‘There’s a picture of a raven at the top. At the bottom he lists a series of latitudes, longitudes and dates.’ He showed the others.
53,11,56 N, 06,17,32 W, 13th April
53,22,68 N, 06,36,01 W, 14th April
53,21,30 N, 06,19,33 W, 15th April
53,27,59 N, 06,43,42 W, 16th April
53,20,50 N, 06,15,21 W, 17th April
53,28,58 N, 06,06,36 W, 18th April
53,20,59 N, 06,15,37 W, 19th April
‘No doubt they’re the locations of all of the murders,’ McEvoy said frustrated. ‘If this has been here all week anyone could have found it! It’s like he wants to be caught.’
‘It’s hardly on the beaten track though, is it?’ Jacobs said. ‘I doubt anyone’s been here recently, and even if they had it’s unlikely they would have picked up what looks like a bit of litter and ripped it open.’
‘And even if I’d broken the code earlier,’ Dr John added, ‘we couldn’t have found his list until this or the previous murder. The grid reference was too coarse. It would have covered a huge area. Several square miles.’
‘But if we, or someone else, had found it, we could have been waiting for him,’ McEvoy muttered, shaking his head.
‘We still can be,’ Dr John said, raising his eyebrows. ‘It tells us exactly where the last murder’s going to happen. We just need to work out where that grid reference is.’ He stabbed his finger at the bag.
‘Jesus Christ!’ McEvoy said, half in excitement, half disbelief. ‘He’s going to let us catch him. It’s like you predicted,’ he said to Jacobs, ‘he wants to be caught. He wants the fame. His ego’s too strong to let him simply walk away. That’s why he’s left us the clues and this note.’
‘That, or he wants to prove how smart he really is,’ Jacobs replied neutrally. ‘He says it himself. “Of course, you could be on time and I could still manage to kill the final victims and get clean away.” Maybe he’s confident he can kill his last target right under your noses and walk away scot free.’
‘We need to find out where that grid reference refers to,’ McEvoy said, moving back towards the entrance.
‘Well, it seems he has a sense of humour,’ Dr John said, stopping him. ‘The five-euro note. “Enjoy a pint of the black stuff on me.” This is why he left the envelope here. It’s kind of a joke. A sick joke.’ He tapped the gravestone embedded in the wall. ‘Have you seen whose grave this is?’
McEvoy stepped back and peered at the engraving on the pale grey rock, difficult to read in the pale light.
In the adjoining Vault
are the mortal remains
of
ARTHUR GUINNESS
late of
ST JAMES GATE IN THE CITY
and of
BEAUMONT IN THE COUNTY OF DUBLIN ESQUIRE
Who departed this life on
23rd of January A.D. 1803
aged 78 years
He stopped reading, shaking his head, holding his anger in check. ‘Next time I have a pint of Guinness it’ll be to celebrate catching the sick bastard. And it won’t be with his blood money. Come on, we need to find out where this grid reference is.’
The Assistant Commissioner placed a thick arm across the door. ‘I’m sorry, Dr Jacobs, this is going to have to be a closed meeting. If you could wait outside, we’ll call you if we need any advice.’
Jacobs did her best not to look offended and headed for a small sofa next to a coffee table, the day’s papers laid out across it. As the door closed the AC’s secretary gave her an apologetic smile.
The AC sat behind his desk, Bishop and McEvoy seated opposite. ‘Tell me about the note,’ he instructed, resting his giant hands on his stomach.
‘It was left in Oughterard Cemetery next to Arthur Guinness’ grave,’ McEvoy replied. ‘It lists the exact latitude and longitude of all seven murders. The last murder is due to take place on O’Connell Street at the spire.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
‘That’s what the note says and I’ve had it double-checked. All the other references are perfect. He left us a list of every site.’
‘So why didn’t we break the code earlier?’
‘Because we didn’t have enough letters to break it and even if we did we wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint the location until we’d got the most recent letters.’
The AC nodded and turned to look out of the window at the grey sky, a light drizzle flecking the windows. ‘So what are you proposing to do?’
‘I think we flood the area with hand-picked, plain clothes personnel. We wait until he turns up and we arrest him. There’s the risk that he might kill his target but hopefully we can prevent it.’
‘Hopefully?’
‘I think it’s a risk we have to take. He’s giving us the perfect opportunity to catch him; we might not get one again. So far, we’ve had very little to go on. If he goes to ground it might take us months to pick up his scent again. May never pick it up.’
‘What’s your view, Tony?’ the AC asked.
‘I think it’s a hell of a risk,’ Bishop cautioned. ‘If we leave O’Connell Street open and he manages to commit his murder they’ll be hell to pay, even if we do catch the bastard. And if we don’t catch him then we’ll be hung out to dry. There’ll be no hiding place and they’ll be merciless. You’ve seen what they’re like. Either way, the press will say we’ve been playing Russian roulette with people’s lives. I think we close the whole area down; locked tight. We say there’s been a security alert, whatever, it doesn’t matter. If we do that, then we close off his opportunity to commit his last murder and finish his book. If he still turns up, then we stand a better chance of catching him.’
‘If we shut O’Connell Street he’s still going to kill someone, somewhere,’ McEvoy countered. ‘He’s invested too much time and energy to simply walk away. He needs to finish his book. Whatever happens, I think he’ll try and do that. If we seal off O’Connell Street, he’ll have a contingency plan. He’ll just murder some other poor fecker somewhere else in the city. He’ll then tell the press that the O’Connell Street reference was a bluff, a stunt to misdirect our attention, and what’s more they’ll believe him.
‘This whole thing’s about ego, it’s about outsmarting everyone and proving how clever he is. I think he will show up on O’Connell Street tomorrow and we should be there to meet him. Either way he’s going to try and kill someone. I’m a hundred percent confident about that. We can be there to catch him or we can let him get away with it. The press are going to crucify us whatever we do. I think we just forget about them and concentrate on him. He’s all that really matters.’
The AC looked back from the window at McEvoy and then up to the ceiling, bridging his fingers.
‘Well, what do you think, Tony?’
‘I still think it’s a hell of a risk. We’ve no way of knowing that he’s got a contingency plan. And we’ve no way of knowing how he intends to kill his last victim. He might not show up at all. He might have planted a bomb on a timer, blows up half the street and kills God knows how many. There’ll be thousands of people out shopping, plus all the traffic.’
‘He’s not going to use a bomb,’ McEvoy said firmly. ‘Everything so far has been up close and personal – strangling, battering, slashing, suffocating. He’s not used a gun and he won’t use a bomb. Unless he has specialist knowledge he’d have to source a bomb, and even if he did know how to make one he’d still has to get his hands on the materials – explosives, detonators, timers. He’s a loner and he wants no loose ends.
‘We could, however, undertake a tactical bomb search this evening,’ McEvoy suggested, his mind jumping ahead. ‘The alert will warn a lot of people off, make the place a lot quieter than it would be otherwise. We could also partially shut the street down, for example, closing it to traffic. We could say there’s emergency street work taking place – a broken main or something. It doesn’t matter what, as long as it looks genuine. The crew could be some of our tea
m. If it’s still open, even partially, I think he’ll show.’
‘Even if you’re right about the up close and personal bit, we’re still putting the public in the firing line,’ Bishop countered. ‘We’re leaving ourselves wide open to allegations of serious misconduct.’
‘We’re leaving the public in the firing line even if we close O’Connell Street. If he wants to kill his last victim he’ll just move his final attack to Grafton Street or the Powerscourt Centre or Jervis Street or the Ilac Centre or Connolly Station or Heuston Station, the list of potential targets is endless. Plus we’re leaving him at large to kill again. And he will kill again. We all know that.’
‘If we partially close O’Connell Street he’ll know we’re waiting for him,’ Bishop reasoned.
‘He knows we will be in any case. He left us a note telling us where each murder will take place. He’s laid down a challenge and I think he’ll show up as long as we don’t shut the place down entirely. He’s going to kill again whatever we do, this is our one clear chance to catch him.’
The room descended into silence. The AC placed his elbows on the desk, interlocked his fingers and drew them to his mouth, his gaze unfocused. After 20 seconds or so he said, ‘I need to talk to the Commissioner and then probably the Minister for Justice. There’s no way I’m making this kind of decision without sanction. He’s got us caught between a rock and a hard place.’ He paused. ‘This conversation stays between the three of us, okay? And even if we do go ahead with an operation, it’ll be limited personnel on a strict no-gossip basis. I don’t want vigilantes or panic on the streets. Nobody’s to know details of that location, especially the press. Nobody. Understand?’
There was an expectant air in the room, a feeling that they might be on the edge of a breakthrough. They all knew that McEvoy had been out to Oughterard Cemetery, that a note had been found.
‘Right, okay, let’s make a start,’ McEvoy said, Jacobs standing next to him. ‘Come on, let’s quieten down.’ He waited until the DIs and crime scene managers were hushed. ‘I want to start with an introduction. This is Dr Kathy Jacobs. She’s a criminal profiler and will be working with us to try and help focus our efforts. She’s had a look through some of the case notes and will be working on the files in order to construct her profile. She’s to get your full co-operation. Understood?’
Jacobs nodded at the faces staring at her and sat at a nearby desk.
‘Right, as you’re all aware, there was a sixth murder this morning. Shirley Hamilton, 53, a staff development trainer from Belfast. Jim, you got any updates?’
The room’s occupants shifted on their seats and shared quizzical glances. They were expecting McEvoy to detail what had been found, to see how it might influence their investigations, not to simply run through all the enquiries.
‘Not really,’ Whelan answered. ‘She was battered to death. No sign of him or the weapon.’
McEvoy sighed inwardly; getting information out of Whelan was next to impossible. He’d been working that site all day and all he could manage was three short sentences. ‘How about you, Cheryl?’
‘What we have’s in the lab. And it’s not much to be honest. We’re working through it, but it’s slow work. The whole place is flat out and there’s a huge backlog from the other murders. It’ll probably be days before it’s all worked through.’
‘Right, okay,’ McEvoy said frustrated. ‘Right, I know it’s early, but has there been any progress with the five names that Dermot Brady gave us?’
‘One of them was out of the country at the time of the first murder,’ Johnny Cronin said, ‘trying to catch the last of the snow in Italy apparently. The prison warden’s dead. Road accident two years ago; drink driving. The wannabe politician has a cast iron alibi – he was at a council meeting the night of Grainne Malone’s murder. We haven’t managed to track down the other two yet. I have a couple of people on it.’
‘Okay, we need to make that a priority. If they don’t come up with solid alibis put them under surveillance. Right then, let’s work through the other murders. Barney, any progress with Laura Schmidt?’
‘Nothing. We’re still working through Glencree’s lists and trying to eliminate possibles. We’ve been attempting to open a decent channel up into the North in order to put pressure on some of the groups up there to co-operate. Maybe Shirley Hamilton’s death might help, I don’t know. Everything else has run cold – nothing from the questionnaires, the searches or appeals.’
‘How about Peter Killick?’
‘Nothing so far. We’re still working through CCTV footage from every camera within quarter of a mile. We’ve got people out showing the photofit and we’re working through all the staff and customer’s statements. He disappeared the moment he stepped out of the bar door.’
‘Anything from forensics?’ he asked Hannah Fallon.
‘We’re at the back of the queue with Cheryl. There were hundreds of hair and fluid samples in that place; probably from hundreds of different people. It’s going to take us an age to process them all. And I hope someone’s got deep pockets because it’s going to cost a fortune as well.’
‘Don’t worry about the cost; that’s Bishop’s and the Minister’s concern. Charlie, how about you?’
‘We’re making slow …’
McEvoy’s phone rang. He held up his hand to stop Deegan. ‘McEvoy?’
‘Colm, you’d better come back up again,’ the AC said. ‘We need to talk.’
‘I’ll be there now.’ The line went dead. ‘Right, okay,’ he said to the room, ‘I’ll be back shortly. Get a coffee or something.’
The AC was standing at the window looking out across the city. Bishop was sitting in the same seat as before, a scowl on his face. The clock on the wall said it was a ten past seven. The murder that morning seemed a lifetime ago. McEvoy hovered, unsure whether to sit or not.
‘Take a seat, Colm,’ the AC instructed, turning and sitting behind his desk. ‘The last hour has, let’s say, been interesting. I’ve spent most of it on the phone, first with the Commissioner, then with the Minister, then with his Secretary General, then back to the Minister, and finally the Commissioner again. Basically Justice has shoved the ball back into our court and have gone to talk to the Attorney General for advice.
‘They think we’re screwed either way and don’t want any part of it. They think we should do whatever we think’s best. Unless the Attorney General says otherwise, the decision about how to proceed then is up to us. They don’t think a security alert, however, is a good idea. There’s enough panic around as it is without people thinking they’ve got to worry about bombs as well. They’ve no objections to closing the street to traffic, however.’
The AC paused, gathering his thoughts.
‘As you know, I’ve also spoken to Kathy Jacobs. Based on her experience and her reading of the case notes, she’s strongly of the opinion that whether we close O’Connell Street or not, he’s going to kill the seventh victim tomorrow. On that basis, it seems to make sense to keep O’Connell Street open and to catch the bastard.’
McEvoy let a deep breath out unaware that he’d been holding it.
‘There’s still the danger that he might kill someone before we can stop him, but at least he’d be caught. And while the press might crucify us if that happens, they’d vilify us if he killed elsewhere and they then found out we’d the perfect opportunity to catch him and passed it up. What that means is we need to make sure we do catch him. I know you’re not happy about this, Tony, but I really don’t think we’ve got a choice.’
Bishop nodded and lowered his eyes to the desk.
‘We’ve got less than five hours until tomorrow starts, so the clock has started ticking. I’ll leave the operational planning to you two,’ the AC said, thereby devolving himself of responsibility, ‘but my feeling is that you keep the team small. No more than 30 men – maybe two teams of 15. It’s imperative that whoever’s involved keeps everything to themselves, okay? Nobody’s to tell their f
amilies to stay away from O’Connell Street. The news will travel like wildfire and God knows what that’ll start. I know they won’t want to put loved ones at risk, but under no circumstances are they to mention the operation. Is that clear?’
McEvoy and Bishop nodded their heads.
‘If you want an armed response unit or anything else, just let me know. My suggestion is you hand pick your teams, starting with your DIs and DSs. People with experience. People you can rely on. Right, well,’ he said, drawing things to a close, ‘I guess, you’d better go and make a start. If I hear anything from the Minister or Attorney General I’ll let you know.’
‘Do you want us to run the final plan past you?’ Bishop asked, already knowing the answer.
‘Only if it’s going to involve anything unusual. I assume you’re going to close off the street to traffic and stake the place out. What more can you do?’
‘Right, well, you heard the man,’ Bishop said, ‘go and sort out a plan and pick and organise your teams. Whatever resources you need just ask and I’ll get them for you.’
‘I thought he said …’
‘Nevermind what he just said. My job’s to oversee things and protect your back. And that’s what I’m going to be doing. I’m going to give you the time and space to be getting on with things, and while you organise and run that stake out, I’m going to be working out contingency plans for the press. If he does manage to kill someone on O’Connell Street, or if O’Connell Street is a bluff and he kills elsewhere, then the media are going to go crazy. The whole world is watching us, Colm. This isn’t about spin, it’s about protecting ourselves from criticism and any fall-out. And that needs a careful strategy.’
The Rule Book Page 25