‘Oh, dear girl,’ Slattery said wearily, ‘there are always ways to find out things.’ He held out a hand. ‘Left here.’
‘Cullen doesn’t want us anywhere near the Baby Fairley case, does she?’
It was the first time she’d actually admitted it. Cullen did not want the earlier Fairley case looked at; that was just wrong, and no matter how badly she wanted into Murder, she had to ask herself on what terms she wanted to be there. If she didn’t look at the Fairley case now, what would she be asked to ignore or maybe do in a future investigation? And sitting here with the smell of stale fags off Slattery and the unending drizzle of Limerick rain petering down the windscreen, she knew. This was not about one-upmanship on her father. It was not about making her name in the Murder Team in Limerick. This was about a baby who went missing, a baby who meant enough to Anna Crowe to send her back to a killer. It was about a baby that somehow had connected with Iris. This was about a missing baby that was never found; probably a dead baby. Perhaps it would make no difference to Anna Crowe now, no difference to Baby Fairley, but Iris knew with certainty it would make the world of a difference to her.
‘I might know someone… if you’re interested.’ He motioned her to turn the car around and they were headed back towards the city centre before she had time to think. ‘This guy was a councillor back in the day, spent his time on various committees. I think he knows more of what goes on in this country than the Irish Times. He knows more about the police than the Minister for Justice.’
They pulled the car up outside a small jewellery shop on Grundel Street. It was a shop that had seen better days, probably made as much now on second-hand jewellery as it did on anything shiny or new. Jackie Tiernan looked like a man in his eighties, crooked and squat at the back of his little shop, but behind his thick glasses, his eyes were quick, his handshake was strong, and his welcome for Slattery was warm.
‘So, you’re still in the land of the living, hah?’ He looked over Slattery, and Locke wondered if he was gauging who would be first to die.
‘When I’m planning on heading off towards the watering hole in the sky, you’ll be the first to know. You might even be there to welcome me!’
‘Who’s to say, but I’m not planning on going anywhere for a while, too many grandkids to keep an eye out for, you know the score.’
‘Ah, sure, has to be done,’ Slattery said and Locke wondered if Slattery could have grandchildren. She couldn’t imagine him ever having had kids, but she knew now, he had a daughter – Angela. Before that phone call, she’d have laid money they’d be born detectives, probably come out with a cigarette in one hand and a warrant in the other.
‘You keeping busy these days?’ Slattery looked around the shop; it was empty save for themselves.
‘Ara, sure you have to keep active, don’t you,’ he tapped the side of his head, ‘good for the brain… keeping all sorts of busy up.’ He smiled at Slattery, at some unsaid joke that Iris wasn’t privy to.
‘Good that you’re still in tune. Can you check something for me, but it has to be as silent as that grave we’re both running away from.’ Slattery lowered his voice; Iris reckoned there was no need. Apart from the odd neighbour calling in here, it wasn’t the busiest spot on benefits day. Jackie Tierney probably bought as much as he sold when it came to gold these days.
‘Do you remember the Baby Fairley case, years back?’
‘Jesus, Slattery, everyone remembers that case. I had small kids of me own then, put the fear of God in me, that one did. Ye ever get anyone for it?’
‘No.’ Slattery sniffed. His lower lip curled into a sneer that said whoever did it wouldn’t come out too good if Slattery got him first.
‘What kind of things are you thinking – paedo rings? ’Cos anything I ever heard along those lines I’ve passed straight on to you, you know that.’ Paedophiles were scum as far as any decent criminal was concerned, hardly counted as human beings at all.
‘Sure, and I understand how you feel, but I’m kind of thinking, maybe someone fucked up on the Fairley case. I want to see if there are any connections that aren’t… obvious to us in the force, if you know what I mean.’ He smiled at Tierney; they evidently had their own secrets and Iris was happy not to know too much about them. He lowered his voice further, looked about furtively and she could see that Tierney was enjoying being part of something of enough importance to bring two detectives to his door. ‘If there was a connection between her and a senior officer in the police, maybe, or someone who could make things disappear.’
‘Can you give me a name?’
‘I can, but it mightn’t mean anything to you. You know the way these things work, one to do the nasty…’
‘Aye, another to fire the balls?’
‘Exactly. Either way, check out an old bird called Anita Cullen, she was in Templemore until a couple of days ago…’
‘She rattle your cage?’ Tierney smiled with a wisdom that was disarming.
‘She’s a pencil pusher, Tierney.’ He reserved for the words as much disdain as any voice could carry. It was as if she was worse than a child molester, or maybe in Slattery’s case, a pioneer. ‘Anyway, you have my number, right?’
‘I’m sure I have it somewhere.’ Tierney looked around the shop and Iris figured she wouldn’t want to be going looking for a name card among the decades of slips of paper and bits of notes that were scattered along the shelf behind him. ‘Might as well give it to me again, just in case,’ he said, taking the card Slattery had managed to have ready to hand over to him. If they heard anything back from this old codger it’d be second-hand information. That didn’t bother her too much; she had no desire to get caught up in any kind of contention with Cullen. Slattery, on the other hand grinned, delighted to be digging for a bit of dirt on her.
When they got out of the shop, Slattery lit up a fag. ‘That won’t take long,’ he said as he admired the sliver of smoke that peppered the light breeze settling in around the city. ‘And the thing about Tierney is I’ve never found him to be wrong about anything.’
‘So how…?’ Locke knew she didn’t need to finish the sentence.
‘He knows everyone. If he doesn’t, he knew their fathers, or their grandfathers and that doesn’t just go for Limerick. He was involved in everything from the Jewellers’ Association of Ireland to the Irish Farmers’ Association back in the day. I think he even had a foot in the door of the NUJ.’ Slattery smiled to himself. ‘He’s a little-known treasure here in the centre of Limerick, and I’ll nearly guarantee you he’ll be back to us with something before the day is out.’
‘If there’s anything to get.’ Locke didn’t want to rain on Slattery’s parade, but she wasn’t sure she wanted anything on Cullen.
‘Yeah, sure, that’s if there’s anything.’ Slattery’s voice was flat, but Locke could sense a bristling excitement from him.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The post-mortem results were pretty much what they had expected. Grady sent Slattery and Locke along. Of course, Slattery bitched about having to attend, it was only afterwards he admitted to Grady that he’d known the victim. PMs were never easy, even less so when the victim was known to you beforehand. Burn victims were the worst. Slattery reckoned it was the smell. Grady thought it was the fact that the face and body screwed up so it looked like they’d be forever in agony, their spirits only drifting away long after the damage had been done.
‘Veronique Majewski died from one bullet to the head. Probably taken at a range of about eight feet,’ Grady told Cullen who had raised her attention away from what appeared to be CCTV footage on her computer screen.
‘So her killer hadn’t been close, probably the other side of the kitchen?’
‘Exactly. If it was Kerr, why not come up as close as he had with Anna, Sylvie and Martin?’
‘More personal?’
‘That would make sense if it was the other way round, surely?’ They were taking random shots, hoping to hit a target. ‘It’s a differ
ent gun.’
‘Well, Kerr has plenty of those.’
‘Not like the ones we saw at the cottage.’ Grady had never seen a private collection of guns so vast. Most were legal, licences were hung on the wall above each firearm, but there were a couple that shouldn’t have been there. Westmont had reckoned there was one from Iraq, one that had probably come from Lebanon, maybe thirty years ago. No doubt, Kerr had a taste for guns, but had he a taste for murder?
‘He shoots things, doesn’t he?’ Cullen said, as if somehow that was enough. But, Grady knew, his own father had a shotgun. Double barrel, his mother had hated it, his father had gone out twice a year, with a local club. He was no murderer though.
‘Bit of a difference between going out and shooting ducks and killing the neighbours off.’ Grady raised an eyebrow. ‘I’d say the DPP might agree with me too.’
‘Still, he has opportunity; he certainly has the means…’ She tapped a button on the screen before her, smiling slightly to herself, paused the footage she’d been searching.
‘And the motive?’ Grady looked at her. ‘Give me the motive and we’ll arrest him now, shall we?’
‘He’s a bloody weirdo, Grady, that’s as pointed as the top of Croagh Patrick.’ She looked at him now, softened her expression. ‘Any word from Westmont?’
‘Nothing. Kerr hasn’t turned up to collect his dole anyway.’ Grady didn’t expect him until the afternoon at least.
‘Maybe give the boyos out at the cottage a heads-up too. If he turns up there, nab him.’ She looked thoughtful now. ‘How come we have no interview recorded with him, have you thought of that? Every neighbour in the village was questioned, most of them twice over, but we never actually managed to talk to him.’
‘Yeah, I know, I’ve gone through the interviews with Dennis Blake. Nothing.’ It was as if he’d slipped through the cracks of each visit. They’d only known about him because Veronique had mentioned him in an interview with one of the uniforms.
Grady looked out the window. Still on the path opposite a crowd of reporters waited for news about the case. Grady scanned the crowd again, searching for something; he wasn’t sure what, something or somebody who shouldn’t be there. ‘I thought I saw someone there earlier,’ he jerked his thumb towards the window.
‘Oh?’ Cullen craned her neck to see past him.
‘Probably nothing, overactive imagination.’ He shrugged, but he still hadn’t shaken off the feeling that chewed at him today. Someone was watching them, not just camping out waiting for a story, but stalking them, waiting for them to make a mistake, or maybe waiting for something else. ‘Do you fancy the same murderer for both?’
Cullen looked at him. ‘Yes.’ He didn’t need anything more than that. ‘You?’
His eyes drifted once more towards the street outside. ‘What are the connections, apart from geographical? They were two women, within a decade of each other in age, living within a couple of hundred metres of each other. There it ends. It might be enough if Anna Crowe and her kids hadn’t seemed so personal, but it was just business with Veronique. A bullet to the head.’ He thought for a minute. ‘But then what does that make it – a big coincidence? We don’t get many of those in Murder, do we?
‘So it’s Ollie Kerr?’ Cullen looked uneasy. ‘See, that’s where it gets awkward, isn’t it?’
‘Not if it’s two different murderers.’
‘So then we’re back to why…’ Cullen sat back, considered her cup for a moment and then left it on the desk.
‘For Anna Crowe, I’m betting passion.’ Grady looked at her with such conviction, it was easy to go along with the theory. He held up a hand. ‘I’m just putting it out there. From what we know of her, she was everything some loopy loo would focus on – beautiful, talented, removed, mysterious and – to her own downfall – kind.’
‘So, either the husband or Deaver? Kerr or Boran?’
‘You see that’s where we’ve run aground…’
‘Even still, you don’t sound very convinced.’ Cullen smiled.
‘That’s because I’m not. We’ve looked at those two and there’s nothing, nothing that truly persuades me either of them is guilty. Let’s face it, neither of them are blokes you’d especially warm to; it wouldn’t be a scourge exactly to see them put away for a while.’
‘But?’
‘Kerr is a bit of a loner, isn’t he? I’m betting if we had a profiler in here, he’s the first one they’d pick out.’
‘Doesn’t mean the profiler would be right, though, does it?’
He looked thoughtful, checked the window again. ‘How did we miss him before?’
‘He wasn’t there, I suppose. As you said, it was only because Veronique mentioned him that we even knew he existed.’
‘Yeah, but he was never interviewed, there’s not one word from him. He was never there.’ Grady tapped the side of his head, leaned forward just a fraction, then his eyes darted towards the window once more, his voice Arctic. ‘Perhaps, he’s been here all the time.’
‘Did Slattery know about him?’ She nodded towards the screen before her and Grady bent across to see what she was watching. ‘Did Slattery know about him?’ Her voice was sterner now, but Grady hardly registered it.
Instead, he felt a cold trickle of sweat trace down his spine, his head spun, just a fraction, enough to make him want to vomit. The screen was a jittery white before him; a shadowy figure had paused midway, like a fat marionette, the puppeteer just beyond the camera lenses. The shot was taken in a corridor that ran to an exit at the back of the station – no one ever used those rear entrances. Or at least, that’s what Grady and obviously Slattery had believed. A cartoon version of Slattery standing in the Ship Inn shot like a steam train across his brain. The familiar thick body, with a short fat arm, extended towards the bar counter, taking up his pint, or his half one. Bending his left arm and throwing his head back slightly as he swilled like he’d never manage to get quite enough into him. The shot before Grady now had paused Slattery midway and there, though slightly blurred thanks to the freeze frame, was a quarter bottle of Jameson, three swallows flying towards Slattery’s open mouth. Might as well have been holding his own hand gun, cocked with a finger on the trigger, because Grady knew with certainty, that before the day was out, Cullen fully intended to blow Slattery away.
There was nothing more to say. Grady left the office, headed for his own quiet corner and slumped at his desk. It felt like he’d walked in on Slattery’s wake, only no one had told Slattery he was a dead man walking.
Grady sat in his cramped office, looking about him. It was the end of the road for Slattery, this much he knew. If they went back over his HR file, and they would, he’d been warned before, suspended at one stage for drinking on the job. He’d already had a fair reputation when Grady had struck up with him. But there was no denying he was still a good detective, and, Grady knew, that if he wasn’t a guard, well then, he might as well be dead. He’d given it everything he was worth over the years, given it so much it had cost him his marriage and his daughter – they’d never forgive him. And none of them, not Byrne or any of the rest of them, had ever tried to stop him. None of them had said, ‘Go home, Slattery, enjoy your kid, mow the lawn for Maureen, take a break – be normal.’
Was he any better? Grady turned his chair to look out the window. Beyond the station, on the footpath opposite, a pack of journalists and cameras, waiting for news on the investigation. He scanned the crowd. Some of the faces he recognised, most not. They were a raggle-taggle of news reporters, probably a few freelance, hoping for something to flog that might pay the rent for the week. Grady didn’t like them, but he could hardly blame them for doing their job.
He began to turn away, when – from the side of his eye – something caught his attention. Something familiar, a mouth or a jaw bone. He’d just caught a flash of something moving through the crowd, watching him, but when Grady looked back again it was nowhere to be seen. He scanned the gathering once more, moving
methodically along the lines, taking in the faces, the clothes, the draggle of equipment, but there was nothing and after a couple of minutes he wondered if perhaps he’d imagined it. Not that he could say exactly who it was, but just that it didn’t belong on his doorstep on a miserable afternoon.
He was tempted to run from the office, take the wide stone steps two at a time and rush to the other side of the street. Taking each face in turn and studying it, just to be sure, but he knew he wouldn’t. Whoever he’d seen there or whoever he thought he’d seen there were well gone by now, weren’t they? It was probably some innocent passer-by, who’d got caught up in the throng for a moment while making his way home. Still, Grady felt uneasy. He pulled the blind down slightly, feeling he was under surveillance now, the prey and not the hunter. When his phone rang, it startled him. He found it beneath open files he hadn’t read yet. It was Westmont, breathless and excited.
‘We’re out at Kerr’s place,’ he said, shouting above the din of the gathering wind.
‘Is he there?’ Again an uneasy feeling swept across Grady, but he brushed it off.
‘No, but we’ve found something else…’ Westmont’s voice moved away from the phone as if his attention was shared with something far more interesting.
‘I can hardly hear you,’ Grady said.
‘Sorry, sir, I’m moving outside now. It’s just I had to ring to tell you. We’ve found a box of photographs, newspaper cuttings, like someone was building up a file on…’ His voice cut off, the line breaking up again. Grady could just imagine him, jumping about, trying hard to keep out of any cow pats, trying hard to sound as professional as he could, maybe fooling most of the techies there that he actually knew what he was doing. ‘It’s like a whole file on the Crowes: from what I’ve seen it’s going right back to when the baby was taken.’
‘Have the forensic boys got it now?’ Grady wiped from his mind the vision of Westmont hugging it to him, delighted with his prize, destroying whatever bit of DNA evidence they might be able to take from it. Grady shuddered despite himself.
Silent Night: An absolutely gripping crime thriller Page 21