The Priest (11 page)

The traffic moved at last, and on a whim he turned the Saab into one of the narrow public car parks that dot the
coast road at intervals. Dublin wasn’t such a bad place to be after all, he reflected, if only he could rid himself of this
awful feeling of drifting without an anchor. He turned off the engine and gazed at the still, calm scene spread out before
him. The low evening light seemed to hover above the surface of the water, pressing down on it, as if calming it still further. This
tranquillity was totally at odds with the catalogue of assaults he’d been reading all day. But such moments of quiet beauty
had always been a part of Dublin for him; the part he missed like crazy when he had moved to Madrid and was instantly overwhelmed
by the clamour and rush of daily life over there. He had got used to that soon enough, too, of course, quickly becoming addicted
to the exuberance of the
Madrileños
, their love of colour, noise and spectacle. Yet when he’d met Gracia and married her, it was the stillness in her that he’d
fallen for. But it hadn’t been enough, not nearly enough, in the end.

He raised his hands to his eyes and felt the weight of his mobile phone shift in his jacket pocket. He took it out and stared
at it, scrolling back through the call log until he came to Siobhan Fallon’s number. Superficially, he couldn’t imagine anyone
less like Gracia. Apart from her hair, of course. And the eyes. But Siobhan, too, seemed to have that vein of beauty running
right down through her. Except in her case it wasn’t silent, or in any way interior. It was directed out towards the world.
He pressed the call button but was put straight through to her voicemail.

‘Hi, Siobhan, it’s Mike Mulcahy. Just wanted to say I enjoyed last night, and was wondering if you’d fancy doing it again
any time soon?’

She got to the Pembroke half an hour late and, as suspected, found Vincent Bishop had already decamped from the bar into the
restaurant and left a message for her to follow. He had a bottle of champagne on the go and he insisted she have a glass with
him to toast her success on the Maloney story. Or ‘our’ success, as he insisted on calling it – a touch too loudly for Siobhan’s
taste. But they soon moved on to other topics and it wasn’t until after they’d finished eating that Bishop brought the subject
of Maloney up again.

‘I made a cracking deal as a result of that story,’ Bishop said, unbuttoning his jacket.

‘How do you mean?’ she said. A small warning bell jingled in her head but the food and wine had lulled her into relaxation.

‘Oh, you know, one of the sports promo companies Marty and Suzy Lenihan head up – I’d been looking at it for a while. I was
able to scoop up a sizeable interest when the shares went through the floor first thing Monday morning – you know, after all
the rumours that they’d be splitting up. It’s a solid little business, so the price’ll be back up in a week or two, once people
realise it’d take a lot more than infidelity to tear those two apart.’

‘Look, Vincent, I really don’t want to hear about that.’

‘No, wait,’ he said, cutting in and putting his hand in his pocket. ‘I just wanted to say, thanks. I thought you might like
this, as a mark of my appreciation.’

He removed a tired-looking red velvet box from his jacket pocket and handed it to her across the table.

‘What is it?’ she asked, the full klaxon going off now, as she sat forward and stared at the box, the colour of dried blood
against the pale flesh of his spindly fingers.

‘Have a look,’ he insisted. ‘Go on. It won’t bite.’

Against almost every instinct, she took the box from him and opened it. Nestling inside was a hoop of dull yellow metal, barely
a couple of inches in diameter but intricately wrought in tiny swirls, curls and sinuous protrusions, and studded with what
looked like four greyish pearls. In form it reminded her of a Celtic Cross, but when she looked again she noticed a bent metal
prong cutting across the back and realised it was some kind of Tara Brooch. Despite the signs of age, it was exquisite.

She lifted her eyes from it and stared back across the table at Bishop, words for once evading her.

‘I know a Tara Brooch might seem a bit old-fashioned nowadays,’ he said half apologetically. ‘But this one’s special. Let
me show you.’

He took the box from her and removed the brooch, turning it over to reveal the flat, entirely undecorated, reverse side. Weirdly,
the plainness of the metal here made it look even more precious.

‘There, see,’ he said, holding it up to the light. ‘It’s the
mark of George Waterhouse, the Dublin jewellers who revived the Celtic style after the original eighth-century brooch was
found in a stream in Meath in the 1840s. They made this piece for the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London. I got it at auction
a couple of years ago. Most early ones were silver or pewter but this is a bit more refined, twenty-two carat gold with Irish
river pearls.’

‘It’s… it’s gorgeous.’ She looked around the small dining room, thinking everyone in the place must be staring at them, but
no one was.

‘So take it,’ he said, holding it out to her on the palm of his hand now. ‘It’d be lovely to see you wear it, but I’d keep
it in the box if I were you. It’s a rare piece.’

Siobhan could do nothing but stare across the table at him. The thing had to be worth thousands.

‘What’s the matter?’ He waved it at her like it was a trinket.

‘Are you kidding me?’ she said, finally, finding her voice again. ‘I can’t take that from you. Even if I wanted to. I mean,
it’s incredibly beautiful, don’t get me wrong…’

He began to say something but she waved his interruption away.

‘No, seriously Vincent, it’s very generous of you, but it wouldn’t be right.’

She paused, watching a shadow creep across his long pale face, trying to find exactly the words she needed. But he got in
first.

‘To hell with what’s right. I want you to have it.’ His
voice was a low insistent growl now, his eyes blazing up at her. For an instant she sensed fully what it was that made him
so formidable, so indomitable in business and she was sure she didn’t like it. She also knew for certain now that she couldn’t
afford to lose this argument. Not on any level. Leaning in to the table, she dropped her voice to a confiding whisper.

‘Look, I’m delighted we’re pals, Vincent. And I’m thrilled you liked the splash we made with Maloney. But we’re both professionals
here. I was only interested in Maloney for his news value. If you made money from it, that’s your business. I don’t want or
need to know. More to the point, there can’t be any suspicion that I profited from it. Otherwise, how could I ever write anything
again? You see that, don’t you?’

She held his gaze, until eventually the fire in his eyes died down. He nodded at her, closed his grip over the brooch, then
reached again for the box and carefully pinned the brooch back into its dark red velvet folds. Something about the way his
long white fingers worked made her more repelled than ever by the thought of his touch, but she knew a gesture from her would
be expected. She reached across the table and quickly patted the back of his hand twice, sitting back again before he could
respond, her best smile still in place.

‘You
do
understand, don’t you?’

‘No,’ he said, begrudgingly, ‘but
dum spiro, spero
, as they say.’

‘Do they?’ Siobhan laughed. ‘I don’t think I know that one – or even like the sound of it.’

That seemed to bring a smile back to his face. ‘It’s just a little Latin motto I have. I only meant, I’ll find another way
to show my gratitude. You can be sure of that.’

H
e’d only just put his Starbucks down on the desk when they started coming in. First Hanlon, next McHugh, then the rest of
them, looking like they’d all come up in the lift together. A minute or so later, Brogan and Cassidy – joined at the hip as
usual. He wondered idly whether it went even further than that. He’d rarely seen an inspector and a sergeant so tight. Sure,
he’d got on well with Liam Ford, and they’d always gone out for a few pints, but he couldn’t imagine meeting up with him before
work just to make an entrance together.

‘You must’ve got in early,’ Brogan remarked.

‘Just as well,’ Mulcahy said. ‘You look ready to start.’

She looked perplexed. ‘Of course we are.’

‘You told me nine a.m.’

‘But we pulled it forward. I told Andy to…’ Brogan raised an eyebrow at Cassidy.

‘Sorry, boss, I must’ve forgotten. I was a bit knackered when we finished up last night.’ Again the flashing glance, half-suppressed
smirk.

Brogan made a vaguely apologetic what-can-you-do-with-them sort of face at Mulcahy.

‘You must be driving the old sergeant here too hard,’ Mulcahy said, smiling at her. ‘Poor fella can’t keep up with the game.’

He wasn’t looking at Cassidy but could feel the man spitting bullets at him. Mulcahy turned and stared him straight in the
eye, daring him to respond. Cassidy, though, did nothing but glare and go a deeper shade of purple, then he swallowed and
walked away.

Brogan let out a sigh and stretched her arms behind her back. She was grinning now. ‘Okay, lads, we’ve got a pile of stuff
to get through this morning, so we’d better get cracking. Andy, you go see if those video grabs are ready. I’ll get the ball
rolling.’

There was a shuffling and clattering of chairs as everyone sat down, and Brogan stepped over to the whiteboard.

‘Okay, so we now know exactly where the attack occurred and, as a result, a bit more about what happened to Jesica Salazar.’
Brogan plucked a pen from the desk beside her, to use as a pointer, and indicated a location on the roughly drawn map – which
had expanded and become more detailed overnight. ‘Here, just opposite Kilmacud primary school, is where we’ve got a witness
hearing a noise at two-thirty a.m. Out the bedroom window, she sees a van parked on the grass verge outside her house. It’s
rocking on its axles, so you can imagine what she thought. We showed the woman some pictures; she thinks the van was
white but can’t be sure, but says it wasn’t big. Technical managed to isolate some tracks. Wheel profiles and tyres would
indicate a short wheelbase Transit, Sprinter or something about that size.

‘They also found blood spatter at the scene, possibly from the punch that broke the kid’s nose. We’re waiting for forensics
to crossmatch and confirm. So what we’re looking at here, in all likelihood, is as follows: Jesica’s wandering home alone,
perv in van spots her, pulls up, jumps out, decks her with a blow to the face, drags her into the van. Instead of taking her
off to a lonely spot, though, he’s either confident enough, or desperate enough, to continue the assault there and then, in
the back of the van. Are you with me so far?’

Everyone nodded and muttered affirmatives as Brogan surveyed her audience.

‘Right then, adding to that, the fabric found early on at the scene is definitely Jesica’s skirt – we now have three separate
confirmations on that from pals and her house-parents. Some interesting red fibres on there too, that Technical are having
a look at. One of the lads taking tyre casts found more fabric squashed into the grass. Turns out to be a pair of knickers,
almost certainly Jesica’s – but obviously to be confirmed whenever we’re allowed to have a word with her again. A preliminary
exam of both items of clothing shows they were cut off, not torn off – again indicating a high level of preparedness on the
attacker’s part, despite the possible randomness of his victim selection.’

‘A bit careless of him, wasn’t it, boss?’ The question came
from Hanlon. ‘I mean to toss the clothes straight out of the van like that.’

Brogan held her hands up. ‘Maybe he threw them out along with Jesica when he was finished with her. Or maybe he dumped them
out his window as he was driving away and they went under the back wheels. By the way, Technical also did a fingertip search
between there and the point – only a hundred and fifty yards up the road – where she was found afterwards. They’re confident
this vehicle did not pull up anywhere else along that stretch, meaning the attack was almost certainly initiated and completed
all in the one place, and Jesica made her own way to the location at which she was discovered.’

‘Do we know what happened to the rest of her clothes?’ This question from McHugh.

‘Yeah. Well, again, it’s impossible to be certain but by comparing what you and Brian got from her fellow students yesterday,
and what she still had hanging from her when she got to the hospital, we came up with a checklist and, basically, it looks
like that was it. She still had her top and bra on – although both were badly torn and scorched – and her shoes. So it looks
like he was only interested in one thing.’

‘What about the cross and chain?’ Mulcahy asked.

‘No sign of it,’ Brogan said. ‘Both Technical and door-to-door were made aware, but nothing’s come back.’

‘So that means it could still be in the van?’

‘Well, it’s got to be somewhere. I suppose it’s as likely to
be there as anywhere else. For now, we have no way of knowing.’

Brogan paused as Cassidy pushed through the door and into the room, with a sheaf of what looked like A4 photographs in his
hand.

‘Oh, yeah, and the club’s CCTV confirmed the clothing tallies, when we finally pinned down the time at which Jesica left the
club. She definitely left with a young guy. Andy will pass the video grabs out to you now. You’ll like these.’

A murmur of excitement filled the room as Cassidy handed out the plain-paper photographs scanned from the club’s security
system. Mulcahy examined them closely. A sequence of monochrome frames, taken from an angle high up and to the left of two
open doors, showed a young couple exiting the club, arms around waists, laughing and smiling. Despite the camera’s angle,
aimed at people entering rather than exiting the club, a number of frames had captured each of them full face, and also in
profile, as if they’d been turning to say goodbye, or to see if someone was coming after them. For Mulcahy the most striking
thing, apart from how good-looking the pair of them were, was the clarity of the shots.