‘You’ll be protected,’ I reasoned. ‘It’s the only way.’
He stared at me as if weighing up my proposition. He shook his head violently and in doing so applied more pressure to the blade he had pressed against Natalia’s throat. She cried out.
At that moment Karol Walshyk stepped through the open door, holding aloft a piece of rock he had lifted from our garden. He brought it down with force on the back of Strandmann’s skull before the man had even had a chance to register his presence.
Strandmann dropped heavily to the ground and his knife clattered across the wooden floor. Natalia fell forwards and clawed her way into the living room, where Debbie rushed to her.
Karol was kneeling over Strandmann’s motionless body, the rock raised above his head. Again he brought it down hard on Strandmann’s skull, the thud sickening, the force causing blood to splatter against him and onto the wall to his left. He raised his hand a third time, his face contorted in rage.
‘Karol, don’t!’ I shouted, approaching him, my hand held out for the rock.
‘He deserves it,’ Karol barked, his words a tumble in the thickness of his accent. ‘He deserves it for what he did.’
‘He does,’ I said. ‘But not like this. He can give us the man who brought Natalia in. He can help us get the person responsible.’
Karol stared at me, his body heaving with the effort of his exertions. He looked down at the prone figure lying beneath him, then looked at his own hand, thick with gouts of blood.
Finally he stood erect and, stepping away from the body, let the rock fall from his hand. It lay on the ground while around it Strandmann’s blood was pooling. Upstairs I could hear my children getting out of bed, wondering what the commotion below was. Debbie rushed to get to them, to prevent them coming onto the landing and looking down.
Karol stepped past me and went into the living room, where he wrapped his arms around Natalia, who hugged into him, her body shuddering with tears, her face pressed against his bloodstained shirt. He held her tight and looked at me, willing me to ensure that her tears were not in vain. I had convinced him that keeping Strandmann alive would serve justice. I had only now to convince myself.
Epilogue
Friday, 24 November
In the week following those events, the NBCI and the PSNI worked closely in piecing together the relationship between Orcas and Eligius. Eventually, the evidence and documentation they found prompted them to reach the following conclusion.
Orcas had opened after initial exploration suggested they had found a sizeable gold deposit. The early vein they found had been used to produce the jewellery I had seen on my first trip out to the mine. However, after setting up the mine, Weston and the funders must have quickly realized that the vein had run dry sooner than expected and the mine was going to incur huge, potentially embarrassing losses for the Irish-American businesses behind it.
Meanwhile, Cathal Hagan, or someone acting on his behalf, agreed to the sale of military software to Chechen rebels. Seamus Curran, a friend of Hagan’s, was engaged to use the freight firm in which he was a partner to take the goods into the country, as part of a delivery of charity goods. Someone, presumably Morrison himself, had then reached an agreement with the rebels to bring back illegal immigrants. Increasing prof its further, Morrison, through Barry Ford, had not only continued to extort money from the immigrants after their arrival in the country, but had also begun laundering fuel for use in the transit of goods across Europe.
Hagan turned Orcas’s misfortunes to his advantage by using the company, in which he was an investor, as a means to launder the money he had made through the illegal sale of software. Weston had participated in the deception, falsifying the productivity reports to make it seem as if the mine was as successful as its prof its suggested. It all came to light when Leon Bradley, initially attracted to the area on the promise of a new gold rush, began to investigate the pollution in the river caused by Morrison’s fuel dump.
All of this was reported back to me by Patterson after the NBCI had completed their search of Orcas.
‘What about Morrison?’ I asked him when he had finished relating the findings of the NBCI team. ‘What can he be held accountable for?’
‘Nothing apart from the fuel thing. There’s no evidence that he knew what was being taken to Chechnya was illegal,’ Patterson said.
‘What about Hagan? What’s going to happen there?’
Again Patterson shrugged. ‘It’s not our concern. I suppose it’ll be embarrassing for him, with his War on Terror thing. Looks bad for people to find out you’ve been selling parts to terrorists yourself. The NBCI will pass on what they have to the Yanks, I imagine. It’ll be up to them, really, but Hagan’s well connected.’
‘So, who answers for what happened?’ I asked, attempting to control my frustration.
‘Weston takes the blame for everything. You were so desperate to get something on him. Well done!’ he added.
Before I could respond he continued, ‘Of course, you were out of order in so many ways this time too, Devlin. And yet you still manage to come out of it smelling like roses.’
‘I don’t think anything that happened here turned out the way I wanted, Harry.’
‘Whatever. I’ve put in a request for a transfer,’ Patterson said suddenly.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ I said. ‘My family are settled here.’
‘Not for you. Costello set up the Super’s office here when his wife was sick. I’ve decided to move it back to Letterkenny. That leaves you responsible for this station.’
I was more than a little taken aback. ‘Why? I mean, thank you. But – why?’ The move was in a way a promotion, though I would remain under Patterson’s command as Superintendent.
‘You were right,’ he said.
‘Truthfully?’
‘Truthfully. It’ll keep you out of my hair for a while and I’ll not have you barging into my office every time you feel like it.’
And, I reflected, it reduced the risk of my revealing his involvement in the murder of Janet Moore (for which her husband was awaiting sentencing), or his tipping off Weston about the impending Garda searches of his premises.
Suddenly I felt as uneasy as I had when Weston had gifted me the gold necklace.
‘I’m moving next week,’ Patterson added. ‘I’d love to say I’ll be sorry to leave you here, but it wouldn’t be true.’
Despite my assurance to Karol Walshyk, Pol Strandmann ultimately could play no part in bringing Vincent Morrison to justice. He never recovered consciousness following Karol’s attack on him in my home and remained in a vegetative state at the time Morrison finally came to trial.
In the absence of any living witness to corroborate our knowledge of Morrison’s activities, the Public Prosecution Service in the North decided that the only charges that could be successfully prosecuted related to the use of illegal fuel in his fleet.
I attended the court on the day of Morrison’s case. About fifteen minutes before he was due to appear, I stepped out to the side of the building to have a smoke. Several barristers stood, in gowns and wigs, cigarettes clamped in their mouths as they conducted business over their mobiles.
To my far left a family stood, the man obscured by his wife and children. The youngest child, a girl, was sobbing uncontrollably. Her father squatted down to her level and I could hear him speaking to her in a placatory manner.
Even when I saw his face, it took me a few seconds to register that the man was in fact Vincent Morrison.
‘Thought it was you,’ he said, winking conspiratorially.
Initially I tried to ignore him, dragging deeply on my cigarette to finish it faster.
He said something to his wife and broke away from his family to approach me. His daughter hugged his leg, but he disentangled himself from her and walked over.
‘Here to gloat?’ he asked, lighting a smoke.
‘Here to see you get what you deserve,’ I said. I was aware of his wife w
atching me with open hostility. The elder child, a boy, scraped the toe of his shoe along the edge of the kerb, his hands in his pockets.
Morrison tilted his head from side to side, as if weighing up my words. ‘What I deserve? Aye, maybe that’s true. But then, as you know, it could have been much worse.’
‘It should have been,’ I retorted. ‘It’ll catch up with you.’
‘No it won’t,’ he replied with a sharpness at odds with the friendly nature of his opening banter.
‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Curran’s kids are left without their father. For what?’
‘You’re the only one can answer that.’
‘Do they know what you do? Your son? Does he know his father’s a killer?’
‘Does yours? Barry Ford’s shooter. Do you go home and tell your kids about all the fuck-ups?’ he snorted. ‘Thought not. I’m just providing for my family – same as you.’
‘You destroy people’s lives. You deserve everything you get.’
He ground out his cigarette and came close to me, close enough for me to smell the tobacco off his breath.
‘Don’t be so fucking naïve. You know what I’ll get? Six months, a year max. You’ve done me a favour. The Assets Recovery Agency took my vans. I’ve been bankrupted to pay back duty on fucking fuel. I’ll do six months. But that’s it. That’s the best you’ve been able to do. I’ll have earned twice what they took from me a year after I get out, and neither you nor anybody else will be able to do a sweet fucking thing about it.’
I met his glare and tried to appear defiant, but what he had said was true. For all that Morrison had done, the worst that would happen to him was a six-month sentence. He had cleaned up behind himself so carefully, had taken out every witness who could possibly incriminate him, that no one could prove anything. And what he said frightened me. Most criminals are stupid; that’s how they get caught. Morrison was growing sharper all the time.
‘Six months,’ he repeated. ‘I’ll be sure to look you up when I get out. We’ll catch up.’
‘You do that,’ I said. ‘I’ll be waiting for you.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ he said, smiling broadly, then winked at me, clicking his tongue as he did so. He put his hands in his pockets and turned back to his family.
Fifteen minutes later I watched as he hugged his wife, son and daughter, and then was led away to start a fourteen-month sentence for fuel-smuggling and evasion of duty. With good behaviour, he would be out in half that time.
As they left the courtroom, his son turned and stared at me angrily. And then he started to cry for his father.
Early last week, Natalia and Karol called on us. Following the hospitalization of Strandmann and the collapse of the immigrant-smuggling case, Natalia had been told her evidence was no longer required. Four days later she received a letter telling her that, as an illegal immigrant, she would be deported back to Chechnya by the end of the month.
The day they called was chilled, the air sharp with the scent of decay. The boughs of the apple tree at the front of our house bent heavy with the rotting fruit of the autumn. Natalia stood outside our house, Karol at her side, as in her best broken English she thanked Debbie and me for our hospitality and kindness.
Debbie listened while she spoke, her eyes moist with tears, her fingers playing with the necklace that Weston had given to me just a few weeks ago. When Natalia had finished speaking, they embraced tightly, as old friends might.
‘You take care,’ Debbie said, holding her hand.
‘I’m sorry for everything,’ I said. Karol began to translate but Natalia held up a hand to silence both of us. She spoke quickly in Chechen, then turned and looked at Karol.
‘Don’t apologize,’ he translated. ‘You opened your home to me. You made me welcome.’
Her words were not enough though to assuage the guilt I felt at all that had befallen her.
‘I tried my best,’ I said, my own eyes filling. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘No sorry,’ Natalia said. ‘Family. Thank you.’
‘I—’ I started to speak, but could think of no expression as eloquent as the one she had just made. ‘Thank you,’ I said, finally.
Karol spoke himself then, without prompting. ‘I’m going to go with her.’
‘Are you coming back?’ I asked, though I already knew the response.
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I’ll stay with Natalia until she finds her feet. Then we’ll see what happens. Who knows?’
‘Are you two—?’ I began, but Debbie thumped my arm and rolled her eyes.
Natalia laughed.
‘Friends,’ Natalia said, smiling warmly at Karol in a manner that left her answer open to question. Then she leant down and kissed first Penny and then Shane on their foreheads.
Karol approached them too and, stooping, offered his hand to shake. Penny pulled her hand away from him and stepped back a little.
‘Penny,’ Debbie said sharply.
Karol smiled gently at her. ‘I must say sorry, Miss Devlin. I said bad things to your daddy when we met in the shop. I was wrong. He’s a fine man.’
Penny looked up at me, then back at Karol. Finally she put out her hand and shook his.
‘He’s a fine man,’ he repeated to her, and she rewarded him with the gift of her smile.
When we had said goodbye, Karol and Natalia climbed into his car and he started the ignition. Debbie, who had been standing beside me, gripping my hand, suddenly let go and ran down to the car. She bent down at the passenger-side window and tapped on the glass.
Natalia rolled down the window and smiled uncertainly. Then Debbie reached up to the clasp of the necklace she wore and, having unhooked it, passed it in through the window to Natalia.
‘For you,’ she said. ‘God bless you both.’
With that, she patted the roof of the car and came back up the driveway to me. She stood beside me, her hand in mine, and in that single gesture made me feel that I could, perhaps, begin to forgive myself too.
One morning, after stopping in at the station, I drove out to the Carrowcreel. As I pulled to a halt under the cover of the fir plantation, several cars passed me.
I walked upstream with a bunch of flowers to leave at the spot where Helen Gorman died. I stood by the river and said prayers for the happy repose of her soul. And, in the silence of the woodland, as the river passed with hushed whispers, I like to think that my prayers were heard.
On my way back downriver, towards the car, I spotted Ted Coyle. He was wading upstream, a sieve in his hand. He dipped and lifted a handful of silt from the riverbed and dropped it into the sieve. He then held it just at the water surface and let it wash away the dirt. He inspected the remnants, then upturned the sieve and spilt the contents back into the river. When he saw me he waded back downstream.
‘You’re not leaving then?’ I asked, nodding towards the now almost deserted car park – only my car and his van remained.
‘No,’ he said, drawing the word out. ‘First here, last to go.’
‘Have you anywhere to go?’
He looked at the river, then turned his face towards the sky. ‘Sure where else would you go? Where could be nicer than this?’
I took out a cigarette and lit it. ‘You can’t stay here for ever, Mr Coyle. Go home. There’s nothing left to find here. Your kids must miss you.’
He squinted at me from behind the lenses of his glasses. ‘I suppose so. I’m just . . . I thought it might be nice to wait until I make a find – a real find. Let me leave with my head held high, you know?’
‘You could be waiting for some time. Orcas had no gold in the end,’ I said. ‘Apart from that first vein. There was nothing else.’
‘One vein is all you need, Inspector,’ he said. ‘That’s all it takes.’
I regarded the man and his attempts to retain some sense of pride. His own gaze shifted from me to the river and back again, and I could sense that he was waiting for me to leave.
I held
out my hand. ‘Good luck to you then, Mr Coyle.’
‘And you too, Inspector Devlin,’ he replied, shaking my hand in his.
Then he pushed his glasses up his nose, turned and stepped back down into the river.
Just this morning I saw Ted Coyle one more time. He was smiling from the front page of the local newspaper, holding in the palm of his hand a twisted nugget of gold. He had discovered it a few days before, while panning the river. He could not believe his luck, he said.
The last of the prospectors, and ultimately the only man to profit from the gold vein in Donegal, was finally leaving the Carrowcreel. The paper speculated that the nugget was worth up to €15,000. I suspected that its true value was much greater; it was all that the man might need to return to his family, to face his children with a sense of dignity.
That is, perhaps, the best for which any of us may aim.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to all who helped in bringing Bleed a River Deep to fruition, not least Ed Harcourt for permission to use the name of a great song for the title.
Thanks to my friends and colleagues in St Columb’s who have been incredibly supportive of the Devlin novels, especially Sean McGinty, Nuala McGonagle, Tom Costigan, Eoghan Barr and the members of the English Department. Special thanks to Bob McKimm.
I received valuable advice on various aspects of this book from Moe Lavigne of Galantas Mining, and Paddy McDaid and Carmel McGilloway, who offered advice and help with legal procedures. Any inaccuracies are entirely my own.
Thanks to the various bookshops and libraries that have been so supportive of these books, especially to Dave Torrans in No Alibis and Dave and Daniel in Goldsboro.
Thanks to Peter Straus and Jenny Hewson of RCW, and Will Peterson and Emily Hickman of The Agency, who have been terrific in supporting and developing my writing. Also Pete Wolverton and Liz Byrne at Thomas Dunne Books, Eva Marie Von Hippel and AJ at Dumont, and all involved with Pan Macmillan: Maria Rejt, Caitriona Row, Ellen Wood, Cormac Kinsella, David Adamson, Sophie Portas and especially my UK editor, Will Atkins, to whom this book is dedicated and without whom the Devlin series could not have come this far.
Bleed a River Deep (Inspector Devlin Mystery 3) Page 21
