Buried

by Graham Masterton

  As soon as she had returned to Anglesea Street she had initiated a nationwide search for Kyna and John by ordering bulletins to be sent out to all six police regions in the Republic, and the same information to all eleven districts of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. After that she had gone to Chief Superintendent MacCostagáin’s office to give him an outline briefing on the disaster that had been Operation Trident. She hadn’t tried to make excuses for what had happened. She had told him, though, that Bobby Quilty must have been warned of the raids in advance.

  ‘You think it might be coming from inside?’ Chief Superintendent MacCostagáin had asked her. ‘Is it somebody here at the station?’

  Katie could only shrug. ‘I don’t know yet, sir. I really have no idea. But I will find out, you can count on that.’

  That morning there had already been several discussions on both TV and radio about the Langtrys. Professor Pendle had repeated his assertion that the British army had shot them, and Oraltih Mac Aindríu of Sinn Fein had said that it was high time the British came clean about some of the atrocities they had committed in the 1920s. So far, however, there had been no response from London. Katie had given a short and non-committal statement to Mathew McElvey in the press office to keep the media at bay until later, but she was anxious not to compromise her arrest of Bobby Quilty in any way.

  She had been passing the station’s front desk when a call came in for her from Bobby Quilty’s solicitors in South Mall. She had flapped her hand and mouthed ‘no – not in!’ to the telephone operator and the girl had told them that she was still tied up in a strategy meeting and she would ring them back later. She knew Bobby Quilty’s solicitors only too well: Fairley and O’Counihan, especially Terence O’Counihan – a tall, handsome bully with swept-back hair who represented some of the wealthiest businessmen in Cork, and some of the most unsavoury, too.

  She arrived at her front door back in Cobh almost at the same time as Jenny Tierney, her neighbour. Jenny had been taking Barney for a walk, in spite of the rain. Jenny was a small, bustling woman who never stopped talking. All bundled up in her pink plastic scarf and yellow vinyl raincoat and bright red rushers she looked as if somebody had brought a rather untidy Russian matrioshka doll to life.

  ‘Oh, thanks a million, Jenny, you’re a saint,’ said Katie, as she took Barney’s lead. Barney snuffled up to her and then shook himself violently so that the rain flew off him. ‘Barns! You’ve soaked me now, you silly mutt!’

  ‘Were you working all last night, Kathleen, were you?’ Jenny asked her as she unlocked her front door. ‘Did you get any sleep? I couldn’t do without my sleep myself. Sure and I’d be dozing off in the middle of the day if I didn’t get my full eight hours, and it doesn’t help with himself snoring like Dooley’s timber yard.’

  Katie switched off her security alarm. ‘Did you enjoy your walk, Barns?’ she asked him. ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘He used to be pure reluctant to go out in the wet now, didn’t he?’ said Jenny. ‘Last week, though, I took him down to the end of Whitepoint Drive for a bit of a change, like – down by the water, you know where I mean, and there’s a lady golden Labrador he’s taken a fancy to who lives down there, so now he doesn’t object to going out at all, even if it’s lashing. I have only to say, “Come on, Barney, let’s go and see Oona,” and if he could clip on his lead himself, he’d be doing it like a shot, I can tell you.’

  ‘Barns!’ said Katie. ‘You didn’t tell me you were in love!’

  ‘Oh, I’d say he’s head over paws, but that Oona’s awful flirty with him, too. You should see the pair of them together! They’ll be voting for dogs to marry next, I shouldn’t be surprised, now they’ve legalized the gays! I expect you’re tired, girl, but why don’t you come next door to mine for a bit of a sit-down? A cup of tea will crown you.’

  ‘That’s very kind, Jenny,’ said Katie. ‘Right now, though, I have a heap of things on my mind. I don’t think I’d be very good company.’

  ‘Well, if you change your mind, like. I have some Guinness gingerbread my sister just sent me and if I don’t share it out I’ll be finishing it off all by myself, like.’

  Jenny kept on talking until Katie had taken off her coat and hung it up and smiled and said thank you again and slowly but firmly closed the door. Then she had gone through to the living room and sat down on the couch to take off her shoes. She felt exhausted. Her head ached and her ankles were swollen and she would have given anything to go to bed and close her eyes and sleep for the rest of the day. All she could think of, though, was Kyna and John. She knew that Bobby Quilty had spirited them away, but she couldn’t even begin to imagine what he had done with them – where he might be hiding them, or if he had hurt them, or even if they were still alive. She felt a deep nauseous guilt in the pit of her stomach about both of them, especially Kyna. She should never have sent her to try and infiltrate Bobby Quilty’s gang, she should have known that it would end in tragedy. It made no difference that Kyna had agreed to do it: her life was worth a hundred of Bobby Quilty’s.

  And John – there he was, with his ink-blue eyes and his black curly hair, smiling down at her from his photograph frame on the fireplace. She could almost feel the wind on the day that picture had been taken, on the beach at Dingle Bay, with only the sound of the sea coming in and the thumping of horses’ hooves on the sand as five riders galloped by.

  She suddenly realized that she was crying.

  Barney had been in the kitchen lapping up his water but now he trotted into the living room and stared at her, licking his lips.

  ‘Don’t you worry, Barns, I’m grand altogether,’ she told him, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Just tired and emotional, that’s all. It’s what I get paid for. And what about you? I would have thought you’d had enough of water outside, visiting your fancy-woman in the rain, like.’

  She went into the bedroom, unfastened her holster and laid her gun on top of her dressing table. It was her new Smith & Wesson .38 Airweight, which she had only recently changed for her previous revolver. She preferred this because it weighed only 425 grams, lighter than her previous weapon and less than half the weight of the SIG Sauer P226 automatics issued to most of the Regional Response Units. It also had a concealed hammer which guarded against accidental snagging in her clothes. She hadn’t yet fired it on duty, and maybe she never would, but she had practised with it every week since she had been issued with it. It had a hard kick to it because it was so light, but she had learned how to handle that, and the grip really suited somebody with small hands like hers.

  She undressed and went into the bathroom for a shower. She was surprised to see in the mirror over the basin that she didn’t look as tired or as anxious as she felt. In fact, she looked unnaturally calm and composed, and the neat new cut that her hairdresser, Denis, had given her, which tapered into the nape her of her neck, was completely unruffled.

  After her shower she wrapped herself in her thick white towelling dressing gown and lay on her back on her bed, crossing her arms over her breasts like a medieval saint on a tomb. She closed her eyes, but after a few seconds she had to open them again. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to sleep, so she would have to take two or three caffeine pills if she wanted to be fresh and focused when she faced Bobby Quilty.

  She almost felt like asking God why He had created men like Bobby Quilty. Maybe it was just to test the faith and moral courage of people like her.

  ‘All You had to do was ask me if I believe in You,’ said Katie to the ceiling. Barney heard her talking and let out a gruffing noise, as if he agreed with her.

  She was about to get up and get dressed when her iPhone played ‘Buile Mo Chroi’. It was Inspector O’Rourke, sounding as croaky and tired as she was.

  ‘What about you, ma’am? I’ve just had a call from a retired CID inspector from the PSNI.’

  ‘Oh, yes? What did he want?’

  ‘One of his former colleagues in the Crime Operations Department
in Belfast told him about the bulletin you put out regarding DS Ni Nuallán and John Meagher.’

  ‘Okay. And?’

  ‘And if they’re still alive he says he has a reasonable suspicion that he knows where they are. Or even if they’re not.’

  Katie sat up. ‘Serious?’ she said. ‘He must still have some contacts.’

  ‘I think that’s the gist of it, ma’am. Any road, he said he’d like to talk to you personal, if he could. I think he remembers you from that time you went up to Belfast to help them to break up that child abuse ring.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Harte. Alan Harte. He said he’s living in Cherryvalley now, in East Belfast.’

  ‘Cherryvalley? He must have been given a golden handshake and a half. I’m not sure I remember him, though.’

  ‘Well, let me give you his number and you can talk to him for yourself.’

  ‘I’ll get back to you after, Francis, as soon as I have. Stall it for a second, would you, and let me find a pen?’

  Katie jotted down Alan Harte’s number and as soon as Inspector O’Rourke had rung off she called him. The phone rang and rang for a long time and she began to think that there was nobody home. Just as she was about to put the phone down, however, it was picked up and a man with a clogged-up voice said, ‘Alan Harte,’ then cleared his throat and repeated, softly but much more distinctly, ‘Alan Harte.’

  ‘Oh, hallo to you there, Alan. This is Detective Superintendent Kathleen Maguire, from Cork Garda headquarters. I was told you’d been trying to get in touch with me.’

  ‘Well, well, DS Maguire! Thanks a million for calling me back! I don’t know if you remember me at all. I met you when you came up to Belfast two years ago and you helped us to scoop those toerags in the Khan–Norris gang.’

  Katie said, ‘I should have called you on Skype and then I would have been able to see what you look like.’ She didn’t tell him that she was wearing only her dressing gown, so the Skype conversation would have had to have been one-sided. ‘Not to worry. Detective Inspector O’Rourke tells me you might have some information on those two people we’re looking for.’

  ‘That’s right. One of my old colleagues from Lisnasharragh called me as soon as he saw your message. He’s always promised to let me know if a certain name comes up, and there it was, that certain name, big and fat and unmissable.’ He quoted from Katie’s bulletin: ‘These two have been missing since a Garda operation at 0430 hours to detain Robert Boland Quilty on suspicion of keeping them unlawfully imprisoned.’

  ‘So, you and Bobby Quilty have history, do you?’ asked Katie.

  ‘Oh, aye, we have history all right. Why do you think I had to quit the force? We tried to pull a sting on Quilty when he was smuggling drugs in through Larne. To this day I still don’t know who he paid off or who he threatened, but nearly seventy-five thousand pounds’ worth of heroin was found hidden in my garage roof at home and I could offer no explanation at all as to how it got there. I resigned on grounds of ill health – in inverted commas, if you know what I mean – and it was all hushed up. But of course it was Bobby Quilty who set me up and I swear to God that I will get him one day and fasten his family jewels to the floor with a nail-gun, so I will, if you’ll excuse me for saying so.’

  ‘Well, maybe this is your big chance,’ Katie told him. ‘If we can locate John Meagher and Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán, and they’re still alive, they should be able to give us all the evidence against Bobby Quilty that we could need.’

  ‘Even if they’re dead they should be able to,’ said Alan.

  ‘I’m trying not to think about that possibility yet,’ said Katie.

  ‘No, I can understand that. But I think we have to be realistic about this. Both you and I know what Bobby Quilty is capable of.’

  ‘All right, Alan. Let’s concentrate on John Meagher and DS Ni Nuallán. Where do you think we might find them?’

  ‘This is not one hundred per cent, DS Maguire, but it’s very much more than just a wild guess.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Alan, call me Katie. You’re a civilian now and I’m not in the mood for formalities. I don’t mind you knowing that both John Meagher and Kyna Ni Nuallán are personally very close to me.’

  ‘Right you are, then, Katie it is. And like I was telling you, this is more than just a wild guess. Bobby Quilty always used to envy Chunk O’Connell because of the way O’Connell’s farmhouse straddles the border, and it was said that all Chunk ever had to do to avoid arrest was cross from one side of his yard the other. About five years ago, Bobby Quilty bought a very similar property in South Armagh. When I say “bought”, it was almost a compulsory purchase. He persuaded the owners that it might be better for their general health if they sold up for a derisory sum of money and moved away.’

  ‘Where is it, exactly, this property?’ asked Katie.

  ‘It’s just off the Shean Road at Forkhill. You can see it clearly enough when you’re driving past, even though it’s set well back. You won’t find it in any official records that it belongs to Bobby Quilty. It belongs to some trust that belongs to proxy that belongs to some holding company. I didn’t discover myself that Quilty owned it until two or three weeks before I was forced to resign. But he has the same kind of arrangement as Chunk O’Connell: if the police come to lift him, he simply walks out of the sitting room into the kitchen and they can’t touch him. He can stand a foot in front of them eating sausages and there’s nothing legally that they can do about it because he’s in another country.’

  ‘And you think John Meagher and Kyna Ni Nuallán might be there?’

  ‘Let’s just say that when I first joined the CID there’s one or two people in South Armagh that I did favours for. Right from the beginning I always considered that it was good policing to turn a blind eye to what the Lesser Bastards were up to, because the Lesser Bastards could help me catch the Bigger Bastards. What would you rather have? A dozen convictions for stealing second-hand cars, or a single conviction for conspiring to plant a three-kilo bomb in the middle of a crowded shopping centre?’

  ‘Yes, I follow you,’ said Katie, a little impatiently.

  ‘Anyway, Katie,’ Alan went on, ‘one of my Lesser Bastards works part-time in the bar now at the Welcome Inn in Forkhill. Every night when he cycles home he passes Bobby Quilty’s place and if ever he sees anything unusual going on there, no matter what it is, he sends me a text about it. In return I keep my mouth shut about some of the stunts he got up to with his two brothers after the Good Friday Agreement. They were all three members of the Provos’ Second Battalion. This feller never killed anybody himself, but he smuggled the explosives for a bomb that did.’

  ‘So you’re telling me that he saw something unusual last night?’

  ‘Aye, he did. I won’t read you his text verbatim because you wouldn’t be able to make a scrap of sense of it, but he said that just before midnight last night he saw a black or maybe a dark blue van turning into Bobby Quilty’s house and parking outside. Two fellers got out of the front and opened the back doors. They lifted out a stretcher with a man lying on it, but then a girl jumped out and started running towards the road.

  ‘One of the two fellers went running after her and caught up with her pretty quick because it looked like her wrists were tied together, which meant she couldn’t run so well. He pulled her back to the house and then another three fellers came out of the house and helped to carry the stretcher inside.’

  ‘Did your informant say what the girl looked like?’

  ‘He said she had short blonde hair, that’s all. Well, shoe blind air is what he actually texted, but I think we can safely assume that’s what he meant.’

  Katie said, ‘I didn’t mention it in my bulletin, but I was told that John Meagher had been physically bolted to a bed. If he’d actually had bolts fixed through his ankles or his feet, it would make sense, wouldn’t it, for him to have been carried on a stretcher?’

  ‘And Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán is a
blonde?’

  ‘It does all seem to fit together,’ said Katie. ‘If they were just arriving at Bobby Quilty’s house at midnight, that means they would have left Cork around eight, and that makes sense time-wise.’

  She didn’t say anything to Alan, but by 8 p.m. the preparations for Operation Trident had been fully under way. If Bobby Quilty had been tipped off about Trident immediately after their tactical briefing, he would have had plenty of time to arrange for the bed to removed from the house on Leitrim Street and for John and Kyna to be stowed into in a van and driven north on the M8 to Dublin, and then on to Dundalk presumably, and the border.

  ‘I can’t pretend that this is going to be a doddle, by any means,’ said Alan. ‘The Public Prosecution Service and the top brass at Knock Street are ultra-wary these days of having anything at all to do with Bobby Quilty. Chief Superintendent Shields said herself that it’s worse than trying to prosecute a wasps’ nest. No witnesses can ever be cajoled into speaking out against him, not even for money and the promise of a lifetime’s protection, and you wouldn’t believe the number of times he’s sued the police service for harassment or wrongful arrest. Successfully, too. The last time he was awarded 15,000 euros.’

  Katie knew that Alan was right. In spite of all the incriminating information that the police forces and intelligence services on both sides of the border had gathered against him, neither An Garda Siochána nor the Police Service of Northern Ireland had been able to bring a prosecution against Bobby Quilty that would stand up for five minutes in court.

  Not only that, she doubted if Chief Superintendent MacCostágain or Chief Superintendent Shields would grant her authority for a raid on Bobby Quilty’s house at Forkhill, even though cooperation between An Garda Siochána and the PSNI was mostly excellent these days and they frequently exchanged officers.

  How could she justify going after Bobby Quilty yet again? She could imagine the conversation with Chief Superintendent MacCostagáin.