The Rule Book by Rob Kitchin Read Free Book Online Page A

long day. We’ll need to run a check on your man in any case and see what comes up. We’re gonna need to review all the DHC staff first thing. If there is a connection, then our killer is either so clever he thinks he can outwit us or pretty stupid.’
    ‘You don’t think it was Brady?’ Plunkett sounded disappointed.
    ‘If it was then he’s not giving himself much chance of writing the other six chapters,’ McEvoy stated flatly. ‘What do you think?’
    ‘I think I’m going to head back to the incident room to pull up what I can about him.’
    ‘If that’s what you want. I’ll talk to you later, okay.’ McEvoy disconnected the call. He took another sip of coffee and instinctively placed his plastic cigarette between his lips and inhaled deeply. He snatched it away and looked at it in disgust, before slotting it back. He needed to get rid of the pack in his pocket; they weren’t going to stay un-opened much longer. And he needed a drink; a proper drink. Something to deaden his thoughts; let him sleep the night through without thinking about Maggie or Laura Schmidt, the cold sword sticking up out of her mouth. The door a few feet away opened and Billy Keane’s back emerged, his arms holding up the front of a trolley laden with a body bag.
     
     
    Barney Plunkett and Fay Butler looked up as McEvoy entered the room, looking tired and dishevelled. Somehow his body seemed to have gotten smaller inside his suit, his skin paler and tighter to his bones.
    ‘I was just going to come and find you,’ Plunkett said as a greeting. ‘We’ve being going through Dermot Brady’s file. Except for the hit and run and his time in Mountjoy his record is clean. In fact he’s helped us out a few times with incidents involving homeless folk. Seems like he’s turned a new leaf. There’s one interesting thing though.’
    ‘There always is,’ McEvoy muttered.
    ‘He worked in Germany for a year and a half in his early twenties. Did casual labour on the building sites in and around Cologne . He’d only been back in Ireland for four months when he killed the mother and son.’
    ‘Another coincidence, you think?’
    ‘The manual says that multiple coincidences equal a probable link. I think he’s worth a closer look.’
    ‘Okay, then,’ McEvoy nodded.
    ‘You don’t think so?’ Plunkett asked, sensing McEvoy’s doubt.
    ‘No, no, absolutely, find out everything you can about him. It’s … it’s just it doesn’t seem to fit.’ McEvoy scratched at his cheek absently. ‘If you wanted to write a whole book, why give away so many clues in the first chapter?’
    ‘He’s a bad author?’
    ‘Everything else though is so clinical – the cleaning of the body and room; the laying out of the cards. Having too many coincidences would be sloppy. It’s a manual on how not to get caught. You’d have thought he would have thought it all the way through. At least for the first killing while he’s got time and space to plan things.’
    ‘So you’re saying we should leave him be?’
    ‘No, I’m saying we should check him out fully, but don’t rush in thinking it’s definitely him. We need to keep an open mind. Let’s pull together what we can and see where that leaves us. We also need to check out whether there’s a link between Laura Schmidt and the Schmidt in the cemetery. Were they family or do they just share the same name?’
     
     
    Dr David Hennessey strolled along the lime tree avenue at the rear of Maynooth University approaching a ten-foot-tall crucifix adorned with the body of Christ. The crucifix stood at the head of a row of ancient yew trees lining a little laneway to the seminary’s cemetery. The sky was fading fast toward twilight, a cold wind blowing in from the east. The lights surrounding the seminary flickered into life, illuminating the long, dark walls with an orange glow, accentuating its Gothic look. The spire of the church reached up into the sky, a murder of crows circulating round the bell