The History Suite (#9 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series)

The History Suite

Catriona King

Copyright © 2015 by Catriona King

Photography: Pauline Breijer

Editor: Maureen Vincent-Northam

Design: Crooked Cat

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or Crooked Cat Publishing except for brief quotations used for promotion or in reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

First Black Line Edition, Crooked Cat Publishing Ltd. 2014

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About the Author

Catriona King trained as a doctor and a police Forensic Medical examiner in London, where she worked for many years. She worked closely with the Metropolitan Police on several occasions. In recent years, she has returned to live in Belfast.

She has written since childhood; fiction, fact and reporting.

‘
The History Suite
’ is the ninth novel in the modern Craig Crime Series. It follows Superintendent Marc Craig and his team as they solve the mysterious murder of a health worker and leads them into a world of drugs, greed and war.

Book ten in the Craig Crime Series, ‘
The Sixth Estate
’, will be released later in 2015. Book eleven in the series is currently in edits.

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Northern Ireland for providing the inspiration for my books.

My thanks to Stewart Lilley, owner of ‘Bespoke Hairdressing’, Belfast.

I would like to thank Crooked Cat Publishing for being so unfailingly supportive and cheerful, as well as my editor, Maureen Vincent-Northam.

Finally I would like to thank all of the police officers that I have ever worked with, anywhere, for their unfailing professionalism, wit and compassion.

Catriona King

Belfast, April 2015

The Craig Crime Series

A Limited Justice

The Grass Tattoo

The Visitor

The Waiting Room

The Broken Shore

The Slowest Cut

The Coercion Key

The Careless Word

The History Suite

Discover more at:
www.catrionakingbooks.com

The author may be contacted to engage with about her books at:
[email protected]

The History Suite

Chapter One

St Mary’s Healthcare Trust, Belfast. Thursday, 9th October 2014. 11 a.m.

“I’ll meet you there in five, Caro. Sister Norton needs fresh towels from the linen room.”

Nurse Caroline Hobbert mimed biting into a cake; then she licked her lips, grinned at her friend and headed for the hospital canteen. Hannah Donard turned towards the large linen room, hoping that she’d find the towels quickly; she was desperate for a coffee. She tugged absentmindedly at the room’s wide wooden door, wondering why the trolley that usually lived inside was outside in the hall. She shrugged; it wasn’t her responsibility to make sure the porters did their jobs, that’s why Norton got paid the big bucks. She’d just begun rummaging through the towels when she saw the shoe. It was a flat, black lace-up that looked familiar, although it took her a second to work out why.

There are moments when people see their reflection where they don’t expect a reflection to be: in a mirror in an unfamiliar room or a newly washed window, even in an unnoticed puddle by their feet. That was how it seemed when Hannah saw the shoe; as if it was her own mirrored unexpectedly in a passing glass. Except that there was no glass or mirror or puddle and the shoe wasn’t hers. Neither was the foot inside it, or the ankle or the leg above. Or the skirt of the pale-blue dress or the soft navy cardigan worn over the top, to keep its owner warm on a long winter’s day; a woman who was always chilly but long past feeling it now.

Hannah Donard stood there, amongst the laundered bedcovers and starched cotton sheets, gazing down at the shoe that wasn’t hers. She was seized by the urge to push away the linen and see the face above the cardigan. To see whose foot filled the shoe and whose body filled the dress; the woman who wasn’t her, lying cold on the linen room floor. But she didn’t push and neither did she run, instead she simply screamed at the top of her voice.

***

Docklands Coordinated Crime Unit. The Murder Squad. 3.30 p.m.

“Of course, you realise what comes next, don’t you?”

Marc Craig lowered his newspaper and scanned his deputy’s face with a wariness born from years of familiarity. Ostensibly Liam Cullen’s freckled countenance looked so innocent that only someone with a heart of stone, or a world-weary cynicism developed from decades of hard knocks, could ever have thought that innocence wasn’t his default mode. His birth right, coded in his DNA, the word stamped through him from head to toe like ‘welcome to Brighton’ on a stick of rock. Ostensibly.

But anyone who had known Liam for more than one week knew that behind his altar boy smile and unfeasibly unlined almost fifty-year-old face lay a piss-taker of Olympic medal standard.

So there was no excuse for Craig taking the bait; he couldn’t plead ignorance or a lack of experience in his defence. Yet take the bait he did, because not to have taken it on the assumption that Liam was working up to a joke might have caused offence, and Craig didn’t like to offend people unless he had good reason to; then he would do it all day long.

He folded his paper and took the bait. “OK, and boy do I know that I’m going to regret asking this, but what
does
come next?”

Liam smiled. Not the smile of a man who was about to catch someone out, but an indulgent smile that said Craig had called it right.

“Next they’ll be having a baby, that’s what. They’ve been back from honeymoon now for two months; you mark my words, you’ll be hearing the clatter of tiny stethoscopes soon.”

Craig searched his D.C.I.’s face for an imminent laugh but it was nowhere to be found. Liam was serious! He actually believed that the Director of Forensic Pathology, John Winter and his new wife Natalie would be making a happy announcement soon. Craig frowned, unsure how he felt about the idea. John had been his friend since grammar school and now they worked together solving crimes, with John in pathology and him heading up the murder squad. He’d been best man at the Caribbean wedding in August where John had married Natalie Ingrams, a surgeon at St Mary’s Healthcare Trust, and he’d just about got his head around that; the idea of them being parents someday hadn’t even occurred to him!

Liam was still pontificating so neither of them noticed Nicky Morris, Craig’s P.A., standing by his open office door. How they’d missed her was anyone’s guess, given that today’s outfit was a lime green catsuit with matching platformed boots. To say that Nicky’s fashion sense was unusual was like saying that Lady Gaga liked putting on a show; obvious.

Nicky’s husky voice cut through Craig’s thoughts. “I agree with Liam. They’re both getting on a bit, so they won’t want to waste time.”

Craig spluttered out the coffee he’d just sipped. “Getting on a bit! Don’t sugar-coat it, will you!”

Nicky folded her arms, showing a cerise lining to her cuffs that Craig guessed she’d added specially, to ‘brighten the outfit up a bit’.

“There’s no point you saying they’re not, sir. Natalie’s thirty-six and Doctor Winter’s pushing forty-five.”

“He’s just turned forty-three and he’s only year younger than me!”

Nicky shrugged. “Well, you’re pushing it too.” As Craig gawped she gazed pointedly at his desk-phone. “You’ve knocked it off the hook again.”

He glanced at the handset and saw she was right.

“I’ve been trying to put Dr Winter through for five minutes. I think we have a case.”

Craig thanked God silently. They’d been sitting around for weeks with no new cases and all their paperwork done; he was bored stiff. Plus it was giving Nicky and Liam too much time to speculate about other people’s private lives.

He grabbed at the telephone so eagerly that even he knew it was wrong; someone somewhere had died, it wasn’t a reason to get excited, but…

“Hi, John, what’s the story?”

“No small talk? A man could be offended.”

Craig smiled. If John knew what they’d just been discussing he’d have choked on his words.

“Liam’s here so I’m putting you on speaker. Fire ahead.”

Winter paused for a moment and his silence told them everything they needed to know about their victim. All murders were sad and all of them were ugly, but some provoked an added layer of sorrow, pity or disgust. When the victims were especially vulnerable, young or old, or when they were people who’d spent their lives just trying to help. It wasn’t that there was a hierarchy of victimhood or that one life was worth than another, just that sometimes the outrage that accompanied every murder felt even more raw.

John swallowed hard. “There’s no nice way to say this. It’s a nurse from St Mary’s. Female, twenty-five.”

It was Craig’s turn to be silent so Liam stepped into the gap.

“When and where, Doc? And why did they call you?”

John laughed unexpectedly, lightening the mood. “Well… the janitor was busy and I was the next one on the list.”

Liam blustered. “I didn’t mean that, I…”

Craig found his voice. “He’s just winding you up, Liam. But he’s right, John, why
did
they call you instead of us?”

“They didn’t. I was at St Mary’s for a meeting when they found the body so they called me to have a look.”

Liam gawped. “It happened in the hospital?”

He thought of the last case they’d had in a hospital; at the M.P.E., the Maternity, Paediatric and Endocrine unit, part of the Trust across town from the main site. It was one of the nastiest messes they’d ever had to clean up and he hoped fervently this wasn’t going to be the same. Craig was thinking the same and adding media interest to the trouble heading their way.

“OK. Bring us up to speed.”

“The deceased’s name was Eleanor Rudd. She was a nurse on the Elderly Medicine Unit, the E.M.U. She was found in the unit’s linen room.”

“What time?”

“Eleven o’clock. She’d been dead for less than an hour. Manual strangulation.”

Craig frowned. “Manual? How big was she?”

“Five-eight and around ten stone, so whoever did it would’ve had to be strong. You can start ruling out just on that.” He continued thoughtfully. “She fought back hard, Marc. There were scratch marks on her neck where she’d tried to break their grip and injuries to both her hands. They broke two of her fingers, probably when they prised them off.”