‘Do you think it could be Eden?’
‘Who knows? I’ve set up a meeting for tomorrow with Nigel Rankin. He heads up the Commission. After I find out what’s going on, do you fancy taking a run out there to look around the proposed dig site, before it kicks off?’
‘Sure, like we’ve nothing else on. In case you hadn’t noticed, you’re up to your eyes in corpses.’
‘Ah, stop your complaining. It’s all connected. One way or another.’
‘So you keep telling me,’ she said.
Rose noticed Danny pulling at his ear. It was an old habit she recognised, something he did when he was thinking. ‘We need to find a connection. Something that draws the two cases together. There must be some commonality that we’re missing.’
Rose sighed. ‘The cottage keeps bothering me. Why there? What is the significance of that place?’
‘And why those five individuals? It doesn’t feel random. With a case like this you have to work with what you have.’
‘What, no suspect and no evidence?’ She almost laughed.
‘No Rosie. Even though there’s no immediate or obvious connection yet, there will be. We just have to know where to look.’
‘Whatever the motivation for the murders, the killer had a personal connection. I’m sure of it.’
Beyond drug dealer Conal Brady, they couldn’t find a connection to any of the friends that would link them to someone capable of such a crime.
‘There was no sign of forced entry. Could the killer have been in the house? Hiding out and listening in on the friends?’ Rose asked.
‘No, SOCO checked out the attic. The dust and spider webs suggest no one had been up there in decades.’
‘How long did it take Iona Gardener to get to the police station?’
‘Approximately thirty minutes. She was on foot and looking at the route we suspect she took, that’s the time frame we’re working with.’
‘So that gave our murderer time to put distance between him and the crime scene. There were no track marks other than the car used by the five in the cottage.’
‘Yes, that’s right. So, what about the priest’s testimony? What do you reckon was going on there?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know yet. Something dodgy, that’s for sure. The priest’s story doesn’t add up. The transcript says he was working on the sidelines for the IRA, turning a blind eye to the moving of weapons, protecting members, that sort of thing. He seemed to be some sort of counsellor to some of the older men. He allowed them to offload their guilt and absolved them of all responsibility and sin by saying a few Hail Marys. Disgusting, really. It claims that Ryan was embroiled in the execution of a teenager caught robbing from an IRA bar. But maybe he was more than just a silent bed partner.’
‘What, you mean a fully paid up active member heading up a cell in the Markets area?’
‘Yeah, why not. There’s a fine line between supporting their activities on the side and turning a blind eye when weapons need storing, to being a strategic driving force. He could have been calling all the shots for all we know.’
‘Why was he transferred to Boston?’
‘Father Dominic suggests it was because of his relationship with Eden Mulligan. It had crossed the line from friendship to something else. But maybe they were protecting him from being caught? Or perhaps Ryan was privy to Eden’s secrets. Did she know something that put her in danger?’
‘Where does Eden’s disappearance fit into all this?’
‘That, my friend, I still don’t know.’ She sighed.
‘Right, I’m off to shake a few trees upstairs and see what falls out. Keep me posted,’ Danny said, swinging his legs round and getting off her chair.
When he left, Rose picked up his discarded copy of the Belfast Telegraph. The headline called for a fresh dig following new evidence that a body had been buried by the IRA near Tyrella beach. The feature speculated that it could be Eden Mulligan’s remains. Rose noted that the report failed to say what the new evidence was. The heat wave had scorched the surrounding land and the burial site had been exposed, discovered by aerial surveyors. It wasn’t the first – there were reports of ancient settlements, burial sites and waterways having been revealed in different spots throughout Ireland. Rose thought about how the dead don’t always remain silent. It can take years, decades even, but bodies can always be found. The earth throws back that which has been hidden.
She knew that any evidence obtained directly or indirectly by the Commission was deemed inadmissible in court proceedings, and any remains discovered were not allowed to undergo forensic examination, except to establish the identity of the dead person or how, when, and where they died. That information was then supposed to remain secret, with only the family being privy to it. If somebody was leaking information about the discovery to the press, then the question was: why now?
McCausland’s assumption that the case review should be a tidy summation was becoming more outrageous. Rose knew that when bodies are dug up, secrets come with them.
Rose had read through the autopsy notes Danny had given her. The killer was determined and brutal. It was likely that Dylan’s survival and Iona’s escape had been down to someone interrupting the murder spree. Who had that person been? Why had they not raised the alarm? Iona’s escape still weighed on Rose’s mind. There was a possibility that her escape had been orchestrated to make her look innocent.
The blood patterns report had made for interesting reading. Arterial spray had been evident in the living room. When a major artery is severed, the blood is propelled out of the damaged blood vessels by the pumping of the heart and often creates a pattern consisting of large, individual stains, with a new pattern created each time the heart pumps. Expirated spatter – caused by blood from an internal injury mixing with air from the lungs being expelled through the nose, mouth or an injury to the airways or lungs – was found in the bedroom. Olivia had been alive when she had been placed on the bed and she’d slowly bled out.
From Lyons’ report, Rose could see that she was dealing with someone who had so much hate in them that when it was unleashed, it had come out in a torrent. The repetitive, overkill nature of the stabbings suggested a high level of anger. Rose knew that overkill – the infliction of massive injuries by far exceeding the extent necessary to kill the victim – can have an association with sexually motivated murders. This wasn’t the case with the Dunlore murders, so what had led the killer to feel such rage in the first place? Rose was drawn to the notion of the killer expressing sadistic sexual pleasure in the overkill and the organisation of the bodies. But she was reluctant to see it as a solely sexual crime. This was more complex. Sexual murderers plan their killings in order to make them as consistent as possible with their fantasies whereas the non-sexual murderer’s modus operandi is the result of an explosion of anger. The Dunlore murders felt reactive, impulsive and extremely violent, with an internal sexual tension.
Initially mystified, she was starting to get a sense of who they were dealing with. Someone with deeply embedded issues so complex and disturbing that when they unleashed their fury, the result was a massacre.
CHAPTER 36
Danny looked across at Rose as he walked her home. She was wearing her hair different from their uni days, it was longer than usual and swept back from her face. Her eyes still held that magnetism. When he checked they seemed grey, fading to green around the edges, reminding him of a stormy sea. They were walking through the town, back to her apartment block, enjoying the balmy feel of the night. He hated himself for it, but he couldn’t help compare her to Amy. Rose had a cool, quiet strength that Amy could never possess. They looked a million miles apart too. You only had to look at Rose to know she was tough, could handle anything life threw at her. She was dependable and capable. Whereas Amy was fragile and unpredictable. A ticking time bomb. Any perceived slight or hardship could send her over the edge. He couldn’t go on living like that, trying to contain the damage. Trying to fix her.
‘Awk, it’s this bleeding case.’ Danny pulled at his ear. ‘I keep wondering what I’m missing. I’m like a broken record but there has to be something beyond the graffiti that draws the two cases together. Or am I looking for something that’s not there? Perhaps the message had nothing to do with the murders.’
Rose sighed. ‘The cottage keeps bothering me. Why there? What is the significance of that place?’ They walked on through the Titanic Quarter, passing under the flyover, the cars roaring overhead.
‘You ever see anything like this before?’ she asked as they crossed the road at Custom House Square. A lone taxi drove past with a long-haired girl hanging out of the window, looking like she was about to throw up.
‘Nah. Not in my time. Not since the Troubles ended. Of course, there was the Shankill Butchers back in the day. They went about cutting throats and carving people up under the guise of defending God’s own country. All that political violence shite was nothing more than a cover for psychopaths on a mission to spill blood. Nothing as clinical as a mercury tilt switch placed under a car for them. They wanted the real deal. Blood and guts.’
‘Gruesome, wasn’t it?’
‘In those days, the nastier the murder the more it frightened and intimidated people. It kept everyone in the cycle of tit for tat and ensured mouths stayed shut out of fear. This feels different. The victims have to have been known to our killer and specifically targeted. He knew where to find them so one of the five must have a connection with the killer, and the message in the cottage suggests one of them had a connection with Eden Mulligan.’
‘What about the burnt papers in the fireplace?’ Rose asked.
When Danny had asked for the ashes in the grate to be examined by forensics he had been nearly laughed out of the station.
‘You’re hopeful,’ DS Joanne Wilson had said, as she used a hair tie to pull her blonde hair back into a ponytail. ‘Have you seen what was collected from that grate?’
‘I know it’s a long shot, but it’s worth checking out.’
‘Hey Malachy, your man here is hoping for a signed confession to be found in the ashes,’ she’d shouted across the office. Magee had given her a grin as if to say, sure he’s an eejit, but what can you do?
Danny threw a rolled-up ball of paper at him. ‘Away on, Joanne, check it out. You’ll be eating humble pie if it throws up something.’
She’d rolled her eyes and smirked. ‘I can’t promise anything, but I’ll make sure we tell the lab people to give it an extra good look, just for you, Danny boy.’
When she came back a week later she wasn’t so cocky.
‘So, the ashes from the grate in the cottage are back in,’ she said, grabbing a chair and bringing it over to Danny’s desk.
‘Please give me something good and juicy. This case needs a kick up the hole to get stuff moving,’ Danny said.
‘Basically, when paper is burnt, the content written on it becomes charred and impossible to see, but the laboratory uses an infrared reflected photography technique to essentially see what has been burnt away.’
‘So, get to the point, do we know what was on the papers?’
‘We have a random sample of rescued words.’
She handed a ten by eight photograph to Danny. He looked down and saw the endangered handwritten words:
Shelter from the Storm
‘What’s that? A book or a film?’
‘No, it’s a Bob Dylan song, apparently. I can’t think of any reason why it would be relevant to the case, can you?’
Danny shook his head. He looked at the words. Fuck, no further forward.
Now, walking along with Rose, he recounted the words and started whistling the tune.
‘Not much of a Dylan man myself,’ Danny said. ‘I reckon the ashes burnt in the grate were just lying around, and were of no significance.’
‘Hang on,’ Rose said. She stopped dead in her tracks and put a hand on Danny’s arm.
‘Katy Carberry, the old neighbour, she told me that Eden loved music, and would play her records all the time. She could hear them through the wall, Bob Dylan, David Bowie and the Stones as well as more modern stuff.’
‘So what? It doesn’t have to mean anything. They were the big names back in the day, before Eden’s time.’
‘Maybe there’s something in it.’
The day’s heat had drained away, leaving a stillness over the place that felt menacing. They walked on.
‘Anything your end?’ Danny asked.
‘What, with the Mulligan case? It’s wrapped up tightly under a code of omertà.’
‘Yeah, I’m hoping you’re going to crack the connection for both of us.’
‘Dream on. Has no one ever told you the most important thing about cold cases is that they take time and patience?’
‘Well, I don’t have the luxury of either.’
‘No, you sure as hell don’t.’
‘Nightcap?’ asked Danny, as they approached Rose’s building.
‘Better not,’ she said, giving him a wry smile before turning away and keying the security code into the door.
As he left Rose, Danny checked his phone messages. One from the lab people, a DNA profile from the under-nail finger scrapings, but unfortunately there wasn’t a match in the system. Still, it was good to have something on standby should they find a suspect to haul in.
CHAPTER 37
Being adopted had always been Rose’s go-to childhood fantasy. She’d daydream at the back of Miss Buckle’s class that her real parents were trying to track her down. One day they’d find her and she could leave Belfast and her mother behind. If she was in a good mood, she’d allow Kaitlin to go with her, but if her sister was annoying her, she’d say so long and climb in the fancy car sent to pick her up before driving straight to a mansion house in the country.
Being home had begun to unfurl something in Rose. Lost or latent sensations of shame, guilt and horror now struggled against blame, anger and a need to set right that which was done. There had been times when she had tried to understand her upbringing, tried to excuse it even, but no matter how Rose tried to frame it, she still felt the heat of anger. Now, when she thought back to her childhood, she felt nothing but resentment. There were few light moments. Life was all about sticking it to the Brits, her parents’ devotion to the republican rhetoric, attending rallies supporting the Hunger Strikers, and worse. The dead of the night rap at the door. The secretive conversations held in front room. The awareness that neighbours were over friendly to her parents, while still keeping their distance. How they’d been respected but feared.
Returning to Belfast was never going to lead to a long-lost family happy ending.
Now, the Eden Mulligan case was dredging up all sorts of associations to her own childhood and making Rose feel uncomfortable.
Evelyn had been reckless in her pursuit of the dogma. She revelled in the injustices against her idea of Ireland, spouting chapter and verse from famine history to partitioning. Like a fanatic, it was her succour and salvation.
From the age of thirteen, Rose felt that Evelyn was always on the attack with her. Waiting for the next fight and relishing the power and control she had over her. It was all, where are you going, who are you hanging out with, watch what you say.
Rose parked her car outside the row of terrace houses, shielded her eyes from the glare of the sunlight reflected from the small rectangle windows, and made her way up to Kaitlin’s door.
It opened before Rose had a chance to ring the bell.
‘Roisin, you made it. Come on in.’ Kaitlin stood dressed in a cotton summer dress and wedged sandals. She looked as if she’d caught the sun, freckles covering the bridge of her nose. She smiled widely and seemed genuinely pleased to see Rose.
They moved down the hallway and Rose caught sight of the tidy living room before Kaitlin directed her into the kitchen.
Rose offered the bottle of wine she’d picked up from the WineMark on the corner of the road and they hugged awkwardly. She did feel some sort of connection with Kaitlin, she couldn’t deny it. She could see traces of herself in her sister’s face, in her bone structure and shadowy grey eyes. Self-preservation had meant cutting herself off from her family and she was okay with that, but it felt good to have a renewed connection to where she had come from, and to know Kaitlin and her brothers were doing okay.
‘I’m glad you came to see me. Is everything all right?’
‘Everything is fine. How are you?’
‘Awk, I can’t complain. The usual annoyances from the kids, but you just have to get on with life, don’t you?’
Rose nodded her agreement.
‘Here, I’ll open the wine. Tony has gone to see his Ma and the kids are out with their friends.’ They sat at the large kitchen table. Everything was meticulously tidy and clean. Kaitlin handed Rose a wine glass and set about opening the bottle. She poured a generous glass for herself and then one for Rose before reaching for her electronic cigarette on the kitchen counter.
‘So, tell me. How’s life for you in London? Do you have a fella?’
‘Nah, it’s just me. Never met the right one.’
‘Aren’t you the lucky one that’s still single? I’m sick of washing Tony’s boxers and cooking his dinner. What I wouldn’t do to trade lives for a week.’ She laughed and then fell quiet before saying, ‘She used to talk about you, you know.’
Rose gave her a look. She didn’t believe her.
‘She did, honest to God. She’d say a whole load of shite like, but she’d also say our Roisin was a beauty with brains. She knew you could do anything with your life. I think that’s why she resented you so much. You’d choices.’
Who Took Eden Mulligan? Page 17