Craig stared down at the bed, seeing the twelve-year-old John that he’d first met; shy and thoughtful, the total opposite to his sporty, moody self. They made an unlikely pair but they’d bonded over a common sense of humour and they’d been friends ever since. All through his fifteen years in London and his five years of wall-offed defensiveness after he’d split with Camille, John had always been there, no matter which women came and went. Craig sat down by the bed absorbed in his thoughts, as if he was watching a movie of the last thirty years. His thoughts were interrupted by a croaking voice.
“Hopeless shot.”
Craig jerked to attention at the sound and was shocked to see a smile in John’s eyes.
“You’re awake!”
“Of course I’m awake. You don’t think I was going to miss hearing Natalie telling me how great I was.”
“She’ll kill you if she knows you heard her.”
“Too late, someone else got there first.”
Craig stifled a laugh and saw that John was trying to as well.
“Ow! Bugger, that hurts.”
“Stop laughing then.”
Craig’s face became solemn and he was preparing to say something when John spoke again.
“If you’re going to say all sorts of deep Italian things, give me a break and don’t. My head hurts enough. I know you care and I know you’re beating yourself up about this. So don’t. OK?”
“But…”
John winced and Craig looked around for a nurse.
“I don’t have the energy to argue, Marc, so listen. I saw the shooter.”
Craig leaned in urgently. “Can you I.D. him?”
“Her.”
Craig’s eyes widened. “What? But it was definitely a man who called me.”
John shook his head weakly. “It was a woman, Marc. She must have a male partner. My shooter was a woman.”
He gestured towards the water at the side of the bed and Craig helped him take a sip.
“She was white. She looked local; you know that bone structure you see sometimes that could only come from here?”
John was right. There were some faces that looked typically Northern Irish. He was still speaking.
“Blue eyes. She was wearing one of those beanie hats pulled down, but I saw some of her hair. It was auburn and wavy. It looked natural but it might have been dyed, I don’t know. Slim, tall for a woman, about five-ten. Late twenties or early thirties. Freckles too.” He smiled wryly. “For one minute I thought it was Julia.”
He started to laugh then winced at the pain in his back. Craig smiled. John would make a brilliant witness. He’d seen more in a split second than most people did in an hour.
“No. Julia would have shot me, mate, not you. And she’d have finished the job.”
John smiled and closed his eyes. Craig could see his energy seeping away. It was time to go. He stood up to leave and John raised a weak hand to stop him.
“If I don’t make it, tell Natalie that I’ve written her a letter. It’s in my desk. There’s one for you as well.”
“What! What the hell did you do that for? When?”
John waved him away. “Ages ago. Best to be prepared.”
‘DYB DYB DYB’. John had been a scout at primary school and it had never left him.
Craig shook his head. “You’ll make it. Now rest, and thanks for the I.D., it will help.”
Just then a middle-aged nurse appeared at the end of the bed and squinted at Craig suspiciously. “Did I hear you say ‘thanks for the I.D.’?”
“Yes.”
She folded her arms and Craig grimaced at the universal sign that he was in trouble.
“I didn’t give you permission to question my patient, Superintendent.”
Craig found himself stammering like a kid. “I didn’t…he…it was him who wanted to tell me.”
She grabbed quickly at a chart hanging from the end of the bed. “When did he start speaking?”
“As soon as I came in. He’s been talking for five minutes.”
She walked to the side of the bed and leaned in close to John. “Dr Winter.” There was no answer. “Dr Winter, there’s no point you pretending you can’t hear me. Mr Craig’s given you away.”
John opened one eye and glared at Craig. “God, Marc, now they’ll start asking me questions about my bowel habits. I’m going to get you for this.”
Craig grinned and got out while the going was good, certain that John was on the way to recovery and armed with information that would help steer their case. He walked into the corridor, still thinking about John’s revelation that his attacker had been female, and got another surprise. Katy Stevens was standing outside the I.C.U. talking to the guard. Craig swallowed nervously, unsure why he always felt like that when he saw her, and walked over to say hello. She greeted him with a question.
“How is he?”
“John? On the mend. Why don’t you go in and say hello?”
Even as Craig said the words he wanted to bite them back; he wanted to talk to her. He hurried past the suggestion and said the first thing that popped into his mind. “Are you coming on or going off?” Doctors worked such strange hours that you never knew. She smiled and his heart flipped over, just as it had done the first time he’d seen her a year before.
“Going off. I just met Natalie in the office and she told me what happened. She was very upset.”
Natalie? The mini-Boadicea who’d walked away cheerfully twenty minutes before? Craig kicked himself for not seeing behind her bravado.
“John’s fine. He’s talking now. He’s just given me an I.D.”
Her large eyes widened incredulously. “On the person who shot him?”
Craig nodded and glanced at the clock behind her head. It was only eight-forty. He decided to take a chance.
“I don’t suppose you’ve time for coffee? We’re not briefing until ten and…”
She smiled and nodded. “I have actually. I’m off today so I’ve no patients to see. Where were you thinking? The coffee shop in reception is quite decent. Well, the coffee tastes like coffee anyway.”
She laughed and its high tinkling sound cheered Craig up instantly. He glanced back at the door of I.C.U. with a momentary pang of guilt. John had a hole in his back and he was busy chatting up a pretty woman. Then he smiled, knowing that John would be cheering him on if he knew, and be doing exactly the same thing if the positions were reversed. They wandered down the corridor together talking about the case. When John was out of danger perhaps they would chat about other, more personal things, but right now this was as much fun as Craig’s guilt would allow him to have.
***
Damn, damn, damn. The pathologist wasn’t going to die after all, judging by the expression on Craig’s face when he’d arrived at the hospital. There was something hopeful there that hinted at survival. Jenna didn’t care whether John Winter lived or not, she’d just wanted grief to overwhelm Craig’s team long enough to let her finish her work. Now they’d be hunting her even harder.
She pulled a cigarette from her pocket and lit it up, blowing the smoke out in a stream into the cold morning air. She loved smoking at the best of times but smoking in a hospital’s grounds felt like a real ‘fuck-you’. She hated the places. She’d seen the inside of too many of them in the past decade.
Jenna Graham thought about the man lying in bed six floors above. Her best hope was that he hadn’t seen her for long enough to make an I.D. If he had then they might start to put things together and stop her before she’d achieved her goal.
She took one last drag of her cigarette then dropped the butt on the tarmac and ground it in with her heel, sighing out the last of its fumes as she walked to her car. Time was getting short and she needed to shift; the last one on her list was still walking around Belfast without a care in the world. He was keeping her from her treasure and that would never do.
Chapter Thirteen
The hospital coffee shop was cosy and warm, with twists and turns that
revealed more tables each time Craig expected to see a wall. It was almost nine o’clock by the time they reached it, just emptied of people heading to work but too early for elevenses, leaving no-one there but them. It was a double-edged sword; on one hand they had no-one else to look at but each other, on the other, at least they could hear what the other person had to say.
Craig carried a tray of coffees and Danish pastries to the small alcove that Katy had chosen, wondering if she was aware what signals her choice was sending out. It was probably where she sat all the time, chatting to workmates and sipping at a cappuccino. In that context it would feel fun and exclusive, its banquette seats forcing each person to huddle close, making them all feel like part of some special gang. To Craig its dim intimacy felt romantic, even in the early morning, although he was certain that wasn’t her intent.
They sat down across the sturdy wooden table from each other, hiding behind their drinks’ ritual milking and sugaring until there was nothing left to add. They reached for the tray simultaneously to place it on one side and laughed as it locked mid-air between their grips. Craig broke the silence first.
“Natalie’s very strong, isn’t she?”
Katy smiled at the incongruity of his comment, wondering for a second whether he meant that Natalie could have wrestled the tray from his grasp, before she realised that he was referring to Natalie’s emotional strength. She went to nod then paused and shook her head.
“Yes and no. She puts up a good front, but inside she’s terrified. John is her world.”
Craig nodded and glanced around the café, trying not to meet Katy’s gaze for too long. It had a curious effect on him, making him feel like a man and a boy all at once. Katy smiled shyly, as if she’d read his thoughts.
“How is the case going?”
He shook his head thoughtfully, feeling on surer ground. “It’s moving slowly. But John’s just remembered something very useful about his shooting.”
She leaned forward as if she was fascinated by what he was going to say and Craig shook his head in apology. “I can’t, I’m afraid.”
She laughed unexpectedly. “Don’t tell me. Confidentiality? The story of my life. OK, let’s change the subject. Any holiday’s planned?”
Craig laughed loudly at her attempt at a hairdresser’s opening gambit in the middle of a hospital café and picked up the casual chat, following her lead. It was surreal talking about trivia when John was in I.C.U., but then, so was everything that had happened in the past two days.
***
The C.C.U.
Liam was at his desk at eight o’clock and Davy and Jake were there at five past. Craig had plenty on his plate so the least they could do was help by getting a head start. After twenty minutes Jake’s smooth tenor cut through the sound of everyone tapping on their PCs.
“Anyone interested in what I’ve found?”
Liam set down the file that was annoying him and gave a loud yawn. “Go on then, I need a laugh.”
“Five people currently play the game in Northern Ireland, out of over one hundred gamers.”
Davy interrupted. “Five that you know of.”
“That I know of. That doesn’t count the ones who might be routing their play through servers elsewhere. Although…”
Davy leaned forward eagerly. “Yes?”
“I went back twenty years for each of the players, all of them, not just the local ones, and none of them suddenly changed their location.”
Liam frowned in concentration. “So that means twenty years ago they were all playing from the same place they are now? Where was that exactly?”
Jake lifted a folder and walked towards him. They met halfway at Davy’s desk, each grabbing a seat. Jake withdrew three sheets from the folder.
“On the first page are the screen names of the players nowadays and their locations. OK?”
“OK.”
“On the second and third are the same things twenty and then ten years ago. If you check you’ll see that a new player was added ten years ago in New York and there are three more now, in China, Spain and London.”
Liam shrugged. “So?”
“Wait.”
Liam pulled a face that Jake ignored. He pointed to the list from twenty years before.
“Anyone in their late twenties or early thirties who started playing the game when it was really popular back in the day is unlikely to be on this list unless they started playing pre-teen.” He tapped the ten-year page. “But they should definitely be on this one if they’d kept playing. Everyone with me so far?”
The others nodded him on.
“All right. The odds are that when they first started playing the game, twenty or even ten years back, they wouldn’t have had the wit to re-route their location through other servers.”
He glanced at Davy for confirmation. Davy nodded.
“The w…web was pretty basic back in the nineties and early two thousands. A kid in their teens back then wouldn’t have had a clue how to re-route.” He grinned. “I only found out how to do it in 2000, w…when I was thirteen, and I was a boy genius.”
Liam snorted. “And modest with it.”
“The truth hurts.”
Liam waved Jake on.
“OK. So if they started playing the game twenty years ago when they were pre-teen, which is unlikely unless their parents were very liberal, or between then and ten years ago when they were somewhere in their teens, then they’re very unlikely to have re-routed to an overseas server. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“And even ten years ago, that was unlikely.”
“Unless you w…were me.”
Liam raised his eyes to heaven. “Unless you were Davy.”
Jake nodded. “Good. So that means that the places listed here on the ten and twenty year pages, are likely to be their true locations.” He gathered the sheets together then withdrew a fourth page from the folder. “OK. This page has all the names that were playing either twenty or ten years ago and are still playing now. The ones marked in yellow are the ones in Northern Ireland. Like I said there are five of them now. There were seven in 1994, then six in 2004 and now five.”
They stared at the list intently. The screen names made Liam smile: ’Central Perk’, ‘Beavis’ and ‘Blur’. They all referred to things that had been popular in the ’90s.
“Those take me back a bit.”
Davy cut in. “Back to when you were young.”
Liam shook his head and grinned. “No. Back to when I was your age.”
Jake stifled a laugh. “He got you there, Davy.” He tapped the paper. “Focus, you two. I want us on top of this when the Super arrives.”
Liam arched an eyebrow but said nothing. Ambition wasn’t a bad thing in moderation, although he’d never suffered from the complaint himself. But they had two ambitious squad members now, Jake and Annette. It could make for sparks soon.
“OK. W…We’re focusing. What you’re saying is that our killer is definitely on this list of five. That makes s…sense. But we’ll need a warrant to get past their screen names.”
Liam stood up. “Aye, Davy’s right, lad. There’s no way the internet providers will cough up real names and addresses without legal encouragement; we’ve locked horns with them too many times before. They’ll want warrants, although feel free to have a go if you’ve nothing better to do.”
Liam turned to leave the floor and Jake called after him.
“Are you off to apply for the warrants?”
“Aye well, I’m off to start the ball rolling. Give the providers a call and if they’re willing to help out without them, then call me and let me know before I do any unnecessary toil. Otherwise I’ll be back at ten for the briefing.”
He stopped at the double glass-doors and gave Jake a small salute. “Well done, lad. Good work.”
***
9.50 a.m.
Craig walked onto the floor and straight past Nicky’s desk, wearing a small smile. Her yell told him that he wasn’t ge
tting away that easily.
“Sir!”
Craig turned to face her, the picture of wide-eyed innocence. “Yes, Nicky.”
“Don’t you ‘yes Nicky’ me. How’s Dr Winter?” She squinted at him suspiciously. “And what’s making you so cheerful this morning?”
“John’s coming on leaps and bounds and that’s cheered me up no end.”
Nicky’s squint grew deeper and she looked like a mother inspecting her teenage son for contraband. She knew Craig wasn’t telling her everything. There was something else going on and it was making him smile. She would get to the bottom of it, but there was more than one way to skin the proverbial so she relaxed her squint and tried a different tack.
“Coffee, sir?”
“Yes, please.”
Craig scanned the squad-room curiously. They were briefing in ten minutes and neither Liam nor Annette was there. He was just about to ask the question when Annette bustled in, out of breath.
“Am I late?”
“Not yet. Any sign of Liam?”
“He’s coming. He was talking to someone in reception when I walked past.” She glanced hopefully in Nicky’s direction. “Is that coffee fresh? I’m dying for a cup.”
Nicky shooed them away from her desk. “You’re cluttering the place up. Start your briefing and I’ll bring over a tray.”
She glanced at Craig again, narrowing the cause of his cheerfulness down to one thing – a woman. No, surely not. He couldn’t possibly have met someone new between leaving the office last night and this morning. Unless…
“By the way, sir. That nice Dr Stevens phoned just before you arrived.”
Craig swung round and his smile told Nicky everything that she needed to know.
“What did she say?”
“Nothing. She got cut off.”
The Coercion Key Page 15