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

  “I was hoping to have definitive causes of death for this briefing.”

  The words made John Winter’s ears prick up. It wasn’t that he had a big ego, absolutely not, there was room for only one of those in his house; or that he wished his subordinate any failure you understand, no, that definitely wasn’t his way. But ego or no ego everyone likes to feel indispensable and John was not immune, so allowing himself a tiny smile he leaned forward slowly and spoke in a quiet voice.

  “Anything I can help with, Mike?”

  Annette’s immediate indignance in defence of her partner was kicked into touch by Mike’s grateful, “It would be brilliant if you could take a look. I’m stumped.”

  He handed a memory stick to Davy, and a moment later a photograph of that day’s victims appeared on the screen with the pathologist rendering commentary.

  “The usual alcohol smell was there, of course, and these are the angles the bodies were left at, although lividity says that the male had been moved from elsewhere. Des is checking a pattern that was left on his back. I think we have to assume that the way he was positioned when he was found near Tyrella was the way he would have lain on the original surface as well, otherwise why bother to display him like this at all?”

  An agreeing murmur went around the group.

  “Davy, could you show the next image, please.” A photograph of the injection site appeared. “There were small injuries on both victims: the man had an abrasion and a lump on his occiput, but no underlying skull fracture or brain contusion, and the woman had a laceration on one arm. Neither would have been fatal. Other than that, what appears to be an injection site between the first finger and thumb was found on both. I’ll be dissecting the areas tomorrow, but meanwhile I sent off tox-screens-”

  John cut in. “You’re thinking a poison might have been injected? That makes sense.”

  Mike’s expression was glum. “That’s what I thought, until both screens came back an hour ago completely clear. There was nothing on them except high levels of alcohol and small amounts of benzodiazepines. Not a sign of the usual poisons or toxins.”

  John was unperturbed. “An unusual one then? One that we have to request specifically.”

  “I haven’t a clue what that might be.”

  John cheered up instantly. A challenge that didn’t include Natalie; it would be like relaxing in a warm bath.

  “Not to worry. We’ll dissect the tracks together and see if anything leaked into the surrounding tissues. Meanwhile, let’s take another look at the internal organs to see if poison got in another way.”

  Craig smiled at his eagerness; all that was missing was him rubbing his hands.

  The detective took back the floor.

  “OK, add what you get to the table, and everyone, apply whatever information Mike and John find on the new bodies to your searches.” He turned to Liam. “Could you notify Judith Roper’s family? There’s a husband according to Davy’s bio. We need to trace her movements over the past three days, and someone will need to ID her body.” He cast a meaningful glance in John’s direction. “I would do it, but-”

  Liam nodded briskly. “Say no more. I’ll get the info from the boy.”

  The nearly thirty-year-old Davy would always be ‘the boy’ to him.

  “Good. Thanks. Davy, we need an ID on our male victim, so missing persons, prints-”

  “The usual. I know.”

  Craig smiled at how good his team was and then gestured at the clock; it was almost six-thirty.

  “OK, let’s call it a night and start again early. We need to catch this killer before there’s a twelfth victim.”

  As the chairs were scraped back to their usual homes and computers were shut down for the night, Craig noticed Ash approaching and instantly raised a deflecting hand.

  “Unless it’s life or death, it will have to wait until tomorrow.”

  The frat boy retreated with a shrug, and Craig nudged John towards the door and the pub. Whatever was ailing the pathologist needed to be aired quickly, before it became so serious that they were looking at the team’s next divorce.

  ****

  Near Strangford Lough. 7 p.m.

  Sarah Reilly had spent so long staring at the sky that she’d seen its dark heaviness turn to a clear night, and the clouds that she’d once had high hopes for dissipate, to be replaced by a sprinkling of bright, sharp stars. With their brightness came a temperature so low that she had to huddle against the dank mud wall of her prison for some semblance of warmth, shivering so hard and fast that her jaw rattled, the sound replacing the hours of silence that had gone before.

  With a huge effort she managed to still herself and strained to hear some sound that might give her hope, but even the occasional distant lowing of cows that had told her she was in the countryside had ceased now, the herd settled down for the night. She stretched her neck to its capacity, as if the extra inches might yield acoustic benefit, and was rewarded by a sound that strangely comforted her, although she couldn’t be certain why. A faint church bell was ringing out the hour: five, six, seven, and it stopped, telling her that she had left her warm surgery over five hours before.

  The thought brought her up short; had it really just been five hours, or had she missed that plus another day? Without the familiar markers of civilisation to tell her she had no way of knowing; the blow to her head was so hard that it could have rendered her unconscious for hours.

  As fear threatened to overwhelm her she listened to the bells again. Perhaps their comfort came from some childhood memory, or some hope that despite the sorrows she’d witnessed in her patients’ lives there was something bigger than man, something greater that was watching over her now.

  She would never have said that she was religious, preferring science to explain the things that happened in life, but yet there it was, so deeply buried that it had hidden from her consciousness for years, a belief that she wasn’t alone now, and along with it the comfort that that gave. If this was to be her last night of life, then perhaps she wouldn’t experience it entirely alone.

  The GP was just on the verge of dismissing the idea as imagination when another sound filled her ears, and along with it a shower of loose mud descending on her head. As she spat out a mouthful of wet clay soil she shielded her eyes and peered up into the dark. A quiet click was followed by a whirr and then came a monotonous, mechanised male voice.

  “If you’re lucky I’ll eventually tell you why you’re here, Doctor Reilly. But when that happens you’ll die.”

  ****

  Cherryvalley, East Belfast. 7 p.m.

  If Liam had had the time to admire his surroundings, then he would have done so at some length; the house he was parked in front of definitely warranted a second look. Its impressive frontage was flat, wide and high, with eight sashed windows plump with voile and a columned façade so white that it almost sparkled. Liam was certain it wasn’t some trick of the light. There was none; the winter sun having set three hours before.

  As he left his car and traversed the winding driveway to the front door, the DCI confirmed the sparkling hadn’t just been in his mind. The large, pale, blocks of stone the building was constructed from had streaks of a glistening material embedded that he would later learn was quartz.

  Liam didn’t have long to analyse the effect, as before he’d even placed one large foot on the steps leading to the house’s front door, it opened inwards and a man of around fifty years old appeared. The detective extended a hand.

  “Mister Gerald Roper?”

  As the man shook Liam’s extended digits, and nodded with a confused look on his face, the DCI’s heart sank. Roper’s confusion meant one of two things. Either he wasn’t expecting any strangers at his door and was simply wondering who Liam was, or he specifically wasn’t expecting the police or press that would inevitably appear if his celebrity wife was either missing or dead.

  Liam gave a mental sigh. Oh God, he hated doing death notifications, and if Craig hadn’t had John t
o deal with he would have told him to do it himself, or more likely they’d both have delegated it to someone to whom sympathy came more naturally, like Annette.

  But even then, a notification always came easier when the relative had some inkling that their loved one could possibly be dead, such as when they were a high wire walker or a base jumper, in which case they probably expected bad news every time the doorbell rang.

  But even in a missing person’s case relatives would have had some warning that things mightn’t turn out well, those few days of wondering what might have happened to someone making a policeman’s appearance less shocking when it came.

  The thought made Liam sigh again, this time audibly; he hadn’t even informed the man he was police yet, so they still had that hill to climb.

  Just as Gerald Roper said, “Can I help you?”, Liam reached inside his jacket for his ID.

  “I’m DCI Cullen from the Belfast police, sir. Could we step inside?”

  A quizzical Roper reversed into an elegant harlequin-tiled hallway that upheld the promise of the building’s exterior, his look of confusion slowly turning to complete bafflement. If Liam’s heart hadn’t already hit rock bottom, then it would have sunk another foot; the man obviously wasn’t even aware that his wife was missing, or his warrant card would have engendered panic not puzzlement.

  He could have kicked himself; had anyone even checked if Judith Roper had been reported missing? Then he had another thought; the killer usually kept his victims alive for a few days, so if Gerald Roper hadn’t reported his wife missing in that time then why not?

  It altered Liam’s normal gaze to a narrow-eyed, sweeping floodlight of a glare, as he surveyed his surroundings for anything suspicious. When his scrutiny yielded nothing more malevolent than a chaise longue he followed his host’s retreat into a warm sitting-room and watched as Gerald Roper literally fell into a chair.

  “Something’s happened to Judith, hasn’t it?”

  Now, there are a number of ways in which that question could have been asked: knowingly, disingenuously, suspiciously, any of which could have indicated guilt, but Gerry Roper had uttered the words with such despair that Liam immediately struck his name from the suspect list, returned his narrowed eyes to their normal size, and sat down in the chair opposite, answering the man’s query with one of his own.

  “When did you last see your wife, sir?”

  Roper’s eyes fell to the floor. “On Thursday night. I left for a business meeting in San Francisco at the weekend and only arrived back an hour ago.”

  “Did you speak to her at all in that time?”

  Roper shook his head slowly, raising his eyes again. “No. We often go a few days without speaking when I’m in the States. The time difference makes it hard to connect. When I arrived back here I just thought Jude was still at work.” By way of explanation he added “She’s making a documentary on the drugs trade in Ireland.”

  Documentary making. That could explain why she hadn’t been reading the news any more.

  Just then Roper gasped, and Liam knew that a sob wouldn’t be far behind.

  “Has Jude been hurt? Is that why you’re here? Some of the people she’d interviewed were drug dealers. They could…”

  Liam raised a hand, halting him. Not telling the man the worst was starting to feel like abuse. He’d needed to keep the widower in the dark long enough to gauge if he was a suspect, but now Roper deserved to know. The detective swallowed hard, knowing the effect that his next words would have.

  “I’m from the Belfast Murder Squad, Mister Roper, and we were called to-”

  The remainder of his words were drowned out by a howl. Liam waited until it had descended into sobbing and then he helped Gerald Roper to his car.

  ****

  The James Bar, Barrow Square, Belfast. 10 p.m.

  John was on his sixth pint and third diatribe when Craig reckoned that he’d had enough time to vent and raised a hand to cut in.

  “The thing is, John-”

  The pathologist lurched forward in his seat, jolting Craig’s drink and making him slide sideways to avoid getting drowned.

  “That’s what I keep saying! The thing is, Natalie, Kit’s a baby, and babies don’t like noise!”

  He brought a fist down hard upon the table, making Joe Higginson, the pub landlord, raise an eyebrow at Craig. That was all, just a knowing eyebrow before he returned to stacking glasses, but it was enough warning for the detective to request the bar bill and get ready to drive his friend home.

  John had missed the exchange completely, still ranting.

  “Babies like peace. And happiness. And blankets.”

  If he said fairies next Craig thought that he might just throw up. He caught John’s arm mid-descent this time and shoved it back against his chest.

  “Less jolting would be good, John.”

  The medic’s answer was to wave the offending arm above his head instead and pick up where he’d left off.

  “It doesn’t matter if she’s a boy or a girl…” He thought for a moment and then backtracked. “Well, Kit’s a girl, see, so she isn’t a boy, but it doesn’t matter-”

  Craig handed his credit card to the approaching waiter, pacifying as he did. “I get your point, John. You just want Kit to have peace because she’s a baby, not specifically because she’s a girl.”

  The pathologist’s eyes widened. “That’s it! THAT’S EXACTLY IT. You understand me, Marc, so why can’t Natalie?”

  He threw his arms apart and lurched forward in what Craig thought appeared suspiciously like a hug. He wasn’t averse to the odd man-hug when the moment suited, after all rugby, GAA and football had practically turned the activity into an additional national sport, but he had a nasty suspicion that the squeezing involved might make John throw up all over him, so he jumped hastily to his feet to avoid the embrace and nodded down at his friend.

  John appeared not to have noticed the body swerve, now practically sobbing into his beer.

  “Why does she have to make everything about sexismmmm…?” The ‘m’ was drawn out like the chord of a song, and when the pathologist followed up with a whining, “Why doesn’t Natalie understand me?” Craig had finally had enough.

  “I’m taking you home.”

  “NO!”

  It was the most coherent that the medic had been for hours.

  John’s arm shot out, pointing directly at the door.

  “Take me to your leader.”

  Joe Higginson finally broke his silence, slowly rubbing a cloth inside a glass. “I wouldn’t take him home like that, if I were you. You’d better sober him up a bit first.”

  Craig nodded at the bartender’s wisdom, picturing village elders like Higginson advising errant Viking Kings centuries before, to take the scenic route back to their longhouse to sober up, or risk getting an axe in the ass from their Queens.

  “I think you could be right.”

  Craig levered his friend to his feet and steered the staggering scientist through the bar’s swing doors and out into Barrow Square, bracing hard for the destabilising effect of the night air and then practically hurling him into his car. After a moment’s consideration Craig decided to take the drunken doctor to Katy’s, not only because she had a spare room where John could sleep off the worst of his beer binge, but also at the back of his mind hoping that something might transpire to help mend the eighteen-month rift between her and Natalie. After all, it had all started with Katy taking John’s side.

  Chapter Five

  They were approaching the denouement, that time in each story when the strands start to draw together, and the finale will soon come, making the audience gasp and wonder at the unexpected answers it reveals.

  But that time could only arrive when everything was in place: the players, the settings and the props, and above all, the perfect date and time. Not to mention ensuring that his alibi was firmly set in place.

  Until then nothing could be allowed to interfere, nothing that could destroy the
reveal, and to that end the police had to be kept well occupied. Yesterday’s work should see to that.

  ****

  Thursday, 7.15 a.m. Katy Stevens’ Apartment. Laganbank.

  Katy knelt down beside her king-size bed, a steaming cup of espresso in one hand. She smiled as she scanned Craig’s lightly tanned, sleeping face, tracing his regular features with her eyes until finally she reached his soft, full lips. She wanted to kiss them hard, climb back into bed and pull him to her to feel his warmth, a warmth that always gave her the confidence to face her day. But that would lead to her being late for her outpatient clinic, and besides, he had a hungover friend currently drowning in the shower to deal with, before his nine o’clock baptism of fire.

  She set the cup down on the bedside table, deliberately clinking it against the lamp to wake Craig up, and then greeted his slowly opening eyes with a smile.

  “Hello, you. John’s been in the shower for ten minutes, so you should probably check that he hasn’t drowned, and his mobile’s been going mad. I didn’t answer it because it’s probably Natalie and if she hears my voice she’ll pitch a fit.”

  She tousled his dark hair gently and rose to her feet, jumping nimbly out of reach of the detective’s outstretched hand.

  “Oh no, you don’t! If I get back in bed we’ll both be late.”

  She whipped the duvet off the bed briskly, throwing it back on almost immediately as the sight of his muscled body threatened to break her resolve.

  “Time to get up, Mister!”

  Craig squinted at the bedside clock and then gave a dangerously slow smile. “It’s just after seven. We have an hour.”

  Katy took another step back, laughing. “No, we don’t! I’ve a clinic starting at eight, and you need to deposit John somewhere before you meet all those crime teams at nine. Remember?”