Fahy had picked up Joe Mason and Brutus as instructed, and the three of them were concealed in the old broken-down shed adjacent to the ruined cottage. Mason had instructed the dog to be silent, and it was clear that the dog understood the command, for he made not a sound. The tin roof on the shed had largely blown away in the wind, and the breeze whistled through the place, making it uncomfortable for them. The rest of the team were hidden at various points along the narrow cart track that led down from the road. The track forked here and there, affording access to the old famine homesteads that were now in ruin, or had disappeared altogether. The tiny houses had been constructed by placing rocks on top of one another by destitute families in the mid-nineteenth century when the potato crop had failed, and they had moved to the coast in the hope of feeding themselves on fish and even seaweed. It had been a bleak time in Irish history.
While Sally Fahy and Joe Mason could hear nothing but the birds tweeting in the marshy ground surrounding them, Brutus suddenly pricked up his ears, whimpered quietly, and looked at Mason intently as if seeking instructions, but the Gardaí could still hear nothing.
A few minutes later, Brutus stood up and became quite agitated, again whining softly and almost begging his handler to come with him. The two Gardaí listened intently, but the sound of the wind blotted out almost everything, and they could decipher no noise of interest. Then, suddenly they heard the sound of rocks falling to the ground from inside the nearby ruin as Chapman retrieved the bag from the chimney of the old house.
“All units. All units. He’s here. At the cottage. Hurry up, we need backup,” Fahy shouted into her radio.
The three of them left their hiding place and sprinted towards the cottage. They were just in time to see the back of Peter Chapman running towards the sea clutching the red sports bag that Mulholland had left there previously.
They shouted at the fleeing form, “Stop, police, you’re under arrest,” but the fugitive took no notice and just kept running towards the shore. There, he hopped into a small open wooden boat, untied it from the rock it was moored on, and made off under the power of an outboard motor.
“Shit. He’s got a boat. He’s getting away,” Sally Fahy screamed into the radio as Brutus scampered to the shoreline barking fiercely. He would have gone into the sea to try and swim to the little blue boat if Mason hadn’t held him back with a taut lead.
Flynn and Lyons raced down the track to the shore, just in time to see Chapman disappear around a rocky outcrop, with the outboard motor on full throttle belching out a cloud of blue smoke.
“Shit, shit, shit. He must have guessed it was a trap. He’s made us look like right eejits now, hasn’t he?” Lyons said.
“Eamon, get onto Pascal. Get him to find out whose boat that is and where it came from. He must have a getaway plan,” Lyons said.
Lyons then got on the phone to Mick Hays and told him what had happened. To say he wasn’t best pleased would be an understatement. When Lyons had hung up, he thought about the situation for a moment, then lifted the phone.
“Hi, John, this is Mick. How’s things?”
John Lambert was the coxswain of the Clifden lifeboat. He was also a member of the same sailing club as Hays, and had often acted as crew when Hays had made longer forays out beyond the shelter of land in the Folkboat.
When Hays explained the situation, Lambert responded just as Hays had hoped he would.
“OK. We’ll turn out. He’s in an open boat, and the wind is freshening. He could be in danger. It’ll take us about forty-five minutes to get around there. Have you a marine radio with you?” Lambert said.
“No. But I can get one of my folks out at the site to get hold of one. Inspector Lyons is leading out there,” Hays said.
“Right. I’ll get going now so, talk to you later,” Lambert said, and as he finished the call, Hays could hear the whoop of the alarm that would summon the crew of the lifeboat.
Ten minutes later, the lifeboat was launched with four crew on board. It headed out in a south westerly direction, across Mannin Bay towards Murvey. The sea was indeed getting up, and as they rounded the peninsula, slipping through between the many small islands, and on past Joyce’s Sound, metre high waves crashed into the bow of the boat sending spray high into the air and over the bright orange superstructure.
Lyons had sent Sally Fahy off to get a portable marine radio, and twenty minutes later she returned to the spot where Chapman had tricked them armed with a fully charged Garmin marine portable.
“The man that gave it to me said the lifeboat will be on channel sixteen,” Sally said, handing the radio to Lyons.
Lyons twisted the dial until the little red numbers on the display screen read ‘16’. She pressed the transmit button on the side of the unit, “Lyons to Clifden lifeboat, do you read me?”
Lambert came back at once, “Yes, Inspector, please switch to working channel forty-four, over.”
When they had synchronized communications, Lambert said, “We are just coming around into Ballyconneely Bay now. Where do you think your man is headed? Over.”
“Probably back towards Roundstone. That’s where he hired the boat, over.”
“It’s getting pretty choppy out here for an open boat. If he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he could be in trouble. We’ll head over in that direction and see what we can find. Keep this channel open, over.”
“Roger, over,” said Lyons, getting the hang of the jargon.
As she stood on the shore, Lyons could see the bright orange topside of the lifeboat ploughing its way across her view from right to left. The sea had gone an ugly green colour, and white horses were breaking on the tops of the waves which now crashed to the shore with an unwelcoming roar.
Ten minutes passed with no further word from the lifeboat, then Lambert was back on the radio.
“We have sight of a blue and white open boat about five minutes away further east. It appears to be drifting. It keeps disappearing in the troughs of the waves, over,” Lambert said.
“That sounds like our man. Right colour of boat anyway. Call me when you’re alongside, over.”
A few minutes later, Lyons’ radio crackled into life again.
“We’re alongside now, Inspector. No sign of anyone on board, and the engine’s not running. I’m going to put a man on the boat. We’ll need to search for the person who was helming it. Over,” Lambert said.
Lambert got one of his men on board the small boat. It was empty, except for a red sports bag and the fuel tank, which was completely dry.
“Looks like he ran out of fuel and started drifting out to sea. The current runs quite hard here, especially with the tide going out. He may have thought he could swim to shore. We’ll go in close to the rocks, see if we can find him. I’ll give Padraig some fuel for the boat, and we’ll bring it back into Roundstone. Over,” Lambert said.
“Thanks, John. We’ll go and meet Padraig with the boat, there may be some forensics in it for us. Let me know if you find him. Over,” Lyons said.
“Will do, over and out.”
Padraig steered the little boat back towards the harbour at Roundstone. It was a difficult journey with the waves getting ever bigger and the small outboard engine struggling against the tide, but Padraig was well used to such situations, and it wasn’t long before he rounded the harbour wall, his oilskins dripping with sea spray, much to the relief of its owner who had feared the worst.
“I told the beggar not to rev the engine hard. When you do that, it drinks fuel. No wonder he ran out. Any sign of him?” the weather-beaten old man asked.
“Not yet, but the lifeboat is still looking,” Lyons said.
“Ah they’ll not find him today. Once the sea has him, with the wind and the current out there, he’ll be washed away. Ye’ll get him tomorrow out by Gurteen, wait till you see. Poor beggar,” the old man said.
The lifeboat stood down after searching without success for three hours. Lambert informed Lyons, and she thanked them for their help
. Sally was sent off with Padraig to drive him back into Clifden and re-join the rest of the crew.
Chapter Twenty-five
Lyons and Fahy stayed out in Roundstone overnight. They booked into The Roundstone House Hotel, known for its excellent cuisine, and over dinner Maureen used the opportunity to probe the younger officer about her newly acquired career.
“How are you finding it – being a Detective Garda I mean?” Lyons said between courses.
“It’s going well, for me anyway. I haven’t had any negatives at all yet, and the team all seem really nice. I don’t know if I’m doing any good though, it’s hard to tell,” the younger officer said.
“That’s our fault, Sally. We should be providing more feedback. But you have fitted in so well, we kind of treat you as one of the guys. It’s silly to make assumptions. I’ll talk to Mick and see if we can’t improve a bit. You’re enjoying it anyway?” Lyons said.
“Oh yes. Of course there are some times when you’d rather be somewhere else, like when we have to deal with a bad road accident, or even on this case, when the boy was found dead in the boot of the car, but I’m learning to be more detached. I’ll be fine,” Fahy said.
“I know what you mean. Some of those things still get to me too, but you just have to stay objective. I know it’s not easy. How’s the love life?” Lyons said, changing the subject rather abruptly.
“Oh, you know. I’ve been going out with Kevin for nearly three months now. We get along grand, but he’s not very exciting. We always do the same things – the pub, his place, sometimes a meal out at the weekend. He’s kind though, I guess that’s something,” Fahy said.
“Something, but not enough. How is he in bed?”
“Jesus, boss, you’ll be asking me for photographs next!”
Lyons raised her eyebrows in a questioning way.
“OK. Not that good to be honest. Like most guys, he’s more interested in his own gratification than mine, and that’s all I’m saying. What about you and Mick?” Fahy asked. She felt she had been given license to enquire as Lyons had been so forthright.
“It’s going well. But sometimes I feel he still thinks of me as the junior officer, even at home. I know he has loads more experience than me, but I fought hard to get to where I am, and I’m not a bad cop.”
“That’s for sure. And you’re tough too – look at that business with McFadden. Most Gardaí, never mind a woman, would have just surrendered to him,” Fahy said.
“Not bloody likely, the little toe-rag. Anyway, I rather enjoyed bashing him in the nuts!”
They both laughed.
“And what about you and Mick in the sack?” Fahy went on shamelessly.
“That’s great. We’ve always been good together. I just wish he would treat me more as his equal in work. That’s really why I went for Inspector you know. I didn’t want the higher post, but I felt as long as we were of equal rank, he’d have to treat me differently. But don’t worry, I’m working on it.”
Just then the waitress came with their next course and they tucked into the delicious food, tasting all the better as it was at the taxpayers’ expense.
* * *
Just as the old timer had predicted, the body of Peter Chapman was washed up on the shore at the outer edge of Gurteen Bay the following morning. The body had been found by another old man who was out with his dog tending to a few scrawny sheep.
The wind had dropped and the sea was now calm, so Chapman’s corpse made an incongruous sight lying twisted and bloated on the white sand, the waves gently tickling his feet.
Garda Pascal Brosnan found the two detectives at breakfast in the hotel as he sought them out to break the news.
“The old man was right,” Lyons said.
“He was, to be sure. That man knows every inch of those waters personally, and unlike your man, he knows how to respect the sea,” Brosnan said.
They didn’t bother to get Dr Dodd out to the body. It was clear that he had drowned, so an ambulance was summoned to bring the body back into Galway where Dodd could perform the PM.
When Lyons called the doctor to tell him that it was on its way, he said, “Ah, that’s better. A delivery service at last. Thank you, Inspector.”
The detectives got back into Galway at midday. The mood was sombre. The case had been one big cock up from the start. There were three dead, and although they had two in custody, the main conspirator was one of the deceased. When Lyons walked dejectedly into Hays’ office he said, “You look as if you have won the Lotto and lost the ticket.”
“Ha, very funny. Jesus, Mick, this whole thing has been a major cluster fuck from the off. I can see me back on traffic duty before the weekend,” she said.
“Not at all girl, don’t be so maudlin. Plunkett’s happy enough to have the whole thing cleared up. He’s taken the view that the crime was really an English matter, just acted out on our turf, a bit like the Battle of the Boyne! And McFadden will go away for a good stretch, so it’s not all bad,” Hays said.
“After lunch we’ll go and have another go at Eddie. With Chapman out of the way he’ll tell us what’s what to try and save his own neck, wait till you see,” Hays said.
* * *
Eddie Turner was in a bad mood.
“You lot can’t keep me locked up in here like this. I know my rights. I’ll do you for false imprisonment – bloody Paddies,” he ranted on.
Hays and Lyons let him vent. When he had exhausted the expletives, Hays cut in, “Right, Eddie. We thought we should bring you up to date with developments. This morning your partner in crime, Peter Chapman, was washed up on the shore out near Roundstone. It turns out he wasn’t a seafaring man.”
“That’s nonsense. It’s a trick. You’ll not catch me out that easily,” Turner said.
Lyons reached for her phone and loaded the photographs she had taken that morning out at Gurteen. She turned the phone around and held it up in front of Turner’s face.
“No tricks, Eddie. Just another dead body for us to deal with,” she said.
“Jesus Christ. How the hell did that happen?” Turner said, looking away quickly from the gruesome picture.
Lyons went on to explain the events that had led to the demise of Peter Chapman.
“That’s not the first unsuspecting amateur the sea has taken out that way, and I dare say it won’t be the last. The idiot didn’t even have a life jacket,” Hays said.
“So now, Eddie,” he went on, “if you want to get out of here, it’s time for you to tell us what’s behind this whole ugly mess.”
“What’s in it for me?” Turner said.
“If you tell us all you know, Eddie, we’ll see what we can do. No promises mind, let’s see what you have first,” Lyons said.
“OK. Well with Chapman dead, I should be able to hold onto all my fingers at least. You know old man Craigue used to work for Chapman’s father in London back in the 1980s?” Turner said.
“Yes, he told us that,” Lyons said.
“Well he left Chapman’s firm and set up his own printing firm, kinda in competition see. Then, one by one, he picked off his old boss’ customers by offering them cheap deals. Chapman’s business went downhill, and after a while he had to turn to some dodgy stuff just to keep the place going,” Turner said.
“What sort of dodgy stuff?” Hays said.
“Oh, you know, a bit of forgery here and there, labels, boxes for some of the boys up the West End that flog horse piss in Chanel No. 5 bottles, that sort of thing. Then he branched out into iffy tenners. They were good too – better than the real thing, some said. For a while he was the best in London, and he wasn’t short of work. He used a team of runners to take the notes off to places like Benidorm and Majorca and change them in the foreign exchange shops, then bring the Pesetas back to the UK and swap them back for real money. At one stage he was clearing twenty grand a week,” Turner said.
“Then his son Peter came into the business. Peter was a mad bastard. No fear. Thought he was invincib
le. He got in with a really bad crowd and before long they owned him. He wanted out. He was going to move to Spain, get away from the whole scene. Buy a little hacienda up in the hills somewhere, but he needed capital,” Turner said.
“So, he thought Bernard Craigue would be a soft touch,” Lyons said.
“He knew Craigue had sold his business for a good wedge. And he knew all about the lad, and the fact that they had bought a place out here. Anyway, he reckoned Craigue owed him for taking his father’s business, so he asked me to help him set it up. No one was supposed to get hurt. All we was going to do was keep the boy in a rented house till we had the ransom and then let him go. Easy money, and Craigue wouldn’t have even missed a hundred grand. I sussed out McFadden in Galway and he looked like a likely lad, and he had that good-looking chick with him – perfect. Pity I didn’t know he couldn’t drive proper,” Turner said.
“And what were you going to get out of it?” Lyons said.
“Ten grand, and I had to give the driver and his girl a grand out of that,” Turner said.
“So, what’s going to happen to me now?” Turner said.
“We’re going to talk to the superintendent, see what he wants to do with you,” Hays said.
* * *
When Hays got back to his desk there was a message there for him to call Dr Julian Dodd.
“Can you deal with the good doctor, Maureen, I need to go and see Plunkett?” Hays said.
“Yeah, sure. I’ll call him now.”
“Well, Doc. Mick asked me to give you a call, he’s with the superintendent,” Lyons said.
“Ah, Inspector. It’s just about the body you sent me in this morning. Very straightforward. Lungs full of the Atlantic Ocean I’m afraid. No unexpected marks or trauma – he was in pretty good shape till he went swimming. I’ll keep him here till you can arrange something.”
“OK, Doc, thanks.”
* * *
Superintendent Plunkett was in a relatively good mood.
“Ah, Mick. Come in, take a seat. I hear you pulled another body out of the sea over this kidnapping thing.”
The Galway Homicides Box Set Page 41
