Deidre Murray shook her head, still not completely convinced.
“There’s way too much speculation here, we need to nail this down before we take it to the team. Just because someone supplemented their grant as a barmaid, doesn’t mean they actually served Collier back in the day.”
To her relief her companion nodded.
“OK, then, let’s check the easy ones first. There’ll be records of Sarah Reilly seeing Collier in an emergency department, and of Hardie arresting him for D and D, plus, we can easily check the names of Collier’s defence barrister and judge to see if they match. The rest we confirm by re-interviewing Lucinda Collier, she’ll know where Collier drank, and Dan Torrance, to see if he remembers drinking with him. Even if we only get solid proof on seven or eight of the Vics it’ll show it’s far more than coincidence.”
The DCIs shook hands with a smile. Tomorrow was going to be some day.
****
The Labs. 8 p.m.
John Winter was on his knees, both literally and metaphorically. He’d met the Grubers at the door of the mortuary an hour before and taken them to see their eldest son, their bewilderment at the engineer’s mode and place of death cutting the pathologist to the bone.
He had always felt for the relatives of the dead, especially those who’d died unnaturally, but becoming a father made the losses impact in an especially poignant way now and he found that it was taking a toll. So much so that he’d been almost grateful to re-enter the dusty file room and bury his head in numbers and facts. So buried was he in fact, that when Mike’s loud “EUREKA” came from the opposite corner of the room, John completely missed it.
Instead of repeating his cry when he got no response the junior pathologist went in search of his boss, finding John with his nose deep in a file that had absolutely nothing to do with their case.
“What are you reading?”
John glanced up in alarm. “Oh, thank goodness! You’re not Des.”
“I imagine both our wives will be relieved at that. Anyway, why don’t you want to see Des?”
“Other way around; I don’t want him to see me. Just something between us at the moment. We had a temporary truce at the briefing, but I thought he might’ve renewed his hunt.”
Mike was still no clearer so he changed the subject, gesturing at the file in John’s hand.
“Is that to do with our murders?”
John had the grace to look embarrassed. “Sorry, no. It’s an old case. Long before your time, but fascinating. A man and his wife who-”
Mike glanced at his watch and cut him off. “Sorry, but we don’t have the time if we hope to get home tonight.” He held out an orange folder. “I found this and thought you might want to see it.”
The colour told John the file had come from several decades before. As he opened it Mike began reporting.
“It’s that case from ninety-two. Amy Granger, a five-year-old killed in a hit and run.” He hunkered down, pointing to the file’s cover. “Alan Davis did the P.M.”
Professor Davis had been John’s predecessor as Northern Ireland’s Director of Pathology and had lectured them both at medical school years before. Mike turned to an inside page.
“I haven’t had a chance to read everything yet, but I saw this diagram and-”
John gasped. The outline sketch of the girl’s small body showed injuries that were remarkably similar to their case. It made him clamber to his feet and head for his office, with Mike hurrying to keep up.
“I’m right, aren’t I? The injuries are the same as Aidan’s photograph.”
John’s voice came floating back to him. “Not all, but most. I’m just wondering…”
The words tailed away as John took up residence behind his desk and banged his computer into life, the gentle art of tapping and coaxing taking too long right now.
Within a few minutes they were looking at a split screen, one half of which displayed a document file on Amy Granger, five years four days when she’d died in the January twenty-five years before, and the other half a scan of the drawing from Mike’s orange file.
The junior pathologist squinted at the screen, puzzled. “Where did you get that other file from? I thought nothing before ninety-seven was on computer.”
John nodded vaguely. “Not on my computer, that’s true, but this is from the Coroner’s inquest on her death. I played a hunch that they’d have been computerised earlier than us, as a government body, and just inputted Collier’s name. This is what came up. Amy Granger was definitely the little girl Jason Collier knocked down.”
Another tap and he’d moved to the file’s diagrams section, and the Coroner’s sketch of Amy Granger’s injuries appeared beside their own. The pathologists’ gazes ran back and forth across the screen, comparing the traumas; they were identical, but something still didn’t fit.
John typed again and up came Aidan’s composite photo, splitting the screen into three. As their eyes ran between three images now, John lifted a pen, scribbling a list down on a nearby pad. When he’d finished he sat back, almost satisfied but not quite, although still smug enough to set his junior colleague a test.
“Right, Mike. List the differences between the girl’s injuries and Aidan’s photo.”
Augustus had been expecting the challenge. “Head laceration found on Gruber, forehead injury from Collier-.”
John raised a hand to halt him, smiling. “Good. OK, so we can make a list of the injuries that appear on Aidan’s composite victim but weren’t present on Amy Granger herself. What are the odds that excluding Gruber’s lac, Jason Collier suffered all of that list in the accident, and Aidan’s composite photo gives a complete picture of the injuries suffered by both Granger and Collier in ninety-two?”
Mike raised an eyebrow. “Odds, Doctor Winter? And you a scientist, tut tut. We’ve obviously been spending too much time with the cops.”
Chapter Fourteen
Belfast.
Whereas his assault on the air had been purely verbal, loud swearing punctuated by screams, the hunter’s physical assault on his aging furniture had done real damage and created even more noise. The fact that it would be unreported and uninterrupted was one of the benefits of living out near the sticks, one of the few benefits as far as he was concerned.
When the man’s frustration had all been vented and his anger was finally spent, he tugged a fresh bottle of whisky from the last box stored in his garage and poured himself a large glass, sitting out on his garden wall to drink it, despite the chilly night. He gazed up at the cloudless sky, the brightness of the stars confirming to his mind that the universe was on his side. Fate and justice, the two went hand in hand, and convinced him that the mission he was performing was a righteous one.
He took a gulp of the red-brown alcohol and held it in his mouth, until its oaky scent and spiced taste began to burn his nose and throat. He’d never been a religious man, not in any sense, but the injustices that he’d seen play out before him had convinced him that someday action must be taken, and when the date had fitted so perfectly with such an important day of his own, he’d known just what that action had had to be.
He had been sent a sign and now his mission was almost done, but for one last task. Then he would walk away and get on with his life, safe in the knowledge that he was far too clever to be caught.
****
The C.C.U. Saturday, December 9th. 8.30 a.m.
Susan Richie’s gaze was ricocheting between two screens and Richard Jarvis’ paper file, as she attempted to make sense of why the seventeen-year-old A-Level student had been killed. Suspicious as she was of everyone, and the male of the species even more so, even she couldn’t find a reason why the scrawny lad had been targeted, not in his own life or his family’s.
She ran though her list again. Had Jarvis committed any crimes in his life? No, he hadn’t even been fined for dropping gum or failing to clean up after his dog, a poodle of all things. What sort of seventeen-year-old has a poodle as their dog? Had Jarvis
ever been in trouble at school? Nope. She flicked through the file in front of her, reading the boy’s report cards; ‘Richard is a diligent student who should easily obtain the grades to enter Queen’s in two thousand and eighteen.’ The kid sounded like a real swot.
The DCI read on. Girlfriends, no, only friends who were girls. Any relationships at all? None until he went to university; his parents had been strict. So, no drugs and very little alcohol either, the boy hadn’t even had a tattoo. Richie sighed, she was beginning to feel sorry for the kid.
She moved on to the family, searching for gang or paramilitary connections, anything that might have explained why Rick Jarvis had been found drowned in whisky with a cut on one of his hands. It hadn’t even been a very large cut either; at least a big one might have given him some street-cred when he was dead.
The thought made her sit back suddenly. What if it had been a cut from trying to fend off a knife? What if Rick Jarvis hadn’t been marked up after death, but had just fought off whoever was kidnapping him, albeit unsuccessfully? It was an interesting question but one that she couldn’t answer right now, in fact she couldn’t make any further progress on the boy without doing that thing she hated to do, e.g. speaking to relatives.
She loathed the public, really loathed them; it had been most of her reasoning for joining Intelligence back in the day. Sneaking around in the darkness and poking into the recesses of people’s lives had suited her brilliantly, so brilliantly that it had made her Director of the section until Craig had booted her out, and some day, somehow, she would get her own back on him for that.
Working in staff training had been absolute torment, but at least she’d only had to deal with other cops, so, while she was glad to be out of it and murder was more interesting work, every day now carried the threat that she might have to speak to a ‘relative’.
She brightened up suddenly. Unless…
The DCI raced through the wall into the main office, her gaze quickly falling on the person who could save her from her fate.
“Rhonda… the very woman.”
Rhonda O’Neil glanced up at the sound of her name, less than thrilled when she saw who’d uttered it. She instinctively didn’t like Susan Richie, but unfortunately she’d been a military brat, traipsing all over the world with her army officer parents, and it had instilled in her an unfortunate, and not always warranted, respect for rank.
She rose to face the DCI, forcing a smile on her face.
“Yes, Ma’am. Can I help?”
“You can indeed. How do you fancy a road trip? It won’t take very long.”
Rhonda perked up. She liked getting out of the office, and as Annette was nowhere to be seen at that moment and she was up to date with her work, she nodded.
“Good. Rick Jarvis. We’re off to see his folks.”
Davy had been watching the exchange and he added a silent subtext. ‘Where you, Rhonda, will be doing all the sympathetic stuff, while I sit on my ass and drink tea.’
****
Sarah Reilly’s Apartment. Laganside, Belfast. 9.30 a.m.
“What do you think, sir? Secure enough?”
Annette had walked around the riverside apartment several times that morning, trying and failing to locate a security breach. Sarah Reilly’s flat was on the second floor of a key locked building, set in a gated development accessible only by code, and even if those obstacles were passed, the only ways that someone could gain entry were either via the apartment’s front door, which had two mortice locks, or by shinning up a steel pole to its second-floor balcony and then breaking through its French doors.
Craig took one last tour before giving the DI a grudging nod, then he ushered Liam towards the exit.
“I’m still not happy about this.”
Liam stood behind Craig’s back and mouthed at Annette. “He’s still not happy.”
“And I’m not stupid either, Liam.”
The deputy shrugged. “What else can we do, boss? The lady’s had a rough time and she wants to be in her own home. Hendron will stay with her.”
“That won’t stop our man getting in if he wants to badly enough.”
Liam grinned. “No, but it will get him shot if he does.”
Annette rolled her eyes. “Murder as judgement. Great policing tactic.”
“It would save us the cost of a trial.”
Craig rubbed his face tiredly. “That’s enough, you two. All right, Annette. Give Hendron the green light and get a car stationed on the road. We’ve other work to get on with.”
Halfway down the stairs to the carpark Liam had a thought.
“What about Torrance, boss? Do we offer him protection too?”
Craig gave a grateful smile. Dan Torrance was proving a much easier man to protect.
“He’s staying at High Street until we catch the perp. He didn’t want to go home.”
Liam whistled. “How did Jack take that? He doesn’t like his cells untidy.”
Craig climbed into his car and wound down the window to speak. “He was fine with it actually. It seems Torrance plays chess and poker and so does Jack, so my guess is they’ll spend the time betting the odds.”
Liam made up his mind to drop in after work.
Ten minutes later they were all back at the ranch with Craig wondering where everyone was.
Davy obliged with an explanation.
“DCIs Hughes and Murray called in early to s…say they were following up some leads, and DCI Richie took Rhonda out on a call.”
Annette bristled. “She can’t do that! Rhonda was mine today. We were going to check the occupations.”
Liam smirked. “Rank has its privileges. When you’re a DCI you’ll realise that.”
Craig shot him a look. “That’s enough, although actually, that’s something I wanted to speak to you about, Annette. Are you interested in sitting the DCI board soon?”
Her expression was equivocal. “Carina’s still very young, sir, so to be honest I’m not sure. If I got DCI it would mean a lot more work.”
“Not the way Liam does the job.” He ignored Liam’s indignation to add, “Think about it anyway. The offer’s there. As it is, with Rhonda finishing her secondment and Jake gone, we’ll need to find a new constable and sergeant soon. We’re DCI heavy right now.” He gave Liam a sly smile. “Unless you fancy going for superintendent?”
Liam backed away. “Ah, now, I don’t know about-”
Annette cut in. “Then he’d definitely have to do some work.”
The dispute was interrupted by Nicky’s husky voice.
“What time do you want the briefing, sir?”
Craig glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to update the C.C. at eleven, but that shouldn’t take long, so let’s say twelve. Organise some lunch, please, Nick.” He turned towards his office. “I’ll be in my room for a while if anyone wants me.”
He didn’t get peace for long, as ten minutes later John and Mike appeared at his office door, brandishing a computer stick. Craig had barely had time to say hello before it was plugged into his PC and the pathologists’ three-way screen from the night before appeared.
The detective stared at it for a moment. “What exactly am I looking at?”
John smiled smugly. “Your case. We’ve solved it. A five-year-old girl called Amy Granger was knocked over and killed by Jason Collier in January nineteen-ninety-two. Mike found the file last night in our archives. That’s the pathologist’s sketch of her injuries on the right-hand side and the middle section shows the Coroner’s version of the girl’s injuries. I got it off their computer last night, just to confirm it was the same Collier case. You can see that she suffered a ruptured spleen-”
Craig cut in incredulously. “You hacked their computers?”
John was taken aback. He hadn’t thought of it like that.
“Well, no, I don’t…well, OK, yes, strictly speaking, I suppose I did.” He defended himself hastily. “But I do have a password. They issued it to me years ago.”
�
��I bet they won’t remember doing that.” Craig pointed to the left-hand image. “So that one’s Aidan’s composite of the injuries found on our victims?”
Mike nodded eagerly. “Exactly.” He leant over Craig to press another key, and a fourth image appeared.
“And this is?”
“Jason Collier’s injury sketch after the accident. Between this one and the girl’s we’ve got every single injury shown on Aidan’s composite photo except one, the head abrasion Walter Gruber suffered, but remember, we think Gruber only got that because he fought back. Your killer’s managed to mimic all the injuries incurred by Jason Collier and Amy Granger in the collision.”
Craig stared hard at Jason Collier’s nineteen-ninety-two sketch, taking in the deep laceration on his left cheek and skin sheared from his right shin, echoed in the injuries found on Roger Hardie’s body, and the deep indentation on Collier’s forehead caused by his head impacting his sports car’s steering wheel, identical marks left on his corpse. He knew that all the other injuries found on Collier and Granger after the accident would match their eleven victims’ too, and what lay behind the theatrical mimicry gave him a profound sense of unease.
John noticed his change in mood immediately.
“What is it?”
Craig answered the question with one of his own. “Who could have seen these injuries?”
John frowned. “Collier’s? Well, I suppose the doctors who attended him that night, and the police…”
Craig was shaking his head. “Could was the wrong word. Who would have seen both Amy Granger’s and Jason Collier’s injuries after the collision?”
John was confused. “The same applies. Doctors and police, plus the pathologist who P.M.ed the girl and the Coroner probably-”
The Killing Year (The Craig Crime Series Book 17) Page 26
