Can Anybody Help Me?

by Sinéad Crowley

  A huge window dominated one side of the room and Claire walked over to it. It had been left slightly ajar and she breathed in deeply, aware that the stench of decay would only get stronger the further she moved into the apartment. Claire knew the odour well. It was unmistakable, and for most people would have been nauseating. But Claire knew she was in no danger of having her stomach turned. The inconsistencies of pregnancy hormones meant that, although a bag of curried chips brought home by Matt could send her running to the loo, she was still able to visit a crime scene without fear of contaminating it. It was a mental thing, she was in work mode now. The pregnancy just wasn’t part of it. But that didn’t mean she was going to enjoy it, and she treated herself to one more lungful of air before she turned, and walked slowly and carefully across the floor.

  The full force of the smell hit her nostrils as soon as she opened the door. Instinctively, she took shallower breaths, opening her lungs only as much as was necessary. The curtains in the room were partially closed and she blinked for a moment as her eyes got used to the gloom. And then looked at the figure that was lying on the bed.

  ‘Jesus.’

  It was an expression of horror. Maybe a prayer. This person certainly needed someone to pray for her. There had been no dignity in this death. Claire moved closer to the bed. The woman’s body was sprawled awkwardly on top of the covers, the cream duvet and sheet rumpled beneath her. She lay on her side, her body twisted almost in an S-shape, as if she had been flung there, discarded. One hand was trapped under her cheek, the other draped loosely across her stomach. She was wearing jeans and a white vest top, which had been torn off one shoulder, leaving her bra exposed. Claire moved closer. The underwear looked expensive, in contrast to the thin T-shirt and – the angle of the body meant that Claire could see the label at the waist – the high-street jeans. The same label could be seen on a thin blue cardigan that was lying on the ground beside the bed. Already Claire felt she was starting to get a feel for this woman. A supermarket T-shirt and a designer bra. A woman who didn’t have much money, but spent what she had on the things she considered important. Sometimes a decent bra could make you feel more feminine, remind you of who you were no matter what outer clothes you were wearing. Even a Garda uniform. Claire looked at the body again. The woman had been a size 12–14, she reckoned. An average size. An ordinary size. But this was no ordinary way to die.

  Claire noted flashes of colour against the cream bedclothes and greying mottled skin. Ruby-red nails on the fingers and toes. A scab of brown blood high on the right cheekbone. Brown and green bruising at the top of each arm. A large purple mark on the left shin.

  ‘You’ll want a look at this.’

  ‘J—’

  Her heart thumping in her chest, Claire just about managed not to swear out loud. Helen Sheehy was standing in the bedroom door, a plastic evidence bag in her hand.

  ‘We found her wallet in her jeans. Probably confirms the identity, but then again you might have guessed that already?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Her heart rate returning to normal, Claire took the bag and scanned its contents. Bank cards, a social welfare ID, a library ticket from Dolphins Barn library. The name Miriam Twohy written on each item. But Dr Sheehy was right, Claire had already guessed who they’d found. There weren’t that many missing women in Dublin and it was all too much of a coincidence: her age, the area, the stage of decomposition. She stared at the body again. She wasn’t a pathology expert, but she had seen enough dead bodies to know that Miriam had been lying there for at least a week, if not more. It was also obvious that the heating had been turned off in the apartment, otherwise the discovery would have been far more unpleasant.

  What bothered her was the ease of identification. The killer hadn’t bothered to hide his victim’s name. It had been an arrogant move, leaving the wallet so prominently displayed. He clearly didn’t want, or didn’t feel he needed to buy himself time. He was either stupid, or confident. That was a far more worrying prospect.

  A photograph peeped out from behind one of the ID cards and, turning the bag around in her hand, Claire could see it was a picture of a baby girl. She wasn’t a particularly pretty child. Her cheeks were red and there was an unmistakable glisten under the right nostril, but someone adored her. Someone, presumably Miriam Twohy herself, loved her enough to take this picture, cut it to size, insert it in a wallet and carry it around with her. Miriam had loved this baby. And now Miriam was dead.

  She was about to hand the bag back to the pathologist when she noticed another piece of paper, lighter and flimsier than the rest. She walked over to the bedroom window and held the bag up to the light. The item was a receipt, one of the old-fashioned ones, printed on what looked almost like newspaper. There were no details of the items purchased, just a date, a time and then a line of figures written in lilac. She looked closer.

  €4.50

  €3.95

  €1.80

  Another line showed that twenty euro had been handed over, and change received. Claire exhaled. That might give them something. The date, as far as she could remember, was the day Miriam Twohy had disappeared. It wasn’t much. But it was something for them to follow.

  She walked back to the head of the bed and finally allowed her gaze to fall fully onto the woman’s face. Long dark hair, a slightly beaky nose. God love you. Her eyelids were closed. That at least was a mercy.

  ‘We’ll be removing her shortly.’

  ‘Grand.’

  Claire gave Helen Sheehy a half grimace, an acknowledgement of the difficult task that lay ahead. It was time for her to leave. Quigley would want an update as soon as possible. But as she reached the bedroom door she paused, and turned towards the body again. Who did this to you? And, almost by instinct, another prayer. Dear Jesus, let me find him.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I’M BAAAACK

  FarmersWife

  Hey girls any craic? Am delighted to announced that DS3 was born hale and hearty lastly night! Was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get online, t’internet is playing up in the Bogtropolis but I’m hanging out the window of the hospital trying to get a signal *LOL*.

  CaraMia

  Hey there CONGRATS!!! Another little boy! How wonderful. Hope ye are all doing well xx

  MeredithGrey

  Hey girl congrats with that! That’s a lot of little farmers you are producing! No news here, we missed you. Hope it all went well? Did you go on your own in the end … I think the docs were talking about inducing you?

  FarmersWife

  Ah thanks girls, good to be back. No Meredith, they let me go ten days over and I was begging them for induction at that stage. My babies just don’t know when to check out of Hotel Mama *lol*. Got a couple of doses of the gel and once my best friend the epi kicked in it was fine. DH nearly didn’t make it, it all happened fairly quick in the end and he was faffing around trying to get the other two sorted and get someone to look after the cows. I nearly told him not to bother in the end *lol* he was so stressed But all is well now and the wee man is a dote even though I say so myself. BFing but trying to get him to take a bottle as well so Daddy will be on night duty as soon as we get home. Well he’s a dairy farmer it’s his speciality *lol*.

  MyBabba

  Congrats on the new baby

  MammyNo1

  Ahhh, great news *hugs*

  LondonMum

  Hey, that’s great news. It will be busy with three of them … fair play to you, I find it tough enough with one!

  FarmersWife

  Thanks LM. Yeah it’ll be mental but I wouldn’t swop it for the world … listen to me, must be the hormones talking *LOL*

  NAPPY BIN INSERTS?

  Qwerty

  Hey ladies, sooo annoyed. Just found out the nappy bin bought has been discontinued and you can’t get inserts for it anywhere. Grrr. I don’t want to buy a new bin. Anyone know where I could buy a few ‘Waste-Away’ inserts? Online even?

  CaraMia

  Where a
bouts are you? I’m in Dublin, southside, and my local chemist usually has a good few different brands.

  MrsDrac

  Oh thanks Cara, I’m actually in Meath but DH works in Dublin so he’s up and down every day. I’d probably have to draw him a diagram though to pick the right one!

  MeredithGrey

  I have a box of them left, DS is toilet trained now and we don’t need them. I can send them onto you if you like?

  MrsDrac

  Ah Meredith, that’s really sweet of you! Are you sure you don’t mind!

  MeredithGrey

  Not at all. Just PM me your address and I’ll send them on.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  They had been gone for less than three hours, but Claire could feel the change in atmosphere as soon as she got back to the station. It was going to be one of those cases. Murders were far from unusual in Dublin, but most were related to drugs, crime or what the media loved to call ‘gangland activities’. The discovery of an unidentified body, particularly a woman’s body, in a place like Merview was still rare enough to get even the more blasé members of An Garda Síochána talking. And a good thing too, she thought to herself as her mind replayed images from the apartment. It wouldn’t be pleasant to live in a world where that was taken for granted.

  So the head swivels she and Flynn encountered when they got back to base were to be expected. Particularly when the others noticed they’d brought a passenger. But she avoided catching anyone’s eye as she ushered the young estate agent through the main office and down the corridor that led to the station’s interview rooms.

  Number 3 was free. Not that there was anything to differentiate it from the other two. Collins Street Garda station had been built in the 1950s by an architect who seemed to have studied social housing in Russia. Before perestroika. The interview rooms were small, windowless and painted a grim shade of cream. The smoking ban meant that the air was slightly less stale these days, but traces of nicotine staining remained on the ceiling and the walls. The bare light bulb would have been familiar to viewers of crime dramas, and the much-abused furniture was perfectly in tune with the ambience of the room.

  Claire closed the door and watched as Cormac Berry folded himself into one of two metal chairs that stood either side of a scuffed melamine table. The seats themselves were rock hard, designed to keep arses uncomfortable and their owners awake. She lowered herself down into her own chair and waited for the ache in her back to subside. Flynn, who had walked in behind them said nothing, but stood by the door, his eyes fixed on the grimy wall.

  Claire took out her notebook and pen. The session would be videotaped, but she was a longhand woman at heart. The electronics were useful. But sometimes it was only when she read back information in her own handwriting, with her own scribbles reminding her of tone or emphasis that its importance became clear. Even the seemingly innocuous stuff could turn out to be useful later on.

  Besides, it gave her something to do with her hands.

  She uncapped her pen and smiled at Berry.

  ‘Now. We’ll try and keep this as straightforward as possible.’

  The young man blinked again, a tic Claire was finding increasingly irritating, and tugged at his jacket.

  ‘Do I, like, need a lawyer?’

  Oh, here we go. The battle hymn of a generation reared on US cop shows. God be with the days when people answered questions first and worried about the ramifications afterwards. But Claire kept her tone neutral.

  ‘You can, of course, call your solicitor if you want, Mr Berry. But really at this stage we just need you to tell us exactly what happened. We’re just taking an initial statement.’

  ‘Yeah, okay. Cool.’

  He paused again and looked down at his fingernails. They were too long and too clean, Claire decided. A sure sign of a fella who didn’t break his back at the day job. Okay, working in an estate agency was hardly equivalent to mining coal, but somehow she reckoned an ink stain or something would have made him seem a little more effective. The silence lengthened and she decided to start with a few gentle questions.

  ‘You could begin by telling me your full name? And occupation?’

  He looked up at her gratefully as if he hadn’t expected things to be that simple.

  ‘Yeah, sure! It’s, ehm, Cormac Berry? And I work for O’Mahony Thorpe, they’re, like, based in Rathmines?’

  O’Mahony Thorpe. Claire wrote the name on a blank notebook page. It was a familiar one, and not just because she’d seen it written outside the Merview complex. It had taken herself and Matt almost two years to buy a house – at the top of the market, naturally – and in that time she’d dealt with every legitimate estate agency in the city, as well as some shysters armed with nothing more than a clipboard and a mallet.

  O’Mahony Thorpe had been one of the biggest firms in Dublin at the time, dealing mostly in detached homes in the rock star/stockbroker belt on Dublin’s south coast. She also had a vague recollection of seeing O’Mahony himself – or maybe it was Thorpe? – bursting out of a pinstripe suit on one of those property programmes that used to jam the airwaves. Advising people on second homes in the sun, and how to release equity on your city pad to add an extra swimming pool.

  But that had been then. A few short years and a lifetime ago. It seemed like no one could avoid a bit of slumming these days. Even the ones in the pinstripe suits.

  Berry was still talking.

  ‘So, we’re, like, the main letting agency for Merview. And we got a call from the owner to say the rent on 123 hadn’t been paid this month?’

  ‘Okay.’

  Claire held up her hand.

  ‘Let’s just go back a bit, please. Tell me exactly who owns the apartment and what your company does?’

  She reddened slightly and felt rather than saw a slight grin on Flynn’s impassive face. That bloody inflection was contagious.

  ‘What you do.’ She growled, lowering the final word as much as possible.

  ‘Yeah, sure.’ The young man continued in a stronger voice, clearly happier to be on home territory. ‘We, like, place ads, find tenants, check references, stuff like that?’

  ‘Right.’

  Claire made another note.

  ‘So, you deal with the tenants on behalf of the landlords? And you found the tenant for this property?’

  ‘Yeah. About, like, three months ago?’

  ‘Okay.’

  Finally it seemed they were getting somewhere.

  ‘The guy who owns this place, he, like, used to live there? But he got married and bought a house with his wife. He wanted to sell the apartment but he couldn’t get, like, anything decent for it. So he decided to rent it. He’s moved to, like, Cork so he needed an agent. So he came to us.’

  ‘And that’s usually how these things go?’

  ‘Yeah. We put the ads online and stuff.’

  ‘And what happened then?’

  ‘Well. This guy was, like, kinda desperate …’ Berry’s voice trailed off. He swallowed, and stared at his hands, which were by now resting on the table. But his choice of words had been unusual.

  ‘Desperate?’

  ‘Well, yeah.’ Berry refocused on her. ‘I was talking to him a few times, he had, like, a new mortgage and stuff and he really needed the funds, you know? Really needed to get the place let. But there’s, like, tonnes of places available in Merview and the rent he was looking for was pretty high. I mean he had it set high because he needed the money, but I, like, told him he wasn’t going to get, like, a grand a month for it. No way. I mean it was madness, there are units out there for, like, six-hundred and fifty …’

  ‘Is that so?’

  Claire jumped, having almost forgotten Flynn was there.

  ‘Six-hundred and fifty!’ The younger guard gave a small whistle, and jerked his head. ‘Jaysus, that’s some drop.’

  ‘I know!’

  It was the closest Berry had come to being animated. Claire shot her colleague a shut-the-fuck-up look, and no
dded at the agent to continue.

  ‘Okay, so this dude wanted a grand, and I told him that there were too many others on the market, but he was totally sold on getting his money, you know? And then we got this offer, and this guy said he’d take it and …’

  ‘Hold on a second, please. You found a tenant for the apartment?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  A flush had broken out under Berry’s collar and Claire watched in fascination as it climbed upwards, flooding his cheekbones.

  ‘We found him a tenant and he moved in two months ago. It was fine until he didn’t, like, pay his rent and …’

  ‘If I could just bring you back again, please, Mr Berry?’ Claire stared at the young man, who was now bright red and visibly sweating.

  ‘Can I get you a drink of water or something?’

  ‘Yeah. Please.’

  She motioned to Flynn, who left the room, returning seconds later with an overflowing paper cup. Berry downed half of it in one gulp, but remained silent.

  ‘And can you give us the tenant’s name?’

  Berry stared into the cup. ‘Yeah. Sure. It was … Spanish, or something? Like Solana? I have it written down back at the office …’

  Claire scratched the name, or an approximation, in the notebook, but said nothing. Sometimes it was better to leave a gap that could be filled in. After a moment Berry continued.

  ‘Yeah, so he moved in, we checked references, everything was grand and then he didn’t pay his second month’s rent, so the landlord phoned me this morning and he said there was no money in the account and that your man wasn’t answering his phone and that he was in Cork and could I call round to see what was going on, so I did and there was no answer, and I had a key and it’s like completely legal so I, like, phoned and texted and stuff and there was no answer and I had a key and it’s fine to do that so I went in the door, I opened the door and …’