Can Anybody Help Me? (18 page)

‘I'm not going to be left with the kid, am I?' were the exact words he had said when informed of the killing, the words noted in the precise email from the Australian Federal Police. Claire had already decided not to share that nugget with the Twohys. There was no point in causing any more ill feeling.

The truth of the matter was, nobody in Miriam's life seemed to have a motive for her murder. Her brother had a record for theft and receipt of stolen goods, but there was no evidence to show that he was any more than a petty criminal, and a couple of people had mentioned how devoted he'd been to his baby sister. Miriam's co-workers had volunteered the information that she had been a ‘nice person', but further than that hadn't anything else to say. Her students had said even less, she had been, it seemed, a capable, if somewhat uninspiring, teacher. And that was it. No hobbies, no trips to the gym, no mother and toddler groups. Miriam Twohy, it seemed, lived for her daughter, while her own mother worried she was throwing her life away. Worry that had now turned to grief that would be with her for the rest of her days.

While Quigley fixed some new pictures of the victim to the white board – Claire had asked for and been given the graduation shot – thirty pairs of eyes fixed on him. Claire gave a quick glance around, taking in the other faces. Thirty Gardai, of varying ranks and ages. A good group, overall. The technical experts had already presented their findings. Two Detective Gardai, Mercer and O'Toole, had spent the last three days banging phones, and it was due to them that CCTV footage, shite and all as it was, had been collated, medical reports retrieved and Australian ex-boyfriends removed from the suspect list. Miriam's phone hadn't yielded much information either. The only call she had made on the evening of her disappearance had been to her mother, who had confirmed she'd phoned around 9 p.m. to check on her little girl.

Quigley had written questions on the board.

Who did it?
That was the big unanswerable. For now.

How?
The pathology notes had been clear and, for once, easy to follow. Miriam Twohy had been drugged and then smothered to death with a pillow. She had fought against her attacker – that much had been obvious to Claire from the bruising on her body. But the drugs and alcohol in her system would have left her groggy and uncoordinated before putting her into a deep sleep. It was unlikely she had been fully aware of what was happening. That was merciful for her. But confusing for the investigating Gardai. If Miriam had been found dead in an alleyway, raped or beaten, her wallet stolen or her body severely injured, then her death could have been put down to a random act of violence. But this killing had been carefully planned. A small amount of DNA had been found on the victim's body, but without a suspect to match it to, it was just one more piece of as yet unhelpful information.

Their main lead, so far, was the apartment. Mercer and O'Toole were now working on finding Chris Solana, who had been named by both Berry and the owner of 123 Merview as the man who'd rented the flat. The two detectives had conducted an extensive trawl, and had come up with details that were both comprehensive and completely useless. Solana had never been registered on the Garda computer system. He didn't have a record, had never even bought or sold a car, let alone been fined for driving one incorrectly. He didn't appear to have ever paid tax, opened a bank account or owned a phone, nor was he registered as living in any other rental property. And extensive journeys around the parts of Dublin frequented by the Nigerian community hadn't yielded anything either. One pastor had pointed out to Mercer that Solana wasn't a Nigerian
name. Mercer had restrained himself from pointing out that he'd figured that out already.

Most people at the conference were now happy to believe that 123 Merview had been rented under an assumed name. But O'Mahony Thorpe should have come to that conclusion a long time ago. Irish law insisted that all tenancies had to be registered with the Residential Tenancies Board, which also kept a record of landlord and tenants' tax details. Such information was publically available and the estate agent shouldn't have finalised the tenancy without it. But none of this appeared to have made a difference. Merview's management company weren't even aware that the property had been rented out. The owner of the apartment was due up from Cork on the train later that day and would be interviewed. Claire knew she'd be calling Cormac Berry back for further questioning as well. They needed to find Solana, or whatever he was called. But he seemed, to all intents and purposes, not to exist at all.

Claire hunched her shoulders as the rain fell harder. Funeral weather. It was customary for a couple of investigating officers to go to funerals. The optics were good, the family got to feel as if progress was being made. But there was another reason too, a far more useful one. If the killer were a family member, then chances are they would be there and susceptible to letting their guard down in the midst of such heightened emotion. She had once investigated the killing of an elderly single man following what had seemed a break-in, until his forty-something nephew had collapsed at the service and threatened to throw himself into an open grave. Gambling debts had been put forward in court as a mitigating factor.

Funerals were useful. They were an interesting place to
observe the suspect's behaviour, when you had one. When you didn't, it was simply a case of watching everyone.

And, Claire thought as she walked past the entrance to the city's financial services centre and headed for the coffee shop on the corner, this funeral might have had its uses too.

‘You take a seat, I'll grab the coffees. Or would you rather a tea?'

‘Oh.'

The young woman looked startled.

‘I'll … ehm. Coffee, I suppose. Please.'

Suppressing the urge to point out that it wasn't a trick question, Claire watched as Deirdre Richmond pulled a rickety chair out from behind an equally lopsided table and hesitated for a moment before brushing crumbs away with her hanky and sitting down. She looked like the type of woman who carried a hanky, Claire mused. Probably ironed it too. Well, some women had the time for that sort of thing.

Banishing such thoughts of domesticity, she made her way towards the counter and looked longingly at the space where the sandwiches had once been. Brennan's did a pretty decent ham and cheese toastie. But the café was situated at the very edge of Dublin's financial district and by three o'clock in the afternoon, you'd be lucky to get a heel of a loaf of bread, never mind a full meal. And they'd laugh if you ordered an Americano. In fact, Brennan's was worlds apart from the frappamochalatte coffee shops which had sprung up all over the city in the last few years, but it was warm, half empty, close to
Connolly station and as private a space as you could find in Dublin city centre at this time in the afternoon.

There were three other customers in the place: a young high-viz-jacketed worker with razor-sharp Eastern European cheekbones, who was busily dissecting an all-day breakfast, and a pair of sixty-something women, who looked determined to wring the last drop of value out of their pot of tea for two.

The young woman behind the counter barely looked up as Claire placed her order, remembering at the last moment that coffee had been taken off the menu since her last blood-pressure check.

‘A coffee and a tea, please.'

The woman pushed a greasy strand of hair behind her ears and busied herself behind a giant urn. Brennan's didn't bother its customers with complicated decisions about frothy milk and skinny anything. Coffee was spooned out of a large catering jar of Nescafé. Full-fat milk came at room temperature and was stored in tarnished aluminium jars on a sticky side table which was also home to a diverse collection of knives, forks and usually not enough teaspoons. But the drinks were hot, and the Danish pastries – the only food that remained on the counter – were fresh. Claire picked up a couple, paid and carried the laden tray back to where Miriam Twohy's former best friend was waiting for her.

As Claire placed the coffee in front of the young woman, her jacket swung back, revealing her bump. Deirdre sprang up, a blush spreading across her cheekbones.

‘Oh gosh, I'm sorry. I never thought. I mean, if I'd noticed … '

Claire sat down, emptied the tray and placed it on an adjoining table.

‘You're grand. Don't worry about it.'

‘I just didn't think … I mean …'

The young woman looked close to tears and Claire had to resist the urge to reach out and pat her hand.

‘Seriously, it's fine. I got you black, if that's okay?'

Her guest nodded miserably and poured some milk out of a sticky jug into the steaming coffee. But she didn't lift it to her lips; instead she wrapped her hands tightly around the mug, as if she were freezing, even though the sun was streaming through the windows and the steam from the urn was hanging heavily in the caffeine- and sugar-scented air. Claire removed her teabag, dumped it on a saucer and took a large bite from the sticky apple Danish pastry, looking around afterwards, in vain, for a napkin before giving her hands a quick wipe on her jeans.

‘I wasn't allowed to eat them at all when I was pregnant. Diabetes.'

‘Yeah? That's the one thing I haven't developed yet, touch wood.' Claire gave the table a quick rap and swallowed another bite of cake, watching as the young woman in front of her visibly relaxed and took a sip from her drink. There it was again, the pregnancy conversation. If she'd known how useful getting knocked up was going to be, she might have done it years ago. She poured milk into her tea and tried not to think about how long the jug had been sitting in the open air.

‘So what time's your train?'

‘A quarter to.' Deirdre looked at her watch. ‘I have to collect my little girl from crèche later. My husband doesn't know
I came to Dublin for the day. I didn't want to have to explain … well.'

‘What age is she?'

‘Three.'

‘Right. Well, I won't keep you.'

Claire took out her phone and, taking a quick look at the time, placed it on the table between them. She hadn't wanted to do this interview in such a public place and knew her Super wouldn't be keen either. But Deirdre Richmond had insisted that catching the train was non-negotiable and, without any reason to bring her in for formal questioning, Claire hadn't argued. She had spotted her straight away at the funeral, a couple of years older of course, but the blonde hair and pale complexion were identical to those on display in the photograph on the Twohys' sitting-room wall. Fidelma Twohy had insisted her daughter hadn't been in touch with Deirdre for over two years. But given the lack of people outside her immediate family who were in any way close to Miriam Twohy, Claire was still anxious to speak to her.

Taking another sip of tea, she pulled her phone towards her and switched it to record mode with a quick ‘you don't mind, do you?' and a raise of her eyebrows. Brennan's wasn't the type of place you could pull out a notebook without being noticed. There were no students or would-be novelists pouring over laptops here.

Deirdre shook her head and took a tiny, tentative sip of coffee.

Claire pushed the phone closer to her.

‘I'm sorry for your loss.'

She looked up, startled again.

‘Oh, but I wasn't … I hadn't seen Miriam in ages. Thank you, but it doesn't really feel like that. If you know what I mean – my loss. I just came down for her mum's sake, really.'

As she spoke, Claire could hear the shadow of a northern accent overlaying her West of Ireland burr.

‘You've lived in Belfast for a while?'

‘Nearly four years. My husband's from there. We met in UCD and then I went up to Queen's to do my Master's. I've been there ever since. It's home now, I guess.'

‘And did you keep in touch with Miriam?'

‘Not really.' Deirdre sighed, and looked down at the table again. ‘She came up to see me once. But I had my little one then and, well. You know yourself.'

Claire took another bite of pastry in order to avoid replying. She doubted if her female friendships would suffer once her own baby arrived. She'd have to make a few, for a start.

‘So, when was the last time you saw her?'

‘Nearly three years ago.' The answer came quickly, as if Deirdre had expected it. ‘I was thinking on the train on the way down how long it had been. I was pregnant with Janice, that's how I remember the year. I was down in Dublin doing a bit of shopping and I met Miriam for a coffee. It was fine, we chatted, but we didn't have much in common, you know? She was on her way to a work do and I was the size of a small bungalow and just worried about getting my train. We said we'd keep in touch after that, but we didn't, not really. I friended her on Facebook, but she didn't seem to use it much. So, yeah. That was the last time I spoke to her.'

As if in need of sustenance after such a long speech, she took another sip from her coffee and absent-mindedly picked at the
icing from the remaining Danish pastry. Claire licked her fingers and resisted the urge to ask her if she wanted to halve it.

‘And how did you hear she had died?'

‘On the news.' Deirdre looked up and Claire could see that there was a very pretty woman hidden behind the tension, the too thin face and the bitten nails. ‘My mum lives in Sligo and I was down visiting her. We saw the piece, you know, when she was missing? And then Mum rang me a few days later to say her body had been found. It was awful. Mum was devastated. She came to visit us a few times when we were in college. I used to slag her, she'd never really been outside of Dublin before. So I brought her home for a weekend and we had a ball. Went to the local disco and that. She couldn't get over it. Mum was very fond of her. Used to make her get up for Mass on Sunday mornings.'