The History Suite (#9 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) (5 page)

Craig laughed. “Buy him a present then. Preferably not a leather mask.”

Everyone laughed except Jake. He was staring into space as if he was carrying the worries of the world. Craig wrapped up.

“OK, that’s it. You’ve all plenty to get on with. We’ll brief at eight and four every day.”

Ken shot Craig a puzzled look. “You haven’t given me anything to do, sir.”

Craig was realised he was right and then he remembered why he hadn’t. “You’re shadowing me, Ken, if that’s OK?”

Smith nodded vigorously. Shadowing Craig meant that he’d be at the centre of things; it was exactly why he’d wanted the secondment. He rose to follow Craig into his office but Craig motioned him to wait and walked over to Jake’s desk.

“Jake, could I have five minutes?”

The young detective glanced up, startled, wondering what he’d done wrong. Craig smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad.”

They entered Craig’s small corner office and he shut the door, beckoning the sergeant to take a seat. As he poured them both coffee Craig glanced out at the river. The Lagan was smooth and grey today; it looked quiet, too quiet. It was the quietness that signalled a coming storm.

Craig sat down, smiling at the younger man. “Do you know why I called you in?”

Jake gazed blankly at his boss. A hundred possible answers tumbled through his brain but none seemed to fit so he shook his head.

“I called you in to see if you were all right. You’ve seemed down for days. Is there anything I can do to help?”

Relief crossed Jake’s face and then he dropped his eyes. His mouth opened and closed as if he was searching for the right words, until finally he spoke.

“You know that my parents were killed in a fire when I was five, sir.”

Craig’s eyes widened; he hadn’t known. How had he missed something so big? He made up his mind to check everyone’s personnel files and said nothing. Jake was already carrying on.

“My mother’s parents raised me. They were wonderful, especially when I was confused about being gay when I was younger. But…”

His voice fell away and Craig knew instantly what was wrong. He did the sums quickly; Jake was in his late twenties, which put his parents most likely at fifty and his grandparents in their seventies or eighties now. Someone was ill. When Jake recovered he said the words.

“My grandfather has lung cancer. He never even smoked and he has lung cancer!” The outrage in his voice was palpable, as if the fates hadn’t played fair. “He’s been given three months to live. Three lousy months…”

Craig nodded. Cancer had taken both his father’s parents years before and he could still remember them wasting away. He forced the memories down and spoke quietly.

“What can I do to help? Do you need time off? I can arrange compassionate leave if that would help?”

Jake raised his eyes and Craig saw tears beginning to form. He held the younger man’s gaze. Jake’s eyes held the confusion of the soon-to-be bereaved, frantically searching for ways to hold back the coming tide. After a moment he shook his head.

“Thank you, sir, but I don’t know what to do yet. My granddad’s the only father I remember and my gran needs my help nursing him, but for my sanity’s sake I need to work.”

Craig knew the young officer was incapable of making the choice so he made it for him.

“What if you work flexitime for a while? Come in late, fit in the hours as and when?”

Jake’s eyes lit up. “Could I do that? Really? It would mean I could help sort things out in the mornings, then pop back to check on them mid-afternoon.” He nodded furiously, grabbing at Craig’s offer. “Yes, please, sir. I won’t abuse it, I promise. I’ll make up the hours.”

Craig smiled and waved away his thanks. “Don’t worry about the hours, we’ll sort those out. And come back to me if there’s anything more I can do.” He stood up briskly. “Now, off you go and I’ll sort it outwith Nicky. I’ll let the others know as necessary.”

Jake left the office thanking him profusely and Craig smiled, hoping that someone would do the same for his imaginary kids when the day came.

Chapter Three

University Faculty of Medicine. 12 p.m.

Timothy Taylor rose from behind his imposing desk and crossed to the shelves that lined one wall of his office, each one laden with books. Their covers were hard and soft, card and paper, and even, in the case of some older tomes, fine leather mottled with age. They were written in several languages, to show that he was an educated man, and their subject matters supported that. There were books on pathology and biochemistry, ageing in different cultures and religions, gerontology, longevity and even one on cryogenics after death. Subjects that a layman might assume would assist his work and help the patients that he served.

Taylor had chosen his future career in his first year at medical school, inspired by his elderly parents and his own fear of death. While other students were excited by surgery and paediatrics, he focused on the ailments of the old. Not because he particularly cared about their frail, bent bodies, but because he feared the deterioration of his own and was intent on preventing it. Like King Canute, he was determined to hold back the tide, but of ageing rather than the sea. Where a Hollywood starlet obsessed with keeping her looks might seek Botox and surgery, Tim Taylor explored medication and cellular redesign.

He was good at what he did, but more than that, timing had been his friend. In a world with an ageing population and baby boomers young in the swinging sixties who refused to ‘go gentle into that good night’ unless they were wrinkle and cellulite free, people threw funding at his specialty like it was the Holy Grail. Taylor had seized it gratefully and climbed up the increasingly vertical career ladder until he’d finally reached a Professor’s Chair. Now he was pleased with where he sat in life.

He had tenure at work and tenure at home, in the shape of his younger wife, Miranda. At thirty she was starting to fray a little around the edges but it was nothing that a quick nip and tuck wouldn’t fix. And if she wouldn’t have one, well there were plenty more nubile medical students where he’d found her…

He had his own research unit at St Mary’s with human guinea pigs, and best of all he never had to touch a patient again; he had plenty of junior staff to do that. All he had to do was find out what made some people age slowly and others fast, try interventions to improve things and write learned papers about the best. Meanwhile he would search for the one thing he really wanted, how to slow his own fifty-year-old body’s deterioration before he joined the grey, faceless ranks that he loathed so much.

Taylor had just selected a book on skin ageing and walked back to his desk when his thoughts were interrupted by a loud buzz. He jabbed the button on his intercom and his young secretary’s voice echoed through.

“A Superintendent Craig and Captain Smith are here to see you, Professor.”

He tutted irritably. “Do they have an appointment?”

The girl’s voice quivered anxiously. “No, sir. But they say it’s urgent.” She hesitated for a moment, wondering whether he’d understood the significance of Craig’s rank, and decided to add. “They’re the police.”

Taylor barked back sarcastically. “The Superintendent part gave that away, Rachael.” He sighed. “Oh, very well. Send them in.”

He folded his hands on his desk in what he thought was a suitably professorial pose, allowing his glasses to slide forward slightly on his nose. It made him look down his nose at people, literally, and experience said it had a satisfyingly intimidating effect. It may have done with students or elderly patients but he was dealing with something quite different in Craig.

The two men entered and it only took Craig seconds to sum the professor up. Educated definitely, they didn’t bestow the title without that. Arrogant? Undoubtedly. They’d heard him bark at his secretary and his carefully arranged pose said so as well. Used to underestimating people’s intelligence? Probably. Teaching students who he could intimidate with long words would allow plenty of opportunity for that. In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

Craig hoped that Taylor’s choice of a secretary just out of school was based on the same desire to intimidate, rather than a more carnal one. And his choice of specialty? Taylor was definitely an expert in his field, but was he motivated by care for the elderly or scientific curiosity? Craig settled on the latter and flashed his badge, altering his previously unbiased manner to cool disdain.

“Thank you for seeing us, Professor Taylor. I’m Superintendent Craig and this is Captain Ken Smith, seconded to us for a year from the army.”

Taylor looked down his nose and he didn’t like what he saw. He wasn’t bothered by their professions or ranks or intimidated generally by the police, what he didn’t like was visible in both of the men standing in front of his desk. Where others might just have seen men in suits Timothy Taylor saw the things they had that he was beginning to lose. Craig and Smith were fit and muscular and Taylor pictured their muscles taut, unaffected yet by waning testosterone. Both had full heads of hair just as he’d bet their grandfathers’ had had; genetic balding wasn’t their lot and chronological balding was still decades away. Taylor hated them both on sight but he hated Craig most, for his smooth olive skin that barely wrinkled at all.

While the academic broke the men down to the sum of their biological parts Craig could feel his hackles begin to rise. So he did something he rarely did; he took a seat without the offer of one and motioned Ken to do the same. Tim Taylor hadn’t uttered a word since they’d entered, so finally Craig did.

“Do you know why we’re here, Professor Taylor?”

Craig’s words broke the academic’s trance and he shook his head, reflecting the light from the window off his scalp. Between his balding and glasses he looked older than the fifty Davy had said he was. Taylor pushed his glasses up his nose, knowing that Craig wasn’t playing his game.

“No. Why
are
you here?”

Craig smiled. He’d given Taylor his title but he had conveniently omitted theirs. He didn’t give a damn about labels but it told him something about the man.

“As you know, there’s been a death on the E.M.U.”

Taylor nodded vaguely, giving nothing away.

“Then you know it was a member of staff?”

Taylor squinted as if Craig had issued a challenge.

“I heard something like that.”

“You haven’t been on the unit?”

Taylor hesitated for a moment then shook his head. “Not since Wednesday. I’ve been working on a paper for a conference next week.”

It was too convenient. Eleanor Rudd had been murdered on Thursday and the Prof just happened to have been absent since the day before.

“When you aren’t there, who leads the patients’ medical care?”

Taylor opened a book on his desk and Ken stiffened. It was rude; more than that, it reminded him of his army boss, Major James. Perhaps they issued handbooks on rudeness once you reached a certain rank. If they did Craig hadn’t read his, but he had read the one about uncooperative witnesses. He lurched forward, shocking the professor into leaning back and abandoning his book.

“I asked you a question, Professor.”

Taylor reinstated his earlier posture and narrowed his eyes. “I heard you, Mr Craig. My deputy is a staff-grade doctor: Dr Patrick Hamilton. He was in charge when whoever it was died.”

Whoever it was? The callousness took Craig’s breath away.

“The deceased was Nurse Eleanor Rudd.”

As Craig said it both men saw Taylor’s response before he could hide it. His eyes widened and his face grew pale; his hands froze mid-air above the book on his desk. He looked as if he was going to be sick or cry and Craig didn’t imagine that he often did either one.

“Did you know her?”

The answer was obvious, as was just how well Taylor had known her, but he lied anyway, dropping his eyes and waving a hand vaguely in the air.

“I recall meeting her a few times. She covered when Sister Gormley was away.”

Craig was undeterred. “Did you know her
well
?”

His emphasis left no room for ambiguity. Ken’s eyes widened; Craig was implying Taylor’s relationship with Rudd had been sexual.

Tim Taylor glanced up defiantly, but his play-acting didn’t fool anyone.

“No, I didn’t. I knew her in the way that I knew every nurse on the ward – to say hello. Nurses are there to care for the patients, not to socialise with.”

In Craig’s experience that didn’t stop many men. He glanced at Taylor’s wedding ring, added ‘affair?’ to his query list and rose abruptly, surprising the other men.

“Thank you, Professor. That will be all. We may need to speak again.”

He left the room briskly, leaving Ken to catch up. When they reached the car park Craig finally spoke.

“Sorry about the abrupt exit, but it had a point.”

“You wanted him to know you didn’t believe him, but not to show your complete hand.”

Craig nodded. “Exactly. You saw his reaction when I mentioned Eleanor Rudd?”