The Grass Tattoo (#2 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) (32 page)

He was at City airport with forty minutes to spare and he used it well, ditching the bag, phone and SIM separately. And then covering his dyed-blonde hair with a dark brown gel that worked so well that he made a note to tell Kaisa about it, she hated dying her beautiful hair. Then he smiled, realising that she would never have to dye her hair again, or pretend to be anyone else, or sleep with any man that she didn’t choose.

He smiled again, remembering Declan Greer and his lovely companion, glad not to have made her cry. He hoped that they would be happy together. Then he gave a final smile, just for himself. There would be no more jobs and no more pretence. It was over. He had only one thing left to do.

***

Julia was still in Donegal when Craig called her for an update. She was standing on the terraced steps of Leighton’s rented Villa, admiring the view and having a cigarette, while the suited C.S.I.s., completed their work.

The London office line showed up as ‘private’, so she answered the call brightly, unaware that it was him. “Julia McNulty. Can I help you?”

She took a last silent pull on her cigarette and exhaled slowly, waiting for the caller to speak. Craig hesitated, certain that her tone would be colder when she heard his voice, and preferring the silence.

Her tone became more insistent. “D.I McNulty. Who’s calling, please?”

There was a fine line between hesitation and stalking and he decided not to cross it, so he spoke quietly. “It’s Marc Craig, D.I. McNulty. Just looking for an update.”

Her voice cooled predictably and he sighed. He liked her and really wanted to get past this, he just didn’t know how.

“We’ve nearly finished the sweep of the house, D.C.I. Craig.” Again with the formality. “The C. S.I.s are wrapping up, and the prints have already gone to Dr Winter. I spoke to the neighbours and they remember Leighton, but none of them saw anyone else. But there were some Chinese takeaway boxes in the kitchen. I called the restaurant and they open in an hour, so I’ll go down there then. There’s nothing else.”

He said nothing for a moment, and then decided to behave as if she’d been cordial, and do the same. “That’s great, thank you. I’m back at The Met.” He deliberately implied a permanent emigration just to gauge her reaction, and wasn’t disappointed by her sharp intake of breath. She
did
give a damn, and her next word confirmed it.

“What!” As soon as she’d said it, she wanted to bite it back. Then she shrugged to herself. There was no point pretending that she didn’t care for him, she did and he knew it.

Craig was annoyed with himself for the trick, but smiled anyway. “Just for a couple of days, to follow up a lead on the case. Maybe...?”

“Yes?” Her tone showed defeat, but he didn’t want her defeated. She sensed him disengaging and added quickly. “Maybe...?”

He took her cue bravely. “We could have coffee when I’m back at the weekend?”

Julia paused and took a fresh cigarette from her bag, clicking her lighter slowly. He heard it and held his breath; she hadn’t said no. Then she sighed, gently but kindly, afraid of what she was agreeing to, but powerless to refuse. “Yes, coffee would be nice.”

***

Joe Watson had reluctantly agreed to do a sketch, and Annette took it as a good sign. Maybe he was finally seeing his lover for what she was, instead of romanticising their financial arrangement. They would need to confirm the image with Lilith’s of course, but Liam could do that.

She left him with the sketch artist and went back to the squad-room to tidy her desk. It was getting so cluttered that she’d found a sandwich from last week earlier, and she dreaded to think what was in the drawers. She was tidying away when Nicky stood up at her desk, beckoning her over.

“Annette, can you take this call? It’s Dr Winter and he says it’s important. I can’t call Marc unless it’s urgent, and Liam’s disappeared as usual.”

Annette nodded to transfer it and lifted the receiver cheerfully, feeling important. “Hello, Dr Winter. How can I help? You know that D.C.I. Craig is away in London today?”

John’s soft baritone flowed down the line, enveloping her. She loved his cultured, newsreader’s voice and his old-fashioned language. “Ah hello, Annette. So lovely to speak to you. Yes, I know that Marc’s away, but I thought that I should alert you to this, as soon as possible.”

She could see Davy at his desk straining to hear, so she beckoned him over. “Dr Winter, would you mind if I put you on speaker? So that Davy can listen?”

“Not at all, good idea. Right, well. You’ll know that we didn’t get any prints at the hotel except Watson’s, from the girl’s handbag mirror?”

“Yes.”

“Well, we’ve just had a break-through. There were some prints on the bathroom mirror. Her spray bandage must have washed off in the shower. We’ve eliminated the staff and room-cleaners, and no one else has stayed in that room for three weeks. Luckily, it’s the quiet season. So we were optimistic that they would belong to her. That’s just been confirmed.”

“How?” She leaned forward excitedly and Nicky could see that something was up. She strolled over to join them, leaning on Annette’s cubicle-wall.

“D.I. McNulty has been in Portsalon and they finished printing the house. Some fingerprints were found on the mirrors and...” He hesitated, embarrassed. “Well, they were also found on the headboard in the bedroom, so...”

He didn’t need to finish the sentence, they all had imaginations. “Anyway, they match the ones found in the Castleton. Joe Watson and Bob Leighton were involved with the same girl.”

Annette stayed silent, thinking, so Nicky jumped in. “That’s brilliant, Dr Winter, really brilliant.”

“Yes, but there’s more. We have D.N.A. from the lipstick belonging to Joe Watson’s lover and we have D.N.A. from Bob Leighton’s body, his last sexual contact.”

Davy could hear him getting shy again and jumped in to the rescue. “It confirms that W…Watson’s lover was also Bob Leighton’s”

“Yes. And the piece de resistance is that D.I. McNulty had struck out completely for witnesses in Portsalon – no one had seen anyone with Bob Leighton. But there were some old takeaway boxes from lunchtime on Friday, so she went to the restaurant an hour ago and they said that a young woman with white-blonde hair had signed for the delivery.”

“W…Why would she do that? She was trying to keep a low profile.”

“Hunger I suppose, Davy. They probably had no food in the house if they arrived late on Thursday night. The delivery man is doing a sketch so we should have that this afternoon.”

“Joe Watson is doing one now, and then Liam is getting onto Lilith’s. We should be able to confirm that it’s the same girl by later today. That’s brilliant, Dr Winter.” Kaisa Moldeau and Ausra Mitic could be the same woman.

Davy interjected. “This matches with the sighting of a fair-haired woman at the two London shootings, and I’ve a call out to La Prefecture of police in Paris too.”

“Dr Winter, do you want to call D.C.I. Craig with this information...” Annette hesitated, hoping. “Or shall I?”

John smiled to himself generously. “You do it, Annette; I’ve got to get back to the print. We’re running it in every database we have, but no hits yet.”

He was hardly off the line when Annette phoned Craig.

***

“Here, Joe Watson is a busy wee boy. There’s hardly a committee up at Stormont that he isn’t on.”

“He’s Enterprise Minister, Liam. Every department will want him at their meetings to get money out of him. But he can’t have attended them all personally. He would have sent his advisors to most of them, to report back.”

“How do you know all that?”

“Have you never watched ‘Yes Minister’? It’s really funny.”

Liam looked at her kindly. Annette found the Telly-Tubbies funny. She caught the look. “No honestly, it is. They’re making a new series. It tells you all you need to know about government. They spend all day in committees, and I can’t imagine Stormont’s much different.”

“Aye well. His name’s on a lot of stuff up there, that’s all I’m saying. He sat on a few outside boards as well. Mostly dealing with public funds. There’s the Q.I.X., the F.I.W. and the S.F.F. Why do none of these things have a proper name? Why not just call them Fred or Mavis, it’d be a lot easier to remember.” Then he grinned lasciviously. “I can think of a few names that they’d never forget.”

Annette tutted at him impatiently. “Give me the list and I’ll get Davy onto it. We need to find what was worth framing Watson for murder. He must have been about to lose someone money, or he’d already lost them money. Or…he was up to no good with someone else’s money. Agreed?”

“That’s fair enough, but it’d be a damn sight easier if he’d just tell us, instead of clamming up. By every report on the man, he’s two things that point away from him being up to no good personally. He’s honest and he’s loaded. He didn’t need to do anything criminal to make money.”

Annette nodded. Liam was right. “His wife says he gives a lot away secretly and doesn’t tell anyone, and he doesn’t even take his M.L.A.’s salary. So let’s concentrate on him losing someone else money. All these boards are involved in bringing contracts here, either building something or manufacturing something.”

“Mostly building developments and I.T. projects, Cutty. Here, that fits with the Vors being into land development.”

“Big land projects are a licence to steal. Let’s focus on land projects that Watson might have recently interfered with, or was about to. I’ll give Mrs Watson a call and see if he’d mentioned anything to her. And let’s get the kettle on; this is going to take a while.”

Liam cast a covert look at his watch and Annette leapt at him immediately.

“Don’t you dare think that you’re leaving all this to me, Liam Cullen. There’s far too much to get through.”

“Sorry, but I’ll have to leave you to it for an hour. I’ve to go to Harrison’s briefings while the boss is away.”

She snorted. “Well, if you want to play the big boss then you’re taking me...” she saw Nicky winking at her behind his back, “and all of us, to The James for dinner when you get back.”

He bowed mockingly. “No problem. Or as the boss and Doc Winter would say ‘that will be entirely my pleasure.’”

***

Liam was late, so he ran up the two flights to the twelfth floor, taking them three at a time, the advantages of being six-feet-six. The door to Terry Harrison’s office was closed and he could just make out the short, round shape of Eric Jenner propped against its glass panels. Good, Ross Ellis was delegating to his Inspector as well. He didn’t feel so out of place now.

He knocked the door quietly, half-hoping that he would go unheard and could nip away, when the high thin voice of Terry Harrison came through the glass. “Eric, could you just open the door for Liam, please. Thanks.”

Liam had forgotten that his huge frame and noisy entrances announced him long before he spoke. Jenner opened the door and looked slowly up at Liam, as the rest of the room’s occupants smiled. They looked like Morecombe and Wise.

“Come in and find a surface to lean on, Liam. Sorry, we’re out of chairs. We haven’t started yet.”

“Sorry, sir. I forgot all about it.”

Harrison smiled, sardonically. “Now, that’s how to make me feel important.” The room collapsed in sycophantic laughter, then settled again quickly as Liam’s face reddened.

“OK. Each section read through your reports quickly, please. Then I’ll summarise.”

There were ten people in the office and it was going to take a while to get to Liam, so he drifted off into a daydream, trying to solve the case. Eventually, he heard something that made him listen.

“338 Lapua, sir. Very unusual.”

He looked around quickly and saw that Derek Cantor, the D.C.I. covering the Lisburn and Antrim areas was talking.

“It happened at the Antrim charity race meeting earlier this afternoon. The intended victim was a Mr Declan Greer; he’s a partner in Greer L.L.P. He was watching the races from the VIP tent.”

“Yes, I know of the Greers. They have the tallest office building in Belfast, the glass pyramid in the city centre. I met the man and his wife once, at some function.”

“They’re both heavily involved in land development, sir. And he does a lot of charity work. ”

Harrison nodded approvingly at the charity work, more so because he could claim association with the man.

“Right. Go on.”

“The attempted shooting took place at the start of the 2.40pm race. Mr Greer had been off to check the runners and riders and had just come back to the marquee five minutes before, to watch the race. Apparently there’d been a bit of a scandal in the tent earlier, when he announced to everyone that he intended to divorce his wife, Joanne. It seems it was the first that anyone had heard of it, and the announcement created a bit of an uproar, according to his friend, Neil Hurtham, who was there as well.”

He flicked-open his notebook at the relevant page and quoted. “I couldn’t have been happier for Declan. Joanne’s a selfish, nasty bitch.”

“No love lost there then. I have to say that I didn’t warm to the woman.” Of course you didn’t, sir.

“It seems not, sir. Anyway, as Greer was watching the race start he heard something passing his left temple, near the ear. It was a single shot and the bullet lodged in the central pole of the marquee, that’s where we retrieved it. If it had hit him, he would have died instantly. He was pretty shocked so the medical examiner checked him out, but he’s fine now. And, as I mentioned, the bullet is a 338 Lapua Magnum. It’s very unusual, a sniper round...”