Murder In The Academy : A chilling murder mystery set in Belfast (Alice Fox Murder Mysteries Book 1)

by Maggie Feeley

  Sandra held the door open for Lisa to carry the tray through. Mrs Breen greeted the constable in a reasonably friendly manner and waited patiently as her coffee was poured and placed on the small table beside her chair. The morning paper was opened at a small piece about the emerging murder investigation.

  “I wanted to show Frank the item about Helen in the local paper,” she explained with a certain innocence. “Maybe you would like to have a few words with him too, officer?”

  Sandra wondered if Mrs Breen had after all been given some type of relaxant, given her apparent calm acceptance of her daughter’s murder. Perhaps it was more to do with remaining in the moment, a capacity that the constable had remarked in other older people with whom she had carried out her Family Liaison role.

  “Thank you, Mrs Breen. I will happily have a few words with Frank and address any queries he may have.” Sandra would be able to flag up a future interview with DI Paton and her team as she was sure that was somewhere on the schedule.

  BBC Radio 3 played classical music soothingly in the background as the women sipped their coffee.

  Mrs Breen smiled faintly. “This is almost quite pleasant,” she observed. “I am so used to being alone that I forget that company can be quite agreeable.”

  Lisa made brief eye contact with Sandra with a look that suggested the surprise she felt at this uncharacteristic declaration.

  “If you are ready, ma’am,” she said, “I will begin to dial Frank’s number. Sometimes it takes a moment or two to get the connection.”

  Sandra’s role didn’t usually extend as far as Australia but she was open to the possibilities offered by meeting another member of the Breen family who seemed to be outside of the regular, rather frosty family mould.

  31

  By the time that Caroline Paton had extricated herself from PSNI HQ and returned to DePRec, Burrows had finished his interviews with both Bell and Hartnett and was having coffee and a scone. Caroline helped herself from the table at the side of the room and sat down beside Burrows.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary at the Press ‘do’ aside from the fact that news of the freezer is already out there,” she said. “I hedged that question but by Monday they will expect a fuller account of the inquiry. What about you, Bill? Anything talking back to you yet?” She was adding copious amounts of butter and jam to her scone and looking pleased with herself.

  She loved sweet things and Burrows admired her capacity to balance that with remaining fairly trim. He supposed it was the large amounts of energy she put into her work that helped burn the calories. He didn’t see her as the gym type but maybe she was a secret exerciser. Without any concerns for his own weight, he swallowed his mouthful of scone before he answered.

  “Well, now,” he said, “both Bell and Hartnett were interesting to talk to in their own way. I’ll give you a full account later of course but they both have some kind of history with Breen that is not entirely clear.”

  Paton gave him her full attention. She trusted his investigative instincts which had paid off several times in the past.

  “Bell had an inexplicable trust and loyalty to Helen Breen that is at odds with the opinion almost every other member of staff recounted to us. He comes across as a strange fish … somehow otherworldly or old-fashioned or … I haven’t quite managed to figure him out yet. In terms of opportunity it struck me … the night she died he had asked her to cover for him as the senior manager on duty in DePRec. That means that he knew where she would be at a time when others would not be expecting her to be there. He claims he was out and about reviewing political wall paintings and was alone so his story can’t be corroborated. We need to check cameras around the college to see if he may have returned and simply omitted to swipe in. I doubt that security staff, who are used to seeing him about, would really notice him. On top of that, the last evening of term is messy and the unusual is almost expected.”

  Burrows was visibly computing information and Paton was used to his thorough approach and enjoyed seeing the signs of his mind at work.

  “I asked him if he wasn’t surprised that Breen was not in work on the last day of term and he answered very promptly that he wasn’t. He had received an email from her the previous night saying that she had to stay at home during the day, as her mother’s Filipino care worker was unexpectedly unavailable during the day. Bell had no idea that Breen did not live at her official address on the college records. He had accepted her email without question but now the times are not matching up. What we know about time of death doesn’t tally with the victim sending emails after ten o’clock. I’ll check the story out through Woods but it rings hollow to me.”

  Caroline reached for a second scone. “Will you have half of this, Bill, and save me from myself?”

  “OK, go on. We can both feel virtuous. Anyway, what I’m saying is that Bell is still in the loop for me although his behaviour the night the body was located suggested he was genuinely surprised.”

  Caroline nodded. She knew they would visit all this in detail later in the day but could see that Bill was processing and allowed that to finish uninterrupted. “And Professor Janet Hartnett?”

  “Well, she is relatively new. She only took up the post of Faculty Head in September, having been in a college over the water prior to that. She lives in Crawfordsburn in a large property that is shared with her parents. They are getting on in years and she needed help with her young adult son who has quite considerable intellectual disabilities. Anyway, their arrangement suits everybody. She was a few years older than Breen at school. They were not friendly as such but since she has arrived Breen has been quite affable and they had been to lunch a few times. Hartnett was in her office on the Thursday evening and swiped out at nine thirty. She went straight home as her parents like to go to bed early and the son needs constant care. He has some kind of neurological disorder.” Bill swept up some loose crumbs and tipped them into his mouth. “It doesn’t seem, on first reflection, that she would have had time to kill Breen and get away home so quickly … but her earlier relationship with Breen merits a little more investigation. Mairéad Walsh told me that Breen was courting Hartnett’s favour with gusto.”

  Paton nodded in agreement. “We will have a lot to sift this afternoon. The weekend is falling well for us in terms of the college being closed and giving us a few days’ grace before the next meeting with the press on Monday. I have some hope that we can make some real progress over the next few days …”

  Burrows understood from this that they would be working through Saturday and Sunday but he would have expected nothing less.

  There was a knock on the door and Liam Doyle stepped sheepishly into the room.

  “Just give us five minutes, please, Mr Doyle.” Burrows extended his large palm as if stopping traffic. Doyle withdrew. “Let’s have a quick recap on what we know so far about Doyle. I sent a message to Ian to check if there is any sign of Doyle being a visitor to Helen Breen. I want to know exactly what we have on this guy.”

  When Liam Doyle came back into the room, at Burrows’ invitation, his handsome features were pinched and distorted with worry. He sat opposite the two police officers who purposefully left a few moments’ silence before beginning the interview. It was clear from Doyle’s demeanor that he was very much on edge and Paton and Burrows both sharpened their antennae for what might be revealed. They could instinctively sense the potential in the moment.

  Doyle broke the silence with an explosive statement. “I know that I should have come to you myself as soon as I heard of Helen’s death but I was in a bit of a fog and didn’t realise the significance of what happened … I don’t mean what happened to her. I mean what happened to me and how it will look when I explain.” He looked at them with some desperation but neither offered him any relief. “Historically, my family doesn’t have a good relationship with the forces of law and order and I’m sure that held me back from being more insistent about having an earlier appointment to talk to you … I just wa
nt to get on with my job here and not make any waves.” His voice had all but petered out as he tried to justify himself, but Paton and Burrows had let him carry on uninterrupted.

  Eventually Paton spoke calmly, making direct eye contact with Doyle. They had agreed that she would lead the questioning and Burrows would observe.

  “We know that you are the student representative in DePRec, Mr Doyle, and that role has been fully outlined to us by Professor Bell. For the record, he spoke very highly of you and your attentiveness to your role … but that is not what is at issue here, as you know. What we would like to focus on now is your relationship with the late Dr Helen Breen. And as it seems to be the case, when did your connection with her move from a professional concern with student welfare to a more personal liaison?”

  Doyle looked at Caroline Paton as if he was struggling to understand her question or to grasp the context in which it was being asked. “I have always liked her since I did my Master’s here. I suppose since she showed an interest in me and my work. I know that other people don’t … I mean didn’t like her but she was always considerate of my interests. She made me feel as if I was important and she was not known for taking a lot of interest in people. In fact, I think that it was because of her recommendation to Professor Bell that I was offered the post of student rep. She told me that herself. I was very grateful to her and tried to show my loyalty by defending her when her colleagues were critical of her. I said clearly that I supported her in her application for the new professorship. I was on her side so I hope that makes it clear that I would never hurt her.” All of these statements were delivered in a hesitant, emotionless voice. “I was in love with her but we were not lovers. She was in a different league to me. Why would someone like her be interested in an orphan from West Belfast whose parents had blown themselves up planting an IRA bomb? It would have been against all her professional aspirations. She could have been with anyone she liked. You don’t get to be professor by messing around with a student or someone who had just graduated from that role.” His arguments were accurate but not very convincingly made.

  “Some of your colleagues noted that you had become increasingly close in the lead-up to the Christmas break. You were together at the Christmas drinks party … only had eyes for each other apparently. It has been said that your behaviour towards each other the night in Crawfordsburn was overtly sexual.” Paton paused to let that message hit home.

  He looked forlorn. “Sometimes I thought she did like me that way,” he said very quietly. “Like, she sought me out to do stuff with her. Small stuff … carry heavy things out to her car, move furniture, open boxes of books she had ordered and put them on shelves. Help clear up after student evenings when she needed to rush off to look after her mother.”

  Paton and Burrows watched as Doyle revealed the small uses, some of them obviously fabricated, that Breen had put Doyle to and how grateful he was for being the subject of her demands. The familiar grooming process resonated with both of them.

  “I was at her house in Hillsborough a few times and I don’t think she asked people there really. She was a very private person … a mystery in lots of ways. I’ve been thinking about her constantly since I heard the news and I realise I know very little about her.” He faltered. “Like I know very little about her personally. I never met any of her friends and apart from her mother, she didn’t talk about family really. The only photo I saw in her house was of her father but she didn’t talk to me about him other than to let me know he had died suddenly when she was a teenager.”

  “Where were you on Thursday evening, 19th of December, Liam?” Paton enquired whilst turning her pen over and back between her two hands. “Were you in college for the last evening of classes?”

  “No. I should have been here but I was needed at home. I live with my nan and she needs help in the evenings. The woman who usually helps her to bed wasn’t available because of her Christmas work’s ‘do’, and there was only me free. It doesn’t happen very often but I knew that the last evening of the term it was unlikely that there would be a crisis that couldn’t wait until January.”

  Paton intervened. “Who did you let know that you couldn’t be at work that evening? Did you know that Dr Breen was covering for Professor Bell on Thursday?”

  Doyle answered immediately. “It isn’t like that. I don’t really report to anyone. I manage my own time and people know they can email me if I’m not about and I’ll get back to them.” He thought further about the question. “I might have known that Helen was working. She might have mentioned it the night before but it wouldn’t have made any difference. My nan comes first. She raised me after my parents died and I wouldn’t leave her without the help she needs.”

  Burrows fixed Doyle with a steady stare. “I want you to think very carefully when you answer my next question. When did you last see or hear from Dr Breen?”

  Doyle looked bewildered. “I don’t remember if I saw her on the Thursday during the day but I got an email from her on the Thursday evening. It was a bit strange actually and I’m worried about it now that I know what happened.” He looked anxious as he continued. “I would need to check back and see what time I got that. I’m not even sure I kept the email but she asked me to pick up her car keys in the college on Friday morning and drive her car to Hillsborough. She’d left the keys in an envelope in my mailbox in the post room. She said she had to stay at her mother’s unexpectedly on the Thursday and someone was calling at the house early on Friday to collect a laptop that needed repair. I was to go there and let the guy in and she said she would see me there later. I went there as she asked. I let the guy in and he seemed to know what he was at. He collected the laptop and then I waited, and I tried to phone her but she never came and I got a bus home eventually … in the afternoon.” He looked at them as if he was aware of how farfetched this story sounded.

  Burrows furrowed his brow and looked incredulous. “I’m not sure how that all adds up, Liam. Take us through it all again from Thursday afternoon onwards.”

  With the morning’s interviews completed, Paton and Burrows met with McVeigh on his return from Hillsborough for a late and fairly unappetising lunch in the station canteen.

  “I’m not sure, if this was a blind tasting, that I’d have detected either the chicken or the curry element of this dish,” quipped Burrows.

  “Just as well then that your forte is detecting murder and not flavours in haute cuisine,” Paton said with her customary dry humour.

  They all three ate in companionable silence for a few minutes.

  “So we have a lot of catching up to do that will mostly have to wait until this evening when I get back from the Breen household,” Paton then said. “Let’s eat this and then grab half an hour in the office to get a grasp of the basics before we get on with the rest of the day. We have Doyle here being processed for some further inquiries this afternoon and Wilson coming in at three.”

  McVeigh interrupted. “I have a box of stuff to go through from Breen’s house. There are files and photographs that I’d like to make sense of before I share them later.”

  “OK,” said Paton. “So probably best if Bill and I continue with Doyle and Wilson for the moment. While I’m out with the family later on I think the two of you might have a look around Doyle’s house. We have enough to justify a warrant. Then we’ll meet up back here about eight and decide what we’ve got and where we go from here. I am hopeful that by Monday we can begin to see a much clearer picture of this whole affair.”

  The men nodded in agreement while intently chewing large mouthfuls of food.

  “I’m sure I’ll have a number of things to get up onto the shared drive before we meet later,” said Ian, “and the few hours this afternoon would be more than useful.” His head was buzzing with his discoveries from the morning. “I’ll get Doyle’s prints over to forensics to see what sort of matches that throws up from the Hillsborough search.”

  “OK. Let’s hold steady, guys. We have a busy after
noon and evening ahead and we need this small break to rest and replenish the little grey cells. Pudding, anyone?”

  They nodded in unison and DI Paton rejoined the canteen queue to collect three bowls of apple crumble and custard.

  32

  To the DePRec admin manager, it already felt like a very long day. Towards the end of lunchtime, she and Ralph Wilson sat in the corner of the college canteen in deep conversation. A skin had formed on Wilson’s untouched milky coffee and the packet of ham sandwiches in front of him was barely touched. As he wrestled with what he saw as his desperate plight he emitted the occasional whine as if in physical pain.

  Mairéad drew herself up into a more upright posture and breathed earnestly through her nose. “You know, Ralph, this is all quite pointless until the detectives do their job and gather in the evidence. You feel like you’re an obvious suspect but you don’t need to rush ahead always expecting the worst. Lots of colleagues despise each other without resorting to murder. I’m prepared to bet this is about something much bigger than a staffroom tiff.”

  He looked at her from beneath his brows, willing her to be right.

  “Let’s put some faith in Alice Fox,” she said. “She knows what she’s about and she’ll do what she can to help.”

  His hair straggled across his eyes and he pushed it back in exasperation. “I just feel like every way I turn my life is a disaster. My academic work holds little or no influence any more, my home life has crumbled away to nothing but grubby solitude and now I am likely to be a suspect in a murder case. Even from the grave Helen Breen is managing to bugger me up!” He met her gaze. “I don’t know how you can be bothered with me.”

  Before she could retort that he was an utter Drama Queen, his mobile phone rang and he looked at it in alarm.