The Cabal

by Catriona King

  “Hello, Craig. Bad business.”

  “Yes, sir. We’ve almost completed the preliminary interviews and I’ve organised a fingertip search.”

  “For the-?” He cut himself short. “Hold on a minute.”

  Craig heard the door being opened, followed by some murmuring before Flanagan came back on the line.

  “Call me back on this number.”

  As Craig scribbled it down the phone went dead. He redialled, registering the unmistakable buzz of a secure line as Flanagan started speaking again.

  “OK, now we can talk. Your fingertip search is for-?”

  “The bullet, sir. It was a through and through shot so Doctor Winter thinks it’ll be embedded somewhere nearby.”

  Flanagan didn’t try to hide his shock. “Bloody hell! Someone must really have hated the man.”

  Craig didn’t comment, taking a different tack. “We’ve asked forensics for the likely trajectory and I’ve a D.C.I. and uniforms going to search along it now.”

  “What are you hoping to find? Casings?”

  “Not sure yet. But I have to ask…why shoot him?”

  Flanagan frowned at the obvious question. “Sorry, what?”

  “Why bother shooting the First Minister, sir, when they could have killed him a million disguisable ways? Poisoning, an accident-”

  The C.C. cut him off with another “Bloody hell” but he fell short of saying that Craig was wrong. “You think this is a political statement of some sort?”

  “Or a distraction. They could have achieved their result in easier ways.” Craig could hear his voice speeding up. “The truth is we don’t know what it is yet, sir, but we’ll find out. In the meantime, you’ve got the others sequestered?”

  “Yes. Under armed guard. Just until we up their protection details.”

  “Of course. It’s just…”

  “You think this might have been the plan all along? Get them together to take them all out at once?”

  He’d obviously been watching the same box-set as him. Although he’d asked the question Craig surprised himself by shaking his head almost immediately.

  “It’s unlikely. If they’d wanted the whole assembly killed then they could just have planted a bomb during a major vote. But then again, maybe creating fear and uncertainty is part of their plan. It might just be an idea to split them across a few locations.”

  “I’ll do that. If generating fear is part of their plan, it’s worked short term.” Flanagan paused, considering whether there was anything else that he needed to say. When he was certain there was nothing more he wound up. “I’ll see you and Doctor Winter here at nine tomorrow. OK.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Craig’s line went dead just as John re-appeared.

  “The C.C. wants to see us both tomorrow at nine.”

  The pathologist had taken off his black-wire glasses and was rubbing them on his sleeve. It was his proxy for annoyance or frustration and Craig wondered which one it was this time. He soon found out.

  “Des sent me the trajectory analysis.” He returned his spectacles to his thin nose and pulled out his smart-phone, tapping it to retrieve a map. The bullet’s origin point was clear.

  “Shit!”

  “That’s exactly what Liam said. It might make sense though, the bullet coming from the Travis. That place is as rough as hell.”

  The Travis Estate was one of Northern Ireland’s roughest housing estates, of which there were many, mostly split along Republican and Loyalist lines. A sink hole that should have been demolished decades before, the Travis’ walkways and stairwells were a breeding ground for vermin, including the human sort, and the poverty and disenfranchisement that had bred them was the perfect recruiting ground for violent gangs.

  John was still pondering. “But actually, no, it doesn’t make sense. Being the Travis I mean.”

  Craig frowned quizzically. “Why not?”

  The pathologist was shocked that Craig didn’t know and was tempted to bask in his superior knowledge for a moment, until the detective’s warning glance moved him on.

  “It doesn’t make sense because the Travis is a Loyalist estate, and the IBP depends on that side of the community’s vote. McManus was their man, so why would someone there kill him?”

  A name sprang immediately to Craig’s mind in answer. Tommy Hill, a Troubles Era Loyalist paramilitary and now petty criminal; also, a sometimes-useful source whose love/hate relationship with Liam had yielded useful information in the past. Tommy had been born and bred in an estate just like the Travis, the Demesne in east Belfast, and even though he lived in rural Templepatrick now to be close to his young granddaughter, his ears and his erstwhile gang were still close to Loyalism’s ground roots.

  Tommy might be able to help them understand why someone from his community would shoot their own man.

  Craig dragged his thoughts back to the present.

  “Can Des tell exactly where on the estate the shot came from?”

  John nodded. “I gave Liam the name of the block and Aidan’s there now with Armed Response.”

  Craig yelled for his deputy and Liam emerged from some undergrowth down the Castle’s side.

  “You called, M’Lud?”

  “Any word from Aidan?”

  “He’s just got there. The Armed Response lads took a while to arrive.” He ambled across to join them. “The block, Carson Tower, has fifteen floors. They’re evacuating the residents then working their way up to the roof, clearing each floor as they go. The shooter must have taken the shot from there. It’s the only place high enough.”

  “How far is it, John?”

  “About a mile as the crow flies. A sniper rifle could have made the shot, but the shooter must still have taken a punt. He couldn’t have seen McManus clearly through the intervening trees.”

  Craig sighed heavily. “None of our paramilitaries could have managed that accuracy. This guy’s got to be ex-forces.”

  Liam was looking puzzled. “The thing is…none of this makes sense, boss. The Travis is Loyalist through and through and the IBP is a Unionist party, so why the hell would they shoot one of their own? I could see it if McManus had been a Republican, but…”

  They all thought the same; a Unionist first minister shot from a Loyalist housing estate simply didn’t fit. John raised a note of dissent.

  “Just because someone shot from there doesn’t mean they’re from there. It would be the perfect cover for a Republican dissident, wouldn’t it? Shoot McManus from a Loyalist estate so that the blame falls on them.”

  Liam’s noisy snort saved Craig from stating the obvious.

  “Are you kidding, Doc? Have you ever been on one of those estates? Everyone knows everyone and his wee brother. Within five seconds of a stranger walking through the gates he’d be spotted and the word would be out. Then it’d be all ‘who’s that?’, and if the answer isn’t ‘our Jimmy’s cousin’ the stranger would find himself in deep shit.”

  Craig concurred. “Even more so if he was carrying a sniper rifle, John, even if it was well packed. Nice theory, but no prize. Sorry.”

  Just then a squeal pierced the air, and a small hand appeared from a rhododendron bush, with the rest of the W.P.C. they’d spoken to earlier following.

  “I’ve found it! I’ve found it!”

  Liam spoke for all three of them. “Leave it right where it is! And don’t touch it, there might be a print.”

  John was first into the shrubbery, followed by Liam and then Craig, who gasped in shock at the missile lying on the ground. Not at the bloody detritus of Peter McManus’ cerebrum that still coated it, but at its sheer size.

  “It’s like an anti-tank missile, boss! It would have taken some gun to have fired that!”

  “I need to know the type. Get Des on the line, John.”

  Within seconds the bearded forensic guru was waving at them on FaceTime and John was holding his phone above the armament. Des Marsham’s long whistle confirmed what they thought.

/>   “Holy God! That’s a 12.7 by 108 millimetre. It’s an anti-material round, usually used on buildings or vehicles. If it came from the Travis, there’s only one weapon that could have sent it that far. A high-powered sniper rifle. Is there any of the victim’s skull actually left?”

  John held the phone at arm’s length so that the scientist could see all three of them. “Not much.”

  Liam’s phone buzzed suddenly and he put it on speaker. “Go ahead, Aidan. Everyone’s here.”

  Aidan Hughes’ normally loud voice whispered down the line. “We’ve thrown up a cordon, evacuated the block by tannoy, and now Armed Response are about to go floor to floor. Davy’s checked out the known council tenants and there are no obvious candidates for our shooter in this block, but a handful of possibles on the estate. One-”

  He was cut short by a loud crack that all of them recognised as a shot. As the call cut off suddenly the detectives raced for Liam’s Ford, knowing that by the time they reached the estate the probable ensuing firefight would already be done. Liam hurtled down Main Street and Lisburn Street onto the Millvale Road with his lights and sirens flashing, while Craig took out his Glock and got ready to fire.

  The shot never happened. As they screeched into the neglected estate, past the boarded up one-storey police station once manned by a PSNI liaison team but now abandoned in defeat, past the inelegantly worded murals inviting people to abuse Republican politicians and the acronyms celebrating a well-known gang that half of the residents wouldn’t be literate enough to expand, they arrived at the row of liveried land rovers that ferried Armed Response and Tactical Support to and fro.

  Aidan Hughes was perched on the running board at the back of one of them, his head hung low and rubbing a hand exhaustedly across the back of his neck. As Liam jerked the car to a halt Craig leapt out.

  “What happened, Aidan? Anyone hurt?”

  Hughes nodded slowly and raised his eyes. “One dead. Not ours.”

  As two armed officers manned the cordon around the building, preventing the disgruntled crowd of residents from moving away, a man that they all recognised appeared at Craig’s elbow, wearing a solemn expression on his face.

  “Your dead lad’s called Billy Regent. Lives in number twenty-five Faulkner Tower.”

  Craig didn’t hide his surprise. “What the heck are you doing here, Reggie? I thought that you just covered the Demesne.”

  Sergeant Reginald, ‘Reggie’, Boyd had been an officer for almost four decades and was more experienced than all of them. He’d chosen to put that experience to work as the resident officer on the Demesne Estate, fifteen miles away in east Belfast, the place where the teenage Tommy Hill had cut his terrorist teeth.

  “I was here trying to show the residents how we dealt with the gangs on the Demesne, and to see if they’d let us reopen the branch station.”

  Liam scoffed. “Good luck with that.”

  Aidan Hughes cut in before Reggie snapped back.

  “When the shooter’s body was found I asked for Reggie’s help. Reckoned if anyone could I.D. the lad he could, being as he knows every Loyalist in the country.”

  “A dubious honour indeed.” The Donegal sergeant shook his head. “Billy Regent…it’s hard to fathom, it really is. He wasn’t a bad lad. Just a few minor transgressions when he was a kid: taking and driving away, shop lifting, that sort of thing.”

  Craig loosened his tie, the day’s events starting to make it feel like it was strangling him. “Any gang involvement?”

  Reggie made a face. “He flirted with the UK Ulster Force at one point, but he was never one of their big guns, if you’ll excuse the pun-”

  Liam cut in. “UKUF? That’s Tommy’s old crowd.”

  Craig nodded. He’d known Tommy would come in handy.

  “Have a word with him, will you, Liam.”

  The veteran sergeant went on. “Regent joined the army instead of a Loyalist gang and went to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two tours. He had trouble settling when he came back, I heard.”

  Craig frowned. An ex-military shooter. He’d been right.

  “The gun?”

  Aidan beckoned to an energetic looking Armed Response officer. “You found the gun, didn’t you, Jansen?”

  The young man dropped his ever-raised rifle to his side and approached. “Yes, sir. Still on the roof if you fancy a look.” He gestured towards the building. “It’s an impressive piece of kit. Muzzle, scopes, the works. We found him lying beside it, brains all over the ground. Suicide. No question.”

  Craig’s eyes widened. It couldn’t have been suicide by rifle or they’d never have made the I.D.

  Jansen shook his head, reading the detective’s mind.

  “Hand gun, Superintendent. The shooter must have brought it with him. Planned to kill himself all along and just waited till we arrived at the estate.”

  It was Craig’s turn to take a seat. He perched on Liam’s car bonnet.

  “I don’t suppose he left a note?"

  “Not that I saw, sir. We’ll be searching his flat next.”

  Craig shook his head. “Thanks, but no. You and your men take details from everyone inside the cordon then stand down. We’ll follow up. Doctor Winter’s team will take the body and we’ll check Regent’s home.” He turned to Liam. “Liam, you and Aidan get those details across to Davy once we’ve viewed the scene, then organise a full search of Regent’s apartment and any other linked abodes: parents, partner, whatever. I’ll call John down now and then we’ll head up to the roof to take a look.”

  It didn’t take long to scan the tower’s roof for the detritus of Billy Regent’s day. A fit, still young man, in theory with everything still to live for, lay in one corner, with his charred head turned to one side and the brain matter that had held his every thought, hope and dream oozing beneath.

  Craig raised his eyes to the summer sky trying to erase the image from his mind. After a long pause he returned to grim reality, and started to analyse the architecture of the scene. Against the roof’s end wall sat a heavy rug, folded over several times and pushed into a corner, the corner from where Billy Regent had taken his marksman’s shot. Craig pictured the young man kneeling on the blanket for elevation, focusing his sights and lining up every angle, before squeezing gently on the trigger for the bullet’s release, incongruously gently for such a violent act.

  The detective allowed his gaze to run along the ground towards the recumbent body, following the trail of the assassin’s clear up: the removal of the shell casing and the dismantling of the rifle, until it lay there, half hidden in its black fabric bag. His gaze moved on, back to the bloodied body with its still held pistol, his eyes seeing exactly what Jansen had told them, but his logic screaming that something didn’t fit.

  But now wasn’t the time to say what, or even to think further than this scene, and as the detective turned and left the roof silently, the man who could help quieten his noisy logic arrived. Within an hour Billy Regent’s body was lying in a drawer in John Winter’s freezing mortuary awaiting post-mortem, incongruously next door to Peter McManus, the man he’d dispatched earlier that day. Meanwhile Craig was back in his office watching the afternoon prepare to become evening, and wondering exactly what the two deaths meant.

  Chapter Four

  The Malone Road, Belfast. 4 p.m.

  Andy Angel wasn’t sure what he’d expected a madam’s son to look like but it certainly wasn’t the young man who answered Veronica Lewis’ elegant penthouse’s front door. They’d headed to her home after trying the student address they had for Rupert Lewis, a run down, damp ridden room in a house in Belfast’s Holyland district, and finding no-one but his flatmate there, nursing a hangover and grunting that he hadn’t seen ‘Rupe’ since the day before.

  Rupe suited the youth, as his impeccably modulated “Do come in, Officers. Would you like some refreshments?” suggested that mummy had spent a large proportion of her dubiously gotten gains sending him to a very good school. Add to the accent the
youth’s perfectly trimmed hipster beard, expensive jeans, and a leather jacket that could have added a new painting to Andy’s collection of contemporary Irish art, and it was clear that Veronica Lewis’ business had been going well.

  The detectives took seats at either end of a velvet sofa, both shaking their heads in astonishment. Never one to wait on the order of rank, Jake decided to speak first.

  “We’d like to ask you a few questions, Mister Lewis.”

  Lewis threw his long-limbed frame into a slouch chair and draped one leg over its arm. “Fire away.”

  It was said so cheerfully that the sergeant turned to look at his senior officer, wondering if Lewis had even been informed that his mother was missing, and deciding that if he hadn’t then perhaps rank did matter and breaking bad news was one of its privileges. He sat back, staring Andy into action.

  “Mister Lewis.”

  “Yes?”

  “When was the last time you saw your mother?”

  The young man wrinkled his tanned forehead. “Mum? Thursday afternoon I think. Why?”

  Jake nodded inwardly. He hadn’t been informed that she was missing and tomorrow Craig would roast whoever had failed to do their job, but for now, it fell to Andy to update the student. The D.C.I. swallowed hard. He hated this bit of the job. No-one was good at breaking bad news but some were better than most, so where the heck was Annette when you needed her?

  “Is that usual? Not to see her for four days?”

  The hipster shrugged. “Suppose so. She goes away a lot, so I just let myself in with my key. To do my washing mainly. Mum’s cool with it.”

  Andy pressed the point. “Does she normally phone you when she’s away?”

  “Not always, no. Sometimes it’s a week before I even know she’s gone. She likes her little jaunts.”

  The words were accompanied by a chuckle that said he found such eccentricity endearing.

  Now was probably the moment to inform him that his mother hadn’t simply gone for a jaunt this time but had probably been kidnapped, yet something made the words die in Andy’s throat. Jake understood why immediately; as soon as they told Rupert Lewis that his mother had been taken he would get distraught, and he for one wanted to know more about the jaunts’ destinations before their duty of care to the boy became the first order of their day.