The History Suite (#9 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) (24 page)

Craig was about to say yes but something made him hesitate. For some reason he didn’t think it was going to be as easy as that.

***

The C.C.U. 2.30 p.m.

Davy crossed the squad-room faster than Nicky had ever seen him move. He was about to knock on Craig’s door when she shook her head. He stared at her quizzically.

“Has the chief gone out again?”

She shook her head again and he nodded, understanding.

“He’s on the phone.”

On her third shake Davy rolled his eyes in exasperation.

“OK, I give up. W…Why can’t I knock?”

Nicky grinned. “You can knock. I never said you couldn’t. I was just testing your obedience level.” She turned away before he could say something rude and gestured at Craig’s door. “He’s not busy.”

Davy frowned. “You can be really annoying, Nicky.”

“And you’re just working that out now?”

He gave up, knowing he wouldn’t win and knocked on Craig’s door, entering on his “yes.”

Craig glanced up from the file he was reading, surprised to see the young analyst standing there. Davy had overcome most of his natural shyness inside the team, but even now he rarely approached him directly. Whatever he’d found must be important.

“What is it?”

“Adrian Cooke.”

“What about him?” Craig waved him to a seat.

“He was assaulted by a patient’s relative a few months ago.”

Craig leaned forward urgently. “Why? Did they have some problem with their treatment?”

“No. A fight just s…started out of the blue and the police were called. I’ve checked the report. The man lashed out at Cooke in the area between the w…wards.”

Craig’s eyes widened. “The area outside the linen room?”

Davy nodded eagerly. “It gets better. There was a w…witness, a junior nurse. She heard the man call Cooke ‘druggie scum’, then he punched Cooke and split his lip.”

Craig grinned. “Brilliant! Well done.”

To his surprise Davy shook his head. “Not so great in one w…way, but awesome in another.”

“Explain.”

“The assault case didn’t hold up because it was just the nurse’s word against the man’s.”

“But Cooke corroborated her account, didn’t he?”

“No. Cooke s…said he didn’t want a fuss and refused to proceed.”

Craig nodded slowly. It made sense; Cooke hadn’t wanted what had been said about drugs to be made public in court. “OK, so why is it awesome then?”

Davy grinned. “Two reasons. The s…same man, Ian Jacobs, was on the ward last night, visiting the same patient, his mum, again. S…She was readmitted.”

It gave Jacobs the opportunity to kill Cooke. It sounded as if he already had the motive.

“Good and…”

“In the original case report it says there was no CCTV in the area to back up the nurse’s account, so Jacobs knew there was no CCTV there.”

Craig gave a low whistle. They had a man with an obvious grievance against Adrian Cooke who had opportunity and knowledge of the lack of CCTV. And if drug-dealing was relevant to Jacobs, Eleanor Rudd might have been targeted by him as well.

“Tell me about Jacobs.”

Davy smiled, pleased that Craig knew he’d already have checked-out Jacobs before bringing him the lead.

“His name is Ian Peter Jacobs. His mother, June, is an eighty-year-old asthmatic who gets regular chest infections that end her up on Newman W…Ward. Jacobs is a car mechanic; w…works for one of the big dealers on Boucher Road, and apart from the incident with Cooke he’s never been in trouble with the law. But here’s the important bit. His son Evan died from a bad dose of ecstasy not long ago. You know; the ‘Rolex’ version that was killing lots of kids.”

Craig nodded sadly. There’d been a spate of deaths from green and speckled ecstasy tablets stamped with crowns; they’d contained toxic levels of PMA. He stared at Davy, already knowing the answer to his next question.

“Is the boy’s name in Rudd’s Black Book?”

Davy nodded. “Yes. I called Des to check. He says the notebook uses a code s…system. ‘C’ for cocaine, ‘H’ for Heroin...”

Eleanor Rudd had been dealing the hard stuff.

“‘M’ for crystal meth…”

“And the boy had an ‘E’ beside his name.”

Davy nodded again. “I checked the death records. One day after Evan Jacobs bought the ‘E’ from Eleanor Rudd he died. The dad could have put two and two together…”

“And blamed Rudd.” Craig thought for a moment. “But how did he know Cooke was involved?”

Davy shrugged. “Kids talk. Maybe the boy dealt with Cooke directly at some point. Or maybe…”

He didn’t need to finish the sentence. Maybe Eleanor Rudd had given Adrian Cooke’s name to her clients as insurance against Cooke turning on her. Craig thought for a moment. Ian Jacobs had had motive, opportunity, knowledge of the lack of CCTV, and if he’d seen Cooke unexpectedly on the ward that night, he might have had an impulse that made him careless enough not to put on gloves. They had to lift him.

They headed out onto the main floor. Everyone was there except Carmen and Jake so they might as well hold the briefing now. Craig had a feeling they were going to have a busy night.

“OK, everyone. This will be quick. I’ll kick off, then Davy, then Liam and anyone else. As you’ll all know by now, Annette tailed Dr Cooke from his apartment to the E.M.U. last night. He was only in the hospital for twenty minutes during which time he was killed.”

Annette interjected. “I was waiting for him to come back to his car.”

Liam snorted. “That’ll be clamped by now. St Mary’s wardens are shocking.”

Craig smiled at Liam’s talent for making death sound inconvenient.

“While Dr Cooke was on the unit he called into both the acute and long-stay wards to say hello. He also retrieved Eleanor Rudd’s Black Book from somewhere.”

Liam nodded wisely. “Probably some secret drop they had.”

It was Annette’s turn to snort. “Thank you, Kim Philby.”

“Wherever Cooke lifted the book from it didn’t do him much good. Des is looking at it now and Davy will tell us more about that in a minute. The important thing is that Cooke’s visit to the ward was completely unexpected so the killing was opportunistic, possibly by a visitor but it could also have been by a member of staff or a patient who saw Cooke on the unit last night.”

Liam guffawed. “Have you seen the patients, boss? Most of them couldn’t strangle a fly.”

Ken interjected. “How do you strangle a fly? That doesn’t even make sense.”

Craig ignored them and carried on. “That’s why Liam and Annette have spent the morning re-interviewing. Did you find out anything?”

Liam shook his head. “We got a list of everyone on the ward last night and gave it to Davy. But no-one saw anything, as usual.”

“OK. There’s no CCTV in the linen room area as we know, but Davy and Des are pulling the other cameras on the unit. The fact that Rudd’s Black Book was left behind pretty much rules out a rival dealer; they would have taken it for the names. Or an addict; they would have taken the book to cover their own habit, or to sell it on. So that leaves us with an addict’s relative or someone who hates drug-dealers on principal.”

Liam interjected. “Worst case scenario we have a motive that has nothing to do with drugs at all and we have to go back to the start.”

Craig made a face but he knew that Liam could be right. He turned to Ken. “Ken, could you cover our meeting with John, please, then I’ll report on Prof Taylor.”

Ken recounted the marks on Adrian Cooke’s body. “The marks on his knees and the others on his torso and head haven’t been identified yet, and Dr Marsham is checking out his body for possible prints as the killer didn’t wear gloves this time.”

Liam shot Craig a questioning look and Craig shook his head.

“No idea what the marks are. Maybe Cooke knocked his legs against something hard. John said he found similar marks on Eleanor Rudd’s thighs.”

“It wasn’t the linen trolley. Too high. I’ll go back and take a look around.”

Craig nodded. “Thanks. OK. We also went to see Prof Taylor again. We walked in on him just as his secretary was sitting on his knee. Not the most faithful of husbands.” Liam went to say something rude and Craig shook his head. “Save it for the locker room. Taylor admitted to being on the unit last night but said he didn’t see Cooke and was leaving the hospital just as the police arrived. Davy, check that out on the CCTV, please. Taylor seemed shocked about Cooke and I think he may be telling the truth, but we’ll double check just to be sure. There was definitely no love lost between them.”

“Any chance that the Prof killed Cooke because he was in on the drug dealing, sir?”

Craig shook his head. “It’s unlikely, Annette. Taylor was pretty scathing about Cooke’s drug habit and a partner would have taken the book in case it incriminated them.” He turned back to Liam. “Anything useful on the E.M.U. today?”

“Just a lot of shock about Cooke’s murder. He was pretty well liked. But like I said, no-one saw anything.”

“OK. Thanks. Leave the E.M.U. for now; I want you and Annette to interview someone for me.”

Liam leaned forward expectantly. “Who?”

“Davy’s just going to tell you.”

Davy repeated what he’d told Craig about Ian Jacobs and Liam whistled.

“Bloody hell, lad. You’d make a great cop.”

“If it didn’t mean cutting my hair, I might.”

Liam glanced at Craig. “So we’re bringing him in for questioning?”

“Arrest him if he doesn’t come quietly. We have sufficient grounds. But I want him questioned properly, Liam. No trying to make him fit the bill, please.”

Craig stared at Annette meaningfully; she would keep Liam’s bully-boy tactics in line. He nodded Davy on.

“There’re some things that I’m s…still waiting for. I’m comparing the list of people around at the time of Rudd’s murder with the ones there last night. I’m mapping the movements of everyone in and out of the w…wards from the CCTV. Then we have Rudd and Cooke’s phone dumps, the Black Book and all Des’ forensics s…still to clear.” The look on his face said that he’d just realised how much there still was to do.

Craig smiled kindly. “Don’t worry. Carmen will be back tomorrow and so will Jake. They can give you a hand. Ken and I will drop back to the lab to see Des and see what we can do to speed him up.”

Annette smiled, knowing that Craig was doing his best to keep Carmen and Ken apart until Carmen calmed down. Davy suddenly thought of something. He turned to Annette.

“W…What happened to the three names on that list I gave you?”

Annette shook her head. “They all said they were at the library or shop and they had proof.”

“But they headed back to the E.M.U. in time for Rudd’s murder.”

Annette nodded. “The problem is we can’t pin down their movements inside the unit because of the broken cameras and blind spot. But don’t worry; we’re treating the whole unit as suspects now.”

Craig leapt to his feet, glancing at his watch.

“OK. It’s almost four o’clock. Annette, go home, you were working late last night. Liam and I will lift Jacobs and book him into High Street. He can stew overnight then you and Liam can see him first thing in the morning. Ken, if you could help Davy for the next hour or so, that would be great.”

He headed for the lift and then realised Liam wasn’t with him. He popped his head back through the doors to see him chatting to Nicky then gave a piercing whistle that made everyone turn and Liam take the hint.

Chapter Nine

High Street Station. Tuesday, 6 p.m

By six o’clock Ian Jacobs was in custody, looking shocked. Craig couldn’t work out if his shock was at being in a police station, because he’d been caught at all or... As he watched Jack Harris lead the forty-year-old mechanic to be printed, he frowned. Liam saw the look and rolled his eyes.

“Now what?”

Craig shook his head. “I’m not sure yet. Just…”

“God, boss, I don’t know what would make you happy. Jacobs came quietly, coughed to being on the ward last night and to seeing Cooke.”

“But not to the murders. And he didn’t make us arrest him.”

Liam shook his head. “Give me strength… It’s just bravado! You’ve seen it a thousand times before. Jacobs thinks he’s a master criminal and that we’re all thick. You know the approach; smile and cooperate enough with the dumb cops and they’ll just have a nice chat and let you go.”

Craig’s head shaking became more pronounced. “Jacobs doesn’t feel like a guilty man, and before you go rationalising it, you know exactly what I mean.”

Liam said nothing for a moment then he shrugged. “We’ll see. Annette and I will give him the third degree and let you know.”

They lapsed into silence as Craig peered through the reception door, watching Ian Jacobs offer up his prints in an almost obscenely eager way. Either Jacobs was very clever and had worn gloves, so he knew that any prints they found would rule him out, or he was innocent and keen to prove it. The more Craig watched the more convinced he became it was the latter.