Can Anybody Help Me? (8 page)

A huge window dominated one side of the room and Claire walked over to it. It had been left slightly ajar and she breathed in deeply, aware that the stench of decay would only get stronger the further she moved into the apartment. Claire knew the odour well. It was unmistakable, and for most people would have been nauseating. But Claire knew she was in no danger of having her stomach turned. The inconsistencies of pregnancy hormones meant that, although a bag of curried chips brought home by Matt could send her running to the loo, she was still able to visit a crime scene without fear of contaminating it. It was a mental thing, she was in work mode now. The pregnancy just wasn't part of it. But that didn't mean she was going to enjoy it, and she treated herself to one more lungful of air before she turned, and walked slowly and carefully across the floor.

The full force of the smell hit her nostrils as soon as she opened the door. Instinctively, she took shallower breaths, opening her lungs only as much as was necessary. The curtains in the room were partially closed and she blinked for a moment as her eyes got used to the gloom. And then looked at the figure that was lying on the bed.

‘Jesus.'

It was an expression of horror. Maybe a prayer. This person certainly needed someone to pray for her. There had been no dignity in this death. Claire moved closer to the bed. The woman's body was sprawled awkwardly on top of the covers, the cream duvet and sheet rumpled beneath her. She lay on her side, her body twisted almost in an S-shape, as if she had been flung there, discarded. One hand was trapped under her cheek, the other draped loosely across her stomach. She was wearing jeans and a white vest top, which had been torn off one shoulder, leaving her bra exposed. Claire moved closer. The underwear looked expensive, in contrast to the thin T-shirt and – the angle of the body meant that Claire could see the label at the waist – the high-street jeans. The same label could be seen on a thin blue cardigan that was lying on the ground beside the bed. Already Claire felt she was starting to get a feel for this woman. A supermarket T-shirt and a designer bra. A woman who didn't have much money, but spent what she had on the things she considered important. Sometimes a decent bra could make you feel more feminine, remind you of who you were no matter what outer clothes you were wearing. Even a Garda uniform. Claire looked at the body again. The woman had been a size 12–14, she reckoned. An average size. An ordinary size. But this was no ordinary way to die.

Claire noted flashes of colour against the cream bedclothes and greying mottled skin. Ruby-red nails on the fingers and toes. A scab of brown blood high on the right cheekbone. Brown and green bruising at the top of each arm. A large purple mark on the left shin.

‘You'll want a look at this.'

‘J—'

Her heart thumping in her chest, Claire just about managed not to swear out loud. Helen Sheehy was standing in the bedroom door, a plastic evidence bag in her hand.

‘We found her wallet in her jeans. Probably confirms the identity, but then again you might have guessed that already?'

‘Yeah.'

Her heart rate returning to normal, Claire took the bag and scanned its contents. Bank cards, a social welfare ID, a library ticket from Dolphins Barn library. The name Miriam Twohy written on each item. But Dr Sheehy was right, Claire had already guessed who they'd found. There weren't that many missing women in Dublin and it was all too much of a coincidence: her age, the area, the stage of decomposition. She stared at the body again. She wasn't a pathology expert, but she had seen enough dead bodies to know that Miriam had been lying there for at least a week, if not more. It was also obvious that the heating had been turned off in the apartment, otherwise the discovery would have been far more unpleasant.

What bothered her was the ease of identification. The killer hadn't bothered to hide his victim's name. It had been an arrogant move, leaving the wallet so prominently displayed. He clearly didn't want, or didn't feel he needed to buy himself time. He was either stupid, or confident. That was a far more worrying prospect.

A photograph peeped out from behind one of the ID cards and, turning the bag around in her hand, Claire could see it was a picture of a baby girl. She wasn't a particularly pretty child. Her cheeks were red and there was an unmistakable glisten under the right nostril, but someone adored her. Someone,
presumably Miriam Twohy herself, loved her enough to take this picture, cut it to size, insert it in a wallet and carry it around with her. Miriam had loved this baby. And now Miriam was dead.

She was about to hand the bag back to the pathologist when she noticed another piece of paper, lighter and flimsier than the rest. She walked over to the bedroom window and held the bag up to the light. The item was a receipt, one of the old-fashioned ones, printed on what looked almost like newspaper. There were no details of the items purchased, just a date, a time and then a line of figures written in lilac. She looked closer.

€4.50
€3.95
€1.80

Another line showed that twenty euro had been handed over, and change received. Claire exhaled. That might give them something. The date, as far as she could remember, was the day Miriam Twohy had disappeared. It wasn't much. But it was something for them to follow.

She walked back to the head of the bed and finally allowed her gaze to fall fully onto the woman's face. Long dark hair, a slightly beaky nose. God love you. Her eyelids were closed. That at least was a mercy.

‘We'll be removing her shortly.'

‘Grand.'

Claire gave Helen Sheehy a half grimace, an acknowledgement of the difficult task that lay ahead. It was time for her to
leave. Quigley would want an update as soon as possible. But as she reached the bedroom door she paused, and turned towards the body again. Who did this to you? And, almost by instinct, another prayer. Dear Jesus, let me find him.

I'M BAAAACK

NAPPY BIN INSERTS?

They had been gone for less than three hours, but Claire could feel the change in atmosphere as soon as she got back to the station. It was going to be one of those cases. Murders were far from unusual in Dublin, but most were related to drugs, crime or what the media loved to call ‘gangland activities'. The discovery of an unidentified body, particularly a woman's body, in a place like Merview was still rare enough to get even the more blasé members of An Garda Síochána talking. And a good thing too, she thought to herself as her mind replayed images from the apartment. It wouldn't be pleasant to live in a world where that was taken for granted.

So the head swivels she and Flynn encountered when they got back to base were to be expected. Particularly when the others noticed they'd brought a passenger. But she avoided catching anyone's eye as she ushered the young estate agent through the main office and down the corridor that led to the station's interview rooms.

Number 3 was free. Not that there was anything to differentiate it from the other two. Collins Street Garda station had been built in the 1950s by an architect who seemed to have studied social housing in Russia. Before perestroika. The
interview rooms were small, windowless and painted a grim shade of cream. The smoking ban meant that the air was slightly less stale these days, but traces of nicotine staining remained on the ceiling and the walls. The bare light bulb would have been familiar to viewers of crime dramas, and the much-abused furniture was perfectly in tune with the ambience of the room.

Claire closed the door and watched as Cormac Berry folded himself into one of two metal chairs that stood either side of a scuffed melamine table. The seats themselves were rock hard, designed to keep arses uncomfortable and their owners awake. She lowered herself down into her own chair and waited for the ache in her back to subside. Flynn, who had walked in behind them said nothing, but stood by the door, his eyes fixed on the grimy wall.

Claire took out her notebook and pen. The session would be videotaped, but she was a longhand woman at heart. The electronics were useful. But sometimes it was only when she read back information in her own handwriting, with her own scribbles reminding her of tone or emphasis that its importance became clear. Even the seemingly innocuous stuff could turn out to be useful later on.

Besides, it gave her something to do with her hands.

She uncapped her pen and smiled at Berry.

‘Now. We'll try and keep this as straightforward as possible.'

The young man blinked again, a tic Claire was finding increasingly irritating, and tugged at his jacket.

‘Do I, like, need a lawyer?'

Oh, here we go. The battle hymn of a generation reared on US cop shows. God be with the days when people answered
questions first and worried about the ramifications afterwards. But Claire kept her tone neutral.

‘You can, of course, call your solicitor if you want, Mr Berry. But really at this stage we just need you to tell us exactly what happened. We're just taking an initial statement.'

‘Yeah, okay. Cool.'

He paused again and looked down at his fingernails. They were too long and too clean, Claire decided. A sure sign of a fella who didn't break his back at the day job. Okay, working in an estate agency was hardly equivalent to mining coal, but somehow she reckoned an ink stain or something would have made him seem a little more effective. The silence lengthened and she decided to start with a few gentle questions.

‘You could begin by telling me your full name? And occupation?'

He looked up at her gratefully as if he hadn't expected things to be that simple.

‘Yeah, sure! It's, ehm, Cormac Berry? And I work for O'Mahony Thorpe, they're, like, based in Rathmines?'

O'Mahony Thorpe. Claire wrote the name on a blank notebook page. It was a familiar one, and not just because she'd seen it written outside the Merview complex. It had taken herself and Matt almost two years to buy a house – at the top of the market, naturally – and in that time she'd dealt with every legitimate estate agency in the city, as well as some shysters armed with nothing more than a clipboard and a mallet.