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

by Catriona King

  “That’s grand. I’ll sort it out.” He stared pointedly through the glass at Laurie Johns. “There’s not a lot of compassion in that one, is there?” It didn’t require any confirmation.

  “How many extra people can you let us have, Joe?”

  “Well, Jack says they’re fairly quiet at the moment and I’ve two probationers. So that’s about six, for a few days anyway. Plus, me for part of the time, if that helps?”

  “That’s brilliant, thanks. Tell Inspector Andrews I’ll get the paperwork to him.”

  Joe lifted a handful of cakes and a mug of tea and wandered-off down the ward. Just then Liam’s mobile beeped with a text.

  Craig shot him a wry look. “That’s not supposed to be on in here.”

  Liam glanced at it, and then knocked it off quickly, pushing a cupcake into his mouth. “Sorry, I forgot. We’re needed boss. That was High Street texting. Tommy’s going buck-daft down there. They want us to see him or let him go. The medical examiner sedated him, but it’s not working.”

  “We’ll head over there now. I just need to check something.” Craig walked quickly down the ward into the windowless office that they’d been allocated. Joe was already there, leaning over the screen of an old-fashioned computer.

  “Can you work that thing, Joe? I need to check something.”

  “Aye, the wee nurse showed me. It came in on the arc but I’ll have a go. What are you looking for?”

  “I need the notes for Evie Murray-Hill. And another lady, Linda Bryson – she was here in February.” He read their dates of birth off the paper John had given him earlier, and after a moments’ whirring noise their records came up. Craig scrolled through them quickly until he found what he needed. They’d both had private scans to find out the baby’s sex, and it was on their hospital records, clear as day. Where anyone could have seen it.

  “Is there anything to say where they had the scans, Joe?”

  “Aye, there. The Private Surgery, wherever that is. Leave it with me and I’ll have a dig around.”

  “Thanks.”

  Both women had known that they were having girls before delivery, and the information had been easily accessible on the computer. Unless the scan technician’s identity gave them some clues, the suspect pool was back to anyone who worked in the hospital.

  Craig re-joined Liam quickly. “Liam - you come with me. I need Annette to stay here with Joe’s team. Ask her to help them with the interviews for the rest of the day. And get Beth Walker on my interview-list for tomorrow. Find the doctor who prescribed Evie’s Insulin as well, please. I’ll need to interview him.”

  “Her. Tut tut, boss, such sexism.”

  Craig smiled ruefully. “OK, her then. Put her on tomorrow’s list please.”

  “There’s another senior doctor, boss. Iain Lewes. But he seems happy enough to see me. I’ll take the builders who’ve been working on-site as well. There’s plenty to go round.”

  “Thanks. Now, we’d better get going, before Tommy tears High Street down round him.”

  As they headed downstairs Craig pulled out his mobile, and Liam pointed smugly to a ‘No Phones’ sign. He stubbornly dialled anyway - a stairwell seemed a safe bet not to get caught.

  “Nicky. Annette’s going to co-ordinate my interviews with you for tomorrow afternoon. Any word on the C.E.O. yet?”

  “Sorry, I’m still chasing him, sir.”

  “OK. We’re heading over to High Street now, but keep trying for that meeting. Meanwhile, can you arrange for me to meet Evie’s mother this afternoon? Before the C.E.O. please.”

  “There’s a step-father too, sir.”

  “Fine.”

  “He’s a Reverend.”

  Craig let out a low whistle. “A far cry from our Tommy then...”

  Chapter Six

  1.30pm.

  If Belfast had been human they’d have diagnosed it with a personality disorder years before. It ricocheted between the “what’re you looking at?” aggression of a sulky teenage boy, and everyone’s favourite mother offering you tea. The problem was you never knew which personality was behind which face.

  Katy had lived away for so long that she felt English now. No, not English, a Londoner, and that was very different. Either way, coming back to Northern Ireland was confusing. What were the rules here in 2013?

  She’d loved the anonymity of London and was scared of Belfast pushing her back into a mould. Which school did you go to? Who do you know? Tell us right now, so we can be comfortable with you. She fought hard against it, and not always politely. Meanwhile, she had to deal with her new job.

  There was a standing joke in medicine that you could guess which branch people would go into just by looking at them. It was a game every final-year student played. The rugby boys went into surgery. The clever faster ones into Cardiac or Neuro. The sheer strength of the hookers making them perfect for Orthopaedics. The nerdy ones went for Psychiatry or the labs. And the mumsy girls married some macho surgeon and disappeared into the G.P. wilderness, leaving hubbie to play away happily in the hospital.

  The smart money had been on her doing medicine, but no one had ever seen shy Katy going to London. Yet she had, for thirteen years. She’d been back in Belfast for four months now and checked in with some of her old class-mates. She’d even made a new friend, Natalie Ingrams, a young surgical consultant. They sometimes worked together in the M.P.E., far away from the politics of the main St Marys’ site.

  The trust’s main hospital was like a small city off the M2. It was enormous and sprawling, with cafes, shops and intrigue that could rival Holby City’s. There’d even been a bar once, near where she was standing now. But that had gone years before, a victim of political correctness. She remembered going there, sticking close to her friends. The surgeons used it as a hunting ground for each new batch of female students. She smiled, remembering her friend Maeve complaining. “It’s like a fox hunt in here, and we’re Basil Brush.”

  They’d had to close it eventually of course. Not P.C. The health service couldn’t afford people ‘practicing under the influence’, and there’d been a lot of them at one time. She wondered if patients were really any safer now.

  The Visitor watched her from a distance, wondering why she didn’t see them standing there. But doctors were always too busy with the mundane to focus on what was important. Too busy enjoying themselves to care about patients. That would change soon, when the father made them listen.

  A soft tap on Katy’s back made her jump “God, Rowan, you scared me. What are you doing here? Is this your audit meeting as well?”

  Rowan Jones’ handsome strong-boned face smiled down at her. He answered her in a welsh accent that contrasted sweetly with the Belfast background chatter. “No, but everyone’s been summoned to the two to three bit. I’m not sure why.”

  He’d started at the trust in November, two months before her. And he was really friendly. Although, as Natalie said, ‘I bet he’d like to get a lot friendlier’. The way she’d twirled an imaginary moustache had made them both laugh.

  They wandered down the long main corridor together. It was fluorescent and wide, with wards on either side, like shops on a village high-street. There was so much traffic at times that it needed stop-lights. Scaffolding loomed above a small newsagents halfway down, and a pile of leaking sandbags leaned untidily against a door. The whole Trust was being refurbished, and there was dust flying everywhere, here and at the M.P.E. complex.

  After five minutes banter they reached their destination. The lecture hall was an old, high-ceilinged theatre, with wooden tiers sweeping down towards the front. Katy sat where she always had as a student; second row from the back, at the right-hand end. Far enough back to be cool, but not in the back row with the rugby boys. She’d never done any work when she’d sat near them.

  She ran her hand under the wooden seat, checking for her initials. They were still there! At least the developers hadn’t stripped away that little bit of history. She’d carved them throug
h tears after Adrian Hughes had dumped her. It had been a brief romantic trauma and he was fat and bald now. She’d allowed herself a small smile when she’d spotted him in the canteen last week. Schadenfreude.

  A woman turned around from the next row and smiled a warm hello, holding out her hand to shake. Katy reciprocated, vaguely recognising her.

  “Hi. I’m Mary Hinton, Radiology. You two are new, aren’t you?”

  Rowan leaned in, introducing them both. “Do you know what this meeting’s about then?”

  “The new Chief Exec called it about the building programme. Apparently it’ll be going on until 2015. The building-work that is, not this meeting. Although I’m sure it’ll feel like it.”

  They all laughed, but Katy groaned inwardly. The M.P.E.’s building work had already been going on for months. She’d been at St Arthurs in London during theirs, and spent years sneezing out concrete dust.

  She noticed Iain Lewes, one of the paediatricians she worked with at the M.P.E., sitting near the front. She felt really sorry for him. He’d had a terrible time over the past few years. She started to text him to meet for lunch when the hall’s lights dimmed. After a few seconds darkness accompanied by childish whoops, a white screen lit up at the front. It highlighted a tall, round man of about forty. He was standing behind a lectern tapping at a laptop, while a technician fussed around him with some wires and a mouse.

  “That’s the new Chief Exec. He was brought in from Manchester last year, after the last one was sacked. I wonder how long he’ll last.”

  The man at the front held his hand up for silence and started to speak. “Good afternoon everyone, I’m Charles McAllister. Some of you will already know me from committee. My apologies to those of you who don’t. I haven’t managed to meet all our new Consultants yet, but I promise that I will.”

  Rowan whispered. “Deep joy, I can ‘ardly wait.” Katy elbowed him in the side and Mary smiled at him over her shoulder, for longer than Katy thought strictly necessary.

  “I know you’re all very busy, and this is time out from your work with patients. So we’ll keep it brief and let you get on with your audit meeting.” He turned the screen quickly to a schematic of the St Marys’ site.

  “In a minute I’ll hand you over to Ted Greenwood, our Project Director for the building work. He’ll take you through the next phase of the refurbishment, and then I’ll tell you exactly what it will mean for you. As you’ll know, the M.P.E. complex has already had a great deal of work done, and we complete things there on the 26th. That’s when the work here really begins. So you’ll soon see Ted and his team wandering around in their hard hats.”

  Someone groaned loudly and McAllister jokingly said, “I heard that”, earning him a quick laugh. Ted Greenwood stepped into the screen’s light and Katy assessed him quickly, before the overheads dimmed again. He was a tall, good-looking man, with the arty look that trendy building types often had. He wore designer rimmed ‘Clark Kent’ glasses, and a blue shirt without a tie. She recognised the look as American-preppy, although she thought she might be alone in that. The sartorial interest of most Belfast consultants stopped at early ‘James Herriot’.

  Greenwood contemplated his audience warily, knowing that they were expecting to be bored. Then he shrugged slightly as if to say ‘tough’ and started to speak in a flat accent, with an inflection that Katy recognised as London.

  The mix of 3-D artwork, computer animation, and physical models he brought out, surprised and engaged nearly everyone. And at the end, several of the men, including Rowan, went down to the front excitedly, for a closer look at where their new offices would be. Greenwood seemed indifferent to their interest, but McAllister was buoyed, answering every nerdy question gleefully.

  “It’s great to see everybody so enthused. Keep that going when Ted needs to meet you. We need your help refining the designs. After all, we can’t un-build it when it’s done!” He paused for effect and was rewarded by a single weak laugh from the cynical audience, signalling his cue to leave.

  “Thank you for your attention. I’ll hand you over to Dr Bain now for your audit meeting. That’s just for the medical teams, I believe.”

  It was the signal for everyone else to bolt for the door, while George Bain, the Director of Medicine, stepped forward, to start the purgatory of the monthly audit. Rowan took the stairs two at a time and winked at Katy, as he and Mary escaped through the back door for coffee. She gazed longingly after them, thinking about slipping out in the dark, but too guilt-ridden to skive as usual.

  Katy’d just resigned herself to ‘death by statistics’ when her pager vibrated. It was the M.P.E. She left swiftly through the back door to ring her young P.A.

  “Shauna, you must be psychic! You’ve rescued me from hours of charts.”

  “When you hear why, you’ll prefer to stay in your meeting. It’s bad news I’m afraid.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s that lady you saw yesterday. Mrs Murray-Hill. Katy, she’s dead.”

  “NO! How? When did it happen? I saw her last night and she was fine - her operation’s scheduled for tomorrow.”

  “It was very sudden. In the middle of the night. The police…” She hesitated, wondering how to say it. “I’m really sorry Katy, but the police need to speak to you. A D.C.I. Craig. They want to see you at High Street station tomorrow. I’ve booked you in at three. Is that OK?”

  “The police? But why?” Her mind replayed every decision she’d taken on Evie’s care. Then she remembered Tommy Hill’s threatening presence and didn’t wait for an answer. “Don’t worry, three is fine. What about the baby?”

  “The baby’s fine. A healthy little girl. But it’s so sad - she was only four years older than me.”

  “Yes, it is.” Katy felt like weeping. Partly for herself.

  “Katy, her father ...”

  “Yes?” She felt a sudden fear, and droplets of cold sweat trickled down her back.

  “Well it’s just...he rang about an hour ago, yelling about getting all of us. Do you think he really meant it?”

  Katy thought that he probably did, but she didn’t want to frighten her secretary so she lied.

  “No, no, I’m sure he didn’t. He was just upset. Go home now Shauna and we’ll talk tomorrow. Leave her notes for me before you go, please. And don’t worry, it will be fine.” She sounded far more optimistic than she felt.

  ***

  Tommy Hill was leaning over the table when they entered High Street’s interview room. His eyes were closed tight and Craig thought that he saw tears on his cheek, but the neon light overhead was throwing strange shapes. He didn’t move. Not when they entered. Not when they scraped the hard chairs out and sat down opposite him. And not now, five minutes later. Craig matched his silence, word for absent word, until eventually he reached across and pressed the button on the tape machine.

  “For the benefit of the tape, this is Tuesday the 9th of April 2013. Interview commencing at 2.30pm. Present is D.C.I. Marc Craig…”

  “D.I. Liam Cullen.”

  “And…”

  Hill sat in silence, ignoring his cue. After a few seconds Craig filled in the details for him.

  “Mr Thomas Hill, of 17a, Holchester Road Belfast 14. Please acknowledge your presence for the tape, Mr Hill.”

  There was silence for another moment while Hill opened his red, shot eyes, and stared slowly across at Craig. Finally he croaked. “Aye, Tommy Hill” in his rasping baritone.

  “Mr Hill has agreed to have an informal chat with us. No charges have been brought and he has waived his right to counsel or companion. Could you confirm that you’re happy to have this meeting recorded, Mr Hill?”

  “Aye. I’ve done nothin’ wrong, so I don’t need no solicitor. But let’s be real clear. I want the bastard who killed our Evie found an’ done for. An’ if you lot don’t find them quick, I fuckin’ well will.”

  “OK, Mr Hill.”

  “Tommy.”

  “All right then, Tommy. W
e all want the same thing. To find out what happened to your daughter. And if a crime has been committed, to catch the person responsible, try and convict them. Agreed?”

  “Aye, agreed. But it’d better happen sharpish or I’ll go an’ find them mysel’. Then they won’t be worryin’ about no trial.”

  Liam leaned across the table, booming. “Is that a threat?”

  Hill turned to stare at him with a curious look, as if he’d just noticed him sitting there. “No threat. Trust me, I’ll do it. No bother.” He smiled maliciously, as if imagining the happy scene.

  “Look Tommy, we know you’re angry and you’ve every right to be. But if you go around threatening people, it won’t go well for you. And no-one wants that, do they? Mr Murdock is already considering pressing charges against you for assault, so don’t make matters any worse for yourself. Just let us do our job, and give us the information to help us do it.” Craig’s voice hardened. “Don’t muddy the waters, Tommy, or get in our way. For Evie and your granddaughter’s sake.” He paused to let his words sink in, not holding out much hope of their impact. Hill didn’t move.

  “This is just an informal conversation, but we need to find out everything you know or noticed. So please give Inspector Cullen here a statement. And then go and see your granddaughter, Mr Hill, and get some rest. The D.I. will take you to the hospital and stay with you.”

  Craig nodded to Liam and rose to leave the room. Then he stopped at the door and turned, motioning Liam to switch off the tape.

  He walked back to the table and considered Hill sadly, hesitating for a moment, before putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry this happened to your daughter, Tommy, genuinely sorry. We will get them.” Then he was out of the room before the other man could see his face, the door closing hard behind him.

  ***

  Templepatrick was so well kept that it reminded Craig of Trumpton, one of his favourite childhood TV programmes. It basked in the honour of ‘Best Kept Small Town of 1991’, a title commemorated by a small plaque at the village boundary. It was quiet and sedate, the only noise disturbing the peace the traffic heading for the International airport. As he drove in past the Mausoleum, Craig was sure that even the town’s ‘dearly-departed’ would have passed away neatly. It just seemed like that sort of place.