Taken for Dead (Kate Maguire)

by Graham Masterton

  ‘Roisin herself,’ said Detective Dooley, proudly, and smiled at the girl and squeezed her hand. ‘I answered her advertisement and went around to see her and she told me the whole story. She thought that working for Michael Gerrety was going to be sexy and glamorous and exciting – didn’t you, Roisin, that’s what Gerrety promised you? She thought she was going to meet all these hunky rich fellers and make loads of money so that she could drive down Pana in her own sports car and stick up two fingers to all of her old schoolfriends, and her dad and mum, too!’

  Katie stood up and held out her hands to her. ‘So what happened, Roisin? It didn’t turn out at all like that, did it?’

  Roisin Begley suddenly pressed her fists up to her face and burst into tears. She tottered on her high red heels into Katie’s arms and Katie held her tight while she sobbed and shook and let out a howl that sounded like all of the pain and disappointment and degradation she had suffered turned into a single long plainsong.

  ‘Come on, sit down, Roisin, and tell me all about it,’ said Katie. She led her over to the grey leather couch beside the window and put her arm around her.

  ‘It was terrible,’ Roisin wept. ‘It made me sick to my stomach. First of all I met these two fellows in Starr’s and I thought they were funny and smart and they always had so much money. They took me to parties and discos and we had such a great time.’

  She started howling again, so that she could hardly breathe. Katie turned to Detective Dooley and said, ‘Bring her a glass of water, would you, Robert? There’s a glass in the toilet there.’

  ‘After three or four times they said I would make a fabulous masseuse, you know. All I had to do was give these guys a massage and I would make so much money. They took me to see Michael Gerrety right at the top of the Elysian and Michael Gerrety said I was gorgeous. He gave me champagne and we went to bed together and it was just like a dream.’

  ‘Wait a minute. Michael Gerrety took you to bed, and he had sex with you?’

  Roisin sniffed and wiped her eyes with her fingers, until her green eye make-up was all smeary. ‘He was such a great lover. I thought that every man I gave a massage to was going to be the same.’

  ‘Did he know how old you were?’ asked Katie.

  ‘I told him seventeen because the boys I met at Starr’s said you had to be seventeen to be a masseuse.’

  ‘But you weren’t seventeen?’

  ‘No. Sixteen. I’m not seventeen till November the nineteenth/’

  Katie handed her a glass of water, and then she asked her, ‘What did Michael Gerrety do after that?’

  ‘He took me to this house in Knocka and showed me this room and said he was going to set up a website for me and all these men would come around and all I had to do was give them a massage.’

  ‘That was all? Just a massage?’

  ‘Well, all I had to do was rub their mickeys. I don’t know how to do that proper Thai massage. But Michael Gerrety said that if they asked for anything more I could give it to them, you know, and I could ask for lots more money.’

  More tears ran down her cheeks, although this time she didn’t howl, and she gradually managed to choke out what had been done to her.

  ‘They weren’t these hunky, handsome guys that I thought they were going to be. They were old and they were stinky and I hated them. They wanted me to do everything with them, like suck them and let them pee on me and they always wanted to do it up my bottom. I started to think that I wasn’t pretty enough to get the really handsome men and I wasn’t worth anything. They treated me like a toilet, those men. I used to get the gawks all day from what they made me do. I had the taste of gip in my mouth from morning till night.

  She looked up at Detective Dooley and let out a moan, but this time it was a moan of relief. ‘Then he came in this morning. Robert. And I thought he was gentle and lovely. And then he said what would I do for him, and I said anything, you name it. And then he said, that’s it, I’m a garda and I’m taking you out of here. I can’t believe it!’

  Katie hugged her and let her cry it all out. She looked up at Detective Dooley and mouthed the words, ‘Well done you.’ Then she looked out of her window at the Elysian building, where Michael Gerrety lived. She knew that there was plenty of difficult work ahead of her, and tedious hours to be spent in court, but she also knew that sometime in the future she would remember this day as one of the best days in her whole career.

  50

  As Katie was about to leave her office that evening, her phone rang. She was inclined to leave it, but it went on ringing so she walked back to her desk and picked it up,

  ‘Katie? It’s Michael – Michael Dempsey, your tame historian.’

  ‘Michael, how are you?’

  ‘Well, I’m grand altogether, but embarrassed that I never really got back to you about the High Kings of Erin. I’ve seen on the news that you caught them, so you have my congratulations.’

  ‘Did you find out anything more about them?’

  ‘Nothing that would have helped you very much, except that they were totally ruthless and they murdered anybody who challenged them or stood in their way. It made no difference if it was their father or their first cousin or their closest friend – they did it with no compunction at all. They made the Islamic State look like amateurs.

  ‘Fair play, though, they did have a habit of taking hostages. There was Niall of the Nine Hostages who controlled almost all of Ireland by abducting important people from other provinces and keeping them prisoner. He used to demand enormous ransoms for their release – either grain or gold or cattle.

  ‘Then there was Finn Mac Cumhaill. He was one of Erin’s greatest warriors, and another prolific hostage-taker. He did it mostly for the ransom, but if nobody was prepared to pay for his hostages he would think up all kinds of inventive ways to kill them, such as cutting open their stomachs and filling them with rotten apples, and then letting his pigs get at them. He reckoned that if their death was gruesome enough, people would be more inclined to stump up ransoms in the future.’

  ‘That sounds horribly similar to our High Kings of Erin,’ said Katie. ‘Listen – maybe we should meet. This might give the prosecuting counsel some interesting background.’

  ‘I’d like that. But perhaps it would be wiser not to do it over lunch. Some of the things the High Kings of Erin did would turn your stomach. Enough to put you off drusheen for ever.’

  Michael Dempsey hesitated for so long that Katie thought that he might have put the phone down. Just as she was about to say ‘Michael?’, though, he said, ‘I saw on the TV news what happened to you – you know, that neighbour of yours acting like a human shield.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ said Katie. She couldn’t help conjuring up a picture of David Kane standing in her porch, smiling with supreme self-confidence and holding up his bottle of Bollinger.

  ‘The thing of it is, there’s an interesting little story about Finn Mac Cumhaill,’ said Michael Dempsey. It just struck me as kind of resonant, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Resonant?’ said Katie. ‘I’m not at all sure that I do. You mean that it rings a bell, like?’

  ‘It can’t be historically true, of course, but when Finn’s wife Uime was pregnant with twin boys, a jealous rival of hers turned her into a she-dog. She was turned back into a human before she went into labour, but her twins were both born as hounds. It wasn’t her fault, but Finn never forgave her, and constantly beat her and whipped her as a punishment. Even if they were dogs, though, he was devoted to his sons. He gave them the same care and respect as if they had been human, and that’s why why Irish veterinarians regard him as something of a patron saint.’

  ‘Sounds like your typical High King,’ said Katie, even though the very word ‘veterinarian’ had given her a chilly creeping feeling down her back. ‘Sounds like your typical man, in fact.’

  ‘Ah, but there’s a coda to it,’ said Michael Dempsey. ‘Whatever grievance Finn had against Uime, he saved her life. The jealous rival s
ent warriors to kill her, but he stepped in front of her and the arrow that had been intended to pierce her heart pierced his instead.’

  ‘I don’t really know why you told me that, Michael,’ said Katie.

  ‘I’m sorry, Katie. It wasn’t my intention to upset you. I just thought it was a perfect example of how Irish history repeats itself, over and over. We learn from history that we do not learn from history.’

  ‘Oh, the High Kings of Erin have taught me something all right,’ Katie told him.

  ‘Oh, yes? And what’s that?’

  ‘The more that somebody tells you that they can offer you, Michael, the less you’re likely to get out of them. Maguire’s Law of Unfulfilled Expectations.’

  ***

  Three weeks passed. It grew dark at four o’clock in the afternoon and the rain was colder. There was still no trace of Acting Chief Superintendent Molloy nor Inspector Fennessy, although the Anglesea Street press office had managed to keep their unexplained disappearance out of the media.

  Katie’s days were taken up with prosecuting Lorcan Devitt for homicide, kidnap, extortion, assault and at least eight other crimes, including drug-dealing and car theft and threatening behaviour. Pat Whelan and Eoghan Carroll had not yet reappeared – neither had Pat’s wife or Eoghan’s parents – but Katie guessed that they were waiting in hiding until they were sure that Lorcan Devitt was convicted and locked up. If he was found guilty of kidnap, then there was hardly any possibility that they would be charged with assault against Malachi and Ezra.

  She had also arrested and charged Michael Gerrety for sex with an underage girl and reckless endangerment, and she was waiting for that case to make its slow and convoluted way to court.

  Although her investigations were making good progress, she had been feeling so bloated and tired that she was relieved when it seemed that she was starting her period at last. The spotting, however, lasted only two days, and her breasts were even more swollen.

  On the last day of the month, she went into Boot’s in Patrick Street and bought herself a pregnancy test kit. I can’t be pregnant, she thought, it’s impossible. David swore to me that he’d had a vasectomy and he’s the only man I’ve slept with since John left.

  When she returned home, she found a letter waiting for her on the mat. The hallway had been stripped of its wallpaper now, and the carpet shampooed, so that any trace of David had been erased for ever. She hung up her coat and opened the kitchen door so that Barney could come jumbling out, wagging his tail and sniffing and wuffing.

  ‘Hello, Barns, you faithful long-suffering creature,’ she said. ‘What about some Applaws? Chicken and rice? Lamb? You name it.’

  She poured him out some dry dog food and then she looked at the letter. She didn’t recognise the handwriting but it had been posted in Cork. She opened it and found a single sheet of lined paper that looked as if it had been torn from a notebook.

  ‘Dear Kathleen,

  This is by way of an apology even though I realise that no apology for what I have done will ever make amends.

  After Caitlin and I broke up I went through what you might describe as a crisis, both financially and mentally. I know that I am a good detective but I have always found the job highly stressful. First of all I took out my stress on Caitlin but after she left I turned to coke, and some other stuff besides.

  Not only did I lose most of my savings when our marriage collapsed, I found myself in deep debt to several drug-dealers. I went to Bryan Molloy asking for advice and he told me that there was a way out of my situation, which was to help him with the High Kings of Erin.

  I know how wrong it was, but I was not thinking straight at all, and so I agreed. The way he described the plan, it sounded as if nobody would get hurt and only public money would be diverted.

  I cannot tell you how bad I felt when it all went wrong and Brenda McCracken was killed and then Nessa Goold. The trouble was that I could see no way of turning back. Whatever I admitted to, I had no way of breathing life back into them.

  I know now how much I have let you down and everybody else at Anglesea Street. I can understand that you will never forgive me but that is the burden I have to bear.

  By the time you read this anyway I will have gone to face the judgment which I deserve.

  Thank you for being a wonderful person. There is no more that I can say that will make you feel any better about me.

  Liam.’

  Katie took the letter into the living room and switched on the lights. She sat down and read it again, with tears in her eyes and shaking hands. She tried Liam’s number again on her iPhone but there was no answer, so she called the station and asked them to send a patrol car to Liam’s house in Douglas to see if he was there.

  ‘If he doesn’t answer, break in.’

  She waited for over two hours. She was already in bed when Sergeant Brennan rang her back, not sleeping but reading through some of the reports that she had been given that day. She had been hoping that verbatim interviews with a fifty-one-year-old accountant from Togher accused of petty money-laundering might send her to sleep.

  ‘There was no response so we forced an entry,’ said Sergeant Brennan. ‘The property was empty. Nobody there. We secured the property again before we left.’

  ‘Thank you, sergeant,’ she said.

  ‘You’re not thinking he might have self-harmed, ma’am?’

  ‘I don’t know, sergeant. I very much hope not. It’s hard to know what people are going to do when they feel like there’s no way out.’

  ***

  She slept badly, even though she was so tired, and at 5.17 in the morning, when it was still dark, she climbed out of bed and went to the bathroom. The Clearblue pregnancy kit was waiting beside the toilet. Her period was due now so this was the time to use it.

  At 5.30 she climbed back into bed again. Had David really loved her, in spite of the way that he had behaved towards her? Was aggression and violence his way of demonstrating how much he cared? Had he lodged his complaint against her for no other reason than he wanted her back?

  He had taken Aengus Duggan’s bullets for her, after all, and sacrificed his own life saving hers. But now she could never ask him why.

  His child would never be able to ask him why, either. His child that she had just discovered that she was carrying inside her.

  ***

  She was drinking coffee in the kitchen the next morning, still wrapped in her dressing gown, when the doorbell chimed. Barney was alert at once, and ran along the hallway to the front door.

  ‘Who is it?’ she called out. ‘If it’s a parcel just leave it in the porch.’

  ‘It’s me,’ said a man’s voice. A very familiar man’s voice.

  Katie’s heart almost stopped in mid-beat. She drew back the safety chain and opened the door and there he was, wearing a long white raincoat, tall and suntanned, with his dark curly hair much longer than when he had left her.

  ‘Hello, Katie,’ he smiled. He held out a bunch of red roses wrapped in cellophane, and said, ‘Pretty crappy, I’m afraid, but they were the best they had at the gas station, and noplace else was open.’

  ‘John,’ she said, and that was all she could manage to say. Her mouth puckered, and tears streamed down her face.

  ‘Hey – hey,’ he said, and stepped into the hallway. She put her arms around him and held him as tightly as she could. She breathed in and he smelled just like John, the same woodsy smell, and she couldn’t believe that he was really here and that she was hugging him.

  He kissed the top of her crow’s-nest hair – once, and then twice, and then again. ‘I’m sorry I came so early. The plane came in from London at six. I had coffee in the airport to kill time but then I couldn’t wait any longer.’

  Katie said, ‘It doesn’t matter, darling. Honestly, it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I know I should have called you. I should have called you but I didn’t know what to say to you and I was afraid to.’

 
She looked at him with teardrops clinging to her eyelashes. ‘For goodness’ sake! What were you afraid of?’

  ‘I know it sounds crazy, sweetheart, but I was afraid you might have found somebody else. You haven’t found anybody else, have you?’

  ~

  We hope you enjoyed this book.

  The next gripping book in the Katie Maguire series will be released in Autumn 2015.

  For more information, click one of the links below:

  Graham Masterton

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  About this Book

  It is a sunny Saturday in county Cork, and an Irish wedding is in full swing. Drunk uncles are toasting the bride. The Ceilidh band have played for hours. No one could predict that the cutting of the cake would bring this wedding to a horrifying end.

  The severed head of Micky Crounan, local baker, is grinning gruesomely up from the bottom tier of his own cake. Katie Maguire, of the Irish Garda, is baffled – until another local businessman goes missing in horrific circumstances. Soon Katie is on the trail of a debt-collecting gang calling themselves The Kings of Erin. But these are very dangerous men. And they will stop at nothing to throw Katie off the trail…

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  ‘Graham Masterton’s best book yet, and that’s as good as they come!’

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  ‘His setting is unique, his killer is gruesomely fascinating, and his storyteller is visceral and graphic.’

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