The Priest (23 page)

‘She had nothing bad to say?’

‘Not a word,’ Maura said. ‘She was more concerned about getting the whys and wherefores of him being questioned, and whether
Scully’s human rights were being breached, than giving anything away to me.’

‘So did you get anything at all from her?’ Brogan just wanted Maura to get to the point. Her breath was getting shorter now,
as her chest tightened with anxiety.

‘Well, that’s just it. Obviously, I didn’t tell her what we had him in for. And that’s just as well, cos otherwise I think
she’d never have said what she did say.’

‘Which was?’

‘Only that all his work involved looking at the persecution of heretics and witches here in Ireland during medieval times,
and its connection to the, eh, wider Inquisition on the continent. Honestly, boss, I didn’t understand half of what she was
saying. Most of it was about some Dame Alice Kettle or Kittler or something who was burned alive at the stake, or should’ve
been… I don’t know. The thing is, at one point I stopped her and asked her who this Bernardo whatsit fella in the title of
the thesis is.’

‘Gui,’ Brogan said, wondering why she remembered the name so well. Had she heard it somewhere before? ‘Bernardo Gui.’

‘Yeah, him,’ said Maura. ‘Well, you won’t believe this. According to McAuliffe, during the Inquisition in Spain, he was the
fella who wrote the rulebook on how to torture people into making confessions.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ Brogan jumped up and grabbed her jacket from the back of the chair.

‘What is it, boss?’

‘We’ve just told them downstairs to let Scully go.’

*

As soon as Siobhan opened the door, she heard it. The low beep of the machine. Responding to its summons unthinkingly, she
pulled her key from the lock and went straight to the living room and pressed the play button without even turning the lights
on. Instantly, she recoiled when the rich thrum of a guitar blossomed from the answerphone speaker and the high male voice
took flight: Roy Orbison again, and creepier than ever.

Recovering herself, she jabbed at the machine to turn it off but in her haste succeeded only in knocking it to the ground.
As she knelt down, fumbling between the waste bin and the table, the song continued to poison the darkness around her.

Its tempo was a bit more jaunty by now and a string section had joined the guitar but it still closed in on her, so much she
could hardly breathe. She recognised it now: ‘My Prayer’, more familiar from another version by The Platters that her parents
used to play at home all the time. So long ago. So long it felt like a ghost stalking her through the darkness, Orbison’s
strangled tones turning its message of imagined love into cold psychotic threat.

At last she got hold of the answerphone and found the button. As she felt it click beneath her fingers all the pressure in
her head seemed to wash away and the silence that fell around her became still more audible than the song had been. She heard
her own breath rasping in and out of her lungs, her trousers brushing against the carpet as she pulled her legs out straight
and sat back on the carpet, a feeling of exhaustion swamping her.

‘Fuck him,’ she said to herself in the enfolding gloom, the lights of the city outside refracting through the window like
knives of orange flame. ‘Fuck him, if he thinks he can play
me
like some shitty old record.’

I
t was shaping up to be another spectacular summer’s day, that rare pairing of clear-blue heaven and bright biting sunlight
guaranteed to make any self-respecting Dubliner add a ‘Glorious, isn’t it!’ to their morning salutations. Already, at only
eight-fifteen, the heat had built up enough to feel almost oppressive by the city’s meagre standards, and Mulcahy was in the
Saab, his elbow out the open window, heading into work, thinking hard about what else he might do today to push things a bit
further forward.

The Cork job was still very much on his mind again. He’d had a call from Liam Ford the night before to say that Dowling had
been approached but was playing for time and more money. Fair enough, that was only to be expected. The man would be a fool
to take the first offer he was made, especially for an injury that was cutting short a distinguished career. But it still
meant the deal would probably be done within weeks rather than months.

It was beginning to feel like he was running out of time.
Things would have to move soon, or he wouldn’t be free to go for the job. He’d spent the rest of the evening checking over
and signing off on details and photos left for him by the estate agents. And first thing this morning he’d had a call from
one of them to say they had two viewings lined up, with the possibility of one or two drop-ins, too, this being Saturday.
The prospect of being unencumbered by either the house or his current job filled him with what felt like a force field of
energy. Or maybe that was just Siobhan. He’d spent no small while thinking about her, too. Even the thought of moving to Cork
hadn’t taken the shine off that. It was only three hours away by train.

His mobile went off.

‘Mulcahy?’ It was Brogan.

‘Yeah. How’s it going?’

‘Not good.’

Christ, she sounded low.

‘Did Kennedy rustle up a get-out-of-jail-free card for Scully?’ He wasn’t being entirely serious, so her response in the affirmative
came as a surprise.

‘He did.’

‘Bollocks,’ Mulcahy cursed. ‘I thought we had him covered. How’d he manage that?’

‘Look, Mike, I don’t really have time to go into it now, but it’s actually a good bit worse than us just letting him go.’

‘That sounds ominous.’

‘It is. There’s been another one,’ she said, almost as if she herself could hardly believe what she was saying. ‘Another
assault, I mean. Overnight, out in Marino. I don’t have a time yet, as it’s only just come in to us from District.’

‘Bloody hell, how bad?’

‘Even worse than Jesica, by the sound of it. Bad as it gets without the victim being dead.’

His mind swam with the awful possibilities.

‘And Scully? He was out?’

‘We had no choice. His brief, Kennedy, was on the warpath. The warrant had too many holes. Lucky for me, it was Healy signed
off on the release.’

Not so lucky for the poor kid who was attacked, Mulcahy thought, but he kept that to himself.

‘And you’re sure it’s the same attacker?’

‘No question. Has to be. Same victim type, seventeen years or thereabouts, found semi-naked and unconscious in Fairview Park.
Similar injuries, but even more disgusting, burns not just on the genitals this time but all over her body. I asked if they
were shaped anything like crosses. Apparently there are so many it’s hard to tell for sure, but they said that’s one way of
looking at it.’

‘Jesus, that’s awful. He’s getting worse.’

‘Looks like it,’ she said.

‘Was the victim a student?’

‘Hard to say, but they don’t think so. Not a foreign one at least. But same age, same dress style – her clothes were dumped
nearby – all that. No ID yet.’

‘A working girl?’

‘Not that we know of.’

‘Is she still under? I mean, can she talk?’

‘She’s barely alive, as I understand it. She’s in Intensive Care in the Mater Hospital, under heavy sedation. It’s not looking
good. The medics don’t give her more than a one-in-two chance.’

God, but that was bad. He wondered briefly if Jesica might be well enough yet to be re-interviewed, then cast the thought
from his mind. She’d be so well wrapped up back in Spain now, it could be weeks before anyone would be allowed near her again.

Brogan went on, ‘Can you do something for me?’

‘Sure, name it.’

‘I’ve got to go brief Healy on this, and then head in to the Mater to look in on the girl and see if I can get anything from
the guys who treated her. The local lads already called in Technical to do the CSI stuff out in Fairview, and apparently they’re
still out there. What I really need is for someone with a bit of sense to get over there right now to do some nosing around.
I’d send Cassidy but he’s on his way over to Scully’s, to bring him in early and check his whereabouts last night. He undertook
to remain in the family home.’

‘Did we have anybody out there keeping an eye?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Doesn’t look like Scully kept his promise, does it?’

‘Don’t, Mike, I can’t bear to think… Christ, this is turning into a total fuck-up.’

He heard her sigh deeply into the phone, and felt for her.
This really wasn’t looking good. In fact, the worst possibilities hardly bore thinking about. She’d have to pull herself together
or it would drag her under.

‘Don’t let it get to you, Claire. None of this was your doing. Look, I was on my way in anyway, so I’ll just head over to
Fairview now, okay?’

‘Yeah, good,’ she said. ‘You know, let them get on with it but bring back a few initial ideas for us to run with, and make
sure they don’t overlook anything that only we might see the significance of. See you back at Harcourt Square once you’re
done.’

She gave him the location details and, as soon as the cars ahead of him moved, he swung the car round in a tight tyre-squealing
U-turn, heading down Haddington Road towards the East Link Bridge. The streets were fairly free now he was no longer heading
into the centre so he put his foot to the floor and, as he did, the blood began to accelerate around his system too. Out of
frustration that another young kid had been so abominably assaulted, and that somehow the team’s failure to find an answer
in time could have contributed to it. Suddenly all his earlier doubts about Scully’s guilt were thrown into relief, like so
many minor misgivings.

As he sped on towards the river, Mulcahy passed the entrance to the estate where he’d interviewed Grainne Mullins the day
before. Whatever she might think, it was clear to him that she’d had a lucky escape. He tried to picture Scully coming down
to Irishtown from Blackrock, and taking out his anger on a working girl. Had it been an
experiment? A trial? There seemed such a gulf in the levels of violence. He hardly noticed himself paying the bridge toll,
such was the rush of thoughts crowding his brain. He made a mental note to double-check that someone else on the team had
sounded out the Vice lads down in Store Street regarding other assaults on prostitutes. Despite Grainne Mullins’s experience,
it was hard to believe anything similar could have occurred to another working girl and gone unreported. They might moan about
the way the Gardai treated them, but they were usually quick enough to kick up if they felt any real threat out on the streets.

His mind raced as he weaved through the heavier traffic on the East Wall Road, getting a broadside of angry horns as he ran
a red light turning on to the North Strand. A couple of minutes later he spotted the team from Technical on the far side of
the inbound carriageway, opposite the row of shops on Marino Parade. Their cars and vans were jumbled on the pavement, with
still more of them inside the grounds of Fairview Park. He looked for somewhere to turn.

They were packing up already. Mulcahy enquired after the crime scene manager and was directed towards a skinny, hawk-faced
man called Eddie Keane. He was dressed in the standard white coveralls staring intently at the screen of a small digital camcorder
he was holding at arm’s length, videoing a series of small red flags set on thin metal rods inside a patch of ground cordoned
off by blue-and-white scene tape. The area was about five metres square and lay
immediately behind the park railings which, together with a line of thin hedging, partially screened the spot from the sight
of any traffic surging past on the Fairview Road.

A bizarre spot to dump a victim, Mulcahy thought, as he headed towards Keane. Sure, it would have been much quieter in the
early hours of the morning, but even so, this was a major thoroughfare, with cars and people passing day and night. He looked
behind him, past the traffic, at the parade of shops across the wide road. A chemist’s, a mini-market, an estate agent and
a café were topped by what looked like a floor of residential accommodation, all with net-curtained windows overlooking the
park. A couple of security cameras, too, bolted high on the brick frontage, though probably not at an angle to take in this
patch of ground across the road. Even so, the chances of being spotted by someone were pretty high.

‘Either he needed to get rid of her in a massive hurry or he didn’t give a shit who saw him,’ Mulcahy said after introducing
himself.

‘Or maybe both,’ Keane replied, pushing back a strand of floppy black hair off his forehead.

Mulcahy guessed he was in his early thirties, wiry with an intelligent demeanour that was probably attributable to the thin
rimless glasses perched halfway up his hooked nose.

‘He didn’t take much time over it, anyway. As far as I can tell, he must’ve pulled up, jumped out, hoiked the girl over the
railings – followed by everything else – and then skedaddled. Didn’t leave much trace of himself behind, anyway.’

Mulcahy took another look around. Fairview Park was a broad expanse of grass, pathways and small clumps of weatherbeaten hawthorn
and poplar. The land, reclaimed from the sea and the muddy estuary of the Tolka river, was bisected by a curving embankment
across which now clattered a lime-green Dart train heading towards the city centre. Beyond, a grey-blue expanse of sun-brushed
seawater lit up the horizon, and to his right, far in the distance, he could just make out the twin humps that marked the
southern exit of the Dublin Port Tunnel. Why dump a body here, Mulcahy wondered. Why had he chosen this busy spot? Could he
really have been so desperate to get rid of her? Or was he trying to make some point? Did he want her found quickly? So she
wouldn’t die?

‘Can we be absolutely certain he didn’t attack her here?’ he asked.

Keane frowned and pushed his glasses a little further up the ridge of his nose.

‘No way did anything happen here in the open. Nothing corresponding to the injuries she received has been found on the ground.
It would’ve been impossible to inflict that much, and especially that type of, physical damage without leaving some traces
behind.’