Gallows Lane idm-2

by Brian McGilloway

  As I pushed through the crowd, I felt my mobile vibrating in my pocket. I did not recognize the number; nor, on answering, could I hear anything the caller said. Eventually I gave up the call as a bad job and resolved to call the person back later, saving the number to my phone.

  I went straight to the bar, shouting to be heard over the incessant bass-line pounding of what passed for music in this place. The barman eyed me a little warily at first; most of the clientele here were quite literally young enough to be my daughters. If Penny thought she’d see a club this side of twenty, she had another think coming.

  I held the photo aloft. ‘Do you know this girl?’ I asked. The barman did not speak, but shook his head slowly from side to side, in time with the music, the rhythm to which he beat time with his hand on the bar.

  ‘Could you look a little closer?’ I shouted.

  He beat a final rhythm out with both hands, leaned towards me briefly and shouted back, ‘I already told you, I ain’t seen her.’

  ‘Can I speak to the manager?’ I called, but he pantomimed that he was unable to hear me, placing his hand behind his ear, moving his whole body now with the music, biting his lip softly in concentration.

  ‘Asshole,’ I muttered. Despite the noise he heard that, for he gave me the finger. Perhaps he could lip-read.

  One of the girls clearing glasses off the tables was more obliging and several minutes later, the manager led me into his office, through a key-code locked door at the end of a corridor which also housed the ladies’ toilets. Indeed, while in his office, we could hear the shrieks and shouts of the girls next door.

  ‘I don’t recognize her,’ the man said. He had introduced himself as Jack Thompson. He wore a black suit and a white linen shirt, open at the collar. His hair was gelled into spikes, the tips highlighted blond. He sat behind a walnut wood desk and gestured for me to sit in an easy chair in front of it. ‘When was she here?’ he asked.

  ‘Last night. Part of a hen night,’ I added.

  ‘Fuck, we have ten a night, buddy. That won’t help. Try the barmen.’

  ‘I already did. They won’t be gaining any citizenship awards anytime soon.’

  ‘Too cool to chat, buddy,’ he said. ‘The door attendants might be more useful.’

  ‘Door attendants?’ I repeated.

  ‘Bouncers,’ he said. ‘Except we can’t call them that anymore. Fucking sizest or something.’

  ‘I didn’t think bouncers were the sensitive type,’ I said.

  ‘Our door staff are fully trained and accredited,’ Thompson explained. ‘Best of the best, buddy.’

  The veracity of Thompson’s claims was put to the test fairly quickly. One of the door staff did remember Karen Doherty; he had thrown her out of the club. Though he described it as ‘excorted’.

  Darren Kehoe was twenty-four, both in age and stone weight. His shirt collar stretched around a neck with the proportions of a fire hydrant. His hair was shaved in a crew cut. His nose was flat and pugnacious, his eyes narrow and deep-set, seemingly exaggerating the protrusion of his forehead.

  ‘Why did you escort her off the premises, Darren?’ Thompson asked him. Kehoe was sitting on a two-seater sofa against the wall, his arms resting on his thighs, his black jacket stretched taut across his frame. I sat again in the chair in front of Thompson’s desk, while he perched a buttock on the desk’s edge, his arms folded.

  ‘She was drunk,’ he said, looking from his boss to me and back again. ‘Falling all over the place. I had to lift her off the dance floor.’

  ‘You see, buddy,’ Thompson explained, ‘we can serve them drinks, but we don’t condone over-indulgence. Don’t want disorder. And we cooperate fully with the local Gardai,’ he added, stressing the word local.

  ‘I’m sure you do,’ I said, then added, ‘buddy.’

  He looked at me askance, then faced Kehoe again.

  ‘Did you see her with anyone, after you put her out?’ I asked.

  ‘No. I lifted her, put her outside the front door. She went up towards the side alley — for a pish, maybe. To …’ he struggled to find an alternative word. ‘To pee,’ he said, finally.

  ‘What time was this?’ I asked.

  ‘After one, maybe.’

  ‘Would you have CCTV cameras outside?’ I asked. ‘Mr Thompson?’ I had to add to get his attention.

  ‘Sure, buddy. I’ll get someone to take care of it.’ He lifted the phone on his desk and called someone named John, explaining to him what we wanted. Several minutes later, John appeared at the door with a DVD.

  Thompson slotted it into a small monitor behind his desk and forwarded slowly through it. Sure enough, just after 1 a.m., Karen Doherty was shown being thrown on to the roadway by Darren Kehoe. She lay on the ground dazed for a few seconds, then, gathering herself, shouted something towards the door. She pulled her green cardigan tightly around herself, hugging herself, and staggered out of view. I could understand why Kehoe had thought her drunk, though I suspected the date-rape chemical we’d found in her system had more to do with it.

  A minute or two later she staggered back into view. Just then a black car pulled alongside. A sleeveless arm reached across the passenger seat and opened the door. Karen peered into the car and seemed to say something. Conversation ensued for almost a minute and then, with a final look around, perhaps for her friends, she climbed unsteadily into the car and it drove off.

  The angle of the shot meant we could not see the registration plate of the car. I asked Thompson to rewind the image and pause at the hand reaching over to the door. There were no rings or jewellery on the hand, but it was large and thick, the lower arm muscled. A dark shape was visible on the arm, from above the wrist to below the elbow, and I peered a little closer to the screen. ‘What is that?’ I asked, pointing to the image.

  ‘Wait a sec,’ John said, playing with the controls of the monitor. He zoomed in on the image slightly, enough for us to see the mark, but not to clearly identify it.

  ‘It looks like a tattoo or something,’ he said. ‘I can’t make it any clearer than this, though.’.

  ‘Did you see this? Last night?’ I asked Kehoe, who shook his head. ‘Would any of the other door staff?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘There were a lot of fights last night,’ he added by way of explanation. ‘We were pretty busy.’

  ‘What about drugs? Any of those going about?’ I asked Kehoe.

  ‘As I’ve already told you, we cooperate fully with the local Gardai, Inspector,’ Thompson said.

  ‘I know you have,’ I replied. ‘But I’m not talking about recreational drugs. We believe that this girl was given a date-rape drug on your premises. Which might explain her condition when your door staff threw her on to the pavement.’

  Thompson blanched visibly, swallowing hard. Kehoe looked slightly stunned, his face blank, as if he was unable to process the information.

  ‘I think we’ve done all we can to help, Inspector,’ Thompson said, standing away from his desk. ‘You are welcome to take the CCTV footage with you.’

  ‘I’ll be in touch with the local Gardai, Mr Thompson; I’m sure you can expect a high-profile awareness campaign in your club over the next few weeks.’

  Thompson did not speak as I left, presumably considering the impact such a development would have on his business.

  Williams had had less luck around the club. Several patrons recognized Karen’s face, but that was it. No one remembered her from the night before; no one noticed her leaving with anyone; no one could help in any way. Indeed, few seemed willing to let the girl’s death spoil their night.

  Chapter Five

  Wednesday, 2 June

  I only remembered to follow up the call to my mobile the following morning, as I charged it in the car. I did not place the voice until Paddy Hannon introduced himself.

  ‘Ben, sorry to bother you,’ he said, his voice breaking up amongst the static of the phone.

  ‘Paddy — business or pleasure?’ I a
sked, lighting my first cigarette of the day.

  ‘Business; yours, actually. I thought of something. . about. . find.’

  ‘Sorry, Paddy? You thought of something?’

  ‘On TV … showing the guns. I recognized some … not … field.’

  ‘What?’ I called into the phone.

  ‘. . them. . not. . f. .’

  I raised my voice further, then realized that volume would not compensate for a broken connection.

  ‘I’ll call over to the site,’ I concluded, cutting the connection. I added his name to the number I had saved the previous night, turned the car around and headed out towards Raphoe.

  Fifteen minutes later, Paddy Hannon spelt out his misgivings.

  As he had watched the news report on the find on Webb’s land the night previous, he had noticed the bag of E-tabs which I had seen the day before. He recalled that he had seen a similar bag in the bunker that had been discovered on his land a month earlier. Something indefinable had bothered him about it and he had tried to phone me on the number I had given him. Unable to get through to me, he had hunted out the footage of the news report on the find on his land; his wife had recorded it because he was interviewed and she wanted to show her sister, he claimed. In reality, Paddy’s vanity was well known; he probably kept scrapbooks of all his media appearances.

  He noticed, as he watched the report, that, in the display of drugs from his find, the E-tabs were not included. He checked over the news cuttings his wife had saved — again, no mention of E-tabs. The bag was, he argued, too distinctive for him to have mistaken, or forgotten. It was definitely there, on his land, he said. He just thought it was a bit odd, he said. Thought he should let me know.

  I lied, and told him that we didn’t always include every item in a display; that there was probably some simple explanation for it and that I would look into it.

  Before I left, I remembered the CCTV footage of the previous night. ‘This is going to sound kind of stupid, Paddy, but how many of your workers would you call muscly, with tattoos?’

  ‘You’re on a building site, Ben. I’d say that just about covers most of the men here. And some of the women.’

  As I returned to the car, I reflected on the suspicions I had felt on the day of the second find, on Gallows Lane, with all the emptiness that such vindication brings.

  Colhoun was making himself and Patterson a mug of coffee each in the station’s kitchenette when I arrived back. His eyelids were hooded, his eyes bloodshot. The celebration had clearly run into a second day for his breath stank of the previous evening’s drinking. In fact, the whole station was subdued this morning, Patterson in particular slumped over the keyboard of his computer where he had been surfing the Net.

  As I came in, Colhoun was studying a pornographic cartoon his partner had tacked on to the fridge. He had his head tilted sideways, clearly attempting to unravel, among all the limbs, who was doing what to whom. He jumped when I said good morning, and blushed brightly at having been caught taking an illicit peak.

  ‘Ben, I … I didn’t see you,’ he stammered, heaping spoonfuls of sugar into one of the mugs.

  ‘So I see. How’re things, Hugh? Have a good night?’

  ‘Aye, it was great, Ben, great. You know how it is; you have to let the hair down sometimes,’ he said, affably.

  ‘You looked well on TV, Hugh — you and Harry both.’

  ‘Shine up well. The missus made me buy a new suit, you know.’ Colhoun smiled and blinked as if staring into direct light. His expression was gormless, lacking deceit, yet his eyes shifted nervously. I liked Hugh Colhoun an awful lot but also knew that he was the weaker link in the partnership with Patterson.

  ‘Whose idea was it to split the first find, Hugh?’ I asked, smiling with a warmth and camaraderie which, in this instance, I did not feel. His blush from earlier drained almost spontaneously and he licked his lips several times, glancing beyond me to where I hoped Patterson was still slumped, recovering from his night’s exertions.

  ‘What? What do you mean, Ben?’ He laughed unconvincingly, then turned towards his mugs again, struggling to unscrew the cap from the instant coffee jar.

  ‘I know those E-tabs you found on Webb’s land came from the batch last month. Paddy Hannon phoned me and told me as much. He recognized them, Hugh. That was a silly move; the one thing he’d recognize. Whose idea was it, Hugh? Harry’s?’

  ‘Harry’s what?’ Patterson asked, stepping close enough behind me that I could smell the beer off his breath, and placing his hand on the back of my neck. His thick, calloused fingers tightened against the skin. ‘Harry’s what, Devlin?’

  ‘Ben was just asking about the find, Harry. That was all. Congratulating us, like,’ Colhoun stammered, looking from me to his partner and back eagerly. ‘I’ve made coffee, Harry.’

  ‘Fuck up, Hugh, will you? I’ve a stinking headache.’ Patterson relaxed the grip on my neck but moved in front of me to face me. I resisted the urge to rub the sweat of his hands from where he had touched my skin.

  I should have walked away, or at the very least agreed with Colhoun. But, I didn’t. ‘I was saying that Paddy Hannon contacted me to say he recognized the E-tabs from your little display last night as being part of the batch you found on his land last month. He seems to think it might not have been found on Webb’s land at all,’ I explained.

  As Colhoun’s nervousness increased, so exponentially did Patterson’s calmness. He smiled at me, though his eyes were devoid of warmth. ‘What’s really eating you, Devlin? Pissed off that you’ve been left out? Pissed off that when you’re up before the promotions panel, you’ll have nothing to say for yourself?’

  ‘Give it a rest, Harry,’ I heard Williams say, standing in the doorway to the kitchenette.

  ‘Shut the fuck up,’ Patterson spat, pointing at her.

  ‘Watch your mouth,’ I said, pushing his arm out of the way.

  A scuffle of sorts broke out and I was aware of Patterson raising his fist at much the same time I raised mine. The incident, however, did not escalate any further. Burgess appeared at the doorway to the kitchenette. He glared at us suspiciously, then pointed at me. ‘You’re wanted by the superintendent, Detective.’

  Costello asked initially for an update on the Karen Doherty case. I explained what had happened the previous night in Club Manhattan and my belief that the person driving the car into which I had watched her climb was also her killer. I also mentioned the tattoo. I would get the technical department in Letterkenny to try to clean up the CCTV footage, but I doubted it could be made any clearer.

  Costello then asked about the Kerr case — not that I had been aware that it was a case as such. Finally, as I was about to leave, he said, ‘What was going on out there, Benedict? With you and Patterson?’

  ‘Nothing, sir,’ I said.

  ‘Something about Paddy Hannon?’ Burgess had clearly been listening to our conversation and reported back to Costello.

  ‘I have a problem with these finds, sir,’ I said, looking up at him. He held my gaze without wavering. ‘Paddy Hannon contacted me last night, sir. He claimed that the bag of E-tabs presented yesterday as having been found on Webb’s land actually came from the cache discovered a month ago on his land. He claims that it was not included in the inventory made at the time. He didn’t say as much, but I think he suspects that someone — some Guard — planted them on Webb’s land. Now, as Webb himself hasn’t even been questioned yet, it doesn’t look too good for us.’

  ‘Paddy Hannon told you this?’ Costello asked, chewing at the inside of his cheek.

  I nodded.

  ‘That’s all we need. Things were looking good too. Jesus, Benedict.’ He rubbed his face with the palms of his hands. ‘Listen, say nothing about this to anyone else. I’ll take care of it.’

  ‘What. .?’ I stopped myself from articulating a gnawing suspicion that Costello knew more about the finds than he was letting on. ‘It doesn’t matter, sir.’

  That evening, just a
fter I put the children to bed, Williams called me to say that Peter Webb had been lifted for questioning about the arms and drugs found on his property, at the bottom of Gallows Lane.

  Chapter Six

  Thursday, 1 June

  Peter Webb was in his late fifties, having moved to the area in the early 1970s from the English Midlands. He had taken up a position lecturing in Social Sciences in the Institute of Further Education which had opened in Strabane. Still, he claimed he chose to live in Donegal because it was where his family was from originally. He settled in well, buying a small terrace house in the centre of Lifford.

  After a few years he met and eventually married a Belfast girl named Sinead McLaughlin. Though her family were Republicans, Webb’s wife was not known to share her siblings’ sensibilities, a fact underlined by her marriage to Webb himself — an English Protestant. As with many English socialists who move to Ireland, Webb’s politics were known to lean a little towards anti-Englishness, something which made locals all the more suspicious of him initially. The only person less trusted than an Englishman who opposes the Irish is an Englishman who supports them.

  Webb was tall and wiry, his frame bigger than the weight it carried, which gave him the look of one who has dieted drastically. His hair, once brown, was now mostly grey; likewise his neatly trimmed beard. He needed glasses for reading but had developed a habit of wearing them perched on his head when he wasn’t using them, so that they would never be lost. He did so now as he sat in the interview room, his head twisted slightly sideways as he tried to read the names and initials of former occupants scrawled on the wall beside his seat.

  Patterson was standing outside the room, the door held open by his foot, speaking to Costello. I could see Colhoun sitting patiently across the desk from Webb; his demeanour contrasting so clearly with Webb’s relaxed inquisitiveness that it would have been impossible for a casual observer to guess which was the policeman and which the suspect. But then, Webb was not really a suspect.