Iris Locke walked past her desk. To say she was livid was an understatement. That bastard, he was a typical, country bloody bumpkin guard. Old school. She was angry with Grady, fractious with the Murder Team and mostly frustrated with the whole investigation. She decided to head out of the station for a walk. There was a briefing scheduled for later in the evening, so she grabbed her coat from the hook on her way. A quick walk around the city should clear her head. God knows, if she waited here any longer she’d either kill someone or cry. She wondered, as she made her way down the noisy corridor, if perhaps she wasn’t premenstrual. It was just one of the many thoughts zooming around her brain when she almost ploughed into Anita Cullen.
‘You in a hurry?’ Cullen, like everyone else in this godforsaken place probably knew her only too well from the coverage of the McCracken case in all the papers. She was a minor celebrity. A poster girl for an organisation packed to the core with fat men and old bitches. In a way, she knew they’d used her image to the max when it had come to putting a spin on the whole McCracken debacle, for all the good it had done her in the end.
‘Oh, no, I just need to get a bit of air.’ Iris heard the words trip lightly off her tongue – that’s what undercover did for you. She could lie at the drop of a hat now, didn’t knock a stir out of her. Maybe she’d always been good at it.
‘Mind if I join you?’ Cullen said, falling into step beside her. There was something comforting about it. She had a solidity to her that you didn’t often find in women. Cullen was old school, but she was female and that made her quite the anomaly. ‘It can be hard, starting out… trying to prove yourself…’
‘Might be, if I was actually stationed somewhere permanently… I don’t know. I think I want to crack this case more than anyone here, but it feels as if it’s going nowhere.’ Locke kept her voice low, glancing around her as they walked. She never fully trusted this building where whispers carried up through the stairwells when you least wanted them to. She kept her conversations low and her thoughts to herself.
‘I can’t believe you’re still a floater.’ Cullen pulled her jacket closer as they stepped out into the cool Limerick air.
‘They offered me a post in Fraud. A desk job.’
‘The way you say that, I guess you’re a girl after my own heart.’ Cullen chuckled, a deep satisfied noise that invited you to laugh with her. She made it hard not to like her. ‘Listen, we’re both outsiders here, if there’s anything I can do for you…’ Cullen stopped and Iris wasn’t sure if she was meant to say ditto or tell her all of her problems. Either way, she wasn’t saying too much for now.
‘I appreciate that,’ she settled on, eventually. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome; we girls need to stick together, right?’ They were turning into Athlunkard Street. ‘Fancy a decent cup of coffee?’
‘Murder one!’ Locke said. It was no harm to keep this woman on side; she was very well connected, and anyway, she was easy to talk to. Iris felt like she’d known her all her life, reckoned that the day would come when tales would be told to young women joining the force about Anita Cullen, and, who knew, perhaps she’d be the one telling them.
They picked out a seat at the back end of a self-consciously trendy coffee shop. It was all lattes and cappuccinos and expensively aromatic chocolate.
‘So are we both looking to get into the Murder Team in Limerick?’ Cullen asked, making her way through a chocolate muffin.
‘I don’t know. I’d have said no before I came here. Even yesterday, I’d have taken the train out of here without looking back, but I’ve been finding myself thinking, the team are okay and I like the city, my family are here, so…’
‘Lucky girl, what’s not to like so?’ Cullen was stirring brown sugar into her coffee.
‘Maybe I’ve too many connections with the place. It’s complicated.’
‘Yes, your father?’ Cullen tipped her head to the side. ‘I knew him, knew him well, he was a great detective. Big shoes?’ Cullen cast her eyes towards the door for a moment, a lifetime of watching, perhaps it never left you. ‘But, Iris, remember he had to start out, too, and from what I hear, you’re going to be every bit as good as him.’ She smiled now. ‘How can you not be sure, like father, like daughter, right?’
If her father had known Anita Cullen, he’d never mentioned her to Iris. Then again, who did her father not know in the guards? Iris lowered her eyes for a moment, attempting to hide the disappointment that there was someone else who’d judge her on her father’s sterling reputation. When she spoke again, she plastered her you got me, thought I had you fooled, but you got me best smile across her face. ‘Yep, he was a big man, as you say, very large shoes to fill.’
‘You be sure and tell him I was asking for him, and your mother, too, won’t you.’ Cullen sipped her coffee, and Iris was certain that she was drifting back in time, to conversations with the great Jack Locke, rather than being here with the slightly less enigmatic daughter. And wasn’t this half the problem – her half at least. The footprints set before her here in Corbally, in Limerick city, maybe even in the southern region, seemed far too immense to fill. If her father had been just a bit like Slattery, she might have had some hope, but he was so bloody perfect, she hadn’t really a chance in Limerick.
‘And Grady?’ Cullen moved in closer, smiling across her coffee. ‘He has a bit of a reputation for the ladies, or so I hear.’
‘Has he?’ No doubt, he was attractive, in a brooding kind of way – but Locke figured you could put that down to the sense of power he had about him. There was a strength there that Locke hadn’t really seen in any man she’d ever met before. She suspected, though, that if they clashed – which they’d come very close to today – well, there’d be a few casualties as a result of it. ‘I honestly can’t say I noticed.’ The lies really did just fly off the tongue after a while.
‘Ah well, just be careful, that’s all I’d say to you.’
‘Well, he’s safe enough around me, that’s for sure.’ Iris sipped her coffee, and then she told Anita Cullen about her conversation earlier with Grady. Cullen nodded agreeably while she spoke and in the end, when she left down her cup, somehow Iris felt much better.
‘Bit of advice to you, Iris.’ Cullen leaned closer to her. ‘Learn from him; he knows what he’s about, eat the bit of humble pie, prove yourself. You could go a long way, provided you don’t decide you need love, or babies or any kind of life outside of the guards. Up to you, my dear, but if you haven’t set your mind on anything yet, my best advice is, keep your options open.’ She winked across at Iris and leaned still further into the table. ‘All of your options, that is.’
Chapter Fourteen
The station had been inundated with crank callers since the media appeal – it was par for the course, but that didn’t make it any more endurable. The crazies set everyone on edge and Slattery knew that it only added to the tension he was already feeling piling in on him between Maureen and Angela, the arrival of Anita Cullen and dealing with a team that were for a large part wet behind the ears on a murder investigation.
He dug in close to his desk now, crouched over a chipped mug half filled with strong tea. This morning, even being here felt like it might be enough to push him over. Most of his colleagues were savvy enough to give him a wide berth and the only people who came near him were either stupid or brave enough to know his bark was ten times worse than his bite. He had spent almost half an hour studying the grey street traffic below the window that ran alongside his desk. Today, he noticed the years of ingrained dust, thinking idly that Maureen would love to be let loose on those frames for just a few hours – there was no doubt in his mind that his wife got as much satisfaction out of scrubbing a thing clean as he did out of a long cold pint of Guinness.
A weary sigh pulled his attention back to the incident room where Iris Locke was standing with her mobile stuck to her ear. All dressed up and nowhere to go – that’s what his father would have said years ago to Una. Today, Locke was being sen
t off with Westmont to talk to Darach Boran again – Slattery figured you didn’t need a fancy suit and shoes to get answers from scum like Boran, all you needed was fat fists and a menacing glare. From the sounds of him, Boran was used to taking charge of women. Slattery smiled then, realising what Grady had maybe spotted immediately. Iris Locke was not a woman to be buffed about the place – good luck to Darach Boran with that one.
‘What?’ she rounded on him now. ‘What’s so bloody funny?’
‘Me?’ he said with mock innocence, realising that he’d been grinning in her direction without noticing that she had hung up on the call that had been causing her such grief only moments earlier.
‘I suppose you think it’s madness too? Trying to track down files for Baby Fairley.’ She stalked over to his desk, stood towering over him, and suddenly he was immersed in an overpowering aroma of heavy perfume that made him want to catch his breath and clear the fumes from his body.
‘I never said that,’ he said quietly.
‘So…’ She looked around the incident room, suddenly aware that they’d become a floor show. She smoothed her hair back from her forehead and dropped to the seat opposite him. ‘Look,’ she said quietly, ‘look around you… this place, they’re all just chasing shadows. Every time a phone rings it’s another lunatic talking about aliens or gang members.’ She put up her hand to stop him saying anything. ‘We both know this wasn’t gang-related, this was personal.’
‘It seems to me it might be getting a bit too personal,’ Slattery spat.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You being here, day and night, trying every way you can to track down what happened to that baby all those years ago when you know full well the one who can best answer that is your own father – he led out that investigation and he’s not different to any of us now. He’ll have more stored away about that case than you’ll ever find on a case file, even if one has survived.’ He grunted then, maybe he wasn’t angry with Iris, probably he was just angry with the whole world, for the mess he’d made of it, for the sister he’d lost and for family that he’d as good as thrown away because the guilt of one seemed to filch the good of the other. ‘The truth is, Iris, your father was one of the best detectives this station has ever seen, he was a good man and a brilliant superintendent and it’s as plain as a rich tea biscuit that all you want to do is pass him out. Well, let me tell you something for nothing, solving that case from all those years ago isn’t going to make you any better than him.’
‘It’s damn well not about that…’ Her words were low and menacing. ‘Am I the only bloody one here to feel there has to be connection between the two cases – seriously, Slattery, tell me now, how often do horrible coincidences happen in a murder case and they’re not linked?’
‘Well…’ He hated to admit it, but she had a point. ‘Maybe,’ he settled on, because it wasn’t giving in, but he had to admit it was a bloody big coincidence that one sister was stolen and the other was murdered. ‘Here’s a thought, though, rather than chasing about here trying to catch your tail – why not go straight for the horse’s mouth? Why not just go and ask your father – if anything I’d say he’d enjoy reliving the glory days.’
‘Hmph.’ It was a strange noise at odds with her usual composure. ‘If you must know, I already have…’ She looked about the incident room gloomily. ‘He says that there was no crime. Mrs Fairley had post-natal depression, even if they couldn’t prove it… he’s pretty sure she was the one to blame.’
‘Jesus.’ It was all Slattery could manage, but when he glanced back at Iris he knew that terrible and all as it was, she still wasn’t convinced. He moved forward turning his back on the window outside. ‘Listen to me now, think about this, can you really see someone coming back after all this time to finish off the sister? Even if that baby was stolen, whoever took her would be lying as low as they possibly could for the rest of their lives. The last thing they’d want is any kind of comeuppance with the law – don’t you think?’
‘I know, that all makes sense, even my father’s explanation makes a lot of sense, but I can’t shake the feeling that somehow that baby has something to do with all of this… it’s not even something I can put into words.’ She shook her head now, smiled with a wry sort of movement to her lips and Slattery wondered if maybe – beyond all that gloss and the obvious ambition – she might be half all right to work with, given a chance.
‘Yeah, well be careful not to get too hung up on it, you know cases like that… they can haunt you, if you let them. In here,’ he nodded towards the incident room behind her, ‘you have to keep moving, don’t let it get personal because as soon as you do…’
‘What, I become like you?’ She inclined her head slightly, it wasn’t said in a mean way. ‘I think that’s one of your few redeeming features, by the way, the fact that you do take it all personally.’ She cocked her head then, and stalked away from him before he could answer.
Slattery decided to start at the beginning. It was actually easier to track than he’d imagined and if he’d given it too much thought, he might just have wondered why no one had thought to do it before.
‘What can I take?’ he asked Billy Henry, a cadaver waiting to happen, some might say a mirror image of himself, only blond-grey hair and arthritis problems instead of gut ones. He’d long since taken to a desk job and most people felt that the streets of Limerick were no less safe as result. Now he was in charge of every item in Corbally station. Everything from paper clips to vehicles. If you wanted it, Billy was the man to talk to.
‘You still alive, Slattery?’ It had been a while since Slattery had done any major amount of paper clipping.
‘Yeah, I’m waiting for you to go first. Probably be the first thing you beat me at.’
‘You’re still hilarious, just a laugh a minute. Heard ’bout your missus, sorry ’bout that. Tough one.’ It was as near as the likes of Slattery or Henry would ever get to displaying a sensitive side – rumour had it, though, Big Billy cried like a baby at the smell of gin. Gin just sickened Slattery, but there you go – it was a woman’s drink anyway. No man, unless he was a right old ponce, should go near it, in Slattery’s opinion.
‘Yeah. Tough one.’ He nodded towards the lot. Not much choice out there. ‘I’ll take the blue one.’ It was an older model Ford, small, not too obvious, just perfect.
‘Is what I hear right?’
‘What’s that?’
‘Anita Cullen is up there lordin’ it?’ He raised loosened eyes to heaven that threatened to roll completely round in his sockets, so watery were they against his lax skin.
‘Aye.’ Slattery didn’t have time for small talk. ‘Old girlfriend of yours, was she?’
‘Are you all right? She nearly got me kicked out back in the day. Long time ago now, but I’d say she’s same as ever.’ He looked around him, as though invisible ears might collar his next few words. ‘Rumour has it she’s looking to catch you out, Slattery, better watch yourself. That one, she’s a hairy bit of work on a bicycle, take it from me. You watch yourself up there now.’
Slattery grabbed the key from the hook. Yeah. Yeah. Who had the time to listen to this old lady talk? He managed something almost affable as he slammed the door behind him.
In Slattery’s experience, every town, village or street had one. It was a matter of finding that one person who knew what needed to be known among all the other reams of useless information that an investigation picked up. Often, too, it took little more than a sympathetic ear and knocking on the right door at the right moment. Of course, it also took knowing which questions to ask.
‘A nosey old cow,’ was how Veronique had described Bridgie Brennan under her breath as she’d shown Slattery to the door. And for as much as he might outwardly be pinning the deaths of Anna Crowe and her two kids on her husband, the only thing that niggled him was that missing baby. Maybe, even if they got a full confession from the bloke that wouldn’t be enough for Slattery. That was just how i
t was with him. So he left the station and headed back towards Kilgee.
Mrs Brennan’s house had what Maureen would have called notions of grandeur, way beyond its entitlement. A small bungalow, it sat nestled amidst a garden of privet, yew and trumpeter roses that had seen better days. It was, Slattery considered, surprisingly private for one whom he assumed took a great interest in the comings and goings of the village around her. She showed him into what he supposed was the good room, the smell of damp marked it as one not often used, and when she produced china cups and saucers he knew he was getting best.
‘Of course, he – Fairley himself – worked on the lighthouse. He’d be gone for weeks at a time, that’s the way they worked it. Come back then and do what had to be done, gone again. Some women, I suppose, are able for that.’ She left her cup down on the sideboard to her left. It was heavy oak, old and waxed fervently over the years.
‘And was she, was Mrs Fairley… able for it, do you think?’ There was a selection of biscuits at his elbow; obviously Mrs Brennan thought a big fella like him needed feeding.
‘No,’ Bridgie Brennan said quietly. ‘No, I’m afraid she was not. She was a delicate woman, never had much to say for herself. We all wondered at the time what he’d seen in her, to be honest. No doubt she was a beauty, in her way, but to the rest of us, it didn’t look like there was a lot more to her. The daughter, Anna, she looked a little like her, except the hair, of course, but sure that’s young wans for you now, it’s dark today, bright tomorrow.’ She sipped her tea again, thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think any of us round here will ever forget that time. Your lot were very good, very… sensitive. I think we all knew, really.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Well, I’m sure there’s a record of it somewhere. Sure even the way they kept coming back, keeping an eye on her.’ She leaned closer now, and Slattery could see in her eyes she was not a bitchy woman; if she liked gossip, she didn’t take any pleasure in other people’s misery. ‘I’d say they knew it was her, from the first day. It was all too much for her, a young girl like that, with two small ones and no man about the place. We were wrong, too, we should have seen it. If she’d been here… in the village, well, who knows, it might have been different.’
Silent Night: An absolutely gripping crime thriller Page 12