Taken for Dead (Kate Maguire) Read online

  Shelagh Hagerty walked to the lifts and Garda McCracken followed her, pushing her dummy baby in a buggy. She was a slim, willowy girl, and when she was in uniform her cap looked as if it were two sizes too big for her. Although she appeared so vulnerable, however, Katie had found her to be fearless and determined, and she had selected her as a decoy on several plain-clothes investigations.

  When the lift doors opened, three people emerged, two women and an elderly man, all of them carrying bags of shopping. They had already been identified as ‘no discernible threat’ because Katie had posted two gardaí on the ground floor to keep an eye on the lifts, with instructions to send her a coded message if they saw anybody who looked at all suspicious.

  They waited over an hour and a half. By 3.37 p.m., thirty-nine shoppers had come out of the lifts to collect their cars and drive away, but not one of them had approached Shelagh Hagerty’s car.

  ‘I doubt they’ll be too much longer,’ said Inspector Fennessy, glancing up at the clock. ‘The car park closes at six-thirty so they’ll want to be out of there before then. I can’t see them leaving that amount of cash in the back of an unlocked car overnight. Apart from that, it’ll cost them forty-eight euros if they do.’

  Katie stretched. Her back hurt and her eyes were dry after staring so long at the TV screen. Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán laid a hand on her shoulder and said, ‘How about a coffee, ma’am, or a sandwich maybe?’

  ‘No, I’m grand altogether, thanks. I wouldn’t say no to a fresh bottle of water, though. There’s something about watching CCTV that’s very dehydrating.’

  Just as Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán turned to go, one of the gardaí watching the lifts on the ground floor said, ‘Shatter.’ A few seconds later, a man in a black baseball cap and black windcheater came out of the lift, pushing his way past a middle-aged couple and their honey-coloured Labrador. The peak of his cap was pulled down low and a black scarf was wrapped around the lower part of his face, so that all Katie could see was the tip of his nose. He was carrying a large Dunne’s shopping bag.

  He walked slowly along one line of cars, then stopped and turned back. Then he stopped again.

  ‘Hello,’ said Officer Brennan, sitting up straight. ‘Look at your man. He’s foothering around like nobody’s business. Most folks know exactly where they’ve left their car, and head straight to it. Either he’s forgotten where he’s parked or else he’s trying to find Shelagh Hagerty’s car.’

  Katie watched with mounting tension as the man walked along the next line of cars. He reached Shelagh Hagerty’s Renault Mégane, but for a moment she thought he was going to walk right past it. He stopped, however, and took a look around, and then he opened up the boot and lifted his shopping bag into it.

  From the HD camera in the front of the Mondeo, she could see him hurriedly tipping out whatever it was that he had been carrying in his bag, and replacing it with the five bundles of banknotes wrapped up in cling film. Then he closed the boot and carried the bag around to the front of the car, opening up the driver’s door and climbing in.

  Inspector Fennessy said, ‘Pole position,’ into his radio. Less than fifty metres away from the car park exit in Parnell Place two gardaí were waiting in an unmarked car, and this signal alerted them that a suspect had taken Shelagh Hagerty’s car and was about to drive away. Katie had instructed them not to follow him, but simply to make sure that he didn’t switch cars as soon as he left the car park.

  Two GPS trackers were concealed in the Renault’s wheel arches and these would allow her team to follow the suspect’s progress through the city streets. In addition, she had positioned five different unmarked cars at strategic points both north and south of the river to check on it visually, especially if it stopped for any unusual length of time. Even so, she was not going to give the go-ahead to close in for an arrest until she had heard that Derek Hagerty was alive and free – or proven beyond doubt to be dead.

  ‘There he goes,’ said Inspector Fennessy, as the Renault backed out of its parking space and headed towards the exit. It disappeared from sight down the ramp, and all they could see now was Garda McCracken walking quickly across the parking level, pushing her baby buggy in front of her. Two young mothers stared at her in astonishment as she picked up the dummy baby and perched it on the roof of her Mondeo while she folded up the buggy, then threw both the buggy and the baby into the boot.

  She climbed behind the Mondeo’s wheel, started the engine, and pulled out of her parking space with a squeal of tyres.

  Katie could see a jiggling, jolting view from the camera in the front of Garda McCracken’s car as she swerved left down the exit ramp. She had been instructed to stop at the bottom of the ramp, as if she had broken down, so that no other vehicles would be able to leave the car park for at least five minutes. This was just in case one of Derek Hagerty’s abductors had been waiting somewhere in the car park in another car and tried to follow Shelagh Hagerty’s Renault.

  Garda McCracken had reached the first-floor level when Katie saw that the Renault had stopped halfway down the narrow exit ramp, blocking it completely. Garda McCracken pulled up close behind it, and called in, ‘Callinan! Callinan!’ That was the code word for ‘unexpected development, what should I do now?’

  ‘Tell her to back up, fast!’ said Katie.

  ‘What’s the code for that?’ asked Inspector Fennessy.

  ‘Don’t worry about that, just tell her to back up! Now! He could have decked that we’re tailing him!’

  If Derek Hagerty’s abductors were capable of pulling a man’s teeth out, Katie was quite sure that they wouldn’t hesitate to take extreme measures to protect themselves. The man in the black baseball cap might well emerge from his car with a gun, and she wanted Garda McCracken out of harm’s way as quickly as possible.

  She was too late. The TV screen that was showing her the picture from the Mondeo’s camera flashed blinding white, then immediately went blank.

  A second later, they heard a muffled boom from the direction of Merchants Quay, which was only six hundred metres away to the north.

  ‘Mother of God,’ said Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán.

  Katie snatched up the headset that she had left lying on the desk in front of her, thumbing the earphones into her ears and twisting the microphone into position. ‘Garda McCracken! Garda McCracken! Can you hear me, Garda McCracken? This is DS Maguire! Are you hurt at all? Come back to me, Garda McCracken!’

  There was no answer, only a soft, thick hissing noise.

  ‘Garda McCracken, can you hear me?’ she repeated, but there was still no response.

  ‘Oh, please, no,’ said Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán, and crossed herself.

  Katie pushed her chair back and said, ‘Liam – get me there, now! Kyna, call for the paramedics and the fire brigade and the bomb squad. And Bill Phinner and his technical boys, too. Then follow us over to Merchants Quay, lively as you can.

  ‘Name of Jesus,’ said Officer Brennan. ‘Would you take a sconce at that?’

  The CCTV camera opposite the car park was showing billows of thick grey smoke rolling out of the car park and across Parnell Place. They could see shoppers running in all directions, and their own unmarked squad car pulling up outside the entrance.

  Katie and Inspector Fennessy left the CCTV room and hurried along the corridor. As they reached the lifts, one of the lift doors opened and Acting Chief Superintendent Molloy came bursting out, accompanied by Sergeant Keoghan.

  ‘A bomb!’ he said. ‘They only blew the fecking car up! Why in the name of God would they do a thing like that?’

  ‘I have no idea, sir,’ Katie told him.

  ‘It’s fecking unbelievable! I just hope they didn’t blow up the fecking money too! Jimmy O’Reilly’s going to have my head on a stick if they blew up the fecking money!’

  ‘It’s Garda McCracken I’m worried about,’ Katie told him. ‘I tried to contact her immediately after the blast but I couldn’t raise any response. She was r
ight behind the suspect and I’m worried she might have been injured. I’m going there directly.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be there myself as quick as I can. I’ve already given orders for the street and the car park to be cordoned off and the store evacuated.’

  They heard sirens from the fire station across the street. The building echoed with gardaí shouting to each other and clattering down the staircase. Inspector Fennessy was patiently holding the lift door open, so Katie said, ‘I’ll see you after, sir.’

  ‘Yes, well, Katie, this a fecking disaster. You should have seen this coming.’

  ‘I don’t exactly know how I could have done that, sir.’

  ‘You’re a detective, aren’t you? I thought that detectives were supposed to detect, or have I been living under some kind of misapprehension all these years?’

  ‘I have to go,’ said Katie, and stepped into the lift. Inspector Fennessy followed her and pressed the button for the ground floor. As they sank downwards, Katie could tell by his expression what he was thinking.

  ‘Don’t expect me to say anything, Liam,’ she said. ‘Men like Bryan Molloy have a way of self-destructing, sooner or later, without any assistance from anybody else. All you need is the patience of a saint.’

  ***

  It took them less than five minutes to reach the entrance to the Merchants Quay car park. Gardaí had blocked off the street with squad cars, and four or five of them were standing at each end, keeping back the crowds of onlookers. Two fire engines had arrived, as well two ambulances, although there was no sign of the bomb squad yet because they would have to be called together and then driven down to the city centre from Collins Barracks.

  Inspector Fennessy parked and he and Katie crossed the road to the car park entrance. One of the gardaí from the unmarked car was standing at the exit gate. He was only in his early twenties, with big red ears and a fuzzy blond moustache on his upper lip, more like a schoolboy than a police officer. He looked shocked and disorientated.

  ‘Where’s Garda McCracken?’ asked Katie. ‘She hasn’t been hurt, has she?’

  ‘She’s – she’s up there, ma’am, still in her car,’ said the young garda. He kept furiously blinking and his teeth were chattering as if he were cold. ‘I’ll show you up there so.’

  ‘No, you’re grand,’ said Katie. ‘You just wait here and keep an eye on things.’

  She and Inspector Fennessy walked to the bottom of the exit ramp, their shoes crunching on shattered glass. There was a strong smell in the air of burned plastic and rubber. Halfway up the ramp was a tangle of metal that had once been Shelagh Hagerty’s Renault. It resembled a giant dead tarantula rather than a car, because the roof had been ripped apart to form angular legs, and the foam-filled seats were bulging like a furry black body.

  There were no human remains inside it, and no fragments of banknotes scattered around. The suspect must have left the car before blowing it up, and taken the bag of money with him.

  Close behind this wreck was Garda McCracken’s Mondeo. Six or seven paramedics and firefighters were already clustered around it in their yellow high-visibility jackets. The windscreen had been blown out, and as Katie inched her way between the concrete wall and the jagged remains of the Renault, she could see Garda McCracken still sitting in the driver’s seat, looking pale and bloody, with an oxygen mask over her face.

  A grey-haired female paramedic had cut the right sleeve from Garda McCracken’s pale green sweater and attached a colloid drip, holding up the bag of fluid as high as she could. Two of the firefighters were using a long crowbar to wrench open the rear nearside door, which had been wedged backwards by the explosion. The squeal of bending metal reminded Katie of a pig being slaughtered.

  One of the paramedics stood back so that Katie could get up close to the car. The blast had torn off the Mondeo’s bonnet, which was lying upside down at the top of the ramp. It had also forced the steering column back into the passenger compartment, so that the steering wheel had crushed Garda McCracken’s collarbone and chest. At first sight, her injuries didn’t look too serious, until Katie realized how deeply the wheel had impacted into her ribcage. She looked up over the oxygen mask with glazed, unfocused eyes, but it was miraculous that she was still conscious.

  Katie smiled at her and said, ‘Don’t you worry, Brenda. We’ll soon have you out of there. You have the very best people taking care of you.’

  Garda McCracken nodded, although Katie wasn’t sure that she had understood what she was saying.

  She stepped away from the car and beckoned Inspector Fennessy over to the side of the ramp. ‘Call Father Burney, would you, Liam?’ she said, quietly. ‘I don’t think she’s got too much longer.’

  Inspector Fennessy took out his mobile phone. He looked at Katie with a grim face as he waited for Father Michael to answer. ‘Why is it always the best ones?’ he said. ‘Never the useless collips sitting on their fat arses behind a desk all day, counting the hours till they can go and play golf.’

  Katie went back to Garda McCracken. The firefighters had prised off the rear passenger door of the Mondeo and one of them was now lying sideways behind the driver’s seat, loosening the bolts that fixed it to the floor. He was grunting with effort.

  ‘We’ll have to be very cautious now,’ said the grey-haired paramedic. ‘We don’t know if the pressure of the steering wheel is keeping any of her main arteries constricted. If it is, we may cause catastrophic bleeding when we ease her away from it, and who knows what other damage we might do. I’d say that her sternum’s split and all of her ribs have been broken and pushed inwards, and her right lung’s collapsed. It’s pure amazing that her heart’s still beating so strong.’

  Her heart may still have been beating, and she may still have been breathing, but Garda McCracken’s eyes were now closed and her face was as white and greasy-looking as candle wax. The firefighter standing next to Katie said, ‘We’ll disengage her from the steering wheel and then we’ll take the roof off with the cutters and lift her out. Can’t say that I fancy her chances, though.’

  The word ‘disengage’ gave Katie a chilly feeling down her back. ‘What do you think?’ she asked the firefighter. ‘It looks like her airbag didn’t work. That might have saved her from the worst of it.’

  ‘Yes, no, you’re right, but I don’t have any idea why it didn’t. It only takes one twenty-fifth of a second for an airbag to inflate fully from the moment of impact, but maybe the blast was faster, who knows?’

  Now Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán came climbing up the ramp, followed by three more firefighters carrying Holmatro hydraulic cutters, as well as a petrol-driven generator and hoses. She stopped for a moment to look into the spider-like wreckage of the Renault, then she joined Katie and Inspector Fennessy.

  ‘How is she?’ she asked. The firefighters had now freed Garda McCracken’s seat from the floor of the Mondeo and two of them were slowly inching it backwards. Garda McCracken let out a muffled mewling sound behind her oxygen mask, but that was all.

  ‘I’m praying for her,’ said Katie. ‘To be truthful, though, I’m not holding out much hope. Father Burney’s on his way from Holy Trinity.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus. That’s so sad. She’s always so happy out. And such a future ahead of her. I always thought she was going to be another you.’

  ‘How’s the surveillance going?’ asked Katie. ‘Did you see the suspect leave the shopping centre? That fellow in the black baseball cap, with the scarf around his face?’

  Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán shook her head. ‘Tony Brennan’s still watching out for any sign of him, and he’s going to run through all of the recordings for Merchants Quay and Patrick Street immediately prior to the bomb going off, and immediately afterwards. But by the time I left we still hadn’t spotted him, or anybody else carrying a bag big enough to fit all that money into.’

  ‘Well, that’s just grand,’ said Katie. ‘There’s so many different ways he could have taken out of the building. He could have gone th
rough Dunne’s Stores, or Marks & Spencer, and there’s a service door on Merchants Quay. It’s likely that he changed his clothes, too, and that he had more than one accomplice to split up the money and carry it in smaller bags. We have no idea who he was, or what he looked like, or where he went.’

  ‘There might be some forensics in the car,’ said Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán.

  ‘We’ll be able to find out what explosive he used, C-4 or Semtex probably, but that’s about all. He took his own bag away with the money in it, so there won’t be any traces of that. And he was wearing gloves.’

  Katie was watching as Garda McCracken’s seat was pulled back as far as it would go. Dark red blood was beginning to soak through the front of her sweater with alarming speed, and the paramedic took out a pair of surgical scissors to cut the fabric.

  Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán, though, was watching Katie and trying to read the expression on her face. ‘What are you thinking?’ she said.

  ‘I think you know very well what I’m thinking,’ said Katie, still without taking her eyes off Garda McCracken. ‘I’m thinking that our abductors weren’t just being wide about the possibility that we were keeping them under surveillance.’

  ‘Somebody tipped them off?’

  ‘It must have been more than just a tip-off. I think they knew exactly how we planned to keep track of them. If our suspect wasn’t aware that Garda McCracken was following close behind him, why did he blow up Shelagh Hagerty’s car? It doesn’t make any sense otherwise. What would be the point?’

  ‘But why blow it up at all?’ asked Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán. ‘He could have just climbed out and hopped off.’

  ‘No – I’ll tell you something else about these characters,’ said Katie. ‘They’re out to show us that they’re highly dangerous and they’re not to be messed with. And do you know why I think that is? I think they’re planning to do this again.’