First Death In Dublin City (Thomas Bishop Book 1) (5 page)

‘We need to talk to Hugh Trimble.’ Said Tommy.

Ms Trimble’s face caved in, and she looked like she was almost about to cry. Embarrassment and fear ran up her spine.

‘What has he done?’ She whispered. Tommy took pity on her.

‘No, no.’ He said, raising his hands towards her. ‘He has done nothing; a girl in his class has gone missing and we have talked to everyone in his class.’

‘Oh thank god.’ Said Ms Trimble, then caught herself when she realised what she said. ‘Sorry. That poor girl, her parents must be driven demented.’

‘They are; can we talk to Hugh?’ Asked Tommy.

‘Certainly, sit inside there.’ She said, pointing towards a sitting room.

Tommy and Anne went and sat down, while Ms Trimble called Hugh down from his room. He came after two minutes, dressed in a tracksuit he looked like he hadn’t changed in several days. He had brown curly hair, cut recently, and a face coated in acne. He shyly walked into the room and sat down across from Tommy and Anne.

‘Do you mind staying?’ Tommy asked Ms Trimble, and she nodded and came in.

Hugh’s jaw was jutting out as he stared at the ground while Tommy stared him up and down.

‘Have you heard about Amy Hugh?’ Asked Tommy. Hugh looked up at him and shook his head.

‘She’s been missing since yesterday at twelve.’ Said Tommy. Hugh kept looking at the ground.

‘Where were you yesterday Hugh?’ Asked Tommy.

‘I had dinner here.’ He said in a voice that was somewhere between a child’s and broken.

‘And during the day? When Amy went missing?’ Asked Tommy.

Hugh just shrugged.

‘He was over at Mr Tully’s house, helping out. I’m sure Mr Tully wouldn’t mind giving an alibi, am I right?’ Asked Ms Trimble of her son.

Hugh shrugged.

Tommy looked at Hugh, who for the first time since he saw him actually was displaying some emotion.

‘Are you worried about your missing classmate?’ Asked Tommy.

‘Never liked her.’ Said Hugh.

Tommy got up.

‘We’ll be off.’ He said, and shook Ms Trimble’s hand. He went to shake Hugh’s but the kid just looked at him. Anne and Tommy trooped out to the driveway. After the door shut behind him they turned to each other.

‘He didn’t like us checking his alibi?’ Asked Anne.

‘Indeed he did.’ Tommy said.

‘Think he did it?’ Asked Anne.

‘Hugh? That kid? No. Probably just went off boozing. Ask the neighbour for me, I’ll wait in the car.’ Said Tommy.

‘Ask him what?’ Asked Anne.

‘The alibi, how relevant is it.’ Said Tommy.

‘Oh right.’ She said, and jumped to, running towards Mr Tully’s house.

Tommy got into his car to make a phone call for tonight.

##

Through the window pane Tommy could barely see her; a silhouette of blonde and white skin. He unlocked the door and looked at her, smiling.

‘Jennifer.’ He said.

‘Tommy.’ Said she and she leaned in, kissing Tommy on the lips. He stepped aside and allowed Jenny in.

She knew the place well, and recognised the wine glass in Tommy’s hand meant there’d be one in the kitchen and, sure enough, she found it. She took it, drank a hefty gulp and then took off her heels.

‘Such a long day.’ She said, and Tommy murmured his sympathy, as he took his whiskey glass from the counter.

‘Want to fill me in?’ Tommy asked.

‘Just backbenchers shit. Committees, meeting the whip, moaning constituents. The usual.’ She said.

They looked at each other for a minute or so.

‘These last few months have been horrible.’ She said, and began to cry.

‘Here, here.’ Said Tommy, and he slipped in behind her and began to massage her shoulders. He smelled Chanel Number 5 from her neck; he supposed it was a gift from her husband.

She seemed so much smaller without her heels on – Tommy was sure there was a metaphor somewhere there. Standing next to her Tommy saw the wear and tear of her complexion, the frizzed hair, skin dotted with blackheads and worry lines more defined than her thirty years of age merited.

Now, it was no secret to himself that Tommy had grown tired of life, and that extended to the woman who named him lover; Jennifer’s voice, manners and sporadic texts grated on his happiness so much so that he chewed his nails whenever he thought of her, and whenever she called nowadays he was distant and cold, she could sense it, that he no longer wanted her, that inertia was the only reason he hadn’t broken her yet.

However, despite how tardy he’d grown towards her lately, as she stood before him now, Tommy realised he hadn’t come in four days, so below his belt she became the Sunday of his every week. So Tommy reached out and cupped her cheek in his hand, and kissed her softly on the neck. The sweat of a hard day’s labour had crystallised on her skin and so to his tongue she tasted like seawater and smelled of perfume. When he grabbed her shoulder and felt the warm pulse beneath, he hardened and pressed his forehead against her downcast eyes. As Springsteen said once, she wasn’t a beauty, but hey, she was alright; and alright was alright for now.

She kissed him with pink lips that looked like they’d been drawn with a pencil, and grabbed the suit jacket he’d yet to take off. He obliged, throwing it on the dirty floor and he followed it down, landing on his knees. He took down her tights and lifted up her skirt – she hesitated, but then swung one leg onto his back, and rested her left knee on his shoulder.

The hem of her skirt resting on his forehead, the lip of her tights, now around her knees, digging into his trachea, stopping his breath; Tommy leant in. He chased and she began to shiver and shake, her nails biting into his scalp – that was until he stopped.

A sliver of cold wet liquid had bounced onto his scalp, so Tommy had glanced up and saw the empty wineglass had been overturned onto his head.

‘We’ve a whole bottle to go Mister.’ Said Jenny with a smile.

Tommy went to lean in, but then checked himself.

‘How long can you be away before Fionbar will be suspicious?’ He asked, taking off her tights – he was a generous guy, but if her stay were to be a short one, he’d need some gratification too.

‘Don’t mention his name.’ Said she, as she wiggled out of her underwear.

‘Got it.’ Said Tommy, and he leaned back in, and soon Jennifer had forgotten all about the low pay commission.

Tommy knocked lightly on the door and then entered. It was an open plan office, and in the corner was his desk, the computer barely unpacked. Tommy switched it on and waited for it to load. Upon loading Tommy put in his password, then waited for the desktop to actualise. He found his folder full with the info for old cases, and pulled the document in relation to the arrest of John Ryan – the name of whose wife he had actually forgot.

Elizabeth Ryan, was her name, though she had been born with the surname of O’Hara. On her sheet were the photos of the crime scene, with her body sprawled back near the dinner table. Seeing the photo brought Tommy back, the Michael Bubble CD playing in the background and the taste of frost on the air.

The investigative officer may have been a cunt, but he sure did a thorough job, as the entirety of Betty Ryan’s wallet had been scanned. Her passport told Tommy that she had been born in 1958, which made her considerably older than she looked. She was a member of a number of clubs: a gym, book club, libraries and even her local GAA club. There, however, was no Social Service Card, evidentially Elizabeth Ryan had no reason to deal with the DSP. Still, Tommy, flicked onto the Death Certificate to find what it was he was looking for. Her PPSN was listed there, so Tommy took it and copy pasted it into the PULSE system, and nothing came up. That said nothing however, only that she didn’t have a criminal record.

It was then that Tommy decided to phone an old friend, a woman he knew who worked in the Department of Social Protection. Tommy fished her number out from his contacts (a detective’s phonebook seemed to get very long), then called before checking there was no one around.

She answered on the fourth ring.

‘Leigh, me auld segosha, how are you?’ Tommy said.

‘Tommy Bishop only rings when he’s looking for something.’ Said the voice on the other end.

‘Aye, and he remains eternally grateful for any and all assistance he receives on this long and winding road of life.’ Tommy said.

‘He does in his hooch, listen, will you say hello to your sister for me?’ Leigh said.

‘Sure will, she’d visit more often but the kids are a handful. Sure you know yourself.’ Tommy said.

‘I do indeed, and tell her not to worry her pretty heart, now what can I do for you Mr Bishop?’ Leigh asked.

‘I need you to run a PPSN for me and tell me if its valid.’ Tommy said, and then he told her the number while she typed it in.

‘You sure that’s real?’ Leigh asked.

‘Verifiably.’ Tommy said.

‘Well, it’s not looking very real from this end.’ Leigh said.

‘What do you mean?’ Tommy asked.

‘It’s not a real number, it’s a fabricated number, made up for the purpose of gaining an ID would be my guess.’

‘So, any passport garnered off that PPSN likely wasn’t real?’ Tommy asked.

‘Definitely not.’

‘And the name on the passport?’ Tommy asked.

‘The name on the passport and the name of the person using it probably aren’t the same.’

Tommy thought about asking more, but then knew that delving further would just raise suspicions with Leigh. So, he finished the conversation politely before hanging up.

##

What do you have planned then, more flirting with schoolchildren?’ Asked Mousey.

‘Fuck you; I’m certain Amy was groomed.’ Said Tommy.

‘Groomed?’ Asked Mousey.

‘Sure, why not?’ Said Tommy.

‘By?’ Said Mousey.

‘Well, her classmates said that she claimed to have a boyfriend, so Anne and I are going to be going through her social media accounts to try and find out who he was.’ Tommy said.

Mousey snorted. ‘I have a daughter of my own, their social media accounts aren’t the hive of information you’d think they would be. I’m more likely to get head than you find something of note on any of the online pages.’

‘Why, your sweaty balls aren’t attractive to Marie?’ Asked Tommy.

‘Fuck you. Get going.. Oh wait.’ He said.

‘What?’ Asked Tommy.

‘You know what they say about primary school kids?’ Said Mousey seriously.

‘What?’ Asked Tommy.

‘I keep getting older, but they just stay the same age.’ Said Mousey, and he broke down into cackles of laughter. Tommy rolled his eyes and left the office.

He went to the desk where Anne was waiting with a computer and a stack of books.

‘Ready to go?’ Asked Anne. Tommy nodded, and they sat down together in front of the computer. Anne opened up the internet explorer, and then logged into Facebook. There were two accounts to log into, either Claire’s or Amy’s.

‘Evidence guys gave us her password.’ Said Anne, and Tommy nodded and left her to punch it in. Up opened a string of stories, mostly crap, in front of their eyes.

In the right hand corner of the screen there were two icons, one was a globe, the other a message, and each had a number above them. Anne, who knew what she was doing better than Tommy, pressed on the message icon, which was coloured red with a number three.

Down popped a menu, with two messages written there. The first was from an aunt of Amy’s, and the message was standard enough.

Amy, your loving aunty Clara here. I know what it is like at times to be a teenage girl, I was one myself God knows, and sometimes you do stupid things. But your parents really are very worried, everyone’s worried, so I just want you to know that you can always talk to me? Whatever is the problem, whatever it is you’ve done that you have to run away, everyone’s already forgiven you. We just want to see you home, and remember that there’s no problem too big to deal with. So, if you see this, just give me a call or write back and either me or Johnny will pick you up from wherever you are. Love, Clara.

A touching sentiment, and a reminder, in case Tommy didn’t need one, of the sheer weight of expectation on him to find Amy before the worst. The next message was nowhere near as heartfelt or as touching, it was a message from one of her classmates, one of the nice boys Tommy had interviewed for only a minute.

I hope you stay missing you flabby whore

Tommy gave him the benefit of the doubt in thinking the message may not have sounded as bad in the kid’s head then as it did in the cold light of day in a Garda station, still, he made a mental note to refer his name to the school’s psychologist.

Next, Anne clicked on the globe, and a similar menu popped down. Anne clicked on the first item (‘Jack The Rackman Macauley and seventeen others posted on your wall’) and up popped Amy’s profile. Anne scrolled down and read just under twenty posts from Amy’s classmates all hoping that she would come home. There were plenty of x’s and hearts in the posts; a stark contrast to their bile they subjected Amy to in person. On Tommy’s instruction, Anne went into Amy’s list of friends and searched for a Matthew, Matt or Matty yet none were forthcoming.

It confirmed what Tommy already knew, that whoever had been texting Amy, it hadn’t been a thirteen year old by the name of Alex. Tommy then tapped on the screen where it said PHOTOS, and Anne clicked on it. What opened up was a page where there were listed a number of albums, some were of rows and rows of photos of Amy taken with a webcam, some sepia, some black and white, most just of her making different faces.

Anne and Tommy looked at every single one of the 138 photos so as to read the comments and find out who had liked them, very few of them had any likes of note. Beyond that there were 87 photos in other albums, most of them of the One Direction band members. Again they went through each and every one of them, and these were commented upon and liked even less.

They then went back, and scrolled through the ‘photos of Amy’.

‘Wait, back up there to the top.’ Said Tommy.

‘Where?’ Asked Anne.

‘The third photo.’ And Anne clicked on it.

Up popped a photo, it was dated from just two weeks ago, however that meant it had been made before Amy’s abduction. It was of a large grey animated tombstone, with comic sans writing across the front of it. It read:

Amy Clancy

2004 – 2015

A knot tightened in Tommy’s stomach when he saw that the photo had been posted by none other than Hugh Trimble.

‘He made this photo, and posted it days before Amy goes missing?’ Asked Tommy.

‘Think we should pay a visit to the Trimble household once again?’ Asked Anne.

‘You’re driving.’ Said Tommy, and they got up and left to go to the car park outside the building in Harcourt Street. It was drizzling outside, and soon Tommy’s brow was flicked by cold sweat like droplets. Anne had put on a pink hat, claiming that rain like this always messed up her hair and she had a date tonight. After they got in, Tommy decided to try asking her to elaborate.

‘Who’s the date with?’ Asked Tommy.

‘Don’t you mind.’ Said Anne.

‘Alright.’ Said Tommy, happy that he had done his duty as a partner, however, as they crossed the canal in Marino, Anne spoke again.

‘He’s a teacher.’ Said Anne.

‘Oh yeah? Garda and a primary teacher? Classic.’ Said Tommy.

Anne frowned.

‘Where’d you two meet? Coppers?’ Asked Tommy.

‘We’ve been together two years.’ Said Anne.

‘That doesn’t answer as to where you two met.’ Tommy said.

Anne’s mouth tightened. ‘Coppers.’ She said.

Tommy just laughed.

‘What about you then DI, have got a, ehm, someone?’ Anne asked.

‘I’ve got nobody.’ Tommy said.

‘Nobody, never?’ Anne asked.

‘I was to have married once, but that didn’t work out.’ Tommy said.

‘Oh no, don’t tell me a bad story. John’s going to propose soon, I know it – I don’t need to hear about an engagement gone wrong now.’ Anne said.

‘Well, she’s dead. Does that count as a bad story?’ Tommy said.

‘Jesus Tommy. Shit, I wouldn’t have asked..’ Anne began.

‘It’s ok, it happened eleven years ago, we should all be moving on and stuff.’ Tommy said.

‘How did she die?’ Anne asked.

‘Does it really matter?’ Tommy asked.

‘I suppose not.’ Anne said, and silence descended upon the car.

It just took them two minutes to reach the Trimble home, and for the second time in two days they knocked on the door and were let in by a stressed looking mother. For the second time in two days Hugh Trimble came down and lounged in front of them in a chair, angrily staring at the both of them. Tommy decided that niceties were unnecessary.

‘I want you to tell me about this.’ He said and he took from his pocket his the photo of Amy’s ‘gravestone’ that Anne had printed off before leaving the station.

Hugh just shrugged when he saw it. ‘A joke.’ He said.

‘I don’t get it.’ Said Tommy.

‘She’s dead, it’s a joke. No one cries cause it’s a joke.’ Said Hugh as if he were talking about the weather.

‘Hugh!’ Said Ms Trimble, shouting in a mix of embarrassment and fear. ‘How could you say such a thing?’

Hugh just shrugged.

‘This girl is missing, gone, no one knows where she is. Now, if she were to be found dead, what do you think anyone would think seeing this?’ Asked Tommy, lifting the picture to Hugh’s eyes.

Hugh just shrugged.

‘Do you know what this is?’ Asked Tommy.

‘Piss off.’ Said Hugh.

‘Hugh! Please!’ Said Sarah, his mother, more pleading than reprimanding.

‘It’s a death threat Hugh, it’s a death threat. You know what the police think when someone receives a death threat and then goes missing?’ Said Tommy, his tone of voice becoming harsher.

Hugh stared at him angrily.

‘We tend to think whoever issued the threat killed her.’ Said Tommy.

‘Her daddy did it. He’s the only guy who could stand being around her long enough to kill her.’ Said Hugh.

‘Hugh!’ Exclaimed Sarah, but Tommy just grimaced.

‘You’re very witty. Why then don’t you tell us where you were when Amy went missing?’ Asked Tommy.

‘I hope she’s dead, how much better the world will be without her.’ Said Hugh.

‘Hugh!’ Pleaded Sarah.

‘Did you kill her?’ Asked Tommy.

‘No, but I wish I had.’ Said Hugh, his face contorting into an angry sneer.

Tommy stood up.

‘I’ve got my eye on you.’ He said, and Hugh just continued sneering.

‘You ever seen anything like that?’ Asked Tommy, after they had left the Trimble household and were driving away.

‘What? Your interrogation techniques?’ Asked Anne.

‘No, blind hatred of authority.’ Said Tommy.

‘You worked on the Branch, I’m sure you’ve seen it before.’ Said Anne.

‘Yeah, but even among the flats and in the north, kids hit puberty before they really start to hate the police. An eleven year old from middle class Rathmines, something is strange with how fucking angry he was.’ Said Tommy.