Lucy risked a smile, trying even in these circumstances to lower the tension. ‘We usually have to waffle on about “suspicious circumstances”. We haven’t established for certain yet that this is murder and I haven’t visited the scene myself. But from what I’ve heard there doesn’t seem to be much doubt that someone killed him. I’m sorry.’
The small, kittenish, curiously innocent face shook from side to side. ‘It’s not your fault, is it? I told Dominic he should be careful.’
Lucy stood up and Brendan Foster followed her lead. ‘Someone will need to speak to you again, when we know more about this. In the meantime, I must ask you whether you have any idea who might have done this awful thing.’
‘No. I have no idea at all.’ She spoke as if she were repeating a formula.
‘Are you sure of that? You say that he should have been more careful. Do you know where the danger was coming from?’
‘No. I didn’t like some of the people he had to meet. But I didn’t want to know anything about them.’
‘Well, as I say, someone will need to ask you more questions about this, when we have established some details. In the meantime, I think you should stay here with your sister and her family. I’m afraid your home will have become a crime scene, for the moment.’
Ros O’Connor nodded several times, as if trying to tap that fact into her consciousness. ‘Will Dominic need to be identified? That’s what happens, isn’t it?’
‘That is part of the legal process, yes. And you are the most obvious person to make the identification. But if you think it would be too harrowing for you, I’m sure we can find someone else to complete the formal identification.’
‘No. I think I should do that.’
‘Very well, I’ll make the arrangements and we’ll be in touch with you here. Thank you for your help and for your calmness today. If you think of anything which might have a bearing on your husband’s death, please ring this number immediately.’
They left her staring hard at the card, as if Brunton CID might have more to offer her than the simple printed details.
Jack Chadwick was a persuasive man. As SOCO officer, he managed to get a team out on Saturday afternoon to comb the office at the back of the high house where Dominic O’Connor had died.
Peach also convinced the pathologist that this crime was of sufficient importance to warrant his absence from the crowd at the Lancashire League cricket fixture at Alexandra Meadows. He inspected the newly discovered corpse and lamented Peach’s absence from the East Lancs team. ‘They miss you, Percy,’ he said sadly as he opened his case. ‘They were fifty-one for four when I left. And none of ’em scores at the speed you used to do.’
‘Nice of you to say so,’ said Percy. ‘But distance lends enchantment, you know. I could be pretty stodgy myself, on early season wickets. Ball moves around a lot until the ground gets firm.’ He glanced up at the blue sky and high white clouds. A glorious day for cricket. Nostalgia for his lost youth and the sumptuous feel of leather on willow hit him hard for a couple of seconds. He was only thirty-nine; perhaps his mother-in-law was right and he had retired a year or two too early.
He said firmly, ‘I presume he died here?’
‘Certainly. And in this chair. No one’s moved him,’ said the pathologist.
‘Did he struggle?’
‘No. Not to any effect, anyway. My guess is that he lifted his hands to the cable on his neck, but didn’t get his hands on his assailant. I’ll check his nails carefully when I get him on the slab, but there’s nothing obvious beneath them to the naked eye.’
‘And the murder weapon is obvious.’ They were both assuming already that this was murder.
‘Obvious and distressingly ordinary, from your point of view.’ The pathologist looked at the cable which was still embedded in Dominic O’Connor’s neck and would remain so until he was disrobed and anatomised in the pathologist’s laboratory. ‘This is standard electrical cable, the kind you get on a dozen appliances in every home. It was probably brought here specially for the job, but it would have been readily available around the place if this was a spur-of-the-moment killing. With a sharp knife or heavy-duty scissors, you could simply cut it off an electric radiator or a vacuum cleaner. Or even a computer.’
They looked automatically at the PC on the desk, but its cable connected it still to the socket in the wall. It was left to DS Northcott to ask the question to which everyone in the room felt they knew the answer. ‘Could this have been done by a woman?’
‘It could have been done by a child, I’m afraid. No great strength is required if you take a sitting man by surprise from the rear, and I think that is what happened here. You throw the cable round his neck, twist it tight, and then keep twisting. This didn’t take long and it didn’t demand any great strength. My guess is that it was swift and ruthless. Not that I’m paid to guess, of course.’
He gave a sour smile and looked at the two members of the SOCO team who were on hands and knees in opposite corners of the room, using tweezers to lift hairs and threads which would almost certainly prove to have nothing to do with this crime. The photographer’s camera flashed briefly as he took a careful picture of a faint print in the carpet. There was a brief pause as the CID men and the pathologist watched him and wondered if this was the footprint of the man who had been swift and ruthless in his despatch of Dominic O’Connor.
Then Peach said, ‘We know how he died and where he died. Can you help us with when?’
‘Not with any accuracy, at present. I shan’t even disrobe him and take a renal temperature until these boys have finished examining his clothes. I’ll have a better idea when I get him on the table. If you can find when he last ate, I’ll give you a reasonably accurate time of death from the stomach contents.’
‘But he hasn’t died today?’
‘Almost certainly not, I think. You’ll have to wait for the official PM to give you anything you could quote in court, and rigor mortis isn’t going to tell us a great deal, because the temperature in this room has varied so widely over the last twenty-four hours — not too far above freezing last night and up into the eighties with the sun blazing through that window today.’
‘Give us a guess. We won’t hold you to it.’
The pathologist smiled wryly. ‘This man has clearly been dead for many hours. I’d say last night, but it could have been earlier.’
Five hours later, the street lights were on in Belfast.
The day in Northern Ireland had not been as sunny as in Lancashire. Now the clouds seemed to be dropping even lower over the city as darkness took over. There was a little light yet in the west, in the fields outside the city, but here a thin drizzle fell over river and streets and night had dropped in early.
This narrow street wasn’t far from the Falls Road. It was little more than a hundred yards long, but there had been six killings here twenty years earlier, and a sectarian bitterness still ran deep in the veins of both sides. The houses seemed to carry the shadow of those killings still, so that the atmosphere on a night like this was as gloomy and hopeless as the black and starless sky above.
The man looked automatically over his shoulder at the corner of the street. He had no reason to think that he was being followed — indeed, he was certain that he wasn’t. But old habits, as this furtive figure told anyone who cared to listen, died hard. And this was a man who was proud of what he had done during the Troubles, not ashamed of it. He carried the list of his killings in his mind like his own roll of honour. He still moved almost exclusively among those who had supported him then and who continued to feel as he did now.
There were few people abroad here at this hour. Fanaticism and bloody history had left their legacy. The non-violent and the uncommitted had left these streets as soon as they could. Twenty years ago, your very life had been at stake if you walked here at this hour. There was less violence now, though the occasional kneecapping settled old scores and reminded residents of how deep the playwright Sean O’Casey’s ‘murdering hate’ still ran in this part of Belfast.