Thrown Down Read Free

to meet him outside at the front of the house.
    ‘I have to say, sir, that is one of the worst scenes of this kind I’ve ever come across’ Ollie declared as he breathed in and out to quell the nausea rising in him.
    ‘You’ve spared my feelings?’ Jeff quipped. ‘I find that touching, DI Wright’.
    ‘No, sir, I didn’t mean … ‘
    ‘ … I know what you meant, Ollie’ said Jeff, laughing and tapping Ollie’s arm reassuringly. ‘So do we know who the victim is?’
    ‘Oh yes, sir’.
    ‘Why do you say it like that, Ollie?’
    ‘Well this one, sir, is just a little bit special’.
    ‘In what way?’
    ‘His name is Padraig O’Connell’ Ollie revealed. ‘His wallet was in his pocket enabling us to do a quick ID and then I ran his name through the system. He was released five years ago from the Maze prison in Northern Ireland having served over thirty years for the murder of an RUC officer called James Carson back in nineteen seventy-six. Carson was attached to a special branch unit that had been charged with undermining IRA activity in the area’.
    ‘So O’Connell was IRA?’
    ‘Yes, sir’ Ollie answered. ‘He admitted to being an active member of the provisional IRA at the trial. When he was released he moved over here to Manchester because most of the rest of his family had done so in the years he’d been incarcerated’.
    ‘So we could be looking at a revenge attack?’
    ‘And if the attacker was someone who is or was a member of special branch, for argument’s sake, then they would’ve known how to get in and out of here without being noticed. Same goes for someone who still believes in the IRA’.
    ‘But why would someone from his own side, the IRA, want him dead after all this time?’ Jeff questioned. ‘Although some of the ways these organizations work are pretty baffling’. 
    ‘Well nobody has come forward to say that they saw anything but we will of course be starting house to house enquiries and setting up the mobile incident van with the local neighbourhood policing team’.
    ‘Good’ said Jeff who was mulling it all over in his mind. ‘Now let’s go upstairs’.
    The design of the flat meant that the front door opened straight into the bedroom. The body of Padraig O’Connell was lying on his back in the space at the end of the double bed. To say there was blood everywhere would be to understate it. The walls, the wardrobe, the bed, the small window by the side of the bed, all of them were covered in blood and it made the whole scene look like a butcher’s back room. But before Jeff and Ollie could proceed they had to put on the protective plastic clothing that was necessary when entering a crime scene, especially one as small and as intimate as this. They did so on the landing just outside and then the pathologist June Hawkins looked up when she saw the two of them.
    ‘Dressed in your finest, gentlemen?’ she said. ‘Then come on in and don’t stand on ceremony’.
    Jeff and Ollie bent down and went under the crime scene tapes. Jeff really had to take a deep breath after he’d looked down at the victim.
    ‘So what’s been happening here then, June?’ Jeff asked. 
    ‘A stabbing?’ she questioned with an all innocent voice.
    ‘You don’t say?’ Jeff replied, smiling.
    ‘There are thirty-seven stab wounds on him’ June declared. ‘Whoever attacked this poor bugger really wanted to make sure he was dead. It’s almost as if it was driven by some kind of madness’.
    ‘Any sign of a forced entry into the flat?’ Jeff asked.
    ‘No, sir’ said Ollie. ‘It looks like he opened the door willingly. Maybe he knew the person?’
    ‘I guess it’s too early for you to tell us anything else, June?’ said Jeff. ‘Like if there’s any trace of anyone else being in this room?’
    ‘Not until I get everything back, mate’ said June. ‘Then I’ll be able to look for any traces of someone else’s blood or DNA’.
    ‘Something else, sir?’ said Ollie.