TORN (36 page)

Luke … Lucifer …

The quiet college kid from the morgue, capable of so much destruction? It seemed incomprehensible. Yet at the same time it fit.

From his position at the morgue, Luke Darcy would have had access to the case files and the evidence reports, and was keeping himself abreast of the investigation every step of the way.

Then another thought struck her. Luke’s made-up goth face the last time she’d him … and that unidentified white dust mark on Crowe’s shoulder on the DVD …

Reilly knew that poor Karen Thompson would be devastated to learn that this amiable kid she’d entrusted with the city’s dead had deceived her in such a way.

Judging by the drawings that Luke’s poor devastated father had shown the detective
s
a sketchpad of perfectly rendered illustrations of all five Dantesque murder scene
s
it was clear that the younger Darcy was also quite the artist, which fit in perfectly with the pencil and rubber traces.

Not only that, but the proximity of the takeaway restaurant (and Simon’s reluctant confirmation that his son was a regular customer) tallied with the cooking sauce, and Chris was adamant that in the Darcy house, he too had picked up that same so far unidentified ammonia-type smell.

Now all they needed to do was find out where Luke was, and if he was indeed holding Ricky Webb, the man he held ultimately responsible for his sister’s death.

Reilly was certain that the key to this was the equine slant to the remaining evidence – the horse feed and the alkaline soil that Lucy had identified as being from the Kildare area.

Reuben was on his way to the GFU building to help with the search, while Chris and Kennedy planned to remain temporarily at the Darcy house until Luke returned from his supposed ‘night out with friends’.

They were also keen to continue questioning Simon about his knowledge (or lack of it) of his son’s recent pursuits, and to determine whether the older man could shed any light on the rural location in which Luke had been holding his victims. If they could identify this, they might just be able to save Ricky Webb.

‘Check the Land Registry, see if either is registered as owning property other than this one,’ Chris suggested. ‘Simon says he doesn’t, but I’m not taking anything for granted.’

‘I’m on it.’ Reilly told him.

She’d just hung up the phone when she heard Gary’s footsteps in the hallway outside. He hurried into her office, laptop in his hand. 

‘I just got your message. What do you need?’

Reilly was already tapping on her own keyboard. ‘Property search,’ she replied briskly. ‘We need to know if Simon Darcy owns any property around the Kildare area.’

Gary slid his laptop from its case. ‘Like a stables, or stud farm maybe?’  He stretched his fingers and cracked his knuckles. ‘This is my kind of search.’

Reilly looked over as his fingers flicked nimbly across the keyboard. Always good to have a techie on the team.

Some twenty minutes later, Reuben breezed into the office, full of excitement.

‘Pray tell, my beloved, what news?’

Gary, temporarily distracted from this search, gave the profiler a curious glance, and despite the fraught circumstances Reilly couldn’t resist a smile.

‘We’re trying to figure out where Darcy’s keeping his victims,’ she told him. ‘Chances are it’s where he’s got Webb right now.’

‘Ah, my favorite part of the story,’ Reuben intoned in a singsong voice. ‘Now that the true culprit has been unmasked, we must swoop in, find our villian and save the day. Only then will order be restored.’

‘This isn’t a TV show, Reuben,’ Reilly scolded. ‘Someone’s life is at stake here.’

‘Agreed, but I must admit I’m rather in agreement with the object of your attraction on this one. The life at stake could hardly be considered a treasured one.’

Reilly couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

‘Then why are we doing this, Reuben? Why the hell do we do this job at all? Why not just allow every sicko to get away with whatever random form of justice he fancies?’

‘Calm down, I jest.’

‘Do you, though?’ she asked. ‘Do you really care about what happens to

Ricky Webb? Or have you already made up your mind that he’s not worth saving?’

If the
y
the authorities, the ones who were supposed to uphold order and justic
e
could be prejudiced, then surely they were no better than viligantes themselves, deciding at will who merited protection or who didn’t?

‘My dearest Reilly, that is precisely the reason I’m here. To assist and illuminate you on your quest to save our man,’ Reuben replied in his typical mocking tone, though for once there was a modicum of seriousness in there too. ‘And truth be told, I have an idea—’

‘I think I’ve got something.’ They both turned to look at Gary, who was still tapping away on his computer. ‘It’s a bit of a long shot, but …’ 

‘What is it?’ she demanded.

He looked at her. ‘I know you said to search for property ownership under the Darcy name, but then I had a thought. The son, Luke, he and his sister lived with their mother and stepdad at the time of the attack, yes? Then he emigrated to Australia with them after the sister died—’

‘But subsequently returned to ye oul sold,’ Reuben finished.

‘Yes. And went to live with his real father, Simon, who lives in a small terraced house in Ringsend.’

‘I’m not following.’

‘So who’s to say the stepfather doesn’t still own property here?’ Gary continued, excitement in his tone. ‘The Harringtons are reasonably well off, and while they were able to sell their Dublin house before they emigrated—’

‘They might still be trying to offload another place down the country,’ Reilly finished, sitting down and scooting her chair closer to Gary’s. 

‘Yep. There is indeed a property still registered to one David Harrington formerly of Sandymount, Dublin – in Clane, County Kildare. A quick MyHome search confirms it’s currently on the market …’ He spun his laptop round so Reilly could see the screen, and grinned triumphantly. ‘And here’s what it looks like.’

Her breath caught. It was a two-acre farmstead, a house and an old stone barn located on the property.  For sale and abandoned, yet Luke Darcy would have easy access to the place, probably had his own set of keys, and with the property market in the doldrums, could likely go about his business completely undisturbed.

‘Gary, you’re an absolute genius!’ Reilly exclaimed, and in her excitement she reached forward and kissed him on the lips.

The lab tech’s face colored with surprise, and he smiled.

‘Hmm …’ Reuben raised an eyebrow as he surveyed the exchange. ‘Clearly, I’m in entirely the wrong field.’

Chapter 38

Ricky Webb slowly opened his eyes. Where the hell was he?  He tried to move, and found that he was bound hand and foot, strapped to a chair with thick bands of duct tape.

He looked around – he was in an old shed or barn or some sort. There was straw on the dirty concrete floor and a single bare light bulb hanging overhead casting deep shadows to the far corners of the room.

Ricky turned his head – he could hear some movement behind him.

‘Hey!  Anybody there?’

Footsteps approached from behind his back, a shadow passed across and a tall figure stood before him. Ricky looked up. The man was slim, with glasses and dyed jet-black hair, his skin scarily white, as if he were wearing make-up or something. ‘Why the fuck have you got me tied up here?’  Ricky raged. ‘Let me go, arsehole. I’ll fucking get you for this!’

Luke considered him carefully. ‘That’s hardly an incentive to let you go, is it?’

Ricky seemed to think about this for a moment.  ‘All right – let me go, and I’ll just walk away, won’t say nothing, won’t tell anyone.’ He looked up, pleading.  ‘Deal?’

‘No deal.’ Luke pulled up a chair and sat down facing Ricky. ‘I brought you here for a reason.  Can you guess what that might be?’

Ricky shrugged. ‘You fancied me? You could have just asked me for a date.’  He couldn’t keep his cockiness from his voice.

‘You really are a despicable little worm, aren’t you? A pampered posh git trying to sound like a hard man.’

The obvious menace in the cold tones of his voice chilled Ricky. He said nothing, and waited for him to continue.

‘You spent eighteen months inside for raping a teenage girl. You think spending a paltry few months in prison constitutes justice?’

Ricky looked back at him, belligerent. ‘What the hell is this? Do you think you’re some kind of caped vigilante, is that it?  Ha, you need to put your underwear on over your tights to do that.’ He laughed nastily. ‘Anyway, what’s it to you if I got my leg over with some tramp?’

Luke’s dark gaze bored into Ricky while he struggled to contain his fury. ‘That …
girl
,’ he said, emphasizing the correction, ‘was my sister.’

Ricky couldn’t maintain eye contact as the full impact of his situation suddenly struck him. ‘Look, I’m sorry, right?’ he blustered. ‘I didn’t mean to do anything, you know, we were just messing around and things got a bit out of hand.’

Luke stood up so suddenly that his chair flew across the floor. ‘An accident?  An accident?’  He suddenly flicked out an arm, smashed the back of his hand across Ricky’s right cheek. ‘The police said you violated her at least three times!’  His hand slammed against the other side of Ricky’s face. ‘You beat her, left her on the side of the road – and you say that was a fucking accident?’ He smashed his fist into Ricky’s face again and pulled it back – his knuckles were cut and bleeding.

Ricky slumped against the chair and felt around his mouth with his tongue – two teeth were gone. He could feel them rolling round in his cheeks.

‘I didn’t mean to.  Like I said, things just got out of hand. She threatened me … clawed at m
e
I just lost it, man, you know how it is.’

He spat out a gobbet of blood and broken teeth, and looked up at Luke, who stood over him, breathing hard.

‘No I don’t.’  Suddenly Luke turned and marched behind Ricky, out of his sight. Ricky strained at his bindings; desperate to keep an eye on what was going on. Bad as it was getting a beating, at least he could see him.

‘Where are you?’ he pleaded. ‘What are you doing?’

There was no reply.

He squirmed, strained in his chair. ‘We can work something out, right?  I said I was sorry, didn’t I?’

He could hear Luke moving around. 

‘I’m different now – I’ve been inside, done my time – I’m rehabilitated – that’s what the parole board said.’  He turned his head from side to side, desperate to see what the other man was doing.

‘Rehabilitated?  Different?’ Luke’s voice was venomous. ‘You forget that last night I caught you about to commit the same act. You’d been out only a few hours.’

‘What?  No way!’ Ricky turned his head as far as it would go and could just see some movement in his peripheral vision. ‘That girl wanted it, was gagging for it!’

‘Liar.’

Something hard caught Ricky across the back of the head and sent him sprawling across the floor, still strapped to the chair. He landed hard, his world spinning.  He felt a wave of nausea, closed his eyes, and passed into black.

‘Wake up!’

Ricky spluttered, and blinked. A wave of cold water soaked him. He opened his eyes, to see the weird-looking guy standing over him, a plastic bucket in his hand.

‘This is no time to sleep. You’ve got work to do,’ Luke bent over and, with strong hands, hauled Ricky and the chair back upright.

Ricky shook the water from his eyes, and blinked hard against the glare.  There was a spotlight trained on him, a video camera on a tripod set up facing him.  He looked up, confused. ‘What’s this?’

Luke wiped his face with a rough cloth. ‘Your last chance.’

‘Chance?’ He grasped at the faint tinge of hope. ‘What do I have to do?’

Luke stepped over to the camera. A small red light blinked as he turned it on.  ‘This is your last chance for a confession.’

Ricky could see his face, half hidden in the shadows behind the camera.  ‘What … what am I supposed to say? Just tell me – I’ll do it.’

Luke smiled. ‘Of course you will.  You are going to confess to your crimes – all of them.’

Ricky screwed up his eyes against the glare of the light. ‘All of them?’

‘My sister wasn’t the only one, nor the first, was she?’

Ricky’s body shook. He wouldn’t meet Luke’s gaze. ‘I don’t know what—’

‘Be a man and tell the truth for once in your sorry life. Your daddy isn’t here to bail you out now. Tell me about them – all of them.’

Ricky was thinking over his options. ‘And if I do … if I do exactly what you say … will you let me go free?’

Luke gazed back at him, his dark eyes unblinking.  ‘Maybe …’