Death in Dublin - Peter McGarr 16 (8 page)
Taoiseach Kehoe did not take questions. Instead, for the third time that day, Jack Sheard stepped before the cameras to fi?eld questions from the media.
He reprised what was known: the theft, security guard Raymond Sloane’s murder, the probability that more than one thief/murderer was involved, and the i
n
jured security guard.
McGarr could only admire the panache with which Sheard rephrased his answers to make what was esse
n
tially only a few details seem like further information. In all, with wide shoulders, the big knobby chin, and youthful blond hair, he looked stalwart and competent.
“Then there’s Orla Bannon,” said Bresnahan. “The
Ath Cliath
reporter with my ID. Turns out she was snooping into the hit-and-run death of Derek Greene a fortnight ago, mind you, before what happened last night in the Old Library. My source at
Ath Cliath
tells me she’s doing a big story on the New Druids.”
“Who’s Derek bloody Greene?” McKeon asked.
As one, the others turned their heads his way to a
s
sess his level of sobriety.
“How’rya getting home?” Bresnahan asked.
“On me pins.”
“Which will needle you, if you drink any more of that.” She pointed to the cup.
“Oh, really now—I’ll tell you who Derek Greene is. He’s”—McKeon looked off, his dark eyes glassy, fe
a
tures knitted before breaking into a sly smile—“the bloody security guard. The one what et the bumper of a BMW, the one who wasn’t there, which forced poor Sloane to walk the beat.
“By choice, of course, Sloane having been bought. Witness the big car and the payback of the money he’d fi?lched from his family’s savings to feed his drug habit.” McKeon looked down into the cup. “My pr
e
diction?”
“Delivered by himself, the new druid of Dublin Ca
s
tle,” Bresnahan quipped.
“The postmortem will confi?rm that.”
“Confi?rm what?”
“Oxy-effi?ng-Contin.”
“This Orla Bannon knew what was about to go down,” said Ward, if only to keep them on course. “Just like she knew the details of what had happened in the Treasury—case and point of how Sloane was mu
r
dered. How could she have known that and not been in on it?”
Pape, the head librarian, McGarr thought. If Orla Bannon wasn’t in on it, then she could only have got the information from Pape, who had viewed the crime scene and had left the Old Library while McGarr was still interviewing Kara Kennedy. A skilled and fetching younger woman reporter with an angry old man—she probably now knew the brand of his jockey shorts.
“Ach, forget about her,” said Bresnahan, fl?apping a
hand dismissively. “She’s only looking for a scoop. It’s her MO.”
“Yah—scooping up your credentials and represen
t
ing herself as a Garda senior offi?cer,” put in McKeon. “Both are crimes.”
But crimes that were best ignored, given how foo
l
ish Bresnahan and the Garda would look. And how r
e
sourceful Orla Bannon would appear. McGarr reached into his jacket pocket and felt for the cards that the two women—Orla Bannon and Kara Kennedy—had given him.
“All right—what do we know?” Ward asked, as he had for years when he’d been McGarr’s second in command.
McGarr and McKeon supplied most of the synopsis:
That Derek Greene, a security guard, was knocked down in the street and killed a fortnight ago by a hit-and-run driver, freeing up the chief guard, Raymond Sloane, to walk Greene’s beat. It might be a coinc
i
dence, but why had Orla Bannon been investigating the death?
That Sloane, who had a drug problem, made some kind of deal with either the two people who met him in Foyle’s or some others that resulted in a windfall right before the event at Trinity College.
Sloane also probably assaulted his colleague, the guard at the Pearse Street gate, rendering him unco
n
scious before opening the gate for the thieves who would also become his murderers. The sap that was found in Sloane’s hand would produce evidence of that, McGarr was certain.
That there were at least two thieves was apparent from the voice transcription of their garbled voices. Near the end of the heist Sloane dropped any pretense
of objecting to the theft and began objecting to their treatment of him.
As well, Sloane had not known that they had planned to steal the books of Durrow and Armagh in addition to Kells.
They murdered Sloane to send the message that they were “serious.” About what? The ransom demand that was coming; there could be nothing else.
That Trevor Pape, the head librarian, and Kara Kennedy, the keeper of old manuscripts, were the only other two people who knew defi?nitively how the cases could be opened and by whom—Sloane and each other alone. No others.
“Which leaves us?” Ward asked.
“Waiting for the demand,” Bresnahan concluded.
“Anything else?” Ward asked.
Swords cleared his throat, stepped fully into the c
u
bicle, and reached a printout toward McGarr.
The E-mail message was from the commissioner, r
e
peating what they had heard the taoiseach announce on the television: the 30,000-Euro reward and that Jack Sheard would head up the investigation. With a fi?nal remark that cut McGarr to the quick.
“Jack’s expertise is theft. He’s studied these things, Peter. He knows how thieves think.”
As if McGarr, with more than thirty years of police work both in Ireland and on the Continent, did not.
Turning to Swords but actually speaking to Bresnahan and Ward, McGarr said, “I want to martial the staff. They’re to drop everything else and concentrate on Trevor Pape, Kara Kennedy, the victim Sloane, this Derek Greene, and Orla Bannon. I want to know every little thing about them, from their last phone calls to bank balances, mortgages, liaisons, what programming
they watch, how many fi?llings in their molars, the works.”
Still smarting from the commissioner’s message, McGarr tugged on his hat. “Finally, send an artist over to Foyle’s in the Liberties. I want a mock-up of an u
p
market man and woman who met with Sloane two weeks or so ago.”
“Look at that big pumped-up pussy,” McKeon was muttering, as he stared at Sheard on the computer screen. “He can yap more nothing about nothing much than any man alive.”
Among his handful of admirers within the Garda, Sheard was known as “The Communicator,” McGarr now remembered it said.
They would now see how potent an investigator he was.
“By when, Chief?” Swords asked to McGarr’s back.
“Ten. Tomorrow.”
GOING HOME, BEING HOME, ENJOYING THE HOME HE
once loved was a trial for McGarr, fi?lled as it was with so many memories of Noreen.
A detached Georgian house made of brick and stone, it occupied a corner on Belgrave Square in Rat
h
mines, a suburb of the city that was now also fi?lled out with recent immigrants, students, pensioners, and the working poor. It had not always been so.
McGarr parked his Mini-Cooper down a narrow cul-de-sac that bordered one side of his property and got out.
The night, like the day had been, was fair, and even with the ambient light of the city and a quarter moon, the stars were myriad and deep.
Instead of walking round to the front door as he us
u
ally did, McGarr moved toward the laneway and the low door that opened into his back garden.
There in the dim chalky light, striped with brighter luminescence from the kitchen windows, he surveyed his garden, which he had all but abandoned for three entire summers.
But in hopes of carrying on in the coming spring, he
had planted a bit of winter wheat that would add nutrients to the now-well-rested soil, when he turned it under before planting.
There had been a time when gardening had been a passion for McGarr, a way of truly re-creating himself while producing a satisfying variety of vegetables, fruits, and fl?owers. When engaged in gardening, he had no thoughts other than those related to the pastime, which were few since he’d been gardening for decades. It was like second nature to him.
McGarr knew other people who had suffered losses as great as he had but whose hobbies had given them succor and solace.
Well—he glanced up at the house where he could see Nuala’s head moving to and from the stove— maybe in the coming year. A light was on in Maddie’s room, where she would be doing her sums.
He should go in and fi?nd out how she was and how her work was progressing, make small talk with Nuala, who would be interested in the trouble at Trinity, maybe pour himself an aperitif and make a few phone calls about other cases that would now go ignored.
And yet McGarr removed his jacket and began pulling up dead plants and tossing them on the co
m
post heap. He worked steadily but without passion for perhaps a half hour, before he heard the back door open.
“Peter—is that you out there?” Nuala asked, squin
t
ing into the darkness. “I thought I saw you. Put that down now. And come in. Your tea is ready.”
Climbing the back stairs, he caught the aroma of baking plaice with black olives and mild peppers, some fresh tarragon, and butter. Less apparent were the odors of parsleyed potatoes and hot bread.
Like her daughter had been, Nuala was an excellent cook. And yet he who had eaten next to nothing the day long had little appetite for the food. He reached for a glass of wine, which was white, cold, and calming, he hoped.
“Maddie tells me you were on the teley today.”
McGarr nodded and glanced over at Maddie, who had brought a book to the table in spite of his having asked her not to do so some weeks earlier.
But he could hardly blame her, dinner conversation usually taking the form of “How was your day?” “Grand.” “And yours?” A nod. “The same.” This, in spite of Nuala’s having once been accounted as one of the notable conversationalists in Dublin society.
“The Kells affair, now—will you catch the blighters who killed that poor watchman?”
Eating the dinner if only to respect the effort, Mc-Garr glanced up at Nuala. In all but coloring she r
e
sembled Noreen—dark where Noreen had been fair. But now in her early seventies, she was gray; her skin had grown slack and her hips wide.
“Yes. Surely. We will. Eventually, I suppose.” There would be money involved, which always left a trail in some way or other.
“But will you get the books back?”
“Yah. It’s why they were stolen.”
“For a ransom.”
“Yah.”
Maddie’s head came up from the book. “How much?”
“We haven’t heard from them yet.” Unless, of course, Jack Sheard had, and McGarr and the Murder Squad were being kept out of the loop.
He thought of the taoiseach’s press conference, the commissioner’s note, and he placed his fork on the
plate. He knew why Sheard brought out all his insecurities and fears.
Younger, taller, handsome, well-spoken, with the picture-perfect family and legal background, Sheard was the future of the Garda.
As for McGarr ...well, he had no university d
e
grees, no other training, and apart from Maddie and Nuala, his work was all he had in life. All he knew.
“But how much do you think?”
Pushing back his chair, he stood and moved toward the pantry where he kept the malt. “Millions, I’m ce
r
tain. Why murder for less?”
“How many?” Nuala paused. “What’s wrong— don’t you fancy your dinner?”
“It’s grand. I’ll be right out.” Pouring himself a stiff drink and then adding to it, McGarr knocked it back, set down the glass, considered another but instead corked the bottle and returned to the table.
“I’ve no idea how many millions,” he continued when he could, as though he had not left. Through his watering eyes, Maddie’s image was distorted. “But they’re obviously professional thieves.” And killers, he did not add. “So the sum could be high.”
“Millions and millions?”
He nodded and again reached for the wineglass that he drank from, rather like a chaser.
Nuala’s jet eyes, now a bit rheumy with age, moved from the glass to his face, and then back down at the glass. “Have you heard from them?”
“Not that I know.”
Later, up in Maddie’s room, he said good night to her rather early, as she continued to read the book in bed.
“The bit on the television—it bothered you?”
Eyes in the book, she only shook her head.
“Bernie was assaulted by the dead man’s son, who let the press in. Seven stitches in his pate. I had to do something. I was going after the son. The others just got in the way, letting him escape.”
“Peter—don’t you think I know that?”
It might be necessary for her friends to know that as well, however. “Well”—he bent and kissed her for
e
head—“I was just doing my job, such as it is. And I love you.”
“Yah.” She raised her head and closed her eyes.
Their lips met briefl?y.
“I love you too, Peter.”
And then, as McGarr descended the stairs, Maddie called out, “Love you.”
“Love you,” McGarr answered her call again and again, until he reached the kitchen and picked his hat from the rack.
Nuala was washing the dishes. “Going out?”
“Yah.”
“Back to work?”
“Up the street. Above in Flood’s.”
Glancing up into the window, which at night became a mirror, she took him in. “One of these nights you should get some rest. And tomorrow a haircut. You’re looking a bit tatty.”
Flood’s was packed mainly with the immigrants who were now as local to the neighborhood as McGarr himself had been for nearly thirty years—people of all shades and hues speaking languages from Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe, not a word of which Mc-Garr understood.
Most were young, their conversations loud and an
i
mated, their smiles bright. Smoke—from a turf fi?re and cigarettes—was everywhere, and the din was deafening.
Without having to ask, he was slid a drink, which he carried into the lounge, if only to escape the noise. There he found a low stool, the last by the hearth that was glowing with the cracked red eye of a mound of real peat.
Although the burning of anything but EU-approved solid fuel was now illegal in the city, the turf fi?re was a nice touch, McGarr decided—a bit of old Ireland amid what had become very much a motley international country peopled by a motley international crew.
Tugging on his drink, McGarr turned away from the fi?re to fi?nd somebody standing before him. Pleated black slacks, black stockings, black pumps.
He looked up. It was Kara Kennedy, the keeper of old manuscripts at Trinity.
“Twice in one day. Could it be coincidence?”
McGarr only cocked his head and regarded her—the chestnut hair, the jade-colored eyes.
“D’you live around here?” She had a glass of wine in one hand, her purse in the other.
“For ages. And you?”
“Not far. I just couldn’t stick to my fl?at tonight—all the bother on television and my still feeling so much... really, so much the failure.” The hand with the purse came out. “Despite what you said about my not being responsible and all. I appreciated your co
n
cern, I really did. But I’m afraid when it comes to guilt, I’m quite a mess.” She looked around, as for a stool.
McGarr stood. “Sit here.”
“No, really—where will you sit?”
“I’ll stand until another frees up. In fact—” He
caught the eye of a barman and pointed to a stool.
The barman nodded. Producing one from the stor
e
room in back of the bar, he passed it across to McGarr.
“You have clout here, I see.”
“And elsewhere, as it turned out today.”
“So I’ve been watching.”
He regarded her—the protrusive upper lip, the u
m
ber eyebrows that nearly met, with the arch repeated in a deep widow’s peak. Long neck, fair skin, square shoulders.
She had changed since he’d last seen her into som
e
thing like a black tank top covered by a cashmere cardigan just the color of her eyes.
“I don’t know why this has affected me so co
m
pletely.” As though embarrassed by what she was sa
y
ing, she was looking down into her wineglass. Two bright patches had appeared in her cheeks. “But earlier tonight, back at my fl?at, I felt...well, nearly suicidal. It’s such”—she shook her head, then brushed her longish brown hair off her shoulder; it was slightly tinged with gray—“such a huge loss, such a crime, such an enormity. And, of course, there’s Raymond’s death.”
When she turned to McGarr, her eyes were bri
m
ming with tears.
She had said all that earlier in the day, McGarr thought, but suicidal was different.
Also, beyond her good looks, there was something he found attractive about the woman, perhaps how vu
l
nerable she seemed. Or how much she had taken on r
e
sponsibility for the event.
Noreen had been like that—always thinking there was something she could have done or said that would have prevented or ameliorated some unpleasantness.
“It should have occurred to me that the security structure was not what it should be.”
“Who set it up?”
She raised her head, her nostrils fl?ared, and she looked away, as though suddenly having realized som
e
thing. “Dr. Pape. Actually, it’s rather new. Under a year.”
“Were you at all consulted?”
Pursing her lips, she shook her head. “Well, I should have thought about it a bit, I suppose—if it was truly secure, what was the potential for theft.” Attempting to smile, she again glanced over at him, the glowing fi?re dancing in her eyes. “Something, anything. I feel so... foolish.”
“What might happen to the books now? Apart from a ransom demand? Is there some other way they might be disposed of for a pile of money?”
She sipped from the glass of wine. “Well, I suppose, some rich eccentric bibliophile, who wished only to possess and admire the books, might pay some portion of their worth. You know, to turn a page a day, as we do...did in the library, and admire the intricate weave of iconography and design, which rather mirrors the plot and other complexities of the gospels and of life.
“At least that’s why I would want to own it. But co
n
necting with such a person would be diffi?cult. Unless, of course, whoever did this was commissioned by somebody like that.” Her smile was now more co
m
plete. “As you can tell, I’ve been thinking about this.
“Otherwise”—she drew in a deep breath—“there’s simply no market for art objects of such notoriety and uniqueness. Unless they were stolen by cultural terro
r
ists interested only in their destruction.”
They both looked off, thinking of past events in the North and other parts of the world.
McGarr took another sip and glanced into the fi?re.
“Do you know that the Book of Kells has been stolen before?” Kara asked. “Back in the Middle Ages, when it was called the Great Gospel of Columcille. Thieves stole it from the sanctuary of the church in Kells where even then it had been kept for centuries.”
“
The Annals of Ulste
r
?” responded McGarr.
