Red Ribbons (40 page)

‘Yeah, gardening and a bit of handiwork.’

‘And the owner, you say he drives a Carina?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Ollie has given us the registration number.’ Murray paused to write the registration number down again.

‘Right.’

‘Which brings us to the matter of the photograph. The one Ollie says you found.’

‘I went straight to Ollie with it, I did.’

‘And why would that be?’

‘I said to myself, if anyone knows what this is all about, it’ll be Ollie Gilmartin.’

‘And he had an opinion on it, did he?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Go on.’

‘He told me I should put it back.’

‘Back where?’

‘At Cronly. I found it in his lordship’s, I mean in Cronly’s bedroom.’

‘You have a habit of sharing a bedroom with Mr Cronly, do you?’

‘No.’

‘Why were you in it, so?’

‘Well, it’s like this. Your man, Cronly, he’s been acting strange lately, putting extra bolts on the doors.’

‘Bolts?’

‘Yeah, large yokes.’

‘To keep people out, do you think, Mr Hughes?’ Murray gave him a sarcastic grin.

‘Maybe, but the thing is, I had a load of stuff there, tools and the like. I needed to get them, and, well, let’s just say Cronly wasn’t overly fond of my company.’

‘So you thought it was okay to break in uninvited?’ Murray asked, as he wrote down Steve’s answer about the tools.

‘Not exactly. The auld one, Alison Cronly, she was the one who employed me, she gave me a key, told me I could use it anytime I wanted.’

‘I understand Mrs Cronly passed away a few months ago. Talking to the dead are we now?’ Murray’s look of disbelief left Steve in no doubt as to how this was going.

‘Look, I needed my tools. I had only one way to get them. That’s when I thought things were a bit suspicious.’

‘Suspicious?’

‘Yeah, with all the cleaning and that.’

‘Cleaning?’

‘Well his lord— I mean Cronly was down yesterday. Lit a fire in the house, though he could only have been there for a couple of hours.’

‘No law against lighting a fire in your own home.’

‘I know that, but he’d washed down the wall and the carpet. I thought it was odd, coming all the way down to do some spring cleaning.’

‘The photograph?’

‘I came across it upstairs, when I was checking things out.’

‘You still have it?’

‘Right here.’

Garda Murray studied the photograph.

‘I thought Ollie might know about it, him being around at the time the girl was killed, like.’

‘Wait there, Mr Hughes. Myself and Ollie Gilmartin are about to get reacquainted.’

ON THEIR WAY TO DR EBBS’ OFFICE, KATE AND O’Connor passed through long corridors that had long since lost their freshness. Tall sash windows dominated the structure, chipped high ornate ceilings, walls that were a collage of pale pink emulsion and hard laminated floors – everything about the building echoed abandonment. Kate wondered if the residents would consider that an apt description for themselves too. In the hallway, just before they reached the doctor’s door, a gold ornate mirror with black spotting on the glass reflected the two of them. Its intricate frame looked like the rest of St Michael’s, like something left behind.

‘Detective O’Connor, Ms Pearson, good to meet you.’

Dr Ebbs was tall and slim, his black hair balding from the centre, his face tanned. He wore a crisp white shirt and pink tie. He was handsome, Kate thought, and moved with the gentle elegance of a man who was self-confident, though not arrogant. O’Connor got straight to the point.

‘Doctor, Ms Pearson and I don’t have a whole lot of time here. We need to find out, and as quickly as possible, what, if anything, Ellie Brady’s disclosures have to do with our current investigation.’

‘I appreciate your frankness, Detective, but before I bring Ellie in here, I need to make a couple of things clear. Ellie is a long-term patient. I am relatively new to this institution, but as Ellie’s psychiatrist I took the decision to alter her medication a little over a week ago, reducing the level of benzodiazepines in an effort to bring Ellie out
of her entrenched mindset – one she has maintained for a number of years. But what I must stress is that it is still too early to tell if Ellie’s emerging cognitive state can be relied on. She claims she saw the man who killed her daughter, but she is fragile, and I will monitor your questioning with one aim and one aim only, to protect my patient.’

‘Understood, Doctor. Ms Pearson and I will handle the questioning with due care.’

‘Thank you, Detective. Just give me a moment and I’ll go ask Ellie to join us.’

≈

Ellie Brady looked cautiously at both Kate and O’Connor as she and Dr Ebbs entered the office. Kate watched Ellie, taking in everything about her. Next to Dr Ebbs, Ellie looked drab. She was thin, with short brown hair tucked behind her ears, dressed in a grey shirt and faded jeans, both two sizes too big for her. Despite her shadowy appearance, Ellie held her shoulders back, like a woman who meant business, or at the very least like a woman trying to give the illusion of such. Dr Ebbs did the introductions. As Ellie sat down, she placed what looked like a child’s green copybook on her lap, both her hands rested on it.

‘Ellie, my name is Detective O’Connor. This is Kate Pearson. Dr Ebbs will be remaining with us while we conduct this interview, and Kate will be asking a few questions. Is that okay with you?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Good. Now Kate, would you like to take it from here.’

‘Ellie, hello.’

‘Hello.’ Ellie cleared some phlegm from her throat with a small cough, covering her mouth. Her voice sounded strong, but with the demeanour of someone who hadn’t spoken with strangers for a very long time.

‘I understand, Ellie, that you believe the person who killed your daughter may be the man we are looking for.’

‘There is no maybe about it. I’m sure.’

‘And what makes you so sure?’

‘Do you have children, Ms Pearson?’

‘I do, a son. He’s four.’

‘How would you feel if you lost him?’

‘Devastated.’

‘That’s how I was, Ms Pearson.’

‘Kate, please.’

Ellie kept her gaze on Kate, as if they were the only two people in the room.

‘I was devastated for a very long time, Kate. I still am in a way, but my thinking is clearer now.’

‘Ellie, why don’t you tell us about how you found Amy?’

‘It was early morning, before most people at the caravan site had woken. I had come back from visiting Andrew. Did Dr Ebbs tell you about Andrew?’

‘No.’

‘He was the man I thought I was in love with, my husband’s brother. I had come back after being with him. I checked in on Amy, and that’s when I realised.’

‘What did you realise?’

‘At first, I thought she was sleeping. She was in her bed, her hair plaited with two red ribbons.’

‘Like the girls in Dublin, Ellie?’

‘That’s right. She was wearing a silver crucifix. I had no idea where she’d got it from, but I think she’d had it for a couple of days. The ribbons, they were wrong. She didn’t have red ribbons like that. She usually wore bobbins in her hair. They looked odd too.’

‘How do you mean, odd?

‘I don’t know, old-fashioned. She lay above the covers, still in her nightdress. That was when I noticed how strangely she was lying.’

‘What way was that?’

‘Curled up like a baby in the womb. But when I looked closer, I realised that wasn’t right either. It was because of her hands, you see. They were closed together, the fingers intermingled.’ Ellie’s eyelids opened wider, holding her stare, and her fingers replicated the way her daughter’s hands had looked. ‘It was as if she was praying. And that was when I realised that she wasn’t sleeping. She was kneeling. When I got closer, I recognised that grey colour of death. The skin on her face was cold, but her body wasn’t, although it was losing its warmth. I knew she was dead.’

Even though Ellie maintained eye contact with Kate throughout, Kate could see O’Connor’s shift in body movements out of the corner of her eye, hearing Ellie’s mention of Amy’s hands joined in prayer, and the positioning of the body. A lot of details were public knowledge, including the plaiting, ribbons and the crucifix, but nothing had been mentioned about how the girls’ bodies or hands were found. O’Connor coughed as if to signal for Kate to continue.

‘What did you do then, Ellie?’

‘I stayed with her until Joe, my husband, woke up. I told him Amy was sleeping. When he left, I went back in to her, spoke to her. I knew what had to be done.’

‘Is that when you set fire to the caravan?’

‘Yes, soon after that. I remember feeling calm. I was content you see, once I’d decided to go with her.’

‘What happened then?’

‘The fire took hold quickly. I remember the caravan filled with black smoke, the heat, the crackle. Then that Gilmartin man saved me.’ Ellie shook her head, as if to pull herself out of her reverie.

‘Oliver Gilmartin?’ O’Connor broke in, remembering the name from Donoghue’s conversation about the Carina.

‘Yes, he was caretaker of the caravan park.’

O’Connor shot a look to Kate, who nodded slightly and continued.

‘You seem very clear on things, Ellie?’

‘After fifteen years, Kate, you can get a lot of clarity.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘Can you? I doubt it. There are some things you have to live through. You might think you can imagine it, but you haven’t walked in my shoes. I hope you never do.’

Kate didn’t reply immediately, taking in Ellie’s last words.

‘Ellie, you told Dr Ebbs you saw a man, a man who you believe killed Amy; can you tell us about him?’

‘He was nothing out of the ordinary. I thought he was one of the fathers of the other kids at the park.’

‘What age, do you think?’

‘My age I guess, or a little older. I only saw him a couple of times.’

‘But you are sure he killed Amy?’

‘Someone killed her, and it wasn’t me. I loved her more than life. I just didn’t show it.’

‘Your copybook, Ellie, may I ask what’s in it?’

‘Things I remembered.’

‘Can DI O’Connor and I take a look at it?’

‘Sure.’

Opening the first page, Kate saw the words ‘Amy’, ‘Dead’ and ‘Wexford’ written in large block letters. On the second page, Ellie’s handwriting changed. It was smaller, joined, slanting to the right, obeying the rules of the page. The first words to catch Kate’s attention were ‘elderberry trees’.

‘MR GILMARTIN, COULD YOU STEP BACK IN, PLEASE?’

‘No bother.’

‘Mr Hughes tells me you might know the girl in the photograph.’

‘A lot of people would know her, at least those here at the time would remember her. It happened a long time ago, can’t see how it’s important now.’

‘You said nothing earlier.’

‘Nothing to say. Steve found the photograph, figured he was the one with the information.’

‘But you think she’s the girl killed at Beachfield?’

‘It looks like her. I can’t be sure, though, but there’s a resemblance all right. The mother was a right lunatic.’

Murray gave him a look, as if to remind Ollie he hadn’t forgotten about their last poaching conversation.

‘I don’t want either of you two clowns going anywhere. Do you hear me?’

Both of them nodded in response.

Ollie thought about telling Murray about the day he found Alison Cronly down on the beach, but decided to play it careful. If he wasn’t sure what to say, saying nothing was a whole lot better than doing anything else.

O’CONNOR WAS THE FIRST TO STAND UP AND SHAKE Ellie’s hand and then Dr Ebbs’. Kate did the same, only in reverse. Ellie’s hand lingered in her grasp a little longer.

‘Goodbye, Ellie,’ Kate said softly, ‘and thank you.’

O’Connor almost bounded up the corridors, switching back on his mobile phone as he walked. Kate said nothing and let him make the call he had been eager to make from the time Ellie Brady had mentioned how the girl’s hands had been joined and the name of Gilmartin.

‘Donoghue, we’ll need to get that file. Ellie Brady’s case is connected.’ He put his phone on speaker for Kate to hear.

‘I’m already on it.’

‘And another thing, Donoghue, the guy the boys down in Gorey are talking to, Gilmartin, he was the one who pulled Ellie out of the fire.’

‘I know.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Murray’s been on. Gilmartin has confirmed a photograph of Amy Brady was in the possession of the owner of the Carina, a William Cronly.’

‘You ran the registration plates?’

‘Yeah, it was registered to the late Alison Cronly of Cronly Lodge. Then it changed ownership to her son, William Cronly with an address at Meadow View, Rathmines. I sent a squad car around to the address earlier, but they didn’t get an answer. I’m sending another one there now.’

‘We’ll need a search warrant.’

‘We’ll need two. The guy still owns a house in Wexford too. It means pulling a judge at the courts in both locations.’

‘Donoghue, I want to know everything we can find on him. Social security number, where he works, what he had for breakfast, everything. Who do you have checking the travel details to Italy?’

‘A half dozen of the guys from Harcourt Square.’

‘You’ve given them Cronly’s name?’

‘They’re running with it now. I’ll come back to you when I know more.’

‘Right, let me know when either of those search warrants comes through. I should be back there shortly.’

By the time O’Connor hung up the phone on Donoghue, both he and Kate were in the car on their way back across the city.

‘I don’t want to rain on your parade, O’Connor, but something isn’t adding up here.’

‘What do you mean? It all makes perfect sense to me. The Carina, lives local, the guy had a photograph of Amy Brady and an identical MO.’

‘Not quite identical.’