The Murder Loop, page 15
‘I’ve a recurring dream where my old boss says nobody really blames me,’ she said eventually.
‘But you blame you, right?’
‘Every hour of the day.’
They went back to bed, eager to have each other anew, to fuck with abandon and drive the demons away.
When she woke again, Cass was alone once more. She showered and dressed, and came down to the kitchen where Brady had breakfast ready: scrambled eggs and coffee and toasted soda bread.
Not exactly sourdough but not far off, she thought.
They both ate heartily, and Cass complimented the bread, thinking it was homemade.
‘Can’t take the credit,’ Brady said. ‘A local woman bakes it, and sells it from Milly Cooper’s shop. Milly calls me when there’s a fresh batch – better service than Amazon.’
‘You get phone coverage up here?’ Cass asked. ‘I’ve none on my network.’
‘Same here. If she can’t get me, she leaves a voicemail.’
She giggled, amused by the strange story: A troubled ex-soldier, coming to Glencale for respite, forming a bond over bread with the local shop-owner. Who always rings him when there’s a new delivery. It must tickle him pink – how very twee.
She looked at her phone and realised it was time to go, especially as she would have to drop by her own apartment on the way for her uniform.
A lingering kiss and then she got ready to leave.
‘Call me?’ he asked.
‘See you at the pier,’ she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Cass was still smiling to herself about Milly Cooper’s bread reservation system when she arrived at the station. It took only a moment, however, to sense the frigid temperature inside. Devine was already at his desk when she walked in, and glared at her with barely concealed hatred. She pretended not to notice and simply greeted him as if it were a normal day. There was a grunt in response, and Cass took it that Finnegan had already spoken to him.
I got laid and you got laid into. Good. You’re a fucking asshole.
She determined to catch up with Finnegan before end of day to understand exactly what had been said. In such a small station, it would have been preferable not to have enemies. But Cass hadn’t been the cause of the fallout; she had witnessed plenty of tension among colleagues over the years, and she wasn’t afraid of it. The only thing that mattered, at the end of the day, was that they did their jobs well, as individuals and a collective.
And with that in mind, crack on and let Devine sulk.
She already knew much of her day would be spent revisiting CCTV and driver dashboard footage from the days around the Bridge Bannon murder. The team had been through a tonne of it already, and there was still more to go.
With the Americans off the pitch as suspects, the burglary gang had returned to the top of the list, while the team still wanted to trace Peter Bannon to be sure they could rule him out of their inquiries.
They thought it likely that the farmer’s murderers had been through Glencale at some point for reconnaissance purposes beforehand – a couple of days, a couple of hours, whatever. So the footage, taken from various sources around the town and from a number of drivers who had responded to an appeal, might help. The only problem was, they didn’t know exactly for what – or for whom – they were looking.
The burglary gang had always been masked during their raids, so the investigators had descriptions only of their voices, not their faces. It meant they were searching for anything in the haystack of pixels that looked suspicious. It would be a grind of a day, Cass knew. For the shortest of moments, she allowed herself to wallow in the unexpected pleasure of the previous night. It didn’t cross her mind to think another day of unexpected developments might be ahead of her.
She had almost two hours of fruitless work done when it was time to adjourn for the morning conference. At it, the SIO acknowledged the reality with which they were grappling: with no suspect yet charged, the community would grow increasingly nervous and the media restive. ‘Do what you can to allay the fears of any member of the public who expresses their concern to you; don’t brush them off,’ Kearney said. ‘But ignore any reporter who tries to snare you; don’t rise to it. Leave them to Sergeant Finnegan and myself.’
The conference concluded on that note. When Cass returned to her desk, she found registered post awaiting her, and felt a familiar surge of anticipation when she saw the identity of its sender.
Oliver Ashcombe had pledged to dig out all relevant CCTV footage in the Currency Comptroller’s possession of Ezme Khaled visiting the public counter and seeking to exchange damaged euro notes.
The same Ezme Khaled who gave the address in Glencale of the flat above Harbour Murphy’s shop – the flat where Nabila Fathi had briefly lived.
The envelope contained a single thumb-drive, and Cass didn’t waste time trying to circumvent the security protocols on the Garda network. She pulled out her own laptop from her rucksack under the desk, knowing there was no risk attached to it, because the Currency Comptroller would have ensured that the thumb-drive was new and free of malicious software before loading it up with the CCTV.
From her time in Dublin, Cass knew well the precise location of the Comptroller’s office on George’s Dock at the heart of the city’s financial district. While she wasn’t familiar with the internals of the building, Ashcombe had told her there were public entrances at the front of the building river-side and at the rear of the building, which led towards the Luas, the light-rail system that connected the financial district to the city centre. There were multiple cameras inside and outside the building, he had said, so she could expect plenty of footage.
But when she opened up the first of three files, she saw that the Comptroller’s office had provided a neat clipping service.
Rather than send her the complete footage for the day from each of the relevant cameras, they had selected only the images they thought most relevant.
She started with the first file. On the laptop screen, she could see it was stamped 10 December. Nothing much happened for about ten seconds or so – the footage showed Comptroller staff and visitors in the reception area, going about their business. And then…
The footage was high-quality and clear, and showed a young woman hesitantly enter through the main doors of the building, before being greeted by one of the security guards and directed to the public counter.
She had a scarf around her neck and a rucksack on her shoulder.
Ezme Khaled presumably.
Nabila Fathi definitely.
The surge of anticipation was gone, replaced by a profound sadness, because Cass knew she was watching on screen some of Nabila’s final hours.
The exchange at the counter tallied with the account Oliver Ashcombe had previously relayed from the Comptroller’s records. The ‘counter’ was technically a transaction window in a wall. Behind the security glass lay an office to which the public had no access. Nabila approached the transaction window, appeared to ask some questions of the teller, and took some notes out of her rucksack, placing them on the window ledge.
The teller popped a form and a pen through the security drawer, and Nabila started completing it. She then furtively scanned her surroundings, as if expecting the security guard to reappear at her shoulder. After a minute, she paused and started fidgeting with the pen and swaying on her feet.
Cass surmised this must have been the breaking point – the question on the form seeking the origin of the money to be exchanged. Nabila continued to stare at the form and fidget… and then shoved the document back into the security drawer, grasped the notes from the ledge, and turned on her heels, hustling towards the rear exit. The teller rose, clearly entreating Nabila to come back, without success. The security guard was greeting another visitor, and didn’t intervene.
The clip ended, and Cass opened the next file. It was from one of the cameras outside the building, showing Nabila approaching the rear entrance and going inside. Cass watched it a few times but nothing obvious jumped out to her. Then she clicked on the final file, which she hoped would be more productive: Nabila hustling from the building.
The camera showed that as she exited the rear doors, her hustle turned into a jog, and, once she was clear of the premises, a full-tilt run. Whatever the circumstances were, Nabila feared something had gone badly wrong and was afraid of being detained, not understanding that the Currency Comptroller staff were not the police, and held no such powers of detention.
At first, it seemed Nabila was running to the Luas stop on George’s Dock, which would have made perfect sense. But as Cass watched the footage, Nabila ran past the stop, before turning left onto a side street and out of view, at which point the footage ended. Using Google Maps to double-check, Cass saw that Nabila had turned onto Common Street, which contained mostly retail stores and apartments. But she guessed immediately that Nabila was running to an on-street rendezvous point – it being more likely that someone was parked in a vehicle waiting for her. The instigator of all this – and most likely Nabila’s murderer.
Cass now realised she would need a full sweep of the CCTV from all the office premises in that direction, as well as any street footage held by Dublin City Council. She allowed herself one silent scream of frustration, then picked up the phone and started dialling.
Another round of pressure and patience: leaning on the relevant parties to dig out the footage, waiting as it took days to do so. But she was prepared to grind it out, because she could feel the killer was tantalisingly close to her, hidden out of view but just around that corner. The noose was starting to tighten.
After making the full suite of necessary calls, Cass switched cases and spent the rest of the morning reviewing CCTV footage related to the Bridge Bannon case. This proved considerably less productive; most of the people she saw on screen she recognised as locals or people with legitimate business in Glencale – truck drivers and so forth. She saw several whom she took to be tourists in new rental cars, but nothing suspicious in their demeanour.
Needle and haystack, she thought, wishing there was an AI solution robust enough to handle this work to the necessary standard. There was no sign of Peter Bannon in the footage, and Cass wondered exactly when he had arrived back in Glencale, and how quickly he had left. Had he known he would be chased across the Atlantic? It seemed that way, if his disappearance was anything to go by. For a brief moment, she wondered if the two Americans – though innocent of the farmer’s murder – had actually found Peter Bannon and killed him. It would explain their relatively short sojourn in the country. After all, they surely wouldn’t have given up so easily if they had been unable to find him, as they claimed.
Just like Nabila Fathi, his body might be lying somewhere and we don’t even know it.
The more she thought it through, the more likely she felt that was the case – which made it imperative to trace Peter Bannon’s last-known movements.
It was mid-afternoon and the CCTV trawl had yielded nothing more than a stiff neck and a headache. She had missed lunch, thought briefly about ordering a delivery, and then told herself it would be better to leave the station and get some air.
As she walked, she mulled over her new theory. Mason Brady had seen something dangerous enough in the American pair to take their licence plate number and report them once news of Bridge Bannon’s murder had broken. Mason Brady, that odd combination of soldier and sap, a man who’d clearly had his fill of violence – presumably inflicting it as well as witnessing it – and yet was so non-threatening to the locals that Milly Cooper was ringing him about bread.
Phone calls and voicemails. A shop-owner at the centre of a small community. Two Americans with sinister intent. Brady walking into the station. Milly picking up the phone. A shop-owner at the centre of a small community. Phone calls and voicemails…
A new question began forming in Cass’s mind.
Brady had seen enough in the two Americans to take their licence plate just in case some trouble subsequently arose.
But what had Milly Cooper done?
Nabila Fathi’s murderer had remained stubbornly out of view earlier that morning.
But the smoke had suddenly cleared in the Bridge Bannon case and Cass felt a slight chill as she saw in her mind the probable killer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Sprint up every hill. It will intimidate every rival.
Brady could remember his beloved high-school cross-country coach shouting his instructions as if it were yesterday. Instructions he’d followed all his life, even when running alone.
But now as he attacked one of the mountain trails near his property, he could feel the familiar effects of his injuries catching up with him. His right knee ached during any extreme bout of exercise, apart from when he was in the water. He couldn’t complete a knee curl of any decent weight because the same knee would buckle. His lower back spasmed occasionally, and sometimes the pain would be enough to bring him to a halt. But he always resumed, not because he enjoyed it, but because he had been made and trained this way, and knew the aching satisfaction at the top would be worth the sacrifice.
Kate Cassidy – is she worth the sacrifice?
While serving, he’d been no different to many of his colleagues – he’d do a tour of duty and then, wired from the constant on-edge nature of the job, would return home seeking release. As much booze as his body could tolerate, as much sex as he could find.
Once married, there was no more womanising, but the incessant boozing continued on every homecoming, until a point would come each time where he had adjusted. In the early years, Amy had no issue with that; she knew it was his way of shedding the combat stress and was frequently happy to join him.
But the last tour – the capture, the aftermath – had changed everything. He’d returned home both broken and consumed. And the obsession ultimately won out, bringing him here, to Glencale, which he’d treated as a mission, and acted accordingly. No booze, no women. Drugs only when he needed an edge or needed the edge taken off. A curse of a mission, in other words, and he’d found it incredibly tough to remain disciplined. Doubly so when he was trying to come to terms with losing his wife and to quench the fireworks in his head.
I’d intended to come back, he thought for the thousandth time. I had something I needed to do – to get out of my system – and it was too black, too malign to tell you. But I was coming back to you once it was done. If only you’d given me the chance…
He felt abandoned by Amy, even if he knew she would say he had been the one to abandon her.
Cass had endured something similar. He could sense her bitterness towards her ex-husband, just as his own towards Amy was never far from the surface.
Meeting someone in Glencale had been the last thing he expected, the last thing he desired. He wanted no complications, no disruptions, nobody close enough to learn anything about him. Cass had upended that, and he knew already that she interested him far beyond casual sex. Smart – way smarter than him. Tough – she wouldn’t allow her vulnerabilities to defeat her. Acerbic – she’d take no shit from anyone. And hot as hell.
All of which was unfortunate, to say the least. Because in a worst-case scenario, letting Cass get too close could be his undoing – and he had no interest in serving a life sentence. It would take a lot to expose him, he knew. But the risk was there.
Which meant, as much as he liked her, it was time to reimpose the self-discipline that had been sorely lacking this last few days. He would have to move to Plan B – and be ruthless about it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Cass didn’t accuse Milly Cooper of withholding evidence, or potentially affecting a criminal investigation. It would have been ludicrous. If anything, the septuagenarian shopkeeper – sharp as a tack – had simply been doing her neighbourly duty: a form of community watch. Cass just really wished Milly had told one of the team.
The questions at the shop had taken just a few minutes. Once done, Cass emphasised to the shopkeeper that if there ever was a next time – ‘God help us there won’t be’ – every detail, no matter how seemingly small or trivial, might be important. It was the gentlest of admonitions, and Cass followed it with a word of reassurance that the information Milly had just imparted might be of assistance.
Just how much assistance wasn’t something Cass could predict. But she was prepared to wager that Milly Cooper’s single action had been the unwitting spark that ignited the terrible events. The person who could say for sure was Sarah Delahunty – which was why Cass was now headed in the direction of her farm.
As she drove, she reflected again on the savagery of Bridge Bannon’s murder. Violent crime always shook a community and inevitably caused conjecture that social bonds were breaking, that society no longer had ‘respect for life’. The opposite was true, Cass knew. Were it possible to trace back over a couple of thousand years the full history of even a small geographic area like the Loop, one would find a litany of gruesome killings, some recorded, many not. There was no shortage of land here that had soaked up blood, and society had simply moved on, as it always did. Even if the media was predictably cranking up the outrage at the pace of the investigation, Bridge Bannon’s murder, too, would in time become a footnote. But it would be recorded as detected and solved – Cass had no doubt of that.
The red steel gate of Sarah Delahunty’s farm was open as usual and Cass turned in.
That should have told me something in retrospect, Cass thought.
She checked her phone and saw that, as with Brady’s place, there was no coverage here. She wasn’t concerned: if she needed assistance, she would press the emergency button on her radio, which worked everywhere. In any event, she didn’t expect a confrontation.
