Taboo Read online

  He and Kennedy had arranged to conduct interviews at the university that morning but following a call from Karen Thompson, Chris had taken a quick detour to the medical examiner’s office at the opposite end of the city.

  ‘There were signs of sexual activity between our two victims,’ Karen said, bringing him sharply back to the present.

  ‘What?’ He hadn’t actually noticed that she’d finished her phone call. As usual, she was straight down to business. ‘So if it is a boyfriend, we can rule out robbery or a sexually motivated attack?’

  ‘Not necessarily. I said there was sexual activity – Clare’s vaginal fluid was found on our mystery guy, but there was a complete absence of semen. And no signs of trauma – no vaginal damage or tearing.’ He started to say something, but she cut him off. ‘Detective, you and I both know that doesn’t necessarily prove anything.’

  Chris did know this, but it didn’t stop him from wishing it did. Forcible penetration would have meant that they were dealing with a clear-cut rape case, which somehow might have been easier than an apparently motiveless murder/suicide. Not to mention a case of missing identity.

  ‘So what you’re telling me is that there was sex, but it’s likely it wasn’t rape, and might not even indicate a sexual relationship?’

  ‘That’s about it.’ Karen sat back in her chair.

  ‘Right. What I wouldn’t give for a clear cut case,’ he muttered, hoping that Clare’s college friends might be able to shine some light on what was going on.

  ‘Sure, Clare was a bit, like … you know, a flirt, but she wasn’t seeing anyone, you know … like, exclusively or anything,’ Clare’s ‘very best friend’ Melanie told the detectives between sobs when they called to interview her on campus. ‘I just can’t believe she’s dead,’ she added, before bursting into tears yet again. ‘This is so, like … massive.’

  Chris saw Kennedy’s expression and suspected his partner, like himself, was wondering how on earth this American high-school jargon had so entrenched itself into the lingo of Irish college students.

  ‘I know this is very difficult for you, Melanie, but when you say that Clare wasn’t seeing anyone exclusively, does that mean that she might have been seeing a number of different guys?’ he probed.

  ‘No way. She wasn’t, like, a slut or anything. How can you say that?’

  ‘We’re not saying that,’ Kennedy soothed. ‘All we’re trying to do is figure out who might have hurt Clare and, as her very best friend, you’re possibly the best chance we have of doing that.’

  ‘Look, all I know is that she didn’t, like, go out with lots of different guys. They digged her but really, she was just as happy on her tobler.’

  The detectives both looked blank. ‘Her tobler?’

  Melanie rolled her eyes. ‘Happy on her own? Toblerone?’

  ‘Christ,’ Kennedy moaned afterward. ‘I’ll tell you one thing, if my two ever end up talking like that I’ll send them straight off to elocution lessons.’

  ‘Man – that’s so, like, harsh,’ Chris jibed.

  Melanie was insistent that Clare hadn’t being seeing anyone since her previous boyfriend Paul, a fellow student. When the detectives interviewed him, Paul seemed shell-shocked by what had happened but was helpful and courteous.

  ‘We went out for a couple of months, but when Clare started studying for her finals, we kind of drifted apart,’ he told them.

  Now, only days into the investigation, the detectives were fast approaching a brick wall. Everyone they’d spoken to had painted Clare Ryan as a normal, happy-go-lucky girl who was close to her family, had lots of friends and, according to her lecturers, was an extremely diligent student.

  Having interviewed everyone in Clare’s immediate circle, they still had no clue as to who the dead man might be, or why he had ended Clare’s life as well as his own. And because most of the guy’s face was missing and there was no chance of carrying out a reconstruction job, there was little else to help identify him.

  While the funeral would normally be held soon after the body was released from the morgue, it hadn’t yet taken place because the parents were having problems locating close family abroad. Chris was certain that when it did, there would be a pretty impressive turnout.

  In the meantime, because of the victim’s profile, the media frenzy had already begun in earnest. While it was almost expected that inner-city scumbags would go around shooting each other, violent deaths in so-called ‘polite society’ was simply not acceptable to the general public, and the demands for answers were coming as fast as the hysterical headlines. Which meant that O’Brien was leaning even heavier on the detectives for a breakthrough that wasn’t easily apparent.

  So far, not one person had a bad thing to say about Clare Ryan, or could give a single reason why anyone might want her dead. Which made the bizarre circumstances of her death all the more sinister.

  4

  ‘Reilly? Do you have a minute?’ Reilly looked up from her desk to find Lucy in front of her, a worried expression on her face.

  ‘Sure. What’s up?’

  The lab tech chewed uncomfortably at her lip. ‘Something really weird.’

  ‘So tell me.’ She continued writing, giving Lucy only half her attention – she was busy and not in the mood to play guessing games today. Lucy needed to learn to think for herself and trust her own intuition more often. While she reminded Reilly a little of herself when she was starting out in forensics, there was this slight insecurity about her that she hoped would be erased over time.

  ‘This I think you really need to look at.’

  Something in her tone of voice caught Reilly’s attention this time, and she put the pen down. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Can you just come and take a quick look?’

  Following Lucy into the lab, they approached the light microscope. ‘Just take a look and tell me what you see.’

  Reilly bent over, looked through the eyepiece and adjusted the magnification to 400X. ‘Weird …’ she remarked, studying the specimen on the slide. She looked away for a moment, trying to make sense of it.

  ‘I’m glad you think so too,’ Lucy said, quietly. ‘To be honest, I wasn’t sure whether or not I should say anything …’

  ‘No, you were right. This is important. Important but weird,’ Reilly added, almost to herself.

  ‘So what do you think it is?’

  ‘Looks like some kind of animal hair,’ Reilly said. ‘Human hair is much finer, and the scales along the shaft are a giveaway.’ She moved away from the microscope. ‘Can’t say which animal it is though, at least not until we have a comparative sample.’

  ‘Which we do – in a way,’ Lucy said, looking tentative.

  Reilly breathed out deeply. ‘Not exactly the kind of comparison we want, though, is it? Can I take a look at that paint sample again?’

  ‘Sure.’ Lucy duly prepared a second slide, this time using another piece of material evidence listed on the inventory.

  Reilly quickly examined it under low magnification. ‘Both paint samples will need to be analyzed further – and separately – using microspec,’ she said, referring to the process of microspectrophotomotery which involved electronically studying the wavelengths of energy absorbed and released by a single paint sample. ‘That will tell us if they are indeed the same sample. But if I were a betting girl – which I’m not – they look pretty alike to me.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Lucy said. ‘And seeing as this and the hair were both found at the Ryan scene …’

  ‘It means that one way or the other,’ Reilly finished grimly, her head spinning, ‘we’ve got a major problem.’

  The hair and paint specimens she and Lucy had just examined were not the samples taken from the Ryan scene a few days earlier – they’d been collected the previous day from the home of a man who’d apparently committed suicide.

  Now, back in her office, and reluctant to draw any hasty conclusions, Reilly decided to contact the unit dealing with the suici
de.

  She grabbed her coat and headed out the door. The station was just a few blocks away – she could use the fresh air to clear her head, and knew from bitter experience that it was always better to deal with the cops in person whenever possible.

  Harcourt Street was always busy, but Reilly seemed to have chosen the rush hour. She was directed to the relevant room by a harried-looking female cop, then left to fend for herself. The room was a mass of scruffy desks, outdated computers, and busy officers. An older officer at a nearby desk noticed her lost expression.

  ‘Who you looking for, love?’

  ‘Jones,’ she said, hesitantly.

  He pointed her toward the back of the room. ‘Over by the wall – see the lad in the blue sweater?’ She spotted a thirty-something man with dark hair and thick eyebrows tapping away busily at a computer.

  ‘Got it, thanks.’ She weaved through the desks, finally reaching Jones’ workstation. ‘You Jones?’

  He looked up slowly. ‘Who wants to know?’

  Reilly offered him her hand. ‘Reilly Steel, GFU.’ He looked surprised and she launched into her story without preamble. ‘We’re analyzing evidence collected from a suspected suicide your unit is handling. I’d like to ask you a couple of questions about that if I may.’

  Guess you must have enjoyed that garlic dinner you ate last night, she added, silently, reeling back a little at the overpowering stench emanating from him. At times like this, her trusty sense of smell was a real disadvantage.

  Like many of his colleagues, Jones was naturally wary of any interference from GFU and she readied herself for the inevitable defensiveness. ‘Is there a problem?’ he asked.

  ‘Not exactly. As I said, I just wanted to clarify a couple of things for the file. You investigated a death in Donnybrook – a Jim Redmond?’

  He nodded, the wary look never leaving his eyes.

  ‘Is this a confirmed suicide?’

  Jones sighed and motioned her to a chair, and Reilly could tell that he was thinking GFU chasing a suicide was the last thing he needed. ‘We’re waiting for the ME to verify that there was no foul play, but the guy was found hanging from the beams in the dining room of his mansion. Sure, anyone could see it was a suicide.’

  This kind of thinking was one of Reilly’s pet hates and the reason she rarely took any aspect of an open investigation at face value.

  ‘Was he married?’ Jones nodded and looked pointedly at his watch, but Reilly was like a terrier with a cornered rat, pursuing her prey until she got what she wanted. ‘So what’s the wife’s story?’

  He waved a dismissive arm. ‘Same as ever – the missus is saying otherwise, that there’s no way he’d do something like that and that it has to be some kind of accident,’ he muttered. ‘But then again, she would say that, wouldn’t she?’

  Reilly raised an eyebrow. ‘Any valid reason for her to think that?’

  ‘Nah, just the usual – he was on great form lately, they had a lovely life and were happy as Larry. You know – all pretty standard stuff.’

  ‘OK, so the wife reckons they were happy, but he …’ she opened her folder, looked at the inventory of evidence, ‘… he hanged himself with a cotton bed sheet?’

  ‘The old reliable. Although, again, the wife is convinced he couldn’t tie a knot to save his life. I don’t know – I feel sorry for her and all that but … well, I think sometimes people just need to face facts. Especially when there’s a suicide note.’

  At this, Reilly’s ears pricked up. ‘There was?’

  From her point of view, this was good news; it meant there was more likely nothing untoward. But of course, if there was no foul play, the occurrence of the same trace evidence in separate scenes would be even harder to explain. She took a deep breath, reminding herself not to leap to conclusions, to wait and see where the evidence led. Another old training mantra echoed in her brain: Intuition is a valuable tool – but only when based on evidence.

  ‘Yep. Laid out right on the dining room table, so you couldn’t miss it,’ Jones continued. ‘It was a strange one though, not the straightforward “Sorry I can’t take it anymore” type of thing you usually see.’

  ‘A strange one,’ Reilly echoed. ‘What did it say?’

  He paused, thinking. ‘I can’t remember it exactly off the top of my head. Hold on there for a minute.’ He began to rummage through the stack of files on his desk. ‘I’ve got the report here somewhere.’

  Reilly watched as Jones rummaged through the files on his desk, wondering how people could ever expect to operate efficiently in such a mess. She wasn’t even terribly interested in the note’s contents, more concerned about the fact that one did, in fact, exist.

  ‘OK, here it is.’ He held up the paper, and cleared his throat before reading, like a schoolboy reciting for his teacher. ‘“We are never so defenceless against suffering as when we love, never so forlornly unhappy as when we have lost our love object or its love.” That’s all it said. Weird, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s actually rather sad,’ Reilly mused. ‘It sounds like a quote of some sort.’

  Jones shrugged. ‘No idea. The wife says she doesn’t know what it is, or what he’s trying to say. Obviously, he was saying goodbye.’

  ‘Maybe.’ A sudden thought crossed her mind. ‘Hey, you couldn’t make me a copy of that, could you?’

  ‘Of the note? Why?’ Again, Jones sounded defensive. ‘Why are you so interested in all this anyway?’

  Thinking quickly, Reilly sighed dramatically, as if she too felt that this could all be a complete waste of time. ‘Well, the GFU is undergoing a radical transformation at the moment, and they want us double-checking every last thing.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘You know how it is.’

  She didn’t want to tell Jones about the trace evidence, not until she’d at least examined things further. Luckily her conspiratorial manner seemed to placate him.

  ‘I get you. All right then, let’s do it now while I have it in my hand.’

  He stood up and walked over to the copier. Reilly followed.

  ‘By the way, do you know if the Redmonds had any pets?’ she queried.

  ‘Couldn’t be sure, but I doubt it,’ he said. He slipped the note into the machine and pressed the start button. ‘They’ve no kids; apparently he traveled all over the world in his line of work – he was a property developer. Those guys aren’t in the country often enough to keep pets. I’ll find out though.’ He handed her the copy of the note. ‘There you go, love,’ he added patronizingly and this time it wasn’t just the garlic that got right up Reilly’s nose. ‘Knock yourself out.’

  Back at the lab, Reilly leaned back in her chair, and studied the words again.

  We are never so defenceless against suffering as when we love, never so forlornly unhappy as when we have lost our love object or its love.

  It was sad, strangely haunting. Suffering, lost love …

  Yet, according to his wife, Jim Redmond was happily married, so who was this lost love? And for a supposedly hard-nosed businessman, Redmond certainly seemed to have the soul of a poet.

  She read the note again – both the words, as well as the sentiment behind them; they sounded almost Shakespearean in their simplicity. Could it be a quote from Shakespeare? Not that it mattered all that much in the scheme of things, but curiosity had got the better of her.

  Reilly brought up Google on her computer and typed the entire sentence into the search box. Seconds later, a list of results appeared onscreen. Aha! she thought, satisfied. So it was a quote – although not one from Shakespeare; nope, this particular quote had been attributed to Sigmund Freud.

  Curiouser and curiouser …

  Like most trainees, she’d come across the work of the famous psychoanalyst as part of her studies at the Academy and had a brief knowledge of his works relevant to behaviourism. But this particular phrase wasn’t familiar to her.

  We are never so defenceless against suffering as when we love, never so forlornly unhappy as when we h
ave lost our love object or its love.

  Then again, she thought, perhaps the expression ‘love object’ should have been a giveaway – wasn’t Freud renowned for his insistence that man objectifies everything? Interesting though, that a property developer would have such an interest in Freud, and that he should use the man’s sentiments to sign off his life.

  Oh well, she thought, putting the photocopy aside and picking up the phone to inform Jones of her findings, perhaps Redmond had studied psychology during his college days or something.

  Suddenly, Reilly sat up rigidly in her seat, an icy shiver traveled along her spine. Damn, how could she have missed it, she thought, frantically scrambling around on her desk for a case file.

  She was wrong in her thinking that she hadn’t come across Freud in a while; she had – very recently. And if she thought about it, way too coincidentally. Reilly scanned rapidly through the crime-scene photos until she found the one she was looking for.

  And there it was.

  5

  The cop was waiting for her outside Clare Ryan’s apartment.

  He stood up straight as she approached, as though a tough drill sergeant had just come on deck. ‘Bit unusual this, if you don’t mind me saying – especially at this time of night.’

  Reilly smiled at him. ‘Sorry to call you out so late – there’s just something I needed to check.’

  Carefully selecting the right key, he unlocked the door to the apartment. ‘Don’t mind at all, to be honest – much more interesting than sitting around waiting to be called out for the next drunken fight.’

  Reilly stepped into the apartment, the uniform right behind her. The place was dark, long lines of shadows and light came in from the tall windows and altered the perspective in a disconcerting way. She hesitated slightly, wondering why being here now should feel so different from before, especially as the victims were gone and the initial horror had since dissipated. Of course, the death scene always seemed less threatening by daylight, but Reilly suspected that the disquiet she felt at the moment was rooted in something other than the dark. Now she was aware she’d missed something important the first time round, her senses had automatically gone up a notch and it almost felt as though a third party (the killer … the victims even?) was there with her urging her forward.