The Keeper

by Catriona King

  “They’re broken. I went to another floor.”

  No-one in the office believed him, but they all reacted differently. Andy had dozed through the whole exchange, Ash knew Davy was lying and gave him a discreet thumbs up, Annette was on the phone and ignoring everyone, and Liam was just plain curious. Davy had obviously been talking to Craig and he wanted to know what about.

  He didn’t have long to wait. Craig’s first call after Davy phoned him was to his deputy.

  “Can you speak, Liam?”

  “Hang on. I’ll call you back.”

  He decamped to Craig’s office running the gauntlet of Nicky’s glare that now said he was far too quick to fill a dead man’s seat. When he was sitting in Craig’s chair Liam dialled him back.

  “Fire ahead, boss. What did Davy find out?”

  Craig gawped at his phone. Could no-one keep their mouth shut nowadays? Liam read his mind.

  “The lad didn’t tell me that he’d called you by the way. I just added two and two together-”

  “Well, you were right. I asked him to check out deaths using unmarked weapons.”

  “And?”

  “And there were only two non-terrorist offences using unmarked guns during The Troubles. A domestic murder that I already knew about and a drug deal gone bad.”

  Liam closed his eyes, thinking. “OK, so because our killer used Hart’s recommissioned gun to kill everyone you’re wondering where he got the idea.”

  “Exactly. Of course, he could have just come up with it himself but it’s much more likely that he’d seen it done somewhere before. I asked Davy to get me the file of a domestic murder in seventy-nine, then I asked Reggie about the officers on the case.”

  Liam screwed up his face. “Why Reggie?”

  “Because he was one of them. He was the constable on the team. Anyway, the pathologist died of old age and the sergeant on the case died on duty, but the D.I. is nowhere to be found.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Jack Austin”

  Liam nodded. “I remember him. He was ten years older than me. He was my inspector for a while when I was a young P.C. Nice lad; some said too nice for the job.”

  Craig was surprised, although he shouldn’t have been. Thirty years on the job meant Liam knew almost everyone. Liam shook his head and Craig heard the movement.

  “You don’t think Austin’s involved in this.”

  “I’m not sure, but I am sure we shouldn’t be having this discussion over the phone. Can we meet?”

  Craig was taken aback. Liam being cautious? What next? Andy running a marathon? But he had a point so he headed for The James Bar for the second time that night and ten minutes later they were face to face. Liam gestured towards the door.

  “Don’t be surprised if Nicky turns up. Her nose has been twitching all day.”

  Craig smiled and pushed a coffee towards him, sipping at the pint that he’d bought for himself. There were some perks to being suspended.

  “It’s OK if she does, just as long as Harrison doesn’t find out. I’m sure no-one believes I’m at home doing nothing anyway. Right, update me on everything.”

  Ten minutes later he knew that Aaron Foster still hadn’t appeared, which reminded him, he should use some of his free time to go back and see Jake. He also knew that the car registration had been narrowed to a man in Katesbridge but that Liam had had no joy at his farm.

  “I’ve Andy working on getting a warrant.”

  “We need to get back out there.”

  Liam raised his eyebrows. “Don’t you mean Andy, Ken and I need to get back out there?”

  “You’re not excluding me. What are you doing for the next few hours?”

  The D.C.I. sighed like a defeated man. “Waving goodbye to my bed by the sounds of it.”

  “Correct. I’ll be in touch later with a time.” Craig took a deep draught of his beer. “OK. Davy did some digging for me and Austin’s nowhere to be found, which makes him interesting. All the other officers on unmarked weapons cases are either dead now or they’re still around in Northern Ireland. So tell me what you know about Austin.”

  Liam swigged his coffee, gazing longingly at Craig’s glass. “Aye, OK. Jack Austin or Soft Boy Austin as everyone knew him. He was a clever lad, a rising star. He made D.I. early and was tipped for the top. The brass had it all mapped out; a few years doing the rounds: Murder, Vice, Serious Crime, then secondment to The Met’s intelligence unit and back to work here with the spooks at Castlereagh.”

  “Your tone says it didn’t work out like that. What happened?”

  Liam searched around for bar snacks and found an abandoned bowl of nuts on the next table but one. He answered Craig through a mouthful of peanuts.

  “Like I said; soft boy. I don’t know what he saw in London, but a year back from secondment and Austin was off with stress.” He shrugged unsympathetically. “He should have stayed on the beat like the rest of us.”

  Craig arched an eyebrow. “And you weren’t jealous of him at all…”

  Liam guffawed, spitting a nut out onto the table. “Got me there, boss.” He retrieved his food and popped it back in, continuing without missing a beat. “OK, maybe I was a bit, but I knew my limitations.” A look of disdain crossed his face. “All that mind games shit and spook stuff was never my bag. Darkened rooms and telephone directories-”

  Craig raised a hand, stopping him in his tracks. “Telephone directories?”

  “Aye. Don’t tell me you never heard the rumours? That the spooks used to bang the prisoners around using the yellow pages because it didn’t leave a mark?” He adopted a prudish look. “’Course I never believed it myself, but every force has its share of sadists.”

  Craig was astounded. He’d been at university and at The Met during The Troubles so he’d missed all the really bad stuff. But still, it was hard to believe the police had stooped to… Liam was still talking.

  “Mind you, I suppose if you’d seen enough of your mates blown to pieces you’d be a bit thin on the sympathy for terrorists.”

  True.

  Craig brought him back to the point. “Austin.”

  Liam grabbed another handful of nuts. “Aye. OK. Well, he was a nice lad and we reckoned he’d just seen too much dark stuff. He went off with stress in eighty-one and never came back. Next thing I heard he’d left the force and gone to live in Oz.”

  Craig sipped his beer thoughtfully. “And you think it was what he saw in London that did it?”

  “Stands to reason. He works here for years, and a year after coming back from there he’s off. He wasn’t back long enough for it to have been something here. He was only at Castlereagh for a year. I worked there for two years in the early nineties and it didn’t faze me.”

  Craig raised an eyebrow. “We’ll never know how it might have affected you if you’d been the sensitive sort.”

  Liam attempted a hurt look but Craig had already moved on.

  “When you say that Austin was a star; how were his gun skills?”

  “Ah, I see where you’re heading.” Liam rubbed the back of his neck, thinking. “You might have a point there actually. I was at the shooting range once and he was putting on a hell of a show. He got the highest shooting score in ten years.”

  “Good enough to lodge a bullet the same distance in each man’s muscles?”

  Liam’s shrug said that it wasn’t impossible. The question was why the hell would Austin have bothered? Liam made a face that said he had something else to report.

  “You remember that NCA agent who came calling?”

  “Somerville. What about her?”

  “She said Mulvenna was spying on some dissident for them but she wouldn’t give his name. Well, I checked with a mate in MI5.”

  “You move in elevated circles.”

  Liam snorted. “Not so sure about elevated, but he’s useful. It turns out that Mulvenna was spying on Kieran Dallat; ex Provo, now disgruntled dissident. They lifted him a few hours ago, so maybe Mulvenna
did some good in his poxy life after all.”

  Craig thought for a moment and then asked the question that was on both of their minds. “Any chance that Dallat killed Mulvenna, or all of them?”

  “I’d say yes, except James was only lifted yesterday.”

  Craig nodded. “And if the NCA saw us at Mulvenna’s the chances are that they’ve been watching Dallat for weeks, so he couldn’t have been at Craigantlet kidnapping James. Check with Somerville, but if Dallat wasn’t anywhere near the base yesterday then he probably isn’t our man.”

  “Unless he has an accomplice?”

  “I don’t think so. My gut says this one works alone.”

  It felt like they were making things more complicated than they needed to be, and the truth was that some answers might have to wait till they’d caught their man. Craig stood up to leave.

  “OK, it’s back to leg work and hoping that Davy can decrypt Stephen James’ file. I’ll be in touch in a few hours.”

  ****

  Fifteen minutes’ walk down the Lagan towpath and Craig was back at Katy’s apartment, his mind churning with ideas. Jack Austin had led an investigation where a woman had used an unmarked weapon to kill her husband, and was only caught because she confessed; it might have given him the idea of killing everyone with Billy Hart’s unmarked gun. If Liam was right Austin might have learned about interrogation techniques in London and God only knew what he’d seen at Castlereagh. It had had a formidable reputation as a holding and interrogation centre for terrorists and he was damn sure they hadn’t been serving them afternoon tea.

  He slumped on the couch and stared at the blank TV screen, continuing his train of thought. OK, so had it been what Austin had seen in London that had caused his breakdown, or had something happened at Castlereagh when he’d returned? And what could have been so bad that thirty odd years later he would suddenly start to kill?

  He shook himself. He was jumping the gun. As far as they knew Jack Austin was living happily in Australia, if he was still living at all that was. But if Austin was only ten years older than Liam then it was a pretty safe bet. Davy would find out for sure. Craig lifted the phone and rang the analyst.

  “Davy, how are you getting on with the decryption?”

  “Not good. It’s a cipher I’ve never seen before.”

  “Damn. OK, keep going with it, meanwhile there are a couple more things.”

  “OK…” Davy glanced nervously towards where Nicky was chatting to Annette and Craig heard his hesitation.

  “Don’t worry, I know Nicky’s sniffing around. It doesn’t matter if she knows what we’re doing, as long as Harrison doesn’t find out that I’m working while suspended.” He had a sudden thought. “Actually, make sure that Carmen doesn’t find out either. She wouldn’t think twice about handing me in.”

  Davy whispered into the handset. “It’s OK. Carmen’s not here anymore.”

  “What? Where is she?”

  The analyst gulped hard, knowing that he’d put his foot in it. Liam obviously hadn’t told Craig that he’d kicked her into touch.

  “S…Sorry, you’d better ask Liam about that.” He hurried on. “What do you need?”

  Craig parked the query for later, wondering why Liam hadn’t told him when they’d met. He tutted, annoyed. Suspended or not he needed to know everything that was happening with his team.

  “OK. Check with Australian immigration for the whereabouts of Jack Austin. Liam says he emigrated there in the nineteen-eighties. Anything you can get on his family, work, etcetera. Also check if he’s re-entered the UK or Ireland recently. Run his name for flights in the last month.”

  Davy tapped for a moment before answering. “OK. Anything else?”

  Craig thought. It was a long shot but he might as well follow his hunch through to the end. “Yes. As well as getting Austin’s police records see if you can get hold of his medical file. And have Ash check all reports on our five victims that have anything to do with Castlereagh. It’s too much of a coincidence that they were all in there in the same year. I want to know more. How often they were each there, when were their last visits, and when were their next arrests for anything after nineteen-eighty. When you’ve got everything call me-”

  Davy cut in before he hung up. “I’ve got something else for you. Ash spotted something on the CCTV when street lights were either broken or being fixed.”

  “What?”

  “The same hire car was on two clips. A white Ford Focus hired out at Belfast City Airport three weeks ago to a Joshua Quinn, the same name as the man who owns the Mazda. I’m requesting his driving licence but the DVLA is shut so I’ll have to-”

  “Don’t tell me.” Craig knew his next word was going to be “hack” and he didn’t want to know. “OK, great work, Davy. Ash as well. Bring Liam up to date and tell him to meet me at the farm at three a.m.”

  He hung up and punched the air; they were getting close, he knew it. When he’d stopped celebrating, his thoughts turned to Carmen. Had she crossed a line and Liam had finally had enough and banished her to Siberia? His next question was where was Siberia within the police?

  ****

  Katesbridge.

  Three o’clock had come and gone and Craig was still waiting at the gate of the Katesbridge farm. A search of the property records had said the farm belonged to a family called Quinn and the most recent tax return said that it was still a going concern. The Mazda was registered to Joshua Quinn at this address, but a deeper search by Ash and Davy said that the Quinn family didn’t exist, and neither did Joshua.

  At five to four Liam’s Ford finally pulled up in the country lane and the exhausted D.C.I. clambered out. As Craig watched in his rear view mirror Liam shook his head. He was still shaking it when he clambered into Craig’s car.

  “Tried again for the warrant but no joy.”

  “Damn. Did you try Judge Standish?”

  “On holiday this week. Only Murphy was around and he’s a real wee-”

  “Agreed. What grounds did he reject it on?”

  Liam sniffed, his opinion of the young judge clear. “Same as before. Insufficient evidence.” He mimicked Gavin Murphy’s high pitched voice perfectly. “If the police wish to go fishing, they can do so with someone else’s rod.”

  Craig was undeterred. He climbed out of the Audi and popped the boot, withdrawing search lamps and two pairs of boots.

  “Change into those. We’ve a mile hike across a muddy field coming.”

  Liam woke up, rubbing his hands together gleefully. Another off-book operation, and this time with a suspended boss; just his cup of tea. He stopped mid lace-up, suddenly feeling guilty and thinking that he should really be more responsible now that he was acting up in rank. Damn, if this was what being a Super was about then they could stick promotion; it sucked all the fun out of things. He gave a cough and Craig turned around.

  “What?”

  “I…”

  He couldn’t be sure in the dark but he could have sworn that Liam was blushing. The acting Super’s next words confirmed it.

  “I…it’s just-”

  Craig saved him the bother.

  “What you’re trying to say is I’m suspended and we’ve no warrant, so we should just drive away. And if we don’t then anything that we find will be inadmissible in court. Yes?”

  “Aye. Sorry, boss.”

  Craig laced up his second boot. “Don’t be sorry, and I won’t hold it against you if you leave now. But I’m crossing that field and searching the farmhouse, because if we stand here and do nothing Stephen James could die.”

  It was all the justification Liam required.

  ****

  “Damn, damn, damn.”

  Liam added a “bugger that” to Craig’s expletives and kicked an old lawnmower to his left for good measure.

  They’d searched the house and found plans of the farm that indicated there was a second barn. Storming it had revealed nothing but a generator and an empty chair with rope lying on the
floor beside it; a clear indication that someone had been held prisoner there. The only other signs of occupancy were dried blood spatters and a trail on the mud encrusted floor where a body had clearly been dragged. They followed the marks as far as the barn’s perimeter where they were replaced by tyre tracks. Their texture and dryness said that their quarry and his captive had been gone for several hours.

  Craig peered across the fields, searching for something that he knew he wouldn’t find, while Liam voiced both their thoughts.

  “James is a dead man. He’s driven him to his execution.”

  Craig went to nod, but something made him shake his head instead. “No…I don’t think so. Not just yet.”

  Before Liam could ask why, Craig began running towards the cars. Liam could barely keep up but his breathless queries carried in the night air.

  “Where are we going?”

  Craig’s yell came back to him. “You’re going to call in uniforms to search empty and abandoned buildings near Craigantlet and Castlereagh Station. I’m-”

  As Craig reached the Audi his words cut off and he stopped dead, realising there was nothing legitimate that he could do. He was suspended. He couldn’t get involved in the searches openly and he couldn’t follow up the hunch that was biting him. In that moment, as Liam leaned against his car, puffing and reaching for the car radio to rally the troops, Craig knew that he had a decision to make. Follow orders and risk another death, or do what he knew he had to do and almost certainly screw up his career for good. It was a no brainer. If this was his last case then so be it, but he couldn’t let Stephen James die without a damn good fight.

  He climbed into his car and threw it into a U-turn as Liam watched, wondering where he was heading. Three letters shouted through the Audi’s rolled down window told him, then Craig sprayed up dust and mud in his race for the main road.

  ****

  Stephen James’ eyes opened painfully and for a moment he wondered where he was. Then he remembered. He’d been abducted by some madman who blamed him for things that had happened thirty years before. A glance told him that he’d been moved and that his new home was even more barren than his last. He listened carefully to the background noise. He was in a city and it was a busy one. He concentrated for a minute, trying to isolate single sounds from the cacophony assaulting his ears. Heavy traffic and the beep of a pedestrian crossing, yet it was night-time. Traffic that heavy at night meant that he was in the centre of whatever city they were in. He guessed at Belfast, after all it was the nearest, and a moment later the shouted words of a man outside confirmed that was exactly where he was. Belfast City Centre; but why?