Authors: Rob Kitchin
He placed his hands flat on the steering wheel and breathed out slowly through his nose trying to calm himself. He needed to leave the area as quickly as possible. The man who’d appeared on the far side of the bay would have now found the body if he’d continued as far as the shelter. The place would soon be swarming with guards.
He turned the ignition and pulled out of the car park, heading north. He had one murder left to commit; one more death to assure his infamy and the validity of
The Rule Book.
He was so near to completing his goal now; he couldn’t afford to make another mistake, especially when performing the finale – his grand statement before slipping away.
He parked next to a garda car, its blue lights still revolving, acting as a beacon for new arrivals. A small, rocky beach was visible directly in front of him on the other side of a barrier, a narrow pipeline crossing it and extending out into the swell. Five yards to the right was a squat, half-derelict, Martello tower, and beyond that, through an entranceway to a small car park, a long strand of golden sand stretched towards the estuary at Malahide, breakers sweeping in along its length. To his left was the Waterside House Hotel, a cream-coloured, two-storey, flat-roofed structure, with a wide terrace covered in wooden tables and chairs, reaching out to the edge of the beach. Several people were milling about on the terrace looking half-lost, half-concerned.
He lit a cigarette, sucking down the smoke, hoping it would take the edge off his apprehension; the knowledge that he was about to view another corpse. He let the smoke drift out through his nostrils, then seemingly galvanised, opened the car door and hurried towards the hotel. The wind whipped in off the sea, carrying in a fine spray of water and sand. In his haste he’d again left his coat in the car, his ill-fitting suit jacket flapping wildly in the breeze.
He walked quickly along a cinder path edging the roped-off terrace. Beyond the hotel, the path snaked through some sand dunes before a small bay became visible. It was only a couple of hundred yards across, a sandy middle, a bank of shells, gravel and seaweed along its length indicating high tide, framed by sand dunes and rocky headlands, the dark grey-green rocks layered and jagged. The path followed the line of the dunes, never quite touching either the beach or rocks. On the far side it trailed up the gentle rise of the headland, a small drop down to the rocks below. Four people were standing on the rocks, grouped in a loose circle.
Off to the left, across a couple of fields, were the red brick buildings of St Ita’s Psychiatric Hospital, dominating the land, its clock, water and round towers jutting up into the pale grey sky. To the right, the green of Lambay Island was silhouetted against a horizon where it wasn’t clear where the sea ended and the sky started. Overhead two helicopters circled, the noise of their blades competing with the crash of waves. His phone rang. He checked the screen and dropped it back into his pocket.
He hurried round the path and as he neared the red brick shelter he dropped down through long, coarse dune grasses onto the rocks, making his way over to where the four men watched his progress. A white sheet was laid on the ground, flapping in the wind, the corners weighed down with some loose stones. The middle of one end was stained red.
Two of the men were in garda uniforms, hunkered down in big, dark blue jackets with flashes of luminous yellow, caps pulled low over their brows. The other two wore white cotton jackets that extended to their knees hanging open over ordinary clothes. The elder man wore a suit, the other a red jumper over blue jeans.
McEvoy extended a hand to the older-looking guard, his other holding his suit jacket closed trying to keep the cold wind out. ‘Detective Superintendent McEvoy.’
‘Colm, it’s Neal Beatty. We’ve met a couple of times at events and courses.’ The local superintendent pushed his cap up and eased his chin out over the collar of the coat to reveal his full face.
‘Right, okay, yes,’ McEvoy bobbed his head, still not recognising him. ‘Good to see you again.’ He looked at the other three men.
Beatty took his cue. ‘This is Michael Flannery, the local sergeant, Kevin Linehan and Dr Tomas, I’m sorry, how’d you say your name again?’ he asked the man in jeans and jumper.
‘Krawiec. Dr Tomas Krawiec. I’m from Poland. I’m working in St Ita’s.’ His English was perfect with only the slightest of accents. ‘We both are.’ He pointed to Kevin Linehan.
‘I’m the duty manager,’ Linehan explained.
McEvoy shook hands with each of them. He turned back to Beatty. ‘Is that the best you could do?’ he asked, pointing at the bloodied sheet.
‘We’ve never been issued with one of those canvas gazebo things,’ Beatty explained. ‘Or if we have, no one knows where the hell it is. One of the lads is rooting out his tent from home and bringing it in. He should be back any minute. We had to make do before those feckin’ things turned up.’ He gestured at the two helicopters.
McEvoy nodded, unconvinced, but didn’t respond. There must have been canvas sheeting somewhere in the hospital, or they could have requisitioned an awning from the hundreds of static caravans that surrounded the area. At least she was covered, even if it was an amateur shambles. The last thing she would have wanted was for her battered remains to be broadcast into the homes of millions of people. He looked at the foaming sea, then back to the body, and lit another cigarette, not offering the pack to the others. He sucked the smoke down, his hand shaking, his whole body tense. He should have brought the coat. The chill wind was cutting through his thin clothes.
He turned to Linehan. ‘Can you go back up to the hospital and bring down another couple of sheets or something more suitable? We need to replace or cover over that sheet.’
Linehan nodded and pulled a tight smile, acknowledging that they should have protected her more effectively. ‘I’m on my way.’ He turned and scrabbled back over the rocks towards the path.
‘Well, I’d better take a look,’ he said to the remaining three, rooted to spot, unable to move to her body. ‘See what the bastard’s done this time. We’ll lift the sheet from two corners so I can look in under. Have you examined her?’ he asked the Pole.
‘I’ve done nothing more than check for a pulse to make sure she was dead,’ Krawiec said. ‘But there was no need really. You didn’t need to be a doctor to see that. It would be a miracle if she were still alive after what he did to her.’ The Pole crouched down, removed the stone from the corner nearest the red stain and held tightly onto the sheet. McEvoy finally felt compelled to shuffle to the sheet, wanting to look but not to see.
Beatty took hold of the corner at the opposite end and slowly they raised the length of the sheet by two feet creating a tent over her.
McEvoy slowly lowered himself to his haunches, his knees cracking, and viewed her battered body. Her face was barely recognisable as human. Instead it was a bloody pulp, hardly any skin still visible, the nose a messy crater, and the mouth a jumble of smashed teeth. The flesh had been tenderised and ripped from the bone, her skull visible in her bloody scalp.
‘Jesus Christ.’ He brought his hand to his mouth and fought the urge to vomit. He glanced quickly along her body, her ruffled and ripped clothes, the awkward lie of her arms, and turned away, closing his eyes and trying to will away the image of the dead woman. He wondered what it would be like to slip into the sea and float away, to drift off to a new life, to a more innocent place.
The two men lowered the sheet and placed the stones back in place.
‘The man who found the body says he saw another man leaving when he arrived,’ Beatty said. ‘He was heading along the path towards Portrane. I’ve sent a couple of lads off to investigate, but he’s probably long gone. There’s another car park half a mile or so down there.’
McEvoy sucked in another mouthful of smoke, stood, and massaged his face with his right hand. ‘Right, okay,’ he said trying to re-engage with the situation. ‘Where did he leave his card?’
‘Back up at the shelter there. There’s just the one.’
‘That’s all I’m expecting,’ McEvoy said, turning back towards the path.
McEvoy slipped his phone into a pocket and headed up the laneway towards the psychiatric hospital, his body cold, his ear warm from Bishop’s frustration and anxiety. The press conference had been moved back to one o’clock and he was still required to attend.
Opened in 1902, St Ita’s had grown to become a massive complex of imposing red brick buildings serving the North Dublin area. At one time, Ireland had the highest institutionalised rate per head of population in the world, almost double that of practically everywhere else in Europe. It was still much higher than most countries despite wide-scale de-institutionalisation during the 1980s and 90s. The legacy was a network of huge asylums, set out in massive symmetrical patterns in green field sites, miles from anywhere.
He hurried along a narrow roadway towards the clock tower, trying to remember Kevin Linehan’s instructions. He scuttled across some grass and pushed open a wooden door.
A heavy-set woman with poor make-up and uncombed hair looked up from a small reception desk. ‘Yes?’
‘Detective Superintendent McEvoy.’ He held up his card. ‘I’m here to speak to Michael Dempsey. The man who found the body on the beach,’ he qualified.
‘Oh. Yes. Terrible.’ It was as if each word had to be processed separately. ‘Terrible. He’s just here,’ she said, rounding the desk, her brain having finally found gear. ‘We’ve given him some valium to sedate him. He was in a hell of a state.’
‘He’ll still be able to talk to me though, right?’ McEvoy asked with concern, reaching into his pocket and setting his mobile phone to silent.
‘Yes, yes, he’ll be fine. Don’t worry, we only keep the strong stuff for the permanent residents.’ She pushed open an office door with a thin sliver of reinforced glass running from top to bottom.
A man was sitting on a wooden chair in front of a cluttered desk. His head was held in his hands, his elbows resting on his knees.
‘Mr Dempsey?’ McEvoy asked. ‘I’m Detective Superintendent Colm McEvoy.’
Michael Dempsey looked up with vacant eyes and tear-stained cheeks. His dark hair, flecked with grey, tufted up where he’d been holding it.
‘Is it okay if I ask you some questions?’ McEvoy asked, pulling a similar chair over towards him.
Dempsey barely nodded his head.
‘What time did you find her?’ he asked, sitting down.
‘I dunno. Around
quarter to seven
?’ Dempsey answered with a flat voice. ‘She was still warm. I could feel it. I tried to find a pulse, but I couldn’t. You could see she was dead.’
‘And how did you find her?’ McEvoy’s right leg bounced on the ball of his foot. He tried to stop it first by placing his hand on his thigh, then by lowering his heel to the ground. Instead his foot started to scrunch in his shoe, desperate to relieve the tension in his body.
‘I was walking along the path, y’know, from the hotel. As I neared the far side of the bay I could see something lying on the rocks. I thought it was just something the sea had brought in, but when I got nearer I could see it was a body. See her legs and arms. She was face down in a pool of water.’
‘You turned her over?’
‘Yes. I checked for a pulse but it was obvious she was dead. Then I ran up here to try and get some help. I thought maybe they could save her. I think they thought I was one of their patients who’d got out.’ He pulled a tight smile. ‘I was kind of hysterical.’
McEvoy nodded, acknowledging Dempsey’s anguish at finding the body. ‘And they went down to the beach to help her?’ he asked.
‘Yes, three of them came down – a doctor and two nurses. But there was nothing they could do.’
‘Did you see anyone else when you were in the bay? Someone heading away from the body?’
‘When I came in over the dunes I could see a person walking on the path on the far side; just for a second or two until he disappeared round the headland.’
‘Can you remember anything about him?’