Hidden ( CSI Reilly Steel #3) Page 9

  ‘You’ve seen it then?’ Chris stuck his head round the door of Reilly’s office. He didn’t wait for her reply. ‘It’s in all the tabloids.’

  Reilly drew the paper closer, still shocked to see the photo of one of the angel tattoos beneath the headline.

  ‘How the hell did they get their hands on that though?’

  ‘Who knows? It’s a lot easier these days when all this stuff is stored on the computer system. And all those journos have sources within the force – you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours et cetera.’ The cynicism oozed out of Chris’s voice.

  ‘And the cult theory?’ she asked hesitantly. ‘Is that true?’

  Cultism had been part of her studies at Quantico, and she’d worked firsthand on one particular case in North Carolina while still a rookie: the New Eden Cult as they had become known. Years later, she still had nightmares about it.

  He shrugged. ‘We have to explore every avenue ...’

  Yet nobody had bothered to share this new avenue with her. She felt a pang of annoyance at effectively being sidelined in the investigation. She couldn’t help herself respond. ‘And you didn’t think to tell me?’

  ‘We were going to mention it at this morning’s debrief.’

  ‘But obviously decided that the press should hear it first,’ she said, unable to conceal her annoyance.

  He looked duly chastened. ‘That’s not how it happened, you know none of us tells those scumbags anything. James MacDonald raised the idea originally and it was late when we finished with the tattoo guy yesterday. He reckons it’s a safe bet that the tattoo is indicative of some kind of membership. Of what, we’re not sure. Sorry, we just haven’t had the chance to—’

  She cut him off. ‘Fine. So what next? I take it you’ve heard from O’Brien about this?’ She indicated the newspaper.

  He nodded wearily. ‘He was waiting in the office first thing when I arrived this morning. He’s absolutely livid.’

  ‘I don’t blame him. This is going to raise hell.’

  ‘It has already. Anyway, we’d better go. He’s giving a statement at ten and wants us all there.’

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘Us?’ She liked being part of the investigating team but could do without this exposure.

  He nodded. ‘It’s an order.’

  ‘Crap.’ Reilly’s day had started badly and clearly wasn’t going to get any better.

  ‘OK, the jackals are outside, I’ve got to tell them something. Bring me up to speed in two minutes. Now.’ Chief Inspector O’Brien glared at Reilly, Chris and Kennedy, his deep red complexion and unusually unkempt flyaway gray hair giving away the depth of his frustration with the media reports. His assistant sat in the corner of his office, fingers poised over her laptop, ready to record every word they said.

  Reilly spoke first. ‘Hit and run four days ago – a seventeen-year-old female apparently wandering the country lanes around Roundwood in her nightclothes, no ID, nothing distinctive except a tattoo of angel wings on her back. And she was five months pregnant.’

  Chris picked up the thread. ‘We canvassed the immediate area with the help of the local police but nothing turned up. No one knows her, no one’s ever seen her. However, on the plus side, we’ve since identified the vehicle that hit her and had the driver’s father in for questioning. Seems it was a straightforward hit and run and he fled the scene. He is now out of the country but word from the Met is we should have him in custody imminently.’

  ‘Well, that’s something at least. But if it’s a straightforward hit and run, where are the press going with this cult nonsense?’ the chief asked as his assistant tapped down some notes behind them.

  ‘We linked the tattoo with a cold case from nine years ago,’ Reilly continued. ‘Another redheaded girl, though older, pretty much the same tattoo design. Found dead in a patch of woods in the Wicklow mountains. COD was listed as exposure at the time.’

  Kennedy spoke next. ‘We talked to a retired detective, James MacDonald, the chief investigator at the time. He believes this girl may have originated from a hippy commune or something similar.’

  They all fell silent and O’Brien looked up, waiting for someone to continue. ‘So is it a cult thing or not?’

  ‘At this point, we can’t say. However, the similarities in the girls’ appearance as well as the tattoos suggests there may be more in play than our initial discovery. Based on these similarities, we’re now working on the theory that they may well have originated from the same group – be it a group of New Age Travelers or otherwise.’

  ‘Otherwise? Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like the otherwise bit?’

  Reilly spoke up. ‘Well, like the newspapers suggest, there’s the possibilty that the tattoo is some form of … branding.’

  The chief pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Christ.’

  ‘Sir, it’s just one theory at this point,’ Chris said. ‘We piece together shreds of information and, little by little, we form a picture. You understand that.’

  ‘I understand that,’ growled O’Brien, ‘but the press don’t. They watch CSI and think everything is solved inside an hour by a team of good-looking scientists, and comes wrapped up in a big red bow.’ He nodded towards his assistant. ‘Print that off for me.’ She duly closed her laptop and hurried from the room. O’Brien perched on the edge of his desk. ‘So what do I give them?’

  ‘The cat’s out of the bag now,’ Kennedy said. ‘We give the public what’s helpful to us, and keep back the stuff we don’t want them to know. It may be no bad thing, as sooner or later we’d have needed to launch a public appeal to try and identify these girls anyway.’ He looked at Reilly, who nodded. ‘The photo of the tattoo is already public, sir, so we focus on that, see if it rings a bell with anyone.’

  O’Brien nodded. ‘Fine.’ He stood up, and looked them over. ‘I suppose you lot look presentable enough. Let’s go.’

  Kennedy looked at him in horror. ‘You want us all to come to the press conference?’

  O’Brien nodded. ‘Of course. It will look better if I have a team beside me, backing me up. Makes it look like we actually know what we’re doing…’

  Kennedy hitched up his trousers and straightened his tie. ‘Josie will have a fit,’ he said to Chris. ‘She hates this tie.’

  Half an hour later, Reilly stood behind O’Brien and gazed out over the assembled journalists, the cameras flashes half-blinding her.

  Standing like this reminded her of prize-giving days at school, when the award-winning students were paraded up to pose with the principal and get a photo taken. It always struck her that it was much more about the school and how well it had done than actually celebrating the achievements of the individuals. She’d hated school, the cliques, the teams and had sought solace in her books. And Jess. She hadn’t needed validation from anyone else but her back then.

  O’Brien briefly outlined the facts of the case, referring to the notes his assistant had typed up.

  ‘As you can see, our enquiries are ongoing.’ He paused, turning on his most sincere expression. ‘In cases like this we rely very strongly on the public to help us. We will therefore be distributing detailed pictures of the tattoo at the end of this briefing, and would ask anyone who recognizes it to please contact us on the information helpline. All calls will, of course, be treated with the utmost confidentiality.’

  Chris sighed, and muttered under his breath, ‘A thousand nutjobs a day, that’s what we’ll get.’

  O’Brien stepped out from behind the podium and lined himself up in front of the investigative team. Reilly hoped deep down inside that the hassle they were about to go through as a result of going public with the tattoo might, just might, be rewarded with something useful.

  The cameras flashed, blinding them for a moment, then O’Brien clapped his hands together and addressed the journalists. ‘Now, ladies and gentlemen. Any questions for our investigators?’

  The questions rained down, microphones were thrust forward and a scrum
of eager faces swarmed around.

  ‘Why is he branding them?’

  ‘Is it a paedophile ring?’

  ‘What are we dealing with here, some kind of religious nutjob? Is it true you’re looking at a cult? Is it a new Waco?’

  Reilly sighed and discreetly flexed her foot to halt the onset of cramp. As usual the questions were piling up, but so far the answers were frustratingly elusive.

  Chapter 14

  Later that afternoon, Reilly was back at the lab. Before her on the workbench lay the remnants of what was left in the evidence box from the cold case: the dead girl’s clothes and old, well-worn footwear.

  ‘Can you come over here a sec?’ she called out to Rory as he worked away at his own bench.

  ‘Be right there, boss, just finishing up here,’ he said, not even lifting his head as he delicately placed two sample slides into the ‘Perkin’. The Elemental Analysis machine was used for determining mineral content and quantity from trace material. It burned the samples in pure oxygen and measured the elements present.

  Following Reilly’s direction, the GFU had embarked on a detailed reconnaissance soil map of the entire country, and it was hoped that in time any sample could be matched to within a small area with only basic analysis. There was already a general soil map dating back to the 1980s, which was far less specific but still useful in pointing them in the right direction.

  Rory closed the door of the ‘Perkin’ before snapping off his latex gloves.

  ‘You’re testing soil samples?’ Reilly asked.

  He nodded. ‘I’m running comparison tests on the mud Gary collected from the hit-and-run scene.’

  She turned back toward the items on the bench. ‘These shoes from the cold case; there’s deep tread full of dried mud on the soles. I’ve scraped back some of the fresher stuff – most likely from the last few steps she took through the surrounding countryside – but there seems to be older clay and stone particles embedded into some of the treads.’ Reilly indicated the shoe she had been examining. She had used tweezers to pick out some rock particles and placed them in a petri dish; alongside was another dish holding the clay.

  ‘If we can compare the soil from the inner tread with the general soil map, it might help us get an idea of the terrain on her route before she reached the hillside.’

  ‘What about the rock particles? You want me to run those too?’

  Reilly nodded. ‘Please.’

  Rory carefully picked up the evidence bag containing the other trainer and carried it over to his bench where he gently placed it so as not to dislodge any of the soil. The computer screen attached to the Elemental Analysis machine had a message flashing. Rory moved the cursor and clicked print. The central printer sparked to life in the corner of the lab.

  He opened a file on his desk and took out the analytical printout from the traces of clay collected from the hit-and-run site, the ones they’d suspected of having fallen from the vehicle involved on impact. He glanced at the document as he made his way to where the printer was frantically spewing out a complicated series of icons and letters.

  As he watched, the results started to appear upside down, and he knew what to look for – the more unusual, rare elements that indicated that the samples were the same. Even before the printout was finished and despite being upside-down he already knew the answer.

  ‘Good news,’ he called over to Reilly, optimism in his voice, ‘looks like we have another nail for our van driver’s coffin.’

  She smiled, knowing only too well the feeling of uncovering irrefutable evidence that would help put away the guilty party.

  He started to recalibrate the machine by burning some benzoic acid in the combustion chamber. This would remove any interference with the tests he was preparing to do with the soil and rock samples from the shoes. As the machine was cleaning and adjusting, Rory set about separating the soil samples from the soles. Pulling on fresh gloves he flicked on the circular light and magnifier and pulled it across so he could take a closer look.

  There was a fairly even coating of mud filling the treads, although a couple of them at the toe and heel were clear. Rory took a long slender tool – like a dentist’s excavator – from a tray at the back of his desk. He began to gently poke at the soil, and when it started to crumble and flake, he took the shoe between his hands and bent it gently. This action allowed the hardened soil in some of the treads to come loose in one piece. He then placed a piece of tissue over the sole and turned it over so the soil came out and rested on the tissue paper. Now he was left with a couple of pyramid-shaped samples, the larger side of the pyramid being the newest soil and the point being the oldest.

  Rory picked up one piece with a set of tweezers and held it under the magnifying viewer. Even with a naked eye he could see definite differences in the cross section. The older part of the sample was stony gray in color whereas the newer part appeared darker and more peat-like.

  He then set about the difficult process of taking a separate sample from each end of the pyramid. When he was finished placing the four samples – two from each end of the sample – into vials, he proceeded to run the tests.

  The beauty of analysis with the ‘Perkin’ was the speed at which it gave a result. Within the hour Rory had four reports giving him the chemical make-up of each sample.

  Sitting down at his computer he opened a soil analysis program, input the two sets of data and waited while the on-screen hourglass icon indicated the search of their reconnaissance soil map.

  After a few seconds the screen blinked and the message he didn’t want appeared.

  ‘No Match Found.’

  He sighed.

  He then manually inputted the details into the older general soil database, which would give him general non-specific pointers. The results came back almost instantly with three possible areas in which the samples could have originated: Sligo/Mayo, Donegal/Derry and Wicklow.

  Rory gathered the printouts and headed for Reilly’s office.

  ‘I think we can safely say that the girl was local unless she walked all the way from Mayo the night she died,’ Rory stated as Reilly looked up. ‘The samples don’t match anything on our own soil map, but the general map shows three possibles: two in the North West from Mayo to Derry, over three hundred kilometers away, and the other from where she was found in Wicklow.’

  ‘Are the results consistent for all samples?’ Reilly asked.

  ‘No, there is a difference, both on visual examination and on further analysis. The older material is high in mineral content, it’s almost 100 percent granite. Not solid rock, but more like compact granite dust, possibly sediment from a river or something like that,’ he speculated.

  Reilly nodded.

  ‘Something else, too – traces of paraffin and petrol at a similar ratio to what was found on the other girl.’

  Reilly’s head snapped up. ‘Same as what was in the swabs?’

  ‘I think so.’ He checked his files. ‘Yeah, toenail swabs it says here.’

  Her mind raced. It was small but it gave them strong reason to suspect that both girls had at one stage been present on the same terrain.

  ‘That’s fantastic, Rory, thank you!’

  Rory allowed himself a smile. ‘No worries, boss. Anything else you need before I get stuck into the mountain of paperwork on my desk?’

  She shook her head, and picked up the phone to call the detectives. ‘Hey, never let it be said that I’d stand in the way of officialdom.’

  ‘Hello, I’m ringing about the young girl in the paper, the one with the tattoo ... it’s terrible altogether, I’ve not been able to sleep thinking about the poor thing.’

  The Garda tipline operator’s voice was gentle and friendly. ‘Thank you for your call, madam. What information do you have about her?’

  ‘Well, I was just saying to the girls at bingo last night that she looks a bit like the Farrell girl that used to live at the end of my street. Nice family, would always give you a friendly wave
when you passed. Mary said I should call the number from the news – it said any information might help.’

  ‘Yes, anything that rings a bell might indeed be useful to our investigation. Is there anything else you can tell me?’ the operator asked as she automatically logged the call detail into the system.

  ‘I had to take half a Zanax to get off to sleep last night. It’s just terrible that such a beautiful young girl was left alone like that, how could anyone …?’ The woman’s voice trailed off.

  ‘Can you give me an address for the Farrell family you mentioned?’ The operator knew from experience that this was yet another time waster, but she needed to be sure just in case. She tried to refocus the caller’s mind.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ the lady continued with a sniff. ‘They lived two doors down from me. Number 23 Woodside, Oranmore, Galway. They moved out a good few years back now, can’t remember exactly when, but my Paddy was still alive so I’d say ninety-four or five – maybe even ninety-six. I really hope it isn’t her though, lovely little thing she was, the youngest, can’t remember her name, Aoife, I think … she was probably around ten or so when they moved,’ she babbled on, and the operator had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. ‘I’m not sure where they moved to but some of the girls were saying the council might have a record of it. Do you think you’ll be able to track them down?’

  Doing the maths, little Aoife was in her late twenties now and the caller was typical of those who often phoned in these circumstances: elderly, lonely and fearful. They meant well but they didn’t realize their calls were a hindrance rather than a help.

  ‘We’ll certainly try, madam. Thank you for your call, it’s been most helpful,’ she said, barely able to make a note of the details before the phone rang yet again.

  Later that evening, Reilly pounded the dark streets, her running shoes splashing though puddles and scattering piles of windblown leaves. It was past nine when she’d got home, but some days she just needed to get out and run, clear her head, no matter how late it was. And tonight she’d felt the urge all the more.