Unti Lucy Black Novel #3 (18 page)

 

Chapter Forty-­Four

“S
O, WHAT'RE YOUR
thoughts?” Lucy asked as they crossed the waste ground back to the car. A light breeze fluttered at the scrap of crime scene tape, which remained from when the alleyway opposite had been closed off for a forensics search. She wondered whether there was significance in Kamil Krawiec's body being dumped so close to the soup kitchen.

“So, someone is using homeless ­people to do construction work for them,” Fleming said.

“And they're recruiting at a soup kitchen,” Lucy agreed. “It makes sense. The day we saw Sammy, he was the only man among a group of women. Where have all the other male drinkers gone?”

“Sammy'd hardly have been anyone's first choice for building work,” Fleming said.

“I wonder if he's been back to the Foyle Hostel,” Lucy said. “To get his insulin.”

Fleming nodded. “I'll check it up,” he said.

“So this red-­haired guy turns up at the soup kitchen in a blue van and recruits men, one or two at a time. To do what?”

“Lay driveways? Like Doreen Jeffries's? Overcharging her and probably underpaying the workers?”

“Or demolition work, perhaps?” Lucy said. “Cleaning out the inside of closed-­off buildings for copper piping? We know for a fact that Kamil was in the old bank building.”

Fleming nodded. “Or maybe they're doing both. Steal the materials from the abandoned buildings and then use them in other jobs. Widen the profit margin even further. Did Boyd come back to us yet on whether any of the other buildings in the city had been hit?”

Lucy shrugged. “I've heard nothing,” she said. “We could call round at the council offices.”

“It's a Saturday,” Fleming said.

“Boyd told us the other day he'd be working all weekend,” Lucy said, checking her watch. “He might still be about. It's worth a try. Keep the pressure on him.”

As the climbed into the car, Fleming said, “We know Terry wasn't the one running the gang then. If the redhead in the blue van was recruiting ­people.”

“Unless Terry was working
with
them? Like a Judas goat, bringing them willing hands for hire. Otherwise, why
was
he at a soup kitchen? He wasn't homeless, or in need of low-­paid construction work.”

Fleming considered the question. “We know from the two in the kitchen that Kamil went missing, then reappeared. We know that he was then with Terry for a few days, before vanishing again and this time winding up in the bins over there. We can assume that his first absence was when he was recruited and did the work for the gang with the blue van—­we know he was at Doreen Jeffries's house a few weeks back, after all.”

“And that Kamil robbed her, possibly with help from Aaron Moore, who also had a background in construction,” Lucy added. “Maybe that's why Kamil reappeared in town. Maybe he didn't need to work for a week or two; Doreen's jewelry was valuable enough to keep him afloat for a bit. He stayed with Terry Haynes for a few days. Then what?”

“Maybe he told Terry what was happening to the homeless and Terry wanted to see for himself? He'd have been outraged if he thought someone was exploiting the street drinkers. He goes along with Kamil, pretends to be one of the homeless to see firsthand what's happening.”

Lucy waited a beat, to see if Fleming would continue. When he didn't she said, “Well, where is he now? We know what happened to Kamil. Where is Terry Haynes?”

“And the rest of the gang working out of the blue van? And Sammy?” Fleming agreed. “And Aaron Moore? Burns has had ­people checking his house and keeping an eye out. There's still no sign of him either. Is Moore still with the works gang, or did he leave when Kamil did? He'd have his cut from the Jeffries burglary, too.”

“I think he's been in that house,” Lucy said. “There's a plant in the kitchen which was watered. Like, the saucer it sat in was full to the brim.”

“Could the brother have done it when he was in there?”

“I don't think so.”

“And you checked the house?”

Lucy nodded. “Seamus Moore was with me, but we still went through the place. He wasn't there.”

Fleming nodded. “So, we find Moore. Or we find the red-­haired man recruiting homeless into doing building work.”

Lucy started the engine. “I'll call with John Boyd first and chase up the lists of other buildings hit. We might find something there.”

“What about the Beaumont list of the ­people with surgical implants? Anyone we know on it? Any Derry folk?”

Lucy shook her head. “It's in my bag,” she said. “I've only started working down through it.”

“May I?” Fleming asked, lifting the bag from the footwell. “We don't want to give Burns anything else to complain about.”

He pulled out the sheaf of papers, on the top of which was scrawled “Bernadette Thompson, Beechleigh Park, Eglinton”.

“Who's Bernadette Thompson?”

“Different case,” Lucy said. “I'd nowhere else to write it.”

“Anything you need help with?”

Lucy shook her head. “No, I'm good,” she said.

L
UCY PULLED IN
on the pavement outside the council offices. Fleming remained in the car in case they were ticketed for parking.

Though initially reluctant to bother her boss, the receptionist asked Lucy to wait while she checked if Boyd was free after Lucy commiserated with her having to work on the weekend. While she waited in the foyer, she flicked through one of the City of Culture programs, which were sitting on the glass table next to the sofa where she'd been instructed to sit.

A moment later, she heard voices and looked up to see John Boyd and another man coming down the stairs. Assuming that he was coming down to see her, Lucy moved across to him. “Mr. Boyd? Thanks for seeing me.”

Boyd stared at her distractedly, trying to place her. “Sorry,” he said. “I'm on my way out. Did we have an appointment?”

Lucy shook her head. “I'm DS Black. I was here yesterday. I'd asked about checking whether any other buildings in the city had been targeted in copper theft.”

Boyd's face lit with recognition. “Of course. I'm sorry. We're up to our eyes in it. We have an audit going on this week. We're just going out to Claudy to inspect some works, I'm afraid.” He offered the final lines as way of apology and began moving past Lucy, without having introduced the man with whom he had been standing. This second man wore a visitor badge clipped to his jacket breast pocket and carried a high visibility jacket over his arm. Lucy guessed that he was one of the auditors rather than a fellow council worker.

“I really need the list, Mr. Boyd,” Lucy said, riled at the manner in which he had dismissed her request. “We are investigating a murder, after all.”

Boyd stopped now, turned back toward her. “A murder?” he asked, smiling nervously. “You told me it was a copper theft.”

“We believe one of the thieves was murdered on the site of the old bank building,” Lucy said. “Clearly, if we know the gang has operated in other buildings, we may find something of investigative value.”

“Of course,” Boyd agreed. “I'll arrange for our works team to check the buildings.” He turned now to the receptionist. “Linda, will you contact Dan Summers in Dynamic Works and pass on . . .” He glanced back at Lucy, as if trying to remember her name. “Pass on DS Black's request?”

“Is that okay?” he asked, glancing back at the auditor. “I'll sort the paperwork when I get back. It is a murder investigation.”

The man smiled, nodding his head. “That's fine,” he said.

Boyd nodded at Lucy. “Someone will be in touch with you as soon as we get word back from Dynamic,” he said, smiling. Lucy could sense, however, a barely suppressed anger at having to ask permission from the man next to him, especially in front of her. “Perhaps next time, you'll make an appointment,” he added.

“I'll try my best. Sadly, murders generally don't happen to appointment, Mr. Boyd,” Lucy retorted. “Thank you for your help.”

She turned and left before he could respond.

H
ER STOMACH WAS
still twisting with adrenaline when she made it to the car. She climbed into the driver's seat and shut the door.

“That man is an asshole,” she said. “He's not even started checking the buildings yet.”

Fleming said nothing. She looked across at him. He had the papers from Beaumont on his lap, his face ashen.

“Is everything all right?”

Fleming held out one of the sheets to her.

“I think I've found Terry Haynes,” he said.

 

Chapter Forty-­Five

“Y
OU'RE SURE IT'S
him?” Burns asked. They were sitting in his office, having returned to the Strand Road station, only a few hundred yards from the council offices.

“No,” Fleming said. “We'll never be sure, unless he turns up alive somewhere. The cremation will have destroyed all DNA. Someone would need to work through the entire list to be sure that all the others on it are either still alive or are dead and securely buried. But, there is a T. Haynes listed. Date of birth: 28 November, 1957, which makes him 56, the same age as me.”

“The weight of evidence would certainly suggest it was Haynes in the coffin, sir,” Lucy agreed. “He was in a motorcycle accident in Dublin; that would certainly explain the head and leg injuries.”

Burns nodded. “So where does that leave us?”

“If it is Haynes, then he can't have killed Kamil Krawiec, or, at the very least, he certainly can't have dumped Krawiec's body; that happened hours
after
the cremation. It also means he wasn't connected with Ciaran Duffy's killing either, despite Duffy's remains being burned with Terry's car.

“And we can assume Terry was probably killed by the same person; both he and Duffy bore the marks of a hatchet attack, based on the pathologist's comments,” Fleming added.

“So, whoever did kill Ciaran Duffy and Kamil Krawiec used Haynes's car to try to frame him for it, knowing we'd never find him because he'd already been cremated.”

“And you think this connects to this construction scam how?” Burns asked.

Lucy nodded. “We believe Kamil Krawiec was recruited by a construction-­work gang at the soup kitchen in Great James Street. Certainly, we know Krawiec was working as part of that gang in Doreen Jeffries's home a few weeks back, as was Aaron Moore, also a frequenter of the soup kitchen. We know he and Aaron Moore stole from that home. We know that, subsequently, Krawiec was staying with Haynes, which ­people did when they were trying to dry out. Following that, we know that Haynes and Krawiec turned up at the soup kitchen as customers, despite Haynes not being homeless. We know that they went off with the red-­haired guy in the blue Transit van, whose description matches that of the man who first offered to relay Doreen Jeffries's driveway,” Lucy said, glancing across to Fleming to see if she had missed anything out.

“And we know that Krawiec was killed inside the old bank building while helping someone steal copper piping. We can only assume that the gang stealing the copper piping might be the same one with which he worked at Doreen Jeffries's. That being the case, he must have rejoined them,” Fleming added.

“Kamil must have confided in Terry Haynes about what the gang were up to and, perhaps, what he had done in Doreen Jeffries's house. Perhaps Haynes went with him to see firsthand the gang who were exploiting homeless ­people. Perhaps he challenged the gang leader, the man with the red hair, and that's why he was killed. Kamil was punished for having exposed the gang to Terry Haynes. And Duffy, who had helped them dispose of the original owner of the coffin, Stuart Carlisle, so they could cremate Terry's remains, became a liability when Carlisle's body resurfaced and we started taking an interest in Duffy's role in the body swap.”

“Exploited?” Burns said, as if that was the only part of what she had said which had registered with him.

“The gang at Doreen Jeffries's could be stealing building supplies from the boarded-­up buildings around the city and using them in other jobs they're doing, using homeless ­people as laborers,” Fleming said. “So, yes, exploited is the right word.”

“If they're stealing stuff, that's criminal. If they're using homeless ­people as slaves, then that is exploitation. But if they're simply offering work to the unemployed, they're not doing anything wrong. In fact, they could be providing a public ser­vice, getting the street drinkers off their arses and helping them get on their feet,” Burns said.

“An alcoholic's problem isn't laziness, sir,” Tom Fleming said. “It's an illness.”

“A self-­inflicted one,” Burns said, laughing lightly as he glanced at Lucy, as if seeking her support.

Lucy could sense Fleming's anger growing and stepped in before he said something they'd all regret. “It's not our place to judge the worthiness of victims, sir. They all need our help, equally,” she said quickly.

“I'm not judging their worthiness, DS Black,” Burns snapped. “I'm judging whether there's a crime involved.”

“Why would Terry have gone with Kamil to the soup kitchen unless he thought there was something wrong with what the construction team were doing? Something criminal,” Fleming said. “And what did he discover that was bad enough for them to kill him to stop him revealing it?”

“
If
they killed him,” Burns countered.

“I think it's unlikely that the body cremated in Carlisle's coffin wasn't Terry Haynes,” Fleming said, exasperated.

“All right, Tom; I'm simply playing devil's advocate,” Burns said. “So, following your logic, why did this construction gang kill him? And, more importantly, why would they go to such lengths to hide Haynes's body, but they just dumped Krawiec in a bin and Duffy in the boot of a burning car?”

“Maybe they knew he'd report it to us . . . to the police. I suspect that, knowing Terry, they discovered that he couldn't easily be controlled. Or intimidated.”

Lucy nodded. “Kamil, we'd write off as a homeless man falling asleep in a bin. Duffy, we already knew he was involved in something by that stage, so maybe they reckoned there was no point in hiding his remains; we were looking for him anyway. They stuck him in Haynes's car, cleaned it out, then torched it, implicating Haynes, whom they believed we would never find.”

“And whose disappearance, if it ever was reported, we would assume was as a result of going on the run after carrying out the killings of Kamil Krawiec and Ciaran Duffy,” Burns agreed. “So, what do we know on the blue Transit van driver?”

“Heavy, red-­haired,” Lucy said. “Doreen Jeffries said he had an ear piercing, too. We could send someone out to her to do an e-­fit.”

“We asked the two running the soup kitchen to call if he or his son appeared again.”

“His son?”

Fleming nodded. “They said that the heavy guy hadn't been there in a few days, but that a younger man, slimmer looking, also in the same blue van, had been. We know that another one of the long-­term street drinkers, Sammy Smith, a diabetic, went off with this man the other day. And hasn't been seen since. We don't know how much insulin he has with him to keep him going, but he's going to need more at some stage.”

“What about the soup kitchen itself? Is it legit?”

“We'll run background on the group organizing it and see,” Fleming said. “They are registered as a charity according to the card they gave us.”

“What about Aaron Moore, sir?” Lucy asked. “Any sign of him?”

Burns shook his head. “We've called at the house every hour or two. Had teams passing by all night looking for lights or drawn curtains. I don't think he's there. Maybe he's with this construction team, too.”

Lucy shook her head. “I think he's been in that house. Someone watered his plant in the kitchen.”

“You were in Moore's house?” Burns asked. “Why? How did you get in?”

“I spoke with the Community Mental Health team and they suggested contacting his brother, Seamus.”

“The solicitor?” Burns blanched, realizing he had missed this detail of Moore's background.

Lucy nodded. “He let me in.”

“He let you search his brother's house. Without a warrant?”

Lucy shook her head. “I told him we were concerned about his safety following on from what had happened to Kamil.”

“Aaron Moore is wanted in connection with a burglary,” Burns said, his ire building. Lucy guessed it was a combination of his embarrassment at not making the connection between Seamus and Aaron Moore, and also his annoyance that she had managed to make it inside the house when his own team had not. “That's not a PPU investigation, Sergeant. This is why we have different teams and units, so that each team can work on its own assigned cases. I have officers assigned to check Moore's house.”

“Noleen Fagan in the Mental Health team asked me to check; Moore had missed appointments with her,” Lucy said, using the excuse Fagan had offered her for Seamus Moore. “Besides, Moore
is
part of our investigation,” she added. “We were investigating the body in the coffin, a case which is clearly connected to Aaron Moore, sir.”

“You didn't know that yesterday,” Burns snapped. “You had no right to go into Moore's house.”

“On the plus side,” Fleming said. “Lucy managed to do something that appears to have eluded the rest of the MIT: getting inside his house and determining that it appears Aaron Moore is not only still alive, but has been back in his house recently.”

Burns stared at him, clearly weighing up the benefits in pursuing the argument. Eventually, he decided against. “And what
did
you find?”

“Nothing,” Lucy said. “The house is almost uninhabitable, it's so cluttered. He hoards stuff, mostly to do with horses.”

“Horses? He steals soap and now he hoards horse memorabilia?”

“He was at Hyde Park on the day the bomb went off in 1982. He worked with the horses. He had to help put a number of them to sleep. He seems not to have recovered from it.”

Burns considered the information. “Jesus. I suppose that's understandable. Is he not getting help for it? Even from the brother?”

“Beyond buying him the house, no,” Lucy said. “They haven't seen one another in months. I think Seamus Moore is a little ashamed of his younger brother, to be honest.”

“Seeing the way Moore senior behaves in court, it should be the other way round,” Fleming said.

“Nothing else of interest?” Burns asked, ignoring Fleming's comment.

“Just a plant,” Lucy offered. “It looked freshly watered, indicating that someone had been inside the house. Seamus Moore claimed he hadn't seen his brother in six months, so we can safely say it wasn't Seamus who'd been going to water the plant. And there was rubble. There was a pile of soil and rubble lying in the backyard, on top of the grass.”

“And?”

“The grass was long, but the pile was on top of it. It hadn't grown up around it yet.”

“Moore has a construction background,” Fleming said. “The same as Kamil Krawiec. Presumably that's why the gang hired the two of them.”

Lucy nodded. “This soil and rubble looked like it had come from the house. He'd hardly have brought it there from somewhere else. But, we looked in all the rooms and there was no sign of construction work having been done.”

“We need to get back inside that house,” Burns said. “I'll speak with the ACC. We'll work together on this now.”

Lucy and Fleming stood to leave.

“You must be happy, Tom? Now that you've proved your friend didn't kill anyone. That must make you feel a little better?” Burns reasoned.

Lucy glanced across at her boss. Terry Haynes had helped Fleming through his own alcoholism, had supported him when he'd reached his lowest ebb. She realized, with a pang, that in addition to the case, he was having to deal with the violent death of a friend. She reached across and, taking his hand momentarily in hers, squeezed it.

He nodded in acknowledgment of the gesture before looking at Burns. “Strangely, I find no comfort in the knowledge that my friend was killed.”

He turned and left the room, Burns reddening as he did so. “Tell Tom I didn't mean it like that,” he said to Lucy as she turned to follow Fleming. “Tell him I'm sorry for his loss.”

Lucy nodded. “That might be best coming directly from you,” she said before adding, “sir.”