The Killer in Me

by Olivia Kiernan

  The beam from the torch slices through the darkness. I round the corner of a container. Ahead a narrow path. More containers, rusted yellows and oranges. He can’t be far. Baz can’t be far. And then on the other side, the scuffle of feet. A groan. I hear Baz swear then a loud crash; the dull thud of thick metal. I hurry toward the sound. Find Baz on the ground. I scan the area, look for our hostile. But he’s gone. Run off into the darkness.

  I squat down. Move the light over Baz’s face. “Who?”

  “I didn’t see,” he pants. “He hit me from behind.” He raises a hand, rubs the back of his head. When he brings his hand away it’s bright with blood. “Looks worse than it is; gave my ribs a good kicking though.” He doesn’t look up at me, his eyes down. In the torchlight I can see the pallor of his face. Lips dry. Eyes tight with pain. “Do you mind not shining that fucking thing in my eye,” he snaps.

  I lower the torch. “Sorry.”

  He tucks a foot under him, pushes upright, his hand pitched against his side. A low groan squeezes out from his throat. He stands for a moment, testing his breathing, his head down. Finally, he glances up, looks at me. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap.”

  “I’ll live,” I reply.

  His mouth lifts into what could be a smile but looks like a grimace. “Fucking fucker,” he says, limps sorely toward the fallen crowbar, then with some effort reaches down and takes it up.

  “He came from back there.” I indicate over my shoulder.

  I lead us back. Watchful for any movement among the corridors of containers. Not wanting to be hit again. Baz was lucky to get away with a few slaps. And our assailant is lucky our trigger fingers are out of practice. We find a container on the perimeter of the yard. It stands alone. A generator at the back end hums quietly into the night, the sound easily swallowed up by the thrum of the port. A stiff breeze lifts the hair from my forehead, sends cold down my neck.

  “This has to be it. I’ll call it in, get a cordon set up,” I say to Baz. His head wound is bleeding into his shirt. Hand gripping his side. “You need to get seen by a doctor.”

  “No way.” He tries to straighten but only manages a pathetic lift of his left shoulder. “I’m not leaving until I see the inside of this thing.” He leans down on his knees, looks up at me. “He could still be here.”

  I look out into the darkness. “He’s gone and I’m not having you bleed all over my crime scene. As soon as a vehicle arrives, I’m sending you back with them.”

  I make the call and we wait for the team to arrive. Baz eases down onto the damp ground against one of the containers, draws his knees up, and rests his head on his arms.

  The first gardaí cars arrive within the half hour, by which time I’m pacing over and back to keep warm. Baz gets up, but despite the cold, he seems to move easier.

  “I’ll see you back at the office,” he says, the sulk pulling on his face and thick in his voice. He follows a guard back out through the containers.

  * * *

  —

  KEITH’S BLUE BERLINGO pulls up at the edge of the cordon. He gets out of the van and opens the back. I hold on to my patience. Hand tight around the crowbar. I’m desperate to get into the container but we can’t compromise the process of collecting evidence. So I wait, wait while Keith chats to every uniform about. Wait for him to collect his tools. He pulls on his suit; the SOCO with him does the same. Then finally taking two holdalls of equipment from the front seat, they duck beneath the outer garda cordon and step through the wire fence.

  “Detective Sheehan,” he calls out a few feet from me. “We got some goods here then? You thinking a body?”

  “Murder scene. No body. I hope.”

  He stops when he reaches me, turns to the SOCO trailing in his wake. A young one, fresh out of training, full cheeks hamster-like beneath the white hood of her protective clothing. The bags of equipment pull on her shoulders. “Get the tent up there, Theresa, and set up the log.”

  “Yes, boss.” She sets down the bags and bends over them, removes a spare pair of gloves, which she offers to me.

  “Thanks, I have some,” I say, removing the gloves from my pocket and pulling them on. I move to the lock on the container. “Ready?”

  He bounces on his heels. “It’s too cold of a night to be hanging around, that’s for sure.”

  I put the crowbar through the lock and lever downwards. The mechanism slips but doesn’t budge.

  “Theresa, bolt-cutters.”

  The SOCO passes them over.

  “That’s the business,” Keith says. He places the mouth of the cutters on the bolt, tongue down against his bottom lip. He has to reach upward to get level but he persists and with a loud metal groan, the sharp edges come together and snap through the container lock. He passes the cutters back as if he was a surgeon and Theresa his surgical assistant.

  “Right, after you.” He makes a sweeping gesture with his hand.

  Reaching out, I pull the bolt away from the door and it swings open on blackness. Keith’s shouting at one of the uniforms for lights. I peer into the gloomy darkness of the container. The smell comes first. Stale blood and the musky scent of damp air swirls out around me but inside I can pick out the white, hard edge of a freezer. Theresa passes me a torch, and I point the beam inside the container.

  The container is a pit of evidence. One man-sized freezer, connected to a generator. Hanging inside the door, two green plastic suits.

  I point them out to Theresa. “We’ll need those processed immediately.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The heat is on me, over my skin, along my hairline. Excitement. Rabid. I swallow. The lights go up outside and the container transforms under the steady beam. It takes on an almost homey look. Thin, dark carpet with a snaking cream pattern has been laid over the walls and the floor. An attempt at soundproofing is my guess.

  Along the back wall I see an upturned wooden crate. A black nylon bag slumped like a dead animal on top of it.

  Theresa waits beside me. “There.” I point the light toward the crate. “What’s in that?”

  She pales and I know what’s wrong. I remember that feeling, early on in my career, stepping into a killer’s lair. Some primitive part of your brain tells you to walk the other way. The smell, the remnants of death, the sad echo of the victim calling out for eternity in the air. But whatever she’s feeling, she pulls back her shoulders and steps inside.

  She stands over the crate, carefully opens the bag. Takes up a camera from around her neck, photographs the contents. “It looks like a kill kit,” she says, and takes more shots. “Rope. Tape. Plastic. Gloves.”

  “Weapons?”

  “No.”

  “No gun?”

  “No.”

  I push away frustration. I hold the torch up, cast the beam along the carpet. It’s dark, dirty, but the cream pattern is almost obliterated at the center of the container.

  I nod to the stain. “Blood?”

  Suddenly she’s unsure, a flash of fear crosses her face, and she peers out beyond me as if she could conjure Keith. And as if on cue, the ground crunches and then his voice booms next to my ear.

  “Well, well. What have we got here then?” He squints into the container.

  I nod to the floor. “Does that look like blood to you?”

  He turns, puts his foot up on the ledge, and levers his short body inside. “Oh yeah. That’s a pretty big wound that caused that.” He squats down. “Old though. Someone’s done a poor job mopping it up. And a nice little bullet hole here.” The tip of his finger hovers over the floor. He glances up at Theresa, who already has the camera aimed down at the spot. “Get that marked up there, Theresa. Let’s see what we’ve got in the big box then,” he says, referring to the freezer. “Are we letting hope out or something else, do you think?” He gives a chuckle at his reference to Pandora’s box, and I hear
Seán Hennessy’s voice in my head: Here I was, inside Pandora’s box. And no one was going to lift the lid.

  “Just open the fucking freezer, Keith.”

  “Miss your coffee break, Detective?” he snarks back. But he goes to the freezer and, without so much as a breath, lifts the door.

  “Kind of disappointed there’s no body,” he says. He waves his hand, and Theresa passes him a torch. “But we’ve been left something, all right.” He bends over and reaches down into the trunk of the freezer; white clouds of cold vapor billow out around him. When he straightens his face has reddened but he looks triumphant. In his hand there’s a book, wrapped in clear plastic. He hands the torch back to the SOCO and moves toward me, unpeeling the plastic from around the book.

  Reaching out a gloved hand, I take it, look over the worn cover then turn the pages slowly. Pictures of all the victims. The original article from Conor Sheridan, photos of the final crime scene at the Hennessys’. Notes outlining plans. Careful. Notes on cleanup. Timed and dated. I come to a page marked with the Shines’ names. It details Geraldine Shine’s movements over the course of three weeks. Her morning runs, how long it takes her to complete her 5k circuit. The frequency of her deliveries. Her visits to the church, her meetings with Father Healy. Notes on Alan Shine’s preference of the pub ahead of his wife. The nights he returned drunk, the nights he beat Geraldine. Conor Sheridan’s address, his work hours, his commute, photographs of him leaving Jane Brennan’s, kissing his young kids good-bye. The writing is slow, precise. All capitals. All between the lines. Someone has labored over this, treasured it.

  On one page is the image of Bríd Hennessy facedown on the lawn, red wounds down her back, and overleaf, Geraldine Shine in the same resting pose. Pages of detail into the capture and kill of all three victims. I turn more pages and stop when my own face looks back. I’m standing on the wooden bridge looking back over Dublin Bay, toward Clontarf. I remember that day, the damp air, the sharp sea wind, and what was filling up my head: the hot sun on Bríd Hennessy’s face as I recalled her passing me on the path, seventeen years previous. I feel my tongue grow thick in my mouth, bile rises in my throat. He was watching me.

  I turn the page. Photos of the team, my work colleagues. Jack Clancy, in his car, window down, his elbow propped on the ledge, cigarette in one hand, phone held to his ear with the other. Baz mid-stride, two coffees stacked on top of each other, a brown bag dangling at his side that I know contained two stodgy bagels. I feel the whole night close in around me, the victims peering over my shoulder. While we were stalking the killer, he was stalking us.

  On the final page, there’s a grainy photo of a young Seán Hennessy standing in his childhood back garden. Above his image, one word in large letters, like an angry threat overhead: JUSTICE.

  I glance at Keith, fear tight on his face. His eyes, small and round, look out into the port, search the darkness.

  “He’s not here,” I say. “Whoever did this.”

  He draws his gaze back. Gives a short, trembling laugh. “Oh. No. I was just seeing what the weather was at. Could probably do with the tent up around here, get the car closer. Maybe ring in a few more SOCOs.”

  I close the journal. “We need this whole container pulled apart. Wrap and seal the journal for me, send it to Forensics. I want a copy back at the Bureau within the hour.”

  * * *

  —

  WHEN I GET BACK to the office, Steve is dancing as if he’s on hot coals.

  “Paul’s had a call from a Mr. Charles Derry, off the back of the press conference. Mr. Derry has a boat that was borrowed a day before we think Sheridan went missing. He frequently rents it out in the summer months.”

  “Type of boat?”

  “Small RIB. It’s a rigid inflatable dinghy.”

  “He have the name for us?”

  Steve smiles, his thin face taking on a ghoulish appearance. “David Brennan. Two uniforms were sent out fifteen minutes ago to pick him up.”

  “Get CSI out to his house while he’s here. Clear out the missus and the kids. A basic sweep and seize his car. Is Baz here?”

  “He’s waiting in your office.”

  “How is he?”

  “Nursing his ego more than his bruises. He’s grand.”

  “You’ve sent the retrieval team for the boat?”

  “They should have it at Forensics in about an hour.”

  “I want prints, DNA, and a detailed search for blood samples. Compare them with every name that’s been linked to this case.”

  “Copy that, Chief.”

  I make my way to the office. When I step inside, Baz closes the door behind me. I look him over. He’s changed his shirt. His hair and face are clean. He looks agitated but it’s not pain I see tightening on his face; it’s anger.

  “You sure you’re up to this?” I ask.

  The muscles over his jaw give a little pulse of movement. He crosses his legs. “Of course.”

  “You seem tense.”

  “I just got jumped by some shit. How should I seem?”

  I lean up against the wall of the office, watch the stiff set of his face. The unfamiliar pinch of skin between his eyebrows and the white flare of his nostrils. And I feel for him. I understand his anger but he can’t allow it to spill over into an interview. And I won’t have a detective throwing a fit at a suspect because they can’t keep their mood in check.

  “You hear about the boat hire?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ve David Brennan coming in now for questioning. Two strikes for him,” I say, hoping to engage him in something other than the storm of his thoughts. When he continues to glower, I say, “Can you put it to the side?”

  He looks up at me from beneath lowered brows. “What?”

  “You look about fit to drive your fist through a wall, and I’m worried a man like Brennan will smell that on you a mile away and invite you to try your fist on his face, rather than a wall, thus fucking over my investigation. Our investigation.”

  He pushes back into the seat. There’s no wince but I see the slight paling of the skin around his temple and know that he’s feeling more than a sting in his ribs. “I can put it aside when I need to. Clancy’s not the only one in here with two faces.”

  “That’s a bit low.”

  “Is it? The commissioner is right, fair enough, he covered up some shit back in the day, but he lied to us. Why’s that okay? Why does he get to decide who knows what and when?”

  “Rona’s testimony has nothing to do with these cases and you know that.”

  “It was a time suck. You dancing around looking for answers to Hennessy’s past—”

  “You’re saying I missed something related to these cases because of Clancy’s secrecy on something that happened years ago?”

  “His silence on this created a link between the cases. Made Hennessy look like he might have it in him. Made a shitty link look stronger than it was.”

  I drag in a lungful of air. He’s angry. Unreasonable. And he’s looking for someone to blame for his bruises.

  “There was a link,” I say, trying to keep my voice low. Calm. “There is a link. The bodies were arranged as the Hennessys were, remember? And there’s the Sheridan article. The hate mail related to that too.”

  He scrunches up his eyes as if he doesn’t want to hear. “Clancy’s silence threw another log on the fire though, didn’t it? And now it’s given the media everything they want, and we’re tiptoeing around a serious investigation afraid to take a fucking dump in case it’s the wrong shape and we’ll be laughed at for it.”

  “We’re no further back nor forward with or without Rona O’Sullivan’s alibi for Seán Hennessy. It was seventeen years ago.” But I can see my words are having little effect on him. His head is down, shoulders up, the pads of his jacket high against his neck. I try a different tack. “Clancy’s se
crets have hurt no one but himself. He’s not responsible for what happened to you tonight, and you know he’d be the first one at your back if he’d been there.”

  He glances upward briefly, his expression one of cynicism. He’s silent for a moment, then he directs his gaze back to the floor.

  Eventually, he says, “I should’ve paid more attention at the port. Should’ve grabbed that fucker but he caught me off guard.” He looks up at me, meets my eyes. “That shouldn’t have happened. Next time I’ll be ready.”

  “There won’t be a next time,” I say.

  “Too fucking right. Next time I’ll take the first shot.” He gets up, walks to the door then looks back expectantly. “Are we going to question this fella anytime soon?”

  I nod slowly, feeling a stab of concern over the tone in his voice. Everything turning gray around me, my work, my colleagues, myself. “I’ll be there in a minute,” I reply.

  He leaves, the door closing quietly behind him. I sit at the desk, push my fingers against closed eyes. I resurrect the faces of the killer’s victims: Geraldine Shine, Alan, Conor, and somewhere in the mix, Bríd and Cara Hennessy; John Hennessy a gloomy, faceless figure in the background of my mind. I remind myself that what matters is I bring home justice for those victims.

  If our killer is obsessed with Hennessy, then that’s who we need to be obsessed with too. Waking my computer, I search for my place in the Hennessy footage and click the next clip. Seán Hennessy sits on his stool. Hands clasped between his knees.

  “Inside, innocent or not, people are their crimes,” he begins. “At first, you’re just you, you know. That youngster thrown into the darkest of places among the darkest of people. But at some stage, you got to live, you know. You got to find a way. And when that realization comes on you, the whole place opens up. You get used to the rhythms of the day. You become an expert at spending time. Play cards, exercise, read, paint, write. And you walk into your role as a criminal. For me, as a murderer. I wasn’t a murderer when they locked me up but after a few months I began to move like one, talk like one.