Brian McGilloway - Gallows Lane

However, as Williams and I turned to leave a little while later, Dempsey called to us.

‘Of course, if O’Kane was telling the truth, then whoever put that leaflet in his car fairly much had the man killed.’

He nodded, almost to himself, put his hands behind his back, and turned, as if to stroll down the manicured lines of the lawn.

*

I had barely driven a mile when the panic attack which Dempsey’s words had elicited became so bad that I had to stop. Without even turning off the engine, I opened the door and tried to vomit on to the grass verge at the side of the road.

I felt Williams’s hands rubbing my back again, heard her voice as she tried to calm me. Then she took my hand in hers and, speaking to me slowly and quietly, got me to straighten up.

‘Breathe,’ she repeated several times, ‘take deep breaths. Everything is okay.’

After a few moments I had recovered enough to get out of the car. The windows were all open to let out the heat, but even with that, the air was heavy with diesel fumes.

‘I’ll drive,’ Caroline said, her hand rubbing my back.

As we stood by the side of the road, the temperature dropped almost in an instant and the sky darkened.

‘More thunder,’ Caroline said.

Sure enough, a moment later the first fat dollops of rain spattered off the roof of the car and hammered on to the dusty road. I ran around the car and climbed into the passenger side.

Caroline drove home, the rain so torrential along the way that, despite the stickiness, we had to close the windows.

When we reached my house, Caroline said she would take a taxi home, but I refused. It made more sense, I argued, for her to take my car and to collect me in the morning. I felt nauseous; my head was heavy and my brain thudded against my skull.

‘Thanks, Caroline,’ I managed to say, and we faced each other awkwardly. I leaned over and hugged her lightly, and she responded.

‘Take care,’ Caroline called as she drove away. ‘Feel better.’

The time was nine-forty when I got into the house and began to feel slightly better, the familiar surroundings helping me to ground myself. I drank tea and took two painkillers. I tried to smoke a cigarette at the back door, but it made me feel worse.

It was around ten-twenty that we received word that a car had been found in a ditch, after seemingly being involved in an accident. The Garda who found it knew it to be mine. When first he saw a female figure strapped unconscious inside, he assumed it would be Debbie. Only when he looked closer did he recognize Caroline Williams.

Wednesday, 16 June

Caroline was admitted to Letterkenny General Hospital just after midnight. She was breathing, albeit shallowly. The doctor who examined her identified fractures in her arm and collarbone, and a tiny fracture in her skull. Her blood oxygen levels were also unusually low. In addition she had severe bruising to her abdomen, with the possibility of broken ribs, and several cuts on her face and neck. As best they could tell there were no internal injuries, but only time would confirm that. Now, they could only wait for her to wake.

Adam Ferguson, the Guard who had found her, was still there, wanting to know if she was all right. We stood outside for a smoke, while he told me what he had seen. As far as he could tell, no other car had been involved in the crash. It appeared that, just under a mile from home, she had failed to negotiate a bend in the road and had ploughed straight through a wall, before the car overturned in a ditch. When Ferguson arrived on the scene, she was still strapped into the car, suspended upside down, the seatbelt taut against her chest, making breathing all the more difficult.

Before coming up to the hospital, I had someone collect her son, Peter, and bring him to our home, to be with Debbie and our kids; I hadn’t wanted to bring him up to see his mother until I saw for myself the extent of her injuries.

Costello sat beside me in the waiting area, his whole frame heaving with each breath.

‘Terrible,’ he said. ‘Terrible. The poor wee girl.’ He looked at me, his eyes red, and simply repeated, ‘Jesus, Benedict; Jesus.’

The two of us would sit till dawn, before finally getting word that Caroline had woken and wanted to speak to us.

Her face was badly bruised and puffy, her eyes both blackened with the impact of the smash. She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue frequently as she spoke. I held her hand in mine as we stood by her bed, and was reminded of her doing the same for me just the previous evening.

‘What happened, Caroline?’ Costello asked.

‘Where’s Peter?’ she asked, her eyes wide in panic.

‘He’s with us,’ I said. ‘Debbie’s watching him. He’s okay. Are you all right?’

‘Sore,’ she said, attempting to smile. ‘Can’t remember what happened. I felt. . I felt really tired — really heavy. There was a smell I. . I. .’ She faltered.

‘Was anyone else involved?’ Costello asked, but she shook her head.

‘Just so tired. So tired,’ she repeated, her eyes wet with tears.

‘I’m glad you’re awake, Caroline,’ I said, leaning over and kissing her on the forehead. She squeezed my hand lightly.

Before we left, we stopped in with the doctor to check on her progress. He seemed reasonably happy with her, though he had some concerns about her blood oxygen.

‘Was she suicidal?’ he asked, inexplicably.

‘God, no,’ I said. ‘Why?’

‘The only time you see blood levels like that is when someone tries to gas themselves in their garage,’ he explained. ‘Make of that what you will.’

Costello phoned through to the station and asked a team to go out to the car wreck and see what they could find. By the time we arrived, four of them had already gathered at the site.

My car was lying on its roof in a ditch about ten feet below the road. The undercarriage glistened with the remnants of the previous night’s rain. The bonnet was concertinaed against the windscreen, the deflated airbag hanging useless from the steering column. Spare change, CDs and a packet of cigarettes from the central compartment now lay on the headlining of the car. The once white upholstery of the headlining was stained with a mixture of ditch water and Caroline’s blood.

‘Have you men found anything?’ Costello called down to the team from the roadway, the incline prohibitively steep for a man of his limited mobility.

One of the officers held aloft a blackened rag. ‘Very simple, sir. Someone stuffed this in the exhaust pipe,’ he called. ‘Fumes would have knocked her clean out with the windows closed.’

As I thought about it afterwards, it made sense. Both of us had felt nauseous, both of us had complained of headaches; certainly lack of oxygen would have exacerbated my panic attack. It would also have explained the smell in the car. On the way to and from Decko’s, the windows had been open, at least affording some clean air. However, by the time Caroline left my house, she had the windows closed against the rain. It also provided an explanation for her blood oxygen levels.

Of course it also meant that the crash was deliberate and that Caroline had not been the intended victim; it was my car, after all. Debbie’s words about my making martyrs of my family echoed in my head. Because of me, Caroline was in hospital; her son was sitting, frightened and lonely in a strange house. It was one thing to put my own life on the line; someone else’s was a very different matter. I considered how I could possibly make it up to Caroline. In the short term, at least, all I could do was track down whoever had done this thing.

In fact, Costello asked that very question.

‘It could have been in connection with Decko,’ I suggested. ‘The remaining gang member, perhaps? Or it could be something to do with the Doherty case. Or someone with a grudge. Peter McDermott?’ After a pause I added, ‘Or Patterson and Colhoun?’