‘No,’ Jo said. ‘We’ve got to cover this from both ends. Those women are going to help us research the victims. I want six of you to pair off and split the working girls up. One uniform, with one member of the team from the NBCI.’ Jo looked at Jenny Friar. ‘You’re in the first team: I need you to separate the girls who knew Rita personally from those who didn’t, and find out anything you can about what happened to Katie Freeman, and what Rita’s role was. Also, we need to identify anyone else involved in Katie’s abduction.’
Jo turned to Frank Black. ‘You’re in team two. I want you to show all the women Gavin Sexton’s picture to see if any of them recognize him, and in what capacity.’
‘Third team: I want you to establish if any of the women came across any nutters in recent weeks. Remember: our man knows his religion. Keep this to the forefront of your minds. You got that? The good news is that we’ve finally got a hit on Rita’s mobile number, which the computer experts are triangulating as we speak.’ Jo paused and looked around the room. ‘Who did Foxy ask to check out Maura Sexton’s grave?’
A rosy-faced garda put up her hand.
‘How’d you get on?’ Jo asked.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘The grave was untouched. Quite well kept actually.’
Jo sighed. ‘That’s a relief, as it lessens the likelihood of Sexton’s involvement. I’d have banked on our man having some kind of obsession with the dead, especially after Professor Hawthorne’s student’s results. Unless the killer didn’t need to dig them up in the first place . . .’ Jo’s voice trailed away. ‘Now, listen –’
Jo’s phone went off. Foxy’s name flashed up. ‘Excuse me.’
‘Shit!’ she said, after listening for a few seconds. She walked over to Dan and leaned in close to his ear. ‘We’ve got signs of something not right at the Freeman house. Nobody’s home, and the furniture’s been knocked over. Can you get the crime-scene people over there?’
Dan nodded.
‘I’ll be back in an hour.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To the morgue.’
‘Why?’ Dan asked.
‘I’m going to tackle this from the other end. I’m going to research the killer’s point of view. Professor Hawthorne’s technician is doing a research programme on necrophilia. If he’s doing a PhD on the subject, he’s going to be a bit of an expert. Don’t you have to contrast and compare at that level? Either he came across another instance of someone interfering with a body, in which case I want to know who, or he’s using a controlled sample of semen on the bodies, in which case I want to know whose. I want to ask him more about how he sets things up.’
‘Bring a uniform with you,’ Dan said.
‘No,’ Jo said. ‘I want every available spare body at the O2.’
58
‘I last saw Rita outside the Ashling Hotel down near Heuston Station,’ a girl called Kinky Kelly was telling Jenny Friar, ‘about a week before she was killed.’ Kinky smoothed the flyaway hairs on her long, Coca-Cola red wig. The female officer paired off with Friar, who was sitting at the interview table taking copious notes, because the video linkup was on the blink, made the most of the break and shook her cramped hand. Foxy was sitting in the seat beside the door, having inveigled himself in the minute he heard the girl knew Rita. ‘I was waiting for her to finish up business with a punter,’ Kelly said.
Friar frowned, ‘Wouldn’t it have been more enterprising to keep working yourself?’
‘Wha’?’
‘What were you waiting for?’
‘Rita owed me, and I wasn’t taking any chances she didn’t pay up once she got her money, not again. Speaking of which, will I be paid for this?’
Friar stood up impatiently, giving the distinct vibe that this interview was going to be a complete waste of time. Foxy’s presence seemed only to add to her irritation. Friar was clearly sick and tired of answering to Jo Birmingham, and she didn’t mind letting Foxy know it.
‘Pay you?’ she asked. ‘Take it as a bonus that you’ll be allowed to go home after this, as against being charged with soliciting and concealing a crime, for starters.’
Foxy looked startled.
Kinky stretched a string of pink gum from her mouth and, when it snapped, rolled it between her fingers and stuck it under the table. She couldn’t have been any more than in her early twenties, with dark eyes and sallow skin. A sloping scar down her right cheek had put paid to her prettiness.
‘In the questionnaire you filled in, you said you got the impression Rita wasn’t too keen on going with this particular client that you were waiting for her to finish up with. Why was that?’ Friar continued, referring to a sheet of paper.
Kelly gave her a look of contempt.
Foxy walked over to the table. ‘Listen love, so you know, we do have a fund to cover any of your expenses.’ He caught Friar’s eye, and shook his head. ‘We really appreciate anything you can tell us that will help. We need to catch this man before he hurts another woman.’
Friar looked absolutely livid, but before she could say anything, Kinky had started talking again: ‘He’d knocked Rita about the last time, wanted to do some weird stuff, then wouldn’t pay.’
‘What was the weird stuff, do you know?’ Friar asked.
Kinky looked through Friar like she was invisible, and didn’t say anything. With an audible sigh, Friar got up, headed for the door and slammed it behind her.
‘Go on, love,’ Foxy said gently.
‘You know, that strangling shit they’re all into now.’
‘Auto-eroticism?’ Foxy asked.
‘Whatever it’s called. Only he wanted to strangle her, not the other way around. Rita said she’d actually passed out, he got that carried away. Made her wear a strap-on too, the freak. And then he left her there, out in the open. The choking didn’t kill her, but the hypothermia nearly did. He’d used her tights on her neck.’
Foxy knew he wouldn’t find a report on the incident. Working girls didn’t report crime, not as long as the law regarded them as being on the wrong side of it. ‘Where did that happen? Did Rita tell you?’
‘Castleforbes Street. They were building apartments down there at one stage, but it’s just a wasteground now.’
Foxy breathed in sharply. It was exactly where Rita had ended up.
‘Why did she go with him again?’
Kelly rubbed her thumb off her first two fingers. ‘He paid what he owed, up front this time. I already told you – she owed it to me. She had to do it. But she wasn’t taking any chances, so she told him it would have to be in his car this time.’
‘You saw the car. Do you remember the model?’
‘’Course. Silver Skoda. Everyone knocks them cars but that’s what I’d buy if I’d a few quid. They’ve got an Audi engine!’
‘You know your cars,’ Foxy said, smiling kindly.
‘Started an apprenticeship as a mechanic a couple of years ago,’ Kinky explained. ‘I dropped out because I was sick of being skint, but to tell you the truth, if it was me, I’d have preferred to go back to that wasteground where he dumped her the first time.’
‘Why’d you say that?’
‘He’d got this doll thing in the front seat.’ Kinky frowned as she remembered. ‘Closest thing to a real person you ever saw. Proper size, beautiful hair, fully dressed. Expensive designer stuff it was too. It scared the fuck out of me. First I thought it was a woman, then I thought it was a dead woman, then when I asked him what it was, he introduced me to it, like he thought it was alive or something.’
‘Christ,’ Foxy said, scratching the back of his neck.
‘I saw a programme about them once, on the telly,’ Kinky went on. ‘They make them in the States. Weigh nearly as much as a person. Even use real human hair on their privates. If they catch on, they’ll put me out of business!’
It was an attempt at a joke, and Foxy tried to smile.
‘Did I tell you what he called the doll? He said it was the Virgin Mary.
He was having a go at me and Rita. Cheeky sod.’
Foxy breathed in sharply. He needed to get this information to Jo. ‘You talked to him, then?’
‘He pulled up beside me. I thought he was touting, but he only wanted Rita. Said he heard she could get him a little girl. Dirty bastard. Rita said that’s what he said last time too.’
‘Did you know him?’
‘Never seen him before in my life. But I’ll never forget him now either.’
‘Did Rita tell you what happened?’
Kinky shook her head. ‘She was out of it, to be honest.’
Foxy sighed and leaned back in his chair. ‘Thanks, love,’ he said, ‘you’ve been a great help. I want you to talk to an artist before you go, so we can draw up a sketch of the man. You’ll be looked after, don’t worry. You should go back to it – the cars, I mean, and your apprenticeship. It would be a lot kinder than what you’re doing now.’
‘Maybe I will,’ Kinky said, ‘once I kick horse. Can’t do nothing when you’re on it.’
Foxy started for the door. He needed to tell Jo how close they were to the killer. He stopped suddenly.
‘Took down his reg if you want it,’ Kinky was telling the uniform. ‘Rita asked me to. Just in case he hurt her again. If that’s any use. I wrote it down and kept it in my bag.’
She pinched the clasp open. ‘Was it him then? Do you think he killed her? Did he give her a bad time, before she died, I mean?’ Looking worried, she handed the scrap of paper over.
‘Too soon to say,’ Foxy said, taking it. ‘Get yourself clean, then go back to the cars. You got to keep yourself safe – okay?’
He gave a quick victory clench of his hand to the uniform and hurried out the door.
59
Evening was closing in as Jo swung into the morgue’s parking lot, pulling in behind the only other car, a silver Skoda. She was glad to see it, having heard that Hawthorne had gone to help out with the murder suicide case in Donegal. Her calls to him and to the office from the car on the way had gone unanswered. At least someone was working after hours and could give her contact details for Hawthorne’s technician. She wondered how the interviews were going back in the station as she stepped up the metal steps of the first Portakabin and rang the bell. It was the one used by Hawthorne and his assistant as an office. There was no answer. She was heading for the second cabin, situated just behind it, when her mobile started to buzz. Jo answered as something inside caught her eye – a flicker of light from a window of the third Portakabin used as the morgue.
‘Congratulations,’ Dan said in her ear.
‘Go on?’ she said, full of anticipation.
‘We’ve got a match on the DNA found in Rita’s body.’
‘Yes!’ Jo said, feeling a leap of joy. Her mobile started to beep that another call was waiting, but she wasn’t about to cut this one short for anyone. ‘Who is he?’
‘George Whelan, unemployed, father of three, two previous convictions back in the eighties, minor. Sixty-two years old. Will I go on or are you going to come back here to join the team who go and pull him in? This is your moment.’
‘Sixty-two? That can’t be right,’ Jo said.
‘It’s his sperm!’ Dan said huffily.
‘He’s too old. Come on, Dan, you know better than to waste my time.’
Hanging up, she checked to see whose call she’d missed. Foxy rang before she even got the chance to call him back. ‘Don’t tell me you buy the pensioner line too?’ Jo said.
‘What pensioner?’ Foxy sounded confused. ‘Jo, we’ve got our man’s reg!’
The door to the third cabin had opened. Was it the technician? Jo squinted into the light. He looked different. She couldn’t be sure.
‘Can you hear me, Jo? The car our killer’s been using is owned by Ryan Freeman.’
But Jo’s line was dead. Her phone had split apart as soon as she hit the tarmac.
60
Jo woke to the sight of plastic cables pressed against her face – hundreds of lengths, different colours. She tried to blink them away more quickly, but her eyelids felt like they’d weights attached. It was so cold. Her head thumped and her jaw ached. She was biting down on something like gauze that was wedged so tight the strings had cut into her tongue and she could taste blood. There were sounds of dripping water and a slight echo.
Her last memory, of standing outside the morgue and the door opening, hit her. She felt a punch of panic and tried to breathe evenly, hyperaware that she was going to need to have all her wits about her. There was another smell now, one that reminded her of church – frankincense? Jo felt her heart rate quicken again as she realized exactly what had happened. The killer had her, and she knew what he was capable of. She also knew that she was beyond help. Back at the station, the team would be concentrating on the DNA link, bringing the 62-year-old suspect in. It could be hours before they realized she’d gone and came looking for her at the morgue. And was that where she was now?
Think, Jo, think. Work it out. I am lying face down, arms and legs zip-tied together behind my back.
She could hear someone else breathing quietly nearby and turned her head to one side then the other. She was lying on cables, on a concrete floor. Above her the walls of her tomb were concave; it was like being inside a drum. With a supreme effort, she rolled on to her side and looked straight ahead – she was in a concrete tunnel, maybe six foot tall, not much more wide, so dimly lit by intermittent strips of encased light running along the top that visibility was practically nil. She tried to touch her head and felt the robe cut into her wrists. Her jaw began to jerk, no space for her teeth to chatter . . . Where the bloody hell . . . It was so cold.
Ahead of her, the tunnel ran as far as the eye could see, and smelled of a mix of copper and mildew.
Jo rolled back on her front and tilted her head up towards the source of the sound of breathing. In front were the soles of a pair of bare feet, bound, too, to wrists. Sexton was staring at her, willing her to look him in the eye, a gag in his mouth also. His eyes warned her to stay quiet. Jo nodded. She squinted a ‘Who?’, but Sexton had closed his eyes, presumably to indicate it was unsafe to do any more. She could hear something in the background – humming, easily identifiable as a man’s voice, and it was getting louder.
Jo closed her eyes. Sexton was naked, but she was fully clothed and, in the breast pocket of her leather jacket, was an old lighter she’d forgotten about when she’d given up smoking. If it still worked, and if she could get hold of it, it was a weapon, and cause for hope.
Jo concentrated very hard on the tune the killer was humming. What was it? A hymn, or something religious, the mad bastard. And now she also knew what the taste in her mouth was: petrol. There was another sound in the background, more distant, not really a sound, more a vibration travelling down the bolthole. Think, Jo told herself. If it’s from cables, it means we’re probably underground. That means the noise is coming from above, and that it must be very loud to travel this far. She heard the killer’s feet crunching closer and could just make out the sight of the robe, dark brown like a Franciscan’s. He was passing her now, his feet inches from her face. He knelt in front of her and put two fingers to her neck. If she’d kept her eyes open a fraction, she would see who he was, but Jo let them close completely, just like Sexton wanted. The killer was checking her pulse and making sure she was still alive, so he could hurt her like he had hurt the others. If she moved the right way, maybe she could dislodge the gag and sink her teeth into his foot, which was right beside her face. But the look she’d seen in Sexton’s eye stopped her.
The Book of Exodus quote began to replay in her mind because she knew now exactly what the killer was planning for them. An eye for an eye – Stuart Ball; a tooth for a tooth – Anto Crawley; a hand for a hand – Rita Nulty; a foot for a foot – Father Reginald Walsh; a wound for a wound – David MacMahon. That left fire for her and Sexton.
Then Jo understood. The noise overhead, the tunnel shape, the smel
l, wires underneath . . . We’re not in the O2, she realized. We’re under it.
61
Foxy stood in the busy incident room staring at the phone in his hand. ‘Where’s Jo?’ he asked.
Dan was standing over the blueprints – giant white sheets spread over several desks – smoothing the puckers in the folds with the flat of his hand and asking questions of the jittery venue manager of the O2, who looked to be still in his teens and was explaining what they were looking at. Ten members of the Emergency Response Unit stood around him, looking at the maps too, chipping in queries and discussing the access points. The ERU was the only garda elite squad trained and equipped for siege situations, and they were armed to the hilt. Dressed in black combats and swat jackets, they also stood around the table, wearing the trucker caps with the squad’s logo that distinguished them and offset any chances of friendly fire.
Jenny Friar was handing a colour photograph to Jeanie for photocopying. The suspect thrown up by the DNA match was about to be circulated throughout the station.
‘I said, “Where is Jo?”’ Foxy asked, louder.
The incident room suddenly went quiet. Heads turned.
‘The morgue,’ Dan said, his finger still pointing to a spot on the map.
‘But her line’s just gone dead,’ Foxy went on, holding his up. ‘She’s not on her own, Dan, is she? Please tell me right now that you did not let her go to interview anyone on her own.’
‘We are talking about Jo,’ Dan said, this time not bothering to look up.
Foxy banged the phone down. ‘One of the working girls has just nominated a suspect,’ he said angrily. ‘She got his reg. I’ve run a check. The car belongs to the crime reporter Ryan Freeman. His brother-in-law, Walter Kaiser – Angie’s brother – is a named driver on the insurance. Walter works part time in the morgue.’
Dan straightened up. ‘We’ve got a DNA match, Foxy. I want you to concentrate on helping Friar find him and not get sidetracked by some prostitute’s story, okay?’
If I Never See You Again Page 23