If I Never See You Again

by Niamh O'Connor

  ‘But why did she go to the morgue in the first place?’

  ‘She wanted to find out more about how some PhD student went about his research,’ Dan snapped. ‘Come over here and have a look at our suspect’s picture. Have you seen him before?’

  Foxy headed over to Friar. He peered over her shoulder. ‘Pull the other one, he’s older than I am!’ He headed for the door.

  ‘Hang on!’ Dan said.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ Foxy said. ‘Jo said the next time the killer strikes will be in the O2. I’ll bet he’s got her there right now. If we’re too late, I’ll –’

  ‘I’ve got the place under surveillance,’ Dan cut in. ‘There’s nobody there, not a dickie bird.’

  ‘Yeah? So how come she’s been right about everything so far?’ Foxy asked.

  Dan turned to the two officers on phones behind him. ‘The morgue now, lads. Get down there and, if you find Jo, get her back here. I don’t care if you have to use your handcuffs. I don’t want her leaving my sight again.’

  ‘It’s too late for that,’ Foxy snapped, coming over to the maps and looking them up and down. ‘Any other concealed entrances in the O2 we don’t know about?’ he asked the venue manager. ‘Sometimes those pop stars don’t want to go in the main gate, do they? They’re afraid of being papped without their make-up on, or with some groupie they don’t want their missus to know about.’

  ‘There’s a helicopter pad on the roof to get them in and out,’ the kid said.

  ‘You think our man is going to arrive in a helicopter?’ Dan said dismissively.

  ‘If you had given her the support she needed, we wouldn’t be in this situation,’ Foxy pointed out.

  Dan strode over to Foxy and took him by the collar. ‘Give me a break! You were the one who accused her of thieving in the first place.’

  ‘I withdrew it. You’re the one who’s been persecuting her.’

  Jeanie stepped in and removed Dan’s hand from Foxy. ‘This won’t solve anything,’ she said. ‘Why don’t we take a breather, get a bite to eat maybe?’

  Foxy and Dan both looked at her like she’d two heads.

  ‘We do need to keep our strength up if we’re going to think clearly,’ Friar said. ‘Think about it, Foxy – how the hell is the killer going to set something up in a venue like that? It’s full of people most of the time. What’s on in the O2 tonight?’ she asked the kid.

  ‘A musical,’ Merrigan piped up from the other side of the room. ‘My Doreen’s got tickets.’ He was peeling an orange, and the smell permeated the incident room. ‘It’s Jesus Christ Superstar.’ He looked at the astonished faces. ‘She booked them months ago. I quite fancied the idea of seeing some women in togas, that’s all . . .’

  ‘Fuck!’ Dan cursed, his hands on his head.

  ‘What time does it kick off at?’ Foxy asked Merrigan urgently.

  ‘Eight.’

  The venue manager looked at his watch. ‘Right now.’

  62

  Sexton had pulled the gag from Jo’s mouth by clamping it in his toes, the way she’d intended. Now Jo was trying to angle her head close enough to the breast pocket of her leather jacket to grip the lighter with her teeth. If she could just nudge it up another inch with a jolt of her arm . . . Shit! Jo bit her tongue as the lighter came out of her pocket and lodged itself between the tightly packed lengths of cable.

  She looked over at Sexton, whose eyes were trained on the far end of the tunnel, then, staring at the lighter desperately, she tried to wriggle closer. The killer had just drenched them with one of those sprinklers she’d only ever seen priests use at funerals.

  Biting between the cables, she could feel the lighter’s edge between her teeth and tried to dislodge it another bit with her tongue. The taste of dirt, oil and mildew was disgusting, but it was better than the gag.

  The lighter moved, she bit hard – got it, just about one corner. She sucked hard, walked it in with her lips and began to wriggle towards Sexton.

  The big problem was going to be trying to burn off the bind with all this petrol everywhere without turning the whole place into an inferno.

  Dan had every inch of the O2 covered. The ERU snipers were in position on the rooftop and on facing rooftops, hidden from view. There were more armed gardaí dressed as members of staff in the venue. A team of gardaí posing as plumbers was ‘tending’ to a leak on the roadside directly outside, causing all traffic to be diverted away from the car park, much to the annoyance of irate commuters thinking they’d gotten over the worst of it once they came off the Westlink.

  Dan had taken the decision not to interrupt the musical, and Foxy agreed. If they halted the production and the killer realized they were on to him, they might lose him for good – and Jo, plus, by the looks of it, Sexton. The search of the morgue had led to the discovery of Ryan and Angie Freeman. Ryan had been bound and anaesthetized and left on a slab in the refrigerator unit. Angie had also been tied up, but was unharmed.

  Shaken and in floods of tears, Angie had identified their captor as her own brother, Walter, and had also volunteered the information that he was Katie’s godfather – all of which made sense to Foxy. Walter had been avenging his sister, and protecting Katie by killing everyone who’d had anything to do with her abduction, and this of course included Sexton, whose only crime was that he’d tried to help. Angie also told them that the Skoda was Walter’s car but it had always been in Ryan’s name to avoid the hefty insurance bill that came with being a young male. And she was insisting that it was Walter who’d given her a present of a new mobile phone and that she hadn’t known it had previously belonged to Rita.

  There was no question about the identity of the killer any more. The problem now was finding him. Every inch of space in the O2 had been searched, to no avail.

  Foxy and Dan were sitting in the front of Dan’s car, watching the entrance. Three ambulances were on standby, the back doors open, the crew sitting on the vehicle floor, watching. Dan was staring fiercely straight ahead. He had one arm over the steering wheel. In his other hand, he held a Bic ballpoint which he fiddled with constantly.

  Finally, Foxy spoke. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll find her.’

  ‘If you fly in, you get seen,’ Dan said, jabbing his pen up at the heli-pad on the roof. ‘How’s Walter doing it? Angie said he’s a medical student, got a degree in law, and that he started out as an electrician. None of it makes him a cat burglar. Put it together, Foxy. How’s he getting in there unseen?’

  ‘He was a spark?’ Foxy said slowly. ‘Did you know that one of the things Merrigan was supposed to find out was who was paying for the power in the old harbour warehouse where Crawley’s body was found? If he’d done what he was supposed to, I bet you any money we’d have had him before now.’

  Dan looked down at his hands guiltily.

  Foxy sat up straight. ‘That could be it – this city’s built on a network of tunnels. The Victorians loved them, as did the Vikings, way back. There’s one running under the Phoenix Park linking Heuston to Connolly, another one rumoured to link the Mansion House and the Dáil to facilitate the escape of the state’s most important citizens in the event of a popular uprising. You won’t find it on the maps, it’s supposed to be a big secret. There’s even one at the casino in Marino, right beside where the morgue is, and it runs all the way into Parnell Street.’ Foxy paused, thinking. ‘Thing is, there’s one under the Liffey too, which would go straight into the O2. The ESB are the only ones with access to it, though – for their power cables.’

  ‘Call them,’ Dan said.

  63

  Jo could hear him coming, his sandals slicking against the cables. Her teeth were chattering, and she clamped her jaw tighter so he wouldn’t hear. She and Sexton had managed to free themselves from the restraints. Once she’d gotten the lighter in her teeth, she’d wriggled up to Sexton’s hand, and he’d gripped her binding and managed to burn it off.

  Closer and closer the footsteps came, till they were just beyond
her face, and then Sexton made his move. Lunging forward, he grabbed one of the ankles and struggled with the killer, till he let a roar at Jo that he had him. It was pitch black – so dark she couldn’t see anything, so she clawed at the air to find him, felt his limbs thrashing, distinguished him by his cloak and threw herself across what turned out to be the back of his legs.

  ‘You want everyone to live, you’ll have to let me go,’ he said.

  Jo held the lighter up, and in its glow saw Sexton pointing to the explosives strapped around the killer’s waist. Sexton pointed up, and she realized the faint sound overhead was the muted roar of applause. The O2 could seat almost ten thousand; all of them were at risk if he managed to detonate.

  ‘You insane bastard,’ Sexton snarled.

  Jo reached out to touch him. The killer had won. They couldn’t risk it. Sexton stepped back.

  The killer reached into his cloak and pulled out a button, smiling beatifically.

  The lighter flickered out.

  The sudden explosion of sound was deafening.

  64

  As the tunnel flooded with blinding light, Jo closed her eyes. Her pupils couldn’t constrict against the dazzling brightness, her eyes felt as though they were burning.

  But it wasn’t light from an explosion. There was a floodlight pouring down the tunnel, and she was still standing. The sound had been a gunshot.

  Beside her, the killer lay, explosives still strapped to his chest, the top half of his head missing. As she squinted into the light, she saw the marksman’s cap further down the tunnel. He was kneeling in the distance, weapon still cocked.

  And then she heard Dan calling, ‘Jo?’

  Saturday

  65

  Walter Kaiser had lived in the basement flat of a four-storey house on Elgin Road, in Dublin’s embassy belt. Jo travelled to his home with Dan from the hospital, where she’d been kept in overnight. She followed Dan into the flat slowly, not out of fear, but so she could take it all in. He knew better than to treat her with kid gloves. Sometimes she thought he knew the way her mind worked better than she did.

  The poky flat was neat, and clean, but creepy all the same, Jo thought as she entered. The ceiling thumped from the muffled sounds of dance music being played at full volume in a flat overhead. There were houses like it all over Dublin: chandeliers in the lobbies, but running to dereliction. Yet what was a few steps inside made her catch her breath. The room was filled with life-sized mannequins in various states of undress and sexual positions. Four of them were posed in the living room; she guessed there’d be more in the bedroom.

  ‘They call them Real Dolls,’ Dan said, rubbing his temples with a spread finger and thumb.

  Jo pulled a face. ‘And I thought he’d a thing for dead women.’

  ‘You were pretty close,’ Dan said, examining one, which was dressed in a school uniform and sitting on a poof in front of the TV, all glassy stare and sandy pigtails. Her legs were open. There was a redhead lying on the couch dressed like a cheerleader in a cropped top and short skirt, legs open too. A brunette had been dressed head to toe in office chic, glasses on her nose as she bent over at the window, a chain hanging from her waist and bolted to the ceiling keeping her upright. The fourth one, which had blonde hair, was dressed like a hooker in long, shiny boots and a latex skirt – again, legs open.

  ‘There’s one more,’ Dan said, reading her mind.

  He led Jo into the bedroom, where she saw a fifth, dark-skinned doll lying in the bed.

  ‘$10,000 a piece,’ Dan said. ‘Angie said he came into some money a few years back, so that’s probably how he paid for them. He even had them serviced when their bits fell off. They were shipped to and from the States in crates.’

  ‘No wonder he’d such a big problem with the Church. They’re staunch on this kind of thing – isn’t there something about going blind?’

  ‘Angie said his problems started as a kid, after their mother died,’ Dan answered. ‘As a kid he’d wanted to play weird games like run and jump on the dead cat; drown the puppies – feel the last wiggle; spent all his free time at the dead zoo. She said he was diagnosed at one stage with something antisocial, but their father didn’t believe in medication or in keeping his psychiatric appointments. She was the only one who cared about what happened to him. Walter was inappropriately grateful. When Katie disappeared, Angie asked him to help get her back.’

  Jo picked up a Bible from a coffee table. Her hand trembled slightly. Dan took her wrist. Jo didn’t pull her hand back. ‘At least this place explains the hatred towards the Church. But how’d he know we’d be in Castleforbes Road to find Rita that day?’

  ‘Ryan said he remembers Sexton mentioning it to him on the phone, and Walter being in the house at the time,’ Dan said. ‘Maybe he overheard.’

  ‘How did Walter link Stuart Ball and the others to what happened?’

  ‘Probably Crawley,’ Dan answered. ‘He’d have talked to anyone if it served his own interests, and if Walter was torturing him, it was in his own interests.’

  ‘I thought the letter the streets made was an M,’ Jo said.

  ‘Turn it upside down and you get a W,’ Dan consoled.

  Jo sighed as she thought how near they’d come to him – and how narrowly they’d escaped.

  ‘Any idea about how that 62-year-old’s semen turned up in Rita?’ Jo asked.

  ‘He was her last paying punter,’ Dan answered. ‘It was Walter himself who claimed that Rita had been interfered with after death, remember? We’ve visited the old punter, and he nearly had a heart attack when he heard he may be a suspect. He’s legit.’

  ‘I knew he couldn’t have been involved.’ She pulled her hand free. ‘Let’s get out of here. I need a drink.’

  In the Waterloo pub nearby, Dan carried a Guinness and a G&T over to their table.

  ‘Last time I was in here it was a spit-on-the-floor job,’ Jo said, admiring Dan’s midnight-blue eyes.

  ‘Yeah, it’s a bit too flash for my liking. Want to go somewhere else? I think there may still be sawdust on the floor in Mulligan’s.’

  ‘Pity to waste it,’ she said, eyeing the drinks.

  ‘Come on, let’s go nuts,’ Dan said, getting up. ‘It’s Saturday. We’re off duty, remember?’

  At the window of Mulligan’s pub, they finally sat down side by side. ‘We used to come here when we first started going out,’ Jo said, taking a sip.

  ‘I remember,’ he said, putting his arm around her shoulders. He let his forehead touch hers. ‘Take next week off, yeah? After what you’ve been through, you need it.’

  Jo nodded.

  ‘And when you come back, I want to hear no more talk of a transfer, right? You’re needed where you are.’

  Jo looked away. When you came as close as she had to losing everything, it was a wake-up call. She knew now what was important in her life – and how quickly it could all be taken away.

  ‘What are we going to do about Sexton?’ she asked, trying to change the subject.

  Dan sighed, his eyes still on her face. ‘He’s a big boy, he can take care of himself.’

  ‘That’s just it. Clearly, he can’t.’

  After a silence which Jo did not have the head space to deal with, she asked, ‘What are we going to do about Rory’s truancy?’

  ‘Have dinner with me tonight, and we can discuss it.’

  She felt a flicker of excitement. ‘Are you suggesting a meal alone, Mr Mason?’

  ‘You got a babysitter?’ he teased.

  ‘My place,’ she instructed.

  ‘Half nine,’ he said. ‘And don’t cook – no offence. I’ll organize a Chinese.’

  Jo tipped back the drink with a grin on her face. ‘Make it an Indian, and you’ve got a date.’

  66

  When the doorbell rang, Jo hopped down the hall dressed up to the nines in a sexy little black dress, hair still sopping wet, one shoe in her hand and make-up not yet applied. It was only eight thirty, and she was still
hot-footing around trying to get on top of the cleaning, grabbing clothes from the radiators. She wanted the place right was why. Dan had his own key, and she suspected he was only ringing to keep up the pretence. Not that she wasn’t going to give him an earful. He was too bloody early! A woman needed time to get ready for a date, even with a man she’d known most of her adult life – no, especially when it came to that man. She still needed to set the table, do it properly: candles, wine, the works. And she’d yet to settle Harry down for the night. He was still standing in his playpen, walking around it with a big, rosy-cheeked smile on his face. Rory had only just left to go to the cinema with Becky, and she was still picking up after him.

  Still, Jo thought as she reached for the door, all things considered, she was in good form. She’d got her car back, with a new coat of paint, and a new engine. She’d driven by the Quality Inn on the way home and realized she didn’t care any more about flashing her badge to access the hotel’s records. What was done was done. It was water under the bridge now. She didn’t want to know if Dan had stayed there single or alone. What she’d realized from her near-miss yesterday was that she and Dan belonged together. Her cuts and bruises were on the mend, Angie Freeman was going into rehab, Katie was finally coming out of her shell and Walter Kaiser was cold as the grave where he belonged. All in all, it was turning out to be her kind of day.

  But it wasn’t Dan standing on her doorstep. It was Jeanie, red-eyed.

  Jo pulled the door open with a sigh of resignation.

  ‘I know what you’re doing, you bitch,’ Jeanie said angrily.

  ‘With respect, this is my home, and if you can’t be civil, I want you to go,’ Jo said.

  Jeanie wedged her foot inside the door. ‘Has he told you I’m pregnant?’

  Jo gasped as she absorbed the blow. In the background, Harry let out a peal of laughter.