The Sect (The Craig Crime Series)

by Catriona King

  He was working his hunch and Craig was curious. “Via the lab. I’ll see you here in ten.”

  When Liam arrived John greeted him with an astonished stare. “You were in a library? What for?”

  The giant detective attempted chagrin but only managed the latter part.

  “I should be offended by that.”

  “Much as we love you, Liam, we all know academia isn’t your strong point.”

  Liam shrugged. “I didn’t find what I was looking for anyway, so I’m off to the Uni Library next.”

  Craig interjected. “The tattoo?”

  “Aye. It rang a bell.”

  “Care to tell us?”

  Liam shook his head. “Not yet, if that’s OK. I want to play this through.”

  Craig smiled. Liam’s hunches had a high accuracy rate. He turned to John. “Time to give Des a call.”

  Five minutes later Des Marsham appeared at the door. Liam shook his head.

  “Every time I see you I’m expecting flowers in that beard.”

  “Apparently that’s fashionable in California.”

  “So are surfboards but you don’t see many of those in Belfast.”

  Craig asked the question they’d invited Des down to answer.

  “The girl’s tox-screen. Anything yet?”

  Des nodded his head. “An hour ago. Only the one drug, Heroin; overdose levels. Very high grade too, around eighty per cent pure.”

  Liam whistled. “One shot of that and you’re dead.”

  John shook his head. “She was dead when they gave it to her.”

  Des set his smart-pad on the desk, tapping up pictures of Elena Boraks’ arms. Track marks crisscrossed her inner elbows and her thickened veins sat millimetres above her skin.

  “She was injected there, at the left inner elbow, but there were other, older, injection sites too. Groin, between her toes, John even found a few holes in her cornea.”

  Liam’s normal pallor lightened a few more shades as he screwed up his face in disgust. “How the hell can someone inject themselves in the eye? I feel sick when I go for my glasses check.”

  Craig shrugged. “If you’re desperate for a fix and your veins are shot, I suppose you’ll try anything.” He turned to John. “How can you be sure the Heroin was injected after death?”

  “I sampled her blood from several different sites and her levels were low; the only place the drug was concentrated was at the injection site. That means it hadn’t circulated. No pulse.”

  Craig sat forward. “Exactly how low were her levels elsewhere?”

  “Non-existent. If I had to guess I’d say that she wasn’t using anymore.”

  No-one spoke for a moment and then Craig thought out loud.

  “She’d had a habit since she was fourteen…” He turned to Des. “No other drugs on the tox-screen?”

  Des shook his head. “Only the signs of occasional coke use that John found in her nose.”

  “OK. So by the looks of her veins her Heroin habit was severe at some point and all her attempts at rehab had failed. That’s what Annette said; she’d been in an out of rehab for years without success.”

  Liam looked surprised and Craig realised he hadn’t heard about Annette’s discovery. He brought them up to date and then carried on.

  “So what makes a hardened Heroin addict stop using for long enough to drop her levels to zero?” He turned to John. “And I have another question. How long would it take for a bad habit to clear someone’s system?”

  John thought for a moment before answering. “If she went cold turkey, and the absence of drugs of any sort in her blood says that she probably did, it could have taken as little as one week for the Heroin to clear her blood, although it would have been present in her other tissues for longer.”

  “She’d failed for years so how did she suddenly manage to stay off Smack for that long?”

  The room fell quiet while everyone thought. Liam went to say something then shook his head; the look in his eye saying he wasn’t ready to share his hunch. John was the first to speak.

  “I’d have said she’d used Methadone, a Heroin substitute used for slow withdrawal, but there are no signs. She definitely went cold turkey.” He thought for a moment. “Hypnotism?”

  Craig shook his head. “I think something actively prevented her using.”

  Des nodded. “Or someone. It would explain the manacle marks if she’d been restrained.”

  “So we’re talking about a draconian rehab regime.”

  John nodded eagerly. “Maybe at a clinic. It could explain the bleach.”

  Craig shook his head. “But not why they drowned her. Why get someone clean and then kill them?”

  It didn’t make sense.

  Des ventured a suggestion. “What if she was trying to clean herself up and when she failed she drowned herself?”

  Liam guffawed. “Then she wrapped herself in cling-film and dumped herself in the bushes I suppose?”

  Des shot him a huffy look. “It was just an idea.”

  Craig interrupted diplomatically. “It’s as sensible as any we’ve come up with. OK, it looks like the who and why will have to wait; at least we’re piecing together her last days. Liam, have you spoken to Karl again?”

  “Not yet. I’ve been…”

  “At the library. I know. OK, ask him to put out feelers about any high grade Heroin coming into the country. Stuff that pure costs a fortune, so either we’re talking one of the big dealers who’d normally cut it down to sell or…”

  John finished the sentence. “…a private buyer who never intended it for the street. Do we know when Ms Boraks was last seen?”

  Craig shook his head. “Not yet. But now we know her name we can start asking.” He turned back to Des. “What about the prints, Des? You said you might have one from the cling-film.”

  Des nodded energetically. “I did and I have. It was on the outer sheet of film found around the girl. I’m still fuming the other sheets. The good news is that it doesn’t match any of our victims.”

  Liam nodded. “That makes sense. They weren’t likely to have killed each other.”

  Craig disagreed. “Stranger things have happened when people are fighting for their lives.”

  Des continued. “The bad news is that the print doesn’t match anyone yet. Whoever they are they’ve never darkened the justice system’s doors.”

  Craig nodded slowly.

  “OK, so we have Elena Boraks, a nineteen-year-old girl of Polish parentage born in Belfast, with a father living locally. She’d been stealing to fund her drug habit, bit of shoplifting etcetera, but had moved onto prostitution.”

  Liam chipped in. “And was too healthy looking to be a street walker.”

  It seemed a strange thing to say about a dead person but everyone knew what he meant. Craig nodded.

  “My thoughts exactly. So she was working from a house.”

  John cut in. “But not trafficked.”

  “It seems not. Although that doesn’t mean that the house wasn’t owned by a gang. Annette’s working on that now. OK, so we’re making progress on Sam Beech and Elena Boraks, but we still have no I.D. on victim number two.”

  Liam nodded. “Jake’ll find it if they were known on the gay scene.” He stood up to leave and Craig raised an eyebrow.

  “Are we boring you?”

  “Aye. I mean, no. There’s just somewhere I need to be.”

  He tapped the side of his frequently broken nose, the trophy of too many rugby scrums, and Craig waved him out, knowing he’d be told when he knew anything. As Liam reached the car park he called Davy.

  “Theology Professors.”

  “Physics lecturers.”

  Liam shot a puzzled look at his phone. “What?”

  Davy’s voice was innocent. “I thought you were playing word games.”

  “You did not, you’re just a messer. I need…”

  “To see a theology professor.”

  “Aye.”

  “OK. Head
towards Queen’s and I’ll phone you back in ten.”

  Halfway down the Ormeau Road he called back.

  “Theodore Rustin.”

  “Is that a name or an illness?”

  “It’s the name of the Prof of Theological History at Queen’s. They can see you in an hour.”

  Liam’s outrage was noisy. “An hour! What am I supposed to do till then?” He’d gone off the idea of the library.

  Davy was tempted to say something rude but instead he made a suggestion.

  “I’m not a nutritionist but I’d say it was time for lunch, s…so find somewhere in Botanic Avenue and eat. I’ve sent the Prof’s address to your phone.”

  With that he hung up and looked round for someone to tell about the conversation. His eyes fell on Annette. She was pounding her keyboard as if her life depended on it.

  “Want to hear something funny?”

  She shook her head, not glancing up. After a moment’s more pounding she pressed print and crossed to the printer beside Nicky’s desk.

  “Carmen and Ken, would you join me in the Super’s office please?”

  Ken rose enthusiastically only to have it dampened by Carmen’s condescending glance. She glared at Annette.

  “Why?”

  There was silence as Ken’s eyes widened. He pictured himself asking the same of a senior army officer; he’d be confined to barracks for a week. Even Davy was shocked by Carmen’s tone. Nicky merely pulled back her chair to get comfortable for the coming fight. There was none; Annette merely entered Craig’s office knowing that even Carmen’s obstinacy would be trumped by curiosity eventually. She could wait, what she wouldn’t do was explain herself to a bolshie constable.

  Ken weighed Carmen’s disdain against offending Annette and walked quickly into Craig’s room. A few seconds later the Scot rose from her chair and strolled casually towards its door. Nicky slid her chair over to obstruct the way.

  “Move, Nicky.”

  “Or?”

  It wasn’t what Carmen had expected, or Annette. Annette let the standoff continue a moment longer then appeared at the door to retrieve the D.C. She wished Carmen didn’t turn everything into such a fight. She really needed to be careful; making an enemy of Nicky was never a good idea.

  Once everyone was seated Annette began. “The Super has put me in charge of all three victims with Liam and I have an update on the girl. She’s been I.D.ed as Elena Boraks, nineteen, and she has a father still alive. I need you to visit him this afternoon and report back. I’ll be busy finding out more about Sam Beech’s step-dad.”

  Carmen cut in. “I’ve already been leading on the girl. Working with Vice and Gang Crime.”

  “The Super wants me to supervise the cases from London, would you like to argue with him?”

  Carmen thought back to when Craig had almost suspended her and grudgingly shook her head. To her disgust Ken sat forward eagerly. “Do you have anything more on the girl?”

  Annette smiled and handed him the file about Elena Boraks’ petty theft and rehab attempts.

  “We think that she shifted from theft to prostitution sometime over the last two years. The Super’s certain she was working in a brothel. Whether it was forced prostitution or voluntary we don’t know yet.”

  Ken smiled. “That’s what you’d like us to find out.”

  “Exactly. Liaise with whoever you like; Vice, Gangs; anything you can find will be useful. But first I want you to see her father and inform him of her death. He needs to identify the body.” She spotted indifference in Carmen’s eyes and her voice tightened. “Please remember that this is his daughter. He may not know she was using drugs or working as a prostitute, so be careful what you say. Just get some details of her life, the last time he saw her, what she was like generally; you know what to ask. Doctor Winter can fill in the gaps for him once he’s done the I.D.”

  Carmen snorted and Annette wanted to reach across the desk and slap her. She almost did when she heard her next words.

  “So Mr Boraks, what can you tell us about your Heroin addicted, hooker daughter? Did she like kittens and soft toys?”

  Ken gawped at the woman beside him in horror and Annette physically recoiled. When she recovered her tone was icy.

  “Who the hell do you think you are, Constable McGregor? That’s someone’s child you’re talking about. You callous, vicious little…”

  A glance from Ken told her to stop, not because she wasn’t right but because she was in danger of giving Carmen mud to sling back. Annette halted mid-sentence and took a deep breath; it was followed by several more before she walked to the office door and threw it open wide.

  “D.C. McGregor, you obviously can’t be trusted to visit the victim’s family so Ken and I will do so instead. You’re on desk duty until I decide what to do with you.”

  She held the door as a stunned looking Carmen glared at her and then shot Ken a look that said he would pay for his disloyalty later that night. As the angry redhead made her way back to her desk Annette slumped into Craig’s chair and shook her head.

  “Why does she do it, Ken?”

  The soldier shook his own head in return. “I honestly don’t know. Every time I get a glimpse of how nice she can be, her defences appear and a real bitch along with them.”

  Annette raised an eyebrow. Dating Carmen seemed to be eroding Ken’s gentlemanly streak. He continued.

  “The thing is, if we’d actually gone to see Mr Boraks she would have been as good as gold. Maybe not held his hand, but she wouldn’t have said anything deliberately hurtful. It’s just…”

  “It’s because I’m taking over and she doesn’t like having a boss. She’s just about got used to the Super and Liam telling her what to do, but having me do it is too much.”

  Ken shrugged. “I think it’s defensiveness, but when I ask her why she just clams up. She gave Liam a hard time at first, in fact the only people she’s never been rude to are Davy and Jake. With you I think it’s because she wanted to run the Vice and Gang strands and now the Super’s given control to you. Carmen’s really insecure so she’ll take that as a criticism of her work.”

  Annette sighed. “It isn’t criticism, just oversight. I’m heading to London tonight so she would still have been running things here if she hadn’t been so bloody rude.” She sighed. “Now I’ve just made more work for myself.” She glanced at the clock and stood up, motioning him towards the door. “The briefing’s at five so we need to get on with things, plus we haven’t had lunch yet. The James’ Bar?”

  He nodded eagerly; anything was better than the food in the canteen. Annette gathered her bag, Nicky and Davy and they headed for the lift, leaving an angry constable contemplating the error of her ways. But Carmen’s thoughts were less about her own faults than everyone else’s. She headed for the canteen grinding her teeth about the injustice of the world and plotting her revenge.

  ****

  Jake glanced at his car radio and rolled his eyes. Andy had changed the station five times in the ten minutes it had taken them to drive from Docklands to the multi-storey car park at St Anne’s Square, only stopping when he’d found some smooth rock.

  When he hadn’t been pressing buttons he’d been eating a Toblerone so slowly that Jake had half expected him to nod off. If he hadn’t known the D.C.I. was a chocoholic he’d have thought his lethargic munchies were the result of smoking dope.

  Jake exited the driver’s side and was halfway down the staircase when he noticed his companion was trailing behind. Andy waved the sergeant back.

  “Take your time, son. Your contact won’t run away.”

  Jake kept walking. “He won’t be meeting us in the car park either.” He glanced at his watch. “We can’t be late – it took me five calls to set this meeting up.”

  It wasn’t worth Andy’s precious energy to argue so he merely shrugged and strolled on at his normal pace, resisting the pressure to accelerate that Jake’s enthusiasm provoked. He’d reached the rank of D.C.I. by ignoring pressure s
o he saw no need to change the habit now. As they emerged into the daylight Jake pointed across St Anne’s Square with the eagerness of a hunting dog.

  “Over there. In the MAC.”

  He led the way through the Arts Centre’s sliding doors and into one of its café’s dark wood booths. Andy’s eyes widened at the sight of a drinks list.

  “Do they sell hot chocolate here?”

  “We’re not here to have drinks; we’re waiting for someone.”

  The D.C.I. ignored him and perused the menu, ordering a hot chocolate when the waitress came and an Americano for Jake despite his ‘no’. Two minutes of slurping later a slim, dark man of around twenty entered through the plate glass doors. He saw Jake and approached, only to stop halfway when Andy’s spikey head bobbed up. He turned to leave but Jake hurried over with his hand extended to shake.

  “You must be T.J.?”

  The youth’s eyes widened, displaying his Vaselined lashes to best effect. His tone was accusing. “Rick said that you’d be alone.”

  Jake waved a hand dismissively towards the booth. “Ignore him. He’s just here to learn.”

  Partly true but best not said within a D.C.I.’s earshot. Jake steered the youth expertly towards the booth, ordering him a coffee on the way. When T.J. was sipping the sergeant nodded at his senior officer for permission to take the lead. It was polite of him but unnecessary; he’d been leading since they’d left the C.C.U.

  He turned to the young man beside him, trying to ignore Andy’s increasingly recumbent position against the booth’s wall.

  “Thanks for coming T.J. Rick said you might be able to help with a case that we’re investigating.”

  He paused, uncertain how much his informant had told the youth, or exactly why he’d suggested his name for the meet. All he knew about T.J. McDonagh was that he was well known on the local LGBT scene and that he’d experienced some sort of family stress. He decided on a cautious approach.

  “What exactly did Rick tell you?”

  T.J shrugged. “That you’re investigating some weird case.”

  Good. At least he was expecting something strange.