Murder at the Holiday Home

by David Pearson

  “But I shouldn’t take it out on you – sorry.”

  “That’s fine, don’t worry about it. And by the way, I am working on your extra sergeant. I’ve been looking for a bloke to put in there, but all I keep getting is highly talented and very pretty young female officers. It’s not great for the gender balance.”

  “You just don’t want us to have another hunky young Garda to fight over on the team. I have Sally here in the car beside me, and she’s already thinking about a transfer to some all-male unit in the force!”

  “Well, I’ll see what I can do, but you may have to settle for yet another female. I’ll talk to you later about it.”

  “OK. Thanks, Mick. See ya later, and I’m sorry again for losing it with you,” Lyons said.

  “All forgotten. See ya.”

  “God, you two are so good together. How do you manage it?” Fahy said when Lyons had finished the call.

  “I know – it’s mad. It really should be a disaster, but somehow it works really well for both of us. We spar a bit occasionally – but that’s just me – I can be a cranky bitch at times.”

  “Hmmm, I’m saying nothing, boss.”

  “So, what would you think about another woman joining us?” Lyons said.

  “Doesn’t bother me as long as she’s good at her job. To be honest, I’d nearly prefer it. Another bloke full of testosterone would only be a distraction, and office romances definitely don’t work for me.”

  “Oh, so you’ve tried it then?” Lyons said.

  “Not really. The occasional fumble after a night out is all – didn’t amount to anything, and I wouldn’t want it to.”

  “And who, might I ask, was your fellow fumbler?” Lyons said smiling.

  “That’s classified information, boss, sorry.”

  “Hmmm – well, I could guess, but maybe I’d better not. Look, we’re just here,” she said as they turned into Owen Glen and parked the car on the grass verge.

  Chapter Nine

  Sally Fahy walked down to the garage where the keys to number 22, along with Agnes Greely’s car key, had been handed in. She found Martin stacking the shelves with new stock.

  After she had introduced herself, she asked about the person who handed in the keys.

  “Oh, right. That was Dinny McHugh, the postman. He said he just found them at the side of the road so he brought them here,” Martin said.

  “Can you remember what time this was?” Fahy said.

  “It was just as we were opening up at nine. Dinny cycles out this far with the post every day. Anything further out is delivered in the van, but he comes out as far as the Glen on his bike, unless the weather is awful. He usually has a cup of tea with us before heading back into town.”

  “Thanks. That’s useful. I think I’ll go into Clifden and see if he’s still around. Thanks again.”

  Fahy walked back to where Lyons appeared to be just standing around, but she knew better than to challenge her boss. Lyons’ instinct for detection in these situations was legendry. She had been instrumental in solving some of the team’s trickiest cases just by soaking up the atmosphere near the location of a crime scene and waiting for inspiration.

  After a few minutes, she spoke to her colleague.

  “Well, anything?”

  Fahy explained that she wanted to go into town and seek out Dinny the postman to ask him about the keys, so Lyons told her to take the car.

  “I’ll wait for you here, Sally. But don’t be too long, and it would be great if you could bring me back a coffee,” Lyons said handing over the keys of her car.

  “Sure, no worries. See you shortly,” Fahy said.

  When Sally Fahy had left in Lyons’ car, Lyons walked all around the house where Maria Geller had lost her life so brutally. The property was still cordoned off with blue and white crime scene tape, and the front door had been crudely shored up with a batten across the front to deter anyone from getting in. As she turned the corner to walk along the back of the property, she saw that the kitchen window was open, and blowing gently in the breeze. This wasn’t right. The last time she had been in the house, the back windows were all closed. Lyons walked over to the window and saw that the glass was broken.

  Lyons wasn’t tall enough to see right into the house, but standing on tip-toes and holding onto the window frame with her gloved hand, she could see that the glass from the window was scattered on the worktop and the floor, so the window had been smashed from outside. She looked around for something she could stand on to enable her to see in properly. At the back of the next-door property, there was a discarded plastic bottle crate. She went and retrieved it, and placing it underneath the kitchen window of number 22, she stood rather unsteadily on it, and looked in. The kitchen was a terrible mess. Everything had been pulled out of the cupboards and drawers and lay strewn all around. The oven stood open, with the trays and racks pulled out, and the fridge was similarly left open, with the motor purring away in a vain attempt to keep it to the desired four degrees. From her vantage point standing on the crate, Lyons could see that the rest of the house was a mess too. Upturned furniture and cushions were thrown every which way on the floor, and books and magazines joined in to create a chaotic scene.

  Lyons got on the phone at once to Sinéad Loughran, team leader of the forensic unit attached to the Galway Detective Unit.

  “Hi Sinéad, it’s Maureen. I’m out here at Owen Glen. The house has been broken into, and it’s been done over. I need you to come out with a few of your guys to do a thorough inspection of the place, see if we can get any prints or other evidence that might tell us who did this and why. Can you drop everything right now?”

  “Hi, Maureen. Yes, that’s not a problem. Give me forty-five minutes and I’ll be with you. I’ll bring two of the guys with me as well. Don’t go in, will you, unless you already have?” Loughran said.

  “No, that’s OK. I’ll wait outside till you get here.”

  As Lyons finished the call to Galway, Sally Fahy arrived back having had a brief chat with Dinny the postman. Lyons explained what she had discovered and said that the forensic team were on their way out.

  “What did the postman have to say?” she asked her colleague.

  “He says he just found the keys at the side of the road when he was out delivering mail to Owen Glen. It was quite early, and there was no traffic around at all. He says he didn’t find anything else – just the keys,” Fahy said.

  “Damn. This case is really getting me down, Sally. God knows what will happen next. Let’s sit in the car and wait for Sinéad.”

  * * *

  Loughran had obviously put the boot down on the drive out from the city. It seemed no time at all before her big white 4x4 was pulling up beside Lyons’ new Volvo outside number 22.

  “Hi, Sinéad. That was quick,” Lyons greeted the girl as they all got out of their vehicles.

  “Hi, Maureen, Sally. So, what’s the story?” Loughran said as she clambered into her white scene of crime suit.

  Lyons explained what she had found at the back of the house.

  “OK. Well, we’ll need a shoe print from your shoes to eliminate them, and best if you stay clear of the house till I put down some of these yellow plates for us all to walk on,” Loughran said, in a business-like tone.

  “Fine,” Lyons replied.

  One of the other members of the forensic team came across to Lyons and asked her to tread on a rectangular pad that would capture an imprint of her shoes. Another member of the team was placing bright yellow plastic ‘stepping stones’ leading up to the front door, and all around the cottage to the back where the broken window was located.

  The team made short work of getting into the house through the front, and then they disappeared inside. As Loughran entered, she turned to Lyons and said, “I’ll give you a shout when it’s clear to come in. We just need a few minutes to see what we can find first.”

  “Fine, that’s grand,” Lyons said, feeling rather surplus to requirements, and s
he and Fahy sat back into the Volvo.

  “Sally, can you knock on a few doors – see if anyone’s home, and if they heard or saw anything, anything at all while this was going on. I’ll give Séan Mulholland a call and see if he knows anything.”

  Fahy went off around the neighbouring houses knocking on doors, but very few of the properties were occupied, and even those that exhibited some signs of inhabitancy were deserted. Presumably the people staying there were taking advantage of the good weather to do day trips or go into Clifden for a mooch around.

  Lyons’ call to Sergeant Séan Mulholland proved to be equally fruitless.

  “We’ve no record of anything out there since the murder, Maureen. Do you want me to send a man out to ye?” he asked.

  “Nah. It’s a bit late for that, Séan. It’s been rightly done over. Was anyone supposed to be keeping an eye on it?”

  “No, we weren’t. Sure, wasn’t the place empty after the poor woman was taken away? We just saw to it that it was closed up properly, and left it at that.”

  “Well, someone obviously thought it was worth breaking into. We’ll let you know when we’re leaving, and then maybe you should send a man out to make sure it’s secured properly. It would be no harm to send a patrol car around the estate a few times at night too, if you have the resources, Séan.”

  “Right. I’ll arrange that so. Talk to you later.”

  Loughran appeared at the door and beckoned Lyons into the house. Being careful to step on the yellow slabs that had been put down, Lyons made her way into the hall, and down to the kitchen where Loughran was now bent down, picking up packets and tins of food from the floor. Another member of the team was busy dusting the broken window frame, and Lyons noticed that the door jambs were now covered in the light grey powder that the forensic team used to detect finger and palm prints.

  As Loughran picked up a box of cornflakes, she said, “That’s odd – this is much heavier than it should be.”

  She looked inside the box, and slowly withdrew the half-full opaque plastic bag that had been scrunched up to keep the cornflakes fresh. She put the cereal down beside her on the floor and stood up.

  “Wow! Have a look at this!”

  Lyons was now fully attentive, and stood beside Sinéad Loughran as they both peered into the cardboard container. In the bottom of the box, they could clearly see a collection of gold objects shining up at them.

  “Nice one, Sinéad. Gives a whole new meaning to the tag line ‘golden flakes of corn’, doesn’t it?” Lyons said.

  Loughran carefully tipped the contents of the box out onto the counter top. There were a number of gold ingots – just like the one that Maria Geller had been clutching in her dead fist when they found her, but a bit bigger – two gold gate bracelets, and a gold chain about half a metre long.

  Loughran addressed one of her assistants.

  “Shane, could you pop out to the jeep and bring me the scales? You’ll find it in the compartment under the front passenger’s seat. Thanks.”

  “Right, boss,” the man said.

  He was back a minute later with a small electronic scale which Loughran used to weight the gold.

  “Crickey! There’s almost a kilo here. I wonder what that’s worth?” Loughran said.

  “Well, it’s about €40 a gram, so that lot must be close to €40,000 give or take. But how the hell did whoever broke in not find it?” Lyons said.

  “That’s easy. Hidden in plain sight – the oldest trick in the book. I’ve seen that lots of times before. Anyway, best get this bagged up and back into town. Get a good look at it. There may be some useful trace evidence on it.”

  “So, you’re not going straight to the travel agent for a one-way ticket to South America then?” Lyons quipped.

  “Not this week, Maureen. Too much work on!”

  * * *

  When Lyons got back to the office, there was a message for her to call Luuk Janssen. She placed the call, and discovered that he was already booked on a flight to Dublin later that evening, and would be in Galway before the night was out.

  “I was wondering if you could recommend a hotel that is near your police station, Inspector?” the Dutchman said.

  “Well, we usually use the Imperial on Eyre Square. It’s very central, and close to the railway station too. Would you like me to make a reservation for you?” Lyons asked.

  “Ah, yes, I am seeing it here on Google maps. No, thank you. It’s fine. My office will book me in. How will I find your police station tomorrow morning?”

  “That’s no problem. I’ll send a car to pick you up at, say, 8:45. Is that OK?” Lyons said.

  “Yes, that would be perfect. Thank you. See you then.”

  When Lyons had finished the call with Luke Janssen she went out into the open plan and told the rest of the group about the find out in Owen Glen.

  “The trouble is, I’m not sure if it gets us any further along. Great that Sinéad located the loot, but it doesn’t help to explain Geller’s murder, except maybe to provide a motive. But even at that, wouldn’t the killer have taken the gold if he could? It doesn’t make sense to me. In fact, very little of this case makes any sense. Has anyone else got anything useful?” Lyons said.

  John O’Connor spoke.

  “This may be something and nothing, boss. I had a browse through the ‘for sale’ ads on ClassicClassifieds.ie just to see if there were any phones that have been put up in the last few days that might be Geller’s. I concentrated on the Galway ads and we found three or four. Mary called them, and one might be a bit promising. It was a foreign bloke, and he sounded a bit shifty. He had a laptop for sale too, but didn’t seem to know much about it although he said it was his,” O’Connor said.

  “Sounds promising. What’s he looking for the phone?”

  “He’s asking €300, but I’m sure we could beat him down a bit. Shall I get Mary to try and buy it?”

  “Yes, OK. But try and arrange for Mary to collect it at his address, and get her to take Liam along too. He can pretend to be her boyfriend. Get them to have a good look round when they are there – see what they can observe. This may not be connected, but it’s worth a try, and €300 shouldn’t break the department’s budget. Oh, and good work, John. Let’s hope it pans out. Did you get a name?”

  “Says he’s Matis Vitkus, but that could be made up.”

  “OK, but I’ll look him up on Europol just in case. Let me know how it goes.”

  Chapter Ten

  Janssen was shown into Lyons’ office the following morning just after 9 a.m. He was a slim man, probably in his late forties, with a good head of hair going silver in colour and a rugged face. He stood at five foot eleven or thereabouts, and was dressed smartly but casually in navy slacks, a dark blue polo shirt and a tan leather jacket. Lyons noticed that he had good quality black leather shoes. She liked men who wore good shoes.

  “Good morning, Inspector,” Janssen said, extending his hand for a firm handshake, “it’s good to meet you.”

  “Yes, likewise. Come in, take a seat. May I get you a coffee?”

  “No thank you, I have just had an amazing breakfast at the hotel, though to be honest, the coffee was a bit weak. In Utrecht we take triple espresso.”

  “Well, maybe later. So, what can you tell us about Maria Geller?” Lyons said.

  “It’s a long and complex story, Inspector, and there are still several pieces of the jigsaw missing, which is one of the reasons why I have come to your beautiful country.”

  “Would you mind if I brought another officer in to hear whatever you have to say?” Lyons said.

  “Of course not, and maybe later we could see about talking to your full team?”

  “Yes, well, let’s see how it goes. I’ll fetch Inspector Eamon Flynn in for now.”

  Lyons didn’t like the idea of Janssen addressing the entire team. He was, after all, just an observer as far as the Gardaí were concerned, and she didn’t want him taking over. But neither did she want to put him
off telling them everything that he knew about the ill-fated Maria Geller. She summoned Flynn to join them in her office.

  When the introductions had been made, Janssen told his story.

  “We believe Maria Geller was involved with a criminal gang who appear to be operating out of Eastern Europe – quite possibly Lithuania. And it seems they have connections further east as well, almost certainly into China. It’s all based around stolen gold – or maybe it would be more accurate to say recycled stolen gold,” Janssen said.

  “Sorry, Inspector, I don’t understand. Recycled?” Flynn said.

  “Yes. I’ll explain. Since the near collapse of the banking system in Europe, many people don’t trust banks to look after their wealth. And with all the new disclosure regulation, it’s very hard for the criminal classes to use institutions any longer. So, gold has become once again a safe haven for citizens and criminals alike, especially where hot money is concerned.”

  “Yes, I would agree. One of the local jewellers here in Galway has told us that they sell quite a lot of gold in the form of small ingots now. But who has enough ‘hot money’, as you call it, to buy loads of gold?” Lyons said.

  “You would be surprised. Anyone who runs a largely cash business. Owners of public houses and bars; restaurants; shops; night clubs – and even the guy who comes to repair your house, or clean your windows,” Janssen said.

  “But surely they can’t skim enough off the top to buy gold?” Flynn said.

  “Last year, we arrested a washing machine repair man in Arnhem who was making €250,000 and only declaring €80,000 for tax. And there are many like this who can’t afford to be seen banking large amounts. A lot of the gold is bought over the internet, and this is where it gets interesting. As far as we can tell, when people buy the stuff – which is perfectly fine metal, no issue there – the company that sells the bars is passing the names and addresses of the buyers to criminal gangs. These gangs then steal the gold back from the original purchasers and return it to the sellers at a steep discount, and it is then re-sold,” Janssen said.