you?”
Craig smiled again. She hadn’t noticed his number coming up so he decided to have some fun. He made his voice as gruff as possible. “Mrs Morris, it’s ACC Murphy here, what’s so amusing?”
Nicky gave the phone a look of panic and the laughter stopped dead as the others caught the look on her face.
“Good afternoon, ACC Murphy. I’m sorry, sir. One of the men was just cracking a joke.”
“You don’t get paid to tell jokes. Where’s Superintendent Craig?”
She was about to reply when something about the voice seemed familiar. Craig’s mix of Italian and Northern Irish gave his voice a warm quality that was hard to disguise, even behind his mock anger. Nicky squinted at the phone and then spoke.
“Oh him. He’s off gallivanting again, sir. Or in the pub. It’s impossible to get him to do any work at all.”
The others stared at her aghast until she laughed.
Craig joined in. “OK, you’ve caught me, Nick. Glad to hear someone’s having fun. Is Davy there?”
“I’ll transfer you now.” She’d barely covered the handset before she yelled. “Davy, pick up your line. It’s the chief.” Craig pulled the phone back from his ear in pain. Nicky might only be five-feet-three but she had a voice a town crier would envy.
Five seconds later Davy’s softer voice came through. “What can I help with, boss?”
“Davy, could you go back through the archived files on The Troubles and search out everything you can find on a Jonno Mulvenna, please? He might be under John or Jonathan as well, but Jonno was what he was known by.”
“IRA?”
“Yes. Provisionals. His usual targets were police and army officers, but he was probably involved in other things as well. There was a murder case in ’83 that put him inside until the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. See what you can find on that.”
“Is it linked with your case up north, s…sir?”
“Yes, unfortunately. I’ll let you know more when I do.” Craig paused then continued with a note of envy in his voice. “You sound like you’re having fun.”
Davy glanced over at the small group he’d just left. Jake was amusing Nicky and Annette with card tricks. He was good at them but Davy thought he’d better not give Craig the details when they were working so hard up north.
“Jake just told us a joke.”
Craig smiled wryly. “Oh, I thought he might be showing off his magic skills. He’s a champion magician you know, I saw him perform last year. “
Davy said nothing and Craig smiled again.
“Enjoy yourselves. It’s a Saturday, even though we are on call. And tell Annette to send everyone home anytime she likes. There’s no point all your weekends being spoiled as well.”
“Thanks, boss. I’ll check Mulvenna right now and s…send you what I find.”
The phone clicked off and Craig turned back to Andy, tapping the folder in his hand.
“This is the investigation of Veronica Jarvis’ death.”
Andy peered at it; it was thinner than any murder file he’d seen. Craig walked to a table and laid the contents out. Apart from a charge sheet there was only a summary sheet containing details of Mulvenna’s conviction and sentence, and one page from forensics. Andy turned it over. It matched Mulvenna to a partial print from the tape covering Ronni Jarvis’ mouth. His mouth fell open.
“They convicted Mulvenna on that? I know they were under pressure to clear things up quickly back then, but hey!”
Craig nodded. It was exactly what he was thinking but something else was nagging at the back of his mind. He closed the file and sat down, then he put his phone on speaker and dialled Liam.
“Hello, boss. What can I do for you?”
“We’ll meet later for an update, Liam, but I’ve a quick question. You policed during The Troubles, didn’t you?”
“Man and boy. So?”
“In your opinion, how often were ordinary crimes labelled as terrorist offences?”
Liam let out a low whistle before he spoke. “Plenty of times. And vice
Hot Tree Editing, K. B. Webb