‘Okay,’ O’Connor said, standing up so everyone could hear him. ‘We’ve extended the search area, but it’s still too early to send in the tracker dogs. Hanley and the tech team need time to make sure they’ve picked up everything. The photographs, which will come up now in the visuals, reflect the general terrain, access roads to and from the area, Montpelier, Glenasmole, all the way up to Military Road. We are concentrating the search in the area to the left of the main Bohernabreena Road, the side the girl’s body was found.
‘A cast impression has been made of the boot print found at the scene, using the usual Crownstone. The size of the boot is between a nine and a ten and, judging by the depth of the impression, our guy is in and around the twelve stone mark, certainly not too heavy on his feet. Other points about it – tiny particles of gravel, more than likely built up over time, were found in the indentions or grooves on the sole of the boot. We’ve checked with the sheep farmer, Murphy, the only other person who walked in the vicinity, and the print is not his. The impression is from a left boot, showing excessive wear on the left-hand side, meaning the wearer had an inclination to lean more on the far left of his left foot. Pattern not unusual, could be found in many makes of hiking boots, but based on the cast taken it is likely that this boot was put to frequent use.’
‘Update on forensics?’
O’Connor turned to Nolan. ‘Yeah, sorry, Boss. Hanley has confirmed that we are probably dealing with a secondary crime scene, no blood splatters found. As of right now, the body is giving us very little. We’ll know more when Morrison does the postmortem this evening, and we have a better handle on the whole thing.’
‘O’Connor, put pressure on the labs if you have to,’ Nolan ordered. ‘We’ll need those toxicology reports pronto, you know how they like to take their time.’
O’Connor turned to Gunning. ‘Caroline’s friend, Jessica Barry – what’s the story with her?’
‘I interviewed her when the initial missing person’s report came in, and she’s been interviewed again today by one of McCann’s team, both times with mother present. So far, she knows nothing other than the details of the last sighting.’
Nolan pushed his chair back and the castors creaked into motion. ‘This is starting to sound like an investigation where nobody knows anything. We have to get the information in guys, pull the people, neighbours, the postman, anyone on that CCTV footage, get talking to them all, we need to ask the right people the right questions before the Chinese whispers start taking hold. O’Connor, are you listening?’
‘One hundred per cent.’
‘What’s the story on known paedophiles?’
‘I’m going to handle that line myself.’
‘Good. Now, Matthews, pull those blinds down and let’s look at these visuals. O’Connor, you have a captive audience.’
When the room darkened, everyone knew what to expect. Ordinarily the slide show would start with images and data from the main crime scene. But with no primary crime scene, the first of the images came from the burial site, taken at bird’s-eye-view level, including mapping and markings done by the forensic team. This would create a three-dimensional reproduction of the crime area – in this case, the burial site. This was O’Connor’s starting point.
‘Hanley examined a number of ways of gaining access to this area. It’s open terrain and the bad weather has probably eroded any clues that could have led us to the likely entry point the killer used. In the final analysis, Hanley concluded that there was no way to establish with certainty where the perpetrator gained access to the site. This had delayed things considerably, as his team had to use galvanised steps to examine the area, minimising any potential damage to possible entry points.’
‘Who was deployed to examine the roads leading to the scene – the main roads and walking tracks?’ Nolan looked to O’Connor, but Donoghue already had it covered.
‘Burke, anything of interest turn up there?’
‘No CCTV up that far. You reach a point halfway between the turn off for Friarstown and the climb towards the Military Road, and there isn’t even any road lighting. There was a guy hanging out at one of the lay-bys, sleeping rough in a car for a time earlier in the year, but he’s well gone.’