The Property

by Catriona King

  The senior analyst nodded. It was just what he’d been about to suggest.

  “Good, thank-you. Also I want a timeline of where they both went in their lives, and if possible the exact dates when they disappeared. Also, what if any efforts were made to find them? Two people don’t just drop off the planet without someone noticing. Use social media, school, university, work, marriage and travel records on that.”

  He sneaked in a sip of coffee before moving further down the board.

  “John, the facial reconstruction.”

  The pathologist nodded. “I have the original at the lab.”

  “OK, so in my experience of using them at The Met, seeing a 3D reconstruction prompts more recognition in people than a simple photograph does, so if necessary we’ll use your model to search for witnesses.” He stopped dead, remembering something. “Did I ask someone to make a 3D model of the building site for me?”

  There were blank faces.

  “OK, then I must have just thought it.” He turned to look for Andy. “Andy, visual things are your thing. Can you do it?”

  The D.C.I. thought for a moment before answering. “If you mean can I build one, then no. My days with sticky-back plastic ended when I stopped watching Blue Peter, but I can computer-model one for you if that’ll do?”

  Craig gave a sharp nod. “Perfect. Tomorrow?”

  “Fine.”

  Craig’s next target was Des. “I know that ethnicity is hit and miss on DNA, despite what all those TV adverts suggest, but see if you can narrow the geographic field slightly, please.”

  The scientist nodded, he was already planning to.

  “And the taggant’s important as well. There can’t be many people with access to that concentration of hydroxide.”

  He turned to write up ‘Monmouth Consortium’ and then looked at Andy. “Andy, I want you and Kyle to meet the Chair of the MC Board tomorrow.”

  “Sure. To ask what?”

  “Well, you can start by confirming that the request not to dig up the floor only came from Billy Bruton. Philip Michaelson believed that the whole MC Board was in agreement on it, so I need the Chair’s confirmation that Bruton was acting alone. Then tell them a little about the bones and see what, if anything, useful they know, but don’t mention Bruton’s involvement with the cannabis or his arrest. Until he’s convicted he could sue us for slander.”

  “I’d better keep Kyle quiet then.” His rolled eyes said that he didn’t hold out much hope. “You think The Monmouth Consortium could be involved in the murders somehow?”

  Craig shook his head, realising as a strand of long hair fell onto his face that he needed to get it cut. Something else to sort out; great.

  “More that they may know something that they don’t realise they do, and you might jog it free. Remember our earlier discussion about high-level land sales often being arranged in social settings? Follow that up with the Chair as well. Oh, and can you give Kyle a call after we’ve wrapped up and stand him down? Bruton’s in custody so Brian Tanner’s out of danger now.”

  Liam chuckled. “Ach, let him guard Tanner all night. It’ll tighten him.”

  Craig arched an eyebrow. “Interesting management technique, but no.”

  He moved further down the board and scribbled ‘Bruton’s foreign travel’.

  “OK, Aidan, visit Hardy as early in the morning as you can. Liam and I will be interviewing Bruton at some point tomorrow and it would be good to have his travel itineraries in hand when we do.”

  He was answered by a sweeping salute that he knew was either the D.C.I. making a joke or him taking the piss, but based on the fact that he and Aidan had been school friends he thought the former probably applied.

  Craig set down his marker and looked at each member of the gathered group in turn.

  “Right, if there are any suggestions or questions, now would be a good time, before I move on.”

  Annette signalled first. “The Barr brothers. What’s happening there?”

  Liam took the question. “We need everything lined-up before we speak to the local one, Kamran, again. He’s got enough money for a brief who’ll go large to get our charges thrown out, and we don’t want to waste our PACE time.”

  The D.I. nodded slowly. “OK… I can see that… but, we don’t seem to have done much with them so far, given that they owned The HTH…”

  Craig signalled to take over. “You’re absolutely right, Annette, and we’re not done with the Messrs Barr by a long way. Meanwhile we have Kamran Barr under surveillance, and all possible exits from the country are under watch.”

  “Including private airfields, sir? He has the resources.”

  “Including those. Thankfully there aren’t many. Actually, on that point, could you look further into Barr’s two partners, his brother and the Saudi, Annette? Whatever you can find on them would be good.”

  It would keep her in the office for another day, but she didn’t mind; she’d promised Nicky that she would keep a close eye on her little kingdom until she returned.

  “OK, moving on. Bruton, Tanner and Kelly may have been involved in the sealing of the basement in different capacities, but that cement was wet for three days and liquid of varying consistencies for two, so the bones could have been placed in it by someone else, including Kamran Barr.” A thought occurred to him and he turned to Davy. “Davy, the hoardings around The HTH building site in oh-seven. Who erected them?”

  The analyst consulted his notes. “It was a local firm called Duggans. I checked them out, and the staff were all clean.”

  “Do you have the date the hoarding was erected?”

  “Middle of June that year. The s...same date the exchange documents were signed. It came down at the start of October.”

  Liam frowned. “June was before the place was handed over from the DoE to the Barrs.”

  Craig shrugged. “We already knew that, Liam. Remember Jessica Chambers mentioned seeing hoarding from her apartment on the third of July, and even before that from the street.”

  Davy nodded. “It was probably agreed between the DoE and The Barr Group because of the break-ins. Trying to stop people getting on to the s...site. Anyway, I’ve got an image of it.”

  He woke up his smart-pad and tapped until an image lit up the darkened LED screen again. It showed that the hoarding had been over ten feet high and had completely obscured the site from the surrounding streets, just as Jessica Chambers had said.

  “The only entrance was through a locked door in the hoarding.” The analyst tapped to enlarge the picture and display an industrial strength padlock. “The door was as high as the hoarding and locked, so pretty secure.”

  “Reported break-ins through the hoarding?”

  Ash took the question.

  “No damage to the hoarding reported. Some of the break-ins I found happened before it went up, accessing through the DoE building’s windows and doors. But as the hoarding extended all round the site perimeter any breaches after that must have gone through it before they got into the building itself.”

  While Craig furrowed his brow in thought, Liam followed the trail.

  “OK, so we’re looking at someone with a key to that padlock. That would probably have been Duggans’ staff, the builders, so Dean Kelly mostly-”

  Craig jumped in. “Probably Brian Tanner too. He could have got one before the site changed hands; by saying he was the DoE’s caretaker and needed access.”

  Annette returned to her earlier point. “And surely the people who’d bought the site would have had keys too? The Barrs.”

  Andy chipped in with a negative. “Why would they have wanted through the hoarding at that stage? You don’t see many millionaires wanting to visit anywhere until the gloss is on. And there’d have been no reason for the surveyors or agents to have entered either, their work would have been over by then. Sales are agreed long before the actual exchange of contracts or completion and handover.”

  He should know; his two divorces had involved the s
ale and purchase of several homes.

  “Anyway, if they’d needed access they would have needed to be accompanied by the foreman of the site, for health and safety. Same with engineers, designers and so on.”

  Craig nodded. “So, we’re talking about Duggans, Kelly, Tanner, probably Bruton with him, and, I agree with Annette, the Barrs could have had keys as well. Annette, I’d like you to check that list, please.” He turned to his lead analyst again. “Davy, were there any nearby structures that someone could have used to jump from or help climb over the hoarding into the site?”

  The response was Davy pinching his screen to give a wider view of the street. It revealed no adjacent or overlooking structures that someone could have leapt from into the site without breaking their neck.

  “OK, so no-one broke in through the hoarding to deposit the bones apparently, and no-one jumped in past it from somewhere nearby, so short of putting a ladder up against it in either Howard or Upper Queen Streets, which would have been noticed we hope, there was no way to get through that hoarding but with a key.”

  He saw Ash’s mouth opening to object and remembered something, glancing from the analyst to Andy. “Remind me of the crimes committed in that area in that period, please, one of you.”

  Ash responded first. “That’s what I was about to say. The last two happened after the Barrs took over the site at the end of July when the hoarding was still up. One was a reported squatter and the other a report of someone taking drugs on the site.”

  Liam was puzzled. “You’re suggesting someone let them in?”

  “It seems more likely than going through the hoarding given its structure. I’ve requested the paper files in case the online summaries missed out some details, but those two have been slow to come.” As an excuse it sounded weak and he knew it, so he added hastily. “I’ll go down tomorrow and pull them by hand.”

  Craig smiled, more tolerant than his deputy had just been about to be.

  “Don’t worry. I know you’ve been up to your eyes in it. Apart from wondering if and how they got past the hoarding, and what that might suggest for our possible access list, I’m most interested in anyone accessing the site while the cement would have been wet. So from the early hours of the third to the sixth of July, especially the first two of those days. OK?”

  The analyst made himself a note.

  “Andy? What about the files you pulled?”

  The D.C.I. shook his head. “Once you’d investigated the Jessica Chambers one, that only left one other and we ruled them out.” He turned to the analyst. “Sorry, Ash, I could have brought you those files if I’d thought. I had them in my hand down at the archives.”

  Craig moved them along. “OK, the group hug can wait. I need all outstanding files cleared by tomorrow, please. Check for any crimes on-site against the period after the cement went down and their method of access; if someone got past that hoarding I want to know how, and if they were let in by a key holder then I need to know that too. Right, anyone else? Aidan, emergency calls?”

  “Nothing, sorry, just the Jessica Chambers’ call. And there was...” He looked embarrassed. “...that other one.”

  Craig stilled the immediately curious looks with a shake of his head.

  “What about possible witnesses from other crimes in the city during the period the concrete was wet? CCTV?”

  Davy shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “Andy, did you find anything in your search of the archives that might fit?”

  “Sorry, chief, nada. We went through every crime within a square mile. Our best hope might be in the ones we’re clearing tomorrow.”

  Craig really hoped so, because at that moment he couldn’t see a clear path ahead.

  Chapter Eleven

  High Street Station. Thursday, 16thAugust. 9 a.m.

  The normally impeccably-groomed William Bruton was bedraggled. His mop of thick, greying at the temples black hair, normally swept back from his face in the style favoured by men who thought they were worth being taken seriously, was unkempt and clumped in vertical spikes, as if it had been soaked, dried without the aid of electricity and slept on somewhere in between, something that Liam commented on astutely as he peered through the cell-door, declaring it, “Exactly what the bugger deserves for running away to sea.” Add in salt from the Atlantic’s spray, the stench of fish and a day without shaving, and Bruton looked less like a politician than Coleridge’s iconic Ancient Mariner.

  Craig beckoned him away from the peep-hole and down the corridor into the viewing room, setting down his mug of black coffee and leaning back against the wall.

  “Our MLA’s feeling very sorry for himself.”

  Liam snorted at the observation.

  “Well, you would, wouldn’t you? It’s a hell of a fall from the marble halls of Stormont to ten years in Maghaberry.”

  Craig shook his head. “Bruton will never see the inside of a real prison. He’ll serve out his tax sentence in some holiday camp. We’ve got nothing but a few cannabis leaves and Brian Tanner’s word to confirm the drug production, and proving the blackmail’s tricky if Bruton says Tanner just gave him the money as a gift. Tanner would have to go to court as a witness, and did he strike you as the type to do that? No, the best we can hope to get Bruton for is tax evasion for not declaring the cash.”

  Liam’s face had fallen by “prison”, so Craig decided to say something to cheer him up.

  “But he’ll lose his MLA seat and all the influence that goes with it, and Monmouth will probably kick him off their Board.”

  The deputy sniffed, still not mollified. “It’ll not be the same as putting him behind thick bars.” He jerked a thumb back towards the cells. “So, what are we hoping to get from him now?”

  Craig gave a slow smile. “Well, don’t forget that he could still be our murderer, so you may yet get your wish.”

  Even as he said it and Liam grinned Craig didn’t believe it, although he wasn’t sure why not; Bruton had middle-eastern contacts and he’d had access to the DoE’s cellar around the time the women had gone into the ground. He should be a prime suspect in the killings, but... it just didn’t feel right. Craig shrugged as he went on.

  “But for now he’s cold, tired and knows that he’s in serious trouble, even if he doesn’t have the full details yet. As far as Bruton’s concerned we have a witness to his drug involvement and blackmail and we have his bank records for tax evasion. But that’s not the main thing. He also knows that we’re aware he told Philip Michaelson not to dig down at the site, and given the discovery of the bones subsequently he probably thinks that we’re after him for those as well.”

  Liam rubbed his hands together. “Just what I love, a perp who’s shit scared. They do love to talk.”

  “Yes, they do, and he will, providing his solicitor is smart enough to let him.”

  Just then Craig’s phone rang, and Andy’s name appeared on the screen. He put it on speaker.

  “Yes, Andy. What have you got for us?”

  “We’ve just seen Chair of The Monmouth Consortium, Derek Moder, and he confirmed that the Board didn’t issue any instruction regarding the ground floor of the site, in fact he said they were hoping to excavate the cellar soon and convert it and part of the car-park into a spa facility.”

  Liam leaned towards the phone. “Very nice too. That’ll do for Danni’s birthday treat next year.”

  Craig waved him back and continued. “What else?”

  “Well, the company’s really unhappy about the bones being found apparently, but mostly for what it’s costing them while the building work’s suspended.”

  Liam snorted. “Real humanitarians.”

  “Sadly not. But the thing is, Moder didn’t react when I asked him if he’d any idea who the bones could have belonged to, in fact he just looked at me as if I was insane.”

  “Good judge of character then.”

  “Har, har-”

  Craig struck a note of caution. “He could be lying, Andy, remember
that.”

  “I didn’t get that sense, but time will tell. Anyway, then I asked Moder how he’d first heard about the sale of The Howard Tower site, and he confirmed what we’d thought. That sort of thing is all done with a nudge and a wink at parties and the races. He and the Barrs have known each other socially for years, although he said he didn’t like the younger brother, Dalir, at all. Described him as smarmy. Anyway, Kamran Barr mentioned that they were going to sell The HTH at the races last year, and it all went from there.”

  “Was Dalir there when he said it?”

  “Apparently he was, and so was our crooked MLA, William Bruton. Moder mentioned that explicitly. He also said that Dalir Barr only comes to Ireland occasionally now, usually for the racing, although at one point he was a major fixture on the social scene here-”

  Liam cut him off. “Here, didn’t Ash say Dalir Barr hadn’t been here since oh-eight?”

  Craig smirked. “He did indeed. Well spotted. That means his entry wasn’t registered, perhaps because he was brought in somewhere low key on the coast. Or through a private airfield. But I’m less interested in how he managed it than why he wanted to keep his visits quiet.”

  Andy volunteered a suggestion. “Because he was up to no good? Moder said Dalir was very keen on the ladies, especially the sort that you pay.”

  Liam whistled. “So he likes the ladies of the night, does he?”

  Craig chuckled at the term. “You mean sex workers, I take it. Unless we’ve wandered into a vampire movie and I didn’t notice.”

  “Ach, I was just trying to be delicate.”

  It earned the D.C.I. an incredulous laugh from both ends of the phone that brought a curious Jack into the viewing room. After a moment Craig got back to business.