Curran, but we think there may be a link between her and the German woman we’re interested in.”
“I don’t … She was a lovely girl. I didn’t know. I said so. That’s what I told you, isn’t that right?”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Curran, told me what?”
“Oh, I didn’t know. Isn’t that right, dear?”
The nurse is running out of patience. She starts to say something so I jump in. “Mrs. Curran, your son. Gary. He was there when Erin stayed with you, wasn’t he?”
She looks confused. “He helped me. With the bed-and-breakfast. Didn’t he? I had so many visitors then. People from all over the world. Lovely … He’s ill, you know. Gary.” She trails off and I look up to find the nurse has come back.
“Is he here now?” I ask her. “Could we talk to him?”
“He went into Rathdrum,” the nurse says. “To the clinic.”
“When will he be back?” Roly asks her. “We’d really like to have a chat with him.”
“By five. He said he will be back by five.”
Roly checks his watch and nods at me. “Okay, we’ll be back then. Thank you for your time, Mrs. Curran.”
41
TUESDAY, JUNE 7,
2016
Roly finds the address Joey gave him and calls ahead so Alice O’Murchú knows we’re coming.
She lives near Roundwood, in a huge, old stone house that we find at the end of a narrow country lane. When she answers the door, she’s holding a toddler, who’s naked except for a diaper and a purple ski hat. A little girl of about six is coloring at a small table behind her.
“Come in, come in,” she says. “I’ve just got home from getting this lot at the crèche. My partner’s not home yet and it’s a mess. Sorry. But I can tell you what I remember. As long as you don’t mind the chaos. Do you want a cup of tea? I’ve just put the kettle on.”
She tells us that she teaches at an Irish-speaking school in Wicklow. “I love it there. It’s been fifteen years now and the kids are really lovely.”
“We were told that you were working at the hostel in Glendalough in 1993,” Roly says.
“That’s right. I’d just done my leaving cert and I worked there for about a year before going to university.” The toddler makes a run for it into the kitchen and she goes after him, calling out, “I’ll be right back. I’ll just get him something to eat. And come with the tea.”
She’s back in a few minutes, the toddler under one arm and a plate of chicken and vegetables in the other. She drops him into a booster seat at the table and puts the plate in front of him, then gives the little girl a bowl of apple slices and goes to get our tea. “There, that should keep him busy for a bit. He loves his food, so he does.”
She’s done it properly, a teapot under a cozy and cups on a tray. When she’s poured it out she says, “Now, right, I was working at the hostel and there was this German girl who arrived. Her name was Katerina. I don’t remember her checking in or anything but a couple of days after she arrived, another guest came and told me that she was talking to herself in the dorm and the other girls in there were scared. I went up to the dorm and she was sitting on her bed and just, you know, talking to herself. She wasn’t hurting anyone, but it was kind of aggressive and just, odd, like. I moved the other women into a different dorm and let her stay in there by herself and I thought that was the end of it. But a couple of days later, I was on overnight and I heard shouting down in the kitchen. I went down and there were a couple of English guys who had been out drinking at the pub and had come back to make a big fry-up. From what I could tell, she’d wandered into the kitchen and they’d tried to talk to her and she just lost it. She tried to hit one of the guys with a spatula. They were laughing at her and that made it worse. I think she was really mentally ill. It was very sad. But I couldn’t have her hitting other guests so I told her she’d have to leave if she couldn’t calm down and stay away from them. She was angry at me, but early the next morning she packed up all her stuff and she asked me how to get to the Wicklow Way. She said she was going to walk to Glenmalure.”
We ask some more questions. She doesn’t remember the date exactly, but she thinks it was early September. Joey had already tried to find a record of Katerina’s stay at the hostel, but it had been before computerized registrations and they had thrown out the log books from the ’90s.
We thank her and head back out to the car.
“So she left Glendalough and started hiking to Glenmalure. It’s a two-hour hike, right, something like that. And along the way, when she was almost to Glenmalure, she met her killer.”
“And she made contact with Erin. Or with Erin’s scarf and necklace,” I say. “Somehow.” I open up a map on my phone. “Roly, we’re not too far from Arklow now.”
“Niall Deasey?” I nod. He slows the car and pulls over on the side of the road. “What do you think he’s going to tell us?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I just want to get a look at him. I feel like he’s got something to say, you know? You did a search for parking tickets, back during your first review. Griz showed me. A whole bunch of people connected with the investigation had them. Conor. Bláithín. Eda Curran. Niall Deasey’s truck had one too, right around the time June Talbot disappeared. He was out of the country, supposedly, but … what if he wasn’t? What if he borrowed the truck from his nephew?”
“That’s right.” He thinks for a moment. “You think there’s anything in the politics angle? That thing about her talking to her friends from home about marching season and the riots?”
“Brian said he remembered her talking about it. She was mad at them for not being more interested.” I check my texts but there’s nothing more from him.
“All right,” Roly says. He pulls out again, heading east toward the sea. The sun is setting in the west. There are streaks of yellow behind the mountains on the horizon. The trees are swaying in a stiff wind. “It feels like we’re getting close to something, D’arcy. Do you feel that?”
“Yeah,” I say. I don’t tell him it’s accompanied by a feeling of danger.
You’re getting close.
Don’t get too close.
42
TUESDAY, JUNE 7,
2016
Arklow looks the same to me. More coffee shops maybe, but the Old Ship is still there. It’s four thirty by the time we find Deasey’s garage, on a little residential street backing up to a vacant lot and field. A “Closed” sign hangs in a window and there�
�s an emergency number stenciled on the glass, but no signs of life. We go around the back of the garage.
The yard is neatly kept, car parts and scrap metal in orderly piles, the windows freshly washed. We knock on the office door and then, after a few minutes, go around and through the big open doors into the garage bays. There’s a guy bent over, working in the wheel well of a Jeep, and when Roly clears his throat, he says, without turning around, “Hang on a mo.”
I look around. The inside of the garage is as well-organized as the outside, with tools arranged neatly on the walls and shelves holding boxed parts and manuals.
“Right, then.” The guy stands up and it’s not Niall Deasey. This guy is stout, barrel-chested, with gray hair and a weather-beaten face. There’s something familiar about him but he doesn’t seem to recognize me at all. In fact, he looks past me to Roly.
“Pardon me,” Roly says. “You are…?”
“Cathal Deasey.” The guy looks suspicious now.
Roly takes out his warrant card and flashes it. “Detective Roland Byrne with the Garda Síochána. We were hoping to speak with Niall Deasey. Is he in?”
“I’ll get ’im.” Cathal wipes his hands on his pants and goes through a door at the back of the garage. His accent’s English, not Irish, I think, and suddenly I remember John introducing him to me as “Uncle Cathal.”
“I think he was there that night,” I whisper to Roly. “At the pub. I remember he had an English accent. He’s Niall’s brother.”
“Half-brother, actually. They co-own the garage. He was definitely out of the country when Erin went missing. He’s been living in London and came over to help Niall run the garage a year or so ago. We looked at him but there wasn’t anything there. He wasn’t even involved in the criminal stuff like his brother, though a fella I know on undercover said we shouldn’t be too quick to count him out for a little drugs action here and there.”
The Mountains Wild Page 26
