Mersey Murder Mysteries Collection

Chapter 23

“And that, Inspector Ross, was honestly the last time I saw Brendan Kane,” Ronnie said as he sighed and sagged a little in his chair, a rather wistful look on his face. Ross quite correctly guessed it had taken something out of Ronnie Doyle, going back in his mind to those long ago days of his youth, and the trauma of losing his sister, though he hadn"t yet told Ross anything about what eventually happened when Brendan and Marie appeared to vanish from the face of the earth. It was time to be blunt, to hit Ronnie and Mickey with his theory.

Still directing his words in Ronnie"s direction, Ross began.

“Ronnie, and you too, Mickey, I know you came here today to try and help us, and you thought the remains at Cole"s Wharf might have been your sister, which we"ve been able to discount, but the reasons we asked to go into such detail about your sister"s disappearance, and believe me, I want to know much more in a minute, are twofold. One, I do believe the remains at the wharf could be very closely connected to your sister"s eventual disappearance, and two, I have strong reasons, based on what you"ve told me, and from other evidence we"ve discovered, to believe the remains at Cole"s Wharf are those of your old friend, Brendan Kane.”

Ronnie and Mickey Doyle both looked as if someone had hit them over the head with a cricket bat. Both Ross and Izzie Drake had no doubts that the news the inspector had just delivered had struck the brothers a real sledgehammer blow, and that neither man had up to now connected the dots, and worked out where Ross had been leading throughout the current interview. They were either totally innocent of any involvement in the disappearance and subsequent murder of Brendan Kane, or, one or both of the brothers was a very good actor. Ross had to consider the possibility that one of the men sitting before him could be a cold hearted and very clever sociopathic killer, emotionless and devoid of the emotion necessary to register true emotions, and therefore he had to take things slowly and carefully.

“You can"t mean that, surely, Inspector Ross,” Ronnie exclaimed.

“It"s not possible,” said Mickey, his voice rising almost to the point of shouting. Sudden realisation had dawned on the elder Doyle brother, even if, for the moment it had escaped his younger brother. “Brendan went to America, and Marie went with him. If the skeleton you found is Brendan then that means that Marie would well be…”

Mickey suddenly choked up with the emotion of the moment, unable to complete his sentence, but by now, Ronnie had caught on to the possibilities Ross"s revelation had opened up.

“So she is dead. That"s what you"re saying, isn"t it, Inspector? If Brendan died here in Liverpool all those years ago, there"s no chance Marie made it to America on her own is there? After all, why would she go without Brendan? They were f*****g inseparable.”

It was only at that point that Ross realised the brothers still harboured hopes that Marie might be alive, that their search through endless newspaper articles over the years had been in truth, a sort of cathartic process of elimination. With each body that wasn"t Marie, the more they hoped she may yet turn up alive sometime, somewhere. It was a "syndrome" he"d witnessed once or twice in the past with relatives of missing persons, a form of positive denial, that led hopeful parents or, in this case, siblings to refuse to accept the inevitable as long as no body could be found. For now, though, he had to push the brothers in order to ascertain every fact he could squeeze from their memories.

Ross spoke firmly but gently once again, trying to convey a calmness that might enable the two men to begin to think clearly once more.

“Look, Mickey, Ronnie, as of right now we have no idea what happened to your sister. Until the pair of you walked in here today we had no idea she had anything to do with this case, and we had no firm proof that the remains were those of Brendan Kane. But you had suspicions that your sister might not have gone with him or why come here saying you thought the remains at the wharf might be Marie? What really made you think your sister might be dead?”

Ronnie Doyle thought for a few seconds before replying.

“Look, Inspector Ross, at first we"d no idea what had happened. Yes, me and Mickey thought she"d run off with Brendan but when we heard nothing from her, and then our Mam and Dad started worrying, we had to come clean and tell them what had been going on. Even so, me and Mickey took a long time to come round to the idea that something bad, and I mean really bad, might have happened to Marie. We started searching newspapers for stories about unidentified bodies or unsolved murders against unknown victims, and when we saw the article about the skeleton at the docks, we thought, well…you know what we thought.”

Ross knew the time had come to be open and honest with the two brothers. Perhaps if he could first obtain conclusive proof that the remains at the wharf were those of Brendan Kane, he might then be able to ascertain if the death of the young musician and the disappearance of Marie Doyle were connected. He now felt it extremely unlikely they wouldn"t be. First of all, of course, he needed to know more.

“Okay,” he said. “You remember me asking you if Brendan had ever suffered a broken leg?”

The brothers nodded in unison, words failing them both for the moment.

“Well, our victim suffered just such an injury, and we"re currently conducting a survey of dentists who may have been practicing in the city around the time of death, to confirm the identity of the remains through dental records, but so far, thanks to what you"ve revealed today, I have to say my thoughts are leaning towards the fact that this was in fact, Brendan Kane. I want to show you something and I want you to tell me if it has any significance for either of you.”

With that, Ross opened the top right hand draw of his desk and reached inside, his hand emerging holding a small Perspex packet. He passed the packet across the desk towards Ronnie, who looked at it as if it was about to bite him. He could see something within the packet and as it came closer to him, he realised what he was looking at.

“Oh, s**t,” he said, his face assuming a crestfallen look.

“What is it Ronnie? What"s in there?” his brother asked, a quiver of fear creeping into his voice.

Ronnie picked up the packet with the tips of two fingers, as though it contained a human body part, and passed it to his brother.

“I take it you both know what that is?” Ross asked, as Izzie Drake moved to take the packet from Mickey"s trembling hand. She passed it back to Ross who returned it to his desk drawer before he spoke once more.

“A plectrum. A broken guitar plectrum,” Ronnie said, quietly.

“A tortoiseshell plectrum,” Mickey added. “Brendan always used one just like it.”

“I"m sorry if this has shocked you both,” Ross said, “but now, I want you to really think back and tell me what took place, to the best of your knowledge, between the time you last saw Brendan, and your sister"s disappearance.”

Both men nodded again. Mickey Doyle appeared to be on the verge of tears. Ronnie was exerting great effort in an attempt not to join his brother on the point of breakdown.

Seeing the state of the men, Ross thought a break would be in order and he asked Izzie to organize tea and coffee for all four of them. She also sent in a uniformed officer who escorted Ronnie and Mickey to the men"s toilets, allowing them to relieve themselves and splash some water on their faces in an attempt to refresh themselves a little before going on with what had now become, for both men, a frightening and potentially tragic interview with Detective Inspector Ross.

A few minutes later, the Doyle brothers were returned to the office where they were soon seated once again in the identical positions in front of Ross"s desk. During the short break, Ross had ascertained that his sergeant had been totally in line with this thoughts and the line of his questioning from the moment he"d first suggested the remains may be those of their old friend. He was reassured by the fact that Drake was still able to almost read his mind and think along the same lines as he did. This ability to almost think in parallel was, he believed, one of the particular strengths of the working relationship between himself and Izzie Drake. Drake soon furnished the two men with cups of very strong tea, and Ross soon took up the thread of his questioning again. This time, he felt he had to really strike hard and make the brothers realise just where his line of inquiry had been leading.

“Right lads, I know you came here today thinking you might have found some answers about the disappearance of your sister, and to be honest, I"m going to do all I can to find out what happened to her, because, although you may not have caught on so far, I do believe your sister may have been closely connected with the remains unearthed at Cole"s Wharf.”

“But how, Inspector? What on earth could Marie have had to do with whatever happened down at the docks all those years ago?” It was Mickey who now seemed to have assumed the mantle of spokesman for the brothers. Ross paused for a moment, turning his head to look out of his office window. A darkness had fallen on the room, and Ross could see the cause, as a bank of dark, grey clouds were sweeping across the sky, obliterating the sunshine and turning the sky a strange mixture of purple and black. Somehow, it seemed fitting, bearing in mind the information he was about to divulge. Turning quickly back to face the brothers, he spoke again, in almost hushed tones.

”I don"t know, Mickey but we need to find out,” Ross continued.

“We believe someone either met or lured Brendan to that wharf, probably late at night, and cold-bloodedly murdered your friend, approximately thirty five years ago. Somehow, it now appears your sister may have been involved in what took place that night”

“Murdered?” This came from Ronnie. “But why? How? Inspector Ross, if that was Brendan you found at that wharf, how did he die? Can you tell, just from the bones? Don"t you need the full body or something to get all that sort of information? And how could Marie have been involved?”

“Oh, we can tell alright, Ronnie. Forensic science is highly advanced nowadays. I can tell you our pathologists have determined that Brendan was probably shot in both kneecaps to incapacitate him, then someone struck him over the head with a hammer, not enough to have caused his death, and finally threw him into the water, as the river still flowed up to the dock in those days. In other words, he was shot, bludgeoned and thrown into the Mersey to drown.”

Ross waited as his words hit home. Both brothers seemed incapable of speech for a few seconds, Mickey visibly blanched, and then Ronnie finally broke the awful silence that had descended on the room.

“But, that"s bloody monstrous. Brendan never did anything to deserve anything like that. Do you know who did it yet, Inspector?”

“Of course he doesn"t, Ronnie, you moron,” said Mickey. “After thirty five bloody years? They haven"t got a friggin" clue, have you, Inspector Ross?”

“Not yet, Mickey, no. But, I"m sorry to say that if it is indeed Brendan who was murdered at the wharf, bearing in mind the information you"ve brought to us today, it now leads us on to another, potentially unsavoury matter.”

All of a sudden, the penny dropped, and both brothers exchanged a glance as Ross"s words registered.

“Oh, my God,” Mickey blurted out. “So you do believe Marie"s dead too, don"t you, Inspector? She must have been with Brendan and whoever killed him probably did the same to our sister. That"s what you"re thinking, isn"t it? We came here thinking the bones might have been Marie"s, we"ve thought she was dead for a long time, but now you"ve described what happened to poor Brendan, well, it looks like she might have been murdered too. That"s not what we expected you know. We always thought she"d gone off with Brendan and maybe there"d been an accident or something or…”

doMickey halted in mid-sentence as his emotions overcame him and the big man suddenly slumped, silent, against the back of his chair. Ronnie took one last stab at denial.

“You still can"t be sure it"s Brendan, though, can you? I mean, a skeleton who broke a leg in the same place as Brendan and a broken guitar plectrum aren"t exactly positive proof are they, Inspector?”

There it is again, thought Ross, positive denial.

There it is again,positive denial.“Until you two walked in here today, no, but after hearing what you"ve told us so far, Sergeant Drake and I are certain that the remains are those of your friend, and I"m certain the dental analysis of the skull will confirm it.”

Ross didn"t let on that they so far had no idea if they would actually find the dentist who"d worked on the victim.

“Maybe now you can see why it"s so important that you tell us everything you can, every small detail you can recall about those last weeks when Marie still lived at home, right up until the time she and Brendan disappeared.”

The brothers nodded in unison, and Ross continued.

“Okay, please carry on with your story and then, when you"ve done with that, I want to know precisely what happened when you reported Marie missing to the police. That would have been the Liverpool City police back in those days, wouldn"t it?”

“Yeah, for what it was worth. Bloody useless lot if you ask me,” Mickey grunted.

“Like I said, that"s for later. For now, please, tell me about those last weeks. You said you never heard from Brendan again after the meeting at his flat, right?”

“No, Inspector,” Ronnie corrected him. “We said we never saw him again. That"s not the same as saying we never heard from him, which we did, about a week after the meeting. We spoke on the phone, didn"t we, Mickey?”

sawheard“About a week, yeah, right,” Mickey confirmed his brother"s words.

“Okay, good. Right, let"s hear it,” said Ross.

Ronnie now took up the story once again.

“Well, the best I remember is it happened something like this, Inspector Ross. Please remember it was thirty-five years ago and it"s not all as clear as it could be, but anyway, here goes…”