Cold Steel (8 page)

10

9.30 am,

Wednesday, 13 May.

'Okay, settle down. Let's get started.'

It was the first briefing of the day. Jim Clarke looked tired and drawn and tried to drag his straggling hair into shape as he waited for silence. He was in full uniform, trousers freshly pressed by Katy before she'd left for school, jacket carefully brushed by Maeve. Moss Kavanagh stood to his right, big hands resting against the back of a chair, mobile phone in the OFF mode. He had discarded his jacket and was in a short-sleeved shirt.

'Some information's come in over night and it looks like we have a strong lead.'

A murmur of satisfaction rippled. The investigating team of twenty detectives was squeezed into a small room, some gathered around a table, others with backs resting against the walls. It was uncomfortably warm. Behind Clarke sat Tony Molloy, on his lap three thick, bound books. Behind yet again and slightly to the left sat the Minister for Health, John Regan. Beside him was the Minister for Justice, Paddy Dempsey. Regan's Hugo Boss suit made Dempsey's tweeds look like a bad buy from a car boot sale. Their features contrasted just as starkly, Regan handsome and confident while Dempsey had thick lips, broad nose and coarse skin. Police Commissioner Donal Murphy looked on from the side. A one-time army commandant, he was a tall man with tight grey crew cut and
dressed in full navy blue uniform with gold-braided epaulettes.

'I'm going ahead without Dr Dunne,' announced Clarke.

Puzzled looks were exchanged. Noel Dunne, the state forensic pathologist, rarely sat in on murder conferences. However the presence of the politicians and commissioner suggested this was no ordinary investigation. A flipboard was stuck in a corner with
Jennifer Marks
scrawled in thick black felt-tip on top of the first page. Underneath crime-scene photographs were pinned. A map of the area scored with red marker highlighted Sandymount Park, undergrowth and body position. A portrait photo was stuck with blue tack to the bottom right-hand corner.

'Jennifer Marks went missing the night before last,' began Clarke. 'When she didn't turn up by seven thirty her mother rang for help.' He paused, very much aware the main movers in the subsequent train of events were in the room. 'The duty officer suggested two hours late for an eighteen-year-old wasn't that unusual,' he went on, 'and advised she give it a bit longer.' Murmurs of agreement rippled. 'Mrs Marks wasn't happy and rang her husband. He rang his own contacts and a search was ordered around ten o'clock.'

'Can I come in on this?' John Regan stood up suddenly. 'I'd like it put on record that Dan Marks rang me,' he snapped, 'and I immediately rang the Minister for Justice. Thanks to him a search party was mobilised. Just as well too, in light of what was discovered.' He sat down sharply, his expression reflecting his anger. The designer clothes and bright tie belied his black mood.

A door at the back opened and in bustled the burly figure of the state pathologist, Noel Dunne. He had given in to the unseasonable warm weather and was dressed in a light linen jacket over navy slacks. He acknowledged the audience, then squeezed beside those clustered around the bottom of the table. He held a brown manila folder in his right hand.

Clarke used the interruption to press ahead, ignoring Regan's outburst. 'We've had a number of sightings of the man described on page eleven.' Heads turned towards neighbours with knowing glances. 'You can see his photofit.' All eyes switched to the charcoal and pencil image. 'One name keeps cropping up in this,' said Clarke, settling a collection of faxes on the table. The room fell silent. The government ministers strained forward to hear better. 'A convicted killer and drug addict called Michael Leo Kelly, better known as Micko Kelly.'

Kelly's most recent mug-shot was now stuck beside the photofit. The likeness was uncannily accurate. Apart from leaner looks the photo matched the photofit.

'Let's get the bastard!'

The sudden interjection from John Regan took everybody by surprise. He was on his feet again, face white, fists clenched, shaking agitatedly. 'You know who this is, go get him.' Dempsey tugged at his jacket, urging him down. Regan pulled away. 'What's holding you back? You all seem to know everything about this bastard, why don't you get off your arses and go after him?' The fury in his voice, the unaccustomed profanities surprised and an embarrassed silence descended.

'With respect, Mr Regan,' Commissioner Murphy interrupted quietly, 'your remit does not extend to running the affairs of my department.'

Paddy Dempsey buried his head in his hands and stared at the floor. Regan rounded angrily and only his colleague's timely intervention saved another outburst. He was dragged down in his seat, seething.

'Kelly squats in Hillcourt Mansions,' Clarke went on, unruffled, 'and that's a hell hole. It's full of drug addicts, dealers and pushers. At the first sign of a squad car there'll be a riot.'

Noel Dunne listened, an amused smile on his face. Clarke sensed he had enjoyed seeing Regan put in his place.

'Also we don't know which flat he might be squatting in. We can't knock down every door in the place.' He half turned towards Regan, 'These crack-heads are often armed and wouldn't think twice of going at us with dirty syringes, knives, broken bottles or even guns. I'm not prepared to risk that confrontation. The papers would have a field day.'

The noise of chairs scraping interrupted and without as much as a nod or word, John Regan slipped out of the room.

Clarke ignored the distraction. 'Dr Dunne, would you fill us in on the post-mortem findings?' He sat down.

'Certainly.' Dunne flipped open the folder resting on the desk in front.

'Okay, let's start with fact,' he began, twirling his moustache as he scanned the pages, 'and get on to conjecture at the end.' He slipped three pages back into the folder and shuffled the rest into order. 'The girl had taken alcohol, I won't know how much until toxicology gets back, but when I opened the body bag in the morgue there was a strong smell of alcohol. She had needle tracks suggesting intravenous drug abuse. That'll come back with toxicology.' His voice was monotone, as if reciting a traffic report. He paused for a moment while he squinted at a note on the page margin. He loosened his tie and opened the top two shirt buttons, flapping the opening to cool. 'I'd say the first wound came from the left side with some force, the track of the blade penetrating her left lung and bronchus. The main airways contained frothy bloodstained mucus.' A few grimaced as they listened. 'The second stab wound was fatal as it almost transected her aorta.'

Dunne explained. 'From the moment that blood vessel was sliced the girl more or less exsanguinated. Her blood pressure would have plummeted, the blood supply to her brain would have ceased and she would have been brain dead within minutes.' The conference room fell silent. All thoughts were on the photograph of the smiling young
dark-haired girl staring at the camera and the dreadful way her life had been ended. 'She must have fallen to the ground at that point,' continued Dunne in the same monotone, 'as there was considerable blood at the scene. Then she was dragged, face up, heels along the grass, to the undergrowth. There are bloody handprints under both arms.'

Dunne laid down the page he had been reading and flicked through four more, squinting until he came to the next notes of importance. He fiddled inside his jacket pocket until he found a pair of half-moon glasses and perched them on the end of his nose. He suddenly noticed they were smeared and wiped the lenses on the end of his tie.

'She must have been laid on her back,' he continued, this time without squinting, 'as there was dirt, cobwebs and a squashed insect clinging to the back of her clothes.'

'Dr Dunne,' Clarke cut in, 'the girl must have been dying by then.'

'Not dying, superintendent,' Dunne said very deliberately. 'Dead.'

'So those defence wounds you mention in your report must have happened earlier?'

'I'd say just before the first stab wound,' Dunne volunteered, glasses on his nose as he flicked back over pages. 'There was bruising around the throat and scratch marks suggesting her assailant gripped her by the throat.' Here he reached across and placed his left hand around the neck of the detective sitting on his right. The younger man smiled weakly and massaged at the skin when the grip slackened.

'She was tearing desperately at that throttling hand and trying to ward off the swinging knife at the same time. The blade caught her grip, cutting deeply.' Dunne's right hand went up in the air and came across sideways in an arc. 'The first wound penetrated lung, followed afterwards by that fatal upper chest wound.'

'But why did he stick the knife in her back?' Molloy wondered out loud. 'She was dead by then.' Dunne half smiled and began stuffing his glasses back into the inside pocket of his jacket. 'That one's for you, sergeant. I'm only here to tell you what he did, not why.'

The two men exchanged wry grins, the first time Molloy's face had lost its worried look.

Clarke interrupted again, reading from the report. 'What's the bit about the IUCD?'

Dunne leaned back in his chair and explained. 'An IUCD is a contraceptive device placed inside the womb.'

Anxious not to miss anything Clarke pressed harder. 'Any other significance?' Catching up with Dunne after he'd presented a report was notoriously difficult.

'Well, it suggests the girl was sexually active,' said Dunne. 'These devices aren't usually put inside the womb in someone so young.'

Clarke made a few notes as he listened then smiled across the table to confirm he had finished.

Commissioner Murphy coughed for attention. 'Let's take a break,' he suggested.

11

10.15 am

'Could I have a word with you?' Dr Frank Clancy stood in the doorway of heart specialist Linda Speer's office in her specially furnished top-floor suite.

Among the many petty jealousies and professional rivalries that dogged the Mercy Hospital nothing matched the anger and resentment stirred by the money and attention lavished on the 'Dream Team'. Within one month of the announcement of their appointments the top floor of the hospital had been cleared and renamed: 'HEART FOUNDATION'. New equipment for such procedures as angiograms, echo-cardiography, radio-isotope scanning et cetera had been installed, even though most being replaced were still good. A new, specialised laboratory was created immediately outside the intensive care unit for post-operative patients. On the same corridor a state-of-the-art coronary care unit was constructed with every diagnostic and resuscitative facility necessary. 'The proximity of the laboratory to these two nerve centres of cardiology,' Minister for Health Regan had announced to a glowering hospital audience on opening day, 'will allow Dr Stone Colman to analyse within minutes the biochemical and cellular changes occurring in an acute myocardial infarction.' Standing slightly behind Regan, the Boston trio listened attentively. Dan Marks' Florida tan had faded in the
sunless Irish
winter
yet he still
looked
his casual and
supremely confident self. Beside, and whispering occasionally to him, Linda Speer wore a linen blouse and beige slacks under grey checked jacket. Biochemist Stone Colman leaned against a wall listening and grinning. He'd kept his ginger crew cut and fondness for crumpled suits, but seemed more at ease than at his first public appearance. 'It will also,' continued Regan, purring with delight, 'permit monitoring of similar changes in the postoperative period of patients undergoing heart surgery.' His beaming expression was in stark contrast to the discontented audience, many of whom were being asked to scale back their budgets. The liver transplant team, the paediatric asthma research team, the geneticists, all knew only too well how much money was being lavished on Regan's cardiac unit. The three Boston specialists had become loathed throughout the hospital. Not that they seemed to care, neither mingling nor socialising with their colleagues. Apart from government sponsored cocktail parties they kept to themselves, engrossed in their work and vital results they knew they would have to produce to justify the massive budget following their wake. If they had private lives they were well-guarded secrets. No one ever spotted them out on the town.

Linda Speer did not shift her head one inch from her work when Frank Clancy spoke. 'I'm sorry, I can't. I'm busy.' She sounded irked by the disturbance.

Clancy glanced around the office, admiring the rosewood furniture, subdued lighting, green leather sofa and small drinks trolley tucked discreetly in one corner.

'I'd like to talk with you now, if you don't mind,' he pressed.

Speer gave him a jaundiced look, making Clancy feel even more uncomfortable. He sensed how poor his dress code was compared to the Gucci wonder in front.

'Who are you?' she snapped, eyes back on the paperwork.

'My name's Frank Clancy. I'm the haematologist here.'

'So?'

'I'd like to talk with you about a problem I have.'

'I hope it's a medical problem,' grunted Speer, still not looking up, 'otherwise I'd suggest you check if the social workers are still in the house.'

Clancy ignored the cheap jibe. 'No, in fact, it's about one of your patients.'

Speer stopped writing and turned around. 'And what,' she said slowly, her accent more exaggerated than usual, 'would you be doing with one of my patients?' One eyebrow cocked up. The tone of the question almost suggested sexual impropriety and Clancy had to clear his throat to hide his discomfort. He noticed a smile curl at the edge of Speer's lips.

'It's about a sixty-one-year-old man called Harold Morell,' explained Clancy, reading from the patient's chart which he'd been holding all the time. 'Perhaps you remember him?'

Speer shook her head dismissively. 'No I don't, get on with it.'

Clancy looked at her in surprise, then continued. 'Well, Mr Morell had a triple bypass operation up here about four weeks ago. Everything went very well, and…'

'They usually do,' Speer cut across sharply. 'When our first six months' results are published next week you'll know just how well our work is going.'

Clancy tugged at the glasses in the breast pocket of his white coat nervously. He'd read in the national press that a cheque for twenty million pounds, EEC money, would be handed over to John Regan at a government press conference on Wednesday, 20 May. He'd planned to be out that evening. He knew he wouldn't stomach all the crowing.

'Yes, I'm sure we will. However there's one problem bothering me.'

'And you want me to help?' Speer's attention was drifting, Clancy sensed that. Her eyes had started to wander.

'Well, there's something I thought you might be able to
shed some light on, certainly.' Clancy moved closer and set Harold Morell's chart down on the desk, quickly turning the pages. A whiff of expensive perfume reached his nostrils.