First Death In Dublin City (Thomas Bishop Book 1) (23 page)

‘The fuck happened to you?’ She asked, and Tommy glanced down at his throbbing hand.

‘It hurts, so so very badly.’ Tommy said.

‘Didn’t you get painkillers?’ Anne asked.

Tommy shook his head, and Anne grimaced.

‘What now?’ Anne asked.

Ignoring the pain, Tommy spoke.

‘The only one of the murders that had any sane motive was the first death, Amy Clancy; the rest were just the actions of a violent madman. Its Gary Clancy, it has to be.’

‘Do we have proof?’ Anne asked, not even questioning Tommy’s theory – it seemed natural to her too.

Tommy shook his head. ‘No, and he’s been smart. He has some experience with weaselling out of accusations, according to Claire. I bet you he has his tracks covered and once he feels us padding after him he’ll stop his killing.’

‘So, what? We go and scare him and hope he stops his killing? He’ll go back to it, he’ll just stop leaving the bodies in public. And if he’s left no evidence we’ll be years pinning something on him.’

Tommy grimaced with each throb in his hand. No one truly would begrudge me something to numb the pain – but no, such thoughts led down a very dark road.

‘We would be, if we weren’t able to go right now and arrest him for his assault on Claire.’

‘Will she testify against him?’ Anne asked, surprised.

Tommy lifted his hand. ‘She’d better, if she doesn’t want me to arrest her for attempting to murder a member of An Garda Síochána. She’ll then be facing a life sentence.’

‘Tommy, if he’s as good as you claim; he’ll get a lawyer and rubbish Claire. You know as well as I that when you coerce a witness into court they always fall apart on the stand.’

‘I know, but we’re not arresting him to put him in jail on assault charges. Arresting him means we’ll be able to derive whether he truly is the Ripper. Might be we won’t be able to find enough to prove it in court, but we’ll know.’

‘What good is that?’ Anne asked.

Tommy looked at Anne, wondering how it had come to this.

‘Once you and me know he’s the Ripper, beyond reasonable doubt; if we beyond a shadow of a doubt know he killed those three girls, we try get him for it. But if he evades the law, he can’t evade us. We do whatever necessary to stop the Ripper, so once we find him, we either find or fabricate a reason to arrest and convict him. It doesn’t matter how short the sentence because once he’s in Mountjoy, we leak into the prison that he’s a child killer; and he’ll be killed by nightfall.’

Silence descended upon the car.

‘Tommy…’

‘I’m not even talking about Gary, but the Ripper. We have to stop him.’

Anne looked at him.

‘We have to know, me and you, 100% have to agree.’ Anne said.

Tommy nodded.

‘I’m serious, I have a veto if I don’t feel that this is our guy.’ She said.

Tommy raised his right hand. ‘Deal.’ He said.

‘Deal.’ Said she.

And they shook upon the death of the Dublin Ripper.

##

Tommy passed the cone of water over to Gary Clancy who wet his lips then left it on the table.

‘You done with Jerry now?’ Tommy said, pointing to the door, but meaning the solicitor who was sitting just outside it.

Gary nodded.

‘What, exactly, did you do to Claire Clancy?’ Tommy asked.

Gary smirked, his long legs barely able to fit under the steel table of the interview room. Slimy fucker, Tommy thought.

‘Look, Detective, I know you earlier held a penknife to my neck and warned me not to hit my wife again, but like I said then, I really have never laid a hand on my wife and am appalled that you would even think I had.’ Gary said, staring down at the tape recorder with a grin.

Tommy leaned back in his chair and smiled right back.

‘Gary, it really isn’t great to open the interview with a complete fabrication – unless you want to make a legitimate complaint about me, then I’d advise you keep to facts. Now, Gary, Claire is currently in hospital with what doctors are claiming are a clear result of violent and sustained attack. Now you may be lucky, and get away with just being charged with Assault Causing Harm, get five years in jail; and avoid being charged with Causing Serious Harm which, of course, carries a fabulous life sentence.’

His eyes narrowed.
He doesn’t believe that she’s gone to the authorities.

‘She told us all about your last flirtation with the law, waltzed right out of that courtroom didn’t you?’ Tommy asked.

Now Gary looked shook.
Didn’t think Claire would finally report your violence?

‘I was, years ago, accused of a crime; and was at the time found innocent. Now forgive me if I’m wrong, but aren’t sexual partners usually the prime suspects in physical assaults on women?’

‘You’d be very correct.’ Tommy said.

Gary smirked again. ‘Well detective, I haven’t conjugated with my ex-wife in years. Weren’t you the last one to fuck her? Haven’t you been in a relationship with her for the last few weeks?’

He’s trying to be clever, suspects should never try to be clever.

‘Is that jealousy I hear? You decided, because I carry around a Sig Sauer you couldn’t start on me, so you’d beat up your ex-wife instead?’ Tommy asked.

‘I couldn’t give a flying shit who she fucks.’ Gary said.

‘Anger and objectification in the same sentence? Do you think of Claire as an object?’ Tommy said.

Gary grimaced. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be trying to catch whoever killed Amy? Can’t they get some other Garda to handle this fake shit?’

‘Don’t worry, we already know who did it, we have the killer under our nose: just waiting for a bit more evidence and we’ll have him.’

‘Who is it?!’ Gary asked, jumping out of his chair.

Not exactly the reaction I expected.

Tommy stood up to face him.

‘You’re a fucking suspect in an assault – there’s a woman in hospital claiming that her severe injuries; injuries, may I add, that are obviously the result of an assault; were caused by you. So you go out now and talk to your lawyer and when we get back we’re going to discuss what you’ve been up to these last few days. And you’d better stop with these bullshit answers because a courtroom isn’t going to be very impressed at all.’

And so, after only five minutes of questioning Tommy and Gary broke off the interview. Gary got up and stretched and left the room to sit on a bench next to his lawyer. Tommy checked right, and went through the two doors needed to get into the viewing room. There, Anne and Matty O’Hara were seated between the viewing window and an old computer logged into Anne’s account.

‘What you think?’ Tommy asked.

‘Well, we were hoping for one of two reactions no? Either he’d realise you were talking about him when you said the Ripper was nearly ours, and get really guilty or suspicious. Either that, or, he’d think someone else was taking the rap and he’d get really excited at the thought of getting away with it. Getting angry and wanting to know who the guy was seems to be the kind of reaction you’d expect from a grieving father.’ Anne said.

‘Keep pushing?’ Tommy asked.

‘Keep pushing.’ Matty said.

So Tommy gathered his papers and left the room looking into the hall where Gary and Jerry were talking on a wooden bench. He was about to shout to them, to tell them the interview was back on, when he got called back by Anne’s shout.

On his desk, Tommy’s phone was ringing; he glanced at the screen: Peter Hayes. He paused for a second before he answered.

‘Yo, Peter, kind of busy right now.’ Tommy said.

‘Tommy she’s gone! She’s been taken!’ Peter shouted.

‘Who?’ Tommy asked.

‘Colleen. My daughter. Tommy a white van came around and a guy just dragged her in, in plain sight, in front of my wife.’ Peter said.

‘Jesus. Reg plate?’ Tommy asked.

‘She said it happened too fast.’

‘When was this?’ Tommy asked.

‘Less than half an hour ago.’

‘Ok, Peter I need you to call your wife and tell her to meet you in Ballyfermot Station. Do you hear me? You then will stay there until I get there. Do you understand?’

‘Yeah Tommy.’

‘See you in twenty.’ Tommy said, then he hung up. Next he punched in one of the emergency numbers engraved on every Detectives brain. After two rings someone picked up.

‘Detective Inspector Thomas Bishop here; put out a Child Rescue Ireland Alert. Urgency required. Missing is one Colleen Hayes, fourteen years old, brown hair. I’ll have a photo soon enough. She was last seen twenty five minutes. It is believed she was taken by a male aged somewhere between thirty-five and sixty who is currently driving a white Ford Transit van.’

‘Got it.’ Said the voice on the other end of the phone.

Anne sat in the driver’s seat, Tommy in the front passenger. They pulled out of the car park – it was only two o’clock so the school traffic had yet to clog up the roads; the rain beat heavily upon the windshield as they set off for Ballyfermot Station.

‘We need to send this to the States, get a profiler to look at it?’ Anne asked.

‘No. Well, maybe yes, but it won’t do Colleen Hayes any good. The only victim the Ripper kept for any length of time was Amy Clancy, and that was so that he could do that weird photograph shit. It feels like she only has around 24 hours, less even.’

‘Twenty four hours?’ Anne asked. ‘But we have no leads?’

‘We have one, we have a very solid one.’ Tommy said.

‘We do?’ Anne asked confused.

‘That car sticker, on the back of the van.’ Tommy said, before falling into silence.

‘But Tommy, it was blurry, none of us knew what it was.’ Anne said.

‘I know, you could only know it if you’d seen it before. Luckily, I have.’ Tommy said.

‘You have?’ Anne asked.

‘I’ll tell you at the station.’ He said.

Peter’s wife was waiting for them out in the rain, so much like Claire Clancy had a few weeks ago when first she had learned of Amy’s disappearance. Tommy and Anne had nodded to her, and she followed them inside – Peter was waiting for them outside his office door.

‘Tommy, Tommy, Tommy. What are we going to do?’

‘Come in.’ Tommy said, and they all sat around Peter’s crowded desk.

‘Peter, are you a friend of Bill W’s?’ Tommy asked.

Peter’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yes.’ He said.

Tommy leaned forward. ‘I have, for weeks now, been searching for the Ripper. He’s like fire on the bog – the smoke, it spreads everywhere, the seagulls gather around the smell of burning vegetation and the animals sprint from the wind blown ashes. Finding the source of the fire though? Goodnight sisters. Until now, until, finally, I’ve found a clue.’

‘What is it?’ Peter asked.

‘You were his sponsor.’ Tommy said. ‘His AA sponsor.’

Peter’s breath quickened. ‘How can you know?’ He asked.

Tommy found a peace of paper on Peter’s desk and began to draw. He drew a circle, and inside he drew a triangle.

‘What does this look like to you?’ Tommy asked.

‘The Alcoholics Anonymous logo.’ Peter said, and Anne drew breath sharply beside the desk.

‘It was a car sticker on the back of his car.’ Tommy said.

‘That doesn’t necessarily mean..’

‘Peter! I’ll give my left nut if this guy turns out not to be some kind of addict. You’ve gotta believe I’m right here.’ Tommy said.

Peter nodded.

‘How long have you been in Recovery?’ Tommy asked.

‘Eleven years.’ Said Peter.

Tommy found a notepad upon the cluttered desk and ripped out a single sheet. Then he passed it over to Peter.

‘If there’s any chance I can find Colleen, it’ll be by you writing out a list of anyone, anyone, you’ve sponsored through the years.’

Peter nodded, picked up a pen, and began to scribble. They waited patiently, while he wrote, listing names, names and more names while the heavy rain throbbed off the station’s roof.

Finally, he was done, as a list of twenty seven names was passed over to Tommy and Anne.

‘That’s it, you’re sure?’ Tommy asked. Peter nodded, and he and Anne got up to leave.

Before he had gone however, Peter had grabbed his shoulder and took him back into the room.

‘Pat Bishop’s son is a genius, that’s what they said when you arrived in the force – said you’d been to Cambridge and could count better than Hawking; that no one knew why you’d joined but it sure was a blessing. Keep him away from the RA, like we should have done with his Da’ and he’d be the highest flying bird of the lot of us. Well, Tommy, be the fucking genius; be the fucking blessing. Find her!’

Tommy slid from the room and Peter’s accusatory glare.

In the porch below the heavy arch, he and Anne met.

‘I’m going to call in NBCI and the Rapid Response Unit. Every one of these twenty-seven is to be found, and an armed team break into their homes. Peter has just given us last known addresses for eighteen of these guys, we don’t know the other nine. You start hunting, I’ll go to Harcourt Street and attempt to track down the addresses of the nine.’