Bleed a River Deep (8 page)

I wanted to argue, to defend myself on the grounds of good intentions, but I knew he was right. ‘I got the registration plate,’ I said, as if this in some way compensated for the mess I had caused.

‘Not a silver Ford Fiesta by any chance, was it?’ he asked.

I nodded.

‘Burnt out at the head of the town. No doubt it was stolen,’ he said. ‘You’ve got fuck-all, Devlin.’

‘Have you traced it?’ I asked.

‘Are you telling me my job?’ Hendry exploded. ‘Fuck you. Piss off back to Lifford.’

With that he got out of the car, slammed the door and went over to talk with the firemen. I started the engine and drove off.

It was scant consolation that he was less annoyed with me than Patterson was. The Super almost had a stroke when I explained to him what had happened. He told me he would have suspended me on the spot if plans for the Hagan visit on Monday hadn’t been so far advanced, and had Weston not seemed so keen to have me involved. I would pay for it in the long run, he warned me, before we left for another meeting at Orcas. I didn’t doubt it.

Weston was less solicitous during our meeting this time. He said little as we ran through arrangements for Hagan’s visit. We would meet the Senator at the border after he had conducted a few engagements in Derry. Two unmarked cars would accompany him to Orcas through Lifford and Ballybofey; Hagan would travel with his own two security men, ex-Secret Service. I would be in one of the cars with a second escort behind, whilst Patterson would take care of dealings with Weston personally. Local Gardai would be on the ground at Orcas, ensuring crowd control, though the only crowd would be a small group of local primary-school children. Presumably anyone older might have reservations about waving flags at a warmonger such as Hagan.

Finally Weston got around to the subject that seemed to be bothering him. ‘Have you gentlemen read the newspapers today?’ Without waiting for a reply, he produced one of the Dublin broadsheets:
CONTROVERSIAL SENATOR IN DONEGAL
the headline read. He produced a second paper, this one from the North:
WARNING TO US SENATOR AHEAD OF VISIT.

I glanced up at Weston as he showed us the stories, aware that he was reading our reactions to see if either of us was responsible for the leak.

‘What was the warning?’ I asked, gesturing towards the headline of the second story.

‘Death threats,’ he said. ‘Phoned in to the Samaritans in Downpatrick, apparently. Probably nothing, but that’s not the point.’

‘Absolutely,’ Patterson said, having finished reading. ‘We’ll have to take it seriously.’

‘Of course you will,’ Weston snapped. ‘My biggest concern is how the fuck they heard about his visit.’

Harry had so far done all he could to appease him. This time, though, it seemed Weston had overstepped the mark.

‘Well, it didn’t come from our office, Mr Weston, and I’m not sure I like your tone. Every Garda force in the country knows he’s coming, plus all the people involved in his trip to the North. Hell, the local primary-school teachers must know.’

‘The school was only informed this morning,’ Weston said, though his tone had changed somewhat. ‘I apologize, Superintendent. I’m a little worried about all this.’

‘No need to worry, sir,’ Patterson said curtly. ‘We have everything under control. I’ll investigate these claims myself,’ he added. ‘Though I can assure you that neither I nor Inspector Devlin here would have mentioned this to
anyone.’

‘Janet Moore,’ Patterson said when we were back in the car after our meeting. ‘She wrote the first story. She’s a freelancer, lives in Strabane. I play indoor football with her husband sometimes. Find out where she got her information.’

‘Would it not be better you asking her, if you know the family?’

‘I said I know her
husband
,’ Patterson said irritably. ‘Better a stranger asking her. You can lean on her more than I could.’

I silently wondered how he expected me to get her to reveal her sources. After a moment I said, ‘Thanks for your support back there, Harry.’

‘It was the force I was supporting,’ he snapped. ‘If I find out you did leak it, I’ll rip you a new arsehole.’

I shook my head and looked away. I wondered if Fearghal Bradley had had anything to do with the leak. And I wondered just how many more mistakes I could get away with.

I reached Moore’s house just after two o clock. She and her husband, Karl, lived in a detached house at the far end of Strabane, just off the Derry Road.

Karl Moore was crouching over a motorcycle, which lay on its side on the front lawn. He had removed a section of the engine and was spraying the parts with oil when I arrived.

He offered his hand, then looked at it, rubbed it on his jeans leg and shook.

‘I’m looking for your wife, Mr Moore,’ I explained.

He squinted at me.

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘What’s she done?’

‘Nothing, sir. I’d like to discuss a story she wrote about in the paper.’

‘Is it that bloody environment thing?’ he asked.

I shook my head. I had no idea what he meant. ‘She wrote a story about a US senator coming to Donegal. I need to check some information with her.’

‘What information?’

‘Where she heard about it, for starters,’ I said genially, hoping he might tell me.

‘Fuck knows,’ he said. ‘Probably that Bradley fella.’

My surprise at the ease with which I had gleaned that piece of information did nothing to outweigh the anger I felt at myself for having told Fearghal in the first place.

‘Is your wife about?’ I asked.

‘She’s out at that gold place,’ he said, wiping his forehead with the shoulder of his T-shirt.

‘The mine?’ I said.

‘No,’ he said. Then, making speech marks with his fingers, he guffawed, ‘The “gold rush”.’

‘Thanks, Mr Moore,’ I said, surprised by how forthcoming he’d been. ‘You’ve been a great help.’

‘Oh, it’s my pleasure,’ he said.

I caught up with Janet Moore in the clearing where the prospectors had parked their cars and vans. On the back seat of her electric-blue Tigra I noticed a number of documents and envelopes.

Patsy McCann pointed her out to me, though I could have identified her myself: for a start, she was better dressed than the other people on site, in jeans and a grey sweater under a Barbour coat. She was sporting green wellingtons, wet with river water.

She was talking to Ted Coyle and one of the crusties I had seen before. He slunk away when he saw me approaching, rubbing out the spliff he carried as he did so and slipping it into his pocket.

Ted Coyle straightened himself up and placed his hands on his hips. Janet Moore simply drew deeply on a cigarette and blew the stream of smoke upwards as she glanced in my direction.

‘Mrs Moore,’ I said, extending my hand. ‘I’m Inspector Benedict Devlin. I was wondering if I could have a word.’

‘Certainly, Inspector,’ she said, pointedly. Then she turned to Coyle. ‘Thanks, Ted. Keep in touch.’

We walked over to her car together.

‘How did you find me?’ she asked, then pursed her lips and nodded her head when I told her that her husband had directed me, as if it made sense of some sort. ‘So, what can I do for you?’

‘We were wondering about the story you wrote about Cathal Hagan,’ I said.

‘So, that’s official confirmation,’ she said, smiling. ‘Hagan’s coming here.’

I tried to keep my expression as neutral as possible. ‘I don’t suppose you’d tell me who told you about it, would you?’

Unsurprisingly, she laughed. ‘You’re right,’ she said.

‘Your husband tells me it was Fearghal Bradley,’ I said.

She looked perplexed. ‘My husband is talking out his arse, Inspector. I don’t know any Fearghal Bradley. Who is he?’

‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Do you know anything about these death threats?’

‘No,’ she said, a little haughtily.

‘If I find you’ve been withholding information that may have prevented a crime, you’ll be—’ I began.

‘Give it a rest,’ she said, dropping her cigarette butt on to the ground and treading on it. ‘You were doing better when you were playing the good cop. What’s it worth?’

‘That depends. What do you want?’

‘Two tickets to see Hagan. Good seats,’ she said, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

‘Why do you need to bribe me for tickets? Surely you’ll get invited, as a member of the press.’

‘I’m a freelancer,’ she said. ‘We’re the last to get anything. I want two good seats – at the front, mind you.’

‘And in return?’

‘Do we have a deal?’ she persisted, refusing to show her hand yet.

I didn’t see that we had anything to lose, and I said so. If her information were of no use to us, she knew she’d end up sitting in the car park for the duration of Hagan’s visit.

She smiled. ‘I don’t know Fearghal Bradley,’ she said. ‘Whoever he is. As for the death threats, they’re not serious. It’s a prank, a publicity stunt dreamt up by an environmental group called the Green Alliance.’

‘What have they against Hagan?’ I asked.

‘Where should I start?’ she said. ‘Anyway, I think that’s worth two tickets.’

‘You’re sure of this?’

‘Absolutely. From the horse’s mouth, so to speak.’

I considered what she had said, watching her face to see if I could tease out the angle she was playing, but I couldn’t read her.

‘Why are you telling me this?’ I asked.

‘Public conscience,’ she said, almost managing not to smile. ‘And I don’t want anyone getting shot now, do I?’

‘You and I both, Mrs Moore,’ I said, though in the event we were thinking of two different people.

Chapter Eight

Sunday, 8 October

Debbie, the kids and I went to early Mass. The days were turning now, the sky darkening earlier each evening. After Mass we spoke with Father Brennan, our local priest, and I gave him a Mass offering for Natalia Almurzayev’s safety.

We drove to Derry that afternoon and had lunch in town. Penny’s birthday was a few weeks away, and we had promised we’d take her to the toyshops to pick what she’d like. Shane was walking unaided now, his squat body shifting from side to side as he moved. Every so often, when he came to a high kerb that required extra balance to step off, he raised his small fist in the air in the expectation that Debbie or I would take hold and support him till he had stepped down. Then the fist would be withdrawn and he’d continue on his way.

Penny was trying on an outfit when my mobile rang.

‘They’re bringing that bog body back to Orcas this evening, ahead of the Hagan visit,’ Harry Patterson said, without introduction. ‘Get over there and show your face.’

‘I’m on my day off, Harry,’ I said, raising a hand to placate Debbie.

‘You tell me that like I’d give a fuck. Get out there, Devlin.’

‘Why?’ I asked, refusing to be drawn into a swearing match while Penny and Shane were standing in front of me.

‘Because I’m telling you to,’ he replied, then hung up.

When I reached the main building, a museum truck was parked at the front doors, the hum of its air-conditioning unit audible. Fearghal Bradley and Linda Campbell were in the foyer of the main reception area when I arrived. John Weston was speaking on his phone near by.

Fearghal was not as effusive in his greeting this time, merely nodding and winking once as he worked the electric controls on a glass presentation case that sat in the centre of the area. The box was perhaps five feet long, sitting atop a mahogany plinth.

The workman I had seen on my first day out at the mine was standing nearby, fixing up the frame on a noticeboard, inside of which was a hastily produced poster about the bog body and its discovery. The rest of the building was in darkness.

Weston snapped his phone shut and came over to me, smiling expansively as always, hand outstretched. ‘Good to see you, Ben. Out on a Sunday – that’s above and beyond the call of duty.’ He paused for a beat. ‘Tell me, did your wife like the gift?’

‘She did, sir,’ I said, earning a glance from Linda and Fearghal, who then went back to their work. I gestured towards the truck outside with a nod. ‘So you managed to get a loan after all,’ I said.

‘More than that, Ben,’ he said, smiling, then placed his manicured finger against his lips and motioned towards Fearghal’s back, intimating that I shouldn’t say anything more. I suspected it was a sore point with Fearghal.

When Fearghal was finally happy that a constant temperature and humidity level could be maintained inside the case, he asked for our help carrying Kate in.

She lay on a plastic board, clay and browned leaves cushioning her body. She was much lighter than I had expected and smaller than I remembered. Her skin shone now, as if polished, and her hair’s redness was more vivid than before. We carried her as one might a coffin, each taking one corner of the plastic board on which she lay, shuffling sideways through the main doors and into the reception area.

We positioned her on the plinth and Bradley lowered the glass cover and pressed a small button to the side. Air hissed as the body was sealed in a vacuum and several small spotlights within the unit flickered on. Then all the lights in the reception area went out and I became aware that Weston was standing at the switch by the wall, gazing in wonder at his newest acquisition.

The spotlights threw shadows upwards on our faces and I wondered if it were that, or something else, that made Fearghal’s mood seem so dark. The thought registered only for a second, though, and then was gone. He laid his hand on top of the case for a moment, then wiped away his handprint with a cloth.

After they had completed the necessary paperwork, Fearghal announced that he was hungry. I suggested getting something to eat. Though none of us had extended an invitation, Weston excused himself on the grounds that he had too much to do to prepare for the following day’s visit but insisted that dinner would be on him, handing Linda Campbell a hundred-euro note.

‘
Bon appétit
, folks,’ he said. ‘See you all tomorrow.’

We drove back to Lifford to the Old Courthouse, beneath which is an Italian restaurant, built in the converted cells where criminals and lunatics were detained side by side centuries ago.