The Depths

by Catriona King

  Craig cut back in. “Good, yes. And also, Davy, the violent suicide in Rownton last night that Aidan and Ryan are going to pick up on; see if there’s anything useful on the victim.” He turned to his deputy. “What was the name, Liam?”

  “Derek Morrow. He ate his gun.”

  Craig waited for a cry of dismay or a tut of disgust at the graphic description, and was saddened when none came. Not only because it showed that the rest of his team were just as jaded as he was, but because it reminded him that Annette, the person who would have been guaranteed to give such a reaction, wasn’t there.

  “Isn’t anyone revolted by that image?”

  A series of shrugs and grunts said not.

  “Then you’re all either watching too many box-sets or you’re burning out. I’m ordering anyone who has holiday owing to take it before the end of the financial year in April.”

  He glanced across to his PA, “Alice can make up a Rota,” and then back at his analysts, returning to the case. “Davy, can you get through all that work?”

  The model shook his head, which he was starting to realise felt cold as well as naked. Maybe he should buy a hat and wear it until his hair grew back.

  “Not me, chief. Ash will be doing most of the work. I’ve a presentation to organise.”

  Craig nodded, “Sorry, yes, I did remember that earlier. Where are you giving it again?”

  “Geneva. On the fifteenth. It’s the annual W...World IT in Criminology Conference. WICC for short. They’ve asked me to talk about my research.”

  It brought a smile to both Craig’s and his deputy’s faces, but for different reasons.

  “Excellent, Davy. Well done.”

  Liam was positively grinning now so the analyst felt compelled to ask. “Are you just happy for me, Liam, or what?”

  “No. I mean, yeh, well done and all that shit, but I was just picturing what your audience would look like. It’ll be wall to wall specs, ponytails, beards and headphones. Nerds International.”

  “We’re not nerds, we’re geeks, because we’re interested in technology. Nerds are just obsessed with any old stuff, like Des is obsessed with finding lumps of metal in the ground.”

  The forensic scientist went metal detecting in his spare time.

  The analyst added breezily. “And I’ll have you know that we’re a very sexy bunch.”

  As Liam’s jaw dropped at his unaccustomed boldness, Craig took advantage of the pause to change the subject before his PA told them off for their language again. Alice had, perhaps not unreasonably, an objection to people contravening work regulations by swearing, being lewd or eating at their desks. He wasn’t about to censor his team, who worked far too many hours for far too little pay, but as a concession they’d built a new staff-room at the back of the office before Christmas, and although so far attempts at getting people to limit their use of expletives to the small enclosure had failed abysmally they had stopped eating at their desks so he supposed that was progress of a sort.

  “OK, Davy, I don’t mind who does the work as long as it’s done.”

  He jumped off the desk he was seated on and turned towards the floor’s exit.

  “Right, you all know what you’re doing, so get to it. Liam and I have somewhere to be. Call me as and when.”

  On his way out he stopped at his secretary’s desk. “Alice, if Doctor Marsham rings through with any forensics please pass him to Davy.” He called back to the analyst. “Davy, phone me with any updates, please. We’ll brief again either at six or first thing tomorrow. I’ll let Alice know which.”

  Even as he said it he knew that Aidan and Ryan wouldn’t be back from Rownton that evening, so he changed his mind.

  “Make that tomorrow.”

  Then the two murder detectives disappeared into the lift, on their way to see a third who’d just received some very bad news.

  ****

  Dublin. 3p.m.

  Róisín Casey wasn’t showing half as much reverence to her Chanel courts as she had to their matching handbag earlier, kicking her office wall hard in frustration again and again. It wasn’t because she had so many pairs of shoes that she didn’t care; well, she did have, but each pair was like a work of art so to damage them in any way was a crime in her eyes, unless... something so bad had happened that her rage was uncontrollable, which was the state in which she found herself now, prompted by some information she’d received hours before about a builder called Derek Morrow that had the potential to bring her carefully constructed world tumbling down.

  Carefully constructed and meticulously crafted in every way. From the money she spent on her elegant appearance: hair, face, teeth and style, the total each year something that she couldn’t bear to think about; to the even greater amount of time and effort she’d invested in the past on deportment, elocution lessons and reinventing herself, converting the girl from the slums of Limerick into the grand Dublin lady that she was today.

  She’d been what they used to call on the London Stock Exchange ‘a barrow boy’; a working class, street-wise kid who’d made it big. In her case she’d taken the skills she’d learnt from generations of her family who’d made a living selling their wares in Ireland’s street markets, all of them Travellers until her parents, and applied them to trading on the world’s markets, and it had brought her some of the financial stability that she had today. Some.

  Now, between her looks, her job and her apartment in the right part of town, Dublin’s elite thought of her as one of their own, and that was the way that she intended it to stay. And no stupid bloody builder who’d lost his nerve and decided to blow his head off was going to bring her down.

  Her frustration vented and the toes of her beige stilettos irreparably damaged, Róisín kicked them off and slumped down behind her desk, swivelling her high-backed chair around to face Dublin’s arterial river, the Liffey, as she replayed her earlier telephone conversation in her head.

  Arthur, frightened and anxious, and desperate to pass on what he’d heard to someone who knew Derek Morrow, even though he had no idea of the information’s potential significance to her. He’d simply chosen her because Morrow had worked on their quarry.

  She knew that her initial reaction had shocked Arthur; swearing and shouting and then giving him a list of orders to follow and call her back. When he had done she’d wrecked her shoes, but now that she was a little calmer Róisín Casey was wondering just how worried she really needed to be. Derek Morrow had reportedly left behind a goodbye letter for his wife, a list of his important documents and that was all, and the reason she knew that much was because she’d insisted that Arthur pay the local undertaker a bung to tell him.

  But now she decided that she needed two more things to make certain that Morrow’s death didn’t incriminate her: sight of the documents that the builder had left, and a way to pin the reason for his suicide on something completely unrelated to the truth. Something feasible but something that could never possibly lead back to her.

  It was Róisín’s eureka moment and prompted her to call back the elderly man that she’d sworn at earlier. Arthur Norris recognised who was calling him immediately and swallowed hard before he answered in a subdued voice.

  “Yes, Róisín.”

  His timorousness made the banker purr inwardly with satisfaction. She liked her subordinates frightened; it made them far more likely to do as they were told.

  But charm had its role to play in coercion as well, so Róisín decided to employ some and adopted her silkiest tone.

  “Arthur... I think perhaps I was a little naughty when you called me earlier about Derek.”

  Naughty? Never mind the word’s wide-ranging and sometimes enjoyable connotations, even using it made her smile. It was a middle-class word, a semi-cultured word, a word that would never have passed her impoverished mother’s lips and probably still hadn’t; she wouldn’t know because she never saw her family now, their every word and gesture so working-class that they would have proved an impediment on her
ascent to the top.

  Norris’ response was huffy.

  “Yes, you were. I was only passing on information.”

  “And I realise that now, Arthur. I’m so sorry I overreacted.”

  She doubted that her emollience would have been enough to sooth him if she hadn’t also slept with the old man; she made it a point to sleep with every man in her employ soon after she hired them, finding that the promise of it happening again, which it rarely did, was usually enough to keep them sweet for life. For her female employees she bought a matching bag and shoes.

  Norris was still unimpressed.

  “Huh.”

  Time to bring in the big guns.

  “Won’t you forgive me?” emerged in a saccharin, wheedling tone that even though it made her teeth ache she knew turned him on. It did the trick.

  “Well, OK then. I suppose.”

  Her tone immediately became brisk. Teasing men with the goodies didn’t mean that you had to deliver them.

  “Good. Now, tell me again what happened with Derek.”

  Norris waved bye-bye to any faint hope of sex and answered with a resigned sigh.

  “One of his men knocked at the site portakabin, that was Derek’s office, this morning, and opened the door to find his head spread all over the wall.” Delightful. “As I said earlier, he left two envelopes addressed to his wife, and my undertaker got a look at them before the body was removed to the morgue. He said that one letter was Derek saying sorry to his wife for killing himself but he just couldn’t cope with his work stress anymore, and the other was his bank details, Will and funeral papers.”

  Róisín waited for what she thought was an appropriate time to pretend respect for the dead and then gave an order.

  “I want copies of everything.”

  Norris frowned, partly at himself. He should have anticipated the request; after all he knew how controlling she was. But all the same... it seemed a bit rich to photocopy a man’s last words to his wife.

  “The undertaker won’t like it.”

  “Then give him a bonus. And we’ll need to invent a better reason than work stress for why Morrow did himself in. It’s far too thin.”

  He didn’t think so, but then his was never the last word. “Why? And like what?”

  “Why, is my business. As for what...”

  She thought for a moment, remembering Morrow’s request that she dress up in a bunny girl outfit the second and absolutely final time that they’d gone to bed.

  “Right. I want you to find a girl, young and tarty. A stripper’s probably best, but whatever. Just as long as she’s prepared to tell the local papers that she and Morrow were having an affair and she’d ended it the day before he took the shot. They’ll think he killed himself for love and that should be enough to stop people digging further. She can say that they were planning to run away together or some other tripe and she broke his heart.”

  Norris’ mouth had been opened to object since “girl” and now he did.

  “We can’t do that! What about his wife? They’d been married for twenty years! It’ll break her heart if she thinks Derek was unfaithful.” He crossed his arms mentally and his next words reflected the defiant stance. “I won’t do it.”

  Róisín’s previously efficient tone became a hiss. “Yes, you will, Arthur. And do you know why?”

  He gulped out a response, really not wanting to hear what she said next. “Why?”

  “Because if you don’t do this to Derek’s wife then I’ll make damn sure that it happens to yours.”

  It was her backup approach with her married male employees and it always kept them in line.

  ****

  Annette Eakin’s Home. East Belfast.

  Craig didn’t know which concerned him more, the fact that his normally neatly presented inspector had answered the door to them wearing an un-ironed dress over a pair of worn leggings and with hair that obviously hadn’t seen a comb for days, or the fact that she’d walked into her pretty living room ahead of them so slowly that both he and his deputy had pretty much been stepping on the spot. Both things were worrying indications of her low state of mind, something that despite the depressing letter that she’d received that morning he intended to change.

  When she slumped into an armchair and pulled a fake-fur throw around her without even offering them tea Craig knew that it was time to take charge, something that out of good manners he usually tried to avoid doing in someone else’s home.

  Liam had no such qualms and headed straight for the kitchen. “Tea or coffee, you two?”

  Seeing that his D.I. wasn’t going to reply, Craig did so for them both.

  “One of each, Liam, and make them strong and sweet.”

  As his deputy got to it Craig glanced around and found a footstool, planted it in front of his inspector’s chair and sat down, then without asking for permission he reached out and enfolded her only visible hand in his.

  “OK, Annette. I know you’ve received a notice of the likely charges and you probably feel like the sky’s about to fall in, but it isn’t.” When there was no response he carried on. “The PPS have to assess two things before they proceed: is it in the public interest to prosecute you and is there enough evidence to convict?”

  Just then Liam reappeared and pushed a coffee into his free hand, setting Annette’s tea down by her side. She still wasn’t looking at either of them, but Craig forged ahead.

  “There’s no public interest in prosecuting you, Annette, and I’m not even sure what value anyone would find in it, given Pete’s behaviour towards you in the past.”

  At the mention of her dead ex she winced and jerked her hand away, but Craig continued undeterred.

  “Not even the gobby politicians who usually want the police hauled over the coals for breathing the wrong way are calling for it. Everyone accepts that Pete was put in prison for being violent to you, and that while he was in there he shivved another inmate.”

  The D.I. opened her mouth to speak and her voice when she did was weak. “But he hadn’t been violent for a year.”

  Craig shook his head at the implication.

  “He hadn’t been violent in Mahon, a high-security male prison, but he’d shivved a man in his first low-security placement, remember. That’s why he was sent to Mahon in the first place.”

  Her Majesty’s Prison Mahon in Armagh housed some of the most dangerous men that Northern Ireland had ever produced, which was saying something in a place where people had shot and bombed each other for thirty years.

  “And remember that there were no women to assault in prison, Annette, and in particular you weren’t there, the person that he was really angry with. The person that he blamed for getting him locked up.”

  Liam nodded in agreement. “Ach, sure the dogs in the street know that when Pete broke in here in the middle of the night it wasn’t to bring you Christmas presents!”

  She shook her head morosely. “He wasn’t carrying a weapon either.”

  The D.C.I. tutted noisily. “You didn’t know that, for God’s sake, and there were plenty of things in that bedroom he could have used! He could have knocked Mike out with a lamp in a second and cut your throat with the broken bulb.”

  She winced at the imagery.

  “Or even started on Carrie asleep next door. Everyone knows that, woman, so why don’t you?”

  Annette sprang forward in her chair, showing the first sign of energy since they’d arrived.

  “Then why are they talking about manslaughter? Pete broke into my house and I acted on reflex! He was looming over Mike so I shouted a warning, and then I shot at his arm to stop him, not kill him! But he turned just as I fired and...” Her next words were a wail... “Oh, God, I killed him...I killed the father of my children.”

  Craig reached for her hand again to soothe her, but she shook her head. “Amy and Jordan are devastated. They say they’re on my side, but maybe I deserve to go to jail-”

  Liam cut her off with a shout. “YOU DON’T
BLOODY DESERVE JAIL! STOP TALKING RUBBISH.” He carried on more quietly but still sternly. “Pete McElroy was a scrote, a cowardly wife beater and a burglar, and you can’t know what he would have done to Mike and you if you hadn’t woken up. I’m sorry for your kids and I’m sorry for you, girl, but you doing time won’t bring the bastard back.”

  Craig smiled inwardly as tortured Annette suddenly transformed into the reproving Annette of old.

  “Don’t you shout in my house!”

  “Well, stop talking tripe then!”

  Craig thought he caught a flicker of amusement on her face, but it faded as fast as it had appeared so he drove the conversation on.

  “The PPS need evidence to prosecute. So, OK, I know this is repetition, but how did Pete get in?”

  “The French doors in the sitting room were lying open, but the glass was intact and the lock wasn’t damaged so he must have slipped it.” She gave a shrug. “This used to be his house too, remember, so perhaps he knew that it was weak.”

  The information made Craig frown. “Was it weak?”

  “I hadn’t thought so, but I’d never looked at it much. Pete did all the house maintenance when we were together.”

  He parked the information for future reference and went on.

  “Did the police get any prints from the door?”

  “Yes. A full set. He didn’t bother to wear gloves. Probably thought his prints would be in the house anyway from years back so that would cover him.”

  The explanation, while logical, didn’t please Craig, but when he chased for the reason why it slipped away.

  “OK. They have you on discharging your weapon, which yes, you should have had in a lockbox, but let those of us who haven’t done it cast the first stone. There won’t be many when they’ve arrived home in the early hours at the end of a big case. Was the room pitch-black when you fired?”

  Annette shook her head immediately. “No, there’s a lamp down the street a bit. It casts a little light into our bedroom.”

  “So you saw that it was Pete, and what else?”