The Tribes

by Catriona King

  “And the next drink.”

  Same barmaid.

  “Davy, I want you to view any other tapes from the bar and see if you can find Jeremy Scott in the bar for the rest of the night.”

  “You think he was a plant, chief?”

  Craig nodded. “He was put there to slip Andy the drugs. After that he left. Every subsequent drink Andy ordered was clean but added to the effect, and the roofie made him forget everything after the first.”

  As Davy’s face fell Craig was reminded that everything might include what they all hoped Andy hadn’t done. He motioned the analyst on and they watched Andy drink for another minute before Davy paused the tape again.

  “The next ten minutes is just Andy drinking, but at fifty minutes in we s…see him talk to someone for the first time.”

  Liam stood up to have a better look, leaning his weight on Davy’s shoulders and almost concertina-ing him into his chair. “On you go, lad.”

  Craig waved him back. “Get off him, Liam, or he’ll end up five feet tall.”

  As Liam stepped back the analyst pressed several keys and a slim brunette appeared at the other end of El Robo’s long bar. They watched as through a series of short movements and pauses, she eventually ended up by Andy’s side.

  “She was watching him from the moment she appeared.”

  Liam grinned. “Maybe she fancied him.”

  Craig shook his head grimly. “I doubt it. She’s lying in John’s dissection room.”

  Liam gawped at the screen. “God, I didn’t recognise her. She-”

  “Looks so alive. Andy must have completely forgotten that he saw her.”

  Davy was the sole questioning voice. “Or he lied about it?”

  The detectives shook their heads simultaneously. “No way. We interviewed him and he has no memory of any of this.”

  “S…She made a beeline for him then.”

  “Just like the barman. This was a setup from the off.”

  Liam made a face.

  “What does that look mean?”

  “Well…OK, so the girl chatted him up, and maybe she was put up to it, but who’s to say she wasn’t just supposed to get him in a compromising position-”

  Davy finished the sentence. “So they could take photos and blackmail him, and s…scare us off the case.”

  Craig’s “NO” was emphatic. “You really think they believed we’d be deterred by a few tabloid shots? Copper has sex with girl he’s just met, shock horror. If that one worked then half the force would be on the front page.” He shook his head. “We’re dealing with killers here. So far they’ve killed three people-”

  Liam couldn’t let it pass. “You’re linking Rey, Fox and McAllister now?”

  Craig realised what he’d said and backtracked. “OK, one for sure. Rey. But they killed him, so do you honestly believe that they would bother to just frame Andy with photographs? No hope. They’d planned the girl’s murder all along.”

  A worried look flashed across Liam’s face. Craig knew what he was thinking.

  “You’re wondering if the drugs could have made Andy lose control and shoot her.”

  The veteran cop gave a reluctant shrug. “I don’t think he’s a killer, boss, but we all know what drugs and alcohol can make people do.”

  Craig’s jaw set hard. “OK, I’m only going to say this once more. Andy didn’t kill her, no matter how much crap he had on board. But…if they leave the bar together and John’s time of death is right then we only have a short time in which to prove that somebody else did.”

  He motioned Davy to restart the tape and they watched as Andy and the woman grew increasingly amorous and then stepped outside into a cab. Before Craig could even ask, Davy told them he’d contacted the driver and a woman had called for the taxi. It had taken them straight to Andy’s apartment block.

  Craig motioned him to shut off the tape and Liam retook his seat. They sat in silence for a moment, just watching Craig steeple his fingers and have a conversation inside his own head. By the time it hit the air it made some sense.

  “OK. The barman and the girl were definitely a setup. The plan was to slip Andy roofies and get him to take her back to his place. But there’s no way from that girl’s body language that she knew she was going to her death. Agreed?”

  Liam nodded. “She wouldn’t have volunteered for a suicide mission-”

  Davy cut in. “If she was an Islamic terrorist she might.”

  Craig shook his head. “There’s no sign of Islamic involvement in the case, Davy.”

  Davy shook his head. “I disagree, chief. S…Sixty percent of Albanians are Muslim.”

  Craig’s face said he wasn’t convinced. “First, we don’t know that she was Albanian. Secondly, we’re not even sure yet that Albanians are involved, and even if they are not all Muslims are terrorists. No, everything about that girl says basic honey trap and not even Andy would have fallen for that if he hadn’t been drugged before she’d come along.”

  Liam gave a loud snort. “Are you joking? The man’s so desperate for a woman he’d get-”

  Craig’s scowl cut him off. “Whatever colourful metaphor you’re about to use, don’t, Liam. The fact is that Andy was drugged and the girl was a honey trap and I very much doubt she knew her death was part of the plan when she agreed. OK, we know they went to his place, so I need their exact time the taxi dropped them and I need every tape from the street outside Andy’s block, the internal halls and corridors, and I want to hear the recording of whatever so-called neighbour phoned the cops.”

  Davy nodded briskly. “I have the requests out.”

  “Chase all the forensics as well, please. We’re pretty sure they used Andy’s Glock for the murder but I want Des to rule it in or out. And what happened to his safe? Was the gun still in there? Was it printed? Let me know.”

  Liam shook his head. “I can’t believe he kept the safe key with his house keys! Anyone who mugged him could have got his gun.”

  “Forget that. We need to know if Andy could have opened the safe in the state he was in. Unless the girl was suicidal she wouldn’t have opened it and handed a gun to a drunk. So that leaves us with a third party opening the safe, shooting the girl and leaving Andy to take the rap.”

  Davy stood up, eager to get on. Craig nodded him out but indicated Liam to stay. He kept on talking as if he hadn’t been interrupted.

  “That gives us three questions. Who shot the girl? Davy’s on that. Who leaked information about our operation to the killers? We have to decide if that means someone we’ve interviewed put two and two together and told them accidentally or deliberately, or someone on our operation leaked deliberately.”

  Liam went to open his mouth but Craig pushed on.

  “And three, we need to work out why they’re trying to stop us, because if we’re close to cracking this, which framing Andy to slow us down implies, then I honestly can’t see how.” As he stopped talking Liam seized his chance.

  “OK, number one we’re already on. Number three we need the team together to discuss and we’ve got that at two o’clock. Number two’s the interesting one but I honestly don’t think we have a hope in hell of finding out.”

  Craig went to argue but the D.C.I. shook his head.

  “Hear me out, boss. Who leaked information on our investigation? The answer is it could have been any bugger we’ve talked to, or someone that they told about our chats. It’s like one of those things you drew at school.”

  Craig wrinkled his forehead. “A graph?”

  “Ach, no. Even I understood those. One of those ones where you tossed coins and wrote down heads or tails.”

  Craig nodded. “Probability trees. I see what you mean. Those can go on for miles.”

  “Exactly! And that’s what we’d get if we tried to work out who told who what. I say we just accept there was a leak and instead of having a witch-hunt we keep things tight to the core team from now on.”

  It was a good suggestion but that wouldn’t stop Cra
ig searching for an answer. He glanced at the clock above Liam’s head.

  “What time did I say we were briefing again?”

  “Two o’clock.”

  “OK, that leaves us two hours. Tell Ash I want to see him for a minute, and after you’ve done that, ask uniform what Xavier Rey’s up to. Oh, and find Kyle, can you; he seems to have gone AWOL again.”

  Liam opened the door. “He’ll be huddling in a cupboard with some of his spooky friends.”

  “Not on my time he’d better not be.”

  His last word was drowned out by Liam letting out a yell that almost perforated Nicky’s ears.

  “ASH! YOU’RE WANTED.”

  It was wrong on so many levels that Craig just rolled his eyes.

  ****

  “I not sure what we’ll do about viewing the airport tapes now, Ash.”

  Craig dragged a hand down his face in exhaustion. He felt absolutely wrecked. OK, he hadn’t got much sleep the night before but that was nothing new, and he believed firmly in the adage ‘you can sleep when you’re dead’. Whether his sleep deprivation came from work or pleasure he was well used to it and it had never slowed him down, but today he felt like he was wading through treacle. For a man who believed emotional stress was a thing to be sucked up and glossed over, even he had to acknowledge that the situation with Katy was adding to his load.

  He shook his head, banishing all trace of sentimentality, and focused back on the problem in hand. Andy was their super-recogniser and he was currently banged up in a cell.

  Ash looked confused. “Where’s Andy? He said he’d finish with the tapes ASAP.”

  Craig was startled; he’d forgotten that only he, Liam and Davy knew what had happened to Andy overnight. After a second’s regrouping he decided to keep it that way. The last thing Andy would need once they’d exonerated him was his subordinates knowing that he’d picked up a woman when he’d been as high as a kite on drugs. What was certain was that if the D.C.I. viewed the tapes while under suspicion of murder, Ronan Miskimmon’s legal team would jump all over his testimony in court.

  He deflected quickly.

  “Andy’s been called away. Something to do with his flat.” Namely, it being a murder scene.

  The best lies always stick close to the truth and don’t offer too much detail, so as the analyst opened his mouth to ask more Craig pushed on. Fabricating stories about Andy’s malfunctioning plumbing or a gas leak would be above and beyond.

  “While I think about that, tell me what else you’ve got.”

  Ash narrowed his eyes at Craig’s obvious deflection; if the boss wanted to keep secrets that was his prerogative, but all lies did was make people like him want to dig for dirt. He tapped his smart-pad into life and set it on the desk, facing the detective.

  “OK. As you know the North American security services have their own databases of hackers that they keep an eye on. At our request they put out a general call asking if anyone had noticed anything strange happening with equipment, traffic signals and weather drones in the first half of last year-”

  “That’s before you started picking up anything?”

  “Yep. I began spotting things in July. The logic is that if Miskimmon was just starting out then he might have made a mistake. Teething problems… immature processes… just… something.”

  Craig interrupted again. “Davy’s got the EU people doing the same?”

  Ash nodded, making his green quiff bob up and down. “Yes, but the Canadians were the first to come back to us. I’ve been talking to a hacker in Toronto and she’s sent this through.”

  He tapped twice on the screen and the image of a woman in her early twenties appeared. Her multi-coloured hair and punky style couldn’t disguise her prettiness, although to Craig she still looked like a kid. He admitted to being surprised that the hacker was female although he honestly couldn’t have said why. It probably said something about his age and traditional view of the world, no matter how up to date he tried to be.

  Ash’s smooth voice cut across his thoughts.

  “This is Ashley X.”

  Craig raised an eyebrow. “Is that her internet handle or doesn’t she have a second name?” Another sign of age.

  Ash smiled pityingly. “All hackers use a handle.”

  “What’s yours?”

  The analyst cheeks lit up in a blush. “Ash-Tag.”

  Craig smiled at the play on words and waved Ash-Tag on.

  “OK. Ashley said she’d started noticing weather drones dropping or going off path last March.”

  Craig’s ears twitched. Off path implied that she knew what their normal flight path was; confidential government information. He realised that the Canadian administration probably already knew their drones had been mapped and tuned back into Ash’s words.

  “So she and another hacker started paying attention. They hacked the software of a dozen weather drones and waited until three of them fell. Then they started digging.”

  Craig halted him again. “Just to be clear. The drones’ operating system used the same algorithm as our malfunctioning systems?”

  Ash realised he’d left something vital out. “Sorry, yes. I should have said that. All the government weather drones in the US and Canada use it. I knew that already from the ones that fell last year.”

  “OK. Go on.”

  “Well…like us, Ashley and her mate found the operating algorithm. They also found some extra code that had caused the malfunctions.”

  “The same as our piece of extra code?”

  Ash smiled. “No, actually. Similar but not identical, so Ashley and I think it was an earlier version of Miskimmon’s hack. Like theirs was Mark One and ours was Mark Two. Or maybe five. Who knows. But that’s not the important thing. The important thing is that they isolated the hack and followed it back.”

  Craig’s fatigue was suddenly replaced by excitement. He leaned forward and stared at the screen, hardly daring to ask the question. “To Miskimmon?”

  Ash made a face that said no and yes. He tapped the screen and a series of numbers and dots appeared.

  “This is the IP address of a computer they found in a hack. They managed to trace the code back to it and then found the IP was present in each hack that brought a drone down.” He stroked the screen to scroll down. “These are the dates of the hacks. Davy’s working on Miskimmon’s locations when the hacks occurred.”

  Craig frowned. “Why? Surely he could have hacked in from anywhere in the world.”

  Ash looked pleased with himself. “Yep, he could, and when he did it here everything I found was bounced to Ukraine. But like I said, he was just starting out when he did the Canadian hacks and it looks as if he made mistakes.” He pointed at the screen. “We managed geolocation through the IP address Ashley found. That means we have the locations of the computer when it performed each of her three hacks-”

  Craig cut in. “I don’t suppose any were in Northern Ireland?”

  Ash’s smile said maybe, but he wasn’t ready to commit. “Anyway, so all we need to prove is that Miskimmon was nearby when they happened.”

  It wouldn’t be definitive but it would move their case along. Something made Craig hesitate. It all seemed too easy and Ronan Miskimmon had already proved he was a crafty sod.

  “Hang on. You’re saying that someone hacked into the Canadian drones and brought them down and they didn’t cover their trail? This has to be a trick.”

  Ash raised his eyes to heaven. “So cynical.” Then he smiled. “Don’t worry, we thought of that. Well, Ashley did. They’ve been working on this for months, tracing the signal to see where it bounced, and every time they’ve come back to the same three places.” He shrugged. “All I can think of is that Miskimmon was just practicing then, and it was only when he was preparing to go for really important targets that he really began covering his ass.” He made a face. “Like with ours.”

  Craig held his breath. He wanted to believe this was something, but by its very nature they were rel
ying on the intangible; Wi-Fi signals and the Net. How could they ever prove things?

  Ash read his mind. “I’m ahead of you there, chief. Every computer has a unique IP address generated by its operating system; it’s what Vice use to trace paedophiles distributing online porn. I’m tracing this IP as we speak.”

  Craig exhaled. “If you find it what will that give us?”

  “Well, if we’re lucky it’ll give us the purchaser’s payment method and their name and address.”

  “And if we’re unlucky?” He knew he was being a pessimist but better that than have things fall apart later on.

  Ash thought for a moment before answering hesitantly. “Worst case scenario…well…I suppose-” He stopped abruptly and shook his head. “Honestly, chief, the worst I can think of is that he didn’t buy the computer new, but even then we can find out who did and trace who they sold it on to.”

  Craig wasn’t persuaded. “That’s too optimistic, Ash, we’ve only got days before the P.P.S. proceeds on the visa fraud. And you’ve failed to mention the really bad case. What if Miskimmon didn’t buy the computer anywhere? What if he stole it or built it from scratch? Don’t underestimate this man. He’s a slippery bastard.”

  Ash’s expression had darkened as Craig spoke, but the swearword made him smile again. He liked it when Craig swore; it made him seem human like them.

  The detective relented slightly. “Look, this is brilliant work, Ash, and I really hope you’re right and we can nail him this time, but I just don’t want cockiness to make you careless. This is the highest priority for both you and Davy over the next week.”

  “What about the cases?”

  Craig stood up, making the analyst do the same.

  “Those as well. Sorry, but it looks like no-one will be getting much sleep for the next few days.” He opened the door. “Keep going with it and well done. We’ll talk about it more later.”

  As the door closed behind the analyst Craig poured a fresh coffee from his percolator and sat back down behind his desk, his mind a maelstrom of Andy, budget cuts and weather drones, but front and foremost was the image of Katy whizzing round a racing track.