‘More than one?’
‘Afraid so, old boy.’
Gumbell held up a piece of bone.
‘A section of pelvis. A male this time. A male baby.’
Beck exhaled a long stream of air between puckered lips, making a sound like a strong wind.
He shook his head, lost for words.
Sixty-One
Detective Garda Somers sat at her desk in the deserted Ops Room. The sun was high now, shining through the window above her desk. She bought down the blind and a cool breeze blew around it onto the side of her face. Her mobile phone was on the desk in front of her, turned to mute. It was turned to mute because Lucy had already rung nine times. But Claire had not answered, and Lucy had not left a message.
Claire sat back in her chair and ran a hand absentmindedly through her hair. She thought of Lucy. God, she missed her. Her desk phone rang, the number displayed on screen. She recognised the first three digits; Garda HQ in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. She picked up.
‘About time,’ the voice on the other end. ‘I’ve been trying to contact Inspector Beck. There’s no reply from his mobile.’
Claire didn’t recognise the voice.
‘And you are?’
‘It’s the lab at Forensic Science Ireland, Garda HQ, I’m Derek. I was told to ring Inspector Beck directly.’
‘Inspector Beck is still at a… possible crime scene. There’s no coverage there. What is it?’
‘You can tell him the DNA sample we extracted from the item of clothing, namely a baby’s T-shirt, fou…’
‘I know where it was found.’
‘Okay. It’s confirmed. The DNA sample matched that extracted from the murder victim, Samantha Power.’
Claire felt no surprise, just sadness.
‘Elementary now,’ Claire said, more to herself.
‘Elementary? What you mean?’
‘Nothing. Anything else?’
‘Yes. Tyre marks. Specialist tyre analysts identified these as a particular type fitted by the manufacturer Tata Motors, owners of Jaguar Landrover, to the Landrover Discovery and Range Rover models, specifically the V6 petrol models. The tyres had little wear. It states the vehicle was new or the tyres had recently been changed. That’s unlikely. I’ll forward these results on anyw…’
‘Why?’ Claire interrupted.
‘Why?’
‘Why do you say that’s unlikely? About the tyres having been changed.’
‘Because tyre shops don’t normally stock that particular tyre. Maybe in cities they do. But not anywhere else. No demand. They have to be ordered in.’
‘And you know all this?’
‘Yes, I know all this.’
‘Anything else?’ with a sigh.
‘I thought that was plenty.’
‘It is,’ Claire said.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Detective Garda Claire Somers.’
‘Don’t think I ever spoke with you before,’ the voice softening like warming molasses. ‘My name’s Derek.’
‘You already told me that. Thank you, Derek. Bye bye.’
Claire hung up, but immediately her mobile phone started to flash.
Lucy.
Claire turned it upside down so she wouldn’t have to look.
Sixty-Two
Sergeant Connor rang from the video room in the station as Beck headed back. Beck was sitting in the passenger seat of a marked patrol car, staring at, but not seeing, the world passing by outside. He was thinking of bones, his mind swirling, trying to catch a clog of understanding that might stop it, but finding none.
‘I’ve gone over everything,’ the sergeant said. ‘Again. And again. And again. Nothing. Someone has to have gotten into that vehicle somewhere outside Cross Beg. She stopped for that person and picked them up. Someone she likely knew. There are no other CCTV cameras. I got a couple of truck dash cams. Nothing. CCTV’s not going to solve this, if you ask me.’
‘Hhmm,’ Beck said, thinking, forcing himself to concentrate. ‘Maybe.’
‘There’s nothing more I can do. Perhaps I should move onto something else?’
Beck cleared his throat, but said nothing.
It could finish right here. CCTV. Move on. Dig somewhere else in the garden.
Those bones.
Instead.
‘Listen,’ a clog catching, an idea formulating in his mind, ‘can you put everything onto a memory stick for me? From Crabby’s. From everywhere. Traffic cameras. The lot. Everything you have.’
‘Why?’
Why? What does that mean? Why? So I can choose a colour, count the number of blue cars, the number of green cars, play a game with myself and see if I win. Why?
‘I want to have a look at it, that’s why,’ keeping his voice calm.
‘Oh, of course,’ like the idea had just occurred to him. ‘I’ll get it ready for you and have it by the time you get back… There’s something else.’
Slipped in as an afterthought, but Beck had a feeling it wasn’t.
‘Yes?’
‘Maurice Crabby. As Samantha Power drives away from the supermarket, he comes out almost right behind her, in the shop van, stays like that until they pass the last camera and I lose them.’
Beck was right, definitely not an afterthought. His mind drifted.
Those bones.
Sixty-Three
It was ringing again. Her mobile phone. Lucy. She ignored it, her mind instead focusing on V6 Landrover Discoverys and Range Rovers. Two screens were open on her computer: one on Pulse, the other Google. A montage of V6 Landrover Discoverys and Range Rovers filled the Google page, a list of owners of Landrover Discoverys and Range Rovers in the county of Galway filled Pulse. The photographs portrayed the Discovery as predominately a work horse. There it was, sloshing along a muddy track, climbing rocky hills. The Range Rover, however, was displayed on leafy streets, in a royal enclosure, and another had a movie star arriving at a premier. A Range Rover was not common on the roads around Cross Beg and district.
On Pulse, she narrowed down the returns by completing the engine size search field, inputting a displacement range between 2,900cc and 3,100cc. Much of the screen disappeared. She was left with just twelve V6 Discoverys and Range Rovers in the whole of Co. Galway.
As she clicked on owner details, she saw Beck enter the Ops Room. He came and stood next to her. She told him about the call from the lab in HQ.
‘Just about to check owner details for these vehicles.’ She right clicked the mouse. ‘According to Pulse. There is a Landrover Discovery V6 and a Range Rover owned locally. The Discovery first.’ Click. ‘Owner is one Colin Hegarty… that name rings a bell. Has form.’ Click. ‘Assault. Shop Street Galway. July 2005. Injured party was a young female student. One punch. Knocked her out cold in the street. Alcohol consumed. She lost a couple of teeth. Victim was not known to him, and he fled the scene. Arrested a short time later. The incident appears to have been a one off. There’s nothing on him before or since… that we know of, of course.’
‘Where’s he live?’
‘A place called Cus-na-Tol.’
He gave her a blank look.
‘It’s a parish out by Lough Sheebeen, five miles towards Ballinasloe.’
‘And the other vehicle. The Range Rover.’
Click.
‘Well well. I know him. So do you.’
‘Who?’
‘Maurice Crabby.’
Sixty-Four
She pushed the roller along the wall by the corner of the window, applying an even coat of paint. Vicky liked painting. It always took her mind off things. The trick was to keep the pressure nice and even. That way you ended up without blotches or run offs, you didn’t have to start all over again. Yes, she liked painting, took her mind off things. And right now she wanted her mind taken off things. Because she needed to be patient. She needed to stop thinking about Frankfurt, about the International Independent TV Production Fair in Oslo, of missing babies and whether or not D
anny Black would hold his nerve and actually help her obtain that CCTV. But most of all, she needed to stop thinking about that person, the person she thought was a killer. She wanted to take her mind off all this, but it was damn hard. She thought of Finnegan Beck. The man was so blasé. He hadn’t seemed in any way bothered getting out of the car the night before. He hadn’t even asked for her phone number. She was usually the one who behaved like that. She didn’t want to think of him either.
She thought of her plans for this place. Once the work started, when everything was in place, she didn’t have to be here, well, not for everything. Danny could look after all that himself. So maybe she should tell Joe to work it out some way, to get away for a night, before everything started – one night, surely he could do that? He could tell his wife whatever he wanted, she didn’t care… she thought again about Beck. At least Joe was crazy for her.
She bent now to apply more paint to the roller. And waited while the excess dripped off. Then she straightened again. She could hear Danny in the kitchen, the loud drone of a drill sounding intermittently. Since arriving this morning he had been in there, ripping out the old fittings and taking up the floor covering. Apart from a brief greeting, they hadn’t really spoken. He didn’t seem to want to talk about what they had discussed the previous evening. Maybe I need to push him, just a little? she thought. Vicky pressed the roller against the wall and applied the paint briskly. When she’d finished, she put the brush down onto its tray.
‘Danny,’ she called, rubbing her hands on the old shirt she wore. ‘Time for a cuppa. Put the kettle on please.’
The drill sounded again, but when it finished she could hear the gentle thud as he placed it on the mantelpiece, then his footsteps across the floor. She heard the sound of a tap running, and water being poured into the kettle. When she went into the kitchen she crossed to the worktop by the sink. There was a packet of chocolate biscuits turned upside down on it, to keep them fresh. She turned it right side up and pulled the wrapper apart, held it out. Danny took a biscuit. She reached for a couple of mugs from the wooden holder next to her.
‘The answer,’ Danny said, reaching for the teabags. ‘To what we spoke about yesterday.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Vicky said.
‘I’ve slept on it. I’d like to help you. It’s a story that needs to be told. So, I’ll do it.’
Vicky smiled. ‘Good. As soon as possible, okay? This waiting is getting to me. You’re at Crabby’s tomorrow, right?’
‘Yes, in the evening,’ he looked about the room. ‘But I wouldn’t do any more painting anyway, if I was you. Most of these walls are coming down.’
‘I know,’ Vicky said. She took a sip from her tea. ‘I did the gable wall in the living room; that’s staying.’
She had a feeling about this story. It was going to be big.
Vicky smiled.
Yes, she thought. Very big.
Sixty-Five
‘Sergeant Connor.’
He was standing in the public office, talking to Garda Ryan.
Best friends.
‘Yes, boss.’ He held up something. Small and black. ‘Memory stick. It’s all here.’
He walked across and handed it to Beck.
‘Thanks,’ Beck said, putting it into his pocket. ‘You know a place called Cus-na-Tol?’
The sergeant shook his head.
‘You need to. And how to get there? Take Garda Ryan with you.’ Beck then explained why.
‘Crabby’s not at work today,’ Claire told him when he got back to the Ops Room. ‘I just checked.’
‘Isn’t he? Where’s he gone to?’
‘Don’t know. The staff say he took off around lunch-time yesterday, didn’t tell anyone where he was going.’
‘What about his wife?’
‘She doesn’t know either. I’m not so sure about her, thought she sounded a little odd to me on the phone.’
‘Odd?’
‘Odd. Yes. As in, well, odd.’
‘Okay,’ Beck said, checking the time. ‘Why don’t we go and talk to her?’
The Focus climbed the narrow mountain road to Crabby’s house, the fields about them yellow and anaemic. Even so, some contained cattle, mooching around sniffing for grass or staring over the hedges as they passed. The blue sky held light brush strokes of white. The sacred mountain of Croagh Patrick was just about visible, way off in the distance, rising sharply to one side like a celestial spear.
She had been watching them approach for some time. From her bedroom window Julie Crabby had a view all the way into Cross Beg. If she had known they were coming, she could have followed their progress from the moment they had driven out of the town. Apart from some trees and the occasional farm building, she had a clear view of all the traffic on the mismatch of roads to the west of Cross Beg.
But it was only when the blue Focus had turned from the road at the bottom of the mountain and started up did she realise it was coming to her. Because this wasn’t the type of car to meander about a mountain without purpose. Not like the little vans of the elderly farmers who came to check their plots of bog or to simply pass the time of day. She knew it was a garda car. She’d been expecting it.
The policeman was tall, with piercing brown eyes in a handsome face, his hair receding on a high forehead. His female companion was smaller, stocky build, tight haircut. There was a masculine energy about her, she considered. She stood in the doorway, observing them, folding her arms across her chest.
‘My name is Detective Inspector Finnegan Beck. This is my colleague, Detective Garda Claire Somers. And you are Mrs Crabby?’
She pursed her lips. ‘Yes. I am.’
‘Could we come in for a moment? This shouldn’t take long.’
She said nothing, debating whether to tell them to come back when he was here. Why should she have to deal with his business? But she just knew the tall policeman would have none of that.
‘Yes. Yes. Come in,’ she said, turning.
Beck considered that she was appraising him when the door opened, sussing him out as it were. This was something he was used to when he knocked on the doors of criminals, but he had not expected it here. He put it down to the natural inclination of one who liked to be boss, who called the shots. She wanted to see if she could call the shots with him.
She led them down a hall to the living room, deep pile carpet, matching settee and armchairs, piano in one corner next to a bay window, grandfather clock in the other, an entire wall taken up by rows of books. Beck noted some of the titles: Ancient Rome, King Richard I, Greece and Modernity, but these far too pristine to convince him they were for anything other than appearances.
‘Surely it’s my husband you need to speak to,’ she said, sitting down, her tone that of a school mistress.
‘Yes. But he seems to have disappeared,’ Beck said.
‘I’d hardly call it disappearing. He’s probably gone to see a supplier, something like that.’
‘Perhaps you could help us?’ Claire said.
Mrs Crabby’s eyes narrowed. ‘How so?’
‘Mrs Crabby,’ Beck said. ‘I won’t beat about the bush. Tyre marks found at the scene of the brutal murder of Samantha Power near Kelly’s Forge are consistent with those fitted to the type of vehicle your husband drives.’
Beck spotted a change immediately. Subtle. Like a shadow passing across her eyes.
‘What does that mean?’
‘They are from a Range Rover. That’s what I mean. It’s not difficult.’
‘I don’t like your tone. Nor that sergeant’s yesterday. I demand to be treated with respect.’
Beck raised his eyebrows, held them there. And your point?
‘He’s not the only one to drive a Range Rover you know,’ she said.
‘Why? You mean you drive it too?’
‘No. No. I mean yes. Well… I mean… Of course I drive it… What are you getting at?’
‘Mrs Crabby. Why are you so nervous?’
She ran her hand
s over her face, held them there, then slowly dropped them onto her knees.
‘Has someone been speaking with you?’ Her body folded and she sat back into her chair.
Like a hawk can spot a mouse lurking in high grass from a distance of a mile, so too could Beck spot a gouger, a criminal. And his instinct told him now this woman was no criminal. All he had to do was push. Just a little. He pushed.
‘Yes,’ he lied.
She sat forward again, her head hanging low between her shoulders.
‘I was there,’ her tone without her customary arrogance, meek even. ‘But. But… it was before. I thought, oh, I thought… He didn’t take the Range Rover. I know now he was making deliveries. I thought he was meeting someone. I went there. Thought I’d surprise them. He wasn’t there. I didn’t catch them…’
‘Them,’ Claire said. ‘Who’s them?’
Mrs Crabby dropped her head again. Claire could see the grey roots through the parting along the centre.
‘I don’t know. Them. One or the other.’
‘Mrs Crabby,’ Claire said. ‘Did you catch him with them before? Ever?’
Mrs Crabby opened her hands, stretching out her fingers. She looked down, her answer lay in her silence.
‘So you were there,’ Beck said. ‘What time was this?’
‘Afternoon, around two o’clock…’
‘The same day,’ Beck said, ‘as Samantha Power was killed. You were there. The same day as your husband was seen driving out of Cross Beg. Which was just after the victim was observed driving the exact same route. It’s the last sighting of Samantha Power’s vehicle on CCTV the day she was killed that we have. We have no evidence he was there. But you were. You just admitted it. Are you trying to tell me this is coincidence?’
Mrs Crabby couldn’t hide it; this was the look Beck found usually came when incriminating facts were presented. As they had been now. It was Fear.
The Child Before Page 18
