Nothing but Trouble_ A Kevin Kerney Novel - Michael Mcgarrity [86]
Sara closed the file. “What else?”
“He’s made several recent calls on his mobile to a London telephone number, one of which was placed just before he left Bray on his boat. We’ve asked the London authorities to find out what they can and ring us back.”
“I wonder if he sailed to England,” Sara said.
“He could get to Wales in a matter of hours,” Fitzmaurice replied. “Or, according to the Coast Guard, he could not be at sea at all, but cruising along the mouth of some inland waterway.”
Sara looked out the windscreen of the car. People hurried along the quay, shops were opening, lorry drivers were queuing up at curbside to make deliveries, buses rolled by. Sunlight dappled the Liffey, the blue sky was tinged with green, and the tourists were in short sleeves, anticipating a warm, clear day.
“Do you have a plan?” Fitzmaurice asked.
Sara let out a small sigh. She’d hoped to get to Spalding by working around Paquette and leaving the smallest possible footprint of her participation in the investigation. “Has there been any fresh communication between Spalding and Paquette?”
Fitzmaurice shook his head. “Not as far as we know.”
Sara bit her lip. If she waited for Spalding to surface or make another misstep, it could be days before he could be brought to ground, and time wasn’t on her side. “Let’s have a talk with her.”
Fitzmaurice turned over the engine and laughed. “That’s a fine plan, Colonel Brannon. One I heartily endorse.”
Sara touched Fitzmaurice’s shoulder. “Wait a minute. Let’s think this through. Where is she now?”
Fitzmaurice glanced at his watch. “On her way to an appointment with a Canadian artist who is about to have a major show at a gallery in the Temple Bar district.”
“Can we have her picked up without arousing her suspicion?”
“A subterfuge of some sort? Is that necessary? We have sufficient cause to question her.”
“Which would surely put her on guard,” Sara countered. “If we approach her as a suspect, she could immediately go on the offensive and either request a solicitor or ask to contact the Canadian embassy.”
Fitzmaurice eyed Sara. “And you wouldn’t want that.” Sara shook her head.
“I could arrange for a detective to approach her about a theft of items from her hotel room.”
“That would work. But I would prefer to meet with her somewhere other than your office.”
“Dublin Castle would do nicely,” Fitzmaurice replied.
“Isn’t it a big tourist attraction?”
“One of the most popular in the city. The former police yard and armory on the castle grounds house Garda offices, including the drug unit. There are several belowground rooms that are equipped for interviews and interrogations.”
Sara laughed. “So we’ll have Paquette thrown into the castle dungeon.”
“Not quite,” Fitzmaurice said with a smile as he pulled out into the crush of morning traffic. “But with a bit of embellishment it will give you an excellent tale to tell once you’re home in the States.”
Sara asked how far it was to the castle, and Fitzmaurice replied that it was no more than a biscuit’s throw away. When they arrived, he gave Sara a few minutes to look around, pointing out an old Norman tower with tall battlements that housed the Garda Museum; the circular gardens, with their serpentine footpaths amid lush grass, resting on the site of the dark pool—dubh linn—that had given the city its name; the Gothic Revival chapel; the state apartments; and the viceroy’s coach house that, from the outside, looked much like a small castle but now served as an exhibition and conference center.
“Originally,” Fitzmaurice said, as he led Sara to a brightly plastered building that bordered the circular garden, “the castle sat along a river. But the old moat was