A Limited Justice (#1 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) (28 page)

“Aye, right enough, the font is tiny.” She looked at him closely for any sign of sarcasm, detecting none.

“It’s a list, and Liam, Maria Burton and Ian McCandless’ names are all on it.”

“A list of what?!”

He leaned back in his chair as if he was on Mastermind.

“A Court List from 2007. They were all on a jury panel.”

“That has to be wrong; Liam can’t have been on a jury.”

He looked at her impatiently.

“No, Liam’s not on the jury, he’s the arresting officer. The other two w...were jurors. And guess who else?”

“Hang on, Davy. Maria Burton was a W.P.C. so she can’t have been on a jury either,”

Annette was deliberately delaying his punch line just to wind him up.

“I know, but Maria Burton hadn’t joined the force then. The answer is...”

“Jessica Adams.”

He looked at her, annoyed that she’d guessed correctly, and even more annoyed that she couldn’t have pretended not to, lapsing into a momentary sulk until she apologised.

“Sorry, Davy.” She tried to look suitably contrite, but he sulked for a moment.

“OK...I know it’s only a lucky guess. But yes, Jessica Adams w...was a juror too.”

Annette was interested now. “What was the case?”

“The murder of a man called Brian McNamee in 2007, a teacher at Constitution College in Glengormley. Have you heard of it?”

She thought hard for a minute, cases flicking through her head like index cards, then she slowly started to recall the details.

“Yes...yes, I do actually. I didn’t work it, I was in the Rape Unit then, but I remember it being on the news. Wasn’t there uproar because the girl only got five years? The boyfriend was twenty-one so he ended up with life in Maghaberry, but she was only sixteen so she was sent to the holiday camp.”

“The holiday camp? W...What’s that?”

“Wharf House – and if you’d ever been there you’d know exactly why it’s called that. Prisoners wear their own clothes and make-up, they even have theatre outings. It’s just like that Sunny Days place near Dublin. It was originally for non-violent offenders so it was a bloody disgrace when she was sent there. I’d be surprised if Liam didn’t kick up about it.”

Annette sat on the desk beside him, thinking. There was more to find out before they bothered the boss with this.

“Davy, can you get onto Court Records for me, I need you to dig a bit deeper and find out a few things. I’m going to talk to Liam.”

***

“God, Doc, when can I go home? This place is doing my head in. And D.C.I. Craig needs me urgently; we’ve an on-going investigation.”

The slim thirty-something in scrubs that passed for his consultant, completely ignored his pleas. Instead, she wrote furiously in his chart, while an escaped twelve-year-old masquerading as a student scurried around behind her, handing her sheets of differently lined paper for measurements and drugs. And people said you felt old when the coppers started getting younger.

“Why Inspector Cullen, don’t you like us? I’m hurt. And to think that only yesterday you couldn’t wait to get in here.”

She smiled down at him in a way that reminded him he was in pyjamas. He never wore them at home and they made him feel five years old again, even though they weren’t covered in cowboys.

“Aye well, sure it’s been lovely and all that, but I’ve work to do. Whoever tried to bump me off is still out there, and that offends me. So you’ll understand why I’m a bit hacked-off lying here?”

He grinned up at her, flashing his best winning smile. It always worked on Danni. But she just ignored him, immune after years of male patients.

“And maybe you’ll understand, Inspector Cullen, why I’d be a bit hacked-off if, after all our hard work, you ended up dying because I let you home too soon? Besides which, your wife told me it’s very peaceful at home and the house will be much tidier without you. Your observations are stable so we’ll move you to a ward this afternoon, but I think a few more days of peace will do her a power of good.”

Then, with years of practice, she handed the charts to her minion without looking, and smiled him a goodbye with exaggerated sweetness. Then she turned on her heels, uttering the words ‘bed bath’ to the first nurse she walked past, and not for the first time Liam understood the urge to murder.

Wednesday. 10pm: Café du Trésor. Marais. Paris.

Their eyes met incredulously over the girl’s sleepy heads. They were free! After six months of meticulous planning and fearful execution, Fiona finally allowed herself to cry. They were hot tears, streaming silently down her cheeks. She covered her eyes with a paper napkin so as not to upset the girls.

They’d done it. Brian was finally avenged, Jessie’s children were safe and Fiona would get the chance to be their grandmother, the grandmother that her own grandchildren would never know.

The weight of five years of loss and injustice finally lifted from her and she looked over at Jessie gratefully, grasping her cut, swollen hands tightly. Knowing that she couldn’t feel her touch, but her smile saying enough.

Fiona watched her as she fed the baby, her slim, pale blondness making her look like a teenage nanny instead of the mother of three. She was only a girl, only six years older than her own daughter, but she’d already suffered so much. They both had. But while her pain was ending, there would be no relief for Jessie.

Jessie read her thoughts and smiled at her, and there was so much joy in her large hollow eyes that Fiona stopped feeling sorry for her immediately. Vowing not to ruin another moment of their limited time together with sad thoughts. There’d been enough of those for both their lifetimes.

So she lifted the long spoons and distributed them, watching as eager little hands dug into their late-night bowls of ice-cream, smearing it on their mouths, cheeks and jumpers in equal proportions. They giggled happily in the warm evening air as they did so, while the two women watched them, peacefully.

Chapter Eighteen

Craig had been fighting the urge to call John since he’d left home that morning, managing to get as far as the car-park before caving in. Now he wished that he hadn’t. John’s glowing review of last night’s play reminded him of Camille’s talent, and of the hundreds of happy evenings he’d spent helping her learn her lines. Why did she have to come back into his life now, breaching the defences that it had taken him years to build?

He slammed his car door so hard that the elderly gate officer left his warm cubicle to peer over, anxious not to miss anything. He lifted his hand in apology and muttered something inaudible, striding heavily toward the lift. He was still striding when he crossed the floor ten storeys up.

Nicky heard his mood before she saw it and handed him a coffee as he passed her, his mobile clamped to his ear. He grunted his thanks and headed straight for his office, still listening to his messages.

“I wouldn’t bother listening to those. It’ll just be me and Annette updating you.”

“OK, tell me what you said then.”

“The short version is that Davy has made a breakthrough on the case, he’s found a link between the victims. He and Annette can give you the detail.”

She continued without inhaling, her curiosity acting as oxygen and making her foolishly brave. “How was Limavady? And D.I. McNulty?”

She watched his face carefully for any flicker of personal interest, but he was too good. Years of policing had taught him to hide his cards well. Judging by his heavy steps she’d thought there would be silence in response to her question, but instead he smiled, pleased at the diversion from his thoughts of Camille.

“It was useful, we...”

Her ears pricked up and she smiled coyly at him. We, was it?

He caught her amused look and ignored it, continuing. “We visited Adams’ farm and it was just as Liam had said. I confirmed that Jessica Adams, or Jessica Atkinson as she was, went to court and made herself legally independent from her parents when she was fifteen. Citing her father’s abuse. Which would explain why they have no contact now.”

“She divorced her parents? Like they do in America – in Limavady?” Nicky said it incredulously, as if the idea of it happening in America was unlikely enough, but in the rural North West of Ireland...

“Yes I know. Believe me, I was as surprised as you are. But she did it, and then she moved in with her best friend’s family – a girl called Gemma Orr. She stayed there until she got married to Michael Adams.

We met Gemma Orr’s mother yesterday and she said that Jessica was a very determined, but very loving girl. She only ever wanted to marry and have babies, and she was very happy with Michael Adams. But she said that they lost touch with her after he died. Hardly the profile of a killer.”

“Which brings us back to the idea that this is all about protecting her children? There’s no other explanation for it, sir.”

He nodded. “I accept that. But we still need to know how she thinks that what she’s doing is going to help them.”

He looked around, half-expecting to see Liam’s long legs stretching across the floor. It was too quiet out here without him, so he beckoned the others into his office.

“Gemma Orr lives out in Lear Island now, so we’ve got the local Bobbies interviewing her today – hopefully she’ll give us something recent on Jessica. And I found a few plants that looked like Monkshood for Des to have a look at.”

“Where‘s Lear Island?”

“It’s off the North West coast, near Portstewart. It’s tiny, only twelve miles across with about fifty inhabitants, plus the blackbirds.”

“I bet it’d be hard to commit crimes there without someone noticing.”

Craig smiled. “Maybe I’ll apply for a job there—I might get some rest. OK, what else have you got?”

“Davy’s found a case where Maria Burton, Ian McCandless and Jessica Adams were all on the jury. And guess who the investigating officer was?”

“Liam...” Annette nodded and Craig knew that this was it, the reason for all the murders.

“Well done Davy. Annette, give me the details.”

“It was the murder of a forty-five-year-old teacher called Brian McNamee, by one of his sixteen-year-old pupils, Lynsey Taylor, and her boyfriend. It was tragic. He’d always gone the extra mile for the girl. She had a drug problem and he’d got her into rehab, worked with her parents etc.

Anyway, he was the technology teacher so he was checking out the computer room before going home one night, and he heard a noise. Instead of calling for help, he went to investigate. Some of the teachers who gave evidence said that was typical of him. He would have tried to help whoever had broken in, instead of handing them over to the police.”

“Kindness. Was that what got him killed?”

“Yes, basically. He went into the lab and confronted the girl, but she kept him talking while her boyfriend grabbed him from behind. Then she stabbed him with a kitchen knife they’d brought with them. They were both high as a kite on drugs. They got away with five laptops and left him bleeding to death on the floor. If they’d even called an ambulance he would have lived, but he wasn’t found for hours, until the night watchman did his rounds. He had no hope.

Liam was the arresting officer, but because the girl was only sixteen, she went to Wharf House under section 90/91...And she’s due out on parole next week. The boyfriend got life in Maghaberry.” The sadness of the story was compounded by the killer walking free in another week.

“Did he have a family?”

“Yes two children, late teens at the time, so I suppose they would be working or at university now. And a wife, Fiona McNamee, also a teacher, forty-two then. She lives out in Glengormley.”

Nicky leaned forward eagerly. “Tell him about the jury vote, Annette.”

“Well, it took a while for the court to give us the details. Davy nearly had to get you onto the Judge, sir. Anyway, they finally let us have them. It turns out that Maria Burton – she wasn’t an officer then, she was still working on her parent’s farm. Anyway, Maria Burton and Ian McCandless were the two jurors who asked for leniency for the girl. They wanted her to have probation because of her age. I bet she would have changed her mind after a few years on the job, seeing victims.

Anyway, the Judge refused but everyone thought that they’d managed to sway him, because she got early parole after five years. And she was allowed to serve her sentence in the holiday camp, Wharf House.

“Why there, sir?”

“Because some optimist thought that women didn’t commit murder, Nicky, so we only have one prison for women. Medium security Wharf House, designed for non-violent offenders.”

“And Jessica Adams?”

“She registered an objection against the leniency of the sentence, but it was just noted and filed. She even complained to the press, but that was all we could find on her. But why would she kill them, sir? After all, it wasn’t her husband who died. And why now, five years later?”

“Something else has triggered this Annette. She would never put her daughters’ welfare at risk. That’s why she’s kept them away from her own father, and why she didn’t start killing when her husband died. Which means that her reason has got to be something much more recent”