Gallows Lane

Chapter Twenty-five

Saturday, 19 June

By the time I returned from Strabane, having waited with Bardwell while he was processed, Paddy Hannon had been in Lifford station for several hours, ‘helping with inquiries’, Dempsey had told him.

He was still sitting in the interview room when I arrived. I thought of Peter Webb in this same room, relaxed, a little bewildered, certain of his innocence. I also thought of Seamus Purdy, unkempt, distressed, consumed with guilt for something in which he’d had no hand. Paddy Hannon was like neither. His whole bearing was one of arrogance. His hair was perfectly combed back, his face flushed but still smelling strongly of aftershave. His suit jacket hung over the back of his chair and his shirt sleeves were rolled up in a workman-like fashion. A packet of cigarettes lay on the table in front of him and I noticed someone had dug out an ashtray so he could smoke. His lawyer sat with him and I was not at all surprised to see that, once again, it was Gerard Brown.

‘We ought to charge you rent,’ I said to him when I came in.

He smiled without sincerity.

‘Ben,’ Hannon said, half standing. ‘What the fuck’s going on here? These yahoos from Dublin are asking all sorts of ridiculous things.’

‘Routine procedure, Paddy,’ I said.

‘Well, I’ve already told them, I’ve nothing to say.’

‘So I’ve heard. Maybe you could tell me again.’

He lifted a cigarette and placed it in his mouth, opening his lighter before starting to speak, though he did not actually light the cigarette.

‘The phone went in the middle of the night. I thought maybe it was another attack or something on the site, you know. I checked the number, didn’t recognize it, phoned it back, and got no answer.’

‘You have no idea why Daniel McLaughlin would phone you, of all people, at two a.m.?’

He paused to light his cigarette before responding. ‘None,’ he said, snapping his lighter shut.

‘Did you know the man?’

‘Not really. He worked for Declan O’Kane, I think.’

‘How did you know that?’

‘I buy my cars from Decko. You get to know the staff too, you know.’

He blew out a stream of smoke hurriedly, tapping the cigarette against the edge of the ashtray. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I don’t really see what else I can do here.’

‘Did you know Peter Webb?’ I asked.

‘By reputation,’ he said. ‘We might have met once or twice, nothing else.’

‘What about Jamie Kerr?’

‘That’s the guy they found on the tree, isn’t that right? Terrible business,’ Hannon said, stubbing out his cigarette, half smoked.

‘So, you knew none of these people, or what happened to them?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Wish I could help you, Ben, but. .’ He shrugged in a way which I found strikingly disingenuous.

‘I don’t believe you, Paddy; I’m sorry,’ I said, taking out my own cigarettes. ‘I find it hard to believe that, in the final moments before his death, possibly fearing for his life, Danny McLaughlin phoned a wrong number which just happened to be yours. I find it even more unbelievable that you would phone it back in the middle of the night.’

‘That’s as may be, Inspector,’ Brown said, ‘but in the absence of anything other than supposition and coincidence, you have no reason to hold my client. Either charge him with something, or let him go.’

‘I’ll speak to my Super and see what he says,’ I said, standing up.

‘While you’re at it, Ben,’ Hannon added, ‘see if we ever got to the bottom of those drugs and guns. You know, the ones that were found twice.’

Paddy Hannon was released without charge twenty minutes later. He shook my hand and told me he understood I was just doing my job. Dempsey seemed even more disgusted than I was with the result; he was to return to Dublin on Monday without a single arrest or prosecution, despite the number of crimes that had been committed over the past weeks.

We went for a drink after Hannon had gone. Then, I headed home. I sat with Debs, Penny and Shane, and attempted to forget all that had happened. But the film we watched could not engage me. And I spent more time wandering in and out of the kitchen for a smoke at the back door than I did sitting with my family.

Finally, fed up with my moping, Debbie came out.

‘What’s up?’ she asked, not even tutting at me for smoking inside the doorway.

‘Nothing,’ I said. Then I added, before she turned to go, ‘I’m really pissed off with this whole bloody case.’

‘I’d noticed,’ she said.

‘Nothing’s been resolved. I know Paddy Hannon is behind these killings and I can’t prove a thing.’

‘That’s how it goes sometimes, Ben,’ Debbie said, coming over and rubbing the back of my neck with her hand. ‘Sometimes things don’t end out the way you’d like.’

‘You didn’t see him, Debs. He was so fucking smarmy about the whole thing.’

She nodded and did not speak. We stood like that, her hand gently massaging my neck, until Shane shouted, ‘Mama.’

‘Things work themselves out, Ben,’ Debbie said. ‘You’ll see.’

Chapter Twenty-six

Sunday, 20 June

The accuracy of Debbie’s words was proven rather quicker than either of us expected. The following morning, after Mass, Costello called to our house. I was sitting on the back step, reading the paper. He attempted to lower his bulk on to the step beside me, but, failing, leant against the door frame and pretended to survey the garden.

‘Beautiful spot you have,’ he said. ‘The garden looks well.’

‘That’s Debbie’s doing,’ I said.

He nodded in understanding. ‘Emily was the same. Green fingers.’

He allowed the silence to settle between us.

‘Harry Patterson came to see me this morning.’

‘Aye?’

He nodded. ‘Seems Hugh Colhoun confessed to him.’

‘What?’ I exclaimed, knocking over my coffee cup.

‘Everything,’ he repeated. ‘Planting the guns, the sympathy card, the attack on the house.’ He paused, then added solemnly, ‘And the car thing. The rag.’

‘Hugh Colhoun,’ I repeated, incredulously. ‘Are you sure?’

He nodded gravely. ‘Apparently he felt bad about what happened to Caroline. Hadn’t meant it to go so far. I think he thought Harry would understand.’

‘Why did Patterson tell you?’

‘To save his own bacon, of course. Harry still thinks he’s got a chance for promotion. And he’s not going to take the fall for someone else.’

‘A real team player,’ I said.

‘There may not be an “I” in team,’ Costello said. ‘But there is “a me”.’ He laughed curtly. ‘I thought I’d let you know.’

‘So what happens now?’ I asked.

‘Harry’s back on the beat. Hugh was lifted this morning. He’ll face charges, if you or Caroline want to press them. Either way he’s in a shit load of trouble.’

‘Have you spoken to Caroline? What did she say?’ I asked.

Another pause. ‘She’s weighing up her options.’

I spent the day with my family. Several times, I tried phoning Caroline, to see how she was feeling about Hugh Colhoun’s confession, but either she wasn’t home, or she wasn’t answering her phone.

That evening, I had agreed to go out for a farewell drink with the NBCI team. Dempsey bought dinner for us all, then we headed into Strabane for a few drinks at a local club. Deegan and Meaney spent the night eyeing up the local talent, while Dempsey and myself sat in a cubicle, considering the cases and their outcome. Dempsey seemed even more dejected than I did about the whole affair.

‘So, we’ll never know who killed Webb, or Kerr, or Decko,’ he said. ‘Apart from McLaughlin.’

‘It was Paddy Hannon behind it,’ I said. ‘I’ll bet money on it’

‘You just can’t prove it.’ He sipped his drink and looked at me slyly. ‘Unless a piece of evidence should happen to appear in his car or something,’ he added, conspiratorially, then laughed.

My head spun as he spoke, and I felt an old, familiar fluttering in my stomach. I actually gripped the edge of the table for support.

‘Between us — it was you, wasn’t it? Playing the NBCI boys, just in town.’ He laughed, shaking his head in mock disbelief.

My thoughts struggled to come into focus. I imagined myself again at Decko’s house, approaching his car, placing Kerr’s leaflet, watching it later on the videotape. .

‘Jesus, the tape!’ I exclaimed.

Dempsey actually started in his seat, spluttering in his beer.

‘What?’

‘The videotape. Decko had a hidden security camera at the front of his house. We watched the bloody video ourselves when we lifted him.’

Dempsey’s expression froze. ‘Shit. How fucking stupid are we? Is it still in the station?’

‘That tape will be. No doubt it was replaced with a fresh one though. Which will still be in the recorder, in Decko’s house.’

He jumped to his feet and barged on to the dance floor, grabbing Deegan and Meaney. By the time they’d got their coats, I was waiting at the front door in the car, engine running.

Decko’s house was in darkness when we arrived. The front gates were closed, blue and white crime tape wrapped around the bars. The building itself was imposing — squat and black against the darkening sky. The windows were closed; no noise of a party in full swing now, as there had been the first time I’d come here. No sign of life at all. Decko had left his fortune to no one, for he had no one to leave it to.

We pulled up at the front of the house. I took the torch from the boot and shone it up across the facade, trying to spot the camera, but none was immediately visible. I went over to the spot where Decko’s car had been parked the night I had planted the evidence. As best I could I stood where I had stood that night and then, recalling the angle of the shot on the videotape, I shone the torch up to where I thought the camera might be placed. I moved the torch beam inch by inch along the wall, every tiny movement of my hand amplified. Then, just to the left of one of the side windows, something glinted.

‘There,’ Deegan called, pointing to the spot.

I handed him the torch. ‘Hold that steady,’ I said.

Dempsey was already at the door, picking the lock. I looked at him quizzically. ‘Ask no questions, I’ll tell you no lies,’ he said, winking. Seconds later there was a click as the lock opened, and we were inside. The SOCO team wouldn’t have been able to set the burglar alarm when they’d locked up the house after their search.

We sprinted up the stairs, trying to judge which window the camera was at. Finally, in a disused bedroom sitting at the back of the house, we found it.

The room had four windows; two to the side of the house and two to the back. The beam of the torch Deegan was holding down below hit the ceiling above the first side window. It didn’t take long to spot the tiny white box sitting on the outside windowsill. Nor did it take long to follow the trail of the wire, running from it to a cabinet sitting in the corner beside a mahogany dresser.

The cabinet was locked but proved little challenge for Dempsey. Sure enough, inside we found a two tiny monitors and a video recorder. The video had stopped recording, the monitors showed no picture, though a red light on each showed they were on standby.

‘Another wire,’ Dempsey said, pointing over my shoulder, his breath warm on the back of my neck.

This one led to one of the back windows, where we found another tiny security camera, tucked in at the corner of the window frame.

The tape in the video recorder was fully rewound, suggesting it had run out. We played with the monitor until the screens came to life, then pushed in the tape and pressed play. A split screen image appeared on the monitor. By pressing a few more buttons, we discovered that we could watch either a recording of the back of the house, the front of the house, or both.

The date and time on the tape showed us that it had started recording at 8.37 p.m. on 12 June. We forwarded it, hoping that it hadn’t run out before Decko’s killing. Figures flickered on and offscreen as the tape moved. We stopped every so often to try to identify any of them. In one we could see Decko, standing near his pool, on the phone. Through the night and early part of 13 June, there was little to see.

Finally, at around 6.30 p.m., Hannon’s car pulled into the driveway. Danny McLaughlin was unmistakable: despite the graininess of the shot his bald head and sheer size were obvious. Paddy Hannon, on the other hand, was not quite so clearly identifiable, though we had little doubt that it was him. They approached the front of the house, then disappeared from view.

Several moments later, Decko suddenly appeared in the back garden, lying on his back, as though someone had thrown him. Next screen, Danny McLaughlin was over him, his hands clamped on Decko’s back. Then they were at the pool. As the images flicked by, one after another, we sat in silence, stunned and disgusted as we watched frame after frame shot of Decko’s torture. McLaughlin held his head under the water in some shots and out of the water in others. Then Decko lay alone at the pool’s edge, McLaughlin standing out of the picture. The next image revealed O’Kane’s body in the pool, around which a darkening circle was spreading.

Several images later we watched the two figures make their way down the side of the house to the car. McLaughlin opened the car door for Paddy Hannon, who was peeling off a pair of gloves. Then the car backed out and the frame was empty.

As the screen continued to flicker on to the end of the tape, we sat back and looked at each other.

‘Is it enough?’ I asked.

Dempsey smiled grimly. ‘I think it might be,’ he said.