Halpin was booked in, and Jenny’s mother arrived a few minutes later. When mother and daughter had been tearfully re-united, Jenny gave her account to the sergeant, and the two of them were allowed to go back to see Lady and get on their way home. The Gillespies wouldn’t forget this pony show in a hurry.
Chapter Eight
Back at the show ground things were coming to a close as the evening drew in. The fences in the arena had been dismantled, and an army of cleaners were going around emptying bins, and clearing up papers and discarded food wrappers. In two days’ time the show ground would be hosting the Galway Vintage Classic Car and Bike Show, so there was no time to waste getting the place ready.
Oliver Weldon had taken back possession of his office and was just finishing putting all his stuff back in its rightful place when Lyons and Fahy arrived.
“Well, Mr Weldon, you’ll be pleased to get the place back to normal,” Lyons said.
“I’m not sure it will ever feel the same again to be honest. I can’t get the image of that poor man lying dead in the horsebox out of my mind,” he said.
“It will pass, given time, Mr Weldon, trust me. Thanks for the use of the office and your co-operation. We’ll be moving all this stuff back to Galway tonight, but we will need to talk to you again at some stage,” Lyons said.
“That’s fine. I’ll be around for the next few weeks. It’s quite a busy time for us after the show. I’ll get away to the Canaries for a break after Christmas,” he said.
Lyons asked Sally Fahy to make sure all the paperwork was properly boxed up and said she was off home. She asked the younger detective to arrange a briefing for nine o’clock the following morning in Mill Street.
As Lyons drove back along the N59 towards the city, she was once again taken by the sheer beauty of her surroundings. Late summer was the best time of year for Connemara, she thought, while there was still some modest growth in the hedgerows, and the heathers had come into full bloom. Here and there in the more sheltered parts, wild fuchsia bushes pushed out their bright red, pink and purple trumpet-like blooms, giving the bees a last chance to stock up on nectar before the grey, misty days of winter descended on the countryside. The evening sun was setting gently out to sea, casting long shadows from the distant Twelve Pins on the boggy terrain.
* * *
It was after ten o’clock when Lyons got back to the house she shared with Mick Hays in Salthill. Hays had telephoned her from his hotel in the UK as she drove home, but she only spent a moment talking to him, promising to call him back when she got indoors. When she had changed out of her still damp work clothes into pyjamas – garments rarely used when Mick was at home – and scoffed down some re-heated lasagne from the fridge, she made the call.
She filled him in on the events of the day.
“Cripes Maureen, sounds like you’re up to your neck in it. I’m sorry I’m not there for you. If you like I can cut this short and come home,” Hays said when he heard about the goings on out in Clifden.
“Not at all, you’re grand. We’ll get on top of this tomorrow when I get the team together. It’s about time I learned to stand on my own two feet anyway,” she said, not meaning a word of it. She missed him terribly. Not just for the support he always gave freely in the job, but at a personal level as well. She had spent too many lonely nights before they got together, and she was longing to feel him close beside her as they drifted off to sleep.
“Well this thing finishes up tomorrow just after lunch, and I was planning on doing some sight-seeing in the afternoon. My flight back is the day after at three o’clock. It was the cheapest one on the Ryanair web site,” he said.
“That’s fine. You stick to your plan and we’ll have this nonsense all sewn up by the time you get back, you’ll see. How’s the course going anyway?” Lyons said.
“It was much better today, thank heavens. We got onto some quite advanced stuff about setting up traces on the web, and using mobile phone data that the user doesn’t even know is there, to track people. I bet you didn’t know that every mobile phone in the world is capable of being listened into by the authorities,” Hays said.
“No, I didn’t. Scary stuff,” she said.
“And I’ve met a nice DCI from the local force here. His name is Richard Gibson. He’s going to take me to one of his favourite inns in about half an hour for a few pints and a nice meal. There are some really lovely English pubs in this area,” Hays said.
“Cool. You’ll enjoy that,” she said, “But Mick.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m missing you like crazy, ye big eejit.”
“Nice. But I know what you mean. Me too – lots.”
They said goodnight.
* * *
When Lyons arrived at Mill Street the next morning she brought the team together.
“Right, listen up everybody, we’ve got a busy day ahead,” she said, standing in front of the whiteboard where a photograph of David Ellis had been pinned up.
“By the end of the day, I want to know everything there is to know about David Ellis. John, will you get busy with his laptop? It’s probably password protected, but I’m sure you can get past that easily enough. Search everything that’s on there, and when you need a break from that, look at his Facebook, Snapchat, LinkedIn and any other social media connections you can find. Anything significant, bring it to me at once, don’t wait till the end of the day,” Lyons said.
John O’Connor relished the challenge of breaking into the laptop and uncovering whatever secrets it might reveal. He was quite a nerd when it came to technology, but his skills had proven to be invaluable on several previous cases, and he was quite often consulted by other teams for his technical prowess.
“Sally, I want you to do a deep dive into Oliver Weldon and his famous pony society. There’s something a bit off with him, but go carefully, he has the ear of the superintendent,” Lyons said.
“I’m going to have a look at the other folks who were staying at Ocean View, and see what I can find out about the Gillespies in case there’s anything there,” she said.
“Right, boss” Fahy said.
When the team had dispersed to get started on their assigned tasks, Lyons withdrew to her office.
She started by calling Mrs Curley out at the guesthouse to get the Ashton’s home address, and to find out how much longer they were planning to stay with her. Then she did a search on the web to find out anything she could about them.
Lyons was just getting started when Sinéad Loughran, the forensic team lead, knocked on her door.
“Got a minute, Inspector?” Sinéad said.
“Sure, come in, Sinéad, and it’s Maureen by the way. Grab a seat.”
When Sinéad sat down in front of Lyons’ desk, she produced a plastic evidence bag with a hypodermic syringe inside.
“I did a bit of work on this,” she said, holding the bag up like some kind of trophy.
“It’s interesting. These things are turned out in their millions by a company in Dublin – Dun Laoghaire to be accurate. Each one has a batch number, and from that you can tell what market sector, and where, it’s headed. This one went to the UK to a wholesale distributor near Manchester, and it was made about six weeks ago,” Sinéad said.
“Wow. That’s a lot of information, Sinéad. Well done. So, I wonder if it could have been sent back to Ireland by the distributor, or was it bought in the UK and travelled over with the killer?”
“I didn’t get that far I’m afraid, but I’ll see if I can get any further with it later,” Sinéad said.
“Did you manage to get anything else from the syringe?”
“A bit. There are no prints on it, just smudges. I’d say whoever administered the lethal dose was wearing gloves – perhaps even surgical ones. But I can tell from the smudge pattern that the syringe was held in the right hand, a bit like a dagger,” Sinéad said, holding a pencil in her right hand up over her head inside her clenched fist, “like this.”
“Hmm.
And we know from Dr Dodd that the needle entered Ellis’s neck on the left side, so that means the killer was facing him as he delivered the deadly injection,” Lyons said.
“Yes, and with Ellis unconscious, or partly at least, slumped on the ground from the whack on the head, the killer must have leaned over his prone form to deliver the poison,” Sinéad surmised.
“Are you sure you didn’t miss anything at the scene, Sinéad? A hair on Ellis’s clothes, or a flake of skin or dandruff even – anything we could get a DNA sample from?” Lyons asked.
“I don’t think so, Maureen, but I’ll go over it all again just to make sure. But don’t get your hopes up. My guys are pretty thorough,” she said.
“I know they are, Sinéad, and I don’t mean to imply otherwise, but this one’s a right mystery. We’re going to need some lucky breaks to crack it!”
Chapter Nine
When Lyons had the Ashtons’ UK address, it made her efforts to find out about them on the web a whole lot easier. They were booked in for one more night at Ocean View, and then they were off back to England according to Mrs Curley.
Connemara ponies were not the Ashtons’ main equine interest, it seemed, although they did keep one at their place in Northampton. Their main business was training and breeding thoroughbred horses, and while it appeared that their stables were a modest affair with a license for just six animals in training at any one time, they had chalked up some success about four years ago with a filly called Molly Boru, who had come first in a novice’s handicap at Towcester. Molly Boru had been placed at a few more outings in the UK, but appeared to have faded into obscurity since.
Then Lyons had an idea.
She called Hays’ mobile, which as expected, went through to voicemail.
“Hi Mick, it’s me. Could you call me before you go off sight-seeing today? Thanks, bye.”
She hated leaving messages on those things. She was never certain the person would get the message, but, she supposed, it was better than nothing.
* * *
When Hays called her back, Lyons filled him in with as much detail as she could find on the website about the Ashtons’ operation. She asked him if he would be willing to drive out to their place and have a snoop around to see what he could find out.
“Sure. Give me the postcode and I’ll get a car and drive out there. With them out of the way in Ireland, I’ll have a chance to have a good look around,” he said.
When Hays had finished talking to Lyons, he got a taxi straight into town and hired a car. The course he had been attending was taking place in a splendid old manor house hotel near Dunstable, so at least he wasn’t that far from where the Ashtons had their stables and livery operation between Brixworth and Spratton. He could have used the M1 as far as Northampton and then turned off, but he was in quite a relaxed mood, so he decided to avoid the frenzy of the busy motorway, and took the A5 instead. He drove to Old Stratford, then onto the A508 through Yardley Gobion and Stoke Bruerne, skirting Northampton on the A45 and then on to the A43 past Moulton and Holcot into Brixworth.
As Hays drove along, he was impressed by the tidiness and order of the countryside. Even the smaller A roads all had kerb stones along their edges, and laybys where rural buses could pull in, unlike Ireland where the metalled surface of country roads just bled away into the grass and weeds at the verges.
In late August the countryside was a patchwork of huge brown, green and golden fields. Harvesting of wheat and barley was well underway, and he frequently saw huge machines cutting the ripened grain, throwing up clouds of dust as they filled up their trailers with tons of produce and ejected finished bales of straw at what seemed like a dizzy pace. In other fields, where the crops had already been harvested, enormous flocks of birds fed greedily on the spilled grains, gaining body weight for the winter ahead.
Hays was surprised at the dimensions of the fields he was passing. Each could easily be fifteen or twenty acres in size, unlike the fields he was used to seeing in the west of Ireland which rarely exceeded a single acre, often dotted with rocky limestone outcrops that made the use of machinery impossible. This was farming on an industrial scale, and to make the point, from time to time a large green John Deere tractor came bouncing along the road towards him towing a heavily laden trailer of ripe grain destined for the merchants where it would be weighed and dried before being ground into flour, or malted for brewing.
Soon Hays passed Pitsford Water at the edge of the country park. A cluster of small sailing boats was milling around, presumably a sailing club for children of school-going age enjoying the last of their holidays before returning to lessons in a week’s time. Hays then drove on through the village of Brixworth, a pretty village with houses of bright yellow bricks and many with thatched rooves, but not much commercial activity. The village was dominated by a large church that seemed bigger than would be required by the local community, and Hays assumed it must have some historical significance.
Once he had driven through the village he found himself on the Spratton road, and after just over a mile, exactly as the sat nav had predicted, the gates to Spratton Dale Farm appeared on the left-hand side of the road. It was an impressive entrance, with tall wrought iron gates set at the back of a deep, curved stone wall leading off the road. A “Private Property” sign had been bolted onto the gates through the vertical bars, but thankfully they stood open, allowing Hays to drive in.
The driveway curved around to the left, past a paddock with stud fencing where a chestnut horse grazed lazily in the bright afternoon sunshine.
As the drive straightened out, an expansive brown brick property fronted by neatly trimmed lawns and bright pink hydrangeas revealed itself. It was clearly a barn conversion, and a very expensive one at that. All along the ground floor frontage, large windows set into broad black metal frames provided a view into the spacious lounge and well-equipped kitchen of the house. A substantial porch had been attached to the right-hand side of the property, and beyond it a good-sized annex with a wooden door and three windows came back down along the side of the driveway. The upstairs portion of the house sported four of the same styled windows, although smaller than those below, again set in black metal frames. The pitched slated roof facing down the drive supported an array of solar panels.
To the left of the house the beige gravel driveway led off around the back to where the stable yard was presumably located.
Hays stopped the little rental car in front of the house and got out. He looked carefully in through the downstairs windows but could see no signs of life. He didn’t bother ringing the doorbell, but instead strolled around the back of the house where, as he had anticipated, a large and pristine stable yard was found.
The yard ran parallel to the back of the house, and the stable block stood a good fifty metres back from it. The yard in between was mostly in plain concrete, punctuated here and there with squares of coloured bricks, and several drains. Six loose boxes ran along the stable block with what Hays assumed to be a tack room at the end. The rectangle was completed by a large garage with two sets of double wooden doors, closed and padlocked at the far end of the yard opposite the entrance.
Halfway along the block, the door to one of the stables stood open, and scraping noises could be heard inside.
“Excuse me. Good afternoon,” Hays said to the back of a young man earnestly engaged in mucking out the place.
“Oh, hello,” the young man said turning to face Hays. He was a lad of between nineteen and twenty-two years of age with a mop of curly blonde hair and a ruddy face, dressed in the unofficial uniform of such folks with wellington boots, tan corduroy pants and a sleeveless green quilted jacket on top of a twill shirt.
“Sorry to disturb you. I was looking for Jack Ashton if he’s about,” Hays said.
“I’m sorry, sir, I’m afraid he’s away in Ireland at the Connemara Pony Show. He should be back the day after tomorrow,” the lad said, resting on the fork he had been using.
“Oh, I see. Wha
t’s your name?” Hays said.
“Malcolm. Malcolm Fulton. And you are?”
“Oh, yes, sorry. Michael Hays. I met Mr Ashton at the horse show in Dublin at the start of August, and he said if I was ever in the area to be sure to call in, so here I am,” Hays said, smiling broadly to re-assure the stable boy that he was not a threat.
“I’m sorry, but it looks like you’ve had a wasted journey I’m afraid. Look, I’m just about to take a break, would you like a cup of tea or something?” the boy asked.
“Thanks, that would be great, I’ve been driving for quite a while.”
The two men headed off into the tack room where a tiny kitchenette had been set up in one corner. There was a small stainless-steel sink, a microwave oven, a very small fridge and a kettle. Half a dozen thick earthenware mugs hung from hooks over the sink. As Malcolm brewed the tea, he asked Hays, “What has you in these parts then?”
“I travel a lot with my work. I was doing some business in Dunstable and had the afternoon off, so I thought I’d pop up and see Jack and Alison,” Hays said, improvising. He went on, “Have you worked here long?”
“Yeah. I started here when I were sixteen. I’ve been here five years now, though it doesn’t seem that long. I’m not a bit academic, me. I enjoy the horses and the open air, and I get to go to lots of shows and race meetings. Suits me fine,” Malcolm said, selecting two of the better mugs from the hooks above the sink and retrieving an open glass bottle of milk from the fridge.
“Do they have many horses here then?” Hays said.
“We normally have all the boxes full. But we’ve lost a few lately, so we only have four in training at the moment.”
“Lost a few? Do you mean they went to another yard?” Hays said, pouring a measure of milk into his tea.
“Na, they died didn’t they. Three of them since I’ve been here. Bloody weird if ye ask me, never known the like,” Malcolm said.
“Right, yes, it does seem a bit odd all right. How did they die?”
“Just passed away. Found them dead in the stables in the morning. Jack, Mr Ashton, had post mortems done and all. Vet said they died of a heart attack. Happens sometimes with thoroughbreds it seems, but three in a row is right bad luck,” he said.
The Galway Homicides Box Set 2 Page 5
