Over coffee in a seafood restaurant in the harbour, I talked with the most notorious accused man in Ireland and, I have to say, I liked him and thought he was most likely innocent.
It was shortly before Ian Bailey died of a heart attack in January 2024, and I had just moved to West Cork. I bumped into him at a market day and asked if he would like to meet for lunch.
I had long been fascinated by the unsolved murder of the French woman Sophie Toscan du Plantier, whose body was found by the gate of her remote West Cork cottage in 1996. After initially working on the case as a journalist, Bailey became the chief suspect and, following innumerable twists in a most bizarre case, he was eventually convicted in absentia in a court in Paris, although he managed to fight extradition.
When we met, he and I chatted for more than an hour, mostly about people we knew in the media, for I had worked as a correspondent in Belfast for years, arriving in Ireland just after the murder.
What has always seemed obvious to me did not seem obvious to a lot of the locals, because they all had their lurid tales to tell of things they thought they had seen that in their minds proved he had done it.
‘Evidence’ provided by the local gossipmongers included Bailey having scratches on his hands, a cut on his head and a bonfire in his garden. A student staying in his house said he had washed his coat in a bucket. He had, and admitted his regret about it, been violent towards his partner several times over the years.
What seems obvious to me is that Bailey was an English blow-in who was not well liked, and had perhaps refused to back down and know his place.
When I met him, my impression was that he had long given up on ever being exonerated. He hinted at a few possible suspects and lines to investigate. My feeling was that if I had been accused of the murder in a case I had worked on as a journalist, I would not stop digging into it all my life until I found out who was really guilty. But he was tired, and had a heart condition.
I asked to meet him again, but at the last minute I couldn’t make it. I emailed him and he didn’t reply and then I heard he had died. So that was that, I supposed. Last week, however, something happened to me which made me more convinced than ever that he was innocent. The builder boyfriend had been away in London for a month on a job, and I had been home alone in West Cork with the dogs and the horses and the B&B guests.
As I have written, an American guest became ill and I had to drive him around looking for a doctor. The hospital would not treat him so we tried the local GP surgery, where a woman behind the counter said the doctor was at a clinic in another village for the day, so we drove there, and the doctor diagnosed my guest with whooping cough and gave him antibiotics.
When the BB returned, he went down to the local hay dealer to buy hay, and after he got out of his truck the hay man approached him with a weird look and asked if he was all right. Staring hard, the dealer said: ‘Do you and your wife ever argue?’
The BB said he supposed we did every now and then, like all couples. Where-upon the hay man revealed he had been told that there was a huge fight at our house a week ago and that I’d beaten the BB so badly that I’d had to drive him around looking for a doctor.
His face was all bashed in, he was pouring with blood from a wound to his head, and the Guards had been called, according to the West Cork gossip mill.
On and on this lurid account went, until the BB told him to stop. He had been in London for a month and could prove it. As if a tiny woman could hurt him, a 6ft builder? Besides, could the hay dealer not see he was perfectly fine? The dealer’s face changed as reality sunk in: ‘The dirty…’ and he swore lavishly about the gossipmongers making trouble for me.
I was beside myself when the BB recounted all this, but we tried to go on with our day. We went to the hardware store to buy a new strimmer and he took one down from the wall and it fell against his forehead, gouging a cut. ‘Oh that’s just brilliant!’ I wailed. He thought it was hilarious: ‘You’ve beaten me senseless again!’
A day after that, we were cutting back brambles on the driveway and I looked down to see my wrists and arms covered in angry scratches. ‘That’s where I fought back!’ the builder b declared, much enjoying himself.
A few days later, a French man booked into our B&B for the night, then left the next morning. He better get back to France in one piece or I’ll be fighting extradition quicker than you can say ‘in absentia’.
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