Cold Steel (7 page)

'Was she raped?'

'Nothing obvious.'

'Anything more?' Nolan asked.

'That's as much as you're getting, Barry. There's plenty more, but it'll have to come later.'

'Ah Mossy…'

Kavanagh flicked off the mobile phone. He hadn't mentioned needle-tracks. Deliberately he hadn't mentioned Tony Molloy's discovery.

'Are those her clothes?'

Molloy had arrived as the autopsy was ending. He hated everything to do with the morgue, the sights, the smells, the sounds, the confrontations with death. He usually busied himself with routine work and had this worked out to a fine art, slipping in when he knew most of the cutting and sawing and weighing of organs was over. Even then he spent the time poking at forensic material.

'Are those her clothes?' he repeated, his usual worried
features deepening.

Jennifer Marks' pants, skirt and bloodstained T-shirt lay on a spare autopsy table. With the tip of a biro he pushed at a grass-stained Nike trainer. 'Was she wearing these?'

Noel Dunne ignored the questions and continued scribbling on his clipboard. One of the white-suited forensics, a tall balding man with pock-marked face, moved closer.

'Yeah, that's all we brought back.'

Molloy wasn't happy. His nose was within an inch of the black skirt, scrutinising it, then he moved to the T-shirt, then to the trainers, then back to the skirt.

'She certainly wasn't wearing those at school.' He related his visit to the convent, what he'd learned, what he felt he hadn't learned and what he'd sensed. He pointed his biro at the collection of clothes and trainers. 'They're very strict about uniforms. There's no way she would have been allowed into classes in that gear.'

One of the detectives flicked through a notepad. 'She didn't go home after school. Maybe she changed somewhere?'

Clarke rested his crutch on a bench and leaned his back against it for comfort.

'Everything that was found is here. There is no other clothing,' he said.

Molloy poked at the skirt with his pen, turning it over, then inside out. 'What's this?'

The tone of the question stopped everyone. One by one they gathered. The inside hem of Jennifer Marks' short black skirt had been cut right round. Traces of blood, now brownish-rust in colour, clung to the rent stitching. In one area a sharp-edged stain was visible.

'Get me the knife,' ordered Clarke and the hemp-handled murder weapon was slid out of the evidence cylinder. With gloved hand Clarke placed its tip over the stain. It matched perfectly. No one spoke for a moment.

'What was he looking for?' Noel Dunne asked the question running through everyone's mind.

8

7.12 pm

'Have ye any scag? Come on, Jimmy, I'm dyin'. I need a hit.'

Micko Kelly was back on the streets. The ache in his limbs and belly grew by the minute, the craving even faster. He felt disorientated and unsteady yet his legs carried him towards the usual haunts. The streets were busy as shoppers and drinkers lingered in the warm evening sunshine.

'Waddye lookin' for, Micko?' A weasel-faced youth in dirty denims with cloth cap pulled firmly down on his head shuffled nervously up and down the pavement outside a pub in Dublin's Moore Street. He held a mobile phone under his jacket.

'Scag, Jimmy. I'm dyin', Jimmy, come on, don't fuck me about. Have ye any scag?' He flashed a knife handle tucked into his tracksuit waistband. 'I'll carve ye if ye fuck me about.'

Jimmy backed off. The handle looked bloodstained. 'How much have you got?'

Kelly pulled a wad of recently mugged twenty-pound notes from a side pocket. 'Gimme a hundred.'

Jimmy dialled, then walked away, mumbling into the phone. Within ten minutes a lean, tough-looking denim-clad thug with four silver rings in both ears strode straight up to Micko Kelly and stuffed a brown paper bag under his
left arm. As fast as his shaking hands would allow, Kelly passed five twenty-pound notes over.

'Yer lookin' great, Micko,' lied Narko, the dealer. 'Need anythin' else?'

'Nah,' growled Kelly. He began his tortured journey back to Hillcourt Mansions.

'Waddit you give him?' asked weasel-faced Jimmy, head bobbing from side to side as he checked for police. His bloodshot eyes blinked repeatedly, unaccustomed to the brightness of the sunlight. Jimmy preferred the dark.

'Fuck all. A bit of scag and a ton of bakin' soda.'

Kelly had been sold the hitter's nightmare: white powder containing about three per cent heroin and the rest sodium bicarbonate.

'Did ye see the sight of him?' said Narko. 'He's on his way out. No point wastin' good scag on him, he's headin' to the moon big time.'

Jimmy whined. 'He'll fuckin' kill me when he finds out.'

Narko grinned and a mouth of rotten teeth showed. 'Don't worry, Jimmy, I look after me customers, don't I? Micko doesn't look like he's gonna be a big spender much longer. Time to find new markets, time to look for new clients.'

Weasel-faced Jimmy loved that sort of talk, it made him feel important, like a real businessman. He smiled. The smile didn't improve his looks. Then he remembered the knife and began worrying. The smile disappeared. 'I'm tellin' you, that's one mean bastard. He'll come after us when he finds out.'

Narko spat onto the footpath. 'Fuck him, let him try.'

Kelly barely made it back to his room, passing three other junkies along the corridors eyeing him up and down, wondering whether he was 'carrying'. They let him pass as he started to heave and vomit. Inside he flushed tap water into one of the syringes he'd pulled out of the waste bin, trying to clean dried blood away. The urgency of the fix
took over and he pulled the brown paper bag from under his waistband and set up a hit. His hands shook violently. He sensed within minutes Jimmy and Narko had sold him shite.

'The fuckers, the fuckers. I'll kill the bastards.' But the pains were coming fast, his head was already covered in sweat so Micko pulled all the syringes out of the waste bin and set up as many fixes as he could. He knew there was some scag in the powder and knew he hadn't the strength to look for more.

One by one seven syringes full of a dirty-looking fluid disappeared into a vein, the only one that hadn't collapsed. He staggered over to the hand basin to splash water on to his face and glanced into the broken mirror. His dank hair was soaked, his face drawn, his eyes showed a tinge of yellow behind the bloodshot veins.

He felt awful. He looked a wreck. He cursed viciously and angrily, swearing he'd kill Jimmy and Narko when he had strength back. He even sat down and chose a wide-bladed knife, practising his lunges on the mattress. Stuffing began falling out.

'That looks like him, righ' enough.'

At police headquarters a photofit image was shaping up. The pizza delivery boy was being made to feel as important as he ever would in his life, sitting at a desk surrounded by seven of the investigating team while the many variations of a face were offered.

'Nah, not that, thinner,' or 'Yeah, that's good, maybe longer hair,' and 'Ah Christ, nah. Nah, not like that at all. Nah, it was more like above his left eyebrow, know worra mean?' A nicotine-stained finger shot up to the exact spot above his own eyebrow. The smell of cooking fat and the slow, deliberate way he was milking the occasion irritated. Behind his back a fist threatened to take his head off at the shoulders.

'Have yiz a fag?' A reluctant and begrudged Sweet
Afton was offered and the full packet taken. 'I think we're gettin' there,' proclaimed the delivery boy as he lay back in his chair, blowing smoke rings into the air. 'I think we're gettin' there. Defin'ly.' He grinned at everyone. 'Defin'ly.'

Just after eight thirty the final image was faxed to the news desk of the national television station in Donnybrook on the southside of Dublin. Page two of the fax contained a detailed description. As the delivery boy made his way back on to the streets, fifty pounds richer for his efforts, the editor of the
Nine O'Clock News
set aside an extra three minutes for the murder report to include the photofit picture and description.

'Are you absolutely sure about this?' she double-checked with Jim Clarke over the phone.

He sensed her concern, acutely aware that on one previous occasion a photofit had been flashed onto the nation's screens accompanied by the wrong background briefing.

'This is a strong lead,' Clarke confirmed. 'The man was seen by eight different witnesses heading away from the scene of the crime. He was also seen in the company of the victim around the time we believe she was murdered.'

In fact two separate sightings had been reported by residents of a nearby apartment block. Each had heard voices, then shouts and curses, coming from the park late the previous evening. A man had now been sighted
inside
the park,
in
the company of Jennifer Marks
and
around the estimated time of death. This suspect's trail had been followed from Sandymount, through Ringsend, then along Pearse Street before disappearing down one of its many side alleys towards the River Liffey.

On his flea-infested bed in Hillcourt Mansions, Micko Kelly was gulping down methadone dregs and swallowing the last two Rohypnol tablets he could find. In desperation he topped up this multi-pharmacy with a number of unknown tablets stolen from another junkie he'd once
discovered lying in a coma. By the time he lapsed into an hallucinatory stupor, still drawing on a joint, Kelly's blood was carrying heroin and its legal substitute methadone, as well as Rohypnol, Valium and cannabis. He had also rubbed traces of cocaine powder off old tin foil along his gums.

Micko Kelly knew how to enjoy himself.

'Police have confirmed the body found in Sandymount Park early this morning is that of missing schoolgirl Jennifer Marks.' The sombre-faced newsreader sat upright in his chair behind the wide
Nine O'Clock News
desk. 'The eighteen-year-old was apparently stabbed to death sometime around ten o'clock last night and police are anxious to contact a man seen in the vicinity at that time.' The photofit flashed onto the nation's screens. 'He is described as being between six foot and six foot two inches in height, of slim build, with long dark hair that covers his ears and shoulders. He is between thirty and thirty-two years old. His face is thin and he has a tattoo above his left eyebrow. When last seen he was wearing a white T-shirt, black track-suit bottoms and dirty white trainers. The T-shirt may have been stained with blood. He was last seen running in the immediate north of the city along Pearse Street. If anyone knows this man or knows of his whereabouts, they should contact their nearest police station or the incident room at police headquarters so he can be eliminated from the inquiry.'

The news item continued, outlining Jennifer Marks' background, her father's medical career and Dream Team appointment. The piece ended with immediate comments from colleagues at the Mercy Hospital accompanied by publicity photographs of Dan Marks in operating theatre greens talking to grateful-looking patients. For many, Ireland's image as a low-crime environment was shattered that night for ever. Here was a top cardiac surgeon, encouraged to leave Boston and head up a heart foundation,
now with his only offspring brutally murdered. Everyone wondered how the government would respond.

John Regan, minister for health reacted immediately. As the news bulletin ended he picked up the telephone in his office at government buildings and began dialling. His face was white with fury and he gripped the handpiece so fiercely he felt it might shatter. With his free hand he flicked the remote control, turning off the small TV tucked in one corner of the room.

'Did you see the news?'

At the other end of the line Paddy Dempsey, Minister for Justice, turned down the sound on his TV set. 'Yeah, that you, John?'

'This is a disaster for the government.'

'I know, I know.'

'We better move fast. I'll call a press conference, get all the main movers together. Could you be there?'

'Absolutely. I'll start ringing and get the usual crowd to turn up. We'll present a united and determined front.'

'Good man, Paddy. I'm going over to Dan Marks right now to let him know how shocked we all are. I'll assure him the full weight of the Justice Department will be brought to bear on this case. We'll crucify the bastard who killed this girl.'

'Keep your cool,' advised the Minister for Justice. 'Don't say anything rash.' Regan had a reputation for sudden and violent outbursts. He'd been cautioned before about shooting from the hip.

Regan hung up and immediately began dialling five of his closest media contacts. There was no point wasting a good photo opportunity.

9

10.05 pm

Moss Kavanagh drove Jim Clarke home to his house in the Dublin suburb of Crumlin after the
Nine O'Clock News
bulletin finished. Kavanagh was very upbeat about the sightings of the bloodstained suspect and Clarke tried to respond but the pain in his leg was too intense. He found it difficult to concentrate and ended up scrunching four analgesics inside thirty minutes. When he let himself inside the front door of his small red-bricked terrace house the smell of cooking greeted, making his stomach rumble. He felt hungry for the first time even though he hadn't eaten since breakfast. The many painkillers he'd had to swallow throughout the day often dulled his appetite and he was a stone in weight lighter since the bombing.

'You look drained, Jim' said his wife Maeve, a small brown-haired woman six years younger than her husband. She scanned his face anxiously.

'I feel it.' His edginess was obvious.

'Katy,' Maeve shouted over her shoulder as she tugged the uniform off his back. 'Your dad's home. Give me a hand.' The sixteen-year-old with long ash-blonde curls always eased her father's tension with a winning smile.

'Hi, dad,' she greeted with a peck on his cheek. 'How do you like my hair?' She was nearly as tall as her father and pirouetted in front of him, grabbing his uniform as it was
thrown at her. 'Didn't cost much,' she added hastily, aware that expensive hairstyles were frowned upon. Her father had come from farming stock where a haircut was a pudding bowl over the head and rapid, jerky snips from a pair of badly sharpened scissors in their mother's hands. 'Nora Mallon did it as a nixer.'

'Katy,' her mother scolded, 'don't annoy your father with that nonsense.'

The light banter, the ritual of helping off with the uniform eased Clarke back into family life, enabling him to put aside the tragedies and horror of his work, and cope better with his damaged limb.

'I'll get the hairdryer.' Katy skipped up the stairs allowing her parents a few moments intimacy. They hugged briefly but tightly, their contact important, a couple who had nearly lost each other. They knew emotional pain deeper than most and grasped at any comforting physical contact, frightened it might never come again.

'Any news? Do you know who that fella is we saw on the TV you're all looking for?'

'Not yet.'

As she grilled with questions Maeve led her husband to an armchair in the front living room and eased him down. A TV with the volume on low rested awkwardly on a small table in the corner. Maeve helped him slip off his heavy navy trousers, baring bony knees, exposing his scarred and deformed leg. Olive oil had been warming for about an hour and lay in a baking bowl.

'Katy, did you find it? It's in the back bedroom.'

The young girl skipped down the stairs and bounced in, hairdryer held high. 'Got it first go. You might make it easier and leave it in the same place.'

Clarke grinned at her spunkiness and winked. Katy winked back and plugged the dryer in.

'How's the leg?' she asked, frowning as she noticed purple blotching along the scarring. 'God, it looks awful blue tonight, dad.'

Her mother shot a look that would kill. 'I'll get your father's dinner, you look after his leg.'

Katy nibbled her lower lip anxiously. 'Yes, mum.' She wondered where to start. She flicked the dryer on and played the warm breeze up and down, turning the heat up full as she watched a healthier pink colour slowly push away purple. 'Is it hurting?'

Clarke was squinting at the headlines on the evening paper. He hated looking at the leg, secretly wishing it had been amputated, resenting how it had taken over so much of his life, bitter its pain was twisting his personality.

'No, that feels much better.' He glanced at his watch. 'Just another two minutes then you can rub in the oil.'

A tray was set on his lap and a glass of white wine stuck in his hand. As he sipped and felt the warm glow, Clarke relaxed. He was hungry and felt quite pleased with himself. I'm still alive. You bastards are dead and I'm still alive. He laughed silently as he recognised the thoughts. I'm still alive.

As the ritual of heating and oiling his leg ended, the pain ceased. Clarke mixed gravy into his potatoes, cut up chicken, added a few carrots and peas and took a mouthful. He sipped on the wine and chewed contentedly. A blanket was thrown over his legs and Katy sat at his feet, one arm resting on the good knee, while Maeve sat behind massaging the back of his neck. They watched a late news bulletin on Sky and discussed the report on Jennifer Marks' murder. Katy laughed with delight when a clip momentarily caught her father in a head-to-head with the forensic team.

'God, dad, you look very important.'

Clarke pinched the side of her arm making her yelp and there followed a good-humoured shouting match between all three. It was much the same every night, almost a ritual. Clarke and his wife dreaded the day when someone would come and take their daughter away. They hoped it would be a friend and in love, not an enemy and full of hate.

Later as he lay in bed with his leg propped under three pillows, Clarke cursed the men who had destroyed his life. His restlessness was such that he slept alone always, needing the extra space to thresh about. Pain usually kept him awake for hours, brooding, praying, plotting. He found it hard to switch off and often watched the early morning light filter through the bedroom curtains. He turned over and stared at the digital clock. Outside, in the distance, a burglar alarm beeped intermittently.

'Run, Jimmie, run. Come on, ye boy ye, run.' Recently his disturbed dreams carried him back to the family farm in north-west Ireland. He was the middle of five boys, but the one with the strongest and fastest legs. 'Come on, Jimmie, come on! You're well in front, come on!' He'd won so many races, cross country, sprints, middle and long distance. He'd even learned the skills of hop, skip and jump and in one memorable year represented his school in seven separate events. 'There's no doubt about it,' his mother had laughed when he came home with a clutch of medals. 'You're the fastest thing in the parish.' They nicknamed him Roadrunner.

He was fourteen years old the day his father walked him proudly along the wet country roads from the bus stop in the village to their farmhouse. One hand rested on his son's shoulder, the other held a gold medal, a trophy won at a national event against stiff competition. In his dreams he relived that homecoming, the delighted shouts in the kitchen, his mother's excited tears. Then a dart of pain would waken, bringing cursed reality. He always tried to go back to sleep immediately, wanting to jump into that warm, deep pool of his youth, recapture happier days, feel the strength in his legs. But the ache denied escape and he would massage the scarred flesh for comfort. He cursed the murdering bastards who had plotted his death. In blacker moments he cursed the doctors for saving his life. At the Mercy Hospital he'd turned his face to the wall and
willed an eternal sleep. It was only Katy's sobbing and anguished voice that brought back the fight in him.

'You've got a child to rear,' Maeve begged one morning. 'We've got our girl to look after. Quit this self-pity, stop wishing you were dead. Fight back.
Get the bastards.'

He'd never heard such anger in her voice.

Getting the bastards became his motivating force and he left hospital sooner than the doctors advised. But revenge was foiled by other thugs, his attackers taken out elsewhere and Clarke had to channel his energies into work. He quickly gained a reputation as a man driven. He followed all leads, looked up every dark alley, peered into the depths of every criminal activity. He wanted results.

As he lay on his bed, restless for comfort, the image of Jennifer Marks' body lying on the cold white-marble slab flashed in his mind. She was only a slip of a girl, he thought, barely eighteen. It won't be long before Katy's that old. God, what'll
she
be up to then? Nothing, he consoled himself. Nothing much anyway, her mother has her well reared. She's a good girl. Maeve is a good woman, a good wife and a good mother. Katy is a credit to her. He remembered Noel Dunne bending over, inspecting the stiff left arm, 'Needle tracks here.' What if she
was
injecting herself? She was still only on the threshold of life. She hadn't done anything to deserve such a dreadful death.

Some bastard had snuffed a young life. He'd have to be caught. He'd have to pay.

From that moment Jim Clarke took Jennifer Marks' murder personally.

He reached over and pulled the mobile phone beside him, his only bedfellow most nights. He dialled and waited.

'Hello?'

'This is Superintendent Clarke.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Who's that?'

'Officer Grimes.'

'Are you at Sandymount Park?'

'I'm in a patrol car alongside it this minute.'

'Anything happening?'

'No, sir, the area's still screened off. There's been no one up or down the road all night.'

'You sure?'

'Certain.' Clarke knew by the sharpness of the answer Grimes wasn't sure.

'Check again. Get details of anyone who goes near that area.'

'Right, sir.'

'Do it now, right away.'

'Yes, sir.'

Clarke pressed the OFF button and waited. He watched five minutes tick away on the clock, then redialled. Grimes answered again.

'Did you see anything?'

'No.' The voice echoed surprise.

'Get out and look again.'

'Right away, sir.'

Clarke lay back on his bed and willed sleep forward. He lifted both arms up in front, clasped hands and then slowly let them drop at a ninety-degree angle from his body. It was one of his relaxation exercises. As they settled on the bed the tips of his right fingers brushed against the aluminium crutch where it rested against the bedside table. Without looking, he locked fingers around the frame and lifted it so that the hand grip was just above his face. He squinted in the gloom until he could see tips of tiny bolts at the edge where grip abutted main frame. He held the frame firm in his left hand and then slipped his right hand along the hand grip until the tips of two fingers felt the bolts. He pressed and turned at the same time. The hand grip moved slightly. The fingertips left the bolts and the hand now fastened around the grip firmly. He turned it one hundred and eighty degrees and pulled back. The grip separated from the main frame. Fingertips moved to two
separate bolts on the side and pressed. With a sudden 'shush' a four-inch, double-edged, sharp-pointed blade shot out. He admired the steel, turning it around, catching light from the street, watching it glint and dance. Satisfied the spring mechanism was working he reversed the manoeuvre and the blade disappeared back inside the hand grip. It was then reattached to the aluminium main frame, turned until it snapped firmly into place and the crutch returned to the bedside locker.

He peered at it before closing his eyes. It looked like a crutch, nothing more, nothing less. In the gloom he smiled. For a man who'd been caught once and nearly killed, Clarke was taking no chances on a second encounter. He knew his reliance on the crutch put him at a disadvantage in any violent confrontation. He'd had it specially modified and the blade inserted on a tight, strong steel spring mechanism. 'My little surprise,' he'd grinned when the final result was handed over. 'My own cold steel.'

On the road alongside Sandymount Park, Officer Grimes longed for the comfort of his squad car. He was tall and thin and his uniform hung loosely, barely keeping him warm. He cursed silently as he peered across the railings at the darkness inside, noticing the crime scene incident tapes fluttering gently in the late breeze. The air was now cool and lights from a nearby block of flats threw an orange glow along one side. He walked slowly up and down, yawning and stretching, squinting at his watch, wishing his shift was over. He stopped and leaned against the railings, allowing his weary eyes to peer into the darkness. For the briefest of seconds he thought he saw a shadowy figure move among the undergrowth.

He dismissed it as a trick of the lights.