by John Mooney
They talked all night, till sunrise the next morning. Ó Siodhacháin did not know what to believe, but for the first time allowed a shred of doubt about Gilligan’s innocence to enter his mind. He left the next morning. Gilligan shook his hand and wished him well. Exhausted, he walked to his car under the watchful eye of gardaí from the National Surveillance Unit camped out among the hedgerows. Gilligan left later.
Days later, Gilligan received a call from a man he didn’t know. It was Father Peter McVerry, a Jesuit priest from Dublin, famous for working with young homeless boys. He was one of the best-known charity workers in Ireland. He had dialled Geraldine’s number, but was redirected to Gilligan. The priest had a message for Geraldine and asked Gilligan to pass it on. The IRA, he said, were going to harm her or kill her. It was imperative that she leave Jessbrook at once.
‘I had been contacted by someone, who said she was going to come to harm. I explained to Gilligan that I was not a member of the IRA. I was just a messenger,’ he said later.
Gilligan rang Geraldine and implored her to leave the family home. The priest’s message terrified her and she left at once. She moved into a friend’s home in Tallaght where she stayed for two days before coming home. Weeks later, after a suitable time had elapsed, she called the priest to verify that it was he who had called. He said it was and she thanked him.
That same day, Owen announced the promotion of Tony Hickey to the rank of assistant commissioner. His elevation could have been seen as a celebration of what was to come. The Lucan Inquiry, the name afforded to the murder investigation team, was making deep inroads into the cartel. The Garda have at their disposal an array of sophisticated devices that can intercept and trace dozens of calls made to and from mobile phones at the touch of a button. These systems can operate anywhere and trace all telephone traffic on selected lines. The team traced all the calls made to and from Gilligan’s mobile and listened to both sides of the calls. The calls were recorded digitally. This allowed the gardaí to keep abreast of his plans.
The telephone traffic that took place on 26 June, the day of Guerin’s murder, unravelled. Numbers attributed to Brian Meehan, Shay Ward and Peter Mitchell were documented. But there were two others. The first was someone the investigation hadn’t heard of. It was Paul Conroy, a fictitious name. The second number belonged to someone they all knew: Garda John O’Neill. His number had appeared on an itemised bill.
Hickey, a man who had unquestioned allegiance to the police, welcomed the news. He thought O’Neill had recruited an informer within Gilligan’s gang. He asked the team to trawl discreetly through police intelligence files. This exercise was aimed at establishing whether O’Neill was contributing information on organised crime to police files. He wasn’t. He was placed under surveillance.
On Sunday, 29 September 1996, Warren was standing in the arrivals lounge of Dublin Airport when his mobile rang. It was Gilligan. He started berating him for not collecting cash from Paddy Holland, a close friend of his and one of the gang’s customers.
Gilligan had met Holland in Portlaoise Prison. Holland stood out among the other inmates. He spent much of his time alone, weight training and exercising. He didn’t need reassurance from anyone. He didn’t ask anyone to sort out his problems; he handled everything himself. He was his own man and answered to no one. He stood just under six feet tall. He was blocky and bald. He wore a wig to disguise his hair loss. Some of the inmates called him The Wig. Others called him Dutchy because of his surname.
When Holland was released from prison in September 1994, Gilligan quickly indoctrinated him into the narcotics trade. Bowden and Shay Ward would deliver 30 kilos of dope to his cronies at various points around the city. He became rich beyond his wildest dreams. Gilligan taught him about money laundering—one area of crime Holland was unfamiliar with. He soon amassed too much wealth. Like Gilligan, he set up a money laundering operation, but this time in the form of a publishing company which he called Holpat made up of the first three letters of his names. It published an alternative to the RTÉ Guide. Another venture was the publication of a second-hand car-trade magazine. Holland did his best, but he was not a publisher, and the two ventures failed, with considerable losses.
Holland was not like the rest of the gang. He had no inclination to show off his wealth. He preferred to live a solitary existence in a small holiday home at Lissadell, near Brittas in County Wicklow, which he bought for IR£30,000. The only thing that mattered to him was his wife, Angela.
Like Gilligan, Meehan treated him with unreserved respect. They all saw in Holland a man they privately wished they could be. He was afraid of no one. He was the nearest thing Gilligan had ever met to a professional mercenary. He also had a proven track record for crime. And he was certainly not an informer. The ageing gangster had spent most of his life in jail.
Holland had grown up in Chapelizod in Dublin. His best friend was a youngster called Pat Culhane. They had ambitions of travelling the world and joining the American Marines. They followed this dream when they turned 18 but were sent to different platoons after they joined. The young Holland became homesick two weeks later and returned to Ireland. Culhane stomached the training and spent the next four years in the military. When he finished his contract, he joined the gardaí. In later years, he rose through the ranks, eventually becoming a chief superintendent. Holland simultaneously rose through the ranks of Dublin’s underworld. Easy money attracted him; crime lured him. In June 1965 he was caught with stolen goods and sentenced to six months. He lost his job and his family disowned him. So he became a burglar and then an armed robber. In 1981, he was caught with the proceeds of a bank robbery and was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment.
Jail did not alter Holland’s criminal inclinations, however. He was just out of prison four years when he was arrested with seven sticks of gelignite, detonators and fuse wire in a flat in Dublin’s north inner city by a young police officer, Tony Hickey. The explosives were not for subversive use by any paramilitary organisation. The materials had been stolen from the Arigna Mines in County Leitrim. Holland intended using them to crack safes. He was serving this sentence when Gilligan arrived in Portlaoise.
Gilligan’s temper couldn’t be calmed. He had told Warren to collect the cash from Holland the night before. Warren, surprised by his own insolence, told him he had tried to collect the cash, but Holland hadn’t got it. He said he’d call. Gilligan said he’d better. Holland, who could be relied upon like clockwork, rang 15 minutes later and arranged to meet outside the Virgin Megastore just off O’Connell Bridge.
Warren went straight there and found him waiting. They nodded at each other. Holland handed him a sports bag and said there was IR£70,000 inside.
Warren went straight to his parents’ home in Tallaght. He was due to collect other monies from Meehan, but when he rang him, Meehan said they wouldn’t have their money until Tuesday. Warren wasn’t bothered.
‘If I had collected more than IR£100,000 on Monday I was due to fly out to Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam, with it. As I hadn’t that amount I waited and was due to go on the Tuesday night or Wednesday morning when I would have collected the remainder of the money,’ he later explained. However, things didn’t go according to plan. At 9.05 p.m. that Monday he was arrested. At the same time, a team of detectives entered his parents’ home where they found the money. Warren went into a state of shellshock. He was driven to Lucan Garda Station where his interrogation began. He said nothing.
When news of his arrest reached the gang, they panicked. The arrest was unexpected. They met in the Hot Pot Restaurant in Sundrive Shopping Centre in Crumlin the next day. Meehan was particularly astonished at the arrest. The gardaí were not supposed to know about Warren. He decided the time had come to clear out the lock-up at Greenmount. He told Bowden and Shay Ward to take care of this.
They sat down and ordered tea and coffee. Meehan and Mitchell said they would ta
ke care of the drugs orders. ‘This would ordinarily have been done by phone, but as we knew Russell Warren had been arrested we didn’t want to use the phones,’ Bowden would later say.
They relaxed. Then Peter Mitchell recognised a man sitting on his own at the next table. He said he was a cop.
Meehan looked around. He recognised the man’s face but said he was a fellow he went to school with. Bowden grew uneasy. They all left. As they did, Bowden looked around and saw the same man speak-ing into his mobile phone. Meehan and Mitchell left by car. Shay Ward and Bowden went to a nearby hardware shop and bought plastic bags. Mitchell was right, they were under surveillance.
Their car was followed. Mitchell, out of fear more than courage, did a U-turn and drove up behind the unmarked car. They went straight to Meehan’s apartment in Clifton Court. For the first time since the murder, Meehan was scared. He rounded up the cash they were owed.
At 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 2 October, detectives attached to the Operation Pineapple squad arrived outside Sunlight Chambers, a historic building on the corner of Parliament Street. Inside were Michael E. Hanahoe’s offices, one of the most respected legal firms in Dublin. That morning Terry McGinn had obtained a search warrant from Judge Gillian Hussey in Kilmainham District Court. Three detectives from CAB were present. Galvin had advised the squad to get a search warrant because, in his opinion, the legal team would have been legally obliged to contact Gilligan before disclosing any information to the gardaí. This way, the firm would not be ethically compromised. In any event, he and his staff co-operated fully with the court order. When the gardaí had finished, they left carrying several briefcases.
On exiting the building, McGinn noticed a number of photographers standing across the road. They were taking photographs. Afterwards, journalists called the legal firm directly, asking for a comment. A spin was being put on what was effectively a routine piece of police work. Hanahoe was taken aback. The visit was being portrayed as a raid. He told The Irish Times: ‘I’m only unhappy that it might be misinterpreted by people in the wrong light.’ Asked by the newspaper if he felt the visit breached the traditional code of confidentiality between solicitor and client, he said: ‘I don’t want to discuss it now. There will be a time when it will be addressed.’ The solicitor firm subsequently sued the State successfully for a six-figure sum in damages arising out of the manner in which the search had been leaked to the media.
Warren was released from Lucan the same day. He was exhausted and got into a taxi. He was not handling himself properly. Guilt was written all over his face. His mobile telephone rang seconds later. It was Gilligan. ‘I said give me 20 minutes and I’ll be at home.’ He stopped off at Molloy’s liquor store in Tallaght where his phone rang a second time. It was Gilligan again. He screamed at him to go home.
‘Give me another five minutes,’ said Warren.
As soon as he stepped through his hall door, Gilligan called a third time. He wanted to know about the interrogation. Warren’s wife and mother-in-law were in a near state of panic. He walked out of the house and took the call on the roadway.
Gilligan got straight to the point. ‘I’m now going to tell you, you’re dead and your family is dead and everybody around you will be dead. I want the truth, tell me exactly what was said and what your family said.’
Warren was terrified. The only thing he could think of saying was that it was all about the money. He explained that he hid the cash in his mother’s home, which prompted a fierce argument about why he hadn’t delivered as instructed.
‘When I tell you to do something you do it,’ Gilligan roared. He asked if his wife had made a statement.
‘Get on a plane tomorrow.’
‘I can’t, everybody is upset,’ said Warren.
‘Come over or I’ll go over to ye and I’ll kill ye all.’
He hung up.
One of Gilligan’s couriers then arrived, wanting to know if Warren had implicated him. Warren’s mother-in-law walked into the room and told the courier to leave. She had had enough and was appalled.
Gilligan telephoned the next morning at 8 a.m. He wanted to know why Warren wasn’t in England. ‘If you’re not fucking over here I’m going over to you and I’ll kill you and I’ll kill you if you tell me lies.’
The only excuse Warren could invent was to say he had no money.
‘Ring Brian and he’ll give you money.’
Left with no other option, he called Meehan at once and arranged to meet him at his mother’s home on Stanaway Road. Meehan answered the door. He looked up and down the street before ushering Warren inside. He handed him IR£1,000. Warren couldn’t decide if Meehan was more relaxed or just more scared. He asked what questions the investigation team raised. Warren offered the same story. He appeared to believe him. Meehan offered to drop him off at Rosie O’Grady’s pub in Harold’s Cross. On the way, he asked if anyone had said anything. ‘I have to know,’ he said in a friendly way.
Warren left for London the next morning. He took a taxi to Dublin Airport to avoid surveillance. Before he got onto the plane, he rang a friend and told her he was going to meet Gilligan, in case he didn’t return. He arrived in Heathrow at 2 p.m. and called Gilligan straightaway. ‘He told me to take the train to Russell Square, and to meet him at a hotel there. I got off the train and went to a phone box to ring Gilligan. There was a man at the phone box. He approached me and said, “Russell?” I said, “Yeah?” “Follow me.”’
The stranger escorted him to a nearby hotel. The two entered a lift and pressed the button for the second floor. He was led to one of the rooms. Gilligan was waiting inside. He walked in and sat on the bed.
‘You and your family are dead and Debbie, no matter how long it takes, I’ll get you all. I want the truth. Now put “I’m going to kill” at the back of your mind. You have to answer the questions for me and don’t tell me lies.’
Gilligan paced back and forth. Warren, trying to compose himself, told him that no one had said anything. But Gilligan wasn’t convinced. He kept screaming and shouting. The mood then changed.
‘I want you to go to Calais tonight.’
‘I don’t have a passport. The police took it,’ Warren said.
Gilligan screamed. He ranted and raved about Warren not telling him this earlier.
‘I have IR£300,000 in there,’ he yelled, pointing in the direction of a wardrobe.
‘Who is going to bring this for me now? I will have to do it myself.’
He resumed questioning him about his arrest. ‘What did they ask you about?’
Warren told him that the police had lists of telephone calls made by himself, Brian Meehan and Gilligan on the day of the murder.
‘Don’t worry about that. That could be anything, that could be us talking about collecting money,’ Gilligan said.
The murder investigation found itself caught in a whirlwind of activity. They knew they were striking at the heart of the cartel although they didn’t realise just how close they were to cracking one of the murderers. They were informed that Warren had been summoned to meet Gilligan. He was under surveillance from the moment of his release from Lucan Station. The time had come to arrest Bowden. He was preparing to leave the State, taking his mistress with him. The gardaí arrived outside his home on Saturday at 7 a.m. He was barely awake when he was handcuffed and driven at speed to Lucan where Detective Inspector John O’Mahony and Detective Bernie Hanley began an interrogation. At the same time, gardaí knocked on the door of Bowden’s brother Michael’s home and started searching it. Back in Lucan, Bowden was cautioned and told his rights.
O’Mahony, a stout-looking detective, led the interrogation. ‘Will you tell us what you know about the shooting of Veronica Guerin?’
‘I know nothing about it, I had no involvement in it. You can ask Juliet. I was in the shop that day with her.’
‘Do you
know Brian Meehan, Peter Mitchell, Shay Ward?’
‘I know Peter Mitchell. His mother Eileen gets her hair done in the shop,’ answered Bowden.
‘In the searches of your house and your brother’s house this morning, there was evidence of you having a lot of money, and there was a lot of money found which is connected to you.’
‘This money was savings I had from the business.’
‘What about the money found in Michael’s house?’
‘I know nothing about that,’ Bowden said.
‘Michael states that you handed him that money outside Joe Wong’s restaurant in Clontarf last Sunday night.’
‘That’s not correct.’
‘There was a hell of a lot of money found which we believe belongs to you, and which couldn’t be savings if, as you say, you get IR£150 a week out of the shop.’
‘It’s all savings.’
‘Your brother Michael is going to say that the envelope we found in his possession this morning, he got from you to mind.’
‘He’s right. I gave it to him to mind.’
‘I am putting it to you that you know Brian Meehan, Peter Mitchell and Shay Ward and that you were in contact with some of them by telephone on the day of Veronica Guerin’s shooting.’
‘Okay, I know them. I know them through Peter Mitchell. Look I want to tell you about the money, I know nothing about Guerin’s murder. I would have nothing to do with anything like that, it would scare me shitless. I have been working with Meehan, Shay Ward and Mitchell. That’s where the money is from. If I was talking to them on the day of the shooting it was only about business.’ Bowden, a master at the art of deceit, guessed the gardaí had followed him. He resorted to interspersing lies with truths.
