Scream: A DCI Mark Lapslie Investigation (16 page)

‘What about the file itself?’ Emma asked. ‘Anything strange about it?’

‘I’ve let Sean Burrows and his team look over it. There’s an unidentified voice in the background at one point saying, “No, that’s gash. That’s just gash,” and what might be some musical instrument, but that’s it. No other identifying characteristics.’

‘“Gash”. Odd word to use.’

Lapslie shrugged. ‘I assume it’s a reference to the woman
who died. “Gash” is a fairly common slang term for the female genitalia.’

Emma took a deep breath. ‘You realise this just confuses my case? I’ve already arrested the boyfriend of the murdered girl.’

‘Means?’

‘The cuts on the girl’s body were odd, according to Doctor Catherall. They weren’t like normal knife wounds. The boyfriend had lots of fishing line at his house. I’m wondering if he tied her up with the fishing line, or whether he somehow tortured her with it.’

Lapslie nodded. ‘Okay – a cautious “yes” for means. Motive?’

Emma shrugged. ‘Domestic row?’

‘Good enough to explain a beating, not quite so good at explaining a torture session. Any evidence that he is a sexual sadist or a psychopath, or that their sex life involved S&M sessions?’

‘Not so far.’

‘So motive is unclear, as yet. What about opportunity?’

‘The girl’s family have said that they’ve already established that he has an alibi –’

‘God preserve us from the general public helping us to solve our cases.’

‘Indeed. We’re checking his alibi out at the moment.’

‘If the alibi holds up, then we don’t have opportunity. That just leaves us with one-third of what we need. And it still doesn’t explain who sent me the sound file – or why.’

‘If the sound file is connected in the first place.’ Emma felt a sinking feeling, deep within her chest. ‘Is it possible that the girl who you saw on the hospital video imagery was a friend of the dead girl?’

‘How old is the dead girl?’

‘Twenty-three.’

‘The girl in the video is barely fifteen.’

‘Probably no school connection, then.’

‘Could it be a sister?’

‘The dead girl doesn’t have any brothers or sisters.’

‘Okay.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Let’s put the sound file to one side for a moment. We’ll interrogate the boyfriend, see if he coughs to anything. Come on.’ He walked off down the corridor.

‘Sir!’ Emma scrambled after him. He was not going to take her case away from her. Not if she had anything to do with it.

DS Murrell was standing in his doorway, talking to one of the Police Community Support Officers as they passed. He gazed at Lapslie with the uncertainty of a man who doesn’t know whether to defer or pull rank. His gaze switched to Emma. ‘DS Bradbury: anything going on that I ought to know about?’

‘DCI Lapslie and I are going to question the suspect, Donal O’Riordan,’ she shouted over her shoulder as Lapslie barrelled on down the corridor.

‘Let me know how it goes!’ Murrell called after her.

‘If any forensics come back on the contents of his house, interrupt us,’ she shouted as Lapslie went round a corner with her in his wake.

Down in the interview room, Donal O’Riordan was talking to the duty solicitor. O’Riordan was a lean six-footer with tattoos of snakes writhing up his forearms and diving into the sleeves of his black T-shirt, then emerging from the collar and wrapping around his neck. She hated to think where else they were going. He was in his early twenties, and the tightness of his T-shirt emphasized the muscle tone on his chest and the flatness of his stomach. The duty solicitor, in complete contrast, was a balding man in a suit that needed dry cleaning and a good going over with a lint roller.

‘What you want to go and arrest me for?’ O’Riordan said before anyone else could speak. ‘I suffered a bereavement, di’n I?’

‘My condolences,’ Lapslie said, sitting down and switching on the tape recorder that sat on the table. ‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Lapslie, commencing the interviewing of Mr Donal O’Riordan. Also present are Detective Sergeant Emma Bradbury and …’ He glanced at the man in the suit.

‘John Knightsbridge: duty solicitor.’

‘Thank you. The date is the twenty-seventh of November 2010 and the time is nineteen fifteen precisely.’

‘If I may ask,’ the duty solicitor said, ‘why is a detective chief inspector conducting this interview? Isn’t that a little like having the Archbishop conduct mass at the local church?’

‘He’s not conducting the interview,’ Emma replied before Lapslie could answer. ‘I am. DCI Lapslie is here as an observer.’ She looked at O’Riordan, weighing him up. ‘Mr O’Riordan, let’s come straight to the point. When was the last time you saw your girlfriend, Catriona Dooley?’

‘Three weeks ago, weren’t it?’ O’Riordan said. ‘Wednesday the fifth.’

‘How do you know what day it was, exactly?’

‘’Cos we—’ He glanced at the duty solicitor, who nodded. ‘’Cos we was at the greyhound races. I won a shed-load of cash.’

‘Good for you. I hope you bought her a present.’

O’Riordan frowned. ‘Why should I? It was my money.’

‘My client still has the receipt for the winnings,’ the duty solicitor said in a tone of voice that indicated he’d said variants on those words so often that they had become a rote phrase, like an actor who had spent too long playing a minor role in
Hamlet
but kept going on, night after night.

Emma could feel Lapslie burning to ask a question, but she
kept on going. ‘Was the greyhound track the last place you saw her?’

‘Nah.’

‘So where did you last see her?’ Emma continued patiently.

‘At ’er mum and dad’s place, wun’it?’

‘And what time was that?’

‘We was at the pub, then we went back to ’er folks’ place. She didn’t want to come back wiv me. ’Er mum was a bit funny about us spendin’ the nights together. ’Er dad didn’t care one way or the other. I stayed for a drink wiv’ her dad, then I went back to my gaff. I left about one o’clock.’

‘Mr and Mrs Dooley will be able to substantiate that,’ Mr Knightsbridge added in his trademark dull grey monotone.

‘No doubt.’ Emma didn’t take her eyes from O’Riordan, He didn’t seem particularly grief-stricken at the death of his girlfriend; more like indignant over the fact that he had been arrested. ‘And you maintain that you didn’t see her at all from that night until now?’

‘’S right.’

‘You didn’t come to help identify the body.’

‘Her folks didn’t need no help,’ he said darkly.

‘Even so, I thought you might want to be present. As a mark of respect.’

‘Either it was her an’ she was dead, in which case I didn’t want to see ’er, or it weren’t ’er, in which case there was no point.’ He paused. ‘Anyway, I don’t like seeing no dead bodies.’

‘How squeamish.’

‘Mr O’Riordan,’ Mark Lapslie suddenly asked, ‘where were you three days ago?’

Emma silently cursed. He just couldn’t stay out of it, could he?

The suspect glanced sullenly at the table. ‘I ain’t sayin’.’

‘Oh yes you are,’ Lapslie growled. ‘We can stay here until you get sick of the sight of me and the smell of Mr Knightsbridge’s aftershave, but you are going to tell me where you were between those times.’

O’Riordan pursed his lips, but remained silent.

‘Mr O’Riordan,’ Emma said, trying to regain control of the interview, ‘we found traces of blood and flesh in the kitchen of your house, along with quantities of fishing line. If you can’t explain how they got there then we can only assume that they are connected to the torture and murder of Miss Dooley.’

‘Have the forensics results confirmed that the traces of blood and flesh are human?’ Mr Knightsbridge interrupted.

‘Not yet.’

‘So they are merely circumstantial.’

‘But highly indicative, unless your client cares to provide us with a more innocent explanation of their presence.’

Knightsbridge leaned over and whispered something in O’Riordan’s ear. The suspect nodded reluctantly.

‘If, in theory, Mr O’Riordan’s alibi involved admitting to a different and minor criminal act, what would be the position of the police?’

Emma leaned back in her chair. ‘The position of the police would be that it’s for the Crown Prosecution Service to decide on whether Mr O’Riordan would be prosecuted for any other crime, but I would remind him, and you, that murder trumps most other crimes. He needs to ask himself what he would prefer to be arrested for.’

O’Riordan glanced at Knightsbridge with a question in his eyes. The duty solicitor nodded wearily, with the expression of someone who has been through this routine so many times it had all begun to blur together.

‘It were crows, weren’ it?’ O’Riordan said reluctantly.

‘What?’

‘The blood and the meat in my gaff. I’d been trappin’ crows, ’adn’t I?’

Emma felt as if the conversation had suddenly veered left when she was expecting it to go right. ‘
Crows?
’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why would you trap crows?’

‘For food. The Albanians love ’em.’

‘Albanians?’

‘The Eastern Europeans. Albanians, Serbs, Poles, Croats, whatever. There’s a lot of ’em work in Essex as labourers and farmhands an’ cleaners. They can’t afford to eat stuff from the supermarkets, and they’ve got a different taste in meat ’cos of what they were used to back ’ome. So what if I’ve set up a business satisfying their tastes? Bit of crow breast goes down a treat wiv’ them, in a stew or a pie. Thing is, crow meat is dark and bloody, more like human flesh than chicken or lamb.’

‘And does it taste like human flesh?’

He shrugged. ‘How would I know? I don’t eat the stuff. I just supply it.’

‘And how do you catch the crows?’

‘Scatter some bait on the ground then use a shotgun on them. Load the shotgun wiv salt crystals, not pellets, an’ it kills ’em wivout leavin’ pellets in the body.’ He grinned. ‘Seasons the meat as well.’

Emma shook her head in disbelief. ‘What else do you supply them with?’

‘I do carp. They love a bit of carp, ’specially the Poles. Can’t get enough of it. You don’t find it on the fish and chip shop menus here, but over there it’s like a national dish.’

‘And where do you get the carp from?’

He shrugged. ‘Rivers, lakes …’

‘Ornamental fishponds in people’s back gardens?’ Emma added.

O’Riordan frowned, and looked away.

‘Tell me, Donal,’ Lapslie asked, ‘does a Koi carp taste different from an ordinary one?’

‘They all taste of mud to me,’ he said. ‘Can’t see what all the fuss is about.’

‘And that,’ the duty solicitor said, ‘would be the explanation for the fishing line. Mr O’Riordan is a fisherman.’

‘This is all very well,’ Emma said, ‘and even if I accept that the blood and the flesh in your house was from crows and not from Catriona Dooley, then it still doesn’t provide an alibi for her time of death. Killing crows and carp and selling them on for human consumption may go against cultural prejudice in the UK, and probably contravenes the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981, which is punishable by a six-month prison term and/or a fine up to £5,000, as well as probably breaking all kinds of health and safety regulations, but I still don’t know what you were doing when Catriona Dooley was murdered.’

O’Riordan glared at her. His eyes were dark beneath thick brows. ‘We was trappin’ and killin’ swans, aw right?’

‘Were you?’

‘We’d driven in to Wanstead Flats. There’s a whole load of ponds there where swans make their nests. A big ’un ’ll fetch a few quid, in the right hands. Feeds a family for a week, they say. Never tried it myself. Tastes fishy, people say, although ducks swim in ponds an’ they don’t taste fishy.’

‘So what’s so different about killing swans?’ Emma asked. ‘Why is it different from killing crows?’

‘Magistrates take it a lot more seriously,’ he replied. ‘Wiv crows they just treat it as a bit of a lark, a bit juvenile, like. Wiv swans, it’s like you’re attackin’ the Queen.’

‘So your alibi is that you were in Wanstead, on a fun trip killing swans.’

‘’S right. We was staying at a mate’s flat. Kinda like a party.’

‘How many of you.’

‘Five.’

‘We’ll need names and addresses so we can take statements.’

He nodded sullenly.

‘Anybody else apart from your mates who can verify your story?’

‘The people downstairs complained about the noise. An’ the people upstairs. An’ we had some takeaways delivered. The bloke who delivered them saw me a couple of times. We had a bit of a barney about what we owed him.’

Emma had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that told her this arrest was going to fall apart in her hands. It had looked so good when she’d seen the bloody thumbprint and the mess in the kitchen, but perhaps, looking back, it had all been too convenient. ‘Do you know anybody else with a reason to want Catriona Dooley hurt or killed?’ she asked.

‘On behalf of my client,’ Knightsbridge said, ‘I object to your use of the word “else”, as it implies that my client himself had reason to want Catriona Dooley hurt or dead.’

‘Very well,’ Emma said tiredly, ‘I withdraw the word “else”. Mr O’Riordan, do you know of anybody at all who might want Catriona Dooley hurt or dead?’

He shook his head. ‘Nobody.’

‘What about her parents? Did she get on with them?’

‘She loved ’em to bits, an’ they adored ’er.’

‘Very touching.’ She glanced across at Lapslie. He shook his head. ‘I’m halting this interview at – ’ she looked at her watch – ‘eight o-five p.m.’ She pressed the ‘Stop’ button on the tape recorder. ‘Mr Knightsbridge,’ she said wearily, looking at the
duty solicitor, ‘we reserve the right to question your client further at some later time. He will be taken up before the magistrate tomorrow morning, at which time bail can be discussed.’

‘You know perfectly well that he didn’t commit the murder,’ Knightsbridge said mildly. ‘Why not let him go now?’

‘Call me old-fashioned, but I want to wait for the forensics report on the blood and flesh found at his house before releasing him.’

Knightsbridge nodded. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow morning in court,’ he said to O’Riordan.

Leaving a police constable to take O’Riordan back to his cell, Emma leaned against the wall outside the interview room. She checked her watch. 18.08. ‘I hate interviews,’ she said. ‘People either lie to you or they don’t give you the answer you want. Either way, your nice, neat little case gets increasingly messy.’ She opened her eyes and glanced up at Lapslie. ‘That treatment of yours must be working. A year ago you’d never have managed to be in the same room as a suspect being questioned.’