Taken for Dead (Kate Maguire)

by Graham Masterton

  She had seen too many cases in which vital evidence had gone missing or been tampered with retrospectively, and too many cases in which witnesses had been intimidated or beaten, or even killed, like Norman and Meryl Pearse.

  ‘We’ll be arranging for a post-mortem examination, of course,’ said Katie. ‘After that I’ll be able to tell you an exact cause of death.’

  ‘But they were burned?’

  ‘I’m not saying anything more today, except to appeal for witnesses. If anybody was walking on the cliffs or the seashore around Rocky Bay this morning, would they please contact us, even if they believe they saw nothing out of the ordinary. Also, if anybody was driving on the road between Spruce Grove and Rocky Bay this morning, and passed one or more vehicles coming in the opposite direction, would they please let us know. The road is very narrow and most of the time vehicles have to slow right down and pull over on to the nearside verge to pass each other.’

  Dan Keane had stuck another cigarette between his lips and lit it. He looked at Katie with one eye closed and said, ‘Do you want to explain to us why you’re being so unforthcoming about these murders, Superintendent? This is not like you at all. I mean usually you’ll be telling us the colour of the victim’s undercrackers, if he was wearing any, and what his star sign was, and what his mother-in-law cooked for her supper last night.’

  ‘I didn’t say these people were murdered, Dan. I said only that they were found deceased.’

  ‘But they were murdered, weren’t they?’ put in Branna MacSuibhne. ‘They were buried in the sand and doused with petrol and set fire to.’

  ‘Absolutely no comment, Branna. I’ll have Tadhg McElvin get in touch with you all as soon we’re ready to give you more.’

  ‘Well, I hope it’s soon,’ said Dan Keane, blowing out smoke. ‘Otherwise tomorrow morning’s banner is going to be “Why Are Garda So Secretive About Horrific Double Homicide”?’

  Katie left them and walked up the slope to her car. Her feelings were more and more mixed up and she was beginning to lose confidence in her own authority. Even worse than that, she was beginning to mistrust her fellow police officers at Anglesea Street. She badly needed to know who was leaking information to the media before she had approved it, especially since the premature release of that information was making it almost impossible for her to find out what was really going on.

  She climbed into her car, reversed sharply, and then started the half-hour drive back to the city.

  As she drove, she found herself chanting the little jump-rope song that she had learned in high babies:

  Are you a witch or are you fairy?

  Or are you the wife of Michael Cleary?

  23

  Walking along the corridor, she saw that the door to Acting Chief Superintendent Molloy’s office was ajar and that his lights were on. She knocked and opened the door wider. Bryan Molloy was sitting at his desk, talking on the phone. He was wearing a sandy-coloured tweed jacket and a pale green turtleneck sweater that was too tight for him around the neck. He nodded towards the chair on the opposite side of his desk, indicating that Katie should sit down, but she remained standing.

  ‘All right, Denis,’ he was saying. ‘I’ll see what I can do for you. No promises, mind. I may be the Acting Top Cop here at the moment, like, but I haven’t been promoted to Acting God. Not yet, anyway.’ ‘All right.’ ‘Yes. Good. Good luck to you so.’

  When he had finished his call, he kept the receiver held up in his hand, which gave Katie the impression that he was about to dial somebody else and that she was interrupting him. ‘Yes?’ he said.

  ‘I’ve just come back from Rocky Bay Beach. We haven’t yet formally identified the victims, but I’m certain that it’s Mr and Mrs Pearse.’

  ‘I see. Bang goes our evidence, then, that Derek Hagerty might have been faking it.’

  ‘Not entirely. I still think there’s a strong chance that we can persuade him to admit it.’

  ‘Oh, I think you’ll be fierce lucky to get him to do that. He’s bricking it. And what else do you have? Norman Pearse was the only one who claimed to have seen Hagerty’s bruises washed off, and Norman Pearse was the only one who heard him talking on his mobile phone.’

  ‘I realize that. But Meryl Pearse had a friend with her when she found Hagerty lying by the road. We don’t know who it was yet, but we’re working on it, and whoever it was might be able to help us.’

  ‘Well, good luck with that. If Hagerty doesn’t dare to speak, you don’t think this friend will, do you, always supposing that you can find them? So, any road, how was the crime scene? Any good forensics?’

  ‘Forget about the forensics for the moment – the media only showed up. Dan Keane, Fionnuala Sweeney, and that Branna girl from the Echo.’

  ‘And? It was a major crime scene, on a public beach, what did you expect?’

  ‘I expected no media at all, not until I was ready for them. I urgently need to find out who tipped them off.’

  Bryan Molloy pouted out his bottom lip and shrugged. ‘Could have been anybody. You know what these journos are like, they have eyes and ears everywhere.’

  ‘No – they knew details that only somebody on the inside of this investigation could have given them. They already knew that it was Norman and Meryl Pearse and they already knew that they’d been half buried and burned.’

  Bryan Molloy said nothing, but shrugged again, with his index finger still poised over his telephone keypad.

  ‘Bryan – ’ Katie demanded. ‘Are you not worried in the slightest that somebody inside this station could be passing confidential information to the media? If this carries on, my investigation into these High Kings of Erin could be seriously compromised. It’s causing me enough complications already.’

  Bryan Molloy shook his head from side to side as if he were patiently trying to explain something to a young child. ‘Katie, the security of your investigation is your responsibility, not mine. Believe it or not, I don’t only have crime to take care of. I also have national security and immigration. I have traffic management and road safety. I have community relations and antisocial behaviour. I have inter-agency cooperation to improve the quality of life for people in Cork. I have strategic planning. If we have a mole here in the station, then it’s entirely down to you to sniff him out – him or her – and deal with them. In any case, it’s most likely that it’s somebody on your own team, in my opinion. Somebody with a gambling habit? Somebody who’s looking for a little extra grade?’

  ‘My team are irreproachable. All of them.’

  ‘Oh yes? What about that detective sergeant what’s-her-name? Ni Nuallán? She’s an odd wan, if you ask me. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if she was a carpet muncher.’

  Katie said, ‘Bryan – Kyna Ni Nuallán is a very effective and highly respected member of my team, and I won’t tolerate you talking about her like that.’

  ‘So what are you going to do? Report me? Come on, Katie, don’t act so grim. I was only rowling with you.’

  ‘You think it’s a joke, do you, to call one of my detectives a lesbian?’

  Bryan put down his phone with a bang. ‘You listen to me, Detective Superintendent Maguire, I was an inspector when you were still waving on tractors and helping snotty little kids across the road. It’s not my fault that you’re making a fecking bags of this investigation. I know it’s complicated, but sorting out complicated, that’s your fecking job. You’ve been wrong-footed right from the very beginning, so don’t come cribbing to me about somebody leaking information. It’s up to you to cover your own arse.’

  Katie could think of at least three different retorts to that, but she knew that it was pointless. The only way to deal with a man like Bryan Molloy was to let him think that she had given him the last word and then wait patiently for him to become overconfident and make some foolish mistake. If you wait by the River Lee long enough, she thought, misquoting the Chinese warrior Sun Tzu, you will see the body of your enemy float by.

 
She took a deep breath, and then said, ‘I’m putting a call in to Dr Reidy. Then I’m calling it a day. You wouldn’t want to be paying me overtime for making such a pig’s dinner of things, would you? I’ll be talking to the media tomorrow, as soon as we’ve formally identified the victims.’

  ‘Is that it, then?’ said Bryan Molloy, picking up his phone again.

  ‘Yes,’ said Katie. ‘That’s it. I’ll see you in the morning. Good luck to you so.’

  24

  It was cold and foggy when she left Anglesea Street and by the time she was driving down beside the river towards Cobh the fog was so thick that she had to slow down to 10 mph. The streetlights looked like dandelion clocks.

  She turned into her driveway and was annoyed with herself for not having switched the porch light on. She still hadn’t quite become accustomed to living alone – drawing the curtains in the living room if she expected to be late back, taking a Tesco ready meal out of the freezer in the morning to defrost, tidying the bed. Out of everything, that was what saddened her the most, coming back to find the bed exactly as she had left it when she woke up. Idle as he was, even Paul used to straighten the quilt and plump up the pillows.

  In the darkness of the porch she had to jab her key two or three times before she found the lock. As she turned the key, a ship leaving the harbour let out a long, mournful hoot, as if to emphasize her loneliness. When she pushed open the door, however, Barney came snuffling and waffling and tail-wagging up to her. At least somebody’s pleased to see me, she thought.

  She went through to the nursery and locked her revolver in the chest of drawers. Looking around at the baby-blue wallpaper, she wondered if it was time to stop calling it the nursery and redecorate it, so she could use it as a home office. Everything comes to an end, she thought, even though you never believe that it will. People die, lovers walk out of the door. All that remains is the rain.

  She went back into the living room, switched on the television and poured herself a large glass of Smirnoff Black Label. RTÉ’s nine o’clock news would be starting in a few minutes and she wanted to see if Fionnuala Sweeney had filed a report on Rocky Bay Beach. Barney trotted over and sat close to her, resting his head on her lap. She stroked his back and tugged at his ears, which he always liked. She would have to take him for his walk later, even though it was so foggy.

  The news was just beginning when her doorbell chimed. ‘Out of the way, Barns,’ she said, and went to answer it.

  ‘Who is it?’ she called out, standing to one side of the door. Her previous chief superintendent, Dermot O’Driscoll, had recommended that she install CCTV in her porch, but she had never got around to arranging it.

  ‘It’s me,’ said a man’s voice. ‘David.’

  She opened the door and found David Kane standing outside with a smile on his face, holding up a bottle of champagne.

  ‘Bolly,’ he said.

  ‘David. It’s late. I have a very early start tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh, come on. It’s never too late for a glass of bubbly!’

  ‘What about Sorcha?’

  ‘Dead to the world, as usual, with her medication. She won’t wake up until eight o’clock tomorrow. Thank you, clozapine, I love you!’

  ‘I’m sorry, David. I’m serious. I’ve had a very long and difficult day and I really do need to have an early night.’

  ‘Well, we don’t have to drink the bubbly now. Maybe we could have it for breakfast.’

  ‘You can’t stay the night, David,’ said Katie. ‘Apart from anything else, I’m not in the mood. I’m extremely tired and I haven’t even eaten yet.’

  ‘So what were you thinking of having for your dinner?’

  ‘I don’t know. Something simple and quick, like an omelette.’

  ‘Oh, Katie, my darling, you should taste my omelettes. I’m a master chef when it comes to omelettes. I’ll make one for you and you can have a glass of bubbly while you’re watching me cook it. And this is the good stuff, not your Tesco Prosecco.’

  ‘David,’ said Katie, ‘I need to be alone tonight. Thanks for bringing round the champagne, and thanks for the offer of an omelette, but really – no thanks.’

  David frowned. ‘What’s the matter with you? I thought you and me were getting along famously.’

  ‘Nothing’s the matter with me, David. It’s just that I need to unwind and I need to do it in peace and quiet, by myself.’

  ‘I’ll just sit there. I won’t say a word.’

  ‘David – no.’

  ‘There is something wrong, isn’t there, and it’s not just the monthlies?’

  ‘No. Nothing’s wrong. Now, please – I have to take Barney for his walk and it’s getting late.’

  David’s eyes narrowed, as if he suspected that she was lying. ‘Last night you couldn’t get into bed with me fast enough. Now you don’t want to know. Don’t tell me you’re bipolar, too. Jesus. That would be just my luck, wouldn’t it? Both my wife and my mistress, manic depressives!’

  ‘David, I’m not your mistress, and I never will be. If you really want to know, I’m quite happy to be friends with you, but I don’t want to sleep with you again.’

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘You can’t tell me that wasn’t the best sex you ever had in your whole life?’

  ‘I can, as a matter of fact. But that’s not the issue. The simple reality is that I don’t want to have an affair with you, no matter how casual it is.’

  ‘You’re serious?’

  ‘Yes. I’m serious.’

  ‘And that wasn’t the best sex you ever had in your whole life?’

  ‘No.’

  David lowered his head and slowly stroked his chin, like a man pondering a deep mathematical problem, or a cryptic crossword clue. Then, with no warning at all, he swung the Bollinger bottle around and smashed it against the porch railing. The floor was covered in shards of shattered green glass and fizzing champagne.

  David pointed his finger at Katie and said, ‘You know what you are, don’t you, Katie? There’s a word for women like you.’

  ‘Go away out of here,’ Katie told him. ‘Go home and look after your wife.’

  ‘You’re in your flowers right now, but you’ll miss me. Tomorrow night when you’re in bed alone you’ll remember what I was like, and you’ll regret it.’

  ‘Go home, David. Either you’re langered or you’ve been snorting something.’

  ‘God, you’re so high and mighty. Just because you’re a detective, you think you have the right to treat me like I’m some kind of dirtball.’

  ‘David, go home. If you don’t go home now I’ll arrest you for harassment and threatening a police officer.’

  David closed his eyes for a few moments, as if he were consulting some inner advisor, and then he said, ‘Okay, Katie. I’m sorry. I apologize. I lost my temper, that’s all. I’m not really used to women saying no.’

  He looked down at the broken glass and said, ‘Do you have a dustpan and brush? I’ll sweep this all up for you. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Just go home, David. I can clear it up myself in the morning.’

  ‘We can still be friends, though, can’t we?’

  Katie started to close the front door. ‘I honestly don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to think about it. Now, please, go.’

  David hesitated, and then he went. Katie closed the door, bolted it and slid on the security chain. Barney was standing in the hallway looking up at her expectantly, ready for his walk.

  ‘Sorry, Barns. Not tonight. You’ll have to make do with the back yard.’

  After she had let him out of the kitchen door, she returned to the living room and sat down. It was only then that she realized how quickly her heart was thumping. What made her feel so stressed was not just the way in which David had lost his temper so suddenly, but the fact that she still found him sexually attractive. His violent show of frustration had alarmed her at the time, but in retrospect it had aroused her, too. She hadn’t known many men who would smash a 70-euro bo
ttle of champagne just because they wanted to go to bed with her so much.

  Even though she hadn’t forgotten the disinterested look on his face as he had pushed his way in and out of her, there was a lot about him that aroused her. That bald penis, almost sculptural, and the way that it had felt against her own bare skin. That self-possession and those secretive smiles, as if he knew something about her that even she didn’t know. Maybe that came from years of working as a vet and learning to understand creatures that couldn’t express themselves in words, only with their eyes.

  She finished the dregs of her vodka and was considering pouring herself another one when Fionnuala Sweeney appeared on the TV screen, with Rocky Bay Beach behind her. The sky was growing dark, so this report must have been recorded about half past six. Katie could see that the blue Technical Bureau tents were being dismantled and the tide was already sluicing in as far as the rocks.

  ‘The badly burned bodies of a man and a woman were found today on the beach here at Rocky Bay. Gardaí were tight-lipped about their identities and how they had died, but we understand that they were a married couple from Ballinlough, Norman and Meryl Pearse. Norman Pearse was a manager at Faraway Travel in the city centre, and his wife worked for Eason’s bookstore.

  ‘Mrs Pearse is believed to have found Derek Hagerty, the owner of Hagerty’s Autos at Looney’s Cross, after he had managed to escape from being abducted by the now-notorious kidnap gang calling themselves the High Kings of Erin. Mr Hagerty was in a poor condition by the roadside, but Mrs Pearse and her husband took him into their home to recover.

  ‘Before Mr Pearse dropped off Mr Hegarty in Cork City centre, however, he informed the gardaí and Mr Hegarty was taken into protective custody, where he remains today. Reliable sources suggest that Mr and Mrs Pearse may have been punished for notifying the gardaí, and because they knew too much about Mr Hagerty’s abduction, and who might be responsible.