Inferno (CSI Reilly Steel #2) (20 page)

‘Who is it?’ 

How can she sound so nervous, Chris, wondered irritably, when she knows it’s me?

‘It’s Chris,’ he replied, his voice strained. He really didn’t have the time and patience for this today.

‘Chris who?’ came the predictable reply.

Deep breath.  Play the game
. ‘Chris Delaney.’

‘Show me your ID.’

Chris started to reach into his pocket for his badge, then stopped suddenly. Despite his best efforts, he simply couldn’t keep up this charade any longer. ‘Mel, it’s me – you know it’s me, you can see me.  Please just let me in.’

There was a long moment of silence.  Finally her voice crackled again through the intercom. ‘I said, show me your ID.’

Chris sighed, held up his badge. Some battles just weren't worth fighting.

The chains and bolts rattled noisily and the door edged open. Chris squeezed through the gap and into the dark hallway. As he reached the kitchen she turned on him, her slim eyebrows knitted together in consternation.

‘What were you thinking, Chris?’ she cried. ‘You used my name! Anyone could have heard you. Now they’ll know my name, they’ll know I live here!’

Chris set the bag of groceries on the table, and stared at her back. He couldn’t go on like this, couldn’t support her paranoia, visit after visit, week after week, year after year. ‘Everyone around here knows who you are, Mel. They’re your neighbors – of course they know.’

She poured some hot water into the teapot to warm it, emptied it into the sink, then filled it, clearly pretending he hadn't spoken.

Chris tried again. ‘You were born here – you’ve lived here all your life.’

He stared at her mute back. Don’t give up, he told himself. Whatever you do, you can’t ever give up on her.

‘Melanie, if you don’t let me help you – let someone help you – you’re going to die here too.’

Her reaction was explosive – the teapot flew across the room, just missing Chris’s head, and smashed against the wall, sending the hot brown liquid splashing across the floor and staining the wall.

She spun round, and stared at him. ‘I watch the news, Chris, I know what’s out there!’  Her voice was high, on the edge of an hysterical scream. ‘You do, too! On the news today, a man was shot, right on his own front step...’  She searched for the right words.  ‘That world out there ... that’s where you want me to go?’

He took a step towards her.  ‘No, I just—’

‘You know what it’s like out there, better than anyone. You know what people do to each other...’  Her face was flushed, hands clenched into fists as she tore at her apron. 

‘Honey, I—’

Suddenly the dam burst and she dissolved into sobs, her hands reaching up to cover her eyes.  Her body slumped, and she slid down along the kitchen cupboard to sit on the floor, her knees tucked to her chest, arms wrapped tightly around them to protect herself.

Chris crossed the kitchen floor in two strides, sank to his knees and wrapped his arms around her. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—’

She rocked against him, sobbing raggedly, gasping for breath.  Finally she managed to tear a few words out of her gasping throat. ‘Don’t make me do it, Chris.  Don’t make me go out there...not yet. I’m not ready yet.’

Chris held her close, his face a mask of pain and frustration, his eyes hard and cold. ‘Don’t worry, I'm right here.’

She clutched at him with desperate hands, almost tearing at his jacket with her thin, bony fingers. ‘Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t leave me...’  She repeated it over and over, like a mantra that could protect her from harm.

Chris sighed, held her tight. ‘Don't worry.  I promise I’ll always be here.’

L
ater that same night, Reilly, too, lay wide awake, her mind churning. She glanced at the clock beside her bed – the red lights told the story of her insomnia: 2.27. 

She rolled over onto her back, closed her eyes and focused on breathing slowly. She had studied yoga for many years, knew enough about breathing techniques and meditation to understand that by controlling her inhalations she could relax and help herself find her way back to sleep.

Take a deep breath in, pause, hold it, empty the mind ...

She exhaled deeply, breathed in again, and as her breathing slowed she felt herself beginning to relax. Her eyes felt heavier, her limbs began to sink into the bed.  Her breaths became slower and deeper, her eyes closed, the lids feeling too heavy to open. A warm wave washed over her, taking her closer and closer to sleep.

Just as she slipped over the edge, a stray thought crossed her mind, an intrusion from deep in her subconscious.

It was too late. Reilly had found sleep, but still her nightmare had found her. She was back in the house  her mother’s house  right back where her world had changed, for ever. There she was, tiptoeing slowly along the hallway, knowing instinctively that something terrible had happened, but there was no getting away from it, no turning back.

The difference was that this time, Reilly knew well what horrors awaited her. She’d walked this path many times over in her dreams, turned the corner into the kitchen, caught sight of the bloody mess on the floor....then her mother, the knife sticking out of her beloved mother’s chest. And then her sister, Jess and the expression on her face as—

Reilly’s head shot up off pillow. Her cellphone was ringing, the shrill tone cutting through the darkness and her memories.  Her heart pounded, as she stared at the alarm clock. Three fifteen.

‘Reilly?’ It was Chris and by his weary tone she could guess he wasn’t just calling for a chat. ‘We’ve found another one. And if this is punishment, I’d really like to know what this poor guy did to deserve it.’

The location, a farmstead just on the outskirts of the city, wasn’t hard to find – the flashing blue lights could be seen from half a mile away. Reilly turned the GFU van into the narrow farm lane, showed her ID to the uniform at the gate, and pulled into the yard.

She climbed from the van, wrapping her coat tightly around her, and pulled the collar up. The driveway was already full: there were a couple of cars from the local station, their blue lights flashing, an ambulance, and Chris’s silver Ford.

A sudden squall of rain blasted into her face. Reilly locked the van and picked her way quickly through the puddles towards the barn on the far side of the yard.

A barn ... horses ... This wasn’t Kildare, but clearly they were on the right track.

There were two uniformed officers outside, the lights from the police cars and ambulance illuminating the doorway.

Reilly hurried into the barn and found a cluster of people standing just inside. Chris looked round when she entered, and she couldn’t help but notice how haggard he looked.

She resolved to try to get him on his own soon – when things calmed down a little  and find out what it was that was making him so jumpy and irritable, the complete opposite of his usual composed, rational self. Was it a return of the pain in his joints, or something more?

She tapped two young uniforms on the shoulder. ‘Hey, could you boys move out of the way?’

The men reluctantly stepped outside, and cleared a space that allowed the flashing ambulance lights to shine through the doorway to the back of the old barn, illuminating the scene. Any nighttime chill that Reilly felt was immediately intensified by the sight that greeted her.

A middle-aged man, his face harrowingly contorted in pain, was slumped back against the side of a battered trough – a trough filled with glutinous, shiny black pitch.

‘Bloody hell ...’

Chris nodded slowly. ‘Exactly.’

Reilly looked around, her mind racing, the acrid smell of the tar filling her nostrils. ‘I need this area cleared. Immediately. ’

There was some grumbling from the officers – they preferred being at the sharp end of a good juicy incident – but eventually they shuffled outside into the rain.

Reilly strode across the yard to the van, not bothering to avoid the puddles this time. She needed to examine the place now, as soon as possible, while the scene was still fresh. The smell of hot pitch and the color of the victim’s skin had made her realize that this was probably the freshest crime scene of the four.  Even accounting for the heat of the tar warming the body, it was obvious that the victim hadn’t been dead for long.

She slipped into the back of the van, and wriggled her way into her dustsuit, her mind a mass of questions. There was no doubt that this was again the work of the punisher – the MO was too bizarre to be anybody else – but who was the victim, and what was the crime that led this particular man to be killed in this way? She reached over and grabbed her forensic kit, then took a deep breath to compose herself. Only one way to find out.

When she returned to the barn, Chris and Kennedy were still standing in the doorway, sheltering from the rain, which had become more persistent. The other bystanders had all retreated to their cars. Reilly turned to the detectives. ‘When I said I wanted the room cleared, I meant everyone.’

‘We were just going,’ said Chris. ‘We’re going to try and find out more about this place – who owns it, when they were last here ...’

‘This scene still seems pretty fresh – it will be good to have a look around in some peace and quiet.’ Reilly slipped on her booties and shone her flashlight to the back of the barn. ‘Do we have any idea who the vic is?’

Kennedy nodded. ‘There we can help you. You’re looking at the remains of Alan Fitzpatrick, TD.’

‘TD?’

‘Member of our government,’ Chris explained.

‘Are politicians mentioned in that poem?’ Kennedy asked.

‘Absolutely.’ In fact, now that Reilly knew the victim’s occupation, she could recognize the reference. ‘“Barrators immersed in a lake of boiling pitch.”’  Difficult for the killer to organize a lake of the stuff, so clearly the trough was the next best thing.

Kennedy nodded when Reilly quoted the line to him. ‘God knows, it wouldn’t be the first time someone thought about boiling one of those lads in oil ... Where does he go next?’

She shrugged.

‘Look, all this Dante stuff is fine and well, but we still don’t know the guy’s agenda,’ Chris added, sounding frustrated. 

But Reilly couldn’t think about the killer’s agenda just then, she was too anxious to get going on the scene.

‘You two go and do your thing, talk to people, beat up a couple of suspects, whatever. I’ll have a look around here while I wait for the others, and we can compare notes later. Oh, and can you get the local guys to cut the flashers?’ she called out as the detectives turned to leave. ‘I know they think they’re being helpful, but it’s actually making it harder for me to focus.’

She’d have to make do with her torch until the rest of the team arrived with a lighting rig.

While the detectives hurried out into the rain, Reilly stood still, breathing deeply, relaxing, preparing her mind for the job ahead.  She needed to be clear, focused, all her senses alert to whatever she might find.

First she sniffed the air to seek out the foul ammonia-like smell she’d identified before, but the smell of burning tar and flesh completely overpowered everything.

The majority of the emergency vehicle lights were duly switched off, plunging the barn into an inky darkness lit only by the ghostly blue glow of one remaining from the ambulance.

Reilly flicked on her torch, and pulled the barn door closed behind her to block it out. She moved the torch slowly around the room.

It was hard not to be drawn immediately towards Fitzpatrick, set firm in a trough full of black tar, his face an horrific death-mask.  Even if their deaths had been violent, most murder victims actually looked quite peaceful, but Fitzpatrick’s face bore the full horror of what had been inflicted upon him.

Reilly tore her gaze away, and directed the torch elsewhere.  There was plenty of time to look at the victim, but right now she needed to work her way methodically through the room, missing nothing, taking in every detail, no matter how trivial it might seem.

She began right at her feet. There were muddy footprints aplenty, leading from the door to the trough – those of the cops, whoever had found the victim, the usual procession.  She sighed.  Nothing she could do about that.  Move on ...

Reilly’s gaze scanned the room. It was clearly an old tackroom. There was a line of horse stalls along one wall, hooks and nails along the other, and several old halters still hanging there.  She sniffed. Even above the smell of tar, and of the scorched flesh, she still got the distinctive aroma of horses, of straw, feces and leather. It wasn’t all that long since animals had been kept here.

The walls were bare wood, the floor probably concrete, though it was covered with such a thick layer of dirt and old straw that it was hard to be sure. In fact, everything was what one would expect to find in an old abandoned barn – except the trough full of pitch, and the tar-spattered oil drum beside it.

Straw and dirt, straw and dirt ... the floor was covered. Reilly opened her kit, pulled out her camera, and slipped a handful of evidence bags in the pocket of her suit.

Slowly, following the beam of her torch, she made her way across to the right side of the room. The beam of light made strange patterns across the floor, light and dark, shadows taking on unusual shapes, oversized, stretching and running up the walls ahead of her.

She moved slowly, taking in everything. Normally she would be paying closer attention to her nostrils, but, as with the stench from Coffey’s septic tank, the acrid smell of pitch and scorched flesh was filling the room, so she was trying her best to disable this particular sense.

Would iSPI be any good here? In truth, now that she’d seen the software in action, Reilly was slightly afraid of it. Working in a virtual world would surely dull the instincts she’d spent so many years honing, dilute the experience of being right there at a murder scene, walking in the killer’s shoes. No, much better to save iSPI for the trickier locations.

Not that this one was any walk in the park.

As Reilly approached the wall, she paused. The exaggerated shadows cast by her torch illuminated some strange indentations in the mud and straw. She shone the torch back and forth, trying to find the pattern. One group suddenly revealed themselves to her – four indentations. They looked to be from the legs of a small table, and behind them was a smaller set, deeper, four again – presumably a chair?