The Dead (The Saxon & Fitzgerald Mysteries Book 1) (23 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

It didn’t taken long to find out where Jack Mullen was living. A quiet call to someone I knew in Probation and I had an address. He was back near his father’s old haunts, in a couple of rooms in a crumbling terrace off the North Circular Road in the dark shadow of Mountjoy Prison. Perhaps he missed his old home. Perhaps it contained some malevolent spirit that soothed him. It certainly seemed to pervade the streets as I drove through the rain to get there.

Most of the houses in the area had been converted into apartments and bedsits. A few remained in the hands of the old and the stubborn, but once they died, the battle would be lost. It was one of those city districts which had made the all-too-common passage from grandeur through slow neglect and indifference to final despair, with few stops on the way.

I parked at the dead end of the narrow street, so that if Mullen did come out any time soon he wouldn’t walk this way and see me. I had no doubt now that he’d remember me. The rain made the day darker than ever, hammering on the roof of the Jeep with a lonely, metallic, empty sound, and the houses, black with soot and damp, didn’t help. Even the windows were black holes, curtains drawn, as if everyone was still in bed, late afternoon though it was, with nothing to get up for. There was no sign of Christmas. Occasionally a figure emerged from a door to trudge down to the corner store for cigarettes or milk or evening paper.

I could see the warm glow of it at the end of the street, beckoning like a campfire in a hostile wilderness.

I’d lost my taste for this sort of waiting and watching work. I didn’t even know if Mullen was in. All that kept my impatience in check was my need to know whether Mullen really was measuring up to fill that offender-shaped hole.

After a while, I rummaged round for a cigar, and eventually found one, slightly bent, in the glove compartment. I was about to light it when I saw . . . was it him? Was that Jack Mullen?

Someone had appeared at the door of the address I’d been given, just as the rain started to ease. He must have been waiting for it to stop. He had no coat on, just a thin jacket wrapped about a shirt, and he had the familiar hunched, secretive, evasive stance of a man who spent his life waiting for the hand on his shoulder telling him that he was finally caught.

I felt sure it was Mullen; there was something unmistakable in his eyes, about the way he carried himself. The only difference was that this man had a thick, unkempt black beard.

I realised my mistake at once. The picture I’d shown to Jackie to test whether Mullen was the man who’d raped her down by the canal had been taken more than five years ago, when Fagan was still alive. He didn’t have a beard in those days. What a fool I was. Of course Jack Mullen would have changed.

I recalled Jackie’s hesitation when I asked if she recognised him. There was something she said, but no, she couldn’t be sure. But what if I could show her a more recent picture?

I watched as Mullen shuffled down the steps of the house where he now lived and along the road. Now was my chance. But how long would he be gone? I’d have to follow to see where he went.

I opened the door of the car, climbed out and closed it behind me. The door shutting sounded like a shot in the still air, but miraculously he didn’t turn round.

By the time I got to the end of the street, I thought I’d missed him. There were more people here. The North Circular Road was busy. The traffic rumbled by. Then I saw him, stepping to the kerb as a bus approached and flagging it down. He must be going into town. Couldn’t be better. I saw him hop on and take his seat on the lower deck as the bus pulled away. I watched till it disappeared. Then I turned round, and nervously made my way back towards his house, pulling on my gloves as I went. Here’s hoping I hadn’t forgotten all my breaking and entering skills. Though hold on, no need. The door had been left ajar.

I was suspicious at once. It was too easy, almost as if Mullen had known I was outside and was luring me in; but screw it, I didn’t have time for hesitation. He’d no reason to suspect me of being here.

I made up my mind, pushed open the door and stepped inside. Closed it. Steadied my breathing.

I was looking down a narrow corridor with three doors on the right, all thankfully shut. Behind them I heard hammering; the sound of fake laughter on daytime TV; a kettle shrieking.

Probation had told me that Mullen’s place was second from the top, so I hurried up, stairs creaking. The carpet was worn and thin, and sticky underfoot; there was a bad smell in the air, like drains and fried food; the wallpaper curled with damp. At his door, I paused once more to make sure no one was coming. Then I took out my credit card, slipped the lock, waited for the click, and I was in. Easy as that.

I shut the door behind me and listened for any noise outside . . . no, all was quiet . . . before turning to inspect Mullen’s mean domain.

It only occurred to me then that Mullen might have had someone in here with him, and that I might’ve disturbed them. That was careless, but fortunately it was obvious at once that he had been alone. The silence was too intense, the air too stagnant.

There wasn’t much to his home at all. One main room, a kitchenette along the back wall with dishes thrown in the sink, the remains of a chip supper wrapped in greasy paper, a lingering smell of fish, used tea bags clogging the plughole, spoons stained brown, stale bread; in the fridge, some tins of lager, sliced ham, cooked sausages in a dish, milk gone off. In the middle of the room, an armchair and sofa that had seen better days, a small gas heater, a table on which dirty clothes had been piled. The only things that looked like they were worth anything were a TV and video. And a computer, looking new. Stolen? Probably.

Two doors led off from this room. One into a tiny bathroom, with a towel heaped wetly on the floor and a toilet with no seat. The other led into a bedroom, almost as small, where—

I stopped.

All around the walls were pasted religious pictures, cut from newspapers and magazines or torn from the pages of books or downloaded, from the look of them, off the Internet.

There were pictures of the Crucifixion, and of Christ in Gethsemane weeping tears of blood; of Thomas with his hands thrust into Christ’s wounds, and Christ in a crown of thorns, and Judas hanging from the tree in a field of blood. And there were pictures of the Virgin Mary too – perhaps the name Mary had been important, after all. A calendar of saints hung above the filthy mattress on the floor that served Mullen as a bed.

It was all exactly as Fisher had described the room of the offender in London.

Next to the mattress was a small heap of magazines, and they weren’t back issues of the
New Yorker
either. I flicked through them quickly. It was the usual hardcore bedtime reading of dysfunctional loners everywhere. Many of the magazines came from the Far East and featured girls who looked barely out of puberty. I was glad I was wearing gloves. Among them, too, a copy of yesterday’s
Evening News
open, surprise, surprise, at the page with the leaked last letter from the killer.

There was no law against taking an interest in crimes supposedly committed by your dead father, but even so.

And what was this under the pillow? A Bible, leatherbound, with an inscription inside –
To Jack, my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Your loving father EF
– and a photograph, used as a bookmark, of Mullen’s late mother in the garden of their old home, cotton pattern-print dress, shielding her eyes from the sun, looking far too lovely to have deserved either of them.

Apart from the mattress, the only other furniture in the room was a wardrobe. Inside that, more magazines, some clothes. A jacket, cellophane-wrapped, just back from the cleaner’s. An extra pair of shoes, spotlessly polished. Unusually clean for this place. To wipe away any identifiable traces from Nikolaevna Tsilevich’s flat? No, I was going too fast, I was letting my own desire to bring this game to an end get the better of me. Mullen could simply have had them cleaned for a job interview. Or a date. Stranger things had happened.

Back in the main room, I noticed for the first time the pile of videos on the carpet next to the TV, cheap pirate porn films, I saw from the labels, picked up in what were laughingly called the adult shops round Capel Street. Stunted adolescence shops would be a better description. That was probably where he was off to now.

There were some blank videos among the pile too. I switched on the TV at the socket, turned down the sound, and slotted one into the video to check what was on it. At least he was consistent. Mullen had recorded something off one of the cable porn channels. It sounded like German, though there wasn’t much actual dialogue to go on. I fast-forwarded impatiently to see if anything else was there.

I don’t know what I expected to find. Shots of the murdered women, perhaps. The killer had watched them so closely before their deaths I wouldn’t have been surprised to find that he’d filmed them too. It would be a way for him to keep alive the memory of what he’d done to them, of sustaining the fantasy. But it was a long shot. I hadn’t even seen a stills camera in the bedsit so far, never mind a video camera, and this tape spooled to its end with no surprises.

I tried the second video, then the third. Nothing more sinister there than the same young women with the same silicon breasts and the same absence of inhibitions cavorting on screen.

I switched off. The computer next? For a man with Jack Mullen’s appetites, the Internet would be a door to an infinity of forbidden, suffering flesh. But no, it would take too long, and like I’d said to Salvatore, I was useless with technology. If Mullen had encrypted the contents of his computer, I’d be sunk.

Besides, there’d be time enough for that if the police in London got Ellen Shaw or one of the other two prostitutes who’d been attacked to identify him.

I certainly had no doubt now that Mullen was the man they were looking for. But was he the man we were looking for too? I had to admit that there was no evidence here of the highly intelligent, sexually competent offender with his own car and house and steady job that Mort Tillman’s profile had spoken about, nor of one who was only using religious symbolism because it was part of some intellectual game. Mullen, worryingly, was far more like his father in that respect. He wasn’t faking anything. Which left us where exactly?

I made one last circuit, trying to ensure everything was the way I’d found it and wishing there was someone I could tell about what I’d found – I could have told Fisher if he hadn’t decided to play hide and seek – then I tiptoed back to the door and readied myself to leave.

And that was when I heard the front door below slam, as someone came in.

It’s Mullen, I thought at once. I checked my watch. I’d been in here more than half an hour; he could easily have returned in that time.

Anxiously, I pressed my ear to the door and listened.

The someone was climbing the stairs.

I hurried back as silently as I could to the kitchenette, slid open the drawer, lifted out the sharpest knife I could find, and returned.

The footsteps were nearer now, but slow. It was almost as if the someone was deliberately trying not to be heard, or was trying to frighten me, knowing I was here. My heart was pounding; I needed to take deep breaths, but didn’t want to in case I was heard.

The footsteps came closer and closer . . . was this it? Then they went on – on up, to the flat above. I heard a door click, a muffled cough, silence. Only then did I realise how much I was sweating and how terrified I’d been. I wanted to get out of there and never come back, but I had to wait a while longer, not least to calm down. I couldn’t believe what a fool I’d been, how easily I might’ve been caught.

I planned on waiting another five minutes, but managed three before opening the door and slipping out. Relief. No one there. I shut the door as gently as I could behind me, skipped down the stairs to the front door, and a moment later I was out in the air again.

It was dark, and the street was still deserted and the rain hadn’t returned, and I got back to my car and climbed inside; lit that cigar I’d wanted earlier, hands shaking. I drew in deeply, relishing the scent that filled the Jeep after the fetid oppression of Mullen’s place.

Gradually I calmed down, and my hands stopped shaking enough for me to think about driving home.

It was only when I reached into my pocket for the car keys that I realised what I’d done. My fingers touched the cold edge of the knife, the one I’d picked up for protection when Mullen’s neighbour disturbed me.

I’d forgotten to replace it in the drawer.

So much for not leaving any clue to my visit, but I wasn’t going back in there to put it right. I simply had to hope that Mullen wouldn’t notice the missing knife, or, even if he did, wouldn’t have sufficient imagination to figure out why it was missing.

I started the car and made my escape.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Six o’clock. Fitzgerald had asked me to call in at Dublin Castle as soon as I was free again. I was one of the last people to see Fagan alive, was the way she put it, and I could hardly deny that, so I’d have to make a fresh statement to the police detailing what I knew of his last movements.

I wasn’t worried about it; I’d been rehearsing my lies about Fagan for five years. Besides, now that my head was buzzing with angles and possibilities, I was desperate to know what the crime tech team had uncovered at Nikolaevna Tsilevich’s apartment; and whether anything had been found during the search of the older scenes that Fisher and I had instigated the night before.

All the same, I couldn’t face it straight away, not after the fright in Mullen’s place. I decided to head back to my own apartment first to see if Fisher had called in my absence.

I’d barely got inside and thrown the car keys on to the table by the door when the buzzer went and Nick Elliott’s voice came through the intercom. That was the last thing I’d expected.

‘Saxon, can I come up?’

I ignored his question.

‘When did you get out?’ I demanded instead.

‘Half an hour . . . an hour ago . . . Christ, I don’t know. I’ve lost track. Can I? Come up?’

‘That’s not such a great idea, Elliott. I’m still connected with this case; you shouldn’t be speaking to me.’

‘I need to talk to you, Saxon. Please.’

That please was so pathetic, I could hardly refuse; but there was no way Elliott was getting into my apartment.

‘Saxon?’ he whined again.

‘Wait there,’ I said. ‘I’ll come down.’

A few moments later, I was in the front lobby again. There was no sign of Elliott on the other side of the rain-streaked glass, just traffic swishing by on its eternal journey, headlights glaring in the dark like the eyes of hungry predators.

I stepped out into the wet. The noise of the city, dulled by the glass, assaulted me at once. Evening sounds. The unremarkable sounds of people winding their way home. Tyres turning on a wet road. But no sight or sound of Elliott.

Was I imagining him now? That was all I needed.

I looked up and down the street a couple of times, and was about to go back inside when I caught sight of him attracting attention to himself at the edge of the building, beckoning me clumsily, before ducking out of sight again. I followed with a weary sigh, and found him waiting round the corner. He looked tired. He’d had a long day. Hadn’t we all?

‘Is this your idea of being discreet?’ I said.

‘What do you mean?’ he said, looking hurt.

‘You couldn’t have made yourself more conspicuous if you’d put out a press release announcing when you’d be visiting me,’ I said. ‘And if the DMP see me with their prime suspect’ – he snorted at the description and I didn’t blame him; if he was their prime suspect, he wouldn’t be standing here talking to me – ‘I won’t be on the investigation longer than it takes to say conflict of interest.’

‘Thinking of yourself again?’

‘You’re the expert at that, Elliott.’

He was starting to look sulky now as he turned up his collar to take shelter.

‘I was only—’ he began to explain, but I stopped him right there.

‘Save it,’ I said. ‘Let’s walk.’

Before he could object, I set off against the flow of the traffic as it streamed towards me, dragging lights, pricked by rain, making my way to the darker streets off St Stephen’s Green.

‘How did you get out, anyway?’

‘I dug a tunnel,’ said Elliott, ‘like they did in Colditz.’

‘Is that supposed to be funny?’

‘I got an alibi, if you must know.’

‘Lawyers are good at providing those. I hope it didn’t cost you too much.’

‘My alibi was genuine, like I told Fitzgerald when she questioned me this morning,’ Elliott said. ‘My lawyer had nothing to do with it. It would’ve saved everyone a whole lot of trouble today if you’d just listened to me from the start.’

‘Who was it then?’ I said.

‘Ray Lawlor. I was having a drink with him last night after I left Sadie’s place . . . Nikolaevna’s place, I suppose I should call it now. The time on Lynch’s autopsy report puts me in the clear. Not even I’m gifted enough to have killed her and met Lawlor at the same time.’

‘So you split on Lawlor?’

‘Didn’t need to,’ said Elliott, putting his head down as another gust of wind, heavy-bellied with rain, flung itself at us. ‘He came forward and told Fitzgerald he was with me from nine onwards. I think he felt guilty that I was on the rack when he knew I was innocent.’

Innocent wasn’t exactly the word I’d choose.

I held my tongue, though. For the first time in his life, Lawlor had done something noble. It almost made me feel guilty for disliking him so much. ‘He saved your skin,’ I said, stepping back to avoid a car before crossing the street and forcing Elliott to trail in my wake.

‘If he hadn’t come forward, I was going to tell them anyway.’

‘Tell them about your little arrangement with Lawlor?’ I stopped and stared at him for a moment in disgust before walking on. ‘So what was all that about protecting your sources?’

‘There are limits,’ said Elliott.

‘A matter of principle, you said it was.’

‘Fuck principle,’ he said. ‘I’m not being landed with Sadie’s murder on a matter of principle. Lawlor knew the rules. Especially as he’d stopped being any use to me since this whole thing started. He wasn’t giving me a scrap. Even that first night when Mary Lynch got herself killed and I followed him to his car, he just blanked me. Said things were different now. Last night when we met he even tried to palm me off with some leftovers about a drugs hit on the Northside. He knew what I wanted was information on this case.’

I was getting more respect for Lawlor with every word.

‘What’s happening to him now?’ I asked.

‘Suspended pending an enquiry,’ said Elliott. ‘Probably drowning his sorrows somewhere in the soulless city as we speak.’

‘You’re all heart.’

‘I’ve got troubles enough of my own without wasting my energy worrying about Lawlor. Do you have any idea what this has been like for me? The editor won’t even return my phone calls. I went round there tonight and they told me I couldn’t come in. They called security.’

I couldn’t help smiling at the picture that conjured in my head.

‘What did you expect them to do?’ I said. ‘Throw a party?’

‘Some thanks is what I expected,’ said Elliott. ‘I brought them the biggest story the paper’s ever had and they go and dump on me. They could at least have been glad I’m in the clear.’

‘Just because your lawyer pulled some strings and got you released a few hours early doesn’t mean you’re in the clear. You might still be charged if your alibi falls apart, or Lynch changes his autopsy report. Maybe he got the time of Nikolaevna Tsilevich’s murder wrong. The
Post
might not be the
New York Times
, Elliott, but even they don’t want murder suspects on the staff.’

‘But I didn’t kill anyone. An idiot could see that the bottle was planted to make me look guilty. I don’t know how yet, but you do see that, don’t you?’

‘It doesn’t matter what I see,’ I said. ‘What matters is what your editor thinks. He’s the one who pays your salary.’

He thought about that.

‘This is still my story,’ he said at last, ‘whether they believe me or not. I’ll go somewhere else if I have to. The killer will come with me, I’m sure of it. I think he trusts me.’

‘In case you’ve forgotten, the first letter that came made you out to be an idiot. And for another thing, it looks as though your boyfriend has switched allegiance to the
Evening News
.’

‘You don’t know that information yesterday came from the killer. It could have come out of your girlfriend’s department. And even if it was the killer, he could’ve simply been pissed off with us because we didn’t print his letter when it came in. But when the next letter’s ready, he’ll come to me, I’m sure of it. Then the
Post
can either bring me back on board or I’ll go elsewhere.’

‘You almost sound like you can hardly wait for him to strike again, just so that you can get some action out of it.’

‘That’s uncalled for, Saxon. I’m just looking out for myself. No one else will.’

‘Then you’d better find another way of doing it,’ I said, ‘because the
Post
won’t touch you whilst you’re still a suspect and nor will any other newspaper, no matter what you bring them. And the police warned you to tell them each time you get something else. Not even you’re stupid enough to go and hack them off whilst you’re only out on sufferance.’

‘I have the rest of my career to think of,’ he said.

‘What do you mean, the rest of it?’ I said. ‘That was your career and you blew it.’

‘But that’s not’ – he struggled for the right word – ‘fair.’

‘What are you – eleven years old? Life isn’t fair, Elliott. You just got unlucky picking a prostitute to screw who then goes and gets killed. Life was a hell of a lot more unfair for her.’

‘So because she got cut up, I have to suffer for it?’

‘You should have thought of that before.’ I looked at him. ‘Look, I don’t hold it against you that you were seeing Nikolaevna. None of my business. But it’s always a gamble; you could’ve been arrested any time just for being in her apartment and the same thing would’ve happened to your career. The gamble didn’t pay off. You’ll just have to deal with it.’

‘What am I supposed to do?’ he said. ‘I’ve got no job, and no chance of one again according to you, and now you tell me I just have to accept it?’

‘I’m not a career guidance counsellor,’ I said. ‘It’s your problem what you do next. Maybe once this psycho’s caught and everything calms down, you’ll get your chance to tell your side of the story. You can do the Romeo and Juliet act about Nikolaevna, make it seem like you were saving her from herself, and they might let you have your old job back.’

‘You can sneer, but I did care about her,’ he insisted. ‘I can’t wait that long, that’s all.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘I’ll think of something.’

‘Just make sure what you think of doesn’t include trying to make contact with the killer,’ I said. ‘For what it’s worth, I happen to agree that the bottle was planted to make it look like you’re guilty. Finding it at the scene of Mary Lynch’s death was too convenient, too obviously staged. But the killer’s not stupid. He’ll know it wasn’t going to fool anyone for long. So you have to start asking yourself why he’s chosen you as his outlet to the world, only to then get you arrested. Ever wonder if he’s building you up for something other than stardom?’

‘Like what?’

‘Gee, I don’t know, Elliott,’ I said artlessly. ‘What is it he does best? It sure isn’t flower arranging.’

He stared at me a moment as the realisation of what I meant sank in. A shadow crossed his face, then he laughed unconvincingly to erase it.

‘I can look after myself,’ he said.

‘That’s probably what Fagan thought too,’ I said, ‘and look what happened to him.’

We had come to a halt outside a pub, and Elliott looked to the door as if for refuge. The light was warm within, beckoning.

‘You want a drink?’

‘No, I don’t,’ I said firmly. ‘Not with you. I don’t like you, Elliott, I never have, and this coming round here playing the victim hasn’t exactly endeared you to me further. I still don’t see why you wanted to come round and needle me at all.’

‘I wanted you to know that I’m innocent.’

‘Why do you care what I think?’

‘It just bugs me,’ he said. ‘Bugs me that you think I’m such a lowlife when you’ve got this blind spot about things a lot closer to home.’

He turned away and shifted awkwardly inside his coat like he’d said too much but I’d driven him to it.

‘You want to elaborate on that comment?’ I said.

‘No,’ said Elliott, but it was plain that he could barely keep from giving me the whole ten chapters, together with footnotes and illustrations. ‘Maybe you should ask Boland.’

‘Here’s a better idea. I’ll ask you. You’re the one who seems to have all the answers. About Boland especially, it seems.’

‘I don’t have answers. I just have questions. Questions like, who leaked the Nikola letter to the
Evening News
? I know, I know, you think it was the killer, but what if I’m right and it was someone in the murder squad? It wasn’t Lawlor, I can guarantee that. He’d gone all saintly since the investigation began. Questions like, how did Boland know how Mary Dalton died before Lynch’s autopsy? Boland was the one who told me another body had been discovered. He told me the cause of death was loss of blood caused by a severed jugular. How did he know that? She was still lying in the shed when I got there; she hadn’t even been carried to the mortuary, never mind opened up by Ambrose Lynch.’

‘You’re not trying to tell me you think Boland’s involved in the killings, are you? Because if you are, that’s—’