'So you think he planted something in his office?'
'I don't know what he was doing there any more than you do. I'm only telling you what I saw. The rest is up to you, you're the detective.'
'That's not what you said earlier.' She managed a grin.
'That was earlier. I do the observations. You'll have to find out whether they're relevant or not.'
Hamilton scribbled in her notebook and glanced quickly at her watch. 'Aren't the office doors locked in the private wing?'
'No, we were broken into once and three doors were knocked off their hinges. It's a hospital rule now not to lock doors or filing cabinets except in the security zone. That way if anyone breaks in they do less damage.'
'Anything else?'
'Yes. Lynch hates Morgan, hates the sight of him. It's common knowledge they'd be at each other's throats except for some careful rearranging of outpatient clinics and theatre duties so they're never in the same area at the same time.'
'Is this for serious? Doctors behaving like this? I mean it's bad enough having criminals carry on like this but you don't expect this sort of stuff from doctors.'
'It's unusual, I agree. Unusual but not impossible. I'm saying no more.' He allowed himself a grin at that. 'I don't want to end up in the High Court.'
'The High Court seems to have you guys by the balls.'
'I couldn't have put it more eloquently myself.'
For a split second their eyes met.
The phone on his desk suddenly rang and he snatched at it, annoyed at the interruption. 'Yes?'
She recognised the nurse's voice at the other end and watched Holland's face slowly drop. He sighed and massaged his forehead with his free hand.
'Okay. Ask the parents to come into the office and clear it. I just want myself and them. No one else. Anything from ICU?' More mutterings came down the line. 'Okay, I'll be there in about three minutes.' He put the receiver down slowly, his mind obviously elsewhere.
'Bad news?'
Holland looked back. 'Yes, very bad news. Our little preterm baby girl isn't going to make it. She's had a massive intra-ventricular bleed.'
'Is that real bad?' Massive intra-ventricular bleed didn't sound great but it meant as much to Hamilton as a heavy nose bleed.
'I'm afraid so. It means there's been a large haemorrhage into one area of her brain, so large she won't survive it. She's really only being kept alive by the ventilator. As soon as it's turned off that's it, I'm afraid.'
'Can nothing be done at all?' Hamilton could see the parents' faces again and the way they'd stared at the little bundle in the incubator.
'No, not a thing. She was born at twenty-one weeks. We have a policy here of doing all we possibly can for babies born twenty-five weeks and over. Below that we can keep them alive but the end result isn't always great. You can hand over a severely mentally handicapped baby if you get too caught up trying to resuscitate very young, low birth-weight babies. We have one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world in this country. We like to keep it that way and maybe even improve on it. But there's no use moving mountains to hand over a badly brain-damaged baby at the end. Parents appreciate your best efforts but they'd still like a normal, healthy baby at the end. We thought we could do more for this little girl.'
'God, isn't life a bitch?'
'That's not very politically correct language, but I'd have to say I agree with you.'
Hamilton was thinking about Rory and that dreadful nightmare. She wished she was home with him that very minute, just the two of them, maybe have a whole day to themselves, rather than the snatches of life they had to grab at.
'I'm gonna tell you something else, Kate. It's nothing to do with Dean Lynch,' he quickly added as he watched her eyes suddenly narrow. 'Whoever's killed those girls had better be caught quick. This hospital's in a mess, there's a total loss of confidence throughout the house. The nurses are now refusing point blank to do night duty.'
'We could arrange a Garda escort.'
'Yeah, I suggested as much. They still weren't happy. But the real crunch came about an hour ago. One of the mothers asked if she could take her baby out of here, out of the preterm unit. The baby's wired to every monitor we've got, is on continuous ventilation, is doing well but still very much dependent on us. And still she wanted him moved to another unit.' His voice rose slightly. 'That child would die within five minutes if he was disconnected. I told her that. But she kept insisting she felt he was in more danger here than the hazard of a journey across the city to one of the other preterm units. And all because of the bastard who's done this.' He leaned towards Hamilton. 'Find this man, Kate. Get him. It's not just me, it's every baby who's here, every mother still left in the wards, those fretting at home, feeling labour pains and wondering if she's going to come into a place of refuge or a hell hole.'
The phone rang again. 'Yes, yes, sorry. I'm coining straight away.' He looked back at Hamilton.
'Sorry, I've got to go. Hope what I told you is of some help.' He opened the door to go, then turned back. He looked straight at Hamilton, started to say something, then stopped. He looked embarrassed. 'Maybe… maybe when this is all over… eh… maybe we could go for a drink or something?' he mumbled awkwardly.
Hamilton smiled. 'Yeah, that'd be nice.'
Then he was gone.
'Hello switch? Can you put me through to Dr Dean Lynch? He's not in yet? Should he not be in by now? Anyone know where he is? Would you ask one of the security men to check and see if his car's in the car park? Sorry, my name's Detective Sergeant Kate Hamilton. No, no, don't say who's looking for him. I don't want to upset his hospital routine. This is a simple matter. I just want to ask him something.'
But Dean Lynch was not in the house.
Yes, he should have been as he had an operating list at ten and they were waiting for him up in theatre.
No, he didn't ring in sick or anything.
He was just not there.
He was five miles away, in Djouce woods outside Enniskerry, practising at being positive. Even at about fifteen feet from the target, Lynch had managed six out of thirteen hits so far. Two through the eyes, each eye. Three through the forehead. And one through the mouth. He liked that one particularly. He had red felt-tipped the lips carefully, making them extra thick.
Dean Lynch was being positive, and enjoying every minute of it.
As Kate Hamilton walked back along the corridor she heard the sobbing well before she saw the parents. They passed her in the corridor, comforted by a nurse.
Inside the Life Chamber Paddy Holland walked slowly to the incubator at the left and back of the room. The others, mothers on their own, mothers and fathers together beside their own tiny babies, turned their backs, they couldn't bear to watch. Holland looked down for a minute, maybe longer, before slowly and deliberately turning off the life support machines.
The lights went out.
41
11.07 am
Tom Morgan was released from custody just before eleven o'clock. He was allowed to slip out through a back door and away from the TV crews, photographers and journalists stalking the station since daybreak when word of an arrest in the hospital murders leaked fully. They were left kicking their heels, walking briskly and stomping at the ground to keep out the cold. The only movement was from one of Massey's funeral cars as it took some poor soul out from the adjacent morgue to his final resting place. A few of the photographers snapped at it anyway. What the hell, they reckoned, it might come in useful later.
It would.
Morgan's release was a blow to the investigating team initially. But with the fax from LA, his negative AIDS test result and the barman from Guys finally coming clean and admitting he had been in the club for most of Monday evening, they decided they were backing the wrong horse.
Hamilton briefed them on her conversation with Holland and a new, urgent, plan was drawn up. The target was Dean Lynch. Find and interview.
Lynch drove back from Enniskerry and parked on a side road well away from the flat in Booterstown. He had coughed a lot out in the cold, damp woods, coughed an awful lot. At one stage he coughed up blood. The cold air
didn't bother him, in fact he was sweating. But the persisting cough, the blood and the sweats worried him.
Inside the flat he checked carefully no one else had been in before hiding the gun and the rest of the box of bullets under a floorboard he had prised up earlier and in which lay his syringes, needles and heroin. It was gently tapped back into place and a loose rug thrown over. He counted out two hundred pounds cash, slipped it into his pocket and set off for Dunnes Store in the nearby Stillorgan shopping centre. There he bought a fresh set of warm clothes in dark, muted colours, fresh warm underwear and socks and two pairs of black trainers. He also added a black tracksuit with hood to the shopping basket and a new crisp white shirt and dark tie. The collar size turned out to be one inch less than he usually took.
'I think you'll have to go for a smaller size. That one's hanging off you.'
The shop assistant was trying to be helpful. Lynch glanced briefly in the mirror, noticing for the first time just how much weight he had lost. His face was gaunt.
'Yeah, maybe I'll take a smaller size.' But even the next size down didn't fit.
'Look, I'm real sorry.' The shop assistant was embarrassed. 'You'll have to go into the juvenile section for the size you're looking for.'
Which is where he finally got the size to fit. The shop assistant remembered all this later. His small frame, his unusual, wild looking eyes, his persisting cough. She remembered it exactly.
All paid for, he spent a short while in Bewley's cafe sipping on a coffee. Then he made his way to the nearby chemist and bought a bottle of black hair dye before slipping round the corner to Arnotts shoe shop where he chose a pair of flatteringly thick-heeled black shoes, just enough to give him an extra two inches height. Careful planning. Dean Lynch was planning and was almost ready for the final stage. He was planning to get positive, real positive.
'What're ye gonna do, Tommy?'
Betty had been listening to the news on the hour and had brought in all the morning papers. Tommy Malone's face was splashed across the front of each.
There was plenty of the same with lots of background material and details of past jobs. His criminal history was set out in detail: 'Grew up in Dublin's slums and fought his way out…' There were even interviews with retired detectives who had crossed Malone over the years. 'He's dangerous, ruthless and a killer. He'll stop at nothing. He was one of Dublin's most notorious criminals in the late seventies and eighties, but the Gardai thought he had faded from the criminal scene recently. He's been in and out of prison a lot, always complaining he was unlucky to get caught. Well his luck's run out again. This time everybody's looking for him, even the underworld. He won't get away with this one.'
'I dunno yet, Betty. I just dunno. Can ye put me up for a day or so till I get me wits about me?' Malone was counting on Betty, relying on her loyalty.
'Sure Tommy. But ye better think of somethin' soon.'
'Let's stick together, Betty.' Malone had been thinking about this ploy for hours and finally decided to sound Betty out. 'When the storm's blown over we could go away for a while. I've got a bit of money, not a lot, but a bit. We could go to England, I've a few relations on me uncle's side there. They might hide me for a while. Wadda ye think?'
'I'll think abou' it Tommy, I'll think abou' it. Just keep yer head down. Would ye like somethin' to eat? Ye havin' eaten all day. Keep yer strength up. Nuthin? Jesus, Tommy, ye can't just sit there smokin' them cigarettes all day. All right, I'll leave ye alone. I'm gonna make meself somethin' to eat. Suit yerself if ye want anythin'.'
But Tommy Malone wasn't hungry. He'd been in the game long enough to know this one had gone wrong, badly wrong, terribly wrong. Moonface was dead, Collins and Peggy were in the Bridewell holding centre, the baby was in a critical condition and the whole country was baying for his blood.
He lit up another cigarette and blew smoke rings at the naked light bulb in the ceiling.
They're not gonna get me. Fuckin' sure. They're not gonna get me.
They're not gonna crucify me.
I'll stay wan more day here and then move out tomorra night. That's what I'll do.
Wan more day here and then I'm off.
3.17 pm
'Wait till ye hear this.' Tony Dowling and the team met as arranged in Store Street Garda station. 'I called to his flat. His car was parked in the reserved spot, engine cold, frost all over it. It couldn't have been driven for hours at least. I spoke with a few of the residents but none of them had seen him all day. An oul fella, a retired college lecturer, has the flat underneath and gave out yards about him sayin' he'd had the television on all night, all mornin' and it was still goin'. So I called up and knocked on the door. No answer. I could hear the telly all right so I knocked again, real loud like. There was still nobody in or if he was in he wasn' takin' visitors.'
Hamilton and the team listened like it was the sermon on the mount.
'So I hammered and hammered for a good ten minutes or so, then walked around the outside lookin' for any sign of movement. I could see the lights were on and the fella underneath said he thought they'd been on all night.'
'He's skipped the nest.' John Doyle stated the obvious.
'That's what I think too. But let me tell ye somethin' else very interestin'. Ye know the way Kate found out about his fancy car alarms?'
Heads nodded. Hamilton felt that sense of foreboding return, that sense of impending doom.
'Well, I made a note of the alarm company who installed
his apartment system. It's on the outside box, Sensor Alarms in Clondalkin. I rang them. And waddye know?'
'Don't tell me, he works for them.' Doyle got a nervous laugh for that.
'He might as well be. He instructed them how to put in the alarm. Instructed
them.
Was a real expert, according to the boss man. He remembered the job clearly, just like the car alarm fella. He remembered Lynch like it was only yesterday. He said he couldn' believe he wanted such an expensive and sophisticated alarm system.'
'Why? Why shouldn't he?' Hamilton was trying to tie up the loose ends, there still wasn't a lot to be hanging a double murder charge on.
'Because there's nothin' at all in the flat. The man said that when he put the system in there was hardly anythin' in the flat. A few bits of furniture, TV, radio, cooker, fridge, bed, settee. I mean there was little else apart from one room where he had a wall-to-wall mirror and a lot of weights for workin' out on. Ye know, pumpin' iron stuff.'
'Maybe he was only starting up. Maybe he was gonna get some new things in later.'
Dowling smiled triumphantly. 'I thought of that one too, Kate, and that's what I said to him. But he came straight back at me. He told me that about eighteen months later there was a power cut in the area and the alarm malfunctioned. Lynch couldn't reset it when he wanted to go out, called up the company and gave out yards. Demanded someone come down immediately and put it right.'
And did they?' someone asked.
'Dead right they did. He insisted they check the whole wirin' again and double check the fail safe mechanism. And what do ye think he'd got new in that big flat of his since then that made him so nervous about the alarm bein' off for five minutes?'
No one spoke, Dowling had the audience to himself.
'Nothin', not a goddammed thing. It was the same as the last time, as bare as the first time they put the system in.'
'Jesus,' said someone.
'Apart from one thing.' If Dowling had said he knew the third mystery of Fatima and was going to reveal it he would never have had a more attentive audience. 'He had two voice-activating microcassette recorders hidden. One on top and to the back of the fridge, the other behind a curtain rail in his work-out room, clamped and screwed in place. He had his own fail safe mechanism if the alarm packed in.'
'Let's go.' Hamilton checked her Smith & Wesson. 'If this is really
him,
for God's sake be careful. Check your hardware.'