O’Connor turned his car around and headed straight to the location of the suspected burial site. Driving towards the mountain road, O’Connor rapped the steering wheel in frustration. He was only too aware that the first forty-eight hours of an investigation were critical. One of the first pieces of information his team sought to establish in any missing person case was the last known sighting of the subject. Caroline Devine had last been seen after finishing school, waving goodbye to her friend Jessica Barry on Rathmines Bridge at the canal. Her family in Harold’s Cross had expected her home shortly afterwards. All the potential routes Caroline could have taken home had been examined, but nothing had turned up so far. A diving team from the Underwater Unit had already dragged the base of the canal, from both the Rathmines and Harold’s Cross ends. The canal didn’t have a major water flow. If the girl had fallen in, accidentally or otherwise, they would have found her.
Nolan had told him that he had already advised Mick Rohan, the Chief Press Officer at Garda HQ, about the site location and possible finding, but no official statement had yet been released. O’Connor knew he had a number of calls to make, one of which would be to DI Frank Gunning, who had been heading up the missing person’s enquiry from Rathmines. Gunning wouldn’t be happy about O’Connor taking over the case, but if it was Caroline Devine’s body up in the mountains, it was O’Connor’s murder now and not Gunning’s – the investigation always follows the corpse.
‘Hiya, Frank, it’s O’Connor here.’
‘I’m on my way up there. Where are you?’
‘At Bohernabreena Cemetery,’ O’Connor replied. ‘I should be there in less than ten. A couple of uniforms are already in situ from the first call in.’
‘Right, I’ll see you shortly, turning at Kiltipper now.’
‘Frank, just to tell you, Nolan has already advised Rohan about the possible outcome, but nothing official is going out until we know what we’re dealing with. I’m getting a full squad in place, and I have Morrison on standby in case we find anything.’
‘Where is our talented state pathologist today?’ Frank asked.
‘Golfing in Blessington, it will take him no time to get over.’
‘How much of an area are you going to cordon off? It’s a bitch of a place.’
‘As much as I have to – I’m not about to lose a step in this investigation and not be able to recover it.’
‘I’ll make a call to Shelley Canter,’ Frank offered. ‘She’s assigned as the family liaison officer.’
‘Good – just tell her to keep the family calm and informed. As of now, this could turn out to be nothing. There is no point in upsetting them unnecessarily.’
‘She knows that, and she also knows what the parents will be thinking no matter how this ends up.’
‘Just once we’re all working from the same sheet, Gunning.’
O’Connor hung up and made his next call – to Robert Hanley. Hanley would be heading up the technical team and he had a reputation, even by techie standards, of having something of a Midas touch.
‘Hanley?’
‘Good morning, Detective Inspector.’
‘Are you on your way?’
‘Yes.’
‘Me, too. First priority will be cordoning off the area. I’ll have a better idea of just how much when I’ve seen it, but it could be large.’
‘Nothing I can’t handle.’
‘You know the drill, Hanley, if it does turn out to be the missing girl up there, I may be the one in charge, but as far as protection of the crime scene goes, you are God Almighty.’
‘Rest assured, Inspector. I won’t even let Nolan pass if it risks compromising things.’
‘Right, let’s get digging so.’
Turning up the mountain road, O’Connor’s Avensis negotiated the steep climb on the narrow winding road that was barely able to take one vehicle. He took all the bends at speed. O’Connor knew this area like he knew its surrounding suburbs and as he reached the point on the road where the city was behind him, he got that familiar sense of being right smack in the middle of nowhere.
≈
Once the decision on the size of the area to be cordoned off had been made, a slow and methodical extraction of the ground began. There was no guarantee they would find Caroline’s body, but based on the knowledge of her disappearance, the proximity of the location to the centre of the city and the remoteness of the site where the recently dug soil had been found, there were enough things telling O’Connor that they were dealing with either a secondary or primary crime scene. Search teams were on hand to sweep the area, together with the community police and the guys from Tallaght, who often worked side by side with the Rathfarnham squad. Although Gunning was someone O’Connor neither liked nor had much time for, right now he was the man with most of the information, and O’Connor wasted no time getting as much as possible out of him.
‘Okay, Frank, fill me in. The dig will be slow, so we’ll be here for a while.’
‘Missing Persons were notified two days ago. Right now, they are just monitoring the information as we feed it to them.’
‘Go on.’
‘We’ve pulled the girl’s PC and mobile phone. She wasn’t allowed take her phone to school, so both it and her laptop were still at home. The IT guys are combing through them now. We have a number of contact points/sites being examined, but it’s too early to tell if they’ll be of any use. Buccal swabs have been taken from all members of the close family, along with the girl’s toothbrush and hairbrush, both bagged and tagged. If it is Caroline down there and the body isn’t clearly recognisable, we can check the DNA comparisons with what we have already.’