They negotiated the passageway back, Andrews grunting in annoyance when he came upon the mess of Tetra packs. ‘I’ll clear this away before anyone else comes.’
They did it together, piling the cartons on top of some of the more stable piles. ‘I don’t envy the person who has to empty this lot out,’ Andrews said as they finished and made their way outside. ‘But I guess it won’t be the Checkleys.’
‘Unlikely.’ West took a deep breath of the chilly air. A minute later, he shivered and pulled his jacket on. ‘If those four bodies have been reported missing, there might be DNA somewhere. We might be able to find out who they are, put a family out of its misery.’
‘We haven’t identified the other woman as yet,’ Andrews pointed out.
‘But we will. We’ll do what we’re good at, keep looking until we find out who they are.’
‘You know, that will be several cases solved in one fell swoop. Morrison will be happy with that.’
‘He won’t be so happy when the press get wind of a ninety-year-old serial killer.’ West pointed towards the tangled, overgrown garden. ‘Doris killed eight people over the last fifty years that we know of, but our sweet little old lady may not have mummified all her victims. They’re going to have to bring in the cadaver dogs and search the entire area.’
‘Darragh Checkley was right about that anyway,’ Andrews said. ‘It’s going to take weeks to clear this.’
Morrison’s car pulled into the driveway. He was wearing an understandably bemused expression as he climbed from the car. ‘I know it’s bad when Garda Baxter is stuck for words.’
‘This case has left us all a bit speechless,’ West said. ‘You’ll understand when you see inside.’ He eyed the heavy coat the inspector was wearing. ‘I’d advise leaving your coat in the car, Inspector, it’s hot inside.’ He saw the inspector hesitate and added, ‘Hot enough to mummify the bodies.’
Morrison grimaced, shrugged off his coat and threw it into the car. ‘Right, let’s see what all the fuss is about.’ He made no comment about the piles that edged the hallway as he followed West and Andrews but when they reached the door of the dining room his eyebrows had unified in one dark criticism.
West had shut the door behind them when they left. He opened it now, resisting the temptation to sing out ta-dah as he unveiled the macabre scene of the headless diners.
No amount of explanation could prepare someone for the reality so he wasn’t surprised when Morrison swore softly under his breath. ‘Now you understand,’ West said.
‘Yes.’ Morrison walked around the table, stopping to examine each body. ‘You think some of these poor unfortunates are later than the original dismembered bodies?’
West pointed to the man on the far side of the table. ‘Baxter recognised the name of the band on the T-shirt. No earlier than 1994.’ He joined the inspector and indicated the next body. ‘Edwards spotted the bracelet. According to the Checkley woman, it wouldn’t be earlier than 2001. There’s nothing obvious on the other two but forensics might be able to pinpoint a time frame for us.’
‘A serial killer working without suspicion for the last fifty years or thereabouts.’ Morrison took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped it over his face. ‘Unbelievable.’
The distant sound of voices broke into the silence. ‘The tech team,’ Andrews said. ‘I’ll go and fill them in.’
‘Of the eight bodies, you’ve identified three,’ Morrison said.
‘Yes. The Checkleys disposed of four of the bodies in the recycling centre. DNA gave us the two children. Lynda Checkley stated that the other two were posed in a sexual way on the chaise longue. It appears that the husband had been having an affair and Doris found out, so I think it’s logical to assume the male body we found is the husband and the unidentified woman his lover.’ He looked around the table. ‘These four might be in our missing persons file. We’ll do our best to return them to their families and allow them to have a proper funeral.’
‘Like you did for Abasiama.’
West looked at him, surprised and pleased the inspector had remembered the child’s name. ‘Yes. It’s the least we can do.’
43
West heard footsteps in the hallway, the muttered imprecations of someone who was stunned by the amount of clutter. He waited in the doorway and raised a hand in greeting when the technical team manager appeared.
Detective Sergeant Maddison dropped a bulging kitbag at his feet and rubbed a hand over his grey buzz cut. ‘The team got some garbled message about headless mummified bodies.’
‘We’re all struggling to find words for this crime scene. It’s simpler to show it, which is why Inspector Morrison is here.’
Maddison looked impressed. ‘The message wasn’t so garbled?’
‘Not even exaggerated,’ West said and waved him into the room.
The inspector was at the end of the room, peering between the heavy curtains. He turned when Maddison entered. ‘I think this one might even surprise you.’
‘I’ve seen some weird carry-on, Inspector, but this…’ Maddison looked around. ‘Yes, it probably beats them all.’ He spent several minutes staring at each of the four bodies from every angle, then stepped back.
‘Two male, two female. You’ve already spotted the T-shirt and the bracelet which give a good time frame. The other female is wearing a wedding, engagement, and eternity ring. You might get lucky and find they’re engraved. The second male is wearing a necktie around what’s left of his neck – if you look closer you can see there’s a logo on the front of it. A bee to be precise. The bee logo was designed for Dior Homme. I’d need to check but I think the earliest date was 2000. But it’s still used to this day so…’
‘He could be the most recent.’ West walked over to the corpse and leaned forward to examine the tie. ‘Okay, so that’s two of them somewhere in the last twenty years.’
‘No doubt the state pathologist will be able to help pinpoint a closer date.’ Maddison tilted his head. ‘If I’m not mistaken that’s his cheery voice now.’
The voice grew louder as it approached then stopped abruptly when Dr Kennedy appeared in the doorway and took in the scene. ‘Bloody hell!’ Ignoring the three men at the window, he walked around the table, eyes wide. ‘Never in all my days…’ With a shake of his head, he joined the others.
West drew his attention to the mantelpiece. ‘Their skulls are there.’
‘Making an interesting addition to the macabre décor. It will be good to reunite them with their bodies.’ Kennedy rubbed his arm over his forehead.
‘You’ll be looking for information to try to identify these poor souls. From clothes and personal items, at least two are dead less than twenty years, a third around twenty-five years. The fourth…’ he see-sawed a hand. ‘Hopefully, we’ll get lucky.’
‘It’s going to take some manoeuvring to get them out,’ Maddison said. ‘There’s not much space in the hallways.’
West met the inspector’s eye. They’d be better out of the way if Maddison and Kennedy were going to get into a conversation about the best way to move and transport the bodies.
Outside, both men took a deep breath.
‘What now?’ Morrison asked.
‘Now, I’m going back to the station to try and get both Lynda and Darragh Checkley locked away.’
Morrison looked back to the house. ‘Doris Whitaker will never be held to account for her crimes.’
‘No, but if we do our job and find the families of the people she killed, maybe they’ll be able to get some compensation from her estate. It’s worth around five million. I’d far prefer to see the money going to them than ever lining either of the Checkleys’ pockets.’
Morrison turned back to him. ‘Let’s get that done, Mike.’
44
‘Let’s see what Darragh Checkley has to say for himself,’ West said as he and Andrews walked into Foxrock Station.
They were waylaid in reception by Sergeant Blunt who asked in his usual blunt st
yle, ‘Is it true?’
Guessing he’d have heard all the details from Baxter and Edwards, West simply nodded. It was enough for the desk sergeant who mouthed wow but said nothing more.
‘What are the chances of this being a nine-day wonder?’ West asked Andrews as they walked towards the interview rooms.
Andrews laughed. ‘The ninety-year-old serial killer would have been enough to keep this story spinning for a while. But a little old lady who slit open the corpses of her victims, removed their organs and stuffed them with straw and rags? Mummified headless corpses? This one will be told for years to come.’
It wasn’t what Darragh Checkley’s solicitor Emily Gallagher wanted to talk about though. She was far more concerned with the amount of time she’d been kept waiting and let loose with her complaints as soon as the door was opened.
West held up a hand. ‘I’m sure Inspector Morrison addressed your complaints. Now, to prevent any further delay, shall we get on?’
Gallagher was caught between wanting to continue her diatribe and the truth of his statement. ‘Very well then,’ she conceded and took her seat behind the table beside her client.
‘That might be okay for you, but it’s not bloody well acceptable from my point of view.’ Darragh Checkley’s face was an unhealthy shade of plum as he vented his own brand of fury at the gardaí. ‘So now,’ he finished, ‘I want to know exactly what I’m being charged with.’
West looked at Andrews. ‘Shall we tell the gentleman, Detective Garda Andrews?’
‘Oh, I think we should, Detective Garda Sergeant West.’
‘Oh, please,’ Gallagher said with a sharp glance for each. ‘Can we just get on with it?’
‘Fair enough,’ West said. ‘Mr Checkley, we had a long and remarkably interesting conversation with your wife earlier, following which we checked out a house on Torquay Road. Your cousin Doris Whitaker’s house to be exact.’ He watched as a flicker of disbelief dampened Checkley’s aggressively hostile expression. ‘Of course, you’ll know what we found there.’
‘More games,’ Gallagher said. ‘If you’ve found something damaging to my client’s case, it would be helpful if you’d spit it out.’
‘Okay. In the dining room of Doris Whitaker’s house, we found four corpses.’ He met the solicitor’s eyes. ‘Mummified corpses.’
‘Headless mummified corpses,’ Andrews corrected him.
The solicitor’s bark of disbelieving laughter died quickly when she realised they were serious. She looked from them to her client. ‘You know about this?’
‘Not only does your client know about it, Ms Gallagher, but he was involved in the dismemberment and dumping of a further four bodies.’
‘Four… there were eight bodies?’
‘That’s correct. We have identified three of them as being the husband and children of Doris Whitaker. The other five bodies have not yet been identified.’ He hesitated. ‘Some of the bodies are less than twenty years old.’
Checkley’s eyes widened at this. ‘Is this true?’
‘Yes, two of the bodies were wearing items only available in the last twenty years. Their murder could have occurred any time since then.’
Gallagher looked at Checkley in horror. ‘Your cousin was a serial killer?’
Checkley gulped. ‘I didn’t know.’ He met West’s sceptical gaze. ‘I swear! We found her diary. It said she was devastated when she found out her husband was having an affair and planning to leave her. It didn’t say, but we assumed she went a bit crazy and killed everyone who was there that day.’
‘That’s not the case,’ West said. ‘Now, we’re not in a position to charge your cousin with murder but we are in the fortunate position of being able to charge you.’
‘What?’ Gallagher and Checkley said simultaneously.
Checkley’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly as he fought to get the words out. ‘Charge me… murder… who?’
‘Muriel Hennessy. The woman your wife identified as Doris Whitaker.’
‘What!’ Checkley turned to his solicitor, panic in his eyes. He gripped her arm painfully enough to have her cry out and pull away. ‘Do something! They’re trying to stitch me up!’
Gallagher pushed him away and rubbed her arm. ‘Sit back and shut up.’ Only when he had done so, did she turn to West. ‘You’re charging my client with the murder of this woman, Muriel… Muriel?’
‘Hennessy. Lynda Checkley identified her as being Doris Whitaker at the request of your client. Lynda states that she was told that there would be a body on the side of the road that day, at that time. Your client told her to drive past and to, as it were, accidentally come upon it. She was then to identify this body as being Mrs Whitaker.’
‘No!’ The one word came out on a howl. Darragh Checkley looked at his solicitor, then across the table to the two detectives as if not sure who best to plead with. ‘That bitch… she’s setting me up!’
This wasn’t going quite as West had expected. He had assumed Checkley would deny any involvement in the murder of Muriel Hennessy but this… this was more than denial. ‘Okay,’ he said, sitting back and folding his arms. ‘Why don’t you tell us what happened?’
Checkley ran a shaking hand over his face. ‘Lynda rang me to say she’d found Doris lying on the side of the road. A victim of a hit-and-run, she said. She sounded shocked.’
‘And you never saw your cousin’s body?’
Checkley squirmed in his chair. ‘Lynda said her face was scraped and bruised. I have a thing about blood. I didn’t want to see her like that.’
West’s thoughts were a tangle. ‘You really believe your cousin was the victim of a hit-and-run?’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’ Checkley glared at the two detectives. ‘Lynda told me she had! Why would she have lied? And why would I have been pestering you lot to find the driver if I didn’t believe it, eh?’ Then, as if a penny had dropped with a loud clunk, his expression changed. ‘Are you telling me Doris is still alive?’
‘No, she died, but not in a hit-and-run.’ West held up his hand when it looked as if Checkley was going to ask more questions. ‘Early last month, you went with Lynda to see your cousin’s solicitor, is that correct?’
With obvious reluctance, Checkley replied, ‘Sounds like you already know we did so there’s no point in my lying, is there?’
Gallagher tapped the pen she was holding on the desk to get attention, a long-suffering expression on her face. ‘What is this about?’
‘Your client acquired a lifelike mask to enable Lynda to disguise herself as an older woman, as Doris Whitaker, to be exact. And in this disguise, she visited the solicitor and Doris Whitaker’s will was changed in Mr Checkley’s favour.’
Gallagher turned to look down her nose at Checkley as if he were a particularly loathsome bug. ‘Is this correct?’
He shrugged. ‘She was going to leave it to some damn charity. She’d never have known about it.’
West leaned forward. ‘Of course she wouldn’t have known anything about it, because she was already dead.’
45
Darragh Checkley looked confused. ‘What?’
Either he was a very good actor, or he genuinely didn’t know what West was talking about. ‘Whose idea was it for Lynda to impersonate your cousin?’
‘Hers. Some friend had had a mask made for a fancy dress, she’d seen it and thought it was so lifelike that it would fool anyone.’ He glanced at his solicitor, then with a shake of his head continued. ‘I’d tried to persuade Doris to change her will in my favour but wasn’t having much luck.’ His expression was sour. ‘Lynda is a great believer in making her own luck. Doris didn’t have much time for me, but Lynda called around most weeks to keep an eye on her. A few weeks ago, she said Doris wasn’t looking too well… a bit blue around the gills, you know… and she was afraid the old bat would pop her clogs before I could persuade her to change her will and we’d get nothing. That’s when she came up with the idea.’
Gallagher, who was stru
ggling to keep up with the twists and turns this was taking, suddenly remembered her role. ‘My client, however, was unaware at this time that his cousin was already dead.’
Checkley looked at her in horror. ‘Of course I was.’ He wiped his shirtsleeve over his face. ‘I don’t understand, when did she die?’
West was fast coming to an understanding that Lynda Checkley wasn’t simply manipulative, she was incredibly cunning.
‘Doris Whitaker’s body was found last Friday. We’re not a hundred per cent sure when she died… her body had been frozen.’
It was Gallagher, looking like she’d been caught in the headlights, who spoke first. ‘Frozen?’
‘Yes, then thawed and dumped in the laneway where she was found. Rodents caused damage to her body and especially her face which made identification difficult. Muriel Hennessy had been reported missing a couple of days beforehand so it was assumed to be her. Because of the rodent damage, the family identified the body from a distinctive ring Muriel was known to wear.’
West waited for that information to sink in before continuing. ‘During the course of our investigation we had reason to check the DNA of the body against that of Mrs Hennessy’s daughter and discovered there was no match. What we did find was that there was a match between the body in the laneway and two of the dismembered bodies that had been found dumped in the recycling centre.’ He saw Checkley blink as he began to understand. ‘Bodies that you discovered in your cousin’s house and were desperately trying to get rid of.’
Checkley’s face was a sickly shade of grey. ‘I’d like to speak to my solicitor. Alone.’
‘We’ll take a break,’ West announced for the benefit of the recording and he and Andrews left the room.
The rest of the team were in the main office, Allen and Ryan agog as Baxter told them what had been uncovered in Doris Whitaker’s house. ‘They wouldn’t believe us at first, thought we were making it up,’ Baxter said as West and Andrews joined them.
The Dublin Murder Mysteries: Books four to six Page 68