Crossing The Line

by Catriona King

  “There are also some major differences here with the usual illegal drugs trade. Street level dealers of illegal drugs rely on repeat customers within a small geographic pool to stay in business, so they might scam their customers occasionally but generally they have no interest in harming them unless they’re psychopaths. Dead customers kill repeat business.”

  It earned him some well deserved groans.

  “Also, street dealers’ geographic ties usually make them easy enough to find, but this bunch have no such restrictions on them because they’re not limited by geography. They’re selling mainly via the internet. Websites, social media platforms, and even more difficult to get at, the dark web. One of the big aims of Pangea was to disrupt illicit online supply.”

  He took a breath and turned back to Andy. “Sorry, Andy, what were you going to say?”

  The D.C.I. shook his head. “It wasn’t important. Just the fact that Liam mentioned the tabs were blue. It’s not a common colour for meds, usually only Valium and Viagra, so I wondered if that might be important, but probably not.”

  It hadn’t even occurred to Craig. But he had to believe that if John hadn’t mentioned it, it wasn’t medically relevant.

  “I don’t know. But let John and Des know your thoughts, will you.”

  He turned back to the analysts. “The other interesting thing we found in the vent was a SIM card, Davy.”

  The senior analyst’s eyes lit up. “Do you have the SIM number? I could get the phone number from that.”

  Craig shook his head. “Sorry, it went straight to Des for prints. But I’m sure he’s found the phone number by now. Can you-”

  The younger man finished the sentence for him. “Check it out? Yep. But I could get a lot more if I had the S…SIM itself.”

  Davy’s stammer had lessened a lot over his time in the squad but still came out occasionally on ‘S’ and ‘W’. When he’d first joined it had sometimes been difficult for him to complete a sentence without having to abandon words.

  “The phone number will give us a list of calls and texts OK, but there might be an address book and other things saved on the SIM as well.”

  Craig nodded. “OK, well, I’m sure Des will have finished with it soon, so I’ll ask him to send it down.”

  He turned back to the others. “Finding the SIM raises other issues. Where’s the phone or phones that it was being used in? If Smyth held the SIM and someone else held the phone handset then was he involved in some sort of group or gang? And if so, did him being the SIM’s keeper make him more important in that hierarchy in some way?”

  As he paused to draw breath Aidan cut in again.

  “Or are there more SIMs inside Mahon and everyone’s just holding their own? Does that just mean people are using them to phone home-”

  Ash chuckled. “Like E.T.”

  The D.C.I. rolled his eyes and continued. “Or is this part of some wider net of criminal activity inside the prison? Actually, on that point, Guv. Was Smyth alone in his cell?”

  Craig’s throat tightened in alarm as he realised that he’d assumed that Derek Smyth had had the cell to himself, and predicated part of his initial assessment on that. But what if Smyth had shared a cell? And what if that cellmate had been involved in his death? Surely the governor would have mentioned any possible suspect?

  As he turned to his deputy in panic Liam’s smile immediately told Craig that his assumption had been right; which didn’t make it any less careless of him.

  “I checked with Royston, boss. Smyth’s last cellmate was released on parole in June.”

  Craig gave him a grateful nod.

  “OK, get his name, check him out and let me know what you find ASAP. We’ll be going back to Mahon today.”

  Liam rubbed his hands at the thought of all the mileage claims he would be putting in during the case, each round trip to Mahon earning him fifty quid at the going rate; then he remembered that Craig’s long-term PA, Nicky Morris, normally filled in his claims for him and she’d only been working part-time for months. Still, he couldn’t really blame her; her teenage son had gone off the rails in August after using Spice, a psychoactive that he’d bought on the street, and with him spending months in rehab in the country since and her having to drive there and back all the time she probably deserved a break.

  His sympathy was tempered by the fact it left him with the prospect of spending his Christmas filling in spreadsheets, something that he couldn’t abide. Unless… he cast a covert glance at Alice who was on her way back from the kitchen with a tray of fresh drinks. He had to be honest and say that he didn’t like the woman, her spouting of regulations growing tedious on her first day with the squad, but she’d been with them now part-time since August covering for Nicky so he felt that he knew her well enough to push his luck. And who knew; perhaps the Christmas spirit and a bottle of wine might soften her overly regulated little heart?

  Not holding out much hope he turned back to the briefing, to find that Aidan was speaking yet again.

  “The other thing is, are we sure the SIM belonged to a phone, Guv? It might have been from one of those mobile broadband dongle things that you plug into your laptop. You said that counterfeit drugs are usually bought on the Web.”

  It was his second good point in ten minutes and in response Craig turned back to his analysts.

  “Do the SIMs look the same?”

  Davy was back to staring at Annette, so he elbowed his subordinate to put down his smart-pad and respond. In defiance Ash slid further down in his seat as he did.

  “On most networks they’re identical, except that they only carry data. But surely the point would be the same. If it is a broadband SIM then where’s the dongle?”

  Craig went to nod but something held him back and he quickly realised what it was.

  “You realise we’re all talking about Derek Smyth as if he’s a victim.”

  Liam shrugged. “He’s dead, so he was. Even if he committed suicide he was a victim of unhappiness.”

  Craig scoffed at him. “That’s unusually compassionate for you, Liam, but not what I meant. I’ll need to think that through. OK, leaving suicide out of it...”

  It was something that had featured in their discussion with John the day before and he’d said that he doubted it, which in the precise world of pathology was as good as saying that he couldn’t actually rule it out, and they needed suicide dismissed absolutely.

  “...actually on that, Liam. Make a note to ask John about suicide again, and tell him I need a definite yes or no this time.”

  He ignored the sceptical snort that said death by Smyth’s own hand was extremely doubtful unless they had a dead masochist on their hands, and turned back to the group.

  “Right, everyone hit me with your best ideas on how this happened. But don’t all speak at once; I want to get them up on the board.”

  He took a sip of his fresh coffee and dragged the whiteboard over, readying himself to write, only to be deafened by the silence. He was just about to gee everyone up when a quiet female voice spoke. It was Mary Li, their often challenging, and not only intellectually, D.C.

  “Do you mean ideas on how Smyth was poisoned?”

  “Well, not that specifically. Doctor Winter’s pretty sure it came from the tablets that we found.”

  She nodded and her shiny black hair, tipped in red this month as a sign of the Christmas festivities to come, fell across her face obscuring it. As Liam fought the urge to tie it back the way he did his daughter’s, Craig sorted the problem by pointing out he liked to see people’s faces when they spoke, so she tossed it back over her shoulder haughtily and carried on.

  “OK, then, Smyth wouldn’t have poisoned himself-”

  Andy interjected, shaking his head. “People do you know. It’s called suicide.”

  It earned him a disdainful tut that showed no deference to his rank.

  “Liam said he looked like he’d suffered and there are lots of painless ways to kill yourself if that’s all Smyt
h had wanted to achieve. Also, I’m guessing that if he had intended that he would have taken a whole lot of tabs to make sure.” She turned back to Craig. “Did he?”

  Liam was about to make her add “Sir” but Craig shook his head.

  “No. There was only one tablet in his stomach.”

  The D.C. gave a decisive nod, trying to ignore Liam who had started staring at her quizzically.

  “So, Smyth took one tab probably hoping to get high but he got poisoned instead. That means someone else added poison to the tablets, all of them. They had to do all of them because they couldn’t have been sure which one Smyth would pick. So, whoever gave or sold him the tabs murdered him.”

  She nodded, satisfied, and sat back.

  When Craig didn’t write her theory up on the board immediately her smugness turned to annoyance.

  “You don’t think whoever gave him the tabs poisoned him?”

  “I think that what you’ve hypothesised gives us a list of possible suspects and we need to think how that moves things on.” He wrote as he spoke. “There’s the friend at Mahon who gave Smyth the tablets, perhaps naively, not knowing that they were poisoned, and there’s the murderer who gave the tablets to him deliberately, knowing that they were. That could be another inmate, an internet seller, or a prison dealer that Smyth bought them from.”

  As he finished writing he turned back to the group, trying hard to ignore the fact that Liam was now gawping at Mary and making no attempt to conceal the fact.

  “Anyone else?”

  Aidan returned to his earlier point. “But why was Smyth alone in his cell? We all know how overcrowded prisons are nowadays, especially men’s ones like Mahon, so why hadn’t he been given a cellmate? It was six months since his last one left.”

  Craig thoughts raced through several scenarios before landing on one. Before he could put it into words, the D.C.I. had.

  “Someone allowed him a cell of his own. Smyth was getting special treatment.”

  Andy nodded. “It could fit with him being high up in some prison gang hierarchy.”

  Annette responded with a frown. “Not unless that hierarchy had the prison governor in its ranks surely? Royston would have made all the decisions about cell allocations.”

  All three D.C.I.s smirked and the perma-tanned Hughes explained why.

  “The governor wouldn’t have had the time to think about things like that, Annette. He’d have taken the recommendations of his warders. They’re the ones who know which prisoner hates which other one, who shouldn’t be put together, who’s violent, who should be in protection and so forth. If anyone was involved in giving Derek Smyth his own cell, you’re looking at one of the guards.”

  At the sight of Craig’s immediate frown, he added.

  “But it might have been for Smyth’s own good. Maybe he’d upset someone inside and his life had been threatened. They might have been keeping him alone for his own health.”

  It suited Craig to believe that at the moment; he didn’t like to think of prison guards being crooked, there’d been too many slurs on them like that in the past, although only elsewhere. Northern Ireland’s prison staff were mostly scandal free, their main concern through the years avoiding being murdered by Republican dissidents.

  He scribbled up all the ideas, grudgingly including the implied slight against warders, and then stood back and considered the board.

  “OK. We can see already that there are a lot of unanswered questions. Liam and I-”

  Craig stopped dead, noticing that his deputy was now leaning forward in his chair and angling his head to get a closer, sideways look at Mary’s face. A loud cough succeeded in rousing the D.C.I. from his trance and a warning look communicated, “Stop that”, without saying it aloud and drawing Mary’s attention and an indignant rant.

  Unfortunately subtlety wasn’t Liam’s strong point, and he decided to volunteer an explanation for his behaviour, gesturing openly at the constable’s face.

  “Are those drawn on, then?”

  The petite D.C. turned towards him, glaring, but Craig noticed that she was turning bright red as she did.

  “What?”

  Annette shot Liam warning looks, but he was blind to everything but his goal.

  “Your eyebrows. They look like slugs, or maybe like you’ve drawn them on with a Sharpie. Anyway, I’m sure they weren’t like that on Friday.” He glanced around for support. “Were they?”

  There was a series of averted eyes and stifled laughs but Liam was undeterred. He considered it his duty to keep up with trends in women’s adornment for the sake of Erin, his already bolshie seven-year-old but soon to be even bolshier teenage daughter, in order to have ready a list of things that she would never ever be allowed to do in her life. Already on it were tattoos, piercings, leaving education without at least a Masters degree, and dating boys before she was thirty-five. It looked like fake eyebrows would be added next.

  Annette swallowed her threatening giggle and jumped to the D.C.’s defence, all the men in the room far too afraid of Mary’s cries of sexism and harassment to even speak.

  “It’s called fashion, Liam. You know, fash-i-on. Thick eyebrows are in at the moment. It’s a trend. Something to do with a model called Cara Dele-something.”

  Craig thanked God silently that she’d spoken and made a note to buy her an extra special Christmas gift. He was just about to return to the case when Liam decided to have the final word.

  “Well, it looks like a couple of mice have made their home there.” He smiled at Mary, as if she should be grateful for his style advice. “I’d give it a miss in future if I were you.”

  The constable’s now gaping mouth rendering her silent, Craig seized the moment and carried on.

  “So... Liam and I will be heading back down to Armagh to see the governor soon, and I want you all to get on with things. Davy, you and Ash look at the SIM and I’ll need background on Smyth, the governor George Royston, and all the guards who work on Smyth’s wing. I also need the detail of Smyth’s past crimes and known associates, inside and outside the prison.”

  He turned to find some of his staff grooming themselves, having obviously taken the fashion and beauty conversation to heart.

  “Annette, I’d like you and Mary to look into any known networks, hierarchies and gangs within Mahon. The Law Department and Geoff Hamill down in Gang Crime might be able to give you a steer. You can wave hello to your erstwhile other half while you’re there, and who knows, Kyle might even offer you a hand.”

  As Kyle Spence was the sort of man who never did anything for free Craig got a well-deserved snort of scepticism in reply. Next he turned to his D.C.I.s, his gaze skimming Mary on the way past and noticing that her mouth was now closed and she was glaring at Liam, whilst tugging her fringe down as far as it would go.

  “Aidan and Andy, I want you to look into counterfeit medication. Davy and Ash can help you on the internet side after you’ve picked the brains of the organised crime team. See what they know about the current situation in these islands, and if they point you elsewhere then chase that up as well. I want the home-grown and international networks, quantities, types of medications, and see what health and customs have to say about everything too. Also, get your informants out and see what the street knows. Aidan, you used to head Vice; might some of the street girls have heard something?”

  “The short answer’s yes. I’ll chase it up.”

  “And meet with Karl Rimmins in Drugs to see what he has as well.”

  Liam signalled to interrupt. “It might be worth putting in a call to Andy White too, boss. He’s running Drugs on the west side...”

  He made it sound like the Sharks and Jets were about to appear, but Craig knew that he’d actually meant west of the Bann River.

  “…and he would know the other Drug D.C.I.s all over the six counties, so maybe he could get us the S.P. elsewhere as well?”

  “That’s not a bad idea, Liam. OK, Aidan and Andy, get the province-wide Drugs pic
ture, especially on the counterfeit meds side, but get specific details on Belfast. You might need to make a few trips. If you do then take Ryan with you, and let him handle some of the interviews on his own.”

  He gestured towards the back of the group where D.S. Ryan Hendron had been listening quietly and taking detailed notes. Hendron had joined the squad in August from Strangford and he was quiet and very capable, but so far most of his time had been spent on the court-case of Rowan Drake, a serial killer they’d caught the December before, and tying up loose ends on another case involving corruption and so-called honour killings that was going to court early in the New Year.

  Craig set down his marker and cast an eye around the group.

  “Does anyone have questions?”

  There was a staggered shaking of heads.

  “OK, good. Just one final thing then.”

  He gestured towards an area at the back of the open-plan office, behind what had once been a makeshift wall created by Nicky from cardboard boxes to provide a quiet space to view CCTV tapes.

  “Who knows anything about when the staff-room will be finished?”

  He’d decided that they’d needed a dedicated staff-room months before, when Alice had begun compiling a list of complaints to HR about them breaching regulations by eating, drinking, swearing and generally having fun at their desks while they worked.

  Annette smiled enthusiastically. “I do, sir. It’ll be ready in time for Christmas. I helped the man choose the colour scheme last week.”

  Liam frowned. “How come you got to do it? No-one asked me my opinion.”

  Craig responded in a droll tone. “I expect they thought lime green and purple mightn’t be the most restful colour scheme.”

  Annette stifled a giggle and went on. “I thought we could have a little party in there for Christmas.”

  She was surprised by Craig immediately shaking his head.

  “The Christmas party’s the Christmas party, and that means serious food and booze over at The James.”

  Everyone including Mary backed him up.

  “Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without eggnog.”

  Annette sniffed huffily. “I meant before we went to the pub, actually.”