The Grass Tattoo (#2 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) (36 page)

I haven’t got behind the names yet, but I bet you that someone on the Foundation’s board was going to make money out of this whole Horizon thing. And they wanted Joe Watson stopped before he gave the veto.

My first thought was that Declan Greer had something to do with it, but everyone Davy has spoken to about him says that he’s a nice man. Bit of a gambling habit but honest. They also said that he wouldn’t dare make a move without his wife’s say-so. So I dug a bit deeper on Joanne Greer.”

She paused for breath and Craig smiled to himself. She was becoming as good at the deskwork as Liam was on the street. They made a great team, even if they didn’t always realise it.

“Anyway, I went digging and got more on her, so D.C.I. Cantor and I are going to interview her tomorrow. But my bet is that Declan Greer wasn’t the one involved here, and...”

Craig inhaled as if to interrupt, Annette sensed it and kept talking, very quickly.

“I think that maybe he’s innocent, and expendable. And that it wasn’t only Watson and Bob Leighton who were in the way.”

She paused then to allow Craig to contradict her, but he wasn’t going to. This was leading somewhere. He stayed quiet and she went on again.

“There’s a bit more too, sir. I looked up Joanne Greer; well to be honest she’s the only one I suspect now. She’s the only one on S.F.F. who hasn’t been threatened or killed, apart from a couple of retired execs who live in Guernsey. And they don’t get involved in the day-to-day work; they just seem to be on the board to make up the numbers. So I looked into her background.

The Greers lived in London for seventeen years, until thirteen years ago in fact. She trained as a barrister over there and practiced criminal law, always as a defence barrister. And she defended some nasty buggers too. They make our lots’ worst efforts look like bloody ASBOs.”

Craig could see why she was agitated. Enough to swear, always a no-no for Annette. He decided to interrupt her now for real, partly to calm her down.

“Annette...”

“Sir...but.”

He insisted, gently. “I need to say something. Firstly, this is brilliant work, really excellent. And secondly, do you have a list of the criminal clients that Joanne Greer defended in London?”

“Yes, sir. Here in front of me, that’s what I really rang about. But I haven’t had a chance to check them all yet.”

“You can fax the list over to me tomorrow, but at the moment just look carefully. Is there an Alik Ershov on there?”

They descended into silence. The only sound audible was her quiet breathing, as she searched the list. Craig willed her intensely to say ‘yes’. Then she answered him excitedly.

“Yes, yes, sir. He’s here! He’s here. She successfully defended him on three occasions between 1992 and 1999. She got him off a fraud charge, a living-off immoral earnings ...and a murder! Sir, she got him off the murder of a man who worked for him. Lev Chopiak.”

Yes! They had a link between Joanne Greer and Alik Ershov. But there was something else that he wanted.

“Annette, this is great stuff. Go home now, or Pete will think that you’ve left him. But I want you in early tomorrow morning to follow-up that connection. The money trail will take a while to come through - Davy can dig a bit deeper on that. And Nicky’s already pulling airplane passenger lists and CCTV to run through. She’ll tell you about all that. But what I want you to do tomorrow morning is find anything that links Joanne Greer and Ershov
recently
, over the past twelve months, and particularly since Watson joined S.F.F.

That means any money changing hands, or any big withdrawals from Joanne Greer’s accounts. She’ll have separate accounts from her husband; I’m certain she will, so check them all.

Get her phone records, home, mobile, office, everything. Go to Judge Standish for any warrants that you need, he’s quick and he’ll see you anytime, 24/7. Do your interview with Derek in the afternoon, please; I need those connections by lunchtime. Tell Davy to drop everything else and help you with it. We’ve got Ershov coming in about 10.30 tomorrow morning and I want to have something up my sleeve for leverage.”

“I’ll be on it at seven, sir. There’s one last thing. Did Dr Winter call you again?”

“No. What about?”

“He got a match on the D.N.A. from Bob Leighton and the lipstick officer Sinclair got, and it’s been backed up by the prints.”

“That’s great; Kaisa’s in the system then. What was the crime?”

“That’s the thing, sir. She wasn’t a criminal, she was a victim.”

She paused, speaking more slowly. “She was a war crimes victim, sir. She was only seven when her fingerprints were taken. I don’t know any more about it, Dr Winter has everything.”

Craig was puzzled. He needed to call John.

“OK, thanks Annette. Go home now, and send that information over to D.C.S. Chandak’s office tomorrow if you would. I think you’ve just broken our case for us. Great job.”

***

Joanne wasn’t exactly panicking. No, not panic, that wasn’t a word in her vocabulary, but she certainly felt an urgent need to talk to Alik. The police had appeared thirty minutes after Declan’s botched shooting, and questioned her all bloody afternoon. There were still two of them outside, just in case. Just in case of what? She’d spent the time since they’d left thinking hard, retracing her actions and words, looking for mistakes, but there were none.

It was only 6.30 and the evening was still bright, but she’d closed the curtains on the arched sitting-room window. She couldn’t bear to see them standing in her driveway, talking on their echoing radios. They’d acted as if they knew more than they said. Maybe she’d underestimated the Northern Ireland plods. She’d always known that they were good at the terrorist stuff, but their basic policing must surely have slipped during the Troubles. They couldn’t possibly be as good as The Met, could they? And she’d tied
them
in knots in court often enough in the past.

And then that phone-call five minutes ago, from some woman. Asking sneaky little questions about her barrister work, and naming criminals that she’d defended. Thank God, they hadn’t mentioned Alik. But she’d had a long list; he must have been in there somewhere. And she was coming here, to her home, tomorrow! This was getting too close for comfort; she needed to talk to Alik, now. Sod his stupid pay-as-you-go rules. She was fed-up waiting to be contacted, waiting to be told when she could and couldn’t talk to him. His control-freakery was getting very old.

She picked up the faux 1940’s phone sitting in the window bay, and quickly made the call. The ring-tone said that he was in the U.K, although you never knew with Alik. He picked-up quickly and she had a fleeting thought that calling his mobile would be expensive, she told the girls off about every bill. The thought disappeared as soon as he spoke.

“Yes.” His dark voice made the line vibrate, and her as well.

“Alik, darling, I need to talk.”

“Why are you calling me?” He hung up abruptly and tears sprung to her eyes, a mixture of hurt feelings and pride. Almost immediately, her handbag vibrated. She grabbed at it, pulling the cheap pay-as-you-go phone out and fumbling with the controls.

“You stupid bitch.” He was shouting at her so loudly that the only thing shaking now was her hand. “What are you doing? You have no idea what you have done. Why are you so stupid?”

Then Joanne did something completely out of character that shocked them both. She cried. Not the manufactured wronged-wife’s tears of the past few days, or the useful business tears that she kept for difficult meetings. Not even the tears of frustration at Declan’s constant stupidity. But the genuine tears of a frightened woman, looking for comfort from the only man that she’d ever really loved.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Craig knew that he’d missed curtain-up, but he’d already made his choice. He couldn’t sit through a performance watching her like a normal punter. Besides which, he had paperwork to do for tomorrow. He immediately felt like a coward, then he defended himself against his own accusation. He would go backstage after the play and see her face-to-face. It would be private, and it was all he could handle.

There was no point beating himself up about something that he couldn’t do. His job brought him enough challenges; he didn’t need to test himself in his leisure time as well. He nodded to himself, only half-convinced, but felt better for making the choice. The indecision had been killing him ever since Yemi had handed him the ticket.

Curtain down was 9.30. Plenty of time to work, and then change into a few years older and slightly more expensive version of the man that she’d first met. He brightened up, like a man who’d just received a stay of execution, and decided to call John. He needed some details on the rifle, and on the girl’s mysterious past.

John didn’t answer the phone for what seemed like ages, and he was puffing like the Portrush Flyer when he did. Craig was curious.

“Don’t tell me. You’ve taken up jogging?”

For a moment all he could hear was John inhaling deeply. It was starting to worry him, when he finally spoke in a wheeze. “You fit people can mock all you like, but I’m determined to get in shape. If you saw the inside of people’s arteries like I do, you’d understand why.”

God, he
was
jogging.

“Natalie’s persuaded me to do the half-marathon at Forfar, and it’s only seven weeks away “

It was worse than jogging, he was running. Craig was normally the athletic one; he didn’t think John even possessed a pair of trainers.

“You’re kidding! You,
running? Where are you at the moment?”

“Half way down Annadale Embankment on an eight-mile route. And it’s only my first day, in fact it’s my first ever run, so don’t take the piss.”

Craig laughed, disbelievingly. “I have to; you know that. That’s what mates are for. Don’t you think you should have tried something shorter than eight miles, after forty years of inertia?”

Craig could hear him sitting down. His breathing gradually quietened to the point where it didn’t drown out the background noise, and the sounds of traffic and birds were finally audible. He talked on while John couldn’t.

“Listen, I agree with Natalie. You need to get fit. But you can’t go from nought to one hundred in your first run, John! You’ll kill yourself. And there’s no way she told you to do eight miles straight off. ”

“You’re right, she didn’t. But I can’t be bothered building things up slowly. I get bored. So I thought I’d just go for it.”

Craig raised his eyes to heaven. “For a man with a big brain you’re really thick sometimes, John. When I get back, we’ll do some weights and cardio at the gym, before you kill yourself. Besides which, Natalie loves you for your mind.”

They both laughed. “Well, she’d better. I look like the weed in the Mr Muscle adverts in this outfit. And I don’t think that I love anyone enough for this. Where are you, by the way?”

“In my hotel room.” Craig looked around the small, overheated room, lying. “It’s not too bad. I’ll ring you back when you can talk without gasping.”

“I can talk now. And if I can help you, I’ll feel less of a useless dick, knowing that I’m good at something. What can I do for you?”

“We’re bringing in a suspect tomorrow morning for interview. So I’d like a bit of background on the rifle, and on the D.N.A. hit that Annette said you got.”

“Right, yes. Did you get my report today?”

“Sorry, I haven’t had time to look at it in detail yet. I’ve spent most of the day staring at surveillance tapes and sketches. Can you give me the quick version?”

“OK. Well, you know both rounds were 338 Lapuas?”

“Yes.”

“And you know there are two main rifles used for that round, but I’ll get onto that in a minute. I checked with Norris and they followed the trajectory back from Declan Greer’s position. They found aluminium residue at a site about 1.5 kilometres from where he was shot. Up in Dublin Road, near the back of the course’s hospitality pavilion. Do you know it?”

“Yes. Could the metal be identified as a rifle?”

“No, just a heap of metal. It had high concentration Sodium Hydroxide residue on it.”

“You think it was used to melt the rifle down?”

“Definitely, it’s nasty stuff, burn a hold in nearly anything. The shooter dissolved the rifle and left, probably ditching the gloves and containers elsewhere. If they search around there’ll be a PVC container with some Sodium Hydroxide residue, I’m sure of it. I’ve asked Derek Cantor to have a check, just in case a child accidentally lifts it.

Anyway, it wasn’t completely dissolved so Des has done the calculations. He thinks the aluminium weighed about 5.5 kg, which makes it most likely it was a SAKO, rather than the A.I. They’re both aluminium but the A.I. is about a kilo heavier.”

“You’re quite the expert on rifles nowadays.”

“It’s exciting stuff.”

Craig smiled. John had always wanted to be the cowboy when they were kids.

“In fact, I was thinking of taking up shooting, just targets. Fancy joining me?”

“Sure, I’ll take you to the range. Targets are fine, but nothing living.”