The Property

by Catriona King

  As the analyst typed frantically to get it all down, Davy answered part of what Craig had asked.

  “The brother Hamid is a businessman in Abu Dhabi, but in oh-seven he was at university in Stuttgart.”

  Ash nodded. “But I’ll check if he flew here around that time as well.”

  Craig nodded his thanks and turned back to Dee.

  “What about the money-laundering clients, Dee? Anything on those yet?”

  She shook her dark head. “Sorry, no. There seem to have been at least thirty companies laundering cash through the Barrs and that’s a lot of work, so I had to get permission from A.C.C. Price before we could proceed.”

  Craig just managed not to wince at the name, but Liam wasn’t so subtle, his gawped, “Price?” earning him a kick to stop him saying anything more. Dee looked at the deputy curiously.

  “Yes, why, do you know him, Liam?”

  Craig jumped in. “We’ve both heard of him. So, what did he say?”

  “He said that we can do it, so I’ve got the techs working on it now. It will probably take weeks, but when we get anything I’ll let you know.”

  Craig’s, “Great” was accompanied by a warning glance at his deputy, then he moved off the dangerous subject by turning to Des.

  “Des, I guess we’ve pre-empted your DNA and chemical analysis. Sorry.”

  The bearded scientist shrugged. “Not a problem. I’ll just update everyone on the hydroxide’s taggant. You’ll recall that I said it was manufactured in Omagh and used by several companies. One of those companies was Ertons Pharmaceuticals in Dublin which makes chemotherapy drugs, and that company is owned by, guess who?”

  Annette mouthed, “The Barrs.”

  “Indeed, and it’s probably one of their money laundries from what I’ve just heard. So at Marc’s request, both the Gardaí, legally with a warrant, and me, with Ash doing some hacking...” the analyst gave a small bow “...managed to access Ertons’ records of dangerous chemicals and guess what we found? Ash?”

  The analyst was having a good afternoon and he tapped his smart-pad with aplomb, displaying a page divided into six columns headed: chemical, batch number, quantity, signature, time and date, and listed on the twenty-fifth of June two-thousand-and-seven was one thousand litres of Sodium Hydroxide, signed out by Dalir Barr. They were looking at the material that had been used to strip Maureen and Catherine Berger’s flesh from their bones.

  There was silence as people read and re-read the information, scarcely able to believe their eyes. Craig scribbled something on a sticky pad and nodded Ash to darken the screen as he read aloud.

  “Right, we have no internet or bank activity from the tenth of June for either woman so we can assume that’s when they were taken by Farshid Lund, or people working for him, and the chemicals to reduce them to bone were acquired on the twenty-fifth, so somewhere in that interim two week period our victims died. Then in the early hours of the third of July we have the cellar being filled in with cement that had a window of seventy-two hours in which to dry, the first forty-eight of them the more likely time for something to be deposited in it. The filling was ordered by Billy Bruton and carried out by Brian Tanner and Dean Kelly on the basis of Bruton’s fake fax. So what happened in those fifteen days in June to precipitate the Bergers’ deaths? Anyone?”

  Liam made the first comment, backtracking slightly. “Bruton, Kelly and Tanner knew nothing about the deaths.”

  “Agreed. Their only involvement was filling in the cellar for their own ends, Bruton and Tanner to conceal their drug production and Dean Kelly because it was his job, but by doing so they left wet cement there that inadvertently gave our killers the perfect disposal site.”

  Liam nodded. “So, OK, that means whoever helped Dalir strangle the women did it without thinking through how to deal with the bodies. Their first thought about it was probably when they started to decompose, so Barr got the hydroxide and reduced the women to bones. Where he did it we don’t know-”

  Aidan cut in. “We’ll find out when we arrest them, but they had to be kept somewhere private, like Doctor Marsham said before. Maybe somewhere out of town.”

  Craig wasn’t so sure. “Maybe, maybe not. If the bodies were only kept for a few days before they were stripped down, they might have concealed them at someone’s house. It’s when they were using the hydroxide that they’d have really needed somewhere private.”

  Des cut in. “And outdoors. Using that stuff in an enclosed space wouldn’t have been good for their health.”

  Craig nodded. “OK, we could speculate all day where that was, but as Aidan says, we’ll find out when we arrest them. One point, Liam; we can’t say yet that Dalir was involved in the killings, just the disposal.”

  He ignored the sceptical look.

  “I know I’m being pedantic but let’s stick to the facts we know. OK, so after the twenty-fifth of June or around then they have two skeletons, but why bother burying them at all? They could have just put the bones in a box in the attic and no-one would ever have known.”

  John chipped in, enjoying the puzzle.

  “Panic. Even though no-one else knew the bones were there, living with two dead bodies would be no fun. And they were probably worried that someone might come looking, once the women’s disappearance was noticed.” He frowned on the final word. “Actually, why wasn’t it noticed? Does anyone remember seeing anything in the paper about a mother and daughter disappearing? Surely it would have stood out.”

  Davy had been sitting back and listening quietly, but now he leaned forward to catch Craig’s eye.

  “Go ahead, Davy.”

  The analyst was seated at his desk in the centre of his horseshoe of three PCs, and he turned quickly to the left hand one, tapping noisily on its keys. He had set the seldom used keyboard that way deliberately, the heavy clicks more satisfying than a silent tap, although his other computers, the ones he used most, were set to silent, otherwise Craig would have kicked him out.

  “There w...wasn’t much, but here’s what I found in the newspapers and police reports from the period.”

  The first of three slides appeared on the LED screen. It contained a mosaic of clips from Ireland’s main newspapers, outlining how two ‘overseas residents’ had seemingly disappeared. The second slide held a set of follow-up articles published days later, reporting that the women had returned ‘home’, home apparently being Saudi, and the fact that the pair had been resident in Belfast for over a decade seemingly forgotten.

  Aidan tutted. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that was fed anonymously to the papers by the killers.”

  Craig agreed. “But finding out who did it eleven years later would be a mammoth task, although carry on if anyone feels so inclined.”

  The third slide contained a series of police missing-person reports over twelve months, beginning in June oh-seven, every one of the complaints made by Jason Conroy and not tailing off even when, as one constable had written, “the lad needs to accept that his fiancée had just done a runner”.

  Andy rolled his eyes. “Very official language for a report, I don’t think.”

  Annette shook her head. “But it tells us something. Conroy refused to give up on Catherine even when everyone else had. He really loved her.”

  Davy nodded. “There were a few comments on s...social media as well. Ash, do you have those?”

  “Yes. But,” he looked at Craig, “there were a few other police reports, chief. From a neighbour of the women. I found them just before we started the briefing so I haven’t had a chance to look at them yet. I’ll do it after.”

  Another slide appeared, showing that some people on social media had queried why the pair suddenly weren’t posting any more, but considering the three thousand so called ‘friends’ that the women had had between them there had been remarkably few, confirming Craig’s thoughts about the superficiality of such relationships. He shook his head despairingly; even the women’s real life contacts had hardly bothered to report them
gone, except for one neighbour and Jason Conroy, the fiancé who’d refused to believe that he’d been jilted. The human race really sucked sometimes; or maybe that was just his current mood.

  After a moment Craig spoke again. “John’s point holds. The killers panicked. If they hadn’t thought things through in advance, which is unlikely unless they’d always intended killing the women, they ended up spending time with two dead bodies before they even considered using the hydroxide.”

  John signalled to speak again. “Which working back means, that if they’d lived with the bodies for even a few days before they thought about and then actually got the hydroxide on the twenty-fifth, the women were probably killed around the twenty-first or second. Bodies start to become unpleasant after two or three days unless embalmed.”

  It made sense to Craig.

  “OK, good. Then after another period with the bones they decided that they couldn’t live with them. The question is... was finding the wet cement a happy accident or did someone tell them that it was there?”

  Aidan had a question. “Did anyone ask?”

  “What?”

  “Did anyone ask Kelly, Bruton and Tanner? I’m guessing the night-watchman-”

  Ash cut in. “His name’s Jimmy Mooney and the address I was given for him was old. He left it years ago.”

  “OK. So did anyone ask them whether they told anyone there was wet concrete there? They might have done, to warn people in case they fell in.”

  It was a good point, and one Craig was about to delegate.

  “The answer is, not yet, but it’s a good thought, Aidan, and as you and Andy are interviewing Mooney later you can ask him. Then go and ask the others too if necessary.”

  As the D.C.I. raised his eyes to heaven Andy gave him a dig.

  “You and your big mouth.”

  Craig smirked. “He always had one, even at school.”

  John nodded in agreement, making Aidan hit back.

  “I don’t know what you’re laughing about. You two were known as The Jock and Joe Ninety.”

  Joe Ninety was a nineteen-sixties British science-fiction series for children that followed the adventures of a clever little boy who wore large glasses, just as John had at school. The series had been syndicated and repeated so many times that anyone who’d been young between the sixties and two thousands knew who the lead character was.

  John was curious. “All one title?”

  Aidan shrugged. “You were always together.”

  Craig rolled his eyes and returned to the case with another question for Des.

  “Des, did you get anything on that red fibre?”

  “I did indeed, and I can see now where it fits.”

  “Something one of the women was wearing?”

  The forensic lead nodded. “The daughter would be my guess. It was high quality silk, very expensive, and the dye was hard to track down, but I traced its origin to Varanasi in Northern India, so it must have been imported from there.”

  Annette frowned, confused. “That doesn’t sound like something a sporty student would have worn.”

  “Unless she was having a traditional Asian wedding. Red, that red in particular, usually coupled with gold, is traditionally seen in the Banarasi wedding sari which is also made in Varanasi.”

  Craig nodded. “And what are the odds that the fabric wasn’t imported commercially but brought in especially for this girl?”

  When realisation seemed slow to dawn on the others, he explained.

  “Catherine and her mother were abducted with Farshid Lund’s permission, and he tried to force the girl to marry one of the Barr brothers, wearing traditional dress. When she wouldn’t agree, they killed both women and dissolved them in Sodium Hydroxide, but some of the silk and a few strands of hair survived somehow and got buried in the concrete with their bones.”

  Liam made a face. “It wasn’t just an arranged marriage it was forced on pain of death. Sick bastards.”

  Annette’s quiet voice cut through the outrage that followed.

  “What if Catherine didn’t refuse?”

  Craig held up a hand to quieten the group.

  “Go on.”

  The D.I. spoke hesitantly, her idea evolving as she did. “Well… it’s just that… well, most girls if faced with the threat of their mother being killed would agree to any marriage.”

  He decided to test her theory.

  “Even if they were in love with someone else?”

  She nodded, becoming surer of herself.

  “Even then, and even if their mother didn’t want them to sacrifice themselves. They would agree rather than see her die. There would always be the hope that you could escape or divorce later.”

  Craig’s gut said that she was on to something, so he motioned her to follow it through.

  “OK, so… what if the Barrs kidnapped the women on the tenth of June and after days of threats and persuasion Catherine said yes, agreeing to marry one of the brothers to protect her mother. She got dressed in the wedding outfit just like you said, and was all ready to go through with it when they found out that…”

  Her words tailed off.

  It was Mary who prompted her, something about the dead girl’s situation resonating with stories she’d heard from her Chinese grandmother, perhaps not quite of forced marriage but of extreme pressure being brought to bear on young girls to marry men who weren’t their choice.

  “What? What are you thinking?”

  “Well… what if they found out that Catherine wasn’t a virgin?”

  Deidre Murray looked at her sceptically. “But surely they would’ve already known? After they’d heard she was engaged? I mean how many-”

  Ash interrupted. His parents had come over from India in their twenties and although his family was Hindu not Muslim, he’d heard all about strict marriage customs from them.

  “Even Catherine being engaged wouldn’t have made them assume that she’d had sex. Traditionally raised girls can be betrothed for a long time but continue to live with their parents, and they wouldn’t have sex until their wedding night. But if Annette’s right and they found out that Catherine wasn’t a virgin as they’d expected, then we could be looking at an honour killing. It’s called karo-kari in Pakistan.”

  An honour or shame killing is the murder of a family member, usually by another member, based on the killer’s belief that the victim has brought shame or dishonour upon the family in some way. This can include violating the principles of a religion, such as by refusing to enter an arranged marriage, being in a relationship that is disapproved by the family, having sex outside marriage, dressing in ways which are deemed inappropriate and several other things.

  Liam’s jaw dropped. “You’re saying that whichever Barr brother it was, was so affronted that the girl had had sex with someone before him, although how the hell he worked it out God only knows,” and none of them wanted to think about it, “that he killed her? Actually killed her for it?”

  He was as astonished as everyone there felt.

  The junior analyst nodded.

  “And probably with her father’s permission too. Farshid Lund might have considered it an affront to his and his family’s honour, as well as to the Barrs’, and Catherine’s mother would have been judged equally responsible, for not raising her daughter traditionally. Remember the Barrs originate from Pakistan and it has the highest numbers of honour killings per capita in the world.”

  Craig said nothing, too sad to speak. If possible the circumstances surrounding their victims’ deaths had just become even grimmer. In the face of his silence Liam took charge.

  “OK, we need to start nailing things down.”

  As he spoke Craig rose and began pacing, needing to do something to displace the growing anger that he felt. The D.C.I. ignored him and continued.

  “You all know what you need to do, so get on with it now and call me direct with any updates.”

  As the group dispersed, Craig decided to take his pacing into his o
ffice, hoping that solitude and the river view might help him decide how to plait the disparate strands of their case into something that they could prove in court. When the change of scene had calmed him, if not clarified things any, he opened his office door again looking for his deputy, who in an attempt to be friendly to the squad’s temporary secretary was standing over her wearing a maniacal grin.

  “Liam, stop frightening Alice and let’s go. Barr will be waiting at High Street.”

  As they made for the lift, the supposedly intimidated PA surprised both detectives by giving a disapproving tut.

  “There were several regulations broken during your briefing, Chief Superintendent.”

  Craig wasn’t sure that he’d heard her correctly so he turned back to ask.

  “Sorry, what?”

  “I said there were broken regulations.” To avoid misinterpretation she read from a list on her PC. “Liquids being consumed near expensive computing equipment, food being eaten during official business outside a formal meal break, not to mention a comment that I’m sure I can’t possibly have heard about illegal hacking.” She tapped the screen meaningfully. “It’s all down here.”

  His first response was to gawp at her, his second to glance at Liam, who was working up a head of steam. Before he blew Craig dragged him by the arm over to Davy’s desk and dropped his voice.

  “Davy... the temp, Alice.”

  A sigh said that Davy already knew what was coming next.

  “She’s got a squeal list, hasn’t she?”

  Liam added astonishment to his annoyance. “That couldn’t mean what I think it does.”

  A nod from the analyst said it did and that he’d seen such a list before.

  “A man had one at my first job out of Uni, in an insurance company. He w...watched everyone and made a note of anything that infringed regulations, then he gave it to his boss for brownie points. A girl lost her job because of it.”

  Craig wasn’t having it; his team worked excessive hours in a dangerous job and often didn’t get time for breaks, so snatching a drink or food at their desks was a necessary part of life. In the long term it decided him that they needed a staff-room, but for now things were going to stay as they were, and that meant they had to find a way of dealing with nosy Alice’s list. He smiled meaningfully at his senior analyst.