‘I just arrived,’ I said.
‘This is handy,’ he said, nodding towards the body as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘Ties up loose ends.’
‘Any ideas who did it?’
‘None,’ he replied, shaking his head. ‘These druggies take one another out; what can you do?’
I stared down at Kielty’s body, the arms tense behind his back.
‘The piano wire,’ I said, pointing down at him. ‘The same as Lorcan Hutton.’
Patterson considered what I had said for a second, puckered his lips as if he had tasted something bitter and unpalatable.
‘How’s Penny?’
‘She’s fine, sir,’ I said.
‘You’re on leave,’ he continued. ‘Go home, Inspector. Spend some time with your family.’
‘Is there nothing for me to do here?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘That Garda McCready is downstairs, too, I see. The two of you have worked hard – you both deserve a break. Go home.’
His avuncular tone made it impossible to find offence in his closing me out of the conclusion of my own case.
I went downstairs to where McCready sat in the living room with the female Garda I had seen earlier with the child. She was shushing her to sleep in her arms.
‘What’s going to happen to her?’ I asked.
‘Social services are on their way,’ the woman officer said. ‘They’ll take her into care.’
‘The child’s grandmother lives in the North,’ I said. ‘Someone should contact her.’
The officer looked around, as if for verification. ‘I don’t think anyone knows that, sir. Maybe you could contact her.’
I nodded.
‘Can I get a lift back to the station, sir?’ Joe said. ‘My squad car’s been commandeered for a bun run.’
Unable to speak, and feeling suddenly exhausted, I nodded.
As we negotiated our way out of Rossanure, the image of Martin Kielty’s corpse played over in my head. I kept seeing his figure merge with Lorcan Hutton’s in my mind. The wire around the wrists was troubling me. Why? Why not just shoot him? The state of his face and arms suggested he’d been given a going-over before they killed him. Had they tortured him for information? About his stash? If there was a link with Hutton, then it must have been The Rising behind it. And where was his stash? Nicell had helped him to move it. Nicell.
‘Nicell,’ I repeated, aloud this time.
‘What?’ McCready said.
‘Rory Nicell. Kielty was tortured before he died. I’ve seen that MO before, when Lorcan Hutton was killed on the border. The Rising was behind that killing. I’d swear they’re behind this one too. But why torture him? They were either looking for his stash or for revenge. They’re looking for Rory Nicell.’
I tried ringing his mobile, but the phone rang out.
‘Where does he live?’ I asked McCready.
‘I don’t know, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ll try Command and Control.’
He took out his own phone and dialled.
‘Silverbirch Drive. Number 10,’ he stated, once he’d hung up. ‘Take a left up ahead.’
I twisted the steering wheel sharply, taking the corner too fast and having to overcompensate to correct the manoeuvre.
‘“Popular man”, she said,’ he commented.
‘Why?’
He looked at me blankly. ‘I didn’t ask,’ he stated simply.
He directed me through traffic until finally we came to a quiet estate with, perhaps, a dozen houses, separated from the main road by a wall, above which the spindly arms of silver birches jutted into the sky.
We trawled slowly past each house until we reached number 10.
As we approached the door, a woman in her early forties opened it and stepped out. ‘Yes?’
‘Is Rory Nicell here?’ I asked.
‘Who are you?’ she asked, raising her chin defiantly.
‘Garda Inspector Benedict Devlin,’ I said.
‘Have you people not done enough to him?’ she said, turning, her hand on the door to close it. ‘Hounding him out of a job.’
I reached out, placed my hand against the closing door, earning a glare of anger from Nicell’s wife.
‘His life may be in danger, Mrs Nicell. I need to speak to him.’
The woman regarded me coolly, then cast a disparaging glance at McCready. ‘He’s gone to eleven o’clock Mass at St Mary’s. He goes every morning.’
McCready drove, as he knew the way to the church. Even so, it still took us just over ten minutes to make it there due to the one-way system in the town centre.
As we approached the church, we realized that the roadway for a mile past it was being resurfaced, the traffic held up by temporary lights. We had to stop and start several times as we made our way towards Nicell, the car ahead skidding up loose gravel onto our bonnet each time it moved.
We drew level with St Mary’s in time to see the last parishioners coming down the church steps, the priest standing at the doors, speaking with an elderly woman while, with one hand, he held down the hem of his soutane against the wind which threatened to lift it.
‘There he is,’ McCready said excitedly, pointing further up the road to where a blue Megane was pulling out from the kerb. Sure enough, in the driver’s seat, his profile turned to check for oncoming traffic, I could see Rory Nicell.
He pulled out into the traffic three cars ahead of us, let out by someone looking for his parking space, so that we were held in the traffic as that driver reversed into the newly vacated spot. Meanwhile, Nicell had moved on ahead, back towards the town centre.
In the rear-view mirror I caught a movement, something red shifting quickly in and out of my sight. I twisted in my seat as best I could and saw that a motorcycle was driving down the centre of the road, weaving between the cars behind us.
‘Try to pull out,’ I said to McCready. ‘Get past this queue.’
McCready twisted the steering, but the car ahead of us was too close. In the rear-view mirror, the motorcycle was closing in, the driving erratic. Finally it shot past us, weaving sharply past the angled bumper of our car, the pillion passenger twisting to watch the cars they were passing. Behind the plastic visor of his helmet, I could make out the sharp features of Tony Armstrong. The bulkiness of the rider suggested that it was Jimmy Irvine.
‘That’s them,’ I shouted. ‘Move it.’
The car ahead of us inched forward enough for McCready to push out past them, though not without hitting its bumper.
‘You’ve no siren,’ he cursed. ‘We should have brought a squad car.’
We pulled out into the middle of the road, McCready hammering on his horn, his headlights blazing as he tried to push his way through the traffic. Up ahead I could see Nicell stopped at traffic lights. The motorcycle was pulling up alongside his car. McCready sped up, smashing off one wing mirror after another of the cars to our left.
I could see Armstrong ahead, stopped by Nicell’s car, straighten up on the bike as his hand disappeared into his tunic. As we approached he withdrew his gun and pointed it towards the passenger window.
Irvine, though, must have seen us in his mirror. He pulled off, just as Armstrong shot, the bike lurching forward with such force that Armstrong was flung backwards onto the road.
Irvine’s bike surged through the red light. There was a sickening crunch of metal as a car, cutting across the junction collided with the bike, smashing it sideways. The machine slid along the ground, Irvine beneath it, sparks flying.
McCready skidded to a stop in front of Armstrong, who was struggling to his feet. His arm hung useless by his side, his gun lost beneath Nicell’s car in the fall.
He raised his other hand above his head, his crooked smile bloody clear behind the shattered visor of his helmet.
McCready ran to him and brought him to the ground, twisting his one good arm behind his back. To our left, Nicell’s car sat, the engine still running. The side window was broken, the windscreen stippled with blood. I glanced in to see Nicell lying across his front seat, clutching his leg, from which blood was oozing, darkening his jeans.
I heard a shout and turned towards the junction. The man whose car had hit the bike must have gone over to help Irvine. But Irvine had managed to move the wreckage of his bike and was struggling to his feet, pawing inside his leather jacket and pulling out a handgun. With his free hand he pulled off his helmet.
He pointed the gun and fired. As I ducked, I heard the crack and shattering of the plate glass window of the newsagent’s further along the pavement.
I didn’t give Irvine a chance to find his range. Almost without thought, I pulled my gun and approached him.
‘Drop it or I’ll shoot,’ I said. ‘Drop it now.’
I was vaguely aware of passers-by stopping to watch. A few ducked nervously behind cover, others stood openly at the edge of the road as if the scene were provided solely for their entertainment.
Irvine looked at me, squinting slightly as if trying to remember where he had seen me before. Blood dripped down into his eyes from a gash on his forehead.
With a look of complete confusion he raised his gun again, pointed it at me.
My bullet caught him in the neck, spun his body around and knocked him back onto the road. He fell onto his side awkwardly and lay there, and did not attempt to correct his position.
I spun to my right, catching a figure out of the corner of my eye raising something and pointing it at me. A teenage boy swore as he cowered down, a mobile phone held aloft, filming all that had happened. He raised it in his hand to show what it was, then flung it to the ground as he covered his head with his arms.
I approached Irvine, my gun trained on him. His gun lay a few yards from his body and I kicked it further from him. He still lay on his side, his arm raised above his head, cushioning his face. Tiny bubbles of blood popped around his mouth. As I called for an ambulance, I noticed they had ceased.
‘But you still haven’t told me how you knew,’ Patterson observed at the end of our interview.
We had been sitting in the office in Sligo station for over an hour while I talked through the events that had resulted in the death of Jimmy Irvine. Nicell was still in surgery as doctors attempted to stem the arterial bleeding. I knew that Tony Armstrong was being interviewed in a similar room further down the hall, after his busted arm had been plastered up in Sligo General.
‘The wire they used to tie Kielty,’ I said. ‘The same MO as Hutton.’
‘This is a fucking mess,’ he said, his hands rubbing at the sides of his scalp. ‘How the fuck did they know where Kielty and Nicell were living?’
‘I have no idea, sir,’ I lied. ‘Someone would need to contact Kielty’s mother and get her down to collect the child.’
He nodded, his hands in front of his face. I noticed he had become jowly, his stomach flabby, since he had taken over as Super.
‘Can I go, sir?’ I asked. ‘I want to get back to Penny.’
He rubbed his flushed face, tapped his hands on his desk. ‘Of course, Ben,’ he said. ‘Good work today. Nicell owes you one. Not that the fucker deserves it.’
Caroline Williams answered the door on my second knock.
‘Ben,’ she said, smiling. She stood back, holding the door open. ‘Come in.’
I stepped into the hallway.
‘You look like shit,’ she observed. ‘What are you doing down here? Is everything OK with Penny?’
‘Fine,’ I managed, as she shut the door behind me and directed me towards the living room.
‘My folks aren’t in,’ she said. ‘Do you want tea?’
‘Please,’ I said, my throat so dry I had to repeat the word twice to be heard.
I followed her into the kitchen, watched as she lifted the kettle, filled it at the sink. She turned and looked at me where I stood, folded her arms across her chest, then unfolded them and leant back, her hands on the counter behind her.
Neither of us spoke for a moment.
Finally she said, ‘I’m glad it’s you.’
I swallowed hard. ‘I’m not,’ I said.
She smiled, turned and lifted two mugs off the tree to her left. ‘Milk and sugar, right?’
I nodded.
She busied herself, placing tea bags into the two mugs, spooning out sugar, her hand shaking so much she spilt some on the counter which she then had to wipe up.
‘How did you know?’ she asked without turning.
‘I didn’t. I just guessed,’ I said. ‘Someone in Command and Control commented that Nicell was popular, when we called looking for his address. I checked back. You called an hour earlier, gave your name and officer number, to get his address.’
She nodded, continuing to make the tea.
‘Which means that you knew you’d be caught, Caroline,’ I said, moving towards her. ‘You wanted to be caught. Why?’
‘They killed Peter,’ she said. ‘They took my son from me. What else have I got left?’
‘You have your parents,’ I said, standing close behind her, only a foot or two separating us.
She smiled briefly. ‘I lost everything, Ben. They took everything from me when they took Peter. I tried to be philosophical about it but I can’t be. So I went to Morrison yesterday. The house was easy to find; I followed your directions to Porthall.’