Liam sat down just as Susan Richie was storming away. He leaned in to Craig, dropping his voice.
“I found Bellner, boss. Aidan and I lifted him from a gambling den in Smithfield and he’s down in High Street now.”
Craig laughed. “I bet Jack loves that. You’ve got him well separated from Torrance, I hope?”
“Other side of the station. I thought I’d have a go at him after this.”
Craig nodded. “I’ll come with you. I’d like to acquaint myself with this man.”
Liam gave him a dry look. “Even though you don’t think he’s our killer.”
It earned him a smile. “Even then.”
****
Laganside Apartments.
The man had his plan formulated. An hour of watching people too-ing and fro-ing from the apartment development and he knew the car-gate’s code by heart. Confidence was the key to not arousing suspicion, so he would just drive his SUV up to the gate, input the code as if he did it every day and carry on into the grounds and park.
It would have to be in a space close to the river, so he could slip the woman into his boot unseen once he’d got her out of her flat, but if there was no place suitable right away he would just wait in the grounds until there was. He wasn’t in any rush.
****
The C.C.U. 12.05 p.m.
The briefing had just begun when John Winter scurried in, the delights of the canteen’s early lunch curry and chips making him lose track of time. He nodded an apology and fell into the nearest seat, Liam’s resentful grimace at his own tuna sandwich saying he knew exactly where the pathologist had just been.
Craig was on his feet talking.
“OK, I’m going to hand straight over to Deidre and Aidan, who seemed to have stayed here half the night.”
His fear that the words hadn’t come out quite right was validated by Liam’s lecherous laugh.
“Here all night working? Aye aye.”
“Thank you, Liam. We can do without your fantasies. Deidre, would you like to kick off?”
Deidre Murray jumped to her feet, obviously excited by what she had to say.
“OK. To cut a long story short, Aidan and I have managed to confirm the occupations of our victims twenty-five years ago, apart from a few of them.”
She nodded Ash to show the slide.
“This table shows our victims’ names and current occupations-”
Kyle interrupted dryly. “Former.”
Deidre turned to him, puzzled. “What?”
“You mean their former occupations, don’t you? Their current occupation is dead.”
Craig rolled his eyes at the comment. “Thank you for that sarcasm, Kyle. Move on, Deidre, please.”
Kyle was about to correct Craig’s ‘sarcasm’ to ‘realism’, when a kick in the ankle from Liam gave him something else to think about.
The County Down DCI continued.
“So, while in the next slide you’ll see that quite a few of our victims had entirely different occupations in the past to their recent ones, some had remained in the same careers but in different roles.”
Craig nodded. “Such as a defence barrister becoming a judge, perhaps?”
“Yes, and our AA sponsor now, Dan Torrance, was a heavy drinker then-”
Annette cut in, surprised. “Was that really his occupation? Heavy drinker?”
Deidre nodded. “Sadly, it was. Mister Torrance couldn’t manage to hold down a job for years, so drinking was pretty much all he did back then.”
Annette nodded pragmatically. Torrance had come a long way.
“Next slide, please, Ash.”
The occupations from twenty-five years before appeared.
“In this slide you’ll see that we have quite a few people who were in education, some doing A-Levels, and others who were students at university. Ash, could you add the extra column.”
Another column appeared on the right-hand side of the screen.
“But you’ll also see that most of the students also had part-time jobs to supplement their finances, and that’s where things get really interesting. I’ll hand over to Aidan.”
Hughes got to his feet.
“Right. This morning we went to re-interview Dan Torrance, a potential victim, and Lucinda Collier, Jason Collier’s wife until eight years ago.”
Kyle reared up in his seat. “She was my-”
Liam interrupted with a tut. “Careful, man, your infatuation’s showing.”
The ex-spook blushed in denial. “I just meant, I’d already developed a relationship with her, so-”
Craig saw Liam about to go in for the kill and held up a hand.
“I understand that you interviewed her first, Kyle, but no-one owns a witness. On you go, Aidan.”
Hughes raked his blond hair back from his forehead and continued. “So, they gave us some interesting information.” He tapped the column. “It turns out that Dan Torrance was a drinking buddy of Jason Collier’s back in the day. His memories of that time are hazy, but he remembered Collier because he was a life and soul of the party type.”
Craig asked a question. “Was Collier an alcoholic?”
“Borderline. His wife pretty much confirmed it. He’d tried to dry out a few times, but nothing had stuck. So, anyway, between them we got some useful answers.”
He indicated two names. “These two worked in pubs within staggering distance of the Colliers’ first home, a terraced house in Cultra. They probably saw a lot of Jason and pouring him out of the bar at closing time might have been a regular thing.”
“What are the odds his favourite tipple was whisky?”
Aidan nodded and moved on. “This victim worked in the local off-licence and could’ve served Collier carry-outs, and these two, they owned other pubs a few miles down the coast.”
Annette gasped. “They all died for serving Collier alcohol?”
Craig nodded. “To excess, I’d say, so our killer might have held them responsible. In his mind they could have stopped Collier before he killed Amy Granger, but they didn’t. And because Dan Torrance drank with Collier he was seen as colluding with him.”
Aidan and Deidre nodded eagerly. “We got even further. Sarah Reilly was an A&E doctor in Down when Collier was brought in several times.”
Liam frowned. “So what was her crime?”
Deidre shrugged. “Maybe she didn’t refer him to rehab?”
John cut in. “There were very limited facilities here for alcohol rehab until the late nineties, so she probably couldn’t have.”
Craig sighed. “I don’t think the truth troubles our killer much, John. Go on, Aidan.”
“Roger Hardie was a cop for five years in the nineties and he arrested Jason Collier for D and D on three occasions but never charged him. He just stuck him in a cell overnight to sleep it off and let him go with stern words.”
Craig shook his head. “More chances to stop Collier in his tracks squandered.” He frowned. “So why didn’t our killer target Collier’s first wife? She must have seen him drink and drive many times.”
Kyle shook his head. “She said she’d thought he was walking to the off-licence that night.”
“That may be the truth, but our killer isn’t swayed by that, as we’ve already seen. There’s got to be another reason that Lucinda Collier’s still alive.”
He parked the question for now and nodded Aidan on.
“OK, so the rest of our Vics were a selection of a rehab counsellor, who obviously didn’t succeed with Collier, the judge on Collier’s court case, now retired, Collier’s defence barrister, John McClelland, who eventually became a judge-”
Craig held up a hand to halt him. “Anyone who doesn’t fit?”
Deidre answered. “They may still turn out to fit in some way, but we haven’t found out how yet for, Walter Gruber, Judith Roper, Maria Drake or Rick Jarvis. Jarvis wasn’t even born back then.”
“Rhonda will tell us about Jarvis in a moment, but…Drake was a social worker, so mightn�
��t she have been on Collier’s case? Doing his pre-sentencing assessment perhaps?”
The DCI shook her head. “No sign of it yet, Guv, but we’ll keep digging. Anyway, it seems a lot of our victims were people who either sold Jason Collier alcohol or were involved with his court case.”
Craig stretched his back and stood up. “We’ll get on to the criminal case in a moment. OK, excellent work, you two. Everyone, help yourselves to more coffee, and then John and Rhonda, you’re up.”
****
St Mary’s Hospital. 12.30 p.m.
Katy was starting to feel like a stalker, lurking around the consultants’ sitting room just in case Natalie appeared. But at least she could sit in there without anyone questioning it; as a hospital consultant from any specialty she could read the papers and lie in wait there all day if her nerves could stand it. The theatre corridor however was trickier. She was a medical consultant, a physician, or a magician as surgeons liked to call them, and the operating theatres were surgeons and anaesthetists only territory. A separate part of the hospital, some might even say they were a different world.
It was a world demarcated by sealed doors that swung inwards on the whim of a swipe-card, and a red line that shouted ‘border’, beyond which no-one random should ever walk. Random included members of the general public who weren’t patients, and any nurse or doctor who didn’t belong, and as a physician that most definitely included her. It wasn’t that anyone would shout ‘witch’ and have her burnt at the stake or anything, but rather that her arrival in ‘Theatre World’ would be noted and communicated early enough for Natalie to discover that she was there and run away.
Katy thought hard, deciding that there was only one way she might blend in and get close enough to corner her ex-friend before she turned on her colourful Crocs and disappeared. There was nothing else for it, she would have to go in undercover, and that would mean wearing a disguise. The physician’s heart plummeted into her four-inch heeled Kurt Geiger boots. Any disguise that might fit into the world of theatres would involve some form of scrubs, flat clogs, a hat and a mask, and the very thought made her shudder to the depth of her fashionista’s heart.
On the odd occasion that she’d been forced to wear scrubs as a student she had loathed them, not to mention what the theatre cap had done to her wavy hair. To the outside world such concerns might seem superficial, but when you’re committing to a life… Well, let’s just say that she’d always been thankful that she’d been good at medicine and not surgery or anaesthetics, or she would have suffered a huge number of bad hair days.
Katy entered the theatre corridor and tip-toed quickly to its end, managing to find a recess in which to hide. From there she watched the automatic doors open and close several times and a parade of staff walk in and out. She glanced at her watch; it was almost twelve-thirty, the time when most morning operating lists came to an end, something that was confirmed by a large group of juniors and nurses emerging into the corridor, most likely on their way to lunch.
When the frequency of door opening finally slowed, and the noisy area had quietened down, she headed for the doors and entered, searching quickly for the female changing rooms. Once in a set of scrubs and a mask she felt safer; just another anonymous blue Smurf. Her bright blonde hair well-hidden she wandered through the corridors as if in search of tea.
On the third door she tried she found a small kitchen and off it an even smaller coffee room. She listened at its door, smiling when she heard Natalie’s distinctive laugh. It had been her habit to bring a packed lunch rather than go out between the morning and afternoon operating lists, and Katy had played a hunch that it still was.
She waited patiently in the kitchen, turning her back swiftly each time the door opened in the pretence of getting a drink, but in reality just waiting for the moment that Natalie emerged.
Ten minutes later the physician’s patience was rewarded and the tiny surgeon appeared, strolling out towards the women’s changing room. Once her prey was inside Katy slipped in behind her and decisively locked the door.
****
The C.C.U.
“OK, John, fire ahead.”
The pathologist began his report with a nod towards Davy, and a second later, sketches of Amy Granger’s and Jason Collier’s post collision injuries appeared side by side.
“Last night Mike found a file in the pathology archives. It was the case of a five-year-old girl called Amy Granger, who was knocked over and killed by Jason Collier in nineteen-ninety-two.”
Annette smiled proudly around the room, as if she’d discovered the file herself, and Liam nudged Craig’s elbow, whispering.
“Father of my child syndrome.”
“What?”
“’Cos Mike found the file. She’s all proud of him.”
John shot him a look that said ‘shut-up’, saving Craig the trouble.
“We went through various iterations of the girl’s injuries, looking at the pathologist’s version and the version shown at the Coroner’s inquest. Then we looked at reports on Jason Collier after the incident and we found that together the girl’s and Collier’s injuries gave us this.”
Davy clicked again, and a third sketch appeared on the screen. It was uncannily like Aidan Hughes’ composite photo which a third click soon displayed.
“As you can see, apart from the absence of one laceration that was found on Collier’s right cheek after the ninety-two incident, everything is there in Aidan’s composite. Additionally, we have two extra injuries: the head injury we believe Walter Gruber sustained in his struggle, and a small cut found on Richard Jarvis’ palm. Again, possibly part of a struggle with the killer.”
Craig signalled to speak. “You’re saying that there was an injury on Collier that wasn’t found on any of our victims?”
The pathologist nodded. “Just a cut on his right cheek that they thought came from windscreen glass. They marked his left cheek laceration on Roger Hardie’s corpse, but not the right. Both occurred after Collier hit the girl. He veered off the road into a tree and it shattered the windscreen.”
Liam gave a low whistle. “Guess what mark Torrance or Reilly were going to have left on them.”
Craig nodded thoughtfully, already there. “Liam’s right. One of our intended victims, Dan Torrance or Sarah Reilly, was going to be given a right cheek laceration that mimicked Jason Collier’s, but if that was the only injury still left to display from that night, why did our killer need to take two victims again this time? Each of our first nine victims was taken singly and dumped singly, only Judith Roper and Walter Gruber were left in a pair and that may have been to represent a time. Now we have Torrance and Reilly taken. OK, so not on the same day, and why not is another question that we need to answer, but my guess is that our killer was going to leave them together again.” He scanned the group. “Thoughts, anyone?”
He already knew that Andy and Aidan had; they’d been on the edge of their seats since he’d started to speak.
“OK, I’ll take Andy first and then Aidan.”
Andy jumped to his feet; unnecessary, but what the heck.
“I won’t talk about the angles in terms of route maps yet, I’ll get to that later, but what if whoever mentioned time was right?”
Annette smiled. “It was you.”
“What?”
“You were the person who mentioned time.”
Andy’s eyes widened. “Was I? I must be smarter than I thought.” He hurried on before Liam could make a crack. “OK, so, when I looked at time, the positions that Roper and Gruber’s bodies were left in showed eight-twenty.” He turned to John. “When was Amy Granger knocked over? It was winter, wasn’t it?”
John looked at the file on his lap and gawped. “My God! It was January the tenth, nineteen-ninety-two, at eight-twenty in the evening! She’d been in bed and then noticed that her cat was missing, so she ran out into the street in the dark.”
Craig became galvanised. “Who was looking at the dates?”
&n
bsp; Deidre raised a hand. “I was, but I got bogged down with the occupations. Sorry, Guv.”
“Don’t worry. Ash, look at those now, please, while we carry on. The dates of the victims’ abductions and their dumpings, against any significant dates in the Granger-Collier case.”
The analyst returned to his desk to work while Craig nodded Andy on.
“OK, so, let’s say the killer took Torrance and Reilly together to, yes, show the right cheek laceration Collier suffered in the collision, but also to display another important time in the case, although we’ll never know now what that was. But that’s not the only thing that occurred to me. We still have Gruber, Roper, Jarvis and Drake not linked to anything, either to do with Collier’s drinking or the criminal case. But what if Roper was the newsreader who announced the girl’s death on TV, and say the killer didn’t like her approach?”
Craig was surprised to see several people nodding and Liam outlined why.
“Roper wasn’t good at delivering sad news, boss, and it pissed people off. There were letters to the press about it and all. She took the same approach to announcing a murder as introducing a piece about a dancing dog. Maybe that was why she moved to making documentaries.”
Andy carried on.
“And what sort of car was Collier driving? Gruber was a car engineer. Could Gruber have had something to do with its design?”
It was Aidan who answered. “That’s what I was planning to say. Collier was driving a sports car of some sort.”
Davy filled them in. “It was an Alfa Romeo S…Spider. Lovely motor.”
“And who did Walter Gruber work for?”
“Ford.”
Hughes smirked. “What are the odds that he worked for Alfa Romeo back in ninety-two?”
Davy shook his head. “Even if he had done he couldn’t have designed the Spider, it was first made in sixty-six. Anyway, there was nothing w…wrong with the car Collier drove, it was checked after the collision, and Alfas have a great safety record-”
The Killing Year (The Craig Crime Series Book 17) Page 28
