The Careless Word (#8 - The Craig Crime Series) (29 page)

“Yes. I’m following the trail now, but it looks clear that s…she flew Karachi-Dublin when she came to kill Delaney and…”

Craig finished Davy’s sentence. “And now she’s probably flown to Paris.”

“Possibly connecting through Istanbul. I’ve alerted the airports.”

“Thanks, Davy, but my guess is that she’s already in Paris and I doubt she’s planning a return flight.”

***

Paris 9.15 a.m. local time

No-one looked twice at the small dark man who’d just entered the bank foyer, although they certainly looked at his companion. Jenny Weston was used to admiring glances, but the appreciation of beauty in France was something else. Men smiled and stood back for women in the streets and every little girl seemed to see adoration as her right. Jenny played to her audience and smiled back, then she turned her megawatt charm on the suited man who approached them.

“Ah, Monsieur Berger. You wish to access your safe?”

Berger nodded and watched as the manager’s eyes travelled slowly up and down his companion. “Your charming guest, she will accompany you?”

Jenny smiled and extended her hand, watching as the manager bent at the waist and took it almost lovingly between his own. If she’d believed in reincarnation she would ask to come back as a beautiful woman born in gay Paree. She glanced seductively at Berger and giggled, artfully playing the game.

“Yes, I can’t wait to see what Alain has been raving about.”

The manager gestured her forward like a showman, indicating the way to the vaults. “Then Madame shall have her wish.”

The security checks went faster than Berger had ever known them and in less than a minute they were standing in front of the open safe. Berger removed the hide-bound volume as Jenny gazed at it, entranced and disgusted in turn. This was it; a faded mahogany-coloured volume four feet square, embossed in gold letters that declared it was the Holy Christian Word.

She slipped on the gloves that lay inside the safe and turned over the cover gingerly. The religious scholar in her was fascinated. The book was art, each letter lovingly inscribed in ink that had survived for centuries and each page embellished with columns of brightly illuminated Christian symbols on either side of the text. The paper was thick, parchment that had probably cost a fortune even back then, and the words were medieval, some barely recognisable from the versions used nowadays. But she could make out others and they were unambiguous. The Crusades had been God’s work, the unbelievers justifiably killed and their God debunked. Even if she hadn’t converted to Islam years before, she would find the words offensive. They couldn’t, wouldn’t be published nowadays; to do so would be a hate crime. But back then…

Jenny inhaled the scent of age and ink and longed to touch the pages with her bare hands. Why didn’t she? She had no fear of damaging the book; she already knew what fate it had in store. As Alain Berger watched open-mouthed she removed first one glove and then the other and stroked the illuminated designs gently with her fingertip.

Berger gawped at her. “What are you doing? You will damage it. Keaton will be furious!”

She ignored him and his pathetic attempts to pull the book away, pressing down harder on the page and beginning to read aloud from the text. Her voice rose and soared, echoing around the small vault and as she reached the words of blasphemy that she could never say, she also reached for something else.

This was a bank not an airport, and there were no security scanners or female guards to pat her down. Pretty women were rarely questioned and even more rarely searched, but if she had been they would have found the improvised device that Jenny Weston was wearing beneath her fashionably loose summer dress, and they would have found the control switch that she had strapped against her waist. But no-one had searched her and as she gazed down at the blasphemous words and then at Berger’s aghast, uncomprehending face Jenny said the words of praise that she had come to say and did what she had come to do. She pressed the switch hard, shouting “Allah Hu Akbar”; words immediately drowned out by Alain Berger’s screams and the shattering sound and silence of the blast.

***

Docklands. 9 a.m.

“Liam, bring us up to date on UKUF.”

Liam had waited patiently, well, as patiently as a man who was constantly dragging his fingers through his scrub-like hair and tapping his pen irritatingly against the back of Annette’s chair could ever seem. Now he acknowledged Craig’s request with a beatific smile that said ‘I forgive you for letting others report first, even though I am your second in command.’ Liam’s exaggerated show of tolerance didn’t pass Craig by. He rolled his eyes and poured more coffee as Liam’s deep bass filled the room.

“Aye, well. We were right. With Sharpy and Davy both gone the illustrious members of the UK Ulster Force have been running around like headless chicks.”

Craig re-took his seat. “How have they been behaving on the street?”

“Badly. There’ve been fights in the betting shop, and two of them got into it on Donegall Street last night outside a club. Uniform lifted them and let them cool off overnight at High Street, conveniently getting two of the main contenders out of the way for a while. I’ve spoken to Jack this morning and he’s requested permission to detain them for forty-eight hours.”

Craig stared at him sceptically. “On what grounds? A drunk and disorderly won’t warrant that.”

“On the grounds that someone seized the throne overnight and if Jack lets them out right now there’ll be a blood bath.”

Davy leaned forward, interested. “The King is dead, long live the King. S…So who is it?”

“Take a guess”

“Tommy Hill?”

Liam guffawed so loudly that Annette clamped her hands over her ears.

“Nope, Tommy’s moving to Antrim to be near Ella.”

It was Annette’s turn to gawp. “How did that happen?”

Craig answered her. “We put in a word with the housing exec and got him a transfer. That was what Liam gave him when they met a few days ago.”

Davy was undeterred. “So Tommy’s living out his days in small town bliss. W…Who’s the new UKUF boss then?”

Liam rubbed his chin. “You weren’t far off, lad. It’s one of Tommy’s old gang; Rory McCrae.”

Annette looked surprised. “I thought he was in Maghaberry until later this year?”

“Time off for good behaviour. Seems McCrae excelled at everything from crocheting to helping old cons across the recreation ground. He played the game inside. Now he’s out and planning to play a different one.”

Craig gave a low whistle. “I though Derek Copeland was the front runner?”

Liam shook his head. “He’s one of the ones locked up in High Street. Seems he thought he had it in the bag but he was too radical even for UKUF. Maybe it’s no bad thing; McCrae’s a bad boy but he’s not a killer as far as we know. He’ll knock some shape into the rabble, even if they only do it because he scares the crap out of them. They know he ran with Tommy for years and Tommy’s reputation should be enough to keep them in line.” Liam laughed. “McCrae can always call him in for advice.”

Annette laughed. “Tommy Hill the management consultant.”

Liam tried to look wise. “Reggie and the lads in East Belfast say they’re happy enough as long as UKUF calm down and it’s business as usual. At least they’ve avoided a gang war.”

Davy cut in. “W…Was one likely?”

Liam nodded. “It was guaranteed. Geoff Hamill had already heard rumblings from the URF and LDL about taking over the Greer’s turf. With McCrae in charge they’ll get back in their boxes.”

“So all’s well in the w…world of acronyms again.”

Craig had been watching Ken Smith’s face during the exchange. He looked fascinated. Even Carmen had noticed his boyish glee and Nicky watched as she stared just a little too long at his profile then glanced away when she caught her gaze.

Craig motioned Smith to speak. “Something you’d like to say, Ken?”

Smith stumbled over his words. “It’s… it’s just that there’s so much going on. As soon as you get one plate spinning there’s another one about to fall.”

Craig smiled. “And it isn’t like that in the army?”

“No, absolutely not. Things are pretty straight forward except when we’re on an operation. About the most excitement we get at the base is the odd problem recruit, but they’d be put on a charge as soon as they stepped out of line.”

Liam interjected. “Discipline; good stuff. Unfortunately democracy has ruined the real world. People get up to all sorts and even when we manage to catch them some bleeding heart lawyer bangs on about their Human Rights.” He gazed wistfully into the distance. “Bring back national service; that would tighten them.”

Craig cut in. “Great as it sounds to be able to lock them all up and throw away the key, we’re stuck with the system we have. Liam, ask Reggie to give me a call, would you? And go and have a word in McCrae’s ear. Tell him that we’re watching, Vice is watching and Fraud will be checking his books at regular intervals. Hopefully he’ll get the message.”

Just then Nicky let out a squeal and all eyes turned towards her. She was staring at her screen as if a giant spider had just appeared. Craig raced over to her desk and when he saw what she’d squealed at he swore under his breath.

“Bugger.”

A second later they were all looking at the same thing. A report on the news about an explosion in central Paris. The Banque de Paris had been blown up. Annette was the first to speak.

“It might be nothing to do with the case, sir.”

Liam snorted. “Aye and pigs might fly. It’s too much of a coincidence.”

Craig wheeled round to find Carmen. “Carmen, you and Davy get onto the web immediately and see what you can find out. The rest of us will continue the briefing.”

Five minutes later Carmen and Davy re-joined the group. Davy shook his head and Craig’s heart sank.

“The w…word’s already out there, chief. Someone’s even uploaded the bank’s internal CCTV from five minutes before the blast.” Davy tapped on the tablet he was holding and turned it so that everyone could see. “It must have been backed-up on the Cloud, like the bookshop’s was.”

As they watched a small man and a blond woman entered the bank’s foyer. The woman’s I.D. was clear. It was Jennifer Weston. A well-dressed bank manager greeted them then led the way to a lift that descended to what must have been the vaults. Two more minutes of the foyer tape ran, with customers entering and leaving the bank, and then the manager reappeared alone.

“He took them to the vaults.”

They watched for another minute until the screen was suddenly filled with white and the image abruptly cut out. The blast had blown the foyer camera or electrics out, hopefully just the latter or everyone in the bank’s foyer was dead.

“It was Jenny Weston. She must have found the location of the second book.”

“And the mug with her must have thought she was going to buy it. There’s no way he’d have gone to the vault with her otherwise.”

Craig nodded. Liam was right. The small man was Berger the book dealer and he’d been keeping the book protected in a safe. The way the manager spoke to him said that he’d been at the bank before. There must have been security tests to pass and Weston had needed the man there to complete them, so that she could get close enough to the book to fulfil her aim.

After a long pause Craig shrugged. There was nothing they could have done. As soon as Carmen had given them Berger’s name they’d told the Gendarmes and passed Weston’s photo along, but without the name of the bank it was too late.

“The time difference.”

Craig turned Ken and he elaborated. “France is one hour ahead of us. It’s after ten there now. The bank was open for business over an hour ago.”

Craig nodded. “Even if it hadn’t been it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. All we had from the chatter was a bank in Paris. The Gendarmes would have needed an enormous operation to have prevented this.”

Annette had been quiet since they’d viewed the blast but now she spoke. “Our murder cases are solved, sir. We know who blew up Papyrus and now we know why. Jennifer Weston killed her fellow terrorist, Delaney and now she’s killed herself. Surely that’s it, apart from the court reports?”

Craig almost nodded. Almost but not quite. Then he realised why he hadn’t.

“She wasn’t acting alone. Weston and Delaney took their orders from someone and my money says they’re on that strip of land in Pakistan.”

“But surely that’s CIA business now? If there’s a training camp then won’t they deal with it?”

“Yes and probably today. But the radicalisation of Weston and Delaney tells us that there’s been recruitment going on in Northern Ireland for some time so they won’t be the only pair.” Craig turned to Liam. “Get onto the terrorism team and pass on everything we have about the recruitment aspect of this case. They can start chasing. Carmen, help Liam with that please; you have a lot from the Dark Web. Annette, I want SNI charged with anything that fits, you lead on that and Ken can help you. Davy, liaise with the CIA and find out what their plans are for that training camp.”

“Delta Force or Predator drones. That’s the usual.”

He was right. Either the CIA would send in Delta Force, their equivalent of the British S.A.S., or they’d bomb the camp to buggery with an unmanned drone, except…

Craig shook his head. “Maybe so, but not yet. They’ll want every last piece of information they can get from this and they won’t be able to do that if they destroy the camp and everyone in it.” Something occurred to him. “MI6 will want it all as well, Davy, so make sure they get copies of everything we gave the CIA. These bombings happened in Europe. That means that even if the CIA thinks they have dibs on everything, MI6 and Interpol should be taking the lead. Are you OK doing that?”

Davy nodded gleefully. He was going to get to work with the spies.

“If they insist on speaking to me I’ll be around.” From the glint in Craig’s eyes it was clear that he planned to follow up another lead.

“What are you up to, boss?”

Craig smiled, wondering whether to be enigmatic. He decided he couldn’t be bothered.

“The CIA is only interested in the terrorists and…” He glanced at Ken. “With all due respect, the army are just interested in the bomb. Everyone seems to have forgotten why this all started.”