‘Got it.’ Said the voice on the other end of the phone.
Anne sat in the driver’s seat, Tommy in the front passenger. They pulled out of the car park – it was only two o’clock so the school traffic had yet to clog up the roads; the rain beat heavily upon the windshield as they set off for Ballyfermot Station.
‘We need to send this to the States, get a profiler to look at it?’ Anne asked.
‘No. Well, maybe yes, but it won’t do Colleen Hayes any good. The only victim the Ripper kept for any length of time was Amy Clancy, and that was so that he could do that weird photograph shit. It feels like she only has around 24 hours, less even.’
‘Twenty four hours?’ Anne asked. ‘But we have no leads?’
‘We have one, we have a very solid one.’ Tommy said.
‘We do?’ Anne asked confused.
‘That car sticker, on the back of the van.’ Tommy said, before falling into silence.
‘But Tommy, it was blurry, none of us knew what it was.’ Anne said.
‘I know, you could only know it if you’d seen it before. Luckily, I have.’ Tommy said.
‘You have?’ Anne asked.
‘I’ll tell you at the station.’ He said.
Peter’s wife was waiting for them out in the rain, so much like Claire Clancy had a few weeks ago when first she had learned of Amy’s disappearance. Tommy and Anne had nodded to her, and she followed them inside – Peter was waiting for them outside his office door.
‘Tommy, Tommy, Tommy. What are we going to do?’
‘Come in.’ Tommy said, and they all sat around Peter’s crowded desk.
‘Peter, are you a friend of Bill W’s?’ Tommy asked.
Peter’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yes.’ He said.
Tommy leaned forward. ‘I have, for weeks now, been searching for the Ripper. He’s like fire on the bog – the smoke, it spreads everywhere, the seagulls gather around the smell of burning vegetation and the animals sprint from the wind blown ashes. Finding the source of the fire though? Goodnight sisters. Until now, until, finally, I’ve found a clue.’
‘What is it?’ Peter asked.
‘You were his sponsor.’ Tommy said. ‘His AA sponsor.’
Peter’s breath quickened. ‘How can you know?’ He asked.
Tommy found a peace of paper on Peter’s desk and began to draw. He drew a circle, and inside he drew a triangle.
‘What does this look like to you?’ Tommy asked.
‘The Alcoholics Anonymous logo.’ Peter said, and Anne drew breath sharply beside the desk.
‘It was a car sticker on the back of his car.’ Tommy said.
‘That doesn’t necessarily mean..’
‘Peter! I’ll give my left nut if this guy turns out not to be some kind of addict. You’ve gotta believe I’m right here.’ Tommy said.
Peter nodded.
‘How long have you been in Recovery?’ Tommy asked.
‘Eleven years.’ Said Peter.
Tommy found a notepad upon the cluttered desk and ripped out a single sheet. Then he passed it over to Peter.
‘If there’s any chance I can find Colleen, it’ll be by you writing out a list of anyone, anyone, you’ve sponsored through the years.’
Peter nodded, picked up a pen, and began to scribble. They waited patiently, while he wrote, listing names, names and more names while the heavy rain throbbed off the station’s roof.
Finally, he was done, as a list of twenty seven names was passed over to Tommy and Anne.
‘That’s it, you’re sure?’ Tommy asked. Peter nodded, and he and Anne got up to leave.
Before he had gone however, Peter had grabbed his shoulder and took him back into the room.
‘Pat Bishop’s son is a genius, that’s what they said when you arrived in the force – said you’d been to Cambridge and could count better than Hawking; that no one knew why you’d joined but it sure was a blessing. Keep him away from the RA, like we should have done with his Da’ and he’d be the highest flying bird of the lot of us. Well, Tommy, be the fucking genius; be the fucking blessing. Find her!’
Tommy slid from the room and Peter’s accusatory glare.
In the porch below the heavy arch, he and Anne met.
‘I’m going to call in NBCI and the Rapid Response Unit. Every one of these twenty-seven is to be found, and an armed team break into their homes. Peter has just given us last known addresses for eighteen of these guys, we don’t know the other nine. You start hunting, I’ll go to Harcourt Street and attempt to track down the addresses of the nine.’
‘And we’ll find the Ripper.’
Tommy glanced down at the list, and smiled for the first time in days. ‘I’m certain, Anne this time we’ve got him.’
19
Tommy reached Harcourt, and went straight for his desk. He hung his coat on the back, and was about to sit down, when suddenly he paused. Tommy’s endorphins rushed as something clicked, as from the depths of his sub-consciousness an idea branded his brain. He opened up his computer and then searched for those ‘Rachel letters’ he’d been given by Georgia Power. John Ryan had been released, and with that the pressure of attempting to decipher Rachel/Elizabeth’s murderer had decreased, and as the Dublin Ripper had racked up a higher and higher body count, Tommy had let the case go cold.
That’s how it was with cases, once twenty four hours had passed, the chances of finding a killer was reduced dramatically, and the longer you went on the case became staler and staler. The tendrils of fog then began to drift in, as busy Gardaí decided to spend their time on newer cases, and the case slowly began to chill, then freeze, before finally going cold. Killers faded into the bog, never to be seen again, never to be prosecuted again.
But Tommy, when he had read those letters in the pub, had known instantly that he had just read something profound, and just a short minute ago when he had placed two mints into his mouth, Tommy had realised just what it was. Flicking to the bottom of the document, Tommy found the letter dated 3 January 2004. It was the shortest one, where Rachel just told Georgia that she loved her. The first paragraph however, mentioned something that Tommy had been unable to make heads nor tails of, it said:
‘Today I learned that a daughter was born from the death from my son. She was born just five hours ago in the Coombe, and I couldn’t give a shit.’
Next Tommy flicked upon Amy Clancy’s death cert, and there, nestled in the corner, was Amy Clancy’s date of birth, it read: 3 January 2004.
Tommy thought about it, thought about the man who could murder his ex-wife and successfully frame it not on one, but two others – and the man who allegedly had killed his father in prison. Tommy then thought about the skills required to do that, and wondered whether this coldly calculating creep could have used this set of skills to kill a number of young Dublin girls. The only thing lacking in the story was motive, where a man who killed his father out of revenge and his wife out of jealousy, suddenly decides to begin to kill random young girls. The first, Amy, was somehow connected to the Ripper, she had been ‘born from the death of his son’ (whatever that meant) but that still left Aishe and Tanya, both seemingly unconnected to this killer’s web of motive.
For the Detective, however, motive was a queer mistress – she was never there at Tommy’s beck and call, but rather came and went as she pleased. It was hard to know what had made a man like the Dublin Ripper a killer, as had Tommy been given the death of a man in Mountjoy thirty years ago, then the killing of Elizabeth O’Hara last year – he would never have been able to conjure up a motive.
Still, all this theorising was moot unless he could find some evidence to back it up. Tommy checked his phone, and saw that records would still be open for another fifteen minutes. Logging out of the computer, Tommy then leapt from his chair and powerwalked his way into the hall, to the stairs, and went down as far as the basement. There, at the door of the Records Department, stood a man obviously packing up to leave for the day. Tommy approached him looking
sheepish, but Jimmy’s frown told him all he needed to know.
‘I’ll buy you pints?’ Tommy offered, but the frown remained, so Tommy tried yet another tack.
‘It’s to catch the Ripper.’ Tommy said, and the frown remained, but Jimmy nodded his head towards the room as if to say ‘Go on.’
Tommy ran in, giving his thanks, and then found himself one of the three Supercomputers used to store the data collected at crime scenes. It took five minutes for his log in to be accepted, during which Tommy tried his best not to make eye contact with Jimmy who was tapping his elbow impatiently.
First, Tommy looked for the files in relation to the Elizabeth O’Hara murder, which had about eighty entrances. Tommy took down the eleven DNA profiles recorded at the murder. The two suspects, the victim, and DNA collected from various places – only three had been left unidentified, the one Tommy felt best about was skin cells found in the garage where the shotgun was taken from – in the house the fourteen year old boy lived in. He printed the profiles off on sheets of paper, before then printing the DNA profile that had been a match between the Amy Clancy and Aishe Petulengro murder.
It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for. Holding the unidentified person from the O’Hara crime scene’s profile in his left hand, Tommy held the other in his right. It was a perfect match for the unidentified DNA from the O’Hara scene.
Tommy returned to his office, thanking the man on the door, then he called a rank and file in, who arrived within five minutes. By then Tommy had scribbled down the numbers and addresses for John Ryan and Georgia Power. It was a girl who arrived, red haired and fresh out of Templemore.
‘I need you to inform these two about the new development – they both were involved with the same woman who I believe was a victim of the Dublin Ripper last November. I’m printing off the case report for you now, everything is in it.’ Tommy said.
‘Ehm..’ She said.
‘Oh, well I’d do it, but I’ve got to get this Ripper – don’t tell either of the two when you’re informing, but we have a very solid lead. I think we’ll have him by tonight.’ Tommy said.s
‘Yeah, I saw on the news, he’s taken another girl.’
‘So I’d better catch him tonight.’
##
Failure, failure, failure.
So whispered his walls when he entered his house that evening. Of the twenty-seven, three were dead, fourteen were verifiably emigrated, and the other ten had been quickly located.
An image drove its way into Tommy’s mind, Colleen Hayes screaming in pain, tearing at her face with the struggle of it all. Then he saw her being raped by a hulking figure while she sobbed prone into a bloody pillow.
Probably not too far from what’s actually happening either.
The house lay heavy upon him, reminded him of the dearth of leads and how he truly knew he now had nothing on the Ripper. So he walked into the kitchen, taking down a glass and his bottle of Jameson. He meant to only take a shot, but instead he just poured the brown liquid out until his glass was half full – then he gulped four, five times, leading him to cough and his eyes to water.
What now? Sleep? Not while Colleen was still out there, because while she was it was just a puzzle that required some kind of answer.
Perhaps I should take back out the case file, look it over.
But no, he’d fall asleep soon if he even thought of doing that, the house was warm and the sofa comfortable. A drive, behind the wheel of a car, that’s what he’d do best with – from there the best of his thoughts would flow. So he picked himself up, and took his keys from a hook by the door.
No, wait.
He remembered that time he crashed on the four court a fortnight ago with the gun. He could have killed someone. So he took the Sig Sauer from his waistband and stuck it into the pillow on his couch, then walked out the door.
His first stop was a petrol station just across the N4, where a Polish lady sat behind a glass grille and sold Tommy his chewing gum and the forty euro petrol. He smiled at her, knowing he wanted nothing more than to fuck her blind.
As he filled the tank up with petrol, Tommy wondered what the fuck he exactly was doing out tonight, expecting just to find the Dublin Ripper on the streets or something. He remembered those false alarms, red herrings, he’d found littered through the case. David Breen, the counsellor he had arrested and beaten on the word of some drunken homeless bum.
drunken homeless bum…
Tommy’s legs almost gave way underneath him. What kind of man gave false evidence to the Gardaí in a murder investigation? He tore open the door of his car and rooted through the glovebox until he found what he was looking for. There it was, a piece of paper written in Peter Hayes’ scribbled hand:
Mick O’Reilly
137 Cardiff Lane
Cabra
Dublin 7
Mick O’Reilly – the homeless man with an address in Dublin 7 who had falsely identified David Breen as being in the park the night Aishe’s body had been dumped. Another memory flashed into his mind, the day after Amy Clancy’s body had been found in the storm drain, he’d gone to Ballyfermot Station to talk with Peter Hayes, and during their talk Peter had led a homeless man out of the drunk tank – Mick O’Reilly.
What a loud bastard he was.
And then Tommy remembered Tanya Higgins’ last words, describing the Ripper as a man who shouted, a lot. Tommy jumped into his car and pulled out of the car park, and was about to speed off to Cabra, when a thought disturbed his eagerness. He had no motive to stalk and kill Amy. There weren’t two people less connected than Mick O’Reilly and Amy Clancy so where did the obsession that was really a year’s grooming come from? What stoked the fires of his hate?
Maybe Tommy was wrong – like he had been about all the others. Remembering how certain he had been about David Breen and Gary Clancy, meant his conviction about Mick O’Reilly was newly tempered with doubt.
He remembered Claire Clancy, through a violently bruised face, telling Tommy that Gary was the expert at avoiding criminal charges. He remembered Gary, drinking in Coppers, telling him that he had been there, the night of the Blackrock Six, when they’d torn apart an ordinary working class kid apart, limb from limb, just for being ‘too loud’. He remembered an old instructor in Branch telling Tommy that many causes of deafness were hereditary, and Tommy couldn’t quite remember whether that ordinary working class kid that had died that night had hailed from Cabra, but he was willing to put his house on it being so, because most of all he remembered the quote he’d taken from the ‘Rachel letters’:
‘Today I learned that a daughter was born from the death from my son. She was born just five hours ago in the Coombe, and I couldn’t give a shit.’
Her son’s death had been linked to Amy Clancy, or so Tommy had assumed all evening – but he had been wrong. What if Elizabeth O’Hara’s son’s death was linked to Gary Clancy? He turned on his sirens, switched to the fifth gear, and sped through the left turn for the river. He was up in Chapelizod Village before he had the phone out and was calling Anne. She picked up at the fifth ring, by which time he already had the huge stone wall of the Phoenix Park on his left.
‘Anne, I need you to research something for me, pronto.’ Tommy said.
‘Uh, sure Tommy. What is it?’
He went left at the majestic building of the Criminal Courts of Justice, up along by the spot he used to buy his dope, approaching hard on the old Monto and Arbour Hill.
‘Find me the name of the kid killed by the Blackrock Six.’
‘Uh sure, one second Tommy, my internet is a bit slow at the moment.’ Anne said.
Tommy turned left up the Old Cabra Road opposite Prussia Street, and got caught behind a few cars that were a bit slow moving out of the way of Tommy’s flashing lights – it was much too close to his target for sirens.
He was finally pulling onto Cardiff Street before Anne got back to him.
‘Uh, Tommy..’
‘Ye
ah?’ Tommy said.
‘The kid’s name is Jack O’Reilly.’ She said.
‘Turn on your radio.’ Tommy said, then hung up.
The vengeful bastard, the vengeful bastard. Of course the old fucker who’d murdered his abusive father in Mountjoy, and then killed his wife for leaving him, well he’d have no problem topping it off by killing the child of the man who’d murdered his son. Gary Clancy had been part of the gang of Blackrock students that had murdered Jack O’Reilly on 16 August 2000 – the Blackrock six had really been the Blackrock seven, but Gary had walked free. Mick O’Reilly, fifteen years later, and after successfully murdering his ex-wife, decided then to ensnare and murder Gary’s daughter. The murder of Amy Clancy was simple when one thought about it: an eye for an eye, an old style Irish Vendetta, a classic Celtic Honour Killing.
Tommy turned off the flashing lights, turned off even his headlights and slowly crept up to number 137. He smiled softly to himself, getting psyched for what he was about to do, and took from his belt his pepper spray and his pair of handcuffs. Then, he started up his radio.
‘Mary?’ Tommy said, almost certain that this was her night on call outs.
‘Tommy?’ Came the cracked voice on the other end.
‘All surrounding units, Rapid Response, Ambulance and Fire Personnel to Number 137 Cardiff Street, Cabra. It’s urgent.’ Tommy said, then he switched off his radio and stepped out to meet his fate.
20
Tommy kicked in the door’s lock as silently and quickly as he could, still the wooden door shattered, noisily, and the doorframe shook with the weight of Tommy’s foot. Slowly the old style door swung in on an old style hallway. It was filth, filth everywhere – an old bike sat against a peeling wall, while muck and cracked bottles of Biddy littered the ground. On the wall before him a photo frame held a much younger looking Elizabeth O’Hara; a much much younger Mick O’Reilly, and between them sat a teenage boy.
First Death In Dublin City (Thomas Bishop Book 1) Page 22
