Crossing The Line

by Catriona King

  Craig turned towards him, shocked. “You noticed that too!”

  Liam arched an eyebrow. “I’m not blind. A man on a fricking galloping horse would have seen it! The question is, does he know about the baby or the marriage or both, and which particular one is he huffing about?”

  Craig palmed his face. “Oh, bugger. Natalie must have seen the Rota with Katy’s maternity leave on it.”

  “Well, if that is how she found out you’re in really deep shit, ’cos that means the whole two weddings and an apartment thing still has to come out.”

  It was delivered in an unsympathetic tone that said it was his own fault for being so secretive. Craig nodded heavily, knowing that he was right.

  “I need to tell John that we’re married, don’t I?”

  Liam couldn’t believe that he even needed to ask.

  “Yes, you pillock! Before old Sherlock Natalie goes round to see Katy, ’cos unless your missus is good at holding out under torture Nat will have everything out of her in an hour.”

  He paused for breath for a moment and decided to change his tone to a marginally more sympathetic one. “Look, just tell him today. If he finds out about the marriage from Nat as well he’ll be seriously fed up.”

  Craig nodded. Katy wasn’t bad at keeping secrets so he didn’t think Natalie would get anything out of her, but he was starting to feel more and more idiotic for keeping them at all.

  The rest of the one hour journey to Mahon was spent with Craig on the phone: to his new wife and the decorators, making some decisive moves that he’d been putting off; to Davy, informing him of the name of the poison for his searches; and finally he called John suggesting that they had a drink after the briefing that night, something to which the pathologist only grudgingly acquiesced. All the while Liam was playing Mantovani in the background to help put them both in a mellow mood.

  Chapter Eight

  While Craig and Liam were heading southwest to Armagh, the acronym that was Andy, Aidan and Ryan was heading west towards Cookstown, and by three o’clock they were in the car-park of the town’s only police station, a large red-brick construction on the town’s outskirts that nestled against the side of a rocky outcrop and was fronted by a steel metal cage all around, something that Aidan commented upon as they emerged from Andy’s car.

  “I haven’t seen one of those in a while. I thought most of the cages were taken down after the GFA.”

  A passing constable overheard and enlightened him. “It isn’t there to stop petrol bombs, sir, the local kids here are graffiti artists and they keep painting the front of the shop with their tags. D.C.I. Kehoe said having those all over the walls made the place look scruffy, hence the cage.”

  Aidan gave him a small salute of thanks and buzzed the station’s rear door, following a circuitous internal route to reception where a cheerful looking, well-rounded woman of less than forty was waiting for them. She thrust out a hand in greeting to all three men in turn.

  “Hello, hello, hello.”

  Aidan fought the urge to bend up and down at the knees like a television bobby as she went on.

  “You must be D.C.I.s Hughes and Angel. Lovely name by the way.” Andy stifled an embarrassed smile. “And D.S. Hendron. Can I ask which of you is which? Not that it matters of course, but it’ll help me get my bearings.”

  A quick flashing of warrant cards enlightened her.

  “Very good then. I’m D.C.I. Kehoe. Fliss.”

  So much for Annette’s claim that she preferred Felicity.

  She turned and headed back the way that they’d just come. “My office is this way.”

  Less than a dozen steps later she thrust open the door to a small, warm office, its welcoming decor of scatter cushions, throws, and photographs of her husband and kids making them understand immediately why immigrant communities found her easy to work with.

  “Coffee” wasn’t a question but a statement, as was, “biscuits” a moment later. Once everything had been dispensed on floral crockery Kehoe took a seat behind her desk.

  “Right now, Annette called ahead and told me what you needed so I’ve made each of you a little file.”

  She passed across three folders.

  “Inside you’ll find the names of the community leaders of the Latvian and Lithuanian communities, plus where you’ll be able to find them today. They’re both expecting you. We don’t have any Estonians or Ukrainians living locally at the moment.”

  Aidan decided to speak for the first time since hello.

  “Won’t you be coming with us?”

  An inordinately pleased look crossed their hostess’ face. “You want me there? It’s just I’d assumed, with you being Murder and so on...”

  He finished her sentence. “That we’d be a bunch of hard men who’d throw them up against the nearest wall to get answers?”

  The words brought a blush to her plump cheeks. “Well, no... well, actually... to be honest I didn’t know.”

  The D.C.I. smiled at her. “We’re not that bad. We generally like to ask a few questions first before we assault people.” Seeing her eyes widening, he hastily added, “Joke.”

  Andy decided that a rescue was in order before Aidan dug an even bigger hole.

  “We’d just like to ask a few questions to see what they know, if anything, about drugs and counterfeit medications.”

  Kehoe nodded, relieved to be off the topic of assault. “Imports. I know, Annette said.”

  Ryan shook his head. “Not just imported tablets, someone might be making them locally too. We’ve-”

  Knowing that he’d been about to give away too much Andy cut him off, softening the intervention with a smile.

  “Do you think they’ll cooperate with us?”

  Kehoe furrowed her smooth brow. “Yes... but do you mind if I suggest something?”

  “Fire away. You know them and we don’t.”

  “Let me outline things to them first, in a way that says you’re looking for their help rather than accusing them. None of these people support drug dealing, so if they can assist you they will. But if you-”

  “Wade in there blaming and shaming, we’ll lose them.”

  A smile said that he was right, and ten minutes later the four cops and a translator were at the first address on the list, to see a lay preacher in the Latvian Community Church.

  ****

  The C.C.U. Murder Squad.

  “Ash, where are you with Nelson Brook, and the background checks on the guards and Derek Sm...Smyth’s prison associates?”

  Davy closed his eyes to rest them for a moment while he waited for the response, using the time to picture the Christmas getaway to Iceland that he and Maggie had planned in less than five days and six hours time. Not that he was counting you understand, he had far too much work to do for that, but his fiancée had been keeping him up to date on the countdown by text message, which said as much about her lack of application to her book research, this being one of her designated writing days, as it did about her excitement around the trip.

  Suddenly realising that he hadn’t had an answer to his question Davy opened his eyes and turned towards his junior’s desk, only to find that Ash wasn’t actually there, a fact underlined by Mary’s pointed, “He went down to the canteen twenty minutes ago.”

  For a second Davy tossed up whether to be annoyed with himself for not noticing, or with Ash for not saying that he was going before he’d left, but his irritation passed as he realised that the trip was probably a celebration marking the end of a piece of work as had been their habit when they’d been students together, and that whatever the result Ash would have posted it on the squad’s shared computer drive, in their communal ‘Smyth Case Research’ file.

  Mary decided to contribute again. “I know he checked out Nelson Brook, Derek Smyth’s old cellmate. He was in UKUF too and he died of cancer in October.”

  Was that why Brook had been paroled? Compassionate grounds? It sounded feasible but he still needed to check. A quick log-in l
ater and the senior analyst was nodding to himself; Nelson Brook had been receiving treatment for lung cancer for twelve months and the parole board had essentially sent him home in June to die. Compassion or trying to save the prison service the inconvenience and paperwork of his death, they would never really know. It made Davy wonder whether Brook had regretted spending his final years of life locked up at Mahon, but he decided not to waste his sympathy on the man; soft as he was he believed that most people were in prison for a pretty good reason and inmates had it easy compared to lots of people outside.

  His gaze moved to the other files in the drive, opening and closing them in turn as George Royston and each prison guard on Derek Smyth’s wing came up clear on their background searches. Every guard except one, Brian Archibold, and on him Ash had hit a dead end.

  The analyst made a note to dig deeper on Archibold later and was just about to open a folder marked ‘SIM Results’ when his errant co-worker reappeared and sauntered over to his desk bearing gifts.

  “Anyone fancy a jam doughnut?”

  A bag in his hand opened to reveal that there were six, or two after Mary, Annette and the analysts had liberated theirs. Davy parked his lecture about Ash needing to tell him where he was going in favour of a mouthful of jam and sugar, indicating with his eyes where he thought the last two buns should end up. Thankfully for Ash, Alice refused hers, citing a tight dance dress to squeeze into, but the Derry D.C.S. that he’d intended to seduce next must have had hearing like a bat because he rushed out of Craig’s office at the sound of rustling and seized his doughnut like it was manna from the Gods.

  “Thanks, hey. Can I pay anyone for this?”

  Before Ash could answer yes, Davy had shaken his head. Freeing up his jammy mouth he added, “No, but I’ve s...something that might interest you. Doctor Marsham’s ID-ed the poison inside the tablets. It’s Strychnine.”

  Possibly not the most appropriate thing to be discussing while people were eating, but working around death inured you to such etiquette.

  Andy frowned. “The Agatha Christie stuff?”

  “Yep. And no-one’s used it in a murder for years according to the Interpol. There’s s...something else too. After the failed drone drop in May the governor told me he’d had nets raised above the prison’s open spaces and cages put over all the windows, and he mounted CCTV cameras everywhere looking in and out.”

  Andy perched on a nearby desk. “So how the hell did the tabs that killed Smyth get in then?”

  The D.C.S. used the gap he left for an answer to bite hard into his doughnut and nobody but him was surprised when a large squirt of raspberry jam hit him on the chest and started sliding down his shirt.

  “Ah, bugger!”

  Annette threw a paper handkerchief his way, which was caught deftly in a hand already raised in apology for his language, prompting Davy to laugh.

  “I wouldn’t w...worry. You’ll hear a lot worse than bugger around here.”

  A long-suffering look from Alice said that unfortunately he was right. She bustled across the room with a baby-wipe. “Oh, dear. That’s going to stain, Chief Superintendent.”

  The concern was dealt with by Andy disappearing quickly into Craig’s office and reappearing one minute later wearing a completely stainless shirt and straightening his tie.

  The PA gawped at him.

  “How did you get it out?”

  “I didn’t. I had a clean shirt with me. I hadn’t dropped my bag off at the hotel yet.”

  “But it’s identical!”

  An enigmatic smile said that the story of his blue shirts would have to wait for another time and the Derry man’s next, far daintier bite of his doughnut was taken at a cautious arm’s length.

  “OK, getting back to the drugs, Davy. If there hasn’t been a drone drop since May and all visitors into the prison are scanned and searched, how did the poisoned tabs get in, hey?”

  The analyst went to shrug and then thought better of it, realising that they had all made an obvious mistake.

  “Who says they didn’t get in before May?”

  From thinking that he’d been clever, within a single breath Davy realised that he was an idiot and answered his own question before anyone else could.

  “Because why wouldn’t Smyth have taken one before now if they had? No way a bag of goodies like that would’ve stayed untouched by an addict for s...seven months.”

  Ash nodded in agreement. “We know Smyth had a habit and there were no other drugs found in his cell so those diazepam were all he had. They must’ve only been smuggled into Mahon at the weekend or Smyth would have died long before now.”

  Annette walked across to join them, pulling up a chair. “But what do we actually know about his habit? I mean, how heavy was it? If he wasn’t someone who took drugs every day then perhaps they were in his cell for a while before he touched them?”

  Davy brought up a scanned medical report. “This finally came up from Mahon. It shows Smyth was a heavy user of anything that he could get his hands on. Those tabs must only just have arrived in his cell.”

  As the D.I. conceded the point Andy swallowed the last bite of his doughnut and spoke again.

  “OK, so that just leaves how they got in. No drone drops since May, all visitors are scanned and searched, and the cells are tossed by the guards at regular intervals, hey. A guard could have smuggled them in I suppose, but all their backgrounds have come up clean.”

  Ash nodded. “So are the visiting tutors’ and the governor’s.”

  Davy shook his head. “All the guards except Brian Archibold are clean.” He turned to his junior. “Ash, your file said you’d hit a dead end on him.”

  The junior analyst nodded, looking perplexed. “Yeh, that was a bit weird. I can’t find anything about Archibold even existing before September. I’ll have to dig a bit more on that.”

  Andy walked over to his PC. “Can I look at what you’ve got, hey?”

  “Sure. It’s all on the shared drive.”

  Davy had a new thought. “What about Smyth’s known associates?”

  Ash shrugged. “The ones outside Mahon are all in UKUF and the chief’s already been to see their boss, Rory McCrae. Smyth’s wife left him years ago and he has no kids. Inside Mahon, I checked the members of Smyth’s drama group and all the classes he was in, and what can I say? They’re all criminals so their background checks read like a mafia novel. It’s pretty damn hard to say what any of them might be capable of.”

  Davy wasn’t so easily defeated. “Any of them in for murder?”

  “One guy in Smyth’s computer class is in for manslaughter. He killed a guy in a one punch fight outside a bar.” Ash shook his head solemnly. “The guy cracked his skull when he hit the pavement and died. All from one punch. Remind me not to punch anyone.”

  Mary sniggered loudly, thinking it was just as well that he hadn’t said that when the rest of the team were around, or someone would have pointed out that with Ash’s slight frame the victim probably wouldn’t even have noticed that he’d been touched.

  Davy saw his junior glare and turn towards the D.C. gearing up for a fight and intervened quickly.

  “What was his name, Ash?”

  He got an irritable, “What?” in response.

  “The guy who’s in for manslaughter. What’s his name?”

  The analyst broke off from glaring at Mary to check a note on his pad.

  “Jim Morris. He was Smyth’s deputy in UKUF, and I presume inside Mahon. But there’s nothing about Smyth’s death that points to him. They didn’t do any activities but computing together, and he’s not one of the men that Smyth got into fights with or wanted kept out of his cell.”

  Andy frowned quizzically. “Was he one of the two guys w...waiting for the drone drop?”

  “Nope. They were a Lithuanian called Filip Pojello and another Loyalist called Wyatt who went home four months ago.”

  There was silence for a moment while everyone considered the information, and then Andy ste
pped in again.

  “Pojello’s still in Mahon though, hey?”

  Davy nodded. “Until twenty-twenty.”

  “What for?”

  “Burglary, but he had an assault on his sheet from five years back. Nothing physical, mostly mouthing off. It was basically a road rage that went too far.”

  “So is Marc seeing Pojello and Morris today when he’s down, hey?”

  The question took Davy by surprise and he immediately hoped that his junior had updated Craig on the men, because he definitely hadn’t. With a quick glance to check and getting a definite, “No”, the analyst made the call, returning to the discussion a couple of minutes later to find that everyone was now seated around Ash’s desk and Annette was theorising on alternative ways for drugs to get into a prison.

  “OK, so, if we’re pretty sure that the tabs that killed Smyth had been smuggled in very recently but drone drops have been impossible since May, all the guards check out and all visitors are searched, what does that leave?”

  Ash shook his head. “No. I said not all of the guards check out. Brian Archibold only seems to have existed since September.”

  The D.I. blanched, wondering why she hadn’t picked up on the point earlier and realising what it could mean. “It’s not him. He’s not the drug smuggler.”

  Andy turned to her quizzically. “Why not, hey? Do you know him?”

  Annette shook her head firmly. “I’m sorry, sir, but you’ll have to ask the chief anything more on that. Now, I think we should get back to how they smuggled the drugs in.”

  There was silence for a moment, at first a slightly offended absence of sound generated by those who thought that Annette was deliberately withholding information from them, and then an even quieter, if that was possible, silence, in which those present could almost see each other’s brains being wracked.

  It was broken by Mary proclaiming, “I know!” Before anyone could ask the obvious question she went on.

  “OK, so, if you can’t get drugs in from above by drone, or through the doors because you’re getting scanned and searched, then what’s the only other permanently patent opening in a prison?”