by Casey Hill
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I just wish it wasn’t so damn hard.’
Chapter 11
When the restaurant’s potentially lethal dessert arrived and was set with reverence on the table between Reilly and Chris, they both hesitated. Reilly could see the unnatural yellow of the fruit oozing over the lava cake.
‘Well, it certainly looks toxic,’ said Chris. ‘I’m game if you are.’
He raised his eyebrow at her, and suddenly deciding to throw caution to the wind, Reilly couldn’t help but take up the challenge. Wielding her fork, she said: ‘OK see you on the other side.’
Normally she wasn’t much of a dessert fan. But this, this was something else. The tart bite of the fruit set off the white chocolate cake perfectly. When their forks pierced the middle, molten dark chocolate flowed out onto the plate. It was luscious. Reilly completely forgot that they were eating a fruit that was potentially poisonous.
‘Well, that was pretty amazing,’ said Chris, when the plate was clean. ‘I thought you were going to stab me with the fork for that last bite.’
‘I would have,’ said Reilly, ‘but …’ Her temperature soared as suddenly, an intense feeling of nausea washed over her. She got up from her chair and moved quickly to the bathroom, where she was afraid she might throw up. Could the antimine still be in her system from before, and the desert had re-activated it or something? But no that wasn't possible. The wave subsided and she splashed water on her face in the sink, the cold of it reviving her somewhat. Then, her temperature subsiding, she looked in the mirror at her pale face, feeling much better. When she got back to the table, a large man was sitting with Chris. He was dressed head to toe in a black uniform. Reilly guessed this must be the chef.
Both men turned to her with a concerned look. ‘Madam,’ said the chef, ‘I hope you were not unwell. Is everything is ok?’
‘I’m fine,’ she lied. ‘I’m just recovering from a tummy bug and probably shouldn’t have eaten quite so much, but your food was delicious. Please, let’s continue.’
The chef looked somewhat mollified but Chris continued to give her worried glances throughout the rest of the conversation.
‘We’ve sought you out because you are one of the most knowledgeable authorities on this particular substance,’ said Reilly. ‘I understand that you went to Asia to receive personal training in the preparation of Joker fruit?’
‘Yes,’ said the chef. ‘My wife and I went there ten years ago. She cooks also.’ Chris and Reilly exchanged a glance. A female killer perhaps? Not exactly part of the profile. But you never knew. Plus, not to make too many assumptions, but this guy looked like a teddy bear. It was hard to imagine him cooking up deadly potions for young women.
‘Do you use the fruit often?’ asked Chris.
‘Only in season. In Asia they mostly use it in savory dishes, to provide a sweet counterpart. It is very popular in Cambodia especially. There are many accidents though. It isn’t regulated, so any person can serve Joker Fruit and sometimes it is prepared poorly.’
‘People die?’
‘Some,’ said the chef. ‘The poison works very slowly, so most people are able to realize the symptoms and have their stomachs pumped. But it can cause bad nerve damage once it had stayed in the system for some days. Some people are never the same.’
‘A few days?’ said Reilly. ‘How much would it take to kill someone in a matter of hours?’
‘I can’t say for sure,’ said the chef. ‘I studied it for culinary purposes only. All I learnt about the seed is that you should throw it away. But it does have a reasonably strong outer shell that encases the poison. Once in the stomach, the shell is worn away by stomach acid and the poison begins to seep in slowly.’
‘Have you ever seen it made into antimine?’
‘No. I have not seen it in that form, thought I have had the process described to me. The shells must be cracked open and discarded, the poison poured out. It must go through a process of purification, where it is mixed at a high speed and made very, very fine. It is hard to do.’
‘Can you show us the Joker fruit?’ asked Reilly.
The chef nodded. ‘Come with me.’
They followed him into a kitchen that was not like a usual restaurant kitchen. Smaller, cozier, more like someone’s kitchen at home. He picked up a large, thick-skinned fruit and held it out to Reilly. It was an odd, ridged shape, almost square.
‘I am the only one who can prepare it in our kitchen,’ said the chef. ‘It is not dangerous if you know how to do it.’
‘Where were you last Friday night?’ asked Reilly. Already she knew the question to be pointless. This wasn’t the killer.
‘I was here,’ said the chef. ‘I finished early and then I took my wife and children to a movie. Am I in some trouble?’
‘No, no trouble at all,’ said Chris. ‘Thank you for your time. It’s been very informative.’
‘So,’ said Reilly afterwards, as Chris navigated the late afternoon traffic back to the GFU. ‘Let’s go over what we know so far. Our victim, Jennifer Armstrong, was a career woman who frequented dating sites. She was killed after eating a well-prepared meal laced with antimine. The fact that her death was reasonably quick indicates that the antimine was prepared professionally. There were no seeds in her stomach, which backs up this assumption. We have two previous instances from before, which were sloppier but still hold some of the same calling cards: professionally prepared meal, non-violent death, potential fetish held by the killer for the victim’s bed. Not much to go on.’
‘I think the bed thing is less of a fetish, and more of a compulsion,’ said Chris.
‘OK Freud,’ said Reilly. ‘Still, we need something else. I’ll check in with the crew when we get back, see if they’ve come up with anything from the trace. We just have to keep ploughing through.’
He looked sideways at her. ‘I would tell you to go home and rest after that little incident back there, but I have a feeling you won’t take to that too kindly.’
‘You’re right about that,’ she said, embarrassed afresh. ‘I don’t want to hear another word about it. I’ll admit I was worried for a minute but I must just have a stomach bug. I don’t need to go home and rest. I need to get something concrete in this case before it drives me mad.’
‘I hear you,’ said Chris. ‘Maybe we’ll strike it lucky. Maybe Kennedy actually did something useful at lunch, other than eat the biggest burger he could find.’
In fact, Pete Kennedy had discovered a thing or two while eating at Jumbo’s. He had found the burger restaurant he had been missing all of his life: the burgers there were big, juicy and delicious and they came with a serve of beer battered chunky fries. If this was heaven, then he was in it.
While he ate his burger, he got chatting to the waitress. Kennedy could always get a pretty girl to talk to him. His intentions were pure: he just liked to chat. He wasn’t threatening or sleazy.
‘You like working here?’ he asked the waitress.
She looked young, with curly brown hair and full pink lips. He had the feeling, looking at her sleepy eyes and the agitated way she kept moving her hands that she might not look young for much longer. A user.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘Better than some places. They don’t shout at you here.’ Her accent was thick.
‘You from England, love?’
‘I am, yeah.’
‘Whereabouts?’
‘Manchester.’
‘Great place.’
‘I miss it,’ she admitted. ‘I thought that I’d come to Dublin and something good might happen, but I just fell in to this job, these people. It’s just like being back home, only I have no money and no family.’
‘You could go back,’ he said. ‘No shame in that.’ She smiled hopelessly, and he leaned forward. ‘I heard a girl who worked here got killed a couple of months ago? Do you know anything about that?’
‘You the grease, or something?’ Her demeanor changed suddenly, she got suspicious.
‘No, nothing like that,’ Kennedy lied smoothly. ‘Truth is, her father was a friend of mine and I’m just asking around for him. As you can imagine, he’s disappointed that no one’s been arrested.’
‘Well,’ she said, relaxing again. ‘We all are, aren’t we? ‘Specially as we know who done it, an’ all,’ Her accent slipped into her Manchester vernacular now that she was familiar with him.
‘Who was that, then?’
‘Harry McMurty. Used to work here. Real piece of work, he was. Used to try and get into all our pants, but only Rose would let him. She must have been mad. I mean, he’s handsome, sure, but just a real rat?’
‘Yeah, I know the type,’ said Kennedy. ‘So why didn’t the cops get him?’
‘Bloody fluff couldn’t catch their own arses if you ask me,’ she said. ‘Useless as anything.’
‘I agree with you,’ he said staunchly.
‘They said they hadn’t enough evidence. But here we all were saying it weren’t no one else but him. And they let him go. He’s got some fancy job over at Hammer and Tongs now. Smooth talker.’
‘Hammer and Tongs? What’s that?’
‘Real fancy place over on Baggot Street. Tuck your napkin into your shirt, wipe your nose for you that kind of place. He’s the head waiter or something. Wants to be maitre’d.’
‘Well, thank you,’ said Kennedy. ‘You’ve been a real help.’
‘I hate that bugger, I do,’ the girl said with sudden vehemence. ‘I know Rose wasn’t much and a dreamer to boot but she were one of us and she didn’t deserve to what happened. I hope that rat gets it.’
‘We usually get what’s coming to us, pet,’ Kennedy said, getting up to leave.
‘Not that I’ve seen. It’s them willing to walk over the rest of us that get the cream.’
Kennedy left her a big tip. She would need it, poor girl. He’d seen so many like her, heading for disaster, but having two young daughters himself, he wanted to save them all.
The world was a harsh place, sucking in and spitting out young ones like that who were too young to stop it. It was a terrible shame.
Back at the GFU, he met up with Reilly and Chris in the lab.
Kennedy didn’t have anything against the blindingly impressive results that DNA could give them. But he still favored good old-fashioned detective work. He preferred to think of the stuff done here as a kind of alchemy, something magic. Not anything that these kids had to put hours and hours of work into. Just to extract the DNA from a single hair.
‘OK,’ said Gary, filling them in, like the show-man he was. ‘We managed to extract a single piece of hair from the bed at Jennifer Armstrong’s and compared it to the DNA of the two men who came forward and admitted to dating Jennifer. No match. But,’ he said, ‘and this is where you’ll want to give me a big kiss, it does match the DNA taken from the previous crime scene with the bed imprint in common. It’s a match. Your guy was at both scenes. And who knows how many others. Nothing from last month’s anitimine-related one unfortunately. Problem is we don’t have enough trace left to keep testing. We need to keep the rest to match against any real suspects.’
‘You’re a magician all right,’ said Kennedy. ‘Are you ready for that kiss?’
They all laughed. Reilly was relieved to have something to go on finally, but it only confirmed her worst fears.
With a stab of familiar resignation in her stomach, she acknowledged that they were dealing with a serial killer.
Chapter 12
Once she got home that evening, Reilly made herself a quick salad and sat down at her table to work. At times like this, it would be nice to have a cat or dog. Or something for a little companionship. Most of her colleagues were out having a post work drinks and she was at home, trying to concentrate on old case files and keep up to date with emails.
The truth was, her mind kept wandering to the lunch she had with Chris. They had strayed into the territory of the personal today, and it had been strangely comforting. She knew, had known for a long time that Chris was someone she could really tell things to.
That’s why she had to be extra vigilant around him. She’d learnt that lesson with Todd. She didn’t need anything complicating her work relationships. Especially not now, when they had made the biggest break-through of the case so far.
What Gary had found today would help. They would be able to make stronger hypotheses about the killer, able to track his state of mind more easily. There might be yet more clues to be gleaned from the earlier crime scene. Rose Cooper. The two victims were very different. Jennifer was reasonably wealthy, having had a successful PR firm of her own making. She was sophisticated, savvy, independent. She knew what she wanted and had no problem taking it. This other girl, Rose, was much less sure of herself. She was a single mother, hailing from a working class family who lived outside of Dublin, in the Midlands somewhere. She had left school at sixteen become pregnant and then came to the city and began working as a waitress, trying to pick up acting gigs at the same time.
Family and friends said that around the time before her death she had been feeling discouraged and was depressed. One of Rose’s close friends had said that she was not sexually confidant, but was quite shy with men and seemed to date only men who didn’t treat her well. Reilly saw the name Harry McMurty pop up a few times. An old colleague. She wondered if Kennedy had found anything out on his solo expedition to her workplace. He hadn’t said anything that afternoon, but then they were all excited about the new findings.
She opened her laptop and clicked on the email from Gary and frowned. Darren Keating, Grace Gorman’s ex-boyfriend was in jail, in Mountjoy Prison.
She would go over there after work on Friday if she could spare the time. The prison was only a stone’s throw across the city but she wasn’t exactly overjoyed at the thought of it. The guy sounded the very opposite of charming and she was sorry that Lucy’s sister had got mixed up with a kid who was clearly trouble. The question was, did he have anything to do with Grace’s disappearance?
According to the case file, Keating had been interviewed a few times immediately afterwards, but had been less than helpful. He had tried to diminish the relationship, saying that it was just a casual thing, that he hadn’t really known Grace that well. But other friends indicated that they had been seen together all the time; that they were practically inseparable. Reilly always felt that there might be more to tease out there, but from what she could tell the new task force weren’t focusing on past acquaintances. Hell, she didn't think they were focusing on much at all and the new investigation was more about appearances than anything else. The lab had got practically nothing from the house and the other trinkets, so what had seemed like a breakthrough at the time had simply led to other frustrating dead ends.
Lucy was another problem when it came to the re-examination of Grace’s case: she’d barely spoken to Reilly since they had gone out to her childhood home the other day and she had broken down.
Reilly felt that she was actively avoiding her. She needed to talk to Lucy, to make her feel safe again. But she couldn’t help but feel that her reaction merely proved that she knew something, whether she was aware of it or not. She didn’t think that Lucy was lying, or hiding anything deliberately. The mind was a powerful thing, and would do what it could to protect a person from harm.
But she definitely felt that Lucy was hiding something from herself. If she wanted to find out what happened to her sister, she would have to take the plunge and confront her own memories. People were afraid of what their psyche held. Reilly would be afraid too. But she had a feeling that Lucy might change her mind. This was more important to her than anything else.
She just needed time.
In the excitement of the day before, Kennedy had neglected to update the others about his exploits at Jimbo’s. He was starting late that morning, so he decided to drop into the fancy restaurant on Baggot Street the waitress had mentioned and check out Rose Cooper’s old workmate Harry McMur
ty before considering it seriously as an avenue.
Hammer and Tongs was just opening when he walked in at eleven a.m. He guessed it was the very antithesis of the place he had been in the day before. It was an old warehouse, with huge high ceilings and the sound in the room flew about and bounced off the walls like a panicked bird.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ A waiter rushed him as soon as he walked in, seeming alarmed at the sight of a man who looked like he really should be out ploughing a field darkening the door of one of the best restaurants in Dublin.
‘I’d like to speak to Harry McMurty, please,’ said Kennedy.
‘I’m afraid that Mr McMurty is working right now, and can’t entertain friends.’
‘This isn’t a friendly visit,’ Kennedy replied gruffly, annoyed by these hoity toity places. ‘You’d do well to sit yourself down and entertain the law. You’re wearing a name-tag, you gobshite. ’
McMurty blushed but remained defiant. ‘What’s this all about? I’ve had enough of you guards. I already told you everything I know about Rose.’
‘How did you know I’m here about that?’ asked Kennedy.
‘Girl I used to work with rang me up and told me you’d been sniffing around.’
‘I got the impression she wasn’t a fan,’ said Kennedy, surprised. ‘What’s she doing ringing you up?’
‘They all hate me until they need something,’ he sneered.
He was handsome, Kennedy supposed, but underlyingly threatening. He had a face that was smooth and unblemished, glossy black hair and was slim and lithe. A tiny diamond glinted in his earlobe and tattoos peeked out from beneath his sleeves. His eyes were the only thing that gave him away. They were a deep blue, but shot through with red. He obviously didn’t get much sleep. It was the ones who looked like this who were often the most trouble, thought Kennedy. Their good looks reeled people in, made them trust them. They should come with a bloody warning sign.