You'll Get Yours, page 38
Johanna had had her hand in the till as a matter of course. Maybe that’s why she had let it spill so casually to Roisin at the gallery opening. It hadn’t taken all that free booze to tell her former friend. They were mates from the old days and knew how those things went. What good were bosses if you wouldn’t steal from them?
Now, with Roisin threatening to grass her up to the peelers, Johanna had suddenly realized she’d been committing a crime, a punishable offense, for years. And she felt bad.
Johanna glanced down at the till before her, the very till she had been lifting the occasional five or ten quid from since the first day she’d been employed. It was easy enough to fiddle with the paperwork, as long as the customers paid cash. She looked next to the till and picked up the CASH ONLY sign she’d written, slipped it guiltily into her handbag. Then she took the TIPS jar, shook out the few pence pieces, placed them in her change purse, then put the jar into her handbag as well.
6:57.
The last bus to Letterkenny left at 7:35, but Johanna had plenty of time to get from Final Spinz to the Ulsterbus depot on Foyle Street. Just opposite, she shivered, where Margaret’s body had been found at the bus shelter.
She had her car. It was parked right outside the store. If she looked through the window, she could see it. And her overnight bag was sitting in the back seat; she had packed the night before. But the car was old and in need of repair. The transmission kept going out. She didn’t trust it to make the trip to Letterkenny, even though it was only 23 miles across the border. Worse, she didn’t want it to break down when she was at Rose’s, didn’t want to be holed up with her mother-in-law a second longer than necessary. The moment she heard the police had apprehended the killer, she’d race back to Derry. She only hoped that the PSNI really would apprehend him.
She hoped she’d be able to ride it out. With Donal in Birmingham and always off on one of his jobs, the kids grown up and living in far-flung locations, she was alone in the house more times than not. Maybe some companionship during this terrifying time would do her good, even it was only Rose. She’d have to pick up some white zinfandel for Rose. That’s what the woman drank.
6:59.
With a heave of relief, Johanna ran to the back, made sure all the machines were switched off, then locked up the till. She had survived. Now to flee to the bus depot. She wouldn’t be able to really relax until the bus revved up, and she was making her way out of Derry. Away from the killer.
She realized as she made for the front door, handbag swinging from her shoulder, she’d need to exchange some pounds for euros somewhere. And was there an off-license near the bus depot to pick up that wine?
She cursed as she opened the door and felt sprinkles of rain land on her head. She hoped the rain wouldn’t cause some sort of delay with the bus. She reached back inside to flip the OPEN sign to CLOSED and saw her hands were shuddering as she did it.
She looked up and down the darkened, rain-spattered street. Not a person in sight. She shivered as she locked the door to the dry cleaners.
Johanna felt eyes on her everywhere but tried to shrug off the feeling. She was getting paranoid. Still, she kept glancing up and down the length of the empty street as she walked across the pavement to her car. Thank God she’d found that parking spot just outside the dry cleaners.
She reached into her handbag for her car key, scrabbling frantically around for it. Her car was so old it didn’t have a fob. She finally located the key under the tips jar. The driver’s seat was on this side of the pavement. She went to place the key into the lock and saw it tremble uncontrollably between her thumb and forefinger.
It slipped out of her hand and fell to the ground before her.
Och, calm down, would you? Johanna chastised herself. For the love of God! You’d think the man’s hands were already wrapped around your neck!
She reached a hand out to the car door to steady herself as, with a groan, she attempted to bend down to retrieve the key. She really shouldn’t have stopped that dieting. She’d start again soon. Her fingertips scraped at the key, she grabbed it in the palm of her hand, feeling the drizzle which had now turned to rain seep into her sweater.
When she straightened back up, there he was with a brick in his hand. Holding it in the air over his head, ready to crack it into hers.
She fell against the back of the car in shock. He was smiling devilishly at her.
Her handbag fell to the ground. She put out her hands in defense.
“No...!” she whispered. “No.”
He didn’t look like what she’d thought.
Could that really be... her panicked mind thought. Is that him?
She had been expecting this. Perhaps it was as it should be. Two ruined lives intersecting. That night had maybe ruined his life, and now her own. She’d thought somewhere in the back of her mind they’d eventually meet again. It was what she deserved.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, hoping for mercy. “Oh, please. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry...”
But with a sinking heart, she could see that mercy would not come. She could tell from his snort, from the contempt in his steely eyes as they bored into hers, as he sneered and said, “I should fecking well hope so.”
As the brick in his hand, it was red, that was her last thought, smacked against her skull.
EIGHTH DAY
CHAPTER 44
“LISTEN UP, ALL,” MCLAUGHLIN said from the murder board. “First things first, though it’s the last thing I want to be doing.”
He grimaced as he stared sternly at the uniforms in the rows.
“One of you has compromised this investigation. One of you has put your own needs before those of seeing justice done for our two murder victims, Lily and Margaret. One of you has bloody well betrayed us. Betrayed me, my team here, your colleagues and, worst of all, yourself and everything we stand for, everything you were taught at the academy. I’m fuming, I’m raging, of course I am, keeping that in check as you can see, but most of all I’m disappointed. I’m not an eejit, I’m not expecting you to put your hand up and own up to it, but whoever blabbed to the press better hope I never find out who you are. You have revealed sensitive information about this investigation. And I’m not talking about the thumb and the knickers, though I’d have preferred that to stay silent. I have a suspicion that maybe your woman who came across Margaret’s body might have run off to the press because she needed an extension built to her house. I’m talking about the ferret hairs, as only one of us here could have disclosed that information. I’m, frankly, surprised you didn’t also spill the intel about the unmarked white van. Thank Christ you didn’t. You’ve put the perp on guard, but, let him know he’s made a mistake. Maybe made him more vigilant, more difficult to catch. As if we haven’t had enough difficulty on that front as it is. If I ever find out who you are, you’re going to wish you were never born. Simple as.”
He’d said he was keeping his anger in check, but as he’d been speaking, his face had taken on a reddish hue, and his hands were now curled into fists. He took a step back, shuddered for a second, then smiled and clapped his hands together. Compartmentalizing was one of McLaughlin’s specialties.
“Right! Not another word about it. Rant over. Let’s move past that.”
The uncomfortable shifting, the arms across the chests, the suspicious glares from one copper to the next abated.
“And...I’m happy to say there’s excellent news for us all.” McLaughlin rubbed his hands together in anticipation. It was as if the previous three minutes hadn’t happened. “It seems we’ve uncovered a connection between our two murder victims.”
There was a delighted murmuring from the rows.
“Thanks to the combined efforts of DC Ha—” McLaughlin peered beyond the heads to Fern’s desk. All he saw were three computers and an empty chair. He turned to D’Arcy. “Where’s DC Hawkins, then?”
D’Arcy shrugged. “Maybe held up in traffic, sir. Or struggling to get through the journalists at the front gate.”
The laughter that rang out could have been termed impatient. The constables wanted to hear about the connection.
“Moving on.” McLaughlin turned to the board, pointed at Margaret McGuff and Lily Feagins and said, “our two murder victims both attended the same secondary school together, Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow in Creggan Heights. More than that, though,” he went over to the crossed-out photo of Roisin Obi, “we have learned from the former headmistress, a Daphne Heffernan, that Roisin Obi, or Gowan as she was known back then, was also in their class. The three spent all four years together when they were schoolgirls, from the ages of 11 to 15 or thereabouts. So as not to confuse you, and myself, if truth be told, we know that later Lily and Roisin moved to London when they were about 19 to form the Sparklettes. These two, Lily, Margaret,” he removed Roisin’s photo from under THE SPARKLETTES and placed it under the photos of the VICTIMS, “and Roisin ran around together in a group—”
“It was a gang, sir,” D’Arcy said.
“If our information is correct then, yes, a gang. Their classmates and other girls in the school apparently had to suffer persecution and torment of all sorts that Lily, Margaret, Roisin and a fourth as yet undisclosed girl dished out on a regular basis.”
He drew a huge question mark next to Roisin, then circled the three photos and the question mark again and again. McLaughlin wrote FUTURE VICTIMS? over Roisin and the question mark.
“As for motive, sorry Lyons,” McLaughlin crossed out ART PROJECT and circled REVENGE FOR SOME PAST OFFENSE. “It’s all hypothetical, but it’s the best we have at the moment.”
Many hands were in the air.
“Who’s the fourth girl?” someone asked.
“That’s what we have to find out,” McLaughlin said.
“What about asking Roisin Obi?” someone else asked. “The other two are dead, but as she was in was in this gang, surely she knows the name of the fourth girl?”
McLaughlin shook his head. “Roisin Obi is incredibly stubborn. Refuses to admit she knew Lily and Margaret other than to say hello, if even that. As if we didn’t know she and Lily were in the Sparklettes together!”
Another hand. “But doesn’t the woman realize she might be next? Why wouldn’t she spill the beans?”
McLaughlin shrugged.
PC O’Shaughnessy said, “Shall we not haul her in for questioning? Tighten the screws on her?”
“It’s swiftly approaching that,” McLaughlin admitted. “We might have already done so with anybody else, but you have to tread carefully with these, er, celebrity types.”
There were scoffs in the rows.
“Even those whose stars have faded are still celebrities,” McLaughlin said.
Another hand went up. “What happened to Margaret? After the two went off to London?”
McLaughlin shrugged.
“She apparently stayed here in Derry. So...if you follow the timeline, whatever this ‘past offense’ is must have taken place when the three were together, so when they were schoolgirls. Lily had been back living in Derry for the last four years, but there’s no evidence she hooked up with her former partners-in-crime when she came back. In fact, from her attempts to change her name and appearance, it seems Lily wanted to distance herself from her past. Maybe from her past bad behavior as a teenager. We may never know exactly why she chose to reinvent herself as Regina Steps.”
Lyons said from the wall, “This past offense must have been something very bad for Lily to still be confessing it over and over after all these years, even though she did her penance after every confession. And it must also have been something very bad if it caused our perp to go on this murder spree.”
A hand and a confused face. “I’m sorry, boss, but...are we saying something happened when they were young? From twelve to fourteen?”
“It’s looking like that,” McLaughlin conceded.
PC Campbell asked, “But...the murderer is a male, isn’t he? And didn’t they wreak havoc at a girls' school?”
“Weren’t their victims the girls at school?”
“Maybe the brother of one of the girls is the perp?”
“Or the father?”
“That might be pushing it a bit. The father of a teen girl back then would be...what? Och, I can’t do the maths...”
D’Arcy jumped in. “Let’s say the youngest a father could have been was 18 when his child was born, the oldest, er, twenty-five. That would mean a father would have to be between 48 and 55 today. And I do believe that might be too old. This perp appears to be younger. All that heavy lifting.”
Another hand. “Two or three fathers together, then?”
“Or a brother?”
“Two or three brothers together?”
“Aye,” McLaughlin said with a little laugh, “or seven brides for seven brothers and all. This ‘past offense’ might not even be related to the school. If these four girls were terrors within the walls of the school, I doubt they were suddenly debutantes once they stepped out the gates of the school. I presume you wouldn’t want to cross their path no matter where you were, the corner shop, down the town, anywhere.”
“So...” Cahill said, “We might be looking at...one of their neighbors?”
McLaughlin shrugged.
“It seems we should interview all the girls who were students at school, but hundreds attended those four years... and if that turned up nothing, then interview all the inhabitants of the Moorside.”
He raised his eyebrows and shook his head.
“The press has been our enemy, especially now—” he glared knowingly into the crowd, “but maybe we can use them to our advantage for once. I’m considering asking DCI Nix to beg those who were victims of the gang’s bullying to come forward during one of those press conferences he gives almost nightly. Though...if this really is the motive our killer has, getting revenge for something they did to a friend or relative of his—or indeed to himself—he’s hardly going to step forward, now is he?”
There was uncomfortable shifting in the rows.
A hand went up. “Are you saying, boss, the perp was set upon by four teen girls?”
“It might be,” McLaughlin said.
The Sparklettes fan put up her hand. “We know the killer’s MO, how he left the bodies. I’m struggling to come up with a scenario in my mind with bullying that features, er, thumbs and knickers and strawberry lip gloss.”
A shiver went up through the masses. McLaughlin spotted Hawkins in the back creeping toward her desk. Her hair looked a mess, and she grimaced at her boss, mouthed ‘sorry’ and pointed at her watch. He gave her a nod.
“Sexual abuse of some kind?” someone was asking.
“Let’s hope not,” McLaughlin said with a grimace. “Not at that age. Fortunately, if our profiler has it right, these crimes show no evidence of being sexual in nature. So let’s hope and pray that’s not the case. One thing we do know is that the mini-cab driver, a Declan Duffy, seems to be a non-starter. D’Arcy and myself interviewed him yesterday and even though his alibi seems weak, considering what we now suspect the motive to be, I think we can discount him for the moment.”
He gave them a second to absorb this information.
“Right! On to breakthrough number two, the ferret hairs. The evidence of which, as we know, has now been leaked to the press.” He glowered at the crowd in general once more. “We know our perp drives an unmarked white van, and we strongly suspect he owns a ferret or comes into close contact with one. Hawkins has been putting feelers out to the, er, ferret-owning community of Derry. And,” he called to the back, “right on time, I must say, Hawkins! You can fill us in on the ferret. Any word from that Sonia?”
“Sonia Gallagher, sir,” Hawkins clarified. “She hasn’t answered as of yet. And there’s no way I can contact her without her accepting my friend request, which she hasn’t done. I checked directory inquiries, but she’s not listed.”
“Hmm,” McLaughlin mused. “Is there no way to find out where the woman lives? Can you check IP addresses or some such? Isn’t that something you can do?”
“So it’s a credible lead, boss?”
“I’m not sure about that, but we’re clutching at any straw that comes our way.”
“In that case...what I might do, boss, is...I can pull up photos from her profile. She and her boyfriend moved into a new house, and there are piles of photos. Apparently quite proud of her new place, so she is. I can quickly print out some of the photos now that everyone’s here in the incident room and pass them around, see if anyone knows the neighborhood to see. I think there are two from the front garden with views of the street.”
“Why don’t you do that, then,” McLaughlin said. He turned his attention back to the room. “While DC Hawkins is doing that, I believe PC O’Shaughnessy has some news for us? About the key and the lockup?”
D’Arcy bowed her head in shame. The constable had filled them in before the case review had begun.
“Aye, I do indeed,” PC O'Shaughnessy said, proud to have the spotlight shone on him. “PC Whittaker and myself went to Pence-A-Day and, after trying the key in almost every lockup in the place, wouldn’t you know that key fit in almost the last one we looked at.”
“So Lily Feagins had rented a lock-up,” McLaughlin said.
“Aye, but as Regina Steps, of course,” PC O’Shaughnessy said.
“It would never have entered my mind, sir,” D’Arcy said. “Given that the woman had moved from a tiny bedsit to a rather small flat. I’d gathered she would bring less with her from London rather than more. With her new identity, you see.”
“Doesn’t make sense, I grant you,” McLaughlin said. “But reveal to us, PC O’Shaughnessy, what your woman had in her lock-up.”
“She’d rented the smallest lock-up,” PC O’Shaughnessy said. “No larger than a work locker, if you can imagine. And the only things in it were two boxes of, well, her past life, you could say. Except for a passport under the name of Lily Feagins, I assume it was her real one, there was only memorabilia from her days in the Sparklettes. Posters, stickers, their albums on vinyl, what must have been some small gifts from fans. A photo album full of them up on stage during concerts and backstage and all. Parties. Things of that nature.”
