The History Suite (#9 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) (40 page)

Carmen nodded. “From Edinburgh. Have you ever been there, Mrs…?”

The woman’s rings said she’d been married and her lack of companion said she was widowed or divorced.

“Margaret. Margaret Rankin. But my friends call me Peggy.”

“Have you ever been to Scotland, Mrs Rankin?”

“Once.” She glanced away. “When my husband was alive. It’s a pretty country.”

Carmen nodded. “It is indeed.” She sat in silence for a moment, as she readied to ask what Jake had tasked her to as casually as she could. “Do you know Mr Pitt?”

Peggy Rankin shook her head quickly then corrected herself with the honesty of a woman who never lied. “Well…I mean…everyone knows Caleb. He’s a big character.” She added hastily. “And very kind to all of us.”

Carmen kept her voice soft. “I’m sure he is… Maybe he has a special friend on the ward? You, perhaps? After all he’s a handsome man.”

It was true; even in old age Caleb Pitt had a virility that few men possessed. Carmen allowed herself a caveat; except Ken. Ken was handsome; she’d seen it from the beginning but it was only now she could admit it to herself. She saw a blush rise on Peggy Rankin’s cheeks and knew that they’d struck gold.

“I…I don’t know what you mean. We only play cards and chat, that’s all. I…”

She squirmed with old-fashioned shyness lest Carmen think there’d been anything ‘improper’ going on. Carmen put her out of her pain, reaching forward to enclose the woman’s ageing hand with her own.

“I’m sorry to embarrass you, Mrs Rankin. I didn’t mean to imply anything improper; just that as special friends, Mr Pitt might have confided in you.”

Peggy Rankin stopped squirming and gave Carmen a look that said she knew exactly what she was asking.

“You want me to say that we discussed that doctor and nurse, don’t you?”

“Yes. If you did.”

Peggy pursed her lips. “Well I won’t. Caleb’s a good man and he’s got a right to hate drug-dealers after what happened to his son.”

Bingo! Carmen stayed completely still while her mind raced, formulating her next question. Her tone was casual.

“Did everyone on the ward know they were drug-dealing?”

Peggy smiled, feeling on more certain ground now that Pitt’s name was out of the frame. Carmen felt almost guilty tricking the woman, then she reminded herself there were two dead bodies in the morgue.

“Oh yes.” She pursed her lips. “No-one liked that Rudd girl; she was a nasty piece of work. Deliberately stuck her nails into Mrs Lewis one day when she was helping her into the bath.”

Carmen urged her to focus. “But how did you know she was involved in drugs?”

“It was obvious. Just like in the movies. She was always sneaking about talking to Dr Cooke.” She smiled broadly. “He was such a nice young man; always so pleasant.” She shook her head. “Such a sad death.”

Carmen steered her back to the point. “Yes…but how did you know drugs were involved? They could have been talking about anything.”

Peggy shook her head firmly. “No. Mr Jones saw them exchanging little bags of white powder one day. They didn’t see him of course; no-one ever notices an old man.”

Carmen thought it was sad but probably true.

“And did Mr Jones come back and tell everyone?”

Peggy smiled excitedly. “Oh yes. We had a discussion about it over dinner that night and decided to keep a close eye on them both.”

“To tell the police?”

Peggy shook her head. “We hadn’t made any plans. Just to keep a close eye.”

Carmen swallowed, knowing that her next question might be the one that made Peggy Rankin clam up.

“At the dinner…did everyone have an opinion?”

Peggy nodded enthusiastically. “Oh yes, especially Mr Jones and Caleb. They’d both seen drugs before.”

“Where was that?”

“Mr Jones in London, that’s where he’s from, you know. He lived in the East end – Hackney. It’s just like EastEnders, you know, on TV. He said there are lots of drugs there.” She pursed her lips disapprovingly. “Terrible. Young people nowadays have no chance. When I was young women didn’t even drink.”

Carmen smiled, remembering her grandmother saying the same. She continued cautiously. “And where had Caleb seen drugs before? With his son?”

She deliberately said Caleb instead of Mr Pitt, trying to keep things casual so as not to break the flow.

“Not just that. He was in Vietnam you know, terrible war. They made films about it, like that one ‘The Deer Hunter’.” She shook her head. “Very sad.”

“So everyone agreed to watch Nurse Rudd and Dr Cooke?”

“Yes, and keep notes. Caleb said if we went to the police they wouldn’t do a thing. He’d tried all of that in New York.”

Carmen nodded sympathetically and then rose. “Thank you, Mrs Rankin. It’s been really lovely to chat.”

Peggy Rankin smiled warmly and Carmen felt guilty again, but she had a job to do. She said goodbye and crossed to the waiting men.

“She’s just confirmed that a Mr Jones saw Rudd and Cooke exchanging bags of white powder and the whole ward discussed it and agreed to watch them, including Caleb Pitt.”

Jake nodded. He found it hard to believe that a pensioner could be a killer but it was looking more likely by the hour.

“Then what?”

“Wait and see. Pitt was against going to the police. Mrs Rankin said he’d tried it before in New York and no-one had listened.”

“Great. We have what the chief needs. Pitt knew that Rudd and Cooke were involved with drugs and he wasn’t inclined to go the justice route. Let’s head back; I’ll speak to Kirk and Gormley later.” He threw the car keys to Ken. “You drive. Carmen and I need to call the boss.”

***

Craig took two calls in the space of ten minutes and by the time they were over his decision was pretty much made; all he needed was confirmation of the forensics from Des. John handed round the coffees and gave Craig the floor.

“OK. Those calls were from Jake and Davy. Before I tell you what they said I want to run a scenario past you. We have two deaths of suspected drug-dealers, one of whom, Adrian Cooke, was also an addict. Yes?”

A series of nods went round the group. Liam interjected. “That reminds me of a joke; a junkie, a priest and…”

Craig cut him off. “Save it for later. OK, both Cooke and Rudd were manually strangled by a man with large hands. Through a process of elimination we narrowed the possibles to three; Ferdy Myers, a fifty-something porter and ex-squaddie with psychiatric issues who hated Rudd and Cooke, Brian Kirk, an ex-army doctor, and Caleb Pitt, an eighty-four-year-old veteran with a grip I can testify to as herculean. We also have a witness who identified a squeaking noise that the archive has as rubber on polymer, which could be shoes, a trolley or even a wheelchair, and a mint scent. Everyone with me so far?”

Liam folded his arms, miffed that his joke had been interrupted, and Des and John sipped their coffee. By the look of Des it was all that was keeping him awake; having small children took its toll. Craig took their silence as agreement and carried on.

“OK, we now know that all three had some knowledge of their involvement with drugs. Kirk knew about Cooke from his girlfriend, Hazel Gormley. Pitt…”

Liam jerked upright. “Here, when did we confirm Pitt knew?”

“Ten minutes ago. That’s what Jake was calling about. They’ve confirmed that Pitt definitely knew what Rudd and Cooke were up to.”

Liam was put out. He’d arrested Myers and he wanted him to stay that way. He muttered sulkily. “Pitt’s in a wheelchair…he couldn’t…”

“That’s a good point and I’ll come back to it. The second call I got was from Davy. He had quite a bit of news. Caleb Pitt lived in New York, London, Glasgow and Edinburgh before he settled here in 2005. There are unsolved murders of drug-dealers in every one. He didn’t find any hospital deaths that matched ours because none of the dealers were hospital workers except for here.”

Liam’s eyes widened and Des leaned forward so quickly his coffee spilled down his jeans. He ignored the spreading stain.

“Were there any prints, Marc?”

Craig smiled and nodded. “In some of the cases, yes. Davy’s sending them to you now. If you can match any of them with the print we got from Pitt this morning then we’ll be closer to solving them.”

Des shook his head ruefully. “That print won’t stand up in court. It was a dodgy lift and you know it.”

Craig nodded. “I know that. It’s just a stop-gap until we get a warrant, or the US army comes through. Did it match the one on Cooke’s watch?”

“Yes, but that could have got there innocently. I’ll run the others and keep it off the books, then I’ll run them again when I get a legitimate set.”

John shook his head. “If you nail Pitt for the unsolved murders against the print Marc lifted it’ll ruin any chance of conviction. Fruit of the poison tree.”

Craig smiled. “I know that. Charging him will have to wait till we get a good set of prints. I’m just mentioning it now as part of a scenario.”

John waved him on.

“OK, so let’s say that Caleb Pitt was an officer in the US Army during Vietnam and he saw what happened there. The young men addicted by drug-dealers who never recovered. It could have planted the seed of hating dealers.”

Liam was feeling less grudging now that he’d learned about the other deaths. “OK.”

“Pitt loses a son in combat and arrives back in the States after an unpopular war, but at least his other son Joshua is still alive. Then his life falls apart. His wife dies and Joshua turns out to be a Heroin addict and dies from an overdose. Pitt’s got nothing left; no wife, no kids and retired from the military.”

Liam played devil’s advocate. “He could have re-enlisted.”

“He wasn’t going to re-up when he hated the military after the war! He joined an oil company. But what did he do with all his anger?”

Des answered for everyone. “He killed the dealer in New York who he believed killed his son. That’s what I’d do.”

Craig nodded. “That would be my bet. God only knows how many more dealers Pitt killed in New York, then he moved to the UK and did the same.”

John interrupted. “Aren’t we forgetting something here? Pitt’s been a partial amputee for years.”

Craig shook his head. “His leg was only amputated in 2004, just before he moved to Northern Ireland. He didn’t lose it in the war, he lost it from diabetes.”

Liam leaned an elbow on John’s desk, knocking a file onto the floor. John lifted it with a sigh.

“Here, boss. Why did Pitt come to Northern Ireland anyway?”

“It showed up on Davy’s background checks. Pitt’s father’s family were Planters who settled in Fermanagh and then emigrated to the States in the 19
^th
Century.”

Des smiled. “He returned to his roots.”

“Something like that. He has a UK passport from his mother’s side and the UK’s not a bad place to spend your old age, whatever we might say about it.”

He topped-up the coffees before restarting.

“OK. Unlikely as it sounds let’s say we have a drug-dealer hating serial killer who has retired to a long-stay ward in Belfast. By the way, the other murders were committed with a variety of implements: guns, knives, ropes, hands, pretty much anything you can name. The M.O. differed but the victimology was consistent.”

John urged Craig on. It was after ten and Natalie had cooked. She wouldn’t be happy if her once a month offering ended up in the bin.

“OK, quickly. So Pitt retires to Reilly Suite and probably from murder altogether, then he’s faced with two drug-dealers on his ward. Health professionals who are supposed to help people, not sell them poison. What does he do?”

Des obliged with the answer. “He decides to kill them. But that still leaves us with the same problem, Marc. How? How the hell does a man that age in a wheelchair kill two healthy twenty somethings?”

“Well first of all, forget that he’s eighty. Caleb Pitt has the strength of a forty-year-old. Trust me; I have the sore neck to prove it.” He pushed past John’s looming question and carried on. “Secondly, we’ve been thinking of this as the killer using only his hands as a weapon, but what if he used something else as well?” He turned to Des. “That’s why I asked you to bring those books. John, can you lay the photos of the bruising on Rudd and Cooke on the desk.”

John obliged and the three men stared at Craig quizzically.

“OK. There were bruises on the back of Cooke’s knees and Rudd’s thighs that were at exactly the same height from the floor. Which was?”

“685 millimetres exactly.”

“There were also round bruises on Cooke’s back and I’ll come back to those. When Jake called me to confirm that Caleb Pitt definitely knew about the drug-dealing I asked him to check something out.”

John’s hunger was suddenly replaced by frustration. “For God’s sake spit it out. What did he find?”

Craig lifted his mobile and showed them the text. There were three numbers on the screen: 915, 760 and 685. Des asked first.

“What are those?”

“Wheelchair measurements. Floor to handle, floor to armrest and…”