Crossing The Line

by Catriona King

  Ash decided to spoil her exposition by answering what had obviously been meant as a rhetorical question leading up to a big reveal.

  “Windows. Windows can be opened or broken.”

  “It’s not the windows! Anyway, Davy said they were caged.”

  Davy ignored the murderous expression on her face and began to discuss the point to wind her up.

  “They’d all have bars over them as well, in case prisoners tried to escape. And w...would there really be windows in a prison that led straight to the outside world? I mean, without having to cross a patrolled courtyard or s...something?”

  Andy White shook his head, watching the constable grow redder out of the side of his eye. “There wouldn’t be, especially not at Mahon. I’ve been inside the place and it’s grim, hey. It was a conversion from an old Victorian workhouse. Tiny cells with small, high windows with thick bars on them, and a courtyard surrounding the building on all sides like a moat. Even if a window was broken no-one could squeeze anything through the bars, hey.”

  Annette wasn’t so sure. “Drugs are small.”

  “Granted, but that only works if they’ve already got as far as the courtyard, hey. And how do they do that, given all the stuff we’ve already heard about nets, searches, and the rest?”

  “NOT TO MENTION THE CAGES!”

  The D.C.S. turned deliberately slowly. “Sorry, was there something you wanted to say, Mary?”

  The constable looked like she was going to explode. “YES! Will all of you stop trying to wind me up!”

  Ash sniggered. “I’d say we’re long past the trying stage.”

  The huffy constable glared at him and then said, “Can I say what I was going to say?”

  Annette nodded, beginning to feel guilty. Even someone as irritating as Mary deserved to be heard.

  The D.C. failed to keep the note of triumph out of her voice as she announced, “It’s the prison’s drains!”

  The word was repeated in several different voices and ways: questioningly, incredulously, and finally in an approving tone with a hint of ‘of course...’ attached, making Mary feel safe to expand.

  “If the amount of drugs was small they could have fitted on or maybe even inside a drone.”

  Another wave of murmuring started but she silenced it, rather impressively, with a small wave of her hand.

  “The smugglers could easily have manoeuvred a small drone full of drugs through the drain network and into Mahon, to be unloaded at the other end. Underground drain pipes are wide, so all they would have needed was a drone operator at an access point outside the prison, a map of the drains’ layout and an agreed collection point inside.”

  Andy motioned her to stop. “Let’s go back a bit, hey. Davy, that drone in May, was the operator ever found?”

  “No, they’d disappeared by the time people looked and there was no way to trace them; there’s no legal requirement to register drones when you buy them. And Pojello and the other guy refused to talk, s...so we don’t know where the drugs came in from.”

  “So Pojello is Lithuanian, and he and the Loyalist, Wyatt, were working together on it, hey?”

  “It certainly looked that way.”

  Annette stepped in. “That fits with what D.C.I. Hamill in gang crime told us. He said that when people were addicted their flags stopped mattering.”

  The Dungiven man nodded, thinking. “OK... so, if Mary’s right and they used the drains to get drugs in after the nets went up in May, then we need a map of the drain layout inside Mahon, and a few miles outside its walls. We’ve no idea how far away a drone might have entered the network. We also need to find out how some criminal might have got hold of a copy of that map. That might give us a name.”

  Ash shook his head. “We do know how far away, generally. Small drones can’t operate a big distance from their controls, so a couple of square miles around Mahon max. But sorry, it would have been easy to get the plans of the drains. Prisons are under government stroke public ownership so they’ll be a matter of record, and Mahon being Victorian it might be a listed building as well. Anyone could have accessed them and I doubt they’d have been asked for ID.”

  The D.C.S. tutted, “Damn! There goes any hope of a nice fat name appearing, hey.” Then he thought again. “But would the plans be online, hey? Maybe we could get a trace that way? Or would a really old building like Mahon only use hardcopy maps, in which case would someone have to go to the planning office in person to look at them?”

  Davy could see the straws that he was grasping at and was sorry to have to snap them off. He shook his head.

  “I’ll check, but they’ll probably both be a dead end, s...sorry. Older paper records will probably have been scanned online, so the smugglers could just have viewed them on the Net, but we won’t get a name or location unless they were stupid enough to use a computer that they owned. An internet café would be more likely, but finding which one and who was using a particular terminal when could take us w...weeks. I can check if people had to register to view the plans, but even then they’d have used a fake password unless they were completely thick. And if they viewed the plans in person it’ll be the same thing; a fake name and the odds of there being any CCTV footage of the sign-in desk are low. Or they might even have paid someone in the planning office to get them a hard copy, and the chances of finding out who that was...”

  Andy sighed. “Wouldn’t be worth all the time that it could take, hey. Fair enough. It might be worth you mentioning it to Marc to see if he thinks it’s worth pursuing all the same.”

  Davy would but he was pretty sure that Craig would do the cost-benefit analysis and give it a miss. He threw the group a small lifebelt.

  “Why don’t w...we look at the plans online now?”

  Five minutes later everyone but Alice was clustered around the analyst’s desk, and Annette was seated at the centre of his horseshoe of computers tracing a map of Mahon Prison’s drain network with her nail. After a minute of squinting to see the detail, Davy, who’d decided to struggle on without glasses until he’d reached at least thirty, a target that he would be hitting in three months, tapped a couple of buttons and a greatly enlarged version of the map appeared on the TV screen.

  Andy gave a sigh of relief. “That’s better, hey. I thought I was going blind there.”

  Mary walked over to the diagram and started commentating in a tone that reminded them all that the drains had been her idea.

  “So... it looks as if there are several places inside the prison with accessible drains.” She tapped hard on the screen, making it wobble and earning her a sharp tut from the PA seated behind it. “Here are three in the communal showers, and there’s one in the middle of the courtyard to drain off the rainwater, and there’s another one in the kitchen-”

  Annette realised something. “But surely they would all have grates? The prisoners would have had to screw them off to collect the drugs.”

  Ash chipped in. “That’s if the prison haven’t covered the screws with specialist seals. That’s what I would do in a prison, just in case someone pulled an El Chapo.”

  Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán Loera was a Mexican drug lord and former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel who had escaped twice from high security prisons in Mexico.

  Andy nodded. “Even without special seals the drain outside in the courtyard would be a no-no. Too many cameras watching, hey. So we’re looking for somewhere secluded inside the building. Somewhere that a prisoner could take their time loosening a grate without being disturbed.”

  Davy added a codicil. “And it would have to be somewhere where prisoners were allowed to be too. And for a decent length of time.”

  The D.C.S. nodded, stepping back to get a better view of the screen and continuing his thought. “They’d need something to unscrew it with, although I suppose they could always have made something-”

  Mary didn’t like the way that the discussion was moving away from her so she jumped back in.

  “Or they stole a
tool from the Trade Hall that’s marked... there. It’s bound to have all sorts of stuff. OK, so, they could also have stolen a tool from there and used it to access a drain in the kitchen or the showers-”

  Determined not to let her rule the roost, Ash interjected again.

  “Why bother going to the kitchen when the Trade Hall’s bound to have a water supply and drains itself? The tools would be at hand, so the inmate wouldn’t have to carry them somewhere else and risk getting caught on the way.” He nodded emphatically, as if his words on the drain’s location were final. “Also, the drain would have to be on the ground floor.”

  He was surprised when Annette disagreed, and would have struck her off his Christmas card list had he not already given her one.

  “Not necessarily, Ash. It depends how the system’s laid out.”

  Tiring of the debate, Davy decided to end their speculation with some facts.

  “You’re all wrong. Tools are secured in prisons and only the guards hold the keys. But there’s only one w...way to confirm any of this. Someone has to go and look, and I don’t think Liam or the chief will want to stick their heads down a drain, do you?”

  Fearing the recruitment of people below the rank of D.C.I. for the task, Annette rebutted hastily with, “True. But the prison staff might check if we tell the governor what we think.”

  Andy shook his head. “Best to tell Marc first, hey, and let him get the governor on board. We still don’t know who we can trust at Mahon.” He turned back to the analysts. “Could you send a copy of the floorplans to him and Liam and let them know what we think?”

  Davy nodded, pleased that someone senior had taken control. He ignored Mary’s scowl at her moment in the sun having passed and answered, “I’ll email him now.”

  “Excellent, then come down and join us in the canteen, hey. One doughnut wasn’t enough for me so I’m treating us all to afternoon tea.”

  ****

  Mahon Prison.

  By the time Craig and Liam finally reached Mahon, they were in possession of enough new information to sink a ship, but still not the reason why someone had killed Derek Smyth. Had it really just been about him and his cronies smuggling meds into the prison to do a bit of dealing, or was there something much bigger going on? Both detectives favoured the second option; killing Smyth just for dealing to a few inmates seemed, to coin a pun, like overkill.

  Unlike Andy, both Craig and Liam actually did trust George Royston, but then they’d had the benefit of looking into the man’s eyes, an almost infallible veracity test with their combined almost sixty years as cops. When you’ve been lied to in every possible tone, timbre, pitch, accent and position by every gender of most ages, you become a human lie-detector that it would take a very skilled criminal to fool. So Craig made their first port of call Royston’s office and showing him the plans of the drain network seemed like a very good honesty test.

  Test passed, within half an hour of their arrival every guard and civilian worker in the prison had been given a paper map of the drains and dispersed throughout the building to search for anything that could fit the brief. Craig and Liam meanwhile were sitting in the small office that they’d been allocated for the afternoon and awaiting the entrance of the first of three men with whom they needed a chat: Filip Pojello, Jimmy Morris and Brian Archibold. As arranged the prison guard appeared first.

  Craig waved him to a seat, and sensing the warder’s immediate tension he hastened to put him at ease.

  “Good afternoon, Sergeant. D.C.I. Hamill says hello.”

  It had the opposite effect to the one that Craig had expected or desired. Brian Archibold’s round face tensed into a square and he stared hard into the detective’s eyes.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know any D.C.I. Hamill, sir.”

  Craig was instantly annoyed, with himself not the man opposite, and he shamefacedly nodded Liam to take out his phone. As the D.C.I. dialled his opposite number in gang crime, Craig apologised to the man across the desk.

  “I’m sorry. That was clumsy of me.”

  He motioned Liam to pass his phone over to the guard and Archibold took it suspiciously, his expression changing to relief when he heard the familiar voice on the other end.

  Geoff Hamill greeted his officer like a friend that he’d feared he’d lost, appropriate since he’d sent the man undercover in a location where he could have been shivved at any time if a prisoner had discovered he was a cop.

  “Hello, Fraser. It’s grand to talk to you.”

  Detective Sergeant Fraser Maginess aka Officer Brian Archibold gave a tight laugh. “You too, boss. Although you might have told me someone was coming.”

  Craig pictured Geoff Hamill looking embarrassed at the other end as the sergeant continued. “How are the others getting on?”

  Hamill sighed. “Jecky was outed by another guard so I had to pull him, but the rest are still going strong and we’re getting good intelligence. I’ll be reviewing the op over Christmas to decide if it’s worth carrying on.”

  Archibold’s tone changed to one of hope. “You might be pulling us out?”

  “No promises yet, Fraser, sorry. For now I just want you to cooperate fully with D.C.S. Craig. Pass me over to him, will you, and take care of yourself.”

  The hope of a reprieve after Christmas seemed to be enough to cheer the guard and he positively beamed as he handed Craig the phone. “The D.C.I. would like a word.”

  “Thanks. Hi, Geoff. What can I tell you?”

  In contrast to the relaxed tone in which he’d just spoken to his officer, Hamill’s voice was tense. “Convince me that no-one there knows you brought my man in for questioning, Marc.”

  Craig hurried to reassure him. “We arranged a cover story for the prisoners of him having a dentist’s appointment this afternoon, and he’ll be on his way home before anyone else comes near this office. Even Royston has no idea your man’s undercover and he won’t. He just thinks we’re interviewing him because Derek Smyth was on his floor. ”

  “OK, good.” A note of humour softened Hamill’s voice. “Be nice to him, I need him back. He’s one of my best sergeants.”

  “Understood.”

  Craig cut the call and passed the phone back to his deputy, then he looked at the now-relaxed undercover man. “You know why we’re here, Sergeant?”

  Archibold nodded. “Derek Smyth’s death. I’m guessing that I came up on your background checks as only having been alive for a few months.”

  Craig smiled. “Something like that.” He brought the guard quickly up to speed with their case, ending the update with, “So, what can you tell us about Jim Morris and Filip Pojello?”

  Archibold smiled. “That’s who you’re seeing after me? Pojello because of the drone drop in May, I’m presuming, and Morris.... because he was Smyth’s deputy in UKUF?”

  “Well spotted. Morris was also in one of Smyth’s classes here, and he’s got a history of violence.”

  Craig nodded his deputy to take over, which he did with gusto.

  “You must have your ear to the ground in here, so what can you tell us?”

  The sergeant laughed. “Literally sometimes. Or to the doors and walls anyway.”He gathered his thoughts for a moment before going on. “OK, Jimmy, Joyboy, Morris.”

  Liam chortled. “Happy sort, is he?”

  “The opposite. The Joyboy tag’s sarcastic; I’ve never seen a genuine smile on his miserable face. Anyway, Morris is pretty low on the UKUF totem pole. He might have called himself Derek Smyth’s deputy but he’s basically just a foot soldier. But he’s an ambitious wee sod so I wouldn’t be surprised if the first thing he did on his release was go to Rory McCrae, UKUF’s boss, and ask for Smyth’s job as lieutenant.”

  Craig frowned. “Is Morris ambitious enough to have killed Smyth for his position?”

  The guard nodded. “Yes, but he doesn’t have the talent or the brains to kill any way but violently. He couldn’t possibly have been the brains behind Smyth’s death. Planning
a poisoning is beyond him.”

  The words prompted Liam to interject. “McCrae’s thick too, so he couldn’t have organised the poisoning either. Not on his own anyway.”

  It was a damn good point that led to only one conclusion; someone other than McCrae had also been involved in pulling the strings on Derek Smyth’s death. Craig parked the point for a moment and nodded his deputy to ask another question.

  “Even if Joyboy didn’t plan it, do you think he could have been involved in Smyth’s murder? On UKUF’s behalf?”

  The answer was a nod. “It’s only my guess, but I’d say UKUF definitely had a hand in it somewhere, and Joyboy’s keeping something to himself. It may be his involvement in Smyth’s death or it could be that there’s something else coming, or both, and I’m leaning towards the last. He’s been sneaking around the place for the past couple of days with a weird look on his face.”

  It gave them something to dig for when they brought Morris in. As Craig thought through his next steps Liam continued.

  “OK, so... Filip Pojello the Lithuanian.”

  The words made the prison guard laugh. “You make him sound like he’s the last of his people or something. Like Filip Pojello, the Mohican.”

  Liam realised that’s exactly how it had sounded and he chuckled, gesturing at Craig. “It’s like the boss. Marc Craig, the Italian.”

  A roll of the eyes from said Italian and his deputy moved it along.

  “OK, so, tell us what you know about Pojello.”

  Archibold thought for a moment and then recited a list. “Thirtyish Lithuanian, from the capital Vilnius. Came over here nine or ten years back; he has family in Cookstown. He’s in here for burglary and not due out for a couple of years, although he’s pretty well behaved so he may get early parole. Generally he’s a pleasant sort, although that could be down to the drugs, of course. If that man could take the crap in through every orifice in his body at once he’d be happy-”