A Limited Justice (#1 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) (25 page)

He’d walked in at 12.45 on the dot, tall and ghostly, and her eyes had fixed on him and stayed there. She couldn’t pull them away. She had pictured his face for five years, long after the others had faded. He should have helped the victims, he was the professional. But he hadn’t helped, letting barrister-engineered sentiment sway him instead.

He’d moved slowly up the queue, a head higher than the others, laughing loudly with the man behind him, obviously liked and unavoidably visible. Several people greeted him with, “Hi Liam,” and “Hey Whitey,” so that even if she hadn’t already known him, she soon would have done.

But she knew him all right, that voice, and height, and arrogance. She would enjoy this one too, Fiona deserved this one. He’d pretended to be on her side until the very end, and then he’d been just as weak as the rest of them.

Jessie had waited patiently, glowing in the heat and smiling, until he finally stood in front of her and she stared straight at him. She’d looked for some sign of recognition in his eyes, some vague idea of who she was, but there was nothing. Just a throwaway, “Beef stew... and plenty of chips love.” Signing his own death warrant as he turned his attention to a passing female.

Ladling the stew carefully into the centre of the plate she’d created a small crater and then turned away briefly, saying “just getting some nice fresh chips for you sir– a fine big man like you needs his food,” sickened by his half-flirtatious grin.

Then she’d turned away, just long enough to flick the cap off the phial and empty its contents deep into the crater. Stirring it in as she added the chips, so that every morsel on the plate was filled with fatal goodness. Then she’d handed it to him, unable to resist a garnish of extra chips on top.

She’d watched him as he took it, not even looking at his killer. Merely throwing a careless, “Thanks love,” over his shoulder, as Jessie coolly changed her ladle and gloves and served the next order.

She’d watched him as he ate and talked, deliberately leaving her counter to clear the tables close by. Watching and wiping as he started to sweat and then suddenly excused himself. She’d smiled as she tidied and folded and scrubbed, clearing his plate, first into a plastic bag and then into her rucksack. Then she changed without hurrying and left the other girls, with a cheery wave. “See you tomorrow”, except of course she wouldn’t see them tomorrow, and neither would Detective Inspector Liam Cullen.

***

He’d never experienced anything like this before. Not when he’d been knocked down by a ‘joy-rider’ in ’84, or shot in ’89 and rushed in an ambulance to St Marys. A young female doctor had pummelled his chest and kissed him then, but he’d been too out of it to enjoy the feeling.

They said he’d died for seven minutes that time, and he vaguely remembered his dad standing there, back from the grave they’d put him in twenty years before. Him, and some jazz playing, and he really hated jazz. That was bad, but nothing had ever felt like this. This was a very different sort of ‘trip’.

The food had tasted fine but logic dictated now that it couldn’t have been. He just knew that he had to get to the bathroom. Cold sweat was dripping wholesale down his face and he could feel his heart beating hard and then slowing down, the dropped beats becoming too frequent to count.

He felt sick, but not a normal sickness. This was a deep burning inside his face and chest and a terrible tingling over his arms and thighs, and then no air for breathing.

He collapsed on the hard, frozen floor of the cubicle with thoughts of the mundane; how cold the floor was, how clean the toilet looked, how cubicles were so much bigger these days. There were small explosions inside him; each tiny cell swelling and bursting, pouring their contents out like acid, corroding each muscle and vessel. Turning the walls and ceiling and lights above him into one stream of white. Until Liam finally stopped thinking, and a dark peace descended, forcing him to rest.

***

She’d been composing her speech all the way up the M22, “I realise we may have got off on the wrong foot, D.C.I. Craig.”

No, that was way too grovelling.

“I think there are ways that we could help each other in our investigations.”

Maybe – at least it was less subservient, more like equals. But then, he was a D.C.I. and she wasn’t, so they weren’t equals. And Julia respected rank, grudgingly, but she did, so maybe a bit of grovelling wouldn’t go amiss.

Oh bollocks, she’d decide what to say when she got there. With a bit of luck he’d be out anyway and she could just leave a message. Then he’d have to contact her.

***

“Annette, anything from security?”

“Nothing, sir. No one but the usual staff in or out all day.”

“Any temps?”

Hell. She realised that she hadn’t asked. “Give me a minute and I’ll get back to you.”

Craig clicked his phone off and continued looking around the third floor. Liam hadn’t left the building; the CCTV was clear on that. He was in here somewhere and he was hurt, Craig was sure of it. He was so sure that he’d already called an ambulance, it was downstairs waiting and armed officers were searching every floor. If their killer had got to Liam, there was nothing to say that she wouldn’t kill someone else to escape.

Annette called him back. “There were temporary kitchen staff, sir – four of them. I’m pulling their photos now.” Then it dawned on him, she’d never have got a recognisable weapon into the building, but Liam had been in the canteen.

“Annette, tell the ambulance we have a poisoning, they need to get the poison unit on alert. I’m going back to the canteen, Nicky’s already there. Find me with those photos.”

He ran to the lift and pushed hard on its call button, refusing to remove his finger. Suddenly the walkie-talkie in his pocket crackled into life.

“We’ve found him. Sixth floor toilets and he looks bad. It looks like he’s been poisoned.”

“Get him down to the ambulance and I’ll meet you there.”

Craig ran down the flights to the ground floor, passing Annette at the lift. She caught him at the side entrance by the ambulance, handing him four grainy pictures. There was no question about it, one of the photos showed Jessica Adams, blonde now and calling herself Monica Gibson again. Attacking a police officer in a secure building! She really believed she was flameproof.

“They found him on the floor below the canteen Annette, but brace yourself, it doesn’t look good. I’m going in the ambulance. Go and collect Danni and meet us at the hospital.” For a second, her stricken face halted him, but they didn’t have time for personal feelings.

“They’ll do everything they can, the poison unit’s ready.”

Just then, four black-suited officers appeared, carrying the dead weight of Liam Cullen’s limp body. They pushed past him to the ambulance, and Craig jumped in behind them. The ambulance’s urgent siren was joined by a chorus of ‘blues and twos’, ready for the two mile trip to the hospital.

Then suddenly they were gone, leaving Annette and Nicky alone, in stunned silence.

Chapter Fifteen

Craig was standing outside the intensive care unit, staring through the window, when John arrived, hurrying breathlessly down the corridor. He was aware of the familiar steps but kept staring, focusing on the strange normality of a delivery-van six floors below.

“God, Marc, I just heard – what happened?”

“Poison.”

The word fell flatly on the air, its two syllables covering hundreds of possibilities and thousands of scenarios, from instant to slow, mild to irreversibly fatal.

“How?” John stood beside him, while Craig still stared ahead.

“In his food. By a temp worker in the canteen. It was Jessica Adams, no question.” He half-smiled but didn’t move his gaze.

“Some of his lunch was on his lapel. That’s Liam. Always a messy eater. This time it might just have saved his life.” Craig’s voice cracked slightly, but John knew to stay where he was, an arm’s length away.

“The doctor said it’s aconite, fatal in a hundred percent of cases where 20mls or more has been ingested.”

John nodded. He’d written a paper on it years before. It was one of a group of plant poisons, easily accessible and usually lethal. Craig was still talking.

“They said the only reason he didn’t die instantly was his size, and the fact that he only took a tiny amount. Apparently he was too busy chatting up some W.P.C. at the next table to eat,” he half-laughed. “If he survives, Danni will kill him just for that.”

Craig leaned forward, his breath misting cold condensation on the high glass, and John knew that he felt responsible. There was no reason for it and it wasn’t logical, but he did. Liam was part of his team.

“What you said, John.”

“What was that?”

“About Jessica Adams acting as a hit-man.”

“I was only talking to hear my own voice, Marc. You know me, it was just theoretical rubbish.”

Craig turned slowly and looked at him.

“No...No, I don’t think it was John, I think you were right. She has a list of people that she’s killing, and the reason that we can’t connect them to her is, it’s not her list. She’s killing to order, maybe for one person or for several, and there’s some reason that a loving wife and mother has done this. Something more than money.”

“A breakdown after her husband’s suicide?”

Craig shook his head, frustration in every tensed muscle. “No, that’s not it. Everyone we’ve spoken to says she was a wonderful mother. Her daughters were the centre of her life. They would have kept her going even after he killed himself. There’s something else that we’re missing.”

“She can’t hide forever,” John’s voice had become softer as Craig’s got angrier.

“Well, she’s done a bloody good job of it so far. She’s not in the system anywhere, John; Davy’s been on it for days. There’ve been no hits on her prints or her cards, and her bank account’s completely inactive. There’s nothing, nothing.”

He turned away again and leaned hard on the windowsill, staring out at the van. “She’s just another slim woman roaming the streets of Belfast.”

“Murdering people.”

Craig nodded. He looked thoughtful for a moment, and then pulled his mobile out hurriedly, excusing himself to the stairwell. He returned two minutes later, looking calmer.

“OK, I’ve spoken to the D.C.S., and as far as the press and the world are concerned, Liam Cullen is now officially dead.”

“What? Why?”

“If these are ‘hits’ and it gets out that Liam survived, she’ll try again. So as far as the world is concerned he has to be dead.”

John rubbed his eyes and then gave a small laugh, breaking the sombre mood. “Imagine if people start sending wreathes.”

They looked at each other for a second and then laughed so loudly that the door at the end of the corridor opened, and a young P.C. put his head around it questioningly. He disappeared rapidly at the sight of Craig, and his quick disapproving look made them laugh even harder.

Eventually their laughter tailed away and the analysis started again.

“What about the children? They must be traceable, Marc. Doctors’ records, schools, immunisations – if she’s a good mum she’ll have been taking them for everything.”

Craig nodded, “Davy’s on it, he found a bit of information but she could have changed their names to anything by now. Her parents retired to Spain and haven’t heard from her for years. There was a charge of abuse against the father so she left home at fifteen to live with a friend.”

Disgust flickered across John’s face and Craig nodded, “I know. But Davy did manage to find out one interesting thing.”

“What?”

“She had another baby fourteen months ago. She was already four months pregnant when her husband died.”

“God, if she wasn’t a murderer, I’d actually feel sorry for her.”

Craig nodded, but any sympathy that he might have felt for Jessica Adams had completely gone now. This was a woman who’d killed two innocent people, and nearly put Liam Cullen in a coffin.

***

The elderly gate officer waved her on, indicating an empty parking bay on his left and Julia reversed into it very cautiously, taking four tries. Parking had never been her strong point.

She smoothed her skirt down, psyched herself into best ‘humble pie eating mode’, and then climbed out, walking towards the man, who cast an appreciative eye over her curves.

Julia could feel her hackles rising after years of sexist army officers, but his advanced age and benign smile indicated that he was more appreciative than sexist, so she decided to let it pass...this time.

“I need to get to the Murder Squad. Could you tell me which floor that is, please?”

He looked at her over his glasses, as if about to say something, then he just shrugged his thin shoulders slightly instead.

“Who are you seeing, Ma’am?”

“D.C.I. Craig.”

“That’ll be the tenth floor then, you’d best take the lift. It’s just across there.”

He pointed to the far corner with a finger twisted by arthritis, like her fathers were, and she softened and smiled him a warm thank-you. Then she crossed the concrete expanse towards the lift.