Nine Lives

by Kevin McManus

  “Fine, I will.”

  “Oh, and I hope your wife Vanessa is okay. I appreciate how difficult it is. I admire how well you are coping yourself, Colin.”

  “One of us has to be strong for Sharon. Vanessa deals with it in her own way,” Colin said, directing the detective towards the front door.

  “Thanks again and I’ll be in touch,” Mulcahy said, and walked down the steps towards the gate. As he did so he noticed Vanessa Devereaux sitting on a garden seat, holding a bottle in a brown paper bag.

  “Goodbye, Mrs. Devereaux,” Mulcahy said as he walked past her.

  “Detective, Detective,” Vanessa cried before he could close the gate.

  “Yes?” he replied.

  “Promise me something, Detective,” she slurred.

  “What’s that, Mrs. Devereaux?”

  “Promise me you will find the person who killed my baby, my Hazel.”

  “I …. I will try.”

  “Promise me, Detective.”

  “I will, I promise you.”

  Chapter 5: Fade to Black

  Wednesday 27th February, 1980

  Inspector Harding’s Office,

  New Grove Garda Station,

  County Galway

  Pascal Harding sat with his chair sideways to his desk as he observed the first shoots of spring in the small garden outside his office window. Jim Mulcahy sat opposite the inspector, shuffling through papers.

  “The year is moving on, Jim, time is moving on, the winter months are passing, the light is returning. We are into a new decade now. It’s a time for change, for new ideas and not for old men like me.” Harding sighed.

  “Yes,” Mulcahy replied, trying to be careful with his response. He knew the inspector was nearing retirement age and the exasperation the Hazel Devereaux case caused him was swaying him towards the idea of leaving his post early.

  “Nearly three months gone, Jim, and we are no closer to discovering the identity of the killer of Hazel Devereaux, or locating Frank Rudden.”

  “No. sir.”

  “If Frank Rudden killed Hazel, and it appears plausible that he may have done, where did he vanish to? We have no verified sightings of his car apart from that unconfirmed one from Rosslare just before Christmas. Maybe he fled the country, it’s possible.”

  “I still don’t think Frank was the murderer, it just doesn’t add up,” Mulcahy interjected.

  “You are referring to those notes, those lines from a song or whatever they are. I don’t think you should waste any more of your energy on that assumption, it’s trivial.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I have to disagree with you on that. I think the notes are vitally important. Hazel received an envelope containing one line written a piece of notepaper: The solemn song be sung, which was discovered by her father in the house she was renting in Blairstown, and Frank Rudden’s wife Anne gave you a note she received on the morning her husband disappeared. It was dropped through her letterbox. On that note was written, Dead beauty with a tear. I compared the notes, the paper is the same, it came from the same writing pad, the envelope is the same make, and most strikingly obvious is the handwriting, clearly the same person, and that person is our killer, I believe. The line from the song or whatever it is must be like the killer’s calling card.”

  “So, Jim, you assume that Frank Rudden is dead, also murdered by the same person who murdered Hazel Devereaux… by some sort of… serial killer as the Americans call them.”

  “Well… yes.”

  “Pure speculation, Jim, you can’t jump to unfounded assumptions like that. So, if Frank Rudden didn’t kill Hazel then who did, who is your serial killer?”

  “I can’t be certain at this point. I think Donal Keane possibly could be a suspect. He left the country and moved to Boston two days after Hazel and Frank went missing. He was seen talking to Hazel the night before she was murdered. Why did he leave the country? I think we need to contact him and question him.”

  “A waste of time and resources, Jim.”

  “What about the boyfriend Hazel was going out with, the one from Dublin? He could well be the mysterious Paul, whose name was on the bracelet found on Hazel’s body. Perhaps he was jealous that she was going out with somebody else in Blairstown and he killed her.”

  “As I said to you before, I spoke to Hazel’s best friend Carol. She knew all of the lads Hazel was going out with and there was nobody called Paul that she knew of. She told me that Hazel was seeing a young man named Trevor from Trinity College, but according to Carol, Hazel and Trevor had a very casual relationship and they seemed to be free to go out with whoever they wished.”

  “So, who is the Paul on the bracelet?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, you saw the posters on the wall in her bedroom in the house she was renting in Blairstown. She was obsessed with the Beatles, and Paul McCartney especially. Carol thinks she may have bought the bracelet and had it inscribed herself. Just a foolish and immature act, you know how young girls get about pop stars these days.”

  “So that’s it then, is it Inspector? We just sit on our backsides now and wait to see if Frank Rudden turns up. We are eighty percent sure he is the murderer and that is good enough. This is ridiculous. It’s just another unsolved case that will be buried and forgotten about like the rest of them.”

  Harding swung around in his chair and leaned forward in his desk until his face was only a few inches away from the junior detective, close enough that Mulcahy could feel the brown tobacco stained spit land on his face as the inspector shouted. Harding rarely lost his cool, he was generally an unobtrusive and calm individual, but when he did lose his temper the fires of hell were unleashed on any poor creature he felt deserved it.

  “Listen here, Mulcahy, you naïve young prick, don’t you question or attempt to undermine me. What the fuck do you know about murder cases, you bollix. You wouldn’t be where you are today if it wasn’t for me who put in a good word for you with the powers that be. If you are told to drop something, you drop it like the well trained and disciplined mutt you should be. You will learn, Mulcahy, you will learn. That is, providing your own fucking stupidity doesn’t cost you your job. If I say Frank Rudden is most likely the killer, that will do you, do you understand? If I questioned my superiors when I was your age I would be out on my bloody ear. You’re a lucky bastard, Mulcahy, that I’m a tolerant man but that’s it, that is your warning, do you understand, Mulcahy?”

  “Yes,” the young detective answered in a shrill and shaken voice.

  “Now, I want you in future to follow orders and do what you are told to do. The department of justice has not got the financial resources or manpower to invest in every single murder case. You do realise there is a war going on with the Provos at the moment, don’t you, or is your head too far up your own self-righteous arse? Have a read through this,” Harding said as he opened the top drawer on his desk and flipped a file over at Mulcahy. “Sandra Timmons, an elderly woman beaten to death for her pension money in Dunaldron last week. That is your focus now, Mulcahy, so get on to that and forget about Hazel Devereaux, it’s over.”

  “Right,” Mulcahy responded timidly.

  “Right, so what the fuck are you waiting for, get out of here and start looking into it. I expect some developments on it by the end of the week. Do you think you can handle it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Look, Mulcahy, I don’t want to rip your confidence apart. I know you’re young and inexperienced, but I am fully aware that you have what it takes. I can see that in you. Your career could be a very successful one, but you have to play ball, do you understand?” Harding said, cooling down.

  “Yes… I’ll start on this investigation straight away, sir.”

  “Okay, keep me informed at all times. I’m here to guide you, Jim, so take good advice when it is given to you.”

  “Right, okay… and thanks,” Mulcahy said and walked out of the office, closing the door behind him.

  Chapter 6: Journey through the Pa
st

  29 Years Later

  Wednesday 18th November, 2009

  Lough Derrylusk,

  County Mayo

  Detectives Ray Logue and Jack McGarry sat in a black Hyundai Santa Fe, waiting for a break in the vicious downpour of hailstones hammering on the roof of the vehicle.

  “Christ, I’m not going out in that; do you see the size of those bloody things? They would give you concussion. Health and safety and all that malarkey, we can’t take any chances, McGarry.”

  “Damn right, did you know…”

  “Here we go, another interesting fact from Jack McGarry.” Logue interrupted his partner mid-sentence.

  “Hailstones can fall up to one hundred miles per hour and some are as big as footballs, over two hundred people are seriously injured by them each year.”

  “You know what, you are a walking fucking encyclopedia. How do you remember all that crap you watch on the discovery channel? You really need to get out more,” Logue said glancing sideways at his partner with disgust.

  “I don’t memorise it.”

  You what?”

  “I just looked it up online.”

  “How?”

  “On my Apple iPhone, I just bought it yesterday. It’s the future, Logue, a computer you can carry in your pocket.”

  “I’ll stick to my Nokia, thanks.”

  ***

  Five minutes later the hail shower ceased, and the pair got out of the vehicle and stood in the car park by the shore of the lough. They watched as a team of Garda scuba divers from the sub Aqua unit swam out fifty metres from the shore and submerged.

  The previous Sunday, a group of amateur divers had accidentally discovered a car resting on the lakebed. To his horror, on closer inspection the lead diver had made the grisly discovery of the skeletal remains of a human inside it. Examination of the vehicle by the Garda divers the following day had confirmed that the vehicle did in fact contain human remains. The decision had been taken by Superintendent Jim Mulcahy twenty-four hours ago to pull the vehicle to shore. Logue and McGarry were given the task of being present to witness the event.

  “I wonder who it could be in the car?” McGarry asked.

  “It’s an old Volkswagen Beetle supposedly, if what the divers said is true, and it’s been down there a hell of a long time. We could be trawling back through decades of missing persons reports.”

  “Terrific,” McGarry said sarcastically.

  As the detectives were speaking, the four divers emerged back on the surface. One of them put his thumb up to signify they were at the correct location. As he did so a 12-ton tow truck reversed as close as possible towards the shore’s edge. The cable and hook were released and grasped by an officer in a wetsuit who passed it out to the diving unit.

  “It’s going to be an awkward job pulling in that car, it will probably fall apart with one tug,” Logue said, watching the procedure.

  “Here she comes, there she is,” McGarry said as the back of the vehicle emerged from the dark water.

  “Don’t speak so soon.”

  “Always the pessimist, Logue.”

  With that, the Beetle collapsed back into the water.

  “Told you, it’s a rust bucket, there is nothing to attach the winch to.”

  A few minutes later the team emerged out of the water, and after holding a brief discussion with the operator of the tow truck, submerged again. This time they were successful, and the vintage car was dragged towards the shore and eventually onto the tarmac surface of the car park. As it did so water continued to gush out of it.

  “We could be washing away evidence here,” McGarry said.

  “We haven’t much choice,” Logue responded.

  After allowing time for the greater part of the muddy Lough water to drain from the vehicle, Logue approached it. It was clearly a Volkswagen Beetle, its body reasonably intact. As he circled the car the first thing that came to his attention was the missing windscreen, which had collapsed from the impact of the Beetle hitting the lake bed all those years ago. Peering through the cavity, he stared at the contents of the back seat. Perched across it was a human skeleton, the bones severely tarnished from years of decay within the Lough’s watery depths. The skeletal structure had largely disassembled.

  “I can’t see a skull,” Logue commented, arching his body to try to get a closer look at the remains.

  “It’s probably there somewhere, perhaps on the floor below the front seat, we’d better leave it until forensics get here and not disturb anything.”

  “Yea,” Logue responded, still staring into the car.

  “Look who has just pulled up,” McGarry said, watching a squad car come to a sudden stop and the door open.

  “Who is it?” Logue asked, his view obscured.

  “The boss, Mulcahy.”

  “What the fuck is he doing here, does he not trust us or something?”

  “What do you think?”

  Logue and McGarry stood clear from the Beetle to allow Superintendent Jim Mulcahy to examine it. As he approached the car he stopped and looked at the number plate. He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped it. His face went red with exertion as he crouched down and rubbed the plate hard and fast. After two minutes he stood back to get a better view of it. Taking off his hat, he wiped his brow and then nodded as he appeared to whisper to himself. The two detectives addressed Mulcahy as he approached the front of the corroded vehicle.

  “Superintendent Mulcahy, I discovered…” Logue tried to say until he was cut off in his flow by one of Mulcahy’s infamous looks that had been known in the past to bring grown men to tears. A look that said, “Shut up for now, I’m trying to concentrate.”

  Mulcahy peered into the car and focused his gaze on the human remains. Again, he appeared to whisper to himself as he nodded. Finally, he turned around to face Logue and McGarry.

  “It looks like the car and the remains inside it have been there a long time. I was saying to McGarry earlier that we will have to cross check all the missing persons going back for decades unless forensics can narrow it down,” Logue pointed out.

  “There is no need,” Mulcahy responded.

  “Really… why do you say that, sir?”

  “Because it’s Frank Rudden.”

  “Who?” Logue asked.

  Chapter 7: No Line on the Horizon

  Thursday 19th November, 2009

  Port Ard Garda Station,

  County Mayo

  Superintendent Mulcahy sat across his desk from Logue and McGarry as they tried to absorb everything he had just told them about the Hazel Devereaux murder case.

  “You know, I have been waiting thirty years to find out any scrap of information about Frank Rudden’s whereabouts and he just shows up. His remains have been resting in Lough Derrylusk all this time, less than twenty miles from where I live. At least Frank’s sons and daughters can give him a Christian burial now. It’s a sort of closure for them, a small fragment of solace considering all they have gone through. He must have grandchildren too, I suppose. His wife passed away about five years ago. It’s a shame she always had to live with the stigma that her husband may have murdered that poor girl.”

  “Are we certain that it is him, sir, that we found?” Logue asked.

  “Beyond doubt, forensics will confirm it in the next day or two. Look, we have the car registration number, we have his driving license, and his name was on the log book in the glove compartment,” Mulcahy responded.

  “It was incredible that his driving license and log book hadn’t completely perished, considering the time and the conditions,” McGarry said.

  “Back then, Jack, a lot of men took good care of their cars. Frank was one of those guys. Everything had to be just right and in its place. All the car’s documents were carefully stored in a plastic cover to protect them. Car bodies rusted easy, they let in damp and moisture. The best way to protect important documents was to keep them in plastic. It’s a good job for us that Frank did,” Mulcahy ans
wered.

  “The skeletal remains were relatively well intact. His head was removed so we can rule out suicide,” Logue pointed out.

  “Are you sure?” McGarry smirked.

  “Shut up McGarry… I was chatting to one of the lads from the forensic team yesterday evening. He believes that the head must have been removed with a large blade, perhaps a sword or an axe. It was difficult for him to be certain, though.”

  “The forensic team will have a clearer idea about the cause of death, hopefully, over the next few days,” Mulcahy responded.

  “So, what happens now?” Logue asked.

  “Good question. I will have to get approval to reopen the case. We are looking at a double murder investigation now for Hazel Devereaux and Frank Rudden… Christ, I have been waiting so long for this. It was only my second case you know, the Devereaux case. I was young and naïve back then, but my superior, Inspector Harding, pushed it all to one side, claiming that Frank Rudden was the murderer. In hindsight, I can’t blame him. He was trying to do his job but he was constrained by the top brass.”

  “Have we anything to possibly link the two individuals together, Hazel and Frank?” Logue asked.

  “Nothing really, apart from the shared car journey that morning on June third, 1979. We could find no reference that they were having an affair or a relationship. Frank had a clean record, he was a stable family man. A hardworking salt of the earth farmer,” Mulcahy responded.

  “So why do you think Frank was murdered, what was the motive?” McGarry asked.

  “I can’t say for certain, but whoever wanted to kill Hazel must have stopped them that morning on to the way to the Garda station in Blairstown, abducted Hazel and later murdered her. Frank was a witness to the event, so he had to be dealt with too. Hence, he was also killed, and his body dumped in his car in a lake where it couldn’t be found. Until now… But look, it’s just speculation on my part.”