“You don’t forget, do you?” I said, reaching for my wallet. When I opened it there was only a tenner in there.
“Will you take a tenner?” I said, holding it out to him.
“I knew you wouldn’t have all my money!” he said, and with a mirthless cackle grabbed the cash.
“What’s your ESP say about our victim here?”
“How come you’re late? Not like you, Duffy.”
“I’m not late. It’s not my show, Jim. Sergeant McCrabban’s lead on this one.”
“Oh, I see. Are you on your way out of the force, then?”
“Not to my knowledge,” I said suspiciously. “Why, have you heard something?”
“No,” he added quickly.
“Positive ID yet on our victim?” I asked him.
“We’ll need to use dental. The lad landed head first on the rocks just under the water. It was low tide, but even if it had been high tide it wouldn’t have made any difference. You want to take a look?”
The body was crumpled up under a white blanket.
“No thanks. Time of death?”
“It might be difficult to determine. Like I say, he’s pretty smashed up. But the birds hadn’t been at him, and there’s no decay or advanced rigor, so my uneducated guess would be sometime early this morning.”
“Anything else you can tell me?”
“We can tell you how he died.”
“How did he die?”
“Blunt force trauma caused by jumping off a cliff.”
“Thanks, Jim, always a pleasure.”
I walked back to Sara, who was scribbling in her reporter’s notebook.
“You want to take a wee dander up to the lighthouse with me?”
“Of course,” she said enthusiastically.
“Let’s go, then. Cause of death, by the way, was gravity.”
She wrote that down in her book.
We followed the winding cliff path up to the lighthouse, where another group of cops and forensic officers were taking photographs and dusting for prints.
I found Crabbie and introduced him to Sara.
“This is Sara Prentice from the Belfast Telegraph,” I said.
She offered him her hand and he shook it. He looked at me with bafflement. I had never previously expressed any desire to cooperate with a reporter. Why the change of heart?
“Sara’s a, uh, friend. You don’t mind if she makes a few notes, do you? The story’s going to break sooner or later. We might as well have the media on our side for once,” I explained rather lamely.
“No, I don’t mind,” he said dourly, utterly unconvinced by the cover story.
“Thank you,” Sara said, and went off to look at the black Mercedes parked near the cliff edge.
When she’d gone Crabbie raised an eyebrow.
“I met her at a church social; she was there when I got your call and she asked if she could tag along. I was getting on well with her, I didn’t want to kill the thing then and there,” I explained.
He shook his head. “A reporter, Sean . . .”
“I know, I know . . .”
I took out my cigarettes and lit one. Not so easy a task up here on the windy cliff edge.
“So what’s the story with our boy?” I asked.
Crabbie shrugged. “It looks like he tops his parents, drove here, parked his car, had a cigarette, had a think, wrote a quick suicide note and jumped.”
“Any evidence in the car apart from the note?”
“We’re dusting. Nothing so far.”
“Can I see this note?”
“Sure. It’s bagged and tagged.”
He had Constable Fletcher bring me the note. I read it, and it was as Constable Lawson had reported: quick and not containing much information. It was written in script, not block capitals, on lined notebook paper. Blue biro. It didn’t look written under duress to me, not that I was an expert. I read it out loud:
I lost my head. I’m really sorry.
That was all.
I flipped the piece of paper over. Nothing.
“Does it match with his handwriting?” I asked Crabbie.
Crabbie smiled. “Funny you should ask that, Sean. I had Lawson go over to the house and hunt me down a sample.”
“Very professional of you. And?”
“We eventually found one of his notebooks from his university days.”
“And?”
“It looks pretty similar to me. Constable Lawson, can you get me Bag 4 from the Land Rover?”
Lawson, who’d followed us up the cliff path and who’d been lurking in the background, went off and came back with the university notebook.
It was marked “PPE year 3: Philosophy. Hilary Term.”
I flipped it open:
How then to balance the interests of liberty and democracy? Mill feared the “tyranny of the majority” and wanted a zone of personal liberty for all people, a zone that the majority could not impose its values upon . . .
“Pretty fancy stuff he was studying,” I said.
“He was a student at Oxford,” Lawson said. “Studying PPE.”
“Yeah, I see that. And what’s PPE when it’s at home?”
“Politics, philosophy, and economics. It’s basically three degrees in one, in three years. Oxford is the only place in the world that offers the subject. Very tough. A good chunk of the prime ministers of the twentieth century did PPE at Oxford. I, uhm . . .”
“You what exactly?”
“I applied there, but I, uhm, didn’t get in . . . stuffed up the interview . . . sort of froze.”
“Oxford’s loss is the RUC’s gain, though, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
I passed Lawson the notebook and pointed at the cover.
“What’s ‘Hilary Term’?” I don’t know that expression.”
“Hilary is what they call Spring Term at Oxford,” Lawson said.
“So he’s in the penultimate term of his last year at Oxford, studying for an extremely prestigious degree, and he just drops out? There must be a story there, eh?” I mused aloud.
“It is a bit strange,” Lawson said. “Even if a candidate does no work at all, they usually give them what at Oxford is called a ‘gentleman’s third.’ If he’d hung in there for another couple of months, he would have got some kind of degree.”
I could see that Crabbie was getting irritated. “If I could bring you gentlemen back to the task on hand, we’re trying to focus on the handwriting here,” he said.
I took the notebook back from Lawson and compared notebook and suicide note.
“I can’t say with the confidence of a specialist, but it looks like the same hand to me.”
“And me,” Lawson offered.
“We’ll need to get an expert in to compare them,” I said.
“I’m already on it, Sean,” McCrabban said.
I nodded. “I’m sure you are. Of course, the note could have been written under duress . . . Did we ever find that gun he used to top his parents?”
“No.”
“I wonder what he did with it?”
“Tossed it in a panic before guilt took him over?”
“Aye, maybe.” I rubbed my chin. “No witnesses, I suppose?”
“None that’s come forward.”
“Who found the body?”
“Several people reported seeing something floating in the water. A fisherman by the name of Wilson got him out with a boathook. Do you want to talk to him? We have him over at the incident van.”
“Get Lawson to take a statement.”
“We were lucky to find the body. The tide was on the turn, and if no one had seen the body tonight, it might have been carried out to sea and lost forever.”
“I wonder why he didn’t just shoot himself?”
“Not so easy after he’s seen what a gun did to his parents.”
“Hmmm.”
I walked over to the FOs dusting the car.
“Keep an eye open for anything peculiar,” I said.
“What like?” one of the FOs said behind his mask.
“You know, anything strange. Cocaine, used rubbers, evidence of violence. Anything.”
“In this kind of posh fucking motor you’ll find all that,” the FO muttered.
“Try and keep the class war in check too, mate, yeah?”
I caught Crabbie’s eye and smiled at him. We were both thinking the same thing.
“A rather neat end to the case,” Crabbie said.
“Too neat?” I asked.
“Maybe.” Crabbie took me to one side. “What would you do next?”
“I’d canvass for witnesses and I’d eliminate the other possibilities such as threats against the Kelly family and so forth . . .”
“Well, we’re doing that, of course . . . But failing some unforeseen development I’d say that this one looks reasonably straightforward, wouldn’t you say, Sean?” McCrabban asked hopefully.
I shook my head. Something didn’t feel quite right.
“Did you see any of those family photographs of young Michael Kelly back at the homestead in Whitehead?” I said.
“Aye, I saw them. Couldn’t miss them.”
“He was a good-looking boy before a bunch of rocks rearranged his face.”
“So?”
“Handsome lad like that with lots of money and a flash car? He’s probably got a girlfriend. Wouldn’t you think?”
“Could be.”
I took a final puff on my ciggie and threw it over the cliff.
“Well?”
“You’re thinking he might have called her after he did the dirty deed?” McCrabban said.
“Wouldn’t you?”
“I wouldn’t top me mum and dad.”
“But if you did, you’d call your girl, wouldn’t ya?”
“Aye, I would.”
“So check it out.”
“I shall.”
“And find out why he dropped out of university, will ya? Probably a dead end, but you never know . . .”
“Maybe I’ll put the new blood on it. Anything else you can think of?”
“Apart from eliminating the usual terrorist/paramilitary angles?”
“Aye.”
“No, nothing else that comes to mind. How are the trainees getting on?”
“Fletcher’s terrific. Does as she’s told, keeps her mouth shut.”
“And Lawson?”
“You saw . . .”
“A royal pain in the arse?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“I’ll have a wee word with him. He’s a bit overfamiliar for someone who’s been on the job less than a fortnight.”
“Did you notice his hair?” Crabbie asked.
“I did. I already had a word.”
Just then Sara came back from her wanderings, still scribbling madly in her notebook.
“Get what you needed?” I asked.
She gave me a little grin of satisfaction. “It looks like Michael Kelly killed his parents and committed suicide,” she said.
“We couldn’t possibly speculate at this early stage of the investigation,” I replied cautiously.
“But wouldn’t you say that this is an open-and-shut case, Detective Sergeant McCrabban?” Sara asked Crabbie.
“Detective Sergeant McCrabban has no official comment at this stage, Miss Prentice, and, off the record, we hate that bloody expression in the RUC.”
“What expression?”
“Open-and-shut case.”
Sara grinned and snapped her notebook shut.
“Can you give me a lift to a phone box? I think I’m the only reporter here at the moment, but I won’t be for long.”
I drove us back to Coronation Road and five minutes later Sara was unpacking her scoop His Girl Friday fashion to the copy desk at the Belfast Telegraph from the phone in my hall; I made sure she spelled McCrabban’s name correctly; he might not like the attention of the media but his missus would be pleased as punch.
While Sara was at her task, Mr. Marks and Mr. Spencer and myself contrived to make a spag carbonara. We ate it with a bottle of Italian red that had gotten a 92 in the Sunday Times wine guide.
We talked Italy and wine and her career.
“This is really going to set me up. You’ve been a huge help,” she said happily.
“My pleasure.”
“No, really,” she said, and gave my hand a squeeze.
We took our wine glasses and moved to the living room.
“Wow, you’ve quite the record collection,” she said, amazed.
“Er, yeah.”
“What do you listen to? A lot of jazz and stuff?”
Another old geezer crack. I put on Reckoning by REM, which had exactly two good songs on it but which I hoped would show her that I was in touch with the kids. I sat next to her on the sofa. “I had a nice time, tonight,” she said.
“You did?
I held her gaze longer than was normal for two people brought up in the arctic psychological environment of post-war Ulster.
That was all it took.
“Yes,” she said, and then added, “I suppose you think one thing is going to lead to another?”
“Not necessarily,” I said, and leaned across the sofa and kissed her.
“I’m not easy. Don’t think that,” she said as she followed me up the stairs. “It’s just the circumstances.”
“I can’t promise you a corpse on every date.”
“I think I can live with that,” she said.
I laid her down on the bed. And one thing led to another.
7: THE GIRL IN INTERVIEW ROOM 1
Through the office window rain falling on coal boats, slag barges, dredgers. Ugly ships on an ugly lough. Melancholy thoughts. Low-level Masefield-style epiphanies. Outside the office door Lawson talking loudly to Fletcher about some crackpot theory he thought he’d invented about The Beatles.
Eyes heavy. Ciggie burning finger. Can of Coke with a nip of Jack in it.
Sleep for a minute.
McCrabban’s big mug in the doorway. “Sean . . . Sean . . . Sean!”
“I wasn’t asleep.”
“Didn’t say you were.”
“What is it?”
“Are you busy?”
“I’m doing the CID overtime claims.”
“So, er . . .”
“It can wait,” I told him, pushing the confusing pile of forms away from me.
“Do you want to come down to observe Interview Room 1, Sean?”
“It depends who or what is in Interview Room 1.”
“Sylvie McNichol,” he explained.
“And she is . . .”
“Michael Kelly’s girlfriend.”
“So he did have a girlfriend.”
“Yes.”
“I’m waiting for it . . .”
“For what?”
“The ‘you were right, Sean.’ Validation, mate. We all need it. Pope, president, detective inspector.”
“You were right, Sean.”
“Come on, you don’t need to say that, mate. Have you talked to her already?”
“Yes. I interviewed her this morning at her flat in Whitehead.”
“Does she know anything about the night of the murder?”
“She says Kelly didn’t phone her or see her that night, and true enough there are no records of any call from the Kelly house to anyone on the night of the murders.”
“What about before that?”
“She hadn’t seen him for a few days before that.”
“Any hints of any trouble between them?”
“Nope. She said it was all giggles. They’d only been going out about a month. It seemed to be one of those on-and-off things that the kids get into these days.”
“Where did he meet her originally?”
“The Whitecliff. She’s a barmaid there.”
“Big tall girl with ginger hair?”
“No.”
“The wee mousy black-haired one?”
“
Nope.”
“I thought I knew all the . . . oh, wait, the sort of Greek-looking one.”
“She doesn’t look Greek. What does Greek look like?”
“Dark eyes. That kind of thing.”
“She’s a blonde. Platinum, dyed, skinny. Lots of denim.”
“Oh, yeah, I know her. Never gives you a full pint. Always half an inch missing from the top of your glass. She was Kelly’s girlfriend?”
“Apparently.”
“And he didn’t call her the night of the murders?”
“Nope.”
“So we’re looking at a newish girlfriend that Kelly wasn’t particularly attached to, someone he didn’t think to call on the night he murdered his parents.”
“Something like that.”
“At this interview at her flat did she provide you with any other insights into the case?”
“None at all.”
I give him the old Spock raised eyebrow. “Then why bring her in for questioning? Do you not believe her?”
“Oh, I believe her, but I was thinking that it might be good practice for the new detective constables. Let them question a witness by themselves. A witness in a homicide investigation . . . You know?”
“They question her. We observe them?”
“Yes.”
“Sounds good. Sounds like the sort of thing I should have thought of.”
“They’ve already started. Do you wanna come see how they’re doing?”
I followed him along the corridor to Interview Room 1’s observation suite, which was a small office on the other side of the one-way mirror that looked into the main CID interrogation room.
Lawson and Fletcher had indeed already begun their questioning of Sylvie McNichol, who had come as a clone of early Madonna: bangles, denim, Daisy Dukes, ripped fishnets, scarves in her hair, massive hooped earrings . . . I got myself a coffee and a cigarette. McCrabban lit his pipe. Lawson was asking the questions and Fletcher was writing down notes as if she was his secretary, which was utterly unnecessary because we were taping the interview anyway.
“Where did you meet Michael Kelly?” Lawson asked.
“He come in the Whitecliff. Seen him in there a couple of times, so I did,” Sylvie replied.
“And when did he ask you out?”
“Beginning of October, he asked me if I wanted to go see Van Morrison at the Ulster Hall.”
“And you said?”
“Aye, why not. Bit of a laugh.”
Gun Street Girl Page 7