‘I appreciate your speaking to me, sir,’ I said, sitting on the sofa to his right. ‘I’ll try to take as little of your time as possible.’
He waved away my comment and took a deep rasping pull on his mask. ‘’S fine. Happy to talk.’
‘I just wanted to follow up your statement about Lorcan Hutton, sir. You said you last saw him on the 15th of January.’
‘’S right.’
‘That’s very specific, sir. Are you sure of that date?’
He nodded and tapped the top of the tank beside him with the thickened fingernail of his index finger.
‘Read the label,’ he said.
I leant across him and glanced at the sticker on top of the tank. Written in pen under the ‘Last Checked’ area of the label was ‘15/1’.
‘Man that leaves these was here that day. He was setting them up when Lorcan left.’
‘Did you see the man with whom he left? His friend?’
Allan drew on the mask as he nodded. His eyes bulged slightly as he did so, his skin flushing red. He held the mask clamped to his face for perhaps thirty seconds before the fit seemed to pass.
‘Thin fella. Grey hair cropped up.’
‘Would you know him if you saw him again?’ I asked.
‘Course,’ Allan said, as if I had offended him.
I took the three pictures of The Rising members from my pocket along with the image I had of Kielty.
Allan studied each of them, looking from one to the other carefully. He held up the picture of Kielty. ‘He was there before but not that day.’ He flicked through the pictures again and lifted the picture of Irvine. ‘Him too. But not that day either.’
‘Were they here together?’
He shook his head. ‘That one,’ he said, holding up Kielty’s picture, ‘was here with another fella. But none of these.’ He flicked through the other two and held up the image of Tony Armstrong. ‘He’s the one I saw Lorcan with,’ he said.
‘On the 15th – he’s the one you saw leaving with Lorcan?’
He nodded as he glanced out the window. ‘And he was back since then himself.’
‘You’re sure about this?’ I persevered.
He nodded again, his face obscured behind the oxygen mask.
‘You didn’t think to phone the Guards when you saw him back alone?’
He looked at me a little angrily. ‘Would it have made any difference? The number of people wandering in and out of that house?’ His ire seemed to exhaust him and he lifted the oxygen mask to his face shakily and drew deeply on it. ‘Plenty around here phoned youse about what went on in there.’
I knew he was right, of course.
‘But you saw this man with Lorcan on the last day he was here?’
He nodded again, absent-mindedly though, his attention seemed to have been distracted by something happening outside, which I could not see from my angle.
He raised his hand shakily and pointed out the window. ‘He was with that first one,’ he said, then took another quick gasp from the mask. ‘Him there.’
‘What?’ I got up quickly and went to the window. It was Rory Nicell getting out of his car.
‘He was with that man?’ I asked, grabbing the picture of Kielty from him and holding it up.
He nodded. ‘I’m certain of it. Never forget a face. Spend me days looking out at them coming and going.’
‘You’re absolutely sure?’
Allan was unable to speak for a moment as he breathed heavily into his mask, but his vigorous nodding left little room for misinterpretation.
‘Thank you, Mr Allan,’ I said, standing up to leave. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’
I was unsure what to say to Nicell when I met him outside Hutton’s house and he seemed to sense my unease for he looked at me a little quizzically.
‘I followed up your interest in Morrison,’ he said finally as I unlocked Hutton’s front door and entered the house.
‘Anything?’
‘Not at the moment. If he is involved in drugs, he’s keeping his head down.’
‘What about his links with The Rising?’
‘It actually seems to be more a case of The Rising attaching themselves to a legitimate community group opportunistically. I’m not sure Morrison is connected beyond that.’
‘Have you heard anything more about The Rising?’
He nodded. ‘Bits and pieces. Apparently they’ve been picking on certain dealers for a reason. The word is that Irvine is trying to push his own stuff. He’s forcing lower-level dealers to sell his stuff, then picking on those who refuse. He’s clear on Kielty, though, isn’t he?’
‘Not on Hutton, though, because we don’t know when he was killed.’ I stopped myself from mentioning what Ryan Allan had told me about the 15th of January until I could establish Nicell’s connection with Hutton. ‘Might Irvine have taken out Hutton as a rival supplier?’
‘Hutton was a dealer, not a supplier. They might have been trying to force him into selling for them. There was one big supplier for the border area – a guy who lived in Galliagh in Derry.’
‘The one they tarred and feathered?’
‘The very same.’
‘What about Ian Hamill? Does his name ring any bells?’
‘Never heard of him. Who is he?’
‘I think he’s connected in some way with Kielty’s killing. His car was spotted at the scene. His house has been trashed. The PSNI are on lookout for him, but I’ve heard nothing from them.’
‘Can’t help you there, I’m afraid. Though by the looks of it, Hutton and Kielty were killed by different people. Maybe Hamill did Kielty, Irvine did Hutton?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Two dealers in a month. Makes you wonder if the killers are worth tracking, eh?’ Nicell said, laughing lightly.
‘Kielty had a baby,’ I said.
‘Plenty of other fathers were hurt by Kielty and his kind. I wouldn’t be killing myself over it, you know.’
‘We should take a look around,’ I suggested, unwilling to continue the conversation further.
The house itself had been thoroughly checked by Forensics. In their initial report they had noted that the rooms had shown signs of ransacking. The mattresses in the rooms upstairs had been slashed, the wardrobes emptied of clothes.
The downstairs rooms had likewise been gone over. The suite of furniture in the living room had been upended and the cloth bottom ripped back. DVDs from the shelves to the left of the hearth had been scattered on the floor. The TV sitting on a wooden corner cabinet, a new LCD model, had been moved, the dust revealing its previous position.
‘Someone was looking for his stash,’ Nicell said. ‘They’ve left behind the TV and stuff.’
I nodded my agreement. The walls and furniture in places still bore the grey dust of the finger-printing that had been conducted by Forensics. ‘Patterson suggested a looter did it.’
‘Not a chance – and leave all that shit? No, it’s a clear search.’
‘And a quiet one. I spoke to the man next door and he didn’t mention anything. If there’d been noises in here, he’d have heard it.’
The rest of the house was similarly disarrayed. In the kitchen a box of washing powder had been emptied into the sink.
I lifted the powder box by the edge and noted that it had been dusted for prints.
‘I wouldn’t have taken Hutton for a man who’d wash his own clothes,’ I said.
‘Yeah.’ Nicell laughed.
‘Did you know him?’ I ventured.
‘Not well. Heard his name a few times. That was about it. Might’ve spoken to him once or twice – if we lifted him for shit.’
‘What about Kielty?’
He pantomimed confusion. ‘I told you; he never featured before this whole thing.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
I stopped off at the station on the way back from Letterkenny. I wanted time to think through all that I had learnt. Irvine had had contact with both Kielty and Hutton. His group
was believed to be muscling in on the border drug dealers, forcing them to sell their stuff. Yet both Kielty and Hutton were dead, which, if Irvine had killed them both, might suggest that they had been reluctant to do as he wished. Hutton was last seen leaving his house with Tony Armstrong in mid-January. Armstrong had been back since and the house had been trashed in a fashion which suggested he’d been looking for something. Whether he had found it or not was a different matter. The cigarette burns and cuts on Hutton’s body suggested he’d been tortured before he died, rather than simply executed. They had questioned him about something and he’d been unable to answer them – otherwise, why search his house? Why not just go back and retrieve whatever they were looking for?
Then, of course, what about Kielty? Was it possible that his killing was unconnected? Perhaps it was simply the result of a row with one of his users, Ian Hamill, who had since vanished and whose car we’d found burnt out in Barnesmore Gap. Then again, Irvine had publicly threatened Kielty and had, possibly, sent him a death threat.
And yet, none of that explained why Rory Nicell had been seen with both Hutton and Kielty, and had denied knowing them. Certainly it would not be unusual for a drugs cop to know dealers, but then why claim that he’d never heard of Kielty?
Ultimately, there was little I could do but follow up on Tony Armstrong for Hutton’s killing. As for Nicell, I would have to wait and see what else was revealed. I silently decided to exclude him, as much as possible, from the investigation until I had a chance to work out what his involvement was.
When I got into the station, I found that Burgess had left the preliminary toxicology report on Peter Williams lying on my desk. I scanned the findings, looking for mention of alcohol or drugs. In fact, Peter had taken both. His blood/alcohol levels were high – 0.14 per cent, which, judging by his age and size, indicated up to six cans of lager. Certainly more than the one or two the boys had suggested. In addition to this, however, relatively high levels of cocaine were found.
I had just finished reading the report when my mobile rang. It was Joe McCready.
‘I got the tox report, sir,’ he said.
‘I know, Joe. I’ve got a copy here.’
‘He took cocaine.’
‘So it seems.’
‘We need to push those two boys again. I’m planning on bringing them in this evening.’
I checked my watch. I wanted to call with Elena McEvoy. I had not spoken to her since questioning Irvine about the Mass card. By the time I’d get that done, it would be late afternoon. Debbie’s comment to me during breakfast had made me wary of heading back down to Sligo and missing the kids’ bedtime yet again.
‘Would you mind putting it off to tomorrow?’ I asked. ‘I’d like to be there, if that’s OK. I’m also thinking of bringing a friend.’
McCready did not speak for a second, before replying, ‘Oh. OK.’
I sensed that he thought he was being sidelined. ‘We have a techie up here who is very good. I can’t see any of those kids suddenly folding and admitting to bringing drugs with them. But we might be able to nail one of them for taking and using Peter’s phone. If we have him on that, who knows what he’ll admit.’
‘That seems like a plan, sir,’ McCready said.
‘It’s still your case, Joe. I’m just helping out for Caroline.’
‘I was sorry to hear about her . . . what happened to her.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think she’s OK, though.’
‘I know,’ McCready said. ‘I called in with her this morning. She’s going out to her parents this afternoon, I believe.’
The more I spoke to McCready, the more I hoped Patterson would make good on his promise to organize a secondment.
I crossed the border in an unmarked car and drove out to Plumbridge to Elena McEvoy’s house. It took me several attempts and a number of wrong turns before I found the right cul-de-sac. I decided that rather than bring up the topic of the Mass card immediately, I would claim I was calling to arrange for the collection of Kielty’s bike. While I doubted Ms McEvoy would necessarily want to see the bike again, it was a valuable machine and, if she wanted to sell it, it could help her out financially for a few months. That done, I could broach the subject of the death threats her partner had received. While I had little doubt as to the veracity of her claim that Kielty had been threatened in the pub, Irvine’s reaction to my question about the Mass card suggested that she might not have been entirely honest – especially considering she had been unable to produce any evidence.
However, when I got to her house, I discovered that it was empty. I checked several of the windows, but the place was deserted; even the furniture had been removed from the front room.
The old woman next door, whom I had noticed on my first visit here, was standing at her window again, glaring over at me. I gestured to her, asking her to open the window, but she simply walked away from it with a scowl. I went to her front door and knocked. Almost immediately a voice called, ‘Who is it?’
‘I’m a police officer,’ I said, omitting to mention that my jurisdiction was on the other side of the border.
‘Let me see some ID,’ she called, flicking open the letter box.
I handed over my card and waited.
Sure enough, her voice, stronger than her appearance had suggested, snapped, ‘You don’t belong over here. You shouldn’t be here.’
‘I’m looking for Ms McEvoy next door,’ I said. ‘Do you know where she is?’
‘She’s not there,’ the woman replied.
‘Can you open the door?’ I asked.
‘No,’ the woman replied. ‘You’re not even a proper policeman.’
I decided not to get into a discussion on the issue.
‘Do you know where she’s gone?’
‘Good riddance to them, I say. Nothing but trouble.’
‘So you don’t know where she is then?’ I asked, biting my tongue to keep from saying just the type of thing she’d expect from someone from my side of the border.
‘She packed her stuff. A van came and took her and that . . . child.’
‘What type of van?’ I asked, eager to keep her talking now that she had started.
‘White. From your side.’
‘Southern registration plates?’ I asked, to clarify.
‘Isn’t that what I said? A right dirty-looking thing it was too. That shiny paper on the back window. What do you call it?’
‘Foil?’
‘Aye, that shiny stuff. Hanging off the window.’
‘Do you mean it was peeling off?’ I asked, squatting down level with the letter box. A pair of angry eyes glared at me through the slot.
‘That’s what I said, isn’t it?’
‘Did you notice anything else?’
‘I’d have said if I did,’ she replied, before the flap snapped shut in my face.
That evening, I went home early, in time for dinner. Penny talked gaily with Debbie about school and her friends’ latest ‘boyfriends’. Shane sat beside me throughout our meal, leaning against me happily, and I realized how much I missed spending time with my family. Afterwards we took Frank for a walk, though he struggled a little on the path and tired easily. It struck me again that my family, even my dog, had grown older without my noticing. The intervening time was composed of moments I knew I had lost and could never reclaim.
Sunday, 11 February
Chapter Twenty-Five
I collected Josh Edwards from Letterkenny at 8.30 a.m. and headed down towards Sligo. On the way, I explained to him what I wanted him to do during the interviews with Peter Williams’s two camping partners. He seemed quite excited about being out of the station. After listening to him extolling the virtues of various gaming consoles I might want to buy for my children, I suspected that Edwards’s hobbies were unlikely to bring him into contact with people in general either.
We reached Sligo before ten. Rather than going directly to the station, I told Edwards I had a call to make. Caroline had got
out of hospital and I knew she was staying with her parents. Edwards sat in the car while I went up to the house. Caroline’s father, John McCrudden, answered the door. He looked older than his years, no doubt as a result of the many recent traumas affecting his family. One of his eyes watered slightly while we spoke, and he continually rubbed at it with his index finger. He invited me in, closing the door behind me, before telling me that Caroline was resting upstairs. I suggested I call back later, but he insisted on my seeing her. She was awake, he said.
As I began to climb the stairs, he seemed to think of something and called me down towards him. Standing on the lowest step, looking up at me, he offered me his hand.
‘I’ve wanted to do what you did to Simon for fifteen years. You did a good thing, son.’
I took his comment without response. At least I knew now that Caroline would have heard about the incident too.
She was sitting up in bed when I went in. On the cabinet beside her stood a half full cup of tea and some toast crusts on a plate.
‘You’re being looked after,’ I said, nodding towards the remains of her breakfast.
She smiled mildly. ‘You went to Simon, I believe.’
‘Who told you?’ I sat on the edge of her bed. I noticed on her lap lay a pair of glasses. ‘I didn’t know you wore glasses,’ I added.
‘I don’t. I usually wear contacts.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ I repeated. ‘Isn’t that funny?’
‘So you went to Simon,’ she said again.
I glanced down at my hands, which were clasped in my lap. ‘Yeah.’
‘Why?’
‘You know why, Caroline. I saw your phone. I know you were talking to him. It wasn’t hard to work out.’
The Rising The Rising (Inspector Devlin #4) Page 13
