The Killing Year (The Craig Crime Series Book 17)
THE KILLING YEAR
CATRIONA KING
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are used fictitiously and any resemblance to persons living or dead, business establishments, events, locations or areas, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the author, except for brief quotations and segments used for promotion or in reviews.
Copyright © 2018 by Catriona King
Photography: Miiisha
Artwork: Jonathan Temples: creative@jonathantemples.co.uk
Editors: Andrew Angel and Maureen Vincent-Northam
Formatting: Rebecca Emin
All rights reserved.
Hamilton-Crean Publishing Ltd. 2018
Discover us online: www.hamiltoncreanpublishing.com
Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Core Characters in the Craig Crime Novels
Key Background Locations
For My Mother
About the Author
Catriona King is a medical doctor and trained as a police Forensic Medical Examiner in London, where she worked for some years. She returned to live in Belfast in 2006.
She has written since childhood and has been published in many formats: non-fiction, journalistic and fiction.
‘The Killing Year’ is book seventeen in The Craig Crime Series.
Each book can also be read as a standalone.
The Craig Crime Series So Far
A Limited Justice
The Grass Tattoo
The Visitor
The Waiting Room
The Broken Shore
The Slowest Cut
The Coercion Key
The Careless Word
The History Suite
The Sixth Estate
The Sect
The Keeper
The Talion Code
The Tribes
The Pact
The Cabal
The Killing Year
The eighteenth Craig Crime novel will be released later in 2018
The author’s fantasy/ mythology novella, Aurora, was released in August 2017.
She has also written a science fiction novel set in New York City, entitled The Carbon Trail.
Acknowledgements
My thanks to Northern Ireland and its people for providing the inspiration for my books.
My thanks also to: Andrew Angel and Maureen Vincent-Northam as my editors, Jonathan Temples for his cover design and Rebecca Emin for formatting this work.
I would also like to thank all the police officers I have ever worked with, for their professionalism, wit and compassion.
Catriona King
November 2017
Discover more about the author’s work at: www.catrionakingbooks.com
To engage with the author about her books, email: Catriona_books@yahoo.co.uk
The author can also be found on Facebook and Twitter: @CatrionaKing1
Chapter One
Midnight. Tuesday, December 5th, 2017.
It was a hell of a way to go. In the winter, lying on melting snow, in the backside of nowhere and with your closest companion a dead man that you’d never met before. Not exactly how she’d pictured her demise, in those odd moments when such things cross a forty-something’s mind. Did such moments become more frequent with each passing decade, she wondered? A strange question at any time, but downright incongruous when you’re gagged and bound. Although, given that her future lifespan would probably be measured in minutes now and not years, perhaps not as incongruous as all that.
Judith Roper shrugged inwardly, the movement itself forbidden by a restrictive rope. Ah well, there was no point getting worked up about the situation, was there? After all, her job had shown her all too often that tragedy struck with a random fist.
She gazed upwards, past the masked face of her assailant and her icy, dark surroundings, through the leaf shorn trees above and beyond them to the winter-clear sky, wondering at all the beauty that she’d taken for granted in life, in her rush for things. And as she wondered, time and her surroundings slowly faded away.
****
Fir Trees General Practice Surgery. Newtownards, County Down. Eleven Hours Before.
It had been a typical day so far. The mad dash to check on her parents and then the impatient hour sitting in traffic, so that she could reach work in time for the doors to open and admit the coughing hordes. Hordes on whom their poster campaign and continued entreaties to get the flu vaccine had fallen on deaf and now fluid blocked ears, and to whom GP Sarah Reilly had just spent the morning explaining that, as influenza was caused by a virus and not bacteria, she couldn’t possibly prescribe antibiotics because they wouldn’t work anyway.
Now she was writing up her notes and wondering if all those exams at medical school and hours spent treating emergencies had really been for this.
Her grumbling was interrupted by the practice manager passing her a note.
“Home visit, Mrs Passmore?”
“Someone new to the district, Doctor, so I’ll have to give you a new card. They said their baby was very sick.”
Finally, a worthwhile use of her training. Five minutes later Sarah Reilly lifted her bag and left her surgery with a spring in her step, thinking that this time she might really get to do some good.
****
Docklands Co-ordinated Crime Unit (The C.C.U.) Wednesday, 11.30 a.m.
Marc Craig leant so far back in his wooden chair that his deputy was counting the seconds until he toppled and fell. Not that DCI Liam Cullen would have felt any pleasure at the incident, heaven forbid, but taking advantage of another’s misfortune wasn’t the same as taking pleasure in it in his book, and if the boss was reckless enough to risk injury then he certainly wasn’t averse to taking bets on its likelihood.
The Crossgar detective had just opened his mouth to start the bidding when the landline on his desk began to ring. He stared at the noisy object quizzically. No-one ever rang him directly on his landline, not even his wife; all calls to the squad passed through Nicky Morris, the gatekeeper that was Craig’s PA. It was the rule, something to do with logging contacts or useless stuff like that, and in Liam’s book rules were meant to be stuck to, unless he decided to break them that was.
He glanced in the PA’s direction, to see her sporting a cheeky grin.
“You put that call through to me, didn’t you?”
Nicky gave a prim nod. “But it’s not for you, it’s for the chief, so hand the phone to him like a good little boy.”
Before Liam could oblige, Craig had returned his chair to the vertical, thwarting his deputy’s intended bet, and lifted the handset himself. A series of nods and a weighty sigh later and he set it down again.
“Christmas is cancelled, folks.”
It made the unusually soberly dressed Ash Rahman, the squad’s sartorially ‘out there’ junior analyst, jerk upright at his desk.
“How can that-”
Liam cut him off with a wind-up gesture that was a
comment on the gullibility of youth.
“He doesn’t mean it’s literally cancelled, you numpty. He just means we’ve caught a case.” He sat forward in his seat, rubbing his hands together. “Excellent news! I’ve had enough of this Merry Christmas stuff to do me a thousand years.”
The fact that he had two children under eight and his Christmas Eve would be spent wearing an itchy red suit to entertain them, might have accounted for his rather jaundiced view of the feast.
Craig didn’t rush to contradict him, instead he stared silently at the floor, not because he shared Liam’s irritation with all things festive, on the contrary, he’d been looking forward to the break this year; he and his partner Katy had planned a skiing trip, and the fact that the phone call’s content had just diminished its likelihood didn’t cheer him up one little bit.
But chagrin wasn’t the reason for the detective’s silence either, rather it was because his mind was racing back over the previous year like a TV Hogmanay special, prompted by the words that had just been barked at him down the line. He really must have a word with Jack Harris about his telephone manner; it could have sent a more fragile man than him into meltdown. Jack was the custody sergeant and all-round boss at the nearby High Street Police Station, the closest nick to the C.C.U., and they often used his interview rooms on cases. The sergeant enjoyed the break from his daily tedium and the perverse excitement that hosting potential murderers gave.
Craig’s New Year’s Eve special had just reached June when a sudden breeze made him glance up; the source was Liam, waving a hand an inch from his nose. Craig pushed the appendage away unceremoniously and rose to his feet, dragging out the white board from its usual lodgings beside Nicky’s desk and gesturing the whole team to gather around.
“OK. Contrary to what Liam’s hand-waving implied, I hadn’t actually fallen asleep.” He lifted a marker and wrote the number one up on the board. “However, his guess that we have a new murder case was almost correct. That telephone call was actually to inform us that we have two.”
It was enough to rouse the interest of even the most lethargic member of the team, DCI Andy Angel, who shifted from his relaxed, legs-up position at his desk and moved, at what for him was akin to a run, to join the group.
While Davy Walsh, Craig’s senior analyst, a young man who rarely if ever raised his eyebrows never mind his soft, mildly stammering voice, raised both at once and responded to the news with an unfamiliar shout.
“TWO MURDERS? AT ONCE?”
Craig’s reply was droll. “Well, I’m not sure anyone timed the exact second each victim stopped breathing, so I think ‘on the same day’ will probably have to suffice.”
Without further ado he continued writing, and the group watched as 1: Female - early middle-age, and 2: Male - possibly younger, appeared before he retook his seat.
Liam frowned before commenting.
“Two questions, boss. Were they found in the same place, and do we know their names?”
“Yes, and not yet. Next question, anyone?”
Annette Eakin, one of the squad’s two detective inspectors and the one who wasn’t a spook seconded from Police Intelligence obliged.
“When was each body found?”
Craig smiled approvingly. Querying when mightn’t exactly have neutered Davy’s implication of a joint murder, but it would have saved them time if asked first.
“The bodies were discovered together just after nine o’clock this morning. In a clearing behind a layby on the A2.”
The A2 was a short road that ran from the County Down coast to link with other A roads, connecting several of the small towns that peppered Northern Ireland’s south-east.
Annette frowned quizzically. “The A2 leads to Tyrella Beach. So how come Jack Harris is involved?”
Jack being so firmly based in Belfast that the trees in Royal Avenue probably had fewer roots.
It was a good question and one that Craig, although it hadn’t occurred to him while the sergeant was on the phone, now definitely intended to ask.
For the moment he merely answered, “Good point. I’ll check.”
“Along with each victim’s actual time of death.”
Annette’s prompt was couched so politely it made him smile, then he lifted the marker to write again.
“OK, so we have a man and a woman, precise details to be provided, whose bodies were found together just over two hours ago in County Down. Exact times and causes of death have yet to be confirmed. Next steps, anyone?”
This was the moment when a quiz show host would have swept his microphone in an arc around the audience, before thrusting it in some hapless individual’s face. However, Craig wasn’t a compère or inclined to give his subordinates tests to pass, so instead he sat down and waited patiently for a volunteer.
It came in the form of Rhonda O’Neil, the squad’s detective constable, seconded to the PSNI from Australia for three years and with their squad for two, a too-brief sojourn which was ending in less than a month. Her voice, so quiet that it had been almost inaudible when she’d first arrived, was now, via a series of speech lessons, clear and high-pitched, displaying her strong Sydney twang to good effect, and she answered Craig’s call for a plan confidently, a confidence that had pleased him by growing strikingly during her time with the team.
“I’d say we need to get the victims IDed, sir, and then get more details of their lives. That should give us a clue to why they died.”
Craig nodded. “The victim gives us their killer. Good. Anyone else?”
Liam drew himself upright in his seat, which at six-feet-six put him head and shoulders above the rest of the team, except for the only a few inches shorter Craig and Davy, and the lanky, blond DCI Aidan Hughes who’d joined them twenty months before from Vice.
“A bloke and a woman are-”
Hughes interjected. “It sounds like you’re about to tell us a joke.”
Liam snorted. “If I say they walked into a bar then you’ll know for sure.”
Craig shot a chastising glance at the men, moving Liam on.
“OK, so, a bloke and a woman are found dead together out in the sticks, from God knows what cause and we don’t know when, yet no-one there thought they needed to report it to the local County Down murder team and informed a Belfast police station instead? Why?”
Annette gawped at him. “That’s what I asked!”
Nicky rolled her eyes. “And using half the words too.” The PA added a suggestion. “Maybe the Down murder team were the ones that called Jack?”
Craig surprised everyone by answering with a leap to his feet.
“Maybe they were, but we don’t know because I didn’t ask Jack.” He headed for the exit, still talking. “We’ll continue the briefing as soon as Liam and I have found out.”
Chapter Two
Near Tyrella Beach, County Down. 12.30 p.m.
Neither detective was happy, but while Liam’s annoyance showed itself only as a series of grunts and grumbles, Craig’s was a full-on fireworks’ display. It had begun as soon as they’d pulled up alongside the taped-off layby, his sharp eyes spotting an irregularity instantly, and by the time they’d raced from the car into the adjacent clearing that a build-up of uniforms indicated was their crime scene, Craig’s normal politeness had completely deserted him and been replaced by a desire to swear at the top of his voice.
It was only the fact he was supposed to be professional that toned his words down to just an expletive-less roar.
“WHO DID THIS?”
The words were accompanied by a gesture like a gauntlet being hurled down, in front of the two, far too neatly aligned, bodies lying on the ground.
“OF ALL THE STUPID, IRRESPONSIBLE-”
He was cut short by a small, forensic-suited woman approaching, her puffed-out chest and upturned face saying that she wasn’t impressed by Craig’s tone.
“Don’t you come into my crime scene shouting! Who do you think you are?”
Liam was taken a
back by her confidence; it wasn’t often that a crime scene investigator, and by her badge that was clearly what the woman was, would challenge a police investigation team. As his eyes ran across the CSI’s round, ebony face and softly braided hair the possibility occurred to him that perhaps she was new to Northern Ireland’s Forensic Service, he didn’t recognise her, and therefore she didn’t know their crime routines.
In the few seconds it took Liam to have his thoughts, Craig was having the same ones. However, the new CSI’s unfamiliarity with local routine or not, his rarely seen for a very good reason temper was in full flow, and it couldn’t or wouldn’t be stopped.
He took a step towards the two shrouded shapes, jabbing a finger down at them.
“YOU MOVED OUR VICTIMS! You set them side by side! Why the hell would you do that before we’d viewed the scene?”
Grace Adeyemi took a similar step forward, placing her almost nose-to-chest with her foe. Her alto voice rang out again, clear as a morning bell.
“First; I repeat, this is my crime scene. I am the lead CSI, so I say when the bodies are ready to be handed over to the police or moved. Second; how did you know that they had been?”
Liam couldn’t have sworn to it, but he thought there’d been a hint of suspicion in her last few words. The investigator hadn’t finished.
“Third; who are you anyway? You just march in here shouting and criticising, and for all I know you could be delivering the mail!”
It prompted Craig to do something he really hated to do, and that was to announce his rank. Liam however suffered from no such modesty, so he saved his boss the trouble and introduced them both.