The Tribes

by Catriona King

  As he sat back and folded his arms Nicky knew the line in the sand was about to be drawn.

  “But there can’t be any compromise on murder cases. They have to be dealt with before our interests get a look in. Agreed?”

  If Ash had still thought he was being persuaded, Davy’s tone said he’d given as much ground as he could or would. But whether Davy’s suggestions had seemed eminently reasonable or whether it was just his delivery, Ash’s thin hand grabbed his and pumped his arm up and down. He added generously.

  “You should be the one to tell the chief. But you can keep the NCA; that Agent Somerville woman scares the life out of me. Then get out of here until tomorrow. You’re still on holiday…” He turned back to his screen. “And I’ve got work to do.”

  Nicky couldn’t have been prouder than if Jonny had built Everest with his bricks.

  ****

  The Mortuary. 12.30 p.m.

  Xavier Rey had been staring at his son’s swollen face for twenty long minutes and Andy wasn’t quite sure what to do: hope that John would end the viewing by drawing the sheet over Matias’ face; wait until the grieving father turned away of his own accord; or give a quiet cough and hope that it would be sufficient to break the gangster’s trance. John wasn’t making any such move, something the detective would have expected if he’d known him well. John Winter understood death in all its shades and forms; he also understood grief. He had lost both parents and his favourite aunt, and as an only child he’d had to carry all of the emotions and practicalities alone.

  He knew what it was like to wish he could have had one last sight of a loved one, one last conversation, however trivial. ‘Would you like some more tea? Would you like a lift into town?’ Anything at all, just as long as that person was still there. At Uni he’d been the one in ethics class who’d best understood families’ reluctance to turn off life support, even the warm body and touchable hand of their loved one, however unanimated, better than never seeing them again. And that was what death meant to him; placing someone you loved beyond reach for every single day of your life. Even with a religious faith of reunion it would seem final and desolate, and bad enough in itself without also knowing that some stranger had violently taken their life. So he stood and he waited, and he would wait for as long as Xavier Rey needed to say goodbye to his son.

  Meanwhile Andy was beginning to panic about what he should do. The clock said they’d been there for almost thirty minutes, far longer than any I.D. he had ever led. People normally glanced and nodded and then walked away, confirming that the dead person was who they’d suspected, and then they all went for the customary cup of tea. Or else they cried and touched the body; on one particularly painful occasion a mother had combed her dead daughter’s hair and sung to her. He’d understood of course, and thanked God it wasn’t his own son dead, but even then it had only taken ten minutes before they’d left the cold viewing room.

  That was the other thing; he hated mortuaries. Loathed them from the bottom of his heart. They were cold and sterile and full of dead people, and if he’d wanted to spend his days like that he would have chosen a different job.

  A slight movement to his left jerked him out of his thoughts, but it was only John shifting his foot. Xavier Rey still stood where he’d been standing for half-an-hour. His black eyes staring unblinkingly at his young son’s face; his square jaw, softened by the years, set so hard that it looked as if it might crack. He hadn’t uttered a word since they’d entered, just fixed his gaze where it remained now.

  Andy was just screwing up his courage to try a gentle touch on Rey’s arm when the father turned suddenly, catching the detective off guard. Before he could recover Rey was out in the hall and striding towards the exit and the car. The D.C.I. hurried after him to find Rey already in the backseat beside Sid Freeman and the uniformed driver pointedly checking his watch. He covered his embarrassment by snapping.

  “Docklands. And make it quick.”

  They drove in silence towards a conversation that Andy knew would be just as hard.

  ****

  High Street Station.

  Mara Kennedy looked every bit as beautiful as she had done the night before, although her eyes showed the fatigue of a night spent crying and her cheeks the grey smudged pallor of a mind that couldn’t rest.

  Craig watched her through the viewing room glass, squashing his natural sympathy for a widowed mother with his logic and cynicism, both of which said that most murders were committed by someone that the victim knew. She’d had access to the slurry suit and its air tank and she’d had an affair with the farm’s manager. Beautiful she might be but there was nothing innocent about the woman on the other side of the glass.

  As his gaze fixed forward Liam’s flicked back and forth between Craig and his prey. Mara Kennedy had better be innocent and able to prove it or he wouldn’t fancy being in her shoes.

  Craig lifted the internal phone.

  “Come in, Jack, and bring Rhonda with you. She needs to watch the interview.”

  Interrogation was more like it when he was in this mood, but Liam decided not to say so; he didn’t need the grief.

  Five minutes later the names and addresses had all been read and Craig put his hands in his pockets and sat back, leaving the only soundtrack in the room the whine from the tape recorder and Liam mouth breathing to avoid the pain in his nose. Johnny Corbett gazed at the policemen in turn before settling his gaze upon Craig.

  “You said you wanted to question my client, so we’re here.”

  Craig’s only reply was a nod that made Corbett tut in irritation.

  “If you’re going to play damn silly games, we’re leaving.”

  He made to stand up but a slim hand on his arm halted his ascent. Mara Kennedy’s tone was cool.

  “Superintendent Craig is waiting to see what I’ll say first, Johnny.”

  Not just cool but bright.

  “He wants me to fill his silence with babbling, until I incriminate myself in some way and then he’ll jump in.” She smiled at Craig, peeling back her full lips and showing perfectly straight white teeth; the product of thousands of pounds of orthodontics he didn’t doubt.

  Craig smiled back. Either she was clever and innocent of her husband’s murder, or guilty and too clever to give them a clue. He straightened up, still smiling.

  “When did you last see your husband, Mrs McAllister?”

  Liam smiled at the married name and knew Mara Kennedy wasn’t going to get everything her way.

  Johnny Corbett sat back, shaking his head in despair. Liam quite liked the old buffer; he seemed to genuinely have his client’s welfare at heart but his shake had said Kennedy was like a runaway stallion; too highly bred and highly strung to be controlled.

  She kept staring at Craig, her smile slowly melting away.

  “I last saw him on Monday, but I was supposed to see him again on Thursday evening, at dinner.”

  The day that McAllister had died.

  “At whose behest?”

  “Mine. I wanted to talk to him.”

  “In a restaurant?”

  “Yes. I didn’t want to have the conversation at home. Too comfortable.”

  “Which conversation was that?”

  She laughed sharply. “The one where I asked him where the hell all the money had come from, and if I didn’t get a satisfactory answer the one where I would have been telling him that I wanted a divorce.”

  Craig leaned forward. “I thought you said you’d left soon after you’d found the money. For your son’s sake.”

  She looked momentarily confused. “I…yes, I did…I did tell you that. But I didn’t. Not completely. I found the money on the Friday and brought Ben to Belfast on the Monday, but then I asked Colin to meet me that Thursday evening to talk.”

  Craig sat back, not for comfort but to keep her off kilter. As he changed position he threw in another question.

  “Which restaurant?”

  “Moriarty’s In Armagh.”

>   “Who booked it?”

  “I did. I told Colin where we’d meet.”

  It would be easy to confirm.

  “You said you were supposed to see him on Thursday evening, but he was already dead by then.”

  “I didn’t know that. I just thought he’d stood me up because he was angry at me.” She stared down at her hands.

  Craig stayed on point. “What time did you leave the restaurant?”

  “Around ten o’clock. I came back to Belfast not long before you called at the hotel. You can check.”

  Nice of you to tell us our job.

  He leaned forward again, sharply this time so that she was forced to retreat.

  “Convenient theatrics for the day he died.”

  “I didn’t kill him.” Her voice rose. “I DIDN’T DO IT!”

  Liam intervened. “That tape picks up everything. You’ve no need to shout.”

  Kennedy didn’t acknowledge him, her eyes not moving from Craig’s face.

  “What was his answer?”

  She looked confused, her earlier cool completely gone. Meanwhile, Rhonda was sitting so far forward in the viewing room her nose was touching the glass.

  “This is better than TV.”

  Jack smiled kindly. He’d seen it too many times before to get worked up.

  Craig was still waiting for his answer. He repeated the question. “What was your husband’s answer?”

  Kennedy frowned. “To what?”

  “To the question of where he got the money from.”

  She shook her head. “I told you. He didn’t turn up at the restaurant.”

  “But you’d asked him before then, hadn’t you?”

  He was playing a hunch. She stared him out for a moment before answering.

  “On the phone. He denied knowing anything about it at first, so I said I wanted to ask him face to face. I knew I could make him tell me the truth then. Then he said someone must have just left the money there; one of the farm workers.” She scoffed superiorly. “As if any of them had fifty grand.”

  Craig frowned, thinking for a moment. He nodded Liam on while he did.

  “How often did your husband work at the slurry pit?”

  Kennedy sat back, looking glad of the change in tack.

  “Not very often. Maybe once a month. Mitchell normally does it.”

  Craig’s frown deepened. Had someone intended Purvis to be the one to die? But Liam hadn’t finished.

  “Did they timetable it? Whoever would be working on the pit that month?”

  Kennedy nodded and Craig noticed flashes of grey in her blonde hair. It added something. Beauty was always more beautiful when it wasn’t perfect.

  “Yes. They write everything on the wall calendar. Exactly where they’re scheduled to work each day.”

  “In the room where the farmhands have their meals?”

  “Yes.”

  His heart sank. Anyone could have seen when the slurry pit would next be worked at, and who was scheduled to do it. Seeing that Craig was still thinking the D.C.I. carried on.

  “Mr Purvis is around five-feet-ten. What height was your husband?”

  Craig’s ears perked up.

  “Six-three.”

  Liam nodded that it was the truth. The height difference blew the theory that someone could have made a mistake and killed the wrong man.

  He stopped the tape and beckoned Craig out of the room.

  “Slurry suits are sized, boss. There’s no way a six-three man would wear the same suit as one five-ten. They couldn’t have been aiming for Purvis and got McAllister by mistake; their suits would’ve been different sizes.”

  Craig’s frown didn’t shift. “Are the air tanks detachable? Maybe they sabotaged the tank aiming for Purvis but attached it to the wrong suit by mistake.”

  Liam didn’t look convinced. “The tanks are detachable, but if they’d sabotaged the tank too early, what would’ve happened if someone else had decided to use it on a random visit to the pit? They’d have been killed and police would’ve started hunting for their killer, leaving the real target, McAllister, still doing whatever someone didn’t want him to do.”

  “OK, but that doesn’t mean that isn’t exactly what happened. They could have been aiming for Purvis, sabotaged the tank and then McAllister picked it up.” He suddenly realised something. “Or they could have sabotaged all of the tanks!” He pulled out his phone. “I need to call Armagh.”

  Five minutes later they had their answer. None of the other air tanks had been meddled with, so whoever had sabotaged the tank had been specific. They would have had to have sabotaged the tank and left it where only the next man scheduled for the slurry pit would have picked it up. Craig shook his head.

  “We need to ask a different question.”

  He pushed open the door and restarted the tape.

  “Did your husband just use any air tank that was lying around when he worked on the slurry?”

  Mara Kennedy immediately shook her head. “No. he always used the same tank. He said it had the best connection with his suit.”

  “But how could he tell one tank from another? He might just have lifted the tank that felt most full.”

  She shook her head again. “Colin checked them all regularly to make sure they were full. He was meticulous about it, in case one of the farmhands had to go in, but he only ever used his tank. He’d marked it with his initials specially.”

  Craig made for the door again, leaving Liam to pause the tape. He entered the viewing room and made another call, this time to the lab.

  “Des? Can you describe the air tank from the slurry suit to me?”

  Des frowned. What did he mean? A tank was a tank. Craig was obviously losing it so he adopted the sing song voice he used with his kids.

  “It’s grey metal, probably steel but I haven’t checked. Cylindrical with a-”

  Craig barked down the line. “I know what a bloody tank looks like! Is there anything written on it?”

  Des huffed back. “Made in Australia. So what?”

  Craig thought for a second. “Look at the base.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  Even he knew that his manners were getting worse.

  Des muttered to himself. “Bloody tank. What does he expect to see? A map of Australia on its ass…” He turned the tank upside down with a clang and Craig heard a faint gasp, followed by “Oh hell.”

  “Oh hell what? What are you oh-helling about?”

  “There are letters on the bottom. Someone’s painted them on. C.G.P Mc.A. How the heck did I miss that? I mean…”

  He was left ‘I meaning’ to thin air because Craig was already back in the room. He hit the tape again.

  “How did your husband mark his name on his air tank?”

  Kennedy smirked and crossed her arms. “Believe me now?”

  “How?” His tone said don’t push it.

  “CGPMCA, separated by dots.”

  “Give me them one by one.”

  “C dot, G, dot, P, dot, Mc, dot, A, full stop. It stands for Colin, George, Paul, McAllister. His mother liked the Beatles. He marked all his equipment with it, and before you ask, he would have checked he’d attached the right tank before he’d put on his suit. He was meticulous about that sort of thing.”

  It only proved that whoever their killer was they’d got the man that they’d been aiming for, but it still didn’t rule Kennedy out.

  “I’m pausing this interview, Mrs McAllister.” Before she could object he turned to the solicitor. “We’ll be re-interviewing your client, Mr Corbett, but in the interim she will remain here. Please make arrangements for the care of the child.”

  They didn’t hang around to listen to the uproar, sending Jack in to deal with it and joining the others in the small staff room. Annette looked up as they entered.

  “Any joy with her?”

  Liam answered as he put on the kettle. “Some, but she’s not out of the woods yet. At least we know they w
eren’t trying to kill Purvis. They definitely got their man.”

  Jake chipped in. “Which means Purvis could still be our killer.”

  The D.C.I. answered with his head in the fridge. “Yep. But so could any of the farmhands.”

  Craig nodded. “We need to find the motive for killing McAllister, otherwise we’ll just be interviewing at random.” He glanced at his watch. “Annette, you’re welcome to have another go at either of them, but I think you’ll be wasting your time. I’d let them both stew until we have something more. Liam and I are going back to the office now to see what Ash has found.”

  Liam stood up quickly. “But I didn’t get my tea.”

  Craig’s answer floated back down the corridor. “Nicky has brownies in her drawer.” It had the desired Pied Piper effect.

  Chapter Six

  The C.C.U. Relatives’ Room.

  Sid Freeman glanced first at Xavier Rey and then at Andy, before deciding that the floor was a safer bet to look at than either man. Rey because his face appeared to be set in such a permanent scowl that the constable wondered if he’d been born that way. Perhaps he’d taken one look at the world with all its dirt and chaos and decided to go back where he’d come from, only to find the option gone and seventy years of blood, sweat and tears lying ahead.

  Andy wasn’t scowling, but he wasn’t looking happy either; his face moulded into a mask of perplexed macho-ness, that, even though he didn’t know him, Freeman didn’t think fitted him very well.

  After five minutes of silence and the beige carpet burning a hole in his retinae, Sid Freeman made a decision, or rather his impatient nature made it for him; he’d never been very good at waiting for things. He rose to his feet and lifted the teapot, pouring out three cups and pushing two pointedly at the mute men, praying that politeness would force at least one of them to acknowledge his good deed.

  To his surprise it was Rey who spoke first. OK, it was a curt “thanks”, but at least he’d said something. Andy’s response was to shoot the D.C. a grateful glance, and a nod that said ‘go on’.