The Sect (The Craig Crime Series) Read online

  “Grow up, the pair of you! Nicky, give Liam another custard cream from your drawer and let’s make a start.”

  As everyone wondered how long Nicky had been hoarding biscuits and how Craig knew the exact count, he began.

  “OK, as of a few hours ago we have three dead bodies. All, and Mike and John can confirm this, in their late teens.”

  Mike Augustus opened the thin file on his knee and read from the single sheet inside. “The third victim is male, aged between sixteen and twenty. He was found soon after death like the other two. I’ll have more detail after the P.M.”

  Craig continued. “OK, so far we have two males and one female victim in nine days; the female was victim number one. All white, all under twenty and all found in the countryside near Downpatrick.”

  As he dragged over a white board Liam muttered. “That’s ruined Downpatrick for me. I was going to take the kids there when it got warm.”

  Andy interjected as Craig arranged the board. “I’m pretty sure it ruined it for the victims as well.”

  Craig finished writing ‘young’, ‘white’ and ‘Downpatrick’ on the board and turned back to face the group.

  “Quiet. We’ve a lot to cover. OK, first question. Why are all the victims young? Anyone?”

  Andy answered him. “Easier to dupe, naïve, likely to be physically slight so easier to lift––”

  Craig held up a hand, stopping him. “Good. All of those things apply. The other common findings are that all our victims were found with manacle marks, wet and wrapped in cling-film, with drowning the cause of death. Mike, was the third one drowned as well?”

  Augustus nodded. “Same as the others. Probably domestic water from The Silent Valley. It serves Belfast and most of County Down.”

  Craig added ‘manacles’, ‘cling-film’ and ‘drowned in domestic water’ to the list.

  “The final thing is that John and Mike found the same words tattooed on the first two victims. In black ink on the boy’s right inner arm and in white beneath the girl’s breasts. Was there any sign on the third victim?”

  Mike answered again. “Same phrase in the same position; right inner arm.”

  Just then Jake walked through the double-doors. Craig nodded to him in respect; he hadn’t expected to see him much that week but he imagined that right now work must seem like a break. He wrote ‘tattoo’ on the board and turned to Davy.

  “The tattoo isn’t in English so Davy’s been trying to get it translated. Davy?”

  Davy had been picking at his nails, for once devoid of varnish. Craig suddenly noticed that his earrings had gone as well. He wasn’t sure if it was a sign of maturity or if some fresh piercing hell was on its way. The analyst shook his head.

  “The translation could take a w…while.”

  “Why so?”

  “It looks like Latin but it’s not any Latin I ever learned; one of the words looks like confession but even that could be wrong. I tried all the translation engines but no joy, s…so I got on to the universities and so far all they’ve come back with is that it’s an ancient language.”

  Liam snorted. “I could have told them that.”

  Davy ignored him. “I can tell you that the tatt’s not on the PNC distinguishing marks database, s…so it’s never been found on a UK corpse before. I’m widening the search to Europe.”

  As Craig said ‘OK’ vaguely, his mind searching for what the tattoo meant, he wrote ‘Ancient text?’ on the board and went to move on. His progress was halted by Liam suddenly bursting into song. Craig didn’t know what he was more surprised by, the piece he was singing or Liam’s amazing baritone voice. As the Latin words of Panis Angelicus faded away to a spontaneous round of applause he recovered enough to ask the questions on everyone’s lips.

  “Where did you learn to sing like that? Why now? And how come this is the first time we’ve ever heard you?”

  Liam grinned proudly. “The point is I know a lot of Latin. Choir and altar boy for ten years.” He gave Nicky a wink. “Then I discovered girls and went to hell in a handbasket.”

  Craig smiled, imagining a teenage Liam chucking his sheet music into the air and racing after some girl.

  “Well, if my mum ever hears you you’ll be duetting with her for years.” Mirella had been a concert pianist.

  He tapped the board to focus them back on the case. “So Liam’s our resident Latin scholar but we’ll have to wait for the universities to translate the tattoo. OK, before I hand over to the Docs I need to emphasise that this isn’t a case we can drag our heels on. There have been three deaths in a short period, the last two today, so we have a serial killer on our hands and he’s escalating. If he continues at this rate… well, we all know what that means.”

  He turned to where John, Mike and Des were sitting in a row, like a scientific three monkeys.

  “Fire ahead, John.”

  The pathologist lifted a folder beside his feet and distributed the hand-outs inside. They contained a mixture of words and photographs and as Annette flicked through the pages she gasped. He nodded.

  “Quite. Try not to look at the photographs until we tell you what they are. Turn to page three please.”

  It was a table.

  “That’s the composition of the water found on the girl last week. We’re expecting the others to match.” He turned to the chair beside him where Des was busy stroking his beard. It was getting longer, a fact that Liam decided to point out.

  Des sniffed disdainfully, sucking a strand of hair vertically as he did, then he started to explain the table.

  “You’ll see that there are common chemicals listed: Aluminium, calcium, chlorine. They’re present in all purified water, but it’s the percentages that make the water peculiar to an area. This water definitely came from the Silent Valley. Narrower than that is impossible to say.”

  Carmen interrupted. “How did you know to check it was purified?”

  Des smiled kindly at her. He didn’t know Carmen well so he didn’t realise just how dangerous that was.

  “The absence of diatoms and algae made us look. Then we found the chemicals.”

  Even Craig heard the head-patting tone of his voice so he cut in before she made a caustic retort.

  “So you expect all three victims to match.”

  Des nodded. “We’ll obviously check each one, but yes.”

  “Good. So if all our victims were drowned indoors that means our killers had privacy. It’s also more difficult than you think to drown someone, even if they’re weak. People fight back, so we know that our killer must be strong.”

  Liam nodded. “A man.”

  “Or two.”

  Des continued cheerfully, unaware of his narrow escape.

  “Yes. Sorry we can’t make the water source any more specific, but maybe CCTV will give some clue which direction the killer came from.”

  Craig turned eagerly towards Davy to be met by a solemn shake of his head.

  “Sorry, chief. No cameras in the area, the closest are miles away, near Ballynahinch and Dundrum.”

  Craig sighed. Life was never easy. “Give Liam anything you can find.” He turned back to Des.

  “OK, the cling-film round the victims. We’re fuming it for prints but I can tell you that there were no prints actually on the first two bodies; they were washed head to toe after death.”

  “Definitely after?”

  “Had to have been or we’d have found something from the killer. Also, they were washed in high concentration bleach as well as water and if they’d been alive they’d have scratched the skin off themselves.” He nodded to Mike. “Mike smelled it first.”

  Craig was surprised. Not at the use of bleach, it was a standard forensic countermeasure that most criminals knew about, courtesy of TV cop shows. He was surprised because he hadn’t noticed it on either corpse. John saw his confusion.

  “Before you start panicking that you have anosmia, don’t; I missed it too. Mike only spotted it because he removed the cling-film fr
om the first boy. It evaporates quickly so by the time you saw the bodies it had gone.”

  “It was definitely on the bodies, not on the outside of the wrapping?”

  Mike nodded. “On the skin; head to toe as far as I could tell.”

  Craig gave a nod. “OK, so bleach.” He wrote the word on the board and threw open the floor. “What could bleach mean? Anyone? Make it as weird as you like.”

  Liam frowned. “Apart from the forensic benefits you mean?”

  “Apart from that.”

  Carmen was the first to speak. “Purification; he thought the victims were dirty in some way.”

  “Good. Anyone else?”

  Annette chipped in. “A hospital or clinic.”

  “With a twisted use.”

  Davy warmed to the theme. “A factory or a lab that uses chemicals. Or w…what about a drug house?”

  Craig thought for a moment. “Good. Corrupt dealers sometimes cut drugs with bleach.”

  Liam laughed. “As opposed to the law abiding ones?”

  Craig rolled his eyes. “Very witty. OK, anything else?”

  Liam showed his experience during The Troubles. “They could have been making bombs.”

  As Craig scribbled the words on the board the group fell quiet. He tapped his marker against the list.

  “This is a lot to go on with. Davy, check for any clinics, factories or abandoned warehouse facilities in a twenty mile radius of the dumpsites––”

  Liam interrupted. “What’s to stop the bleach being something to do with the area itself? Maybe they dump chemicals there.”

  It didn’t ring Craig’s bell but he added it to the list. “The Department of Environment would know, if it’s legal.”

  Liam sniffed. “And if it’s illegal dumping we’re hammered.”

  “Let’s leave that with Davy. OK, the bleach could be a false clue, although the fact that it was under the cling-film rather than on the outside makes it unlikely.” He turned back to Des. “Any joy on the victims’ I.D.s yet?”

  “None. I fingerprinted the first two and ran them through the database but there was nothing.”

  Craig thought for a moment then turned to Liam.

  “Liam, check with the street patrols. If our victims were on the streets or runaways they might recognise their photographs.”

  He saw the others’ confused looks and realised that he hadn’t covered the most basic points.

  “Sorry everyone, I should have said; the girl was an IV drug user and we think she might have been a sex worker as well. She had needle tracks and HIV and there were also signs of old abuse.”

  Annette interrupted. “Old abuse might mean she was known to social services. We should show them her photograph. And the local HIV clinics might know her.”

  “Good thinking. Davy, do that, please. In fact send all the victims’ photos to social services, just in case. We’ll try everything we can locally to I.D. them but we think the girl may have been from Eastern Europe.”

  He outlined his thoughts on trafficking and Nicky screwed up her face in disgust.

  “They should be shot.”

  “No argument on that.” He nodded at Carmen. “Carmen’s liaising with D.C.I. Hughes on the trafficking and Geoff Hamill will update us on any gangs.”

  Liam swallowed his tea so fast it went down the wrong way and he practically coughed out, “Drugs.”

  John was quick to retort. “You want some or you think someone should be looking into who supplied her?”

  Liam recovered. “Supply. And I do the jokes around here.”

  Craig wrote it on the board. “Drug supply, very good. Carmen, see if Aidan knows anything on that, and Liam, pick it up with Karl Rimmins.”

  Rimmins was a rising star in the Drugs Squad. At twenty-seven he was already a sergeant in an area of policing where it was notoriously hard to survive, never mind get to the top. He was bright but he also had a biological advantage over his peers; Karl’s dark and dangerous looks suited the drug underworld almost too well. When they’d first met him in 2012 he’d played the hardened narc self-consciously, but the years had sharpened his glance and now the look in his eyes wore him. Craig hoped the world he policed didn’t drag him down but he wouldn’t have been the first officer to go astray.

  Jake cut across Craig’s thoughts. “If the girl was a prostitute and a user, did you find anything similar on the first boy?”

  Mike answered him. “When we found the tattoo on both of them we wondered what else they might have in common so we looked for signs of prostitution and drug use on the lad, but there was nothing. Although…”

  He handed over to John.

  “There was no sign of recent sex on either body but there were signs of past anal penetration with the boy, most likely consensual and in the past couple of years. He looks late teens so probably just after he’d reached the age of consent, but he’d also been abused post-mortem with…”

  Craig raised a hand to halt him. “Just before John elaborates, this is a murky case and likely to get even more so. What you’re about to hear is hard core, so be warned.”

  He glanced at Nicky and she opted out gratefully, leaving someone else to minute the meeting as she headed for the canteen. When she was safely through the double-doors John elaborated, describing in graphic detail the abuse carried out on their first John Doe and the injuries that it had caused.

  “In your pack you’ll see photographs of his internal and external anal injuries. The minor internal abrasions were most likely from consensual sex, the major tears weren’t, but thankfully they were made after death. There’s also a photograph of the object that caused them; it was left with the body after death.”

  Ken had said nothing since the start of the briefing, just nodded quietly and taken notes. Now he gasped. But it wasn’t a gasp of horror; it was a gasp that said he’d seen this before. Craig seized on it.

  “You’ve seen this elsewhere?”

  “When I was posted to the Middle-East.” Ken had travelled a lot of the world with his job. “It was administered as a punishment for homosexuality in some religious countries where it was taboo. Sometimes to elicit a confession as well. But the victims were always alive when it happened.”

  John leaned forward eagerly. “Did they use the same type of instrument?”

  Ken shook his head. “They used increasingly large objects, but it had the same effect.”

  Craig’s heart sank at the mention of religion and punishment; men too often twisted belief to suit their own ends. He doubted that their killer was on God’s side, but with the bodies’ washing possibly meaning purification, some warped religious sect could feasibly be part of their case.

  “Thanks, Ken. Mike, any other similarities between the victims? Apart from the bleach and the P.M. tattoo?”

  Augustus shook his head and then added. “But we’re waiting for the tox-screens on all three.”

  After a moment when no-one added anything Craig summed up.

  “OK, we have a third victim, found a few hours ago. Another young male. Let’s see what he brings. Meanwhile, Davy – you lead on the I.D.s and forensics with Des, and get that tattoo translated. Liam – pursue the street patrol angle for all three victims; see if anyone knows them. And check the drugs angle with Karl. Ken – you help Davy with the social services links and anything else he needs. Carmen – you’re on Vice and Gang Crime; I want to know who trafficked the girl, if she was. Let’s keep this tight, everyone; we have three victims and we can’t let the trail run cold.” He nodded to the visiting scientists. “Thanks for coming. Do you mind if I join you for the third P.M.?”

  John rose to leave. “I’ll see you there in an hour.”

  The group dispersed and Craig beckoned Jake and Annette into his office just as Nicky reappeared. She screwed up her face.

  “All done?”

  Annette made a face. “Yes. You did the right thing leaving. If I hadn’t needed to hear it I’d have left as well.”

  Nicky
smiled gratefully. “Coffee for three coming up.”

  They entered the small office and arranged themselves around the desk. When Nicky had brought in the drinks Craig began.

  “Joanne Greer. Where are we?”

  Annette swallowed a mouthful of coffee and shook her head. “Up the creek at the moment. Greer has hired a crack legal team and they’re pulling the case against her to bits.”

  Craig frowned. “How far can they get? She confessed on tape.”

  It was Jake who answered. “Entrapment. It’s what their whole appeal hinges on; they use the word in every other email to the P.P.S. They’re saying that Greer would’ve said anything to keep Ershov happy because she loved him.”

  Craig exhaled noisily. “No-one’s that stupid, not even someone in love.”

  Annette shook her head. “Sorry, sir, but that’s what she’s arguing and…” She glanced at him apologetically. “When you hear the tape for the first time that’s what comes across. She sounds like a besotted woman telling her lover the story he wants to hear.”

  Craig raked a hand through his hair. After a moment’s angry silence he sighed.

  “What does our side say?”

  Annette tried for an optimistic smile. “They’re not as pessimistic as I sound. Both our lawyers and The Met’s say it was a solid bust, but that it will come down to what a new jury thinks on the day.”

  Craig rose and walked to the window, gazing out at the river below. He imagined Yemi doing the same at the Thames. Without turning round he said.

  “Annette, find out where Yemi is tomorrow morning and arrange a conference call for the four of us. Book an hour; I want us to get our ducks in a row.”

  She nodded. “OK, I’ll let you know what time. But…”

  He swung round. “More good news?”

  She winced. “Sorry.”

  He reminded himself not to shoot the messenger and waved her on.

  “The court date’s been changed.”

  Craig was only half listening, already imagining Joanne Greer preening herself in the witness box. “To when?”