‘Here, sir.’ Gunning put his hand up from the side.
‘I want more pressure applied outside. If there’s no match against the ribbons and everything else at home, we’ll need to push on Interpol searches.’
‘I’m on it, Boss, they’ll be getting a reality check from me no matter what their preferred language might be.’
‘Good – that okay with you, O’Connor?’
‘Sure.’ O’Connor wanted to punch DI Gunning in the face and remove any notion he had of being the star pupil. He should have got the boot in earlier about him missing the site opposite Caroline Devine’s house. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
Nolan was still on a roll. ‘I assume you’ve run checks on any possible visiting paedophiles O’Connor?’
O’Connor was even quicker to respond this time. ‘Yes, Boss, nothing concrete in as yet, but we’re pressing every possibility; any link or potential link, we’ll see it.’
‘Toxicology reports on the first girl back in yet?’
This time O’Connor was pleased to have a definitive answer. ‘No drugs or any other substances were found in the victim’s system. If Caroline got into a car with someone, she did so of her own free will. That would back up Dr Pearson’s assessment that he gains their trust. All other trace evidence was in line with deposits from the burial site, nothing more.’
‘Right, while I think of it, O’Connor, get Rohan to tell those press guys to back off. If I see ‘Mr goddamn Invisible’ in print one more time, I’ll be even more bloody annoyed than I am already.’
Donoghue did the wrap up. ‘Right, you heard the boss. Gunning, push the Interpol searches, you know how slow they can be to come in. O’Connor, I’ll want to know what Hanley comes up with from the canal, that book of poetry, and Ms Pearson’s report when you get it. We’ll run a public appeal later this evening with the photofit from the Barry girl, and a visual of the Carina. It may not be his, but he’s getting from place to place, meaning he can move anywhere countywide, and if Dr Pearson is correct, this guy isn’t waiting on us for his next move. I don’t need to remind you all, there’s a computer in every police station in the country connected to the Pulse database. I want everyone out there using it. This place is filling up in here, and there’s only one of him. I don’t need to state the obvious.’
Ellie
I CAN TELL DR EBBS IS TAKEN ABACK, AS IF HE NEEDS time to digest what I’ve just said. It’s in the way his head moves and his fingers tighten on his pen. He stares at me as if he might get some answers from my silence. Getting up from his chair, he walks around the room, slowly at first, then with more vigour.
‘So, if Amy was dead before you set fire to the caravan, why did you do it?’
‘Set the caravan on fire?’
‘Yes.’
‘I would think that’s obvious.’
‘Not really.’
‘Because, Dr Ebbs, I saw no point in living.’
He opens the file, flicks back through the case notes again.
‘You were dragged from the fire by an Oliver Gilmartin?’
‘Yes, the caretaker of the caravan park.’ I remember Gilmartin, and his big mouth. All bravado he was, talking about how he thought at first the fire was set by vandals, looking at me, all smug that he was some kind of hero of the hour. I’d only seen his caravan once. The day we arrived at the site, Joe had dragged me in to sign some goddamn registration book.
‘Ellie, are you listening to me?’
‘What?’
‘Ellie, the morning of the fire, it says here Oliver Gilmartin tried to get Amy out as well, but he couldn’t reach her after the gas explosion.’
‘People said a lot of things.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like I was depressed, like I was crazy, that I’d wanted to end my own life, wanted to take my child with me.’
‘And why would they say all that if it isn’t true?’
‘I don’t know, all I know is I’m the only one who saw him, the man who killed my daughter. No one believed me about him. There was nothing of Amy left after the fire, nothing but her bones, and they said very little.’
‘Ellie, according to the file you said a lot of things afterwards, much of which proved incorrect.’
‘There are still bits I can’t remember clearly.’ My voice sounds weak.
‘Well there would have been trauma, there is no denying that.’
I wish he would stop flicking through that file.
‘I don’t know what I was back then.’
‘You say when you got back to the caravan, Amy was already dead.’
‘Yes.’
‘So how do you know this mystery man killed her?’
‘She spoke about him.’
‘What did she say?’
‘I didn’t think anything of it. I thought he was just one of the kids from the caravan park. But afterwards, I remembered her telling me about how the two of them had gone exploring. She even tried to show me where.’
‘And you thought of this when you found Amy?’
‘No, not immediately. Immediately, I had other things on my mind.’