A Limited Justice (#1 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) (18 page)

He cut the call, looking at Annette warily to see if she’d taken any offence, but she was laughing.

“Don’t worry, sir. I was a nurse for years, and medical humour is far worse than anything Liam could ever think of.”

Craig smiled at her, suddenly hopeful. “I don’t suppose you’d like to earn a few brownie points by calling Inspector McNulty with those two questions?”

She stared at him hard, seeing Nicky’s grin in the background and toying with the idea of making him suffer. But she decided to give him a break. She looked at him with mock-resignation, nodding.

“OK then, but you owe me. And I intend to call in all my debts someday.”

Then she waved him away, picked up the phone and prepared to play her best female solidarity card.

***

Liam programmed the sat-nav and headed for Barnardstown, and the eponymously named ‘Adams’ Farm’, swearing hard when he still hadn’t found it an hour later. The local farmers obviously considered road names an unnecessary luxury, and everyone he’d asked was convinced that ‘down past Anderson’s orchard and left at Henry’s copse,’ were acceptable directions for a complete stranger. He remembered tormenting outsiders in a similar way when he was a kid. Any ‘Townie’ stupid enough to enter their territory, with pitying looks that said ‘you’re a thick culchie’ had been easy game.

Eventually he reached a crossroads that resembled a place on the sat-nav called ‘Tohey Road’, with the Adams’ farm marked at the end of a long lane. His car was a basic Ford without the traction of a four-by-four, and the recent rain had slicked the mud on the rough farm-track into a slide, so it was hard going.

His impatient revving mud-splattered his windows with force; completely defeating his screen-wash and blinding him when he went above five miles an hour. But visions of a weekend spent scraping off mud were calmed by the thought of a free valet in the compound. It was long overdue; two of Erin’s year-old gummy bears were still stuck to the back seat.

He turned a blind, narrow corner and the lane opened out suddenly, into a gravelled area that led to an impressive double-fronted stone house. It was three storeys high with large, leaded bay windows to either side of a wide oak front-door.

As he got closer, Liam could see that its grandiose first impression couldn’t hide the neglect of dull brassware and tattered net curtains. When he turned his engine off, he could almost feel a barren silence that had been hidden behind his revving and expletives. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up urgently, in a fight or flight response.

The whole place was empty, no, more than that. It was deserted, with a terrible pall of sadness obvious even to someone as insensitive as him. It felt as if all the life here had died.

He climbed slowly out of the car, casting a quick look around for someone to ask anything of, but there was nothing except a funereal air. There was no sound and no movement, not from the house and not from the grounds. No sounds of machinery running, dogs barking, or workers yelling. He walked to the front door preparing to knock it, but as he lifted the rapper, the heavy door drifted inwards, breaking a spider’s web at its corner. He entered the tiled entrance-hall cautiously, his hand moving to his gun.

In earlier times, the house must have been immensely beautiful. The hall had a deep, wide mosaic floor and the walls were completely covered in wainscoting. The glass chandelier in the centre of the ceiling still shone, even through its dust, and the wide sweeping staircase behind it said that this had once been a very wealthy farm, and Michael Adams a very wealthy man.

“Mr Adams – police.” Liam’s loud voice echoed back to him only once, dying against the wooden walls as the hall returned abruptly to silence. He walked slowly in and out of the rooms, their contents revealing a once-full family home, with toys belonging to more than one child, and all hinting at girls. The style of the toys told him that wherever they were now, these children were still children. He shuddered involuntarily, thinking of his own little daughter. What had happened here?

Eventually he finished exploring the house, wandering out through the front door again, into the outhouses and around the near-grounds. Opening shed doors and bunkers, until he reached the worn wood of the largest barn.

Entering the already open door, he was greeted by cattle pens and instruments, some resembling implements of medieval torture. The bolt Davy had described would fit perfectly here, and he was sure they would find razor-wire somewhere in the grounds as well. There was no question that this place had something to do with the murders. But where was Michael Adams?

He walked quickly back to the main hallway and lifted the post. M. Adams, J. Adams. The postmarks hinted that M. Adams’ post had stopped nineteen months ago, but J. Adams’ only in the last year. Liam had seen enough. He pressed a number on his mobile, looking around one last time as it dialled.

“Gerry. It’s Liam. I’m at Adams’ Farm and I think I’ve found something interesting. You’d better get McNulty and some C.S.I.s out here, now.”

*** 

“When I want your help Sergeant McElroy I’ll ask you for it, who the hell do you Dockland’s lot think you are? First, I have Craig barking at me, and then the ‘Incredible Hulk’ drapes himself all over my office. Now you ring me doing the ‘old girls act’, telling me which questions to ask my suspect,
my
suspect. This is bang out of order and you know it. This is my investigation, so for the last time, will you all please butt out!”

Julia wasn’t in a good mood and Annette was paying for it. She was holding the phone receiver as far away as she could, and still be able to hear it. Julia’s mood wasn’t improved by the fact that Craig’s questions were exactly right, and that she hadn’t thought of them herself. In fact, so far, his labs and his questions had moved her case along far more than her own had. Bugger. Now he’d asked a junior officer to call her, using female solidarity as the game. Well, sod that.

Annette now knew exactly why Craig hadn’t wanted to call McNulty himself, and although McNulty was an Inspector, after two minutes of being yelled at, she didn’t care anymore. She’d had enough, and she blew.

“Look, I really don’t care if you’re used to shouting at your own Sergeant, you won’t do it to me. You’re obviously too stupid to realise that D.C.S. Harrison has asked D.C.I. Craig to help you, and that our two cases are linked. If you could put your giant ego to one side just long enough to think of the two grieving families and the other female officers out there who’ll feel vulnerable until we catch this killer, then maybe together we can solve both cases. You stupid, ungrateful woman...Ma’am!”

Annette slammed the phone down and banged the case file hard against the desk several times, before she calmed down enough to realise that someone was watching her. It was Nicky. She looked up at her embarrassed. Annette rarely lost her temper, but she’d make an exception for McNulty.

“God Nicky, I’ve done it now. She’ll report me.”

“No she won’t, not unless she’s completely thick. She’s in the wrong and if she has any sense, she’ll ring you back and apologise. And you were absolutely right anyway, she is a stupid woman.”

Nicky nodded her head towards Craig’s office, knowing that he’d heard everything. “And don’t you worry; he’ll back you 110 percent. Just tell him what happened before she does.”

She was right, so Annette took a quick sip of coffee and was walking towards Craig’s door when he emerged, trying hard to stifle a grin. He gave up and burst-out laughing.

“Well done, Annette, she needed to hear that, her ego is coming before her investigation. Don’t worry, even if she says something to D.C.S. Harrison, I’ll say that I overheard the whole thing. And that you were perfectly polite and didn’t use a single word that you shouldn’t have.

It’s my fault for being a coward anyway, I should just have called her back myself, and I will now. But, before I do.” He bowed to her in mock-admiration and she blushed and smiled.

“Wait ‘til Liam hears about this one.”

*** 

The C.S.I.s were working through the electricity–free farmhouse, hoping that the daylight would hold. Liam was leaning against the front door, talking to Gerry, who was driving to relieve him.

“Can you see any signs of violence?”

“Nope, nothing. It’s weird. The place is like that Marie Celeste ship. Do you know anything about the family?”

“Eamonn Ross at Barnardstown Station will know them, if anyone does. He’s been desk sergeant there for twenty years. He’s off work ’til tomorrow, so I’ll call him then.”

The C.S.I.s had finished with the outhouses. They’d found a set of bolt-guns and a sample of razor-wire; the weapons that had killed Burton and McCandless had definitely come from this farm. But was the killer M. or J. Adams? Or both of them? Were the Spiv and the Hoody that Ida had seen, working together?

“Look Liam, this traffic’s dire so don’t wait for me. Head on home and I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”

“Aye, we’re in all weekend anyway. Catch you then.”

9pm: Stranmillis

Craig was stretched out on his settee when the insistent ringing jolted him awake. The living-room of his apartment was in complete darkness and for a second he was confused, certain that he’d flicked on a lamp before he’d sat down. He looked around quickly, his hackles rising, but there was nothing more threatening than a blown bulb. The case was making him twitchy.

The ringing stopped abruptly, and then started again from his landline, joined by a sudden vibration in his pocket. Reaching into his suit, he realised that he still had on his leather jacket. He’d fallen asleep as soon as he’d got home. The landline would be his mobile-phobic mother, and his mobile was Lucia. Oh hell – now he remembered, it was Friday and he’d promised to go for dinner.

He flicked on the mobile, preferring thirty seconds of English bollocking to five minutes of Italian, and spoke quickly, before Lucia could.

“I know I’m late, Luce, sorry. I’ll be there in ten minutes."

She could hear he was half-asleep and laughed. “Calm down, it’s fine. We’ve just arrived, so Mum’s ranting at me as well. Take your time, the last thing we need is you killing yourself on the motorway. I’ll deal with Mum, see you.”

She cut the call so he didn’t have to and he smiled. Lucia could handle their mother as well as his father could, they were both so easy going. But he was Mirella’s double, his Latin fieriness only tempered by the discipline of his job. They’d had some flaming exchanges through the years, while his father and Lucia ignored them both and watched TV.

He reached for the lamp, changing its blown bulb for a new one, and then pulled open the tall, steel fridge, swapping his warm, untouched beer for a bottle of chilled white wine. Rubbing a handful of ice-cubes over his neck, an old trick for extended partying, he grabbed his car-keys, and flicked a grateful look at the suddenly silent landline. Lucia had done the trick. Then he pulled the front door behind him and headed for his parent’s house, in leafy Holywood.

*** 

Jessie shivered violently in the cool evening air, pulling the thick hoody tightly around her thin frame. She was exactly where she needed to be, and it wouldn’t be long before the guiltiest of them all was dead.

She could feel her six months of waiting and planning nearing its end. Only one more would be left after tomorrow, and he’d be dead as well in three days’ time. Then they’d leave Northern Ireland forever.

She looked through the window of the centre’s small TV room, at the country night-sky. It was pitch-dark, with no city lights and no stars. It reminded her of home. The night’s damp was seeping into her light bones and she reached into her pocket for the blister pack of tablets, preferring them in a bottle. Somehow, the challenge of the child-lock made them seem more potent.

She stared around the darkened room at the other women. All eyes were fixed blankly on the huge screen ahead, some blanker than others and tomorrow’s target’s the blankest of all. Jessie thought contemptuously that she should pay special attention to this evening’s programmes; after all, they’d be the last that she’d ever watch.

She slid down into an old armchair and closed her eyes, letting the mixture of tablets and TV wash over her. She counted the hours until tomorrow’s execution and her bail the day after, as her pain gradually eased away to the backdrop of an old movie, in their brief free time before bed.

***

His unexpected sleep, compounded by heavy airport traffic on the M3, meant that Craig arrived just as Mirella was serving coffee and liqueurs. Only the dog and his dad were smiling at him.

Lucia was too busy staring doe-eyed at her latest candidate for husband to notice that he’d arrived. And only Murphy’s barking informed him that they’d already left the warm comfort of the large country kitchen, for the marginally greater luxury of the living-room. Luxurious except for the areas of carpet and upholstery that the Labrador had ripped apart. Craig smiled to himself. No matter how bad his behaviour got, Murphy’s would always be worse; they’d been in the doghouse together many times over the years.

He dumped his coat over the weathered oak banister and slipped in as invisibly as possible, his cover blown by renewed barking and the cheerful, “hello, son,” that followed. His father was sitting in the armchair he’d had since they were kids, worn into complete comfort despite his mother’s many refurbishments.