The History Suite (#9 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series)

by Catriona King

  “Did he have motive?”

  Carmen answered in an excited voice. “Yes! He hates drug-dealers, called them scum. His younger son died from a Heroin overdose.”

  The last of the gawping and muttering disappeared and Liam screwed up his face. “His kid was a junkie?”

  Craig shook his head. “Yes and no. He was in Vietnam too.”

  Liam nodded solemnly and Ken swallowed hard. “Oh God.”

  Only Davy and Jake looked puzzled. Davy leaned forward to catch Craig’s eye.

  “W…What does that mean?”

  They were both too young to remember the song. Craig wished that he was; its relentless hook was playing in his head on a loop. "N-n-n-n-nineteen" and "d-d-d-d-destruction" set against images of war and young men; young men who’d died in their droves in a war that their country had been embarrassed by.

  “It was a song. Popular in the mid-eighties. Nineteen was said to be the average age of the young soldiers sent to fight in Vietnam, although the US said it was more like twenty-two. Two hundred thousand of them were killed or injured and many of the survivors got hooked on drugs out there.”

  Jake interjected. “So both Pitt and his son were in Vietnam?”

  “Pitt was a Major General in the Infantry. He got the Distinguished Service Medal and Silver Star for gallantry. Both his sons were out there: Nathan and Joshua. Nathan died in combat and Joshua ended up an addict and died of an overdose years later, in New York.”

  Davy nodded. The NYPD was one of the police forces Craig had him checking out.

  “Pitt hates drug-dealers, OK. But is there any proof he knew that Cooke and Rudd w…were?”

  Craig’s jaw dropped and he gazed at Carmen. She shook her head, confirming that nowhere in their ten minute conversation had Pitt mentioned Cooke’s and Rudd’s drug links. Craig banged his head with his hand; he couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid! It was basic interviewing; prove that the suspect had a motive for the crime.

  “Davy, you’re a genius. We know Pitt is strong enough to have strangled them and we know he hates drug-dealers but he hasn’t admitted to knowing that Cooke and Rudd were.”

  Liam shook his head exaggeratedly and Craig felt his irritation rise; he was tired and he’d missed something, now wasn’t a good time for Liam to take the piss. If he tutted he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions. Thankfully Liam didn’t tut; he threw Craig a bone instead.

  “It wouldn’t have mattered if Pitt had admitted he knew Cooke and Rudd were dealers. Any decent lawyer would have said that he’d just heard gossip about it around the ward. Whether Pitt admits he knows or not, it’s feasible that he did and that’s what we should go on.”

  Craig smiled gratefully, but he still knew he’d made an error and his anger with himself was worse than anyone else’s could ever be.

  “OK, so Caleb Pitt hates drug-dealers and it’s feasible that he’d heard some gossip about the victims, but we need to prove it by finding someone he discussed it with. Also, he’s strong enough to have strangled both victims but…”

  Carmen nodded. “How did he do it if he was in a chair? And he definitely wouldn’t have been stable enough to do it if he’d been using his Zimmer or stick.”

  Craig almost yelled across the room. “The wheelchair!”

  He leapt to his feet and headed for his office, returning a moment later with his coat. As he slipped it on he grabbed his mobile and dialled the lab. John answered immediately. Natalie was on call so he was working late.

  “I’m coming down.”

  The others could hear John’s calm “OK” as if he was unsurprised by Craig’s call. Craig murmured something to Davy and then turned back to the group.

  “OK. Liam, you’re with me. Davy, you know what I need, call me when you get anything. Chase everything and if anyone gives you any crap about the time of night tell them the Chief Con is taking an interest in the case.” He turned to Jake. “Jake, you, Ken and Carmen go back to Reilly. Re-interview Gormley and Kirk…”

  “Should we take them to High Street? It might focus their minds.”

  “Good idea, Jake, you do that. Carmen and Ken, stay on Reilly and talk to every nurse and patient, until one of them confirms that Caleb Pitt knew about Rudd’s and Cooke’s links with drugs.”

  Carmen looked at him anxiously. “But sir, Pitt’s violent, we saw that earlier. We could be putting them at risk.”

  Craig nodded, they could. He sensed that Caleb Pitt wouldn’t harm anyone except people he regarded as scum but they couldn’t take the chance.

  “OK. Confine Pitt to his room and set a uniform on the door. Then take the residents and staff into Sister Gormley’s office one by one. Carmen’s right; Pitt’s violent and we don’t need any more deaths. Station more uniforms around Reilly, including the exit to the car park.”

  He gestured to Liam and they strode to the lifts, leaving a stunned team in their wake.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Lab.

  When Craig and Liam reached John’s office he was nowhere to be seen. His mobile lay on the desk so Craig phoned Marcie his secretary instead; when John worked late so did she, she was saving the overtime for a round the world trip.

  To say that Marcie was John’s secretary wasn’t strictly true and made the relationship sound very grand; she was actually the secretary for the whole forensic lab. The guru who collated gory and garbled evidence from Des, the C.S.I.s and John and turned it into beautifully bound, lab-logoed police and court reports, while all the time dispensing home-made cakes. From her job description and performance Marcie should have been a woman of sixty who crocheted in her spare time, instead she was a twenty-two-year-old nouveau-hippie drama graduate, biding her time before her acting career took off.

  She answered the phone in modulated theatre school tones.

  “Good evening, pathology labs.”

  “Hi Marcie, it’s Marc Craig. Is John with you?”

  Her formal tones softened. “He’s right beside me.”

  “Where are you?”

  “In dissection room three; I’m taking dictation on the run.”

  Craig imagined John rushing around the steel dissection room with Marcie pursuing, clothed in vintage seventies dress.

  “We’ll come to you.”

  In a minute they were in the dissection room and the scene exactly matched the one in Craig’s head. Marcie’s outfit was flowing green velvet, as befitted a child of the earth, and her long black hair was woven loosely with ribbons that matched. She was Woodstock re-incarnated forty-five years on.

  Liam grinned down at the girl. “How do, Marcie.”

  His bass bounced off the room’s hard surfaces and boomed loudly in her ears. She winced slightly and then laughed.

  “Good evening, Chief Inspector.”

  “Here now, none of that rank stuff. You’re making me feel like your dad.”

  John rolled his eyes at Liam trying to impress the girl. “You could almost be her granddad. Leave her alone and come over here.”

  As Marcie flitted gracefully from the room Craig smiled.

  “I hope you don’t lose her; she keeps you all under control.”

  John sighed. “We will if she gets a good acting role.”

  He exited the room abruptly, leaving the two policemen trailing in his wake. His voice echoed back down the hallway.

  “I take it you want to look at Rudd and Cooke again? I’ve had their bodies brought up.”

  “Yes. We need to check something.”

  As they arrived in dissection room one Craig took a brief call, cutting it with “Call again when you have the rest.”

  John crossed to two trollies set against the wall.

  “What did you want to check?”

  Craig stared at the neat black body bags wondering why the world was obsessed with orderliness in death. Liam’s next words broke his thoughts.

  “Aye, what are we here to look at, boss? We already know what killed them.”

  Craig nod
ded at John to unzip the first bag. It was Adrian Cooke. His smooth white skin and goatee beard gave him an almost Restoration air. Coupled with his slightly long hair he looked like a cavalier.

  “Can we look at their necks first, John, then at their legs.”

  John drew the material back to reveal the dead doctor’s neck. The purple bruising from strangulation was clearer now, with the finger shaped markings that said it had been done by hand. Craig held his hand above Cooke’s neck and John handed him a pair of gloves.

  “You can touch him if you need to.”

  Craig screwed up his face in distaste but he did what he had to do. He placed his hands around Adrian Cooke’s neck, in the grip that a strangler would have used. His hands were slightly too small so he beckoned Liam to don some gloves and do the same; his were too big. Craig glanced at Liam and then repeated the action on Eleanor Rudd’s body with the same result.

  Craig shook his head and John interrupted the mime show.

  “What have I missed?”

  “You, nothing, but we have a man under arrest whose hands are far too small to have done this.” Craig stared at Liam. “Did you notice Ferdy Myers’ hands? I had Davy get Jack to measure them and they’re far smaller than either of ours, with narrow fingers; they don’t fit. The man who did this has large hands and thick digits.”

  Liam conceded the point grudgingly. Ferdy Myers might have hated Cooke and Rudd and been capable of violence, but he might not have killed them. Craig indicated Cooke’s legs.

  “Show us the bruises behind his knees, please.”

  John covered Cooke’s face then unzipped the bag from the other end with an eager look on his face. “Do you know what caused them?”

  “Maybe. I’ll tell you in five minutes.”

  John lifted one of Cooke’s heavy, cold legs and they stared at the dark bruises on the back of his knees.

  “The ones on Rudd’s thighs are the same?”

  “Identical.”

  “Same height from the ground?”

  “685 millimetres on both bodies.”

  Craig gestured towards Adrian Cooke’s back. “You found other bruising on his back. Same age?”

  John nodded and rearranged the body. “Yes, but made by something else.”

  “Any on Eleanor Rudd?”

  John shook his head. “Just the abuse scars.”

  Liam was shaking his head as well, but this time in confusion.

  “Here, boss, we already know they died from strangulation; what’s the bruising on their legs got to do with that.”

  Craig smiled. “Humour me, Liam. Do you have pictures of all the bruises, John?”

  “In my office.”

  “Then get Des back in with his books and get the coffee on. I have a theory that I want to discuss.”

  ***

  Hazel Gormley was on a break and Brian Kirk was dealing with a sick patient. Until he could question the lovers about their deafness during Cooke’s murder, Jake helped Carmen and Ken begin the questioning on the ward. Every resident they questioned seemed to have been fooled by Caleb Pitt’s amiable helpfulness and none were willing to incriminate him. By the sixth “Caleb drives me to get things from town” and “Caleb sorts out my pension” Jake knew they’d hit a dead end.

  He scanned the suite and then had an idea. He’d been out of the loop for most of the case; it was time to prove that he still had what it took. He whispered something to Carmen and she nodded, then she glanced around the residents till her eyes lit on a small, grey-haired woman in her seventies. She was pretty in a soft, mumsy way and Carmen imagined her as a bonny girl. She looked just the sort of woman Caleb Pitt would like. She signalled Jake and Ken to stay where they were and walked across. As she drew up a chair and sat down the woman gave her a startled look.

  “I don’t know anything.”

  Carmen smiled. She did know something, she was sure of it, now she just had to find out what. She extended her hand to shake and the woman automatically did the same.

  “My name’s Carmen.”

  The woman gave a quick smile and Carmen noticed how pretty her eyes were; green and soft. She wondered if the woman had been a redhead like her.

  “You’re Scottish.”

  Carmen nodded. “From Edinburgh. Have you ever been there, Mrs…?”

  The woman’s rings said she’d been married and her lack of companion said she was widowed or divorced.

  “Margaret. Margaret Rankin. But my friends call me Peggy.”

  “Have you ever been to Scotland, Mrs Rankin?”

  “Once.” She glanced away. “When my husband was alive. It’s a pretty country.”

  Carmen nodded. “It is indeed.” She sat in silence for a moment, as she readied to ask what Jake had tasked her to as casually as she could. “Do you know Mr Pitt?”

  Peggy Rankin shook her head quickly then corrected herself with the honesty of a woman who never lied. “Well…I mean…everyone knows Caleb. He’s a big character.” She added hastily. “And very kind to all of us.”

  Carmen kept her voice soft. “I’m sure he is… Maybe he has a special friend on the ward? You, perhaps? After all he’s a handsome man.”

  It was true; even in old age Caleb Pitt had a virility that few men possessed. Carmen allowed herself a caveat; except Ken. Ken was handsome; she’d seen it from the beginning but it was only now she could admit it to herself. She saw a blush rise on Peggy Rankin’s cheeks and knew that they’d struck gold.

  “I…I don’t know what you mean. We only play cards and chat, that’s all. I…”

  She squirmed with old-fashioned shyness lest Carmen think there’d been anything ‘improper’ going on. Carmen put her out of her pain, reaching forward to enclose the woman’s ageing hand with her own.

  “I’m sorry to embarrass you, Mrs Rankin. I didn’t mean to imply anything improper; just that as special friends, Mr Pitt might have confided in you.”

  Peggy Rankin stopped squirming and gave Carmen a look that said she knew exactly what she was asking.

  “You want me to say that we discussed that doctor and nurse, don’t you?”

  “Yes. If you did.”

  Peggy pursed her lips. “Well I won’t. Caleb’s a good man and he’s got a right to hate drug-dealers after what happened to his son.”

  Bingo! Carmen stayed completely still while her mind raced, formulating her next question. Her tone was casual.

  “Did everyone on the ward know they were drug-dealing?”

  Peggy smiled, feeling on more certain ground now that Pitt’s name was out of the frame. Carmen felt almost guilty tricking the woman, then she reminded herself there were two dead bodies in the morgue.

  “Oh yes.” She pursed her lips. “No-one liked that Rudd girl; she was a nasty piece of work. Deliberately stuck her nails into Mrs Lewis one day when she was helping her into the bath.”

  Carmen urged her to focus. “But how did you know she was involved in drugs?”

  “It was obvious. Just like in the movies. She was always sneaking about talking to Dr Cooke.” She smiled broadly. “He was such a nice young man; always so pleasant.” She shook her head. “Such a sad death.”

  Carmen steered her back to the point. “Yes…but how did you know drugs were involved? They could have been talking about anything.”

  Peggy shook her head firmly. “No. Mr Jones saw them exchanging little bags of white powder one day. They didn’t see him of course; no-one ever notices an old man.”

  Carmen thought it was sad but probably true.

  “And did Mr Jones come back and tell everyone?”

  Peggy smiled excitedly. “Oh yes. We had a discussion about it over dinner that night and decided to keep a close eye on them both.”

  “To tell the police?”

  Peggy shook her head. “We hadn’t made any plans. Just to keep a close eye.”

  Carmen swallowed, knowing that her next question might be the one that made Peggy Rankin clam up.

  “At the dinn
er…did everyone have an opinion?”

  Peggy nodded enthusiastically. “Oh yes, especially Mr Jones and Caleb. They’d both seen drugs before.”

  “Where was that?”

  “Mr Jones in London, that’s where he’s from, you know. He lived in the East end – Hackney. It’s just like EastEnders, you know, on TV. He said there are lots of drugs there.” She pursed her lips disapprovingly. “Terrible. Young people nowadays have no chance. When I was young women didn’t even drink.”

  Carmen smiled, remembering her grandmother saying the same. She continued cautiously. “And where had Caleb seen drugs before? With his son?”

  She deliberately said Caleb instead of Mr Pitt, trying to keep things casual so as not to break the flow.

  “Not just that. He was in Vietnam you know, terrible war. They made films about it, like that one ‘The Deer Hunter’.” She shook her head. “Very sad.”

  “So everyone agreed to watch Nurse Rudd and Dr Cooke?”

  “Yes, and keep notes. Caleb said if we went to the police they wouldn’t do a thing. He’d tried all of that in New York.”

  Carmen nodded sympathetically and then rose. “Thank you, Mrs Rankin. It’s been really lovely to chat.”

  Peggy Rankin smiled warmly and Carmen felt guilty again, but she had a job to do. She said goodbye and crossed to the waiting men.

  “She’s just confirmed that a Mr Jones saw Rudd and Cooke exchanging bags of white powder and the whole ward discussed it and agreed to watch them, including Caleb Pitt.”

  Jake nodded. He found it hard to believe that a pensioner could be a killer but it was looking more likely by the hour.

  “Then what?”

  “Wait and see. Pitt was against going to the police. Mrs Rankin said he’d tried it before in New York and no-one had listened.”

  “Great. We have what the chief needs. Pitt knew that Rudd and Cooke were involved with drugs and he wasn’t inclined to go the justice route. Let’s head back; I’ll speak to Kirk and Gormley later.” He threw the car keys to Ken. “You drive. Carmen and I need to call the boss.”

  ***

  Craig took two calls in the space of ten minutes and by the time they were over his decision was pretty much made; all he needed was confirmation of the forensics from Des. John handed round the coffees and gave Craig the floor.