The Coercion Key (7 page)

“So we’ve been threatened and you think he was serious, sir?”

“Yes. That’s what I just said.”

“No. With all due respect you’ve just told me to be careful or I’ll be sacked from the case.”

Craig stared at the phone aghast. She was right. He was letting his fear for them make him threaten fire and brimstone. Annette was still talking.

“We can’t protect ourselves completely, short of never leaving the C.C.U.”

“I’m sorry. I know I’m barking at everyone but…”

She laughed. “It’s nice to know you care. I’ll see you in five minutes and you can bark at me some more.”

Annette cut the call gently and drove to the C.C.U., parking in the basement garage and thinking how exposed they all were. If someone wanted to kill one of them they only had to lie in wait and put a bullet between their eyes. It was a risk, but not one they could avoid. By the time she reached the tenth floor the other teams on the floor were buzzing with rumours.

“Did you hear? Someone’s been named as a target?”

“No. I heard that a contract had been taken out on Superintendent Craig.”

Annette walked straight past them to her desk and started to type up her notes. Everyone on the Murder Squad had their heads down, trying to ignore the murmurs. At four o’clock Craig emerged from his office and beckoned the whole squad in. It was a squeeze once Nicky joined them but better than the other teams overhearing and speculating even more. Annette was certain they’d have declared one of them dead by the end of the day!

Craig poured them all a fresh coffee and then sat down behind his desk. His face took on a sheepish expression and he glanced at them each in turn.

“Nicky says I’ve been behaving like a pillock for the past hour.”

Nicky’s jaw dropped. “I did not. I never said the words.”

“Well you should have, you’ve been thinking them.”

She went to protest just as Craig said. “And you were right. I’ve been overreacting to a threat against the team and playing straight into our stalker’s hands.” He turned to Annette and Liam in turn. “I owe you two an apology for barking at you.”

Annette waved him away with a smile, but Liam sat back and stared at the ceiling as if he was thinking weighty thoughts. When he spoke it was in a solemn tone.

“Nicky’s right. You have been acting like a pillock. You threatened to sack me if I didn’t do as I was told.”

Nicky squinted at him in warning. “Liam…”

Craig winced. “I only meant sack you from the case, not completely.”

Liam sniffed in mock hurt. “I had visions of being on the breadline, out on the street with a wife and two small children.”

Davy interrupted in a dry tone. “Cut to the chase, Liam. This isn’t the Oscars.”

“You cheeky pup. I was just working up to my finale.” He turned to Craig who was struggling to stop laughing. “I think compensation is in order, boss.”

“Three pints?”

“Done.”

“OK. Now, can we get on with the briefing? Good. The reason I overreacted is that the same man who called yesterday called again today at two-thirty and told me that he was going to teach the team a lesson for not dropping the case. I took it that he was going to harm someone in the team. I’m hoping that it’s me that he comes for, so that I can have the pleasure of taking him down, but it may be one of you.”

He stared pointedly at Davy and Nicky. “And that doesn’t just mean officers. You two need to be careful as well. In fact even more careful than us because we can arm ourselves.” He turned to Annette and Jake, who rarely carried guns. “I want both of you to carry your personal weapons until further notice.”

Annette objected first. “Ah, sir, do I have to? You know that I hate guns.”

“Yes, you have to. You too, Jake. Old Wyatt Earp here and I are always armed, but you and Annette need to be as well, just until we tie up this case.”

Davy leaned in eagerly. “Can I have a gun as w…well? I’ve messed about on the firing range.”

Craig shook his head, smiling. “Sorry, but no, Davy. You would probably shoot yourself. You and Nicky are pretty safe during the day because you’re here, but I’ll assign close protection officers to escort you to work and home at night, until further notice. If you’re going out in the evening they’ll go with you as well.”

Davy made a face. “Maggie won’t like that.” Maggie Clarke, Davy’s girlfriend, was a journalist for a local tabloid, the Belfast Chronicle and she wasn’t a woman to be trifled with.

Craig smiled. “Don’t worry; I’m sure she’ll get a few column inches out of the case at some point.”

Davy gave him a hopeful look. “Can I tell her she‘ll get an exclusive w…when it’s cracked?”

“I’ll think about it. Right, now let’s get on with the case. Liam first on Julian Mooney, then Annette on the McCaffertys, Davy and Jake on their side and I’ll bring you up to speed on everything else. Liam?”

Liam grinned and Craig knew he was still thinking of his three pints of beer. “Well now. Mr Mooney. I didn’t get to see him but I spoke to him on the blower; he’s in the Republic on business and can’t get back for a few days. He was pretty cut-up about the girlfriend, Vicky Linton, there was no mistaking that. He said that he’d no idea who would have sent her such an expensive gift. She’s a criminal prosecutor so it wasn’t likely to have been a grateful client.”

“Expensive gift?”

Craig nodded at Jake. “Something I told Liam. We’ll get to it later. That’s a good point about her being a prosecutor, Liam. Her only client would have been The Crown. That means, depending how successful she was at her job, that she must have put hundreds of people away over the years. Plenty of angry cons and their relatives to consider.” He raked his thick hair. “Though that wouldn’t really fit with the other victims.”

Davy interjected. “S…She specialised in cooperate law for years, chief, not criminal cases. She only joined the court system in 2007.”

Craig gave him a puzzled look. “That’s an unusual career shift. She was defending corporate clients then?”

Davy nodded. “Yes. I’m only s…starting to get the details, but I’ll know more tomorrow.”

“OK. Thanks. Sorry, carry on, Liam.”

“Julian Mooney and Vicky Linton had been dating for nigh on a year and he said he was working up to proposing, but then we all say that, don’t we?”

Craig winced, remembering his own moment down on one knee many years before. The engagement hadn’t ended well.

“And Mooney must know it would make him look less of a suspect in her death if he seemed loved–up.”

Craig interrupted. “What does your gut say?”

Liam shook his head. “Not guilty. He sounds a bit smooth for my liking. Like the sort you wouldn’t trust near any woman you cared about, but not guilty of this. Like I said, he was pretty cut-up.”

“OK, that’s Mooney out of the way until we can meet with him. Davy, run all the usual checks on him anyway, please.” Craig turned to Annette. “Right, Annette, the McCaffertys. Anything?”

Annette was rummaging in her handbag for something and Craig waited until she pulled it out. It was a photograph of Jonathan McCafferty on a beach, and judging by the sunshine and the exotic looking brunette by his side, it wasn’t Portstewart Strand. She passed the picture round and started reporting, ignoring Liam’s noisy “Phoaw.”

“Jonathan McCafferty wasn’t the paragon of virtue that his job and press clippings might have suggested. He was the only son of two elderly parents. They adopted him when they were in their forties; they’re in their eighties now. Nice people, very religious.”

Jake interrupted with a wary look on his face. “Like the Fosters?”

Craig recalled the case Jake was referring to; a murder on the North Coast the winter before. The Fosters had been a couple who’d adopted a child late in life and they’d been religious as well, expressing their love of God by beating their son half to death. He sincerely hoped that the McCafferty’s approach to worship was more benign.

Annette shook her head at Jake’s question. “No, nothing like the Fosters, thank God.”

Craig smiled at her choice of words.

“The McCaffertys seem like genuinely devout people. They live very simply and there’s definitely no money to spare. They disapproved strongly of their son’s fast lifestyle. The father in particular was very vocal about it.”

“What about his lifestyle? What was he doing that was so bad?”

She pursed her lips, gesturing at the circulating picture. “That wasn’t his wife and she wasn’t the first. Apparently he had several affairs. He was very good at spending money on himself too; took off to exotic places whenever he felt like it. Eventually his wife, Amelia, took the kids and left. The McCaffertys took her side. The father said he thought Jonathan was into cocaine as well.”

Liam squinted suspiciously. “How would an eighty-year-old know about coke?”

Annette arched an eyebrow. “You’ll know about more than that when you’re eighty, I bet. Anyway, he didn’t call it cocaine.” She flicked open her notebook and read aloud. “That white stuff they put up their noses.” She gave Liam a sarcastic smile. “OK now?”

“Aye, well. I like accuracy.”

“It’s your middle name, isn’t it?”

Craig intervened before their barbed exchange took over the meeting. “Grow up you two. Keep going, Annette.”

“Well, the rest of the conversation was basically the mother singing Jonathan’s praises, along the lines of ‘don’t you remember that tie he bought you for Father’s Day when he was ten?’ and the father calling him all the worthless whatevers of the day. It was clear they’ll never agree on the subject.”

Nicky smiled. “Motherly love.”

Annette nodded. “There was one interesting thing, sir. Neither of them believed that Jonathan had committed suicide, but the father said that at least his wife and kids would get all his money now. Motive?”

Craig frowned. He doubted that Amelia McCafferty had managed to drive her husband to suicide, the other way about sounded more likely. But they had to rule it out. He smiled ruefully. She wouldn’t be the first black-widow spider in the world.

“OK, that’s interesting, Annette. I’m not sure it will take us anywhere, but go ahead and interview the widow.” He turned to Davy. He was whispering something to Jake, making him laugh. “Care to share it, lads?”

Craig had asked the question pleasantly but Davy blushed anyway. He decided to brazen it out.

“I was just s…saying that if Maggie killed me all she’d inherit would be my PlayStation games and a pile of black T-shirts.”

A quick laugh went round the group and Craig could see them all thinking about what they would leave behind.

Davy was on a roll. “At least if I s…snuffed it now, I’d be a good looking corpse.”

Jake chipped in. “Like James Dean. Live fast, die young and be a good looking corpse.”

Nicky had had enough of the conversation and tutted loudly. “And leave your poor mothers crying their eyes out too. There’s nothing glamorous about dying, at any age.”

Craig stifled a smile at her serious face and folded arms. They didn’t quite go with today’s outfit of black and white cat suit and false eyelashes. He didn’t know who Nicky’s fashion icons were because she changed them every week, but today’s looked like Siouxsie and the Banshees.

“OK, let’s get back to work. Annette, interview Amelia McCafferty. Take Jake with you please. Davy, check her out in depth and Julian Mooney as well, in addition to the checks you’re running on everyone else.”

“Will do.”

“Right, what have you found on our victims, Davy?”

Davy uncrossed his gangly legs and leaned forward with a solemn look on his face.

“Jake’s been helping me and between us w…we’ve looked at all but the most recent victim, Victoria Linton. I’ll get to her today. S…So far there’s nothing obvious on any of them. No criminal records, no obvious debts, no nasty little secrets. W…Well, none that are illegal anyway.”

“Did Jonathan McCafferty’s affairs show up on your searches?”

Davy nodded. “Yes.” He turned to Annette apologetically. “Sorry, Annette, I s…should have told you about him. It came up when I was doing his financial checks. Hotels and meals for two all the way through his marriage, even w…while his wife was in hospital giving birth, so it obviously wasn’t her he was eating them with.”

Annette smiled ruefully and Craig nodded Davy on.

“There’s nothing obvious that connects the three victims, chief. I’ve run the combinations between them in pairs and all three of them together. They didn’t go to s…school or college together, they didn’t w…work together anywhere at any time, not even student attachments. They didn’t even like the same things.”

Liam interrupted. “In what way, lad?”

“McCafferty was into s…sailing, exotic holidays and he played five-a-side football up at the Olympia playing fields once a week, with a bunch of other suits. W…Warner was into ballroom dancing and the theatre, and Diana Rogan never left the house without her kids.”

Craig stopped him. “Not even the odd night out with her friends, Davy?”

Davy shook his head hard, making his long hair fall over his face. He pushed it back, irritated. Craig predicted he’d cut it soon and he wondered what style would appear next. As long as he didn’t take fashion tips from Nicky he should be all right.

“Nothing. She was a real home bird.”

Craig turned to Liam. “Check that out, Liam. I want to know if Diana Rogan and Nelson Warner had any skeletons in their closets, they both sound a little bit too perfect to me.”

Annette and Nicky exchanged an indignant look and Craig sighed. “OK, tell me off. What have I said now?”

Nicky answered first, in her husky voice. “Well, I know everything has to be looked at, sir, but some people just have normal lives. Lots of women never go out without their husband or kids; I don’t. And lots of people lead quiet lives and go dancing or to the movies.”

Craig smiled, enjoying her challenge. “That’s perfectly true, Nicky, and I agree with you. But lots of people don’t end up being killed in such a strange way. I know you and Annette have said before that we look as if we’re blaming the victims, but we’re not. We’re looking into the darkest recesses of their lives hoping that we’ll find nothing there and can rule things out. If their killers escaped because we didn’t bother looking, how would you feel then?”