The Murder Loop, page 1
THE MURDER LOOP
BEN BARNES
Copyright © 2023 Ben Barnes
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The right of Ben Barnes to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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First published in 2023 by Bloodhound Books.
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Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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www.bloodhoundbooks.com
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Print ISBN: 978-1-5040-8669-1
CONTENTS
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I. Lost amid the wreckage
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
II. The dead slide in and out of reach
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Acknowledgements
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A note from the publisher
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To Danielle and our girls,
Blessed to be among brilliant women
PART 1
LOST AMID THE WRECKAGE
CHAPTER ONE
Try to stay calm, they say.
You told yourself if it ever happened to you, you’d fight with every ounce of frenzied strength you could muster. But your hands are bound with cable ties cutting so tight into your wrists you can’t feel your fingers anymore.
Maintain a non-aggressive posture, make no sudden movements.
You’re trembling uncontrollably, desperately trying to push down the panic and nausea. If you could just sit up, maybe you could breathe properly. But you’re pinioned to the floor of the van, the knees of one of your captors crushing the small of your back.
Talk with your captors in a non-threatening way and try to establish a bond.
A rag smeared with oil and grease is stuffed in your mouth. You’ll choke on your own vomit if you don’t hyperventilate first from the hood around your head.
Stay alert, alive to your circumstances, and avoid hysteria at all costs.
Every rut the van hits is a red-hot poker to the ribs that were broken in the violence of the abduction. The immediate terror induced a cold sweat. Now there’s a warm streak down your front where you’ve pissed yourself at the thought of what’s next.
Maintain hope.
Death won’t be merciful. There will be days, weeks of torture first. Even if you could see through the hood, your eyes are blinded with tears. In the past, when you’d thought about dying, you dared to hope it would come gently in your sleep, after a life well lived. Not like this.
Encourage your captors to contact your loved ones.
Your loved ones will never see your face or hear your voice again. No one’s coming to the rescue – you know that. The van screeches to a halt and you’re dragged out to the ground.
You’re too young for a heart attack. But a blowtorch of pain burns through your arms and chest, and you jerk and convulse and vomit at the same time.
Your mind has already gone and your body is following. Delusional, you hear a thud next to you and then the voice of your late mother.
‘Hush, darling, sleep now.’
The gun fires.
CHAPTER TWO
‘Nobody blames you.’
Kate Cassidy – Cass to the circle of friends and colleagues from whom she’d walked away – woke around 2am, the sleep-induced flashback having struck again.
‘Nobody blames you,’ he’d said.
For a woman’s life, a child left motherless.
And sure, Cass thought, she wasn’t technically responsible.
But she knew when she heard those three words that a couple more were left unspoken.
Nobody blames you… as such.
The flashback was a constant in her life – occurring two or three nights a week in the year since that discussion with her former boss. A flashback to the conversation, followed by an image of the accident. The latter being a false memory, of course, because she hadn’t been there. But absence didn’t absolve her.
She didn’t wake sweating, shivering or scared. She woke crushed by guilt.
Her form of nightly penance, one might say.
As if she’d ever forgive herself.
CHAPTER THREE
It wasn’t that Cass had any better plans for Christmas Eve – she had no plans at all, in fact. She just hadn’t expected a summons for coffee from her soon-to-be boss. Cass wasn’t due to start in Glencale Garda Station until the first week of the new year, but already knew she had made a mistake by coming home.
Make a change, she’d told herself.
Well, fuck change, fuck my stupidity. What on earth had driven her to thinking home would be the answer? As if she could rebuild her life here. If there was anything worth rebuilding.
The venue for coffee was the town’s sole five-star hotel, Glencale House, an imposing nineteenth-century edifice set on a lush estate. The estate was bordered to the south by Glencale Bay – a mecca for tourists, sailors and swimmers – and to the north by the town itself.
As a kid, it had always amazed Cass that a person could finish something mundane in the town – a trip to the butcher’s or newsagent’s, say – and in less than five minutes, walk into a fantasy land complete with intricate garden maze and fountains, chandeliers and silver service, and the most exquisite cakes she’d ever tasted. Not that the locals tended to frequent the hotel in great numbers – when she was growing up, few in the community had the cash to spare. Nor, to be honest, were they altogether sure they would have been welcome anyway – there were certain standards to be maintained, after all.
But her own parents, if not wealthy, had been comfortable – and assured of their place in society – and her mum would periodically take her to Glencale House for a treat – afternoon tea including the pastry chef’s personalised version of madeleines, with a layer of jam and a coating of desiccated coconut. Cass generally wasn’t one for nostalgia. But God damn, given how things had turned out in her life, coupled with this morning’s summons, she could be forgiven for harking back to better times.
She principally blamed herself. All those years ago, her father had given her one overriding piece of advice: don’t join the Guards. Ideally, he wanted her to be a lawyer or doctor, but would have settled for his only daughter doing just about anything other than following him into the force. When, despite his reservations, she did enlist, he gave her a new piece of advice: never police your home district. This, Ted Cassidy knew from personal experience, having spent the latter part of his career as the senior officer in charge of his native County Kerry. ‘They’ll end up policing you,’ he’d said. ‘They’ll watch your every move and grumble like fuck about anything they don’t like.’
She’d ignored that piece of advice too.
Not at first, of course. After basic training, she’d been assigned to Dublin, going on to spend thirteen years in the capital. Moving up the ranks, marrying, buying a house, eventually getting promoted to detective – only for everything to fall apart.
A year-long career break at her own request. Trying to move on, failing, moving back. Reassigned – again at her own request. Home to Kerry, home to Glencale. From the urban east coast to the rural south-west. Going from a suburban station in Dublin that had the highest share of murders, gang violence and drug-related crimes in the country to a station that was predominantly rural in nature.
Glencale and its hinterland boasted a population of fewer than 10,000 pe
When she was a child, the tourism season had been limited to the spring and summer, with most of the hotels winding up in the autumn and shutting for the winter like an animal in hibernation. But all that had changed in the years since she’d left. Now, as many people flocked to the town around Christmas and New Year’s as they did during the summer. Hence, Glencale House was both open and busy this Christmas Eve.
But while unsure of the reason for the meeting, Cass knew why the venue had been chosen – and it wasn’t for the cakes. The hotel offered masses of space between tables, unlike the coffee shops and restaurants in town. And although several of the staff were locals, they had been trained to be discreet, and to respect guests’ privacy. It was a good place for an introductory meeting, much more inviting than the creaky and crammed Garda station, an old railway office which had seen much better days. Although Cass had heard different things, she decided that Sergeant Nuala Finnegan was clearly a thoughtful sort, not always a given with superior officers.
In previous times, she might have been lifted by the sight of the elegantly decorated Christmas tree in the foyer, the sound of the pianist floating festive standards through the air. Not this time.
She strode into the bar, where Nuala Finnegan was easy to spot in her navy uniform and clip-on tie, leafing through a file at a table already set with coffee for two. Mid-fifties, a bit heavier than perhaps the guidelines would recommend, and an expression that brooked no nonsense. As an upstanding member of the community, Finnegan had been lady captain of the golf club on several occasions. As an upcoming member of the force, early in her career, she’d taken one of her golf clubs to a supposedly honourable individual who had serially abused his wife.
Cass knew from her father that Finnegan’s superiors at the time had managed the incident to minimise the fallout to her. It wasn’t the kind of thing that management could so easily do these days – properly so, Cass thought. Yet she doubted there was a single one of Finnegan’s colleagues who didn’t admire her for the act. Hence Finnegan’s nickname “Driver”, although apparently nobody called her that to her face, and it was technically inaccurate anyway, given the golf club in question had been a nine-iron. Still, from what she saw and what she knew, Cass was ready to like her.
And what would Finnegan have seen and known in return? A woman at least two decades younger than herself, but a gaunt face at risk of looking permanently defeated. A hollow woman whose soul had dissolved in a vat of acidic pain.
Stop with the amateur dramatics, thought Cass. Finnegan’s not a fucking mind-reader. She’ll see a woman in her early thirties, blonde hair brushed back in a ponytail, wearing apparel typical of an off-duty guard – jeans, trekking boots, a North Face jacket – and a minimum of make-up. In good shape physically but maybe a bit tired-looking, furrows in the brow that came a decade too soon. In other words, nothing unusual in this line of work.
And what will she know?
Everything, if she’s any good.
Finnegan put the file aside and stood as Cass approached, but there was no hint of a smile. In retrospect, that should have served as the first warning.
‘Kate?’
‘Most people know me as Cass, if it’s easier.’
‘A schoolyard nickname?’
‘From the training college – some of the lads started it and it stuck.’
‘Qualification brought them maturity, I’m sure.’
A bit tart? Or just a low tolerance for the force’s laddish culture?
Finnegan filled Cass’s cup without bothering to ask if Cass liked coffee. Admittedly, it would be rare enough to find a guard who didn’t mainline the stuff.
‘So, you’re well?’
Finnegan wouldn’t be a guard if she couldn’t make such a loaded question so seemingly benign.
‘I’m fine, thanks. Looking forward to getting back to work.’
First lie. There is literally nothing I’m looking forward to.
‘But no longer as a detective?’
‘It wasn’t for me.’
‘Didn’t take you long to make up your mind.’
I was a detective for the sum total of three months before it all happened. The events weren’t of my choosing. ‘I just didn’t feel… particularly suited to it after everything.’
Finnegan reflected on the answer, as if weighing the amount said against what she already knew from her sources. ‘Are you seeing a counsellor right now?’
‘No.’
‘You’ve been through trauma – you don’t see the need?’
‘It wasn’t my trauma. I took a year out, went through things in my own way.’
Finnegan sucked her teeth, to Cass’s immense irritation.
‘I’ve known only one person before you who asked to be demoted,’ Finnegan said. ‘He felt the extra responsibility was too much for him. A couple of years later, he cracked up completely. Complete fucking basket case.’
Jesus Christ. Crack up? Basket case? A fucking waterboarding on Christmas Eve? Had Finnegan not moved on from when she did her own training? Has she completely missed out on the development of more effective and appropriate police standards for developing, mentoring and leading staff?
‘I appreciate your concern for my health,’ Cass said through gritted teeth, ‘but like I said, I’m fine. You have nothing to worry about.’ And fuck your ham-fisted effort to test me.
‘Good,’ Finnegan said. ‘Because I’m not a counsellor, and Glencale is not a retreat for someone seeking an easier life. I’m under-resourced and can’t afford to carry someone. You understand?’
I had a teacher just like this bitch, ending every dressing-down with that patronising question. Every fucking time. ‘I wouldn’t expect anything less.’
Finnegan did the thing with her teeth a second time, and then lapsed into silence. Whereas in an interrogation room this might have been a tactic designed to pressure the accused – namely Cass – into filling the space, she felt fairly certain in this instance the sergeant was mulling over a decision. But what decision?
Eventually, Finnegan pushed the file towards her and said: ‘Read this over the next few days. I want your thoughts on your first day back.’
The file was unlabelled, its plain buff cover giving no hint as to its contents. Finnegan was clearly mindful about prying eyes.
‘What is it?’ Cass asked.
‘An unsolved murder from earlier this year.’
‘I’m not a detective anymore.’
‘Listen, you might have lost your senses when walking off the detective squad but I assume some of your training stuck and you can still form coherent thoughts. Read the file, form a view, tell me what you think.’
Finnegan stood, her own cup untouched, the meeting suddenly over. ‘I’ll get the bill,’ she said. ‘Stay and finish your coffee. Just make sure no one in here sees what’s in that.’
