Mersey Murder Mysteries Collection

Chapter 34

Sister Mary Dominique stood quietly on the corner of Jubilee Street and St. Michael"s Road, where they formed a three-way junction with Grafton Street. She"d seen the black Ford Mondeo arrive some minutes earlier, and seen the two police officers alight from the vehicle and make their way to the house in the centre of the terrace on the opposite side of the street. She knew they were police officers. Their bearing, the way they walked, even the way the younger of the two officers, the woman, held the thin file folder spoke to the world and announced them as officers of the law. If that wasn"t enough, the way the light fell on the car it was possible to make out the red and blue flashing lights, situated behind the radiator grille, which clearly identified the Mondeo as an unmarked police car.

Mary Dominique had waited for some time in her position on the corner, before the arrival of the police car and its occupants. She was warm, too warm, and Mary Dominique let up a prayer of gratitude to The Lord Jesus and to The Holy Virgin, for the fact that the order she belonged to, The Sisters of The Virgin, Blessed, had long ago eschewed the use of the old, heavy, black cloth habits, so typical of Orders all over the world. Instead, Mary Dominique wore a neat, white blouse, with a high collar and a fairly lightweight grey pinafore dress with a hem that fell chastely just below the knee, and a grey and white half-wimple that complimented the rest of the habit. Her shoes were of plain black leather, functional but not too heavy, but still, she felt overdressed for the purposes of standing on a street corner in the heat of the day.

Seeing the two police officers being granted entry to the house halfway along the street on the opposite side of the road from her vantage point, she debated what to do next. Should she stay, and wait to see what happened next, or should she simply leave, and come back later, or perhaps another day, or then again, maybe not return at all? After all, if she hadn"t seen the article in the Daily Mail during a recent visit to her local library, she wouldn"t be here at all. The things she knew, the things she"d seen, surely could result in her knowledge of the past hurting the innocent as much as the guilty. It all happened such a long time ago. At first, she"d been all fired up with the thought that she ought to tell someone what she knew, maybe the police, or someone at the newspaper, she wasn"t sure, and so, here she stood, in the heat of the day, watching and wondering, unable to decide her next move. The thought crossed her mind that maybe she"d never be believed anyway. Then again, would anyone have the temerity to accuse a nun of lying?

“You, Mr. Doyle, are a liar.”

Ross had decided to take an aggressive stance with James Doyle from the moment he walked into the man"s house. Despite his age, James Doyle appeared to be well capable of putting up stern resistance to Ross"s line of questioning.

“What right do you have to come into a man"s house and call him a liar?” Doyle snapped back at the inspector.

“The law gives me that right,” Ross replied. “As I"ve already stated, I don"t believe your story that your cousin, Patrick Bryce, visited you in nineteen sixty-six purely to look for work in Liverpool. It"s also my belief that you have always been aware of his connections to the Provisional IRA and that in fact you are a wholehearted supporter of their beliefs.”

“That"s nonsense,” Doyle replied. “You"re talking as if I"m some sort of terrorist. Connie, tell them, in the name of God, that I"m no terrorist.” He directed his plea at his wife, seated in the opposite armchair to himself.

Connie Doyle had listened patiently as her husband had conducted his verbal sparring session with the inspector, but suddenly, the old lady seemed to snap, as though some long pent up frustrations couldn"t be held in any longer.

“In the name of God Almighty, James Doyle, why don"t you grow up at last, before you"re too old to do so? I"ll tell the inspector the truth, if you won"t.”

“You"ll shut your mouth, woman, that"s what you"ll do.”

“No, Jimmy, no I won"t. No more. Inspector, let me tell you, that damned cousin of his was never anything but trouble. I don"t know how or why my husband ever grew so close to him, but I"ll tell you this, he wishes he never had. When Patrick came over here in sixty-six, my husband was afraid of him, Inspector Ross. You only had to see them together to know that. My husband wouldn"t say no to him. It was me that told Patrick he wasn"t welcome in my home. I couldn"t stand him near me, and neither could Marie. I made him find a room in a bed and breakfast place. What he and Jimmy got up to when they met up in the evenings I can"t say, but I will say this, my husband is a bigoted old fool, and he acts like he"s a big, tough guy, but he isn"t. There"s no way he would have allowed himself to be dragged into anything to do with the IRA, I"m sure of it.”

“I"m not necessarily saying he had anything to do with the IRA, at least, not intentionally, Mrs. Doyle.” Ross said, quietly.

“Then what do you…oh, in the name of Heaven, please don"t say you think he had something to do with Marie"s disappearance? He loved her, Inspector. Marie was his pride and joy. He"d never have hurt her.”

Izzie Drake was the one who replied, “Not Marie, Mrs. Doyle.”

She allowed the words to hang for a second, and then, Connie Doyles eyes seemed to fill first with realization and then with tears as she gasped,

“No, you can"t mean you think he had something to do with Brendan"s death?”

“That"s precisely what I do mean, Mrs. Doyle,” said Ross, forcefully. “Why don"t you own up, Jimmy? Come on, be a man for once, tell us the truth, like your poor wife here asked you to.”

Jimmy Doyle had turned red in the face as the others talked around and about him for those few seconds. He was fighting to control the rage that was building up inside him.

“For cryin" out loud,” he screamed at Ross, “I"ve bloody told you I had nothin" to do with that lad"s death, I didn"t. How many times do I have to tell you?”

“You can keep telling me until Hell freezes over,” said Ross, his anger barely under control. He truly believed he was now face to face with a potential murderer. He had to forget James Doyle was an old man in his eighth decade, and remember that at the time of Brendan Kane"s death, he"d have been a strong and fit forty-something, and easily motivated enough by hatred to carry out the evil task of cold-blooded murder. “Come on, out with it, Jimmy. Did you ask your IRA hitman cousin to help you get rid of your daughter"s "proddie" boyfriend? Or, maybe you just wanted Bryce to put the fear of god into young Brendan, to scare him off, keep him away from Marie. I"ll bet he"d have loved that, wouldn"t he? Is that why he was over here in the first place, Jimmy? Did you invite him to do you the favour because maybe you didn"t have the guts to do it yourself? It"s not that easy to kill a man in cold blood, is it, Jimmy?”

“I didn"t do it,” Doyle shouted at Ross, and now, for the first time, the two detectives could see tears forming in the old man"s eyes. “Please, listen to me. I didn"t do it. I didn"t.”

“I"m sorry we have caused you upset in your home, Mrs. Doyle,” said Ross, quickly rising from his seat. Izzie Drake followed his lead and stood at the same time.

Connie Doyle looked shocked at the abrupt move and Jimmy Doyle, equally surprised gazed almost robotically at Ross and half spluttered, half gasped, “That"s it? You believe me, then, you"re leaving?”

“We"re leaving, for now, Jimmy, and no, I don"t believe you, and I certainly haven"t finished with you, so don"t think for one minute you"re off the hook. Next time we meet, you"ll probably be under arrest and in an interview room at Merseyside Police Headquarters.”

Doyle looked on, speechless, as the two detectives walked from the room, closely followed by Connie Doyle. As they stood at the front door and prepared to leave, as part of their pre-arranged strategy, Drake opened the file she"d carried with her all this time and took out a photograph, which she handed to Connie for her to look at. Connie Doyle peered closely at the black and white print, gasped and said, “Holy Mother of God. Is that all that was left of that poor boy?”

“That"s it, Connie,” said Drake, gently removing the photo of the remains of Brendan Kane as they"d first been found at the old disused wharf. “All that"s left to testify to the life of a young man, a man who loved your daughter, and may have paid for that love with his life.”

“And Marie? What about my little girl? Do you still have no clues at what happened to her?” Connie sniffed as the tears slowly dripped from her eyes.

Andy Ross placed a hand on her arm, and softly said, “Not yet, Mrs. Doyle, but I"m going to find out for you, that"s a promise.”

No further words were spoken as Ross and Drake left the house, leaving Connie with her thoughts, and Jimmy Doyle, hopefully, panicked enough to do something that would give himself away in the next day or two. Ross would have Dodds and McLennan shadow the man in one shift, with Ferris and Gable taking over in watching over the old man, who, Ross firmly believed, was still a potentially dangerous and slippery character.

As they climbed back into the car, satisfied with their strategy so far, Drake turned to her boss and said, “You do know we were being watched when we walked from the car to the house, don"t you, sir?”

“We were?”

“Yes, by a nun. I saw her on the street corner as we pulled into the street.”

“And you think she was watching us?”

“Well, she looked towards us as we walked from the car.”

“Probably thought we were interfering with her door to door work, you know, selling copies of the War Cry or something.”

“Oh, sir, the War Cry is The Salvation Army, not the Catholic Church, I thought you knew that.”

Ross laughed. “Of course I know that, Izzie, just joking, that"s all. Anyway, I wouldn"t have thought we"d be of much interest to a nun, would we? She was probably waiting for someone and we were probably the only moving thing to catch her eye in the street when we parked up and walked to the Doyle"s house.”

“Yes, you"re probably right sir. Just thought I"d mention it, that"s all.”

“Right, let"s get back to base then, and we"ll set up the surveillance on Jimmy Doyle. I don"t trust that old bastard as far as I can throw him.”

“Okay, sir. I think you did a good job in there, if you don"t mind me saying so.”

“Why, thank you, Sergeant. Yes, we put the fear of God Almighty into Jimmy, I hope, and with luck, Connie will work on him in the home. Now she knows our suspicions, she"ll want the truth from her husband, if it has anything to do with the disappearance of Marie. Connie Doyle could be our best bet for obtaining the truth in this case, if we play our cards right.”

As they drove round the corner at the end of the street, Sister Mary Dominique stepped out of the small café on the next street after enjoying a nice cup of tea and a Bakewell tart, and watched as the police car disappeared from sight, lost in the general rush of traffic heading towards the city centre. She was still far too warm and headed away from the area towards her next port of call at a slow but steady pace, the pain from her arthritic knees forcing her to pace herself carefully as she walked.