No Turning Back

by Sam Blake

  The more Cathy watched her, the more she was sure Mira thought she had it all worked out. And she had, almost. But under pressure, she’d made one mistake. At least Cathy prayed she’d made one mistake.

  ‘You could be right, Mira. But our forensic team in the technical bureau is analysing the envelope that was found in Lauren’s pocket as well as the note itself. Rather surprisingly, as well as being typed, it appears to have been wiped clean of fingerprints.’

  Mira stared at him like she didn’t care, her face bored.

  ‘But the bureau isn’t just looking at the ink on the note, they are also looking at the flap on the envelope. Instead of slipping it inside, someone licked it closed. Which means there will be conclusive DNA evidence that will tell us who has handled that envelope.’

  Mira’s face froze. She was a good actress but very few people could mask extreme shock. And it looked to Cathy that that was exactly what she was feeling. As she realised the implications her smugness evaporated and she looked a lot like she was about to vomit.

  They had her. It was just a question now of waiting for the forensic results.

  Chapter 48

  Wednesday, 11 a.m.

  Cathy couldn’t resist a grin as she leaned on the windowsill in O’Rourke’s office the next morning. Yesterday had been a long intense day and she wasn’t due in until four this afternoon, but O’Rourke had suggested she come in mid-morning instead and go home early while the rest of the team cross-checked the various statements they had gathered. Calling together everyone who had been in last night, O’Rourke had brought them up to speed on their interview with Mira, and word had travelled fast that they had made an arrest. When Cathy had come in, the whole mood of the station had gone up a notch.

  A warrant had been granted for Mira’s mobile phone records. Cathy had a feeling they’d make interesting reading.

  O’Rourke sat down at this desk. ‘So . . .’ He paused but he didn’t need to continue.

  She finished the sentence for him. ‘Now we need to find out exactly what happened to Tom.’

  ‘We certainly do.’ O’Rourke pursed his lips. ‘Orla Quinn is calling me at least twice a day about it. We’re not the only ones who want to know.’ He paused, ‘I’d love to be a fly on the wall in that house at the moment, I’m sure the air is quite colourful.’ He continued, ‘So Traffic aren’t convinced that it was Quinn’s jeep that hit him. The damage isn’t consistent with hitting a person – there’s nothing significant enough to confirm that it has been involved in a hit-and-run.’

  ‘But we do still have blue metallic paint from a BMW.’

  He frowned. ‘What did Quinn call the colour of his cars?’

  ‘Estoril blue.’ To match my eyes – how could she forget?

  ‘Colour-wise it’s definitely a match for his vehicles. The lads are going through the database to find all the metallic blue BMWs in this area, all models.’

  ‘That could be a lot.’ Cathy winced inwardly as she said it.

  It would take hours to go through every single one. The only blue BMW they had on CCTV so far was Conor Quinn’s jeep, although throwing the net wider in terms of time frame might produce another vehicle.

  ‘You said it. Half of south County Dublin has a Beemer. Let’s hope they aren’t all blue.’ He cleared his throat. ‘The lab is crossmatching makes and models with the sample they have. There are a couple of layers of primer before the colour coat, then a clear coat on top, apparently. Different factories use different combinations. It’ll take a while longer before they have enough info to help us narrow the search.’

  ‘I hope you’ve got an alibi for Thursday evening, you drive a blue Beemer too.’ She grinned as he shot her a withering look. Cathy looked at her boots, turning over the information they had in her mind. ‘Karen said that Tom mentioned Lauren’s video, that he was going to sort it out. Do you think he knew who made it? That his death could be linked to that?’

  ‘Discovery Quay is the main thing connecting our case with the ones in London, and those cases in Paris and Long Island. Someone’s out there killing people. If Tom had any inkling who it might have been, it could put him in a very dangerous place. I’ve had Tom’s fingerprints sent over to the guys in London ahead of our meeting. They’re going to liaise with the French and the Americans to check everything.’

  ‘Do you think Tom was involved, that he could have been the killer?’

  ‘Who knows. He comes from a media background, he could easily have been involved in the websites, and he travelled a lot. He had the money to invest in building that type of platform. When we get to London we can take a proper look at what they’ve got on their victims, see if we can spot any links to here.’ O’Rourke picked up his pen. ‘Can you get over to that lad who lives opposite Dillon’s Park this afternoon and get a full statement from him about the woman he saw going into the park? I’m going to chase up the boys in the bureau and see how they are doing with the printer ink. Get back here when you’re done and we’ll see where we are on Tom.’

  ‘Consider it done.’

  ‘We need to check the dates those attacks took place abroad. I was going to get Marie to check with Orla during her liaison visit, but I think we can spare her our suspicions for now and cross check his passport instead.’

  ‘He might not have told her he was going.’

  O’Rourke looked up. ‘Good point, it’s not something you advertise, is it? And those murders appear to have been planned. The girls had their webcams hacked first and somehow the killer found out where they lived.’

  ‘Stalked them.’

  ‘Very likely.’

  *

  Cathy hadn’t expected the lad who had seen the woman going into the park to be home when she called, but he was still struggling with his applied maths, had taken a day’s study leave. And he’d turned out to be incredibly helpful; he had described Mira perfectly, as well as the golden retriever with her. Cathy had been very careful with her questions. There was a possibility they’d need him to come to an ID parade and she couldn’t risk leading him in any way. She’d played it cool, couldn’t show him how important his evidence was, but she’d wanted to punch the air as she’d left the house and headed for the patrol car that had swung past to pick her up.

  It was late afternoon by the time Cathy pushed open the back door to the station, bumping straight into Starsky as she did so.

  ‘Got a syndicate running on the Lotto, you in?’

  Cathy didn’t gamble as a rule, unless she was very, very sure of the results, but if a syndicate was running in the station there was no way she was going to miss it.

  ‘You doing it now?’

  He nodded. ‘Shit could hit the fan later and if I don’t get to the newsagents, then our numbers come up?’ He rolled his eyes.

  Cathy burst out laughing. That was one way of becoming the most popular guy in the station. She rooted in her jacket pocket for change, dropped it into his hand.

  ‘Count me in.’

  He vanished into the yard as she headed up the stairs. They were a good bunch in Dun Laoghaire; she’d miss them if she moved to the ERU. That wasn’t an if. She was going somewhere – she just hoped to God it was the ERU.

  O’Rourke was on the phone when she arrived in his office. He waved her in and held his fingers to his lips.

  ‘Thanks, Rob, we’ll check everything out this end. Keep in touch.’ He put the phone down. ‘How’d you do with the lad?’

  ‘All done. I think he’ll be good for an ID parade. We’ve got Ronan Delaney’s statement as well that puts her in the jeep, and the CCTV, so we might not need it.’

  ‘Good. I’s dotted, T’s crossed, that’s what we need.’ He paused. ‘So that was Rob Power in New York.’

  Cathy leaned forward in the chair, her eyebrows raised. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Anna Lockharte was on to him. He’s very concerned about her. She thinks Xavier Ayari has been following her. Ayari’s emailed her, keeps appearing. He’s spooking her.�
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  ‘Why didn’t she say anything?’ Cathy had thought she had a good rapport with Anna Lockharte.

  ‘She’s worried she’s overreacting. Her whole experience in Paris has left her badly scarred. Rob said she’s really not good with French-speaking Muslim men.’

  Cathy thought about it for a moment and could see Anna’s problem. She didn’t know if the Ayaris were Muslim but they looked like they might be.

  ‘Do you think he’s involved?’ Cathy sat back in the chair, frowning. ‘Xavier Ayari, I mean. The Ayaris keep popping up. I checked his brother Olivier’s statement. He was a friend of Tom’s, said Tom had talked a bit about Karen Delaney, about working for her, but he didn’t say anything about them being in a relationship.’ She tapped her fingers on the desk. ‘According to his statement he was in the library all that Thursday evening. They’ve a digital pass system so he would have been logged in and out.’

  ‘I think we need to do some checking. Rob says he’s drawn a blank so far on the Ayari family in Paris. He’s still looking.’

  ‘They must have come from somewhere. Maybe they’ve still got relatives in Tunisia, isn’t that where Anna Lockharte said the family was from originally? It was a French colony, wasn’t it?’

  He nodded slowly, looking thoughtful. ‘If they paid for that science block, they must be very wealthy, which means they could be anywhere. We’ll put out all the feelers, see what we turn up.’

  ‘Anna said their company is registered in the Caymans. They are probably domiciled there as well.’

  ‘Very true. Let’s see what Rob Power can turn up there.’

  ‘I think we need to have another chat with Olivier, and his brother too, by the sounds of things.’

  O’Rourke nodded. ‘Give them a call. And check in with Frank on Mira, I think we’ve got all our ducks in a row but I don’t want her to slip out of the frame because we missed something.’

  Chapter 49

  Wednesday, 6 p.m.

  The gym was busy when Cathy got there. Even though she hadn’t done a full shift, it had been a long day going over all the interviews, checking and rechecking. One of those days when everyone you needed to talk to had their phones switched off. She’d been up to O’Rourke about four times to see if she could just grab a car to go out to find the Ayari brothers, but driving around the city or wandering around Trinity wasn’t a good use of her time. They needed to get the file on Mira ready for the Director of Public Prosecutions.

  She felt like she’d left messages everywhere. Conor Quinn had vanished off the face of the planet, perhaps understandably given the circumstances. When she’d called Orla to see if he was at home, she’d never heard anyone so angry. Which was also understandable. It wasn’t that she’d cried or shouted, Cathy had seen that many times. Orla was different, the exact opposite of the wronged wives or grieving parents she’d met before; she’d been so quiet, so focused, she’d been almost frightening. And Cathy didn’t scare easily.

  She didn’t fancy Conor Quinn’s chances right now.

  She could understand it though. On top of Mira’s arrest, Marie, their family liaison officer, had dropped Tom’s effects out to Orla that morning, just as Karen Delaney had arrived to help her plan Tom’s funeral, apparently. There was little more disturbing than being presented with a loved one’s life in a cardboard box. Their phone, their jewellery, the contents of their pockets. Cathy could still hear Orla’s words: ‘You need to find out who did this. I won’t rest until whoever it is pays. I’m going to make absolutely sure of that.’

  Cathy was quite sure she would. Whatever happened with the State’s case, Cathy could see Orla Quinn hiring the best lawyer in the country and taking out a private prosecution. Cathy was starting to feel like Orla Quinn was somebody she really didn’t want to cross.

  She reminded Cathy of a mother grizzly who would do anything for her cubs.

  But at least Orla had Karen to help her through it all though. Cathy had winced slightly at the thought of the two women together, but at least both of them had loved Tom, even if it was in different capacities. And more importantly, he’d loved them.

  When Cathy had finally left the station, she’d felt dissatisfied and irritable.

  And the gym was busy, which made her worse.

  Six o’clock during the week was pretty much peak time at the Phoenix Gym for anyone who worked a normal nine to five sort of a job. She usually tried to avoid it, but Cathy knew if she didn’t go now she wouldn’t get a long enough session in. Through the glazed wired door from the changing rooms she could see McIntyre over in the corner running a children’s class, tiny boys and girls in Phoenix T-shirts throwing punches at each other. It made Cathy smile. She’d started boxing when she was ten, had loved every minute of it. It taught you co-ordination, balance, and gave you confidence as well as keeping you fit.

  McIntyre raised his hand as she pushed open the swing doors and grabbed a skipping rope from the wall. She’d hoped to meet Sarah Jane here, but after their session the other night, Sarah Jane’s shoulder was still aching. She’d been studying all day in the library in Dublin City University and by the time Cathy had called, she was back at home and in the middle of taking her painkillers. A gym session really wasn’t the best idea, much as she would have loved to have joined Cathy.

  Cathy started skipping, the rope whistling through the air as she found her rhythm, running the case through her head. Thirsty had spent the day working through the forensic findings from the scene in Dillon’s Park. With a strong suspect in Lauren’s murder, the process was different. He was looking for matches, forensic evidence that confirmed contact with the victim.

  And they still had a ton of CCTV to go through, looking at the many possible routes that a vehicle could have taken to reach the site of Tom’s accident.

  As Cathy’s feet pounded on the polished boards of the gym, jumping rope, she began to feel better. From the moment Mira had passed back her notepad in the interview room, with the misspelling on it, Cathy had known that they’d found Lauren O’Reilly’s killer.

  Even without their physically having Lauren’s phone, the typo in her text reduced the level of reasonable doubt significantly. They still needed to put her at the scene, to connect Mira directly with Lauren. But Cathy was sure they would.

  Locard’s exchange principle stated that every person who entered or exited a location added or subtracted material from that scene. If Mira had been there, there would be trace evidence. The key would be proving that she was there at the crucial time. Whichever way you looked at it, this one was tough. Just because her footprints were on the path didn’t mean she’d been there at the same time as Lauren. Just because there were dog hairs on Lauren’s coat that matched the Quinns’ dog – assuming they did – it didn’t mean Mira had met Lauren at all, just that the dog had. But the more people who insisted Lauren had never been to the Quinns’ house increased the likelihood that she had met them both in the park. And even if Mira claimed Tom had given Lauren the note, finding a plausible reason why she, Mira, had licked it closed would take some doing.

  ‘How’s it going, girl? You wearing a hole in my floor?’

  McIntyre’s voice brought Cathy back to the gym. She had been so preoccupied she had no idea how long she’d been skipping.

  She stopped. ‘Sorry, I was miles away.’

  ‘Big case?’

  ‘Complicated.’

  McIntyre put his hand up for a high-five, the army tattoos covering his toned arms dark under the bright lights of the gym. He was in incredible shape despite his age. That’s why everyone called him The Boss. You did what you were told when Niall McIntyre said it. He looked at her, a twinkle in his blue eye.

  ‘You’ll be grand. You can do anything, girl.’

  Cathy knew he was talking about her upcoming fight. She had one chance to prove she was back on top and the National Championships were it. It was a constant at the back of her mind. Everyone in the station knew how much she’d wanted the profi
ler job, how she was working her arse off to get a first in her Master’s. There had been unified disbelief as the promotion list had been passed around. Now they were all rooting for her for this fight, had a sweepstake going on the QT. She wasn’t supposed to know about it but Fanning had managed to let it slip.

  Their support made all the difference, but you could never get complacent, never assume you were going to win, no matter who your opponent was. Anything could happen on the day. Kick-boxing was a bit like her day job – every piece of information gave her an edge. And in every free moment Cathy had been studying Jordan Paige’s form, watching YouTube videos of her previous fights, looking for weaknesses. And Cathy was sure Paige was doing the same for her.

  ‘So any news for me?’

  McIntyre crossed his arms, watching her as she went over to the low wooden bench. She’d thrown her kitbag down there earlier. She pulled out a towel and a bottle of water, and took a swig. Despite her best efforts there was little she could hide from him.

  ‘The ERU inspector called O’Rourke. They want me for interview.’ His arms still crossed, McIntyre raised his eyebrows. ‘And I have to go to London tomorrow afternoon, so I’ll miss training, but I’ll make it up.’

  He took both pieces of information in his stride. ‘You did a good job with the ERU before. They should want you, you’re perfect for them.’ He thought about it for a minute, grinned at her mischievously. ‘And keeping on top of your fitness in that job is paramount. So when you win the Nationals you’ll have more time to train for the Europeans.’

  Typical McIntyre – and there she was thinking maybe she’d actually have time for a social life. Her mind flicked back to O’Rourke. They were going to London together and he wanted her to come down to see him when he was settled in Limerick. The London thing meant they’d be on their own, but they were still working together. If she went down to see him in Limerick they wouldn’t be, and that was a different thing altogether. But she didn’t have time to think about it now, McIntyre was already pulling out the pads.