Who Took Eden Mulligan?
Page 1
WHO TOOK EDEN MULLIGAN?
Sharon Dempsey
Copyright
Published by AVON
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
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London SE1 9GF
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HarperCollinsPublishers
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021
Copyright © Sharon Dempsey 2021
Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers 2021
Cover photography of figure © Stephen Mulcahey/Trevellion Images; Background © Shutterstock.com
Sharon Dempsey asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008456603
Ebook Edition © January 2021 ISBN: 9780008424466
Version: 2020-12-25
Dedication
For my Dad, Teddy Copeland, who told me all the best stories and provided me with an endless supply of notebooks and pencils
Epigraph
If you genuflect to the same old gods, you can get away with murder.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Author’s Note
About the Author
About the Publisher
PROLOGUE
Keep going. Don’t stop. Run, walk if you must, but whatever you do, don’t look back.
Her feet pummel the rough, uneven ground. The police station isn’t far. She remembers passing it days before when they were in the car. Moving day. They had been delighted with themselves for getting the rental at such a cheap price. Had planned to make the run-down cottage into something more comfortable. After all, they weren’t students anymore and they’d have good jobs before long. Young professionals, that was how they described themselves to the landlord.
She is trying to distract herself. To keep her mind from seeing the unthinkable. Her foot hits a rock and she lurches forward, falling to the right, bashing her knee. She steadies herself, not allowing the pain to register as she keeps running. If she feels the sting, then she’ll feel it all, the true horror of what was in that cottage. She can’t let it in. She has to keep that door in her mind shut; push against it with all of her strength.
The police station can’t be much farther but she doesn’t know if she’ll make it, if she’ll manage to keep it together until she reaches safety. She’s stumbling now, swaying.
It’s as though she’s on a fairground ride that’s going too fast. She wants off but knows it won’t stop.
She’s certain she’s going to be sick. Bile burns the back of her throat and she tries to spit it out while she’s still moving, but it goes no farther than her chin. She wipes at it with her hand and smells that coppery-blood smell again and her stomach heaves. So much blood … No, she can’t think about it. She can’t let it in.
She’s nearly there. Her breathing is ragged. Her heart is pumping so fast she fears it will explode. She sees the road. Sees the sign with the PSNI logo and the words ‘Keeping People Safe’ beneath it.
The glass doors open automatically and once there, standing in the reception area with an open-mouthed policeman looking at her, she no longer knows how to say it. How to put it into words and make sense of what has happened. Instead, she has what must be an out of body experience, for she sees herself from above – a girl with dark, straggly hair, covered in drying and caked blood. Clots of the stuff sticking to skin that had been bathed and covered in rose and peony scented body cream only yesterday.
The police officer is speaking. He’s calling for help. They rush at her, asking where she is injured. Who has done this to her? Questions followed by more questions. Hands tugging at her, patting her down, looking for wounds.
She hears herself speak – giving her name, the address of the cottage – and then she says it, forms the words she doesn’t want to hear herself say.
‘They’re dead. They’re all dead. It’s my fault. I killed them.’
And then she falls.
CHAPTER 1
This one was different from the start.
Bloodied and panicked, the girl had run into the local police station. Stated her name: Iona Gardener, the address of the crime scene: Lower Dunlore cottage, Larchfield, before conveniently collapsing.
Chief Inspector Danny Stowe had been in the game long enough to be surprised by nothing. He’d heard it all: the dog walker stumbling across a shallow grave; a witness, breathless and hysterical, calling the incident in on their mobile; a neighbour alerted to the screams and the cries of a mother trying to protect her children from an abusive husband; a drug deal gone wrong and the victim left splattered all over the scene. Cases come in all shapes and sizes. But cases with ready confessions? Well, they don’t turn up every day.
Assistant Chief Constable McCausland had come up trumps and chosen Danny as the lead detective on this one, in
spite of his sullied record. The Lennon case – a trafficked seventeen-year-old girl beaten to death by her handler – had nearly ruined him. Danny had messed up big time by losing his cool and smacking the perpetrator’s head off of a gable wall. It could have been a career ending move but he had managed to redeem himself by keeping his head down ever since, volunteering for all the shit jobs no one wanted and making sure his clean-up rate was better than most. Diligence and penance were his watch words these days.
Now the Dunlore case had landed on his desk and looked to be as messy as it was big. Stabbings always involved too much blood for his liking. This one was done in a frenzied fashion that suggested passion, rage and loss of control, but he couldn’t go jumping to too many conclusions. The arrangement of the bodies in the bed looked like a contrived staging, while the savagery of the attack spoke of chaos. The contradicting scenarios and other inconsistencies suggested that nothing was as it seemed.
His desk phone hadn’t stopped ringing since he got the case that morning; every journalist he’d ever had a drink with, desperate to get something on the mass killings. The Dunlore stabbings would be the story of the decade.
‘Get in line,’ he’d told Louisa Richmond, his favourite reporter of them all. ‘You’ll have to wait for the official press statement.’ Danny wasn’t about to go leaking anything.
The phone buzzed again. It was an internal line this time, so he picked it up to hear Ian on the front desk, tell him he had a visitor.
‘Ian, I’m not expecting anyone and I’m up to my oxters with this new case. Whoever it is, get someone else to sort it.’
‘She says you’ll want to see her. Good-looking doll, goes by the name of Rose Lainey.’
Rose Lainey. Now that was a blast from the past worth dropping everything for. He didn’t think this day could throw up anything more surprising than hearing Rose was in town.
‘I’ll be right there.’
Danny hung up and made his way to the front desk, checking out his reflection as he passed the window looking into the incident room.
Rose was the last person he expected to turn up out of the blue. He hadn’t seen her for a good few years and never in Belfast. As far as he knew she never made trips back home. God, it must have been five – no, six – years since he last saw her. That last reunion. Most of them had been older, greyer and a little thicker around the middle. But not Rose. She had looked the same, if slightly more polished and refined. Her dark hair, worn down to her shoulders, was wavy and lustrous, almost black. She was still trim and lean, and she still held herself in that contained way, as if she was always ready for flight or fight.
There had been a time when the two of them were inseparable. Two Northern Irish exiles thrown together in the same halls to read Criminology and Psychology. Both competitive and ambitious students, they’d shared lecture notes, done essays together, and pulled all-nighters to make sure they both bagged firsts. And they had. After graduating, Danny had returned to Northern Ireland and enrolled on an officer fast-track training programme with the PSNI, while Rose had headed south to London and found work with the Met, dealing with immigration, drugs and terrorism. Rose had taken the clinician route, studying for her masters and then a doctorate. She was Dr Lainey now, a forensic psychologist. She worked in the prison service the last time he checked … and he did check, every now and then. Not that he’d ever tell her that. It was nothing more than an old habit, he told himself; he just cared about how she was doing.
He had a live crime scene to negotiate, a mortuary lab to visit, the team needed briefing and the press were breathing down his neck. But it could all wait. A visit from his old mate Rose Lainey wasn’t something to happen every day.
CHAPTER 2
Rose looked around, taking in the nondescript decor, the sleek chairs and the coffee machine in the hallway. This could have been her place of work if she’d stayed in Northern Ireland, and if they’d been willing to overlook her family background.
‘Rose Lainey. I never thought I’d live to see the day!’ Danny’s words as he burst through the door made her gasp with surprise.
‘Danny!’
‘Legend has it that if the fine Rose Lainey sets foot on these here shores, her beauty shrivels up and flees.’ He opened his arms wide to give her a warm hug, squeezing her as hard as he could without breaking bones.
‘Stick around and you might just see that happen.’ Rose smiled at all six feet four of him. Brawny and good looking, with a sharp wit and a great analytical brain, he was the kind of man her sister Kaitlin would call a quare ride. To Rose, he was the best friend she’d ever had.
‘What brings you to my neck of the woods?’
‘Family business. You know how it is. Can’t stay away forever.’
‘Well you gave it a bloody good try. If it wasn’t for the old Liverpool uni reunions, I’d never see you.’
The two had kept in touch over the years but Rose had always declined Danny’s invites to come visit. Even his swish wedding invitation had been politely declined.
‘So, how’s life been treating you, Rosie?’
She felt self-conscious under his appraising eye. This is Danny, she reminded herself – he’d seen her hungover and devoid of any hint of the subterfuge make-up could offer plenty of times.
‘Oh, you know, it’s fine. Still in London and working for the prison service, but I sort of feel like I’m treading water.’ She didn’t tell him that she’d spent the best part of the last four months questioning her professional choices. Working in prisons and dealing with the worst category of offenders was starting to eat away at her soul. No matter what she did, it never felt like enough. She envied Danny and his role on the front line, being able to get his hands dirty and feel like he was making a real, discernible difference every single day. She sensed that it was too late for her to make any significant impact on most of the criminals she worked with. Many were beyond redemption.
‘Time for a change?’
‘I think so. I’m putting a few feelers out.’
‘How long are you in town for?’
She shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. I’ve leave to take, so I haven’t booked my return flight yet. Thought I might stick around for a couple of weeks. Depends on how it feels to be back here, you know?’
‘It’s really good to see you, Rosie. You’re looking well.’ Danny was the only person she’d tolerate calling her Rosie.
‘How’s Amy? Maybe I’ll get to finally meet her.’
He looked off to the side and hesitated before saying, ‘She’s good. Yeah, we’ll have to arrange dinner or something.’
‘Definitely, though I’ve a lot of family stuff going on while I’m here.’
He nodded. ‘Okay, but you are not leaving Belfast without spending some time with me. I’ll show you around, let you see how much the old stomping ground has changed.’
It had changed; she couldn’t deny it. Maybe it was the weather, but people seemed nicer, brighter and happier. There was less graffiti and more traffic. The peace dividend had paid off, by all accounts. Belfast was crawling with tourists and for the first time in a long time it felt as if it had something to offer beyond peace walls and political violence.
‘I promise we’ll catch up properly. I wanted to say hello before I head off to see to the family stuff. You know what it’s like, it’ll be “Auntie Joan needs to see you and Uncle Joe wants to take you to see such and such”. My time won’t be my own.’
She saw something flit across his face, his eyes opening wide. ‘Hey, I have an idea. Would you have time to have a look at something that’s just come my way?’
‘What, like a case?’
‘Yeah, why not? I can guarantee it’s interesting and I could do with some of your hocus pocus input. If I can square it with my ACC, would you be up for it?’
‘Hocus pocus?’ She laughed. ‘I’ll have you know that forensic psychologists do a bloody good job of clearing up crime scenes quicker than any detectives.’
‘We’ll see, Danny. No promises. I’m here to take some leave, remember?’
‘Rose, I know you. Sitting on your arse all day drinking cups of tea will drive you up the walls. Come play with me instead. I promise you, this case will be worth sticking around for. You said yourself that you’re not happy in the prison service. Just take a look.’
‘Take a look at what, exactly?’
‘Let’s head down to my office and I can talk you through it. I’d be eager to see what you make of it. Give me half an hour of your time, that’s all.’
Danny had always been hard to resist.
CHAPTER 3
Danny stood back and watched Rose as she looked around the basement office, taking it all in. He knew the narrow windows were too high up to provide a view of the scorcher of a day outside and his row of filing cabinets, banked across one wall, made the room feel like a glorified store cupboard.
‘So, you’re in the arse end of nowhere. You must’ve pissed off someone pretty bad,’ she said.
‘They like to call it the Historical Enquiries Unit. I’ve been told it’s the poisoned chalice, but you know me, I like a challenge.’
Up close, he could see she looked a little older. There were tell-tale fine lines around her eyes and her cheekbones were softened. He didn’t care to think how different he might look. He knew a few detectives that wore their careers on their faces, all sunken eyes and dark shadows, never mind the expanding paunch telling of too many dinners on the run, and a fondness for whiskey and the beer. Funny how a few bad cases can catch up with you.
He wondered how life was really treating Rose. She’d always been something of a dark horse and the texts and phone calls had been few and far between since they’d graduated.
‘Before we go any further – and I’m not saying I’m doing this, I’m just curious – what’s the case?’ Rose asked. ‘And why me? I’m not exactly on the Serious Crime Unit’s list of go-to consultants. I’m sure you have a bank of professionals to call in for cases that require a psychologist’s input.’