The Sect (The Craig Crime Series)

by Catriona King

“Did you go last time?”

  Craig’s face lit up. “Yes. It was brilliant.”

  Liam surprised himself by being curious. “Did your folks take you sailing when you were a kid, then?”

  He thought of his own land-locked farm childhood. Climbing trees and lying in the long grass with Gráinne Mullan from the dairy farm down the lane. A leer crossed his face but Craig decided not to ask who it was about.

  “Yes. My mum has family near the lakes in Lombardy and we spent some summers there. And my dad’s family were involved in the shipping trade here for generations back.” He pointed enthusiastically back towards the C.C.U. “My grandmother’s house was on Pilot Street. It was amazing. At one point it even had a well in the hall to draw water from the Lagan.”

  Liam had heard the story before so he composed his face to look interested while he thought of his own misspent youth. Forty minutes later everyone had finished lunch and Craig scanned the bar.

  “Where’s Jake? I thought he was joining us.”

  Nicky answered. “He’s gone to his granny’s for lunch. He’s pretty upset.”

  As she nodded in sympathy her hair bounced into her face. Today’s hairstyle consisted of twisted strands that looked like fusilli and oscillated as she moved. Her style was nothing if not eclectic.

  Her voice dropped solemnly. “He chose his granddad’s casket this morning.”

  Craig nodded, dreading the day that he had to do it for his folks. It would be difficult at any age and Jake wasn’t thirty yet. After a moment’s silence Annette decided to break it with her own woes.

  “This Greer appeal is a real stinker, sir. She’s determined to prove entrapment and I have to say that on paper she may have a case.”

  He sighed. On paper Annette might be right but he’d arrested Joanne Greer and they’d obtained her confession by the book. The problem was that their main witness, Greer’s accomplice Alik Ershov, had since been killed, and without his live testimony things looked pretty thin.

  “Is that everything she has?”

  Annette made a face that said she wasn’t sure. “It seems weak which makes me wonder. But if there’s something else then her legal team aren’t showing their hand.”

  Craig frowned as he ran through the list of ways that Joanne Greer could twist the events of three years earlier to suit her needs. Something whispered at the back of his mind but until it shouted at him they’d just have to deal with what they had.

  “Have you spoken to Yemi yet?”

  Yemi Idowu was The Met officer who’d carried out the Greer bust with him in London. He was also a friend from his years of working there.

  “We’ve chatted, but to be honest it’s hard to get the full picture over the phone. I need to speak to his boss, Superintendent Chandak, as well.”

  Craig smiled, sensing a London trip in Annette’s future. She was right; she needed to visit The Met to get a real feel for the case.

  “OK, we’ll work the new case without you for a few days. Line up your interviews in London and Nicky can book your trip. But I want you back next week.”

  Annette stifled a smile and nodded. Nicky didn’t stifle anything; the fish in the Lagan could have heard her moan.

  “What about me? I know the Greer case backwards and Annette will need someone to help with all the paperwork. We trudged through it together before Christmas, when you lot were swanning around the northwest.”

  Working a family homicide in Derry’s freezing snow wasn’t his idea of swanning, but she’d worked hard on the Greer paperwork so Craig could feel himself caving in.

  Liam’s howl of, “But who’ll make the coffee if you’re away?” clinched it.

  “OK, Nicky, you go with Annette, but remember this isn’t a jolly. I expect written reports when you get back.”

  He would get them. They would work like Trojans during the day, but he knew that evenings would be spent in a flurry of shopping and shows and they both deserved the break.

  The bill was paid to the theme of “I’ll book a decent hotel” and “I wonder what to pack” with a counterpoint of Liam and Davy moaning about how unfair their life was.

  As they returned to the office Craig added cheerfully. “Don’t worry, Liam. You’re getting an outing soon as well. Remember we’re on that refresher course next month.”

  Liam rolled his eyes. “Oh great. Three days of EU regulations and rubber chicken dinners with the brass.”

  “Actually, there’s a good pub nearby so I hadn’t planned on any chicken. I was thinking of sampling the local whiskies instead.”

  A much cheered up Liam re-entered the squad-room leaving Davy the only disgruntled member of the team. Craig was just wondering what he could do for him when his mobile buzzed. It was John. He bypassed the niceties.

  “I know we’re coming down at five, but I’d like to see you sooner if there’s any chance?”

  “I’ll come now.”

  As they signed off, the phone rang on Nicky’s desk. She answered it practically singing “Belfast Murder Squad.”

  The incongruity of her tone and the words made Craig smile, until he saw her face drop. Her next word made his drop as well.

  “Where?”

  She grabbed a pad and pen and scribbled furiously, then ended the call and handed him the ripped off page. He read it then handed it to Liam, heading back out through the double-doors. Liam shouted instructions as he followed.

  “Nicky, get Mike to join us there, then call the Doc and say the boss can’t make the lab.”

  Then they were in the lift and in the car, heading to Downpatrick for the second time that day.

  Chapter Three

  Ardfern. Saul Road, Downpatrick.

  “For goodness sake, what’s happening in Northern Ireland?”

  Liam glanced up from his hunkered position, at the pensioner seated in the patrol car.

  “It used to be a safe place to live. Apart from The Troubles there was very little crime.”

  It was true. Northern Ireland had one of the lowest crime rates in Western Europe; you were less likely to be robbed, raped or murdered there than in most other places. Apart from during The Troubles. Apart from the nearly four thousand souls who’d met a violent end, and the many more maimed by the thirty year conflict.

  But Liam knew what the old man meant.

  “It still is safe, sir. Now, tell me again exactly what you saw.”

  He attempted to pat the man’s dachshund on the head, pulling his hand away swiftly as it growled. The eighty-year-old sighed heavily.

  “I’ve already told you. I was taking Churchill for a walk when he started pulling me into the bushes.”

  Churchill; a name less befitting the tiny dog would have been hard to imagine. Dogs called Churchill should be fierce or stubborn, not a chipolata on legs.

  “And?”

  “And then I saw it. The shine. I thought that it was metal of some sort.”

  Except that it wasn’t. It was the sun reflecting off the cling-film covering their third corpse.

  “Then I saw a leg.”

  The elderly man shuddered, almost dislodging the trilby on his grey head. Liam admired the hat. He liked hats, but people always noticed them and he already drew enough attention with his six-feet-six height. Maybe he’d wear one if his hair thinned, although there wouldn’t be an excuse for him even then; he was so tall no-one ever saw the top of his head. His attention was dragged back to his interviewee by a sharp squeal.

  “Eeeeek! That’s how I screamed.”

  “Then another dog walker came and called the police?”

  “Yes. And you came with all those men.”

  He waved a wrinkled hand at the constables erecting the crime scene tape. As he did so Liam noticed Craig inside the cordon, staring at the body at his feet. He wanted to take a look so he rose and smiled down at their witness.

  “That’s been very helpful, Mr Benson. The car will take you home now and we’ll be in touch.”

  The man’s reply su
rprised him. He was used to people saying ‘Thank you, officer. I could do with a cup of tea after that shock’ not “I haven’t finished my walk yet and Churchill needs to stretch his legs”.

  Good luck with that; four and a half inches is always something to aim for. Liam beckoned a P.C. to show the octogenarian away and then clambered over the tape. Craig barked an instruction without turning round.

  “Watch where you put your feet.”

  Liam stepped back hastily and they stood in silence for a moment, considering the clear cocoon on the grass. It held another youth; blond this time and so thin that they could both have lifted him with one hand. His wet hair was plastered in strands across his teenage face, and they knew that his cause of death would be the same as the other two; drowned, probably in a bath. The bodies were piling up round them and they hadn’t a bloody clue why.

  Craig turned away muttering in frustration, just as Mike Augustus appeared. Liam nodded towards his feet.

  “Over here, Mike. He’s young, same as the others. Looks like he was manacled and drowned.”

  Craig added. “He hasn’t been here long. The grass beneath him is barely flattened.”

  Before Augustus could say ‘I hope you didn’t move him’, Craig was walking back towards his car. Liam caught up in two strides.

  “How’d you know that?”

  “I tilted him up for a moment. The grass was hardly crushed. I doubt if he’s been here for more than an hour.” He reached his aging Audi and banged a fist hard on the roof. “Damn, this guy is arrogant. He dumps a body in broad daylight and no-one sees a thing. What are the odds?”

  He didn’t need an answer, just an ear. He climbed into the car and started the engine, leaving Liam scrambling to keep up. As they swept onto the A7 heading for Belfast Liam broke the silence.

  “What did the Doc want earlier?”

  Craig shrugged.

  “So we’re going to the lab?”

  He got his answer thirty minutes later when they hit Belfast’s Saintfield Road, and as they entered the pathology unit’s outer office Craig got his. John was standing by one of his antique glass cabinets, staring into space.

  “You wanted to see us?”

  As the pathologist turned they saw a puzzled look on his face. “Mmm.”

  He led the way to the dissection room and drew back the sheet covering their first male corpse, then he slipped on some gloves and nodded the others to do the same.

  “What are we looking at?”

  “Wait.”

  John lifted the young man’s arm, exposing the tattoo. Its words were obscure; ‘Gentum est confessio illa veritate.’

  Liam whistled, cutting it short when he remembered where he was. “I bet that hurt.”

  John shook his head. “Not at all. He was dead when it was done.”

  Craig’s eyes widened. “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He covered the body and crossed to the girl’s, nodding down at the sheet. “The girl has one identical except it’s in white ink, much smaller and placed beneath her breasts. I missed it at first. Again she was dead when it was done.”

  Craig shook his head glumly. “They branded them like cattle. Do we have a translation?”

  John shook his head. “Not yet. It’s obviously Latin, but not any Latin that I learned. Davy’s working on it. My guess is that your third body will have one as well.”

  Craig glanced at him quizzically. “How did you know we––?”

  “Nicky called.” He stripped off his gloves and led the way from the room. “The tattoos weren’t all that I wanted to show you.”

  As they re-entered the outer office John walked to the cabinet he’d been standing at when they’d arrived and removed an unusual looking device. He collected antique medical instruments but this didn’t look like it had ever had a therapeutic use.

  He turned the metal object over in his hand. “You know that I collect things.”

  Craig nodded. “Antique medical instruments.”

  “Yes, but not only those. Occasionally, when I’m asked to assist in a genocide investigation, I come across an instrument of torture.”

  Liam’s eyes widened. “And that’s one?”

  John nodded. “It is, but not a modern one.”

  Craig was unsurprised. John was one of the nicest people he knew but his intellectual curiosity took him to some dark places. He worried that one day he would fall into the abyss.

  “So you’ve been collecting them?”

  “Some. Antique and modern. I need to understand what makes man so inhumane to his fellow man.” He held out the instrument but both detectives shook their heads. John shrugged and held it up to the light.

  “This is a medieval choke pear, also known as the pear of anguish. Used by torturers in the fifteenth century. It was inserted into small orifices and widened gradually to cause pain.”

  He opened the device as he spoke.

  Liam gawped. “They used it on the girl?”

  John shook his head. “On the first boy. A modern version; they left it with him. He had significant recent anal tearing with no indication that he’d had sex. Like the tattoo they were made after death, but…”

  Craig understood immediately. “But that wasn’t all. There were older tears as well. You’re saying that he was gay.”

  “Or engaged in anal penetration, which isn’t always the same thing. He might have preferred objects to people.”

  Craig pressed for the details. “How old are the older scars?”

  John shook his head. “Not childhood abuse if that’s what you mean. There’s no sign of that, unlike on the girl. They aren’t more than two years old and they show no signs of violence.”

  He returned the implement to the cabinet and led the way into his room, taking a seat behind the desk and removing some photographs from a file. He tapped them with a finger.

  “You can look if you wish but it’s just old scars and the new tears. It’s just speculation at the moment but I think that our first male victim had engaged in consensual anal penetration sometime in the past two years.”

  Liam finished the thought. “And he died for it?”

  It was Craig who answered. “It’s too early to say.” He glanced quickly at the photographs and then headed for the door. “Bring everything with you to the briefing, John. Liam, let’s try to I.D. our victims before we jump to conclusions about why they were killed.”

  ****

  The meals were all eaten, the medication dispensed and now it was time for prayer. The room’s doors slid back to allow entry to a group of dull-eyed, shackled teens. They dropped to their knees as the dark-suited men watched them, their gazes like searchlights seeking signs of apathy or disrespect.

  The teenagers glanced anxiously at each other and then at the man standing, arms extended, at the front of the room. Then they feigned devotion like their lives depended on it, as they undoubtedly thought that they did.

  Chapter Four

  Jake glanced at the clock above his grandmother’s head and then rose slowly to his feet. Her large eyes teared up instantly so he sat down again, taking her thin hand in his own. He smiled, tracing her familiar lines with his gaze until slowly she smiled back, then he spoke softly, as if saying the words more quietly would lessen their impact in some way.

  “I must go to work, just for a few hours. The Superintendent has been kind but we need this job.”

  We. That’s what it was now, but then that’s what it had always been. Him and them; his surrogate parents, with his partner Aaron very much the fourth wheel. Meredith McLean nodded and held her grandson’s smooth hand up to her cheek. Her voice was strong, stronger than Jake had expected it to be.

  “You have your work, Jake, and you have your life with Aaron, just as your grandfather and I had ours. I’ll be fine once tomorrow is over, you’ll see. I’ll do all sorts of things; join clubs and make new friends. Don’t worry about me, please.” With that she set down his hand decisively and wav
ed her own towards the door. “Now, go to work and I’ll see you later.” She rose briskly and turned her slim back towards him, busying herself with washing a cup. “If I turn around and you’re still there I’ll be very cross, Jake McLean.”

  He took his cue and slipped out, but his mind whirred with questions about where their lives would go next. Regardless of what his grandmother said, he wanted to spend time with her; but how would Aaron feel about that? He’d been patient with his absences so far; as he’d nursed his granddad at home and then kept vigil in the hospital at the end. But it had been six months now and even a lover’s patience and sympathy only stretched so far.

  Aaron would expect their life together to return to normal once the funeral was over, except that it couldn’t possibly. His granny needed him even more now, no matter what she said, and… Jake stopped by his car, realising something. And he needed her. She’d been his mother since he was five, how could he possibly abandon her now? He couldn’t and what’s more he didn’t want to. He loved talking to her, listening to her, just being there to help. Her kindness had been a constant in his life for almost twenty-five years.

  He suddenly knew that in a tug of love between his partner and the small, slim woman who’d tucked him in at night, there would be no contest, and as he shifted his car into gear he prayed that Aaron never made him choose.

  ****

  5 p.m.

  “OK, let’s have some order.”

  The detectives and scientists continued the business of pouring coffee and putting biscuits into their mouths, nodding as they greeted people that they hadn’t seen for weeks. Craig repeated the instruction more firmly and they started shuffling to their chairs, Liam muttering grudgingly at Davy as he went.

  “You took the last custard cream.”

  Davy’s reply was to drop the offending biscuit into his mouth and bite it in two with a loud crack. Craig intervened before the great biscuit war kicked off, but what he really wanted to do was crack both their heads. He was sick to the back teeth of always having to be the reasonable one, but it was a skill it had taken him years to acquire and an essential one if they didn’t want injuries. He’d learned long ago that his temper and fists had two speeds, zero and one hundred miles per hour, and he’d never mastered anything in between.