First Death In Dublin City (Thomas Bishop Book 1) (14 page)

It was half five by the time Tommy had arranged the dream team. There was Tommy, their leader, and Anne, who was to operate with him where necessary. They had their own designated forensics officer in Matty O’Hara, who was now expected to deal only with what the media had begun to call the ‘Dublin Ripper’. Too, Tim Mahon had been given to them as a general medical technician, as had Mark Daly, a man in his early twenties who was acting as their cyber technician. Too, Tommy had been assigned another two detectives to cover the tranche of detective work that would soon be coming their way. Sarah Lyman from the DPP’s office was in on their team, as well as two translators who spoke fluent Romanian. Finally, Tommy had been given four rank and file Gardaí whose job it was just to answer phones and receive anonymous tips from the public.

Tommy had brought a whiteboards into the room.

‘
He doesn’t think we’ll catch him’
– wrote Tommy as the first point.

‘Well, obviously?’ Said Anne.

‘No, you don’t get me, he seems to think this will never even come to a trial, that he won’t even be interviewed.’ Said Tommy.

‘What makes you say that?’ Asked the prosecutor.

‘Tim and Matty can back me up here but, hammer blows of the kind that killed the victim we found today would leave a large blood splatter, am I correct?’ Asked Tommy.

‘Definitely’ and ‘Without a doubt.’ came as answers.

‘So, if one were to commit violent crimes like this, one should probably leave the body where it is, because wherever it is probably covered in incriminating evidence. Correct?’ Asked Tommy, and the question received nods from around the table.

He continued. ‘If you kill someone somewhere where they’re not meant to be and you need to dump the body; then you do it quietly in the style of an execution; this bludgeoning leaves possibly the most DNA possible. The guy who’s done these crimes therefore, the so called “Dublin Ripper” doesn’t think we’ll ever have any notion to search his house or vehicle. Yes?’

Nods and a few shrugs.

Tommy ran his hand through his freshly washed hair; the scalp was still flaking.

‘Usually what this guy writes makes no sense, yet in this last post, which he must have written fairly soon after he committed the murder, actually was fairly revealing in nature.’ Tommy said.

‘It doesn’t take much reading to realise that he’s at least a little racist – he tortured the girl by hammering nails into her gums, which was intended as some kind of sick parody of the gold teeth often seen on Roma women. Anne, what was the body found in?’

‘Three or four towels.’ Anne said.

Tommy nodded then continued. ‘Ok, maybe an imitation of the way Romani women dress.’

Everyone seemed still to be following.

‘But what does all this tell us?’ A rank and file spoke up from the back of the room.

Tommy answered. ‘A homicide is like a tableau that someone has torn large strips out of; and it’s up to you to find out what was in those strips. You must use what is remaining in the painting, else you’ll be groping in the dark for thousands of possible objects, in fact every object known to man. So what remains of our case after the strips have been torn away? Well we know the method of murder; and we know where the bodies were dumped.’ Tommy said.

‘Both parks.’ Said Jessica.

‘Mm, and both places where he obviously felt comfortable going at night; or anyway comfortable enough to dump a body there and not get caught. Both parks are within five miles of each other, both in west Dublin. Now, with the willing acceptance that this may be disproven, can we at least state that the likelihood that he is from West Dublin is more than that he is not?’ Asked Tommy, and everyone else seemed to agree.

‘Now, we have said that he is more likely he is male, and that he is more likely to be from West Dublin. While adding the two together significantly dilutes the odds that we are correct, does our perpetrator being a male from West Dublin still sound more likely than unlikely?’ Asked Tommy. Again, he got nods.

‘So all we are now looking for is a male with access to a vehicle and space to hold the victims who is from either Dublin 7, 8, 10, 15, 20 or 22. Who has no obviously direct relationship to either Amy Clancy or Aishe Petulengro, assuming the two killings are related. Such wanton brutality is rare though.’ Tommy said.

‘So we have several tens of thousands of suspects?’ Matty asked.

‘That’s our basic list, which we will run with until new evidence comes up or it goes dry on lines of enquiry. After that, there are plenty more clues we can follow to narrow the list down, but the more clues we extrapolate from to create our filter, the less likely it becomes we have the right filter. Therefore, we will be dividing up and taking a clue each as we search for the perpretrator.’ Tommy said.

Nobody objected.

‘Jessica and Dylan, you’re on this one. I want you to peel through recent judgments for brutality and violence and cross reference the losers with those who live in West Dublin and match the rest of the profile.’

‘Every judgment?’ Said Dylan.

Tommy considered for a moment.

‘This is a guy who has just smashed the skull in of a defenceless thirteen year old mother. So, we’re looking for arson, animal cruelty, violence assault.’

Dylan and Jessica nodded.

‘Anne, you have the short straw; I want you to look into all the minimal CCTV surrounding both killings, as well as the EFlow records for any correlation at all; find me the vehicle, if you can.’

Anne grimaced at the boredom of the impending task, but nodded, knowing it was necessary.

‘Matty, Tim, I want you to try and reconstruct the crime as best you can, included among it the method it was done and the height, shape and weight of the murderer. It was mentioned that, to help calm the public that are far too used to CSI, we may have to send the case to the FBI and pay them a hefty fee to provide us with a ‘profile’ so that the powers that be can release that and the public can relate to the case.’

‘Will the feds be cutting in on the case?’ Asked Anne, in a parody of every cop show ever, and everyone chuckled.

A pall settled over the room, as everyone realised that their line of enquiry was as vague as could be, and even then might not succeed, and the thought of weeks and months of searching while bodies climbed higher and the media grew hungrier stretched out in front of them. Tommy would entertain no such thoughts, as old sponsor Pete loved to say, one day at a time and all that; and once the team saw Tommy as unwavering, then they’d follow him into whatever hell they were headed.

##

The same old house on the same old Rathmines Road, Tommy wrapped lightly on the door, and Claire Clancy opened the door and almost looked hopeful upon seeing Tommy’s face. However, as soon as he shook his head, Claire’s face fell back into the depressed state it had been in since Tommy had first met her.

‘I’m just dropping by to check in after today’s news. I know a Garda dropped by earlier to inform you, we thought the recent murder of a thirteen year old girl by the name of Aishe Petulengro was killed in a manner similar to Amy, and we believed the same perpetrator did both murders. Just half an hour ago, DNA found on the body of Aishe was matched to DNA found in the park beside Amy’s body. It’s the same man who killed them both.’

Claire stepped aside to let Tommy in, and for a brief second he considered turning and going back to the car, but he found his feet walking in the door regardless. Jennifer had called twice while Tommy had been holed up, but her voicemails had been in no way encouraging. Before him, Claire was wearing a grey wool turtleneck. The bland colours, where usually they would anything but complimentary, on Claire they showed up her swell perfectly. Tommy wondered if they were fake, a present after her divorce, to make the young schools rugby players  that worked out in her gym stare while she was on the treadmill. Tommy wondered if such things as vanity and appearance matter after the death of a child.

‘Is Gary around?’ Tommy asked.

‘No, he’s taken his soon to be stepson to the movies. The kid has found this whole time rather confusing, in fact, we all have.’

Thinking of Gary’s gangly six foot seventeen year old, Tommy struggled to imagine anyone whom the adjective ‘kid’ matched less. They walked through to the kitchen, and Tommy sat down at the table where he had broken the Devil’s Gospel to Gary. Claire began foostering slowly around the counters, looking like she may be trying to make a cup of tea, but Tommy caught her eye and shook his head and pointed to the chair next to his, and Claire came over and slumped down beside him. She exhaled loudly, and this time Claire might have caught Tommy’s eye just as he glanced at her breasts.

‘You said you lost your best friend. Who was he?’ Asked Claire.

‘She.’ Corrected Tommy. ‘Her name was Rebecca; and she was my girlfriend.’

‘Was she.. murdered?’ Asked Claire, and Tommy noticed that she was getting awfully close to him, he could smell her; plain and simply a Pantene shampoo.

‘She got in a car with a drunk, her side of the car went straight into a lamppost, she died almost instantly.’ Said Tommy.

‘I’m sorry, how on earth could you cope?’

Rebecca always used to say that he had a thing for vulnerable women, and when he eventually left her it would be for a junkie orphan who was emotionally crippled after years of sexual abuse and beatings from past partners. Tommy didn’t know what it was, just some kind of hero complex he supposed.
Thomas Bishop, an ugly man riding around Dublin in White Armour
.

‘Lots and lots of heroin.’ Said Tommy, and Claire smirked. Then she leaned in and, headbutting him the first time, the second time locked her lips onto his. The kiss was both sweet and sloppy, lasting for more than a minute, before Tommy came up for air.

‘I don’t want the Zanex to put me to sleep tonight.’ Said Claire.

Tommy pulled back, eyes glistening.

‘Wait, this feels off.’ Tommy said.

‘Why?’ Claire asked, sitting on the table beside him.

‘A few days ago I was standing on the twelve arches, ready to jump.’ Tommy said.

‘Why on earth so?’ Claire asked.

‘It’s unexplainable. I’m sorry.’

‘Do you still feel like that?’ Claire asked.

Tommy looked at her. ‘No, I’ve reawaken, had the chains of pain removed from my wrists.’

‘How?’ Claire asked.

‘I.. Went away for a few days. When I returned, Claire, there she was, there was the case – where before I felt nothing but fear and failure, not it was hunger. A knawing hunger, an anger, a rage. Not the bad kind, not the type that poisons minds and ruins families; no, the rage that gets me up in the mornings, the rage that motivates desire, the rage that means I’d run flat through a wall before I give up. I haven’t felt happiness in a long time, but at least this is something: a hope, a desire.’ Tommy said.

Claire raised her hand and touched his cheek, but Tommy grabbed her hand in his fist.

‘The darkness is still there though. Oh and the desire to slide back into the filthy cavern of despair. I know what I need to do, must avoid actions that lead to my moral ruin – but why Claire do they taste so fine?’ Tommy said.

‘Where do I fit in here Tommy, on this scale of good and bad actions?’ Claire asked.

‘I think we both know the answer to that.’ Tommy said, still holding Claire’s fist in his hand.

‘But he who dares not grasp the thorn, should never crave the rose.’ Claire said.

In response Tommy let go of her hand, and lifted up the grey turtleneck over her head. Her long blonde hair fell like cascading snows, flowing down her shoulders and her braless chest and Tommy grabbed a breast in each hand and kissed her lips. Then he leaped up and took off his clothes with a pace that alarmed even himself - Claire did the same, taking off her expensive jeans and then her plain white panties.

Then she got up on the table and lay on her back, seemingly waiting for him. Tommy leaned over her, and much to her surprise, bit her stomach. She winced in pain, but seemed not to mind, so Tommy kept on biting, and it was long after Tommy was drowning in metallic tasting blood that she screamed, asking him to stop. Then she got down off the table and kissed him full on the lips, taking the mouthful of blood from Tommy before he’d had a chance to either swallow or spit.

He thrust with more aggression than he ever had with Jennifer, but with every deep entrance Claire sighed and seemed to want him to enter even further. After a while he began to ache as he struggled to keep his weight, cold turkey hadn’t been very conductive to fitness, but all the while he also felt a pleasure deep within himself so he held on as the pain and exhaustion mounted. Finally, a deep groan wrought its way through his body, and Claire brought him in close, as he came deep inside her in a moment of ecstasy.

He rolled off her as soon as finished, and felt the layer of sweat cool as it came into friction with the kitchen air. He turned around, ready to apologise for whatever wrong he had committed, but Claire was up too, and she took his hand in hers, and dragged him with her.