Chapter 79

79

After the meeting in the incident room, McKeown went back to the CCTV footage and his search for the boy he'd seen. The job had fallen by the wayside, but he felt it was important to locate him because he'd been close to Laura Nolan's crime scene the morning her body was discovered.

Superintendent Farrell had refused to publicise the image, but McKeown felt differently. If he found the boy, he could determine if he was a witness or not. He'd worked late the night before and he'd been in work early, and then the bank stuff had taken up all his time.

He busied himself with footage from behind the cinema, where the complex backed onto the sprawling Moorland housing estate. Had the boy come from there? The households had been canvassed for information, but nothing had shown up in the resulting reports.

Running his hand over his head, he was beginning to think it was a waste of his time. He yawned, and was wondering about having lunch when he heard the boss's computer pinging in her office. The door was open. She and Boyd were out. Might be important. No harm in having a look.

She'd left the device unlocked. Bad practice, Inspector, he thought.

He spied the email icon with new mail from the lab. Clicking it open, he scanned his eyes over the text until he came to the summary, where the data was presented in layperson's terms.

The clay found under Laura Nolan's fingernail and on her neck was a match for soil deep in the stab wound on Aneta Kobza. It was not from any of the crime scenes. This confirmed they were looking for the same killer for both women.

Another unopened email caught his attention. Toxicology analysis for Laura had returned negative for narcotics with a small amount of alcohol. There were no results for John or Aneta yet. Too soon.

He pulled up the SOCO report on Laura Nolan's crime scene and read through the account of the footprints that had been found there. The smaller set had to be from the boy he'd seen on the CCTV footage. He needed to find him.

He turned around when he heard Martina enter the office.

‘The very woman. Fancy coming on a wild-goose chase with me?'

‘I wouldn't go on a tame one with you. What are you doing in the boss's office?'

‘Christ Almighty, what's wrong with everyone around here these days?' He grabbed his coat and left before she had a chance to throw another barb his way. He'd get someone else to accompany him.

Kirby found himself and Garda Lei commandeered by McKeown to accompany him to the Moorland estate. Once he'd seen the child on the footage, he knew the image was too grainy to put out to the media yet. They had to use the shoe-leather approach first.

‘Why do you think the witness hasn't come forward?' Kirby asked. He had a weird feeling that the tall, bald detective was on to something. But he would never give McKeown the pleasure of admitting it.

‘The fact that it was a child, maybe?'

‘Maybe.'

‘But let me tell you this, Kirby, I have kids and they talk all the time. If it's something new to them, they won't shut up about it. It's cute until it's annoying.' McKeown divided up the estate between them.

‘We only have a vague description to go on,' Kirby continued to protest. ‘Hardly a description at all, and who's going to admit their little boy was out alone at that hour of the morning?'

‘If we don't knock on doors, we will never know.'

‘At least Lei is in the mood.' Kirby noticed the young guard rapidly going from door to door with the grainy CCTV image in his hand.

Separating from McKeown, he began his own knocking. After twenty minutes, he realised the quest was verging on pointless. Most people, those who were at home, said they couldn't make out anything on the image. Their children wouldn't be out at that hour anyhow. And so on.

He decided to work towards the end of the row before giving up. Ringing the next doorbell, he waited. No answer. He moved across to the front window to have a peek inside. The curtains were drawn, though it was still bright out. Maybe they'd been left like that since morning.

He was about to walk back down the path, having written the house number in his notebook, when he heard the door being opened. A kid of about six or seven. Still in his pyjamas. Big round brown eyes looked up at Kirby.

As Kirby hunkered down to the child's level, he tried to read what was in those eyes.

Fear? Or relief?