The Sect (The Craig Crime Series) (11 page)

“Not yet. I’ve been…”

“At the library. I know. OK, ask him to put out feelers about any high grade Heroin coming into the country. Stuff that pure costs a fortune, so either we’re talking one of the big dealers who’d normally cut it down to sell or…”

John finished the sentence. “…a private buyer who never intended it for the street. Do we know when Ms Boraks was last seen?”

Craig shook his head. “Not yet. But now we know her name we can start asking.” He turned back to Des. “What about the prints, Des? You said you might have one from the cling-film.”

Des nodded energetically. “I did and I have. It was on the outer sheet of film found around the girl. I’m still fuming the other sheets. The good news is that it doesn’t match any of our victims.”

Liam nodded. “That makes sense. They weren’t likely to have killed each other.”

Craig disagreed. “Stranger things have happened when people are fighting for their lives.”

Des continued. “The bad news is that the print doesn’t match anyone yet. Whoever they are they’ve never darkened the justice system’s doors.”

Craig nodded slowly.

“OK, so we have Elena Boraks, a nineteen-year-old girl of Polish parentage born in Belfast, with a father living locally. She’d been stealing to fund her drug habit, bit of shoplifting etcetera, but had moved onto prostitution.”

Liam chipped in. “And was too healthy looking to be a street walker.”

It seemed a strange thing to say about a dead person but everyone knew what he meant. Craig nodded.

“My thoughts exactly. So she was working from a house.”

John cut in. “But not trafficked.”

“It seems not. Although that doesn’t mean that the house wasn’t owned by a gang. Annette’s working on that now. OK, so we’re making progress on Sam Beech and Elena Boraks, but we still have no I.D. on victim number two.”

Liam nodded. “Jake’ll find it if they were known on the gay scene.” He stood up to leave and Craig raised an eyebrow.

“Are we boring you?”

“Aye. I mean, no. There’s just somewhere I need to be.”

He tapped the side of his frequently broken nose, the trophy of too many rugby scrums, and Craig waved him out, knowing he’d be told when he knew anything. As Liam reached the car park he called Davy.

“Theology Professors.”

“Physics lecturers.”

Liam shot a puzzled look at his phone. “What?”

Davy’s voice was innocent. “I thought you were playing word games.”

“You did not, you’re just a messer. I need…”

“To see a theology professor.”

“Aye.”

“OK. Head towards Queen’s and I’ll phone you back in ten.”

Halfway down the Ormeau Road he called back.

“Theodore Rustin.”

“Is that a name or an illness?”

“It’s the name of the Prof of Theological History at Queen’s. They can see you in an hour.”

Liam’s outrage was noisy. “An hour! What am I supposed to do till then?” He’d gone off the idea of the library.

Davy was tempted to say something rude but instead he made a suggestion.

“I’m not a nutritionist but I’d say it was time for lunch, s…so find somewhere in Botanic Avenue and eat. I’ve sent the Prof’s address to your phone.”

With that he hung up and looked round for someone to tell about the conversation. His eyes fell on Annette. She was pounding her keyboard as if her life depended on it.

“Want to hear something funny?”

She shook her head, not glancing up. After a moment’s more pounding she pressed print and crossed to the printer beside Nicky’s desk.

“Carmen and Ken, would you join me in the Super’s office please?”

Ken rose enthusiastically only to have it dampened by Carmen’s condescending glance. She glared at Annette.

“Why?”

There was silence as Ken’s eyes widened. He pictured himself asking the same of a senior army officer; he’d be confined to barracks for a week. Even Davy was shocked by Carmen’s tone. Nicky merely pulled back her chair to get comfortable for the coming fight. There was none; Annette merely entered Craig’s office knowing that even Carmen’s obstinacy would be trumped by curiosity eventually. She could wait, what she wouldn’t do was explain herself to a bolshie constable.

Ken weighed Carmen’s disdain against offending Annette and walked quickly into Craig’s room. A few seconds later the Scot rose from her chair and strolled casually towards its door. Nicky slid her chair over to obstruct the way.

“Move, Nicky.”

“Or?”

It wasn’t what Carmen had expected, or Annette. Annette let the standoff continue a moment longer then appeared at the door to retrieve the D.C. She wished Carmen didn’t turn everything into such a fight. She really needed to be careful; making an enemy of Nicky was never a good idea.

Once everyone was seated Annette began. “The Super has put me in charge of all three victims with Liam and I have an update on the girl. She’s been I.D.ed as Elena Boraks, nineteen, and she has a father still alive. I need you to visit him this afternoon and report back. I’ll be busy finding out more about Sam Beech’s step-dad.”

Carmen cut in. “I’ve already been leading on the girl. Working with Vice and Gang Crime.”

“The Super wants me to supervise the cases from London, would you like to argue with him?”

Carmen thought back to when Craig had almost suspended her and grudgingly shook her head. To her disgust Ken sat forward eagerly. “Do you have anything more on the girl?”

Annette smiled and handed him the file about Elena Boraks’ petty theft and rehab attempts.

“We think that she shifted from theft to prostitution sometime over the last two years. The Super’s certain she was working in a brothel. Whether it was forced prostitution or voluntary we don’t know yet.”

Ken smiled. “That’s what you’d like us to find out.”

“Exactly. Liaise with whoever you like; Vice, Gangs; anything you can find will be useful. But first I want you to see her father and inform him of her death. He needs to identify the body.” She spotted indifference in Carmen’s eyes and her voice tightened. “Please remember that this is his daughter. He may not know she was using drugs or working as a prostitute, so be careful what you say. Just get some details of her life, the last time he saw her, what she was like generally; you know what to ask. Doctor Winter can fill in the gaps for him once he’s done the I.D.”

Carmen snorted and Annette wanted to reach across the desk and slap her. She almost did when she heard her next words.

“So Mr Boraks, what can you tell us about your Heroin addicted, hooker daughter? Did she like kittens and soft toys?”

Ken gawped at the woman beside him in horror and Annette physically recoiled. When she recovered her tone was icy.

“Who the hell do you think you are, Constable McGregor? That’s someone’s child you’re talking about. You callous, vicious little…”

A glance from Ken told her to stop, not because she wasn’t right but because she was in danger of giving Carmen mud to sling back. Annette halted mid-sentence and took a deep breath; it was followed by several more before she walked to the office door and threw it open wide.

“D.C. McGregor, you obviously can’t be trusted to visit the victim’s family so Ken and I will do so instead. You’re on desk duty until I decide what to do with you.”

She held the door as a stunned looking Carmen glared at her and then shot Ken a look that said he would pay for his disloyalty later that night. As the angry redhead made her way back to her desk Annette slumped into Craig’s chair and shook her head.

“Why does she do it, Ken?”

The soldier shook his own head in return. “I honestly don’t know. Every time I get a glimpse of how nice she can be, her defences appear and a real bitch along with them.”

Annette raised an eyebrow. Dating Carmen seemed to be eroding Ken’s gentlemanly streak. He continued.

“The thing is, if we’d actually gone to see Mr Boraks she would have been as good as gold. Maybe not held his hand, but she wouldn’t have said anything deliberately hurtful. It’s just…”

“It’s because I’m taking over and she doesn’t like having a boss. She’s just about got used to the Super and Liam telling her what to do, but having me do it is too much.”

Ken shrugged. “I think it’s defensiveness, but when I ask her why she just clams up. She gave Liam a hard time at first, in fact the only people she’s never been rude to are Davy and Jake. With you I think it’s because she wanted to run the Vice and Gang strands and now the Super’s given control to you. Carmen’s really insecure so she’ll take that as a criticism of her work.”

Annette sighed. “It isn’t criticism, just oversight. I’m heading to London tonight so she would still have been running things here if she hadn’t been so bloody rude.” She sighed. “Now I’ve just made more work for myself.” She glanced at the clock and stood up, motioning him towards the door. “The briefing’s at five so we need to get on with things, plus we haven’t had lunch yet. The James’ Bar?”

He nodded eagerly; anything was better than the food in the canteen. Annette gathered her bag, Nicky and Davy and they headed for the lift, leaving an angry constable contemplating the error of her ways. But Carmen’s thoughts were less about her own faults than everyone else’s. She headed for the canteen grinding her teeth about the injustice of the world and plotting her revenge.

****

Jake glanced at his car radio and rolled his eyes. Andy had changed the station five times in the ten minutes it had taken them to drive from Docklands to the multi-storey car park at St Anne’s Square, only stopping when he’d found some smooth rock.

When he hadn’t been pressing buttons he’d been eating a Toblerone so slowly that Jake had half expected him to nod off. If he hadn’t known the D.C.I. was a chocoholic he’d have thought his lethargic munchies were the result of smoking dope.

Jake exited the driver’s side and was halfway down the staircase when he noticed his companion was trailing behind. Andy waved the sergeant back.

“Take your time, son. Your contact won’t run away.”

Jake kept walking. “He won’t be meeting us in the car park either.” He glanced at his watch. “We can’t be late – it took me five calls to set this meeting up.”

It wasn’t worth Andy’s precious energy to argue so he merely shrugged and strolled on at his normal pace, resisting the pressure to accelerate that Jake’s enthusiasm provoked. He’d reached the rank of D.C.I. by ignoring pressure so he saw no need to change the habit now. As they emerged into the daylight Jake pointed across St Anne’s Square with the eagerness of a hunting dog.

“Over there. In the MAC.”

He led the way through the Arts Centre’s sliding doors and into one of its café’s dark wood booths. Andy’s eyes widened at the sight of a drinks list.

“Do they sell hot chocolate here?”

“We’re not here to have drinks; we’re waiting for someone.”

The D.C.I. ignored him and perused the menu, ordering a hot chocolate when the waitress came and an Americano for Jake despite his ‘no’. Two minutes of slurping later a slim, dark man of around twenty entered through the plate glass doors. He saw Jake and approached, only to stop halfway when Andy’s spikey head bobbed up. He turned to leave but Jake hurried over with his hand extended to shake.

“You must be T.J.?”

The youth’s eyes widened, displaying his Vaselined lashes to best effect. His tone was accusing. “Rick said that you’d be alone.”

Jake waved a hand dismissively towards the booth. “Ignore him. He’s just here to learn.”

Partly true but best not said within a D.C.I.’s earshot. Jake steered the youth expertly towards the booth, ordering him a coffee on the way. When T.J. was sipping the sergeant nodded at his senior officer for permission to take the lead. It was polite of him but unnecessary; he’d been leading since they’d left the C.C.U.

He turned to the young man beside him, trying to ignore Andy’s increasingly recumbent position against the booth’s wall.

“Thanks for coming T.J. Rick said you might be able to help with a case that we’re investigating.”

He paused, uncertain how much his informant had told the youth, or exactly why he’d suggested his name for the meet. All he knew about T.J. McDonagh was that he was well known on the local LGBT scene and that he’d experienced some sort of family stress. He decided on a cautious approach.

“What exactly did Rick tell you?”

T.J shrugged. “That you’re investigating some weird case.”

Good. At least he was expecting something strange.

“Did he say what kind of weird?”

The younger man shook his head. “Nope.”

“Why do you think he suggested you to help us?”

T.J.’s reply was more definite this time. “’Cos I’m always around the scene. If anyone might hear stuff it would be me.”

Jake wasn’t sure if that had been Rick’s whole reasoning, but it would do for now. Rick Grundy had been his snout for years and he hadn’t steered him wrong yet. He glanced at Andy in a token show of deference and was surprised to see him staring back with a gaze that said his body mightn’t move much but his brain was working on full speed.