The Killing Year (The Craig Crime Series Book 17) Page 11

  “Welcome, DCIs Murray and Richie. Nicky, Liam has asked if we could station them behind the wall. Would that be possible?”

  The PA broke off her huffing for a moment and considered, finally answering him with a nod.

  “There are three empty desks behind there, so they can just take their pick.”

  Liam took charge to save Craig the trouble. “Excellent. If you ladies will follow me then we’ll get you settled in. There’ll be a briefing at five. That right, boss?”

  “Four-thirty today. Sorry, Nicky, could you let everyone know I’m bringing it forward.”

  His only answer was a cool stare.

  Liam carried on.

  “Good. So, until then you’re all mine, and I’ve plenty for you to get on with.”

  Susan Richie’s immediately elevated eyebrows said that working wasn’t what she’d had in mind.

  “We’re just here to-”

  But Liam was having none of it. “To what? Snipe and carp and feed back fiction about how we’re making a mess of everything? I don’t think so.” He turned towards his erstwhile drinking buddy. “What do you say, Dee? Are you up for a bit of work?”

  Deidre Murray knew she was being used as a stick to beat her fellow secondee with, but she didn’t mind one bit, she hated Susan Richie with a vengeance. Her dodgy tactics and sharp tongue, used to particular effect on juniors, were the antithesis of her own approach. Besides, sitting watching others working and moaning about their efforts afterwards had never been her thing. She would far rather just roll up her sleeves.

  A smile lit up her slightly sallow face.

  “Take me to it, Liam. We can have a competition to see who gets the furthest, can’t we, Suzie?”

  Richie’s reply was unrepeatable, but she was outnumbered and outmanoeuvred.

  As the three DCIs disappeared behind the makeshift barrier Aidan Hughes let out a sigh that Craig felt in his bones. He walked across to where Hughes was still hunkering and nodded at the papers he had spread out on the floor.

  “Take a photograph of how you’ve laid all that out, Aidan.”

  The DCI looked up at him. “Can’t I leave it here till I’ve finished? It’s not in anyone’s way.”

  “You can if you want to stay here.” Craig glanced meaningfully towards the exit. “But there’s an empty room down on the sixth floor if you’d like to work there today, apart from attending the briefing. It’s number twenty. You might find it easier to get things done without a certain someone breathing down your neck? No-one but Nicky and I will know where you are.”

  The response was a grateful smile and a series of smart-phone photographs, before Hughes quickly packed up and got the hell out of Dodge. As soon as he’d left Craig walked over to his analysts.

  “Ash, I know you wanted to see me last night, so come into my office as soon as I’ve finished here. Davy, I know it’s early days, but any updates?”

  He got his answer in the form of a printed list.

  “These are the places that particular w…whisky is sold in Northern Ireland. I’ve highlighted the ones in the east. It’s a long shot, but I’m contacting them first to see if anyone’s ordered in bulk in the past year.”

  “Not such a long shot, cases have been cracked on less, but make it two years just to be safe. Good. What about the superglue?”

  Davy shook his dark head, his once flowing locks tied back nowadays in a neat ponytail. With his well-trimmed beard he looked the picture of hipster chic; the EMO student was all grown up.

  “Nothing. It’s just generic 2-cyanoacrylate, available in any hardware or pound shop. I’m running Andy’s angles through pattern recognition, and Doctor Winter’s just called to say he might have s…something strange on the DNA.”

  “OK, excellent. Keep going. Ash, anything on the locations yet?”

  “Well, the bodies are all mapped.”

  He tapped a key on his PC to prove the point and Craig watched as a map of the east of Northern Ireland popped up.

  “The men’s dumpsites are in green and the women’s in red.”

  The detective stared hard at the screen, hoping a pop-up might suddenly appear bearing the name of the killer, but eventually he had to concede that nothing obvious stood out. The disposal sites were widely spread out with no obvious clusters.

  Ash saw Craig’s face fall and jumped in with an attempt at comfort.

  “There’s nothing on the software that helps, apart from saying the killer is likely to live somewhere in these ten square miles.”

  A grid appeared over Belfast. As the killings had all been above and below the city that made the capital the midpoint, so Craig could have drawn that conclusion himself.

  Ash was undeterred.

  “OK, so now I’m going to map where each victim: lived, worked, and was last seen alive, all in relation to their murder scenes to see if anything jumps out. Also, the proximity of the dumpsites to motorways, forests, landmarks, centres of occupation-”

  Craig raised a hand to cut him off. “Good work, both of you. Keep going. I’ve got something else for you as well. You’ll have noticed two DCIs with Liam a moment ago. They’re DCIs Richie and Murray from the Antrim and Down murder teams, and they’re seconded to our investigation for the duration. Liam’s setting them to work digging into the victims in much more detail, so don’t be surprised if they need some analytical support. Do what you can to help them, please.”

  His expression as he’d mentioned Richie’s name warned the analysts that mightn’t be as easy as it appeared.

  “Also, DCI Hughes is moving to work somewhere quieter and only Nicky and I will know where. So, if he tells his location please don’t share it, especially with DCI Richie. They have history.”

  Both analysts mouthed “Oh”.

  “Right, Ash, you wanted to speak to me about something?”

  With that Craig turned back towards his room.

  ****

  West Belfast. 12 p.m.

  It wasn’t often that Dan Torrance attended a lunchtime meeting, or that many people did, truth be told. There was something about a group of mostly middle-aged men trickling into a venue in broad daylight that attracted attention, and the second A in AA didn’t stand for anonymous for nothing.

  But Dougie had asked him to be there especially and he couldn’t let his old sponsor down. He needed to meet his new charge and she had kids at school, so he guessed that midday must be the most convenient time for her, and experience had taught him that saying no to someone in a fragile state of sobriety was like erecting a brick wall. The slightest obstacle might make her give up.

  So it was that the sponsor found himself pulling into a side street off Belfast’s Falls Road, searching for somewhere to park and eventually leaving his car at the end of a small cul-de-sac, to travel the rest of the way to the civic hall on foot.

  Torrance had no way of knowing that when he turned down the winding alley he would never see its end.

  ****

  The Labs.

  “The shape’s too perfect.”

  John Winter glanced up from his work, irritated at being disturbed. “What?”

  Mike Augustus ignored his tone and lifted two photographs, holding them in front of his chest.

  “What do you see?”

  John peered at the images for a moment without comment, then he cleaned his wire glasses on his lab coat and looked again. His glasses got dirty so often that Natalie had suggested he get contacts, but he found it strangely comforting wearing something on his face. He liked the feel of spectacles, plus they were like a mask that he could hide behind, his lifelong shyness temporarily lessened by the Clark Kent disguise.

  He pushed the thought away and refocused on the photographs, wondering exactly what he was supposed to see.

  “Two kiss marks. They’re the same.”

  Mike nodded vigorously. “Exactly! Identical in every detail.”

  John gazed at him, puzzled. “Which is exactly what we’d expect considering the sa
me person made both marks.”

  Mike shook his head emphatically. “No! That’s not what we’d expect. Let me show you.”

  To John’s surprise he produced a lipstick from the pocket of his white coat. The senior pathologist shrugged inwardly; ah, well, each to their own. He kept some glass marbles in his pocket, a reminder of his long-lost youth.

  “I borrowed this from Annette a few months ago. She didn’t even notice it had gone.”

  Now John allowed his curiosity to show. “Why? Not that I’m judging, you understand, each to their own. But it’s just…well, I’ve never seen you wearing lipstick. Of course, you might do after work. I mean, how would I know…”

  Mike gawped at him.

  “I don’t wear it!”

  “Well, you could if you liked, you know. It’s twenty-seventeen, and I’m all for freedom of expression. If it-”

  Mike rolled his eyes, cutting him off. “I borrowed it for a case. You remember, the one where we matched the particular shade of lipstick left by that woman on her lover, and-”

  John nodded slowly. He remembered now. It had been an interesting series of murders by a woman who’d marked all her victims with ‘Moonlit Rose’.

  Mike lifted the mirror that John had used earlier and applied the cosmetic carefully to his lips. Then he held out the tube to his boss.

  “Put some on.” At John’s hesitation he added. “It’s to test a scientific theory.”

  One minute later both men were pressing their lips on specimen sheets that Mike had numbered one to ten. At the end of the exercise the junior pathologist beckoned John to look.

  “You’ve left five kiss marks and not one of them is the same.” He gestured to his own row of stains. “Mine as well. None of them identical.”

  John realised instantly what it meant. “Our killer used a cut-out!”

  Mike nodded. “Probably one made of sponge, so he could soak it in the DNA of one victim and then take it to another’s murder site to leave the mark.” He shook his head, defeated. “But we can’t catch someone from a cut-out kiss.”

  “And he only left the victims’ DNA. He must have covered his own lips completely before performing the act.”

  Mike had burst out laughing before he remembered it probably wasn’t a good idea to laugh at your boss.

  “He wouldn’t actually have kissed them! It was probably a mounted sponge stamp that he held in his hand.”

  Before John could argue the point the door to the dissection room opened and Des Marsham appeared, his intended words dying in his throat at the sight of the two pathologists with matching red lips.

  ****

  Near Strangford Lough.

  Sarah had no idea what time it was, or even what date, but she knew that she couldn’t survive much longer. She would have known that even if she hadn’t been a doctor, although perhaps without consciously chronicling the exact steps that she was taking to her death from dehydration and cold. Her only hope to avoid the former was if there was fresh rain, drinking the muddy liquid at her feet would just make her ill, but she also knew that the shock from a sudden sub-zero deluge might stop her weakening heart before it had slaked her thirst.

  She hunched, shivering in a corner of her soon-to-be tomb, drowsy from lack of food and sleep, her only comfort a bible story she’d recalled from Sunday school. Something about being more important to God than the lilies of the fields. She’d never paid much attention at the sessions, too busy whispering and passing notes to her friends, so she was surprised that the verse had stuck with her, and even more surprised in her cynical, seen too much of life’s realities, mind that she could remember enough of the words to give her solace now.

  The GP was astonished again some minutes later to hear the cry of a seagull high above her head. It gave her some comfort that she wasn’t alone, although no information as to where she was, so much of her small country’s north and east near a coast. Then she recalled, from somewhere in a school geography class, that gulls sometimes flew inland when it was going to rain, but she would never have believed the teaching was a fact until she felt the first sprinklings of a shower hit her upturned face.

  ****

  The Labs.

  The pathologists endured Des Marsham’s, “What you boys do in your spare time is none of my business” and “That’s definitely not your shade” jokes with a good grace, until John thought that it was time to turn things around.

  “Grace tidied up any good crime scenes lately, Des?”

  It shut the forensics’ expert up and prompted an explanation as to why he was there. Des glanced over at their male victim.

  “That tox-screen you sent me on your John Doe. It’s not his DNA.”

  Mike frowned. “Yes, it is. I drew the blood myself.”

  Des shrugged. “What can I tell you? The DNA was in the system all right, but it belongs to a female. A woman in London who volunteered samples for a research project five years ago.”

  Mike furrowed his brow, thinking. “Does she have a male twin?”

  “No idea, but the DNA still wouldn’t match. Different sexes.”

  The pathologists’ spoke simultaneously. “Bone marrow donor.”

  John waved his junior on.

  “If the woman donated bone marrow to our John Doe then he would have her DNA. It could help us ID him.”

  Des nodded. “Good catch. Davy can check.”

  “There’s something else on the DNAs, Des. I need the forehead swab results on our two new victims and their own DNA profiles today. Would that be possible?”

  “I can give you them right now. The man’s forehead swab showed nothing, no DNA at all, and the woman’s swab profile I’ll email through when I get back to my office, along with their personal DNAs.” He turned to leave and then turned back. “Oh, and John, with your colouring I think maybe a stronger shade of red.”

  He was out the door before the pathologist could think of a reply.

  ****

  The Glens of Antrim. 1 p.m.

  Dan Torrance had no idea where he was, but he definitely wasn’t in the alley where he’d last walked. He was lying flat on his back somewhere, still outdoors, but there were none of the sounds of the urban conurbation he lived in, and the trees overhead said that he was nowhere near the Falls Road civic hall.

  He went to raise himself off the ground only to realise that he couldn’t move. A glance told him that he wasn’t tethered and yet his body still wouldn’t lift, although a sharp yell said that his vocal cords were working fine.

  “HELP! HELP ME.”

  He was answered by a cynical metallic laugh.

  “You would be better off shouting ‘fire’. People are more likely to respond. If there was anyone close by, of course, which there isn’t.”

  Torrance focused on the mechanical voice, listening to what lay behind it. He’d sung in a rock band since he’d been a teenager, its hard-drinking image the thing that had started him down his once boozy path. But if that was the negative, the plus was the acoustic skills that the music had helped him develop, and they were aiding him now to focus on the voice behind the machine-like rasp.

  It was a male voice, and a full-grown man in adulthood not a callow youth. Torrance tried to estimate an age but had to settle for decades instead; somewhere from the forties to sixties, and the accent said Northern Irish. Polite. Belfast bred.

  The sponsor strained to turn his head but couldn’t, forced to settle for a sideways gaze, but his captor was wise to the trick and stood well out of his range.

  “Why?”

  “Wrong question, sponsor. You should have asked, ‘why me?’

  The sponsor heard his abductor’s heel swivel on the grass. Grass. A field? No. The trees pointed more to a wood.

  Footsteps moving away said that the man was leaving.

  “You’ll have plenty of time to think about that. Three days all told.”

  Dan Torrance’s heart soared optimistically. He was a man who’d been a day from death twice an
d still been brought back from the edge, so with three days anything was possible. With three days left he might even fight himself free.

  ****

  The C.C.U. Craig’s Office.

  “Right, Ash, shoot.”

  Craig raised the coffee percolator in offering, to be met by a shake of the analyst’s product smoothed head.

  “I’ve just had some, thanks.”

  That didn’t stop Craig pouring his own.

  “OK, the reason I wanted to talk to you was two-fold, chief. Bakar Dudaev-”

  “I’d guessed that.”

  Craig took a seat behind his desk and sipped his coffee, the analyst continuing as if he hadn’t spoken.

  “And we’ve had word of The Sect members.”

  It made Craig lurch forward so fast he almost spilt his drink.

  The Sect had been a group of fanatics they’d encountered in twenty-fifteen, who had perverted ancient Catholic rituals to kill, in the belief that they were saving souls. Most of its local members had been ended with the case, but some had managed to flee the country and join up with the cult’s wider membership dotted around the world.

  “What word?”

  Ash smiled. “I’ll cover Dudaev first if you don’t mind.” Even if Craig had minded he was already carrying on. “He’s tried to sell the satellite codes to twenty-six of the twenty-eight EU States with no success. That just leaves Bulgaria and Hungary, which even though it’s an EU member hasn’t always agreed with the rest.”

  “You think they’ll buy them?”

  Ash screwed up his youthful face. “I don’t think so, but the problem is I’m not sure whether that would be good or bad. If they buy them that’s one problem, but if they don’t that leaves either Iran or North Korea as the next stop, which would be even worse. We’d be really screwed then.”

  Craig sat back again, considering the situation. They’d been given information on Dudaev by a perp in a case twenty months before, and from that they’d discovered that the Chechen national had been hawking the US satellite codes for sale all around the southern Mediterranean countries and then slowly moving north. It had enabled them to warn all EU member governments that anyone purchasing them would fall foul of the USA and UK, and to point out that informing on Dudaev was in their interests, hence now knowing that all but two countries had said no.