Gallows Lane (Inspector Devlin Mystery 2) (17 page)

‘I was wondering how you knew Mr Webb?’ I asked, always reluctant to let the suspect lead the questioning.

‘I didn’t,’ he replied. ‘I knew his wife. She came in here looking for a new car one day a year or so ago and got the kind of ride she was really looking for.’ He leered at us, and I wondered about the mentality of someone who makes a comment like that in front of a female Garda officer and doesn’t realize it will only adversely affect her view of him. But perhaps that was the point; perhaps Decko didn’t really care what Williams or I thought of him. If we had expected him to crumble and confess simply on hearing that we knew of his affair with an – until recently – married woman, we were sadly mistaken.

‘You were having an affair with someone, but didn’t know their husband, Mr O’Kane?’ Williams asked, her voice pitched high enough to convey her disbelief

‘Of course. The whole point of a “clandestine” affair is that no one knows about it. I was hardly going to introduce meself to him, was I?’ He made speech marks with his fingers as he said the word ‘clandestine’, perhaps in order to emphasize the fact that he knew such a word at all. Then he smiled, secure in the knowledge that we were, for all intents and purposes, flailing in the dark.

‘You recognize the name, though?’ I asked.

‘Of course. That’s a different question, isn’t it?’ He smiled insincerely.

‘And you know James Kerr?’ I asked, hoping to see some flicker register in his face. But he didn’t lose a beat.

‘Never heard of him. Someone sleeping with his wife too?’

‘No – someone nailed him to a tree, then knee-capped him with a hammer,’ I retorted. And Decko made his first real mistake.

‘Never heard of him,’ he repeated, which was virtually impossible since the story about an ex-prisoner being crucified in Lifford had made headline news in every paper and television channel from here to Cork. While I could understand his denying knowing the husband of his mistress, Kerr was, as far as we knew, a stranger. Why would Decko need to deny knowing
his
name?

‘We think there might be some link between the two killings, Mr O’Kane. Your name came up in the course of inquiries,’ Williams explained.

‘I wish I could help you,’ Decko said disingenuously, ‘but I don’t know either of the people you’re talking about. Short of extra-marital sex being a crime, I’m no use to you.’

‘Even if extra-marital sex were a crime, sir,’ Williams said, ‘it would be Mrs Webb who’d be convicted, not you. You’re not married, are you, sir?’

‘No – are you asking?’ Decko replied.

‘I think it’s safe to assume I’m not, Mr O’Kane,’ Williams said blankly.

As we left, the young salesman who had met us when we arrived was standing over at the coffee machine with one of his colleagues, a bald, thick-necked man in an oil-stained boiler suit. I waved over towards them, but neither reacted, though they watched us depart in silence.

‘You didn’t like Mr O’Kane, I take it,’ I said to Williams once we got outside.

‘Not much to like, is there?’

‘He obviously has something. Sinead Webb’s a good-looking girl.’

‘She must be desperate,’ Williams snorted. ‘So, he’s lying then.’

‘Absolutely. The only thing is, we don’t know what he’s lying about, because we don’t know what he’s done. Maybe he’s just being obtuse because we’re the police.’

As I drove along the dual carriageway, the car behind indicated to overtake. As it passed us, for a split second, it drifted close to our car, then corrected itself. But that single accidental act was all that was needed.

A whoosh filled my ears and everything ahead of me seemed to recede. My eyes shifted out of focus and as my heart-rate rocketed, I instinctively gripped my wrist, struggling to find a pulse.

Feeling the car sway out of my control, I reacted in such an exaggerated manner that we mounted the pavement, before I corrected our course. Williams was speaking to me, her voice raised and urgent, melding with the blaring horns of the cars behind us and the sound of my heart thudding. I saw, in the near distance, a petrol station and slowed the car as best I could to make the turning.

Pulling into the forecourt, I cut the ignition and opened the door. As soon as I stepped on to the paving and felt the solid ground beneath my feet, the panic subsided slightly and the sense of foreboding began to ease. The sky was a brilliant blue, the air cool under the shade of the garage canopy. I bent double, leaning my arms on my knees, the petrol-heavy air making me light-headed. Then I felt Williams’s hand on the small of my back, rubbing, as my parents had done when I was a child and felt sick. The gesture comforted me, and I straightened myself up. Williams looked how I felt, her face drawn and frightened.

‘Jesus. Are you all right?’ she asked.

‘Sorry, Caroline,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry about that. I’m fine.’

‘What happened?’ she asked, looking out at the road as if the answer lay there. I followed her gaze in time to see some of the cars that had been behind us drive off again slowly, clearly having stopped to vent their road rage before realizing that I was unwell rather than drunk. One of the drivers still blasted his horn and gave me the finger – a gesture I returned.

‘I’m taking these attacks,’ I explained. ‘Panic attacks or something. I’m fine. I just needed to get out of the car.’

Williams looked at me warily. ‘Sit down, and I’ll get you some water,’ she said, then went into the shop.

When she came back, I asked her to drive. As we left Letterkenny, I broke the first beta-blocker out of its foil, gulped it back with a mouthful of the water Williams had bought me, and tried not to acknowledge the look of doubt on her face when she glanced over at me.

On Saturday morning the sky cleared early, and remained cloudless for the day; so much for pathetic fallacy. I stood toeing the edge of the grave while Bardwell said a few last words and James Kerr’s body made its final supine journey.

The undertakers almost outnumbered the mourners; as well as Bardwell and myself, only Kerr’s sister Annie had made the effort to attend her brother’s funeral. His mother and stepfather were unable to make it, she explained with a hint of apology. Her father was nowhere to be found. I had half hoped that Mary Gallagher might have returned, but such romantic notions were misplaced. I don’t know if she even knew that Kerr was dead. Or if she’d even have cared.

After the clay had clattered across the coffin top, Bardwell approached me and shook hands. Then he hugged Annie, a little awkwardly. Clearly they hadn’t met before. I, in turn, offered my sympathies once more and suggested tea and a sandwich at the local café, but she declined, explaining that she had to get back home to Banbridge, or somewhere. ‘I’ll take that sandwich, if it’s going,’ Bardwell said.

We sat outside the café on Lifford main street, across the road from the station, so we could smoke as we talked.

‘Not much of a send-off, was it?’ I said.

‘Jamie didn’t have much of a life,’ Bardwell added. ‘Or a death for that matter.’

I sat quietly and lit a smoke. ‘Who was he going to see that night, Reverend?’

Bardwell held his breath for a second, as if weighing up the question and its potential nuances. Finally he seemed to have decided that, with Kerr dead, whatever Reverend–penitent confidence had existed between them no longer applied.

‘I don’t know any names,’ he said, lighting his own cigarette. ‘He claimed that he never even got to see Webb; when he went to the house, Webb had been arrested. By the time he got a chance to go back, Webb was already dead. But by that point it didn’t matter. He saw one of the gang.’ Bardwell smiled at me as if this revelation would make everything all right; in reality it had done just the opposite.

‘Where?’

‘At Webb’s house,’ he said. ‘Apparently he saw someone in the house with Webb’s wife the night she was arrested. He recognized the features – ’member I told you he said one of them was pimply, or something? Jamie saw his face.’

‘Did he know who it was?’

‘No,’ Bardwell added, wiping his upper arm across his forehead to rub sweat from his eyes. ‘But he said he could find out. He said the man was playing around with Webb’s wife. He forced her into telling him who he was.’

‘Did he tell you the name?’ I asked hopefully. ‘Was it Declan O’Kane? Decko?’ I nodded, as if encouraging him to vindicate my suspicion.

He stared into the middle distance, working the name on his lips, shaping it to see if it fitted. ‘I . . . I can’t remember, to be certain. It might have been. The name was irrelevant to me. All I wanted to know was that Jamie was supported on his mission.’

‘Supported? At some point did you not think to warn him how dangerous this all was? It seems like a fairly stupid thing to do.’

‘James designed his own mission, Inspector. How could I stop a man from doing what he felt was right? What if his soul depended on it and I had stood in his way? Where would that have left me?’

‘Facing an armed gang with only forgiveness as a weapon seems like a fairly one-sided affair to me.’

‘Our Lord Jesus did it.’

‘And look what happened to Him,’ I said, regretting it as I spoke.

‘Yes. I seem to remember he won,’ Bardwell replied. ‘Besides, Inspector, I haven’t seen Jamie since he left us to come here. You on the other hand didn’t just fail to stop him from his mission – I believe you gave him money to keep him going!’

I nodded slightly. ‘Point taken,’ I said, getting up to leave.

‘For what it’s worth, I think you did the right thing. James’s path was planned by something beyond both of us.’

‘It’s not enough, Benedict,’ Costello said when I told him what Bardwell had said about O’Kane. ‘We can’t lift him based on that. It’s third-hand testimony of a dead man who doesn’t even name O’Kane. A pimply face? That would indict most of the adolescents in the county.’

‘It can’t be just coincidence, sir,’ I argued, though I knew he was right.

‘I know,’ he said, ‘but it’s also not enough for an arrest.’

We were standing in his back garden. I had driven straight to see him after leaving Bardwell. I felt a little out of place, on a scorching Saturday afternoon dressed in a black suit, while Costello stood in cords and a white shirt, weeding the caked flower-beds which had once been the pride of his wife. Costello too seemed a little incongruous, his thick, stubby fingers grasping the heat-withered weeds, their stalks brittle in his hands.

‘Is this a weed or a flower?’ he asked, ripping the dead roots out of the ground. Then he threw it on to the clay. ‘Damn it, I can’t do this,’ he spat, struggling to his feet. ‘What the hell am I meant to do for the rest of me days? Pick flowers? Damn it! Damn it!’ he repeated, stamping his foot like a spoilt child.

I looked at him, speechless, unable to offer any consolation, and saw again a lonely old man, facing an uncertain future. ‘I’m sorry to have bothered you, sir,’ I said, turning to leave.

He raised his hand to stop me. ‘Sorry, Ben, I’m having a bit of difficulty adjusting to the idea of retirement,’ he explained unnecessarily. ‘What can I do for you?’ He gripped my elbow as we walked, more, I thought, to steady himself than to guide me.

I explained again the situation with Decko and he gestured halfway through to show that he understood. ‘You need evidence, Ben. Something tangible that links him with Kerr. If you’ve got that, we can bring him in and take a sample for comparisons.’

‘Evidence has a nasty habit of not always being where you need it to be, sir,’ I said.

He smiled at me. ‘Indeed it does, Benedict. Indeed it does.’

We walked towards the driveway where I had parked my car. ‘The Purdy girl got out of hospital. Letterkenny officers are taking her to that club tonight, to see if she recognizes anyone – or if anyone recognizes her. You might want to take a drive over, see what’s happening.’

‘Yes sir,’ I said. ‘I’ll try my best.’

‘If you’re in the area anyway, like,’ he added. Finally he let go of my elbow. ‘So, what are you going to say to this crowd on Monday?’

‘The interview? I don’t know.’

‘That Powell woman seems to have it in for you, boyo,’ he said. ‘Whatever reason she has for that.’ His eyes twinkled with good humour.

‘What about the NBCI, sir? Are they being brought in?’ I asked, turning to face Costello.

His expression sobered quickly and he nodded. ‘We have to, Benedict, you know that. Even if things were moving along, you can’t hide young fellas being crucified off trees.’ He placed his hand on my forearm. ‘It’s not a reflection on you, Ben. Look at it that they’re here to help us. Use them.’ He started walking again. ‘God knows, they might find some piece of evidence we’ve missed. Eh?’ His eyes squinted so narrow they were almost shut against the sunlight, making it impossible for me to say for certain that he winked at me as he spoke.

The heat of the day had not dissipated by evening and in fact the sky, though now darkened, seemed to have held the heat in its grasp, tightening and sweating into a humid evening that promised thunder before dawn.

I wound the window right down as I drove, both to keep the smell of smoke out of the car, in deference to Debs – and to alleviate the stickiness which was making me sweat. The opened window didn’t really help with either.

On the dual carriageway to Letterkenny, I questioned once more the wisdom of what I was about to do. The town lights flickered in the middle distance, the far-away church spire puncturing the red-tipped clouds that hung above the horizon.

Beside me on the passenger seat, weighed down by my cigarette packet to ensure it didn’t blow out of the window, lay the religious tract Kerr had left in my car on the day we first met; one of the many he had carried around the borderlands in his canvas bag.

Decko O’Kane lived on the Lifford Road out of Letterkenny, about a quarter of a mile from his car dealership. I knew that much. As for the rest, I hadn’t really thought it out. If I got as far as his house, unseen, I figured the rest would fall into place. If I’m honest, I didn’t really believe that I was going to go through with it anyway.