The Dead (The Saxon & Fitzgerald Mysteries Book 1) (5 page)

‘How long do you want?’

‘Say the last five years. Everything since Fagan. You may not have the time or manpower to go through them all. I do.’

‘I’ll get Boland on to it soon as I get back. And I appreciate this, Saxon. I’m only sorry we can’t pay you anything. Bringing you in is shock enough for Draker; asking him to write a cheque for you’d probably tip him over the edge.’

‘I wouldn’t want his money, even if he was willing to give it me. For my own peace of mind, I just want to see what you’ve got, reassure myself all the angles are being covered.’

Alone again when Fitzgerald had gone, I realised she’d left the newspaper. On purpose, I guessed. She knew me well enough to know it’d annoy me so much I’d be itching to get going.

But it did more than annoy me. The
Post
was making all fingers point to Ed Fagan, and that was my fault. They wouldn’t think Fagan had killed Mary Lynch if they knew where he’d spent the past five years. But was I going to give them Fagan? And if I didn’t, wouldn’t I be responsible when the next woman died?

Chapter Five

The idea to call Fisher came to me as I was making my way back to my apartment. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? Soon as I got in, I rang directory enquiries for his number. Where was it he lived these days? North London, wasn’t it? Highgate or Hampstead, I could never remember which. Whichever’s the one with the cemetery.

It seemed fitting.

A criminal psychologist for twenty-five years, Dr Lawrence Fisher had spent most of those years in prisons across England, professionally speaking, investigating the roots of pathological psychosexual behaviour, publishing his findings in small learned journals, helping the police behind the scenes with particularly obdurate cases when asked, before a starring role in my book on offender profiling had brought him belatedly to wider attention. Since then, Fisher had been the subject of a number of TV documentaries, as well as a radio series on the BBC, and he’d written four bestselling accounts of his work mapping the criminal mind.

By now, I sometimes half suspected, he was just making up his past cases; he surely must’ve run out of them after the first couple of books. His latest project was a TV series in which he cooked up profiles of the perpetrators of ten infamous unsolved murders.

He was quite the celebrity, as criminal psychologists go, but still found time to spend two days a week working on an ongoing project to update and refine Scotland Yard’s serial offender database. Fisher, in short, was one of the good guys.

When he finally picked up the phone, I could hear the sound of a kettle and children in the background, ordinary family noises. It must be his day off. I tried to remember the names of his children in case I needed to make small talk, then gave up when I realised I couldn’t remember how many he had, never mind their names.

‘Long time no hear, Saxon,’ were his first words.

‘You too, Lawrence. I see you’re keeping yourself busy.’

Phoebe, was that one?

‘It keeps me off the streets. What about you? Still stuck in dirty Dublin?’

‘Seems like it.’

‘I thought you’d have been back in the States by now,’ he said, ‘begging them to let you back in at the Bureau.’

‘Not a chance.’

Eleanor? Jake?

‘Not a chance of you getting back in, or not a chance of you wanting back in?’

‘Both.’

‘I’ll buy the first one. So, what is it you’re doing now?’

‘Right now, what I’m doing is waiting for you to cut the preliminaries so I can get round to what I called about.’

‘I see you haven’t changed. Go on then. Shoot.’

‘I want you to run something through that fancy new computer system of yours,’ I said.

‘This would be the fancy new experimental computer system of mine which isn’t up and running officially yet?’ he said. ‘Is that the one you mean?’

‘The very one. This is important. There’s been a murder.’

‘This is news? Join the queue.’

I ignored him.

‘A prostitute, strangled. Freak who did it claims he’s Ed Fagan, guy who did the five murders in Dublin a few years back.’

‘I remember Fagan well enough, Saxon, but you’re not listening,’ Fisher answered. ‘Do you have any idea of the kind of backlog we’re trying to work through here? And I’m not just talking about murders; we’ve got rape, child molestation, stalking, pornography. Sometimes I get to thinking it’s HAL 2000 they imagine I’m setting up here, they’re trying to get me to do so much.’

‘You sound harassed.’

‘I am harassed, which is why I don’t need to add to my workload with extra cases from another jurisdiction.’

‘Case, not cases. Singular.’

‘Singular always turns to plural. That’s the first rule to remember when the police come knocking. What makes you think that you’ll get anything from me, anyway?’

There it was, the first chink in the armour. That wasn’t the sort of question you’d ask if you were really planning to give someone the brush-off. Never get too interested: that was the real first rule.

I took my chance.

‘The suspect spent some time over there before coming back here,’ I explained. ‘Three years. Moved round a bit, but he was mainly in London. And it gets better. It’s Fagan’s son.’

‘You think Fagan’s son is following in Daddy’s footsteps?’

Fisher sounded incredulous.

‘Someone’s certainly following in Fagan’s footsteps, and the son looks as good a place as any to start. Name of Mullen, by the way. Jack Mullen.’ I could hear him writing it down. ‘Murder always leaves a trail, you know that. And if Mullen really is our man, then you’re best placed to pick it up.’

‘Before I make a decision,’ he said, ‘just answer me one question. Is this the DMP’s prime suspect or one of yours?’

‘Would it make a difference?’

‘Try me and see.’

‘He’s more prime to me than them, but he fits all the patterns they’re looking for. There. I admit it. All I want,’ I said, ‘is for you to check it out for me. Fitzgerald here can pull up his criminal records from Scotland Yard, but that’s no help if he’s been keeping his nose clean. There are unusual features in this case. What I want to know is if you’ve had anything with points of similarity over there. It’s not much. You fax me through the forms, I can fill them out, then you just run them through your system and see if anything matches. It’s important.’

‘You’ve already used the it’s important line.’

‘OK, let me think. What if I try the line about how you can maybe clear up some of your own unsolveds as well?’

‘Better,’ said Fisher appreciatively, ‘but still no prize. You know, I think this is probably the point at which you’re supposed to try the you owe me one line.’

‘Well, it’s funny you should say that,’ I said. ‘I was saving that up for the next favour I was going to ask.’

‘There’s more?’

It was a testament to his trusting nature that he genuinely sounded astonished.

‘I need a profile,’ I said.

‘Now I know you haven’t been listening. I have enough to do. I’m working three cases for three different police forces this week alone, there was another on the phone yesterday looking for help, I’ve got a backlog longer than your list of social inadequacies . . .’

‘Yeah, yeah, plus the au pair’s got flu.’

‘The Black Death, actually. And I’ve got to film inserts for my new show.’

‘I saw that. You know, I think you’ve put on some weight.’

I heard the smile in his voice, but he didn’t shift.

‘I mean it, Saxon. I have learned to say no. To delegate. Keeps me sane. Why don’t you ask Tillman?’

‘Tillman?’

Now it was my turn for astonishment. Mort Tillman was the profiler who’d worked the White Monk case when I was still in the FBI. A psychologist out of Notre Dame in Boston, he’d been my personal recommendation for the job. We’d been friends for years, though things had iced over since then. I’d been hard on him in my book on the Paul Nado investigation. Too hard? He thought so.

In fact he’d thought I was virtually accusing him of having caused further deaths by bungling the evidence analysis. I didn’t think I was, but if he’d written things like that about me I guess I might’ve felt the same way. It was years since I’d seen him.

‘Is that supposed to be some sort of joke, Lawrence?’ I said. ‘Why on earth would I ask Mort Tillman?’

‘Because he’s in Dublin. Didn’t you know?’

‘Tillman’s in Dublin?’

‘Saxon, this conversation’s going to take all day if you insist on repeating everything I say. Yes. Tillman’s in Dublin. Been there a couple of weeks now. He was invited over by Trinity College to give a couple of guest lectures for the Psychology Faculty. So you see, he’s in a better position to help you than I am. He’s there already, in your boy’s shadow. In yours too.’

‘Be realistic. I couldn’t ask Tillman.’

‘That’s your choice, Saxon, but I’m not doing it. Listen to me. Not doing it, got that? I’ll run this fruitcake through the system for you, glad to help, but I’m not doing a profile. Look, I’ll even have a word with Tillman if you like, butter him up. I’ll tell him you’ve been looking for him, desperate for his help.’

‘You’d better have plenty of butter,’ I said. ‘He’ll not help. He’ll probably not even speak to me.’

‘Tillman isn’t the sort to hold a grudge, especially not if you give him the chance of being the big hero. Isn’t it worth a chance at least?’

I couldn’t argue with that.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Do it. Call him. Tell him I want to speak to him. But do it quick, all right? The end of the day at the latest. We don’t have much time. And the check on Mullen—’

‘I’ll fax you the forms soon as I can. You just send back the details.’

‘Thanks. I’ll speak to you again. Give my best to Ellen and the kids.’

‘Laura actually, but it’s the thought that counts.’

After the line to London went dead, I called Trinity College. Mort Tillman, I learned, was indeed in town as a guest of the Psychology Faculty. He’d be delivering his first public lecture later that week; meanwhile he was giving private lectures and seminars for the students alone. And when was the next one of those?

Four that afternoon.

‘Shall I take a message for him?’ said the girl at the desk.

‘That won’t be necessary.’

‘If you give me your number, I—’

She never finished. I hung up.

Chapter Six

Within an hour of having left my early lunch with Fitzgerald, the buzzer went and a man’s voice crackled over the intercom seven floors below.

‘Detective Sergeant Niall Boland?’ it said, as if he was making an enquiry rather than an introduction. ‘Detective Chief Superintendent Fitzgerald told me to bring these notes round?’

There’s formal for you.

‘Come on up,’ I said, and released the switch to let him in.

A few minutes later Boland was at the door, labouring under the weight of a large cardboard box filled, I noted, with files and papers. I held the door open for him to carry it in.

The newest addition to Fitzgerald’s murder squad team was not quite what I’d expected. He looked less like a city cop than some plodding country sergeant, not that appearances can always be relied upon. God knows what anyone’d conclude from how I looked.

There was certainly something ponderous and meaty about him, though. He had thick fat fingers that looked like someone had blown them up with a bicycle pump, and his shirt strained at a bullish neck. He was like an oak tree that had uprooted itself through sheer will but was still clumsy on its new feet. His hair needed cutting too, and his jaw was dark. Not so much a five o’clock shadow as the sort of daylong shadow that never really went away.

There was a shyness about him as he lingered at the door, looking around at the large apartment, openly appreciative, his eyes drifting to the huge window overlooking the city, and the terrace beyond, like visitors’ eyes always did, before remembering why he was here and depositing the box down on the table with a sigh.

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘You want coffee?’

‘There’s another one in the car.’

‘You’d better get it then.’

‘Right you are.’

He went back down and returned with a second box, sweating now despite the cold. He made his own skin look uncomfortable. The lift must’ve been broken again. It usually was.

‘You could do with more exercise, DS Boland,’ I teased.

‘I don’t know about that,’ he said, ‘but I wouldn’t say no to that coffee you promised.’

‘See that over there? That’s called a kitchen. You’ll find what you want in there. Cups in the cupboard.’

‘Oh, right. I’ll do that. You want some, Miss . . .’

‘Saxon. Just Saxon. And no, I got some already.’

‘Right,’ he said again, and did as he was told.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him opening cupboard doors with the aimlessness of a man who had never actually been in a kitchen before and was alarmed by what he was finding.

‘Second on the left. No, left. There. Now top shelf.’

He lifted down an I Love NY mug and poured coffee from the percolator.

‘I didn’t see you last night at the canal,’ I said as he carried it back.

‘Off duty,’ Boland replied.

‘I didn’t realise there was such a thing as off duty in a murder case.’

‘There is if you’re out drinking and you’ve left your pager back at the station,’ he said. ‘It was only when I got home later that I realised everyone was looking for me.’ He took his first mouthful of coffee and winced. ‘That’s strong,’ he said. ‘Not bad, mind, but strong. I’m more of an instant man myself.’

‘I guessed.’

He gestured at the mug.

‘Is that where you’re from, then – New York?’

‘No.’ I opened the box and started sorting through the papers inside. ‘That’s just a souvenir. I’m from Boston.’

‘What brought you all the way from Boston to Dublin, if you don’t mind my asking?’

‘I don’t mind you asking. Everyone asks me that question.’

Was he waiting for an answer?

He could wait.

‘I suppose,’ he tried again, ‘you must be one of those Irish Americans we’re always hearing about.’

‘Not me. I’m one of those American Americans you never hear about. My grandparents came from this side of the Atlantic, if that’s what you mean. One from County This, the other from County That. They all thought of themselves as Irish.’

‘You don’t?’

‘I was born in Boston, raised there, went to college there. I pledged allegiance each morning to the flag. American is what I am. All that Irish American, Italian American, Whatever American stuff doesn’t really interest me. I guess it must’ve skipped a generation. Is this all there was?’ I said to change the subject, gesturing at the boxes he’d brought round from Dublin Castle.

‘It’s all I could find at short notice. There may be more. I’ll check with records again once I’ve another free minute. They’ve been working me pretty hard since I transferred.’

‘You came from Serious Crime, that right?’

He nodded once more.

‘About a month ago. Didn’t get on with my superior, I was going nowhere, I needed a change, Fitzger— the Chief Super was looking for new blood.’

‘And now you’re lugging boxes up six flights of stairs for some interfering outsider.’

‘Ours is not to reason why, isn’t that what they say? Ours is but to do and die? And I won’t always be the department dogsbody. They say it’s only till I find my feet in Murder. Besides, you’re not just any interfering outsider. From what I hear, you used to be FBI.’

‘Seven years. Not that long. I’ve spent longer out of it than in, but yeah, that’s what I did. Plus I used to know Ed Fagan, knew him well, that’s why I’ve been roped into looking through this lot.’

As if they could’ve stopped me.

‘Looking for clues,’ he said. I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic.

‘Looking for patterns,’ I said. ‘There’s always patterns, always connections. It’s only a question of sorting out what’s important from what’s not. Let’s hope it’s here.’

I mustn’t have sounded very hopeful, because he immediately asked: ‘Is this not what you wanted? I brought copies of everything that was there.’

‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘Just wondering where to start is all. What about you? What’ve they got you doing?’

‘Me?’ said Boland. ‘I’m tagging along with the Chief Super in half an hour to talk to the man who found the body.’

‘The dog-walker.’

‘That’s the boy. Stephens, you call him. Matt Stephens.’

‘I thought he was already interviewed.’

‘He was taken down last night to make a formal statement. Now it turns out that he hangs out with some group who patrol the streets round there at nights trying to reform prostitutes, bring them back to Jesus, only he didn’t mention that in his statement. A uniform came through with the information a couple of hours ago. He recognised the name, put two and two together. The Chief Super wants to follow it up straightaway.’

‘Sounds promising.’

‘Detective Dalton reckons they just like hanging round red-light districts,’ Boland said. ‘He thinks they get off on it.’

‘He’s probably right. They could bring anybody back to Jesus if they wanted. Gamblers, shoplifters, even lawyers if they fancied a real challenge.’ Boland smiled at that. Cops always appreciated a joke at the expense of the enemy. ‘But it’s hookers every time. Next best thing to picking one up, maybe. Cheaper too.’

‘They even have an office in one of the streets backing on to the canal,’ Boland said. ‘Registered charity, if you can credit it. That’s where he’s arranged to be interviewed again. I think he was hoping there’d be safety in numbers. What’re they called now?’

He struggled for a name.

‘The Blessed Order of Mary,’ I helped him out. ‘I’ve heard of them.’

As I spoke, a thought flashed into my mind. Blessed Order of Mary . . . Mary Lynch . . . I wondered if that was significant.

Another hidden message, like the bottle?

I’d bring it up with Fitzgerald next time we spoke.

‘You’d better be on your way,’ was all I said to Boland. ‘You don’t want to be late.’

Once Boland had gone, I sat down with the boxes and started going through them, slowly, methodically, file by file, page by page.

Basically I was looking for any evidence there might be of Mary Lynch’s killer having struck before. Premeditated, ritualistic murder was rarely the first act. Rather it was the culmination of a process which might have taken years to come into shape, moving inexorably through increasing levels of brutality, audacity, cunning, to its final flowering. Mary Lynch’s killer was unlikely to be any different. He’d be in here somewhere, I was sure of it, refining the fantasy, rehearsing for Mary, waiting his chance. I started with murders all the same. It seemed the obvious place.

Only three prostitutes, I soon learned, had been murdered since Ed Fagan’s day (only three? What was I saying? Three was a universe), and two of those could be quickly discounted.

The first, Susan Levy, had died, along with her two-year old son, in a fire at her high-rise on the Northside of the city. Petrol had been poured through the letterbox and set alight. Police suspected a grudge attack over an unpaid loan. The other, Jo Philpott, was found stabbed to death a couple of years after Fagan’s own disappearance, in a laneway off Benburb Street just across the river from the Guinness brewery. This was another red-light district, where only the most desperate prostitutes worked, even more desperate than those who worked the Grand Canal, and Jo was the most desperate of all. She was forty-two and eight months pregnant when she bled to death. The woman’s boyfriend/pimp went missing shortly after the crime, and on discovery, confessed. He’d done it, he said, because she’d been cheating on him. She’d had sex with other men scores of times a day to feed his drug habit, and then he lost it when she slept with one for free.

Her blood was found on his clothing which, criminal genius that he was, he’d stuffed in a refuse bin next door; his fingerprints matched those on the knife found at the scene. He was now in Mountjoy doing a ten-year stretch, having pleaded temporary insanity, diminished responsibility, deprived childhood, you name it, but was expected to be released soon when, no doubt, he’d find some other Jo Philpott to finance his prodigious chemical intake.

It was the third murder which stood out, that of one Monica Lee, whose naked body had been found in the Dublin mountains two years ago, three weeks after going missing. Finding her was an act of pure chance. She’d been thrown down the side of a deep vale that was used by locals for dumping, and was already in an advanced state of decomposition due to bad weather. There had been gnawing of the body by rats too, which meant identification was only possible by dental records.

What was more, the physical environment had been torn up by three weeks of heavy rain and the usual comings and goings from the dump. Tyre tracks were too numerous to distinguish, and those of three weeks back had long since been obliterated.

Ambrose Lynch’s autopsy report was appended to the case notes. I skipped through the pages of details to the conclusions at the end. Death had been by massive brain haemorrhaging caused by indeterminate frontal blunt-force injury, possibly with a brick. Fragments of stone had been taken from the wound and sent for analysis, though no conclusive evidence as to its nature had been found. She was probably raped too, Lynch thought – two separate traces of semen were found inside her, no match on records, and there was some internal damage – but the poor state of the remains was so bad that he couldn’t say for sure.

Cautious as ever, that was Lynch.

And maybe he was right to be cautious. Monica was known to have rough sex with clients without a condom if they paid extra; she made no secret of it. Proving that she was raped would be virtually impossible, even when it did come accompanied by a brick to the forehead.

There were, of course, some obvious differences between this killing and that of Mary Lynch last night and Fagan’s own victims.

The body was concealed, for one thing, not left in the open to be found. Monica Lee was naked, not dressed – her clothes were never found. There was the probable rape. Method of death, crucially, was different too, and this killer had used restraints on both the victim’s hands and ankles, and a gag. Plus there was no note left with the body, no religious angle. The only possible hint there was the absence of a crucifix which, the dead woman’s friends assured police, Monica Lee had always worn; but that was a long shot. If the crucifix was all that was taken, it might’ve suggested a significance for the killer, but everything Monica had on her that night was taken, so whatever symbolism there might’ve been was hidden.

No witnesses saw Monica get into the car that took her away on the night of her death. No witnesses saw her body dumped. No witnesses saw her in between, however long that might be. Fitzgerald’s hunch had been that Monica had a prearranged meeting that night with a regular client rather than being picked up at random on the street. Perhaps a client by the name of Gus who she’d mentioned to some of her friends. Other girls working that night certainly recalled her taking a call just before her disappearance, and laughing familiarly.

Efforts to trace the mysterious Gus proved fruitless, however, and the investigation was, reluctantly, wound down. A note and extension number on the cover of the report indicated that the case was now being dealt with by a DS Donal O’Malley, and I made a note to contact him later and see if there was any information he could add.