Red Ribbons (18 page)

He’d opened the middle drawer first. Even though he’d been the only person at home, he’d felt nervous using the small screwdriver to prise it open. It took a while, fiddling with the lock, and there was no way he would have succeeded unnoticed if anyone else had been there.

The first thing that had struck him about the contents was the diversity of colours and then, on closer examination, the patterns. They’d reminded him of a kaleidoscope with its mix of different shapes – spools of thread in every shade, thimbles and cushions with pins of varying size, yarn for darning and odd ends of wool. When his hands had brushed across the contents, he’d been instantly excited, but it was in the small wooden case at the back that he’d found the fabric cuttings, cottons, velvets and silks. When he’d placed it against his face, the silk felt soft and cold, almost as if it was a trickling stream. He’d known all these items had belonged to his late grandmother –
his mother was not the type of woman who entertained knitting or sewing of any kind.

He’d found the ribbons caught behind the wooden box. The colour – cherry red – caught his eye instantly. One inch wide, larger than the others, the ribbon had a perforated pattern running along both sides, which he would later discover was called a herringbone weave. It was the feel of it against his skin that he’d liked the most, not just the silk-like quality, which felt cool and smooth, but the herringbone edges, which delicately, but undeniably slowed the movement down, allowing for a more intense experience.

Now he rolled up the small cutting of ribbon and carefully placed it deep inside the pocket of his jeans. The ribbon was the first thing he had ever stolen, and it gave him a sense of power, just like that day in the sacristy. He hadn’t felt any guilt on either occasion. Even the fear of being caught became, eventually, part of the allure.

Once the Carina was as clean as it could be, he tidied everything away before switching off the floor lamp. The garage was trapped in darkness. He would need to return tomorrow – he had more plans for the car. It was a number of days since he’d visited Cronly, and it didn’t do to allow these things go unattended for too long. The time would soon come when he would have to consider selling the old place. He had already made discreet enquiries in the town. After all, even in today’s market, it would fetch a decent sum. For now, though, it would remain as it always was, except for one small detail – his late mother no longer lived there.

O’CONNOR’S MOOD HAD NOSE-DIVED AFTER THEIR visit to Innes, and as they pulled away from the Devines’, Kate could see it had deteriorated even further. His shoulders were tense and he relieved his obvious stress by driving far too fast, his use of foul language upped a hundred-fold the more other people got in his way. She was about to say something when his mobile rang. He barked into it, ‘What?’ He listened for a second and then hung up.

‘Gunning,’ he said. ‘He says Jessica and her mother are ready to see us.’

Kate looked at the dashboard clock wondering what Declan and Charlie were up to. She had already been gone most of the day, a point which would be regurgitated by Declan when she got back. She jumped as O’Connor suddenly thumped the steering wheel, obviously caught up in negative thoughts of his own.

‘It would help everyone, O’Connor, if you would calm down.’ Kate’s voice was tense.

He glanced at her. ‘Yeah, well, let me clarify some things for you, Kate. I
am
calm, but I’m also fucking livid. Gunning should have picked up that scene from the girl’s window. She was abducted less than a mile from her house, for fuck’s sake, bleeding sick bastard.’

‘I assume you’re referring to the killer and not Gunning,’ she said, raising her eyebrows.

‘You assume right,’ he snapped back.

‘No need to take it out on me, O’Connor. My job is to analyse the killer and his actions. It’s your job to find him. Killers are just like the rest of the human race, they rationalise their behaviour to make excuses for what they’ve done. We need to work out what he’s thinking, and why.’

‘Well, Kate, most of the human race don’t do fucked-up things like this.’

‘Look, I’m just making a point. Whether we like it or not, the way his mind works is important if we have any chance of working out what he’s going to do next.’

‘The only thing I’m thinking right now is that two young girls are dead, and back there in that house there are three people trying to pick up the pieces because of someone else’s messed-up head.’

‘Which is exactly why we need to calm down and shelve the angry outbursts.’

O’Connor let Kate’s last sentence stew for a while before grabbing his phone again and calling CCIU to check for updates on Innes’ computer and confirmation, or not, of his alibi.

‘Right,’ he said, throwing the phone onto the dashboard, ‘Innes’ alibi looks rock solid, but the files on his hard drive were another story. Do you know Manning?’

‘No.’

‘He’s the top man in CCIU. He wants me to back off. It seems Innes didn’t like to do everything alone and he’s sharing images. The CCIU team are watching him closely, but there’s no clear link to either Caroline or Amelia.’

‘You don’t sound happy.’

‘I guess it was a long shot. I just hope CCIU nail the bastard when they’re ready to make their move.’ He took a deep breath. ‘What’s your take on what Emily had to say about Caroline losing weight, not thinking she was pretty?’

‘It’s not uncommon for girls to over-obsess about weight. Practically
any young girl you meet on the street would have an opinion on their weight, good or bad, but probably bad.’

‘You don’t think it’s an issue, then?’

‘I said it’s not unusual, but it could well be an issue. Her sister obviously believed it to be a problem, otherwise why mention it?’

‘The mother, Lilli, seemed to think differently, though. According to her, she just wanted to eat healthily.’

‘We all see what we want to see, O’Connor, or rather don’t see.’

‘You think she’s keeping something back?’

Kate thought about her own mother, how even before the Alzheimer’s took hold, in so many different ways she never looked at life full on.

‘Kate?’

‘Sorry. What were you asking?’

‘I was asking if you thought Lilli Devine was holding something back.’

‘We all have secrets, O’Connor, but she’s just lost a daughter. She’s hardly in a position to welcome any criticism of Caroline.’

‘What’s your call on it, then?’

‘Well, considering the information Emily gave us about Caroline’s body image, it gives us an insight into how Caroline thought about herself. What Emily said went beyond Caroline thinking she wasn’t pretty. She said Caroline thought her body was ugly. That’s a strong word for a young girl to use, especially when you take it in the context that it was a big enough problem for her to share it with her sister.’

‘But isn’t all that looking cool crap just something every kid frets about these days?’

‘Maybe, but combining it with the weight loss, it means Caroline was going through more than the normal level of pre-teen doubts. It could be the weight loss was less to do with wanting to look like Kate Moss and more to do with not wanting to develop physically. Either way, she seemed to feel vulnerable.’

‘What are you getting at?’ O’Connor asked.

‘Pre-teen is a turbulent time, and how we develop during that period forms the adults we become. If there are problems, it’s not unusual for them to manifest themselves at that particular time. Feelings of low self-esteem, becoming overly self-conscious, thinking you’re different from everyone else, they all raise their ugly heads in any number of ways, not least of which is a feeling of vulnerability and a desire to be accepted.’

‘And the book of poetry, what do you make of that?’

‘If our killer was the one who gave it to her, it means he befriended her in some way. It confirms she didn’t perceive him as a threat, probably the very opposite.’

‘Just as well we’re visiting Jessica Barry next,’ O’Connor said, turning the car a sharp left, ‘she might have some idea what new friends Caroline was keeping in the last while. It’s a little over twenty-four hours since we’ve found her friend’s body, hopefully it will concentrate her mind, and not do the very opposite.’

‘She’s another link all right,’ Kate agreed. ‘If Caroline did obsess about her weight and appearance to the degree that there were fundamental changes physically, then her vulnerability may have been something the killer was attracted to, may even have manipulated.’

‘And how would he have done that?’

‘Well, any number of ways.’

‘Give me one.’

‘For a start, if he recognised her vulnerability, the simplest way to gain her trust would be to display his own.’

O’Connor slid the car into a parking space and turned off the engine before turning to her. ‘Like what?’

Kate pushed her hair back from her face. ‘Okay, this is just complete conjecture, but let’s say he came across as someone kind, someone the rest of the world had been unfair to, a person on the margins even. Well, that might have appealed to Caroline’s own sense of perceived isolation. She could have seen some of her own pain in
him, and therefore considered him harmless. He wouldn’t necessarily have needed to have a lot in common with her. In fact, the more outside her realm of experience he was, the less able she would have been to recognise any of the normal warning signs. If our man targeted Caroline, there is every chance she wouldn’t have seen the danger signs until it was much too late.’

O’Connor looked like he was mulling this over. ‘For what it’s worth, Kate, if they did meet somewhere, my money’s on the swimming pool in Rathmines. This little lady we’re about to meet might just shed a whole lot more light on things.’

Kate nodded. ‘Before we go inside, would you mind giving me a minute? I just need to make a phone call.’

‘Sure, no problem. I could do with some air. I won’t go far.’ He got out of the car and headed off down the street.

Kate tried Declan’s mobile three times, but each time it rang out. That meant it was on, but he wasn’t answering – or was he choosing not to answer? As the ringing tone reverberated in her ear, her mind drifted back to the black-and-white image of Caroline in the grave, the clay covering her body like an extra layer of skin. Down the street, she could see that O’Connor was taking sneaky glances at the car, obviously hoping her call was finished and she was ready to get on the job again.
A body in a makeshift grave
. She felt the anxiety rising up through her and kept the unanswered phone tight to her ear, stealing a few more seconds to compose herself. It could have been her, in a grave like that. She could still feel his hands, grabbing her, the intensity of his intent. The memory was never far away from her, still raw even after all these years.

≈

Jessica Barry was the same age as Caroline Devine, but as far as her appearance went, she presented herself as an entirely different
girl. Her eyes were circled with heavy black eyeliner and her hair, obviously dyed blonde, was backcombed, making her look taller than she actually was. She oozed confidence, despite the police presence stationed twenty-four/seven outside her house. Her lipstick was bright red, her jeans tight, and tucked into biker boots, while her designer white T-shirt with ‘Attitude – What Attitude?’ stamped across the front hung seductively off her right shoulder.

Kate could see O’Connor’s disapproval of Jessica Barry from the moment he walked into the sitting room and laid eyes on the girl. She smiled to herself at his old-fashioned notion of youth. To her, it was a fascinating contrast: Caroline had wanted to stem the oncoming tide of adulthood, while her friend seemed to have big ideas in the opposite direction.

Sitting in a large armchair, Jessica looked like a cross between a contestant from a beauty pageant and some out-of-her-head rocker. Her mother, on the other hand, was dressed conservatively in cream-tailored trousers and matching long-sleeved blouse, fading into the background in comparison to her daughter. The Barry house was also very different from the Devines’, more stylish with its wooden floors, large plush couches and decor that wouldn’t have looked out of place in an interior design magazine. If Jessica’s mother designed and created the interior, thought Kate, then she had a good eye for detail. Maybe when she’d been younger, she had applied this skill to her personal appearance, like Jessica did now. Even behind her now somewhat bland cream attire, you could tell she was once a ‘looker’. Was she happy to be eclipsed by her daughter? Did it create tension between them?

Mrs Barry waited until Kate and O’Connor were seated before taking her own seat on the armrest of her daughter’s chair. Jessica’s mother may have dressed like someone more comfortable in the background, but with her straightened back and head held high, there was no doubt that any questions O’Connor or anyone else might have for her daughter, she would be very much part of the process.

‘Mrs Barry,’ O’Connor began.

‘Pauline, please.’

Kate watched Pauline Barry shift slightly on the armrest, dragging her fingers through her pageboy-style brown hair, pulling it back off her face in response to O’Connor’s words. Maybe Pauline Barry wasn’t such a shrinking violet after all. The officer on duty had already introduced both O’Connor and Kate when they arrived, filling Pauline Barry in with the barest of detail.

‘Jessica, this is Detective Inspector O’Connor, and Kate Pearson. They have some questions for you. Are you okay with that, darling?’ She looked at her daughter.

‘Sure, why not?’ Jessica’s answer seemed tense, nervous, but was delivered emphatically.

‘She’s still very upset, you know. Jessica and Caroline were very close – such an awful tragedy.’ The mother, thought Kate, was either trying to add a greater impression of upset than her daughter was prepared to display or was intent on being Jessica’s spokesperson. Either way, this would take a lot longer if Pauline Barry remained the main mouthpiece.

‘It certainly is a tragedy,’ O’Connor said, giving Mrs Barry a reassuring smile. He looked over at Kate before directing his first question to Jessica. Gunning had interviewed the girl already, but that was before Caroline’s body had been discovered, and before they had a second murder on their hands.