The Kindness of Psychopaths

by Alan Gorevan

  Just then an officer from the Technical Bureau came down the stairs. She held a clear plastic evidence bag containing blood-spattered garden shears.

  “They were in the bedroom,” she said.

  Wall felt dizzy. Someone had used those shears on Valentina, on the hands that he’d kissed that very morning.

  Byrne said, “This strike me as cruel.”

  “Of course it’s cruel,” Wall said. “It’s insane.”

  “I mean, it looks personal.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Aside from Donnelly,” Byrne said, in a cool tone, “do you know anyone who’d want to hurt your wife?”

  “No one. Everyone loved Valentina. No one who knew her would do such thing.”

  Byrne said nothing.

  Wall knew he didn’t believe him.

  Chapter 6

  Valentina López Vázquez and Barry Wall’s house had a narrow strip of grass out front. Joe and Wall stood there, not talking. The personal trainer was a big guy, heavily muscled and there was something forceful about the way he moved his body. But Joe was pretty sure Wall hadn’t attacked his wife. He had an alibi, a training session with some Z-list actress. They were outside because Joe didn’t want him muddying the crime scene.

  Wall’s brother, Ken, lived in the Wicklow mountains, an hour’s drive south, but he had an office in Dublin city centre. Joe had asked Wall to have his brother come and collect him. Wall grumbled but did it. Now he kept rubbing his short, brown hair as he waited for Ken to arrive.

  The house was swarming with uniforms and forensics people. On Joe’s current posting, he’d seen a lot of traffic accidents, minor burglaries, things like that. But he hadn’t dealt with serious violent crime for a while. He’d forgotten how busy this kind of crime scene was.

  He had the sinking feeling that he might be dealing with a murder.

  Joe heard the roar of an engine.

  “That’s him,” Wall said.

  Joe followed him out the gate. They walked around the cluster of emergency vehicles to a gleaming red Jaguar at the side of the lane. Ken stepped out of the car in a crisp suit and a cloud of cologne. He had a much smaller frame than his brother, but he wasn’t a stick figure. It was just that everyone looked small next to Barry Wall. Ken was maybe forty, with a shiny bald head, and heavy brows over his grey eyes.

  Ken said, “Tell me it’s not true. Is Valentina really missing?”

  Wall said, “She’s…”

  His voice broke.

  Joe had uniforms out canvassing the neighbourhood, but it was a Monday morning, and he wasn’t optimistic. The back garden was sheltered by trees and bushes so no one would have been able to see the fingers being planted in the grass.

  They were looking for a sick individual. Joe wasn’t a psychologist, but cutting off a woman’s fingers with garden shears struck him as remarkably malevolent. He didn’t expect a ransom demand. Instead, he figured that the attacker had taken her somewhere quiet so he could enjoy more time with her.

  The thought made Joe mad.

  At the same time, he felt a surge of adrenaline. O’Carroll had been right. Joe was on a case again and he wasn’t thinking of quitting. He was focused on finding Valentina López Vázquez as soon as possible. And catching the sick bastard responsible.

  Barry Wall had no doubt about who that was.

  “Any news on Aidan Donnelly?” he kept asking. “Have you found Aidan Donnelly?”

  According to him, the painter had been in the house alone with Valentina that morning. Valentina’s text messages suggested she was afraid of him.

  “Why López Vázquez?” Joe said, pausing next to Ken Wall’s Jaguar.

  “What?”

  “Your wife didn’t take your family name when you got married. I’m just wondering why.”

  Ken scowled.

  “You’re asking my brother about names? Why don’t you focus on what’s relevant?”

  “We don’t know what’s relevant yet.”

  “Pride,” Wall said. “She was proud of the family name and didn’t want to give it up.”

  Joe nodded. Some men didn’t like proud women. Statistically speaking, they were probably after a man.

  Joe took Ken’s number and promised to update the brothers when he could. They were reluctant to leave, so Joe left them at the Jaguar and told the uniform at the entrance to the house not to let them back in.

  He wasn’t a damn babysitter.

  Joe walked through the house, pausing only to gaze at a photo of Valentina that hung on the wall. She had long, dark brown hair, matching brown eyes and a friendly, open smile. Hard to imagine someone wanting to hurt her the way they had. He continued to the back garden and watched as forensics pulled the fingers out of the grass and placed each digit in an evidence bag.

  Hold on, Valentina.

  He walked through the house one more time, soaking it all up, and taking stock of where things stood. The neighbourhood was still being canvassed, Donnelly’s van was still being located, CCTV footage was being sought, and the forensics team was still working the house. There was nothing more he could do there.

  He decided to head back to the station. O’Carroll would want to hear how his first day was going.

  Chapter 7

  Detective Inspector David O’Carroll was sitting at his desk, eating a packet of crisps when Joe knocked on his door. He ditched the half-eaten packet in his bin while Joe brought him up to speed on the disappearance.

  The windows looking out onto the car park were open as wide as they’d go. It was mid-afternoon and the sun blazed down.

  “Let’s set up an incident room,” O’Carroll said.

  Joe had expected him to say that. The incident room was the command centre of an investigation, used when a case demanded a team effort. Serious crimes, basically. It was a huge machine. Roles might be assigned to twenty or thirty officers, depending on the investigation.

  O’Carroll picked up the phone and spoke briefly to someone on the other end of the line. His boss, Joe figured.

  O’Carroll ended the call and said, “I know this is a lot to throw at you on your first day, but I’d like you to be SIO. I’ve just cleared it with Superintendent Kavanagh. That okay with you?”

  The Senior Investigating Officer was the person in charge. Joe had taken the specialist training, but this would be his first time actually acting as SIO.

  “Sure,” Joe said.

  “If you can’t hack it, I’ll take over.”

  “I’ll hack it.”

  O’Carroll called a meeting while Joe headed upstairs.

  The incident room occupied almost the whole top floor of the station. A long conference table ran down the length of the room, surrounded by about twenty chairs. There was a white board at the top of the room. Joe made his way there. Beside the white board, a window looked out onto the old cemetery next to the station. The left side of the room looked out onto Morehampton Road.

  Joe was still gathering his thoughts when the room began to fill up. He waited until everyone available was there, including O’Carroll.

  Anne-Marie Cunningham was back from court. Joe assigned her the role of Incident Room Coordinator.

  Kevin Boyle was still out, and Joe was glad of that.

  O’Carroll stood beside Joe and helped him assign the rest of the roles to people whose names he didn’t even know yet. The family liaison officer, the CCTV team, the exhibits officer, interviewers, the inquiries team, the house-to-house team, crime scene examiners. Some of these people were out in the field, doing their job already – such as the crime scene examiners.

  Joe opened a book of tasks – which amounted to an elaborate, numbered to-do list – and doled them out.

  By the time he had sent everyone away to complete their tasks, afternoon was turning into evening.

  He hadn’t had lunch yet and desperately needed to refuel while he had a few minutes to spare.

  He grabbed his jacket and set off walking down the roa
d towards the nearest Tesco, thinking he’d grab a sandwich. It was a beautiful evening, but Joe found it hard to put Valentina López Vázquez out of his mind, as he walked.

  She’d been missing for hours now, and they still had nothing.

  The supermarket was busy. Joe found a grab-and-go food section inside the door. He selected a chicken wrap from the fridge, then continued down the aisle, grabbing a banana in the fruit section, and looking for the coffee. He found the aisle and chose the strongest coffee they had.

  When he turned to head to the counter, he saw a woman halfway down the aisle. Her back was to him, and she was reaching for biscuits from the top shelf. Nothing eye-catching about her clothes – she wore blue jean and a green T-shirt. But there was something about the way she carried herself that grabbed Joe’s attention. Something about the way her hair fell.

  He took a step in her direction. Then another. His mouth became dry.

  The woman gave up trying to reach the biscuits, and turned around. Joe felt a jolt when their eyes met.

  It was her.

  Lisa O’Malley.

  Joe stared at her. She stared back. He wondered if he’d changed. She had, but not in a bad way. Her sparkling eyes were still the same – the colour halfway between grey and pale blue. Curly, toffee-coloured hair, parted in the middle. Green loops hung from her ears.

  Joe had Googled her over the years. Pathetic, but he hadn’t been able to help himself. Even when he tried dating other women, he looked Lisa up every few weeks. Sometimes he was rewarded with a new picture on social media or an update on her website.

  She took a step towards him.

  He took a step towards her.

  Two metres separated them.

  “Hello, Joe.”

  The sound of her voice brought the past rushing back.

  Joe couldn’t speak. Waves of nervous energy pulsed through him. He just stared at Lisa, feeling like he was in a dream. He had fantasised about what he’d say if they ever met again. Now that she was standing in front of him, his mind was blank.

  “What are you doing here?” Lisa said.

  Joe cleared his throat.

  “I was transferred to Donnybrook. This is my first day. You still live here?”

  “For my sins,” she said. She nodded to the top shelf. “Can you help me reach the biscuits? I’m not tall enough.”

  He didn’t.

  A teenage boy appeared at the end of the aisle, his arms festooned with avocados. He came towards them.

  “Mum, do you want the ripe ones or the ripen-at-home ones?”

  He stopped when he saw them.

  Mum.

  Joe was aware that she’d had a kid. He stared at the boy with a kind of appalled fascination. He was a big lad with gentle eyes and messy hair just like his mother’s.

  Did Lisa have a boyfriend, a husband? Joe tried to read her face but it gave nothing away. The boy looked from Lisa to Joe, and back again, confused.

  Lisa said, “Joe—”

  His phone rang.

  He answered it and listened.

  The search team had found Aidan Donnelly’s van.

  Chapter 8

  Lisa O’Malley walked quickly, only glancing back to make sure that Christopher was still following her. The road was busy, cars streaming past. Exhaust fumes choked her nostrils.

  Home was an elegant red-brick that lay a ten-minute walk from the supermarket. Today, she made the journey in seven minutes.

  As much as a freelance web developer had normal days, this had been one. In the morning, Lisa had called out to a small law firm. After lunch, she’d consulted with the owner of a dry cleaning shop. Everyone wanted a decent website.

  She’d done some work on her laptop between appointments, and over lunch. Everything had been so normal.

  Until now… After so many years, Joe was back.

  If she’d heard he was working in Donnybrook, she would have been able to steel herself. To get prepared for the inevitable encounter, and it was inevitable given how small the suburb was, and how close she lived to the station.

  But no. Suddenly he was just there, standing in the supermarket aisle. Still filled with rage, a decade and a half later.

  Joe hadn’t changed much. He’d grown into his looks. Those piercing blue eyes were now set in a leaner, harder face. She’d felt something stir inside, when she looked at his sandy hair, the strong physique. A memory of their time together. Lisa didn’t like the sadness she now saw in his eyes.

  Once home, she made a stir fry while Christopher showered. She was glad to be alone with her thoughts for a while. She dreaded having to answer more questions. After Joe rushed out of the shop without his purchases, Christopher had asked who he was.

  Lisa had said, “Someone I haven’t seen in a long time.”

  It had been the best she could come up with, when she was still numb with shock. She’d hurried to the counter to pay before he could ask anything else.

  Christopher appeared in the doorway. Her teenage son hadn’t even been born the last time she saw Joe. It had been so long.

  “What’s burning, Mum?”

  “What? Nothing.”

  Then Lisa realised that this wasn’t quite true. The chicken and peppers in the frying pan were somewhere between burnt and cremated.

  She took the pan off the heat at the same time as the smoke alarm began to scream. Christopher opened the door to the garden. Then he went into the hallway and waved his hand under the alarm, trying to make it stop. Finally, it did, and Christopher came back into the kitchen.

  “I don’t think we can eat that,” he said, peering at the frying pan.

  He was right. Lisa tipped the food into the bin and ditched the pan in the sink.

  “Fine. Let’s have a pizza.”

  “We didn’t get any.”

  “Really?”

  “I told you we didn’t finish working through the shopping list.”

  “Are you sure we don’t have a pizza?”

  She went to the fridge and looked but Christopher was right. He was always right when it came to food.

  Christopher said, “We can order something.”

  “We just went shopping. We must have something.”

  “Yeah, well.” He shrugged.

  “Let’s have French toast.”

  “For dinner? Okay. Fine with me.”

  It was Christopher’s favourite breakfast and was easy to make. Usually they didn’t have it for dinner though. She got eggs out of the fridge.

  Watching her crack them into a bowl, Christopher said, “That guy…”

  “What guy?”

  “In the shop, Mum.”

  “What about him?”

  “Mum. Is he – was he – I mean, were you and him, like, together in the past?”

  Lisa whisked the eggs furiously.

  “Why do you ask that?”

  “Because you’re acting weird.”

  “I had a long day.”

  “I’ve never seen you act so weird.”

  “Joe is just someone I used to know. It’s been a long time. That’s all. It was a surprise.”

  She took a clean pan out of the press. Heated up a little oil and waited. Christopher watched silently for a minute.

  “Is he…” Christopher swallowed. “Is he my dad?”

  Lisa thought desperately. Her son had become more preoccupied with his absent father as the years went by. Especially this year. She put the whisk down. Thought for a second. Said nothing. Thought again.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Christopher said.

  He walked out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind him.

  Chapter 9

  Joe parked the Honda on a quiet road a mile from Barry Wall and Valentina López Vázquez’s house. In front of him, the van they’d found was bookended by two squad cars. Four uniforms stood guard, their faces grim. A football field lay on one side of the road, a wall on the other.

  Joe’s legs felt light as he stepped out of the car. It
was the adrenaline coursing through him.

  He tried to keep his focus on Aidan Donnelly, but running into Lisa O’Malley had hit him hard. He took a breath and reminded himself that a woman’s life depended on him.

  Overhead the sky was still a brilliant blue. The early evening air was still warm. Joe heard music booming from the distance. The smell of barbecued chicken and burgers.

  As he walked over to the van, one of the uniforms nodded a greeting.

  Joe said, “You open it up yet?”

  “No, sir. We waited, like you said.”

  “Good.”

  “We’re not sure it’s the van you want.”

  He pointed to the empty space where the licence plate should have been. Removed to slow down identification. Joe wondered why the vehicle had been left out in the open. The road was quiet, but it was still a public place. Cars passed by. Donnelly must have known the van would be found sometime.

  Joe walked all the way around it. There was no one in driver’s seat or the passenger seat. He slipped on a pair of gloves and tried the driver’s door. It opened. He stepped up and glanced around but there wasn’t much to see. A tabloid newspaper and a half-empty bottle of fizzy orange sat on the passenger seat, together with a tattered paperback called Extra-terrestrial DNA and Humanity’s Destiny: Exposing the New World Order’s Plan.

  He stepped down and walked around to the back, steeling himself. It was possible he was about to find a corpse. He pulled out his 9mm Sig Sauer and pointed the gun at the van.

  “Okay. Open it up.”

  One of the uniforms pulled open the door while the other three stood watching.

  The painting gear in the van caught Joe’s attention first: brushes and tins of paint, rollers, roller trays and turpentine. The van was full of them.

  Then he saw a figure lying across the van, at the far end.

  He stepped up into the van.

  No. Don’t be dead, Valentina.

  But it was a man. He looked to be in his twenties, thin, stubbly, wearing a white vest, and showing tattoos. The man matched the description of Aidan Donnelly. He seemed to be asleep, with his head resting on a pink jumper.

  The van’s licence plates lay beside him.