Cold Steel (11 page)

'I want to see clothes and shoes,' ordered Clarke. Onto the bench slipped a heavily stained T-shirt. Next came tracksuit bottoms and finally two pairs of trainers. There was no mistaking the blood-like stains on one. 'How long to get DNA profiling?' he asked.

'A week, maybe a day earlier if I push it,' Leeson offered.

'Push it.' Clarke squinted at three separate cardboard evidence cylinders. 'Open those.'

The seals on the cylinders were broken and onto the bench slid three knives. One was a long, wide-bladed Bowie knife, the second a narrower, stiletto blade. The third was a pearl-handled flick knife. The stiletto blade had old blood clinging.

'Bit of a connoisseur,' Leeson grunted. 'What's he been up to?'

Clarke didn't answer. He inspected the clothing and trainers, squinting as he got closer, imagining them laid out on the oak-panelled bench of some courtroom in the months ahead.

'What's he done?' pressed Leeson.

'Murder,' said Clarke finally. 'We lifted him for the Marks girl stabbing.'

Leeson's eyebrows shot up. 'The surgeon's daughter?'

Clarke nodded.

'He'll swing for that,' Leeson exclaimed, now caught up in the excitement. 'If John Regan has his way he'll hang.'

Clarke pursed his lips thoughtfully. 'We better make
sure we've got the right man then, Arnie.'

Leeson flicked at the bloodstained shirt and trainers with a pen. 'It's all there. If the DNA matches you have him.'

Clarke's brow furrowed. 'Could you start on this today?'

Leeson started to protest. 'I've a mountain of work waiting out there.'

'I know you have,' agreed Clarke, 'but nothing that'll make as many waves.'

'How'd it go, boss?' Moss Kavanagh waited beside the lift. 'Fine,' lied Clarke. 'All we need is the DNA result.' He looked away, most uneasy. He hadn't seen any cobwebs clinging to Micko Kelly's tracksuit. He hoped forensics would.

15

8.33 am

Dr Frank Clancy had been angry from the moment he'd checked into his office on level three of the Mercy Hospital.

'What do you mean you can't find them?' he barked at the medical records secretary after reading the message left on his desk. FILES ON PATIENTS MARY HYLAND (115CD346) AND JAMES MURPHY (224CD579) CANNOT BE LOCATED.

'I'm sorry, Dr Clancy,' a timid female voice answered, 'but we've searched everywhere. They're just not where they should be.'

Clancy took a deep breath. Relax, you're not gonna get anywhere by shouting.

'Did you check in the DECEASED section?' He tried a more soothing tone this time. 'You know both patients are dead?'

'Oh yes, that's where I've been all morning,' the timid voice explained. 'I've been down there since I came in.'

'Well,' he suggested calmly, 'perhaps they were never put into the DECEASED section. Maybe they're still in the live register?'

'I checked that too, Dr Clancy. They're not there either.' The timid voice now sounded bolder. 'The computer search states they were definitely refiled under DECEASED, but they're not in either section, dead or alive.'

Clancy mulled this over. 'Filed somewhere else by
mistake?' he offered hopefully.

'We're all looking, Dr Clancy, I can assure you. This has never happened before.' Timid voice sounded genuinely concerned. 'It's very strange.'

'Maybe,' Clancy took a final shot in the dark, 'someone has the files out?'

'Well, that's what we think. But the rules on removing files are very strict.'

'Yeah,' grunted Clancy, 'I know that.'

The Mercy Hospital, like every medical institution, had a tight protocol on handling patient files. The ever-present threat of litigation meant no files were ever destroyed, those over ten years without new entries or where the patient had died, were stored in a specially constructed annexe at the back of the hospital. The air temperature in this unit was controlled to prevent damp and decay. Lawyers hungry for past mistakes had been known to dig back as far as twenty years. Not being able to produce a file, or one that was falling apart and practically useless, did not look good in court. All files were protected and preserved. More importantly, access to old or DECEASED records involved filling out a request form, signing for file removal, and a double-check when the file was returned. The pages were counted, numbered and identified. In this way no one could alter records, perhaps putting a better gloss on their clinical or operative notes in advance of an impending law suit. Clancy knew only department heads had keys to the record storage annexe for out-of-hours access.

'Well, keep looking,' he ordered as he hung up.

His morning worsened soon after.

'I just don't understand it, Dr Clancy. I'm sure I had all Harry's tablets safely in the medicine cabinet.' Harold Morell's steady and sound wife stood in the door of his office trying to explain her loss. He listened to her uncertainty with sinking heart. 'I know I had enough until his next out-patient visit, I know it.'

'When was that due?' Clancy asked.

Mrs Morell produced a small black diary and scanned its tatty pages. 'Next month, Friday, 12 June, at ten in the morning,' she read. 'Cardiac out-patients with Dr Speer. She always gives out the tablets.'

Clancy's wandering attention suddenly focused. 'She gives the tablets out herself?' His voice rose. He knew the only drugs dispensed through the hospital came from its pharmacy on the ground floor.

'Oh yes. She gives a prescription for the angina tablets, the pinky-blue capsules, and we get that at our local chemist. His other tablets, little blue ones, we pick them up here. Always just enough for two weeks. I have to come back myself every fortnight and collect the next supply.'

Clancy sat upright as he listened, the office empty apart from himself and Mrs Morell. 'And,' he asked as casually as he could pretend, 'who gives you the tablets each time?'

'Dr Speer herself. She's such a lovely lady, isn't she? Not like some of the consultants you meet here.' Mrs Morell looked around
conspiratorially
, then whispered, 'Some of them think they're God Almighty. Not Dr Speer, she's a real lady.'

'Yes,' murmured Clancy, brow furrowed in thought. 'A real lady indeed.'

'That's why I'm puzzled, Dr Clancy,' Mrs Morell complained. 'I know I had enough on standby. They just weren't there when I looked.'

'You couldn't have put them somewhere else, could you?' The question was more in hope than expectation.

'No, that's definite. I never put them anywhere else.' The woman clutched at her handbag anxiously.

When Mrs Morell left he turned to the computer screen in his office and began typing on the keyboard. First he brought up the file on Mary Hyland, noticing she
was
classified as deceased. Next he searched for personal details and wrote down her address, telephone number and next-of-kin. Then he scrolled through the file, noting she had
been a Mercy Hospital patient for thirty-four years, first attending at the age of twenty-nine with a skin complaint, then again in her fifties with a gall-bladder infection which was successfully treated with antibiotics before she underwent surgery for gall-bladder removal. There was a twelve-year gap before she reattended with chest tightening, 'especially on exercise'. This was to be her penultimate hospital experience. She was referred to the newly opened cardiac unit and came under the care of Dr Linda Speer. Clancy's ability to determine what happened from then on was limited. Only basic details were transferred from the traditional handwritten chart notes: diagnoses, important medical and/or surgical procedures, drug therapies, adverse drug reactions, et cetera. The daily record of clinical progress, observations such as blood pressure, temperature, heart and respiratory rates were still only available in the chart. The missing chart. Still, Clancy was able to access her drug regime and surgical procedures.
Stress ECG, coronary angiogram, bypass surgery recommended.
He scrolled further.
Crescendo anginal episode associated with slightly raised cardiac enzymes. Urgent single vessel bypass: surgeon Dan Marks.
He looked for the operative assistants. Linda Speer's name appeared again. What the hell is she doing assisting at operations? He reread the cardiac notes. Another patient with a pre-operative ischaemic episode forcing an early bypass procedure. Clancy leaned back in his chair wondering at the significance, if any, of the sequence of events. He stared at his wife and two children smiling out from a photograph perched in one corner of his cluttered desk. He was so preoccupied he didn't even blow them the usual kiss.

Aware he was letting his morning ward rounds and medical student teaching slip even later than usual, Clancy returned to the PC screen and accessed the drugs' regime for Mary Hyland. He scrolled past the earlier prescriptions and honed in on her recent admission entry. Capoten 12.5 mgs b.d. and D/N Aspirin 300 mgs daily had
been the only drugs prescribed. Capoten was a standard, uncomplicated treatment for raised blood pressure. D/N Aspirin seems to be Speer's favourite drug, he thought as he wrote down the exact date it had first been used. He noted the time span of only six weeks from Hyland's heart operation and her subsequent readmission with agranulocytosis. Then he closed down the Mary Hyland file and typed in
JAMES MURPHY
,
file number 224CD579 and waited. He inspected his nails as the hard disk whirred. Suddenly a red warning asterisk flashed on the screen, accompanied by
FILE
224CD579
CURRENTLY IN USE
.
Clancy stared at the screen for almost three minutes before repeating the exercise. The same result: red warning asterisk and
FILE
224CD579
CURRENTLY IN USE
.
He stared intently at the screen again, before playing with various combinations of the same patient's name, address and date of birth to access the file. The red warning asterisk and
FILE
224CD579
CURRENTLY IN USE
message flicked up each time. Who the hell's going through that file at
this
moment? And why?

He dropped his head, heart racing and tried to think things through sensibly and logically. What is going on? The two standard charts I'm looking for are suddenly and mysteriously missing, now one of the computer files is being used by someone else in the hospital.
And this is a dead patient!
Alarm bells rang. Feverishly he clicked back onto the Mary Hyland file, typing as fast as his fingers would flick. The red warning asterisk suddenly appeared, followed by
FILE
11
5CD346
CURRENTLY IN USE
.

'Jesus Christ,' he swore out loud. Beads of sweat were forming on his brow. He was just about to wipe at them with the sleeve of his white coat when the telephone rang.

'Dr Clancy. We found those files.'

The news threw him momentarily and he listened into the earpiece without speaking.

'Hello? Hello, is that Dr Clancy?' The timid-voiced girl was back again.

'Yes, yes. Sorry, I'm terribly sorry,' Clancy mumbled,
his mind in overdrive. 'I was working on some tests,' he lied.

'Sorry to disturb you, doctor, it's just you seemed so keen to get these files I thought I'd ring you immediately.'

'No, no. I'm delighted you rang. Where were they anyway?'

There was an embarrassed pause. 'Down in the annexe all the time. Someone had pushed them so far back I couldn't see them for ages. It was only when we took a whole shelf down that I spotted them.'

'But why,' Clancy wondered out loud, immediately regretting his words, 'would those be the only two files pushed out of sight?'

Timid voice didn't answer. Then: 'I don't really know, Dr Clancy. I thought you'd be glad we found them at all.' She sounded aggrieved and Clancy apologised immediately for his discourtesy.

'Look, I'm terribly sorry. Of course I'm delighted. Thank you very much for all your work.'

'Shall I bring them up to you?'

Clancy glanced at his watch and groaned. He was more than an hour behind. 'No. Do you have a safe for storing documents?'

'Yes.'

'Put them in there until I get down later. Don't let anyone else touch them, okay?'

'Right, doctor,' agreed timid voice.

Clancy stood up, straightened his tie in the reflection of the glass separating office from the wards, then grabbed a pile of charts and set off to start his rounds. As he left the red warning asterisk on his computer screen disappeared.

16

10.52 am

'Look at me, Michael.
' The voice had a siren-like, entreating timbre.

The cell in which Micko Kelly lay slumped was ten feet long by six feet wide. There was a single hard bench on which to lie but nothing else inside the tiny room. No blanket, no pillow, not even a thread on the mottled marble floor. There wasn't as much as a bucket for a toilet. The walls were ten feet from floor to ceiling and one held a two-foot square barred window a few inches below ceiling level. The glass was of thick, shatter-proof variety. A single light fitting recessed into the centre of the ceiling was positioned such that no one could access it. In the past prisoners had been known to electrocute themselves and the newer fittings made such attempts impossible. An eight-foot high, three-foot wide steel door was the only opening to the corridor. There was no handle on the inside of the door. A spy-hole was strategically located at eye-level so that warders could squint inside, ensuring the occupant was present and alive and not attempting suicide. The walls of the cell were covered with graffiti, names and dates of previous prisoners' incarcerations and their comments on warders, gaol and society generally. Hardly a word was spelled correctly. Profanities were the norm. Everything was
a fucken
this or due to
a fucken
that. There was high praise for ecstasy, crack cocaine, scag and uppers
and downers. The cells had held many connoisseurs of the drugs' trade in Dublin and beyond. One scrawl reflected a Jamaican on remand for smuggling.

On the door, about ten inches below the spy-hole, an elaborate drawing of Jesus Christ had been created. Since all prisoners were searched and anything sharp or capable of writing with confiscated, this etching was remarkable as much for its existence as its detail. The style was traditional: Jesus with long, shoulder-length hair, eyes subdued and compliant, looking slightly down and to the right. He wore a thick beard and moustache. His lips were rather thin, his eyebrows bushy. A crown of thorns rested firmly on his head and drops of blood had been scratched to mark where thorn tips pierced scalp. One hand, the right, had been etched in a forgiving pose and in the left chest area a heart with a cross on top had been lovingly created. Another crown of thorns circled the cross and the heart could be clearly seen bleeding as well. The final image, though scratched and shaky and overshot here and there, was excellent. It was the face of a suffering, yet forgiving Jesus Christ. Underneath the letters
OUR SAVIER
had been scratched. The total space of this creation was about eighteen inches square. It had obviously been there for some time as other graffiti had been painted over, their scrawling and scratches now barely visible. But the image of the suffering Jesus had been left untouched.

'Michael, look at me. I have a message for you.'
The voice was more feminine than male, soft and beseeching, gentle and seductive.

'Check that bastard every five minutes,' the duty sergeant ordered from the moment the steel door had slammed shut on Kelly's back. 'Nothing's to happen to him, understand?' Three warders assigned to level two of the holding centre nodded. They weren't sure who exactly was in the cell or what he had done but the commotion that greeted his
arrival warned they were dealing with a 'celebrity'. They agreed to check the holding cell every three minutes. Prisoners had rather ingenious ways of committing suicide between five-minute checks.

'What's he doing?' asked the sergeant after the first squint through the spy-hole.

'Nothing much, just curled up in a ball in the corner. He's hardly moving at all.'

'But he is moving?' The question reflected his immediate alarm.

'Definitely. I could see him running his hands through his hair.'

The sergeant heaved a sigh of relief and entered the exact time and observations in a large log book. The entry was in longhand, wide loops and swirls written with a fountain pen.

Three minutes later: 'He's yawning a lot and sneezing, but still stuck in that corner.'

Three minutes later: 'He's picking at his clothes as if he was pulling balls of fluff off them.'

Had he moved apart from that?

'Nah, still stuck in that corner.'

Three minutes later: 'He must have a bad cold or something, he's sneezing a lot and his eyes are streaming.'

The duty sergeant was not impressed.

'Fuck him.'

'Look at me, Michael. This is your Lord God, Jesus Christ. I have a message for you.'

Micko Kelly's first sign of drug-induced insanity was the voice inside his head. He shook it from side to side, trying to rid himself of the utterance, frightened to look up. He had seen the image etched on the cell door immediately he had been thrown inside but had not looked towards it since. He pulled his legs against his chest and drew his arms closer
and tighter over his ears and head.
Fuck off, fuck off!

'He's up and wandering around the cell, gibbering to himself.'

The duty sergeant entered the observation. 'He's no shoelaces or anything?' he asked anxiously.

'There's nothing in there to hang himself with,' the warder replied. 'He's no notion by the state of him. He had a big stupid grin on his face when I looked.'

This annoyed the duty sergeant no end, aware of the charges being prepared against his prisoner. 'The bastard,' he growled as his loops and swirls finished.

'Michael, the devil is coming. He is outside this room. You must not let him take you.'

Kelly was now staring with a fixed fascination at the image of the suffering Christ. He
could
actually see the blood, bright red, dripping from the piercing crown of thorns on head and heart. He
could
actually see the thin lips of Jesus Christ move, the thick eyebrows bob up and down. He
could
actually hear the siren voice, the soft lilting, feminine beguiling, entreating and beseeching words. And he
could
see, clearly and powerfully, the piercing gaze of the suffering Christ as the eyes lifted from their downward stare to hold his own gaze. Micko Kelly was having an
experience,
the drug abuser's worst experience, hallucinations.

'The devil is coming to take you to hell. You will roast and no one will hear you. I can hear his footsteps. I can smell him. Don't let him take you, Michael.
'

'I won't, I fuckin' well won't,' screamed Kelly as he sweated and shook and stared wild-eyed at the cell door. Goose pimples formed along his arms and legs and body. He heard the spy-hole slip over and noticed an eye squinting in at him. It was the devil's eye. The devil had come to take him. The devil was looking at him, sizing him up, planning how to snatch him. 'You won't fuckin' well get me, you fucker.' His screams penetrated the cell door and the watching warder began to worry about his charge. He went back to the duty sergeant to report.

'When the devil comes you must kill him.'
The lips moved rapidly, the drops of blood poured like rain, the intense stare of the suffering Christ penetrated. The image left the cell door and entered the space between door and corner where Kelly lay sweating and shaking. The forgiving hand was now shaking violently, threateningly. The holding cell began to feel as hot as the fires of hell.

'When the devil comes you must kill him.'

'I will,' whispered Kelly, a feeling of impending doom sweeping his body like a branch in a violent storm. 'I'll kill the fucker before he gets me.' His body shook and sweat poured off his brow and face and trunk. His heart pounded inside his chest. His nose was blocked and he sneezed repeatedly. His eyes were streaming.

'The three of you better open up and check him. Make sure he doesn't bite, he's on drugs.'

The warders exchanged tired, resigned glances. 'That's all I need,' one complained angrily.

They donned protective gloves and marched along the corridor. From adjoining cells they could hear curses and shouts and crying, but nothing like the baying coming from Kelly's room. The sound was like that of a wounded animal, an animal caught in a steel-toothed trap, waiting to be snatched by a hunter. It was like the howl of an animal gnawing through its own flesh and bone to release its paw. The warders stopped and listened.

'Sounds like some mad dog,' one of them grunted.

'The devil is coming. Kill him.'

The noise of keys in the lock alerted and Kelly prepared to do battle. He crouched down on his hunkers in the furthermost corner from the door. The toes of his feet coiled, ready to pounce. He gripped the side of the bench with his left hand for support. The devil wouldn't take him without a fight.

'Get up, you mangy bastard,' the first warder into the cell ordered. He took two steps inside, his colleagues only inches behind. He noticed the froth on Kelly's lips, the wild stare in his eyes, the insanity. He recognised the features seconds too late.

The image Kelly saw was of a cloven-hoofed, black-faced demon with horns on the front and sides of his head. There was fire pouring from the demon's eyes, his tongue a coil of flame. The demon was laughing as his wrinkled chicken-skinned, sharp-pointed claws reached out.

'Get up, you bastard,' ordered the warder.

'He is the devil. Kill him.'

Kelly sprang like a leopard after prey. His long fingernails raked the warder's face, his teeth sank into bare skin folds where the shirt collar lay loosely open.

'Aaagghh!' the warder screamed, flailing furiously at the lunging figure. 'Aaagghh!' he howled again as he felt nails rip flesh from his face and teeth sink into his neck. He felt the warmth of his own blood streaming down his neck as he slumped onto the marble floor.

'Get off, you bastard,' shouted the second warder as he tried to prise Kelly's jaws open. But Kelly held firm. He had the devil in his mouth, could feel fire quench between his teeth, feel relief as the demon's strength ebbed in his grip. He felt the serpent convulse. As baton blows rained on his head and shoulders, the insane Micko Kelly looked up at his tormentors. The bloodstained froth around his mouth, the wild staring eyes, shocked. There was no mistaking the expression in the mad, glazed, yellow-tainted eyes. It was of an animal with prey locked in its jaws, savouring its dying moments. Kelly only slackened his bite to laugh, an animal-like hysterical wail that echoed along the outside corridor, silencing every cell.

'Sweet Jesus,' the duty sergeant couldn't believe his eyes. The general alarm had been sounded and from all corners of the gaol warders rushed towards level two. Their first sight of trouble was an unconscious,
blood-covered and still bleeding uniformed figure being dragged away. 'Oh sweet, merciful Jesus.'

Two warders stood over Kelly's cowering body, batons poised for another onslaught. He had crawled back into a corner, mouth and face covered in blood, lips frothing and foaming. Blood and flesh clung to his nails. He was laughing and crying intermittently, running his hands up and down his legs and arms as if checking they were still attached to his body. He giggled nervously, then his expression hardened when he spotted the sergeant. Another serpent had entered the room.

'The devil is back.'

There was barely enough time to slam the steel door shut.

11.17am

'I don't believe it.' The voice at the other end of the mobile phone was agitated and shouting. 'Slow down, for Christ's sake,' Moss Kavanagh pleaded.

The squad car was stuck in late-morning traffic along Dublin's quays. In the back seat Jim Clarke was oblivious to the conversation. In the front Tony Molloy stared at the back of a bread van. 'What's the matter,' he asked, half listening.

Kavanagh held the car's progress in a reasonably straight line with an elbow, flagging with his other hand not to interrupt. Molloy transferred his frown from the bread van.

'Who's there?' snapped Kavanagh. More agitated shouts came down the line. 'I don't believe it.' The voice at the other end suggested it was time he did. 'Where are they taking him?' More shouts. Kavanagh flicked on the car siren and pulled out to overtake a row of banked-up cars. He swerved narrowly past the edge of an open drain, almost knocking a workman off his feet, ignoring the shaking fists and curses.

In the back seat, for the first time, Jim Clarke began to pay attention. 'What's up, Mossy?'

Kavanagh glanced into the rear-view mirror. 'You're not going to like this, boss.'

The prison doctor had been shocked when he pushed past the group gathered outside Micko Kelly's holding cell. The first two warders were pacing nervously, gripping and ungripping their bloodstained batons. Four others stood at the ready, equally agitated. All jackets were off in the heat of the confined space, ties pulled down, collars open. They waited at the open door. Inside the cell was the duty sergeant, a large man with straining belly and turkey chin. He mopped repeatedly at his brow, speaking slowly and gently. On the hard bench sat Kelly. His ankles were manacled and chained with only twelve inches movement between them. His hands were ensnared to a thick, leather belt that had been pulled tightly around his waist. The back of the belt was clipped to a bolt hole on the bench. The end result immobilised him totally. Over his face a leather mask had been pulled and straps from the mask were attached to the leather waistband. He had little head movement. The leather mask was a thonged open-lace type creation. Behind the thongs, darting wild eyes flickered.