The White Gallows (40 page)

McEvoy pulled to a stop behind a marked Garda car and stepped out into a light breeze, the sky now threatening rain. Over the hedge to his left he could see activity down across a field in the row of trees forming its boundary. Above him he could hear the chopping of rotor blades. He looked up to see a news helicopter circling high overhead. He hoped that Joyce had made sure the body was covered.

He hurried along the roadway, passing three more parked cars including the state pathologist’s van, to a gate guarded by a uniformed guard.

‘Detective Superintendent McEvoy,’ he announced, showing his identification.

‘You might want to change your shoes, sir,’ the guard said, glancing down at his own muddied trousers and boots. ‘It’s all churned up where the cattle have been.’

McEvoy stared at the gateway entrance and then across the field. ‘Shit,’ he muttered to himself and headed back to the car and his wellington boots. He couldn’t afford to keep replacing suits.

‘Technical have asked that you follow the markers in, sir,’ the guard instructed when he returned.

‘Thanks.’

McEvoy eased his way through the mud in the gateway and then out across the field in a path running parallel to the ditch, passing the figures working amongst the trees, before cutting back diagonally towards them. As he neared he could see that the trees were on the near side of a deep, dry ditch, barbed wire strung between them. Tom McManus and John Joyce were standing on his side of the barbed wire fence watching him approach.

He greeted them both and peered down into the cutting. On the far bank, Peter O’Coffey was lying with his head near to the bottom of the ditch, a dark stain spreading out from under it. He was wearing a green wax jacket, blue jeans and dark grey wellington boots. An old pistol rested amongst the fallen leaves an inch or two from his right hand. It looked as if he’d stood or knelt at the top of the ditch, pulled the trigger, and then slumped forward into the crevice. Thankfully, the tree canopy was protecting the site from the prying eyes of the news helicopter.

George Carter, dressed in a white boiler suit, was standing at the top of the ditch watching Elaine Jones ease herself down next to O’Coffey’s head. For a couple of minutes she inspected him, gently lifting his chin so she could see his face. Off in the field on the far side, Chloe Pollard was working her way back towards a gateway.

‘Well?’ McEvoy asked.

‘Ah, Colm,’ Elaine Jones said peering through the hawthorns. ‘I’m sorry to drag you away from Maggie’s commemoration, and I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I seriously doubt this was a suicide. The bullet passed through his temple and then out just below his left cheek bone.’ She tapped her face, mimicking her description. ‘The angle’s all wrong. He was shot from slightly behind and above. Almost impossible to shoot yourself like that. I’d say he was kneeling down on the edge of the ditch and was then executed.’

‘Executed?’

‘That’s what it looks like to me.’

‘And the note in his hand?’

‘God knows,’ Carter replied. ‘He either killed Koch and this is revenge, or someone is trying to hoodwink us into thinking he killed him.’

‘Either way, we have a killer out there,’ McEvoy observed.

‘We think O’Coffey came in through that gateway over there,’ Carter said, pointing to where Chloe Pollard was presently standing. ‘The photographer who found him came in through the gate up at the road and worked his way down the line of the ditch. We’ve roped off your side just in case whoever killed him headed out your way. I’m trying to limit access this side to preserve whatever evidence there is in here, though tweedle dum and tweedle dee there have marched around in their size twelves messing things up.’

‘We’ve said we were sorry, didn’t we,’ Joyce said, pee-ved. ‘We had to get down to the body. He might have been
alive.’

‘After he’d been shot in the head?’ Carter said sarcastically. ‘I’d say whoever killed him had to drag him forward a little to stop his feet being visible from the field. We’ll see what else we can find. Footprints, hairs, whatever.’

‘Right. Well, I’d better leave you to it. Get that gun prioritised for ballistics analysis. Elaine, can you give me a call as soon as you’ve had chance to do the autopsy?’

‘It’ll be a few hours, Colm. George and Chloe need to finish up here, then we’ll take the body in to Navan.’

‘That’s fine.’ McEvoy turned to Joyce and McManus. ‘Has his family been told yet?’

‘A couple of uniforms went to see his wife half an hour ago,’ McManus said, grateful that it wasn’t him who’d had to go to break the news.

‘Okay, good. Right, John, you’d better get yourself ready to do a bit of media work. Man found dead. Single gun shot to the head. We’re treating it as suspicious. No other details just yet and no further questions. Then get over to
Ballyglass
Church
and give Kelly a hand.’

‘You’re going to let the funeral go ahead?’ Joyce asked.

‘I don’t think we have a choice at this stage. Tom, you’d better come with me. We need to talk to his wife.’

_{* * *}

The uniformed guard stationed outside of Peter O’Coffey’s bungalow directed them up to Martin O’Coffey’s farmhouse. There they were let into the hall by another guard. They found Peter O’Coffey’s wife in the kitchen chopping vegetables. She was a plain faced, broad-shouldered woman in her late thirties with shoulder-length, brown hair, wearing a grey fleece jacket, blue jeans and white runners.

‘Mrs O’Coffey?’ McEvoy asked.

She looked up from the chopping board, a hard, determined set to her jaw.

‘I’m Detective Superintendent Colm McEvoy and this is Sergeant Tom McManus. We’re very sorry about the death of your husband.’

She nodded her head and went back to slicing carrots.

‘We need to ask you some questions.’

‘I need to finish preparing this soup. The old man’s got a bad case of flu.’

‘Perhaps the soup can wait a while,’ McEvoy suggested.

‘I can answer your questions while I work,’ she said, without looking up. ‘I don’t have time to stop. After I’ve done this, I have a farm to look after, then I have to go and collect the kids from school. They don’t know yet. What do you want to know?’

McEvoy and McManus shared a quizzical look. O’Coffey’s widow seemed remarkably blasé about her husband’s death.

‘Do you have any idea why someone might have killed your husband?’ McEvoy asked.

She stopped chopping and looked up. ‘Killed him? I was told he committed suicide. They said there was a note.’

‘That’s what it looked like at first, but the pathologist thinks he was probably shot by someone else.’

She cut a few more slices of celery and then pulled a kitchen chair out and sat down heavily. ‘I thought the stupid fucker had taken the easy way out, leaving us to pick up the pieces.’

‘You thought suicide was likely?’

‘We… things have not been easy for the past year or so.’ She clutched and pulled her hair, closing her eyes. ‘All while the rest of the country was getting rich, we were struggling to survive. It’s been worse than ever recently. If it wasn’t for the subsidies we’d have gone under years ago and we owe the bank a small fortune.’ She covered her face with both hands, speaking through the heels of her hands. ‘He said he would make it okay. He said he knew how to get the money. When I… I thought he’d done it so we’d get the insurance money.’ She started to cry.

McEvoy sent McManus off to get some tissues and after a couple of minutes of comforting she’d regained her composure.

‘The note found in his hand said, “I did it. I’m sorry.” Do you know what that refers to?’ McEvoy asked.

She shook her head no.

‘Do you know where your husband was Saturday night?’

‘Drinking with that idiot, Francie Koch, in Athboy. They’d meet up most Saturday nights for a blow out.’

‘What time did he get back?’

‘It must have been gone
two o’clock
. I’d gone to bed a couple of hours before. Him and Francie were like brothers – best friends since school. I thought he was a wee gobshite. He thought he was god’s gift to the world. I don’t think he liked me very much either.’

‘Did he say where he was until
two o’clock
?’

‘Drinking with Francie. That’s all he said.’

‘But you didn’t tell us that.’

‘It’s bad enough we were on our last legs without him going to prison for some drunken accident! What the hell would I do then? What would the kids do? And Martin? We’d definitely lose the farm.’

McEvoy shook his head. She’d lied for her husband, despite the fact that he might have killed a man. Somehow she’d managed to justify any doubts she had for the sake of the children and farm. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that probably the only reason they had a farm in the first place was because Koch and Martin O’Coffey had robbed two banks. When that came out he wasn’t sure what would happen.

‘You think your husband might have killed Albert Koch?’ he asked.

‘I’m not saying he did it! I asked him and he said no and that was enough for me.’

‘But you had some doubts?’

‘I’ve said enough. I shouldn’t have said anything.’ She stood back up and moved to the chopping board.

‘Mrs O’Coffey, someone’s just killed your husband. It might be the same person that killed Albert Koch, or it might be someone else. Do you think your husband was there when Albert Koch died?’

She stopped chopping, but didn’t look up. ‘Look, Peter and Francie were always creeping round Albert Koch’s farm. They were both obsessed with finding his mythical gold. They were searching for some hidden vault. Complete baloney, but they were obsessed. They’d been looking for it since they were kids. Peter thought that if he could find it he could save the farm. Francie just wanted to be rich.’

McEvoy remembered that Roza had once found Francie searching Koch’s bedroom. Perhaps the pair of them had got drunk and decided to sneak round The White Gallows in the early hours trying to find the rumoured secret vault when they disturbed the old man, then accidentally killed him and tried to cover their tracks by placing him back in bed. Given their intoxication, taking the gun and hanging the noose from the tree might have made sense.

‘So you thought that maybe he’d been sneaking around again?’ McEvoy asked.

‘I thought it might have been possible,’ she conceded. ‘He told me that he’d come straight back home after the pub. He swore blind he hadn’t been near to Koch’s place.’

‘But you thought otherwise?’

She ignored him, chopping the vegetables.

‘Mrs O’Coffey,’ McEvoy prompted.

‘Yes.’

‘Was he at Koch’s farm?’

‘I don’t know. Probably. He was in a hell of a state when he got back,’ she said without looking up. ‘Usually he’s drunk, but this time he was just hyper.’

‘And he was with Francie?’

‘He was always with feckin’ Francie.’

An idea started to form in McEvoy’s mind. ‘How do you think Peter was going to raise the money to save the farm?’

‘I’ve no idea, but he seemed pretty confident. Peter always had some scheme or another. Some sure-fired way to lose more money.’

‘How about if Peter was trying to blackmail Francie?’ McEvoy suggested. ‘Perhaps Francie killed Albert Koch? Francie’s now quite rich from his grandfather’s estate.’