“If it wasn’t all so damned clinical,” Coleridge observed, “I would have said that the attack was frenzied.”
The tape played on. The killer had clearly taken two sheets from the pile when he left the sweatbox, for now as he raised himself up from making the second blow he threw one over his victim. The other one continued to cover him as he left the toilet.
“And you talked to the cameraman on duty, constable?” Coleridge enquired.
“Yes, I did, sir,” Trish replied, “at length. His name is Larry Carlisle. He saw the figure in the sheet enter the lavatory and moments later he saw the figure emerge.” Trisha gathered up her case notes and quoted from the transcript of her interview with the cameraman…
“‘I saw the figure follow the victim into the toilet at approximately twenty to midnight. He re-emerged shortly thereafter and headed back across the living area towards the boys’ bedroom. I did not cover him with my camera as I had been instructed to continue to watch the toilet for Kelly in order to obtain more good nude footage. I remained there, watching the door, until the alarm was raised. I recall thinking that she was having a long time in the loo. I had only twenty minutes to go until my shift finished and I was beginning to think I’d have to leave her for the next bloke. Anyway, about four or five minutes after the figure in the sheet emerged, they all rushed down from the monitoring bunker, and you know the rest.’”
“Four or five minutes?” said Coleridge when Trisha had finished reading.
“That’s what he said.”
“According to the people in the box and the time codes it was no more than two.”
“I suppose if you’re just standing staring at a door it would be easy to misjudge a period of time.”
“How long did he say elapsed between Kelly emerging from the bedroom and the killer following her?”
“He said two, but gets that wrong as well, because it was around five.”
Coleridge got out the big red ledger in which he kept his notes for the case and wrote down Carlisle’s name and the discrepancies the man had made in his timings. Coleridge wrote in longhand, and it always seemed to take him about a week to complete a sentence.
DAY TWENTY-EIGHT. 7.00 p.m.
Geraldine’s witness statement had arrived at the point of the murder. She told the same story as all the others. “I saw the bloke in the sheet come out of the sweatbox, cross the living area, go into the toilet and kill Kelly.”
“How long would you say Kelly had been on the toilet before the killer emerged?” Coleridge asked.
“About four or five minutes, I think.”
“Did you actually see the murder?”
“Well, not actually, obviously, the sheet was in the way. We just saw the sheet billow up and down twice and wondered what was up. Then the bloke buggered off sharpish back to the sweatbox, leaving Kelly covered in his spare sheet.”
“You saw the sheeted figure return to the sweatbox and go inside it?”
“Yes, we all did.”
“What happened then?” Coleridge asked.
“We sat and watched. Kelly was still on the bog but covered in this sheet.”
“You didn’t think that was strange?”
“Well, of course we thought it was fucking strange, but the whole thing’s fucking strange, isn’t it? We didn’t know what was happening. As far as we knew there’d been a bit of malarkey with the sheets, that was all. I mean, come on, inspector, we weren’t expecting a murder, were we? I think we sort of presumed she’d fallen asleep. They were all completely pissed. It would have been strange if things hadn’t been strange.”
“Then what?”
“Well, we saw the puddle, didn’t we?”
“How long would that have been after the figure in the sheet had left the toilet?”
“I don’t know. Five minutes, max.”
“Yes, that’s what the operator in the camera run said.”
“Does it matter?”
“The editor and his assistants thought it was more like two.”
“Maybe it was, I don’t know, it seemed like five minutes. Time drags a bit when you’re sitting staring at a bird on a bog covered in a sheet. What’s it say on the video time code?”
“Two minutes and eight seconds.”
“Well, you know, then. What are you asking me for?”
“So then you saw the puddle?”
“Yeah, suddenly we could see a wet sort of dark shiny glow spreading out from around the toilet.”
“Blood?”
“Well, we know that now, don’t we?”
“It must have occurred to you then.”
“Well, of course it did, but it just seemed so impossible.”
“The sheet was already sodden with it. Why didn’t you see that?”
“As you know, the sheet was dark blue. The stain didn’t show up on the night camera. All the sheets in the house are dark colours. Our psychologist reckons it’s more conducive to people having sex on them.”
“So what then?”
“Well, I’m embarrassed to say, inspector, that I screamed.”
DAY TWENTY-SEVEN. 10.00 p.m.
They had been inside the sweatbox for a few minutes now, waiting for their eyes to get used to the darkness. It was useless trying to see anything, however. The blackness was complete.
“Let’s play truth or dare,” Moon’s voice called out of the darkness.
“Dare?” said Dervla. “Jesus, what more of a dare could we think of than this? We’ve already had to strip naked, for heaven’s sake.”
“I can think of a few things,” Gazzer grunted.
“Well, keep them to yourself, Gaz,” Dervla replied, managing to make her voice sound almost prim, which was some achievement considering the situation they were all in. “Because I’m not shaggin’ any of yez.”
Dervla’s voice and intonation were getting closer to Dublin with every syllable she spoke. She always took refuge in the comfort and protection of the tough, highly credible accent of her childhood when she felt vulnerable. “Jesus, me mother’d kill me, so she would.”
“All right, then,” Moon conceded. “Let’s just play truth, then. Somebody ask a question.”
Now another voice rang out of the darkness, a voice that was jarring and bitter. “What would be the fucking point of asking you to tell the truth, Moon?” It was Sally’s voice, and it struck a disturbing note. Its hard, nasty edge cut through the drunken badinage.
“Hey, Sally,” Moon replied, angry and defensive. “I were having a fookin’ laugh, all right. Get over it, why don’t you?”
“What’s that, then?” Garry asked. “What’s been going on with you birds?”
“Ask Sally,” said Moon. “She’s the one who can’t take a joke.”
But Sally remained silent. And would not get over it either. She had no intention of getting over it, ever. Moon had done a despicable thing. She had hijacked the terrible suffering of the abused and the mentally disturbed to score cheap points. One day Sally intended to make Moon aware of the offence that she had caused.
“Oh, fook it, then,” Moon continued, “and fook you, Sally.”
There was a movement in the box. Somebody was leaving.
“Who’s that?” Hamish asked.
“Who’s got out?” said Jazz.
Sally was already outside the box. “I’m going for a slash,” she said.
“Well, make sure you come back,” said Jazz. “We all have to do this or we all fail.”
“I know,” Sally assured him.
In the monitoring box they watched as Sally came out of the boys’ bedroom and crossed the living area to the toilet. Sally had not bothered to take up a sheet to cover herself, but Geraldine was less than thrilled.
“Well, not bad, I suppose, but she’s hardly one of the lookers,” she moaned. “And, anyway, we’ve seen her bloody great kajungas hundreds of times. What we need is Kelly or Dervo to give us a full frontal.”