A Limited Justice (#1 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) (16 page)

“Aye well...I’m very glad you asked that, Gerry. Not specifically, but we do have a few good ideas.”

Liam grabbed a seat from the corner, leaving Julia standing, and sat down, stretching his long legs across the small doorway.

“Sure, a cup of tea would be grand. Thanks for asking.”

Then he launched into their progress so far and his planned visit to the Adams’ farm, just as soon as he’d had his tea.

***

The four artist’s sketches were spread across Craig’s desk. They were exceptional. Almost photographic quality.

The postman and paperboy should be easy to eliminate, but the ‘Spiv’ and the ‘Hoody’ were of particular interest. No matter how hard he stared at the Hoody’s features, they didn’t look any less feminine. And although the curves were well hidden they were still too obvious to ignore, it was definitely a woman. She was small and very slight, and the pallor and dark circles around her eyes confirmed the frailty that Liam had heard in the voice calling Ian McCandless’ mobile. Monica Gibson.

The phone number had yielded nothing, as expected; just a pay-as-you-go mobile, bought with cash. And Monica Gibson was an eighty-three-year-old living in Londonderry. Craig was sure now that their caller had been so close, she must have seen the C.S.I.s go about their work.

Annette was right; Joey McCandless would turn out to be a dead end. This woman was their killer, he was sure of it. The Spiv would be a debt collector; they needed to confirm it, but Meg McCandless had said they were always calling at the garage.

They still needed to rule out Michael Adams and his razor-wire, and then there was Joey McCandless’ possible link to the Purecrem. They had a long way to go, to close the gaps that some slime of a defence barrister would try to wriggle through later. Craig had always wondered how they could defend someone that they knew was guilty, knowing that the ‘everyone deserves a defence’ line would be trotted out in reply.

He beckoned Nicky in. “Can you get these sketches out to uniform please. They’re to identify and rule out these individuals.”

He gestured to the sketch of the Spiv. “Give this one to Davy and ask him to try the local debt collectors first, please. I’m pretty sure that he’s an agent for one of them. But ask if he can find any images for Michael Adams as well. I know it’s a long shot, but...”

She nodded and took the sketches, pointing at the wall clock.

“Don’t forget the D.C.S. wants an update before the press conference. It’s nearly four now, sir.”

Craig nodded and then startled suddenly, realising that he’d forgotten to eat all day. Nicky’s smile showed that she’d predicted it, so he wasn’t surprised by the sudden appearance of a sandwich and coffee five minutes later. She was more like his mum than she realised. A sudden thought struck him and, reaching into his jacket, he produced his credit card.

“Nicky – that little lady who helped us with the sketches, has she gone home yet?”

“No, she’s downstairs waiting for a free car.” She smiled, knowing what would come next.

“Then, would you mind nipping out for a nice bouquet of flowers? And get a photo of a young uniform handing them to her. Tell her we’ll frame it and send it on. She might just have cracked this case for us.”

She smiled at him proudly; this was why she loved working for him. All the hours, all the coffee, and even the occasional moods and silence were worth it for this. Her obvious approval made him feel unexpectedly vulnerable and he took an overly large bite of his sandwich, trying to re-instate the reputation for sceptical macho-ness that he aimed for.

Just then, her desk phone rang. John. She put him through immediately.

“I’ve just spoken to the North West, Marc. Burton has never donated sperm and there were no signs of violence to indicate rape, so she may have simply consented to sex with the husband?”

“But if they had consensual sex then why use frozen sperm, when she could just have had a fresh sample? This really doesn’t make sense.”

“I know. And apparently the husband has a solid alibi for the time of the murder – he was twenty-five miles away in Templepatrick. Also, Des says the wire marks found on Burton’s shins match the ones on McCandless exactly. Nice jigsaw you have. Sorry, I have to give a lecture now, so it’s all yours. See you tomorrow.”

Craig rubbed his eyes hard, already exhausted by anticipating his next conversation with the D.C.S.

“Thanks for that John, now I have to bull-shit Harrison
and
the press.”

Then he realised he’d wasted his sarcasm on a dead line.

***

Julia stared hard at the fax that Terry Harrison had just sent from Belfast, as if she could set light to it. It was a draft press release and it was complete crap. Now she had to tell him it was.

She didn’t care what the D.N.A. said, Paul Burton was innocent. She’d always been sure of it and now his computer and sat-nav backed it up, but how could she convince Harrison? Older officers’ complete faith in D.N.A. would be almost touching, if you didn’t have to argue with them.

She looked at the fax again, hoping that she could read the meaning differently, but it was unambiguous. Harrison’s desperate desire for impact was removing any wriggle-room.

‘Perpetrator under arrest’ was written, clear as day, half-a-dozen different ways. If she let it go ahead, she’d be blamed later, and if she didn’t then she’d get an earful now. And he’d think that she was just some dopey woman going on her ‘feeling’ that Burton didn’t do it, despite the D.N.A.

Why, when men had hunches were they called ‘instincts’, but when women had them they were called ‘feelings’, accompanied by a pitying look? But she still had to tell him that he was wrong, Paul Burton wasn’t their Perp...So she screwed up her nerve and picked up the phone, preparing to contradict a very senior officer, and not for the first time either.

Chapter Ten

The soundproofed room was crammed full of journalists, media and press, busily rigging lights and microphones in preparation for the conference. Each perforated sidewall had been hung with sockets and leads, every one of them feeding a different network. All so the public’s constant appetite for information could be satiated 24/7.

Jeans-clad electricians and cameramen crowded outside, grabbing the courtesy coffee and sandwiches from the long catering-table. They were too busy talking to notice Nicky handing them their drinks, as she covertly gathered information for her boss, completely unknown to him.

Meanwhile, Craig was upstairs with Harrison preparing to face the lions. Press conferences were the only part of the job he really hated, and Nicky knew it. He’d been trotted out too often as the force’s poster-boy for inter-force liaison for his years in The Met, and Europeanism for his Italian side. So five minutes before he entered their den he’d be gifted a list of the fourth estate’s most likely questions. Her contribution to improving his crappy week.

*** 

Craig had spent the last ten minutes arguing with Terry Harrison and it didn’t look as if it was going to stop any time soon. The phone call he’d received from Limavady two minutes before had chucked even more petrol on his flames.

“That bloody woman McNulty keeps insisting that the D.N.A.’s wrong. But it’s science, and science is fact. You can’t argue against fact.”

“With respect, sir, I don’t think that is what she’s saying.”

Harrison rounded on him angrily.

“Of course that’s what she’s saying. Paul Burton’s D.N.A. was found at the scene. And his wife, the wife with whom he was engaged in a very acrimonious divorce, was sexually assaulted and murdered. My officer, raped and murdered, D.C.I. Craig...”

Craig sat forward, even more determined to make his point. “But that’s just it, sir. John told me there was no sign of rape, nothing to say that the semen was introduced in an act of violence.”

“Well how else was it introduced, for God’s sake? They weren’t even on speaking terms, never mind friendly enough to have sex. There’s no way on earth that Maria Burton consented to sex with the man.”

Harrison’s face had turned so deep a red that Craig thought he was about to have a heart attack, so he sat back quickly, deliberately arranging his body language to calm the situation. He hadn’t put much stock in psychology until he’d seen it work on the street, but now he relaxed back in his chair and half-smiled, and the D.C.S. automatically did the same, without quite realising why.

They sat for a minute without eye contact, and then Craig broke the silence, speaking in a measured voice.

“Let me run a hypothetical case past you, sir.”

Harrison’s look was challenging, but Craig ignored it, continuing softly.

“Let’s just say that Maria Burton
wasn’t
raped.”

Harrison went to argue but Craig held his hand up, halting him without rudeness.

“Wasn’t raped, and in fact didn’t have sex at all. And that there are no signs of resistance, because she wasn’t raped. But that, instead, the semen was deposited after she was dead.”

The disgust Craig felt at his own words was echoed in the chief superintendent’s face, but he remained silent, listening harder now.

“That scenario would explain why there were no signs of violence. Yes?”

Harrison nodded him on grudgingly.

“Alright. Then let’s say that Paul Burton is telling the truth and that he wasn’t anywhere near Portglenone at the time of the murder ...”

Harrison spoke in a sarcastic tone. “So how did his sperm get there? Walk on their own?”

Craig half-smiled, acknowledging the bad joke and knowing that it indicated a thaw. He continued carefully, knowing that Harrison was more engaged than he’d been for twenty minutes, and not wanting to break the spell.

“The sperm were dead, and they were dead when they were put there – forensics confirms it. So we can agree that they’d left Paul Burton’s body some time before. We thought of sperm donation or someone putting the semen there to stage the scene...” Harrison looked at him thoughtfully.

“But why would Burton need to bring his own dead sperm to the scene where he killed his wife?”

“And why would he deliberately incriminate himself by putting them there at all, sir?”

Then realisation dawned on Harrison. “Because he didn’t bring them, someone else did.”

“Exactly. Someone else planted his dead sperm at the scene.”

“But that doesn’t mean Burton didn’t get them to stage it exactly like this, to throw us off track.”

“No it doesn’t. But why would he, sir? It just incriminates him. And with the sat-nav and computer info, it makes it unlikely that he had anything to do with it at all. And–” He paused for a second, to let Harrison catch up with the logic.

“With the similarities between this and the McCandless’ case, it also makes it a lot more likely that it was the same killer for both.”

The D.C.S. nodded imperceptibly, but it was enough, he’d agreed. And Julia McNulty was out of the bad books. Then Terry Harrison’s next suggestion almost made Craig wish that he hadn’t bothered at all.

***

His dad was dead. His dad was really dead. It still seemed too surreal to be true. Maybe it was the suddenness of it, or maybe it was the way that he’d died. Like some terrible scene from a Godfather sequel that he’d studied in media class. So grotesque and over the top that it had to be some scriptwriter’s fantasy, instead of real life. Except that it was true, and his dad was dead. And their last conversation had been so monosyllabically male and ordinary.

“Don’t forget it’s your mum’s birthday on Friday, Joey.”

“OK, I’ll get her some flowers. Bye Dad, catch you later.”

Ordinary.

Ian McCandless had no idea what his son had really been thinking, and needing to say to him that day. The words that he’d tried to form a thousand more times than he’d actually seen him in the past few months. Words that he couldn’t even say to himself, never mind to his father.

Words that could have created a gap of guilt and shame between them that could never have been crossed. Making every casual conversation tense, changing their one-word, easy exchanges into earnest, stilted conversations of political correctness and reproach. With his mother wedged between them, loving them both, but always protecting her child. Just like a mother.

His dad had been a man in the old mould, with big rough hands and a hard day’s pay and his ‘work hard and look after your family’ values. Making his boys’ world safe for eighteen years. Intent on educating them both, and angry when his older brother took the easy-way-out to adventure across the water. Investing extra effort in him to compensate, accepting that an arty degree was better than none, and proud to say that his son Joey was at University. So proud of it. So proud of him.

He’d laughed uncomfortably at his once-blue hair and Chinese tattoo, even arguing for it against his mum. He tolerated his loud music and strange friends, with their floppy hair and street fashion. He’d even swallowed his macho objections to his pierced ear and occasional cosmetic adornment at nightclubs. Still smiling proudly and laughing at ‘kids’, citing his own ‘70s attempts at flares and long hair in comparison. None of his younger son’s arty teenage rebellion had managed to cause him disgust.