Cold Steel (22 page)

30

5.17pm, local time,

Boston, Massachusetts.

The Delta Airlines 747 touched down at Boston's Logan Airport one hour late, courtesy of a traffic controllers' go-slow. Bright sunlight glinted off the control tower as Frank Clancy squinted through the window, trying to catch a glimpse of the downtown city. Inside the main terminal he first rang Springton Hospital but couldn't get through to his contact. He made an appointment for the following morning. Next he went through a hotel reservations agency, passing up a room at the Ritz Carlton for a more modestly priced stay at the John Jeffries. 'It's a turn-of-the-century grand house in the affluent Beacon Hill district,' the agency explained, 'and it's been renovated to modern standards without shedding its original architectural details.' Clancy couldn't have cared whether it was a steel-and-glass monstrosity, he just wanted a bed for the night without bankrupting himself.

He took the subway, got off at Government Centre T-stop and flagged a yellow cab. It was a warm, humid day and perspiration formed on his brow quickly. The John Jeffries was more than comfortable. It boasted a graceful double parlour with Federal-style New England decor.

'How long will you be staying with us, Dr Clancy?' asked the dark-haired receptionist.

'Just tonight.'

'Seems very short after such a long journey.' His personal details were being entered.

Clancy managed a grin. 'Story of my life, always chasing my tail, always behind time, always rushing.'

The girl smiled and handed back his passport. 'Enjoy your trip anyway.'

He caught her staring at his hair. 'I'm trying a new image,' he said hurriedly.

The girl leaned across the reception counter, looked up and down, then whispered. 'It ain't working.'

Clancy blushed.

In his room overlooking the Charles River he was surprised to find French-country furnishings and spent the first few minutes admiring their detail.' But exhaustion from the flight caught up and he finally gave in, slumping down in a deep armchair and staring out at the traffic on the waterway. Young, muscular arms dragged long, narrow oars in and out of the river, their splashes throwing dances of rippling rainbow in the strong sunlight. White-sailed yachts drifted lazily in the gentle winds, disturbed only by high wash from passing motorcraft. On the opposite side of the river the buildings of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology seemed to edge towards the shoreline. Drained with tiredness, Clancy eased himself onto the double bed and soon fell asleep.

He was awakened by the shrill ring of the telephone, maid service wondering could they turn his bed for the night. Groggy and disorientated he squinted at his watch in the unexpected gloom, discovering it had turned eight o'clock, local time. Grunting a reply he showered first to freshen, then changed clothes. An hour later he was sitting comfortably in a small Italian restaurant off Commonwealth Avenue sipping on a glass of deep red Barolo. His hunger was intense and he chewed on the fresh bread set before him, scanning the menu. He ordered a fish starter and pasta, then relaxed back in his seat, watching the world go by outside.

The tables filled with a mixture of college students and confidently underdressed youthful business types murmuring into mobile phones between mouthfuls of steaming spaghetti. The women looked better dressed than the men, even more confident. He felt out of place.

'I'll have the other half of that bottle,' he suggested. 'Dutch courage.'

The waiter grinned. 'Why not, it's gonna be a long night.'

It is indeed, thought Clancy as the cork popped and his glass was topped. He relaxed, the wine easing his tension. I wish Anne and the children were here. If she had the slightest inkling where I am this minute she'd pack and leave. I wouldn't blame her. The uncertainties began edging back. There's still time to cut and run. Grab the first flight out tomorrow, be back on the wards by late afternoon. Nobody need know. He suddenly realised he was the only sole diner and the loneliness became acute. He wished he'd brought a photo of the kids. In the hurry to flee without being tailed he'd forgotten mementoes. He spotted an abandoned copy of the
Boston Globe
and began scanning its pages, anything to take his mind off home. Between mouthfuls of pasta he read about lives and events in Massachusetts that meant nothing to him until he spotted a headline.

BOSTON PHARMACEUTICAL CO MAKING ITS MARK

This year is shaping up like last with strong performances by a number of big stocks and sectors on the NYSE. Among these the pharmaceutical sector has been second only to the banks in investment performances.

Since January the Dow Jones All Share Index has appreciated by approximately fourteen percent while pharmaceutical stock has jumped an impressive twenty-eight percent. The coincidence of political remission, strong demand growth and attractive product development has been accompanied by a period of industry consolidation and drive for global strength. Clients should maintain a reasonable exposure to the sector
through our key choice recommendations: SmithKline Beecham; Glaxo; Zeneca and local Boston company, Cynx. Buzz in the industry suggests Cynx is about to release final clinical trial results on a new cardiac wonderdrug and well-placed leaks have driven the share price to $19.59. Wall Street analysts are dismissing talk of a possible takeover of Cynx by one of the multinational pharmaceutical giants.

Clancy set his fork down slowly and reread the article. His appetite vanished. The uncertainties vanished. The final pieces in the jigsaw were coming together. He tore the page out and folded it into his pocket. Quite a little scrap-book you're building up.

Back in his hotel room he flicked through the Boston area
Yellow Pages
until he found the hospital section. Map alongside, he tracked down Springton to an area between Brookline and Huntingdon Avenues where a number of institutions were located. Beth Israel Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, the Children's Hospital, the Massachusetts Mental Health Centre and Harvard Medical School all clustered the same zone. By his reckoning, Springton was about two blocks from the Wentworth Institute, off Ruggles Street.

He climbed into bed but lay awake, tossing and turning. Once or twice he dozed off, only to be woken by the pounding of his heart. I'm getting closer.

11.37 pm, Dublin.

'Who's that?'

Clarke, Molloy and Kavanagh stood in the porchway of number 17 Mercers Road, five houses from the T-junction and cul-de-sac with The Palms apartment block. Two floors above a light burned in a front room.

'Who are you?'

The door had been opened by an elderly man who'd
taken one look at his unexpected visitors and immediately slammed it shut. Molloy rang the bell again, pushed the letter box open, and shouted inside. 'It's the police, don't worry, it's only the police.'

The lock slipped and this time an inch gap was offered. A security chain had been dragged across and a set of suspicious eyes glared out. 'How do I know that? Where's your identification?'

There was no mistaking the edginess in the voice. Badges were flashed and inspected.

The suspicious eyes narrowed further. 'Why are you calling at this hour?'

Molloy sighed. 'We're investigating the murder of the girl found in the park last week. You probably heard about it? Jennifer Marks? Daughter of the heart surgeon?'

The suspicious eyes never moved.

'We were in the park just now and noticed the light in the room above.' Molloy looked upwards and suspicious eyes followed. 'We were wondering if anyone was in the room that night and maybe heard something? We don't need to come in. Can you help with that?'

The security chain was slipped and suspicious eyes pulled the door back. 'I'm sorry,' he grumbled, 'since that wee girl's murder nobody feels safe around here.'

The three made sympathetic noises. He was a small man, slightly stooped and bald. He was in a tartan dressing gown and wearing fleece-lined slippers. A pipe stem poked out from one of the side pockets with tobacco stains marking the spot. While the gesture of opening the door confirmed he did not feel threatened, he stood his ground. 'That light's left on every night. It's a deterrent against burglars. No one uses the room, it's empty.'

Molloy kept a fixed smile but behind Clarke cursed deeply.

'I live on my own and I didn't hear or see a thing that night. Didn't even know anything had happened until I read about it in the papers the next day.'

Molloy continued to smile. 'Sorry for disturbing you so late. If you think of anything please let us know.'

The door closed in their faces.

The cursing group had reached the T-junction when they heard the old man's call. He stood at his front gate, one hand clutching his dressing gown to his throat, the other waving for attention.

'There's a young fella in that block of flats who might be able to help. He's a bit simple, but he keeps some sort of diaries and log books of everything that goes on around here. He might know something.'

'Which flat?' shouted Clarke.

'Seven, I think. Yeah I'm sure it's seven. The one at the front with the lights on now. Try number seven.'

'Look, we don't want to disturb him at this hour.'

Molloy had identified the trio, then apologised for calling so late, then pushed his luck by asking about the 'young lad' who spent his time looking out the window. His ring had been answered on an intercom at the bolted front door to The Palms. A woman's voice had quizzed him for almost five minutes. They were then ordered onto the road while she looked them over from a window on the first-floor landing. Finally each was called in turn while a plump grey-haired woman in navy tracksuit inspected. She relented and allowed Clarke in first. Molloy and Kavanagh watched from the darkness while he was grilled. A man of about sixty from the ground floor joined in. He squinted through the door at the two outside, then insisted Clarke phone HQ (which he insisted on dialling) and listened to the exchanges before taking the receiver and directing his own probing questions. Satisfied, Molloy and Kavanagh were allowed inside and up the stairs to number seven.

'He doesn't sleep at night,' wheezed the woman. Her clothes smelled heavily of cigarettes.

'Never?' asked Clarke, anxious to make small talk.

'Rarely. Whatever happened to him at the accident
knocked his sleeping routine. Sleeps all day and lies awake all night.'

'That must be difficult,' Clarke said.

'It's a nightmare,' the woman panted as she ushered the three into the living room. There was a small sofa, two high-backed lounge chairs and a large, wide-screen TV in one corner. A small coffee table peeped from underneath a pile of newspapers. Cigarette burns had destroyed a specked blue carpet and the smell of stale smoke hung everywhere.

'Would you like a fag?' Three heads shook. 'Do you mind if I light up? The name's Annie, Annie Carton.' The three didn't mind and thanked her anyway. 'He's twenty-five really, but the clinic say he hasn't moved beyond the mental age of a twelve-year-old.'

Annie Carton drew heavily on an untipped cigarette and coughed slightly before plumping herself down on one of the high-backed chairs, blowing smoke into the air. The three visitors squeezed onto the sofa and immediately regretted the move there was so little space. Kavanagh made a face at Molloy behind Clarke's back.

'He's slow in his speech and body movements. He's not slow at understanding, mind you,' she added unhappily. 'He misses nothing.' The quarter-burned cigarette was ground out.

'What happened?' asked Clarke.

'Every parent's nightmare. Coming home from school on his bicycle and turned out in front of a car. For a while we didn't think he would live at all his head was so badly smashed. But the doctors never gave up and he pulled through.' She stopped as she remembered, then lit up another cigarette and drew deeply on it. 'He was months in rehabilitation, lost his memory completely.' Her gravelly voice rose. 'He couldn't even remember his own mother and father. That's what they gave us back. Sometimes I wish he had died.' She rested her forehead on an upturned palm and stared at the floor, weary and resigned.

Clarke interrupted. 'Does he spend most nights looking out the window?'

Annie lifted her gaze. 'Aye. And writes down everything in one of his exercise books. He's been doing that since he came home. He's got every train, plane and bus timetable under the sun in that room.'

'Could we have a few minutes with him?'

'I suppose the break in routine will cheer him up. Go ahead. Don't tire him out, though.'

Clarke promised.

Annie Carton started to light up another cigarette, stopped, then dumped the packet back on the coffee table. 'Call him Danny.'

Danny Carton sat propped up on a pile of pillows on his small single bed. The bed was positioned to the side of the room, one edge tight beside the only window. Clarke noticed this immediately. The room was tiny, no more than ten-foot square, but furnished for maximum use of space. One wall carried a network of shelves with portable TV, CD player and computer terminal. To the left, another shelf unit held books from floor to ceiling, mostly computer manuals and soccer annuals. In a neat pile in another corner were train, plane, boat and bus timetables. The walls held posters of Liverpool football team.

Danny Carton smiled when his mother walked into the room, then frowned as the three detectives followed awkwardly behind.

'It's okay, Danny,' promised his mother. 'These are policemen. They just want to talk to you about your hobbies.'

A puzzled look spread across Danny Carton's face.

'You know, all the statistics on the area.' Annie Carton winked conspiratorially at Molloy. 'Danny calls his work statistical analysis.' She turned back and grinned and her son's face lit up.

Clarke hobbled over and sat down heavily on the
bottom of the bed, making it creak and sag.

'Be careful,' warned Danny. 'The nurse sat on that end one day and the leg came off.'

The voice was slow and laboured with a profound nasal twang. The man/boy had short ginger hair, cut pudding-bowl style, and a heavy freckled face. His eyes were bright and alert and for a moment Clarke could sense the man behind the boy and his heart ached for the loss. One side of the freckled face was slightly weak and saliva collected on the corner of his mouth. Clarke noticed a pile of used paper tissues stuck in a plastic bin. Danny was dressed in denim trousers, cut short above the ankle, and a black T-shirt. In his left hand he clutched a pen. Lying on the crocheted bedspread was a simple lined exercise book. The book was open and out of the corner of his eye Clarke noticed that day and date. It was written in careful, child-like capitals at the top of the right-hand page with a number of further entries beneath. He nodded towards the book.

'Are we in that?'

Danny Carton looked down and poked at the book nervously with the pen, turning it round and round. Then he picked it up and peered closely, holding it about an inch from his face.

'His eyesight's not that great,' explained Annie as she turned on a side lamp. The room lit up only slightly better with shadows casting grotesque shapes against the walls.

'Yeah,' grinned Danny, wiping fresh saliva away. 'You just got marked in before midnight.' At the doorframe Kavanagh cursed quietly. 'If ma had let yiz in any later I'd have had to make a fresh page.' He laughed, a nervous noisy laugh.

'Do you write everything down, Danny?' pressed Clarke.

'Only what I can see for meself. Me ma sometimes tells me when she sees things but that doesn't count.'

'Could I see the book, Danny?'

'No.' Danny was firm.

'Ah, Danny,' cajoled his mother, 'show the man the
book. He's a policeman. Remember you were always asking me to show the police your books on car numbers? Remember? When we lived over in Rathmines?'

Annie explained Danny had spent long hours recording licence plates of cars stuck at the lights outside the old cinema in Rathmines, another Dublin suburb. They'd lived there in a one-room flat.

'Just before me husband died,' she added by way of useful explanation. 'It was the bit of money he left and what we got from the insurance that gave us enough to move here.'

Molloy suppressed a yawn and nodded sympathetically.

'I only want to look at one entry,' Clarke reassured, noticing the boy's anxious face.

Danny Carton looked up. 'Is it the night the American girl was killed?'

Everyone stiffened. Annie Carton made to speak but found the vice-like grip of Molloy restraining. Clarke tried to control his haste and picked at the fluff on the bedspread.

'Well, it would be a big help if you did know something about that particular night.'

'About the man running out from the side of the park?' Danny wiped more saliva from the corner of his mouth and laid the exercise book down. Then with slow, unsteady hands he turned the pages. No one spoke. Outside a car drove past, its headlights catching the group in relief. Danny looked out the window and watched until it disappeared. 'That's a Toyota Corolla,' he announced triumphantly and turned the pages back to the current day. He began laboriously entering the observation onto the left-hand page.

Annie Carton came to the side of the bed and began smoothing the bedspread. 'Danny,' she said, 'show them the page they want to see.'

Danny turned the pages back. 'Monday, 18 May,' he began as a page flicked. 'Sunday, 17 May; Saturday, 16 May… I saw three different Datsuns that day,' he continued his laboured search. 'Thursday, 14 May… 6.13 pm a big man and a young girl were at the meter box
on Mercers Road.'