Authors: Rob Kitchin
‘Either he goes, or I go,’ McEvoy said, letting Gemma down, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand.
Caroline zapped the television off. ‘That’s pretty much what he seems to be saying as well,’ she observed.
Chapter Eight
Monday, April 21
st
His hand scrabbled round on the bedside locker trying to find his mobile phone. ‘Yeah?’ he said half asleep through a dry mouth, his nose blocked, head full marshmallows.
‘Have you seen the papers?’ Bishop said angrily.
‘What?’
‘I said, have you seen the papers?’
He didn’t have the energy to push himself up. ‘No.’
‘I told you to stay away from the feckin’ press. And what do I find this morning? A picture of you in The Sun with the by-line, “TOP
COP
SEARCHES FOR
MYSTERY
MAN
.
” What the hell were you doing wandering the streets with photofits?’
‘I was … I was trying to follow-up on a lead,’ McEvoy replied lamely, unable to gather any enthusiasm to rebut Bishop.
‘That’s what the grunts are for. You’re off this case as of now, d’you hear? You’ve become too much of a feckin’ liability. I’m putting you on mandatory sick leave until further notice. If anyone asks, you’re suffering from stress-related illnesses. My suggestion is you keep your head down and your mouth shut.’
McEvoy stayed silent, thinking through Bishop’s orders. Was it worth countering with his threat from the other night – that he’d do precisely the opposite of keeping quiet, or would it be better to lie low and come back into the rotation in a couple of weeks, see how things developed.
‘Colm?’ Bishop demanded.
‘Yeah, fine, whatever.’ He ended the call and dropped the phone on the sheet between a pillow and the quilt. 6.32 – at least he could lie in now. Lie in all day. If yesterday had demonstrated anything, it was that the investigation was bigger than him and his supposed leadership; it would carry on and he’d barely be missed. He pulled the bedding closer and tried to remember what being human felt like. His head starting to throb.
The phone startled him, jolting him awake again. ‘Yeah?’ he said, yawning.
‘Colm, it’s Paul. I’ve just had a call from Tony Bishop. He was pretty pissed off with the pair of us – you for going out running questionnaires and me for letting you. He said he’d spoken to you and put you on mandatory sick leave. We had a brief exchange about that and he’s now reversed his decision. He wanted me to let you know.’
‘He’s reversed his decision?’ He could feel the sneeze starting to form, his face readying itself.
‘So I’ll see you later on this morning as planned, okay?’
McEvoy turned away from the phone and sneezed loudly.
‘Dad!’ Gemma moaned between the bed and the wardrobe. ‘Not at me. I don’t want your lurgy!’
‘Sorry,’ McEvoy said, searching for a box of tissues. ‘Paul?’
‘Maybe you should be on sick leave?’
‘It’s just a feckin’ cold. Are you sure you still want me hanging round?’ He blew his nose. ‘This is the perfect chance for you to offload. There’s no point us both falling out of favour.’
‘What are they going to do? I’m retiring in a year’s time. Feck them. I want you working this case. I’ll see you later on.’
McEvoy stared out of the window, ignoring the reports in front of him. It was going to start raining again shortly. The sky had darkened from the west and a breeze was picking up signalling a new front arriving. He wanted to head off to the canteen but was worried about how he’d be received, who he might bump into on the corridor.
He needed to find something else to do, something that would keep him out of the building, but off the street. The only things he could think of was re-visiting Donabate beach or taking the rest of the day off ill. As he puffed on his plastic cigarette his mobile phone rang.
‘McEvoy.’
‘It’s John Joyce. We’ve got a witness,’ he said excitedly. ‘A young woman who recognised Laura and saw her talking to someone she knows. She’s waiting for us at Drumcondra Station. I’m on my way there now.’
‘She say who it was?’ McEvoy asked, anticipation building inside of him.
‘One of her lecturers. She’s a student out at Maynooth University. I don’t have a name yet. I’ll ring you as soon as I get there.’
‘Don’t bother, I’m on my way. I’ll see you in five minutes.’ He started to run for his car.
A Citroën was parked up on the pavement under the railway bridge that crossed Drumcondra Road. Dr John was sat in the driver’s seat, a young woman on the passenger side. A few feet away, near to the train station entrance, a guard was chatting to one of the woman’s friends. McEvoy opened the back door and climbed in.
‘So?’ he asked.
‘This is Aoife Ni Chairealláin,’ Dr John said, turning in his seat, ‘she’s studying Irish and politics in Maynooth. This is Detective Superintendent Colm McEvoy.’
‘Hi,’ she said quietly, looking back at him, apprehension in her eyes. She looked no more than 18 or 19 with long, dyed blonde hair pulled into a pony tail, a pale oval face, dabs of foundation cream covering a couple of spots on her chin and cheeks.
‘Hi, Aoife. DS Joyce tells me you recognise the girl in the photos and also saw her with someone you know?’
She nodded. ‘I used to see her sometimes, y’know, just wandering about or sitting on steps, like. She looked kind of lonely, y’know. I felt bad for her, but, well …’ she trailed off.
‘There’s nothing you could have done, Aoife. She didn’t want any help. Who did you see her talking to?’
‘It was one of my lecturers, Dr Andrew McCormack. At least I think it was him. He was wearing a baseball cap, but I thought it was him.’
‘How positive are you that it was Dr McCormack?’ McEvoy asked, his heart pounding in his chest, wanting to leave the car and raise the alert.
‘I … I don’t know,’ she replied hesitantly, ‘I mean, I thought it was him, y’know. I was on the other side of the street, so, I don’t know. I see him round there all the time.’
‘Round where?’
‘Phibsborough Road.’
‘How come you never came forward with this information before?’ McEvoy said, thinking that Phibsborough Road was only a stone’s throw away from the Mater Hospital.
‘I didn’t … I don’t really watch the news or read the papers, y’know. It’s the first time I’ve seen her pictures, y’know, really seen them. I didn’t think …’ she tailed off. ‘I didn’t recognise her in three of the photos,’ she tried to explain, ‘just one of them. Am I in trouble?’
‘No, no,’ McEvoy tried to reassure, shaking his head at her ostrich-like approach to life.
‘Anything grizzly I switch channel,’ she continued to reason, ‘it gives me nightmares. I know that bad stuff happens, I just don’t want to see it, y’know what I mean? If I don’t see it, like, I don’t have to think about it. She’s one of the murder victim’s isn’t she? The Raven or whatever he’s called?’
‘Yes. She was the first victim.’
‘And Dr McCormack’s The Raven?’ she said, the connection finally clunking into place.
‘We don’t know yet,’ McEvoy said evenly. ‘That’s something we’re going to have to check out. While we do that we’re going to need you to be formally interviewed and to make a full witness statement. It should only take a couple of hours.’
‘But what about university?’ she asked absently.
‘It’ll still be there this afternoon or tomorrow. How about your friend? Does she know who you thought you saw Laura with?’
‘She was there when I told the guard.’
‘Okay, well she’ll have to come with you as well then. You haven’t made any phone calls or spoken to anyone about this, have you?’
‘No. Only to you and the guard over there.’
‘Good, because I don’t want this information circulated. It’s to be kept between us until we’ve spoken to Dr McCormack. If he is The Raven, and there’s nothing to say he is, I don’t want him to run away before we’ve had a chance to talk to him. If he does get away, he’ll kill again. I’ve no doubt about that.’
‘I, er, yes, okay,’ she stuttered. What colour there was in her face had drained away.
‘Good. You’ve done the right thing talking to us, Aoife. I’ll just get your friend. If you want, ring your parents, let them know where you are, but do not say anything about Dr McCormack. Can you explain all that to her friend?’ he said to Dr John.
‘Yeah, no bother.’
McEvoy stepped out of the car, a new energy coursing through him. This was the lead they’d been waiting for, he was sure of it. There had been little reason for McCormack to have surfaced as suspect. After all, he was writing a book on how to commit the perfect murder. If he had been following all of his rules, then he would not have cropped up at all. The victims would have been random selections who simply vanished, their bodies never discovered. He called up Roche’s number.
‘Colm, I’m in a meeting, is this urgent?’
‘We have a name. Dr Andrew McCormack from Maynooth University. We have a witness who saw him talking to Laura Schmidt. He’s based in the same department that David Hennessey worked in.’
‘Jesus!’
‘My gut says it’s him, Paul. It all fits together. He knew Brady through Hennessey.’
‘You’d better get back here, pronto. We need to do this properly; the last thing we need is for him to slip away again. I’ll talk to Bishop.’
‘You’ll be better off keeping him out of this.’
‘I agree, but we haven’t a choice.’
‘I’ll be back there in ten minutes. We need to find out if he’s come up before in the investigation.’
‘I’ll get Padraig O’Keeffe on it now. I’ll also see if he’s got previous form. I’ll see you shortly.’
McEvoy ran to the station door, his oversized suit jacket flapping, and took the steps inside two at a time. He arrived at the incident room half out of breath, gulping down air. The room was a hive of activity but Paul Roche looked up when he entered and started to cross the floor to him.
‘Let’s find somewhere quiet,’ Roche said, re-opening the door, letting McEvoy pass through. ‘He’s no previous form. He was interviewed by Charlie Deegan the day after Hennessey’s murder.’
‘I should have known,’ McEvoy muttered, trailing after Roche. ‘For feck’s sake!’
‘It gets worse. His interview notes were the absolute minimum. According to Simon Grainger he only bothers to write them up in full if he thinks it’s going to be worth the effort. In other words, he only does it if he thinks the person’s a suspect.’
‘So we’ve no interview notes!’ McEvoy said exasperated.
‘No, but before you blow your lid, I’ve spoken to Deegan to see if he remembers him. He said McCormack was a pretentious prick, which is nicer than what he said about you. He said, he was flippant, arrogant, and up his own arse. A typical academic as far as he was concerned.’
‘You sure he wasn’t looking in a mirror?’
‘His description seems to match Kathy Jacobs’ profile,’ Roche continued, ignoring McEvoy’s bile.
‘We could have nailed this bastard earlier in the week and saved the lives of several people. Feckin’ Deegan. Unbelievable.’