The Cabal (#16 - The Craig Crime Series)

by Catriona King

  “Inspector Spence! Get over here now!”

  Craig stared pointedly at his watch, holding his wrist up and out in a way that made him despise himself instantly, reminding him as it did of a particularly nit-picking master he and John had once had at school. But Kyle Spence either didn’t have the wit to know when to behave, or else he had so much wit that he’d spotted Craig’s self-disgust instantly and decided to wind him up. Liam was torn trying to decide for a moment, but when he spotted the twinkle in the erstwhile Intelligence Officer’s eyes he plumped for the second option and gave the D.I. a grudging tick for having the balls.

  The ex-spook dandered across to the waiting detectives as if he had all the time in the world, his demeanour implying that sniffing a flower or two in the pretty cul-de-sac might even come next.

  “Sorry, sir, am I late for something?”

  “Your own funeral” was muttered beneath Liam’s breath.

  Craig’s tanned skin darkened and what happened next would go down in the annals of C.C.U. history, not for the violence of it, Craig was too controlled for that, but for the sheer ‘fuck you’ blow that it delivered right between Kyle Spence’s eyes.

  “Get back in your car and down to the Travis, Inspector. D.C.I. Hughes has work for you on door-to-door.”

  As Spence’s jaw dropped Liam could see his mind racing, as he tried to work out what to say to dig himself out of his hole. The last thing he fancied was a morning spent interviewing the public; knocking on doors that would either refuse to open, or worse, would open but then thirty seconds later be slammed in his face. Not to mention the risk of some wee thug scratching his new car or nicking his tyres.

  As the other men watched, Kyle Spence composed his face in a mask of contrition so genuine looking that even though Liam knew the D.I. was a lying toe-rag he couldn’t be certain wasn’t real. Craig however had known Spence since university, and had seen every shade of the deception that had made him such an effective Intelligence Officer employed to full effect, whether lying to some poor girlfriend he was two-timing, or to a tutor about to mark him down for his assignment being late.

  He had learnt the ‘tells’ that distinguished Kyle’s lies from his truths and they were clearly visible to him now, but he let the D.I. contort his face anyway, his amusement rising in anticipation of the bullshit they were about to be treated to.

  “I’m very sorry, Super.”

  Using his rank? Tut tut, Kyle, that’s amateur hour. Even for a sycophant.

  “It’s just, when Liam gave me the message that we were meeting Tommy Hill, I assumed that he was still living in east Belfast. It was only when I arrived there that I found out he lived all the way out here, and that’s why I was late.”

  Craig was starting to enjoy himself and he rested back on his Audi’s bonnet and folded his arms, urging Spence on with. “And your parking?”

  Liam almost laughed at his earnest tone, contradicting as it did Craig’s incredulously raised brows.

  Spence glanced back at his car and composed his face sorrowfully. Liam was really hoping that he’d cry, just to add the finishing touch.

  “I know it took me a long time, but, you see…” Pause for effect. “The car was my great aunt’s legacy to me. You’ll remember that my grandmother died in March, during the jihadi case. Well, her sister died last week and left me some money. I bought the Alpha with it, so it’s a sort of memorial to her, and I would hate for it to get marked, out of respect.”

  Liam shook his head in disbelief as Craig nodded sympathetically.

  “Ah, yes. Which grandmother was that again? Your father’s or mother’s mother?”

  What Kyle Spence possessed in chutzpah and imagination he sadly lacked in his power of recall, something that Craig was depending upon.

  “My father’s. She was ninety-one.”

  “And your great aunt’s name?”

  “Edna.”

  Instead of answering Craig pulled out his phone and after some leisurely tapping he turned the screen towards Liam, before then showing it to Kyle. The obituary of Edna May Spence, who had indeed died, but in nineteen-ninety, was emblazoned in bold on his screen.

  He pocketed the smart-phone and shook his head.

  “Nice try, Inspector, but no cigar. And if you try even harder you’ll recall me going to that great aunt’s funeral with you when we were sharing a flat. Report to D.C.I. Hughes on the Travis immediately and find some other dead relative to lie about next time.”

  Then he was through Tommy Hill’s front gate with Liam following, praying that every door Spence knocked on that morning had an authority figure hater lurking behind.

  If Kyle Spence was unamused they’d cheered up Tommy’s day immensely. As Craig went to knock his front door he noticed the ex-paramilitary standing, arms folded, at his living room window, with as close as it ever got to a gleeful expression on his craggy face. Hill answered Craig’s knock quickly, waving the detectives in and then standing in his pathway for a moment, giving Kyle Spence a big thumbs-up. As he closed the door behind him Hill snorted.

  “Best entertainment I’ve hud in ages. An’ after he parked his car so neatly an’ awl.”

  He pushed past Liam and flopped into a well-worn recliner, pressing the button to start the whirring that said it was extending itself. Craig had had enough of bravado performances for one day so he took the nearest chair without invitation, nodding Liam to do the same.

  “We need to ask you some questions, Tommy.”

  Hill’s response was to pull up both of his trouser legs, making Liam snort.

  “Either you’ve taken up Morris Dancing, or you’re showing us you’re not wearing a tag.”

  As Tommy’s natural state was to be on bail or probation for some offence or another, his ankle tag had been a permanent fixture for over a year.

  “First prize! Give thon man a Teddy Bear. I’m tag-free, ye big ghost. Aff probation an’ ye can’t touch me.”

  Ghost had been Hill’s nickname for Liam for decades, based on the detective’s sandy-haired pallor. Sometimes the appellation was spat out, but today it almost sounded fond.

  Craig raised an eyebrow. “Give him time, Tommy. He’ll think of something to charge you with.”

  It made Hill jerk forward in his chair and repeat the whirring noise, this time to straighten the recliner up.

  “I’ve dun nathin’! Ye pigs, yer awl the same. Give an old lag a bad name, ye wud. Yer jest lukkin’ tee-”

  Liam waved him down. “Aye, aye, you’re a very misunderstood man, Tommy. We know. But you might want to hear us out. There could be some folding money in it for you.”

  Craig had agreed a maximum fee of fifty pounds for information, starting at twenty and working up depending on what Tommy knew.

  Hill’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Fer wat?”

  “Information about the Travis Estate.”

  As the ex-paramilitary’s body language softened, Craig knew that they’d caught his interest. Tommy had been born and bred on the Demesne, and he’d run one of Loyalism’s most fearsome gangs long before The Troubles, soon spotting the opportunities for mayhem and profit that the political situation brought. In the late sixties, he’d cannily changed his gang’s title from The Demons, a play on the Demesne’s name, to the UKUF, and it had become one of the country’s most feared paramilitary groups for the next three decades, making money from organised crime, and killing Catholics and police officers whenever it got the chance.

  Neither detective had any doubt that the grey-haired grandfather in front of them would have put them both in their graves decades before if he could have done so. Now Tommy saw his knowledge of Loyalism as a financial opportunity, and Craig knew which of the two life approaches he preferred.

  They watched as Tommy’s creviced face shifted expressions from cynicism to calculation to smugness in a flash. The last one verbalised itself.

  “So ye need wat I knaw, dee ye?”

  Liam sighed. Pandering to terrorists was low
on his list of preferred activities, but needs must.

  “Yes, Tommy. We need something you might know.”

  The might became the insult Liam had calculated it would.

  “Might? Might! Wadda ye mean, might? There’s no wan knaws more abyte ar community thon me.”

  Mission accomplished. It was almost too easy to wind Tommy up nowadays; he was getting old.

  “Prove it. Tell us about Billy Regent. What do you know about him?”

  Tommy opened his mouth to answer and then thought again, shaking his crew-cutted head from side to side.

  “Aw, naw… I’m nat fallin’ fer that wan. How much?”

  Liam shrugged. “Depends on what you tell us. Twenty for basic info, thirty for advanced.”

  “That means ye’ve gat fifty quid in yer packet, so I’ll hav the lat.”

  Craig gave a grudging smile at his street smarts. “We’ll see, Tommy. First the information. What do you know about Billy Regent?”

  Hill rested back with his hands folded as if he was about to read them a story and all that was missing was the book. A smile touched his thin lips.

  “Wee Billy Regent. I knew his ma, Eileen, ye knaw.” His smirk said it had been in the biblical sense. “Man, she wus a lukker. Long blonde hair, an’ legs right ap to her-”

  Craig cut him off impatiently. “Her son.”

  “Ach, dun’t rush me. I’m gittin’ there. Aye, well, Billy. He was a cheeky wee skitter when he was young. Intee everythin’. He used tee hang around us wantin’ tee play wi’ ar guns.”

  An embryonic marksman even then.

  “Did you let him?”

  Hill shrugged. “Nye an’ then.” He added primly. “Wi’ the bullets out, like.”

  Liam scoffed. “How very child protection of you.”

  The sarcasm passed Tommy by completely.

  “Aye, well, we wurn’t thugs, ye knaw.”

  Craig’s glance at his deputy said not to take the piss, no matter how tempting it might be. He moved to the edge of his chair, urging Tommy on.

  “So, was Billy ever involved in anything? With any gangs?”

  Tommy shook his head immediately. “His ma wud huv red him the riot act. Eileen Regent wus wild strict. Naw, awl Billy wanted tee do wus join the army. Squaddie Regent we used tee call him when he wus a kid. We used tee let him practice his drills wi’ a gun.” An impressed look covered his face. “He cud strip an AK-47 by the time he wus ten. Sum goin’.”

  “His mother must have been so proud.”

  Craig silenced Liam’s sarcasm with a glance and nodded him to hand over twenty pounds. It disappeared into Hill’s pocket quicker than a Hobbit’s ring.

  “OK. What about as Billy got older?”

  When Tommy’s hooded eyes narrowed suddenly Liam knew that he’d sussed them out.

  “This is abyte McManus gettin’ topped yesterday, isn’t it? Ye think Billy Boy hud sumthin’ tee dee wi’ it!”

  Liam’s face gave him away and Hill lurched forward in his chair.

  “I’m right! I am! Fuck me! Billy Regent drapped the big man!”

  His grin of pleasure was soon replaced by a frown.

  “Naw. Hang on a minute… why’d Billy kill McManus? He wus wan af us! Nye, if he’d topped thon bitch O’Rawe from Whole Ireland, I cud understand it, but McManus…” He shook his bullet-like head. “Naw. That makes no sense. No sense at awl.”

  Liam spotted something behind the words and jumped on it. “Why not, Tommy? Was McManus involved in paramilitarism?”

  Hill shot him a ‘that’ll cost you more than fifty quid’ look and sat back. Craig decided it was time to regroup.

  “OK, Tommy. So, Billy had always wanted to be a soldier and we know that he became one. Two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with the British Army. But what happened to him after he came out? Do you know?”

  The grandfather considered whether the answer came under the fifty-pound mark and decided that it did.

  “He wus in a reel bad way. Shell shack they used to call it.”

  Liam translated. “PTSD.”

  Craig nodded. Billy Regent had had post-traumatic stress disorder. No doubt they’d find confirmation of it once they got hold of his medical report.

  Tommy shrugged. “Whatever ye call it, Billy hud it bad. Used tee wander around the Travis awl night I heered, howling at the moon, like.”

  Liam raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

  It earned him a scathing snort.

  “Naw, nat really, ye dickhead. He wusn’t a bloody werewolf! He jest used tee get drunk an’ shout a lat, an’ he wus alays gettin’ in fights.”

  It would be easy enough to check.

  Craig pushed him further.

  “How do you know all of this, Tommy? You’ve never lived on the Travis, I checked, and you haven’t lived on the Demesne for years.”

  Tommy’s only answer was a tap of his nose.

  “That means his old gang still live there and they tell him everything.”

  Hill snarled a confirmation. “They’d bloody better! They knaw better than tee cross me.”

  Apparently there was no such thing as an ex-boss. There might be snow on Tommy’s roof but the murderous instincts that had seen him sent down for two decades were obviously still there, as was the fear he engendered in his erstwhile followers. Craig was thankful that the man had a granddaughter to stay out of prison for now, or they might be looking at a fresh round of bodies piling up.

  He asked another question to break the chill.

  “OK, so Billy wasn’t well when he first left the army. How had he been recently?”

  As soon as the words were out Craig could have kicked himself. Tommy jumped on his ‘had’ like a piranha on raw flesh.

  “Billy’s dead, isn’t he! Ye bastards topped him fer shootin’ McManus!”

  Craig knew it was time to take back control; they’d played Tommy softly because they’d needed what he knew, but if they gave him any more rope the skilled manipulator would use it to strangle them with.

  He rose to his feet and loomed over the recliner, a shake of his head telling Liam not to do the same. When he spoke next his voice had an edge.

  “Listen to me carefully, Tommy. You’re right that Billy Regent is dead, but we most certainly didn’t shoot him, and if you spread that dis-information before we’ve informed his next of kin and established the facts you’ll do some major harm.”

  Tommy’s triumphant expression disappeared and when he spoke again it was in a surprisingly soft voice.

  “Eileen’s at twenty-five Faulkner. Billy wus her only kid. His da wus killed years back an’ far as I knaw she never remarried. Proper sorta wife, that girl.”

  His reverence suggested that their youthful dalliance had left quite an impact.

  Craig sat back down and repeated his instruction.

  “It’s very important that you don’t say anything, Tommy, and I’m willing to make sure that you don’t.”

  Hill’s eyes widened. “Ye’re lakkin’ me ap?”

  Liam smiled, knowing the ambiguity was exactly what Craig had been aiming for.

  The detective shook his head slowly. “Not unless I have to, Tommy, but I will if you mess us around in any way. Now, tell us everything you know about Billy’s known associates and anything else he’d got up to since he’d left the army, for fifty quid. There’ll be more in it for you if you put out your feelers and find us something useful, including what that look of yours hinted at about Peter McManus’ extracurricular activities.”

  ****

  Belfast City Centre.

  The rain pelting against her small cell’s high window was adding to Veronica Lewis’ gloom. Not that it should make much difference what kind of day you died on; sunshine might make you feel that you were being cheated out of a nice one, and rain could make you think of the worms going in and out when they put you in the ground. But for some reason she’d long ago decided, in that place where people harbour their secret speculations about what thei
r last moment on earth might be like and picture the people who’ve offended them in some way crying guiltily by their grave, that she would prefer to die when it was snowing. She wasn’t sure why, but probably something to do with the angels she’d made in the cold, white powder as a child.

  So, departing this life while it was raining wasn’t on her agenda, but she guessed that she’d just have to go with it because it was the fifth day that her kidnappers had held her and she was certain the end was coming soon.

  As if to prove how right she was there was a sudden clinking outside the door; the unmistakable sound of someone shuffling keys. Perspiration sprang to the madam’s upper lip and forehead and a thin trickle of the liquid began to work its way down her back. The trickle became a stream when the searched-for key was finally inserted in the lock, and as it turned slowly and the door opened inwards a wave of nausea hit Lewis, making her turn her head politely so that her vomit didn’t stain the entrant’s shoes. That was the nuns for you; even when somebody’s coming to kill you, you should always put their needs first. At another time she might have laughed at the incongruity, but as it was, as soon as her terrified retching had vented another wave threatened, as the hooded man in front of her hauled her to her feet.

  “Please don’t. Please, please. I have a son-”

  The words were muffled by a cloth bag being yanked roughly down over her head, and Veronica Lewis held both her nausea and her breath as she waited for the shot that would undoubtedly spell her end.

  ****

  The Travis Estate, Hillsborough. 11 a.m.

  “Do you honestly think any of these muppets are going to tell us anything useful? Half of them wish us dead!”

  Reggie Boyd lifted his eyes slowly from his clipboard, every fibre of him struggling not to use it to clout the whining officer in front of him around the ear. Instead he employed what his wife said was one of his most attractive attributes, his droll sense of humour. Not because the idiot in front of him was an inspector and theoretically he could be done for insubordination if he hit him, although Craig had phoned to say he had both immunity and carte blanche to thump Kyle Spence if he thought it might improve his work, but because he regarded physical violence as both beneath him and pathetic. If he couldn’t manage a wee squit like Spence with his verbals then there was no hope for him at all.