The Sect (The Craig Crime Series) (31 page)

This time even John’s vanity wouldn’t allow him to miss what was happening and he began to feel uncomfortable. He shook his head noncommittally and opened the door as wide as it would go.

“I really must get on with my work, Doctor Emiliani. Thank you for all your help.”

She finally took the hint, rising sinuously and strolling past him far too close. As soon as she left, John lifted the phone to Natalie, convinced that she’d been right all along. Sofia Emiliani didn’t give a damn about their murders but she definitely had Craig in her sights.

Chapter
Fifteen

The briefing lasted five minutes. They didn’t have time to hang around when there was so much still to do. The only two updates looked like dead ends; Theodora Rustin had never travelled to France or Spain, although Italy had been her favourite holiday destination for years and, as Liam had pointed out, EuroRail provided access across the continent. Sadly it hadn’t done on any of the relevant dates. Whatever Rustin’s role was in the group it wasn’t as an assassin. The other update was that the tyre track belonged to a BMW. They could narrow it to a five series but as no-one they’d interviewed owned any series at all it was back to the drawing board on both points.

Craig passed on Jack’s list of suggestions and went to his office to phone Des. He was halfway through asking if Devaney’s stomach contents matched the others when there were several hard raps on the door. He could see Nicky’s outline through the glass.

“Hang on, Des. Nicky wants me.”

He said “come” and Nicky entered the room at breakneck speed.

“You need to talk to Maggie.”

Craig frowned. It sounded like something that could wait. “Tell her I’ll get back to her.”

Suddenly Nicky did something she never did. She pressed the top of the phone to cut Craig’s call then raced back to her desk and transferred another as he gawped.

“That was Des!”

“You need to take this. Trust me.”

Because he did he reserved his tirade for later and lifted his phone quickly when it rang.

“Hello, Maggie.”

Maggie Clarke’s brisk tones came down the line. They’d got brisker since she’d become The Chronicle’s news editor.

“Marc, listen. I’ve had a call from your killers.”

Craig’s eyes widened and he nodded at the anxious P.A. standing by his door.

“You’re sure?”

“As sure as I can be. The one I spoke to identified herself as a Professor Theodora Rustin. I’ve checked and she’s on the staff at Queen’s.”

He shouted at Nicky to find Liam, delaying Maggie till he’d lifted the other line.

“Say that again, Maggie.”

“Professor Theodora Rustin. Do you know her?”

Liam cut in. “Aye. I met her twice. What about her?”

“She’s just phoned me with a statement she wants printed in this evening’s paper -”

Craig interrupted. “Or what?”

“Or they’ll kill someone else. She said they
had
finished here, but they would start again if I didn’t comply.”

“Here?”

“That’s what she said; I tape every call to my line so I played it back. She was very specific. It sounds like they’re planning to do the same thing elsewhere.”

It fitted with the killings shifting religious sites.

“Did she give you any names, Maggie?”

“No, but she definitely talked about ‘they’. I’ve emailed the recording to Davy. He can play it for you.” Her brisk voice wavered. “I don’t know what to do, Marc. If we print it we’re giving these bastards a platform, but if we don’t they’ll kill someone else.” She paused for a moment and her next words held real panic. “She says if we don’t print it she’ll contact other journalists, and none of us can control what they do.”

It confirmed his fear. The group had no intention of stopping and just like terrorists they wanted publicity, to make the world see what they were doing and why. As if anything could make their actions understandable!

But Maggie was agitated enough so he kept his voice calm.

“What’s the latest time you can go to print?”

“The deadline’s six o’clock, to be in the shops at eight. But there’s no way Mr Lawton and the Board will let us print this.”

It was ten-past-five now - they had less than an hour. It wasn’t enough time.

“Do you post online simultaneously?”

“Yes. They said they’d check our website and if it wasn’t there then they’d buy the paper from the shops. If it wasn’t in the print version then they’d kill again tonight.”

Craig had an idea but he needed to discuss it. “OK, here’s what I want you to do. Write your article and get it ready to go. Someone will get back to you in twenty minutes. If Cameron Lawton gives you grief put him onto me.”

“But, Marc––”

His voice was firm. “Twenty minutes, Maggie.”

He cut the call and raced out to Davy’s desk, beckoning the others over to listen to the tape. Liam nodded when he heard the voice; it was definitely Teddy Rustin’s. She hadn’t attempted to disguise it; she knew her identity was blown. As the tape ended Craig galvanized his team.

“Liam, get Rustin’s photo to every foot patrol and shops, supermarkets; anywhere that sells The Chronicle. Their distribution office can give you a list. Carmen, get it to central CCTV surveillance as well; they cover all the in-shop cameras. It’s a long shot but if Rustin’s already exposed she may be dispensable; they might send her to buy the hard copy.”

Liam shook his head. “Safer to send someone we have no I.D. on.”

“I said it was a long shot, but if she does go and we miss her there’ll be hell to pay.”

He swung round to locate Annette. “Annette, there’s still skeleton surveillance at the Saint Patrick’s site, contact the local uniforms and beef it up. It’s part of the ritual to dump there, so if they kill again tonight it’s where they’ll leave the body and we might catch them in the act. Everyone else, drop what you’re doing and help Liam and Annette.” He turned back to Davy. “Davy, I need you for a special task.”

Forty minutes later Carmen was on computer watch, Annette was at The Chronicle calming Maggie, and Liam and Ken were primed to go if Rustin’s image flagged at a shop. Craig and Davy were hunched over a computer, trying to build a dummy Chronicle website to replace the official one; banking on the stats that most Chronicle readers still preferred print to pixels. Those that didn’t would already have the real site’s URL in their browser and there was nothing that they could do to change that, but a slight alteration to the URL in the search engines might send the killers to the dummy site and fool them for a while.

Posting the article there at eight would reach the smallest audience and buy them time. It was a Hail Mary pass but with any luck Rustin would see it, think they’d complied and a life would be saved, if not she might go to buy the paper and they’d catch her in the act.

Worst case scenario, another member of the group whom they didn’t know would buy the paper and realise that The Chronicle hadn’t complied, but by then everyone would be in place at Saul. It could mean another death but at least they would catch them when they left the body this time. It wasn’t ideal but it was the only thing Craig could think of in the time.

Fortunately or unfortunately the decision was taken out of his hands. Not by Sean Flanagan, whom he’d meant to ring but hadn’t had the time, but by a much less savoury man. A second call from Maggie at five-fifty interrupted their preparations. Her voice held a mixture of sorrow, panic and relief.

“God, Marc, I’m sorry.”

Craig gripped the receiver. “Tell me.”

“It’s already in print. The Belfast Mirror ran it in its early edition. There was no way that we could have known.” She paused. “The killers obviously didn’t trust us to do it.”

He nodded. “They must have known of our connection. They were playing you all along.” It was his turn to pause as a light flicked on in his head. “Whose name is on the article?”

As he asked he already knew the answer. Ray Mercer. This was payback, but the stupid bastard was paying other people back to get revenge on him.

He mouthed ‘Belfast Mirror’ to Davy and watched as the bright red headline appeared on his screen. “God’s Judgement.” What followed was every bit as bad as he’d feared; a religious rant masquerading as a manifesto from God.

Maggie answered just as Craig read the reporter’s name.

“Ray Mercer’s. He’s freelancing now. They must have offered him a lot to do it.”

Craig’s tone was cynical. “I doubt it. If it meant he could screw us he would have done it for free.” She didn’t argue, they both knew Mercer too well. “OK, thanks, Maggie. Let me know if there’s anything new. I’ll hand you over to Davy.”

Davy covered the receiver with his hand and returned to the practicalities. “Do you want Mercer lifted, chief?”

Craig nodded. His overt reason was to see what, if anything, Mercer had learned about their killers, but beneath it he could feel the cold frisson of revenge.

“Get Jack’s team to do it. Throw him in a room at High Street and I’ll get there when I’ve nothing better to do.”

At least it solved one problem; no-one else would die this week. Now they had another; how to handle the public and press. He didn’t have the time for press conferences or to deal with a microphone shoved in his face. Time to delegate.

“Nicky, send Annette in to see me when she gets back. I have a job for her.” He turned towards his office. “Don’t disturb me unless someone’s dying. I need to think.”

The thinking was accompanied by a pacing that everyone on two floors could hear. It was as rapid as the thoughts racing through his head. They knew two members of the sect now: Rustin and McDonagh, but neither of them had the balls to be the boss. He stopped pacing abruptly. It was more than a sect, it was an international movement. Some distorted Christian Jihad. He would never say it out loud but to his mind the term fitted, but whatever it was called it had at least three local members and probably far more than that.

He ran through what they knew. Rustin knew Vulgar Latin but she could never have carried the bodies, no matter how thin most of them were. McDonagh and some other man maybe? They needed to check McDonagh’s alibis for the abduction and disposal times. Jake could do that, if he could get through the wall of legalese that Seamus Bell would erect.

What if McDonagh was clear, who else could have carried out the abductions and how many of them were there? Bell’s presence at High Street said there was at least one more and that they were wealthy. In his experience wealthy men hired others to do their dirty work so if McDonagh was successfully alibied they were looking for at least three more men; the boss and two to carry the bodies without leaving footprints.

So that made five group members: Rustin, McDonagh and three more men, one of them the boss. Or was there a sixth? Would the big boss really get close enough to hire a brief? And who looked after the victims between abduction and kill? The men who dumped them?

He shook his head. What did it matter if there were ten or twenty, they could count them when they’d stopped them and they were no closer to doing that now than they had been on day one. He was about to resume pacing when Nicky knocked gingerly on the door, entering without waiting for his word.

“Sir, Mercer’s at High Street creating hell, Annette and Liam are outside and Davy says he’s got something for you.”

Craig stared into space as if he hadn’t heard. She went to repeat herself but he cut her off.

“Send Davy in first, please.” He glanced at the clock. Almost seven; they weren’t getting home anytime soon. “And would you mind phoning my Dad and apologising. I said I’d call in this evening.”

A moment later, Davy entered. Craig nodded him to a seat.

“What have you got for me?”

The analyst winced then set his smart-pad on the desk. The screen was split into two maps.

Craig squinted for somewhere he recognised amongst the place names. “Where are they?”

“The s…site on the left is Fátima in Portugal; the Sanctuary of Fátima to be precise. The one on the right is Mexico City; the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Two more religious sites.

“When and how many?”

“Mexico, one death in twenty-ten, drowned and wrapped in towels in their hotel room. Portugal, three killed in twenty-fourteen in exactly the same way as ours, all on dates significant to the Catholic faith. The Portuguese victims each had a religious medal in their hands.”

A medal; it was the beginning of the group marking their victims. The tattoos had come next.

“I’ve emailed all four local forces for the files. I’m checking for other sites in the Americas and then I’ll s…start elsewhere.”

Craig shook his head. “Leave that for now and find out if the group contacted the local press at any of the sites. If not, this press release means that they’re ready to come out of hiding, which means they must think they’re strong enough to evade the authorities now.”

His heart sank. How many years had this been happening and how the hell had it been missed?

“Hand the searches off to Carmen, and give her Jack’s list to work as well, but everything can wait until we all get something to eat.” He yelled through the half-open door. “Nicky, order some food please. See what everyone wants, and send Liam and Annette in.”

Twenty minutes later everyone was eating, talking or tapping on a computer screen and Annette and Liam were in Craig’s room. Annette had been tasked with handling the media. She was pleased; it was something she’d need on her CV when she went for D.C.I. She swallowed a chip then asked Craig’s advice on the press.