The Dark Web Murders

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Wednesday, 15th August. Morning 

Sheehan had just left Margaret home from Mass and was sitting at his office desk. Working on a Holy Day, Jim? He shook off the thought.Murderers don't care what kind of day it is, and they have to be stopped. He picked up a couple of pages of handwritten notes from a file on his desk. It was his habit to jot down random thoughts and observations as each case progressed. He never shared these with the team because of their speculative nature. Often, however, as the case moved forward, patterns and ideas would emerge from his notes, spurring his brain to formulation of loose hypotheses, some fruitful, others no better than blind alleys. With little real information available to this point, he was mired more in the zone of bafflement than in the postulation of theories. Why did the blackmailer not  turn up at the car park for his money? Or did he turn up and see something that sent him scarpering? Did whatever he saw send him to the judge enraged? But then, the judge's death, with his questionable personal life,was producing a myriad of other suspects. And what was the connection between the venal judge and the apparently respectable teacher? There seemed no logic to that, yet given the identical MOs for the killings, there had to be something. 

Hearing the outer room filling up, he sighed and left his office. He sat at his usual place at the head of the room as the team prepared to deliver the summaries of their interrogations carried out the day before.

 About a half an hour or so later, McNeill was the last member of the team to report on the interviews. "Looking at my n-n-notes, I discovered ss-something a bit odd," he began. "When we asked McAfee what he had been d-d-doing at the judge's house that night, he said, and I wrote it d-d-down exactly, 'Just a few friends m-m-meeting for a drink and a chat'." 

Miller frowned. "That sounds familiar." 

"It does. My notes show that B-B-Bryant gave us exactly the same answer. And, although I d-d-didn't note it at the time, I'm sure William Martin used p-p-pretty much the same words." 

"That's it," Miller clicked his fingers. "Should've noticed that. Our lot used those words, or ones very like them, as well." 

Sheehan nodded, "So did Judge Adams." He looked at Stewart. "I'm sure the other two did, too." 

Stewart checked her notes. "Michael Stevens and the civil servant guy,Oliver Kane." She spread her hands apologetically. "I didn't write down what they said verbatim, but I did note that they had been at the judge's for drinks and a chat." 

"Pretty close," Sheehan said. 

Others were nodding, and McBride said, "I noticed that, too. Slight variations, but the same idea each time, definitely." 

"This has more than a whiff of collusion about it," Miller said. "Wonder why they felt it was necessary?" 

"Same with that Brexit thing," McBride said. "Our lot tried to pretend it was a huge secret and that we were forcing it out of them." 

"Yes," Stewart said. "Adams made a particular point of asking us not to make it public, if that was at all possible." 

"Yeah, we got that all over the place, too," Connors said. "They made it sound like some serious anti-government plot." 

"Yet the ones we sp-sp-spoke to didn't seem to have m-m-much of an idea about Brexit,"                 McNeill said. 

"That's right," Allen agreed. "McAfee was making a big deal out if it, but for all his bombast, when it came to even the basics of Brexit, he didn't seem to have a clue." 

"Exactly like that playboy idiot, Norville Keely," McCullough said. "I mightn't know much about Brexit, but I sure know a helluva sight more than he does." He raised a fat finger. "On top of that, he hadn't a clue what the inside of the house they were in looked like. Tried to stave us off with some bogey answers but you could see he was chancin' his arm."