Read Online A Limited Justice (#1 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) by Catriona King - Free Book Online

sense that he was scaring them, so he softened his voice and hunkered down again, peering in.
    Standing half-out of the first doorway was a small elderly woman. She was eighty at least, and not a modern eighty. Her thick brown tights and laced shoes reminded him of his granny in the country. A proper sensible granny, not one of these modern ones filling themselves with Botox.
    Her hair was white and curled and she looked at him apprehensively through large glasses. She looked frightened, as if she rarely opened the door, and he decided on a softer approach.
    “Hello Mrs Foster. My name’s Detective Inspector Liam Cullen.”
    He had a second’s thought that in this staunchly Loyalist street ‘Liam Cullen’ might sound like a Dissident and scare her even more, but he ploughed on regardless.
    “Could we have a quick chat about what happened across the road yesterday?” He lifted his warrant card and pushed it through for her to see, hoping that the cat wouldn’t see it as a new invitation to assault.
    As she edged her way slowly down the hall, he could see that her left leg dragged slightly, and her frailty touched him, reminding him why they did the job. She reached out hesitantly, steadying herself, and took the proffered card. She held it close to her glasses for what seemed like minutes before she seemed satisfied. Then she leaned over and opened the front door inwards, allowing him to enter.
    Liam’s heart sank at her eyesight. How could she possibly have seen enough to be a good witness, no matter what her neighbours said? But he always lived in hope.
    He stood in the tiled hallway looking down at her. His 6ft 6 made him stand above most people but this tiny woman barely reached his hip. Yet her large eyes danced, hinting at a lively girl inside. She looked up at him trustingly and then smiled, handing the card back. “My name’s Ida Foster, officer. Please come in.”
    Her voice was much stronger than he’d expected, with a lilt from somewhere that he couldn’t quite place. As she turned slowly into the small front room, decorated, not as he’d expected with chintz and china but with Australian arts and crafts, her accent slotted into place. Despite his protests, she insisted on making him tea. Remembering the constable waiting by the car, Liam called him in, and together they kept the old woman company over tea and digestives for an hour. An hour that would help their investigation more than he could ever have hoped.
    ***
    Julia sat at her desk in Limavady, sucking at an un-lit cigarette and working out the order of play. Was this a girl who’d been beaten, raped and dumped, who just happened to be a police officer? After all, being in ‘the job’ didn’t provide you with a force field, although she sometimes wondered if everybody realised that. Some of her colleagues thought they wore superhero suits under their uniforms.
    Or, had Maria Burton been raped and murdered because she was a police officer? The answers to the two questions were very different. The first, a sad fate for anyone, the second carrying implications for the whole force. Especially its women.
    She already knew that her answer didn’t matter, because she had to treat it as both. Work it as a rape murder, but use wider intelligence to find out if the whole force or its women were under attack. She picked up the phone with a heavy heart, dialling and waiting to hear the deep voice of the man she studiously avoided. Dreading the contact, but accepting it was part of her job, and prepared for it by her years in the army.
    She was surprised then when a quietly spoken woman answered. She paused, deciding between wife and daughter, and then hid her pity for the woman as she spoke.
    “Mrs Harrison, could I speak to the Detective Chief Superintendent please? It’s Inspector McNulty.”

Chapter Five
     
    The room was small and still, with furniture well past its sell-by-date, and that air of peace that the elderly seemed to carry around