A Limited Justice (#1 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) (30 page)

Craig gave a hollow laugh at John’s dark medical humour. “Could you check something else for me?”

“What?”

“Adams was admitted on some medication so they’re going to fax the names to you. Unfortunately, there was no G.P.’s name on them – just tablets in a blister pack. But maybe they’ll throw some light on things.”

“I’ll do my best. See you at four.”

***

“Is this really all you have on Mrs McNamee, Mr Dunn? A death certificate from Spain, and a Will that says ‘sell the house and give the money to the children?’ Isn’t that a bit sparse after forty odd years of life? Weren’t there any insurance policies, a pension when her husband died, and other properties?”

It all seemed too tidy for Annette and she had a fleeting thought that maybe she was being cynical, maybe this
was
everything. If their choice of solicitor was anything to go by, the McNamee’s certainly hadn’t been loaded.

They were sitting in a small office whose heavy brown curtains had missed several cleans. The beige flock wallpaper could have been trendy mock-Victorian, except for the tear beside the door giving its original colour away as cream. The thin man facing her looked as worn as the decor; there was nothing affluent about John Dunn or his clients.

“I didn’t handle Mr McNamee’s death myself, you understand, it was my son Andrew. But it does seem that the family lived a fairly simple life. Mr McNamee had been a teacher so there was a pension and a lump sum of course, and the house was paid off when he died. Otherwise, nothing else is mentioned, just whatever money was in the bank. I do know that Mrs McNamee only taught part-time because of the children, so their income was always limited.”

“So how much did she inherit when Mr McNamee died? Approximately?”

John Dunn looked at Annette with distaste, but she held his eyes steadily. Even if there was no more money, she knew there was more information. He hesitated, considering whether it was ethical to reveal the secrets of the dead. She could see him veering towards a ‘no’, so she decided to give him some gentle encouragement, fixing his eyes solemnly.

“You could be helping us to save lives, Mr Dunn. This is a very serious murder investigation.”

Either his sense of public duty, or the fear of his perfect layer of dust being disturbed by a hairy big policeman, prompted him into action, and he stood up laboriously, reaching into his drawer for a key. He moved so slowly that Annette could almost hear his joints ache, but eventually he reached the back of the office, lifting up a rug to reveal a well-hidden safe. It creaked open like something from a Hammer Horror film, and Annette almost laughed aloud at the surreal feel to her day. Liam would love this.

He returned just as slowly with a large brown envelope, placing it on the desk and considering it for a few seconds longer, before opening it to reveal a single sheet of A4.

“Well...yes...”

Annette wanted to leap across the desk and grab it, but instead she sat patiently, waiting while he played out his full-show of ethical reluctance. When he finally spoke, it was in a surprised voice.

“It appears that Mrs McNamee inherited...from the proceeds of two life insurance policies, the pension and death benefits...Well...”

“Well, what?”

“A...a sum of 2.5 million pounds sterling, plus the proceeds of the property’s sale.” Then he quickly put the paper face-down on the desk, ever the solicitor.

“Well, I must say...I hadn’t realised. As I said, Andrew handled the estate.”

“Where did all the money go?”

He pursed his lips, openly disapproving of her now.

“I’m afraid that was Mrs McNamee’s personal business. Although according to this there are still 500,000 pounds in Northern Ireland Bank, to be divided between the children, in addition to the house.”

“That means she spent two million pounds in just over four years?”

“I believe Mrs McNamee did do a great deal of travelling after her husband died.”

She would have had to visit the moon for that amount!

He stood up, replacing the papers in the safe, and then walked quickly to the door, his arthritis miraculously cured. He held it open pointedly.

“I’m sorry, but I really can’t help you any further, Sergeant McElroy, and I would be obliged if this meeting was kept confidential. I’m very sure Mrs McNamee’s children would not like their financial business known.”

Annette was so shocked by the amount that he’d quoted that she’d allowed herself to be ushered onto the street before she realised. It hadn’t been a wasted visit, she was going straight back to look at Fiona McNamee’s bank accounts.

***

They’d decamped to the basement briefing-room, its high ceilings and neon strips more conducive to serious thought than the cosy familiarity of Craig’s office. John had arrived but Des had gone home on ‘Rafferty-watch’, so Craig started.

“Over to you, Davy.”

“Right. The checks reveal that Jessica Adams basically dropped off the face of the earth nineteen months ago. A call came through earlier from Lear Island, and apparently, she lived there with Gemma Orr last year, and gave birth to the baby there. That’s w...why there isn’t much information on her here. The Island’s records aren’t linked with the mainland so the other girls’ immunisations didn’t s...show-up either.

They left the island when Pia was four months old and kept in touch until about five months ago. But there’s nothing at all after that.”

“Sir?”

“Go ahead, Nicky.”

“Well, I was thinking, what would I do if Gary was dead? What would make me kill? I don’t think it’s just lack of money, because she could have claimed benefits. And she wouldn’t risk going to prison and losing her girls just for money, there has to be something else.”

“What then?”

“I’d do it to protect Jonny, if I couldn’t guarantee protecting him myself. Like if I knew I wasn’t going to be around...” John leaned forward, interjecting.

“Nicky’s right, Marc. These murders were very well-planned, but in each one she let herself be seen, and sometimes even caught on C.C.T.V. Agreed?” They all nodded.

“So, she didn’t care if we saw her and we know that she didn’t care if we found her prints. That makes it look like she really doesn’t care if she’s caught and separated from her children. But we know she loves them and really wants to be with them, which must mean that she knows she’s already going to be separated from them for some reason anyway.”

Craig looked at him and nodded slowly, saying nothing, so John continued.

“I believe that the methods of killing, the frenzy at the scene with Ian McCandless and the mock-rape with Maria Burton show that she may be ill.”

“Why do you think that?”

“This is a previously normal wife and mother. But the deliberate damage to Maria Burton’s warrant card and badge, the mock-rape, the viciousness with which the petrol pump was pushed into McCandless’ throat and the sheer power behind it, are very abnormal. And given the feeling of invulnerability that let her enter this building in broad daylight to kill Liam, and to probably enter a prison to kill Lynsey Taylor...”

“What? Taylor’s dead?”

Craig brought them up to date on her overdose and Davy nodded. She was the last one on the trial list other than the Judge.

“Go on.”

“It all points to a killer who has a sadistic and high-risk taking attitude. So...either they have a pure mental illness, or they have a physical illness that’s affecting their rational thought and inhibitions. This woman is completely fearless.” A mutter of agreement went round the room.

“And what she also has, is enough strength and loss of sensation to drag a grown man across a forecourt, push a petrol pump down his throat, and twist razor-sharp wire with her bare hands. She left Purecrem and fingerprints everywhere, so she was definitely barehanded for at least part of Ian McCandless’ killing.”

“But, how...?”

“Marc asked me to look for causes of sensory loss while retaining power so I made a shortlist. And today I’ve got some additional information from Wharf House; she’s been taking high-dose steroids.”

John looked around for any signs of realisation, to be greeted by blank faces, all except Annette’s.

“Jordan takes them when he’s bad with asthma.”

“You’re right, Annette, they are used for asthma, but not in these doses. In doses this high, there are only a few illnesses that fit, like organ transplant, but then they’d be on other anti-rejection medication. The most likely illness, and the one that fits completely with a change of character, poor co-ordination and sensory loss is...” John continued more quietly. “A brain tumour, with systemic effects.”

They stared at him blankly.

“It fits. It’s as rare as hell but it fits everything. A brain tumour can lead to increased pressure on the brain, causing personality changes and poor co-ordination. It can also make the body’s immune system fight back, and eventually lead to a thing called paraneoplastic syndrome. And then in rare cases, an extension of that called neurologic syndrome.

“What does that do?”

“It causes a loss of sensation while retaining normal physical strength. In fact the high-dose steroids used to treat the increased pressure might even have given her extreme strength.”

Craig nodded, and explained about the nightclub assault. “The officers who arrested her said that she was unsteady on her feet but fought them like a tigress. It took four men to cuff her.” He shook his head sadly. “They thought she was high on something.”

“She was, Marc. On steroids. They couldn’t possibly have known.”

The room fell quiet for a moment while they took the new information in, then John spoke again, solemnly.

“I checked and she was seen fifteen months ago at the Cancer Unit. I spoke to her consultant this morning and he faxed this over.”

He opened a folder, distributing the sheets within. It was a summary of the medical record of Jessica Adams, aged twenty-seven.

“She’s got a brain tumour, a Glioblastoma, and she’s terminal. She was given six months to live, six months ago. But there’s something else...”

There was more? Whatever it was, it was making John look even sadder. But what could be worse than terminal cancer?

Then Annette did the sums and her mouth fell open. “Fifteen months...but she was still pregnant then...the baby?”

John nodded. “That’s exactly it, the baby. She refused treatment until she was born, and...” He turned to Davy.

“She didn’t stay on Lear Island just for the immunisations, Davy. She stayed there until she’d finished breast-feeding, and by then she was too late to help herself. The survival rate for a Glio is poor anyway, so she must have weighed up the slim possibility of a few more months of life for herself, versus the potential risk to the baby, if she allowed them to treat her while she was pregnant and breast-feeding. And she chose her baby. They tried chemotherapy this March, but it was too late.”

Even Craig was shocked. “God... that’s dreadful, John.”

This was what had changed Jessica Adams from a loving mother into a desperate Nikita. The room fell quiet for a moment, no one sure how to feel, until eventually Craig spoke.

“You were right, Nicky, it was all about the children, and this is the missing piece. She knows that she won’t be here to look after them. Everything pointed to her being ill – her pallor, her thinness, even her voice on the phone. She worked barehanded and left prints, when the pain would have prevented any normal person working without gloves. This is it.”

“But I still don’t understand. Who is going to look after her daughters, sir? The courts will have to get involved at that age and that risks them going to her parents. She would never allow that.”

Annette’s next words echoed Craig’s thoughts exactly.

“She’s not killing for her own motives, sir. She’s killing for someone else’s. In return, they’ll look after the children when she dies, financially, and maybe even in other ways. But who’s paying her, sir? Fiona McNamee’s dead and I spoke to her children and they genuinely sounded as if they knew nothing.”

Craig shook his head. It wasn’t the McNamee kids.

“The solicitor confirmed that they won’t even know how much they’ll inherit.”

“How much will they inherit Annette?”

“There’s 500 grand and the house, that’s probably worth about another four hundred.”

“That’s a lot for a teacher to leave.”

“That’s nothing. There was another two million from insurance policies, but she ran through it in the four years after her husband died.”

“And she died early this year?”

“Yes, in April. And I’ve checked, s...sir, there have been no hits on any of her accounts from that time. Everything is frozen until the estate has been dealt w...with.”

“Cash can be easily hidden, Davy.” Craig knew that his next question was cynical, but he asked it anyway.

“How was she killed, Annette? And where’s her body?”

“Sir?”

“Where’s Fiona McNamee’s body?”

Davy jumped in eagerly, “I can answer that, it’s at the bottom of the Mediterranean. The car went over the cliffs at La Venta near Marbella. They never found the car, or her.”