The Visitor (#3 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series)

by Catriona King

  “No...No obvious sexual contact. The swabs are clear, I checked that first thing. And the D.N.A. is a maze because of the resuscitation and operation. It’s a good point. I don’t know why I keep saying ‘he’. Of course it could be a woman. One in six serial killers is female, and many of those operate in health settings. When I was in America...”

  Craig stepped in quickly before his day became an episode of Criminal Minds. “Sorry, John, but we need to focus on Belfast today.”

  John smiled and shrugged. “It could be someone who hates mothers, Marc. Or a Munchausen’s by proxy.”

  “Or someone who thinks they’re saving them somehow? Like an angel of mercy killer? Aren’t they usually women, Dr Winter?”

  “That’s true Annette. Or perhaps I say ‘he’ because I find it hard to imagine a woman doing this...with the babies…” His voice tailed off and he smiled. “Old fashioned of me, I know.”

  Annette smiled. Chivalry wasn’t quite dead while John Winter was around.

  “Of course, a lack of sexual contact doesn’t rule out a sexual motivation, Marc. All the victims are female, as are the babies, so it could just be revenge against the female sex. The only way to completely rule out sexual motivation is if they kill a man. That would point to a more personal agenda. I’ll do a profile for you.”

  John had just completed his psychological profiler training in Virginia, and had drunkenly profiled them all in the bar one night. His analyses had been far too close for comfort.

  “How did the killer know that they were all having girls, sir? Deborah McCance had already given birth, but the other two hadn’t.”

  Craig stared at Annette. She was right, how did they know?

  “Well spotted, Annette. Any suggestions, John?”

  Craig caught her triumphant look and Liam’s quick annoyance. More rivalry.

  “Well, I know for a fact that St Marys don’t tell women the baby’s sex before birth. It’s Trust policy. All I can suggest is that they might’ve had private scans, and someone wrote the result in their notes? That would suggest the killer was someone with access to the ward notes.”

  “Or the original scans, sir.”

  “Or the I.T. system, Doc. The Sister said everything’s on computer now.”

  “OK, we need to check-out all of those. Best case scenario, it’s not in the hospital records. That way only the scanners and families would have known they were having girls. That would certainly narrow the suspect pool. Worst case scenario, it’s in the notes and on the computer. One last thing, John, you mentioned inquiries on the first two deaths?”

  “Yes, they were quite in-depth in fact. Nothing negligent was proven, but then there never is with Murdock. The inquests are real performances - they should sell tickets. He always calls his friends to testify at them. Alan Davis was one of them.” He gazed down at the thin reports again, disgusted.

  “But, much as it grieves me, Marc, I have to be fair to Murdock. What would be his motive for killing Evie? I can see negligence or sheer stupidity from him, but murder? And so obviously murder? What would be the point? He has a lot to lose. He has a real jet-set lifestyle going on up in Cultra. And he’d be insane to think he wouldn’t get caught eventually. Although I suppose this could be ‘eventually’.”

  “We have a lot of questions ahead of us before we can answer that one.”

  “That’s your bit. I’ll stick to my P.Ms.”

  He handed Craig a page with the case details, and then remembered something. “I’ve just realised I didn’t offer you all one of my special coffees.” He pointed to an enormous new coffee machine in the corner and they all laughed. John was a real gadget-man.

  He smiled. “Mary got it for me.” Poor Mary.

  “Sorry, it’ll have to wait until our next trip. By the way, did Liam tell you who Tommy Hill is?”

  John smiled thinly. “Yes. Such nice people you meet. Good luck with him, I wouldn’t swop jobs with you. At least my patients don’t attack me. Although there was that episode of C.S.I when the body sat up on the bed...”

  Craig groaned and said good-bye, talking as they walked to the lab’s outer door. “Liam, find out when we can meet Nigel Murdock, please.”

  Liam walked on towards the exit, pulling his phone from his back pocket. Annette followed, removing her own, as Craig returned quickly to the lab. John was focussing on his laptop and peered up at him quizzically over his wire-rimmed glasses.

  “Did you forget something?”

  “Julia and I can make that party on the 20th. But she’s asked if Natalie will be there. We haven’t seen her since you went to the States.”

  “NO.”

  John almost spat the word out and his abruptness took Craig aback. He and Natalie had been close before he’d left for the U.S.

  “No?”

  A pained look crossed John’s face and Craig knew that something serious had happened. “Is Natalie OK, John?”

  “Fine, as far as I know. But…”

  “What?”

  John glared at him, pulling off his glasses. “Stop interrogating me, Marc. I’m not one of your bloody suspects.” It was an over-the-top response, and completely out of character. “Just leave it, OK?”

  His hurt look told Craig not to dig deeper.

  “And…don’t try to fix me up with anyone else. I’m far too busy with work to have a relationship.”

  It was said almost pleadingly and Craig nodded, concerned. Then he watched as his friend returned to the safety of his computer. He wondered what had happened – John had been happier with Natalie Ingrams than Craig had seen him in years.

  Maybe they’d lost contact when he was in America or…maybe she’d met someone else. He thought of how easily it had happened to him in the past, and the damage that he’d suffered. He wouldn’t wish it on his friend.

  He stood for a moment longer, then nodded and left the lab. There was nothing he could do until John asked for his help.

  Chapter Five

  “We have 4pm tomorrow for Murdock, boss. His secretary wasn’t best pleased. Says he’ll have to come back from the golf course in the middle of 18 holes...”

  “Remind me to be sympathetic when I meet him.”

  They were heading down the concrete slope towards the Path Lab’s car-park. It wasn’t raining any more, although it felt as if it should be. It usually rained for some part of the day in Belfast, regardless of the month. The downside of coastal living.

  Their exit from the Science Park was barred by an overweight security guard wearing an armband branded S.P. Science Park or Security Person? Craig wondered how far political correctness had gone.

  “That’s the Nazi I told you about.” Craig smiled, instantly picturing the man in uniform.

  The guard shuffled ponderously towards the car, glaring at them as if they’d stolen something. After an exaggerated scan of Craig’s badge, he shrugged in defeat, pressing the barrier release with an air of thwarted boredom. Liam drove left onto the Ormeau Road, heading down the busy artery into town.

  “I gave the ward a call and the midwife can meet us now, sir. She’s taking her lunch break at twelve.”

  “That’s great Annette. Where exactly is the Maternity, Paediatric and Endocrine complex?”

  “At the Lisburn Road end of Elmwood Avenue. The Dunmore Medical Centre site, near where the old Elmwood Hospital used to be.”

  “I remember that hospital; Lucia was born there. They were really friendly.” Lucia was Craig’s sister; younger by ten years.

  They reminisced while Liam drove smoothly through the late morning traffic, moaning about Belfast’s gridlock. Craig just smiled and remembered the M25.

  “It was a great place to work. I was there for two years and loved it.”

  Craig turned, looking back at Annette over the passenger seat.

  “Do you miss being a nurse, Annette?”

  “No. Well, maybe sometimes. But it took its toll. You see a lot. You know?”

  Craig nodded, but
he could only imagine. They saw a lot in murder too, but it was a whole different type of ‘a lot’.

  “Can you call Davy and ask him to check the Home Office database, please. For similar cases across the UK. Ask him to liaise with the Irish police as well. He needs to search under solved and unsolved suspicious female deaths and murders. Cross reference with pregnancy, Caesarean, female offspring, Insulin and Pethidine. And ask him to look for scars or cuts on the right cheek as well. That might be something. If anything at all flags up, I need the paper files.

  Ask Nicky to contact the Drs’ and Nurses’ organisations for anything on Murdock and Beth Walker. Just whatever she can get without a warrant, for now. But quietly please; I don’t want the trust alerted just yet.”

  Annette sent the requests through on her smart phone, following up with a call before they reached the Unit.

  “Nicky says Davy was already on it, as background on Evie.”

  Liam nodded. “Davy’s good, right enough. Far better than that other analyst we had before - Penny something. She was as thick as a brick.”

  “I think that counts as intellectual prejudice, Liam. There’s probably a course I can send you on for that.”

  “Aye, equal rights for bricks, ha, ha.” Liam pulled smoothly into the complex’s car park and grabbed a ticket, opening the barrier. Then he waved his hand grandly at the building, like a tour guide. “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the M.P.E.”

  St Marys’ M.P.E. complex was set back from the urban Elmwood Avenue. On the ‘Golden Mile’ in Belfast 9. It was known as BT9 to the rest of Belfast. Shorthand for Northern Irish prosperity.

  The complex was modern with corridor art and soothing waterfalls, to make the atmosphere less clinical. It had cost a fortune, a point the unions never tired of mentioning. Still, ‘Art for Wellness’ had given it five stars, so that was all right then. Bargain.

  The entrance was designed to look like a pair of hands held apart, and Annette laughed loudly as Liam wiggled through them. Craig tried to look disapproving and failed, laughing as well.

  The lifts were all busy, so they asked the elderly lady on reception for directions to Maternity. Then they walked up the stairs towards the bright second floor.

  A strong floral scent led them to the right, and two parallel glass corridors, both ending at the Maternity Unit’s locked entrance. Several anxious looking men lurked outside the Unit’s door, wearing invisible signs that said ‘New Dad’. They leaned against the walls and slumped tiredly on the comfy chairs. A strip of carpet in the corner looked like a runway, for pacing.

  A woman in a red uniform so pristine that it shouted ‘Sister’ was waiting ready by the door, informed that they were coming by downstairs. Well spotted Miss Marple in reception. They must have ‘police’ written all over them.

  Sister Laurie Johns stood with her hands crossed at waist height, and a thoroughly disapproving expression on her thin face. She was a tense looking brunette of around forty, with a strangely triangular head; a shape not enhanced by her tightly pulled chignon. Her skin was over tanned and her small brown eyes reminded Annette of wizened raisins. She somehow doubted that she soothed her patients.

  When the Sister spoke it was in an affected middle-class accent, and her greeting was as cold as she appeared. She showed them to a small office with few niceties, setting off to fetch Nurse Walker, with a look that told them exactly what she thought of her.

  Two minutes later Beth Walker hurtled into the room. She looked in her late twenties but she must have been years older, and she was absolutely tiny. She wore blue scrubs and yellow Crocs, decorated with flowers and peace symbols. She resembled a slim Telly-Tubby and Craig liked her immediately.

  Annette didn’t know what she’d expected the midwife to look like, but it definitely wasn’t this. Someone rosy cheeked and plump probably, remembering midwives she’d known during her training. But then that was in a rural hospital, and this was St Marys.

  The young woman’s hair was jet-black and straight. Shoulder length on one side and shaved short on the other, its ends tipped with a purple-blue that exactly matched her eyes. She had three silver studs set high on her visible ear and another one in her lip. And her inner wrist held a Zen symbol tattoo. The whole impression was youthful and lively. Just how lively became apparent in the force of her next words.

  “I knew this was going to happen. I knew it. I told everyone. I knew it was only a matter of time after the others. But no-one listens. Especially not to me. Why do people have to bloody die, to make you lot pay attention?”

  The words came screaming out of her in a strong Derry accent. Craig watched her quietly, letting her vent. Even Annette was six inches taller than her, so he nodded the others to sit or prop themselves against any free surface in the small, windowed office. Then he spoke in a soothing voice.

  “Why don’t you tell us about it, Ms Walker?”

  “What’s the point? No one listens. We’ve killed her. She’s not the first and she won’t be the last.”

  Liam was watching her intently and Craig caught his look, knowing that he was desperate to ask a question. He shook his head gently, motioning to let her story come out, as she talked on in a stream of consciousness.

  She’d started working in the Unit five years before. Everyone else had been there forever, so they all knew each other, and she knew they thought she was an oddball.

  “They all think I’m a whacko, but I don’t care. I worked in Australia for years and I’m keen on natural child birth.”

  She and Nigel Murdock were at daggers drawn. “It’s no secret, everybody knows. He hates me because I’ve said he does far too many Caesareans. But he does. They aren’t necessary and he just does them for his own convenience. It’s lazy medicine.”

  It was also no secret that she was gay, and that seemed to cause Murdock even more problems. He was used to his Hugh Grant charm easing his way around women. But he’d hit a brick wall with Beth, and he knew it. He’d made openly anti-gay remarks, but she hadn’t reported him.

  “It wouldn’t have got me anywhere. He went to school with the old C.E.O, Moore.”

  Liam whistled softly. Health seemed far less P.C. than the police. He’d have been sacked for the things Murdock had said! He felt unexpectedly bad for her - the sensitivity training was obviously working.

  Her voice wavered for a moment, and she seemed so near tears that Craig wanted to reach out a hand in comfort. But he had to stay detached. This was a murder investigation and she could be a suspect. She wouldn’t be the first brilliant liar that he’d encountered.

  The thought made him sad somehow, but she had known all three women. She’d also been on the ward last night and discovered Evie’s body. He stood up politely, making ready to leave.

  “That’s all for now Ms Walker. Thank you for your time. Would you make yourself available for interview tomorrow afternoon, please?”

  Her face dropped suddenly. “But what are you doing about it? You can’t just leave it and waltz off. This place is getting away with murder. Or does there have to be another death before you eejits pay any attention?”

  She yelled the last comment so loudly that Laurie Johns heard and she bombed down the ward towards them. Annette quickly grabbed Beth’s elbow and wheeled her round, out of the office and off the ward for a coffee, anywhere.

  “Phew...she’s a wee fireball. What a temper, boss. Just as well she’s only a munchkin.” Craig smiled broadly. Liam’s quaint terminology always lightened the mood.

  Just as Laurie Johns entered the office Liam’s mobile rang. He disappeared to answer it, not missing her disapproving glare.

  “Well really, Mr Craig. These are pregnant women. They need peace and quiet.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry Sister. We’re just leaving. But may I ask you one question?” He knew what her answer would be before he asked. “How do you find working with Mr Murdock?”

  Her expression altered at a startling speed, into a teenage girl gazing at a p
oster of ‘One Direction’.

  “Oh, he’s so gifted. Such a wonderful surgeon.”

  It told Craig all he needed to know about the ward’s dynamics, and exactly where Beth Walker stood in the pecking order. He nodded to himself.

  “Thank you for your help, Sister. Now, Ms Walker is distraught, so I think it would be best if she went home early. I’ll ask one of the female officers to take her now.”

  “Well honestly, Mr Craig! That means I’ll have to do her work.”

  He left her still-protesting in the office, without either the patience or the inclination to placate her.

  The round uniformed shape of Sergeant Joe Rice was standing in the internal corridor, and Craig walked over to him, nodding hello. He nodded back distractedly, staring intently at a freshly stacked tea-trolley, salivating. Craig smiled, knowing that a cupcake would be heading for his stomach in a minute, followed by a mug of tea.

  Joe dragged his eyes away from the plates, greeting Craig warmly in a singing Cork accent.

  “Hello there, sir. Rum old business this …”

  “You could say that.” Craig nodded in the direction of the office. “How are you getting on with the Sister?”

  Joe grinned, a thin wide smile that creased his round face into the shape of a rugby ball. When he spoke he elongated his vowels, in the character of his home county. “Ahh…Frosty the Snowman …. Well if I was a baby and saw her, I’d refuse to come out.”

  He laughed loudly at his own joke. It was a high wheeze of a laugh that was joined by a guffaw from Liam, returning from taking his call.

  “Nice nickname, Joe. Wish I’d thought of it.”

  “Here Liam, could a W.P.C. not take over from me? This isn’t a good place for a man.”

  “That’ll be why the Dads are hiding in the hall.” They laughed again, and then Craig turned back to business.

  “Joe, ask a W.P.C. to take Ms Walker home please. Be subtle, but she’s not to return before her interview. Can someone keep an eye on Nigel Murdock as well? And we’ll need an officer posted here 24/7. You’re right; female officers are probably best until we decide if we’re closing the Unit.”