If I Never See You Again (7 page)
When Jo woke, Dan was standing over her with a mug of steaming tea and a plate of toast.
‘What time is it?’ she asked, getting that same split-second feeling she did every morning when she wondered why his bits and pieces – watch and wallet, the contents of his pocket, his latest book on some infamous military incursion and the alarm clock from hell – weren’t on his bedside locker. She rubbed her eyes. She could have done with that wake-the-dead clock now.
‘How you feeling?’ he asked, placing breakfast on the locker.
Jo glanced down and realized she was wearing one of Dan’s old T-shirts. She pushed to the back of her mind the vague memory of holding her arms up last night so he could slip it on. The T-shirt was miles too big for her. He’d gotten it at an old Undertones concert and worn it like a badge of honour for years afterwards, even though it was faded and stretched. It was so old she remembered him wearing it when Rory was sitting against the front of it in a papoose.
‘What’s the time?’ she asked again, feeling her wrist for her watch and wondering where she’d left it. Last night was a complete blur. ‘And where are the boys?’
‘Relax. I dropped them both off so you could lie in,’ Dan
said, drawing the curtains. ‘It’s almost ten. Don’t bother rushing. You might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. What’s your boss like anyway?’
Ordinarily, Jo would have made a joke of this with something like, ‘He’s an absolute bollox,’ but she couldn’t believe the time. Anyway, the way Dan had been acting lately, it would have had a ring of truth. No, she thought. Better to stay on her guard until things were back on an even keel between them. And the one thing she mustn’t do was mention that bloody Westport conference Sexton had told her about. Once she brought that up, it was going to trigger World War III. That was the year she had pulled out because of a dose of bloody flu. Dan couldn’t have been more understanding. Now, maybe, she understood why. He had been looking forward to meeting Jeanie.
There wasn’t time to worry about it now. She was running so bloody late, it was a nightmare. She got out of bed and gave her head a little shake. She felt quivery, like her system had been through the ringer, but at least the terrible headache had gone. For years after the crash, she’d lost whole days because of migraines just like last night’s. She’d thought they were a thing of the past and had forgotten how debilitating they could be.
Dan was looking at her bare legs as she headed for the wardrobe. She sighed. He wanted it every way – to treat her like a skivvy in work and to give her the ‘come to bed’ eyes now they were home alone. Well, she wasn’t able for the emotional rollercoaster; it wasn’t fair.
‘Woah,’ Dan said, placing his hands on her shoulders. ‘Nice and easy does it. How’s the head?’
‘It’s passed. Look, I’ve got to go, I’ve got Anto Crawley’s autopsy this morning.’
‘I rang Hawthorne. He’s moving a drowning up ahead of it.’
Jo sighed with relief.
Dan paused, still looking worried. ‘When was the last time you saw that neuro consultant?’
Jo shrugged. ‘It’s most likely all the chocolate I’ve been eating since I’ve given up fags.’ She slipped her clothes from the hangers. On Monday, Dan had made her fail her training course. On Tuesday Dan’d told her he’d taken legal advice about protecting his financial stake in the house; on Wednesday he’d humiliated her at a disciplinary hearing that was completely unnecessary, then stood by and let Jenny Friar of NBCI sink her teeth into her with a look of pity in his eyes. Pity! She’d show him.
She knelt down and pulled a pair of black heels from under the bed.
Dan seemed to sense it was time to change the subject. ‘Is today still bin day?’ he asked.
‘Shit!’ Jo sprang up and moved the net curtain to see if the neighbours’ had been collected yet.
‘Sorted,’ Dan said, moving behind her and pointing to their bin out with the others. He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her round so they were facing each other.
‘What am I doing wrong here?’ he asked. He’d slipped a tie under his collar and was criss-crossing one uneven length over another.
‘Here,’ she sighed, stretching up on her tiptoes and fixing the knot.
Dan watched her softly. ‘How did you get on with that suspect yesterday?’
‘It’s a long story. He’s a drug pusher, and a Shinner, and he retracted his confession in a room full of witnesses.’
Dan put his hand on her cheek. ‘I know you think I’ve
been too hard on you. It’s just I have to do everything by the book. They watch my every move when it comes to you.’
‘I understand,’ she said, straightening his tie and smoothing the shirt across his shoulders, ‘that you’re due up for promotion.’
Dan took a step back and folded his arms. ‘That’s got nothing to do with it, and you know it. For the record, I know, if anybody can find the killer, it’s you.’
Jo took a deep breath. ‘Then let me, Dan. Stop getting in the way!’
‘I’d forgotten how dogged you get when you want something,’ he said, turning away.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means if you put half as much effort into your personal life, maybe we’d still have a marriage.’
‘I’ve got to go,’ Jo said, bundling up her clothes and pushing past him on her way to the bathroom. ‘But if I had time to argue, I’d remind you that you’re the one who had an affair and that you’re the one living with someone else!’
She slammed the door behind her, then pulled it open again. ‘This is why you’ve been digging your heels in, isn’t it? You can’t bear to see me managing without you. The job’s the only hold you’ve got left over me, so you’ve been making sure I don’t forget it. Well, it’s bloody well worked.’
She slammed the door again.
Jo flicked the shower setting to its most powerful jet setting before stepping under the steaming water. It was so loud she didn’t hear the door open. When the water caught the side of her eye she turned suddenly, only to see Dan standing there. She made a grab for the shower curtain, using it like a towel to shield her nakedness. ‘What are you . . .?’
‘I miss my wife,’ he said unapologetically.
Jo wrapped a real towel round herself, rubbing the heavy wet out of her hair. She walked back into the bedroom barefoot.
Dan followed and sat on the edge of the bed watching.
‘One question,’ Jo asked calmly.
He lowered his head.
‘That time you walked out on me during the Phoenix Park child murder investigation . . .?’
He frowned. ‘Not that again.’
‘Where did you stay, Dan?’
‘It’s years ago, I can’t rem–’
‘Fine, forget it,’ she said, and turned on the hairdryer.
By the time she was dressed and ready to leave, Jo knew by the way all the bedroom doors were closed that Dan was gone. She was hurrying down the stairs when she spotted the
News
on the hall table. After setting the house alarm, she pulled the front door behind her, sat in the car and read the story by Ryan Freeman under the subhead ‘Gardaí Hunt Crazed Cleric Killer’.
Jo’s heart sank. Not only had old Mrs Nulty criticized the way Jo had landed on her doorstep while she was still coming to terms with the terrible news, but she’d also put the details of the ‘priest’s twin’ into the public arena. For the life of her, Jo still couldn’t see how this story beat the one that Freeman was sitting on involving a serial killer on the rampage. And since there was not so much as one mention of the word ‘
muti
’ or ‘foreigner’ in the story, she realized without a shadow of a doubt that someone on her team was briefing him. And she no longer had any doubts as to who it was.
A row of remote controls sat on a nest of wooden coffee tables. He picked one, aimed it indiscriminately, and the framed picture on the centre wall flickered to life as a moving picture of fire flames
.
Next, he switched the flat-screen TV on, and then the stereo system. He pitched both volumes at the exact same level to create a hum of confusion
.
He headed to the kitchen, all gleaming black-PVC-fronted presses and stainless-steel knives and gadgets. Removing a white tablecloth from the bag, he shook and spread it over the round glass table, pressing out the creases with the flat of his hands, nudging the more stubborn ones out with a finger
.
With a stick of chalk, he wrote the word ‘Golgotha’ on any surface that would take it – the black presses, the dark floor
.
He climbed the stairs, shaking silver coins out of a purse made of sackcloth as he headed for the sleeping area
.
Finally, removing a rope from his waist, he slung it over one of the exposed beams directly overhead. Once the noose was at a height that meant it could be seen from the front door, he made the sign of the cross backwards – tipping his right shoulder first, then left, torso, head. It takes seven seconds to die, suspended by the neck, and in that time the chosen one would experience what it meant to be divine
.
The killer knelt down and began to chant
.
As the lights changed, she shifted gear and threw the phone on her lap, loudspeaker on, to make the calls she was conducting during the green-light sections of the journey. She had already phoned the city’s newsrooms one by one, informing the duty editors that she intended holding a crime conference outside the station at 2 p.m. sharp.
‘Gerry?’ she asked as the latest call connected.
‘Gerry’s sick,’ a stranger’s voice said.
‘Wendy around?’
‘She’s in a meeting.’
‘You new?’ Jo asked.
‘First day.’
‘First day!’ Jo said. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Jim. Who’s this?’
‘Jim, you ever heard of Daithi Bhreathnach?’
‘Nope. Who’s speaking, please?’
‘First day, first lesson in crime and punishment, Jim: the biggest problem with our criminal justice system is that society thinks it’s the injured party. You know the way it is with big corporations – the little guy gets lost.’
‘I’m sorry, what’s this about?’
‘It’s about a criminal called Daithi Bhreathnach, who shows that the burden of proof has swung too far in favour of the accused.’
‘Who?’
‘David Walsh, aka Daithi Bhreathnach. That’s one of his tricks. He avails himself of all his rights, insists on having everything translated into the Irish language as a delaying tactic. He’s so good at thwarting the system he’s now running a paralegal school for criminals – teaching them to switch lawyers as often as possible, take judicial reviews – anything and everything that might stall their case, because if it’s stalled long enough it gets thrown out.’
Jo heard the receiver change hands, then Gerry came on the line. ‘Birmingham, I thought you had better things to do – like bullying old ladies?’
‘SLR, Gerry. Tell the minister to read the report by this afternoon. Victims need rights in court too.’
Inside the station’s incident room, Sexton’s interview with Skinny was replaying on a TV perched on a rack of steel shelves containing a blinking DVD and video player. Sexton was slouched in a chair, telling someone on the other end of the public hotline to call the press office. Mac, Merrigan, and Frank Black and Dave Waters from the NBCI were studying the TV, and a dozen odd detectives were trawling through the paperwork, collating anything that might be of interest.
Friar was leaning over Jo’s desk, marking up a copy of yesterday’s
Evening News
with a pink highlighter. She was wearing a beige-linen trouser suit which made her look chunky but fit. She stood up when she realized Jo had arrived and reached for her pint of Starbucks, a ‘good of you to join us’ expression on her face.
Foxy sat dead centre in front of the box, wading through a wad of door-to-door questionnaires for anything of significance; Merrigan sat beside him with a pile of as yet untouched paperwork, making a meal of an orange, sucking segments that dripped on to his tie.
On the screen, Skinny was once again insisting to Sexton that he’d killed Anto Crawley. His arms hung down by the sides of the plastic chair behind his back, his legs were wide open and he kept pulling at the tip of his long nose with his index finger and thumb.
Jo strode over and switched the TV off.
‘Hey!’ Friar protested.
‘It’s bullshit, it’s all bullshit. He admitted as much when Sexton and I confronted him yesterday,’ Jo said. ‘Come on, lads, we’ve got work to do.’
‘And you believed him?’ Friar asked.
Foxy and Sexton jumped up. Merrigan seemed reluctant to follow.
‘It’s irrelevant what I believe. But one way or another, he’s a liar, and now that he’s retracted his confession, we’ll never
get a conviction. You want to do something constructive to contribute to this investigation? Get me Anto Crawley’s NSU file.’
Friar glanced at her NBCI colleagues then back at Jo.
Jo understood Friar’s reluctance. The gathering of intelligence by the National Surveillance Unit through covert surveillance was routine when it came to persons suspected of serious crime. Crawley’s form would contain the kind of highly relevant information that would never see the light of day in court. It would list his daily movements, associates, places he frequented, weaknesses such as gambling or a mistress, any or all of which could potentially throw up a new lead.
‘You’re joking, right?’ Friar asked.
‘We’re dealing with four murders,’ Jo said. ‘I don’t have to remind you of this, do I?’
‘I’m not ready to write this suspect off yet,’ Waters, the criminal profiler, said.
‘Perhaps you’ll view things differently when the killer strikes again today,’ Jo said. ‘Because Skinny here is going to have a watertight alibi, since Merrigan is going to bring him in and hold him for the day.’
Foxy nudged Jo’s foot with his own, telling her not to walk herself into a corner.
Friar made a loud rustling noise with the newspaper. ‘You’re staking an awful lot of your credibility on a hunch, Sergeant,’ she said, not unhappily.
‘I’m a DI.’
Friar held up the paper and shook it at Jo. ‘Your priest theory is going to limit our potential sources of information. People who may have reason to suspect someone else may now be writing it off because their suspect isn’t a priest.’
‘Here we go round the mulberry bush again,’ Friar remarked.
Foxy stepped up to her defence. ‘You forgot to mention that the killer’s got a grievance with the church,’ he said.
Jo shot him a look of gratitude. ‘Yes.’
‘And he gets off with dead chicks,’ Sexton said.
Merrigan wiped the corners of his mouth. ‘And he’s a darkie!’
Friar exhaled loudly.
‘Thanks for the show of support, lads,’ Jo said, leading the trio into the corridor outside.
‘Merrigan,’ she said, turning to face him, ‘I need you to get our colleague’s prime suspect in here. Tell Skinny that if he cooperates we won’t have him charged with wasting police time over making a false statement. Either way, he spends the day here – okay? Having him under lock and key when the killer strikes again may be the only way I can convince them that they’re barking up the wrong tree.’
Merrigan nodded, puffing out his chest as he took off.
Sexton reached into his inside pocket and pulled out some sheets of paper folded in half, which he handed Jo.
‘What’s this?’ she asked.
‘The names you wanted of officers who’d had any dealings with our victims,’ Sexton said quietly. He turned the top page over for her and pointed to a name at the bottom of the list.
Jo stopped suddenly. ‘Is he still down in the incident room?’
‘Mac still in there?’ Sexton called out to some officers clustered further down the corridor.
‘I passed him on his way into the john,’ one answered.
‘Have him in the interview room by lunchtime,’ Jo said. ‘And tell him I want to talk to him about Rita Nulty.’
As soon as Foxy clicked his seatbelt on, Jo found it hard to get a word in edgeways. It was only supposition, he explained, but he’d been in Mac’s home once.
‘His place was to die for, something you and I could only ever dream of, Jo,’ he said. ‘I’m the first to admit there could be any reasonable explanation – inheritance, gee-gees – what do I know about how he balances his accounts? All I do know is that while the rest of us are trying to make ends meet, he’s shacked up there in an IFSC penthouse apartment living like a lord. I’m talking paintings on the walls with red dots in the bottom corner because they’ve been bid for at auction.’
Jo gripped the steering wheel. She knew it wasn’t Foxy’s form to gossip, but Mac’s IFSC address was too close to the
murder scenes for comfort.
‘There was this other time,’ he continued, ‘when I got caught up in the celebrations for one of the lad’s promotions . . .’ He waved his hand up and down to tell her to slow down.
Jo sighed. In her opinion, Foxy was a worse passenger driver than she was, and that was saying something.
‘You know the way it happens, you say no to another pint and someone puts one in front of you anyway. The lads were going to Lillie’s Bordello, and I thought, why not? Sal was away on a school trip, so there was no reason for me to go home at all if it came to it.’
Jo smiled. It was like trying to imagine her own father in a trendy nightclub hoping to score.
‘I wasn’t going there for “action”,’ Foxy clarified. ‘Who’d be interested in an old man like me? I was going to see what it was like. I always got the feeling about that place that, if I’d tried to get in, I’d have been turned away.’
‘Go on,’ she said.
‘So I went with the gang, and Mac gets us all in, slapping the bouncers on the back on the way in. And inside, you should have seen it, the women were pouring themselves over him. Not just any women, Jo. I’m talking about the ones you see in the papers and those VIP magazines, the ones who are all a shade of orange, and they totter into the ladies – arm in arm, if you get my drift.’
‘So let’s look into his background quietly,’ Jo said. ‘See where all that money came from, and if we can find anything that might fire a religious obsession, yeah?’
Foxy nodded his agreement.
Sexton had arrived at the morgue ahead of them and was moaning about the distance he’d had to walk across the car
park to the road outside for a fag now that smoking was banned from the grounds of all public buildings. Given that the morgue was located at the back of the fire-brigade training grounds, where buildings, cars and containers were regularly set alight, he couldn’t even chance a sneaky one.
Jo had no sympathy. She’d have walked ten miles for one, if it was an option. She barely grunted in reply, still angry that he had lied to her about briefing Ryan Freeman.
‘What do you make of Mac not telling us he knew Rita Nulty?’ he asked. ‘You think he’s involved?’
‘You stay outside here, keep an eye out,’ she said to him brusquely. Precautions were sometimes necessary during high-profile autopsies, she reminded him, and Anto Crawley’s was certainly that. The grave of the paedophile priest Brendan Smyth, who’d been a prolific child abuser, had had to be filled with concrete. Up until his death, Crawley had been considered public enemy number one.
‘You’re having a laugh, right?’ Sexton said, and then realized what was wrong. ‘Are you suggesting I organized that interview with old Mrs Nulty so I could take over from you?’ To his credit, he looked shocked.
‘Your pal Ryan Freeman’s byline was on it,’ Jo said. ‘Now, unless you want to end up as a glorified security man on this case, I’ll deal with Freeman from now on.’
She turned and headed into the Portakabin with Foxy, Sexton dragging his heels behind them. Anto Crawley was lying on the slab, being stitched back together by Hawthorne.
‘Couldn’t you have waited?’ she complained.
‘I’m on my own today,’ Hawthorne snapped, pointing over to a second unattended cadaver lying on a slab on the far side of the room. ‘The other pathologist has had to go to
a murder suicide of a family of five in Donegal, and my technician’s out sick.’
Jo studied Crawley. It seemed hard to believe the waxy, sunken and musty shell of a man could have wreaked so much havoc on an entire country. His jaw hung slack against his neck, his open mouth was a pit of congealed blood, his wiry dark brown hair was receding, his arms were heavily tattooed and his left shoulder had a list of first names under the letters ‘RIP’.
Foxy crooked his neck sideways to try and read them, keeping his hand over his nose and mouth like the dead crime lord ‘The General’ Martin Cahill used to when he saw a camera. Jo scanned Crawley’s flesh for any signs of defensive wounds, while Sexton nudged Foxy’s shoulder with his own to tell him to check out the size of Crawley’s member.
‘Show me the manner in which a nation cares for its dead,’ Foxy told him, ‘and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender mercies of its peoples, their respect for the laws of the land, and their loyalty to high ideals and their regard for the laws of the land.’ He was quoting William Gladstone. The same words were inscribed over the door of the city’s Coroner’s Court next to the station.
Hawthorne threw his eyes up to heaven. Considering they were in a glorified mobile home, even Jo thought Foxy’s words were over the top.
‘See here.’ Hawthorne indicated some white specks on Crawley’s nostrils. ‘The blood patterns tell us that the teeth were removed while he was still alive, and these flecks of froth confirm it. You get splashes if a victim has been struck; smears tend to indicate flailing or thrashing limbs; trails lend themselves to a victim who’s been dragged; and, as in this
case, spurts indicate the heart was still pumping after the fatal injury.’
‘Meaning?’ Jo pressed.
‘Meaning,’ Hawthorne repeated impatiently, ‘that the deceased panicked, presumably because someone was wrenching his teeth out, causing his heart to beat faster, making his lungs work harder, resulting in an ingestion of the blood caused by the oral injury. Death was technically due to drowning. The foam you see on his nose is produced by mucus and air. We’ll see it again when we cross-section the bronchea and trachea. There was relatively little blood at the scene. I suspect we’ll find most of it in the lungs, and they’ll be distended when we get them out. They can hold two cubic litres of liquid, you know.’
Jo pointed to the hallmark wound right of Crawley’s breastbone, the same one they’d seen on Rita’s, which had led to their theory of the Doubting Thomas link. ‘Do you know anything about the significance of this wound for the faithful?’
Hawthorne coughed irritably.
‘It hastened Christ’s death,’ Foxy answered. ‘I read it last night in one of Sal’s books.’ He copped her frown. ‘After I’d had forty winks of course. Christ died after three to six hours on the cross, which took even Pontius Pilate by surprise.’
‘Same analgesic . . .’ Hawthorne cut in.
‘Any sexual interference?’ Jo asked him.
Hawthorne shook his head.
‘What about a weapon?’ Jo asked him.
‘I reckon it must have been a sword, you know, like the ones used by the Roman centurions. The tip could have caused this.’ Hawthorne pointed to the breastbone. ‘Also, I’ve been comparing the injuries during the rending of Rita
Nulty’s bones and muscle – all very clean, there’s no ripping motion at all, suggesting your man probably removed the body parts in one sweep.’
Jo thought back to the notes she’d made in the apartment when she’d revisited the Rita Nulty crime scene, how she’d thought Rita’s assailant had been wearing a long coat. If the killer was carrying a sword, he’d have to have been able to conceal it. ‘I’ll bet you any money our killer was wearing a robe,’ she said.
Rubbing the sticky dust from the blind off her finger with her thumb, Jo turned around to face Mac. He was sitting with his legs spread apart and his size-twelve Dr Martens’ soles flat on the ground. Sexton sat in the chair beside the door at Jo’s request, because she hoped a friendly face might help put Mac off guard. The good-cop-bad-cop routine had become clichéd for a reason: it worked.
She took a seat opposite Mac and opened a folder containing a slim stack of sheets.
‘Smoke?’ Mac reached under his fleece into the pocket of his uniform shirt.
Jo leaned across, took the box from him and dropped them in the waste-paper basket at the side of the table. She
was not having him set the pace. ‘This is a no-smoking room,’ she said, lifting the foil ashtray that had started life as a Mr Kipling apple tart off the table and disposing of it too.
Mac caught Sexton’s eye. ‘Nazi,’ he joked. ‘Reformed smokers are always the worst.’ He gave a short, derisive laugh.
‘Why didn’t you tell us you’d arrested Rita Nulty and let her off with a caution?’ Jo asked.
Mac looked surprised. ‘It was irrelevant,’ he said, pulling his fleece up over his head. His shirt lifted and showed his midriff – taut stomach muscles that required a lot of work to achieve, Jo realized.
He shook his shirt back down. The dark string of a religious scapular jutted up from under his collar. The sight of it made goose pimples break out on Jo’s skin.
‘You knew the murder victim of a case you were assigned to personally, but you don’t think that’s relevant?’ she asked.
No reply.
‘So what was she like?’
‘Can’t remember.’
‘Let me help you. New Year’s Eve last. 2 a.m. You were returning from your shift when you spotted her soliciting outside the IFSC . . . Come on, you must remember! It’s a bum shift for a party animal like you. It’s just across the road. You live there, don’t you?’
Mac shook his head. ‘Is this a formal interview? Only I haven’t been cautioned. If it is, I’d like to have my solicitor now, please.’
Jo referred to her papers. ‘You were driving back to the station with Detective Inspector Healy, now in CAB. He filed the details of the incident on PULSE before signing off.’
‘That right?’
‘I want my brief. Is this being taped?’
‘Think of it as an off-the-record chat. Did you know her?’
‘No.’
Jo sighed. ‘Look, Mac, if you want to do this the hard way – fine by me. I’ll get Healy’s deposition and it’ll be your word against his. Think about how it will look. He says you knew Rita. You say you didn’t. So why did you let her off with a warning on New Year’s when your only hope of promotion is with a half-decent conviction rate? What’s your basic at the moment,
25,000? Not much, is it? Though from what I hear, that hasn’t stopped you living the high life. How do you manage it then?’
Mac shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
‘So let’s try that last one again, shall we?’ Jo said. ‘Did you know Rita Nulty?’
‘Yeah, to see. You couldn’t not know Rita. She got around. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I hadn’t come across her, would I?’
‘But you kept it quiet after she was murdered . . . Did you know she was being pimped by the Skids for drugs?’
Mac was silent.
‘What if I said she kept the names of all of her clients written down, would that ring a bell?’
‘You’re having a laugh. Rita couldn’t even remember to brush her teeth in the morning . . .’
‘Just knew her to see, eh?’ Jo asked, holding his eye. She took a little black contacts book that had been sitting on her lap from under the table and flicked through the pages.
‘Makes for interesting reading . . . When did you say you last saw her?’
‘I want my solicitor.’
Jo reached for the sheets in the file on the desk. ‘I’d like to talk about the boy who died in the cell on your watch now,’ she said.
‘What? That’s years ago. What’s he got to do with Rita Nulty?’
‘You tell me. Do you even remember his name?’
‘What the hell is this?’ Mac stood up and lunged at her. ‘What did I ever do to you, eh?’
Sexton moved to intercept him, but Jo held her arm out to tell him to sit down. ‘You too,’ she told Mac.
He slouched back into his seat. Sexton sat down slowly.
‘It was a long time ago,’ Mac said. ‘It may come as some news for you to learn, Sarge, but I was cleared of any wrongdoing.’ He turned to Sexton. ‘Now, my solicitor’s name is Jasper Flood.’
‘It says here that the family of the kid who died on your watch was taking a civil action against you,’ Jo went on. ‘That must have come as a shock. Especially when you thought it was all over and done with. A kid died in a cell, the way they do . . .’
‘It was all hot air. They’d never have gone through with it.’
‘You sure?’ Jo asked. ‘Only I rang the kid’s father earlier. He says you called to his house after the writs were served and warned him you’d make his life “hell on earth”. He said you told him you’d “friends in low places”, and I quote. What does that mean? Who’ve you been hanging around with, Mac?’
Mac looked at the floor.
‘Don’t you know that, if you ask the same question more than once, the courts consider it an interference with a suspect’s right to silence?’ Mac said finally.
‘Of course,’ Jo said. ‘You know all about your right to silence because you know the law . . . You’re on the take, Mac, aren’t you? You don’t need to worry about your status, or your conviction rate, because you’ve found a much more lucrative nixer.’
Mac’s face was white. ‘Prove it.’
‘As a matter of interest . . .’ Jo said, holding up a seven-by-twelve school photo from the file. The image showed a portrait of a kid more boy than teen. ‘What was he like?’
‘The truth? He was a little prick. Not PC to say so, but then life isn’t, is it?’
‘So you thought you’d put some manners on him?’
‘I never touched him.’
‘So you said. Just like you said you didn’t know Rita.’ Jo stacked the papers back together and closed the file.
‘For Christ’s sake, what’s your problem with me, eh?’ Mac shouted suddenly. ‘Not getting any at home? Want to get some of my special attention?’
Jo swallowed. He was making her nervous. ‘Stuart Ball – did you know him?’
Mac gave her a look of contempt. ‘Frigid bitch.’
‘What about Anto Crawley?’ Jo asked, glad Sexton was there.
‘Now I’m your serial killer, is that it?’ Mac asked, looking at Sexton like it was a wind-up.
Sexton looked away.
‘You tell me,’ Jo said.
‘You’re pathetic,’ Mac said to her. ‘You swan in here, looking down your nose at everyone, having married the boss to get ahead. You dump him when things don’t go your way then do the bleeding-heart routine to give the impression you’re married to the job. I feel sorry for you. Well, if you think you’re going to stitch me up, you got another think coming. I go down, I’m bringing everyone else with me.’
‘And that means?’ Jo asked.
Mac ran his fingers over his lips like he was zipping them shut.
‘If that’s a reference to Sexton’s car crash, he’s told me all about it.’
Mac didn’t so much as blink.
‘You work out a lot, because you’re watching your back, right?’ She walked over to him, pulled the string of the scapular from around his neck and studied the image of the Sacred Heart stitched into the felt. ‘Didn’t have you down as the holy type,’ she said, curling her lip.
‘Keeps me safe,’ Mac sneered.
Suddenly, Jenny Friar rapped and entered, without waiting for the all-clear. ‘We need to talk,’ she told Jo, gesturing towards the street. ‘What the hell is going on out there?’
Jo stood up. ‘I’m all finished here,’ she said, tossing Sexton back his contacts book. ‘Get him his solicitor, and get me a buccal swab.’ She turned to Mac. ‘I want your DNA.’
‘We’ve got a situation,’ Jenny Friar said. ‘The place is crawling with press, a journalist from the
Sun
has just turned up hiding in a cubicle in the john . . .’
‘Any missing-person reports yet?’ Jo asked, changing the subject as she branched right towards the stairs.
Friar had headed straight on towards the incident room, and now looked round. ‘Not that feast day palaver again . . . Where are you going?’
‘My photo call,’ Jo replied.
‘Are you saying you’re the reason they’re here?’ she shouted as the weighted door slammed shut between them. ‘You are way out of order.’
‘I am still technically in charge of this investigation,’ Jo answered, continuing down a flight of stairs.
‘You need clearance from the press office!’
‘Technically, given my rank, I don’t,’ Jo answered.
‘So what are you going to tell them, Jo?’ Friar asked. ‘The killer thinks he’s Doubting Thomas; he hates the Christian code of law so much he mutilates the victims to remind people of the way things used to be done; he drugs them the way Christ was drugged; oh yeah, and he’s never been in trouble with the law before, which he knows inside out. Where’s that supposed to get us? You planning to ask Joe Public if anybody knows anyone matching your description?’
Jo stopped and looked up. ‘Maybe.’ She turned and, squaring her shoulders, strode out past the front desk in reception, past the oil painting of the city’s rooftops, through the door into daylight and down the curved granite steps.
Somebody let out a shout as she emerged, and immediately a round of flashes made colour spots burst before her eyes. Squinting, she continued to descend to where a dozen-odd jostling reporters swarmed into an arc around her, plunging hand-held tape recorders in front of her face. Two sound muffs appeared over her head, the men holding them trying to angle them at the end of long poles. A couple of photographers stood on stepladders with long lenses, even though they were only six feet away.
Jo waved her hands for some hush. ‘Apologies for the delay, and the next one of you who pulls a stunt like Piddling Pete from the
Sun
gets themselves a court date . . .’
Immediately, there was a burst of indecipherable questions. Jo held up her hand again. ‘I’m not taking questions right now, I’m here to give you a statement.’
‘Detective Inspector . . .’
Jo tucked loose strands of hair behind her ears.
Another voice, this time from a young bald man with red flaky skin on his nose. ‘Detective Inspector, these three killings have now hit every strata of society. Are we in the grip of a crime epidemic?’
Jo looked at her watch. ‘You’ve got precisely two minutes to listen. If you want to waste it, keep going. First of all, my deepest sympathies to the families and friends of the victims now coming to terms with their losses. And for the record, we’re dealing with four, not three, killings, which we believe are linked.’
The questions started up again, twice as frantic.
‘But the main reason I’ve called you here today is to appeal to the public to be extra vigilant,’ Jo continued. ‘I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t warn people to take all precautions necessary. We will find the killer. But until then, we need people to be on their guard – and especially today.’
She looked straight into one camera lens. ‘And to the killer, I want to say: find the strength to show what true power is and stop. Don’t hurt anyone else. You can talk to me at any time, and I promise you I will try to rectify the wrong done to you. You can contact me through the station.’
She gave the incident-room number and took another deep breath. ‘On a happier note, I can tell you that some good is about to come from this. As you all know, the balance of our criminal justice system is heavily weighted against victims. Fortunately, our justice minister is about to
realign one aspect of the system in the victims’ favour. I understand he is going to recommend Separate Legal Representation, so that rape victims no longer have to consider themselves ancillary to the judicial process. That’s it, thank you for your time.’
She turned and headed back up the steps.
‘Inspector . . . what’s the fourth victim’s name? Are you saying there is going to be another killing today? What are your lines of inquiry? Do you have any suspects?’
The questioners didn’t wait for one to finish before another piped up.
Jo ignored them, and kept going, catching sight of the blinds askew in the incident room overhead.
‘They’re after your head,’ Foxy said, holding her coat, keys out, and the files she’d asked him to organize on the case as she got inside.
‘Back entrance,’ she told him.
‘What if he doesn’t kill today?’
She shook her head. ‘Why am I the only one who is taking today seriously?’
‘But why did you tell them it’s the same killer?’ Foxy asked. ‘We won’t have a minute’s peace now.’
‘One, because my conscience has enough baggage already, thank you very much. And two, I want to see how Ryan Freeman covers it now he has to. Did you notice? He didn’t even bother to show up. Get your job book out. I want every spit and cough on his background. I want to know why he wasn’t out there. There has to be a reason. You should check the phone exchanges between him and Sexton – has the frequency gone up in recent days? I want to know what he had for breakfast, if he wipes his arse with double-sided toilet paper – everything. Did you find anything on Mac?’
She took the keys out of his hand. ‘Don’t let him out of your sight today. I’ve asked the lab to see if they can crossmatch the drugs in the apartment where Rita died with that Skids sting organized from the station a few months back. It’s just a hunch, but if we get that drug link, we can keep him for a week. I want him here till the last second. Him and Skinny – aka Andy Morris. You got that?’
Foxy nodded. ‘Where are we going now?’
‘Who said anything about “we”? I need some time alone to think. Oh, and can you get one of the uniforms to ring around the cemeteries in the city. See if they can find out about any grave desecrations or disruptions in the last five years. If nothing comes to light, widen it to the rest of the country.’
Foxy noted it down.
She tipped his chest. ‘And today’s study topic is necrophiliacs, specifically in the Bible. It’s not something you can consult Sal about, so you’re on your own.’
‘’Course,’ Foxy said, tucking his pen behind his ear and holding out Jo’s jacket for her to put her arms in. ‘If you’re wrong about today, it’s all over. They’ll shaft you – you know that, don’t you?’
‘If I’m wrong about today, I’ll go myself,’ Jo told him over her shoulder. ‘But I’m not wrong. Today is a big day for our killer. Today will be the most spectacular so far.’
‘Professor Hawthorne rang and left a message for you to call him. Said it’s important,’ Foxy called after her.
Jo nodded as she strode away. Her watch read 2.47 p.m.
He tucked his fists under his arms. He didn’t want any part of him touching the scabies-ridden walls, though he could have done with punching one of them. He should have been on a one-way flight the second Anto Crawley asked him if Ryan Freeman’s kid had been reported missing, he now realized.
He walked over to the cistern in the corner, unzipped and had a slash. When he was finished, he pulled his sleeve over
his hand so he could turn the sink faucet in the corner without making contact, then splashed the water on the back of his neck and face, shook it off and exhaled tightly.
If he told them the name of the person who’d paid him to list who was involved in what had happened to the Freeman kid, he was a dead man. Every one of them – Stuart Ball, Anto Crawley, Rita Nulty, Father Reg – had been dispatched since.
He threw a glance at the coarse grey blanket covering the bed. If he had to stay here tonight, just thinking about the prison sentence Birmingham had in mind for him would drive him out of his mind. He sniffed under his arm. He needed to get home, to shower, to change and to get the numbers of his contacts. He could phone someone, organize for Birmingham to be taken down a peg or two. Everyone had a point at which they were willing to back off; the Skids had taught him that. It wasn’t enough for Birmingham that his career was dead in the water anyway. Any chance of promotion had gone by the wayside the night the kid in the cell died. Yes, he’d been helping some lowlifes jack poison into each other’s arms ever since. It was called enterprise in his book. But Birmingham still wanted her pound of flesh. She hadn’t been here that night, seen the way the kid in that file had answered him back. So Mac had given him one dig too many, so what? Some might say he’d done society a favour. It cost100,000 to keep a prisoner inside for a year. He’d saved the taxpayer a potential fortune.
The key clanked in the door behind him and he turned jumpily. It was probably just some cheeky fucker going to offer him lunch. Mac knew exactly what bodily fluids were mixed up with any tray that slid under that door.
But when he saw the face looking back at him, he grinned. ‘Thanks be to fuck,’ he said. ‘Get me out of here.’
‘The drug addict Stuart Ball was murdered on New Wapping Street,’ she said to herself. Scooping a handful of cutlery out of the clattering drawer, she pulled a knife free of the others and placed it on the bench to represent New Wapping Street. ‘Rita Nulty was killed on Castleforbes Road, which runs parallel to New Wapping Street,’ she
said, picturing the building site where she’d found Rita and placing a knife side by side with the other.
‘First sign of madness, talking to yourself,’ Rory remarked from the kitchen table behind her.
Jo looked over her shoulder and back before he saw her smile. He had his school books spread all over the kitchen table, and the corner of his mouth was marked with an inky blob from where he’d been chewing his ballpoint pen. Harry was sitting on the floor beside him, grinding a rusk to pulp.
Jo grabbed a roll of kitchen towel and bent over to wipe the rusk off the floor before Harry scooped any more of it into his mouth. ‘Make yourself useful and either set that for dinner, or relocate to the desk in your bedroom so I can,’ she told Rory.
His chair screeched back as he stood up, sniffing over her shoulder as he headed out, making Jo jerk the potato peeler straight into her thumb. She sucked it painfully.
‘The drug baron Anto Crawley was whacked on Spencer Dock, which runs parallel to both New Wapping Street and Castleforbes Road.’ Jo pictured the abandoned warehouse, pulling another knife out of the drawer. Three knives sat in a row. All three streets were joined at one end by North Wall Quay and on the other by Sheriff Street, where Father Walsh, the priest, was found. She sandwiched each end with a fork. ‘It has to mean something,’ she said quietly.
Spotting Rory’s books still spread all over the kitchen table, Jo called down the hall for him to come back and take them so she could set it. She was primed to give him an earful, but when she pressed the cordless house phone against her shoulder to answer it, while using her hands to scoop up his books herself, a reporter on the end of the line asking about recent developments got lashed instead.
Harry managed another couple of steps before collapsing into her arms. Jo held him very close and planted a series of kisses on his soft head.
Thank Christ!
she thought, closing her eyes and rocking him from side to side.
Thank Christ I didn’t miss that!
The smoke alarm ripped through the moment with piercing urgency. With Harry still in her arms, Jo ran to the oven and turned everything off, then grabbed a dishcloth and ran out to wave it frantically under the alarm. Finally, Rory appeared with a kitchen chair, climbed up and killed the ear-splitting noise.
‘Where’ve you been?’ Jo asked, swinging Harry up in the air. ‘Somebody’s baby brother has just started walking, haven’t you, my darling angel?’
‘Thought I’d help you get the garden in order, Mother,’ Rory said, tussling Harry’s hair, then pulling the lawnmower fuel from behind his back and holding it up. ‘The less time Dad has to spend on it, the better for everyone’s sake.’
‘Rory,’ Jo began, sitting Harry down. ‘Dad’s move home, it doesn’t mean . . .’
The doorbell clanged to life and she put her hand on Rory’s arm to stop him answering it. As she pulled the door open, she remembered where she’d seen the black mac before.
‘Absolutely not,’ Jo replied, starting to close the door.
‘Where do you find the time with a serial killer on the rampage?’ she asked patronizingly, looking over Jo’s shoulder at Harry on the floor behind her.
Jo began to close the door but stopped when she noticed the way the reporter had stepped sideways, then looked over her shoulder to a car at the end of the drive. Jo spotted a long lens balancing on the driver’s wing mirror.
‘Mind your baby brother, son,’ she instructed Rory over her shoulder, before pulling the door behind her, pushing past the hack and storming over to the car.
‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’ she asked, wrestling with the photographer for the lens. ‘We’ve got privacy laws in this country.’
‘Damage that and you pay for it,’ he warned.
She spotted his name engraved on a tarnished gold bracelet – Darryl. ‘Now you listen to me, Darryl, and listen good . . .’
‘Why don’t you concentrate on your job and let us do ours?’ Linda had followed her over to the car. ‘You’re the one who’s put the country on high alert, telling them a madman was going to strike again today. And now you’re home. Couldn’t you get your overtime approved? Your childminder call in sick? People are dying, you know!’
‘Get out of here, Darryl, before I have you charged, and take her with you,’ Jo warned.
‘With what?’ Darryl asked aggressively.
‘Trespassing and loitering with intent, for starters,’ Jo warned.
‘Come on, Linda, she’s not worth it,’ Darryl said.
‘Wait a second, where did you get my home address?’ Jo asked, leaning in the window.
Linda caught her eye, and Jo thought she was going to say something. Then Darryl revved the engine and she got inside the car.
Shaking her head, Jo went back into the house. ‘Leave the garden for now,’ she told Rory. ‘And get your coat. We’re eating out.’
In the Eddie Rockets restaurant, Jo’s mood lifted as Harry started sucking happily on a cheesy chip. ‘Your dad and I broke up for a reason. It wasn’t working between us,’ she said to Rory.
Rory sucked Coke through three straws. Still just a big kid, Jo thought.
‘We did the facts-of-life talk years ago, Mother,’ he said, ‘and believe me, it was only mildly more embarrassing.’
‘I’m just saying, things have moved on now. Dad’s got Jeanie.’
‘But you haven’t met anyone,’ Rory said.
‘Yet,’ Jo corrected him.
‘Does that mean you’re looking?’
‘Of course I’m looking,’ Jo lied.
Rory’s eyes moved to the window. He jabbed his middle finger at it.
‘Rory!’ Jo remonstrated, turning anxiously and spotting Linda and Darryl parked outside, angling their camera straight at them. Smug didn’t cover the look on their faces. She gave them the finger herself.
The camera captured that moment too.
‘Now I’m the kind of mother who stuffs her kids with
additives and resorts to vile hand gestures, as well as being a bad cop,’ said Jo, sighing.
‘Maybe they could run it as an ad in the singles section,’ Rory suggested.
Jo laughed. But there was an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She wondered if she wasn’t willing the killer to strike again, just to bail her out.
‘The good news is Hawthorne’s been in touch,’ Foxy said, clearly trying to lift morale. ‘His prelim on Father Reg showed that the priest had pierced nipples.’
‘Not your average celibate then,’ Jo reacted, mood improving slightly.
‘Certainly opens up a whole range of possibilities as to what he’d been doing and the reasons why he might have come into contact with the Skids,’ Foxy said. ‘Also, the forensic lab phoned in to say you were right. They had a positive match on the drugs we found on the coffee table at Rita Nulty’s crime scene and that recent Skids sting the station brought in, which means you can keep Mac longer if you want.’
Jo bribed Rory to go to bed by unhooking the DVD player and scart lead from the telly and handing them to him. Rory gripped them with the kind of enthusiasm that suggested she’d have a job on her hands ever getting the player back out of his bedroom and disappeared upstairs. It was past his bedtime, but she’d let him stay up because he’d studied hard all evening, after a mild argument in which he’d demanded
to know what possible contribution to his adult life half of the stuff on his curriculum could make.
‘Half an hour to help you unwind, that’s it,’ Jo warned him, crossing her fingers behind her back as she watched him head up the stairs. She didn’t want to curse the thought passing through her head, but the move home seemed to have done the trick: Rory was really knuckling down . . .
Back in her living room, Merrigan and Foxy were arguing over which channel to watch. She walked over and switched off the TV.
Merrigan threw his hands up then whacked them off his legs with a sigh.
‘Thanks for coming,’ Jo said. ‘I know we all have private lives, and I just want to say, I appreciate it.’
Merrigan pretended to play a tiny violin.
‘I’m being sincere!’ she warned. ‘Any luck on the door-to-doors?’
‘Yeah,’ he said reluctantly. ‘One of the uniforms found out that the dead padre had got his knuckles rapped for putting Rita up in his home. Father Reg claimed he was doing God’s work, but some of his parishioners believe she was doing him. Someone wrote to the bishop.’
‘Gives us a start on who was leading him by those nipple rings,’ Jo said, looking at Foxy anxiously. ‘Any luck with necrophiles in the Bible?’
Merrigan covered his nipples playfully and made a coy face. Jo was starting to get narked. It was all a big joke with him. Someone was going to die in the next hour and a quarter, if they hadn’t already.
‘Yes, actually. According to the Bible, there was one very famous necrophile . . .’ Foxy said.
‘Who?’ Jo asked.
Jo sighed as he and Foxy followed her into the kitchen. Merrigan started pulling open drawers. Jo took over, reaching into the bread bin, grabbing a bread knife from the drawer and cutting a slice of white bread.
‘Go on,’ she prompted.
‘Only King Herod,’ Foxy said. ‘You know, the one who had all the male babies killed when he heard about the birth of Christ, the one who had John the Baptist beheaded for Salome after her Dance of the Seven Veils.’ He opened the fridge and retrieved a tomato. ‘Herod’s supposed to have kept his dead wife Mariamne – whom he murdered, by the way – seven years in his sleeping quarters for sex . . . after he’d killed her.’
Jo took a sharp breath in. ‘So our killer is honouring his enemies like we thought.’
‘Thought you’d be pleased,’ Foxy said.
‘It also explains why Rita’s body was the only one sexually interfered with,’ she said slowly. ‘I must’ve missed something with the other three victims. Foxy, can you think of any more of Christ’s enemies?’
‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.
‘Our killer paid tribute to King Herod with Rita. I want to know which of Christ’s enemies Stuart Ball, Anto Crawley and Father Walsh represented in his mind.’
‘Judas – he was the main one,’ Merrigan said, picking up his bread. ‘Can I have a slice of ham with this?’
‘The Pharisees – according to one of Sal’s books, they were the moral equivalent of priests and the ones who judged Christ,’ Foxy said.
‘Any chance of a cuppa?’ Merrigan asked.
‘You asked me to look into necrophilia, and I’ve got that list of desecrations you wanted,’ Foxy continued. ‘A couple of graves were robbed, but the bodies were left intact . . . Also, I spoke to a psychologist and a leading expert in the area, who says the research suggests that 90 per cent of necrophiles are male, so no surprises there but, interestingly, half of those who actually killed so as to take ownership of the victim’s body are gay. Oh yeah, and it’s mostly morticians who offend.’
Merrigan sat down at the kitchen table and took a mouthful of bread. ‘Great, our man’s a faggot as well as everything else,’ he said.
‘It’s all to do with fear of rejection,’ Foxy went on. ‘Most necrophiliacs are either trying to control someone who previously resisted them, or to reunite with someone who’s died, or to overcome isolation.’
Jo filled the kettle and switched it on.
‘Previous serial killers with this particular attraction to the dead – Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer,’ Foxy said. ‘But most famous of all . . . Jack the Ripper.’
‘You know any of Christ’s other enemies?’ Jo asked him.
‘Pontius Pilate,’ Foxy said, sitting down beside Merrigan. ‘Though he did appeal to people to come to their senses after they chose Christ over Barabas.’
Jo clicked her fingers. ‘I’ll bet that’s who Crawley represented. We need to look for the symbol in the warehouse near Crawley’s body – didn’t Pilate wash his hands? It has to
be there somewhere. I’ll check the scene-of-crime photos tomorrow. Can you get me the names of the others? And a detailed description of the scene where Stuart Ball was found.’
Foxy looked up at Jo, his face worried. ‘We also need to talk about Mac. Am I the only one who thinks he’s in this thing up to his neck?’
‘Steady,’ Merrigan said. ‘He’s one of us.’
‘He’s a bad one, and you know it,’ Foxy said sharply.
‘I’ll worry about Mac,’ Jo said. ‘We can keep him in custody till next week now, don’t forget!’
‘Mac could have got his hands on the cocaine we found at Rita Nulty’s crime scene,’ Foxy said cautiously. ‘He could have taken some from our batch and brought it there.’
‘I agree,’ Jo said as the doorbell rang. She sighed. ‘If that’s a bloody reporter, I won’t be responsible for my actions.’
‘It’s probably just Sexton,’ Foxy said as she got up.
The door opened before Jo got to it. Dan appeared in the entrance with two suitcases hanging from either hand and his key in one.
‘You said Friday,’ Jo said.
Dan looked at his watch. ‘Sorry, I’m an hour early. Tomorrow’s not good for me.’ He looked up and saw the heads peering from the kitchen. ‘Am I interrupting?’ he asked.
‘We’re just finished,’ Jo said.
‘Any developments?’ Dan asked.
Foxy and Merrigan avoided his eye and Jo shook her head. Dan turned and headed up the stairs.
‘How about my cup of tea?’ Merrigan asked, as he stood up. Foxy gave him a shove in the back to keep going.
‘Thanks, lads,’ Jo said. ‘See you tomorrow.’
‘I’m bloody gasping,’ Merrigan told Jo as he passed her in the hall.
Behind his back, Foxy patted Jo’s arm. It was his way of telling her not to lose heart.
After they’d gone, she stood with her back to the door trying to think. She was more certain than ever the killer was going to crucify his next victim. What she needed to do next was work out who.
Dan arrived, bringing a fresh soapy smell; his hair was still wet. He’d gone straight to the spare room to unpack after Foxy and Merrigan left and then must have taken a shower.
Jo did a double take. He had changed his clothes and was wearing a Tommy Hilfiger T-shirt open to the third button, Wranglers, a cowboy belt and black winklepickers. Mid-life-crisis clothes, she thought, also noticing a chain glinting around his neck. She’d never seen him wear jewellery before.
‘You going somewhere?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, heading out for a couple of late pints.’
‘A club?’ she asked, appalled. Him heading out on the tiles wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement of her theory that the killer was going to strike again in under an hour.
‘Doesn’t it strike you as strange that all the bodies were found in ‘C’ District?’ she said, picking up a pen and marking the spot on the street where Rita had been found. ‘In the building where we had our hostage-training exercise, remember?’ Jo crossed another street. ‘This is where Stuart Ball was found, but look.’ She pointed. ‘If it had been on any of these adjoining streets, it would have been the Bridewell’s jurisdiction. We’ve got every one of them.’
Dan gave a short hum.
‘We need to get Anto Crawley’s surveillance records from the NSU,’ she told him. ‘I’m hitting a brick wall with NBCI on the subject . . .’
Dan stood up dismissively.
‘Think about it, Dan. Somebody like Crawley sleeps with a bulletproof jacket under his PJs. He’s always prepared. He’s not going to let any Joe Soap near him to kill him. Rita, too – she had the Skids pimping her. How did the killer get past them, carrying the tools he needed to hurt her like that? Rita and Anto Crawley have to have trusted whoever killed them, or at the very least known them. That’s why we need that list of Crawley’s associates.’
‘I’m not arguing with your theory, Jo. But you know how tight that information is kept.’
‘And you know whose head is going to roll if we don’t find the killer soon,’ Jo said. ‘Mine will be splashed all over the
Mail
tomorrow morning as it is.’
‘I can’t get you out of the hole you’ve dug yourself into,’ Dan said, sighing.
‘You won’t have to,’ Jo answered. ‘I’m going to find him.’
Dan’s mobile bleeped with an incoming text. He glanced
at his watch. ‘Stupid of me to forget. It’s all going to change completely any second, isn’t it? You’re going to be proved right and everyone else wrong when a mutilated body shows up – oh yeah, crucified . . .’
Jo stared at his watch. It was new too, and looked like a fake Tag. She really wanted to know what he’d done with her dad’s old leather-strapped one . . .
‘You really think I’d say anything if I wasn’t sure?’ she asked.
‘I’m just asking if you’re out of your depth, Jo.’
‘I wasn’t until the second you asked me,’ she said.
He sighed, walked to the curtain and pulled it slightly aside to see out.
‘Here’s my lift.’
‘Ask him to wait a few minutes, I need to talk to you.’
Dan shook his head. ‘It’s not a cab.’
He pulled on a jacket – a windbreaker, shiny on the outside, fleece lining. He looked all wrong in it.
‘So how is this living-separately thing going to work when you get back tonight?’ Jo asked. ‘Is Jeanie planning to stay too? Is that what this is about? Think the green-eyed monster will do the trick?’ She stood up and began plumping the scatter cushions. ‘Because two can play at that game . . .’
He lunged and grabbed her by the wrist, dragging her over to the window. She was stunned. In all the big, ugly rows they’d had over the years, he’d never resorted to force. If the boys hadn’t been asleep, Jo would have screamed at him to let go. Instead she whacked him repeatedly with her free arm. Dan pulled the curtain aside to show her that the car waiting was being driven by one of his rugby mates. Then he let go.
Jo stared at him staring back at her. She knew they were
both thinking the same thing – how had it come to this? They’d both been to domestics, seen how septic a relationship becomes when it turns nasty, how much damage it does to the kids.
After a long pause, he said, ‘You want to know where I went during the Phoenix Park investigation? The Quality Hotel, Pearse Street. Room 112. And yes, to save you the trouble of a follow-up call, it was a double room.’
Jo went to the hall and pulled it open. ‘Where’ve you been?’
‘Down the station,’ he said sheepishly. ‘Letting Mac go.’
Jo presumed he was joking. ‘You don’t have the authority,’ she ribbed.
‘I know, so I used your name, said you’d ordered it.’ He held her stare.
‘You what?’
When he didn’t blink, Jo headed down the hall for the phone.
‘Can you just listen to me for a second?’ he asked, following and pressing a finger on the hang-up button.
Jo glared at him.
He took his hand off the phone, twisted the cap off the bottle and started to fill a glass. ‘I can’t do this without a
drink.’ He held it out to Jo. She ignored him and started to dial again. He placed the empty glass beside the phone. ‘I let him out so I could follow him. I thought if he’s our man, and Jo’s right about today, he’s going to lead us straight to the next victim,’ Sexton continued, pouring another and taking a big mouthful. He swallowed hard. ‘And there’s something else I haven’t told you about the case.’
Jo hung up. She looked towards the bedrooms and then pointed into the sitting room. He walked in and sat on the couch.
‘Go on then,’ she said, remaining standing.
Sexton didn’t look at her. ‘It’s got to do with Ryan Freeman’s little girl. Her name is Katie. She was taken by the Skids, a couple of months back. It’s the crime that links all our killings.’
Jo sat down slowly, keeping her eyes on him as he kept talking.
‘I don’t know what they did to her. I’ve been trying to help the Freemans to find out. Whatever it was has messed her up really bad . . . She’s only a kid, Jo. I mean, can you imagine something like that happening to either of yours? How scared you’d be? . . . I know you’d go to any lengths to help her recover. Well, as you already know, Ryan and I go way back, and he asked me to help.’
‘Tell me everything,’ she said.
‘Anto Crawley ordered Katie’s abduction, no question,’ Sexton explained, speaking between big gulps of wine. ‘And he made sure Ryan knew it too.’ He told her about the CCTV footage. ‘And it looks like Rita Nulty was chief babysitter while they were holding on to Katie. Stuart Ball probably helped cart her off, and I suspect Father Reg found out what happened, I’m not sure how yet.’
‘You think this has been easy for me?’ Sexton said, leaning forward, his face even more lined and tired than usual. ‘I promised Ryan I’d stay quiet for Katie’s sake. If we went tramping in there making arrests, we’d no chance of anyone in the Skids telling us what they did to her. We’re still trying to bring her back, Jo. She hasn’t talked properly since this thing happened.’
Jo sucked air through her teeth. ‘She’s still sick?’
He nodded. ‘She’s in Crumlin at the moment.’
‘So why are you telling me now?’
‘I was always going to tell you, Jo. But yesterday, I found out that Ryan’s wife, Angie, was being blackmailed by Anto Crawley before he died. I’ve spoken to her. She said her only part in it was to give Crawley advance warning on what Ryan was going to print about the Skids. Crawley would use her tip-offs to get his act together before the stories appeared in print. If Ryan was about to publish the fact that Crawley has a container of hash sitting in Dublin port, Angie tips Crawley off, and it’s too late – the container’s empty. The story dies. I believed her, and so did Ryan. Anyone would have done the same to save their family.’
‘
Believed
her?’ Jo pushed. ‘Why the past tense?’
He took a swig from the bottle.
Jo took the bottle out of his hand and put it down on the table. ‘Now tell me what happened when you released Mac. And then how long you spent doing yourself up since you tailed him?’
‘I just thought that, if I followed him, we’d get to the bottom of it, finally. But he went straight home.’
Jo grabbed her keys and phone.
Sexton jumped up too. ‘You can’t just go barging in on Katie. She’s in a bad way. She can’t cope with any more trauma.’
‘We’ve got it all wrong,’ Jo said. Her hand shook as she dialled Dan’s number. ‘Mac isn’t the killer. He’s next.’