You'll Get Yours, page 35
At a loss, she thought about what she should get to fill her stomach before dinner. The sandwiches at the cafe across the street were marvelous, the ingredients locally sources, but the thought of pushing through the hordes of rabid journalists put her off the thought. Maybe them camping out there was doing her diet some good.
She turned back to the CCTV footage—she’d volunteered to help go through it—and as she clicked through the footage of lamp-lit, rain-spattered Derry streets full of every type of vehicle except white vans, a thought suddenly entered her mind.
She let out a little gasp. She felt the blood rush to her head, felt her heart beating in her chest as she thought it carefully through. It didn’t take long. And once that thought had come to her, something else clicked into place. She tilted her head to the side before her computer and a little smile of satisfaction crossed her lips.
Good one, Fern, she thought to herself. It made all the sense in the world, why the killer had seemingly changed his MO. Why he had changed the location, why he had switched from the grandeur of the city walls to the mundanity of the bus shelter. It had nothing to do with, what had the profiler said, childhood traumas about public transportation or some such nonsense. And if what she thought was true, it meant the lip gloss...
She reached for her phone. She had to tell the boss immediately. But then her hand slipped back. McLaughlin and D’Arcy were in the middle of an interview with an elderly woman with dementia. Fern was fizzing with excitement, proud of herself, but it would have to wait.
She jabbed distractedly at her keyboard, barely making out what she was seeing on the screen. And she thought back to Sonia’s story. Something had leaped out at her as she’d been reading it, caused a ripple of alarm in her, but she’d thought it had to do with the woman’s lack of punctuation or, worse, her small letter i. But it had been something else. And another gasp escaped her. Her mind spun. Now the answers seemed to be presenting themselves to her one after the other. Could it be that easy? Once you had all the pieces...and they fit...
She must find out, must ask Sonia...
She went back to Facebook and furiously typed another message to the woman, pressed send. But she could see Sonia was no longer online. She cursed.
Out of habit, she tapped on a few keys, pulled up a browser, read what was there...and the excitement, the happiness drained from her. Her eyes stared at the words. She struggled to believe what she was reading. Her hands had curled into fists. She brought the right one up to her mouth and pressed her teeth onto her forefinger, a sense of dread rising within her.
“Dear God in heaven!” she moaned.
They’d been lucky so far, living on borrowed time. But now that time had come to an end. She jabbed at the link, her eyes quickly scanned the page, her heart plummeting, then she pulled up another page, then another. Her heart sank further.
THUMBING HIS NOSE AT THE POLICE? said the first headline.
A second ran: THUMB SHOCK OF BUS SHELTER WOMAN
And a third, no doubt eager to keep up the celebrity aspect of the now double crime, THUMBS DOWN FOR EUROVISION?
“Lads!” Hawkins yelled to those few coppers at their desks around her. “The story’s broke!”
A moan went up from them all, and above the clanking of the radiators, a noise arose from the vultures camping outside the station. It sounded like a cheer.
CHAPTER 39
AS GREEN AS DERRY WAS—IT was Ireland after all—as McLaughlin drove D’Arcy further and further down the Culmore Road, the houses got larger and fewer, the trees taller and leafier, and the scenery became greener.
D’Arcy’s phone pinged, and she looked down. “The constables have the name of that mini-cab driver,” she said. “Declan Duffy.”
“We’ll see him after this Mrs. Heffernan,” McLaughlin said.
“I hope I’m not leading the investigation astray,” D’Arcy said.
“All avenues, all avenues,” McLaughlin hummed. “A wrong lead is better than no lead. Now, let’s turn our phones to vibrate. I don’t want your woman keeling over if we get any messages or calls while we’re with her.”
“Sir!” D’Arcy protested with a gasp but did as instructed.
The high stone walls of the retirement home grounds appeared on their left, and McLaughlin indicated and turned. They drove through the opened wrought-iron gate.
McLaughlin raised an eyebrow at the imposing red-brick Victorian-era structure they were approaching, three stories with large arched windows set amidst sprawling green grounds.
“Education must pay,” he said.
“Sir.”
He parked, and they walked toward the building.
D’Arcy had to put her back into it to push open the massive oak door, which was almost double her height. A well-dressed receptionist hurried over to them.
“You must be the detectives who called,” she said.
They introduced themselves and were guided to a luxurious group sitting room. The woman motioned to a velvet sofa and offered them tea and biscuits, which McLaughlin was keen to accept.
“Milk and three sugars,” he said, sinking into the luxury of the sofa.
“Have you any—”
“Herb-infused, would it be?”
D’Arcy scowled, but nodded her head. McLaughlin placed his hand over his smile. How did they always know D’Arcy would want herbal tea?
“Chamomile, lavender, hibiscus or lemon balm?”
D’Arcy seemed intrigued.
“Let me try to lemon balm, please.”
“Lemon and honey?”
She gave McLaughlin a look that said, ‘Am I that readable?’
“Thank you, yes.”
“And you are both in luck today,” the receptionist said. “Daphne is in high spirits and quite lucid today.”
McLaughlin felt a flush of relief. Maybe they would get pertinent information out of the woman.
As they were sipping their tea, and McLaughlin was dipping his HobNob into his, a young caregiver in a light blue uniform with white trim wheeled an elderly woman into the room. Daphne Heffernan was a skeletal woman, her silver hair thin on her head, her knuckles knobby, but with a kind face and a sparkle in her eye still. She was wearing a floral dress with a light green cardigan wrapped around her shoulders. A small silver cross hung from a dainty chain around her neck. McLaughlin swallowed quickly and as his hand was going toward his trousers, D’Arcy supplied him with a dainty serviette. He wiped his hands and patted his mustache.
“Hello, Mrs. Heffernan,” he said as D’Arcy pulled out her PNB, McLaughlin gathered to put the woman at ease. None of those new-fangled smartphones.
Daphne waved away the formality with a slender hand. “Please. Call me Daphne.”
McLaughlin grunted and shifted on the sofa.
“Thank you for agreeing to speak with us. We believe you were headmistress at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow in the early nineties, is that correct?”
“Yes, er, inspector?”
McLaughlin nodded. “Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow is a lovely school. My daughter Catherine goes there now.”
Daphne clasped her hands in delight.
“I’m happy to hear it. What year is she in?”
“Year 9.”
“Marvelous to be that young,” Daphne said.
Feeling D’Arcy tense with impatience at his side, McLaughlin now grunted and said, “As to why we’re here, but...I’m afraid to say we’re investigating the deaths of two of your former students.”
Daphne nodded her head sorrowfully. “I suppose you’ve been told I have slight dementia...”
Embarrassed, McLaughlin and D’Arcy nodded.
“It’s true that sometimes I lose track of...where I am or at times even who I am. But I do recall being told of the tragic death of Lily Feagins. And if I’m not mistaken, didn’t Margaret O’Dowd pass away just last night?”
“Aye, you’ve got it in one,” McLaughlin said. “However, they didn’t just die. They were murdered.”
Daphne shook her head as fingers crawled up to her cross. “Atrocious. Disgraceful. And just how things shouldn’t be. Why should those two young girls be dead when I’m still living?”
“Yes,” D’Arcy put in, “it’s against the way of the world, I agree. We wondered if you could tell us what you remember of the two of them. Were they friendly with each other?”
Daphne nodded. “Lily and Margaret were in the same year, and they were quite a pair.” Then she stopped, and a change overcame her. “Well...as it’s a murder investigation, I suppose I should tell you the truth. You asked me, young lady, if they were friendly to each other. Yes, they were. There were four of them, and they were great friends, inseparable, you might say.”
McLaughlin and D’Arcy eyed each other.
“There were four of them, you say?” McLaughlin asked.
Daphne nodded. “Linking arms in the corridors, sitting together in the canteen at dinnertime, always the four of them. And were they friendly to one another? Of course they were. Were they friendly to their classmates? To the other schoolgirls not in their year?” A hint of annoyance flickered in her rheumy eyes. One gnarled hand clutched the arm of her wheelchair tightly. “Absolutely not. They were terrible girls. They terrorized the school.”
The detectives were taken aback.
“Who—”
“The four of them were constantly in trouble, causing chaos, always being dragged into my office for disciplinary action. Their disciplinary logs were not pages but tomes. To put it succinctly, they were bullies. A gang. A gang of bullies. They would torment the other girls, younger, older, taller, shorter, it didn’t matter. Tearing up assignments of the more academically minded, rows both verbal and physical in the playground, their victims lining up before the medical room not an uncommon occurrence. These are only the incidents that came to my attention, of course. Presumably, there were more.”
“You said you disciplined them,” McLaughlin said. “What form did that take?”
Daphne held up a warning hand.
“Aye, I understand it was a different time,” McLaughlin assured the woman. “Sure, I lived through it myself. Look at the age of me. So you won’t hear any complaints from me.”
Daphne smiled. “No, by then there was no cane. No corporal punishment. Some might say unfortunately. We had to adhere to the new rules. The girls were given reprimands and warnings and, I must admit, frustrated dressings down by myself. The girls were given detention numerous times and once, when they had the bold-faced nerve to insert one student’s head into a, er, toilet bowl—atrocious behavior, as I’ve told you—all four were suspended temporarily. Unfortunately, the temporarily, I’m on about. That week was the most pleasant the school had seen in quite some time.”
Now McLaughlin looked at D’Arcy, and they were thinking the same thing: their views of the murder victims had changed. Revenge for some past offense, thought McLaughlin. Would they have to interview every girl who attended Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow the four years Lily and Margaret had studied there to get a lead?
D’Arcy asked, “Could you tell us who the other two girls in this gang were?”
Daphne paused, tapping her chin. “I can see the faces of those two ruffians as if they were sat there before me where you two are now, but I'm afraid I can't recall their names at the moment. But I do remember Lily and Margaret very well. Not that I’m saying they were the worst two. Perhaps they were all equally bad. But as I’ve just heard Lily and Margaret have...passed on, they come to my mind most easily.”
“Did you not notify the police?” McLaughlin asked.
“The first step was notifying the girls’ parents. They seemed to be apologetic if I’m getting it correctly in my mind. The years that have passed, you understand and,” she tapped her head, “my condition now. But whatever measures were put in place at home didn’t seem to translate into any changes of behavior. Disgraceful, they were. And, inspector,” she bent forward in her wheelchair, “no matter how bad it got, I doubt we would have involved the PSNI. We had the reputation of the school to consider.”
“But the other schoolgirls!” D’Arcy protested. McLaughlin pressed his elbow against her side, but she barreled on. “They were experiencing a living hell. For four years!”
Daphne shrugged. “Terrible, I admit. I thought I did everything I could to make things more pleasant for the, well, shall we call them victims of the terrible four? Assemblies on the prevention of bullying and what have you. But...” McLaughlin’s heart went out to the elderly woman as her eyes filled with tears. “I tried my best,” she said.
McLaughlin grabbed a serviette, a clean one, and handed it to her.
They sat uncomfortably as the woman before them sobbed a little. Then Daphne Heffernan dried her eyes and said, “But somehow, in the middle of their fourth year...that must have been...must have been...” She began counting on her trembling fingers, whispering numbers they couldn’t make out. “That would have been...1993 perhaps? Their last year, anyway, I remember they were preparing for their GCSEs, the bullying suddenly stopped.”
“It...stopped?” The surprise was evident in D’Arcy’s voice, then she suddenly jerked a little on the sofa. McLaughlin eyed her strangely.
“Yes, just like that,” Daphne said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “It was like they'd lost interest, moved on to something else. As if they’d received personality transplants. Pleasant, friendly, they were, and even had kind words for the other girls. The girls and myself, I must admit, were a bit wary at first, a bit suspicious. What might this mean? Were they putting us off our guard while in reality cooking up something awful? However, that proved not to be the case. And, again, if I’m remembering it correctly, it seemed to me they were not as inseparable as they had been before. No more commanding the corridors with their arms linked together. I never found out why.”
D’Arcy jerked again, and now McLaughlin understood why. He himself felt his phone vibrating in his pocket.
“Er,” he said, trying to concentrate on the woman before him, “do you remember anything else that might be useful, Daphne?”
The woman thought for a moment, her eyes narrowing in concentration. McLaughlin’s phone kept vibrating.
“Actually, I do remember something. After they left school, Lily and Roisin moved to London and became pop stars.” McLaughlin and D’Arcy were taken aback. “They were in a group called the Sparklettes and even represented the UK in Eurovision. I was so proud of them, that they'd turned their lives around like that.”
“Is it...Roisin, er,” McLaughlin snapped his fingers at D’Arcy.
“Gowan, sir.”
“Roisin Gowan you’re on about?”
A smile spread across Daphne’s face. “Roisin Gowan. Yes, of course.” She said matter-of-factly, “She was the third member of the gang.”
The detectives exchanged a surprised glance. It seemed like a picture they’d been looking at had just been turned upside down. They’d have to rethink their opinion of Roisin Obi, suddenly no longer the edgy sophisticate they had imagined she was.
“This is important information, Daphne,” McLaughlin said sharply. “Can you remember who the fourth girl in the gang was?”
Daphne's face clouded with concentration and then she shook her head sorrowfully. “I'm so sorry, I can't seem to bring it up. It's on the tip of my tongue, I know that, but the name won't come to me.”
“Please, Daphne,” D’Arcy leaned forward, pleading, and placed a hand on one of the woman’s. “It’s crucial for us. We need to know. You’ve got the name locked away somewhere. Please try to find it for us.”
Daphne gave D’Arcy an apologetic look. She was like a child who was feeling her parents’ disappointment.
“You know the name. I know you do,” D’Arcy urged like a cheerleader. “Tell us! Tell us!”
“B-but I don’t!” Daphne sobbed.
“Don’t push your woman too hard, D’Arcy,” McLaughlin said in a low voice.
The young woman was too headstrong. D’Arcy had empathy aplenty for the issues, concerns and plights of those around her age, but there seemed to be a black hole of it when it came to those older than her. Maybe it was because she was only 28. It made sense, but it wasn’t helping them right now.
McLaughlin faced the woman and, with a wave of the hand, said in a bright voice, “Och, sure, it’s no bother at all, Daphne. You’ve been a grand help to us. Don’t worry about it.”
Daphne smiled uncertainly, brought a hand to her eyes to wipe away the tears and folded both hands in her lap.
“Do you have any further need of me?” she asked, but the friendliness, the spirit, had disappeared from her eyes.
The detectives exchanged a secret glance, one of frustration, the other of sorrow. Now McLaughlin could hear D’Arcy’s phone vibrating again, and his own was doing the same thing.
They both stood up so abruptly Daphne Heffernan jerked back in her wheelchair.
“We must be getting off,” McLaughlin explained apologetically. “Pressing police matters. I’m sure you understand?”
Daphne nodded stiffly, but when she smiled, it was genuine again. Her gaze avoided D’Arcy.
“Thank you for your time, Daphne,” McLaughlin continued. “You’ve been very helpful. I really mean that.”
“It was lovely to see you, detective. I hope you catch whoever did this terrible thing.”
Daphne waved as they left the room, but it seemed directed only to the inspector.
The woman jerked back again as McLaughlin burst back into the room, vibrating phone clutched in his hand.
“Almost slipped my mind, Daphne, but Aisling, you know, the receptionist at Our Lady, sends her love and says she’ll be by to see you soon.”
Daphne’s face lit up.“Ah, dear Aisling. Thank you so much. A good day to you. God bless.” McLaughlin was just about to turn his back on her, head out the door and answer the call, when the smile on the woman’s face dissolved into a thin line. Her eyes glinted at him with sudden suspicion.
“But...who are you?” she asked.
