Too Close For Comfort Read online

  About the Book

  The Vanishing Triangle

  A woman’s body is found in Ireland’s most notorious body-dump zone, an area in the Dublin mountains where a number of women disappeared in the past.

  Nun’s Cross

  The victim is from an exclusive gated development in the suburbs – where the prime suspect in the vanishing triangle cases, Derek Carpenter, now lives. It looks as if the past is coming back to haunt the present.

  But DI Jo Birmingham doesn’t believe the case is open and shut. Her husband Dan was part of the original investigation team; is she trying to protect her own fragile domestic peace?

  The one person who could help her crack the case, Derek’s wife Liz, is so desperate to protect her family that she is going out of her way to thwart all efforts to establish the truth.

  Can both women emerge unscathed?

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Author’s Note

  Monday

  Prologue

  Three days earlier: Friday

  Chapter 1

  Monday

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Sunday

  Chapter 51

  Tuesday

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Wednesday

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Niamh O’Connor

  Copyright

  Too Close For Comfort

  Niamh O’Connor

  Author’s Note

  This book was partly inspired by events surrounding the demise of the News of the World, and the shocking tactics used to get stories. Events in Too Close For Comfort are fictitious, but inspired by the truth, which in this case really is stranger than fiction. To recap on what actually happened: Sean Hoare (48), the whistleblower in the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, was found dead at his flat in Watford, Hertfordshire, on 18 July 2011, having spent most of his last weeks living there as a paranoid recluse, keeping the curtains drawn, convinced someone from the government was out to get him.

  Shortly before his death, he’d revealed to the New York Times the practice of ‘pinging’ people via mobile-phone signals, in exchange for payments to police officers. The going rate was three hundred pounds sterling, he’d claimed.

  The scandal culminated in the 4 July 2011 revelation that mobile-phone voice messages left for murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler had been intercepted by the newspaper, leading her family to believe she was still alive and listening to them.

  A public inquiry under Lord Justice Brian Leveson was set up to examine the ethics of the press and, on 7 July 2011, the News of the World, once the biggest-selling English-language newspaper in the world, and which was selling almost three million copies per week in 2010, was shut down, and senior members of staff arrested. The former editor Rebekah Brooks was the tenth person to be held in custody, on 17 July 2011.

  Subsequently, a post-mortem examination revealed that there was no third party involved in the death of Sean Hoare, and his inquest found he’d died from alcoholic liver disease. He had 76mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood, an amount under the drink-driving limit of 80mg at the time of his death.

  All other characters in this book are entirely fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Monday

  Prologue

  The hospital room was ten feet by twelve. The man delivering the bouquet to the Central Maternity Hospital in Dublin had put heel to toe to measure out the steps last time on the recce. He’d noted the contents – bed, bedside locker, meal tray, Perspex baby cot with wood-encased storage area underneath – in the notebook in his back jeans pocket. He’d scored the words ‘all on wheels’ underneath, and had measured the precise dimensions of the press under the cot in which the baby was currently sleeping. There would be no room for a margin of error. If he’d learned one thing from his previous line of work, it was that research was everything. He knew exactly where the panic button was located, for instance, thanks to the sketch he’d made of the room from photos taken with his phone. An ‘x’ on his map marked the approximate point where it dangled from a wire over the bed.

  The reward would make the risk worthwhile. He’d come a long way from his previous life, but he didn’t regret a minute of the years he’d spent actually working for a living. It had given him a set of skills that were about to earn him a small fortune. The devil was in the detail.

  The three pictures in front of him were fixed to the wall with screws. The first was an illustrated guide to good hand hygiene; the second, a bland print of pressed flowers; and last, but by no means least, a black and white floor plan of the entire third storey. A red arrow pointed to a spot, declaring: ‘You are here.’ Dots mapped the route to the nearest fire escape. He’d memorized it.

  He moved to a corner of the room and pressed the pedal of a narrow, rectangular, white, hazardous-waste metal bin, three feet in height. The lid rose, and as he lifted his foot, began to lower gently, exactly as he remembered. It was operated by a silent closing mechanism, and the perfect size for his purposes.

  His notebook contained a verbatim description of the notice on the bin, which gave a pager number for the environmental officer of the hospital, who, according to the notice, was responsible for ensuring only tagged, clear bags were placed inside the bin, and later disposed of in a green wheelie container. He’d also jotted the details of the supplier and the address for customer support – a zone in an industrial park on the north side of the city. He’d established the uniform the crew wore, and the company logos for their visitor ID …

  He closed his eyes and noted today’s sounds: seagulls screeching; metal rattling, which turned out to be a trolley being wheeled by a bread man; and the zizz and beep of an ambulance ramp lowering at a set of open doors directly underneath.

  Sunlight streamed in through the sliding sash window, which he was aware locked at six inches.
The sill was the only shelf in the room, and the pungent bunch of lilies he’d brought were giving off an overpowering, distinctly funereal smell that he’d realized last time could mask even the cloying smell of disinfectant. It was doing the same job on the chloroform …

  He glanced at the bathroom door, behind which the new mum was lying on the floor. She’d gone voluntarily when he’d handed her a vase to fill for the bouquet he’d brought. He checked his watch. She’d start to come to in a couple of minutes. He needed to get moving.

  The CCTV camera attached to the outside wall of the adjacent wing had not proved to be the obstacle he’d feared. It was old and it pointed in only one direction – away from the room and towards the staff car park. His gaze lit on a stocky-looking nurse barrelling across the lot towards the entrance, one pudgy arm crossing her chest to reach into a handbag. She pulled out a can of Sure Extra – useless for any kind of hit – and tucked it under one arm of her blouse, then the other, without any change of pace. If there was one thing he had learned from his years spent staking out subjects, it was that most people never even noticed what was going on right in front of their noses.

  To the right of the car park was a staff smoking shelter. That had been his biggest worry during the planning phase. It was much more likely that someone on a fag break would spot something untoward unfolding right in front of them. Luckily the fire alarm going off would provide the perfect distraction.

  He reached for the cord of the blind and gave it a tug. It lowered straight away, revealing the details of its Norfolk-based manufacturer on a sticker that he could recite word for word – yet another contractor who could enter the room legitimately. He’d been spoilt for choice. Even the TV was pay-as-you-go, one of those touch-screen computer jobs where the sound and lip movements were never in sync. It was suspended on a smart swivel arm. A notice said the use of the TV cost five euro a night and required a card bought from a vending machine outside. He could easily have blagged his way in by pretending it needed servicing.

  The only group he’d steered well clear of impersonating were the staff members, though their uniforms would have been the easiest to get hold of. Their shirts varied according to profession, but were all worn with black trousers and Hush Puppies or Crocs. The nurses had white short-sleeved tunic tops with black trim, and upside-down watches pinned to the breast. The matrons wore navy, the catering staff speckled tunics and hairnets, the cleaners purple. But the banter he’d witnessed between them meant they probably all knew each other. He couldn’t risk them realizing that he wasn’t one of them.

  All things considered, he was happy he’d made the right choice in his plan to arrive with a delivery of flowers, and leave as a bin man. Underneath his overalls was the uniform of the hazardous-waste company that disposed of the contents of the metal bin.

  He opened the bathroom door to check on the mum. The room was half the size of the bedroom, but had presented him with just as many possibilities. The same firm provided the soft soap in the dispenser, paper bath mats, tissues, pump-action alcohol rub for hand hygiene, toilet brush and toilet rolls. There was a sanitary disposal unit, which he’d noted required daily emptying. The mum was still conked out …

  Time to get a move on. He turned to the cot where the sleeping infant was all swaddled up and warm and safe, innocent of the world and its vices and predators. He moved to the bin, whipped off and dumped his outer layer of clothing in a plastic bag, knotted it and stuffed it down to the bottom.

  He plucked the baby out of the cot and placed it in the bin. Snug as a bug, cushioned by the clothing padding. It started to cry a bit, but that sound was expected here, and he was aware it was so muffled it was really only audible to him. As long as nobody saw the baby in his arms, he’d be safe enough. He headed out the door with the bin under his arm, just as he’d watched it carried out before. One arm brushed against the flowers on the way, his shirt picking up an annoying rust-coloured pollen stain. Out in the corridor, he glanced left towards the nurses’ station at the far end and then right to the double doors fifty feet away, which separated the private wing from the public ward and the stairs to the exit. Ironically the public ward had not been an option for the snatch. Women turned into busybodies when they were together. But in a private ward they were isolated from each other in the name of comfort, and more likely to doubt their instincts.

  The objects he passed on the corridor were as he had memorized them last time: a water dispenser, and a sizeable steel refrigeration unit on wheels, about five feet high by three. There was something new this time – a blood-pressure monitor, but it was on wheels. It would be possible to shove it out of the way if he had to run, or to use it as a weapon, if needs be. If things went pear-shaped, he could grab the fire extinguisher on the wall beside a box dispensing latex gloves and throw it at anyone who tried to chase him. One press of the panic button at the nurses’ station would cause all the doors in the maternity unit to seal shut in three seconds. However, the fire alarm would prevent the lockdown command from working.

  He walked steadily past three doors on the right leading to private patients’ rooms, a fourth to the laundry storeroom, and a fifth to a kitchen, which bore a sign that read: ‘No Unauthorized Personnel Beyond This Area’. He passed the sixth door, a locked cupboard he’d seen a nurse restock with medicine, and the seventh, a baby-changing area. He felt a surge of adrenalin as he passed the last door on the right. It was open and the room was glowing blue from the UV lamps treating the jaundiced infants. He was almost home and dry. He pushed through the set of swing doors, under a globe camera fixed to the wall above, which could not see below the peak of his cap.

  Behind him a nurse was shouting that a mum had collapsed and she needed assistance. Three seconds to lockdown, which he reckoned would be approximately two seconds too late. Pulling out his keys, he smashed the glass panel to trigger the fire alarm, and as it shrieked into life, he took the stairs two at a time, forcing a woman to step sideways, and tighten the dressing-gown belt around her bump.

  Once out on the street, he climbed into the back of his white van, and transferred the baby from the bin to a Moses basket.

  No question about it, those years in his old job had stood him in good stead. As he climbed into the driving seat and gunned the engine, he thought back to his first day as a copyboy. The year was 2000, the place Wapping in London’s Docklands, and he had just stepped on to the lowest rung of the newspaper ladder …

  Three days earlier: Friday

  1

  AMANDA WELLS WAS so sorry she’d parked in a multi-storey car park. She’d lapped seven of the nine floors already – positive her Beamer wasn’t on the ground or top levels – but there was still no sign of it. It was a cold April night, but she was clammy all over. The car park closed at midnight, in about fifteen minutes. She could barely see ten feet in front of her, the lighting was so bad and the floor space so vast. A car alarm burst into life, making her start and drowning out the clicking of her heels.

  Amanda bent down and scooped off her expensive shoes: they were too good for this place, and her feet were killing her. She’d blisters on her toes and the backs of her heels. If she stepped on broken glass, she was going to threaten whoever managed this car park with legal action; she’d sued for clients over a lot less in her time. It was bloody well dangerous to expect a woman to wander around like this, on her own, at this hour of the night. The lifts hadn’t been working either, and the stairwell, which ran straight up from an open door on the street, was like an invitation to every social inadequate to come on in and shoot up – or rob the vulnerable blonde woman with the big flash bag and expensive jewellery. Amanda couldn’t wait to get home and write this day off. A pulse struck up in her temple. Where was her bloody car?

  ‘Bastard, bastard, bastard,’ she said under her breath, each time with more conviction. Two and a half hours earlier, she had walked up to a dark-haired man in a denim jacket standing in a crowd on the main street in Temple Bar watching a b
usker with a bushy beard play a guitar, harmonica, and drum simultaneously. She had tossed some loose change into the musician’s cap, and had linked arms with the cute guy, zigzagging past a gaggle of women in tutus, grinning when they’d wolf-whistled at him. She’d walked him purposefully around the corner to a dingy hotel, stifling a giggle at the desk as the pretty receptionist took in the age difference.

  ‘I booked a room for Mr and Mrs Kutcher,’ she’d said, handing over her cash as her toy boy had struggled to keep a straight face.

  Amanda wiped her eyes with the sleeves of her Betty Barclay jacket as she remembered how good the lovemaking had been. She’d held off from her announcement until they went for a meal in a restaurant afterwards.

  ‘Someone knows about us,’ she’d said, after looking up from the iPhone tucked on her lap. He hated her tweeting when they were together, but she’d wanted to give her verdict on the restaurant to her online pals. ‘They phoned and called to see me. They’re threatening to tell your wife.’ She didn’t tell him she knew who it was. That would only have led to trouble.

  He’d swallowed a mouthful of hot toffee pudding as he’d stared at her.

  Amanda had slipped her foot under his trouser leg, sliding it up his calf. ‘I honestly think it’s a blessing in disguise.’

  She’d thought that would be the point where they started planning the rest of their lives together, had even fantasized about the wording for the toast. But that dream had come crashing down when he’d replied, ‘I need some time out to get my head together. I think it would be good for us if you started dating again. Who knows? I might even come crawling back, begging for forgiveness.’

  Bastard, bastard, bastard, she thought now, snivelling. Three years she’d been waiting for him to leave his wife like he’d always said he was going to; three years skulking around behind everybody else’s back. He’d made a complete fool out of her. Well, he’d underestimated her if he’d thought she was just going to walk away. She hadn’t got to where she was in life by being treated like the shit on someone’s shoe.