Craig raised a hand to halt the automotive debate. “Our killer was looking for a scapegoat for the car design, and Gruber was just the unlucky sod that he found. My guess is he had nothing directly to do with either the accident or the court case. He was probably still in Austria in ninety-two.”
Liam nodded. “That could explain why our perp didn’t bother keeping Gruber for the three days. If he wasn’t the real deal, why bother? But that still leaves us with Drake and Jarvis.”
“More than that. We still haven’t worked out the significance of the three days that he holds the victims, and why he glues their eyes open or shut.”
Aidan had. “Dee and I thought about this when we were looking at the occupations. What if the eyes glued shut victims were the ones who’d just blindly encouraged Collier’s drinking, like the bar and off-licence staff? Whereas the ones with the eyes glued open, like the pub owners, the barrister and the judge on the case, were deemed to have more responsibility? Like, they should have spotted what sort of man Collier was.”
Craig nodded slowly. “You mean they should have seen where Collier was heading and stopped him in his tracks, or refused to defend him? But how was the judge responsible then? It was the jury who decided Collier’s guilt or innocence.”
Deidre shook her head vigorously. “But they didn’t decide his sentence and the judge did. I checked the newspapers for reports on the verdict and there was a big kick-up about how lenient the sentence was. Two years for a child’s life, and only one of them spent in prison.”
Craig nodded slowly as the penny dropped. “A year’s prison sentence and there have been bodies dropping now for a year. When was Collier sentenced?”
“December seventeen, ninety-two.”
“The date of Maria Drake’s discovery. When was he released on parole?”
“December sixth, the following year.”
“Roper and Gruber were dumped that day.”
The words had been murmured by Ash, who was holding a sheet of paper in his hand. He began reading from it, eyes widening as each significant date in the Granger case matched the date of a body being found.
Craig waited until he’d finished before he spoke again, with a question.
“If it’s the dumping not the abduction dates that matter, why are they held for three days? Anyone?”
John went to answer but Annette got in first. “How long did the girl survive after the accident, Doctor Winter?”
He nodded. “You’re absolutely right, Annette. It was three days; that’s why our killer keeps his victims alive that long. And she spent the whole time in hospital, so perhaps the staging of the injections was to symbolise what she went through there as well.”
Everything was pointing to Amy Granger’s family taking revenge for her death. Craig frowned, tempted to ask, ‘could it really be that easy?’, then he remembered the amount of work that it had taken them to get to this place. He was just about to order the questioning of her family, when he remembered that Rhonda had been waiting to speak.
He waved her on.
“Rick Jarvis.” The DC flicked through the pages of her small notebook and then set it to one side. “In addition to the fact he’s too young, sir, he just doesn’t fit. Not in any way.”
She outlined the steps that they’d taken that morning, interviewing his school, family and friends. Not only had Jarvis had no connection at all with the Grangers or Colliers, but not one person could think of a reason anyone would have wanted him dead.
Craig considered as she reported, waiting until she’d finished before asking a question.
“Why do you think Rick Jarvis was killed, Rhonda?”
The constable glanced nervously at Susan Richie and hesitated. Craig saw what was happening and snapped his fingers to draw her gaze back to him.
“Look at me, Rhonda. I didn’t ask you DCI Richie’s opinion, I want yours. Now, please.”
Her reply came blurting out. “He’s a red herring!”
The whole group looked shocked, all except Andy. Craig turned to the DCI.
“You’re not surprised, Andy. Why not?”
“Because it fits. With my route maps. Can I show you?”
Craig motioned him on and a series of local maps flicked across the screen, before Andy settled on one.
“OK, so I was working on the angles the bodies were left at, as you know. Oh, by the way, I think all the bodies were dumped in the east of the province because that’s where everything happened in the Granger-Collier case, and when I get a bit of time, I’m pretty sure I can link the actual dumpsites to significant places in their lives. But for now…”
He clicked, and an oddly shaped line of some length appeared on the screen.
Craig gazed at it. “This was formed from the angles?”
“Yes and no.” The DCI clicked again and another long line appeared, and then a third and fourth. “All of these route-lines can be formed by using the angles, but now that we know which historical case we’re dealing with, the only one that makes any sense is this.”
He erased every line but one. “It’s the route from Amy Granger’s home in Cultra, County Down, to the court house in County Antrim where the case was heard.”
Craig walked to the screen, leaning in to look at the crooked line. It ran from County Down, through Belfast to County Antrim, the main areas where bodies had been dumped.
“Does this use every victim’s position, Andy?”
Andy shook his gelled head.
“That’s why I said yes and no. Yes, it does, but in a way, no as well, because two of the angles cancel each other out exactly. It would be like travelling down a road and then back up it again; you’d arrive back where you started. You remember what I said about Rick Jarvis’ body pointing down towards the X axis and Ryland, Loughrey and Drake’s pointing up?”
Craig frowned; there was something important here, he knew there was, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
“Well, Jarvis’ position would have completely cancelled out any of the other three, and if the accident site to the court house is the route we’re looking for, that’s what has to happen.” He smiled at the squad’s constable. “I believe Rhonda’s right. Jarvis was a complete red herring, deliberately put in to confuse us on the route.”
Craig shook his head. “Not only that. He was killed to throw us off the track of something else.” He raised a hand to halt the coming questions. “No, I don’t know what that is yet, but it’s something important to our killer, important enough to kill an innocent boy.”
Ash indicated to come in. “Belfast is the killer’s comfort zone, chief. Geo-location threw it up yesterday. There’s a high probability that they live in Belfast somewhere.”
Craig parked the information and looked at his watch. “OK, well done everyone, that’s brilliant progress, keep going and we’ll meet again later. Andy, I want more on the dumpsite locations. Ash, double check those dates and see if you can narrow down that zone to an area of Belfast. Aidan, you and Davy follow up on the whisky. John, I want to know the significance of that kiss. See what you can get from the hospital records on Amy Granger’s death.”
He turned to Liam. “We need to interview the Granger family and see if we can smoke someone out.”
****
Laganside Apartments.
It was taking forever, but that was fine, he had all the patience in the world. The man glanced at his watch and then out through the development’s tree-fronted railings at the street, thanking the PSNI’s obsession with orders that the surveillance car was still visible from where he sat. The two cops hadn’t a clue that the killer they were supposed to be protecting the good doctor from was sitting only metres away, watching and waiting for his opportunity, one that he would take as soon as he got a suitable parking space.
That might be minutes from now or it might be hours, and in some ways he was hoping for the latter; things were always better done in the darkness and that would fall soon after four.
/> Chapter Fifteen
High Street Station. 1.30 p.m.
Craig considered the man opposite him curiously, as if he was a specimen in a cage. It was a scrutiny that Hugh Bellner returned, with the addition of a chilly smile.
“You seem to find me interesting, Chief Superintendent. I’m flattered.”
Craig’s response was dry. “Not all interest is positive, Mister Bellner.”
The drug dealer straightened his silk tie and grinned. “Fascination, interest, scrutiny, I choose to view them all as a sign that I’m making people think. There’s only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that’s not being talked about.”
The Oscar Wilde saying had survived for well over a century.
Bellner continued, ignoring his solicitor’s entreaties not to say a word.
“May I ask why you’re staring at me, Mister Craig?”
Craig didn’t answer, after all, how can you tell evil that you recognise it without the evidence to back it up? He nodded Liam to start, still watching Bellner as his deputy read from a page.
“Mister Bellner, could you tell us where you were on the following dates, please.”
There followed a list of abduction and disposal dates that the drug dealer met with increasingly blank looks, his brief not needing to say “don’t comment” because his client didn’t even try to say a word, until that was Liam reached the week before.
When he read out “Saturday the second of December”, Bellner’s broad face broke into a smile.
“My daughter’s wedding in Vilnius.”
Lithuanian. Craig nodded to himself as a mystery cleared. He’d noticed Bellner’s name, unusual for Northern Ireland, and the slight Slavic set of his features, but the man’s soft Belfast accent had almost thrown him off. Bellner was the son of immigrants, Lithuanian immigrants obviously. The information meant nothing except that it had been confusing the detective since he’d walked in.
Liam was still speaking.
“You’re saying you were in Vilnius, from when?”
“The first of December until yesterday. My wife and I stayed after the wedding to visit family.”
And smuggle who knows what back in your bags.
“I can’t shed any light on where I was on the other dates, not off the top of my head anyway. But my wife keeps a diary, so she could probably help you with that.”
It might alibi him for the murders, but Craig would have been happier if the diary had contained details of his drug deals. He’d known from first sight that Hugh Bellner was poison, and now he was on his radar he wasn’t coming off.
Liam was just about to turn off the tape when Bellner leaned towards him, his smile even chillier than before.
“Now, can I ask you why my name came up in connection with whatever investigation you’re on? Specifically, who led you to my door.”
The DCI’s heart sank; he would have to invent a reason quickly, to avoid getting Johnnie McCausland killed. He was saved by Craig’s smooth lie that Bellner matched a survivor’s description, and he was just one of four men they were interviewing who had.
They would never know if the drug dealer believed them. Not until their paths crossed again.
****
St Mary’s Hospital.
When children are small they picture themselves as many things: pirates, cowboys, explorers, perhaps even the odd fairy-tale princess, but one thing that Katy Stevens had never imagined herself being was a spy; following people through darkened streets wearing a trench coat with a turned-up collar, and then interrogating her captives under a glaring light. So, to say that her current occupation didn’t come naturally to her was an understatement, and her ineptitude at the work showed.
Not only had Natalie Winter made her stalker ten minutes earlier, but she’d got so fed up waiting for Katy to make her move, that she’d intentionally headed for somewhere so isolated within the theatre suite that even the inept Inspector Clouseau could have cornered her there.
As Katy was peering through the changing room’s glass window over the top of her mask and forming the words that she intended to say, Natalie was pretending to fiddle with her locker, and making a great job of the act, if she did say so herself. The factor that would most influence the next five minutes and the outcome of the case that Katy had come to plead, wouldn’t be, as she thought, a carefully crafted turn of phrase that acknowledged her indiscretion followed by a heartfelt apology, but the point at which each of the two women reached their breaking point.
Katy was placid, gentle and patient by nature, by happy coincidence the perfect counterfoil to Craig’s fieriness. Natalie on the other hand was rash, easily irritated and had the sensitivity of a JCB, drawing more comparisons to Liam at times than her husband was comfortable with.
So it was, that as Katy tentatively pushed the changing room’s door inwards, Natalie Winter said, “sod that!” and swung around, her small hands clamping her hips firmly as she prepared to give her stalker what for.
Her words were drowned out by a loud yelp from her follower, which to the surgeon’s surprise made her laugh. It was joined by a nervous giggle from the masked avenger, until both women were reaching for a seat. Natalie spoke first.
“Don’t give up medicine, will you, because you make a lousy private eye.”
The physician shook her head. “When did you first spot me?”
Natalie was tempted to make it earlier than was true, but made do with, “When you started gawping through the coffee room door.”
Katy’s eyes widened indignantly. “I wasn’t gawping! I was surveying the scene.”
“Well, I’d leave the surveillance to Marc in future, because you’re completely crap.” She waved a hand at Katy’s hat. “Look at your hair sticking out! No member of theatre staff would let it show like that. And whose clogs did you steal?” She peered at the physician’s feet for a moment and whistled. “Sheila’s! You’ll be in real trouble if she catches you.”
Katy kicked off the clogs hastily and searched around for her clothes. If they were going to have an actual conversation, then she’d feel better wearing her high heels. She was just donning her white coat when Natalie spoke again.
“OK, you’ve got me here, so what do you have to say to me?”
Katy knew the words that the surgeon wanted to hear; ‘I’m sorry, Natalie, I should never have told John.’ And just as she believed, no, she knew that she’d done the right thing and that Natalie had been unreasonable in refusing to speak to her for so long, she also knew that the small surgeon would forgive her instantly if she apologised, without a future sulk or the faintest hint of moodiness to show that anything had ever been amiss. Natalie was an all or nothing kind of girl.
Katy also knew that the surgeon was that strange creature, the one who would cut off her small nose to spite her face, and that if she didn’t give her that apology, an apology that she honestly didn’t believe in, then not only would their estrangement continue but Natalie would extend it further in future, to Craig.
So, even though part of her wanted to poke a finger in the eyes that were gazing up at her and then argue her side of the case, she loved Craig and she loved John too, so she couldn’t bear to be the reason that their friendship fell apart.
And because Katy Stevens was not a strange creature but a rare one, she could make the required apology without meaning one single word, so she voiced the sentence quite easily and then submitted to Natalie’s hug and forgiving sentiment, “That what you did will never be mentioned again”.
But deep in some small dark corner of her rare personality, the peacemaker felt the seed of a grudge take root, and some day, maybe not soon but years from now, it would smack Natalie Winter right between her eyes.
****
Lisburn. County Antrim. 3 p.m.
Liam flicked through the file that Nicky had handed him on the way out the door as Craig belted up the M1, finally closing it as they passed Sprucefield Shopping Centre and tossing it on to the A
udi’s back seat.
“There’s only an uncle and a brother who fit the age of our killer, boss. All the Granger girl’s other relatives are too young or too old.”
Craig indicated to pull into the slow lane, giving his deputy a nod. “Go on.”
“OK, so Martin Granger, that’s the brother, is forty. He was fifteen when the girl was killed. Never been in trouble with the cops and works as an accountant for a supermarket chain.”
Craig laughed. “He sounds like a real thug.”
Liam shrugged. “It’s not my fault he’s a boring git. Anyway, we’ve had businessmen before who’ve turned out to be killers, so we can’t rule him out just yet.” He sighed heavily. “It’s a crying shame Bellner’s alibis checked out though. I’d give my eye teeth to pin something on that bastard.”
Craig didn’t disagree. “He’ll be back in our sights someday, I have no doubt about that. OK, tell me about the girl’s uncle.”
Liam sat forward, rubbing his hands. “Much tastier. Geoff Granger, the father’s younger brother. Fifty-seven, two counts of grievous bodily harm-”
Craig cut him off.
“When?”
“Aye, well. OK, so they were back in the late nineties, but the violence is in him, we know that.”
“It’s a hell of a step up from GBH to murdering eleven people!” Craig sighed. “OK, what does he do for a living?”
He indicated to leave the motorway as Liam replied.
“Construction worker, all his life, so that would make him pretty strong, and our man had to be to shift all those bodies.”
Craig pulled smoothly on to the A512. “Let’s take him then. They can interview the accountant at the local nick.” He gestured to the car-phone. “Punch the uncle’s address into the GPS, then give Lisburn Station a call and ask them to invite the brother down.”
The Killing Year (The Craig Crime Series Book 17) Page 29
