Unti Lucy Black Novel #3 (5 page)

 

Chapter Eleven

I
N THE END,
the desk sergeant in the Strand Road contacted Belfast and asked a squad car to collect the implants and bring them down the road. A uniform from Derry would drive up and meet them halfway, at the bottom of the Glenshane Pass.

That arranged, Lucy and Fleming drove back through the city to Foyle Street. The old factory, facing the river, had proved to be a focal point for many of the homeless in the area for years. With its collapse, as Toner had said, their groupings had become more dispersed. Despite that, Tom Fleming's work in the soup kitchens on the weekends meant that he had some ideas of the common hangouts.

Even as they drove down the Foyle Street, a girl in her twenties staggered out onto the roadway in front of them and picked her way across to the opposite pavement. The space between the pavement and the river beyond housed the Foyle Valley Railway Museum.

Though now only one train line ran into Derry, from Belfast via the Antrim Coast, at one stage, four different railway systems had connected the city to the rest of the North as well as neighboring Donegal. The museum, which had been built in the late eighties, was actually the recreation of an old railway station and platform, overlooking the river. A track ran from the museum for three miles, along the site of the original Great Northern Rail line which connected Derry and Strabane, running up the Donegal side of the river, then cutting over the Foyle just North of Strabane, across an island known as Islandmore. Lucy remembered, as a child, her father taking her on the old diesel railcar that had shuffled back and forth along the track when the museum first opened. It had long since stopped. Two original locomotives remained, one inside the building and a second, rusting model, positioned outside.

The drunk girl picked her way across to the low wall outside the museum and, swinging her leg, managed to step over it. They watched as she meandered past the building, then turned in left behind it, to where the platform was.

“We'll try here first,” Fleming said.

Lucy pulled in and parked outside the museum, which was already closed for the day. She and Fleming got out and followed the girl's path, around to the platform.

There were about a dozen ­people gathered there, most of whom were female. One old man sat in their midst, a bottle of White Lightning cider in his hands. The others were sharing cans of lager. The warm breeze, carrying down the Foyle Valley, seemed to strengthen here, as if the structure of the platform roofing created a wind tunnel of sorts. A second man sat with his T-­shirt removed and tied around his head to protect his scalp from the sun, his trunk milky white against the livid red burns on his arms and face. He glanced up at Lucy as they rounded the corner and made to struggle to his feet.

“It's okay, Sammy,” Fleming said. “Don't stand up.”

“Inspector Fleming,” Sammy said, exposing his gums in a toothless smile. “Come on and sit,” he added grandly, patting the concrete ground on which they sat with the flat of his hand.

“How are you keeping, Sammy? You've taken a scalding.”

“I'm watching my head,” Sammy said. “Don't want to get sunburn on me ears.”

“Niall Toner is looking for you. He says you need to call in and get your shots.”

Sammy winked broadly at Fleming. “I'll call round later,” he said. “He's an awful worrier.”

“Someone needs to worry about you, Sammy.”

Lucy glanced at the others gathered there who were following the exchange. She recognized a few of them, though not by name. She was struck by the number of women there. Many of them were relatively young. One appeared to be still in her teens. She wore skinny jeans and red sneakers. She had her hair scraped back in a ponytail.

“Should you be here?” Lucy ventured.

“Where else should I be?” the girl asked, sharply.

“Leave her,” Sammy said, though Lucy could not tell whether he was addressing her or the girl. “She's crabbed.”

“Piss off,” the girl said, kicking out with her foot, missing Sammy and striking the older woman who sat next to him.

“I'll slap your arse,” the woman said, with such conviction, the young girl's reply died on her lips.

“We're looking for someone,” Fleming said to Sammy. “Kamil Krawiec.”

Sam shook his head. “Never heard of him.”

Fleming handed him the picture that Toner had given them. Sammy took it, studying the picture. After a moment, his face lit with recognition.

“Crackers? Why didn't you say?”

“Crackers?”

“Aye. Crackers. Who the fu—­” He glanced again at Lucy. “Who can say that, whatever it is?” He pointed at the man's name on the license with a thin grimy finger. “Camel?”

“Kam-­eel,
” Fleming pronounced. “Have you seen him?”

Sam shook his head. “Not in a while. What's he done?”

“Nothing,” Fleming said. “We just wanted to find him.”

“Is this about the bin?” a woman to Lucy's left asked.

Lucy glanced down. The woman looked to be in her forties, though Lucy knew that meant little if she'd been living rough. She had thin pinched features and auburn hair with a single patch of gray above her left ear. “What bin?”

“The body in the bin? They were talking about it at the soup kitchen. Was it Crackers?”

“We don't know,” Lucy said.

“He used to be about a lot,” the woman said. “But I've not seen him for months.”

“Can you remember when exactly?”

“What month is this?” the woman asked, as those around her cackled with laughter.

“It's the summer, sure the bloody sun's beating down,” Sammy said.

“Before Easter,” the woman said. “Earlier maybe. Not for ages.”

“Thank you.” Lucy smiled. “If you hear anything about it, will you try to get in touch with us?”

She offered the woman her card, but she didn't take it.

“Like I have a phone, love,” she said, joining the others in laughter. However, the girl in the red sneakers reached across and took the card from her.

Sammy swallowed a mouthful of cider and passed the bottle to the girl next to him. “We'll let someone know if we see him.”

“The fella in the bin? Was he sleeping in there?” the woman asked, her laughter fit passed. “Is that what happened?”

“We don't know,” Lucy said.

The girl in the red sneakers snorted derisively. “Of course he wasn't.”

Lucy examined her a little more closely. “Why do you say that?”

“Sure why would you sleep in a bin in this heat?” the young girl said. “You'd be baked.” She lifted the cider bottle to her mouth and gulped down a mouthful while trickles spilled from the corners of her mouth.

Lucy nodded agreement. The girl watched her and smiled.

“I could be a cop,” the girl said, offering the bottle out to Lucy. “If I wanted.”

“No, thanks,” she said, to the proffered drink. “And I've no doubt you could have been.”

“Could be, I said,” the girl corrected her, sharply.

 

Chapter Twelve

L
U
CY DIDN'T SPEAK
as they got back into the car.

“What's up?” Fleming asked as she started the engine.

“I don't get it,” she said, aware that she needed to tread carefully in the conversation with Fleming. “I understand alcoholism is a disease; I get that, I do. And I have every sympathy for someone struggling with it. But I don't see the appeal in . . . in that,” she said, nodding toward the museum. “Sitting there, drinking all day.”

Fleming said nothing and, for a moment, Lucy was worried she had offended him.

“Like, that girl? With the red shoes. Why would she choose to spend her days like that?”

“Street drinkers are a special breed,” Fleming said. “To everyone else they're the lowest of the low, and they know that. There's only one place they can go where they won't be judged. Among others like themselves.”

“But she must have a home—­” Lucy began.

“That question you asked; why would she choose? Over there's the one place she'll not be made to think of an answer to that. The other drinkers all know what they are. There's no denial. And they'll accept her so long as she sticks to whatever rules they operate by. That's a home by somebody's definition. Or an approximation of one at least.”

Lucy wasn't convinced but thought better than to pursue the discussion. She was relieved when her phone rang as they made their way down the Strand Road toward a second spot where the homeless congregated in a local car park. It was Burns.

“Any luck on a name?” he asked, without preamble.

“Possibly,” Fleming said. “Kamil Krawiec. We've been asking round and no one has seen him in a while. We got a picture of him.”

“Great,” Burns said. “The PM is being done at the minute. Can you take the picture up to the hospital, see if they can compare it with him on the slab and get a positive ID?”

T
HE PATHOLOGIST,
M
ARTIN
Kerrigan, was finishing up when Lucy and Fleming arrived at the morgue. The remains of the man lay on the metal table while Kerrigan's new assistant sewed him back up as best she could, considering the damage that had been done. Kerrigan was studying her sewing technique.

“This is Caroline O'Kane,” Kerrigan said, when they came in. “Caroline; Tom Fleming, an old friend and veteran officer, and . . . ?”

“Lucy Black,” Lucy offered.

“Ah!” Kerrigan said. “You're younger than I'd imagined.”

Lucy resisted the temptation to ask him how he'd heard of her, or indeed why he'd imagined her to be older than she was. He smiled lightly as he regarded her, as if daring her to do so.

“So, you're here about the binman?”

“Sort of,” Fleming said. “The Chief Super asked us to bring this up to you.” He handed Kerrigan the photocopy of Krawiec's driver's license.

“The features are a little difficult to distinguish,” Kerrigan said. “And I'm not talking about on the photocopy. Try your best.”

Lucy and Fleming approached the table. Lucy tried hard not to look lower than the dead man's face, but could still see, from her peripheral vision, not just the dark stitched Y on his chest, but the livid injuries of his whole body. She noticed his arm sat out at an angle and that his four fingers were missing from his left hand.

Fleming crouched beside the body, staring at the face, which lay sideways, as if looking toward the door in expectation of someone's arrival. He studied the image in the photocopy that Kerrigan held toward him. As Lucy approached, she noticed that one of the eyes hung loose from its socket.

“Could be him,” Fleming said.

Kerrigan moved up and angled the head. “Yes, I'd say it's him all right. You can imagine how he should have looked when his head was . . . well, the right shape.”

“Did he die in the bin lorry?” Lucy asked, moving away from the body.

“Ah, that's the question. Indications are that he was crushed to death by the compactor. Part of his sternum entered his heart, as well as significant cranial damage to the back of the skull.”

Lucy understood now why the head had been angled the way it had.

“But . . . ?” Fleming said.

“But . . . there are also indications that he was severely beaten in the hours prior to his death. I suspect he would have died anyway from those injuries. In the end, the compactor could have been an act of mercy.”

Fleming shook his head. “Only you, Martin. Euthanized by a bin lorry.”

Kerrigan laughed. “There are significant injuries over his body, including to his skull. The older injuries show vital reaction consistent with the man having lived for over twelve or fourteen hours after receiving them before he died.”

“So someone beat him almost to death.”

“Essentially.”

“He couldn't have been hit by a car? Fallen down a set of stairs?” Fleming asked.

“Only if the point of impact with the car was in over seventy different spots on his body all at the same time. He also has defense wounds on his hands.” He lifted the right hand and held out the palm. A series of red scars slashed across it.

“Those are different again. They've healed quite a bit already, so I'd say he probably gained those a few days before his death. Possibly he got into a fight with someone who pulled a blade on him. Having said that, it must have been a very fine blade, considering the width of the cuts. I don't see any other lacerations of that type anywhere else but his hands, so far as I can tell. The beating came between forty-­eight and seventy-­two hours later.”

“Could he have climbed into the bin unaided, bearing the injuries which you say he had from the beating?” Lucy asked.

“She
is
a bright one,” Kerrigan said. “No, he probably couldn't have. I'd say both his fibulas were shattered deliberately before death. He'd not have been able to stand up.”

“Shattered?”

“Various impact points. Small, about yay big.” He made a circle with his gloved hand. “Increased pressure to the lower edge.” He mimed someone swinging something, made a tocking sound with his tongue to mimic impact.

“A hammer?”

“Ball-­peen, considering some of the other circular impacts on the body.”

“So someone beat him . . .”

“Looking at the legs, I'd go for kneecapped him first, then beat him.”

“Then dumped him in a bin.”

Kerrigan nodded. “Leaving him to die. Or be crushed in the compactor when the rubbish was emptied.”

“Either way, he was murdered,” the assistant, Caroline O'Kane, offered.

“That's not for us to say,” Kerrigan said, correcting her. “We simply examine and report. It's up to the good officers here to make conclusions such as murder.”

“He was murdered,” Fleming said to the woman, frowning at Kerrigan.