The Coercion Key

by Catriona King

  She remembered the campaign to save the little ‘Chapel on the Quays’, as the church had always been known. Catholics and Protestants had stood side by side every Sunday morning, trying to save it from the wrecking ball. They’d managed to save the building but now it stood boarded-up and unexplored, waiting for its protectors to restore its interior and open it again for the world to view. The church watched over the narrow dockland streets like a holy sentinel, as if it was biding its time, waiting for its rafters to ring again with voices raised in prayer.

  Jenna imagined the silent chapel disapproving of everything about her life, from the games she played to the abomination its clergy would think her body had become. She shrugged, not caring. If there was a God then it was responsible for her creation, male and female. No use disapproving of me now, Supreme Being, whatever you call yourself, or trying to lay the blame at society’s door. I’m your child after all. She laughed, knowing that no-one would hear her and wonder who the madwoman was, laughing alone in the street. Then she turned her attention back to the C.C.U. and waited for her prey.

  ***

  Craig had had enough of being under house arrest. He wanted to visit John and it was a Friday evening so he had to leave the office by seven anyway. Attendance at his mother’s Friday night dinner was a three-line-whip and she overcooked her pasta for no-one. He glanced at his watch, calculating that he could get to the hospital and back in under an hour, before Liam and Annette returned for the briefing at five o’ clock.

  He walked to the door of his office and wrenched it open, watching as Nicky and Jake sprang into high alert. It wasn’t his elevated rank that did it, this wasn’t the military after all, it was the fact that they’d been tasked by Liam to stop him leaving and they were taking their job to heart.

  Nicky squinted at him menacingly. “Where do you think you’re going… sir?” The appellation was an afterthought that came reluctantly after the pause. Craig knew what was running through her mind during the two second gap. You couldn’t call your prisoner ‘sir’, even if he was your boss. And that’s what Craig was after all, a prisoner. Under house arrest for his own good.

  “I was thinking of having a sandwich in the canteen, if that’s OK with you?”

  Nicky screwed up her face as if she was mapping out his possible escape routes from the seventh floor. There were too many for comfort.

  “I can get one for you.”

  Craig shook his head. “I want to eat it there and read the paper. I need a break.”

  He caught Davy’s grin out of the side of his eye. He wasn’t sitting to attention like the others, but then he doubted Davy knew what the stance even looked like. He was a rebel, an artist, and his only possible partner in crime.

  “I’ll be back for the briefing at five o’clock. But if it makes you feel any better, Davy can come with me to make sure that I don’t escape.”

  Nicky thought for another minute, searching for the catch then she gave Craig a reluctant nod. He was up to something, she had no doubt about that, but she couldn’t work out exactly what. Craig nodded to Davy and he loped across the floor, then they started the long walk to freedom towards the lift. When they were out of Nicky’s earshot the young analyst turned to Craig.

  “W…We’re not going to the canteen, are we?”

  “Nope.”

  “We’re going to s…see Dr Winter, aren’t we?”

  “Correct.”

  Davy rubbed his hands gleefully, feeling like a spy on a secret mission. They entered the lift and Craig pressed for the basement garage then Davy spoke again.

  “Just one thing, chief. W…What about my protection guy? If he’s finds out that I’ve gone he’ll go berserk.”

  Craig startled. He’d forgotten about the C.P.Os! He thought fast.

  “He’s in reception, because that’s the way you normally leave. He won’t know we’ve got out through the basement. Give it twenty minutes then ring Nicky and pretend we’re still in the canteen and ask if she’d like anything brought back. That should throw her off the scent. By the time she realises we’ve gone we’ll be back.”

  They reached the garage and Craig gunned the engine of his ancient car. They swept out smoothly onto Pilot Street, completely missing the tall figure standing in Short Street as they drove past.

  Jenna smiled as the car whizzed past her. Not because she had any intention of following, she guessed that Craig would be back soon enough. It was mid-afternoon and he had someone in the car; there’d be more work to do before he would head home for the night. No, Jenna smiled because she knew what it meant. Craig was a risk taker; he’d left his office without an armed guard and that meant he was careless and she would get to him soon. She liked people who took risks, as long as they were only with their own lives.

  ***

  Sydenham.

  Liam and Annette had one last person to interview before they collected Mike Augustus from the lab and headed back to the ranch for five o’clock. Annette scanned the list on her knee as Liam drove expertly towards Julian Mooney’s address. Natasha Nunes had been right. Mooney was an arty sort, but he wasn’t an architect, he was into interior design. Annette had always wondered what interior designers did, until she saw the warmth created by the décor in the Merchant Hotel and the cool stylistic elegance of the MAC. That’s what interior designers did. They took an empty room and made it feel like something more.

  She glanced up from her list and pointed ahead. “It’s the second on the right.”

  Liam ignored her. Back seat drivers. He knew Belfast like the back of his hand and Annette was from Maghera! He wondered why people said ‘the back of your hand’? Why not ‘your own face’? After all, you spent a lot more time staring at yourself in the mirror than you did looking down at your limbs. His thoughts changed swiftly as he noticed the name of the street they were in. ‘Marine Street.’ This was it.

  Liam parked the car and clambered out, scanning the street cautiously. It was narrow and run-down, like the whole area was. It didn’t look like somewhere a barrister’s boyfriend would live. The semi-detached house at number 25 was as shabby as the street it was in, and they walked slowly up its untidy path to an unremarkable front door. Annette was disappointed, she’d prepared herself to be wowed by the house, thinking that a designer would live somewhere swish.

  They knocked several times but no-one answered so Liam walked across the garden towards the rear of the house.

  “I’ll look round the back. You keep knocking.”

  But back and front doors yielded the same result. There was no-one at home. Liam peered through the kitchen windows, looking for some clues to Julian Mooney’s life. The room was sparse and cold looking, the only sign of life a newspaper spread across the table top. Annette wandered round to join him, just as he was pushing a window hard.

  “Liam, stop that! Mooney isn’t a suspect.”

  Liam frowned. Something felt very wrong. Julian Mooney was supposed to be a designer, the partner of a wealthy woman, yet he lived on a run-down street in a poor area and his shabby décor definitely wasn’t an attempt at Bohemian chic. The hairs on the back of Liam’s neck sprang up and he motioned Annette back to the car. As they drove off to collect Mike Augustus he scanned the street a final time for threats, certain that their perp had been there.

  ***

  “God, I’m bored. Tell me what’s happening with the case.”

  Craig shook his head. If Natalie found him talking to John about work he’d be a dead man. Davy gazed curiously around the hospital side-room then lifted the remote control, managing to find several TV channels that John had missed. One of them was FOX International which showed the best crime series on the box.

  “Stop! Freeze it there, Davy and check what’s on tonight, will you?”

  Davy flicked up the index and John beamed. Episodes of his favourite cop shows were being played back to back.

  “I can die happy now.”

  Craig winced. “I’d rather you didn’t die
at all, thanks.”

  He paused for a second, calculating how much he could get John involved with work before Natalie came after him with an axe. John had seen who’d shot him, and they would ask any witness to give a description, so a sketch should be safe enough ground.

  “John, if I get the artist to visit you tomorrow can you do a sketch of the woman who shot you?”

  John was still staring at the screen as the opening credits of ‘The Wire’ started to play. He answered Craig vaguely. “Yeh, sure, whatever you want.”

  “What time is Natalie likely to visit?”

  “In and out all day.” He motioned to Davy. “Davy, can you turn that up.”

  “I’d like the artist to avoid her if possible. You know Natalie when she’s having a rant. ”

  John’s gaze was fixed straight ahead and he reached out his hand for the remote control. “Yes, very wise. Good.”

  They’d lost him to the joys of Baltimore’s finest and Craig recognised defeat. He motioned Davy towards the door and they left John to solve some of America’s heinous crimes.

  ***

  The C.C.U. 5 p.m.

  “OK. We’ll go round for updates then open it up for discussion. Welcome, Mike, thanks for coming.”

  Mike Augustus smiled and gazed excitedly round the squad-room, like a man who didn’t get out enough.

  “Liam, you and Annette start us off.”

  Craig motioned them on, ignoring Nicky’s glare. She’d caught him and Davy as they’d re-entered the floor and wagged a finger in Craig’s face.

  “You weren’t in the canteen. I checked!”

  Craig had tried for indignation but it was ruined by Davy’s loud laugh.

  “We were… for a while.”

  “And where were you then? Eh?” The wagging intensified. “If I find out that you left this building without protection and took this vulnerable boy into danger…”

  The ‘vulnerable boy’ laughed so hard that Craig wanted to smack him one, but instead he smiled calmly. He calculated that Nicky would have taken the lift to the canteen and took his best shot.

  “We went to the canteen and then walked back up the stairs. You must have missed us.”

  Nicky squinted at Craig’s innocent face, suddenly uncertain of her ground. She’d taken the lift both ways, so she could easily have missed them between floors and Davy’s protection officer said they definitely hadn’t left through reception. The only way to prove her case was to speak to the gate officer in the garage. She’d been about to go down to the basement when Liam and Annette had arrived.

  Liam started to report from memory as Annette checked what he said against her notebook. She gave up halfway when he didn’t put a foot wrong. Liam ran through their visits to Warner’s second family in Antrim and Diana Rogan’s office in one minute, basically filing them under ‘nothing interesting to report’. When he reached Victoria Linton’s P.A he stopped and nodded Annette on.

  “It seems that Victoria Linton wasn’t well liked, not by her P.A. and not by some of the people she’d dealt with.”

  “Criminals she’d prosecuted?”

  “Not just them, sir. She’d been a defence lawyer for corporate clients before she took up prosecution and she made a few enemies there as well. Her clients were mainly banks, insurance companies and the like.”

  Craig knew they were in the right ball-park.

  “The P.A., Natasha Nunes, had a list of people that she wasn’t to put through to Linton if they called.”

  “Did you get it?”

  Annette nodded and tapped a file on her lap. “I’ll give it to Davy to cross-check. Then we went to visit the boyfriend, Julian Mooney. Ms Nunes thought he might be an architect. Turns out he was an interior designer but I have to say I wouldn’t fancy him designing my house.”

  “Why not?”

  Liam jumped in. “’Cos his own place was a shambles. Neglected house in a rough road and if what we saw was interior design then I’ll stick with my own taste.”

  Davy’s timing was perfect. “Neanderthal chic?”

  Craig smiled at his droll delivery and Mike Augustus laughed out loud; they never had this much fun at the lab.

  Liam drew himself upright in his chair. “Here now, I’ll have you know…”

  Craig waved them both down, laughing. “I’m sure your taste is impeccable, Liam. Annette, tell us what you saw at Mooney’s house.”

  Annette shrugged. “To be honest Liam’s already said it all. There was no-one in so we had a quick look through the kitchen window and it was worse than most student flats. Chilly looking, sparse and dull. If Mooney’s an interior designer he’s not a very good one, unless the rest of the house is better. To be honest it looked more like a flop pad than a home.”

  The group fell silent for a moment while Craig thought. “OK… Davy, check out Mooney please. We know he exists because the neighbour, James Wallace, met him. You two, go back to Linton’s development and speak to Wallace again. Davy will give you Mooney’s photo.”

  “W…Well actually…”

  Craig turned towards Davy, he‘d moved back to his computer and was typing something in. After a moment he nodded and returned to his seat.

  “I just wanted to recheck something. I s…searched Julian Mooney on the computer when I did everyone else after Victoria Linton’s death and nothing came up on him. I parked it because he was only a partner of the victim and she was only one of several suicides, s…so he didn’t seem that important, but I’ve just run him again and there’s nothing.”

  Craig frowned. “Nothing? Driving licence, passport, work history?”

  Davy shook his long hair. “Nada. He’s the invisible man.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “W…Well, if he doesn’t drive or travel, it’s very possible he doesn’t have any passport or driving licence pictures available. And if he’s a freelance designer it might be a lot of cash in hand work.”

  Liam lurched forward. “Aha! We can get him on tax evasion, then.”

  Craig looked at him sceptically. “Well one, why would we want to ‘get him’? He’s a victim’s partner. And two, tax evasion only applies if we can prove Mooney actually earned some money.”

  “He’s a bad one, boss. I knew it when we were at the house. It was a mess.”

  Annette snorted. “Bad taste isn’t a crime, Liam, if it was…” She stared pointedly at his cartoon patterned socks.

  Craig pulled them back to the meeting. “OK, so Julian Mooney’s odd and Liam’s gut is telling him that he’s something else as well. I tend to agree, so let’s dig a bit deeper.” He turned towards Mike Augustus, who looked completely bemused. “Mike, could you update us on Adrian Bell, please.”

  Augustus looked disappointed that the banter had stopped but he smiled and removed a set of hand-outs from a folder that he’d brought. Craig watched him as he handed them out. Augustus was younger than John and him and as chubby as they were both slim. He had a thick thatch of mousey brown hair and a permanently child-like expression, despite the horrific things he saw all day, and he spoke so quietly that Craig always strained to hear. Craig pre-empted it now by requesting that Augustus speak up.

  “Ah, yes. I know I mumble. I’ll do my best to be heard. OK, in your hand-outs you’ll see the results on Bell from both pathology and forensics. Des did the forensics report. Right, on page one is the post-mortem report. It shows that your victim was definitely Adrian Bell: he was identified from dental records. He was a healthy forty-seven-year-old male with no serious systemic illness. He was diabetic but it was well controlled. Death was instant and due to a single gunshot wound to the head. There was gunshot residue on his right hand that indicated he’d shot himself and prints that we’re running now. The bullet was a 9 by 19 millimetre Parabellum, full metal jacket, exactly the same as the one that hit John. Bell’s was fired from the Mauser C96 that was found at his scene…”

  Liam leaned forward to interrupt and Augustus raised a hand to still him.
>
  “Before you ask, no, the markings don’t match for John. Same type of bullet but your killer used a different gun. Bell’s bullet entered the skull at an angle above his right ear, pierced the parietal bone and travelled upwards at an angle of about forty-five degrees to emerge through the top of the frontal bone and lodge in the wall. Mr Bell left a note which Des said was identical to several others you’ve seen in this case. It was written in Bell’s own hand, as verified by other samples of handwriting found in the house. A USB in a key-shaped casing was found near the suicide scene, again as with earlier victims.”

  Craig signalled to interrupt. “Were any other prints found in the room?”

  Augustus nodded. “Quite a few. Mr Bell had a family so that was to be expected. Oh yes, the blood splatter and brain matter distribution were consistent with his head wound.”

  On the words ‘brain matter’ Nicky blanched.

  “All in all, the scene was identical to the others that John P.M.ed, with only one possible difference.”

  The words were said so casually that Craig almost missed them. Augustus was about to start his next sentence when Craig motioned him to halt.

  “One difference?”

  “Possibly, yes. There’s a suggestion that there may have been physical coercion at the time of Mr Bell’s death.”

  Craig leaned forward urgently. “What?”

  Augustus nodded. “We can’t be certain but the pattern of the handwriting may indicate that the pen was being forced along.

  “By another hand? You mean someone held Bell’s hand while he wrote the note?”

  Augustus’ normally open face became cautious. “May have held. We have no definite proof yet. The handwriting expert only came back with this at three o’clock. They have to do a lot more tests.”

  Craig’s mind raced. If their killer had had to pressure Bell to kill himself then they might have been in a hurry to finish him off. It was a big risk. All of the other deaths had been at arm’s length; their perp had deliberately kept themselves remote, outlining their victims’ instructions and why they should kill themselves in instantly wiped PDFs.