A Limited Justice (#1 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) (6 page)

“All of these?”

“Sorry, but yes. These could all leave similar marks and it’s as close as we’ll get without the weapon to compare. When you find it we can match it, but any of these could have caused that injury. I’ll send this over to Davy.”

Des suddenly looked at his watch. “God, I’d better shift myself to the hospital otherwise it won’t just be today I’ll get sworn at. I’ll leave you two to solve it, but please call me back if you need me. Anytime, day or night. I really mean it.”

The pleading look in his eye showed them just how much he meant it, and they laughed, waving him out. Then they sat beside the skull in silence, Craig sipping thoughtfully at his cold espresso as John fingered a sample of the razor-wire gingerly. A red streak sprang suddenly from his fingertip and he dropped it urgently, swearing.

“Bugger! I didn’t even feel that cut me. This stuff’s vicious; I wouldn’t like to handle it even with gloves. If Des is right then our killer has no hands left. Although it would certainly explain the findings on McCandless’ shins. Come downstairs and I’ll show you.”

They walked down three floors into the ice-cold mortuary, where Ian McCandless was having his final nap. John lifted a clipboard to check something and then walked quickly down the room, past rows of vertical wall fixtures with numbered segments, until he reached number 109. He opened the door, and pulled the drawer containing their victim out into the freezing air.

The sheet covering the body was plain and white, like any bed-sheet. If they hadn’t been where they were it could have revealed a sleeping man instead of a dead one.

John pulled the sheet back and their victim’s face came into view. Craig looked down at him sadly. Death was a waste, but it formed the baseline to both their days, and the ‘puzzle’, the bit that they both loved, started here.

Ian McCandless had been a handsome man in life, stocky and strong with a weathered face, and arms that showed a manual, outdoor existence. He looked anywhere from 60 to 70 but Craig knew that he was only 56. Perhaps financial worry had aged him, or maybe it was just life wearing him down. He knew how that felt.

John started reporting quickly, breaking through his thoughts.

“Starting from the top. He has marks of forced trauma around his mouth, where the petrol pump was pushed in very hard. The rubber handle hit the area surrounding his mouth on entry. The back of his throat also bears testament to the level of force used, they nearly pushed it through the back wall of his pharynx, implying?”

“Revenge, personal motive, unaware of their own strength perhaps? Maybe all of those things. Although I still feel this killer is physically small, hence having to trip him up to disable him.”

“Maybe they’re small but very strong. Or if Des is right, they may simply have no sensation in their hands to moderate the force. Sensory feedback is part of what tells us how hard we’re pushing.”

“What would cause a loss of sensation without a loss of power?”

“If that’s what it is, then we’re talking about a sensory neuropathy and there are lots of medical conditions that could do it. Anything that causes sensory nerve damage: diabetes, some tumours, it’s quite a long list. Although most would cause a loss of strength as well. I’ll narrow it down for you.

I won’t lift his head. But you saw the skull so take my word for it, he has a depressed fracture and severe contusion of the brain surface about the size of a two-pound coin. It doesn’t fit a domestic hammer, so we’re looking for the weapon that Des described.

OK, moving down. Although the lower part of his body was charred, the top half wasn’t. The worst burning is at his feet so they definitely didn’t set light to the petrol round his mouth, they set light to the pool at his feet. And they poured some on him. The C.S.I.s found some random splashes on his shirt, so it was probably tossed over the body as well.”

Craig interrupted him.

“The fact that they didn’t set fire to his face makes it less likely that there was a personal relationship, and they weren’t trying to hide his identity. But the hands-on method still means that this might be vengeance for something.”

John thought for a minute, and then nodded. It made sense.

“Right. His hands are newly abraded by gravel and stones, and they match the ones just outside the shop door, so it makes complete sense that he fell when he was tripped. He cut his hands on the gravel when he put them out to save himself.

Apart from nicotine stains from smoking, there’s nothing else on his hands to note. His legs tell the main story. His thighs, knees and shins have abrasions consistent with a fall and then being dragged face-down across the forecourt, to the pumps. The wire matches perfectly with the narrowness and depth of the straight horizontal cuts on both shins. And the depth backs up Des’ razor-wire theory, I pity any animal caught in that stuff. I don’t think they were trying to hide his identity but I do think they were trying to hide the wire cuts. That’s why they set fire to him feet first. They didn’t want us to know about that wire for some reason, so I think it’s a clue to your killer.”

“That and the print.”

“Yes, the print’s interesting. I’d like to see who it goes back to. Anyway, his lower limbs were still smoking when he was found and they were flexed in a partial pugilistic or boxer’s pose, where the tissues had contracted from the heat. But they weren’t fully flexed and the fire had gone out. So that, the body temperature, and the lack of rigour, gives me a time of death under an hour before he was discovered. Anytime between 1.30 and 2.30pm.”

“His last outgoing call was at 2.15 and he was found at 2.30, so that fits. He was killed soon after 2.15, in broad day light.”

John nodded. “Quite the daring little killer this one.”

“Someone must have seen them.”

“How’s the door to door going?”

“Nothing so far, but Liam’s on it.”

John smiled. Liam Cullen was like a bloodhound and he’d never come back empty handed yet.

“The other thing worth mentioning is his last meal. Chips, less than two hours before death. The wide-cut chippie type, not the narrow burger-joint ones. His arteries were in a shocking state for a fifty-six year old, so I imagine they weren’t his first chips. He drank a fair bit as well, although not yesterday, but I wouldn’t want his liver.”

“Maybe one of the local chippies served him.”

“Maybe. Finally, his lungs.” John looked solemn.

“He was nearly killed by the blow to his head, but the lungs show that his final cause of death was drowning. Whether by accident or intention who knows, but he definitely drowned in petrol.”

“God.”

They looked down silently at the man lying on the trolley, imagining what his last minutes must have been like. Tripped with razor-wire, legs cut, skull fractured, dragged, drowned and then set alight. The killer had to be a sadist, or mentally ill. But either way, they had hated this man for something.

They put Ian McCandless back to sleep and then headed to John’s office, drinking coffee and talking about the case until nearly six pm. Eventually, Craig straightened-up, preparing to go, but something about John’s manner made him hesitate. Craig knew him, and there was something more that he wanted to say.

“Something else bothering you?”

The way John was kicking the desk said ‘yes’ and he started speaking quickly, without meeting Craig’s eyes.

“Marco, there’s something you need to know.”

Craig became immediately uneasy at the use of his Italian name. It always preceded trouble.

“Camille’s coming to Belfast.”

Craig strained for breath as if he’d been kicked in the stomach, fighting the reflex to throw-up. He couldn’t think for a second and then he thought too much, his questions forming rapidly. The main one was ‘Why?’

He’d thought he’d never have to see her again. She’d been his girlfriend, partner, whatever the modern euphemism was, for nine of the fifteen years he’d lived in London. And they’d been in love. Heart-flipping, euphoric love. But she was an actor, and an ambitious one, whose desire to perform eventually passed her desire for him. And that was the truth, no matter how she’d tried to dress it up.

And in the excruciatingly drawn-out death throes of their relationship, she’d gone to New York. Where, although she’d always denied it, he knew that he’d overlapped with a studio director called something suitably cool, like Zack or Kirk...or Prick. She’d ripped out his heart, leaving him a far more distant man than the one who’d grown up with John Winter.

It was five years since she’d left and four since he’d come home, but every birthday he got her card with one kiss on it. He always wondered whether Prick knew. Now she was coming to Belfast and he knew with absolute certainty that he couldn’t deal with it. He turned to walk out, but John stood bravely in front of him.

“Hear me out, Marc. You need to know the details, if only to avoid her. Belfast’s a small place.”

Craig looked at him coldly, hating him. As if he’d somehow colluded with her by even mentioning her name. His rational mind knew that John had never even met her, but the animal in him wanted to rip his head off. He stood completely rigid, his fists clenched.

John fell over his next words, defending himself. “She’s coming as part of the Festival – they’re on tour with ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. I only found out because she e-mailed me.”

When Craig spoke, the sound of his own voice shocked him - it was a guttural snarl, like an animal. “How did she know your e-mail address? Have you been in contact with her all along?”

His suspicion cut John deep and he hit back angrily.

“Why the hell would I be in contact with her? You may have loved her Marc, but to me she was nothing but the heartless bitch that wrecked you. For God’s sake, think clearly. The contact came on the hospital e-mail, so you must have mentioned my name to her. After that it wouldn’t have been hard to find out where I worked. Winter’s not that common a name, especially in Northern Ireland.”

Then he stepped back and raised his hands in peace, knowing that Craig was hurting and didn’t need another fight from him. His voice softened as he delivered the next few words.

“She just e-mailed me to tell me she was coming over. She’ll be here for five days from the twenty-fourth and...she’d like to see you. But she won’t force it; she knows it has to be your choice.”

He hesitated for a second before continuing. “No-one would blame you if you didn’t see her Marc, but you have to consider whether you’ll regret it if you don’t.”

They stood in silence for a long moment as Craig’s anger seeped away, echoed by a dull retreat in his eyes. Then he reached a hand out to his friend, his lips moving to form some words, but he gave up defeated and turned away, leaving the words for John to say. John knew exactly what they were. “I’ll regret it either way.”

Chapter Four

Northern Ireland was many things. Verdant; green and plush. And Orange and Green. Young and arty, MTV and the City of Culture. And sedate and elegant, like an elderly lady wearing white gloves on her way to church.

It was cosy and welcoming, or parochial and interfering, like ‘small town anywhere’. It was small, or it was compact. Everything plus or minus, depending on your point of view.

Jessie knew exactly what her view of Northern Ireland was. It was perfectly sized, especially for prisons.

***

Craig shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his leather reefer, and stared out across Helen’s Bay. The grey waves were rolling forward and then pulling back flirtatiously, inviting him to enter and take part in the ritual. And he was tempted. It wasn’t the first time he’d thought how much easier life would be if you were dead.

John had meant it kindly, but hearing that next week he and Camille weren’t going to be separated by the water stretching in front of him. Or even better, by the larger pond on the other side of the island, left him with the dilemma that choice always brought. And this at a time when he thought he’d finally found some dull peace.

While she was out of touch and out of reach, he could pretend that she was just a memory. Someone he’d known when he’d lived some other life. It was only when her card arrived with its fatal constancy that he was reminded of the life he’d once led with her. One where he’d allowed himself to love. Not the safe love of family or friends, always returned and never costing, but the fierce, dangerous love where someone bought your heart with promises. Promises that she’d broken long ago.

And now, choice again. Not even the certain choice of her love, only the choice of whether to see her. See her, and let her face and voice and touch rip through the wall that he’d built between himself and the world. He hated her for coming and he hated John for telling him, and he hated himself more than either of them, for being such a bloody coward.

The water still stretched ahead of him, grey and frothing white, unfeeling and careless. He envied it for that. But thirty minutes of staring hadn’t answered his questions, and thirty more minutes shivering wouldn’t answer them either. So he pulled up his collar and pressed his phone on, reconnecting with the world. The instant beeping reminded him that life went on without him and he still had ‘the job’, something that he could always control.