Taboo

by Casey Hill

  ‘I appreciate this, Daniel – we really appreciate it,’ she replied, the relief in her voice palpable. ‘I’ll get the relevant people here to iron out all the technicalities.’

  His door opened again and an overweight man in a long blue overcoat poked his head around the door. Daniel waved his visitor to a chair in front of his desk. ‘Send me what you’ve got, Reilly, I’ll have a look over it, and then we can talk.’

  But based on what little information she’d already given him, Daniel was already hooked. A killer using Freud as his calling card? What self-respecting profiler wouldn’t be interested?

  14

  ‘She’s done what?’ Kennedy was so outraged that he put his coffee down.

  ‘That’s what O’Brien said. Apparently, he’s some profiler from the FBI training programme in Quantico – the boss says he’s considered one of the top guys in America.’ Chris didn’t seem bothered by it, but Kennedy was already up on his soapbox.

  ‘Why don’t they bring the whole fucking FBI over here and just pension us off? Or the CIA and Special Forces too while they’re at it.’

  Chris shook his head. ‘I think you’re overreacting.’

  ‘Do you now?’ Kennedy was boiling, ready for a fight.

  But for once, Chris wasn’t in the mood to roll over. He closed the file he was trying to read and spun his chair around to face his partner directly. ‘Yeah, I do actually. I sure as hell have never worked a case like this before, and I’m willing to bet my life savings you haven’t either.’ He looked challengingly at Kennedy. ‘Any recent experience with Freud or cannibalism you might like to share with me?’

  Kennedy looked disgruntled. ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘Then what is?’

  ‘The point is …’ he replied, adding emphasis with his stubby nicotine-stained finger, ‘… the point is we don’t need a load of Yankee know-it-alls coming over here and telling us how to do our jobs!’

  Chris couldn’t help but smile at the outrage his partner managed to muster about anything that didn’t fit into his narrow view of the world. ‘So would it make you feel any better if I told you he isn’t coming over here?’ He’s just going to be acting as a consultant and helping out with the profiling. According to the boss, Reilly’s the one who’ll be dealing with him.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ Kennedy snorted, his annoyance somewhat assuaged. ‘Well … of course you would think this is a good idea; you already think the sun shines out of Steel’s backside.’

  Chris didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he turned back around and busied himself in his work. As usual, Kennedy was overstating things. He was more receptive to Reilly’s avant-garde way of thinking, that was all. Still, there was no doubt that the recent brief glimpses of her personality he had grasped intrigued him and there was a guardedness about her that made him wonder what else was going on in that sharp mind.

  Not that they all had enough to be thinking about at the moment. This investigation was much bigger than any of them could ever have imagined. A serial killer was a deeply unsettling prospect at any time, and he could completely understand why O’Brien would want this nipped in the bud as soon as possible.

  There was even some mutterings about trying to get Jack Gorman to come back early from his anniversary cruise; something that Chris was sure wouldn’t go down at all well with the older forensic investigator. Personally, he saw no need; as far as he was concerned Reilly and her team were doing a fine job and if it weren’t for her, they might not even have made the link between the killings. And getting this FBI guy on board had to be a coup, despite what Kennedy might think.

  In the background, his partner was still muttering away to himself about ‘bloody interference’ but Chris knew it was mostly bluster. At the end of the day Kennedy, like himself, couldn’t deny that this was way beyond their limited experience. They needed all the help they could get.

  Reilly was busy working in her lab, oblivious to the commotion her request for external help had caused. In truth, she’d been somewhat taken aback by Inspector O’Brien’s ready agreement to her suggestion about bringing a profiler on board – particularly one that the force hadn’t already worked with.

  Still, she knew she’d scored some brownie points by connecting all three cases in the first place, and having already got Chris Delaney and Karen Thompson on side, Reilly suspected the top brass would have little choice but to bow to her demands. The authorities just didn’t know what they were dealing with, and in the meantime these grotesque murders would undoubtedly continue. O’Brien was first and foremost a political animal, and Reilly suspected the guy wanted such a situation dealt with as soon as possible – and definitely before the press began baying for blood (and subsequently the head of the Minister for Justice).

  With Daniel on the case, surely they would be able to make some kind of breakthrough, and something would emerge that would allow them to get ahead of the killer – find that one mistake, and use it against him.

  That morning, she had her team assembled for a briefing, the files from all three cases spread out on the table. It was time to expand their horizons and maybe even find something she herself might have missed.

  ‘So, who did their homework?’ she asked.

  Almost inevitably, Gary was the first to reply. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and stepped forward. ‘Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was born on the 6th May 1856, in a small town called—’

  Reilly cut him off. ‘The biog is great and, yes, it is important for you guys to know a little about his background, but how is he relevant to our case?’

  Gary looked disappointed and fell silent.

  ‘Because you told us there was a link?’ Lucy said, tentatively.

  ‘Actually you’re right, Lucy – that’s the problem.’ As they all gazed at her, Reilly explained further. ‘We know there is a Freudian link – the book, the quote, the cigar – but we don’t know what it means. That’s the problem.’

  ‘You mean the killer is trying to tell us something, but we don’t know what it is?’ Lucy suggested.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So it’s sort of like a game of cat and mouse and he wants us to catch him,’ Rory wondered.

  ‘I read that somewhere, too,’ Lucy added, nodding at him.

  Reilly pursed her lips. ‘Not necessarily. Serial killers can be highly organized, though they clearly have a disturbance in the way their personality functions. So while they typically have an antisocial personality disorder, they aren’t actually mentally ill,’ she explained.

  ‘So they’re weird but they’re not crazy?’

  ‘That’s one way of putting it, Lucy.’

  Rory wore his usual serious expression. ‘So if he doesn’t want to be caught, why the clues? Why not just be as careful as possible and leave us nothing?’

  ‘It usually comes from a psychopathic need to share. They are tremendously excited by what they do, but they can hardly go down to the pub and tell people about it. So, by leaving us little clues – just enough to attract our attention, but not enough to give themselves away – they can reassure themselves that someone is thinking about them.’

  Gary peered at the crime-scene photos and moved them around on the table top, studying hard.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ she asked him.

  ‘Well, I’d imagine you’d have a lot more experience with this kind of thing than we do but I read that serial killers usually have a modus operandi, and that it will give you clues as to how they are thinking.’

  ‘True.’ Reilly couldn’t deny that he was right; she did know a lot more about this particular subject than she cared to admit.

  ‘So what’s this guy’s MO?’

  ‘Good question. Anybody got any ideas?’

  ‘I thought Freud was all about sex,’ Lucy said, eventually. ‘Yet the Clare Ryan murder was the only one in which sex was directly involved.’

  There was a long silence while they all absorbed what she had said.
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  ‘That wasn’t about the sex itself though.’ They all turned to look at Gary. ‘It was about getting someone to do something they didn’t want to do.’ He rearranged the photos in a line. ‘Look, the brother and sister – seems like the killer forced them into some kind of intercourse – then Justin was forced to shoot his sister.’ He grabbed a photo of Gerry Watson and slid it across the desk. ‘Then he made this guy – he made Gerry eat human flesh …’ Finally, he picked up the photo of Jim Redmond. ‘We thought this was a suicide, but didn’t you say there was a homosexual angle?’

  ‘We’re waiting for the results, but it seems likely that Jim Redmond had anal intercourse not long before his death,’ Reilly replied

  ‘So what if that too was coerced? And then he was forced to commit suicide?’

  She nodded; he had made a good point. ‘Whether the sex was coerced or not we still don’t know.’

  The room fell silent for a moment, before finally Julius spoke. ‘So what does all of that tell us? What is he going to do next? That’s the point here, isn’t it?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Reilly agreed. ‘So we can help the investigation go from being reactive to proactive.’ But based on what little they had, where did that take them? What would the killer do next?

  15

  It was another dreary Dublin winter’s day; the gunshot metal clouds hanging low, the air still and damp, a light drizzle coating the pavements and cars in a fine film of water.

  As he climbed wearily from his car, Chris was wondering much the same thing as Reilly – where was this going? O’Brien was giving him and Kennedy hell over the slow rate of progress, and now the press, who up until then had been largely co-operative, were getting antsy, bemoaning their lack of a suspect on either the Clare Ryan killings or the Gerry Watson death. And Chris had a feeling that this afternoon might be when they started to turn up the heat.

  He closed the car door, straightened his tie in the wing mirror, and buttoned his jacket. He always felt uncomfortable in a suit but this was no place to dress down.

  Satisfied that he looked suitably grave, he began to walk slowly across the sodden grass of the cemetery, the drizzle forming a fine haze across the solemn location as he approached the mourners.

  He hated being here by himself but Kennedy had cried off citing a mountain of paperwork as an excuse. He could have asked Reilly of course, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to suggest it. Chances were she wouldn’t be interested anyway; something like this was unlikely to give her anything that would help with the investigation. Although perhaps that was unfair; it wasn’t as if she was cold or unsympathetic, more that she was totally focused on finding the answers that would help bring this thing to a conclusion.

  He stopped twenty meters from the service, content to remain at a distance.

  Bernard and Gillian Ryan stood closest to the graveside, the rest of the family behind them. Two open graves lay in front of them, and alongside them, two coffins waiting to be lowered in.

  Chris was off to one side, half-hidden behind a tree, simply there to observe and provide a dignified police presence. As he watched Clare and Justin’s parents, he was glad he had not been the one to deliver the news that their son was the other victim at the crime scene. He could only imagine what it must have been like for Bernard to have to identify his son, half of his head missing. Upon O’Brien’s advice they’d decided to spare the family’s anguish by not informing them of the sexual nature of the crime. Chris privately suspected this had less to do with compassion and much more with controlling the predictable media reaction to such a detail. And given the undeniably horrifying nature of that and the Watson case, he was greatly relieved.

  The priest, head lowered, finished the prayers and said a quiet blessing over the coffins, before stepping back.

  The mourners shuffled their feet, solemn beneath their black canopy of umbrellas, as the coffins were slowly lowered in, side by side.

  Gillian Ryan was crying, her whole body shaking as she was racked by violent sobs. Bernard had his arm around her and held her close, his face a stoic mask, but nothing anyone could do or say would be able to assuage the grief of a mother burying her two children. Chris looked at their mute figures and wondered how anyone found the mental strength to carry on at a time like this.

  He shifted slightly, uncomfortable no matter what he did. His legs ached constantly now, whether he was exhausted at the end of a long shift or just out of bed in the morning.

  The fact that he didn’t get much sleep the night before didn’t help either. Chris swallowed, the message he’d found at home on his answering machine after work still repeating in his head.

  ‘It’s me, Melanie,’ his former girlfriend said, as if he wouldn’t recognise her voice. Still it had been such a long time since he’d heard it, and caught off guard, he’d found himself rooted to the spot. ‘I just… I’m not sure why I’m telling you this but I thought you should know,’ she continued hesitantly. ‘Peter’s asked me to marry him and I’ve said yes. And … well, I’m pregnant.’ There was a brief pause, while Chris tried to figure out his reaction to the call, let alone the explanation for it. ‘That’s not the reason we’re getting married though, it’s just one of those things that happened….’

  Chris walked over to the window and stared out, seeing nothing.

  ‘Well, I just thought you should know,’ she continued and the discomfort in her tone was almost palpable. ‘It’s silly really, but I suppose I just didn’t want you to hear it somewhere else. Anyway…. I’d better go. Hope you’re well.’

  He’d stayed standing at the window for a long time afterwards, before going to the machine and resolutely deleting the message.

  Now, trying to put the whole thing out of his mind, (what did it matter?) he looked around and immediately saw them. Moving in like a troop of hyenas scenting a fresh carcass.

  The press had arrived.

  He stepped away, and hurried across the soft grass to intercept them.

  ‘Detective Chris Delaney,’ he said, holding up his badge. ‘Can we give the family a little peace and privacy, please?’

  A flurry of questions came at him all at once:

  ‘Did they kill each other?’

  ‘Was it a suicide pact?’

  ‘Was anyone else involved?’

  They were so loud and insistent that several of the mourners turned around to look at the commotion. Chris pushed through the reporters, trying to lead them away from the service. ‘If you’ll step over here, I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have.’

  Reluctantly, almost like kids not wanting to stop playing a favourite game, the reporters followed him.

  Once they were at a respectful distance, he turned back to face them. ‘OK, one question at a time.’

  ‘Is it true that Justin killed Clare then turned the gun on himself?’ It was Morag Doyle, a well-connected crime reporter from the Irish News.

  ‘The investigation is still ongoing, but that is a strong possibility.’

  A face he didn’t know thrust to the front of the group – a young guy with thick curly hair and an eager expression. ‘Isn’t it true that there may be someone else involved? A third party who killed them both?’ Chris groaned inwardly. He really hoped they’d managed to keep a lid on that one.

  ‘We have no evidence of any third party, but we are still very much open to all possibilities.’

  ‘Is there any link between this and the recent campsite killing?’

  What the hell? Where were they getting this stuff? Chris wondered. There was no way anyone could have made a link between those two cases, unless … He cursed whatever idiot in the department had been shooting his mouth off. There was always at least one uniform who after a few drinks in the pub on a Saturday night would forget himself and was happy to gossip to all and sundry. ‘There are absolutely no similarities between the two crimes.’ The lie tripped off his tongue surprisingly easily.

  ‘What’s it like working with t
he new GFU? She’s quite a looker, isn’t she?’

  Chris finally smiled. It was the young guy again. ‘Exactly to whom are you referring?’ he shot back.

  ‘Reilly Steel. I’ve heard her methods can be unpredictable to say the least.’

  ‘And who might you be?’

  ‘Ronan Cassidy, Clarion.’

  ‘Well, Mr Cassidy, I’d have to say that the appearance of Ms Steel is neither here nor there, but her observations and her impressive record in the US are both hugely welcome on a case of this type.’ But before Chris had even finished his sentence he’d lost his audience. The burial had, in the meantime, finished up, and the press hurried off to intercept the family before they left.

  Morag Doyle patted Chris’s arm as she walked by. ‘Nice try, Delaney, but you’ll have to offer a lot more than platitudes if you want to keep the attention of this lot.’

  The waves were perfect, breaking left to right about thirty yards offshore, sweeping across the bay. Reilly lay on her board, waiting for the next set, rocking gently with the swell of the ocean. Here it comes … She began to paddle hard, feeling the swell rise beneath her as she picked up speed and prepared to climb to her feet.

  But something was wrong. No matter how hard she paddled she made no progress – the wave was growing and growing, looming over her, and she was stuck to her board, unable to climb to her feet, unable to ride with it.

  She kicked harder, but still she made no progress. She looked up. A great wall of water, deep, dark green, was rising above her, the white curl of the breaker already starting to form as it bore down on her.

  With a crash, the wave engulfed her, ripped her from her board, grabbed her and tumbled her over and over again, spinning and turning, desperate for air, choked and blinded by a roaring mountain of salt water and sand.

  Reilly sat up in bed with a gasp, startled and disorientated. She stared around her apartment, unrecognizable in the darkness. The shrill ring of her phone broke through her nightmare. She grabbed it from the bedside table.