caused him to question if Ellie Brady had not been leading them all a merry dance.
Flicking through the file, he picked up the photograph of Ellie with her daughter. When he had studied it before, he had wondered about how both mother and child had looked at the camera, smiling in great amusement. The girl’s smile was not unusual, but there was something about Ellie, as if she displayed more than the normal level of affection one might have expected when someone was posing for a photograph, almost as if Ellie’s smile was for the photographer alone. The photograph was taken before she had arrived at the hospital. The girl was probably about ten at the time. She had the same hair as Ellie, only longer and it was tied in two plaits. On first reading the file, he had been rather taken by the case, not just because all his predecessors had seemed to fail in its regard, but also because there were a great many aspects to it that didn’t make sense – and it was Samuel’s experience that if something didn’t make sense, there was usually a very good reason for it.
Incident Room, Tallaght Garda Station
Friday, 7 October 2011, 2.30 p.m.
THE INCIDENT ROOM IN TALLAGHT WAS FULL TO capacity, every stacked black plastic chair had been taken down and occupied. The atmosphere felt tight; a cauldron of manpower and resources that could tip at any moment, depending on what fresh information was fired into the mix.
The occupants of the top table were already seated, except for O’Connor, who took his seat to the right of Chief Superintendent Brian Nolan, whispering, ‘Hiya, Boss’, before nodding at the bookman, James Donoghue.
As was customary at this point in the investigation, all key posts had been allocated and although these had been made primarily by O’Connor as the Senior Investigating Officer, others had had their say too. DS Dermot O’Brien had been put in charge of CCTV footage, Tom Byrne was the DS for records on preservation of the crime scene and protection of evidence, DS Brian McCann was heading up the house-to-house enquiries and DS Martin Pringle had been made overseer of witness statements.
When it came to the multiple interactions within the Incident Room, the engine of any investigation was the bookman. In this case, it was James Donoghue who would call the shots. There was never any doubt about who would be appointed. Donoghue was at the height of his career, he knew more about many members of the district than Nolan, and had more experience behind him than half the people in the room. It was his job to see links or inconsistencies withinthe information collected, and it was up to the detective sergeants, detective inspectors and everyone else to get that information filtered through the tried and tested hierarchical system, a system to which every single one of the fifty-plus people in the room would strictly adhere. The bookman was the one person who saw everything worth seeing, and by noticing an association that might otherwise have been missed, he could change the course of a case in an instant.
O’Connor had already mentioned to Donoghue that he was not happy with DI Gunning remaining as part of the team, but Donoghue, had agreed with Nolan. Gunning may have been a thorn in O’Connor’s side, but Donoghue knew that if you wanted someone to play hardball then Gunning was the man, and it was better to have him in rather than out.
Having got everyone’s attention, Donoghue set about his task like the seasoned master of proceedings that he was.
‘Job 11. O’Brien, what’s the update on CCTV?’
‘We’re still going through everything sent over from Rathmines. We’ve new tapes just in from Gunning, along with fresh local stuff.’
‘From where?’
‘Shops and businesses down at the main junction, security footage from the GAA club and church grounds, and a couple of the bigger houses on the way up the hill have their own CCTV cameras.’
‘Right, I want a complete overview by
Flicking through the file, he picked up the photograph of Ellie with her daughter. When he had studied it before, he had wondered about how both mother and child had looked at the camera, smiling in great amusement. The girl’s smile was not unusual, but there was something about Ellie, as if she displayed more than the normal level of affection one might have expected when someone was posing for a photograph, almost as if Ellie’s smile was for the photographer alone. The photograph was taken before she had arrived at the hospital. The girl was probably about ten at the time. She had the same hair as Ellie, only longer and it was tied in two plaits. On first reading the file, he had been rather taken by the case, not just because all his predecessors had seemed to fail in its regard, but also because there were a great many aspects to it that didn’t make sense – and it was Samuel’s experience that if something didn’t make sense, there was usually a very good reason for it.
Incident Room, Tallaght Garda Station
Friday, 7 October 2011, 2.30 p.m.
THE INCIDENT ROOM IN TALLAGHT WAS FULL TO capacity, every stacked black plastic chair had been taken down and occupied. The atmosphere felt tight; a cauldron of manpower and resources that could tip at any moment, depending on what fresh information was fired into the mix.
The occupants of the top table were already seated, except for O’Connor, who took his seat to the right of Chief Superintendent Brian Nolan, whispering, ‘Hiya, Boss’, before nodding at the bookman, James Donoghue.
As was customary at this point in the investigation, all key posts had been allocated and although these had been made primarily by O’Connor as the Senior Investigating Officer, others had had their say too. DS Dermot O’Brien had been put in charge of CCTV footage, Tom Byrne was the DS for records on preservation of the crime scene and protection of evidence, DS Brian McCann was heading up the house-to-house enquiries and DS Martin Pringle had been made overseer of witness statements.
When it came to the multiple interactions within the Incident Room, the engine of any investigation was the bookman. In this case, it was James Donoghue who would call the shots. There was never any doubt about who would be appointed. Donoghue was at the height of his career, he knew more about many members of the district than Nolan, and had more experience behind him than half the people in the room. It was his job to see links or inconsistencies withinthe information collected, and it was up to the detective sergeants, detective inspectors and everyone else to get that information filtered through the tried and tested hierarchical system, a system to which every single one of the fifty-plus people in the room would strictly adhere. The bookman was the one person who saw everything worth seeing, and by noticing an association that might otherwise have been missed, he could change the course of a case in an instant.
O’Connor had already mentioned to Donoghue that he was not happy with DI Gunning remaining as part of the team, but Donoghue, had agreed with Nolan. Gunning may have been a thorn in O’Connor’s side, but Donoghue knew that if you wanted someone to play hardball then Gunning was the man, and it was better to have him in rather than out.
Having got everyone’s attention, Donoghue set about his task like the seasoned master of proceedings that he was.
‘Job 11. O’Brien, what’s the update on CCTV?’
‘We’re still going through everything sent over from Rathmines. We’ve new tapes just in from Gunning, along with fresh local stuff.’
‘From where?’
‘Shops and businesses down at the main junction, security footage from the GAA club and church grounds, and a couple of the bigger houses on the way up the hill have their own CCTV cameras.’
‘Right, I want a complete overview by
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