Unti Lucy Black Novel #3

by Brian McGilloway

  The car park was almost empty when she arrived. Out on the fairways, the first four-­balls of the day were starting their play. Inside, a handful of men were sitting at the Nineteenth Hole bar, drinking tea or eating fried breakfasts before beginning their game. Rather than going into the bar, Lucy knocked on the door of the shop.

  A young man in a pink polo shirt was standing at the till, annotating the receipt roll as he worked through it with a blue pen.

  “We’re not open yet,” he said, when Lucy pushed open the door.

  “I’m DS Black with the PSNI,” Lucy said. “Can I have a moment?”

  The man straightened, closing the till drawer. “Of course. How can I help?”

  Lucy came into the shop, taking out her phone and opening the pictures folder. She showed the young man the picture she had taken of the dead man’s jacket. “Is this from here?”

  The man took the phone and, widening the image, examined it. “Yeah, that’s one of ours. A past captain’s blazer. Why?”

  “We recovered a body from the river last night,” Lucy said. “He was wearing this. I was hoping you might be able to help us identify him. Maybe you have a list of all the past captains?”

  “Oh my God! Is he dead?”

  Lucy nodded. “Would you have those names?”

  The man nodded quickly. “Come with me,” he said.

  He led her out to the entrance to the bar where two large wooden boards had been erected on which was listed the names of all the club’s captains and ladies’ captains, tracing back to 1911.

  “That’s them all.”

  “Have you a copy of the list you could give me?” Lucy asked. “On something smaller. A sheet of paper, maybe. And the men only; I don’t need the women’s names.”

  “Of course,” the man said. “A lot of the older ones are dead. Do you want me to leave those off?”

  Better to leave off those still alive, Lucy thought, but she said nothing. “Perhaps just mark those you know to be deceased.”

  “Of course,” the man repeated. “I’ll get the club secretary to do it when he gets in. He should have it all handy somewhere.”

  Lucy glanced at her watch. It was nine-­thirty.

  “That should be fine,” she said, handing him her card. “He can fax it through to me at that number.”

  “That’s desperate news,” the man said, shaking his head. “That’s the second past captain who has died this week. You know what they say about these thing happening in threes?” He rubbed his arm, as if suppressing the urge to shiver.

  “Who was the other one who died?” Lucy asked.

  Chapter Seven

  “CANCER, APPARENTLY,” SHE said. “His funeral was a few days ago, according to the Pro Shop keeper.”

  Tom Fleming sat next to her, in the Strand Road office of Chief Superintendent Mark Burns. The heat had already begun to build and Burns had both a fan running in his room and the small window opened wide in the hope of a breeze. The air, though, was still and hot.

  “Stuart Carlisle,” Burns said. He lifted the picture that Lucy had taken of the victim pulled from the river and compared it with one she had found on the golf club’s website of a presentation taken a few years earlier. “It could be him,” he agreed. “As much as ­people can look like themselves when they’re embalmed.”

  “We thought it a CID investigation rather than PPU,” Fleming said. Then added, “Sir.”

  Burns shrugged. “We’ve the whole team out at the moment at the city’s waste plant at Maydown. The lorries were coming in to off-­load all the early morning collections and they found a man’s body in one of the compactors.”

  “Jesus,” Lucy said. “Was he dead or alive when he went in the truck?”

  “That we don’t know,” Burns said. “The team is out there at the moment. So, look, if you have a name for this guy, check with the next of kin and find out what happened. Maybe it was a burial at sea kind of thing that went wrong.”

  Fleming glanced across at Lucy, not bothering to hide his skepticism, but Burns was already standing up to indicate that the meeting was over.

  WITHIN THE HOUR, Lucy had traced through the Registrar’s office that Carlisle’s death certificate had been issued to his nephew, Tony Henderson. Henderson lived on Balloughry Road, on the outskirts of town, not far from the border with the Republic of Ireland. She and Fleming went out together.

  Henderson’s house was a bungalow, sitting squat against the roadside. The driveway running along the side of the house had once been gravel, but time and use had worn deep gouges in the mud beneath, which sat in caked ridges now, as Lucy stepped over them toward the house.

  A mongrel dog appeared from the rear of the property, small and white, with scraps of tan on its fur that suggested a Jack Russell had been involved somewhere in its parentage. It yapped several times at them, then lowered its head and hobbled forward, reaching Lucy and sniffing around her feet.

  “Can I help you?”

  Lucy looked up from the dog to where a thin middle-­aged man stood at the corner of the house, a paintbrush in one hand, a small can of paint in the other.

  “Tony Henderson?” Tom Fleming asked.

  “That’s me. Is something wrong?” The man set the can on the ground and laid the paintbrush across the opening of the top. He straightened and pulled a rag from his back pocket on which to wipe his hands.

  “We’d like to talk to you about your uncle. Stuart Carlisle?”

  “Great-­uncle,” Henderson said. “What about him?”

  “We believe we pulled his body from the river last night,” Lucy said.

  The man laughed with relief, then realized it was not the appropriate reaction to the news of a recovery from the river. He raised a paint-­stained wrist in front of his mouth. “Sorry,” he said. “You’ve got the wrong man. My uncle’s already dead; he died last week.”

  “We know,” Lucy said. “Maybe we could go inside.”

  HENDERSON’S LIVING ROOM was narrow, one side dominated by an old china cabinet, the other by two armchairs. There was no sofa. Lucy sat on one seat, Henderson on the other, while Fleming moved across to the window, as if to lean against the sill.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Henderson said. “I’ve just painted the woodwork.”

  Instinctively, Fleming stepped away, wiping at the back of his legs lest some paint had transferred on to it.

  Henderson stared from him to Lucy. “If you know my uncle’s already dead, why do you think he was the one you pulled from the Foyle?”

  “Would you mind taking a look at this?” Lucy said, offering the man a photograph, a headshot of the body they had recovered. “Is that your great-­uncle?”

  Henderson studied the image, angling it toward the light entering the room through the one narrow window to the front, across which hung a lace curtain. “I’ve smudged it,” he said and pulled one tacky thumb from the picture before handing it back to Lucy. “Sorry. That looks like him all right, but—­”

  “He was wearing a City of Derry Golf Club blazer?”

  “Aye, that’s right. I don’t understand, though. We had his funeral.”

  “When?”

  “Monday. He was waked in the funeral parlor, then they had the ser­vice for him at one. They took him off to be cremated in All Hallows in Belfast.”

  “Cremated?” Fleming asked. Generally, Irish ­people tended not to cremate the dead, suitable land for burial plots not being an issue in the country. It was the exception rather than the rule. So much so, the only crematoriums in the North were in Belfast.

  “Did you take the body up to All Hallows yourself?”

  The man shook his head. “I’d an appointment in the hospital in the afternoon,” he explained. “The undertakers handled it all. I’ve to call for his ashes at some stage.”

  “I see,” Lucy said
.

  Henderson clearly sensed something in her voice for he continued. “I never knew him. He wasn’t close to us. He was my granny’s brother. He never bothered with our family. It was the home help contacted me to say he was dead. Going to the funeral ser­vice was as much as I figured he needed. What difference would it make seeing his coffin going into an oven, eh?” The man stared at Lucy, willing her to respond.

  “That’s understandable,” Fleming said, instead. “Look, you’re certain it was your great-­uncle in the coffin at the ser­vice? Did you see him?”

  “Aye. It was an open coffin at the wake. All his golfing buddies were there.”

  “Did anyone accompany the body to All Hallows?”

  “The undertakers, just,” Henderson said. “All his golfing friends were the same age as him; they weren’t going to start driving nearly two hours to see him being burned.”

  “When did you last see him in the coffin?”

  “At the start of the ser­vice. They closed the lid and sealed it, then we had the ser­vice, then they took the body out to take him to Belfast.”

  “And that was the last you saw of it?”

  Henderson nodded.

  “Who was the undertaker?” Lucy asked.

  “Duffy, on the Strand Road. Did they throw his body in the river, instead of taking him up to be burned?” he asked. “They were paid out of his estate. They charged plenty for it. Bloody undertakers would drain you dry.”

  “What about the rest of your great-­uncle’s estate?” Lucy asked, earning a scowl from Fleming for the nature of the question.

  “It’ll all come to me, I think,” Henderson said. “All that effort and saving, just to have your money go to someone you hardly know when you’re gone, eh?”

  Chapter Eight

  DUFFY AND SONS operated out of a converted mechanic’s garage along the quay on the Strand Road. They were recently opened, and had managed to position themselves with a view of the river from their main ser­vice room on the first floor of the building. When they arrived, they were met by the owner, Gabriel Duffy, before being led up to the ser­vice room. Despite the volume of traffic along the main arterial route through the city just outside the window, the building was hushed, the air sweet and heavy with incense.

  “We did handle Mr. Carlisle’s ser­vice,” Duffy said, his voice soft and sibilant.

  “His ‘remains’ were recovered from the river last night,” Lucy said. She produced the image she had shown Henderson and gave it to Duffy. He rubbed at the white paint fingerprint on its surface.

  “That does look like Mr. Carlisle, but I can assure you, it can’t be him. He was taken to All Hallows and cremated the day before yesterday. We have all the paperwork to show the transfer from us to the crematorium. Mr. Carlisle’s ashes are waiting for his great-­nephew to collect. We have them here.”

  He stood, and padded across the room and out through a different doorway from the one through which they had been brought in. Lucy assumed he was going to the preparation room beneath. A moment later he reappeared with small box, slightly bigger than a milk carton. Attached to it was a sticker with Stuart Carlise’s name and the date of his death.

  “Is that it?” Lucy asked.

  “You can pay for nicer ones,” Duffy said. “Mr. Carlisle’s next of kin wanted a basic receptacle.”

  Lucy took it from the man. It was heavier than she expected, perhaps the same as a bag of flour, she thought. “Is this definitely Stuart Carlisle?”

  Duffy nodded. “My son drove the body up. He’s downstairs finishing an embalming; he’ll be up in a moment. The coffin was sealed at the ser­vice, taken out to the van and delivered to All Hallows. Ciaran waited in Belfast until the cremation was completed, a few hours later, then brought back the ashes.”

  As if on cue, the rear door opened again and a young man came in, pushing the door closed with a click. He came across to where Lucy and Fleming sat.

  “This is Ciaran,” Duffy said. “The officers are asking about the Stuart Carlisle cremation.”

  Ciaran nodded. “Yes?”

  “We believe we’ve found his body in the river,” Lucy said. “Are you sure he was cremated?”

  “Absolutely,” Ciaran said, quickly. “I drove it up myself. We loaded him into the crematorium and I waited about until it was finished. I brought his ashes back.”

  “Can we see the ashes?” Fleming asked.

  Duffy looked at his son for a moment. “It’s a little irregular,” he said. “It’s really meant to go to the next of kin.”

  “Do you think the next of kin cares?” Lucy asked. “We just need to check that what’s in that box is human remains.”

  Duffy glanced at his son again. The boy nodded. “I don’t see why not,” the boy said. “Show them.”

  Duffy unsealed the box and opened the lid. Inside was a clear plastic bag containing what appeared to Lucy to be more like shingle than ash.

  “Is that how they’re meant to look?” Lucy asked.

  Duffy nodded. “The bones don’t burn so they have to crush them instead,” he said. “That gives it that texture.”

  “So that’s definitively a person in there.”

  Duffy nodded. “As best as I can tell by looking,” he said.

  “You didn’t remove the body from the coffin on your way up, did you?” Fleming asked Ciaran Duffy.

  The boy blinked at him, then shook his head. “No. Why would I do that?”

  “Could someone else have removed the body?”

  Ciaran shrugged. “No. I left here and took it straight to All Hallows. They took it from me and I called back a few hours later.”

  “You called back?”

  “I went into Belfast a run,” Ciaran said, glancing at his father. “It takes three hours sometimes to burn the deceased.”

  “Did you stop along the way? Could someone else have swapped the body?”

  Ciaran shook his head. “No. I called into the shop at the bottom of the Glenshane for a can of Coke, but that was it. A ­couple of minutes at most. And the van was sitting in the shop forecourt the whole time.”

  “If anyone did swap the body, it must have been in the crematorium. Check with them. Either that, or the man you pulled from the river isn’t Stuart Carlisle,” Gabriel Duffy said, standing up and moving to beside his son.

  Chapter Nine

  LUCY WAS JUST pulling into Maydown station, where the PPU was based, when her mobile rang. It was Tara Gallagher, a DS in CID, who had started in Foyle District around the same time as Lucy.

  “Burns wants you to come across,” she said. “The body in the bin. We think he was a homeless man. Burns is hoping you might be able to identify him.”

  Fleming nodded when Lucy passed on Tara’s request. “I’ll call All Hallows on the way across; get them to check whether Stuart Carlisle’s remains ever made it as far as Belfast. Can I use your phone? My own’s out of charge.”

  Lucy handed it across to him. “Do you think Duffy is lying?”

  “One of the Duffys is lying. I’m undecided which one.”

  Lucy glanced across. “There wouldn’t be a chance that someone in All Hallows was involved?”

  “And drove the body back down to Derry to get rid of it?” Fleming shook his head. “I don’t see it. We’ll check and see, but I think that whatever happened to that body, it happened here.”

  THE WASTE DISPOSAL unit from which DS Gallagher had called was only a few minutes away, in the industrial estate in Campsie. Even as they approached, they could see the activity outside the building. Several CSIs, clad in white paper suits, were already coming out of the building.

  Tara met them at the entrance and waited as they were signed through at the cordon set up at the doorway.

  “I thought the city dump was in Culmore,” Fleming said.

  “It was, app
arently,” Tara explained. “That closed a few years back and this crew have been handling all the waste disposal for the city since. The lorries bring it all back here and then it’s sorted and taken on to landfill or recycled.”

  “Look at you,” Lucy said, nudging Tara. “An expert.”

  “On rubbish, yeah,” Tara said, reddening. “That’s why I became a cop.”

  “What’s the story with the body?” Fleming asked. “You think he’s homeless?”

  “He’s dressed like it,” Tara said. “They ran his prints through the system and got a hit. He was lifted for drunk and disorderly a few years back. He gave his address back then as a hostel in Derry.”

  “If they have his prints on the system, they must also have his name. Why do you need us to identify him?”

  Tara cracked a smile. “I’ll let the Chief Super explain that one,” she said.

  The Chief Superintendent was standing in the main yard of the building, next to a bin lorry; the compactor unit at the back was raised above the vehicle as two CSIs squatted inside the rear section, sifting through the rubbish.

  “Looking for clues?” Lucy asked.

  “Looking for the remains,” Tara said. “Of the remains. The rest is across there.”

  At their approach, Burns turned and lowered his face mask. Lucy guessed its use was more due to the smell in the yard than for the preservation of the scene, particularly as the yard wasn’t the scene of death anyway.

  “Tom, Lucy,” Burns said, nodding. “How did you get on with the family?”

  Fleming nodded. “Fine. Next of kin was at the man’s funeral. The funeral home took him to Belfast to be cremated and have both the paperwork and the ashes to prove it.”

  “Then how the hell did he get pulled out of the river?”

  Fleming shrugged. “That’s the question. All Hallows in Belfast are to come back to me on it.”