A Limited Justice (#1 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) (23 page)

A sudden thought struck Craig. “Davy, did anything come through on the searches at the weekend?”

Davy shook his head, embarrassed, as if his computers had let him down, like naughty children.

“Nothing yet. They’ve covered their tracks pretty w...well so far.”

Then Liam explained what he’d been thinking about before Craig’s question.

“If she’s really a hit-man then why not just use a simple weapon like a gun, boss? Why all this violence, could that be mental illness?”

It was a valid point. Why not just use a gun? Or did the victims need to suffer more than a gun would cause?

“And just say she needs money to support her children, then what happens to them if she’s caught? She will be eventually. She’s not covering her tracks very well, just enough to play for time, so she doesn’t seem to care if she’s caught. Then the children will end up in care, and that definitely doesn’t fit with her being a loving mother.”

“Or her parents might claim them, and if she has three little girls she’ll be desperate to keep them away from her father if he’s a paedophile. And all the money in the world couldn’t guarantee that the courts wouldn’t give them custody.”

“You’re all right, there is something more here. One possibility is that we have Jessica Adams, a mentally unstable killer, killing for money to protect her kids. But for some reason needing to inflict severe pain and suffering, as well as kill. So she doesn’t use a ‘clean’ weapon like a gun, which would have made much more sense, given her small stature.

And if she’s really killing to protect her kids then why leave prints that might lead to her being caught, even eventually, leaving the kids she loves to grow up without her, possibly even with a paedophilic Grandfather? Of course, if she’s unstable she may not be thinking this through as logically as we are.”

Craig looked thoughtful for a moment, rubbing hard at his forehead. “Or else this hit-man theory is all complete rubbish.”

He paused and Liam leapt in.

“The suffering was an important part of the hits, boss, I’m sure of it. Someone, maybe Adams and maybe not, wanted the victims punished as well as killed. Yes, it also helped to send us in the wrong direction for a while, but they could have done that some other way. I’m certain the torture was part of the kill. Maybe Maria Burton wasn’t meant to die instantly. Maybe she had even more suffering planned for her – like drowning her in the river. And maybe McCandless’ drowning
was
intentional. Either way she’s not finished yet.”

They all nodded in agreement, Liam was right.

“OK, if we find the link between her first two victims, hopefully we’ll find her next target in time to stop her. Davy, find that link please. I want you to run two searches together. One just for links between Maria Burton and Ian McCandless. Leave Jessica Adams out of that one in case she’s killing on someone else’s behalf, and you’re already running the second search with her included.

Annette, you interview Joey. Liam, chase up on her parents – it’s a long shot, but see if they can think of anyone she cared enough about to kill for. ”

Craig’s mobile rang. He picked it up quickly, listened, and then clicked it off with a quick “Thanks, John.” He turned back to them with a triumphant smile.

“OK, what I didn’t tell you was that Maria Burton’s handbag was retrieved from the Bann on Saturday and they sent it to us for forensics.”

“Here, why didn’t they just do it themselves? They have a lab.” Craig ignored the remark, knowing that Liam was just winding him up.

“I asked D.I. McNulty to send it up.” He paused for a second. “Maria Burton’s warrant card had been deliberately cut in two and her badge broken into several pieces.” Annette gasped, this was real hatred.

“By the river current, sir?”

“No, not the river – her perfume bottle was unbroken and the river couldn’t cut the warrant card. It was deliberate; disrespect, anger, something.”

“Against the police?”

He nodded. “Or against authority, justice, whatever. Anyway, I asked John to look for one particular forensic trace and he’s just found what I hoped he would.” His look was almost smug.

“What? Put us out of our misery, chief.”

“He found Purecrem, on W.P.C. Burton’s warrant card.”

The looks on their faces said it all – this was deliberate.

“The river hadn’t washed it all away. The bag was plastic, with lots of compartments, so the water didn’t get at the inner ones as much, and that’s where the warrant card was.”

“That means Burton’s and McCandless’ killer is definitely the same person. Jessica Adams.”

“Yes, and I want you to run a new cross-check, Davy, along with the others. And this one should include links to anything and everything to do with the Criminal Justice system.”

The Oaks Hotel. Near Dublin

She opened her eyes sluggishly and stared around the large, expensively furnished room, disoriented for a moment. They changed location so often these days that she had to rely on Fiona to keep her straight. But it definitely wasn’t Wharf House and that was all that really mattered. Slowly Jessie remembered that Fiona had booked them into a hotel two miles from the camp, so that the girls could enjoy the games and rides, without her having to cope with the noise at night.

She smiled down at her feet. Ruby had made her bed at the bottom of hers last night and Fiona had wisely left her there, covering her with a warm blanket. She was lying across the duvet with her thin pyjama arms wrapped protectively round Jessie’s shins. As Jessie reached down for her, the soft daylight illuminated stale tears streaking her small cheeks.

Jessie looked at her middle daughter sadly, wondering how much these little girls really knew of what lay ahead. She drew her numb fingers gently through Ruby’s fair curls, as fine and soft as Michael’s had been. She was perfect, all of them were, and she knew again that she was doing the right thing. And that she would kill again to protect her children, as often as she needed to.

***

Gerry smiled and started his elevenses. The boss had been in a better mood since the D.C.I. had taken her seriously on Saturday, despite their second visit to the Burton’s farm showing that Maria Burton definitely hadn’t known Jessica Adams nee Atkinson. She’d never even issued her with a littering fine.

There was no connection between the two women but the chief was still grinning like a Cheshire cat, and smoking less as well. He’d just put Belfast’s lab through to her, so he sincerely hoped today’s good mood wouldn’t be killed off by the call.

Her office door flew open noisily and he heard her high-heeled footsteps tapping down the hall towards him. “Gerry –where are you?”

He stuck his head out of the coffee-room’s door, almost colliding with her.

“What are you doing in there?”

“Fixing my car.”

She ignored his dry wit but he could see from her face that she’d had more good news. Happy days. At least that meant fewer cig breaks. It was bucketing down outside and he could do without catching another cold.

“Belfast has just rung to thank us”

She paused as if waiting for a round of applause, so he shot her a quick question to keep her happy.

“Really, Ma’am–what did they say?”

“They said that Maria Burton’s handbag contained traces that conclusively linked her murder to their man in the garage; it’s some sort of nappy cream.” She looked as puzzled as he felt.

“And.” cue silent drum roll. “That they will be liaising with us extensively in the next week. So what do you think of that?”

Gerry knew better than to take the piss, although the urge was truly enormous, so instead he said.

“Well, I think that between his sperm and their nappy cream, we’ve finally bottomed out,” and before she could say anything he quickly handed her a hot mug.

“And that calls for a cup of tea.”

***

“Liam, I’ve got Joey McCandless coming in ten minutes. Tell the boss that I’ll be back for the briefing, please.”

Just then, the phone rang and Annette answered it, listening and ending with “Room three please, give him a cup of tea and I’ll be down in five.”

She turned quickly to Davy. “Davy, that’s Joey in now. Just before I see him, was there anything on his father’s computer linking him to children?”

“Nothing, completely clean, and nothing on his background checks either. I really don’t think there’s anything there, Annette.”

“Thanks, but he’s still lying about something.” And she left to find out what.

1.30pm: Wharf House

“This is a shambles, Agnew. I can’t have people using drugs in my prison and I certainly can’t have them overdosing.” Governor Elizabeth Steele was glaring at the woman standing in front of her, gesturing towards the open file on her desk, her forefinger prodding it angrily.

“The pathologist’s report clearly states that she suffered respiratory arrest, due to a massive overdose of high-grade heroin. The powder found in her room was almost ninety percent pure! In God’s name, where did a twenty-one-year-old from the Demesne council estate get the money to buy that? And how did it get past five guards and three visitors’ checks into her veins? Not to mention where the syringe and needles came from. Well?”

Beads of sweat had gathered on Eve Agnew’s forehead and were dripping gently down towards her brows. She pushed them away hastily with the back of her thin, freckled hand and swallowed hard.

“With respect, Ma’am, you know the prisoners are very adept at concealing things. And even with all our checks, visitors can be tricky, and...”

“Yes? What?”

“Well...” she hesitated.

“Well what?”

“There’s some word among the women, that Taylor wasn’t well liked, so...” She swallowed again, deciding whether to be hung for the whole sheep or not, and then shrugged inwardly, continuing.

“There’s some feeling that this might not have been an accident, Ma’am.”

Steele stood up abruptly, throwing her full size-sixteen frame into focus against the large window behind her, her powdered, round face darkening with anger.

“Are you suggesting that she was murdered? In my prison?” Her voice rose with every word until ‘my prison’ was almost shouted across the desk at the hapless Agnew.

“You’d rather believe that she was murdered than accept that you were negligent. It’s your job to see that they don’t conceal things. It’s your job to see that rooms are searched regularly, so that, even if things do get into the prison, they’re found before they can do any harm. And it’s your job to identify addicts and get them into rehabilitation, not to turn a blind eye to their habit, allow them bolts on their doors, and enable high-grade heroin to kill them!”

She paused, sucking in breath for her next onslaught.

“And it’s my job to get answers, and answers I will get, officer Agnew, make no mistake. Like her or like her not, Lynsey Taylor was twenty-one years old, due out next week and she was in our care. Her family have lodged an official complaint and heads will roll.”

She fixed her narrowed eyes directly on the sweating woman in front of her.

“And I can tell you, that Governor or no Governor, it certainly won’t be mine.”

***

They’d been sitting looking at each other for the best part of an hour while Joey answered each of Annette’s questions with silence, or lies, or guilt. If she hadn’t seen all sorts of grief-reactions in nursing, she’d probably have just left it at that, and charged him on his lack of alibi for the time his father was murdered. Except that she had seen them.

She knew that the boy in front of her couldn’t have murdered his father; he’d loved him too much. Her maternal instinct told her he didn’t have it in him to murder a spider, never mind a human being. He’d have been a ‘lift them out the window to freedom’ type of little boy, like her own son.

But he was lying about where he’d been and Annette knew it, and she’d absolutely no intention of interviewing sixty students from his bloody ‘improvisation’ class just to prove it. She was losing the will to live even imagining all their ‘luvvie’ drama during the interviews.

Maternal instinct or not she’d had enough of his silence now and she was gasping for a cup of tea, so she pressed the tape-machine button so hard that he rewarded her by jumping. It was a real interview now.

“For the benefit of the tape, this is Monday the 22nd of October 2012, interview commencing at 1.50pm. Present are Detective Sergeant Annette McElroy and...”

Silence.

“For the tape please, Mr McCandless.”

Joey looked across at her with wet eyes and nodded. “Joey McCandless.”

“Please acknowledge your full name and address for the tape, Mr McCandless.” Her voice had hardened with each word and he suddenly looked so frightened that she felt a flicker of guilt. Suppressing it, she held her severe pose through the next short silence, while Joey McCandless stared first at her and then at the machine, as if they were both his enemy.