The Wrath

Book 5: DS Lucy Golden

by Martina Murphy

Genres: Police Procedurals; Thrillers

Synopsis

You will not know the day, or the hour, but I am coming for you...

When DS Lucy Golden discovers an abandoned car showing signs of a recent and bloody escape, the race is on to find the injured occupant, who must be somewhere close by on the Irish island of Achill. But when an anoymous threatening note is found in a pool of blood, the search team is briefed to look for a body, rather than a survivor.

Once the victim is revealed as a retired police officer, Lucy and her team are on edge... was the brutal killing an act of personal revenge? Or is the killer making a statement against the wider Gardaí?

Tensions rise as bizarre clues, conflicting witness testimony, viral videos and family feuds send Lucy and her partner Detective Dan Brown across Ireland on the hunt for a vicious murderer. They're feeling the pressure at work and at home... Lucy's son Luc is in a stormy relationship with a wannabe social media influencer, Dan's mother-in-law is conducting a steamy affair under his roof, and Lucy fears that a recent case that got a little too personal could be the cause of her boss DI William's noticeable coldness towards her.

Meanwhile, the killer is only just getting started...

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For fans of Patricia Gibney, S.A. Dunphy and Tana French, THE WRATH is the fifth instalment of Martina Murphy's DS Lucy Golden series, described by Shots Magazine as 'raising the bar for crime procedurals... artful, measured and gripping.'

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 90000

Sample

1

The shower isn’t as powerful as he likes but it will do. He closes his eyes and glories in the sensation of water splattering over his face and trickling down his torso, washing him clean. Blindly, he reaches for the shampoo and rubs it vigorously through his hair, the smell of fake citrus banishing the odour of iron that seems to cling to his skin. He inhales, exhales. Inhales again and lets out a long, slow breath, opening his eyes, acknowledging that the whole event had gone extremely well. Better than the first time anyway. After that, he’d decided not to do any more, didn’t see how he could. But the rage is back. Bigger than before. It’s amazing what you can be good at once you have just cause and a basic working knowledge.

Overall, despite the mess, this one had been a job well done. And the death would have been relatively quick. Not like the other time. That had been unfortunate and he’d done his best to learn from it.

He isn’t in the business of letting people suffer, he reflects, as he reaches for the conditioner. He even warns them that he’s coming, which is nice of him. Or a little cruel of him, maybe. No, he’s not a real killer. Not like the ones on TV, dead-eyed and full of murderous intent. Not like the ones he reads about in newspapers, who shoot people for fun or for being unfaithful. He’s not scum who breaks into a home and kicks someone to death in front of their children. Nope, he just murders people who deserve it, who hurt others and don’t give a shit about it. The ones who swan about living their lives and ruining other people’s and just—

The plastic bottle of conditioner explodes in his hand, liquid squirting everywhere.

Later, after he has eaten a jam sandwich – him and his da ate raspberry always – and dried his hair, he finally takes out his notebook. This is his very favourite part, the ticking off of his to-do list.

He turns to the names, written on the first page.

Mary Roche ✓

Jerry Loftus

He puts a tick alongside Jerry’s name.

Just one more left.

Then it’ll be ‘Job done’.

‘Nothing doing yet,’ Dan says, peering through his binoculars at the deserted street below.

We’ve been ensconced for the last few hours in a small room over a Centra shop in Castlebar. It’s used as an office by the manager of the store and he’d been only too happy to allow us to have it for our mini-stakeout, delighted to be part of whatever action might go down.

It’s been dark since four-thirty, which was six hours ago. It’s barely above freezing inside, while outside the brooding December sky has buried the moon and stars under thick clouds. Rain has begun to spatter on the window and the bustling street of earlier has been enveloped in silence.

Gardaí from three other units are in position up and down the street, but Dan and I have prime view, so we can’t afford to get this wrong.

I glance at my phone. ‘They left Dublin over three hours ago. They should be arriving soon.’

‘Little gougers,’ Dan remarks, thrusting a bag in my direction. ‘Last doughnut?’

‘Half,’ I say, though I really want a whole one. Still, I know I’ll feel better about myself if I show some self-control. I pull it apart, jam squirting everywhere and pop half into my mouth, licking the sugar from my fingers.

An anonymous tip-off had come in about a planned robbery of a warehouse in Castlebar. It had been deemed credible and Dan and I, along with a number of the regular lads, had been sent out to keep an eye on the premises and to apprehend the suspects. The tip-off had been particularly welcome as we are certain that it’s part of a gang of young Dublin criminals who specialise in robbing lock-ups and, on occasion, private houses. How they get their information, we don’t know, but they’ve had a very successful spree until now.

As the old window frames rattle with a strengthening breeze, I think it’s the type of evening to be in bed with a massive glass of wine and a good TV movie.

Dan says something.

‘What? I was miles away, thinking of wine and TV and bed.’

‘I wish I was in your head,’ Dan jokes, binoculars still trained on the street. ‘I said that Delores has a …’ He frowns. ‘What do you call a woman and a man who are dating when they’re over seventy?’

I ignore his ageism and exclaim admiringly, ‘Go, Delores!’

‘I’m hoping she will.’

‘Dan!’

‘I’m hoping they’ll fall madly in love and he’ll whisk her out of our house. What’s wrong with that?’

Initially, Dan and his partner, Fran, had been delighted when Delores, Fran’s mother, had come to stay. Now, though, with her incessant chatter, her inability to leave the décor alone and her propensity for ruining Dan’s clothes in the washing-machine, her welcome has grown thin, on Dan’s part at least.

‘How did she meet him?’

‘I don’t know. Probably put an ad in the lonely-hearts column for a man willing to put up with irritating women.’

‘Stop!’ I giggle.

He chortles a little. ‘I’ve met him but Fran doesn’t want to. He’s annoyed that she’s dating when his father is only dead—’

‘He’s dead ages.’

‘Yeah, but you can’t say that to Fran. Anyway, I told him that Delores is entitled to live her life.’

‘I’ll bet you did.’ I reach for the second half of the doughnut.

His mouth twitches. ‘I just want the best for her and— Hello?’

Just at that moment, a voice crackles over the radio: ‘Black Renault Mégane approaching from Market Street, four youths, no lights.’

Dan drops the binoculars, and we move fractionally nearer the window where, under a pool of streetlight, we spot a car, its headlamps off, moving slowly up the road. It coasts to a stop beside the warehouse.

Something catches my eye. ‘Feck’s sake, who the hell is that?’

Dan follows my gaze.

An old man, in what looks like a green combat jacket, climbs out of a skip, lugging a sleeping bag after him. ‘How did we miss him?’ I hiss. ‘Jesus, if he gets caught up in anything …’

The old man starts shuffling towards the car, his hand held out, looking for money.

Long and lithe, a young lad hops from the Mégane, something in his hand, and, without noticing the old man, disappears around the back of the building. Two others, moving like cats, position themselves at the front door.

The old man approaches them.

‘We might have a problem,’ Dan radios to Control. ‘There’s a civilian and he’s approaching our boys. Stand by.’

The old man says something to one of the lads who says something back and pushes him. The old man stumbles over his sleeping bag and falls. The two laugh as the man scrambles to his feet. He’s a little scared now and he attempts to move away but they’ve got the scent, like dogs on a rabbit, and the second lad aims a kick at his legs and he falls again.

‘We have to go in.’ I groan. ‘We can’t let them do that.’

‘It’ll risk the whole operation and – wait – just wait. Look.’

The fourth member of the gang, smaller than the others, younger, I think, emerges from the driver’s side of the car and he helps the old man up and says something to the other two, like he’s giving out to them. He hands the old man something and dusts him down before sending him on his way. Then, as the old lad shuffles off as quickly as he can, forgetting his sleeping bag in his fright, this fella berates the other two before getting back into the car. The other two are not happy, but they quickly lose interest in the old man.

‘That was close,’ Dan remarks. ‘Maybe they’re not all complete arseholes, then.’

‘That lad is just smarter than the others. He doesn’t want some homeless guy running off to the guards. He probably made some apology and handed him a twenty.’

Dan nods, turns back to his binoculars. ‘Tango alpha one, entry has been gained around the back of the building.’

‘Received.’

The two boys bounce back into the shadows at the front. The homeless guy moves up the road and around the corner.

Dan and I wait, ready to give the order to intercept the car once all the stolen gear is loaded. Already I can feel the adrenaline build. My blood sings.

The tension of the next few minutes is almost better than a glass of fine wine.

And now the front door cracks open and the two boys slide in. ‘Tango alpha two, they’re all in,’ I report.

‘Advance to stage-two positions.’

The night grows colder, blanketing the small side-street in a misty fog as we ready ourselves. I know that the other units will be silently approaching the building from all angles. A car will have been positioned at both ends to prevent any escape. Time is running out for this band of criminals.

And then, while the others are inside, the guy behind the wheel exits the car.

‘What the hell?’ Dan says.

And he moves off down a side-street.

‘Jesus, he’s … he’s just leaving.’

Could he have been the one who tipped us off?

‘I’ll go after him.’ It’s a no-brainer. I take the key to the front of the shop. ‘He’ll come out into the street there. You stay here and report back, Dan.’

‘You can’t, Lucy. Jesus!’

‘I can’t not. If he’s the one tipped us off, he’s the best one to put them behind bars.’

‘I’ll go instead.’

‘No, you’ll be needed here for the arrests. Tell them I’ve gone after the driver.’

‘Lucy!’

‘I don’t have time to debate it.’

And I’m out of the office, running down the stairs and into the empty shop. The key turns easily in the door and I’m out onto the street, which is also deserted. The cold breeze makes me gasp, stings my face. Then, through the thin fog, I can make out the shape of a young man about two hundred metres ahead, walking rapidly. I don’t call because I know I’ll be no match for him if he’s to break into a sprint. Instead, trying not to make any noise, I begin to run as hard as I can. I’m twenty metres away when he senses me. He whips his head around and, in the yellow streetlight, I see his face. And I stop. Dead.

I know him.

I don’t know who he is, but I’ve definitely seen him before. And it’s not from any intelligence photos.

The déjà vu is disconcerting and I’m not quick enough to react as he takes flight, his runners eating up the ground.

‘Stop!’ I shout. But even as I do I know I can’t pull my gun on him. I try to catch up. He’s pulling away. ‘Stop! You’re under arrest.’

He darts down a side-street and I follow about a hundred metres behind. I can hardly breathe with the effort and my legs will be aching tomorrow. He darts off to the right and I follow. I can barely make him out in the distance now, just a black shirt and jeans.

‘Stop!’

He takes another right.

I follow and … I’ve lost him. I stand in the street, listening and waiting. He has to be somewhere. I take out my gun, slide into the shadows myself.

I hear sudden rapid footsteps just up ahead.

I run as fast as I can, feet and lungs burning, until I reach the top.

Nothing.

He’s gone.

Shit. Bending over, hands on knees, I inhale great gulps of air.

Damn it anyway!

I radio it in, giving the best description I can, but if he planned this escape, he’d probably scoped out the CCTV and knows exactly what he’s doing.

By the time I get back, the car, with everything in it, has been surrounded. Blue lights illuminate the scene, yellow vests crawl the streets, radios crackle and cars rev. The lads who’ve been apprehended are on the ground, shouting and roaring, hands cuffed behind their backs.

‘I’ll fucking sue yez for this! You fucking broke my jaw, yez arseholes.’

‘Not stopping you shouting all the same, is it?’ Dan remarks, to laughter, as the youth promises to ‘do’ him.

The thrill I’d felt at this operation disappears like soapy water down a plughole. I had failed in my bit.

‘We might pick him up on CCTV,’ Dan says, trying to make me feel better. ‘Like, Luce, you were never going to catch him once he took off.’

‘There was a time I would have.’ His look of doubt irritates me. ‘I used to be a sprinter on my school team.’

‘In Achill?’

‘Yes.’

He cracks a grin, says, ‘In other news, we nabbed those three red-handed. It was beautiful. They didn’t even notice their driver was missing, just loaded up the car, and when it came to leave they realised, but we got them right then, before they could even start it. The lad that got away left a jacket behind so we’ll have DNA to identify him.’

‘I’ve seen that driver before.’ I’m still caught up with the guy I let escape.

‘Yeah, in all the fecking alerts.’

‘No, he’s not been in them.’ It was the expression on his face that rang a bell somewhere deep in my brain. Who is he? I shake my head. It’ll come to me – it always does.

‘We may as well go back.’ Dan is limping slightly, and at my look, he grumps, ‘Went over on my ankle in a drain at the side of the street.’

An interested crowd has gathered at the end of the road and are being kept back by one of the uniformed members. Someone is taking pictures. Another woman, blonde and busty, seems to be doing a video.

Our three suspects shout obscenities as they’re dragged to their feet. Like rabid animals, they shriek and spit and one aims a kick at the guard restraining him.

‘That’s bloody enough.’ Dan’s Dublin accent reasserts itself good and loud as, forgetting about his limp, he grabs one of the suspects by the arm and, quite forcefully, thrusts him into the back seat of the car. ‘Shut it. You were caught, good and proper.’

A cheer goes up from the onlookers.

I’ve collected my car from the station and by two a.m. I’m on the way back to the cottage in Keem where I live with my mother and my son Luc. Luc returned last night from Spain after his first term as an Erasmus student. I was afraid he might spend the weeks in the run-up to Christmas in Dublin with his glamour-queen/wannabe-actress girlfriend, Cherry. But, give him credit, his first port of call was to visit his cute-as-a-button daughter, Sirocco, who lives down here with her mother, Tani, and her other grandmother, Katherine.

I think of Sirocco as I drive. Her birth, when Luc was just eighteen, was such a shock but now I couldn’t imagine life without her. She is the sun around which we all revolve. A cheeky, bossy little madam, with a very quirky way of looking at the world. For a while last year, she had an eerie obsession with death but that passed after my mother enrolled her in dance classes. All she wants to do now is spin on her head the way break-dancers do.

Her other grandmother is not a bit happy about it.

My mother, however, is convinced that Sirocco will be the next Jean Butler. I’m not so sure but I’d never dare say it. And—

My train of thought is disrupted as I spot the car again.

I jam on my brakes, skidding to a halt, bits of grit spraying up as my wheels lock and my little Corsa goes into a bit of a spin.

I’d noticed the car earlier when I’d passed it on the way to work and I’d marked it as odd because it was parked near the edge of the cliffs and I hadn’t seen anyone with it or anyone standing on the cliffs admiring the view. But then I’d figured that maybe it was someone who’d pulled in to go for a walk. But the car is still here, hours later.

I peer through my windscreen.

Maybe it’s broken down and the driver was forced to leave it. But it’s an odd place to pull in, on marshy ground, at the edge of a cliff, just off a narrow road. Little prickles start up my arms. Hair rises on the back of my neck.

I unfasten my seatbelt and, grabbing a torch from the back seat, I get out.

‘Hello,’ I call.

My voice is whipped away by the wind.

All about is silence. It presses down, like a blanket, broken only by the smash of waves far below. The sky is full of scudding clouds, rain spattering on the breeze. And it’s freezing. Every molecule in my body is screaming at me that something is up. I’ve seen enough suspicious scenes to be able to read what is ‘off’ and this car, left half-arsed near the edge of the cliffs on a dank night like this, is downright creepy.

I flick on the torch and a cone of light illuminates the way ahead.

Treading carefully, I approach the vehicle. From what I can tell it’s a mid-sized Ford, the colour hard to judge in the dark. There’s a deep scratch along one side.

‘Hello!’ I call again, in case the driver is anywhere nearby. ‘Hello?’

Nothing comes back, just the howl of a fox somewhere.

I move towards the driver’s side of the car, the bit facing the cliff. The door is slightly open, the window rolled down.

I fish about in the pocket of my jacket because I usually have a pen in there. Finding one, I gingerly coax the door towards me.

I move a step closer.

Something squelches underfoot.

I peer into the vehicle.

It’s an abattoir.

Of course I have no idea if the blood that covers the front seats, is splattered over the interior of the vehicle and pools just outside the driver’s door is animal or human, but I’m not taking any chances. A poorly preserved scene means that evidence will be lost, so I have roused Jordy and Matt from the Achill station and tasked them with securing the perimeter with crime-scene tape.

‘Make sure it’s the right way up.’ I suppress a groan as Matt immediately turns the tape around.

Jordy, wheezing like a poorly inflated pair of bellows, lumbers towards Matt to help him.

Hopefully SOCO will be here bright and early tomorrow: the sooner we get this whole scene examined, the better.

‘Luce?’ It’s Matt.

I turn towards him.

‘How far should I go with this tape?’

‘As far as you can in all directions,’ I tell him. ‘We can always bring it in later.’ William will decide when he comes anyway.

I’d called William before I’d roused Matt and Jordy.

He’d been sharp on the phone and it had stung. We’d always got on well but, in the last few months, he’s treated me like a stranger he’s not particularly fond of. But I suppose no one enjoys being awoken at three in the morning. ‘Cig,’ I’d valiantly ignored his brusqueness, ‘there’s a car on the Keem road and its interior is covered in what appears to be blood. There is a pool of blood outside the vehicle too, though it’s dark so I can’t tell for sure.’ I omit the fact that I stood in it. ‘The vehicle is unoccupied and has been here for at least seven hours. I don’t know if the blood is human or animal but my gut tells me this isn’t good.’

‘All right,’ he says, not even taking a moment. ‘Call Achill. Secure the scene. Have you got an ID on the number plate?’

‘I’ve asked Dan to run it through PULSE. I wasn’t in the DDU car.’

One of our district detective unit cars has ANPR, an automatic number-plate recognition system, and quite why William would think I’d be driving it home at two thirty in the morning, I don’t know.

‘All right, what are you thinking?’

‘Someone was attacked in that car, maybe dragged to the cliff edge and dropped over. Whoever did it probably left in another car.’

‘Okay. I’ll put in a few calls and meet you soon.’

Thirty minutes later, he strides towards me wearing a forensic suit. He throws me one and waits until I climb into it. And climb I do, hitching up the trousers and rolling up the sleeves. The only thing that fits properly is the gloves.

Matt, whom I’ve tasked with scene preservation, records in the logbook that William and I were allowed access at 3.30 a.m.

‘SOCO will come at first light but I want to see what we’re looking at first, just in case.’

A flare of indignation leaps up in me. In case of what? In case I’ve got it wrong? I hold my tongue and follow him up a path I’ve marked as close to the one I walked just under an hour ago. William, always prepared, has brought a heavy-duty torch and the beam illuminates the scene like daylight.

The car is ten years old, a Dublin registration, with that deep scratch running the length of the passenger side. William crosses carefully towards the driver’s door and peers in.

‘The door was partially closed when I got here. I opened it. I used a pen so there should be no prints.’

His eyes flick dispassionately over the blood-splattered interior. He focuses his torch beam at the ceiling, the light playing on the arc of droplets that seem to have sprayed out in all directions. ‘I’m no expert but that looks like arterial bleed to me.’ He pauses, the torch hovering over a few circular drops on the door handle. ‘We’ll need a sample of that too,’ he says.

I follow him as he moves towards the back of the car. ‘Boot is open,’ he says.

I hadn’t noticed that.

He reaches out a gloved hand and pushes it up.

It’s empty, save for a red envelope, splotches of blood on it.

William picks it up, opens it, pulls out a white A4 page and unfolds it.

Letters, pasted on, taken from magazines and newspapers.

‘5/5’ is stuck at the top.

Then, one word: ‘KaRMa’.

The note is shocking in its starkness. More shocking in the icy pitch darkness of a wind-whipped starless night. William and I stare at the ominous word, at the eerie way the letters are arranged on the page, uneven, like they’re almost moving.

The sudden sound of my phone with its cheery Wham! ringtone jars. I ignore William’s eye-roll at my choice of appropriate crime-scene music. ‘Dan, what have you got?’

‘The car belongs to a Jerry Loftus. He’s living in Ballycroy, so not a million miles away.’ Dan calls out the address. ‘Give me a shout if you need anything else. I’m awake now anyway.’

‘Car belongs to a Jerry Loftus,’ I tell the Cig. ‘Lives in Ballycroy.’ I don’t add that Dan is happy to be dragged over because right now there’s not a lot we can do and it’s better if some of us are bright-eyed come morning.

‘Jerry Loftus?’ Jordy, who has become almost invisible in the dark, calls from the cliff side of the crime scene, about ten feet away, ‘Is that what you said?’ His voice ebbs and flows in the breeze.

‘D’you know him?’

‘If it’s the same lad, I think I saw a missing-person report about him.’ Jordy walks towards me, taking his newly issued personal device from his pocket. He starts fumbling with it. I suppress my urge to take it from him and key in the information. Jordy is not a technology expert and the new phones we’d all been given courtesy of the Garda Siochana baffle him. Still, while he’s all fingers and thumbs, he has a memory for intelligence that is only surpassed by William’s. He could have gone far in the force but hard living put paid to it. ‘Here we are,’ Jordy says triumphantly, gaining access to PULSE. ‘Jerry Loftus, from Ballycroy?’

‘That’s right.’ A thump of adrenaline hits my system.

‘“Jerry Loftus,”’ Jordy reads from his screen, ‘“missing since yesterday noon. Six foot, slim build, grey hair. Garda are seeking the public’s assistance in tracing the whereabouts of sixty-year-old Jerry Loftus of Ballycroy, County Mayo. When last seen, Jerry was wearing jeans, black runners and a red fleece. Mole on his right cheek. He failed to return home after a hiking trip on Achill.”’ He looks up. ‘Must be the same man, eh?’

‘Find out who took the report, Jordy, and exactly what work has been done to locate him,’ William orders. ‘It might save us a bit of legwork. Has this man been found? If so, why is his car here? If not, we need to find him. Lucy, call out to his home in Ballycroy and see if you can get anything for DNA comparison with the . . .