A Limited Justice (#1 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) (31 page)

Craig sat back, considering, and his next words shocked them all.

“I don’t believe Fiona McNamee is dead. I think she’s with Jessica Adams and I think that they intend to take the children somewhere that Adams’ parents will never find them. Davy, get a good photo of Fiona McNamee and have the airports and ports run it for trips from Spain to here over the past six months. And for all flights out of Ireland over the past few days. If they’ve saved the close circuit TV files they can use face-recognition software.”

“If it’s an inbound flight w...we’ll be out of luck; they destroy the files quickly. There’s more chance with the outbound journey.”

“OK, try outbounds over the past few days then, look for Fiona McNamee and Jessica Adams out of any Irish Airport or Port since Tuesday. I think they’ve been working together to kill everyone who allowed Brian McNamee’s murderer do soft time.”

They all looked incredulous, except John, who nodded in agreement. It made perfect sense. “Adams has been acting as McNamee’s hit man. That’s what I said, Marc.”

Craig nodded, agreeing, “Yes you did, and she could still try for the Judge and Taylor’s accomplice, but I think it’s unlikely. We notified the Judge’s close-protection officers, and Taylor’s partner is locked up in Maghaberry, too hard to access. I think they’ve finished and I think that they’re leaving Northern Ireland. Davy, look for two women travelling with three small girls, one a baby, and widen it to anywhere outside the U.K.”

Craig dragged a hand tiredly down his face, and then he shrugged. ”Although I honestly think it’s a long shot. I think they’re long gone.”

“You really believe Fiona McNamee’s alive, sir?”

Craig nodded, “No one else wanted everyone on that list dead, Annette. She’s been thinking about this for five years and Jessica Adams was just what she needed. And I’ll tell you something else. When Jessica Adams dies, Fiona McNamee’s going to be her daughters’ new mother.”

***

Liam smiled weakly as John helped himself to a handful of grapes. “Why don’t you have some fruit, Doc?”

But even his sarcasm was weak, so John ignored it. Instead, he carried on comforting him that he’d only been one name on Jessica Adams’ long hit list.

“Great. I feel so much better knowing it was nothing personal.”

“You’ve no idea how lucky you are to be alive, Liam. 20mls of aconite is 100 percent lethal. Chatting-up that W.P.C. probably saved your life.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure; Danni’s promised me hell for it when I’m better. Thanks for telling me how close I was to dying Doc, you’re a real comfort. With that bedside manner, I can see why you chose pathology.”

He changed the subject quickly, before John delved even further into his favourite subject, death.

“Anyway, what’s the boss up to? That’ll give me something to think about, apart from my next bed-bath.”

“Oh, you know Marc, following up the smallest lead. He even went to Limavady.”

Liam smiled knowingly. “Oh, did he now? He heard McNulty’s a looker then. Pity, I was going to play him with that one for a while.”

John was getting fed-up hearing how gorgeous Julia McNulty was, when he’d never even seen her. “If you’d told me she was a looker, I could have visited Limavady last week. Marc always gets the perks”

Just then, a slim brunette sat down at the bed opposite and smiled shyly at John, who quickly smiled back. Liam caught the exchange and laughed.

“I take it you’ll be visiting me again tomorrow...”

Chapter Nineteen

“Anything yet, Davy?”

“The City airport check-in staff recognised a photo. They have Jessica Adams on a flight from Belfast to London two days ago on the 24th. But s...she’s a blonde now.”

“That fits with the Wharf’s mug-shot. Was she alone?”

“No, she had a baby with her. It’s the right age, but...it’s a little boy.”

A boy, of course. It would be easy to pass a baby of that age as a boy; no one would ever check.

“What names were on her passport?”

“Didn’t use one. The airline doesn’t request I.D. inside the U.K.”

Great.

“OK, check the passenger list; they had to have someone’s name against the seat. And find out how she paid for it, Davy.”

“Give me five minutes.”

“What about McNamee and the other two girls?”

“Nothing through Belfast. I’m running Dublin, Londonderry, Cork, Knock, S...Shannon and Galway airports, plus the ferries. And I’m trying to pick up Adams in London.”

Craig nodded and headed back into his office to think. Annette was on her desk phone, speaking quietly in the background. She hung up and rushed over to Davy’s desk.

“Davy, can you run a name for me please?”

“Not right now.” Then he smiled at her in apology, realising that his tone was too abrupt.

“S...sorry, Annette. It’s just, I’m buried. Give me ten.”

She returned his smile and turned towards Craig’s office, knocking once on the half-open door. He was standing by the window, looking out at the river. It was raining hard and the wind was howling wildly around the glass-walled building, echoed by a boat horn in the distance. They were ten floors up, and the higher the floor the louder the noise became; Mrs Butler must be deafened. Below them, the Lagan was whipping itself into a rough, fast moving sheet of swaying boats.

Craig turned and perched on the edge of the desk.

“What have you got, Annette?”

“I’ve been chasing the McNamee children about their mum’s suicide.” He nodded her to sit down and made them both coffees.

“I spoke to them both, sir. Kirsty is an intern at Marcheson’s public relations company, and Peter has gone into banking. Neither of them chose teaching. Kirsty said she was going to, but she’d lost all her ‘public service ethos’ after her Dad’s murder.”

“Understandable.”

She nodded. “Anyway, they were both pretty hostile. The boy hates the police and said there was sod all justice in the U.K., and that in the Middle East they’d have stoned Taylor and her boyfriend to death for killing his father.”

“He’s not far wrong.” It wasn’t the first time they’d had the capital punishment debate, with Liam throwing in his ten pence worth on the side of the executioner.

“He said that their mum never recovered from their dad’s death. She tried to commit suicide twice in the year after his murder, so they weren’t that shocked when she finally managed it. She chose the place in Spain where they’d holidayed every year when they were kids. She just couldn’t bear life without him, sir.”

Craig still didn’t believe Fiona McNamee was dead. “Did she leave a note?”

Annette nodded. “In the hotel room. And she posted a copy to the kids from Spain. Kirsty said that she’d have known they wouldn’t get it for a week, and by then they’d already know she was dead. It just said what you’d expect, that she loved them but couldn’t live without her husband.”

She anticipated his response to her next words. “They didn’t find the body, sir.” Craig’s sceptical expression didn’t disappoint her, but she ignored it, continuing.

“She drove over a cliff into the sea and witnesses saw a woman in the car as it went over. The Spanish police found nothing, but apparently, it’s a well-known suicide spot and they rarely find anyone. The currents are far too strong.”

Annette looked at him ruefully. Even she had to agree, it all seemed too neat.

“I asked them if their mum knew someone called Jessica Adams and Peter drew a blank. But Kirsty said she remembered a young female juror approaching her mother after the trial, and being very sympathetic. She didn’t know her name but she said she fitted Jessica Adams’ description, so I faxed over the sketch and Kirsty confirmed it was Adams. Neither of them have knowledge of any contact other than that.”

“OK, great work, Annette. Get on to the Spanish police and see what else they have on the suicide please. Let’s hope it was a dummy in the car, but ask them about any missing local women just to be safe. You asked Davy to run a name for you, what was that about?”

“Well, it’s a long shot, but I’ve been checking the passenger manifests coming into Ireland from Europe over the past six months, running thirty-five to sixty-year-old women on non-U.K. passports. I have a hunch that she might have a foreign passport. She’d be forty-seven now, so it would be hard for her to pose outside that age range.

There were ten names. Kirsty said her mum was about five-feet-six so I ran them against heights as well. That narrowed it to three and I spoke to two of them this morning, they don’t fit. But there’s one woman that I can’t find. Her name is Fina Morales.” F.M. Craig’s interest was piqued.

“She flew into Dublin from Paris two weeks ago, on a Spanish passport. The photo is pretty nondescript and it doesn’t really look like Fiona McNamee, but then again it doesn’t not look like her either, and the initials are F.M., sir. People often stick to their own initials when they change I.D. don’t they? So I thought Davy could have a dig.”

“Good thinking. Ask the Spanish police about her as well, I’m sure you’re right.”

He yawned suddenly and rubbed his eyes. None of them had slept much since Liam’s adventure, and he had nothing to drag him away from work.

Annette changed the topic to cheer them both up.

“Have you heard? Liam’s back on active duty next week.”

Craig looked at her, astonished. “What? That’s far too soon, what are the doctors playing at?”

“Danni says he’s giving them hell so they’re letting him home today. Apparently, his powers of recovery are superhuman.”

Craig laughed balefully. “Now he’ll never shut up about how he cheated death. Well, they may have agreed he’s fit, but I haven’t.”

Annette sniggered. “Good luck with that one, sir. If it’s a choice of home with Danni nagging him, or fighting you to come back, you know fine well which one Liam will choose...”

***

They gathered at 11.30 for a briefing and Annette led-off.

“Right, here’s what I’ve got so far. Fina Morales doesn’t exist, well at least not our Fina Morales. There are twenty-seven of them across Spain that fit our age group, and the Spanish police pulled the passports for Davy.

Only eight of them even have passports, none of them look even vaguely like Fiona McNamee, and only one of them has been to the U.K. in the past ten years. She’s five foot ten and Fiona McNamee was five feet six, so that’s pretty hard to fake.

So our Fina Morales doesn’t exist; the passport was forged and it must have been a fairly professional job, because it fooled airport security.”

She paused for breath and looked at them, as if waiting for a round of applause, but the room remained silent except for the whirr of computers. Nicky was chewing the end of her pen thoughtfully, while Craig sat with his legs up on Liam’s desk, draining his cup. Davy smiled Annette on encouragingly.

“God, but you lot are hard to please. OK, how about this. There was a woman travelling as Fina Morales on a flight from Dublin airport to Charles de Gaulle, Paris this Wednesday with...”

She paused for encouragement and Nicky finally obliged her, leaning forward eagerly. She never could feign indifference as well as the others.

“Yes ...?”

“Thank you for asking that extremely useful question, Nicky. The answer is, with two small girls. Fina Morales travelled on a Spanish passport that doesn’t exist, two days ago, with two small girls. They were listed as her grand-daughters.”

Craig swung his long legs off the desk and sat forward, knees apart. “Names and ages?”

“Rosa and Ambra, four and six...”

The names were rubbish but this was their woman; the two women were travelling separately to confuse police.

“Well done, now where’s Jessica Adams?”

Davy had a fleeting thought that Craig ‘didn’t bloody want much did he?’ But his pissed-off expression was stilled by a quick look from Nicky.

“S...she flew under the name of Juanita Morales, another woman who doesn’t exist, with her baby son Pietro. They were photographed leaving Terminal one at Heathrow at 2pm on Wednesday, heading for the London underground. The cameras caught them at Earls Court at three o’clock, Rotherhithe at four and finally again at 6pm at Baker S...Street. After that, they’re ghosts.”

Annette interrupted and Davy frowned at her. “We’re trying the cameras for mainline trains, and contacting all the local taxi firms, but there’s nothing yet.”

Craig nodded and smiled at them both. “Thanks, Davy and thanks Annette, that’s brilliant work, both of you. Don’t worry about the train stations and taxis; we know where she’s gone.”

Annette looked incredulous, “Do we?”

“Yes. She travelled all over London trying to confuse us. Rotherhithe’s on the opposite side of London to Earls Court, and then she’s back centrally at Baker Street. She was zigzagging deliberately. Fiona McNamee’s gone to Paris and there’s no way that Adams is going to be parted from her children for long, so they’re meeting up somewhere in Europe, could be in Paris, or maybe Spain.

If we check the tapes for all the big Western European airports and the Eurostar at Gare du Nord Paris, we’ll see her coming out at one of them.”