CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The Dublin police station was those quaint little places that looked better in a movie then in person. The place reeked of behind the times. Even the computers looked like something Bill Gates learned on, and the telephones were of a uniform color, black.
The walls had panels of a muted green, with pictures of various felons and recruitment posters. Every desk had piles of papers that almost overwhelmed the police officers behind. There was a smell of overcrowding, of beer, and overwork and as Rachel Burke walked in, she was sure that, anytime soon, a character out of a 1940 British Film Noire would suddenly appear.

A woman in a light blue shirt and a dark navy skirt sat on a chair behind a desk, having a cup of tea. Two policemen or constables, as Rachel heard, came in with a young woman, a tart by her skimpy attire, between them.

"Look coppers," she said, "I aint done anything, not a thing. Here I was minding my own business, waiting for the bus when Samson and Golden Boy snatched me!" She glared at the two constables.

"How do you do, Sally," said the police woman, "glad you came to pay us a visit.. Hello?" She was looking at Rachel. "That's a new one."

Rachel just smiled and asked for whoever was working on the most dangerous cases.

"Oh," said the female officer, pointing to the door to the right, "That's Patrick O'Halligan. He's in charge of bloody murders. Me, I just get stuck with girls like Sally here who haven't got the sense to stop doing something that would get them killed."

Rachel thanked her and knocked on the door.

"Come in." The voice was rough, the kind that happened after too many sleepless nights and too many cigarettes in too many dingy pubs and the man inside looked like he had been through the wringer at both ends

He was going over several folders, taking out the picture of one scoundrel, a photograph of one of his victims, and shaking his head as if the one who committed the crime was a master at eluding every police officer in the world.

"Rachel Burke, FBI profiler." She knocked on the door, and opened it just a bit as she introduced herself.

"Patrick O'Halligan, overworked police detective," said the rather red man in the desk. He did look red, orange hair, reddish face, and Miss Burke was sure he had red flannel underwear. Certainly, it looked too cold to wear boxers or briefs. "Please sit down."

"Thank you. Oh, do you have someone to look after my children? It's their first time over here."

"Why of course." He smiled and called over a policewoman.

"Hello children, I'm Miss Smith."

"Hello," said Naomi.

"Can you show us the dungeon?" asked David.

"Our jails are bigger," added Charles.

"All right come along children," said Miss Smith, "I'll even show you the torture chamber." She winked at Rachel with a smile.

After Constable Smith took the children on a tour of the police station, Rachel and Detective O'Halligan got down to business.

"You see, Miss Burke, we're in a spot. Have you heard of the Russian Mafia?"

"They're making inroads in New York City, mostly the Brighton Beach area, controlling many of the businesses n that area. Most of them are former KGB officials with quite a following of minor or major criminals to make it interesting.

"They're over here. I don't know how it happened, but there's a mob led by this one bloke. I haven't seen him, but the blighter's been described as quite good looking, reddish brown hair. He's quite a charmer."

"I see. Now since we've had dealings with the Russian Mafia, what makes this man more of a threat?"

"What dealings, Miss Burke? Their modus operendi?"

She listed on how the Russian Mafia acted, how they kept control of their victims by threatening to eliminate members of their family or themselves if they failed to obey. "There was a case of a Sophia Ivanov whom they brought over from Moscow. When she found she was not going to work as a seamstress in one of their businesses, but in a house of prostitution, she rebelled. She informed us of our doings, and we arranged for an agent to meet her."

"What happened to this bird?"

"Oh Miss Ivanov: They found her in the Hudson, her eyes had been cut out, as well as other parts of her body I need not mention. It was a warning for the other girls not to try anything. Now how is this man any different?"

O'Harrigan's lip seemed to narrow and his face showed only a glimpse of the horror. "He doesn't wait. If he even suspects, or let me say, imagines that someone will betray him, he'll kill them and not only that, their families."

Rachel leaned back. "Their families?"

"In the most horrific way possible of which I will list only the least disgusting, drowning, suffocation, and shooting. He even decapitated one bloke, put his head in the boot of his motor car and as for the rest of him, we haven't found them yet. I suspect he's sort of a new version of Sweeney Todd, you know the demon barber."

"Sweeney Todd? I thought it was just a fairy tale."

"Oh it was true. He took the heads off his victims literally and his wife made these pies that had an odd flavor to them. His barber chair was designed in such a way, and there was a trap door under the barber seat." He made a downward swooping motion with his hands.

Rachel blinked and shook her head. If Sweeney Todd existed in the twenty first century, shed probably be put on his case, but who was this new Sweeney Todd? ' "I guess you have your tales of horror as well."

"Not as much as this blighter, decked up as if he were the king of England, and so soft spoken, friendly, too friendly from what my contact told me," he said as Rachel leaned closer. "We did take his picture when he passed by a bank which had one of those security cameras outside. I had it enlarged." He took a photograph out of a plain brown envelope and handed it to the Profiler.

Miss Burke looked at the face of a handsome man with reddish brown hair, a man who looked pleasant enough, with a smile, but his eyes — yes his eyes had a coldness that not even the careful airbrush done by a professional photographer, if this station had one, would have correct. It was the eyes of the killer. It was the eyes of Alex.