No Easy Answer

by Valerie Keogh

  Less than twenty minutes later, they saw one of the technical team approach the car and got out to meet him.

  ‘News?’ West said.

  ‘Sergeant Maddison said to come and get you,’ the man said, giving nothing away.

  The technical team had screened off a section of their allocated area. It gave them some privacy from the members of the public who strained to see what was going on. Maddison stood at the entrance waiting for them. ‘You are not going to like this.’

  Seven words that were guaranteed to make the hair on the back of West’s neck stand on end. He met Andrews’ eyes and knew he felt the same. They followed Maddison through the narrow opening into the small, enclosed area. The smell here was rank, a foetid stink of decay that had West automatically screwing up his nose.

  The contents of the large, black plastic bag were carefully laid out on a white plastic sheet. At first glance, it didn’t seem too bad. One body. It only took a second to see that West’s first estimation was wrong and he bit back a groan. ‘There’s two left hands.’

  ‘Yes, but unfortunately–’ Maddison pointed to the torso, ‘–neither arm belongs to that.’

  West looked at him, startled. ‘Three bodies?’

  Maddison shook his head slowly. ‘Hard to say at this stage but I think there might be four, at least.’ He pointed to the only leg. ‘It doesn’t match the torso or the arms.’

  Four bodies. West hunkered down to take a closer look, fascinated despite the choking stink. ‘All of the parts look to be at a similar state of decomposition.’

  ‘There’s something odd about them, but I’m puzzled as to what. I’ve contacted the state pathologist, Dr Kennedy, and we’re sending everything in to him now. I wanted you to see it all before we did.’

  West took a final look around the ghoulish display. ‘Thanks. Dr Kennedy will no doubt be able to enlighten us.’

  Maddison jerked a thumb to the opening. ‘We’ll keep on here, hopefully we’ll find the rest.’ He took a final look at the body parts on the ground. ‘It’s odd though…’

  West looked at the macabre collection. ‘Odder than that?’

  ‘I’d go for equally as odd. Somebody kept at least four bodies until they were dead a considerable amount of time, then they chopped them up. But instead of putting one body into one bag, they just shoved the parts in any old way. As if they’d piled the body parts up and took whatever was nearest.’

  ‘Four bodies!’ Inspector Morrison looked understandably appalled; his frown so deep that his hairy eyebrows formed one line across his forehead.

  West propped a shoulder against the wall of his office. ‘At least four. They’d only opened one bag, inspector, there’s around 499 more to go through. They may find more remains, hopefully enough to make four complete bodies and no more. It would be convenient if they could find the heads, too, of course–’

  ‘Convenient?’ Morrison looked even more horrified and gave an audible gulp.

  ‘Well, yes, to enable us to identify the victims.’

  ‘It’s a sad situation when we speak about finding a bag of heads as being convenient, Sergeant West.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking about a bag of heads,’ West said. That thought made him grimace. ‘But unless DNA or fingerprints work in our favour, it may be difficult to identify the bodies without a face.’

  Morrison looked as if he wanted to say more but then swatted the idea away with the back of his hand and sat in his chair, his eyebrows separating into their individual components again. ‘Dr Kennedy will be able to provide the Missing Persons Bureau with DNA from each victim.’

  West knew the bureau had a vast database. It would be a start. ‘It’s going to take a few days for the technical team to work through that container.’

  ‘Meanwhile, we’ve got to find out who is killing people, chopping them into pieces and disposing of them on our patch.’

  ‘Four people.’ West didn’t want to state the obvious, he knew the inspector would be thinking the same thing.

  ‘Don’t say it,’ Morrison replied sharply. ‘Let’s get all the facts before we jump to conclusions.’

  West took the back stairs down to the detective unit. Okay, they hadn’t said the words, but he knew Morrison would be sitting at his desk thinking about them all the same.

  Serial killer.

  4

  West was sitting behind his desk when Detective Garda Seamus Baxter walked in, his round freckled face set into grim lines.

  It was an expression West knew well. It said they’d reached an outcome in an investigation that wasn’t a happy one. ‘You found Mrs Hennessy.’

  ‘We’ve found the body of an elderly woman.’ Baxter dropped onto the chair and ran a hand through his ginger hair. ‘It was found behind the refuse bins in the laneway at the back of O’Dea’s Takeaway.’

  West knew the place. He frowned. ‘She’d wandered a bit further than we thought, then. What on earth took her around there?’

  ‘There’s what looks like vomit near the body. Maybe she was feeling sick, didn’t want to embarrass herself by puking in public so took herself out of sight.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ West agreed. ‘And it’s definitely her?’

  Baxter shrugged. ‘It looks like her body has been there a couple of days at least. The bins were emptied by the council on Monday so her body could have been there any time since then. Staff in the takeaway empty their rubbish into the bins in the evening but the area is poorly lit and her body was tucked up almost behind so she wouldn’t have been seen.

  ‘Apart from the council, nobody else uses the laneway so it’s quiet but there’s enough food remnants around and enough open spaces in the vicinity for it to have a sizeable population of rodents.’

  Rats and mice. West grimaced. ‘Bad?’

  ‘A lot of damage to the exposed bits, her face and hands especially. She was wearing a heavy coat, buttoned up to her chin which prevented more damage to her torso.’ Baxter shook his head. ‘The family won’t want to see her like that but at least the rodents left her wedding ring and a pretty ugly engagement ring. They’ll suffice for identification.’ He got to his feet. ‘The daughter is on her way in now. She was out with one of the search parties.’

  ‘She’ll know it’s bad news.’

  ‘Yes, but it won’t make the telling any easier.’ Baxter nodded towards the main office. ‘Edwards is calling all the search teams in and the body is on the way to the mortuary.’ Straightening his shoulders, he left to wait for the arrival of Muriel Hennessy’s daughter.

  Andrews entered as Baxter left. ‘Sad end to that case.’ He sat on the seat the younger man had vacated, folded his arms and looked across the desk. ‘Well?’

  West didn’t have to ask what he meant. He and Andrews were on the same wavelength, they knew each other’s thoughts. Sometimes it was eerie, mostly it saved a lot of work. ‘The inspector doesn’t want to hear the words serial killer until we have something more to go on.’ He shrugged. ‘He’s right, you know, there was something odd about those body parts, did you notice?’

  Andrews had, of course. ‘Any body parts I’ve seen before were–’ he searched for an appropriate word, then untucked a hand and waved it, ‘–wetter, if you know what I mean.’

  West did. Decomposing body parts tended to stick in your mind long after a case was resolved. ‘I do, and I agree, these looked dried out and it was odd that there was no blood. Maybe they’ll turn out to be man-made, you know, tossed out by some drama society or something.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Andrews checked his watch. ‘No point in worrying about it till we hear and that’s going to be Monday at this rate.’ He jerked a thumb back to the main office. ‘Jarvis is having a look at the CCTV footage from the two cameras but it’s going to take a few hours. He said he’s going to stay till he’s done.’

  ‘Looking for someone carrying unusually heavy bags and seeming furtive?’

  ‘Now that would be something. Unfortunately, he’s likely to see nothing.
The cameras were obvious and it would be easy for someone to avoid them by parking a little further along. They wouldn’t be able to avoid being picked up by the camera on entering though. On Monday we can start identifying ownership of each vehicle, see if anything comes up that way.’

  ‘Monday,’ West said, getting to his feet. ‘Until then, let’s enjoy the weekend.’

  Music was blaring as West opened the door of his home in Greystones. It brought instant relaxation to his tense shoulders. Edel Johnson, his fiancée, the woman who had led him a merry dance over the last year. She filled his home with life and love.

  He stood in the kitchen doorway and watched her in amusement. Her fingers were flying over the keyboard, her head down, focused, hair loose and wild as if she’d run her fingers through it several times during the day. How she could write with that music blaring he didn’t know. It was Tyler, the chihuahua, who noticed his arrival and ran forward to say hello and drew Edel’s attention from her writing.

  ‘Mike,’ she said, looking at him, then at the time displayed on the corner of her screen. ‘Oh no, is that the time.’ She got to her feet and stretched her arms up, closing the distance between them as she did and bringing her arms down around his shoulders. ‘I’ve had a really productive writing day. The words were jumping from my fingers.’ She rested her head on his shoulder. ‘I came down to make something for dinner about an hour ago but made the mistake of bringing my laptop with me. Honestly,’ she said, pulling back to look at him. ‘I only sat to write a couple of words.’

  West tightened the arms he’d slid around her waist. ‘I’m glad it’s going well for you,’ he said, kissing her before taking a step back. ‘Now how about you get out of your writing clothes and we go out for something to eat?’

  Edel laughed and pulled at the fabric of her T-shirt. ‘You mean you don’t think a scruffy T and baggy bottoms are a good look?’

  ‘I love you in anything but I bet you a hundred euro you won’t go out like that.’

  ‘You could have made it interesting and bet me a thousand, then I might have given it some consideration! Okay, give me ten minutes and I’ll be ready. Why don’t you ring the Italian and see if they have a table free?’

  The Italian restaurant overlooking the marina in Greystones, half an hour’s walk away, was one of their favourites. With Edel’s hand clasped in his, West listened as she told him about the direction the crime novel she was writing was going. ‘It’ll be finished on schedule,’ she said. ‘Then I’m going to dive straight into the next.’

  A few months previously, Edel had a contract with a publisher to write family sagas. Thanks to a conniving, manipulative woman who’d crossed their paths, that contract was torn up. Edel had been devastated. Self-publishing hadn’t worked for her so when her agent Owen Grady came up with a plan to re-establish her, she’d jumped at it. By then, however, she’d decided to write crime novels rather than family sagas. It was a change West was still adjusting to.

  ‘No regrets,’ he asked her now as they approached the restaurant. When she looked puzzled, he clarified. ‘About switching to crime?’

  Her laugh pealed out, drawing an echoing smile. ‘You really need to be careful when you say that: people could misinterpret.’

  It wasn’t until the waiter had taken their order and they were sitting with glasses of wine in their hands that she answered his question. ‘No regrets at all. I’m really enjoying writing this book and I know it’s going to be a great series.’

  ‘Good,’ he said, reaching for her hand. ‘I’m glad you’re happy.’

  ‘I am. Now why don’t you tell me about this new case that’s clouding your eyes.’

  He looked at her in surprise.

  Edel raised her glass to him and smiled. ‘I can’t read your mind but you’d relaxed after the church murder was solved and today, you’re distracted again.’

  ‘Maybe it’s the thought of finally marrying the woman I love that has me distracted?’

  ‘Hmm, nice try. I like to hear about your cases. Why don’t you tell me about it?’

  The arrival of their food claimed their attention for a few minutes. West looked across the table as Edel picked up her first slice of pizza. A discussion of the provenance of body parts wasn’t the usual romantic dinner conversation but perhaps their relationship was never destined to be typical. ‘Okay, let me tell you about my day.’

  ‘An interesting one,’ Edel said, manoeuvring another slice of pizza into her mouth. ‘And all the parts were in the same condition?’

  ‘Looked to be so anyway.’ He shrugged. ‘They might yet turn out to be man-made.’

  ‘Or fallen off zombies,’ she said with a chuckle.

  ‘That’s what the guy who found them said.’

  ‘A new type of criminal fraternity?’ She reached for another slice. ‘Might be an idea for a novel there.’

  ‘Okay, how about we change the topic to something more romantic.’ West reached for her left hand and tapped her ring finger. ‘Tomorrow, we’ll go shopping for that ring I promised you.’ He watched the crime writer immediately drop away and his fiancée return. ‘I thought we’d go to Debeerds,’ he said, naming an iconic Grafton Street jewellers that made Edel’s eyes sparkle. ‘I want to get you something special.’

  ‘I have something special,’ she said, returning the pressure of his hand.

  ‘Something more special then,’ he insisted with a laugh. And the conversation for the rest of the evening centred around the next day, and the days after that.

  Edel was amused and touched by the fuss Mike was making. She assumed they’d drive to Greystones and take a DART into the city from there so was taken aback when he told her to hurry, that a taxi was picking them up at 10am.

  ‘Honestly, we could have gone by DART, Mike,’ she remonstrated.

  He shook his head. ‘I was thinking about hiring a limo but thought that might be a bit OTT.’

  She laughed. ‘God, yes, maybe a bit. Okay, a taxi it is then but you’d better go downstairs and leave me to get ready.’

  A glance at the clock told her she had fifteen minutes to spare. She’d planned to wear trousers, a warm jacket and comfortable shoes for walking around the shops. With a sigh, she decided more of an effort was required and looked through her wardrobe for something to suit.

  When she heard Mike call up the stairs that it was almost ten, she was nearly ready. The black jersey dress clung in all the right places and wasn’t something she would normally wear during the day, but it looked right for the occasion. She added a plain gold neck chain and earrings, slipped her feet into black high heels that would be murder by the end of the day, picked up her coat and bag and headed down the stairs just as she heard the sound of the taxi pulling up outside.

  She knew she’d chosen the right outfit when Mike’s eyes lit up.

  ‘You look stunning.’

  ‘You don’t look so bad yourself,’ she said, reaching his side and slipping her hand into his. And suddenly, she knew there’d be no problem with her high heels, she was going to float through the day.

  The taxi left them near the main entrance to Stephen’s Green.

  ‘Maybe we could go for a walk around the park later,’ West said, taking her hand as they crossed the road and headed down Grafton Street.

  The pedestrianised street was, as usual, thronged with people. Several street performers, musicians, singers and mime artists, competed for attention and money. Edel and West stopped to listen and watch. It was sunny, the weather unseasonably warm, they had a day to themselves and they were determined to enjoy every moment.

  Finally, they arrived at Debeerds, its double-fronted windows glittering with a dazzling display of jewels. Edel tightened her grip on Mike’s hand as excitement fizzed. For a second, it was dampened by memories of her first engagement to the charming Simon Johnson, the lying, cheating bigamist who had caused her so much pain and grief. She turned to look at the man beside her and said a final goodbye to the memory. ‘I love
you, you know,’ she said to Mike.

  ‘And I, you.’ He kissed her quickly, then pressed the doorbell to gain admission to Debeerds.

  The upmarket, traditional jewellery shop was synonymous with expensive luxury and West and Edel were greeted like valuable returning customers. The shop was spacious and well designed with a counter directly opposite the door and one to each side. Upholstered red velvet chairs were set in pairs at discrete intervals in front of the counters, only two of which were occupied.

  An assistant crossed the shop floor to greet them. ‘Good morning. And what can we help you with today?’ He looked from one to the other. ‘No, don’t answer that, I can tell from your wonderful expressions.’ And without another word, he led them to chairs set in front of counters that dazzled with diamonds.

  Edel gasped and sank onto a chair, her eyes fixated by the array of gems on display. How on earth was she going to decide? And, goodness, how much did they cost?

  The assistant joined them from the other side. ‘Now, did you have something in mind?’

  She felt Mike’s eyes on her and turned to meet them. ‘Wow,’ she said, then turned back to the assistant. ‘Something very simple.’

  ‘I like that one,’ Mike said, pointing to one of the rings.

  ‘You have excellent taste,’ the assistant said, reaching for it. He placed it on a velvet cushion in front of Edel. ‘This is platinum and rose gold set with a square princess-cut diamond.’ He nudged the cushion towards her. ‘Please, try it on, I think it might actually be your size.’

  It was. Edel slipped it on her finger and gulped. It was magnificent. ‘Very nice,’ she said, taking it off. ‘Now, perhaps something simpler.’

  ‘Of course.’

  A selection of rings were placed in front of her, but the experienced assistant left the first ring sitting on the cushion. It threw all the other rings into shade. ‘Maybe this one,’ Edel said, holding her hand up. The tiny solitaire twinkled once.