Too Close For Comfort

by Niamh O'Connor

  Sue reddened, but was upfront about it as she worked her black hair into a scrunchie that had been around her wrist. ‘I used to go out with a hack.’

  ‘In which case, Joan, it might be better if Sue took this one,’ Jo decided, addressing Sue directly. ‘I want to know if the killer has been in touch with Toland before or since. We may need to organize a tap on his phone. And that reminds me …’ She headed back over to the coat stand, and pulled out the plastic bag containing Amanda’s SIM, handing it to Foxy. ‘Can you get this into an iPhone ASAP? I’ve sent the handset it was in to the lab for analysis in the hope of fingerprints, and maybe even a DNA profile from a saliva cell, or a blood group from sweat. But you can use this to give me a list of any incoming or outgoing texts, starting from her last day and working back, and including any social-networking messages – with a separate list of what’s in her emails. I also need her contacts listed alongside the stats of who she was ringing, and who was ringing her. I’m not holding out much hope, mind—’

  ‘Why’s that?’ Foxy asked. ‘I thought a phone was like a personal microchip these days.’

  ‘The killer took Amanda’s clothes,’ Jo replied. ‘Why would he leave her phone unless there’s something on it he wants us to find? And if she was holding it before she died, why didn’t she use it? I didn’t even need a PIN to get into it.’

  ‘Right,’ Foxy said.

  Jo folded her arms. ‘Which brings me to one last thing you need to know. There may be a link to the missing-women case after all.’

  Foxy shot her a quizzical look. ‘Solely because she was found in the Vanishing Triangle?’

  Jo explained the significance of the Henry Norton’s plastic bag recovered from Amanda’s body, and the fact that they had found it so close to the spot where Ellen Lamb’s shoe had been left.

  She walked back to her chair and sat down behind her desk. ‘That said, I don’t want this angle overplayed. The last thing we want is the press whipping up public hysteria and everyone running around like headless chickens. I think it’s much more likely the journalist’s source is the killer, or at the very least someone close to the killer, so let’s not feed his ego. How else could he have known about the body’s whereabouts? If we’re in luck, the source will turn out to be Amanda’s date from Friday night, but it’s a big if … That’s it.’

  Getting straight to work, Jo reached for the keyboard as the officers began to exit, only Foxy remaining to finish his notes. Typing Ellen Lamb’s name into the system, Jo scanned the file for any new information. In the details about the prime suspect, a name she knew only too well practically jumped off the screen. In more recent times the individual in question had been quizzed about a road-rage incident, so his new address was also tagged to his name.

  Slumping back, Jo stared in disbelief. It turned out that Derek Carpenter lived in Nuns Cross in Rathfarnham, where Amanda Wells had lived. Jo studied the dark-haired man in the photograph on the file and realized that he looked a lot like the description of Amanda’s mystery man, which she’d got from the restaurant manager.

  ‘What is it?’ Foxy asked, walking over.

  When Jo didn’t answer, he looked over her shoulder at the screen.

  ‘Looks like you found your link to the past,’ he said.

  ‘It can’t be that simple,’ Jo said. Derek Carpenter had been the prime suspect in the missing-women’s case all those years ago.

  ‘I thought you didn’t believe in coincidences.’

  Jo tabbed through the details until she got to Derek Carpenter’s name, clicking ‘enter’ to run a search for his record. Even if a suspect had never been convicted of a crime, cases they’d been suspected of were kept on the system. That’s how the road-rage incident had been recorded. Derek had eight convictions, all for joyriding as a juvenile, she observed. He’d been let off with a caution on an assault charge.

  Foxy was still reading alongside, and he pointed his pen at a code on the top right of the screen, showing someone else had logged in and was looking at the same page. Jo moved the mouse to the sequence and CS Alfie Taylor’s name came up.

  ‘Brilliant,’ she said.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Foxy asked.

  Jo folded her arms. ‘Dan was part of the team that looked into Ellen Lamb’s disappearance.’ She went on to explain how he had interviewed Derek Carpenter all those years ago, and had ruled him out.

  ‘Alfie’s decided he wants to go out with a bang, and this case is perfect for that,’ she said, getting up, grabbing her mac, and pulling it on.

  ‘It doesn’t matter who finds the killer, only that someone does,’ Foxy said.

  ‘Think about it,’ Jo said, crossly. ‘If Carpenter did bump off those women and get away with it for all these years, why would he leave something with Amanda’s body that would lead us straight back to him?’

  Foxy shrugged.

  ‘I need a wingman,’ Jo said, buttoning her raincoat up to the neck. ‘Sexton had better be on his deathbed when I find him.’

  5

  2000: Wapping, London

  THE COPYBOY WAS doing his best not to stare. It was his first day in the job and he didn’t want people to think he was some kind of pervert. But he’d never in his life seen a woman like her. She was giving orders to a room full of men: he hadn’t known that kind of woman existed. The type he knew would have smacked the back of his head, or read him the riot act for so much as reaching for the Sun – they all wanted to mother him, because he didn’t have a mam. It was just him and his old man, who worked in the paper’s printing works. That’s how he’d got the job.

  He ran a set of chewed fingernails along the tips of his spiked and bleached fringe – the only part of his head not to have been shaved. It was still gelled up; that was good. He rearranged the elastic of his Calvin Kleins over his tracksuit bottom’s waist. They’d called him Slim Shady when he’d arrived in the newsroom a few hours earlier, and that was good, too, made him feel like someone.

  Wiping his dripping nose on his sleeve, he went back to the sandwich order. He needed a hit of Lynx badly, but he had to sort this lot out first – he didn’t want to lose this job, not now he had seen for himself how good some men had it. He’d already spent the wages he’d yet to earn on a stash of cocaine he’d washed down with ammonia his da had got in a hardware shop. No amount of sniffing would ever give him a high that came close to crack, but it would get him through the day without unravelling.

  He started tearing little holes in the greaseproof wrappings to find which filling was where. He’d made a list, but the letters he’d scrawled for names alongside the requests kept dancing in front of his eyes; the words were all jumbled up. If he could have made the sounds out loud, he’d have got somewhere by now, but he didn’t want them to hear him trying to read. He’d dropped out of school a year before his father had noticed. He’d have got away with it, too, if the women in his block of flats hadn’t reported him to social services. Bitches. With a job of his own, nobody would be able to touch him again. He’d be his own man. One who could look at tits in public as much as he wanted.

  Beads of sweat pricked to life and dribbled down his temples. The hot chicken one had gone cold. A voice inside his head told him he could walk out right now, and nobody would give a toss, but he wanted to watch her for a bit more, so he kept at it, even if there was still their bastarding change to sort out. He wasn’t even going to let himself think about that bit yet. He was going to deck his father tonight when he came back from the pub. He’d promised there’d be no reading or writing involved in the job. He’d said the editor started out as a secretary, and that all the copyboy needed to be able to do was blag his way around. Fucking liar.

  A man in a striped shirt, braces and gold cufflinks on his white cuffs came marching over, grumbling. He rummaged through the contents of the sandwich box until he found the label he wanted and then he pulled it clear. He stank of some poncy aftershave, and messed up the small bit of ground made. The sarnie the edi
tor had wanted had gone AWOL now; the copyboy was going to have to start all over again.

  ‘I want it for lunch, not tea,’ the man said, stalking off.

  The boy flipped him one.

  The editor glanced over her shoulder to see what the fuss was about and spotted him giving Mr Dickhead the bird. The copyboy’s cheeks reddened. But she just grinned, like she agreed, and turned back to what she was doing. She was ten yards to his right, leaning over a desk, her chin resting on her hand, studying a computer screen.

  The copyboy was in love. He wondered what the man sitting at the desk, his face just inches from her’s, was thinking. He had an Australian accent, had combed the smig under his chin into a plait, and wore a chunky silver ring on his thumb. He looked like a faggot. The copyboy hated him.

  ‘Make it bigger, Nick,’ the editor was telling the gaylord.

  The words ‘Sarah’s Law’ increased on the screen over a picture of a little girl with brown eyes whose hair was in a ponytail. She looked a bit like the sister the copyboy used to have before his mam took off. It was so long ago he could barely remember.

  ‘Even bigger, Nick,’ the editor said, putting one hand on the back of his computer chair and standing up.

  She wasn’t beautiful, or pretty. The girls in his complex spent every minute of every day getting their look exactly right. He didn’t know what it was about the editor. Maybe it was the confidence she oozed that made him feel like he was going to do anything for her from here on in.

  Gaylord said, ‘We’re at 124 points as it is.’ The piercing in his tongue gave him a slight lisp.

  The copyboy wanted to punch his lights in. He hated queers, blacks, Pakis, Poles and pikeys – in that order. His mother was Irish, otherwise the pikeys would have been a lot higher on the list. They ate their dead.

  ‘Just do it,’ the editor told Nick. She rubbed the grey circles under her eyes.

  Nick started with an N, the boy thought, running his finger down the list till he found the name. He’d drawn an egg beside it, and from the stink in the box, it took only a couple of seconds to locate the only egg salad. He made sure nobody was watching, then peeled back the wrap and let a gob drop on to it. After wrapping it up again, he headed over and put it on the nonce’s desk.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, leaning across and grabbing it even though it wasn’t hers, peeling open the paper and taking one half in her hand. ‘He’s got spirit, that one,’ she said to Nick, giving him a wink.

  Nobody had ever said anything like that to the copyboy before. His chin went up a notch. She was licking the egg filling starting to drip on to her hand. The copyboy smiled back. For the first time in his life, he felt like he belonged.

  6

  LIZ SET THE house alarm, deadlocked the front door, criss-crossed her handbag across her shoulder and set off for Grange Road. What had happened to Amanda was tragic, but she had to think about how it could affect Conor, and the potential impact on his future. It was only a couple of weeks since she and Derek had sat in front of the stuffy school board in a wood-panelled room and been grilled about their application for the scholarship programme.

  ‘Personal circumstances will not be an issue if Conor passes the entrance exam,’ the principal had said, running a finger down the parting of his neat grey moustache.

  Liz had felt Derek, sitting beside her, bristle.

  ‘We’ve taken boys from all walks of life over the years,’ a woman with Margaret Thatcher hair, who’d been introduced as the parents’ representative, had agreed.

  ‘Our only concern is anything that might bring the alma mater into disrepute,’ a priest on the principal’s left had added. ‘Conor will be up against the best and the brightest, and the choice for scholarship might mean looking beyond the grades to the most suitable family.’ He’d paused to clear his throat. ‘So, if there’s anything in your history you feel might be relevant, now is the time to bring it up.’

  Liz had blinked and smiled wanly. She had taken Derek’s hand and squeezed tightly to stop him from getting defensive and asking exactly what they meant. They’d both known exactly what the school board were driving at. After twenty years living with the mystery surrounding Ellen, Liz and Derek could pick up a morbid curiosity vibe from a mile away.

  For Conor’s sake, Liz had swallowed her fury and assured the board of governors that her family had nothing to hide. She’d quoted the school’s Latin motto, ‘Fides et Robur’, and had assured them that trustworthiness and steadfastness were the cornerstones of her own humble home. ‘All we want is the best for our son,’ she’d said.

  That’s why she was getting out of the house. She couldn’t stick another second waiting for her phone or doorbell to ring. It was only a matter of time before the press or police called, demanding to speak to her. She knew exactly the way it worked. She’d been going out with Derek about six months when she’d first been door-stepped. Ellen had been missing for three of them. Liz was about to turn nineteen, and had moved out and into a flat with Derek. Up until then, the press had only ever approached her parents, asking them for another public appeal, ‘To keep Ellen’s memory alive in the public’s consciousness.’

  ‘How many times can you say, “We can’t move on?”’ Liz’s father used to rant after he’d politely given them whatever sound bite they wanted. He’d been diagnosed with cancer, and after each call used to fade away another little bit. He wouldn’t change the home phone number, though, just in case. He’d died within two years of Ellen vanishing.

  ‘We have to keep the media onside, and Ellen’s face in the paper,’ her mother would try to cajole. ‘You never know …’

  Liz had been caught off guard when she’d been approached. It was a Saturday night and she and Derek were walking home from the pub, half-cut, when a reporter had literally appeared at their door, like he’d been sitting in wait. He had stepped up, pointing a Dictaphone at her mouth. He was young, with a big moon face and a bush of curly brown hair. The linseed smell of his bottle-green wax jacket still filled up her nostrils all these years later.

  ‘I’m sorry to drag things up,’ he’d said in a Northern accent, giving her a sad smile, ‘but my boss is going to kill me if you don’t give me some kind of a line about how your family is coping, and if you’re planning to commemorate Ellen tomorrow.’

  It would have been Ellen’s seventeenth birthday the following day. That’s why Derek had taken Liz out, to try and get her mind off it.

  ‘She doesn’t want to talk,’ Derek had said, putting his arm around her and trying to give the reporter the brush-off.

  ‘With the greatest of respect, that’s for her to say,’ the journalist had replied. ‘What if Ellen reads the story and decides to get in touch?’

  ‘They found Ellen’s shoe in the mountains,’ Derek had snapped, stepping closer to him. ‘Do you really think she left it there and walked back down barefoot? Use your loaf.’

  ‘I’m just saying it might appeal to the killer’s conscience,’ the reporter answered, pushing his chest out.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Liz had told Derek, drawing to a halt. ‘You never know …’

  ‘That’s right,’ the reporter had jumped in. ‘A few words might just make the difference, jog someone’s memory.’

  ‘As long as you don’t make out like she’s dead again, or write anything about trying to appeal to a killer’s conscience, I’ll do it,’ Liz had said. ‘That would upset my mam and dad too much. They believe she’s still alive.’

  He’d written it down. ‘So will there be a birthday cake in your house tomorrow?’

  Liz had looked at him like he’d lost it.

  ‘I mean, something like this happens, people can’t bring themselves to change the covers on the missing person’s bed, so I just thought maybe …’

  ‘We won’t be having a cake, or a party,’ Liz had said, filling up. ‘That’s too creepy.’

  ‘Are you happy now?’ Derek had asked the reporter.

  The man had kept his eyes train
ed on Liz. ‘Do you think it was someone she knew?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Liz had answered, feeling confused.

  ‘I mean it was a busy street, it was daylight, she must have been offered a lift by someone she’d recognized. That’s why the cops always persuade the family members to do a public appeal. They need to get their faces out there to see if anyone witnessed them up to anything suspicious on the date in question.’

  ‘Are you saying you think someone she knows had something to do with it?’ Derek had asked, full of aggression.

  The reporter had tried to backtrack. ‘Not necessarily. I was just talking generally.’ He’d turned back to Liz. ‘So how are you going to mark the day, then? You can’t go to the graveyard like most people, so what will you do?’

  ‘We don’t have anything planned,’ Liz had said. ‘We’ll just get up in the morning and try to keep going.’

  ‘What about a vigil outside Henry Norton’s, maybe?’ the reporter had pressed. ‘We can get a photographer there tomorrow if you agree. It will help keep her memory alive. Like you said, “You never know.” ’

  Derek had given him a shove. ‘Cop on.’

  ‘Touch me again and I’ll have you done for assault, mate. This has nothing to do with you.’

  ‘I’ve nothing more to say,’ Liz remembered saying, before she’d pulled Derek’s arm to tell him to leave it.

  But the reporter wouldn’t take no for an answer. ‘What’s your problem?’ he’d needled Derek. ‘Why are you so afraid of me trying to help catch the killer? Have you got something to hide? You’ve been in trouble with the law before. What’s the matter?’

  Derek had turned and decked him. Afterwards he’d said, ‘She asked you not to mention that word.’

  Liz could still see the way the reporter had staggered back clutching a bloody nose. As Derek had led her away, she’d spotted a car on the far side of the street with the driver’s window open. She remembered seeing the reporter turn his thumb up and then down at it with a puzzled expression, like he was waiting for a verdict. An arm had appeared out the window of the car opposite with the thumb pointing up, and the reporter had smiled.