The Tribes

by Catriona King

  Des turned his chair so that his back was to Liam and answered in three words. “No and no.”

  Craig leaned forward. “The hole was wear and tear? But wouldn’t it have allowed gas in anyway?”

  “It was definitely wear and tear, and even if it had allowed gas to access it shouldn’t have made a blind bit of difference. He had an air tank.”

  Liam had been right. Craig was puzzled.

  “But he definitely died from the fumes. John said so. And if he had air-”

  Des shook his head. “I didn’t say he had air, I said he had an air tank. But he would have had air if its valve hadn’t been wrecked.”

  Craig’s eyes widened. “Wrecked how? Are you suggesting-”

  Des shrugged. “I’m not suggesting anything, I’m telling you.”

  It was unusually brusque for Des and Craig knew Liam’s wisecracks had got to him. He’d deal with him later.

  The Head of Forensics continued. “Your farmer was wearing all the right gear and the air tank was three quarters full, so he should have been fine. But something had blocked the valve so that instead of air travelling from the tank to his mouth his expired oxygen wasn’t being replaced.”

  Liam cut in. “But wouldn’t his mask have stopped the slurry fumes getting in? Surely without air the worst that would have happened is he’d have passed out?”

  Des addressed his answer to Craig. “He’d have needed a perfect seal and it had been cut, letting poisonous slurry gas in. It was all over for your man in seconds.”

  Craig stood up. “Can you show us?”

  Des led the way next door. There was no arguing with the facts; the tank’s valve was blocked and the seal had been cut away.

  “Deliberate?”

  “Definitely. The valve’s been filled with rubber cement and you can see what they did to the seal. Someone wanted your farmer dead.”

  Craig gestured at the apparatus. “Can you get anything off it?”

  Des’ face was deadpan but he didn’t say no. It was a good sign. “I’ll let you know.”

  Craig crossed his fingers and moved on. “Thanks. OK. The drowning. Anything on that?”

  “The body was printed and swabbed and I’ve sent the prints over to Ash for I.D.”

  “I didn’t mean his I.D. particularly, although that’s great. I really meant any fibres or hairs. We know it was murder so anything that might have belonged to his assailant would be great.”

  “I was just getting to that. If you’d give me a second.”

  Craig shot Liam a look that said he was going to pay big time for putting the scientist in such a huff.

  “There were traces of fibres beneath the victim’s nails, and no, I don’t know what they are yet but they could be carpet.”

  “Car boot carpet?”

  “Possibly. There was also a trace substance on one wrist. Some sort of adhesive. You’re lucky there’s still that much after days in the water.”

  Craig nodded his thanks and turned to leave. Des’ next words caught him by surprise.

  “Don’t you want to know what I found in his pocket?”

  Craig stopped in his tracks, thinking it was too good to be true. “His name?”

  It elicited Des’ first laugh of their visit. “Now, that would be too easy.” He reached behind him and lifted a clear plastic bag, holding it up in front of Craig. Inside was a pale yellow sheet of paper covered with lines of numbers and words.

  “It’s still drying out. When it has I’ll get a copy to Ash and you can try to make sense of it.”

  “Great.” He stared at Liam who was still peering at the sheet. “I think Liam has something to say to you before we go.” He gave the D.C.I.’s arm a shove. “Don’t you, Liam.”

  Liam gave his boss a jaundiced look, then he composed his face in a mask of fake contrition and turned to face the forensic lead.

  “I’d like to say sorry, Des. You don’t look like Henry the Eighth at all.” No-one noticed him edging towards the exit as he spoke but his next words told them why he had. “More like Santa with a bad dye job.” Then he was out the door and down the stairs, leaving Craig with nothing he could do but roll his eyes.

  ****

  The C.C.U. 6.50 p.m.

  It was almost seven when they arrived back at Docklands, but any hope that Craig might have had of Jake having left for the day died as soon as they stepped onto the tenth floor. Nicky had taken his late briefing comment literally and asked everyone to stay on. Hope was revived again as a plan developed in Craig’s head: do a quick update, give them all tons of work and then slip into his office for an ‘urgent’ discussion that only he and Liam were privy to. When he didn’t reappear after ten minutes both Jake and Ash would leave and he could defer their meetings for another day. He was halfway through updating them on the farm death when Rhonda innocently derailed it all.

  She raised a finger politely; just as Craig had said that he and Liam were travelling to Armagh the next morning, and in the spirit of rewarding her efforts on the voice course, he paused and nodded her on to speak.

  “Nicky said someone from the P.P.S. was here earlier, sir. Was that to do with the Foster case?”

  Her speech was audible now but her volume control still needed fine tuning, with the beginnings and ends of phrases loud and the words in between still low. Craig wished fervently that ‘Foster’ had been buried in the middle.

  At the mention of his ex-lover’s name Jake jerked upright in his seat and Craig knew that there was no way now to avoid the truth. But if he couldn’t avoid it he could finesse it, so he answered equivocally, trying to downplay Martin Grant’s sojourn.

  “That wasn’t the main reason.”

  Strictly speaking it wasn’t a lie. Of their thirty minute conversation Aaron Foster had only taken up ten.

  “We were discussing the Miskimmon case.”

  She opened her mouth to speak again but he moved on quickly, pointedly avoiding Jake’s gaze.

  “OK, so Des believes that the air source for Colin McAllister’s slurry suit was sabotaged deliberately-”

  Anything that involved a gadget or widget excited Ash so he cut in.

  “How’d they do it? Was it a fake valve, a dud filter or an empty tank?”

  Craig smiled at his need for detail. “None of those. The valve should have been working but someone had filled it with rubber cement. It just didn’t open. Plus they cut the seal on his mask.”

  The analyst’s eyes widened. “That’s like something from a mob movie.”

  He wasn’t wrong and it sat uncomfortably with Craig’s feeling that both deaths that day could have been hits. He nodded and carried on.

  “Ash has just echoed my feelings about our killings. Both cases were deliberate, seemingly planned and organised, so that begs the question; what had either man done for someone to want them dead? Let’s focus on our dairy farmer first. Colin McAllister.” He sat back, adding. “Ideas, anyone?”

  They ranged from the ridiculous, “the cows were getting their own back”, to Andy’s very possible in the Wild West but unlikely in Armagh “he was a cattle rustler”, via the more feasible but yet to be proved “maybe cows weren’t the only things he was farming” from Liam, and “so maybe he was growing cannabis?” from Jake.

  Craig turned to his sergeant, furrowing his brow. “Follow that thought through for me, Jake.”

  Jake was surprised. He’d thrown the comment out there just to contribute, without actually considering that it would ever be taken seriously. He scrambled for something to say, growing more confident as his words emerged.

  “OK, let’s say our man wasn’t the simple dairy farmer he portrayed and maybe even his family thought he was, but he had a side line that wasn’t so legal.” He paused, thinking, before starting again. “How about if his farm was losing money… we’ve all seen the protests from dairy farmers lately, about how much they’re losing on the low prices they’re getting for milk. So…McAllister was losing money and needed an income from
something else to stop him going down.”

  Liam raised a finger to interrupt and Jake nodded him on, grateful for the respite. He’d been running on fumes.

  “As you know, my family have farms.”

  There was a muttered “farm boy” from Ash.

  Liam gave a regal sniff. “Rude and all as he is, Kermit’s right. I am a farm boy, and proud of it.” He paused, staring pointedly at the analyst’s green hair before carrying on. “My brothers and uncles mostly have dairy farms and they’ve all been getting hammered by the low milk prices so they’ve turned some of their fields to crops this year to help make up the loss, and rented out barn space to local artists. So what if McAllister decided to use his barns to grow weed, or maybe even to make something worse? Crystal Meth maybe? He wouldn’t be the first.”

  Ash chuckled. “Breaking Bad comes to Armagh. How will the local elders cope?”

  The image of vicars passing out from shame made everyone smile.

  Craig nodded tentatively.

  “OK… so let’s say McAllister was up to something hooky, whatever it was, and someone took exception to it and bumped him off. Who are we looking at?”

  Annette chipped in. “A rival drug dealer? Someone who didn’t like competition for their customers.”

  “OK. Or?”

  Andy had been doodling quietly on his notepad and although Craig was too far away to see what he’d written he could hazard a guess; the doodles would be declaring his love for Rhonda in nauseatingly saccharin terms. Ever since their pre-Christmas night of passion, which the no-nonsense Ozzie had dismissed as ‘only sex’, the D.C.I. had been nursing a determination to change her mind. So everyone was surprised when the lethargic Lothario suddenly joined the debate.

  “Maybe some local worthy or vigilante decided to show their disgust.”

  Liam nodded at the suggestion.

  “You’re saying that some anti-drugs boyos took McAllister out.”

  “Why not? There’re plenty of groups in city estates who take the law into their own hands: anti-paedophile groups, anti-drugs groups. So why not in the country?”

  Why not indeed? Craig wasn’t convinced but he couldn’t find a good reason to dismiss the idea.

  “OK, good. So we know that McAllister was murdered and it may have been because of something he was up to. Maybe drugs and killed by a rival dealer or a vigilante, or maybe not. What else could have got him killed?”

  The next suggestion came in a female voice. “Maybe his wife killed him because he was annoying her.”

  Craig turned to find Nicky smiling.

  “You may joke, Nicky, but it’s not that far-fetched. Four percent of men are killed by their partners, although ‘because he was annoying her’ might be a bit of a weak excuse.”

  She snorted. “You’ve never been married, sir. I’m just surprised more people don’t do it.”

  He didn’t argue the point. “OK, so maybe a domestic murder. McAllister’s wife or someone on the farm on her behalf; they would have had easy access to the air tank. Maybe the motive was an affair, jealousy-”

  He was stopped in his tracks by Annette’s widening eyes and a warning glance at Jake. He rushed to cover his faux pas.

  “But whatever the motive: rival, vigilante or domestic, the evidence we’re looking for lies with that farm and its staff. Liam and I will take a first look tomorrow and get uniforms down if we need them-”

  Liam shook his head, interrupting. “They’ll have hidden anything there is to see by tomorrow, boss.”

  Craig sighed, knowing that they were looking at a late night. “You’re right. We need to get down there now. OK, Liam and I will take the farm tonight. Annette, you lead on the interviews in the morning. Jake and Rhonda can help you out. Bring in the wife first thing and make sure she I.D.s the body. Talk to the farm manager, anyone else regular-”

  Annette chipped in. “Labourers, visiting suppliers. It’s quite a list, sir. We’ll need more help.”

  “Get some uniforms from Stranmillis and ask Jack if he can help out as well. Use his interview rooms at High Street.”

  Jack Harris was the desk sergeant at High Street Station, their first port of call for interview rooms and locking up anybody who needed locked up.

  She nodded. “OK. The wife’s at her sister’s in Belfast, apparently.”

  “Good.”

  Craig paused for a moment to let anyone else who wanted to pitch in do so, but no-one said a word, no doubt subdued by the thought of the work lying ahead.

  “Right, that leads us onto our second case. Liam.”

  Liam gulped a mouthful of tea and spluttered as it went down the wrong way. After a series of coughs and an unnecessarily enthusiastic slap on the back from Andy which earned him a glare, the D.C.I. carried on.

  “OK, as you know, a body was found against the Lagan Weir. Floater.”

  Annette made a face at the word but he ignored her.

  “Young guy, probably in the water between one and two days. Long story short, he had injuries on his hands that said he’d been helped into the water and prevented getting out. There was an injection mark on his neck so we’re waiting for the tox-screen and Des is checking out his prints and anything else forensic he can find. Ash, he’ll be contacting you about all that. He had adhesive on one wrist and fibres under his nails, so that would fit with being bound in a car boot and transported to the water. Whether it was by one man or two is anyone’s guess. That’s all to come, but we do know he’s dead and he definitely didn’t get dead by himself.”

  He paused for questions. Rhonda’s hand was first up. Craig smiled.

  “You don’t need to put your hand up, Rhonda. It’s not school, no matter how bossy Liam is.”

  Liam gave him a mock offended look and waved her on.

  “Where do you think he entered the river, sir?”

  “Forensics are doing their thing with algae analysis and…” He turned to Ash. “Des will be onto you about river currents and what not, so we should know in the next day or so.”

  “He’s already sent me some stuff.”

  Rhonda asked another question. “So he wasn’t shot or stabbed?”

  “Nope. He was still alive when he entered the water and we’re pretty sure he tried to get out and they stopped him. His hands had been stamped on so hard they broke the bones.”

  Nicky gasped, a lone normal reaction in a sea of emotionally numbed psyches.

  Craig nodded. “Whoever did this isn’t a nice man.” He looked around. “Any more questions? No? OK then. Andy, I want you to head this case up for tomorrow and report anything to Liam and me.”

  Andy gawped at him. “On my own?”

  Liam didn’t miss the opening. “Will you be lonely, diddums?”

  The words were said in a babyish voice and with a glance at Rhonda that earned him a hard dig on the arm. That and the backslap were the most energetic Andy had been all day.

  “What was that dig for?”

  “Like you don’t know.”

  Craig intervened before they embarrassed themselves even further.

  “In response to your question, Andy; no, you won’t be alone. Enlist some uniforms to help you and don’t forget that we have a new inspector starting tomorrow, seconded from Intelligence. Kyle Spence. He can help you on the drowning case.”

  Craig had been to university with Spence and they’d even shared digs at one point, until Spence’s untidiness and smoking had finally made him call it a day. He liked the inspector, but knew that his reluctance to leave his secretive and sedentary life in Police Intelligence would make him a challenge to motivate.

  He saw Jake leaning forward to ask when they could meet and stood up, deciding to deal with both his and Ash’s meetings at once.

  “Jake, Ash, I’m sorry we didn’t get to meet today. We’ll do it tomorrow. Nicky, find some time in my diary, please. Once you’ve seen how things are progressing with the investigations.” He turned towards the exit. “Annette, check if McAlliste
r’s wife has I.D.ed his body yet and then phone it through to Liam.” He cast a final look around before nodding. “You all know what you’re doing tomorrow and Liam and I will be contactable on our phones.” He started walking. “Liam, you and I have a farm to visit.”

  It was Liam’s cue to thump Andy on the back before making a swift escape to the lift.

  ****

  McAllisters’ Farm. County Armagh. 8.30 p.m.

  Although it was dark when the detectives arrived at the dairy farm they could still tell that it was sprawling. Four hundred acres of prime countryside, with cows, crops and healthy looking fallow fields as far as the eye could see. As they drove up the long driveway off the Darkley Road, an enormous brick and flint farmhouse with an orchard on one side came into view. On the other side of the house was a small playground, with two swings, a carousel and a long slide. It all pointed to a prosperous young family that seemed to have little need for extra income, although, as Liam had pointed out in a cynical tone.

  “Maybe the playground was built on the proceeds of Daddy’s secret crop.”

  Craig didn’t respond, instead pulling his Audi to a halt in front of the double fronted house and climbing out to scan the fields and outhouses in the dusk, his eyes searching for incongruous lights. Liam caught on instantly.

  “You’re looking for signs of weed growing.”

  The conditions needed for cannabis to flourish included a constant source of light to mimic the sun. But there was nothing to be seen.

  Craig shrugged. “Just because we can’t see anything doesn’t mean it’s not there. He could be growing it miles from the house.” He turned to face the building. “Where did Annette say the wife was?”

  “Staying with her sister for a few days.”

  Just then a slim but muscular man of around thirty strode towards them, his direction of travel saying that he’d been at the back of the house. He extended a thick, tanned arm, exposed by his rolled-up shirt sleeve even though it was barely two degrees.

  “Mitchell Purvis. I’m the farm manager. Your secretary called to say you were coming down.”

  As Craig shook hands he noted the strength of Purvis’ grip. It spoke of health and energy, and the capacity to do a serious amount of damage. Interestingly the manager’s cheerful demeanour didn’t seem forced, although he did seem slightly too cheerful for someone whose boss had just died.