The Running of the Deer

by Catriona King

  Kyle shrugged, and his obvious lack of thanks made Liam give him a hefty shove.

  “You’re an ungrateful wee shit, do you know that?”

  “I’ve been told that it’s one of my greatest charms.”

  Craig shook his head. “I don’t have the time right now to deal with your bullshit, Kyle, so get on with it. We need to know what you found out about the facility.” He didn’t dare call it Appside, just in case he began to laugh. “And whether it’s relevant to our case.”

  Kyle had been standing with his hands in his pockets, now he leaned back against the wall.

  “Well, I don’t know how relevant it is to the case, except that if the Canavans know what their land’s being used for, it tells you something about them. My source found radioactivity in the soil and streams for half-a-mile around the building. He’s having samples tested for chemical contamination as well.”

  Craig frowned. “What sort of levels?”

  “He only had a basic Geiger Counter, but the readings came up very high at the facility’s outer walls, and they didn’t drop at all until he was a quarter of a mile from there. By the time he was half-a-mile out they were down to background levels.”

  Liam sounded a warning. “If your mate’s not covered by the Official Secrets Act, we need to know. He could pass those results on to anyone.”

  “He’s not, but he won’t.” The D.I. gave a sly smile. “Not unless we want him to.”

  The words stopped Craig in his tracks. Kyle was right. If the local land was in danger of being contaminated and people with it, then they had a responsibility to act.

  “Kyle, when you have all the results get them to Des. And I need to meet this contact.”

  It prompted an immediate shake of the D.I.’s head. “So that you can shut him up? No way.”

  “Not so I can shut him up, so I can get the full picture and take it to the top. If there’s contamination occurring then it needs to stop, but without panicking the local population by splashing it all over the press. I promise you we’ll do this properly.” He turned to Liam, silencing any further objections. “What do you think? Could this have a bearing on our murder?”

  “I don’t see how, boss, apart from what it might tell us about the Canavan brothers’ morality if they knew what was happening on their land. Our boy wasn’t poisoned to death, he was crushed.”

  “I agree, but we still need him, the deer heads and the previous murder victim tested for radiation, and whatever chemicals Kyle’s contact finds asap. It might give us something we haven’t thought of yet. Kyle, speed your man up.”

  Craig stood up. “OK, I don’t want anything about these findings or the facility discussed outside this room. Liam, brief Andy on the plan before we restart, and I’ll tell Des and Mike. No-one else knows unless I say.”

  He glanced at his watch. “You have fifteen minutes, and then we’ll pick it up. Good catch, Kyle.”

  He couldn’t be certain, but for one moment he thought he caught a genuine smile from the D.I.

  ****

  Eglantine Avenue, South Belfast. Ken Smith’s Apartment.

  Constable Ken Smith removed his jacket and hung it on a hanger, then he did the same with the rest of his police uniform, straightening it neatly as he’d been taught in the army and wondering how many more years he’d be forced to wear someone else’s idea of style; although at least in the police the golden ring of being a detective lay ahead, and with it the chance of wearing a suit and tie that he’d chosen for himself.

  He glanced again at the bottle-green jacket and trousers and smiled, remembering the olive-green ones he’d worn as an army captain two years’ before. It seemed he just couldn’t get away from wearing green at work, but at least this time it wasn’t such a bilious shade, and of course along with the darker green came the freedom to live in his own home and not get posted to a warzone at the drop of a hat.

  He closed his wardrobe door with a satisfied nod; leaving the military had definitely been the right choice for him, even more so because of what he intended to do that evening. The restaurant was booked, the small box tucked into his pocket, and permission from Lucia’s father sought and given the week before, after some serious ducking and diving to avoid either her or Marc finding out. Lucia because it would have spoilt the moment and ignited her feminist ire, and Marc because, although he doubted that his future brother-in-law would tell anyone, he really couldn’t risk the secret getting out.

  If Lucia discovered that anyone had known he was going to propose to her before she did, she would say no out of pure annoyance, eminently capable of cutting off her pert nose to spite her face. Even her parents had been sworn to secrecy for ever, never to reveal that he’d done the old-fashioned thing and asked permission for her hand first. He really didn’t need words like ‘chauvinist’ or ‘Victorian’ echoing in his ears for the next, hopefully, fifty years, and if that sounded like cowardice, well, the veteran of several armed conflicts was absolutely fine with that.

  The ex-soldier smiled as he realised that he was more frightened of the woman he loved hurting him than he had ever been of bombs and guns. He supposed that if he had to then he might be able to survive without Lucia’s love, but the sudden ache in his heart at the very thought of it meant that he would never take the risk of putting it to the test.

  ****

  The Labs. 7 p.m.

  As soon as the briefing was over Des drove Mike and himself back to the labs so fast that he knew he’d be lucky if a speeding ticket didn’t arrive in the post in a few weeks’ time. The pathologist didn’t object to the accelerated trip, Annette’s threats as they’d left the squad-room of him sleeping on the couch if he wasn’t home by nine ringing loudly in his ears.

  As soon as they arrived the men immediately took the lift up to Des’ office and began rummaging through his cupboards for the item that they were desperate to find. The search ended with a loud whoop from the forensic scientist, and a small yellow box being brandished in the air. Mike scrutinised the object, frowning.

  “That’s it? It doesn’t look like much.”

  Des was unoffended, tugging a power lead out of the cupboard next and then plugging the object in to charge.

  “We’ll give it a minute. That should be enough.” When he’d plugged the Geiger Counter in, he scrutinised it, conceding, “It looks like part of an old train set, doesn’t it? But it really does work.”

  Mike took his word for it.

  “Do you have a more powerful one too?”

  “More accurate maybe. It’s in the main lab, but this will do to give us a general idea.”

  He beckoned the pathologist across and nodded him to hold out his hand. Mike felt strangely reluctant, not sure whether he wanted to know if he’d been irradiated, even though he knew that his risk was small. He hadn’t been anywhere near Appside, so his only possible contacts with radioactivity might have been in the clearing and from handling the dead boy.

  A faint crackling and a barely moving needle said that his guess had been right. He was in the clear.

  “Just background levels. You’re fine.” Des handed him the counter and held out his own arm. “Now, do me.”

  The forensic scientist closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, certain that he wouldn’t be as lucky; he’d been inside Appside for a few hours examining the deer heads. A much louder crackling said that he was correct, and he waited with his eyes shut tight to hear his score, picturing various parts of his body turning black and dropping off in the coming weeks. When after a second it seemed that Mike was taking too long, Des opened his eyes and gazed at the dial himself. His reading was much higher than the pathologist’s but still within normal limits; he was going to be OK.

  As well as meaning that he’d keep all his bits it told him something else useful. He nodded Mike to leave the counter on charge and took a seat at his desk.

  “OK. Your count was low, so that means the boy’s body mustn’t be very radioactive, or the clearing.”

>   Mike nodded, grateful that his chances of future parenthood were safe, although he still crossed his legs tight as Des continued.

  “But, I have a higher reading, and if it didn’t come from the clearing, which we now know that it couldn’t have, it must have come from me being at Appside. But… does that mean the radiation came from the building itself or from the deer?”

  “There’s an easy way to find out. Test Marc and Liam. They were at Appside but not exposed closely to the heads.”

  “There’s an even easier way. We could test the heads themselves.” He lifted a piece of paper from his desk. “Grace has left a note to say they’ve arrived downstairs.”

  Mike shook his head, surprising the forensic expert. “That’ll be no use. If the heads do have a high reading, then it could either have originated with them or come from them sitting inside Appside for hours. The only way to rule out Appside per se is to test Liam and Marc.”

  Des was taken aback; he hadn’t thought of that. He rescued himself a moment later with another question.

  “OK, say it isn’t Appside, say the radiation originated with the deer themselves, wouldn’t they have left some of their radiation in the clearing? But we know the clearing’s free of radiation because you’re clear.”

  Mike shook his head again. “No. We don’t. All we know is that if they did leave some of their radiation in the clearing, it was insufficient to contaminate me. And they couldn’t have become contaminated in the clearing or I would have as well.” He stood up. “Anyway, the heads are here so let’s test them anyway, but we need to do Marc and Liam tonight as well. John will be fine because he was never at Appside and he didn’t handle the heads.”

  As theorising wasn’t cutting it Des agreed to the plan. He lifted the by now half-charged counter and led the way downstairs to the mortuary and a steel-doored cold storage room, shaking his head when Mike went to enter.

  “I’ll suit up and do it. It’s part of my job.”

  Mike’s arguments about having a lower radiation reading so it being safer for him to be exposed to more fell on deaf ears, and a few minutes later a Hazmat suited Des appeared on the other side of the room’s viewing window, giving him a thumbs-up. Mike watched as the scientist pulled out the enormous cadaver drawer that was holding the deer heads and held the Geiger Counter above each one in turn, noting down its reading and then holding it up to the glass for the pathologist to copy. After five minutes, Des closed the drawer and entered an ante-room to change, leaving the suit, counter, pen and paper inside and emerging through another door. Mike accosted him immediately.

  “Those readings were sky high!”

  Des nodded his head and led the way to the main lab, where he checked his own level again. It was higher than before, but thankfully still within the acceptable range. Just. The suit had done its job, but he was glad that he’d got out of there quickly.

  The forensic scientist led the way back to his office in silence, but Mike was desperate to talk.

  “Your level went up in just a few minutes! And the readings on those heads were through the roof! What the hell are the governments doing in that place?”

  Des still said nothing, instead he removed a book from one of his shelves and opened it at a chart, then he signalled for Mike to produce the readings that he’d written down. As he compared them to the chart his face turned pale.

  “These are toxic levels, Mike. We’ll need to check everyone who went anywhere near those heads. The first attenders on the scene, CSIs, the vet, the people at Appside-”

  Mike shook his head firmly. “No. First, we need to check Marc and Liam. Until we find out how much of the radiation came from Appside we can’t be positive whether the heads contaminated it or the other way around.”

  “Kyle’s friend found radioactivity in the soil around the place, so I’d say it was probably the latter. But…”

  Mike saw a new idea formulating in Des’ mind and he pre-empted the scientist’s next words.

  “You’re wondering if just a couple of days exposure to the building could really have contaminated the heads to such an extent, and if not, then what does that mean.”

  Des lifted his desk-phone, nodding. “And the only way to find out is to check everyone. There’s another phone in the next room. Call Liam and Marc and get them in here quickly. I need to organise checks for everyone who attended that scene.”

  ****

  The C.C.U. Wednesday. 8 a.m.

  “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!”

  Craig held his mobile phone at arm’s length and stared at it quizzically, moving it closer to his ear periodically to see if his sister’s squealing had subsided, only to extend his arm again when her volume said no.

  Eventually his paucity of words made Lucia stop mid-exclamation and shout, “MARC? MARC? Have you hung up on me? If you have then you’d better be dead.”

  The illogicality of yelling threats at a dead man notwithstanding, Craig answered her with a sighed, “I’m still here, Luce”, adding a dry, “and I love nothing more than being shouted at this early in the day.”

  Before she could shout again he asked her what the problem was. It spawned another long round of squealing that finally ended in, “I’m engaged!”

  The shock made Craig drop his feet off his desk and lurch forward. “You’re what?”

  This time her response was half-sung. “Engaged, engaged, engaged, engaged, engaged.”

  “To Ken?”

  “Yes, to Ken. Of course, it’s to Ken! Who else have I been dating for years?”

  Craig had to admit to being surprised, not only by the event but by the fact that he’d been kept completely in the dark, because if there was one thing he knew about Ken Smith it was that he possessed old-fashioned courtesy, so there was no way that he had proposed to Lucia before approaching their father first. That meant their mother Mirella had known as well, and as she was always as garrulous as Liam was when he had six pints in him, he knew she must have been threatened with particularly dire consequences to have made her keep quiet.

  He chuckled as an image of their father metaphorically gagging her popped into his head; their mother was a fiery Roman Italian, and their father a man who could have patented the concept of peace and quiet, so they could have sold tickets to that chat.

  He listened again to what his sister was saying, and his shock now over, joined in her excitement.

  “That’s wonderful, Luce. I’m sure you’ll be very happy. Ken’s a great guy.”

  He meant it. He’d liked Ken Smith ever since they’d met on a bombing case four years’ before, and he knew that he would make Lucia happy. If he didn’t then he’d better know how to run, because he would kill him if he made his little sister cry.

  Before Lucia could speak again there was a sharp knock on his office door and Liam entered without waiting for a response. The D.C.I.’s face said that it was important.

  “I’m sorry, Luce, I need to go. I’ll phone you back later.”

  “Don’t bother”, came the chirpy reply. “I’ll see you and Katy at dinner on Friday night. Mum said she’d cook something extra special when I phoned to tell her.”

  He hoped Mirella had made a good show of pretending that it was the first time she’d heard the news.

  “OK, congrats again, and I’ll see you then. Bye.”

  He hung up the phone to see that Liam still on his feet. “What’s up?”

  “We’re needed at the lab. They’ve finished the radiation checks on everyone.”

  Craig jumped to his feet. “And?”

  Liam shrugged. “Dunno, but they found something.” He glanced at the phone. “What’s occurring with the sister?”

  Craig smiled in a way that made the D.C.I. raise a hand to halt his reply.

  “Stop! That look says it’s girly stuff, and I can do without that this early in the day. I had enough last night with Erin climbing all over me trying to plait my hair.”

  As Liam only had an inch of sandy scrub all o
ver, Craig was impressed by his seven-year-old daughter’s belief in the impossible, but he ignored his deputy’s entreaty not to speak.

  “She and Ken got engaged.”

  Unfortunately, he’d made the error of announcing the good news just as they passed Nicky’s desk, and her squeals of excitement soon matched Lucia’s own. They left the PA to it, knowing that the news would be all over the squad and probably right through the force by lunchtime, and soon Ken would be getting back-slapped by people he didn’t even know.

  There was little further discussion until they reached the lab, Craig deep in thought, hoping that his mother might stop pressuring him to get married now that she had Lucia’s wedding to plan. As they exited the lift on the labs’ third floor and approached the forensic offices, they were stopped by Des who ushered them immediately back down the stairs.

  “Where are we going?”

  “The mortuary. We don’t have a specific radiation safe place, so we’ve sectioned off a cold storage room down there to contain the heads.”

  Liam gave a snort of laughter. “You make it sound like they’re plotting their escape.”

  “Don’t joke. With the amount of radiation coming off the buggers they could probably grow new legs.”

  Craig shot him a look of surprise. He and Liam had had their levels checked the night before and they’d been normal, albeit near the high end. The path-labs’ staff, emergency services, CSIs, and the couple who had discovered their victim’s body, had all had only background radiation levels like Mike. The earth in the clearing and the boy’s body had also read very low.

  Only the local vet, Raymond O’Boyle’s levels had even approached theirs and Des’ initial highish reading. O’Boyle had handled the deer heads before they’d been taken to Appside and Des had handled them there, for a longer time which could explain why his reading had been more.

  It told them that the heads, whilst definitely radioactive when O’Boyle had handled them without protection in the clearing on Sunday, had thankfully not had high enough levels then to endanger anyone in a short time. But by the time they’d been moved from Appside to the Belfast Labs, the readings had shot up to what they were reading now.