The Cold, Cold Ground

St Jude Mission, the Royal Victoria Hospital, Whiteabbey Hospital, the City Hospital and the Mater Hospital in the last week. Apparently that’s a pretty standard number. Similar number the week before. All anonymous dropins, of course.”
    “Good. I’m going to go and see her parents and her ex husband tomorrow and see if they offer us any insights. At the very least, I’d just like to close the book on this.”
    Crabbie’s mouth opened and closed in amazement. “Did you say that you’re going to go see the husband?” he asked.
    “Aye.”
    “You know he’s on hunger strike, right? In the Maze.”
    “I know.”
    “You’re going to go into all that madness?”
    “Yes.”
    “Count me out of that mess,” Crabbie said, shaking his head.
    “All right, I’ll go by myself.”
    “I’ll go with you,” Matty said.
    I pointed at Matty and looked at Crabbie. “See? The lad’s a thinker. Who’s going to have the better story for his memoirs?”
    “He’ll need to learn to type first,” McCrabban said.
    “Ok, down to the main business. We’ll need to find thisTommy Little character’s car. Matty, will you get working on that?”
    “Aye.”
    “And we’ll definitely need to visit his house. Today. Did he live alone? With a boyfriend? A cat? What? We’ll need to check that out. Crabbie, call up whatever the local barracks is and get a uniform over there to protect the evidence.”
    “They won’t like it.”
    “But you’ll make them do it.”
    “Aye,” he said and made the call.
    “Now let’s go through what we’ve got so far …”
    We reread the patho reports as a team and went through the physical evidence. We discussed motivations and theories. I was the only one who knew anything about serial killers and I gave them some of the standard feeders – childhood trauma, witnessing violence, peer rejection – which unfortunately covered about half the citizenry of Belfast. Another feeder, of course, was juvenile or adult detention – that also covered a healthy percentage of the population.
    “Somebody who hates queers probably had a bad experience with one when they were a kid,” Crabbie offered, and gave me a quick glance under his eyelids. It was, I knew, the common perception among Protestants that all Catholic altar boys had been raped by priests in their childhood. I saw that there was no point trying to argue so I decided that logic might be a better tack: “I think that kind of anger would be directed at the individual, not at random targets,” I said and then a thought occurred to me. “If these are random targets.”
    McCrabban nodded. “They’re linked by the hands and the bullets. Could they be linked some other way?”
    “Good point. Matty, will you look into that?”
    Matty nodded.
    Sergeant McCallister popped his head in through the door. “Mind if I sit in, lads? I won’t open my bake.”
    “Alan, mate, any contributions you could offer would be greatly appreciated.”
    McCallister sat down next to me. I sipped my coffee and continued: “I don’t know what you lads think but I think the key to this investigation so far is victim number one. Tommy Little. Where was he killed, when was he killed, who was he living with?”
    Matty picked up a piece of a paper. “According to the notes there was no next of kin in Ireland. Older brother in Australia. He worked for Sinn Fein as a driver and quote security guard unquote. Bit of a loner, I imagine.”
    “Yes, but we’ll need to find out his movements somehow, won’t we? A neighbour, a friend. Somebody must know something,” I said.
    “No one will speak to us. And we’ll be lynched if we go up there. He lived on the Falls Road,” Matty said.
    “He’s right. They have a policy with the peelers: whatever you say, say nothing,” Crabbie said.
    I shook my head. “One of their own was killed by some nut. I think they’ll cooperate.”
    Alan put his hand on my arm. “If I may, Sean … the IRA find out one of their own was killed in some kind of sordid homosexual encounter? I think they’re going to brush the whole thing under the rug and pretend he never existed. What if the money men in Massachusetts find out that their hard-earned dollars are going to a bunch of poofs? No, no, no. If you go up there you’ll be meeting the stone wall.”
    He had a point. But if we didn’t pursue the Tommy Little angle we didn’t have much of anything. Andrew Young was killed in his house with no witnesses and no forensic