Andy cut in. “And presumably because they’re so young the local cops never suspect them of being drug runners, and they can go anywhere packing the drugs and never get searched or caught.”
The Drugs sergeant nodded. “Exactly. If it wasn’t so sick it would be brilliant. And if the phone holder in the city is ever caught they won’t be in possession of any drugs so they get off scot free.”
There was silence for a moment while everyone digested the bizarreness of the arrangement, then Karl handed over the marker and sat down again.
Craig had another question for him. “The cocaine that Mike found. I don’t suppose that you can source it?”
“Our lab boys will in time. Most of the stuff in Ireland right now is coming from Colombia, so it probably came in from there.”
Liam snorted. “Columbia to Tyrone. Quite a trek.”
Craig didn’t comment, turning back to the analysts.
“Davy, was there anything on the Canavans’ phones?”
“We don’t have the land lines since the w…warrants were withdrawn, so just some texts on one of Dermot’s mobiles that made no s…sense, but they could be in code so I’m running them through a program. We cloned both his mobiles, and I managed to persuade Niall’s phone provider to allow me to clone his SIMs as well.”
Craig’s eyebrows shot up. “Without a warrant?”
“Ah, well, we had w…warrants when we did it, and when the court withdrew them it seemed a shame to let all that effort go to waste…”
When Craig pretended that he hadn’t heard, the analyst took it as permission to proceed.
“The last text that came in was on one of Dermot’s mobiles at five-forty-eight, and it was just a number, five. There’s been no calls or texts since.”
Craig sighed. “The odds are he’s bought a new burn phone.”
Davy hadn’t finished, taking the chance to list some negative findings, including the number plates Miranda had snapped in Appside’s carpark, none of which had yielded anything, information from the Gardaí that confirmed what they already knew, and some detail on Red Deer and the history of Erb’s Clearing which added nothing but had still needed to be checked.
When he’d finished Craig glanced at the clock and then stood up. “OK, ten-minute break and then we’ll restart.”
As the others stretched, poured fresh drinks and headed for the bathrooms he went into his office to marshal his thoughts. He’d just taken out his mobile to call Jack Harris when Liam entered and took a seat, prompting Craig to put the call on speaker.
“OK, Jack, Liam’s here with me, tell us what you know.”
The sergeant’s sigh said that it wasn’t brilliant news.
“We lost the younger brother in east Belfast. He parked on the Newtownards Road and moved into open spaces where my man would’ve been too easily spotted to follow.”
Craig reserved his unhappiness until he’d heard it all; he was damn lucky that Jack had agreed to continue tailing the Canavans after they’d lost their surveillance warrants, so he wasn’t in any position to moan. His patience was rewarded a second later by the sergeant adopting a more upbeat tone.
“But we managed to keep eyes on the older one, Niall. I got one of the Tyrone locals to tail him, and he left his office at five-thirty and returned to the family estate. I’ve Castlederg men at all the access roads and he’s still there now.”
“Excellent, Jack. Call me with any changes, please.”
“Before you go, sir, two things. Harry’s picked out one of the boys from the CCTV. He says he was at both Castle Court and Tyrone, so I’ve sent his image across to Davy. He was blond and around my height. Five-ten. We’re about to start going through mugshots now.”
It fitted with the height Theo Sheridan had estimated from the image and called Nicky with not long before. And the blond hair was interesting too, given the hair that Des had found.
“Great.”
“Also, I got an update on the search for that missing boy, Joey. No van or boy found at Dwyer’s farm or any of the other local buildings, so the search teams want permission to enter the forest.”
“NO!”
Craig’s objection had emerged more forcefully than he’d meant it to, so he softened his tone for his next words.
“Tell them not to, please, Jack. Just to cover the forest’s perimeter and watch covertly. If I’m right this evening will bring quite a few answers. Can you trust me on this?”
“I can, but I can’t guarantee that lot won’t go barging in. Missing kids have an effect on everyone.”
Craig’s mind started racing. If the local police entered even into the council owned part of Killeter Forest the Canavans would find out, and if they’d been involved even peripherally in the boys’ deaths then God only knew what they might do. They could try to get rid of any one who could implicate them, and that might include Joey Parfitt. By trying to rescue the boy the local plods might cause his death instead.
Craig shook his head, arguing with himself as Liam watched. The problem was they couldn’t be sure the building they’d seen on the forest images was housing anyone, much less a missing teenage boy, and they wouldn’t know until they entered it and he wasn’t ready to do that just yet.
The detective knew that it was time to make a decision, and the only one possible right now carried a huge risk. He needed a sounding board, so he placed Jack on hold for a moment and turned to his deputy.
“OK, risk analysis, Liam. Niall Canavan’s at his estate on the northern edge of the forest, and the search teams for Joey Parfitt are all around the forest’s perimeter and champing at the bit to go in. My concern is that if they do they could endanger the boy. If the searchers enter the forest the Canavans will find out, and if they were involved in the killings, and no matter what I believe we still have no firm proof of that, it could result in Joey being killed to keep him quiet.”
Liam nodded. He’d heard the same words as Craig and had his own thoughts, which he decided to air.
“If Joey Parfitt’s in Tyrone he’s in that forest, and if he’s not in Tyrone he could be anywhere by now, so let’s just agree he’s in the forest and deal with that scenario first. From what Karl said drug dealers don’t kidnap boys to kill them, they recruit them to work, so the main question is, do we think Joey’s in danger right now, or will he be more in danger if we give the searchers the green light? My money’s on the second one.”
Craig nodded, his decision becoming clear. He took a deep breath and took Jack off hold.
“Send the searchers back to base, Jack.”
If Niall Canavan had managed to spot Andy and Kyle, two experienced cops, from his office window, then the odds that he would notice multiple searchers lurking around the forest were high. They needed to disappear completely.
As he said the words Craig prayed that he was right. Jack’s astonished, “What?”, didn’t exactly reassure him, but he stuck to his guns.
“Do as I ask, please, Jack. Joey Parfitt’s not in any danger right now. But tell the search teams to stand ready to be called back in, and tell Miranda I’ll phone her when I know more.”
He clicked off the phone and took several deep breaths, shocked at what he’d just done. Thankfully Liam’s voice was loud enough to be heard over the rushing in his ears.
“It was the right decision, boss. If we’re right, that building that we saw on the photo is a drug runners’ commune and we’ve already seen what the wee buggers are capable of if they’re riled.”
Craig nodded. “It will give us some more time, at least. But we need to get inside that place soon.”
“Agreed. By the way, Des says the number of heads left in twenty-ten is nowhere in the notes. There’s just a mention of a new, fresh head.”
“Pity, but there’s nothing we can do about it.” Craig turned for the door. “Right, let’s discuss it again after the briefing, and no word of my decision to the others, please.”
There was a pleading note in his voice that disa
ppeared as he returned to the whiteboard.
“OK, back to the case.”
As he scribbled up a name, ‘Harry Johnston’, Aidan asked the expected question.
“Who’s that?”
“Glad you asked. Harry Johnston is a fourteen-year-old boy who was abducted by a gang of youths from outside Castle Court Shopping Centre on Monday afternoon. He was drugged and woke up the next day inside a moving van, which, long story short, ended up in County Tyrone, near Killeter Forest. The boy managed to escape and after a series of mishaps was brought back to Belfast by social services, then he took himself to High Street Station and Jack Harris called Liam and myself in. Liam, take over, please.”
He perched on a desk, still thinking about the search that he had just called off. If he was wrong then not only might it mean the end of Joey Parfitt’s life, something he would suffer the agonies of the damned over, but he would also be looking for a new job. Liam’s words cut through his thoughts.
“OK. Harry was taken with another boy, who we’ll get on to later, but we know they were both transported in a white van.” He turned to where the team’s new addition was busy admiring her brightly varnished nails. “Mary, you went to Traffic to see what you could find. Any joy?”
The D.C. abandoned her grooming and nodded eagerly, glad to have a chance to speak. She’d worked in investigating teams before but never one as big as this, and she was finding it a challenge getting airtime.
A fair observation, or did she just like the sound of her own voice?
“Yes. I went to the Traffic Division.” The words were greeted with a sympathetic groan from a few, which she acknowledged with a nod before continuing. “And I found the van on the M1 west just past Omagh at the time we know it was travelling, according to Harry Johnston’s account. So, then I looked at the reverse feeds and managed to trace it back to where it had been parked on Monday night. It was in a place called the Demesne Estate in East Belfast.”
Craig’s eyes widened. The Demesne? None of the players that they knew of lived there.
The D.C. was still speaking.
“I managed to get a screen shot of the van’s number plate and ran it. It’s registered to a business called White Farm Holdings, but their registered address is a derelict lot, so it must be a dummy company.”
Liam nodded. “Criminal’s often use them as a front.”
The constable gave him a glum shrug. “The van ended up at the edge of Killeter Forest on Tuesday where it just disappeared. There was nothing else that I could find.”
Craig nodded and then smiled at Karl. “At least it wasn’t called the White Wizard company. Davy, check out the CCTV on the Demesne, please.”
The analyst gave a nod. “Already done. Checked for the three days around. I’ve got a s…screen-shot of some males near the van, but their faces are blurred.”
Liam wasn’t surprised when Craig took to his feet again.
“OK. While we’re on images. Harry Johnston said that he recognised one of the boys who approached him at Castle Court as one he fought to escape from the van when they arrived in Tyrone-”
Andy interjected with, “makes sense”, so Craig motioned him to follow the thought through.
“It just seems logical that the boys who abducted him would have taken him to the van and then travelled with it, especially if he wasn’t the only boy they’d taken. It keeps things tight. Who was the other one, by the way?”
“A boy called Joey Parfitt who was kidnapped from a care home.” He turned to Annette. “Let’s take you on that now, Annette.”
The inspector shook her bobbed hair solemnly.
“There’s not much to tell, sir, sorry. Joey Parfitt was put to bed in the room he shared with two other boys around ten o’clock on Monday night, and noticed to be missing the next morning when they were called for breakfast. Neither of the other boys in the room saw or heard a thing, and none of the staff rostered that night have any links with players in this case.”
She gave a set of handouts to Mary to pass around. “That’s the list of names for everyone to look at. If any of you recognise any of them, please…” She paused for a moment before going on. “I went to the home and looked at the bedroom, and I interviewed all of the staff, both night and day teams, but no-one stood out as lying. Joey’s room was inside a locked corridor, with an interior door leading to the rest of the home at one end, and an exit door at the other that leads to a garden. It has a locked gate, although not a high one, so I suppose anyone could have climbed over it and carried him away. But there was no sign of a break-in on any of the doors or the gate.”
Craig raised a hand to pause her. “Who had the keys or codes?”
“That was my next point, sir. Whoever did this must have had a key to the back gate and known the up-to-date codes, because all the home’s doors, front, back and internal are coded and they change the codes every two months. Unfortunately, the list of people who might have them is still extensive.”
Craig tutted loudly. People took less care of children than they did of their cars.
“OK, keep on it, Annette. The only chink of light in all this is that, with the help of the ASU images and CCTV from Castle Court, we know that one of the boys who took Harry Johnston was blond and approximately five-ten. Harry’s going through mugshots now but that could be slow.” He turned to the two analysts. “Jack sent the images over, so I don’t suppose either of you got a hit?”
Ash shook his head. “Still running them, chief, along with the prints Doctor Marsham sent over earlier from inside the deer heads.”
“Right, yes, while we’re on that. There were several small fingerprints found inside the necks of the deer heads, all male, so they would fit with boys. There were some adult male prints as well, but no hits on any of them yet.”
Aidan was getting confused. “So, hang on, we’re seriously saying a bunch of kids wore those heads while they were killing the boy.”
“It’s the most likely scenario for now, but the adult prints point to there being a man or men involved too.”
“Frick me, this is real Lord of the Flies stuff!”
The analogy struck Craig as apt, and images of feral youths sprang to everyone’s minds.
“OK, so we have Harry helping us, Joey Parfitt still missing, two dead boys eight years apart and cocaine found on the most recent one.” He turned back to Karl. “Any chemical match for the coke in the Drugs database?”
The sergeant made a face. “I would say yes, except that by the time we confiscate coke it’s rarely pure. It’s usually adulterated with all sorts of crap: concrete dust, bleach, soap powder…”
Liam whistled. “If Ulster’s middle classes only knew what they were sticking up their surgically altered noses.”
The lengthy laugh the quip generated provided a welcome interruption, and Craig was happy to sip at his coffee until it faded away.
“OK, so there are still a lot of loose ends and here are a couple more. The Canavan brothers.”
He ran through what they knew about the siblings, finishing with, “Niall’s on the estate and Dermot’s disappeared for now, but we also have another problem to worry about.”
Davy loaded the ASU images of Killeter Forest on the screen and Craig tapped on the building that they’d discovered earlier.
“This is a building that we know nothing about. When it was built, what its internal layout is, its purpose, ownership, etcetera. It may belong to the Canavans as it’s in their part of the forest, but we need that confirmed. So, Andy, can you and Kyle investigate that, please, but from here. You’re not to go anywhere near Tyrone.”
The Intelligence Officer went to object, but Craig halted him with a raised hand.
“Trust me on this. If you go near that building it could result in another young death.”
It made even the hardened spook back off.
“OK, the other thing is that Aidan has discovered that Jeannie Underwood, the director of the Appside research facility, h
as been in an on-off relationship with Niall Canavan for nine years, the whole time that the place has been operating.”
Andy whistled. “It’s awfully cosy down in Tyrone.”
Craig gave a wry smile. “Exactly my thinking. In my book that calls into question whether Underwood’s been completely truthful about who phoned her on Sunday and asked her to remove those heads.”
Annette was taken aback. “So? What? You think Niall Canavan asked her to have the heads collected? That would mean he was either involved in or knew about the boy’s death.”
“I believe both Canavans are up their eyes in this somewhere, but so far we don’t have a shred of solid proof.” He glanced around the group. “You’re going to be finding it, and apologies, but that means you’re all going to be working late tonight.”
He waited patiently through the expected groans before continuing.
“OK, so everyone follow the leads you’re currently on wherever they take you, and, Mary, I’d like you to look at possible ties between the Canavans and the Demesne.”
As everyone got ready to move Craig held up a hand.
“There’s one final thing before you all get going. The radioactive waste that Kyle discovered has resulted in a dangerous facility being closed down and people receiving treatment, but it has also proved useful in another way.”
The D.I.’s ears pricked up.
“Through a sequence of readings that I won’t bore you with, Doctor Marsham has determined that the deer heads were at the facility not only between Sunday and when they were transported here, but they had also been stored there at some time before. That means that someone in that facility, whether they know it or not, helped our killers.”
Aidan interjected. “It has to be Jeannie Underwood.”
“Probably, but we can’t jump to that conclusion, which is why you’re going to ask her the question, as well as about the phone call.”
He nodded Liam towards the exit and smiled to himself as he saw Andy sprinting to get there first.
“Pottery night class? You’re learning how to throw pots, aren’t you?”
The Running of the Deer Page 32