The White Gallows

by Rob Kitchin

  ‘I… er,’ McEvoy stuttered, ‘not exactly. We have some circumstantial evidence.’

  ‘You are messing with me, Colm, aren’t you? You do know who we’re dealing with here, don’t you? Someone who can get the ear of the Minister within fifteen minutes of being arrested! The family might be under the media spotlight for supposed past crimes, but they still wield a lot of power.’

  ‘She’s… she’s involved in all of this,’ McEvoy said weakly. ‘I know she is.’

  ‘You know she is! Why couldn’t you have waited until you had some solid evidence? Are you a complete idiot?’

  ‘I…’

  ‘Now you’ve got her there, you’d better question her. But unless she confesses and signs a sworn statement, you’re to let her go and then you stay well away from her. Do you hear me? You don’t go near her again until you have incontrovertible evidence that she was involved in either killing. And stay away from the rest of her family as well. I don’t believe you sometimes. Jesus.’

  ‘I’ll…’

  ‘I’ve got to go. We still haven’t found those bastards who tried to blow-up Hannah Fallon. Try and use a bit of cop-on, will you?’ Bishop ended the call.

  McEvoy tipped his head back and stared at the magnolia-painted ceiling. Whatever confidence he’d had this morning had now vanished entirely. The chances of Marion D’Arcy confessing were slim to none. And the chances of linking her directly to either murder had the same odds. He’d probably just made an enormous mistake. He closed his eyes, his exhaustion washing over him.

  His mobile phone rang again. He tipped his head forward and looked at the screen before answering.

  ‘John?’

  ‘The media have gone bananas,’ John Joyce said. ‘They want to know why you’ve arrested Marion D’Arcy.’

  McEvoy felt his heart sinking. ‘Tell them that we’ve simply brought her in for questioning – she’s helping us with our enquiries. No charges have been made,’ he replied, thinking of the following day’s newspaper headlines.

  ‘I thought you’d arrested her?’ Joyce said confused.

  ‘We’re still making our minds up,’ McEvoy hedged.

  ‘So you’ve not arrested her then?’

  ‘Listen, John,’ McEvoy said, regaining some composure, ‘we did arrest her, okay; it was the only way to get her to come in, but we haven’t yet questioned her. Just hold off on telling the media anything until we’ve questioned her and either let her go or formally charged her with an offence. We need to be careful about how all of this is reported.’

  ‘You want me to say nothing?’ Joyce said incredulously, aware of the pressure the media were putting on the press liaison team.

  ‘For an hour or so. Until then, she’s helping us with our enquiries.’ McEvoy ended the call. Things seemed to be going from bad to worse. What should have been a moment of triumph had somehow turned into a rear-guard action.

  * * *

  Marion D’Arcy was whispering to John Rice when McEvoy entered the room with Tom McManus. She stopped what she was saying and stared at him with contempt.

  ‘Right, we’ll make a start, shall we?’ McEvoy said as confidently as he could, sitting down.

  McManus fiddled with the digital recorder and McEvoy listed the date, time and people present.

  ‘I demand to know why you have arrested my client, Superintendent?’ John Rice said before McEvoy could ask his first question.

  ‘Because she wouldn’t answer our questions, she’s lied to us, she’s tried to alter the course of an investigation, and I believe she might have conspired in the murder of Peter O’Coffey.’

  ‘You believe?’

  ‘Yes, I believe,’ McEvoy said, starting to regain some confidence. ‘That’s why we’re here; so she can answer our questions.’

  ‘So this is a fishing expedition?’ Rice said sarcastically.

  ‘No, this is a murder investigation,’ McEvoy said firmly, ‘and I need to ask Mrs D’Arcy some questions.’

  ‘I’ve instructed my client to say nothing until you’ve provided conclusive evidence to substantiate your claims. Unless you can do so we will be exercising our prerogative to leave.’

  McEvoy sighed audibly. ‘Okay, let’s play it your way,’ he conceded, moving his gaze to Marion D’Arcy. ‘I’ll tell you how I see it and you can tell me whether I’m right. If I’m not satisfied with your answers, I’ll keep asking questions. If you don’t want to answer them, fine; we’ll let the DPP decide whether charges are to be pressed.’

  Neither D’Arcy or Rice replied.

  ‘This is what I think happened. You drove to The White Gallows in the early hours of Sunday morning. You parked just inside the gateway then you made your way to the house. Given that Roza was staying with her boyfriend, your plan was to take advantage of her absence to search the place. My guess is you were after the latest copy of your father’s will. When you let yourself in, you found your father lying either unconscious or dead in the library. Instead of panicking or calling for an ambulance, you carried your father upstairs and placed him back in his bed. Then you went back downstairs and tidied up, picking up the vase fragments and taking the gun. You probably even searched for whatever it was that you were looking for. How am I doing so far?’

  ‘You’re crazy,’ Marion D’Arcy said dismissively.

  John Rice placed a hand on her arm silencing her.

  ‘You then left the house, went back to your car and drove home. The next morning you planned to return to the farm before Roza got back from Athboy, only she got there first and called the guards. You organised Dr Astell to attend to your father and persuaded him to declare that your father had passed away in his sleep. Given that Dr Astell was a major beneficiary of your father’s will there might well have been some kind of prior agreement. Your father probably wanted to ensure he had a nice, quiet death; unlike the thousands he killed during the war. He didn’t want anyone looking at his life too carefully in case people discovered the truth about his past. You knew that two members of Yellow Star had been sneaking about the place asking questions and you wanted to try and keep things as quiet as possible. I’m still on track?’

  Marion D’Arcy was staring at him with contempt, but stayed silent.

  ‘Three witnesses saw you arrive at your father’s farm. Peter O’Coffey was making his way home after killing your father and hanging the noose as a diversion. As you know, Peter had serious financial problems and was on the verge of losing his grandfather’s farm. Only he wasn’t listed as a beneficiary in your father’s will like Francis. At first he tried to blackmail Francie, his co-killer, but he’d no ready cash to give him. Angry and desperate he decided to try the person he’d seen arriving at the farm as he was leaving. After all, they had something to hide. They’d been at the house and they’d tried to pass the murder off as a natural death. Rather than accede to Peter’s wishes you instead decided to kill him with your father’s gun, seeking to make it look like suicide. At the very least it would look like Francie had killed him. You met him at the border between the two farms, made him write out a short note, and then blew his brains out.’

  McEvoy sat back in his chair. It all fitted together. He’d regained his composure.

  Marion D’Arcy glared at him angrily but remained silent.

  ‘And why would my client have done such a thing?’ John Rice asked.

  ‘Deep insecurity,’ McEvoy replied. ‘She’d been adopted by Albert Koch when he married her mother. She knew that the will had been recently altered and she wanted to make sure she was still a beneficiary; that she would still inherit what she saw as her share of Ostara Industries. She killed or had Peter O’Coffey killed to ensure his silence. She probably didn’t realise he had his own guilt to protect.’

  ‘So now she had Peter O’Coffey killed?’ Rice said, seizing the opening.

  ‘No. Yes.’ McEvoy said, floundering. ‘I’m not yet sure.’

  ‘You’re not sure? You’re accusing my client of killing a man in col
d blood and you’re not even sure if it was her that killed him? This isn’t evidence, Superintendent, its speculation!’

  ‘Mrs D’Arcy was at her father’s house in the early hours of Saturday night,’ McEvoy repeated again, feeling uneasy.

  ‘And my client insists that she wasn’t. So, what’s your evidence that she was there? One of your supposed witnesses is dead!’

  ‘She was seen by Ewa Chojnacki and Tomas Prochazka pulling into the gateway.’

  ‘Those two scandal-mongers!’ Rice exploded. ‘You can’t trust anything those two family wreckers say! Jesus, they’re hardly impartial witnesses, are they? They’re out to try and destroy the Koch family.’

  ‘Nevertheless, they saw Mrs D’Arcy’s dark blue Mercedes arrive at the farm. And Mrs D’Arcy cannot account for where she was on the night of his death,’ McEvoy persisted.

  ‘That’s it?’ Rice said dismissively. ‘That’s your evidence? Two unreliable witnesses who have an unsubstantiated vendetta against my client’s family, and the lack of an alibi because she was by herself?’

  ‘I don’t drive a Mercedes,’ Marion said, her face creased in a puzzled expression. ‘I drive a Range…’ she trailed off.

  McEvoy felt his heart skip a beat. He was doomed. ‘But I saw it parked in front of your father’s house when I first arrived there. A dark blue Mercedes. And I saw the same one parked outside the front of your house on Monday morning.’

  Marion stayed silent.

  ‘You don’t own a dark blue Mercedes?’ McEvoy pressed, drowning slowly. He should have got the registration plate checked before he rushed in. He was so tired and stretched and keen to wrap the case up that he’d made an elementary mistake. He was going to be hung out to dry by Tony Bishop and what was more he deserved it.

  Marion D’Arcy glanced nervously towards John Rice, a realisation opening in her own mind, and in that moment McEvoy gained fresh hope. She knew whose car it was.

  ‘If it wasn’t your car, whose car is it?’ he asked urgently. ‘James Kinneally’s? … Stefan Freel’s?’

  She stayed silent, giving him a disdainful look.

  A thought started to emerge inside his mind. ‘Your brother’s?’

  She cast her glare down at her hands.

  ‘It was your brother’s,’ McEvoy said as an accusation. ‘You borrowed his car. Oh, sweet… It was your brother’s car,’ he stated, the penny finally dropping.

  McEvoy pushed back his chair and headed for the door. Charles Koch had been at his father’s house in the early hours of Sunday morning. Just as James Kinneally had lied for Marion D’Arcy, Patricia Kinneally had lied for Charles Koch. O’Coffey had tried to blackmail Charles like he had his son. His reward was a bullet to the head. He turned at the door. ‘Where’s your brother now? Mrs D’Arcy?’

  Marion D’Arcy raised her eyes and stared fiercely at McEvoy but stayed silent.

  McEvoy shook his head in frustration and headed from the room. He took a couple of steps and returned to the doorway. ‘We’re not finished yet. I’ll be back shortly.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Superintendent, but we are,’ Rice said firmly. ‘You have no reason to continue to hold my client.’

  ‘Fine, but you might as well make yourself comfortable, Mr Rice, because as soon as I find her brother, I’ll be bringing him here for questioning.’

  ‘You’ll be wasting your time, Superintendent. You have no evidence against him either, just the sighting of a car which could have belonged to anyone.’

  * * *

  There were no journalists left at the gates of Marion D’Arcy’s house. McEvoy sped up to the house still furious with himself.

  He leapt from the car, rushed to the front door, knocked loudly and waited. There was no response. He knocked again but there was no sign of life. He walked quickly to the side of the house and headed towards the stables. The horses in the neighbouring field stared at him with mild curiosity before lowering their heads back to the lush grass. A dark blue Mercedes was parked at the entrance to the stable yard.

  The car was empty and so was the yard. A couple of horses watched his progress round the stables from their stalls. One of them neighed loudly.

  As he started to make his way out of the far side of the yard Charles Koch came into view a hundred yards away approaching on horseback. The horse was walking sedately, breath snorting in clouds from its nose, Koch gently rolling from side to side.

  ‘I’ve been told to expect you,’ Koch said as he neared. ‘My lawyer tells me not to say a word until he’s present.’

  ‘Shit,’ McEvoy muttered to himself. He could feel any hope of wrapping the case up in the next couple of days starting to slip away. And unless they could find forensic evidence on Koch himself or his clothes – traces of cordite or blood or mud – they were in trouble. Everything else rested on circumstantial evidence that John Rice would systematically shred or cast doubt on. Even if they could prove that Patricia Kinneally had provided a false alibi for the night Koch’s father died it wouldn’t be enough for a safe conviction – it wouldn’t prove that Koch had killed Peter O’Coffey.

  Koch passed McEvoy and made his way into the yard. He dismounted slowly and gracefully.

  ‘I need to ask you some questions,’ McEvoy said, more in hope than actual expectation of answers.

  Koch stayed silent tugging at the girdle strap that kept the saddle in place.

  ‘Why did you go to your father’s house in the early hours of Sunday morning?’

  ‘I didn’t.’ Koch pulled the saddle free and hung it on an open doorway. Steam rose from the horse’s sweaty back.

  ‘Your car was seen arriving at two o’clock in the morning.’

  ‘It wasn’t my car.’ Koch moved back to the horse and started to work on the bridle.

  McEvoy shifted his feet and decided to try another line of questions. ‘Why did you kill Peter O’Coffey?’

  ‘First you try and frame my son for murder and now me?’ Koch said evenly, lifting the bridle over the horse’s ears and slipping the bit from its mouth. ‘Why would I kill Peter O’Coffey?’

  ‘He was blackmailing you,’ McEvoy said without confidence.

  ‘Blackmailing me! Why would he want to do that?’ Koch draped the bridle over the saddle and took a brush hanging from a nail.

  ‘Because he knew that your son had killed your father and he was desperate for money to save his farm.’

  ‘My son did not kill my father, Superintendent. Peter did, and it was an accident. The last few days have been a nightmare because of that accident.’ Koch started to brush the horse’s coat.

  ‘Is that why you killed him?’

  ‘I’ve already told you. I didn’t kill him!’

  ‘You drive a dark blue Mercedes that was seen arriving at your father’s farm at two o’clock in the morning the night he died.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Superintendent. I was at Patricia Kinneally’s house.’

  ‘About which you’ve already lied. Why should we believe you now?’

  Koch stopped brushing the horse, turning to face McEvoy. ‘Because it’s the truth. Do you know how many people own dark blue Mercedes around here? That’s why my uncle is a very rich man. And how do you know it was dark blue in any case? At two o’clock in the morning it could have been any dark colour – black, blue, green, red. They’d have all looked the same.’

  ‘So whose car do you think it was,’ McEvoy asked sarcastically.

  ‘I don’t know. How about Stefan Freel? He drives a black Mercedes 320. Or…’ Koch trailed off.

  ‘Or who?’ McEvoy prompted.

  ‘Nobody.’

  ‘Nobody,’ McEvoy repeated, aware that Koch was right; the car at The White Gallows that night could have belonged to any number of people. ‘This isn’t over yet,’ he said weakly. ‘I’ll be getting in a forensic team to go over your car. If they find any evidence that you were near to where Peter O’Coffey was killed…’ He petered off, reluctant to make the threat.

  ‘You
won’t find anything, Superintendent. I didn’t kill Peter,’ Koch reaffirmed.

  * * *

  Stefan Freel dropped his tall, thin frame down heavily onto the leather chair behind his desk and pointed to a seat with one hand, the other scratching the side of his prominent nose.

  McEvoy sat where directed and crossed his right leg over his left. ‘Working on a Saturday?’

  ‘I work every day and now there’s even more to do. Establishing Ostara Trust demands time. I was back in work immediately after the funeral.’

  ‘You didn’t go on to Marion D’Arcy’s house afterwards then?’ McEvoy asked, acknowledging the little love lost between the pair.

  ‘She wouldn’t let me into the church; I’d say the chances of getting into her house were zero.’ Freel shrugged. ‘That’s okay; Dr Koch wouldn’t have wanted the fuss. If the tables were turned and we were burying Marion he would have been back working before the first sod hit the coffin lid.’

  ‘No point letting grief get in the way of making money,’ McEvoy said sarcastically.

  ‘You may mock, Superintendent, but money makes the world go round. Grief is just a distraction. Why waste time on the dead when life is for living?’

  ‘Clearly you’ve never loved anyone,’ McEvoy said bitterly.

  ‘Perhaps not, but I’m not sure I’ve missed anything.’

  McEvoy shook his head sadly. Freel’s emotional depth was skin deep. He might have material wealth and wield a certain amount of power but he knew nothing of the finer things in life, like love. ‘You own a black Mercedes 320?’ he asked getting to the point of the interview.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It was seen parked outside The White Gallows at two o’clock in the morning, the night Albert Koch died.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Superintendent,’ Freel said with an amused smile. ‘Not unless it was stolen from Dublin Airport. It was parked in Area J in the long term car park Friday and Saturday night. I’m sure their surveillance cameras will confirm that. Besides I thought Francie Koch has confessed to his grandfather’s death?’