The Gathering of Souls

by Gerry O'Carroll

  Quinn stared at the pockmarked walls of the broken-down cottage. He could see Mary Harrington covered in white maggots; he could smell the noxious, stomach-churning odour; he could hear the horrible squelch as her body, still wrapped in a plastic tarp, was lifted from the shallow grave.

  He looked from face to face, and some of the uniformed officers avoided his eye. His sense of trepidation deepened.

  His children were just half an hour from here, with their grandmother in Listowel, the small town where Eva had grown up, where she’d been loved by all who’d known her. What if he had to tell them now that she was dead? He was trembling so much that it was all he could do to remember how to put one foot in front of the other and hobble across the grass.

  Martin McCafferty appeared in the doorway of the ruin.

  ‘What’ve you found?’ Quinn asked him.

  ‘You better come and look.’

  Quinn’s heart was racing. He could feel the blood rushing in his head. He could smell rotten wood and wasted mortar; he could smell the estuary and the cow shit; he thought he could smell the dead. With Doyle behind him, Quinn approached McCafferty – who moved aside as they drew near. Inside, the cottage was chill; water clung to the walls, where the ancient horsehair plaster was falling away in chunks. The boards were up in the second room, just as they had been before.

  But the hole in the floor was empty. There was no body; there were no clothes, no old tarp and no layer of hungry maggots. He looked round at McCafferty, and then he looked again: in the damp earth where the boards had been was a clear plastic envelope, inside a single sheet of paper.

  One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so.

  Wednesday 3rd September 12.05 pm

  Back at Harcourt Square, the incident room was buzzing with activity: everyone waiting for word to come through from Kerry. But the comms were out between the ground and the helicopter, and no one could tell them anything.

  Maguire paced like a condemned man who, from his cell, can hear the nails being hammered into his scaffold.

  ‘Sergeant Doyle picked up on it right away,’ Murphy was telling him. ‘Three blinded martyrs and three blind monks.’

  Maguire nodded. ‘The old bog-man knows his history; he always did.’ He looked at the clock on the wall, back at Murphy and then at his watch. ‘Is that Jimmy Hanrahan’s stuff?’ he asked, indicating the box on her desk.

  She nodded. Then, recalling what Quinn had said, she sat down and began sifting through the photos.

  The phone rang, and she grabbed it. But it wasn’t Quinn and it wasn’t Doyle or any of the Kerry guards: it was someone from downstairs wanting to know if they had a Detective Stevens up there.

  Not as far as Murphy was aware; hanging up in frustration, she returned to her hunt for the photo. One of the other pictures caught her eye: a young woman sitting in the shadows at the kitchen table. There was something odd about the way she was almost hunched there; the way her hair fell in her eyes.

  Finally, she found the one Quinn had told her about. It was obscene, degrading, in full colour and full close-up. The poor woman had passed out, and a fourteen year-old boy had been there to capture the moment. Murphy was about to tear it into pieces when, all at once, a shiver prickled her scalp. Laying the photo down, she picked up the other one. A girl in Jimmy’s kitchen: it resonated with something she’d heard, something she’d read, maybe.

  Something that didn’t add up.

  Glancing through the open door, she saw that the superintendent had the Harrington file on his desk still, along with the five others. He handed it to her when she asked for it. ‘Is there still no word from Quinn?’ he asked.

  Murphy shook her head.

  Back at her desk, she flicked through the pages, not really knowing what she was looking for. A note Doyle had scribbled the day they’d recovered the body; a remark from the old man about how he’d seen Mary’s ghost sitting at his kitchen table. They’d dismissed it. Of course they had: John Hanrahan saw everyone’s ghost at his table.

  Murphy stared at the photo: no features visible but the hair. The shape of her hair; the way it fell across her shoulders. She laid it side by side with the photo that Mary’s family had provided, and the touch of a chill finger skittered the length of her spine.

  She placed the file under Maguire’s nose.

  With a click of his tongue, he looked up, agitation lining his already lined face. ‘What is it, detective? I’m trying to write this report.’

  ‘Have a look, superintendent,’ she said.

  With a weary sigh, Maguire did as he was asked. ‘So?’ he said. ‘What am I looking for?’

  ‘That’s Jimmy Hanrahan’s kitchen.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Where his father sees dead people; where he saw the ghost of Mary Harrington. Doyle made a file note: the old man told him he’d seen her in his kitchen. It was the day they dug her up, sir: he was out there at the dumpsite with his horse and cart.’

  ‘What are you saying, Murphy? What’s your point?’

  Murphy tapped the photograph. ‘He did see her, sir: that is Mary Harrington.’

  Wednesday 3rd September 12.10 pm

  Quinn stumbled out of the broken-down cottage into the rain.

  The rain fell against his face; it seemed to chill his bones. Beside the road, he could see John Hanrahan with his old horse harnessed between the shafts of the rank-looking cart. His cap was askew, he wore a weary-looking suit, and he had a scarf tied round his neck. Leading the horse, he paused at the gate and just stood there watching them, as he had when they’d brought Mary’s body out.

  Quinn felt Doyle move alongside him. His eyes were broken; the big man was trembling.

  ‘The bastard,’ Quinn muttered. ‘The evil fuckin’ bastard.’ He sucked in his breath, watching Hanrahan watching him. ‘We’ll never find her now, Doyler – or if we do, it’ll be too late.’

  There was nothing Doyle could say: when he’d listened to what Murphy had discovered, the dawning had been so complete that he was positive they would find her. Which is exactly what her abductor had intended: so he could tell them they never would.

  One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so.

  Despair swamped him like waves washing over the grassy banks. He watched Quinn wander away, muttering about needing to see his children, about going over to his mother-in-law’s house.

  With their hopes dashed, he needed to be with his family.

  Doyle needed a shot of whiskey and a pint or two of the black stuff. He needed a moment of solitude with his brother Tom, at whose graveside he’d made a promise to look out for his family.

  His mobile phone started ringing: the office at Harcourt Square.

  ‘Doyle, this is Frank Maguire.’

  ‘Super?’

  ‘Finally, we get a signal. Mother of God, what’s going on?’

  ‘She’s not here,’ Doyle told him. ‘I thought she was, and in a way I was right: we were meant to think she was.’

  ‘What? What do you mean?’

  ‘He’s leading us a merry dance, so he is.’ Doyle told him about the note.

  Maguire was silent and for a second Doyle thought they’d been cut off. ‘Are you still there, Frank?’

  ‘I’m here, I am. Listen, Joseph, there’s been a development at this end.’

  Quinn paused at the gate, where John Hanrahan stood with his horse and cart. The old man’s eyes were rheumy; he looked tearful as he gazed the hundred yards or so to the cottage where the uniformed guards were putting in a cordon. He held the withered old nag at the bridle. ‘I brought the horse over in case you might need her,’ he said.

  Quinn recalled how when they’d found Mary, he had offered to transport her body across the grass.

  ‘Thank you, John,’ he said, ‘but she’s not there.’

  ‘Is she not?’ Hanrahan looked puzzled. ‘I thought she would be.’

  ‘That was before, John. That was the last time, remember?’

&n
bsp; ‘The last time?’ He looked even more puzzled then. ‘Right, yes. With you, guard: the last time.’ Now he nodded. ‘I saw her, you know. She was in my kitchen playing cards with the devil. I was looking for Elizabeth but she never comes.’

  ‘I know, John, I know.’ Quinn laid a hand gently on his shoulder.

  ‘I saw her, though.’ He nodded towards the cottage. ‘Did I ever tell you that?’

  ‘You did, John, you told us back when it happened.’

  ‘I get confused, I know I do, but I remember seeing that one.’ He snorted phlegm and spat. ‘So you don’t need the horse, then?’

  Quinn shook his head.

  Doyle came over, and together they watched the old man lead his horse and the flat-bed cart back across the road.

  A short-wheelbase Land Rover swung round the bend and pulled into the overgrown yard.

  Doyle looked on as Jimmy jumped down, gawping at the police activity.

  ‘What was old John saying?’ he asked.

  ‘He was telling me how he saw Mary in his kitchen that time playing cards with the devil.’

  Doyle hadn’t taken his eyes off Jimmy. Opening the five-bar gate, he flipped the leather catch from the hammer of his .38.

  The rain came down at an acute angle, lines of grey breaking like twigs against him. In the driveway of the house, Jimmy was rolling a cigarette.

  ‘Don’t give up, Moss,’ Doyle said. ‘It’s not twelve thirty yet, and this isn’t over.’

  With that, he stalked across the road, and as he did so he took a set of handcuffs from his pocket.

  In the driveway, Jimmy watched him, the cigarette pinched between his fingers.

  ‘Stay where you are, lad,’ Doyle growled.

  Jimmy looked left and right. He looked towards where his father was turning the horse. He gave the impression of a man who was about to take off. Doyle pulled out the pistol. ‘You misbegotten arse-wipe, don’t give me an excuse to shoot you.’

  Wednesday 3rd September 2.30 pm

  Dublin was cold and grey, the rain following them like some bestial fog all the way back from Kerry.

  Jimmy Hanrahan, sitting handcuffed between them, had been stony-faced and silent throughout the journey. He was the same way now, sitting with a duty solicitor at the police station on Amiens Street. The three of them were there this time: Quinn and Doyle across the table, with Maguire riding shotgun.

  Quinn had the box of photos in front of him. He had the camera and was holding it under Jimmy’s nose.

  ‘Where’s the other one?’

  ‘What other one? There is no other one.’

  ‘Sure there is: the one you used to take the picture you sent to us. What have you done with it, Jimmy? What’ve you done with my wife?’

  Jimmy shook his head. ‘I’ve told you, I’ve told you till I’m blue in the face, I don’t know anything about your wife, and I don’t know anything about Mary Harrington.’

  ‘Last night,’ Quinn told him. ‘You were supposed to be on the bus to Kerry but you never went. Where did you go? What were you doing in Dublin?’

  Jimmy wagged his head. ‘No one told me I had to go anywhere, and the last time I checked this wasn’t East Berlin. Jesus Christ, you drag my carcass up here all over again and ask the same stupid questions. If you want to know, I’ve had a gut-full of looking after the old man. I spent the night, check it out: I stayed in a B&B round the corner from the dog track.’

  Quinn’s eyes blazed suddenly. Throwing back his chair, he reached across the table and gripped Jimmy by the lapels. ‘You piece of shite. Where’s my wife? What’ve you done with my wife?’

  ‘For fuck’s sake!’ Jerking himself free, Jimmy looked to his solicitor for help. ‘Jesus, man, would you do something?’

  ‘Inspector!’ the solicitor snapped. He looked then at Maguire. ‘Superintendent, do something about your man, will you? I’ll not sit here and have my client intimidated.’

  Lips tight, Quinn sat back in silence while Doyle took over. The big man tapped the photo of Mary sitting unconscious after partial asphyxiation, her body supported by the table.

  ‘Taking a risk, weren’t you, lad?’ he said to Jimmy. ‘This being in the box all the time. You must have laughed your socks off thinking how we missed it.’

  ‘Mr Doyle,’ Jimmy was looking earnestly at him, ‘I swear I never took that photo.’

  ‘So who did: Beelzebub?’

  ‘Look, I’ve told you already,’ Jimmy said almost desperately, spreading the fingers of his right hand out. ‘I told you the last time. I told you in Kerry. I’m telling you now: I have no idea where Eva is. I swear to God. I don’t know anything about her and …’ He looked again at the picture. ‘I never took that. I never even knew it was there.’

  Leaning forward suddenly, Quinn snatched up the photo of Maggs’s mother. ‘You took this, though, didn’t you?’

  Falling silent again, Quinn glanced at Doyle, then at the solicitor, and finally at the skinny man with the pinched face hunched across the table from him. ‘Take a moment, Jimmy,’ he said, ‘and think about it. You’re so screwed right now, we could hang a picture from you. We’ve got you for Mary’s murder. You throttled her till she was unconscious, and then you thought what a laugh it would be to sit her up at the table, knowing the old man would be down with his holy water.’ He let out a breath. ‘Jesus, when I spell it out, you really are a bucket of shite, aren’t you?’

  ‘Listen,’ Jimmy thrust a finger at him, ‘I would not do that. I love my old man. I’m the sad fuck who’s spent twenty years looking after him.’

  ‘You do it so’s you get your dole money, Jimmy,’ Doyle reminded him, ‘so’s you can keep the carer’s allowance, which means you can clean your guns all day and go poaching at night. That is, when you’re not taking pictures of women you’ve just strangled.’

  Jimmy’s face was bright red, his eyes whitened saucers in his head. ‘Do you think I’d do that to my dad when the only reason he sees what he does is because he’s looking for my dead mother?’

  ‘And why is he looking for her?’ Quinn asked. ‘Because of you, Jimmy.’

  ‘Oh come on, I was just a kid when I broke in that old biddy’s house. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was a kid when I shagged Maggs’s mammy. Come on now, for God’s sake, ask yourselves: have I been in trouble since my mam drowned? Have I been arrested? Have I touched a single hair on another person’s head?’

  ‘You strangled Mary Harrington and left her to die across the way where you thought no one would think to look for her.’

  ‘No I didn’t. Christ, for the first time in my life I even spoke to the guards. I tipped you off, didn’t I? I told you what I’d seen.’

  ‘Course you did, Jimmy.’ Doyle pressed his face close. ‘’Twas the perfect way of keeping attention away from yourself.’

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake.’ Jimmy sat back then with his arms hooked across his chest. He looked sideways at his solicitor. ‘If I’d taken that picture, would I really put it in a box with all the others? Would I leave it there for anyone to come along and find it? Would I have let the guards put me on a bus back to Kerry when they still had the bastard thing?’ He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Course I wouldn’t, I’m not a fuckin’ idiot.’ He looked beyond Quinn and Doyle to Maguire. ‘And what would I be doing with two bloody cameras? You can’t buy them. It’s hard enough just getting the film.’ He leered at Quinn. ‘I haven’t got two cameras, and I didn’t take that picture. Don’t you get it: the Maggot took the picture.’

  Doyle laughed out loud. ‘Now I’ve heard the lot. How the hell do you figure that?’

  ‘You great bag of piss.’ Jimmy slapped the photo of Maggs’s mother. ‘Because I took that one.’

  Outside in the corridor, Quinn pressed a palm to the wall. Doyle looked at his watch. ‘He’s lying,’ Maguire stated, before Quinn could say anything. ‘We know he’s lying. He was in Harold’s Cross: he’s admitted that. He made the call, Moss. It was him that phoned your
house.’

  Quinn thought long and hard. Time was running away from them, but he forced himself to stay calm and try to think clearly.

  ‘So why won’t he give her up?’ he asked. ‘I mean, he knows we’ve got him. He knows he’s going down. Why doesn’t he try to make a deal?’

  Maguire threw out a hand. ‘Why should he? Why should he make it easy for us? As you just said, no matter what we promise, he knows he’s going down.’

  Quinn looked unsure. ‘There was no sign of the necklace,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘When we searched his house just now, when Martin McCafferty searched it before, there was no sign of the necklace. If he had the photo of Mary lying around, why not the necklace?’

  ‘Because it didn’t mean anything to him,’ Doyle stated quietly.

  ‘Then why bother to take it?’ Quinn was shaking his head. ‘I can see him killing Mary: no problem with that at all. He tried it on, and she blew him out, or they went for a drive or whatever. I can see him doing that to his dad too, what with the picture and everything. But that necklace meant nothing to him, so if he abducted Eva, why bother with it?’ He lifted his palms. ‘It doesn’t stack up. And, as he says, neither does the notion of him having two Polaroid cameras.’

  He walked away a few paces. ‘We can’t afford to waste time. Charge him for Mary’s murder, that’s fine. But the only person the necklace meant anything to was Conor Maggs.’

  ‘Moss,’ Maguire’s tone was laboured.

  Quinn looked back at him.

  ‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He’s not the only person.’ Maguire shook his head; eyes downcast, he stared at a patch of floor where the linoleum was worn. ‘We need to talk to my brother,’ he said. ‘We need to talk to Pat.’

  Wednesday 3rd September 3 pm

  Frank made the call, and when they got back to Harcourt Square Patrick was waiting in Quinn’s office.