Page 42 of Hang on St. Christopher

“I could. But the question is, why would I?”

“Again, Archie, it would be helping me out. It would be helping out Carrickfergus RUC.”

“Who would then stay off my bloody back until the end of the year?”

“Put it like this, Archie, if you have any trouble with the local cops until, say, Christmas, you can give me a call and I’ll see what I can do. I won’t help you with anything violent or a domestic, but apart from that, I’ll be your man.”

Archie liked the sound of that. “I’ll get you that info by the end of the week.”

“Sooner would be better. This is a murder investigation.”

“All right, I’ll see what I can do.”

My nose told me this was a step in the right direction. We might not be able to find out who killed Mr. Townes, but if we could find out who bought those Picassos at auction, we might be well on the way to finding out who our victim really was.

CHAPTER8

THE PHONE BOX AND THE TAILOR

I told the constable guarding the crime scene that I would have him relieved shortly and ran Archie home in the Beemer.

I went into the center of town and parked the car in front of McConnell and Low real estate agents. I asked about Mr. Townes, and they confirmed that he’d been in the house rental for nearly three months. He’d paid his deposit in cash; he’d paid his rent on time, in cash.

“Don’t you have to come up with references, ID, to rent a house?” I asked Mr. McConnell, an excitable young man, who was one of those walking-about, waving-his-arms-around types that you didn’t see too much of in Presbyterian Ulster.

“Oh, yes, you do. But that house had been vacant for over a year like so many of the larger properties along the Belfast Road, so we were keen to get him in first.”

“But he eventually showed you some ID, surely.”

“Mr. Townes was from the Republic of Ireland, so he said that he would bring in his Irish driver’s license and references so we could photocopy them.”

“And did he?”

“Uhm, let me look through the file.”

Of course, the look through the file revealed no photocopied driver’s license or passport or any references. Townes had paid his rent early, had charmed everyone in the office, and seemed like a model renter, so no one had pushed him on the ID front. And if they had, the mysterious Mr. Townes would probably have furnished a fake ID anyway.

I thanked McConnell and drove to the station.

I filled Crabbie in on what I’d learned this morning.

Crabbie, who was the polar opposite of the walking-about, waving-his-arms-around type, nodded dourly and leaned back slightly in his chair.

“Bit of a sorry state of affairs that we don’t know the name of the victim on day two of the investigation.”

“Indeed.”

I went to the whiteboard at the front of the interview room and wrote “Quentin Townes/John Doe” in big black letters. Underneath that, I drew two arrows. The first pointed to “Carjacking Gone Wrong Manslaughter”; the second pointed to “Murder.” On the bottom of the whiteboard, I wrote, “Phone box, Dundalk. Tailor, Dublin. Picasso prints at auction.”

Satisfied, I sat back down again. “Three lines of inquiry, Crabbie. That phone box in Dundalk, his tailor in Dublin, and the provenance of those Picassos. We’ll find out who he is, and when we find out who he is, then we’ll find out why they killed him,” I said confidently.

“Nothing new from forensics or patho. I was just on the telephone to the medical examiner. He’s sending over the preliminary report today, but it looks like what it appeared to be last night. Two shotgun blasts a few seconds apart. One in the stomach, then one in the head.”

“It smells like a malice aforethought murder to me,” I said. “Dumping the car and having an escape bike ready... But we’ll have to keep an open mind.”

“Naturally.”

“Toxicology?”