Too Close to Breathe Page 8

  I look up, meet Baz’s eyes. “I think we’ve just gone beyond coincidence.”

  Two victims known to the murderer. The term “serial killer” turns over and over in my head. A third murder will earn the killer the monstrous title. Do we truly have a serial killer on our hands? The need to lock our suspect down is charging inside me. The need to bring him in before he kills again.

  * * *

  —

  THE BONSAI IS alive—that is something. I’ve bound more branches, curved copper wire through the thin arms of the tree. Guiding life where I want it, unveiling the tree’s true potential as I see it. I’ve cut some of the branches back over the tiny green canopy. I’m not sure if I should find it worrying that I enjoy the process. I’m interested to see how the tree flourishes without what I’ve decided are unwanted appendages.

  I remember seeing a cross section of a tree trunk in a war museum years ago. It showed a small explosion of blackness nestled among the tree’s concentric rings. A black scar. I recall lingering over the wood; that dark smudge of suffering captured me, pulled me into its past like no other object in that museum. I wonder what scars my bonsai will preserve for me. What ones have I already cut out. If only humans could cut out their own suffering as easily.

  Tracy Ward’s file is on the coffee table. Open. Challenging. It’s been more than four months, and I’ve yet to look through it. Alcohol can only go so far in bolstering my courage. A porcelain shield in the face of a terrifying army of nerves. I reach out and I see the tremble in my fingers against the pages. I’m careful to bypass the crime-scene photos. Skim over the statements, my statement. Not quite able to read through the detail. I can’t remember giving it, but there at the bottom of the paragraph is my signature scrawled on the page.

  There is a pocket in the file, titled “Evidence.” I remove the contents, photos of the knife, rusted brown with blood, Tracy’s blood, my blood. There are close-ups taken at the autopsy depicting abrasions, bruising, ligation marks, the victim’s hands, her nails. Beneath three of the nails on the right hand, what looks like black soil or dirt, caked and pushing downwards into the sensitive nail bed. It could be blood, congealed, blackened. I tilt the photo, and there, I think I see it: a flush of blue along the nail bed. I bring the photo to my face, squint down, but whatever trick of light plays devil’s advocate is gone and I don’t see it again.

  I feel a closing in on my chest, that shiver at the base of my lungs. For the briefest of moments, I see a different case, where Neary is not the killer, where he didn’t hold that knife and savagely murder a young woman. The file shakes in my hand, and I close it, wipe my palms on my trousers, and get up.

  I collect my glass and go to the window, light a cigarette. Breathe away the fear. I can’t remember much after the attack. Clancy and Baz filled in the dark spots. Made the arrest. But without much effort I can still feel the knife slice through my skin. I touch the scar along my temple, a jagged ridge some emergency room doctor rushed to mend. Eventually, it had to be reopened, drained, to let badness and infection out.

  All other injuries are of the invisible kind; the tip of the spinous process from the C7 vertebra has never rejoined and floats among the muscle, a constant, aching reminder.

  I close my eyes. Remember. He smashes the heel of the knife against the back of my neck. I’m falling, like a house of cards, tumbling down. In the end it’s what saves me. The fall. His next strike is with the blade. He aims for the jugular but gets the temple, just above the ear, enough to slice the scalp from the skull, to send the sound of the blade grating through my head for good. A sound that wakens me still, in the dark, in the day whenever a silent moment threatens.

  He fled then, no time to finish the kill, although the desire was there. I could hear it in the groan of his frustration as blue lights lit up the dark hallway. The stink of Tracy Ward’s blood was in my nostrils, iron, rotting stench, warm and wafting from the bedroom. The ambulance came and Clancy rushed forward.

  Before I slipped into unconsciousness, I tipped my head back, saw Tracy’s open throat, dark and smiling at me from the end of the bed. Her legs, arms spread, her head lolling, eyes wide with shock. Blackness was merciful, squeezing inwards, blocking out the horrific sight. I was too late. I couldn’t save her. Couldn’t unwind the seconds even though her screams still echoed around the house.

  The wineglass shakes in my hand. My fingers are yellow-white against the stem. I put it down on the ledge. My statement. It’s disjointed, repetitive, but remarkably professional-sounding.

  Ivan Neary, the suspect, the killer. Caught at the scene, knife in hand, not even a minute after slaughtering that young woman.

  Nothing can stand in the way of his conviction. As a killer, he has a worrisome profile. This is likely not his first kill.

  Clancy has protected me from so many details. I’m made up of two parts: One side wants to know everything about this guy, from where he went to school to which hand he holds his dick in when he pisses. The other side of me is too scared to ask.

  He needs to be sealed away tight for as long as possible.

  The team is sure we’ve enough to convict him. I am a firsthand witness. My statement in court will put iron bars around the rest of his miserable future. Minimal words but maximum effect. The memory of the attack is a barely joined wound, opened with the merest of scratches. The defending lawyer will go straight to the weakest point. They will attempt to discredit me, my occupation. Pull up past wrongs. I’m not afraid of that. I’m afraid of seeing his face. Fuck knows I don’t want to remember it.

  I’m the only living witness to the horror he sliced out that night. There is something binding in that truth. The attraction to seek me out will grow in him the further time gets away from Tracy’s death. I’m a living token of the murder. Proustian memory. I’m a direct path of access to the thrill of the kill.

  Closing the file, I tuck it into my briefcase. In my bedroom, I check the suit I’ve had pressed and dry-cleaned for court tomorrow. Navy blouse, trousers. I remind myself that, although I’m part of the criminal proceedings, I’m doing this for Tracy Ward. I’ll unwind those few seconds after he cut her throat. I will not run.

  Climbing into bed, I pull my computer onto my lap and open the newly installed Tor bundle. Steve has set up a profile for me already.

  I am TeeganRed. Seventeen. In the final year of school. I can’t wait to leave my parents’ house. I self-harm and have already been in two abusive relationships. I don’t drink, smoke, or do any drugs. When I’m not at school, which is often, I spend most of my time on the internet, researching ways to draw the pain I feel out of myself. To match the physical pain with the emotional.

  I have death fantasies. Several times a day. But I’m not suicidal. Sometimes I go as far as buying equipment. I have a drawer under my bed. It contains ropes, pills, blades. Thinking about the different ways I could be killed makes me feel relaxed. Calm. But I do not want to die.

  This is the feathered fly I cast out on dark waters. A lure for a predator. The persona is built with Amy Keegan’s killer in mind. And it doesn’t take long for my bio to attract a bite. I ask if they know somewhere I can meet other users, users with similar desires. They send me a direct message with a recommendation of what they claim to be the number one site for all fantasies and unusual desires. That site is Black Widow.

  I leave the conversation quickly and, fingers cautious on the keyboard, open up Black Widow. The site has hundreds of threads. I’m not sure where to start, but as Eleanor was found hanged, I settle on a chat centering around suicide fantasies.

  There are discussions on Cotard’s syndrome, what death might feel like. I click on the first thread. There are almost 250 replies to the original poster’s question, which asks simply whether their desire to experience death but not die is normal. The users spell out their fantasies, how they imagine their last breath feeling, the mix of euphoria and p
ain that might come as a result of it, how their family and friends would grieve. Many of the replies say that it’s normal to want to feel missed, but a few get it. A few connect fully with what the original poster is asking. They too want to experience death but don’t want to die.

  I lie back onto the pillows and sigh into the white screen. The hunt for Amy’s killer may not come from this lead; the search may become too time-consuming and yield little. But cases have been broken on less—whether it’s a flake of skin, a strand of hair, or a digital footprint, all leads have to be followed to their end.

  Over the next two hours, I manage to get through most of the members’ usernames listed in the chat room. Numbers and obscure internet names swim before my vision every time I blink. Amy Keegan will not have given herself away easily.

  I’m unable to find any name that hints at her own. Either she was not a member, or I can’t see her. I let my hands linger over the keyboard for a moment, then go to the meet-and-greet section. I post a message introducing TeeganRed, then go straight to the last thread I was reading. The last person to add to the thread did so a day ago. Long enough in cyber time. I type out a response quickly, add to the thread. My hands are fast and nervous on the keys.

  Hey, I know what you’re saying. It’s like I want to know what it will feel like to die, and then to be nothing. Nothing but empty afterward. Must be weird. But probably kinda peaceful too.

  I hit the return key. There is hotness over my cheeks. I feel self-conscious and scared all at once, as if I’ve invited some invisible danger into my home. The cursor blinks. No new comments. I close the program and the computer.

  CHAPTER 8

  STEVE IS AT my desk first thing. He’s spent the early hours of the morning hounding my mobile provider, pulling the tail of whoever has been phoning me. The paper he holds trembles in his thin fingers. Overcaffeinated or excited, impossible to tell which.

  “The number’s pay-as-you-go. Recognize it?”

  I take the sheet of paper. Shake my head. “No way to connect it to anyone?”

  He holds up a finger. “Not the number, but most companies intermittently send signals to phones, collect information such as the IMEI number.”

  I scan down the page. See a fifteen-digit code at the bottom. The serial number of the handset. “And?”

  “The phone belongs to Peter Costello. I’ve already checked the masts, where he made the calls to you from. First was off one at Ormond Quay and the second in Clontarf.”

  “That was the night Amy was found.” A coldness steals into my bones.

  “I’ll keep Cell Site on the number.”

  The thought that Peter Costello was there that night. Watching his handiwork frowned over, picked through, studied. Seeing the confusion, the shock on faces. The detective bent over the wheel of her car, fighting down nausea and fear. The killer not able to resist a call, to get closer, put an ear up against the grief, the anxiety.

  “Chief?” Steve tips his head, narrow chin angled to the side.

  “Sorry, what?”

  “Do you want me to send someone to watch your place?”

  I grimace, shake my head. “No. They’re only phone calls. I’ll be fine. Just keep on that number. We find that phone, we find our killer.”

  “It’s only been active on those two occasions, Chief. My guess is the SIM and battery are removed once the call is over.”

  “Just keep on it.”

  “Of course.” He collects the paper and goes to leave.

  “Steve?”

  He turns.

  “Good work. This is our first solid lead on Peter Costello’s whereabouts.”

  * * *

  —

  BAZ TAPS ONCE on the door, then steps inside. “What are you doing in? I thought you had court today?”

  “Not until eleven. We’ve no spare moments here.” My scalp itches; heat floods out through my pores. I shrug out of my jacket, hook it over my chair.

  “I’ve been reading through Eamon Keegan’s testimony, and I’ve come up with a small discrepancy. Amy’s phone records show that she called him on the eighteenth.”

  I’m removing my laptop, checking my status on Black Widow.

  I look up. “But he said he hadn’t heard from her since the tenth.”

  “As they say, that’s the weird thing about murder inquiries, people tend to lie. Especially when they’ve something to hide.”

  I tip my head back, blow air out through my lips. “Goddamn human nature,” I say.

  It takes a particular kind of evil to murder their own. The image of Amy’s hand comes into my mind, blackened, charred fingers straining inwards. No. Eamon Keegan couldn’t do that to his own daughter.

  “You’re sure?” I ask him.

  He shows me the printout from the phone company. The highlighted line clearly shows Eamon Keegan’s number. The call lasted fifteen minutes and seven seconds.

  Baz gathers up his stuff. “I guess this puts Eamon Keegan on our suspect list.”

  “He’d just discovered that his daughter had been murdered, her body dumped in a bonfire. No. I can’t believe he could do this. Maybe I shouldn’t have interviewed him so soon.”

  “He seemed pretty sure of the last time they spoke, Frankie. I replayed the interview. You asked him the question twice. According to friends at the uni, she was last seen and heard from on the twenty-third. Eamon says he last spoke to her on the tenth, three weeks before she turned up dead. Now we find that he did in fact talk to his daughter, only a few days before she disappeared. On 18 October, the day before Eleanor Costello was murdered.”

  I click open the Tor bundle, go to the Black Widow site, check if there’ve been any nibbles on the line.

  Baz continues. “So, should we get Keegan in for questioning this afternoon?”

  “No,” I hear myself say.

  “We shouldn’t ignore that he lied. Even if it was his grief talking—which, fuck, you know, you’re right, would be understandable—we can’t ignore a missed step in the timeline.”

  “All right. Send one of the officers to check it out. A few questions, that’s all. I’m not going to put him through the wringer with this again.”

  Baz sighs, drops his notes on the desk, looks down into the screen. “Any luck with Black Widow?”

  “Nothing to go with yet.” I scroll through the thread, one hand on the track pad, the other massaging an ache over my temple. “All these people wanting a lick of death. Why?”

  Baz moves to the chair on the other side of the desk. Sits. “An adrenaline spike? The desire to relinquish control?”

  He pauses; the muscles in his face drop, soften. “When we were kids, there was a spot in Glendalough, where the river passed through two mighty walls of rock. The drop must have been near on fifteen feet. Me and my friends, we’d sometimes spend the day there, taking turns leaping into the water; weightless, terrified, and freezing our nuts off. Every time I went over that edge—every time—I wasn’t sure if I’d come back up. If I would die. But every time, I surfaced, Christ, the buzz, and I’d be outta that water like a scalded hare to throw my skinny, short life to the gods again. It was some rush.”

  My fingertips roll over the thin ridge of scar tissue. Seek out pain. Ease pain away. “Maybe there’s a part of me that wants that.”

  I stare into the screen, the numerous threads asking for pain, the thrill of pain. Describing in desperate, frightened words their fantasies and the confusion that comes with them. I think of the court case today, the zigzag of emotions that draws jagged lines across my nerves, but also the pull, the urge to see it through, the desire to push ahead, pursue, get a foothold.

  I drop my hand, leave my temple aching.

  Baz tips his head. “What do you mean?”

  I search for the right words. “Maybe I seek out fear. Sometimes, it feels as though I can’t help b
ut look over the precipice.”

  “Looking is not jumping.”

  There’s a timid knock on the door.

  “Chief?” Paul’s round face appears. “We’ve had an e-mail with a link to an attachment,” he explains. “It’s a video. It appears to show Amy Keegan in some distress.” His voice is desperate, if not a bit scared.

  When I reach his desk, he pushes back from his computer. Paul manages PR, all the ins and outs with the public. All the bullshit and the abuse, rarely the good. On his screen is a video he’s paused, midshot. I lean in, lighten the screen. Baz stands behind me.

  “When did it come in, Inspector?” he asks.

  I hear Paul swallow.

  “We’ve been swamped. I’d been dealing with the calls first and only got to the e-mail in the last hour.”

  “When did it come in?” I ask again.

  “Five past five this morning. Probably one of the first responses, it got a little buried in the rush. There’s no trace on the IP address, so I guess it’s encrypted or something.”

  “It’s come from a Dark Web user,” I say. “You’ve attended all our briefings, Inspector?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then, pay fucking attention. You played it?”

  “I wanted to wait, Chief. It looks like . . . like it might be a snuff movie.”

  A coldness runs across the back of my neck. “If so, Inspector, we’re about to witness our biggest piece of evidence. So hold on to your stomach and hit play.”

  As if captured by the devil, Amy Keegan’s death plays out before our eyes. A live recording. The date, a white flicker in the corner.

  If there was any doubt about the authenticity of the video, the final seconds of Amy’s death as filmed by the killer discount it. He remains hidden behind the camera, but I can hear his breath slow, deepen; his face close enough to hers that he snatches her final exhalation. Her pupils constrict; then the black center widens, languid and sure, stretching over the light blue of her eyes. Fixed dilation. An almost certain symptom of death. There is a bounce in the camera as the killer fumbles to turn it off; then everything goes black.