Brian McGilloway - Gallows Lane

Still, the call spurred me to contact Agnes Doherty and tell her that her sister’s killer was, I hoped, now off the streets. As it transpired, she too had heard about the arrest on the radio.

‘I heard someone was injured. Was that you?’ she asked.

‘Slightly,’ I said. ‘Nothing to keep me off my feet,’ I added, laughing a little. My injuries were minor in comparison to the injury against her and her family.

‘I’m sorry you were hurt,’ she said. ‘Your wife must have been very worried about you.’

‘Honestly, Miss Doherty: it’s nothing.’

‘It’s something to me,’ she stated simply.

I didn’t know what else to say. ‘I. . I just thought you should know that we-’

‘Thank you for catching my sister’s killer, Inspector,’ Agnes Doherty said.

As I sat in the twilight after the phone call and considered what both Williams and Agnes Doherty had said, I looked back on all that had happened over the past few weeks, and all those who had died. I sat there, alone, for a few more minutes, then I went inside to my family.

Friday, 18 June

Daniel McLaughlin regained consciousness at five-thirty in the morning. By eight o’clock, after being checked by his doctors and conferring with his lawyer, the ubiquitous Gerard Brown, he was ready to be interviewed in his hospital room. Dempsey and his two sergeants were there, along with myself, Costello and Helen Gorman, whom I had contacted in case we got a result on the drugs theft.

I had called in with Caroline before I started. She was propped up in bed, eating her breakfast. She hoped to be released in time for the weekend. Peter had made a get well card for her with Debbie the night previous. He had drawn a stick woman and child and written simply, ‘I Love You, Mummy’, at the top of the page.

McLaughlin was similarly sitting up in bed, his back supported by a number of pillows. His hospital gown just about reached around his shoulders; his back was bare and his muscles rigid. His hands rested on his lap, his fingers intertwined. The tattoo of Cuchulain was clear on his arm, the colours bright. But it was McLaughlin’s face which affected me most. His face was cruel. His eyes were narrowed, heavy-lidded like a reptile’s; his nose was wide and flared, and slightly out of place where it had been broken at some stage. His mouth was thin and his teeth were misshapen. His jaw flexed with tension whenever he wasn’t talking.

Once I had sat down, Dempsey turned on the tape recorder that had been set up and I introduced those present in the room. I then explained to McLaughlin that he was being questioned in connection with a number of serious crimes in the area. He did not respond, only flicking his head ever so slightly as if to nod.

‘Firstly, Mr McLaughlin, we’d like to ask you about Karen Doherty.’

He looked at me in bewilderment for a second, then glanced at his lawyer who sat beside his bed, then looked at me again. He mimicked a frown and pouted.

‘Never heard of her,’ he said.

I placed a photograph of her on the bed in front of him. It had been taken several months earlier; Agnes had given it to a liaison officer.

‘Don’t know her,’ he said with a shrug. His shoulders seemed to relax slightly, his whole body language shifting in a way I could not explain.

‘You’re sure?’ I asked, pushing the photograph closer to him.

‘Asked and answered, Inspector,’ his lawyer, Brown, said.

‘You didn’t pick up this girl in Letterkenny on Monday, 31 May?’ I continued.

‘I believe we have established that my client doesn’t know this person, Inspector.’

‘This girl, Karen Doherty, was found dead on a building site in Raphoe on Tuesday, 1 June,’ I said. ‘I believe you’ve heard of her from the news, Mr Brown. And I believe you knew her too, Mr McLaughlin.’

‘Believe what you like,’ he grunted. ‘Never seen her before.’ He sniffed, once. ‘Not really my type.’

‘Someone spiked her drink with paint stripper in Club Manhattan in Letterkenny. Paint stripper like the stuff we found in your garage.’ I waved away his protest before he had a chance to articulate it. ‘We know you’ve been at that club. A doorman identified you as a regular. And I believe we almost met there ourselves a week or two ago. I still have the bruises to prove it.’

‘Yeah, I go there. Doesn’t mean I know what’s-her-face.’

‘We have CCTV footage of her climbing into a sports car. We have a clear shot of the arm of the driver, sporting a tattoo identical to yours.’

‘It’s a small world too, isn’t it?’ he said, his lawyer placing a quietening hand on his forearm which he shook off.

‘If that’s all you’ve got, Inspector, I see no reason to keep my client any longer’, Brown said. ‘The man is sick, shot by Gardai, based on the evidence of a photograph of a tattoo. You’ve got to be kidding me.’

‘We also have your fingerprints at the murder scene, Mr McLaughlin. You opened a condom to use as you assaulted the girl; you left it in the same room as the body. With your fingerprints on it. Then, of course, you left your handiwork all over Karen Doherty, too, didn’t you?’ I said, placing now a number of the crime-scene photographs on the bed in front of him.

McLaughlin looked at the pictures one after another, but if he felt anything he did not show it. Finally he looked at Brown but did not speak.

‘The doctor who pronounced her dead said she was hit with force similar to that of a car hitting her. That level of violence can only be inflicted by someone with immense strength, Mr McLaughlin. And with immense rage.’

‘The Doherty girl wasn’t sexually assaulted from what I understood,’ Brown said. ‘Is that right?’

None of us answered, which was response enough in itself.

‘Why would my client open a condom he wasn’t going to use? Perhaps it was lying there from another occasion. You can’t actually be sure that the item was left at the time the girl was killed, can you?’

‘In addition, of course, you left something else at the second scene; a witness. We have spoken to the second girl you attempted to assault, Mr McLaughlin. A fifteen-year-old, whom you also battered with your fists. Fifteen years old. She suggests you were physically unable to complete your planned assault. Is that true, Mr McLaughlin?’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ McLaughlin said bluntly.

‘Why are you using Viagra, Mr McLaughlin?’ Gorman asked.

‘What?’ he snapped, with enough venom to startle even Brown.

‘Viagra. We found traces of it in your blood. Along with steroids. Oh, and breast cancer drugs,’ she continued. ‘Any explanation?’

‘No crime taking Viagra,’ Brown said. Are we moving on, now?’

‘The crime was in the theft of tamoxifen,’ Gorman said. ‘We have matched the trainers you were wearing, Mr McLaughlin, with a footprint found on the door of Lifford pharmacy, the morning after it was broken into and a batch of breast cancer drugs stolen. Drugs which we found in your room, and in your blood. Drugs which a competitor in a local kick-boxing tournament says you sold him.’

Brown seemed completely unprepared for this departure, and I wondered what exactly he and his client had discussed in preparation.

‘Shall I tell you how I think this all went, Mr McLaughlin?’ I said. ‘I believe you have been abusing steroids in order to enhance your physical state. As a result of this, however, you suffered what is commonly called “moobs”. Fortunately, you somehow learned that tamoxifen reduces these; certainly that was what you told Darren Kehoe when you sold him some last week; something to which Mr Kehoe will attest. Of course, two of the other known side effects of steroid abuse are impotence and extreme rage. I believe that you went out that evening, armed with a bottle of paint stripper, looking for a woman. Having spotted Karen Doherty in Letterkenny, you spiked her drink and waited for her to be separated from her friends. You picked her up outside the club and drove her to the building site outside Raphoe. There you attempted to rape Karen but were unable to perform. In a rage you beat her with sufficient force to kill her. Then you calmly cleaned up and left.’