‘That’s not right. She’s been here all evening, there’s been some mistake…’ Susan started, but her words petered out as she took in the grave expressions of both detectives. ‘No, she’s been here. She had a headache… I checked on her myself at nine o’clock, she was sleeping…’ She looked around the faces now, and in a tender soft voice whispered across at Kit, ‘In her room… she was…’ But the words ran out and it felt as if the air had been sucked from the room. Time stopped – suspended between all four of them – in that horrible moment before the worst is confirmed and nothing will ever be the same again.
‘So where is she now? Can we go and see her, ask what she was doing out at Curlew Cross?’ Kit asked, but maybe he already knew.
‘I’m sorry, but Karena died in the incident. She’s being taken to the regional hospital in a few hours, for now…’ The words hung like meaningless static between them for what seemed like a long moment and then the most awful sound Iris thought she’d ever heard seemed to usurp the silence. She looked across at Kit Marshall, his body seemed to have crumpled into a fraction of that proud man she had believed him to be.
‘Not Karena, please, no… not Karena…’ he whispered and in an instant, Susan was beside him, her arms wrapped tightly about him. They sat for a long time, a huddle of grief vibrating with soft, disconsolate sobs, almost unrecognisable from the people Iris had met that very first day.
There were no words, Iris knew that. Anything she said now would be trite, meaningless at best, irritating and jarring. So, she and Slattery sat, at opposite ends of this over-cooked monstrosity of a room, silently waiting until at least some of the fog of loss had cleared. After about half an hour, there were the sounds of movement. Whatever staff were appointed to run this house and by extension the Marshalls’ domestic arrangements, had woken up to a day that would be like no other they’d experienced in their employ. Sadly, Iris knew, it was the first of many days that would follow a pattern, woven with grief and loss and perhaps guilt. Iris understood that – feeling guilty, although you’d done nothing wrong. She felt it every time she thought of Idras Locke, the baby buried without so much as a marking over his grave. Perhaps, they were on different ends of the same spectrum, but as surely as she thought about the child she had replaced, she knew that the Marshalls would be as eaten up with guilt for believing their daughter was tucked up safe in bed, when in fact she’d been roaming about Curlew Cross and being beaten savagely to death. That was a terrible weight of guilt to carry.
Somehow, tea and coffee and buttered homemade brown bread were ferried into the room. Slattery had nodded, when the housekeeper had peered around the door. He’d shuffled her back into the hall and no doubt towards the kitchen so when her grief exploded into tears, she was at least out of earshot of the Marshalls. No doubt, he’d set her about doing what she normally would, or at least a shade of it, tea and coffee, bustling, keeping busy, it was, Iris knew from experience, the only answer they could give now.
Iris had stopped thinking sometime after 6 a.m.: the details of the investigation seemed to be in a traffic pile-up in her exhausted brain and she found herself drifting off in the car while Slattery smoked. She woke when they arrived back at the crime scene, abruptly – perhaps he’d said something – to see the perimeter fence and the technical team yellow-taping around anything that might be valuable in building up a picture. She and Slattery remained at the crime scene until just before the sun tried to poke through the silken morning sky.
It was still dark in Limerick, but daylight trailed their car on the return journey to Corbally. It seemed to Iris that there wasn’t much point in going home.
She stood under the hot pumping shower in the female bathroom for twenty minutes, washing the tiredness from her bones, if not from her brain. She made her way to the locker room, feeling as if she was carrying pockets filled with rocks, her every footstep weighing heavily on the old-fashioned marble floors.
Clean at least, she sat for a moment in the incident room, thinking – not for the first time since she’d taken over this investigation – that she’d give anything to have Grady back here now, taking responsibility for all of it. Grady had steered her first case with the Murder Team: the fact that it had taken everything from her was probably half the reason she felt this undeniable connection to him. He was the kind of man she’d thought her father to be – as it turned out, she was wrong about Jack Locke, but she knew, deep in her bones, that Grady was the real deal. Slipping into his job, sitting at his desk, it had made her feel as if he was still looking out for her in some ways, but today, with the death of Karena Marshall, she felt his absence more starkly than ever. Perhaps if he was here, this case would already be solved, maybe they’d have Eleanor Marshall home safe and Karena Marshall may not have been murdered last night.
There was no doubt in her mind that they were looking for the same killer for both murders. She didn’t want to believe that the murderer could be Eleanor Marshall, but really, she knew, everything was pointing at the girl now. Quite simply, she had convinced herself it couldn’t be Eleanor; even in the face of all they’d known, she’d squandered precious time looking for a killer when perhaps she’d been in plain sight all along.
Iris wandered over to the case board, mentally fixing Karena Marshall’s face to the investigation. Later, they’d have a photograph; for now, copies were being rushed off in a bid to make this personal to everyone on the team. It wouldn’t be hard; you couldn’t not see what a tragic waste this was. Rachel McDermott, Karena Marshall, both dead and still Eleanor Marshall was out there, evading them – the answer was staring her in the face; she had to admit it now.
‘Right, thanks to all of you for coming in early,’ Iris said to the packed incident room twenty minutes later. No one wanted to be here, but by the same token, no one wanted to miss out either. Byrne had not shown up; he was putting in an appearance at the Victim Support conference on the other side of the country. Iris was just glad to have Slattery and June present, with other familiar faces like Westmont and McGonagle yawning at the early start. Pardy and Ahearn had each bagged table corners near the back of the room, perched either end like sleepy figurines gazing at her on an over-mantel shelf.
Iris cleared her throat to the murmur that fell softly across the room. ‘Well, as you can see, the tragic news is that we have another victim this morning. Slattery and I spent last night out at Curlew Cross, where an unsuspecting jogger came upon Karena Marshall – Eleanor’s younger sister. She was beaten to death. It looks as if the MO is the same as Rachel McDermott – Ahmed will have to confirm it, but we’re looking for something between the size of a hammer and a sledgehammer.’
‘Same murderer?’ Pardy asked.
‘If we knew that for sure we could all go home now,’ Slattery grunted, not making eye contact with either Iris or the red-faced Pardy.
‘There are too many connections for it not to be somehow part of our case: the MO is the same and it looks like the murder weapon might match also,’ Iris said generally. Nothing was concrete until it was in a report from Ahmed and the techies, but there was little doubt in Iris’s mind.
‘Jesus, the Marshalls must be devastated,’ one of the uniforms put in from the back of the room. There was no answer to that and the comment lingered about the team for a long, drawn-out moment.
‘We’re going to have to sit down this evening and really take a good look at possible motives, but for today, we concentrate on finding out who was in those woods last night,’ Iris said, looking down at June.
‘Of course, I’m on it,’ June said wearily. She looked as if she’d slept less than Iris. ‘There are cameras set up by the local birdwatching club – they move them around a bit, seems they catch as many canoodling couples as they do rare birds, but they’re sending over everything they have this morning. Then, there are a few cameras in Curlew Cross, one on the pub, facing into a yard, which picks up number plates coming into the village, and another at the church, but I’m not sure that picks up muc
h more than weddings and funerals for their webcam.’ She shook her head.
‘In the church?’ Slattery echoed.
‘Apparently, they all have them these days – too many Irish people in America, afraid to chance coming home for a family funeral in case immigration won’t let them back in again. They’re all up on the internet these days if you know where to look,’ June said, ignoring Slattery’s loud harrumph.
‘Right, so apart from that, I want a team in Curlew Cross this morning, checking motorists and anyone who lives near the woods. I want to know who travels in and out of there regularly and if they’ve noticed anything unusual lately.’ Iris looked down at her notepad. ‘Tony—’ She looked up now and met Ahearn’s eye. ‘You’ll still have your team for the search today with a half dozen uniforms that Byrne has gifted us, just count out Westmont and McGonagle.’ She saw Westmont grin. ‘The ongoing search is probably the most important part of this investigation, finding Eleanor is our priority. Good luck out there today,’ she said, levelling her gaze at the officers who’d spent the last few days trawling about the woods. Long days and nothing to show for it, the most unsatisfying kind of police work any of them could do.
Seventeen
Iris called both Slattery and Tony Ahearn into her office when the briefing was over. Slattery had been wise enough to close the door.
‘I want to look at the search again,’ she said flatly.
‘We’re doing our best, the bloody woods are endless and that girl knows them like the back of her hand,’ Ahearn began.
‘Well, mate.’ Slattery leaned on the word, as if he’d prefer to use any other, but it was the only one available. ‘It looks like your best isn’t good enough.’
‘What do you suggest, since you’re so bloody perfect?’ Ahearn spat the words towards Slattery, but they all knew the venom was directed at Iris.
‘Stop it,’ she said firmly. Ahearn wouldn’t have spoken like that if it was Grady in the inspector’s seat – that was plain. ‘We’re not here to quibble. The fact is that girl is still missing. And while you’re searching out there, we have another dead girl and you’re no nearer to finding either our suspect or a potential future victim.’ Iris’s words were cold.
‘We’re following procedure, but you know yourself, it’s slow, it has to be thorough and like I say, take a look at the map, the woods are huge. The dog handler reckons she’s nipping in and out of the streams that cut through the place – she’s neutralising any scent, so there’s no way of tracking her. She can walk for ten miles in six inches of water in just about any direction. How on earth are we supposed to track that?’
‘Well, we know one thing for sure – where you’re searching is the opposite end of the woods to where Karena Marshall’s body was found,’ Iris said flatly.
‘I can see that, but you still can’t say that Eleanor Marshall was anywhere near that body. You can’t even confirm if she killed the McDermott girl.’ His voice was going slowly up. ‘And then, you have the cheek to—’
‘Careful there, mate,’ Slattery said evenly. ‘Remember, she’s not a sergeant now.’
‘Damn it,’ Ahearn said and he turned his back to Iris. ‘What do you suggest, so, Inspector?’
‘I’m suggesting that you split the team. Work with the techies who are out there this morning, get what you can from them and then report back to me on what is the best way forward with the search.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Ahearn said sarcastically.
‘I don’t need to tell you, Ahearn, that we will be looking at the budget expended on that search. It’s six times what we’re spending on the investigation and that’s not including the manpower from Curlew Hall.’
‘Tut, tut, Byrne won’t be very pleased when he starts crunching the numbers for the monthly stats,’ Slattery said slyly.
‘Oh, go find yourself a barstool to fall off, Slattery.’ Ahearn banged the office door, just a little too loudly, as he made his way back to the incident room to pick up his jacket before the day ahead.
After a snatched hour or two of sleep, Iris felt as if her head had cleared a little. No one in the team was going to feel good, but at least when she sipped a strong cup of coffee, it felt as if she might be reviving herself a little.
‘Marshall has made enemies along the way,’ she said. ‘There must be plenty of people out there who don’t like him.’
‘Aside from the pair of you?’ June snorted.
‘You wouldn’t warm to him either,’ Slattery muttered. ‘He’s a cold snob. Even if you can’t pick that up from the telly, it’s as obvious as Westmont’s dandruff that he hasn’t got an ounce of warmth in him.’
‘Not fans so,’ June said and Slattery realised she was warning him to be careful. She was right, of course. It’s easy to look for guilt and lose objectivity when you’re blinded by dislike.
‘Yes, well, either way, we’re going to have to go out there and talk to him again,’ Iris said darkly; he would not want to see them, even if it might help to find Karena’s killer. ‘But first I’m going to have to finish off the statements from Curlew Hall and if I’m done in time, I can meet you over at the pathology suite,’ she said to Slattery.
‘Again?’ Slattery moaned, but then he caught the tiredness in Iris’s movements as she made her way towards the door. ‘Sure.’
‘Ahmed rang to say he’ll start at two, so it would be good to be there and gowned beforehand,’ Iris said, making her way out the door.
Harry Prendergast was hunched over at the rear entrance of the pathology lab, dragging deeply on a cigarette as if it might be his last, when Slattery parked, or more accurately abandoned, his car halfway between a yellow box and a double line.
‘Social call?’ Prendergast nodded at him.
‘That’s right, Harry, nothing I like better than paying my respects when you’re at work.’ Slattery shook his head, dug into his inside pocket and shook them out a cigarette each. Prendergast lit the fresh from the old and continued smoking.
‘Should be fairly straightforward, most of the work was done already by the scene-of-crime boys.’ Harry was smiling. Then he added, ‘They were good enough to scoop up as much of her head as they could from the forest floor.’ He exhaled a long fat cloud of smoke, it rafted as much from his nostrils as his mouth.
‘You ever think about these things?’ Slattery held up his fag for a moment. ‘What with all you see every other day?’
‘With my missus? It’d be a peaceful release for me. Anyway, I see plenty of men a lot younger than us, stretched out here thanks to killing themselves with stress. If I’ve learned anything in this job, it’s that I’m going to go having enjoyed life because either approach is going to get you one way or another.’
‘Jeez, Harry, I don’t know if that’s philosophical or the most depressing thing you’ve ever said.’
‘Ah, well, it’s all part of the service.’ He nodded up towards the doors that had no sign telling you what was inside the building. Rather, at the end of the narrow car park a small arrow pointed you towards the pathology labs if you squinted and looked closely enough to notice. Slattery knew this building lay purposely to the rear of the hospital to distract patients from the obvious truth that while no one wants to be in hospital, it is far preferable to being examined in this department.
‘Righty-oh,’ Prendergast said as he took one long final drag on his cigarette, ‘back to the party so, I suppose. Ahmed should be ready to go now, it’s all set up and waiting.’ The preparation of the suite was Harry’s job. He was responsible for cleaning down after the last autopsy and setting everything straight for the next. He would already have organised Karena Marshall’s body onto an examination table and laid out the various implements and tools Ahmed would require to perform the autopsy.
They walked through the glass doors into the hallway that was little more than a square with a post box at the bottom of noisy tiled stairs and double doors leading into a lift large enough to take a gurney and two orderlies. I
t was lit only by natural light and smelled heavily of a deep lavender scent that was used to mask odours that never actually made it this far through the building.
‘You know, I was thinking about the McDermotts after you left,’ Harry said as he pushed his way into what could be described as a reception area, if they ever had need of one.
‘Oh?’ Slattery knew that if Iris was here now, her ears would prick up: he’d seen the file left open on her desk. It was natural, of course, for her to think there might be some historical connection, particularly after the song and dance Prendergast had made of it. In the last case they’d investigated, the motive had hinged on a case some thirty years earlier – a case which had thrown Iris’s whole world into confusion, leaving her very identity turned inside out. ‘That death has nothing to do with this, Harry, come on. William McDermott was a long time back and it’s time to let it go.’ They both knew that since his death, so much had happened in the field of medicine and pathology. Ahmed could probably come up with a reasonable answer now within five minutes of looking at his case file. ‘We shouldn’t have mentioned anything in front of Iris at all, to be honest,’ he said, still kicking himself for anything that might make her raw wounds more painful.
‘Oh, Jesus, of course, of course.’ Prendergast was shaking his head. ‘Christ, it’s hard to remember everything. I forgot about her old man…’
He sighed. Harry never really liked old Nessie. It was a funny thing about Jack Locke, but he was one of those men who divided opinion completely. You either adored him or you loathed him and over the past few weeks, it was becoming apparent to Slattery at least, that there were far more people in the latter camp than he’d ever realised before. ‘Anyway, it wasn’t the husband that I was thinking about, it was her – Mrs McDermott.’
‘Rachel’s mother?’
‘Yep. She’s a regular churchgoer, like my missus, and they knock about a women’s group together a bit too, it seems. Anyway, we were talking about her last night, you know, so sad, the daughter dead, and the husband dead and so on…’ Prendergast shook his head as if these conversations with his good wife were a bit like those Slattery endured when Maureen talked on and on and he let her words wash over him mostly. ‘Well, then she says, huh, indeed, Imelda McDermott wasn’t always so holy, and of course, that’s when she got my attention too.’ Prendergast laughed seeing Slattery turn his gaze on him. ‘It seems Rachel was a very overdue baby.’ He was nodding.
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