The Dead (The Saxon & Fitzgerald Mysteries Book 1) (3 page)

In one fell swoop, I ditched boyfriend, Boston and boredom. It was what I’d always wanted, though I’d been reluctant to admit it even to myself. I was always fearful of failure. Three years’ training, four in the field as a special agent in New York state, and I was part of the team, a small part, that uncovered the serial killer Paul Nado, aka The White Monk.

Archaeology hadn’t been so far removed, I quickly realised. What was I doing now but deciphering the hieroglyphics of psychopathology? But what I realised even quicker was that I didn’t have what the FBI took – and what the FBI took from its agents was everything. I was drained by the White Monk investigation; wasted; I couldn’t function.

All I needed, maybe, was some leave; but with my usual talent for self-destructive gestures, I resigned from the Bureau and retreated back to New England to write a book about the hunt for Nado. Before I knew what was happening, I’d sold book, film rights and – according to my former colleagues – soul, and my life had changed for ever. For the better? I’d never know.

Since then they’d been deciding which Hollywood actress should have the pleasure of playing me. I was a great part; from what I’d seen of an early screenplay, I was now responsible for catching Nado single-handed, if not for the entire security of the United States, which would have astonished my old colleagues if any of them were still talking to me. I was past caring, and if I had cared, the cheques that kept arriving would soon have soothed my misgivings. I’d written three books quickly after that. A follow-up to the White Monk story, in which I scraped the barrel of my experiences as a special agent to fill another three hundred pages; a study of offender profiling, much in vogue at the time; and a cuttings job on a notorious hired killer out of Boston with Irish roots, which was what first brought me to Dublin. That, and a desire to escape to some place where few knew Paul Nado’s name or mine.

And that was when I was offered the chance to write about Fagan.

He was only recently out of jail then, and he’d been a regular interviewee in newspapers and on television, decrying his treatment at the hands of the police and the courts, enjoying his new-found fame immensely. He knew exactly how to handle it. He was a lecturer in theology at University College Dublin, where Sylvia Judge had studied (she’d even stayed briefly in a house which he rented out during college term-time); he’d published numerous articles in the academic quarterlies; he was a popular speaker at conferences in North America and Europe; he’d sat on some of the Church’s policy-making committees.

Ultimate irony, he’d even written a book on Christianity’s ancient problem with women, and had approached the police to offer possible insights into the thinking of the perpetrator of the prostitute killings. Nudging in on the investigation, happens all the time. Afterwards he claimed that’s why they’d picked on poor little him to frame.

Fagan’s wounded innocence story wasn’t really my thing, but he, apparently, had hand-picked me for the job and I had nothing else to do. I agreed. He obviously expected me to be flattered by his endorsement of me. In fact, I took an instant dislike to him. He was arrogant and overbearing, with a crude, cruel sense of humour which would’ve shocked many who thought they knew him best. The more I delved, the more my doubts grew – which was when Grace Fitzgerald materialised.

She called me unexpectedly one day asking for a meeting. She’d heard about the book, and wanted to put me on the right track.

She was a mere superintendent then, but knew the detective in charge of the case well. Kevin Donnelly was old, was how she saw it, tired, nearing retirement; he’d overcompensated in his urge to get Fagan convicted, but his instincts were sound. The DMP were simply too concerned with getting out of an embarrassing spotlight to admit it; under pressure from the so-called civil liberties crowd, they just wanted to bury the whole mess, be done with it. I knew at once that she was right. Too much fitted. Together we set about trying to nail Fagan properly.

Of course, he couldn’t stand trial on the same charge a second time, but he’d only been charged with the murder of two of the five victims, due to a lack of direct evidence in the other three cases. He could still be reeled in if only we could find the right bait. So I went on working during the day with Fagan on the book he hoped would prove it was the police who were to blame for his troubles, and at nights with Fitzgerald weaving the web in which Fagan could be finally enmeshed.

Step by step, we felt ourselves closing in.

Till I made my way one night to a place in the mountains, just where the city gave way to the wild, where I’d arranged to meet Fagan – there was some witness in a remote pub out there who would prove he couldn’t have murdered Maddy Holt, he told me, and I could think of no good excuse to get out of going without rousing his suspicion – only to find him waiting for me in the dark by the side of the road, masked, taunting, knife and green garden twine in hand.

My secret, as they say, was out. I guess I wasn’t as good an actor as I thought.

Fagan’s disappearance, as she saw it, hurt Fitzgerald, and it hurt me that I couldn’t ease that hurt for her, not without danger, and I was satiated with danger by then. I may have shot Fagan in self-defence that night in the mountains, but even self-defence would not be much of a plea in a city where carrying a firearm was still a criminal offence. Here the law decreed that only criminals should be allowed to carry guns, whilst the cops and victims went unarmed. It was a dumbass rule, but I didn’t relish arguing it in front of a jury in a country which still looked down on Americans as trigger-happy desperadoes who shoot first and ask questions later, or better still just shoot and screw the questions.

I wasn’t supposed to have a gun at all, but it isn’t hard to pick up a weapon in a city if you know where to look.

Half-heartedly now, I got the picture of Fagan out of the satchel, and stared at that thin, smirking, superior face again, remembering that night, remembering the gasp from him as I spun away from his hand, pulled the gun from inside my coat and fired, remembering the exhilaration, the satisfaction, yes the pleasure, as he realised I was not for the taking like all the others.

A single shot and Fagan slumped. A shot that shattered the silence, scattering birds through the branches in the trees; and then I was looking down at a man with half his face blown away. In that moment, Fagan entered my consciousness in a way he had never done when alive, and I knew that I would never be rid of him, not really. I may have dragged him into the trees and buried him so deep it was nearly light by the time I’d finished digging his grave, but I would never be free of him.

Now I sat in my apartment, as the day darkened and died, staring again at the photograph of Fagan, and going over in my head one more time, always one more time, Elliott’s letter, trying to piece it all together, and I realised for the first time exactly what never being rid of him meant. Since he’d disappeared, Fagan had been a private nightmare of mine, and that was bad enough. Now somehow he’d slipped out of my head when I wasn’t paying attention and gone walkabout by himself. Wherever I went, I’d be stepping over his bones. Or worse yet, the bones of some woman who was living her life this minute thinking she was safe.

It was late afternoon before I forced myself to leave the apartment again and go looking for bagels. I couldn’t exist on cigars for long. Couldn’t exist on bagels for long either, but it was all I could manage.

The city looked just the same. I’d half expected it to have changed, just because I had. We’re all solipsists at heart. It was good to see it even so. By the time I got back there were two messages waiting.

Always the way.

The first one was from Fitzgerald. She’d run a check on Mullen, and guess what? Fagan’s son had been back in town about three months, basically bumming around after his job as a hospital porter went belly up in England thanks to his drinking.

‘Why don’t you follow it up?’ she said.

I would. Job loss was a classic stressor that could tip a potential offender over the border into violence, and Mullen certainly had the ancestry for it.

The other message was from Elliott.

He’d called to let me know that I was a two-faced, conniving bitch, I’d pay for betraying him, nobody treated him like that. Oh, and I was ugly too. Now that hurt. On and on it went. He’d run out of tape if he wasn’t careful.

Detective Sergeant Niall Boland, newly transferred from Serious Crime, had paid Elliott a visit after all. From such small pleasures is the wreckage of a day salvaged.

Chapter Three

The call came shortly before midnight. It would’ve roused me from sleep, if sleep had been possible. As it was, I was watching the baseball on cable and picked up the phone as soon as it started ringing.

‘We found her,’ said Fitzgerald. ‘Do you want to come down?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘but I’m going to.’

Five minutes later, I was on my way.

There were still plenty of people in town, despite it being so late and despite the cold. Someone was singing on the other side of St Stephen’s Green, some old Irish ballad, and there was the sound of music behind glass and a smell of cheap food in the air. Somewhere else, a siren shrieked. It was headed in the opposite direction to me, but somehow it all seemed connected. Drinkers shambled out of pubs, laughing, shouting, and it seemed obscene that they should be so happy. It wasn’t their fault, but I hated them at that moment for their innocence.

Soon I’d left them behind, crossing over Baggot Street for the back lanes, making my way down towards the canal through empty streets, past black windows. A few hookers lingered by the railings at the Peppercanister Church, watching me suspiciously; the odd car crawled by; but apart from that there was no one about.

I wasn’t worried; I knew these streets well enough, just like I knew the place that Fitzgerald had directed me to over the phone. It was where Ed Fagan had left his first victim, Julie Feeney, almost down at the point where the canal reached the docks. I should’ve guessed the author of Nick Elliott’s letter would pull a stunt like that. Another mistake from me.

By the time I was within a couple of hundred yards of the site, I could see the already stark winter trees lit with blue flashes from the patrol cars, as if lightning was trapped among the branches, struggling to get free. Turning the corner, I saw them all parked up ahead, Fitzgerald’s car among them, circled conspiratorially like wagons round a camp fire.

She, whoever she was, had obviously not been found long.

The uniformed officers were still securing the scene, and I could see familiar faces from the murder squad’s scene-of crime unit standing round waiting, drinking coffee, talking quietly: Dalton, Ray Lawlor, Sean Healy. Tom Kiernan, the unit photographer, who, incongruously enough, had done the author shot for my last book, had also only just begun taking his first overlapping pictures of the scene, stopping after each shot to scribble a note of what he’d just photographed.

Everything by the book. The way it had to be.

A young policeman tried to bar my way when I got there till Fitzgerald, who’d been talking on her cellphone a few yards apart from the rest of the murder squad, saw me and came over. She was wrapped up tight against the cold, grim-faced, her black hair yanked back severely from her brow, her breath a frost, skin so pale that her own breath made it fade temporarily from view. She looked like she hadn’t slept for a week, but it was still good to see her. It always was.

‘It’s all right, Sergeant,’ she said. ‘This woman’s here at my request.’ If he thought it unusual, he didn’t say anything. He was hardly going to contradict a chief superintendent. ‘Where’d you park the Jeep?’ she said as we stepped out of hearing.

‘I walked.’

‘You should be more careful.’ It was automatic by now, this show of concern. She never liked my habit of night walking.

‘Don’t worry about me. You look like you’re ready to drop,’ I said simply.

‘Maybe it’d be better for everyone if I did.’

‘What the hell do you mean by that?’

‘You know what I mean,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss the letter as a hoax. It was unforgivable. Just because I had a lot on my plate.’

‘You weren’t to know,’ I said.

‘You knew,’ said Fitzgerald. ‘You get a feeling for this sort of thing, you said. Well, where’s my feeling for it?’ She was avoiding looking at me now, and I had no answer. ‘And the worst of it is, if this was true then the rest of it must be true as well. This is just the start.’

‘You’ll find him,’ I said.

‘You think so?’

‘I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.’

She managed the trace of a smile at that.

‘Come on then,’ she said. ‘To work.’

She turned and led me back to the tape, close as she could – obviously, I wouldn’t be allowed in. Beyond there were a few trees, and a path heading down to tuck under a low bridge. It was one of the last bridges before the narrow canal broadened out into the dock on its last stop before the sea. Prostitutes often took their clients there, if the clients weren’t fussy – and they wouldn’t be in this part of town if they were.

Looking through, eyes adjusting to the shadows, I could make out a lonely shape sprawled in the dark – a foot, twisted, a stiletto heel, perhaps an arm outstretched, ghost-white flesh – before the screen went up to keep her out of sight. Out of sight of the spectators who were beginning to gather on the other side of the road, and out of sight especially of the cameramen and reporters who surely wouldn’t be too far behind.

‘She was found about half an hour ago by a man out walking his dog,’ Fitzgerald began. ‘It’s always a man out walking his dog, have you noticed that? If there weren’t dogs to be walked, I sometimes wonder if we’d ever find any bodies.’

‘Strange time to walk a dog.’

‘Tell me about it. I’m going to ask him about that myself later, once he’s given a statement. It’s probably nothing. Some people get a kick out of hanging round places like this.’

‘Was she strangled?’

‘It looks like it. Some sort of ligature. You can see the mark it’s left round her neck. But she’s still face down so who knows what we’ll find when we turn her? Looks like she’s been dragged down some way towards the water too, like maybe he wanted to throw her in but couldn’t manage it. Why didn’t he just wait till they were down there before strangling her? Why strangle her here where he’d still be in sight of the road? Risky.’

‘Maybe the fact that he was still visible from the road was part of the thrill for him,’ I suggested. ‘Maybe he got too excited and couldn’t wait. Maybe he got frightened she might stop him somehow, that she might get away? Who knows? Any sign of a note?’

‘Not yet.’

‘She’s a prostitute, though?’

Fitzgerald nodded.

‘No ID on her yet, but I’d say so. She has about ten condoms in her bag, about seventy in cash, a little hash. Obviously no robbery motive. Doesn’t seem as if she’s been raped either. We’ll know more when Lynch gets here.’ She meant Ambrose Lynch, the city pathologist. ‘If he ever gets here. Where is the old walrus?’

A sudden burst of light made her look up, blinking. As if on cue, a car was making its way down the road towards us, diving into the dark from the city at its back. Lynch’s black Mercedes, headlights on full. Everyone’s head turned as he slowed to a halt and shifted his considerable frame out of the door.

Lynch had been city pathologist here in Dublin for almost twenty years, and he looked as if each one had only made him more weary, more melancholy. He drank too much, which didn’t help, but then pathologists always drank too much. It came with the job, it was part of the act, like the gruesome humour and eccentric air of abstraction; world over, they were all the same. I think they must make them in a factory somewhere.

Lynch’s own trademark was misanthropy. ‘I am free of all prejudice, I hate everyone equally’ was how he’d put it to me the first time we met, and since I recognised it as one of WC Field’s better one-liners I’d decided to give this sucker at least an even break.

Right now his unkempt hair spoke of a man who’d been dragged reluctantly out of bed, though the dress suit, bow tie and expensive shoes told another story. He nodded at me in greeting as he came to the tape. He’d obviously been drinking. Even at a distance, I could smell whiskey, faintly. It was a wonder he was never pulled over and breathalysed when he was driving to crime scenes, or maybe not such a wonder. He was the only pathologist they had, after all; they couldn’t be throwing him away.

‘Forgotten your coat, Ambrose?’ I said.

‘Left it in the car. Didn’t want it getting dirty. It’s cashmere, you know. My tailor would never forgive me,’ Lynch replied. ‘What about you, Saxon?’

‘I’ve been better. How’s Jean?’

Ambrose pulled a pained expression.

‘My dear wife has left me, Saxon. Three weeks ago. For some reason, she found this life of mine trying. Can’t imagine why. There I am, midnight hour beckoning, finishing a final brandy before blessed sleep after a night at the opera when the phone rings. Message from Fitzgerald. Come down at once, urgent urgent urgent. So down I come. My wife, however, finds life more agreeable at present in London with her redoubtable spinster sister, Miss Alicia King, enthusiastic patron of the Anti-Ambrose Society.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, and I meant it. I always liked Lynch. He rarely complained.

‘Can’t be helped, can’t be helped,’ he said. ‘What would help is a deputy pathologist to ease the workload, but I’ve been asking for the last five years without success. Still, it seems a trifle irrelevant to be making a fuss about a little thing like that, considering why we’re here.’

‘I guess so.’

Fitzgerald had stepped aside for a moment to whisper to Dalton. They’d found something, I could tell from Fitzgerald’s face. Now they came over and she shook Lynch’s hand.

Dalton ignored me as usual, chewing gum.

‘What is it?’ I said.

She held up a small transparent plastic bag, sealed at the top. Inside, a note. Typewritten, same face as Elliott’s letter.

All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman
.

‘Shit,’ I said. ‘What’s wrong with people?’

‘Healy just found it in her bag.’

‘I thought her bag was searched?’

‘Only quickly, looking for ID,’ Fitzgerald said. ‘This was inside a tear in the lining, folded up tight.’ That was like Julie Feeney too. Our boy was playing out Fagan to the letter. ‘Seems we have a name too. One of the uniformed officers reckons it might be one Mary Lynch. That fits. It should be easy enough to verify. Most of the girls round here have a record.’

‘Relative of yours, Ambrose?’ said Dalton.

‘Most amusing,’ said Lynch with a tolerant smile. ‘I fancy we moved in rather different social circles. More likely one of your old girlfriends, I should have imagined.’

‘Touché.’

‘Look, boys, if you don’t mind,’ said Fitzgerald, ‘we’re just about to start a sweep of the scene, see if anything else’s been left, so if you want to get started, Lynch, I’ll take you over.’

Lynch nodded, and ducked heavily under the tape as Fitzgerald held it up. ‘So much for the shoes,’ he said. ‘Ah well, all in a night’s work.’ He raised a hand at me in farewell.

‘I’ll have to get back too,’ Fitzgerald said to me. ‘Catch you later?’

I understood, offered a smile, then she was gone. Dalton took out his gum and threw it to the ground at my feet, and followed.

He hadn’t looked at me once.

I retreated to the other side of the road, every step emphasising my distance. People had gathered now to watch what was happening, distracted on the way home from bars or roused from sleep in nearby apartments. Police work always draws a crowd, like car smashes and lovers’ tiffs. Whispers mingled with the low crackle of police radios, a murmur of excited rumour. Some watched me, wondering what connection I had with the scene, though none dared to ask.

I leaned against the wall, lit a cigar, creating my own silence, looking at the lights of the city at the edges of the darkness, watching the blue flash in the trees, as Fitzgerald’s unit started their slow circles one way and then the other round the body of the forsaken Mary Lynch.

I knew the routine. For now it was about sketching, measuring; looking for blood spatters, and taking samples – hair and soil, fibres and leaves; and making notes, there were always endless notes. Above all, now was the time for collecting what physical evidence they could find in the vicinity of the body, though there wouldn’t be much of that tonight, I guessed. This was as bad as it got for any scene-of-crime officer: out in the open, winter weather, the rain just starting again and heavier with each moment that passed, though they couldn’t rush.

There certainly wouldn’t be much chance of finding fingerprints. Mary Lynch’s killer wouldn’t have hung around long enough to leave any; and anyhow they didn’t show up on wood, stone, rocks, leaves, or indeed on most types of cloth, and here that was all there was.

Worse, there were so many footprints – hooker and client, hooker and client, in joyless procession – that finding an intact one to lift would be almost impossible. It was strange that I felt so excluded. I had been at scenes like this before, many times, watching over the broken and the dead. It was always the same scene, the same calm going about things that only ever seemed to be a cover for some inner scream.

A place where there had been such pain and terror was always afterwards so quiet, and yet it would never be entirely free of its past. Bad things lingered, and it turned those places bad in turn, so that other bad things happened in time. One evil act could instigate a chain that, if not snapped, would unravel for ever. I had always wondered if that was what ghosts were: the accumulated bad memories of places where things that could not be forgotten, should not be forgotten, had happened.