Dead Girls Dancing

by Graham Masterton

  The second armed garda frowned at him. ‘Are you all right, sir?’

  ‘What? Yes. No. I’m grand altogether.’

  He looked down at the two paramedics still bent over Detective Dooley and asked, ‘How’s he coming on?’

  The female paramedic stood up and pushed back her hair. ‘I’m sorry,’ she told him. ‘He’s passed. There wasn’t anything that we could do for him. The shock, mostly.’

  Detective O’Mara nodded and crossed himself. He didn’t want to look at Detective Dooley again because he wanted to remember him as he was, grinning and young and spotty, not as some ghastly incinerated mask.

  He went downstairs. Outside, two fire and rescue vehicles were parked by the kerb and six or seven firefighters were standing in a circle around the parking sign on which Dara Coughlan had impaled himself. Although it was only four in the morning a crowd of onlookers was gathering on the corner of Kyle Street and upstairs windows across the street were all lit up, with people in their nightclothes staring out to see what was happening and taking videos with their mobile phones.

  Detective O’Mara went up to the signpost and looked up at Dara Coughlan. His arms and legs were hanging down now, as if he had drowned and was floating. His eyes were still open and staring blindly at the pavement, and a thin string of bloody mucus was hanging from his lips. The metal post had punctured his belly just below his breastbone, but the red-and-white No Parking discs on either side of the post had bent sideways like two large ears and were preventing him from sliding down any further.

  All Detective O’Mara could think was, You deserved this, you piece of shite. I hope you stay like this for all eternity, like a human kebab, and I hope that you burn for ever like all the people you burned and all the people you tried to burn. Amen.

  One of the rescue team came up to him and said, ‘Detective? If it’s all right with you, what we’re planning to do is cut down the post with an angle-grinder. It’ll be a whole lot easier than trying to lift him off of it, do you know what I mean? When you look at the size of him like, and he’s jammed on there solid.’

  Detective O’Mara raised his hand to acknowledge that he understood, but then he said, ‘Stall the beans for a moment there would you? I’ll be with you in a tick.’

  He turned and walked stiff-legged around the corner into the shadowy courtyard of St Peter’s Church. Holding on to the railings, he regurgitated three tan-coloured torrents of curry, which splattered down the side of the limestone wall and over his shoes.

  18

  Katie was dreaming that she was shopping in the English Market but that she had lost sight of John. At last, she saw him standing behind the fountain, and he seemed to be looking around for her.

  He’s walking! He can’t have lost his legs after all! Thank God for that! I don’t have to feel guilty now!

  She called out to him, but her shopping bag was impossibly heavy and the strap was tangled around her wrist and by the time she had managed to lug it to the fountain he had disappeared. She was crossing over to Tom Durcan’s the butcher’s to ask if they had seen him when her iPhone playing ‘Fear a’ Bháta’ woke her up.

  She sat up, still unsure if she was asleep or awake. It was dark outside and when she looked at her bedside clock it read 5:01.

  ‘Who’s this?’ she said. Her tongue felt as if it were coated with fine sand.

  ‘DS Begley, ma’am. Sorry to wake you. I have some fierce bad news, I’m afraid.’

  She switched on her bedside lamp. She could see herself in the mirrored door of her wardrobe; her hair was sticking up like a cockerel’s.

  ‘What is it, Sean?’

  ‘Young Robert Dooley’s dead,’ said Detective Sergeant Begley, and then stopped, as if he had to swallow.

  ‘What? Jesus – how?’

  ‘He was burned to death. He was trying to bring that fire-raiser fellow in for questioning, that Dara Coughlan, and Coughlan threw petrol all over him and set him alight.’

  Katie’s insides felt as if she had dropped down three floors in a lift.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ she said. ‘Did he suffer much?’

  ‘O’Mara told me he died almost at once. The shock of it, that’s what he said.’

  Katie threw back her duvet and sat up. ‘How about Bryan O’Mara? Is he all right? And they took a couple of uniforms with them, didn’t they? Did either of them get hurt?’

  ‘O’Mara suffered some slight burns, ma’am, but nothing serious like. As far as I know, the two officers backing them up weren’t injured at all.’

  ‘Poor Robert. I can’t believe it. What a terrible way to go. And he had such a future ahead of him. And he has a fiancée, too, doesn’t he? Some girl from Macroom he was going to marry?’

  ‘That’s right. But the thing of it is, Dara Coughlan’s dead, too.’

  ‘Mother of God, Sean, this gets worse. How did he die?’

  ‘O’Mara went after him and he threw himself out of the third-floor window. He and his girlfriend were out of their brains on drugs, so it seems. He fell right on top of a No Parking sign and got himself skewered.’

  ‘You’re codding me.’

  ‘I wish I was. The fire and rescue had to cut the sign down and take him off to the mortuary with half of it still sticking out of him.’

  ‘Where was this? Robert told me that he’d located Coughlan somewhere on North Main Street.’

  ‘Sure like, that’s where it was, North Main Street. Next door to St Peter’s almost, opposite Kyle Street. He was staying with some brasser in her bedsit. She’s been taken to the Mercy suffering from a suspected overdose.’

  ‘All right, Sean. I’ll get myself dressed and into the station as quick as I can. I should be there by six.’

  ‘You’ll have a rake of problems to deal with, ma’am, I can tell you. Mathew McElvey’s just been on to me from the press office. The papers and the TV know all about it, and worse than that, there are videos on the interweb already of Coughlan stuck on top of the No Parking sign. They’re going viral, apparently.’

  ‘Oh, fantastic. And I have my press conference set up for this afternoon, too, about the Toirneach Damhsa fire.’

  ‘I’ll meet you at the station, ma’am. I’ll be passing the news on to Chief Superintendent MacCostagáin and Superintendent Pearse. God rest poor Robert Dooley.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ said Katie, and put down the phone.

  *

  As soon as she arrived at Anglesea Street she called in Mathew McElvey and his assistant, Siobhán, to prepare an interim press release. Mathew had pulled on a white Aran sweater and a pair of jeans to come in to the station early and he hadn’t yet shaved. Siobhán was wearing a tight sparkly black top and a short red taffeta skirt, and she explained that she had been clubbing at the Voodoo Rooms and hadn’t even gone to bed yet.

  ‘You’ll be relieved to know that Facebook have taken down the videos of Coughlan stuck on the No Parking sign,’ said Mathew. ‘The TV and papers have the pictures of him of course, but I’ve already asked them not to use them because they amount to evidence and could compromise any prosecution if they do. Apart from that, I don’t think they’ll be running them purely as a matter of taste. It’s not really what you want to see when you’re eating your bacon and eggs, a big fat dead feller stuck on the top of a pole.’

  He opened his laptop, prodded at the keyboard, and then handed it over so that Katie could see one of the videos of Dara Coughlan that had briefly appeared on the internet.

  ‘Urgh,’ she said. ‘I see what you mean. I’m glad I haven’t had any breakfast yet myself.’

  ‘The Technical Bureau took a load of pictures and of course they’ll be far more detailed. I’m sure they’ve sent them up to you already.’

  ‘In that case, I think I’ll stick to coffee,’ said Katie, handing back the laptop.

  ‘So what do we say to the media?’ asked Mathew, taking out his notepad.

  ‘Only the barest facts, for the moment, but I want to make it clear that we
were after questioning Coughlan because he was a serial arsonist and therefore a possible suspect in the Toirneach Damhsa fire. We still haven’t exhausted all of our enquiries into his background and whether he might have had some connection with one of the dancers. No, don’t tell them that – just say that we haven’t exhausted all of our enquiries.’

  She paused and thought for a moment, then she said, ‘You can say that what happened was a pure tragedy and we’re grieving the loss of one our most promising young detectives. He was dedicated and skilled and always willing to take a risk. Our condolences go to his family and friends, and to everybody who enjoyed his wit and charm.’

  ‘Is that all for the moment?’ asked Mathew, scribbling notes.

  ‘For the time being, yes. You can tell them that I will be giving out more details at the press conference for the Toirneach Damhsa fire this afternoon, since it was all part of the same investigation. With any luck, I should have much more information by then.’

  Just as Mathew and Siobhán stood up to go, Detective Sergeant Begley knocked at the door. Katie had never seen him looking so grim.

  ‘How’s the form, Sean?’ she asked him.

  ‘Good morning to you, ma’am. I just came up to tell you that O’Mara’s been treated for his burns at the Mercy. He says they’re only superficial, but he’s gone home to change and have a bit of a rest to get over the shock.’

  ‘Has he told you what happened?’

  ‘He phoned in a report while he was waiting at the hospital, and it’s recorded of course. I also have the notes of the two officers who went with them. Bryan says if you have any questions at all, he’ll be happy to answer them at home.’

  ‘That’s grand, Sean. I’ll have a listen right now.’

  ‘I’ve informed Chief Superintendent MacCostagáin about Dooley, and Inspector Murphy, too. Superintendent Pearse is away today. He’s attending his father’s funeral in Carrigaline.’

  The day of the dead, thought Katie. But all she said was, ‘I see. Okay. Thanks a million.’

  ‘One more thing,’ said Detective Sergeant Begley. ‘MacCostagáin asked me to ask you if you’d come along to his office at nine o’clock. He’s having some kind of a pow-wow with the new Assistant Commissioner and a superintendent from Special Branch.’

  ‘Oh, okay, sure. Special Branch? I don’t think I have to be a genius to guess what that’s going to be about.’

  Katie prised open the lid of her cappuccino. If the Special Detective Unit were involved, they were bound to be discussing the security measures for the visit to Ireland next week by Ian Bowthorpe, the British defence secretary. He would be arriving in Dublin first to hold talks about border security after Brexit, and then he was coming to Cork to discuss the future cooperation of the Irish Naval Service with Britain’s navy and the UN.

  Normally the Garda would have been given much earlier notice of a visit like this. Katie’s detectives would then have had plenty of time to buy a few drinks for their informers and assess if any of the IRA splinter groups in Cork were either interested in or capable of mounting a serious threat to Ian Bowthorpe’s life. But the visit had been arranged at very short notice, mainly because of the intense pressure from Sinn Féin for a referendum on Irish unification. Even the Taoiseach had suggested that a popular vote might not be out of the question, so Ian Bowthorpe was coming to reassure the Dáil that there would be no return to the army checkpoints and watchtowers that had separated the border during the Troubles, and that the navies of Britain and Ireland would continue to cooperate closely for their mutual security.

  At 7.30 Moirin appeared. Katie had rung her and asked her to come in early because she would have to be fielding questions all morning about Detective Dooley’s death and she also needed to prepare for the afternoon’s conference. All of the relatives of the dead dancers would be attending, as well as the media and representatives from the fire brigade and the Fire Investigation Association. Katie needed the latest pathology reports from Dr Kelley, and from Bill Phinner she needed not only an up-to-date forensic report on the cause of the studio fire but also a report on Dara Coughlan’s death.

  Moirin looked shaken. ‘I can’t believe that young Robert Dooley’s gone. He’d bring me a chocolate doughnut more often than not. Such a sweet boy he was.’

  ‘I know,’ said Katie. She still felt numb about his death herself, and she found it almost impossible to imagine that he wouldn’t be walking into her office at any moment to tell her that he had brought in Dara Coughlan and had him ready for questioning in the interview room downstairs.

  He was always joking. She remembered him telling her how his father had been stopped by a guard for driving in the wrong direction along Cornmarket Street. When the garda had asked him where he thought he was going, he had said, ‘To work. I didn’t realize that this was a one-way street. I thought I was late and everybody else was driving home.’

  She smiled sadly, but her eyes stayed dry. She had done enough crying lately.

  As the morning progressed, the station’s business continued as usual. Phones warbled, footsteps hurried up and down the corridor outside Katie’s office. All the same, she was aware that conversation was muted, and throughout the building there was a palpable sense of shock and loss.

  At 8.15 Kyna came in wearing a red headscarf and a very short red knitted dress and thigh-boots.

  ‘God, I feel terrible,’ she said. ‘I feel like I ought to be wearing black.’

  ‘Oh, stop,’ said Katie gently. ‘Robert would have understood.’

  ‘I saw it on the news when I woke up,’ Kyna told her. ‘They didn’t give his name but I guessed who it was when they said it had happened on North Main Street. It’s so tragic. Have his parents been told yet?’

  ‘They’re in Portugal on their holidays, but they’ll be flying back tonight.’

  Kyna sat down. ‘Jesus, I can’t believe it. And is it true that the fellow he was trying to bring in for questioning jumped out the window and got himself stuck on a No Parking sign?’

  ‘I have the picture on my PC if you want to see it.’

  ‘No thanks, there are some things that once you’ve seen them you can’t un-see. Like last night at the Templegate Tavern. This fellow Davy Dorgan only pinned this other fellow Liam’s hand to the table. Like, I mean, right through the back of his hand, with a flick knife. And he did it because Liam was chatting me up but he wouldn’t tell him what we were saying.’

  ‘Mother of God. Didn’t the landlord throw him out?’

  ‘Nobody said a word. They’re all scared to death of this Davy. Later on he had some kind of a get-together in a room at the back. About fifteen more fellows showed up and they were a hardy bunch of snipes, I can tell you. I don’t know what they talked about in there, but they came out after about half an hour and drank about fifteen pints each, except for Davy, who doesn’t drink. This girl sang “The Lament of the Three Marys” for Niall Gleeson and they all sang along. Talk about a chorus of tortured badgers.’

  Katie sat back and said, ‘So what do you think? This Davy’s taken over from Bobby Quilty? Not just the cigarette-smuggling, but the Authentic IRA? Is that who you think these fellows are?’

  ‘When he first came in, Davy asked these two fellows what they were talking to me about and one of them, Billy, he made a joke that we were planning to blow up Collins Barracks. Davy did ninety and almost twisted his ear off.’

  ‘I’m worried because this British defence secretary is visiting Cork next week. I don’t want any stray republican splinter groups having a crack at him, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, I’ve been employed at the Templegate now. The landlord’s taken a shine to me and I’ll be going back this evening. Most important, though, this young fellow Liam who had his hand stabbed, he’s taken more than a shine to me. I think he’s in love.’

  Katie couldn’t help shaking her head. ‘If only he knew.’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ said Kyna. ‘The point is that I think I can w
angle out of him what Davy and the rest of those fellows are up to. I mean, it may be something and nothing at all. Maybe they’re all Freemasons and that’s their local lodge meeting. But I never saw a Freemason pin a fellow’s hand to a table before, not even with a trowel.’

  ‘All right, then, good luck,’ said Katie. ‘But for the love of God be wide – especially of that Davy Dorgan.’

  ‘That’s one of the reasons I’ve come in to the station this morning,’ said Kyna. ‘I think he comes from Cork originally but he’s spent most of his life in Ulster. You can tell it by his accent when he loses his temper and the way he says “thon” instead of “that”. I’m going to ask the PSNI if they can run a background check on him for me.’

  ‘Okay. Keep me in touch. And don’t you go falling in love with that Liam.’

  The two of them looked at each other across Katie’s desk. If Katie hadn’t been a detective superintendent and Kyna hadn’t been a detective sergeant, and if they hadn’t agreed to suppress any feelings that they might have for each other, they would have stood up and embraced, and kissed. But Kyna said, ‘Not a chance. He’s about five years younger than me and he has blackheads.’

  19

  Before she went into her meeting with Chief Superintendent MacCostagáin and Assistant Commissioner Magorian and the superintendent from the SDU, Katie called for Detective O’Donovan. He looked sober and upset, like everybody else she had seen that morning.

  ‘I’ll be making a statement about Robert this afternoon, at the press conference,’ she told him. ‘Meanwhile, he had two suspects connected to the Toirneach Damhsa fire down for questioning and I’d like you to bring them in later today, after the conference is over.’

  ‘That’s no problem at all,’ said Detective O’Donovan. ‘I’ll be downloading all of Dooley’s notes anyway to see what progress he’d made with this case.’

  Katie looked at her own PC. ‘There’s Douglas Cleary – he was engaged to the girl who was found shot dead in the attic. Then there’s Steven Joyce, who used to manage Toirneach Damhsa in conjunction with Danny Coffey. It seems like there was some fierce bad blood between them after they split up. In fact, Danny Coffey is convinced that Steven Joyce was the one who started the fire, although he doesn’t seem to have any real evidence for it.’