Dead Girls Dancing Read online

  She called Superintendent Pearse. ‘I’ll come up,’ he told her. ‘I could use the exercise.’

  Next, she called Detective Inspector Mulliken.

  ‘Moirin told me you wanted to speak to me urgent,’ she said.

  ‘I do, yes. There’s been a shooting up at Gurra. Niall Gleeson, would you believe.’

  ‘What? The Niall Gleeson, Bobby Quilty’s consigliere? Is he dead?’

  ‘Oh, sure he’s dead all right. Shot right between the eyes. We don’t know for sure when it happened because he wasn’t found until seven-thirty this morning. His car was parked on Knockfree Avenue and a fair few people passed it, but they thought he was only having a kip. It wasn’t until some nursery school teacher noticed that there was dried blood on the window.’

  ‘You’ve alerted the Technical Bureau, and the coroner?’

  ‘I have, sure. The technical experts have gone up to the scene already, but of course the coroner’s office doesn’t open until nine.’

  While he was talking, Katie continued to check her iPhone and saw that she had received texts and voice messages from both Superintendent Pearse and Detective Inspector Mulliken, and from Bill Phinner, too. Mother of God, she thought, I have twenty minutes peace and quiet to myself and while I do the whole world falls apart.

  ‘Superintendent Pearse is coming up to my office now,’ she said. ‘I’m assuming that he wants to tell me about Niall Gleeson, too. Why don’t you join us?’

  ‘Okay, sure. I’ll see you in a minute so.’

  Katie listened to Bill Phinner’s voice messages. He sounded tired. ‘It’s going to take us at least another thirty-six hours to remove all the bodies from the dance studio,’ he told her in his first message. ‘Some of them have their flesh fused together so we have to be extra careful when we’re separating them. In the meantime we’ve taken chemical samples from the walls and the floor and the victims’ clothing, too.’

  In his second message he said, ‘I’m assuming you’ve been notified about Niall Gleeson. Let’s hope for his sake that the devil hasn’t heard he’s dead. I’ve sent four technicians up to Gurra to do all the necessary. It looks as if none of us are going to be getting much sleep in the next few days. Niall Gleeson – Holy Saint Joseph. I can’t predict who’s going to be next, but you can bet your Christmas bonus there’s going to be a tit-for-tat killing before we know it.’

  Next, Katie rang Detective O’Donovan. He was already in the CCTV room looking through the footage of the crowds that had gathered to watch the fire at the Toirneach Damhsa studio.

  ‘I’m not too hopeful,’ he told her. ‘There’s a whole heap of smoke and because of the wind direction it’s blotting out the view altogether most of the time. But I’ll keep at it. There’s about six hours of it, plus a couple of hours of hand-held videos that the fire brigade took.’

  Superintendent Pearse knocked at Katie’s door and came in, looking grave. He was a short, stubby man with glittering eyes and explosive eyebrows and a pugnacious lower lip. He was renowned for his temper, but Katie had never worked with anyone who had a clearer head for law-enforcement operations and street policing in particular. He simply couldn’t tolerate fools or inefficiency – although it was common knowledge at Anglesea Street that his wife had an even more ferocious temper than he did. Detective Dooley said that she probably sprinkled Semtex on her cereal every morning.

  ‘I’m guessing that it’s Niall Gleeson you want to talk about, Michael,’ said Katie. ‘Actually I’ve only just found out about him myself.’

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ said Superintendent Pearse. ‘I thought you would have heard.’

  ‘What’s the story? We haven’t heard a squeak from the Authentic IRA since Bobby Quilty went to meet his Maker. In fact, I thought they’d pretty much disbanded. Was this a political killing, do you think, or was it personal?’

  ‘Hard to say for certain,’ said Superintendent Pearse. ‘But Garda Duffy lives on the other side of Fair Green from him, in Bride Valley Park, and he’s heard that Gleeson’s been having a bit of gonky on the side with some other feller’s missus. He’s going to be making some discreet enquiries to see if he can find out who it is. So that could be one motive.’

  At that moment, Detective Inspector Mulliken came in. He was tall and thin and balding, even though he was only forty-one, with a prominent nose and a straggly brown moustache. He wore a light brown suit that hung on him as if he had bought it when he was five kilos heavier. One of his running briefs was to keep a close watch on the various IRA splinter groups in Cork, such as the Continuity IRA and the New IRA and Óglaigh na hÉireann. The Authentic IRA had been set up by the late Bobby Quilty, financed mainly by his cigarette-smuggling racket, but it had been more of a private army to protect his criminal activities than a genuine republican movement.

  Katie said, ‘Superintendent Pearse thinks that Gleeson may have been shot by a jealous husband.’

  ‘Well, that’s entirely possible,’ said Detective Inspector Mulliken. ‘Your man was in trouble two or three years ago when he knocked up his pub landlady’s daughter. He couldn’t keep it in his corduroys, that feller. Myself, I’d say that Niall Gleeson’s idea of a united Ireland was him uniting with every woman he ever bumped into.’

  ‘So you don’t think it was political?’ asked Katie.

  ‘I’m not sure. I get occasional tip-offs from a lad who works part-time at the Templegate Tavern on Gurranabraher Road, and he told me last week that the old Authentic boys seem to have been meeting up there more regular lately, including Gleeson, but also including some new feller that he didn’t know.’

  ‘Has he managed to pick up on any conversation, this lad?’

  Detective Inspector Mulliken shook his head. ‘All he said was, the old Authentic boys seemed to treat this new feller with quite a lot of respect like. And the other thing he said was, the new feller never asks for alcohol, only soft drinks.’

  ‘He’s a teetotaller?’ said Superintendent Pearse. ‘In my books, Jesus, that alone by itself makes him a suspect.’

  Katie smiled, but then she said, ‘You haven’t found any eyewitnesses to the shooting? Or anybody who heard shots and maybe can give us an approximate time when it happened?’

  ‘My lad at the tavern says that Gleeson arrived about two-thirty. There were three of his Authentic pals there, and later on the new feller arrived. This was just before four. They talked for a while and then Gleeson left. The new feller left almost immediately afterwards.

  ‘Gleeson was supposed to be collecting his granddaughter from the crèche up the road but he never showed up, so one of the other mothers took her home. We can probably assume that he was shot round about then and that’s why he didn’t collect her. His daughter wasn’t too worried because apparently he was never too reliable and often forgot to pick up his granddaughter. We’re doing the usual door-to-door, of course, but we’ve found no witnesses so far.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Katie. ‘As soon as I’ve heard some more from Bill Phinner, I’ll ask Mathew in the press office to put out an appeal to the media for witnesses. Tony, how about you sending somebody out to the Templegate Tavern and having a listen? I don’t want us to interview any of those Authentics face to face, not yet. Before we do, I’d rather we got a sense of what they’re up to, that’s if they’re up to anything. Are they still active, do we know, or are they just meeting socially? And I’d like to find out who this new fellow is, this teetotaller they’re treating with such respect.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Detective Inspector Mulliken. ‘I might send out Kyna Ni Nuallán. She has the gift of getting people to talk to her even when they don’t really want to.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Katie. ‘But tell her since she’s going up to Gurra she has only two choices of what she looks like – bag lady or slut. Either no make-up at all and a woolly beanie and a baggy tracksuit, or else heaps of eyeliner and glittery lipstick and a leopard-skin miniskirt. Either of those, and nobody in Gurra will give her a second glance.’


  Moirin came in with her cappuccino and a plate of cranberry and almond biscuits. Superintendent Pearse eyed the biscuits hungrily and so Katie said, ‘Help yourself, Michael. Isn’t Breda feeding you these days?’

  ‘She thinks we ought to be eating more healthy, do you know what I mean, so it’s been salads and chicken breasts for the past three weeks. No more pies. No more burgers. No more Chinky takeaways. Myself, I’d rather be full up and dead than fit as a fiddle and starving.’

  Katie heard Moirin’s phone ring and then a few moments later Moirin came into her office. ‘That was Mr Coffey. His first train from Dublin was cancelled but he should be getting into Kent station at about twelve-thirty.’

  ‘Danny Coffey owns and manages the Toirneach Damhsa company,’ Katie told Detective Inspector Mulliken. ‘At least he did, before they were all cremated, God rest their souls. But that’s okay, Moirin, if he’s going to be late. That means I have time to go to the Mercy and visit that little girl they rescued from the roof. On the way there, though, Tony, I want to see the scene where Gleeson was shot. I’ll have Kyna come with me so that she can see the lie of the land. I was going to fetch her along to the Mercy with me anyway.’

  Superintendent Pearse said, through a mouthful of biscuit, ‘If Gleeson’s shooting was political, I’m fierce worried there’s going to be some kind of retaliation. The problem is that until we know who did it we won’t know who’s going to be retaliated against. Who doesn’t like the Authentics the most? The New IRA? The Callahan mob?’

  ‘Bill Phinner said the same as you,’ Katie told him. ‘That’s why I think it’s a good idea of yours, sending Kyna up to the pub to see what she can pick up.’

  ‘It could have been a gang hit,’ said Detective Inspector Mulliken. ‘Ever since they heard that Bobby Quilty was out of the picture the Lithuanians have been trying to muscle in on his cigarette trade. It seems like they’re not content with stroking charity bags off people’s doorsteps before the real collectors have had time to get around.’

  Katie said, ‘Mother of God, I thought this was going to be a quiet week. I was even thinking of taking a couple of days off and visiting my sister in Youghal. I’ll just finish my coffee, Tony, and take a quick look through all my paperwork, and I’ll be with you. Can you ask Kyna to get herself ready, too?’

  6

  There was another reason why Katie had wanted Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán to come with her, apart from viewing the crime scene and familiarizing herself with that area of Gurranabraher.

  As she stopped at the traffic lights on Merchants Quay, just before crossing Patrick’s Bridge, she said, ‘Conor came in to the station to see me yesterday morning.’

  ‘What did he have to say for himself?’ asked Kyna. She had been fluffing up her short blonde hair in the sun-visor mirror, but now she stopped and snapped the sun visor shut.

  ‘Nothing. There wasn’t time. I was on my way to the fire at Toirneach Damhsa.’

  ‘Has he rung you back this morning?’

  Katie shook her head. She waited patiently while an old woman crossed in front of her with a walking frame, even though the lights had turned green. Nobody hooted her. In Cork, it seemed to be a ritual that when the lights turned green, drivers would say a short novena before they got around to engaging first gear, and would drive away only at the very moment the lights turned red again.

  ‘So, what are you going to do?’ asked Kyna. ‘It’s not going to be easy to lift McManus and the rest of those dog-fighting scummers without him.’

  ‘I don’t know, to be honest with you,’ said Katie. ‘Why didn’t he tell me he was married? At least I could have made an informed choice, whether to sleep with him or not.’

  ‘Would you have slept with him, if you’d known? I mean, that’s the question, isn’t it?’

  Katie turned left along Camden Quay. The sky to the west was almost black now and a few spots of rain pattered on to the windscreen. The river looked like burnished lead.

  ‘I don’t know. That’s the trouble. I like him so much. I was even starting to think that we might have a future together.’

  Kyna reached across and gently laid her hand on Katie’s arm. ‘What can I say to you, except that I know the feeling? But you’ll always have me.’

  They reached Knockfree Avenue. Niall Gleeson’s car had been covered by a blue vinyl tent, and there were three squad cars and two vans from the Technical Bureau parked on either side of it, as well as an ambulance. A small crowd of onlookers were sheltering from the rain under the large tree in front of the Before 5 nursery school and Katie could see Dan Keane from the Examiner and Jean Mulligan from the Echo. There was no sign yet of the RTÉ outside broadcast van, or Fionnuala Sweeney.

  Dan Keane nipped his cigarette between finger and thumb, tucked it behind his ear, and came over to Katie as soon as she climbed out of her car, with Jean Mulligan close behind him.

  ‘How’s it going on, DS Maguire?’ said Dan Keane. ‘I’m hearing rumours that this was a Continuity job.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Katie, walking briskly towards the tent. ‘And where exactly would you have been hearing that?’

  ‘You know as well as I do that I can’t reveal my sources.’

  ‘Sure like. And you know as well as I do that I can’t comment on unsubstantiated rumours.’

  ‘Has anybody claimed responsibility for it yet?’ Jean Mulligan asked her.

  ‘Not so far.’

  ‘Do you think that makes it less likely that it was political? I mean, if the New IRA punish anybody for anything, they usually take the credit for it, don’t they, before anybody else can?’

  ‘I haven’t even seen the deceased yet, so again, I really can’t comment.’

  ‘I’ve talked to Mrs Gleeson’s neighbours,’ Jean Mulligan persisted. ‘They all reckon that Niall Gleeson was paying regular visits to a woman along Nash’s Boreen while her husband was at work. Maybe the husband found out like.’

  ‘We’ll be talking to everybody who might be a likely suspect,’ said Katie. A uniformed garda was holding open the tent flap for her, but before she went inside she paused and said, ‘The neighbours didn’t happen to know this woman’s name, did they?’

  ‘No, they didn’t,’ said Jean Mulligan. ‘But her husband drove a green Golf. As soon as the green Golf had turned out of Nash’s Boreen in the morning, they’d see Niall Gleeson’s car turning into it. Changing of the guard like.’

  ‘Thanks, Jean,’ Katie told her. ‘That could save us a lot of time.’

  She entered the tent and Kyna followed her. It was dazzlingly bright and crowded in there, with four technical experts examining the car for fingerprints and fibres with UV blacklights, a photographer taking pictures from every conceivable angle, and two bored-looking paramedics waiting for them to finish so that they could remove Niall Gleeson’s body and take him to the morgue at Cork University Hospital for an autopsy.

  Katie peered into the car and she could smell stale alcohol and excrement. She was amazed that passers-by had thought that Niall Gleeson was simply sleeping. Apart from the treacle-coloured spatters of dried blood on the passenger-side window, the hole in his forehead was unmissable, and he was tilted awkwardly sideways at forty-five degrees, his face a dusty whitish-grey, like concrete. His eyes were open and he still had the same thousand-yard stare that he had always had when he was alive, but now he didn’t blink.

  After two or three minutes Katie pushed aside the tent flap and stepped outside into the rain.

  ‘What are your thoughts?’ asked Detective Inspector Mulliken. He wiped a drip of rainwater off the end of his nose and sniffed.

  ‘My immediate thoughts?’ said Katie. ‘The blood-spatter indicates that he was sitting in the driver’s seat when he was shot, so he wasn’t shot somewhere else and then placed in the car afterwards. All the indications are that he was driving, and since he didn’t arrive at the crèche to pick up his granddaughter at four o’clock, he probably drove here directly from th
e tavern. But he’s parked here, right up against the kerb, as if he’s pulled in for some reason. None of the tyres have a puncture, do they, and is the engine still running okay?’

  ‘We tested it, yes, and it turned over fine.’

  ‘Also, his window is down. It had started to rain about that time yesterday, so he wouldn’t have been driving around with his window open, would be? My guess is that he stopped for some reason and put down his window to talk to somebody, and that somebody then shot him.’

  Kyna said, ‘It’s likely, too, that it was somebody he knew, or at least somebody he didn’t have any cause to be scared of. He wouldn’t have parked and put down his window otherwise. He would have put his foot down, wouldn’t he, and booted it off up the road?’

  ‘Well, maybe Superintendent Pearse was right,’ said Katie. ‘Maybe it was the woman’s husband from Nash’s Boreen who shot him.’

  ‘We’ll be talking to him later,’ said Detective Inspector Mulliken. ‘In a way, I’m praying that it’s him. At least that’ll be the end of it. If it’s political, it’s going to be a right cat’s malack, I can promise you.’

  *

  Mercy University Hospital was only five minutes away, overlooking the River Lee on Henry Street, but before she took them there Katie drove slowly past the Templegate Tavern. Four or five men were standing outside, smoking and talking, and occasionally pointing up the road towards Knockfree Avenue.

  ‘No prizes for guessing what those fellows are talking about,’ said Katie.

  ‘Fair play, it doesn’t look a bad pub at all,’ said Kyna. ‘I’ve been in a lot worse places undercover. A McDonald’s once, in Balbriggan, where one of the staff was selling crack along with the cheeseburgers. Never again. I don’t know which was worse, the crack or the cheeseburgers.’

  They were met outside the front entrance of the Mercy by Detective Scanlan. She was wearing a creased three-piece suit of ginger linen and clumpy wedge-heeled sandals. She had been awake for most of the previous night and had dark circles around her eyes, and her blonde hair looked as if it needed a wash.