The Cabal

by Catriona King

  As she rested back in her chair, Andy noted that at least Jake had the decency to look ashamed. There was no point being politically correct if you were also as judgmental as hell.

  “Ask whatever you need, Chief Inspector.”

  “Thank you, Ms Wasson. Veronica Lewis. She’s your madam, yes?”

  The young woman shook her head instantly. “I work for myself.” That established, her tone relaxed. “But Veronica organises high-end parties.”

  “How often?”

  “Fortnightly or thereabouts. More often in the winter, between September and March.” She gave a wry smile. “Party season. Dark nights.”

  Andy nodded. There was nothing like the cover of darkness to make someone throw caution to the wind.

  “What sort of people attend?”

  She stared at him coolly. “Men and women.”

  Touché.

  “Let me rephrase that. You would be one of the women, yes?”

  She nodded.

  “How many other women would there be, approximately?”

  “Thirty or forty of us. All in our teens or twenties.”

  It seemed that powerful men liked them young.

  “Do you know the others?”

  She shrugged. “Most, not all. Veronica’s loyal. She always hires her regular girls first, as long as they know how to hold their knives and forks.”

  “But there are occasional additions?”

  “New girls. Yes. They tend to be the teenagers.”

  Jake spoke for the first time since they’d entered. “Were you a teenager when you started with Mrs Lewis?”

  Their hostess’ green eyes swivelled towards him and Andy answered before she could.

  “Ms Wasson’s already explained she was married until recently.”

  She smiled at him, nodding. “I was, but my friend Hannah was a teenager when she started with Vero.”

  Jake pressed his point. “How old?”

  It elicited a tut.

  “Naughty, naughty, Sergeant. If you’re trying to imply that Vero procures underage girls then you couldn’t be more wrong. She insists on passports to prove we’re eighteen. When Hannah first went to a party it was to supplement her student grant.”

  Andy took back the questioning. “So, when you fell on hard times more recently…”

  “I contacted Vero looking for work and she helped me.”

  But Jake hadn’t finished. “And the men? How many of them usually?”

  “Ten to twenty. Vero likes a ratio of two girls to one.” She gave a slow smile. “That way no-one feels lonely.”

  “Older men?”

  She shrugged. “Mostly, but some of the guys have been in their twenties as well. It all depends.”

  “On their funds?”

  “That and their kinks. Vero caters for some unusual tastes.”

  As Andy opened his mouth to ask another question she raised a finger, waving it from side to side.

  “I’m not giving you any names, so don’t ask. That’s what they pay for. Discretion.”

  She glanced at the clock and jumped up. “We need to go. My youngest finishes soon. You can continue your questioning on the way.”

  They did, and by the time they’d reached the ground floor of the building they knew that Jenny Wasson had last seen Veronica Lewis fit and well at a party on Saturday, ten days before. All the sex-worker’s queries on whether something had happened to the madam since were answered by silence, as were all the detective’s requests for names and venues, so by the time they approached St Anselm’s Primary School, the conversation seemed to have hit a dead end.

  Wasson smiled at Andy in consolation.

  “It’s not that I won’t tell you where the parties are held, it’s that I don’t know, and none of the other girls will either. We gather at one of our flats and Vero sends a car to collect us, then we’re blindfolded when we get in. They’re only removed when we’re inside the party house. All I can tell you is that they’re usually places in the country. A different place each time. One of them was huge, with a marble statue on the veranda and acres of grass. I should know, I tried to walk round it with a guest but we had to give up.”

  Andy switched off the engine and turned towards her. “Answer me this. Were there any street lights that you could see?”

  “None. It was pitch black almost as soon as we walked away from the house.”

  He signalled Jake to pitch in. They only had minutes before the school bell went and their source disappeared to meet her son.

  “Could you hear any cars or aircraft?”

  Wasson shook her auburn mane.

  “How long were you in the car going there?”

  She smiled, revealing small white teeth. “That I can tell you. From east Belfast, that’s where we gathered that night, it took just under two hours till we reached that particular house.” She shrugged at Jake’s raised eyebrow. “It was so long I checked my watch when we arrived. Also, it was in May so driving conditions were good, if that helps any?”

  It gave them something at least. Andy became solemn suddenly.

  “Can you think of anyone who would want to hurt Mrs Lewis? Girls, her son, customers?”

  Wasson looked shocked and asked her earlier question again. “Has something happened to Vero? Tell me. Please.”

  When he didn’t respond she replied to his question in a heavy voice. “None of the girls would ever hurt her, but some of the clients are really dodgy. Not ducking and diving dodgy, but sleazy and arrogant, like they’re so rich they think they’re entitled to do whatever they want. But you’re barking up the wrong tree with her kid. Rupert loves his mum, and he would starve if it wasn’t for Vero baling him out.”

  “He might be after her life insurance.”

  She shook her head firmly. “No. I really can’t see it. They’re the only family the other one has. He would never hurt her.”

  Just then a klaxon sounded, making Andy jump; it sounded like a nuclear bomb was about to drop! It made him nostalgic for his old school bell.

  Wasson opened the door and went to get out, then she turned back, glancing towards Jake.

  “You’re not wrong you know, most of the men are scum, but well-connected scum that you really don’t want to mess with. Be careful, you two. You’re dealing with the top one percent.”

  Then she was gone, leaving Andy pondering their next move. His thoughts were interrupted by Jake leaping into the passenger seat and punching Rupert Lewis’ address into the GPS.

  ****

  3 p.m.

  Craig was still gazing out at the Lagan, thinking, when he heard Nicky answering the phone outside. Her words registered only as background murmuring so he returned to the questions pre-occupying his mind. Who was pressuring Sean Flanagan to investigate Veronica Lewis’ disappearance? Who had the power to compel the PSNI’s Chief Constable to do anything, except someone in government? But which government? Westminster or the Stormont Assembly? And why would either care what had happened to some madam?

  Covering up some politician’s sexual misdemeanours was too simplistic an answer, and he honestly couldn’t see Flanagan agreeing to it. The agenda had to be more significant than that to involve the police.

  His questions would have to wait, not only because they needed information that they’d only begun to gather, but because Craig suddenly found himself being dragged unceremoniously out his office door. In the second that he took to register who was dragging him, not that there could ever have been much doubt, he had ripped his arm from Liam Cullen’s hand and started to form a fist.

  “You’ve got five seconds to tell me why you just manhandled me!” He ignored Nicky’s elevated eyebrows as he went on. “And don’t even get me started on why you couldn’t have just asked me to follow you, instead of hauling me out like a resisting perp!”

  Liam stared down at Craig’s clenched hand and then at his increasingly irate face, then his gaze shifted reluctantly around the room as he registered everyone’s as
tonishment at what he had just done. It was then that the penny dropped with a clang.

  “Oh.”

  “Yes, oh! It’s customary to knock the door and say, ‘we need you out here’, not grab me like we were in the middle of a scrum!”

  Nicky raised a finger timorously. “I think that might have been my fault, sir.”

  A pair of angry eyes swivelled towards her. “How?”

  “I took a call and panicked, so I shouted to Liam that I needed you urgently and-”

  “He went into Incredible Hulk mode.” Craig nodded tersely. “Leaving that aside for now, what was the call about?”

  “It was from Hillsborough Castle, sir.” The PA swallowed hard. “The First Minister’s been shot.”

  Chapter Three

  Hillsborough Castle, Hillsborough, County Down. 4 p.m.

  Northern Ireland’s First Minister Peter McManus hadn’t just been shot, he had a hole in the centre of his forehead the size of a fist, and as Craig stared down at a kneeling John Winter, the country’s Head Pathologist, no-one else considered important enough by their self-aggrandised political orthodoxy to confirm that McManus had indeed been killed, he had the incongruous thought that whoever had done the deed had probably won shooting prizes in his youth, and that such accuracy said they were very well deserved.

  No-one had seen the shot coming, and so far no-one could tell him where it had come from. All they did know was that McManus had been standing at the entrance of the historic castle, taking the afternoon sun and chatting to an advisor, when a soundless, unheralded missile had dropped him where he stood.

  Craig broke the silence that existed within the bubble encompassing the body, John Winter and him, the chattering of his team taking early witness statements and the murmurings of civil servants and an unfortunate busload of Japanese tourists who had been touring the historical edifice, having faded into the background minutes before.

  “Well?”

  The pathologist glanced up at his best friend, shielding his bespectacled eyes from the sun with one hand; they didn’t get much sunshine in Northern Ireland but, despite the evidence to the contrary lying at his feet, today was proving to be a perfect summer’s day.

  “Well what? You didn’t need me here to tell you cause of death, Marc! The bullet went straight through his head!”

  Craig shrugged. “Sorry about that. It wasn’t my idea to drag you down here.” He gestured vaguely towards the building’s paned glass windows, hosting the crowd of the murmuring behind. “Someone in there insisted.” His gesture shifted to the body. “Important man, McManus, even in death. Allegedly.”

  Winter’s smile said that he shared the detective’s cynicism about their political class. As he jumped to his feet an enormous shadow across the body told them that Liam was approaching, his bulk sufficient to block out the low-lying afternoon sun. Craig continued as if his deputy wasn’t there.

  “What can you tell me then?”

  The pathologist stripped off his latex gloves as he spoke. “High powered rifle firing bullets of at least one hundred millimetres diameter. The defect’s enormous, as you can see. I’m actually surprised that the man’s still recognisable. Anyway, I’ll know-”

  Liam finished the sentence. “More after the P.M.”

  “Indeed. What I can tell you is that your shooter’s a professional.”

  He pointed past the blue-lit police cars and across the wall that shielded the castle from common view, and with a waggle of his wrist implied additional distance.

  “The angle of entry says it came from up there somewhere, but the size of the hole and the fact it went straight through means you’re looking for something special. The bullet could be embedded anywhere around here so you’ll really need to search. This wasn’t just any old man with a normal gun.”

  His last few words fell on deaf ears as the detectives had already shifted, searching the building’s frontage and driveway for the bullet that had got away. Craig beckoned some uniformed constables across.

  “I need a fingertip search of the ground and walls.” He pointed towards some nearby foliage. “And someone needs to get down in those bushes. Liam, cordon off the whole town.”

  As Hillsborough fancied itself as one of Northern Ireland’s elite villages, even the words used to order such an invasion could be taken as offence.

  A tall W.P.C. asked the pertinent question. “Searching for what, sir?”

  Craig’s reply was to nod to the pathologist. “John. Tell everyone what they need to know.”

  As Winter outlined the likely missile and the fact they might find it intact, flattened or embedded, Craig made his way back to the corpse, staring down at the hole in Peter McManus’ forehead and the mild surprise in his still open bright-blue eyes. The breach was so large that he could see the driveway’s gravel through it and he wondered if the MLA had seen the approaching missile about to end his life. No doubt Liam would perform some cabaret about the episode later for the entertainment of the squad, but for now their main task was to catch whoever had made the shot.

  The detective turned the facts over in his mind. The bullet, gun and assassin might lead them somewhere, but the answer to why McManus had been targeted almost certainly lay in the dead man’s life; the reason someone had wanted him gone badly enough to take out a professional hit had to be there.

  Craig frowned as he ran through possible reasons; there were probably many but politics had to be top of the list. As well as being the First Minister, McManus had been the leader of the radical Independent Britain Party, and the IBP had pissed off a lot of lobbies in its short life, particularly with its stances on immigration and the environment. But while McManus’ party manifesto might well turn out to be the answer it would be lazy to assume it, so what else had the First Minister got up to during his, relatively meteoric at forty, public rise? Or in his private life? Their job was to turn over every stone in their search for answers, regardless of how uncomfortable it made people or what nasty little creatures lurked beneath.

  His thoughts were interrupted by Liam approaching again.

  “We’ve started the search and the lads are taking quick and dirty statements. Anyone interesting we’ll interview later in depth. But what about over there?” He pointed a chunky finger towards John’s suggested direction for the bullet’s origin. “We’ll need to check out the shooting gallery.”

  Craig nodded. “Get Andy and Jake on that.”

  “They’re still out interviewing on the kidnapping.”

  “OK. Aidan then, and ten uniforms. Ask Des for a quick trajectory analysis.”

  Doctor Des Marsham was Northern Ireland’s Head of Forensics and he worked closely with John Winter at the province’s Belfast-based Pathology Labs.

  As Liam went in search of information Craig made a call to their base.

  “Nicky? Has the C.C. been on?”

  The PA stopped typing the email she’d been just about to send him, instead reading its contents aloud in an anxious tone. She wasn’t sure why but the idea of the lead politician in the country getting shot in broad daylight agitated her, and she hadn’t even voted for the man.

  “I was just about to message you, sir. Chief Flanagan has organised for the Deputy First Minister, Gloria O’Rawe of The Whole Ireland Party …” She stopped suddenly, confused. “Oh. No, well actually, she’s the First Minister now, isn’t she? Or will that be Roger Burke, Mister McManus’ deputy in the IBP?”

  Craig gave a sigh that moved her on.

  “Well, anyway, he’s arranged for her, the rest of the executive and the whole IBP to be sequestered temporarily, just for a few hours till he can upgrade their protection details. And he’s asked for you to call and update him in an hour.”

  Craig nodded. Standard protocol. Secure the other politicians in case this was the start of an assassination spree. He doubted it somehow, if that had been the plan the assassin would just have waited till they could have killed the whole assembly at once, and their weapon of choi
ce wouldn’t have been a gun.

  The idea brought him up short. Even though McManus was only one man, why shoot him? He could have been killed in far less obvious ways: poison, something that would mimic a heart attack, a road traffic incident, drowning; there were a million ways to kill a man that could have been dismissed as natural. The assassin could have achieved the same result and put nobody on their tail.

  His thoughts were interrupted by Nicky’s voice rising in volume.

  “Did you hear what I said, sir? The Chief would like to meet you and Doctor Winter tomorrow morning at nine.”

  Craig shook his head to clear it. “Sorry. Yes, Nicky. That’s all fine. I’ll call him in an hour and we’ll be there tomorrow. Just one thing. Who apart from the C.C. knows where the politicians have been sequestered?”

  She was taken aback for a moment; she hadn’t even thought of asking and she hated being caught on the hop. Craig moved on quickly, realising that she wouldn’t know the answer, and that the question sounded suspicious even to him. He wasn’t even sure why he’d asked it. It was unlikely that someone had killed McManus just to get the others sequestered so that they could take them out en masse, more likely that a weekend spent watching Homeland was making him paranoid.

  “Don’t worry, Nicky, I’ll ask the C.C. when I call him. And could you push back the briefing to half-five, please. Thanks.” He cut the call and made another one immediately. Sean Flanagan’s PA came on the line.

  “Hello, Donna. Is he there?”

  Donna Scott smiled. She liked Craig. Mainly because he was handsome but also because he was polite; a rare combination in her experience.

  “I’ll put you through now, Chief Superintendent.”

  As Sean Flanagan’s familiar warm boom vibrated the line, Craig took a deep breath for calm, knowing that if he revealed his paranoia he might scrap his credibility for ever more.