Scalpel (22 page)

London John watched every move, trying to decide when to get down to the real business of the day.

'When are you thinking of going positive, Bobby boy?'

Lynch said nothing, easing a fresh, unopened box of nine millimetre Browning FN Court bullets into the moulding. He tied the velcro across.

'I was reading the paper this morning, Bobby boy. That country of yours is going to the dogs. Kidnapping little babies now, they are.'

Lynch said nothing. He placed the gun in its mould again and admired the neat fit. He removed it and checked the chamber. There was one round still inside. Unused. Live.

'And there was something about a murder in one of the hospitals.'

Lynch stiffened.

'And there was a photo of the hospital, Bobby boy. Two guys coming down the front steps. One of them looked a lot like you.'

Lynch turned and looked up at London John, a thin smile on his face for the first time. 'Really? Did it?'

'Yeah. It was the image of you, Bobby boy. The spitting image. You wouldn't be thinking of getting positive in that hospital? Again?'

Maybe if he hadn't said 'again' Lynch wouldn't have cared so much. But he said 'again' and Lynch decided London John knew already.

'Look out!'

The howling roar took London John by surprise and he turned slightly as if someone was behind. He had only half-turned when he realised he had read Bobby boy all wrong. Completely wrong.

The walls echoed again but this time it wasn't the sand that jumped. This time it was London John's brain as the bullet entered just beneath his left eye and exited through the right of the back of his skull.

'Never tell anyone your business!' Lynch screamed at the convulsing body lying sprawled against the bottom of the
sandpit, blood pouring from entrance and exit wounds. 'Keep yourself to yourself!'

He fitted the Walther and the box of ammunition into the mould and gently placed the inside casing back, ignoring totally the gurgling and grunting of London John's last efforts at life. He screwed the case down carefully, replacing the concealing tabs. Then a quick check of the combination lock, before closing the case and flicking the numbers. He looked around, found the car keys and said his goodbyes to London John before going out into the bitterly cold Hammersmith air, scarf wrapped up against his nose. He drove London John's Saab to Heathrow and booked a last minute flight to Dublin in the name Andrew Kelly. The briefcase was checked in as baggage and went into the aircraft hold.

He patted the bulge in his jacket pocket where he had the two thousand pounds cash which London John would not now be using. Some of it went in the airport shops.

'Coffee?'

'No.'

'Paper?'

'No.'

Odd bollox, thought a different air hostess.

31

3.17 pm

Interview Room, Store Street Garda Station

On the afternoon of Sunday, 16th February 1997, in the interview room of Store Street Garda station, Kate Hamilton and the investigating team thought they were on to something.

The call was registered at nine thirty that morning and the details noted by the duty Garda. A woman was ringing on the confidential telephone line. She was distressed and pleaded with the Garda not to reveal her name. He promised as much as he could.

'What information do you have? Don't forget, everything's confidential at this point. All you have to do is hang up and nobody'll be any the wiser, but please tell me whatever it is that's caused you to ring in.'

'It's about that girl who was murdered at the hospital.'

'Yes.'

'I saw her removal to the church on the TV last night. God love her parents. They were devastated.'

'Yes they were. It's a terrible tragedy.'

There was a lot of crying on the other end of the phone. The Garda said nothing, but everything was being recorded.

Finally he asked, 'Do you know anything about that girl or anything that might help us with the investigation?'

More sobbing. 'Are you sure this is confidential?' Sniff, sniff.

'Absolutely. This is a totally confidential line. Whatever you tell me is between ourselves.'

'I think my husband killed that girl. Oh Jesus!' She burst into tears again.

'Can you tell me who you are?'

The answer couldn't be made out over the convulsive sobbing. The tape was still rolling.

'Please, can you tell me your name?'

Gasping sobs then came from the other end.

'Why do you think your husband killed the girl?'

Then it all poured out.

'He's violent, very violent. He drinks heavily and beats me up a lot. He stays out regularly and some nights never comes home. He taunts me about all the nurses he's screwing down at the hospital, where he works. He's a chef there. Sometimes he comes home, ties me up and describes in detail what he's been up to. Or says he's been up to. He didn't come home at all the night that girl was murdered. He came home the next night, though, drunk out of his mind and knocked me around a bit. Warned me I'd get the same treatment as that girl. "Watch your step," he shouted at me. "You'll end up with a scalpel stuck in your neck too. Just like I did to that other bitch." '

The duty Garda noted all this and the tape recorded.

'He'll kill me if he finds out I told you this. Don't let anyone know I told you this. He'll kill me.'

Which was why Anthony Francis O'Loughlin, the flaky chef who couldn't account for his movements on the night Mary Dwyer was killed, was sitting in the interview room being grilled.

Dowling spent the first hour with him, going over the alibi which didn't make sense and which was significantly different from what he'd told the first time round. Then he started to get stubborn and refused to say anything. So Dowling told him he'd been heard boasting he killed the

girl. Anthony Francis O'Loughlin's jaw dropped in total surprise. Dowling sensed he'd been hit between the eyes with that one. 'What eejit told you that shite?' O'Loughlin was a thin
weed of a man who smelt of cooking fat. He was still dressed in his working clothes, checked trousers, white tee shirt covered by a stained and greasy denim jacket.

Dowling tapped his nose. 'Sources, Tony. Me sources tell me ye know all about how Mary Dwyer was murdered. Ye know more than we do. Ye've been shoutin' yer mouth off about how she was killed. And, do ye know what, Tony? Nobody knows as much detail as ye seem to. So tell me now, Tony, why did ye do it?'

'Fuck off!' screamed Anthony Francis O'Loughlin, the hard man at home.

Dowling sat down opposite him, across the interview table. Kate Hamilton stood well behind O'Loughlin's back, leaning against the wall. John Doyle smoked and watched from the other corner. He could see O'Loughlin and made sure O'Loughlin could see him. Doyle and Dowling took it in turns. O'Loughlin began to wear down. He was getting tired, exhausted in fact. He'd been on a binge the night before and felt dreadful. Now he was sitting in a police station being grilled about a murder he hadn't committed. As far as he could remember.

'Why did ye do it, Tony? What did she do to deserve it? Turn ye down? Say ye weren't up to it?'

But as the interview progressed they all began to realise that it couldn't have been Anthony Francis O'Loughlin who killed Mary Dwyer. He was all mouth and no brain. He'd have left a trail of broken bottles all the way from the lab to his front door.

What a wasted day. It was indeed.

But not for Dean Lynch.

While Kate Hamilton and her team were barking up the wrong tree, the real McCoy was back in his flat and planning his next move.

And they wouldn't hear him boasting about it in the pubs.

Tommy Malone's telephone call to Theo Dempsey's house the previous night sparked the kidnap investigation alight.
Jack McGrath and his men now knew they were dealing with a determined gang.

'Hardly anyone has my telephone number,' Dempsey told them. 'I'm ex-directory and have been for years. Anyone who wants to contact me does so through headquarters in Dawson Street. There's very few outside the family who know that number.'

Dempsey's wife and three teenage boys were then subjected to a gruelling interrogation by one of the Jaguar Unit. Who knows your telephone number? Can you remember anyone ringing you recently that you didn't know? Anyone ring recently and say they had dialled a wrong number? Did you give your number out to any girlfriends, lads on the soccer team or even the team coach? Their answers were checked and then double checked and the names mentioned fielded out for further evaluation and back up from central computer records in Garda HQ.

Then all the staff in Beechill and at the O'Brien Corporation headquarters were grilled for signs of involvement or carelessness with privileged information. Twenty extra detectives were pulled in and worked throughout the day dealing with their statements. Betty Nolan and the rest of the part-time cleaning staff were given only a fleeting evaluation.

An angle being explored seriously was that the kidnap was merely a ploy by a business rival to unhinge and destabilise Harry O'Brien. The financial pages in the
Evening Post
carried a story about a takeover bid by the O'Brien Corporation for one of the UK pharmaceutical middle-weights and the resistance to the effort. Could the kidnapping have been planned and financed from somewhere inside the City of London? The
Evening Post
advised caution before jumping to such conclusions but made a good story out of the speculation anyway.

Then one of Harry O'Brien's ex-managers, sacked by the big man months previously, shot his mouth off in a pub suggesting to anyone who'd listen that he himself was in on the kidnap and knew exactly where the gang were holed up.
Someone was listening and before he had a chance to sober up the ex-manager found himself sitting across the table from one of the Jaguar Unit in Waterford Garda station. He wasn't released for six hours.

All leads had to be followed up, all angles explored. Jack McGrath and his men wore the leather off their shoes chasing such diversions. The houses around Roundwood were visited and the householders questioned about suspicious sightings or unusual queries by strangers about directions around the area. Outhouses and cottages within a five mile radius of Beechill were searched. The caravan park in Roundwood was searched and the owner quizzed about recent lettings. Bed and breakfast houses had their books scanned for names. Then they had their other books scanned as well, the books they kept hidden from the tax man. A number of known criminals in the immediate vicinity were rounded up, questioned and released under surveillance. Their phones were tapped.

In Beechill and at Theo Dempsey's house the phones were wired to record all incoming calls and the telephone company primed to track them.

Jack McGrath wanted Dempsey to return to his house and wait for the kidnappers' next call. 'They're going to use you as the go-between, I'm sure of that. There's no other reason they would have rung your house. You'll have to sit by the phone and try to keep them talking when they ring again.'

Dempsey wasn't at all happy with this suggestion. 'I can't, I just can't. You've seen the state of my boss. He's on the edge of a complete breakdown. I caught him at the drinks cabinet and he hasn't taken a drop for the past three years. Sandra's had all the booze taken out of the house just in case.'

Sandra was holding up despite all her body signals. Her breasts ached from engorgement of milk that had no mouth to feed. The pain of her operation scar still ached. More importantly, her heart ached for the child she had given
birth to and lost so quickly. She wanted him back, no matter what it cost.

'Harry, we've got to pay that ransom.' She sat with Harry on the edge of the bed in the master bedroom as she tried to talk some sense into him. 'He's too young, Harry. He's only a newborn baby. If they don't look after him properly he could die before the police ever find him. Harry, we've got to pay whatever they want.' She was down on her knees in front of her husband, grasping his hands, imploring. The first time she'd ever begged him for anything. His eyes were dull and lifeless like his heart and he said nothing, just staring into space. 'Come on Harry, come on,' Sandra shook him by the shoulders. 'We've got to move on this fast. We've got to get our baby back.'

She felt an overwhelming despair.

'Get Theo.'

Those were the first sensible words Harry O'Brien had spoken for days. 'Get Theo to come up. He'll know what to do.'

Jack McGrath watched as Theo Dempsey followed Sandra upstairs. Then he watched as a renewed Theo Dempsey suddenly appeared at the bottom of the staircase fifteen minutes later, a sense of urgency about him. Dempsey disappeared into Big Harry's study. Within minutes a fax was on its way to London.

Jack McGrath sensed deals were going to be done behind his back.

32

5.17pm

The Cottage, nr Kilcullen