The Talion Code

by Catriona King

  Mallon was still thinking about being sued, so Liam prompted him with a loud “Hey!” The dope-head answered in an irritated tone, as he pictured his year’s supply of weed drifting away.

  “I thought if he’d made it up it didn’t matter-”

  Craig found his voice. “And what if there really had been a murder and he was asking you to lie about it?”

  Mallon’s annoyance turned into anger. “Someone would have found the body sometime. Either way I might as well make a bit of dosh!”

  “And you’d have taken a killer’s money and allowed him to get away!”

  Craig shook his head. Whatever brain cells Terry Mallon had been born with had been reduced to mush by the crap he smoked; it was just a pity that stupidity wasn’t a chargeable offence. He gestured to Liam to do the honours as he added a new charge, intention to defraud, to Mallon’s list, then he went next door to call the police sketch artist and arrange what he knew would be a useless drawing of a very clever man.

  ****

  Not long now. In a few days’ time everything would be over and they would walk away scot free. They’d been careful. Every detail perfect, every i dotted and t crossed. Even if the police worked out the what and why, they would never prove the who. And without that they could speculate for ever and never make a single charge stick. Days of interviews would yield nothing, nothing that could ever be proved.

  There was part of him that hoped they actually got that far, just so he could watch them at close quarters as they failed. The man smiled and shook his head. No, best not to tempt fate. He wouldn’t leave the detectives breadcrumbs to follow just so he could gloat. The plan was enough. Everyone would get what they deserved.

  ****

  The Pathology Lab. 2.30 p.m.

  “This had better be worth the trip, John. We’re busy.”

  Craig’s voice carried through the lab’s outer doors into John Winter’s office, and as he and Liam approached, the pathologist turned up the percolator and set out three clean mugs. The wafting coffee had the desired effect. Its scent hit Craig as he opened the office door, calming him instantly. Liam didn’t care what a cup contained as long as it was wet, sweet and warm. As they slumped in the nearest chairs and drank, Craig continued.

  “Why are we here anyway?”

  John removed a small plastic bag from his filing cabinet and waved it tantalisingly in the air. Liam squinted hard, trying to make out its contents. Finally he conceded defeat and removed a small case from his pocket, angling away to put on the new glasses it contained before turning back to glare defiantly at the other men.

  “Don’t say it.”

  Craig gazed at him, feigning confusion. “Don’t say what?”

  Liam scoffed. “Get out of it. Are you trying to say you can’t see them?”

  “Oh, your new glasses. Very nice. When did you get them?”

  John took off his own wire spectacles and cleaned them on his coat. “Very snazzy, Liam. Do you have to wear them all the time?”

  Liam frowned, uncertain whether their interest was a front for the jokes that would follow, most of them about him getting old, or a newly mature approach to life. The glint in Craig’s eyes said that it was the former.

  “I suppose it’ll happen to all of us eventually.”

  “What?”

  “Our arms will get too short.”

  But Liam had some jokes of his own to crack. He turned to John, dampening his snigger with a glare.

  “Here Doc, you know those sad lechers who hang around nightclubs… the ones who stand really close to women and flirt-”

  Craig changed the subject quickly. “OK, so what is in the bag, John?”

  John was certain that he was missing something but he wasn’t quite sure what. After a moment spent glancing from one cop to another he gave up and returned to science.

  “Yes, the bag.” He handed it to Craig. “Can you see the hair inside?”

  Craig peered at the black strand and nodded. “It’s Dominic Guthrie’s.” His eyes widened. “You’ve found the murder weapon!”

  “We have. It was definitely a piece of breezeblock. The C.S.I.s found it yesterday about fifty feet from the scene.”

  Two questions jumped to Craig’s mind instantly. Where had the breezeblock come from and where exactly had it been found? He handed the small bag to Liam and took a sheet of paper from his jacket, spreading it out on the desk. It was a line drawing of the Titanic Quarter with the relevant buildings outlined in black. As Liam scrutinised the hair, amazed at the different shades he could make out and how sharp the edges looked, Craig marked the body’s location in blue and then turned the sheet to face John.

  “Where was the block found? Mark it for me exactly.”

  A small X marked a spot halfway between the body and the Odyssey, approximately six feet from the kerb. Whoever had killed Dominic Guthrie had disposed of the brick as they’d moved away, but its position said it could either have been dropped by someone walking on the path or thrown from a car as it drove away. Hopefully CCTV would tell.

  “OK, so where did it come from? There were no breezeblocks near the body and no building work that I saw. Liam?”

  Liam was still staring at the hair, holding it up to the light so that he could marvel at its colours, clear for the first time in years. Craig jolted his elbow and the D.C.I. rounded on him with a frown.

  “What?”

  “Breezeblocks. Did you notice any near the scene?”

  He shook his head and read Craig’s mind. “We’ll have to go back.”

  “Before it’s dark, which means now.”

  He set down his cup and rose to go but John waved him back to his seat.

  “I hadn’t finished.”

  “Be quick then.”

  The scientist sighed at his friend’s disdain for the niceties when he was on a case. “The cause of death was as we thought. Subdural haematoma due to a fracture of the skull.”

  “We knew that.”

  “No, you speculated before. Now you know. OK. But what you didn’t know was this.” He whipped a second bag from his pocket with a flourish and handed it to Craig. This time the detective got excited. He stared at the grey hair inside.

  “Where-”

  “Wedged in the block. We’re testing it for DNA and it might turn out to be nothing, but-”

  Liam suddenly noticed what was in the bag. “It’s grey. It might turn out to be Jamison’s!”

  Even as he said it Craig was sure that it didn’t fit. Richard Jamison wasn’t a killer. He was a businessman and there was no profit margin in death. Unless… a crime of passion perhaps? Maybe Guthrie had double crossed him in a business deal so he’d killed him in anger and tried to skip the country? Except… the tickets to the Dominican Republic had been booked weeks before so maybe murder had been his plan all along?

  Craig considered for a moment and then shook his head. No, Jamison wasn’t a killer, not even in anger. He handed the bag back to John.

  “It’s Jamison’s.”

  John looked surprised. “Why so sure? I thought you were convinced he wasn’t your perp.”

  Craig stood up. “He isn’t. But it will still be his hair. Part of the frame-up.” He signalled to Liam. “We need to go and find out where this breezeblock came from.”

  Liam shrugged. “He could have brought it with him.”

  “Possible, but I won’t be convinced till we rule out a local source. Come on.”

  They turned to leave and were stopped in their tracks by John’s irate yell.

  “You haven’t answered my question!”

  “Which one?”

  The scientist tutted in exasperation. “Why are you still so sure Jamison isn’t your man if you’re so certain that this is his hair?”

  Craig paused for a second, knowing that he was winding him up. “Ah, that question… OK, I’m sure for three reasons. Richard Jamison is a couple of inches too short to have caused the injury, plus he’s a snob, so I doubt that he’d d
irty his hands killing someone, and if he did it would be with something infinitely more elegant than a breezeblock-”

  John was disappointed. “That’s it? I thought you were going to go all Sherlock Holmes on me.”

  Craig laughed. “You don’t want much do you?” He made to leave and then turned back. “Oh, OK then, the main reason that I don’t think Richard Jamison did it, is because someone is trying so desperately hard to convince us that he did.”

  ****

  An hour later the mystery was solved, or half of it anyway. Craig drove past the murder site, still surrounded by crime scene tape, and crawled slowly down the Queens Road, searching out of his window for anything that resembled a breezeblock. It was Liam who spotted it first, from his position in the Audi’s back seat. He’d grumbled when Craig had suggested that he ride there to enable two pairs of eyes to search at once, muttering words like “kid’s seat” and “demotion” before finally resorting to “I get car sick in the back” to appeal to Craig’s sympathy. It was a miscalculation during a case, as he was reminded when Craig threw a plastic bag at him and told the D.C.I. to grow up. It was with some smugness then that Liam yelled “STOP!” in Craig’s right ear, only waiting until he’d slowed slightly before throwing open the rear door and leaping out of the still moving car.

  By the time Craig had parked up Liam was nudging a small piece of breezeblock with his foot. Craig gave a grudging smile and hunkered down to stare at it then he scanned the nearby ground, noticing several more. Shielding his eyes from the winter sun, he squinted up at his deputy, who was beaming triumphantly at his find and wondering why you never had a flag to plant when you wanted one.

  “How the heck did you see that without your glasses?”

  Liam puffed out his chest. “Long sighted. I can see the eyes on a gnat at twenty paces; I just can’t read the print on a stick of rock.”

  Why he would want to do either was a debate for another day. Craig had already started walking.

  “Where are we going?”

  “In search of bigger blocks. Pieces of breezeblock don’t just appear, so that either means there’s a factory that makes them locally or someone’s been building something around here.”

  Someone was always building somewhere in Belfast so why should the almost two hundred acres of the Titanic Quarter be any different? It wasn’t, as they discovered five hundred feet further on when high steel gates emblazoned with a placard that told the world that ‘McElhatton and Sons were considerate builders’ also informed them that the half breezeblock/half concrete edifice rising behind them was to contain new luxury homes. Liam pointed at the gates’ bolts and chains.

  “Hard to get through those.”

  Craig nodded, taking his point. Although there were loose breezeblocks clearly visible from where they stood, how could anyone have got past such security to steal a piece? Liam hadn’t finished.

  “Of course, he might just have got lucky and found a big bit outside with all the crumbs.”

  It was possible, but Craig wasn’t a great believer in gift horses, so he was veering more towards their man having gone equipped to break and enter McElhatton’s building site on Friday night. It would be easy enough to check. He turned away and Liam, ever the optimist, began walking back towards the car, looking forward to reclaiming his front seat. He was also looking forward to a pint and a pie at the James Bar after work. There was no point getting home before eight since Danni had taken herself and the kids to see her folks and if he got back before her he’d have no legitimate excuse not to tidy up their toys.

  His trip changed direction when he noticed that Craig was still walking down the road. He caught up quickly, curious where they were going.

  “What’s down here?”

  “Richard Jamison’s office.”

  Liam risked his ridicule. “Is it far? Only I could go back and get the car.”

  He wasn’t disappointed.

  “Good God, Liam. It’s only a mile further! The exercise will do you good.”

  He knew then that Craig was using the trip as a Mea culpa for not going to the gym for weeks and he refused to be used as a guilty man’s running mate. He turned on his heel and loped back to the car, calculating that by the time Craig had hit his destination he’d have driven to the door. He pulled up just as Craig reached Jamison’s office.

  “I can’t believe you were that lazy!”

  “Trust me; I get all the exercise I need running after two kids every night.” He gestured at the imposing looking building. “What are we doing here, anyway?”

  Craig pushed at the open street door. “Meeting Andy and Rhonda. They’ve been to Guthrie’s office, now they’re doing Jamison’s.”

  As they climbed five flights of stairs with Liam eyeing the lift longingly at each landing, Craig explained his thinking for the trip.

  “OK, so let’s say Jamison killed Guthrie-”

  Liam stopped in his tracks. “You just told the Doc he hadn’t killed him!”

  Craig kept walking, seeing the halt as the ploy for a breather that it was. “He didn’t, but just say he did, for a moment.”

  “OK.” It was grudging.

  “Then if he and Guthrie had met here sometime on Friday, to discuss their dodgy deal-”

  “Here, do we know what it was yet?”

  Craig shook his head. “Davy’s still working on it. OK, so they discussed it and Guthrie left-”

  Liam stopped again. “And Jamison followed him, grabbed the breezeblock from the building site and hit him over the head.”

  Craig kept climbing the stairs. “Except they met at two o’clock and Guthrie didn’t die until much later. And why would Guthrie have walked when we know he was in a car? Plus, how did Jamison break into the building site, which he would’ve had to have done if they were shut-”

  “We think. For all we know McElhatton’s might’ve only started locking the gates since Guthrie died. They might have been wide open on Friday.”

  Craig nodded slowly. “I hadn’t thought of that. Check it out. OK, but allowing for the fact that Guthrie left their meeting walking, which we haven’t confirmed, Jamison could have walked after him, lifted a breezeblock from the open site and caught up with him at the point he dropped. The direction of travel was right. If Jamison had done it, which he didn’t. And the timing’s all wrong.”

  Liam stopped again, unashamedly leaning against the banister for a rest. He wasn’t apologising anymore; he was knackered and it was the weekend. By rights he should have been sitting in his recliner watching sport. He folded his arms in defiance then softened his stance by offering up a point.

  “OK, so you’re saying that whoever did it used the direction of travel from Jamison’s office to tell a story. Namely where Guthrie had been and where an improvised weapon could have been found if it had been Jamison who’d done it.”

  Craig smiled inwardly, knowing Liam was playing for time to rest. He obliged him by leaning back against the banister himself. As he did he saw something and raced across to the window, jabbing it with his finger.

  “Look!”

  Liam was loath to leave his perch. His “what?” didn’t even try to sound interested, so Craig kept pointing until he’d walked across.

  “There!”

  “What? I can’t see anything.”

  “Cars. Rows of them, which means…”

  Liam’s jaw dropped. “Bugger me, it’s a carpark.”

  “No thanks, but yes, it is. And odds on we’ll find Cecilia Guthrie’s Golf still parked there. Guthrie was walking in that direction when he was killed because he was going to collect his car. Which means-”

  “They had a second meeting on Friday night!” Liam was interested again.

  Craig nodded. “They must have done. And whoever killed Guthrie knew about it, either because he’d been watching one or other of them, or…”

  “One of their offices had sprung a leak.”

  ****

  The James Bar. 4.30 p.m.

/>   The search of Richard Jamison’s office had yielded nothing obvious, so with everything packed up Craig had finally called it a day, passing the search for Guthrie’s car onto uniform and calling the next morning’s briefing for ten. He would go back to the C.C.U. after he’d had something to eat, but even though they were on-call he’d need a compelling reason to keep everyone else working on a Sunday evening and he had a feeling he might need their goodwill some other time.

  It was with that in mind that he was up at the bar ordering drinks for those team members not rushing home. Along with Liam, flying solo for the night, were Andy, who was dateless, Davy who was waiting for Maggie to put the Monday morning edition to bed, and Rhonda, who seemed slightly confused as to where she was.

  As Liam joined him to help carry the drinks Craig whispered. “Rhonda looks a bit bewildered.”

  Liam wasn’t as quiet. “Aye, well, stands to reason, doesn’t it. She’s been upside down for a year. That’s bound to give you a sore head.”

  Craig’s eyes widened as he wondered whether Liam really believed the southern hemisphere was a literal reflection of the northern, or whether he was just taking the piss. The D.C.I.’s guffaw said it was the latter.

  Craig gave a wry smile and said “very witty” then gestured at Rhonda again. She was wedged in so close to Andy that he was practically sitting on her knee. “His idea or hers?” If it was Andy’s then they’d be having ‘the talk’. Senior officers dating juniors was discouraged, for fear of cries of harassment and undue influence, although in a force of fit, youngish people, it was impossible to regulate attraction, especially when aided by alcohol.

  Liam shook his head. “Just watch and wait.”

  They didn’t have long to wait. After an hour of eating and banter, and five rounds in which Rhonda downed five pints and two shorts yet stayed far soberer than most judges, they were treated to the sight of a drunk but extremely smiley D.C.I. Angel being dragged out the door by the team’s newest constable. The men gawped after the pair and Davy was the first to find his voice.