by Hill, Casey
Kennedy walked across and pulled out a chair without saying a word. Chris and Brady did likewise. Saying nothing, they made a great show of shuffling through file notes that had been sent over from Harcourt Street.
It was a practised move; they wanted him to feel nervous. It would be easier to get a clear and concise statement that way. Chris suspected that he didn’t need to try too hard. The kid looked petrified already.
Chris was still unsure what the kid’s version of events would be – would he claim to have no knowledge of hitting Sarah, that he’d thought it was an animal or something?
And if so, would he be telling the truth?
Chris could feel Connolly’s discomfort and out of pity he told him to take a seat. It was obvious that this was not a kid used to being in this type of position.
He and Kennedy had often walked into an interview room containing some scumbag who’d sit, feet up on the desk, issuing demands and acting like they owned the place. This boy was not one of those.
‘William Connelly,’ he began, his tone neutral. ‘I’m about to commence the interview. It will be recorded by video and in writing. You have already been advised of your rights so we’ll get straight to it. Any questions before we begin?’
‘No,’ Connolly replied in a croaking voice. Chris hit the record button on the camera as Kennedy read out the file number, date and charges relating to the hit and run. Connelly remained seated, his head slumped as the charges were read out for the record.
‘Mr Connolly, do you admit to being the sole driver of the vehicle, registration number 08-MH-3457 on the night of the fourteenth of March last on the R134 road in Wicklow?’
‘Yes,’ Connolly confirmed, sitting uneasily in the chair.
‘Can you describe in detail what happened that night?’ Kennedy asked in an authoritative tone.
Connolly took a deep beath. ‘Umm … I was driving home from Blessington. I’d just helped a friend move his stuff from a flat he was moving out. It was dark, a bit drizzly. I put the wipers on…’
‘Can you approximate the speed at which you were driving?’
He kneaded his forehead. ‘I was well under the limit … I wasn’t in a hurry. I was listening to the Chelsea game on the radio. I was probably doing thirty, maybe forty, tops.’ Chris noted to himself that this tallied with the iSPI projection.
‘I came around the corner and there it was … something just standing there looking at me through the mist. I hit the brakes, but it didn’t even try to get out of the way. It was just standing there in the road as if it was waiting for me …’
‘When you say there “it”, what exactly are you referring to?’
‘Look, I know it sounds stupid, but I thought I was hallucinating. It looked like a ghost. As the van slid closer, I saw it was a girl and all of a sudden, she turned her back to me …’
Chris bit his lip, tempted to interrupt and ask what kind of ghost would leave a couple of grand’s worth of damage to the front end of a van, but he knew the importance of letting Connolly describe events in his own way.
But it was interesting that he’d said Sarah actually turned her back to him.
‘You say she “turned her back to you”. Can you elaborate for us?’
‘Like I said, she made no attempt to jump out of the way. I mean, she must have seen the headlights before I came around the corner. She just folded her arms and turned around, calm as you like. I didn’t know what to do. I panicked, I didn’t want some suicidal nutjob to ruin my life.’
Connolly fell silent, and the detectives let it hang, giving him time, hoping he’d feel the need to fill the empty silence.
She turned her back … Chris thought about his observation. Perhaps it was no surprise Connolly had thought it odd, but maybe he wouldn’t find it such strange behavior if he’d known Sarah was pregnant and that she had turned her back to the van in a last ditch attempt to save her unborn child.
‘Why did you drive away when you hit her, William?’ Kennedy said. ‘If it was an accident as you say, why didn’t you report it, call 999? By leaving the scene you deprived her of any chance she may have had.’
‘I don’t know … I just panicked,’ Connolly said, holding back a sob.
‘Well, from what you’re telling us here, it seems this was very much a straightforward accident,’ Chris put in, ‘but if that’s the case why did you then leave the country in what could be argued was an attempt to avoid detection when the van was discovered?’
‘Look, I didn’t just take off, OK,’ Connolly shot back in a first display of conviction since the interview began. ‘I was due to go to London for a football match, I was still in a state of shock … To be honest, I didn’t know whether I was coming or going.’
Chris sensed this response sounded like something he’d rehearsed in his head a hundred times, perhaps something he’d even discussed with the solicitor beforehand. ‘I made a mistake … I was in shock,’ he repeated. ‘But I came back and came here as soon as Dad called me.’ He looked to his father for reassurance.
There was little doubt that his stance had been well thought out. Connolly had had time to rehearse, so Chris figured the moment had come to shake things up a little.
‘Can you tell us a little more about how you spent the evening prior to the incident?’ he asked.
Connolly looked at him, confused. ‘I don’t know what you—’
‘Did you consume any alcohol in the hours leading up to the accident?’
‘No, like I said, I was helping a friend move house…’
Chris knew from experience that the most likely event was also the most probable. Connolly had no reason to run from the scene unless he had something to hide; unfortunately the majority of hit and runs involved alcohol or somebody driving who shouldn’t be.
Connolly had been driving the van on small secondary roads when it would have been easier and quicker to use the main route. He was young and seemingly a avid supporter of Chelsea who were playing a big Champions League game that evening.
In short, one and one made two.
‘Mr Connolly, I want you to think hard about the responses you’ve given here today. Our investigation will be thorough, we will be following every line of enquiry and questioning those you claim to have spent the evening with. If it is discovered that you consumed alcohol that evening, and we can prove it, it will be very difficult to find a judge who will look kindly on your position.’
Kennedy let the full impact of Chris’s words sink in before continuing. ‘Any judge faced with a hit-and-run case involving a drunk driver and a slaughtered pregnant woman will be itching to drop a heavy hammer.’
Connolly closed his eyes briefly but remained sitting in silence and stared at his clammy hands in his lap. Eventually he spoke again. ‘I’d like to consult with my solicitor now.’
Chris indicated that they should pause the interview, after which Connolly had a thirty-minute meeting with his father and their solicitor.
When the interview recommenced, Connolly admitted to having three or four drinks earlier that evening. His final account eventually matched most of what the GFU had deduced from the scene. He hadn’t jammed on the brakes as first asserted. In fact he had barely had enough time to react before he’d ploughed into Sarah at full speed. He had gotten out to have a look, which would have given opportunity for his almost empty MegaCoffee cup, an attempt to sober up, to fall out of the van. He had made the decision to run, claim he’d hit a sheep, and hope for the best.
The best he could hope for now was less than ten years.
Chapter 18
Later that afternoon, Lucy called out to Reilly as she was headed down the hall for a coffee refill. She poked her head into the lab. ‘What’s up?’
Lucy was hunched over her laptop. ‘Based on those new parameters, the missing children instead of missing persons …’
Reilly hurried over. She’d heard from Chris that the driver who’d hit and killed Sarah Forde had turned himself in that
morning, and an arrest had been made. So it felt in some small way that in finding both her identity and her killer, Sarah’s case had been laid to rest.
However, if her theory was correct, Sarah and the other girl had been abducted and there may well be others.
Lucy spun the laptop around for her to see. ‘Jennifer Hutchinson. She went missing almost twenty years ago.’
Reilly glanced through the information. The little girl was another redhead who’d been reported missing from the Tallaght area when she was ten years old. She did a mental calculation. Given that the age of the cold-case girl was listed as being between twenty and twenty-four years old, and was found ten years ago, if it was this girl it sounded about right.
‘She fits the profile in a few ways – appearance being the obvious one,’ Lucy went on. ‘Just like Sarah Forde, similar age, no major behavourial problems, simply went missing on the way home from school one day – no leads, no one saw anything, she just vanished.’
Reilly stared at the little girl’s face on the screen – once again the pale, delicate features, the mass of red curls. Her heart sped up. ‘They could almost be sisters…’
‘That’s what I thought. Makes what you said about Sarah possibly being a replacement for the other girl seem more and more likely.’
‘Why would somebody want to collect little girls who look so alike?’ wondered Reilly out loud.
‘I can think of lots of reasons,’ Lucy replied quickly. ‘None of them nice.’
‘Of course. But let’s eliminate the sexual abuse angle for a minute,’ Reilly said thoughtfully. For a moment they both fell silent, gazing at the picture of young Jennifer Hutchinson. Immortalised in time. ‘But why?’ Reilly finally asked.
‘Maybe they reminded their abductor of someone?’ Lucy suggested.
‘Possibly. Who?’
‘Someone from his childhood maybe – assuming we’re talking “he”. A friend, a sibling, even a rival, something like that?’
‘That’s possible.’
‘Or,’ Lucy added suddenly, her voice breaking a little, ‘a family member. Someone who died … or disappeared.’ Her voice trailed off.
Reilly shot her a glance, picking up on the emotion in her tone. ‘Dig deeper and see what else you can find on this girl – once again we’ll need to try and compare her medical records against our cold case, and see if we can confirm a match. If it looks good, then we’ll take it from there.’
Lucy nodded. ‘Will do.’
Again, Reilly looked at her closely, sensing that there was something else on her mind. ‘You OK?’
The other girl said nothing.
‘Lucy?’
Her dark gaze finally met Reilly’s. She took a deep breath. ‘I suppose, going through these files, I can’t help thinking about Grace,’ she said finally.
The room suddenly seemed very quiet. Reilly could hear the ticking of the clock, someone's footsteps as they hurried along the hallway past the lab. She mentally cursed herself for not making the connection before now.
Lucy’s older sister Grace had gone missing almost fifteen years before. She had never been found. And seeing as they had now been tasked with going through missing children reports, how could it not have brought it all back? Reilly was horrified. How could she be so wrapped up in the smaller details to forget that such a case would have such a huge significance for those around her – especially Lucy? Perhaps it was for the best she had very few friends here, she thought miserably. Clearly she wouldn’t be a very good one.
‘Oh Lucy, I’m so sorry, how thoughtless of me not to realize. If you want off the case, just say the word…’
‘No no, it’s not a problem.’ Lucy waved her hand absently to try and alleviate Reilly’s obvious mortification.
‘I don’t know how I didn’t—’
‘Forget about it, honestly. But I guess …I’ve been waiting for something like this,’ Lucy continued. ‘It’s kind of the reason I’m here, the reason I chose this career.’
Reilly immediately thought about her own history, the events that had shaped her, and made her the person – the investigator – she was today. She looked at Lucy and saw the same fierce determination in her eyes.
Her sister’s disappearance would have been a defining event in Lucy’s life, and had shaped much of her relationship with her father, Jack Gorman, another senior GFU investigator who already disapproved of his daughter working in the same field.
Still, Reilly could now appreciate why Lucy was even more dedicated than usual, and had become so consumed by this case. She reminded her of herself in ways, how back at the beginning of her career her own personal circumstances had driven her forwards, as if she somehow needed to atone for everything that had gone wrong with her family. While she’d thrown herself into work, her father had thrown himself into drinking. And her sister had chosen an entirely different way to work through her own demons.
Reilly hadn’t known about Grace when she’d first started at the GFU and while she and Lucy’s father, Jack, had got off to an auspicious start, with the older man seemingly resentful and suspicious of her presence, the discovery of his family circumstances had softened her opinion of him.
How could losing a child not affect you as a father and a man? There wasn’t a day that went by when Reilly didn’t think about Jess, and she was sure it was the same for Jack and Lucy.
Now Lucy’s determination was no longer just about the unidentified girls, it was about Grace and identifying with something that had haunted the Gorman family for so many years.
‘It’s hard not to draw comparisons, especially when dealing with something like this,’ the younger girl said gently, indicating the lengthy database, lists and lists of other families’ heartbreak.
Reilly wanted to curl up and die. ‘I’m sorry. I really should have thought. I’ll get Rory to go through them …’
Lucy shook her head vigorously. ‘Absolutely not. Notwithstanding that, I’m a professional and we need to confirm if this girl is our cold case.’ She looked up at Reilly, her tone heavy with emotion. ‘And if nothing else, I’d love to be the one to help bring Jennifer home.’
In the trees right beside the playground, the man could hear a group of teenagers talking. Their conversation excited him.
‘Ha, Jade doesn’t even know what a blow-job is,’ one of the boys sitting on top of the roundabout shouted, and the others began to laugh.
‘I do too!’ a much younger girl protested as her face reddened and gave away the truth.
‘Go on, what is it then? Better still, show me,’ the older boy chided, evidently enjoying her discomfort.
As he listened to their chatter, the man held a mobile phone to his ear and pretended to talk into it, waiting for his chance. Perhaps today was the day, and with luck, maybe he’d have the opportunity to do more than talk.
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred that was all he could do: watch and listen. Today, though, felt different. This one was being isolated, taunted. Maybe if the dogs drove the lamb away …
He tried to dampen down his excitement.
‘I’m going home; anyone coming?’ The girl called Jade tried once more for some support but there were no takers. The spring-loaded playground gate slammed shut with a clatter as she stomped out.
The man swallowed hard as he walked in the opposite direction behind the cover of the treeline before doubling back after he’d finished his cigarette.
She might need a friend, he thought, as he made his way towards the parking area close to the path, a preferred place for his fishing expeditions.
Increasing his pace, his pulse quickened as his and the young girl’s paths started to converge.
Today could be the day.
‘How’s your Irish?’ Reilly asked, approaching Chris’s desk at Harcourt Street with a definite spring in her step.
He looked up, somewhat perplexed. ‘Bit rusty. Why?’
‘That social worker I told you about called back earlier with the ki
d’s details.’
‘The one with the same winged tattoo?’
‘Yes. According to the social worker, a guy called Keogh, the child is currently in state care, in a children’s home in Inchicore. His name is Conn – apparently that’s about all they could get out of him originally, but it definitely seems that Conn has a set of wings too.’
Chris stood up and called out to Kennedy who was standing over by the coffee machine, deep in conversation with another officer. He finished up and hurried over, hitching his trousers up as he went.
‘Morning, blondie. What brings you to our lowly slum this morning?’
‘Oh, I like to mix with the peasants from time to time,’ she replied. ‘It helps keep me grounded.’
‘Seems we’ve got a location for another kid with the same kind of tattoo,’ Chris told him, ignoring their banter.
‘Only trouble is, he doesn’t speak English – only Irish,’ Reilly added. She looked from one to the other. ‘And seeing as it’s all double-dutch to me…’
‘Hell, it was part of our Garda exams and it’s still double-dutch to us,’ Kennedy said, shaking his head.
‘Speak for yourself; some of us remember the basics.’ Chris grimaced. ‘Although how much at this stage remains to be seen.’
He explained that while all members of the force were required to be able to speak the native language, it was mostly those stationed in Irish-speaking ‘Gaeltacht’ areas that used it day to day.
‘Well I know I won’t have a clue what’s being said, but do you think I could tag along?’ Given that the kid was her lead, Reilly was interested to see if the tattoo was indeed the same as the others.
If so, it would be the first time they’d encountered it on a living person, and have the opportunity to question them about it.
Maggie Molloy, the director of the children’s home, was a tiny woman in her mid-fifties. She wore a woollen skirt and cardigan, and had an air of busy professionalism about her.
