Authors: Brian McGilloway
The wash of moonlight on the field meant that I could see him ahead of me. He seemed to be widening the gap between us, and I raised my pace, taking short deep breaths in an attempt to pump a
little more power into my muscles. Instead, as I neared the broken-down pump house, I skidded on something and fell on my face. I thought of Peter O’Connell as I struggled to my feet, wiping
away the detritus and setting off again, trying desperately to breathe through my mouth.
Ahead of me Martin was making a break for the river. I suspected I knew his intentions; he believed that if he could traverse the river onto Islandmore he could make it across the border and out
of my jurisdiction.
The temporary bridge was still some way upriver, so I assumed Martin was hoping to wade across the hundred-or-so yards to the shore of the island. If that was his plan, he didn’t know the
river well. The edges of the river on both sides were mostly silt-beds, the mudflats exposed at low tide. If Martin attempted to wade out into the water, he might find himself unable to make it
more than a few feet before he became bogged down.
I saw him drop from view as I set off in pursuit again. I knew that the field through which I was chasing him dropped down to rocks before the river itself. Martin had made it that far, at
least. As I ran, the ground beneath me grew soggier, the waterlogged earth, still heavy with autumn rains, providing a squelching soundtrack to my movements.
As I drew near the edge of the field I could see that the tide was out. For perhaps twenty feet from the shore to the water’s edge the land lay slick and smooth, the raw moonlight glinting
off its surface. Grooves traversed the mudflats where streams of water ran from the sewage pipes from the shore into the river, while the mud oozed up between the rocks across which Martin was
still struggling. He had clearly realized that his progress was hampered, for he stopped, staring around him wildly, trying to work out which route might offer him the best chance of escape.
‘You can’t go anywhere,’ I shouted, dropping down myself onto the rocks. Martin twisted to look at me, then began to raise the object he held in his hand.
‘Don’t do it,’ I shouted, unclipping my own gun-holster. But then I saw him lift the object above his head and fling it away from him.
As I drew nearer, I heard the plop as it struck the surface of the mud. It settled for a second, then was sucked beneath the surface, the mud oozing up around it to fill the void that it left as
it sank.
‘Stay where you are, Mr Martin. There’s nowhere to go.’
Martin inched closer to the edge of the rocks, moving away from my approach.
‘It’s over. Sheila Clark has told us everything. About the acne cream, about O’Hara burying the children on the island. About Declan Cleary being set up because he tried to
blackmail you. We have it all. Even if you get across to the North, you’ll be arrested there for the killing of Sean Cleary.’
‘Bullshit,’ he shouted back.
‘She’s told us everything.’
‘Don’t come closer,’ Martin shouted.
I was weighing up my own options, wondering how to bring him in. There was no back-up coming; my only hope would be to talk him into surrendering.
‘Where’s the child? We know Clark had one in the house at Drumaghill. Where is he now?’
Martin stepped gingerly from one rock to the next, ignoring the question. Then he launched himself out towards the mud, evidently hoping that, in a few strides, he would reach the water.
He landed in the mud, the impact marked with a loud sucking sound. His legs sank to halfway up his thighs. He seemed surprised at the depth of the sludge and tried to move forward, attempting to
lift one leg. He stretched out his arms to balance himself but, in so doing, overcompensated and suddenly lurched to the right, falling prostrate onto the surface of the mire. I could see him
scrabbling to stand again, his arms pushing against the thick slime to find purchase against the solid ground beneath. But the mud was too deep. His arms disappeared to the shoulder into the
ooze.
He began to panic now, twisting his head out of the slime, shouting incoherently for help. His mouth was black with mud already, his face splattered by the ooze.
I ran to the edge of the rocks and tried to reach out for him. ‘Take my hand,’ I shouted, stretching out as far as I could. But he was too far from me.
He writhed now, his body sinking into the slime so that he had to twist his head around to keep his mouth clear of the surface. He began puffing, trying to catch a breath in case his face should
go under.
I stepped down into the mud myself, its immense coldness taking my breath from me. It stank of salt and something more unpleasant. I tried to reach him, not lifting my leg out of the mud as he
had done, but trying to push my way through the mire towards him. But it was too thick; I shifted only by tiny increments, for all my effort.
I reached out, my finger-tips grazing the fabric of his trouser leg where he lay. I leant forward, scrabbling with my fingers to catch purchase with his leg, in the hope it might offer him some
incentive to keep fighting to stand.
He thrashed wildly now, his head twisting from side to side, though by this stage the mud had covered his face. I tried again to pull at his leg, even to pull myself closer towards him. Finally
I managed to grip his trouser leg and began pulling him towards me. He twisted his head to the side, catching a breath, then began thrashing out with his foot, perhaps in panic, perhaps to force me
to release him.
I tugged harder, pulling him closer, until I had good grip on his leg.
Behind me, I heard shouting and looked around. Andrew Dunne, Christine Cashell’s partner, was dropping down onto the rocks, obviously having seen me arrive.
He ran to the edge of the rocks and offered me his hand to help pull Martin on to the solid ground. At first, I could not reach him. He leaned forward a little more, his fingers brushing the
tips of mine. With an effort, I shifted my position towards him, until I felt him grip my hand and the tug as he tried to pull me from the mire. The sucking of the wet mud marked my progress, slow
as it was, as I freed myself from the slime and allowed Dunne to pull me, with Martin in tow, onto the rocks of the shoreline.
Patterson arrived with the second team after I called for assistance. I explained to him how I had found Martin and that he had thrown something into the mudflats, possibly his
gun. He directed a team to look for the gun while Martin was taken under armed guard to Letterkenny General for a check-up.
‘What’s happening with Clark?’
‘We’ll have to let her go,’ Patterson said. ‘We’ve nothing to hold her on.’
‘She’s a flight-risk, Harry. We’ll not see her again.’
‘We’ll set a high bail, dependent on her staying in the state.’
‘What about the child smuggling? The adoptions?’
‘What child smuggling?’ he said with exasperation. ‘What child? You went to the house; there was nothing there. There is no child; there might not ever have been
one.’
‘You know there was,’ I said. ‘She admitted she had a child in the house.’
‘Which she was watching for a friend.’
‘The neighbour said she’d seen someone leave the house with an infant. At least, if we let her go, put someone on her for a while. She might lead us to the child.’
Patterson took a deep breath, then held it long enough for me to stop.
‘Let’s say she does,’ he said. ‘So what? What’s the best that’s going to happen? You find the child, take it from some poor saps who have paid through the
nose for an adoption, and place it in foster care. Do you really think someone desperate enough to pay to adopt a child will not provide better care than the social-care system?’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘Of course it’s the bloody point,’ Patterson snapped. ‘Even if there was a child, someone has taken it, someone is looking after it. Leave it at that. You look at that
bloody island, coming down with children’s bodies. Someone wants this one; that’s good enough for me.’
But I could not reconcile myself to what he had said. My issue was not with the child, but with the role that Martin and Clark had played, the impunity with which they had acted across three
decades.
As I headed back to the car, I called Joe McCready.
‘I need a favour,’ I said. ‘Patterson is releasing Sheila Clark. I want you to follow her, see where she goes.’
‘Then what?’
‘Just keep an eye. I need to go home and shower. I’ll take over as soon as I’m done. She’ll be taken from the station in the next hour, I’d suspect.’
McCready stifled a yawn at the other end of the line, as he agreed.
As I drove home, I suspected a car was following me. At first I dismissed the thought as a result of tiredness, but sure enough, as I pulled into my driveway, the car behind me
likewise indicated and pulled to a stop in front of our gates.
I walked down the drive again to confront the driver. It was Jimmy Callan.
‘Have you a minute?’ he said.
Instinctively, I glanced around to see who else was about.
‘I need to ask you something,’ Callan said.
I nodded and, moving round to the passenger side, climbed into the car. I noticed, taped to the dashboard, an aged ‘In Memoriam’ card for his son. I wondered at the depth of the
grief that Callan carried around with him that meant he felt compelled to keep a constant reminder of his loss before him as he drove.
‘I hear Niall Martin went in the river,’ he said.
‘That’s right. You hear things very quickly.’
‘Always,’ he agreed. ‘Why did you go after him? Have you connected him with Declan Cleary’s boy?’
‘He’ll be helping us with enquiries in that area. Why?’ I said.
‘Why him?’ he asked, ignoring my own question.
‘We think it connects with the mother-and-baby home.’
‘St Canice’s? What about it?’
‘We believe that Martin’s father’s company was testing drugs on the girls there; acne drugs. It caused a number of the children to die before birth. They covered it up by
burying them on the island. One child survived birth but was so badly disfigured they murdered her. Declan Cleary found out about it and threatened to go to the police unless the Martins paid him
off. His girlfriend was pregnant, with Sean, at the time and he needed the money. We think that’s why he was killed.’
‘So he didn’t inform on Dominic?’
I shook my head. ‘Not as far as we know. I think someone used Dominic’s death as a way to get rid of Cleary, by spreading the rumour that he had touted on your boy. They made him a
target.’
‘So what about my boy? Who actually touted to the Brits?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. I paused before continuing. ‘But we’ve been told that Dominic was the one who murdered the infant.’
He gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles whitening.
‘My turn for questions,’ I said. ‘Did Niall or Alan Martin kill Declan Cleary, or arrange to have him killed?’
‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘Listen, we can’t prosecute anyone on the Declan Cleary killing, it’s so tied up in legislation.’
He considered my comment. ‘An individual went to some of those in charge at the time and told them that Declan Cleary had admitted touting on Dominic. He was treated accordingly by
volunteers, based on the information they were given. I was told this when I was inside.’
‘So Niall Martin and Seamus O’Hara didn’t pull the trigger?’
He shook his head.
‘But they put him in the frame?’
‘I can’t tell you that,’ he repeated.
‘Well, whoever told you he touted on your son, they lied,’ I said, getting out of the car.
‘Devlin,’ he said. ‘How do you know all this?’
‘A woman who worked with the boys. She was lifted earlier. She told us it all.’
‘What was she arrested for?’
‘Nothing, in the end,’ I said. ‘We’re letting her go again.’
He nodded absently. ‘We’ll not be meeting again. I wanted to thank you for allowing me to get to my son’s grave.’
I nodded. ‘Stay out of trouble,’ I said.
Debbie was still up, watching the end of the late movie on TV. ‘Other women worry when their husbands come home smelling of perfume,’ she said when I came in.
‘It would be sweet relief for me.’
I stripped off in the hallway, bundling my clothes together and shoving them straight into the wash, then went and showered.
Then Debbie made tea and toast for us both while I called McCready. Clark had headed straight back to the house at Drumaghill upon her release and had not left since. I promised to get to him as
soon as I could and let him get home.
I called Patterson next, to find out what was happening with Martin. It transpired that he was being held in hospital for the night. He would be released in the morning, when he would be taken
into custody to be questioned about the shooting of Seamus O’Hara.
‘The other stuff can wait. We’ll look at the O’Hara killing first,’ Patterson said.
‘Any luck with the gun?’
‘They couldn’t get it. The tide is against us. We did find bags of clothes in his car. Forensics are testing them for anything that would place him at O’Hara’s. Failing
that, we’ll have to hope he confesses.’
I stopped myself from asking him about the child.
It was almost 2.30 a.m. by the time I got on the road. I pulled into the estate at Drumaghill just before 2.45 a.m. McCready’s car was parked up, its two left wheels on
the kerb, with an unrestricted view of Clark’s house.
As I approached the car I could see McCready’s head pressed against the side window. I tapped a few times on the glass and he started. He stared ahead of himself for a second, blinking, as
if trying to work out where he was. Then, using his sleeve to wipe his chin and cheek, he rolled down the window.
‘Sorry sir,’ he said. ‘I must have dozed off.’
‘Anything happening?
‘Not as far as I know,’ he said. ‘Someone came to visit her. They were here about midnight. They were in for a while.’
‘Who was it?’
‘I don’t know. A single man in a red car. I got the registration.’