by Derek Fee
‘Me, rough? You’ve got to be kidding. I’m a pussycat.’
‘So is a mountain lion. Use the kid gloves until we find out whether I’m right or not. This case has stretched my intuition to the limit, and I might just have overdone it.’
‘Fenton is due first,’ Moira said. ‘I’ll let Harry handle him. We can watch in the TV room and if I need to go in, I will.’
Graham walked into Interview Room 1 and put the thin dossier on Fenton on the table. One look at the man across the table was enough to convince him that Fenton was not a murderer. Then he remembered the number of killers who had been interviewed in the early stages of inquiries and dismissed only to kill again. Mass murderers seldom look as evil as they should. In fact, most look innocuous. He wouldn’t like to make the mistake of misjudging a killer.
He extended his hand to Fenton. ‘DC Graham, we spoke on the phone.’
Fenton smiled, stood and shook hands before retaking his seat.
Graham opened the dossier. Fenton looked every bit of his fifty-two years. He was overweight, had smokers’ lines around his mouth and his breath came like rushes of wind. Graham concluded that there were some hard years in Fenton’s life. He placed the photo of the crowd leaving the theatre on the table in front of him. He put his finger on Whyte. ‘Do you know this man?’
Fenton leaned forward until his head was over the photo. ‘Never saw him in my life. Looks like a nice kind of fella.’
‘You said that you attended the talk with some friends. Can you point them out?’
Fenton pointed to three men exiting the theatre in a group.
Graham pushed a pen and paper across the table. ‘Would you please write down their names and phone numbers?’
Fenton wrote the names and numbers and pushed the paper back to Graham.
‘What’s your interest in gay cinema?’ Graham asked.
Fenton’s face reddened. ‘My friends and I have an interest in independent films. I run a video equipment rental business.’
‘So, you make your own films?’
‘No, I rent equipment. What has my business got to do with this missing man?’
‘Sorry. I’m a bit of a film fan myself and I thought I might have met a kindred spirit. So you don’t know Roger Whyte and you didn’t speak to him at the theatre?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Did you see anyone else speaking to him?’
‘There was a lot of noise as the crowd was leaving the theatre. But I didn’t take much notice.’
‘What did you and your friends do after the theatre?’
‘We went for a drink at the Parlour.’
Graham had never been there, but he’d heard the young university types patronised it. He wouldn’t associate Fenton with that particular pub. ‘Is that your regular haunt?’
‘We go there sometimes after a film.’
‘So, they would know you there?’
‘They know me to see.’
Graham stood. ‘Thank you, Mr Fenton, and I hope we didn’t spoil your lunch break.’
‘Just trying to do my duty and help.’
‘You have been very helpful.’
Graham led Fenton to reception and waved him away before making his own way to the viewing room. Wilson and Moira sat in front of a large monitor.
‘What do you think, boss?’ Graham asked.
‘You did good, Harry. We’ll check out the story with the friends, and it might be worth dropping by the Parlour. Get Siobhan to run off a still from the recording and take it along. There’s no hurry. I don’t think Fenton is our guy.’
‘Let’s grab a sandwich and a coffee,’ Wilson said. ‘Our next arrival is at two o’clock and I think we should give Moira a chance.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Graham knocked on Wilson’s door. ‘Timoney’s here, he signed in at ten minutes to two. He’s a keen one. He didn’t look best pleased when he was told that the officers weren’t ready for him and he’d have to wait in the interview room. I don’t think Tennent Street is a part of the city he normally frequents.’
Wilson closed the file he was working on. ‘Get Moira and let’s take a look at him.’
Wilson, Moira and Graham gathered around the monitor in the viewing room. ‘Young, handsome and quietly confident.’ Wilson turned to Moira. ‘Just the way you like them. Better get started.’
Moira gathered her dossier and left the room.
As soon as the door closed, Graham laughed. ‘This should be fun.’
Moira breezed into the interview room. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Timoney, sorry for the slight delay.’ She put her dossier on the table and sat facing Timoney. ‘Thank you for coming forward, we’ll get you out of here as soon as possible as I’m sure you have other things to do. I’m Detective Sergeant Moira McElvaney.’ A smile flitted across his lips. She assumed it had something to do with her being a lowly sergeant. She was willing to dislike Timoney, and she’d only just met him. She took out the picture of the crowd exiting the film theatre and put it on the table. ‘This is you.’ She put her finger on his face.
‘Yes.’
‘Perhaps over the past few days you have heard that we are searching for Roger Whyte, who hasn’t been seen since the eleventh of July, the date when this photo was taken.’
‘I think I have seen something on the TV.’
‘The man exiting in front of you in this photo is Roger Whyte. You didn’t know him?’
Timoney stared at the photo. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Then you might know him?’
‘No, I mean I don’t know him.’
‘You didn’t speak to him as you left the theatre.’
‘There was a lot of pushing and shoving. I may have said something, but I’m not sure.’
‘Were you alone at the theatre that night?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re interested in gay cinema.’
‘I’m interested in all kinds of cinema.’
‘Is that what you’re studying?’
‘No, I’m doing a PhD in philosophy.’
She looked at him without speaking.
‘It’s about Bentham’s utility theory,’ he added.
‘Highbrow stuff no doubt.’ Moira smiled. ‘So you may have said something to Mr Whyte. Any idea what that might have been?’
‘I didn’t say I had spoken to him. I said I might have.’
‘And what might you have said?’
‘I’m not even sure I said anything. Maybe I remarked on the talk. But I don’t think I said anything.’
‘But why would you have made any remark if you didn’t know Roger Whyte?’
‘Let’s go back to the beginning. I didn’t speak to this chap Whyte.’
Moira removed a series of photos from the file and laid them out on the table. ‘These are stills from the CCTV footage. We’ve examined them closely. It looks like you said something and he smiled.’
‘I don’t remember saying anything. Perhaps someone on the other side of him said something.’
‘What did you do after you left the cinema?’
‘I went back to my flat.’
‘Alone?’
‘Yes, alone.’
‘Where is your flat?’
‘In India Street.’
‘That’s a fashionable address.’
‘My parents are rather well-off. I’m afraid I know nothing about Mr Whyte. We just so happened to be exiting the film theatre together. You asked for the men in the photo to come forward and that’s what I’ve done.’
Moira collected up the photos and put them back in her file. ‘You’ve been very helpful, sir.’ She took a business card from her pocket. ‘If you remember anything else that happened as you left the film theatre, you can contact me any time. It looks like you’re possibly the last person to have seen Mr Whyte before he disappeared.’
Timoney slid Moira’s card towards him and put it in his pocket.
Moira led him to the door and open
ed it for him. She wanted to say ‘we’ll be seeing you’ but forewarned was forearmed and she didn’t want Howard Timoney on his guard. She watched him disappear in the direction of the reception. She turned towards the ladies toilet. She needed to wash her hands.
That snotty little ginger bitch, Timoney thought as he headed down the Shankill Road. He was eager to get away from this dump. A fucking sergeant, that’s how little they thought of him. He’d expected the big guy who had appeared on the news. Treating him like a pipsqueak. He’d bloody teach them. He was disappointed that he’d let the bitch annoy him. They had nothing on him. So what if he’d attended a talk on gay cinema? So what if they thought he’d spoken to Whyte? They had vision but no sound and as long as he maintained that he didn’t speak to Whyte they couldn’t prove he did. He was sucking in deep breaths when he turned the corner and headed towards CastleCourt shopping centre. There was a Starbucks there and he badly needed a coffee. He replayed the whole interview in his mind as he remembered it. The bitch had tried to trap him, but he had evaded her.
Wilson, Moira and Graham watched a rerun of the interview with Timoney.
‘What do you think, boss?’ Moira asked.
‘I think you just about had him by the short and curlies,’ Wilson said.
‘I didn’t want to follow through until I heard what you thought. There’s no loss in letting him think he’s away free. And I think he would have been shouting for his solicitor if I had pushed any harder.’
Graham smiled at Moira. ‘And she looks so bloody sweet.’
‘He’s a suspect,’ Wilson said. ‘For the moment he’s all we’ve got. Although I’m ashamed to say it, he fits most of Mezrich’s profile. That doesn’t mean that he’s guilty, but we have to take a closer look at him.’ He turned to Moira and held up the file on Timoney. ‘Get Siobhan on the job. She has to dig a lot deeper than this. I want to know everything there is to know about that boy. Harry, I want you to go down to India Street and have a nose around. See if there are any CCTV cameras in the vicinity. Look for shop cameras, security cameras, whatever.’ They were making progress at last. It may all end up in the dustbin along with his theory on Whyte’s money, but it may not. If it didn’t pan out, they would just have to keep plodding. But somewhere in his head there was a ticking clock, which meant that they needed to move fast.
Browne waited until Wilson, Moira and Harry left the viewing room. He begged the key from the duty sergeant and then watched the two interviews. Fenton was a non-starter. He was the kind of man who took photographs up a girl’s skirt. He stopped the tape on Fenton’s face and was sure he had never seen the man before. The second interview was much more promising. Maybe it had something to do with the way Moira had handled it, but she made Timoney a likely candidate. He was sure that he’d seen him before, but he didn’t remember where. It would come to him.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Moira went through with the scheduled interview with Kevin McBurney, but she was sure from the first few minutes that he wasn’t their man. This was borne out when McBurney produced details of his revels on the evening of July 11th, following the talk, which had ended with him in triage in the Royal Victoria Hospital. He’d been drunk, fallen and split his skull. The scar was still visible. He’d spent the night and most of the twelfth on a trolley in A&E. It was as good as you could get in the way of an alibi.
Wilson was shaking his head when she met him in the corridor. ‘He’s not our man,’ he said. He didn’t bother with a rerun of the tape and he saw from Moira’s expression that she felt the same.
‘I agree. All our bets are on Timoney,’ Moira said.
‘Maybe we’re jumping into the first passing lifeboat,’ Wilson wondered.
‘If it’s not him, we’re back at square one. Sometime, I’d love it to be like TV. Gather all the possible suspects in the drawing room and pull a rabbit out of a hat.’
‘That’s the difference between real life and fiction. If Timoney is our man, we need to prove it. We have nothing in terms of evidence, and he doesn’t look like the kind of guy who’ll fold as soon as he’s confronted.’
‘We can only do what we can do, boss.’
‘Let’s see what Siobhan and Harry have come up with.’
O’Neill had put a photo of Timoney on the whiteboard and had written some salient points underneath. Wilson assembled the team and looked at O’Neill.
‘Howard Timoney,’ she began. ‘Born 28 September 1996, the only child of Sir William Timoney and Lady Victoria. The Timoneys were one of Lloyd’s’ “Names” for generations until the Prestige oil spill almost wiped them out. Sir William still holds several directorships, but the Timoneys now live in what they might call reduced circumstances in a five-bed detached house in Hillsborough. They enrolled young Timoney in Eton, but he had to leave after the family encountered financial difficulties. He attended various private schools here before enrolling in Queen’s University. We have nothing in our database on him. He appears to be squeaky clean, but I’ve only scratched the surface.’
Wilson looked at Graham.
‘Swish place on India Street, owner-occupier, the lease is in Howard Timoney’s name. Little in the way of CCTV; there are few shops around, and it’s a very upmarket area so I wouldn’t say the residents appreciate their privacy being invaded.’
‘I suppose you might say the same of the Hillsborough property,’ Wilson said.
‘I’d guess so,’ Graham said. ‘But I’ll give it a once-over tomorrow just in case.’
‘I’m considering surveillance.’ Wilson looked at Graham. ‘Don’t get your hopes up about overtime until we build a better picture. He’s in the frame, but I’ve already called it wrong with Heavey. We’ll check the Hillsborough house out and Siobhan will keep churning out information. See you lot tomorrow, bright and early.’
Wilson would have preferred to continue working, but his team needed to recharge their batteries for what might be their last shot at finding out what happened to Whyte and Carmody. In the meantime, he would have to brief Davis and see how the land lay on the overtime budget.
Davis sat back in her chair. ‘Do you like him for it?’
‘He’s young and fit. He would handle someone like Whyte, and Carmody was young but lightweight.’
‘You didn’t answer my question?’
‘I think he’s involved. But I don’t know how he got Whyte off the street without being seen, and we still don’t know how or where Carmody disappeared.’
‘But surveillance will help?’
‘He’s gone off thinking he’s free. Moira took a good shot at him. She didn’t want him going to ground, so she didn’t push him as hard as she might have. I think she did a good job.’
‘How long are we talking about?’
‘How long is a piece of string? In the past month, two gay men have disappeared. We must confirm Carmody’s disappearance soon, maybe even tomorrow. McDevitt is desperate to make the letter public. If all that happens, there’s a strong possibility that the gay community will pressure the CC, and if that happens, there won’t be a budgetary problem. The killer might be out there planning his next murder, or he might lie low for a year, or even ten years. We’ve been playing catch-up since we launched the investigation. Now we’ve caught a lead, it’s a slender one, but it’s all we’ve got.’
‘I’ll look at the figures and see what I can do.’
Moira hadn’t gone directly home. She had arranged to meet McDevitt in McHugh’s after work. The sun was still shining and the evening was hot. All the tables outside the bar were taken. Across the road, children were running around in circles trying to avoid the jets of water shooting up from the holes set in the pavement. She took a table inside and ordered a pint of cider. The drink arrived as McDevitt settled himself into the seat opposite her.
‘Mine’s a pint of Guinness,’ McDevitt said before the waitress departed. ‘What’s the occasion? Pretty women don’t invite ugly old buggers like me out for after-work drinks
unless they want something.’
Moira was about to take a step she knew she should have consulted Wilson about. She could still pull back and tell McDevitt it was only a social drink, but that wasn’t her style. She took two pages from a magazine out of her pocket. ‘This is an article I took out of one of those society magazines that pay celebrities millions of pounds for their wedding photos.’ She handed the article to McDevitt.
He scanned the pages. ‘It’s a profile of Helen McCann.’ He admonished himself for stating the obvious. ‘So, what should I be looking for?’
‘Do you have any contacts with the magazine?’
‘If I don’t, I’ll know somebody who does.’
‘The photos used in the magazine aren’t the only ones. The photographer would have taken a lot more.’
McDevitt’s drink arrived. They touched glasses and drank. ‘That would be the case. They could take a hundred or more photos on a shoot.’
‘Do you think you might get me copies of those photos in electronic form?’
‘What sort of mischief are you up to? Does Ian know about this?’
‘There’s something I’m following up on.’
‘And it concerns Helen McCann. Are you fucking mad? That woman eats people like you for breakfast.’ He looked round to see if anyone was listening. ‘What’s the something you’re following up on?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Did you ever hear of that record label that had a dog on it, it was called “His Master’s Voice”, well that’s what I feel I’m listening to. He’s trained you so well.’
‘The boss doesn’t know I’m talking to you.’
McDevitt signalled to the waitress for another round of drinks. ‘Don’t you think he should know?’
McDevitt was right, but she’d already put her foot into the water. ‘It might be nothing.’ But then again it might be important.
‘I’ve had my eye on Helen McCann long before she became involved with Ian. She doesn’t take prisoners. I won’t put my neck on the line unless I know what I’m dealing with. It depends how badly you need those photos.’