Gangster (16 page)

Meehan, however, was putting on a brave face. He was worried. When he went to the toilet, he got into a fight with one of the bar’s other patrons. They all left and went to the Turnstile pub, located a short walk away. The pub lies adjacent to the Phoenix Park and was situated a short distance away from Bowden’s home in the Paddocks. They stayed until closing time and headed for the POD nightclub, coincidentally located across the road from Garda headquarters.

After the club had closed, they went on to Bowden’s home. The party got into full swing. Senan Moloney lived next door to Bowden. He was the crime correspondent for
The Star
newspaper and had spent the day writing about the murder. He had seen his colleague’s limp body and felt physically sick. The day had proved too much for him. So he finished early and made his way home. As he was walking through his front door, he noticed Bowden lugging trays of beer into his house.

‘I formed the opinion there was going to be more booze and music that night,’ he later said. And he was proved correct.

That night the music blared and the beer and cocaine flowed. In one corner, Meehan sat drinking a can of beer, his eyes glazed from the cocaine in his bloodstream. Bowden and Bacon danced. Gilligan had called earlier, telling them to have a good night. Away from the outrage that was quickly enveloping Ireland, he felt relieved. That was the end of her, or so he thought. What Guerin couldn’t do to him in life, she certainly wouldn’t be able to in death.

Chapter 13

Public Enemy Number One

‘I’m finished in Ireland. They’re saying the Provos will get me.’

JOHN GILLIGAN

The gangster’s name was catapulted into the national consciousness within 24 hours of the murder. Gilligan had predicted a public outcry but postulated that any outrage would soon subside—that Guerin’s murder would become nothing more than another statistic. But this was no more than an arrogant hope. The next morning the storm broke when his photograph was published alongside lengthy articles which made no attempt to disguise the fact that he was the prime suspect.

The Government and the police had not a minute’s peace, as it became clear the public had lost all faith in their ability to tackle organised crime. Radio programmes were inundated with calls, and the letters’ pages in the morning newspapers were saturated with angry correspondence.

The killing had huge ramifications for the Government, especially for Owen, who found herself defending her stewardship as society vented its anger. She was in no frame of mind to deal with the onslaught, distraught at having lost a close friend. The frenzy reached fever pitch in the Dáil where the feeling of malevolence towards organised crime was now firmly a political issue. Owen’s trustworthiness was not being gauged on her notable initiatives to streamline the judicial system but on the absolute disregard drug dealers held for the law, which had now made the headlines across the English-speaking world. Therefore, it was only natural that the opposition capitalised on the public unrest. They demanded action against the now famous drug barons; the ones who had Mafioso status through Gilligan’s action.

John O’Donoghue, the Fianna Fáil opposition spokesman on justice, was Owen’s nemesis. During the previous year, he had carved out a career for himself highlighting the various faults in the criminal justice system in a highly vocal manner. He didn’t hold any personal animosity towards the minister; it was just the way Fianna Fáil did business. He did, however, see that Ireland required new laws to tackle criminals like Gilligan. With great political acumen, he had months earlier drafted novel legislation with a barrister friend Eamonn Leahy. He called it the Organised Crime (Restraint and Disposal of Illicit Assets) Bill 1996. The legislation was rudimentary in that it reduced the standard of proof required to seize the proceeds of crime. Instead, it tied the offences to the assets, as against an individual’s liberty. The idea had been conceived with a burst of inspirational genius the previous Easter in a place called Cuascrom: ‘A beautiful place overlooking the Blasket Islands off the Kerry coast. It came to me there,’ O’Donoghue would later say. The law was modelled on a case he remembered when funds collected by Sinn Féin, the political wing of the Provisional IRA, were seized. A subsequent challenge in the High Court found the seizure was within the constitutional parameters.

Fianna Fáil had published the bill but decided to withhold pressing for its enactment until an election was announced. The time was right. O’Donoghue had reason to believe the Government would have no other option but to accept the bill, which would represent a political goal. He went to one of his colleagues, Mary O’Rourke. Because she was a senior party member, who had a fearsome reputation for smiling while denouncing her opponents (an art she probably learned from her days as a school teacher), he believed she would be instrumental in persuading Bertie Ahern, the opposition leader, to move the bill. She agreed with his assessment of the situation.

The two went immediately to the party leader’s office on the fifth floor in Government Buildings. Here, O’Donoghue outlined his case. Ahern didn’t need convincing and without haste ordered his officials to withdraw another piece of legislation on contempt the party had planned to move. This effectively gave O’Donoghue free rein.

‘Looking at it from the perspective of democratic accountability, I felt that when the stage had been reached in any society that they could now gun down an investigative journalist in the streets, then there was something rotten in that society which had to be rooted out.’ He presented the legislation to the Government on the evening of Thursday, 27 June. Jim Higgins, the Government Chief Whip, accepted the bill with a degree of caution. He sent a copy to the Attorney General, Dermot Gleeson, for examination.

For her part, Owen was fighting an impossible war. Not only had she lost a close friend, but she was effectively being blamed for allowing crime to get out of control. Most of the criticism was blissful ignorance, but it affected her personally. She would remember that week as one of the hardest of her life. The experience, however, left her resolute. She pressed ahead with her plans to create a multi-agency unit to target crime. She formally unveiled her plans on 2 July to a packed press conference in Government Buildings. Accompanying her proposal was a comprehensive package of anti-crime measures. Drug dealers, she said, were not invincible. The Government would hold a special debate on organised crime on 25 July. That gave her four weeks.

Those entirely familiar with the story all agreed that Gilligan was the most likely culprit, but none could understand his senseless logic. The motive was too obvious; he was the only person that would benefit from her death. Traynor’s hand in the slaying was another distinct probability. This was a view shared by the police officers tasked with bringing charges against the killers.

Tony Hickey was the chief superintendent in charge of the Serious Crime Squad. He was on holiday in the Portuguese village of Alvor when the gunman struck. Standing in a shopping queue, he overheard a conversation between two Irish tourists standing in the same line. They were talking about Guerin’s murder. He said nothing. But when he returned to his apartment, he rang Lucan Station and asked if the unthinkable had happened. He took command of the inquiry when he returned home that weekend.

Hickey was a proficient murder investigator, a man who had spent much of his career chasing villains and who possessed all the accompanying mannerisms—he chain-smoked and always looked expressionless. He surrounded himself with a coterie of officers he trusted emphatically, and consulted with no one, not even officers attached to other units. Hence he spoke about the investigation only when he needed to. He had joined the gardaí in 1965 and since that time had avoided the media at all costs, believing that much of what was written about drugs was exaggeration and conjecture.

The problem he faced was how to link Gilligan to the assassination when he was in Amsterdam at the time of the killing. There was also the possibility that Gilligan was not responsible, which was a real prospect. To solve the case he hand-picked a team of detectives he trusted. Most were drawn from the Serious Crime Squad, though at the beginning of the inquiry over 100 officers from all divisions in the city got involved.

What Gilligan could never have known was that the police had a head start on him. The Operation Pineapple squad had gathered a mass of intelligence on the gangster. This was shared with the Guerin investigation in accordance with orders from Carty, who learned of the murder whilst standing in the offices of the National Surveillance Unit in Garda headquarters. Privately, he concurred with Hickey’s view that Gilligan might be innocent. ‘No one could be that stupid,’ Carty said. Working from this information, which was big enough to fill several crates, the Guerin team got to work collecting statements from witnesses. Police informants were grilled for anything that would lead to the assassin. The dragnet started.

Even from his hideaway in Amsterdam, Gilligan could see the public reaction to the killing was inspiring an anti-crime wave the likes of which had never been seen before. There was nothing he could do. He was having enough problems running his drugs business. Warren appeared to be suffering from post-traumatic stress, waking in the middle of the night shivering with fear. If arrested he would be easily seduced into making a statement. Shay Ward found that he too couldn’t forget the terrible events. He couldn’t bear to hear Guerin’s name mentioned. He would walk out of a room if her name was referred to in his company. Bowden, Meehan and Mitchell, however, seemed unaffected.

But what caused Gilligan the most concern was Geraldine. The sound of her voice told him that she was under tremendous pressure. And it was his fault. The press was not yielding. When they couldn’t find him, they turned on her, writing about Jessbrook, in the process destroying the reputation afforded to its excellent livery facilities. The business she dearly loved collapsed overnight. The show-jumping arena had been due to host a number of equestrian events—all were cancelled within 24 hours of the murder. He was somewhat sheltered from the consequences of his impulsiveness, but she wasn’t.

In the foolish belief that he could alleviate the campaign, unexpectedly, he decided to talk to the media. Liz Allen was a journalist with the
Sunday Tribune
. Like many of her colleagues, she travelled to Jessbrook in the hope of contacting Gilligan there. Everyone carrying press identification was refused admission, but she persisted, eventually managing to speak directly with Geraldine, who said she couldn’t help, but if her ex-husband rang, she would gladly pass on the message. She sounded so genuine that Allen was taken aback.

The journalist received a call from Gilligan within hours. She made arrangements to fly to Schiphol Airport on Monday, 2 July, for an interview. She was accompanied by photographer Bryan Meade. Before the flight departed, she went into the ladies’ toilet to use her mobile telephone. ‘It was quite noisy in the departures lounge,’ she said. As she went to dial, it rang. It was Gilligan.

‘I know you’re on your way. I know what you are wearing, you have long, blonde hair and you’re wearing a red jacket,’ he said. She thought it was her boyfriend joking and was about to ask him to stop fooling around until she recognised the voice. She looked at herself in the mirror, as much as to confirm what he said was true. She did not panic and said she’d speak with him face to face in a few hours. Meehan, she would later learn, had been directed to the airport by Gilligan to see if she was travelling alone. He was sitting in the same departure lounge, waiting to catch a flight to London and had phoned through her description.

On arrival in Amsterdam, she made her way to the Hilton Hotel where, as promised, Gilligan was waiting with a bunch of white lilies. He smiled as if participating in a civic lesson and assured her she would come to no harm. He said he didn’t want to speak in the foyer, so the party checked in. The interview was conducted in a hotel room where in the most convincing language she had ever heard he proclaimed his innocence.

‘I had no hand, act or part in her murder. I swear to fucking God I don’t know. If I knew I would go after them myself.’ He ran his hands over his face, acting out the part of an innocent man. ‘I’m finished in Ireland. They’re saying the Provos will get me. They’ve set me up. Jesus, I’ve been blamed for this and I am finished now.’

There was a purpose to the interview. Earlier that day, as expected, Traynor won his case prohibiting the
Sunday Independent
from publishing Guerin’s story. That she was dead was irrelevant. The Coach stayed away from the court, allowing his solicitors and barristers to represent him. In his affidavit, he made himself out to be a victim, though no one believed a word of it. His affidavit quoted from imaginary conversations he claimed took place. Guerin was portrayed as a self-serving manipulator; he an innocent victim. ‘I know you’re not involved in heroin but I have to print it,’ he claimed she said. ‘It’s your lifestyle. You have a boat worth a quarter of a million pounds and a string of race cars in Mondello.’ Mr Justice Barron, with no other option, granted the injunction the following day.

Gilligan was kept informed of the events as they unfolded. Offering outright lies in one hand and truths in the other, he began to fight back through the medium of the press in a pincer movement that complemented the bogus allegations levelled by Traynor.

After the interview concluded, Gilligan asked Allen if she wished to go gambling in a nearby casino. ‘He said he’d show me just how much money he could make in one night,’ she said. Smiling, she declined the offer and said goodbye. He thanked her for giving him the opportunity to put the record straight. The evening ended in the same strange circumstances it had begun. After he had left the room, Allen noticed her interviewee had forgotten his briefcase, a metallic Samsonite. Tempted as she was to inspect its contents, she decided to leave it untouched. She handed it in at the reception desk.

That weekend, John Gilligan, criminal par excellence, introduced himself to the Irish public for the first time. The portraits Meade took made him look suave, almost Italian.

The interview was a foolish decision, for later that week the assault case against him collapsed when it came to court on 9 July. It never occurred to him that the public would now have a face to put to the name of the defendant in the assault case, which was destined to collapse because of the untimely death of the principal witness.

The garda prosecuting the case, Superintendent Brendan Quinn, stood up before Judge John Brophy and asked that the charges be struck out. When the matter was concluded, the judge asked the court and the journalists in attendance to stand for a minute’s silence in memory of the ‘lady who was the principal State witness in the case.’

‘The reason why it can’t go ahead is because there is no effective evidence that could be offered in a court of law because of her untimely death within the last two weeks,’ he said. ‘Remember the hymn at Dublin Airport Church, “Be Not Afraid”. If you are afraid then the barons and the major gangland people in this country will take away your rights and freedoms which this country has fought for over decades.’ The judge didn’t name Guerin until making his closing remark. ‘I hope other people in the media will follow on in her tracks.’ The case ended on that note.

Months before the murder, Patrick Culligan, the Garda commissioner, had announced his retirement, sparking off a covert contest among his senior officers for the job. None of the competitors showed the ability that his deputy commissioner, Pat Byrne, did to canvass for the job. Byrne was appointed deputy commissioner in May 1994, taking control of all anti-terrorist and drugs operations. From the outset, he made a point of making the right impression with anyone that crossed his path, particularly political representatives, whose thoughts he scrutinised. In another life, he could have been a theatrical performer or indeed a politician, such was his ability to entertain a captive audience.