The Waiting Room (#4 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series)

by Catriona King

  “Six and seven dealt with it. They’ve assured me that they covered their tracks well. No-one will trace it, and if they do, it will never come back to us.”

  “To you, you mean.” The words hung in the air and Dawson regarded the young man coldly, countering with a word of his own. “Us.”

  Silence descended on the room, until finally Dawson leaned forward, pressing on a button flush with the table’s surface. A screen slid up from its far end and flickered once before revealing a man’s face. His expression was stern and he tapped his desk impatiently, opening the meeting.

  He was older, over sixty, and carried an authority that none of them had managed to attain. His short grey hair was thrown into stark relief against a deep tan, redolent of years of privilege. His suit whispered of money.

  The young man leaned forward to speak and he stilled him with a raised fingertip. He broke the silence with a mellifluous baritone that would have been warm if his words hadn’t chilled the room.

  “This is unforgivable.”

  He paused and no one broke the silence. He owned them all. His tone cooled even further. “This book was well-known. It will be missed. The mistake must be covered quickly - before next week, or our guests will not join us on the 14th. We have waited years for this moment. It will be our biggest auction ever.”

  His voice rose abruptly and he lunged forward, as if he could reach out of the screen. Dawson could almost feel his breath.

  “This is an international auction. You will not ruin this, number three, or you will pay for it.”

  He lounged back in his chair and turned his head slowly as if staring at each of them in turn. His hand moved towards the off-switch, his finger hovering above it for two seconds. “Deal with this. There will be no more warnings.” Then the screen went black and he was gone.

  Dawson took another sip of whisky and waited for the others to start. He wasn’t disappointed. They threw the blame back and forth, and after a minute’s noisy debate they handed it to him. He stood up silently and left the room without a backward glance, leaving them to moan. Then he took the lift five floors down to the library, to re-read one of his private collection.

  ***

  “I hate him, Fiona, I really hate him.”

  “Why? He’s not bad, as step-dad’s go. You should try having mine.”

  Hannah regarded her friend sceptically as if no one could be worse than Damien Stewart. Then she decided it wasn’t worth arguing about and gazed around the Lyric Theatre café instead. The theatre had been established over sixty years before in a suburban house. Now they’d rebuilt it in an architect’s dream overlooking the Lagan. Its cafe had become a gathering place for all ages. Her mum’s lecturer friends were never out of the place.

  Hannah picked idly at her sandwich and Fiona eyed it greedily.

  “If you’re not going to eat that I’ll have it. I’ve a shocking hangover.”

  Hannah swatted her friend’s hand away, laughing and taking a decisive bite. She glanced towards the entrance, checking her watch.

  “Have you seen Britt? She’s never usually late.”

  Fiona shook her head slowly, wincing at the effect of last night’s alcohol. “Now you come to mention it, I haven’t seen her since Wednesday. At Maggie Mays.” She pulled out her mobile. “I’ll give her a call.”

  After a moment listening, she gazed at her friend, puzzled. “It’s dead! Sounds like it’s been disconnected.”

  Hannah laughed. “Well it can’t be that she didn’t pay the bill, her dad’s loaded. It’s probably just your phone. I’ll try her.” After a few seconds more listening she shook her head as well. “Nothing. Do you think we should go round there and make sure she’s OK?”

  “We’ve got revision to do, remember. I’m sure she’s fine. I tell you what, let’s do a few hours’ work then we can call round later. The network’s probably down. Either way she won’t thank us for waking her if she has a hangover.”

  Hannah nodded, the worried look leaving her soft face. “You’re on. And we’re going to work really hard this afternoon, you. None of your usual skiving. I need to pass dermatology this time.”

  ***

  “I’m sorry pet. I’m not going to make it back for lunch. What are you going to do all afternoon?”

  Craig shifted the phone to his left ear and flicked open the file Nicky had left on his desk on Friday. He started signing the memos inside, waiting for Julia to speak, knowing that the length of her silence would signal her annoyance. Another weekend ruined by his job. To his surprise she spoke immediately and he was surprised by her cheerfulness.

  “Don’t worry, I can think of lots of things to do that I never get a chance to, like e-mailing all my friends. Then I’m going to tidy your wardrobe.”

  He groaned inwardly, knowing it would take him forever to find anything when she’d finished. But if it kept her happy…

  “Great. I promise to make it up to you this evening. Remember we’re having dinner with Natalie and John.”

  “Excellent. You can buy me an expensive meal, and I’ve all afternoon to work out the rest of your punishment.”

  ***

  The Pathology lab

  “What have you got for me, John?”

  John Winter peered up from his file sleepily. It had been an early morning post-mortem yesterday, followed by hours of work. Not to mention his boozy Sunday lunch with Natalie, his long-term girlfriend. She was a surgeon and she drank like one. His wimpy pathologist’s liver just couldn’t keep up.

  Thank God she was on call this week. That only left dinner tonight before he could get some rest. He wondered what that said about their relationship, and then turned his attention back to the file.

  “She died sometime on Friday, Marc. Six to twelve hours before you found her. So, working back, I’d say that she was dead by lunchtime on Friday at the earliest. Whoever did it tortured her, and then raped her very roughly. There are shallow lacerations from a small knife all over her, as well as the crucifixion wounds. Healing shows the lacerations were made while she was alive, between twenty-four and thirty-six hours before death. So, although she died on Friday, I think they’d had her at least twenty-four hours before that. Maybe thirty-six. That puts her abduction around midnight on Thursday. Perhaps even earlier, if they held her for a while before the torture.”

  Craig nodded, praying that they’d tortured her immediately. Waiting and wondering what they had planned would have been an even bigger hell. He nodded John on.

  “The fatal abdominal wound was caused by a large knife, much larger than the one they left behind. That was left to confuse us. You’re looking for something like a large kitchen knife - very sharp, with a pointed end and serrated edge. Des can find you a comparator.”

  “What about the crucifixion wounds, John?” Craig asked the question at his normal soft volume, but John winced and held his head theatrically. Craig laughed and he winced again.

  “Bad session?”

  “Natalie.”

  The one word answer made Craig laugh again. Natalie Ingrams could drink like a six-foot man, or two of them, even though she barely made five-feet tall herself. Years of medical school training.

  “In answer to your question, they were made post-mortem, as I thought.”

  Craig rubbed his chin thoughtfully. The crucifixion wounds were staging, just like the choice of display site at the church. But even the way a killer staged a death might tell them something about them. People leaked information constantly, even when they didn’t mean to. John continued talking.

  “They raped her. The genital bruising indicates more than once. We’re checking the D.N.A. at the moment. But her final cause of death was shock, due to exsanguination. She bled out somewhere, then the body was superficially washed and moved to the church. Superficially, because they left some of her dried blood to scare people. Washed, because she still had water evaporation marks inside her ears. The water’s composition might tell Des something.”

 
; “Or not.”

  John nodded gently, acknowledging that water sanitation could have removed some natural clues. “I think they left her blood because they knew we would identify her eventually, they just wanted to slow us down. The pentagram was done post-mortem as well. More window-dressing. There’s a lot of staging in this one Marc; the crucifixion cuts, the pentagram, the church.”

  “It’s all religious.”

  It was said matter-of-factly, but it opened up a world of possibilities. Especially in a quasi-religious place like Northern Ireland. There were more churches in the place than you could shake a stick at.

  Craig kept going. “Think about it, John. The wounds of the crucifixion; Christian symbolism. The pentagram; Pagan. The church; Christian again.”

  “Neopagan.”

  “What?”

  “They’re called NeoPagans nowadays. Anyway, and?”

  “Whoever did this has links with a church. I’ll lay money on it.”

  “I’d take the bet but you’re probably right.”

  He paused for a moment and then handed Craig some surgical gloves, beckoning him solemnly into the dissection room. Their breath frosted in the cold air as they walked towards the body at the far end. The slim shape under the sheet was unmistakable as a woman’s, and Craig hoped that John wouldn’t draw the cover back to reveal her face. It was easier when you didn’t look at their face; especially when it was a woman. Staring into the abyss somehow. He thought Nietzsche would agree with his interpretation.

  John knew Craig well so he lifted only the smallest corner of the sheet, to reveal the fatal wound in their victim’s side. He reached over to the steel instrument table and lifted the knife left behind, still sealed in its plastic evidence bag. It was far too small to have made the incision and its edge was smooth.

  Craig nodded and took the bag, turning it over in his sterile hand. “Did you find anything on it?”

  Winter shook his head. “Only what you’d expect, her blood. But the knife’s unusual.” He stripped his gloves off and nodded towards the office. They left the girl in peace, and after five minutes of silent black coffee John re-opened the conversation.

  “I think you’re right.”

  Craig raised an eyebrow questioningly.

  “About the religious aspect. I can’t be certain, but I want to check something.” He reached forward and tapped his computer keyboard twice, then typed in a single word. After a few seconds scrolling he turned the screen towards Craig, without any hint of triumph. Scores of knives just like their specimen were displayed on the screen.

  “It’s called a Sakin. A knife used for the act of shechita - killing in the kosher way. It has to be completely smooth, without a point and with absolutely no serrations. So it definitely didn’t cause her wounds.”

  Craig’s eyes opened wide in shock.

  “Yes, exactly what you’re thinking. It’s used to produce meat eaten by people observing a kosher diet.”

  “And that would be mainly the Jewish community.”

  “Especially the Orthodox ones.”

  Craig sighed heavily. Their murderer had already brought in Christianity and Neopaganism - why not throw Judaism into the mix? Just to offend as many people as possible. They were deliberately throwing in red herrings to knock them off-track. John was still talking.

  “Although…it could have made the superficial cuts she received before death. They weren’t fatal, but they would have been very painful. So sadism was part of the killer’s modus operandi.” He hesitated, as if there was worse to come. Craig sighed and waved him on.

  “She was partially strangled as well, Marc, judging by the marks on her neck. The bruising indicates that it was repeated. About a day before they killed her, judging by the stage of the bruises. It wasn’t the cause of death - exsanguination was, so I think the strangulation was probably sexual. Sadism again.”

  Cut, strangled, raped and then murdered. They’d used her for gratification in every way possible and then they killed her. She was someone’s child and they’d killed her.

  Craig sat thinking for a moment, working out the scene. John’s look told him that he was already there.

  “Of course, you’ll need to rule everything out, Marc. But when you have, my guess is the killing had nothing to do with religion, but the killer did.”

  Craig nodded slowly, deep in thought. “The killer will have something to do with the denomination of the church where she was found.”

  John leaned forward, curious. “Why? Surely they wouldn’t be so stupid as to leave the body somewhere that obviously linked back to them? If they’re a church-goer wouldn’t they have left it somewhere completely unrelated? Churches are easy enough to break into.”

  Craig shook his head. “Yes and no. The church wasn’t broken into. The doors and gate padlock were unlocked. Which means our killer had the keys.”

  “That must narrow your suspect pool to a few people?”

  “That’s what I thought initially - just the vicar and the lay preacher, a man called Joe Higginson.” His face told John that it wasn’t so. “Then Davy called the church’s national office and found out that they hold skeleton keys for every church of their denomination. That means that a lot of people could have accessed them.”

  “How many?”

  Craig shook his dark head ruefully. “Basically the whole senior clergy.”

  “Work men and admin staff as well?”

  Craig shook his head. He paused thoughtfully, realising the number mightn’t be as large as he’d first thought.

  “No. Only the senior church people. They were kept in a safe in central office and only they would have had the combination. I’ll get Davy to check, but there can’t be that many senior people in any church. Not even in Northern Ireland.”

  John smiled wryly at the truth of it. For a small place Northern Ireland had more than its fair share of religion, and some of it had very little to do with God. Craig was still talking.

  “The killer told us something about themselves, even if it’s only that they have access to church central.”

  “And knew the nearest church to leave the body?”

  “Maybe. But if not the nearest to the murder scene, they definitely knew it was an area that would be quiet.” He turned quickly to his friend. “John, can you…?”

  “Yes, I’ll do a geographic profile. And let’s see what Emily comes up with on hers.”

  John had been on sabbatical in America in the spring, on an F.B.I. profiling course. He was eager to put his new skills to the test.

  Craig rose to top up their coffees, and John reached into his desk drawer, bringing out a file. It had two pages inside it and Craig recognised the header of a D.N.A. report.

  “D.N.A.? That was quick.”

  “I called in a favour. Des owed Natalie and me for babysitting last month, so that he and Anna could go on a dirty weekend.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s not called that when you’ve got children. More like a good night’s sleep.”

  John smiled then fingered the pages with a puzzled expression on his face, as if he had an answer in front of him that he couldn’t quite believe.

  “What have you found?”

  “The D.N.A. could either solve your crime immediately, or it’s another red herring. And I’m afraid I’m an old sceptic.”

  “Too easy to identify?”

  “Exactly. It was almost shouting. ‘Me, me. I did it’.”

  Craig sighed. He’d already guessed that finding the D.N.A. was too easy. It was too convenient a clue at such a complex scene. The killer wasn’t going to be caught that way.

  “OK. Who are they, then?”

  John turned the paper towards him and Craig nearly laughed out loud. He would have done if the case hadn’t had a real victim.

  “Tommy Hill and Rory McCrae! This is really taking the mick.”

  Tommy Hill was an ex-paramilitary and convicted killer whose own daughter Evie had been murdered two months before. In s
ome of the saddest circumstances that Craig had ever encountered. Hill’s response had been to ricochet between vengeful stalker and grieving father, finally settling on the latter. He might have been a sociopath but raping and killing young women definitely wasn’t his style.

  He shook his head and put down the paper, picking up Rory McCrae’s match. It was even more ludicrous. McCrae was in Maghaberry prison doing an eighteen month stretch for attempted kidnapping; his extension of Tommy’s stalking. Craig could have believed him for a rape, but there was no way he would have got a few days’ pass from jail to commit one in Belfast. And he didn’t have the brains to plan a scenario as complex as this.

  He thought for a moment. “Was there any semen?”

  “None, just the blood D.N.A.”

  Craig stood up quickly, half-smiling, surprising John with the sudden shift. John stared up at him questioningly. He’d worked Evie Hill’s case too and he knew that the D.N.A.s were frame-ups, what he didn’t know was why Craig was so pleased.

  “This is brilliant John, thanks.”

  “Why brilliant?”

  “Because whoever this idiot is, he’s given us a real break by attempting to frame Hill and McCrae.”

  John went to interrupt but Craig kept going, stilling his query with a look. “They left blood D.N.A at the scene.”

  “Yes, and?”

  “That means that not only did they access the case files, and only a few people, probably just police and judiciary, could have managed that, but they also accessed their actual blood for D.N.A. I very much doubt that Tommy would give up his blood freely to anyone. McCrae might have given some in prison for some reason, but we can easily check both of them for recent blood taking. And if they haven’t had sampling since April, then someone probably accessed the blood taken during the case.”

  John nodded. “You’re right. The blood probably came from storage.”

  “Why?”

  “The blood on the girl and the blood on the front gate of the church both came from Hill and McCrae. But neither of the samples had clotted.”