Where She Lies

by Michael Scanlon

  Beck waited for a remark from O’Reilly, or a glance in his direction. None came. O’Reilly had no clue.

  ‘That,’ O’Reilly went on, ‘is how you do it. That is what I’m talking about here. Results. Results. Re-sults. Do I need to say it again? Over and over? Come on, it’s not good enough, people. Call yourselves policemen? We’re getting nowhere here. You, Weir – where are you with that CCTV collection of yours?’

  ‘Have everything that’s available,’ Weir said. ‘Twenty-four different sets. Practically every camera there is in and about the town. We’re going through it all. Takes a little time.’

  ‘And what have you found so far?’

  ‘A couple of cars have popped up across multiple locations, travelling from town within the relevant time frame, heading in the general direction of Cool Wood. We have partial registrations – going through the National Vehicle Database as we speak, trying to narrow it down. Will hopefully have more information by the end of the morning.’

  ‘You. Beck. Murphy has been discounted, that right?’

  ‘Yes, Murphy has been discounted.’

  O’Reilly’s eyes narrowed. ‘Was there something else to do with that gouger? Do you need to tell the team anything?’

  A knowing look crossed O’Reilly’s face.

  Beck cursed under his breath, taken by surprise. A murmur went through the room, people shifting in their chairs to look at him.

  He didn’t want to mention anything. Not just yet. A small town like Cross Beg, where everybody knew everybody, it was only a matter of time before the word got out.

  ‘He gave a name,’ Beck said. ‘Of the person he says Tanya Frazzali was sleeping with.’

  That got people’s attention. All eyes were on him. No one spoke.

  ‘Well, spit it out, man,’ O’Reilly said.

  Beck glanced at O’Reilly, then around the room. Said nothing, because he’d seen it too many times. While at Pearse Street. The Blue Sieve, they called it. Classified information sprinkled about like flour. In a big city such as Dublin, that might not be so bad. But in a small town like Cross Beg...

  Finally, Beck said the name that Darren Murphy had given him, and the room erupted with loud voices.

  ‘Quiet,’ O’Reilly commanded. He looked at Beck: this was personal. ‘You’re on dangerous territory. Our local Pablo Escobar. The lying toerag. What were you planning to do with this information, anyway?’

  ‘I know what I’d like to do.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Arrest him.’

  ‘You’d need more than that.’

  Someone coughed, but there was no other sound.

  O’Reilly gave a twisted smile. ‘Enough rope,’ he said. ‘That’s all you need. Enough rope.’

  ‘I don’t want this information getting out,’ Beck said. ‘It stays within these four walls. If anyone…’

  The door to the public office burst open. A uniform rushed into the room.

  ‘Ned Donohue,’ he announced. ‘His body’s just been found. In the river.’

  Thirty-Five

  His hands were not in his pockets; one was clenched, purple and rigid, the other tangled in the foliage just above the waterline of the riverbank. It was obvious the body had been there all night at least. He had on the same oversized jacket he’d worn when Beck had interviewed him, trapped air causing it to balloon above his back. His head was face down in the water, the thin, sparse hair on it like whiskers, his flesh a deep grey colour. He looked like a very large water turtle. More than a dozen officers crowded along the bank, churning the dead grass into mud beneath their feet. Beck and Somers stood to the side of them. O’Reilly was at the water’s edge, directly above the body, peering down. In the distance, Beck could hear the familiar staccato sound of a fire engine approaching.

  The firemen took his body from the water with the ease and ceremony of removing a dead pony. The big jacket helped, the grappling hook catching it with ease. They pulled the body ashore, lay it on its back on the bank. Ned’s eyes were wide and staring; it was hard to tell whether in surprise or fright. There was a childlike quality to his face, even in death. Beck felt an almost overpowering sense of sadness. He closed his eyes and felt the emotion, then opened them again and let it go. He noted the arm with its bloodied hand stretched backward. Beck could see cuts to the flesh. The arm was at an angle, the fingers touching the ground and the elbow joint rotated so that it was raised slightly. It was an odd angle, and would prove difficult when placing the body into a coffin.

  ‘He must have changed his mind, the poor bastard,’ Claire said.

  ‘Yes. He must.’ It was O’Reilly, with his reappearing-from-nowhere act. ‘Looks like guilt got the better of him, I’d say.’

  Beck thought about that. ‘Guilt?’

  ‘Yes. For what he’d done.’

  ‘What? The murder of Tanya Frazzali, you mean?’

  ‘Why else would he throw himself in the river? It points to him. Ned Donohue killed Tanya Frazzali.’

  ‘You’ll be searching his house then? Ordering a DNA test?’ Beck said.

  O’Reilly looked surprised. ‘Not yet. Soon. Let’s get things sorted first.’

  Beck bit his lower lip, enough to feel the intense sharp pain, enough to stop himself from yelling at this imbecile.

  ‘Would you mind if I looked through Ned’s house?’ Beck kept his voice calm.

  It was then that he saw the man standing in the high grass across from him.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  O’Reilly turned. ‘Oh, him. He reported it. Have a word with him, will you? I’ve changed my mind, search the bloomin’ house if you want to. At least it’ll get you out of my hair for a while.’

  ‘What’s his name?’ Beck nodded towards the man.

  O’Reilly furrowed his brow. ‘I don’t know. I’ve forgotten. I’m sure you can work it out.’

  O’Reilly walked away with an exaggerated rolling gait, shoulders back. Cock-a-hoop was the term for it.

  ‘Don’t let him get to you,’ Claire said.

  ‘The only good thing about his ineptitude,’ Beck replied, ‘is that it compels me to work harder and try to do better. He’s awoken me from my slumber. Thank you, Inspector O’Reilly.’

  The man was wearing a frayed pinstripe suit jacket, brown corduroy pants and a flat cap. He was in his late sixties, Beck guessed, sucking on a roll-up cigarette.

  Beck introduced himself, offered his hand. They shook. Claire said, ‘You found the body, Mr…’

  ‘Loughlin. Gus.’ His voice held the slight tremor of a person suffering from emotional shock. ‘Terrible, isn’t it?’

  ‘Do you mind if we just…?’ Beck took a few paces to the right, swinging round so that he was facing the body. Gus had his back to it. ‘I think that’s better. Now, Mr Loughlin, can you tell us how you found the body, please? Exactly, if you could.’

  Gus turned his head slightly, as if fighting an urge to look back over his shoulder again.

  ‘Mr Loughlin? Gus,’ Beck prompted.

  Gus looked at Beck. ‘I were just out for a walk. I don’t have a dog any more. I used to have a dog, y’know. Name was Billy. But you don’t need to have a dog to walk. That’s what my friend…’

  ‘Mr Loughlin,’ Claire said. ‘I know this is difficult. But if you could just answer the sergeant’s question.’

  ‘I were answering it, love. My way. I’m trying to get me head around it, see. The man here, the sergeant, said ‘exactly’, that’s what he said, ‘exactly’. I’m telling it exactly… d’ya want to hear it or not?’ Gus brought his hand to his mouth and sucked on the roll-up. But it was gone, smoked down to nothing. He released his fingers and the ash disintegrated on the breeze and blew away. Beck could smell the rough cut of the tobacco. ‘Billy died last month. But I still come here. I were thinking of Billy when I saw him… the body in the water. Just lying there, it was, or floating I should say, still and quiet as anything. Took me a moment to realise what I were looking at. It�
��s a terrible thing. That’s it. I just saw him there, in the water. That’s it. Exactly. One minute I were thinking of Billy, the next I were looking at a body. And then I were wondering why he hadn’t just climbed out of the water if he hadn’t wanted to drown. I could see that he had tried. That’s what it looked like to me. Maybe it were just too late. The water’s not deep along the bank – you could stand up in it if you wanted to, even when the tide’s in. Strange. He must have got tangled in the rushes and weeds, couldn’t get out. That must’a been it. Panicked, like. He’s dead anyway, the poor bugger.’

  ‘Did you see anyone else about?’ Claire asked. ‘Maybe pass somebody while you were walking?’

  Gus shook his head. ‘No one comes down here much. It’s too awkward – the slippery steps an’ all. They’ve been talking about making it into a walkway since before I went away. Never did, did they?’

  ‘Away? Where did you go away to?’ Claire asked.

  ‘Leeds, love. Over forty years. Came back only two years ago, retired, like.’

  And Beck realised now where the slight inflection to his accent was coming from – the North of England, but not enough to make it immediately noticeable.

  ‘Did you know Ned?’ Beck asked.

  Gus nodded. ‘I knew him. Everybody knew him. But I knew him. We went to school together, the Christian Brothers – they gave myself and Ned a terrible hard time, y’know. It were an awful thing for any young lad to have to go through. That’s all changed, though, about time too.’

  ‘I’ll need your address and phone number,’ Beck said. ‘We’ll want to speak to you again at some stage.’

  When Claire had written down his details in her notebook, Gus showed no signs of going anywhere. He planted his hands firmly into his jacket pockets and turned around and stood there, staring at Ned’s body.

  ‘Will you be alright?’ Claire asked. ‘Do you need someone to give you a lift home?’

  ‘I’ll be alright, love,’ Gus said softly. ‘Just need to get me head around this is all, if that’s alright.’

  And Beck thought as do we all. He could see a figure striding towards them along the trail next to the wall, clutching a medical bag.

  ‘Dr Michael Anderson,’ Claire said.

  Dr Anderson was tall and gangly and loped along like a giraffe. He paid them no attention as he strode past. Inspector O’Reilly was waiting, close to the body, and the doctor joined him now. They began talking, O’Reilly emphasising words with animated gestures of his hands. Beck wondered what the odds were of the doctor signing off on a suicide.

  He became aware of a low buzzing sound from somewhere. He realised then that it was his telephone ringing from the depths of a pocket. He searched and found it.

  ‘Sergeant Beck,’ he said.

  ‘It’s Garda Farrell here at the station. I have a call for you. Stand by, putting it through now.’

  A clicking sound, then, ‘Sergeant Beck?’

  Beck recognised the voice immediately: Tony Frazzali. ‘Yes, Tony, it’s me.’

  ‘Sergeant. I found something.’

  ‘You found something? What?’

  ‘Photographs. Of Tanya.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘They’re… revealing. I can’t look at them.’

  ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘At home.’

  ‘We’ll be right over.’

  Thirty-Six

  The door was opened by a woman, dressed in blue trousers and a tunic uniform. A name tag gave her name as Rosa Torres. She smiled and led them into the large and spacious living room: high ceiling, bay windows, wooden floor covered by intricately woven rugs. At the end was an enormous fireplace with a black granite surround, two fabric settees in front. Tony was lying on one settee, his head on the armrest, one arm covering his eyes. He hadn’t heard them come in.

  ‘Tony, sir,’ the woman said, as she led them across the room. Beck guessed by appearance and accent that she was Filipino.

  Tony sat up. ‘Wha’, what is it?’

  He was pale, his eyes red-rimmed and wide, his hair tousled. He was wearing what looked like the same tight T-shirt he’d worn when they’d first called, except that it was wrinkled now and dotted with what looked like coffee stains. Beck could smell stale sweat and a body gone too long between showers. There was also something else: the unmistakable aroma of marijuana.

  ‘Sergeant Beck,’ Tony said, getting to his feet, his voice deep and tired. ‘Garda Somers.’ Up close, Beck could see the pupils of his eyes were dilated.

  ‘Hello, Tony.’

  ‘I found them in a drawer,’ Tony said. ‘I was looking for her Taylor Swift CD. Someone gave it to Tanya last Christmas. She thought it was a bit naff, a CD, because she streamed everything. I wanted to listen to it, to be…’ he blinked back tears, ‘… close to her. That’s how I found them. They were at the bottom of the drawer, underneath everything. They’re over here.’

  Tony crossed to a dresser.

  ‘How is your mother?’ Claire asked.

  ‘As well as can be expected.’ The voice was not Tony’s. It was Theresa Frazzali, who had just walked into the room. She crossed to the settee where Tony had been sitting and sat down. Her face was pale and gaunt, and she seemed to have aged considerably since this tragedy had all begun. In fact, Beck was shocked at the deterioration in her appearance since first meeting her at the station.

  ‘I hired a carer,’ she said. ‘I have a friend, runs the agency. She insisted. I’m in no fit state, as you can see.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Neither is Tony. The funeral’s on Friday at the cathedral. Our priest, Father Clifford, is organising it. Do you believe in heaven, Sergeant Beck?’

  The question took Beck by surprise.

  ‘I’m sure there is,’ he lied, offering her reassurance. ‘Yes, I’m sure there is a heaven. I mean, what’s the point if there’s not?’ Beck didn’t think there was a point anyway.

  ‘I believe in heaven,’ she said with finality. ‘For Tanya’s sake, I mean. Not my own…’ Her voice quivered. ‘Because she’s too young, too young to…’ She trailed off, unable to bring herself to say the words.

  Tony walked over and handed Beck an envelope.

  ‘You’ll find them in there,’ he said, his voice low. ‘Mum doesn’t want to see them either. You can burn them if you want.’

  Tony went to the settee and sat beside his mother. She reached for her son and held him close.

  Beck looked down at the envelope in his hands.

  ‘Thank you for this,’ he said. ‘We’ll let ourselves out.’

  Thirty-Seven

  They parked on Plunkett Hill. An ominous creaking noise from underneath the car warned them that the handbrake was struggling to keep 2,900 lbs of metal stationary on the steep incline. Claire turned the steering wheel towards the kerb, released the brake, allowing the car to gently coast next to it.

  ‘What you’re telling me…’ Claire said, pausing as she played back in her mind what Beck had just said. ‘It’s crazy. A sample from his gall bladder. I mean, how’s that possible?’

  ‘I thought it was worth a try. Because everyone gets ill. Some go to hospital. Some have samples taken. Maybe he was one of them. So I asked somebody I know. To check. And bingo, he’d had his gall bladder removed last year. The hospital kept a tissue sample. It’s routine. They can keep it for up to ten years. I got it. Temporarily, that is.’

  ‘How’d you get it?’

  ‘I got it.’

  ‘Your friend? The pathologist?’

  Beck was quiet.

  ‘Unbelievable.’

  ‘Not really. I’ve done it before. It resides in the DNA and biology laboratory at HQ now.’

  ‘Christ, you’ve outdone yourself this time. What about the legal implications of all this?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘It’s not fucking legal, Beck…’ She scrunched up her face. ‘Is it?’

  ‘It is. Permission is not required to obtain a DNA sample if the case is of s
ufficient gravity. Murder and statutory rape are of sufficient gravity, I would say, wouldn’t you? I’ve rooted around in more than my fair share of dustbins in my time to know that. I got the sample, that’s what counts. Twenty-four hours minimum for results. If I push it. And I’m pushing it. If it’s not a match, no one is any the wiser.’

  ‘It has to be an infringement of something or other.’

  ‘No more than rooting around in someone’s bin, everything being relative, when you think about it.’

  ‘I’m thinking about it. I don’t get the link, Beck.’

  ‘It’s a question of opinion.’

  Claire stared ahead.

  ‘Open the envelope,’ she said.

  Beck opened the envelope Tony had given him and withdrew the photographs. There were a half-dozen. The quality indicated they had likely been produced on a home printer. Beck went through each in turn. The first was of Tanya sitting on a chair wearing just a short skirt with her legs open, revealing her underwear. Beck turned it over and looked at the back. ‘Wouldn’t you prefer to come home to this?’ it said in neat script. The next was of Tanya with a banana held to her mouth, and on the back: ‘What man could ever get bored with this?’ Another, Tanya lying on her bed in underwear. ‘How long do I have to wait?’ it asked. All the photographs were titillatingly similar.

  ‘Why would she actually have photographed herself?’ Claire asked. ‘Is it possible to be so desperate?’

  Beck replaced the photos in the envelope. ‘Because,’ he said, ‘she didn’t take the photographs herself. That’s my guess. He did.’