by Sam Blake
‘What does O’Rourke say?’
‘Haven’t had a chance to talk to him about it properly yet, we’ve got two suspicious deaths in Dalkey. We’ve been flat out.’
McIntyre took this in. He knew Dawson O’Rourke, knew his job was complex even on a good day.
‘You need to work out what you’re going to do about it.’
‘I sure do.’
‘But first you’re going to be National Champion. Let’s see some more skipping, then some squats and then you can let rip on a bag.’
Cathy’s face cracked into a proper smile, he hadn’t said imagine the bastard’s head on the bag, but that’s what he meant. She could do that. And while she was doing it she’d have another think about her options.
Glancing at the clock high up on the red brick wall, Cathy flicked the rope behind her, feeling it smack off her ankles. McIntyre patted her on the shoulder and headed back across the gym to his new pupil, who was by now sweating profusely and hitting the bag in what looked like slow motion.
She started skipping again, getting into a rhythm, burning fat, increasing her cardiovascular activity, giving her mind space to wander.
But it didn’t wander to the promotions list, it wandered right back to the case. What the feck was going on in Trinity College that two of its students had wound up dead? Tom Quinn had had it all. Looks, and from what she’d heard, the personal determination vital for success. He would never have any money worries; he was in his second year, so had no real exam worries. What could he have done to piss someone off enough that they drove up onto a pavement and hit him from behind, and then reversed over him to finish the job? They’d get a lot more information when they found the car – the point of impact would determine the speed, and whether the car had clipped him or driven straight at him. The Traffic Corps had a lot of years’ experience forensically examining accidents like this; there wasn’t much they hadn’t seen and even less that they missed.
Cathy pursed her lips, her eye still on the clock, watching the second hand shudder from minute to minute, the rope spinning so fast she couldn’t see it. She had asked the technical bureau to check both Lauren’s and Tom’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, looking for anything that might give them a lead.
McIntyre’s voice came like a pistol shot across the gym. Cathy threw the rope down and hit the boards, her arms spread wide, her legs pumping. It wasn’t the most elegant pose but as she hit the wall, her body screaming, she didn’t care. She powered through it. On the other side of pain was gain, she smiled to herself. When she’d been over to the Met to join their anti-terrorist course she’d been recommended a gym in Farringdon. Gym Box with its yellow neon lighting and industrial architecture was the ‘office’ of ex-heavyweight champion boxer Sweet D. Williams. Their sparring session had been one of the toughest she’d ever had – he was six five, with the longest reach she had ever seen, but it had tested her speed and agility and his power talk still echoed in her head. A second generation Jamaican, his upbringing in Peckham – then one of the roughest parts of London – had forced him to create his own opportunities. Opportunities that had led him to New York, to train with legendary promoter Don King, to make a real name for himself. His boxing was different from hers but his philosophy was the same. Training was about winning. Everything was about winning.
‘Well done, girl, take a break and then on to the bag. I’ve got a couple of lads lined up for you to spar with. Is Sarah Jane coming in tomorrow or Monday?’
Cathy picked up her water bottle, slices of lemon and chunks of ice swirling in the bottom. She waited until she got her breath back to answer.
‘Tomorrow morning, because of this case. We’ll be even more swamped by Monday.’
The Boss patted her on the shoulder. ‘Great, I’ll tell them. Keep this up and you’ll wipe the floor with that Jordan Paige.’
Cathy grinned. That’s what Sarah Jane kept telling her. Her best friend had been a tougher coach from the ropes than McIntyre had ever been. It was like they were in collusion. Sarah Jane was getting her fitness back after the surgery to remove the bullet in her shoulder. It would be a bit longer before she could compete with Cathy in the ring at the same level she had been at four months earlier, before she’d been shot.
Her gloves on, Cathy headed for the row of punchbags hanging by chains from the rafters, her mind still on Tom’s death, on Lauren’s fall, rolling the events of Friday back through her mind.
*
O’Rourke looked harassed when Cathy appeared in his office shortly after 8.30. He’d obviously been in a while; he’d slung his navy pinstripe jacket around the back of his chair and had rolled up the sleeves of his pale pink shirt, a half-eaten breakfast roll beside his laptop. She’d knocked this time but, getting no response, had stuck her head around the door. Glancing up, he gestured her in, his phone clamped to his ear. He finished his call as she slipped a fresh cup of coffee onto his desk.
‘Thank you, I need that.’
‘You look like you’re trying to do too many things at once.’
He took a sip of his coffee. ‘That’s what it feels like. Most people are still in bed at this time on a Saturday morning. And I’ve got an inbox that I’m very unlikely to get through before Monday.’ He took a sip of the coffee. ‘As if there hasn’t been enough happening already this week, last night there was another shooting in town, an attempted armed robbery in Dunne’s Stores in Cornelscourt, plus a fatal traffic accident on the N11. And some scrote’s breaking into boats on the marina again. If I had twice the number of operational bodies we’d have half a chance of getting through the paperwork alone. Some days I really don’t know where to start.’
She grimaced and took a sip of her own coffee, pulling out the guest chair in front of his desk.
‘How about with your breakfast, you’ll function better with fuel.’
‘Thank you, Mother.’ He scowled at her, his tone rich with sarcasm. It didn’t bother Cathy; she put her cup down on his desk and sat down, pushing his roll towards him.
‘Come on, eat quick, or I’ll eat it and then I’ll be in the shit with McIntyre.’
O’Rourke narrowed his eyes, fighting a grin, grabbed the roll out of her reach and, taking a bite, spoke with his mouth full.
‘After we left, Saunders’ man went through Lauren O’Reilly’s pockets again. He found a note in an envelope with “I’m sorry” printed on it. Standard type, Times New Roman, but big, I’m not sure of the font size. It’s up with the technical bureau now.’
‘You serious? Did it look like some sort of suicide note?’
O’Rourke shrugged, still chewing. ‘I haven’t seen it, but apparently it was printed in block caps. Weird sort of suicide note if you ask me. We should know more later this morning.’ He reached for his coffee again, taking a sip. ‘We’re still waiting for Traffic’s final report on the Quinn incident.’
‘His mum thought he might have gone out for a walk to clear his head. I told you, when I spoke to Karen Delaney, she said he used to call over there, sometimes at night.’
‘He do that a lot?’
‘Apparently so.’
As she spoke he picked up the pen on his desk and started clicking the nib in and out. He was thinking. The pen in his hand was a slim black US Army issue that wrote one mile of ink; the press button on the end was the exact length of a two-minute fuse; the length of the pen itself measured one nautical mile on a sea chart, and the plastic casing could be utilised in an emergency tracheotomy. O’Rourke had laughed when she’d given him the box of ten. He could never find a biro when he needed it, and rarely took the gold pen she’d bought him for Christmas years ago out of the office. She’d stumbled over a Reddit post about them and had ordered them from Amazon – someone in the comments had said that whatever shit was hitting the US Army, wherever they were in the world, and no matter what else they were missing, these pens were the one thing you could rely on. In Cathy’s mind O’Rourke was a bit like that. You knew wh
at you were getting with him – there was no messing, no bullshit.
She tucked a strand of hair back into her ponytail, trying to focus back on the office, on their conversation. O’Rourke had a unique ability to distract her that sometimes really wasn’t helpful. She cleared her throat.
‘We need to talk to Tom’s friends. If he was worried about something he might have let on to one of them. I’m going to go through Anna Lockharte’s list.’
Cathy could have been wrong but she thought she saw a glimmer of something pass across O’Rourke’s face. He hid it well but she wasn’t the type to let things drop.
‘So what’s the story with Professor Lockharte? Have you come across her before?’
He tried to look nonchalant, but his offhand tone wasn’t fooling either of them.
‘Not really. I’ve just heard her name mentioned. Confidentially.’ He looked at her pointedly. She scowled at him, then held up her hands in mock surrender.
‘Need to know only, I’ve got it.’
‘Sorry, it’s nothing big that affects this case as far as I can see at this stage. If it’s relevant I’ll fill you in.’
‘Got it.’
Cathy smiled inwardly. He was such a bad actor. He might fool other people but she knew him too well – there was obviously something very interesting about Professor Anna Lockharte for her name to be mentioned in senior Garda circles.
O’Rourke cleared his throat; he might as well have said ‘moving swiftly on’ out loud.
‘You still mad about the promotion list?’
Cathy scowled. Mad was a great place to be when you needed to get your shit in gear. She had a lot to think about but she already had an idea about what she was going to do next. She just needed to channel her anger and use it to get where she wanted to be. Then everyone had better watch out.
‘Don’t go there. I’m madder than hell. I’m just praying I don’t ever have to work with that twat.’
He held up his hand. ‘Got it. Give him six months and see what the story is.’
‘If he’s crap, which,’ she paused deliberately, ‘he will be . . . In six months they’ll decide the job is a waste of money and revert to bringing in profilers from the UK. And then there will be no job here. For anyone.’
He shook his head emphatically. ‘But the whole point is that the guys from the UK don’t have the same ability to get inside the Irish psyche that a native has. To be effective, this has to be filled from inside the job.’
‘They might be English but they’ve been bang on in the past helping us to narrow down suspects.’
‘I’m not saying they aren’t any good, that we don’t need profilers per se. Just that we need good Irish ones. Isn’t that your whole argument?’
‘Yes. It is. “Good” being the operative word here.’
‘Right. The incident room awaits us.’ O’Rourke checked his watch. ‘Everyone should be ready by now. Let’s get this show on the road.’
Chapter 10
Saturday, 9 a.m.
In her office in Trinity College, Anna Lockharte looked at her laptop computer and frowned. She’d come in early, supposedly to catch up on her marking, knowing she couldn’t sit at home or thoughts of Tom and Lauren would close in on her.
With one hand on her mouse, the other pressed thoughtfully against her lips, she clicked to open the email and a moment later a dialogue box appeared in the corner of her screen: ‘Trojan attack detected.’
Anna frowned, not sure whether the virus had come from the email or from one of the web pages she had opened in her browser. Had her antivirus software dealt with it? She read the email again slowly.
Outside her office, the rain was streaming down the window, the sky dark with storm clouds. She had all the lights on, even the one on her desk, and sitting here alone, the lighting made her feel a little like she was in a fishbowl, with people outside peering in. Unlikely, given that she was on the fourth floor, but as Tchaikovsky’s overture to Romeo and Juliet gathered momentum from her laptop speakers, her nervousness grew with the sound.
The email was completely innocuous – just a request to speak at a conference – but something about it was definitely odd, quite apart from the virus warning that might have come with it. She wasn’t sure if it was the tone, the language. It just didn’t feel like it was written by a conference organiser. The virus scan software she used was government grade and she was regularly notified of attempted attacks, but from her own research on how political extremists were moving into cybercrime, Anna knew only too well that attacks could come in all sorts of guises. And they were constantly evolving.
She read it again. Was the virus warning linked to this particular email, or something that had come in at the same time and was in her spam folder? She knew one person who would be able to check that out very quickly. Her sixteen-year-old niece Hope had been building websites since she started high school. She could look and see if there was anything suspicious in the email’s origin. Anna glanced at her watch; it was 9 a.m. but that was far too early to call Hope – she was a teenager who loved her sleep. Anna didn’t want to forward the email until she’d spoken to Hope; if she texted her now, they could catch up later.
It was probably a completely reasonable request from a reputable conference programmer, but Hope would be able to tell her for sure.
And then there was the next email, from Xavier Ayari. She really didn’t know what to make of that either.
Dear Professor Lockharte
I’m working on establishing a new international student society, focusing on free speech and essentially non-political. I was wondering if you would be free to discuss it? I would be honoured if you would consider addressing our first meeting. Perhaps we could chat over coffee?
Kind Regards
Xavier Ayari
It wasn’t the request that was strange, it was his choice of communication – it seemed so formal. He was based in the science block on the opposite side of the campus but she often passed him as she cut through there on the way to the DART station on Pearse Street. Why couldn’t he ask her in the canteen, or in the corridor?
Screwing up her face she read it again. What was this really about?
Anna took a deep breath and ran a hand over her forehead. She was overreacting. She was always overreacting, like her danger radar was permanently on. One day she’d learn how to get a grip on it, how to keep everything on the same level. One day. The psychiatrist had explained that she may read more into situations than was actually there, that she could feel distrustful; that in the early days after the attack, anything could trigger a panic attack – a sound, a smell – and that was quite apart from her anxiety about going into strange public buildings, or her inability to cope with a silent environment. She needed noise. Noise connected her with the outside world – no matter how mindless the radio DJs were, they were there, in real time. Music was a constant in her apartment, although she was sure the neighbours in her block preferred Beyoncé to Bach.
But why was Xavier emailing her? Perhaps it was because she was distant on the rare occasions that they’d spoken? She was sure he was used to women falling at his feet whenever he opened his mouth. He certainly had that confidence, something closer to arrogance, that suggested he was used to getting what he wanted. He couldn’t know that every time she looked at a dark-skinned man with a French accent, she felt the hairs standing up on the back of her neck. She knew it was ridiculous, but her reaction wasn’t something she could control. Like the panic attacks, and occasionally the absolute rage that she felt about the whole situation. She’d had counselling for both, had been genuinely worried in the early days that she’d fly off the handle and physically assault some random stranger. Her doctor had explained that it was a reaction to the powerlessness she’d felt as she’d lain on the floor of the bank, at the frustration at being unable to fight back. She could see how women in combat zones didn’t hesitate to join the resistance after similar experiences, how picking up arms empowe
red them.
To be fair to him, Xavier had no idea of her issues, or of her background. She knew she was so much better than she had been two years before, but she still had moments. The other day she’d been thrown by someone dropping a tray, the explosive sound of china hitting the stone floor like automatic gunfire. It wasn’t at all, of course, but something about the sound, the suddenness, had made her duck instinctively. She’d turned around and headed back to her office, praying no one had noticed that she’d almost hit the floor.
Anna sat forward in her chair and put her face in her hands as she reread the email. She’d seen Xavier looking at her as she passed him in the corridor, had been deliberately ignoring his slightly cloying attention – always materialising to hold doors open for her, somehow managing to bump into her whatever time she was heading home. Maybe Xavier was trying to make a move on her? Was that it? He was very good looking but absolutely not her type. She shivered; she hated that she couldn’t disassociate other, completely innocent Frenchmen, from two specific ones. It was something she was working on, and like her panic attacks, she was sure it would improve with time.
Anna scanned the email again, her hand moving unconsciously to nervously twiddle with her diamond stud earring. She was sure she was just overreacting. Perhaps he really did just want her to talk to his society, and this wasn’t about anything else at all.
How had she got so rusty? She’d had a few relationships after her husband, Brad. Divorce at twenty-five hadn’t been part of her game plan, and every time she met a new guy she questioned herself. She’d fallen for Brad completely – he’d been her prom date, and then had signed up for the Navy, and she’d been all ready to be a Navy wife. She’d stuck by him through training, and his first deployment. She’d been at Cambridge University then, loving the strangeness of an ancient English city but also studying so hard she hadn’t had time to sleep. It wasn’t until she’d gone to London that it had gone bad. Much less intensive, her PhD years had been amazing – the theatre, the parties, which were so much fun after the Cambridge incubator unit – and she’d let her hair down and enjoyed it. Which hadn’t been what he wanted to hear from the South Atlantic. It had been her European-ness that had attracted him to her in the first place, but actually being in Europe without him had all been too much.
