You'll Get Yours, page 16
He ripped open a pack of peanuts McLaughlin had brought for the table and started shoveling them into his mouth.
D’Arcy sat up straight, took a prim sip of wine and said, “A rhinoplasty can range from £4,500 to £7,000, depending on the complexity of the procedure, and the cost of a breast reduction is generally between £5,500 and £7,000.”
They all turned to her, eyebrows raised.
“Not that I was ever considering...” she said weakly.
“Where would she get the funds for that?” Cahill asked.
Lyons snorted. “What you’re forgetting is that we only know what her life is like now. She got that work done, what was it? Four or five years ago?”
McLaughlin nodded.
“Presumably she used to be rather well off,” Lyons continued, addressing Cahill directly. “You can’t just think of her now, penniless as she died. You have to think of her before and all. Not that we know anything...”
Cahill bowed his head.
“Lyons!” Hawkins protested, seeing how the words had affected Cahill. He must be a sensitive lad.
“Incidentally,” McLaughlin jumped in, “good job interviewing those hooligan thugs this evening, Hens.”
Cahill beamed and gobbled another handful of peanuts.
“Och, sure, O’Shaughnessy was a grand help,” Cahill said, nodding across the room where the constable was now at the dartboard. Playing with, they couldn’t help but notice, the girl in the pink skirt. It was a good thing Lyons’ back was to the dartboard.
“You know what, but?” Lyons asked.
Cahill suddenly gasped, clutching D’Arcy’s hand to her alarm. He began laughing.
They all turned to him.
“Do you not hear it?” he asked. “‘Rollercoaster’ by B*Witched. We just talked about them.”
D'Arcy shuddered. “Dear God, does that mean TLC will be next?”
“Anyroad,” Cahill said, “back to the case. I don’t think those yobs can be the culprits. Too young, too dumb.”
Hawkins nodded. “I agree. Though the GPS from their phones is inconclusive...”
Lyons gulped the last of his beer. “I think that odd artist boyfriend of hers, that Kyle Minogue, is a better suspect than those three lads. Jesus, Kylie Minogue herself would be a better suspect, come to think of it!”
They all laughed.
“Another round?” Lyons asked, looking around.
“No, no!” chorused McLaughlin and the two women.
“I’ll get a round in for the two of us,” Cahill said, jumping up and scurrying off before his boss could stop him.
Lyons grinned. “A grand new member to our team,” he said.
McLaughlin wagged a finger at him.
“Take good care of Hens,” he said to Lyons.
“Don’t worry, I will,” Lyons promised. He leaned out so he could look them all in the eye, even D’Arcy. “About this investigation. Do you think...” he said slurring slightly, then cut himself off.
“What is it, son?” McLaughlin asked.
“No, don’t mind me,” Lyons said.
D’Arcy scoffed.
“Now you want to stop the flights of fancy? Pity you couldn’t have come to that conclusion years ago. Would’ve saved us all months of grief during investigations.”
Lyons felt the anger well in him. “If you want to know what I’m really thinking...I’ve a feeling we’re just bloody ticking the boxes here.”
McLaughlin raised his eyebrows. He drank the dregs of his whiskey.
“What are you on about?”
“All the door-to-door, all the reviewing of CCTV footage, suspecting the boyfriend, the ex who wrote a threatening email, the yobs who bullied her, maybe her neighbors...we’re treating this as if it was a typical murder case, the ones we’re used to, you know, the drunken assault in the pub, two lads after the same bird sort of stuff, junkies stabbing each other for a bit of hash. This is very different from that.”
“Son, I know it might seem like we're just going through the motions, but we have to follow protocol. It's the only way we can ensure a fair trial.”
D’Arcy spoke up. “And it's not like we've just been sitting around twiddling our thumbs. We're gathering evidence, interviewing witnesses, and building a case.”
“A case that's going nowhere fast!” Lyons snorted. “We need to be looking at this from a different angle. We're missing something, I can feel it. Something big. Maybe even something obvious.”
“Agreed, Lyons,” McLaughlin admitted. “I've had the same feeling in my waters since the beginning. But we have to cover all our bases.”
“I just wish we could do more. This is frustrating as hell.”
Hawkins placed a hand on Lyons’. “Believe me, I understand, Tom. But we have to stay focused and keep working. We'll find the bastard who did this. We will.”
Lyons let out a heavy sigh. “I hope you're right, Fern. I really do. As of right now, we’ve done nothing but tick box after fecking box.”
“So what do you suggest we do, son?”
Lyons screwed up his face. “Christ, where’s Hens with my beer?”
“It’s three deep at the bar,” Hawkins said.
“What do I suggest we do? This is why I suspected those Yanks the moment I laid eyes on the crime scene.”
D’Arcy’s head snapped around. “Not that again! Would you lay off—”
Lyons put up in hands in surrender. “No, that’s a non-starter, I know now. But I think I’m on the right track. It’s the thumb in the mouth, the placing her on the cannon that first did it for me, made me think we’re dealing with something else here. But this new thing. About those knickers. Sure, that must be a red flag to you all. Something else is going on here. Something other than who this Regina Steps was. Could it be it doesn’t matter if it was her or not? That her death has nothing to do with her life?”
They were all nervous about the new information they’d received. Kyle Minogue had categorically stated that Regina never owned a pair of knickers like the ones she was wearing when she’d been found on the cannon. She only wore plain white cotton, he insisted. And he knew exactly where, as he’d been embarrassed when she’d dragged him into the ladies’ knicker section in Primark. Not only that, he found it impossible to believe she would wear such suggestive knickers. He had bought her a silk red teddy for her birthday, and she’d refused to wear it. It would make her feel like ‘a slag,’ apparently a direct quote. What could this mean?
Hawkins and D’Arcy stared at their boss over the rims of the pint and wine glasses, waiting to hear what he would say.
Cahill finally showed up, forcing a bottle into Lyons’ hand and setting the pint before himself. He noticed the change in atmosphere, even in his state.
“What’s happened?” he asked.
“I think Lyons is saying,” McLaughlin mused, “that Regina Steps wasn’t targeted. Is that it, son? You think it was random?”
“Aye, I do. And I think the answer to this case doesn’t lie with the victim. I think this case is all about the killer.”
D’Arcy and Hawkins looked at their boss uncomfortably, Cahill looked confused and McLaughlin fiddled with his mustache, brow furrowed. Lyons knew it was what most of them had been thinking. But only he had the guts to say it. There was nothing worse than a random crime.
They all, with the possible exception of Cahill, felt themselves sobering up slightly. Lyons was usually never a buzzkill. He was the life of the party. Tonight was different.
“I suppose we can’t rule out a random attack, son,” McLaughlin said with a sigh.
“You know, sir,” D’Arcy said, “it was on the tip of my tongue to mention something about the knickers to you. I always thought there was something a bit...off about them.”
“Aye, so you’re saying now,” Lyons snorted.
“It’s the God’s honest truth, but,” D’Arcy said. “I kept looking at her in the tent on that cannon, the knickers on her. My mind apparently picked something up, and it was hidden in, well, my sub-conscience, I suppose. And I kept trying to catch it, but I couldn’t. It kept slipping away from me. I mind now exactly what it was. I was thinking that something was wrong with the way the bra and panties looked on her body. The bra was too large, the knickers were too small. I mind even thinking maybe the woman thought she was skinnier than she was, the boobs larger than they were.”
Lyons looked like he didn’t believe her. D’Arcy turned to McLaughlin. “And it happened to me again when we were in the vic’s flat, sir. Mind, I was rifling through her knicker drawer? They were indeed all plain white cotton bras and knickers. I thought something was off there, too. My subconscious mind was apparently expecting more adventurous lingerie, but my eyes were seeing something very plain.”
“Now that you mention it,” McLaughlin said, “I think you were on the verge of telling me something, but we got distracted.”
“Where did the knickers come from, do we think?” Cahill asked.
Lyons took another big gulp. “From somebody’s knicker drawer.”
“Thank you for that, Lyons,” said D’Arcy.
“Do we think whoever owns them might be in danger?” Cahill asked.
“Don’t you?” Lyons asked. “It stands to reason. That person is either already a victim or is about to be. And as there have been no other murders of middle-aged women recently, and no mis pers either, I’m prepared to put my neck on the line and say I think our perp has got to be planning another murder. He already has someone in mind. In fact, stolen their knickers and placed them on Regina Steps.”
“To what end?” D’Arcy asked.
Hawkins suggested, “Maybe the killer is trying to say something about the victim's sexual history.”
“Who knows how this bastard’s deranged mind works,” McLaughlin decided. “We won’t know until we’ve got him sitting across from the interrogation room from us.”
“Which we will do,” Hawkins said.
“That’s the attitude.”
“Do you see now why I thought all this ticking the boxes was a waste of time?” Lyons said.
“But we...”
The conversation went on, Lyons and Cahill sipped their beers, D’Arcy and Hawkins played with their empty glasses, McLaughlin kept eyeing the bar, song after song played on the sound system, and just as a new song came on, Cahill suddenly jerked back. He began panting, his hands trembling.
“Are you right there, lad?” Lyons asked, alarmed.
“A-A peanut,” Cahill replied, face pink. “Must have gone down the wrong way in my throat.”
But it wasn’t a peanut at all.
“Excuse me,” he said, eyes watering. “I’ve...I’ve got to get to the loo.”
He lumbered off. The others looked at him in concern.
“Can’t handle his liquor, the poor wee fella,” said McLaughlin, shaking his head sadly.
Once inside the cubicle, Cahill locked the door behind him. His plump fingers were shaking so much it took him two attempts. The toilet seat groaned as he sat on it for support, trousers still on. He placed his head in his hands. He felt the sweat on his palms. He thought his head was going to explode.
How could they have missed it? How could he have missed it? Of all people! His mind struggled to make sense of it. Did it make sense? Could he present the team with a credible scenario where this...madness was true?
He couldn’t just blurt it out. If he was wrong, they’d never let him live it down. Oh, he knew Lyons came up with outlandish scenarios all the time. But Lyons had a track record as an excellent detective. Whereas Hens had just joined that team. He still had to prove himself.
If he was wrong, what would they think of him? His caring mentor McLaughlin, the kind and patient Fern, his new hero Lyons. He couldn’t stand the thought of disappointing them, their estimation of him falling. And that D’Arcy! Miss Prim And Proper would be sure to ridicule him every chance she got, just like she did with Lyons. He was always a bit scared of her. He had his performance review coming up. He had to be careful.
He didn’t trust himself right now. He had to do the proper research. He was only eighty percent sure. He had to be one hundred percent.
It didn’t make any sense, but then again, it made all the sense in the world. Just as he—who should know—couldn’t understand where this Regina Steps had come from, so had everyone else in Derry been fooled. No one in Derry knew who she was. Or nobody had told the police, in any event. Maybe some people did know...yes, that made more sense. But nobody wanted to tell them. It didn’t matter. Cahill knew who the deceased was—almost all of Derry knew her, he would bet—and her name certainly wasn’t Regina Steps.
THIRD DAY
CHAPTER 20
THE RAIN BATTERED DOWN on the roof of the station. Together with the clanking radiators, the scraping of chairs on the floor, the chatter of the constables, the incident room of the Twilight Road station was not a desirable place for those afflicted with sensitive hearing, or for those nursing hangovers, as many were. Including McLaughlin.
“I need to bring a flimmin microphone to the next morning briefing,” McLaughlin muttered to himself, “and noise canceling headphones while I’m at it.” He shoved two paracetamol into his mouth and gulped down a glass of water.
As per, D’Arcy was to McLaughlin’s right as he stood before the murder wall, Lyons leaning on the wall to his left, preening. McLaughlin’s eyes scanned the assembled coppers. Noticed that his team looked a bit worse for wear. He was himself, nursing a banging head and a dry mouth.
Even with the exciting new evidence of the knickers, the troops seemed more subdued than they had been. This was the third day of the investigation, and their excitement was waning. McLaughlin had to motivate them. He hated to see the enthusiasm knocked out of them, resentment and anger approaching them from all they encountered, had to encounter, from all sides of the Moorside as they did their duty.
He clocked Hawkins sitting at her computer at the back. He turned to D’Arcy and muttered under the rain and the clanking, “Where’s Hens?”
D’Arcy grimaced. “DC Cahill called ten minutes ago and said he’d slept in. He was apparently profusely apologetic. He’ll be here as soon as.”
McLaughlin shook his head. “Last time I invite you all out for a drink at the pub.”
“Perhaps if we stick to the one drink, sir.”
“Aye, right.” He turned to the masses and clapped his hands together. “Lads and ladies, let’s get this show on the road. I know you’re all chomping at the bit to hear about the knickers and what that might mean for the direction of the investigation,” there was an excited shift in the room, rows of nodding heads, finally perking up, “and we’ll get to that. First, but, let’s review the leads we’re following, then I’ll give you your assignments.”
D’Arcy had just written KNICKERS over a closeup of the panties and bra sandwiched in an evidence bag. McLaughlin had called Dr. Keedy the moment Kyle Minogue had made the revelation that they didn’t belong to his girlfriend, demanded forensic tests and DNA on them.
“First of all, any results from the door-to-door? From the calls from the public?”
Shakes of the head.
“Good work anyway.”
McLaughlin pointed at EVIDENCE on the board.
“Still no report on the strands of hair uncovered from the scene?”
D’Arcy shook her head.
“And no word on the key found in the money purse in Regina’s work locker?”
“Still working on that, sir,” D’Arcy said.
McLaughlin sighed. “So we’ve a key with no door and five hairs with no head. Brilliant. Both items of evidence that might lead to nothing but...” he glanced at Lyons, “all these boxes need to be ticked to ensure the case gets to court when we nail this bastard. So who might this bastard be? Let’s have a look at the possible suspects and what intel we’ve gathered on them thus far.”
SUSPECTS
KYLE MINOGUE
JOE CULLEN
BARRY HAMILTON AKA BAZ
KEVIN McGINTY AKA KEV
FLYNN SHEERIN
COLLEAGUE FROM TYT?
SOMEONE FROM OLD BEDSIT?
McLaughlin was of the mind they ought to add RANDOM NUTTER to that list, but how professional was that, no matter how true it might end up being.
“We’ve taken DNA samples from the first five, still waiting on results. And we’ve applied for the phone records of the partner and the ex, Joe Cullen, who you should all know by now had beef with the deceased and wrote a threatening email to. We’ve received the GPS info from the three lads who had an altercation with Regina in the cinema and then followed her out. Cahill is momentarily indisposed, so I’ll fill you in on the interviews. Each of the lads had a different story when Cahill and O’Shaughnessy were trying to establish any alibi. That does sound suspicious, but I think because of their age and their, er, lack of know-how, they are further down our list of suspects than higher. Hawkins,” he called across the room, “what did you discover about the lads’ movements that evening?”
“Well, sir,” Hawkins called back, “after examining their GPS, it shows they stayed together after they left the cinema. They seem to circle the pavement around the cinema for a while, perhaps harassing Regina at the time. And then all three make their way to the city walls and remain there together until about 10 PM.”
McLaughlin was aware of the tension in the room. All heads had turned toward Hawkins and her computers.
“While this might seem suggestive, they were actually not close to where the body was dumped. They were at the Gunners Bastion near Butcher’s Gate. Perhaps this explains why they had different stories. They knew they were near the site where the body had been found, and decided on the spur of the moment to make up alternative scenarios. One boy, Baz Hamilton, I believe, said they had met three girls and had cider with them, but on the Peace Bridge. Is that not right, PC O’Shaughnessy?”
“Aye, it is.”
“Perhaps they did meet three girls and drink some cider with them, but on the city walls. I think the Peace Bridge is unlikely. It would have been rainy, cold, windy and miserable.”
