Apple Seeds and Murderous Deeds Page 13

  Fiona pulled her younger brother into a bear hug, being careful to avoid hitting him with her stick. “Thanks. I don’t want to even think about what the neighbours will say, but thanks for having my back.”

  “Always,” he said, before breaking out into a huge grin. “Now, enough of this sappy stuff. Let’s find Gerry and make sure he knows there’ll be hell to pay if he so much as looks crooked at you again.”

  IT DIDN’T TAKE long to find him. Gerry Reynolds kept an office of sorts in the back booth in Phelan’s. Luckily the pub was half-empty when they walked in.

  “Francis,” Jimmy the owner said with a nod. He was used to seeing the lads come in after hurling training on Tuesday evenings, so he passed no remarks on the hurleys. His eyes lingered on the cricket bat, though.

  “Jimmy,” Francis muttered, scanning the bar and zeroing in on Gerry in his usual spot.

  Gerry looked up before anyone spoke—he must have sensed the tension in the air and known it was directed at him. Fiona lingered behind them wishing she’d said nothing at all.

  “Mr McCabe,” Gerry said, dropping his newspaper.

  “Gerry.”

  Fiona cringed as her father lifted his hurley and smack it into the palm of his hand. Gerry appeared hypnotised by the motion.

  “Out for a puck around, are ye?” he said, looking around at them all.

  “Well, that depends,” Francis said, tilting his head to one side. “I’ve had reports that you threatened my daughter.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. In broad daylight. You followed her and threatened her. Now.” Francis stepped closer and leant forward so there was less than a foot between his face and Gerry’s. “Consider this your first and last warning. If I ever get an inkling that you so much as thought about hurting her, I won’t be using this hurley to hit a sliotar. Do you get me? You hurt my family and you’ve made an enemy of me for life. And you don’t want me as an enemy, Gerard. Believe me. Are we clear?”

  Gerry had turned pale at this point. He stared up at Francis with what looked like fear in his eyes. He was almost unrecognisable from Ballycashel’s self-titled hard man. “I’m not trying to rise you, Mr McCabe, but I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

  23

  “AH HERE, GERRY,” Marty said. “Don’t make it worse for yourself by lying about it.”

  “I’m not.”

  Fiona stepped forward. “You are. You tried to grab me on Church Street. Don’t try and deny it.”

  “I… what… I…”

  “Now listen to me,” Francis said. “If you so much as—”

  “I wasn’t trying to hurt her,” Gerry said, looking like he was about to burst into tears at any moment. “Is that what ye think it was?”

  “What, you’re going to try and tell us you were asking for directions? God, Gerry. At least think of a better lie.”

  “Sure why would I ask you for directions and I living here my whole life?”

  “I was being sarcastic,” Fiona snapped.

  “Ah,” he said, his face relaxing and taking on a dreamy faraway look. “You’re a funny woman alright, Fiona McCabe. Though I don’t get what you’re talking about half the time.”

  The McCabes shuffled awkwardly, not sure how to proceed after this strange turn in the conversation.

  “Anyway,” Francis said at last. “I think we’re clear. In summary: hurt or threaten her in any way and you’ll have us hounding you for the rest of your days.”

  “I wasn’t trying to hurt her!” Gerry protested, sounding hurt.

  “I don’t want any excuses.”

  By now, Gerry looked like a scolded puppy. “I wanted to ask her out is all. Is that a crime? I’m sorry to have caused you such offence.”

  “What?” Fiona had to lean against the table behind her to keep from falling over.

  “Don’t make me say it again in front of all of them,” Gerry muttered. “It’s the truth. I saw you at the ice-cream shop and thought I’d come and chat to you. You’re always talking to other people in the pub. I thought it might be nice for us to have a private chat.”

  Francis McCabe looked like he was going to roar with laughter. Behind the bar, Jimmy was listening intently with the look of a man who was getting ready to get on the phone and tell the whole town. Ballycashel had a highly organised unofficial calling tree system for gossip-worthy situations like this: all the neighbours would know before they even got home. Not that any of them minded: Fiona was the only one of her siblings who had been able to maintain a straight face. It wasn’t hard for her: she was so horrified all she could do was stare blankly at him.

  “But you came at me again after that. I left the Garda station and you ran at me. Shouted about how you were after me. You can’t deny that!”

  “Lookit!” Gerry cried, throwing his hands skyward. He was now the colour of canned beetroot. “If you’re not interested would you at least have the decency to stop making a holy show of me?”

  “Ah,” she said, as the penny dropped. “You didn’t mean after as in trying to kill me. You mean after as in…”

  He nodded miserably, not looking in her eyes.

  At that point, Ben and Marty lost the battle to maintain their composure. They howled with laughter, doubling over and clutching their sides.

  “GOOD GOD, Fiona. No wonder you’re single if you think young fellas are out to murder you when all they want to do is wine and dine you.”

  “Not now, Dad,” Fiona muttered as they left the pub. “Slag me later, but not now. It’s still particularly raw.”

  “So let me get this straight. Would you rather have him murder you than…” Ben asked with a smirk.

  Fiona winced. “Shut up. Please. Or I’ll take that cricket bat to you.”

  “Freeze!”

  Sergeant Brennan was waiting at the side of the building with a megaphone in his hand and Gardas Fitzpatrick and Conway in tow.

  “Ah. You’ve a lovely new toy I see, Sergeant,” Francis McCabe said with a smirk.

  “Put down your weapons!”

  Francis frowned. “Weapons? What’re you on about? These are hurleys.”

  “The hurleys!” Sergeant Brennan screeched.

  They all winced as the megaphone crackled.

  “Put them down,” Fi hissed. “We don’t know what he’s capable of.”

  Marty shook his head. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all morning. No one would listen.”

  “Listen to what?”

  “Put down your weapons! This is your last warning!”

  “We got it all wrong. About Dec. We were too busy going after Gerry to discuss it.”

  Their father turned. “Throw them down lads, go on.”

  They did as he instructed and only then did Sergeant Brennan lower his megaphone and come closer to them. “What are you doing?”

  “I told you, Sergeant Brennan,” Mr McCabe said sounding weary. “We’re out for a game of hurling.”

  “We’ve had reports of a mob stalking through the town.”

  Marty folded his arms. “Well, you’d better go and arrest them, hadn’t you?”

  “It’s you,” Sergeant Brennan said, eyes bulging, “that I’ve had the reports about.”

  “Reports from who?”

  “From whom. And I have no requirement to tell you.”

  “Ah okay, fair enough. Can we go on and have our game now?”

  “Why don’t you drop the pretence? What’s he doing with that cricket bat?”

  Francis turned and stared at Ben as if seeing him for the first time. “Ah, sure he’s always at that. Didn’t he start supporting United as soon as they were winning years ago, and he got all into the rugby when Leinster got good? He got that yoke when Ireland won against England. I suppose that was a devastating blow for you.”

  Sergeant Brennan narrowed his eyes. “Why’d you say that?”

  “I don’t know,” Francis countered. “You seem like the type who’d begrudge your own countrym
en a victory.”

  Sergeant Brennan looked like he was about to blow a gasket. The two Gardaí stood behind him, grinning silently. “Come on. I’m going to have to arrest you all.”

  “Why?” Francis asked, looking mystified. “For playing hurling? Are you going to ban the tri-colour next?”

  “You’re not playing hurling!” Sergeant Brennan bellowed. “Do you take me for a fool? I don’t know what you’re at, but it’s not hurling. You don’t even have a ball.”

  “What do you mean?” Fiona asked, reaching in her handbag. “Of course we do.” She pulled out two sliotars and threw one each to her father and Marty, who caught them on their sticks. “We’d better go—it looks like rain and we don’t want to be playing on soggy ground.”

  24

  “GOD ALMIGHTY,” Francis McCabe said, shaking his head as they watched Sergeant Brennan stalk away with his back ramrod straight. “That was the most fun I’ve had all year. What possessed you to bring the sliotars?”

  She shrugged. “When I saw you weren’t to be reasoned with, I thought the least I could do was provide some damage control.”

  “You had them in your bag the whole time.”

  She nodded. “I grabbed them as I ran after ye out the back door.”

  Marty placed a hand on each of their shoulders, his face grave. “You can congratulate yourselves later. We need to talk. Now.”

  It was so rare for him to be serious that they all fell into line without question. Luckily, Fiona had the keys to the pub in her cavernous handbag so they headed there to talk.

  “What is it?” Fiona asked nervously as she locked the inner door behind them. “It’s the Beetle isn’t it? With all the Gerry business I didn’t think to ask.”

  “Yeah, what is it?” Francis asked. “You’re going to tell us now?” He turned to Fiona. “He refused to say a word until you got home.”

  “In fairness, I thought she deserved to hear about it before we all ran off half-cocked. And I was right—look at how much trouble we’d be in if she hadn’t thought to bring the sliotars.”

  “What did you find, Marty?”

  They sat around the large table opposite the bar. Three curious faces turned to him expectantly.

  “I don’t have it on me. I hid it at home because I didn’t know what might come of our little venture into town.”

  Fiona felt panic grip her. “Is it safe? Where’d you put it? What if they come looking for it?”

  He patted her shoulder. “It’s fine. And it turns out that there’s no they.”

  “Pete was working alone? But I saw him at the Garda station.”

  “It wasn’t Pete,” Marty said with a sigh. “Dec left behind a diary of sorts. Emails, records. I was only able to glance through it, but it’s pretty clear what went on. It appears Dec wasn’t expecting things to escalate as much as they did. I think he used the car as a hiding place because Will wouldn’t think to look there. He went to great lengths to get that land.”

  “Wait a sec. Will wouldn’t find it? But Pete bought the land—or so he said.”

  Marty nodded. “It seems Will had been harassing Dec for years to sell him the land.”

  “But it wasn’t his to sell. His parents are still in that home.”

  “That’s what we all thought, but the deeds were in Dec’s name. He spelt it all out. Will wanted it badly. Dec refused to even think about selling, but his time in jail made him rethink. He was thinking about getting out of Ballycashel for good. He decided to sell, but Pete Prendergast heard about it before they finalised the deal. He made a better offer for the land.”

  “No way,” Fiona whispered. “I’d say Will must have been livid.”

  “He was. See, not only did Pete gazump him, but he’s planning to build greenhouses on the land. It’ll hurt Will financially as well as sentimentally.”

  “Why kill Dec then? Why not Pete?”

  Marty shrugged. “I have no idea. All I found in there were the documents. There are records of Will’s visits to his house; of the harassment. He’d been following him all around the town and he’d taken to sitting at the bar with him in Phelan’s.”

  Fiona groaned. “That’s why he was sticking to himself. It wasn’t jail at all—he didn’t want Will harassing him. No wonder Will started coming in then. I wondered: I’d never seen him in the pub before. So you don’t think Robocop’s involved? Why didn’t he suspect Will?”

  “There’s no record of Dec making a statement about the harassment. That’s understandable—he doesn’t trust the guards after what they did.”

  “So what do we do now?” Ben asked. “We should take this to them.”

  “Yeah,” Fiona admitted. “If they’re not dirty, then they’re the best ones to look into this. We could take it to Garda Fitzpatrick; bypass the sergeant.”

  “Good idea,” Marty grinned. “I certainly don’t think it’s a good idea to try and sort this out ourselves. I’ve had quite enough McCabe vigilantism for one week.”

  “Good,” Fiona said with a relieved sigh.

  “Yeah, Fi; do us all a favour and learn to spot the signs for when a fella fancies you versus when he wants to murder you. Maybe we can make you a poster with stick men and speech bubbles.”

  “Har har har,” Fiona said, rolling her eyes, but she couldn’t keep the smile off her face. “It’s a family of comedians I have.”

  25

  DECLAN HANLON’S dossier proved quite comprehensive. He’d kept records of emails and had made notes of every conversation he’d had with Pete Prendergast and Will Connolly. It was enough to arrest Will and charge him with Dec’s murder. It transpired that the Gardaí had searched Will’s property before and found nothing—the search was perfunctory and mainly because he was an apple producer. This time, his laptop was taken. Among his search history was recipes for poisons that could be produced from common ingredients and detailed instructions for how to prepare apple seeds in order to induce cyanide poisoning. They also discovered that Will was the one who had anonymously tipped the Gardaí off about Fiona’s supposed involvement.

  There had been a dispute between the Hanlon and Connolly families about that land for years. It all traced back to a distant relative of both men. That will was unclear and both families believed they were the rightful owners of the land. Will had heard all about the dispute as he grew up and it had come back to him as he grew older and began to look into his family history. He had become obsessed with getting his hands on it at all costs.

  Declan had been fielding Will’s offers for years. He’d been firmly against selling, but prison had given him a new perspective. His parents were in the nursing home and he had nothing left in the town. What did a piece of land matter? His records detailed his draft agreement with Will Connolly. They’d gone to the effort of visiting a solicitor to draft their sale agreement, though there was no public record of the document as the land had never been officially sold to Will.

  One evening, Pete Prendergast approached Declan at his home and offered double what Will Connolly was offering. Declan didn’t hesitate to accept. He had already decided to move to England, and as far as he was concerned he had no loyalty to either man. All he wanted was to build as big a nest egg as possible for his new life.

  The resulting drama and recriminations were far more explosive than Declan had anticipated. He began to receive silent phone calls. His gates were left open and his sheep were allowed to escape. Will confronted him one night in Phelan’s. Dec thought it would all blow over. He had an inherent distrust of the police so it never entered his head to go to them for help.

  He had another idea, though. He got in touch with Simon Moriarty and told him all about the drama. Moriarty, to his surprise, thought it was great stuff. A real slice of life in rural Ireland with secrets and skeletons in the closet, he had said. Declan had printed off the email for posterity.

  In the end, that turned out to be Declan’s biggest mistake. Will saw him in the pub that night, lording it up with that journ
alist, as he put it in his statement to the Gardaí. He felt even more defeated by the man who had robbed him of what was rightfully his.

  He had to act. He was a smart man; he had already researched poisons but talked himself down before taking action. Now there was no calming him. All he had to do was hurry home and double check exactly how many seeds were needed and he was in business. It didn’t take him more than an hour to extract more seeds than he needed and mill them in a blender. He rushed back to the pub and waited around in the shadows, pretending he was just having a smoke outside.

  He started to get antsy. He popped his head in the door quickly and established that Dec was still there. He went back to waiting, never once rethinking his plan. He’d been scorned; made a fool of. When Dec left the pub, it was only a matter of lying and telling him that he wanted to talk; that he’d been an awful eejit and he wanted to say sorry.

  They went down to the lock and shared a beer. It would have all looked legit to Dec: Will had uncapped the bottled and recapped it after he put the apple seeds in. It turned out that he was an avid home brewer of beer, though he had no interest in going into the commercial business of cider production.

  Pete Prendergast had been living in terror ever since Dec’s murder. He had a suspicion, but he couldn’t be sure. He’d thought the same as the rest of Ballycashel at first: Dec had been killed for something he’d found out in prison. It was only when the truth came out about the journalist and the cyanide that Pete realised just what had happened. Even then, though, he wasn’t too worried about himself. After all, Will had never threatened to hurt him: only excavate the field so it’d be utterly useless to him. Pete had spent more than he could afford to buy the land: there was no way he could afford to pay for trucks to come and take the soil away. He had taken to patrolling the land with his shotgun, living in a small tent hidden in the bushes. It was the only way to guarantee its safety until the bank loan for construction came through and he could start work. He had avoided any contact with Will Connolly, fearing he might set off the other man’s temper. He had planned a relaxed evening out with his wife assuming that Connolly would never choose a venue like McCabe’s: it had put the fear of God into him when he’d spotted him at the bar.