The Keeper

by Catriona King

  “What time did you get there?”

  “Seven. I called Jake but he didn’t pick up, so it’s just thee and me I’m afraid.”

  Craig swung both legs out of bed at once, and then blinked away silver stars. He knew he shouldn’t have had that third glass of wine the night before.

  “OK. I’ll be with you in twenty. And try Andy. He and Jake were working on the wife last night.”

  A shower and some cereal later he was kissing Katy on the cheek and heading for the door. She called after him.

  “Don’t forget I’m on-call tonight.”

  “I’ll phone you later and bring a takeaway to the hospital around eight.”

  That was it. Cheek kissing, mobiles and takeaways; the abiding symbols of a modern day romance.

  ****

  The Lisburn Road, Belfast.

  Craig sipped on his second coffee of the day and stared down at the blood-stained man. Two to the knees and one to the head; so far, so much the same. Except this time there was an added flourish. He pointed to the placard around Gerry Murnaghan’s neck.

  “That was there when you found him?”

  Liam was sipping as well, or rather gulping. The big man never did anything by halves. He wiped some tea off his chin and grunted assent, taking a bite from a Danish pastry before he spoke.

  “Except I didn’t find him. Some lassie doing the walk of shame back to her flat did.”

  They were in student country. Acres of multi-million pound real estate around Belfast’s Malone and Lisburn Roads, mostly owned by Queen’s University. Neat gardens and listed buildings, untidied only by the scruffy student residents who sleep-walked their way through its streets.

  “Have you taken her statement?”

  He waited till Liam rescued the blob of jam that was dropping from his chin for his answer. The D.C.I. shook his head.

  “No need. The baul Joe already had. He was at Stranmillis Station last night.”

  He gestured across the street to the rounded figure of Sergeant Joe Rice, an affable Cork emigrant well known and well-liked by them both. Craig waved him over.

  “Morning Joe. What did the girl have to say?”

  He braced himself for the colloquial ‘so’s that would pepper the southerner’s speech, thinking that they might prove quite soothing today.

  “Morning, sir. So, I took the call around six-thirty at Stranmillis. Wee girl, shouting hysterically down the phone, so. Babbling something about a man’s neck.”

  “The placard.”

  “Aye. Anyway I got here soon after and when I saw he was murdered I called himself, so.” He jerked a thumb at Liam on ‘himself’, as if there could have been any doubt to whom he referred. “Then I taped off the space, called the C.S.I.s and his lordship here appeared. So.”

  “Himself will do; there’s no need to elevate him to the peerage.” As the others laughed Craig thought of something. “Was the body cold when you arrived?”

  Rice shook his head. “Still warm, so. If I’d to guess I’d say he’d been dead for under an hour.”

  “Well done, Joe. Thanks.”

  Rice ambled away still chuckling and Craig turned back to their corpse. He peered first at Murnaghan’s knees and then at what was left of his head.

  “Very nasty.”

  Liam pointed six feet away. “They found the top of his skull over there. Looks like the killer had a particular grudge against our Gerry. But what?”

  Craig raised an eyebrow. “I’d say the words on the placard are a hint. Des will need it. He might get some prints.”

  Liam sniffed. “At least this psycho’s educated. It’s a step up from our usual perp.” He peered down at the card. “What do you think it means?”

  Craig hunkered down and read the words again. ‘So dass wir mit denen, die zu verraten.’ He recognised them. Something similar had been hung round the necks of Nazi collaborators at the end of World War Two.

  “It says ‘So we do with those who betray’. It was put around collaborators’ necks, usually after they’d been tarred and feathered.” He straightened up again and turned to leave. “And it means that our killer thinks Gerry Murnaghan betrayed his own.”

  ****

  “Where is everyone this morning?”

  Nicky looked up from her typing and then around the room. Only Craig, Liam, Ken and Davy were there.

  “Andy and Carmen called to say they were running late-”

  Liam’s eyebrows shot up. “Together?”

  She tutted irritably. It was a Sunday morning and she would rather have been in bed so she didn’t need any of his jokes. “No, not together, you numpty. They’ll be in separately in five minutes.”

  Just as she said it Andy sauntered across the floor.

  She continued running down the list. “Annette’s not feeling well, so she’s taking the day off.” She saw Liam’s mouth open again. “And no, before you ask, I don’t know what’s wrong with her and I wouldn’t be so rude as to ask.” His mouth snapped shut. “The only one I haven’t heard from is Jake.”

  As she turned back to her typing a duo with red and blue hair crossed the floor. Carmen took her seat with a venomous glance at Ken, and Ash hung his bag neatly on the back of his chair and took out a wet wipe to clean his desk. Liam whispered loudly.

  “He did that yesterday as well. How clean does he need it to be?”

  Davy overheard and shook his head, leaning in to prevent Ash overhearing. “He’s got a bit of O.C.D.”

  Liam looked confused. “The band?”

  Craig rolled his eyes. “Not O.M.D. O.C.D; obsessive compulsive disorder.”

  Davy rolled his eyes in Ash’s direction. “That’s what he calls it, but to be honest the only s…sign of it is that he’s a neat freak.”

  Liam rubbed his hands gleefully. “Great. He can tidy my desk as well if he fancies.”

  Craig stood up, putting an end to the conversation.

  “OK, events mean that we’re briefing early today. Andy, after the briefing can you go round to Jake’s and remind him that it’s a work day, please. Right, as of six-thirty this morning we have our fifth victim. As predicted it’s Gerry Murnaghan, the husband of victim number four.”

  Ken raised a hand, making Carmen sneer. “But wasn’t he under protection, sir? How did he get killed?”

  “Because he foolishly gave his minders the slip last night, we’re assuming because he got a call and arranged to meet his killer-”

  Carmen interrupted. “Like Billy Hart.”

  “Exactly like Hart. So what does that tell us? Anyone?”

  To his surprise it was Andy who answered, between yawns. “That they both knew him and they weren’t scared of him.”

  “Exactly. Or they were too scared to refuse to meet him, perhaps?”

  The D.C.I. deferred biting into his pain au chocolat to shake his head. “If Murnaghan had been scared he could have just called the police, or nipped outside if he knew the uniforms were there.”

  Carmen sat forward eagerly. “And Hart would have driven away from meeting his caller instead of towards him.”

  Craig thought for a moment. “Both good points. So this is someone they thought they had no reason to fear. Someone with whom their past relationship had been good. What else can we say?”

  He wanted to see if they reached the same conclusion that he had.

  Ken spoke thoughtfully. “It can’t have been a victim or their relative.”

  “OK, why not?”

  “Because why would our men rush to meet them? They’d probably seen them lots of time before at meetings, so why rush to meet them now? And Hart did rush.”

  “Good. Any other reason why it was unlikely to have been a victim or relative?”

  Ash glanced up from aligning his pens. “Because Hart and Murnaghan were from opposite sides; one loyalist and one republican. They were unlikely to have had victims in common.”

  Craig nodded. “That’s exactly it. Good.”

  Davy didn’t know wheth
er to be jealous or pleased at his friend being right, so he opted for neutrality.

  “OK, who else might have called the dead men? Or not have.”

  There was silence for a moment, apart from the sound of Andy eating. It was a slow, wet sound; rather like a cow chewing the cud. Craig answered his own question to drown it out.

  “It’s highly unlikely to have been a paramilitary because they wouldn’t have agreed to meet someone from the opposite side, and our killer can’t be both a republican and a loyalist.”

  “Neutral.”

  Craig searched the room for who’d said it. Davy was mouthing the word.

  “Yes. That’s exactly what our victims would have perceived their caller to be. A neutral friend of sorts.”

  Liam wasn’t convinced. “But what if they’d pretended to be a republican to Murnaghan and a loyalist to Hart?”

  Craig shook his head. “Too many things would have given them away and one slip and they’d have been dead. No, I’m with Davy on this. Whoever these men went to meet presented themselves as neutral and that-”

  He was interrupted by a voice from across the floor. “Means that they’re either from an external gang that both victims were doing business with recently, or they’re someone who was neutral in the old war. Someone they both knew.”

  He turned to see Annette setting her handbag on her desk.

  “I thought you weren’t coming in today?”

  “I changed my mind.” The look she gave him said she didn’t want to discuss it, so he turned back to the group.

  “OK, then.” He gestured Liam to bring over the whiteboard and grabbed a marker, writing up the number one. “So, one, we have an external gang that’s nothing to do with paramilitarism, or two, we have someone perceived as neutral in the old conflict; someone that both Hart and Murnaghan trusted.” He scanned the faces. “Remind me. Who did I task with checking out gangs?”

  “Jake.”

  “And he’s not in. Damn.”

  Davy waved a piece of paper at him. “He got these names from D.C.I. Hammill last night. W…We’re running through them now.”

  “Excellent. We’ll come back to that.” Craig scrawled the figure two on the board. “OK, neutral players during The Troubles. We’ve had some ideas on this already, mainly government stroke public sector.” He wrote up the suggestions from the day before. “Any others?”

  Liam shook his head. “You really think that any paramilitary regarded the government, police or prison officers as neutral back in the day?”

  Craig conceded the point. “OK, then maybe neutral is the wrong word. How about someone they united in hating but perhaps didn’t view as ‘the opposite side’ in the way they viewed loyalists or republicans?”

  “Aye, that’ll do. Someone they were both familiar with from back then, so they felt safe when they phoned this week. Here, that means Hart and Murnaghan didn’t view the caller as likely to kill them just for the hell of it.”

  “They were wrong then weren’t they.”

  Davy cut in gleefully. “What about the agencies? MI5 and Special Branch?”

  Liam grinned. “You just love spies, don’t you, boy?”

  Craig added them to the list. “Love them or not he’s right. We can’t rule them out. Although…” He smiled meaningfully at the analysts. “I’m sincerely hoping that the two of you will.” He turned back to the board. “Before we-” He stopped abruptly mid-sentence, turning back to Liam.

  “What did you just say about phoning?”

  Liam frowned, trying to remember. He paid very little attention to anything that he said. “You mean when I said they felt safe?”

  “After that.”

  “When they were phoned this-”

  Craig nodded eagerly. “This week! That’s it. Whoever this neutral figure is he was in their lives both back then and now.”

  “So we can rule out people on grounds of their age!”

  Craig’s nodding halted. It would only help rule out the very old and very young.

  “OK, it’s not much but it’s another filter. Davy, Ash, our man has to be the right age to have been around back then and now, which would fit with Annette’s witness saying they were late fiftyish. They’d also have to be fit enough to subdue some fairly strong men.”

  He turned back to the board. “Right, there are two other points I’d like to draw to your attention.” He wrote up the figures three and four. “We spoke to Doctor Winter yesterday about the victims’ times of death versus the times when the bodies were found, TOF, and there’s a difference. Hart and Lindsay were found within six hours of death, Eilish Murnaghan even more quickly. All were left in or near the city centre and all were found by members of the public; the police weren’t tipped off. So from that we think that our killer wanted them found quickly and wanted their deaths to become public knowledge, which thankfully so far they haven’t.”

  Nicky groaned, sensing a press conference in her future.

  “Gerry Murnaghan was found on the Lisburn Road and we don’t yet know his time of death; we should have it this afternoon, but the body was still warm when Sergeant Rice arrived just before seven, so TOD to TOF will be short. But what we do know is that between Jonno Mulvenna dying and being found was nine hours; almost double some of the others’. Which tells us what?”

  Carmen was quick off the blocks. “That the area was poorly frequented.”

  “Yes, or?”

  She frowned, thinking, and Ken jumped into the gap.

  “The killer miscalculated how busy the area was going to be. He wanted the bodies found quickly, that’s clear from the others, but he got it wrong this time.” He smiled. “He didn’t know the Falls Road as well as he knew the city centre.”

  Carmen opened her mouth to snipe, but before she could Craig gave her a look that said don’t blot your copybook or it will be your last blot.

  “Excellent, Ken. Pretty much what we thought, although strictly speaking the Shankill’s in West Belfast.”

  “But it’s Protestant West Belfast, sir, and the city centre and Lisburn Road are neutral.”

  “Which all means?”

  “That our killer didn’t know one of the main Catholic areas of town, so he’s unlikely to be Catholic?”

  “Almost. There is another possibility. Does anyone know what it might be?”

  This time Carmen didn’t leave a gap for someone else to fill. “He might be Catholic but he doesn’t feel welcome in that area because of his job? Like someone working for the government?”

  Liam and Craig nodded in unison.

  “Yes. Good. Either he isn’t Catholic, or he is but he’s in a job that means he stays well away from the area. And that again tells us something. The Falls Road is safe for everyone nowadays so our man is working on a memory from the past. If he was around Belfast during The Troubles the memory of the Lower Falls as hostile may have stuck with him, so he didn’t reccy the area well enough before he dumped Mulvenna.”

  He tapped the number four. “Last point before we go to Davy. This morning’s victim, although killed in the same way, had something additional which makes me think that our killer may have finished his spree or be close. There was a placard around Murnaghan’s neck with the words ‘So dass wir mit denen, die zu verraten.’ Does anyone recognise them?”

  Ken jerked upright immediately but waited to see if anyone else answered first. When they didn’t Craig waved him on.

  “So we do with those who betray. The words written around the necks of collaborators in World War Two; mostly in France. They were usually tarred and feathered but some were executed. Tarring and feathering was usually reserved for women who’d slept with Germans, execution was for people who’d betrayed members of the resistance and Jews.”

  “You probably know more about military history than any of us so tell us why it was written.”

  “To shame them for the rest of their lives, or to show why they’d been condemned to death. To tell people what they were. Traitors to
their own country.”

  Craig turned back to the group. “So who would have thought Gerry Murnaghan was a traitor? And by association the rest of our victims?”

  Annette ventured a suggestion. “Was Murnaghan someone who’d collaborated with the enemy? But which enemy? The other side’s paramilitaries or the UK government?”

  “Good question. What else might he have been? Anyone?”

  Ash answered. “France wasn’t the only place it happened. They did something similar in Tibet. They hung placards around the monks’ necks detailing their ‘crimes’. One monk had a placard that accused him of splitting the nation; a charge that can carry life imprisonment. They drove them around in a truck to humiliate them.”

  Craig closed his eyes in realisation. Their murders had been planned to achieve something. Not just punishment and death; that was too simple. Complete humiliation of the victims was the aim. Their killer was telling the world that he thought paramilitaries were scum, but he also wanted them to understand why they’d had to die and Craig was growing surer by the minute that it wasn’t just about their crimes.

  “Humiliation. Of course. All the bodies were dumped on wasteland and I thought, as we all probably did, that it was to avoid being caught.”

  Liam frowned. “Wasn’t it? They were all dumped at night in places that people didn’t pass by that often.”

  Craig nodded. “That was part of it certainly, but leaving them on wasteland wasn’t just for our killer to remain anonymous, at least I don’t think that it was.” He turned back to the board. “OK, let’s look at our man’s method. He tortures them, kneecaps them and then finishes them off with a shot to the head-”

  Liam interrupted. “Like paramilitaries executed their victims.”

  “Some of them at least. Others just disappeared but that’s a discussion for another day. OK, Davy, confirm for me that each of the dump sites is near the scene of one of our victims’ greatest hits-”

  Andy roused himself to laugh. “Hits. Like hitmen. Nice one, chief. I see what you did there.”