The Slowest Cut

The Slowest Cut

Catriona King

Copyright © 2014 by Catriona King

Photography: Nagel Photography, Belphnaque

Artwork: Crooked Cat

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or Crooked Cat Publishing except for brief quotations used for promotion or in reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

First Black Line Edition, Crooked Cat Publishing Ltd. 2014

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For my mother.

About the Author

Catriona King trained as a doctor and a police Forensic Medical examiner in London, where she worked for many years. She worked closely with the Metropolitan Police on several occasions. In recent years, she has returned to live in Belfast.

She has written since childhood; fiction, fact and reporting.

‘The Slowest Cut’ is the sixth novel in the Craig Crime Series. It follows Superintendent Marc Craig and his team through the streets of Northern Ireland on the trail of the worst corruption they have ever experienced.

Books number seven and eight in the Craig series are in edits.

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Northern Ireland for providing the inspiration for my books.

I would like to thank Crooked Cat Publishing for being so unfailingly supportive and cheerful.

And I would like to thank all of the police officers that I have ever worked with, anywhere, for their unfailing professionalism, wit and compassion.

Catriona King

Belfast, June 2014

Also by Catriona King

The Craig Crime Series

A Limited Justice

The Grass Tattoo

The Visitor

The Waiting Room

The Broken Shore

The Slowest Cut

The Coercion Key

The Careless Word

Discover more at:
www.catrionakingbooks.com

The Slowest Cut

Chapter One

Midnight. Sunday. 2nd February 2014. Belfast

The body swung and twisted in the wind, until the chain’s tension stilled it momentarily, suspending the woman’s arms above her head like a ballerina poised mid-pirouette. The moment passed and the iron rope uncoiled, turning slowly at first in a graceful arc, then faster as the tension rebuilt, repeating the macabre dance.

The girl smiled at her work, admiring the flashes of red as the bloodied corpse turned. She took a photograph with her mobile phone and saved the image like a holiday snap. Then she walked away satisfied, certain that what she had done was right. The jet-black silence hinted at its agreement and the waiting man nodded and took her hand, letting the steel gate slide closed behind them. They were almost free.

***

Monday. 12.30 p.m. Docklands Coordinated Crime Unit. The Murder Squad.

D.C.I. Liam Cullen scrunched-up his plastic cup and threw it backwards over his head, missing the bin by a mile. Davy Walsh glanced up from his horseshoe of computers and laughed. It was the fifth time in a row that Liam had missed; something was seriously spoiling his game. Davy glanced at Jake McLean, the Squad’s sergeant, to see if he’d noticed, but he was tapping furiously on his computer keys and frowning. Only Nicky, Craig’s P.A., met his eyes, her rueful shrug saying what Davy already knew; that the whole place was out of kilter because of the boss.

Marc Craig was one of the easiest bosses that he’d ever had. Mostly polite, except when the pressure was on, then the ‘pleases’ and ‘thank-yous’ got dropped in favour of ‘do it now and ask questions later’. Sure, he lost his rag the odd time, usually on the phone with some barrister and then you could hear him yelling halfway to the lift. And he threw the occasional punch on a job, but always at a perp. So mostly they couldn’t complain. Until now. Craig had been like a bear with a migraine since Christmas, and even the usually amiable Nicky had finally had enough.

Davy watched in awe as she stood up, smoothed down her ‘this season’s’ tie-dye skirt, poured out a mug of black coffee and raised her small fist to knock on Craig’s office door. Liam turned just as her hand was poised to fall and the speed he moved at made Davy think of an Olympic sprinter, except more overweight. Liam crossed the floor in two giant lopes, a drawn-out ‘NO…’ echoing through the room. Just as he reached Nicky the office door opened and a stunned looking Craig surveyed the scene.

Liam skidded to a halt and Nicky’s fist knocked on his chest instead of Craig’s door, surprising them both and spilling the coffee everywhere. Liam felt Nicky’s words before he heard them.

“You clumsy big…”

Craig smiled at the scene, bemused, and Nicky blushed and dropped her hand down by her waist.

“Was that coffee for me, Nicky? Because generally it tastes better from a cup than the carpet.”

To Liam’s horror Nicky drew herself to her full five-foot odds and thumped the mug down on her desk then she placed her hands on her hips and let rip.

“Yes, it was for you…sir, but you don’t deserve it. This place has been like a funeral parlour for months, with everyone tiptoeing around in case they annoy you.”

She waved her hand around the room as if indicating support, but she was sorely disappointed. Jake was still tapping away furiously on his keyboard, Davy had discovered something fascinating beneath his desk and Liam was hotfooting it back to his basketball.

“Come you back here, Liam Cullen and back me up. Or…” Nicky searched for a suitable punishment. “Or you’ll be doing your own expenses in future, and…and you’ll never get another biscuit from me again!”

Liam froze mid-retreat and considered his options. The thought of years of filling in expenses claims overcame his urge to run and he turned reluctantly back to the fray, shrugging an apology at Craig. Nicky drew breath for her next tirade and Craig raised his hand, beckoning them all to pull up a chair and sit down.

“Right. First of all, I’m sorry. I’ve been a grumpy bastard for weeks. Some of you already know what it’s about and I’d rather not discuss it, but there’s still no excuse for me bringing my problems into work. Apologies.”

Liam nodded. He knew what Craig’s mood had been about; the end of his relationship with Julia McNulty. They’d been together for over a year and most people had been expecting wedding bells, but a combination of career, geography and joint intransigence had sunk them deeper than a torpedoed sub. He wasn’t sad that McNulty had gone. She’d been a looker all right but she’d a tongue on her like a knife. The boss deserved better.

Craig was still talking. “Secondly, it hasn’t been helped by us not having much to do except court appearances since Christmas. But that’s about to change.”

Jake stopped gazing longingly towards his computer and Liam sat forward eagerly, a grin brightening his pale face.

Craig scanned the open-plan office. “Anyone know where Annette is?”

Annette McElroy was the Squad’s Detective Inspector and she was normally at her desk. Nicky nodded.

“She’s taken Jordan to some special event at Queens. He wants to get in next year, to do drama. She’ll be back at three.” Jordan was Annette’s teenage son.

Craig smiled. “OK, Liam can catch her up later. Let me tell you what we’ve got. At six o’clock this morning a primary-school caretaker on the Lisburn Road went to check the playground before kids started arriving for class. What he found there closed the school and the C.S.I.s have been there since. John’s just called me.”

Dr John Winter had been Craig’s friend since grammar school. Now he was the Head Forensic Pathologist for Northern Ireland and, as Liam would have put it, ‘a brain on legs’.

Liam leaned forward, interrupting. “Let me guess. He found a body.”

Craig nodded. “Not just any body. The school’s headmistress; a Mrs Eileen Carragher.”

Davy cut in confidently. “How did s…she die?”

Davy was the team’s analyst and brilliant at his job, but when he’d started with them two years earlier he’d been so shy that he would barely speak to Craig. Now his stutter on ‘s’ and ‘w’, once so prevalent, was only there occasionally, and he often queried things, showing how comfortable he now felt with them all.

Craig shot a wary glance at Nicky before he answered the question, knowing she didn’t like the gory bits of their work. She waved him on graciously, so glad that he’d emerged from the doldrums that she’d forgive him just this once.

“Badly, Davy. John’s sending over some preliminary photos and they won’t be pretty; his description was bad enough. She was found hanging from the chain of one of the swings in the playground.”

Liam interjected knowingly. “Strangulation. Wrapped around her neck.”

Craig shook his head. “’Fraid not. She was hung up by her wrists.”

Liam sniffed huffily. “What killed her then?”

Craig winced. “A razor-sharp knife.”

“Her throat, sir?” Jake tapped his neck without thinking as he asked the question. It was too graphic for Nicky and she glanced away.

“Eventually, Jake, but not before she’d been slashed everywhere else first. They cut her so many times that John lost count. The blood loss would have killed her eventually, if the cut to her throat hadn’t done the job first.”

Liam whistled. “God, she’d pissed someone off and no mistake.”

Craig nodded. “Definitely. It reminded me of the Britt Ackerman case, except John didn’t feel that these cuts were staged. The depth made them feel frenzied.”

He stood and turned towards his office. “Liam, Jake, come with me. We’re heading to the morgue to meet John. Nicky, could you ask Annette to meet us at the school at three-thirty. The address is on my desk.”

Craig smiled and grabbed his jacket, swinging it on over his head, then he headed for the double-doors to the lifts. He felt more like himself than he had for months and it had taken a murder to do it. He didn’t want to think about what that said about him.

Chapter Two

Craig pushed his way through the PVC doors into the lab and entered John Winter’s rosy-hued outer office. He and Liam were long past being shocked by John’s Montmartre-brothel décor, but Jake had only joined the team in November so this was his first time. The look on his face was priceless. They watched as his jaw dropped like a character in a children’s cartoon and he turned full circle, taking in the drapes and artwork in John’s boudoir. It wasn’t his boudoir of course, but it was his empire and a real step back in time. It wouldn’t have surprised Craig if a can-can girl had wandered past them.

Jake’s daze was shattered by the loud brass band finale of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture, and John’s sudden appearance through a door in one corner of the room. He looked rough, and Craig said so. John took off his wire glasses and rubbed his eyes; they were bright red against his pale skin. With the background setting he would have fitted in a horror film.

Craig smiled ruefully. “Bad hangover?”

John nodded slightly and then winced. A harder nod would have set his head throbbing. They’d all been there.

“Natalie decided to make cocktails last night. She was practicing for some friend’s hen-do. I doubt that the poor girl will ever reach her wedding.”

Natalie Ingrams was John’s girlfriend/partner/significant other, whatever the correct term was when you were middle-aged and way past the first-date stage. She was a no-nonsense surgeon with a wicked sense of humour, and she’d dragged the quiet, professorial John into the twenty-first century with a bang, despite his many protests. Craig had known John since he was twelve and even then he’d had a Victorian air.

Craig smiled benignly at his friend. “I would have thought Tchaikovsky was a bit much then.”

“Opposition therapy. The louder the music the less I can hear the banging inside my head.”

John smiled vaguely at Liam in greeting and then glanced at Jake. He was wandering around the lab, touching the pictures and antique items of medical equipment that John had arranged artfully around the room.

Liam nodded sagely. “Don’t mind him, Doc. He doesn’t get out much.”

The irony of an almost-fifty father of toddlers saying that about a twenty-eight-year-old clubber made them all laugh; John very gently, and holding his head as he did. He beckoned them into his small office and found everyone seats, then he pointed Craig at the percolator and sat down.

Two minutes of banter and coffee later Craig cut to the chase. “What have you got for us, John? Take your time; we’re not in a hurry. We’re not meeting Annette at the scene for two hours.”

Winter reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a buff-coloured file. It stayed closed while he brought them up to speed.

“Right. The victim was a fifty-five-year-old school teacher called Eileen Carragher. Married, two grown-up kids. One of them, Ryan, runs a restaurant in the centre of town.”

Liam leaned forward, interrupting. “Which one?”

Liam’s natural voice was so deep that it would have been almost inaudible at times, if it hadn’t been for the volume that usually accompanied it. If a dog’s hearing allowed them to hear high-pitched sounds, then hearing Liam when he whispered would have required the exact opposite. Except that he never whispered. Ever. When he was interviewing a suspect, he deafened them into submission. Even his softer tone, the one he was employing now, would make a brave man sit up and take note.

John’s response was to stick his fingers into his hung-over ears and slink further under his desk, until the look of pain on his face passed. Then he muttered. “The Lebanese one on the Ormeau Road. Tagine.”

Amusing though the scene was, unless John took his fingers out of his ears they would get nothing done, so Craig took back the questioning.

“What does her husband do?”

“Surveyor at Taylors in town.”

“And she was the headmistress of the school where she was found?”

John half-smiled in assent.

“You said she was suspended by the chain of a swing, but that wasn’t what killed her?””

“No. She died from her carotids being severed, but not until she’d almost bled out from the cuts all over her body.” He opened the file and spread the pictures inside it across the desk. “I’ll take you to see the body in a moment, but here are just some of the injuries.”

Craig lifted the sheaf of photographs and handed them around the group in silence. The only sounds in the room were John’s coffee-machine perking and Jake’s loud gasp. The blood drained from his face and for one minute Craig thought he might be sick. Jake had asked to be seconded to Murder and he was bloody good at the job, but he hated the gory scenes. It was something he had in common with Annette, despite her nursing background. In fact everyone hated them except Liam and him. They had too many years on the clock.

Craig stared at the photograph in his hand. It showed the teacher’s back, what was left of it. It was a bloody mess and he struggled to find the normal anatomical landmarks. The whole space from the nape of her neck to the top of her hips had been stripped of skin, and not in one neat cut. Small remnants of flayed flesh sat like islands in a sea of red and purple, where her muscles had been ripped and torn, like badly tenderised steak. The only hints to exactly what had caused the damage were occasional deep slices from what looked like a large, sharp blade. He passed the photograph to Liam and took another one from Jake.

Craig could see now what had made Jake gasp. It was what was left of Eileen Carragher’s face. Beneath the short-layered brown hairstyle so loved by female teachers from his youth, sat a pair of pale blue eyes, lidless and glazed, staring out at them from a ruddy mass. Craig set the photograph face-down on the desk and stood up, ostensibly to top up his espresso, but John knew that he was shutting out the image and formulating questions to ask.

“Her face looks like it was dissected professionally, John. Was it?”

Winter shook his head. “No. I can see how you might think that. Superficially it looks like anatomy dissections of the face, but it isn’t.” He reached enthusiastically for the photo. “I could show you in detail.”

“No thanks. Just the un-illustrated highlights at the moment.”

“OK. The body was almost stripped of skin from head to foot, but it wasn’t done in any orderly way e.g. the skin wasn’t flayed off in sheets. It was sliced off randomly, hence the small pieces of skin you can see here and there. The cuts were frenzied.”

“Over how long a period, Doc?”

“I can’t be sure yet, Liam. But we’re talking days, perhaps even a week.”

“Shit! She must have annoyed the P.T.A. big time.”

John laughed, despite himself. “She annoyed someone, that’s for sure. The pattern of clotting and muscle necrosis shows that when skin was removed she was left long enough to clot, then she was cut again.” He indicated the photograph that Craig had left on the desk. “Her eyelids were cut off early.”

“So she had to watch, Dr Winter?”

John stared at Jake in surprise. “You’re right Jake. I hadn’t thought of that. I was thinking more of the pain it would have caused her, and the fact she wouldn’t have been able to rest because she couldn’t have shut out the light. But you’re right; she would have been able to see what they were doing to her, at least until her corneas became damaged through lack of tears.”

Craig looked thoughtful. “What if they were lubricating her eyes, John? Could she have seen everything then?”

John tutted, frustrated that he hadn’t thought of it. “Yes. If they’d bought artificial tears and put them in regularly then she’d have been witness to her own death. I’ll test the corneas for chemicals.”

Craig smiled at his friend, seeing that he was getting annoyed with himself. John would normally have anticipated all their questions and he’d have got there today, eventually, once his blood alcohol dropped. Craig could see him composing a lecture to Natalie inside his head, entitled ‘don’t lead me astray on a work night.’ She would ignore him as usual and Craig was glad. John was too work-focused, even more than he was at times. Natalie brought him back to the real world.

“OK. So perhaps Eileen Carragher watched herself die, and perhaps she didn’t. Any idea what sort of knife did this?”

John smiled, on steadier ground. “Razor sharp with a broad blade. Some of the sideways cuts sliced deep into the muscle. Hang on and I’ll call Des. He’ll have a book about it for sure.”

Five minutes later the bearded figure of Dr Des Marsham, Head of Forensic Science, strolled through the door. He was carrying two thick, leather-bound volumes. Craig stood up to greet him.

“Long time no see, Des. How are Annie and the baby?”

“Not so much a baby now, more a holy terror. I swear to God that child rules us both with a rod of iron.”

Liam felt his pain. Des’ son Rafferty was only four months older than his own boy, Rory, and he hadn’t had any sleep for months. “Did you ever wish that someone would invent boarding kennels for babies?”

“Brilliant idea, but don’t say that in Annie’s hearing. She thinks the sun shines out of his nappies.”

Liam nodded and rubbed his eyes, looking for sympathy. “Danni’s the same. The last time I had a decent night’s sleep was during that case in Portstewart last November.”

Jake put an imaginary handkerchief to his eye and sniffed and Liam batted his hand away. Craig waved Des to his seat and took up position against the wall behind John.

Des tapped the two books on his lap, then shot Craig a warning look. “Now, because you’re a mate I’m going to lend you these books, for Davy to check out the knife. But I want them back in mint condition. They’re original editions from the 1950s.” He stroked the leather lovingly and smiled at John. “Nothing they’ve produced since touches them, for the range and accuracy of the descriptions.”

Liam interjected. “Aye, and that would all be dead interesting, Doc, if this was an episode of the Antiques Roadshow. What about the case?”

Des punched Liam in the arm hard enough to make him jump. “You’re in our town now, Cullen. Show some respect.” He held out the books, pushing past Liam’s outstretched hand to give them to Craig.

Craig nodded his thanks. “Davy will take good care of them. Any first opinions on the knife?”

“Razor thin, broad blade and serrated edge. I’ve slipped a list of possibilities inside the front cover. If we get anything more on it, I’ll call you.”

John rose to take them to the mortuary, and Jake ventured a question.

“Have you ever seen this method of killing before, Dr Winter?”

“Not here. But…”

Craig cut in. “Where, John?”

“I’m not certain, but I know that I’ve seen it somewhere. Outside Northern Ireland.” John thought hard for a moment then shook his head. “The problem is I’ve been a lot of places over the years, Marc. The U.S., Eastern Europe, China, Australia. It could have been in any one of them. I’ll have a think.”

John was internationally respected in forensic pathology and he’d been asked to consult on hundreds of atrocities over the years, from war crimes to serial killers.

“It’ll come back to me.”

They descended the stairs to the ice-cold mortuary and John crossed to a steel table in the centre that held the familiar shape of a body. He pulled back the sheet and the sight that greeted them was even worse than Craig had feared. Even Liam was silenced by what he saw.

The woman’s body was short and thick set. It was a woman, but if they hadn’t already known that the body was female only the hair style would have given them a clue. There wasn’t even enough left of Eileen Carragher to say which was the front of her body and which the back. All that remained was three-square-feet of raw meat with limbs attached. Jake didn’t just look sick this time, he actually was. He bolted from the room and they heard him retching in the corridor outside. John left for a moment to steer him towards the bathroom, then returned and started reporting like the professional he was.

“Female, approximately forty to sixty.” It fitted with Eileen Carragher’s known age of fifty-five. “Naked when found, suspended vertically by the wrists from the chain of a child’s swing in the playground of Fitzwilliam Primary School on the Lisburn Road.”

Craig raised a hand, interrupting. “How was she I.D.ed if she was naked? It’s impossible to say who she is from her face.”

John shook his head and Craig knew he was frustrated with himself again.

“Sorry, I should have said. Her wedding ring, driving licence and purse were laid out at her feet. There was a note inside the purse. You’ll see it when forensics have finished. Des has photocopies of everything for you upstairs.”

“What did the note say?”

“It was succinct. ‘The bitch got what she deserved.’”

“Written?”

“Typed; sorry. We’re checking it for prints. Obviously we’ll check the victim’s DNA to confirm the I.D.”

He turned back to the body and carried on. “OK. Cause of death was exsanguination from a single cut to the throat that severed both carotid arteries. Lividity says she was vertical when she was killed and had remained that way for at least six hours. Until she was taken down this morning.”

“She was suspended before death?”

“Before, but the marks on her wrists say not long before. There’s no bleeding at the wrists; the skin wasn’t broken, which it would have been if she’d been suspended by an iron chain for more than a few hours. Her throat was definitely cut while she was hanging. Blood spray on the playground matches that expected from carotid bleeding, but not from any of the older wounds. I’d say her other wounds had clotted before she was brought there. So on balance, she was tortured elsewhere and brought to the playground to die.”

Craig nodded. “We’ll narrow down the timings later, but it’s likely she was brought there after dark last night, to prevent the killers being seen, and we know she was found this morning at six o’clock. That leaves us with a tight window to bring her there, string her up and kill her.”

He turned to Liam. “Liam, can you get Davy to check sunset and sunrise times, and start the Uniforms on door-to-door, especially any buildings overlooking the playground. CCTV and traffic cams as well please.” He nodded John on.