Gallows Lane

Chapter Twelve

Wednesday, 9 June

The following morning I overslept and had to phone into the station, claiming I had a call to make regarding Kerr. In reality Penny and Shane helped me make Debs breakfast in bed, which actually meant that Penny buttered the toast and Shane stood shouting, ‘Tea, Mama!’ at the bottom of the stairs, shaking on the security gate we’d set up there to stop him climbing.

Having fed Mama, the three of us had breakfast and watched cartoons. What this actually meant was that Penny and Shane watched cartoons and I cleaned out Harry the Hamster, who had already been relegated to the corner beside the radiator.

Then Jim Hendry phoned and invited me to join him at the driving range in Lifford, and I knew it was going to be a bad day.

‘You could at least have brought a club with you,’ he observed as I sloped towards him, hands deep in my pockets.

‘All I had at home was a hurling bat,’ I said, ‘though watching your form, anything might help.’

‘You’re a funny boy,’ he said, timing his swing for an effect which was lost by virtue of the fact that his club sliced the mat several inches shy of the ball, which teetered on its tee, then rolled off.

‘Is there a name for that move?’

‘You’re putting me off my swing. I came over here for peace,’ he said.

‘You called me,’ I pointed out. ‘Personally, I’d be happy never to set foot in a golf club.’

‘I found out something for you,’ he said, lining up another drive. ‘Something which you didn’t hear from me and which I’ll deny telling you.’

‘Hence the venue, Deep Throat.’

‘Exactly — and I pray to God you’re thinking of the same film I am when you make that reference.’

‘So what did you find out?’

‘Nothing,’ he said, then swung, this time hitting the ball neatly with a satisfying crack that sent it soaring up the field before us.

‘So you didn’t tell me nothing,’ I said.

‘Do you want to know this or not?’ he said, placing another ball on the tee.

‘Sorry,’ I said, suitably chastened but no less confused. ‘I appreciate your help, Jim; honestly.’

He swung again — rewarded by the ball’s exit from the shed. Finally content that he had not embarrassed himself in terms of golfing prowess, he turned and spoke directly to me.

‘Three years ago, I’d have got in real trouble for what I’m telling you; understand that. I looked up Webb in our files. And I found nothing.’

‘Nothing. What does that mean?’

‘It means one of three things, Ben. The straightforward reason would be that he lived a perfect life and we never had any cause to deal with him, no disputes with neighbours, no speeding, nothing.’

‘Which is fairly unlikely. Especially if Kerr named him when he was arrested.’

‘Exactly. If Kerr named him there would have to be something — even if only to say we’d checked and there was nothing to it.’

‘So what are the non-straightforward reasons?’ I asked, though I was beginning to have suspicions of my own, suspicions which might explain the appearance of a British Special Branch agent on our side of the border.

‘The other reason is that Special Branch has his file. And that’s what I shouldn’t be telling you. The Special Branch files are kept locked in a separate office from all the others; we can’t get near them, unless one of Special Branch is willing to share something with us.’

‘Which means Peter Webb was a spy?’

‘An agent, technically,’ he agreed, then added hastily, ‘or else, the third possibility, he was under witness protection from way back. I could be totally wrong on this, Ben. It could be totally innocent. But, adding two and two together, it’s hard not to come up with-’

‘Double-O Four,’ I said grimly.

‘Quite. Certainly it would explain why he was never questioned over the Castlederg job if one of the people involved named him under interrogation. Or at least, it explains why there’s no record of him having been brought in. As I say, of course, he could also have been a protected witness. Which amounts to fairly much the same thing.’

‘I wonder if Kerr’s file mentions him naming Webb?’ I said, not wanting to ask directly for Hendry to share information from his files with me twice.

‘I thought you’d ask, so I checked. His file is expurgated to the point of being unreadable. There are pages missing from his statement.’

‘Shit,’ I said.

‘Exactly; and you’re standing in it. If I were you, I wouldn’t ask too many questions about Peter Webb. If Kerr’s done a runner, I’d let him run. Don’t think for one second that Special Branch wouldn’t come over the border. Normal rules don’t apply with those boyos.’

‘They may have already,’ I said, and told Hendry about the man in Christy Ward’s shop and the old university friend who had visited Webb on the night he died.

‘Sounds about right,’ he said when I’d finished. ‘I don’t recognize the description; it could be anyone. But I can’t snoop into Special Branch, Ben. Looks like there could be some upward movement in our place soon — don’t want to be caught airing our dirty laundry in public. Team player and all that.’

‘I thought golf was a sport for one,’ I said, smiling weakly, feeling suddenly exhausted at the thought of the case and all that I suspected would be required to see it through. And the thought of the dispute with Patterson, and the upcoming promotion in our own station.

‘Bottom line, Ben: Webb was working for Special Branch, in some capacity and at some time. Take that as a given now; you’ll never find out any more about it. And your English friend who was with him the night he died? I’d say he was on the Larne-Stranraer ferry two hours after leaving him. And that’ll be the last you hear of him as well.’

‘That might explain why Costello was ordered to let Webb go after he was arrested. Orders from above, apparently.’

‘Yep,’ he said, nodding his head to emphasize the point. ‘You’ll just have to accept that Webb worked for someone on my side. Whether they had anything to do with his death, I’d say it’s doubtful. There are no big hitters involved in this. Webb was probably retired years ago. They probably sent someone to debrief him after they’d heard he’d been arrested.’

I began to wonder how they knew he’d been arrested. Maybe Webb had got in touch with them. They were able to put pressure on Costello before Webb got out, so he contacted them from jail. And without a mobile that would mean he’d used the station phone. The realization hit me almost physically. ‘Shit,’ I said, louder than intended.

‘Are you okay?’ Hendry asked, picking a ball out of his basket. ‘You look awful!’

‘Thanks,’ I said. And thanks for the info.’

He waved the comment aside. ‘None necessary. Pay for another basket of balls there for me, would you?’ he said, dummying a swing.

I headed back to the station and dug out the log for the day of Webb’s arrest. Patterson had been the arresting officer, unsurprisingly, and had signed Webb in on 31 May at 20.03 p.m. A quick call to Telecom Eireann provided me with a list of phone calls for that evening. I guessed the number Webb would have phoned would be either a Northern or a mobile one. I found three, all fairly close together.

I took the numbers down to our office and called the first, which turned out to be for a pizzeria in Strabane. The second was a landline which connected with a pub in Sion Mills.

‘This is Peter Webb,’ I said, when the phone was answered.

‘Congratulations,’ a female voice replied. ‘Who’s Peter Webb?’ Hardly Holmesian detective work, but enough for me to claim I’d dialled a wrong number. I then tried the third number, a mobile.

It rang seven or eight times before someone finally answered. A male voice. English accent.

‘Who’s this?’ he said, by way of greeting.

‘Peter Webb,’ I said.

The line went dead.

I redialled. It rang four times.

‘Who the fuck is this?’ the man on the other end snapped.

‘Peter Webb,’ I replied a second time.

The man did not speak for a few seconds. Then, ‘No it’s not. Now who is this?’

Time to come clean, I thought. I’d obviously hit a nerve with Webb’s name alone.

‘My name is Inspector Devlin. I’m investigating the murder of Peter Webb. Who’s this?’

‘Well, I assumed you’d know, seeing as how you’re the man phoning me,’ the voice replied with a note of humour. ‘Or are you pissing in the wind?’

‘I’m guessing you’re Special Bran-’ I began, but the line had gone dead.

I tried again a third time. The call was answered quicker this time.

‘You don’t take a message, do you?’ the man said. ‘I’ve nothing to say to you.’

‘I don’t believe that’s true. If you didn’t want to speak to me, you wouldn’t keep answering your phone.’

The man laughed, a little coldly. ‘So, Webb was murdered?’ he said.

‘We believe so, yes.’

‘And what do you want with me?’

‘I’d like to talk to you. About him.’

He did not speak for a few seconds and I could sense he was thinking about it. Finally he said, ‘I’ll get back to you.’

‘Do you want my mobile number?’ I asked.

‘No need,’ he said.

‘What should I call you?’ I asked, eager to keep him on the line.

A pause. ‘Mr Bond,’ he said, laughed once and then hung up.

Just as I put down the phone, Burgess blundered into the office. Sinead Webb had phoned moments earlier in a panic, having sighted the prowler around her house once more. She sounded genuinely frightened, he said. Would I take a look, since I had dealt with her last time?

Despite Burgess’s report, when I arrived at her home several minutes later, Sinead Webb seemed to have regained control of herself. She laughed a little forcibly, said she had panicked. She thought he must have been frightened off. Still, her hand shook as she struggled to light a cigarette, and her voice threatened to crack as she spoke. She laughed again nervously as she tried to blame her jumpiness on the events of the previous days.

‘I’ll just check around; make sure there’s no one about,’ I said. ‘I’ll be back in a second,’ I added, turning into the kitchen to go out the back door. Mrs Webb tried to direct me to the front of the house, but too late to prevent me from seeing the shards of broken glass that were lying on the kitchen floor.

Someone had clearly smashed the glass in the door, then reached in and unlocked the door. The glass beneath the door had been crushed underfoot, so I could only assume the intruder had made it into the kitchen. Whoever it was — and I had to suspect it was Kerr — had cut themselves on the remaining glass lodged in the window frame of the door, for their blood was smeared around the keyhole where they had obviously fumbled with the key.

‘What really happened here, Mrs Webb?’ I asked. ‘You call us. Then you act as if you can’t wait to get rid of me.’

She slumped down in the kitchen chair where she had sat a few days earlier when we had broken the news of her husband’s apparent suicide to her. She rested her head in her hands and, for the first time, I witnessed her actually crying. Her sobs shook her, her back heaving, as she leant over the table. I laid my hand on her shoulder and, unsure what to say, rubbed her back lightly, and looked out of the windows towards where the earliest of the apples were starting to fill out on the trees in their orchard.

‘I understand this has been a difficult time for you, Mrs Webb,’ I said, pulling out a chair beside her and sitting down.

She sniffed a few times, then blew her nose into a tissue clenched in her fist and smiled wanly. ‘I must look a sight,’ she said.

‘Not at all,’ I replied, for I assumed that was what she most wanted to hear. ‘Now, you really will feel better if you tell me what happened here. I can help.’

‘I. . I saw that. . man again. The one I told you about before. He was out there.’ She pointed to the general area around the apple trees. ‘I thought he wanted to hurt me, so I phoned you and locked the door. Only he. . he. .’ She gestured again towards the door.

‘He smashed the window and let himself in.’

She nodded, as she composed herself again. ‘I thought he was going to attack me. Instead he said he knew something about Peter. Something about those drugs. He said he needed money. I. . I didn’t know what to do. I. .’

‘You paid him,’ I said, finishing her statement.

She nodded.

‘How much?’

She held aloft three fingers. ‘Three hundred euros,’ she said. Then added hastily, ‘I know I shouldn’t have, but I wanted rid of him. I didn’t know what else to do.’

‘Is that all he wanted? Three hundred euros?’

‘It’s all I had in the house,’ she explained, wiping her nose and straightening herself a little, her demeanour more calm now.

‘Mrs Webb, it’s important that I know exactly what this man wanted,’ I explained. ‘What did he say he knew?’

She paused a little, raising her chin slightly, a show of dignity despite the circumstances. ‘He said he knew Peter was a drug dealer. He said he would leak it to the papers. I couldn’t let that happen. I may not have been a perfect wife, but my husband’s dead, Inspector. How could I live in this village with that slur attached to me?’

When I was sure she had composed herself, I went out once more into the garden to look for signs of Kerr, but there was nothing to be found. It made sense that Kerr should be looking for money; I knew myself that he was penniless. His method of obtaining it, however, was more than a little incongruous with his professed mission in Lifford. And the story about Webb actually being a drug dealer was news to me. Either it was complete lies — or else Peter Webb had been keeping more secrets than anyone knew.

When I returned to the station, Williams was sitting outside at the back, sunning herself. She had brought out two of the wooden chairs from indoors and was slouched in one, her legs stretched across the other. She had pulled her trouser legs up to below her knees. She pushed her sunglasses up into her hair and listened as I told her of Mrs Webb’s payoff to Kerr.

‘Do you think there’s something to it?’ she asked.

‘God knows. It seems unlikely — but then again, Webb as an armed robber or a British spy seemed unlikely a week ago. Might be worth following up.’

‘Give me another ten minutes; I’m nearly cooked.’

‘The sun’s gone to your head,’ I said, lighting up a cigarette.

‘But it hasn’t dulled my investigative brain! I got your registration number processed. It belongs to a Letterkenny resident. You’ll like this one, boss. A certain Mr Declan O’Kane.’

‘Decko?’

‘The one and only. Looks like the professor’s missus was playing away from home.’

‘She was playing at home, more like. How the hell does she fit in with Decko Kane?’

‘Who knows? But. . what a tangled Webb we weave,’ she said, chuckling to herself.

I groaned. ‘How long have you been waiting to use that?’

‘Since you told me this morning. I had to time it right, though, you know?’ She winked at me, then pulled her sunglasses back down again and turned her face towards the sun.

*

Ostensibly, Declan ‘Decko’ O’Kane was a used car salesman. He was born in Strabane where his first career had been recidivism. One year after being handed a suspended sentence for aggravated assault, Decko was put away for two years for a spate of burglaries around Ballymagorry, where he posed as the electricity man calling to read pensioners’ meters and instead was emptying tea caddies and purses of savings and benefits. His spell inside introduced him to drugs, initially as a hobby and then in a more professional capacity. He was linked for some time with one of the paramilitary fringe groups in Strabane until he took a beating with iron bars and baseball bats which left him with two crushed ankles and ten broken fingers. Unlike many others in the same situation, Decko stood his ground and stayed in Strabane, limping from bar to bar, peddling small amounts of hash, poppers and Es to the Goths and ravers of the early nineties. He kept business small enough to stay off the radar of other interested parties, while earning sufficient to put a little aside. He cleaned up his own act too, by all accounts, swearing off drugs, drink and smokes. Despite his weakened ankles, he took up jogging, pounding along the roads around Strabane every evening, regardless of the weather. Then, all of a sudden, Decko disappeared.

And reappeared eight months later in Letterkenny, twenty miles south of the border, with five cars he had bought in a used car auction. He fixed them up, washed and waxed them, and sold them for a three thousand mark-up through the classifieds. With the return he bought another eight, and so on and so on, until finally he opened a used car lot with fifty cars in stock. That was in 1997. Now, less than a decade later, Decko’s yard contained more than three hundred cars and employed six other salesmen. He lived on a three-acre estate along the back road between Lifford and Letterkenny and he drove cars that cost more than an average Garda officer’s annual wages.

Unlike Paddy Hannon, though, Decko had never been nominated for Donegal Person of the Year, not least due to the fact that he was a Northerner. Regardless of all that he had done to affect an air of respectability, he was still a drug peddler made good. He had been refused membership of the Rotary Club, the Lions Club and even the Knights of Saint Columbanus.

Physically, Decko was a strange mixture of ostentation and gaucheness. He wore Armani suits and silk ties. His face, however, had been savaged by acne when he was younger and was still pock-marked with the scars of the infection. On account of the beating he had taken, he still walked with a sloping gait; his fingers were long and gangly like a professional piano player’s. His drug habit had screwed his sinuses and he sniffed continually while he spoke and wiped at his nostrils with the back of his hand, despite sporting a silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. His voice had a nasal quality that made his vowels short and his consonants harsh.

He was also connected with Peter Webb or, more particularly, Webb’s wife. While it had no bearing on Webb’s arrest or James Kerr’s whereabouts or indeed the appearance of Special Branch over the border, it certainly needed to be considered in connection with Webb’s death.

Back in the office I gathered up the various letters and notes which had accumulated on my desk over the past few days. Top of the pile was an old note from Williams saying she had gone out canvassing more pubs to find out where Webb and his English friend had gone the night he died. Underneath were various reports from locals about break-ins, domestic disputes, pets lost and found, and a standing request for a daily wake-up call from an elderly lady living in Raphoe, named Martha Saunders. We took turns ringing her at nine each morning — in time for Mass, she explained. It appeared that tomorrow was my turn.

At the bottom of the pile, carefully tucked beneath the rest of the junk, was a card in a sealed envelope, its shape distorted by something small and compact inside it. I was a little confused when I opened the envelope to find a ‘Sympathy’ card, the cover image one of Christ, nailed to the cross. I was more than confused when I opened it and discovered a small bullet taped inside beneath the name of the deceased. And the name of the deceased was Benedict Devlin.