Who Took Eden Mulligan?

by Sharon Dempsey

  He wondered where Amy was. Would she be at home, in the new build they’d bought in East Belfast, languishing on the sofa thinking about him, or would she be round at her mother’s, being cared for like she was a fragile doll, too delicate to be left to her own devices? He knew he should be more sympathetic, but he’d reached his quota for good feeling towards her. Anorexia had destroyed her and their marriage.

  It hadn’t always been bad. There were times when she had been, well, full of life and plans. Those were the times he missed, when they could pretend that she was all right, and that one day they would have a proper life, away from clinics and therapists.

  She’d hate this weather, he thought, as he adjusted the vertical blind to keep the sun from baking the office. Amy much preferred to drape herself in jumpers and cardigans, layers of protection from the outside word. The sun’s brightness would be too illuminating, too revealing, for her liking. He still thought of everything through the prism of her mind. If he put the television on, he automatically searched for what she would want to watch. When he bought a book, he considered if she would want to read it after him. He’d have to learn to think for himself again. To take her out of the equation of his life, just as she had done to him.

  The case would provide him with the distraction he needed. He hadn’t had one as complex and compelling before. The perfect remedy for a broken heart.

  Right, buck up out of it, he told himself. It was time he got a grip of himself and try to move on. He had been single before, he could surely work out how to live as a free agent with no ties, no one to hassle him if he left the wet towels on the bathroom floor, or, God forbid, the toilet seat up.

  The smell in the office was of processed food, something fried and salty. Danny promised himself that he would start eating better. Now that Amy was gone, he had allowed himself to fall into a pattern of eating toast for dinner. Cheese on toast. Beans on toast. Toast on toast. Not that he couldn’t cook. If anything, he was the one who had done most of the cooking when they were together. He just didn’t have the motivation to cook for one. He had yet to tell Rose, or anyone for that matter, that his marriage was over. It was easier to pretend that all was well.

  He had to admit, having Rose back in his life was proving to be a nice distraction from his marital woes. She was as beautiful now as when he’d first met her. That dark hair and those green eyes reminding him of a misty seascape. Back then, he had fallen for her straight away, but he’d learned early on to keep his feelings to himself. She was impenetrable. It was clear that she had no interest in him beyond friendship and he was content to settle for that.

  Their first encounter had been in the halls kitchen. He’d walked in and found a girl standing with her back to him. All he could see was the dark hair and the skinny waist, legs clad in tight jeans and a pair of Doc Martens that looked too heavy for her thin legs. When she turned to look at him, he had felt an almost involuntary reaction. Then she spoke, and he could hardly believe the Belfast accent, reminding him of everything he knew and felt comfortable with.

  He was grateful he had had the sense to not push it with her. There’d been moments when they’d both be lying on a sofa, pissed and talking a load of oul shite, and he’d think, this is it – now’s your chance. But just as he would be steeling himself to make a move, she’d break the spell, making sure it wasn’t to be. Their friendship remained intact as a result and for that he was grateful.

  The office was busy. He was glad to see people were putting the hours this case demanded in and it was time for him to also focus his mind and get on with the investigation.

  ‘Boss, this came for you.’ DS Tania Lumen threw a brown envelope onto his desk. ‘And the box of strange dolls has arrived back from forensics. Where do you want them?’ Tania asked Danny.

  ‘Give them to me. I’ll take them down to see what Rose makes of them.’

  ‘Knock, knock,’ he said, as he arrived at the door to the Rose’s office. ‘I’ve a wee present for you – the weirdo dolls are back.’

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ she said, getting up from her chair. ‘Here, let me clear this away.’ She removed her files of papers to make room for the dolls.

  Danny opened the evidence box marked with the serial code, and took the dolls out one by one, still in their plastic evidence bags.

  They stood back and looked at them spread out on the table.

  ‘They’re grotesque, aren’t they? Any thoughts on their significance?’ he asked.

  Rose stared down at them, examining each one. ‘I’ve done a bit of research into dolls found hanging from trees in other places. There’s an island in Mexico – Isla de Las Muñecas, or Island of the Dolls – where there are hundreds of dolls and their body parts hanging from trees, much like the ones we found. Apparently, a young girl drowned there and the man who found her came across a doll soon after, which he believed belonged to her. To honour her memory, he hung the doll from a tree, and it began a tradition of sorts. Others began hanging old dolls in solidarity. Some said they were to ward off evil spirits.

  ‘Then there are corn dolls, which are used in an ancient pagan ritual, but are also associated with the Christian faith. I found a newspaper story that said some had been found in hedgerows and trees all over Comber a while back. They’re made out of straw and are a similar idea to the St Brigid’s cross. They are used around harvest time and Halloween, and made out of the last crops harvested to encourage new growth the following season. Some people think they’re creepy and connected to witchcraft.

  ‘The dolls we found at the cottage were wreathed in spider webs, suggesting they were stored somewhere pretty run down and neglected. We’ve some missing limbs, and others with the wrong limb attached making them look weird as fuck.’

  Danny nodded. ‘Forensics said most of them were home to insects, suggesting they had been lying somewhere for a long time. They’d traces of insect activity on their mouths or eye sockets and crawling through their nylon hair. And they’re older dolls, not the kind of dolls you would buy nowadays. Any thoughts on what they signify?’

  ‘Childhood and play are the obvious associations. Interacting with dolls is thought to help develop empathy, and understanding, but a doll isn’t a replica of a baby because the world it suggests is imaginary. It’s a metaphor rather than a symbol of babyhood and demands imagination to engage with it. A doll represents the hidden, inner life rather than the more obvious representation of the life the child sees around them. I think these dolls are a talisman. A form of protection and hope.’

  Danny opened the forensic report up and began to read.

  ‘The tree the dolls were suspended from has been identified as a white willow. Normally planted as an ornamental feature, the mature white willow can grow to twenty-five metres and often has an irregular, leaning top crown. The grey-brown bark usually develops deep fissures with age and produces slender though strong and flexible twigs. The name “white willow” is derived from the white appearance of the undersides of the leaves.

  ‘The dolls were attached to nylon twine and suspended from the branches. It appears that each doll has been made up of parts of various other dolls, so that no one doll is complete in its original form. Tracing the origin of the dolls will be difficult as they are not distinctive and can be commonly found.’

  There was no denying that the crime scene had an eerie quality, from the time warped house to the bloodbath, even before they factored in the freaky dolls with their mismatched body parts and their glazed eyes.

  The dolls were meant to be seen. Whoever had orchestrated the scene had done so for maximum effect.

  On the surface, the murders looked frenzied, yet there was something of the macabre in the placement of the bodies on the bed.

  Could it have been a random, even sexually motivated crime? An arousal of hate? The feverish nature of the wounds suggested a loss of control, yet the dolls and the placing of the bodies felt too orchestrated.

  The dolls had been handcrafted
in so far as they had been altered, like a naughty school boy tormenting his sister’s favourite toy. An arm removed here, an eye extracted, a leg attached from another doll. Each slightly different. No features had been added to the faces, but they had been dressed in simply made outfits to differentiate the gender. The fingerprints were smudged and worth nothing. It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to work out that they represented the victims in the cottage. Five hanging dolls and five victims. Three dead, one on life support and Iona Gardener, the one who got away.

  CHAPTER 19

  The following morning, Rose arrived early to find Danny already at his desk in the open-plan office.

  ‘What’s on the agenda today?’ she asked him.

  ‘I’m getting individual updates from the team and then getting stuck in.’

  ‘What about me? I can’t get access to Iona Gardener yet. There’s a protocol in place for dealing with patients like her. I can’t go trampling all over another doctor’s territory.’

  ‘McCausland has had a word with the hospital where she’s being held. The doctor in charge has asked for a twenty-four-hour assessment period. After that, they will be willing to work with us.’

  ‘And until then?’

  ‘Are you able to continue with the Mulligan case for me? Get a feel for the background and maybe talk to a few people? We’ll need to make contact with the other siblings since Cormac wasn’t interested.’

  ‘Already on it. I’ll follow up with Joel Ellis from Families for Justice. If I can’t get near Iona, it makes sense to see if the Mulligan case has any bearing. The graffiti was there for a reason. Whoever scrawled it on the wall wants us to look at the case. The question is, when did the graffiti appear? Was it part of the attacker’s remit or had someone unconnected to the murders left it there?’

  An hour later, Rose drove past the Errigle Inn and headed on down the Ormeau Road, scanning the numbers on the buildings until she found 329. The Victorian terrace house had been divided up into offices, with Families for Justice situated on the top floor. By the time she had reached the third flight of stairs, she felt breathless and reminded herself that she needed to go on a run. Her body wouldn’t thank her for slacking off workouts just because she’d had a change of routine. She had stopped at the landing, to give herself a moment to catch her breath, when she heard, ‘Dr Lainey,’ from above.

  Rose looked up and there, peering over the bannister from the next flight up, was Joel Ellis.

  ‘Hi Joel. These stairs must keep you fit,’ Rose said as she resumed her climb.

  He was wearing a plaid shirt over a T-shirt despite the heat. She followed him into his office. It was a small room in the eaves of the building with a sloping ceiling – little more than a glorified cupboard – and lined with books. Stacks of files sat in the four corners of the room. Her eyes scanned the titles on the spines of the books: Lost Lives by David McKittrick et al., The Fight for Peace: The Secret Story Behind the Irish Peace Process by Eamonn Mallie and David McKittrick, Bandit Country: The IRA and South Armagh by Toby Harnden and a selection of novels by Eoin McNamee, Kelly Creighton and Anthony Quinn.

  ‘So, you’re not going away and the Mulligan case raises its head again,’ he said, taking his chair behind the paper-strewn desk.

  Rose sat opposite him and caught a glimpse of the tall trees in the Ormeau Park through the window behind him.

  ‘Yes, as I told you a couple of days ago, I’m part of a team carrying out a review.’ She didn’t care to share with him the Iona Gardener connection yet. If the murders at Dunlore had something to do with the Mulligan case, they needed to be careful and not let any information slip out. The press would love it and only make matters worse.

  ‘Families for Justice has taken an interest in the case on behalf of the Mulligan family before. I thought we should talk, see if there is anything in particular you can share with me.’

  Joel smirked. ‘You think we are going to hand over files of confidential information just like that? To the PSNI? Nah, I don’t think so.’

  ‘No, I don’t assume you’ll do anything. But if you care about the case and the family then surely it’s in all our interests to work together.’

  Joel leaned forward. ‘Listen, I don’t have to cooperate. My job is working on behalf of the families. I put a lot of time into the Mulligan case. The PSNI weren’t so forthcoming with helping me then, so I’m sure you can appreciate my reluctance to roll over and play nice now, just because they’ve suddenly decided it’s worth looking at.’

  Rose nodded. ‘Yeah, I get it, but times have changed. Maybe this time we can all work towards the same outcome.’

  ‘And what outcome would that be?’ he asked, sitting back again.

  ‘To find out what happened in 13 Moss Street that night, and to get some answers for the family.’

  Rose could see Joel considering her words. She glanced around the room. ‘I’ve done my homework. I know the Families for Justice files are full of bleak miscarriages of justice: teenagers gunned down for painting graffiti on gable walls, a school boy left brain damaged after being hit by a rubber bullet, a grandmother hit by sniper fire as she tried to get her teenage grandson out of the midst of a riot, and young men and women wrongfully arrested. You must be wondering why the Eden Mulligan case has come up for review, when there were so many other cases waiting in the wings which could be more easily solved?’

  He shrugged and waited for Rose to go on.

  ‘For all the media interest in Eden Mulligan’s case over the years, no one has ever managed to formulate a concrete scenario explaining her disappearance. Say what you want about the cops, but they don’t like mysteries that refuse to be solved.’

  He shuffled in his chair.

  ‘Tell me, what was it about the case that got under your skin?’ Rose knew if she was to persuade him to cooperate, she would need to understand what it was that had made him want to work on the Mulligan case in the first place.

  He sighed. ‘When I left Queen’s, I was fired up with a misplaced sense of wanting to make a difference. I didn’t want to spend my life in a downtown solicitor’s office, with the BMW and a nice house in Malone and the obligatory family. Families for Justice had advertised for a case worker and I applied, thinking I would be too inexperienced. Little did I know that all they really wanted was someone with a bit of intelligence and ability to trawl through reams of papers and befriend the families the organisation represented. Someone to whom the families could turn for support, advocacy and, above all, someone to listen to them when the police, and the rest of society, had moved on to the next injustice.’ He shifted in the chair as if he was uncomfortable.

  ‘The Eden Mulligan case was my first proper case. I read up on the history, checked out the many blogs and websites detailing the events, and submerged myself in the facts as they stood. All of which was of no use to me when it came to meeting with the family. The first meeting was with Cormac. He’s so fucking damaged that you can see the gloom sit round him like a halo of smog.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve met Cormac. He wasn’t forthcoming.’

  ‘Can you blame him?’

  ‘No, but what’s the alternative? To do nothing? If they refuse to work with us, then whoever took Eden – if someone did take her – wins. The original police investigation had failings; I’m not denying that. We have a second chance to put it right, but I can’t do it on my own. I need the Mulligan family on side, and to get that, I need you, Joel.’

  She could see something shift in his features. His guard was coming down. Maybe she could find a way in and make him see that solving this case was in all their interests.

  ‘Joel, work with me. Don’t let Eden’s case die with her children.’

  CHAPTER 20

  Rose sat in the office with the overhead light bulb casting a jaundiced glow all around. The Mulligan file was spread out on her desk as she was trying to make sense of the original witness statements, and the more recent pages of testimony that had been gathered by
Joel in his investigation on behalf of Families for Justice. There was no evidence gathered on the night of Eden’s disappearance as her absence wasn’t reported straight away. The facts as they stood were: On 17 July 1986, in 13 Moss Street terrace, five children lay sleeping upstairs. The house consisted of one downstairs living room, a small kitchen, and two upstairs bedrooms – barely enough room for a couple, let alone a family of seven. The mother tended to have the two girls sleep with her, as their father was often absent, working in England. The three brothers shared a double bed in the bedroom to the back of the house.

  According to the document Rose was reading, sometime between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. the oldest child, Cormac, woke. He can’t say for sure what woke him, but he thought he may have heard voices in the alley way at the back of the house. He decided to check on his mother and siblings, as was his usual habit when he woke. There had been trouble around the twelfth of July celebrations, and there had been talk of Catholic families being burnt out of their houses during the night, so he had been on high alert. Checking on the family was not an unusual occupation for the young Cormac though. As the oldest child, he felt a sense of responsibility, especially when his father was away.

  Rose imagined her thirteen-year-old self having to get up in the night to check the family home. She didn’t need to be reminded that Belfast was a dangerous place back then.

  She read on through the notes.

  When Cormac checked his mother’s room, he found his two sisters, Eileen and Lizzie, asleep in the bed. Thinking his mother had gone downstairs to check on the same source of his waking, he headed down, only to find the house empty. No sign of his mother, and no sign of a break-in.

  It was a week before the family reported their mother’s absence to the authorities.

  Why had they not gone straight to the police? Rose wrote in her notebook.

  When the family were questioned by the police, Cormac reported that he had heard a car drive away slowly and didn’t see any headlights when he looked out the window.