The Sixth Estate (The Craig Crime Series) (19 page)

“Could the marks have just been where the sack was tied?”

“Too deep.”

Liam wasn’t letting it go, no matter how unpleasant Craig’s expression said he found the discussion.

“OK then. Manual strangulation or ligature? You know it makes a difference, boss.”

Craig closed his eyes, trying to recall the bruise pattern. He re-opened them and nodded.

“Ligature, and you’re right, it does make a difference. Ligature’s more impersonal and it doesn’t have to be done face on. If Oliver Bwye had strangled her in anger he’d have been more likely to do it face to face and by hand.”

Annette thought out loud. “She must have been badly shot as well, given the blood loss at the house, but she obviously didn’t die of it if they had to strangle her. That means she either got treatment for the gunshot or they strangled her soon after they left the house, probably the latter as she was dumped in the lake. If Bwye didn’t do it then who did? And why? No-one’s called back for the ransom.”

Craig shook his head. “Let’s not jump ahead. We’re still speculating whether Oliver Bwye did it; the only way we’ll know for sure is if: we find his body, we ask him, or forensics rules him out. Mike can help with that.” He paused to top up his coffee then restarted. “Right. Diana Bwye belongs to pathology now but there are still two more people who we might find alive. Who wants to start?”

Annette raised her pen.

“Andy and I met with Justin O’Hare. He fits the physical description that would suit the ransom caller’s voice, but he has a Derry accent.”

“Accents can be faked.”

She nodded. “True, but I doubt it this time.” She held up the tape recorder. “We’ve got a voice sample for the linguists, Davy.”

Craig cut in. “And you’ve already got one for Gordon.” He shot Liam a chastising look. “Remember to keep Gordon’s under the net, Davy. If it matches we’ll get another, official one.” He motioned Annette on.

“Anyway, O’Hare was very helpful. First, whoever said his father was broke was wrong. O’Hare senior owns half of the city centre.”

Davy cut in. “It w…was the cook. She told Julia.”

Craig nodded. “Annette, re-interview her please. Carry on.”

She swallowed a hastily drunk mouthful of tea. “O’Hare admitted to dating Jane Bwye but said that it was almost a year ago. They dated from December 2013 to March this year and it was no big love affair.”

“For whom?”

“O’Hare certainly, but both of them by the sounds of it.”

“Did he say who she was dating now?”

Annette shook her head. “No. The last time he saw her was at a mutual friend’s wedding in June.” She gestured to Andy. “We’re going to follow that up, to see if Jane took a date.”

She suddenly realised she’d been hogging the floor and that Andy had let her, so she nodded him to take over. Craig noticed that his ubiquitous blue shirt had been replaced today by a jumper in the same shade. Mrs White had been shopping again.

“Aye well. O’ Hare was useful, right enough. He was in town with his mates last Wednesday night, rolling out of a pub around midnight, when he saw Jane drive past with a man.”

Craig stopped him. “It was definitely Jane Bwye?”

Andy nodded. “And he saw the legs of a man in the passenger seat, wearing jeans, so probably young. She was driving so fast she almost creamed him, hey. He said she was doing the ton.”

Craig leaned forward urgently. “Which direction?”

“Guildhall. Miles away from here.”

“Did O’Hare say anything about how she looked? Scared? Desperate? As if she was being forced to cooperate?”

Andy and Annette glanced at each other, realising that they hadn’t asked. Annette shook her head.

“Sorry, sir. We didn’t ask. I’ll phone him to check.”

“Do that. Although if she was driving at 100mph in the centre of town it’s fair to say she probably looked nervous, anxious or drunk. Andy, check Brendan Gordon’s alibi for Wednesday night. He said he was studying, but he might have been out joyriding with Jane.”

Craig thought for a moment. Bernadette Ross had seen the Mercedes entering the estate at around six-thirty that Wednesday and had assumed that the driver was Jane. Now they had a definite sighting of Jane driving the car through town around midnight that same night. Had she been at the house between six-thirty and midnight? If so, her speeding could have indicated that she was running away from their killer. But if Diana Bwye had been being attacked, would Jane really have left her in trouble? And where had the car been between midnight that Wednesday and when they’d found it burnt out? He turned to Davy.

“Davy, were there any tracks found in the mud at the back door, other than a van’s?”

Davy shook his head. “No. But I’ve got more on the van if you w…want it.”

“In a minute.” Craig crossed the room and dragged the white board back with him, scribbling on it for a moment while the others topped up their drinks. A rap of his marker drew their attention.

“OK. The right hand column contains sightings of Jane Bwye’s car. Davy, I need to know where it was between six-thirty and midnight on Wednesday and between then and when it was found burnt out. That means every traffic camera and CCTV in the city and surrounds needs checked.”

Davy opened his mouth to object.

“Get Carmen to help you, she can do it from Belfast.”

The analyst’s mouth closed again. Carmen was good at IT stuff, although not as good as him of course. Craig was still talking.

“If we can track the car’s movements then it might help us I.D. Jane’s companion.” He tapped the left hand column. “OK, Jane’s blood wasn’t found in the house.” He remembered something and turned to Davy again. “Has Des estimated the weight in the van from the depth of the treads?”

Davy clicked on his laptop and beckoned them over to see. “Yep. There’s a bit of reverse engineering here. Giving Oliver Bwye a w…weight of 100kg, gauged from an estimate by Bernadette Ross and his life insurance form from s…six months ago-”

Craig interrupted. “He only took out the life insurance six months ago?”

Davy shook his head. “He increased it six months ago. He’d had it for years.”

Craig had a vague recollection of twenty million being mentioned.

“What did he increase it to?”

Davy opened another window on his computer. “Twenty million. It was twelve million before.”

It was quite a hike. Davy saw Craig’s look. “That’s w…what I thought at first, but all the exclusions still apply on Bwye’s health, and if Bwye is dead he’ll obviously get nothing. But now Mrs Bwye’s dead that changes things. S…She was insured under it, so it w…was worth Bwye killing her for the insurance, or for Jane to kill them both.”

Craig parked the information and nodded him on.

“OK. Mrs Bwye’s weight was easier to find, she had a medical last month; she weighed 51kg. So adding their w…weights together we get 151kg, which, allowing five kilos for the dog, is Des’ estimate from the depth of the treads, give or take five kilos.”

Annette gasped. “Jane wasn’t in the van!”

Liam snorted. “We already know that. She drove through Derry at midnight.”

Andy was quick to disagree. “You’re assuming the kidnapping happened before midnight, hey. They could have been taken any time before eight-thirty on the Thursday morning, when Bernie Ross arrived. Jane could have come back here after O’Hare saw her car, and still been taken.”

Liam opened his mouth to argue and Craig rapped the board again, beckoning them to pay attention.

“Davy’s just proved empirically that Jane wasn’t in the van and we know that her blood wasn’t at the scene, so for now let’s say she wasn’t a victim. But Andy’s right, we can’t rule her out of events happening after midnight; she could easily have doubled back here after O’Hare saw her in town, although her speeding in the opposite direction suggests otherwise. The question becomes, was she driving away from the house that night because she was involved in her parents’ deaths, because she’d seen something and was terrified, or for some unrelated reason?”

Annette looked embarrassed. “Sorry, sir, but I have to disagree. We still have nothing to say that Jane wasn’t in the van. She could have been the driver.”

Davy glanced up at her words and shook his head. He’d been tapping his smart-pad in a way that Craig had often suspected meant he was playing a computer game, but half Davy’s attention was already worth twice someone else’s so he let him off.

“S…Sorry, I should have said. Des allowed a range of seventy to ninety kilos for the driver. That means -”

Craig cut in. “Jane was petite, no more than fifty kilos judging from her photographs, so on her own she would have been too light, and Jane plus even a tiny man would have been too heavy. Plus, the driver would have to have been a decent sized man to get Bwye and his wife into the van. Jane definitely wasn’t in the van, but it was a point well made, Annette.”

Davy sniffed slightly at being interrupted but Craig’s miracle on his PhD had earned him at least one pass.

Liam wasn’t convinced. “Correct me if I’m wrong, lad, but if old man Bwye’s in the lake and he’s stayed down this long, it’s likely he wasn’t buried with stones. What if they brought weights in the van? Did you allow for that?”

Davy thought for a moment before giving a grudging “no.” Not grudging because he was wrong but because the question hadn’t even occurred to him. To be second guessed was embarrassing, to be second guessed by Liam meant that he’d gloat for days. He was saved by having a new idea.

“The w…weight range Des allowed for the male driver could still allow for twenty kilos of weights.”

Liam shook his head and Davy could feel his gloating period extending to weeks.

“Not so fast, Einstein. What about if the van was equipped for disabled access?” He gestured towards the back door. “They could have just lowered a platform outside the back door and the Bwyes could have been rolled onto it. A woman could have done that. Maybe they even walked; if they were bleeding but not dead yet.”

Everyone was silent for a moment, then the “ah buts” began.

“It would still have been easier for a man to roll them. Oliver Bwye was big.”

“If Bwye masterminded the whole thing he could have carried his wife.”

Davy shook his head. “If Bwye did it himself then w…why would he have needed an accomplice to drive the van? The weight calculations definitively say there was another man on board, but not Jane as well.”

Craig let the discussion run for a moment before he raised a hand.

“Liam’s made a good point. Davy, if you add hydraulic lifts, ramps and disabled alterations to the van’s description, how does it affect the weight and does it narrow down the number of Ford Transits that fit?”

Davy typed in the amendment reluctantly and then gawped at the screen. It had reduced the number of vans to two! He pulled up the details.

“The modifications would only increase the van’s w…weight by between twenty to thirty kilos and that’s allowed for in the driver’s weight range. But it cuts the possible number of vans to two. One is registered to…”

He paused until Annette prompted him eagerly.

“Who? Who is it registered to?”

Davy turned to her, astonished. “The Belfast Chronicle!”

Even Craig was shocked. “What? Are you sure?”

“Positive. The other is registered to a charity that works with disabled people.”

“Diana Bwye was involved with charities.”

Davy shook his head. “It’s not one of hers.”

Andy asked the obvious question. “What does The Chronicle need a disabled van for, hey?”

Craig shook his head. “It’s not for disability. They use ramps and hydraulic lifts to load and unload bales of newspapers. When we find the van my guess is forensics will find newspaper ink all over the back.”

Andy looked confused. “Are we saying The Chronicle had something to do with Oliver Bwye’s kidnap?”

Craig shook his head. “We can’t say anything yet, not until we find either Bwye or the van. But it narrows the search, so well done, Liam. When did you think of that?”

“Same time you did; when we were out at the lake. If the van drove to the water’s edge I reckoned a ramp or hoist would make it easier to get the bodies into the water or onto a boat. A hydraulic lift would have worked as well.” He steepled his fingers, trying to look wise. “I think the perp noticed they’d left the treads almost immediately, and realised it was because of the Bwyes’ weight. So he killed them quickly, dumped them in the lake and then drove away, back over his own treads. That’s why there were no clear tracks leading away from the lake, just mush.” He gestured at the study’s rear door. “The land out there and at the lake softened because of the rain that night, but it wasn’t heavy enough to unfreeze the fields further away from the house, so the treads disappeared once they were on hard ground.”

“There wouldn’t have been a perfect overlap of the treads at the lake but it was a good enough cover in the mud. Davy, get Des busy ruling that out.”

Annette was puzzled. “But they must have known they would leave treads before they came, so why not just kill the Bwyes in the house instead of loading their weight into the van?”