She was eating the Lotus biscuit that had come with her coffee when her iPhone rang again. When the three gardaí on the opposite side of the canteen heard ‘Mo Ghille Mear’ they all turned around, but as soon as they realized who she was, they turned back again and started talking among themselves in much lower voices.
It was Detective Inspector Mulliken again. ‘Buckley’s come back out of the house, ma’am, along with another and they have a third fellow between them. He has his arms around their shoulders and they’re supporting him like he’s totally langered.’
‘What does he look like, this drunk fellow? Can they see?’
‘Hold on a second, I’ll ask them. The street lighting’s not too clever up there. Yes, Daley, okay. Sure like. Grand. Ma’am? You still there? He looks twentyish, ma’am, with dark hair, and he’s wearing some kind of a dark jacket, but that’s all they can see. Buckley and the other fellow are helping him into the back of the car now. He’s steamboats by the sound of it.’
There was a few seconds’ pause, then Detective Inspector Mulliken said, ‘Buckley’s driving off now. He’s turning right – down towards St Luke’s Cross. Caffrey’s going after him but he’s keeping well back because we can follow him anyway on the GPS. We don’t want an action replay of what happened to Markey and Scanlan below at Skibbereen.’
Katie quickly swallowed the last of her coffee and took the lift up to the communications centre on the top floor. It was windowless, and hushed as an undertaker’s, and dimly lit. Six gardaí in shirtsleeves were sitting in front of a bank of forty CCTV screens, with Detective Inspector Mulliken standing behind them, along with Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick and Kyna and Detective O’Crean. They were watching the progress of the GPS tracker attached to Eamon Buckley’s car, as well as the CCTV monitors, which showed him driving westwards on Wellington Road.
They were also listening to Detective Caffrey’s running commentary as he followed well over half a kilometre behind him, driving without lights.
‘Where’s he going now? He’s not heading back home to Farranree. He’s taken a left into Watercourse Road… and now a right into Cathedral Walk.’
Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick looked across at Katie with his usual expressionless eyes. ‘There, look, he’s turned into Shandon Street. I’ll bet you a hundred to one he’s going back to his shop. Now why would he be going back to his shop at this time of night?’
They watched on the CCTV monitors as Eamon Buckley drove down Shandon Street, past the Cathedral of St Mary and St Anne. He was out of range of the nearest CCTV camera once he had passed the cathedral, but Detective Caffrey had stayed close enough behind him to keep him in sight, and Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick had guessed correctly. Eamon Buckley drew into the parking bay opposite his shop and stopped.
‘Buckley’s out of his car now, but it looks like the other two are staying put,’ said Detective Caffrey. ‘He’s crossed over to his shop – he’s unlocking the door – he’s gone in. No, now he’s come out again, and crossing back to his car – but he’s left the shop door wide open.’
Katie glanced at Kyna. ‘Whatever Buckley’s up to, do you see how arrogant the man is? He must think that after what happened to Nicholas and Padragain when they followed him down to Skibbereen, we’ll be too scared to keep track of him any more.’
Kyna laid a hand on Katie’s shoulder, and then she realized that Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick was looking at her, and quickly took it away again.
‘Maybe there’s a reason he doesn’t care,’ she suggested. ‘Maybe he’s doing nothing illegal.’
But at that moment Detective Caffrey’s voice broke in again. ‘Buckley and his pal are helping the drunk fellow out of the back of the car. They’re holding him up like they did before, with his arms over their shoulders. Now they’re helping him over the road to the shop. Well, not helping him, I’d say, more like dragging him, like. He’s not making any effort to walk at all. In fact, I can see that he has only the one brogue on.’
There was silence for almost half a minute. Then Detective Caffrey said, ‘Buckley’s pal is coming out of the shop. Yes, and so is Buckley. Buckley’s locking the door, but there’s no sign of the fellow they were carrying in there between them.’
‘Buckley’s locked the door and left that drunk fellow in there?’ asked Katie. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Hundred per cent. It’s just the two of them now, so your man must still be inside. Now they’re crossing back over the road and getting into the car. Now they’re moving away. They’re turning left up Dominick Street.’
‘Keep after them,’ said Katie, briskly. Then she turned to Sergeant Brown, the emergency response officer, who was sitting right in front of her. ‘Where’s the nearest squad car?’
Sergeant Brown squinted up at his monitors. ‘MacCurtain Street, outside the Everyman. And there’s another on North Main Street dealing with some kind of minor disturbance. Nothing too serious, by the look of it – just some shower of savages pushing and shoving.’
Katie called back to Detective Caffrey, ‘Ronan, can you hear me? We’re sending you backup. As soon as they turn up, stop Buckley’s car and arrest him.’
‘On what charge? He hasn’t actually done anything illegal.’
‘He’s locked some poor fellow in his shop, hasn’t he, and by the sound of it the fellow was too langered to give his consent, so you can charge him with false imprisonment. Tell him to take you back to the shop and let you see for yourself what kind of a state your man’s in. If he’s that wrecked that he wasn’t able to walk, he might need taking to the Mercy to sober up. Somehow I get the feeling that he’s not just sleeping it off.’
‘What if Buckley refuses?’
‘Then I’ll send a team up there to break down the door. Robert – could you organize that?’
‘Of course,’ said Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick, and for the first time in a long time he sounded as if he agreed with what she was doing.
*
Eamon Buckley’s red Mondeo was halfway back up to Farranferris Avenue when it was overtaken by a Garda squad car with flashing blue lights and pulled over on the corner of Wolfe Tone Street and French’s Villas.
Detectives Caffrey and O’Sullivan drew up behind it in their unmarked Toyota, almost touching its rear bumper so that Eamon Buckley wouldn’t be able to reverse and speed off – not that he seemed to have any intention of trying to get away. Without waiting to be approached by the gardaí, he swung himself out from the driver’s seat and slammed the door so hard behind him that Detective Caffrey thought it might fall off its hinges.
‘What in the name of feck is all this about?’ Eamon Buckley demanded. He was wearing a yellow nylon Puffa jacket, which made him look even bigger and fatter and more threatening than he actually was. ‘Can’t you fecking shades ever give me some fecking peace?’
Detective Caffrey produced his ID and held it up in front of Eamon Buckley’s face. ‘My name is Detective Garda Ronan Caffrey and I am arresting you on suspicion of false imprisonment, which is an offence under section 15 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act, 1997. You are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so, but whatever you say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence.’
‘What? What the feck are you talking about, “false imprisonment”?’
‘You were seen not ten minutes ago locking an individual into your shop on Shandon Street – an individual who appeared to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs.’
‘What a load of ballsch! Who saw me? I’ll fecking give them a fecking clatter for telling lies about me. “False imprisonment”!’ He spat on to the pavement and said, ‘You’re codding me, aren’t you?’
‘I saw you, as a matter of fact. Me and my colleague here, Detective Garda O’Sullivan.’
‘In that case, you both need to go down to Egans and get your fecking eyes tested.’
‘For the record, can you tell me your name?’
‘If you do
n’t know my name, how the feck did you know it was my shop?’
‘I do know your name, but you need to tell me for the record, like.’
‘For the record my name is Fecking Fuming.’
‘You do realize that refusing to give your name is an offence in itself, and I could arrest you for that alone.’
‘Feck off up the yard.’
Meanwhile, one of the uniformed gardaí had ordered Eamon Buckley’s passenger to get out of the car. He was a white-faced youth, with scarlet spots clustered all over his forehead, a blond fade haircut and bulging eyes like green glassy allies. He didn’t look particularly healthy but Detective Caffrey could see from the width of his shoulders and the thickness of his neck that he was quite muscular.
‘So what’s your name?’ Detective Caffrey asked him, as the garda brought him around the car.
‘Tozza.’
‘I mean your real name. First and second.’
The youth looked worriedly at Eamon Buckley but Eamon Buckley shook his head and spat again on the pavement, and the youth stayed silent, chewing his lip.
‘Okay, Tozza, have it your own way,’ said Detective Caffrey. ‘I’m arresting you on a charge of false imprisonment, too, and like your pal here I’m telling you that you are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so, but whatever you say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence.’
‘But he’s not my pal,’ the youth interrupted, in a voice that sounded only half-broken.
‘Who is he, then?’
‘He’s my boss. I have to do what he tells me, don’t I, or else he’s going to give me the bullet.’
‘Will you shut your fecking bake?’ barked Eamon Buckley.
‘But I only carried your man in there because you told me to carry him in there. I wouldn’t have done it else, would I?’
‘I said, shut it!’
‘But I don’t want to be arrested for something I never wanted to do, do I? My old man’s going to murder me!’
‘You say one more fecking word and I’ll murder you myself, before your old man has the chance!’
‘But I never false imprisoned nobody!’
‘You helped to carry him into the shop and you locked him in there,’ said Detective Caffrey. ‘He was plainly too langered to do anything to stop you, so that’s false imprisonment.’
He beckoned to the uniformed gardaí and said, ‘Cuff them both, would you, and take them in to the station.’
‘But he wasn’t langered!’ the youth protested.
‘No? He looked langered to us all right,’ put in Detective O’Sullivan.
‘He’s dead! You can’t false imprison somebody if they’re dead, can you?’
Eamon Buckley let out an extraordinary bull-like roar through his nostrils and lunged at the youth with his right fist bunched. The youth toppled back against the red Mondeo and slid sideways on to the road. Eamon Buckley seized his jacket and was about to pull him up on to his feet again when one of the gardaí hit him a cracking blow across the back of his head with his baton. He was knocked sideways and spun around on one foot before pitching with a squeaky thump of his Puffa jacket on to the pavement, right where he had been spitting.
He lay there with his arms and his legs outspread, breathing hard and staring up at the sky. After a few moments, he lifted his head and glared at the garda who had struck him, but the garda lifted his baton again as if to say that he could have some more if he wanted it. Eamon Buckley said nothing but ‘Shite’, and let his head fall back.
Detective Caffrey lifted his radio and said, ‘DS Maguire? We’ve arrested Buckley and his companion and we’ll be fetching them in right now. His companion says he works for Buckley. He also says that the fellow they were dragging into the shop wasn’t drunk, but deceased.’
‘Mother of God. Did he tell you who he was?’
Detective Caffrey turned to the youth and said, ‘What’s his name, the dead feen?’
The youth shrugged, but said nothing.
‘Ma’am? He’s making out like he doesn’t know. Either that, or he’s too scared of Buckley to tell us. Buckley isn’t exactly coming quiet-like, and they had to use the stick on him.’
‘Okay, Ronan,’ said Katie. ‘Take the keys from Buckley and fetch them in with you. DI Fitzpatrick is setting up a team to enter the shop. It sounds like he’ll be needing a white van and a couple of forensic technicians, too.’
Eamon Buckley was hauled to his feet, handcuffed, and forced into the back seat of the squad car. He grunted, but he said nothing more. A second squad car arrived, and the youth was bundled into that. Before the car’s door was shut, he looked up at Detective Caffrey and said, ‘I swear to God I didn’t have nothing to do with killing that fellow. I was only doing what I was told.’
As the youth was driven off, Detective Caffrey turned to Detective O’Sullivan, chafing his hands against the cold.
‘“I was only doing what I was told,”’ he mimicked. ‘Sacred Heart of Jesus. If I had ten yoyos for every time I’d heard that, I could have bought myself a Lamborghini by now.’
‘What would be the point?’ Detective O’ Sullivan asked him, as they climbed back into their car. ‘You’d have it for a week and then somebody would only half-inch it.’
‘You’re probably right. And even if I caught them, what do you think they’d say? “I was only doing what I was told” like. Makes me sick, how pathetic most of these criminals are. Bunch of jibbers.’
Detective O’Sullivan laughed.
‘Why are you laughing?’ Detective Caffrey asked him.
‘Why? Well, somebody has to.’
34
It was already half-past two in the morning when three squad cars and a Technical Bureau van arrived outside Eamon Buckley’s butcher’s shop on Shandon Street, followed after a few more minutes by an ambulance.
The thermometer had dropped sharply, and a fine snow was falling, which was rare for Cork, even though it was nearly invisible. It melted as soon as it touched the ground, but it left the street glistening and wet.
Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick stood by while Detective O’Donovan sorted through the large bunch of keys that he had taken from Eamon Buckley back at the station. He had asked him to show him which key would open the door of the butcher’s shop, but Eamon Buckley had told him: ‘Find it for yourself, you fecking gom, what do you take me for?’
After nearly five minutes of jingling and poking, Detective O’Donovan at last managed to open the shop door, and immediately the burglar alarm went off, a ringing noise so loud that none of the officers gathered outside the shop could hear each other without shouting.
Two gardaí entered the shop, found the alarm box on the wall behind the counter, opened it up and pulled the red and black wires out of the terminals.
In the sudden silence that followed, Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick and Detective O’Donovan stepped inside and looked around. There was no sign of a dead man in the shop. The window display was bare, except for rows of metal trays bordered by plastic parsley, and the shelves under the glass counter were empty, too.
‘The fridge,’ said Detective O’Donovan, and went around the counter to the back of the shop. He opened up the heavy stainless-steel door and shone his flashlight inside. Chickens and bodices and legs of pork were hanging from hooks from the ceiling, and the shelves on either side were stacked with black puddings and plastic bags filled with lambs’ livers and wet white tripe.
Sitting upright on the floor at the back of the cold room, his eyes open, his face whitish-grey like asbestos, was Vasile, the barman from The Parting Glass. He was missing one shoe and his sock had a large potato in it.
‘Holy Saint Joseph,’ said Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick. ‘Vasile the snitch.’
‘What do you think, sir?’ Detective O’Donovan asked him. ‘Reckon this was our fault? Maybe we should have met him somewhere less public.’
‘Who knows, Patrick? But he told us where to find Lupul, didn’t h
e, and Buckley picked him up from Lupul’s house. I don’t think you need a PhD to work out how he ended up in here, along with the sausages.’
*
Katie was fastening her white Cordura ballistic vest when Chief Superintendent O’Kane came into her office. He was unshaven and his coat collar was turned up and she could see that underneath his open coat he was wearing a mustard-coloured Aran sweater and jeans.
‘You didn’t have to come in, sir,’ said Katie.
‘Sure like, I know. But after you sent me that text I knew I wasn’t going to be able to sleep, and I was intending to show up early anyway, what with you mounting that raid up at Alexandra Road. How’s it all going?’
‘We’ve charged both Buckley and his lad with aiding and abetting a murder. The lad’s name is Thomas Barry and he works for Buckley in his shop as a trainee butcher – but that’s the only information they’ve given us. I haven’t been down to see either of them yet because Robert says that they’re refusing to answer any questions.’
‘And what about this dead Romanian fellow we found in Buckley’s fridge?’
‘It looks as if he was killed in the same way that Gearoid Ó Beargha and Matthew Donoghue were killed and that boxer was assaulted, with a power drill in the back of the head. We’ll have to wait for Dr Kelley to confirm it, of course. She’ll be carrying out a toxicology test too. But the technical expert who examined him said that the drill hole is the only visible injury he could find.’
‘So, like you said, this all points to our friend Lupul.’
‘I’m not jumping to any conclusions yet, but it seems highly likely that he’s behind it. He had a strong enough motive, after all, since this Vasile was the fellow who told us where his house was. I’ve asked Mathew McElvey in the press office to put out an EvoFIT of him on the TV news, so maybe if we’re lucky we’ll find out a bit more about him.’
‘When are you setting off up there?’
‘In about twenty minutes. We’re still waiting for one of the immigration officers to show up, because he’s coming in all the way from Waterford.’
Begging to Die Page 27
