Authors: Rob Kitchin
He slowed to a stop and pulled out his mobile, calling up Deegan’s number. ‘Charlie,’ he barked into the phone. ‘It’s McEvoy. Where the hell are you?
‘I’m over on the other campus checking out the dead guy’s office,’ Deegan replied coolly.
‘Did you not think to call to update me? That I might want to see the office as well? I need to know what’s going on.’
‘Hang on a sec,’ Deegan said.
McEvoy could hear a muffled apology and a door close.
‘I was just trying to find out more about him,’ Deegan continued, exasperation clear in his voice. ‘The head of personnel offered to bring me over, so I came.’
‘And what’s the story on David Hennessey?’ McEvoy continued. ‘Does he have any family? Do we have any more details on him?’ He watched two garda cars drive past him heading slowly back towards the main gate.
‘He lives locally in one of the estates,’ Deegan said, clearly unhappy with the tone of McEvoy’s call. ‘Lives on his own apparently. He’s not married and he has no kids. I don’t know if he has a partner or not. I’m going to talk to a couple of his colleagues and see what they know. His file says he was 52. He joined the university 20 years ago. Before that he’d worked at UCD for a couple of years. The guy was a plodder. He only got promoted to senior lecturer a few months ago.’
Dead wood for someone like Deegan, thought McEvoy. If you weren’t near the top of the tree by 52 you were pretty much a failure. ‘Where the hell is the incident room, Charlie?’ McEvoy asked, changing subject.
‘It’s in the bottom of Rhetoric House.’ There was a touch of frustration in Deegan’s voice. ‘It’s one of the ivy covered buildings on the right as you head back to the main gate. There’s a passage next to the swimming pool – it’s just through there. They’re at the end of the building setting up in a classroom and computer lab. Grainger should have called you.’
Simon’s for a roasting, McEvoy thought. ‘I want a team meeting there in ten minutes,’ he stated. ‘Sort out a full plan of action now we know who the victim is.’
‘We have a plan of action,’ Deegan stated. ‘Grainger is managing the incident room, Jane Murphy is doing interviews and managing witnesses, O’Keeffe is organising a search of the site and running questionnaires, and I’m looking after David Hennessey.’
‘And I’m in charge of
two
murder investigations,’ McEvoy snapped, irritation rising in him again. This wasn’t like him, he knew, but he was tired and the stress was starting to build.
‘It’s going to take me more than ten minutes to walk back,’ Deegan complained. ‘I still need to look over his office and talk to a couple of his colleagues.’
‘You can talk to his colleagues later. Just get back over here.’ McEvoy hung up before Deegan could reply. He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. That whole call was probably a mistake. It was most likely going to push Deegan further away. Make him more determined to run his own investigation rather than do McEvoy’s bidding. He shook his head, frustrated at his own petulance. If Deegan was going to be a problem, through his making or not, he needed to make sure that Grainger, Murphy and O’Keeffe knew where their loyalties should lie. He glanced around looking for Rhetoric House.
‘McEvoy,’ he answered flatly into his mobile as he pushed open the heavy door into Rhetoric House. He hadn’t come past a swimming pool. Instead a football pitch was set out in front of an old, three-storey, ivy-covered building. He hoped he was in the right place.
‘Three things to report,’ Barney Plunkett stated.
‘And they are?’ McEvoy stood in a short, tall hallway. On the wall on either side large pairs of curtains were hanging. At the far end the passageway split left and right.
‘First, David Hennessey had been out to Glencree, the last time a couple of months ago. He bought a bunch of postgraduate students out here for a training weekend. He’s brought them out here every January or February for the past four years. He’s also been involved in a couple of courses they’ve run here on restorative justice. Apparently he’s done a lot of work on this in the North recently. He was definitely in Janine Smyth’s good books. She thinks the stuff he did was “really moving things forward in a positive way”.’ He said the last bit in a mocking manner.
‘And do we know who were on those courses?’ McEvoy pulled back the curtain on the right-hand side. Behind it was a large, old map, its delicate looking paper covered in faded, coloured ink.
‘Problem kids, ex-paramilitaries and community development workers. We’re putting a list together. I’ve also spoken to Angela Jenkins at the
DHC
. Seems David Hennessey was well known there amongst all the staff. He did a piece of work a couple of years back for Combat Poverty on policy and action concerning homelessness. He went round all the homeless agencies to see what they were up to. Seems he specialises in disadvantaged youth. He’s been back a few times to catch up on their work and offer advice in tackling particular issues and sourcing monies.’
‘Hence his interest in restorative justice in the North,’ McEvoy observed. ‘It’s mainly aimed at youths in disadvantaged areas. So we have two links between the victims. They were both familiar with
DHC
and they both had visited Glencree. Do we know if he knew Laura? Did their paths ever cross?’
‘Might still be coincidence,’ Barney hazarded, ignoring McEvoy’s questions.
‘Might be, but they’re not the kind of places that most people would have visited. There might be something in it.’
‘I’ll get myself down to the
DHC
and see what I can find out.’
‘Good idea. Also, tell Fay to keep working the lists. There might be someone on them that shares their connection. And the third thing?’ McEvoy prompted.
‘Kenny’s found one more of the missing homeless kids.’
‘No sign of the other two yet?’
‘No. I doubt we’ll catch up with them for a while. Disappeared into the underworld.’
‘Right, okay. If you get anything interesting call me.’
McEvoy ended the call and the phone rang almost straight away.
‘McEvoy.’
‘Colm, it’s Elaine. We’re just putting Dr Hennessey into the van. We’re going to take him to
Naas
Hospital
for the post-mortem. My first estimate is that he was killed last night sometime between nine and eleven. He was hit hard at the base of his skull, probably with a stone – something solid with a lot of force behind it. He then smashed his face on the tarmac when he fell. I’d say the bag followed that and he died of asphyxiation. I doubt the blow killed him; just knocked him unconscious. He died shortly after though. Sword through the mouth, now a bag over the head. Looks like he doesn’t have a preferred mode of killing,’ she observed.
‘I don’t think he cares as long as they’re dead,’ McEvoy stated.
‘I’d say he cares very much. A lot of thought has gone into these killings, Colm, including how to kill them.’
McEvoy nodded to himself.
‘I’ll talk to you later, Colm,’ the pathologist said, tired of waiting for a response, and terminating the call.
The killer had it all worked out. Where and when he was killing them, how he was doing it, and how he’d leave the bodies. The whole thing had been choreographed. The question was whether the victims were planned as well, or were they simply in the wrong place at the wrong time as the first chapter suggested?
McEvoy was standing next to a small platform leaning against a wooden lectern. Off to his right Charlie Deegan was sitting on the edge of a desk, removed from his own team who were sitting on a cluster of chairs to McEvoy’s left. Cheryl Deale sat in the no-man’s land between them. She was now free of the paper suit. She wore dark brown trousers, a pale blue round-neck shirt, and a darker, smoky-blue cardigan. Her hair was dark brown and plaited together into a long tail. McEvoy noticed that she seemed much older now that more than just her face was visible, somewhere in her mid-to-late forties.
He took a sip of water and cleared his throat. ‘Right, okay, let’s make a start. The first thing, this isn’t a single incident murder. It’s the second of a pair, and if we don’t catch the killer, probably the second of a series. That means we need co-ordination and dialogue across the teams, not separate investigations.’
To his right, Deegan shifted his posture, bristling with hostility, his gaze fixed on the cheap carpet.
‘I’ve been talking to Barney Plunkett,’ McEvoy continued. ‘It seems that David Hennessey was a regular visitor to Glencree and the Dublin Homeless Co-operative drop-in centre on
Gardiner Street
. So we have two points of connections between our two victims. The question is, did they know each other and did they also know their killer?’
McEvoy paused and looked round the group. He could almost hear the cogs whirring. He continued. ‘Simon, I’m going to need you to liaise closely with Fay Butler and Barney Plunkett. Anything that comes in here you cross-check with them, especially names. Who else has connections with both
DHC
and Glencree? Were any of the
DHC
people out here last night? The killer claims they were random victims, but they don’t look that way to me. They share common acquaintances. They look like they’ve been selected, along with the time, place, and method. Both attacks have been carefully planned. Which means familiarity.
‘Charlie, I want you to go back over to Hennessey’s office. Find out what you can about his work in Glencree and the
DHC
– names of people attending the courses, collaborators, any correspondence. And talk to his colleagues. Find out whatever you can about him and try and fill in his movements yesterday.’
Deegan gave him a look that said ‘I was about to do all of that before you hauled me back over here, you feckin’ moron’.
McEvoy ignored him. ‘Cheryl, do you want to …’ His mobile phone started to ring. He fished it out of his pocket, stared at the screen and decided he’d better answer it. ‘McEvoy.’
‘We’re going to need to hold a press conference as soon as possible,’ Bishop stated.
‘What?’ McEvoy spluttered. ‘Why?’ He held up a hand apologetically to signal to Deale, Deegan and the others he needed to take the call.
‘Because he’s sent a bunch of his feckin’ business cards and the first two chapters of his so-called self-help manual to the media. They’ve nicknamed the son-of-a-bitch The Raven. Or he’s chosen the name himself.’
‘Makes sense, I guess,’ McEvoy said, threading his way through the group and out into the corridor.
‘What?’ Bishop replied tetchily.
‘He had a picture of a bird on his card and the raven is something to do with death in mythology. They transport you to the afterworld or something like that,’ he hazarded. ‘I’ll get someone to look into it.’
‘Whatever the meaning,’ Bishop said, frustration in his voice, ‘we need to decide what we’re going to do about what he’s sending to the media. They’re bombarding the press office with questions.’
‘They knew about the cards and the notes in any case,’ McEvoy said.
‘But they didn’t know what was in them! And they shouldn’t have feckin’ known about them in the first place!’
‘Can’t we just issue a statement?’ McEvoy suggested wearily. He didn’t want to have to deal with this. It was way down his list of priorities. ‘I don’t have time to come in for a press conference; I’m tied up here trying to co-ordinate two investigations.’
‘Which is why they want to talk to you!’
‘Surely you’re the best person to deal with this?’ McEvoy said, hoping that Bishop would take the bait.