The Killing Year (The Craig Crime Series Book 17) Read online

  Annette still wasn’t impressed. She turned to Mike. “You’d better not go into work if I disappear!”

  Liam answered before the pathologist dug himself a hole. “Planning on it, are you?”

  But Mike was oblivious to the whole episode. He’d been reading Anne Morrison’s P.M. file as John had reported, and before he could stop himself he’d whistled admiringly.

  “I can’t believe you remembered all of that detail!”

  John allowed himself a satisfied smile.

  “I find it harder to erase details than keep them in my head.” He turned back to Craig. “Shall I go through the other victims?”

  “Not just now, thanks.” Craig turned briskly to the screen. “OK, if you all look at the table you’ll see that we have victims ranging through shop assistants, business people, various professionals, a judge and now a newsreader, with external injuries ranging from cuts, lumps, indentations and penetrating injuries to various parts of the body, but, John, am I correct in saying none of the injuries were potentially fatal?”

  John’s response was equivocal. “Well… let’s just say they weren’t what actually killed them. One victim had a perforated spleen, and one of the head injuries was nasty, so if the victims hadn’t already died of respiratory failure those injuries might have killed them in a few more days.”

  “But they didn’t, so as far as we know cause of death in each case was respiratory failure due to alcohol poisoning. John and Mike, I know these weren’t your cases so I’m sorry to put this on you, but I need the exact causes of death for all eleven victims confirmed. Unequivocally, please. I can’t have any doubts as we move forward.”

  The pathologists exchanged a look; it was going to be a long week.

  Craig gave the group a moment longer to read the screen then he turned to the whiteboard and lifted the marker.

  “OK, we have five things in common across all of the first nine victims. Each victim was gone for approximately three days before being found dead, Liam and I will look into that, and their bodies were all found in the east of the province – Ash, plot those dumpsites on a map and see if geo-location throws up anything interesting, please.”

  The detective paused, suddenly noticing the junior analyst’s new look and realising why Liam had grabbed him before; Ash looked completely different to normal! Craig’s mouth opened and closed silently for a moment while he considered whether to mention it, before finally concluding that fashion commentary and murder didn’t fit in the same briefing and allowing the moment to pass.

  He scribbled ‘location map’ up on the board and was about to move on when Andy did it for him.

  “Angle.”

  “What?”

  “You said they were all left at an angle. It’s the third thing in common.”

  “Nice to see someone was listening.” Craig scribbled ‘angle’ and turned back to the DCI. “And as you said it, Andy, you can try to make sense of what the angles mean and if they connect to each other in some way. You’ve an artistic eye so that should help.”

  There was no doubt that the DCI had a visual bent; he possessed an extensive collection of originals by famous Irish painters and was a talented artist himself, but even more than that Andy was what was called a super-recogniser; someone with enhanced facial recognition and other cognitive abilities, which gave them the uncanny talent of recognising things from even the poorest view. Craig had heard about super-recognisers when he’d worked at The Met and knew they’d been organised into a team in twenty-eleven after the English riots, but he’d never imagined that he would have one on his own squad.

  “I’m sure Davy has some pattern recognition programmes that can help you along.”

  The analyst nodded. “I’ll get on to The Met’s code-breaking unit too.”

  “OK, good.”

  Craig turned back the board again and wrote up ‘DNA’ and ‘alcohol’ before setting down his pen.

  “OK, as Doctor Winter has said, a particular whisky was found at all the scenes and Davy, can you look into that, please. The DNA sits with Des. Anything more you think is relevant on the victims for now, John?”

  The pathologist crossed to the LED screen, tapping on a row in the middle of the table.

  “We’ve already heard about Anne Morrison, but there was also Jason Cornell. A forty-eight-year-old County Down business man who disappeared and was found three days later at his office desk with his frontal bone crushed in. The weapon was nowhere to be found but the closest forensics could give us was that it was a curved arc of some description, with a bevelled texture. However, as before, the blow wasn’t his cause of death. His COD was unquestionably severe alcohol poisoning. His stomach was full of it and his blood level was BAC point-five percent. The highest of all the victims. The others all sat around point-four, which is almost always fatal as well.”

  “That’s one hell of a bender!”

  “And, by the looks of it, Liam, possibly voluntary. Mister Cornell may well have been a heavy drinker. While there was some benzodiazepine found in his blood stream it was in miniscule quantities, but still, I suppose the possibility that he was given the whisky while unconscious can’t be ruled out one hundred percent.”

  As he retook his seat Craig nodded.

  “OK, I want a volunteer to look deeper into the alcohol here, in parallel to our pathologists re-examining the CODs. We need all the victims’ drinking habits, bars frequented, etcetera. Anything that might be relevant to the case.”

  His eyes had been sweeping the group as he’d talked and now he stopped on a deliberately averted gaze.

  “Kyle, it strikes me this is straight up your street. Shadowy bars being your favourite lurking spots.”

  Inspector Kyle Spence had been seconded to the squad from Police Intelligence during a hacking case they’d worked on two years before, but Craig had known him far longer than that. They’d shared a flat together briefly at university, the briefness of the arrangement more to do with Spence’s untidiness, trickiness and economy with the truth than any failure to make his rent. Although Craig didn’t actively dislike his old flatmate he certainly didn’t trust him, but since Sean Flanagan had made him DCS over both Murder and Intelligence now there was no escape from the DI, so Craig reasoned that he would rather keep Spence in the murder squad where he could keep a close eye on him. It made for permanent wariness and occasional all-out conflict, but it was the best that he could do.

  For once Kyle Spence didn’t object to a request, apart from a grudging shrug to reinforce his bad-boy cred. He normally hated being told, or even asked, to do anything, implying as it did that he was somehow subordinate, or even worse, working as part of a team. The Intelligence officer preferred to see himself as a lone ranger; a solitary no-name cowboy riding into town, righting wrongs and then galloping off again, with only a single night’s gratitude from some nubile as a sign that he had ever been there at all. The rest of the squad preferred to see him as an arrogant, delusional dickhead, who thought that he was above the rules.

  Craig honestly didn’t care what the DI’s current delusion was, just as long as he turned up when he was supposed to and did his job without pissing too many people off. Although he was immediately suspicious of the Spence’s lack of objection to his allocated task, he decided to wait until he did something to really annoy him before wasting his valuable energy smacking him down.

  “OK. That’s the three-day period, locations, angles and alcohol covered. Next comes DNA. Des will give us whatever he finds, but so far, we have DNA found on every victim, not their own and not in the system. John and Mike, anything else strange on that?”

  When Mike looked blank his boss nodded. “The DNA was found in the same location each time. On the victim’s forehead.”

  Annette gazed at him quizzically and then said exactly what was on Craig’s mind. “A kiss?”

  John’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Oh, my goodness! I hadn’t even thought of that!” He turned excitedly to Mike. �
�The shape might show up under black light.”

  Black light, also referred to as a UV-A light or Wood's lamp, is long-wave UV-A ultraviolet light with very little visible light, used in forensics to reveal some matter and marks than can’t be seen with the human eye.

  The junior pathologist nodded eagerly. “It might be too late for the earlier victims, but perhaps with today’s two-”

  Liam snorted derisively. “That’s if the neat-freak CSI didn’t clean that up as well.”

  Annette’s mouth opened to ask what he meant but Craig shook his head.

  “Explain that later, Liam, for now let’s move on. OK, John and Mike, check that out, and Davy, can you get the DNA profiles from Des and run them through databases further afield.”

  He was just about to change topic when Annette stopped him.

  “Sorry, sir, but before we leave that, shouldn’t we discuss the significance of a kiss, if that’s what it was?”

  Craig shook his head. “When we’re sure that’s what it was we will, Annette. Right, moving on, that leaves superglue, and Davy, I’d be grateful if you could look at all the victims in that light. See if you can find any logic to who had their eyes open or closed and let me know.”

  He scanned the row of faces for further inspiration. “Anything else before I hand over to Mike on today’s deaths?”

  Aidan Hughes raised a nicotine-stained forefinger. The staining made Nicky feel sad, as did the yellow streak at the front of the detective’s almost white-blond hair. She liked the Vice DCI, even found him attractive in a vague, sexy third-cousin kind of way, and she hated to see him slowly killing himself with cigarettes.

  Craig liked Aidan as well, having known him as the class prankster since schooldays, so he waved him on with a smile.

  “The injuries, chief.”

  “What about them?”

  Hughes was gathering his thoughts as he spoke, and it showed.

  “Well…it’s just maybe…well, has anyone actually mapped them… on the bodies, I mean?”

  John answered before Craig could.

  “Each post-mortem file has all injuries listed and marked on a body diagram.”

  Aidan nodded slowly, still trying to articulate the vague idea running through his head.

  “That’s great, but… has anyone marked them all on one body?”

  Both pathologists gazed at him quizzically, but Mike spoke first. “Why would we?”

  Aidan’s words were more definite this time. “Jason Cornell’s head injury was an add-on, almost staging. He definitely died from alcohol. You were clear on that.”

  Craig sensed something worthwhile behind the DCI’s suggestion, so he cut in before Mike could object again. Aidan might not be able to explain things logically right now, but he trusted his gut.

  “Map them, Aidan. I know you aren’t even sure why you’re suggesting it, but if you have a hunch then follow it through.” He turned back to Annette. “Annette, I’d also like you and Rhonda to take a look at any weapons that could possibly have caused the external injuries.”

  Liam opened his mouth to ask why but Craig simply shook his head.

  “I’m not sure what I’m thinking of yet either, Liam, but several good detectives have followed the rules all year and it’s got them nowhere, so it might just be time to think outside the box.”

  His emphatic “Mike” prevented any further discussion, and gave Mike Augustus his cue to produce two files on their victims from that morning and start to report.

  ****

  Near Strangford Lough, County Down.

  Sarah Reilly lurched into consciousness. A short, hard, fall forward that jerked her awake and thrust open her eyes. She regretted the awakening as soon as it happened; sleep and unconsciousness are welcome vacations from the trials of the world and the GP’s new reality was brutal.

  She gawped at the mud-walled trench in which she found herself. It had high, straight, but rough-hewn clay walls, and a freezing slime base filled to knee height with what she assumed was rainwater, so that in her current slumped position her whole lower half was sopping wet. Strangely, instead of the dank dampness that its construction said the pit should have smelt of, the GP detected a warm, oaky scent that she couldn’t give a name.

  Forcing herself upright from the horizontal, the dreadful reality told by her nails gouging the earth beneath her hit home. She wanted to scream but her mouth was sore for some reason that she didn’t want to think about, and she struggled to find her voice, the horror of her predicament locking her where she stood as a struggle between denial and the truth began.

  Denial said that there’d been some terrible mistake; that somehow, she’d fallen on her way to visit the sick child and ended up in this hole. But truthfulness made her recall the blow to her head from a faceless assailant, a feeling backed up by a wet stinging when she touched the back of her hair.

  She managed to stifle her rising scream, her medical training with all its forged-in-fire toughness kicking in, and logic along with it. If her assailant had placed her where she was, and what else could possibly have happened, and she screamed now, then he might hear her and return.

  Instead she gazed above her at the trench’s upper boundary, easily a foot beyond her reach, her cell’s slick sides saying that there would be no easy way out. The medic gulped down her threatened tears and tilted her head further back, surveying the heavy, dark sky above. Then she prayed harder and longer than she ever had that its clouds would bring a heavy, Irish winter rain to fill her prison further and help lift her to the top.

  ****

  The Labs. 6 p.m.

  Des Marsham, although physically large and exceedingly hairy, was a very placid man. Everyone who knew him agreed with that assessment, only altering the type of docile animal that they compared him to according to their age and sex. To his seven-year old, Martin, he was a giant turtle, as befitted his eldest’s obsession with all things zoo; the boy was so enthralled by wildlife that Des was certain he really wished David Attenborough was his dad.

  For his four-year-old son, Rafferty, he was currently a bear from Peru named Paddington, and the forensic scientist winced at the marmalade sandwiches that he foisted his way, only nibbling obligingly at their edges until the boy had turned his back and then dumping them firmly in the bin.

  For his wife, Annie, more enjoyably, he was her sexy Grizzly, although if he could be permitted a small niggle he did wish that she wouldn’t say so in front of their friends. But it was a small price to pay for marital bliss, and all in all the Head of Forensic Science lived in a world of peace and amiability, still remarkably intact despite the killings and weapons that he dealt with every day.

  That was the way that he would prefer his life to remain, however today was not destined to aid that cause, as the thorny subject of that morning’s crime scene debacle and the need to ‘have words’ with his new CSI lay ahead.

  Des had been deferring the discussion with Grace ever since Craig had raised the issue with him, finding many more interesting things to do in his lab, and even calling his wife and volunteering to do the weekly supermarket shop rather than bite the poison coated bullet of personnel management.

  Des liked things. Guns and their magazines, fibres and prints, and even, on a good day, a knife. Things were solid and stolid and full of facts, and never answered back or expected him to respond. Even better, things never, ever had emotions, and never, ever, ever cried. He found his own emotions difficult enough to deal with, but other people’s feelings were nigh on impossible.

  His children’s tears he had just about worked out, coming as they usually did from the need to eat, sleep or play, and his wife thankfully had never been a crier, only once shedding a few, smiling, tears on their wedding day. But he had a nasty feeling that Grace Adeyemi was either going to argue, shout, or worst of all, cry at him, and if he could have girded his loins before their meeting with ten pints of beer and still appeared professional then he absolutely would have done.

&
nbsp; Better still, if he’d had a deputy to whom he could have delegated the conversation, in the way John had Mike and Craig had Liam, that would have been perfect. He stopped mid-thought, reconsidering; Craig delegating people management issues to Liam would have started a war.

  But we all know what Des meant, he simply wasn’t built for people management, unfortunately he’d left it too late to hire someone else for the job. So eventually the scientist lifted the telephone with the enthusiasm of a man on his way to be executed and called Grace into his office, immediately positioning himself with his back to the wall for no reason that made any sense, even to him.

  As the door knocked, opened and closed again and Des waved the smiling CSI to a chair, he realised with a sinking heart that Grace didn’t appear to have a single clue what was coming next. How could she be so inconsiderate? Any decent employee would have worked out that being summoned meant they’d done something wrong and entered the room contrite and blurting out amends, not made their boss have to raise the subject, for goodness sake, never mind detail their transgression step by step!

  The scientist mustered every bit of authority that he had and poured it all into one word, hoping that the deep, dark tone of it would be enough to say everything.

  “Grace.”

  “That’s my name!”

  Her cheeriness instantly made acid reflux into Des’ mouth, and his next, completely unplanned, word emerged in a squeak.

  “Coffee?”

  It was then that what should have been a serious discussion became afternoon tea, and the Head of Forensics determined to rely on an email later that evening to do his dirty work.

  ****

  The C.C.U. 6.20 p.m.

  As Mike Augustus outlined the ages, states and positions of their two new victims, regaling his audience in horror with the tidying-up committed by the new lead CSI, Nicky typed quickly at her desk, adding two additional rows to the table on the screen. Only the cause of death was left uncompleted and that was making more than just the junior pathologist frown.