Taboo

by Casey Hill

  ‘So Clare Ryan tried to rescue you, and Watson gave you coffee?’ Kennedy clarified flatly, his tone of voice leaving Chris in no doubt that he thought this was an almighty waste of time.

  ‘Yep. I’d prefer a few bob of course, but you take what you can get. And you tend to remember – not so much the people who are nice to you, but who actually look at you, you know? Some people might throw you a few coins but only ’cos they feel guilty, and then others pretend you’re not there and rush off in case you might infect them or something.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ Chris produced photos of Jim Redmond and the Miles women. ‘Do you happen to recognize any of these?’ he asked.

  Kavanagh seemed to take a good long hard look at the photos but Chris could tell by his expression that nothing was registering. ‘Don’t think so,’ the man said, eventually.

  ‘You’re sure?’ Kennedy pressed.

  He shrugged. ‘Well, unless they’re some of the ones I talked about who just threw me a few coins here and there, but the faces don’t ring any bells, you know what I mean?’

  Chris did, and while it might be helpful to know that Gerry Watson and Clare Ryan had both been kind-hearted enough to help someone less fortunate than themselves, it didn’t do much toward establishing a conclusive link between them and the other murder victims.

  Thanking Kavanagh, they left the shelter.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ Kennedy asked, lighting up a cigarette on the street. ‘We could ask around some more in there, show those pictures to some of the others and see if our victims showed the same sort of charity to anyone else.

  Chris looked at him. Charity …

  Hadn’t Jim Redmond’s wife mentioned something about her husband going out of his way to do a good deed? His mind raced. And given Sarah Miles’ occupation as a nurse it was likely that she too could be involved in charitable causes in some shape or form. Actually, now that he thought of it, didn’t Kennedy himself bemoan their neighbor’s trite comments about the Miles women being generous and kind-hearted?

  Granted, it was a tenuous theory, but up to now had been the only one they had that might just link these victims.

  ‘I suppose it’s worth considering,’ Kennedy said when Chris outlined his thinking, ‘but even if our victims were all bleeding hearts, I still don’t know how it helps us catch this psycho.’ He dragged hard on his cigarette. ‘Unless these days being nice to people is some kind of taboo.’

  Chris followed him back inside the shelter, his legs dragging behind him. Damn. Reilly was right; he’d have to see someone about this thing soon – otherwise it would start to get out of control. If things were quiet tomorrow, he’d try and slip in an appointment with a doctor in the morning, give a fake name and address and see how things went. He shook his head, not at all comfortable with this kind of underhanded thinking, but he figured it was necessary for the sake of keeping his job. And without that, without the one thing that gave his whole life meaning, Chris was afraid of ending up a charity case himself.

  Daniel Forrest pored over the crime-scene photos with his magnifying glass. He moved slowly, methodically, taking his time to look at each detail of every picture.

  Reilly watched him, admiring his thoroughness, his patience and his relentless attention to detail. She knew she was a decent investigator and for the most part thorough, but compared to Daniel she was an impatient novice. Fortunately, what she lacked in patience she made up for in instinct and ability to see patterns where others just saw a muddle.

  He looked up and caught her watching him. He grinned. ‘This always did drive you crazy, didn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know how you maintain such focus for so long,’ she admitted.

  He shoved a picture toward her. It was from the Jim Redmond hanging. ‘You have to find ways to make the evidence come alive for you each and every time you look at it,’ he said. ‘Here, try this.’ He spun the photograph around so that it was upside down. ‘Does it look any different now?’

  She leaned in to train her magnifying glass on it, and scanned the photograph, trying to see it through fresh eyes. ‘Any particular reason you gave me this one?’ she wondered.

  ‘This is the one that intrigues me the most,’ he admitted.

  She looked up from the photograph and carefully put the magnifying glass down. ‘It seems the most straightforward to me,’ she observed.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Ah.’ Reilly sighed. ‘So perhaps we were guilty of taking it for granted?’

  Daniel shrugged. ‘I’m not sure if you did that,’ he replied. ‘But it does stand out – mostly because of what’s not there.’ He nodded toward the photograph, Jim Redmond suspended from the beam of his expensive home, the Italian cotton sheet round his neck. ‘The killer has shown more than once that he can handle two people at a time, so why not get Jim and his boyfriend together, make it a double suicide, a lovers’ pact?’

  Reilly looked back at the photo, and considered this. ‘Maybe the killer didn’t know?’

  Daniel looked at her dubiously. ‘About the lover?’

  ‘Yeah. Maybe it was just a coincidence that he was in such a relationship, something we turned up that the killer didn’t know about.’ She knew that Chris and Kennedy had conducted a deep trawl of Redmond’s contacts and tried long and hard to establish a lover but to no avail. Of course, it was just as likely that the man frequented gay bars and had no one steady companion, but again a recent search of the city’s watering holes had turned up nothing. Yet the killer’s knowledge of Redmond’s secret life would have been a suitably powerful form of persuasion to coerce him into taking his own life.

  Daniel looked at the photograph again. ‘It’s a lonely looking scene,’ he said, ‘and in the largest room too, as if the killer wanted to emphasize something … loneliness,’ he finished, eventually. ‘The loneliness of suicide.’

  Reilly said nothing for a moment, letting him draw whatever conclusions he needed to establish a clear profile. ‘What do you make of the accomplice possibility?’ she asked, anxious to see if her own theory fit.

  Daniel turned to look at her, his face expressionless. ‘Personally I feel it’s nothing more than that – a possibility. As for the hair, well … have you even considered that it might be yours?’

  She stared at him, feeling like a scolded schoolchild. ‘Damn.’ She’d been so focused on the evidence taken from the scene that she had actually forgotten she’d been there, had in fact been part of it. Now she felt like an idiot for not thinking of this sooner. ‘I don’t think so, but I’ll get the lab to run it against my file controls,’ she mumbled, referring to the control blood and DNA samples all GFU staff were required to supply.

  ‘That might be a good idea,’ he said. Was she imagining it or did his casual tone sound forced?

  She flicked through a pile of papers on her desk, afraid now that her little slip had somehow disappointed him.

  ‘So tell me, how is life in Dublin?’ he asked, deftly moving the conversation away from professional matters. Reilly knew for sure that she had disappointed him, or at least dropped the ball in some way.

  ‘It’s fine, busier than I expected, certainly.’ She tried to make her tone sound carefree. ‘I think I might have rattled a few cages at the beginning—’

  ‘Detective Kennedy, I take it?’ he interjected.

  She smiled. ‘Yeah, but he’s actually OK behind it all.’

  ‘What about the younger one, Detective Delaney? He seems pretty sharp.’

  ‘He is.’ Reilly wondered now if Chris would keep his word and see someone about his blood condition. ‘Actually, you might be just the person to ask about—’

  A soft knock on the door of her office cut off her question.

  ‘Reilly? Sorry to bother you both,’ Julius gave a courteous nod toward Daniel, ‘but there’s something on those hair samples from the taboo killings I’d like you to see.’

  ‘The animal ones? Sure.’ She followed Julius down the hallway to the lab
, Daniel at her heels.

  Inside, he led her to the microscope.

  Leaning over it she peered at the slide. ‘What am I looking at?’

  ‘Sus scrofa,’ he informed her. ‘It’s our mystery animal.’

  She looked up, puzzled. ‘It’s been a while since I took Latin …’

  ‘It’s boar hair,’ he informed her. ‘It took me a while to identify it, mostly because it’s not in its natural state.’

  ‘Boar hair?’ While she knew at first glance the hair wasn’t from a cat or a dog, she had certainly been expecting it to be from some form of domestic animal, perhaps a gerbil or guinea pig. ‘How would our suspect be coming into contact with boar hair?’

  She looked around for Daniel, wanting him to hear this, and saw him at the farther end of the room talking to Lucy, who was gazing at him with a degree of respect that bordered on adoration. Reilly had seen that look before – hell, she was pretty sure she’d once looked at him that way herself. For a young investigator, the chance to work with someone so talented and insightful was something akin to a religious experience.

  She turned back to Julius. ‘I’m sorry, you said something about it not being in its natural state?’

  ‘Yes, which is why it took me so long to identify it. Classification was bothering me, so I kept at it, and upon closer inspection I realized it was indeed animal hair but it had been refined in some way, most likely through the manufacturing process.’ He put his glasses on, and slid them into position with one finger.

  ‘Manufacturing process for what?’

  ‘Boar hair is used in some paintbrushes,’ he told her. ‘Particularly those used for applying oil-based paint, like varnish or gloss.’

  Reilly’s mind raced. ‘You’re saying the samples we found are actually paintbrush bristles?’

  ‘I believe so, yes. And coupled with the paint specks collected at the same time which are indeed from oil-based materials that you could pick up at any DIY store—’

  ‘It would suggest that either our killer has been doing his own spot of decorating or frequents a place where renovations have been taking place.’

  ‘That’s what I thought, but I wanted to consult with you first.’

  She thought then about the calcium sulphate, what O’Brien had derisively referred to as ‘chalk dust’. But thinking about it now, perhaps it wasn’t chalk dust at all, but actually a form of gypsum used in plaster rendering, which would add weight to the renovations angle?

  Reminding herself of Ockham’s razor, she glanced again over at Daniel, who was still talking to Lucy. ‘Good work, Julius – this kind of thing could be very well be the key to finding this guy’s workplace, or maybe even his hiding spot.’

  ‘No problem.’

  She noticed Daniel signaling her over.

  ‘What’s up?’ she asked, approaching Lucy’s workstation.

  ‘Well, it appears one of your very clever team may have found something else of interest.’

  Lucy colored a little, thrilled by such esteemed praise.

  ‘What is it, Lucy?’ Reilly said, somewhat testily. She was much more interested in what the younger girl might have uncovered than this flattery.

  ‘Sorry, yes – well, as I was just explaining to Agent Forrest, in relation to the erm … food sample taken from the Watson scene, I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of contacting Dr Thompson’s office.’

  ‘You mean the cooked human flesh?’

  ‘Yes. At first I wondered if the killer might have fed the victim some of his flesh but then I figured that this would be too risky – he wouldn’t leave anything of his that might track him down through blood or DNA etcetera. So I got to thinking, if this particular piece of flesh wasn’t from the killer, where did he get it?’

  ‘Good point.’

  ‘So I analyzed it further, and looking at it more closely, recognized what looked to me like some latent crystalline fibers …’

  ‘Crystalline fibers?’

  ‘Yes. Which later turned out, as I suspected, to be water crystals, which suggested that the sample wasn’t necessarily fresh and had at some point been frozen.’

  Daniel was unrestrained in his praise. ‘An excellent spot in my opinion.’

  Reilly nodded, thinking the same thing. And what she liked most about this was that Lucy had done all of this on her own steam without needing to consult with her superiors beforehand. This boded well for the role of the GFU.

  ‘So I asked the ME’s office to take a look at the Ryan and Redmond autopsy reports, in case he may have taken it from one of those victims and frozen it until he was ready to use it.’ Her eyes shone with exhilaration. ‘You know the way you’re always telling us never to rule out a hunch, however crazy it might seem?’

  Daniel was smiling. ‘Sounds like good advice.’

  ‘It’s good thinking, Lucy, that’s what is. So was the ME’s office any help?’ Reilly urged. ‘Did the sample come from one of those victims?’

  ‘Well, yes, it seems it did. But oddly, not from the ones I’d considered. Dr Thompson called me herself this morning. I was going to tell you, but first I wanted to lay it all out properly in my report …’

  ‘What do you mean “not from the ones you’d considered”?’

  Lucy looked mightily pleased with herself. ‘Well, I’d mentioned the sample’s crystalline elements in the request, and when Dr Thompson called to ask me about that, I told her what I was looking for.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘This morning, she told me that she’d asked her office to widen the search and they’d matched the sample to a victim from another ongoing investigation – an identified floater from a couple of weeks back. I believe Detectives Delaney and Kennedy have been working on it.’

  Reilly was dumbstruck, but in a good way. ‘That’s a fantastic find, Lucy. I’m sure they’ll be hugely grateful.’

  The younger girl smiled. ‘Thanks, although I guess it also means we have yet another victim to add to the taboo killer’s list, doesn’t it?’ she added, her tone suddenly grave.

  ‘Even so, that was excellent work, young lady,’ Daniel pointed out.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Reilly agreed. ‘I’m going to call the detectives and advise them of this right away. In the meantime, keep up the good work.’ Reaching the doorway she turned back to Daniel, who was looking thoughtful. ‘Aren’t you coming?’

  ‘You go ahead,’ he said, distractedly. ‘I’m going to talk to some more to your staff, see if there’s anything else that might be helpful for my profile.’

  Reilly shrugged. ‘Sure.’

  Leaving the lab, she returned to her office, looking forward to giving Chris and Kennedy the heads-up on this latest piece of information. Although the lab’s discoveries weren’t exactly going to break the case wide open, this new information was yet another glimpse, a brief insight into the world of the deranged killer they were tracking.

  O’Brien was wrong; they were learning more and more about this guy by the hour and Reilly was determined that by the time they were finished, there would be no safe place for the taboo killer to hide.

  30

  It was the following morning before Chris returned Reilly’s numerous calls. ‘Reilly, sorry I was late home last night and just got your messages now.’

  He sounded tired, she noted, and wondered what he might have been doing. Maybe blowing off steam with Kennedy in a bar or something, although she remembered him mentioning before that he didn’t drink much. A first for a homicide detective, and an Irish one at that, she thought wryly, then she berated herself for the lazy stereotyping

  ‘Well, firstly I have some new information on your unidentified floater and I think we might have found out more about this guy’s whereabouts—’

  ‘Actually, I was just about to call you,’ Chris interjected. ‘It looks like we’ve found the missing crime scene.’

  Reilly was stunned. ‘What – where?’

  ‘A couple of uniforms reported something out by the
airport earlier this morning. Kennedy’s on his way there now, but I’ve got erm … something else to do before I can get down there.’ By the halting tone of his voice, she understood that he’d evidently decided to see someone about his condition, but understandably he couldn’t confide this in earshot of everyone at the station.

  ‘I understand. Good luck with that.’ Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Daniel come into the room. ‘I’ll rustle up a crew here in the meantime and see you down there later?’

  ‘Yes, I was going to cancel but the witness I’m seeing could only see me this morning.’ Chris was clearly trying to justify his absence to someone in close proximity.

  ‘Well, you do what you have to do; I’m sure Kennedy can hold the fort until you get there. Can you give me some idea of what to expect – from the crime scene, I mean?’ she said and she saw Daniel raise an interested eyebrow.

  ‘Pair of teenage boys,’ he confirmed. ‘They’ve been missing for just under a week, everyone had assumed they had run away to London or somewhere.’

  ‘Sounds like they should have.’

  ‘Yep. Look, I’d better go. I’m sure I’ll see you down there, but if not we’ll catch up later.’

  ‘Hold on a sec,’ she interrupted, seeing Daniel gesturing in the background. ‘Daniel’s here and I think he wants to talk to you.’

  ‘OK, put him on.’

  ‘Detective Delaney?’ the profiler said, smoothly. ‘I’m just putting the finishing touches to my official profile and I’d like to discuss a couple of things with you before I do. I realize this is a very busy time but if you could spare me a moment I’d appreciate it.’

  ‘Right. Well, why don’t you pop over now? I have to leave for a meeting at eleven, but I could fit in a few minutes before then.’

  ‘If you don’t mind, Detective – it’s just there’s just something specific about the investigation that I’d like your opinion on,’ he said, and Reilly looked at him, realizing that by engineering a one-to-one with Chris, Daniel was expertly making sure that the rest of the investigation team didn’t feel sidelined by his appearance. While it was customary for him to speak to investigators in detail before signing off on a profile, Reilly knew that she was providing him with all the information he needed on the killer, and this was more of a shrewd co-operative move on his part. But more to the point, she knew that Chris would appreciate it and rather than feel threatened by Daniel, would instead be much more open to his participation.