The Cabal (#16 - The Craig Crime Series)

by Catriona King

  Andy read the sergeant’s mind and nodded him on generously; he liked Jake despite his disrespect, and he’d been through a lot lately so he deserved a treat. As soon as he sank languidly into the velvet upholstery in a signal for Jake to proceed, the sergeant angled himself purposefully towards the son, who was still smiling about his mother’s jaunts.

  “How often does your mother go away?”

  “Two or three times a month.”

  “Weekdays or weekends?”

  “Mostly weekends, although sometimes she’ll take off mid-week. Depends.”

  Jake’s ears pricked up. “On what?”

  “What time of the year it is. She goes away at weekends more during the summer. In winter, she tends to disappear mid-week.”

  It meant something, but what he couldn’t yet tell. As the youth showed no sign of shutting down the questioning Jake decided to push his luck.

  “Does she stay in Ireland, or…”

  “Most of the time. The very odd time she’ll go abroad, but mostly it’s local or down south somewhere. I don’t know where.”

  Suddenly Rupert Lewis sat forward, staring from one detective to another as if something was starting to dawn.

  “Has something happened to my mother? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

  Jake squeezed in one last question before realisation hit. “What does your mother do for a living, Mister Lewis?”

  The youth frowned as if the answer was obvious. “She’s a design and beauty expert. Veronica Lewis Couture and Beauty. Surely you’ve heard of her?”

  Andy’s eyes widened as he suddenly placed their victim’s name. He certainly had heard of Veronica Lewis designs, but if the clothes were as good as their appearances in the glossy magazines suggested then why did she need to be a madam? Either way it was clear that her son knew nothing about her side-line in sexual services and he was beginning to think that telling him wasn’t a wise move. He took back the reins hastily.

  “One more question and then we’re finished, Mister Lewis. Does your mother own or rent any other properties? Residential or commercial?”

  Lewis shook his head. “No. She works from home and sees people by appointment.”

  He rose and walked to an inner door that they hadn’t noticed. Andy followed, reluctantly leaving his seat. He made a mental note to buy some velvet furniture; it was the most comfortable sofa he’d ever tried.

  The door was opened to reveal a mirrored dressing table, a drawing board covered in dress sketches and a dressmaker’s dummy stabbed with pins.

  “Mum works in here.”

  The D.C.I. turned to leave.

  “Thank you for answering our questions, Mister Lewis. We’ll be in touch again.”

  He saw Jake’s eyes widening and his mouth open to say something, but he grabbed the sergeant’s arm, propelling him out the front door. They were at the car before Jake got his chance to speak.

  “Why did you shut me up like that?”

  Andy climbed in the driver’s side, turning over the engine. “I’ll tell you on the way.”

  As they headed back to Pilot Street he elaborated. “The boy obviously knows nothing about his mother’s brothel, and saying ‘your mum’s a madam’ then following it up with ‘and we think she’s been kidnapped’ wasn’t something I was prepared to do without speaking to the boss. What if Aidan was wrong and Lewis isn’t a sex-worker? It would destroy the boy. You saw how much he loved her.”

  Jake wasn’t persuaded. “And what happens if she turns up dead and we haven’t even alerted him that she’s gone? He’ll be wrecked.”

  The D.C.I. considered for so long that they were parked in the C.C.U.’s garage before he answered.

  “No. We did the right thing. We need to dig deeper into Lewis’ background, find out where she’s been going to on these jaunts and arrange searches of any premises we find. She may still be at one of them. Maybe she hasn’t been kidnapped at all. Only when we’ve ruled out all the other possibilities do we destroy a son’s image of his mum.”

  ****

  The C.C.U. 5 p.m.

  Annette arrived back at the C.C.U. at the same time as the two detectives and Andy cornered her in the lift.

  “So? Who reported Lewis missing?”

  She stared at him coolly until he started the conversation again.

  “Sorry. Hello, Annette. How was your afternoon? Did you manage to find out anything on the kidnapping?”

  She nodded primly, shaking her new-baby bob up and down. “I did, thank you.” Just then they arrived at the tenth floor and she stepped out. “And if you follow me I’ll tell you at the same time as the chief.”

  She pushed through the glass double-doors and walked straight to Craig’s office, collecting Liam and Aidan on the way, so that by the time Craig answered her soft knock and opened his door the pied piper detective inspector had four men trailing in her wake.

  He took one look at the group and stepped out, waving them all to take a seat.

  “OK. I had decided not to brief again as events had overtaken us today, but as John and I are with the C.C. first thing we might as well do a tidy up now.”

  He smiled hopefully at his PA for a coffee and when he had it in hand he waved Annette on.

  “You were finding out exactly why this was labelled a kidnapping, Annette.”

  “Yes, sir. Well, I went to an office address that Ash found for Lewis-”

  She was cut off by Andy raising a hand.

  Craig sighed.

  “Can’t it wait, Andy?”

  “It’s just to say that according to the son Lewis doesn’t have any properties but her apartment on the Malone Road.”

  “OK. We’ll come back to that. Carry on, Annette.”

  Annette had used the break to check her notes. “The address is definitely registered to her, and it’s not rented. She owns an office at one thousand Lisburn Road.”

  Aidan nodded in confirmation. “I’ve just found out that’s the address Vice has had for the past year.”

  Craig nodded sharply. “Fine, so Lewis has a place her son doesn’t know about. Go on, Annette.”

  The D.I. folded her hands primly in her lap. “OK. Well. There were a couple of girls at the office, but it didn’t look as if they actually worked there. The place was basically just a front desk with a computer and phone and a lounge behind, just somewhere people could have coffee. That’s where the girls were when we walked in.”

  “Were they sex-workers?”

  “If they were they were high-class ones. They wouldn’t have looked out of place in the pages of Vogue. I didn’t ask them outright, just took their details to follow up.”

  As Andy sat forward to cut in again, Craig stopped him with a shake of the head.

  “Who reported Lewis missing, Annette?”

  “It was a caretaker, Vincent Downs. He services the offices; there are six in the building. Most of them are hired by the hour, by visiting business people holding meetings. Veronica Lewis is the only permanent tenant. Anyway, Mister Downs puts out the rubbish, does odd jobs and looks after the place generally, and he noticed the door to her office open around eleven on Friday morning, so he went in and found the place in a mess. Papers across the floor, desk turned over. He knew Lewis had been in there earlier because he’d seen her enter at nine o’clock, so he panicked and phoned the police. Initially as a break-in, but he told the constable who attended that Lewis had been there at the time and was missing.”

  “She could have left before the break-in.”

  Annette nodded. “That’s what I thought. Downs hadn’t seen her for two hours, so she could easily have left and then someone broke in. They might even have been waiting for her to leave before they did.”

  Craig frowned, thinking. How had a reported break-in and a possible kidnapping worked its way up to the Chief Constable’s ears?

  Liam answered his unspoken question. “Someone must have had her name tagged, boss. That’s the only way a simple break-in and poss
ible missper could have worked its way up the chain.”

  Craig turned to their Vice detective. “Aidan? Was Veronica Lewis tagged for attention?”

  The D.C.I. shook his blond head. “Not during my time, but I’ll ask around.”

  Craig nodded. There was a lot of digging to be done all round.

  “Let me know if you get something. Annette? Anything else?”

  Her expression said she was tossing up whether the next thing she had was important enough to say.

  “I’m not sure, sir…it’s just…the caretaker had been there for ten years, and Lewis there for nine, and he seemed convinced that she was just running a fashion and beauty empire. I probed a bit and he said there were never any men in or out, just women, so I’ve got her computer coming over for Davy to check.” She smiled in his direction. “Could we get her calls pulled as well?” This time Ash got the grin. “It could tell us a lot.”

  “Fine. Do that please, you two. Also, get any computers from her home. By the way, Davy, there’ll be a list of names coming over from the Travis Estate soon, so I’ll need you to run them for everything you can think of. OK, thanks for that, Annette.”

  He could see Andy and Jake both straining to speak and was tempted to change tack to the shooting just to wind them up. After a moment he relented.

  “OK, you two obviously have something to say. Andy?”

  “Well, it’s just that the son doesn’t know she’s a madam.”

  Craig’s eyes widened in horror. “Tell me that you didn’t enlighten him. Please.”

  “We didn’t.” The D.C.I. smirked an ‘I told you so’ at Jake. “But the boy supported the story the caretaker gave. That Veronica Lewis is a fashion designer. I thought her name was familiar; I saw some of her designs in last month’s Vogue.”

  No-one queried why he was reading a woman’s magazine, but it clearly wasn’t for the fashion tips.

  Andy was still speaking.

  “Her son showed us her workroom in the apartment and said she saw clients there by appointment. There was a dressmaker’s dummy and-”

  Jake jumped in. “He also said that she often disappeared on jaunts. Weekdays during the winter and weekends in the summer time. He thought they were mostly here or in the south.”

  Craig frowned and Liam knew exactly what he was thinking.

  “Summer’s when the Assembly’s on recess, boss.”

  “My thoughts exactly. And the rest of the time they’re at Stormont, so they can’t get away as easily for weekends.”

  Liam sniggered. “Convenient local weekday trysts for tired MLAs?”

  “Probably. Andy, you said the son didn’t know of Lewis owning any other properties.”

  Andy nodded. “He said there weren’t any. He seemed convinced that she did everything out of the flat. I have to say, he seemed genuine, chief. He was a pleasant lad.”

  Jake confirmed the impression with a nod.

  “OK, so we have a nice lad who thinks his mum’s a designer-”

  “Which she is, as well as whatever else.”

  Craig continued as if Andy hadn’t spoken. “And who believes that the only property she owns is the apartment where she lives. What else does she spend her money on in his opinion?”

  “Her jaunts away and him, I think. By his clothes and accent I’d say every other penny Lewis makes goes on the boy.”

  Craig considered for a moment.

  “OK… so we have Veronica Lewis: dress designer, beauty consultant, high class madam and devoted mother. A multi-faceted woman, but apart from the risks attached to catering for the sexual needs of wealthy men she doesn’t seem to have done anything dangerous. And nothing to make anyone dislike her, never mind kidnap or kill her. What did her employees say about her?”

  Annette shook her head. “The two women in the office didn’t admit anything-”

  Jake interjected. “We interviewed two other women, both admitted escorts. They both liked Lewis, and said her son loved her. But they did say that she organised high-level parties for rich men where the ratio of women to men was two to one. One of them didn’t think much of the customers and warned us to be careful investigating. She said they were the top one percent.” He glanced at the analysts. “She also said the parties were held in the country and they were blind-folded all the way there, but one place had acres of grounds and a marble statue and it was around two hours’ drive from east Belfast.”

  Craig glanced at Davy. “Can you do anything with that?”

  The analyst gave the grin of a man who loved a challenge. “Leave it with me. The phone dump from her office might help us, especially if there are rural numbers on there.”

  Craig nodded his thanks. “OK, good. I see Kyle’s gone AWOL again so we’ll have to get his feedback tomorrow. For now, Liam’s going to update you on the other little matter that took up our afternoon.”

  Chapter Five

  OK, so now she knew she was in Belfast, more familiar accents passing by the window as the day moved on, and more pertinently none of the faster, north-west voices that would have been heard if she’d been in the country’s second city, Derry.

  Central Belfast, judging by the traffic and the frequency of the buses rattling past the walls. But apart from the fact that meant she was so close to her own home and Rupert that the frustration made her want to cry, the knowledge advanced Veronica Lewis’ escape cause not one single inch.

  A few hours before she’d had the fear of being killed and anger at the man who she was certain had paid the goons sitting outside the door gnawing at her, but at least she’d had some tiny comfort that their desire for anonymity meant she might yet escape alive. Now, with the benefit of too many hours to think, she was sure that she was headed for the grave, and it was unlikely to be the marble headstoned one that she’d paid for through the Co-op.

  The thought prompted a tear to start down her filthy cheek, its perfect mask of foundation and powder applied three days earlier replaced now by dust and grime mixed with blood from the split lip she’d received when she’d tried to run.

  Her mind flew back to the moment of her capture; sitting at her desk completing the mundane tasks of running a business, two businesses to be accurate. One set of accounts had been for her design and beauty work, the respectable front that disguised her more lucrative enterprise. She needed the front, not because she was ashamed of how she earned enough to give her boy the small luxuries of life: a good education, designer clothes and a little nest-egg to help him when she’d gone, but because she wanted him to be able to hold up his head in front of his middle-class friends at university, friends whose parents held titles like Doctor and Professor and who at one hint of her sexual services side-line would have side-lined Rupert as well.

  The madam smiled to herself, lifting her cuffed hands to brush away the tear from her cheek. She’d achieved what she’d set out to do, give Rupert the start in life that he deserved, and she was proud of that, if not of what she’d had to do to make it real.

  A sudden scraping outside made her jerk to attention, imagining that her captors were pushing back their chairs and readying to enter and finally end her life. A moment’s vigilance yielded no second sign of her impending demise, and as her cell fell silent once more Lewis rested back against the wall again, her mind turning to other things.

  She should never have taken his filthy money, she’d known it from the start. For years she’d run her business quietly and successfully, hosting small parties that catered for local men’s sexual peccadillos, which truth be told rarely strayed beyond a bit of light S&M and the urge to be dominated while wearing a giant Babygro. It had kept her ticking along nicely, paying the mortgage and school fees, with her couture and beauty business providing the three holidays a year icing on the cake. Occasionally one of her regulars had brought along a tourist, a visiting businessman who’d got bored watching pay-per-view porn at their hotel, and she’d been happy to accommodate them. They’d been big tippers, and if anything, their dem
ands had been even fewer than the locals’, north and south. Until he’d come.

  She shuddered violently as the man’s image filled her mind. Good looking in a silver fox way, with close-cropped grey hair and blue eyes that shone out like search beams from his sixtyish, deeply tanned face. Every inch of the man had been muscle, rock hard and sculpted, as if he’d been hewn from a tree; only the inches that she’d imagined through his suit of course, the dubious honour of pleasuring him had been left to two of her best girls.

  He’d been proof, as if she’d needed it at her age, that good looks do not an attractive man make, his coldness making her long for the soft dishevelment of the boys that she’d dated at school, their humour and kindness more than compensating for their inelegant clothes and unkempt hair.

  But worse than his coldness, there’d been a callous cruelty behind the man’s blue eyes. Something she didn’t think she would have to worry about for long; he was a traveller, after all. An international businessman, in Belfast for only one week.

  Their second encounter had taught her better. The Fox’s sexual needs sated he’d come in search of her, backing her against a wall, speaking softly but insistently beneath his breath. Coaxing, cajoling, tempting her, not with sex but with something much more orgasmic, money; the promise of future wealth. It had cast her caution away, her common sense and animal instinct with it, and she’d agreed to his, what had seemed like then, simple proposition, although part of her had known from her first step backwards that he would never have accepted a no.

  She was to continue to hold her parties, but more frequently and lavishly now and funded by him, seeking higher level customers amongst local politicians and Ireland’s wealthy top one percent. That was to be her only task; he and his partners would do the rest. She’d never known his exact agenda but she’d sensed it was the beginning of her end as soon as they’d signed on the metaphoric line. But whatever end game The Fox had planned for her customers Veronica Lewis knew that hers would be over long before then.