Detective O’Callaghan sipped from his whiskey in what he once affectionately termed his “home office.” Now, it seemed more like incarceration. For the previous few nights, he had been studying the different documentation from “The Happyface Killings.” It was proving as difficult as ever to make sense of, and the pressure was building, His behavioural unit needed to be able to show results to justify its existence and this was the biggest case since “The Irish Ripper”. But it appeared that a concrete wall had been reached.

Therefore, he had decided that tonight he would look through some of the other cases that had been referred from across the country over the last few weeks and that he had cleverly left strewn across his desk. The first was a rape case and then a murder over drugs. Neither were the types of cases that he felt his and his department could make a discernible difference in.

Then, he read a file that piqued his interest, it was about a suspicious death in the town of Mullingar. Whatever, it was about that town and its cesspool of criminality O’Callaghan would never understand. It was a man who was in his fifties, who died a few hours after returning from work as a Personal Assistant to a man with disabilities. He had been poisoned and died an agonizing death.

The local Gardai were struggling to find a suspect and were still unsure what poison had even been used. It sounded like something O’Callaghan could dig his teeth into, and just as importantly give the Department some good publicity. There was something odd about it though. He wrote down some of the key details about the case and put them in his shirt pocket. He turned off the lamp and rolled his wheelchair towards what would be an empty bed.

O’Callaghan woke up late. There was still no sign of his wife. They were after having a furious row the week before, but he knew that she would be back at some point. Then he would try to make amends. He took out the notes from the night before and rang the telephone number of the last person to see the victim alive.

It took some time for the phone to answering .

“Hello this is Detective O’Callaghan from the Behavioral Section. I’m looking to speak to a Mr. Ahern.”

“Sorry, from where er.”

The sound was distant as if he was speaking on a loudspeaker. Then O’Callaghan remembered that he was speaking to someone with a disability, perhaps they couldn’t hold up the phone. He repeated what he had said previously.

“Yeah, sorry this is Mr. Ahern. This must be about what happened to Ray. It’s terrible. But, I’ve said everything I know.”

“Are you at home today, I won’t be long I promise?”

With that, O’Callaghan had booked himself a meeting. Mullingar was an hour away, there was no time to waste. He just had a quick call to make to the office that he wouldn’t be in for the rest of the day.