The Murder Loop, page 6
But something else registered too: on her house-to-house list was an American male in his thirties renovating the old church in the Loop, a couple of miles from Bridge Bannon’s farm. She had no description of the American, but instinct told Cass she was looking right at him.
The same American, she recalled from the case file, had been briefly considered by the original team investigating Nabila Fathi’s murder, together with all other non-infirm males in the locality. He was ruled out more or less immediately once the team established he’d only arrived in the country two months after her death. As a result, he hadn’t been questioned.
Was he looking to speak to the Guards now?
And if so, did she sense some reluctance on his part?
She started walking towards him, and he pushed the car door to get out.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Milly Cooper, owner of the small shop on the road from Glencale to the Loop, was the first person Cass had intended to visit that morning. After news of Bridge Bannon’s murder spread, Milly had phoned the station the previous night to say two American visitors had been in the shop asking for the farmer’s address. She couldn’t remember much else about them, but Cass had been detailed to call to Milly and see if she could jog her memory a little.
But now another American stranger was going one better, verifying Milly Cooper’s lead and providing descriptions of the two men. Confirming that they had, indeed, sought directions to Bridge Bannon’s farm. And, best of all, offering a licence plate number.
She left the interview room to pass the details to the incident room coordinator without delay, recognising it could be the critical breakthrough.
The burglary gang never killed before, never used bleach to try and cover their tracks. Whoever these Americans are, they sound like a much better bet.
Initially, she hadn’t given Brady all that much thought as she took his statement, focusing only on his information and clarifying matters with him as necessary.
But as she returned from the incident room, she found herself wondering: Who exactly is this guy? How is he sharp enough to give confident, detailed descriptions and recall the car’s licence plate? How many randomers can do that?
And why that shift in the car from passive to on the prowl?
She stopped to get some coffee for them both, taking a minute to mull things over before returning to the incident room. The coffee might serve to keep him talking, now that the formalities were over.
But when she placed it on the table, he thanked her, smiled and then lapsed into silence. Not rudely, just calmly. As if he’d said everything necessary and had nothing left to impart, a ship that had unloaded its cargo and was now waiting patiently at dockside for the green light to depart.
‘Thank you again for coming in, Mr Brady. We greatly value information from members of the public.’
‘You’ll have to call me Brady,’ he said. ‘“Mister” will never stick.’
‘You go by your surname?’
‘The military goes by surname. It sticks after a while.’
I know the way, she thought. ‘The military was where you learned to record licence plates?’
‘Some of the places we went, I guess it paid to be observant.’
‘It was more than observant; you have an excellent memory.’
Brady returned the compliment with an appealing smile, boyish and confident, no hint of reserve or reticence.
Some people smile and you can see their emotional scars, she thought. Not this guy. ‘Where did you serve?’ she asked.
‘Wherever they sent me. Not avoiding your question – it’s just sometimes it was kind of hard to distinguish. We weren’t exactly there to do the tourist sites.’
‘And you’re retired now?’
‘Honourably discharged. Did my tours, made my contribution, figured it was time for younger models to take over. The knees ain’t what they used to be.’
He smiled again, and Cass got the distinct impression he was managing her, even though his answers came without hesitation. He kept eye contact throughout, and seemed at ease in surroundings that would have made other people anxious.
No harm to try and shake him a bit. ‘There’s just one bit I don’t fully understand: if you had suspicions about these two men, why didn’t you contact us at the time?’
‘I’ve been asking myself that. I guess a remnant of my old life is mild paranoia. I see suspicious things ten times a day, and note the details, but they’re usually nothing. I see a carrier bag on a quiet road, I think improvised device. But in civilian life, it just means some a-hole chucked garbage from their car. I can’t go around contacting the authorities every time my nerves twitch.’
Solid enough answer, thought Cass. Can’t fault him on that when I recognise the same professional paranoia. ‘Fair enough,’ she said. ‘But tell me, what was it specifically about the two that you didn’t like?’
‘They just didn’t fit. Which I guess is pretty ironic coming from me, right? With this accent?’
Which was from where, exactly? Not New York, not Boston, but that was as much as Cass could tell. ‘What part of the States are you from?’
‘Midwest,’ he said. ‘And you? Local?’
‘Yes. Spent a few years in Dublin before coming back.’
‘Couldn’t resist the call of home, eh?’
Not exactly. But I noticed that switch in conversation and I’m here to get information out of you, not give it. ‘You’ve been here a while, right – you’re doing up Saint Fiachra’s church?’
She couldn’t say the name without conjuring up long-buried memories of childhood fears – seeing the ruins of the church in the mist, hearing in school the story of the Catholic priest hanged from the bellcote during the seventeenth century Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. Lore had it that on the foulest of nights, the faint sound of the long-gone church bell could be heard above the stormy weather as the cleric’s ghost thrashed and swung. There was a reason the church had lain in ruins for decades – nobody in their right mind wanted it.
‘That’s right. Almost done now. I needed a project.’
‘You don’t find it a bit isolated up there? It’s not exactly midtown Manhattan.’
‘You spend enough years sharing bases and barracks and you begin to see the attraction of peace and quiet.’
Cass nodded. She was running out of questions, and couldn’t think of subtle ways to seek the information she was really after. Brady wasn’t charismatic, exactly, but he had presence – she felt herself warming to his character. But she hadn’t forgotten that predatory look she’d briefly seen. It hadn’t returned since, but she knew she hadn’t imagined it. Was there a touch of chameleon in him?
She got a vague sense Brady was escaping something, but had no grounds to ask what – and besides, lots of foreigners came to Glencale to escape. Wealthy pensioners seeking an idyllic retirement; artists hoping to mine a rich creative seam; students seeking holiday work and adventures. They came to escape family and friends, the rat race and the drudgery of hated jobs, unpaid bills or drug debts, professional or personal failure, persecution or prosecution, and more besides. If Brady was escaping something – provided it wasn’t a crime – good luck to him. He wouldn’t be the first or last.
After all, Cass thought, it’s precisely what I’m doing myself… But at least I’m not lunatic enough to escape to a haunted ruin in the Loop.
After leaving the precinct, guessing that eyes might still be upon him, Brady decided to act as normally as he could. So he drove to the town mall – or shopping centre as the locals called it – and picked up food, beer and a couple of Sunday newspapers, which would almost certainly go unread. He had dedicated social media alerts set up for the news he needed. Besides which, the performance in the station had required intense focus, and he was now aching for sleep.
As he drove home, he mulled over the events of that morning. To a large extent, he was satisfied.
Yes, he’d been startled after letting his guard drop for a moment in the car before realising the cop was observing him. That had been immensely irritating, and he guessed his instant facial expression had probably been of the ‘fight not flight’ variety. But he had rapidly adjusted, and everything subsequently had been straightforward enough. He had rehearsed the core of his script and stuck to it, made easier by a simple mantra: tell as much of the truth as you can in order to keep the lies to a minimum. Easier that way.
So he had given her every relevant detail about what he’d seen at the store – what his two fellow countrymen looked like, why he felt they were suspicious, their plate number and more. His descriptions had been full and frank. He had considered giving just a partial number to make his recall seem less notable. But in the end, he’d figured that they would ask about his professional background in any event. Besides, what he ultimately wanted was the cops off his patch. The full plate would help achieve that objective by enabling the cops to do their job more quickly.
His only lie had been when she asked why he failed to report his suspicions. The question was a good one, but also obvious: he had anticipated it and felt his answer sounded plausible. After all, it was rooted in truth. He was constantly on watch, because he had to be.
And it was for this reason that he had confined his account to events at the store. Brady didn’t know the Guards well enough to understand how they operated, compared with the cops back home, but he trusted the rule was much the same: never volunteer more than you have to. Milly Cooper knew he’d been in the store; he couldn’t avoid acknowledging that. But it would have been impossible to explain why he followed his fellow countrymen to Bridge Bannon’s farm without the cop raising a series of further questions. Questions he didn’t particularly care for.
So you followed them to the farm, is that correct?
Yes.
And watched them from a distance, through binoculars?
Yes.
Did you see the murder?
That wasn’t what happened.
So what did you see?
The two men leaving, at gunpoint.
Bridge Bannon pulled a gun on them?
A shotgun, yes.
So you saw these two leave and Bridge Bannon was alive as they did so?
Correct.
Are you in the habit of following people and spying on them?
No, but these two rang all the alarm bells, a goddamned fire department of them.
And yet you still didn’t think to ring us?
Maybe I should have, but like I said…
Yes, you can’t go around reporting every suspicious thing you see.
Exactly.
Would it surprise you if I said I didn’t believe your story?
Yes, because I’m telling the truth.
Funny kind of truth. You get it into your head that these two are trouble, follow them to the farm, and see Bridge Bannon chase them away with a gun. And you still don’t think of contacting us?
The old man had handled himself well enough. I figured he was safe – that they wouldn’t come back.
And any possibility that you came back?
Come again?
Had you any bad blood with Mr Bannon?
This is insane. I came here to report some information in good faith.
See, the strangest thing in all of this is not immediately reporting what you saw on the farm.
My mistake, I know.
Is there a reason you didn’t want to contact us?
Of course not.
Are you hiding something, Mr Brady?
Brady’s fine.
Are you hiding something, Mr Brady?
I’ll plead the fifth on that.
Yes, some things are better left unsaid, he thought. There was simply no way he could have detailed anything beyond what he’d witnessed at the store.
He was conscious of the slight risk that, by withholding an important piece of information – namely seeing Bridge Bannon very much alive as the two Americans left the farm – he could be steering the investigation in the wrong direction. But he had no doubt the Americans had returned, and had done so without mercy. He’d given the cops a strong lead; now it was up to them to do their job and take care of the rest.
Proactively coming to the precinct had been the right tactic. He’d even earned a compliment about his good memory – a joke if ever there was one, not that the cop would have reason to know.
Truth is my memory is shot through with bullet holes, a thousand of them over the years. They dominate, subjugate all else. Making me an unreliable witness in all but one aspect:
I remember targets.
I remember enemies.
I remember who I killed.
And I remember who I want to kill.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Most detectives Cass knew didn’t expect luck to come their way in criminal investigations. But Mason Brady being an unusually observant bystander was, unquestionably, a stroke of good fortune. It took only a short period of time for the investigation team to trace the car to which the licence plate belonged, and it was Liam Devine who came to Cass later that Sunday evening with an update.
‘Car rental. The Americans flew into Shannon Airport, picked up the car – SUV, technically – and drove straight down here. One Raymond Russo and one Frank Mangano, both with addresses in Long Island. No red flags with Interpol so we’re checking directly with New York and doing a deeper trace on the passports.’
‘You think they travelled on false identities?’
‘If they have serious records, they’d have struggled to get in.’
‘Flights out?’ Cass asked.
‘Booked to leave Shannon in seventy-two hours.’
‘And between now and then?’
‘All-points bulletin for the car and its two esteemed occupants. There was no CCTV on Bannon’s farm or anywhere nearby that we can locate. But we’re pulling in as much CCTV from town as we can find. They’re bound to be on it somewhere.’
‘You said the car was a rental, right?’
‘If you’re thinking it might have a tracker fitted, we thought of that,’ Devine said. ‘Checked with the rental company. No joy.’
Most detectives don’t expect luck to come their way in criminal investigations.
‘Why travel 3,000 miles across the Atlantic to kill an elderly farmer who, as best we know, never set foot outside Ireland?’
‘You know the family?’
Cass shook her head. Glencale might have been a small town but she had been gone a long time, had spent the months since her return in near isolation, and wasn’t exactly rooted in the community.
‘Bannon was a mean, miserable son-of-a-bitch. Feral. Beat his late wife. Probably beat his kids. Picked fights in whatever pub he walked into. Until he withdrew completely a few years back, and lived practically like a hermit, shutting himself off from everybody.
‘Anyway, his daughter – miraculously – is the complete opposite. Sarah Delahunty – her married name – teaches in the small primary school between Glencale and the Loop. Friendly and well liked, community-minded. Lives a mile or so from her father’s farm but has had nothing to do with him for years.’
‘You know this for sure?’
‘Straight from the horse’s mouth. Noel Ryan interviewed her yesterday. He’s the family liaison officer.’
‘Ryan as liaison? You’re shitting me. You can smell him fermenting when he walks into a room.’
‘Finnegan specifically recommended to the SIO he take on that role,’ Devine said. ‘Fucking waste of space… Anyway, the daughter isn’t the story here. The son is: Peter Bannon. Another fucking waste of space. Came to our attention a few times when he was a teenager for being drunk and disorderly, picking fights in pubs like the father, but no convictions. Mostly cos he lost every fight he started. Skinny runt who didn’t have the father’s size, strength or sneakiness.’
‘And?’
‘You’re right that Bridge Bannon never stepped off the island. Didn’t even have a passport, as far as we can tell. But the son did. He took off to the States a couple of years back.’
‘Long Island?’
‘You win the prize.’
‘Ryan got this from Sarah Delahunty?’
‘Ryan got fuck-all from Sarah Delahunty. The guy’s a joke. I got this. I remembered Peter had gone to the States. Found his social media profiles in thirty seconds and his location in another thirty. Or his former location, to be exact.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘I don’t know exactly,’ Devine said. ‘But I do know he returned to Ireland on a flight from JFK three weeks ago.’
‘So you think the two Americans were chasing the son – and his father just became collateral damage?’
‘That’s my guess. They went searching for Peter at the farmhouse; Bridge Bannon probably didn’t like the intrusion and things got out of hand.’
‘We know for sure they were at the farmhouse? We have no witness yet and I thought the forensics were still a work in progress.’
‘Kind of amazing in one way how many visitors a guy gets when he doesn’t want any. There were lots of tyre prints in and around the farm. We matched some to Bannon’s pickup, tractor, and quad. Others to the postman, oil delivery guy, parish priest. There are a few sets we haven’t yet matched to specific vehicles. But one set fit the tyre specification of the make and model of the car rental. The two Americans were there, no doubt about it. Hunting for that runt of a son.’
There was an obvious flaw in that chain of thought, Cass felt. ‘If they needed to find the son, why kill the father? In another country where they don’t know the terrain? It draws so much attention to them – leaves them with no other option but to lie low or run.’
‘That’s true,’ Devine said. ‘But it sounds to me like these guys are muscle, not masterminds. Maybe it was meant to be some kind of message to the son.’
Plausible, thought Cass. But the team would need something to back it up; otherwise it was purely speculation.
‘Maybe they’re still in Glencale then, chasing Peter Bannon.’
