The Cabal (#16 - The Craig Crime Series)

by Catriona King

  “Liam, you’re with us.”

  His automatic “Aw, boss” was cut off by Craig’s brisk shake of the head.

  “I don’t want to hear it. We’re off to the Travis to meet Kyle and then John wants to see us at the lab.” As the lift doors opened he added. “As Andy’s tagging along for your later meetings, you can take him in your car.”

  There was no more conversation until they arrived at the estate, parking at the makeshift headquarters Reggie Boyd had established in a van and clambering up its steps to get inside. Craig got to the point immediately.

  “Where’s Kyle? He was supposed to be meeting us here.”

  Reggie had been sitting with his head down, writing in a log book, forming each of his letters with a care that Craig hadn’t taken since he was five. He responded without looking up.

  “Good day to you too, sir.”

  Craig knew when he was being told off.

  “Sorry, Reggie. Hello. But I’m in a bit of a hurry, so could you tell me where to find D.I. Spence, please?”

  The Donegal man set down his pen and turned to face the group, his soft tones less chastising than before but considerably more bitter.

  “You may well ask where Inspector Spence is, sir. I would very much like to know the same. He was supposed to return today to interview Mrs Regent, but I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him.” He tutted as loudly as Craig thought his good manners would probably allow. “I had to take a W.P.C. up and do it myself, and that’s really not on.”

  Craig sighed and shook his head, while Liam pictured himself roasting the D.I.’s nuts over a barbeque and revelled in the joy that it aroused.

  “I’m very sorry, Reggie. It’s not good enough. Think of the worst task you can for D.I. Spence, please, and I’ll make sure he does it.” He gestured to Andy. “Call Nicky and find out where Kyle is. Liam, give Intelligence a call and find out if he’s there.”

  While they did he pulled out a chair and sat down.

  “Did the interview with Eileen Regent yield anything?”

  The screwing up of the sergeant’s face said it might have.

  “She was adamant that Billy wouldn’t have hurt a fly.”

  “Despite evidence to the contrary.”

  Reggie shook his head.

  “I believed her, sir. She said he was just starting to get on his feet again after a rough patch when he first came home from Iraq. Apparently, he’d got a new job, starting next week.”

  Craig’s dark brows shoot up. “Working at what?”

  “On the new wind farm components at Belfast Docks. He’d worked in the shipyards for a while when he was young. Apprenticed as a welder.” He shook his head sadly. “She also said he would never have topped himself because of his wee girl, Molly. Her mum died five years ago, so she really needed her dad.”

  Craig rushed to shut the image of a crying seven-year-old from his mind. It was a pitiful situation, but he’d have time to feel sad when they’d worked out who’d killed her dad. The thought shocked him; it meant that he’d definitely accepted someone else had pulled the trigger on Billy Regent, and if they had done, then who was to say that Billy had shot Peter McManus at all? Or if he had, under his own volition? Billy Regent had had a daughter he loved and a new job starting in a week, so why would he have taken that risk?

  An image of someone driving the young man up to Carson’s roof by threatening him with death, a death they’d given him ten minutes later anyway, was becoming more and more clear in Craig’s mind.

  He tuned back into the sergeant’s words, asking another question.

  “You know that Doctor Winter thinks there was a second man on the roof? Someone who killed Regent and made it look like suicide.”

  Reggie nodded. “I’d heard something like that. You think he slipped away and mingled with the cops.”

  Craig corrected him hastily. “Or the residents. He could have been disguised to look like either. I’m checking with the Armed Response Commander later, but even the slightest possibility that he mingled with the residents makes it important that you keep your ears to the ground. OK? But no-one’s to say a word about our theory. As far as the killer is concerned they need to believe they’ve got away with things.”

  As Reggie responded with a nod, Liam came off the phone.

  “You’ll never believe where that git Spence is! He’s only up at Stormont digging around!”

  “From that look, I take it you don’t mean in the flower beds.”

  “In the Executive Office, no less! He’s questioning their private office staff.”

  The Executive Office, so named following the Fresh Start Agreement one month before, was the kingdom of the First and Deputy First Ministers and their advisors, with all the intrigue that implied.

  Craig rolled his eyes, picturing the damage their resident spy could do in that setting. He wouldn’t put it past Kyle to elicit information by threatening the civil servants with unearthing murky deeds from their pasts.

  The detective thought quickly. He needed to get to the lab, John had been insistent that he needed to see him, and Liam had all the diplomacy of a breeze block, so he couldn’t let him near the Executive Office on his own. That just left their renaissance man.

  “Andy. Get up to Stormont and stop Kyle doing whatever he’s doing. If I want personnel up there interviewed, which I may well do in the future.” He had to hand it to Kyle; he anticipated some of his moves. “Then we’ll do it in an orderly way, not let loose Belfast’s answer to Jack Bauer.”

  Liam snorted. “He wishes.”

  “I meant verbal force in Kyle’s case.”

  Craig turned for the door. “Reggie, sorry, but we need to go. Have a squad car take Andy to Stormont, please, and do what you can on what I mentioned. Also, can you send that transcript of Eileen Regent’s interview through in full.”

  As the sergeant followed him out the door, wondering whether he should mention his conversation with Kelly Atkins the night before, Craig reached his car and then turned back.

  “Liam, I’ll go to the lab on my own. You’ve got to meet with Tommy. Andy, once you’ve subdued Kyle, and use a taser on him if you need to, bring him straight back to the ranch. I need to see him, and tell him that isn’t a choice.”

  Reggie decided Kelly Atkins would have to wait.

  ****

  St Mary’s Hospital, Belfast.

  It had been a happy few months since she and Craig had reconciled, after her near-death episode at the hands of one of his murderers and her subsequent terror of a repeat event. The experience had made her pray to stop loving the detective and try hard to make it true, but the effort had failed abysmally so Katy Stevens, a sensible physician to her patients and colleagues but a blob of romantic putty in Craig’s lean, tanned hands, had had to accept that her love for the policeman wasn’t something that either she or a psychopath could kill.

  They’d been back together for six months now and, fingers crossed, things were going well, so well that since the subject of Craig redecorating his shabby, bachelor-who-was-only-ever-there-to-sleep, apartment had arisen, he’d been dragging his size ten feet. Of course, that could just be because his idea of interior design was a wholesale lift from the pages of ‘bland home monthly’, where the only sign of anything vaguely stylish was a wafer-thin TV on which he and John could watch sport, and he was secretly psyching himself up for a trip to the grey paint aisle of the nearest DIY store. Or…it might mean that he was beginning to view his whole single lifestyle with something less than glee, and was considering a makeover of his place to rent it out to students, and a move into the cushion filled, cosy haven that she liked to call home.

  Katy was just topping up her coffee and doodling a romantic looking rose in the corner of her notebook, when her pleasant daydream was interrupted by a thud and clatter at her side. She knew who it was without looking; only one person would ever dare disturb the church-like peace of the Doctors’ Sitting Room in such a way. The physician sighed inwardly an
d set down her pen, preparing to greet her friend and already bracing herself for the next in the series of rants that had so far punctuated Natalie Winter’s week.

  When her heavy “Hello, Natalie” was answered by silence, Katy finally dragged her eyes away from her flower. The sight that greeted her ranked up there with alien invasion on the list of things that she’d least expected to see.

  Natalie’s small round face was red and contorted, in a way that in any other human being would have said she was about to cry. Not such an unusual sight you might think, except that the tiny surgeon prided herself on not having shed a tear since she’d cut her knee so badly that it had needed stitches at the age of five. Katy leaned towards her friend anxiously, peering into her rapidly shrinking blue eyes and watching as they brightened, grew even bluer and then filled with fluid, before some rebellious tears broke ranks to trickle down Natalie’s cheek.

  John had been right. Something was seriously wrong with his wife. When he’d called her the night before to say that he was worried about Natalie she’d half dismissed it, and even when he’d called again that morning she’d just made soothing noises about surgeons’ heavy workloads. After all, Natalie was the least likely person in the world to have a problem that she couldn’t solve.

  Now she felt thoroughly ashamed for having dismissed his worries, and immediately determined to make things right. But for that they needed privacy to talk, so, oblivious to the small herd of doctors now roaming the room in search of coffee, Katy took her friend’s hand firmly in hers and led her assertively out the door.

  ****

  Templepatrick.

  As Craig reached the Pathology Labs Liam was pulling into Tommy’s cul-de-sac, and as John Winter was pouring his friend a coffee, Liam was being forced to make his own cup of tea and one for his host as well. The D.C.I. set the drink in front of his old enemy and took the most comfortable chair that he could find, cutting to the chase.

  “So, what have you got on Billy Regent?”

  Tommy shook his head mysteriously, implying that he’d unearthed incredible things. If he said straight out that all he’d discovered was that Billy had been, as McCrae had said, ‘a heed case’, and pointed the detective towards his shrink, then he’d be diminished in both their eyes. No, the way to keep his power was to imply that there was much more to the matter but throw Liam the psychiatrist as a bone that they could chew.

  Tommy’s misfortune was that Liam Cullen had a master’s degree in bullshit, both the speaking and the understanding of such, so he recognised the aging loyalist’s obfuscation as meaning that he had bugger all useful to give him and was draining his cup and halfway out the door before Tommy had barely opened his mouth.

  “Here! Where dee ye think yer goin’, Ghost?”

  Hill’s overplayed indignation crushed any residual nanoparticle of doubt that Liam might still have had.

  “I’m leaving, because you’re about to try and bullshit me. You got nothing on Regent from your contacts, so just admit it.”

  “I didn’t get nuthin’.”

  Double negative aside Liam knew that he was right. That didn’t stop Tommy following him out to his car, shouting the odds.

  “Billy wus nuts, that’s what I got. He wus under the shrink in Craigantlet.”

  Liam stopped dead in his tracks and turned.

  “OK. And?”

  The move took Tommy aback, but he knew that any retreat would be perceived as weakness and the ancient art of bullshitting would forever be betrayed. To underline his firm stance, the old warrior folded his arms across his chest, moved one foot back slightly and rested defiantly on his hip. One touch from Liam and he’d have toppled over, but it made for a good display.

  “An, an Billy hated politicians. Blamed them fer the Iraq War.”

  Tommy judged that some economy with the truth about exactly which politicians Billy had hated was necessary now, to save face.

  Liam narrowed his eyes, still unconvinced, but he had to give the old lag a B for Baloney, so he reached inside his jacket and withdrew fifty quid, holding it out.

  “Keep digging. I want you to ask around about antique and arms smuggling as well. And don’t tell me you don’t have contacts there. I remember you dealing that Crusader book. If you get anything useful then there’ll be more cash.”

  Then he turned his back on the delicately balanced statue now teetering in the driveway, and got straight onto Craigantlet Barracks on his phone.

  ****

  St Mary’s Hospital.

  “Natalie, tell me what’s wrong. Please.”

  The two doctors were leaning against the shiny-fronted cupboards in the theatre equipment room; the fourth room that they had entered in search of privacy and the only one that hadn’t been filled with students. Natalie had managed to limit her lacrimation until they’d found the private space, but as Katy had closed the door firmly behind them and wedged a chair beneath the handle to keep it shut, the flood gates had opened, and now five minutes later the surgeon was a mess of watery sobs.

  Katy took her life in her hands and gave her friend an awkward hug, Natalie not being partial to physical contact of any sort, except from John.

  “Is it your job?”

  Natalie shook her small blonde head.

  “Your mum and dad?”

  Another shake and a wet, “they’re both well.”

  Katy’s heart sank like a stone. That only left her marriage to John and she’d really been hoping that it wasn’t that. She still couldn’t see it; Natalie and John had been an unusual but inspired match. It was as if the powers that be had looked at them and said, ‘you each have needs that only the other can fulfil’, and then waved a magic wand to make them fall in love.

  John’s social awkwardness with Natalie’s gregariousness, John’s reticent-to-the-point-of-muteness -at-times with Natalie’s rash tendency to put her foot in her mouth; together they made one big-brained, amazing unit, and she and Craig had spent many a conversation speculating what their kids would be like and then laughing about it like drains.

  Suddenly Katy froze. The floods of tears, the recent moods, which even for Natalie had been spectacular. That was it! She stared down at her friend with widening eyes.

  “You’re pregnant!”

  It was the cue for another flood. When it had abated slightly Katy added with a grin.

  “But that’s wonderful. What did John say?”

  Natalie sniffed inelegantly, grabbing for some theatre roll to wipe her face.

  “It’s not wonderful, it wasn’t planned. Anyway, he doesn’t know.”

  Katy didn’t understand. “But why not? Are you waiting until you’re sure? Have you done the tests? I can do an ultrasound for you if you want me to check.”

  She watched as Natalie’s face creased up to cry again and then as the surgeon changed her mind, muttering “catch a grip, woman” to herself as she searched around for a chair. When she found one she dragged it to the centre of the room and thudded down on to it, continuing to mutter and sigh before finally raising her eyes to Katy’s own.

  “I can’t have it.”

  Katy fell back against the cupboard, feeling for its solidness to convince herself this was real.

  “But why not? You have a wonderful husband, a great job… John will be an amazing dad… You can’t-”

  She cut herself short, swallowing her next judgmental words, but it was hard. She would have given anything to have been in Natalie’s position with Craig, and deep down she felt a visceral revulsion at abortion. But this wasn’t about her, and her friend needed her support.

  She hunkered down in front of Natalie’s chair.

  “Are you afraid it will hold back your career, Nat? Is that it? I know surgery isn’t the most female friend-”

  Natalie shook her head vigorously. “No! That’s not it. Anna McRandal’s a mum, and so is Delia Legge. Work’s got nothing to do with it.” She lapsed into silence again for a moment, shaking her head repeatedly, as if she wa
s trying to shake something away. When she spoke again it was in a factual tone.

  “You know I’m adopted.”

  Katy immediately tightened her jaw to prevent it dropping in surprise. It was the first she’d heard of Natalie’s parents not being hers biologically! And she’d lost count of how many times she’d said how like her mother the surgeon was, never to be contradicted. But if Natalie believed that she’d already told her she was adopted now wasn’t the time to contradict, so as Katy’s mind raced, searching for clues that she might have missed, she nodded her friend to carry on.

  “When I was eighteen I decided to trace my birth mother. Don’t ask me why because I honestly don’t know. I love my parents, I couldn’t have wished for better, but something inside me just had to find out who she was-”

  Katy jumped in, trying to offer a comfort that Natalie’s expression said she needed.

  “Being adopted doesn’t mean you won’t be a great mum yourself. You know that.”

  Natalie shook her head in a way that said the search hadn’t yielded good news.

  “That’s not it. It’s just…” She gave a sigh that Katy felt in her bones. “Oh, I don’t know what I expected her to be like. Like me probably. Clever and energetic…” Natalie had never considered modesty a useful trait. “But she was…”

  The sentence tailed away, leaving them sitting in silence, until eventually the surgeon pulled herself together briskly and carried on in a distinctly unsentimental voice.

  “She was sixteen when she had me and she couldn’t tell me much about my father. He’d been a one week stand apparently, a maths teacher at her school. It happened just after her O Levels. One thing led to another and…” She shuddered at the image of a man abusing his in loco parental trust before going on. “But there was something she did tell me.” Her eyes dropped to the floor. “She has a family history of a severe form of Haemophilia, a strong history. She told me that she was a carrier of the condition, which means there’s a one in two chance that I am as well.” She swallowed hard before going on. “That means any son that John and I might have has a fifty percent chance of being born with it.”