Crossing The Line

by Catriona King

  Craig cut him off. “Swallow that bloody thing before you say another word, Liam. I’ve seen quite enough of your tonsils for one day.”

  A loud gulp said he’d got his wish and the D.C.I. continued with a sniff. “And skill. Plus both parts have to start off as liquids. The outer coat needs to be liquid or paste to be moulded, and the inner one needs to stay liquid.”

  It brought a puzzled frown to Andy’s face. “Why?”

  Craig sat forward. “Why what?”

  “Why does the centre have to stay liquid, hey? I can see the outer material needs to be semi-liquefied for the moulding process, but why not just make the central core solid as well? As long as they get the two drugs the junkies won’t care. And if a tab was being designed to kill someone like in your case, then why not just make the whole thing out of poison, hey?”

  Two good points.

  Craig shrugged. “Making the whole tab from poison might have been expensive, or it might have been hard to acquire enough, depending on what it was. We don’t have its name yet. On the recreational drugs side, I suppose we just based the liquid core assumption on the fact that the tablets we found had one and carried the idea through.”

  The Derry D.C.S. nodded slowly. “OK, I can see that, and the fact that Smyth’s poison was liquid tells us that they can make liquid cores, but I’m just suggesting that maybe they won’t want to all the time-”

  Liam wasn’t to be outdone. “Maybe it will vary with the drug. Some already come in liquid form like GBL, so they leave them that way, and others are solid, like say cannabis resin. The gelatine would allow for using either form.”

  Craig nodded in agreement. “Although... the liquid core might be more of a novelty, in the same way that some people prefer solid mints but others like to bite into a liquid core. Consumer preference.”

  Andy gawped in realisation. “Designer drugs! People can choose their combo and form and pay through the nose for it.”

  Liam chuckled. “Makes a change from sniffing the drugs through it, eh?”

  Andy’s glum expression said that he wasn’t quite ready for the joke. “Aw, crap, this is really bad news, hey. As soon as this hits the market it’ll be everywhere.”

  Craig motioned him to carry the thought through.

  “Well, take Derry for instance. We cleared out most of the street dealers because they were easy, hey. They either ran a county lines operation or stood on the street corners themselves, or at the most sophisticated we’re talking home delivery. The dealers were visible and most of their customers local and limited to small purchases by their finances, so you’re talking ten pound hits of weed or tabs, or at the most maybe fifty for coke. But this stuff...”

  The others spoke together, “High rollers” and Craig finished the thought. “You’re concerned that this combo will attract people with big money.”

  Andy sighed. “At first, yes. A two-drug combo will be a novelty that the big spenders won’t be able to resist, hey. But if they want to kill themselves that’s their problem, I’m more worried about the kids. Once the combo idea becomes popular with the rich it’ll become glamorous and something to aspire to, and then word will spread on social media and the dark web. When the method for making it spreads as well then the price will drop and then people who normally only have a tenner for weed will be able to try complex mixes and it’ll go off the charts.”

  “Higher demand, greater supply.”

  The Drugs D.C.S. took a quick sip of coffee and went on, his words increasing in speed. “It’ll hit the dance clubs, with God knows how many deaths because youngsters won’t check what they’re taking, hey. The combos could be lethal unless they’re carefully thought through. I mean, what happens if two uppers are combined or two downers? The first pair could give them a heart attack and the second could stop them breathing for good.”

  Liam joined in. “And once it hits street level you’ll get all sorts of crap being shoved in, and then-”

  Craig raised a hand to stop them spiralling. “OK, I’m going to play devil’s advocate here. There are people who’ll say; so what? We’ve already got street drugs being cut with other stuff so combos are nothing new.”

  Andy shook his head. “We both know that ‘other stuff’ is usually flour or bicarb, and it’s only added to bulk one gram up to ten, hey. Unless something lethal like rat poison is cut in then it won’t do much harm, and no dealer’s going to do that and kill his repeat business.”

  “Right, so why would any dealer combine two drugs to be lethal? Apart from in Derek Smyth’s case and that was deliberate.”

  Andy sat forward earnestly. “Ignorance of their effects and interactions, that’s why. Dealers are dumb enough to rationalise that if the drugs aren’t lethal on their own then why worry if they’re combined, which is crap of course. It’ll be like those kids at Pharmacy Parties who take their parents’ prescription tabs and dump them all in a bowl, then grab a handful at random. Some handfuls get them high and some kill them. The drug combos will mostly be non-lethal and exciting, so any deaths will just be chalked up as unlucky and it won’t put anyone off, hey.” He sat back again, shaking his head. “I’m telling you. Liquid or solid, people will see the combo aspect as a real novelty and take the risk to get high.” He looked at the other men in turn. “We can’t let these get out on the street. We need to find out who’s making this crap.”

  Craig nodded and rose to his feet. “Agreed, and I believe our best way of doing that is to come at this from two sides. We pursue Smyth’s murderer and follow any trail we pick up on the drugs, and you come at it from the drugs end.”

  Andy nodded. “Sounds about right.”

  “Good.” Craig opened his office door. “We’ve made some inroads on the drugs aspect so I’ll get that to you, but let’s hear what else is happening first.” Something occurred to him. “By the way, are you staying in town or heading back to the second city to work on things?”

  The Derry man sniffed. “I’ll ignore that insult.” He glanced out the window at Belfast, feigning anguish, “It looks like I’ll need to stay in this Godforsaken backwater for a few days, hey.”

  Craig responded by walking out to his PA’s desk. “Alice, could you assist D.C.S. White by booking him a hotel for a few days, please.”

  She nodded primly. “I could indeed. But who shall I say is paying?”

  “Put it on my card and I’ll claim it back.”

  Andy forgave Craig’s second city jibe straight away. “That’s wild decent of you, man.”

  Liam chuckled. “He’s in a good mood these days.”

  Any chance that he might get to explain why was eliminated by a sharp glance from his boss.

  ****

  Warehouse Lane. The Cathedral Quarter, Belfast.

  “Fuck me, that was a nightmare.”

  The businessman nodded languidly to the girl dancing in front of him adorned in a confection of sequins, gauze and little else as he listened to Rory McCrae, making, when he could be bothered to, neutral responses to the rubbish being spewed down the phone into his ear.

  McCrae continued raving, convinced that he had an interested audience, although if he’d possessed even slightly more than the amoebic intellect he did have then he would have worked out that his associate, partner being too grand a word and implying a formality to their arrangement that didn’t exist and an equality that definitely didn’t, wasn’t listening to a word he said.

  “Those fuckin’ cops bringin’ the boss wi’ them wuz bad enuf, but leavin’ him here after they left was downright crule.”

  On ‘cops’ the businessman’s ears pricked up, and by ‘boss’ he was pulling himself up straight in his chair, his deafness to the Loyalist’s ranting suddenly being cured by the ‘cocktail party effect’, a phenomenon whereby even in a noisy environment such as a party we always hear important words, such as our names, ‘sex’, ‘murder’ and so on.

  On this occasion ‘cops’ and ‘boss’ had done the trick, resulting in the bus
inessman waving away the girl in front of him with a nod to his minder that said “sign her up.” He turned his full attention to his caller, cutting across McCrae’s, “An’ the boss is still the bastard he alays wuz, even if he duz believe in God now an’ have scraggy hair -” with, “Police?”

  “Aye, cops. Like I said...”

  The response was given in an absent-minded tone, as if having ranted about them at length Craig and Liam had now somehow ceased to exist.

  “... Murder caps. They wuz askin’ about Decker Smyth.”

  The man’s voice cooled. “Exactly what about Derek Smyth?”

  McCrae kept digging his hole, blissfully unaware that the temperature had just dropped.

  “Ach, jest how I knew that Decker wuz deed. That’s awl.”

  “You told them that you knew?”

  “They worked it out, musta guessed. They asked how I knew, so I told ’em I gat a call from one of my men in Mahon.” Suddenly sensing disapproval he hastened to add, “After he’d seen the cops there, like. Nat that any of my lads, us, had killed him, like.”

  A single word response added to his stress.

  “Us?”

  The word was imbued with so much venom that it made Rory McCrae want to drop the phone and run, but instead he dug even deeper.

  “No, I didn’t say us. I’m jest sayin’ it now, like, tee you. ’Cos like, the cops asked me how many UKUF lads wuz in Mahon.”

  He prayed that it was enough to get him a reprieve; the businessman might be associating with him to their mutual gain at the moment, but normal service would soon resume and with it the threat of reprisal if he had done anything wrong.

  After a moment’s silence the man spoke again.

  “The police were curious about your men.”

  McCrae rushed to answer the non-question.

  “Aye. The slick one Craig asked me how many UKUF wuz inside Mahon.” A puzzled note entered his voice. “Then he asked me if they mixed wi’ other Loyalists.” Puzzle was replaced by indignation, “But I said I’d niver let them melt wi’ those Ligoniel or Shankill scum!”

  The businessman tapped the table in front of him hard, summoning his guard to his side. Depending on Rory McCrae’s next words the bulky security man would be dispatched across town to kill the Loyalist, so it was good to put him on alert.

  He asked the only really important question.

  “Did the police ask about anyone else?”

  Unintelligent as he was, and even his mother had admitted as much, Rory McCrae possessed an animal guile and sense of self-preservation that had taken him to the top of UKUF, and as he heard the steel in his so-called ally’s voice he realised that if there was ever a time to use those talents then it was now.

  “They asked me about my lads bein’ in a gang, I mean what the fuck wuz that about? Af course we’re in a gang! But he was interested in if they mixed wi’ other gangs in Mahon, the Loyalist ones.”

  “Only them?”

  It was time to use his God given ignorance as a shield. “Aye. Why?”

  For his part the businessman felt that it was time to make the threat of violence more explicit, to discourage any future slips of the tongue.

  “Because if you had mentioned me or my men I would have had you killed.” He glanced at his guard who was checking his SIG Sauer in preparation for his trip. “My man here is eager to finish you off.”

  McCrae’s eyes widened so much that they nearly popped out of his head, and as he dropped his feet off his desk and lurched forward, his never exactly deep voice rose to a squeak.

  “Wat?! Wat fer?”

  “I told you that if anyone ever found out about our connection then you would suffer.” The businessman’s voice acquired an amused tone. “But as you did not say anything there is no problem, is there? Now, tell me who you meant by the boss? I thought you were UKUF’s head.”

  McCrae was still focused on his death threat so he returned to the point.

  “But wat happens if the cops find out about us wurkin’ together? They wont heer it from me, but wat if they do?”

  “You had better hope that they do not. Now, who is this boss?”

  “Tommy Hill. He wuz the boss here before me.” McCrae answered the question vaguely, his mind on his own mortality and whether or not he should think about getting out of town. “He wuz just nosyin’ about Decker. I didn’t tell him nathin’ neither.”

  “Good. Keep it that way.”

  The businessman leaned forward in his seat, making them bookends at the end of a line.

  “But if the police are querying people mixing inside Mahon then we need to take the next step now. Is your man prepared?”

  McCrae said nothing, his mind already on a ferry to Scotland, so the man prompted him again.

  “Aye, aye. He’s still got half the tabs we sent in. He’ll use those.”

  There was a sound of air being sucked in through teeth.

  “What if he decides to try one himself?”

  McCrae relaxed slightly, back on more solid ground. The threat of being killed had lifted for now and they were talking about Joyboy Morris, a man that he could easily control.

  “He won’t. Sure, he knows they’re poison. Anyway, Joyboy’s a sound man. Loyal”

  There was a sceptical snort. “You thought Smyth was your loyal man and he decided to branch out on his own!”

  The paramilitary lashed back. “So did yours!” Something occurred to him. “Anyway, who’s takin’ over on yer side once we kill yer scumbag?”

  “I have another man lined up and I will give you his name when the job’s done. Now, tell me in detail how it’s going to happen so that we can move along with our other plans.”

  ****

  The C.C.U. Murder Squad.

  “OK, let’s make this very quick.” Craig gestured to the man at his side, wondering whether to just introduce him or outline the whole concept of them working with SOC as a permanent thing. He decided on a bit of both.

  “OK, most of you know D.C.S. Andy White-” He was cut off by a loud, “Ooh...” from the back of the group and turned to see Aidan giving the Dungiven man a bow.

  “D.C.S. is it now? We’re not worthy.”

  Andy nodded graciously. “That’s because you never were, Hughes, so you’d better remember your place, hey.”

  It resulted in the group breaking into laughter and Craig having to wait almost a minute before order was restored.

  “Yes, yes, we have a new D.C.S. in our midst and I’m sure he’ll sign autographs afterwards, but for now, D.C.S. White is here at the Chief Constable’s behest because we’re going to be working with Serious and Organised Crime on the drugs side of this case from now on.”

  Andy nudged the other D.C.I.. “That’s why that SOC guy looked so impressed when we mentioned the chief’s name. He must have known.”

  It prompted a frown from Aidan. If SOC had already heard then that meant the working together wasn’t just an ad hoc thing, but he parked asking the obvious question as Craig moved on.

  “So, AAR, I want no more than a five minute update for D.C.S. White on everything you learnt from customs, Karl and anything else you’ve found out on the drugs side. Annette, ditto on whatever you discovered about gangs, and Davy and Ash, the same on the background searches and anything else you’ve got, please.”

  As Aidan kicked off Annette beckoned Craig across. He pulled up a seat beside her and leaned in as she dropped her voice to a whisper.

  “The gangs in the prisons here are mainly Loyalists, Republicans, Europeans and far-right. And there’s overlap between the first and the last of those in particular, but D.C.I. Hamill also said that when someone’s addicted to drugs all the flags seem to blur.”

  “OK. You need to tell D.C.S. White that too.”

  She nodded. “OK, And D.C.I. Hamill also said that as well as the counterfeit med imports there are some being produced here, but he didn’t have anything more on that. There was something else too, sir. When I asked him ab
out gangs inside Mahon specifically he got very cagey. He just recited what he’d already said and then rushed us out.”

  Craig felt a sudden spark of excitement. “What do your instincts tell you?”

  The D.I. had been feeling pretty sure of her ground, but now that she had to put those feelings into words to her boss she could feel self-doubt holding her back. But Craig didn’t doubt her. Annette was good, far better than she gave herself credit for, so he nodded her on with an encouraging smile.

  “Say it. Whatever it is you’ll be right.”

  A glance that said “you asked for it” and she did.

  “I think... I really think that D.C.I. Hamill has an officer undercover inside Mahon.”

  She fell back heavily in her chair, as if it was a relief that the words were out. When Craig didn’t move or speak she sat forward again and stared into his face, unable to read the expression there. After a few more seconds silence Craig caught his deputy’s eye and beckoned him across.

  “Tell Liam what you just told me, Annette, about the gangs, drugs and the rest.”

  A moment later Liam was wearing the same look as his boss; a frowning, half-puzzled expression that said they needed clarity right away. As the men rose and made for the door, Craig looked back at his inspector.

  “You’re coming as well, Annette.” A questioning look from Andy White made him add, “Don’t go anywhere. We’ll be back in ten.”

  Three sets of feet hurried off the floor and down the stairs, eventually coming to a halt outside Geoff Hamill’s door.

  As Craig lifted his hand to knock, a disembodied voice said, “Come in, Liam” adding as the door opened, “and no cracks about my height.”

  Liam chuckled. “How’d you know it was me?”

  “No-one else has feet that loud.”

  As Liam and Craig always worked together Hamill looked unsurprised when both men entered. He seemed to have been expecting Annette as well.