‘Hello, Detective Inspector Parker.’ Jim McGlynn, SOCO team leader, turned his head for a fraction of a second, and in that moment she witnessed the victim. Immediately she sympathised with the uniformed officer who had deposited his breakfast on the landing.
‘Jim,’ she said, barely daring to look at the carnage. ‘Tell me what we have here?’
‘Female. Deceased at least two days. Possibly longer. Good job the weather’s been so miserable, or there’d be more than one officer chucking up his guts.’
‘No need to be so crass,’ she said.
‘Just telling it how it is. And he should be reprimanded. He could have destroyed evidence.’
‘How did she die?’ Despite herself, Lottie couldn’t keep her eyes off the body lying face down on the floor. A dark hand curled around her spine and clawed into her chest to clamp her heart.
‘Stab wound to the throat,’ McGlynn said.
The words sent a shiver through Lottie. Just last July, young Gilly O’Donoghue had been viciously stabbed in a similar way.
McGlynn continued. ‘A lot of blood. I reckon the killer must have been saturated in it. Unless he came prepared.’
Lottie focused on the victim. Blinked once and allowed herself to print the image on her brain. She struggled to get the words out of her mouth, needing to say them out loud so that it all made sense.
‘Dressed for a nightclub. Jomo’s is just around the corner,’ she said. ‘Maybe she was coming from there and some psycho picked her up.’ A diamond heart stud earring was hanging loose from the victim’s ear, and Lottie had to stop herself from reaching out to twist it back in place. She knew who the victim was. ‘Sexual assault?’
‘Not evident externally. Underwear is intact, but the post-mortem will tell you conclusively.’
Her hands trembled. Recently she’d become more and more affected by the work carried out by the state pathologist, Doctor Jane Dore, in the morgue. It must be my age, she thought.
The victim’s toenails were painted with crimson nail polish and her legs were smeared with fake tan. Lottie could see, beneath the hardened blood, that the girl’s hair was dark brown.
‘Turn her over,’ she instructed McGlynn.
‘We should wait for the state pathologist.’
‘I said turn her over.’ She hadn’t meant to sound angry, but she needed to be one hundred per cent sure.
As McGlynn and his assistant carefully turned the body, Lottie felt a gasp lodge in the back of her throat.
Even though the face had begun to bloat, stark eyeshadow and black eyebrow pencil accentuated the victim’s features in death. Averting her eyes, she scanned the immediate area, looking for the weapon. As she did so, she caught sight of something shiny beneath the girl’s right hand.
‘Stop!’ she said. ‘Don’t move.’
‘What?’ McGlynn held both hands in the air.
‘Tweezers?’
He handed her a pair. She squeezed in beside him and nodded for his assistant to take photos as she lifted the victim’s hand in her own gloved one. On the ground lay a silver coin. Once the photographer had finished, she picked it up with the tweezers and held it to the light.
‘What do you think it is?’ she asked McGlynn.
He shook his head. ‘No idea. It’s not currency.’
‘Just plain silver, no engraving,’ she added. ‘About the size of a one-euro coin.’
She dropped the coin into a clear plastic evidence bag held out for her by McGlynn. With a Sharpie marker, he scribbled a code and details on the bag and handed it over to his assistant.
‘Looks like it was dropped after the girl was killed. No blood on top of it.’
‘Any sign of a phone or handbag?’ Lottie looked around the small room. The space seemed to close in on her as the fetid air clogged her throat.
‘No handbag,’ McGlynn said, lifting the girl’s hand once again to inspect her balled fist. ‘That’s a phone in there. But I daren’t remove it yet.’
‘Why not?’ Lottie asked.
‘Got in trouble before, with you know who.’ He laid the hand back on the ground.
Lottie knew he was talking about Jane Dore. As a result of decentralisation by the government, she was based about forty kilometres away, at Tullamore Hospital, where she conducted post-mortems.
‘Is she on her way?’
‘Later today, hopefully. She’s attending the High Court in Dublin this morning. Giving evidence in a case.’
So much for decentralisation, Lottie thought. ‘The minute you find any evidence, let me know. And give me a call once Jane arrives. I want that phone from the victim’s hand.’
‘Right, and I’ve yet to examine the second body,’ he said.
Lottie stared at the back of McGlynn’s hooded head. She had been so consumed with the discovery of Amy Whyte that she’d forgotten about the second victim.
‘In the other room,’ he said, and kept on working, measuring, lifting and probing.
Lottie edged out backwards and stood with Boyd on the cramped landing. After a moment, she moved towards the crime-scene tape at the entrance to the other room. She looked in and couldn’t stop her hand flying to her mouth to stifle the groan.
This female body was also lying face down. At first glance, Lottie could see that the feet had no shoes or sandals, and were filthy. The legs were streaked with fake tan and the black dress was short and rumpled around the buttocks. She couldn’t see any blood on the legs, but as she scanned the outstretched arms and the hands with their long acrylic nails, she noticed the pool of blood beneath the head of matted brown hair. A mobile phone lay beside the body, redundant with a cracked screen.
‘Have you been in here?’ she shouted back at McGlynn.
‘Just did a quick exam. Don’t go in,’ he warned.
‘I need to see her.’
‘And I’m saying wait until the state pathologist gets here.’
Lottie looked helplessly at Boyd. He shrugged and turned back to McGlynn. ‘Jim, give us two minutes. Come on, we need to see her.’
McGlynn grunted and put down his tools, then changed his gloves and moved out to the landing. He was shaking his head as he undid the tape and entered the room.
‘This young woman is around the same age as the other, and was killed in a similar manner. Stab wound to the neck.’ He pointed to the walls. ‘Plenty of arterial spray, so she was standing when he struck. I’d say he was behind her, holding her, and drew a sharp object, possibly a knife, across her throat. One cut. That’s all it took. She died quickly.’
‘And how long has she been dead?’
‘Same as the other girl. Two, maybe three days. But we’ll know more once the post-mortem is conducted.’
‘Can I move her?’
‘No.’
‘But you did,’ Lottie said, crouching down beside the SOCO.
‘I had to determine that she was dead.’
‘Just for a second. I want to see if there’s anything under the body.’
‘There isn’t.’
‘Humour me.’
He sighed and carefully turned the body to one side. Lottie flinched. The girl was not much older than Katie, and that thought sent a shiver down her spine. Her open eyes were brown, but the whites were speckled with bloodied dots and the lips were frozen in a scream.
‘I don’t see any coins,’ Boyd said from the doorway.
Lottie scanned the floor around the girl’s body. Ripped-up floorboards. Broken bottles and dead woodlice. ‘You got a flashlight?’
McGlynn fetched one from his case and shone the beam around the area where the body was lying.
‘There!’ Lottie kneeled down beside him, the boards sharp against her knees, and pointed to a spot directly below where the girl’s hand had been. ‘Two coins.’
‘Tweezers!’ McGlynn yelled, and his assistant rushed in with them. After photographs had been taken, he picked up the coins and held each one aloft for examination before dropping them into individua
l bags and marking the area with evidence numbers.
‘Same as the coin with the other victim,’ Lottie said. ‘Too much of a coincidence to think they were here prior to the attack on the girls. The killer left them here.’
‘That’s a huge assumption,’ McGlynn said.
‘Look at them,’ she said, pointing to the bags. ‘They’re spotless. No rust or discoloration.’
‘No engravings or markings, though. Some sort of talisman, perhaps?’
‘Maybe the girls had them with them,’ Boyd offered.
‘Possible,’ Lottie said, but she didn’t believe that. ‘I think they’re the killer’s calling card.’
McGlynn interjected. ‘I’ve work to do before the state pathologist arrives. If you don’t mind, I’d like to get on with it.’
‘And no handbags or identification for either victim.’ Lottie ran a gloved finger over her forehead. ‘That seems calculated. Boyd, organise a contingent to do a fingertip search of the surrounding area, gardens, bins and the car park.’
‘Those handbags are long gone,’ Boyd said, folding his arms.
‘Just get it done.’
Lottie gave the victim one last look, then pushed out past Boyd and stood on the landing trying to get some air into her lungs. But they just filled up with the damp, musty air, like a mixture of mushrooms and death.
‘We need to interview those two lads Thornton found earlier,’ Boyd said.
‘I doubt they had anything to do with this, but once they get medical clearance, we’ll see what they have to say for themselves. First off, the victims have to be formally identified.’ She looked around the small space. ‘But you and I both know that those two girls are Amy Whyte and Penny Brogan.’
‘We have to inform the families,’ Boyd said with a groan.
Lottie pictured Councillor Richard Whyte and shivered. It was going to be nasty.
She paused, thinking. ‘This has the air of planning about it. The killer knew about this place. He probably staked it out, so every inch of it has to be examined minutely.’
As she walked slowly down the stairs, she was still trying to catch her breath.
‘You okay?’ Boyd said behind her.
Shaking her head, she jumped down the last two steps and stepped out through the front door. Outside, she pulled down the hood of her suit and gasped in a lungful of fresh air. The rain had eased to a misty drizzle.
A crowd had gathered beyond the front wall; among them she glimpsed Cynthia Rhodes, a crime reporter with national television.
‘She’s all I need,’ she croaked.
‘Want me to have a word with her?’ Boyd asked.
‘It’s okay. I’ll give her a no comment.’
‘Perhaps you should be polite and make an appeal for witnesses?’
Lottie ignored him. Beyond the inner cordon, she pulled off her protective clothing, bundling it into a brown paper bag held out by a SOCO, and marched over to the wall. The feeling of unease that Cynthia always generated in her knotted her shoulders together. The reporter had a way of causing her to spout the wrong words, so she silently warned herself to form her sentences fully in her head before she spoke.
‘Detective Inspector Parker,’ Cynthia shouted, pushing a damp microphone under her nose. ‘Can you tell us what’s going on here this morning?’
Seeing the camera being swung in her direction, Lottie squared her shoulders. She had to make herself look in control of the situation while her mind was whirring in a myriad of directions.
‘Thank you for coming out in this terrible weather. Two bodies have been found in suspicious circumstances in the house behind me. I’d like to ask the public if they have any information in relation to this crime to contact our helpline or phone Ragmullin garda station. All information will be treated with the utmost confidentiality.’
Even as she spoke, Lottie didn’t believe her own words. It was impossible to keep anything confidential in Ragmullin.
‘Can you tell us anything about the victims? Who are they?’ Cynthia persisted.
‘As I said, I welcome the public’s help in this matter. If anyone is aware of any inappropriate activity in the area over the last week or two, they should contact us.’
‘Do you think one of them could be Councillor Whyte’s daughter? She’s been reported missing. I read an alert before I arrived here.’ Cynthia’s black curls clung damply to her forehead and her dark-rimmed spectacles were misted.
Lottie fought an urge to thump the reporter. Cynthia was always one step ahead of her. Perhaps it was her own fault for allowing Kirby to go ahead with the social media appeal for information on the missing girls.
‘This is no time for speculation, Ms Rhodes.’ She forced steadiness into her words. ‘Think of the families who have yet to be informed. Thank you.’
She caught up with Boyd at the car. ‘Let’s get out of here before I slap the puss off her.’
‘She’s only doing her job.’ The tyres skidded on the greasy road as he drove up to Main Street.
‘You have a soft spot for her, don’t you?’ Lottie sniped.
‘I’m not even going to grace that comment with a response.’
She looked out of the rain-smeared window at the shops. Boyd sped up the street and in two minutes had parked at the rear of the station. She was out of the car before him and rushed inside.
Kirby was slouched over his keyboard.
‘You could have held off on the social media appeal.’ Shit, why had she said that?
Kirby looked crestfallen. ‘What? You ordered me to go ahead. How was I to know they were already dead?’
‘Sorry. It’s just an awkward situation. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.’
Once she was in her own office, she hung up her damp jacket and sat at her desk musing over the problem of Kirby. She had to get him involved in this case but she needed him focused. With Maria Lynch on maternity leave and no one to replace her, Lottie’s resources were limited. And now she had two murders to investigate.
She glanced up as Boyd divested himself of his own jacket before sitting at his desk. There was a history of infrequent liaisons between them and he had once asked her for a commitment she couldn’t give. Her mother thought she should. But then Rose was old-fashioned and didn’t see how Lottie could sleep with Boyd now and again without any formal arrangement. Ah well, Rose would have a long wait if she thought she was going to be walking her daughter up the aisle any time soon. And anyway, Lottie wasn’t even her biological daughter! That made her think of Leo Belfield. There was no way she could leave now to follow up on a matter that was strictly private.
Her computer pinged with an email containing photos from the crime scene. Something to start on. Kicking herself into action, she jumped up. ‘Incident room. Let’s get this investigation up and running.’
And then she remembered they had yet to tell the parents.
Eighteen
Tony was ignoring Conor, giving him a wide berth. Conor didn’t want to care, but he did.
‘What’s the sour face for?’ he said.
Tony stopped and turned. ‘You. That’s why. It’s because I put in a good word for you that you got this job, and you repay me by almost choking the life out of me.’ He rubbed his dirty gloved hand around his neck, leaving muddy streaks behind.
‘I was just having a laugh, that’s all. Don’t be such a dickhead. I’ve enough of that shite at home without having no one to talk to here. Come on. Pint after work? What do you say?’ Conor wrapped his arm around Tony’s shoulder, but was shrugged away.
He watched the changing expressions on Tony’s face as he struggled within himself to stand his ground, to say no. But Conor knew Tony well; he would give in. Hopefully he could squeeze him to pay for the pints too.
‘Okay. First round’s on you,’ Tony said.
He’d have to come up with a plan. At least Tony was talking. That was something.
‘Where are we scheduled to work next? Not the tunnel, I hope.
That place reminds me of prison.’
Tony laughed and Conor followed him as they made their way to the foreman to get their orders for the day. Phase one of his plan had worked.
* * *
The incident room smelled of body odour and fried takeout food. Lottie sniffed the air; despite the smell, it was much fresher than the abandoned house at Petit Lane where two young women had met their deaths. She walked to the first board and pinned up prints of the photographs that had been emailed to her.
‘Shouldn’t we notify next of kin?’ Boyd said. ‘We need positive IDs.’
‘Let’s just go through all this quickly first.’ She knew she was putting off the inevitable, but she didn’t want to face either parent just yet. Perhaps McMahon would do the job, seeing that he was so well in with the councillor.
‘I believe the victims to be Amy Whyte and Penny Brogan. Only Amy was officially reported missing, but nobody’s seen Penny for a few days. I’ve seen photos of both young women and I’m confident they are the two deceased. So far, we know they were last seen on Saturday night at Jomo’s nightclub. Going by the attire their bodies are still dressed in, it’s likely they were abducted shortly after they left the club. We need the security footage from Jomo’s, Kirby, and try to get a list of those who attended.’
‘I’ve been there on the odd occasion,’ Kirby said. Lottie noticed him blush. ‘With Gilly.’ He swallowed down a gulp.
‘Go on,’ Lottie said, encouraging him. ‘Do you remember anything that might help us?’
‘It was over six months ago. If memory serves me correctly, most of the clientele were years younger than me. Anything from sixteen upwards. Loud music and plenty of booze, and I’m sure a plethora of drugs. But nothing stood out as particularly sinister.’
Garda Tom Thornton put up his hand. ‘Friday and Saturday nights are our busiest here in town. The usual rows at two or three in the morning as the clubs begin to empty and the crowds spill out. Drunk and disorderly, mainly. With so many people around, I can’t see how the girls could have been abducted without being seen.’
DI Lottie Parker 06-Final Betrayal Page 8