Vigilante (29 page)

THIRTY-FIVE

The killer knew he’d blown it. He hadn’t meant to harm the female police officer but, when she’d come at him, he had no other option. With all the noise, he hadn’t even risked finishing off that animal Mills. He had been worried about how the papers would talk about him after such a mistake. He’d hoped they would understand the woman was an accident, collateral damage, as part of a wider project.

Instead they hadn’t, they changed their minds and decided he was the problem. He hadn’t known if he could continue working through his list and thought it would be a good idea to keep his head down for a little while and then maybe make a comeback when people had begun to forget about him.

Things had been confusing though. That photo of Donald McKenna had ended up on television and in the papers. He didn’t know how they could have figured it out but waited to see if anyone came for him. The killer wasn’t quite sure if he understood all of it himself when it came to McKenna. He had tried not to think about it but it was something niggling away at the back of his mind. Either way, when they hadn’t come for him, he realised he might be in the clear after all. Perhaps if he just dealt with the next person on his list, the people that wrote their columns would realise he wasn’t the bad guy after all?

He began to start planning exactly what he would need to do next. Obviously he didn’t want to get caught and most of the people he went after were bigger or stronger than him. It was all about biding his time and looking for a routine.

But then the woman had come to him. It was strange but, after talking with her, he knew he had to change his plans and go for a different target. He wasn’t sure if she knew about his project or not but, even if she didn’t, it didn’t matter. She hadn’t told him specifically this man should be targeted but her careless talk had given him enough to go on. Maybe he would tell her afterwards that he had done it for her? Maybe she would guess?

In any case, after watching the person for two nights, it was clear the new target had a very simple routine to follow – this would be the easiest one yet.

He was grateful for the darker evenings as it meant he could comfortably get into place in time. He pressed himself into the bush and watched as the car pulled forwards towards the garage. As with the last few nights when he had simply been an observer, he knew the vehicle would stop and the man would get out to open the garage door. That was when he would strike.

The headlights illuminated the chipped paintwork of the garage door and the killer heard the car slide into neutral.

Just a few more seconds.

He stepped forwards out of the hedge, crouched and moved silently towards the driveway. He heard the car door open and saw the person he was waiting for stand and start towards the garage door. The man had his back to him and the killer moved quickly as the wide door started to slide upwards.

The killer took his hand out of his pocket, holding the knife tightly ready to strike but, as he pulled back, the target suddenly dropped to his knees and rolled backwards.

The man with the knife stopped and looked sideways but the other man on the ground was looking directly at him.

How could he know?

The killer motioned to turn and run but the man spoke loudly and clearly. ‘Game’s over, Dennis.’

Dennis Doherty panicked and looked to his right but saw officers swarming out from under the garage doors. He spun and ran as fast as he could towards the gate. As he got nearer it started to open and he wondered if somehow he had a guardian angel who was setting him free – but more officers poured through the gate towards him. He looked backwards but was surrounded and walking at the front of the officers was the woman.

The penny suddenly dropped – the one he thought might be on his side had set him up.

‘Drop the knife, Dennis,’ she said.

He did as he was told, the weapon falling to the floor with a clang which echoed around on the breeze. The woman didn’t stop walking though. He put his hands out, waiting to be cuffed and knowing it was over. Instead of reaching for his wrists, she launched forwards and hammered her fist into the lower part of his nose.

He felt the liquid explode around his face, pain lurching through his body as he tried to shove her away. He couldn’t move his arms, as someone else pulled them behind him, wrenching them into handcuffs. Dennis looked up to see the woman inches from his face. ‘That was for Carrie,’ she said, rubbing the blood from her knuckles.

FOUR DAYS AND FIVE HOURS AGO

Jessica looked at Farraday standing next to her by John Mills’ hospital bed, trying to catch her boss’ attention. Mills noticed her expression first. ‘Hey, do you know who it is?’ Jessica said nothing but told the chief inspector with her eyes they had to leave.

The two detectives stood but the patient raised his voice. ‘Oi, I have a right to know. Tell me who it was. Hey.’

Jessica and Farraday headed out of the ward together with the man shouting after them. The nurse outside muttered something about not getting the patient excited and dashed in behind them but Jessica and the DCI were already walking quickly away.

‘What is it?’ Farraday said.

‘Outside.’

The two of them hurried out to the car park and Jessica strode towards an empty bench. They both sat down and she kicked away the smattering of cigarette ash that was next to her foot.

‘Do you know who it is?’ the DCI asked.

‘Yes but I don’t think we have anything to arrest him for. Mills’ description wouldn’t be enough.’

‘Tell me.’

‘When you left last night there was one thing I couldn’t quite recall, something that felt on the tip of my tongue. I remembered it when we were in there.’

‘What?’

‘Well, the other reason I was so sure it was you was because of one of the front-office guys at the prison.’ Farraday was looking confused. ‘You have to understand, I was so convinced, I was really sure. I thought you were either related to McKenna or had somehow smuggled his blood or something out.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I took in a picture of you and asked this guy on reception if he’d ever seen you. He came back to me a few days later and said one of the other women who worked there had. He knew your name.’

‘I’ve never been to the prison. Lots of people would know my name from the picture, especially if they were following the case.’

‘I know that now but he had me convinced. I didn’t think it through, I was sure it all made sense that you had been there and it didn’t even cross my mind I could be wrong. That’s why I wanted to get your blood tested, I thought you were related or something. I know it sounds crazy now but I’d put all the pieces together and…’

‘…It does sound pretty crazy,’ DCI Farraday interrupted, smiling softly.

‘I’m sorry, Sir.’

‘There’s time for that later. What are you saying? That it’s this prison reception guy?’

‘Mills said the guy had bright blue eyes and a scar on his face. The guy at the jail is called Dennis, you can’t miss his scar but the eyes too. I was so obsessed before I didn’t even see it. McKenna, his sister Mary, and Dennis all have those same light blue eyes. They almost look through you with them.’

‘You think they’re all related?’

‘I don’t know, I have no idea but why would Dennis say he’d seen you when you’ve never been near the place?’

‘We can’t arrest him because he has a scar that’s a little bit similar and blue eyes. We’d have thousands of people to bring in if that were the case.’

‘I think I know how we can find out for sure, Sir.’

‘We can’t just take hairs from him or take blood to check him and we can’t swab him without arresting him for something. Any evidence would be inadmissible.’

Farraday scratched at the mark on his face, an unconscious movement at the place where Jessica had cut him.

‘I know but if we catch him in the act…’

‘We still can’t entrap someone.’

‘Maybe not but say we had an anonymous tip telling us someone’s life was in danger. We could watch that person and if someone did try to attack that person, there would be no problem arresting them then, would there? Then we get a swab and, if it just happens to match the ones we had before, we’d know for sure if this person was our killer or not. Even if there was any confusion with his DNA matching someone else’s, we would have caught him in the act.’

‘Are you still talking about this Dennis character?’

‘Yes.’

‘How would you know who he was going after next?’

‘Say I gave him a push in the right direction? Maybe dropped a few hints that someone in authority was a little corrupt? That must be why the warden Lee Morgan was killed. I think there’s a good chance he would go after someone else.’

‘Why would he listen to you?’

‘He may not but I have a little feeling he might.’

‘It still sounds like entrapment.’

‘Maybe we can cross that bridge if it all works?’

‘Who are you intending on putting in the firing line?’

‘There’s already one person I’ve asked him to look at the picture of. All I would have to do was tell him I was asking about that man because they were possibly on the take.’

DCI Farraday puffed out his cheeks, blowing through his teeth and rubbing his head. ‘I’m not going to like the sound of this, am I?’

THIRTY-SIX

Jessica, Cole and Reynolds were sitting in Farraday’s office. The chief inspector put the phone down and glanced between the three of them. ‘The superintendent doesn’t have a solution,’ he said.

‘How long has Doherty been in custody?’ Reynolds asked.

‘Almost two days. I went to the magistrates earlier and we’ve got two days more maximum, then it’s charge or release.’

Jessica swore loudly. ‘We got him red-handed though.’

The DCI looked across his desk at her. ‘How’s the fist?’

‘Fine.’

‘It’s a good job twenty-three officers saw him slip and fall on his face, isn’t it?’

‘I said I was sorry.’

‘Are you?’

‘No.’

DCI Farraday said nothing. He couldn’t be seen to endorse violence from his officers. ‘I know we got him red-handed but the problem is, at best, we could only charge him with attempted murder. At worst, trespassing.’

‘What about the knife?’

‘What about it? He’s no-commenting and his solicitor could just say he found it on my property.’

Cole spoke next. ‘Surely the fact his DNA is a complete match for everything we’ve found is enough?’

The DCI answered again. ‘I thought so too. I’ve been talking to the super and he’s been going back and forth with the CPS. Basically, no one knows because the situation is so unusual. Normally when you find DNA at a scene and pair it to someone, that’s the end of it. The problem is it’s also a direct match for McKenna.’

Jessica cut in. ‘But we know they’re twins now, so what?’

‘Identical twins who aren’t, well, identical. Look at it from a jury’s point of view. You have one scientist who gets up and tells you the DNA is a definite one-hundred-per-cent match to Dennis Doherty – the defendant – but that it’s also a complete match for someone else too. It’s hardly “beyond reasonable doubt”, is it?’

‘Yeah, but that other guy is in prison,’ Jessica said, exasperated.

‘Doesn’t matter though, does it? There’s still doubt and it could go either way. All it takes is a clever barrister who has a different expert witness banging on about planting evidence and some dopes on the jury let him walk.’

‘John Mills is an eyewitness. He saw the guy.’

‘He saw someone with a bit of a scar after he had already been stabbed. Besides, all it would take is a witness to his bad character and he’d be laughed out of court. If the other side had any sense they’d use a female barrister and the misogynistic prick would blow his top anyway.’

Jessica nodded in agreement but still tried to force the point. ‘We
know
it’s Doherty though.’

‘What are we sure of?’ Reynolds asked.

The chief inspector spoke. ‘Not enough. There’s no doubt they are twins. Their DNA matches for a start and we’ve got both birth certificates – they have the exact same birthday and birthplace. McKenna has a mother listed but no father, Doherty has a
different
mother listed and a father. Just to confuse matters more, their half-sister, Mary O’Connor, doesn’t have a birth certificate.’

DI Cole sighed before he spoke. ‘We know Mary said she was born to travellers and certainly the area McKenna and Doherty were born in was home to traveller families. Is there any chance the mother could have given away a daughter and then, a couple of years later, split up twins because she couldn’t cope?’

Farraday looked across at the three of them. ‘I’m not sure we’ll ever know that. You don’t have to have a baby in a hospital and although the parents should legally register a birth, we know from Mary’s experiences it doesn’t always happen. None of their parents are alive and it would have happened before any of them were old enough to know any better. I think the only thing we can ask is if either McKenna or Doherty – or both – have realised since they were related. It would help if we knew why they looked different too. With Doherty no-commenting, we may never know.’

‘Did you get much from McKenna at the prison?’ Jessica asked, turning to Cole.

‘A long stream of “no comments”.’

The four detectives looked at each other, as if hoping for inspiration. ‘What do you reckon?’ Jessica asked the DCI.

‘I think the CPS could possibly charge him with the murders and then hope we actually dig something up before the pre-trial hearing. Otherwise, everyone’s screwed.’

‘Can I talk to him?’ Jessica said.

The chief inspector looked at her. ‘You know why I’ve kept you out. For one, you can’t just assault someone, even if he did “slip”. Secondly, if he brought up the fact you dropped him my name, we could end up with nothing. Frankly, I don’t know why he hasn’t done it already.’

‘Do we know why he’s giving us no comment?’ she asked.

The DCI gazed at her quizzically. ‘Same reason they all do, so they don’t give anything away.’

‘But he’s not just our standard killer, is he? If he wanted to cause a fuss, he would have told his lawyer about me already but he hasn’t. Don’t forget, he went after specific people because he thought they deserved it. I don’t think he’s afraid of facing up to his crimes – you might even find he wants to go to prison because he’ll have better access to the people he’s targeting.’

‘If that was true, why wouldn’t he just confess?’

‘Maybe he needs an incentive?’

‘Like what?’

‘Let me talk to him.’

‘No. Tell me your idea and one of us will try it.’

‘I think it has to be me.’

Cole spoke next. ‘He was somewhat smitten with Jessica at the prison, Sir.’

‘You don’t think he’s going to confess to everything just because he has a bit of a crush?’

‘No, Sir,’ Jessica said. ‘I think he’s going to confess because we know something he doesn’t.’

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Jessica was sitting in the interview room as Cole set up the recording device. ‘Are you sure you’re going to be okay?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, I’m fine.’

‘You can’t do anything…
silly
.’

‘You know me.’

‘Yes I do and that’s my point.’ Jessica said nothing as the heavy door clanged open and Dennis Doherty was led into the room handcuffed with his solicitor just behind him.

The lawyer was someone Jessica recognised from one of the local firms, convincing her even more the suspect wasn’t too bothered whether or not he got off. If he was really desperate, he would have either hired one of the better-known defence solicitors himself or waited for the ones who were desperate to get their faces in the papers to come along. Jessica knew she was playing a dangerous game and that if Dennis really did want to be acquitted, he would bring up their various meetings. The possible entrapment would muddy the waters further for a jury when it came to trial if a solicitor mentioned it.

‘I’m just wondering if we can have a bit of a chat, Dennis?’ she said.

He said nothing, staring at his own hands. His nose still had flecks of dried blood around it and was flattened to one side. Jessica thought she should probably feel guilty for doing it but there was no remorse.

She wanted to stare into the blue eyes of the man who had killed her friend but he wouldn’t look up. ‘You and I both know you did this but I don’t think anyone else in this room understands why you did it. You see, I think you worked on the front gate for all those years and you saw people coming in and out and in again and you got sick of it all.’

No response.

‘First there was Craig Millar. He was a bit of an unsavoury guy, wasn’t he? Drugs, intimidation, all sorts. Bit unimpressive though, wasn’t he? On his own I bet he was a pushover?’

Dennis didn’t acknowledge her, still staring at his own wrists.

‘Then it was the big two, Webb and Hughes. I wondered if you planned to hit the two of those together. Still, it worked out all right, didn’t it? What about the prison guard, Lee Morgan? It must have driven you crazy seeing him walk in and out of work each morning knowing what he was up to on the side?’

‘No comment.’

‘Is that all you’ve got to say? Here’s my point, if you wanted to deal with those people, why wouldn’t you want to be inside with them? Couldn’t you operate better from the inside?’

The man shuffled slightly in his seat and Jessica wondered if he was understanding what she was trying to say. She pointed towards the solicitor. ‘This man in the suit who’s been telling you to not say anything, you don’t think he’s interested in your work, do you? He’s the exact kind of person who gets all these criminals off. All those ones you hear about on the news, all those people you see walking in and out of the prison, they’re all represented by people like him.’

The lawyer leant in across the table. ‘You’re out of line – and the actions of other people have got nothing to do with my client.’

‘Do you hear that, Dennis? You’re his “client”. Does that sound like someone who’s remotely interested in what your reasons were?’

Dennis again fidgeted nervously in his chair but didn’t say anything.

‘Obviously you know you have a brother in prison. All the coverage through the papers would have told you if you didn’t already know. Now I’ll be honest with you– we don’t know whether you were working with your brother or not. We have no idea. But isn’t it strange that you want to get these types of people off the streets and yet one of them is your brother?’

‘No comment.’

‘Here’s my second point, Dennis. Does it strike you that maybe this kind of thing runs in the family?’

Dennis was clearly getting agitated. He raised his cuffed hands to scratch at his head.

‘And then your sister’s in prison too…’

He moved in his chair, shuffling backwards and then looking up at her. His solicitor went to cut in but the prisoner spoke over the top of him. ‘I don’t have a sister.’

‘Did you always know you had a brother?’

‘You’re making it up.’

‘I’m not. All three of you have the same eyes.’ Jessica opened an envelope that was on the table between them but didn’t take any of the contents out. ‘Can you see the irony, Dennis? I know you’re someone who’s very intelligent. You want to cleanse the streets but at the same time you, your brother and sister are all criminals yourselves.’

The solicitor stood and physically tried to pick his client up by the arm. ‘No chance, you’re not doing this,’ he said angrily. ‘This is over. You can’t blackmail a confession out of someone by holding back knowledge of a relative.’

Dennis rose too and his lawyer started bundling him towards the door but then the prisoner pushed his solicitor back before he could be taken out of the room. The man in the suit looked at his client, weighing up whether he should try moving him again. He clearly didn’t fancy his chances.

The suspect looked at Jessica and his head sank. He started to speak in a quiet, more solemn tone. ‘I was in a bad car accident when I was younger.’ Everyone in the room froze. Dennis’ lawyer looked panicked while Jessica said nothing, giving the prisoner space to talk. ‘That’s why we look different.’ He lifted his cuffed hands to his face and ran them along the length of his scar. ‘That’s how I got this. I didn’t really have much of a face left.’

He slumped to the floor as Jessica rose from her seat, crouching near to him. He spoke in a broken voice. ‘I didn’t know I had a brother, let alone a twin. He’s been in and out over the years and, on the few times we’ve seen each other, there has always been this sort of familiarity. But if you were brought up as an only child, you wouldn’t necessarily assume you had some long-lost brother just because someone looked a little like you, would you?’

He indicated his scar again. ‘Have you ever seen a person on the street or on TV and someone says you look a bit like them? Because of this I didn’t even know if that’s what I should look like anyway. I just kind of saw him and forgot.’

The lawyer sat back at the table, defeated. Cole was opposite him, with Jessica settling cross-legged on the floor across from Dennis.

‘When did you find out?’ she asked.

‘Officially? In the last couple of days with all the questioning and everything. Obviously it got around the prison after you had been to talk to McKenna because you had matched him to the crimes. I suspected then of course. I checked his birthday on our system and saw it was identical to mine. It’s not like I could have just asked him though.’

‘Do you know you have the same mother?’

‘No. Is it true we have a sister?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Mary.’

‘And she’s in prison too?’

‘Yes.’

Dennis sniffed away a tear. ‘I spent all my life thinking I was on my own then it takes all of this to find out I actually have a twin brother and a sister.’

‘Do you know anything about your parents, Dennis, or why you might have been separated?’

‘No. We travelled around a lot when I was a kid then ended up back here. They were getting on a bit in years and said they were to ready to settle. I knew I’d been born here but didn’t know anything specific.’

‘We know you and Donald McKenna have different mothers on your birth certificates but I don’t think we’ll ever be able to tell you who your parent actually was.’

The man shrugged. ‘I don’t think it really matters any more. Whoever it was would probably be ashamed of us.’

‘Why did you kill them, Dennis?’

The man shrugged again. Jessica had been annoyed at herself for beginning to feel a little sympathy but the casual way he moved his shoulders showed he had no real regret. ‘I just got sick of it. The same faces doing the same things over and over and no one does anything about it.’

‘You must have known you’d get caught?’

‘Maybe but I planned carefully and watched everyone so I knew their routines. I knew I wasn’t on any databases or anything because I’d never been arrested. Even if I left some traces at the scene I didn’t see any way you could ever link it back to me.’

Jessica could see he was right. If it wasn’t for the link to McKenna, they would have just had some random DNA without knowing whose it was. ‘What about the police officer?’

‘Your friend?’

‘Yes, my friend.’

‘I didn’t hear her. She had nothing on her feet and was on me before I could think. I didn’t mean to but she was really strong. You were the last people I would have targeted.’