The D.C.I. swallowed hard before speaking and when he did he stumbled over his words.
“There’s…someone…”
“You’re trying to say that someone told Beatrix Hass where to find safe haven.”
“Well yes, that, and…well, also, Karl phoned. He’s given me a list of MLAs who’ve been busted for drugs. Cautioned mostly. I’ve got it when you want it. I didn’t want to leave it lying on your desk.”
“Anyone we don’t know?”
“A couple of junior Ministers, but otherwise it’s the names that we’ve been talking about.”
“Good. Thanks.” After a brief pause Craig went on. “Karl also gave you the name of the officer he tipped-off in Vice, didn’t he?”
Hughes’ response was uncharacteristically subdued. “I’ve worked with the man, chief, and he’s a good officer. I honestly can’t believe-”
Craig cut in briskly. “I trust your judgment, Aidan. Go and speak to him. If it was him who buried Karl’s tip-off I want the truth, but if you believe that it wasn’t then find me the name of who did.”
It was the best answer that Hughes could have hoped for.
After he’d hung up, Craig passed the info about the guns to Liam and then slumped down in his seat, puzzled. Who the hell would have known about a hiding place on a Loyalist housing estate and tipped off Beatrix Hass? It had to be someone local, someone who knew the territory, but what would they have in common with a German terrorist?
Ten minutes later, staring at the pull-down bed, he knew that it was an answer they might never find. The bed had been fingerprinted and if the heavens were on their side one of those prints would yield a hit, but it was just as likely that whoever was behind this whole messy business had paid some low-level local thug to arrange things, someone who may not have known or cared that Beatrix Hass was a criminal, much less what she’d done. The name of the thug was less important than the fact that the mastermind behind all of this had a very long reach.
****
St Mary’s Hospital Genetics Clinic.
“Nat, please call John and tell him you’re having the blood test.”
Katy Stevens was staring hard at her friend, hoping that somehow she could hypnotise her. Perhaps if she gazed at Natalie hard enough and long enough, she would eventually nod obediently and summon her husband to the hospital.
When Natalie’s small mouth began to set tight Katy knew that she had better back off. Any more pressure and the surgeon was likely to walk out of the geneticist’s fern-filled waiting room, never to return.
She supposed that she should consider it progress to have even got this far; it had taken several phone-calls and two tickets to Deacon Blue at the Waterfront Hall in November, for her to persuade the consultant geneticist to see them privately at all. At least Natalie would be the one paying his bill.
Katy’s thoughts were interrupted by an inner door marked ‘advanced practitioner’ opening, and an elderly woman in a pristine lab coat appearing at Natalie’s side.
“Ms Ingrams?”
Natalie jumped up, braced for what was coming next. It wasn’t what she thought.
“I’m Mrs Matthews, the clinic’s counsellor, would you like to come in?”
Natalie scowled at the woman. “I don’t have time for stuff like counselling, I’m here for a blood test! I’m on call tonight and I’ve got to be back in theatre for five o’clock.”
The counsellor smiled tolerantly. “I’m afraid we need to talk through all of the possible outcomes before we do any tests. To prepare you for the full range of results.”
She could have saved her breath after the second ‘we’, because Natalie was already out the door.
****
The C.C.U. 5 p.m.
Davy had started scratching his chin at the briefing, and two hours later Nicky was beginning to wonder if he was trying to drill a hole. She said as much in her loud, husky voice.
“Unless you’re trying to reach Australia I’d scratch on the other side for a while, Davy. Otherwise you’ll grow an uneven beard.”
The analyst’s lack of reaction made Ash glance up from his work, his vantage point, slightly behind Davy and to the left, giving him a good view of his three computer screens. On one a programme was running, flashing through pages of books at a rate of knots, but it was the other two screens that were more interesting; the central one was displaying a table of names, and the left hand one a map of the British mainland scattered with red stars.
He and Nicky reached Davy’s desk simultaneously and stood gazing down at the computers. It was the PA who spoke first, gesturing at the map.
“Aren’t those three stars marking places where you said prostitutes were killed?”
Davy pointed to the stars she’d indicated, in Manchester, Dover and Edinburgh.
“Yes. The rest I’ve just discovered.”
Ash’s “Wow!” said it all. There were fifteen stars on the map, each corresponding to a city, and against the matching locations in the table were women’s names.
Nicky gasped. “Fifteen women have disappeared now?”
Ash’s question was more practical. “What’s the timeline?”
Davy answered without looking up, although thankfully he’d stopped scratching his chin.
“Just under two months. The police investigations have found nothing.”
Nicky tapped the table on a row highlighted in purple. “Why’s this name coloured?”
Davy’s voice was flat. “She reappeared, but w…wouldn’t give any explanation for why she’d been gone.”
Her eyes widened. “That means the other fourteen are dead!”
Ash cut in. “You’re thinking the purple one’s another Veronica Lewis.”
Davy turned to look at him.
“Yes. Running parties where all sorts were happening, until she decided that she wouldn’t.”
The junior analyst nodded.
“She must have changed her mind again and decided to cooperate, just like the boss thinks Lewis did. That’s why they let her go. And the others?”
“Eleven found dead and three never reappeared.” Davy shook his head glumly. “Their bodies will probably never be found.”
It prompted Nicky to pull over a chair and sit down. She liked her job as a secretary and she knew that she was good at it, and if she’d wanted to be a cop, which she didn’t, W.P.C.s’ flat shoes definitely not being her style, she would have joined the force. But that didn’t mean that she hadn’t picked up the detecting bug, and being around a squad as good as Craig’s had hopefully taught her a few skills. With that in mind, she stared at Davy’s screens, screwing up her face in thought. They all did. To an outside observer they would have looked like a trio in pain.
After a couple of minutes Nicky smiled, not at the subject matter but at what all of them had missed. Before Davy could ask why she looked so cheerful the PA had jabbed at his central screen.
“There!”
“What?”
“The timeline.”
He still didn’t get it.
“It’s obvious.” She rolled her eyes and tutted. “And I thought you were the ones with the big brains. April the thirteenth. It was the date that Vote Leave was named as the official campaign for leaving the EU. The date everyone realised that both sides were serious.”
“So? The first woman disappeared on the twenty-second.”
“Exactly. Just long enough for her to be approached and say no to helping with the parties.”
Ash snorted. “It’s a bit of a stretch, Nicky.”
Her gimlet glance said that he was dicing with death so the analyst backtracked hastily.
“Which isn’t to say that you’re wrong, of course.”
He focused on the computer screens again, wondering if she could possibly be right.
“Davy, any sex-workers dead or missing in the two months preceding then?”
Davy shook his head.
“But fifteen, sixteen if you count Veronica Lewis,
in the eight weeks since.” Ash nodded to himself. “Nicky could be right. This all started, OK, so not to the day, but to the week of the leave campaign getting serious.”
Davy wasn’t so sure. “But why none in the w…week beforehand? Insiders would have known then that it was coming.”
It was Nicky who shrugged first. “Maybe they didn’t expect both sides of the campaign to come out so strong, and when it became obvious they were it was time to fix things for their side.”
Davy thought through the evidence they had so far; the only thing that pointed to one side or the other of the referendum was the IBP core’s support of leaving and the killing of the Pro-EU First Minister. He restarted his chin scratching, still unconvinced.
“So…Nicky, you’re saying that all across the UK, someone who wants to leave the EU has been coercing sex-workers to… what? Blackmail or influence their customers’ votes?”
As she nodded he went on.
“I suppose it might work, but it’s still only a few hundred votes at most-”
Ash cut across him. “Unless the men that they’re influencing are themselves influencers, or can in some way rig the vote.”
“Gerrymandering?” Davy’s headshake was emphatic. “No way. Voters I.D.s are checked, and the vote counters picked very carefully. No, if there’s a chance of the vote being swung either way then it’ll be through influential people in the campaign.”
Nicky nodded smugly. “That’s what I just said.”
Sort of.
Davy shook his head again, but with less conviction this time. “It’s still a gamble. Even if you get the political influencers on board, they can’t guarantee delivering their s…supporters votes.”
“Guarantee no, but it will definitely improve the odds, and that matters if it’s a close race.”
Ash was already convinced. “OK, let’s just say we’re right and someone’s been using sex-workers to influence, or maybe even blackmail politicians. However they’re trying to control them, it still leaves two questions. One, what else are they doing? They can’t just be relying on this tactic to swing the vote their way; it’s too unpredictable. And two, who but the pro-Britain right-wingers would give a shit what way the vote came out?”
The first point Davy agreed with. “We might find out what else they’re up to if I crack the book code. But as far as your other question goes…there are a lot of people who want to remain in the EU.”
“You think they’d kill to make it happen?”
Davy shrugged. “I wouldn’t, but who knows. And you can’t say the Remain lobby wouldn’t kill any more than that the Leave bunch might. Just because someone has left-wing political leanings it doesn’t mean they’re a s…saint. That sort of judgemental thinking’s the way that communism gets a grip.”
The debate could run and run, but the real question was why would the referendum incite anyone to kill? When Davy couldn’t think of an answer he knew it was time to seek outside help.
****
Ten minutes after Craig had stood staring at the wall-bed, he and Liam were in Faulkner Tower knocking on Eileen Regent’s door, and after thirty minutes of tea, sympathy and a few diplomatically worded enquiries they made their way back to the car.
“Let’s head to the lab, Liam.”
“OK. Do you want to drive?”
Craig shook his head absentmindedly, still thinking about what he’d just heard. Eileen Regent had been adamant that her son had had no reason to kill Peter McManus, even if the First Minister was, as she’d confirmed, thought of as a traitor by some in their community. And neither she nor her granddaughter had ever been under threat. That they knew of, was the obvious rebuttal; Beatrix Hass could have told Billy Regent that his mother and daughter would be killed if he didn’t cooperate with her, and that they were being watched around the clock and it was so hard to prove a negative that the mentally exhausted soldier had probably just complied.
Craig’s thoughts returned to the statements taken on the estate. No-one but Kelly Atkins had reported even noticing a stranger, and follow up enquiries had yielded no-one who had seen the gloves being dumped in Sally Johnston’s bin. But what information they had said that Beatrix Hass must have gone into hiding in the bed immediately after the shooting on Monday afternoon and remained there until sometime between ten p.m. on Tuesday night, after when Sally Johnston’s bins were emptied, and Wednesday afternoon when the gloves were found by a W.P.C. That meant Hass had stayed in her hidey hole for somewhere between thirty and forty-five hours.
A sudden tut from Craig made Liam turn his head.
“Bad dream, boss?”
A finger pointing straight ahead said ‘keep your eyes on the road’ and Craig returned to his thoughts.
OK. Scenario one: Beatrix Hass had scared or threatened Billy Regent into killing McManus, but Billy had still believed that he was getting off Carson Tower’s roof alive, which explained why he’d worn latex gloves to conceal his prints as he took the shot. But Hass had subsequently killed the ex-squaddie, stripped off his gloves and planted his finger prints all over the rifle. Fine, so Billy had made the kill shot, but most likely under duress, although they had no proof of that yet as his mum had never felt under threat.
Scenario two: If Des proved that the guns had come from a British Army Base then logically Billy could have smuggled them into the country, which most likely meant that he’d been in on the plan to assassinate McManus all along. Also, if he’d been stationed in Germany, he might have known Beatrix Hass for years.
It didn’t feel right and Craig was still convinced of the soldier’s innocence, but they had to be certain before they made a wrong turn.
His abruptly barked-out question almost made Liam swerve. “Was Regent in Germany?”
Liam hit the brake and pulled over to the side of the road, turning to gawp at his boss.
“You nearly made me crash!”
When Craig showed no sign of contrition Liam sighed and answered his question.
“No. I checked with Ken. Billy Regent was never on a base in Germany, not even for training.”
“Positive?”
“Ken was.”
OK, so Billy was unlikely to have known Beatrix Hass beforehand, but that still didn’t rule out that he’d stolen the guns from elsewhere. Either way they would soon know.
Craig glanced up to see where they were. Ten minutes from the lab. He decided to use the time to catch up with Davy and pulled out his phone.
The analyst’s own confusion came flooding down the line, and Craig was treated to the whole discussion that Nicky had had with him thirty minutes before. By the time Davy had finished updating him Craig had a headache.
“You’re saying for the past two months there have been women being kidnapped and killed all over the UK. And they’re all sex-workers.”
“Yes.”
“So what’s to rule out a serial killer?”
Davy was prepared for the question. “I can’t yet, but one of them reappeared alive, and just like Lewis she wouldn’t explain where she’d been. I’m digging into their Vice records now to see if there’s anything about high-level parties. They might be centrally organised.”
Craig gave a groan. Liam’s Orgies Incorporated suggestion mightn’t have been that farfetched. The analyst was still speaking.
“Ash came up with two questions. If someone’s trying to influence the referendum vote, aren’t they likely to be doing s…something else as well? They couldn’t just rely on compromising politicians to carry the vote.”
“Like what?”
“No idea yet. His other question w...was, who besides the Pro-Britain bunch would go to this extreme?”
It echoed Vala’s comment that the IBP couldn’t be in this alone.
The conversation was cut short by Liam parking outside the labs.
“OK, Davy. Keep going on all that, and ask Nicky to set a briefing for eleven tomorrow morning, please.”
He cut the call and they entered the bu
ilding, collecting a moping John from his office before heading upstairs to see Des. While Liam snuffled around the scientist’s office for food and drink, Craig cut straight to the chase.
“Guns.”
Des answered with one eye on Liam who was rummaging through his fridge for milk, getting ready to intervene quickly if the D.C.I. looked like finding the chocolate cake he kept for especially stressful days.
“Both Russian.”
Craig stared at the Head of Forensics, his already fragile theories starting to crumble.
“Do you mean they’re Russian makes, or that they actually are from Russia?”
His fingers were crossed that the former applied. Billy Regent had been posted to Afghanistan after Iraq, and there were still Russian armaments available on the black market there from when they’d lost the conflict in nineteen-eighty-eight.
“Both.”
As the milk emerged and the fridge door closed, Des thought it was safe to turn around.
“We have a KSVK Large Calibre Kovrov Sniper Rifle and an MP-443 Grach semi-automatic pistol. Both manufactured in Moscow in 2013 and both registered in St Petersburg last year.”
Craig felt his grip on the whole case slipping. He slumped onto a stool so heavily that John shot the forensic scientist a reproving look.
“Could you not have been a bit subtler?”
Des shook his head firmly. “Facts are facts. I can’t just change them to suit the mood.”
He poured a coffee from the percolator and placed the cup in Craig’s hand, staring at the detective for a moment before he spoke again.
“Don’t you want the good news then?”
Craig’s head jerked up. “There is some?”
“Well, I think the name of the guns’ purchaser might count. Gleb Solokov. I’ve sent it over to Ash to check out, but my preliminary checks say he’s a member of the Russian Mafia.”
Liam’s groan was heartfelt. “Not those buggers again! We had enough of them in twenty-twelve.”
Des’ headshake was immediate.
“It’s not the Vory V Zakone, which is a pity because at least they have a code. This is a whole new bunch. Real crooks. When the Soviet Union collapsed in ninety-one the free market created a lot of millionaires, and an equal number of people who coveted wealth but couldn’t get it through legitimate means. Criminality was and is rife there. Not to mention the gangs in the former Russian territories: Chechnya, Georgia and Armenia are the worst-”
The Cabal (#16 - The Craig Crime Series) Page 27