The Sixth Estate (The Craig Crime Series) (12 page)

“He’s young; late teens or early twenties. And nervous, that’s why he sounds hoarse. Plus he’s whispering. He probably thought it would disguise his voice.”

Andy shot her a sceptical look. “Nervous! I’d say he was bricking it, hey. Doesn’t sound anywhere near tough enough to kidnap three people and leave all that blood.”

He gestured at the parquet floor and all eyes followed his move. Craig glanced at Liam. He was strangely silent.

“What are you thinking?”

Liam screwed up his face as if he wasn’t sure of his ground, an unusual feeling for him.

“Come on. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous it sounds.”

Liam shrugged. If the boss didn’t mind hearing his useless speculation then he didn’t mind giving it.

“He’s from Belfast, west Belfast.”

It was exactly what Vera Patterson had said but Craig wanted the reasons why.

“Why do you say that?”

Liam stared at him as if he was an idiot. “The accent.”

Craig sighed. “Yes, but what about it and why west as opposed to anywhere else?”

Liam glanced at the others for support. “OK, is there anyone here who doesn’t think that voice comes from Belfast?”

He was answered by a series of shaken heads.

“Right, so that leaves us with north, south, east or west.” He turned to Annette; she had a talent for accents that only ever came out at party time. “Annette – do a south Belfast accent for us.”

She gave a perfect impression of a voice from the Malone Road.

“Now east.”

She changed her inflection, flattened and elongated her vowels and they could have been on the Newtownards Road. She knew west Belfast was coming next, so without urging she recited ‘Mary had a little lamb’ in a perfect west Belfast twang.

“I can’t do north.”

Davy grinned at her with new found respect. “Do east again.”

Craig shook his head. “Save it for the pub. But tell me what you altered to make it sound like west Belfast.”

Annette folded her hands in her lap as if she was preparing to give a master class. “I’d advise you to get a linguist to listen to the tape, sir, but I think Liam’s right. It sounds like west Belfast to me. The speech is very fast and some of the intonation sounds like he’s an Irish speaker.”

Craig looked at the others. “Anyone disagree?”

Andy shrugged. “I haven’t a clue, but he definitely doesn’t come from up here.”

Craig wasn’t good with Belfast accents, although he could name a London one to within ten streets. He’d only lived in Belfast for ten years of his life; three when he’d been at Uni and seven since he’d returned from the big smoke.

“OK, Davy, get it to the language lab and see what they have to say. For now let’s say that we have a young, frightened west Belfast lad. What else?”

Annette considered for a moment. “Shall I write the call up on the board?”

“Excellent idea.”

A moment later the board bore the words; caller says ‘six million for them’ then Vera Patterson asks ‘six million for what?’ Followed by the caller’s replies; ‘the Bwyes’ and ‘no police’.

Craig squinted at the words and then turned back to the group.

“Any comments?”

Annette shrugged as if what she was about to say was obvious. “He assumed she would already know who he wanted the six million for, sir.”

Craig turned to Annette. “Yes, he did. But not just her; he assumed that Cameron Lawton would know. Why?”

She answered eagerly. “Because Lawton is a newspaper man and gossip travels fast in that world?”

“Perhaps. What else?”

Andy interjected. Craig was glad he’d stopped raising a finger to ask permission. “Because he thought The Chronicle already had the story?”

Craig made a face that said he wasn’t convinced. “Why would he think that? We’ve kept it very quiet. It hasn’t been in the press or on TV.”

Andy shook his head. He had nothing to back it up but that didn’t mean that he was wrong. Craig threw him a bone.

“He might have
wanted
the press to know, to get the word out there. Saying ‘six million for them’ would make any good journalist start to dig. It wouldn’t take long for it to become a headline.”

Andy nodded sagely as if that was what he’d meant all along. Craig noticed Liam and Davy exchanging meaningful looks.

“Nothing to say, you two? That’s a first.”

Davy answered for both of them. “W…We think they’re playing with us.”

It wasn’t the reply Craig had expected. “In what way?”

Liam picked up the conversation. “OK, they lift a family from west of the Bann but get a west Belfast man to ring. They know it’s not in the press yet, but they call a newspaper to deliver the ransom demand. They tell us they want money but don’t say how to get it to them, and then they say no police, when odds on someone has already seen us milling around outside.” He crossed his arms and leaned further forward over his chair. “I…we think they’re winding us up to waste time.

Maybe or maybe not. The wasted time would tell. They’d spent enough time on the phone call; there was nothing more they could do on it until the linguists and CCTV searches were complete. Craig started round the group on other things. Liam went first.

“Nothing new so far. We’ve doubled the search perimeter, like you asked.”

“What’s the terrain like?”

“Mostly fields. There’s a small wood to the north and a lake about half a mile northwest.” He gestured towards the back door. “The C.S.I.s found car tracks leading away from the door last Thursday, but they disappeared after about a mile. They were heading due north but they could easily have changed direction after they lost them. I checked the weather; it was freezing cold Wednesday night with just the odd shower, so we were lucky they even found those.”

“They were heading towards the wood?”

“Or the estate’s back exit.” He made a face. “Possibly towards the lake as well. Like I said.”

“I’m presuming they took casts, so anything specific yet?”

Davy chipped in. “They belong to a van of s…some sort; I’m chasing possible models.”

“Didn’t Bwye have CCTV around the perimeter?”

Liam shook his head. “Nope. For an alleged bastard he was a very trusting man.” He gestured at Davy. “The lad’s pulling everything he can from the traffic cams on the main road but there aren’t many round here; it’s Hicksville Arizona.”

Andy snorted. “Says the sophisticate from Crossgar.”

Craig nodded his head tiredly. “OK. Concentrate the search around the lake tomorrow.”

Liam’s face fell. “You think…”

“I don’t think anything yet, except that if I wanted my trail to disappear I’d use water. The ground around lakes is always a mess; it’s the perfect place to transfer them to another vehicle and then churn up the mud to cover their tracks.” He turned to Davy. “Davy, check out the local boat owners and anyone who uses that lake regularly. Find out if the Bwyes had exclusive rights or if it’s public property.”

Andy nodded. “It’s definitely worth a look, hey. We’ll move the men there at first light and see what we can find.”

“Right. Anything else?”

Annette looked embarrassed, as if she thought she’d overstepped the mark. “I had a word with Julia about Jane’s car.”

Craig raised an eyebrow. Half of him was surprised and half pleased. He hadn’t relished raising the topic with her but he knew that it had to be done. “And?”

“She said they’d no idea that Jane even had a car. It didn’t show up on the routine checks. She was right; the only cars registered to the Bwyes were Oliver Bwye’s Jaguar and Diana’s Honda.”

“Bernadette Ross knew the registration number.”

Annette shrugged. “It’s easy to remember. Perhaps it was registered in someone else’s name.”

Craig was puzzled. “But she saw Jane driving it towards the house that day.”

“Did she, sir? She saw the car but she might have assumed that Jane was the driver. I’ll ask again and get to the bottom of it.” She shrugged as if the point was redundant. “Either way the car’s been found.”

Craig leaned on the desk. “Burnt out.” He shook his head glumly. “Any useful forensics will have been destroyed.”

Liam nodded sagely. “Just like the torcher planned that they would be, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still get something useful from Ross. Jane may not have been driving it that day and Ross could just have said that to divert us.”

Craig shook his head. “Then she wouldn’t have mentioned seeing it at all and drawing our attention to it. Davy, find out who the Mercedes was registered to and who bought it. There’s no way that Jane had a car without her mother knowing; they were too close.”

“You think her mum bought it for her?”

“And paid for the insurance. But it wasn’t registered in either of their names so perhaps it’s in the boyfriend’s. Diana mightn’t have thought he was so unsuitable after all.”

Annette persisted. “What if Ross
didn’t
see Jane driving? What if she just saw the car, a car that she’d seen Jane in before, and assumed that it was her behind the wheel?”

Craig considered for a moment. It raised several questions: whether Jane’s boyfriend had driven the car to the house that evening, or Jane had and either or both of them were involved in the kidnap. Or did a more innocent scenario apply? Where Jane had gone to see her mother because she knew her father was at the golf-club, and she knew he wouldn’t have seen her in the car. Whichever it was they would find out.

“OK, check that out and keep me up to date. Andy, any more word on the blood forensics?”

“They’ve matched the types. One matched to Diana Bwye from hairs on her comb and one to Oliver Bwye from his toothbrush.”

“Anything on the girl?”

“Not yet. The third DNA was canine, hey.”

“A dog! Did they have one?”

“Aye, the girl had a Yorkie. No-one’s seen it for days.”

Craig nodded. Cut the parents and kill the dog, it would terrify the girl and keep her quiet. But why not cut her as well? Was Jane part of the plot or the kidnapper’s main prize? Or perhaps she’d been killed in some other way? If the whole thing was a family annihilation, Oliver Bwye was easily smart enough to leave his blood to throw them off the track. Family annihilators normally killed the youngest first, to make the others suffer by watching, but the absence of Jane’s blood didn’t mean that she wasn’t dead; strangulation or snapping her neck wouldn’t have left any trail.

“OK, more questions to answer. What about the forensics in the main room? Annette, did Ross notice anything out of place in here?”

Andy answered first. “The main room was covered in prints. It seems Diana Bwye held some of her charity meetings here; we’re eliminating the groups’ members now.”

Annette interjected. “Ross said she hadn’t noticed anything out of place in there, so I brought her back this afternoon for another look. Forensics put everything back where it was when they arrived on Thursday morning and the only thing Ross noticed out of place was the whisky decanter. Oliver Bwye was the only whisky drinker and he always kept it on the table beside the hearth, but it was on a lamp table across the room when the police first arrived. It’d already been printed so I’ve put a rush on those.”

Craig looked thoughtful. Was it possible that whoever had taken the Bwyes had been so confident of not being disturbed that they’d poured themselves a whisky? He prayed their killers had been that arrogant.

“Good. OK, Liam and Davy, anything new?”

They both shook their heads and Liam said what Craig already knew. “Everything is happening that can be happening and we’re seeing the last of the domestic staff in the a.m. Unless we catch a break or something new happens it’s just going to be hard slog.”

He was right. There was nothing more they could do until tomorrow. He glanced at the clock; it was almost six o’clock.

“OK, good work all of you. There’s no point you all hanging about here tonight so I suggest that everyone goes home to Belfast or wherever they want to go. We’ll hold on to the rooms at the hotel.”

Liam was halfway out the door when Craig thought of something and beckoned him back.

“The dog.”

“What about it? I can’t stand small dogs. Yappy wee things.”

“What are the odds Jane wouldn’t have had it micro-chipped? And GPS tagged. A dog that size on a thousand acre estate could die if they didn’t trace it quickly.”

Liam grinned in admiration. “Very clever. The NSPCA would be proud of you.”

Craig turned towards Davy, to see him packing his bag, ready to leave.

“Davy, get onto the local vets first thing tomorrow. I want that dog found.”

“W…Will do, chief.”

As Liam resumed his bolt for the door Davy followed after, struggling to keep up with Liam’s two man strides.

“Can I get a lift to Belfast?”

“As long as you don’t moan about how fast I drive. I’ll pick you up in the morning and bring you back.”

Andy gathered his things for the short drive back to Portstewart which only left Annette and Craig in the room.