The Talion Code

by Catriona King

  ****

  The man glanced at the computer screen, watching as the arrowed blips circled and paralleled, their progress punctuated by numbers scattered irregularly in their paths. To the outside world it would seem meaningless. They preferred to experience air travel in a pressurised tube from the comfort of a reclining seat, deluding themselves with statistics that they were safe. But to him, and the men in front of him, the dangers of air travel were all too evident.

  Flights separated by thousands of feet brought together by a single click. Others with crossing paths kept apart only by the diligence of human eyes. Equipment helped of course: proximity sensors and radar, perhaps even the pilot’s line of sight, but by the time that kicked in it was too late and collision was inevitable. It was the people on the ground that kept the ones in the air above them safe. Unless or until they decided not to that was.

  ****

  They had to wait for Davy’s verdict on Jamison’s and Guthrie’s bank accounts before re-interviewing Jamison with the evidence. Everything else had been asked and said, and Craig hadn’t the energy to waste listening to the businessman lie again. He was re-reading Les Moriarty’s file while he waited when Nicky knocked on his office door. Actually ‘knock’ didn’t do the sound justice, she was hammering so hard that he thought the half-glass portal would come off its hinge.

  He yanked it open to prevent the anticipated damage.

  “What’s all the noise about?”

  As he asked the question he saw Liam standing behind her wearing a scowl on his face. It wasn’t aimed at Nicky, or him for that matter.

  “What’s happened?”

  The D.C.I. flung a newspaper on his desk in reply. The Belfast Mirror, known to all as a grubby rag, was folded over at the front page, which had ‘MY NEAR MISS WITH KILLER’ emblazoned on it in capitals. Craig’s heart sank as he grabbed the tabloid, scanning the page and praying that it wasn’t what he thought. It was a forlorn hope. Nicky wouldn’t have been hammering if it hadn’t been something to do with their case.

  As he read she started gabbling, the words tumbling and breaking in her hurry to get them out.

  “It was…it wasn’t us. Or the press office. I called Julie; she’s the new girl down there. Mary left. Anyway…and…well…she said it definitely didn’t come from the force, but…if-”

  Craig raised a hand to still her, before her already red face turned puce. “It’s OK, Nicky. I believe you. This hasn’t come from anyone here; the idiot must have approached the paper himself.”

  “It’s a man then. What’s his name?”

  Craig frowned, realising he actually didn’t know the source’s sex; he’d just assumed that it was a man. But whichever sex they were, the article made it clear that they’d seen Dominic Guthrie’s murderer, who definitely was a male, albeit a dark, menacing caricature of one.

  He beckoned Liam into his office, only half closing the door so that the P.A. could still hear.

  “It doesn’t say the witness was a man; that was just my assumption, which probably says something about me that would keep a shrink busy for a while. But whoever it is I want them brought in.”

  “Withholding evidence?”

  “That’ll do.” Craig shook his head despairingly and threw the newspaper on his desk. “What sort of idiot witnesses a murder and their first thought is ‘I must take this to the press’?”

  Liam shrugged. “The sort whose God is Mammon would be my guess. The papers pay thousands for a front page scoop like this.”

  “Pity we can’t confiscate every penny.” Craig sighed heavily. “OK, get down to The Mirror. I want the name and I want them brought in.”

  “And what if this journo…” Liam squinted at the page. “P. Lynch, won’t give up their source?”

  Craig scowled. “Then lock them up until they will!”

  The D.C.I. grinned cheerfully. “That’ll do nicely. Don’t be going to see Jamison until I get back.”

  Craig followed him out the door. “No chance. We need the financial stuff before we do that.”

  As Liam left, Craig strode across to Davy. When the analyst saw him coming he shook his head.

  “Nothing in Jamison’s main accounts, chief. I’m having trouble accessing the offshore ones.”

  “Threaten the bank with obstructing police enquiries and see if that shifts them.” He swung round, to see Ash frowning at his screen.

  “Guthrie’s finances?”

  The analyst glanced up with one eye still on his computer. “What?”

  “Are you frowning at something in Guthrie’s finances?”

  “Oh. No.” He pointed to his out tray. “They’re all fine. His wife gave us access to their personal accounts and the firm coughed up his client accounts without a squeak. So much for confidentiality. If Guthrie was up to something with Jamison then it wasn’t in the UK.”

  “Offshore?”

  “Probably. Although his wife knows nothing about it.”

  “You believe her?”

  The analyst nodded without hesitation. “She was uber helpful on the other stuff, so if Guthrie’s been banking offshore I really don’t think she knows.”

  He glanced back at his screen and the frown returned.

  “So what’s the frown about?”

  Ash shook his head. “It’s about the computer stuff Davy and I mentioned to you the other day.”

  Craig walked behind him and joined in the squinting. The screen was covered in programming language. “OK, more algorithm stuff. So what’s the problem?”

  “No problem, except that this is from an incident yesterday evening in Portadown. A steel worker was killed because his equipment malfunctioned and I’ve found the same ALG in the machinery’s computer. But this time it’s got an extra bit that’s nothing to do with the machine’s operating programme.”

  “Surely that’s good? Now you know there must be a virus, so all you have to do is find out how it got in.”

  “Maybe…”

  Craig knew there was more but he didn’t have the time to find out what. He’d just thought of something so he left the analysts to their numbers and walked back to Nicky’s desk.

  “Nicky, get hold of that solicitor who acted for me when I was suspended and put her through, please.”

  “OK. Why?”

  He smiled and said nothing, just re-entered his office and waited for the phone to ring. It did, twice in a row. The first call was John querying if he was coming to the lab, the second was Nicola O’Hara, one of Katy’s old school friends and the solicitor who’d been at his side when he’d been interviewed during his suspension two months before. He wasn’t the biggest fan of lawyers, probably because he’d studied law and witnessed too many of their games in court, but Nicola was all right so he decided to trust her and pick her brains.

  “Nicola, thanks for talking to me. I hope I didn’t interrupt something?”

  The light voice at the other end reminded him of how she looked. She was so slim and pale, in stark contrast to her jet-black hair, that she looked as if she could blow away in a strong wind.

  “Actually you rescued me from a boring session at the gym. How’s Katy? We really must get together for a drink.”

  “She’d like that… Look, I’ll tell you why I wanted to talk to you. I’m looking for some legal advice on a couple of things.”

  She raised an eyebrow; it was unusual for police to go outside the force. “Why not use the police lawyers?”

  “I’d like to play things close to my chest for now, if you don’t mind helping out?”

  “Fire ahead.”

  He asked his intended second question first, outlining The Mirror’s article and asking what they could do if the journalist refused to give up their source.

  The solicitor gave a heavy sigh. “Very little, unfortunately, except charge them with obstruction and let them spend a night in jail on the hope that they’ll cough up a name.”

  “I was afraid of that. Damn.”

  “What was t
he other thing?”

  “It’s even trickier. How do I stop someone from leaving the UK?”

  ****

  Royal Avenue, Belfast. 10.30 a.m.

  Liam wasn’t sure what he’d expected The Belfast Mirror’s Royal Avenue offices to look like. If he’d given them any thought at all before he’d arrived, it would probably have been that they would have looked exactly like The Chronicle’s; the newspaper where Davy’s fiancée was News Editor. A four storey Victorian building with stone staircases and metal-grilled lifts, leading to a newsroom filled with towers of paper just waiting to be toppled by a breeze. A breeze that would never be admitted into the sash-windowed, wooden-floored room that smelt of tobacco, even though smoking had been banned eight years before.

  As The Chronicle’s was the only newspaper office he’d ever been in, in his mind that was how they should all look now, in the same way that all police stations were built of grey or red brick and all interview rooms were small and musty with faulty neon lights. It was the traditional way of things and Liam was a man of tradition. So it was with some disgruntlement that he climbed out of his car and found himself standing in front of a modern glass walled building, and even more disgruntlement as he gazed up at its twenty storey façade.

  Perhaps the address should have hinted at its glossiness; after all, rents in Royal Avenue weren’t cheap (the landlords took the ‘Royal’ a little too seriously) so only those with money could afford the address. But still, he’d expected something older, lower, more in keeping with Belfast’s past. This building looked like it was more suited to Manhattan than a small city in Europe.

  He parked his disgruntlement along with his car and walked through the building’s street level front door, adding another annoyance to his list. Newspaper buildings should be like libraries, meaning that they should all be like Belfast’s Central Library and have steps up to the front. Street level made him feel like he was entering a shop. No, there was modern and there was just ripping the ass out of it, and this was a step, or rather a lack of steps, too far.

  By the time the detective had reached the reception desk, where a white-toothed, peroxide blonde woman came perilously close to telling him to ‘have a nice day’, his feelings had altered to despair. He could have been in any glossy building in any city in the world; nowhere had any character any more. It was in that frame of mind that he entered and exited the high speed lift, practically stumbling out of it on the eighteenth floor. Even the thought of how high he was made him nauseous, he was a man who liked to keep his feet firmly on the ground. The combination of nausea and annoyance showed in his sharp shove against The Belfast Mirror’s doors and the equally grumpy thump of his fist on the first desk he encountered, followed by his shouted.

  “Where can I find P. Lynch?”

  The man at the desk gazed up at him then pointed a finger silently towards an office further down, ringing hastily through to the occupant to warn them that a giant with an extremely bad temper was intent on hunting them out. An office door was no defence against Liam’s determination, but as his hand was falling towards its handle he was surprised by it opening inwards at exactly the same time. He was even more surprised by the tiny pink-faced, wide-eyed woman who stood there, who, despite her obvious youth, was sporting a shock of completely grey hair. In the time the detective took to wonder whether it was natural or dyed, she’d yanked him firmly inside, asking, before he could speak, exactly how he liked his tea.

  “Milk? Sugar? I’ve some biscuits if you like?”

  It was all too confusing for Liam, so he slumped in the nearest chair trying to gather his thoughts. He’d hated the building, the receptionist and the lifts; it was like some dystopian future where the whole world had become a shopping mall. It made him feel out of sorts, but he’d come to have a go at an irresponsible journo so in a way he’d relished the fact that those things had wound him up. It had given him just the spite he’d needed to have a good old rant. But now he’d been thrown off kilter again! P. Lynch had turned out to be a tiny woman and in his book that limited his ranting potential to a finger wagging telling off. It wasn’t fair. And added to that, now she was offering him tea and chocolate biscuits and he knew that he’d take them, because if Liam was one thing he was consistent, and consistently a biscuit whore.

  He grabbed the proffered mug grumpily and bit into a Tunnocks Caramel like he was biting off a prisoner’s head, then a second and third bite until gradually the tryptophan in the chocolate calmed him and his glare at the journalist became a softer gaze.

  “I take it you know who I am then?”

  The woman moved behind her desk and took a seat, which Liam noted with amusement was loaded with pillows to lift her up. She perched there like a grey haired leprechaun and nodded.

  “You’re a police officer. I like the police.”

  Her speech was high and clipped and it made the strange pronouncement sound stranger still. But Liam wasn’t about to be buttered up.

  “Aye, aye, that’s all very well. But you wrote that headline, didn’t you?”

  Another nod. “I did.”

  “And you’re going to refuse to give me the name of your source, aren’t you?”

  “I am.”

  He chucked the last piece of biscuit into his mouth and washed it down quickly, draining his cup. Then he rose and gazed down at her.

  “Then I must ask you to accompany me to the station, Ms Lynch.”

  “Posy, please.”

  He glanced around for the flowers she was talking about and then realised that Posy was her name. Posy Lynch, an elf of a woman who’d given him tea and biscuits. It didn’t make him feel good about what he had to do next.

  “Please come with me, Ms Lynch.”

  She hopped down from her chair obligingly and lifted a small rucksack, strapping it to her back. Then she opened the door of her office and toddled towards the lift, waving cheerfully at the man who’d called to warn her, with Liam trailing behind like a bemused Finn McCool.

  ****

  Nicola O’Hara glanced at Craig, noting the hopeful light in his navy eyes. It was her curse that she hated to disappoint people, particularly people she knew socially, and him being Katy’s partner counted as social in her book. So she started slowly, hoping that her reticence would give him the hint that what he wanted, e.g. Richard Jamison prevented from travelling abroad, mightn’t be as easy to achieve as he’d originally thought.

  “You see, Marc…”

  She glanced up from beneath her lashes, trying to gauge if the light in his eyes was beginning to fade. It wasn’t so she breathed deeply and continued.

  “You see, PACE says-”

  He interrupted. “Sorry to be rude, Nicola, but I know all about PACE.” He stared at the ceiling as he recited. “The Police and Criminal Evidence Act states…” Blah, blah, blah. He dropped his eyes again, to stare straight at her. “What I’m interested in is what possible charges I can bring against Jamison to stop him skipping the UK.”

  “Well, unless you think he committed this murder…”

  “He didn’t, but he was definitely up to something financially dodgy with the deceased.”

  “Can you prove that?”

  “We’re in the process, but it might take us longer than the PACE maximum of seven-two hours.”

  She frowned, biting her bottom lip. It was larger than her top one, which was substantial, and in the current climate of large lips being good; they had aided her hugely on the dating scene. Although she had always wondered if they were only large because she’d bitten them since before she could walk, because full lips certainly didn’t run in her family. She suddenly remembered where she was and dismissed her mouth for a moment, focusing back on the case in hand.

  “OK. So Jamison’s helping you with your enquiries but you don’t have a crime, murder or otherwise, to charge him with.”

  “Yet.”

  She conceded the point with a nod. “Yet. Sooooo……..”

  The ‘so�
� went on for several seconds and ended with a smile.

  “Have you reason to believe that whatever this financial crime might be will have an international component?”

  Craig frowned. It probably would, but how the hell could they prove that in three days, one of which had already passed? She answered for him.

  “For instance, might it involve currency swops, exchange rate irregularities, offshore banking, import-”

  On the last word Craig shouted “YES! Jamison’s business is import/export.”

  She gave a wide smile. “Good, we can work with that. I majored in international law at Uni. There’s bound to be something there.” She glanced towards the door. “If you could give me somewhere to work and an analyst?”

  In under a minute she was installed in his office with Ash sitting by her side. Craig left them to it and headed to High Street to see an obstructive journalist about a source.

  ****

  Dominic Guthrie’s office. Howard Street. 12 p.m.

  Andy Angel was annoyed and he couldn’t work out why. It wasn’t because they’d been joined by Annette and Reggie, even though Annette could be bossy and sometimes acted like she was the D.C.I., not him. He put it down to her being a mother, used to telling her offspring what to do; it couldn’t be a huge leap for her to treat a skinny bloke who ate chocolate all day as if he could barely wipe his nose. It was actually comforting in a way. He felt even more comforted when she ordered Reggie to “empty the office waste bin” because you never knew what might be found. But no, Annette wasn’t the source of his annoyance and he’d had a sandwich and a Mars Bar an hour before so he couldn’t blame it on a lack of food.

  Which only left something to do with the case annoying him, and that was a shock in itself. He subscribed to the ‘work to live’ philosophy, definitely not the ‘live to work’. As long as he could cover his bills, run his BMW, and afford beer, Toblerone and the occasional date, he was a happy man. His mother said that he’d been the same as a toddler, only with toy cars and Ribena instead of his BMW and booze; proof positive that personality was inborn not acquired. As he waited for Dominic Guthrie’s files to save to his USB, a quick fix for Davy while the computer itself was being forensicated at the lab, the D.C.I. continued to try to work out what it was that had suddenly rattled his cage.