Mersey Murder Mysteries Collection

Chapter 26

Sergeant Robert Carson sat quietly observing the two men, father and son, who"d just spent half an hour relating an almost unbelievable tale to him. Now, he had to decide just what, if anything, he intended to do in relation to their story. Looking at the notes he"d made on the form that sat on the table in front of him, he decided to first of all recap the details of what they"d told him.

“So, Mr. Doyle, and Michael, you insist Marie had every intention of leaving the city with her boyfriend, this Brendan Kane character, correct?”

James, (Jimmy) Doyle replied with exasperation in his voice.

“That"s what we"ve been telling you for the last thirty minutes. And I told you I knew nothing about Marie wanting to run off with the lad until just before we left home, when Mickey and Ronnie told me and their Mother all about it.”

“Ah yes,” said Carson, “quite a little conspiracy of secrecy, wouldn"t you say?”

“What the f**k d"you mean by that? What conspiracy?” young Mickey snapped at the sergeant.

Carson puffed his chest out, a visible display of his own self-importance. Aged fifty-three, and close to retirement, the dapper sergeant, with his knife edge creases in his uniform, and crisply starched collar, firmly believed in his own ability to tell truth from lies, or to know when his time was being wasted on trivia when there were more serious crimes out there waiting to be solved. Sadly, even his own superiors saw another side to him, that of a man too set in his ways and unable to accept change readily, thereby holding him back and being among the reasons he"d never managed to pass his inspector"s exams. Carson had held the rank of sergeant for fifteen years, and would remain in his rank until the day of his retirement. The Doyles, of course knew none of this. To them he was "The Police" the man they"d been introduced to by the desk sergeant as being the officer available to help in their search for their daughter and sister. He now responded to Mickey"s angry comment. Maybe he"d used the wrong word?

“Whoa there, young fellow,” he said to Mickey.” I meant nothing sinister by my use of the word. Just that it seems to me you and your brother and your mate Oxley seemed to be the only ones in on the secret of this planned move to America. You all played it very close to the chest to ensure your Dad here, and your Mother, knew nothing about it.”

“Hang on a minute,” said Mickey, “Clemmy knew too.”

“Clemmy?”

“Marie"s best friend, Clemency De Souza. Marie told me and Ronnie she"d told Clemmy about it, a while ago. She swore her to secrecy.”

“Ah, right, I see,” Carson nodded his head in mock understanding at Mickey"s explanation. “Tell me, has it ever entered your head that Marie and this boyfriend of hers might have been spinning you a line?”

“How d"you mean?” Mickey asked the apparently all-knowing experienced officer sitting looking sternly at him.

“Well, in my experience, I"ve often found that when young folks want to do a disappearing act, they often tell people one thing, and then up and do something totally different. Have you considered the fact that your sister and her fella might have told you they were planning to go to America, while they secretly made plans to go somewhere different entirely?”

Carson leaned back in his chair with a self-satisfied smile on his face as he watched his words take effect.

“But, why would they do that?” Mickey asked, incredulously. “She knew me and Ronnie were on her side,” he said, rather sheepishly as he felt his father"s eyes boring into him, his and Ronnie"s earlier deception rising high in Jimmy"s thoughts once again.

“And you fell for it, didn"t you?” Carson went on. “You believed every word. They even got this Oxley lad to go along with their plans, have him make all sorts of inquiries about how to go about getting to America, as you"ve told me. What better way to throw everyone off their true scent than by creating a clever fantasy that you all fell for? You told me, Mr. Doyle, that Marie is almost twenty one, and there"s no law that says a couple can"t up sticks and move away from home without telling their parents about it, you know. Also, from what you and your son here have told me, it seems you"d have been none too pleased if you"d known they were planning to run off and elope together.”

Both Doyles, senior and junior, appeared quite nonplussed by Carson"s theory. Jimmy Doyle appeared lost and unable to respond to Carson, but eventually replied,

“Yeah, well, that"s true enough. I don"t hold with mixed marriages.”

Now it was Carson"s turn to look nonplussed, not quite able to grasp Doyle senior"s meaning at first.

“Mixed marriages? Are you telling me Brendan Kane is foreign, Asian, or West Indian or something? Is it because you wouldn"t want your daughter marrying a coloured person?”

“Colour"s got nothing to do with it,” said Jimmy Doyle, forcefully. “Brendan Kane is a bloody proddie, a protestant, Sergeant. We"re good Catholics, so we are, and I"ll not have my daughter marrying a bloody proddie.”

Carson almost choked at the man"s bigoted words, unable to really grasp such feelings.

“Mr. Doyle,” he said. “This is the nineteen sixties. Surely you can see such ideas and attitudes are out of date? If you must know, I happen to be Catholic myself, and I"ve been happily married to my wife, a "proddie" as you"d call her, for over thirty years. This is England, Mr. Doyle, not Northern Ireland, though I suspect from your name and your attitude you may have connections over the water.”

“I do indeed, Sergeant. I have many cousins and uncles and aunts in Belfast and Derry. As for you and your wife, that"s your business. I"ve no interest in you and your marriage. Like I said, I"d not let any child of mine marry outside our own faith. It"s not right and that"s all there is to it.”

Carson was almost lost for words. He was well aware of the problems that existed across the Irish Sea in Northern Ireland, but had never seen or heard such a display of outright bigotry here in his home town. He could see from the look on Mickey"s face that the younger man felt totally embarrassed by his father"s outburst and tried to reach out to the father again.

“If you feel so strongly about it, Mr. Doyle, how come you let your sons appear in the pop group with Kane, and let your daughter help them?”

“Aye, well, we don"t have a lot of choice in this day and age, do we? We might have to work with people of the other side, but that doesn"t mean we marry them and raise kids who don"t know the true faith.”

Carson had just about had enough of Jimmy Doyle, and any sympathy he felt towards the family"s plight now switched entirely to the worried-looking Mickey, who now looked totally uncomfortable in response to his father"s outburst.

“Look, here"s what I propose. I"ll make some inquiries among their friends and social circle. I"ll speak to Mr. Oxley, and go along to Brendan Kane"s flat, and speak to his parents. Like I said, this whole America thing may have been a total red herring, concocted to make sure you and anyone else couldn"t follow them or find them wherever it is they"ve really gone.”

Jimmy and Mickey Doyle left the police station a few minutes later, arriving home half an hour later, soaked to the skin after a very wet walk to the house from the nearest bus stop. Marie"s mother, Connie, waiting impatiently in the kitchen, was anxious to hear the outcome of their visit to the police, but became very angry and agitated when Mickey told her about his father"s religious outburst to the sergeant. She"d been baptized forty four years earlier as Concepta O"Malley, a good, old-fashioned Irish Catholic name, but one she"d hated since childhood, always preferring the more modern and as far as she was concerned, secular name of Connie. Unlike Jimmy, who was Liverpool born and bred, Connie had actually been born in Lisburn on the outskirts of Belfast, her parents having moved to Liverpool when she was ten years old, themselves sick and tired of what her father referred to as the "medieval" attitudes towards alternative religions that existed in the Northern Irish community. She"d met and fallen in love with a young, handsome Jimmy Doyle when she was eighteen and he"d been a year older, and they were married a year later. The football loving, weekend fisherman she"d fallen for hadn"t displayed his latent tendencies towards religious intolerance until some years later, and she certainly didn"t share her husband"s religious bigotry, and often found it embarrassing to hear his outdated views on religious affiliations.

“In the name of God and the Holy Virgin, James Doyle, why"d you have to behave in that way in front of the police? Marie"s missing, and a young man too, and all you can do is turn it into a speech on marriage between Catholics and Protestants. You"re a disgrace, man, so you are.”

“D"you think I care what happens to a little scally like Brendan Kane? He"s probably already had his way with our Marie and spoiled her for a proper marriage in the future. Then he"s enticed her away from her home and family and our two stupid sons went so far as to help them keep it all under wraps. They knew what I"d say if I found out, and so did Marie. That Oxley boy"s just as bad, conspiring with them to deceive us.”

“He"s not a boy, he"s a young man, same as Mickey and Ronnie, and he didn"t conspire against us, as you put it. He just helped his friends, Jimmy, same as you probably would have done at their age.”

“That"s where you"re wrong, woman. There"s no way I"d have disrespected my parents like that.”

“Of, for crying out loud, Jimmy, hush your mouth for a minute. I want to know what they said at the police station. You tell me, Mickey. You"ll make more sense than your father, to be sure.”

Jimmy Doyle gave a kind of growl from deep in his throat, but at least he fell silent and walked across the kitchen, where he took up residence in Connie"s comfortable fireside chair, knowing it would irritate his wife as he did so. Connie chose to ignore him as Mickey quickly filled his mother in on their conversation with Sergeant Carson.

“That"s all he"d say for now, Ma,” Mickey said as he came to the end of relating the story of their interview to his mother. “The sergeant did say he"d be in touch with us after he"s made some inquiries and asked around a bit, but I don"t think he was really all that interested in what we had to say.”

Mickey"s back was to his father as he spoke and he managed to gesture with a sideways glance that his mother correctly interpreted as him indicating that his father definitely hadn"t helped matters.

Connie Doyle managed to hide her simmering anger towards her husband over the following days, though the atmosphere in the Doyle household deteriorated until it was almost possible to cut it with a knife. Jimmy spent every spare minute at the pub, drowning his sorrows in beer, while Mickey and Ronnie did their best to avoid both their parents. Instead of joining their father at the Red Rose as they would normally have done, they found a haven of relative peace at the local billiard hall, where they did their best to work off their anxiety and frustrations over endless games of snooker and billiards. John Pullman had successfully defended his World Championship status in a series of challenge matches with Fred Davis at the City Hall in Liverpool, and the two brothers had developed a love for the game from watching some of the matches on television. Days passed almost interminably, with no word from Marie or Brendan as to their whereabouts. When the loud knocking that could only be that of a police officer interrupted the family"s early evening six days later, it almost came as a form of relief when Connie opened the door and admitted Sergeant Carson to her home, showing him into the sitting room, where she invited him to sit down, introduced him to her younger son, Ronnie, and then together with her husband and sons, nervously awaited his news. Carson sat in one of the two armchairs in the room and politely refused Connie"s offer of a cup of tea. Having developed a dislike for Jimmy Doyle at their first meeting, he wanted to keep his visit to the Doyle home as short as possible. Opening his notebook, the sergeant began his report to the expectant Doyle family, delivering his words towards Jimmy Doyle, as the head of the family.

“As I attempted to explain to you when you visited me at the station, Mr. Doyle, bearing in mind the circumstances surrounding this matter, there isn"t an awful lot the police can effectively do…”

“So what the f**k do we pay your bloody wages for?” Jimmy Doyle almost exploded at the sergeant.

“For crying out loud, Jimmy, will you just let the man speak?” Connie snapped at her husband, instantly winning the respect of Sergeant Carson. In a quieter voice she continued, “Please go on Sergeant, and forgive my husband"s rude and uncouth outburst.”

For once, Jimmy Doyle found himself on the receiving end of a tongue lashing, and he made a gruff sound in his throat, stood up and walked across the room to the fireplace, where he stood leaning against the mantelpiece as Carson continued. Even Mickey and Ronnie appeared impressed as their mother at long last appeared to have found the courage to assert herself over her domineering husband.

“Yes, right, thank you, Mrs. Doyle. As I was saying, we don"t have many options open to us, I"m sorry to say. I have visited Mr. Kane"s parents, your friend, Mr. Phillip Oxley and your daughter"s friend, Clemency De Souza, and obtained statements from each of them. I followed this up by reporting the case as you yourselves, Mr. Doyle and Mickey presented it to me, to my boss, and it is Inspector Ledden"s opinion that none of the people interviewed, and this includes yourselves, have been able to show that any threat existed against the couple. In other words, nobody has been able to say with even a hint of certainty that they believed Marie and her boyfriend to be in any imminent danger, either from each other or from any other person or persons, known or unknown. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that this is anything other then a case of two young people, both over and above the age of consent, and of legal voting age, deciding to leave their homes and make a fresh start somewhere else.”

“That"s a load of bollocks, Sergeant Carson,” Mickey cut in. “Me Dad and me only came to see you because we were worried about them disappearing without leaving word. It was totally not like them to do that, especially after making their plans to go to America.”

Connie Doyle shot a glance at Mickey that he instantly recognized and responded to.

“Er, sorry about the bad language, Sergeant, sorry, Mam.”

“Yes, well, where was I?” Carson almost smiled at the tiny domestic cameo that had just played out before his eyes. “Oh, yes, so, we have a situation where Marie and Brendan Kane appear to have produced an elaborate plan to run away to America, but as your mate Phillip Oxley told us, Brendan Kane knew he couldn"t just waltz into the United States without going through a lengthy immigration process, so my boss concluded that they must have got tired of waiting, and have gone somewhere else entirely. There are lots of places in the world that don"t have such strict rules about who they allow into their countries. I take it Marie has a passport?”

“Yes, she does,” Connie replied.

“Listen, Mrs. Doyle, it"s been my experience over the years that most missing adults go missing because they want to do so, whatever the reason or the rights and wrongs of the matter, that"s a simple fact. If they don"t want to be found, there are many ways for them to remain hidden, often in plain sight in another town or country, but by the same token, many of them will simply turn up after a few days, or weeks perhaps, when things don"t go quite the way they expect them to. You know, the old "grass isn"t greener on the other side" thing. If there had been any evidence of foul play here, rest assured we would have thrown the weight of the force behind a search for them, but as it stands, no one can substantiate the merest hint of a threat to their safety. No crime has been committed and the inspector simply won"t sanction the number of man hours required for an extensive country-wide search for a couple who everyone admits had planned to leave town anyway.”

A pall of desperation hung heavy in the Doyle"s living room as the sergeant"s words struck home to each member of the family. Jimmy Doyle at last found his voice once again.

“So that"s it? That"s all the police can do for us? What about that scally"s flat? Did you even bother going round there?”

“I did go there, as a matter of fact, Mr. Doyle. There was nobody at home, and I looked up the landlords of the building, and they told me they received a letter from Kane just two days ago, saying he was leaving town, and enclosing a month"s rent in the envelope, along with instruction to sell his things, as he wouldn"t be coming back to Liverpool.”

“But, that"s rubbish,” Ronnie said in response to the news of the letter. “He"d never do that, not leave all his things behind, not Brendan. I mean, there was his new record player, his guitar, all that kind of stuff. Did you ask if his guitar was gone or still in the flat?”

“Ronnie, love, I know you"re upset. We all are, but you mustn"t badger the sergeant like that, really you mustn"t,” Connie Doyle said to her son. Connie retained a good old-fashioned healthy respect for the police and didn"t like to see and hear her son acting in a belligerent manner towards a member of the force.

Ronnie shook his head in exasperation.

“Yeah, right, sorry Mam, sorry Sergeant,” he apologised.

With great dignity, Connie Doyle rose from her chair by the fire and walked slowly to the polished wooden sideboard at the opposite side of the room, and picked up a small, yellow plastic transistor radio from behind a large school photograph of Marie, taken when she was fourteen. Holding it as though it were an item of inestimable value she held it up so Carson could see it clearly.

“This, Sergeant Carson, is my daughter"s most treasured possession. It cost her two shillings on Kirkby Market. Expensive? No, but valuable beyond words to Marie. She loves music, Sergeant, and if she was going anywhere important, or for any length of time, this little radio would have gone with her. That"s why I know something"s very wrong, and that my little girl is in trouble of some kind.”

“Look,” said Carson, “I"ve personally distributed your daughter and Brendan Kane"s descriptions to other police forces in the country. If any officer sees and recognizes them they will report it back to us here in Liverpool and I promise to let you know if that happens. The case file will remain open, but for now, there"s not much more I can do for you. I"m sorry”

“Yeah, I just bet you are,” said Jimmy Doyle, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

“I have to go, I"m afraid,” Carson said, now in a hurry to be gone from the Doyle house. “If I hear anything, I"ll be in touch.”

Connie Doyle saw the sergeant out and as he disappeared down the street to the spot where he"d parked his sleek, white, Ford Zephyr 6 patrol car, she slowly closed the front door, somehow knowing in her heart of hearts that she would probably never see her little girl again.