Хилари Боннер - A Kind Of Wild Justice

Four days later it all became academic. James Martin O’Donnell’s body was discovered on Dartmoor, not far from the disused tin mine which had become the tomb of the raped and murdered Angela Phillips twenty-one years earlier. He had been found early one morning by a group of ramblers and it was as if his killer had planned for him to be discovered. Jimbo had been buried in the shallowest of graves which, although in a remote part of the moor, had been only roughly filled in and was almost on the edge of the kind of track that was bound to be popular with walkers. The grave was so shallow that the heavy rains of the previous evening had washed away enough of the loose soil covering Jimbo for the fingers of his right hand to be left actually sticking out of the ground. It was this grisly sight that had alerted the ramblers.

O’Donnell was naked, his body caked with his own blood. And his cut-off penis had been stuffed into his mouth. Medical examination was later to prove both that his penis had been removed with a none too sharp knife shortly before his death and also that he had been buried alive.

Joanna learned of the discovery of O’Donnell’s body from Fielding. He might be out of favour with his bosses but Dartmoor remained his patch. The seasoned detective didn’t miss much.

She was stunned. It was something else she hadn’t expected. Was this story never going to roll over? In her mind she had half dismissed the whole business of Jimbo’s disappearance as yet another O’Donnell stunt. But he had been murdered, and in such a dramatic and significant way. Buried alive. His cock in his mouth. Found near where Angela Phillips had died. The first constructive thought that crossed her mind was that it had to be a revenge killing.

‘It’s going to be announced at a press conference later today, after he’s been formally identified,’ Fielding told her in a telephone call just after morning conference. He was at Heavitree Road police station. He spoke very quietly. She could understand that he did not want to be overheard. It was good of him to call her. She supposed it was for old times’ sake. Mind you, she had stuck her neck out on his instigation and, thanks to him, her head was almost as much on the block in a different sort of way as his. She deserved his help. That did not mean he would necessarily always give it. On this occasion, though, Fielding had come up trumps. ‘Tommy O’Donnell’s on his way to the mortuary in Exeter as we speak,’ he went on. ‘It’s a formality, though. We all know what O’Donnell looks like well enough. He hasn’t decomposed that much yet, and there’s that tattoo on his arm. I thought you’d like a lead on it.’

‘Thanks, Mike, I appreciate it,’ she told him. She did too. The Mail would already be working on it for certain. They would be keeping their grip tight on the O’Donnells. If Tommy O’Donnell was on his way to Exeter the chances were that a Mail team was hard on his heels — maybe even with him. She didn’t have the O’Donnells and she sure as hell didn’t have the Phillipses any more. All she had was one Mike Fielding.

She pumped him for any extra information he could give her. ‘Have you seen the body yourself?’ she asked.

‘Nope. C’mon, Jo, I’m off the case, aren’t I? If I survive this lot at all I’m not likely to be doing much more than shuffling papers till I can pick up my pension and get out.’

Not that again, she thought. But she passed no comment. After all, she did realise that her own financial situation was a very fortunate one.

There appeared to be little more that he could or would tell her. When she ended the call she realised that neither of them had expressed their feelings on O’Donnell’s death or the manner of it. Nor the significance of it. That was perhaps strange. For herself, she had been too shocked. She leaned back in her chair, stretching out her legs, and allowed herself the luxury of a minute or two to think over what she had just learned. She could not avoid a sense of satisfaction that Jimbo O’Donnell had met both an early and undoubtedly agonising death, but not nearly as much satisfaction as she would have obtained from seeing him found guilty of the murder or at least the kidnap of Angela Phillips and properly revealed as the monster he had undoubtedly been. As far as the law was concerned he had died an innocent man and she was almost surprised to find that still mattered to her.

However, she had no time for further philosophising if she wanted to make the most of the advantage she and the Comet had been given by Fielding. She reached for her phone and called through to Paul’s office.

‘Come in now, get news and pix and Tim Jones,’ he instructed. He meant bring in the news and picture editors along with Jones as chief crime man. Together they worked on the story all day, Pam Smythe directing her news team, Tim and his number two working through the Yard and their own contacts on either side of the law, and Joanna mercilessly exploiting whatever contacts she had left who might be able to help her on the story.

She spoke to Mike again a few hours later, to check on developments, homing in on every possible angle he might be able to give her that could put her and her newspaper ahead of the pack. ‘So it is a revenge killing, then?’ she asked. ‘For Angela? Is that what your lads think?’

‘’Course they do. Where he was found, the way he died, his cock in his mouth. Unless we’re just being made to think that.’

‘You’re getting complicated.’

‘Yeah. Well. I try to think round things, don’t I? Which is maybe why I was never going to make it big in the job...’

His bitterness and disappointment were never far from the surface, she thought. She stayed silent.

He continued after a brief pause ‘No. You’re right, Jo. Revenge for Angela is the number one theory. The Phillipses will be questioned, of course.’

‘You don’t think any of them would be capable of what was done to Jimbo, do you?’

‘As it happens, no, I don’t. And Jimbo O’Donnell was never short of enemies. But they’re obviously going to be on the list, aren’t they?’

Jo supposed so. She felt a sharp stab of pity for the family, together with a pang of guilt. If she and Fielding hadn’t opened the whole can of worms again the Phillipses would not be in this situation.

She had no time to dwell on it, though. She had work to do. And fast. The material was dynamite and she knew they had put together a really good package by early evening conference at 5.15 p.m. The official Yard announcement did not come until about half an hour before that. Fielding’s tip had given them a lead of the best part of a day. The Comet had been handed a huge advantage over its rivals, with the exception, she had little doubt, of the Mail . For about the first time since the whole thing had started again she allowed herself to feel a little bit pleased with herself. Just a little. And O’Donnell was dead, brutally murdered, which really was beginning to give her a nice warm feeling. Whoever had done the deed.

After the conference Paul gestured for her to stay behind. She knew he would consider the story the Comet would be putting to bed that night to be at least something of a recovery. And, indeed, he seemed to be in the best mood he had been in for some time. ‘I had lunch with Cromer-Wrong today,’ he told her cheerily. Ronald Cromer-Wright was the Comet ’s senior lawyer. Naturally he was invariably known as Cromer-Wrong. Nicknames like that were traditionally every bit as much a part of Fleet Street life as of the gangland world. It was instantly reassuring to Jo that Paul had referred to the lawyer in the familiar vernacular. Had he not been quite so cheery she might have wondered a little uneasily, in view of her recent exploits, where this opening remark was leading.