The History Suite (#9 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) (2 page)

Craig shook his head, picturing the nurse’s last moments. He nodded to Liam and they readied to leave.

“We’re coming now. Don’t start the post-mortem until we do.”

***

The Ivory Restaurant. Victoria Square Shopping Centre.

D.I. Annette McElroy glanced at her watch and then slid her hand slowly from beneath the man’s opposite. He shook his head and smiled as she scanned the restaurant for the tenth time since they’d entered. It was as if she expected to be recognised, or that at any moment some ageing relative who’d travelled all the way from her childhood home in Maghera especially, would burst through the door to point a wizened finger and place a scarlet ‘A’ for adulterer on her chest.

Annette sighed, knowing that her caution was redundant. A man on a galloping horse could have spotted she was having an affair; there was no point trying to hide it. Even if the pale band of skin on her left ring finger hadn’t indicated a hastily removed wedding ring, the way she was gazing at her companion in the middle of the afternoon tannoyed it loud and clear.

She didn’t feel guilty, even though her upbringing shouted that she should. Her husband Pete had broken the trust between them, not her. She’d struggled to forgive his affair for over a year, trying not to flinch each time his mobile beeped with a text and resisting the temptation to check who it was from. She’d tried hard to trust him when he’d said that he was working late, or couldn’t go to John and Natalie’s wedding because he’d been tasked by the headmaster to lead a summer camp. But every night she’d lain awake, comparing herself to a woman whom she’d never met, and every day she’d avoided looking in the mirror, in case it confirmed what she feared most. That she was ugly: frumpy, undesirable, a career woman who had lost her man. A woman who’d put her job before her husband, the tabloid press’ most unforgivable crime of all. You can be a thief or a liar, even a mass-murderer, girls, but for goodness sake make sure you cook his dinner and iron his shirts.

Of course Pete had had an affair, to believe the media any normal man in his position would. After all, she was always at work, instead of being there to cook and clean as she had for the first twenty years of their married life. How dare she work to better herself and earn money to improve all their lives? Mea Culpa. How dare she enjoy her job and worry more about her children’s futures than she did about the needs of an adult man? An adult man who she’d thought loved her enough to understand what she, what they were both, working for: their children’s futures and their old age.

She’d tried to forgive his affair for over a year, tried to cope with the images of him in bed with another woman that had flashed into her head each time he touched her. She’d fought hard not to cry and push him away when he’d expected their sex life to return to what it had been before. Better in fact; he’d expected her to perform like a porn-star to prove that she’d been wrong to make him stray.

He’d said the affair had meant nothing to him, so that meant it should mean nothing to her. And she’d tried, God how she’d tried, but the trust had gone and its absence had been corrosive, dissolving her love for him and replacing it with hate. It had left her lonely and vulnerable to another man’s glance, and to his kind words that made her feel attractive again.

Annette smiled at the man across the table then she buttoned the jacket of her middle-range suit across her middle-aged body, struggling to be sensible again. Because she was, sensible that is. Sensible was her middle name, sandwiched between Annette and Elizabeth as if her parents had actually said it while she’d dangled above a font in the vicar’s hands. I name you Annette Sensible Elizabeth Eakin, like some Wild West pioneer wife, whose friends had names like Patience, Hope and Faith.

Her lips tightened at the image and she reached for the man’s hand again. She’d been sensible all her life. A sensible daughter and then a sensible nurse, a sensible wife and mother and now a sensible cop. Well, she was sick of it! She wanted to rip off her prim suit and run naked through the streets of Belfast, to show just how wild she could be. She wanted to get blind drunk and have a tattoo that said ‘girls just want to have fun’ on her backside. Except… she was too sensible.

So instead Annette McElroy née Eakin did the wildest thing that she could think of at that moment. She reached across the table and in full view of the shoppers in Victoria Square she kissed the man who wasn’t her husband hard upon the lips. Then she lifted the sensible handbag that held her sensible wedding ring and walked sensibly back to the murder squad to work.

***

The Pathology Lab. 4.30 p.m.

Liam spread his legs so wide apart that they threatened to squeeze Craig into one corner of John’s small office. If a normal man sat with their legs akimbo they would occupy a limited amount of space, but Liam wasn’t any normal man; he was six-feet-six and seventeen stone of inelegant blue-white flesh. Craig shoved a leg away and waved John to carry on.

“Did I say she was twenty-five?”

Craig nodded.

“She worked on the Elderly Medicine wards. Well, it’s a self-contained unit really, with an acute ward and a long-stay suite.”

Craig cut in. “Long-stay? You mean like a mini nursing home?”

“Exactly like.” John warmed to his theme. “It’s a fascinating set-up actually. The Professor of Geriatrics set up a suite where elderly people with chronic health problems could live out the rest of their lives.”

“What sort of chronic health problems?”

John smiled. “That’s the beauty of it. None of them is life threatening: asthma, diabetes, that sort of thing, but they’re too much for some residential homes to cope with so the Prof got funding for the suite. He does research on them.”

Liam’s eyes widened. “You mean he cuts them up?”

Craig and John gawped simultaneously and then John nodded his head.

“Yes, that’s right, Liam. We allow that on the NHS.” He saw Liam starting to believe him so he rolled his eyes. “Of course he doesn’t cut them up! He just carries out hearing tests, eye assessments and the rest. He’s trying to see what would happen if doctors ignored chronological age and treated elderly people as vigorously as they did the young, with all the same medication, operations etc.”

Craig gazed at him curiously, thinking of his own ageing parents. “And what does happen?”

John smiled. “They do amazingly well. The research shows that they live longer, healthier lives.”

Liam interjected. “So this suite, it’s like a home for Peter Pans then?”

John laughed. “You could say that. I’ve seen the place and it’s amazing, well worth you taking a look. It’s called Reilly Suite. There are rooms for married couples and singles, a central canteen and even a swimming pool and tennis court outside.”

“On the NHS?”

John shook his head. “No, those parts were funded by some eccentric millionaire called Reilly, hence the name. He’s probably worried about his old age. The staff are all NHS but the place looks like a five-star hotel.”

Liam was still smiling at his Peter Pan idea. “It’s like a living history suite; I bet the patients have some stories to tell. Mind you, none of them could have killed Rudd.”

“Why not?”

“Well, it stands to reason - they’re too old.”

Craig shook his head. “In my experience old people do all the things young people do, only with less fuss and a lot more skill.” He continued before Liam could say something rude. “And that’s where our victim worked?”

“There and in the acutely ill elderly ward on the other side of the unit. Newman Ward.”

Craig and Liam smiled simultaneously. Newman and Reilly – the E.M.U. sounded like Coronation Street’s fictional brewery. He nodded John on.

“OK, so Eleanor Rudd, our victim, was found around eleven o’clock by another nurse, Hannah Donard, in the linen room when she went to collect fresh towels. As I said on the phone, Rudd had definitely been strangled less than an hour before. Manually. There were no ligatures and the bruises on her neck indicate the hands belonged to either a very large woman or a man. Whoever did it they must have had considerable upper body strength.”

He glanced down at his desk and Craig knew there was something more.

“What else?”

John’s eyes darkened. “There were healed scars all over her back, the most recent a few years old. I’d say our victim had been abused when she was younger.”

He removed some photographs from a drawer and set them on the desk. Craig stared at them, not hiding his disgust. Eleanor Rudd’s back was covered with thick, linear scars and burn marks in the familiar shape of a cigarette.

“Definitely not recent?”

“No. I’d say the last was made around six or seven years ago.”

The group fell silent for a moment, imagining the childhood Eleanor Rudd must have had. Eventually Craig moved the discussion on.

“Forensics?”

“The C.S.I.s have just finished. First impressions are that the linen room was covered in prints, so you’re going to have a job on your hands.” Craig opened his mouth to speak and John shook his head. “Before you ask. No, there aren’t any prints on the body. I thought we might have got something from her neck but either they wore gloves or they wiped them off.”

Liam interrupted. “What wipes prints off skin?”

“Anything that removes sweat or oil. But they’d have had to be a cool bugger to take the time to do that. Gloves are much more likely, especially since there were boxes of them all over the place. I’ll let you know if we get anything. Des is starting the forensics now.”

Dr Des Marsham was Northern Ireland’s Head of Forensic Science and he and John made a formidable team. If there was anything to find then they would.

Craig thought for a moment, running through a checklist of questions before he shook his head. There was nothing more to be learned here until the P.M. results were through; time to visit the scene.

As they rose to leave Liam grinned at John.

“How’s married life, Doc?”

Craig knew exactly what he was getting at but John’s face broke into an innocent smile.

“Brilliant. I don’t know why I didn’t do it years ago.”

“Because you didn’t meet Natalie till 2012.”

“Ah, yes, that was probably it.”

Liam hadn’t finished. “Any plans?”

John gave him a puzzled look and Craig was just about to interject when John’s puzzle changed to comprehension and he nodded. “You’ve heard then?”

Craig froze. Liam had been right; John was going to announce a happy event. Liam squinted shrewdly, not prepared to show his hand in case he was wrong.

“I heard something. Tell us more.”

John nodded eagerly. “It’s great. Not too big and not too small. Compact really. Natalie can’t wait to dress it up.”

On the word ‘compact’ Craig laughed, more at Liam’s bewildered face than anything else. Liam thought John was discussing his developing offspring, but Craig had caught on quick. John was talking about something much bigger than a baby.

“Where is it?”

“Near you, on Annadale Embankment. It’s an 18
^th
Century chapel, Methodist I think, but first converted into a house about ten years back. It’s really cool inside – spiral staircase, the works. We’ll have a housewarming when it’s decorated.”

Liam guffawed.

“What’s the joke?”

Craig smiled. “Liam thought you were referring to something else that Natalie might want to dress up.”

John looked bewildered for a moment and then realisation dawned. He gawped at Liam.

“A baby! Good grief, man, give us a chance. We’ve barely got our suitcases unpacked.”

Liam shook his head sagely. “You’d better get your skates on. Like Nicky said, you’re not getting any younger, Doc.”

“Now Nicky’s involved? Next thing you’ll be laying a bet on it.”

Liam shook his head. “Nah… we did that with McGregor and Smith and I’m still waiting for a return.”

He was referring to the squad’s two newest members, Carmen McGregor and Ken Smith. McGregor was a fiery detective constable from Edinburgh, who’d clashed with Liam since her secondment from Vice in July; a secondment that had since become permanent. Smith had joined the team on a year’s exchange from the British Army. He was a bomb-squad captain who’d acted as military liaison on a recent case. Nicky had been trying to match-make the pair since they’d joined, immediately spotting Smith’s attraction to the flame-haired Scot. She’d hoped that a recent work trip to Geneva might have sealed the deal, but they’d come back just as single as they’d left.

John stared at Craig reprovingly and Craig raised his hands in denial.

“Don’t blame me. The baby idea was all ‘earth mother Cullen’ here.” He headed for the door. “Give me a call when you’ve some good news.” He realised what he’d said and added hastily. “I mean about the P.M.”

Chapter Two

St Mary’s Trust Elderly Medicine Unit. 5.30 p.m.

The two detectives entered the E.M.U. groaning and muttering. Not because the unit wasn’t sealed off effectively, because it was, and not because civilians had stomped all over their crime scene as was often the case, because they hadn’t. They were groaning because the unit was situated at the end of St Mary’s lengthy ground floor corridor, adding a factor that would make their murder harder to solve; easy access from the outside.