Craig’s voice sounded weak even to him. “A month.”
“Nice. New Year, new baby. That’s supposed to be good luck.”
And then Craig got annoyed, although he wasn’t sure why. After a moment spent considering the various options while Liam’s voice faded into the background, he had worked it out. He’d wanted to surprise his deputy with the announcement and he hadn’t.
He made up his mind that what he said next would.
“We got married in September.”
That did the trick.
“WHAT?”
Liam’s foot hit the brake so hard that Craig was thrown forward so violently his seatbelt locked, luckily before his face had hit the dash. After a moment the D.C.I. realised that he was in the middle lane of a motorway where stopping wasn’t a bright idea, so he quickly pulled onto the hard shoulder and turned in his seat to look at his boss.
“Married? When?”
His mind ran back over the previous months and he decided that as Craig hadn’t had a day off apart from the past fortnight, that had to have been when he’d tied the knot. He was wrong.
Craig grinned, pleased that he’d finally managed to surprise him. One-upmanship came in a myriad of forms.
“Well...the first time was in September. That was a registry office affair. But then we told our respective mothers about it and the baby and they both lost the plot, especially mine, so we had a ceremony in church the week before last.”
He watched as surprise and upset fought for space on Liam’s face and the latter won.
“And you didn’t invite me? What about the Doc, was he there?”
When Craig realised that his deputy was hurt and not annoyed, he moved quickly to assure him that in the hierarchy of friends not receiving information about his nuptials both he and John held joint place.
“No. John didn’t, doesn’t know about the weddings, or the baby yet. Or Natalie. We just wanted to do things quietly.”
Liam stared accusingly at his boss’ left hand and exclaimed in an offended voice. “You’re not wearing a ring!”
“Neither are you!”
The D.C.I. shook his head firmly. “I don’t do jewellery. I’m an Irishman. We don’t hold with all that girly stuff.”
“So because I’m half-Italian I would? Not that it’s any of your business, style guru, but neither Katy nor I like wedding rings.”
Liam’s eyes widened. “She’s not wearing one either? But-”
Craig raised a hand to halt him. “Before you go all caveman, we need to get back on the road.”
He decided that mention of his and Katy’s unusual living arrangements should be deferred till another day, if he didn’t want Liam’s eyes popping out as he drove.
They were two miles further on when the D.C.I. spoke again.
“So, do you want me to tell the others then?”
Craig was taken aback. “What? No. Why? I mean, why would you?”
“Well, it’s going to slip out sometime that you’re married with a kid, isn’t it? Like one morning when you come in with a gummy bear stuck to your fancy suit.”
The image made them both laugh and gave Craig pause for thought. Perhaps he should tell his team? After all why not? Secrecy about his private life had always been important to him but perhaps now was the time to let it relax.
“Leave that with me. I’ll think about it.” He changed the subject quickly. “Our exit’s coming up.”
Liam knew the end of a conversation when he heard one, but whatever Craig’s plan was for revealing that he was about to become a dad, he was already making one of his own.
****
The C.C.U. Vice Squad Offices. Seventh Floor.
Andy Angel had been scanning the open-plan office they were standing in as if he’d expected something outrageous to occur. He had and he’d been disappointed, and he was even more disappointed to see that the Vice Squad’s walls weren’t covered in dubious, semi-pornographic posters as he’d supposed they would be, nor were there any salacious accoutrements lying around. In fact the accommodation had pretty much the same grey and sterile appearance as their own three floors up, and was essentially its doppelganger in layout, except divided in half. He sniffed as he realised that his desk would have been located in the fifty percent of floor space that had been lost.
The murder D.C.I.s had decided to call into Vice on their way to the car and their meeting at Serious and Organised Crime, Alice having finally been persuaded to arrange a series of appointments for them, with their first at SOC being in an hour’s time.
Andy shrugged off his disappointment at the decor and asked a question.
“So this is where you used to be the boss, Aidan?”
“Yep.”
As the tall D.C.I. headed towards a room at the back of the squad-room Andy followed more slowly, finally starting to detect some differences to their office upstairs. Where they had piles of files and folders by their desks the Vice officers had stacks of colourful magazines and each of their PCs had a video player sitting beneath it whereas murder dealt solely in DVDs, and even then they were usually played on the communal LED screen at the front.
The reason for the differences dawned on Andy suddenly and came as a shock, although why it should have done he didn’t know; after all, the Vice Squad investigated Vice, so viewing glossy porn magazines and seedy videos, not all of the older smut having yet made its way onto digital, must have been part of their average day.
Much as he loved old movies Andy didn’t envy them the task, even though his current desert of a sex-life made him perhaps overly curious about what others got up to behind closed doors. But what he did envy the officers, who were variously typing, reading and wandering around the open-plan office with coffee mugs in their hands, was the way that they all got to dress. There wasn’t a suit or tie amongst the whole bunch, but there were a lot of jeans, slim-cut shirts, over the knee boots and tattoos on display.
He was just making up his mind to ask Aidan if he had a tattoo when he had to correct his no-suit assertion as one appeared at the office door he’d just knocked on, albeit it was worn without an accompanying tie. The wearer was an extremely thin dark-haired man in his forties, one that Aidan seemed to like judging by the way that they were pumping hands.
“How’s tricks then, Boyo?”
The reason for the nickname became obvious the moment the detective opened his mouth and a soft Welsh valley lilt hit the air.
“Down and dirty, Paddy. And you?”
“OK. Except all of my customers are dead.”
It sparked peals of laughter that ended in Andy being beckoned across.
“D.C.I. Andy Angel, meet D.C.I. Emrys Lomax, late of the Glamorgan Police. Emrys took over from me here when I joined Murder.”
Lomax beckoned them into his office, talking as he went. “Old Hughes here had finally had enough of people’s naked bits.”
Andy smiled. “Impossible, surely?”
Aidan shook his head wearily. “Trust me mate, it isn’t. When you see the stuff that people get up to, it would almost put you off sex for life.”
He slapped his hands together suddenly, rubbing them hard as if it would erase the things that he’d seen.
“Anyway, it’s far too early in the day to be talking about sex...” Another impossibility in Andy’s book. “...we’re here to ask you a favour, Emrys.”
“Crack on. Do you have time for a coffee while you’re doing it?”Lomax gestured to a complicated looking chrome and red percolator resting against the wall. “It’s already bubbling. Just needs pouring out.”
“As long as it’s quick then. Miles to go before we sleep and all that. We’ll talk while you pour.”
Aidan rested back in his chair, loosening his tie as he did so, and Andy knew that he was dying to remove it as he probably had in the years when he’d headed up Vice.
“OK, so there’s been a murder inside one of Her Majesty’s fine establishments.”
Lomax searched in
a cupboard and brought out three mugs.
“By that I take it you mean prison. And I’m guessing male?”
The odds were with him. Almost ninety percent of murders in society were committed by men and male prisoners outnumbered female by twenty to one.
“Correct.”
Lomax held up a carton of milk and was answered by one “yes” and one “no.” He passed the correct coffees across and carried his own to his desk, and as Aidan went to speak again the Vice cop got in first.
“Well, it can’t have been a suicide or a decent, ordinary violent death or you’d have nothing to talk to me about. So what was it then? Death by porn?”
In Andy’s book a decent ordinary death was one that happened when you were asleep in your own bed at ninety but the violent bit was a useful distinction, albeit a contradictory one when coupled with decent to anyone but a cop.
“Boy, you’re firing on all cylinders today, aren’t you. Right on all counts except for the death by porn. We did find a bit of porn there but he didn’t die from it, as far as we know.”
Aidan suddenly realised that the back and forth was excluding his companion, so he invited Andy to outline the case. Two minutes later Lomax was up to speed and shaking his head incredulously.
“Very slick. Stay at arm’s length and let the victim’s drug habit do the work of killing him.”
Andy nodded. “There’s a lot we don’t know yet, but it looks like the tabs might have been counterfeits.”
The Vice cop grimaced and the action made his high, angled cheekbones even more prominent, prompting Andy to think that combined with Lomax’s almost jet-black hair he would have made a brilliant movie hit-man. It started him thinking about tattoos again.
“Poison counterfeits, you’re saying? Deliberately poisoned?”
Aidan gave a shrug. “Whether the tab itself was made of poison or it was inserted inside still has to be determined, but the general feeling is that it was probably the latter. I can’t see much profit in a dealer putting tabs of solid poison out on the street, can you?”
“Not unless they’re a rich psychopath who doesn’t need repeat custom, no.” Lomax sipped his coffee thoughtfully for a moment before continuing. “OK, so my guess is you want us to pump our snouts about this two-drug combo and see if they’ve heard anything?”
“If you would. Anyone and everyone, but I was thinking probably the street girls would hear stuff.”
The Vice cop shrugged. “Sure. But we’ve a lot more informants inside casinos and bookies, even in taxi firms. A lot of the flesh peddling seems to have moved indoors now, away from street level. A lot of the drug trade as well. Escort firms and home delivery seem to be the favoured way to get both, especially for the middle-class punters. Although there’s still some street trade as well; mostly kids working the County Lines.”
In County Lines schemes, drug gangs who’d realised that their big city markets had become saturated with other dealers expanded their business out into the counties, by sending teenagers there to get new customers, knowing that they were unlikely to be suspected by the local police. The County Line was the telephone line used by the city dealer to run the scam.
“I’ll get everyone to ask their contacts if they’ve heard anything.”
When Aidan’s face took on a thoughtful look Andy guessed what was coming next.
“Is Sheila Macy still working in east Belfast?”
The woman was obviously a sex-worker that he’d known during his time in Vice, and the way the question was asked, in both a heavy and a wary voice, told Andy that he wasn’t expecting good news in reply.
It came as an apology.
“Sorry, Aidan. I know you liked the girl, but Sheila OD-ed last year. She was found at home by a long-time punter. And thank God he called by; her kid had been alone for two days.”
As the colour drained from his colleague’s face Andy got his answer as to why Aidan had quit Vice, and suddenly he went from envying the cool looking officers in the office outside to pitying them. Murder cases might be hard but what the cops saw in Vice had to be harrowing, and if Aidan’s reaction was anything to go by it carried a layer of sadness that must have been difficult to bear.
After a moment’s silence Hughes rose to his feet wearily and the others joined him.
“Thanks for the coffee, Emrys. Call me if you get anything.”
“Surely. I’ll walk you both out.”
A couple of minutes later they were in The C.C.U.’s basement garage, where Ryan Hendron was already standing beside Andy’s Golf. The D.C.I. beeped open his car doors.
“How long have you been standing here, Ryan?”
The sergeant answered as they climbed in.
“Only five minutes. I knew your SOC meeting was at twelve, so allowing for fifteen minutes to drive there that you had to leave around now.”
Aidan leaned back over the passenger seat to face him. “Top marks for maths. OK, we’ll be meeting a D.I. who did some work on Pangea to get the big picture on counterfeits. Then we’re back here at one for a meeting with Karl Rimmins at Drugs, and at half-two we’re meeting Customs and Excise out at Sydenham.”
“What about the health side of things?”
“We’ll contact them for some background, but that can wait for now. We need to see what delivery and transport systems are in place for the drugs in and around the country first-”
Andy interrupted. “Actually, I’ve had a thought on the health side. The odds are that if we go and talk to them they’ll bury us in medical terminology, so what if we ask Doc Winter to do it? I can OK it with the chief.”
Aidan glanced at his watch and then motioned Andy to pull up at the side of the road, opening his door.
“Swop over. I’ll drive while you give them both a call. See if the Doc’s free for us to drop into the lab for a quick chat on the way back from SOC. If he says yes then I’ll bump our meetings with Drugs and Customs forward an hour.”
Craig was engaged when Andy called but John Winter answered his office phone immediately, and his eagerness to get involved said that they just could safely just update Craig when they saw him next. Five minutes later everything had been rearranged and Aidan was pulling into the car-park at the SOC offices on Belfast’s Holywood Road.
As they walked towards the modern glass building he outlined the approach.
“OK, the Guv wants both the home-grown and international networks, and the quantities and types of counterfeit meds. If I forget to ask anything or they look like they’re holding back, you two feel free to get stuck in.”
If Andy had been a lesser man with a bigger ego he would have pointed out that Aidan wasn’t his boss. But along with his many other talents the artistic D.C.I. possessed a singular gift for biding his time.
****
Mahon Prison.
An hour after re-entering it Craig and Liam had finally finished with Derek Smyth’s cell, both surprised when they noticed the time and realised that it had taken them so long to scrutinise a tiny, six by eight foot space. It wasn’t as if they’d even been carrying out a search of the room’s small storage spaces, unscrewing the toilet, or slicing open the mattress in their search for anything suspicious; the guards had already done all of that as soon as the dead man’s body had been removed. No, their sixty minutes had been solely absorbed by flicking through Derek Smyth’s papers, few though they were, and studying the large paper calendar blu-tacked to his wall.
It was the latter that had consumed most of their interest, the stickers on it a myriad of shapes and still-bright childhood colours, despite the residues of fingerprint dust and Luminol. The final weeks of the chart were a veritable rainbow of triangles, circles, stars and dots arranged seemingly at random; although each too neatly centred within a date square to have ever been so.
Liam gestured at the arrangement. “Well, if he was planning ahead Smyth definitely wasn’t planning on suicide, was he?”
“Mmm... There’s always that.” Craig scanne
d the first few months of the year. “There’s nothing on this chart before May, and some of the stickers since then have been removed. Look.” He pointed to some egg-white like residue on the space marking the first of May. “It left some adhesive behind when it was peeled off.”
Further inspection revealed more such patches, beginning in September and scattered across the ensuing months, including the one that they were in. It made Craig raise an eyebrow curiously.
Liam’s eyebrows rose for a different reason and he accompanied the movement with a query.
“Why would you go to the bother of removing old stickers?” He answered his own question. “Maybe Smyth was afraid they might have given the guards a clue.”
“A clue to what?”
“Events.”
It was uttered in a mysterious tone.
Liam went to perch on the end of Derek Smyth’s bed as he explained his thinking but decided against it; his suit had been new on his birthday five months before and he didn’t fancy dirtying it with unidentified bodily stains. He leant against the cell’s side wall instead and went on.
“OK, so some of the stickers are on dates that haven’t come yet...” He pointed to Christmas Day which bore a very unseasonal orange triangle, and then tried futilely to lift its edge, “...like this one. And well, we can’t know if it marks an interesting event because it hasn’t happened yet. Yes?”
Craig gave a wry smile, seeing where he was going. “OK.”
The D.C.I. continued in a more teacher-like tone. “But the dates marked in the past, well, we could check to see if anything interesting happened on those, couldn’t we?”
“Such as?”
It brought an exasperated tut, that suggested Liam would have made a very strict teacher who believed that his pupils should always provide the answers for themselves.
“Ach, I knew you were going to ask me that. I don’t know, do I? How could I? Maybe ...” He searched the air for inspiration and apparently found some located above his head. “... maybe Smyth had marked a phone or SIM handover, or drugs being smuggled in by a relative, or maybe it was just the date of a new movie was shown in here. Something like that.”
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