‘Well, there’s certainly no question now that Reuben’s correct,’ Reilly stated. ‘Our killer is indeed re-enacting the punishments from Dante’s Inferno.’
‘Flatterers?’ Chris queried. ‘How was Coffey a flatterer?’
‘He used words to flatter some and exploit others,’ Reilly explained. ‘The excrement represents the words he produced.’
‘Or again, journalists are full of shit,’ Kennedy said flatly.
The white sheet on the screen faded away, and was once again replaced by more video footage, this time of ex-cop John Crowe.
He was a giant of a man , the kind you’d want on your side in a fight, Reilly noted, and definitely the kind of guy you wouldn’t want to cross. His face was hard, with short-cropped gray hair and flinty pale blue eyes. But however tough Crowe might have been, right then he was a prisoner, entirely at someone else’s whim, at someone else’s mercy, and he knew it.
He was looking around, analyzing, assessing, but there was a hint of fear in his pale eyes, the realization that his fate was out of his hands. In the narrow focus of the video it was also difficult to make out where he was – the background was dark and featureless.
Crowe was sitting on a chair, his hands couldn’t be seen, but from the way his arms disappeared behind his back, it was clear that they were also secured firmly.
Unlike Tony Coffey, though, Crowe’s face showed no sign of defeat. He may have realized that he was in a tight spot, but he was determined not to show it. He was defiant, staring straight into the camera. ‘This sick fucker is making me talk,’ he growled.
‘That’s Crowe for you,’ Kennedy commented. ‘He wouldn’t kowtow to anyone.’
‘He wants me to make a confession,’ Crowe continued in his coarse Northside Dublin accent. ‘I’ve got nothin’ to hide, nothin’ to be ashamed of. I did what I did, that’s the way it was; everyone who was smart did the same. You did what you were told, kept your mouth shut, no questions asked, then the perks and the promotions came along.’ He paused for a minute, as though thinking. ‘The guy—’
There was another sudden sharp change, as yet again the footage was edited and when the video resumed, Crowe was still talking.
‘I didn’t think anything of it; it wasn’t unusual for someone to make a request like that. You lose a bit of evidence, misplace a file, can’t remember a name ...’ Crowe stopped, and shrugged. ‘I wasn’t totally happy about it,’ he admitted, ‘Guy was a nasty piece of work, an arrogant little fucker, if you asked me, but the top brass turned the heat up, so I did what I was told – and a week later ten grand in cash turned up in my locker.
‘So he was taking kickbacks,’ Kennedy said, his tone filled with disdain. ‘Stupid bastard ...’
‘Hold on ...’ Reilly paused the video. ‘What’s that – on Crowe’s shoulder?’ When the others looked confused, she pointed at the screen. ‘There on the jacket, on the right-hand side.’ She wasn’t sure at first if it was just the shadows in the barn, but was almost certain she could make out a distinctive light-colored mark on the cop’s dark jacket.
Chris screwed up his eyes. ‘Looks like it’s just dust of some kind. That horse feed,maybe?’
‘I don’t think so. It looks very powdery and too light in color – not something you’d get in a farmhouse or barn.’ Had Crowe brushed up against something when being moved to the site, in the unsub’s van perhaps?
It could be nothing, but she’d get the tech guys to zoom in on the footage later, see if they could ascertain what the mark was. If they could do that, perhaps they might also be able to work out where it had come from – and thus add another piece of physical evidence to the pile.
Kennedy looked thoughtful. ‘Listening to that, whatever Crowe did – destroyed evidence or whatever – it sounds as though somebody higher up in the force was in on it too.’
‘Look, let’s not jump to conclusions,’ Chris said. ‘The last thing we want is O’Brien and the suits getting even more involved in this.’
Reilly shared Kennedy’s concerns. ‘But what if one of them is on the killer’s list? We have to say something.’
‘I don’t think so.’
She looked at him with interest. ‘You sound pretty certain. What makes you say that?’
‘I may be wrong, but this guy is so careful, I don’t think he’d tip us off before he got to someone – he’s too determined to administer his own form of justice. Either he didn’t pick up on it, or else he didn’t know what Crowe was referring to.’
‘Why don’t we just keep watching?’ suggested Kennedy. ‘Maybe we’ll find out?’
Reilly resumed ‘Play’.
There was another quick edit before the footage continued with Crowe still talking. ‘You didn’t usually ask those questions, but in this case, I was pretty sure where the money had come from.’
Again the footage jumped abruptly.
‘Damnit!’ Kennedy exclaimed.
‘It stood to reason,’ Crowe went on. ‘I knew who his father was, so it didn’t take much to add two and two together and come up with four.’
‘Whose father?’ Chris asked. ‘Bloody hell, none of this is making any sense.’
There was another quick cut, and when they saw Crowe again, he looked more downcast. ‘Of course it made a difference. If I’d presented all the evidence there’s little doubt the fucker would have got what was coming to him.’ He looked directly at the camera. ‘Most of the time what we did was neither here nor there, but in this case, yeah, it made a big difference ...’
The screen faded, and yet another title card appeared: