47

There was no one at Hannah’s apartment. Noelie went over to the sofa and sat down, his eyes falling on a large wall print that Hannah had brought back from one of her trips to Australia. It was of a sunset at Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory.

Noelie didn’t know what he was going to do. A couple of months ago he had been struggling with boredom and where he was going in his life. Should he emigrate again? What could he work at? Hannah had planted the idea of going back to college. He had been thinking about it.

These were real worries but now they felt insignificant. He had become caught up in something so dark and serious that it had led to the death of his best friend. It was no surprise that terrible things had gone on in the past. Every other year there was some new revelation. If it wasn’t to do with a particular Catholic diocese, it was about a mother and baby home or a Magdalene Laundry. But he had never expected to end up at the centre of something that was so ugly. He had uncovered a number of serious crimes that had damaged the lives of lots of people, including his. He just couldn’t walk away.

He decided to get out of the apartment for a while. Walking along Washington Street, in the direction of the university, he veered right at the main campus gates and went towards the river and Fitzgerald Park. Passing the bust of Michael Collins he finally arrived at the river, which was at full tide. He sat on the riverbank. Llanes was just across the way.

He understood a lot more now: there were two crimes not one. The first centred around the identity of Brian Boru and initially involved Robert Donnelly. Later on, Special Branch with the assistance of other arms of Irish intelligence and, quite possibly, Britain’s MI5 had taken control of the mole. In exchange for turning informer and giving information on the inner workings of Sinn Féin, Father Boran’s past crimes were covered up; Boran was also given protection and a new identity as Keogh. As Tommy Keogh, Boran had evolved into a highly valued informer. Over almost four decades his handlers did everything possible to keep his identity a secret. Dalton, Sugrue, Hannah and Cronin had all been killed because of him.

Noelie believed that Keogh’s execution was the result of Branch’s assessment that his role as an informer was no longer viable; it was safer to close him down. An orderly retreat from the entire mess was now underway; this would be managed and choreographed with the able assistance of the usual sources in the media.

The second set of crimes centred around the organised abuse of boys at the Donnelly farm. It wasn’t clear for how long this activity had gone on, nor was it clear who and how many men were involved. In fact the only proof that these crimes had taken place at all was the double-8 film that they had found. They were living at a time when more and more victims of historic abuse crimes were coming forward, but no one had come forward about the Donnelly farm.

The pivotal event linking the two sets of crimes was probably the murder of Spitere, Copley and Egan. Noelie surmised that Robert Donnelly had learned about those killings and, calculating that the furore over the murders and what they were about – the existence of a ring of abusers operating around the Donnelly farm – would destroy his career in the gardaí, had decided to assist with the covering up of those crimes. He saw the potential to use Keogh as an informer and demanded that Albert give him one or more of the films that he had made of the gatherings at Ballyvolane to secure Keogh’s agreement.

Father Boran’s transformation into Brian Boru had paid off handsomely for Robert Donnelly until Special Branch moved in to transfer control of the mole to Garda Headquarters in Dublin. For reasons not fully clear to Noelie, this change upset the uneasy balance at Llanes, reigniting the conflict between Robert and Albert.

Don Cronin’s involvement and untimely death now made more sense. Noelie figured that Cronin could well have been one of the few people not directly involved in the conspiracy who knew its full extent and the degree of criminality involved. With Sugrue’s death in 1998, he was handed the poisoned chalice that was the Brian Boru file. He had probably worked out that its contents were far too incendiary to reveal. On the other hand if he held onto the information and hid it securely, it was capable of buying him long-term protection – the route he eventually took until his dispute with Ajax Dineen.

Noelie’s accidental discovery of part of the Brian Boru file changed everything for Cronin. With the publication of the Sugrue statement, it became clear to all the interested parties that Cronin had had the Brian Boru file since Sugrue’s death in 1998. Branch probably felt that they had scored a significant success when they recovered most of the file following their raid of the lock-ups, but their celebrations would have been cut short when they realised that a key item in the file, the double-8 film, was still missing. When it emerged that Noelie hadn’t the film either, attention switched back to Cronin.

Noelie wasn’t sure who had murdered Cronin. Branch had motive, means and opportunity. However the murder weapon – Noelie’s poker – had probably been stolen from Noelie’s flat during the break-in on the afternoon before Bonfire Night. That break-in was almost certainly the work of Albert and Big Ears, suggesting to Noelie that Albert had been an active agent throughout the period that Noelie and Hannah were looking at Dalton’s disappearance.

For Noelie, Sugrue shone brightly, despite his wacky beliefs. As a committed Branch operative he had undoubtedly signed off on many unsavoury activities during the Troubles, but the murder of an ordinary citizen was unacceptable to him, as was the idea of protecting child abusers. Noelie didn’t know if Sugrue had worked out the extent of what had been going on at the Ballyvolane farm but he had certainly figured out enough to know that he had to act. To his credit Sugrue probably understood the danger involved in challenging the garda hierarchy and its intelligence wing.

Tony Donnelly’s role and motivation was still something of an enigma. Noelie didn’t know the exact allegiance of the oldest Donnelly brother; if he was a stooge for Branch or an active member of Albert’s circle. It seemed more likely to Noelie that he had been trying to protect Robert Donnelly, or the Donnelly name or even the reputation of Let There Be Light; his motive had simply and conveniently overlapped with that of Branch.

If nothing else, the death of Sean Sugrue did underline the intertwined interests that had made it so hard to get to the truth. Inasmuch as there were two crimes, there were in consequence two groups of criminals loitering with intent, watching developments and assessing how they impacted on their own interests. On the one hand, Branch was protecting its patch; on the other, the group that Cronin had referred to as ‘that crowd’ was also observing proceedings, looking for any sign that its existence would become known.

Albert was a key figure, if not the key figure. Intelligent, well educated and ruthless, he was prepared to murder to get his way. Although Albert gave the impression of being a genteel, kindly Christian, Noelie knew that he and Meabh had only narrowly escaped death at his hands. Others hadn’t been so lucky.

Looking across at Llanes, Noelie’s eyes rested on the area of the garden under which the cavern was located.

If Noelie and Meabh had drowned there, Albert would simply have opened the sluice gate a day or so later – their bodies would have floated out into the Lee and downriver. They would have been found close to where Shane’s body was discovered.

It had occurred to Noelie that Shane could have encountered Albert and Big Ears at his flat on the afternoon he vanished. Noelie wasn’t sure but he thought he might have told Shane that he should come over sometime to listen to the punk collection. It was something that Shane would have done too; the kid loved music. Noelie hadn’t pursued that scenario, in part because Shane’s body showed no signs of having suffered violence and his death was judged to be by drowning. Detective Byrne’s report had confirmed all of this. But Noelie now knew that Shane’s death could be consistent with incarceration in Albert’s garden prison.

Something else was bothering him. If the break-in at his flat on the day before Bonfire Night had been carried out by Albert and Big Ears, how had Albert found out so quickly about the Sugrue file? How did he know about Noelie’s involvement or where he lived? It led Noelie back to his belief that there was someone inside the gardaí passing information to Albert.

Later, at the apartment, they held a wake for Hannah. The Hegarty family were there, along with Irwin, Garret, Black Gary and Martin. They told stories about Hannah and Irwin talked about his early years in Australia and his life there. At one point they talked about Danesfort and listened to Black Gary’s accounts of his time there.

Around 10 p.m. Noelie called Meabh to give her an update and to get her final agreement to go ahead with the release of the film at 2 a.m, if there had been no word by then about Jim Dalton’s remains. Meabh remained unhappy about the prospect of publication but she reluctantly agreed and told Noelie some news of her own.

‘I’ve been coming and going through Schiphol airport for about seven years. I’ve never had the slightest problem and it’s normally just a cursory passport check. This time, though, I was thoroughly searched. I didn’t have a lot of luggage but everything I had was examined in detail. They also insisted on doing a full body examination on me, which was gross I might add.’

She told Noelie that she had kicked up a fuss and asked for an explanation but none was forthcoming.

‘I guess we both know why you were searched.’

‘I guess we do.’

After the call ended Noelie told the others what Meabh had just told him. It was sobering news, confirmation for them all that behind the scenes a lot was still happening. A while later they ordered pizzas and, as these were being delivered, the call came through from Ethel Dalton.