The Talion Code

by Catriona King

  “Warner Hamnet.”

  He was disappointed by the complete lack of response, not even a rapid blink. The man opposite didn’t dissemble or glance away; it was as if he’d always known they’d discover his real name. Craig pressed hard, hoping to hit a sore spot.

  “Your father abandoned you.”

  This time he was answered by a slow “tut-tut” and an exaggerated shake of the head.

  “Really, Superintendent, if you must try to shock, please give me more credit than to believe that.”

  Craig leaned forward. “What then? You must blame someone for your father’s death, even if you don’t blame him.”

  “Must I? I’d say such things were in the lap of the gods.”

  He might say it, but the raised pitch of his voice was as good an indicator of lying as a polygraph. Craig pressed harder on the wound.

  “You don’t believe that any more than I do. You blame Richard Jamison and Neil Dunn for his death.”

  Miskimmon’s lips twisted. “You have done your research.” He glanced at the clock again, very deliberately; it read twenty past eight. He turned back to Craig with a broad smile, but before the detective had time to process it the door was knocked and Liam strode in with a note. As Craig read it he was on his feet and by the time Sean Flanagan had scanned it the three policemen were outside the room.

  “With me, Liam. You drive. Sir, I need emergency services to Belfast City Airport fast, and ground all flights, Priority One alert. We’ve got forty minutes.”

  As Liam threw the Ford into gear he made a call, reaching Nicky immediately.

  “Nicky, patch Neil Dunn’s security detail through to me.”

  Liam’s note had confirmed what he’d been afraid of for hours. Neil Dunn’s staff had finally revealed his itinerary and he was scheduled to fly to Holland at nine p.m. What better way to target him than through a faulty plane?

  As they raked up the A2 Nicky called back. Craig set his phone to speaker so that Liam could hear.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but his security detail isn’t answering and their phone provider says they can’t get through. The Chief Constable’s been trying to ground the flights but he can’t get through either so he’s sent a patrol car to the airport.”

  Craig thought out loud. “But they’re not due to fly for thirty-five minutes.” Then he barked another order, his mind racing. “Get me through to the cockpit, Nicky. Use their radio.”

  As the scenery flew past them the detective thought hard. Something had been bothering him since they’d left the interview room. Miskimmon had glanced at the wall clock twice. Once after he’d looked at his watch; that time Miskimmon hadn’t looked relieved but he had looked calm. The second time he’d smiled openly despite there being only five minutes time difference; five minutes in which Neil Dunn would still have been in the airport’s departure lounge. So what did Miskimmon know that they didn’t?

  He got his answer as they pulled in through the airport’s gates, picking up on his phone’s first ring.

  “Am I speaking to the pilot?”

  A familiar female voice said not. “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t get through to anyone. All I’m getting is static.”

  His heart sank at Nicky’s words. Miskimmon had blocked the phones and radios somehow. As they dumped the Ford and set off running Craig struggled to hear the next thing that she said.

  “Eight-thirty…”

  The flight was taking off in two minutes! Thirty minutes ahead of time. That’s why Miskimmon had smiled at the clock. By then he’d known that Dunn and his guards were already on the plane. More than known, he must have arranged it. It would have been a simple task for someone as computer savvy as him to alter a flight schedule, but only…

  He speeded up as Liam loped alongside, gasping for breath.

  “Where…are we…heading?”

  “The small runway. Dunn’s flying by private jet.”

  Miskimmon could never have changed a commercial flight’s time without it being noticed, but moving a chartered jet’s take-off up thirty minutes would have been an easy trick. Liam gasped out more words.

  “Miskimmon…how…no computer…”

  “He got airside somehow and did something to the plane.”

  ****

  8.28 p.m.

  Josh Galloway stared at his mobile, swearing under his breath at its lack of reception. He turned to the other protection officer with his hand held out.

  “Lend me your mobile, Ricky. I promised I’d call Jenny before we took off.”

  Ricky Irvine handed over his phone then rested back on his soft leather seat and closed his eyes. He liked flying in private jets. No kids and no drunks, just a quick hop across the North Sea and then back again in time for bed. His peace was disturbed by yet more swearing and this time it reached the front of the jet, where Neil Dunn was reading his briefing notes.

  “What’s up, guys?”

  “Josh is complaining there’s no phone reception and his old lady’s going to give him grief because he didn’t call.”

  Dunn’s response was to point to the seatbelt sign. “It’s too late anyway. You need to buckle up.”

  They had no way of knowing that the frequencies were blocked, because Nicky’s call had never got through. As the pilot taxied the small jet for take-off, Craig and Liam were tearing through the terminal building, flashing their badges at each choke point. They reached the tarmac just as the Cessna Mustang began to accelerate down the runway. Craig kept running, yelling and waving his arms furiously. Liam was close behind but far enough to see the jets fire up. He shouted into the wind.

  “You can’t stop them.”

  But Craig wasn’t listening. He just ran even faster, pumping his legs and praying that he could flag down the pilot before he’d lifted the jet’s nose. He was almost ahead of its front wheels when they retracted and the private jet began to climb. He fell to his knees exhausted, knowing in his heart that they’d lost. As Liam caught up a few seconds later and the jet banked left, Craig dragged him away in search of cover, bracing himself for the inevitable, yet all the time praying that he was wrong.

  Five seconds later, as the jet had barely cleared the rooftops; they were blown off their feet by a massive mid-air blast. Chunks of metal and debris blew back across the tarmac, ripping holes in the terminal building, and a piece of fuselage the size of a fist barely missed Liam as they lay on the ground; the blast so fierce that they had burns on their faces and hands. Liam shouted through his tinnitus.

  “Shit, that was close.”

  Craig didn’t answer. All he could think of was that the man responsible for everything was sitting in a nice warm cell that they could never hold him in.

  ****

  Thursday. Christmas Eve.

  It was a defeat; almost. They’d solved the puzzle too late to save the game. Miskimmon and Corneau would be bailed eventually on visa fraud, unless they could convince a judge to remand them on circumstantial evidence and the testimony of a super-recogniser, while they kept hunting for something more concrete. Fingers crossed that the Chief Constable’s promised call to the P.P.S. would hold some sway.

  Miskimmon was an engineering student, but no-one of his name was listed as doing work experience at City Airport, although Andy had volunteered to spend the Christmas break watching weeks of airport CCTV footage in the hope of spotting him there. Uniforms had been searching the terminal and runways for a signal jammer for two days; they’d found nothing yet but they weren’t giving up. They had to find something; the P.P.S. wouldn’t proceed on the basis of computers that might never be cracked, and the outcome of an air incident investigation that could take years.

  Craig’s faint hope was that Des and his team might still find an incriminating hair or print, or the police computer division might work some magic. If not they had nothing but possibilities and gut instinct to say that the pair were responsible for everything, and no jury on earth had ever convicted on that.

  ****

&nb
sp; The James Bar. 8 p.m.

  Liam was up at the bar, regaling the team with his near-death experience and saying that when the investigators were through with it he intended to have the errant piece of fuselage mounted in glass. Andy had been making cow-eyes at Rhonda for two hours, until eventually she’d had enough and blew. Her small mouth moved so quickly it hinted at angry words being said, although no-one in the group could hear a thing. Davy leaned forward, translating.

  “I wish you’d stop staring at me, Andy. It was only one night.”

  Ash’s eyes widened. “You can lip read!”

  “Yep. My aunt taught me. S…She was hearing impaired.”

  Andy’s response was a plaintive. “But…”

  Rhonda hadn’t finished. There was more lip moving and then Davy began to blush. Ash urged him on.

  “What did she say that time?”

  Davy shook his head. “I can’t.”

  But Andy was on Ash’s team. “Tell me, Davy. Was it something nice?”

  Ash gave a sceptical snort. The man was clearly delusional. Rhonda had already turned back to her drink so Davy relented with a shrug.

  “You’re sure you really w…want to know?”

  “Yes.”

  “She said…‘it was only sex, Andy, stop making s…such a big deal about it.’”

  While Andy’s romantic hopes crumbled Craig was sitting alone at a corner table, brooding into his drink. Dominic Guthrie was dead and although the prosecutors might try to charge Richard Jamison for his murder, he and John had already written the statements that would get him off. Jamison might be a crook and a bastard but he wasn’t a killer. Of course that wouldn’t stop the fraud squad burrowing through his finances like moles, especially now that Davy had found evidence of crooked currency swops. The businessman’s chances of retiring to the Caribbean were diminishing by the day.

  The one thing none of them had understood was why Miskimmon had still tried to devalue the algorithm’s value when Jamison had no financial interest in it anymore. Davy had found a possible explanation earlier that day. Jamison had omitted to mention he’d retained a five percent share in the algorithm when it was sold to Merker’s, up until they’d sold it on to Ramsays in twenty-twelve, and the profile on Ramsays’ website had somehow failed to erase Jamison’s name, possibly hoping to attract investors by having such a prominent businessman linked with their technology. Miskimmon had thought the businessman was still profiting from his father’s discovery and he’d targeted the algorithm hoping to ruin him. All those deaths for a website slip.

  Jennifer Somerville had been lurking again, her tendency to narrow her eyes whenever Ash was nearby prompting Annette to ask if she needed glasses. They’d have to put up with her until GCHQ had finished their work on the algorithm, then maybe the agent would see Ash for the genius he was instead of some embryo terrorist.

  Craig felt someone sit down beside him so he reluctantly raised his eyes from his beer. It was Davy.

  “What can I do for you, Davy?”

  “It’s more what I can do for you, chief. S…Something about Eleanor Corneau that you might want to add to the P.P.S. file. She’s Miskimmon’s sister.”

  Craig’s brows shot up. “Susan Hamnet had a baby by someone else?”

  Davy shook his head. “Nope. That’s what I asked because they look nothing like each other, but she’s definitely Paul Hamnet’s daughter.” He gave a small laugh. “Liam said one of his s…sisters looks nothing like the rest of his family either; she’s only four-feet-ten. Anyway, it turns out Hamnet’s wife was one month pregnant when he killed himself. She registered the baby as father unknown.”

  “Probably because she was angry about his suicide.”

  Craig shook his head. Corneau had never even known her dad and Miskimmon had only been ten when he’d died. They’d grown up in poverty while Richard Jamison and Neil Dunn had lived high on the hog; no wonder they’d hated them. His next question was asked from idle curiosity.

  “What’s her real name?”

  “Paula, after her dad.”

  Warner and Paula Hamnet. The siblings were hugging close, but now, if they were successfully prosecuted, they would be separated for years. An image of Katy lying in hospital killed any sympathy Craig might have felt for them stone dead. They should have thought of the sentence before they’d killed people, shouldn’t they.

  He tried to brighten up and make conversation; it was almost Christmas, after all.

  “Remind me when you go back to France again, Davy.”

  “The fourth of Jan.”

  Just then the bar’s main door opened and Jake and Annette came in. They’d joined the table before Craig had a chance to convey his desire for solitude and he felt ashamed suddenly. He knew no-one expected him to be cheerful, because of Katy, but it was Christmas Eve and as boss it was his job to make sure that everyone had fun. He went to the bar to get some drinks in, just in time to hear Liam recount their runway escapade yet again. On “It’ll turn out to be Semtex, it smelt like Semtex” to which Andy snorted “Does Semtex have a perfume then?” he leaned in, interrupting.

  “Not embellishing the story I hope, Liam?”

  Liam’s face was the picture of innocence. “Me, boss? As if!” He turned his back to his acolytes and dropped his voice. “How’s Katy today?”

  Craig handed his credit card to the barman with the instruction to pick up everyone’s tab then turned back to his deputy.

  “There’s been a slight improvement. She opened her eyes briefly when her mum was there this morning and her burns are beginning to heal, but there’s no movement yet.”

  “I’m not surprised. She must still be in shock from what happened.”

  Craig shook his head and lifted the fresh tray of drinks. “The doctors say it’s unlikely she remembers anything and I don’t know if I should tell her. They say yes, that it will help her recovery, but I’m not so sure.”

  He returned to the table to find Annette frowning and whispering to Jake.

  “Something going on here?”

  She gestured at the sergeant despairingly. “I’m trying to talk some sense into him but he’s not listening.”

  Craig handed out the drinks and sat down, turning to Jake. “What are you not being sensible about, then?”

  Jake gave Annette the evil eye and shook his head, so she answered for him.

  “He says that if the courts don’t put Aaron away for years, he’s going to hunt him down and kill him as soon as he can walk. Tell him he’s being ridiculous, sir!”

  Craig’s mouth opened obediently but he couldn’t bring himself to form the words. They would be pure hypocrisy, because he knew that if he could get away with killing Miskimmon for what he’d done to Katy then that was exactly what he would do.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Intensive Care Unit. 11 p.m.

  Craig held Katy’s hand gently as he stared at the floor of the sterile hospital room, recounting the events of the previous week and glad that she was asleep and couldn’t hear him feeling sorry for himself.

  “It turns out that Corneau is actually his sister, Paula. Susan Hamnet was barely pregnant with her when her husband died. She registered the baby as father unknown so that’s why we didn’t cotton on.”

  As he said ‘baby’ he felt a slight twitch of slim fingers between his own and he raised his eyes hesitantly, afraid to believe what it might mean. He watched in stunned hope as Katy’s fingers moved again, more deliberately, and leaned forward urgently to touch her arm.

  “Katy? Katy, it’s Marc. I’m here, pet. Can you hear me?”

  As her small, bandaged face turned towards him, tears flooded down her cheeks. He grasped her hand tighter and closed his eyes in gratitude. When he opened them again a doctor in scrubs was standing there.

  Craig almost shouted his next words.

  “She moved her hand and turned to look at me!”

  The medic smiled kindly, in a way that said he didn’t want to build up any h
opes. “Let me do some tests. I’ll come and find you in the waiting room.”

  After what felt like hours the intensivist entered the small room with a cautious smile on his lips. “There’s definitely some movement and she’s saying a few words. Not very clearly, but it’s still very early days.”

  Craig went to move past him but the doctor raised a hand, barring his way.

  “I’m sorry, but she doesn’t want to see you, Mr Craig.”

  Craig’s eyes widened. “What? Why not?”

  The medic looked embarrassed. “As far as I could make out she heard what you were saying and she blames you for what happened to her.”

  Craig stopped in his tracks, suddenly cold. He stood there long after the doctor had left, until the corridor lights had dimmed automatically and birdsong said that it would soon be dawn, only becoming aware of the time when a soft hand enveloped his own. He looked down to see Maureen Stevens. She led him to a seat.

  “Give her time, Marc. It’s been a shock for her, finding out.”

  When Craig spoke, his voice sounded broken and lost. “She blames me. She told the doctor.”

  She shook her head. “Katy loves you. She’ll come around; I know my daughter.” After a few minutes silence she smiled and rose to her feet. “Go home and sleep, Marc. You look exhausted. I promise I’ll call you as soon as Katy’s ready to talk.”

  It was only as the detective reached the carpark, lit only by the first rays of Christmas Day, that he admitted the only home he really wanted was with the woman lying in ICU. He climbed heavily into his car and went to start the engine, then he stopped dead, buried his face in his hands and wept.

  THE END

  Core Characters in the Craig Crime Novels

  Superintendent Marc (Marco) Craig: Craig is a sophisticated, single, forty-five-year-old. Born in Northern Ireland, he is of Northern Irish/Italian extraction, from a mixed religious background but agnostic. An ex-grammar schoolboy and Queen’s University Law graduate, he went to London to join The Met (The Metropolitan Police) at twenty-two, rising in rank through its High Potential Development Training Scheme. He returned to Belfast in two-thousand and eight after more than fifteen years away.