The Slowest Cut (2 page)

“OK. The cuts on her body are a mixture of superficial and deep.”

“Hesitation?”

“No, there are no sign of rehearsal cuts anywhere, and you normally get those with hesitation. I’d say that any superficial cuts were deliberate, to cause pain, as were the deeper ones. I’ll do my best to give you timings, but I’d say she was kept somewhere for a few days while they played with her. If they didn’t want her to die quickly, then they could have kept the cuts superficial initially then deepened them as time went on.”

Just then Jake re-entered, the pallor of his skin blending with his fair hair to make him look like a ghost. Liam nodded ‘all right?’ and Jake nodded back, averting his eyes from the mass on the table.

“She must have lost a lot of blood in those days, John. Why didn’t it kill her?”

“Because she was a strongly built woman and because they definitely knew what they were doing. They knew just how far to go to avoid killing her.” He thought for a moment. “They could have butchery training.”

“Any possibility that they’re medically trained?”

John shook his head. “No. The cuts are too random and imprecise.”

“Maybe they’d done it before, sir.”

Craig turned towards Jake and smiled. “You’re right, Jake, maybe they had. OK, add-in similar cases to Davy’s search list. But not just UK or local, widen the search to worldwide.” He turned back to John. “When you remember where you’ve seen this before let us know. It’ll help narrow Davy’s search.”

John continued. “OK. The killers could be experienced in torture, or not, but they definitely knew how to keep Eileen Carragher alive while she bled, so they may have used a clotting agent. I’ll check.”

“If you could check for eye drops on her corneas first then we can start looking for recent purchases of those.”

John shook his head. “They can be bought over the counter, so unless they used a credit card…” Craig nodded. “I know it’s a long shot but anything’s worth a try.” Craig stared at the corpse thoughtfully for a moment. “How much does she weigh?”

“She wasn’t a thin woman. I’d say around seventy kilograms.”

“What’s that in real money, Doc?”

“About eleven stone.”

Craig nodded. “OK, then how did one person lift her? I can just about see a strong man carrying her to the playground from a vehicle, but holding her vertical long enough to wrap her wrists in chains? I doubt it.”

John rubbed his eyes then stared into space. “I’m trying to think if any of us could hold seventy kilos vertical for long enough to wrap a chain around it.”

“I could.”

Craig glanced at Liam. At six-feet-six he was probably the only one of them that could have managed it, but how many six-feet-six men were there around?

“We’re all six–feet or thereabouts and we couldn’t, Liam. Were her feet resting on the seat of the swing, John?”

“No. The seat was twisted up near her face.”

“So they didn’t even stand her on the seat and then tie her hands with the chain. That means she was lifted as a dead weight.” Craig nodded to himself, then realised from their blank faces that he needed to vocalise his thoughts. “We’re looking for two people.”

“You mean two men, boss.”

“Not necessarily, Liam, no. I agree two men are more likely than two women, but a man and a woman, provided they were both fit might have managed it. Either way, at least one man was involved.”

John cut in. “None of this answers the main question, Marc. Why? By all accounts Eileen Carragher was just a wife, mother and teacher, hardly the profile of a person someone would want to do this to, is it?”

“Except she obviously wasn’t just those things, John.” Craig nodded towards the door. “Let’s grab a seat outside.”

He led the way while John covered up his charge, then they took a seat in the mortuary office, perching on steel stools designed to discourage their occupants from staying too long.

“OK. I’ll get Davy to look for the knives, similar M.O., the note and sun times. Jake, can you liaise with Sergeants Harris at High Street and Maguire at Stranmillis and make sure that we have plenty of Uniforms on the streets near the school over the next few days. In particular I want a door-to-door on any houses with a bird’s eye view, including blocks of flats that might have the school in their line of sight. Liam, you take the grieving widower and the kids. Annette can take the rest of the teachers; we can use her diplomacy on this one.”

Liam sat forward indignantly, almost sliding off his stool. “Here, are you saying I can’t be subtle when it’s called for, boss?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying, and don’t pretend that you’re offended. You should be grateful. I don’t think a school full of traumatised teachers is quite your thing. Find out when and where Eileen Carragher was last seen, and if she’s been missing for days then find out why no-one reported her gone. I’m going to dig into Mrs Carragher’s life in other ways.” He turned to John. “You were right when you said Eileen Carragher didn’t have the profile of a person someone would want to do this to. But that means she was more than the obvious information tells us about her.”

“A secret life?”

“Everyone has things they’d rather weren’t made public. Including all of us.”

Liam harrumphed. “Not me, I’m an open book.”

Craig shot him a sceptical look. “Two words, Liam. Ray Mercer.”

Ray Mercer was an unscrupulous reporter at the Belfast Chronicle who made their lives hell on nearly every case. Liam had been about to punch him in an interview room some months earlier when Craig had intervened. Only he and Craig knew about the incident.

John arched his eyebrow curiously and Liam blushed. “Aye, well. I meant…”

“None of us are angels, Liam, including me. We all have things that we’d rather didn’t leak out. I’m betting that Eileen Carragher had as well.”

John looked sceptical. “Something bad enough to warrant this, Marc?”

“Obviously the answer to that is yes.”

Chapter Three

The meat slid off the bone like oil from a blade and Mai heaped the plate high with dark-red slices. She handed it to her lover proudly, nodding him towards the ramekin of sauce.

“This looks great, pet. Even better than the beef last week.”

She smiled at him, wrinkling her nose prettily. “The secret’s in the marinade. At least two days.”

They both laughed as she poured a glass of ruby merlot and carried her own plate to the table. The young man took her hand gently. She felt relaxed, but he knew it wouldn’t be that easy after all the years of pain. He could smell freedom after so many trapped years. He corrected himself. Almost smell it. There were still two more left to die.

***

3 p.m.

John turned his head slowly, testing his hangover; it was definitely getting better. It was down to a small twinge at the end of the turn now, from a head that had needed holding when he’d brushed his teeth that morning. He’d deliberately used his old toothbrush, worn but silent. The thought of an electric head buffeting his gums and assaulting his ears with its whining had been too much. Now it was three p.m. and he could almost consider starting Eileen Carragher’s post-mortem, with all the bone cracking and saw whirring that implied.

He poured himself another cup of coffee and sat down again, thinking of Natalie as he sipped. He smiled as he remembered her leaping energetically out of bed that morning, completely untouched by the excess alcohol of the night before. He would never be much of a drinker and she normally respected that, but now and again she deliberately engineered a heavy session, just to show him that she was made of sterner stuff. She didn’t need to prove it; he’d never had any doubt. She’d made it to Consultant Surgeon at thirty-five in a world dominated by men; Boadicea would have been proud.

And yet…When they were alone and all the bantering had stopped, he saw Natalie for the woman she was. Playful and loving, tender-hearted and absolutely desperate to do some good in the world. At first he’d wondered why she’d hit it off so well with Craig’s sister Lucia, much more than she ever had with Julia McNulty, his ex. But now he knew. She was just like the gentle Lucia; always trying to help people, marching for every good cause, collecting waifs and strays wherever she went.

Natalie might not have Lucia’s gentle ways and girly looks but she was exactly the same, just with a layer of spit and vinegar on top. Julia had been a different type entirely; defensive and moody and self-absorbed. He wasn’t sad that she and Craig had split up. He knew Craig missed her but he needed someone who wasn’t constantly fighting the world.

John turned his head again and smiled; the twinge had all but gone. Last night’s drinking session had been Natalie’s rehearsal for a friend’s hen-night. That meant another spring and summer of weddings. His mind went straight to ‘boring’, but his heart surprised him by whispering ‘what if?’ John jerked upright, startled by the thought. What if what? He answered himself out loud. “What if it was Natalie and me getting married?”

John started to turn away from the words as soon as they hit the air, then he stopped, letting himself imagine what they meant. For the first time ever it didn’t frighten him. After years of cold sweats in churches, listening to Mendelssohn’s Bridal March and thanking God it was some other poor sod trussed-up in tails and signing his life away, John wondered. He wondered for a whole five minutes, half-smiling as he did and then he walked back into the mortuary to discover what he could about Eileen Carragher’s death.

***

Craig paced the small playground in silence, taking in the chalked lines for hopscotch and football, and the climbing frame and elderly row of swings. The concrete school building was quiet; no children’s chatter or timing bells to disturb his thoughts. An anxious looking man stood in one corner with Annette, answering her questions distractedly, while all the time watching Craig as if he was going to find fault.

Annette smiled to herself. The presence of the police affected people in different ways; bravado or fear were the common two, with a long list of subsets for each. Physically that usually meant fight or flight. Mentally it ranged from mute panic, through vagueness, to an all-out faint.

She watched the thin man beside her to see which one he would fit. If he fainted she could catch him, he was only her height and weight; ten stone. She admitted it ruefully, knowing at her height she needed to lose fourteen pounds. She felt she should set an example for fitness now that she held an inspecting rank, but people’s tendency to bring cakes into the office had so far thwarted her good intent.

Annette sucked in her stomach and stared at George Harlston again. Mr Harlston or Sir, to the children that roamed the halls. She smiled, remembering the tiny chairs and desks in the classroom when she’d gone to knock his door. It was the coat pegs that had touched her most. Three feet from the ground with names scribbled underneath, declaring that they belonged to Kevin or Jay. She’d seen them before of course, with her own kids, Amy and Jordan, but her nostalgia went further back today. To her own childhood, when she was small enough to have fitted in one of the forgotten coats.

She shook herself and opened her notebook to a fresh page, getting ready to scribe.

“Now, Mr Harlston. What can you tell me about Mrs Carragher?”

George Harlston stared at Annette with a haunted look, as if he could see the dead headmistress beside her, hovering like Banquo’s ghost. He was a man somewhere in his forties, not unattractive in a miniature way, but the pallor of his skin matched his translucent eyes, and made him look as if he would faint. Only the vibrant orange of his tie added any colour to him at all.

He spoke hesitantly, as if he was sure there was a right answer; an answer that he should somehow know. Years of tests and inspections had taught him that there was always one answer more correct.

“I…I would say she was nice.”

‘I would say she was nice’. How much more damned by faint praise was it possible to get? Annette prompted him gently, afraid that a harsh approach to questioning might make him run away.

“And? Could you tell me when you saw her last? What she was like to work with? Any more details?”

“I saw her last Friday, at approximately four-thirty. She was just walking to her car and she turned and waved.”

“Good. What did she drive?”

“A small saloon. I’m afraid I’m not good with makes. I can tell you that it was blue. Dark blue.”

“Excellent, thank you. Did you speak to her again after that? Over the weekend perhaps?”

Annette’s husband Pete was a teacher and she knew that they were like most professionals, always remembering something that they had to check or ask outside working hours. Harlston frowned as if trying to remember, but his eyes said that he already had. Annette waited through his mime then nodded him on.

“I called her at home. On Saturday at six p.m. To ask about a child who I’d referred for counselling.”

“And?”

“She wasn’t there. Her husband said she’d gone into town to meet an old friend and he was expecting her back at seven. But I called back at nine and she wasn’t there then either.”

Annette made a mental note to check with the husband, and continued her questions, occasionally glancing over at Craig. She’d watched him pacing out the playground from the side of her eye, now she saw him beckon Liam and Jake over for a chat. She felt left out. She asked her next questions impatiently.

“Did he say who she was meeting? Did you speak to her at all after that?”

“No, no. Neither of those. I didn’t ask who she was meeting and he didn’t say. She didn’t return my call, so I thought I would just talk to her about it at school this morning…”

Harlston’s voice tailed off and Annette knew there was only one question left to ask, and that it would knock him for six.

“Why didn’t you like Mrs Carragher, Mr Harlston?”

George Harlston’s eyes widened and he blushed from brow to chin, objecting strenuously. “I didn’t say that I didn’t like her…”

Annette interrupted quickly. “Call it a hunch then. But you didn’t. Like her, I mean. Did you?”

She watched as Harlston’s thin face turned a deeper red and panic filled his eyes. She could see him doing the calculations. Tell the truth and slot himself into a suspect box. Or lie, certain that the police had mind-reading talents that would make him confess, or bright lights in an interview room that would have the same effect. He decided to tell the truth. He shook his head firmly.

“No. I didn’t like her. Very few of the teachers did. Or the parents. She was hard. She bullied her staff and was rude to parents. In fact the only people she was nice to were the kids, and a lot of them didn’t like her either.”

“Any idea why?”

He stared into the distance vaguely. “I’m not sure. There was something about her. If I was ten I would call it creepy, that’s what the kids said and I could see what they meant. Let’s just say that she wasn’t a comfortable person to be around.”

“Who did like her?”

“What?”

“You said very few of the teachers did, that implies that at least one must have.”

Harlston looked shocked at Annette picking him up on two words.

“Oh. Yes, I suppose it did. There was really only one. Alan Rooney. He teaches the transfer year; ten and eleven year olds. He seemed to get on very well with Mrs Carragher; they often had lunch together or went off into a huddle in her office. No-one likes him much either. And of course, the school governors liked her. She was good at hitting targets and keeping within budget. They like all that stuff. Plus, she could smooze with the best of them.”

He stopped suddenly and Annette wasn’t sure if it was because he had nothing more to say, or because he just wasn’t saying anything more. They’d find out later when they interviewed the rest of the staff. She closed her notebook and slipped it inside her bag, impatient to join the huddle fifty metres away.

“Thank you, Mr Harlston. That’s all for now.”

The relief that covered Harlston’s face almost made her laugh. The last time she’d seen someone look so grateful was when they’d been acquitted of murder. Harlston turned on his heel and was halfway towards the school when he remembered his manners and shouted “thank you”. Then he put his head down and kept on walking, moving faster than any teacher Annette had ever seen. She hurried across to the small group just in time to catch the end of one of Liam’s jokes.

Craig greeted her, laughing. “Did you get anything from the teacher, Annette?”

She smiled. “Yes, sir. He didn’t like Carragher much. Apparently no-one did, except for the school governors and a Mr Rooney who teaches the oldest class. Seems they were quite close. Harlston last saw Eileen Carragher on Friday at four-thirty. She was getting into her car, some sort of blue saloon. He phoned to speak to her about a child on Saturday night but her husband said she was in town meeting an old friend and he was expecting her back at seven. He called back at nine o’clock, but she still wasn’t home.” She turned to Liam. “Has anyone spoken to the husband yet?

Liam looked sheepish. “Not yet. I called but he was at work.”

“Work? When his wife’s body’s just been found!”

Craig interjected. “He won’t know yet, Annette. Remember we don’t have a definitive I.D.”

Liam shook his head. “Aye, well, even allowing for that, boss, I thought it was a bit odd as well. Uniform called him and hinted something was up this morning, but he still went into work. Still, there’s nought as queer as folk. He said he’d be home at five so I’ll head round there then.”

“Harlston said he was going to speak to Mrs Carragher this morning when school started, but...”

“OK, thanks, Annette. Liam, check if she was reported missing before you go to speak to the husband. If he didn’t report her on Saturday night then I want to know why. Annette, you and Jake interview all the teachers. Question Rooney especially and see what their ‘special relationship’ was all about.”

“Are we interviewing any of the kids or parents, sir? It’s just that Harlston said Carragher was rude to the parents but nice to the kids, and the kids though she was creepy.”

Liam boomed so loudly that Annette jumped back. “If any teacher’s rude to me when our Erin and Rory start school, they’ll be sorry.”

Jake shot Liam a sceptical look and turned to Craig. “Some parents can be a real pain, sir. My mum’s a teacher and she said some of them want to do her job, and they all think they can do it better.”

“Does your mother teach primary or secondary?”

“Secondary, sir. But kids are kids.”

“True. Ask her what normally warrants the description ‘creepy’ applied to a teacher.”

Liam interrupted. “Strange clothes or haircut, bad breath. The usual nerd behaviour. We had a teacher once…”

Craig shook his head. “No. It doesn’t feel like that here. Ask for me Jake, please, and Annette, go back to Harlston and see if there are a couple of children who are willing to talk to us about why they didn’t like her. I’ll get Davy to dig into Carragher’s background and see which schools she worked at before here, and why she left them.”

“So we’re making the victim the suspect?” Annette asked the question quietly but the point was well made.

Craig nodded. “Yes, unfortunately we are, until we can rule out that her lifestyle had anything to do with why she was killed. If this had been death associated with a mugging, rape or a myriad of other things, then no. The victim would be the victim, pure and simple. Chosen at random, or wrong time wrong place. But this was much too deliberate and too well-planned, Annette. There was nothing random about why Eileen Carragher was chosen, the note tells us that, or why her body was displayed here in the way it was. She was the reason for the crime and we need to find out why.”

“In case it happens again, boss?”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps it won’t, but either way there’s a story behind this murder and every part of me is screaming that someone thought Eileen Carragher did something to bring this on herself. And my hunch is this case is going to get much darker than we think.”