“First, on further analysis I can confirm that the two skulls we found match to within the tiniest margins of error the bone structure of the women in Ash’s photographs. So I can say definitively that your victims were Maureen and Catherine Berger. Ash supplied us with the closest ages he could work out for them. Maureen was thirty-nine years of age and Catherine nineteen when they died in two-thousand-and-seven.”
He swivelled his computer screen towards them and pressed two keys, revealing two perfect 3D reconstructions of their victims’ faces that had a visceral effect on Craig. Why their impact should have been so much stronger than a two dimensional photograph some scientist would no doubt explain to him one day, but there was no doubt that it was.
Des said it first. “My God, John. These are amazing. You can almost feel them in the room with you.”
The pathologist nodded. “I know.”
Liam was puzzled. “But I thought you weren’t getting the mother’s clay reconstruction done, Doc.”
It brought a pleased smile from the pathology lead.
“I didn’t. I created the image with a 3D programme that Judith let me borrow. You can have both images and the clay head for the girl this afternoon, Marc, if you want to launch an appeal.”
Craig nodded. “I’ll hold it back until after we’ve interviewed Kamran Barr, but we can probably get it out on the ten o’clock news.” He turned to his deputy. “Liam, could you ask Davy to see if Maggie can come and see me later, please. I want this handled sensitively and she’ll do that in The Chronicle. The force’s press officer will have to deal with the TV people.”
He stared at the images again; both of them so real that he wanted to touch the screen. “They both had long dark hair and brown eyes.” He’d said almost wistfully.
John waited until Liam had finished his call and then restarted.
“So, we also matched the women’s dental records to confirm things, and I’m sure Ash will have gathered enough information to enlighten us on the girl’s scoliosis, musculature and the mother’s musicality by the briefing.” He turned back to Craig. “By the way, what time is it happening?”
“Four. Can you get there?”
“I’ll be there” He gestured at the screen. “And I’ll bring these. So, I’ve already told you that the girl lived her life in the west, first North America and then here, and the mother’s youth was in the middle-east, but Des has got more on that.”
All eyes shifted to the scientist, who was stroking his bushy beard very slowly, either trying to make to grow or hoping that the action would make him look wise. Gandalf the Scientist; it had a nice ring.
John prompted him again to speak.
“Des?”
The forensic lead stopped stroking abruptly and looked up. “Yes, sorry, I was miles away.”
He sat up briskly. “The middle-east, Iran. The border region with Afghanistan and Pakistan to be precise. That’s where the mother originated from and lived, at least until she was a young adult. Specimens from her wisdom teeth and bones show that she grew up in that region and lived there until she was in her late teens or early twenties. She definitely left there before she was twenty-five because that’s the latest that wisdom teeth appear, and the chemistry shows that hers erupted in the west. After she’d moved her daughter to the USA. Latterly her bone chemistry shows that she spent her life in Ireland-”
Craig interrupted. “So what was her ethnicity? Iranian?”
The scientist screwed up his face. “Mmm… Judith says more likely Asian, but I can’t narrow it that definitively.”
He nodded John to display a map and outlined the relevant geographic area in red.
“She came from somewhere around here.” The outline encompassed the border areas of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. “It’s over a million square miles, but I’m tending towards this area.” He tapped the area where the two former countries met each other and the latter. “There would be a lot of genetic drift within this region so her family could have originated in any of them. Her Iranian genes mean she might have come from there, but some might argue that her features tend more towards the Pakistani or even Afghani.”
Craig nodded. It was pointing even more strongly towards the Barrs being involved in her death.
“The daughter?”
Des gave a tight smile, his pleasure at obtaining accurate information still tempered by the pathetic nature of the two deaths.
“Everything points to her being raised in the west, so she must have been taken there soon after birth-”
Liam cut in. “But she had dental work done in The United Arab Emirates.”
“Yes, but all that shows us is that she travelled to the middle-east at some point, and had enough money to afford medical care there. It’s not cheap.” He turned back to Craig. “Your passport checks should help clarify things.”
“Thanks. Ash is on that now.” He had a feeling that they were going to learn a lot more about their victims’ lives at four o’clock. “OK, change of topic. What more can you tell us about the hydroxide?”
“Well, the taggant traced to a manufacturer in Omagh, like I said.” He nodded John to press print. “And I’ve managed to nail down a list of who they supply, here and worldwide. One of the more local names rang a bell. Ertons Pharmaceuticals in Dublin. They supply mostly chemotherapy drugs.”
Craig knew that something important was coming and decided to help it along. “Rang a bell because you’ve dealt with them before?”
“Rang because Ertons is owned by The Barr Group.”
Craig said nothing for a moment as the meaning of the words sank in. The Barrs had had access both to the hydroxide used to strip the women’s bones and their place of burial.
Liam looked like he wanted to kill. “Those fuckers used crap from their own company to destroy the bodies! I’d like to drown them in the stuff!”
Craig gave a heavy sigh. “Join the queue, but it still isn’t enough to prove that they did it. OK, so circumstantially it looks bad for them, along with Dalir’s involvement with the carpets, but we need watertight evidence before we wade in. Des, chemical factories have rules for the handling of dangerous substances, don’t they?”
The scientist nodded, immediately seeing where he was heading.
“Yes. Registers have to be kept of quantities and dates and who signed them out. In the south of Ireland as well as up here.”
“So, could you-”
He nodded energetically. “I’ll work with Davy and see if we can find something.”
Craig shook his head. “No, try Ash, he’s the hacker. And keep your fingers crossed that they either signed electronically for the chemicals, or any paper records were scanned into Ertons’ systems.”
He turned to Liam. “Liam, get on to your contacts in the Gardaí and ask them to search Ertons as well, with a warrant, please. I want this legit.”
John was confused. “But if you get the information by hacking as well, won’t that make it illegal?”
Craig’s expression was impenetrable. “We won’t raise anything Ash finds directly in the interview, it’s just for background knowledge, and by the time I do my report for the P.P.S we’ll have it all again from a legal Gardaí search.”
If not exactly crossing the line it definitely counted as dancing on it.
He stood up to go. “We need to leave. I’ll see you both at four.”
****
Killyleagh, County Down. 3 p.m.
Kamran Barr’s solicitor had put him on notice that the police wanted to interview him at five o’clock. He’d already been on edge before the phone-call but now he was tipping over, so much so that he’d abandoned the agitated pacing that had threatened to wear a hole in his apartment’s carpet and had travelled the twenty miles to visit his father in Killyleagh, hoping against hope that some half-dressed tart didn’t answer the front door. He didn’t expect his father to remain celibate but neither did he need the evidence that he still had a sex-life thrust in his face.
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To the businessman’s surprise it was the housekeeper who answered and directed him to the mansion’s airy conservatory, where he found the old man in a subdued mood. Zafir Barr didn’t acknowledge his elder son’s entrance, only a slight flicker of his eyelids saying that he even knew he was there, so Kamran helped himself to a large whiskey, his observant Muslim upbringing long forgotten, and leant against an obsidian sideboard along one wall sipping it far too fast.
After five minutes during which the flicker remained the only acknowledgement that he received from his father, the son finally stirred himself to speak.
“You and Dal have really landed me in the crap.”
He was shocked to receive a reply, although still not a look.
“It was necessary.”
The nonsense of the unfeeling statement propelled the businessman forward, straight into the eye-line of the older man.
“It wasn’t bloody necessary! It was your stupid pride! I said it back then and I’m saying it again now!”
Zafir Barr rose slowly; his body more hunched than it had been eleven years before but his fists and rage just as strong. The words came again, this time in an angry shout.
“IT WAS NECESSARY!”
His son turned away, not in fear as he had done as a child, but in unalloyed disgust.
“You’re pathetic! Sick, sad and pathetic.”
He saw the fist approaching out of the side of his eye and sidestepped it neatly, allowing the swing’s momentum to drag the older man to the floor. The son made no move to help his father up, instead looming over him with his face contorting furiously.
“That’s what I’m telling you, and that’s what I’m going to tell the police! I’m not going to prison for something that you and Dalir did, old man. Something that I never understood.”
The roar that came from the recumbent pensioner brought the housekeeper rushing in, and Kamran Barr strode past her and out to his limousine without a backward glance.
****
Hazzard and Reilly Solicitors. Oxford Street, Belfast City Centre.
“This is the only chance you’ll be offered, Lavinia, so you’d better heed it.”
The solicitor frowned at her male caller’s familiarity and arrogant tone, wondering how the hell he’d managed to get past her secretary.
“Who is this?”
The agent gave his traditional reply. “My name doesn’t matter.”
Her retort was acidic. “Well, whoever you are you’re obviously stupid. Threatening a solicitor.”
He came back at her quickly, deciding that she needed to be made afraid.
“Not as stupid as a woman who has ideas above her station!” His tone intensified and hardened. “My client wouldn’t care if you were a High Court Judge, bitch, and frankly I would cheer if you ignored me. It would give me an excuse to have you blown away.”
Her tight gasp gave him a frisson of pleasure, once more having the upper hand.
“Scared, are we? Good, then perhaps you’ll pay attention to what I say. Your client Kamran Barr will be brought in by the police for interview today. Yes?”
Lavinia Hazzard didn’t answer, still thinking about his threat, so he issued a prompt.
“Yes?”
Her reply tumbled out. “Yes, yes, this afternoon.”
She rationalised that confirming Barr’s attendance wasn’t breaching confidentiality; it would be public knowledge as soon as he walked through the police station door.
The information fitted the feedback that the agent was getting from his watchers. The police investigation had started wide but was spiralling its way towards the Barrs, and judging from his recent exhibition at his father’s home Kamran Barr was about to dig all of their graves with his mouth.
If he could have been sure that the idiot wouldn’t involve anyone but his own family in his pathetic mea culpa then perhaps he would have let him go ahead; the thought of the wealthy behind bars always made him smile. But men with a lot more power than him were getting nervous about Kamran Barr, so it was time for him to die. For that to happen he needed the businessman to be at liberty, and achieving that required getting Barr’s solicitor under control, and nothing exerted control quite like fear.
To generate more of it he adopted his ‘serial killer’ voice, a growling tone so deep that it always made his throat sore for days.
“If you want to live then this is what you’ll do, bitch. You won’t tell the police about this call, they’ll never find me anyway and I’ll have you killed for telling them. But you will tell your client to make no comment in his police interview and you will make sure that he goes straight home afterwards. We need Kamran Barr back on the street.”
The words chilled her, their meaning unambiguous, but even with her own mortality on the line the lawyer had to ask why.
“Because Mister Barr is making some very powerful people nervous. That’s reason enough.”
“But what will I do if he refuses? When he called me, he said he had things to tell the police.”
The agent barked at her. “I don’t care how you do it, just make certain that you do! If you won’t do it for yourself, think of your daughter. That nice school orchestra she attends gets out at six and one of my men will be there watching her and waiting for my call. If it doesn’t come…” He didn’t need to say anything more, but added a P.S. anyway. “And don’t bother trying to pick her up early. We can find her anywhere.”
The solicitor lurched forward into the receiver, her previously quiet voice loud. “YOU CAN’T! SHE’S JUST A CHILD!”
“It’s your choice.”
Her next objection fell on dead air and, as her fingers bit into the arms of her leather chair and she ran through her options, hitting a dead end on each one, Lavinia Hazzard realised that she wasn’t only being asked to save her daughter’s life by throwing away her career through police obstruction, something that she wouldn’t hesitate to do, she was being asked to facilitate a man’s freedom knowing that he would almost certainly be killed.
****
The C.C.U. 4 p.m.
“Right, this is going to be quick. Liam and I have an interview to conduct.”
Craig leant against a desk near the front of the squad-room as he spoke, his customary perch of Nicky’s desk being someone else’s territory temporarily and he wasn’t sure how she might feel having him in her space.
He cast a quick look around the group; all there, all with drinks in hand, all looking as if they were listening.
“OK, first I’m going to summarise so there’ll be repetition here, but I’d appreciate no interruptions. First, the day security-guard stroke caretaker on the Department of Energy site, Brian Tanner, was using the building’s cellar as a cannabis farm. It had privacy, heat etcetera and wasn’t visited by anyone but him, until it was. By Billy Bruton to be specific, who was then a SPAD at the department.”
He took a sip of coffee and continued. “Bruton spotted a chance to make money, so he blackmailed Tanner for sixty percent of his profits. The amounts were substantial so the farm was obviously lucrative, and we’ve now got Bruton for tax evasion on those amounts.”
Andy raised a finger and Craig allowed him in, secretly surprised that people had adhered to his “no interruptions” order for even that long. It revealed his complete lack of awareness that he’d been biting people’s heads off for months and they were now inclined to protect themselves by doing exactly as they were told.
“Yes, Andy?”
“You’ve got Bruton purely on Tanner’s say so?”
“We had until Bruton did a runner and was picked up hiding on a fishing boat out of Donegal. Now we have his confession as well, although the tax evasion is all we’ve got evidence to charge him on at the moment.” When he saw no more interruptions coming he carried on.
“OK, Bruton and Tanner are in the cells now, Bruton on tax and Tanner until we confirm the killer, because he, with the unwitting help of Dean Kelly actually filled in the basement in the e
arly hours of the third of July oh-seven. Although they did it at night it was witnessed by Jessica Chambers, someone that Andy and Kyle through their archive cases.”
Andy indicated again. “You’re convinced that Kelly knew nothing?”
“Nothing. He was instructed to fill in the hole by Leonards Construction, who in turn were instructed on the basis of a fake fax sent by Bruton. Kelly helped Tanner fill in the hole and left the cement to dry, something that depending upon temperatures and conditions can take up to seventy-two hours, although only during forty-eight max of that was the concrete liquid. It was during that period that the bones were deposited.”
“And Kelly didn’t think night time was a bit strange to be filling a hole?”
“Apparently they work at night all the time. OK, we still need to interview the night-watchman on a couple of things. One, his part in turning a blind eye to the cannabis and the burying of it, and two, how did so many people managed to squat and break in to the DoE building when there was hoarding up?”
He turned to Aidan, who was sitting closer to Deidre Murray than the space available seemed to make necessary, something that both Liam and Kyle had noticed too, Kyle being less than impressed.
“Actually, on that point. Aidan, what did Duggans Hoarders have to say?”
Liam cut in. “Aye, and more to the point, were the staff buried in newspapers?”
Aidan chuckled. “That’s what we were expecting too; a tsunami of papers and rubbish to hit us as soon as we opened the door. But it was just a normal, actually, a tidy office. I was quite disappointed.” He returned to Craig’s question. “They said the only keys they issued for the door in the hoarding were to Dean Kelly, to the night-watchman, so Brian Tanner didn’t have a set, and to one of the Barrs, but they couldn’t remember which one and the signature was unreadable.”
Craig was puzzled. Not by the Barrs having keys, they would get to that in Kamran’s interview later, and not by Dean Kelly, he would have needed a set for health and safety, but about the fact that with hoarding too high to climb over without serious risk of injury, how had anyone else, including Brian Tanner, managed to get into the site either to squat and steal, or to grow and use drugs? It seemed impossible unless someone had allowed them all in and Kelly or Barr were unlikely to have done so, so that just left the night-watchman.
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