Murder on Clare Island Read online

  West nodded, thinking. ‘The car was coming from the Deansgrange direction, wasn’t it?’

  Edwards nodded.

  ‘Ok,’ West stood, and went to the map of the area on his wall. ‘Speeding, at this time of the day. Might have come from a pub,’ he said, pointing to a number of pubs in the Deansgrange, Kill O’ the Grange and Cornelscourt area.’

  ‘There’s the off-licence in Dunne’s, too,’ Edwards said, pointing to the big department store in Cornelscourt. ‘They’re well covered with CCTV, I know one of the security guards, I’ll head that way and see if he’ll have a look.’

  ‘Ok, you cover that; I’ll take Andrews and work through the pubs. Let’s find this bugger.’

  There were six pubs within a three mile radius of Westminster Road. All had CCTV cameras covering the car-parks; three had cameras that actually worked. The other three had cameras that had worked at some point. ‘In the dim and distant past,’ the cheerful bar-man in the first pub told the two gardai.

  ‘We’re looking for a blue escort,’ West said, ‘do you know if any of your customers were driving one today.’

  The man leaned on the bar and shook his head. ‘They could have been driving a neon pink one, and I wouldn’t have seen it,’ he said. ‘I’m the only bar-man on today; I haven’t had time to take a piss. And anyway,’ he added, ‘a blue focus, there must be a million of them on the road.’

  ‘He’s right, you know,’ Andrews said gloomily when they were back outside.

  The three who had CCTV were only too happy to allow West and Andrews have a look. Lunchtime was a busy period and each of the car parks was full. Nothing showed up on the first. In the second, the footage from the obviously cheap CCTV was grainy and hard to see. It was also in black and white. Four focuses had left in the period they looked at but it was impossible to tell the colour. They’d have to check them all out.

  In the third pub, the CCTV footage was, luckily, in colour and they were able to quickly run through the time in question. Only one blue focus left the car-park. Andrews scribbled down the registration.

  In the other two pubs without CCTV, the bar-men shook their heads, and echoed the sentiments of the first, ‘A blue focus? You have to be kidding me!’

  ‘They could have visited pubs further afield, of course,’ West said, sitting back into his car.

  Andrews bit his tongue on the smart remark he was going to make. They could have been drinking, if drunk they were, in any house within a five mile radius. There was no point, he knew the score, they had to do what they could do.

  West took out his phone, rang the National Driver’s Licence Service and asked the liaison officer there to find the owners of the licence plates he read out.

  The NDLS officer said it would take a few minutes and promised to ring back as soon as he had results.

  ‘I bet they’ll be hours,’ said Andrews, always pessimistic when it came to red tape and bureaucracy.

  West was just about to tell him not to be such a misery when his phone buzzed and with a, there you are then, nod to Andrews, he scribbled down names and address on the pad balanced on his knee.

  Hanging up and pocketing his phone, he looked at the list and groaned. They were everywhere. ‘Ok,’ he said, tossing the pad to Andrews and starting the engine, ‘you chose.’

  Assuming he couldn’t choose to go back to the office and give this waste of time a miss, Andrews sighed heavily, looked at the list and quickly calculated the best route to cover all five.

  The first two turned out to be the wrong colour; they didn’t even need to get out of the car, a red focus parked in one driveway and a silver one parked on the road outside the owner’s house.

  They were just about to head for the third, when West’s phoned buzzed. Pulling over, he answered, listened for a moment and nodded, then hung up, turned on the engine and turned the car around.

  ‘Edwards,’ he said as if that explained everything.

  In a way it did. Edwards had gone to review the CCTV cameras in Dunnes. Andrews assumed he’d seen something more interesting than they had.

  Pulling into the always-busy car park of the huge department store, just minutes later, West looked around for somewhere to park. ‘Are they giving away food?’ he asked.

  ‘Haven’t you been here before?’ Andrews asked. ‘Joyce likes it here, they do reasonably priced food, have a great household section and she says the clothes are great. We come for lunch sometimes,’ he added, nudging West’s arm and pointing to a car just about to pull out of a space. ‘You have to keep your eyes open.’

  Andrews, who’d been there before, led the way to the large prefabricated building that housed the store’s security system.

  Edwards sat with a mug of coffee, a satisfied look on his face that increased when he saw West and Andrews arrive. ‘Wait until you see,’ he said, with a nod to the security man sat in front of a bank of screens. ‘In just a minute,’ Edwards explained, ‘watch the left hand corner of the screen.’

  It seemed longer than a minute. The camera they were watching was set facing the section of the car park directly in front of the store. They watched people leaving the store pushing heavily laden trolleys, some with the bewildered classic where did I park my car look that vanished to be replaced with a look of relief as they remembered. Some walked directly out onto the road, ignoring cars coming around the corner, the driver searching for an empty spot. There were frequent beeps to be heard, and cross faces to be seen. It was pretty chaotic. West was surprised they didn’t have accidents, no wonder they splashed out on a state of the art CCTV system.

  ‘Here it is,’ Edwards said, a touch of excitement in his voice.

  Andrews and West moved closer and they saw it at the same time, both releasing an audible yes as they watched a young woman rush from the front door, pushing a full trolley. She didn’t hesitate as she crossed the road, forcing a car to break suddenly. With a wave of apology, she rushed on. At her blue focus, they saw her check her watch, close her eyes and shake her head before opening her boot and all-but throwing the contents of her trolley into the car.

  Leaving the trolley where it was, she jumped into the car. ‘She was in too much of a hurry even to return the damn trolley,’ Andrews muttered.

  Seconds later, she reversed at speed.

  ‘Now,’ Edwards said, ‘switch to this screen.’ They saw the car exit the car park. With a hair’s breadth of a gap, she crossed the southbound lane of the Bray Road, causing traffic to brake, and drove away at speed.

  ‘Licence number?’ West asked turning to look at Edwards.

  Garda Edwards held out a sheet of paper. ‘I rang the NDLS,’ he said, ‘she lives in Foxrock, on Torquay road. The most direct route home for her is down Westminster Road.’

  ‘Well done,’ West said taking the sheet, looking at the address. He knew the road. It was tree-lined, the houses high-end, the occupants generally well-to-do. They were going to destroy someone’s cosy little world. And then he thought of the young man in the hospital bed, who’d never see tomorrow. His family’s cosy little world was already destroyed.

  With a nod of thanks to the security men and a request for a copy of the tape, they headed out. Edwards left his car where it was and jumped into the back of West’s.

  ‘It’s down near the intersection with The Birches,’ Andrews said, directing West as they got closer.

  Edwards, leaning forward, muttered, ‘It’s well for some, isn’t it,’ as he peered through the trees to catch a glimpse of the beautiful houses on either side.

  ‘This one,’ Andrews said, pointing to the left.

  West, turning into the cobbled driveway, followed it to the front of the surprisingly modern house. ‘I expected something older,’ he said, pulling to a stop.

  ‘Some of the older houses sold plots of land for development,’ Andrews explained getting out of the car and looking around. ‘No car,’ he commented.

  Edwards, out of the car as soon as it had stopped, was looking
around the side of the house. ‘There’s a double garage over here,’ he called back to West and Andrews who continued to stand by the car.

  ‘Let’s see what the story is,’ West said, and they approached the doorway en masse. Andrews and Edwards dropping back slightly as West pressed the doorbell. It was a situation West had been in so many times, but since Glasnevin, he never faced it without thinking of Brendan Keogh. He allowed the memory, treating it as a kind of homage to the big, cheerful detective who had died so needlessly.

  He was just about to ring again when the door was opened to the length of a safety chain, forcing West to peer sideways at the woman within. ‘Mrs Parsons?’ he asked, holding up identification. ‘We’d like a word please.’

  The door closed and stayed closed for several minutes. But they knew she was there, West imagining he could hear her heart beat through the wood, a flight of fancy he didn’t share with the two men behind. Andrews might have appreciated it, but Edwards would wonder if he’d lost his marbles.

  Rather than ringing the doorbell again, West knocked gently on the door. ‘Mrs Parsons, we need to speak to you. Please.’

  It was another minute before the door opened. The woman had put on a confused, but friendly, smile, ‘So sorry, I had to run to see to the baby,’ she lied. ‘Now, how can I help you?’

  West held up the photograph of her car they had downloaded from the CCTV, the licence plate clearly visible. ‘You were in a great hurry to leave, Mrs Parsons,’ he said.

  She laughed nervously. ‘Goodness, it must be a quiet day in the world of crime. Hurrying is hardly an offence. Was I driving too fast? Is that it? Was I caught on a mobile speed camera or something?’

  Before West could answer the sound of a baby’s cry came from inside. The woman ignored it for a moment but as the cry escalated, she looked toward the sound and back to West. ‘I’ll have to go and see to him,’ she said, ‘he’s not been well.’ She went to close the door, but West quickly put a hand out.

  ‘We’ll follow you in then, if we may?’ he said, but it wasn’t a question and they all knew it.

  The hallway led into a room that spanned the back of the house; to one side a huge kitchen glistened with stainless steel and granite worktops, on the other, comfortable looking sofas were grouped around an enormous television. The dining table and chairs were set in front of a wall of folding doors, the deck beyond hinting at how the area was used in the summer. On one side of the table, a small child sat in a high-chair, mouth open emitting high-pitched screams.

  ‘Hush, hush darling,’ the mother said, picking the infant up and rocking him. It didn’t quieten the noise, and made conversation impossible.

  As the only one of the three who’d experience with children, both Edwards and West looked to Andrews for guidance. But, his blank look said as clearly as words, he’d no idea what to do, so the three just stood and waited.

  ‘I’ll go and change him,’ the woman said loudly, and left the room, the sound fading as she mounted the staircase to the bedrooms.

  It was ten minutes before she returned, and when she did it was without her child. ‘He’s gone to sleep at last,’ she said, looking weary, ‘he’s had a chest-infection for the last week. The antibiotic, I think, gives him belly-ache.’ She lifted and dropped her hands in a what-can-you-do manner and moving to the kitchen, took down some mugs and a cafetiere. ‘Would you like some coffee?’ she asked turning back to them.

  West nodded, and the other two followed suit.

  It was only when they were sitting around the table drinking very good coffee that the subject of their visit came up. She’d had time to plan what to say, West saw, seeing her new composure when he placed the photograph on the table in front of her.

  ‘Your car, Mrs Parsons,’ he asked, ‘where is it?’

  She drank some coffee before answering. ‘Parked in the garage,’ she said. ‘My husband, Pat, he likes to park out front, so I always put mine away.’

  ‘We’d like to have a look at it. Is that ok?’ West asked.

  She lifted her mug once more and met his eyes over the rim. ‘Do you have a warrant?’ she asked, putting the mug down.

  Rather than answering her question, West said, ‘You were seen driving at speed from Dunnes.’ He tapped the photograph on the table. ‘You see the time on the photograph, Mrs Parsons. That’s the time the image was recorded. Ten minutes later, on Westminster Road, which we know to be the fastest route home for you, two teenagers were knocked down by a speeding blue focus. So do you think I’ll have a problem getting a warrant?’

  Meeting his gaze, her lower lip trembled before she took it firmly between her very white teeth, but even that didn’t stop it. ‘They were messing about,’ she said, her voice low. ‘I saw them as I approached, they were on the path, pushing one another, and then suddenly they were there, in front of me.’ Her eyes grew large and she blinked. ‘I saw one getting up.’ She looked around the faces that stared at her. ‘In the rear-view mirror,’ she clarified. ‘I saw them getting up.’

  ‘Both of them?’ West asked.

  ‘Well, no,’ she admitted, ‘but I’d turned the corner, you know so they were out of sight.’ When the men stayed silent, she laughed uncomfortably. ‘They’re ok, aren’t they? They didn’t break anything, did they?’

  ‘Why were you in such a hurry,’ West asked, putting off the inevitable.

  She shook her head. ‘I’d run out of medication for the baby,’ she said. ‘I went to our local pharmacy, in the village, but it was closed. Someone’s funeral or something.’ She ran a hand over her face. ‘Dunnes was the next choice. Then I remembered we were almost out of milk and a few other things, so I decided to do some shopping and, before I knew it, it was half an hour later.’

  ‘You’d left the baby here. Alone,’ Andrews said, his tone condemnatory.

  ‘It was only supposed to be a few minutes,’ she said defensively, ‘and he was asleep when I left, and still asleep when I got back so no harm was done, was there?’

  It was time to disabuse her of that notion, West decided, taking a deep breath. ‘Unfortunately, there was,’ he said, ‘the teenagers you knocked down...’

  ‘I saw them get up,’ she interrupted.

  ‘One,’ West said. ‘You may have seen one get up, but you certainly didn’t see the second. He hasn’t regained consciousness. They’re waiting until his family arrive to say goodbye, and then they will most likely switch the life-support off. He is seventeen, Mrs Parsons.’

  Deirdre Parson’s face froze, her eyes dilated in shock.

  ‘Ring your husband, Mrs Parsons,’ West said gently, ‘tell him to come home. I’m afraid you’re going to have to come with us.’

  By the time Pat Parsons arrived home, his wife had stopped trying to justify what she’d done and instead picked up her baby and cuddled him, kissing the child as if she would never let him go.

  West met the husband at the front door.

  ‘What the hell is going on,’ he said, seeing West. ‘Is Deirdre ok? Has something happened? My God, Alex? Has something happened to my son?’

  ‘No,’ West reassured him, ‘not your son. And your wife is safe. She is, however, under arrest.’

  Pat Parsons looked blank. He blinked and tried a laugh that came out wrong, more a squeal than laugh. This was all so outside his experience. Dentistry was a fairly humdrum, if lucrative, occupation. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘maybe I’m being very stupid, but did you really say that Deirdre was under arrest.’ At West’s nod, he spat out, ‘Why? For goodness sake, what on earth could she have done?’

  West told him.

  Ten minutes later, they led a hysterical Deirdre Parsons to the car, her husband promising her everything would be alright, that their solicitor would meet her at the station. ‘Just say nothing until he gets there,’ he reminded her again, as she climbed into the car.

  The solicitor was, to their surprise, waiting when they arrived and he insisted on speaking to Deirdre in private before any
interview by the police.

  When West and Andrews entered the Big One, the solicitor was still speaking quietly, his hand on Deirdre Parsons’ arm. He looked up as they entered, and keeping his hand on her arm, he addressed the two detectives. ‘I’m afraid there will be no interview, gentlemen,’ he said firmly, ‘my client is suffering post-natal depression and is under the care of a psychiatrist. I’ve arranged a room for her in St John’s Clinic and he is going to assess her mental state tomorrow morning. Until then, my client has nothing to say. And,’ he reminded them, ‘anything my client did say earlier, before her rights were read, is not admissible. Now,’ he turned and put his hand around his client’s shoulder, ‘I’m taking Mrs Parsons to that clinic. I’ll be in touch when I have the psychiatric report.’

  West and Andrews watched as they left. ‘That’s the last we’ll see of her,’ Andrews muttered.

  West nodded tiredly. Andrews was probably right. They’d spend valuable man-hours ensuring the case was watertight because they had to, and it probably wouldn’t even go to court. Remembering the solicitor, and knowing something of the man’s expertise – the legal profession was too small in Dublin not to have heard of him, West knew it would never come to court.

  At home, he opened the fridge, eyed the selection of ready-made meals and closed it again. Instead, he poured a healthy measure of Jameson and sat, Tyler curled beside him snoring gently. It took a few minutes for the whiskey to chill the stress of the day, to put everything into perspective. After all, the woman wasn’t a career criminal. Would anything be gained by sending her to prison? It wouldn’t bring the boy back, and any satisfaction the family would gain at her arrest would be short lived. Even if she went to prison, it wouldn’t be for long, and their boy would still be dead.

  He smiled as he finished the whiskey. Such is the way these things are justified. Sighing, he poured another, slightly smaller whiskey, and reached for the phone. He needed something cheerful to do and he knew just what that was.