‘The smearing is caused by the impact between the object striking the glass and the glass itself. Now, I found fibres of leather on the glass’s broken edges, suggesting the impact was made with a gloved hand. The smearing effect you can see suggests that the assailant already had drops of blood on his or her glove and, in punching the glass, caused smearing of the drops at the point of impact.’
‘So they had blood on their hands before they broke in?’
‘This is where it gets interesting,’ Doherty said. ‘For I found two different types of blood.’
‘Two different assailants?’
He shook his head. ‘One of the bloods, the one smeared on the glass, belongs to Seamus O’Hara.’
‘He smashed his own window?’ Patterson asked.
‘The smears suggest that drops of his blood were on the glove when it struck the glass. At the edges of the broken pieces at the point of impact I also found small traces of Sean Cleary’s blood. He gave his DNA samples in when the dig for his father started; as the only living blood relative, we’d have needed his samples to confirm any remains found were his father’s.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It suggests that the person who broke the window wore gloves with O’Hara’s blood spotted on them,’ I said.
‘And Sean Cleary’s blood, too,’ Doherty added.
‘Blowback?’
‘Probably,’ Doherty agreed. ‘When the bullet struck either man, the ensuing mist of blood would coat the hand holding the gun, if it was close enough to the victim.’
‘So the window was broken after O’Hara was shot,’ Patterson said. ‘Presumably to make it look like a break-in gone wrong.’
I nodded. ‘So it would seem.’
‘O’Hara must have known his killer,’ Patterson continued. ‘The front door was chained. There were no signs of forced entry. He let his killer in and closed the door behind him.’
‘More than that,’ I said. ‘I think he expected them to come. If he was killed at 3.23 why was his bedside light on? Why the crossword sitting on the bed?’
‘Maybe he fell asleep while he was doing it.’
‘Plus he had his teeth in,’ Doherty added.
‘What?’
‘The State Pathologist commented on it yesterday. O’Hara was wearing false teeth.’
‘The glass of water beside his bed,’ I said. ‘He put his teeth back in. Someone called to the door. He’d not have bothered doing that if he thought there were intruders.’
‘Would you open your door to someone at 3.23 in the morning? Especially if you were a man of O’Hara’s age?’
‘Only if you were expecting someone to call.’
Patterson nodded. ‘And if he was opening the door to someone at that time of the morning, after speaking with Sean Cleary, he probably knew why they were coming.’
‘He wanted to die,’ I concluded. ‘Whatever he told Sean Cleary sent the young fella out to meet someone. Whoever it was he met killed him, then came and did the same to O’Hara.’
‘So what did O’Hara know? What did he tell Cleary?’
Doherty began gathering together the images again. ‘I can’t help with that,’ he said. ‘Anything else comes up, I’ll let you know.’
‘Go back out to Bryant,’ Patterson said to me. ‘Take a statement from him, see if he recalls anything about the phone conversation Sean Cleary had in the back of his taxi. Maybe he overheard something.’
My phone began vibrating in my pocket. It was Lennie Millar. He was on Islandmore. He needed me across there urgently.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
It was clear when I arrived that something had happened. The site where Cleary had been discovered had been widened and deepened, a mound of earth piled to one side. Near the edge of the pit a blue tarpaulin was spread, its edges weighed down with concrete blocks against the wind running off the river. On top of the tarpaulin I could see several mounds of bone.
‘Inspector,’ Millar said when I got out of the car. ‘We’ve found more bodies. Of infants.’
I glanced past him at the small mounds.
‘Are they part of the cillin?’
‘We don’t think so,’ he said. ‘We found the remains of two when we came back yesterday to finish excavating the Cleary site. Those two caused us to widen the search perimeter further; we’ve located six so far. All of them seem to be fairly recent; within the last fifty years.’
‘Any signs of violence?’
Millar shook his head. ‘Not like with the first.’
‘Okay.’ I could sense there was something else, something he had not told me.
‘We’d expect white clothes or a box of some type if they were part of the cillin,’ he said. ‘As was the case with the body we found the other day, there are none here.’
I nodded.
‘There is something more, though. They are all like the first one in another way, too,’ he said. Moving across to one set of remains he lifted a skull and, bringing it back to me, held it up to the light.
The cheekbone was missing; the upper jaw, as if molten, seemed to drip down onto where the lower should have been.
‘That’s not animal damage, is it?’
Millar shook his head.
‘It’s the same condition as the first skull?’
He nodded.
‘Are they all the same?’
‘Six so far,’ he said dryly. ‘All with Goldenhar syndrome.’
Millar stared at me, and I suspected I knew what he was thinking.
‘You can’t investigate this,’ he said. ‘I contacted you because you’re our liaison; but you know that, at the moment, legally, we can do nothing with this.’
‘So I understand,’ I said, remaining as non-committal as possible.
‘That said,’ he added, ‘this is clearly not a victim-of-violence case, in the manner of one of the Disappeared. So I will contact our own lawyers again and see what the situation is regarding the deaths.’
‘That’s fair enough.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
As I drove off the island, I saw the houses of Islandview to my left. I had intended to call again with Christine Cashell and had wanted to follow up on Sheila Clark. Being so close to the estate I figured I could manage both. On the way in I called Joe McCready and asked him to call with Bryant, the taxi driver, to see if he had remembered anything about Sean Cleary’s final journey.
I was momentarily surprised when Sadie Cashell, Christine’s mother, answered the door when I arrived at her daughter’s house.
‘Sadie, it’s good to see you.’
‘I heard you’d been involved,’ she replied. ‘You may come in.’
I had not seen her since the death of her daughter, Angela. I had spoken to Christine soon after; she had told me that her father had left home and her mother had begun a secretarial course.
Certainly Sadie looked better than she would have had she remained with Johnny, her husband, a habitual drunkard and a career recidivist. Sadie was still heavy, her hair still thick and chestnut brown, though greying in places, but she seemed more self-assured.
‘You’ve been helping our Christine,’ she said, sitting on the sofa and gesturing for me to sit on the armchair opposite.
‘I’ve not done much,’ I said.
‘You’ve taken her serious when others wouldn’t,’ Sadie remarked, looking at me sideways as she spoke. ‘That means something.’
‘How is she?’
She paused a moment before answering. ‘She’s all right. She’s not here at the moment; she’s taken the young fella to football.’
‘Tony? What age is he now?’
‘Ten,’ Sadie said. ‘He’s a wee star. You want to see him; he’s top of the class in reading. He won a medal in the Feis last year for reading a poem.’
She smiled as she spoke, her face flushed with the warmth of her pride and affection.
‘Is he your only grandchild?’ I asked, then immediately regretted the insens
itivity of the question. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it like . . .’
She dismissed my apology. ‘He’s the only one. Christine did a great job with him. She moved out here to get him away from bad influences.’
I smiled and Sadie guessed at my reason.
‘I don’t mean me, you cheeky bastard,’ she snapped good-humouredly. ‘The other kids around Clipton Place. Christine reckoned he’d be nearing the age where they start getting up to no good in the evenings. She doesn’t want that for him. She came here and sure look how that has turned out. The bloody toilets don’t even flush anymore.’
‘Is she still hearing the crying?’
Sadie shook her head, glancing involuntarily to where the baby monitor sat, its lights unblinking, the plug lying unconnected on the floor. ‘It stopped. She sat all through the night, Andrew said, waiting to hear something. She seemed more heartbroken when she heard nothing than when she thought she heard a youngster.’
She looked across at me quickly, a thought forming itself on her lips. She paused, then asked, ‘Do you think she’s going mad?’
‘No. The monitor company said she’s probably overheard a local child,’ I said.
‘There are no local kids, Devlin. We all know that. Is she hearing things?’
I shook my head. ‘I heard something, too. I think there was a child here, in one of the houses nearby. I’m looking into it. In fact, can you ask her to call me if she sees the lady across the street at that house again?’
Sadie nodded. ‘But she’s not losing it or anything?’
I shook my head. ‘If she is, I’m losing it with her.’
Sadie slumped slightly where she sat, as if her shoulders had collapsed after holding too long a weight they were not able to bear.
‘Thank you,’ she said softly.
I stood up. ‘Tell her I’ll see her again,’ I said.
Sadie glanced at me quickly and nodded but did not speak further, lest to do so allowed the tears forming in her eyes to be released. I could not tell if it was relief in the knowledge her daughter had been right, or guilt at having ever doubted it in the first place. I suspected, as a parent, it was a mixture of both.
I got into the car to leave and glanced across at Clark’s house. It was in darkness, the driveway empty. She’d already caught me snooping around once; what harm would a second time do?
I knocked at the door, but without response. Finally I jogged back across to Christine’s house.
Sadie seemed surprised to see me again so soon. ‘Did you forget something?’ she asked, holding the door open for me.
‘Christine wouldn’t have a spare set of keys lying around, would she?’
Sadie regarded me with suspicion. ‘Why?’
‘Best not know,’ I said.
She prevaricated a moment, then padded into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a small bunch of keys. They were on a plastic key ring containing a picture of Christine’s son, Tony.
‘I’ll drop them back in a moment,’ I said.
I crossed over to Sheila Clark’s house again and moved around to the rear of the property. Andrew Dunne had claimed his house keys could open the doors to other properties in the estate. One by one I tried each key in the lock of the back door. To my surprise the third key I tried opened it.
‘Hello,’ I called, stepping into the house. ‘An Garda. We’ve reports of an intruder. Is there anyone home?’
Silence. The floor was tiled with cream ceramic, the edges bordered with brown tiles. As I moved into the kitchen, I could see that the house had been finished to the highest standards. The units were solid beech, the refrigerator a large American model. Christine Cashell’s partner had mentioned this had been a show house. Clearly the sellers had pulled out all the stops; how galling then it must have been for those unlucky enough to buy to discover that, not only were the other houses in the estate not similarly finished, but the estate itself would never be completed.
The rest of the house was similarly styled. I glanced quickly into the living room, which I had already seen from outside the day I met Sheila Clark, and then on into the conservatory. There was no one around.
The rooms upstairs were all decorated, too, though they seemed uninhabited. It was only when I went into the back bedroom that I found what I had been looking for. In addition to a large double bed, a small travel cot sat in the corner. It was empty now, the child that had been in it long gone.
Sitting on the floor next to it was a baby monitor identical to Christine Cashell’s.
Chapter Thirty
Sheila Clark had vanished, but I still had Niall Martin’s address to follow up on her. As he lived in the North, I called Jim Hendry to see if he knew anything more about Martin than the scant details our records on him had provided. I started the conversation on the Cleary killing.
‘Any luck on finding Jimmy Callan?’
‘Not on our side. What’s happening with the O’Hara killing?’
‘We’re fairly sure it was the same shooter as did Cleary. Certainly the same gun was used in both killings. And both died on the same night.’
‘We got a request about checking Cleary for gun-powder residues on his hands,’ Hendry said. ‘He was all clear.’
‘No massive surprise there. Jimmy Callan looks like the likely candidate. If we could find him.’
Hendry grunted agreement.
‘I have something else to ask, too. Niall Martin, Liskey Road over on your side. Does the name mean anything?’
‘His father, Alan, certainly does; he’s a pharmacist,’ he stopped. ‘Sorry, not that, a pharmaceuticalist, if that’s even a real word. The family is loaded. Why?’
‘I wanted to get some details on a woman living over in a ghost estate here; I’m told Niall owns the houses.’
‘Where?’
‘Islandview,’ I said. ‘Why?’
‘He could do. Martin likes to play the market. He’s been buying up a lot of the half-finished housing estates left over from when the market collapsed. He owns places all around the show. Don’t expect him to be too forthcoming, though, the same boy.’
His house was on the Liskey Road, nestled on an acre site on the edge of the river Kerry. The back garden afforded a view of the entire river, running towards Sion Mills, its position accentuated by a living room whose rear wall was sheet glass, offering the owner the daily comfort of an unrestricted measure of the extent of his wealth and success.
Martin himself was a stout man, in his late fifties. He wore a blazer over a pale blue shirt open at the collar. A thin gold chain bearing a crucifix hung tightly around his neck. His hair was thick, though almost entirely greyed. His skin was fresh, his complexion ruddy. He rubbed his hands together as he spoke, as if in expectation of an imminent business transaction.
‘Sit,’ he said, pointing towards the corner sofa, which looked out over the river.
‘You have a very beautiful home, Mr Martin,’ I said. ‘Nicely finished.’
He nodded. ‘What brings a guard over to this part of the world?’ he asked, his smile flitting lightly.
‘I wanted to ask about Islandview, the estate over on my side towards Carrigans.’
He feigned confusion for a moment.
‘Vincent Morrison told me you owned it. Is that right?’
‘Did he?’
‘One of his drug dealers was selling out of an unfinished house.’
Martin shook his head. ‘That’s the problem with estates. You have no control over undesirable elements.’
‘The dealer had a key to the property. He told me he got it from you.’
‘A drug dealer told you this? And you believe him?’
‘I’m also told you rent out addresses to people from over here looking to play the system and claim double benefits.’
‘Was that information from a drug dealer too?’
‘No, that was one of the unfortunate inhabitants who have to deal with the failed sewage system in the estate pumping their shit into a
field at the rear of their houses.’
He worked hard to maintain his smile. ‘This is fascinating,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you called.’
‘Do you own the estate?’
‘One of my companies does,’ he said. ‘That doesn’t mean I have any knowledge of what happens there. We employ people to handle that kind of stuff for me.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘You’ll have to excuse me, but I’m dealing with my father. He’s quite unwell at the moment.’
‘A woman named Sheila Clark is living in one of the houses in that estate, I suspect illegally. Though she also seems to have a key. Do you know her?’
Martin shifted in his seat. ‘Never heard of her,’ he said.
‘She had been living in the show house on the estate, but seems to have gone.’
‘And how would you know that she has gone?’
‘I called this morning and the door was open. Fortunately nothing seems to have been taken.’
‘That is fortunate. I must get the locks changed.’
‘She was a paediatric nurse. In her late fifties, early sixties?’
He shook his head, as if considering this new piece of information. ‘No,’ he decided finally, pursing his lips. ‘What has she done? Double benefits claiming?’
‘Something like that,’ I said. ‘I need a permanent address for her. Perhaps you’d get that information for me.’
‘I’ll do my very best,’ he said. ‘Though, as a guard, there may be issues with whether you have a right to ask for this information over on this side.’
‘I can get the PSNI to make the request for me if you want, Mr Martin,’ I said. ‘But it would be so much more amicable this way.’
He smiled coldly.
‘Just out of interest,’ I said. ‘Why buy a ghost estate? Are you not just inheriting someone else’s problems?’
He shrugged. ‘The price was right,’ he said. ‘The market will recover some day.’
I stood and shook hands with him. His skin was soft and warm, not that of someone who engages in manual labour.
‘I’d appreciate that address,’ I said.
Chapter Thirty-One
Brian McGilloway - The Nameless Dead (Inspector Devlin #5) Page 12