The Garda entered her home after Eoin O’Toole responded to their knocking on the door.
“We’re sorry for your troubles,” the older of the Garda said as he drew close to the rocking chair.
“Thank you,” she answered in a barely audible voice.
“I gather your son was wearing his school uniform the day he disappeared?” the Garda asked.
“Yes. Navy blue blazer with the school crest on the pocket, gray flannel pants, and blue shirt with a navy and blue striped tie.”
“Did anyone see this happen? Children usually walk home from school in small groups. Who would have walked with your son?”
“He walked home with John and Niall. They are neighboring boys. They’re older than Eoin, about nine and ten years old.”
“Good. They should be old enough to give a good description of anyone who might have talked to them or what might have enticed Eoin to go with this person, and if this person had an accomplice. Where can we find these two lads?”
Kate directed the Garda to the boys’ homes.
“We’ll need to talk to you again, Mrs. Egan,” the younger man said although he had remained silent while the other had done all the talking.
“Will tomorrow morning at ten o’clock be all right with you?”
Kate nodded her head.
The Garda questioned Niall Dempsey in his home. Niall believed Eoin was forced into a car. “The man knew Eoin’s name,” Niall told the Garda.
“Did he call Eoin by his first or last name?”
“Both. He called to him from the car.”
“A car?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What kind of a car?”
“Don’t know, sir.”
“What else did this man say?”
“He told us to walk on. He wanted to talk to Eoin.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“No, sir.”
“Can you give us a description of this man?”
“He had dark hair. He looked like he had a suntan.”
“Did he have an Irish or English accent, or might he have had a foreign one?”
After a pause the boy answered.
“I think it was a bit like an Irish accent and a bit like an English one.”
“Was the man sitting in the driver’s seat?”
“He was sitting in the back seat.”
“What did the person who was sitting in the driver’s seat look like?”
“Don’t know, sir.”
“Was it a man or a woman?”
“Don’t know, sir.”
“Can you think of anything else that happened or was said at that time?”
“No, sir.”
“You’ve done very well, Niall, and we appreciate your help. If you can think of anything else, no matter how insignificant it may appear, call us at this number.
The Garda handed Niall a card with a telephone number on it, which made the boy feel very important and very willing to do all the Garda required of him.
John Hughes’ story was somewhat different, but most helpful in that the boys recalled different details. John thought Eoin was helped into the car, but he had not looked back until after Niall believed he saw Eoin being forced into the car. When asked who was driving the car, Niall had no idea while John said it was a woman. Yes, he was sure of that. John described the woman as having frizzy, blonde hair, like a bad permanent. One of John’s sisters had a friend who had such a permanent, so he knew of these things. The woman had fair skin, and from what he saw of her face and shoulders, he believed she was a bit on the heavy side. Neither of the boys could describe any facial features of either the man or the woman. John was also given a card with a telephone number and asked to call if he remembered any other details.
When the Garda returned the following morning, they asked the question that would cause Kate the most trouble, and would be the most important information in this case. After a few minutes of greetings, offering and declining tea, apologies for intruding again at this agonizing time in her life, the question was asked.
“Do you know, Mrs. Egan, anyone who might want to hurt the child or you? Anyone from your past who might hold a grievance against you?”
Yes, I do. Kate knew it had to be him. Harry had tried to take the boy before but he was no longer married to Kit Fitzgerald. Why now? And for what purpose? She wondered.
“There is someone who might have a motive. His name is Harry Browne.”
“Where can we find this Harry Browne?”
“I don’t know. The last time I heard of him he was married to Brian Fitzgerald’s daughter. But they have since had the marriage annulled.”
“This Brian Fitzgerald you speak of, is he the Brian Fitzgerald who owns the racehorse facilities in Kildare?”
“Yes.”
“Who is this Mr. Browne in relationship to you?”
“He is Eoin’s biological father who left me as soon as he learned I was pregnant.”
“Are you now or were you ever married to Harry Browne?”
“We did not marry.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“He came to the cottage I was living in before I moved here. It was about five years ago. He and his wife couldn’t conceive a child, and he offered me money in exchange for Eoin. When I refused, he threatened to take me to court to gain custody of Eoin. When he found his case against me was too weak, he dropped it.”
“And you haven’t seen him since?”
“I have not seen him since.”
“That sheds light on this case.” The detective reflected on this a moment. “If it were Browne, he would, of course, know the boy’s name.”
Eoin O’Toole asked the Garda to keep Kate’s past indiscretions from the newspapers. Not being able to get a positive answer to his request from the Garda, he phoned his brother, explained the situation and asked for his brother’s help.
“Why is it that your every request is to help others? This woman is married. Her relationships are a mess. She had a child by one man and married another, and both men left her! Why do you get involved with people like her? What kind of hold does this Kate Egan have on you, Eoin?”
“That most difficult kind, I love her. No, don’t go off into absurd thinking. She’s like a daughter to me. This may not be the best time to tell you this, but I’m the father of the husband who left her, which makes Kate my daughter-in-law.”
A moment of silence followed.
“Eoin, you never married.”
“True. I did, however, have a child.”
“My God, Eoin, this is no time to joke.”
“It certainly isn’t.”
Another loud but brief silence followed.
“Does she know you’re her father-in-law?”
“Yes. We are aware of our unsavory pasts. She has asked only for help regarding her small son. She’s spent the last seven years protecting her child, and now this has happened. The past, which we thought she had left behind her, has erupted to destroy her life and put her son’s life in jeopardy. Can you keep this out of the newspapers for Kate’s and the boy’s sake?”
“I’m a judge, Eoin. This is out of my jurisdiction. I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t promise you I can stop the newspapers printing her past indiscretions. This kind of thing is their cup of tea.”
“Thanks.”
“Eoin, why didn’t you tell me about your son?”
“You were a promising young lawyer who at a young age became a judge. I was a lovesick young man who wanted to give the object of my love the one thing her happy marriage did not produce, a child. Back then only the child’s mother and I knew. Aoife died when the child was eleven years old.”
“Aoife! I remember your being head over heels in love with her. Beautiful Aoife! I gather her husband thought the child was his?
“He believed it was his child. It had to be that way. I had no claim on the child. Kate and I are the only ones who know. Now you, too, know.”
“The young man, does he not know?”
“He does not.”
“Don’t you think you should tell him?”
“I will.”
Judge O’Toole, after getting through to Detective Keegan, was infuriated by this man’s wandering on about the media’s need to know, and how withholding some information on this case might hamper the rescue of this boy.
“What I ask, Detective, is that you cut it short. I do not ask that you hold back any vital information; just the titillating stuff.”
“That’s what sells newspapers.”
“The mother of the kidnapped boy is married to a man other than the boy’s father. This woman has just had her son kidnapped. It would be damnable cruel to add more grief to her lot, don’t you agree, Detective?”
Not receiving an immediate response from the detective, the judge continued.
“Do you have a wife, Detective, and children?”
“Yes to both.”
“How old are the children?”
“Seven and ten years old.”
“Your seven-year-old is just a few months older than the kidnapped boy. You’d want your child back if he was kidnapped, and you’d also want to spare his distraught mother any additional distress. Is that not true?”
“True. But I have no control over the press.”
“All I ask is that you give them the necessary information without destroying anyone’s reputation in the process.”
Detective Keegan was in a difficult spot. This happened in his precinct. The reporters would want to know why he had not given them the full scoop. He needed the press to give his men favorable reports, to play up their good work and citations received, and downplay some of the fumbling and happenings that might be a bit of an embarrassment to the Garda. Now this judge wanted to destroy his rapport with the press.
Why? What has this mother and son got to do with Judge O’Toole? I could put that bright new recruit on this, and see what he can find!
Brian Fitzgerald read of the kidnapping in the evening newspaper, and immediately phoned Kate. Eoin O’Toole answered the telephone. When Fitzgerald asked what he could do to help Kate, O’Toole voiced his concerns. Fitzgerald, who was greatly distressed by the child’s abduction, spoke of his annoyance when Browne tried to reclaim the child he abandoned and present him as his grandchild. When, by accident, he met young Eoin at the Dublin Horse Show, he wished the child were his grandson. Then he saw Kate, a young woman about his daughter’s age, and he hated Harry Browne for doing so much harm to both these fine women. His daughter had remarried and was very happy. He was very angry to discover that Browne was still making trouble for Kate, and pledged to do all in his power to help in the return of the boy and keep Browne from interfering in their lives. It would be Fitzgerald who would see to it that the story was told without its more private and personal aspects coming to light.
Eoin had a question to ask Harry, and it had been floating around in his head for a few days while he waited patiently for the right moment to approach him. Harry was quite erratic and prone to sudden eruptions of anger. He did not go to work each morning and return in the evening, Eoin noted. In fact, it did not seem to the boy that Harry had any set time to do anything, not even to eat. Maude also did not know when Harry might leave or return.
Eoin liked Maude. She was fat and jolly. She was a fun sort of person when Harry wasn’t around. She spoke to him as another individual, whereas Harry, in the rare times he spoke to him, treated Eoin as something between a troublesome child and a family pet. Harry did, however, when speaking to him, refer to him as ‘son.’ It was this that got the boy thinking.
Harry came home, and without a word to Maude or Eoin, sat down in the soiled, overstuffed armchair and turned on the radio. With his right hand he set about checking all the news stations, and with the bent fingers of his left hand, he tapped in a continuous Morse code-like fashion on the armrest.
No, this did not appear to be the right moment to ask Harry the question I have in mind, Eoin thought. Maud had a few questions of her own to ask, but she too waited.
“Did you cook us anything?” Harry broke his concentration to ask about a half an hour after he had sat down.
“You didn’t leave any money.”
“If I gave you a twenty and you bought something for five, the very next time you’d ask again for money. What about my change?”
“Didn’t know you wanted the change! Didn’t know you were that cheap!”
“Now I know why some husbands strangle wives.”
“Well, that excludes us, now, doesn’t it?”
“Here take this ten and get us some fish and chips,” Harry stated, taking the money from his pants pocket and throwing it on the stool in front of him.
“I hope this covers it.”
“Make it.”
Maude picked up the money.
“Do you want to come with me, Eoin?”
“Are you mad, woman?”
“It’s already dark out. That child hadn’t been outside this stinking flat since we got here. He gets no fresh air. He’s liable to get sick, and then you’ll have real worries, Harry.”
“I’ll take him out for a walk when I have time.”
“Yeah, when pigs fly,” Maud retorted and slammed the door on the way out.
Harry was angry. Maude had given him something to worry about, and he did not like to think about worrisome things. His left hand had stopped beating out its coded message. Harry began to hit his fist into his open hand while remaining silent for what seemed to Eoin a long time. After a little while, Harry returned to browsing through the stations again. Finding a station that he liked, Harry sat back in the armchair and smiled, which was the closest he came to contentment.
“Harry?”
Harry looked at the boy in surprise.
“What is it, son?”
“If you are my real father, you would want me to go to school and learn.”
Harry stared at the boy, while Eoin wondered what Harry would do.
“Boys are not supposed to like school.”
“But, I do, sir. I like it a lot.”
“Why?”
“I like to learn new things, and I like playing hurling and soccer with my school mates.”
“Well, they don’t play hurling here. They play some stupid thing called cricket.”
“Then I could learn to play cricket,” the boy answered with joy bursting out on his face.
Harry, who considered children to be noisy, pestering, demanding little people, never had wanted a child of his own, except to win over Fitzgerald. He looked at this child, who but for his mother’s integrity, would not have been born, and found that he liked Eoin. He liked him a lot.
Would I have been more like him if I didn’t grow up dirt poor; if I went to a better school; if anyone cared a damn if I learned anything or not; if my old man could have kept a job?
He could not promise his son that he could go to school, because they would be only temporarily at this location. They could not stay in London. Harry had planned to be in Spain by now, but insufficient funds caused a delay. The bookie was late in paying him his winnings. The bookie’s father died at a hell of an inconvenient time, Harry thought. When they reached Spain they would settle down and the boy could attend school.
It’s his mother’s fault. That bitch ruined my marriage to Kit and caused Fitzgerald to become my enemy, and he’s too powerful a man to have as an enemy. She probably thought that whole ugliness was over and done with. Nobody takes Harry Browne over the coals and gets away with it.
How could she have retained the best legal minds in Dublin? She had an inheritance! Probably one of those trusts held until the child is twenty-one, twenty-five, or thirty years old. Of all the women I’ve been with, it is Kate I should have married. Of course, I would have had to change my lifestyle, cut out gambling and women, and gotten a decent job. Her inheritance would have cushioned things. Her father or grandfather, whoev
er decided she would have to wait for her inheritance until she was older and wiser, did her a favor, and me a disfavor.
Egan could not stomach the fact that Eoin was my son, and walked away from the best deal he could ever get in this life.
I was only planning on keeping the lad for a few weeks to let her feel the pain. All her past will be exposed. She’ll be notorious. The papers will have a field day with the respectable Kate Egan’s past. She’ll soon know that even with her money and fancy lawyers, she can’t get the best of Harry. He’s my son! I too have a claim on him. I can keep the lad away from my occupations. I might even keep him. He’s almost seven. He’ll be easy to take care of, and maybe we’ll become friends! Harry smiled at the possibility.
I had to fight for everything I got. How did Kate, who grew up without want and attended the best schools, become such a fighter, a worthy opponent of old Harry? I hated her for it, and yet was overwhelmed by that opposite feeling, which I tried to ignore. Can a person hate someone and at the same time love that someone? Nobody ever brought out such strong feeling in me as Kate. Damn you, Kate McCormack.
I was too young. I wasn’t ready for marriage, and definitely not ready for a child. I was going to make my fortune! I was going to have it all. Alas, I didn’t recognize my good fortune when it fell into my lap. Even without her money, she was the prize.
The Dublin Garda contacted the British police who were now trying to locate both Harry Browne and Francis Egan in connection with the kidnapping of Eoin Egan. When contacted, Brian Fitzgerald gave a very damaging character reference of Harry Browne.
The Lane Page 16
