‘Will you get her a blanket, Detective?’ Iris said quickly. Julia Stenson was a bird of a thing, surely too young to be working in a place like this. Her shoulder blades were as thin as slates and if her face was hardened by life, everything about her eyes was vulnerable and childlike.
‘Sure.’ Pardy headed off towards what Iris assumed was a bedroom.
‘I’m sorry about your colleague,’ she said gently, but Julia was lost in the nightmare of the last few hours. No one had managed to get a formal statement from the girl yet, just rough notes taken down by Pardy since she arrived on the scene. Discovering a murder victim shook most people to the core, harder again when you knew the person. Iris could hear the police investigators next door, soft murmurs, the dead still warm. So far, beyond a shocked outline, it was all supposition. This girl might be essential to piecing together the night’s events, and Iris knew they needed to get any information she had sooner rather than later. She bent forward to gather some of the cups and put herself directly in front of the girl. ‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you some questions, do you think you’re able for that?’
‘I’ll try.’ Julia hiccupped and then wiped her eyes viciously to get rid of the tears that still sat there.
‘Can you tell us about last night? Really we’re interested in hearing everything that happened and if there was anything you noticed that was unusual or different.’
‘Oh God, I’m not sure I can tell you much. It seemed the same as any morning coming on shift. Even the door had been closed, there was nothing to say that this was…’ Julia began to cry once more.
‘So, you just walked in to find Rachel had already died?’
‘Yep.’ Julia shuddered at the memory. ‘I can’t really remember what I did when I saw her.’ She shook her head now, as if the memory might free itself. ‘I know I went to check on Eleanor, but in that moment… I don’t know… I…’
‘You assumed she’d be there, sleeping soundly through it all?’ Iris asked gently.
‘I suppose I did. I’d never have thought anyone would…’ Huge tears began to cascade down Julia’s cheeks now. Shock. It was grief too, but mostly shock, Iris had seen it before, but still, she knew, she needed to press on.
‘No one would want to kill Rachel?’
‘Well, that too, but…’ She looked at Iris now. ‘You think someone came here to kill her? Oh my God…’ She began to retch, the enormity of what had happened just hitting her anew. ‘Oh my God… and Eleanor, do you think she’s…’
‘We don’t know yet.’
‘She’s a good girl, I know. You’d think that because she’s here, but really, she’s a good girl, she’d never…’ Julia said emphatically, shaking her head. Iris wasn’t sure if Julia was trying to convince Iris or herself with the words. Julia reached up and rubbed her earlobe, a habit perhaps, or just time to let her think.
‘But she was housed on her own? Not with the other girls in a shared bungalow?’ Iris asked.
‘That’s not because she was any more trouble than the others, if anything it was because she was easier.’ She left her ear alone for a second. ‘The others here, well, they’re different to Eleanor. Harder. Once they realised who she was, who her family were, well, they gave her an awful time. A couple of months ago it all came to a head and it was decided that it would be for the best if she was moved here for the remainder of her time.’
‘What happened exactly?’
‘Oh, it was typical bullying – probably jealousy and, of course, there’s always that thing with these girls, any reason to single one out, well…it’s pack mentality, isn’t it? She was in bungalow four, the girls there are older, real worldly – or at least that’s what they’re pretending to be. They’d been picking on her for ages and then one night, after lights out, they set on her, cut off her hair and the message was clear, they could have cut something a lot worse if they’d wanted to.’ Julia shook her head. She reached up to her earlobe, taking out an earring that looked as if it might already be the cause of a nasty infection.
‘I see.’ Iris tried to ignore the earring Julia was now inspecting, picking pieces of scab from it thoughtfully. ‘And no one heard a sound through all of this happening?’
‘The walls here are as thick as Fort Knox – you probably wouldn’t hear a tank charging through until it arrived on your lap.’
‘But an incident like that, surely there must have been screaming…’ Iris played it out in her mind, the terror the girl must have experienced while she was being attacked so violently.
‘It’s likely, but the sad fact is there’s no one you could ask now.’
‘Why is that?’ Iris already had a feeling she knew the answer.
‘Because the staff member on that night isn’t going to be able to help you…’ Again the tears put a halt to any words for a long while. ‘It was Rachel…’ she said eventually. ‘Rachel, she felt so badly afterwards, I think, well, we all thought it was why she was so extra nice to Eleanor from then on.’
Outside in the narrow corridor, heavy footsteps cushioned by scene-of-crime shoe covers moved about, but it was hard to make out any sounds beyond the anonymous movements. ‘Next door is Eleanor’s room. Your men will need the code to get in there.’ Julia sighed. ‘It’s the same code the whole way through, all the nines…’
‘Would Eleanor have needed that to get out of her room?’
‘She has a buzzer inside, it means she can come and go, but it sounds in the kitchen if she’s left the room.’ She placed the earring in the pocket of her tracksuit bottoms. ‘The thing is…’ Her eyes began to water again. ‘The thing is, even if Eleanor had woken during the night, I don’t think she’s ever left her room – why would she? She has everything she needs there, bathroom, music, magazines. The management have been trying to do away with the security person on duty at night because of it, saying that there’s no need for two staff here when she never even needs the one.’
‘Are you suggesting that she may have been taken from her room on purpose?’
‘I’m not sure what I’m saying. Eleanor isn’t like anyone else here, is she? Her father is Kit Marshall – I mean, she’d be worth a decent ransom if someone kidnapped her, wouldn’t she? It’s just a funny coincidence that she decides to leave her room the night Rachel is… well, when something like this happens.’ She sat back in her chair a little then, staring off into space with her thoughts playing out silently behind her eyes, until Jo Pardy arrived back in the room with a cheap fleece blanket and to collect the half-drunk cups of tea that stood at her feet on the floor. Iris darted a glance at her that silently conveyed the message that she was not required at the moment.
‘There’s no need, I can take them out and wash them now.’ Julia’s accent was Limerick, with a little something else thrown in, but it was hard to make out exactly what that might be. Julia reached down, her movements quick and sparse with nothing wasted, and she began to gather the cups from the floor. ‘Not a great tea drinker at the moment, but they said it might help.’ She placed the four cups in a neat line. The room was empty bar the sofa they were sitting on and a single chair. The television, a music system and a signal box were all high tech, the best and most expensive brands available, but hardly visible in the gloom save for a small red power light blinking determinedly. To the side an old black-and-white teddy bear sat forlornly, perhaps abandoned. The room was kitted out like a trendy student flat – one with lots of money spent on it. Julia must have spotted her taking in the room.
‘Mrs Marshall is very generous. She came here with a cheque and told the supervisor to have free rein – the only stipulation being that it was spent entirely on Eleanor’s accommodation.’ She shook her head again, dolefully. ‘That was just after she was moved across here, after the…incident,’ she finished off. Julia was thoughtful for a moment. Small green eyes focussed somewhere far away, perhaps somewhere in the unforgiving wood encroaching on these hollow quarters. ‘It doesn’t make you happy, you kn
ow, all that money. It certainly didn’t do a lot for Eleanor – having twinkly Habitat lights at Christmas, it never made up for not having a proper family, people who make you feel loved and wanted.’ She sighed. ‘Not that out there is going to be good for her, if she did run into the night. I mean, one big seizure and that could be it.’ Again, the sobbing took over.
‘She has epilepsy?’
Julia Stenson nodded, perhaps she had told her enough, it was time to let her get over this for a while. Iris waited until she wiped the tears harshly from her eyes.
‘What’s the story with the teddy bear?’ Iris asked lightly. It seemed to be the only item in the room with any personality attached to it. She walked across to the glass doors to take it out.
‘That’s Jeremy. Eleanor has had that teddy since like forever, he’s even more precious than her phone. She’s always kept him safe, takes him to bed with her every night.’ She sat back on the chair.
‘But she didn’t take him with her,’ Iris said softly.
‘She would have, I’m sure she would have, if she had a choice,’ Julia said quickly.
‘So, nobody ever touches Jeremy?’ Iris looked at the bear, one ear missing, his head falling tragically to one side.
‘No, Eleanor hates anyone near him.’ Julia sighed. ‘I can’t see her lasting five minutes out there, I really can’t, poor wee mite.’
‘Could she have killed Rachel McDermott?’ Part of Iris didn’t want to ask, but it was the only thing that really counted now, that and finding Eleanor.
‘That’s the question, isn’t it? We’ll all be wondering that from now on.’ Julia Stenson took a deep breath and ran pale hands through her mousy-brown hair.
‘Really, how do you mean?’ Iris kept her voice neutral, her eyes never leaving Julia’s.
‘Oh, I don’t know, don’t mind me, I don’t know what I’m saying.’ The girl shifted in her seat, her hand moving towards her ear, which even in this shaded light made Iris wince – it was badly infected. Julia made a face as if she’d said too much, and not half enough at the same time. She inspected her hands again, as though divine inspiration might well up from the dry skin before her. ‘Have you spoken to Nate yet?’
‘Nate?’
‘Nate Hegarty, he was on security last night, he’s probably going to be able to help you far more than I can.’
‘Not yet, but we will.’ There was something Iris couldn’t quite put her finger on, something about the way Julia said the name. ‘What’s he like?’
‘Like? Oh, I don’t know – he’s just Nate, really. Sorry, I just can’t think at the moment.’ She stopped and Iris watched as a storm of conflicting thoughts rumbled across those quick eyes. Iris had seen it before: shock, it shook you so you hardly knew what was right and what was not. Now large, salty tears were flowing down her cheeks again. Shock and loss, no doubt in various degrees of capacity, Iris recognised it too well.
‘Her phone? Can I get Eleanor’s number?’ Iris asked, at least they could track her if she had it switched on.
‘I can do better than that,’ Julia said softly and she slipped a key from her pocket to open the locked cupboard beneath the TV. ‘Here,’ she said, handing it over to Iris. ‘She’s only allowed to use it for short times at the weekends, it’s all part of a reward system we have in place.’
‘Great,’ Iris said, but of course it wasn’t really, because lacking a mobile phone made Eleanor Marshall much harder to track down.
Iris left the girl with Pardy; she was still in shock and the information they had was enough to get started with. Pardy handed Iris a set of neatly handwritten notes – prepared no doubt over the four neglected mugs of tea – outlining the usual run of a night’s events in the unit, according to Julia. Unsigned, it wouldn’t do as an official statement, but it was enough to set up a timeline. Iris skimmed through the notes. It was lights out before ten o’clock and, generally, Eleanor would have been happy to go to bed at around nine. Julia had found Rachel when she arrived for her shift at six thirty and had rung the police almost immediately. There was no sign of Eleanor, no sign of a break-in, and Iris found herself praying in equal measure for the safe return of Eleanor and just the slightest scent of a suspect other than the missing girl.
Slattery was standing in the hall when she closed the door gently behind her to let the girl get on with her grief in peace.
‘Nate Hegarty?’ Iris asked.
‘Got him, had a few words, it’s all written down.’ He tapped his breast pocket and turned towards the kitchen. It was unlikely, Iris knew, that Slattery had so much as taken out a pencil, but probably one of the uniforms had been happy enough to commit to notes what had passed between them.
In the kitchen, two technical officers were methodically bagging and tagging, and Rafiq Ahmed – the pathologist – was waiting to have the body removed.
‘We’re missing Rachel’s laptop,’ one of the techies, a heavy-set woman called Aine, said. ‘The girl’ – she nodded towards the door leading to the sitting room, trying to find the name from somewhere in the recesses of her early morning, pre-coffee brain – ‘Julia said she always brought it to work, but there’s no sign of it now.’
‘So, Eleanor Marshall took it?’ Iris did her best to sound like a laptop would be just the thing to bring if you planned on running off into the woods in the dead of night, like fun it was.
‘Possibly, or maybe someone else was here…’ Aine went over to the keypad lock-up system. ‘Anyone could have made their way in here overnight without our being any the wiser. All they needed was the combination to this…’ She pointed at the basic device. ‘These things are as old as the ark, and the codes are rarely changed. I’ll bet there are well over fifty people who know the access code here, probably more.’
‘That opens it up a bit, doesn’t it?’ Iris sighed, thankful for the prospect of more than just one real suspect.
‘Oh aye, like we need forty-nine more possibilities at this stage,’ Slattery grunted before returning his attention to the pathologist. ‘Cause of death? Any notions yet?’ Slattery was being sarcastic. Rachel McDermott had a huge wound to the back of her head, open and bloody; she’d been bludgeoned with a force and violence that spoke of blind panic as much as rage. Her attacker had been prepared because there was no weapon in this kitchen that could have inflicted the damage caused by the repeated beating she had been subjected to.
Slattery bent over the body, the scent of death filling the room: a mixture of stale air, loss of bowel control and the acrid smell of vomit mixed with a wasp of saliva dried up as foam at the victim’s mouth. ‘Poor cow, you’d hardly recognise her now, but she was pretty.’ Slattery held up Rachel’s phone and pressed the power button. It shot up the screen saver, an image of Rachel and an oversized sheep dog. Rachel McDermott had been exquisite in life, a delicate, shiny-haired, even-toothed smiling girl – with, it seemed, everything to live for.
Ahmed peeled off latex gloves. ‘Well, I think we can say she didn’t just slip.’
‘Can we make a guess at time of death?’ Iris whispered from somewhere beneath the bile that threatened to rise in her throat if she looked down on the contorted face for much longer.
‘I’d say she’s been here six, perhaps seven hours, going on the degree of clotting and temperatures of both the victim and the room… but obviously, I’ll confirm that in the official report.’
Slattery stood over the body. ‘Anything else?’
‘I don’t need to tell you it was a very brutal attack. Whoever did this wasn’t taking any chances on her surviving… some of the marks, you can see here’ – he bent down pointing to the victim’s face – ‘I’d say he used a large hammer, maybe a sledgehammer.’
‘Jesus, what kind of sicko takes a sledgehammer to someone?’ one of the techies murmured from the other side of the room.
‘You up to it?’ Slattery looked at Iris.
‘Try and stop me,’ she managed, the ticking of the dead girl’s watch ringing in h
er ears, pounding out in time with a slow-burn throb that had begun to pulse along her spine. Each minute from here on counted, on so many levels.
Three
Day 1
Slattery caught sight of his reflection in the rear-view mirror. He looked like hell, but then, beside him, Locke didn’t look a whole lot better. It was unbelievable what a couple of weeks could do to a person. Not to him. Obviously, the way he looked was a direct reflection of the way he lived – well, mostly anyway. It might be that his rounded shoulders were a result of his drinking posture and some might say that his surly temperament had as much to do with a lifetime of cynical thinking as it had with the fact that he’d probably seen the worst there was to see in human beings and still come back for more. He was as broad as he was long; as one of his drinking buddies once said, taller standing like a dog sitting. He walked tall – well, as tall as his shortening height would allow – and he still managed to retain a bearing that would make the meanest bastard think twice before crossing him. He had hooded eyes and a narrow gaze, but he missed very little and anything he did, wasn’t worth noticing. No, Locke was the one who had gone so rapidly downhill. Only months earlier she’d arrived on the Murder Team, chipper and hungry, on the outside she’d been polished and probably the most glamorous detective they’d ever had in Corbally. A chocolate bunny of a woman, all curves and glossy tumbling hair – now she was skin and bone and her hair looked as if it had been scraped up into the tightest knot she could manage.
One case. That was all it took, but Christ, it was some case. Her whole world turned upside down – she was only here now because Grady managed to cajole and bully her relentlessly to return. At least here, they could keep an eye on her. There was no telling what that kind of loss could make a person do. In one case they’d managed to pull apart everything Iris thought of as her world, leaving only a woman she couldn’t look at in a nursing home and her family home razed to the ground. The family she’d never known were buried just a stone’s throw from the man she’d called her father – tragedies of that magnitude were bound to leave a mark. Even if he wouldn’t admit that he felt any real connection, whether Slattery liked it or not, he didn’t hold any truck with people doing themselves in for the likes of old Jack Locke. Grady had lured her back with a mixture of begging and ordering. They all knew she had the makings of a great detective, if only she could sort out the jumble of her past.
Why She Ran Page 3