Unti Lucy Black Novel #3 (15 page)

 

Chapter Thirty-­Five

I
T TOOK CLOSER
to three-­quarters of an hour to get to the mountain, which overlooked the city to the west. The sudden deluge, on top of long dried roads, had left the journey treacherous and one fender bender had blocked the Northland Road for twenty minutes until they'd managed to get the two cars maneuvered down the side road of Clarence Hill.

Sheriff's Mountain was the site of the city's television transmitter mast, which towered above them now, where they parked, its upper tip piercing the side of low-­hanging cloud. The rain had settled into a rhythmic tattoo on the roof and bonnet of the car, which Burns mimicked with his fingers on the knob of the gear stick as they waited for the heavier shower to pass. A number of other squad cars were parked haphazardly, their occupants waiting out the rain in cars whose windows were thick with condensation.

This latter detail, Burns pointed out to Lucy, before adding, “It's like a dogging convention out there.” He laughed at his own comment, then added quickly, “Not that I'd know what one looks like.”

“Of course not, sir,” Lucy said. “The rain's easing,” she remarked.

T
HE SITE OF
the car had already been marked out by the first team on the scene, one of whom stood now at the tape, signing through those who were passing. His hair was slick to his skull, his face washed with drips of rainwater falling from the peak of his cap.

“No fire brigade?” Burns asked, as the man signed him in without seeking identification.

“They're on their way. There's no need for them. The rain had put it out for us,” the officer replied. “It was already dead by the time we got here.”

The car, a silver Toyota Avensis, sat parked on a thin dirt path, which appeared more obviously used by walkers than drivers, the central line running down it high with grass, along which, on either side, streams of rainwater ran. Burns and Lucy stood a few feet back from it so as not to touch anything.

With the exception of scorching around the window frames, and the shattered windscreen, the body of the car was fairly clean, considering someone had tried to burn it. The inside was a different matter. The seats had burned through, the blackened springs beneath the cushioning now visible. The interior molding above the steering wheel had warped with the heat and melted through in places.

“No body in it,” Burns said. “So Haynes is still in the wind.”

The sight of the Chief Super standing at the car had forced the other officers parked below to get out of their own vehicles and start working the scene, despite the fact that the wind had risen again and, with it, the rain.

Three forensics officers appeared, in the white suits of their trade, carrying between them the light expandable cover, which they would set up over the car to shield both it and themselves from the elements.

“Good of you to join us,” Burns called.

“We took a quick recce when we arrived, sir,” one commented. “The car is clean, inside and out. Literally, cleaned.”

“As in valeted?”

“As in valeted,” the man agreed. “Before it was set alight. The wind and rain got so heavy the tent couldn't be put up. We had to wait for it to ease.”

Burns stepped back, his hands in his pockets, to give the men space to work. Lucy felt her mobile vibrate in her pocket and, pulling it out, saw Fleming's name.

“Tom?” Lucy asked quickly, assuming he'd spotted Ciaran Duffy.

“How'd your meeting go?” Fleming asked.

“Fine. Have you got Duffy?” she asked, glancing at her watch. It was pushing 3:30, half an hour after he was to collect his money.

“Neither hide nor hair of him,” Fleming said. “I'm bored out of my mind sitting here. I'm an Inspector for God's sake!” he snapped. “Where are you?”

Lucy swallowed. “I'm up on Sheriff's Mountain. Burns got a call that Haynes's car had been found. Someone tried to set it alight, but the rain put it out.”

Fleming did not speak for a moment and Lucy assumed he was angry at having been left watching the bank while other teams had been called to the site. She knew, too, that it was deliberate; Burns had taken the case from PPU. She was only there by accident. Or because Burns wanted her in CID.

When he spoke, though, she realized that his concern was of a different kind.

“Is Terry in the car?” he asked.

“No one is. It was valeted before whoever torched it did so.”

“Sir!”

Lucy glanced up to where one of the forensics officers, having just opened the boot of the car, was standing calling to Burns.

“I'll call you right back,” Lucy said, hanging up before Fleming could speak. She followed Burns up the final few feet of the incline.

“Oh Jesus,” she heard him mutter. Looking into the boot, she understood why. A body had been forced into the rear of the vehicle, curled foetally, the arms raised protectively over the face and head. It was a futile gesture, for the five-­inch impact wound to the skull was visible even from where Lucy stood.

“Get some pictures,” Burns said. “Is it Haynes?”

The officer shrugged.

“DS Black. You know him. Is that Haynes?”

Lucy approached the rear of the vehicle, stepping on the metal plates the forensics officers had set out around the car to preserve the scene. Leaning in, she angled her head, trying to focus on the face rather than the wound to the back of the skull. The fact that the body was slim and carried a full head of hair made it unlikely to be Haynes, but she wanted to see the face to be sure. Fleming would want to know for certain that it wasn't his friend.

The forensics officer lifted the arm of the body away from the head, cautiously, allowing Lucy just enough time to see the face clearly.

Lucy felt her stomach lurch as she recognized the face. She stepped back. “That's not Terry Haynes. It's Ciaran Duffy.”

 

Chapter Thirty-­Six

“A
HATCHET, APPARENTLY,”
Tony Clarke announced to those assembled in the incident room in Strand Road, an hour later. The pathologist, Martin Kerrigan, had been called to the site at Sheriff's Mountain and, while still working on the body there, had suggested a hatchet to be the most likely implement responsible for the blow to Duffy's head.

“A hatchet?” Burns repeated. “Who the hell kills with a hatchet?”

“Whoever killed the cremated body in our coffin,” Fleming said. “Kerrigan figured the nick on the metal skull plate may have been made by a hatchet, too. Again to the head, obviously.”

“Where are you on that?” Burns asked.

“No further,” Fleming said. “DS Black was with you all day and I was staking out a bank waiting for Ciaran Duffy to appear. As you told me to.”

Lucy was aware that all eyes in the room had turned toward her, not least Tara's. All eyes but one, she realized. Her mother stared fixedly at Burns in a way that suggested she had not been as fully aware of the afternoon's division of labor as Burns had claimed.

“Beaumont are filtering the patient list for us,” Lucy said. “We know the victim had both skull and leg injuries. They're trying to match both as a starting point. There are a thousand patients to go through otherwise, and we've not the bodies to work through a list that length.”

“There can't be many with both skull and leg injuries,” Burns conceded.

“They might not have been suffered at the same time,” Tara said, suddenly. “Filtering like that might miss someone out.”

“See what it brings up. Chase them again,” Burns said. “What was the story with Ciaran Duffy?”

“We believe he was responsible for the body swap,” Fleming said. “He deposited five grand in his account a few days ago, so our assumption is that he was paid to get rid of whoever was actually in the coffin.”

“Why would someone go to that effort?” Mickey asked. “Why not just dump the body? Or burn it, like Duffy himself, in a car?”

“Whoever tried to burn Duffy knew we were onto him by this stage; there was no need to hide his death. We have to assume, on the other hand, that whoever was put in the coffin and cremated was someone they
didn't
want us to know about.”

“Duffy was found in Terry Haynes's car, the same car used to dump Krawiec's body, Krawiec was last known to be in the company of Aaron Moore, whose prints you found at a house burglary along with Krawiec's,” Wilson said. “Have I got all this so far?”

“So far, ma'am,” Burns said, smiling.

“So, what about Terry Haynes? Are you any closer to locating him?” Wilson asked, directed this time to Burns.

“Nothing yet, ma'am,” he conceded.

“And Aaron Moore?”

“We called at his flat, but there was no one home. We spoke to some of the neighbors, but no one has seen him for the past few weeks,” Tara said.

“His flat? He's not homeless then?”

“He may as well be,” Mickey answered, then added a differential “ma'am.” “The flat looked deserted. Piles of newspapers everywhere, everything in bags.”

“You searched it without a warrant?”

“We looked in the window,” Tara said, quickly. “One of the neighbors said he's a hoarder; holds on to everything. They complained to him a few times about the smell, said they think he doesn't even dump his rubbish.”

“Why did we have him on the system?” Fleming asked.

“Shoplifting,” Burns said. “He was caught stealing soap of all things from a local chemist's.”

“Soap?” Fleming repeated over the laughter rippling through the room.

“Fifteen bars of soap,” Burns replied, not containing his own amusement now.

“He didn't manage a clean getaway then,” Mickey said. The ripple grew now, with even Wilson cracking a brief brittle smile.

“Tom, you and Lucy keep up the pressure on the coffin body,” Burns said. “Aaron Moore is our focus. Tara, you stay on that. Mickey, you and Ian are to follow up on Ciaran Duffy's movements. Report back on the PM
when it's done.”

­“People,” Wilson said, calling the room to attention. “I know we're all stretched at the moment. Unfortunately, events in Belfast are beyond our control and until someone starts to exert some form of political leadership, I don't believe we'll see much of an improvement on the ground. Use your time wisely. We do still have uniform support available when it's needed, so maybe Inspectors shouldn't be staking out banks, eh?”

She smiled as she nodded at Tom Fleming who returned both. From his expression, though, it was clear that the intended recipient of her rebuke, standing just to her left, had got the message.

 

Chapter Thirty-­Seven

“S
O, HOW WAS
your afternoon with the Chief Super?” Fleming asked as he strapped himself into the car.

“Wonderful,” Lucy said. “He's a bundle of laughs. Caring and understanding.”

“Just what you need,” Fleming said.

“He seems to think so. He mentioned my applying to CID,” she added, not looking across at her boss.

“Did he indeed? And what are your thoughts?”

“Are you kidding?” Lucy asked. “What was your comment? I'm only beginning to enjoy my work. Why would I leave?”

Fleming smiled. “I'm glad to hear it,” he said. “How was Boyd?”

“Plausible,” Lucy said. “Friendly, welcoming. Playing down his importance in things.”

“What was your sense of him?”

Lucy shook her head. “I went in there looking to not like him,” she confided. “I didn't come out persuaded I was wrong. Fiona has asked to meet me later, so it'll be interesting to hear what she has to say about things.”

Fleming stared out the side window, tracing the progress of a raindrop along the glass with the tip of his finger.

“So, Aaron Moore?” Lucy said. “We know he was with Kamil but how did they connect?”

Fleming shook his head. “I was just thinking the same thing. What have they got in common?”

“Moore's not a street drinker, or homeless,” Lucy said. “But, if he actually is a compulsive hoarder, like the neighbors claim . . . maybe they met through the Community Mental Health team?”

Fleming nodded. “Try the team. See if they had dealings with Moore at any stage. If he is compulsive hoarding, he may have been referred on to them, OCD or some such. Check Krawiec as well.”

Lucy glanced at the clock on the dash. It was already past six. “They'll be closed now. I'll try Noleen Fagan in the morning.”

Fagan was the unit psychiatrist with the Community Mental Health team. If Moore had been referred to the team, she would have assessed him at some stage. While the unit would be closed, Lucy knew that Fagan ran emergency clinics on Saturday mornings.

Fleming nodded softly. “Their paths crossed somewhere.”

F
LEMING WAITED IN
the car while she ran into the PPU block. The time it took her to cover the distance from her parked car to the door, extended by her having to enter the key code at the door, meant that, when she finally made it inside, her face was slick with rainwater.

She went up to her office and turned on all the lights to dispel the still grayness that had gathered in the room.

A ream of sheets sat in the tray of the printer. Flicking through them, she found the list faxed from Beaumont. Despite having filtered down the names, there were still twenty pages, which consisted simply of lists of patients, the dates of their treatment, and their dates of birth. She realized that the names were listed, not alphabetically, but by date of treatment.

She stuffed the pages into her bag, took a last glance across at the picture of Mary Quigg, pinned to her noticeboard, and flicked off the lights.

 

Chapter Thirty-­Eight

L
UCY GOT HOME,
changed, and showered. She'd planned to walk down to the Everglades, the two sharp inclines which she would have to climb on the way home sufficient exercise for the day, but the rain still pounded outside, the sky blooming with lightning occasionally, the boom of thunder reverberating along the Foyle Valley in the wake of each flash so, in the end, she drove down.

Fiona was already sitting in the foyer, waiting for her, when she got there, despite Lucy being ten minutes early. She smiled nervously when she saw Lucy, her shoulders hunched a little, her hands worrying at the handle of the umbrella she held.

“Hey,” Lucy offered. “Are you here long?”

Fiona glanced at her watch absently, though so quickly the time could hardly have registered. “A while,” she said. “John goes to gym at seven so I had to leave before he got home.”

The silence was punctured by the urgent beeping of a phone. “That'll be him now,” she continued, blushing. She pulled the phone from her pocket and held it up to show Lucy the image on the screen. Lucy reached, took the phone from her, and turned it off.

“We should all be non-­contactable sometimes,” she said. “Tell him you went over to Donegal for a run and lost network.”

Fiona smiled briefly, the smile dying just as quickly on her lips.

“Let's eat,” Lucy said. “I'm starving.”

T
HEY WERE FINISHING
the curries they had ordered when Fiona finally broached the subject.

“How did you know?” she said. “The other night? The bruises. How did you know?”

If there was going to be an opportunity to tell her the truth about her job, this was it. But Lucy suspected that, having built the courage to contact someone, to talk, learning that she was a police officer would scare Fiona away before she'd even begun to speak.

“It's not the first time I've seen those type of injuries,” she said.

“Right. In the gym and that,” Fiona explained. “I forgot.”

“Not just that,” Lucy said. “I've come across ­people in abusive relationships before. They always hide the injuries. And the abusers always injure in places where it's easy to hide.”

“John's not abusive,” Fiona said quickly.

“He bust your lip,” Lucy said.

“It was an accident. He's under pressure in his work.”

Lucy reflected on the man she had met that afternoon. He did not give the impression of someone under pressure in his job. Quite the reverse, in fact.

“They're doing some sort of audit of the whole department. He handles a lot of the money so they're going through his stuff with a fine-­tooth comb. There'll be no mistakes, I told him that. He's so careful, so good with money. He handles it all for us.”

“All?”

Fiona nodded. “I was a bit useless with my money, he said, so he looks after my account for me.”

Lucy raised an eyebrow. “What if you need money?”

Fiona blushed. “There's never a problem.”

“Do you ask him for your own money?”

“He's looking out for us both,” Fiona said, defensively. “What about you? Doesn't your partner look out for you?”

“Not in that way,” Lucy said, stopping herself from saying she didn't need looking after, lest it appear implicitly judgmental. “Something happened a while back that changed things.”

“What?”

“He was injured while he was working on my car. I feel guilty about it. He's suggested we move in together but . . . I'm not sure that I'm ready to do that quite yet. I need to be certain I'd be doing it for the right reasons, not just out of a sense of guilt and obligation.”

“Is that why you're staying with him?”

Lucy shrugged. “It's too strong a feeling at the minute for me to be able to work out what else is in there now, you know?”

Fiona nodded. “I rely on John so much; I couldn't leave him. I'd not be able to manage.”

“Bollocks,” Lucy blurted suddenly, causing the elderly ­couple at the table next to them to glance across.

“I do,” Fiona protested. “When we started going out it was . . . he was so attentive. So focused on me. Wanting to be with me all the time. He hated sharing me with anyone, even family. It was . . . it was intoxicating. Someone loving you that much that they couldn't be apart from you.”

“That's understandable,” Lucy said. “At the start. But you need to have your own life. Your own identity.”

Fiona stared at her, her mouth working, trying to form the words to adequately express the situation in which she had now found herself.

“I didn't see it changing. I got so used to it, so used to being the center of someone's life. I never noticed it getting suffocating. He used to be hurt when I visited someone without him, like it meant he wasn't important to me anymore. I was
so
important to him, he said, why would
I
need other ­people? Now he gets angry instead of offended. He seems to be angry all the time.”

Lucy nodded. “So, how do you deal with that?”

“I do what I know will keep him happy.” Fiona raised her chin slightly, staring at the wall beyond Lucy, as if considering what she had just said. “Did you ever . . . do you ever feel like you're watching yourself just . . . disappear?” She looked directly at Lucy to gauge her response, then lowered her head again. “I feel like such a coward. Such a weakling, like Jenny says.”

“You're not a weakling,” Lucy said. “You have to stop letting other ­people define you.”

“You see?” Fiona said, laughing helplessly.

“That's not what I'm saying. You've been conditioned through years of control into believing what ­people say about you, because it's being said by someone you love. But just because you love someone doesn't mean that they're right about everything. I think you're being braver than you give yourself credit for.”

Fiona snorted derisively. “Yeah, right!”

“You came here tonight,” Lucy said. “You admitted some things to a stranger that I'd have difficulty admitting.”

Fiona lowered her head, studying the beer mat that she was tearing into pieces between her hands.

“It's easier than telling someone who knows me!” Fiona smiled, sheepishly.

“And you've left your phone turned off since you arrived.”

She looked up suddenly. “Oh, Jesus, I forgot,” she said, fumbling with the phone.

Lucy reached across, laying her hand on top of Fiona's. “And that was the right thing to do. The Donegal excuse will be good for at least another hour.”

Fiona regarded the phone in her hand momentarily, as if physically weighing up the consequences of her action, then pocketed it again without switching it on.

“Feels good, doesn't it?” Lucy asked.

She nodded uncertainly in response. “He'll go mental when I get home.”

“If he does, turn and walk straight back out again. Jenny will be happy to put you up for the night. Or I will, if you're stuck. Would you speak to the police? Or a counselor?”

“God, no! I couldn't face all . . . that. Besides, I can't afford to leave him; I've no money,” Fiona said.

She flushed suddenly as she saw Lucy reach for her purse. “No, not like that. I mean in general. If I did want to leave. He has my bank card and everything.”

“No one will see you stuck if you do,” Lucy said. “But it needs to be
your
decision,” she added. “Don't do it because you think other ­people want you to.” Lucy had seen too many times, women, and men, encouraged into leaving abusive partners by their families who, at the first moment of missing their former partner, blamed those same families for forcing the decision on them, for being more controlling than the abuser whom they had left. Often times, they ended running back into those same waiting abusive arms. If Fiona was going to leave John Boyd, and stay away from him, the decision needed to be her own.

“T
EXT ME AND
let me know how you are,” Lucy said, as they parted company under the canopy of the porch. “And don't be afraid. Lift the phone if he does anything. I'll come and get you.”

Fiona nodded, then reached suddenly and kissed Lucy lightly on the cheek. “Thanks for listening,” she said. “And for not judging.”

Lucy smiled, gripped the woman's hand once encouragingly, then watched as she turned and stepped out into the unrelenting rain and ran to her car.