The Keeper

by Catriona King

  Craig shot him a wry look. “It was purely coincidental, trust me. Although-”

  He was interrupted by a grumpy “Yes” and turned to see Davy rubbing his neck irritably. Liam saw it as well.

  “Missing your locks, lad?”

  “My neck’s cold. How come none of you complain?”

  “Because we’re real men.” He flexed a bicep to emphasise the point.

  Davy snorted. “Well, you can keep your retro s…symbols of masculinity, I’m growing my hair again.”

  Craig couldn’t resist a dig. “I don’t suppose that you’ll need it short anymore?”

  Davy’s eyes widened in alarm and Ash grinned, knowing that Craig had seen the article. Liam knew that something was passing between them but he didn’t know what it was. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask when Davy added hastily.

  “And the method of killing mimicked paramilitaries’ usual M.O. as well.”

  Craig smiled, knowing that he was being diverted. “So we have how and where they died, but it’s why they died that interests me. Originally I thought it was purely punishment for what they had done during The Troubles-”

  Liam had been squinting from Craig to Davy via Ash, certain that he was missing something. He parked it for later and interrupted again.

  “As opposed to what, boss?”

  “Not as opposed to anything, Liam, as well as. Punishment and death was important and once he had them they were never going to have been allowed to live, but the wasteland disposal wasn’t just for the killer’s anonymity, it was to show the world that they were rubbish. I think he needs to humiliate them and their organisations.”

  “Here, didn’t we think it might have been timed to worsen the whole upset at Stormont? What with everyone resigning at the moment.”

  “We did and maybe that was a bonus, but I’ve thought about it and I’m not so sure that was the main aim. If he’d just wanted to worsen things he could have killed the loyalists and blamed the Provisional IRA. It would have confirmed everyone’s worst fears that the Provos were still active.”

  Annette was still on his earlier point. “Needs to humiliate them? Like a compulsion?”

  That hadn’t been what he’d meant but Craig was loath to disagree. “Maybe. Perhaps out of disgust. I’m not sure yet.”

  She continued with her point. “I’ve met patients whose self-disgust compelled them to behave in a certain way. Perhaps our killer is disgusted with himself for some reason, as well as with his victims? You know, like people who pick on other people because they see something in them that reminds them of their own faults.”

  It sparked a debate about whether they were looking for someone who himself was a paramilitary and was ashamed of what he had done, or simply someone with a compulsive need for justice which took them back to their theory about the judiciary. Everyone had an opinion and at the end of the five minute discussion they had more words on the board. Disgust, self-disgust, vigilante, guilt and humiliation were just a few of them. Craig set down the pen.

  “OK, this is all useful and when we find our man we can ask him why he did it. In the meantime let’s get back to the hard facts.” He turned back to Davy, only to see Liam squinting at him again, as if his laser gaze would make the analyst confess.

  “Liam, stop looking at Davy like he’s a perp. Davy, anything on CCTV and the rest?”

  Davy grabbed his smart-pad, grateful for the save. “OK. Ash, Jake and I have been w…working on commonalities between the victims, the places they were dumped, CCTV and anything else we could find.”

  He tapped the pad and a table flashed up on Nicky’s LED screen. Craig motioned everyone over and watched as Davy outlined what they’d found. The table had each victim’s name down the side and columns that covered everything from their birthplace, date and time, their schools, churches and crimes pre-troubles if any.

  “OK, I haven’t added Gerry Murnaghan yet but it’s pretty clear that before the late sixties, that’s pre when The Troubles began in earnest, our victims had absolutely nothing in common. It’s unlikely they w…would ever have even met.” He tapped again. “This is the second table. It outlines their activity since 1998; The Good Friday Agreement.” He moved to stand by Nicky’s desk. “We’ve a bit more to gather on this. I’m still waiting for the crime records for the past five years, but from ninety-eight to two thousand and ten; you can see that our victims had differing levels of criminal activity.”

  Craig peered at the screen and shook his head disbelievingly.

  “You’re telling me that none of the republicans had been up to anything since ninety-eight, except for Eilish Murnaghan being charged with disorderly conduct on an equality march?”

  “Neither had Rowan Lindsay. As S…Sergeant Boyd said, he appears to have been doing good work keeping kids out of gangs.”

  Liam nodded. “His vicar confirmed it.”

  Craig nodded. “I believe that, but I don’t believe for one minute that the Murnaghans were squeaky clean. Dig deeper and you’ll find dissident links in there somewhere.”

  The analyst shrugged. “We’ll try, but so far there’s nothing. Maybe they were just better at hiding it than the others.”

  Annette walked to the screen and tapped on Jonno Mulvenna’s name. “I can believe that he wasn’t involved in anything, sir. He was falsely imprisoned for Veronica Jarvis’ murder until ninety-eight and more recently he’d been busy getting to know his son.”

  “Don’t be so sure, Annette. There was a reason Mulvenna died in Belfast when he lived on the North Coast.” She went to object. “I mean apart from being dumped near one of his past killings.”

  She shrugged. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  Craig tapped Billy Hart’s name. “What about him? There’s no way he wasn’t up to his neck in something.”

  Davy favoured the slow reveal so he smiled and tapped his pad again, slowly populating the boxes beside Hart’s name that he had deliberately left blank. A list of arrests and convictions for theft, money laundering and drug dealing appeared. Craig nodded, that was more like it. Hart had been up to ears in crime since he’d got out in ninety-eight.

  Liam pointed at the screen. “I bet he spent the money as soon as he nicked it. It would fit with him being into Dusty Wilson for ninety grand.”

  Craig stared at the table for so long that finally Davy coughed to break his trance.

  “I’ve another table to s…show you.”

  The table that appeared next was for the years nineteen sixty-nine to ninety-eight and showed only their five victims’ names and a series of empty rows. Davy explained.

  “I thought I’d fill in each one individually so you can all s…see what they did.”

  One by one the rows filled with reports of bombings and hijacks, the kidnapping of individuals and bursting into houses to spray their inhabitants with machine gun rounds. All in the name of country and identity; two disparate views of the same small piece of land. There was silence as the crimes appeared beside each name, apart from an occasional gasp and an “Oh my God”. Even Davy, who’d prepared the table and had only been eleven at the end of The Troubles was moved to tears by the scenes that the words conjured up.

  The bloodied, dismembered corpses of children, and other children whose fathers had never returned home. Disappearances that had ended in tragic phone calls and bodies that still hadn’t been found, made even more shocking by their gradual discovery now in familiar places that people drove past every day.

  Craig broke his stare to seek out Liam, knowing that he had to be feeling this even more than the rest. He wasn’t shocked at the grimness of his expression or by the tears that flooded his eyes, but he was surprised by his apparent lack of anger, so much so that he had to ask why.

  “Doesn’t reading this make you furious? It would make me want to kill them if they weren’t already dead.”

  Liam sniffed hard and thought for a moment. “If you want me to be honest then of course I’m glad they�
��re dead. They all deserved it years before now. But I’m not angry, no. Back then I was angry; I wanted to kill the buggers with my bare hands. But you mourn and let go of it. You have to or you’d have a heart attack from the stress.”

  Annette sighed. “Try telling that to those pillocks up on the hill. They’re so busy playing tit for tat that nothing ever moves on.”

  Davy nodded. “Which is why you need a new generation of politicians. The grandads s…should stand aside and let people without any baggage step in.”

  Craig called for quiet. “We can debate politics another time. What I’m interested in now is anything that links our victims to each other. Davy, Ash; enlighten us, please.”

  Ash’s blue head moved from side to side, to be joined by Davy’s dark one. Craig’s eyes widened.

  “Nothing links them? Tell me you’re not serious!”

  “I’d love to, chief, but there’s nothing.” Davy changed the screen back to the pre-Troubles crimes. “None of their crimes back then were linked and w…we can’t find anything that says they even crossed paths.” He changed to the crimes since nineteen-ninety-eight. “Again, nothing. The only one we can find involved in anything is Hart and there’s no overlap with anyone else. They may just have been good at hiding their activities but unless we can find some proof…”

  “What about from sixty-nine to ninety-eight? During The Troubles?”

  The analyst pulled up the table again and shook his head. “They all maimed and murdered, but different victims, places and methods. Unless there w…was some sort of cross-community paramilitary conference, which I doubt, I wouldn’t have expected them to ever have mixed.” He tapped several times and a table that they hadn’t seen before appeared. “This is the list of their arresting officers, the s…stations they were taken to, their courts, judges and where they were confined once found guilty.”

  Everyone peered at the screen. Only two things overlapped. All five victims had been taken to Castlereagh Police Station and all had been convicted in the Laganside Courts. Liam commented first.

  “Half of Northern Ireland went through those courts, so that’s not a surprise. And Castlereagh, well…”

  He didn’t need to finish the sentence. Even those who were too young to have lived through The Troubles had heard of Castlereagh Station, or more precisely, of its holding centre. No-one knew exactly what had happened in there but rumours that it had been the site of interrogation for the hardest bastards in The Troubles were rife. What was fact was that it had been the target for allegations of brutality and abuse; unfounded or not.

  It made Craig pay attention as well, but not for its interrogations or complaints. He parked his thoughts for later and turned away from the history of The Troubles to the here and now.

  “OK, what about commonalities at the dump sites? CCTV or anything we can use to get a handle on this case?”

  Davy winced. “S…Sorry chief. The killer chose dumpsites relevant to each of the victims’ past crimes, yes, but he must have reccied all of them, because he just managed to pick the five places without CCTV.”

  Craig stared at the ceiling, puffing out his cheeks in exasperation. He asked another question without much hope. “I don’t suppose any of them were lit well enough to attract attention?”

  Davy swallowed. “All the street lights were out and the only w…witness we have anywhere is Annette’s tramp.”

  Annette tutted. “Don’t call him a tramp. Anyone of us could be homeless if we fell on hard times.”

  He gave her a sheepish look. “S…Sorry. Annette’s homeless man.”

  Liam said what Craig was thinking. “Here, that’s a bloody big coincidence don’t you think? No street lights anywhere?”

  Annette corrected him. “There was a light down the street near Hart’s dumpsite. The car drove under it when it turned the corner.”

  “But not at the actual scene.”

  Craig kept staring at the ceiling. “He broke them all beforehand.”

  “What? All of them?”

  Craig repeated himself. “He broke them beforehand.”

  Annette cut in excitedly. “That could be important, sir. That means he must have done it close enough to the days he killed them that the council wouldn’t have found out and replaced the bulbs. And how could he have known that unless he’d done a dry run?”

  Craig sat bolt upright and gawped at her. “Annette, you’re a genius.”

  She nodded as if to say ‘you’re right’. She would take any cheering up that she could get today.

  “Davy, call the council and find out if any street lights in those areas were broken and replaced in the last month.” He turned to find Andy. “Andy, you take Ken and visit the houses near each scene. Canvas the area, post flyers, anything you can do. We need to know if anyone saw someone deliberately breaking the lights. Annette, get onto the press office and Maggie. See if she’ll use her media clout to request witnesses. Just tell her about the street lights being broken, nothing about the killings please.” He turned back to the analysts, reenergised. “Good. OK, tell me about the car.”

  Davy waved Ash on, thinking about Maggie and what he had planned for her thirty-third birthday the following week as Ash read from his screen.

  “There are one thousand, five hundred and twenty-four black or navy blue saloons in Northern Ireland with number plates beginning WEZ.”

  Liam shook his head. “No way there’s that many.”

  Ash didn’t break his stride just said “Ask the DVLA if you don’t believe me. WEZ was a popular prefix” before continuing. “OK, Annette’s witness has now confirmed that the car was blue so that reduces the number to five-hundred and forty. We’re running the names against criminal records and known associates, as well as links with any of our victims and appearance on any CCTV camera in Belfast on the nights of the killings, most specifically Billy Hart’s.” He sat back and sprayed his hands with sanitiser. “It’s going to take a while.”

  Craig nodded. On past experience it could take a week. “Add in the day the bulbs were replaced by the council when you have it. Our man will have dropped by at least once a day to check when the new bulbs went in, just to confirm his timings.” He glanced around. “Can anyone think of anything else Ash should check for?”

  Ken leaned forward. “CCTV on the day the bulbs were reported broken as well. If he broke it he’ll probably have phoned to alert the council. Also, ask the council if they record incoming call numbers, just in case he slipped up and used his own phone.”

  “Good.” Craig thought for a moment. “OK, so we’re still waiting for the last five years of our victims’ records, information on the broken bulbs and the car. That’s all down to Ash and Davy.” He remembered something. “One last thing; has Des come back with anything more on the weapon yet?”

  “Only the make. He’s narrowed it to a Magnum Research BFR.”

  Liam frowned. “That’s not a common shooter. There can’t be that many in the country.”

  “We’re checking the legal ones but-”

  Craig cut in. “They could be holding it illegally. OK, check out decommissioned weapons as well, Davy. There are plenty of crooks who would make one viable again for the right money. Actually, get me the names of the best known re-commissioners still outside prison and Liam and I will pay them a visit. They may respond better to the personal touch.”

  A loud guffaw from Liam said that he was imagining the touch. He stopped laughing long enough to add a suggestion. “I’d get the ones who’re still in the nick as well, boss. Who’s to say our man didn’t get his gun recommissioned in there? Prisons have workshops and it wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “Good point. Let’s check all of them.” Craig stood up “Meanwhile, we’ve got plenty to get on with. Andy, check where Jake is and keep going on Eilish Murnaghan, the rest of you know what you’re doing. Annette, I’ll join you on Mulvenna for a while. There’s something strange about him being in Belfast.”

  She also knew
that he wanted another chat.

  Craig was still handing out work.

  “Liam, take Gerry Murnaghan please, I’ll help out with that as well. Carmen, you’re working Hart with Liam so I want you to pay a visit to his work. Lindsay we’ve pretty much exhausted, although, Liam, I’d still like a visit paid to his two sons. Get in touch with the police in Scotland and they can ask Pooler some questions for you. Uniform from High Street can pay Lynton a call. OK, let’s get on with it for the rest of the day and we’ll brief again tomorrow p.m. Annette, could you join me for a moment, please.”

  As he entered his office he switched on his mobile and three missed calls appeared, all from Sophia Emiliani. He slipped the phone into his pocket, sighing, and poured two coffees, setting one of them across the desk. Annette dragged her heels for so long that he had to stick his head back round the door and beckon her in. She arrived in a flurry of defensiveness.

  “I went to see the GP and I’m sorting out my health, so please don’t ask me anything more about it, sir.”

  Craig raised his hands in peace and his eyebrows rose to match. “I won’t ask.” His voice softened. “I’m sorry if you think I’m being intrusive, I’m just concerned.” He edged the coffee towards her. “Actually, that’s not why I called you in. Take a seat. I want to talk to you about Jonno Mulvenna. To be honest I’m more puzzled about him than any of them. The last time we encountered him he just wanted a peaceful life.”

  Mollified slightly, she took a sip of coffee and then shook her head. “Yes, he did, but we’ve both seen his list of offences during The Troubles and isn’t that really what the case is about?”

  “Yes and no. Ultimately that’s what his death was about, but what was he doing in Belfast in the first place? Davy’s checks show that he still lived on the Coleraine Road and his son is imprisoned in Magilligan.”

  She shrugged. “Lots of people come to town occasionally. Wasn’t he an artist? Maybe he had another exhibition here?”

  Craig was unconvinced. “Check it out, but even if he had he’d have been unlikely to have attended it apart from on the opening night.” He gave a small shrug. “Maybe I’m reading something into nothing, and the one day he came to Belfast our killer just happened to spot him and abduct him, but I doubt it somehow. How could he have known when Mulvenna was coming? Unless he’d phoned his artistic agent, if he has one, or checked with every gallery in town.”