‘Is that because I got the grub in, or because I’m still your boss?’ Jo asked.
‘What do you think?’ Foxy asked, putting his arm across her shoulders to give her a reassuring squeeze as she sat down.
She smiled at him, then shrugged him off. She didn’t want any schmaltz in front of this lot.
‘The food of course,’ Merrigan joked.
Jo glanced at Sexton. The shade of his skin suggested that he still hadn’t recovered from watching the autopsy, and he seemed distracted, gazing out of the window at the wide, cobbled street. The area had had a multi-million-euro facelift in the days when there was money for such things, and now sported hotels with marble floors and Art Deco-style interiors. But the horse traders still considered it their first home and converged here with hundreds of horses every month, despite the protests of local businesses and the council.
‘They’ll have told you that old Mrs Nulty is gone AWOL,’ Foxy said. ‘That’s what I was trying to tell you this morning before the PM.’
Jo bit the top off a chip and reached for the vinegar. ‘It’s irrelevant, anyway. I felt something was wrong the second I met her. My gut is now telling me she doesn’t want to be found full-stop.’
Foxy wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin. ‘That’s a big assumption to make, Jo.’
‘You didn’t see her. Hard as nails, she was, and dodging questions left, right and centre. Surely at a time like this, with your daughter murdered, you’d do anything you could to help catch her killer?’
‘We don’t exactly have a good record with solving working-girls’ murders,’ Foxy replied. ‘The last three are still open.’
‘What’s your point?’ Jo asked.
‘I’m just saying that you’ll have to forgive Mrs Nulty if she doesn’t take us at our word,’ Foxy said, dipping a chip in his yolk.
‘Well, I’m in charge now, and Rita’s death will be treated no differently than if she’d been the Irish Country Women’s Association knitting champion, let me assure you,’ Jo said. ‘Sexton, can you concentrate on the interviews with the victims’ families? We’ve linked the victims in death. I want to know how well they knew each other in life. We need to establish why our man’s choosing these particular individuals to display his talents on, as against anyone else. Got that?’
Sexton, who looked unsure about the food in his mouth, gave her a thumbs-up.
‘How’d you get on last night with the working girls?’ she asked him.
‘I got talking to one of them, and she said Rita was working for the Skids,’ Sexton replied.
‘Fantastic,’ Jo said. ‘Now we’ve got three of our four victims linked to the drugs gang. Well done, Sexton. I wonder if we can link Father Reg to them.’ She clicked her fingers as she thought through the implications of what Sexton had told her. ‘That also explains why the coke in the apartment where she was killed was uncut. They hadn’t even mixed it with anything to maximize the profits yet. They trusted her.’
‘Do you think Bible John is a Skid?’ Foxy asked.
‘Not necessarily,’ she said, taking a mouthful of coffee and wincing. It was that instant muck and would leave a bitter aftertaste for the afternoon. ‘Did you find out if Father Reg had any brothers?’ she asked Sexton.
‘No brothers, and no friends resembling a pikey . . .’
‘I’ve been thinking about Father Reg,’ Foxy said.
‘Kinky!’ Merrigan cut in, ripping some salt sachets open with his teeth and scattering salt liberally.
Jo sighed. ‘Go on,’ she said to Foxy.
‘Maybe I’m off the wall, but it sort of struck me as a possibility from the word go. Father Reg ministered in Sheriff Street, right? Maybe Rita came and gave him a confession. Priests swear a vow of silence, don’t they? What if the killer found out Father Reg knew something?’
Jo nodded. ‘It’s possible. The location’s been bothering me from the start. By the way, I contacted the hospital on the way here, and Father Reg’s condition is still touch and go, so I’ve organized protection out there, just in case. We need him to talk to us as soon as he regains consciousness.’
‘Nice,’ Merrigan said, watching a girl walking by in a tight dress.
‘Merrigan,’ Jo said, ‘I want you on the door-to-doors on Sheriff Street with the uniforms. See if you can back up Foxy’s theory and put Rita Nulty in the confessional. And don’t start giving me excuses. Plus, you could do with the exercise.
‘Sexton, I want you to interview Anto Crawley’s wife and see what you can get out of her. Foxy, can you hit the library after this and find out everything you can about the killer’s Bible fixation? This is a personal crusade. If we can find out who he thinks he is, it may help us work out who he thinks his enemies are.’ She stood up. ‘Let’s aim to meet up in the station afterwards to compare notes. We’ve got Anto Crawley’s post mortem first thing in the morning, so we need to be on top of things by then.’
‘Here, what are you going to do?’ Merrigan asked.
‘I’m going to work out why the killer doesn’t like the Skids,’ Jo said, pulling the collar of her jacket up and stepping on to the street outside.
23
Sexton was waiting for Ryan Freeman to show. He was standing around the corner from the derelict harbour warehouse on Sheriff Street where Anto Crawley’s body had been found. The street was a mismatch of squat harbour outhouses and brand-new high-rise office and apartment buildings. Developers had been snapping up derelict harbour outhouses just like the one where Crawley was killed, the kind of places you couldn’t have given away ten years ago – until they couldn’t give them away again. The whole area had an abandoned feel. ‘Office To Let’ signs draped down entire sides of brand-new buildings. When it came to projections about how long the economic recovery was going to take, Sexton reckoned that a head count of the dwindling number of cranes on the quay was proof enough that the politicians were lying.
He kept his head down. It would be just his luck to be spotted deviating from the job Jo had given to him by someone from the station.
He glanced at his watch anxiously. Ryan was late. Sexton rummaged in his pocket for his mobile. If Ryan didn’t come soon, he would never be able to talk to Anto Crawley’s wife and get back for the next briefing.
His friendship with Ryan went way back. They’d gone to the same school and palled around together for a few years afterwards, but they’d lost touch until Maura’s funeral, a year and a half ago, when Ryan came to pay his last respects.
Then, when Katie was abducted, Ryan had asked Sexton to investigate what had happened on the QT, so it wouldn’t appear in the papers. Sexton knew Angie, but he’d never set eyes on the little girl. But as soon as he saw her, he knew he couldn’t walk away, not since he knew Maura had been expecting a little girl. Ryan believed Crawley was responsible for Katie’s kidnapping, and had asked Sexton to show him where he had died.
He clicked his tongue as he hit a wrong digit on the phone’s keypad trying to ring Ryan. He was all fingers and thumbs today. He looked up and down the street again for any sign, gripping the phone tighter as he cleared the number to start again. The rattle of lorries hurtling by wasn’t helping, and neither was the fact that his sinuses were giving him jip and he was in dire need of the hair of the dog. He’d overdone it on the vino again last night, and his stomach was in shit from a staple diet of TV dinners.
‘You’ve got acid reflux,’ a quack had told him on a recent visit, before launching into a lecture about how he needed a biopsy and to start looking after himself but, first and foremost, what he needed most urgently was grief counselling.
‘Just give me the pills,’ Sexton had answered. What he had really wanted to say to the quack was that remembering to eat five portions of veg didn’t register when there was only room in his head for regret. Last night’s flashback had been a particular doozy. It was the putdown he’d delivered to Maura in what would turn out to be their last Christmas together. He’d been moaning on for m
onths about being the only breadwinner and how it was all very well her being a free spirit, but couldn’t she do it after hours? Next thing, she appeared with freckles drawn on her rouged cheeks, wearing a silly costume, and announced she’d got the perfect job, as Santa’s elf in the local shopping centre. He’d flipped, said something like ‘grow up’. He’d gone to watch her at the shopping centre after, staying at a distance so she didn’t know he was there, and had seen the way she’d brought a smile to people’s faces. She’d always had a gift when it came to making people happy. So why was she so unhappy herself?
Sexton felt his windpipe start to burn and rubbed his chest painfully. Hunching his shoulders, he scanned up and down the street again – still no sign of Ryan. He crossed the street to the warehouse, winking at the uniform keeping the cordon as he approached. Together they worked the rusting bolt-lock sideways, clanking the rusting door along on its rollers.
Natural light flooded into the opening, making Sexton wince. Inside was a long, narrow hovel. The brick walls had turned a slimy black from rusty water dripping down the sides; the floor was covered in different-sized mattresses partly littered with broken slates, glass and empty cans. As he took a step inside, the stink hit the back of his throat. It was like a dog’s coat drying.
He groaned, taking a step back.
‘Wait till you see what’s on the back wall,’ the uniform said. ‘I’m going to have to close this door, mate – regulation.’
‘You got a torch?’ Sexton asked.
‘There’s a light on down the back. Keep an eye out for the hypodermics – they’re everywhere.’ The uniform laughed. ‘If the syringes don’t get you, Weil’s disease will.’
Sexton nodded, and tucked his trouser legs inside his socks as he began to pick his steps. The door cranked shut behind him, making the place look even more sinister. An exposed light was throwing out bald light, but patchily.
‘Jesus!’ Sexton stopped as he reached the darkest part of the warehouse. Four metal shackles were set in the wall, the word ‘bitch’ spray-painted in between them. Was this where they’d held Katie? His stomach lurched.
Sexton’s eyes moved to a series of rusting implements. Hooks and serrated edges – shapes that were frightening just to look at – were set in holders along the wall. He walked over for a closer inspection. What had they been used for here? Something brushed his shoulder, and he turned and saw a hand.
He spun, swinging his arm back, fist back.
‘Woah!’ a woman’s voice said.
Sexton’s hand stopped mid-air. It was Jo Birmingham, who was looking as pale and drawn as he felt.
‘You scared the life out of me,’ he said, bending down and putting his hands on his knees.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked him icily.
Sexton took a couple of deep breaths. He wasn’t sure what had shocked him more: the state of the warehouse, or Jo being there. ‘I just wanted to see for myself where Anto Crawley died.’
‘I told you I wanted you to interview Anto Crawley’s other half. You should have cleared it with me first.’
Sexton reached for his Benson and Hedges and offered her one, aware that his hands were still shaking.
Jo noticed too. Taking hold of his elbow, she guided him out of the warehouse and into the bright light outside.
24
Jo was fit to kill Sexton as she led him out on to Sheriff Street, but bar the fraction too long she spent jotting questions for the job book in her notebook, she didn’t give it away. The light had been working inside. Jo wanted to know who’d bother paying the electricity bill in a derelict building being used by junkies as a shooting-up gallery. She made a note to have Foxy action it as a job. The location also had to be highly significant: the street where Crawley’s body was found intersected both Castleforbes Road, where Rita was killed, and New Wapping Street, where Stuart Ball was murdered. She sketched a rough outline of streets, approximating the angles where they met, and placed an X at the points where she estimated the dump sites to be in relation to each other.
Jo looked around her, aware that, beside her, Sexton had sunk his hands into his trouser pockets and was shifting from one foot to the other. He looked wretched – his shirt was creased and there were broken veins under his eyes. But if he thought she was going to let him use that as an excuse . . .
‘Well?’ she said, when she was good and ready. ‘Are you going to tell me what the bloody hell you were doing in there?’
Sexton opened his mouth to answer then turned his head. Jo followed his gaze and saw a man approaching. She knew the face, but it took her a couple of seconds to recognize Ryan Freeman out of context. He was wearing a donkey jacket and had a reporter’s spiral notebook tucked under his arm. He looked a lot shorter in real life than on the telly spouting on about scumbags, and was carrying some weight in his jowls and belly, which hadn’t spread to the rest of his frame, suggesting it was recent. Judging by the hollow look to his eyes, he hadn’t slept properly in a while either.
‘Detective Inspector Birmingham, isn’t it?’ he said, giving Sexton a quick nod. ‘I’m Ryan Freeman, and I’ve learned from a source that you believe Anto Crawley was killed by the same person who murdered Rita Nulty and Stuart Ball.’
Sexton flicked the fag on to the road and stared after it.
Jo looked at Sexton, noting his blank expression, then turned back to Freeman. What possible advantage to the investigation had the motormouth who’d briefed him thought they’d achieve, apart from scaring the public witless and telling the killer it was time to change his modus operandi?
She offered Freeman a stick of gum, which he took.
‘Sick son-of-a-bitch,’ he remarked, staring at the warehouse, as he folded the gum into his mouth.
Jo didn’t know if he was talking about the killer or the victim. ‘You lose someone to crime?’ she asked.
Freeman turned to Jo and shook his head. ‘So, can you give me a comment on the Anto Crawley killing?’ he asked.
Jo sighed. ‘Here’s what I don’t understand. If you’ve got a story, why haven’t you used it yet? What do you need me for?’
Freeman said nothing.
‘Come on,’ she cajoled. ‘Your source is telling you a serial killer is on the rampage. It’s a tabloid editor’s wet dream, isn’t it? You get to go on all the breakfast shows, pull that face you’re so good at – you know, the one of measured fury – the news bulletins run your outraged soundbite, the analysis programmes flash your front page. In two months’ time you’ve got a bestselling book, and a year down the line you’ve a movie contract in the pipeline. You’re seriously expecting me to believe that you care if I confirm it or not?’
‘I don’t. I just thought you’d like the opportunity. And don’t look at me like that. What you and I do is not so very different after all.’
‘You know, my mum used to have this friend, and when she’d call around for a cuppa’ – Jo made a talking mouth with her hand – ‘it was “Such and such has cancer”, “So and so is having their house repossessed”. You know why? Because it made her feel like there were worse things than having four cats for company. Don’t compare what we do. You sell misery to make your readers feel like they’re having a good day.’
‘Funny that,’ Freeman snapped back. ‘Only my auld one used to have a brother. It was back in the fifties, and my uncle, he got himself into trouble for robbing a loaf of bread because he was hungry. Seven years old he was. He got a warning, but he was still hungry and he kept robbing – never the luxury stuff like chocolate, just what he needed to stay upright. Got himself sent to an industrial school for his trouble in the end. He was sodomized by a priest on and off for five years. He developed a stammer and had a lot of problems with incontinence from the damage done to him. When he was got out, he was a headcase, but he went to the bishop and complained. Your lot arrived at his door and threw him in a cell for a night, where he hanged himself. The priest continued to fiddle with little boys until a newspaper
ran his name, his photograph and his address to warn parents.’
Jo hunched her shoulders. He’d trumped her, and he knew it.
‘How about I give you some new information?’ she asked. ‘With quotes.’
Freeman’s eyes widened.
Jo waited till he’d his pen and paper ready then said: ‘As head of this investigation, I want to tell the killer I know he thinks what he’s doing is honourable.’
‘What?’ Freeman asked, looking up from his pad.
Sexton took a packet of Rennies from his pocket and put one under his tongue.
‘We’re dealing with a muti killer,’ Jo answered.
‘Muti?’
‘You know,’ Jo said, waving her hand, ‘the African tribal ritual of harvesting body parts in order to assume the victim’s powers . . . penis for sexual prowess, that kind of thing. The screams of the victim make the muti more powerful.’ She checked to see he was buying it.
‘Penis?’ Freeman said, alarmed.
Sexton nudged the base of his breastbone forcefully.
‘Not yet,’ Jo answered. ‘But it wouldn’t surprise me.’
Freeman pulled out his notebook and wrote something down.
‘You remember the case of Adam – when the torso of a boy was found on the Thames,’ Jo went on, watching Sexton rubbing his chest. ‘Cuts on the body, candles at the scene . . . exactly the same scenario as with our victims, did you know that?’
Freeman shook his head.
‘Off the record,’ she said out of the side of her mouth, ‘we’re examining asylum lists for immigrants from the specific regions of Africa where it’s practiced. But that can be our follow-up.’
Freeman nodded, waved goodbye to her and Sexton then crossed the street and climbed back into his car.
‘What did you tell him that bullshit for?’ Sexton asked, as they walked away from the warehouse.
Jo took a couple of seconds to react. She was still staring at the spot on Sexton’s chest that he’d been rubbing. It had just occurred to her – she knew exactly who the killer thought he was.
If I Never See You Again Page 11