Gallows Lane (Inspector Devlin Mystery 2) (20 page)

‘Doherty,’ I corrected. ‘Karen Doherty.’

‘Sure, Doherty. Sorry,’ he said. ‘You okay with that division?’ Before I had a chance to answer, he continued, ‘Of course, we’re not here to step on anyone’s toes. Think of us as an extra resource.’

‘Okay,’ I said.

‘In fact, we can get moving fairly quick. Caroline also tells us an anonymous tip was phoned in this morning. Someone claims to have seen Kerr in a car with this O’Kane character who was bonking Webb’s wife. Seems like a good place to start.’

‘Absolutely,’ I agreed. ‘Sergeant Williams and I have work to do on the Doherty case anyway.’

‘Oh,’ Dempsey said, nervously and looking around the room at the others. ‘I’m afraid we were going to bring Caroline along with us – a liaison. Is that okay?’

Caroline looked at me and smiled uncertainly. She widened her eyes a little in recognition of the awkwardness of the situation and the unapologetic manner in which this team had taken over our cases.

‘I believe that decision lies with Caroline,’ I said.

‘How about we give you two a moment or two alone. I can see this has all happened a little quickly for you,’ Dempsey said, earning grins from his two stooges.

‘Jesus, what a creep,’ Caroline said when they had closed the door behind them. ‘How did the interview go?’ she asked.

‘Shit,’ I said. ‘Like this whole fucking morning.’

‘What do we do? Do you want me to stay with you? What do you think, boss?’

‘It’s up to you, Caroline. It’ll do your career no harm at all to have experience working with NBCI. Plus, it means we can keep some kind of contact with the case. Otherwise, I think we’ll never hear anything.’

‘Are you sure?’ she said.

‘I think you should,’ I said, then added, ‘and thanks for earlier.’

‘Oh, that,’ she said, dismissing the words with a wave of her hand.

On her way out she stopped and turned to me. Something was on her mind and she was clearly thinking of how best to express it. Finally she said, ‘You didn’t seem too surprised by the tip-off about O’Kane’s car, sir.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I suppose I didn’t, Caroline.’

*

I tried several of the gyms that afternoon, questioning owners and fitness instructors, but no one was able to help in my search for a possible boxer with a tattoo of Cuchulain. Finally, I called Jim Hendry and left a message, asking him if he knew anyone in the Strabane gyms who might be able to help. On my way back to the station, I stopped at a florist’s and bought a bunch of carnations. I drove on to Gallows Lane and stopped outside the house where Kerr had been found. In the back garden I laid a bunch of flowers at the base of the tree to which he had been nailed and whose branches were still stained with his blood. There were no other flowers or messages there. And I prayed quietly for the repose of James’s soul, and for forgiveness for the mess I had made of all the cases I had unsuccessfully juggled over the past weeks.

As I stood, I became aware of a figure to my right. Absurdly, for just a second, the idea struck me that it might be Jamie Kerr. I shuddered away the goose-bumps that had risen with the thought. It was not, however, Kerr. The man who stood in front of me was tall, his head docked like a monk’s, his face flushed with burst blood vessels, his nose bulbous and red with years of drinking. His forehead was tall and heavy browed, his eyes hooded and difficult to read. He wore a tan shirt, a tie hanging loosely round his neck. At the collar line I could make out the ragged edges of a scar.

My initial thought was that he was a mourner, here to pay his respects as I was. But he carried no flowers. Perhaps a journalist, then. But he had no camera, no notebook. I thought of Christy Ward’s comment about his mysterious visitor and the pieces fell into place.

‘Mr Bond,’ I stated. ‘Nice to meet you.’

‘And you, Inspector,’ he said, smiling lightly in recognition of my having identified him. ‘I’ve been tailing you for a while. I thought I’d never get a moment alone with you.’

‘I was playing hard to get,’ I said.

‘You shouldn’t,’ he cautioned. ‘You might win.’

I tired of the exchange and got straight to the point. ‘Did you have anything to do with the killing of Peter Webb?’ I asked.

He nodded once. ‘No,’ he said.’ Far from it. We were the ones got him out of that arms charge.’

‘Why?’

‘You don’t need to know everything about Webb, Inspector,’ he said. ‘But I will tell you what I can. Peter Webb was an informer in the 1970s. Moved over here, played the whole anti-English thing. Wasn’t much use, to be honest. His handler died in the late nineties – had a heart attack – and I took over. I had almost no dealings with the man. He was given my number as a contact, if he ever heard anything, or needed anything. In fact, the first time I saw him in years was just a couple of weeks ago, after he was lifted with that guns find. Called me and asked for our help.’

I nodded my head, but did not speak. After a second, Bond continued. ‘He had nothing to do with those guns, you know.’

‘So I believe,’ I said. Bond angled his head slightly, as a bird might, as if trying to tease out the meaning of my words. ‘What about Jamie Kerr?’ I asked.

Bond stared blankly at me. ‘Never heard of him.’

‘You visited Webb the night he died, though, didn’t you?’ I said.

He nodded. ‘Didn’t even know where he lived, for Christ’s sake. We met for a drink, Webb went through the whole guns thing with me; that was that.’

‘Webb was named as a suspect in the Castlederg Post Office robbery in 1996. Do you know anything about that?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I believe one or more of the gang members killed both Webb and Jamie Kerr.’

Bond pointed towards the tree in front of us. ‘I know the name now; the guy who was crucified.’

‘Webb and Kerr were part of a gang. Both are dead now and there are two gang members left.’

‘I can check the files in Strabane, if you want,’ Bond offered casually; so casually, in fact, that I didn’t realize it was a trap until I walked into it.

‘No point; the important bits are missing,’ I said bitterly.

‘Now, how would you know that, Inspector?’ Bond asked, his voice betraying a sharper edge than before. I began to suspect that I had underestimated the man.

I ignored the question. ‘Why would that be done?’

The man didn’t miss a beat. ‘To protect our sources, I’d say. Now, who showed you our files?’

Neither of us spoke for a moment or two. I said a final prayer for Jamie Kerr and turned to leave. ‘It was nice to meet you, Mr Bond,’ I said, extending my hand.

‘Likewise,’ he replied. ‘I’ve told you as much as I can, Inspector. Webb had nothing to do with those guns. And I can tell you nothing about Castlederg Post Office.’

‘Was he involved in anything serious enough that someone might come back and kill him?’ I asked.

‘Nothing,’ Bond said. ‘In his thirty years here I don’t think he managed one big break.’

‘Not much of a spy, then, was he?’ I said.

‘Not much of anything,’ Bond agreed. ‘The only information he told me of interest the night he died was that someone was bopping his missus.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘We’ve figured that much out ourselves.’

Bond shrugged at me helplessly, then turned to face the flowers I’d placed where Jamie Kerr died. I turned again and walked towards the side of the house, my hands in my pockets.

Bond called after me, ‘I’ll tell Jim Hendry you were asking for him.’

I did not look back.

*

When I returned to the station, Donal Dempsey and his two sergeants were in the car park having systematically stripped the interior out of a green Toyota Celica. The seats stood side by side against a wall, while Dempsey, in paper forensics suit, stood smoking a cigarette, occasionally shaking his head and wiping the sheen of sweat from his face.

Caroline stood to one side, watching, her arms folded, her expression impossible to read behind her sunglasses as I told her about my meeting with Mr Bond. I could see her roll her eyes when I told her that was the name he had given me. ‘Men,’ she said.

Several other members of the station stood against the wall, watching silently, or calling instructions and encouragement, cheering when the odd piece of interior was thrown out on to the ground.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

‘The tip-off we got this morning said Kerr had been spotted in Declan O’Kane’s car. The Dublin boys here have just impounded said vehicle and are currently taking it apart looking for forensics.’

Dempsey came over, tearing open the paper suit and stepping out of it.

‘Feckin’ waste of time, that’s what. We’ve gone through it with a fine-tooth comb. Nothing. It’s clean as a whistle; you’d swear the bastard had it valeted before we arrived. We found nothing.’ he repeated and spat on the ground in disgust.

‘Maybe’, I said, nodding towards the wreck, ‘that’s because that’s not Declan O’Kane’s car.’

It transpired fairly quickly that Dempsey and the NBCI squad had landed at O’Kane’s and served the search warrant they had secured.

‘Is that your car?’ they’d asked Decko, pointing to the green Celica sitting on his driveway.

‘Yes, it is,’ he’d replied, with some degree of honesty.

And so they’d lifted the green car and taken it with them, not realizing that it was, in fact, a second-hand car traded in at his dealership and which he was using for the day.

Williams told me all this later, though she was unable to describe the return trip to Decko’s and the appropriation of the correct, red Ford Puma, as Dempsey told her he didn’t need her, suspecting, perhaps, that she had known all along that they were dismantling the wrong car.

And so, three hours later, having rebuilt the green Toyota Celica and swearing violently through their embarrassment, the NBCI team arrived back at the station with Decko’s red Puma. Within five minutes, without removing any seats, and with a significantly smaller audience, they discovered the religious tract I had placed in the passenger door pocket. A quick phone call to Charles Bardwell confirmed that it was indeed the property of James Kerr.

By eight-thirty that night, Decko O’Kane was in custody, protesting his innocence and shouting from the holding cell that he’d been framed. For my part, I went home to my wife and children and tried to forget all that had happened, attempting to ignore the guilt and unease that gnawed at my guts over the whole Decko affair. All that was needed was for his DNA to match that found under Kerr’s fingernails, I told myself, and my small deception would yield a big result.

The NBCI team had taken turns through the night questioning Decko, having taken a cheek swab for DNA testing. Despite their better efforts, as yet he had confessed to nothing, claiming not even to know James Kerr.

At ten o’clock, Dempsey asked me if I wanted to have a go. To be honest, I had nothing to say to him. My own belief was that if he could be held long enough for the DNA test to come back, the comparison would be enough to charge him.

The sample had been taken almost immediately after Decko had been brought in for questioning the night previous. These things normally took a week or two, but Dempsey assured me that, as the request was coming through the NBCI, we’d have a result within days.

Decko’s lawyer, Gerard Brown, had been with him most of the night, ensuring he got his obligatory breaks and cups of tea. He was still with him, his normally heavy set face even puffier than usual with lack of sleep and the heat of the holding cell. Some time earlier that morning he had requested a fan be brought into the room, likening the conditions to torture. The fan had been duly placed and, though it was directed fully in his face, even with his jacket and tie off and his shirt-neck wide open, his face was slick with sweat.

Decko looked flushed and a little unkempt, in stark contrast with his previous debonair style. His hair gel had long since dried in the heat, causing his hair to stand in clotted spikes. His eyes were baggy and red-rimmed and he spoke nasally, a handkerchief held against his running nose. ‘Hayfever,’ he explained.

White flecks of tissue paper were caught in his moustache and he bit continually at his lower lip.

‘Oh,
you’re
here,’ he said when I came in. I handed Decko and the lawyer a can of cola each and opened one for myself.

‘Cheers,’ he said, opening the can. ‘You’re Good Cop, I take it,’ he laughed. ‘After those Dublin bozos.’

‘Neither good nor bad, Mr O’Kane. Just a fresh pair of eyes, looking to see if we’ve missed anything.’

‘I think this is just ridiculous, now,’ Brown said. ‘Either charge my client or release him, but this continual coming and going with no real purpose is getting us nowhere.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said, taking out my notebook. ‘Mr O’Kane, where were you on the night of Wednesday, 9 June?’

‘In the house, same as I told the others.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘No, actually, you know, now you’ve asked twice, it’s all coming back to me. I was up a field somewhere crucifying some nutter with me mates.’

‘Really?’ I asked, deadpan.

‘What the fuck do you think?’

‘I think you probably were. How did James Kerr’s religious tract get into your car?’

‘I have no idea,’ he said, and for once I knew that he was being wholly sincere. ‘Maybe I . . .’

The conversation was cut short by Brown’s mobile phone ringing. He looked at the caller display and said, ‘Excuse me,’ getting up from his chair and standing in the corner of the room.

‘You were saying, Mr O’Kane, about the leaflet,’ I urged him, but it was to no avail. He was watching Brown, or, more correctly, I think he was attempting to piece together the content of the conversation from Brown’s hushed responses. Certainly that’s what I was doing.

Then Brown snapped the phone shut and came back to us, smiling broadly. ‘I think it’s time my client had a break, Inspector. I’m expecting something quite significant within the next ten minutes or so; I think it’s important that I have some time with my client to discuss his case, based on this new information.’