O’Connor moved on to the next set of images, those taken from the grave area, with the young girl still lying in it. There was a concentrated silence as everyone in the Incident Room maintained what might appear to others as a cold, clinical approach to the evidence, but it was an approach that they had been trained to apply. O’Connor paused for a couple of seconds before continuing, knowing everyone was taking in the image of the schoolgirl dressed in her uniform. In death, her slim arms and tiny legs made her look even younger than she had been.
O’Connor cleared his throat. ‘I don’t need to remind anyone here that even though the general public will never see these images, they will be imagining them, and I cannot overemphasise how high the stakes are. The abduction and murder of this young girl has understandably generated a huge outcry from the public. It has also brought an enormous interest from abroad, including a very high media presence, which is growing by the day.’ O’Connor looked over at Rohan, and got a nod back. ‘Just to say here, there is absolutely no direct evidence of any sexual assault on the young girl, but I don’t have to tell you, the jury is still out as to what the killer’s real intentions were.’
When O’Connor had finished, Donoghue, as bookman, had the last word. ‘You don’t have to have a young family to think about how this girl will never get a chance to grow up, or how she might have suffered. We are at the height of this investigation, guys, and everyone in this room, including the much-appreciated support from Harcourt Square’ – he nodded to the guys from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation in the corner – ‘knows what’s needed. Now, let’s get some answers, before there are too many more bloody questions.’
Meadow View
IT HAD BEEN SIX MONTHS SINCE HIS MOTHER’S DEATH, and he had returned to work at Newell Design, and the stupidity of his co-workers was now a constant irritant to him. He felt relief each evening when he finally turned the key in the lock of his two-up, two-down townhouse and closed the door on the world.
The house was small and of little consequence. Looking at it from the outside, one might consider it bleak, situated as it was at the end of the street, with none of the decorative frivolity of many of the others. He detested the exterior of the neighbouring houses, having no time for window boxes, door knockers with the face of lions or the diverse range of window dressings on display, from cheap lace to every variation of bobble and blind, including the latest addition of the wooden Venetian kind. He liked things to be uncluttered, hygienic and, at the very least, purposeful. Nothing existed in his house outside these guidelines. Ornaments were something he had a specific disdain for, being of no value other than to gather dust, along with his fervent aversion to fine bone china and a complete loathing of any form of waste. Olive oil bottles were turned upside-down, jars and tins cleared out with methodical knife-scraping, and tubes, especially toothpaste tubes, were flattened to perfection.
He had decided to buy Number 15 Meadow View four months previously. He had made up his mind that his childhood home at Cronly Lodge would never be suitable as a permanent residence. He didn’t care much for the name of the street; he failed to understand why it held the title when no meadow, or view of one, existed. Perhaps at some point the square patch the house was built on had been part of a meadow, but if that were true, he felt a terrific irony in the fact that none of the houses on the street possessed so much as a front garden.
Once inside the house, with the door shut firmly behind him, he relaxed. He was still getting used to the liberating feeling of living in his own place, with the freedom to have things just as he wanted them. He had rented since starting work in Dublin, but it had been tiresome, always having to be concerned about how the landlord felt regarding arrangement of furniture or decorative changes. It had limited him. Sometimes, like now, he would walk around in the dark, remembering being a boy, roaming the corridors of Cronly at night, or those warm clammy evenings at the castello. It was important to remember the past. When he did turn on the light, he took solace from everything being just as he had left it. In fact, he never left without preparing the house for his return. If, for example, he left the house in daylight but knew he would not return until late evening, he would close the curtains. If, on the other hand, he left the house at night and knew he would not be back until morning, he would do the opposite. He had no time for people who didn’t prepare or plan. After all, most things in life were predictable and capable of being forecast, if you put your mind to it.