Victim impact one choice.., p.29
Victim Impact: One Choice, One Decision, Grave Consequences, page 29
“So something important may have happened at the party,” Isobel said,
Alanna nodded. “Yes. It did.” She looked at her notebook. “Basically, Gary believed that he had done something wrong, something he didn’t want the others to know. Mrs. Wells said he was consumed by it before he died. She even wondered if he had stepped in front of the car deliberately.”
“So maybe he betrayed Darren Kelly,” said Malcolm.
“Yes, that’s what we thought,” said Eoin.
“And if Gary was drunk at the party and then watched the video several times,” Patricia said, “he must have been trying to see who he let the information slip to.”
Alanna nodded. “Exactly. ”
“So Gary Wells when drunk let something slip,” said Malcolm. “Darren disappeared that same evening. When Darren disappeared, Gary worried that he had said something at the party to someone he shouldn’t and watched the video to figure out who.”
“That is what it looks like,” said Eoin. “Malcolm had Jack and Nathan help us, so hopefully Nathan can show you the video. Nathan, Jack?”
“Yes, it’s ready,” said Jack.
Alanna looked down at her notebook. “We reviewed all the footage but we thought this part was the important bit. Nathan, can you get the video set up for about a quarter to ten that night?”
Jack opened his computer and set it on the table beside the television. The screen was smaller but it was still possible to see the party. As the camera swept around, Isobel could see pictures of a baby and then a small boy and also a young garda in uniform. There were shots of people dancing and then the camera focused on a man sitting at the bar.”
Nathan said, “OK. I have the video ready to go from the point you asked.”
“The man at the bar is Gary,” said Alanna. “He’s a bit drunk.”
“Yes, we’ve got it,” said Malcolm.
Eoin took a deep breath. “Roll the footage, Nathan.” His voice seemed heavy.
The man at the bar had dark hair and a wide smile. He was talking, his face flushed and his gestures exaggerated. The man beside him punched his arm and then stood up and left.
“The man who punches Gary’s arm and walks away is his brother-in-law,” said Alanna. “He works in insurance.”
Gary sat alone for a few minutes and then a man in a black leather jacket joined him. It was Aaron McGuinness.
“That’s the garda on the new task force,” Damien said.
Isobel glanced at the zoom screen. Eoin had his eyes on the zoom screen, watching them as they watched the recording.
Isobel looked back at the computer playing the video. Gary and Aaron were chatting and laughing. Then the mood seemed to change and Aaron leant in close to Gary. The conversation became more intense. Gary looked behind them and pulled closer. They were deep in conversation. Then Aaron stood up abruptly. He pulled his phone from his pocket and moved away from Gary, looking at his phone. The camera focused on Gary but behind him Isobel could see Aaron moving around the bar away from everyone. His shoulders were tight, his movements staccato and rigid, his eyes darted around. He seemed stressed, wary, hyped-up. He stood in the corner and made a short phone call. Isobel looked at the time stamp on the recording. It was 9.50.
“At 10.15 Richard Castles drives into the docks,” said Damien. “Joe Wilson arrives at 10.20. At 10.25 Superintendent Taylor arrives. Obviously, they know the cameras in the docks. I can’t place them all together but at 10.40 Taylor leaves and three minutes later so does Wilson, as does Richard Castles’ car, presumably driven by this Leon Barr. Castles’ car was never found.”
Isobel felt as if all the energy had left her body. Her mind was blank. She took a shallow breath. Aaron? Surely not? He was Eoin’s friend. He was on the drug task force.
Eoin cleared his throat.
Isobel focused on him, her mind still reeling.
Eoin looked around at all the faces and stopped on Isobel’s. “I didn’t want to believe it. When you said The Prop, I knew that was Aaron’s nickname at Templemore but anyone who played rugby could be called that.”
Isobel could feel her mind struggling. It couldn’t be Aaron. He wouldn’t betray the force.
“Your friend Aaron is the leak in the Garda, Eoin?” said Malcolm.
“It looks that way.”
Isobel recovered her voice. “I’m sorry, Eoin.”
Eoin shook his head. “The witness naming The Prop as the source of information was one thing, I could dismiss that – but seeing Aaron talking to Gary Wells and then making that call. It all fits together.”
“But Eoin, you and Aaron weren’t buddy-buddy,” Alanna said.
“I know, Alanna, but it’s hard to believe that someone I trained with, someone I reached out to for help, is in fact the enemy, working against us, having other officers killed.” He shook his head. “I’m thinking about other things Aaron said to me and wondering what was really going on.”
Malcolm said, “Like what?”
“Aaron said a few things about you, Isobel. He said that you were a threat to the Northern dealers. And, he kept in touch with me, asking if you had told me anything, if you had found out anything else. At the time I thought he had realised from our case in Limerick what a help you could be and he was trying to change. Now, I think he was probably pumping me for information. Thank God you came over, Malcolm, and thank God you didn’t like him, Isobel. Because of that I was more reticent about telling him anything that you said. And then you were worried about his safety – that’s a joke when he is the one who . . .”
After a few moments, Alanna said, “We think that Aaron is making the call to Taylor. It seems Gary was drunk and let something slip, not for a moment realising . . .” Her voice trailed off and she glanced at Eoin. “Aaron knew that he had to act immediately. As yet, Darren hadn’t found out about Taylor or about Aaron but it might be only a matter of time. Aaron called Taylor. Taylor probably needed Joe and Leon to arrange the meeting with Darren. Taylor implicated Joe and Leon in the crime, hoping that would keep them quiet.”
“And then later, to protect himself, he got rid of them,” said Peter.
Alanna continued. “After Gary Wells was killed, Daly asked the gardaí who were investigating for his phone records. Naturally, as a favour they let him look at them. The last call Gary made was to Aaron. Obviously, when he was interviewed he said all the usual things: Gary was fine, he just wanted to chat about the party, no, he didn’t seem upset, I can’t believe I was the last person to talk to him. No one had any reason to suspect Aaron.”
“Daly did say that he didn’t particularly like Aaron,” said Eoin. “He felt he was cocky and fancied himself and Daly didn’t like the way that he did things. A bit like you, Isobel.”
“I may not have liked him but I didn’t think he was the leak,” said Isobel.
“No, nor me,” said Eoin. “I’m sorry, Isobel. I can’t believe that I talked to the very guy who was completely untrustworthy.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to even think about what . . .”
“Good work, you two,” said Malcolm. “What about the hit-and-run on Gary Wells? Could that be Aaron tidying up loose ends, making sure that he couldn’t be traced back to Darren’s disappearance?”
“We started to wonder that too,” said Alanna. “By this stage retired Inspector Daly knew there was something up so we had to take him into our confidence a bit. Gary was knocked down by someone who fled the scene. They never found the perpetrator. It happened in a part of the city where there aren’t cameras. There was no reason for Gary to be there.”
“Unless he had gone to meet someone?” said Williams.
“What about the car that hit him – no garages with suspicious repairs?” Malcolm asked.
“Ah! According to Daly, the car that they suspect hit Gary was found burnt out later that day,” said Alanna. “The paint on Gary’s body was consistent with that.”
“That seems professional to me,” said Malcolm. “A great no-questions-asked way to get rid of someone.”
Alanna said, “I agree.”
“Had Daly any idea who in Dublin might have that sort of MO?” Malcolm asked.
Eoin smiled. “That’s just what we asked and you’ll never guess whose name popped up . . .”
Malcolm grinned. “Surprise me.”
“The Tanners.”
“Tim Tanner, Tim-Tan,” said Williams.
Alanna smiled. “You better believe it. According to Daly, in his early days before he became the boss, Tim-Tan took out a few of the competition that way. Steal a car. Set the victim up. Burn the car and destroy the evidence. Make sure it happens in an area with no cameras. No evidence, no forensics and get a mate to swear you were somewhere else.”
“Tim-Tan in league with Aaron.” Although Isobel hadn’t liked Aaron, she had thought along the lines of shallow and self-serving. This case was bringing her into a level of crime she knew nothing about. Corrupt police officers chipped at the safety she liked to believe that she had.
Peter cleared his throat. “All of this sounds very credible but we need more evidence. Isobel, did you go back to Gareth Short? Did he have any more information about the shooting? Unless we have something definite there won’t be enough for a case.”
Isobel pulled her wandering mind together. She straightened up in her chair. “Yes, yes, I did go back. And you were right, Peter. Gareth kept something back, mainly because he needed to discuss revealing it with his fiancée. He knew that revealing it could put them in danger.”
“Come on, Isobel, tell us,” Malcolm said.
“He gave me the co-ordinates of where the body is buried.”
“I knew it!” Peter punched the air. “That was all that that guy Joe had, to try and make a case for his innocence!”
Isobel nodded. “And that’s why Patrick was afraid for his life.”
“Do you think that they killed Patrick too?” Jack asked.
“I don’t know. We’ll probably never know but it is a possibility. What do we need to do now, Peter?”
Peter took a deep breath. “We need to dig up the body. At the very least it would help Darren Kelly’s family and work colleagues. I suppose I’m hoping that Taylor had very little time. Hopefully he made some mistakes. But how can we dig up the body without Taylor knowing anything about it?”
Isobel looked around the room until her eyes settled on Williams.
He closed his eyes. “I’m thinking.”
Everyone waited.
“All I can think of is that we speak to the head of the lab,” he said at last. “We tell him that we have a report of a buried body, that we don’t want any publicity in case it’s false but we have to follow up. He won’t want news cameras, in case it’s a false alarm. We swear him to secrecy until we see if there is anything there. Maybe Damien’s friend in the lab – Brian, is it? – could do the recovery for us and he’ll definitely say nothing. He can bring whoever else he trusts. I think that might work well here.”
Malcolm frowned. “Really?”
Williams explained. “There are bodies here that have never been found because of the prolonged conflict. It’s a very painful issue in the North. Recovering those bodies is very important.”
Malcolm nodded slowly.
“What do you think?” Williams asked.
“That could work,” said Peter. “It’s official but also necessarily secret.”
“I’ve suspected Taylor for a while,” said Williams. “I have footage of Taylor suppressing the photos from the laneway. When Isobel and Jack brought me the pictures, I gave them to Taylor. I recorded that. Those pictures never went to the police lab or the private lab we use. Taylor sat on them.”
“So Taylor tried to suppress that evidence?” said Eoin.
Williams nodded. “Yes.”
“The recordings may not be admissible as evidence,” Peter said.
“I know. And Taylor has already been talking in the lab about a mix-up.”
“We’ll keep it in mind,” said Malcolm. “I’m hoping that Darren Kelly’s body can give us something definite.”
“What about the other witness to Tim-Tan killing Michael?” Peter said. “Have you persuaded him to make a statement yet, Isobel?”
Isobel shook her head. “No, not yet. I’ll do that tomorrow. We have Charlene’s statement, but no one else knows about that, just Damien, Jack and I.”
“OK,” said Malcolm. “There’s one more piece of information. We may be onto a drug distribution pathway.”
Williams raised his eyebrows.
“A pathway connected to everything that has happened. We’ll let you know if we find something definite but we need more time – at least another day. Halloween is coming with parties and that means drugs, so hopefully we’ll know soon. For now, Taylor and Aaron need to believe that the case is over. Tim-Tan too. You never know, if we have two witnesses to Tim-Tan murdering Michael and attacking Charlene and then we ask him about Gary Wells, he might be more disposed to drop Aaron in it for a lesser sentence. If Tim-Tan drove the car that killed Gary Wells then he did it on Aaron’s instructions. We really need him to turn State’s evidence.”
“Yes, we do,” said Eoin. “We can prove that Gary spoke to Aaron from his records at the time but it’s too late to get data from Aaron’s phone. In the South, phone companies only have to keep triangulation data for a year. We surmise that they set up a meeting and that Aaron lured Gary to a place where Tim-Tan ran him down. We have the footage from the party and the record of Gary’s phone calls. I’m not sure it’s enough. I wonder if any of the old traffic footage would show that Aaron was in the vicinity of the hit-and-run.”
“We could look into that,” said Alanna. “Also, we could look at where the car used to run Gary down was burned out. Obviously, Tim-Tan got a lift away from it. Maybe we can place Aaron’s car in the area too. It may not be conclusive but it would certainly be supporting evidence.”
Eoin nodded.
“And the drug distribution, what help can we give you?” Williams asked.
“We were thinking that we would tip you off,” Malcolm said. “You know, concerned citizens see something suspicious and disturbing. Then you arrive and arrest everyone. We have people who we suspect are involved under surveillance – probably the less you know about that the better – you know, plausible deniability and all that.”
Williams made a face. “That sounds a bit vague. If we’re going to pick up a number of drug pushers we would need reinforcements.”
“I was thinking more of following them and seeing what that reveals before we pick anybody up,” Malcolm said. “Drugs are at the centre of everything that has happened.” He counted on his fingers. “Michael’s death, Charlene’s head injury, Darren Kelly’s murder, Gary Wells’ death, Joe’s death, Leon’s death, Patrick’s death, and those are only the people we know about. This whole situation is a house of cards. If we pull something, everything will collapse and we won’t get all of the players. I want them all. So we’re going to need a clean sweep. Everything put in motion at the same time so no one can warn anyone else. Agreed?”
Isobel thought back to Róisín talking about the web of drugs. She also thought about her dream of the spider. It was true. The spider could lose part of its web and replace it. They needed to get the whole web. She pictured a spider sitting at the centre of its web, waiting for any vibration, any stir to suggest that something was happening. They needed to move very carefully.
No one said anything.
“What we need to do is a co-ordinated clean-up,” said Malcolm. “All pieces of this puzzle need to be moved at the same time. Does everyone agree?”
They all voiced their agreement.
Malcolm nodded. “We need to keep in touch so we can decide on the best time.”
“Let me set up a group chat so everyone is able to communicate.” Nathan started entering numbers in his phone.
Isobel took the opportunity to sit back in her chair. Her shoulders were tense and she felt as if she had been tumble-dried. Aaron, part of a drug ring. She couldn’t process it.
“If it’s OK with everyone,” said Eoin, “I would like to tell our Superintendent Carruthers what we know. You know him, Isobel – he’s a great guy and in the next few days we might need to arrest a Garda Inspector and a PSNI Superintendent. He could begin thinking about how we could do it and who would be safe to contact.”
Malcolm shifted uneasily in his seat.
“I promise he won’t do anything,” Eoin said. “He can just be thinking about it. And please, Malcolm, Williams, keep us informed. We need to know what’s happening.”
“And if we find a body we may need Darren Kelly’s dental records,” said Williams.
“If that’s the case, Eoin and I will speak to Daly and he can sort that out for us,” said Alanna.
Williams nodded at Damien. “Let’s go,” he said. “Good luck, everyone.”
Everyone chorused goodbye and Williams and Damien left.
“Right,” Malcolm said to the others, “there’s one last thing that Isobel and I need to tell you about.”
He proceeded to explain about the Org shop and the young student, Robin, dispensing drugs.
“The lab messaged me today,” he continued. “The paint on the pillar at the end of the alley is the same as the van that was delivering to the Org shop.”
“And that means?” Eoin asked.
“Org has ten shops in Northern Ireland, usually sited near a third-level campus. We think that Org might be a front for drug delivery.”
“And we know from Michael’s photographs of the alley that Monday night was the likely night of the delivery,” said Isobel. “It’s also the night that Michael and Charlene were attacked. We think they stumbled into the drug delivery preparations and a meeting between Geo and Tim-Tan. Tim-Tan didn’t want to risk that Michael and Charlene had seen too much.”
“Geo was disposed of as an attempt to wrap up the case so the drug gang could get back to business as usual,” Malcolm said. “They don’t know that Charlene remembers her attacker or that Isobel has found another witness.”
