Unti Lucy Black Novel #3 (14 page)

 

Chapter Thirty-­Two

T
HEY RETURNED TO
the Strand Road at the request of Burns.

“And you were investigating a burglary because . . . ?” Burns asked, sitting behind his desk while Lucy and Tom Fleming stood before him, having offered neither a seat. He leant forward slightly, his hands restless on the wooden surface beneath them.

Fleming moved across to where two chairs sat against the far wall and dragged one over for Lucy, then returned and brought a second for himself.

“The woman whose house was targeted is a friend. She has given some light housework to a teenager from the care unit in the Waterside. They'd become quite close. She was afraid the child had stolen from her, but didn't know whether she wanted to press charges. She asked me to look into it.”

“That's not PPU business,” Burns said irritably.

“Anything involving children in care is very much our business,” Tom Fleming said. “Always has been.”

“What about the body in the coffin? Has that reached a dead end?”

Fleming chuckled lightly at Burns's irritability, which just served to fuel it further. “We're still working it.”

“You might have been working it quicker if you'd not been chasing up burglaries.”

“And following up phone tip-­offs in a murder investigation,” Fleming added. “As it's transpired, all of them have crossed over anyway, so it's a result all round.”

Burns stared at Fleming.

“Sir,” he added, finally.

Satisfied with even such a small victory, Burns sat back. “So, what do we know?”

“We know Kamil Krawiec was part of a gang that laid a drive, badly, a fortnight ago for Doreen Jeffries, got paid, and never came back to finish it. Based on fingerprints found at the scene we think that, at some stage during the past ten days, Kamil and another man called Aaron Moore accessed Doreen Jeffries's house, probably knowing she was on holiday, and lifted all her jewelry. We suspect they used a spare key that the woman hid in the garden to get into the house; the key is now missing. We know that, toward the end of last week, Kamil was staying with Terry Haynes. We know that Kamil was also part of a gang, possibly the same one that laid the driveway for Doreen Jeffries, that was stripping copper from the empty bank building in Waterloo Place. He was murdered there, with hammers used by at least two assailants and his body dumped in the bin off Sackville Street. Terry Haynes's car was seen leaving the vicinity of that bin in the middle of the night. Haynes has not been seen since the end of last week.”

“So what're the priorities?” Burns asked.

“Finding Terry Haynes and Aaron Moore, I'd imagine,” Fleming said.

“Doreen's stuff was worth thousands, but Kamil had five quid in his wallet and was staying with someone with a history of providing free accommodation for recovering alcoholics.”

“Was Terry Haynes running the driveway gang?”

“Apparently not,” Fleming said. “We showed Doreen Jeffries a picture of him. She said she didn't think it was him.”

“Didn't
think?
Is she an older woman?” Burns asked, skeptically.

“She not only recognized Kamil, but she remembered he had an accent,” Lucy said. “She's not doting.”

“And you know Terry Haynes, is that right?” Burns asked, nodding to Fleming.

“I think that's common knowledge,” Fleming said.

“So he
could
be running the driveway gang, but you'd prefer not to think that he is.”

Fleming stared at him a moment. “I would prefer not to believe that he's involved, yes,” he agreed. “I also believe that he's not, having shown his picture to the one witness we have who has seen the person running the gang.”

“A witness who happens to be a pensioner, looking at a picture of someone she saw a few weeks ago,” Burns said. “If you
didn't
know Terry Haynes, would you be convinced he's not involved in this in some way?”

Fleming didn't speak for a moment. Finally, he coughed lightly. “Probably not,” he said.

“
We'
ll
take it from here, then,” Burns said with a nod. “What's the situation with the coffin body?”

Lucy groaned. Again she'd not called at the unit to collect the list from Beaumont. It was such a long shot her heart sank at the prospect of having to work through the list. “Ciaran Duffy did a runner yesterday, but has lodged a request to empty his bank account at three o'clock this afternoon. A sum of money was deposited earlier in the week, just after the switch of bodies.”

“You'll be keeping an eye on the bank, Tom,” Burns said to Fleming. “Lucy, the ACC has asked that you accompany me to a meeting with the council this afternoon.”

“Me?” Lucy asked, glancing at Fleming who was clearly smarting from being told to do a bank stake out.

“Don't ask me,” Burns said. “We all have to follow orders, whether we like them or not,” he added, looking at Fleming. “We're meeting some guy Boyd who was responsible for boarding up the buildings around the town, including the bank where Krawiec was killed. ACC Wilson suspects that other buildings may have been targeted for piping and that, and wants us to encourage the council to start inspections. See if it throws up any other leads. We've not the men—­or women—­for it at the moment.”

Lucy nodded. “I understand,” she said. She also knew that she wasn't there to talk about boarded-­up buildings. Her mother was giving her the opportunity to meet John Boyd officially.

“I can't drive,” Fleming muttered angrily. “I can't stake out the bank if I can't drive.”

“Ask someone in traffic branch to take you down,” Burns said. “In fact, I'd like a word, Tom,” Burns said. “I'll see you here at two, Lucy,” he added, dismissing her from the room.

Lucy waited outside the office for Fleming. While she couldn't hear the exact content of the discussion, there was no doubting the acrimonious tone, not least when she discerned Tom Fleming's raised voice tell Burns, “I don't really care. Suspend me again.”

When he appeared a moment later, he was flustered, his hands balled at his sides, his shoulders hunched.

“Everything okay?” Lucy asked.

“Chief Superintendent Burns has concerns about my respect for his authority.”

“Really?” Lucy asked, struggling not to smile. “What gave it away?”

Fleming glared at her momentarily, then broke into a smile himself. “Jumped-­up little shit. I have no respect for the rules of line management, apparently.”

“Line management? What an arse!”

“That's what I thought. ‘
What are our priorities?
' He's the man in charge, what's he asking us for?”

“Maybe he was being democratic,” Lucy said.

“Democratic? We're the police ser­vice for God's sake. Democracy never comes into it.”

He walked down the hallway, out of the incident room, then stopped and waited for Lucy to catch up. The last time things had got on top of Fleming, he'd started drinking again. Lucy was acutely aware that, considering how important Terry Haynes had been in helping him back on his feet then, Haynes's absence now meant a second slip might not be so swiftly reversed.

“You're not thinking of . . . leaving or anything like that are you?” she asked, as delicately as she could.

“Leaving?” Fleming said incredulously. “I'm only starting to enjoy my work for the first time in years. Why would I leave?”

 

Chapter Thirty-­Three

T
HEY RETURNED TO
Maydown, having stopped on the way to get milk for tea. While Fleming put on the kettle, Lucy went up to her office to check for the fax from Beaumont. She flicked through the various documents lying in the tray—­mostly Missing Persons Alerts sent out from other forces—­but there was nothing from the hospital. She phoned through and explained the reason for her call. The receptionist with whom she spoke asked her to hold and, a moment later, she was transferred through to a consultant who introduced himself as Niall Horan.

“You're looking for a list of our patients who received cranial implants,” he said. “There are all kinds of issues with that.”

“I understand,” Lucy said. “We're investigating what we believe to be a murder. A body was cremated in a coffin intended for someone else. There's no record of who was in the coffin, but we recovered a metal skull plate and leg plate after the cremation process.”

“I see,” Horan said. “How do you know the victim was treated through us?”

“The skull plate had a batch number. I contacted USS and they said it went to you in October 2007.”

Horan laughed briefly. “That was lucky. I remember that batch.”

“You remember a specific batch of skull plates? Seriously?” Lucy asked, incredulously.

“Well, not the plates, but the order they were part of. USS had just set up in Dublin. They treated a lot of the neurosurgeons to a conference in San Francisco, with our partners invited along. They took orders for implants from us at the end of a particularly wet dinner.”

“I see,” Lucy said, neutrally.

“That was the only batch I ordered from them. We took a thousand, I believe.”

“So I understand,” Lucy said. “Which is why I wanted to get the list to start working through it.”

“Look, there are issues with sharing patients' confidential information, especially with a foreign police force,” Horan said. “What I will do is get one of the girls here to run a computer check and filter the names against leg injuries, too. We'll see how many that leaves us with first. I'll get back to you later.”

He hung up before Lucy had a chance to give him her contact details, necessitating a return call to do so. As she waited to be transferred, her mobile emitted a text alert: “
Hi. Fiona Walsh here. Do you fancy meeting for a coffee later?
”

It took her a few seconds to work out who Fiona was. She wondered whether her looking to meet was connected in some way with Lucy's meeting with Boyd that afternoon, but she thought it unlikely her mother would have told Boyd who Lucy was, or that he could have made the connection between a name and the woman he saw swimming with his partner a few nights earlier.

“
Great. Where and when? Working till 6,
” she replied.

Within a moment, Fiona replied, suggesting the Everglades, the hotel at the foot of Prehen, at 8:30.

After she'd left her details with Horan's secretary, she went downstairs. Fleming had a mug of tea waiting for her, milk and sugar already added.

“So, you're off to meet some VIP at the behest of your mother?” Fleming said, smiling wryly. “While I, your superior officer, get to do a stake out on a bank?”

“My superior officer or line manager?” Lucy asked.

“Both,” Fleming agreed. “You know, I think that's where I've been going wrong all these years. I've been giving myself the wrong title.”

“Anyone who needs to give themselves a title doesn't deserve it,” Lucy said.

Fleming looked across at her, his mug inches from his mouth. “That's incredibly philosophical of you, DS Black,” he joked. “So who's Boyd?”

“John Boyd,” Lucy explained. “His partner's sister is a neighbor of mine. The partner arrived at their house the other night, out of the blue, with a split lip. Since she started dating Boyd, the family has barely seen her. We went swimming the night before last and Boyd was sitting by the pool, watching.”

“So, controlling or abusive?”

“Both, I think,” Lucy said. “She had bruises on her chest which looked like finger marks, like he'd grabbed her breast too hard.”

“It couldn't have been accidental? A bit of horseplay during sex?”

“Not unless that included punching her in the mouth, too,” Lucy said sharply.

Fleming raised his free hand. “I'm playing devil's advocate,” he said. “You know that's what he'll claim. Is the partner prepared to make a statement?”

Lucy shook her head. “Not yet. Though she texted me to ask to meet for coffee later. She thinks he's trying to control her from one side and her family is from the other. She sees me as a neutral space, I think.”

“Neutral?” Fleming asked, skeptically.

“She doesn't know I'm a cop,” Lucy admitted.

“Really! Well, good luck with that,” he said. “Of course, if she finds out, and thinks you lied to her, she'll not trust anyone again.”

 

Chapter Thirty-­Four

B
URNS INSISTED ON
driving to the council meeting, despite the fact that the offices were only a few hundred yards down the road from the Strand Road police station. The council building, a large gray affair, backed onto the river, having managed to snag one of the most picturesque spots along the river, providing a vista across the Foyle to the dark mass of greenery that demarcated the boundary of St. Columb's Park.

As he pulled into the council car park, waiting for the barrier to rise, he looked across at Lucy.

“How do you find working with Tom Fleming?” he asked. “Everything okay?”

“Great,” Lucy said. “He's an excellent superior officer,” she added, stopping herself from using the other sobriquet they had recently discussed.

“How would you feel about a transfer into CID?” Burns said, suddenly. “We need good ­people, ­people who can think on their feet.”

“I started in CID,” Lucy said. “The ACC moved me.”

Burns nodded, suggesting that this was not news to him. “That's not a problem. I'm sure I can persuade her around fairly easily. Put it this way, I wouldn't be mentioning it if she hadn't already indicated she'd be supportive of the move if you wanted it.”

“Thank you, sir,” Lucy said. “I'll certainly consider it.”

Burns glanced across again, as if teasing out the implications of her response. “Your opportunities for movement in PPU are limited,” he said. “And I'd imagine working abuse and domestic cases every day would do your head in after a while.”

Lucy laughed uncomfortably. “That's true,” she said, feeling a peculiar disloyalty to Tom Fleming and thus keen to change the subject. “Has the ACC given any indication why she wants me
here
today?”

“I'm guessing to give us a chance to have this little chat,” Burns said, smiling. “Shall we go?”

T
HEY STOOD IN
the foyer of the council buildings for a few moments before Boyd appeared on the staircase. He wore a black suit with a wide pinstripe over a light pink shirt and no tie. As he approached he ran his hand through his hair, then extended it in greeting.

“Chief Superintendent,” he said, addressing Burns first. “Good to see you.”

“Please, call me Mark,” Burns replied.

“John,” Boyd agreed. He turned to Lucy, hand extended, maintaining eye contact. Lucy watched him for any flicker of recognition from the swimming pool, but none was obvious. “John Boyd,” he said.

“DS Black,” Lucy said, deliberately.

“Tea? Coffee?” Burns asked. “A pot of each maybe?” He addressed this to the girl sitting behind the reception desk. “Would you send some up, Linda?” he asked, then turned to Burns without waiting for a response.

They moved up the stairs, Boyd walking with Burns, speaking to him, while Lucy followed behind. Occasionally he would glance back, as if to include her in the conversation.

“It's been a wonderful few weeks' weather, eh?” Boyd asked. “Though it's to break this afternoon, apparently.”

The river, visible through the windows beyond, already carried a dull gray sheen reflected from the cloud-­heavy sky above.

“It'll do no harm. Clear the air,” Burns agreed.

Boyd's office was set to the rear of the building, giving him a view over the river in both directions, to the twisting Peace Bridge to the left and further north, in the other direction, the high arch of the Foyle Bridge.

“Sensational view, isn't it?” he said, taking off his jacket and hanging it over the back of his chair. “So, what can I do?”

“We wanted to have a word about the buildings with the false fronts on them in the city center. Particularly the old bank building in Waterloo Place.”

“Right,” Boyd said, a little uncertainly.

“We believe you're responsible for them. Is that right?” Lucy asked, causing both men to look in her direction.

“I wouldn't say that entirely,” Boyd said. “The Department of the Environment put them up. I led the task force that recommended it be done and identified the buildings most in need of being cleaned up. We applied to the DOE and they had the work carried out. Why? Is this about the killing in the old bank building?”

“Tangentially,” Burns said. “When we uncovered the site, we discovered evidence of what we believe to be copper theft inside the building.”

“Right,” Boyd repeated.

“We believe in fact that the man who was killed was a member of the gang that was cleaning out the inside of the building.”

“I see,” Boyd said. “What was it? A disagreement among thieves kind of thing?”

“Kind of,” Burns said. “The thing is, if they targeted the bank building, we have to work on the assumption that they may have been stealing from some of the other buildings which have been boarded up in town, too.”

“Of course,” Boyd said. “Do you need a list of them?”

“We actually need a little help,” Burns said, with some embarrassment. “All this rioting business in Belfast has us stretched to snapping point in terms of manpower. We've no spare hands. Would there be any chance you might have a team who could do a quick check on the sites to see if any more of them were targeted?”

Boyd pantomimed a wince. “You've no men; we've no budget,” he said. “We contract out all the work like that.”

“I see,” Burns said. “Is there no way that the contract company could check?”

Boyd took a moment, then inclined his head, as if he had considered an alternative approach.

“Look, I've very little authority in these things,” he said. “But I am authorized to process payments to the one contract company who handles minor repairs for us: a crowd from Lisburn called Dynamic. Anything under £5,000 doesn't need an individual tender, you see. I could process a small payment to them to do a very quick check in each place.”

“That would be great,” Burns said.

“Do you not need to clear it with someone?” Lucy asked. “Someone with more authority?” she added.

“Well, my boss countersigns the cheques,” Boyd said. “But I'm sure it will be fine; we process payments to them all the time. We've an audit going on at the moment, and I'm going to be in working all weekend, by the looks of things, so I'll get it actioned as quickly as I can.”

B
Y THE TIME
tea and coffee arrived, they were ready to leave, so it remained untouched. The first fat drops of rain had splattered against the plate glass window of Boyd's office some minutes earlier. He and Burns shook hands on the stairs. As Boyd turned to offer Lucy his hand, she struggled to overcome her aversion to touching the man again. This same hand, she reflected, had left bruises on Fiona's body, had split her lip. The manner in which he had underplayed his authority, his deliberate self-­deprecation, served only to make her dislike him even more.

“He's a nice chap,” Burns said, after they had handed in their visitors' badges. Lucy managed a noncommittal grunt.

As they stepped outside, they could feel the drop in temperature, the chill of the rising wind on their faces after the heat of indoors. The air smelt of electricity, a scent which brought unbidden to Lucy's mind the smell of fairground rides and thoughts of her father. The raindrops fell heavy and felt warm to the touch.

“There's something nice about the rain,” Lucy commented.

Burns looked at her quizzically, then fumbled in his pocket as his phone began vibrating. He answered it with a simple “Yes?”

He regarded Lucy as he listened. “We'll be there in a few minutes,” he said. He hung up. “They've found Terry Haynes's car. It's on fire on Sheriff's Mountain.”