You'll Get Yours, page 19
“Aye. The puzzle pieces are slowly coming together. I did put a request through for fingerprints, but wish I hadn’t. There were also many fingerprints and partials on the outside of the bin, from perhaps ten individuals or so. We’ll have to send someone back to that pub, what’s it called again?”
“The Rocking Mermaid, sir.”
“Aye, that’s the one. We need to collect fingerprints from the employees and owner.”
“For elimination purposes, aye. And the knickers?”
McLaughlin sucked in through his teeth.
“Only the vic’s DNA on the knickers. But something’s just come to me now...”
He picked up the office phone and called forensics.
“Donal? It’s McLaughlin again...och, aye, that I know. Sure, nobody works that quickly. No, I was just wondering, you know the tests you did on the knickers?...I wanted to know if you can tell if they were new or old...what I mean is, can you tell someone else wore them before the vic put them on or, as we suspect, had them put on her? Or were they, let’s say, bought new and then put on the vic?...Aye, there was only the one DNA on them, but let’s say...if they were my knickers and I washed them, would there be no evidence of my DNA on them?...I understand, aye, aye, dependent on various factors and all that, I know the spiel...Aye, would you do that for me? Many thanks...aye, yes, bye bye bye.”
He hung up and shrugged.
“Let’s see if anything turns up.”
“I see what you’re on about, sir. We’re thinking maybe the knickers belonged to somebody else. But the murderer could have bought them new. And what did the man from forensics say?”
“That there is a test they can do to determine if clothing has been washed before. Suddenly he got very technical, something about the residue of laundry detergent, softeners and the like. And microscopic examination to detect detergent crystals, swelling of fabric due to water exposure and the like. So let’s see what he comes up with.”
They jumped at a knock on the open door.
“Boss? Er, sir?”
It was Hawkins.
McLaughlin nodded at the chips. “I’d offer you one, but they’ve gone soggy.”
“Only one?” Hawkins grinned.
“What’s up?”
“I just wanted to let you know I’ve finally heard back from the DWP. There are no tax records for Regina Steps before she started at the Top-Yer-Trolley four years ago.”
D’Arcy and McLaughlin exchanged a startled look.
“B-but...the woman was forty-five!” McLaughlin said. “How did she support herself for the first 41 years of her life?”
Hawkins shrugged.
“Remains to be seen. But it’s that odd four-year cut-off point you were on about. Also, the DVA got back to me and all. As we know, Regina’s current license was only issued two months ago, with her address listed as Antrim Terrace. Your woman at the DVA told me that was a replacement license. Apparently, Regina had reported hers stolen, so she was issued the one we have now. I asked when the lost license had been issued, and she told me...aye, you’ve guessed it, four years ago. With the Gorney Way address.”
“God bless us and save us!” McLaughlin wailed. “Did your woman beam down from a spaceship?”
Hawkins chuckled. “And that was a full license, not a provisional one. But there was no previous license from a time when she would have been younger. She must have learned to drive somewhere else. But then, sir, I had a brainwave. As we all know, many people leave Derry and go to Dublin or London for a variety of reasons, employment, the pull of the big city, you know what I’m on about.”
McLaughlin and D’Arcy were listening intently.
“So I put in a request to the NDLS in the South and the DVLA in London. I was surprised to hear back from them so quickly.”
“Tell us! Tell us, girl!” McLaughlin said, avoiding D’Arcy’s eye.
Hawkins grinned mischievously. “And I found her, boss!” Her eyes went to both of them, letting D’Arcy know the ‘boss’ was meant for her also.
McLaughlin felt his pulse rise. D’Arcy sat up straight in her chair.
“Where?” they chorused.
“In London. 92 Gunnersbury Avenue, Brixton.”
“So she did exist before!” McLaughlin said, looking relieved. “I was getting a bit concerned.”
Suddenly, half the picture on the box of the jigsaw puzzle was revealed as if a curtain had been drawn back.
“So she was in London...” he mused.
“Hmm,” D’Arcy said, lips pinched. “Life in the big city. Drugs, drink, plastic surgery... Left when she was young, nobody remembered her when she came back. It’s all making sense now.”
“It might not be as simple as that, but, boss,” Hawkins said, turning directly to D’Arcy. “Because...that London license had only been issued to her four years and two months ago. So, yes, we’ve pushed back farther than four years ago, but only by two months.”
McLaughlin’s excitement was somewhat tempered with this information, but at the moment he didn’t care. They’d made a breakthrough of sorts.
“That’s fine work, Fern,” he beamed. “Grand. Brilliant. Result!”
Fern beamed at her boss.
“We’ll have to think about this,” McLaughlin said. “See what theories we can come up with. But at the moment, Fern—”
The three of them jumped as Cahill suddenly burst into the office.
“So sorry, everyone,” he said in a rushed voice.
He was carrying a backpack in his hand, his face was red, sweat trickled down his face, his hair was a mess and the underarms of his hoodie were dark with perspiration. But his eyes were shining with excitement.
Eyebrows raised, McLaughlin glanced at his watch and asked in a fake stern voice, “And what time do you call this, then?”
“So sorry, sir,” Cahill said. “and sorry for the subterfuge. I had to be sure I was right, but. Didn’t want to show myself up.”
As McLaughlin frowned, Cahill looked over at D’Arcy and Hawkins and nodded.
“Grand. We’ll all need to be there for this. Where’s Tom?”
“Interviewing Regina Steps’ priest,” D’Arcy said.
Cahill gave a bark of laughter.
“Regina Steps!” he said. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, but.”
McLaughlin was flabbergasted. “Trying to tell us? You haven’t been trying to tell us anything! What have you been up to, lad? Subterfuge? What are you on about?”
He felt a tiny sliver of irritation. The lad was new on the team, they didn’t know him well, not really. Maybe they didn’t know him at all. Cahill was grinning like a loon and trembling slightly in an odd manner. McLaughlin’s irritation turned to alarm. Was DC Cahill a bit unbalanced, and had been hiding it all this time? McLaughlin wasn’t sure how to react. D’Arcy and Hawkins were both looking at him with alarm, eyes begging the boss to intervene. McLaughlin eyed the open door.
“The deceased is not Regina Steps!” Cahill exclaimed with unbridled glee. “Regina Steps doesn’t exist, never has. Except only in your woman’s imagination.”
“DC Cahill,” D’Arcy warned, “are you in need of—”
“I’m in need of nothing, boss,” he said, moving his ample weight from one foot to the other, almost hopping like an excited child. “Except for all of you to listen to me. I’ve broken the case wide open! Oh, why isn’t Tom here? I wanted him to be here! Nevertheless...” He put his backpack on the desk and reached inside with excitement.
McLaughlin tensed. Was he about to pull out his Glock 17 and shoot them all down?
They all relaxed as Cahill pulled out a tablet, an iPad.
“I’ve got it all here,” he prattled on. “I’ll show you everything. I can’t believe it! You won’t believe it either, I tell you. It’s shocking. I’m still reeling, and I realized it was probably true last night. But I had to be sure. I didn’t want to make a laughingstock of myself, sure.”
“I might be wanting to file a complaint of conduct unbecoming if you don’t explain yourself, lad,” McLaughlin warned. “Get to it. And fast.”
Cahill was jabbing at the screen of the iPad with his thick fingers.
“As I said, your woman’s not Regina Steps. I don’t know how she did it, false passport or what have you. That’s why we can’t find anyone who knows her. But, sure, almost all of Derry knows her, knows who she was. How nobody clocked it was her, I haven’t a clue. Well, I do, the passage of time, and that nose job and breast reduction, the wild looking perm...sure, maybe her own mammy and daddy wouldn’t know who she was. And all over the internet, sure, it’s as if she’s frozen in time. As if she never got older.”
The iPad screen finally lit up.
“And here she is! The deceased!” Cahill said, his voice piercing. He wiped sweat from his chubby cheeks and turned the iPad screen around in their direction.
They all leaned in. Saw a photo of a young woman, late teens, against a neon pink background. Wavy, almost shoulder-length light blonde hair. Tiny tight pigtails sprung out of her hair, two on her crown, five in all, and they were tied with colorful scrunchies, lime green, yellow and purple. Her eyebrows were groomed and shaped, her eyelashes mascaraed, a hint of eyeliner. She had light blue eye shadow, and her lips shone with bright pink lipstick. Her nose was perhaps a bit too large for her face, but nobody was perfect. Her mouth and eyes were opened wide as if in delight, and her hand was on her cheek, an exaggerated pose of surprise. The photo captured the exuberance of youth, an attractive, strong young woman flush in the first bloom of her prime, and happy to show it to the world. This did not look in the least like Regina Steps.
“She’s gorgeous, Hens,” Hawkins said in a hushed tone. “But who is it? Who on earth is this woman?”
Cahill beamed proudly.
“This is, this is...” He couldn’t contain himself, he was stuttering with the excitement of the reveal and he intoned with a theatrical flair, “...Lily Feagins!”
The only sound was the clanking of the radiators.
The anticipation shining in Hawkins’ eyes had dissolved into confusion, though her eyes were still willing her mate on—if only she knew how...?
D’Arcy, face blank, turned to her boss, seeking guidance.
Stunned seconds ticked by.
Then McLaughlin roared, “And just who the bloody hell is Lily flimmin Feagins?!”
CHAPTER 23
DCI SEAN NIX’S MOUTH had formed a perfect O. He ran a manicured hand through his closely cropped silver hair as he struggled to understand what his subordinates had just told him. In a semi-circle around his desk sat McLaughlin, D’Arcy, Lyons, Hawkins and Cahill.
The DCI’s office was much larger than DI McLaughlin’s, the lighting softer, his walls paneled with dark wood and adorned with framed photos of the DCI smiling into the camera, shaking hands with or his arm around the shoulders of many of the movers and shakers of the business and political worlds of Derry, Northern Ireland, and, indeed the UK. His chair was one of those plush ergonomic ones with wheels, and his desk, polished oak instead of the plasterboard of the DI’s, was remarkable for the lack of folders and files on it. A photo of the DCI’s family, wife and four children, sat in a gold-plated frame on the desk, facing a computer. There was no evidence of food in sight. The 55-year-old DCI went to the fitness center as often as McLaughlin went to Apache Pizza for a Crazy Jalfrezi pizza.
There were, however, printouts of that morning’s news reports of the homicide investigation from the Derry Times. POLICE CLUELESS accused one headline. Nix had waved the paper accusingly in McLaughlin’s face when the DI had knocked on his door, his team huddled behind him, and told him they had just had a breakthrough in the Regina Steps case.
“About time and all!” Nix had snapped. “Eejits, the press is making us out to be! Bumbling fools! I thought you were the man for the job, McLaughlin, and I was beginning to lose faith in you. If you’ve got a breakthrough, but, perhaps I was right about you after all.”
CANNON WOMAN HORROR STUMPS COPS said another headline.
That’s what the press had decided Regina Steps was to be called, what she had been reduced to by the slogan-hungry media, Cannon Woman. At least, McLaughlin had mused, they hadn’t called her False Knickers Woman or Sucking On Her Thumb Like A Wain Woman, which showed his team, and all those seconded from Strand Road station, were being true to their word and were keeping the integrity of the investigation intact by refusing to speak to the press.
DCI Nix had just been told the deceased had another name altogether, and who the woman had once been. Yes, there were photos from the worlds of business and politics in the DCI’s office, but none from entertainment. This might explain the confused look now on the man’s face.
“And how did we, you, come to think the deceased was this Regina Steps in any event? And just who is Regina Steps, then? And where is she?”
The team shifted uncomfortably on their seats, plush and leather though they were.
“It came from her driving license, sir,” D’Arcy said, coming quickly to her boss’ defense.
“It was in the woman’s handbag at the crime scene,” Lyons added.
“It must be a fake,” Hawkins explained. “A very good one. It must have cost a bomb to get it.”
“But, sir,” McLaughlin said, treading carefully, “I don’t think you quite understand. There is no Regina Steps. Well, perhaps there was. Isn’t that how fake IDs are created? If someone wants to get their hands on one, don’t the forgers trawl through the records of infants of the same gender who died soon after birth around the same time and in the same location the person who wants the fake ID was born? So that there’s a record of their birth somewhere?” He turned to Hawkins for affirmation.
“Aye, that’s correct, sir. Or, it used to be. Perhaps the fraud department can assist us further, but forgers today might even create an entirely fictional identity, or with everything being connected online today, it might be done through identity theft. Again, I’m no expert, but common sense tells me that a created identity would raise more red flags during any verification processes, as one must do with, for example, the DVA and DWP, as that identity wouldn’t match any existing records. It seems to me, also, that IDs created through identity theft would of necessity be for short-term use. The victim of identity theft would be sure to alert the authorities, and then the ID would be useless. I believe the traditional method must be the one used in the case of this vic’s fake driving license. So maybe the deceased had a long-term plan in mind when she transformed herself.”
Nix nodded, a bit annoyed at having shown his ignorance. “So you’re telling me the real Regina Steps was probably an infant who died in Derry in or around...what age was the deceased?”
“She was 45 years of age, sir,” Lyons said.
Lyons, McLaughlin noted, was taking it all well. He’d rushed into McLaughlin’s office just as Cahill was wrapping up, eager to tell them what he’d discovered at St. Fintan’s, that Regina Steps had probably committed some serious offense which might make her the target of retaliation. But Lyons had been upstaged by his younger colleague. Regina Steps wasn’t even Regina Steps. If Lyons was put out at having been upstaged by his younger colleague, the lad hadn’t shown it.
“So in or around 1978 that would be, sir,” D’Arcy was saying. “We must check the birth records to see if we can locate the Regina Steps the forgers harvested the name from.”
Cahill was squirming proudly in his seat, drinking it all in, enjoying every word.
Shame the lad hadn’t recognized her earlier. This didn’t necessarily mean they would have to start from scratch; hopefully, they wouldn’t have to disregard everything they’d uncovered so far. But now that they knew Regina Steps was really Lily Feagins, the list under the MOTIVES category on the murder wall in the incident room would grow exponentially. And there were sure to be many more SUSPECTS. Considering how controversial Lily Feagins and her bandmates had been, many more.
“And where would the woman have purchased this new identity?” Nix asked.
Hawkins shrugged. “We uncovered evidence Lily Feagins had lived in London before she moved back to Derry, and received wisdom tells us she did indeed live there from the age of eighteen.”
Nix raised an eyebrow.
“Received wisdom?”
Hawkins grinned. “In this case, received from their Wikipedia page. And a quick Google search. She’s all over the internet, sure. They all are. So presumably she got her new identity in London. And as London is rather more, er, cosmopolitan than we are here in Derry, and there are presumably—”
Nix cut her off as he nodded. “Aye, mafia, drug cartels, whoever runs the prostitution rings, drugs and arms trafficking, illegal gambling and what have you.”
“And,” Lyons put in, “there was evidence of past drug use, so maybe she found a contact from one of her dealers.”
McLaughlin noticed his team was referring to the former Regina Steps as ‘she,’ ‘her,’ ‘our vic,’ ‘the deceased,’ They had been calling her Regina, and even ‘our Regina’ for so long, it was difficult to use the name she had really been called, the person she really was. McLaughlin was surprised that he was feeling a bit let down by the vic, maybe even a little irritated. He and his team had been doing their best to help her, find the woman’s killer, but she had been deceiving them all.
“Or,” Hawkins was saying, “I’m sure undetectable fake IDs, good ones like our victim had, could be acquired on the dark web these days.”
“Hmm,” Nix mused. “Would have to know how to get on the damn thing in the first place. Is that common knowledge these days, do you think?”
“Where she got the ID from is of less importance, sir,” McLaughlin said a bit impatiently, “than who she is. Was. And what this means for the investigation.”
Nix crumpled the news stories in his hand and tossed them in the bin under his desk.
“Madness!” he wailed. “That’s what it’s going to mean! Merciful Mary, I hope the press doesn’t get hold of this soon. I wonder how long we can keep this out of their grubby hands? We’ll be overrun! Celebrities, even D-list ones like this Regi—Lily woman seems to be, bring out the vultures. Droves of them will be descending on us. From London and even farther afield. Driving in and out of the station is bad enough now, like arriving at the red carpet at the Oscars, so it is, and I’m afeared for the state of my car.” Lyons nodded in understanding. “You must act quickly! Before they discover who she is. But once we notify next of kin, we’ll have to let the press know. Do you know next of kin? Forgive me for saying it, but perhaps this is one occasion I’m hoping not...”
