Mersey Murder Mysteries Collection

Chapter 19

Izzie Drake thanked the female uniformed constable who"d escorted the two men up to Ross"s office and led them in and repeated the names given to her by Constable Greening at the door.

“Michael and Ronald Doyle are here to see you, sir.”

Ross looked at the two men, both probably in their fifties, who"d walked into the room, and, even without being told their names, he"d have had no problem in discerning them to be brothers. Although the elder of the two was rotund and showed evidence of a beer drinking habit, evidenced by his overhanging belly, and the leaner of the two appeared fit and more meticulous in his dress and demeanour, their facial characteristics were such that the familial resemblance was inescapable.

“Come in, gentlemen, please. Have a seat.” Ross gestured to the two chairs Izzie had recently placed in front of his desk in preparation for the interview. The two men sat, and the elder brother spoke.

“We"d prefer Mickey and Ronnie if you don"t mind.”

“Sure,” Ross replied. “I"m Detective Inspector Ross, and this is Detective Sergeant Drake,” he went on, as he indicated Izzie, who"d taken up a standing position near the door. “The desk sergeant tells me you may have some important information for us relating to recent events?”

“Yes, we do,” said Mickey. “First of all, we saw this,” and he took a folded up newspaper from the inside pocket of his brown leather jacket and passed it across the desk to Ross. It was a copy of the Liverpool Echo, opened at the page where the Force"s Press Liaison Officer"s release to the press had been printed. It had been a short piece, merely stating that skeletal remains had been discovered in the vicinity of a former warehouse in the city"s docklands area and that the police were pursuing inquiries in an attempt to identify the victim, the remains appearing to be between thirty and forty years old.

“I see, please go on.”

“Well, I saw it first, and then when he came round to my house, I showed it to Ronnie and we both thought the same thing.”

“And just what was this, "same thing" you both thought of?” Ross asked.

Mickey looked as if he was on the verge of tears, and looked at his brother, who now spoke for the first time.

“We didn"t just jump to conclusions, Inspector. You have to understand that this has hung over us for a long time, and we might be wrong in our assumption, but, well, we think you might have found our sister, Marie.”

Ross"s heart sank. Of course, the press release hadn"t given any indicator of the gender of the victim, and he wondered how to let the brothers down gently. First, however, he thought it prudent to probe a little deeper.

“I"m sorry to tell you that the remains that were unearthed were those of a male, not a female, and therefore can"t be the remains of your sister.”

Ronnie and Mickey looked at each other, and it was plain to Ross that a certain amount of confusion existed in their minds. Perhaps a little relief that it wasn"t their sister, but at the same time a continuation of some long-held stress that held both men in its t****l.

“Oh,” said Mickey, and “We seem to have wasted your time, Inspector,” Ronnie added.

Ross looked up at his sergeant, standing by the door, and she nodded back at him, instinctively knowing where he was about to direct the interview.

“Mickey, Ronnie, please, it might be important and helpful if you can tell us why you thought the remains could have been those of your sister. When did she go missing, and what exactly led up to her disappearance, because I"m presuming you"re telling us she"d been gone for a long time?”

Mickey still appeared quite upset, and he gestured with his hands for Ronnie to tell their story. After taking a few seconds to gather his thoughts, the younger of the Doyle brothers began his tale by first passing a photograph across the desk, which Ross picked up and smiled as he saw the subject of the old black and white image.

“This was you?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Ronnie. “We were both in a pop group back in the early sixties, Brendan Kane and The Planets. I know you won"t have heard of us, but we did okay for a while, even played at The Cavern and The Iron Door, and all the major clubs in the area. We really thought we had a chance to follow in the footsteps of The Beatles, Gerry and The Pacemakers and their ilk. Sadly we never quite made it. Mickey was our lead guitarist, and I was the bass player. A chap called Phil Oxley was our drummer and Brendan Kane himself was lead singer and rhythm guitar.”

“And Marie?” This question came from Izzie Drake, who"d moved from her place by the door to take a seat in the corner, off to the side of Ross"s desk.

“Marie was our sister, of course, but not a part of the group, as such. But, back in the early days she often drove the van for us, ferrying us to and from gigs. At first, we used our Dad"s van, but when his business began to fail he laid off his mate who had a van too, and we were restricted to only using it at night. Anyway, Marie was kind of like an honorary member of the group, always with us, and we"d not have got as far as we did without her.”

Ross felt there was something more here, and wanted to hear the rest of the Doyle"s story.

“So, what happened, Ronnie? You said you didn"t make it, so what happened to the group?”

“Well, we gradually got fewer gigs when we had to stop playing at lunchtimes, and one day Brendan dropped a bombshell, saying he thought we should cut a demo disc and if it didn"t get us a recording contract, he wanted us to split up, end the group, you know?”

“And you weren"t too happy with that?”

“No, none of us were. We"d been together for about five years as a group by then. We probably knew he was right, deep down but we felt as if he"d betrayed us all, wanting to just give up and then he said if we did, he"d be going on to try and launch a solo career. You can imagine, that went down like a flippin" lead balloon. We were in the little park near where Brendan lived and I can remember it was a really warm summer"s day. We"d been arguing about the future for a while and the thing was, when he"d first announced his plan, Marie had actually agreed with him, which kind of took the rest of us by surprise. Anyway, to cut it short, we made the demo disc at a studio in town, long closed now, by the way and Marie went and helped Brendan to mail copies to just about every recording studio and management agency in the country. As you"ve probably guessed it never got us anywhere and a few months later the group spilt up as we"d reluctantly agreed and Brendan went off to start what he believed would be a new, solo career.”

“But that didn"t work out for him either, did it, little brother?” Mickey joined the conversation, his words tinged with a bitterness he found hard to disguise.

“No, it didn"t.” Ronnie continued. “He tried and failed to make the breakthrough on his own. After a couple of years, his solo career had died and the last we heard, Brendan was planning on going to America. He thought he"d have a better opportunity over there, more potential exposure, as he thought the States might prove a better market for a solo singer.”

At this point, Mickey Doyle felt the need to interject.

“Yeah, but there was worse to come, Inspector Ross. None of us knew that Brendan and Marie had been secretly "carrying on" together for years, sneaking off to make love whenever they could. Marie knew our parents wouldn"t approve of her having s*x outside marriage. They were dead straight, you know, real old-fashioned about those things. It wasn"t all as free and easy as everyone thinks back in the sixties you know.”

Ronnie took over once again.

“Anyway, one day, everything came to a head. There was a massive row between us all, and well, we never saw Brendan after that day, and soon after that, Marie disappeared too, but because she was an adult, and because we had no proof whatsoever that foul play was suspected, the police at the time either couldn"t or wouldn"t do much when we reported her disappearance to them. To be honest, we, and Mickey here, especially, have been doing all we can to trace her over the years. When we saw that report about the skeleton in the Echo we thought…well…you know what I"m saying, right?”

Ross thought carefully as he hesitated before answering Ronnie Doyle. A theory was forming in his mind, and he needed to ask just one question to confirm whether the wild idea that had formed as he"d listened to Ronnie"s story might be possible. Eventually, he decided to test his theory.

“This is all very interesting, Ronnie, but of course, my priority is identifying the remains we found at the old wharf. I sympathise with your loss in regards to your sister"s disappearance, and from what you"ve told me I have the very strange feeling that Marie may be connected to our current case. You coming here today may just have been the "wild card" we"ve been waiting for, the chance to begin putting this case together at last.”

“In what way, Inspector? You said the skeleton was male, so it can"t be Marie,” said Ronnie, looking a little confused.

“Let me just ask you one question, please, well, maybe two.”

“Okay, go ahead.”

“You"d both known Brendan since you"d been boys growing up together, yes?”

Both men nodded yes.

“Can either of you tell me whether, at some time during his school life, Brendan Kane suffered a broken right leg, and whether, round about the time of him supposedly leaving you all behind to go off to America, he owned a very expensive pair of brown cowboy style boots?”

The Doyle brothers gaped open-mouthed at Ross"s words. The detective might have been a mind reader as far as they were concerned.

“How the fu…er, sorry. How the heck do you know that, Inspector?” said Mickey.

“The answer"s yes to both questions,” added Ronnie. “He broke his leg in a playground accident and those boots were Brendan"s pride and joy. He"d ordered them especially from America. How do you…?”

Ronnie fell silent in mid-sentence as he caught on to Ross"s train of thought. He spoke again.

“You think those bones belong to Brendan, don"t you, Inspector? You think he never went to the States; that he died all those years ago and no-one knew about it.”

Andy Ross chose his next words very carefully. If the bones were indeed the mortal remains of Brendan Kane, the Doyle brothers just might be considered potential suspects, although them coming forward like this made him seriously doubt the possibility. They"d hardly come in here after all these years if they"d been responsible for putting the body in the water in the first place.

“I think there"s a strong possibility, yes. I need to know a lot more before we can confirm it. For now,” he turned to Izzie, “Sergeant Drake here will go and get us some coffee, and, if you"re not in any great hurry, I"d like you to tell me more, and especially about the last time you saw Brendan Kane and your sister, in as much detail as possible.”

Izzie Drake nodded and left the office to return soon afterwards with coffee for all four of them. Ross had allowed the men a five minute break to gather their thoughts while she"d been absent and now he turned to Ronnie once more.

“Ronnie, please, think hard, and take me back to the nineteen sixties. Tell me exactly what happened.”

Ronnie Doyle closed his eyes, and as he allowed his thoughts to wander back in time, the memories came flooding back…