The Talion Code

by Catriona King

  Liam turned to Craig with his hand extended. “Didn’t I say it would be late April? Pay up.”

  The screech rose in pitch, something that neither man had thought possible. “You’ve been betting on when my baby’s due? BETTING?”

  Craig feigned innocence. “Now you know I wouldn-”

  Annette was having none of it.

  “Yes, you would. You’re a man aren’t you? You pair of…”

  As she searched for more words to describe them Craig leapt into the gap.

  “There was no point calling you last night, Annette. I already had Andy, Reggie and Liam here. But you can take over supervising the searches now.” He stood up hastily and turned towards the door. “Liam and I have other lines of enquiry to follow. Thanks. We’ll see you back at the ranch.”

  As they strode away at a pace that was almost a run, Liam asked curiously. “What other lines?”

  The thump he received from Craig caused a dead arm that silenced him till they reached the car. As soon as they climbed in, Craig’s mobile began to buzz.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Nicky, sir. I’ve had a call from the Gardaí. They’ve stopped someone called Richard Jamison at Dublin Airport heading to the Dominican Republic via Boston. Said that Joe Rice ordered him stopped at your request.”

  The Dominican Republic; a non-extradition country! Craig slapped his palm on the dashboard and Liam gazed at it jealously, his own dead arm barely returned to half power.

  “Brilliant news. OK. Tell them I need him in Belfast ASAP, Nicky. I’ll send Joe to meet them at the border.” With that he clicked off and dialled out. The call was answered quickly. “Joe? Is Andy there as well?”

  The D.C.I. came on the line a few seconds later and Craig put the call on speakerphone.

  “A Richard Jamison’s been picked up at Dublin Airport-”

  To his surprise Andy interrupted. Not that he didn’t encourage debate but as the D.C.I. was half asleep most weekdays such energy on a Saturday morning was a real surprise.

  “Is it our Richard Jamison? Maybe it’s another Richard Jamison we’re looking for?”

  It was a good point and one that Craig hadn’t thought through.

  “Give me Joe again for a minute.”

  Liam’s hand had recovered sufficiently to wag a finger at Craig’s error. He risked losing it if he carried on.

  “Joe? Ask the Gardaí not to remove the blockade yet, just in case another Richard Jamison suddenly appears. Then I want you and some uniforms to head for the border in a patrol car; the Garda will meet you there with the Jamison they lifted at Dublin Airport about to board a plane.”

  “To where?”

  “The Dominican Republic, it has no extradition agreement with the UK. Bring him to High Street for questioning and any problems check with Andy. Liam and I will see Jamison this afternoon.”

  He ended the call and immediately made another, his memory suddenly jogged. Annette answered, her earlier screeches replaced by a cool disdain.

  “Hello. Is that the League of Victorian Chauvinists?”

  Craig had to laugh. “Fair point. OK, you wanted to work, so here’s another job for you. Jake is coming into High Street to see Aaron later, so, as you two are close, I thought you might like to be with him.”

  Her reply was grudging. “I would. But do you trust me to stay here supervising until he arrives?”

  “Annette, I fully believe you could run the country if you wanted. Honestly. There was no intention to be chauvinistic; we were just trying to be considerate.”

  “Huh! Hence the bet.”

  Liam interjected. “That was my bad.”

  The call ended with a second “Huh!” and Craig knew the next few months would be spent watching Liam put his foot in his mouth. It could prove entertaining, if Annette didn’t kill him before the birth. He started the engine and pulled onto the slip road heading for the A2.

  “Where are we heading?”

  “The lab. We need to I.D. our dead man before Jamison arrives, otherwise questioning him will be pointless.”

  “It’ll be pointless anyway with the sort of solicitor he can afford to hire.”

  ****

  The Pathology Labs. Saintfield Road.

  There was a warped comfort in seeing that John had almost finished the post-mortem, meaning as it did that they hadn’t been the only ones awake half the night. Of course if they’d been in touch with their feminine sides, there might have been exchanges of concern for how tired each other looked, or they’d have stopped off at a bakery and brought croissants with them to the lab. But they weren’t men whose X chromosomes held sway a lot of the time, so instead of soothing platitudes they greeted each other with “You look like crap, Doc” and “You’re hardly Miss World yourself.”

  Once the niceties were out of the way Craig gestured at the body on the slab.

  “Well?”

  The pathologist shrugged sharply, managing to convey his grumpiness at little sleep and no breakfast in the movement, supplemented by a one sided twist of his mouth.

  “Well what? He’s still dead and it’s still because of the hole in his head.”

  He turned towards the door, stripping off his latex gloves. Craig followed him down the corridor towards his office, continuing the conversation as they went.

  “I was hoping for a bit more than that, John.”

  The scientist stopped abruptly and turned towards his friend with a faraway look that Craig knew, from thirty years’ acquaintance, was the precursor to a philosophical diatribe. He wasn’t wrong.

  “We’re all hoping for more in life, Marc. The answers to the big questions. Why can’t we have world peace? What happens when we die?” He restarted his journey, still talking. “But few, if any of us, ever achieve it.”

  Liam had been trailing behind quietly, now he caught up with Craig and muttered in his ear. “This is more than tiredness. I bet the wife gave him grief last night.”

  Simplistic as the explanation sounded Craig had a hunch it would prove correct. Natalie had objected to something that John had done between dinner the night before and when he’d arrived at the lab that day.

  He waited until they were seated in the office with coffee-cups in their hands before he ventured a guess as to what it had been, approaching the subject in the way he usually approached things, with a question.

  “How’s Natalie? Katy was saying last night how well she’s been looking recently.”

  She hadn’t but she often did, so he forgave himself the white lie.

  John’s faraway gaze returned and Craig immediately wished he hadn’t asked. But he knew if he didn’t get the pathologist’s angst out of the way, he would never get his P.M. report.

  “She might look well, but she’s a cruel, cruel woman.” He added a sigh that they all felt to their bones.

  Craig was framing his next question carefully when Liam jumped in with his size thirteens.

  “Cruel? Cruel? You don’t know what cruel is until you’ve been married to Danni. Do you know what she did last week?” He didn’t pause for a response. “She only went and washed my favourite jeans!” His indignation would have made Craig laugh if John hadn’t still been looking so pained. “It took me a year to break them in and now they’re like cardboard! She went and starched them! STARCHED THEM! Who does that? To jeans? People have divorced for less.”

  Craig was just about to interject when John nodded in solidarity. “I can top that.” He paused to signal the seriousness of what was coming next. “Natalie made me sleep in the spare room last night!” His eyes enlarged to the size of a Minion’s, their pathos designed to evoke sympathy. He’d forgotten that he was still talking to men.

  Craig started laughing before John had even finished then added insult to injury with his next words.

  “What? You mean when you arrived home at what, two a.m.? Knowing you had to get up again at six, Natalie not unreasonably decided that she’d prefer not to be woken twice and consigned you to s
leep in the spare room? What a shocker! Definitely grounds for divorce!”

  He was still laughing when the husbands turned on him in horror and then back to each other in solidarity. He knew he’d really blown it when John slid the P.M. report across the desk and then steepled his fingers and closed his eyes in pain. As the detectives walked back to the car Craig felt Liam shooting him reproachful looks.

  He ignored them and opened the file, speedreading the one page report and then handing it to Liam as he started the engine for their trip back to the ranch. Liam read aloud.

  “A single vertical blow shattered the skull around the coronal suture causing immediate cessation of life. No other injuries, except small abrasions on his hands and face where he fell. These match gravel samples from the ground. Prints not in the system.” He glanced up. “Died around nine p.m.” He closed the file and threw it on the car’s back seat. “It doesn’t get us any closer to naming him. Just another dead thirty-something businessman.”

  Craig corrected him. “Early thirties; his teeth gave us that much. It’s on the back of the page.”

  “OK. And that’ll hardly narrow the numbers of possible Vics at all. So…”

  Craig indicated left out of the science park and drove smoothly down the A24 towards town. “So, we’ll check missing persons. If he has a wife or parents they’ll report him gone.”

  Liam snorted. “Yeh, next week sometime.”

  Craig’s tone hardened, saying that he was getting bored with his cynical approach.

  “There’s plenty of other stuff to get on with meanwhile. Collating all the interviews from this morning for one, plus CCTV, traffic cams…” He deliberately turned into Pilot Street too fast, throwing Liam hard against the passenger door. “… and maybe we’ll even get something from Jamison.” As he sped down the ramp into the basement carpark and jerked to an abrupt stop, Liam lurched forward so hard he barely missed hitting the dashboard with his chin. Craig leaned across and opened the passenger door. “But we won’t find out anything if you just sit on your ass and whine!”

  Liam made a face that said “who rattled your cage” and took his cue to get out. As the two men strode towards the lift Craig started again. “And what happened to my new constable? You said you’d found someone weeks ago.”

  Liam jabbed the lift button. “I had, have. I’ve just been persuading her boss to let her go.”

  “It’s another woman?”

  Liam nodded, obviously pleased with himself. “I’m doing my bit for equality. She’s a bit of a find, this one.”

  Craig arched an eyebrow. “What? Like Carmen was a bit of a find? I swear, Liam, if you-”

  As the lift doors opened and they entered, Liam waved him down soothingly. “Trust me; I’m a detective. She’ll be fine.” He glanced at his watch. “Anyway, you’ll see for yourself in a minute. She’s been upstairs for the past hour.”

  Craig was just about to ask his new D.C.’s name when they arrived on the tenth floor. As they entered the squad-room they were greeted by the smell of fresh baking and Davy grinning at them from his desk, his slim face covered in a sugary gloss. He pointed towards a plate of cup-cakes.

  “You s…should try one, chief. Rhonda brought them in.”

  Nicky sniffed jealously and Craig leaned towards Liam, dropping his voice. “Who’s Rhonda?”

  Liam started to croon. “Help me Rhonda. Help, help me, Rhonda.”

  Craig stifled a laugh. “Thank you, Belfast 89FM.”

  Nicky wagged a finger. “If you do the high bit you’ll injure yourself.”

  Craig repeated his question. “OK, Liam, who is she really?”

  “D.C. Rhonda O’Neil. I’ll introduce you now.”

  With that he loped across the squad-room to what had been Carmen’s old desk, and tapped the shoulder of a woman bearing a thick mane of dark hair.

  “Rhonda, let me introduce you to your new boss. Superintendent Craig.”

  Craig didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but he wasn’t prepared for the striking thirty-something who rose elegantly from her chair. Whereas Carmen had been tiny and flame haired, Rhonda O’Neil was a good five-ten without heels, with jet black hair brushed back from a widow’s peak and the palest skin that he had ever seen. She reminded him of images of Snow White, only taller. In the two inch heels she was wearing she was only a couple of inches shorter than him, making Liam and Reggie the only men on the squad she would have to look up to; literally. Her full-figured size fourteen and red dress made her even more striking and Craig smiled inwardly, wondering what the usual cadre of Belfast villains would make of her at a scene. He extended a hand and smiled again, openly this time.

  “It’s good to have you with us, Constable.”

  The D.C.’s lips moved for a moment but Craig couldn’t hear a sound.

  “Sorry?”

  Her lips moved again and this time “It’s a privilege to be here, sir” emerged, in the softest, highest voice that he’d ever heard.

  “Good, good. We’ll talk more later.”

  To cover his confusion Craig turned towards his office, beckoning Liam and Nicky to follow him in. When the door was closed he shot them both a quizzical glance. His only answer was Nicky bursting into laughter and Liam shooting her a huffy look.

  “What are you laughing about? She’s great. Geoff Hamill says she works like a Trojan, and she knows karate, so she could be useful in a fight.”

  Nicky’s shoulders were heaving now. Craig gave her a moment to recover and then motioned her on to speak.

  “She bakes too.”

  “Rhonda made those cakes?”

  “Yes. North Coast baking champion twenty-fifteen and proud of it.” She sniffed in a manner that neither man dared to challenge her on. “Bit of a show-off if you ask me. They’re not half as good as mine.”

  Craig could feel a bun war looming.

  Liam wagged a finger at the P.A., defending his recruit. “Weren’t you ever told it wasn’t nice to compete? Besides, when you talk to Rhonda she’s really-”

  Craig interrupted. “If you can hear a word she says!”

  Nicky nodded. “That’s why I’m laughing. That and the fact she says the cake competition was held in Bell-em-mena.” It was the signal for her to start giggling again.

  “Where’s Bell-em-mena?”

  “It’s Ballymena. She’s just trying to be posh.”

  It reminded Craig of people in London who’d said they lived in St.Reatham instead of Streatham, but he didn’t have the time to discuss that now. He turned back to Liam accusingly. “How’s she going to question offenders if all she can do is whisper?” Accusation turned to menace. “If this is your idea of a joke …”

  The D.C.I. was indignant. “It is not! She knows she’s quietly spoken, so you just have to remind her to speak up and she’ll be fine.” He loosened his tie suddenly. “God, it’s warm in here.”

  Only then did Craig notice that the heating had been fixed. He gave Nicky a grateful nod. “Thanks. I was getting no work done out on the floor.” He turned back to his deputy. “So D.C. O’Neil’s from Ballymena?”

  Liam rolled his eyes. “Keep up! The cake competition was in Ballymena. She’s from Australia. Sydney. She’s over on secondment for three years; the first one was spent with Geoff Hamill in Gangs. Surely you heard her accent?”

  Craig’s temper was starting to fray. “I couldn’t hear anything! That’s the bloody point!” He stood up. “OK, let me have her CV and we’ll continue this discussion later. Meanwhile, check that everyone’s here. I want to do a quick catch-up.”

  Five minutes later he emerged onto the floor to see everyone but Davy and Ash huddled around the cakes. The analysts were in a huddle of their own over Ash’s PC. Craig made up his mind to find out what it was about, so he walked over and tapped Davy on the back.

  “OK, you two. Spill. You’ve been up to something ever since Davy came back.”

  Davy glanced across at the others, a signal that they’d rather discu
ss it with Craig when he was alone.

  “After the briefing then.” With that he turned back to the group and perched on a desk near the front of the room.

  “OK, take a seat everyone. This will be quick. There are a number of things going on at the moment, but first I’d like to introduce our new detective constable, Rhonda O’Neil. Rhonda is on secondment from Sydney, Australia for three years.” He paused, considering whether to ask her to introduce herself and then deciding that the “sorry”s and “speak up”s that followed would take too long. Instead he inclined his head politely and she did the same in return. “We’ll all get to know Rhonda over the coming weeks, but for now let’s move along.”

  He dragged the white board over from beside Nicky’s desk, writing up the number one. “First. Les Moriarty, twenty-years-old, convicted in twenty-fourteen for the murder of his father Joseph, ostensibly for his inheritance. While the evidence was mostly circumstantial, with no other suspects and no alibi the jury convicted him unanimously. So you’ll all be wondering why we’re looking at the case again now. Liam?”

  He sipped the coffee Nicky had left for him as Liam rose to his feet. “OK, no names mentioned, but some higher-up has decided in their wisdom, or lack of it, to reopen this case. Apparently on the basis of some new evidence. We’re currently trying to find out what that might be. So…” He swung around looking for Reggie and found him with his nose in a mug of tea. “Reggie and Andy paid Mr Moriarty a visit at Maghaberry prison, the upshot of which was… what?”

  Reggie glanced at Andy, to see if he wished to speak first. The chocolate around Andy’s mouth said he was in a sugar coma so the Donegal man began to brief.

  “Aye, well. The lovely Les was in such a hurry to show off that I think he told us more than he meant to. Specifically, that the higher-ups whose names you aren’t mentioning.” He stopped suddenly and turned to Craig. “By the way, why aren’t we mentioning their names, sir?”

  Craig shrugged. “Because Liam’s trying to be mysterious. It’s D.C.S. Harrison re-opening the case, with D.C. McGregor in support.”