Can Anybody Help Me? (20 page)

The younger woman ran her hand across her face and Claire watched as the traces of the Dublin student disappeared and the composure of the Belfast housewife was once again smoothed into place.

‘Give my regards to her mum, won't you?'

Claire nodded. Deirdre turned to go, and then turned back again, fixing the policewoman with a red-rimmed but steady gaze.

‘You will find him?'

For the second time in as many days, Claire felt that she had been given an order.

‘I'll do my best.'

The doorbell clanged shut behind Deirdre, and Claire sighed. She'd been listening intently for almost half an hour and she flexed her back muscles before picking her phone up and checking that the conversation had been recorded. The screen registered two missed calls. She checked the display and the message. Flynn. He wanted her to call him immediately. Maybe the day would yield something after all.

He answered on the first ring. It took her a moment to place what she heard in his voice and then it occurred to her. Excitement. Well, now. She had never heard Philip Flynn sound excited before.

‘Well, I've found him. Solana.'

Excitement, and a note of something else.

‘Are you coming back to the station?'

Claire stood up and threw a euro on the table, where it splashed into a puddle of cold milky coffee.

‘I'm on my way.'

YOGA?

DON'T KNOW WHAT TO CALL THIS

‘A shaggin' mercenary? A gun for hire? Sweet Jesus!'

Claire rocked backwards on the chair, her blood pulsing in her temples.

‘What sort of fuckin' …'

‘Ah, yeah. Well, you wouldn't want to mess with him anyways.'

Flynn slid a piece of paper across the desk to her.

‘He's a big man, mind. Around seven foot, I'd say, judging by that. Some set of pecs on him as well, 'tis no wonder the shirt is ripped off him.'

Claire watched as he struggled and then succeeded in bringing the smirk under control. She understood his mirth, but didn't feel like laughing.

‘Berry must think we're complete fucking idiots. How did you cop it anyway? Are you one of those weirdos that spends half the night on the X Box?'

‘I am not!'

Disgusted, Flynn sat up straighter in his chair as the colour rose in his cheeks.

‘Them games are only for kids. No, I googled it, actually.'

‘Right.'

Unable to think of a witty response, Claire turned her attention again to the page Flynn had printed out for her, a biography of Chris ‘The Brick' Solana. He was thirty years old, the printout told her, a former soldier with a speciality in hand-to-hand combat and a penchant for ripping his victims heads off after their death. No wife and child was listed, but the Brick's biceps definitely deserved a webpage all of their own. Because, as Flynn's research had revealed, Chris ‘The Brick' Solana was the lead character in Kombat Konflikt, one of Ireland's bestselling electronic games.

‘He's not even black. Well, not really. I'd call him more of a coffee colour myself.'

Claire gave him a sharp look but Flynn's face was entirely serious. She sighed.

‘We've sent a car to Berry's place?'

‘Straight away. And he's done a runner. His mother said he hasn't been home in two days. Said she was going to ring us herself actually, to see if we could find her precious boy. According to her, he's barely spent a night away from home. She kept the uniforms an hour; apparently they had to leg it before she showed them his confirmation photograph.

Claire picked up a pen and began to colour in Solana's biceps.

‘We'll find him, alright. Is he driving his own car?'

‘Yeah.'

Flynn raised his hands over his head, cracked his knuckles with force and put his arms back down on the desk again.

‘I think it's safe to say we're not dealing with a criminal mastermind here. I've an alert out this past hour, we'll catch him alright. It doesn't make sense though.'

Claire looked up from her doodling.

‘How d'ya mean?'

‘I don't think Cormac Berry killed Miriam Twohy. Do you?' Claire thought back to the pale, shaken young man she'd first seen slumped outside the crime scene. He'd looked like a bit of an eejit, acted like one too. Just the type, in fact, to spend his evenings in a darkened room, fighting the baddies on screen instead of dealing with the real world. He was a liar, and a good one, given the speed at which the fake name had tripped off his tongue. But no, she hadn't seriously considered him a suspect; in fact, she didn't think he'd have the balls for it. He had something to hide, though – and he'd been frightened enough to give his tenant a fake name and then run away.

She stood up and pushed her chair back against the desk.

‘We'll give them a while, so. C'mon. What's his name, Bradley, the bloke who actually owns the apartment, came up from Cork a half hour ago; he's inside waiting for us. Let's go in and see if he can tell us something we don't already know.

It was almost ten hours later when Claire finally pulled her car into the driveway of her home and cut the engine. Shattered, she let her head fall back against the headrest. She had been on her feet since 7 a.m. and even walking into the house seemed like an insurmountable challenge, let alone climbing into bed or, God forbid, having a conversation with Matt when she got there.

Lifting her head with a groan, she peered out through the raindrops. The small red-bricked terraced house was in darkness, the blinds and curtains shut tight on the main bedroom window. It looked like Matty was fast asleep. Well, that was
something. Hopefully she'd be able to crawl in beside him and borrow his warmth without having to explain how her night had gone or, worse still, apologise for having missed dinner again. It had all been worth it, he'd understand in the end. But right now, she didn't feel she had the energy even to explain.

The discovery of Chris Solana's ‘identity' had left her furious, and she had carried the anger up two flights of stairs and into Interview Room 2 where Sean Bradley, the registered owner of 123 Merview, had been waiting since arriving on the early Cork train.

Claire knew he probably should have been interviewed earlier in the investigation, but his alibi for the week of the killing had checked out, his colleagues had confirmed he hadn't missed a day's work at the university and his wife had claimed he spent the weekend pacing the floors with a colicky child. So Quigley had given him the benefit of the doubt and allowed him to attend his daughter's christening, instead of travelling to Dublin to be interviewed on the same day as Cormac Berry. And Claire herself hadn't really considered him a suspect either. Cork wasn't the far side of the moon: with the new road it would have been technically possible for him to have left work, driven to Dublin, committed the murder and be home before bedtime if the wife wasn't the curious type. But, after having his story checked by a couple of local officers, she had thought the prospect unlikely. Sean Bradley appeared to be exactly what he said: a university lecturer who had bought his Dublin apartment at the wrong time and had been forced into acting as a reluctant landlord when his job and new wife prompted relocation to the country's second largest city. So Claire had been patient. But, now, that patience was exhausted
and it was a tired, wound-up and narky detective that had finally shaken the limp hand of Sean Bradley and flicked the tape to record.

His appearance hadn't endeared him to her either. Claire had been a guard long enough to know that the whole book/cover thing was baloney. If a guy looked guilty then he usually was. Bradley didn't look like a crook but there was something shifty about him. In his mid-thirties, the landlord was a slight, balding, sandy-haired man whose pallid skin colour matched his beige jumper so exactly, Claire wondered if they kept a colour chart in the store. In fact the only patch of colour in the nicotine-stained room was the high flush that rose and fell on his cheekbones every time he spoke. His eyes were pale too, a pale watery blue and Claire had to force herself not to look at the smattering of dandruff that had drifted across his shoulders.

Claire had started the interview by throwing out a few easy questions, but Bradley had approached even the standard ‘name, age, occupation' questions as delicately as if he'd been handed an unexploded bomb. The apartment in Merview had been bought when he was still single and obviously thought he was going to stay that way. Looking at the stained tie and light dusting of scurf on his shoulders, Claire wasn't inclined to disagree with his hypothesis. But it turned out the women's magazines had been telling the truth, there was someone out there for everyone, and when Bradley found his true love one hundred and fifty miles away from his Dublin home he decided to move to the southern capital, leaving behind his one-bed slice of negative equity in a market where it wouldn't sell for half the price he'd paid.

‘Did you consider selling?'

Bradley had nodded and blushed.

That had been his preferred option, he'd muttered to her. But nothing was shifting and an estate agent had told him to rent it out and hope that the market regained some of its momentum.

‘And that was Mr Berry?'

Bradley blushed again when he heard the name, and looked at the table. A moment passed before he stuttered one word.