The Sixth Estate (The Craig Crime Series) by Catriona King

doors. “The entrance door was open but the back door was locked, seemingly from the inside. The key was still in the inside lock.” He nodded at Andy. “Through Liam and Andy’s efforts, which they’ll demonstrate in a moment, we’ve established that the assailant must have had a duplicate key which they used to lock the door from the outside as they left.”
    Annette signalled to interrupt. “Are we ruling out Oliver Bwye, sir?”
    Craig shook his head emphatically. “Definitely not. This could still have been Bwye, deliberately staged to look like someone else. Family annihilation is firmly on the table. OK, Oliver Bwye owns a rifle.” He gestured at the cabinet. “It’s gone but the cabinet is intact. It was unlocked using a key and there are no prints but Bwye’s on the door, although we can’t tell how old they are. Bwye may have removed the rifle himself, either voluntarily or under duress, we don’t yet know, but there’s no blood so my feeling is that our perp opened it wearing gloves. We’re toying with the idea that a duplicate key may have been cut for the cabinet as well. We can’t rule anything in or out yet.”
    Davy pinned up the photographs and Annette screwed up her face when she saw the Luminoled images of blood.
    Craig nodded. “Not good, I know. No blood was found in the main reception room, but unfortunately the C.S.I.s didn’t go through that room until yesterday, so we may have lost some evidence. Hopefully not.”
    It was Julia’s turn to blush.
    “The search perimeter has been extended to two miles and we’ve every spare hand from Derry station out there looking for clues. They’ll do their thing and we need to do ours. First, everyone who was interviewed needs to be interviewed again. Annette, you and I will take Bernadette Ross this morning, she may have seen something without realising it and she was the first one in the house.”
    Annette interrupted. “Is she a suspect, sir?”
    “Yes, but we’re not telling her that. As far as she’s concerned she’s being interviewed as a valuable witness and we’re going to treat her like one.”
    Davy retook his seat, trying not to walk on the blood stains.
    “Davy, have you brought everything you need?”
    “Yeh. I can connect to the databases from here.”
    “Good. Make contact with Mike Augustus ASAP please. You and he are basically working the way you do with Des and John. You can call on them for back-up if you need to.”
    Dr Des Marsham was Northern Ireland’s Head of Forensic Science and he worked with John Winter in state of the art pathology facilities on Belfast’s Saintfield Road.
    “I want you to dig deep into our victims’ backgrounds, as deep as you can get. It’s too easy just to assume that they were taken because they were rich. I don’t want that to feature in our calculations until we’ve ruled out everything else.” He indicated the phone. “I need a trace on this line, Davy, and on Julia’s, Liam’s, Andy’s and my mobile phones, please, just in case we get a ransom call.”
    Liam had been slumped in a chair wondering whether to have another donut, but he jerked upright at Craig’s words.
    “Here, why are you tapping my phone? I might have a private call to make.”
    “Like what? Phoning the Chinese takeaway? It’s only for a few days, and we’ll just have to moderate our conversations. Keep them clean please; Davy’s an impressionable youth.” He ignored Davy’s sceptical look and carried on. “Any ransom demand will come here or to the lead officers on the case––”
    Andy cut in. “Do you think they might contact The Chronicle, hey? Given that Bwye owned it till two years ago.”
    Craig hadn’t thought of it. “Good pick-up. If the Bwyes were taken by someone Bwye offended with an article, then that’s exactly where they would call. Davy, we need The Belfast Chronicle’s lines monitored as well. Editor-in-chief’s and news desk.”
    Liam gave a low whistle. “You’ve two