McCadden is hotly tipped to take over the all-Ireland Murder Squad, but that's before an unholy mess lands on his own doorstep. The Irish Minister for Justice is about to re-form the Murder Squad, an elite unit with exclusive responsibility for investigating homicides throughout the Irish state. Its first investigation is expected to centre on a cluster of unsolved murders of women, and DI Carl McCadden, currently stationed at Waterford, is hotly tipped to lead the new unit. Unfortunately, in the weeks leading up to this prestigious assignment, an old acquaintance, an undercover cop named Rookie Wallace, turns up on McCadden's patch in a bad state and with a bizarre story. While on undercover work in a block of Dublin flats, Wallace and the small-time pusher he was cultivating stumbled on a body with the head stove in. Next day, Wallace saw a photograph of the dead man in the papers, along with a report that he had drowned in County Waterford, two hundred miles from where Wallace found him. The day after, Special Branch men tried to kill Wallace. It's obvious that Wallace has stumbled into some heavy stuff, particularly when the official line turns out to be that Wallace has gone rogue, and thrown his lot in with the villains he was supposed to be infiltrating. McCadden knows that the smart thing to do is stay out of it and keep his nose clean for a few weeks until he's landed the big job, especially when he realises that the Minister for Justice, his soon-to-be boss, is showing signs of misusing his privileged position. Crazy Man Michael is the fourth in Jim Lusby's complex, subtle and compulsive McCadden mysteries.
Release date:
November 3, 2011
Publisher:
Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Print pages:
249
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Wearing only a sleeveless blue slip, she was sitting at her dressing table, grooming her hair with a lavender brush. She had
long, gleaming black hair and she was stroking it with a slow, insistent rhythm, the movement keeping her muscles tight and
rippling along her naked shoulders, and her posture – with both her arms raised and working behind her head – exaggerating
the attractions of her figure … until the brush’s teeth suddenly snagged on a knot by the roots and she swore quietly. She
reached out then to switch on a shaded lamp and worked for a while with her fingers, disentangling the problem with the hair.
When she was finished, she put the brush beside the lamp on her dressing table. A little sweat from her palm glistened on
the handle under the light. She pulled a paper handkerchief from a box and dried her hands, dropping the crumpled tissue into
a wicker basket by her feet afterwards. Then she glanced sharply upwards into the mirror again, her bright eyes flashing for
an instant in her shadowy face.
It was a pose of hers McCadden was already too familiar with. That sideways glance across the naked shoulder, against the
movement of her body. A quarter of a century before, when McCadden was in his early teens, she’d overused it in publicity stills.
In the dull light from the bedroom lamp, it was possible to believe that those twenty-five years had taken nothing away from
her. And perhaps that was the illusion she craved. Youth. Fame. The lost attractions of her own past.
McCadden coughed lightly. Standing by the foot of her unmade bed, he smoothed the rug that was under his shoes, straightening
the rucks he’d made when he’d stumbled over it a minute earlier. He said, ‘Your front door was open. I knocked a couple of
times before stepping in, but there was no answer.’
She nodded slightly at his reflection in the dressing-table mirror ‘Yes, I know.’
‘Are you Eleanor Shiels?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘You didn’t answer when I called your name.’
‘Yes, I know.’
Limited vocabulary. Narrow range of responses.
McCadden offered a smile. ‘I’m sorry if I startled you.’
‘You didn’t.’
‘My name’s McCadden, Ms Shiels. Carl McCadden. I’m a Garda inspector.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Could I talk to you for a while? I can wait for you in the room outside.’
‘Make yourself at home.’
‘And the light switch … ?’
‘It’s on the wall inside the door. On your right.’
The cottage was small. The outside room, leading to a cramped scullery and tiny bathroom, was even narrower than the bedroom.
Lighting it, from a soft, blue-tinted bulb, McCadden glanced at the furniture he’d groped a path through in darkness a few minutes earlier. Most of it was in plain wood, rough and serviceable, and possibly handcrafted
by some local carpenter.
He scanned the fittings and the ornaments, looking for insights into the owner. There were no musical instruments, he noticed.
And there were no records. No vinyl. No CDs. No cassette tapes. The white walls held a few standard Dali prints, a rough African
mask and a thin watercolour of the headland they were on; but there were no photographs from Eleanor Shiels’s career, no posters
advertising her gigs, no artwork from her record sleeves. Nothing at all to suggest that she was once hailed, in the trade
magazines, as the voice of the new Ireland.
One of the earlier new Irelands. Back in the mid-seventies.
In the opposite corner of the room, there was a squat writing desk. Its surface held a ream of typing paper, a few current
affairs magazines and a stack of colour photographs. McCadden walked across to look at the top print. Surprised, he used his
index finger to slide it off the pile and reveal the next, quickly repeated the movement and went on sifting through the batch
in the same style until he’d reached the end.
The photographs were recent and used the interior of the cottage as a setting. The desk itself appeared in the background
of some of them and on the desk there was a national newspaper with the date quite clearly visible. 26 July. Less than three
weeks ago.
Shot on expensive equipment, perhaps by a good professional or a gifted amateur, the prints offered slight variations on a
single theme. Eleanor Shiels featured in all of them. Mostly, she was naked. Occasionally, something flimsy was loosely draped
over parts of her body. Domestic items. Like a net curtain, for instance. A small pillowcase. The corner of a blanket. She was bound in all of them.
But tastefully. Or considerately, maybe. With kitchen towels. Bed sheets. Cotton belts. All soft materials. There were no chains. No handcuffs. No metals
at all. The lighting and the focus were also soft. And so were the poses. One even used that famous glance across the naked
shoulders, against the movement of her body; but whether as pastiche or homage, with irony or nostalgia, it was impossible
to tell.
McCadden was sitting in the harder of the two armchairs in front of the open fireplace, after replacing the prints and moving
away from the writing desk, when Eleanor Shiels finally joined him from the bedroom. She’d pulled on black denim jeans and
a loose black sweater. She still looked stunning, as mysterious as a cat burglar in her dark outfit, but the stronger light
also showed the lines on her face, the slight heaviness around her waist and hips that came with the mid-forties. And she
was wary. The caution holding back any expression from her features, leaving her seeming bland, devoid of mood or personality.
McCadden gestured his apologies. ‘You must've been getting ready for bed … ’
She sat in the other armchair, flicked imaginary dust from her thighs. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Do you always leave your front door open at night?’
‘Isn’t it the custom in the country?’
‘Not any more, I don’t think.’
She shrugged. ‘Maybe I’m out of touch.’
‘And not at night, anyway. Only during the day. As I remember.’
‘Is there some danger?’
‘Well, the standard advice is to be more aware of personal security—’
‘Some specific danger. Here on the headland.’
‘No, nothing like that.’
‘Then why worry?’
McCadden looked at her for a moment, his eyebrows slightly raised. He said, ‘Ms Shiels, three months ago you reported to the
local station that some person or persons unknown seemed to be watching this cottage.’
‘I was mistaken.’
‘Hopefully.’
‘There was nothing to worry about.’
‘Which is always good to hear.’
‘Is that what you’ve come about?’
He thought about it, reluctant to let the angle fade so quickly, but finally shook his head. ‘No.’
‘What, then?’
‘I’m looking for someone. A man named Tony Wallace.’
She’d already slipped past impatience. Now she was irritated. When she answered, her tone was sharper, almost wearily dismissive.
‘Who?’
‘Tony Wallace. Also known as Rookie Wallace.’
‘Rookie Wallace? Good God!’
‘The name doesn’t mean anything to you?’
‘Does it seem as if it does?’
‘We’re encouraged not to rely on impressions.’
‘I’m not familiar with the name. I don’t know anyone named Tony Wallace.’
‘He might be using another.’
‘Of course.’
‘He’s a middle-aged man. About forty years old. Six foot. Dark hair and complexion. Probably unshaven. Rough-looking guy. He’s got a scar running horizontally across his left cheek. He was grazed by a bullet a few years ago.
I’m sure you’d recognize him if you came across him.’
‘No doubt.’
‘He’s a stranger, not from this area.’
‘Are you questioning everyone on the headland?’
‘You’re the first.’
‘Why? Just the luck of the draw?’
‘No. He claims he knows you.’
‘Claims?’ she repeated. She sighed heavily, as if crushed by his stupidity. ‘How well have you done your homework, Inspector?’ she
wondered.
‘I know about your career, Ms Shiels,’ McCadden assured her. ‘I accept that fame can act as a lure to the most unstable of
characters, feeding their fantasies.’
‘Then you’ll understand my scepticism.’
‘But that’s not the case with Wallace.’
She sighed and shook her head ‘I’ve never seen the man you described, Inspector. I can’t help you.’
She gestured her regrets and stood up, waiting for him to follow, but McCadden sat on, contemplating the brick wall she offered
and wondering if chipping at it was going to be worth his while. He sensed that she was hiding something. People’s reluctance
to pursue the details always made him suspicious. People’s suppression of their natural curiosity, their fears, their self-interest.
She hadn’t asked, for instance, if Wallace was dangerous. She hadn’t wondered if he was a criminal, if he’d smashed his way
out of prison or tricked his way out of a psychiatric hospital. She hadn’t established if he’d made any threats against her.
Maybe she already knew the answers. Maybe she didn’t really care.
When he finally stood, McCadden offered his hand. Eleanor Shieis accepted. But her touch was light. And very, very brief.
As he headed for the front door, he expected to drag her along in his wake. She stayed where she was, staring after him.
Opening the door, he turned and said, ‘I suppose you’ll remember my name. If you need to contact me.’
She didn’t commit herself. Just smiled faintly.
He added, ‘I’ll probably take a quick look around. You don’t mind, do you?’
This time, he didn’t expect a response. And didn’t get any.
Outside, the wind had lifted again. Mid-August, but the weather not keeping pace with the calendar. Not here, anyway. Fifty
metres from where McCadden stood, the south Atlantic swelled and broke against the jagged rocks of the exposed headland. A
treacherous place for shipping. It always had been. For a thousand years the seabed below had collected wrecks, coveting everything
from Viking longboats to modern trawlers.
McCadden drew in the damp night air and looked around, his eyes adjusting again to the darkness. The cottage, rebuilt from
the ruins of an older dwelling abandoned in harsher times, was the last on the headland. Another renovated cottage stood about
thirty metres away. Further back, where the road ended and turned into the pot-holed track that challenged a car’s suspension,
there was a cluster of modern bungalows. And on the other side of the bay, across almost five kilometres of surging water,
there were the holiday lights of Tramore, from where the faint sounds of carnival music and human shrieking were occasionally
carried on the wind.
McCadden used a small torch to illuminate the immediate area. Not knowing what he was looking for. And not finding anything at first.
There was a narrow gap between the walls of the building and the hedge of blackberry bushes that almost completely surrounded
it. But the space held no surprises. None of the cottage’s windows had been forced or damaged. The earth, still soft from
the rains of the last few days, was undisturbed.
He walked around the hedge, beyond a barbed-wire fence and into a stony, uneven field that a local farmer obviously used for
grazing his cattle. And nothing there but the imprint of hooves. And cow dung. And deep impressions of tractor wheels.
He was turning away, already weary with working in the country, when the sweeping beam from his torch caught a piece of flapping
white material that had been snagged on the wire. It might’ve been the remains of a plastic shopping bag. It might’ve been
a strip from the farmer’s Sunday shirt, he joked to himself. He couldn’t tell. But even as he moved towards it, he lost interest
in it again. It turned out not to be significant in itself, but only as a pointer. Because beyond it, between the wire and
the hedge, a little clearing had been trampled down by human feet.
McCadden parted the strands of wire, twisted the barbs around each other to hold them in place and stooped to climb through
the gap. When he stood upright again, he could see above the hedge. In fact, he had a clear view of Eleanor Shiels’s bedroom
window. And provided he didn’t move, didn’t drift into the overspill of light from the window, he was obviously obscured himself.
But the last occupant had also taken chances.
The evidence suggested that a cigarette smoker had watched from this spot on separate occasions. Definitely twice. Probably more. At McCadden’s feet, there were several crushed
cigarette butts. Not filters, as he discovered when he crouched to examine them. And not machine produced. Ones that were
rolled by the smoker, using filter papers, loose tobacco, small pieces of cardboard as home-made holders. The way a joint
was usually rolled. Some of them had been trodden into the ground, leaving only a corner or a curve still visible. Others
were still on the surface, sodden from the recent rain and on the point of disintegration. But all of them had been burned
by someone so addicted to the weed that they were willing to risk exposing their position to keep puffing.
McCadden took a plastic Ziploc bag from a pocket of his leather jacket, gathered the butts and sealed the bag after dropping
them in. The harvesting had taken him sideways. When he stood again, a bramble grazed his right cheek and the shoulder of
his jacket caught on a thorn. His reaction made him jerk. The movement almost pulled the snared jacket off his shoulder. Cursing,
he eased back, his left hand working to free his clothes without tearing the material.
He didn’t hear anyone approaching. Had no idea he’d attracted company.
From behind, a flash of light suddenly hit his profile, blinding him for a moment. He thought at first it was the flashbulb
of a camera, recording his entanglement on film. Thought it was a joke. Maybe Eleanor Shiels, ironically referring to the
photographs of her he’d peeped at earlier.
But the light returned quickly and then held steady. And a man’s voice shouted at him aggressively, ‘Stay where you are, you!’
Shielding his eyes, McCadden called back quietly, ‘It’s all right, I’m—’
‘I’ll tell you what you are!’ the voice cut him off.
It wasn’t a local accent. A countryman’s, but with the flavour of the west rather than the south coast about it. Kerry? Clare?
Stuck with his back to it, dazzled by the glare if he tried to turn, McCadden felt vulnerable, irritated, a little worried.
‘I’m a garda!’ he said sharply. ‘Do you understand? Put the light down!’
There was no response. In the silence the sound of an electric organ drifted on the wind from the neighbour’s cottage nearby.
It swelled for an instant. And then died away again. Before McCadden could recognize the tune.
‘Did you hear me?’ he called.
‘I heard you, all right,’ the voice confirmed. Sceptical now. Disparaging. ‘You’ll have identification so, will you?’
McCadden retrieved his ID with his left hand and flipped the wallet open into the light above his head. The torch faltered
for a second before being switched off.
‘I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t recognize you. I, ah … ’
McCadden turned, but still couldn’t distinguish anything. A bulky shadow loomed in front of him, about five metres away. ‘Who
are you?’
‘Sergeant Mullaney, sir. From Dunmore East.’
Funny how knowledge informed the eyes. Now the peaked cap and heavy greatcoat of the guard’s uniform were visible. Polished
buttons even glistened in the moonlight.
McCadden stepped back through the gap he’d made in the fence, laughing easily about the encounter. ‘You couldn’t be from Dunmore,’ he joked. It was a fishing harbour, a couple
of kilometres to the east along the coast. ‘Not with an accent like that.’
‘Stationed in Dunmore, sir.’
‘I see. Right.’
‘I was actually born in Lisdoonvarna. I’m a Clareman.’
‘Lisdoonvarna. The Mecca of Irish bachelors.’
‘So they say, sir. I’m actually married myself, you see, so—’
‘Is this on your usual beat?’ McCadden slipped in. ‘Brownstown Head, here.’
The sergeant stumbled, laughed uneasily. ‘No, ah … No. It’s just with the report and all.’
‘What report?’
‘The woman lives there, she reported prowlers might be around.’
‘Wasn’t that some months ago?’
‘It was, yes, that’s right. But she was once famous, you see. So they say, anyway. That sort of thing attracts a queer kind
… Sometimes I drop down to see if things are all right.’
‘Seen anyone prowling?’
‘Not so far, no. But you never … know.’
McCadden grunted, then loudly slapped the pockets of his jacket. ‘You wouldn’t have a cigarette, would you?’ he wondered.
Anxious to please, the sergeant eagerly hiked a corner of his greatcoat and rummaged in a trouser pocket. The packet he offered
was of a popular brand of filter-tipped.
McCadden grimaced. ‘Anything stronger than that?’
The sergeant was suddenly embarrassed, worrying about his image, his virility. ‘I used to eat the damn things, sir, to tell you the truth, you know, but … They say the low-tar lads reduce the old risk of doing damage to the lungs
… ’
As McCadden listened to a rural spin on the industry spiel, Eleanor Shiels started moving again behind the window of her bedroom.
Caught between the lamp on her dressing table and the thin curtains, she offered a sharply focused shadow when she stopped
and stood still again. She was in profile. And she seemed to be naked. Raising her hands behind her head, she twisted her
long black hair into a tight bun that she then clipped to keep secure.
The sergeant went on talking, but his eyes drifted away from McCadden and his head slowly swivelled. A tall man, over six
and a half feet, he still had to strain to look fully over the hedge from where he stood, stretching painfully on his toes.
But it wasn’t the physical effort that showed on his rough country features. It was a look of raw lust. And it was so consuming
that he was unaware he was a spectacle himself.
McCadden glanced away, not wanting to draw attention to his own observations. He gestured towards the neighbouring c. . .
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