Little Bird: a serial killer thriller

by Sharon Dempsey

  Manus shifted from one foot to the other, waiting for Declan to position his chair.

  ‘So, get on with it then,’ Declan said. He was in no mood to make small talk but he almost felt sorry for them. How many times had he been the one asking the questions, trying to piece together the unfixable? He could remember King as a nipper in uniform, back when he was still working. Before.

  ‘When did you last see Esme?’

  ‘Sometime around eleven. She had come over to ask for money to buy a drink. I told her to go easy. I know she was only seventeen but I didn’t mind her having the odd drink. As it was a family occasion, I didn’t want her getting tipsy.’

  ‘How did she seem?’ King asked settling back into the sofa.

  ‘Her usual self. Nothing untoward.’

  ‘No rows with boyfriends or anything like that?’

  ‘No. Nothing I wouldn’t have known about anyway. What do teenage girls tell their fathers?’

  ‘Sorry to be going over old ground, but you know how these things go. The DI wants us to double-check everything. How had she been of late? Any problems at school? Any history of trouble at all?’

  ‘Fine, all fine. Look where’s this going Thomas? If I had anything at all you know I’d have told youse. This is only time wasting.’ Declan sighed. He was fed up with protocol, procedure and people ticking boxes. He wanted manpower on the streets, questions being asked of those who might know something. The days were slipping passed too fast.

  ‘Declan, you know we have to through the process. We have to build up a picture of Esme’s life, her friends, who she knocked about with. Looking inwards, before looking out.’ He was a big bulk of a man, the type who played rugby and ran 10k for a warm up.

  Declan nodded. ‘I know how it goes Thomas, but I can’t help thinking we should be doing more than nit picking through her life when there is nothing to be found. Whoever did this could have been an opportunist. They may not have been at the wedding. For God’s sake, it could be anyone out there,’ he flicked his hand in a gesture towards the street.

  Magee walked over and sat on the arm of the sofa. ‘What about your own history? Anyone with a grudge? We know there was some agro over the conviction of the men who blew your car up.’

  ‘Well unless they are complaining about getting off on a technicality caused by the PSNI’s own DCI Brogan I can’t see why they’d come after me or harm my daughter.’

  ‘Worth mentioning, that’s all. We need to check it all out.’ Magee said.

  ‘It was a bad show what went down with Brogan.’

  ‘You don’t say,’ Declan could barely contain his contempt. The Police Ombudsman had ruled there was a failure in passing on vital information preceding the blast and as a result the subsequent investigation tried to cover this up. Two detective superintendents and two detective sergeants, from the PSNI unit had been disciplined, with Brogan ultimately losing his job. Delays in assessing information obtained at the time of the booby trap car bomb had led to a loss of momentum. An informant had passed on information telling of the likelihood of an attack on Declan but Brogan had not acted on the information, claiming he thought a forensic psychologist was an unlikely target. Those who were considered the likely perpetrators had walked free.

  ‘Hard to stomach the thought of it, I know, but we have to look at all avenues Declan.

  ‘When we did the search of Esme’s bedroom, a considerable sum of cash was found hidden in a jewellery box stashed at the back of her wardrobe. Would you know how she came by this money?’ Magee asked.

  ‘Maybe she saved it up,’ Declan offered. ‘How much was it?’

  Manus checked out his notepad before asking, ‘We aren’t at liberty to say at the minute, but it was more than you would expect a teenager to have. Did she have a part-time job?’

  ‘No. She helped out around the house for pocket money. She’d exams coming up.’

  King shuffled in his seat, ‘There is one other thing we need to ask you about. Your new son-in-law Rory? He’s in property management, isn’t that right?’

  ‘Yes, he has his own company. Buys old houses and business premises, guts them before selling them on. I think he has a few rentals as well.’

  King pulled at his earlobe, which indicated to Declan that he was uncomfortable, before saying ‘We have some information that he may be involved in some dodgy dealings. We aren’t at liberty to say what’s involved as we’re still looking into it.’

  ‘I don’t know where this is going, or what it has to do with Esme’s murder. I don’t exactly see eye-to-eye with Rory but he’s got nothing to do with what has happened to Esme.’ Declan could feel his blood pressure rise.

  ‘Bear with me, I was about to get to that. What was his relationship with Esme like? Were they particularly close?’

  ‘Not especially. They got on well, like you would expect.’

  ‘It seems they were more than friendly. Esme’s phone records show she received more than one hundred texts and calls from him in the run up to the wedding day. Wouldn’t that seem a bit excessive to you?’

  Declan flinched. ‘I don’t know what you are insinuating but I can tell you, categorically, that Esme was not in a relationship with Rory.’ The accusation made him draw breath, but he wasn’t going to let them see his doubt. Could Esme and Rory have had a relationship? How could have missed something like that?

  Manus Magee stood up, ‘One more question Declan, before we go. How well did you know your daughter?’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, this line of inquiry will lead nowhere. Now if you have nothing worthwhile to add, get the hell out of my house.’

  10

  Anna kicked off her shoes beneath the desk and put her head back on the chair. She closed her eyes and let the day flow round her head. The latest shooting had been close to a primary school. The victim was on his way to pick up his ten-year-old son. The other man was in the passenger seat and had been shot clean through the shoulder. He wasn’t talking.

  McKay thought he would be ‘good experience’ for Anna to see a bit of ‘real action.’ As if they didn’t have guns on the mainland. When she arrived at the scene she found skull fragments and brain mushed all over the windscreen. The ballistics team was doing their analysis and the crime scene photographer was doing her bit.

  She had seen her fair share of splattered bodies. The Cardiff drug gangs had fought a turf war a couple of years back. A fourteen-year-old boy had been intimidated into putting a bullet through the back of the skull of one of the gang leaders. Anna had been one of the first officers on the scene. The boy had stayed, frozen stock still in either fear or horror. Still holding the gun, looking at it like he hadn’t expected the bullets to be real.

  There had been other murders that had got under her skin. The death of a heavily pregnant girl, beaten to a pulp by her boyfriend. They arrived at the scene to find the baby had been born while her mother lay unconscious. It had slid into the cold February morning with the cord wrapped round its neck, blue and rigid. The solicitor who had been embezzling his clients’ money and butchered his wife and two children in desperation, rather than let them know that he was up to his neck in fraud and debt.

  It was all part of the job.

  Belfast was posing to be a different sort of challenge. She hadn’t expected to find the sectarianism to be so obvious. Whole geographical areas were marked out as being unionist or nationalist. Union flags, hoisted up on telegraph poles, pavements painted red, white and blue, or murals depicting Gerry Adams as a legend. They even claimed allegiance with Gaza and Israel according to their nationalist or unionist persuasion. Viva Palestine was chalked out in huge letters on the Belfast hills, to be seen from all angles within a five-mile radius. Pick your side it all seemed to say. Like wild animals pissing on territory to mark it as their own.

  Even the station, with its full-on security, felt alien to her. When she had mentioned it to Thomas, he had laughed and said she should have seen it before The Good Friday Agreement: tw
enty feet high concrete and metal walls, wrapped in razor wire, along with fortress observation towers to protect them from ‘Barrack Busters’ – IRA mortars.

  Then there were the beautiful, more affluent areas. Leafy and suburban, genteel and orderly. It was as if the troubles never affected these areas or the professional people living there in their own little bubble of money and education.

  She had spent the afternoon trawling through interview transcripts taken from the wedding guests, looking for something to latch on to. When she drew a blank she joined Thomas, who was working on the social media stuff. She plotted time lines of when people could recall seeing Esme. The last definite sighting had been her heated exchange with Rory at approximately 9.10 p.m.

  ‘Anything of interest turn up?’ Anna asked looking at his computer screen.

  ‘I’m sorting through Esme’s social media accounts – so far it’s the usual selfies, gaggles of girls pouting for the camera. More make up on some of them than a tranny.’

  He clicked through the Facebook feed. A world of teenage narcissism scrolled in front of Anna’s eyes.

  ‘Have a look at this one,’ Thomas clicked on a photograph of Esme and made it bigger.

  In it, Esme was dressed in a waitress outfit – a short, black, A-line dress, with a white ruffled apron over the top. She hadn’t uploaded the photo herself but was tagged in it by another girl – Carly Moss.

  ‘Where was the photo taken?’

  ‘Hang on I can get IT to geo track it.’ Thomas clicked on a few links and opened a file. ‘According to this it’s down at the docks. There are a lot of swanky apartments down there.’

  ‘The family said Esme didn’t have a part-time job. They’d said they wanted her to concentrate on her exams and take on summer work. If she was waitressing it would explain the wad of cash hidden in her bedroom. We’d better pay this Carly Moss a visit, see what she has to say.’

  Carly Moss’ home was in an estate, set high, back against the rugged hills of east Belfast. Anna got out of the car and noticed that the air held a promise of rain. Belfast wasn’t so unlike Cardiff on the weather front. Damp and cold was standard for this time of year in both cities. Thomas slammed his car door. ‘Look there’s Samson and Goliath,’ he said indicating with a nod of his head in the direction of the vast yellow cranes standing guard in the distance near the harbour. Their vantage point for seeing across the city was marred by the grey weather. Cloud hung low over the horizon. The faint outline of Parliament buildings sitting on the hill at Stormont was still visible. ‘You know these hills surrounding Belfast were believed to be the inspiration for Gulliver’s Travels,’ Thomas said as they made their way up to the white uPVC front door.

  ‘Is that so?’ asked Anna. She appreciated Thomas’s attempts of educating her about her new home. He had taken on the role of tour guide cum house mother.

  The estate was a warren of grey brick semi-detached houses, each with a small rectangle of garden fronting them. Number 77 was rougher than the others. The front gate was hanging off and a child’s rusted bicycle lay neglected on the scabby patch of grass.

  Thomas knocked on the door with his gloved fist. The door opened and a woman probably in her thirties stood back. ‘Yes, what do you want?’

  ‘We were hoping to speak to Carly. We’re from the police. Is she at home?’ Anna asked.

  ‘What’s she supposed to have done?’ They could hear a TV from the living room. The theme tune of some daytime show jangling in the background.

  ‘She hasn’t done anything. Mrs Moss I take it?’

  The woman nodded.

  ‘It’s to do with Esme Wells. I believe they were friends. Could we have a word with Carly?’

  ‘She’s not eighteen yet. You can’t be coming here, questioning an underage girl.’

  ‘We aren’t questioning Carly, as such, we only want to have a conversation with her.’

  ‘It’s all right Ma, let them in.’ A tall girl wearing a navy school uniform had walked into the narrow hallway. Her willowy frame looked out of place in the cramped confines of the house.

  The mother reluctantly held the door opened for them.

  The living room was impeccably tidy. Mrs Moss turned off the large television that dominated the wall above the fireplace.

  ‘Youse better sit down,’ the mother said.

  The girl, Carly, sat opposite them, her legs all awkward angles like a new born deer. ‘What’s this all about?’ she asked.

  ‘DI Cole wants to ask you a few questions about your friendship with Esme.’

  ‘We weren’t real friends or anything. I know her from Facebook.’

  ‘Ok, but you did know her, didn’t you?’ Anna asked.

  The girl nodded. ‘I’d see her about.’

  ‘How did you connect on Facebook with her?’

  ‘Can’t remember. Sure, everyone is connected on Facebook. The whole of Belfast is my friend on it.’

  ‘Did you ever see her out at parties, clubs or anything like that?’

  ‘We’ve been at the same pre’s’

  Anna looked puzzled, ‘Pre’s – drinks parties?’

  ‘You know pre-loading – when you go to someone’s house and have a few drinks before going out. It’s cheaper to drink a carry out than buy in a club.’

  ‘What about work. Do you have a part-time job, Carly?’

  ‘Not really. I do the odd shift at the newsagents down the road when they are stuck.’

  ‘She’s got exams coming up so she’s studying,’ the mother interjected. ‘She’s hoping to go to Queen’s to do nursing and make something of herself.’

  ‘So, you’ve never waitressed, have you?’ Anna asked.

  Carly swallowed and glanced quickly at her mother. ‘No. Like I said I do the odd shift at the shop.’

  ‘You had a photograph on Facebook of you and Esme in waitressing uniforms. Do you know the picture I’m talking about?’

  She nodded, glancing at the mother again. ‘Oh that, yeah I did a one of job for Rory Finnegan.’

  ‘Do you know the date of this job?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Sometime in the summer I think. Yeah it was August.’ She put her hand to her hair, twisting a few strands as she spoke.

  ‘And where was the event?’

  ‘I’m not sure, some swanky apartment down at the docks.’

  ‘Rory Finnegan, did Esme talk about him?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Not really like, we were getting on with the job.’

  ‘Did you ever see him interact Esme? How did they get on?’

  Carly looked away. Just a quick glance downwards, enough of a hesitation to make Anna wonder.

  ‘She had a thing for him. I don’t know if they were together or anything, but she definitely fancied him.’

  Anna looked over to Thomas. ‘Did she tell you that she was in to him?’ he asked.

  ‘Not exactly, just you sort of pick up the vibe, you know what I mean? It was all Rory this and Rory that.’

  ‘Surely you remember the address?’ Thomas asked.

  ‘I think it was the Diamond apartments – in the Titanic Quarter. But don’t tell Rory Finnegan I said that.’

  ‘Ok, well that will be all for now.’ Anna said standing up. ‘If you can think of anything that might help us, give me a call, but you’ve been very helpful, thank you.’ Anna passing her card to Carly.

  ‘What did you make that?’ Thomas asked back in the car as they swung out onto the dual carriageway at Knocknagoney.

  ‘Esme had the hots for Finnegan. But was it reciprocated?’

  Anna was psyched up. ‘She seemed like a good kid, but she’s scared. Finnegan knew how to manipulate her and Esme too, most likely.’

  Thomas turned the window wipers on against the sudden down pour. ‘She’s hiding something that’s for sure. Let her sweat for a day or so and she might suddenly remember something of interest about the one-off waitressing job when her mother isn’t around.’

  As they drove out of the estate onto t
he carriageway her phone buzzed out a vibrating tune.

  ‘Anna Cole.’

  ‘DI Cole, it’s Declan Wells here. I’m Esme’s father – the murdered girl?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Wells, I know who you are. What can I do for you?’

  11

  Declan didn’t know what to expect from this meeting, but he was sure it was the right way to go. Anna could approach the case with experience and open eyes not clouded by sectarian judgment. All he had to do was to persuade her to keep an eye on McKay and not let him direct the case in a direction it didn’t need to go.

  They had agreed to meet in the Refinery, a new pub that had popped up on the lower Lisburn Road. Declan knew it had good access for his chair.

  He watched her walk past the window and come in through the double doors. It took a second for her eyes to rest on him, but when they did, she smiled a slow, easy smile and strode over to him. She had that young student look going on, all rough casualness as if she didn’t want to be seen to be a grown up. He’d seen her at the funeral, but hadn’t really taken her under his notice. Now he could see she was a good-looking woman. Small in stature but with an attitude that came from carrying a gun and knowing how to use it, that said don’t mess with me.

  ‘Dr Wells,’ she said as she put out her hand to shake his.

  ‘Please, call me Declan. Thanks for agreeing to meet me.’ He noted her husky, slightly melodic Welsh accent.

  ‘I’m intrigued Declan. But first of all, get me a drink; I’m not on duty. A white wine please.’

  He liked that, how she expected him to get the drinks in, how she didn’t automatically feel she had to take care of him because he was in the bloody chair.

  ‘Sure. I’ll be right back.’

  When Declan returned with the waiter carrying their drinks, Anna began.

  ‘Esme was seventeen. Still at school, no known boyfriend, no record and no reason to end up murdered in a ditch at her sister’s wedding.’