Authors: Graham Masterton
‘So that’s why she didn’t have any eyes?’ she said. ‘And that’s why her lips were so lacerated?’
‘Looks like it, doesn’t it?’ said Detective O’Donovan. ‘Apart from that, though, this footage doesn’t really help us too much, does it?’
Katie said, ‘No... but run it again anyway.’ She had been standing up to watch it, but now she sat down in one of the swivel chairs in front of the screen so that she could study it more closely. The two men in hoodies walked across the bridge. One of them climbed on to the parapet and took hold of the woman’s body under her arms while the other one grasped her hips and started to lift her up.
‘Freeze it right there,’ said Katie. She leaned forward and peered at the screen intently. ‘How much more can you zoom in?’
‘Oh, quite a fair bit,’ said the young blonde woman garda who was operating the CCTV monitor and she enlarged the picture until the two men and their victim almost filled the entire screen. They were nearly fifty metres away from the lens, but it was one of the new high-definition digital cameras that had recently been installed and so their images were only slightly blurred.
‘Look,’ said Katie. ‘That fellow lifting her up. Am I mistaken, or is he missing the little finger on his left hand there?’
Detective O’Donovan leaned over her shoulder and said, ‘You’re right. He does have only the four fingers. You can see the stump.’
‘So...’ said Katie. ‘We may not know who he is, not yet, but when we find him he’s going to have a hard time proving that it wasn’t him.’
Katie went in to see Superintendent Pearse. He was in the middle of eating a cheese baguette but he hurriedly opened his desk drawer, dropped it in, and shut it away.
‘I didn’t mean to interrupt your breakfast,’ she smiled.
Superintendent Pearse waved one hand and said, ‘No, no bother at all,’ through a muffled mouthful of half-chewed bread. ‘What can I help you with?’
Katie said, ‘The thing is, my partner’s going away for a while, which means we won’t be requiring protection officers on duty during the day, not while I’m here at the station.’
‘Oh. Okay. I see. Sergeant Willis did call me from Midleton, earlier on, and say something about that. When is your partner off?’
‘Sometime today. I’m not exactly sure when. But as soon as he’s gone they can stand down. I’ll let you know this evening when I’m just about to leave for home.’
‘Okay, thanks a million,’ said Superintendent Pearse, jotting a note on his memo pad. ‘Do you know when he’s coming back?’
Katie was thinking about the painting, torn in half, and didn’t answer him.
He looked up at her and said, ‘Kathleen? Your partner. Do you know when he’s coming back?’
‘Oh, no. Sorry. No, I don’t. It’s business. He does a lot of business in Europe. Pharmaceuticals.’
Katie gave him another quick smile and left his office. When she turned around to close the door, however, she could see that Superintendent Pearse was still watching her and that he hadn’t yet retrieved his cheese baguette from out of his drawer.
* * *
She rang Detective O’Donovan and asked him if he was ready to go up to the Bon Sauveur Convent. While she was putting on her coat, Denis McBride, the ballistics technician, appeared at her door.
‘Denis,’ she said. ‘Is it anything important? I have to shoot out.’
‘I just wanted to tell you that I’ve completed my tests on the round that I extracted from your living-room wall. It was definitely fired by the same rifle that fired the round that killed Detective Horgan.’
‘I see,’ said Katie. ‘So it sounds like somebody really is gunning for me, doesn’t it?’
‘Well, that’s up to you to decide,’ said Denis. ‘I only do the ballistics. But there’s something else I thought you ought to be informed about. It may be something and nothing. It could be only a clerical error.’
‘Go on.’
‘I was wanting to carry out some firing tests with 7.62 rounds similar to the rounds that were fired at you and Detective Horgan. They would have helped me to calculate the distance they were fired from, among other things, like whether telescopic sights were being used, and also given me a better idea what weapon the offender was using.’
Katie glanced at the clock on her desk. Detective O’Donovan was waiting for her in the car park and Denis spoke very slowly and methodically, as if he had to take each word out of his mouth and carefully examine it to make sure that it was the right one before he put it back into his mouth and actually spoke it.
‘I was aware that there were two rifles in the armoury here that fitted the bill – a Russian Dragunov and a Yugoslavian Zastava M-70. They were both confiscated during drugs raids within the past six months and they were being kept here pending the corresponding trials of their owners.’
‘Yes, I see,’ said Katie. ‘And what did you discover, from your firing tests?’
‘I haven’t carried them out yet.’
‘Oh. So... what was it that you thought I ought to be informed about?’
‘The Dragunov is missing,’ said Denis. ‘There’s no record of anybody signing it out, but it’s definitely gone.’
‘But nobody can just take weapons out of the armoury without signing for them. And it’s totally secure. At least, it’s supposed to be. Nobody could even get in there, not unless—’
‘Your guess is as good as mine, ma’am,’ said Denis.
Katie thought for a moment and then she said, ‘All right, Denis. Thank you for telling me. I’ll make sure that one of my team looks into it.’
Denis left her office, and as soon as she had pushed her nickel-plated revolver into its holster and gathered up her black leather handbag she followed him. As she went down in the lift she stared at herself closely in the mirror, checking her eye make-up, and she thought that she looked surprisingly calm and collected and well groomed, considering the stress that she had suffered in the last eight hours.
She was very disturbed, though, by what Denis had told her about the missing Dragunov. If it hadn’t gone astray as the result of a clerical error, then somebody must have taken it, and the only person who could have gained access to the armoury would have been somebody who had the necessary authority. Even so, how could they have removed it without the officer in charge of the armoury having noticed it? Or colluded in its removal?
She would have to have this investigated, and quickly, for the sake of her own safety if nothing else – especially if the Dragunov was the weapon that had killed Detective Horgan and was being used to take shots at her. But she would have to discuss it with Chief Superintendent MacCostagáin first, because it was more than just a missing rifle, it was a matter of station security and protocol, and it might mean that somebody’s head would have to roll.
* * *
Mother O’Dwyer looked at Katie coldly and said, ‘What are you accusing me of?’
‘I’m not accusing you of anything,’ Katie replied. ‘I’m saying only that our first search of the convent may not have been sufficiently thorough. There are items that logically we would have expected to find, but haven’t.’
‘Your officers even went through my clothing and personal effects,’ said Mother O’Dwyer. ‘How could you not be satisfied with a search that included a photograph of my late mother and my... undergarments?’
‘I’ll be frank with you, Mother O’Dwyer,’ said Katie. ‘We’ve almost completed our excavation of the convent garden and so far we’ve found the remains of five hundred and thirty-seven children of varying ages.’
‘I said to you before, Detective Superintendent, I have no further comment to make about anything that you might have discovered. You’ll have to speak to our legal advisers.’
‘But forget about who was responsible for these children’s deaths and for dropping their bodies in a septic tank, rather than giving them a decent burial. I’m not looking for answers to those questions at the moment. What our searches have failed to find so far is any record of who all these children were, and how they died, and when.’
Mother O’Dwyer put on her glasses. ‘All I can tell you is that there is no such record available.’
Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán was standing by the window of Mother O’Dwyer’s office with her back to them. She had been watching as the last few skeletons were carried out of the blue forensic tent in body bags and around to the front of the convent, where vans from the coroner’s office were waiting to take them away.
Now, however, she turned around. ‘Such a record could exist, though?’ she asked Mother O’Dwyer.
Clever question, Kyna
, thought Katie,
especially that word ‘could’
.
Mother O’Dwyer hadn’t actually denied the existence of such a record. She had said only that it wasn’t ‘available’, whatever that meant. Now Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán had put her in the position of having to tell the truth or tell an outright lie before God, and Saint Margaret of Cortona, too, in the picture on the wall behind her, with her arms spread out to heaven.
Mother O’Dwyer didn’t answer, but tightly pursed her lips.
‘
Is
there a record?’ asked Katie.
‘I’m – I’m answering no more questions!’ snapped Mother O’Dwyer. ‘Have I not made that crystal-clear to you? If you persist in harassing me, I shall be forced to lodge a formal complaint against you!’
‘That doesn’t bother me at all, Mother O’Dwyer,’ said Katie. ‘I’ve had more formal complaints lodged against me than you’ve said novenas. But if that’s your attitude, I’m going to arrange for a comprehensive search of the convent, top to bottom, starting immediately.’
‘You’ve done that once already!’
‘Yes. But now we’re going to do it again. And there’s no point in complaining to your legal advisers. The warrant that’s been issued by the district court allows us to go
on searching
until we’re totally satisfied that we’ve found what we’re looking for – or totally satisfied that it really doesn’t exist.’
Mother O’Dwyer took off her glasses again, bending them backwards and forwards in anger and frustration.
‘There is a choice, Mother O’Dwyer,’ said Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán, very gently.
‘And what, precisely, is that, may I ask?’
‘You could simply hand over the record of those children’s deaths, and any other records that might not have been available the first time we searched.’
‘Are you suggesting that we have been keeping some things hidden from you?’
‘Yes,’ said Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán.
It was then that Mother O’Dwyer snapped her glasses in half.
* * *
As they drove back down Summerhill into the city, Katie said, ‘How’s it going with the nun-hunting?’
‘It’s still a dead end at the moment with Sister Virginia, but I was given a phone number for Sister Nessa by Cois Tine. I rang them on the off chance that Sister Nessa might have been using her experience in Malawi to help African women in Cork and it turns out that she had. She organized events for the African Women’s Group – you know, like dancing and poetry and all that kind of stuff, as well as talks on health care and integration.
‘I rang the number and the woman who answered told me that Sister Nessa was visiting her sister in England but would be back in Cork on Saturday. She didn’t have a contact number for her, but I told her that Sister Nessa should call me the minute she arrived home. You know, like urgent, like.’
‘That’s good,’ said Katie. ‘At least we know she’s safe. You have her address, don’t you?’
‘Of course, yes. She lives in Dunmore Gardens in Knocknaheeny, just opposite the sports ground. If she doesn’t ring me on Saturday I’ll go round there myself.’
They crossed over Brian Boru Bridge. A flock of seagulls was flapping and fighting over some black object that was floating in the middle of the river and just before they reached the other side Katie saw that it was a drowned dog.
‘Apart from nuns,’ she said. ‘What about you?’
Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán made a signal to turn into Anderson’s Quay and waited for the approaching traffic to pass, but she didn’t turn to look at Katie.
‘I’ve put in my application,’ she said. ‘So far I’ve heard nothing, though.’
‘You’re still sure that you want to leave Cork?’
‘I don’t know what else I can do. It’s affecting my concentration. It’s making me depressed.’
Katie felt like reaching out and touching her shoulder, but she kept her hands firmly clasped together in her lap.
‘We should talk about this, Kyna. There must be a way. You’re one of the best detectives on my team and I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose you as a friend, either. You’re always there to give me moral support when I need it the most.’
‘It just hurts too much,’ said Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán. ‘There you are, every single day, and I’m not allowed to show you how I feel about you. I have to call you “ma’am” when all I really want to do is hold you in my arms and kiss you.’
Katie said, ‘Kyna – I know it’s difficult. I completely understand how frustrated you must feel. But even if you get a transfer to Dublin, what’s going to happen there? What if you get a crush on another female officer? It happens all the time to people in uniform, but it’s something we just have to live with.’
Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán shook her head. She had tears in her eyes and her blonde hair was a mess, but Katie had to admit to herself that she had never seen her looking so pretty.
As they turned into the station car park, she laid her hand on Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán’s thigh and said, ‘Come round to my house... maybe on Sunday. Let’s spend some time together and talk it through. If you decide you still want to go, then so be it. But at least let’s try and think of some alternatives.’
‘What about your partner? What’s he going to think?’
‘John? John won’t be any problem. He’s left me.’
Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán stared at Katie in shock. ‘He’s
left
you? I don’t believe it! When did he leave you? Why?’
‘Last night,’ said Katie. She could feel a
tocht
in her throat and she had to swallow before she could say any more. ‘I’ll tell you all about it when you come around on Sunday. You
will
come around, won’t you?’