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

by Catriona King

“Well, well, Inspector Cullen. You honour us with your presence, sir.”

  “Ach, away on with you.” He glanced behind him towards the kitchen.

  “Where’s the tea then? I’ve a fair thirst on me, and it’ll be a long morning.”

  “Come on, on, in.”

  Sandi had tea and biscuits already laid out and she headed back to her paperwork quickly. They’d be cracking on about the ‘good old days’ for ages, and the Antiques Roadshow bored her. She gave them ten minutes for banter and then interrupted.

  “Sir - would you like Ms Murphy or Mr McAllister first? Mr McAllister’s solicitor’s just arrived.”

  “Solicitor. That’s interesting - he didn’t say he was bringing one.”

  Liam nodded to himself. He should have guessed that a C.E.O. wouldn’t come near a police station without legal advice. It didn’t matter. He’d dealt with bigger fish than McAllister. And he’d have to answer their questions, unless he wanted them digging even further into his life.

  “In that case, Sandi, I’ll take Ms Murphy first. Give me five more minutes to consult with my esteemed colleague here, and then take her through.”

  “Esteemed now, am I? Does that mean you’ll finally give me that twenty quid you owe me?”

  She left them to their craic, closing the door in case reception’s occupants heard them laughing. It wouldn’t do to ruin the police’s image of gravitas entirely.

  Moya Murphy was already in the interview room when Liam entered. She’d reversed the wooden chair and was leaning forward over its back, fiddling with the ends of her long brown hair. She glanced up indifferently as he sat down, looking like the picture of bohemian boredom, trapped by the fascist police state. Liam was certain he’d seen her at a few protest marches.

  “Could you hurry this up? I’ve a lecture to give at eleven.”

  Liam stared at her, fascinated. It never ceased to amaze him how much some people disrespected authority. But then he’d been brought up on the ‘fear of God’ approach to child-rearing, and the sight of a uniform still made him defer. He wasn’t sure whose view of the world was better.

  “Thank you for coming in, Ms Murphy. I just have a few questions about your partner, Mr Greenwood. Background stuff mainly. But I’d also like you tell me anything you know about his whereabouts over the past week. Particularly last Monday evening. Do you mind if we tape this? It saves us having to repeat questions at a future date.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t care, but why not ask Ted all this? He can tell you far better than me.”

  He smiled and realisation dawned on her. “Oh, I see. You want to check up on him, is that it?”

  Liam didn’t confirm it but she continued anyway.

  “OK, well. I’m not sure I’ll be much use to you - I’ve only known him for five months. We met at the territorials.”

  Liam stared at her, trying to picture her clambering around in the mud. She caught the look and laughed.

  “I’m not in the territorials, I do their computer training. They teach all sorts of stuff, not just combat. Anyway, Ted doesn’t take computer studies, he’s already far better at it than me. No, we met at the Christmas party. To be honest, we’d both had a skin full, so we spent the night together and it just went from there.”

  He was impressed by her candour. She didn’t act as if she had anything to hide, and she probably didn’t.

  “Can I ask how often you see Mr Greenwood?”

  “Just once or twice a week, we don’t live together. I study late most nights, I’m finishing my Masters.”

  Interesting. It was much more casual than Ted Greenwood had implied in his interview, but that could just be masculine pride. Liam had been guilty of it once or twice himself.

  “Could you give me a quick rundown of his movements in the last week? Starting with the weekend before last, please. From Friday the 5th.”

  “Well, I know I saw him on the Friday night because we went to the pictures. That one with Robert Redford and Shia LeBeouf. God, what was it called? Oh yes ‘The Company You Keep’. Anyway, he stayed over on Friday but I had to work on the Saturday and Sunday, so he didn’t stay again until the Monday night.”

  “You’re sure of that, Ms Murphy? He definitely stayed on the Monday night?”

  “Yes, definitely. We watched that thing ‘Scooters’ on Monday night. That’s how I know.”

  Liam’s suspicion index ricocheted off the scale. Monday was the night that Evie had been killed and convenient alibis always made him suspicious. Actually, pretty much everything made him suspicious if he was being honest. But he had a hunch to back it up this time.

  “Just excuse me a second.” He reached for the desk phone and called Jack.

  “Jack, could you just check what night a programme called ‘Scooters’ was on last week? Thanks. Right, he’ll have that answer for us in a minute. Please go on Ms Murphy.”

  She frowned, annoyed by his doubts, but carried on. “Right, well, he stayed again on Thursday night. I’m sure of that because we went to dinner with some friends of mine. But I haven’t seen him since then - we were both busy all weekend. I was working on a paper for yesterday, and Ted went to Dublin on Friday night, for one of his boring project conferences. He’s not due back for a few more days.”

  Just then Jack entered and handed Liam a slip of paper. He read it and looked across at her calmly.

  “Ms Murphy. Can I ask you again if you saw Mr Greenwood last Monday night?”

  She seemed genuinely irritated. “I’ve already told you. We watched ‘Scooters’ and he stayed overnight. He was with me from about six o’clock Monday evening until eight on Tuesday morning.”

  “And you knew it was Monday night because...?”

  “Because ‘Scooters’ was on the sodding TV!”

  “What if I told you that they’d changed the programme scheduling? And that ‘Scooters’ was moved from its normal Monday night slot to Tuesday night last week?”

  He placed the printout on the desk in front of her, watching her face carefully. Her mouth fell open and she appeared genuinely upset.

  “Oh God, it must have been Tuesday night then! But Ted said it was Monday night that he stayed, because ‘Scooters’ had been on. He told me it was Monday.”

  The realisation that she’d provided a false alibi obviously shocked her, and Liam could see her growing upset and angry in turn.

  “That bastard! He used me. I’m going to kill him. What a complete fucker.”

  Fucker indeed - but Liam had seen the trick used before. It didn’t necessarily mean that Greenwood was their killer. He could simply have had no alibi and panicked, trying to generate one. But it certainly pushed him up the suspect list.

  Moya Murphy answered all his remaining questions urgently, afraid that she was in trouble. Liam reassured her, confident that she’d been duped. He ended the interview by asking her not to contact Greenwood before they’d had a chance to interview him. And to ignore all his calls. She agreed without caveat, and Liam was pretty sure that their romance, such as it was, had just ended.

  ***

  Craig took the lift to the Media Suite, where the invited press was gathering for the noon briefing. They circled the reception room like prowling lions, scavenging cups of coffee and the C.C.U.’s best biscuits from the table at the back. He spotted Davy’s girlfriend, Maggie Clarke, amongst the crowd and nodded to her. She wandered over, smiling hello cheerfully.

  Their relationship had been cool when they’d met on the Greer case in December, but she’d written it up responsibly and Craig respected that. Plus she made Davy happy, so he smiled warmly as she approached.

  “Hello, D.C.I. Craig. Ready for this?” She smiled sympathetically at him, knowing that he hated briefings.

  “Not so you’d notice. More a case of grin and bear it. Where’s Mercer?”

  She shook her head ruefully, acknowledging the shortcomings of Ray Mercer, The Chronicle’s prize reporter. “He’s on his way, unfortunately. I tried to persuade
the editor that a woman would be better on a case like this. But...” She smiled up at him. “I’ll write my piece sensitively, don’t worry. It’s far too sad to sensationalise.”

  Craig nodded and turned to escape from the room, feeling like a Christian in the Colosseum.

  “Tell Davy I said Hi, and I’ll be over tonight.”

  Craig caught her slight blush at the mention of Davy’s name and smiled kindly. “Come up to the squad later and tell him yourself.”

  She grinned broadly as he turned again, heading for the corridor to wait for Harrison. He phoned Lucia quickly for an update on their father and then stared out the window, pointedly ignoring the hacks.

  A few minutes later the familiar click of Nicky’s high-heels signalled a friendly face. She walked towards him with the fully polished version of the D.C.S. and winked reassuringly. Then she dropped in beside him, as they entered the room to face the beasts.

  ***

  Charles McAllister sat bolt upright, much too large for the small interview-room chair. His width forced his young solicitor into the corner beside the tape machine. His posture conveyed authority and hid his thoughts, but his eyes said that he’d been caught out. Liam could read them easily, giving him the advantage from the off.

  “Good morning Mr McAllister, and Mr ...?”

  “Sayers.” The young brief reached his hand across the table and Liam shook it politely, knowing there would be a business card next. There was.

  “Right now gentlemen, I know we’re all busy. So let’s just get through this as quickly as possible. I’d like to tape the interview to avoid future repetition. If you have no objection?” McAllister glanced at the young man beside him and then nodded assent.

  They cut through the preliminaries of age, address and marital status and covered the events leading up to Monday, the day before Evie’s death. As they came to the events of that evening Liam’s relaxed friendliness suddenly changed, into a cool formality that caught both McAllister and his solicitor off guard.

  “Mr McAllister. Could you tell me exactly where you were on the evening of Monday the 8th of April, and in the early hours of Tuesday the 9th?”

  Liam could see small beads of sweat settling on the C.E.O.’s top lip. When he spoke, his voice was defensive and strained, with an artificially high pitch.

  “I’ve already answered that question. I was at home with my wife, which I believe she’s already confirmed. ”

  Liam’s voice deepened and chilled in counterpoint. “I’ll ask you again, Mr McAllister. Where were you on the evening of Monday the 8th of April and the early hours of Tuesday the 9th?”

  McAllister stared desperately at his brief and the young man leaned forward in his defence.

  “My client has already answered that question, so can we please move on?”

  “No, I’m afraid we can’t. Not until your client answers truthfully. Please instruct your client to answer the question accurately, Mr Sayers. But before he does so, he should know that we’ve already researched his background. And we have reason to believe that he wasn’t entirely truthful in his earlier interview. We also believe that if we re-question his wife she will give us a different version of events. It’s in your client’s power to prevent us having to do that.”

  He stared intently at the two men. “Please answer the question, Mr McAllister.”

  Emotion ran across Charles McAllister’s face like a bouncing roulette ball looking for the best place to stop. Finally his shoulders sloped, signalling defeat, and telling Liam that his next words would be the truth. All the fight had gone out of him.

  McAllister leaned forward heavily on the table and shrugged. “All right. Ask me whatever you want.”

  “Where were you that Monday evening, Mr McAllister?”

  McAllister’s voice took on a flat, resigned tone. “I was at my A.A. meeting at Malone Town Hall. Monday is Alcoholics Anonymous, Tuesday is Gamblers Anonymous and Friday used to be Narcotics Anonymous. But I’ve had a bit of a relapse there recently.”

  Pheww... Liam could see why he wouldn’t admit to that list before. He doubted he’d have got the big job with those on his C.V.

  He hid his surprise professionally, and continued. “What time did the meeting end on Monday evening? And where were you between then and the early hours of Tuesday morning?”

  “The A.A. meeting finished at ten, then three of us went to our usual Monday night card game. I was there until about four am. There are three other people who can verify that. They include a Bishop and an RAF Air Commodore.” Liam knew he was supposed to be impressed, but he wasn’t.

  “You say you were there until about four am - can you be more accurate on that time?” McAllister stared down at the table in silence, until finally his solicitor moved to intervene. Then McAllister said something quietly, so quietly that Liam asked him to repeat it.

  “I can’t be more accurate.”

  As he said it he sat back and Liam could see that perspiration had soaked through his white shirt, making it transparent. “I can’t b...because I was stoned.” Liam could see why a quiet night in with the wife sounded like a better alibi.

  “All I remember is waking up in my office on Tuesday morning at about seven. I showered, changed and started work.” He hesitated before going on. “To be honest it isn’t the first time.” Adding defensively. “But it doesn’t stop me doing my job, and I’m bloody good at it.”

  Liam couldn’t have cared less what McAllister did in his spare time, he just wanted to find Evie’s killer. But the man certainly had more than his share of demons.

  He continued with more questions about McAllister’s past. Why hadn’t he said that he’d been married before? It was Davy finding that piece of information that had put Liam onto his lies in the first place. McAllister admitted that he’d been married but that his wife and baby had died in a car accident. He couldn’t talk about them, but his addictions all stemmed from that time.

  Liam felt slightly sorry for him, but Davy would be confirming everything before that sympathy grew. Especially the detail on the baby.

  “Can I ask you Mr McAllister, which sex was your child?”

  “A little girl...Molly.” A baby girl.

  Liam kept going relentlessly, until after an hour he wrapped it up, giving the C.E.O. fair warning that he was under scrutiny. He had a weak alibi and a hazy memory of the time that Evie was killed. Plus he’d lost his wife and daughter.

  McAllister begged him not to disclose anything to the Trust, and reluctantly supplied the Bishop’s name for his alibi. His Excellency would be thrilled. Then he shuffled out of the room in front of his young solicitor, who seemed stunned by his prestigious client’s skeletons.

  But Liam had heard a lot worse, and he could easily see how McAllister had got himself in such a hole. Grief. At least his vices only damaged himself. Although Davy would be checking on that as well.

  ***

  The press conference was just as excruciating as Craig had expected. Awkward buggers asking awkward questions, with Harrison passing most of them onto him. Rank. He made up his mind not to do the same when he became a Superintendent.

  Ray Mercer of The Chronicle had surpassed himself, bringing along sample headlines with so many exclamation marks they belonged in a comic. There was little difference between The Chronicle and one, as far as Craig was concerned.

  There was nothing they could do to stop the hacks wandering off into ‘speculation land’. They would do whatever they wanted, and the only way to stop them was to arrest someone and give them facts to write about - a point that Harrison made about five times afterwards.

  Craig was walking slowly back to the squad when his mobile rang - Liam. He pressed the button impatiently, angry at Harrison, not him. “Yes Liam, what’s up?”

  “We’ve found Murdock, boss.”

  The tone of his voice told Craig everything he needed to know...Shit.

  “I’m on my way. Tell me where.”

  ***

 
; Maggie walked tentatively through the glass doors into the squad and hovered uneasily beside Nicky’s desk. She knew how much Nicky had disapproved of her and Davy getting together in December and she’d been wary of her ever since.

  Nicky saw Maggie shifting from foot to foot out of the corner of her eye and smiled to herself. She actually liked her now. She was a good journalist. An endangered species, in her opinion. Plus she made Davy smile and took care of him. But it wouldn’t do to let Maggie know she liked her, in case the day came when she hurt him. She needed to keep ‘I told you so’ in reserve.

  She turned around from her computer and stared at Maggie questioningly, as if she couldn’t possibly work out why she was here. The confusion on Maggie’s face almost made her relent. Almost.

  “Yes? Can I help you, Ms Clarke?”

  The urge to turn and run swept over Maggie - cowardice was always the better part of valour in her opinion. Then she saw Davy’s dark head across the room and affection washed away her doubts. When she spoke her voice was stronger than she’d expected.

  “D.C.I. Craig said I could come and say hello to Davy.”

  As she said his name she lifted her finger and pointed at him, like a child. Then she caught her gesture and pulled her hand down again quickly.

  Nicky made a mental note to have a word with Craig for undermining her armed truce. Then she gazed at Maggie with the chin down/eyes elevated angle that she’d seen people who wore glasses using. It always seemed grave and intelligent when they did it, but somehow the effect was lost without the props. Maggie knew exactly what Nicky was doing and thought she just looked like she had a sore neck. But she didn’t dare smile.

  After a moments consideration Nicky pressed a button on her phone and asked Davy to come to reception. He bounded over, his long hair flying like an Irish Setter. When he saw Maggie a wide smile lit up his face, almost making Nicky relent and smile too. But instead she looked sternly at the pair. “Thirty minutes Davy, and then back to work.”

  Davy gave her a deep bow and she arched her eyebrow at his cheek. “W...Whatever you say Nicky.” Then he wandered off the squad in search of lunch, brazenly holding Maggie’s hand.