‘A can or two?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Boys will be boys, Inspector,’ Murphy said. ‘Peter brought a few cans with him, apparently.’
‘Fourteen,’ McCready said. ‘And he had drunk maybe six or seven of them. Is that right, Cahir?’
‘I only saw him take one or two.’
‘What about drugs, Cahir?’
The boy feigned surprise. ‘I didn’t see any,’ he said, though I knew he was lying.
‘Peter had significant quantities of cocaine in his system when he was found,’ McCready said. ‘Where did he get it?’
‘I already told you,’ Cahir said, tilting his head nonchalantly, ‘I didn’t see any.’
‘That doesn’t answer the question,’ I said. ‘You weren’t asked if you saw any. We know he had drugs with him. You were asked where he got them.’
‘My son already told you he didn’t see any drugs, and I believe him. If he didn’t see any, how would he know where they came from?’ his father said, leaning forward and clasping his hands on the table in front of him.
‘Did Peter bring his own stash?’
‘I already told you,’ Cahir repeated, tutting and rolling his eyes.
‘What about his phone?’
‘What?’ If Cahir Murphy was feigning innocence this time, it was a good performance.
‘We know now that Peter died on Sunday morning. On Sunday evening, someone sent his mother a message from his phone. That was the day Garda McCready here last spoke with you. We believe that one of you took Peter’s phone and sent his mother a message in the hope that it would stop us searching the beach area where he died. I suspect that was done because someone was afraid we would discover that Peter had taken drugs.’
‘I know nothing about that. Besides, that’s stupid. Once his body turned up you’d have found out anyway.’
‘That’s very true,’ I agreed. ‘So you don’t know who might have taken it then?’
‘No idea. I’d say it’s the kind of stupid thing Heaney would do.’
Adam Heaney arrived with both his parents. His mother was sitting in the reception area, a brown handbag clutched on her lap. His father paced nearby, reading the posters on the walls repeatedly to keep himself occupied. Adam himself sat two seats down from his mother, his hands dangling between his legs. McCready called his name and he looked up. His face paled when he saw me.
McCready informed him that only one member of his family was allowed to accompany him into the interview room. Heaney blanched, his eyes welling with tears as he turned and asked for his mother to come in, much to the annoyance of his father who began to insist that he should be there.
‘It might be better if Mr Heaney comes,’ I said. ‘There are details you might be better not hearing,’ I added, looking at the boy’s mother. I remembered that Heaney had hidden the night of the search in case his father found out he was there.
Mrs Heaney acquiesced and Adam walked slowly into the interview room, his father’s hand clasped on his shoulder. His whitened knuckles told me that this was not a gesture of paternal solidarity.
We asked Heaney the same questions we had asked Murphy regarding the drinking.
‘They were both drinking,’ he said, then added quickly to his father. ‘I wasn’t though.’
‘You’d better not have been,’ his father said pointedly.
‘What about drugs?’ I asked.
‘You’d really better not have been,’ his father said. Even across the table, I could see his jaw muscles clenching.
‘I didn’t do any,’ Heaney said, turning to his father.
‘Adam,’ I said. ‘I need you to speak to
me
. Was anyone else taking drugs?’
‘Peter might have taken something,’ he admitted. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘Who brought them? The drugs?’ McCready asked.
‘I . . . I don’t know.’
He was lying but I was prepared to let it slide for now.
‘Let’s talk about Peter’s phone,’ I said.
Heaney swallowed and looked askance at his father.
‘What phone?’ Mr Heaney asked.
‘I’ll let my colleague explain,’ I said, opening my phone and calling Josh Edwards.
Josh arrived a few moments later, swapping places with McCready.
Firstly, he explained about the signals transmitted by mobile phones. Even when a phone was not in use, it was possible, he said, to pinpoint its position. When the phone was used – for example, to send a text message – its precise location could be discerned to within a few feet. He threw in some comments about triangulating transmission coordinates.
I could tell his spiel was having the desired effect; both Heaney and his father seemed lost in the increasingly technical jargon. Adam Heaney struggled for a few moments to retain an expression of innocence, though it soon became apparent, from the fearful looks he gave his father, that he had taken the phone.
Eventually, I interrupted Josh.
‘Cutting through all the techno babble, Adam, it comes down to this. We know you have Peter’s phone. You can lie about it and, when it goes to court, Garda Edwards will tell the judge the same thing he’s just told us here. Or you can come clean about it now.’ I nodded to Josh, letting him know I no longer needed him. He left the room quietly, McCready re-entering as he did so.
Heaney’s father stared at him. ‘Do you know anything about this?’
The boy struggled to swallow. When he finally answered, the response died in the dryness of his throat and he had to take a sip of water from the glass on the table.
He coughed once, into his fist, clearing his throat. ‘I didn’t steal it. He left it behind. I lifted it for him.’
His father glanced at us and shrugged, as if the response exonerated his son from any wrongdoing.
‘I’m sure that’s probably true, Adam,’ I said. ‘That doesn’t explain why you sent Peter’s mother a message telling her he was in Dublin.’
‘I didn’t . . .’ he began, then stopped.
‘You didn’t what?’
He looked again at his father.
‘Tell them the truth, whatever it is,’ his father growled.
‘I didn’t want her to find out Peter was high.’
‘What?’
He gestured across the desk at McCready. ‘He told me that they’d find out if Peter had taken anything. I didn’t want his mother to know that he’d taken drugs.’
‘Why?’
‘I thought she’d be annoyed,’ he explained quickly. ‘I thought if I told her he was in Dublin she’d . . .’
‘She’d what?’ I asked, incredulously. ‘She’d stop looking for him?’
‘I . . . I didn’t think it through, I suppose,’ Heaney said, his eyes welling with tears.
‘You stupid fucker,’ his father spat, then lifted his hand and smacked the boy hard across the side of the face, knocking him onto the floor.
McCready was out of his seat instantly.
I raised a placatory hand towards Heaney’s father. ‘Please, Mr Heaney; we need to get to the bottom of this.’
He stood from his seat and raised both hands. He moved away from where his son lay on the floor and stood at the far side of the room while McCready helped Adam back into his seat.
When the boy had settled again, I continued. ‘You thought Peter’s mother would be more upset about her son taking drugs than him falling to his death?’
Adam Heaney, embarrassed perhaps by our witnessing of his father striking him, responded quickly, ‘But he didn’t fall – he jumped.’
I straightened in my seat. ‘Maybe you ought to tell us what happened that night.’
This was the story that he told.
The three boys arrived at Rossnowlagh around six thirty. They pitched their tent, then headed to a nearby van for fish and chips. Someone had brought a carry-out of cans – probably fourteen, he agreed – and they ate their dinner and drank beer. He didn’t have any, he claimed, though the presence of his father was, doubtless, colouring his description.
The boys sat talking as they drank. Peter was agitated; he said he’d been arguing with his mother. He felt she was controlling him, bossing him about. He wanted to move out – had asked about going to live with his dad. His mother had refused.
Adam had gone out to go to the toilet around ten. When he came back, one of them had produced several small folded paper packages. He didn’t know who had brought them or from whom they had been bought. Cahir and Peter snorted some – but, he was careful to stress, he didn’t. Over the course of the next hour, they alternated drink with coke. The more Peter took, the happier he became. At one stage he got a fit of the giggles, which lasted over a quarter of an hour. He began to run round the tent, telling the others that he could not feel his legs any more. Finally, at around one thirty, he snorted a score by himself. Almost immediately, he announced that he could fly. Cahir was well on himself, and he shared the joke. But Heaney realized that Peter didn’t mean it as a joke. He stated with intensity that he could fly. He began to get aggressive, suggesting that the boys didn’t believe him. He’d prove it, he said.
‘I’ll show every one of those fuckers that I can do whatever I want,’ he shouted at them. Then he ran from the tent.
The other two spilled out after him. Heaney tried to catch up with him, to stop him, but Peter was too far ahead. He ran towards the edge of the cliff, his arms flailing. Just before he reached the edge, when Heaney felt sure he would stop, he turned his head towards them and smiled. He climbed up onto the handrail and stretched out his arms.
‘Geronimo!’ he shouted, then launched himself into the darkness.
‘He didn’t scream, the whole way down,’ Adam Heaney said, his face wet with tears. ‘It was so quiet. It was eerie. Then Cahir started laughing, like it was all a joke. It took him a while to come down and realize what had happened.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us this on the night?’
‘I didn’t want to get into trouble,’ he said pleadingly, as if trouble might yet be avoided.
‘Who brought the drugs?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know, I swear.’
‘Tell him if you know,’ his father said gruffly.
‘I said I don’t know,’ Heaney said, a little petulantly.
‘I spoke to Peter’s mother this morning,’ I said. ‘I told her about the phone. She was very upset by the message, Adam. You gave her false hope. You sent her to Dublin to look for her son when you already knew he was dead.’
‘I didn’t think!’ he cried, his tears streaming again.
‘She blamed herself for what happened to Peter. She attempted to take her own life, because she believed that she was responsible for Peter’s death. You could have saved her all that pain.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, rubbing his face.
‘If she had died, you’d have been partially to blame,’ I continued.
‘Jesus,’ his father groaned. He made a sudden lunge towards his son but McCready was on him, pushing him back against the wall, and warning him that he’d be removed from the interview room.
‘As it is,’ I continued, ‘you’re facing a charge of perverting the course of justice, because of your trick with the phone.’
‘Are you listening to this?’ his father spat at him. ‘Are you happy now?’
‘There is a way out of it, though,’ I said, as much to the father as to the son. ‘Mrs Williams is prepared to let the matter of the phone and the fake message drop.’
Adam Heaney looked up at me, his face clouded with a mixture of emotions, knowing that there would be a price for such an offer.
‘Tell us who gave Peter the drugs or where he got them from, and we’ll not press any charges on your taking the phone.’
‘I don’t know who brought them,’ he said.
‘I don’t believe you, Adam. That’s our offer. I’m going to give you the night to think it over. By nine o’clock tomorrow morning, I want you to have contacted Garda McCready here and told him your decision.’
‘But I don’t know where he got them,’ he protested.
‘That’s your choice, Adam,’ I said, standing up and looking at my watch. ‘You have just over twenty hours to find out. Or you’re going away.’
His father straightened himself up, loosening his shoulders with a quick shrug. ‘Don’t worry,’ he stated. ‘He’ll tell you. I’ll make sure he does.’
I didn’t doubt it for a second. Nor did I envy Adam Heaney the night that lay ahead for him.
We made it back to Letterkenny by mid-afternoon. I dropped Josh Edwards off, thanking him for his help and declining the offer of a coffee, explaining that I had something to do.
I phoned Jim Hendry on my way into Lifford and asked him to find me an address for Martin Kielty’s mother. I hoped that she might have some idea where Elena McEvoy had gone, which, in turn, might lead me to the white van. I mentioned the fact that it had been seen outside her house to Hendry.
‘Let me see what I can do,’ he said. ‘You found young Lorcan, I believe?’
‘I did indeed,’ I said. ‘Thanks to your info on The Rising, I might have his killer, too. Tony Armstrong.’
‘Armstrong? He’s a moron. Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have killed him, I suppose. Bit extreme to score political brownie points with the locals, mind you.’