The Sect (The Craig Crime Series) (37 page)

“But a killer’s going to get off scot free.”

She surprised him with a small smile. “Greer will get hers someday. God pays debts without money.”

Yemi laughed loudly. “That’s a cockney expression. Where did you learn it?”

“Maghera. My granny used to say it all the time.”

None of them could recall who’d heard the noise first, or exactly what they’d heard; a scream or a bang, or the sound of a police radio summoning help. Whatever it was Craig had his gun out and was racing towards the sound in seconds, with the others in close pursuit. He already knew what would greet them; someone lying dead on the ground. He prayed fervently that it was Joanne Greer and not some other poor sod that’d just got in the way.

As they were running another man was proceeding at a much slower pace, on the rooftop of a building in May Street from where he’d had a perfect view of Greer entering the prison van. Stevan Mitic’s plans had run smoothly but he’d been shocked at how easily he’d taken the shot after years of not firing a gun. He shrugged it off quickly. He felt no remorse at the kill; this was for Kaisa and Dejan and Greer had been nothing but scum ready to trade them for a return to her greedy life.

He took the Sodium Hydroxide from his bag and quickly stripped the SAKO down to its parts, then he poured the liquid carefully, changing his clothes as he waited for everything to dissolve. The noise of sirens faded as the metal fizzed and bubbled and he pondered how he’d ended up back in Belfast after leaving it almost three years before. He felt almost nostalgic; his life as a Belfast barman hadn’t been without its charms.

Now his killing days were over. Greer had been one last exception and it was her own stupid fault. If she’d just served her time she would still be breathing, but he’d known if her appeal failed she would barter them for a pardon and that he could never have allowed.

As the sirens came back into focus and the final fizzing bubble collapsed, Stevan walked slowly down the fire escape, climbed into his car and headed for a private airstrip. At the same time Craig was kneeling by the corpse of the woman who waved at them smugly just minutes before, relieved that her escort was safe and feeling guilty that he really didn’t care that Joanne Greer was dead.

The guilt only lasted a moment then he headed for his car, beckoning the others to keep up. They might not have liked Greer but they had to work her murder and he knew that if they didn’t get a move on her killer would soon be out of reach.

THE END

Core
Characters in the Craig Crime Novels

Superintendent Marc (Marco) Craig:
Craig is a sophisticated, single, forty-four-year-old. Born in Northern Ireland, he is of Northern Irish/Italian extraction, from a mixed religious background but agnostic. An ex-grammar schoolboy and Queen’s University Law graduate, he went to London to join The Met (The Metropolitan Police) at 22, rising in rank through its High Potential Development Training Scheme. He returned to Belfast in 2008 after fifteen years away.

He is a driven, very compassionate, workaholic, with an unfortunate temper that he struggles to control and a tendency to respond with his fists. His girlfriend of one year, Katy Stevens, is a consultant physician at the local St Mary’s Healthcare Trust.

He lives alone in a modern apartment block in Stranmillis, near the university area of Belfast. His parents, his extrovert mother Mirella (an Italian pianist) and his quiet father Tom (an ex-university lecturer in Physics) live in Holywood town, six miles away. His rebellious ten years younger sister, Lucia, works as the manager of a local charity and also lives in Belfast.

Craig is now a Superintendent heading up Belfast’s Murder Squad, based in the thirteen storey Co-ordinated Crime Unit (C.C.U.) in Pilot Street, in the Sailortown area of Belfast’s Docklands. He loves the sea, sails when he has the time and is generally very sporty. He loves music by Snow Patrol and follows Manchester United and Northern Ireland’s football team, and Ulster Rugby.

D.C.I. Liam Cullen:
Craig’s Detective Chief Inspector. Liam is a forty-nine-year-old former RUC officer from Crossgar in Northern Ireland, who transferred into the PSNI in 2001 following the Patton Reforms. He has lived and worked in Northern Ireland all his life and has spent thirty years in the police force, twenty of them policing Belfast, including during The Troubles.

He is married to the forty-year-old, long suffering Danielle (Danni), a part-time nursery nurse, and they have a four-year-old daughter Erin and a two-year-old son called Rory. Liam is unsophisticated, indiscreet and hopelessly non-PC, but he’s a hard worker with a great knowledge of the streets and has a sense of humour that makes everyone, even the Chief Constable, laugh at times.

D.I. Annette McElroy:
Annette is Craig’s Detective Inspector who has lived and worked in Northern Ireland all her life. She is a forty-seven-year-old ex-nurse who, after her nursing degree, worked as a nurse for thirteen years and then, after a career break, retrained and has now been in the police for an equal length of time. She’s in the process of divorcing her husband Pete, a P.E teacher at a state secondary school, because of his infidelity and violence. They have two children, a boy and a girl (Jordan and Amy), both teenagers. Annette is kind and conscientious with an especially good eye for detail. She also has very good people skills but is a bit of goody-two-shoes. Since her marriage broke down, she’s acquired a newly glamorous image and is seeing Mike Augustus, a pathologist who works with Dr John Winter.

Nicky Morris:
Nicky Morris is Craig’s thirty-nine-year-old personal assistant. She used to be PA to Detective Chief Superintendent (D.C.S.) Terry
‘Teflon’
Harrison. Nicky is a glamorous Belfast mum, married to Gary, who owns a small garage, and is the mother of a teenage son, Jonny. She comes from a solidly working class area in East Belfast, just ten minutes’ drive from Docklands.

She is bossy, motherly and street-wise and manages to organise a reluctantly-organised Craig very effectively. She has a very eclectic fashion sense, and there is an ongoing innocent office flirtation between her and Liam.

Davy Walsh:
The Murder Squad’s twenty-eight-year-old computer analyst. A brilliant but shy EMO, Davy’s confidence has grown during his time on the team, making his lifelong stutter on ‘s’ and ‘w’ diminish, unless he’s under stress.

His father is deceased and Davy lives at home in Belfast with his mother and grandmother. He has an older sister, Emmie, who studied English at university. His girlfriend of two years, Maggie Clarke, is a journalist at The Belfast Chronicle.

Dr John Winter:
John is the forty-four-year-old Director of Pathology for Northern Ireland, one of the youngest ever appointed. He’s brilliant, eccentric, gentlemanly, and really likes the ladies, but he met his match in Natalie Winter, a surgeon at St Mary’s Trust, and has now been happily married for seven months.

He was Craig’s best friend at school and university and remained in Northern Ireland to build his medical career. He is now internationally respected in his field. John persuaded Craig that the newly peaceful Northern Ireland was a good place to return to and assists Craig’s team with cases whenever he can. He is obsessed with crime in general and US police shows in particular.

D.C.S. Terry (Teflon) Harrison:
Craig’s old boss. The fifty-six-year-old Detective Chief Superintendent is based at the Headquarters building in Limavady in the northwest Irish countryside. He lives in a converted farm house at Toomebridge with his homemaker wife Mandy and their thirty-year-old daughter Sian, a marketing consultant. He has also had a trail of mistresses, often younger than his daughter.

Harrison is tolerable as a boss as long as everything’s going well, but he is acutely politically aware and a bit of a snob, and very quick to pass on any blame to his subordinates (hence the Teflon nickname). He sees Craig as a rival and resents his friendship with John Winter, who wields a great deal of power in Northern Ireland.

Key Back
ground Locations

The majority of locations referenced in the book are real, with some exceptions
.

Northern Ireland (real)
: Set in the northeast of the island of Ireland, Northern Ireland was created in 1921 by an act of British parliament. It forms part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and shares a border to the south and west with the Republic of Ireland. The Northern Ireland Assembly holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters. It was established by the Northern Ireland Act 1998 as part of the Good Friday Agreement.

Belfast (real):
Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, set on the flood plain of the River Lagan. The seventeenth largest city in the United Kingdom and the second largest in Ireland, it is the seat of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The Dockland’s
Co-ordinated Crime Unit (The C.C.U. - fictitious):
The modern thirteen storey headquarters building is situated in Pilot Street in Sailortown, a section of Belfast between the M1 and M2 undergoing massive investment and re-development. The C.C.U. hosts the police murder, gang crimes, vice and drug squad offices, amongst others.

Sailortown
(real):
An historic area of Belfast on the River Lagan that was a thriving area between the 16
th
-20
th
centuries. Many large businesses grew in the area, ships docked for loading and unloading and their crews from far flung places such as China and Russia mixed with a local Belfast population of ship’s captains, chandlers, seamen and their families.

Sailortown was a lively area where churches and bars fought for the souls and attendance of the residents and where many languages were spoken each day. The basement of the Rotterdam Bar, at the bottom of Clarendon Dock, acted as the overnight lock-up to prisoners being deported to the Antipodes on boats the next morning, and the stocks which held the prisoners could still be seen until the 1990s.

During the years of World War Two the area was the most bombed area of the UK outside Central London, as the Germans tried to destroy Belfast’s ship building capacity. Sadly the area fell into disrepair in the 1970s/1980s when the motorway extension led to compulsory purchases of many homes and businesses, and decimated the Sailortown community. The rebuilding of the community has now begun, with new families moving into starter homes and professionals into expensive dockside flats.

The Pathology Labs (fictitious):
The labs, set on Belfast’s Saintfield Road as part of a large Science Park, are where Dr John Winter, Northern Ireland’s Head of Pathology, and his co-worker, Dr Des Marsham, Head of Forensic Science, carry out the post-mortem and forensic examinations that help Craig’s team solve their cases.

St Mary’s Healthcare Trust (fictitious):
St Mary’s is one of the largest hospital trusts in the UK. It is spread over hospital sites across Belfast, including the main Royal St Mary’s Hospital site and the Maternity, Paediatric and Endocrine (M.P.E.) unit, a stand- alone site on Belfast’s Lisburn Road, in the University sector of the city.