Little Bones: A disturbing Irish crime thriller (The Cathy Connolly Series)

by Sam Blake

  ‘So you’ve been arranging flowers for celebrity weddings, instead of focusing on your art?’ There was a hint of amusement in Max’s voice. He managed to make her job sound like something silly.

  ‘No.’ Zoë’s voice was firm. ‘I paint when I can, but the flowers are art too. My arrangements are about colour and form and matching the right flowers to the occasion. Historically there is a whole language in flowers; I like to draw on that, even if it’s only in a subtle way. The type of people who come to us have huge budgets, I get to use the most beautiful flowers, to create the most amazing displays – and when we deliver them I get the satisfaction of seeing how delighted our clients are.’

  ‘If I hadn’t spotted that painting, would you have got a full collection together?’

  Zoë tried hard not to look affronted. But he was right, the shop had got so busy recently that the chances of her focusing her energies to draw together enough work, and then, more importantly, getting a meeting like this, were virtually non-existent. She still couldn’t quite believe it had happened, that Max Igoe of all people had seen one of her pictures and liked it so much he’d wanted to see more.

  It had been such a crazy day and she’d been on her own in the shop, the phone ringing constantly. And then he’d rushed in out of the rain, soaked to the skin, needing a bouquet made up as fast as she could do it. One of her newly framed seascapes had been leaning on the wall behind the cymbidium orchids, waiting for her to get a chance to bubble-wrap it and bring it home. And while she’d been concentrating on selecting stem roses and trying to find out what colours he wanted in his bouquet, he’d started asking questions about who the artist was and where they’d exhibited and she’d found it hard to concentrate on the bouquet at all. And then, as he was paying, he’d slipped his business card in front of her and she’d found herself speechless, had just looked at him stupidly as the pieces had suddenly fallen into place.

  ‘Eventually I would have.’ Zoë smiled. ‘Really. I’m sure I would. Phil loves making frames that match my paintings, from driftwood and stuff he finds on the beach, using natural dyes. It’s just a slow process, and I like things to be right. The painting you saw was heading for a group show in Blackrock.’

  ‘Well, God bless Foxrock Flowers and Framing – and God bless my inability to remember birthdays, otherwise I might never have walked in . . .’

  Zoë grinned. It hadn’t been the way she’d expected to land her first solo show, but as Phil had said, serendipity must have been playing a part . . .

  Without warning, behind them the office door burst open with a clatter, shoved unceremoniously by the front wheel of a mountain bike. Zoë started, surprised at the interruption.

  ‘It’s all right, he’s tame.’ Max raised an exasperated eyebrow as a young man’s head appeared in the doorway.

  ‘You’re going to have to get a lift, Maxie boy,’ the new arrival cut in. ‘Can’t keep lugging the bike up here.’

  Switching his grin to Zoë, he leaned forward to push his bike into the room, his body wedged awkwardly behind it. Rolling his eyes, Max put down his cup and moved to help, deftly pulling it inside, wheeling it across the polished wooden floor with one hand into the only corner not stacked with canvases. From the black scuff marks on the wall it looked like it was left there regularly.

  ‘Zoë Grant, Steve Maguire.’ And then by way of an explanation: ‘Steve won’t leave the bike downstairs in case it gets nicked.’

  Steve shouldered off his pea-green messenger bag, throwing it onto one of the huge white leather sofas set on either side of a low coffee table in the middle of the office.

  ‘Steve Maguire, owner-editor of Scene magazine, Dublin’s hottest guide to what’s happening in the city.’ He said it without pausing. ‘Good to meet you. I look after Max’s PR for his various enterprises.’

  He reached out to shake Zoë’s hand. His grip lingered longer than she expected, longer than she felt completely comfortable with. His fingers were cold, long and slim; writer’s hands.

  ‘These yours?’ He gestured at the paintings. ‘Wow. Really powerful. Max said you were good. He wasn’t joking.’

  Zoë blushed faintly. Steve Maguire hardly looked old enough to have an opinion on art; he had the fresh-faced look and short, spiky, badly bleached hair of a student. And he was dressed like one too, the jeans, tatty baseball boots and denim jacket hardly appropriate for the time of year. Before Zoë could reply, Max cut in, ‘Thank you, Steve, for your artistic opinion. We were rather –’

  ‘Busy? I bet. But we need to get an interview done today. And pictures. We go to print Friday.’

  ‘Grand, well you’d better have a quick chat with Zoë now because we’re going to be busy working out the details of her exhibition for the rest of the day.’

  ‘So, you like them?’ She hardly dared say it.

  Max laughed. ‘I love them. And I want them in my gallery. All of them.’ He paused. ‘If that’s OK with you?’ Zoë opened her mouth to speak but before she could answer properly, somewhere on the floor behind her, a phone began ringing.

  ‘Oh goodness, sorry, that’s mine.’ Zoë turned and dropped to a crouch beside her bag. The crescendo stopped just as she found the phone. Zoë rolled her eyes and was about to cram it back into her bag when it piped to tell her she had a voice message.

  ‘You’d better get that. Sounds like someone needs you.’ Max shot her an encouraging grin. ‘I’ll organise some more coffee while you sort yourself out. Are you OK to hang around here this afternoon so we can work out the details?’ Zoë nodded. ‘Of course, I’m not working today.’

  ‘Perfect. Go ahead, pick up the message.’

  Punching her keypad, Zoë put the phone self-consciously to her ear. For a moment, she looked confused. Then, as she heard the message in its entirety, Zoë’s face paled.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘That was my neighbour. My house has been broken into. The Guards are there.’ She put her hand to her forehead, not quite grasping the message.

  Max’s face creased with concern. ‘You’d better call back, right now.’

  3

  One thing Cathy Connolly was absolutely sure of was that the Irish state pathologist Frank Saunders despised women. In fact, he didn’t really like people full stop. He certainly didn’t like dead people, or their relatives, friends or lovers. It was as if the bodies he saw every day were an inconvenience, slabs of meat on a block that had to be dealt with, rather than people with real lives, money worries, children to collect from school. So, perhaps not surprisingly, having been dragged away from his afternoon contemplation of the day’s papers, the remnants of a hearty lunch distributed between his lapel and his tie, Professor Frank Saunders was not in a good mood.

  ‘So how’d you find them, these bones? Sixth sense is it with today’s Ban Gardaí?’

  As he eyed Cathy over his half-moon spectacles, Professor Saunders’s voice was rich with sarcasm, his use of the outdated ‘Ban’ – woman – deliberately derogatory. She stared right back at him, battling the overpowering stench of pipe smoke that hung around him like the spectre of death itself, and resisted a sudden urge to give him chapter and verse on what the Ban Gardaí thought of short balding men with bad breath. Instead she smiled innocently.

  ‘Just good policing, Doctor, exactly what they teach us at Templemore.’

  Humphing like a camel with indigestion, Saunders looked away from her with thinly veiled distaste and bent to pick up his bag. Over his head Detective Inspector Dawson O’Rourke threw Cathy a congratulatory wink before turning, his face straight, to the pathologist. She grinned to herself. Just like the old days. It felt like a hundred years since they’d worked in the same station, but nothing had changed.

  ‘So what can you tell us, Professor?’ For a big man, O’Rourke’s Monaghan accent was surprisingly soft: pasture and meadow, betraying no hint of the border violence that had spilled into his childhood.

  Narrowing his eyes and puffing himself up as on
ly a grossly overweight man of five foot two could, Professor Saunders surveyed the back bedroom of the cottage, now lit by the intense beams of two free-standing arc lights, and, turning towards the door, let loose a typical shotgun reply.

  ‘Time of death is it you want? Do I look like the Wizard of Oz? I’m not a magician, Inspector, I can’t pinpoint time of death to a plus or minus of five minutes, you know, even when we have got an intact cadaver.’

  Behind the pathologist’s back, O’Rourke ran his hand across his forehead, and rolled his eyes. Cathy could almost hear him saying, Give me strength. She stifled a smile.

  ‘I was thinking more of a guideline on species,’ O’Rourke persevered. ‘Animal, vegetable, mineral? It would be a help to determine whether this is a serious crime scene, or a bride with an unusual take on the whole lucky rabbit foot thing.’

  The pathologist cleared his throat noisily, a disgusting removal of mucus that sent Cathy’s stomach into a neat spiral. She could feel herself turning pale again.

  Choosing to ignore O’Rourke’s own brand of sarcasm, Saunders stumped towards the door, throwing his answer over his shoulder like a Tudor king tossing a chicken leg. ‘Human, without a doubt. Less than three months old, I’d guess. Impossible to tell gender at this stage, but we’ll put everything together back at the lab and see what we have.’ A shiver ran up Cathy’s spine – he made the remains sound like a jigsaw. ‘Can’t tell you more than that at the moment.’ He scowled at them, his face taut. ‘Let’s see if we can do this one by the book, will we, Inspector?’

  The pause was too long, the air between the pathologist and O’Rourke suddenly charged with electricity. Cathy started, looking at each of them, wondering if she should hit the deck, get herself out of the crossfire she was sure was coming. What the –?

  But O’Rourke wasn’t getting it either. His eyebrows had shot up like Saunders had jabbed him with his scalpel. Saunders gave O’Rourke a hard look.

  ‘You were probably in nappies, weren’t you?’ Saunders shook his head, his face relaxing marginally. ‘Nineteen seventy-three, Inspector. Look it up. And let’s see if we can maintain a chain of evidence, not lose anything, will we?’

  A few moments later, with Saunders safely at the bottom of the stairs, O’Rourke rubbed his hand hard over his military-style buzz cut.

  ‘What the feck was that about?’

  Cathy shook her head. Nothing Saunders did made much sense to her. ‘Maybe Thirsty knows. He must have joined in the seventies.’

  ‘Whatever it was, it’s got Saunders’s goat.’ O’Rourke grimaced and shook his head. ‘But good call. They looked like rabbit bones to me.’

  ‘Thanks, Cig.’ The familiar Irish term for Inspector rolling off her tongue, Cathy hid an embarrassed smile.

  ‘Just like old times, eh?’ Relaxing, O’Rourke grinned. ‘Drop the “Cig”, Cat, makes me feel like a dinosaur.’

  ‘That’s what happens when you start heading for forty, it just all falls apart.’

  Cathy fought to keep back her laughter. They’d met on her first night in Pearce Street Station, when straight out of the Templemore Garda Training Academy she’d been assigned to his patrol car as a rookie observer. If he’d had any qualms about partnering with a student, a girl at that, even one who stood five-nine in her socks and who would soon be powering through the WAKO full-contact kickboxing tournament circuit, Sergeant Dawson O’Rourke hadn’t shown it, a fact that Cathy had always been grateful for. And she’d never forgotten his comment that night, delivered with a wry grin as he had buckled his seat belt.

  ‘Welcome to Pearse Street. There’s Templemore and there’s the real world. This is where your training really starts. No smoking in the car, no country music and you’ll do grand.’

  Of course O’Rourke had been right; nothing could prepare you for the real job. Most nights it was same old same old: dealers and working girls, stolen cars and assaults, whiling away the quiet hours making small talk, swapping filthy jokes. But it hadn’t taken Cathy long to find out that working nights in a patrol car, you formed a bond with your partner, got to know them better than you knew yourself, that you looked after them when things did kick off. Like they looked after you.

  ‘We’d better see how Thirsty’s doing on the prints.’ O’Rourke paused, his face creased in a frown, his focus back on the job. ‘We’ll set up the incident room in Dún Laoghaire, get in a team from Shankill and Cabinteely and a task force from uniform – they can get the house-to-house started now. Let’s see if anyone remembers seeing a baby around the place, and while they’re at it, the lads can check to see if there’s been anyone suspicious hanging about over the past few days. Any idea about the girl who lives here?’

  ‘I had a chat to the neighbour, she reported the break-in, saw the back door ajar. Householder is a Zoë Grant, early thirties, lives alone, works in a florist up in Foxrock and she’s an artist – there’s a studio in the garden. Thirsty spoke to her briefly. She was in town, said she’d come straight out but she’s probably got stuck in traffic.’

  O’Rourke nodded. Even in his navy pinstripe suit he looked like a boxer, had the square jaw and shoulders of a street fighter, the broken nose; but that was where the similarity ended. He’d transferred out of Pearse Street before Cathy, but she knew he’d made his mark in the Emergency Response Unit in Harcourt Square, had gone on into the Criminal Assets Bureau. At thirty-six he was the country’s youngest DI, and only a week into his first posting outside the city centre, it was obvious to everyone in the district why he was on the fast track, that he had the makings of Commissioner.

  ‘Right so, let’s get this show on the road.’

  4

  Downstairs, the cottage’s front door stood open; beyond it, blue and white crime-scene tape was draped across the garden gate like a ceremonial ribbon, cracking in the stiffening breeze. Cathy shivered, but it wasn’t just the November chill that was bothering her. The memory of the scent of stale perfume lingered at the back of her throat like a bad taste.

  Before O’Rourke could comment, Thirsty appeared from the kitchen behind them, followed by three white-suited SOCOs from the Garda Technical Bureau in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. Gathering at the foot of the stairs, they acknowledged O’Rourke with a nod. Old faces. In this job you knew everyone, had either trained with them or worked with them at some point during your service, and if you hadn’t, you knew someone who had – it worked like a big puzzle, the team slotting together into a different shape on each case. O’Rourke greeted them with a grin.

  ‘Afternoon, lads. Thanks for getting here so fast. The action’s upstairs. Looks like the neighbour disturbed him before he could get down here. Lots of photos and bag the dress. You might get some prints off the fabric back at the lab – it’s a good surface and it’s been kept dry up there. There’s a building in the garden needs looking at too.’

  ‘No problem, Cig. Thirsty’s given us the heads-up.’

  O’Rourke nodded his thanks. ‘What do you think, Thirsty? Reckon the break-in was Quinn? Could have been him here last night, checking her out?’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it, he was in that gouger’s pub in Ballybrack until closing time, was totally langers apparently.’ Thirsty grimaced. ‘This guy was systematic, went through the kitchen drawers, then seems to have gone upstairs.’ He paused, shaking his head. ‘And her shoes are all over the place. Nifty always lines them up before he . . .’

  O’Rourke rolled his eyes. Nifty Quinn’s predilections were well documented. ‘Get any good prints?’

  ‘Gloves, but I’ll run what we have got through AFIS. We might get lucky.’

  ‘Grand so. Cat and I are going to have a little chat with this Grant woman as soon as she gets here. I need a quick word first, Thirsty, if you’ve got a minute.’

  O’Rourke’s conversation with Thirsty was short, the team heading upstairs with their equipment behind them. Cathy knew he’d want to find out whatever it was that Professor Saunders was alluding to quietly. Th
e lads could be like girls with gossip, and until O’Rourke had the full picture and its impact on his investigation, he’d want to be discreet. Out of the corner of her eye she could see him nodding, his head close to Thirsty’s, framed by the doorway of the living room. Moments later they were finished. O’Rourke’s face was grim.

  ‘Good to go, lads?’ The SOCO waiting at the bottom of the stairs nodded. O’Rourke turned to Cathy. ‘Come on, Miss.’

  Outside, ducking behind the Technical Bureau van parked across the entrance to the drive, O’Rourke pulled off his gloves and the blue plastic footies covering his shoes. Following his cue, Cathy bent to peel off the plastic covering her own boots.

  ‘I don’t want to spook Miss Grant. As soon as the lads have processed the studio, we’ll use that to question her. I want you to get her relaxed, establish a rapport.’ O’Rourke’s voice was so low Cathy could hardly hear him, but she nodded. Standing in her khaki combats, her black polo-neck sweater pulled down low to conceal the 9mm SIG Sauer and the Smith & Wesson handcuffs clipped to her belt, Cathy shivered again. ‘She must know something. Is it too soon to caution her?’

  O’Rourke paused, his brow furrowed. ‘If she implicates herself then obviously we need to, but we’ll see what she has to say first.’

  Cathy nodded. Then, her voice barely a whisper, ‘Reckon it was hers?’

  O’Rourke balled up the plastic footies and pulled open the back door of the van to toss them inside. ‘Who knows? . . . Christ, what a day.’

  Cathy didn’t say anything, crossed her arms tight across her chest. She had a feeling he was going to tell her exactly how bad his day had been. She was right.

  ‘The FBI tracked this bloody Yank to Dublin airport. They’ve got CCTV their end of him using the victim’s passport to board his flight.’