The Depths

by Catriona King

  He rebooted his PC and noted down the relevant information, waiting until Craig had finished to say, “OK, I can delete S...Shamus W...Wright’s and call back Ricky Murphy’s email now, that provider gives the facility.”

  Noticing that his usually mild stammer on ‘s’ and ‘w’ was more pronounced than usual, something that sometimes happened when his blood sugar dropped, he reached into his drawer for a piece of chocolate from his secret stash before going on.

  “It was after two a.m. in New Zealand when he sent it so it’s unlikely it’s been opened, but I’ll call at a decent hour just to check.” He stared at his screen and shook his head. “I’m just looking, chief, but it looks like Paul Rontgen’s mail provider doesn’t have a recall facility, s...so you’ll have to get his mum to delete it from hers as well. If she w...won’t do it, are you OK with me asking the providers to freeze the whole family’s accounts?”

  “Will it stop them downloading or forwarding the photo to anyone?”

  “Yep. And I can’t promise, but I’ll try to delete the image remotely from her email as well. I’ll tell you how to w...wipe it off the phone now.”

  Ignoring Rontgen’s outstretched hands and noisy objections Craig did just that and then left his analyst to it, using the twenty minutes until he called back to put the fear of God into the three youths. An eventual nod from his deputy told him that Mrs Rontgen had cooperated, although not without objections judging by his expression. When Liam held out his phone indicating that the loving parent would like a word with her son Craig could hear her shouting from several feet away.

  The D.C.I. chuckled. “The other two might get some sympathy for finding a corpse when they get home, but that one’s looking at a thick ear for getting his ma paid a visit by the cops.”

  Craig gave a small smile, and then confused his deputy by immediately shaking his head.

  “The problem is it still doesn’t solve our problem, Liam. Short of gagging the boys this will be all round the area tonight, and that means if the killer lives locally they’ll be forewarned and have plenty of time to concoct an alibi.”

  Liam shrugged. “There’s nothing we can do about that but warn the lads to keep schtum and get our own statement out. I’ll sort them while you make a plan.”

  It only took Craig five minutes to formulate one, but he knew it wasn’t going to be popular with his deputy. He wasn’t exactly thrilled about it either, because it entailed staying in Tyrone late and he and Katy were supposed to be viewing a house to buy that night. But needs must, so he made a note to ask her mother to go along instead and started to draft a holding press statement.

  When Liam returned he was rubbing his hands and looking satisfied.

  “Scared them into silence have you?”

  “And then some. Even that wee skitter Rontgen looks subdued.”

  “Good. I’ve spoken to the press office so they’ll put out an interim statement, but that doesn’t alter the fact that those three will contaminate the interview pool as soon as they leave here. We’ll need-”

  The D.C.I.’s face lit up. “To lock them up?”

  His optimism made Craig laugh. “I wish. But no. We-”

  Liam cut him off again, this time with a groan. “We’re not going home yet, are we? And it’s steak night too. ”

  Craig shook his head apologetically. “Sorry to interfere with your dietary needs, but I think we need to take their statements in front of a solicitor to discourage them from telling the world what they found.”

  “We’ll be here all bloody night!”

  “If necessary, yes, and if we are I promise I’ll buy you dinner. But it all depends how fast we work, so instead of standing there moaning go and gather the uniforms together so I can brief them, while I inform our young discoverers that we’ll be inviting all their parents down to the local station so we can get their statements again on tape.”

  Chapter Two

  The Atlantic Way Merchant Bank. Dublin Docklands. 6 p.m.

  Róisín Casey was just reapplying her lipstick ready to leave for dinner with her lover when the ID of a man who ran one of her minor enterprises flashed on her mobile phone.

  She answered the call in a surprised tone.

  “Arthur! How nice to hear from you, it’s been ages. But I wasn’t expecting your call and I’m in a bit of a hurry, so could we reschedule for another time?”

  “We really need to talk now, Róisín.”

  A sudden shard of anxiety brought with it a question, asked as calmly as she could muster.

  “Something’s wrong?”

  His answer confirmed her fears.

  “In a way.”

  This time her anxiety was obvious.

  “The mortgage company isn’t going well?”

  Small though it was she’d made a hefty investment in their joint Northern Irish mortgage business, persuaded by reports of increased house building in Belfast, and the thought of losing money was worse to her than the possible loss of a limb.

  She felt an overwhelming urge to cry as she waited for his answer.

  “The company’s doing so-so, but that’s not why I called you.”

  The tension in the elderly businessman’s voice took her aback, but not as much as his next words.

  “The police are in Rownton.”

  The banker inhaled sharply, picturing the isolated Tyrone village, and the limited reasons that anyone bar a shepherd or a dairy farmer might have for visiting there. Hope rose again at the thought that he might just have meant the local Bobbies, but when, “No. They’re definitely Belfast coppers” was the response to the question she squeezed out a, “Do you know why?” that was heavy with blame.

  Arthur Norris heard it but fought his immediate urge to cower to reply, “No, not yet.”

  The banker’s silent chastisement lingered so he rushed to add some information that, had he only but known it, was about to make things worse.

  “Marked and unmarked cars were seen driving through the village earlier, heading south-west, which is why I’m so worried. Then the village sergeant started questioning the locals. My mole says no-one’s come out looking worried yet, but...” He braced himself for her reaction to his next words. “...no-one’s saying what questions they were asked.”

  Róisín was still on ‘south-west’ but this time she hid her concerns behind a casual tone.

  “The south-west... isn’t that old mine we dug around there?”

  “Yes! That’s exactly my point. There’s nothing else that side of Rownton, so what if the police visiting has something to do with that? I always said environmental pollution there might come back to bite us.”

  The businesswoman glossed over his anxiety with a laugh. If he only but knew it, environmental issues were the least of her worries.

  “They won’t, Arthur, you’re just being paranoid. Hold on for a second while I pull up a map. I need to get my bearings. I only visited the damn place once.”

  Although by association far more often than that.

  Her land agent come gofer talked on as he waited. “That gold mine you sank was always a dud investment, Róisín. I told you that at the time. Three years getting permission to excavate, another three digging and all you got back was a ton of gold over its whole life. You should have just run it as the quarry it was originally.”

  She chided him for his negativity, pleased by his obvious ignorance of the quarry’s real significance to her.

  “Now, that wasn’t quite all, Arthur. That’s how we met, remember, when I engaged you as my agent to scout the land. If we hadn’t then we would never have gone on to bigger and better things.”

  “Well, the mortgage company’s bigger maybe, but I’m not sure how much better it is.”

  This time her admonishment was swift. “Are you getting cold feet about working for me? I need to know right now if you are.”

  He backtracked hastily, sensing that his pension was about to disappear. “No, no, I’m fine. It’s just that I get nervous when
I hear the police being mentioned, that’s all.”

  “So does everyone. It’s conditioning.” Something occurred to her. “Your mole down there... surely he’ll be called in for interview too? Then he’ll be able to tell us exactly what the cops want.”

  “That’s what I’m banking on. It’ll probably turn out to be a whole lot of nothing, but I still don’t like it. If the quarry is why the cops are in Rownton and there’s a pollution problem, they’ll find your consortium liable as the owners and me as the agent, and that could cost us all hefty fines.”

  The banker made soothing noises but her thoughts were on his words; ‘Pollution problem.’ Yes, well, she supposed you could describe a dead body like that.

  ****

  Rownton Police Station. Midnight.

  It had been after ten p.m. when the Belfast detectives had shut up their interviewing shop for the night after sorting out their teenage witnesses, and then the local sergeant had decided to pay them back for making him interview people that he played bowls and drank with, by handing them two hours extra work listening to complaints from the locals about the lack of neighbourhood Bobbies, the state of the roads, and the festival that was held in a field fifteen miles away every summer that, “Was almost enough to turn people deaf.”

  Craig noticed that no-one was complaining about people speeding down country roads in their tractors, the rural cash-in-hand economy, or the late opening hours at the village pub, which he was sure happened there as it did in practically every village in the land; but then all of those things probably suited the local people, especially the last.

  The evening had almost been a bust, with the interviews held drawing a blank on their dead man’s identity using his general description, his face far too distorted to try for a photo ID, but as nobody in the ten-square-mile hinterland that the village served was known to be missing they could probably rule their victim out as being a local man.

  What they had confirmed, just in time to warn everyone not to speak to the press as the national newspaper journalists’ and TV stations’ cars and vans had pulled up, was that John had been right and the quarry hadn’t been worked in over four years, and when it had been, most recently from twenty-twelve to twenty-fifteen, it hadn’t just produced granite or limestone like most in the country but had functioned as one of Northern Ireland’s first open-cast gold mining enterprises, which even though it had provided some local employment had been very unpopular.

  Possibly something to do with Irish gold rightly belonging to the Leprechauns and the removal of it therefore being bound to bring a heap of magical mischief down on their heads, or so Liam had announced in a manner that had allowed for no dispute. The pub landlord, Finbar Brolly, had been equally forthcoming on the supernatural subject, probably because he and Liam, both being large and robust country men, had hit it off immediately, bonding over their love of Celtic myths as well as GAA football.

  What Craig had learned that was factual was that there’d been a running battle with government planners and years of protests against the mine ever being sunk in an area of such natural beauty, and that more than one of those protests had turned to blows.

  When Brolly had finally left the interview room he turned the tape off with a smile.

  “You realise what that means don’t you?”

  Liam yawned loudly as he answered; his, “No, what?” emerging muffled, as if he was speaking through cotton wool.

  “It means there’ll be police reports on the quarry protests and maybe even tapes. The television companies wouldn’t have missed being here to report that. Our dead man might even be on one of them.”

  “Thrilling, I’m sure.”

  As Craig reached into his pocket for his mobile his deputy deliberately allowed him to dial and listen impatiently as the call rang out before pointing at the clock.

  “It’s midnight, boss! You didn’t seriously expect anyone to still be in the office, did you?”

  The D.C.I. realised halfway through the question that he really had. To him investigating a murder was a twenty-four-seven job.

  Craig’s only response was, “OK, so tonight...”

  When the sentence tailed off there, Liam made a guess at its ending.

  “Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be Cher?”

  It made his boss chuckle. “Very witty, although Dean Martin’s more my style.”

  “You wish.”

  Craig didn’t dignify the jibe with a comeback. “Right, so, tonight we need to make the decision whether to go home or stay here.”

  “That depends on whether we need to be here in the morning, doesn’t it, Dino. So do we?”

  Craig considered his options for a moment then he shook his head and rose to his feet.

  “No, we don’t. The first interviews on the villagers have almost been completed, and they’ve been warned about the press. But we can’t gag them, so that’ll work out whatever way it’s going to. There are still farm people in the hinterland to speak to, especially out near the quarry, but I think I’ll get Andy and Aidan to take those.”

  Liam smiled at his use of ‘farm people’ as opposed to just ‘people’, having been a ‘farm person’ himself in his youth. It was as if they were a different species and it was such an obviously city term. Mind you, he’d referred to city folk far less politely than that when he was a boy.

  He clambered to his feet. “OK, so home now and tomorrow we head to the lab for the PM results. Meanwhile the geeks can dig out your protest footage and let’s hope all that puts a name on our man.”

  He kept talking as they walked to the car. “It’s a bit odd that after getting through all that protesting the owners abandoned the mine after only three years isn’t it.”

  Craig shrugged. “I suppose. Maybe the gold ran out. Even the gold rush in the Klondike ended eventually.”

  “The Leprechauns will have had a hand in it, although I suppose it still needs checked out. If they left the mine because of harassment from the locals we might get something tasty on our Vic.”

  “Good thinking, Batman.”

  Craig lifted a comic bearing that very title off from the car’s rear shelf, then placed it over his face and reclined his seat.

  “Right, I’m going to sleep. We’ll talk about it tomorrow morning.” He made a sweeping ‘wagons-ho’ gesture. “Home, James.”

  ****

  Rownton Village. Morrow’s Construction Works. Wednesday, 1 a.m.

  Derek Morrow had a calculation to make and he knew that it wasn’t going to work out neatly; not like the precise maximum weight that a crane could carry or the tallest point from which a boulder could be dropped before it broke. He liked calculations like those and experienced an almost visceral pleasure from getting them right, thrilled when a wrecking ball hit a wall on the perfect spot to bring it down with one blow, or when a concrete beam slotted into position in a way that demonstrated just how a new house would take shape.

  But those things involved processes that he could control; empirical measurements and machinery, any element of human error all but removed by employing only people that he’d worked with for years. But this other thing... this thing that he’d stupidly decided to get involved in; it had been messy and risky and unclean from the start.

  God only knew why he’d done it, risked everything for the promise of money, and pushed every principle that he’d held aside for gain. But even as the construction boss was asking himself the question he knew the answer; he’d done it because the cushy job that Arthur Norris had arranged for him at the quarry had presented him with an unexpected opportunity that he hadn’t had the moral fibre to refuse.

  Morrow stared in the site portaloo’s mirror and saw a sixty-year-old face that looked seventy staring back, its contours long buried beneath fat and weathered sagging, and further blurred now by the whiskey he had on board. He’d been drinking his work stash solidly since he’d left the pub that afternoon and now his drunkenness was forcing him to be honest. No, he hadn’t just
done it because Arthur had given him a job; his offer had been innocent and his knowledge of their sordid business nil. Arthur’s work was limited to advising on property: bricks and mortar, quarries and houses; but the thing that he’d chosen to get involved in was evil and he’d done it purely for gain.

  Despite all the years that he’d slogged and worried his construction business had barely kept his family afloat, and the money that he’d been offered to keep his mouth shut had simply been too much to pass up. It had made their past few months enjoyable and it would make his wife and children secure when he was gone.

  And even though he knew that he should have been a better man than to make an easy life his priority, he obviously wasn’t; what he’d done had proved that he was greedy and amoral, and if there was a God he fully expected to pay the price for those failings after his death.

  As the reality of his situation hit him Morrow felt nauseous and turned quickly to the sink, closing his eyes tight and splashing his face with cold water until the wave had finally passed. It didn’t help much; the images that had dogged him for weeks had reappeared the moment his eyes had shut, and they were joined now by a certainty that whatever the police were up to in the village it would have something to do with him.

  As the builder’s eyes sprang open again he made a decision; he’d done his duty and warned Arthur but now he had to take care of the people that he loved. He grabbed for the door handle and exited the tiny lavatory, storming across the muddy site to his portakabin office and locking its door. If the police were planning on questioning everyone then they would reach him tomorrow and he knew that he would buckle and betray people; he also knew that he couldn’t do that, for his family’s sake.

  And being the precise man that he was Derek Morrow had anticipated such an event and had everything ready, so he took a seat behind his desk, opened a drawer on one side and removed two envelopes. A bulky one filled months before with bank account details, his Will and funeral arrangements, and a second, slimmer one that he replaced each week containing an updated letter to his wife and kids.