First Death In Dublin City (Thomas Bishop Book 1)

by Colm-Christopher Collins

  ‘You seem stressed, even more stressed than usual.’ She said, running her hand down his sternum.

  ‘It’s Amy Clancy. I keep fucking seeing the same photo of her whenever I close my eyes.’ Said Tommy.

  ‘I thought you said you were certain she would just turn up.’ Said Jenny.

  ‘It’s been too long. Far too long. Something’s happened to her. I know it.’ Said Tommy.

  ‘You’re beating yourself up over something that didn’t happen. You’re a homicide cop, I thought you’d be used to this kind of thing?’ Asked Jennifer.

  ‘But she was so fucking alone in the world, no one loved her, no one wanted her until she went missing. And now I have her mother calling me every three hours to ask where she is. I don’t even have the balls to tell her to fuck off like I usually would; and each time I tell her I’m getting closer. I’m not getting any closer. She has to come back alive.’ Said Tommy.

  ‘I wish I could stay Thomas, I really do. But I’ve a constituency meeting in the morning, so I do have to go.’ She said.

  Tommy reached out and took her hand in his.

  ‘At least stay until I fall asleep.’ Said Tommy. And Jennifer’s face scrunched up in concern.

  ‘I dunno.’ She said. Tommy knew what it was: at least when she was home within reasonable time limits, Fionbar could pretend that she wasn’t having an affair. Tommy, however, was feeling rather selfish.

  ‘Please.’ He entreated upon her.

  She smiled.

  ‘Ok, you fall right asleep.’ Said she, and Tommy fell back into the pillows while Jennifer lightly stroked his scalp and hummed to herself a relaxing lullaby, and within minutes Tommy was gone.

  12

  The phone buzzed on the tabletop, puncturing Tommy’s serenity.

  ‘Tommy, you there?’ The voice on the other end asked. Sporadic gusts filled the background; the speaker was in the same rain that was hammering off Tommy’s window.

  ‘Yup, who’s this?’ Tommy replied sleepily, settling into his pillow softly.

  ‘It’s McCabe; I’ve something here for you.’ The voice on the other end said.

  Garda Sean McCabe. Tommy’s opinion of him being a bit of a spare was not going to be improved by calls at six o’clock in the morning.

  ‘Can’t it wait?’ Tommy asked.

  ‘It’s a body, dumped in Glenaulin Park.’ McCabe said.

  Glenaulin Park. Given that it was just at his doorstep Tommy could understand why McCabe would call him.

  ‘Then you call whoever’s on duty in Ballyfermot McCabe.’ He said, closing his eyes and preparing to doze off again.

  ‘I know but Tommy the body’s a girl.’ Said McCabe.

  ‘So what?’ Tommy said.

  ‘She looks just like that photo you sent around.’

  Tommy sprang up into sitting position. After a week, Amy’s disappearance finally made it to the front pages of even the broadsheets; with the tabloids running pages of coverage of the missing blonde southsider. As was procedure, photos of Amy had been released to the media, and it was those that Tommy assumed McCabe was talking about

  ‘Describe her to me Sean.’ He said.

  ‘She’s not hit puberty yet, between nine and thirteen I’d say; blonde hair.’

  Fuck, maybe it was Amy.

  ‘I’ll be there in five.’ Said Tommy, and he hung up.

  Tommy closed his eyes then opened them, trying his best to dispel the oncoming sleep. He reached out with his left hand but found only empty bed space; Jenny must have left in the early hours of the morning.

  He jumped out of bed and threw on a crumpled pair of Levi jeans he had bought in the late 90’s at the bottom of his bed. Downstairs in the conservatory, Morris was sleeping on an old pillow, the pit bull’s jaws bared.

  Tommy unlocked the back door and whistled. Morris glanced up at him with one eye open but didn’t budge. Tommy now told him to get out, using a stern tone of voice and, not looking particularly happy about it, Morris walked out into the rain. Tommy locked the door after him.

  From the hook beside the front door Tommy took the house key and with that he was gone. He sprinted out of his driveway, and putting up his hood against the spattering early morning rain, he jogged right. Along cracked suburban sidewalks with grassy segments he ran. The street was empty, as the rain meant even the elderly early risers decided to stay inside with their marmalade and brown bread.

  Glenaulin was at the end of Tommy’s road, which turned once before the park. It sat behind a clump of high hedges meaning that to see anything in the park, one would have to be inside. The entry to the park was at the end of a cul-de-sac; and it was one of those three-gate designs all too common in Dublin, made specifically so that Travellers couldn’t get their horses in on council land. The cul-de-sac was rather quiet, but soon it would fill up with underage GAA players with their parents waiting to play their Saturday morning games. Tommy would have to remember to call the GAA and tell them all games in Glenaulin were cancelled.

  Tommy quivered with nerves at the thought of the shitstorm this would cause, both in the press– the biggest case in the country

  At the park entrance was a big man. Tommy had never seen before, but there could be no doubt that when you saw his thick jaw and awkward stance that he was a Garda. Tommy flashed his ID, and the big guy nodded and stepped aside.

  ‘Down that a way.’ Said the man minding the gate, pointing towards one end of the park.

  The space where the body was dumped was clearly indicated by ten or so people surrounding the area and a tent already being erected behind the usual yellow tape. Tommy knew the place; it was a tiny stream that ended in a gawping storm drain that was built so the surrounding park wouldn’t flood too badly. Glenaulin was small, only two miles in length and even then was constructed in a dogleg, with one half being GAA pitches and the other half made for soccer; and neither side viewable from the other. It was adjoined from the south by the most ironically named place in Dublin; the Californian Hills, notable for grass that hadn’t been cut in a decade and syringes so old HIV didn’t even exist when they were first dumped.

  The pitches were painted, ready for that afternoon’s set of games, and there was an air of expectation around the place. A hard gust blew along the park and sent a painful shiver down Tommy’s spine as rain droplets stung his eyes. He walked along the wet tarmac keeping an eye out for dogshit or broken bottles. None to be seen

  The path turned right just before the stream and here he stepped off the tarmac.

  ‘Sean!’ He shouted at the man he recognised standing nearest to him.

  McCabe turned and walked towards him.

  ‘What’ve we got?’ Tommy asked.

  ‘Like I said; a dead blonde child. She looks like Amy, but I didn’t want to make that claim because all I’ve seen are the photos in the paper.’ Said Sean.

  McCabe was smarter than he looked so. Tommy looked down at the ground, examining the empty cider cans and naggins and the discarded Johnny’s, last Friday night had been as busy as ever.

  ‘You’re in Ballyfermot station right?’ Tommy asked.

  ‘Sure am.’ Said Sean.

  ‘Well, I need some foot men knocking on doors in the council estates. There was a party here last night and maybe one of the teenagers saw something.’ Tommy said.

  ‘The council estates? Two chances of getting an answer there.’ Sean said.

  ‘Just get someone to do it.’ Tommy said, and Sean nodded.

  Tommy stepped under the crime scene tape and began the descent towards the stream. He nodded to another Sergeant he knew, and then finally came into the view of the entire stream.

  A man in a white blood suit walked up to him. He lifted his goggles and Tommy recognised him as an old friend from Operation Bell. Matthew O’Hara, forensics extraordinaire, Tommy was glad he was the one put in charge of this murder, easy to work with. Tommy nodded to him and Matthew nodded back.

  The stream below ended in a storm drain,
a huge circle that, regardless of the time of day, was always pitch black. The circle had in front of it a huge grille of iron bars and most mornings it prevented the piles of litter dumped in the river not making it into the sewers so that it could be picked up by whatever poor sod the council hired to do it. Today there was more than litter caught against the rusted bars.

  There she was no doubt about it, Amy Clancy. Years as a Garda had steeled Tommy, but the sight of her bobbing in the current was enough to leave him reeling. She was naked, while beside her floated a white towel that she seemed to have been wrapped in before it came loose, seeing as it was still tangled in one of her legs.

  She had very pale legs, with hair highlighted blonde and dark green eyes; she looked just like the girl in all the photos he’d spent the last week pouring over. There were, however, two major differences between the girl in the stream and the girl in the photo in Tommy’s wallet. The first was her forehead, which was bloated and bruised as if she had been hit with a heavy object and the second was her chest; which was a mass of bone, blood and muscle. It was an absolute mess.

  As per procedure, Tommy didn’t show his disgust or revulsion, he just turned back to Sean and nodded.

  ‘It’s her.’ He said. And Sean turned away in disgust.

  Tommy then looked at Matthew.

  ‘Tell me about the body.’ Tommy asked.

  ‘She wasn’t killed in the park, instead she was brought here and dumped after, it seems, she bled out. The dumper wrapped her in a towel and threw her down into the river there.’ Said Matthew, pointing to a part of the decline where the grass was poached.

  ‘Seen anything of note?’ Tommy asked.

  ‘We collected biological evidence around the dump site, it’s already on the way to the lab but it will take forever. No real fingerprints and I think the towel will be washed by the river, so we won’t get anything from that. The only forensics we can hope for first off are trace fibres, the killer was sweating, or he scratched, and some DNA fell off him and onto the grass. I’ve everybody searching the grass for anything at all, but we’re shorthanded.’ He said.

  ‘I’ll get you some men.’ Said Tommy.

  ‘Thanks.’ Said Matthew, and he walked back to the tent. Tommy turned and went back to Sean, who had finished putting the call into Ballyfermot.

  ‘So what now?’ Sean asked.

  ‘More tech guys will be coming down, you just make nobody who’s not one of us gets into this park.’ Tommy said, and Sean nodded.

  Tommy took out his phone, went to the contacts and found the name SUPER. Mousey picked up on the third ring.

  ‘Yello.’ Said Mousey on the other end.

  ‘Super. I’ve just ID’d Amy Clancy’s body. She’s dead boss.’ Tommy said, leaving the introductions aside.

  ‘Balls.’ Said Mousey.

  ‘I’ll inform the parents, but I look like shit. I need to get home and shower and put on a shirt and tie. I should be there in an hour, just make sure it’s not leaked on the web before that.’ Tommy said.

  ‘Sure thing Tommy. I’ll sort it.’ Said Mousey, and Tommy could hear him heaving his heavy body out of a bed.

  Tommy pressed down the red button and went back to contacts. Next he found the number labelled ANNE. It took her six rings to pick up.

  ‘Anne, it’s Tommy here. Get dressed, I’ll be picking you up in half an hour. Wear something formal.’ He said and hung up without leaving her place to reply.

  Before he left to troop back to the house he took one last look over his shoulder, and stared at Amy’s face; though she bobbed up and down, her eyes remained level. They were open, almost in shock, the dark green unable to understand why someone would want to do something like this to a child.

  ‘I don’t understand either.’ Said Tommy and he turned back and walked towards the gate.

  4

  Tommy had showered and shaved, putting on a nice suit and a black tie. Anne similarly had dressed formally. A heavy weight hung over both Detectives.

  ‘How bad was it?’ Anne asked.

  Tommy, sitting in traffic he was too lethargic to wish away, looked over at her.

  ‘Her face; she had a big puffy bruise on one side, otherwise it was completely intact. Her legs, from what I could see, had ligature marks. It was the torso though – it was completely shredded to pieces, her intestines spilling out into the water, each of her ribs broken, her breast bone just gone – smashed into pieces so small I couldn’t even see it.’

  ‘Do we tell the Clancy’s?’

  ‘Only if they ask.’ Tommy said.

  Then, both Anne and Tommy’s phones buzzed loudly in their pockets. Anne took hers out, and Tommy saw as her face lost colour. She turned the screen to him.

  Open was a news application, which had pushed a story through so that it would buzz on half the country’s phones. The headline was simple, and left no one in any doubt as to the content of the story.

  Body Found By Gardaí In Amy Clancy Case

  ‘Fuck.’ Tommy said in frustration. ‘Can’t the Gardaí keep a secret for ten minutes nowadays? If Amy’s parents have found out through the internet before we can let them know, I’m actually going to kill someone.’ Tommy said, as he flicked on the sirens so as to drastically reduce the journey to the Clancy house.

  Tommy knew that there just is no proper way to inform someone that their daughter has been murdered. Of course, he was going to try not to be overtly abrupt, but from the moment he and Anne asked the Clancy’s to sit with them, they would fear the worst. Tommy was the senior officer, and unlike Anne had gone through this process twice in the position of receiver of the news, so he therefore felt it necessary to be the one to impart this knowledge on the Clancy’s.

  Back in his father’s time, all Gardaí used to use the euphemism ‘Spread the Bad News’, or ‘Share the Devil’s Gospel’ in a twist on Catholic catchphrases. As the church had disappeared so had the euphemism, but Tommy still felt that it accurately described the weight pressing upon a copper in giving this news to an innocent family member.

  From his experience on the other side of the fence, Tommy knew some of the main things not to do. Still, to this day, he could remember as a child staring from the box room of his house down on the road, where a Garda car remained parked for five minutes, while the two Detectives inside worked up the courage to tell the family that Tommy’s dad was missing and wouldn’t in all likeliness be coming home again. No, he would charge straight in and tell the Clancy’s. The moment they saw him, they would know that Amy was dead, there was no point beating around the bush, or in being polite. It didn’t matter how the Devil’s Gospel was spread, the venom was in the message.

  He pulled into Castlewood Avenue and put the car into neutral before turning off the engine. He got out, faster than his trepidation could stop him, and walked purposefully up the path to the front door. He scanned the windows for a face looking down anxiously, much as he had done twenty-five years ago, but the house was completely asleep. Anne on his shoulder, he took a deep breath, and pushed down heavily on the doorbell.

  It was five minutes before the door opened, and a bleary eyed Gary Clancy stared out at the two Gardaí.

  ‘Detectives?’ He said by way of a greeting. He was dressed still in his pyjamas, and his eyes were ringed and studded with red veins.

  ‘Gary, may we come in?’ Asked Tommy.

  ‘Oh, um, yes sure. Come on in. Has there been a break in the case?’ Asked Gary.

  ‘May we sit down?’ Asked Tommy.

  ‘Oh, yeah sure. I’m sleeping in the sitting room, so we can’t talk there. Does the kitchen table work?’ Gary gestured towards the general direction of the kitchen.

  ‘The kitchen table will be fine. Is Claire still asleep?’ Asked Tommy.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, can you get her?’ Said Tommy, moving into the kitchen and standing by the counter.

  Gary smiled an awkward smile.

  ‘Claire has been using Xanax, she can’t s
leep properly without it since Amy’s gone missing.’ He said.

  ‘And she took one recently?’ Asked Tommy.

  ‘Exactly, she won’t be awake for at least three hours.’ Said Gary.

  Tommy sighed. ‘Can you sit down Gary?’

  He sat, only now beginning to worry, while Tommy leaned against the counter and Anne against the kitchen doorframe.

  ‘What is it?’ Gary asked.

  ‘Gary, a body was found in Palmerstown this morning. We believe it’s Amy’s.’ Tommy said, in what he hoped was a sympathetic voice.

  Gary looked at him, stared for several seconds, before he laughed; an awkward laugh that punctured the silent kitchen and painfully echoed against the walls.

  ‘My petal, she’s dead.’ He said, and then it all collapsed. His eyes rolled, his shoulders slumped and his face was awash with tears. His body shook, and soon came sobs. He wailed and wailed and soon began to bang his fists upon the table. Anne made a step towards the father to comfort him, but Tommy shook his head, so she stopped.

  ‘Mr Clancy, Gary.’ Tommy said.

  ‘Huh?’ He said through a choked up voice.

  Tommy was quite uneasy. Of course he had seen reactions like this before when Spreading the Devil’s Gospel, but, truth be told, not from a man. Usually, they would clam up, quiet from the shock. Tommy supposed it was healthy, as a lot of the males who clammed up upon hearing the bad news never opened up again after, at least Gary was already on his way towards some kind of health. Though, from experience, Tommy knew it not to be that pleasant a road at all, grief, and he didn’t envy Gary a thing.

  ‘Do you want us to wait until Claire wakes up and we can tell her ourselves?’ Asked Tommy.

  Gary thought for a minute.

  ‘No, you go. I’ve to call the family over.’ He said.

  ‘We’ll be back in a few hours to go back over the finer details.’ Said Tommy, and taking Anne’s arm steered her and himself out of the house.

  Behind them, like a violent symphony, they heard Gary tear through his kitchen, as pots, plates and presses were flung about the room.