That’s how I described the events during the investigation that followed into the shooting of Barry Ford, less than a hundred yards from the Carrowcreel.
Chapter Twenty-four
Monday, 23 October
Back-up arrived a few moments later in the form of one of the Gardai I had left with Helen Gorman. He stood beside me, his chest heaving as he attempted to catch his breath, and looked down on the lifeless form of Barry Ford.
He placed his hands on his upper thighs and leant over heavily, as if he were going to be sick. He spat a thick globule of bile on to the ground and stood erect again. Finally he managed to say, ‘Fucker had it coming to him. Good work, sir.’
I wiped the sweat from my eyes. ‘I got nothing from him. Nothing.’
My colleague, whose name I did not even know, placed his hand on my arm.
‘You got him,’ he said, and winked.
I could hear other voices approaching, the blue uniforms standing out against the dull hues of the forest. They ran past me as I made my way back to where Gorman’s body lay, her face turned towards the sky, the light blue of her shirt almost entirely purpled by her blood.
The medical crew had torn her shirt open, revealing the extent of her wounds. One of them was comforting the man who had been giving her CPR when I left. Several of our colleagues stood near by, smoking and whispering in hushed tones as they glanced at Gorman’s corpse.
‘Cover her up,’ I said to one of the crew as I made my way over to the barn.
Ford’s protective suit suggested he had been up to something in there and my first thought ran to drugs. Then, as I approached, I caught the strong smell of fuel.
The barn itself was around three thousand square feet. The metal sheeting on the roof had started to rust in places and tiny shafts of light streamed through the gaping holes above us. Inside, there were ten home-brew vats, down the sides of which a corrosive sludge dripped. In the far corner were stacked almost a hundred metal drums. I went over and picked a stick from the ground to lift one of the lids. As I prized up the lid of the nearest vat, the air sharpened with the smell of diesel and another more acrid smell.
‘Green diesel,’ a uniform said, appearing next to me.
I turned and looked at him and either my expression, or the bloody state of my face and hands, made him shift his step.
‘Johnny McGinley,’ he said, holding out his hand then withdrawing it again, quickly. ‘It’s green diesel.’
‘How the fuck do you know?’ I asked.
‘My da owns a farm. He uses green diesel for the machinery and that. That’s what it’s for. This guy was cleaning it, so it can be used in normal cars and that. Remove the dye so the customs men can’t get you. Fucks up your car, though.’
‘What’s that sludge?’
‘Something nasty,’ he said. ‘You use acid to clean the fuel – sulphuric acid usually. That’s the remains of the acid and the dye and shit. There should be a shitload of that stuff about somewhere, though, judging by the state of those pods. He must have dumped it.’
‘How much “it” are you talking? Where would he dump it?’
‘Could be as many barrels again as those in the corner. Those pods have been used for a while. Where would you dump it? Look around, Inspector. The whole bleeding woodland would make a perfect dumping ground. Problem is, that stuff will just burn through the barrels or whatever he’s been putting it in, run out onto the ground.’
And straight into the river, I thought.
I sat down by the Carrowcreel, waiting for Patterson. As I lit a smoke, my phone rang. I recognized the number as Gilmore’s.
‘No sign of Ford at that address. If he ever lived there, he’s not been back in a while. Pile of post lying behind the door. We’ve asked the Community Branch to keep an eye on the house for him.’
‘Don’t bother. He’s not coming back.’‘How do you know?’
‘I’ve just shot him.’
‘Is he dead?’
I dragged on my cigarette and grunted through the smoke.
‘Result,’ Gilmore said, cheerily. Why was everyone not involved in the killing so pleased about it?
‘I lost one of my own colleagues,’ I replied.
Gilmore was quiet for a moment, then I heard him snuff with embarrassment. ‘Shit, I’m sorry. Who was he?’
‘She,’ I corrected. ‘Helen Gorman.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. It’s not easy to deal with. I lost a couple of mates to the Provos,’ he began, but I wasn’t in the mood for old war stories. And I couldn’t shake the thought that I was the one who had sent her out here in the first place.
‘Ford was laundering fuel,’ I explained. ‘He worked for Morrison’s haulage company, and he was laundering green diesel. Morrison is involved in this.’
‘Sounds promising,’ Gilmore agreed. ‘Fuel-smuggling is Customs and Excise. I’ll phone up our friends from Sunday, get them to drop round on Mr Morrison, check his tanks.’
‘That’s a plan,’ I agreed.
‘Take it easy, Devlin. I’ll let you know what happens.’
I closed my phone and put it away. My arm muscles were twitching now with delayed shock. I stubbed out my smoke and washed my hands in the cold water of the river.
*
Patterson arrived about half an hour later with a further cohort of officers. I ran through the episode with him. Then he spoke with each of the officers who had been with Gorman and they confirmed that she had told them they were to hold their position until I arrived. The man who had followed me into the woods also confirmed my description of how Barry Ford was shot.
‘What about his confession?’ I asked. ‘Is any of it usable?’
‘None,’ Patterson said with disgust. ‘Unless we can get someone to corroborate it. You had no witnesses, nothing recorded.’
‘I had no choice,’ I protested.
Patterson grunted and raised his hand to shield his eyes as he stared upriver. ‘Lean on this prick Curran and see what he has to say. But stay away from Weston and Orcas for now, do you hear me?’
I nodded. ‘We can get Morrison on something, though,’ I said. ‘Fuel-laundering.’ I gestured towards the barn, where McGinley was standing with a number of other officers. Patterson looked at them, turned his head and spat onto the ground, then went over. I followed.
Patterson inspected the contents of the barn, then ordered several teams to head out in search of the missing drums of acidic waste which, we assumed, Ford had been dumping.
‘He’d have to travel by car with them,’ McGinley added. ‘Follow car tracks.’
A number of the more senior men looked at him scornfully. Patterson turned and glanced at him appraisingly. For my part, I was impressed with how he handled himself.
And he was proved right. Half a mile due north, one of the teams discovered over two hundred oildrums piled under a tarpaulin stretched between a number of trees, the tarpaulin covered with leaves and pine needles. A number of the drums at the bottom of the pile had already been corroded through, the thick sludge running into a stream nearby, whence it had made its way into the Carrowcreel.
I stood with Patterson, surveying the dump. If the waste could do this to steel, I could only imagine what it had done to the river.
‘No matter what you think about Weston, you can’t blame him for this,’ Patterson concluded, nodding towards the barrels, then rubbing vigorously at his nose with his index finger and thumb. ‘Maybe you can lay the fuck off him now, eh?’ he added, then turned and walked away.
‘Maybe,’ I said. Killing Ford had effectively killed that whole line of enquiry. The discovery of the fuel laundry explained the death of Leon Bradley, and the pollution in the river. And Karl Moore had confessed to the killing of his wife. But there still remained the issue of Natalia and the smuggling of illegal immigrants in which Ford and Strandmann were involved and in which Morrison had some hand. He had trucks going out to Chechnya on charity missions. Natalia had told us she had
been smuggled into the country in the back of a truck.
And none of this explained the significance of the sheets that Leon had stolen from Eligius. Or why someone wanted them badly enough to attack the postman on the day they were to be delivered. Ford denied that attack, even as he admitted people-smuggling. Maybe he had been telling the truth.
Patterson had warned me to lay off Weston. Ted Coyle, on the other hand, had not been mentioned.
I found him downriver. He was one of the few stragglers left, panning the river. Most of the others had either left or were sitting outside their vans, watching the comings and goings of the Gardai. Overhead, a V-formation of wild geese traversed the cloudless sky.
I explained to him what I wanted him to do. Then he gave me a lift back to Orcas to collect my car. There I gave him the brown envelope containing the documents Hendry had given me and which I suspected he would soon realize I had yet to return. Coyle looked at them, then at me, blinking quickly behind his glasses.
‘I’ll take a look at them, see what they mean,’ he said. ‘Give me your mobile. I’ll ring you later.’
‘You never saw these,’ I said. ‘You know nothing about them, and I’ll deny giving them to you, if anyone asks.’
He nodded and turned as if to leave. Then he came back towards me. ‘You know, you should really ask Peter Daniels about this. He went into Eligius with Leon.’
‘I would if I could find him,’ I said. ‘No known address for him, apparently.’
Coyle blinked behind his glasses, staring at me as if I was stupid. ‘He’s sitting downstream. Daniels is one of the guys Leon was camped with. They’re packing up today.’
Chapter Twenty-five
Tuesday, 24 October
Peter Daniels was sitting on the step of one of the camper vans when I got back to the site. A rolled cigarette drooped from his mouth as he scratched the neck of the dog I had seen wandering around.
‘You didn’t tell me you were Peter Daniels,’ I said.
‘Should I have?’ he asked, smiling mildly.
‘You were at Eligius with Leon.’
‘That’s right,’ he said, scratching his nose with his thumb.
‘You didn’t tell me,’ I said.
‘Why would I? It’s irrelevant.’
‘Irrelevant? What about the shipping lists he posted out?’
‘Oh, you got them,’ Daniels said.
It was then that it occurred to me that Ford was not the only man with a greying pony-tail.
‘It was you who jumped the postman, wasn’t it?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ he said.
‘It was out of my jurisdiction,’ I explained. ‘I don’t care. But it made me think the documents were more important than they are. I thought someone killed Leon over them.’
‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘An unintended consequence.’
Which was as close to a confession as I was going to get, I thought.
‘What was so important about the documents? What did you want information on V M Haulage for?’
‘We didn’t. We went in to protest against the war. Leon was a wiz with computers. When we actually made it in, he suggested we look for the names of any Irish companies working for Hagan. Stage protests at their offices, send them stuff in the post – hoax devices and that, you know.’
‘Green Alliance?’ The group Janet Moore had told me was behind the hoax threats against Hagan.
Daniels smiled broadly. ‘It’s nice to be known,’ he said.
‘So what happened?’
‘Nothing. Leon found those shipping invoices. We realized they were a local company, thought we’d keep the details. Plan something a little further down the line. Always useful to have these places on the radar.’
‘What’s the other sheet? All the figures?’
Daniels shrugged. ‘Something Leon found. He came across a protected file. Spent the evening trying to crack into it. That’s all he found. He reckoned it must be important, the hassle they’d gone to to protect it. I didn’t get a chance to study it. Maybe I could see it now,’ he added slyly. ‘I might be able to help you.’
‘You’ve helped me enough already,’ I said. ‘I’m told you’re leaving.’
He nodded through a haze of sweet-smelling smoke, then squinted at his wristwatch. ‘We’ll be on our way in an hour, I’d say. Heading to Derry. It’s been a pleasure, Ben.’
He stood and extended his hand. We shook. When I got back to my car, I phoned Jim Hendry and told him that the man responsible for the attack on the Strabane postman would be crossing the border in an hour’s time, if anyone wanted to pick him up.
I discussed events with Debbie over dinner, but her words of reassurance had little effect and I slept badly that night. In my dream I relived the shooting of Helen Gorman. I saw her moving in slow motion and tried to shout a warning, but my mouth couldn’t form the words. I watched myself shoot Barry Ford, but in my dreams his hand remained motionless on the forest floor, his gun unmoving.
Waking at five in a cold sweat, I showered and went downstairs. As I passed Natalia’s bedroom door, I could have sworn that I heard her crying softly. I thought of knocking and checking on her, but there was nothing I could say to her, no words of comfort that would mean anything, or express the sorrow and guilt I felt at what had befallen her. I recalled hearing of a Ukrainian woman in the North who, having lost her job over the Christmas period, was forced to sleep outdoors. Over several winter nights she suffered such extreme hypothermia that, when found, she had to have both legs amputated. It seemed vile that such things could happen in a country that had been enjoying an unparalleled period of prosperity.
At six-thirty, my mobile rang. It was Ted Coyle.
‘You sound like shit,’ I observed when he had introduced himself.
‘Likewise,’ he remarked. ‘I’ve been up looking at your sheets. I can’t see what’s so important about them.’
I tried to keep the disappointment out of my voice. ‘Don’t worry about it. It was a stab in the dark. I’m not even sure the content is important. Maybe it was just the fact that it verified the link between Eligius and Vincent Morrison’s outfit.’
‘No . . . no,’ Coyle muttered. ‘No. I thought that myself. But why would Leon have lifted the sheet about Orcas? There’s something in those figures. Something important.’
‘What are they anyway?’ I asked. ‘I guessed they were productivity things.’
‘They are,’ Coyle interrupted. ‘It’s a breakdown of how much rock was processed and what minerals came out of it. The headers, Au, Ag and that, are gold, silver; all the minerals they extracted.’
I couldn’t see their relevance and said as much. ‘It was a long shot, to be honest. Thanks for looking at them anyway,’ I added, ready to cut the connection.
Coyle hadn’t finished. ‘The only thing about this that might be important is how little gold they actually extracted. According to this.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘It’s been a profit year for Orcas.’
‘Not on these figures, it hasn’t,’ Coyle said. ‘Their gold extraction is negligible. Not enough to run a profit, anyway. Most of what they found is listed under Fe – iron sulphide, I guess; fool’s gold.’
I felt my pulse begin to pound in my throat. ‘That can’t be right.’
‘Take a look yourself,’ he said. ‘It’s all down there.’
‘You have the only—’ I began, then recalled my first trip out to Orcas. Weston had handed me and Patterson leather-bound folders. ‘Everything you could ever want to know about our company is in those packs,’ he’d said.
‘I’ll call you back,’ I said, snapping my phone closed.
I found the folder under a pile of junk in the study. Sure enough, it did contain productivity reports on the mine. According to my copy, though, the percentage per tonne of gold was significantly higher than any of the other minerals. Either Coyle’s figures were from a different year, or one o
f us had the wrong set of figures.
One phone call confirmed that, like mine, Coyle’s figures were dated in February of this year. One set was incorrect. And I suspected I knew which. If Coyle’s figures were right – and they were the ones that had been password-protected in the computer system of Eligius – then Orcas was making nothing. Which raised the question, where had the record prof its come from?
I copied Coyle’s figures onto my own sheet and headed for the station.
Patterson groaned when I handed him the sheets. He laid them on the desk in front of him and looked up at me awkwardly.
‘Will you sit down, for fuck’s sake?’ he snapped.
I sat, but could not control the continual pumping of my knee. I became aware of the thudding of my heart and a tightening across my scalp. Recognizing the early signs of a panic attack, I took a deep breath.
‘So, what am I meant to see here?’ he asked.
‘One report states that the total grammes per tonne of gold extracted from 100 tonnes of rock was 58.75. Which is a remarkable amount.’
‘Right,’ Patterson said, flicking the sheet in front of him. ‘So?’
‘The other figures are from a sheet Leon Bradley posted out of Eligius the night he broke in.’
‘And you have them how?’ he asked.
‘The PSNI forgot to get them back from me,’ I explained. ‘According to these figures, for the same period, the grammes per tonne were less than one gramme per hundred tonnes.’
‘Which is bad?’ Patterson asked, with a hint of sarcasm.
‘Which is unprofitable. It wouldn’t be worth their while operating if these figures are right.’
‘So where did the prof its come from?’
‘That’s what we need to find out. If he chose these two pieces of information, he must have guessed they were linked in some way. Ford told me that they were transporting stuff for Hagan to Chechnya.’
‘This was before you shot him,’ Patterson said, glancing up from the sheet.
Bleed a River Deep (Inspector Devlin Mystery 3) Page 19
