The Cold, Cold Ground

exactly Nathan Leopold’s glasses prescription, is it? And I know what the Chief’s going to say. He’s going to say that this case is closed, isn’t he?”
    “Do you still think Lucy’s death is connected to Tommy Little’s?” Crabbie asked.
    Of course I had told them my bullshit theory about the line from La Bohème: “My name is Lucia but everyone calls me Mimi” … Lucia = Lucy?
    I shook my head. “Nah. Lucia, Lucy? I was just spouting off, Crabbie. It’s a coincidence,” I insisted, but Crabbie looked me in the eyes and he saw that I wanted to be convinced.
    “Let’s just say for the sake of argument that there’s a link between these two cases. These two murders that occurred at approximately the same time, not a million miles away, where does that get us?” Crabbie asked.
    “There are two ‘S’s in the Tommy Little case, aren’t there?” Matty said.
    “Aye. There are. Freddie Scavanni and Shane Davidson.”
    The three of us stared at the envelope. Outside rain was lashing the windows. A coal boat was struggling out of Carrick harbour. An ambulance roared by on the Marine Highway.
    Crabbie filled his pipe and lit it. “So,” he said.
    “So,” I seconded and lit another ciggie.
    “What do we do with this?” Matty asked.
    “What can we do?” Crabbie asked.
    “I don’t know. If I or either of you go near Scavanni or Shane Davidson we’ll get a bollocking.”
    Matty jabbed his finger into the envelope. “But we have something here!”
    Suddenly the incident-room door was kicked open. Chief Inspector Brennan was standing there larger than life. Eyes wide, fag end drooping from his mouth. I immediately hid the envelope under a sheet of A4.
    “Oi, Sergeant Duffy!” Brennan bellowed.
    “Yes, sir?”
    “Remember in the dim distant past of yesterday you gave me this big fucking speech about how there wouldn’t be any more queer murders? About how the queer angle was only misdirection? A false trail?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, wise guy, they just found another dead poofter. You’re fucking brilliant, aren’t ya?”
    “Where?”
    “Loughshore Park, near Jordanstown. In the bogs. Somebody just called it in.”
    Loughshore Park.
    The toilets.
    “Is there a description of the victim?” I asked.
    “Young white male, twenty, Elvis quiff, black hair, what’s it to you?”
    I grabbed my leather jacket and my revolver. I pushed past Brennan. He grabbed at me.
    “Where the fuck are you going, mate?”
    “Loughshore Park.”
    “This isn’t your case any more, arsehole!”
    I ran down into the car park and reversed the Beemer out of its spot.
    I hit 80 on the Shore Road.
    I made it to Jordanstown.
    Todd was there with his team. Ten officers in all. White boiler suits, photographers, the whole thing. I was impressed.
    I showed my warrant card, kept out of Todd’s sightline and went down into the bog.
    Of course it was him.
    He was lying there in the foetal position with his hands ducttaped behind his back.
    Billy and Shane had silenced him.
    They’d tortured him first to get any information out of him. He’d been stripped and beaten black and blue. This also was a lesson for Shane. A lesson in the way the world worked.
    I walked closer to the body.
    His face was bloody but there was no blood pool around the corpse. He hadn’t been shot.
    “How did he die?” I asked one of the forensic officers.
    “Very unusual,” the nearest FO guy said.
    “Oh?”
    “Yeah. They taped over his mouth and taped his hands behind his back. They killed him by putting a Speedo nose clip over his nostrils. Swimmers use it to stop water going up their nose.”
    “So, he suffocated?”
    “Yeah, but that’s not the unusual bit.”
    “What’s the unusual bit?”
    “They cut off his eyelids with a pair of scissors. Don’t know why they did that.”
    “So they could watch him die,” I said.
    Part of the moral lesson.
    Shane was forced to watch the light go out of his eyes.
    “What in the name of fuck are you doing here?” DCI Todd said.
    “Fuck off,” I snapped and pushed him away from me.
    “Did youse see that? He fucking pushed me,” Todd said.
    I made a fist. “I’ll fucking do worse if you don’t get out of my fucking way!” I said.
    I shouldered him aside and went out.
    “I’ll tell your gaffer about this!” Todd screamed after me. “You’ll be giving out parking tickets in Free Derry when I’m done with you!”
    I walked to the BMW.
    I drove across the four lanes of the