Cold Steel (3 page)

'Dr Marks is second-generation Irish-American, his parents coming from County Mayo. He's particularly pleased to be coming
home,
as he told me last month, and his wife and eighteen-year-old daughter have been living in Dublin for the past six weeks.'

'And loving it,' Dan Marks shouted, catching Regan off guard. 'Absolutely loving it.'

That was how the media came to meet the 'Dream Team'. The nation watched and marvelled as the press conference was assessed on the main television current affairs programme that evening. The trio looked confident and relaxed, self-assured. Their New England accents impressed and many commented they could have been straight out of central casting,
ER
meets
Dallas.
John Regan was so at ease in their company. Ireland went to bed that night glowing in the warmth of a strong 'feel good' factor.

The TV, radio and newspapers made much of the three
specialists over the subsequent weeks. The tabloid
Daily Post
ran profiles of the group and their backgrounds, filling pages with direct quotes: 'inadequate facilities'… 'poor career structure for junior staff leading to low morale'…
'lack of commitment to training among senior staff'. These open criticisms of existing cardiology facilities in Ireland were so scathing the Dream Team had more enemies than patients by the end of the first month. The social editor of the
Evening Post
featured Jennifer Marks' first day 'at the exclusive Holy Rosary Convent all-girls' school in Dublin's southside' where 'the emphasis is more on producing young ladies than career girls'. She included a list of the socialites, celebrities and academics who had spent their schooldays at the convent, many providing over-the-phone quotes on how wonderful it had all been.

Linda Speer was the subject of a long profile in a
Post
weekend colour supplement. She told reporters she was part of a 'cardiology team of excellence' and wanted the unit to stay together for the next two years to continue research they had already begun. What she failed to mention was the money. Speer had grown up in a hand-to-mouth existence, one of five children abandoned by their father. In a run-down neighbourhood of north Boston her mother had struggled to rear the children, sometimes juggling three jobs at a time for extra money. Like John Regan, Linda Speer never wanted to go hungry again. She despised the ignominy of poverty.

The report mentioned she'd married young while in medical school, but not that she'd abandoned her husband less than three years later when he didn't match her drive and ambition, merely that it 'didn't work out'. Since then she'd concentrated on her career but, as she confided to the reporter, gender was still a drawback. At crucial interviews the male-dominated medical profession often chose one of their own rather than a younger, brighter woman. She admitted, with unusual frankness for a doctor, that the Dublin position was a different route to her ultimate goal.
Linda Speer wanted real success, power and wealth. She knew this was unattainable as a practising doctor, or not at the levels she aspired to. The research Ireland was willing to fund was her ticket to fortune.

A short piece in the medical press claimed Stone Colman was ready for a career move and that Regan's centre offered advancement in establishing his personal international profile. Colman was known to be
ambitious
but the report suggested he'd peaked in Boston and needed a fresh challenge. He was quoted as 'delighted' with his share of the promised budget, knowing how tight finances were in the Mercy hospital. 'I can confirm that over one million pounds of the promised EEC grant is earmarked for laboratory work alone,' he was quoted as saying. 'While this sum may sound generous it is no more than adequate for my department. Indeed it is no more than one would expect for a large hospital laboratory,' he'd added pointedly.

The
Post
also ran an EXCLUSIVE on the Marks family: 'Wheelchair-bound wife, Annie, once an aspiring neurosurgeon but now stricken with the devastating wasting disease multiple sclerosis. She is cared for by doting husband Dan, who administers her Interferon therapy himself every day.' There was a happy smiling family portrait, taken outside the front door of the new Marks' residence, a three-storey Victorian splendour in Dublin's embassy belt. 'MARKS MANSION' ran the headline with a photo underneath of a laughing Jennifer Marks, pretty face, slim build, one hand on her mother's wheelchair the other pulling back her long dark hair. She was wearing a T-shirt with its logo clearly visible: I LOVE IRELAND.

'The All-American Girl' ran the by-line.

3

10.30
am

'Joe, over here. Get shots of all that group. Don't let them see you. Get close-ups.' Jim Clarke clutched the hand grip on his crutch tightly as he motioned a uniformed officer closer. 'You, yes, you, over here. Stand beside me and pretend you're talking with us. Keep your back to that crowd,' he nodded at spectators gathered at the park railings. 'No, don't look round, keep looking at me. Let Joe rest his camera on your shoulder and stay as still as you can.'

One of Clarke's trademarks was the number of photographs he ordered in major investigations.

Clarke, Kavanagh and Dillon reached Sandymount Park within twenty minutes of leaving the hospital. (It was official policy to include the forensic psychiatrist in high-profile murders and occasionally the inspection of crime scenes was delayed until he arrived.) The park was already sealed off and, in a weak breeze, yellow incident tapes fluttered from precisely placed self-standing stakes. There was about twenty yards between body and nearest tape. A strategically devised corridor allowed all movement to and from the centre of attention without disturbing evidence. Five white boiler-suited forensic specialists were inspecting sites of immediate attention, two conversing and comparing notes as they stared down at a patch of trampled grass near the wooden shelter. A spiked stake
with a yellow tip marked an area of bloodstaining, three more lead directly to where the body lay. Clarke scanned the scene, counting the number of uniformed and plainclothes officers and immediately contacted headquarters for another squad car. The sun had climbed higher in the sky with only an occasional cloud challenging. The magpies had fled.

Joe Harrison, the tall, bald and bulky forensic photographer on duty, switched lenses and began clicking, a spare Nikon resting on his ample belly. He zoomed and panned and shot off a thirty-six-roll film within seven minutes.

'Finished?' Clarke asked, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. His uniform was overheating his body. Harrison, a man of few words, nodded, then ambled towards a shout from inside the secure zone.

'Now,' Clarke directed the young officer whose shoulder had been turned into a tripod, 'grab those three over there and split into twos and move as discreetly as possible to the opposite ends of the rails. Get out onto the road.' The listening head craned closer, anxious not to miss a word. 'As soon as you're over don't let anyone up or down. Close in on that group watching. Get every name and address and how they came to be here at this hour. Okay?' Clarke couldn't help but feel his age as he inspected the intense young face listening.

By five minutes past ten the road running alongside Sandymount Park was sealed off at both ends and all traffic, pedestrian and motorised, diverted to side roads. A few minutes later the group of onlookers began dispersing as they noticed blue police uniforms approach. The same group was kept waiting in line as notebooks were produced and details taken. Clarke looked on approvingly. Beside him Moss Kavanagh rolled his mobile phone from hand to hand, his tall head like a lighthouse beacon. Patrick Dillon had joined a group gathered in a huddle yards from the undergrowth, heads locked in deep conversation. Satisfied, Clarke wiped his brow and shook the
numbness out of his damaged leg before limping towards the body.

'A touch of cold steel this morning, superintendent.' Dr Noel Dunne, the state forensic pathologist stood waiting in the middle of the taped corridor, twenty feet away from the undergrowth. He was a tall, paunchy man with a magnificent steel-grey beard and moustache that merged with his equally steel-grey head of hair. The end result almost covered his face, masking any expression. His eyes darted from side to side as he spoke, taking in every detail of the park and its surroundings. Despite the warmth of the morning he wore a Donegal tweed suit and Viyella shirt set off badly by a dark blue linen tie. He was something of a living legend within the force with a wealth of stories and humorous anecdotes that flowed like whiskey when the occasion demanded. The usual demanding occasion was murder.

'Knife in her back to the hilt,' he muttered as he made notes on an A4 page attached to a clipboard. 'Your men tell me she's the missing Marks girl.' It was more statement than question. 'Is that why our friend Dillon's here too?' Dunne grinned at his psychiatric colleague. 'Looking for the mind of our murderer?' he teased.

Dillon was humming softly and said nothing. Humming was his own peculiar way of dealing with unpleasant situations.

From somewhere a framed photograph was stuck into Moss Kavanagh's large hands and he glanced at it quickly before handing it over. Clarke and Dunne studied the face smiling out from the frame, then turned and stared at the spot Joe Harrison was photographing.

'The description given out last night fits exactly,' Dunne said gloomily. He stopped to shout instructions at one of the white-suited forensics. 'And she's certainly got three silver studs in her left ear lobe.' Clarke looked at him. 'She's lying belly down,' explained Dunne, 'but the right
side of her face is flat on the ground. I could see the left ear lobe. Three silver studs.' He pointed at the photograph. 'Just like you see in the picture.'

Clarke squinted closely and noted the tiny silver dimples on the ear of the smiling girl.

'Three silver studs,' muttered Dunne as he moved off, 'just like you see in the picture.' He paused briefly and turned back. 'And if it is her,' he added unhappily, 'there's going to be hell to pay.'

The sun now commanded clear blue skies without a cloud in sight. The warm May day had clothes sticking by the time the pathologist and his team completed their inspection of the murder scene. The body lay where it had been discovered, examined but not moved. Clumps of earth from beside and around had been lifted. Tufts of grass were trowelled, twigs and branches snipped. Brown evidence bags built up at the end of the taped corridor. As plastic protectors were slipped and secured around the feet and hands and head of the body, in the wooden shelter a bloodstained syringe was slipped into a cardboard case. The beer cans and cider bottles and cigarette butts were teased into separate containers. Everything was recorded and detailed. There was an air of weary resignation as the fourteen men and three women went about their work. Another body found, another murder recorded. But secretly each knew this one was going to cause ripples. As if to reinforce their thoughts a helicopter whirred into view with a television crew hanging out the side. The chopper blades almost drowned out conversation, the only relief coming from the cooling effect of its downdraught.

Just after two that afternoon the body of a young female was gently lifted and carried across Sandymount Park to a waiting hearse where it was laid in the 'shelf compartment. From the nearest-allowed vantage post, a battery of press cameras recorded the movements. Protected by
squad cars front and back, the hearse slowly made its way through the afternoon traffic and the short journey across the River Liffey to the city morgue on Dublin's Store Street. A few of the older neighbourhood residents blessed themselves as they watched the cortege leave.

'I'd say she got stuck there.'

Noel Dunne, Jim Clarke and Patrick Dillon stood at the edge of one of the yellow incident tapes. Only Dillon seemed less troubled than the others by the violent images. A small number of the investigation team gathered to listen, their shadows casting irregular lines. All eyes were fixed on a ten-by-twenty foot patch of heavily trampled green with divots lifted where red blood had clung to green tufts. The park was tended only occasionally and the grass had grown long and straggly. Its flattened surface stood out like a map.

'There was a thick pool of blood at that first stake,' Dunne motioned his clipboard towards the yellow tip. 'Then a sort of trail,' he moved the clipboard in an arc, 'to there.' Another yellow tip marked the next stage of the murderous journey.

Patrick Dillon made notes in a pocket book, his large frame contrasting with the slightly hunched pathologist. He interrupted. 'I'd say something happened at that point, something different.' All eyes switched to him. 'The body seems to have been laid down for a while. The grass is flattened again and there's more bloodstaining.' He scribbled on a corner of a page and went on, 'You can almost see the trail where her feet were dragged.' Dunne and Clarke followed the pointing finger. 'Then she was dumped. Like a sack of coal.'

For a moment no one spoke, each to their own thoughts but all trying to imagine the scene.

'There are no footprints,' Dillon added pointedly. 'Someone's gone to a lot of trouble scuffing any footprints.'

A very deliberate sweep of the earth had fudged all traces where the murderer had stood and walked. Dillon went down on his hunkers, resting chin on upturned hand. His attention was concentrated on one small area close to where the body had lain. 'He must have dragged her head first, hands under armpits.'

'He?' Clarke cut in.

'I'd say it's a "he". It usually is, isn't it?' Dillon looked towards Dunne for confirmation.

'Aye,' agreed the pathologist wearily, 'in Dublin murder is almost always a male activity.'

Dillon stood up slowly and arched his back, then reached into a side pocket for a Dictaphone, fiddling with its buttons.

'Any idea what time she died?' Clarke asked.

Dunne scanned scribbled notes. 'I'd say around ten last night. Her rectal temperature's down to 26C. Her body's cold and stiff. Allowing for the warm night and the light clothes I'd go for ten, no later than eleven.'

Dunne began putting away his clipboard. 'I'll see you in the morgue.'

Clarke watched him trudge heavily between the incident tapes, a man worn out by repeated contact with violent death.

'I'll follow you in an hour,' he shouted at the hunched back. A hand went up in the air to acknowledge.

Patrick Dillon dictated his immediate observations into the pocket recorder, then flicked it off. 'I'll have a preliminary report as soon as I can.'

Moss Kavanagh's mobile phone went off in the middle of the first on-site conference and he moved away so as not to disturb. The phone had an unusual ringing tone, like a cartoon jingle. Clarke had nicknamed it 'looney-tunes'.

'Yes?'

'That you, Mossy?'

'It is. That you, Barry?' Barry Nolan was crime reporter for the
Post
group of newspapers.

'Aye, what's happening? Is it definitely the Marks girl?'

Kavanagh swivelled on one foot to make sure he wasn't being overheard. 'I can only confirm we're not looking for her any more.'

'What happened, Mossy? I heard she was found with a knife in her back, can I print that?'

'You could print that all right.'

'Anything else? Was she raped?'

Kavanagh noticed the group breaking up. 'Nothing yet. Ring me tonight and I might have something more.'

'Ah fuck, Mossy, how am I gonna make the last edition?'

'I'll give you an exclusive on the PM for the morning, okay?'

'Jaysus, I love you, Mossy, d'ye know that?'

'Bugger off,' advised Kavanagh. He pushed the OFF button.