‘Five years, on and off. Ryan couldn’t accept what it was, just a casual fling. He saw it as love, and no doubt with Dervla being difficult, I seemed the ideal choice for him. He became angry when I told him.’
‘When was this?’
‘The same day as Seamus arrived, early in the morning. Long enough for, well, you know.’
‘We know now.’
‘Mrs Gaffney, you’re pregnant,’ Annie O’Carroll said.
‘It’s Seamus’s, I know that. I wouldn’t have done that to him.’
‘The full story, in your own time,’ Larry said.
Sheila Gaffney got up from where she had been sitting and walked around the room before sitting back in the same chair. She seemed to have visibly shrunk.
‘It was after the third child. Before that, they came at regular intervals, and I was always busy looking after them. And then a spell where I failed to get pregnant. Seamus was still commuting, supporting us as he always did. I became lonely, maybe because I wasn’t expecting, and from loneliness comes melancholy and then reflection, and finally the need to do something. It was on one of Ryan’s visits. He was always dropping in to see how we were. Seamus, the rogue that he was, and Ryan, a police officer. It’s hard to believe the friendship between the two men, but it never wavered.
‘Ryan is here, and I knew that he always liked me, always commenting if only his wife could be more like me, and then it happened. I wanted to say no, but I couldn’t. And afterwards, I thought I should feel guilty, but I didn’t. I felt loved, and by two men. After that, he’d come over occasionally, but he started to become serious. He even spoke of my divorcing Seamus, he divorcing Dervla, and for us to get married. I had wanted to end it for some time, always too afraid to do it, and then Seamus is on the phone saying that he’s coming back for good.’
‘Ryan Buckley’s reaction?’ Larry said.
‘He stormed out of here, ever so angry. He said he was going to have me one way or the other.’
‘Which you interpreted as meaning that he intended to murder your husband?’
‘No. Ryan could be hot-headed but I could never have imagined that he would harm Seamus.’
‘We’ve proof?’ Larry asked Annie.
‘We had never considered Ryan as the murderer. A fellow police officer, a loyal friend of the family.’
‘And?’
‘When Sheila told me, we re-examined the evidence, checked on Ryan’s movements. His car was fitted with GPS monitoring. We backtracked where it had been driven and found a layby where he had pulled in. Our people went there and found the weapons. It’s conclusive. Ryan murdered Seamus,’ Annie said. She had her arm around Sheila Gaffney.
Larry realised there were no words that he could offer that would alter the anguish and the shame that Gaffney’s widow felt. He left the house and returned to Annie’s car. Five minutes later she came out of the house.
‘It came as a shock, but we have our murderer,’ Annie said.
‘What about Buckley’s killer?’
‘That still remains unsolved.’
‘I should get back to London. If you could drop me back at the airport, I’d be grateful,’ Larry said. He had spent just under three hours in Ireland before he boarded the plane for the return journey; his despondent mood had returned.
***
‘It sticks in your throat,’ Oscar Braxton said. Isaac and Larry were at New Scotland Yard in Braxton’s office. On the television, a football match, and in the owner’s box, Stanislav Ivanov. ‘That’s the trouble, people just don’t care. Look at them fawning over him, making him out to be something special instead of the grubby gangster that he is.’
Isaac could sympathise, knowing full well that there were more villains outside of the prisons than in, and with enough money anyone was innocent. He realised that it was a pessimistic view of the law, and any attempt at meeting with Ivanov, possibly bringing him into Challis Street, would be met with a barrage of Queen’s Counsels, all of them at the pinnacle of their legal prowess.
The philanthropic businessman was how the football team saw him, the general public if they knew of him, but never as the head of a violent criminal gang, only separated from the hoodlums causing trouble of a Saturday evening after a few too many drinks by his wealth.
‘We can’t touch him, I suppose?’ Isaac asked.
‘He doesn’t break any laws in this country, and back in Russia, he’s protected. Friends in high places protecting his back, him protecting theirs. And now, the man is making a move in this country.’
Larry, glad to be back home with his wife and their children, having arrived the previous night, said little, although the events in Ireland had unsettled him. Sheila Gaffney, the dutiful wife, a person who caused no harm to anyone, now tainted as a scarlet woman in the press; the reputation of Ryan Buckley in shreds.
‘Look at that,’ Braxton said. On the television, Ivanov making a speech about how he was honoured to be the owner of such a prestigious club, and how he was looking forward to making England his home.
‘He wants the place for himself,’ Isaac said.
‘He intends to run his criminal empire from here. And there’s nothing we can do about it.’
‘Any more on Crin Antonescu?’
‘He never left Ivanov’s villa. And now you have another death, Marcus Hearne. He’ll not be missed, I assume.’
‘Not by us,’ Larry said. ‘His family maybe.’
‘Not really relevant, is it? What about the other so-called leaders of their communities? Any chance of finding out what was said at the meeting with Cojocaru? He must be quivering in his boots with Ivanov coming here on a permanent basis.’
‘They’re not talking at present. Since Hearne died, I’ve not heard from them.’
‘Cojocaru has
