Too Close For Comfort

by Niamh O'Connor

  ‘No prizes for guessing who’s the apple of your eye,’ Jo said cheerily, motioning towards the photos of the boy upstairs stuck to the fridge with bright magnets. He’d been snapped on a horse … playing the piano … aiming a crossbow.

  Liz moved to a press and, without saying a word, pulled out a clanging pot. She turned a tap on full force and held the pot under it. ‘I’ve to get his dinner on.’

  Jo raised her voice over the water. ‘I need to find out where Derek was on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.’

  ‘With me.’

  ‘The whole time?’ Jo asked.

  Liz nodded vigorously, banging the pot down on the work surface. She reached for a potato and started peeling it into a bin. Sexton arrived into the room, grabbed an apple from a bowl, and started munching.

  Jo moved to the window and looked across the gardens. ‘Let’s start with Friday evening, shall we? What time did Derek get home?’ Liz blurted, ‘He didn’t do it.’

  ‘Do what?’ Jo asked.

  ‘Oh, give over.’ Liz threw the potato and knife into the sink. ‘I’ve been through this all before. I know the way your lot work. You’re all the same. Be all nice one minute, so as to walk me up the garden path the next, trying to get me to say something that I didn’t mean. Derek had nothing to do with what happened to Amanda. He was here with me all weekend. We’ve got a Sky box and we plonked ourselves down in front of all the stuff we missed during the week because we were too busy working.’

  ‘Derek’s not working, though, is he?’ Jo remarked. ‘Nice place this,’ she added.

  ‘You want to know how we afforded it, is that it? We bought our first house for half nothing, and sold it for a small fortune when times were good, that’s how.’

  ‘For someone with nothing to worry about, you’re wound up like a spring,’ Jo said.

  No answer.

  ‘As bad as things may look where you are, lying is going to make them a hell of a lot worse,’ Jo said. ‘You could be charged as an accessory. Who’s going to take care of your son then?’

  Liz walked over to the kitchen table and sank into a chair. She studied her fingers.

  ‘I need you to give a statement,’ Jo said more gently. ‘Will you come down to the station tonight?’

  ‘I’ve got to organize a minder for Conor. I don’t want him involved.’

  ‘That’s no problem,’ Jo said.

  Sexton thumped his chest and started to cough hard.

  ‘I’m scared,’ Liz said to Jo.

  ‘All you have to do is tell the truth,’ Jo said, giving her one of the new contact cards too.

  Walking out the front door, Jo turned to Sexton, who was staring at her. ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘I can’t believe you just did that. You walked away, just when you’d got her eating out of your hand. You should be taking her statement now, before she has time to change her mind or her pervert husband changes it for her. She was about to shop Derek.’

  ‘I don’t have an arrest warrant for her, and she doesn’t have a solicitor. If I take it now, some clever barrister will argue it’s not admissible in court and in all likelihood a judge will agree.’

  ‘You sure that’s the reason?’ Sexton said.

  ‘I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. I want her to believe we’re on her side. She’s the key to this case, and I get the impression she’s a decent skin. Anyway,’ she said, nodding her head at the waterworks van. ‘We’ve got friends who’ll tip us off if she heads out.’

  Sexton glanced over at the council workman, his expression changing as the penny dropped. ‘You’re joking! He’s one of ours?’

  ‘You should have clocked it from his office shoes, or the fact that this place is off council limits, like all new developments. It’s maintained by a management company. The residents pay fees like in an apartment block. It’s a surveillance van. We’re monitoring computers and phones. If Liz tries to contact Derek, we might just find out exactly where he is’

  23

  2002: London

  THE OLD DEAR had gone to make some tea. The cub reporter was on his first doorstep, and he was not leaving empty-handed. He stretched both arms up over her fireplace, taking regular checks over his shoulder to make sure she hadn’t come back as he removed a framed photo from her wall. His nails were non-existent, so trying to prise back those metal bits keeping the backboard in place was a nightmare. The sound of footsteps made him freeze; he tried to hang it back up, but the string wouldn’t catch the nail. He sat down quickly, letting the photograph slide to the far side of the couch. There was a lighter patch on the wall where it had been.

  ‘I never asked you if you wanted milk in your tea,’ she said, all croaky.

  ‘Yes, please,’ the cub said, like butter wouldn’t melt. He smoothed the creases from the suit he’d picked up for a pound in the charity shop in Notting Hill.

  He got back at the picture as soon as she was gone again, managed to dig the snaps free with his flesh, bleeding all over it in the process, but flicking the photo free of the glass. He was here after work, on his own initiative, something his boss was always banging on about. He’d seen enough of the way it worked in the newsroom if you wanted to get on. It didn’t matter whether you were a university graduate on an intern programme from a fancy journalism college. It didn’t matter whether your name was Jasper or Cosmo, or where you lived, or what you drove, or even if you drove. It didn’t even matter whether you could write, or whether you could talk about how much you’d read. The only thing that mattered was your last story. And if you phoned a copy taker, you never even had to write a word.

  The irony was he’d passed a couple of hacks on the doorstep, even one from his own paper who hadn’t recognized him.

  The old lady was back. Without a tray. The cub stood; it was all over anyway.

  ‘My daughter-in-law rang and said I should have asked you for ID.’

  ‘Course,’ the cub said, reaching into his suit jacket for the laminated card he’d organized just in case.

  She squinted down her nose at it. She still hadn’t noticed the wall yet. Good thing too, or he’d have had some explaining to do.

  ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Maurice,’ the cub said.

  ‘And I won a competition?’

  ‘That’s right, I was just sent to find out which prize you fancied most. The holiday, the car or the cash. It’s up to you, sweetheart.’

  ‘My daughter-in-law is going to help me choose, she lives just around the corner.’ The doorbell went. ‘That’s her now.’

  She tottered out to open it. The cub jumped up and paced into the kitchen, slipping out the back door, and then vaulting the garden hedge and taking off.

  He admired the pick-up hidden under his jacket once he was in the clear. A notorious killer as a boy – classic. So what if he’d stolen the picture from a little old lady? The killer was an evil bastard, deserved whatever he had coming to him.

  A reporter’s job was to get the story, and that was the beginning and end of it. If people didn’t notice what was going on under their noses, it was their problem. He didn’t need to apply for a job in Downing Street, or the Defence Forces, or Buckingham Palace to get a story. Just like the fake sheikh, he was already someone else.

  24

  JO PUSHED THE door of the detective unit open and stared in disbelief. Alfie had started a bloody conference – without her! He was standing at the top of the room, shirt sleeves rolled up, nodding like a bloody donkey as members of her team answered his questions. The room was chock-a-block with a new set of faces – detectives from his station, she presumed. Instead of Alfie setting the pace, time was being wasted briefing him, from what she could see. She walked her shoulder blades against the tension, rolling her neck. The nagging pulse in her head had turned to a steady throb.

  ‘Breathe,’ Sexton said quietly, gripping her elbow lightly and leaning in to her ear. ‘He only wants what you do, to catch the killer.’


  ‘No, he wants it to be open and shut. It’s not.’

  ‘For who, Jo? Even Liz Carpenter thinks her fucking husband did it.’

  Jo shrugged him off, and walked in.

  Alfie looked up as she entered. ‘You’re late, Birmingham.’

  ‘My office,’ she demanded.

  Alfie shot her a look. A nervous ripple of laughter stopped as quickly as it had started.

  Jo kept going. Alfie stayed put.

  ‘Still no sign of Derek?’ Alfie called after her.

  After opening her office door, she turned around. ‘Liz Carpenter is prepared to cooperate. This way, we won’t have to use up the number of hours we can detain him unless, and until, we need to.’

  ‘She’s been protecting him for twenty years,’ Alfie said. ‘So, forgive me for saying so, but I’ll believe it when I see it.’

  Jo slammed the door, aware her every move was being scrutinized by the team outside. She held her hair off her face as she studied the notes still on the wipe board, turning as Foxy followed her in. Sexton was hanging back, she noted.

  ‘Look at it positively, Jo,’ Foxy said ‘All those extra resources out there can be put to good use.’

  ‘Alfie brought a hack to a crime scene,’ Jo fumed. ‘If he feels he owes it to the press to tell them the latest developments, we might as well invite the public into the incident room to watch.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do. I’m not going to stand out there and pretend I’ve got respect for someone who wants the easy solution to be the answer, and to have this case sewn up because he’s retiring on Friday. Can you brief me on any updates? How did the inquiries go? Any other offenders come up with the same MO?’

  Foxy shook his head. ‘There are lots of incidences of killers who stuffed gags in the mouth, and lots of killers who strangle with bras on the database here and in the UK, but not one with both in combination. It seems to be someone who hasn’t come up on the radar for this kind of offence before.’

  ‘Go on, say it,’ Jo prompted. ‘You think it was Derek, too.’

  ‘That’s not what I said.’

  ‘That’s what you think, though.’

  He didn’t answer.

  Jo sighed. ‘What about Ellen Lamb’s shoe? Any luck finding it?’

  ‘It’s gone to the lab for analysis.’

  ‘Great.’

  Out of the side of her eye she could see Alfie pointedly glaring in her direction. Jo continued to stare at the wipe board. ‘What about the CCTV from the surrounding area? Did it throw any light on who was with Amanda in the restaurant?’

  ‘They’re still trawling through it. They’ve narrowed it down in terms of time, but it was a busy night and they’re trying to enhance the couples who came into shot passing the restaurant door at the relevant times. But there are hundreds, it’s time-consuming.’

  ‘What about colleagues? They might know something about her love life.’

  ‘There’s only a secretary.’

  ‘Slot her in for an interview with me, this evening, along with Liz and her neighbour.’

  ‘She’s a “he”,’ Foxy said. ‘Jo, you’re taking on too much. Your ophthalmologist rang to see where you were.’

  ‘Shit,’ Jo said. She’d forgotten about her appointment. ‘Any news from the dragnet on the ground? Did the questionnaires yield any new information on the door to doors?’

  ‘Alfie stopped them,’ Foxy said.

  ‘Why?’ Jo said, outraged.

  ‘He was afraid any visible presence would scare Derek off.’

  ‘What about the covert team? Did the waterworks team in Nuns Cross tap any unusual phone conversations, or spot any emails that we could use?’

  ‘They’ve been told to report directly to Alfie. He’s playing that one very close to his chest. You’ll have to ask him yourself.’

  Jo gave a humph of exasperation and put her hands on her hips. ‘And Sue? How did she get on with Alfie’s reporter pal, Niall Toland?’

  ‘Sue tried to interview him in the Daily Record offices, but said she couldn’t get a straight answer from him. Sue said her ex recorded every phone call with his sources, though, and that a lot of them were paid.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, am I going to have to do everything myself?’ Jo headed for the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘The paper’s only around the block. With any luck, I’ll catch that Niall Toland before he clears off for the evening.’

  ‘What will I tell Alfie?’

  ‘I’ll tell him myself,’ Jo answered, pressing the door handle. ‘As long as there’s a chance Liz Carpenter is coming in here later, he can’t stop me.’

  25

  DOWN THE CLOSE at Number 31 Nuns Cross, Frieda McLoughlin had just guided Liz into her kitchen, and Liz was settling Conor down at the table with what remained of his homework. Through the window, Liz could see Frieda’s husband, Charles, tossing some burgers at a barbecue in the back garden. A few feet away, a group of neighbours were talking at a patio heater. Frieda had contacted them to see if anyone else was in the same boat, blackmail-wise. Four sets of neighbours had admitted they’d been under the same pressure. Suggesting that if they suddenly started assembling it might arouse suspicion among the gardaí, who’d been in and out of Nuns Cross all day, Frieda had come up with the barbecue plan. ‘Neighbours gathering for something like that looks normal,’ she’d said. Liz craned her neck trying to see who was there, but pulled back quickly when she spotted George the clamper. Not him, she thought. He terrified her. She glanced at the clock. It was 6.30 p.m.

  ‘How much longer to the circus, Mum?’ Conor asked.

  ‘Not long,’ Liz said, rubbing his back. ‘We’ll have to head down to the garda station for a bit after, but it won’t take much time.’

  ‘Aw, Mum. I don’t want to go there. Why can’t I stay home? When’s Dad coming back?’

  Liz swallowed. She combed his short hair with her fingers. The love she felt for Conor made her heart ache. She’d do anything for him – whatever it took to keep him safe. Her heart and her head were at war over the things she’d found out today. The past had come back to haunt her, and she kept reliving the last time she’d spoken to her sister, something she dreaded thinking about.

  Liz closed her eyes as the memory swept over her again.

  ‘Hurry up, big hole,’ Ellen was shouting through the locked bathroom door again. That day, Friday, 1 November 1992, was a date that would matter a hell of a lot more than any Christmas or birthday in the Lamb house from then on.

  Liz had guessed from the pitch of Ellen’s voice that she was peering through the keyhole. She’d reached for a towel to drape it over the handle quickly, just in case, wondering if Ellen was always going to be the bane of her life. She’d been trying to pad her boobs evenly in the bathroom for the previous fifteen minutes. It had seemed so important at the time, because Derek Carpenter, her first love, was due to pick her up after school, and she’d wanted to look right. He’d said he was taking her somewhere special.

  Ellen had been bitchy ever since Liz and Derek had got together. Liz had never had a boyfriend before. Ellen had been trying to break them up. She’d also followed Liz and Derek from school with a gang of her mates, taunting them from behind. Ellen just wasn’t used to Liz, who was ten stone, and carried her puppy fat in all the wrong places, getting any male attention, and especially not from someone cool and streetwise like Derek. Ellen, who had had an hourglass figure and weighed eight stone, had always acted as if she was in direct competition with Liz over everything. Clothes were not an issue because of their different sizes, but shoes were a never-ending source of dispute.

  When Liz had decided she wanted to study nursing after school, Ellen had announced she wanted to become a midwife.

  And since Ellen was the baby of the family, she’d also got away with a lot more stuff. Take the night Ellen had said she was having a sleepover with a
girlfriend, but it turned out she’d pitched a tent in the grounds of the Hellfire Club with a group of guys and girls from her year, in order to get pissed as a fart on a six-pack of Amstel and shots of Jägermeister. Their parents had found out after Tallaght Hospital had phoned to say Ellen’s stomach was being pumped. If it had been Liz, she’d have been given the third degree, but Ellen had been mollycoddled like she’d had her appendix out.

  And just the previous week, Ellen had stayed out all night on two occasions, worrying their parents sick. They’d almost called the gardaí, convinced she’d been murdered or abducted. Looking back, it had been like some kind of freaky prophecy.

  But Ellen had turned up for school on both days, claiming she didn’t know what the fuss had been about, she’d just lost track of time and stayed over with friends. Her friends had been cagey about the details.

  From the far side of the bathroom door on that last day, Liz had turned on a tap to drown out the sound of Ellen demanding she get a move on. She’d wanted more time to go through their mother’s make-up bag. She’d rummaged around for the foundation and black kohl eyeliner. Applying it had taken a lot longer than she’d thought it would, as she normally didn’t wear any, and her eye kept closing and watering whenever she’d so much as tipped the nib off her skin. Ellen, on the other hand, had become adept at applying upper-lid liquid liner with Christine Keeler-style precision. Several smudges later, Liz had grown more and more frustrated as Ellen had got more and more bolshie on the far side of the door.

  ‘I swear to God, I’m going to tell Mum and Dad exactly how big a slut you are,’ Ellen had called.

  After backcombing her hair, Liz had flushed the toilet to keep up the pretence, and emerged from the bathroom, all set to head downstairs for her breakfast.

  ‘The state of you,’ Ellen had said, bunching her long hair in a scrunchie. ‘You’re meeting him again, aren’t you? When are you going to finish with that loser? Everyone’s going to think we’re both skangers if you keep going out with that swamp life. He’s a toerag. He’s been in a juvenile-detention centre, and it’s only a matter of time before he ends up in Mountjoy. He’s going to beat the shit out of you, and he’ll be one of those blokes who burns their other half in the back garden, or buries them under a patio.’