was about to work on her left side, he heard a crunch. Outside.
‘Rach? Rach, honey? You there?’
Duke looked down at her. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’ Her eyes were pleading. He reached for a stool.
Donnie flicked on the TV set and caught the closing minutes of the report.
‘…not believed to be connected to the other killings, all of which appear to have been committed during daylight hours.’ As he watched a body being taken from a bar on a stretcher covered in black, he heard someone pounding on the side door.
‘Donnie, open up, open up – I’m sorry man, goddammit, Donnie.’ His fists hammered on the wood until he heard the latch slide back and Donnie was in front of him.
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Donnie. Duke was covered in blood, his T-shirt soaked through, his jeans splattered, his fly half undone. He stumbled into the kitchen, his chest heaving. Donnie grabbed a cloth from the sink and started to clean the smears from the door.
‘Why didn’t you go to the creek like normal?’ said Donnie.
‘I lost it, man, I lost it,’ said Duke. ‘Someone showed up. I was nearly leavin’ her alive in there.’
‘The girl on the TV.’
‘It was on TV already? Son of a bitch.’
‘What if Geoff was here?’
‘His car’s outside the Amazon,’ said Duke.
Donnie watched him stride towards the bathroom. ‘So I’m good for somethin’ then,’ he called after him.
‘You are, Donnie. I fucked up, before. I was mad. I ain’t goin’ it alone. That was crazy talk.’
TWENTY-THREE
‘Update on Katie Lawson,’ said O’Connor, standing in his familiar spot at the top of the conference room.
‘As you’ve heard, evidence has come back from the post-mortem – fragments of a snail shell – to indicate that Katie was murdered elsewhere and her body transported to the forest. The place we’re concentrating on is Mariner’s Strand, where we’ve found other samples of the, uh…Sandhill Snail. The Water Unit searched the area yesterday, along with the harbour, where they found one of Katie’s pink running shoes, which is being checked for fingerprints today. We think at this point that Katie paid a visit to her father’s grave on Church Road – a white rose was left there – and she may have moved across the road to the Mariner’s Strand area when she was attacked. She could have been lured there for some reason – whether this was an opportunistic crime or someone had been watching her movements, we don’t know. We know that the last call she tried to make on her mobile phone was to Frank Deegan.’ He nodded at Frank, who had a troubled expression on his face. ‘This could mean that she was aware she was in danger or that maybe she was calling in another crime. The fact that she rang Frank and not 999 is an interesting one, although she does know the Deegan family quite well.
‘Because of the three-week delay in finding the body, we don’t expect any new evidence to come to light from our search of Mariner’s Strand. Something to note is that Katie’s possible movements on that night would directly conflict with the witness statement of Mae Miller, so that’s something we’ll have to explore. As to the body being left in the forest, that could be for any number of reasons, including its secluded nature, its familiarity to the killer, convenience or it could have some deeper significance we’re as yet unaware of. The closest properties to the forest would obviously be the Lucchesis’ house and Millers’ Orchard. We need to keep thoroughly investigating the players involved here.’
The music thumped through the speakers, a tinny repeat melody over a booming bass. Duke looked up at the hairdresser. She wore low-rise jeans that pinched her extra pounds and pushed her pierced stomach over the waistband. Her black glitter halter top plunged low, revealing a chest with a bad reaction to fake tan. Her lips moved to the lyrics of the track. As she cut, the hair fell in wet clumps onto the open newspaper.
She reached down and wiped it onto the floor, leaving a police composite sketch exposed on the damp page.
‘That was awful, wasn’t it?’ she said, pointing at it with her comb. ‘That girl in Tipperary who disappeared.’
‘Awful,’ said Duke, looking down at a face meant to be his.
‘Some young girl came forward after weeks and told the guards. She was in that American diner when the guy was there. Imagine, she didn’t come forward because she thought she’d get in trouble at school. What a waste.’
She kept cutting. ‘God knows at this stage, that girl could have forgotten what the man looked like.’
‘Probably,’ said Duke. ‘But some faces stay with you for life, good or bad. I guess we’ll know if they catch him.’ The scissors moved close to his ears, snipping the hair tight to his head.
The den was quiet but for the slow hum of the fax machine. One after another, the pages slid out, floating to land in a pile on the floorboards below. Shaun walked over and stood confused, trying to focus on the smudged images from a stray upturned page. He bent down, taking it in his hand, bringing it closer. It was a woman, her face peacefully untouched, but her body, desecrated, black ink for blood. Crude hand-drawn arrows pointed to ‘
‘Oh, Jesus Christ,’ shouted Joe as he ran into the room. ‘Shaun, no.’
He stumbled to the ground, pulling his son towards him, prising his clenched fingers from the crumpled page.
‘That was my fax, that was just for me,’ he said uselessly.
‘Is that what happened to her, Dad?’ Shaun pleaded. ‘Is that what happened to Katie? Because that is fucked up. That is the most fucked up thing I’ve ever seen. That is so fucked up. Did some guy do that? Did some guy do that shit?’ He was choking, the words and sobs mangled horribly in his throat. Joe put his arms around him. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d been so close. He felt no different to his father. He released his hold and started to gather up the pages. He knew now he’d have to take another trip to Dublin.
Mae Miller opened the door as wide as it would go. She was dressed in a long silver evening gown, with a string of purple beads knotted halfway and falling to her waist. She wore black velvet gloves to her elbows and a thick pearl bracelet on her wrist. She had swept her grey hair from her face and secured it in a chignon.
‘Hello,’ she said, smiling broadly.
‘Oh, Mrs Miller,’ said Richie. ‘I didn’t mean to catch you on your way out.’ He looked at his watch. It was eleven-thirty a.m. and he’d just had breakfast.
‘Not at all,’ said Mae. ‘I’m just enjoying the performance. I didn’t know you were an opera buff.’
Richie looked away. ‘Eh, I was wondering if I could have a word with John.’
‘It’s the interval. He’s gone to the bar.’
‘Danaher’s?’ said Richie.
‘No. Here,’ she said, pointing upstairs.
‘Would you mind giving him a shout?’
‘My pleasure,’ said Mae, gliding away from him.
‘John? John?’ she called. ‘Look who I bumped into.’
Richie had stepped into the hall and was standing by the door. John lumbered down the stairs and frowned when he saw his mother.
‘Howiya, Richie,’ he said, abruptly.
