The Keeper Read online

  ****

  The M2 Motorway. Monday, 9.30 a.m.

  “Have…luck… Aaron?”

  Liam was having a hard time hearing Craig clearly, given that the superintendent was belting up the motorway at eighty miles per hour. He got the overall gist and yelled down the phone, hoping that Craig would have more luck.

  “Nothing.”

  Single word answers seemed to work, so Craig tried the same with his next question.

  “Skipped?”

  “No.”

  Davy had confirmed that much. Aaron Foster hadn’t left the country through any port or airport, but neither had he returned home. It was over twelve hours since they’d found Jake and not a peep from his loving partner of ten years. If he did turn up he’d better have a damn good alibi or they would be throwing away the key.

  “Guilt.”

  Craig glanced at his passenger seat where Annette was sitting with her eyes closed. He’d collected her at eight for the ninety minute journey; they were almost there now and she’d slept the whole way. Liam repeated the word and Craig nodded at the phone, answering “maybe” while wondering whether Aaron could really have been so stupid as to push Jake downstairs and then disappear hoping that it would all go away.

  He slowed to approach their turn off and spotted a small café with some trucks outside. As he pulled in Liam heard the background noise drop and said. “Thank God. I was getting a headache yelling.”

  Craig hadn’t the heart to tell him it hadn’t been much lower than his usual volume. He left the car to buy some coffee and rolls, still talking as he crunched across the car-park’s gravelled ground.

  “I’m not sure about this.”

  “What do you mean? You don’t think Aaron did it now?”

  Craig mouthed his order to the girl behind the counter and took a seat to wait. “I think he did it all right, but I’m not sure what he’s playing at now. Does he feel so guilty that he can’t show his face, or is he going to reappear with some ridiculous alibi and try to brazen it out?”

  Liam sniffed, thinking. He thought for so long that Craig had collected his order and climbed back into the car before he spoke. He tapped on Annette’s arm to waken her, just as Liam’s answer came down the phone.

  “Brazen it out. That’s what he’ll do. He’ll brazen it out ’cos he thinks we’re thick.”

  Annette took the proffered coffee sleepily but shook her head at a bacon roll. Craig frowned; whatever was wrong with her she still needed to eat. Liam’s “Boss” made him turn back to his call.

  “What?”

  “Why did you go quiet?”

  “I was handing Annette her coffee. Why would Aaron think that we’re thick? Jake’s not.”

  “Because he’s a crim and they always think cops are dumb. Anyway, why’s Annette with you?”

  “Because we’re working Mulvenna together. OK, I need to go. Get that summary to the C.C.’s office by twelve o’clock please and we should be back at the squad just after lunch.”

  He clicked the phone shut without further discussion, leaving Liam to make a face at his own. When he’d finished he turned to see Nicky gazing at him curiously.

  “I take it that Aaron’s your prime suspect?” She folded her arms and shook her head. “I don’t believe it. He and Jake have been a couple for years.”

  Liam poured himself a coffee. “And so were Annette and her old man, but look how that ended.” He frowned suddenly. “Here. Do you know what’s wrong with Annette?”

  “She’s just run down. She said the doctor gave her some vitamins.”

  He frowned again. “Maybe I need some of those. I get tired all the time.”

  Davy answered before Nicky could. He yelled across the floor. “That’s because you eat greasy, fat filled rubbish and your arteries are probably like lead pipes.”

  Before Liam could retort Nicky waved a piece of paper at him. “You need to finish this report for the C.C. and remember that you and Carmen are going to check out Billy Hart’s work.”

  It was all that saved Davy from a cuff around his newly visible ears.

  ****

  The Victim’s League. Monday, 10.30 a.m.

  Well, she’d managed it. She’d got them all around the table for a few hours just as Agent Somerville had requested, with a thin strategy agenda and an even flimsier rationale; that both her holiday and Thursday’s meeting had had to be cancelled because she’d been summoned to a Stormont committee on that day. It was a lie of course and meant she’d be spending Thursday skulking in the house with the curtains drawn in case someone saw her, but Somerville had finally convinced her that the man they were targeting had to take priority.

  So there she was at the head of the Board table only four days since she’s last been there, staring at the blank faces of her commissioners, most of whom thought strategy was some kind of fish. Some of them had moaned about the meeting being moved but she was used to moaning, and Ivor Watson had been glad of another chance to come in. It was the next bit that she wasn’t sure how to handle; no matter how many times Jennifer Somerville had gone over things.

  “Just go over and talk to him, as you normally would.”

  As she normally ignored Kieran Dallat and him her, common sense said that if she suddenly started being friendly he would immediately guess that something was up. Somerville had shaken her head, reassuring her.

  “He won’t guess. It won’t even occur to him. That the Chair of the Victim’s League, who he’s known for years, has suddenly turned government agent? Never.”

  She’d greeted the agent’s confidence with alarm. “Is it any more believable that a woman who’s always loathed him suddenly likes him enough to make polite chit chat?”

  Somerville had smiled.

  “It all depends how she does it. Never underestimate the male ego, Helen. You’re an attractive woman. Flirt a little and he’ll flirt back. Trust me.”

  It had made her want to throw up. Flirt with that thug. But she had no choice. She had to get close enough to place a tracker on Dallat’s jacket and a second widget inside his phone. Her mind was on how to do it when the League’s civil servant entered and gave a loud cough.

  “Good morning, Chair. Mr Watson is outside when you’re ready.”

  She wasn’t ready. He was far too early. She needed a chatty coffee now and another at elevenses to plant both bugs, so Connolly waved the secretary out with “offer Mr Watson some tea and biscuits and tell him that we’ll be quite a while” then she headed for the coffee table and got ready to flirt with all her might.

  ****

  Jonno Mulvenna’s small terraced house looked the same as it had two years before. His BMW motorbike was still parked outside the door, so however Mulvenna had travelled to his death in Belfast it hadn’t been on that. The inside of the house was the same as well. Neat rooms from a catalogue, their only distinguishing features the oil paintings on the walls. There were more of them than Craig remembered; all beautiful, all of local scenes. Or people; a man, Mulvenna himself, still handsome as he’d been in life, not the bloodied cadaver that John had dissected that week in the morgue.

  A woman’s portrait caught his eye and he recognised her face; Melanie Trainor, Mulvenna’s lover of thirty years before and the mother of his son. She was also a disgraced A.C.C., now in prison and the woman who’d framed Mulvenna for Veronica Jarvis’ murder in eighty-three getting him sent him down for twenty years, meaning he’d never got to know his boy. Her painting’s position above the living room fireplace said that the terrorist had still loved her despite everything that she’d done.

  After a scan of each small room Craig settled on the living room and main bedroom as their best bets for finding clues. What they would be he had no idea, but he sent Annette to the bedroom to search and did the same in the living room, starting with the bureau. A long hour sifting through bank statements and bills, filed with a neatness that left him surprised and wishing that his own paperwork was in such good shape, revealed no re
ason why Jonno Mulvenna might have been in Belfast the preceding week.

  He was tidying them away when Annette came thumping down the stairs, her footsteps warning of failure before she even entered the small room. She shook her head for emphasis.

  “Nothing, sir. I couldn’t find anything that pointed to any recent trip, never mind one to Belfast.”

  She slumped on the sofa and watched idly as Craig kept scanning the room, refusing to give up. He stopped his scan abruptly and turned his whole body towards the room’s working hearth. With one swift movement his hand was up the chimney, rooting around for so long that the soot he dislodged covered the small hearthrug. Finally he withdrew his blackened hand and shook his head.

  “Damn. I thought he might have hidden it up there.”

  Annette looked at him questioningly. “What?”

  “I don’t know. Just something.” He scanned the room again, growing irritated. “I know there’s something in this bloody house.”

  “You think Mulvenna was up to his old tricks.”

  He shook his head instinctively. “No. That’s just it. I don’t. But-”

  Without warning he raced into the kitchen. Annette heard the tap run and then a rustling before he reappeared and headed for the fireplace again.

  “Why did you wash your hands just to put them up the chimney again?”

  The answer came quickly. Craig reached above the fireplace and slipped a hand behind Melanie Trainor’s portrait, then with a quick tug he brought out an envelope half covered in gaffer tape.

  “My God!”

  Craig sat down beside her, ripping it open. “Now, let’s find out what Jonno Mulvenna’s last job was.”

  ****

  The Victims’ League. 11.45 a.m.

  Planting the bug in Kieran Dallat’s pocket had been easy. Just spill some coffee on him and rush to wipe it off, in keeping with her newly flirtatious approach, and then drop the tracker right in. The phone however was proving more difficult. Elevenses had been extended for as long as Connolly reasonably could, with a request for fresh coffee and entreaties for everyone to go to the loo “because once Ivor comes in we don’t know when we’ll get another chance” and yet she still hadn’t managed to plant the device.

  The ringing of someone’s mobile brought a flash of inspiration that would have done Mata Hari proud. Swiftly kicking her handbag until she heard her smartphone crack, Connolly reached inside it with a show of dismay.

  “Oh, dear. My phone’s broken and I need to make a call.”

  She turned back to her coffee companion, whose initial suspicion of her new found charm had evaporated thirty minutes before, and placed a hand on his arm. “Kieran, could I possibly borrow yours? It’s just that I really need to make this call.”

  Strangely, touching him didn’t repulse her as much as it had done initially, in fact it didn’t repulse her at all; she was quite sad to remove her hand when he chivalrously produced his phone. She wasn’t quite sure what that meant but she was disturbed as she exited the room. A moment to insert the widget, Somerville had said it would let them record Dallat’s incoming and outgoing calls and access his use of the internet, followed by a quick call to Roger just to cover her tracks, and she re-entered the Boardroom and returned the mobile to her benefactor with a becoming blush.

  The blush didn’t fade for the rest of the meeting as what had started as her embarrassment at flirting deepened into lengthy gazes and the deliberate brushing of hands. With a frisson of excitement Helen Connolly realised that the dangerous man that Jennifer Somerville was after had become her latest romantic fantasy.

  ****

  Craig stormed across the floor and into his office, barking at Nicky to get him a number on the phone. A moment later a man he’d never met was snapping back angrily to each of his questions.

  “Why were the NCA after John Mulvenna?”

  “What the hell were you doing at his house this morning?”

  “What? How did you know we were-”

  He was interrupted rudely. “If you’ve blown our operation, Craig… Stay where you are. Someone will come to see you within the hour.”

  The phone slammed down, leaving Craig swearing at the walls. If he hadn’t scheduled a briefing he would have left the office just to piss the man off. But everyone was gathered and waiting to report.

  He strode out into the squad-room and yanked at the whiteboard so hard that it fell. Liam caught it six inches from the floor but the expression on Craig’s face told him not to make a joke. He perched on Nicky’s desk, ignoring her glare.

  “Let’s go round. Liam and Carmen; where are we with Hart’s job and the Lindsay boys?”

  “Nothing on the job, boss. The garage Hart worked at said he did the minimum he had to, to get paid. ”

  Craig scanned the circle of faces as Liam continued reporting, interrupting just as he reached Rowan Lindsay’s sons. “Where’s Ken?”

  Shrugs and shaken heads were his only reply until Nicky obliged. “He had to go to the base for something but he should have been back by now.”

  As Liam finished and Carmen added her bit Ken appeared, rushing across the floor in a flurry of apologies. Craig nodded Annette to report on their trip to Mulvenna’s and stared at the young Captain quizzically. There was something wrong. As Annette finished Craig tuned back in.

  “OK, thanks Annette. As Annette’s just said we found some papers at Mulvenna’s that point to our side being on his tail. I’ve just spoken to the team in question and they’re sending someone over, so we’ll get to the bottom of it soon. But my gut says that involvement was why Mulvenna was in Belfast.”

  Andy interrupted, yawning. “Did it get him killed?”

  Craig shook his head. “Too early to say, but my guess would be no. His IRA past got him killed, just like the others’ past misdemeanours did. And it looks like, with the exception of Hart who was up to all sorts of crap, it really was in the past for all of them. So whatever links our five victims now happened in the past.” He turned to Ken, curious. “What’s worrying you?”

  No-one else had noticed the soldier’s troubled expression but they all turned to stare at him now. Ken shook his head hesitantly.

  “It might be nothing, sir.”

  “Try me.”

  The soldier played nervously with his reinstated earring, making Craig feel nauseous; he’d never understood people’s desire to mutilate themselves in the name of cool.

  “I…I had to go to the base to collect some papers for you to sign. To transfer me back to the army’s command at the end of the month.”

  “And?”

  “Well, when I went to collect them there was a big fuss going on. Major James, you remember him don’t you, my commanding officer?”

  How could they forget him? The belligerent old warrior had been as obstructive as he could have been, in their investigation of a bomb explosion the year before. Craig nodded him on.

  “Well, it seems that he’s disappeared, sir. No-one’s seen him since last night.”

  “I take it that’s unusual?”

  “Very. The Major’s so old-school he even polishes his boots at a set time. He didn’t have holiday booked and there’s no way that he would ever have gone AWOL, so they’re looking at it as a possible kidnapping. There’s a big fuss because he was on a watch list of some sort.”

  A watch list meant exactly what it said; that the individuals named on it were being watched over by the security forces. It was an honour usually reserved for at-risk public figures likely to suffer a threat to life or limb. No ordinary army major in the UK would have been on one, but maybe in Northern Ireland where soldiers were a target for dissidents alongside some politicians and the police… Still, it was unusual for James to be on one and pointed to there being specific reasons that he might come under threat.

  The hairs on Craig’s neck stood up. If the Major hadn’t been British Army and this hadn’t been Northern Ireland, there might have been the usual range of fiscal, revenge
or romantic motives for his kidnapping. But he was and it was and they’d had five abductions and deaths that week…

  Ken was still talking.

  “Police Intelligence is involved.”

  “Kyle Spence?”

  “I think so. Inspector Spence was the name I heard.”

  Craig nodded. “I’ll give him a call. OK, let’s get back to the case. So five corpses, no apparent links, and the only possible motives we’ve got are debt for Billy Hart and perhaps something for Mulvenna which I’ll know more about in the next hour.” He glanced at the analysts. “Am I correct in saying that we have nothing more on CCTV or the car?”

  Ash shook his head. “We’re down to ten possibles on the car now and we’re working through them. We might have a break on the broken lightbulb though.” He glanced down at his notepad, perfectly aligned with the edge of his desk. “Belfast City Council got a call on the twenty-first of September, saying that there was a broken street light at Dock Street.”

  “Man or woman?”

  “Don’t know yet. We’re waiting for the admin officer who logged the call to phone back. But we do know that they told them the standard time for replacement was between three and five working days. No faster unless it was a safety issue.”

  Craig glanced at the calendar on the nearest computer and nodded. “That would have taken it to the twenty-eighth at the latest. Good. So if it was our man, he would have known that breaking bulbs at any site in central Belfast less than three working days before he brought a victim there would have guaranteed the light would still be out. What about the gun?”

  Davy took over. “There are five licenced Magnums and three decommissioned ones in Northern Ireland.”

  Liam whistled. “Who’d have thought it’d be so popular. It must be some weapon.”

  Davy shrugged. He didn’t know one end of a gun from the other and he didn’t want to; as far as he was concerned they all did the same thing. Kill.