Authors: Rob Kitchin
‘I understand that, but you must have some ideas?’
‘Well, for a start, I think he’ll probably show all the usual signs of stress – he’ll be tense, fidgety, his eyes darting about trying to see whether he’s been spotted, clasping and unclasping his hands, repeating things such as checking the route he’ll use multiple times. He’ll be doing his best to avoid some of those, but I doubt he’ll be able to suppress them all as he’ll be slightly hyper with the adrenaline, pumped up with excitement and fear.’
McEvoy nodded in agreement. ‘How about the victim? Any ideas as to who he might go for?’
‘My guess is they’ll be on their own and probably quite vulnerable. Maybe a child or someone elderly. Someone who he doesn’t think will have the wits or be quick enough to deal with him. Perhaps someone with their hands full of shopping?’
‘And how about the method of killing?’ Plunkett asked, glancing up into the mirror.
‘I don’t know. I think Superintendent McEvoy’s right that it’ll be up close. I don’t think, for example, that he’ll try and shoot someone from a distance. He wants to be next to them – to see and hear and smell them. And, as I’ve said, it’ll be quick. With the exception of Laura, every one of the murders was over before the victim knew what was happening. This will almost certainly be the same. He doesn’t want to give them time to react.
‘As for method, I don’t know. So far he’s tried to vary it – the sword, suffocation, strangling, burning, slitting, attempted drowning. He might try something else, or he might want you to think that and use something he’s used before. Given the pressure he’ll be under he might well go for something he knows works like stabbing. I might be able to tell you more once I’ve been through the files.’
They continued on in silence, lost in their own thoughts.
He was sitting on the edge of the bath, spraying her naked body with warm water from the shower head, cleansing her wounds. The smell in the bathroom was terrible, despite his attempts to wash the faeces away from under her. Rivulets of pale red water trickled down the plughole. He ignored the sprays of blood on the bathroom tiles and shower curtain.
She had her eyes closed, refusing to look at him. Her face was drawn, her skin pale and tight on her skull. She didn’t look as if she would last much longer; dying of dehydration, loss of blood, and lacking a will to live. Her early wounds had scabbed over; dry, dark lines criss-crossing her torso, arms and legs, cross-cut with new wounds, the blood freshly congealing.
‘It’ll be over tomorrow,’ he whispered. ‘One more death and the book will be complete.’ He turned the shower off and watched the remaining spray congregate into droplets and slide off the body to the white plastic below. ‘Our fame will be assured. I’ll be known as a criminal mastermind, you a tragic victim. You will be immortal. As famous as Elizabeth Short or Annie Chapman or JonBenet Ramsey,’ he said referring to the actress better known as The Black Dahlia, Jack the Ripper’s second victim, and the six-year-old beauty queen killed in strange
circumstances.
‘You will have suffered, but you will live forever. Everyone will know your name; your life.’
He stroked her hair gently.
She tried to pull her head away and settled for turning her face towards the tiled wall.
‘That’s my gift to you,’ he said, caressing her cheek. ‘Im-mortality.’
McEvoy stood at the three metre wide base of the steel spire and looked up towards where it tapered to a thin point 120 metres above. It had been erected in 2003 to replace Nelson’s Pillar blown up in 1966 by the IRA. At the time McEvoy had thought it a tremendous waste of money – it cost a fortune, you couldn’t go up it, and it was boring; just a bloody big spike rising into the sky. His opinion hadn’t changed with time. He lowered his face and looked around at the street-lamp lit scene, dragging the smoke from his cigarette deep into his lungs.
The spire was positioned in the middle of a crossroads, standing on a strip of pavement that separated the double lanes of O’Connell Street, one of the widest thoroughfares in Europe,
50 metres in width. Off to one side was Earl Street, a short pedestrian area leading onto Talbot Street that led down past the bargain basement shops to Connolly Station. Opposite was Henry Street full of high street, brand name shops. On the corner of Henry Street was the GPO – the general post office – a long, squat, stern-looking building with a grand central portico of six, wide classical Ionic columns, still pockmarked with bullet holes from the 1916 rising. On top of the portico, looking down onto the street, were the three statues of Mercury, Hibernia and Fidelity.
McEvoy set off on a circuit, walking to the north corner of Henry Street, then alongside the drab, four-storey shop fronts, the dark brown portico of the National Irish Bank, up as far as McDonalds, still doing a brisk trade to gangs of teenagers and bewildered-looking tourists, then across to the central reservation again. Standing next to a giant statue of a running hare set on a wide plinth, part of a temporary exhibition of Barry Flanagan’s sculptures running the length of O’Connell Street, he looked back toward the spire through some thin trees just gaining their new leaves.
The area was still relatively busy. Buses and taxis trundling their way up both sides of the reservation, office workers heading home after a few Friday night drinks, early revellers disgorging from buses and traversing between bars, tourists fresh in on weekend city breaks wandering aimlessly seeking the sights and the craic, and a handful of plain clothes guards trying to get a sense of the space.
He weaved his way through the traffic to O’Brien’s sandwich shop and headed back towards Earl Street, pausing to look down its length, past the entrances to Boyers’ and Cleary’s department stores to the smaller shops beyond, and then right at the spire blocking the route to Henry Street, people waiting at the traffic lights to cross, a timer counting down the seconds until the lights would change. It reached zero and the pedestrians surged forward, across onto the central reservation, streaming either side of the spire, heading for the far side.
He continued down O’Connell Street, past Abrakebabra, the smell of cooking meat and fries wafting out onto the pavement reminding him that he’d once again barely eaten all day, the saucy underwear in Ann Summers’ window display, to the imposing frontage of Cleary’s, mimicking the GPO opposite with 12 flat columns along its length, a large black and gold clock hanging above the entrance. Restrained neoclassical style buildings, their fronts a mix of limestone, granite, red brick and Portland stone, their roofs capped with copper, stretched down the rest of the street to the Liffey. He crossed the road back to the central reservation at the statue of radical labour leader, Jim Larkin, his hands held aloft, behind him the spire rising up through them. He drew to a stop and looked at the way he had come and then across to the GPO.
Barney Plunkett and Kathy Jacobs joined him.
‘So what do you think?’ Plunkett asked.
‘I think it’s going to be bloody difficult. It’s a huge space. Even if we created a box 20 or 30 metres either side of the spire, the street must still be 50 or 60 metres wide. That’s means over 2,000 square metres to keep an eye on; almost the size of a football pitch. That size of space filled with hundreds of shoppers, tourists and traffic is going to be almost impossible to police.’
‘But we can shut the street down for traffic?’
‘Yeah, but there has to be an excuse and I doubt we’ll manage to get the diggers in before dawn. Even with just pedestrians it’s going to be difficult.’
‘Maybe we could use the road works as a way of channelling them, limiting the space they can use?’
‘Yeah, it’s a possibility alright, but then we might end up funnelling them together in such a way that we can’t see what’s happening – they’re too closely packed. If that happens, the danger is we’ll lose him in the crowd.’ He shook his head, lit another cigarette and blew out the smoke. ‘I think we’re fucked.’
‘Even if he does manage to kill someone, if we’ve got an outer cordon we should be able to pick him up,’ Plunkett said, trying to remain optimistic.
‘Well, hopefully, we can grab him before he has chance to kill,’ McEvoy said without conviction, rubbing his face, exhausted. His left hand had started to shake again. He tried to still it, but it wouldn’t respond to instruction. All of his muscles felt tight, aching with tiredness and stress. He tried to roll his shoulders to ease the pressure thinking that if someone was to tap him with their knuckle he would probably sound a middle C.
‘Hello?’
‘Caroline, it’s Colm. Is everything alright?’
‘It’s better than it was. They’ve been moved back from the front of the house and most of them have given up – there’s just one or two left,’ she said referring to the journalists that had been stationed outside his house all day. ‘When are you coming home?’
‘Well, as you’ve probably guessed, that’s why I’m ringing. I’m not going to make it back this evening. In fact, I’m not sure when I’ll be back. It might be late tomorrow evening or the day after.’
‘You’ve tracked him down?’
‘I’d like to say yes, but it’s not that simple. He’s going to try and kill his last victim tomorrow. It might be our last chance to catch him before he goes to ground and disappears. We’re going to work on through tonight and see if we can crack things open.’
‘You need to get some sleep, Colm,’ Caroline warned. ‘You look like the walking dead.’
‘I’ll sleep when all this is over,’ he replied, not wanting to argue. ‘Is Gemma there?’
‘I’ll just put her on.’
‘Dad?’
‘Hiya, pumpkin, how’re things?’
‘Weird,’ she said excitedly. ‘You’re in all the newspapers and on the TV. Your uniform is much nicer than your suits. My friends have been sending me emails and texts since I got home from school. They’re really cheesed off they weren’t allowed to come last night. It’s like I’m a film star or something. And Nana and Grandad Dacey have arrived. They’re going to stay over tonight as they’re worried about us. And …’
‘Whoa, slow down. Slow down. Take it easy. So, you’re okay then?’
‘I’m fine,’ she said more calmly. ‘Have you been eating and drinking properly? Everyone thinks you might have become an anorexic or whatever it’s called.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m looking after myself,’ McEvoy replied guiltily. ‘I’m just ringing to see how things are and let you know I won’t be home this evening. So you’re to behave yourself, okay?’
‘As if I wouldn’t,’ she said indignantly.
‘And be careful.’ And don’t come anywhere near O’Connell Street he said to himself.
It was approaching midnight and the space around the spire was teeming with life. Young women wearing belts for skirts, bras for tops, and high heels, young men in casual trousers and short-sleeved shirts, both sets unable to feel the cold due to the alcoholic anti-freeze in their systems; older folk wandering around after an evening at the cinema or theatre followed by a couple of drinks, snaking about trying to wave down taxis; and a smattering of tourists drifting around, some pulling suitcases or carrying rucksacks, eyeing carefully those around them, trying to assess whether any might make a grab for the luggage. Cream with orange and blue trim, and yellow, blue and green buses drifted in packs, taxis darting around them like hungry hyenas.
McEvoy stepped back from the window of the third floor corner office of the GPO building and watched Plunkett struggling with a tripod for a video camera.
‘You can help if you want,’ Plunkett snapped.
‘You trust me with that stuff? I think it’s best dealt with by an expert like yourself.’ He huffed a laugh. ‘It looks like everyone’s in place. Deegan’s strutting around like he owns the street.’
‘You should have kicked him into touch.’
‘It’s easier to mind him this way. We have a view of him the whole time and everything he does is on camera. God knows what he’d be doing if I’d cut him loose.’