A Limited Justice (#1 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) (10 page)

“She’s coming in at ten.”

“That’s great. Hopefully we’ll have a likeness by later today. Meanwhile here’s another little gem to get your grey cells working.” He told them about the Purecrem and Annette’s mouth dropped and hung open until Liam leaned across, tipping it shut.

“Aye, I was going to mention that, boss. My P.C. saw a smear of cream at the garage yesterday.”

“What do you make of it, sir? A baby? Maybe McCandless had a mistress and a love child. Maybe he’d promised her things and then reneged on it? She wouldn’t be the first to do a man damage in that situation.”

Liam crossed his legs pointedly, “Danni would put my nuts in a vice.”

“She’d be queuing.”

Craig furrowed his dark brows. “That’s not a bad suggestion about McCandless, Annette.”

“There was no word of infidelity when we interviewed his wife, sir. But then, I don’t suppose there would be, especially not in front of her son.” She went quiet suddenly, as if she’d just thought of something. “A lot of those creams are used for adults as well.”

“That’s what John and Des said. What made you think of that?”

She looked reluctant to say what came next.

“Come on, Annette. What is it?”

“Well, it’s Joey, sir... He works in an old people’s home to supplement his student loan. But I’m sure it’s not him, he’s really cut up about his dad.”

Liam snorted at her naivety. She was always giving people the benefit of the doubt, but it just about balanced out his own cynicism.

“Right, Annette. Go and talk to the wife alone. Softly, softly please. If there was a mistress and she didn’t know then we could damage her badly, so just tease out whatever you can. And I want Joey looked into as well - he’s small and slight enough to pass for a girl in some lights, and he wouldn’t be the first.”

“But he was genuinely upset, sir.”

“He could be upset even if he killed him, crimes of passion aren’t rational. You know that. Liam, I want you to chase down this razor-wire, Des says it’s a very unusual type. He can give you all the information you need on it, although John said he was still in St Marys’ maternity being shouted at an hour ago.”

“What?”

“His wife’s in labour.” Annette and Liam nodded at each other knowingly.

“Aye, Danni found a few new names for me when Erin was born. I hadn’t heard them much outside the barracks before then. And I must say I was quite shocked to hear my delicate flower of a wife say such words.” He pursed his lips primly and then burst out laughing.

“Actually I’m quite looking forward to a repeat with this baby, it’s been great ammunition against her ever since. All I have to do is threaten to tell the priest what she called me and she makes my favourite dinner for a week.”

Suddenly Nicky stuck her head around the corner of her desk, and they watched Liam’s colour heighten, underlining his schoolboy crush.

“Good morning all. Sorry to interrupt you sir, but the D.C.S. wants to see you this afternoon. He’ll be back from Limavady at one.”

“Deep joy – any idea what he wants, Nicky?”

“He said an update on the new case.” She looked around as if she’d just noticed Annette and Liam sitting there and shot them both a kilowatt smile, throwing Liam’s cool even further into the bin. Annette noticed that she was particularly perky this morning.

“You look happy, Nicky. Anything exciting happening?”

Nicky looked at Craig, hesitating, and then turned on her best wheedling voice. Combined with her usual growl it made her sound like Mariella Frostrup with a head cold.

“Well...there could be. That’s if the D.C.I. will very kindly let me have a week’s holiday at short notice?”

“How short?”

“Monday week, the 29th.”

Craig raised his eyes to heaven at the thought of breaking in a new temp. “Go on then...”

“I won a holiday in our Jonny’s school raffle. A week in Venice for me and someone else.”

Liam couldn’t resist it. “Are you taking me then?”

She tossed her hair and ignored him, continuing.

“I’m taking our Denise. Gary can’t get away from work and she’s just getting over her appendix op, so I thought it’d be brilliant for her. And if Gary’s not there we can just shop 24/7.” She looked at Annette for an understanding retail audience.

“Just think of all those shoes and bags. Brilliant.”

Nicky looked hopefully at Craig from under her lashes and he looked at Liam, with complete sympathy for Gary. Seven days of shopping, man hell. He smiled at her and nodded.

“On you go then, but you’d better get me a good temp Nick, or you’ll be coming back to a very grumpy boss. I’ll get my mum to call you; she has cousins in Venice so she’ll find the best shopping and eating places for you. In fact she can probably get you a tour-guide if you’d like.”

Craig’s mother Mirella was a Roman Italian who’d been a concert pianist for many years, bringing her two children up to be musical and bi-lingual and naming them Marco and Lucia. The teasing had been too much in a Belfast primary school, so in the first week their Belfast father Tom had shortened it to Marc and Lucy outside the house, much to Mirella’s annoyance. She still ranted at him about it.

Nicky teetered over, gave Craig a peck on the cheek, and was rewarded by a blush that matched Liam’s. Then she smiled and left, throwing Annette a secret wink on the way out. Fifteen – Love.

Craig picked up where he’d left off. “OK. Liam, the wire. Annette, the wife and Joey, and I’ll meet you both at the lab at eleven. We need more details on that weapon.”

He lifted a file and headed back to his office. There was nothing urgent in it but he needed some space. He and John belonged to the ‘you can sleep when you’re dead’ school of partying and last night had been a heavy one. Spent ricocheting between the Cathedral Quarter and the bar at Ten Square, with the added dimension of John desperately trying to avoid mentioning Camille’s name. Craig knew that he needed to decide what to do about her: see her, not see her, walk into the sea, emigrate.

He sat staring at the file, reading the same passage four times, until the steel desk clock that had been a present from Lucia said ten o’clock. His parents were always awake from seven, even though they were both retired, his mother from touring and his father from his university physics post. He decided to call them.

He didn’t need an excuse, but Nicky’s trip would give him one, and he wanted to hear a friendly voice. So he dialled their number slowly, feeling pathetic for calling at all.

It was lifted within three rings and his father’s deep voice answered. Craig could picture him, still in his shirt and tie – he’d never quite got the hang of retirement.

“Hi Dad.”

“Ah hello, son. How’s work – did you catch that garage case?”

“Yes.”

He knew better than to ask the detail so he went on. “Are you calling for anything particular?” Craig’s hesitance answered him immediately and he knew that he wanted Mirella’s input.

“Right, I’ll just get your mother and we’ll see you on Friday night I hope? Lucia’s bringing some new young man round to meet us.” The words ‘young man’ always made Craig smile. Lucia was thirty-one and most of them were at least that age.

“I can’t miss that. Let me guess; is this one a struggling musician or a struggling poet?”

Lucia’s taste in men ran to talented waifs and strays. She was the arty, ‘friends of the whale’ one, which was probably why she was the fundraiser for a charity and he was still playing cops and robbers with John. His father laughed, a warm, low growl that came from deep inside his chest - Craig remembered making him laugh as a kid, just to hear it.

“You guessed it, although this one isn’t starving or struggling apparently. He’s a pianist with the London City Orchestra.”

Craig was impressed. A pianist! His mum would be ecstatic. Lucia had better marry him now, or they’d never hear the end of it.

“Here’s your mother.”

“Marco, what is problem? What you need?” The time of his call had made her maternal antennae twitch and she knew that there was something. But he just talked about Nicky’s trip and let her lilting Italian cadences wash over him for five minutes, chiding himself for being pathetic enough to still get comfort from his parents at forty-two. Then he told himself the lie that he could live with, that he’d given her Nicky’s number and that was the only real reason for his call.

Limavady Headquarters: D.C.S. Harrison’s office

“I know it’s making everyone anxious and it’s bad for morale sir, but we can’t rule out that it was an anti-police attack until we’re sure. That wouldn’t do anyone any good. Let’s hope it was the husband. I’m interviewing him at eleven and we should have preliminary reports from forensics and pathology soon, so I’ll know a lot more by close of business today.”

Julia was standing, hands clasped behind her back, looking straight ahead. Just as she used to do as a young captain. She’d never managed to shake the habit, although she’d left the army ten years before, even she wasn’t macho enough for that life. Plus the cigs were making the assault course harder by the year, and in a choice between smoking and the Regiment, the Regiment lost every time.

She preferred the police anyway. At least she got to dress like a woman at work. Although not today. Today she’d deliberately chosen to wear her baggiest trouser suit and frumpiest heels. It didn’t do to look too attractive anywhere near the D.C.S.. His reputation for leching preceded him.

She pushed back a strand of her dark red hair, a legacy of her Scottish grandfather, and waited for him to speak. Terry Harrison looked up at her, smiling inwardly, she was a pretty woman but not really his type. Her insistence on being ‘one of the boys’ did her no favours, she would look far better in a dress.

“You can sit down you know, Julia, you’re not on parade.”

He motioned her to the chair opposite and she took it, blushing. He noticed her heightened colour and the vulnerability behind it and his ‘victim radar’ pinged. Vulnerable. Maybe she was his type after all.

“I appreciate what you’re saying, Inspector. The investigation has to be robust, it would be worse to charge the wrong person, for everyone’s sake. But you have to appreciate my position.”

Your position’s sitting on your backside usually, sir.

Julia thought to herself, and not for the first time, that it was just as well telepathy wasn’t a D.C.S. job requirement.

He droned on without breathing.

“I have the media to deal with and they’re baying for blood at the moment. So I’m going to draft a holding statement, saying that we don’t feel this was an assault on the police generally, but rather the very sad loss of a colleague who has been a victim of a heinous crime. I won’t release it until 6pm so that should give you plenty of time to get back to me with your confirmatory findings from the husband.”

She cast him a sullen look but said nothing, and his tone hardened.

“Are we clear, Inspector McNulty?” She was sorry she’d sat down now.

“Yes, sir. Crystal clear.”

Harrison looked at her carefully. Her words were verging on sarcastic but her tone was all sweetness. Hmm...

“Good, then I’ll send you the draft for comments at 5.30. That’ll be all.”

He reached out his hand for the phone, the action dismissing her if his words hadn’t already done so. She rose quickly and left the room, the blush burning her cheeks, completely missing his quick scan of her body as she turned.

Bastard – when was the last time he’d worked a scene? Bastard, bastard, bastard.

***

It was late morning when the Craig’s phone rang in Holywood, ‘Best kept medium town of 2009’, and Tom Craig had just eased himself out of his chair to answer it, when it cut off. He tutted quietly, returning to his computer screen. He had just taken a sip of sweet tea when it rang again.

“Mirella, that’s the phone. I’m working, can you get it pet?”

He wasn’t really working. Well, not what he’d called work for thirty years. Writing papers and preparing lectures, marking illegible scripts from bored students, while all the time looking desperately for one vague glimmer of understanding, amidst the plagiarised reams.

No, this wasn’t ‘real’ work, this was fun. And it got him out of dishwashing duties, although why Mirella wouldn’t let him buy a dishwasher he’d never understand. Some sort of Italian ‘love-thing’ probably, like most things were with her.

He was drafting an article for the local newspaper. They’d taken him on last year as a freelance science writer. It used his physics background, it was light-hearted reporting on the latest weird and wonderful advances across the world and, best of all, they actually paid him. Not much, but enough for their twice-yearly trips to Rome, and wine and pasta money when they were there. Plus, it meant that he could legitimately ignore the phone and leave the dishes dirty.

Mirella bustled past him, muttering in Italian. She knew exactly what her husband was up to, but pretended that she didn’t because she loved him anyway. She grabbed at the mock ‘40’s receiver, playfully flicking a dishcloth at him.