Chapter 36

36

The morning sky had brightened up a little, though a chill air penetrated his heavy jacket. Kirby doused his cigar, secreted it in a pocket and wiped his hands on his trousers. He had parked at the Pine Grove outer cordon and walked past the show home, now encircled with crime-scene tape. Activity was high, with SOCOs continuing their work following a break for the night. He thought of entering the house to see if Grainne had anything new to report, but decided he'd best continue to the site office to do what he'd been tasked with.

Cars were parked in the driveways of some of the houses, but it was eerily quiet with no one about. It felt like a ghost estate. Even more so as he walked through the gate in the chain-link fence leading to the partially built scaffold-surrounded houses.

The site office was housed in a cabin to the rear of the building site, and Kirby bemoaned the fact that his shoes were now saturated with muck. He knocked on the door, and without waiting for a reply, turned the handle and entered.

A burst of heat greeted him. A Superser gas heater blew out hot air, and he instinctively loosened his tie. The space was cluttered, the floor muddy. Drawings and plans, with curling corners, were taped to the walls. A man and a woman sat either side of a desk overflowing with papers.

‘I'm looking for Patrick Curran,' Kirby said.

‘That's me,' the man said, without rising. His eyes were bloodshot; his hair stuck to his sweaty scalp. A man who'd had little sleep.

Kirby introduced himself and waited.

Curran ran his fingers up and down his chin. ‘Lucky to get me today; we don't normally open the site on weekends. But sure there's nothing normal about today anyhow.'

The woman stood and held out her hand. ‘Charlie Lennon. Estate agent. I was just discussing with Patrick what our next step might be.'

Her grip was warm and firm. No wilting female caricature here.

‘Good to meet you, Charlie.'

‘I can't say the circumstances are ideal,' she said, and moved to stand by a wall.

Curran leaned over the desk to shake Kirby's hand. Callused and hard, in stark contrast to Charlie's. ‘Any word on what happened to John?'

‘We're following a number of leads. I'd like to ask you a few questions.'

‘I made a statement, isn't that enough?' Patrick curled into the uncomfortable-looking office chair.

Charlie picked up a coat from the back of a chair and a large leather handbag from the floor. ‘I made my statement too, so I'll leave you to it. We can go over the plans on Monday, Patrick.' She nodded to him and dipped her head at Kirby as she walked to the door. A blast of cold air entered the space as she stepped outside. It disappeared when she shut the door.

‘How can I help you, Detective?' Curran's voice rasped with tiredness. His nose was bright red. From a night of hard drinking? Kirby knew all about that and was glad he had Amy around to moderate his life.

‘We're finding it difficult to get a handle on the murdered lad, John Morgan. I'm hoping you can fill in a few gaps, Mr Curran.'

‘It's Patrick. I'll try, but I hardly knew the poor sod. He'd been with us less than a year.'

‘Where did he work before that?'

‘I sent his CV over to the station. Didn't you get it?'

‘The details on it are sparse, to say the least.'

‘Mind if I smoke?'

‘Only if I can.'

While Patrick fumbled a cigarette from a crumpled pack Kirby found his cigar in his pocket. As they both lit up, acrid smoke filled the small space. Patrick leaned back and slid open a small window behind him. Kirby welcomed the chill air and waited for the other man to fill the yawning space with words.

‘John Morgan was recommended by the boss man,' Patrick said. ‘Gordon Collins.'

‘Was that unusual?'

‘I've worked for Collins for nigh on ten years and he's a good man. I'd never question anything he says or does.'

‘Is that why you didn't question his recommendation?'

Patrick flicked ash to the floor and inhaled another drag. ‘John turned out to be an excellent worker. No complaints from me. He got promoted to foreman. Did a good job. Such a loss. Only a lad. It's hard to believe he's gone.'

‘Bit young to be a foreman, wasn't he?' Kirby recalled that John Morgan was twenty-six years old.

‘He had great experience in Australia. He worked in the mines there for two years. No job too hard for him.'

‘We need to locate his family.'

‘I think his parents were divorced and his mother lives abroad. Not sure where his dad is. He never talked much about his family.'

‘Girlfriend? Boyfriend?'

‘He seemed to be a bit of a loner.'

‘Unusual for a young man not to have any friends. Did he play sports? Hurling, football? Anything?' Kirby was grasping at the proverbial, and Patrick knew it by the narrow eye he shot at him.

‘I know as much as you, Detective.'

‘Really?'

‘I shared this office with him. But he was all work. No personal talk out of him at all.'

‘This his desk?' Kirby pointed to the small square table behind him.

‘He didn't even have a drawer, so you won't make any earth-shattering discoveries there.'

Kirby doused his cigar and went over to the desk. He flicked through the papers on top and searched around on the floor. Like Patrick said, no earth-shattering discovery.

‘He wasn't a ghost,' Kirby said.

‘Did you search his flat?'

‘Yes. The keys were in his pocket.' Kirby recalled the sparsely furnished bedsit. They'd found nothing helpful on his phone either. ‘He must have had a life outside of work,' he said, half to himself.

‘If he had, I didn't know about it.'

‘What happened to your previous foreman?'

‘Retired.'

‘Were any of the workers here aggrieved when John was promoted?'

‘Not at all. No one wants the responsibility any more. You can talk to them.'

‘We are in the process of their interviews.' Kirby scratched his scalp. No one on the site had anything useful to offer. John Morgan was definitely a fucking ghost.