“On what?”
“Didn’t they re-arrest Elena Deauville last night?”
“Yeah, your mate Seamus lifted her. You want the details?”
“If it’s not too much trouble.”
“You seem to be in a mood.”
“I’m not … And Seamus isn’t my mate. He’s just a Catholic. Not all us Catholic peelers are buddy buddies, you know?”
“I thought you came up together,” Crabbie protested.
“What if we did? What’s the story with Mrs D., Crabbie?”
“They arrested her, took her to Antrim RUC and interviewed her. Do you want to come in and read the transcript? CI O’Driscoll faxed it over.”
“No, you can summarise it for me.”
“They asked her about the lock-up. She denied all knowledge of its contents. She denied all knowledge of her husband’s drug dealing and she said she had nothing to do with any smuggling.”
“Did Seamus believe her?”
“No. He asked how her husband could be a heroin dealer and she not know about it. He said it wasn’t credible.”
“And what did she say to that?”
“She said that if she knew her husband was a heroin dealer why hadn’t she gotten rid of the evidence as soon as she found him dead?”
“What did Seamus say to that?”
“Seamus said that if she’d gone all the way to the lock-up in Eden and left her husband’s body in her driveway after she discovered it, it would have been very suspicious and after she’d been released from custody she couldn’t do it because she must have seen the policemen watching her house.”
“That makes sense to me. What do you reckon?”
“She was completely hysterical after the body was found. She was in no fit state to think rationally about concealing evidence. And after she was released, as CI O’Driscoll says, she must have seen the men watching the house. They were ordinary PC’s so that wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Anything else interesting from the interview?”
“She gave him nothing, Sean. Less than she gave us, even. Deny, deny, deny. Of course she had a Legal Aid solicitor with her this time.”
“Did she ask for a lawyer?”
“Apparently she did.”
“So they had to give her one.”
“Aye.”
“So O’Driscoll’s keeping her up at Antrim for further questioning, is he?”
“No. He thinks he has enough evidence already for a prima facie case. She’s already been formally charged at Antrim Magistrates Court.”
“That is fast work. They set bail?”
“5,000 pounds.”
“Steep for a guilt-by-association case.”
“O’Driscoll told the court that she was a flight risk so they confiscated her passport and set a big bail. Her Legal Aid solicitor was furious, saying she was a poor widow living in a council house on benefits, but apparently the magistrate was unmoved.”
“I take it no one has paid the bail.”
“No.”
“Unless they find her prints on the stuff I think it’s going to be a tougher case to make than O’Driscoll thinks. No chain of causation, no real proof that she knew anything about the drugs. A jury might let her off. If it were me I’d offer her a deal. But then again, that’s not our problem, is it?”
“No.”
“Any developments on our side of the case?”
“Nothing. That story in the Republican News is as good as a DAADD claim of responsibility, as far as the media is concerned. Didn’t make any of the Sunday papers. I don’t think we’ll even have to have a press conference.”
“Thank God for that.”
“What will we do next?”
“We’ll appeal for witnesses. Maybe have poor Mrs Deauville go through a third police interview.”
“You think she was lying to us?”
“Of course she was lying to us, she’s a bloody drugs smuggler, but there was one question in particular that’s been bothering me. Do you remember I asked her if she’d seen anyone following them and she sort of hesitated before she answered?”
“Aye, and she sort of stared at that Bulgarian bloke and then at us before saying no.”
“Did she?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you think that was about?”
“Just nerves, I thought.”
“Could be,” I said reflectively.
I looked at my watch. “Don’t you have church soon?”
“I do indeed.”
“I’ll come in and take over for you.”
“It’s Lawson’s rota.”
“I’m at a loose end. Beth. You know?”
“How is everything with uh, uh …” Crabbie began, immediately regretting the sally. But I wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily, the poor bastard.
“So glad you asked, mate. She’s staying with her parents. We had a wee row and I thought it was no big deal but apparently I freaked her out. And her da swings by yesterday and says she’s switching to business administration, whatever the hell that is. And now she’s away working on the family yacht like the Proddy gentry. You never had a boat as a child, did you?”
“No I—”
“Course you didn’t. Son of the soil like you. Who has a boat? Nobody. I don’t know what’s going on, mate. Maybe this whole row about the house was a mere pretext. A casus belli you know?”