The crime scene itself was an absolute nightmare. It had been discovered by two teenagers the night before, who had no doubt been doing what teenagers had been doing on Saturday nights since caveman times. According to Dr Devane's initial report, her best guess was that Baylor had been killed elsewhere via strangulation and then his body had been brought here, mutilated and staged. Her initial tests put the time of death as sometime on Friday night, which meant the body had been up there for over a day. The local wildlife had certainly been taking advantage. The Gardaí were now bringing in a mobile hydraulic platform to take it down. It was awkward as all hell, but apparently it was the best way to ensure what Devane had called 'the integrity of the subject'. They'd been processing the scene since 2 am, and it was now 4 pm on a Sunday. Nobody who was anything in Irish law enforcement was having much of a weekend. Burns imagined an awkward meeting a couple of months from now about this overtime bill. That's assuming she was still in a job by then.
This thing had started out political, but now with body number two, it was hitting the stratosphere. The Taoiseach had been on personally. Baylor had been some kind of mentor to him, one of the great unseen forces of Dublin's political landscape, apparently. She had been left in no doubt, himself was taking a personal interest. The press were going to have a field day. Thankfully it had missed the Sunday papers, but the radio and TV crews had started massing over near the gates at first light. A provisional statement had kept them quiet for a couple of hours, but they'd need an another news conference before long. It wasn't just the Irish press any more, every international news organisation was represented somehow. They were no doubt over there now, jostling for position as they did sombre reports to camera, with the broken Skylark skyline in the background.
Burns had put uniforms patrolling the perimeter all morning, but the reality was that the site was wide open, and all you needed was a long lens. The pictures of the first crime scene released by the Púca were already available in the dingier corners of the Internet. They'd have no need to release the pictures this time, the public would undoubtedly do their work for them.
Burns turned to find Detective Garda Daly standing nervously behind her. She was a decent officer from all Burns had seen, but she had a lack of confidence that she'd need to get knocked out of her if she was ever going to move up the grades.
"How long have you been there?"
"Sorry, ma’am, I just thought you might be… y'know…"
Daly waved in the vague direction of the body, nervously.
"Daly, if you remember one thing about this job, it should be this. Instinct is invariably what some lazy prick will tell you they rely on, when they can't be bothered putting the work in to find out all the facts. This is not art, this is science."
"Yes, ma’am."
"Speaking of which…"
Daly looked back at her with a look of vacant terror. After a moment, Burns nodded down at the notebook that the younger woman held.
"Oh, right," said Daly, blushing as she opened it. "Councillor Baylor, sixty-nine years of age, was due to retire from public life next year. He was described as a pillar of the community, universally well-regarded by his constituents and his colleagues alike."
Burns pointed back over her shoulder. "Clearly not universally. Don't editorialise in your reports, Daly."
Daly nervously pushed her hair back behind her ear. "Yes, ma’am, sorry ma’am."
Burns felt like a bit of a bitch for being quite so nitpicky. It wasn't Daly's fault she was struggling to function on three hours sleep. "How come such a beloved individual disappeared for over a day, then, and nobody noticed?"
"Well," continued Daly, "his kids are grown up and off doing their own thing, and the wife is down in Waterford visiting family. She says he was planning a quiet weekend indulging in his love of making pottery."
"Throwing," said Burns.
Daly looked at her in confusion.
"Throwing," repeated Burns. "You ‘throw’ a pot. Technical term, doesn't matter." Even as she spoke, a voice inside her head was wondering if she was actively trying to promote the idea she was a pedantic cow.
"Right," said Daly. "I spoke to his private secretary who confirmed what the wife said."
Over Daly's shoulder, Burns watched an Astra pull up beside the line of Tech Bureau vans, and Detective Wilson emerged from it. He noticed Burns, and she pointed in the direction of the grandly-titled catering truck, which was basically a font of regrettable lukewarm beverages and the occasional sandwich that time forgot.
"Thanks, Daly. Get back to the secretary and tell her we want a detailed list of every appointment the councillor had in the last week, and specifically ask for the list of unhappy constituents that I guarantee they have kept. You can't be that long in politics without somebody bearing a grudge."
"Yes, ma’am."
"I'll see you back at the store for the meeting at 7 pm."
"Yes, ma’am."
Burns started walking towards the catering truck where Wilson was now standing. He looked no happier than when she had dispatched him three hours earlier. A large part of her job was using every resource available to her, whether that resource wanted to be used or not. Following their previous conversation, she had checked out his HR file. Wilson's grandfather was an Irish political institution, who had been Minister for Finance for a big chunk of the Seventies. His dad had made a stab at continuing the tradition until he'd been caught with his pants down. Burns was only guessing, but she figured Wilson joining the Gardaí might not have been the family's first choice. Certainly Wilson seemed extremely reluctant when sent to get her the insider's view on Baylor. Burns didn't care; she had two bodies, zero substantive suspects and no time for niceties. Wilson's awkward Christmas dinner was not her problem.
Burns nodded to the left of the truck and Wilson joined her.
"Well?" asked Burns.
"Councillor Baylor was a much loved—"
"I've already had the puff-piece report, Wilson."
"Yes, ma’am. In that case, unofficially – bent as a two bob note, but very smart. All the investigations, tribunals on planning back in the day, through all that – nothing could touch him. While he was considered the great mover and shaker in the planning permission game, he was incredibly cautious. Nobody ever directly asked him for anything, handed him money etc, etc."
"I see. Did he have anything to do with that?" said Burns, nodding her head in the direction of the Skylark complex that stood at the far end of the waste ground.
"I asked. Nothing specific but, put it this way, they said if he didn't have a dog in that particular fight, it'd be the first serious development in Dublin for thirty years that he didn't."
"Really?"
"You know how most councillors are waiting to move up to being a TD? Well, apparently the joke was that Baylor wouldn't as he'd not take the pay cut."
"So, had he any enemies that we should be looking at?"
"People that'd crossed him, or he crossed? Thousands, but…" Wilson looked over in the direction of the body, and Burns had to resist the urge to step back to protect her shoes, "nothing that would explain that."
"Any skeletons in his closet I should know about?"
"That's the other thing," said Wilson. "He was apparently the dullest man on the planet. No sneaky meetings, no late-night liaisons. The guy was a really holy Joe apparently. Didn't even drink. His nickname was Snow White."
"Well," said Burns. "He pissed somebody off. Whoever is behind this really loves their work, and I can't believe they started in the job a few days ago. Amateurs don't have this level of showmanship. We're going to be—"
Burns stopped talking as she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. She took it out and recognised the number as being the Technical Bureau. "Hang on…" She answered it. "Doakes, what've you got for me?"
"Actually Susan, this is DSI O'Brien here, but Doakes is with me."
"Oh, hello Mark."
"The note you found on your vic
tim, we've got a result on it. There was a partial print."
"Good." Burns noted how wary O'Brien sounded. The fact it was him calling was unusual in itself.
"We've triple-checked this, and I got one of my best to confirm. The print is on our elimination list…"
Burns felt like punching something. The elimination list contained coppers and techs. All there to make sure that if their prints showed up at a scene they'd attended, they could be eliminated from an investigation. Of course, if they'd done their job right in the first place, they shouldn't have been there to begin with. "Who the hell contaminated my crime scene?"
"Nobody," said O'Brien, "This isn't that. The print belongs to a recently-retired former detective. It's Bunny McGarry."
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Gerry: …And we’re back. The Púca have been condemned by every Irish politician, the Church, even Bono has said he is not a fan, yet on my way in to the studio I’ve seen the graffiti on walls, on bus stops and everywhere else you look. Clearly, there is a minority out there who their actions speak to. Who do you think that minority are? Are you one of them? We’re taking your calls. Niall from Maynooth.
Niall: Yeah, Gerry, now hear me out – how do we know the Púca are even Irish?
Gerry: I don’t get you, Niall?
Niall: I’m saying, could be foreigners, couldn’t it? Like your Al Qaeda, they’re your ISIS now, maybe they’ve changed their names again, like?
Gerry: So your point is, maybe a bunch of Jihadi terrorists have renamed themselves to the Gaelic name for a creature from Irish mythology?
Niall: Well… there’s no need to try and make me sound stupid, Gerry.
Gerry: I’m not Niall, that was all you.
Dr Simon Sinha had never been in a fight with a woman in his entire life. It wasn't something he was particularly proud of. He considered it the bare minimum of behaviour for a man who had been raised properly. Being proud of that would be like being proud of putting on clothes before leaving the house, certain standards were just expected. He considered himself a feminist, although equality did not extend to violence. Violence, in his opinion, was a measure of failure in a human being's character. This was why he was so disappointed to be in a fight with not one, but two women.
To be fair to himself, his role in the fight was that of being the person trying to stop it, but he had been singularly ineffective in that endeavour. The fight was between Nurse Brigit Conroy and the woman he was thinking of as Diane. That had been what she had called herself over the phone. Given her profession as a lady of negotiable virtue, he was not naïve enough to think that Diane was her real name, but he preferred it to thinking of her as ‘the prostitute’. All of Dr Sinha's attempts to break up the fight had so far proven disastrous. Any time he'd dragged one of the participants away, the other had used it as opportunity to get a cheap shot in. He was fast realising that while women may look like the more refined gender, when that broke down they were whirling dervishes of jewellery, nails and heels.
The fight had started when Nurse Brigit Conroy had punched ‘Diane’ right in the face for no explicable reason. Dr Sinha liked Brigit and wanted to believe this behaviour was out of character for her, but this week alone she had punched him in the face and been suspended from work for taking a naked colleague hostage. A trend was beginning to develop.
Following the initial punch, there had been a great deal of hair pulling, screaming, biting and gouging as the two – he was struggling to still think of them as ladies – rolled around on the floor. The fight had mainly taken place in the apartment's entrance hall, but it would no doubt spill over to other areas if allowed to continue unabated. His last attempt to pull them apart had resulted in him rolling around on the floor with them. It sounded a great deal more appealing in theory than it was in reality. This had been a very big weekend for Dr Sinha, having lost his virginity on Friday night. Now, a woman had bitten him for the first time, he wasn't sure which one. He was going to require a tetanus shot.
"I'm gonna figgning 'ill you," said Brigit, her voice muffled by the presence of Diana's fingers in her mouth.
"Yer fucking mad bitch," replied Diane, in a succinct summary of proceedings.
Sinha managed to regain his footing and then grab hold of Brigit. He physically lifted her off the other woman, her arms swinging wildly, desperately trying to connect for another blow.
"Nurse Conroy, please!!"
He put her down facing the door and tried to place his body between her and her still prone opponent. Having finally been given a moment's respite, Diane's fingers were now in her own bloodied mouth, tentatively poking.
"You broke my fucking tooth!"
"Yeah? Well you broke my fucking heart!"
"OK," said Dr Sinha,"Why doesn't everyone take a moment and we can—"
Dr Sinha had been so preoccupied with keeping the two women physically away from each other that he hadn't noticed Brigit picking up the large vase that been knocked off the hall table in the initial skirmish. He only noticed it when she lobbed it over him. Diane ducked just in time for it to narrowly miss her head on its way to shattering against the wall. She turned and scurried out of view into the front room on her hands and knees.
Dr Sinha turned to look at Brigit. "Nurse Conroy! What on earth is going on here?"
"She…" said Brigit with an accusatory point, "She's the one who…" tears welled up in her eyes. She took her phone out and started trying to put her code into it. "She… there was…" she was fighting to hold back sobbing gasps now. "She…"
Dr Sinha extended a placating hand and lowered his voice. "Whatever is the—"
Then, inexplicably, Brigit's anger seemed to get its second wind. "I'm gonna…" she was past him with a nimble sidestep and heading towards the front room, "…fucking kill the…"
Dr Sinha turned to follow Brigit. He ran into the back of her when she unexpectedly stopped in the entrance to the living room, sending her sprawling onto the carpet in front of him.
"Sorry, I—"
Dr Sinha stopped. Bleeding from the mouth and with a black eye forming, Diane stood at the doorway to the bedroom holding a handgun. It didn't look very big, but size wasn't everything.
"Don't move," she said, the gun oscillating between pointing at him and then down at Brigit.
"OK," said Dr Sinha, "let's just calm down."
"Calm down? Calm down?! I don't know what kind of sick shit you two are into, but I will blow a new hole in the next one of you that moves."
"All right, I understand your anger," said Dr Sinha, who'd seen more than enough violent disagreements in his career as an A&E doctor to know something about dispute resolution. He put his hands out in a placating gesture. "Let's all just…"
He stopped and looked away.
Diane gave him a confused look. "What?"
Dr Sinha, still averting his gaze, pointed in her general direction. "Your, ehem, your…" Diane looked down to realise that her négligée had ripped in the fracas, causing her left breast to pop out.
"Oh, big fucking deal!"
Actually it was. While he had, of course, seen all parts of the human anatomy numerous times through the course of his work, he was trained to think of them as work. Problems to be solved, issues to be managed. Discounting those breasts, this one was only the third he had seen 'in the wild'. He had lost his virginity in the company of the other two, only a couple of nights previously. He was very much hoping to continue his acquaintance with the first two boobs and their delightful owner as soon as possible. This was just one of the many reasons why he didn't want the owner of boob number three to shoot him.
"Yeah,” said Brigit, “she doesn't care. In fact, why don't you ask to see the flower she has tattooed on her arse?"
Diane looked down at her in confusion. "How did you—"
Brigit held her phone up and waved it at her, sneering.
"I've got a picture of it on my phone. One of the many also featuring my former boyfriend."
Diana stared at Brigit for a moment and then turned her eyes to heaven. "Oh for fuck’s… I wish I'd never taken that job. It's more hassle than it was worth."
"Worth? You ruined my—" Brigit hurled her phone at Diane, which, with a sickening crunch, struck her full-force on the bridge of her nose. As she reeled backwards and distractedly clutched at her face, Dr Sinha rushed forward and snatched the gun. Brigit was now hurtling towards Diane again.
"Enough!" said Dr Sinha, pointing the gun in Diane's general direction while at the same time putting his body between her and Brigit. "Somebody must please explain this to me now, right this instant, immediately! I have no desire to be arrested in a prostitute's apartment." He turned to Diane, whose hands were now cupped around her bloodied nose. "No offence."
She did not respond.
A moment of unexpected – though welcome – silence descended. Dr Sinha took a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to Diane, while still keeping the gun pointed just to the right of her. She took it and placed it beneath the steady stream of blood running from her nose.
"I was told it was a joke," said Diane. "When the guy approached me. He said it was a prank on his friend."
Dr Sinha looked at Brigit who looked, if anything, more confused than he was.
"What?" she asked.
"The guy, when he approached me. Said it was a joke for the guy's stag do. He offered two grand just to do a few pictures. It seemed harmless enough when he explained it but… when I turned up at his place, the guy was out cold and there were these two other fellas with the first guy but, y'know…" she paused and looked at the handkerchief, moving it around to a still clean bit, "it wasn't a stag do was it? It was something else. The two goons were some kind of hired help. I was… you just do it and get out. It was—"
The Day That Never comes (The Dublin Trilogy Book 2) Page 19
