“She’s got it on her computer.”
Davy’s immediate grin said that Alice’s PC was about to get meddled with, and when the analyst then produced an unusually shaped USB from his desk drawer Liam just had to ask.
“What’s that thing?”
“It’ll upload a programme onto her PC that’ll let me s...see everything she types in future. I’ll save all her files centrally from here and wipe her list now, then I’ll crash her computer, offer to help her get back online and upload it as I do. That w...way I’ll be able to see any future list she writes and wipe it quickly.” He gave Craig a pleading look. “But it would be better if you could get a different temp, chief. I’ve enough to do.”
“I’ll ask HR tomorrow, I promise. Meanwhile, send the others an instant message warning them not to say or do anything in front of her that might get them reported. I’d like to keep my team as it is. Thanks, Davy.”
They headed for the lift, and Liam waited till he was inside before he spoke again.
“What’s the plan for Barr then?”
“A simple one. I’m going to face him with what we know, while you watch to see if he blinks.”
****
Ten minutes after Craig left, Annette managed to put her horror about honour killing, which seemed to her just about the least honourable thing that one human being could do to another, to one side, and moved on to something that had been niggling her since Ash had discovered Catherine and her mother’s social media accounts.
She was just going across to discuss the issue with him when she noticed Craig’s temporary PA leave her desk and move towards the squad-room’s exit. It would have garnered little of her attention normally, signalling nothing more than a trip to the loo or perhaps a sudden desire for one of the obscenely wonderful high-fat cinnamon buns just introduced at the canteen downstairs, but for the entrance of another woman just at that moment, one that she knew well.
A wave hello from Annette halted the secretary in her tracks.
“Do you know this lady, Inspector?”
Alice’s tone implied that if not she planned to kick her out.
Maggie Clarke pulled a face at the word “lady”, a term that she normally associated with women her mother’s age. It sparked a ten second panic about whether she looked older than she was, something that Davy, watching the encounter from his desk, spotted instantly and knew would mean him enduring an even longer than usual bout of paranoia that night.
Maggie was still only thirty-one but she was eighteen months older than him, and although it was almost impossible to find a wrinkle on either of them, something the journalist often tried with a magnifying glass, even the slightest suggestion of her beginning to look old sent her hurtling towards the nearest mirror to search her face for imaginary sags and cracks.
Out of kindness for his girlfriend and his own self-interest, Davy crossed to her side quickly, carefully blocking her view of the PA’s face when he said, “This is Maggie. She’s my fiancée”, as the slightest raised eyebrow or hint of surprise on Alice’s face, if spotted by the journalist, would add on at least an hour’s reassurance time that night. “She’s come up to say hello.”
As he ushered Maggie across to his desk Annette joined them. The writer’s appearance had sparked another bout of niggling and she wondered whether she could help.
“Davy, could I have a quick word with you, Ash and Maggie for a moment? We can use the chief’s office.”
A quick decant later, Maggie asked the question that Davy had been waiting for.
“Was that woman a temp? Where’s Nicky?”
Davy smiled down at her indulgently. “Nicky’s having a few days holiday, pet. Remember, I told you?”
“Did you? Oh, OK.”
Annette smiled at his discretion and turned to the point of them being there.
“Something’s been bothering me ever since Ash found the girl’s ID.”
The junior analyst nodded. “I know what you’re going to say. How come no-one online reported them missing in real life.”
“Yes. Didn’t any of their social media friends translate into real life? That’s pretty sad.”
Davy nodded in agreement and added a practical point. “And what about their broadband accounts etcetera? Did they just stop dead too, Ash?”
“The accounts stayed active for a while, probably because they’d been paid for, but there was no usage on them after the tenth of June.”
Annette frowned. “So why wasn’t there an investigation of all that after Conroy’s police reports? Every activity that would have shown they were alive just stopped. And what about those other reports from the neighbour? All the police seem to have done was make notes. And where did the newspapers get the idea that they’d just gone ‘home’? And specifically to Saudi?”
Ash had brought his apparently umbilically attached smart-pad with him and was scrolling quickly on it.
“I’m just looking at these reports from the neighbour, a Mrs Rodgers. She was really persistent. It looks like the police just made the usual missing person enquiries when Conroy contacted them but then left it, but Mrs Rodgers insisted that they contact the ex-husband, Farshid Lund. Maureen Berger must have told her about him. Anyway, it says here that the police contacted Lund that August and he told them that the women were with him in Saudi and were staying for the whole summer.” He shook his head disbelievingly. “They just seem to have taken his word for it. June to September was the university holidays, so it sounded plausible, I suppose.”
The detective rolled her eyes. “If Lund was in on it he would have said that, wouldn’t he?”
Maggie smirked. “To paraphrase Mandy Rice-Davies.”
Mandy Rice-Davies was a Welsh model and showgirl best known for her association with Christine Keeler and her role in the Profumo affair, a society and government scandal in the nineteen-sixties which resulted in a famous trial about immoral earnings. When during the trial a defence counsel pointed out that an aristocrat had denied having an affair with Rice-Davies or even having even met her, she dismissed the denial by stating, "Well he would, wouldn’t he?”
Annette shook her head in disgust. “That was obviously where the newspapers got ‘home’ and Saudi from. The police must have fed it to them.”
She noticed Maggie’s increasingly confused expression and realised the writer didn’t know what they were talking about. But she needed to if she was going to help them with the appeal for witnesses, so Annette brought her up to date quickly on Catherine Berger’s engagement to Jason Conroy, and their thoughts on both women’s sad end.
“Honour killings? Urgh. Is that why Marc wanted me here? Does he want me to write a piece on them?”
Davy shook his head hastily. “No! That’s just a w...working theory! We’ve no proof yet. The chief wanted to know if you could help with an appeal for witnesses. Jogging people’s memories for sightings of the women in oh-seven.”
“Using photos?”
Annette cut in. “Those, and there are two 3D reconstructions, one an actual clay head. Apparently 3D produces more witnesses than a photo.” She grimaced. “The problem is the women disappeared eleven years ago, so it’s a very long shot.”
While the news editor considered, Annette turned back to Ash.
“Jason Conroy. What happened to him?”
The junior analyst frowned. “It took him a long time to get over it. I hacked into his university medical records-”
She gawped at him. “You did what?”
Davy waved them to keep their voices down. “Didn’t you two get my IM? Alice is making notes of anything that isn’t kosher to report to HR, s...so keep things like that to yourself.”
Ash just shook his head and continued, never understanding the hypocrisy of people pretending to be outraged by his methods yet grabbing whatever information he unearthed with both hands. Just own it, folks.
“Jason Conroy saw a psychologist several times in the three years after Catherine disappeared, and
his records from then mention a lot of calls and emails to her, especially in the early days, all unanswered of course. He even launched an online request for information but it was a dead end. He dropped out of Queen’s for a year but went back in oh-nine, eventually graduating with a two-two law degree, not as good as the first that he’d originally been tipped for, but enough to get him a decent job on the legal side of NI Bank. He manages their Comber Branch now. Must have preferred management to law.”
Maggie had been listening sadly, her romantic side touched by the tragedy of the young lovers. She gripped Davy’s hand as a talisman to ward off such a fate for herself and then made a suggestion.
“The romantic aspect could help get readers involved. Can I put something about their engagement in with the plea for information?”
Annette was reluctant to say yes until she’d spoken to Jason Conroy. After all, it was his story too. She made a decision and stood up.
“OK, here’s what we’ll do. I’m going to see Jason Conroy to see how he feels about mentioning their love affair. Ash, if you could supply Maggie with enough information to draft her piece, on the understanding that it doesn’t leave this office until Conroy and the chief say yes.” She glanced around the group. “Is everyone OK with that? Any questions, suggestions?”
Davy had a question, but it was for his girlfriend. “Mags, what’s The Chronicle’s circulation?”
She thought for a moment. “The Belfast paper distribution is forty thousand copies if the story runs in both the morning and evening editions, but syndicated circulation throughout the island will run into the millions, and the online editions get millions of more hits from all over the world.”
The Irish Diaspora, north and south, was a significant force.
She was about to ask the analyst why he wanted to know, but then smiled, realising what he was getting at.
“You’re wondering if the article could be seen in Saudi.”
Davy nodded. “I know it could be, by accident, but I’m w...wondering if there’s any way to make it more likely?”
The journalist’s smile widened. “Leave it with me. I have contacts at most of the embassies, and they can usually get pieces in the in-country newspapers.”
Annette was impressed, but wary. It might risk Farshid Lund and Dalir Barr seeing it and going underground.
“It would just be a call for information piece, Maggie, and only then if the chief approves, you understand?”
A nod said yes, but her fear still wasn’t assuaged.
“We can’t go accusing people of honour killings until the case has gone to court, or we’ll blow the whole thing.”
“Don’t worry, Annette. That’s the last thing I would want. I want whoever did this to get locked up for life. It’ll just be the images plus or minus the romantic story, with a witness and information call.”
“After the chief says yes.”
“After the chief says yes.”
They were all hoping it would be enough to draw witnesses, or even better put the fear of God into the guilty men and make them slip up.
****
High Street Station. 5.30 p.m.
The detectives had barely entered the station’s reception when Jack Harris thrust open the access to the staff-room dramatically and rushed them through it like the place was on fire. Liam shot him a “what the hell?” look that was answered with a barked, “get in there quick!” that made the hairs stand up on the nape of Craig’s neck. Something or someone was making the sergeant behave alarmingly and as soon as the staff-room door opened they saw who it was.
The expensively suited Lavinia Hazzard, a solicitor whose fame amongst the criminal fraternity, only the wealthy ones of course, was renown, was seated amidst the detritus of old magazines, half-washed cups and yesterday’s Belfast Chronicle, perching on the edge of a chair whose covers had last seen the inside of a washing machine five years before as if it was a pile of nuclear waste.
Craig was surprised to see her in the staff-room although not at the station. Kamran Barr could afford the best lawyers, and if Hazzard couldn’t manage, along with her stable of pet defence barristers, to keep you out of prison, then you’d probably done something criminal in front of the City Hall at lunch-time, so obviously that no-one could possibly have failed to see.
To Craig’s relief he had never come up against Hazzard’s coterie in court, but his glimpses of her four-inch-high red-soled stilettos clicking across Laganside’s reception had been enough to chill his blood, so seeing her now at such a sensitive point in their case didn’t exactly make him feel good.
Nonetheless, he strode across the room with his hand outstretched politely, surprised by the warmth of the handshake that he received in turn.
“I’m Chief Superintendent Craig and this is D.C.I. Liam Cullen. May I ask why you’re here, Ms Hazzard?”
She was about to rise when Craig nodded the others to take a seat.
“You know me, Mister Craig?”
He gave a small smile. “I know of you, Ms Hazzard, as I’m certain does everyone here.”
Liam’s cool stare said what he’d heard of the solicitor he didn’t like, and it made her shift uncomfortably in her seat. But she was there to request help and it was always better to ask that of someone who didn’t hate you, so she gave each of the three men what she hoped was a winning smile before she spoke again.
“I’m aware I’m not viewed as the police officer’s friend, Chief Superintendent, and I fully understand why, but I’m going to ask for your assistance now and I very much hope that you’ll grant it.”
A minute later they’d heard all about her threatening phone-call.
“My daughter is the most important thing in the world to me, and I would die for her, obstruct justice for her, do anything for her in fact.”
When a sob caught in her throat Liam almost revised his opinion of the woman known amongst police as ‘The Barracuda’, but his moment of sympathy swiftly passed; he’d seen too many mates spend years working up their cases for court, only to have them trashed by Hazzard and her team within a few days.
Craig however was more compassionate, something that wasn’t always a good thing in The Job; he was also more curious, something that always was, and Lavinia Hazzard could be the key to nailing down some answers in their case.
“We’ll remove her from school immediately.”
Hazzard shook her perfectly coiffed head. “He said they’d just get her another time if I did that, and I can’t lock her up for the rest of her life.”
She bit her lower lip hard, smearing her matte-red lipstick slightly as she struggled with what she was about to say next.
“But if I do as they ask and Mister Barr walks out of here, I think that they’ll kill him.”
Craig moved to the edge of his seat. “They said that?”
“The implication was clear. My client has upset some very powerful people somewhere and they want him out of the way.”
Craig frowned. Who would want Kamran Barr dead? Lavinia Hazzard’s caller had mentioned powerful people getting nervous, so had they meant Dalir Barr and Farshid Lund? No, it didn’t feel right.
He backtracked slightly.
“Tell me about the call and the caller again, please. How it came in, the time and the number you answered it on first.”
With those in hand Craig made a call of his own.
“Davy, trace all direct calls to this number today between three and five o’clock and phone me back, please.”
He returned to Hazzard’s mysterious caller.
“Tell me about the man’s voice, please. What language did he speak and what type of accent did he have?”
Liam smiled. He would just have assumed that the caller spoke English, but Craig didn’t assume anything.
“English. South-east possibly.”
“No other accent, noise in the background, anything else that you heard?”
“No, he wasn’t a Frenchman speaking English if that’s what
you mean. He just sounded English, but… yes, maybe there was something. He had a public-school accent, not a regional one.” She thought for a moment and then added. “And there was a buzz in the background, like traffic outside, so he was calling from a city, I’d say.”
“Nothing else, like a tannoy making train announcements or airport flight calls? Anything?”
She shook her head, defeated and just then Davy called him back.
“Yes?” He listened for a few seconds and then frowned. “You’re positive on that?”
Evidently the analyst was, as a few seconds later Craig ended the call and summoned the other two men outside.
Liam asked first. “What’s the story?”
“There was only one direct call to that line today and Davy managed to trace it, although God knows how given it was a secure line.”
“Not just a withheld number?”
“No. Fully secure.”
Jack frowned, turning his always wrinkled forehead into a veritable ploughed field.
“I don’t like the sounds of that. No-one has a secure line except-”
Craig nodded. “Police, governments and diplomats.”
Liam gawped at him. “You’re saying one of those threatened The Barracuda’s kid?”
Craig rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you say it a little louder, Liam? I don’t think anyone heard you in Dublin.”
It earned him a snigger as he carried on.
“Ms Hazzard was right. The caller probably was English, or public-school educated there anyway, but the call came from inside the Pakistani Embassy in London.”
Liam wasn’t surprised at all this time. “OK, so they want Kamran Barr dead. It makes sense, if we’re right about Dalir Barr’s involvement in the killing. He must have clout with the government and now that we’ve found the women’s bodies he and Lund have decided to get rid of their partner in crime.”
Craig was unconvinced. “So, a whole country’s willing to risk a diplomatic incident by killing someone on UK soil, just to protect Dalir Barr and Lund? Unlikely. But whoever is planning Kamran Barr’s death has money and power so we need to move fast.”
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