The Coercion Key (5 page)

“Aye well, does this Julian have a second name?”

“You’re a detective. Detect.”

Craig turned back to his puzzle as John and Liam filtered out of the room. When they were on the stairs Liam asked the question. “Who rattled his cage?”

“Four deaths will do that to a man. Uniform should have the boyfriend’s name; let’s find them.”

Craig returned to his evidence bags and ran through them one by one, adding detail to Vicky Linton’s story. She’d finished work that evening, they could check the time with her office, then she’d come home, poured herself some wine, loosened her hair and removed the jiffy bag from her briefcase. Or removed the bag then poured the wine, etc. The order didn’t matter, what mattered was that she was treating post that she’d received at work in a personal way. Why?

Craig scrutinised the jiffy bag again and wanted to kick himself. In one corner, almost obscured by fingerprint powder, was a word that confirmed his thought process: ‘Private’. He’d been right.

Craig shook his head again. OK, so the envelope was marked ‘private’, but he got private things at work every day; they usually turned out to be someone offering him an ISA and went straight in the bin. This envelope had to have contained something personally important for Linton to bring it home. But if the envelope had contained something personal and it had been sent to her at work then again, why? Why not simply post it to her home?

Craig parked the question behind the much bigger one that still needed an answer. What had been in the jiffy bag? He grabbed the clipboard and ran his finger quickly down the list, there was something missing. Craig turned to the young C.S.I. who had been staring at him curiously the whole time.

“Where’s the fifth exhibit?”

“What?”

“You said the exhibits were numbered. Forty-two to forty-six are listed as being found together on the settee; that makes five exhibits. I only found four. Number forty-six is missing.”

She stared at Craig blankly for a moment then nodded and rifled through the crate, pulling out the final bag. “Sorry. It was mis-filed.”

As the girl held out the small plastic bag a smile lit up Craig’s face. This was it. This was what he’d been looking for. If he was right it would solve all four of their murders, not just this one.

Chapter Six

By the time they’d finished at the scene it was six a.m. so the three men decamped to Craig’s flat for breakfast, such as it was. Craig took a shower first while Liam rifled through the fridge, searching for something edible amongst the cans of beer.

“You could open a pub with this lot, but there’s no food.”

Craig couldn’t hear him so Liam yelled louder, eliciting a reply from the depths of the shower. “Well, nip down to the deli on the corner then, it opens early. I’ll have a ham croissant.”

Liam made a face and turned to John. “What do you fancy, Doc?”

“I’ll just have coffee, thanks. I’ll put it on while you’re out.”

Twenty minutes later they were fed and watered and it was Liam’s turn to get clean. Craig dressed in his suit and poured himself a fresh espresso then he turned to John with an eager look.

“How quickly can I get my hands on that exhibit, John?”

John smiled. Even his curiosity had been piqued by Craig’s discovery. The fifth exhibit had been a silver-coloured computer memory stick.

“Ask Des, forensics is his domain. They’ll have to print it, check it for viruses and download the contents before they’ll let you see it. Why not just get him to e-mail you a copy of the files?”

Craig shook his head. “No. I want to take a look at the memory stick itself. I’m positive there’s something significant about it. More than just the contents of its files.” He glanced at his watch and made a decision. “I’ll come to the lab with you now and see Des. Liam can start things back at the ranch.”

As Craig said his name, Liam wandered into the living room draped in a minuscule towel. It looked ridiculous against his six-feet-six of blue-white flesh. John burst out laughing and Craig shook his head.

“That’s a hand towel, Liam! There were two bath sheets sitting on the stool.” He made a face and pushed his coffee away. “I never thought anything could put me off my coffee but you’ve just managed it.” Liam turned to one side and posed like Rodin’s ‘Thinker’.

“Ah now, you’re just jealous. Sure you’d love muscles like this.” John smiled and shook his head.

“You look like a giant milk bottle, Liam. Hurry up and get dressed.”

Craig laughed. “I’m heading into the lab with John. You can take my car to the C.C.U.”

Liam’s towel looked perilously close to giving way under the strain of his paunch so Craig headed for the door and threw his car-keys on top of his clothes.

“Just pull the door behind you when you leave.”

Craig pulled the front door behind them and they wandered down to John’s car. John drove slowly up the Stranmillis Road towards its junction with the Malone. After a few minutes silence he spoke, in a confiding voice.

“I did it.”

Craig responded distractedly. “Did what?”

“Set a date. Last night.”

“You got married last night?”

John sighed and explained himself slowly, as if he was talking to a child. He might as well have been for the length of Craig’s attention span. Until Craig had that memory stick in his hand he wouldn’t listen to anything.

“We set the date for the wedding last night. The second of August. It’s a Saturday.”

Craig turned in his seat. “This August? You’re kidding!”

“No, I’m not kidding. There’s no point hanging about and I wanted to get married on the same day my parents did.”

Craig laughed incredulously. “Have you any idea how long it takes to plan a wedding, John?”

“Ah, well now, that’s where you’re wrong. It takes years if it’s one of those frothy Northern Irish jobs, where you have to invite the world and his wife, but we’re not having that.”

Craig smiled, knowing exactly what was coming next.

“We’re getting married abroad. We haven’t decided where yet. And instead of paying twenty grand for a bunch of bridesmaids and a mediocre meal, we’re going to fly a select few guests out for the ceremony.”

Craig smiled. It was exactly what he would do, in his case the venue would have to be Italy somewhere, otherwise he’d never hear the end of it from his mum, but his money was on John choosing somewhere much farther afield.

“Where are you thinking of?”

“We’ve a shortlist of the Caribbean, the Azores and the Seychelles. Somewhere with great weather and lots to drink.”

“Good for you. At least now Natalie will stop sending you pictures of flower arrangements.”

John nodded, looking relieved. “Book the time off now, will you? And the rest of your team.”

Craig smiled. John didn’t have any relatives except an elderly aunt in Carryduff, so Craig’s family and team were pretty much it.

“They’ll love it. Give me the list of people you want to go as soon as possible and I’ll organise their leave.”

“Don’t tell them why though. Natalie wants it to be a surprise when the invitations arrive.”

Craig laughed at the image of Liam in a sarong. After this morning’s exhibition the image made him shudder. John turned off the Saintfield Road and they parked at the lab. Craig jumped out first.

“I’m heading up to see Des. I’ll be with you in ten minutes.”

“Victoria Linton’s body has arrived so I’ll be in the dissection room. Join me there.”

Craig took the lift to the third floor and knocked on a white door embellished ‘Dr Desmond Marsham. Head of Forensic Science.’

He smiled, he’d never thought of Des as a Desmond before and he was certain that Liam didn’t know that was his name, otherwise he would have been slagging him about it for years and playing Desmond Dekker songs whenever he got a chance. Des and John worked well as a team, pretty much like Liam and him. John with his bodies and Des finding whatever nasty implement had killed them.

After a few seconds knocking a cheerful voice yelled, “Come in.”

Craig pushed open the door and went to say hello just as Des turned around from his microscope. Craig stopped mid-word, shocked. In place of Des’ normal bushy beard he was sporting a Che Guevara moustache. Craig gawped at him for a moment, not certain what to say, then he told him the truth.

“My God, Des. You look ten years younger. When did that happen?”

Des grinned cheerfully and it made him look younger still. “Do you like it?” He stroked his moustache proudly. “Annie made me shave the beard off. She was fed up with people thinking I was her dad.” He smiled confidingly. “To be honest, even I was getting fed up with it. It was bloody itchy.”

“And it made you look like something out of ZZ Top.”

Des waved Craig to a chair, talking quickly. “Before you ask, Marc, no, you can’t have the memory stick yet.”

“How…?”

“I have my spies.” He tried to look mysterious then caved in. “OK it was Jenny, the C.S.I. at the scene. She told me you stared at it like you’d fallen in love.”

“I need it, Des, it’s important to the case.”

“You mean the file on it is?”

Craig shook his head vehemently. “No. Not just the file, the USB itself is important, I’m sure of it.” Craig realised what Des had said and did a double take. “There was only one file on it?”

“Yes and a very short one it was. I’ll tell you about it once I’ve explained a few things.” He leaned over and opened a drawer, withdrawing the USB still in its evidence bag. “When we get items of electronic equipment we have to do a number of additional checks on them. It’s not just the usual finger-printing and what have you. We have to test them for booby-traps, explosives, radiation, poisonous deposits, the works. If they pass all of that then we scan them for viruses on a special machine. We can’t just put them in one of our PCs and open them; they could crash the whole system.”

He turned the evidence bag over in his hand. “Victoria Linton worked in a barrister’s chambers and they would have a closed system as well. So that no USBs but those issued by the chambers could have been used in their computers; they would have been automatically locked out. Yes?”

Craig nodded. He hadn’t thought about it, but Des was right. That could have been why Linton had brought the USB home from work.

“That means she couldn’t have viewed it at work, even though it was delivered there.”

Des nodded. “Correct. Plus the fact that the envelope was marked private would likely have made her want to look at the USB’s contents away from prying eyes. That was clever of whoever sent it, considering what it contained.”

Des reached into the drawer again and withdrew two more evidence bags. One of them held the jiffy bag that Craig had seen the night before.

“This is the jiffy bag that the USB probably came in. I say probably because we’re assuming she got this at work yesterday and took it home to view last night. That might not be the case. She might have had this USB for weeks and there could have been something completely different delivered in the jiffy bag.”

Craig shook his head. “The USB was in it and it was delivered yesterday.”

“Probably.”

Craig’s voice was firm. “Definitely, but we’ll check with her office to make sure.”

Des smiled wryly then handed Craig the other evidence bag. It contained a sheet of crumpled paper. Craig turned it over in his hand, puzzled.

“I haven’t seen this before. It wasn’t listed.”

“Ah yes it was, but not amongst the things found around her settee. It was listed under the contents of her wastepaper bin. That’s where it was found, screwed up in a ball. There’s nothing unusual about the paper. No prints, standard A4 and Times Roman font. But read what it says.”

Craig peered through the plastic and made out five neatly printed words. ‘I am from the past.’ Nothing else to say where it was from or who’d sent it. He glanced at Des.

“She would have thought it was something romantic. A personal letter sent with the USB.”

Des nodded. “Yes, especially given the shape of the USB.”

Craig screwed up his face quizzically. What did he mean, shape? It was just a memory stick. Des removed another plastic bag from the drawer and handed it to Craig. It held a silver-grey metal key in a gothic design. Craig examined it carefully. The key’s head was ornate and there was intricate scrolling down its wide shank. The end was hollow, as if there had been something hidden inside. Of course…

Des gestured at the key. “That was found on the floor. It’s a cover for the memory stick. The stick slips neatly inside.”

“Very romantic, especially when she read the note. Key to my heart and that sort of thing.”

“Even more romantic given the fact that the key’s made of platinum.”

Craig felt the key’s weight and gave a low whistle. It was worth a small fortune. His dad had bought his mum a platinum ring for their fortieth wedding anniversary and it had cost him well over a grand. This was worth at least twice that. Craig said nothing for a moment then he smiled slowly.

“Everything here is telling us something about our killer, Des. The note, the shape of the key, the use of platinum and whatever was on the file. What was on the file?”

Des shook his head. “You’re not going to like it. Whoever is doing all this isn’t going to make it easy for you.”

Craig was insistent. “What was it?”

“Just the number ‘111012’ and a few words.”

Craig’s eyes widened in surprise. He’d expected more. “You’re certain that was everything?”

“Positive.”

Craig frowned. “What were the words?”

“’I am depressed and I have nothing to live for.’ Exactly what was written on the suicide note left beside her body in the car.”

“And at every one of the other scenes.”

Des nodded. “All four suicide notes were identical: a six-digit number written on the back and ten handwritten words on the other side. The handwriting matched the victims and the only prints on the paper belonged to the victims themselves.”

Craig frowned again. “The suicide note’s had numbers on them?”

“Yes. Didn’t John tell you?”

Craig shook his head. It wasn’t like John to be sloppy. Maybe Natalie’s wedding spam had been getting to him. Des’ sudden look of realisation said that it might not have been John’s mistake after all.

Des rushed over to a cabinet and withdrew a file, spreading out the four pieces of paper inside. Three were photocopies of identically worded suicide notes from Diana Rogan’s, Jonathan McCafferty’s and Nelson Warner‘s scenes, without any numbers to be seen. The fourth piece of paper held three sets of numbers.

Des set his jaw. “I’m going to bloody kill Jim.”

“He only copied the text to John?”

Des nodded. “The original notes go into our reports, ready to be sent to the coroner or court, and we keep photocopies of them in the files. Jim must have thought the numbers weren’t important for John to see so he didn’t put them on the copies he sent John and copied them together on a separate sheet.” He shook his head. “I’ll have a word.”

He handed the page holding the list of numbers to Craig. They made no sense at all. Craig shook his head.

“I’d have said they were dates, except that there aren’t seventeen months in any year or fifty days in any month as far as I know. Linton’s and Rogan’s numbers look like dates, but not the other two. They could be the combinations of safes for all we know.” He shrugged, knowing Davy would enjoy cracking the puzzle. “There were no other files on the memory stick at all?”

Des shook his head. “Nothing.” Craig was incredulous.

“Then whatever those numbers meant to our victims, they were enough to make each of them copy the text into a suicide note and kill themselves?”

“It seems so.”

Craig shook his head. “No. There’s something more here. There has to be. No-one’s that easily intimidated!”

“Well, good luck with finding it.”

They sat in silence for a moment, Des doodling the key’s design over and over again on a page and Craig trying to make things fit inside his head. After a minute Craig leaned forward.

“Each victim’s note was identical, and they knew to copy it out in their own handwriting. That means they got instructions from somewhere. Were USBs found at the other scenes?”

Des rubbed his face. “The problem is that the first two scenes weren’t preserved, Marc. Diana Rogan was found dead at home from a Paracetamol overdose and Jonathan McCafferty hanged himself, again at home. They looked like open and shut suicides. It was only with Nelson Warner that John thought there might be foul play. His scene was preserved; in fact his apartment is still taped off.”