Little Bird: a serial killer thriller

by Sharon Dempsey

  They drove out of Belfast towards Holywood again, heading on to Craigavad. She saw the tall, yellow gantry cranes, Samson and Goliath, standing proud over the shipyard where the Titanic had been built. On past the Odyssey, an out of town entertainment complex – home to the Belfast Giants ice hockey team, a cinema and concert venue, and further on out, leaving the city behind, past the George Best airport and the signs for Ikea.

  ‘That was some Sunday morning wake up,’ Thomas said.

  Anna hesitated, searching for the right thing to say. ‘Look Thomas, I don’t want to give you the wrong idea,’ she opened her window to get some air as he pulled into the outside lane. ‘I’m sort of coming out of a relationship and I’m not looking to get involved right now.’

  ‘Sure, no problem,’ he looked out the window.

  Anna cursed herself silently for getting into this predicament. She needed her colleagues to respect her as a good detective, not see her as an easy lay. What was she thinking of running around like a teenager, kissing a man she hardly knew and going back to his apartment? Thank God, he had been happy to let her fall asleep in his bed. She shuddered at how irresponsible she had been. It wasn’t like her to act like this. When she thought of Jon she blushed with shame.

  They passed a huge sign congratulating Rory McIlroy on his latest win. Holywood, his hometown, proud of their talented golfer.

  ‘The papers are going to have a field day with this,’ Thomas said.

  ‘All we can do is catch the bastard, before it happens again because as sure as night follows day he’s going to strike again.’

  Holywood proved to be a small, wealthy town full of coffee shops, nice little boutiques, and gastro pubs, all edged by the beauty of the coast. Anna watching out the window, thinking how pretty the town was, as Thomas took them to Craigavad Grace’s family home. They pulled into the driveway of a large Georgian style pile. Anna couldn’t help thinking that Northern Ireland had some beautiful houses.

  At the top of the asphalt driveway she saw four cars neatly parked, two BWMs, an Audi convertible and a C class Mercedes. Serious money. Money could be a buffer to all sorts of problems. Unfortunately, not in this case. Her heart contracted for them. Their daughter murdered not more than three miles from their home.

  Thomas reversed the car to park alongside the other vehicles and they took in the view. The house was three stories tall, looking out across an immaculately manicured, wide front lawn, which slopped away to the view of the grey watery lough in the distance. The stone house was framed by fading clematis and oversized clay pots grouped in clusters near the front steps. Before Thomas had a chance to ring the doorbell, an older man opened the heavy wooden door.

  ‘Police, I take it?’

  ‘Yes, we’re here to speak to the Dowds family.’

  ‘Come in. They are expecting you. My daughter and her husband are in here waiting,’ he said. Anna and Thomas went through.

  The man was probably around seventy and looked beaten. His shoulders hunched up towards his excessively large ear lobes and his head of thinning silver hair. He indicated for them to follow him down the long hallway. As she followed, Anna caught her reflection in a huge gilded mirror that was hung above a long, dark-wood table. Everything about the house, from the driveway to the curved staircase, felt grand and opulent. The Dowds were obviously loaded. They were shown into one of the doors to the right of the hallway, where the Family Liaison Officer, greeted them. ‘Joanne Dixon,’ she said. ‘The family are in here.’

  ’DCI King,’ Thomas said as he strode purposefully into the room. Anna entered behind him taking in the scene. It was like something out of an interiors magazine, with thick Persian rugs covering the gleaming wood blocked floors, a huge chandelier hanging from the central ceiling rose, and a deep bay window, draped with heavy tapestry curtains, providing views over the Lough. Anna stopped herself from gasping at the opulence of it all.

  ‘I’m Grace’s father, Stephen.’ The man stood up from the wine coloured velvet chair he was sitting in and reached to shake their hands. ‘Have you heard anymore?’

  Anna shook her head, ‘No, I’m afraid we have nothing new, but we would like to ask you some questions about Grace’s friends, who she was with last night, that type of thing.’

  The woman, obviously the mother, hadn’t yet spoken, sobbed quietly. Her shoulders moving rhythmically with every breath she took, were draped in a pale blue wool cardigan. Anna would bet her week’s wages it was cashmere. You could almost smell the money, or maybe that was just the scent of the Diptyque candles. Tuberose and fig type smells that made Anna feel like she had walked into a luxury hotel.

  ‘Mrs Dowds, I am so sorry for your loss. I can’t imagine what you are experiencing, but I need you to know, we are doing absolutely everything we can to find out who did this, and get them off the street.’ Anna felt her stomach roil. It was always the same for her – the crime scene felt like work, she could go into overdrive and see it as a formula to be untangled but this – dealing with the grief up-close, was agonising. There was no escaping behind evidence, SOCO reports, and corpses. This part of the job was what made the murder real to her, to see the pain of loss first hand.

  ‘If you lot had done your job right the last time, Grace would still be here,’ Stephen Dowds said, striding over to the marble fireplace where he lifted a photograph. Grace in her school uniform smiled out from the silver frame. He stared at it before placing it back again. Anna could feel the resentment sizzle off him.

  ‘While we are looking at every possibility, there is nothing conclusive to connect the two girls’ murders at this time.’ Thomas spoke in a low voice, respectful and gentle. Anna could tell he had experience of dealing with this type of raw grief. He struck just the right tone.

  ‘Jesus, I can’t take this in. I can’t listen to this. It can’t be real,’ Maureen Dowds looked exhausted. Her sobs returned and Anna placed a tentative hand on her shoulder. Murder was the great leveler. All the success and hard earned wealth couldn’t protect the Dowds from the agony of this.

  The grandfather returned to the room with a tray of tea things. ‘I’m trying to keep busy,’ he said, almost as if apologising, as he set the tray down on the side table.

  Anna accepted the cup of tea and added a little milk. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Grace was at a school formal, isn’t that right?’ Anna sat down and took out her notepad.

  ‘Yes, it’s a big deal nowadays. She has talked of nothing else for weeks,’ Stephen said. ‘We had a bit of a party here to see them off, like. We took pictures of all the girls standing on the staircase and the boys posed for their photographs too. We must have had forty people here, teenagers and their parents all dressed up, full of the excitement for their big night out. Who’d have thought …’ he looked out towards the velvet green lawn and the grey Lough as if contemplating what he couldn’t bring himself to say.

  ‘They left here at seven o’clock, in a specially hired party bus. I gave the company name to your colleague.’

  ‘Did you hear from Grace again during the evening?’

  ‘Yes, she sent me a text to say that the food was awful and that one of the boys had thrown up on the bus on the way there. Too much to drink, I’m sure,’ Maureen said. ‘That was at 10.40.’

  ‘After they left we over saw the tidying up – our cleaner Martha was here to lend a hand. Then we went to bed and the next we heard anything was when the doorbell rang the doorbell at nine this morning.’

  ‘Did you expect Grace home?’

  ‘No, she had arranged to sleep over at her friend, Rachel’s house. They all wanted to make the night last as long as possible, so we didn’t expect to see her until today.’ Stephen Dowds said.

  Anna noticed another photograph on the mantle place. Two tall boys flanking the redheaded pretty girl in the centre. A typical family portrait.

  ‘Are these your children?’ Anna asked lifting the heavy silver framed picture.

  ‘Yes, the boys ar
e both at university over in Bristol, they are on their way home as I speak. Terrible to give them such bad news over the phone, but we couldn’t risk them hearing it on the news, or seeing something on Facebook.’

  ‘No, it’s impossible to contain anything these days. The press will be all over this I’m afraid, but Joanne, the family liaison officer, will advise you on how to handle any unwanted enquires.’ Thomas said, getting up.

  ‘We’ll leave you in peace now. Let us know if we can do anything more and rest assured we are going to get whoever did this.’

  Back in the office Anna called the techs dealing with the two birds but she was told they needed more time. Instead she focused on the social media sites to see if there were any mentions of Esme and Grace. Naturally, they both came up with hundreds of references to what had happened along with condolences from friends. It was likely most of the so-called friends were virtual, friends of friends, but every possible connection had to be examined. The IT department would be on to it, but Anna always liked to get a feel for the contacts in any cases like this. Sometimes it felt like crawling through a sticky web of possibilities to get to the creep at the centre.

  There were several photographs of Grace at parties, one arm draped around a boy, another dressed in her school uniform looking young and serious. Richard McKay appeared in front for Anna’s desk looking like he was about to murder somebody.

  ‘I want an update, with King too,’ he said, his eyes boring into Anna’s computer as if he half expected her to be sitting playing solitaire.

  Anna found Thomas helping himself to a coffee. ‘McKay’s looking for a briefing. Come on.’

  Anna sat at Richard McKay’s desk feeling like she had been called to the principal’s office.

  ‘So, brief me, what’ve we got?’ McKay asked.

  ‘Grace Dowds, aged eighteen. Daughter of prominent business man Stephen Dowds. Out at her school formal at the Culloden Hotel. Seen leaving the hotel at 11.03 p.m. on CCTV – alone. Found dead this morning by a dog walker.’

  She noticed Thomas fiddling with his watch, anxious and keen to impress.

  ‘We are going to have to move fast on this. Stephen Dowds has friends in high places. Cause of death?’

  Anna shifted in her seat. The inference, that the Dowds girl was of more significance because of her daddy’s powerful connections, rankled.

  ‘Obviously, we’ll have to wait on the autopsy report, sir, but looks similar to the Esme Wells case – head trauma and asphyxiation. No sign of rape or sexual assault,’ she said.

  Thomas took over, ‘We’ve two primary lines of enquiry: first a disgruntled business associate of Mr Dowds – he’s plenty of enemies out there. Rory Finnegan, Esme’s brother-in-law – has featured in our research and he has business links with Mr Dowds.’ Thomas looked to Anna to continue.

  ‘Second, we are looking at connections between the two scenes of crime – the venues, both girls were found within close proximity to the hotels. Significantly, we have evidence of the killer leaving a trademark tag. In both cases, birds have been found at the site. In Esme’s case, as you know, a dead bird with its eyes removed was found after the site clear up and in Grace Dowds’ case, a bird had been inserted into her mouth.’

  Thomas says, ‘We are still waiting for the findings on the birds. Who knows what might turn up? With regards to the hotels, we’re looking closely at staff lists and taxi drivers in the area.’

  ‘And third?’

  ‘Actually sir,’ Anna said, ‘This one’s a bit off the wall. We would like to have a look at the Declan Wells car bomb file. Just to make sure there’s no connection.’

  ‘Connection? What sort of frigging connection?’

  ‘Who’s to say it isn’t some sort of revenge motive?’

  ‘Cole, I think you’ll find that when we close a case here it’s for a reason. The Declan Wells car bomb was dealt with at the time and I sincerely doubt you’d find anything trawling through all that again. Don’t be wasting time.’

  19

  The night before had caught up with her. She showered and got into her tracksuit bottoms and her old Zeppelin T-shirt, glad to have the grime of her day washed away. Her hair hung damp around her shoulders. She debated whom to call first, her dad or Jon? She had put off both calls for days, not wanting to be interrogated about when she would be going home for a visit, nor did she relish the idea of talking to Jon, having spent the night at King’s apartment, even if she hadn’t done anything to regret.

  The doorbell rang, making her jump. It wasn’t as if she expected to have visitors.

  She opened the door and was surprised to see Declan Wells. She looked down on him, parked at her front door in his wheelchair. His dark hair falling in an unkempt mess about his face. He looked wrecked.

  ‘I told you this would happened. What have you got on the second girl?’

  ‘Declan how did you know where I lived? You shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Do you think I’m going to sit back on this fucking chair and let him slip away to do this again?’ He was seething. There was a white-hot rage emitting for his every movement.

  ‘You better come in,’ she hesitated, unsure of how she would get his chair through the door. ‘Round the back, there’s a patio door.’

  He was barely in through the door when he started, ‘Two girls, both young, both out at private events. I knew it would happen again. I told you.’

  ‘Declan, it isn’t as if we have been sitting around doing nothing. We are scanning CCTV, interviews with every guest at the wedding have been conducted and now every attendee at the formal. It all takes time.’

  ‘You don’t have time,’ he said manoeuvring the chair into the living room. ‘He will act again.’

  ‘We’ve no reason to think so.’

  He took a deep breath if as readying himself for battle. ‘You need to construct a profile. To start thinking of this as part of a larger plan. Not nit picking through Esme’s life.’

  Anna didn’t like being door-stepped, let alone being bullied about the case. The last thing she needed was a distraught, grieving parent trying to hijack the inquiry.

  ‘Dr Wells, I can’t make this any clearer, if you have concerns you need to talk to the Family Liaison Officer, she will be able to reassure you that we are in full control of the investigation.’

  ‘Hardly,’ he said, manoeuvring the chair, ‘You can’t brush me off. I’ve been around the police too long to know how things get done and how things are missed.’

  Anna was certain she was in for a long night. He obviously hadn’t been sleeping well, dark shadows under his eyes and his dull complexion gave it away. He was still handsome though. He needed a haircut and a shave and he was way too old for her, but there was something about him that attracted her. It was his command, the fact that he was imposing, almost in spite of the chair. She could imagine he would have been a force to reckon with before the incident. Thomas had told her about the car bomb. How he had been very lucky not to lose his life, and how there had been repercussions for the force when it had been discovered a tip off had not been passed on.

  He sat in his chair looking fired up, as if he could move mountains to prove his worth to Anna, ‘If I were part of the investigation,’ he said. ‘I would have access to the crime scenes to be able to gather information from the source. Cases are solved by putting all the information together, clues, patterns, theories and hypotheses.’

  She knew there was little point in arguing with him.

  He went on, ‘Think of it this way: I’m trying to uncover a cancer. If I were a medical doctor, treating a patient, I would ask for a case history, lifestyle, previous illnesses and such; I would examine the pathology as it presents before me and make my diagnosis based on my findings. All I’m asking for is to have insight.’

  It was impossible to resist Declan’s insistence. No matter how many times she protested that he shouldn’t be there or working on the case, he shot her down with the logic that no one wante
d to find who did this more than him. He would do whatever it took, and he had been proved right so far. The killer had an agenda. Two dead girls and the threat of more, if they didn’t get a result fast. She had divulged more than she intended to, like the information on the birds, but she figured that it wouldn’t hamper the investigation. He was so focused, so knowledgeable about how to create a psychological portrait, and so convincing.

  By midnight they had drawn up a profile. Declan was sure that the killer was mid- to late twenties. He had a grudge against young girls, possibly spurned by an ex-girlfriend.

  ‘All we know about the killer is based on aspects of his crimes. Unfortunately, the more crimes he perpetrates the more we learn about him,’ he said sighing.

  ‘Do you think there is possibility he has killed before?’ Anna asked, studying his face, noticing for the first time the shadows and lines, sure she could commit his profile to memory and sketch it later if she wanted to.

  ‘He may have, but I think Esme was his first.’

  ‘Why?’ Anna thought of all the reported sexual attacks that had gone unsolved, the incidents considered one-offs that perhaps didn’t have the full attention they should have received.

  ‘He’s been building up to this. Maybe he has stalked girls before, made a nuisance of himself and got off on frightening them. Just because we don’t have proof that the girls knew him doesn’t mean that they hadn’t come across him somewhere. Esme wasn’t his starting point, but she was his first murder.’

  Anna watched him in the dim light of the room. He looked beat, yet there was a spark in his eyes.

  ‘The killer sees the victim as an object. He has some degree of control; we know this because he’s careful with the scene. He thinks he hasn’t given too much away because the scenes are relatively clean of any trace of him. But the birds are his trademarks. He is telling us plenty. The sadistic nature of the removal of the first bird’s eyes has shock value. That was him signaling that there was more to come.’