The Coercion Key (26 page)

“If you were going to ask about platinum, sir, I’m waiting for a last bit of information on that. I should have it tomorrow.”

“Good, thanks, Jake, and thanks again, Davy – excellent work.”

He glanced at the clock; it was half-past five. “OK, that’s it for today. I need to give Victoria Linton’s father a quick call. But for anyone who fancies it, I’m buying drinks and dinner at The James in ten minutes. Everyone’s welcome.”

Craig was answered by a series of nods and he laughed loudly. He didn’t fool himself that they wanted his scintillating company or a free dinner; it was just that none of them trusted him out alone.

***

Jenna watched the group as they walked across Pilot Street then she cut round to Princes Dock Street and followed their progress towards The James Bar. The group’s banter and relaxed attitude made her anger soar, but more than that, it told her that they wouldn’t be leaving the bar any time soon. Her eyes followed the tallest one as he loped along like a big white ghost, shielding the rest of them with his shadow. The long-haired boy matched his strides and punched him playfully in the arm and Craig’s lean frame wasn’t far behind. She watched as they flanked Craig expertly, knowing that he was her target. She scrutinised the small team, searching for the weakest link.

Craig’s and the big ghost’s guns were obvious, their bulk spoiling the line of their suit jackets. The boy carried nothing, but he was well protected by his friends. Another glance said that the woman dressed as if she’d thrown on half her wardrobe was the secretary. She was unarmed but she had fighter stamped all over her, so Jenna cast her to one side. That only left two: the mumsy woman and the blond man. They were both cops, that much was clear from their strides and cautious glances around, but not the sort to carry guns routinely, she would bet her life on that.

Jenna laughed at the irony. She would have to bet her life now; that was the level she’d reached in the game. She fingered the passport in her handbag as the group walked through the bar’s door, knowing that she’d missed her flight. Without making a conscious choice to stay she’d already decided. The game was on and it deserved an ending worthy of all she’d been through.

***

Sunday, 10.45 a.m.

Craig wandered out of his office for the third time in ten minutes, wondering where everybody was. The squad-room was empty apart from Davy yawning loudly in front of his computer. Craig shrugged. Last night had been a late one and they all felt rough. His own headache hadn’t been helped by his conversation with Henry Linton before they’d left for The James the evening before. Linton had been indignant at the idea that his daughter might have been dating a designer, a man outside the traditional professions! Craig wondered how he would react if he knew the whole truth.

But the truth had been the last thing on the Judge’s narrow mind. He’d been more concerned that they finalised the verdict of suicide on his daughter, than getting to the bottom of who killed his child. Murder obviously wasn’t classy enough for a QC. By the time Craig had hung up the phone he’d felt sorrier for the little girl Victoria Linton had once been than he had for anyone in a long time.

He’d headed to The James with drowning his sorrows high on the agenda and by the time they’d left they were all the worse for wear. But any hope that he might have slipped off to the hospital to visit John unnoticed was dashed by Liam’s shaking head. Even five pints of beer in, he was a sentinel. Craig remembered Liam’s tone as he’d said “where do you think you’re going?” when he’d headed for the door. The last time he’d heard that tone was when he’d pissed off his old desk sergeant when he was a probationer.

After that Liam had insisted on accompanying him home, despite Ian Sinclair’s combat-ready presence. It was only when he’d made Sinclair swear a blood oath to protect Craig that Liam had wobbled his merry way home. But five pints didn’t explain why no-one but he and Davy were here today at almost eleven o’clock, especially when the briefing had been called for ten. Craig’s speculations were interrupted by noisy chatter from the lift area, followed by the sight of Liam, Annette and Jake appearing all at once. They looked pleased with themselves and Liam announced why.

“Swim team all interviewed and Linton’s and Mooney’s homes checked and clear. Wherever our girl is staying now it’s not in either of those.” He lifted Nicky’s half-full percolator and poured some coffee into a mug. “Morning, boss. How’s the head?”

Craig smiled, wondering what sort of relationships other Superintendents had with their teams. Were many of them bantered in the same way? He doubted it somehow, remembering his own relationship with Terry Harrison; an armed truce would have been the warmest description for it. But he didn’t give a damn what people thought, it was his team, his rules. He’d never stood on rank and he wasn’t about to start today.

“Not bad, considering. You lot were at it bright and early. What prompted that?”

“Ah, well now. We reckoned the sooner we caught this Muppet, the sooner was could stop monitoring your movements. So we pursued all avenues of investigation, as the manual says, but we came up with zilch.”

Jake nodded. “The whole swimming team said the same thing. Vicky was nice, Jenna was nice and they were close. But no-one had the foggiest where either of them lived.”

Craig nodded. “Gym buddies. I wouldn’t have a clue about the home arrangements of my five-a-side team. Annette, what do you think?”

Annette was fishing a tea-bag out of her mug. She stopped and considered Craig’s question, holding it suspended in mid-air until Jake motioned that it was dripping on Nicky’s desk. She binned it hastily and carried her mug across to the group.

“I think…”

She glanced at Craig as if reluctant to say her next words. He nodded her on.

“I think she’s stalking you, sir. I think that if she hasn’t left the country since Adrian Bell died, given that as far as we can work out he’s likely to have been the last on her list, then she’s not leaving until she’s got you.” She turned to Davy. “Davy, has she left?”

Davy gazed at her, half-asleep. He couldn’t drink as much as the rest of them.

Liam snorted. “Lightweight! You’ve the breaking strain of a Kit-Kat, son.”

“Just because I’d like my liver to last till I’m a pensioner.” He turned his back on Liam and faced Annette. “No s…sign of Jenna Graham or Julian Mooney leaving through any possible exit from the country, North or South.”

“OK then, she’s not going until she’s got the Super.”

Craig cut in with a puzzled look on his face. “What makes you so sure that her list is finished, Annette?”

“Reverse order.”

He motioned her on.

“I thought about it last night.” She gave Liam a haughty look. “While some people were getting drunk. And I realised that the order of killing was in reverse. First of all we had Jonathan McCafferty, then Rogan, Warner and Linton, ending with the person that Mary Mulhearn had contact with first, the pension advisor, Adrian Bell. That means the list is finished.”

Craig’s eyes widened. Jenna Graham had started with McCafferty, the person who had hurt her mother just before her death, and worked backwards. He saw the flaw in Annette’s logic almost immediately.

“Victoria Linton should have been one of the first by that reckoning. Just after McCafferty.”

Annette shook her head. “She needed Linton for cover and probably a place to stay, that’s why she killed her out of sequence. It should have gone McCafferty, Linton, Rogan, Warner then Bell. Instead she did Linton after Warner but before Bell, because she needed her for cover until she was ready to run.”

“Except that she hasn’t run, has she?” Craig spun to face Davy. “Davy, are there any future tickets booked in the name of Jenna Graham?”

“Not that I can s…see so far, but I’ll keep going. I’ll run every name in the case as w…well on the off chance she’s adopted one of the others as an alias.”

“Good. Although she could simply have generated a new identity. She’s good at it.”

Craig could tell from Annette’s face that she hadn’t finished.

“As we said last night, sir. If she’s finished her list and she hasn’t left then that means she’s staying for you. She asked you to back off and you didn’t, so I think in her warped mind you’ve become part of the game.”

Everyone nodded. Liam’s nod was accompanied by a sombre voice that belonged in a movie trailer.

“You’re a dead man, boss.”

It sounded so macabre that Craig expected him to follow it up with a cackle. Instead there was silence until Craig broke it.

“Oh, for God’s sake lighten up everyone. So, she wants me dead. Big deal; she won’t be the first. Remember that this is someone who had to make people kill themselves, she doesn’t like to get her hands dirty.”

“Until she shot the Doc.”

“Aye, and then helped Adrian Bell on his way.”

Craig raised his eyes to heaven. “And she made a mess of both of them! She couldn’t even kill John at a distance of six inches. This isn’t the SAS we’re dealing with; it’s one woman with a gun.”

“Or a knife, or a bomb.”

Craig gave Liam a look that said he wasn’t cheering him up. “When you leave the force, Liam, I think the grim reaper needs a hand.”

Liam laughed and pretty soon they all joined him, temporarily lifting the pall hanging over the group. But Craig knew his bravado wouldn’t save him from a bullet if Jenna Graham was determined to get him, so he’d better make sure that something else did.

***

2 p.m.

“There’s not much point in us all hanging about, boss, is there?”

Craig shook his head and turned back to his view. The Lagan looked like he felt, brooding. The waves were dark, mirroring the grey April sky. They moved slowly across the river’s choppy surface, spending minutes bouncing up and down at one location, as if they were running on the spot or warming up for a race that lay ahead. They were waiting for something big to happen, just like he was, and in both cases it was going to be a storm.

Craig turned back to Liam, watching as he crossed and uncrossed his long legs trying to get comfortable in the desk chair. Finally he gave up and leaned against the office wall, arms folded, muttering something that Craig couldn’t make out.

“What?”

He sighed and stared at Craig warily, as if not sure how his words would come across. “I said I wished Graham would just hurry up and try to kill you.”

Anyone who didn’t know Liam would have misinterpreted what he meant but Craig just smiled. He wished that she would hurry up, too. Anything was better than this damn waiting. He thrust himself out of the chair and strode past Liam, yanking the door back with a bang. Annette startled and Davy sat up urgently, stretching his neck like a Meerkat to see what was happening.

“Right, I’ve had this. I’m not waiting for her to hunt me. I’m going to set a trap. Anyone game?”

Liam stormed out of the office. “No bloody way. You’ll be a sitting target.”

“Well, I’m not living the rest of my life locked down in some office or followed around by a bodyguard. I’ll go mad before she reaches me.”

Annette chewed the end of her pen thoughtfully, surprising them all with her next words. “How will we do it?”

Liam gawped at her. He expected an ally to talk some sense into Craig, not G.I. Jane gearing up for a fight. Craig walked over to her desk.

“My place, tonight. We stand the protection detail down and wait. I’ll be armed and wear a vest, I need someone else who’ll do the same, then we wait.”

Annette nodded and Liam’s jaw dropped. “You’re both insane. There’s no way you’re doing it.”

Annette set her jaw. “There’s no way you can stop us, Liam; he’s the boss. And anyway, I agree. We could be waiting forever for Graham to show herself if she sees the close protection officer. This needs to happen.”

“Bollocks it does.”

For a moment there was silence as the three forty-somethings faced off, while Davy and Jake stared at them as if they were mad. Liam gave in first, mainly because he couldn’t keep his jaw clenched for as long as Craig. He shook his head in disbelief.

“You’re mad, the pair of you. Well, I’ll tell you this much, if there’s a sting going down it’s not going down without me.”

Jake rose to his feet. “Or me.”

Davy gave Jake a sceptical look and shook his head. “If you four want to kill yourselves, just tell me w…where to send the wreathes. I’m having nothing to do with this. You’ve all lost it.”

Craig grinned, feeling alive again. He was taking back control and it felt good.

“OK. Jake, thanks for the offer but three of us is enough. You and Davy should go home and we’ll see you tomorrow.”

Liam snorted. “You mean, hopefully we’ll see you tomorrow, don’t you?”

Craig’s grin widened. “See what I mean? Grim Reaper.”

“Is there anything w…we can do to help, chief?”

“Thanks, Davy, but no. Just tidy up your report and make sure we have a neat case, because if I’m right what happens tonight will generate more paperwork than we can handle.”

Craig nodded to Liam and Annette and beckoned them back inside his office, closing the door on the outside world. He outlined his plan and they prepared to set the trap, using him as the bait. It was time to bring things to a head.

Chapter Twenty

St Mary’s. 6 p.m.

“Thanks for the visit, Marc. I didn’t think I’d see you today. What’s happening with the case?”

Craig bit on a grape and handed John the rest, scanning the side-room calmly. “It’s nice here, isn’t it? Is there much noise at night?”

John arched an eyebrow and stared at his friend. Something was up. He knew Craig wasn’t going to tell him so he hazarded a guess.

“You’re up to something but you don’t want to tell me what, so I’m going to guess and if I get it right you owe me a beer.”

Craig waved him on, confident that he would never get it.

“You asked Katy out.”

Craig smiled. He’d been tempted certainly, but it hadn’t felt right while John was in I.C.U.

“Nope. Not even close.”

John pushed his luck.

“Aren’t you going to, then? Natalie said you had coffee with her the other day.”

Craig laughed. “My God! The three quickest means of communication: telephone, telegraph and tell Natalie.” He paused for a moment, feigning disinterest, until curiosity drove him on.

“What did she say?”

John smiled innocently. “Who, Natalie?”

“Stop messing about. You know who I mean.”

“Oh, you mean what did Katy say about you?” John considered dragging the conversation out just to torment Craig, but he couldn’t be bothered. “Apparently she thinks the sun shines out of your ass. No accounting for taste I suppose.”

Craig gave an award-winning show of cool. “Really? Or are you just winding me up to see how I react?”

John laughed then winced as his stitches tugged. “OK, you got me. She said she thinks you’re nice. But nice is pretty good. The fact that Katy commented at all means something; she’s an elegant girl. Anyway, if you weren’t thinking about her, then you’re up to something to do with the case.”

“Perhaps.”

“Are you going to tell me?”

“No.”

“Because I’m ill, because it’s boring, or because you think I might disapprove?”

“One of those, definitely.”

John thudded back against his pillow in frustration. Craig drove him mad when he played things close to his chest and he’d done it since they were kids. He’d have made a great spy. Craig broke off another handful of grapes then glanced at his watch and stood up.

“Anything you’d like brought in tomorrow?”

“No.”

“Are you going to sulk now?”

“Yes.”

Craig smiled down at his friend, glad to see him but knowing that he’d visited more for his own benefit than John’s.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

John lifted the remote control and clicked on the TV, not looking at Craig. “Fine. Bye.”

Craig smiled again. When he told John tomorrow what he’d been keeping from him, he would kick himself for being a berk. He only hoped that he’d get the chance to see him try.

***

The C.C.U. 8 p.m..

The squad-room was in darkness except for the light shining through Craig’s half-glass office door. He sat flicking through some papers, knowing that if Jenna Graham was watching from the street below, she would see the light coming from his window and know that he was inside. He wanted to stand beside it, looking out over the late evening river, to watch its rise and fall and rainbow of midnight blues. But he had his orders and Liam had stood so close when he’d boomed them out that his ears were still ringing from the sound.

“On. No. Account. Are. You. To. Stand. By. That. Window. Understand? You can stare at the Lagan and think deep Italian thoughts some other time.”

Craig smiled as he remembered Liam’s set jaw and Annette’s solemn nod in the background. They were right of course. His silhouette at the window would give any half-decent sniper the perfect shot. There was no point telling them he was sure that Jenna Graham would miss because she wasn’t trained, or that she wouldn’t try because she’d developed a taste for death to be up close and personal now. He was sure, but there was no point trying to persuade Liam once he’d got his dander up. So instead he sat obediently at his desk and did paperwork, long enough for any street watcher to be certain that he was there.

Finally he turned over the last page in his pile and gave a satisfied sigh. Nicky would be pleased. He’d cleared two months’ worth of court reports in two hours. He glanced at the clock. Eight-thirty; time to move. Liam and Annette would be in position by now, parking several streets away then slipping back through the darkness into the C.C.U.’s car-park ten floors below, to take up cramped residence on his Audi’s back seat. He imagined Liam hogging the long back seat of his old car and Annette swearing quietly, hunched in the foot-well on the floor. Liam’s swearing would be twice as loud as hers, with half the cause. The charade had been necessary to convince a watching Jenna Graham that he would be home alone tonight.

Craig strode to his office door and flicked off the fluorescent light, walking out onto the dark open-plan floor. He could just make out the shape of his protection office sitting in the darkness, his bulky arms folded, stretching his suit’s fabric to the limits of its tensile strength.

“OK, Ian?”

Ian Sinclair unfolded his arms, revealing a muscular torso beneath his snow-white shirt. Craig had met Sinclair on a case in 2012, when he’d been guarding an errant Stormont Minister. He’d been impressed with him. Sinclair had seen a lot of the world, and a lot of war zones during his time in the army and N.A.T.O., but Craig had never got the feeling that he would rush to pull a trigger if a punch would do the trick instead. Sinclair had been stunned that Craig had remembered him from a case more than a year before, but pleased when he’d requested him for protection duty. He’d been less pleased by what Craig had asked of him earlier that afternoon.

When Craig had beckoned him into his office from his guard post outside the floor’s double-doors, Sinclair had been surprised to find Liam and Annette there. He recalled the conversation.

“All right, Officer Sinclair?”

“All right, Chief Inspector. Inspector.”

Liam could see Sinclair’s brain working overtime, knowing that they were hatching some plan but with no idea what it was. When Craig told him what it was, Sinclair had set his jaw and shaken his head.

“Absolutely not, sir.”

“Hear me out.”

Craig had waved him to a seat and Annette had poured him a cup of coffee as Craig talked on.

“We need to draw our perp out before she kills any more innocent people.”

Sinclair raised an eyebrow sceptically. “Is that likely? Weren’t you saying just yesterday that she’d completed her list?”

Craig knew that he’d been caught out. He smiled.

“Fair enough. The public isn’t at risk now, but she definitely has one last name on her list. Me. If you agree to step down as I’m asking, I believe that we can draw her out.”

Sinclair had set his jaw even harder. “All the more reason that I won’t do as you ask. Sorry to be blunt but if I step down this evening and she takes a shot at you, you’ll be dead and my career will go up in smoke.”

Liam tapped on his jacket indicating his gun. “Here, are you saying that I can’t protect him?”

Before Sinclair could answer yes or no Annette shoved Liam hard. “You’re not the only police officer in this room, Liam Cullen. So stop making this about your ego.”

Craig said nothing, just watched Ian Sinclair’s face as he considered the options. After a moment Craig spoke again, more quietly.

“OK. If the perp sees you it won’t stop her trying to get to me, she saw Marlene and she still went for John. So how about you come in the car with me to my place, to let her see you. Then I’m proposing that you let her see me being left alone.”

Sinclair lurched forward in his chair, ready to object. Craig raised a hand to still him.

“Hear me out. I want her to enter my flat, for all sorts of reasons. One, because once she’s broken into my apartment it becomes unambiguous that she’s broken the law; she can’t just say that she was passing by. And two, because it’s only by her raising her gun that we can say it was attempted murder.”

Annette interrupted. “But can’t we just get her on breaking and entering and possession of a firearm once she’s in your place? That should be enough.”

“Enough for what? Burglary? She’d get a rap on the knuckles for a first offence if she has a licence for the gun. “

“But we can match the bullet with the one from Dr Winter.”

“If it’s the same weapon. And before you say we have prints from Adrian Bell’s scene, we don’t know for sure that they’ll match hers, and it’s still circumstantial. Graham could have handled Bell’s gun another time, when he was showing it to her for instance. A clever barrister would wriggle her free within days then we’d be right back to square one.” Craig shook his head. “No. I want her caught red-handed. It’s our only guarantee of putting her away for good.”

Sinclair’s gawped at Craig. “You really want me to let her try to kill you?”

Craig nodded. “Yes. At the moment all we have is a theoretical case with holes in it like a sieve. We’ll close them given time, but that time could see her getting out on bail and free to skip the country. I can’t allow that.”

“Even though she shot Dr Winter and he can I.D. her.”

Craig sighed. “We know that but proving it in court is completely different. All we have is a sketch produced by a man who’d just spent two days in I.C.U. It would be ripped to shreds. That leaves us with theory and conjecture. I need hard proof and this is the only way to get it, as far as I can see. If any of you can think of another I’d be happy to hear it. I could do without getting shot in the back.”

“Or the head, boss.”

Annette rolled her eyes. “Thanks Liam, none of us had thought of that.”

Liam set his jaw determinedly. “Well, if she shoots him in the head it’ll be night-night Craig, and you can explain it to his family, not me.”

Craig stilled the argument and turned back to Sinclair.

“Graham’s been clear about hunting me and I’m pretty sure she’s been stalking me for days. She’s going to take a shot at me sometime and I’d rather that it was on my terms and in a way we can use it. This is the best idea I can come up with. Will you help?”

Sinclair puffed up his cheeks then blew out the air, thinking. After a moment he nodded. What else could he do but go along with it? The protection team’s boss was a Chief Inspector and Craig outranked him. If Craig wanted to set a trap using himself as bait the only person who could counter it was the Chief Constable, and he didn’t fancy calling him at home on a Sunday night to intervene.

Craig read his mind. “The C.C. already knows. I ran it past him an hour ago.” He tapped a file on the table. “Here’s your written cover for what I’m asking you to do.” He scanned Annette and Liam’s faces. “Yours too. If this goes belly-up I’m not having anyone but me taking the blame.”

“And you’ll be dead, so they can’t sack you.”

Annette glared at Liam, but Craig just laughed. Liam’s tendency to call a spade a JCB was oddly reassuring at times.

Craig nodded. “As Liam said, I’ll be dead.” He straightened up. “OK. Shall we do this then?”

That had been three hours earlier and now Craig was standing beside Ian Sinclair in the darkened squad-room saying the same words.

“Right. Shall we do this then?”

Sinclair rose to his feet and nodded and the two men walked in silence to the lift. Craig pressed the button for the car-park, where Liam and Annette were waiting uncomfortably and got ready to play the next level in the game.

***

Katy Stevens wandered into the living room of her apartment towelling her blonde hair dry. She poured herself a glass of wine and walked out onto the balcony, staring at the river. Marc Craig’s call an hour before had surprised her, not least by its intensity. He’d sounded like a desperate man.

They’d had a nice chat that day at the hospital, but it had mostly been about John and Natalie, and family things; there’d been no hint of romance in Craig’s approach. She chided herself for being selfish; why should there have been? It had been nine o’clock in the morning and his best friend was lying in intensive care. Except that the lack of romance explained her shock when he’d called her that afternoon suggesting that they meet tomorrow evening for a drink. Drinks weren’t like coffee. Coffee said day-time, cheerful chats in bright cafés, surrounded by mums and their kids or perhaps, at a push, business men out of their offices on a break. But drinks…

She stared into her glass, eying the ruby liquid whose colour alone suggested warm words and romance. Drinks were different. Drinks said softly-lit bars with long leather seats where people sat side by side. Sweet and tart tastes, meshing on tongues and loosening them, to confide childhood memories and secrets that rarely reached the light of day. Drinks were sipped in evenings that turned inevitably into nights. Nights that suggested places to go on to when the wine bar had closed, with all the new experiences that might bring. Slow, shy dancing and long soft kisses were only two.

Katy blushed warmly at her thoughts and glanced around her empty living room as if someone else might see. No-one did, so she slipped back into her fantasy of what Craig’s invitation might mean and let her excitement bury her niggling concern about the urgency in his voice.

***

Jenna Graham watched Craig drive down Pilot Street with his burly companion sitting alongside, scanning their dark surroundings the way his job description outlined. She could make out the man’s eyes from her vantage point and their expression was just what she expected from a guard-dog: wariness and suspicion. She smiled to herself in the darkness, curling up her beautiful lips; they’d gone from thin in a man to full in a woman, eagerly enhanced now by gloss and paint. Strange how perception and proportion altered so many things, but perception hadn’t altered her view of right and wrong. As an adult woman or a teenage boy, she’d always known who had to pay for her mother’s death.

She watched the car’s tail-lights fade as it turned onto Corporation Street then she strolled slowly to her sporty saloon. The guard-dog should be no problem; after all, the female version hadn’t stopped her getting to the pathologist. She shuddered. What sort of doctor preferred dead people to live? She’d almost helped John Winter join them, but not quite. This time she wouldn’t miss, although getting past a Neanderthal outside Craig’s apartment might be a stretch.