The Grass Tattoo (#2 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) (6 page)

He had a son, Ben, three-years-old, a precious baby after many years of trying. He was at home with the nanny, Kaisa. But there were no other children and Leighton had never even asked his wife about the bracelet around her neck. It indicated a level of indifference that took Craig’s breath away.

Yes, he’d been away for the past four days, in Dublin for the last two, back for a meeting of the Strategic Finance Foundation at Stormont last night. But he wouldn’t disclose his location for the first two days; ‘no-commenting’ Craig into frustration. His solicitor was briefing him well and Craig couldn’t insist on Leighton telling them. He wasn’t under arrest. Yet.

Yes, his wife often went to stay with her elderly mother in the Fermanagh Lakelands, in a small village near Enniskillen called Belleek, where the porcelain came from. Craig knew of it, his mother had a set.

No, he hadn’t spoken to her that week, but then that wasn’t unusual. They often went for days without speaking, more often now that he was in Westminster.

Of course their marriage was fine, absolutely fine, why wouldn’t it be? And do you really need to ask such personal bloody questions when my wife has just been killed, D.C.I. Craig? I’m a victim here too.

Craig was astounded at his selfishness, insisting on equal victimhood with a dead woman. But they’d exhausted every option they had without charging him, so after another wasted hour he headed for the lift, taking it the eight floors back to the squad. He was fitter, but not that fit yet.

Annette McElroy, his sergeant, was still out, so when he entered the floor only his personal assistant Nicky, and Davy Walsh their technical analyst, were there. He strolled past Nicky’s desk quietly, praying for temporary invisibility. No such luck.

“Good afternoon, sir. Your diary says that you have half an hour free, that’s if you haven’t booked yourself something.”

She gave him her best ‘head-teacher’ look for daring to fill his diary himself, a frequent sin that led to double–booking. Then she looked up at him pertly, her pretty, darkly-tanned smile holding a challenge. “Can I come in?”

Craig sighed, mock-heavily. “I haven’t booked anything else, Nicky. But just give me five minutes to grab a coffee please, before you hit me with your ‘list’.” He said it fondly but his need for caffeine was urgent and genuine. It had been a very long hour since his last fix.

Nicky had invented her ‘list’ of tasks years before, and now it was infamous. It hadn’t been Craig’s problem until he’d inherited her full time from Terry Harrison, but now it was, and it was still a small price to pay for getting the best P.A in the Docklands C.C.U.

It detailed the tasks, dates and progress of every file that needed to be completed, every memo that hadn’t been actioned, and every letter that lingered unsigned. He knew that she was planning mini-versions for Annette and Liam, and he wanted a ringside seat when she told them.

He dumped his briefcase by the floor-to-ceiling window that gave his office one of the best views in the building, and poured a coffee from his ever-hot percolator, allowing himself a brief look across Belfast’s winter Docklands. The new Titanic building was shining in the mid-afternoon light, its textured silver exterior rippling like the water beside it, reflecting the City’s maritime history. Further up-river he could see the redbrick Odyssey Arena, home to exhibitions and concerts, movies and clubs, gearing up for another good night. There was no shortage of entertainment in Belfast nowadays.

The morning’s rain had morphed into a beautiful afternoon and it lit up Sailortown, the historic area that they worked in. Its narrow streets and old buildings nestled below the C.C.U.’s glass shard and he knew that if they could speak, three hundred years of stories, including his family’s own, would come flowing out. The seasonal feeling made him want to join the pre-Christmas social scene, and all at once he felt sad at the certainty that he’d be spending the evening alone again.

His thoughts were broken by Nicky unsubtly dropping a file on his desk, and he turned away from the view and smiled at her, resigned to his fate. She sat down, crossed her festive red leggings, tucked into what could only be described as pixie boots, and handed him a warm copy of her latest list.

Craig smiled quietly at her eclectic fashion sense. He’d given up being surprised by what women wore years before and had learned not to comment long before that. Lucia and his flamboyant Italian mother Mirella had trained him well, but Nicky’s style managed to raise even his eyebrows. She mixed old and new, Goth and punk and emerged with something like early Madonna. Well, whatever it was, it suited her, signposting her quirky personality even before she spoke.

She lifted her pen ostentatiously and they started. The session turned out to be like many things in life, not half as bad as he’d dreaded. It was twenty minutes of ‘this is what needs to be done, and here’s how we can do it’ requiring only an occasional nod from him. And not for the first time he reflected that she should be running the whole police service - it would definitely be more efficient.

Craig watched her as she talked, quickly and in a deep, loud voice that belied her thirty-seven years and slight build. Dockers and sailors had inhabited Docklands for hundreds of years, but he doubted if many of them had a louder voice than Nicky.

She could feel his attention wandering and waved a naughty finger at him. “You’re not paying attention, sir. And we’ll never get through this unless you do. You don’t want me back tomorrow, now do you?”

They both laughed. She’d always behaved like his mum, despite Craig being five years older, but it had got worse since her recent holiday in Venice. Now she behaved exactly like Mirella - she’d be listening to opera next.

He was rescued by his mobile phone ringing, and with a mock-apology, he answered it gratefully. “Marc Craig.”

“It’s Maggie Clarke, Inspector Craig. What have you got for me?”

He didn’t know whether to be surprised or annoyed at her cheek, so he opted for neutrality. “Absolutely nothing, Ms Clarke. I told you this morning that I would call you when we were ready.”

“But there are other reporters sniffing around your press office, and you promised me an exclusive.”

He sighed. She was right; it was never going to take the hacks long. A dead body anywhere was hard enough to keep quiet, but in a place full of five thousand civil servants, there was no hope. He shrugged silently, conceding defeat.

“OK, Ms Clarke.”

“Maggie”

“Ms Clarke. Leave it with me. I’ll be in touch later.”

“But...”

“Later. Now, goodbye.”

He clicked the phone down and looked at his watch, feigning surprise.

“Is that the time, Nicky? I have something for Davy to chase-up with John, and I need to catch Liam.”

She looked up at him sceptically, tapping her long painted nail on a file. “Dr Winter has already called Davy, and Liam is still checking Mr Leighton’s alibi, so we have at least ten more minutes.”

He gave up on the escape, smiling, and slumped back in his chair, adjusting it very deliberately, at some length. At least he could control that.

*** 

Kaisa Moldeau didn’t look like a nanny to Annette, well, not one that any sensible woman would want anyway. She was nothing like Mary Poppins. She was barely thirty, barely eight stone, and barely dressed at all.

When she’d first answered the door at the Leighton’s opulent home on Belfast’s prosperous Stranmillis Road, Annette had thought that she was going clubbing, wondering who the mini-skirt was for, certainly not the giggling three-year-old hiding behind her tanned legs. She was stunning.

Annette had always thought ‘stunning’ was a much overused word, beloved by women’s magazines. This stunning reality star, that stunning pop star, always applied to perfectly ordinary looking girls with extraordinary egos. Stunning had never applied to any of them that she’d seen. But it did apply to the girl making the coffee.

She had white-blonde hair that looked unfeasibly natural, and a lightly tanned perfection that made Annette conscious of her own forty-something flat shoes and bitten nails. When she smiled it was through even, white teeth, and her clothes, what there were of them, were moulded to her. Irene Leighton must have been a saint or insane to hire this girl, while her husband had a pulse.

Kaisa returned with a tray of coffee and sat down opposite her, with the magnanimous charm of a woman who knows that she’s perfect, faced with another one that she knows isn’t.

“Can I ask you a few questions, Ms Moldeau? Just to clarify timings, and get a picture of life with Mr and Mrs Leighton?”

The girl leaned forward to pour the coffee, and although Annette couldn’t see the expression in her eyes, she could have sworn that she was smiling. When she sat back again the smile was no-where to be seen, a fixed sadness in its place.

“Poor Mr Leighton, poor Mrs Leighton.” Interesting order. “They are both so kind.”

One more than the other, if Bob Leighton’s earlier outburst was anything to go by.

“They bring me to care for leetle Ben five month ago. He is lovely boy.”

“May I ask where you’re from, Kaisa?”

“Ah yes, I am from Estonia. I come to Ireland six month and type, but now I love the children.”

“Can you tell me when you last saw Mr and Mrs Leighton?”

“Ah yes, Mr Leighton was saw on Saturday evening. And Mrs Leighton, she leave for Mama house on Sunday noon.”

Irene Leighton had been there on Sunday. She’d disappeared less than three days earlier.

“Did they often leave Ben with you?”

“No, but Mrs Leighton Mama very sick. She got phone-call, so she rush to see.”

“Had either of them called you since Sunday?”

“Yes, Mr Leighton he call every day, and Mrs Leighton she call when she reach Mama, Sunday night-time.”

“Not since then?”

The girl shook her head once, firmly. Irene Leighton had last called home nearly seventy-two hours before. Annette thought of her own children - no mother would leave their child that long with anyone without calling. Not unless something was stopping her.

“Weren’t you surprised that she hadn’t called?”

“Her Mama sick.”

The girl’s eyes clouded unexpectedly at the mention of...what? Mrs Leighton? No, she’d mentioned her before. Her mother? Yes, she looked sad about Mrs Leighton’s mother. Annette made a mental note to interview her next and turned back to Kaisa. She was still talking in her high, light accent.

“Mr Leighton call, and I call him. He tell me take Ben to his parents for few days, so I take him Monday. There was no worry.”

She smiled down at the toddler by her side, in what seemed like genuine fondness. “Ben and I have fun, we go to park. We go for burger and chip.”

Very few chips in your case, Annette thought ruefully.

***

Liam was loping back across the squad just as Annette returned from her interview, and by the look of him she’d had the better deal. Craig met them in the middle of the open-plan floor, beckoning both of them and Davy into his office for a briefing.

As usual, Liam and Davy took the walls. Liam for comfort, his six-feet-six making standing easier than sitting in low chairs, and Davy in imitation, always copying the cops, but preferring the safety of his high-tech computers. Annette sat-down opposite Craig at the desk and dropped her enormous handbag by her feet. He wondered idly what she kept in there. What did any woman? It was more than his life was worth to ask.

“OK, where are we?”

As he asked the question, he rose to make coffee, holding the glass percolator out in silent offer, answered by three quick nods.

“Liam?”

Liam ran a large freckled hand down his face and sighed. “Absolutely nowhere, boss, as far as I can see.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “I just checked on Leighton and he’s crying again. Can’t we let him go home?”

Annette looked at him, surprised, it had sounded remarkably like sympathy, not something that Liam was known for. He caught her look and continued quickly, correcting her assumption with macho defensiveness. “He’s blocking the relative’s room and drugs want it.”

She hid her smile as Craig continued. “Did he say anything more?”

“Not a dicky-bird. Either he’s a brilliant actor, or he’s genuinely upset. He fell apart at the lab when the Doc said how she died.”

Craig stopped mid-pour, thinking. “When exactly did he fall apart, Liam,
really
fall apart? Was it when he knew it was his wife, or when John told him how she’d died? It’s important.”

Liam knew what he was getting at and he had noticed, but he hadn’t registered its importance at the time.

“When he saw her face he went a bit pale and there were a few tears, quiet ones like. But when the Doc told him about the note and tattoos...”

Annette leaned forward, shocked. “She had tattoos, a lady like Irene Leighton?”

Liam turned to her, half-amused. “Not the tramp-stamp type.”

Now Craig was puzzled. “What’s a tramp-stamp, when it’s at home?”

“You know those ones women get on their lower backs, flashing them when they bend over, trying to look cool.” He snorted. “Mostly middle-aged housewives as far as I can see.” He paused and then grinned cheekily. “Here, Annette, have you got one?”