“OK, then all three men are suspects. I want them checked out quietly, to narrow it down. I don’t want them suspecting anything till we’re ready or God knows what they’ll do next.”
“God knows what who’ll do next?”
Everyone turned to see Annette entering the floor with her hand in a plaster cast. Nicky was the first on her feet.
“Oh my God, Annette! What happened to you?”
Annette smiled weakly and Liam and Craig glanced at each other, wondering what she’d say.
“Fight with a criminal. Someone from the past. The chief and Liam turned up just in time.”
As she said the words her eyes fixed on Craig’s and she gave a small nod. Nicky saw the exchange and knew that something was being left unsaid. She ignored Craig’s quick shake of the head telling her not to ask.
“Who was it, Annette? Someone you arrested?”
“Someone I should have sorted out last year.”
Craig cut across the conversation before Nicky dug any deeper. If Annette decided to tell people about her domestic situation that was her prerogative but he wasn’t having her interrogated in front of the whole squad.
“OK, you all know what you’re doing. Davy, dig deeper into the three backgrounds and keep chasing that fingerprint with Des. It must be on a database somewhere. Ken, find Carmen and interview Sister Gormley; I want her movements during both deaths, and check out Dr Kirk’s alibis for the murders. I want every second accounted for. Liam…”
“Aye?”
“You take Ferdy Myers. Check with the estates department first to see what the porter’s Rota was for those two days. It’s a bit too convenient that someone went off sick and Myers had to cover on the night Dr Coke got killed.”
“Didn’t you mean Dr Cooke, boss?”
“I know what I meant.”
Craig smiled at Annette and nodded towards his office as the others watched curiously. At the door he turned and shot them a pointed look. “Get on with it and I want everyone back here at seven sharp.”
***
Craig poured two coffees then sat down and gazed at Annette across the desk, waiting for her to speak first. When she did so it was hesitantly.
“Sir…I…”
She broke off and shrugged weakly, as if words couldn’t convey what she needed to. Craig looked at her for a moment, really looked, in a way that people rarely did at colleagues they saw every day. She was tired and in pain, but behind the fatigue Craig suddenly noticed how attractive she was. It wasn’t that he’d thought her unattractive before, but he was a man who separated the personal from the professional, never crossing the line with female colleagues in the way that a lot of his peers did. He had enough challenges with the women he already had in his life without going looking for more.
But even he’d noticed how much weight Annette had lost in the past few months and how long she’d grown her hair. It was softer and more feminine, as if she’d decided she was post-feminist now and didn’t need to play down her looks to be taken seriously at work. He thought of Julia’s tendency to torture her red curls into a chignon and scrub her face clean for work. Annette hadn’t been the only woman to worry her femininity would get in the way in a male world. Her transformation had started with Pete’s infidelity but accelerated after she’d danced with Mike at John’s wedding. Mike was a good guy and he’d treat her better than Pete McElroy ever had.
As the thoughts ran through Craig’s mind, he knew that Annette was having her own. A quick glance to check that his door was shut and Nicky wasn’t pressing her ear against it outside, then he started on neutral ground.
“I didn’t expect you back for at least a month, Annette.”
She smiled and Craig read happiness in her eyes. Happiness when she’d just been assaulted? Her tone of voice confirmed it.
“It’s only a fractured scaphoid and little finger, sir.” She gave a pragmatic shrug. “Pete obviously wasn’t as strong as he thought.”
“But surely you want time off?”
She nodded. “A few days to explain to the kids. If that’s OK?”
“Of course it’s OK.” He stopped, hesitant about his next question. “Can I ask…what will you tell them?”
“The truth. All of it. The end of the marriage, how hard I tried to make it work, and…”
“What Pete did to you today? Will you tell them that?”
Annette glanced away. “I don’t know, I really don’t. He’s their father and they love him…this is nothing to do with them…”
Craig’s voice grew firm. “Are you saying you don’t want to press charges? You’re going to let Pete get away with this?”
Annette went to shake her head and then stopped, searching for the words. “I… I don’t want him to get away with it. It would be wrong. He could do it to some other woman in the future.”
“He said you’d never press charges against him. He was pretty smug about it.”
Annette laughed unexpectedly and Craig saw the happiness again. Why the heck was she so happy? She’d been beaten up by her husband and none of them knew how far things would have gone if they hadn’t arrived. Plus her marriage was in tatters so, much as Craig was pleased that she was, what was she happy about?
“Pete knows me too well. He’s right; I could never press charges against him because it would destroy the kids. But…”
She stared at Craig, willing him to read her mind. He did and he smiled.
“We’ll pursue him on domestic abuse or assaulting a police officer, whichever works best. I won’t back down, even though you’ve pleaded with me not to proceed, and I’ll tell Amy and Jordan that you did. I’ll make it clear that we only found out because we came looking for you on something to do with work. Will that do?”
Annette’s smile widened into a grin. “That will do fine, sir.” She lifted her handbag and Craig was pleased to see that some things never changed. This might be a new, more glamorous Annette but her sensible black bag was still the same.
“Would it be OK if I took a whole week, sir? Just to get the kids settled.”
“Take two, we should have the case wrapped up soon and you’re due some holiday. Perhaps you should take the kids away?”
“A week in Maghera will be enough. My mum will spoil them rotten for a few days.” An anxious look crossed her face. “Sir, you…”
Craig nodded. “I’ll oppose Pete’s bail, don’t worry. What do you want me to tell the team about your hand? They’ll ask.”
Annette shrugged. “Ladder?”
“You climbed up to get something, then slipped and stretched your hand out to break your fall?”
“Hand palmed against the wall, that’s the angle for a scaphoid break.”
Craig smiled. Annette always got the details right. He stared at his injured inspector for a moment and then asked the question on his mind.
“You look really happy, Annette. For the first time in over a year.”
She grinned. “I am happy. I’m ecstatic in fact, although I’ll have to hide it from the kids of course.”
He raised an eyebrow quizzically. “May I ask why?”
Annette sighed. “Even after Pete had the affair last year I still thought I had to try to make things work between us. It’s the way I was raised and there are the kids, and…”
“Let me guess. Pete told you his affair was your fault?”
Lust, Dante’s second circle of hell.
“How did you know?”
“It’s Bastard 101. First page in the adulterer’s handbook.”
Her eyes widened and he knew she was wondering if there really was such a tome. He waved her on.
“Even though I was miserable I could never have made the break, not even when I met…” Neither of them said Mike Augustus’ name but he was in the room with them just the same. “In fact, seeing him just made me feel guiltier and try harder to make things work with Pete.” She paused for a moment. “But now…”
Craig nodded, understanding. �
��Now that Pete’s assaulted you, you’re certain that things weren’t your fault, because no-one ever deserves that. So now you can leave him guilt-free.”
She gazed past him to the river, looking more peaceful than she had in a year.
“There’s still guilt about the kids, but not about Pete anymore. That’s why I’m happy. It’s as if I’ve been given another chance at life.”
Craig understood completely and he decided to underline the extent of her freedom. “If I have anything to do with it Pete’s going to get a couple of years inside, Annette.”
She nodded, praying that they threw the book at her soon-to-be-ex-husband. Every last bit of love she’d felt for him was gone but that wasn’t why she wanted him punished; she was genuinely afraid he would do it again unless he paid a price.
“I’m divorcing him, sir, and if you’ve any sway, please recommend that he has counselling inside. I don’t want him ruining someone else’s life when he gets out.”
“I’ll do what I can.” Craig walked around the desk and rested a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll brief Liam to support the ladder story with the others.”
Annette nodded and got up to leave. Craig stilled her with his next words.
“You deserve to be happy, Annette, and I hope you’ll let Mike help you with that.”
Chapter Twelve
Craig spent the rest of the afternoon re-checking every lead but nothing about his conclusions changed. Eleanor Rudd had come from an abusive family where no-one had had the strength to leave but her. The word courage sprang to Craig’s mind but he dismissed it; it wasn’t a lack of courage that had kept Margie Rudd with her abusive husband but something else.
In the beginning it was probably love; standing in front of a preacher and saying ‘till death do us part’, even if Billy Rudd hadn’t meant the ‘cherish’ part. Love had brought Margie Rudd to that point, love of a young man whose smile had made her blush and whose strong hands had seemed reassuring then, not the weapons they later became.
What had made her stay after that? Duty? The public display of commitment and resolute words in church making her believe that it was her fault if her marriage failed? A belief no doubt reinforced by her husband’s accusations. ‘It’s your fault, you made me hit you’. ‘You brought this on yourself’. ‘Any man would have done it in my place’. Was that why she’d stayed? Duty and belief that it was all her fault? As if any amount of provocation ever warranted the strong raising their hands to the weak.
Craig wondered how big a part religion played in women staying to be beaten and how big finance. God knows there was little enough money floating round Northern Ireland and an abundance of holy words, well intended in their sentiments but twisted by people to suit whatever their purpose was that particular day. Obey me, believe me, follow me, do as I say. Craig shuddered at the power the speaker wielded over those who believed; whether from the pulpit or in the home. Had that been it? Had Margie Rudd believed so implicitly in God that she’d thought her husband’s abuse was punishment for her sins, and subjected her children to the same?
He glanced at the page in his hand and shook his head, setting it to one side. Eleanor Rudd had chosen her way out, inflicting her unhappiness on vulnerable others in the pursuit of money. He had no sympathy for Eleanor the woman, even though he had plenty for Ellie the child.
He lifted a second page headed Adrian Cooke. He had even less sympathy for him and yet in some ways more. Less for his education and decent family; Cooke had been privileged in every way until addiction had taken a grip and that was where his ‘in some ways more’ sympathy came in. Addiction was like a ravening dog, chewing at every vessel and sinew and minute and hour, making each day nothing but the search for your next fix or the fading high from your last. He had sympathy for that, whether someone’s beast was alcohol, drugs or gambling. He’d seen what it could do to good men when it took hold, a friend from school a sad example of its effects.
When had Cooke’s habit started and had he been a dealer as well? Craig turned over the page searching for the moment Adrian Cooke had first smoked or snorted or injected drugs, but the day and hour wasn’t there, just a list of opportunities. His school; well known for its avant garde approach to teaching and even more lax one to discipline. Craig imagined rich kids spliffing up in the bike shed or snorting in the science lab after hours; their parents too rich for the teachers not to turn a blind eye. Or had it been at medical school? From the tales John had told him of students lying in pools of their own vomit from booze and stress and the easy access to drugs, it wasn’t a huge leap. Harold Shipman hadn’t been the first doctor to succumb to oblivion.
Craig shook his head and set aside the page. It was no excuse. Rudd and Cooke had both been adults, and worse, they’d both seen the damage drugs could do in their jobs. Between them they’d probably caused more than one addict’s death so he wasn’t about to waste his sympathy.
He read through the other pages, checking and rechecking everything they’d found. The bruising on both murder victims’ legs and Cooke’s body, the manual strangulation method of death, the people they’d eliminated and the new clues that Maggie had given them. It all came back to three men: Ferdy Myers, Caleb Pitt and Brian Kirk. They were all on the unit during both deaths and it was time to rule them in or out. He already had his favourite but no court would convict him unless they’d eliminated every last doubt.
He opened his door and called Davy in.
“Davy, I want to go over the evidence against the three men again.”
Davy tapped the smart-pad he’d brought. “Fire away.”
“OK. Ferdy, Ferdinand Myers. Tell me about him.”
“Fifty-two years old, born in the Demesne Estate in East Belfast. S…Spent time in the US then joined the army and fought in Kosovo and the Gulf War. Discharged in 1999 with mental health problems. He was in a psychiatric hospital for ten years and came out five years ago.”
“Any family?”
Davy shook his head. “Parents dead and he’s never married. He lives in a half-way house on the Demesne.”
“Anything more on him?”
“He was violent when he was younger.”
Craig leaned forward. “How violent?”
“GBH twice. He got into fights w…with other squaddies and almost killed one of them.”
“How?”
“A punch to the head. The guy was lucky that he s…survived.”
Craig sat back, less interested. “A fist-fight’s a long way from strangling people.” He thought of something. “We have Myers’ prints now. Do they match the one on Cooke’s watch?”
Davy shook his head. “They’re not through yet. If they don’t does that rule him out?”
“Not unless we find a direct match to one of the others. Myers fits on other counts. He stays in.” Craig’s face brightened. “I don’t suppose he wears menthol aftershave?”
Davy gestured at the phone. “Liam’s with him now. S…Shall I ask?”
Craig nodded. It was a long shot but everything was at the moment.
***
High Street Station.
Liam flipped shut his mobile with “I’ll call you later” and turned back to the man he’d been interrogating. Ferdy Myers gazed around the small interview room, wondering whether the cops would pay someone to give it a coat of paint. He did some decorating on the side and he could definitely do a better job than this. Mind you, he doubted they would pay him cash and that was the only way he did the biz; the taxman already got enough of his meagre wages, thank you very much.
Liam saw his interviewee’s attention wandering so he smacked the table hard to reinstate the assiduousness he thought two murders deserved. The porter jumped back a few inches and Liam gave a satisfied smile.
“Now. Back to Monday evening. Where were you between six and eight?”
Myers stared at Liam as if he had something on his face, then Liam realised that his gaze was focused elsewhere, it was hard to tell with bifocals
that thick. He turned to see what the porter was looking at and saw his eyes fixed on the room’s back wall.
“Thon’s shockin’.”
Liam turned back to his captive. “What?”
“Thon paintwork. Look at the drips! Whoever did that should be shot.”
Liam squinted in the neon light, uncertain whether the porter was taking the piss or was nuts. He opted for nuts and repeated his question in a louder voice. This time Myers answered.
“I’ve told you. I took Mrs Bains to X-Ray at six, then came back to take the dinner trollies to the canteen.”
“X-Ray’s shut after five.”
“Emergency service. Dr Kirk said she needed the X-Ray.” He smiled, revealing teeth that made Liam resolve to floss. “Dr Kirk, Captain Kirk, Mr Spock on the ward.”
“What?”
“Bones McCoy, Scotty…”
Liam nodded to himself; Myers was definitely doolally. The sooner this interview was over the better.
“You hated Dr Cooke, didn’t you?”
Myers screwed up his face quizzically. “Where’s that coming from? It’s not in the script, Spock.”
Liam wasn’t letting go. He’d seen something behind Ferdy Myers’ puzzled looks. “Privileged doctor, lots of money, nice car, nice pad. I bet Cooke got all the women that you couldn’t, didn’t he?”
Myers guffawed. “Not if he’s dead, he doesn’t. Pushed up daisies.”
Liam ignored the poor use of tense and continued. “He did though, didn’t he? How many nurses have you asked out, Ferdy? Eh? And how many of them have knocked you back? Why would they date a porter when they can get a wealthy doctor instead? Was that it? Did it piss you off?”
He watched as his jibes drew blood and Myers rose to the bait.
“Snobby tarts, all of them. They wouldn’t know a decent man if he jumped in front of them. Me, I’m decent me, but they’d rather have some rich junkie like Cooke.” He laughed caustically. “Well he won’t be junkie-ing anymore, will he? He’s on the home planet now, Spock.”
Liam altered his body language from hostile interrogator to a more confiding pose. “Did Cooke have many nurses after him, then?”
The History Suite (#9 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) Page 25