Gallows Lane

Chapter Fifteen

Friday, 11 June

For the second time in almost as many days, I walked through a sea of condolences on the way to my desk. Costello was talking to someone in his office, though I could not see who it was. Williams had gone to Letterkenny General to attend the autopsy on Kerr’s body which had finally been cut down from Gallows Lane after the forensic examination was completed.

I sat in our office and opened a new folder. Starting with the robbery in Castlederg, I wrote down all that I knew with regard to Kerr.

He had been part of a four-man gang, hired by Peter Webb. He recognized only Webb of the other three, though another one of them had seemed familiar. Despite Kerr’s having named Webb under interview, the RUC did not pursue the lead.

Upon his return, Kerr was spotted several times around Webb’s land. Webb’s wife was having an affair. I assumed the person who was Webb’s Special Branch handler appeared on the night Webb died. After his death, Kerr again visited Webb’s house — this time to extort money from the widow, threatening to reveal details about Webb’s past.

Then Kerr offered to hand himself in, after completing his mission; except someone nailed him to the same tree from which Webb had been hung.

Clearly, Kerr had discovered the identities of the other members of the gang and had gone to confront them — or to forgive them, if he had been telling the truth all along. They were obviously not interested in his forgiveness and instead finished the botched job they had started years earlier when they shot him and left him for dead. Presumably there was more than one of the gang: Kerr was fairly small, but I doubted one man could both hold another to a tree and nail him in place at the same tree. That meant the remaining two of the Castelderg gang were alive and well — and still in the vicinity.

And of course, Kerr’s identification of the gang members meant that either Webb had told him before he died — or Kerr had subsequently found out in some other way. But how? And did it mean that Kerr had been responsible for Webb’s murder?

Unable to see past these last questions, I went out to get a cup of coffee. I was halfway to the kitchen when I heard Costello call my name. He was standing at his office door, gesturing me to go over. Leaving down my empty cup, I went into his office. Sitting in front of his desk, a smile dying on her lips, was Miriam Powell once again.

Miriam Powell and I had been briefly involved in a relationship when we were teenagers, which concluded when she met Thomas Powell; a man she later married.

Our paths crossed again when Debbie had shared a house with her during university. Miriam frequently took pleasure in reminding Debbie that she had known me first, hinting at sexual liaisons subsequently which had never actually taken place.

Finally, we had met during the case which resulted in the death of her husband and, ultimately, her replacing him as an elected representative for Donegal. Briefly, during that time, we had flirted around the edges of an affair, sharing a kiss (drunken, on her part, at least) about which Debbie learned. By finally turning Miriam Powell down, I had unwittingly created an influential enemy.

Now she sat and smiled at me, her face framed with dirty blonde hair which she had restyled and dyed before her election campaign. My enduring memory of Miriam Powell had been the scent of coconut which seemed to radiate from her skin. Recently, she had taken to wearing a different scent.

‘Benedict — lovely to see you,’ she said, standing up and leaning against me, kissing the air next to my face. She placed her hands on my shoulders for balance, briskly, then stepped away.

‘Miriam, good to see you again. Congratulations on your election. I’m sure you’ll do a fine job.’

‘Well, someone had to replace Thomas. Someone not afraid to say what needs to be said.’

‘I can think of no better person, Miriam. And I mean that in the nicest possible way,’ I said, attempting to be genuine. And failing.

She smiled curtly. ‘Quite, Ben. Anyhow, I thought I would call and get some tips from Superintendent Costello here before this interview. I’m the civilian Chair of the panel.’

‘So I believe. It’ll be nice to see a friendly face during the interview, Miriam.’

‘Well, the problem, Ben, is the way these recent events have been handled. It doesn’t look good. I mean, someone being crucified on a tree in Lifford village? It’s kind of taken the glow off the finds Inspector Patterson made.’

I nodded and looked askance at Costello who returned the look.

‘Obviously, you could be expected to provide the interview panel with details of the state of these investigations.’

I nodded again, then had to clear my throat as I was unable to speak. ‘I’ll try to be as thorough as I can be, Miriam. Though, to be honest, I have a feeling that someone else will be running the case by the time of the interview.’

‘Perhaps you should keep your failings to yourself for the duration of your interview, Benedict,’ she said, then turned away from me in a manner that told me I was dismissed.

Williams was sitting in the office when I finally made it back with my coffee. She had made notes of the state pathologist’s findings and outlined the basics to me. She believed that at least two assailants had killed James Kerr. In the course of the attack he had grabbed or scraped at least one of his killers and skin samples had been recovered from under his fingernails. He had probably been beaten unconscious, then nailed to the tree, his knees broken to speed up his suffocation. He may have regained consciousness, may even have called for help, though the houses on Gallows Lane were so far apart that no one would have heard his cries. I preferred to think that he died without regaining consciousness. Finally, someone had smashed his sternum with the same hammer, causing substantial damage to his lungs and heart. If those who had betrayed Kerr and left him for dead eight years ago regretted not being successful then, they had left no opportunity for the mistake to be repeated this time.

‘It was hideous,’ Williams said, drinking some of my coffee. ‘Most of his injuries couldn’t be seen under his clothes when I saw his body yesterday. They really gave him a going over. It was. . brutal.’ She shook her head in disbelief, as though the gesture would shake free from her memory all that she had seen.

I looked at the notes she had taken: a list of the injuries Kerr suffered; the findings of the autopsy; his clothes — the same he had worn the day I collected him; a list of his stomach contents (a bar of chocolate eaten several hours before his death); an inventory of the items found in his pockets — religious medals, € 8.73 in change and notes, a half-eaten packet of chewing gum. For some reason, something on the list seemed wrong to me, though I could not put my finger on it.

I looked again at the timeline I had written when I first came in, trying to pinpoint the niggling doubt I felt. There was something about the money in his pocket. Something that just wasn’t right.

‘Caroline, you’ve down here that he had over eight euros in his pocket. Are you sure?’

‘Absolutely; I watched the SOCO people count it out.’

‘Where did the three hundred euros go? The money he scammed from Sinead Webb? What happened to it?’

‘Maybe he spent it,’ Caroline suggested.

‘On what? There’s no jewellery mentioned here. He was wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing since he arrived. He hadn’t eaten anything but a chocolate bar in hours. What could he have spent it on?’

‘Maybe his killers took it from him?’ Williams said, then immediately added, ‘but they left eight euros. Why not take it all?’

I shrugged agreement.

‘Could the eight euros be change from the three hundred?’

‘More likely money I gave him a few days ago. He was sleeping rough; I can’t see him spending it on accommodation.’

‘What do you think, then?’ Williams asked. ‘Maybe he never had the money?’

I nodded again. ‘I’m thinking Sinead Webb didn’t give James Kerr anything. At least nothing financial.’ Thoughts were tumbling now in my head, a pattern emerging slowly. ‘Listen, Kerr came here to face the three who betrayed him. He went to Webb first, then Webb dies. Why go back to Webb’s wife? If Webb told him who the other gang members were, why would he need to go back again?’

‘Unless Webb didn’t tell him. Unless Webb died before he got a chance.’

‘But he thinks Mrs Webb would know. How would she know?’

‘What if Kerr saw her with someone he recognized?’ Williams suggested. ‘Someone maybe who had been at her house?’ Her voice raised with excitement as the pieces clicked into place and she nodded her head, showing that she had reached the same conclusion I had.

I reflected again on the story of the robbery Bardwell had told me. Kerr had mentioned that one of the robbers had pimples visible under the stocking he wore on his face. It was not beyond reason that the pimples he remembered had been the acne scars on the face of Decko O’Kane. And Mrs Webb herself had told me that Kerr had seen her friend on the night he had first been spotted prowling around Webb’s property. It was purely circumstantial but it was at least a plausible line of inquiry. And at the moment it was the only line of inquiry we had.

I pulled our file on both O’Kane and Webb, having failed, in the brouhaha since my last visit with Sinead Webb, to check whether there was the slightest validity in the claim that Webb was a drug dealer. I was unsurprised to see no mention made of this or anything like it in his paperwork. There were a few mentions of driving offences and drunk and disorderly charges, but nothing which suggested that he had masterminded armed robberies — which at least told me that, if Kerr had named Webb over the robbery, the RUC had never contacted An Garda about it. But then again, if Webb had been working for Special Branch, they would hardly have contacted us in case we had actually investigated it and blown his cover.

Decko O’Kane’s file was much longer. In addition to the information which I already knew, there were numerous cautions and fines for speeding, parking, and on several occasions, dangerous driving. There were rumours of Decko’s return to his original calling as a drug dealer, but nothing that would stick and, in fairness to him, Decko seemed to have stayed clean since starting his car business.

I halved the file with Williams and we read in silence. For several minutes I was aware of Williams flicking between pages, leaning back in her chair in order to refer to both the sheets sitting on the desk and those which she held in her hand. Finally she spoke. ‘Decko vanished in 1995 and reappeared in ’96. Right?’

‘If you say so.’

‘He goes off the radar in November before the robbery — reappears in July ’96 with cars he’s bought in an auction in England. And no one ever wondered where he got the money from?’ she asked incredulously.

‘According to this,’ I said, gesturing towards the sheaf of sheets I had been reading, ‘it was assumed that the money was his drugs profits. It couldn’t be proved, though. Seems a little too coincidental, doesn’t it?’

‘You think he was one of them — used his cut to go clean?’

‘Maybe. Or used his cut to start the perfect cover to launder the rest of what had been stolen.’

Williams frowned slightly and sat forwards in her chair. ‘Still not enough to arrest him, though, is it? Technically we have nothing on him.’

‘Enough for a chat, I think,’ I said. ‘And, if we can get probable cause, we can always ask him for a DNA sample.’ Williams looked at me quizzically. ‘To compare with the skin found under Kerr’s fingernails,’ I explained.

It took half an hour to get to Letterkenny, where we spent another twenty minutes struggling through traffic, towards where Declan O’Kane’s used car lot stood on the outskirts of the town, in a recently developed industrial park. The building, all glass and stainless steel, faced across the road to the county council offices which had, controversially, been roofed with turf when they were built several years ago.

When we went into the showroom, almost automatically we were approached by an eager young salesman, clean-shaven and freshly perfumed. He assumed that we were husband and wife and, speaking to me as head of the household, told me he could see us together in a surprisingly roomy four-by-four.

‘I hope not, son, or my wife would have a fit,’ I said, then introduced Williams and myself. The puerile side of me made those introductions loud enough for several customers near by to overhear. ‘We’d like to speak to Mr O’Kane, if we could,’ I added.

The neophyte scampered towards the back office where I could see O’Kane, framed in the doorway, speaking to someone who was hidden from view. He looked out towards us and said something to the other person. A pause and he leaned over and closed the door.

A minute later the boy returned, followed briskly by Decko O’Kane, the slightest slope to his body, his limp all but vanished. He had made a genuine effort in recent years to clean up his act; his hair was gelled back on his scalp, his moustache trimmed and even. His skin gleamed, presumably with emollients used to relieve the scarlet acne scars which still cratered his face. He pressed his fist against his nose and sniffed once, then extended the hand in greeting. I was not sure whether the move was intended to make us ill at ease before we even started.

I shook his hand and tried not to be obvious in wiping my palm on my trouser leg afterwards.

‘So, how can I help the local police?’ he said, the final word pronounced polis, like a Northerner. ‘Are youse in the market for fleet cars?’

‘Not quite, Mr O’Kane,’ I said, smiling. ‘We wanted to speak to you about the murder of Peter Webb.’

‘Who?’ he said, without losing a beat, curtly shaking his head once, and twisting his face in bewilderment. ‘Don’t know the name.’

It was an obvious lie; Webb’s name had been all over the news. His denial was unsurprising though, considering his connection to Webb.

‘He was the husband of your girlfriend, Mr O’Kane,’ Williams said. ‘Sinead Webb?’

Decko sniffed again, his hand held against one of his nostrils. He scanned the showroom quickly as he did so, attempting to gauge who had heard. If anyone had, they were making a good job of not letting it show, though I was aware that the other people in the showroom had stopped talking and were walking around the various cars in silence.

‘Perhaps we could speak in your office, Mr O’Kane,’ I said, gesturing towards the doorway from which he had emerged. ‘A little more private, I think.’

Decko offered us tea or coffee, clearly as a formality, so I took him up on the offer. He buzzed through to his secretary as I idly wondered whether he was having an affair with her too, until she arrived and the question became redundant. She was a heavyset woman in her late fifties, her face twisted in a scowl. She carried three mismatched mugs of coffee in one hand and a chipped plate of custard creams in the other. She put the cups down with such force that the contents sloshed on to the paperwork on the desk. Decko tutted and rolled his eyes as she left, but still thanked her politely for her help.

‘Jesus,’ he said once she’d shut the door. ‘If she wasn’t me sister, I’d fire her.’

‘That’s very decent of you, Mr O’Kane,’ I said, smiling.

‘So,’ he said, shifting forwards in his seat. ‘Peter Webb was murdered. Now, why does that concern me?’

‘I was wondering how you knew Mr Webb?’ I asked, always reluctant to let the suspect lead the questioning.

‘I didn’t,’ he replied. ‘I knew his wife. She came in here looking for a new car one day a year or so ago and got the kind of ride she was really looking for.’ He leered at us, and I wondered about the mentality of someone who makes a comment like that in front of a female Garda officer and doesn’t realize it will only adversely affect her view of him. But perhaps that was the point; perhaps Decko didn’t really care what Williams or I thought of him. If we had expected him to crumble and confess simply on hearing that we knew of his affair with an — until recently — married woman, we were sadly mistaken.

‘You were having an affair with someone, but didn’t know their husband, Mr O’Kane?’ Williams asked, her voice pitched high enough to convey her disbelief

‘Of course. The whole point of a “clandestine” affair is that no one knows about it. I was hardly going to introduce meself to him, was I?’ He made speech marks with his fingers as he said the word ‘clandestine’, perhaps in order to emphasize the fact that he knew such a word at all. Then he smiled, secure in the knowledge that we were, for all intents and purposes, flailing in the dark.

‘You recognize the name, though?’ I asked.

‘Of course. That’s a different question, isn’t it?’ He smiled insincerely.

‘And you know James Kerr?’ I asked, hoping to see some flicker register in his face. But he didn’t lose a beat.

‘Never heard of him. Someone sleeping with his wife too?’

‘No — someone nailed him to a tree, then knee-capped him with a hammer,’ I retorted. And Decko made his first real mistake.

‘Never heard of him,’ he repeated, which was virtually impossible since the story about an ex-prisoner being crucified in Lifford had made headline news in every paper and television channel from here to Cork. While I could understand his denying knowing the husband of his mistress, Kerr was, as far as we knew, a stranger. Why would Decko need to deny knowing his name?

‘We think there might be some link between the two killings, Mr O’Kane. Your name came up in the course of inquiries,’ Williams explained.

‘I wish I could help you,’ Decko said disingenuously, ‘but I don’t know either of the people you’re talking about. Short of extra-marital sex being a crime, I’m no use to you.’

‘Even if extra-marital sex were a crime, sir,’ Williams said, ‘it would be Mrs Webb who’d be convicted, not you. You’re not married, are you, sir?’

‘No — are you asking?’ Decko replied.

‘I think it’s safe to assume I’m not, Mr O’Kane,’ Williams said blankly.

As we left, the young salesman who had met us when we arrived was standing over at the coffee machine with one of his colleagues, a bald, thick-necked man in an oil-stained boiler suit. I waved over towards them, but neither reacted, though they watched us depart in silence.

‘You didn’t like Mr O’Kane, I take it,’ I said to Williams once we got outside.

‘Not much to like, is there?’

‘He obviously has something. Sinead Webb’s a good-looking girl.’

‘She must be desperate,’ Williams snorted. ‘So, he’s lying then.’

‘Absolutely. The only thing is, we don’t know what he’s lying about, because we don’t know what he’s done. Maybe he’s just being obtuse because we’re the police.’

As I drove along the dual carriageway, the car behind indicated to overtake. As it passed us, for a split second, it drifted close to our car, then corrected itself. But that single accidental act was all that was needed.

A whoosh filled my ears and everything ahead of me seemed to recede. My eyes shifted out of focus and as my heart-rate rocketed, I instinctively gripped my wrist, struggling to find a pulse.

Feeling the car sway out of my control, I reacted in such an exaggerated manner that we mounted the pavement, before I corrected our course. Williams was speaking to me, her voice raised and urgent, melding with the blaring horns of the cars behind us and the sound of my heart thudding. I saw, in the near distance, a petrol station and slowed the car as best I could to make the turning.

Pulling into the forecourt, I cut the ignition and opened the door. As soon as I stepped on to the paving and felt the solid ground beneath my feet, the panic subsided slightly and the sense of foreboding began to ease. The sky was a brilliant blue, the air cool under the shade of the garage canopy. I bent double, leaning my arms on my knees, the petrol-heavy air making me light-headed. Then I felt Williams’s hand on the small of my back, rubbing, as my parents had done when I was a child and felt sick. The gesture comforted me, and I straightened myself up. Williams looked how I felt, her face drawn and frightened.

‘Jesus. Are you all right?’ she asked.

‘Sorry, Caroline,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry about that. I’m fine.’

‘What happened?’ she asked, looking out at the road as if the answer lay there. I followed her gaze in time to see some of the cars that had been behind us drive off again slowly, clearly having stopped to vent their road rage before realizing that I was unwell rather than drunk. One of the drivers still blasted his horn and gave me the finger — a gesture I returned.

‘I’m taking these attacks,’ I explained. ‘Panic attacks or something. I’m fine. I just needed to get out of the car.’

Williams looked at me warily. ‘Sit down, and I’ll get you some water,’ she said, then went into the shop.

When she came back, I asked her to drive. As we left Letterkenny, I broke the first beta-blocker out of its foil, gulped it back with a mouthful of the water Williams had bought me, and tried not to acknowledge the look of doubt on her face when she glanced over at me.