The SOCOs are dusting, taping, photographing. One of them pulls the sheets and bedcovers back in a confident sweep. Another is emptying pieces of laundry into a bag. Bank statements, letters, passport, scraps of paper removed. His computer, keyboard, hard drive are checked, sealed, and carted out of the room. His life, like his body, disassembled, broken down, so that we can find his killer.
The lead SOCO turns to me. “Is there anything in particular we’re looking for, Chief?”
“If you can find a trace of a girlfriend, name or otherwise.” I look around the room, check the electric sockets. A phone charger still plugged in next to the bed. “His phone if you can get it but that’d be the dream, all right. And”—I take a deep breath—“any details pertaining to an old case, the name of Hennessy.”
The SOCO nods; the hood of her suit rustles. She pulls the paper mask at her throat over her mouth and slides open Conor Sheridan’s wardrobe.
I step back out into the hallway. Phone the local station, request a uniform for the door so the SOCOs can work without Jimmy Lynch breathing his hot dog–breath down their backs. When I hang up, I return to the kitchen—living room.
Baz is still on the grease-marked sofa. The words All-Ireland come to me, and I know he’s setting up a little bromance with our man Jimmy, bonding over Gaelic football. It’s all good. If we need to talk to Jimmy again, it helps to have him think Baz gets him. Sees beyond the tattooed neck, the puffy cheeks, the flat nose, and swollen hands broken in the wee hours after a rowdy day on the booze, probably on some other yobo’s face.
When he sees me, Baz stands, holds out a hand to Lynch. “Jimmy, thanks a million, all right.”
The man puts his hand in Baz’s, gives it a reluctant shake, his face set in a grimace, not wanting to touch the hand of any law enforcement officers unless it’s to snap their fingers from their wrists. “Sure, it’s no bother, I suppose,” he mutters.
Baz holds out his card and Jimmy takes it gingerly between his fingers, as if it were a bomb about to go off.
“Anything else come into your head about Conor, even if it seems like it’s nothing, gives us a call, right?” Baz says.
“Right you are,” Jimmy replies with a good deal of awkwardness.
“Grand. See ya.”
“There’s an officer on the way to help out with the investigation. He should be here in a couple of minutes,” I say. Lynch’s mouth twists, and I can see the objection forming on his lips. Before he can speak I say, “Thank you, Mr. Lynch,” then walk out of the flat into the sickly stink of the stairwell.
Down on the street, Baz folds himself into the car. “He says he has an alibi for the fifteenth and nineteenth of August. He’s given me his time sheet. I’ll check with his work. But he gave it up easily enough.”
“Fuck.” I chew the tip of my nail. “He’s given us the economy seats on his flatmate though, lots of filler. He seems way too calm about the amount of locks on Conor’s door. They’d been living together for half a decade then suddenly your roomie has enough metal on the inside of his room door to sink the Titanic? I don’t think he would have been all, it’s your room, mate, each to his own?”
Baz pulls on his seatbelt. “So they might have had it out a bit, so what?”
“Not that they had it out. But maybe it wasn’t just anyone Conor Sheridan wanted to keep out of his room—maybe it was Jimmy himself? It would explain why Conor locked it during the day. Why the heavy locks on his room but a flimsy bolt on the front door? Whatever happened or whatever the reason, it only started five months ago.” I turn the key in the ignition; I don’t need to add that five months would’ve been just before Seán Hennessy got out.
CHAPTER 16
BY THE TIME I get back to the office, it’s knocking on six P.M. On the way back from Lynch’s, I left Baz off at his flat for food, a shower, and a change of clothes, then I took a taxi back to town. The team at the office look harassed and tired but the air in the room is filled with an intense concentration. Someone has added Hennessy’s case to the board, establishing a possible link. I wince when I see it; Clancy is not going to be a fan of that. The windows have been cranked open, and the buzz and holler of Dublin city is whistling through the heat of the room. Keith Hickey is leaning against the partition at Helen’s desk, mouthing off about the big box of nothing they scraped from Sheridan’s car.
Conor Sheridan’s computer and hard drive have arrived ahead of me and are wrapped in plastic next to Steve’s station. But there’s no Steve. Emer Kelly sits at his desk, pale but bright-eyed and huffing at whatever mess he’s left her with. Emer is our assistant forensic computing expert. Although we try not to use the title “assistant” to her face.
“Steve had an emergency.” She makes air quotes around the word emergency.
“Emergency?”
“Toothache.” She turns back to the desk, scans the debris of his work, picks up a half-drunk energy drink with two fingers and drops it into a nearby bin.
She glances up. “You look like the dead.”
Emer’s not one to let authority get in the way of an opinion. I like her.
“Thanks. It’s been a day. Anything new on the CCTV from the car park and Sheridan’s movements?”
She flicks a few keys and brings up a hazy shot of Fairview car park. It’s dark. Two streetlamps throw dull yellow light on the scene. Wide puddles shine across the dark tarmacadam. There’s a couple of vehicles parked in the spaces closest to the shop but one car sits alone off to the side. Impossible to tell the color, maybe blue, certainly dark.
“This is Sheridan’s car,” she says. “No movement in the past week, a Nissan Sunny, old, like, ’94 reg.”
She rewinds the footage then plays it. Conor Sheridan gets out of his car. He keeps his head low, shoulders high, a protective posture against thin rainfall. He’s dressed in dark trousers, possibly jeans, a pale or gray sweater, black T-shirt poking out at the neck and down over his jeans. Trainers on his feet. No suit.
“Go back,” I say, and she rewinds the recording.
Conor Sheridan pulls into the car park. Slowly. No rush. He gets out. Pats down his pockets, finds his wallet. He locks the car. Then turns and heads into the shop. The clock in the corner ticks on. Emer speeds up the film and after ten minutes he exits, a shopping bag in his hand.
“You can’t get any closer on the bag?”
“We tried and no. It pixelates. Helen is working with the staff to see if we can get the contents. A receipt or something. So far, nothing.”
Halfway on his return to the car, Conor Sheridan stops. He takes out his phone. Holds it to his ear. He looks out over the car park, his elbow high, his face partially illuminated by the light of the phone.
The call finishes. He turns away from the car, walks, more speed this time, toward the car park exit, the bag hitting his legs, twisting at the handles as he goes. He turns right and disappears out of the frame. I remain glued to the screen, but nothing else comes. He doesn’t return. People come and go from the shop, get into cars, drive away, not knowing that a dead man walking has breezed by them.
“That’s it?”
“The store has CCTV here.” She indicates one of the lampposts. “It points toward the shop door. Steve was working on it to see if he could pick up a reflection perhaps, but apart from him exiting the shop, he got nothing. However, I had a closer look.” She throws me her best patronizing smile.
She keys in more instructions and another field of vision appears on the computer. The shop-front lit up. The automatic doors slide closed and she pauses the recording. She waits. Waits for me to see what she’s seeing. Sheridan’s reflection in the shop window. Less than a silhouette but it’s there; the white of Sheridan’s shopping bag first, then his shadow. His arm is up, as if he’s waving to someone. A car, a blur of golden light and darkness, captured on the glass front of the store. Another fragment of Conor
Sheridan’s last moments.
I study the shape of the car. There’s no way to tell who’s driving; all that’s visible to my eye is a slumping shadow.
Emer is studying my face. “If I zoom in and improve the quality of the image, I might be able to get the make of the car.” She shrugs. Tiny shoulders shift beneath her sweater. No promises but likely. “I can run some measurements around the image. Wheel hub height. The angle of the front lights”—then pointing to the rear of the car—“the back.” She returns to the mouse, clicks play. “Watch him,” she says, and she means Conor Sheridan’s reflection.
She plays the video, staggers the frames. They jump forward slowly and again I focus on the glass front of the shop. My eyes pick up the image quicker than they did before, now that I know what I’m looking for, and I see Conor Sheridan raise his arm, the shopping bag like a white flag in his hand. The car slows briefly then speeds off again. I feel a stirring of excitement. Whoever is driving that car could be Conor Sheridan’s killer.
“You think you’ll be able to get a car make from that?”
She replays it, her face intent. “Maybe.”
I frown down at the screen. “Keep at it; if you need other resources then let me know.”
“Why would I need other resources?” she asks.
“Right,” I say. “Good. Also, I want to know who Sheridan phoned before he went into the shop. I’m going to work from home this evening. I’m on my mobile.”
She gives a gentle tip of her head in acknowledgment then turns back to her screen.
* * *
—
I PUSH OPEN THE DOOR of my flat. Drop my bag on the floor inside the door. It’s cold but quiet and empty, and I’ve never felt more grateful. I kick off my shoes, shrug out of my coat, then fold it over the back of one of the chairs at the breakfast bar. I move to the kitchen, flick on the kettle, and check the fridge. The date on the milk says last week sometime but it looks okay. I unscrew the top, sniff it, then regret it. I carry it to the sink and empty the carton down the drain then turn off the kettle. I eye the wine rack. Two cheap bottles of red and a nice Sauvignon. I put the white in the freezer then check the heating, swearing silently at the fact that it’s August and I need to turn up the thermostat.
It takes a half hour or so for the flat to warm, and I spend my time under a throw on the sofa, the TV murmuring quietly across the room, some tame crime drama playing out. The on-screen detectives dour and serious, stringing together their cases with outrageous budgets and tech and a killer that anyone in an armchair could pick out from the get-go.
I take up my phone, scroll through my last message from Baz.Jimmy Lynch’s alibi is solid. His time sheets verified; three different colleagues attested to his presence at work. The sensation of this case sliding out of my grasp is sickening. Every lead turns to dust before we can get a hold. I sigh, throw down my phone, then reach out to the coffee table where a printout of the Clontarf Gazette displays Conor Sheridan’s article on the Hennessys. The date on the newspaper, August 14, 1995. There’s a small thumbnail picture of Conor next to his name. The image—a half-profile shot, eyes downcast as if he’s contemplating something serious—is a little too staged. I wonder did Jane take the picture for him, direct him into a pose that seemed right for a journalist.
I put down the paper again and let my eyes close. The sound of traffic on the street outside is a soothing, gentle thrum and I can feel sleep reaching through my body. Conor Sheridan’s face plays on my closed lids, at first smiling then stiff and cold. Dead.
I wake to the buzz of the doorbell, my neck aching, my heart jumping in my chest. I straighten and look down at my phone but the screen is blank. I get up, go to the intercom, press the answer button.
“It’s me,” Baz’s voice comes through the speaker. “Let me in.”
I push the button and unlatch the door then remembering the wine in the freezer, I go to the kitchen to retrieve it.
He comes in, a bag of takeaway in one hand and another bottle of wine in the other. He closes the door with his foot then joins me in the kitchen, setting the takeaway on the breakfast bar.
“Chinese?”
I reach up to the cupboard, remove two glasses. “How do you know I haven’t eaten?”
He snorts, reaches across me to the fridge, and opens the door, nods at the barren shelves. “Thought so. You manage to find a recipe that makes a meal out of nothing yet?”
“Very funny.”
He returns to the bag, removes what looks like enough takeaway to feed the entire Bureau, and sets about opening them. “Even got fortune cookies.”
“Please, no.”
We move to the coffee table. I pour the cold white then throwing a cushion down, I sit cross-legged on the floor. Baz passes me a plate then helps himself to noodles and beef and tucks in happily.
“So, Healy’s in custody,” he says between mouthfuls. “Thought I’d let him sit awhile inside.”
“He say anything when you picked him up?”
“Nope, quiet as a church but I’m not making the same mistake I did last time, letting him think he’s got the control here. Let him sweat it out in a cell overnight and see if he’s still up for picking and choosing what he tells us tomorrow.”
“Healy definitely knows more than he’s let on but I still feel he’s managed to walk into this drama rather than being the orchestrator of it.” I scoop up a spoonful of rice; it’s sweet, mixed through with egg, peas, and onion. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I started eating. I load more of it onto my plate then take a drink of wine.
“Until we get more from him, we can’t say that for certain and I’m not having some self-righteous priest thinking he’s above the law; those days are gone,” he says and pauses, refills his glass. “But I know what you mean. It’s all a bit obvious, isn’t it?”
I nod, my mouth full. After a moment I say, “One of the victims dressed in priest’s vestments. The scene at the church. If I were Healy and had murdered the Shines, I wouldn’t lay out my victims in my own church, a few hundred feet from where I live.”
Baz wipes his mouth with a paper napkin, takes up his wineglass. “Well, I’ve done a little digging on our man Healy.”
“This sounds good.”
“As he says, he’s been with St. Catherine’s a couple of years. He was moved on from his last diocese, which was in Limerick, would you believe? And I thought, that’s a bit of a shift, isn’t it?”
“It happens.”
“Yeah, especially when there’s a concern about the priest in question. Turns out our Healy is not as celibate as the church likes their priests. Turns out he’d been seeing a few of the women in his last parish; husbands found out and he was pulled out of there before he could even get his zipper up.”
I push my plate away. Lean up against the wall and stretch out my right leg. The muscles tighten and I massage the stiffness away then take another drink of wine, feel it warm my limbs.
Baz watches the movement but doesn’t say anything.
“Well that certainly fits in with the character we know. Cultivating relationships with married women.”
“Exactly,” he says.
Sheridan’s newspaper article is lying on the floor beneath the coffee table.
He picks it up and holds it out. “How are we doing on the Hennessy connection?” He carries on before I can answer. “A guy writes an article about the Hennessys and seventeen years later, he’s murdered for it?”
I sigh. “Perhaps I wouldn’t be so fixated on it if I wasn’t looking through the files for Tanya.”
“Or if it wasn’t for Hegarty’s pushing. Or Clancy’s sidestepping?”
Despite the wine, I feel a prickle of defensiveness on Clancy’s behalf. “He’s under a lot of pressure.”
“We all are,” Baz replies, a sulk in his voice.
�
��Seán Hennessy might not have killed his parents,” I say suddenly.
Baz sets his plate to the side, looks across the table at me. “Oh?”
“Mistakes were made.”
Understanding widens in his eyes. “So, John Hennessy killed his wife after all. Tried to kill his daughter. They put away an innocent man. Not even a man, a child!”
I shrug, swirl the wine in my glass, throw the remainder down my throat. “The sister’s testimony is the only thing left that says otherwise.” I feel the past swell behind me, Bríd Hennessy, Seán, and the inevitable terror that awaits them. I search for a change of subject so the dead aren’t walking around our conversation. “How’s the lodger? Adrianne?”
“Driving me nuts. We now have a group fund. In my own flat. She says it’s for household necessities, like dish soap.”
I laugh and feel the case lift a little from my shoulders. “That’s organized.”
“I barely even use the stuff.”
“That might explain a lot.” He snorts at that. “She’s attractive,” I tease.
He shoots me a hard look then, “If ever there was a time when the phrase ‘looks aren’t everything’ applied, this is it.”
I look at the empty bottle of wine and contemplate the hangover that awaits me tomorrow. Neither of us speak for a while; my eyes drift to the window, where I’ve neglected to pull the curtains and the winking lights of the city play out in the distance. I get up, collect the empty meal cartons, and take them to the kitchen.
“She’s not my type,” Baz says suddenly.
“I don’t think detectives get to have a type.”
He nods, finishes off his wine. “You mind if I crash here? I shouldn’t drive.”
“I’ll get the spare sheets.”
* * *
—
RYAN WALKS THROUGH the office door. He unhooks a leather satchel from over his head.
“Got not one but two angles of footage from your man down at the chippie. Tony,” he announces.
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