Alone with the Dead: A PC Donal Lynch Thriller (15 page)

Archway Tavern, London N19

Sunday, August 11, 1991; 14:00

Next day was one of those glorious mid-summer Saturdays when English people clog coast-bound motorways and Irish folk head to the pub.

The Archway Tavern’s back bar heaved, the big screen boomed and the blinds failed to block out the searing afternoon sunshine. I found Fintan leaning against a ledge nursing two stools and two pints. I took a quick scan: we had a perfect view of a screen and a short, clear path to both the bar and the gents. I marvelled at his attention to detail. He wouldn’t relax until he got exactly what he wanted.

I completed our traditional pre-match preparations by popping two more pints onto the ledge. Today was the most anticipated game of Gaelic football in our lifetimes. This was no longer just a game. This extraordinary encounter between two giants – Dublin and Meath – had come to represent the Titanic struggle between Ireland, new and old.

Dublin had a young team on the rise. They were slick, fast, smart, progressive: the future. Ageing Meath had been All-Ireland winners in ’87 and ’88. They were talented but cynical, dogged, pugnacious. Old Ireland. At least that’s how we read it.

These teams had already played three times and drawn three times – twice after extra time. Dublin had thrown away commanding leads in two of those games. Like New Ireland, the Dubs didn’t quite believe in themselves: not yet.

Before throw-in, Ireland’s trendy new liberal President Mary Robinson (Bright New Ireland) shook hands with both teams. A week earlier, she shook hands with the Dalai Lama against the express orders of the Prime Minister, Charles Haughey (Corrupt Old Ireland). Apparently Haughey – former IRA gunrunner, bribe-taker and friend to Mugabe, Castro, Gaddafi – took a dim view of Mr Lama and his hippie, spread-the-love ways.

Fintan and I were rooting for Dublin and a bright, new Ireland. To our dismay, most of the neutrals wanted the warriors of Meath to put these cocky young Dubs firmly in their place.

The Game not only lived up to the hype but eclipsed the
Rocky
-style pantomime drama of all that had gone before it. We all got totally sucked in. Dublin led all the way. Mulish Meath launched a typical comeback and, with seconds remaining, sealed a last-gasp, single-point victory. The white flags went up. The pub went up. Mayhem spilled out onto the busy Archway roundabout.

‘Another failed Irish revolution,’ spat Fintan.

The sombre opening notes of U2’s ‘One’ rose from the jukebox, offering succour. The window blinds and big screens rolled up. Thick smoky shafts of sunshine sought us out, grim reality’s merciless searchlights. I felt washed out, dried out, post-cinema depressed.

I looked around. A low evening sun burned hard, silhouetting everyone near the large windows and open doors. Everything else in the pub looked sepia and somehow suspended in time.

A rim-lit figure came striding through the main door, purposeful, confident, entitled. I recognised that gait. I turned to see Fintan’s tired eyes darken. As the silhouette got closer, it slowly morphed into a woman with a dark brown bob, smiling so hard that she couldn’t seem to blink. I felt sure I knew her, but I couldn’t quite place the face.

‘I thought I’d find ye here,’ she said.

I would have walked past her on the street.

‘Jesus, Donal, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ laughed Eve Daly, coming in for a hug.

She didn’t hug Fintan, who just stood there bloodless and open-mouthed, like a dead fish.

‘You were right, Fintan,’ she said, ‘suspended sentence. We got the verdict at the High Court yesterday, in camera. The media doesn’t even know.’

‘That’s great, really great,’ Fintan said, but he seemed rattled.

‘Are you not going to buy me a drink then, after all the exclusives I gave you?’

That snapped him out of it.

‘Of course. Your usual?’

She nodded and I frowned in confusion as he scuttled off. How did he know her ‘usual’? What did she mean: ‘you were right’? What the hell was going on?

‘He’s been my rock,’ said Eve, her cat green eyes glazing slightly, ‘I wouldn’t be standing here now if it wasn’t for him.’

‘What do you think?’ she said, palming her new brown bob in disbelieving hands. ‘No one’s recognised me yet,’ she added, turning to the bar to double check.

I hadn’t the heart to say it sucked the prettiness right out of her. I was too busy trying to work out what had been going on between her and Fintan.

‘I wrote to you, four times …’

‘I know, I’m sorry, Donal, it was just crazy. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. I wanted you to get on with your own life. And now I hear you’re a copper. Jesus.’

‘Detective Constable, actually,’ I smiled.

‘Oh my God,’ she laughed, shaking her head at the good of it, ‘why?’

I stopped myself saying: ‘Because of what happened to you.’ Too corny. Too soon.

Fintan almost ran back with drinks. I’d never seen him shaken before. I liked it.

‘Eve here has been telling me how you’ve been her rock,’ I spat bitterly, emboldened by the drink.

He ignored me. So did Eve.

‘I told my legal team to do what you said, Fintan, and it worked a treat.’

Pennies were starting to bounce off my thick skull. Fintan had been pulling the strings for her all along, even from London. No wonder he looked uncomfortable.

‘I wish we’d pushed it further now,’ she went on, ‘I reckon we could have negotiated an acquittal.’

‘I’d no idea you two were still in touch,’ I said, glaring at him. He kept his focus firmly on Eve.

I turned to her: ‘Pushed what?’

She looked at Fintan, who finally spoke: ‘Haven’t you heard? We’re the poster boys of Europe. We’ve agreed to sign the Maastricht Treaty without a referendum. That means single currency for Europe, grants galore for Ireland.’

Eve took up the slack, Bonnie to Fintan’s Clyde: ‘So we threatened to take my case to the European Court. They shat themselves!’

They shared a conspiratorial grin.

‘Another masterstroke,’ she said, raising a glass which he met almost instinctively. Another quiverful of flaming arrows sliced through me.

‘Where are you staying?’ I demanded.

‘Hammersmith, a bail hostel.’

‘Sounds grim.’

‘Are you kidding me? After Mountjoy, a single room in Hammersmith is heaven.’

‘And what brings you over here, Eve?’

‘My barrister thrashed out a deal, me coming over here and lying low was part of it, at least until the vote goes through parliament and the treaty is signed. When it all blows over, well, let’s see …’

She smiled at me and my skin ignited. Fintan asked if we fancied another. We looked at each other and nodded, smiling.

‘G and Ts please,’ we said as one and laughed. ‘Lime not lemon!’ demanded Eve.

‘No problem,’ said Fintan, gathering up some empties which I’d never seen him do before, ‘you two must have so much to talk about.’

The next round seemed to calm us all down as Eve and Fintan regaled me with every stage of their three-year joint operation to beat her murder rap.

As I learned more about their hilarious law-bending japes, I felt alternating twinges of resentment and confusion. Why had he kept this secret from me? How close had my brother got to the love of my life? Surely they hadn’t …?

As soon as she set off to the loo, finally, I launched into him.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were still in touch?’

‘She asked me not to. She wanted you to get on with your life.’

‘So you’ve been helping her, all along?’

‘She gave me so many stories. I owed her.’

‘Even after you came over here? There were no scoops in it for you then, Fintan. Why did you stay in touch? What was in it for you?’

‘Like I said, I felt like I owed her. And you know what she’s like. She wouldn’t stop calling. Look, she didn’t have a friend in the world, Donal. Her own family fucked off back to New York. Someone had to try and help her.’

‘Why do you always have to hold secrets over people? Is it the only way you can function?’

‘Look, she’s here now isn’t she? If you want to rekindle your relationship, then now’s your chance. She’s nothing to do with me. Go for it.’

I took that as a clear signal: Fintan had no hold over her.

She got back to our silent scowls: ‘Talking about me, were ye?’

I felt a jolt of rage. ‘You know something, Eve, we weren’t fucking talking about you actually, because we’ve all moved on. You’re not the centre of our universe anymore,’ I stopped myself from yelling.

The horrible truth was: we
had
been talking about her. I hadn’t moved on at all. My ego was even hoping she’d come to London to rekindle our relationship.

At some point later, I realised I was badly out of training for drinking, Irish-style. Everything became a blur, save for fragmentary moments of lucidity that seemed to last forever. Like when I got back from the loo at one point, to find Eve clearly agitated.

‘I was just telling Eve here about your gift,’ Fintan sniggered, ‘you get visited by the dead, isn’t that right, Donal?’

She looked at me, almost accusingly: ‘What’s all this about?’

She refused to let me laugh it off, so I found myself running her through my entire history with Marion Ryan: how she attacked me at home and in my car, before appearing to me twice near Sangora Road in broad daylight. She hung on every word, a rapt audience of one, while Fintan took the piss.

‘He tells me Meehan came to him too,’ he sneered.

The night stopped dead at the mere mention of his name. A sickening angst took root in my core.

‘Oh my God,’ Eve mouthed, her face blanching, ‘I feel sick.’ She got to her feet and dashed to the ladies. The next fragment: Eve murdering an Irish folk song: Fintan and I sneering at how so many Irish women think they’re Aretha Franklin after a skinful. Amid the aural bloodletting, I was struck by a verse:

So soon may I follow,

When friendships decay,

And from Love’s shining circle,

The gems drop away.

When true hearts lie withered,

And fond ones are flown.

Oh! Who would inhabit

This bleak world alone?

Fintan, self-styled music guru, told me it was an ancient ballad called ‘The Last Rose of Summer’.

Then Eve launched into ‘Summertime’, Fintan explaining how that song had been ripped off from an old Negro classic, ‘Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child’. As Eve demanded and got the attention of the entire bar, I wondered if her subconscious mind somehow knew this.

At some stage, one of those generic Irish country bands that specialises in sedating pissed immigrants spurted into life. They duly churned out the bog-standard repertoire of corny ditties and misery-milking ballads we’d all heard a thousand times before.

When lost love and the joys of hole-digging failed to rouse the rabble, they belted out a good old IRA song. I watched the crowd whooping and howling in delight, their pockets bulging with Sterling.

I bid the place ‘an Irish farewell’, slipping unnoticed out of a side door, leaving my homicidal ex in the sole care of my morally bankrupt brother. I couldn’t help thinking what a perfect couple they’d make.

Clapham Police Station, South London

Monday, August 12, 1991: 10:00

Next morning, the incident room crackled. Teams yapped like excited hounds, the scent of prey tickling their impatient noses. Shep’s bold decision to get everyone pissed and onside Friday had been his first masterstroke. Judging by the atmosphere, the weekend’s four-pronged assault on Peter Ryan and Karen Foster had been his second.

At the centre of it, Shep darted about, desk-to-desk, like some deranged orchestra conductor. He’d bark a brief question, place his hands to his lips, prayer-like, then listen hard, head bowed, to the long and winding replies. Occasionally his hands would fall, he’d lean forward professorially and squint at whatever he was being shown on a computer screen or a map.

After an hour, he looked set to burst with excitement and called an impromptu briefing.

‘Now, I’d like each team to enlighten us about what they found out over the past two days. But please, give me the baby, not the birth.’

He pointed first to DC Young, the female officer who’d been so clearly unoffended by Peter Ryan’s flirting.

‘A couple of colleagues at the Pines revealed that Peter and Karen had been an item some years back, perhaps three or four years ago.’

‘Why did no one mention this before?’ asked Shep. ‘And why haven’t Peter or Karen mentioned it at all? If only to prove it’s over between them? Or that it was just a fleeting thing?’

‘Their colleagues said the same thing; it had been so brief and it was finished by the time he met Marion. In fact, they were under the impression that Karen had grown close to Marion. They talked about them going to the pub together, quite often.’

‘But one colleague has a different story to tell. Isn’t that right, DC Young?’

She failed to completely suppress a smile.

‘I spoke to Bethan Trott. She’s the nurse who watched TV with Karen and her sister Laura between five thirty and six p.m. on the day of Marion’s murder. When I asked her about the nature of Peter’s relationship with Karen, she became a little uncomfortable.

‘I pressed her and she finally started to open up. She told me that after Peter and Marion got married last June, they moved into a room in the staff accommodation quarters at the home which happened to be next door to hers. Around the same time, Karen asked Bethan for a spare key to her room so she could go there to watch TV when it was quiet. Bethan agreed. Bethan now claims that she returned to her room on several occasions to find her eavesdropping on Peter and Marion.

‘On one occasion, Karen had written a list of the presents Peter had bought Marion for her birthday and had added the words “sick, sick, sick” at the bottom of the page. When Bethan asked her why, she said something along the lines of “if only she knew what he was up to behind her back”. Bethan said she’d forgotten about this incident until a few days ago, when she found the piece of paper under her bed. Karen must have dropped it as she listened to them next door.’

Shep interjected: ‘I’ve got that piece of paper here, if anyone wants to see it. She’s scrawled the words “sick, sick, sick” in manic writing across the bottom.’ He nodded for WPC Young to continue.

‘On another occasion, Bethan found Karen in her room in tears. When she asked what was wrong, Karen said that Peter was taking Marion away for a weekend, adding words to the effect of “he won’t even spend the night with me”. When Bethan asked her what she meant by this, Karen clammed up. So Bethan decided to do some investigating of her own.’

The air in the incident room fizzed, charged, electric.

‘Last November, she saw Karen and Peter enter a shed in the grounds of the home where Peter has a desk. Fifteen minutes later, Karen emerged, as Bethan put it, “dishevelled”. She’s convinced that they’d had sex in the shed.

‘A few days later, she confronted Karen, who denied having any sort of sexual relations with Peter Ryan, insisting that they were just good friends. Bethan claims she believed her, which is why she hasn’t mentioned any of this before.’

Shep swelled with almost unbearable self-satisfaction, a raging blush igniting both cheeks.

‘So, Peter Ryan and Karen Foster were having sex late last year, just months after Peter had married Marion. The challenge now,’ he declared, all-conquering, Churchillian, ‘is to prove that Karen Foster acted upon her obsession with Peter Ryan, by killing Marion.’

‘Obsession?’ scoffed McStay, holding up a VHS tape. ‘If Karen had some sort of homicidal hatred for Marion, then why did she attend their wedding in Ireland last summer? Karen is on this video, having a great time. Certainly looking nothing like the woman scorned.’

‘I’m sure she presented well to camera,’ sniffed Shep.

McStay wasn’t done: ‘It’s worth noting that Peter Ryan is still staying with Marion’s family up in Enfield. They don’t suspect him of any wrongdoing whatsoever. They’ll be shattered by this accusation.’

That punctured the euphoria. The O’Learys had been almost saintly in their dignity and patience. They really didn’t deserve a sordid sub-plot.

Shep set about resurrecting the mood: ‘DS Barratt. Tell us please what you discovered from Peter’s best friend?’

‘Not his best friend, Guv, his best man, who comes from his home town in Ireland but lives in North London.’

Shep blinked impatiently.

‘He told us that Peter and Marion were planning to move to Ireland in the autumn to start a family. They hadn’t told their families yet: they were waiting until Marion was pregnant.’

Shep decided to editorialise for anyone failing to keep up: ‘Karen got wind of these plans. Time was running out for her and Peter, the man she loved.’

I wondered if, on the sly, he read his wife’s Mills and Boon books.

Barratt remained deadpan: ‘Well we need to find out if Karen actually knew about these plans first, Guv.’

Shep ignored him and turned to the last of the four teams. Maurice, the younger of the pair, spoke up: ‘We found out something from Pam Foster, Karen’s mother. She attended Clapham police station on the night of the murder while Karen and Peter were making their initial statements. When they were finished, she offered to drive Peter to Marion’s parents’ home. He told her that he couldn’t face them, and stayed the night at the Foster family home in South London, on the couch apparently.’

Shep raged: ‘So we let the two prime suspects spend a night together, to get their stories straight. And we didn’t even know about it? Christ almighty.’

Shep wasn’t as rattled as me. I realised I’d forgotten to read those initial statements made by Peter and Karen on the night of the murder. They’d given these statements raw – before their all-night, post-murder conference. If they were going to slip up, it would be in there.

I scolded myself for making such a basic error. As soon as this briefing ended, I’d gut those initial statements. But at that moment, I faced a more immediate dilemma. I realised that if I flagged up my stranger suspect, Robert Napper, Shep would probably destroy me.

He was coming to me next, soft soaping the old guard in the meantime: ‘Of course, we still have to keep an open mind about other potential suspects. Peter and/or Karen could have roped in an accomplice. And, of course, the Lone Wolf Killer line of enquiry remains open. Lynch, did you come across anything we need to check out?’

My face burned. I had to flag up Napper.
I had to
. If I chickened out and Napper struck again, I’d never forgive myself.

‘Yes, actually I think there is someone we need to check out, Guv,’ I said, my voice shaking slightly. I felt like a noise pollution officer shutting down a banging party.

‘Did a Lone Wolf jump out of the paperwork and bite you?’ he laughed.

The sniggers sucked the last drop of moisture from my throat.

I told them about the Green Chain Attacks. I pointed out the obvious connections to Marion’s murder: the suspect had escalated, he’d used a knife, he’d targeted women both in public spaces and in their homes.

So far, so plausible. I then hit them with the notes that put Napper in the frame: the first written by the patrol officer who caught him hanging around a woman’s back garden (‘abnormal, rapist, indecency type’), then the note which described the rape claims he’d made to his mother.

That last revelation shocked even these gore-hardened hounds.

‘Christ, what sort of pervert would boast about a rape to his own mum?’ said Shep to murmured agreement.

‘So what sex attacks on local Commons did you find to match his confession?’ asked Shep.

‘Well, none, Guv, but I think it’s worth checking him out.’

‘What’s his form?’ asked Shep, irritably.

‘Er, not much,’ I mumbled, my cheeks sizzling like fried rashers, ‘possession of an air rifle in ’86.’

I sounded half-hearted, it sounded half-arsed.

‘And?’ said Shep, chewing his lip.

I shrugged: ‘That’s it,’ I said, trying not to swallow my own voice box. Nobody moved a muscle.

Shep spoke patiently, as if to a child: ‘So he’s got no form for a crime like this, and the note from his mother is from nearly two years ago and doesn’t match any reported crime?’

‘That’s correct, Guv, but it’s not every day a mother shops her son for rape. She must know more. He must be some sort of deviant.’

‘I think you’re clutching at straws, Lynch. I mean none of the Green Chain Attacker’s victims were stabbed, correct? As far as I know, the attacks all took place in public places. I just don’t see the connection.’

‘He may have struck in someone’s home. We just don’t know yet. But in conscience, Guv, I had to bring this guy to your attention. This nutter is the only person I could find who’s on the loose and capable of this level of violence. He’s escalated to this. He’s worth checking out. That’s all I’m saying.’

Shep shook his head: ‘This is a weirdo who lurks in the bushes at night and jumps on random women. You think he suddenly took a bus to Clapham, saw Marion and decided to stab her up?’

Childhood humiliations flooded through me.
Can someone else go in goal now?

‘He might have been stalking her?’ I heard my feeble voice plead.

Shep smiled: ‘Do you think he brought his airgun with him, on the bus?’

That got a laugh.

‘Lynch, get the officers at Plumstead to check him out. Can you stick to solving this case for now?’ he said with a mixture of disgust and pity. I hoped to God he’d let it go.

Shep surveyed his flock slowly, dramatically. He leaned forward and spoke quietly, conspiratorially: ‘Let’s be bold and run with the idea that Karen Foster murdered Marion.’

Hang on
, my mind protested,
the pathologist said it had to be a man
. My memory flashed back to Karen that night, convulsing as I questioned her. That can’t have been an act.

But Shep had the blinkers back on: ‘Okay, so based on what we’ve got, Karen takes the afternoon off work. She meets her accomplice. She either brought the weapon with her, the accomplice brought it or they went somewhere to pick it up. They drive to Marion’s home at Sangora Road. She and the accomplice park where they can see the far end of the street and the front door. Marion turns into Sangora on foot just after five forty p.m. Karen and the accomplice meet her at the bottom of the steps to 21. One of them is carrying a bag containing the weapon and a change of clothes.

‘They explain that Peter has asked them to bring some pots from the house to the Pines – they’re too big for him to carry on the train. Remember, according to Peter and Karen, that’s the reason she drove him back to the house that night. Peter may have mentioned this to Marion that morning, to prime her. Marion lets them in. She picks up her post and leads them up the stairs to the flat. On the landing, one of them stuns her with a blow. She falls. They go to work.

‘According to the pathologist, the attack took two to three minutes. They change out of their bloody clothes, leave the house, get back to the car and return to the Pines old people’s home where Karen is seen just after six.’

I wondered if I was the only one not buying it. Either way, Shep kept selling.

‘Was Peter involved? I think that’s the toughest nut to crack right now.

‘Check out Karen and Peter’s bank and phone records. Get back to the Pines. We need to look at their precise movements on the day of the murder again. Who saw them and at what times exactly? Check out if anyone working at the Pines or anyone employed there in the past twelve months has form for violence. Also find out if any of them has a martial arts belt. Remember, Marion was knocked out by a karate-style chop.

‘The first thing I was told when I joined this investigation was that both Karen and Peter have watertight alibis. But do they? Have we really challenged those alibis rigorously? I don’t think we have,’ said Shep, resisting the temptation to leer at McStay and Barratt.

‘I want them both brought in for interview. Get Karen in first. With Bethan’s revelations, we can really shake her up. I think she’s our prime suspect. Mulroney and Gibson, oil the thumbscrews. Lynch, help them prepare for the interviews. I want nothing short of a full confession from her about the affair with Peter, then a full confession to the murder of Marion. It’s her time to bleed, understood?’