Brian McGilloway - Gallows Lane

‘Isn’t that illegal here, or something?’ Kerr asked, gesturing towards my cigarette.

‘Yep,’ I said. In fact, in the Republic it’s almost impossible to smoke anywhere. For some time now it has been illegal to smoke in a place of employment. If you want a cigarette after dinner in a restaurant you have to go out and stand on the street, usually with the chef who prepared your meal. A Garda car is considered a place of work, but then who was going to arrest me? I lit up and blew the smoke out of the window, away from my passenger.

‘I see you’re travelling light. Just home for a visit, Mr Kerr?’ I asked.

‘Is that a question or a suggestion?’

‘Just making conversation, actually,’ I said, my hands raised in mock surrender. ‘Have you any family left in Lifford?’

Kerr smirked. ‘I’m guessing that you know I haven’t. Is there any particular reason for the welcoming committee?’

‘We’re just concerned, James — for your safety and for others’.’

‘I’m not going to hurt anyone. I need to see somebody.’

‘Anyone in particular?’

‘Yes,’ he replied, then turned down the heat and put his hands in his cardigan pockets. ‘Are we going anywhere in particular, or are we just going to sit here?’

‘Where can I leave you, Mr Kerr?’ I asked, starting the car.

‘There’s a B amp;B out at Porthall’

‘I know it.’

‘That would be great.’

While we drove we spoke about a number of things to do with the area. Kerr commented on how much had changed since he had left and expressed distaste at the design of some of the newer buildings.

When we arrived at the B amp;B, he reached back for his bag and umbrella, then turned to face me.

‘Don’t worry about me, Inspector. I won’t cause any trouble. I need to get something off my chest, something my reverend says I need to do. Then I’ll be out of here. No one needs to fear me any more.’

‘Does this something involve either robbery or revenge?’ I asked.

‘Neither. I’m not going to hurt anyone, Inspector. I promise you.’

‘I’ll have to take your word for it,’ I said. ‘Please don’t make me regret it.’

‘Thanks for the lift. God bless you.’ With that, he got out, slammed the door and pushed through the wind up the driveway of the B amp;B where, he had told me, he was booked for the week.

As I cleared my stuff out of the car later, and tried to air out the smell of smoke, I found a religious tract which Kerr had left in the compartment on the passenger side door, entitled ‘Turn from Sin and Trust in Me’. Stamped on the back was the name and address of a Reverend Charles Bardwell from Coleraine. I almost crumpled the sheet up, then reconsidered and left it where it was, lest its message should be of some interest to the car’s next occupant.

That evening, Debbie took the children to see her parents and I was left behind to wash Frank, our one-eared basset hound.

I had just finished towelling Frank dry when Costello phoned. Ostensibly he was checking how things had gone with Kerr.

‘Did he say what he wants here?’

‘I get the impression he’s looking for some kind of catharsis, you know. I’m not wholly sure, to be honest.’

‘Bullshit, Benedict. I’ve known Kerr since he was a wee’un. His father came to us once complaining that someone was breaking the windows in his glasshouse. Went on for months, a pane of glass every night or two. Turned out it was Kerr himself, ticked off at his old man for not buying him some toy or other. He was nine then. Take my word for it, he’s bad news. Keep an eye on him.’

‘Yes, sir, I will,’ I said.

‘Just best we keep an eye, Benedict.’ I could hear his stubbled chin rasp across the receiver, his breath fuzzing on the line. ‘How’s the family?’

‘Fine, sir.’

‘Good, good to hear. Very good.’

He seemed to be forcing good humour but I could sense from the vagueness of his questions and comments that he had something deeper troubling him.

‘Is everything all right, sir?’

‘Fine, Benedict.’ He paused and something hung between us like the static before a lightning storm.

Finally he continued. ‘I … I handed in my notice today, Benedict.’

While we had all suspected that Costello would retire in the near future, most of us believed he’d see it through to his sixtieth next year.

‘Jesus, sir. I’m sorry to hear that,’ I said, assuming from his tone of voice that ‘Congratulations’ was not appropriate.

‘Effective from the end of June,’ he said, as if I had not spoken.

‘Why?’ I asked. ‘I mean, why so soon, sir? Wouldn’t you hold on for another year?’

‘My heart’s not in it any more, Benedict,’ he said. ‘Not since the business with Emily.’

Costello’s wife had been murdered a few years ago during a spate of killings linked with the disappearance in the 1970s of a prostitute with whom Costello had been having an affair. ‘I understand, sir,’ I said.

‘I’ve told the kids, you know. They think it’s for the best.’

‘Any plans, sir? Taking up fishing, maybe?’ I attempted levity, but without reciprocation.

‘They’re compiling the promotions list for a few new Supers for the region, I believe,’ he said. ‘In fact, they’ll be interviewing by the middle of next month, so. .’

I had an inkling where this was going. ‘So?’

‘Make sure your cap’s in the ring, Benedict,’ he said.

‘I hadn’t really thought about it, sir,’ I said, almost truthfully.

‘Well, think about it now,’ he replied sternly.

‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘Thank you — I will.’

Although he did not speak, I could sense a change in his tone; his breathing lightened a little. Finally he said, ‘I wanted to go out on top. I wanted to go out with a success, you know?’

‘Okay, sir,’ I said.

‘Mmm,’ he murmured, as if reflecting on an unspoken thought. Then he said, ‘See you tomorrow, Benedict,’ and the line went dead.

Monday, 31 May

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Lifford was the Seat of Judicial power in Donegal. Its courthouse, an imposing sandstone building, was built over the local jail and asylum. From its roof, on market days, local criminals were hanged while crowds of up to 12,000 people gathered below, cheering as the cattle thieves and others jerked and struggled like fish fifty feet above them, their feet grappling for purchase against the courthouse walls, their backs arched as they tried to free themselves from the chains that bound their arms behind them.

In even earlier times, the accused were hanged from the lower boughs of one of three giant chestnut trees, near Dardnells, just outside the main village. The site has been built on now, a sprawling housing estate which has spread steadily outwards towards Raphoe, but the lane along which the condemned were led — Gallows Lane — still exists. The local kids believe it is haunted. They still claim, in an age when such beliefs are largely forgotten, that on a Halloween night the chains of the condemned can be heard rattling and, if you listen closely enough, you can hear the wails of the accused and the creaking of the long-dead branches.

It was along Gallows Lane that, at eight-forty-five the following morning, two officers on routine patrol had noticed someone lurking at the tree line close to the local nursery school. They pursued the figure, but lost him in a copse on land belonging to Peter Webb, an Englishman who lectured in the College of Further Education in Strabane. Upon examining the area, the two officers found a parcel wrapped in coal sacks, which contained several hundred rounds of ammunition, three handguns, two shotguns and a large luncheon bag of ecstasy tablets and assorted other drugs.