The History Suite (#9 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series)

by Catriona King

  “Just Gormley and that dead tart Rudd.” Myers sneered. “She put out for everyone, her. Thought she was high and mighty ’cos she’d caught a doctor. I know where she was from. Her da was at our school. Billy Rudd, fat stupid bastard, he was. Way stupider than me but they didn’t put him in a looney bin.”

  Liam listened as the affable porter changed into an angry, rejected man and marvelled at the faces people hid. His tone became sympathetic. “Did Rudd knock you back?”

  Myers began to sing in a loud tenor. “Three times I asked the bitch out and three times she said no.” His eyes narrowed. “She laughed at me last time. Said I’d be better going after one of the kitchen staff.” He laughed suddenly. “Well, she’s not so high and mighty now, is she. I hope the mortuary porter gave her one just for luck.”

  Liam’s eyebrows shot up at the image. He’d heard rumours about mortuary staff but he hadn’t wanted to believe them. Myers was probably making it up. He made a note to be cremated quickly anyway.

  Liam stood outside himself for a moment and stared at the scene. He was leaning on the table towards Myers, nodding his head in sympathy at the hard, hard world of women and the men they gave grief to. Myers was sitting with his elbows on the table, head propped in his hands, wearing alternating expressions of vengeful glee and glumness on his face. It was the perfect time to slip in the question the boss had phoned him about.

  Liam sniffed and nodded at the no-smoking sign on the wall. He already knew Ferdy Myers didn’t wear aftershave, never mind a menthol one; deodorant would have been a luxury for the man. He didn’t chew gum either. They’d lifted him hours before and he hadn’t chewed a stick. That only left one source of menthol that Liam could think of; cigarettes. He played his card.

  “Pity you can’t smoke in here. I could do with a cig.”

  To his surprise Myers shook his head. “They’ll kill you. You wanna see the wrecks admitted to the wards. Dalek Davros is in better shape.”

  Liam’s heart sank. “Don’t you smoke then?”

  Myers sniffed virtuously. “Used to. Gave up.”

  Liam wasn’t about to do the same. Danni said perseverance was one of his greatest charms.

  “Oh aye. When was that then?”

  “A year back.”

  Liam’s heart plummeted further but Myers hadn’t finished. He glanced round the brightly lit room for invisible eavesdroppers.

  “Well, on and off a year. I still have the odd one now and then.”

  “Is that OK then, the odd one? Don’t they do the same damage?”

  Myers was indignant and Liam thought he’d pushed it too far. Ex-smokers were like people who’d lost weight; any hint that the cream cake they were chomping on might be part of a slippery slope was greeted by a martyred expression that would do a missionary proud. He was in luck.

  “Not when you’ve had a forty-a-day habit like me. Besides, I only smoke menthol. They’re not the same. They clear your lungs.” He spread his fingers suddenly in the Vulcan symbol of peace. “Live long and prosper, Mr Spock.”

  Liam wanted to punch the air. Myers had been on the ward both times and by the size of his biceps he was strong enough to kill. He’d hated Cooke and Rudd, wheeled squeaky trollies and he smoked menthol cigarettes. But instead of the cheer Liam wanted to give he merely said, “Would you like a cup of tea? I’ve a telephone call to make.”

  The porter glanced at him suspiciously and then decided that tea was safe. Liam nodded towards the glass wall then exited the room quickly to return Craig’s call.

  “It’s Myers, boss. He’s nuts and he hated Rudd and Cooke. Rudd knocked him back when he asked her out and he was jealous of Cooke and his job. He was on the unit both times and he wheels squeaky trollies.”

  Craig wasn’t convinced. Ferdy Myers didn’t feel right. “Menthol scented aftershave?”

  Liam snorted. “Aftershave! I wish. The odd shower would be nice. No aftershave and he doesn’t chew gum, but guess what, he’s just admitted that he smokes menthol cigarettes. We’ve got him.”

  Craig shook his head slowly as Davy watched. On paper Ferdy Myers ticked every box: means, motive and opportunity, so why wasn’t he convinced? But they had to hold him.

  “Hold him on suspicion.”

  Craig’s words made Liam want to cheer but his tone said that he didn’t believe the porter was their man. Liam’s cheer died in his chest; he’d known his boss for too long not to know that he was usually right. Craig’s next words did nothing to reassure him.

  “Get the forensic medical examiner to check him out, and for God’s sake stop calling him nuts, Liam. That’s an order. He served his country and suffered PTSD so show the man some bloody respect!”

  ***

  Craig turned back to Davy and then glanced at the clock. “Hang on a minute, Davy.” He yanked open his door and called Nicky in. “It’s half-past-five. I don’t know about you two but I need something to eat.”

  Nicky didn’t answer, just handed him some takeaway menus as Craig scanned the open-plan floor. Jake had arrived an hour earlier and was typing quietly at his desk and Carmen was at the ward with Ken, sorting out Dr Kirk. It was quiet without Annette there.

  “Nicky, call Liam back and tell him after he’s finished with Myers he’s to join Carmen and Ken.”

  Davy piped up. “What about Caleb Pitt? Is he going to be brought in?”

  Craig stared into space for a moment and then shook his head. “He’s eighty odds and in a wheelchair. When we’ve finished tonight I’ll go to the unit and interview him there.”

  There was something final about his tone and both Nicky and Davy heard it. Craig glanced at the menus then left the others to choose whatever they liked and excused himself. He took the lift to the exit then walked across Barrow Square till he stood by the river’s edge. The water was dark, darker than he’d seen it for a long time, as if someone had tipped in ink till it had stained the Lagan blue-black.

  He stared into its depths, letting the ebb and flow calm him and wash away the noise in his head. His concerns about Annette floated away and with them his sadness about Jake’s imminent loss; time would heal them both. Next to go were Nicky’s hurt feelings and Carmen’s problems with men; they would both be there tomorrow and he needed to focus on today. As he breathed in the crisp October air he gazed out at Belfast Lough, listening as the sea called him in the way it always did. He’d finally taken the advanced sailing lessons that Julia had bought for him the summer before. He thought about her for a moment, hoping that she was happy with someone.

  Finally, when all the noise of his life and office had died down Craig turned his mind back to the case. Ferdinand Myers ticked every box but his gut said that he was wrong; that left Brian Kirk and Caleb Pitt. They were on the unit both times, but what about the means? The background checks said both men had been in the military – Kirk as a doctor and Pitt decades before in Vietnam. Both combat hardened men, but Pitt was eighty and spent most of his time in a chair. Kirk was younger and fitter but his experience of professional men said they didn’t like their hands getting soiled. Why would Kirk strangle his victims when a small injection could do the trick? And even if they both had the means what was their motivation for killing Rudd and Cooke?

  A hatred of drug-dealers? Or perhaps it was nothing to do with drugs; perhaps someone’s elderly relative had suffered at Rudd’s and Cooke’s hands? They were health professionals after all. Or maybe someone had objected to the dead pair letting their professions down. Could that have been a motive for Brian Kirk? Craig shook his head; it was weak.

  He glanced up at the sky and watched as a jet circled the City Airport in the distance before swooping in to land. It left a trail of vapour and as it faded so did Craig’s doubts. He already knew the answer, now he just had to back it up with something more tangible than instinct.

  Chapter Thirteen

  People like him were rarely noticed in a hospital; after all, there were so many of them and everyone was so busy. Men and
women rushed down the corridors to this meeting or that ward, always with the urgency and importance of knowing that what they did was morally right. Nurses were angels weren’t they, and doctors wise and fair? People had to believe that otherwise the whole structure would collapse into a moral morass.

  But what if a nurse was a drug-dealer and her ex-boyfriend the doctor was the same. How did that fit with nice neat senses of right and wrong? Spending all day helping one group, while dealing poison to another; kind and caring, yet stupid and callous in their off-duty hours. How would the man in the street cope with that?

  There had been precedents of course. Amelia Dyer, the nursemaid who’d killed every baby in her care and more recently Beverly Allitt, the angel of death. The doctors who’d gone bad were too numerous to mention; Crippen, Mengele and Shipman were only some of the ones who’d been named. Did professionals’ daily exposure to death somehow lessen its impact, so much so that dealing illegal powder and pills to help people blow their minds somehow seemed acceptable?

  He’d seen what happened when men did that in times of war, not only blowing their minds but blowing out someone else’s as well. White powder and brown sugar became blood and brain matter on the floor.

  Eleanor Rudd and Adrian Cooke had dealt death and he had convicted, sentenced and executed them. He would gladly do it again to save other lives.

  ***

  “Will you please talk to me, Carmen?”

  Carmen stormed ahead as Ken tried not to break into a run to catch her. She was smaller than him but what her legs lacked in length they made up for in speed. Eventually he got fed-up speaking to her back so he put on a spurt and caught up with her just as her hand reached out for the unit’s door. He blocked her way and stared down at her copper-curled head. There was no mistaking the message in his eyes: I’ve put up with your moods and silence for months but now you’re going to talk.

  Carmen squinted at him, her eyes saying ‘move’ while her brain tried to recall another entrance to the E.M.U. There was none close so she stood her ground in silence.

  “Well? Are you going to tell me how things went at Occupational Health?”

  Carmen’s annoyance overcame her pursed lips and she blurted out. “What business is it of yours?”

  “I have to work with you, that’s what. And…”

  Ken’s impending confession that he liked her was aborted by her sharp retort.

  “No, you don’t. Ask to be paired with someone else if you don’t like me. I don’t care.”

  The momentary twinge that shot through his chest was replaced almost instantly by command. Yes, her words hurt, but he was used to leading soldiers whose way of saying they didn’t like you was a lot rougher than petulant words. If he could handle 80 kilos of brawn he could handle one small girl.

  “You do care and you know I like you. But you’re so bloody determined to do everything alone that you put up ridiculous walls no-one can break through.”

  Her widening eyes said he’d struck home and he was emboldened enough to place a hand on her arm. His voice softened.

  “Carmen. The team is mostly male. If you don’t work with me you’ll just have to work with another man. I know for some reason you don’t like men, I think one hurt you somewhere along the way.” His voice hardened slightly. “But it bloody well wasn’t me and I’m fed up paying the price for their mistake.”

  Seeing her resistance faltering he drew her to a seat against a wall. “Just tell me, did the counsellor help at all?”

  Carmen’s eyes had widened so much that she looked like a Disney cartoon and Ken suddenly wanted to kiss her, but that was sexual harassment and could end him up in court. He bet the princes in fairytales had never had to contend with all these rules. How was a man to make passionate gestures when everything was forbidden by some law?

  Carmen stared at the man in front of her as if she was seeing him for the first time. He was handsome and he cared what was going on inside her head, but…how could she trust him not to turn out like the rest; kind and loving until they had you and then demeaning and undermining you with every other word.

  As the thoughts raced through her mind Ken read them, and as her eyes narrowed as if she’d tried him and sentenced him to death, he did what every good romantic hero through time has done when he sees the woman he likes slipping away, he kissed her. Just once, gently on the lips, but he kissed her all the same, in a hospital corridor while they were at work.

  As he reached forward and brushed Carmen’s lips softly with his own Ken wondered idly how many regulations he’d just broken: police, hospital and army all at once. He didn’t care; all he cared about was comforting the pretty, broken woman in front of him and he prayed that she would see it that way.

  After a moment he sat back and waited for the explosion of words: sexist brute, typical man, the list would go on and on. With one eye closed he waited and watched as Carmen’s eyes widened and then narrowed again. The sequence repeated several times while he tossed up whether to apologise or push his luck and kiss her again. Either way he’d acted like a mouse for months, a gentlemanly one but a mouse nonetheless, playing the long game with some strange belief that she would come round in the end. If she’d been shy or it had just been him that she was unsure of, then perhaps time would have done the trick, but he’d reckoned without her hatred of his whole sex. Even as he thought it Ken corrected himself. She didn’t hate men, she was terrified of them; some bastard had wounded her in ways that he hoped he never found out or he would have to hunt him down.

  While all those thoughts ran through Ken’s head Carmen was having her own. They were shorter and less complex, ranging from ‘how dare he’ to ‘I quite enjoyed that’. She heard them and realised something; nowhere in her thoughts was one that said she hated Ken Smith, in fact quite the opposite. But he was a man and she didn’t trust men on principle so she had to be in control. Her next words were cool.

  “Don’t ever do that again.”

  Ken’s heart sank but what happened next confused him even more. There, in the hospital corridor, against every regulation, Carmen McGregor decided to take a risk on a man, but only on her terms. She stared into Ken’s eyes and when she was completely ready she leaned in to kiss him, oblivious to the people passing and the job that they were there to do. She added a caveat to her sentence.

  “Unless I tell you to.”

  Then she stood up, entered the unit and they got back to work.

  ***

  Liam wasn’t quite sure what reaction he’d expected when he’d told Ferdy Myers he was being held. Nonchalance maybe; that’s what men usually attempted when they were looking at charges that could put them away for life. Perhaps some token act of defiance, like reaching for a cigarette in a no-smoking zone. The odd young lad would cry for his mum, but that was to be expected at that age. None of it moved Liam at all; they never shed a tear for their victims, only for themselves, not even when they were being sent down.

  Some people deserved to be locked up; they were animals. Actually, to call them animals was unfair. Animals killed for food or defence, some of the scum he’d put away had killed for the change in a pensioner’s purse. His only doubt about prison was the cost; why they couldn’t just dump the whole bunch on a desert island with only their own gender beat him. They could fight and bugger each other to death for all he cared, just as long as they left the innocent alone. He glanced around High Street’s staff-room as if someone could hear his thoughts; that was all he needed, some telepathic Human Rights’ lawyer to appear. But the room was empty, with only his tea and a packet of digestives to silently disapprove.

  Still…he admitted he’d been surprised when Myers had crumbled so completely. He wasn’t a kid; he was a fifty-year-old man. A wet eye would have been acceptable but not the full blown tsunami that Ferdy Myers had cried. There was none of his interview bravado, just denial after denial. At one point he’d actually dropped to his knees and begged Liam to let him go, saying that he hadn’t kille
d Rudd or Cooke, just hated them both, that was all. Here’s a hint, Ferdy. Telling a cop you hate a victim has a nasty habit of getting you charged.

  Liam dunked another digestive in his tea. He was almost ashamed to admit it but he’d felt quite sorry for the porter by the end, not that anyone but him and Jack would ever know it of course. Letting that sort of thing leak out got you a rep for being a soft touch and that way lay Armageddon on the streets. Next thing you knew prisoners would be sending you Christmas cards saying ‘thanks for being kind’. It would disturb the natural order of things. Me cop, you scrote, me shout, you confess and go to jail. Do not pass go and definitely do not collect two hundred.

  Just then the door opened and Jack slumped in, looking like a defeated man.

  “Is there any tea left?”

  “It’s a bit stewed but it’s OK.”

  He poured a cup, shooting Liam an annoyed look.

  “Thanks for that.”

  Even Liam spotted the sarcasm.

  “Is he still bad?”

  “Take a look for yourself. The doctor was in there for ages trying to calm him down. We thought we’d have to send him to St Mary’s at one point.”

  Liam nodded. “Sedatives?”

  “Aye.” The sergeant glowered at him. “What the hell did you say to him? He was fine during the interview.”

  Liam raised his hands in denial. “All I said was that we were holding him. You should know, you were watching from your hidey hole.”

  Jack shrugged. It was true; Liam had done it strictly by the book. He thought for a moment and then said the words that every copper dreads.

  “Well, for him to take on like that I’d say you’ve got the wrong man.”

  ***

  Carmen and Ken glanced at each other and then back at Brian Kirk. He looked like a typical doctor, or what the movies had thought was one for years. Male, fifties, greying hair, what was left of it, glasses set low on his nose. In fact if central casting had been looking for someone to play the part a decade earlier Brian Kirk would have been quids in. Since then the typical TV doctor had morphed into an intelligent looking woman, usually brunette, reflecting medical schools’ female intake across the world. When they cast one who looked like Marilyn Monroe there’d finally be true equality.