A Limited Justice (#1 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) Read online

  The cut’s new, quite deep and it definitely happened before he died. The instrument must have been razor-sharp and the pain would have been excruciating, so he probably had only brief contact with it. That’s consistent with the limited depth of the wound. Des can get us more details on the type of instrument, but I know you already have a view on that.”

  Craig nodded quickly. “Trip-wire. I think it was razor-wire, tied at shin height across the doorway. The likeliest scenario is that McCandless walked into it as he was leaving the shop. Then tripped and fell forward onto the forecourt outside the door.”

  John nodded slowly. “That could fit with the abrasions on both palms. There’s gravel embedded in them, and it looks the same as the type outside the door. But I can’t be sure until...”

  “Until you do the post-mortem...We know.”

  Craig moved quickly to the door, and hunkered down, pointing out the nail. The C.S.I.’s dust had dulled the wire’s sheen slightly, but its sharp edge was still clearly visible.

  “This was definitely a trip-wire. The nail and some wire have been left here. They probably didn’t have time to get rid of it, and there’s a matching hole on the other side. The cuts on his shins fit with the height of the nail.”

  John nodded. “In addition to the abrasions on his hands, I’m sure we’ll find cuts on his knees.”

  He looked thoughtful for a moment, then continued. “Unfortunately there were more than just those injuries. He also received a blow to the back of his head.”

  They looked shocked as he went on. “It depressed the skull completely. Beside the Foramen Magnum, where the bone’s thin.”

  Craig nodded, understanding.

  “The what, Doctor Winter?”

  “It’s a big hole at the base of the skull, Annette. Where the spinal cord runs through. The point is, it’s nearly impossible to hit by accident.”

  He raised a hand to stop Liam’s looming question, knowing that his next words would complicate things even further.

  “They fractured the skull and went right through to the brain. The blow’s diameter would fit with some sort of narrow implement, maybe a hammer. And I’d say they knew exactly what they were aiming for, there are no hesitation marks.”

  Craig interrupted. “Would one blow have killed him?”

  “Probably, although not definitely. But it would have knocked him out immediately.”

  Craig sat down and poured another coffee, looking satisfied with himself. Annette knew that he’d already worked out the scene.

  “OK, we know McCandless was tripped, and then fell forward, onto his hands and probably knees. He was hit on the back of the head when he was down, in an area of the skull that would either concuss him or kill him immediately. Then he was dragged over to the petrol pump. I’m sure you’ll find abrasions on his thighs and shins to back that up, John.”

  “If I can remove the burnt material without destroying what’s behind it.”

  “Then he was turned onto his back, either already dead or unconscious, and probably drowned in petrol. But...” He gave John a wry nod. “We’ll know more about that after the post-mortem.

  Then, as if that wasn’t enough, they set fire to him. Probably trying to hide any clues, or perhaps even erase his identity completely. But we were lucky, the fire burnt out before it could destroy everything.”

  “Unleaded wasn’t very healthy for him, was it boss?”

  Annette whacked Liam hard on the arm and he jumped. “God, Liam, that’s a terrible thing to say. That’s a human being out there.”

  For a moment, they all looked shame-faced. Their logic and dark humour coped with the things they saw, but Annette knew to call time when they’d gone far enough.

  “Quite right Annette. That’s us told off.”

  She blushed, not knowing if Craig was being sarcastic, until his softly delivered next sentence.

  “We need you to remind us sometimes, when we really need civilising.” He smiled kindly at her, and then turned immediately back to the case, all sentiment forgotten.

  “OK, thanks John. That tells me one thing loud and clear.”

  They looked at him, puzzled.

  “What?”

  “His attacker was a small man. Or maybe even a woman.”

  “What? Where’d you get that one from?”

  Liam’s face screwed up in doubt and Annette stared blankly at him. Even John looked uncomprehending.

  “I don’t mean to be rude, sir. But where did you get that from?”

  Craig laughed. “Now I know how Sherlock felt. OK, I think McCandless came in here about 2pm, lifted the mail and made himself a coffee. The kettle was still slightly warm when uniform arrived at 2.45, and there’s an open carton of new-dated milk on the counter. The fridge is off in here so he brought it with him. Maybe he made a few phone calls or did a few things in here as well.”

  Liam flicked on the Nokia and checked the calls. There’d been three that day. “You’re right; his last call was made at 2.15pm. That times death between 2.15 and 2.30, when he was found.”

  Craig nodded, continuing.

  “The wire wasn’t in place when he entered or he’d have tripped on the way in. So it must’ve been set quickly, while he was in here making his calls. That’s why the nail was only hammered half-in; it was done while he was here. So, either the attacker hid themself very well, or they were small and less visible.”

  Liam leaned forward urgently. “And they must have muffled the hammer or he’d have heard the noise, another reason the nail was only half-in. Loud blows would’ve attracted his attention.”

  “Correct. Plus ...” Craig pointed to a small portable radio sitting beside the milk.

  “My money’s on the radio being on, masking any noise even further. Liam, check if the lads turned it off when they arrived.”

  Liam nipped outside and came back a few seconds later, nodding. Luck had been on the killer’s side, or they’d known Ian McCandless’ routine very well. Annette was about to ask something but Craig continued.

  “I’ll come to your question in a second, Annette; just let me explain a bit further. This shop is so small that McCandless would have had clear sight of the entrance at all times, unless his back was turned to the door. Which it might have been when he was making the coffee or phone calls. Agreed?”

  They nodded, seeing where he was going. The killer had needed to be virtually invisible, much easier if they were small.

  “By the time he went outside, maybe to check on the cars, the trip-wire was in place and the killer was ready. McCandless tripped and fell. The wire cut his shins and he put his hands out to stop himself falling, hence the shin cuts and palm abrasions. He was still conscious then.

  I think he pulled the bin down as he fell, and dropped the envelope he was opening onto the ground. That’s why the paper was half-out of the envelope and only some of the bin’s contents were on the ground. Then he was hit on the head, dragged across to the pumps, drowned in petrol and set alight.”

  “That would explain the injuries I’ve found so far, and why he didn’t finish opening the letter Marc. But why couldn’t the assailant have been large and strong?”

  “Well...they could have been, but then why would they have needed the trip-wire? If murder was their intention, which it obviously was, a large assailant could have just waited until he was leaving the shop and hit him from behind.

  But McCandless was a strong man, so unless the assailant was equally confident of their strength, why take that risk? The hammer might have glanced off, and McCandless certainly wouldn’t have gone down without a fight. And, tell me if I’m wrong John, but there are no signs of a fight on the unburnt portion of his hands or arms, are there?”

  John nodded his agreement slowly. “No, but...” Craig kept going.

  “And there are no signs of a struggle in here, or outside. Just the bin tipped over, and it’s still beside its base so it probably only fell once. It didn’t roll or change direction, which it m
ight have done in a fight, or there would have been far more rubbish around. And it wouldn’t only have been in front of the bin. Yes?”

  Annette nodded quickly, seeing now where he was heading.

  “So even without the forensics, that tells me it’s very unlikely that they tackled him head-on. And it’s unlikely that they had a gun or a knife, or they would have just shot or stabbed him.” He paused again, as Liam looked increasingly puzzled.

  “And that all tells me that our killer wasn’t certain that they were strong enough to kill Ian McCandless in a direct fight. They didn’t bring a gun or knife for whatever reason. Lack of access, or they aren’t a professional criminal, or...”

  “Or what?”

  “Or they had a more personal motive. So they wanted to kill him bare-handed, and in the particularly vicious way they did. Annette, you wanted to say something?”

  She leaned forward eagerly. “The till wasn’t lying open so it doesn’t look as if robbery was a motive, sir. In fact he hadn’t been trading much at all recently, the last receipt was two weeks ago.”

  Craig nodded. “Theft’s not our motive and it’s unlikely to be a sexual attack either on a man, especially in broad daylight. So that probably leaves us with a personal agenda and an assailant not fully confident of their own strength. A small man, or possibly even a woman.”

  “Here, you’ve lost me now. I get the bit about strength from no struggle, but why a woman?”

  “It could have been a small man, Liam, but most men of any size would still usually go for a punch, a gun or a knife. Our killer didn’t. They tripped him up and sneaked up behind him when he was down. Why go to all that trouble? Why so elaborate? To me that says that they were very unsure of their own strength, and they had a personal motive. They had some strength, enough to drag him, but not enough to fight him. And they were small enough to set the trip-wire and not be seen.”

  John was cleaning his glasses thoughtfully. “So you’re saying our attacker was a small man or a woman, and they knew him?”

  “I think that’s the likeliest. Unless anyone can think of another scenario?”

  “Maybe there were two people. One to act as lookout and one to kill. Then they both dragged him over to the pump?”

  “Maybe...that could work. But at least one of them is small, whoever set the trip-wire must have been.”

  There was silence as they searched further for inspiration. None appeared, so Craig continued.

  “So...cherchez la femme.”

  “Or the lad?”

  “Or both. They would all work with the forensics. OK... Now, let’s just bear in mind that this could all be completely wrong. But either way, we’ve got as far as we can here.

  Liam, can you get the fire brigade and Annette, ask the C.S.I.s to finish up please, then John can take his patient to the lab. I’ll drop in tomorrow after the post-mortem, John. Meanwhile, let’s see if we can find out why someone hated Ian McCandless so much.”

  ***

  The thin woman watched them from the alley opposite. She watched the fire-engine and mortuary-van arrive, and the trail of multi-coloured cars finally leave, one by one.

  She laughed quietly to herself as she watched. Until hot tears streamed down her cheeks, and her small nose started to bleed, bright red droplets. She wiped them away with a torn hand, and smiled; it would take them too long to work it out. They would never find her, or the others.

  Chapter Two

  The early morning was cool and quiet and the mist lifted slowly from Lough Neagh, to reveal hundreds of frost-tipped trees at its edges. The day’s soundtrack had already started. Birdsong was mixing with the sound of small craft jetting across the lake’s glass surface, while their occupants’ murmured voices provided a light harmony.

  Jessie’s head ached this morning. It always ached, but on a good day, it simply siphoned off her energy to feed her misbehaving brain’s needs, making every action laboured. On a bad day, the pain drilled through her. Until she banged her head off the wall for relief and vomited up everything, mentally and physically. Today was a very bad day. Today it was a grinding, bone-deep pain, piercing her wide brown eyes and making every image double.

  She stared through the picture-window at the small hillock on the Lough’s west shore. Fixing on the famous Celtic cross, with some vague attempt at belief in God, a belief that had left her years ago. Nowadays, her eyes moved to the graveyard beside it instead.

  She stood completely still, watching. Unconsciously rubbing her forehead so hard that the frayed skin broke, and small splashes of red streaked carelessly across her clean, white t-shirt. She sighed at the mess, a sigh deep with feeling that made only a thin, tired sound. She half-smiled at the contrast. Time was when her voice shouted her soul, now it only whispered it.

  Reaching across the bed for the small bottle of tablets, her numb fingers screwed the lid down hard, breaking the plastic child-lock, and she marvelled again at her newfound strength. She tipped out the day’s red pills and they acted almost instantly, making the fog that she always lived in warmer and less painful. Then she lay down on the bed and drifted slowly back to sleep, the sound of young children laughing in the next room making her smile.

  Fiona was gently chiding them to be quiet. But their laughs were a lullaby, carrying her into a dream where her mind was as clear as last year. Then deeper into the shadows, where she planned her next steps.

  ***

  The tall glass building that housed Dockland’s Coordinated Crime Unit shone in the winter morning sunshine. It lit up the narrow street at its entrance, closed in for years by tall churches and brick apartment blocks.

  Craig’s tenth floor office was full of the natural light that showed every speck of dust on its charcoal carpet, and each prismed smear that the window-cleaners had left. It was some architect’s dream and every cleaner’s nightmare. They froze in winter and boiled in summer and he would have happily stuck with the Victorian headquarters they’d left, but higher powers than he had decreed the move.

  He threw his sports kit into the corner and stood for a moment, looking out over Belfast’s dockland sprawl. In the far distance lay Stormont’s white edifice, pale and grand, almost too grand. Harland and Wolff’s gritty cranes were much closer, in every sense. Their size and familiarity creating the illusion that he could almost touch them. That everyone could.

  In the other direction, a tugboat was leading some eager rowers back up-river, like a naughty school crocodile. The tug’s frustrating slowness part of their punishment for straying off-piste. They’d passed the weir somehow, their youthful enthusiasm almost pulling them into Belfast Lough, and onwards to the Irish Sea. Their shirts said that they were visitors, explaining their expedition, and he could imagine the local team waiting impatiently for their guest’s return.

  Suddenly the Cox caught sight of him and waved, prompting a cheer from her rowdy team. Craig waved back casually, thinking about yesterday’s murder, until their fit enthusiasm prompted a guilty look at his sports kit, abandoned in the corner.

  His guilt was disturbed by a soft knock at the door and he threw, “come in Nicky” over his shoulder. His guess was confirmed by the familiar click of her high heels. He turned, already grateful for the coffee that he knew would be waiting, and beckoned her to sit. His own percolator took ten minutes to warm up, and ten minutes without coffee was ten minutes of his life wasted.

  Nicky sat down and pushed a steaming mug towards him, lifting her pen and notepad ostentatiously, to remind him of the management part of a D.C.I.’s job.

  She was small and slim, with the year-round mahogany tan of the Belfast working class, her frequent trips to Turkey keeping it just this side of black. Her quirky prettiness and Madonna-like fashion sense always made him smile, in an almost paternal way, although there was only five years between them.

  She was the best secretary in the C.C.U and he thanked God every day that the Chief Superintendent had been made part-time in Limavady, releasing her full t
ime to him. She bossed him in a mothering way. Tolerating his frequent silences and occasional moods and blaming them kindly on the pressures of ‘the job’. He, in turn, tried never to aim them at his team. There were things, past and present, that almost justified his moods.

  “Morning sir, do you want my list now?”

  Craig sighed in mock-despair. Nicky’s ‘list’ was infamous, the D.C.S. had sworn about it for years and now he understood why. But without it, there’d be chaos in the murder squad, so he sat down heavily, taking a swig of the sweet black coffee he would mainline if possible. It helped him think all day and buggered-up his sleep at night - even his Italian half couldn’t tolerate the amount he drank.

  Nicky looked across the desk at him, concerned. The shadows under his eyes got deeper by the week, although he was still too handsome for his own good. But he didn’t even notice the trail of mooning females who found excuses to visit the squad every week. Leaving Liam to chat them up instead.

  “OK then. What do I have to do that I haven’t done? And what’s new for me to do?”

  She laughed. It was a loud, Belfast laugh that belonged to a six-foot man. Its sheer incongruity made others laugh, so that the whole place cheered up with her. Craig knew Liam would already be joining in outside.

  “Good morning to you too, sir. It’s a lovely day, don’t you think?”

  He nodded wryly, conceding that he’d missed the niceties yet again, and she continued.

  “Well, apart from the fact I haven’t had expenses from either Liam or you for three months and the D.C.S. is going grey because of it. Well that’s his excuse anyway. I haven’t had your crime returns for last month either.”

  She pursed her lips, attempting disapproval, and then instantly produced two spread-sheets from the large pile in her arms. She slid them across the desk towards him with one red fingernail, and continued talking without missing a beat.