Tiredness made his mind career wildly to a scenario where Natalie suddenly hurled her shoes at him instead of into the wardrobe, and followed by pointing her finger towards the door and muttering the word “divorce” in an ominous tone. The image made him shudder and lift the phone. Ten minutes later he’d enlisted help with his domestic dilemma and was able to return to his computer with a clearer mind.
The DNA profile that he was looking at was, however, even less clear than it had been the day before. Given that the profile had matched no-one on the UK database, or even those criminals one hundred miles south of where he stood, he had passed it on to Davy to run it through Europe’s databanks and perhaps even further afield.
However, somehow he’d still expected that when the deeper analysis yielded the perpetrator’s ethnicity, it would have been mainly Celt, Anglo-Saxon, or perhaps, at a stretch, possess Spanish or Viking remnants, reflecting the times when those races had either been shipwrecked off or had invaded Irish shores, but the profile in front of him held none of those things.
It was distinct, almost one hundred percent pure and a profile rarely found in Northern Ireland, and as it printed out in front of him John made a second call. This time to Craig.
****
The C.C.U. 11.30 a.m.
Craig stared hard at the biography in front of him, hoping that its content would miraculously morph into a clue, or even better, a reason for a man to die. Almost forty-eight hours had passed since the death of the First Minister and still nothing made sense.
He scanned Peter McManus’ file again. The pages held everything that the IBP, Assembly and Police Intelligence held on him, the latter given to Ash by Kyle, in his opinion rather too eagerly. His old flatmate was up to something, but then, wasn’t he always? It was a trait that irritated the buggery out of him as a police officer, and yet he couldn’t deny that Kyle’s subterfuge yielded results, which was the only reason that he tolerated him at all.
It was ironic. He was the Head of Intelligence now as well as Head of Murder, but the information that came to him through legitimate channels via Roy Barrett was never half as juicy as what Kyle pulled out of his hat. The moment that hat was empty he’d shunt him back to where he belonged.
He turned back to the biography. On the face of it Peter McManus had had an uneventful life until his death. A local boy from East Belfast he’d been an average student at grammar school, until A Level when he’d suddenly excelled at politics. It was an excellence that had sent him via Cambridge University to the incubator of Washington, and then back to Northern Ireland’s turbulent political microclimate for maturation and an accelerated rise to the top.
Craig squinted at the description of their dead man’s party-political views: ‘Unionist. Middle of the road, albeit with a firm line on immigration, but no Loyalist paramilitary links and a quasi-liberal, Pro-EU stance’. It made McManus sound like the political equivalent of white bread, but no-one shoots a sliced loaf, not even a Belfast one.
The detective shook his head in frustration. There had to be something more in McManus’ past, something that had made someone hate him; not even a dissident Republican would have been so offended by the views in front of him that it would have made them raise a finger against the man, never mind a gun.
So convinced was Craig that they were missing something that he opened his office door and yelled, “Ash. Can you come in here? Liam, you too.”
As they approached something else occurred to him.
“Actually…why are you here, Liam? I thought you’d decided to go and see Ken instead of talking over the phone.”
Liam continued walking into the office, taking a seat before he replied.
“Two o’clock. Andy’s coming too. Soldier boy couldn’t see us till then. Something to do with the paperwork for his leaving thing.”
“Resigning his commission. That makes sense. There must be red tape.”
Craig closed the door, then lifted the file on his desk and waved it in the air.
“Is this really all there is on McManus, Ash?”
The analyst was hovering beside the percolator so the detective took the hint, pouring three coffees before sitting down. Ash took a sip of his before answering.
“That’s practically what Kyle said. He’s asked me to check if McManus has a CIA file as well.”
Craig raised an eyebrow. “Anything else Kyle asked for?”
Ash smiled, setting down his mug. “Everything I can find on the IBP MEP, Joshua Loughrey. He didn’t say why.”
Liam grunted cynically. “Because Spooky’s up to his old tricks, that’s why!”
As the analyst gave him a quizzical glance, Craig answered for them both.
“You have limited experience of our newest inspector, Ash, but Liam and I know Kyle of old. If he’s asking about Joshua Loughrey it means that he already knows something.”
Liam nodded. “Something he’s keeping to himself until it’s the right time to score him points.” He took a gulp of coffee and then returned an earlier point. “McManus will have a CIA file, for sure. So will Loughrey. They all have once they’re elected. The yanks like to keep tabs on things.”
Craig concurred. “Not that it will say much more than you already know. There might be a few more details on McManus smoking behind the bike shed at school and whatnot, and they’ll have listed any suspicions they had about him, however unfounded, but anything really juicy they’d have been obliged to share with MI5 and six. Joshua Loughrey’s much more interesting. His name hasn’t come up before.”
Ash took out his smart-pad and tapped. “That’s what I thought, so I checked.” When a government page bearing a photograph of the MEP appeared, the analyst read aloud. “Joshua Clem Loughrey, thirty-five, single, studied law at Queen’s and was called to the Bar in two thousand and nine as a barrister specialising in European law.”
He set down the pad, continuing from memory. “He only practiced for two years before joining the IBP and getting elected as one of their MEPs in twenty-fourteen. He seems to spend most of his time in Brussels, in fact he’s off there again today. Back on Friday.”
Craig considered for a moment before speaking. “Anything up in his private life? Women? Men? Robots?”
The question made Ash smile and the smile’s slowness perked Liam up.
“Aye, aye, I know that look. It’s the one tabloid journalists get when some celeb’s been caught with their trousers down. Smurf?”
The analyst obliged his curiosity with a grin.
“The internet’s a wonderful thing, you know. It can hold social media accounts for decades. Even ones that people have forgotten all about.”
He tapped his pad again several times, pulling up a FaceChat page which showed a younger looking Joshua Loughrey in bed with three women, each of them wearing nothing but a winning smile.
Liam gawped at the images, gesturing Ash to scroll for more. When he reached the bottom of the page everybody laughed.
“Where were they taken?” and “Who were the girls?”, was followed by Craig’s slightly more relevant “The white powder on that table didn’t look like chalk.”
Liam got back to the point.
“OK… so our Joshua, the Joshua that Kyle’s investigating for some reason, was a naughty boy in his youth. But that was years back-”
Ash cut in, shaking his head. “Only six. The photos were posted in two thousand and ten.”
Craig’s eyebrows rose; the MEP had looked much younger than twenty-nine in the images. Power must have had an aging effect or him, or the chalk.
Liam continued, put out at being interrupted. “OK, but they weren’t taken nowadays, that’s my point. Loughrey wasn’t an MEP in those photos, so where’s the relevance to our case?” He added a caveat, realising the naiveté of his assumption. “That’s always supposing it still is our case that Kyle’s working on, and not some bloody hobby horse of his own?”
It wasn’t as farfetched as it sounded, Kyle undoubtedly marched t
o his own drum, but Craig thought that the fact that Loughrey was in the IBP made it unlikely this time. He answered Liam’s first question in fits and starts, leaning back in his chair.
“OK…We have Peter McManus, leader of the IBP and First Minister, murdered for reason or reasons unknown. We also have Kyle curious about Joshua Loughrey, also member of the IBP, but on the MEP side…” His forehead furrowed as he thought. “MEP…MEP…”
Before he could say it a third time Ash cut in.
“The IBP is a nominally Pro-EU party, but Kyle hinted that might just be its public face, with plenty inside the party bound to vote leave in the referendum, including McManus’ deputy Roger Burke.”
Craig nodded, still frowning. “Pro-EU, and Loughrey’s an MEP, which means if the referendum results in a vote to leave the EU Loughrey will be out of a job in two years.”
He sat forward suddenly. “Park that thought. It might mean something but that’s not what’s on my mind. Just bear with me for a minute while I think this through. OK. So, Josh Loughrey aged twenty-nine was a naughty boy. There were women and booze in those photos, and probably drugs. So, he was living it up generally.”
Liam nodded. “And without the wit God gave him not to put it all online. How the heck he avoided being arrested for possession beats me. And disbarred. He was a first-year barrister in those snaps.”
Craig shook his head. “Check the location on the images. Loughrey was in the Caribbean at the time. Even if the police here had speculated that the powder in those photos was coke, there would have been no way of proving it. But it’s not what Loughrey did then that interests me. What interests me is how often, in your experience, does a sexually adventurous, hard drinking, drug user stop doing those things?”
Liam grinned. “I did, when I got married.”
Craig laughed so hard he almost choked. “In your dreams! The hardest thing you’ve ever taken is an aspirin, and as for being sexually adventurous, three women in twenty years really doesn’t count.”
While Ash did the sums on his own love life, Craig carried on.
“But even if you’re right, Liam, Ash said Loughrey was still single, so even if he’s acquired the sense not to post about it nowadays, I very much doubt that his liking for the high life has changed. Which begs the question; how come it’s never hit the tabloids here? First chance they’d got The Chronicle’s journalists would have plastered it across the front page.”
He lifted the phone suddenly. “Davy. Can you check something for me…Yes, now, please. Joshua Loughrey; he’s a European member of parliament for the IBP. See if he’s been mentioned in the press or media here or in Europe in the past…” He covered the receiver quickly. “Ash, when did Loughrey join the IBP?... OK, Davy, since two thousand and eleven. Quickly, please. And bring in whatever you find.”
As he dropped the receiver, Liam nodded. “You think Loughrey’s still drugging and wenching-”
“Wenching? What is this? Medieval times?”
“Ach, you know what I mean. Girls! But you think he’s just doing it privately now.”
“If Davy doesn’t find anything, I’d say that he has to be.”
Liam shrugged. “OK, but so what? Who’s to say he hasn’t just been doing it at home?”
Craig was sceptical. “With girls he’s picked up in bars or clubs? Or even escorts he’s hired over the phone? You honestly think that he’d risk one of them selling an ‘MEP in a threesome’ story to a local tabloid?” The detective shook his head. “No. Loughrey’s doing it much more discreetly than that. He’s one of-”
Just then the office door opened and Davy appeared. Craig waved him in.
“That was fast. What have you got?”
Davy shook his head. “I haven’t finished yet. I’ve left the s…searches running. But I’ll tell you what I have found.” He set a printout on the desk. “This.”
Craig read aloud. “This person has requested that all information on them since two thousand and six be removed from the internet.’ Loughrey’s taken advantage of the Right to Be Forgotten ruling.”
Ash sniggered. “Well, they obviously missed FaceChat.” At Davy’s curious glance he added. “I’ll show you later.”
Davy crossed his arms and leant against the door frame. “I can tell you that the only mentions of Loughrey in the Irish or UK press are reports on IBP functions and events at the European Parliament. I’d already created a s…search algorithm to target the press here. There’s nothing on the main media channels’ web caches either. The rest are running now so I’ll let you know about those soon.”
Craig gave a satisfied nod. “Thanks, Davy. I don’t think you’ll find anything there either but keep looking.”
The senior analyst straightened up to leave. “Just before I go, chief. Ash dug into McArdle and Bell, so I’ll send their bios through to your computer.”
“Anything exciting?”
Both analysts answered “no”, then Davy backtracked.
“OK. So…if you believe what you read they’re both solid family men.”
Craig heard the unspoken caveat.
“But?”
“Well, apart from the fact that even attending Lewis’ parties s…says different, both are also substantial donors to the IBP.”
Liam turned, surprised. “How did you find that out? Political donations don’t have to be made public here.”
Unlike in the rest of the UK, but then Northern Ireland had always made up its own rules.
Davy tapped his nose. “I have my sources.”
Craig shook his head. “I don’t want to know.”
Ash did, but it would have to wait.
“OK, good work, Davy. Check Bell and McArdle out on social media as well, just in case something slipped through like with Loughrey. Let me know what you get.”
As the analyst closed the door behind him, Craig turned to gaze at the river, thinking aloud as he did.
“Three men: Loughrey, McArdle and Bell. Two of them we’re certain attend Veronica Lewis’ parties, yet all three look squeaky-clean online -”
Liam cut in. “Except for FaceBat.”
Ash rolled his eyes but let the error pass.
Craig turned back to face them. “Luckily Loughrey missed that, so we now know what his hobbies are. Hobbies that he’s unlikely to have given up. But he can’t risk exposure now that he’s an elected official, so he has to be certain that the girls he sees won’t talk and that his drug use doesn’t get him arrested, and where better to do that than Veronica Lewis’ parties.” He banged a hand on the desk suddenly, making the others jump. “We need to find out when the next party is, and we need to get a man inside.”
Liam puffed out his cheeks, expelling the air slowly. “Nice idea, boss, and we might stand a chance on the first if Annette and Aidan dig up something from Lewis’ girls, but we haven’t a hope in hell of getting someone in undercover. It would take months of work to get Lewis to trust us now that she’s been got at, and anyway, a cop would stick out like a sore thumb, not to mention what the C.C. would say if he got wind of it.”
Craig sighed, knowing that he was right. Even if they found out the date of the next party and where it was being held, they hadn’t a hope in hell of getting someone inside fast enough to be of use to their investigation. But as the detective thought through the possibilities further he perked up, his lips lifting in a smile.
“We might not be able to get someone new inside, but we could lean on someone who already is.”
Chapter Nine
The Cathedral Quarter, Belfast City Centre.
The Fox wasn’t happy, and the troughs that frowning had left in his normally smooth forehead were testament to that fact, as was the number of cigarettes he’d sucked his way through that morning, first in the air-conditioned bathroom of his city centre hotel room, and then as he wandered the Cathedral Quarter’s streets in search of a bar where he could smoke inside.
He wasn’t sure why he was less happy than the day before, bu
t he was. As far as he knew the investigation into the First Minister’s killing was nearing an end, a dead one from what he’d heard from his sources in the force, and the madam’s discovery and interview had given the cops nothing, just as she had promised it would. So why could he feel a beast with sharp claws gnawing at his guts?
Even if he would never admit it out loud he already knew the answer. The situation had too many moving parts. A madam whose promise of silence relied only upon fear and her desire to protect her kid, normally a solid bet with a mother but you could never tell with a promiscuous slag like that. And his shooter, who was so convinced they’d covered their tracks on the rooftop that it was verging on arrogance. OK, setting up a disillusioned soldier who felt the State had let him down to take the fall had been genius, but it still made him nervous; there were too many people who might care that Billy Regent had died. Yes, they were the poor and powerless and the powerless were usually voiceless too, so he could hope that any queries they raised would be ignored or squashed by the stature of the man that Regent had killed; but hoping always made him nervous, he much preferred certainty. Billy Regent’s family had better let the sleeping squaddie lie or they would find themselves joining him in the grave, even if he had to pull the trigger himself.
The Fox glanced up suddenly to find himself outside an entry whose cobbles and cosy ambience, palpable even from where he stood, said there would be a bar there that would exactly fit his bill. As he turned to walk down the narrow thoroughfare in search of comfort he failed to spot the man following behind, a man whose presence would only ever be made known to him if the operation was about to fail.
****
12 p.m.
Liam had it all nicely planned. Lunch at The James then out to see Tommy after one, returning to the ranch via his two o’clock meeting at Craigantlet Army Base, just in time for the briefing Craig had called. The D.C.I. was rubbing his stomach in anticipation on his way to the lift when he found Andy and Craig suddenly walking by his side.
The Cabal (#16 - The Craig Crime Series) Page 15