Authors: Graham Masterton
If he had turned his head to the left, he would have realised that a Paddy’s Whiskey truck was speeding towards him around the long left-hand curve towards Grange. As it did so, its driver’s attention was caught by the stationary Subaru on the opposite side of the road, with its hazard lights flashing. What the driver didn’t see was the man kneeling right in front of him, as if he were a humble penitent praying to Saint John Licci, the patron saint of road accident victims.
There was a deep, pillowy thump, and for a split second the man was thrown up against the truck driver’s windscreen, his eyes bulging, his mouth stretched open, his arms spread wide. The truck driver stamped on his brake pedal and the man went cartwheeling down the road in front of him, like a circus acrobat. He flew for more than fifty metres before he flopped on to his back, his arms and legs spread wide, but even so the truck’s front wheels came to a shuddering halt less than half a metre away from his head.
The truck driver climbed down from his cab, so shocked that he lost his footing and stumbled. He stared down at the man lying in front of his truck, and saw that his tracksuit pants were soaked almost black with blood. Not only that, his head was skewed sideways at an impossible angle, as if he were trying to look over his shoulder at the road surface underneath him.
The truck driver took out his iPhone and shakily prodded out 112.
‘
Emergency. Which service?
’ asked the call-taker. All the truck driver could manage to croak out was, ‘Ambulance.’
Before she went to join Detectives Dooley and Scanlan, Katie rang home to see how John was feeling.
‘He’s taken some tomato soup,’ Bridie told her. ‘He’s sleeping again now. He was complaining that his feet were aching even though he has no feet but all the same I gave him a sedative to take away the pain. It’s the phantom pain the doctors call it. If you like I can ask him to call you when he wakes up.’
‘No, you’re grand, thanks, Bridie. I’m going to be up the walls for most of the rest of the day. I’ll give him a call myself when I have a breather.’
‘He was telling me that you used to dance together of an evening, him and you. Put some music on the CD player and dance around the lounge, like.
Days Like This
, by Van Morrison, that was your favourite, that’s what he told me.’
‘Yes,’ said Katie, and for a brief moment she had a
tocht
in her throat.
When it’s not always raining there’ll be days like this.
It was so hard to think of those times when John had been tall and muscular and curly-dark-haired and could lift her up in his arms after they had been dancing and carry her into the bedroom.
When there’s no-one complaining there’ll be days like this.
She unlocked her desk drawer and took out her Smith & Wesson .38 Airweight revolver. She was wearing her russet tweed suit today, with a burnt-orange roll-neck sweater underneath, which was long enough and loose enough to cover the holster in her belt. Besides, the Airweight was very small and flat and fitted snugly in its holster against her left hip.
She shrugged on her raincoat and then she walked along to the squad room to meet with Detectives Dooley and Scanlan. They were standing by Detective Dooley’s desk, deep in conversation. Pádraigin Scanlan’s head was very close to Robert Dooley’s, and Katie could see from the brightness in her eyes that their rapport was more than professional. She was always wary about intimate relationships developing between her detectives. If and when relationships went wrong – and they almost always
did
go wrong – they could have a very disruptive effect on their professional judgement. Detectives couldn’t investigate crimes objectively when they were angry at the world for leaving them loveless.
They turned around as she approached them. They were both wearing long olive-green trenchcoats with their collars turned up so they could have been mistaken for brother and sister.
‘Are we out the gap, then?’ Katie asked them.
Detective Dooley said, ‘I’ve just had a call from a snout of mine in Tipp. He does voluntary work for the South Tipperary Rural Travellers’ Project.’
He paused, and then he added, ‘I used to play seven-a-side Super Touch Hurling with his brother,’ as if it mattered to Katie how he got to know him.
‘Okay,’ said Katie. ‘And what did he have to say for himself?’
‘He said the rumour’s going around the halting site at Ballyknock that there’s going to be a major dogfight coming up soon. There’s been some new dogs just brought in for training, seven or eight of them from what he’d heard.’
‘Did he know what breeds they are?’
‘Not all of them, but the fellow who gave him the information said that there were two bulldogs, a mastiff and a Great Dane, and all of them are listed as missing breeds from the Sceolan Kennels.’
‘And did he have any idea when this dogfight is going to be held?’
‘Sure it depends on the dogs, like. All of those breeds are used as fighting dogs, but if they’ve been well-fed and cosseted, do you know what I mean, it’s going to take a month at least to get them up to gameness.’
‘Who are the fighters?’ asked Katie. ‘Did he give you any names?’
‘No, he couldn’t – or
wouldn’t
, more likely. But I’m going to be getting in touch with Sergeant Kehoe at Tipperary Town and ask him if he has any ideas. I don’t know if Guzz Eye McManus is still organising the dogfights up there in Ballyknock but I haven’t heard any different.’
‘Well, let’s get going and have a word with Gerry Mulvaney,’ said Katie. ‘Sooner or later we’re going to get a name out of somebody, so we might as well start with him.’
*
Riverstick was a small cluster of houses and farms sixteen kilometres due south of Cork, where the main road crossed the River Stick. Katie had passed through it with Detective Scanlan only yesterday afternoon, on their way to Kinsale. By the time they reached it today, the rain had passed. The sky was still grey but it was bright as a migraine.
They turned off the main road by the Babbling Brook pub and drove up a narrow road with tangled hedges on each side. About a kilometre further on, they turned right up an unmarked lane. At the end of the lane was a wide semi-circular yard, paved in asphalt, with a ramshackle collection of sheds and outbuildings and kennels all around it. Behind the outbuildings stood a two-storey house with a grey slate roof and a tall smoking chimney. It had once been painted primrose yellow but now its paint was faded and its east wall was overgrown with reddish ivy.
‘Welcome to Gerry Mulvaney’s High Class Boarding Kennels,’ said Detective Dooley. ‘If you look up his website, you’ll see that he’s “internationally renowned for the care and training of pedigree canines of all breeds”. I don’t know about internationally renowned but they know him well enough in Liverpool which is where he sells on most of his stolen animals.’
He parked and they climbed out of the car. They could smell peat smoke from the chimney and hear three or four dogs endlessly barking from one of the outbuildings. They started to walk towards the house, but before they were halfway across the yard, the front door opened abruptly and a man appeared, stalking briskly up to intercept them. He was small and bow-legged, like a retired jockey, and he was wearing a frayed tweed cap and a tweed jacket with sagging pockets, with a yellow Tattersall check waistcoat underneath it.
‘Gerry Mulvaney?’ Detective Dooley called out. ‘Detective Dooley, from Anglesea Street Garda Station.’
‘I know who you are, boy,’ said Gerry Mulvaney, as he came up to them. His cheeks were scarlet, with very rough skin, as if they had been sandpapered, and his eyes were pale shiny blue like glassy allies. ‘I seen you before all right, and I could smell bacon even before you got here. I have a nose as sharp as my dogs here.’
‘This is Detective Superintendent Maguire and Detective Scanlan.’
‘Oh, the top brass, is it? So what have I done to deserve such an honour?’
‘I won’t beat around the bush, Gerry,’ said Detective Dooley. ‘This morning you put up two new dogs for sale on your website, Gerry. A German Shepherd and a what’s-its-name, a Viszla.’
Gerry Mulvaney sniffed, and wiped under his nose with the back of his hand. ‘It’s what I do, boy. I buy and sell dogs, and they’re both legitimate, those two. Their chips are sound – you can check them for yourself – and I have all the paperwork.’
‘Can we see them?’ said Katie.
‘Why’s that, girl? You think I’ve invented them? You think I’m selling imaginary dogs? Sure and they’d be cheaper to feed, like.’
‘I’d just like to see them,’ Katie repeated.
‘Well, all right,’ said Gerry Mulvaney. ‘I suppose it’s your job, isn’t it, being a nosey-parker?’
He turned around and started to walk across the yard towards the largest of the outbuildings, which was built out of whitewashed breezeblocks. There were three rickety wooden steps up to the door, and the door itself had a heavy padlock hanging on it. Gerry Mulvaney dug a huge bunch of keys out of his jacket pocket, and took what seemed like an interminable time sorting out the right one.
Eventually he opened the door and went inside without inviting them in, but they followed him all the same. Although there were barred windows along either side of the building, so that the building wasn’t totally dark inside, he switched on the fluorescent lights on the ceiling, which pinged and flickered into life.
There was an overwhelming stench of stale dog urine, and even though Katie was used to the smell of her own Irish setter Barney, she had to take out the Estée Lauder-soaked handkerchief she always carried in her pocket and breathe it in for a moment.
‘Mother of God,’ said Detective Dooley, and Detective Scanlan coughed and pressed her hand over her nose.
‘Sorry about the fierce smell of benjy in here,’ said Gerry Mulvaney. ‘They haven’t invented an underleg deodorant for dogs yet.’
On the left side, the building was screened off floor to ceiling with wire mesh, and behind the wire mesh it was further divided into eight separate stalls. There were dogs in six of the stalls, and a shaggy black Irish water spaniel jumped up as soon as they came in and started wuffing and flapping its tail. All the others were listless and lay on the floor, staring up at their visitors with mournful eyes, as if they had given up hope altogether.
Gerry Mulvaney led them along to the last two stalls, where a German Shepherd and a caramel-coloured Vizsla were lying. Katie was no expert, although her family had always owned dogs since she was little, but she could see that these two animals were both handsome and well-proportioned and both in beautiful condition. The Cassidys had clearly fed and groomed them well and exercised them every day.
‘There,’ said Gerry Mulvaney. ‘I doubt they’ll be here for long, though. I’ve had two offers for the Vizsla already.’
Katie bent down and peered at both dogs closely. The German Shepherd stood up when she approached his stall, and stared at her, as if he were trying to beg her telepathically,
Please,
rescue us. Please get us out of here.
‘And you say they’re both chipped and registered with the IKC?’ asked Katie.
‘Spot on. One hundred and ninety-nine per cent legal and legitimate.’
‘So who sold them to you?’
Gerry Mulvaney sucked in his breath. ‘Well, it was a private arrangement, like. I wouldn’t really be at liberty to tell you that.’
‘Who sold them to you, Gerry?’
‘They wasn’t exactly
sold
to me. It’s more like I was asked to see if I could find a good home for them – me having the website and all.’
‘All right. You were asked to find a buyer for them. But who by?’
‘I can’t really answer that one. It wasn’t a formal sales transaction, so there’s no actual documentation as such.’
‘I thought you said you had all the paperwork.’
‘Well, let’s put it this way, if there
was
paperwork, I’d have it for sure. But it was more like a favour and as you can see I haven’t sold the dogs yet. No money has changed hands so nothing of what you might call a commercial nature has actually taken place.’
‘Who was it, Gerry? I’m not asking you again. If you don’t tell me, I’m going to have to take you in for questioning.’
‘You can’t do that. On suspicion of what would that be? A feller asked me to find a home for his dogs, if I could, and I told him I’d try. What’s criminal about that?’
Katie took a deep breath, but the stench in the building was so rancid that she wished she hadn’t.
‘What’s criminal about it, Gerry, is that we have good reason to believe that these two dogs are stolen property, and if you’ve agreed to try and sell them, you’re aiding and abetting an indictable offence.’
‘Oh stop. I can’t believe they’re stolen. The feller who gave them to me, he’s straight as an arrow so far as I know. Besides, he gave them to me, and now like I say they’re both legitimately registered to me, and you can’t prove otherwise.’
‘So if and when you sell them, you’re not going to give your man any money?’
‘I don’t know. I might buy him a drink, like. But until they’re sold, it’s me who has to go to all the expense of feeding them and taking care of them.’
‘You’re asking over fifteen hundred euros for the two of them,’ Detective Dooley put in. ‘That’s more than enough to buy you all the dog food you’re going to need, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Oh yeah, and what if one of them gets sick?’ said Gerry Mulvaney. ‘Canine parvo or the demodectic mange? Have you seen what vets are charging these days? You have to take out a mortgage just to cut your dog’s toenails.’
Katie turned to Detective Dooley and Detective Scanlan and said, ‘Do you believe any of this story? An anonymous fellow asks Gerry here to find a home for these two expensive pedigree dogs, but he’s so
flaithiúlach
, this anonymous fellow, that he doesn’t expect even a dooshie percentage of the money that Gerry makes from selling them through his website? Oh – maybe Gerry’s going to stand him a pint of Murphy’s, if he’s lucky.’