Bleed a River Deep (Inspector Devlin Mystery 3) Read online

  I slid down a little in the seat and stubbed out my smoke. I felt certain the driver was watching me watching him. Soon, though, he got bored and leant back to retrieve something from the back seat.

  A few minutes later Pony Tail came out of the house and I got a proper look at him. He was wiry-framed with greying hair. His face was thin and lean and he chewed gum as he walked, blowing and popping a bubble as he reached the car.

  The driver said something to him and he looked back at the house he had just left. Then, as he turned to get into the car, he glanced directly at me for a second.

  As he closed the door I phoned Gorman, who had taken Natalia for a drive, patching the call through the hands-free set so that the two men in the car opposite would not see me using my phone. I explained the situation.

  As the Fiesta drove off, I was aware that both men were looking across at me as they passed and I had to resist the compulsion to look back. I’d know Pony Tail if I saw him again but I’d no idea what the other man looked like, beyond the feeling that he had black hair beneath his cap.

  When they turned the corner I started the car and drove after them in the same direction. They knew they were being followed, so it made no difference if they saw me behind them. I only needed to know which direction they were going when they got to the bypass which would take them either north towards Lifford, south to Omagh, or else straight ahead into the centre of Strabane. Helen Gorman had dropped Natalia at a local fast-food place on the edge of town and was making her way up the bypass. If they headed towards Omagh or into Strabane, she’d catch them; if they headed towards Lifford, I’d have to follow them.

  At the lights they indicated right, in the direction of Omagh. Gorman had just reached the junction opposite and slowed sufficiently to miss the traffic lights, thereby ensuring she’d be behind them when she got a chance to pull out. The lights changed and they drove out onto the junction and up the bypass. Following them at a distance, I stopped at the lights, although they were green, so that they would think they had lost me. When the lights changed, Gorman pulled out and drove up the bypass after them.

  We followed them like that for over an hour as they visited three other houses in the surrounding area. Gorman was able to stay fairly close to them without being spotted, she assured me.

  The last house they visited was an old bungalow about two miles outside Artigarvan. To reach it, they had had to turn off the main road and drive up a country lane. Gorman had been following at a distance, but when the men reached their destination, they stopped so abruptly that she had no choice but to drive past the house and continue on up the laneway. Whilst she wanted to drive back down and follow them back out onto the main road when they left again, it was too dangerous. She would be exposed on a country road and, more importantly, isolated and alone. I told her to sit at the top of the lane in case they continued on up the road. If they came back down the way they had gone, I’d wait for them at the bottom and try my best to pick up the trail from there.

  I picked the most inconspicuous spot I could find along the main road with a view of the junction they would have to pass through if they came this way. Sure enough, a few moments later I was able to make out the car coming back down the laneway. I started the engine and drove past the junction, fairly sure that their final destination would be Strabane. All I could do was drive ahead and keep track of them in the rear-view mirror.

  As expected, they pulled out onto the road behind me. The road ahead was straight and clear and I hoped I was far enough ahead of them that they wouldn’t recognize my car as the one they had seen outside Natalia’s house.

  However, I was aware they were approaching the rear of my car very quickly. Just when I thought they were going to ram me, the car indicated and began to overtake. I decided to risk a look at the men.

  I turned, glancing to my right, just as Pony Tail lowered his window and stuck a sawn-off shotgun out. I slammed on my brakes as he fired off a shot which peppered the side of my car, spider-webbing the reinforced windscreen. I twisted the steering wheel and my car jerked out of control and hit the grass banking to my left. The impact happened as if in slow motion and I watched my glasses hit the steering wheel, just before the airbag inflated and enveloped my head.

  Gorman decided it was more important to check on me than chase the shooter’s car. It was the right decision; having already opened fire on me, I had no doubt they would have done the same to her.

  I sat for a few moments at the side of the road and smoked a cigarette. Beyond being a little shaken, I wasn’t hurt, though I was acutely aware that I would have to explain to Patterson why a Garda car was shot at north of the border. In turn I would have to explain about the immigrants and the fact that I had ignored his instructions; there seemed no other way out.

  After managing to get the car started, I drove slowly behind Gorman to the fast-food restaurant where she had dropped Natalia. We learnt that she had left an hour earlier, walking in the direction of the Urney Road, according to the boy serving at the counter.

  We returned to the house where the immigrants lived, but there was no response to our banging on the door. No lights shone from any of the windows, despite the encroaching dark.

  I sat outside the house until 2 a.m. waiting for someone to return. When it became apparent that this was not going to happen, I reluctantly made my way home, wondering what further suffering my actions had caused Natalia.

  Chapter Seven

  Saturday, 7 October

  The following morning I finally did what I should have done all along and contacted Jim Hendry, my counterpart in the North, asking him to meet me at the house. I was not wholly surprised when I drove over in my own car that morning to find the remains of Almurzayev’s house charred and smouldering, the heat still palpable from the ruins. A fire tender was still there, finishing what had been several hours’ work for the local fire service. Panic rising, I asked one of the firemen at the scene about fatalities and was relieved to learn that there had been no one in the house. It did not, however, remove the dread from my conscience that something would happen to Natalia. In attempting to save her from deportation, I had left her to a much worse fate.

  Hendry arrived a few minutes after me. We sat in my car, watching the last firemen picking up pieces of debris and throwing them out into the garden. I explained what had happened the night before and all that had brought me to that point. He was, unsurprisingly, pissed off, both at our incursion into the North and at my failure to tell him about the house or its occupants.

  ‘We got reports of gunfire last night, outside Artigarvan. One of our men spotted the accident site where your car must have hit. We figured it couldn’t be that bad if the car had been able to drive off again,’ he said, bitterly.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jim. I didn’t know what else to do,’ I explained.

  ‘Ignorance is no excuse. You should have told us you were coming across here, Devlin. Following suspects; withholding information relating to a crime; losing a houseful of illegal immigrants,’ he said, counting each incident off on his fingers. ‘You’ve royally fucked this one up.’

  I wanted to argue, to defend myself on the grounds of good intentions, but I knew he was right. ‘I got the registration plate,’ I said, as if this in some way compensated for the mess I had caused.

  ‘Not a silver Ford Fiesta by any chance, was it?’ he asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘Burnt out at the head of the town. No doubt it was stolen,’ he said. ‘You’ve got fuck-all, Devlin.’

  ‘Have you traced it?’ I asked.

  ‘Are you telling me my job?’ Hendry exploded. ‘Fuck you. Piss off back to Lifford.’

  With that he got out of the car, slammed the door and went over to talk with the firemen. I started the engine and drove off.

  It was scant consolation that he was less annoyed with me than Patterson was. The Super almost had a stroke when I explained to him what had happened. He told me he would have suspended me on
the spot if plans for the Hagan visit on Monday hadn’t been so far advanced, and had Weston not seemed so keen to have me involved. I would pay for it in the long run, he warned me, before we left for another meeting at Orcas. I didn’t doubt it.

  Weston was less solicitous during our meeting this time. He said little as we ran through arrangements for Hagan’s visit. We would meet the Senator at the border after he had conducted a few engagements in Derry. Two unmarked cars would accompany him to Orcas through Lifford and Ballybofey; Hagan would travel with his own two security men, ex-Secret Service. I would be in one of the cars with a second escort behind, whilst Patterson would take care of dealings with Weston personally. Local Gardai would be on the ground at Orcas, ensuring crowd control, though the only crowd would be a small group of local primary-school children. Presumably anyone older might have reservations about waving flags at a warmonger such as Hagan.

  Finally Weston got around to the subject that seemed to be bothering him. ‘Have you gentlemen read the newspapers today?’ Without waiting for a reply, he produced one of the Dublin broadsheets: CONTROVERSIAL SENATOR IN DONEGAL the headline read. He produced a second paper, this one from the North: WARNING TO US SENATOR AHEAD OF VISIT.

  I glanced up at Weston as he showed us the stories, aware that he was reading our reactions to see if either of us was responsible for the leak.

  ‘What was the warning?’ I asked, gesturing towards the headline of the second story.

  ‘Death threats,’ he said. ‘Phoned in to the Samaritans in Downpatrick, apparently. Probably nothing, but that’s not the point.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Patterson said, having finished reading. ‘We’ll have to take it seriously.’

  ‘Of course you will,’ Weston snapped. ‘My biggest concern is how the fuck they heard about his visit.’

  Harry had so far done all he could to appease him. This time, though, it seemed Weston had overstepped the mark.

  ‘Well, it didn’t come from our office, Mr Weston, and I’m not sure I like your tone. Every Garda force in the country knows he’s coming, plus all the people involved in his trip to the North. Hell, the local primary-school teachers must know.’

  ‘The school was only informed this morning,’ Weston said, though his tone had changed somewhat. ‘I apologize, Superintendent. I’m a little worried about all this.’

  ‘No need to worry, sir,’ Patterson said curtly. ‘We have everything under control. I’ll investigate these claims myself,’ he added. ‘Though I can assure you that neither I nor Inspector Devlin here would have mentioned this to anyone.’

  ‘Janet Moore,’ Patterson said when we were back in the car after our meeting. ‘She wrote the first story. She’s a freelancer, lives in Strabane. I play indoor football with her husband sometimes. Find out where she got her information.’

  ‘Would it not be better you asking her, if you know the family?’

  ‘I said I know her husband,’ Patterson said irritably. ‘Better a stranger asking her. You can lean on her more than I could.’

  I silently wondered how he expected me to get her to reveal her sources. After a moment I said, ‘Thanks for your support back there, Harry.’

  ‘It was the force I was supporting,’ he snapped. ‘If I find out you did leak it, I’ll rip you a new arsehole.’

  I shook my head and looked away. I wondered if Fearghal Bradley had had anything to do with the leak. And I wondered just how many more mistakes I could get away with.

  I reached Moore’s house just after two o clock. She and her husband, Karl, lived in a detached house at the far end of Strabane, just off the Derry Road.

  Karl Moore was crouching over a motorcycle, which lay on its side on the front lawn. He had removed a section of the engine and was spraying the parts with oil when I arrived.

  He offered his hand, then looked at it, rubbed it on his jeans leg and shook.

  ‘I’m looking for your wife, Mr Moore,’ I explained.

  He squinted at me.

  ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘What’s she done?’

  ‘Nothing, sir. I’d like to discuss a story she wrote about in the paper.’

  ‘Is it that bloody environment thing?’ he asked.

  I shook my head. I had no idea what he meant. ‘She wrote a story about a US senator coming to Donegal. I need to check some information with her.’

  ‘What information?’

  ‘Where she heard about it, for starters,’ I said genially, hoping he might tell me.

  ‘Fuck knows,’ he said. ‘Probably that Bradley fella.’

  My surprise at the ease with which I had gleaned that piece of information did nothing to outweigh the anger I felt at myself for having told Fearghal in the first place.

  ‘Is your wife about?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s out at that gold place,’ he said, wiping his forehead with the shoulder of his T-shirt.

  ‘The mine?’ I said.

  ‘No,’ he said. Then, making speech marks with his fingers, he guffawed, ‘The “gold rush”.’

  ‘Thanks, Mr Moore,’ I said, surprised by how forthcoming he’d been. ‘You’ve been a great help.’

  ‘Oh, it’s my pleasure,’ he said.

  I caught up with Janet Moore in the clearing where the prospectors had parked their cars and vans. On the back seat of her electric-blue Tigra I noticed a number of documents and envelopes.

  Patsy McCann pointed her out to me, though I could have identified her myself: for a start, she was better dressed than the other people on site, in jeans and a grey sweater under a Barbour coat. She was sporting green wellingtons, wet with river water.

  She was talking to Ted Coyle and one of the crusties I had seen before. He slunk away when he saw me approaching, rubbing out the spliff he carried as he did so and slipping it into his pocket.

  Ted Coyle straightened himself up and placed his hands on his hips. Janet Moore simply drew deeply on a cigarette and blew the stream of smoke upwards as she glanced in my direction.

  ‘Mrs Moore,’ I said, extending my hand. ‘I’m Inspector Benedict Devlin. I was wondering if I could have a word.’

  ‘Certainly, Inspector,’ she said, pointedly. Then she turned to Coyle. ‘Thanks, Ted. Keep in touch.’

  We walked over to her car together.

  ‘How did you find me?’ she asked, then pursed her lips and nodded her head when I told her that her husband had directed me, as if it made sense of some sort. ‘So, what can I do for you?’

  ‘We were wondering about the story you wrote about Cathal Hagan,’ I said.

  ‘So, that’s official confirmation,’ she said, smiling. ‘Hagan’s coming here.’

  I tried to keep my expression as neutral as possible. ‘I don’t suppose you’d tell me who told you about it, would you?’

  Unsurprisingly, she laughed. ‘You’re right,’ she said.

  ‘Your husband tells me it was Fearghal Bradley,’ I said.

  She looked perplexed. ‘My husband is talking out his arse, Inspector. I don’t know any Fearghal Bradley. Who is he?’

  ‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Do you know anything about these death threats?’

  ‘No,’ she said, a little haughtily.

  ‘If I find you’ve been withholding information that may have prevented a crime, you’ll be—’ I began.

  ‘Give it a rest,’ she said, dropping her cigarette butt on to the ground and treading on it. ‘You were doing better when you were playing the good cop. What’s it worth?’

  ‘That depends. What do you want?’

  ‘Two tickets to see Hagan. Good seats,’ she said, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

  ‘Why do you need to bribe me for tickets? Surely you’ll get invited, as a member of the press.’

  ‘I’m a freelancer,’ she said. ‘We’re the last to get anything. I want two good seats – at the front, mind you.’

  ‘And in return?’

  ‘Do we have a deal?’ she persisted, refusing to show her hand yet.


  I didn’t see that we had anything to lose, and I said so. If her information were of no use to us, she knew she’d end up sitting in the car park for the duration of Hagan’s visit.

  She smiled. ‘I don’t know Fearghal Bradley,’ she said. ‘Whoever he is. As for the death threats, they’re not serious. It’s a prank, a publicity stunt dreamt up by an environmental group called the Green Alliance.’

  ‘What have they against Hagan?’ I asked.

  ‘Where should I start?’ she said. ‘Anyway, I think that’s worth two tickets.’

  ‘You’re sure of this?’

  ‘Absolutely. From the horse’s mouth, so to speak.’

  I considered what she had said, watching her face to see if I could tease out the angle she was playing, but I couldn’t read her.

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’ I asked.

  ‘Public conscience,’ she said, almost managing not to smile. ‘And I don’t want anyone getting shot now, do I?’

  ‘You and I both, Mrs Moore,’ I said, though in the event we were thinking of two different people.

  Chapter Eight

  Sunday, 8 October

  Debbie, the kids and I went to early Mass. The days were turning now, the sky darkening earlier each evening. After Mass we spoke with Father Brennan, our local priest, and I gave him a Mass offering for Natalia Almurzayev’s safety.

  We drove to Derry that afternoon and had lunch in town. Penny’s birthday was a few weeks away, and we had promised we’d take her to the toyshops to pick what she’d like. Shane was walking unaided now, his squat body shifting from side to side as he moved. Every so often, when he came to a high kerb that required extra balance to step off, he raised his small fist in the air in the expectation that Debbie or I would take hold and support him till he had stepped down. Then the fist would be withdrawn and he’d continue on his way.