‘Yes, that’s right.’ She stood back a little, surveyed the case names and numbers on each of the storage boxes.
‘Nope, can’t see anything here.’ He shook his head ominously.
‘Could it be…’ She waved a hand about the catacomb of investigation files; it was unthinkable that anyone would be stupid enough to put an archive file back in the wrong place.
‘No, no…’ The old boy moved closer, peering at a small tab that had been stuck against an empty space on the shelf. ‘Your file has been taken out…’ He shook his head again. ‘Bloody hate this, they’ve signed it out and never left it back.’
‘But how?’
‘It happens, old cases, some youngster is put on them to review them, it generally happens with cases that look as though they’ll never be solved, where the lead officer has designated a file SO6.’
‘SO6?’
‘It’s been reviewed at least six times and each review has led to the same conclusion. They may have known what happened to the victim, but it can’t be proved.’
‘I don’t understand?’
‘Like in the McCracken case,’ he lowered his voice as if she could have forgotten, added, ‘your old case in undercover.’ The guard smiled at her. ‘Oh, don’t look at me like that, we all know who you are, Sergeant Locke, and we know as well that it wasn’t your fault he got off, but the truth of it is, he’ll never see the inside of a prison cell and there’s no point thinking anyone’s going to get him in there. That’s an SO6 in the making.’
‘Does that mean,’ Iris nodded towards the empty space on the shelf, ‘that the Baby Fairley case files are gone for good?’
‘Unless someone comes across them here in the station and returns them to us, I suppose it could,’ he said shaking his head. ‘They didn’t even sign them out under a name, so it must have been some time ago now.’
With that, Iris’s phone rang, she thanked the officer and began making her way back up towards the incident room.
‘Dad?’ She pulled the phone close to her ear, moved away from the corridor that brought her down to archives. There were other ways to get what she wanted. She promised she’d call out to Woodburn later in the week, managed to shake Jack Locke off the phone and headed back to the incident room.
Chapter Seven
If Slattery had thought about what Pat Deaver would be like, he wouldn’t have been far off the pathetic sight that slouched before him in interview room number two on a cold and blustery day in October. Deaver was not an old man, but his face told the story of too much cheap alcohol and a diet consisting of the Irish staples, starchy white bread, spuds and more bread. Whatever life may have at one time danced behind his eyes was long since extinguished. This was the melancholy result of a health system more geared towards doling out anti-depressants than actually figuring out how to help people. He walked with a slight stoop and Slattery wondered if he’d been born to a middle class couple, would things have been different for him? Was there hope for more, someday, for people like Deaver?
‘For the tape…’ Grady took a seat opposite and Slattery knew his place was next to him. At the other side of the table, Deaver and the duty solicitor sat silently, tapping time, as if waiting for something momentous to begin. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Coleman Grady and this is…’
‘Sergeant Slattery.’ Slattery tried to keep his voice as neutral and clear as possible. They had a game plan, but they’d both agreed as they watched Deaver through the one-way glass, they probably wouldn’t need it.
‘We’re interviewing Mr Pat Deaver of Bishopsquarter, Limerick. Also present is Mr Clifford Kane-O’Neill, solicitor for Mr Deaver. You’ve had a chance to consult with your client?’ Grady nodded towards the tape. It was all for the tape. Deaver had had a chance to sleep off whatever he’d taken last; he’d had a good meal and a packet of cigarettes. Kane-O’Neill had spent half an hour with him, satisfied himself that he knew as much as he needed to for this interview. ‘And we have cautioned him in your presence.’
‘Yes, indeed, you have cautioned my client, we have conferred,’ Kane O’Neill, the polar opposite of his client said in juicy round vowels.
‘Mr Deaver, you knew Anna Crowe?’
‘Yeah, I knew her all right.’ He looked down at his hands, they were dirty and worn. Slattery considered they probably hadn’t been washed in years. The forensic boys would have a field day with him. ‘Terrible do,’ he offered to no one in particular.
‘Can you tell us what you know about her death?’ Grady asked again.
‘Same as everyone else knows, I suppose.’
‘Tell us anyway, why don’t you?’ Grady moved closer to the table, reaching a hand behind his left ear, mirroring the actions of the man opposite.
‘Okay, well…’ Deaver moved closer to the table. ‘I’m not sure I know what happened rightly. I mean I know there was a fire, I saw the house afterwards. But, it was like one minute she was there and the next… well, she was gone. They were all gone.’ When he looked across at Slattery, his face was completely clear. For all his years, and all of his cynicism, Ben Slattery would happily swear on a bible that this man was hiding nothing; probably wasn’t able to hide anything.
‘She looked out for you, didn’t she?’ Grady gently suggested.
‘Aye, she did. I went to her house every evening; she always had a bit of dinner for me.’ Deaver looked across at Grady now. ‘I looked out for her too, have done since we was kids. She was always a timid little thing… especially after… well, you know.’ He nodded awkwardly.
‘After the baby was taken?’ Slattery asked, his voice unusually quiet.
‘Aye, after that.’ He couldn’t quite say the words. ‘Never the same after that, she wasn’t.’
‘Can you tell us anything about that time, Mr Deaver?’ Grady asked the question. Slattery could have told him, this man’s brain was almost drowning in alcohol. All that remained now were distinct impressions; maybe a still picture that occasionally passed before his eyes, but details would be blurred. In the not too distant future, he wouldn’t know his own name, he’d probably find it hard to remember his birth date.
‘Aye, never the same again.’
‘Did you bring her flowers?’ Grady’s voice carried with it a warmth, an encouraging friendliness and Slattery knew that he needed to stay quiet. If he was required later, he wasn’t going to be the nice guy in the room.
‘I did, for a while, but then…’ Deaver seemed to drift off, into a world that Slattery couldn’t see; he wondered if Anna Crowe was in this far-off land.
‘Did you stop bringing them?’ Grady pushed gently.
‘She had so many.’ Deaver looked as though this was the most reasonable answer in the world.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, I just saw, inside, one of the days. All my wildflowers, she’d kept them lovely, in small glass jars, here and there. Meant something that… to me, anyway.’ A small tear escaped from Pat Deaver’s eyes. ‘But then I knew there were too many flowers, flowers are supposed to make you happy. I think they made her sad, though.’
‘When did you stop bringing them?’
‘I don’t know… sure how would I know that? One day’s the same as the next to me.’
‘It’s just she still had them…’ Grady’s voice was low, gentle. ‘She still had them; they really did mean something to her.’
Slattery watched as Pat Deaver’s world crumbled before him. He could hardly remember what he’d been doing, or where he’d been on the morning that the cottage was set alight and Anna Crowe had been murdered. The man probably couldn’t remember what he’d had for breakfast or indeed if he’d even had one for the last year. Drink is a dangerous thing like that; and Slattery discarded the thought immediately. Deaver said he couldn’t remember where he’d heard about the fire, but he’d gone to the cottage, to see for himself. At that stage, there were a few people there, men in white suits, a guard at the entrance. He knew he wasn’t wanted, so he’
d set off again.
‘Would you be willing to provide us with a sample, to eliminate you from our enquiries?’ Grady asked him, looking across at Kane-O’Neill.
‘How can you eliminate him, the man has told you he’s been in the cottage? I really don’t see how I can advise him to…’
‘Not like that.’ Grady smiled knowingly at the brief. Deaver’s life meant nothing to the solicitor, but the last thing he wanted was his law practice suffering with news of an easy conviction. ‘We are looking for traces of gunshot residue. If your client would submit for forensic examination of his hands and clothes, and it shows up that he hasn’t fired a gun in the last few days, he will effectively have ruled himself out of our enquiries.’
‘I’ll need to consult with my client for a few minutes first.’ They all knew that he would ask Deaver if he’d fired a gun, not necessarily if he’d fired the gun. That, in many ways, was irrelevant to Kane-O’Neill. On the other hand, it would be more than enlightening for the investigation. If Deaver refused to co-operate, he would look as guilty as sin, and if he consented? Well, at least he believed in his own innocence and that meant either he was blameless, or he was booking a one-way ticket to the central mental hospital.
‘How very convenient,’ Veronique spat at Ollie Kerr before he even managed to shake off that greatcoat that was dripping with the day’s rain.
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ he barked at her.
‘You’ve just missed the police – they were here, looking to talk to you, been watching the place, have you?’
‘I’ve no need to see them or avoid them, Veronique, not as long as you keep your drunken trap shut.’ He hated her now, hated that she knew so much, he wanted her gone, maybe as much as she wanted to get away. Ollie turned his back once more on Veronique. He knew that if he looked at her now, her eyes wild, spittle coming from her mouth as she insulted his mother, his home, his life, he could throttle her.
‘And as for your… that woman…’ Her voice lowered now. She was clever enough to know exactly how to push his buttons, but she still couldn’t manage to stretch her vocabulary in English. He could sense her building up behind him, ready to volley a litany of names at him. That was the problem with Veronique – no respect for the dead, and in the end, when you didn’t have that, what were you worth?
He’d only wanted Veronique to shove her in Anna’s face, nothing more. They lived a stone’s throw away from each other, but it seemed like worlds apart and after that baby went missing – well, he never expected things to be right after that. Veronique had come with perks, she’d also come at a high fucking price. He’d never had such grief in all his days. Now Anna was gone, and he still had this shit being thrown at him. Maybe she’ll drink herself to death? The thought made him smile. He took the vodka from his mother’s sideboard, filled her up again. Kill the bitch, let her be gone; he doubted anyone would miss her anyway.
‘And don’t think I don’t know about your little secret…’ Veronique had come up close behind him, whispered in his ear, a slithering poisonous snake. He could hear the spittle in her mouth rattle her throaty voice. ‘Oh yes, I found your little box of papers…’
Words would not leave his mouth; his breath caught in his chest, trapping bile that had no connection to anything he ate, but rather to the venom this woman spat around her.
‘Don’t worry,’ her words were lighter now, ‘I’ve kept them safe, nothing will happen to them, but we wouldn’t want the wrong person seeing those now, would we?’
‘You had no…’ He was going to say ‘right’, but then what right did he have to them, to anything now? He was meant to keep them safe: fine job he’d done of that. Anna had given them to him, finally, she trusted him and he had let her down on every front.
‘They made very interesting reading, once I’d managed to put it all together.’
‘You have no idea.’ He kept his voice even; the last thing he wanted was to give her a stick she could beat him with.
‘It doesn’t matter now anyway, does it?’ Her voice was playful and he wondered how much she’d actually enjoy seeing his pain if the guards ever came knocking on the door. Jail would kill him, she surely knew that, he couldn’t take this house most of the time, much less a prison cell.
‘You’d want to be careful where you go putting that big Polish nose of yours, Veronique. Safer keeping it in a vodka glass if you know what’s good for you.’ He pushed past her roughly before heading out for the night. He’d rather sleep with wolves than with this scavenger.
Chapter Eight
Slattery watched as Grady pulled together as many of the disparate pages on his desk as he could. All case notes and reports would be passed along to the bookman, but Grady was a perfectionist and he double checked everything. It was always the same. The devil, Slattery knew, really was too often sitting buried in minutiae. Too many times they’d worked on cold cases where everything that was needed to solve the case had been filed away amongst the raft of paperwork accumulated over an investigation. So, Grady spent more and more time in his cramped office, straining tired eyes, behind his faux-pine desk. Slattery sat, staring out the window at the car park below, his approach to detective work very much at odds with that of the inspector. They might respect each other, but there was no question they were as opposite as night and day. A light tap on Grady’s door broke their concentration – through the old glass Slattery could see the outline of June Quinn.
‘Pat Deaver has just made it onto the six o’clock news.’ June stood at the door. She wasn’t fifty yet, but her shape was well and truly middle-aged. If Slattery noticed what June looked like, it was only when she looked rough – when she was coming down with some kind of flu or bug.
‘Feck it, that’s all we need.’ Slattery blew out a long breath and Grady rolled his eyes at the expletive, but his brows had knitted into an acceptance of sorts.
‘You really don’t think it’s him, do you?’ June closed the door behind her and flopped down in the chair opposite Grady.
‘June, if you saw him, you wouldn’t think so either,’ Grady said evenly. They had let him dry out as much as he ever would and with sobriety came a kind of placid innocence to him.
‘He probably has difficulty tying his shoes. I’d say he’s the type that would be devastated over a wasted kitten on the road,’ Slattery said. It was true, Deaver, whatever he was like before the drink was what Slattery would call a bit soft.
‘If not Pat Deaver then…’ June said aloud.
‘Well, it’s back to square one, isn’t it? We’re looking at the husband, the guy from college…’ Slattery paused a moment. Time was passing. If they didn’t make an arrest soon, they’d be into a week, and then, for all his griping about the media, they’d lose interest, then people would lose interest, and Anna Crowe and her family would become just a tragic statistic. A case, like any other, that would be open for as long as the big wigs could justify it, but the trail was already cooling and he knew they needed something now.
‘Darach Boran?’ June tested the name.
‘Yeah, him. He sounds like someone you’d like to lock up just for the heck of it, make the world a better place.’ Slattery smiled across at June.
‘It’s hardly good news, but better to get it right now than spend a couple of days grilling Pat Deaver and maybe letting whatever trail to the real killer go cold,’ Grady said, hardly lifting his head from the pages before him.
‘Yeah, but remember in eighty per cent of homicides…’ Slattery’s voice was a monotone – they’d all heard it before too many times for it to be interesting anyway.
‘I know, it’s down to the spouse or a close family member.’ June picked at a fleece of cats’ fur that clung belligerently to her dark pants.
‘What’s he like?’ Grady asked again. He would have been the one to question the husband if it hadn’t been for Byrne and his bloody budget meetings.
‘Crowe?’ Slattery checked.
‘Yeah, does he
seem like the type?’
‘Hard to say. At the moment he’s in shock, but then let’s face it, you never know.’ Slattery looked out across the city, his thoughts catching off the familiar rooftops as his mind tumbled through that interview once again. ‘Cold. I’d say he’s a cold bugger, but I’m not sure he’s got the level of depravity something like this would take. Again, though, would we know for sure?’
‘You wouldn’t rule him out like Pat Deaver?’
Slattery sat back in his chair, closed his eyes for a second, trying to picture Adrian Crowe. What he could see was a tearful, dazed man, who’d just lost not only his wife, but his two kids as well. A man who lived in a very tidy house, with a very tidy life. Would he be the kind of man who could kill his wife? Maybe. Kill his kids? Even to himself he couldn’t answer this. Finally, Slattery opened his eyes and looked across at June. ‘I don’t know.’ He said the words simply, but in his head, he thought of killing Anna Crowe and her two children and something just seemed to echo at the back of his brain. Killing the kids tied everything up. If Adrian Crowe wanted to be free of his old life, certainly the death of his whole family in one go was a neat and effective job. And, Adrian Crowe was a very neat man.
Slattery had heard the rumours; they’d been doing the rounds for a few days now. There was a new superintendent on the way, but no one knew who it was. There had been nothing more from Byrne, apart from the occasional bark that he had enough to be doing not to have to be bothering with running Murder, DV and Traffic on top of it. He stomped through the incident room on a daily basis, but Slattery had known him long enough for them to both know where they stood.
Today, they almost collided in the corridor.
‘Christ, Slattery, what happened to you?’ Byrne stepped back sizing him up. ‘You look like shit, seriously…’
‘Late night,’ Slattery grunted.
Silent Night: An absolutely gripping crime thriller Page 7