The Running of the Deer

by Catriona King

  “Do you think the romance means anything, apart from the obvious?”

  Craig shook his head. “No idea, but it gives us a stronger connection between the Canavans and Appside than them just leasing the land, and it may have given Niall access to the place as well.”

  Just at that moment Craig’s phone rang again. He passed it to Liam to answer and kept heading for John’s office, his sudden need for coffee too strong to fight. His addiction to coffee was like Liam’s for food and Aidan’s for nicotine, and someday soon he really must try to kick it; and he would, just as soon as someone invented an espresso patch.

  After draining the percolator and getting his fix the detective was once again capable of speech.

  “Hi, John, what was the urgency? Aren’t you coming to the briefing?”

  Winter shook his head, refilling the coffee machine just as Liam entered. “Sorry, you’ll have to wait a minute till it brews, Liam.”

  Craig felt absolutely no guilt. “Who was the call from, Liam?”

  The D.C.I.’s expression was glum. “Andy. They got busted.”

  John’s eyebrows shot up. “They got arrested?”

  “What? No, not that kind of busted, busted caught on.”

  The pathologist looked to Craig to explain the difference, bringing out some mugs.

  “He means they were seen by their surveillance target.”

  Liam shook his head. “No, that would be busted made, not busted caught on. Busted-”

  He was interrupted sharply by his boss, who was discovering that sometimes no amount of caffeine could help him deal with Liam’s tortuous reasoning.

  “Just get on with it.”

  “Ach, OK. There’s no need to be so grumpy.” His turn towards John was proxy for a sulk. “Andy and Kyle were watching Niall Canavan from a nearby carpark and recording everything he said, but about thirty minutes ago the Canavans’ solicitor approached the car. He’d got some judge to sign an order to stop our surveillance on both brothers.”

  “But surely you can get it reinstated? Marc?”

  Craig sighed. He’d half expected that one of the brothers would catch on.

  “We can try, but it could take days to argue the case in court, and Canavan knows it.” He frowned. “I’d just like to know how he made them so quickly.”

  Liam shrugged. “Smart man. You don’t get to be a billionaire by accident. So, what do you want to do now?”

  “I’ll tell you in a minute.” Craig turned back to the pathologist. “What did you need to say that couldn’t be said at the briefing?”

  “That’s just it. I can’t come, neither can Des. We’re both doing things tonight. Mike will attend in case you need to check anything, or,” he took a carton of milk from the fridge, “you could just ask us now.”

  At that he lifted his phone to summon the others, just as Craig rose to head back out the door.

  “I’m going out for some fresh air, and I need to call Jack Harris.”

  “OK. By the time you get back we should have a full house.”

  Liam smirked and watched his boss leave, knowing that deep breathing wasn’t the most important thing that he was going outside to do. When Craig returned a few minutes later and retook his seat, it was with a thumbs-up to his deputy and a brisk, “Right then. What have you got?” to the scientists.

  John started them off.

  “OK, we’ve PM-ed the victim from eight years ago, and his cause of death was almost identical to the newer boy. Both were teenage boys, both had their torsos and limbs crushed without lacerations or skin splitting, so probably using multiple smooth stones carefully placed, and then both received a blow to the head. In the earlier victim it was a blow to the parietal bone, not the temple, but it had the same effect.”

  He motioned Mike to pick it up.

  “The stomach contents say both boys had unremarkable last meals, nothing unique that would be useful, but it does tell us they weren’t being starved before they died. Both were malnourished, but tissue samples have confirmed that their malnourishment was old, probably happening many years before they were killed.”

  “So, they’d been mistreated, but probably when they were much younger than the age that they died.”

  “Exactly. But they’d probably had periods of being well treated too, or the malnutrition would have been worse. We’ve also found traces of alcohol in their blood, and a mild sedative in their tissues-”

  Craig interrupted. “The old and new victims? I thought you said the new boy hadn’t taken any drugs.”

  The pathologist nodded. “None of the major illegal drugs or prescribed medications, but a further check of his tissues showed that he, both of them, had been taking small quantities of a chemical for some time, not enough to have rendered them unconscious, just-”

  Craig cut him off again. “Can you tell how long they’d been given it?”

  Mike nodded. “Or taken it. There was no sign of injection sites, so it’s likely that it was given orally, and that could have been voluntarily or not. As far as timespan is concerned, I’d say it was absorbed over a period of months or years.”

  Liam’s eyes widened. “They were druggies?”

  The pathologist shook his head. “Not in the sense that you mean. Neither boy’s levels were high enough for addiction and there was no sign of damage to their nasal membranes from cocaine, and no injection sites as I said. It might have been a plant extract; there are examples, like peyote, found in other cultures. It contains psychoactive alkaloids, particularly mescaline.”

  “Could it have been one of the old legal highs, like Spice?”

  Spice was one the best known of a group called novel psychoactive substances (NPS), once known as legal highs but now illegal. They were substances that mimicked the effect of long established hard drugs but by a slight tweaking at a molecular level had evaded anti-drug laws until the Psychoactive Substances Act was introduced two years before.

  “Maybe. I’ll check for it. But whatever it was, combined with alcohol it would have been enough to keep them buzzing.”

  He glanced at John for confirmation and the lead pathologist added.

  “We also found some early liver damage in both boys, the beginnings of alcoholic cirrhosis.”

  Liam’s eyes widened. “They were just kids!”

  “Kids who had alcohol on board when they died and who’d been through the mill during their lives-”

  Craig interrupted before Liam started lecturing them about the purity of childhood.

  “So, you’re basically describing kids who were slightly high most of the time, rather than off their heads?”

  Mike answered him. “Exactly. It could have been self-medication or someone trying to keep them in order, there’s no way to tell.”

  “But it tells us that they weren’t killed as soon as they arrived. They must have lived there for some time to get those levels.”

  “Which means they were killed because they did something to piss them off, boss.”

  Mike nodded, conceding the point.

  Des picked up the reporting. “On the prints from the deer heads, I’ve tested them, and they were definitely male.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yes. There were several small ones which could fit with boys ranging through to older teenagers, and a few definitely adult male prints. Davy and I are both running them now.”

  Liam grunted cynically. “What’re the chances the Canavans would give us their prints for comparison, boss?”

  “Zero unless we get grounds for arrest, and we’re a way away from that. Anything on the DNA, Des?”

  The scientist shook his head. “The DNA on the deer heads was too corrupted, ditto on the victim from twenty-ten, but,” Craig’s excitement rose, “I did get something from the new boy. Amongst all the forest floor detritus, I found a short, light coloured hair that wasn’t his. It was caught beneath one of his nails.”

  Liam nodded sadly. “He must have grabbed one of the buggers who killed
him.”

  “Probably. It’s unlikely to give us anything until we find someone to match it to, but I’ll run it anyway.”

  Craig smiled gratefully. “Thanks. I don’t suppose there was anything as useful in the first victim’s evidence?”

  Both pathologists shook their heads. “Nothing, sorry.”

  Des spoke again. “There was also a note in the earlier boy’s file about some deer heads being found around his body in twenty-ten, no number was given but one of the heads was new. They weren’t with his evidence samples, so I did some digging, but no-one seems to know where the heads went to, and as it’s eight years back…”

  They all understood.

  “The C.C. mentioned some animal blood found in the clearing. Anything on that?”

  Des shook his head. “It was fox blood. Sorry.”

  Craig nodded phlegmatically and started summing up, adding some information that the scientists didn’t know. Together it painted a picture of two boys who’d been mistreated, if not where they’d lived just before they died, then certainly earlier in their lives. Forgotten boys who had been vulnerable enough to be led into a world that involved drugs, both the taking and the carrying of them, a world that had eventually disposed of them for reasons that they still didn’t understand.

  When he’d finished John asked a question.

  “The adult prints Des found, you think they belonged to the man or men who killed them?”

  The detective nodded. “If not by their own hands then they bear the responsibility for it.”

  The pathologist’s eyes dulled. “Other boys, stoning and then crushing them to death? Kids really did this, Marc?”

  “You described the size of the stones, and said they were thrown with different speeds and forces. Can you think of any other scenario?”

  When no one answered, Liam picked it up. “It doesn’t matter who actually did it, does it? We’ll never tie it to individual kids even if we find them-”

  Des shook his head. “We might not be able to prove that they murdered, but we’ll be able to give you the names of some of the people who were present if we match their prints and that hair.”

  The D.C.I. conceded the point reluctantly. “OK, so maybe we will be able to put a name to them, but these are kids, definitely were kids at the times they were taken, so who’s really guilty in all this? Eh? The bastard who started it, or the ones that got caught in the net?”

  “People used to call them pinball kids.”

  All eyes returned to Des.

  “Explain.”

  “Because they ricochet between parents, homes, social services, police, hostels. Like a pinball. No-one really to care for them consistently. It’s pitiful.”

  There was silence for a moment then Craig asked. “Is that everything?”

  Mike remembered something else. “That cocaine trace. I got the chemical breakdown and forwarded it to Sergeant Rimmins in Drugs like Liam asked. The interesting thing is it was pure. No baking soda, flour, none of the rubbish they usually stamp on it with.”

  ‘Stamping on’ drugs was the street term for mixing them with something else. To increase the volume of drugs available for sale and to make more money, dealers usually stamped on drugs with a large quantity of something else the same colour. So, cocaine was stamped on with flour, salt, or sugar if you were lucky; if you weren’t it could be white rat poison, concrete dust or detergent, all undetectable visually and any one of which could kill you when you took a sniff.

  Liam nodded. “The kid was definitely muling then. The coke must have been headed for somewhere else and they’d have stamped on it there.” He shook his head. “I wonder what stopped him from delivering it? Was he stealing it for himself do you think, and he got caught by the group?”

  Craig had a theory that he decided to explore. “OK, so why kill him? Why not just punish him? It’s unlikely that theft would have been viewed that badly, considering what these kids had already survived. Harry’s account doesn’t exactly paint them as angels.”

  “What then, Marc?”

  “You tell me. What would you prize most in their position, John? Anyone?”

  Des responded first. “Family, safety-”

  Mike shook his head. “Loyalty. They might be like a band of brothers and have viewed the theft as a betrayal.”

  Craig nodded. “All valid, but I think it might have been something more. I think these two boys were different from the group in some way. There’s nothing obvious about them physically, and we can assume that they were mentally normal too or they would never have been recruited to work. That leaves just one thing. Their attitudes, morality even. What if they both refused to deal drugs?”

  Liam nodded. “It would have made the others look at themselves and feel like crap, or the leaders in any case. They’re immature kids, so they’d have felt judged and lashed out.”

  “Yes, and there’s something else that Des said. In twenty-ten there was a new deer head. Without seeing it we can’t know for sure, but my guess is that new meant fresh. Hollowed out or not, there was one freshly killed head with each of our two dead boys. What if for each boy that was killed they killed a fresh deer?”

  John’s jaw dropped. “That would mean there are eight bodies we don’t know about!”

  “Perhaps, but it’s probably a lower number. They’d most likely have gathered a core group together to kill the first time, whenever that was, so perhaps they killed a number of deer at the very beginning just to hollow out their heads to wear.” His face became solemn. “Although given the age of some of the heads that suggests that this might all have started decades ago.”

  John interjected. “Maybe they didn’t kill at the start, maybe they used the hollowed-out heads for something else?”

  Craig rose to his feet. “I would love you to be right, John. Anyway, this will all just be guesswork until we find someone to ask.”

  He was answered by a series of nods.

  “OK, thanks, all of you. I’ll keep you all up to date with whatever we get-”

  Des interrupted him, standing up as well. “Sorry, I meant to say, Marc. The evidence from the deer killed in the nineties isn’t in the central store. It was destroyed.”

  Craig nodded. Dead animals hadn’t been a priority back then because of the Troubles.

  “It’s what I expected. OK, if you could all just make sure to send everything you have over to Davy, please.” He turned to leave and then turned back as he had another thought. “Are any of you in court on the Drake case this week?”

  John and Des both nodded.

  “I would bring a packed lunch then. He’s sacked his counsel and conducting his own defence.”

  The detectives exited to the sound of groans.

  ****

  Belfast City Centre.

  “Well, that was a whole lot of nothing. All they did was follow me for a while and check my mobiles. Good luck to them with that, I never make calls on them and my texts will just look like gibberish.”

  Dermot Canavan tapped his pen against his apartment’s old-fashioned phone as he spoke, irritating the woman on the other end.

  “Stop that tapping!”

  He made a face. “All right, all right. Boy, you’re in a real mood today, aren’t you?”

  Eleanor Rawlings bit back. “Is it any wonder with the cops sniffing around?”

  Canavan’s voice softened soothingly. “Let’s meet up. I can be at your place in-”

  “Shush! Someone might be listening.”

  Ellie thought for a moment, wondering if what she had to say to him would be better said face to face, and then realising that even if the cops had been told to back off that didn’t mean they’d gone completely away. They might see them meeting and start investigating her next, or maybe even record them from a distance with a mike. She watched television, she knew what cops could do. But was the phone safe either then? They could be being bugged right now, or maybe they’d tapped Dermot’s mobiles while they’d had them!
/>
  If she’d heard Craig’s phone call to Jack Harris from the path labs, then she would have known that she was right.

  There was only one safe way of telling her lover what she needed to tell him that couldn’t be overheard.

  “I’m hanging up now. I’ll message you where to meet. Do the usual.”

  The line went dead, leaving Dermot frowning at his landline in surprise. A moment later both his and Ash Rahman’s proxy mobile beeped with a text message that said nothing except ‘5’.

  ****

  The C.C.U. 5.45 p.m.

  When the detectives arrived back at the office, Nicky was waiting to pounce. Liam had spotted her vigilant stance as soon as they’d emerged from the lift, so he’d peeled off, ostensibly heading for the loo, leaving Craig, too deep in his own thoughts to notice, to walk straight into her tirade.

  The PA shot across the floor and waved a piece of paper in his face.

  “I’ve had people shouting at me all afternoon!”

  When the detective had readjusted to where he was and who was yelling at him he responded with a blank “What?”

  Nicky waved the note again. “This is a list of the people who’ve shouted at me today because of things that you’ve done, and I don’t think it’s fair!”

  The detective was torn between telling her to catch a grip or doing what he knew he really needed to if he didn’t want the rest of his week to be hell. He chose the latter option, even though it required more diplomacy than he thought he had in reserve at that moment, but then you never knew what your depths were until they’d been plumbed.

  He shooed his PA gently back to her seat and then drew up one of his own, ignoring the nosy gaping of some of his team members, and the hovering others who obviously had questions for him of their own.

  “Now, Nicky.”

  It was said in his most conciliatory tone, because even though he wanted to strangle her at times, he really did like his PA. She cared for him like a mother even though she was younger than he was, and she was the best secretary in the force, plus, he knew that he could be a thoughtless bugger who didn’t always give her the attention she deserved. Unfortunately, Nicky probably had that in common with most of the people in his life, and he wasn’t proud of it. He was well aware that anything that wasn’t important to his case at that very moment had a nasty habit of getting pushed to one side.