Liam rubbed his hands together. “Brilliant. The Boy can get on to that lickety split.”
Craig turned to Davy, but the analyst pointed him back to Ash.
“Good. Ash, as soon as you get anything on that, let Doctor Marsham and myself know.”
Des nodded his thanks to the junior analyst, who sank down beneath his desk to indicate the pressure he was under. Thankfully he still had the energy to smile so far, although there were times when he wondered how much he and Davy would earn in the private sector for the hours that Craig expected them to work.
Des went on. “OK, there’s also some DNA analysis detail, but John can tell you about that.”
Craig shook his head and rose to his feet. “In ten minutes. Let’s take a quick break. There’s decent coffee in my office or there’s usually some available down in Gang Crime. Cadge some if you feel the need, but be back here in ten.”
****
Donegal. Ireland.
Billy Bruton knew he was in the shit. He’d known it from the moment his useless nephew had called to say the cops had been there and he’d given them his name. Given it! Whatever happened to the sort of loyalty that made you endure hours of interrogation and torture before you spilled the beans?
The MLA had spent his time since panicking, which had lasted all of five minutes, not being given much to the useless expending of energy; and after that short, self-indulgent blip he had spent the rest of the time considering using variously: his background in strategic planning to work his way out of things, his ego and position to bully an exit, and most powerful of all, his hefty bank balance for bribes.
By four o’clock Bruton had come to the conclusion that his wife, whose love for him was mainly fiscal, and his kids, who spent their lives like baby birds with open mouths, cawing to be given more, would survive very well if he died but not at all if he was arrested for blackmail and the rest of his crimes, the sum total of which would bring them zero life-insurance money but a whole heap of disgrace.
From the summary above someone might surmise that the politician was a decent man prepared to sacrifice himself for the good of his family, but Billy Bruton never did anything except for himself, and the avoidance of several years spent in a small cell and socialising with big hairy men covered in tattooed acronyms, was far higher in his list of priorities than anything else.
So it was that the MLA had decided to head for Ballyliffen on the Donegal coast, where he often went sea fishing, and from where the fisherman brother of one of his loyal Belfast voters was prepared to ferry him to a remote Hebridean Isle, where he could live simply and cheaply on the contents of an offshore account that he’d set up for just such an occasion in a completely untraceable name. He wouldn’t stay there forever of course, far too cold, but it would give him time to plan his next steps without an overly familiar cell-mate breathing down his neck.
The dumping of a strategically placed shirt and shoes in the North Atlantic, guaranteed to be spotted eventually, should see his family receiving sympathy and a substantial amount of insurance money for his drowning, which had unfortunately occurred when he’d gone overboard while reeling in an excitable fish.
The only thing that remained now was to get himself out to sea, something that was unfortunately about to be stymied by Craig’s talent for planning ahead.
****
The C.C.U. 7 p.m.
“OK, let’s pick it up with you, John.”
Craig was just about to sit back and fold his arms when his mobile started to buzz. He glanced at the screen and jumped up swiftly, motioning to the pathologist.
“Hold off for a minute. I need to take this call.”
Seconds later he was in his office with Liam craning his neck to watch though the half-glass door. As Craig’s back was turned towards it, the D.C.I.’s first piece of information came from his boss’ fist punching through the air.
When Craig almost sauntered back to his seat, the deputy gave a knowing smirk.
“Good news?”
“The best.” Craig glanced apologetically at John. “Would you mind if I delayed you a moment longer?”
“Fire ahead. I’m curious too.”
“Right, well, that phone-call was from the Armed Response Commander, Bill McEwan.”
Andy looked puzzled. “Who are we planning on shooting?”
“No-one. Well, not today anyway. We just needed someone to tail Billy Bruton this afternoon and everyone here was busy, so McEwan obliged with two men. Anyway, the upshot of it is that they tailed Bruton all the way to the Donegal coast.”
Mary’s mouth opened to object at the invasion of another country.
“Don’t worry, the Gardaí were on board with it, in fact they’re chuffed with the result for reasons of their own. It turns out that Bruton goes sea fishing there a lot and the boat that usually takes him out has been under surveillance for smuggling. Seems that the captain’s a bad lad. Anyway, McEwan’s pair and the Gardaí tailed Bruton to the boat, saw him get on board, and when the skipper was about to push off they stopped them. The boat was loaded with drugs making their way to Scotland.”
Liam asked the obvious question. “More weed?”
Craig shook his head. “No, cocaine. But that was all down to the boat’s skipper. Bruton wasn’t involved on the drugs side-”
Annette cut in. “OK, but what was Bruton doing? Fishing again?”
Craig smiled slowly. “The skipper was happy to spill everything in exchange for the Gardaí putting in a good word with the judge. Mister Bruton was apparently planning his own death or a facsimile of it anyway. His plan was to throw some clothes into the Atlantic, then the boat would leave him on one of the smallest islands in the Hebrides where he had everything arranged to hide out. The boat would continue on to mainland Scotland, hand over its coke cargo and then the skipper was going to confirm to the police there that Bruton had fallen overboard in a swell and drowned. His family would have got his insurance money, and Bruton would be officially dead and free to start a new life somewhere warm with no-one looking for him, with money that he’d got stashed away.”
John’s eyes were out on stalks. “He really thought he’d get away with it?”
“Clearly. Our Billy thinks no-one’s as clever as him. He’s being brought back to High Street tonight so we can take a crack at him tomorrow.”
Liam guffawed. “Imagine his face when McEwan’s boys rolled up waving their Heckler and Kochs.”
It generated a laugh, but when it had died down the D.C.I. asked a more serious question.
“Surely this must mean Bruton was involved in the murders, boss? I mean would you run just because of an old cannabis farming case that we mightn’t be able to prove?”
“And blackmail, and tax fraud, which we can definitely prove and Bruton would have known it.” Craig weighed everything up. “That could have been enough to make him run, even if he’d had nothing to do with the deaths. Remember that Bruton’s a public figure, so the scandal, loss of position, effect on his family etcetera… it might have been enough to push him over the edge.” He shrugged. “Either way we’ll find out tomorrow.” He turned to the pathologist again. “Sorry for the delay, John, please go ahead.”
John hadn’t minded waiting at all, he was enjoying the craic.
He nodded Davy to go back a few slides until they arrived at one displaying the two women’s skulls.
“OK, we were fortunate enough to have the services of Judith Holmes, a senior forensic anthropologist, who looked at the bones for us.” He stopped suddenly. “By the way, Davy, did you get anything from the scoliosis and racquet sports?”
“Ash was on it.”
As all eyes moved to the junior analyst he nodded.
“I contacted all the orthopaedic and paediatric units in the country, also private physiotherapists, and any tennis or squash clubs with league tables. I thought competition might have encouraged the woman to play enough to generate the bone markers that were found. Anyway, by cross-match
ing all of that I managed to some up with a short list of three. I then got school, social and passport photos-”
Craig interrupted. “School and social? How?”
“Social media sites. I reckoned that a teenager or young woman would probably have posted images of herself somewhere.”
Selfies. John met Craig’s gaze and both men rolled their eyes. Neither of them understood the selfie phenomena and they’d had drunken debates on the subject with Natalie, who seemed to love nothing better than posting pictures of herself everywhere, including, disconcertingly, on the inside of the bathroom door. What the attraction was of looking at yourself all the time neither man could explain; when they shaved was more than enough for them. And did people think that they would forget what they looked like unless it was captured by a camera or phone? The only photos they ever had taken were for passports and driving licences, and John had never even understood the need for ten-yearly updated images, when it should have been perfectly obvious to anyone checking that it was the same person standing in front of them, just old. Did the government really think terrorists would try to disguise themselves by magically aging down?
Craig was even more averse to having his photograph taken than the pathologist, making it a standing joke since school that he thought cameras stole his spirit somehow; but their agreed professional position was that the constant taking of selfies indicated a narcissism usually only found in psychopaths. Where that left Natalie her husband wasn’t quite sure.
Ash was still reporting.
“For the school ones I contacted school photographers across the country and got the relevant images from them for the past twenty years. Thankfully they didn’t request warrants.”
Liam was indignant. “I bet the kids’ parents would have something to say about that!”
If anyone had given up his children’s photographs without his or Danni’s consent he would have hunted them down and done unspeakable things.
Ash shrugged. “Well, none of them asked for warrants, so that was good enough for me. Anyway, the end result was that I think I may have found your girl. I’m not certain yet, but Doctor Winter’s reconstruction will tell.”
He glanced at Davy for permission to take over the screen and then projected an image from his smart-pad.
“This is Catherine Berger. Aged sixteen here, but I’m sure she probably didn’t look much different when she died.”
Everyone gazed at the photograph of the smiling teenage girl, whose thick, black shoulder-length hair and bright open smile seemed to draw each of them into her happy world. No-one spoke, each processing the image according to their own world view: John peering deeper at the girl’s underlying bone structure for a possible match with the skull they’d found, Annette thinking of her own daughter Amy and how devastated she would be if she had suffered their victim’s fate, and the others to their own.
As no-one else seemed prepared to break the silence Craig did.
“What else can you tell us about her, Ash?”
“I haven’t got much further than this yet, chief. I only found her an hour ago.”
“Brilliant work. Make her your priority tomorrow. We need to know everything about her: her family, especially her mother, her place of birth, school, everything.”He turned to the pathologist. “What do you think, John? Could it be her?”
The medic’s answer was to say, “My slide fifteen, please” to Davy, and then point to the screen, where a clay reconstruction of their younger victim had just appeared. “Could you place it side by side with Ash’s photo, Davy?”
A moment later the resemblance was clear for everyone to see. The pathologist moved over to the screen to point out the similarities in spacing, bony prominences and the shape of the eyes and jaw.
“The skull markings fit. Judith said the girl’s bones showed that she’d played a sport where she repeatedly ran short distances, used aerobic capacity and her right side in particular, which goes along with her being a right-handed squash player. Was it a squash league that she was in, Ash?”
He got a nod in reply.
“Tennis too.”
“Jude also said that the mother’s skull features were more Asian than the girl’s, and Catherine does look slightly more Arabic than Asian to me in that picture, but of course her father’s ethnicity would have played a part in that. Whoever he was. The mother was also likely to have played a musical instrument, a stringed instrument like a viola or violin. Was there anything on social media about that?”
Ash shook his head. “Not yet, but I haven’t had much time. I do have one photo of them together; it looks like it was taken when the girl was around ten. Her mother’s name was Maureen.”
He tapped several times and a smiling dark-haired mother and her young daughter appeared on the screen. Maureen Berger and her child, sitting in the sunshine like they didn’t have a care in the world.
“Davy, could you superimpose the mother’s skull over her face for me.”
“Which slide was that, Doctor W...Winter?”
“My number six.”
A moment later it was done, removing the need for the mother’s facial reconstruction so clear was the match, although John was going to proceed with it anyway, just in a slightly different way.
Des leaned across his colleague towards Craig.
“I’ll send you across the chemical analysis on their bones tomorrow. It will dot the ‘i’s on where they lived, especially the girl, we can tell when she moved geographically by her different bone stages. Maybe it’ll help your searches.”
After a respectful few seconds Craig nodded Davy to darken the screen and all eyes fixed on the whiteboard again.
“OK, so we may have our victims’ names, although that’s still to be confirmed. Maureen and Catherine Berger don’t sound like either Asian or Arabic names to me.”
John nodded. “Berger’s a French name, but if it’s an alias maybe they thought it fitted their appearance. Or maybe they both spoke fluent French.”
Craig nodded, continuing. “Good points, and we’ll find out once we know more about these two women.” He looked pointedly at his analysts. “Much more, if we’re going to work out why they were killed and who by.”
Mary signalled to speak.
“Yes?”
“Billy Bruton spent time in the middle-east.”
Craig’s eyes widened. “When?”
“First when he was a student in environmental science, examining irrigation projects, and then for the Department of Energy until two-thousand-and-ten. He travelled there with the Minister to examine solar energy projects.”
Craig turned immediately to Aidan. “Did you get anything useful from Jackson Hardy?”
“Not much. Just what you know. He did have a spare set of keys for the DoE building, but says he never visited again after they vacated the building in February oh-six and he signed them into the central registry six months before the sale. I saw the receipt.”
Craig was sceptical.
“He says he never visited again. OK, call him back and ask him about Bruton’s trips to the middle-east when he was a SPAD. As Permanent Secretary of the Department Hardy would have known about them, and his PA should have the itineraries for them on file if they were government trips. Mary, you take that. Dig into the details of every trip Bruton took, especially the ones while he was at the DoE. The university ones might have been too early for him to have had contact with the girl, but take a look. Actually no, on second thoughts; Aidan, you and Mary take another trip up there. I want Hardy to pull the paperwork for you ASAP. If he puts in a request for someone else to do it, it could take all year.”
The D.C.I. nodded, hoping that Mary didn’t decide to be as challenging as she’d been earlier that day.
Craig turned back to his analysts.
“OK, do either of you have anything else at the moment?”
The senior of the pair shook his head. “Lots of queries out that I’m w...waiting to hear back on, but so far ther
e’s nothing nasty obvious on the engineers, architects, decorators, furnishing s...suppliers and fitters on The HTH. Or on the estate agents for the site purchase in oh-seven or now-”
Craig interrupted.“The company constitutions?”
“Ash sent you both the Barrs’ and The Monmouth Consortium’s this morning.”
Craig made an apologetic face; he hadn’t read his emails properly since the day before.
“Sorry.”
“No problem. There wasn’t much in them anyway, just the usual company blah blah. Also, there was nothing s...suspicious on the hoarding or lighting firms, and the only criminal records we found were a night security-guard for the site called Robinson who’d had a GBH against him ten years ago-”
Liam snorted. “It probably won him his job.”
“And Jason Levi a carpenter, who’d had a few drunk and disorderlies. Otherwise everyone’s squeaky clean.”
Craig frowned thoughtfully. “Bruton has no record for anything?”
“Not that I found, but given the w...women’s strangulation I’m going to rerun all the checks for reports as well as convictions on domestics, violence against women, sexual misdemeanours, anything that should be flagged.”
“Excellent. Thank-you.” He turned to Ash. “Both of you. I know it took a lot of hard work to rule all of that out.”
Both analysts were pleased but Ash would have been even more so if Craig had thrown in a pay increase.
Craig rose and crossed to the board, flipping it to its clean side.
“OK, we’ve heard everything that we know about our victims so far, but there are still too many loose ends. Someone killed these women, and we need to nail down when they died in order to find out who. We also need to consider why. Why kill a young woman and her mother? We’ve all unfortunately seen women being victims of sexual assault and sometimes murdered, but not usually along with other family members. So there’s something very specific going on here.”
He began writing up a list.
“OK, Ash has given us two names, but we need to be sure that they’re the right ones, so John and Des, can you help by looking at the skulls and photographs in even more detail, to be absolutely certain that the IDs are correct? We also need to match the skeletal chemical analyses with the past histories of where the women lived, so, Ash, can you keep checking for the date when they moved here, and we’ll need their dental records requisitioned as well. In other words, do whatever you need to do to get us two definite IDs. Ash, can you work with our scientists on that, please, if that’s OK with you, Davy?”
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