Detective Inspector Mulliken sat beside her and opened up his copy of the charge sheet.
‘My client here, Andrei Costescu, is accused of assault causing serious harm,’ said J.P. Foley.
‘He stabbed Detective Garda Bedelia Murrish in the eye, blinding her,’ said Katie. ‘I’d say that comes under the heading of assault causing serious harm, wouldn’t you?’
‘He doesn’t deny for a moment that he was holding a belt-buckle knife, which inflicted an injury on Detective Garda Murrish. But he asserts that he wounded her purely by accident when she suddenly and unexpectedly seized him, which made him lose his balance. He had absolutely no intention of hurting her and is extremely remorseful about what happened.’
‘Mr Foley, I witnessed the assault myself, and so did DI Mulliken here,’ Katie told him. ‘Your client jumped up and attempted to escape from the room in the middle of an interview. Detective Murrish tried to restrain him, and it was then that he took out his belt-buckle knife and deliberately stabbed her. There was absolutely no question of it being any kind of an accident.’
‘But why did he jump up and try to leave the room?’ said J.P. Foley, dramatically lifting one finger as if he had just received a message from the Angel Gabriel. ‘The reason was, you had threatened him that you would tell a certain Dragomir Iliescu that he had given you information about him, that’s why! Ratted on him, as they say. And since this Dragomir Iliescu is infamous for his violent retribution against anybody who betrays him, my client was naturally petrified, and in mortal fear for his life.’
Katie shook her head. ‘We never threatened to tell Dragomir Iliescu that your client had informed on him, Mr Foley. Quite apart from anything else, we had absolutely no idea where to find him. Not at the time, anyway.’
‘All the same, that was the impression that you gave my client. His grasp of English is extremely limited, remember.’
‘Even if he was scared witless, he still had no reason to pull out a knife.’
‘He did it only to defend himself. He was in a state of panic. And, let’s be legalistic about it, he wasn’t under arrest and so he was entitled to leave whenever he wanted to. What happened to Detective Murrish was highly regrettable but entirely unintentional and my client will be entering a plea of not guilty.’
Katie looked at J.P. Foley for a few moments, her eyes half-closed as if she were thinking hard. Then she said, ‘Don’t make any mistake about it, Mr Foley. I will personally be testifying that your client stabbed Detective Murrish with the obvious intention of causing her serious harm. So will the other officers who were present at that interview – Detective Inspector Mulliken here and Detective Markey. I will also categorically deny that your client was threatened.’
‘Besides,’ put in Kyna, ‘how is it that your client even knows this Dragomir Iliescu, and why is he so afraid of him?’
‘What?’ said J.P. Foley. He shuffled through his papers as if Kyna were simply being tiresome, and then he added, ‘No comment.’
Kyna, however, persisted. ‘As well as several other offences, Dragomir Iliescu is suspected of running a begging ring here in Cork. Your client was picked up in St Patrick’s Street with a sign saying, No Work Please Generos and a bowl for passers-by to drop money into. He’s Romanian. He entered the country at the same time as Dragomir Iliescu and several other Romanians. Can he tell us with a straight face that he isn’t one of Iliescu’s gang of beggars?’
‘No comment,’ said J.P. Foley. ‘Besides – simply happening to know a criminal isn’t a criminal offence in itself, otherwise all of us would be behind bars, wouldn’t we, ha-ha?’
‘That’s a spurious point, Mr Foley,’ said Katie. ‘But I can tell you now in confidence that we were informed by another separate source where we could find Iliescu. He’s been squatting in a house in Sidney Park, in Montenotte. We carried out a raid on the premises early this morning and I can guarantee that your client no longer has anything to fear.’
Andrei had been staring down at the table, but as soon as Katie said ‘Sidney Park’ he jerked his head up to look at her, and when she had finished speaking he leaned over towards J.P. Foley, cupping his hand against his face so that the Garda officers couldn’t hear or lip-read what he was saying. J.P. Foley nodded, and nodded again.
‘We’re still looking for more information, though,’ Katie continued. ‘We found where Iliescu himself was staying, but we believe there’s another address in the city where the members of his begging ring are being accommodated when they’re not out on the streets. Not surprisingly, Iliescu isn’t going to tell us where this is, so I’m prepared to make your client an offer.’
‘DS Maguire – are you telling me that you now have Dragomir Iliescu in custody?’ asked J.P. Foley.
‘Did you not hear what I said? I said that I can make your client an offer. If he gives us the address of this house, and if we find the rest of the begging ring there, I’ll consider reducing the charge against him to one of assault causing harm. As you well know, that can be dealt with as a summary conviction in the District Court, with a fine of only fifteen hundred euros or a maximum of twelve months in prison if the judge should find him guilty.’
‘So you’ve arrested Dragomir Iliescu?’
‘Mr Foley – I’m not going to repeat the offer again. Iliescu has not yet been charged, but I can guarantee your client that he has nothing more to fear from him.’
‘Very well. But we’ll need a few minutes to confer.’
‘Of course,’ said Katie. She stood up, and Detective Inspector Mulliken and Kyna stood up, too, and together they left the interview room.
Out in the corridor, Detective Inspector Mulliken said, ‘I confess I’m a little confubbled here, ma’am. We haven’t lifted Lupul, have we?’
‘No, of course not. All I said was, he hasn’t yet been charged, and of course he hasn’t, because we haven’t yet found him, let alone lifted him.’
‘But you’ve just promised your man that he needn’t be frightened of him any more,’ said Kyna.
‘He won’t have any cause to be frightened of him, will he? Not if he’s safely locked up in Mountjoy for assault causing serious harm.’
‘Hold on. You said that if he gave us the address of Lupul’s other house, you’d reduce the charge to assault causing harm – but not serious harm.’
‘No, I didn’t. I simply said that I’d consider it. And after I’ve considered it, what final decision do you think I’ll come to, after that creature half-blinded poor Bedelia? It was a pure miracle he didn’t kill her.’
‘Surely Foley caught on to the way you phrased that, wouldn’t you think?’ said Detective Inspector Mulliken. ‘He wins most of his cases by splitting hairs.’
‘I expect he did. But he doesn’t have a whole lot of room to manoeuvre, does he? He knows he’ll never be able to get the coffin-maker acquitted, so he might as well go for the possibility of a lesser charge, even if it isn’t a certainty.’
‘Well, it’s going to be interesting to see what they decide.’
‘Tony – we need to nail Lupul like yesterday, and if we can find out where his beggars are dossing down when they’re not out in the city sleeping rough, then we have a much better chance of finding him. They’re all over the shop at the moment, his beggars, but they’re fierce cautious about anybody following them. Not only that, we have to be careful about hauling them in for questioning. We don’t want the Simons or the Good Shepherds coming down on us like a ton of donkey manure because we’ve been harassing the homeless. That kind of publicity is the last thing we need. And I’ll bet half of them don’t speak English and the other half don’t even have a notion what country they’re in.’
The door to the interview room opened and J.P. Foley appeared. ‘My client has come to a decision,’ he said.
Katie and Kyna and Detective Inspector Mulliken filed back into the interview room and sat down. Andrei was looking nervous, with one leg furiously jiggling under the table.
‘If the charge against my client is reduced to negligence then he is prepared to co-operate and give you the information that you’re asking him for.’
‘Negligence?’ Katie retorted. ‘Are you serious?’
‘He admits that he shouldn’t have attempted to leave the interview room so precipitately, but he was seriously alarmed by the threats that you made to him. He withdrew the knife blade from his belt buckle purely by accident as your detective tackled him. During the struggle between them, the blade unfortunately penetrated her eye. He was negligent, yes, admittedly, but no more than that.’
Katie looked at Kyna, and then at Detective Inspector Mulliken, and then she snapped shut the folder in front of her and said, ‘Good afternoon to you, Mr Foley. This interview is terminated as of now.’
J.P. Foley leaned back in his chair and drummed his fingertips lightly on top of the table. ‘You won’t get your information out of my client any other way, DS Maguire.’
‘In that case, he can keep his information. We’ll be charging him with assault causing serious harm and, as you’re well aware, that’s an indictable offence, so he’ll be looking at a maximum of life imprisonment.’
‘Assault, then,’ said J.P. Foley.
Without answering or showing him any response at all, Katie stood up again, picking up her folder and tucking it under her arm. Kyna and Detective Inspector Mulliken stood up too.
‘Very well,’ said J.P. Foley. ‘Assault causing harm.’
Katie remained standing. Without looking at Andrei, she said to J.P. Foley, ‘What’s the address?’
‘Give me your assurance first, Detective Superintendent. Assault causing harm only. Not serious harm.’
‘No address, Mr Foley, no assurance.’
There was a long moment of extreme tension. J.P. Foley sucked in his lips until they almost disappeared, and his eyes bulged so that they looked even more haddocky than usual. Andrei stopped jiggling his leg.
At last Katie said, ‘Very well, have it your way,’ and turned to go.
‘DS Mag-waah!’ said J.P. Foley loudly. Then, more quietly, ‘Please stall it for a second, if you’d be so good.’ He passed Andrei a sheet of legal paper and a pencil. Andrei wrote down the address and passed the paper back to him. J.P. Foley folded it and handed it to Katie.
‘Thanks a million,’ said Katie. ‘Before I consider reducing the charge against your client, I’ll have to confirm of course that this is the correct address, and I’ll have to discuss it with Chief Superintendent O’Kane, and possibly with Assistant Commissioner Magorian as well. After all, we’re talking about a serious and life-changing assault on a police officer.’
‘Is this what you call a deal?’ J.P. Foley protested. ‘You may have given my client assurances about his safety, but he could well have put his life in jeopardy by giving you that address. And what have you given him in return? Nothing! Nothing at all! I could file a complaint to the Ombudsman about you for this piece of confidence trickery.’
‘That’s your privilege, Mr Foley. But don’t be surprised if the Ombudsman turns a blind eye to it – just like Detective Murrish will have to do to everything, for the rest of her life.’
32
Katie returned to her office, and Kyna and Detective Inspector Mulliken came too. The address that Andrei Costescu had scrawled across the piece of paper was in Alexandra Road, up by St Luke’s Cross. Katie switched on her PC and found the Google map and the satellite image of it.
‘Those are big old houses up there, aren’t they? Let’s find out who that one belongs to and if it’s rented. If it is, whose name is on the rental agreement. I’ll bet you a cat to a codfish that it isn’t Dragomir Iliescu.’
‘Well, that little girl, Ana-Maria, reckoned he’d brought over twenty-one beggars, didn’t she – so even if half of them are out sleeping rough on the streets, we’ll still have to be mounting a fair-sized operation, wouldn’t you say?’ said Detective Inspector Mulliken. ‘We’ll need to call in at least a couple of immigration officers, won’t we, and maybe Tusla too if there’s any more kids involved.’
‘I’m after sending Daley and Cailin up to Alexandra Road now to keep a watch on the house, in case Lupul makes an appearance,’ Katie told him. ‘Mind you, I don’t know if they’ll be able to recognize him from the sketch I did. I made him look like a cross between Dáithi Ó Sé and Conor McGregor and Bono without his glasses, so let’s pray that he’s wearing the same grey leather jacket. I don’t think the EvoFIT is a whole lot more like him, either.’
‘So when were you thinking of going in?’ asked Kyna.
‘I reckon about four o’clock tomorrow morning would be the best time. Maybe there’s only a few beggars staying there overnight, but we should catch them napping, as it were. We could do it earlier, but most of the clubs like Havana Browns and the Voodoo Rooms will have closed by four o’clock, so any beggars who aren’t sleeping in the street won’t still be hanging around the city centre trying to panhandle money off drunks. Can I leave it to you to start setting things up, Tony, along with Robert Fitzpatrick? I have to go and see how Bedelia and Nicholas and Padragain are getting along. I swear to God, I feel like I’ve more detectives in the Wilton Hilton than I have here at Anglesea Street.’
‘Right then,’ said Detective Inspector Mulliken. ‘I’ll go downstairs with Robert and start sorting things out with Michael Pearse. I’d say we need about a dozen uniforms at least, including at least four RSU – plus the immigration. And we’ll need at least one coach on standby. What time do you think you’ll be back?’
Katie crossed herself. ‘With the Lord’s help, they’ll all be making a speedy recovery, so not too long. I’m running out of saints to pray to.’
*
As she was buttoning up her thick navy-blue coat to go to the hospital, her phone rang. It was Superintendent Declan O’Shea from Clonakilty.
‘No luck so far,’ he told her. ‘A couple of the lads from Skibbereen went up that boreen this morning but they found nothing at all up there except for three private houses and a piggery right at the very end of it. None of the residents in the private houses had ever heard of your man, and neither had the fellow who runs the piggery. Cathal Kilmartin his name is. He’s well known in Skibbereen, especially in The Corner Bar. Bit of a toper but harmless enough.’
‘A piggery? Did they take a look around it?’
‘They did, yes, just to see if there was any evidence at all of your man having been there.’
‘Did they find anything?’
‘Well, pigs of course.’
‘Of course pigs. But anything unusual at all? Anything you wouldn’t expect to find in a piggery?’
‘Nothing that caught their eye. They asked this Cathal Kilmartin about what’s-his-name but he denied any knowledge of him.’
‘Eamon Buckley.’
‘That’s your man. Eamon Buckley.’
‘And what about what happened at the West Cork Hotel? Have they found no witnesses to Detectives Markey and Scanlan being attacked, or who saw their car being vandalized?’
‘No. They interviewed all the hotel staff who were on duty at the time. Plus the assistant manager. But no. Nobody saw nothing. Nobody heard nothing, neither. Their car’s been picked up on a low-loader, by the way, and it should be in transit by now to the Technical Bureau workshop – that’s if it’s not there already.’
‘Okay, Declan, thanks. But please ask your lads to keep their eyes peeled for Eamon Buckley, if he ever happens to come driving through Skibbereen again, and to follow him, if he does. You have the details of his car and his index number, don’t you?’
‘I have, yes. And I will. Don’t worry.’
Katie put down her phone and repeated, ‘“Pigs of course”,’ just as Moirin came in to collect her empty coffee cup.
‘“Pigs” did you say, ma’am?’
‘Yes, Moirin. But it would take too long to explain.’
*
She found Detective Scanlan sitting up in
her room at CUH, wearing a white roll-neck sweater and jeans and watching television. Both of her eyes were bruised charcoal-black like a raccoon and her right cheek was puffed up, but she gave Katie a smile when she came in and said, ‘How are you, ma’am?’
‘Not so bad, Padragain, all things considered. But more to the point – how’s yourself?’
‘Oh, Jesus. I still have the mother and father of all headaches. They’ve given me the ibuprofen for it but I think I’m going to ask them for something stronger. I’ve had a CAT scan, though, and there’s no brain damage, thank God. They’ve told me I should be able to go home later today, once the consultant’s signed me off.’
‘How much time do you think you’ll be wanting off duty? Not that I’m pushing you, like. You can take as long as you need to get yourself straight.’
‘Maybe three or four days. Not more. I’m itching to get back and track down those thugs who hit us. Have you been to see Nicholas yet? One of the nurses promised to tell me how he was coming along but I haven’t seen her since.’
‘I’ve just looked in on him,’ said Katie. ‘He’s asleep, or under sedation anyway. His nurse told me that his skull had been fractured but it’s only a simple crack, not depressed, and they expect it to mend by itself in five to ten weeks. I’ll be talking to his specialist after, Mr Murphy, when he’s free. It seems like a bus went into a cement lorry below by Innishannon and there’s several passengers with head injuries, so he’s up in the operating theatre, coping with them.’
‘And what about Eamon Buckley?’ asked Detective Scanlan. ‘Have we found out where he was going, when he led us up that boreen?’
‘Superintendent O’Shea rang me from Clon before I came here. He said there was nothing up there except for some private houses and a pig farm. The pig farmer had never heard of Eamon Buckley – or claimed he hadn’t, anyway. Think about it: it’s possible that Buckley led you up there on purpose, just to shake you off. He obviously knew that you were tailing him, and what car you were in.’
Begging to Die Page 25
