Taboo (20 page)

There was a soft knock at the door. He stood up and glared around the room at them all. ‘You’d better come up with something positive soon because I don’t like the way this investigation is being run – and it’s not about to get any better in my opinion.’

He walked to the door and stepped outside. The others looked at each other, all deducing that this wasn’t just a standard briefing – something else was going on.

‘Not about to get any better? What does he mean by that?’ Chris asked.

‘I have a feeling that guff we’ve just heard was only for the cameras,’ Kennedy said.

They could hear O’Brien in a whispered conversation outside the door. He still sounded worked-up but was trying to keep his voice down.

Finally, the door opened again and the Inspector walked back in, followed by two other men. His deferential manner toward them made it quite clear that these were his superiors.

He waited for them to sit down and fussed around fetching them coffee. Reilly recognized one of them – Chief Superintendent Armstrong who’d been involved in her
recruitment from the States. He was a big man, huge hands, a strong jaw. In his sober dark suit you could see his muscular build. He had short cropped gray hair, and could have been anywhere between fifty and sixty years old.

The other man was older. He was small, dapper, in an immaculate
gray suit with a matching tie and pocket handkerchief, an expensive haircut, an air of calm superiority on his face as he surveyed the room.

Armstrong nodded to the two detectives as O’Brien finally sat down. ‘These are Detectives Kennedy and Delaney, and the current acting head of GFU, Reilly Steel,’ he introduced them one by one to the other man. ‘This is Commissioner Patrick
Moloney.’

Moloney
nodded to each of them in turn, letting his gaze settle on Reilly a little too long. ‘Ms Steel – I’ve heard some good things about you.’

Reilly wasn’t sure how to reply. She finally managed an embarrassed, ‘Thank you, sir.’

Moloney took a delicate sip of his coffee, and looked at everyone in turn. He spoke quietly, calmly, each word carefully chosen. ‘This unfortunate affair took a rather … unexpected turn recently, didn’t it?’ No one responded. ‘A dangerous intruder assaults one of our own people, in our laboratory.’ He sipped again at his coffee. ‘Which means that this matter has rather slipped the coop, so to speak.’ He sighed, as though this was all rather bothersome. ‘When something of that nature happens it ceases to be simply a local matter.’

Kennedy was right, Reilly realized, they were bringing in the big guns now, and judging by the look on O’Brien’s face, not with his blessing.

‘We’re dealing with this fine,’ O’Brien growled. ‘In fact, one of our senior investigators is returning early from annual leave to row in on this.’

At this Reilly’s head snapped up. Jack Gorman would indeed be back in the mix sooner than she’d thought. Damn.

Moloney smiled with all the charm of a Nile crocodile about to consume its prey. ‘I’m sure you are, Inspector. However,’ he glanced around, making sure he had everyone’s full attention, ‘as already explained, this investigation has become top national priority.’

‘It’s already top priority,’ Kennedy said shortly and O’Brien glared at him too.

‘We have a murderer running around Dublin despatching our citizens at a frightening rate,’ Moloney went on. ‘This is naturally of huge concern to the public, the Minister and the Irish Government as a whole.’ He looked toward Reilly. ‘And without wanting to devalue the expertise of our own, we felt we could do with more specialized on-the-ground help in a matter of this magnitude.’

He now had everyone’s attention. Reilly glanced around, wondering where this was leading. O’Brien definitely wasn’t happy about it – he looked like he’d just bitten into a lemon.

‘I believe you’ve recently begun working with Mr Daniel Forrest from the FBI?’ Moloney continued, turning to Reilly. She nodded, an unsettling knot suddenly appearing in the depths of her stomach. ‘Well, it appears that his superiors in Quantico feel that in order to assist us in apprehending this murderer in the fastest possible time, it might be more beneficial to have him on the ground here.’

‘Here – in Dublin?’ she echoed.

‘Yes. Needless to say the Minister and I are all for anything that might assist in our bringing this … situation to a timely and satisfactory conclusion.’

In other words,
Reilly thought,
the public are baying for blood and the pressure is on.

She swallowed hard. There was no way Daniel would allow himself to be uprooted from Quantico on the whim of a government official, no matter how pressing the circumstances might be. Far more likely he’d instigated this himself, most likely because of the break-in and perhaps also because of her mini breakdown on the phone the last time
they’d spoken. Reilly cursed herself for letting her guard down and allowing her emotions rise to the fore.

Yes, Daniel was behind this, she was sure of it. But what she couldn’t be sure of was whether he was coming to assist her or protect her.

The meeting over, Reilly headed straight to the GFU building.
She went directly to the lab to see what her team had discovered from their survey of the evidence from the break-in.

‘Hey there.
How are you feeling?’ Lucy asked. Reilly looked around at their faces, touched by their obvious concern. She allowed a small smile to crease the corners of her mouth but was anxious to get back to business. ‘I’m fine, guys, thanks for asking. So tell me, what do we have from yesterday?’

Gary spoke first. ‘We processed as much of this floor as we could. Lucy took your office, Rory covered the lab, and I took the stairwell.’

‘Good job.’ She was proud of them. Even without her supervision they had covered all bases.

Lucy held some papers out to her. ‘The main thing in your office was the photo album. We figured you would know the significance of the photo.’

Reilly could still see the attached note in her mind. ‘
Happy Families
.’

‘Not exactly, but I think it’s safe to assume that whatever message he’s trying to get across
it’s personal.’

Lucy looked troubled. ‘I also
analyzed the notepaper, but it’s just a generic yellow post-it pad, could have been bought in a million different places or even taken from your own desk drawer, so no lead there.’

Reilly nodded, expecting as much. ‘What else do we have?’

‘I processed the lab.’ Rory said. ‘Whoever was in there was looking at the case files – they were spread out on a table at the back of the room, as you probably saw.’

She recalled that all too clearly. ‘Yeah, they distracted me while he slipped out behind me.’

He pulled a large eight by ten photo out of a file. ‘When we looked at what he’d done with the files, how he’d put them almost in order, we started wondering if there might have been a pattern.’

‘A pattern to the killings, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

Reilly studied the photo. One lab report from each crime scene had been neatly laid out in a row, in chronological order, from the
Ryans to Redmond to Watson, with the Sarah and Vera Miles killings following on. But there was also a gap, a space left between the Miles killings and the Watson photo. Reilly looked up at Rory and Gary. ‘What do you think?’

Gary spoke, careful and considered as always. ‘The first killing – the
Ryans – was blatant, eye-catching, guaranteed to get people’s attention.’ He paused, looked around at the others who were watching him intently. ‘He could have killed them in just about any way he wanted, but he chose the gun – loud, attention grabbing. It guaranteed that that first crime scene was found almost immediately.’

‘Good point,’ Reilly agreed. ‘What else?’

‘Well, Jim Redmond was pretty much the same – we know that our killer tracks his victims very closely, so he would have known his wife’s movements, would have known that she would soon discover the body.’

‘So again, no time delays,’ Lucy mused.

‘Right. And once his calling card – the whole Freud thing - is discovered,’ he pointed to another file, ‘we come to the Miles and the Watson killings. Both were designed and executed in such a way that they would take that bit longer to find. Watson out in the open in a deserted area and the Mileses a quiet family who kept to themselves.’

Rory spoke up again. ‘So when we saw a gap in the layout of the photographs that he left us, we wondered if it meant something.’

‘That we’ve missed one,’ Reilly concluded, her heart racing.

‘Right.’
Rory cleared his throat again. ‘We know when the Miles women were killed,’ he checked his notes ‘on the 28th, so we thought maybe the police should check missing person reports for anyone who went missing in the weeks leading up to that date.’

Reilly stared at the photos of the crime scenes. ‘Good thinking,’ she said, making a mental note to share this line of thinking with Chris and Kennedy.

‘You said you swept the stairwell?’ She turned to Gary again, whose serious expression never seemed to change, whether he was discussing a sub-standard sandwich from the canteen or a gruesome murder. It was a trait she appreciated – he was going to make a great investigator.

‘Yes.’

‘What did you find?’

‘The
perp didn’t leave much. No sign of the weapon and there was very little of note in the line of trace – except for this.’ He held up a clear evidence bag.

‘Well, I’ll be damned.’ Reilly reached for the bag and slowly turned it over in her hand. Inside was a single strand of blond hair – long and straight. ‘Real or imitation?’ she asked Gary, wondering if the intruder had worn a wig and disguised himself as a female in order to get past security.

‘Definitely real,’ he replied. ‘It was one of the first things I checked.’

Reilly stared at the hair. Given the intruder’s interest in the case files, there was little doubt that it was someone connected to the killings. So was this yet another piece of staged evidence designed to throw them off the scent, or was there a possibility that the person they were looking for was actually a woman?

Later that evening, Reilly left the lab and headed toward the city centre. It was time to pay her father a much overdue visit.

In truth, she was dreading seeing him again. After their last conversation she had called him a couple of times but he hadn’t answered his phone. That was pretty normal – Mike spent a lot of time drunk or passed out and rarely bothered with social niceties like communicating with his daughter. But given the current situation, she couldn’t simply assume that he was OK.

Reilly looked out at the gloomy streets. Although spring was making its first tentative appearances in the city’s parks – she had already seen daffodils in the Phoenix Park – here in the grimy run-down inner city, there was nothing but
gray, damp concrete beneath her feet, and gray damp sky above.

She rang Mike’s doorbell, listening for sounds of life inside.
Nothing, as usual. She slid the spare key into the lock and pushed the door open.

‘Dad?
It’s me,’ she called as she stepped inside.

Silence.

She stood in the hallway, her senses fully attuned. The flat was completely still but there was a strong, overpowering odour. Reilly scrunched up her nose in disgust and headed to the living room.

She wasn’t surprised by what she found. Mike was asleep – or passed out – on the floor. He was lying in a pool of his own vomit and surrounded by empties.

Reilly counted at least nine empty beer cans, plus several drained spirit bottles. It was clear that last night he had settled down for a long, hard session and had only stopped when his body had finally reached its limit.

She stepped over his inert body and opened the curtains. The dim light from the street lights made little difference, but once she got a couple of windows open, the fug gradually began to clear.

Reilly was fit and strong but it still took all she had just to roll Mike across the floor and prop him against one of the armchairs. How on earth was she going to move him into the bathroom and get him cleaned up?

She stood up and looked down at her comatose father. He was a big man, muscular in his prime, and even now he carried a lot of meat on his frame. He was at least fifteen stone, and fifteen stone of dead weight took a lot of moving.

Reilly suddenly reached a decision. She pulled her phone from her coat pocket, and snapping it open, punched in a number.

‘Chris – hi, it’s me,’ she said when he picked up. ‘Are you still at the station?’

‘Unfortunately yes,’ he replied. ‘Why, what’s up?’

She paused. ‘Well, look, I know you’re tied up at the moment, but I need to ask you a
favor.’

‘Of course, what do you need?’

She looked again at her father, snoring loudly. ‘You’ve shared a secret of yours with me – I think it’s time to let you in on one of mine …’

Chris was the exactly sort of guy you needed when you were in a bind, Reilly thought. He was at Mike’s dingy flat in less than half an hour.

Now, he surveyed the room, his gaze resting on the empties from Mike’s drinking binge. ‘He likes his gargle, doesn’t he?’

Reilly arched an eyebrow. ‘Bit of an understatement.’

‘I suppose.’ He looked at the older man’s snoring carcass. ‘What do you want to do with him?’

‘I figured if we can get him into the bathroom we can dump him in the shower,’ she explained. ‘The water will wake him up and clean him up at the same time.’

‘Sounds like a plan.’

Grabbing an arm each they hauled him across the living room floor, down the hall, and into the tiny bathroom. It took some maneuvering, but finally they had him propped up against the edge of the bath. Reilly slumped down on the toilet seat. Chris seemed pretty tired too.

‘Sorry to drag you into all this, particularly in your state,’ she said.

‘It’s not a problem, honestly.’

‘Have you made an appointment to see someone yet?’

He shook his head. ‘I haven’t really had the chance. Maybe when all of this is over …’

She gave him a doubtful look.
‘Doesn’t seem like you should wait that long.’ But there was little point in forcing him; she’d done her part and it was up to Chris to follow through on the rest. She couldn’t get too personally involved.

She turned on the shower. ‘Let’s get him situated.’

They both grabbed Mike’s arms, lifted him up and unceremoniously dumped him in the shower. As the cold water rained down he gave a violent shudder, coughed, then sat up, with a shake of his head.

‘What the hell?’ he cried, looking around wildly. Then his gaze settled on Reilly. ‘I might have fucking known.’

She shook her head in dismay. ‘You’re welcome,’

He suddenly noticed Chris. ‘And who the hell are you?
Some new fancy man or something?’

‘He’s a colleague,’ Reilly said, testily, ‘and he helped me move your stinking carcass.’

Mike was still slumped against the back wall of the shower cubicle, his feet sticking out. He looked up at Reilly reproachfully. ‘Guy can’t even drink himself to death without some busybody coming round and trying to save him.’ He reached up and batted feebly at the water. ‘Can you turn that fucking water off? I’m awake, all right?’

Reilly looked at him for a moment longer,
then slowly turned off the shower. ‘I’ll get you some dry clothes and a towel.’ She turned and left the bathroom.

Mike’s voice followed her out of the room. ‘And put the damn kettle on. Now you’ve woken me up it’s the least you can do.’

A few minutes later, Chris and Reilly perched on the two armchairs, sipping coffee. She had cleaned the place up a little – the vomit was gone, the empties were out with the rubbish, and she’d rearranged the furniture.

Her father was standing in his bedroom doorway – he looked pale and shaky and his hair was still wet, but at least he was upright and dressed.

‘Your coffee’s here,’ Reilly said, pointing at the table.

‘I see it,’ replied Mike. He began to make his way toward them, still obviously unsteady on his legs.

Chris stood up. ‘You need a hand, Mr Steel?’

‘I’m not a fucking invalid, man,’ he snapped. He reached the armchair and lowered himself into it.

Chris looked embarrassed. ‘Maybe I should go …’

‘Good idea,’ Mike grunted.

‘Dad, don’t be so rude.’

Mike reached carefully for his coffee and, managing to wrap both hands around it, brought it slowly up to his mouth. He paused before taking a first sip. ‘He offered to leave – I was just being obliging.
Wouldn’t want him to feel uncomfortable or anything.’

‘Honestly, I should go,’ Chris insisted.

‘Wait a few minutes and I’ll come with you – I’m not staying either.’ Then she turned back to her father. ‘Dad, the reason I came here today is to warn you. Something weird is—’

‘Warn me?’ Mike spluttered over his coffee. ‘Warn me about what? That booze is bad for my health?’ He laughed bitterly.

‘I think it’s a bit too late for that, don’t you? But no, this is serious. There’s this case I’m working on at the moment with Detective Delaney, and I’m worried this guy might be a threat.’

‘What would any of that have to do with me?’

‘This particular criminal has made some threats against Reilly, Mr Steel – threats of a personal nature. As a result, it might be a good idea for you to be on your guard.’

Mike raised his eyes to Chris. ‘Sonny boy, I’ve faced down more than a few scumbags in my time, and no two-bit skanky Irish drug dealer would have a hope of getting one over on me.’ Derision dripped from his every word.

‘This guy is different, Dad. He’s not your typical scumbag. And he seems to know a lot about me – about us … and our family.’ She gave Chris a sideways glance, deciding that there was no harm in revealing that much in front of him. With luck her father would cotton on to what she meant, and she knew for certain that he wouldn’t mention anything about Jess in front of Chris. Mike hadn’t been able to contemplate thinking about – let alone talking about – what had happened to his youngest daughter for a very long time.