Kate couldn’t help but think that they might be wasting their time interviewing a psychiatric patient, but she was willing to go with it for now.
Listening to O’Connor’s side of the conversation, she reckoned he must be talking to DI Gunning. She found their animosity fascinating – two men, both of high intelligence, equal ranking in the force, same age, both with an active interest in solving crime – on the face of it, they had a lot in common. But that was where their similarities ended, other than their desire to be the dominant alpha male. It was the latter similarity which was at the root of their rivalry. Given the choice, though, she’d work with O’Connor over Gunning any day.
When O’Connor ended the call, he smiled at her.
‘That was our travel guide from Tuscany.’
‘So I gathered. What did he have to say?’
‘He went to the site where the bishop supposedly slipped.’
‘And?’
‘It was a steep drop all right. According to Gunning, it was less than a quarter of a mile from where Silvia had been buried. Meaning she could well have fallen from the same place, which is a bit coincidental. And that’s not all.’
‘What?’
‘Gunning had a look at the case file. He says there is a resemblance in facial features to our victims, as we suspected. Nolan was right. Sometimes you just have to get the hell over there to check things out.’
‘If the bishop’s death wasn’t accidental and our guy was involved, it meant he returned to Tuscany for a reason, and there is only one which is springing to mind.’
‘Revenge?’
‘It makes sense. Also, the bishop’s death, accident or otherwise, was six months before the current murders – sufficient time for him to stalk both girls and follow through on making his move.’
‘He certainly took his time turning into an avenging angel.’
‘Think about it, O’Connor. Assuming our killer was a child at the time and that the rumours about the bishop were true, if Antonio Peri was responsible for Silvia’s death, our guy would have looked on Antonio as the hand of evil – time may have passed, but his emotions would not necessarily have faded.’
‘Yeah, but that doesn’t answer the question, why wait? It’s forty years since the girl’s death, Kate. Five years since her remains were discovered.’
‘Something else must have happened, something current. Crimes don’t always fit into sequential patterns. It just takes something fired into the mix to send ricochets all over the place. If our killer was a child at the time of Silvia’s death, he didn’t go to Tuscany alone. We know from Jessica that his voice didn’t have an accent, at least not to her. He’s not from outside Ireland, which means he travelled to Tuscany, both as a child and as an adult.’
‘Okay. We’ll start trawling flight passenger lists around the time of the bishop’s death, starting with flights into Florence.’
‘He wouldn’t have taken a direct flight. He’ll play clever. This guy does nothing without meticulous planning. I know it’s not what you want to hear, O’Connor, but all means of getting there will have to be looked at, including flights to Pisa and Rome.’
‘Jesus, that’s some task, Kate.’
She smiled wryly at him. ‘Our guy wouldn’t want it any other way.’
O’Connor rang Donoghue and gave him instructions to get listings of all flights into Italy, along with passenger details for ferries from Ireland and the UK to mainland Europe for the weeks surrounding Antonio Peri’s death.
As they drove through the large entrance gates of St Michael’s, Kate and O’Connor looked at the building in front of them in silence. The large, grey, rundown structure loomed on the landscape like something from a Hitchcock movie.
‘I suppose you’re wondering if Ellie Brady will turn out to be another ricochet? I know I am.’
‘Maybe, O’Connor,’ she said without too much belief in her voice. ‘Convince me – what else do we know about her case?’
‘The files are archived. All original documents and exhibits are kept in vaults at HQ in the Phoenix Park. You can’t go pulling old case files without good reason. Donoghue is doing the prep work. He’ll push for opening the file as soon as he hears how we get on.’
‘Right, let’s get in there so and see what Ellie Brady has to say for herself.’
Meadow View