Crossing The Line

by Catriona King

  Craig met her halfway. “OK, then. We’ll get a cake, you can cut the ribbon as you did all the organising, and then we all go to The James and get trashed.”

  He rapped the nearest desk decisively with his knuckles, signalling that the discussion was closed.

  “That’s it for now. Alice will let you know the time of the next briefing when I’ve decided it, meanwhile everyone back to work.”

  He turned to his chief analyst and lowered his voice. “Davy.” They were almost at his office when he remembered something else.

  “Liam, I need a word when I’ve finished with Davy. Before we get on the road.”

  It was time to reveal to him that the theoretical involvement they might have in SOC that he’d hinted at months before was about to become very real.

  He opened the door to his room and nodded Davy to a seat.

  “Right, so what was with all the staring at Annette? You looked worried.”

  “Didn’t you notice how pale she went when you mentioned Mahon, chief?”

  Craig sat forward at his desk, concerned. “No. Why? Is she ill?”

  Davy gawped at him, surprised.

  “She’s not sick, but didn’t you know that her ex-husband was in that prison?”

  Craig’s eyebrows shot up.“What? Since when?”

  Annette had been married for twenty years to Pete McElroy, a teacher, when he’d had an affair and the marriage had disintegrated, resulting in her petitioning for divorce. McElroy hadn’t taken the request well and had assaulted her, and there was no way of knowing how far he might have gone if he and Liam hadn’t intervened. The result had been McElroy receiving a prison sentence, which Craig had been pretty sure that he’d been serving near Belfast.

  “S...Since February. His original sentence was extended by a year when he shivved someone at his first prison, and they transferred him to high security in Armagh to serve it out.”

  Craig was about to say, “How did I not know this?” but stopped himself. His staff’s private lives weren’t something he spent as much time on as he possibly should, probably because he didn’t like any focus on his own. But he obviously should have paid more attention to Annette’s.

  He nodded guiltily, acknowledging to himself that he’d been wrong. “Thank you, Davy.”

  “Are you going to talk to her about it?”

  “I need to think about it first, but, yes, I will.”

  Davy wasn’t letting it go that easily.

  “When?”

  “Soon. This week, I promise.” But he needed more information first.

  The analyst rose to leave. “Do you w...want Liam in now?”

  “Please.”

  Craig shook off as much guilt as he could manage, and the next ten minutes were spent outlining Sean Flanagan’s plans for a D.C.S. supergroup to provide operational oversight to SOC to his deputy. When he’d finished he rested back in his chair, folded his arms and waited for Liam to blow.

  The explosion never came; instead what he saw was a sequence of confused, astonished and then horrified expressions crossing, disappearing and then reappearing more slowly on the D.C.I.’s face, accompanied by Liam’s small eyes widening incrementally as the import of the words sank in.

  When visual representations of his emotions no longer sufficed the D.C.I. finally parted his pale lips, forming them into a circle that would usually have preceded a drawn-out whistle but this time merely presaged an, “Oh.”

  Craig unfolded his arms and sat forward. “Oh? Is that all you’ve got to say? No bloody hell, or damn, boss, don’t we have enough work to do already?”

  The response was a small shrug, followed by a question. “Are they short-staffed at SOC or something? Is that why they’ve appointed three of you? But you’ve all already got enough to do, haven’t you?”

  Craig took the three questions in reverse order. “Yes, we certainly have. Flanagan wanted me to move and run SOC full-time, but I said no which is why he’s now splitting it three ways. So yes, short-staffed in the sense that SOC needed a new operational boss but none of us was prepared to leave our squads and move full-time.”

  He knew that was true because he’d met with the other two Chief Superintendents just before he’d gone off on holiday, and after he’d turned Sean Flanagan down as the SOC lead he’d tried the same offer on both of them. They had all refused to leave their squads so now they were splitting the work three ways, and the others were as torn about what was happening as him.

  Liam asked another question, his face now settled back in its normal sceptical half-smile.

  “OK, so who are they then? The other two mugs.”

  It made Craig laugh. Mug was exactly the term that they’d applied to themselves when they’d met up.

  “I mentioned one of them at the briefing. Andy White.”

  Andy White had led the Belfast Drugs Squad until twenty-thirteen and had moved gradually back towards his home county of Londonderry in the interim years to be closer to Dungiven, where he’d been born and still had family. He was famed in the force for two things: his tendency to add “Hey” somewhere in every sentence, as was the way in the west; and the blue shirts he wore every day, bought by his wife, who said they made his light blue eyes stand out.

  The response made Liam frown. “But Andy’s just a D.C.I. like me.”

  “Well, first, I wouldn’t call being a D.C.I. just anything, and secondly, he isn’t any more. He took the D.C.S. Board six months ago and passed it.” Craig couldn’t resist a small dig. “You know, one of the many D.C.S. Boards that I wanted to put you forward for.”

  Liam shrugged, wondering how Craig would feel about promotions once his own infant was crying all night. Mind you, in his experience new fathers fell into one of three categories: those who valued time with their kids above all else; those who couldn’t wait to get away from the screaming and the dirty nappies; and those who felt the increased burden of being a provider so heavily that it made them climb the career ladder faster than a rat racing up a drain. He fell firmly into the first category, but he had a feeling that Craig might join the final group.

  “I’ve no regrets. I’ll do it when Rory’s up a bit in years and that’ll still be time enough.” The D.C.I. shook his head, grinning. “But I can’t believe old Andy finally took the plunge. He’ll have to buy some new blue shirts to celebrate.”

  As they both laughed at the image, Craig mentioned the third D.C.S.’ name, and it wasn’t someone that Liam knew anything about, beyond rumour.

  “Catherine Pine. She’s in counter-terrorism, isn’t she? From my recollection of her she isn’t much craic.”

  Not much craic...It was the ultimate insult on an island known almost as much for its humour as its politics and history.

  Craig was more charitable. “Well, yes, she is a bit of a hard case. But she’s good.”

  Liam snorted. “By good you mean bright, I take it. And my bet is she won’t be any harder than you.”

  The ambiguity of the comment gave Craig pause. Did Liam mean that neither of them were hard or that his team saw him as harder than he thought he came across. Before he could ask, the D.C.I. elaborated.

  “Yep, I did mean you were hard. You know you are at times, but so am I, and that’s a good thing. If you were baking cakes for the scrotes we chase then you’d be in the wrong job. Besides...” he gave a cheeky grin “...you’ll never be as hard as me. I’m a rock.” The words were accompanied by him beating his chest like a giant ape.

  Craig chuckled. “OK, Tarzan, I get the point. Anyway, the three of us, Andy, Cate and I, will be splitting the SOC operations between us as and when, but there’s an Assistant Chief Constable above us and an SOC core team so it shouldn’t be that much extra work. That’s the condition we all took it under. But it’ll be brilliant experience for you, Aidan and Andy. Those two in particular don’t always have enough to get their teeth into around here.”

  Liam was more concerned about himself. “But I’ll be working with you as usual,
won’t I?”

  Craig smiled at his unaccustomed neediness. “Yes. In fact, I insist on it. That way you’ll get the most exposure to new SOC cases in preparation for your next step up.”He sprang to his feet suddenly. “Right. That’s enough talk. We’re off to Armagh now and you can drive.”

  Pound signs lit up in Liam’s eyes.

  Chapter Three

  The Labs. 10 a.m.

  Des was swaying and humming to himself cheerfully when John arrived at his office on the third floor, so he stood in the open doorway for a moment watching the large forensic scientist, who had his back to him and was doing a soft-shoe shuffle with all the elegance of Yogi Bear. After twenty seconds of movement that proved to the pathologist the world of dance hadn’t suffered any loss by Des Marsham choosing a science career, he said, “Good Morning” in a deliberately loud voice that made Yogi freeze in position and then turn around slowly, wearing a questioning look.

  “How long have you been standing there?”

  John reached for the nearest chair and sat down. “Long enough to know that you weren’t a loss to the ballet.” He gestured to an item in the scientist’s hand. “What’s that?”

  A few seconds later he was sorry that he’d asked, as a blow-by-blow account followed of how Des had rescued the piece of yellow metal, which he was positive was a solid gold medieval cloak pin, from the sand of Benone Beach the day before, with additional embellishments about the, “torrential rain” that he’d battled against whilst doing so, and the incoming tides that had, “almost claimed his life”.

  As the story wound down John quickly changed the subject to the reason he was there.

  “So Marc and Liam came down yesterday looking for a COD...”

  Des was wrapping his treasure carefully in a piece of surgical gauze and wondering whether the Ulster Museum might be interested in taking a look at his discovery, only half listening and rousing himself to say, “Really?” when it became obvious that he was supposed to give a prompt.

  “Yes, really.” John leaned across and nudged his arm. “Are you listening to me? I need you to do some analysis of these.”

  He dangled Craig’s bag of tablets in front of him and their solidness made Des set aside his historical find to seize them, holding the transparent evidence bag up to the light as John went on.

  “There was a semi-digested one in Smyth’s stomach contents so you’ll be examining that during your normal checks, and I sent his bloods etcetera up last night.” He gestured toward the blue tablets. “I looked at one through the bag under the microscope yesterday, and there’s something not right. They look like diazepam ten milligram tabs but I’m sure they’re counterfeits.”

  Des arched an eyebrow. “Counterfeit meds... I remember seeing a report on seizures of those back in October.”

  John nodded. “Operation Pangea XI.” He paused for a moment, looking puzzled. “I wonder why the police use Roman numerals instead of modern numbers?”

  “They probably think it looks classy. I heard the military have someone whose only job is to think up names for their ops. He spends all day every day doing it.” Before the pathologist could question the likelihood of the statement Des waved the bag in the air. “OK, I’ll test these.”

  John urged caution. “Careful when you cut them open - the outside of the tablet is only part of the story. COD was asphyxiation, the signs are all there, and with nothing to indicate violence I’ve ruled out suffocation or strangulation as the cause. Marc, Liam and I decided that there had to be poison in the tablets, either in the outer part you can see or perhaps in some sort of hidden central reservoir to avoid Smyth spotting any sign of it and getting suspicious. And it must be in all of the tabs because his killer couldn’t possibly have known which one Smyth would have selected.”

  Des gave a low whistle. “Hidden poison...that’s new. Imagine if there was a liquid centre. How would it get in there? As the tablet was formed? That would require complex equipment to seal the outer shell at a temperature that allowed the inner liquid to stay liquid. Or was it injected through the outer shell into the centre? And if it was then how did they stop it from seeping into the surrounding blue material and becoming obvious from visible staining, or maybe even the whole tab crumbling apart? Plus, they’d have had to have left a central hollowed-out chamber to hold the liquid, if it was liquid; the poison could be in solid form at the tablet’s core after all. Although making a chamber should be simple enough, just a matter of moulding it right and-”

  John held up a hand to halt his exposition. “I don’t mean to be rude, Des,” which almost always really meant ‘But I don’t care if I am’, “but working that out is your bit. All I know is that Smyth didn’t die naturally or from external violence, and a poison that causes asphyxia is a good bet.” He rose from his chair. “I don’t imagine Smyth was short on enemies. He had several tattoos that said he held dodgy opinions.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like a nasty little swastika on his arm amongst others. I’ll show you the photographs later when I’ve finished my report.” The pathologist turned for the door.“I need to get back to it, but...” He cast a meaningful look at the scientist’s feet, “...don’t let me keep you from your dance. You never know when you might get the call to appear on Strictly.”

  Then he left, performing a little shuffle of his own.

  ****

  The M1 Motorway. 11 a.m.

  When the calls had been made: the first to Des requesting that he pass the SIM’s number, and after he’d finished with it the SIM itself over to Davy, rush through the chemical analysis and let them know immediately of any prints found in the cell so that they could rule them in or out; and the second to John, to see if anything in his view of Smyth’s death had altered since the day before, including an increased possibility of suicide, which the pathologist nixed, and being rewarded by a tease that they would be getting some interesting photographs of Derek Smyth’s body art sent through very soon, Craig slid his mobile back into his pocket and turned to look out at the rapidly passing scenery.

  It wasn’t just idle observation but a deliberate attempt to induce parallel awareness; a form of focused self-hypnosis in which he sometimes did his best work. It was a phenomenon that people experienced every day when they travelled somewhere familiar, even if driving themselves, and managed to arrive safely without being able to recall a single step along the way.

  But today, instead of that focus yielding amazing insights into why and who had ‘done Derek Smyth to death’ as they used to say in lurid Penny Dreadfuls, Craig found himself being nagged by his always noisy conscience to tell his deputy something that by rights their closeness meant that he should have told him months before.

  As a prelude to the great reveal he reached over and turned down the volume on Radio Ulster, having heard quite enough Brexit debate in the past year to do him for the rest of his life.

  Liam objected instantly.

  “I was listening to that!”

  “Haven’t you heard enough of politicians shouting at each other?”

  The D.C.I. conceded the point. “OK. So you turned it down because it was annoying you.”

  Craig shook his head. “Not only that. I need to talk to you about something.”

  Liam immediately shook his head in alarm. “Here now, I don’t like the sound of that! That sounds like the sort of thing the Christian Brothers used to say just before they gave you the cane.”

  Craig was tempted to ask how often Liam had been caned at school and for what, but that particular confession would have to wait for another day.

  “Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad. I just wanted to tell you something that I probably should have told you ages ago.” He swallowed hard and then blurted it out. “I’m about to become a father!”

  To his profound shock, instead of the astonishment, guffaw or expletive that he’d expected, his deputy merely gave a small nod.

  “Congratulations.”

  It certainly wasn�
�t the reaction that Craig had been bracing himself for, and to be honest he was a bit put out.

  “Congratulations! That’s all you’ve got to say?”

  Liam stifled a smile and kept his eyes firmly on the road.

  “Big congratulations then. But you’re not the first man to become a dad, you know. Intentionally or otherwise.”

  Craig’s dark eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You knew, didn’t you?”

  “I’m pleading the fifth on that.”

  “You’re not American so you can’t. OK, spit it out. When did you find out?”

  The D.C.I.’s smile emerged into the open. “Well, now... you remember when Des was hammering the stone off those bones at the hospital...”

  Craig’s jaw dropped. He was talking about a case they’d investigated in August where Des had used an ultrasound machine at the local Health Trust to shatter concrete from around some long buried skeletal remains. Four months! Liam had known about the baby for four months and not said a bloody word!

  “Ah, now you’re wondering how I guessed, aren’t you? And how I’ve managed to keep quiet about it all this time.”

  Craig nodded, still dumbstruck.

  “Aye, well, I saw Katy in the corridor when I went looking for the toilet that day.” He omitted to say that he’d deliberately trekked around half the hospital just so that he could see her. “And I’ve enough sisters and kids of my own to recognise the signs. As far as saying nothing about it goes, well...I couldn’t until I was sure it was yours, could I? You might have taken the hump.”

  Taking the hump being one of Craig’s particular skills.

  “And even then I thought it was your business so you’d bring it up when you wanted to.”

  Craig fell back in his seat and when his words finally came they were just two. “Who else?”

  “In the team? No-one. None of them know anything and they won’t unless it comes from you.” The deputy turned in his seat for a moment to grin at his boss then turned his gaze back to the road. “Huge congrats, I’d say. When’s it due?”