“What about the Drumkee angle?” I ask. “They made a lot of that on the news. Do you think there’s anything there?” I want to ask about the arrest, but I can’t. I can’t let them know I’ve been talking to Hines.
“We’re looking at it,” Roly says in a resigned voice. “And we think we may have a lead on the remains. Griz?”
Griz says, “Katerina Greiner. There’s a good chance it’s her.” She glances over at Roly and he nods for her to go on.
“In January of 1993, Katerina Greiner—she was twenty-three—left Germany to travel. Her family didn’t hear much from her. They didn’t have a close relationship. But they got a postcard from Galway and she said she was going to stay in Ireland for a few months and do some hillwalking in Wicklow and maybe go to Glendalough.”
I ask them, “But there was never confirmation that she was actually there?”
“No. The postcard was it. Her family contacted the Guards in July, to see if there had been any word of her. They did a bit of asking around, but couldn’t find anyone who’d seen her. Then, about a month before your cousin went missing, they spoke with the family and they seemed to be satisfied she wasn’t in Ireland. A friend of hers had seen her in Berlin and they were pretty sure she’d gone home.”
“Someone,” Roly says. “Someone who will surely be getting a good tongue lashing, closed the file. But when we looked, it was pretty clear no one really knew where she was. Her parents are both dead. Her brother had his own troubles. She was eventually declared dead. Anyway, we’re getting the dental records from Berlin.” He looks down. There’s probably more they’re not telling me. “That’s actually not why we needed to talk to you.”
I take a long drink of the water the waitress has brought me.
“Niamh Horrigan’s parents want to meet you,” Griz says.
“Really?” I try to look surprised.
Roly says, “No one wants to allow it, but everyone’s worried they’ll go to the press if we don’t let them. A day or two of blanket coverage of how shite we are at our jobs isn’t going to do anything to help find Niamh. So, the decision has been made that you can meet with them, briefly, mind, with Griz and myself and Wilcox and Bill Regan, who’s handling the search down in Wicklow. If you want to. What do you think?”
I make myself hesitate, act as though I’m thinking about it. “What do they want to talk to me about?”
“We don’t know exactly. They said they want to ask you some questions.”
Griz says, “They think you may be able to understand what they’re going through. The other families, well … it’s a different sort of thing.”
I know what she means. With the other families, there were bodies. Meeting me allows them to keep hope alive.
“Of course I’ll meet them,” I say. “When?”
“Today,” Griz says. “They’re waiting for you at their hotel down in Wicklow.”
Roly makes a face. “So go and take a fucking shower. You smell like a locker room.”
23
1993
The Americans Erin had been talking to at the Raven were William and Gerald Murphy from Boston and they had charged their stay to a credit card belonging to a company called Murphy Brothers Cement. The Irish guy was named Niall Deasey and he owned a garage in Arklow.
Roly Byrne and Bernie McNeely told me all this in a conference room at the garda station. I sat across the table from them and an older guy with gray hair and a fancy moustache who had been introduced to me as Sergeant Ruarí Wilcox. They seemed to be afraid of Wilcox, and I could understand why when he fixed me with an intense stare and asked me if I had ever known Erin to be interested in nationalist politics or political causes. I said no and they asked me if any of the names were at all familiar to me. Again, I said no, and they said that they wanted to search Erin’s belongings again to make sure there wasn’t anything there indicating a relationship with these guys.
“Have you ever heard of the IAFNI?”
“The what?”
“Your cousin never mentioned an organization called the IAFNI?”
I shook my head. There was something they weren’t telling me; I was smart enough to know that, and whatever it was had gotten Wilcox into that room. I had the sense that this thing had been moved up some invisible ladder because of what the bartender at the Raven had told me.
“So, none of the names are ones you’ve heard before?” Wilcox asked again.
“No. Why? Have these guys done something? Do you think they know where Erin is?”
No one said anything.
Finally Wilcox said, “The men, the Americans, well, they are known to the RUC Special Branch. We’re looking into this. That’s all I can say.”
I stared at him.
All my associations with the RUC, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, were from history, grainy black-and-white documentary footage of riots. The RUC was the police force of Northern Ireland, but I remembered reading that it had colluded with Unionist paramilitary groups—the ones that wanted Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom. I assumed Special Branch was responsible for investigating paramilitary organizations during the Troubles. I was thinking about what Conor had told me.
“Okay,” I said.
Wilcox leveled a serious look at me, as though I wasn’t taking it seriously enough, even though I’d barely breathed since he started speaking. “If your cousin was mixed up with these fellas, she was playing with fire.”
* * *
I found a pay phone and used the rest of my phone card to call 617 information and then the main switchboard for Boston College and asked to speak to Ingrid Harbit in the English department. Ingrid had been the graduate teaching assistant for a class I’d taken at Notre Dame, and she’d helped me with my thesis. I knew she’d gotten a job as an assistant professor at Boston College and, most important, I knew she knew her way around a research library.
“Ingrid,” I said once I had her on the phone, “I’m in Ireland and I don’t have time to explain, but I’m looking for my cousin who’s disappeared. It’s kind of an emergency. I need to know if you’ve ever heard of two guys named William and Gerald Murphy in Boston. They have a company called Murphy Brothers Cement, and they may be connected with something called the IAFNI.”
“Irish Americans for Northern Ireland,” Ingrid said. “I can look around a little. I have a colleague who may be able to help. When do you need to know?”
“As soon as possible,” I said. “We’re worried something happened to her. I’ll have to call you back, though. I’m not by a phone.”
I could hear her hesitating. “Okay. Give me two hours and then call back at this number. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks, Ingrid.”
I wasted time looking at shampoo in a drugstore on Grafton Street and then browsing the books at Hodges Figgis on Dawson Street until it was time to call back. Ingrid answered on the second ring and as soon as I heard her voice, I knew she had something for me.
“Okay. Got lucky. My colleague remembered that there’d been something in the papers about them so I checked and, well, in 1989, they held a gala fundraiser for the organization you mentioned, IAFNI, Irish Americans for Northern Ireland. My colleague says it’s a well-known front for the Provisional IRA. They raised fifty thousand dollars. The fundraiser sparked a protest. The microfilm printing thing was broken here, but I wrote it down in my notebook.” She raised her voice an octave, so I’d know she was quoting. “One of the protesters was Kevin Mahoney, from Donegal, Ireland. Mahoney was holding a sign reading, ‘IAFNI equals Terrorists.’ Mahoney said he’s lived in Boston for five years. ‘I’m as patriotic as they come,’ he said, as guests filed into the Boston Central Hotel for the fundraiser. ‘But these fellas have no business meddling in things they don’t understand. American money is as bad as British money. They’re all the same.’”