The Tribes

by Catriona King

  “Did you confront Mr McAllister?”

  Her headshake was instant. “Johnny said not to. I planned to go back and do it. I just wanted to get Ben out of there first.”

  Liam decided to take the heat out of the situation. He leaned forward, asking a question to which he already knew the answer. “What age is your boy? I’ve a five and three-year-old myself.”

  She gave a watery smile. “Six. He adores Colin. And the farm.”

  Craig took Liam’s hint, realising that he’d been pressing too hard. He sat back, feeling bad that she might not know that her husband was dead. But only might, because he’d seen great liars before. When he restarted his voice was softer.

  “What exactly did Mr Corbett advise you to do, Ms Kennedy?”

  “Remove Ben as soon as it was feasible.”

  “Which was when?”

  “Monday. Once we were settled Johnny said to speak to the police. I’m just surprised that you came so quickly.”

  Craig sat forward urgently. “Are you saying that you contacted the police?”

  It would be easily checked.

  She nodded. “This afternoon. I spoke to an Inspector Dawson in the Fraud Unit.”

  Liam almost burst out laughing, stopping himself just in time. Dozy Dawson. She’d have been waiting all year for him to come. Craig knew that it was time to break the news. He leaned further forward, closing the distance between them.

  “I’m sorry, Ms Kennedy, but we’re not from the Fraud Unit.”

  It was the solicitor who spoke first. “Well, who are you then?”

  Craig kept his eyes firmly on the widow. “We’re from the Belfast Murder Squad. We’re here investigating a man’s death.”

  The scream came immediately, so immediately that it drowned out Craig’s final word. He watched as Mara Kennedy’s eyes grew red and then wild and then as she rose and grabbed for the brass handle of the door. He wasn’t sure what to do; let her go and follow her, or stop her before she did. As they had no evidence to charge her he opted for the former and the three men raced through the hotel reception after her, watching as she eventually came to a halt at the lift. She pressed repeatedly on its buttons until she saw them approach, then she covered her ears like a small child, sobbing as she shouted out her words.

  “Please don’t tell me. Please, please. Someone’s killed him. Someone’s killed Colin, haven’t they? That’s why you’re here, isn’t it…that’s why you’re here.”

  She didn’t leave space for any of them to answer, not even her elderly solicitor, bringing up the rear. As the lift doors opened Craig stepped forward blocking her way and took her hands gently in his own.

  “Come back and talk to us, Ms Kennedy. Please. You can’t go to see your son like this; you’ll frighten him.”

  He coaxed her back towards the cocktail bar, ignoring the curious looks of diners and drinkers as the group processed. When she was firmly back in her seat Craig started again, much more gently this time.

  “A man, whom we believe to be your husband, was killed-” She ripped her hands from his and turned to the solicitor like a small child.

  “Make him stop, Johnny. Make him stop.”

  Johnny Corbett cradled her head against his chest and nodded Craig to go on.

  “He was working in the slurry pit at the farm and unfortunately-”

  She sat bolt upright, shaking her head frantically. “NO! No... Colin never took risks. He wouldn’t have. He was careful.”

  Craig continued slowly. “We have reason to believe his air supply was tampered with.”

  The solicitor whispered the word before Craig said it. “Murder. You said you were from the murder squad.”

  The detective continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “We need a positive identification-”

  It was too much for her and she started to scream again, this time at length, until Craig finally had to admit defeat. The solicitor helped her to her feet and nodded at the two men.

  “Tomorrow morning all right? I need to call her brother. He’s a doctor.”

  “Fine.” Craig handed over his card. “Call me in the morning.”

  The policemen watched as the broken woman and her old family friend left and then they ordered a very stiff drink.

  Chapter Five

  The Merchant Hotel, Belfast. Friday, 29th January. 8 a.m.

  By the time Annette arrived to take Mara McAllister to view her husband’s body, Liam had already taken the widow to complete the brutal duty and returned her to her hotel room. The inspector went to call Craig, confused, only to suddenly notice an unread text. ‘Contact me before you go to collect Mrs McAllister’. Too flipping late, sir.

  She was just about to call him and complain about his tardy transfer of information when she checked the message’s time. Twelve-thirty the night before! She’d slept right through its delivery and failed to even spot it that morning when she’d unplugged her phone! Mike was right; she was very sleepy these days.

  Mike was Mike Augustus, a pathologist who worked with John Winter. He’d been Annette’s partner since she’d divorced Pete, her husband of twenty years, for abuse.

  She’d hardly slept at all from the fifth month of pregnancy with her first two children, now teenagers, and she wondered if her current tiredness said something about the new addition to her brood. She shrugged, deciding that it probably had more to do with her age than her embryo’s sleeping habits, but resolved to get a check-up anyway. Maybe it meant the baby would sleep through the night when they were born. She dismissed the idea instantly, for the fantasy that it was bound to be.

  As she dialled Craig’s number and waited for him to pick up Annette pictured the first night at home with her new son or daughter, genuinely excited. Mike would be a great dad. Pete had never been that bothered with the kids, going to the pub after work instead of coming home to see them or help put them to bed. Even on holidays he’d left all of that to her. She’d never really commented at the time; it had been the nineties, when feminism had still been the territory of high flying New York journalists and radicals like Germaine Greer. How mainstream men helping with their babies seemed now, although there was still a way to go.

  She was just trying to remember if Pete had ever changed a nappy when Craig finally picked up. He sounded as if he was underwater.

  “You sent me a text, sir.”

  “WHAT?”

  She raised her voice to match his, drawing disapproving looks from an elderly couple walking by. The Merchant wasn’t the sort of place where people shouted, so she took the conversation out into Waring Street.

  “YOU SENT ME A-.”

  Just then the water sounds ceased, leaving her shouting at a man who could hear perfectly well. As she stopped Craig stepped out of the shower, thankful that his phone was waterproof. Katy had bought it for him after he’d dropped the other one in the bath too many times; down to his annoying habit of taking it everywhere he went.

  He dried himself with one hand until he reached the bedroom, then he put the phone onto speaker and carried on.

  “Thanks for getting back to me, Annette. Don’t bother going to collect Mrs McAllister for the I.D. Her solicitor called us after midnight, saying she wanted to get it over with, so we said that Liam or I would take her early today.”

  She rolled her eyes. It would have been nice if Liam had mentioned it, although she would probably have missed his call as well.

  “I’m already here, sir.”

  She managed to keep the edge she felt out of her voice. That would be saved for Liam. Craig raked back his wet hair and started to dress.

  “Sorry. When we saw her last night she was distraught, so we’d planned to leave the I.D. for you, then her solicitor called.”

  He’d thought it odd when Liam had phoned him at five a.m. and offered to do the viewing, putting it down initially to him being concerned about his sleep deprived ‘Katy’ state of mind. Until he’d heard the noise in the background and the desperation in Liam’s voice, a
nd then he’d understood. Liam’s house at five a.m. sounded like a playground at recess. Two young children obviously didn’t make for much sleep, so going to work probably seemed like a holiday.

  As he buttoned his shirt Craig added. “Still, it’s not a wasted journey. You can escort her to High Street and we’ll meet you there. Her farm manager Mitchell Purvis is there already.”

  Annette was curious. “Do you suspect him or her?”

  “One of them, neither or both. At this point I just want to rule them in or out. She seemed genuinely shocked at her husband’s death but she could just be a good liar.” He wrapped his tie expertly around itself until he was satisfied with the knot, then he grabbed his suit jacket, still talking.

  “You and Jake make a start with the manager and Rhonda can observe; she needs the experience. Liam and I will take the wife.” He grabbed his keys and made for the door, grabbing his phone on the way. “Just a heads up, Annette. Purvis has a major crush on the wife and something definitely happened there. We’re not sure how she felt about him but we’re pretty sure she ended it, so whether she used his continued feelings to manipulate him into killing the husband only time will tell.”

  He raced down the stairs and jumped into the car, turning over its aging engine and slipping the phone into its handset as he talked. The Audi coughed its way to life, objecting to the cold morning and probably the time of day; even cars deserved a weekend lie-in. He’d looked at a few new cars in magazines and even driven past a few showrooms in the preceding weeks, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop and look. Until Katy came back - he stopped himself mid-thought, always honest, but he was still reluctant to change ‘until’ for ‘if’, even in his own mind. Until she came back he wasn’t changing anything but his clothes; it seemed too much like tempting fate.

  He continued talking as if his thoughts hadn’t deviated at all.

  “The shock when we told her the husband was dead could have been an act, but it was a good one. So let’s go into this morning’s interviews with an open mind.” He glanced quickly at his watch as he drove through the apartment development’s gates. “OK, it’s eight-thirty now. I need to drop into the office first, so you get Mrs McAllister down to High Street and then get started with Purvis. We’ll see you there around ten.”

  He’d clicked off before Annette managed to answer, so she re-entered the hotel’s reception and placed a call through to the new widow’s room.

  ****

  Craig’s quick exit from his apartment had stemmed from several things but none of them were his eagerness to get to the office; Jake would be there until Annette summoned him to High Street. He still had to tell him what the P.P.S. had said and he planned to defer the inevitable for as long as possible.

  Rather his exit had been swift because he’d felt like he was being chased; he’d felt that way since Katy had turned away from him five weeks before. Where once his apartment had been at worst a neutral space and at best a comforting place to switch off and listen to his old LPs, since he’d met Katy it had started to feel like a home. She hadn’t tried to tamper with its décor, such as it was, which in Liam’s very vocal opinion was aging student grunge, but she had added little touches: a picture here, a house plant there, not enough to desecrate his man cave but enough to say that a woman was sometimes in residence.

  The bathroom was the hardest place to be; her shampoo and hairbrush were still by the bath, with fine strands of blonde hair in situ. He knew that he should remove them but he couldn’t bear to, saying as it would that she was never returning. And he couldn’t face that possibility yet, he couldn’t even entertain the thought. All of his energies were focused on winning her back, which was why he was stopping on the Stranmillis Road now, in exactly the same place that he’d stopped three times each week for the past month.

  He climbed out of the car and entered the small florists, writing the same card he’d written before and ordering the same bouquet of her favourite flowers, camellias and white roses, altering the address so that this time they were sent to her mother’s house. The florist smiled sympathetically as he scribbled the words, ‘I love you. Marc’, then paid and climbed into the car again, driving off down University Road and through town to the C.C.U.

  When Craig entered the squad-room he was surprised to see most of the team there, although it wasn’t yet nine o’clock. Nicky answered his question before it reached the air.

  “They all saw the news.”

  Craig’s heart sank. He normally watched the eight o’clock news before he left home, but nowadays his mind was always somewhere else.

  He covered his whispered question with the noise of pouring a coffee.

  “What news?”

  She didn’t look surprised, more sympathetic. His face showed the fatigue of another night’s broken sleep.

  “Two shootings in Belfast this morning. One west and one south.”

  He didn’t show his shock.

  “Dead?”

  “No. Kneecappings. They’re at St Mary’s now. And D.C.I. Hamill asked if you could give him a call.”

  Where Craig ran Murder and Aidan Hughes ran Vice, Geoff Hamill presided over Gang Crime for the province. There was nothing that the diminutive detective didn’t know about clans, tribes and gatherings in the north, from old school secret societies and lodges to the more malevolent gangs, both home grown and imported, that peppered his patch.

  Craig made quickly for his office and turned on his P.C., checking the internal bulletins and the TV news. As he sipped his coffee he read. ‘Five-forty-five a.m. Male, twenty-seven, shot in the knee near Broadway in west Belfast.’ ‘Five-forty-five a.m. Male, thirty-two, identical injury at the bottom of the Ormeau Road.’ The attacks were too similar and too time coordinated not to be linked. He thought for a moment then called Liam in, waving him to a seat.

  “Thoughts?”

  Liam eyed Craig’s coffee. “I’m hungry.” He reached behind him, pulling open the door. “Any chance of a tea and some biscuits, Nicky?”

  The reply was swift. “Any chance of me meeting Brad Pitt?”

  Liam smiled, undeterred. “Two sugars should do it. Thanks.” He shut the door again with every belief that he would get his request. Craig smiled at his nerve and then repeated his question.

  “Thoughts?” He added, for clarity. “On the shootings.”

  Liam puffed up his cheeks before slowly exhaling. The action said ‘nasty business’ and ‘Belfast scrotes’ clearer than any words could. Finally he spoke.

  “Someone’s sending a warning to someone. Or they were telling the victims to behave. Or… option three, they were looking for information.”

  Craig tapped his cup rhythmically. “I like one and three best, or a combination of both.”

  The door opened and Nicky entered with a steaming mug of tea and a plate of digestives, placing the latter in front of Craig. “Because you won’t have had any breakfast. Again.” She turned to Liam with the mug held ominously above his head. “What’s the magic word?”

  He thought for a moment, toying with making a joke. The glint in her eyes said not to, so “Please” emerged in a meek voice and the P.A. set down the cup. When she didn’t leave Craig nodded Liam to finish his task and “Thank you, Nicky” was added in an equally subservient tone. She exited the room to the sound of him adding “You’re a goddess, Nicky. Did anyone ever tell you that?”

  Craig rolled his eyes. “Did anyone ever tell you that you never know when to shut-up?”

  Liam grabbed a couple of biscuits. “My mother, father, teachers-”

  Craig halted him with a raised hand and Liam decided to change tack.

  “OK. So why only one and three?”

  The reply was logical. “Because no-one’s going to waste bullets telling two idiots to behave; they would have just beaten them up. A bullet sends a message. Several, in fact. To wit: we have guns; we can afford to waste ammunition so we obviously have plenty of it; we can organise two attacks in different parts
of town at the same time so we’re efficient and have several men; and you’re too insignificant for us to dirty our hands killing you. Whoever did this thinks they’re important. Especially as they probably dragged the men from their beds to do it.”

  “Talkative bullets and no mistake.”

  Craig continued. “So someone was sending a message and/or looking for information. The information could be anything, although it will be about the men’s boss-”

  “Or bosses.”

  Craig nodded. “True. So what was the message?”

  Liam took a gulp of tea. “Everything you just said.”

  Craig shook his head. “No, that was just the surface bluster. We’re important, don’t mess with us, or stop messing with us more likely. The real message is about what’s behind this.”

  Liam shrugged. “The two of them are still alive so it’s not our case.”

  “I still want you to see if they’ll talk. Send Joe Rice down to St Mary’s.” He changed tack. “So why does Geoff Hamill want to speak to me?”

  “Pass. Why don’t you ask him?”

  Craig parked the subject and turned back to their two murders.

  “OK, we’ve got Purvis and Mara Kennedy at High Street. She was pretty quick to ditch McAllister’s name, wasn’t she?” He suddenly remembered his manners. “Thanks for doing the I.D. this morning, by the way.”

  Liam gave a gracious wave. “Had to. She couldn’t wait and you looked like crap last night.”

  Craig went to object but the D.C.I cut him off.

  “You looked like you hadn’t seen your bed for a week.” He leaned forward, peering at Craig’s tanned but heavily shadowed face. “It only looks like six days now.”

  “Ha bloody ha. So the fact that your kids were playing cops and robbers at five a.m. had absolutely nothing to do with it?”

  The only answer was a martyred look so he carried on.

  “OK, Annette’s at High Street now with Jake. I told her to make a start on Purvis.”

  Liam rubbed his hands. “Saving the lovely widow for us, are we?”