The Gathering of Souls

by Gerry O'Carroll

  ‘So where’s the pendant, then?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Sacred Heart. If it was lost in the struggle, why didn’t Scene of Crimes find it along with the broken chain?’

  Quinn couldn’t answer him. Instead, he turned and went inside. Doyle followed, cursing under his breath. ‘And if you’re talking motive, it’s simple,’ he said. ‘Revenge, Moss: revenge on you for taking her away in the first place; revenge on both us for dragging him into court; and revenge on me for kicking his skinny arse to Connacht and back again.’

  Quinn held his eye. ‘Doyler, he’s hardly the type to think of sending us a picture. And what about the phone calls? Why would he do that?’

  ‘Jesus, would you listen to yourself? You told us the caller all but named him.’

  ‘I’ve not forgotten that, and I’ve not forgotten what the profilers tell us either. People want recognition, Joseph. Did it not occur to you that if we got it wrong, whoever did kill Mary might’ve taken offence?’

  In the living room, Doyle helped himself to a slug from the whiskey bottle. ‘Do you want one of these?’ he growled.

  Quinn shook his head. ‘I had enough last night.’

  ‘Is that why you’re coming up with such a fuck-crazy notion? You’re hanging this morning, is that it?’

  ‘Fuck off with you and sit down.’ Quinn had Mary’s file in his hand. ‘The fleadh cheoil,’ he said. ‘I want to go through it again. And if we come up with nothing but maggots, believe me, Doyler, I’ll be the first down to Rathmines to stomp on the toe-rag’s head.’

  *

  August two years before, and the Maguire brothers were staying at the holiday home Frank and his wife had bought in Ballybunion. Frank was playing golf, and Patrick had arranged to meet Eva in Listowel. Quinn and Doyle would join them later – either that night or in the morning, depending on how quickly they finished an investigation they were carrying out in Cork.

  A balmy night, and the little Kerry town felt as alive with visitors as it did during the racing festival.

  Eva looked beautiful, and Maguire was thinking that Quinn really was a lucky man. She wore a gypsy-style top and a pair of jeans that flared over tan-coloured cowboy boots. The children were in Dublin with Quinn’s parents, and Eva told Pat she was looking forward to a weekend with her husband, her old mates and the craic. That was, if Quinn and Doyle ever made it.

  ‘I tell you what,’ Maguire told her. ‘If Moss doesn’t show in time, I’ll make sure you don’t miss him.’

  Eva laughed. ‘I’ll bet you would too, Patrick Pearse – mad thing that you are.’

  ‘I tell you something else,’ he went on. ‘I’ve told Moss hundreds of times, so it’s no secret: if he’d not had the good sense to pursue you when he did, I’d have been the veritable bloodhound, believe me.’

  ‘Is that why you never got married? Because you thought all the best girls were taken?’

  ‘No, love. I never got married because you were taken.’

  They parked in a side road and Eva took his arm as they walked towards the town centre, where already music was drifting from various doorways. ‘I love this,’ she said. ‘It’s such a fantastic atmosphere. There’s nothing like it, Patrick. I mean really, is there?’

  In the first bar, there was a solitary singer, but after a couple of numbers he was replaced by a guitar-and-fiddle duo that was really good. Eva was drinking wine, Patrick pints of Smithwicks, with the odd whiskey to chase them down. He was people-watching. He was a social worker and prison visitor: people were his business. He’d come here straight from the jail in Limerick.

  A group of young women came in. They were dressed to the nines, and one of them was more than a little drunk already; she was not unlike Eva to look at, although she was much younger. She caught Maguire’s eye and he flashed the cheeky little smile that had worked so well when he had the muscles of a scrum-half to go with it.

  He fetched another round; when he got back to the table, he was amazed to see Canor Maggs in his seat. ‘Conor,’ he said, placing Eva’s drink before her, ‘what a surprise seeing you again after all these years.’ He couldn’t help it, not after what had happened before, and with a wicked grin he nodded to Maggs’s nether regions. ‘Got yourself all tucked away, I see. Good lad.’

  Maggs went scarlet. Then his eyes dulled and he gave Maguire as cold a stare as he’d witnessed. ‘You’ve a mouth on you for a Dublin boy a long way from home.’

  Maguire was amazed at the aggression. ‘Well, well,’ he muttered. ‘Got yerself an attitude finally, did you?’

  ‘Fuck you.’ Maggs shot a stiff glance at Eva. ‘Sorry, Eva, I have to go. Nothing to do with you, love; just the company you’re keeping.’

  When he had gone, Eva’s gaze was cold. ‘That was out of order. He wasn’t doing any harm, Pat. You should leave the man alone.’

  ‘I suppose it was a little uncalled for,’ Maguire admitted. ‘But give us a break, would you? The last time I clapped eyes on him, he was watching you from the bushes with his pants around his ankles.’

  *

  Quinn looked up from the handwritten sheet of paper. ‘Patrick’s statement from the night Mary was abducted. You remember, Doyler?’

  ‘Course I do,’ Doyle said. ‘She was my niece, Mossie, and he was talking about the night you were with her down by the river.’

  *

  Patrick and Eva moved from pub to pub before making their way down to the square, where a large marquee had been erected. Eva hooked up with Corin and some old school friends, so Maguire went to watch a couple of bands by himself. There was a lad from Dublin he’d seen playing on Abbey Street. He was good: a throaty-sounding voice that seemed to fit someone older. The marquee was packed; people standing shoulder to shoulder, whooping and clapping every time he finished a song. There were other acts waiting in the wings but the kid was so good he was encored again and again.

  Having heard enough, Maguire headed for Jett O’Carroll’s. He caught sight of Maggs watching him from further up the road.

  ‘Yup,’ Maguire muttered to himself. ‘An attitude, all right. He’s braver than he used to be, that’s for sure.’

  Maggs was wearing Levis, Chelsea boots and a Paisley waistcoat; he had leather bands round his wrists. It occurred to Maguire that this was the guy who’d grown up with no friends and had had to deal with everyone looking at the Polaroid Jimmy Hanrahan had taken.

  A kid like that could turn out any which way.

  Jett O’Carroll’s was heaving, and it took him ten minutes to get served. Finally he did get a pint, though, and standing at the door to avoid the scrum, he noticed the same girl he’d seen before – the one who reminded him of Eva. She was on her own, stumbling up the street and bumping into a few people along the way. Maguire saw Maggs cross from John B. Keane’s and wondered if he’d been back to try and see Eva. He wasn’t looking where he was going, though, and neither was the girl: they clattered into each other right there on the corner.

  *

  ‘Mary Harrington did look like Eva when she was younger,’ Doyle observed. ‘And that sighting was backed up by Jimmy the Poker. We did our jobs, Moss. We didn’t just go after Maggs with no good reason.’

  Quinn was quiet for a moment. ‘You and me were still in Cork then, weren’t we?’

  ‘We were.’ Doyle looked suddenly wistful. ‘I remember missing the music; I remember missing the craic; and above all I remember missing the kind of porter only Eamon O’Carroll can pour.’ Sitting forward now, he placed his empty glass on the coffee table. ‘We’re wasting time here. I’m making the call. I’ll get a-hold of Murphy and we’ll pick up the Finucane girl too; see what she has to say for herself.’

  Ignoring him, Quinn was studying the topmost statement. ‘Paddy’s word backed up by Jimmy Hanrahan,’ he murmured. ‘Whose mother drowned and whose dad sees the dead in his kitchen.’

  *

  Jimmy hated the guards: he freely admitted it to anyone who asked him. He hated Joe D
oyle the most because he’d given Jimmy quite the slap after he whacked the old woman with her poker.

  He hated the festival – the music, at least. The only thing it did was bring a bit of cash into the place; a few cars he could’ve broken into if he was still in the business. But the only illegal activity he was engaged in these days was a bit of poaching when his dole money ran short. His old feller liked a bit of fresh meat, and it was nothing for Jimmy to bag a deer out of season. Where they lived, the coppers left them alone, and nobody liked to come to the house anyway – not with some half-crazed old man spouting about the souls of the dead and sprinkling holy water.

  Jimmy was on the corner of the square when the Maggot showed up. ‘Hey, Jimmy.’ Maggs walked over to him and, with a look of contempt, Jimmy dragged on his cigarette before dropping the stub to the pavement and letting it burn.

  ‘Maggot,’ he muttered, ‘what brought you out of your hole.’

  ‘I live in Dublin now,’ Maggs told him. ‘I’m here with my girlfriend.’

  ‘Are you?’ Jimmy looked up and down the street. ‘So where is she, the old tug? Is it the one I saw you with her just now – about as pretty as your ma’s hairy arse?’

  Maggs stared coldly at him. ‘You’re a piece of shite, aren’t you, Jimmy? How’s your old man? Seen your mammy yet, has he?’

  ‘Careful,’ Jimmy warned, ‘don’t be starting. I gave you a piece before, maggot; I can always do it again.’

  ‘Can you, Jimmy? Can you still?’ Maggs held his eye. The malice there was almost unnerving. ‘I’ll see you around,’ he said.

  ‘Not if I see you first.’

  Jimmy did see him; he’d gone into John B.’s and was out the back having a smoke when Maggs wheeled his drunken girlfriend outside and sat her down with a pint of iced Magners.

  ‘See, maggot,’ Jimmy hissed from a darkened corner, ‘told you she was a witch. Just like your mam, only this one has more teeth.’

  Leaving the bar, he crossed the street to the battered old Land Rover that he had parked near the corner shop. When he tried to start it, the damn thing flooded, though, so he sat there and smoked another cigarette. Five minutes later, he saw a girl with long hair totter up from the square on a pair of ridiculously high heels. At the same moment, Maggs crossed the road. The girl bumped into him, then lurched back and sat down on the windowsill.

  Tuesday 2nd September 10.25 am

  No matter what Jane told him, Maggs could not shake his sense of trepidation. He hovered around the balcony outside just waiting for the guards to show up.

  And show up they did.

  The sound of a car turning in from Richmond Street made him jump. He watched it trundle up the service alley and come to a halt below. Jane came out of the flat and peeked over the rail. Searching for her hand, Maggs squeezed tightly.

  ‘It’ll be OK, love,’ she told him. ‘I’m right here with you. Nobody’s going to hurt you. Nobody’s going to do anything, I promise.’

  Below them, a young woman got out of the passenger side. Then the driver’s door was thrown open and a bulky figure in a grey suit emerged. Square-shouldered, he stood with his back to the balcony rail, his jacket open so that the leather holster was visible at his hip.

  Then he turned and looked up.

  The colour was gone from Maggs’s face. He was hanging on to Jane’s hand. Then, stumbling backwards, he raced inside the flat. With the door closed, he pressed himself to the living room wall, and for one terrifying moment he was back in the police cell with the door ajar and the sound of footsteps in the corridor.

  *

  Knees to his chest, he hunched on the narrow bunk. He’d been the only prisoner since late afternoon, and now he knew why. Molly had betrayed him: the guards had leant on her, and she must’ve told them she’d been too drunk to know if he’d been with her or not. That’s what had happened: she’d taken away his alibi, and now they wanted a confession.

  He could hear heavy footsteps echoing on a stone floor. Outside his cell, the footsteps stopped, and there was silence; a silence so dense it deafened him. He saw a gloved hand push the door open. Sergeant Doyle, who’d haunted him since childhood. Heavy-set, he dwarfed Maggs. In one hand he held a pad of paper and a ballpoint pen, and in the other a copy of the Dublin phone book.

  Maggs stared at him. He could smell the excitement, the adrenalin almost, pumping like a drug.

  He tried to look away, he tried to ignore him, but Doyle stood like a boxer now, imperceptibly shifting his weight.

  ‘I can hurt you, Conor,’ he whispered. ‘God knows I should. I know what you did to your poor mother, and I know you put Mary in your car when she was five sheets to the wind and Molly was spark out in John B.’s bar. You were pissed off because after all these years you still thought my Eva held a candle for you. Only she never has, you sick puppy, has she?’

  Maggs wouldn’t look at him. He sat with tears in his eyes, shaking his head from side to side.

  ‘Paddy Maguire put you in your place, remember?’ Doyle bent closer to him. ‘He told you how it was that night; reminded you of exactly what kind of a little pervert you are. And Eva didn’t say a word to defend you, did she? That’s because she doesn’t give two fucks about, you lad; she never did.’

  Still Maggs shook his head.

  ‘Mary reminded you of her, didn’t she? Mary looked just like Eva used to, with that long hair and those big dark eyes. And she was so drunk she was reeling; she’d not say no to getting in your car.’

  Maggs couldn’t speak. He opened his mouth, but his throat was dry and he couldn’t get any words out.

  ‘You see, Molly told us the truth finally.’ Doyle sat down next to him now and he scuttled for the corner like a spider.

  ‘Molly, who was stupid enough to listen to the lies you fed her. She’d been smoking a little weed and she was pretty drunk herself, but she wasn’t so out of it that she couldn’t remember how it was when she came to.’

  ‘I was in the bar,’ Maggs pleaded. ‘I was in the bar all the time she was outside. You can ask anyone.’

  ‘I did, lad, I did.’ Doyle worked the fingers of his right hand deeper into the fingers of the glove. ‘I spoke to Jimmy Hanrahan, and he told me he saw you outside the Spar. He told me you were talking to Mary.’

  ‘What does he know? His old man is mental, and Jimmy’s the kind of scumbag who batters old women.’

  ‘Jesus, is he?’ Doyle said softly. ‘The kind of scumbag that batters old women. You’re some can of piss, maggot, aren’t you: the feller who let his own mother neck a glug of drain cleaner.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘You took Mary because she looked like Eva, and Eva had really upset you that night. You took her away in that car you’re so proud of. You put your hands around her throat and strangled her till you thought she was dead. Then you left her buried under the floor in the abandoned place across from Jimmy’s house.’

  *

  He could hear the same hollow footfall now as Doyle walked the length of the concrete landing.

  ‘We should’ve stayed in London,’ he whimpered. ‘I can’t do this. I can’t take it, Janey. Not again; not any more.’

  ‘It’s all right.’ Smoothing his hair, Jane turned to the door, where a shadow filled the reinforced glass.

  Doyle’s knock was surprisingly light, and his smile looked almost genuine as she opened the door and looked defiantly into his face.

  ‘Hello, Jane. I saw your cousin the other day,’ he said. ‘The Clogger sends his regards, he does. Hopes you’re all right.’

  ‘What do you want, sergeant?’ she asked him.

  Doyle didn’t reply. He was looking over her shoulder into the living room, where he could see Maggs standing against the wall with his hands behind his back, just as he’d been in that council house the day his aunt called the guards.

  *

  It was Friday evening, and Doyle was down from Dublin for a weekend’s fishing with Martin McCafferty. They were into a couple of pints in Jett’s pub w
hen Eamon took a call and passed the phone across the bar. When McCafferty put it down, he sank his stout and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  ‘Cora Maggs,’ he said to Doyle. ‘She just found her sister lying dead in the kitchen.’

  Doyle accompanied him the short distance to the council estate, where an ambulance was already parked out the front. Getting out of the car, the two men crossed themselves, then walked up the path, where another, uniformed guard stood by the open front door. Cora was sitting on the stairs, her shoulders shaken with sobs. Gently, Doyle asked her what had happened.

  ‘I kept the drain cleaner under the sink,’ she said. ‘’Twas in a tin, I swear it was. Mother of God, Mr Doyle, if she put it in that bottle, whatever was she thinking?’

  Doyle narrowed his eyes. ‘Tell me that again, Cora,’ he said.

  ‘The drain cleaner; the caustic soda, or whatever it is. We’ve had awful problems with the drains here, and I got the most powerful stuff I could find. From the ironmongers in Listowel. It was industrial strength, they said. ’Twas under the sink in a tin, I swear it was, or maybe …’ – she shook her head – ‘maybe I’m losing my marbles. I don’t know, but sweet Jesus, she’s been known to drink the meths when she’s been bad, but this …’

  Leaving her, Doyle went into the other room, where he saw Maggs’s mother lying on the floor with her legs crossed at the ankle and one arm thrown out. Beside her was an overturned wine bottle, empty now; the spilled contents had burned right through the linoleum. Martin McCafferty was looking down where her eyes were open, her tongue burned so it stuck to her teeth, burns across her cheek and lips; the expression on her face, one of absolute horror. The ambulance crew were attending her, and the paramedic, a young woman, shook her head in disbelief.

  ‘Jesus,’ she said, ‘I’ve seen some sights in my time but …’ – she indicated the bottle – ‘she must’ve tipped it down her throat without thinking. One good glug, and it wouldn’t stop burning until it had gone all the way through her.’ As if to underline her point, she covered the dead woman with a blanket.