Brian McGilloway - Gallows Lane

Mrs Webb did not cry when we broke the news of her husband’s death. Her entire body stiffened and she sat erect in the hard wooden chair in her kitchen, her mouth a thin white line, nodding curtly as if too much movement would cause her reserve to crack and her tears to flow. She listened while Williams softly assured her that we would do anything we could to help her, and shook her head when she was asked if she needed us to call a friend or relative to be with her. Then her eyes fluttered slightly and she wiped at them as they began to fill.

‘I’ll call someone in a while,’ she said, then turned to me. ‘Did he suffer, Inspector?’ she asked.

I generally believe that people who take their own lives must be suffering so much in life that the pain and fear of death hold nothing worse and I told her this. ‘Can you think what might have caused this distress, Mrs Webb? Did your husband give any indication that something might have been bothering him to the extent that he might harm himself?’

‘No, nothing,’ she said, clutching a tissue in her right hand. ‘Though he was very upset about the. . you know. . the stuff found on the land. The guns and such. I think he felt bad about that.’

‘Why?’ I asked, before I had time to think. Inwardly I cursed myself but at least I’d stopped short of telling her that we suspected the items hadn’t even belonged to him.

Fortunately, she misread my question. ‘Well, he was racked with guilt. I’d no idea he was doing those things — drugs and that. It’s incredible. . sometimes you don’t even know the person you’re married to. .’

‘Did he actually say that to you?’ Williams asked. ‘That he felt guilty?’

Unable to speak, Sinead Webb nodded her head vigorously.

‘Do you think that’s why he. .?’

Again, she nodded wordlessly. Williams looked at me and shrugged her shoulders; I could only reciprocate the motion.

‘Mrs Webb, did your husband do anything unusual over the past twenty-four hours? Any indication he was planning this? You know, calling family or friends; buying gifts, spending time with loved ones?’

She shook her head.

‘We’ve been told someone was asking about your husband in the local shop. An Englishman, wearing a suit. Does that mean anything to you?’

Initially she shook her head, then stopped and blew her nose, her face intent with concentration. ‘Actually, now you mention it, that sounds like a man Peter met up with yesterday — an old friend. Someone he was at university with apparently, landed here out of the blue, Peter wasn’t expecting him. The two of them went for a few drinks. Peter came home about eight; said they’d been catching up on old times. We went to bed, then. When I woke up this morning he wasn’t in bed. Then you arrived.’

‘Did you know this friend?’ I asked. ‘Do you remember his name?’

‘No. They went to university in Bristol together. He was in a suit, just like you say. A businessman, I think. Peter didn’t say much about him when he came back.’

Before leaving, I invited Mrs Webb, when she felt up to it, to formally identify the body, although we had no doubt that it was her husband. As we were leaving, she walked us to the door. ‘You don’t think that prowler had anything to do with this, do you?’ she asked.

‘Probably not,’ I said with more conviction than I felt, then shook her hand and offered my sympathies one last time.

Williams and I sat in the car along the roadway while I had a smoke and we compared notes.

‘We know the guns and stuff didn’t belong to Webb, so why would he feel guilty — unless he was lying to his wife for some reason? Maybe he felt guilty about something else and was using this as cover. An affair?’

‘She’s the one having the affair. Maybe Webb found out about it and couldn’t take it.’

‘Surely he’d confront her about it. Or at least leave a note. Tell her he knows so when he dies she has to carry the guilt,’ Williams reasoned.

‘Maybe he did. What if she’s the one lying about him being guilty over the drugs and that? What if she’s covering for herself? She’s not aware that we know the drugs weren’t his.’

‘Jesus — what a cold bitch!’ Williams said in disgust.

‘These are all just maybes, Caroline. Maybe his old English friend is connected in some way. An Englishman wearing a suit fits the description Christy gave of the man in his shop — the one he believes is a Special Branch agent. Why would Special Branch want to speak to Peter Webb?’

‘Maybe he was an old friend who joined the Police. Maybe it’s perfectly innocent.’

‘Why not tell Christy that in the shop? Why make up a story about being a journalist?’ I said. ‘Too many maybes.’

‘We don’t even know that he is Special Branch. All we’ve got is Christy Ward’s suspicion. He might be mistaken.’

‘I’d be surprised if he’s wrong.’ I flicked my cigarette butt out of the window and started the engine. ‘On top of all of this, we have to ask what the hell James Kerr is doing stuck in the middle of it all. Don’t forget — he’s the prowler the Merry Widow asked us about when we were leaving.’

‘Maybe it’s a straightforward suicide — no mystery attached.’ Williams said hopefully.

‘Maybe.’

We drove in silence for a few minutes, Williams gazing out of the passenger window. When she finally spoke, she did so without looking at me.

‘The other day,’ she began. ‘With Patterson. He mentioned the promotions panel.’

‘That’s right,’ I said.

‘Are you going for it?’

‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘I’ve my letter in.’

‘That means you are, then.’

‘I’m just throwing my hat in the ring, Caroline. I’m not even sure I’d want to be a Super. Or to leave here.’

She nodded, but didn’t speak.

‘Why? Would you miss me? I added, grinning.

She looked at me, considering her response. ‘I guess I’ve gotten used to you,’ she said, shrugging slightly, then turned and looked out of the window again.

Our hopes that Webb’s death was suicide were soon dashed. The State Pathologist reported quickly following the autopsy. While she concluded that Webb had died through oxygen deprivation, she raised questions over the cause of the hypoxia. Firstly, she noticed that the rope burns around Webb’s neck were even and did not have what she termed vital reaction marks — an inflammation round the wounds caused by a living body attempting initial repair. This, she concluded, would suggest that Webb was dead before his body was hung from the tree. Secondly, she noted that there was damage caused to the hyoid bone, under Webb’s jaw line. It was, she contended, highly unusual for the hyoid bone to be broken by hanging. The damage was more consistent with manual strangulation. Finally she’d recorded that two of Webb’s fingers were broken, with again little sign of vital reaction, suggesting this occurred during or at the point of death. While this could have been caused as he struggled for breath and grappled at the rope, all these together confirmed my initial suspicion when I saw that the corpse was still wearing glasses. Her final conclusion was, she said, that the preponderance of evidence suggested that Peter Webb had been murdered.

I had just finished reading the report when Williams came into the office, beaming. ‘I think we have a hit on the builders,’ she said.

Peter McDermott was a twenty-eight-year-old plasterer working on Paddy Hannon’s site. When he was younger and living in Cork, he had been questioned several times about a sexual assault on a local woman. Strangely, his victim had not gone on to press charges.

The address we had for him was in Coolatee. It was a five-minute drive.