Death to Pay (2 page)

‘So I’ve heard.’ Wilson was well aware of the role the Rice family had played in the various Loyalist paramilitary organisations in the Shankill. Sammy Rice was no longer involved in paramilitary activities but used the skills he’d learned during the ‘Troubles’ to establish a criminal organisation. Lizzie and her son wielded enormous power in the area they came from. ‘Let’s get on with it,’ Wilson pushed open the front door. He was about to step into the narrow hallway when he saw a pile of vomit directly in front of him.

‘The attending officers didn’t make it to the street,’ the uniform officer said.

Wilson stepped around the pile of sick and made his way towards the living room. There were two easy chairs, a small coffee table and a television. Family photographs dominated the wall space. A laminate wooden floor was an addition to the original house. The body of what was Lizzie Rice lay prone on the floor. The back of her head was gone, and the floorboards were littered with broken bone and grey slivers of watery brain. Her blond hair was stained red with dark cranial blood and had fallen forward over the crown of her head.  She looked like a broken doll.  Her Union Jack plastic handbag lay beside her. To the left of her head was an enormous pile of sick. Wilson turned to the uniformed officer who had followed him into the room.

‘That’s Sammy’s,’ the policeman said. ‘Look’s like he was well into the cans before Lizzie got it. By the look of it he had pizza for tea.’

‘Boss,’ Detective Sergeant Moira McElvaney stood in the doorway of the living room. She had already donned her plastic jumpsuit.

Wilson turned from the body in time to see Moira retching. ‘Take it outside quick.’

Moira disappeared from the doorway, and Wilson could hear the sound of deep retching from the street. ‘What’s the mood of the crowd?’ he asked.

‘Ugly, but its early doors. The news in going around like wildfire but nothing’ll happen until Sammy gets back. Then, all hell’s going to break loose. We’ll be breaking out the riot gear over this one.’

‘Sorry, Boss,’ Moira reappeared at the door. Her face was ashen, and she was wiping at a gob of spittle hanging from her mouth.

‘No disgrace,’ Wilson said joining her. ‘Someone really wanted Lizzie dead. Any sign of forensics or the pathologist.’

‘Both on the way,’ Moira said. ‘I’ve never seen anything like that.’

Wilson moved into the rear of the house towards a small kitchen.  There was no sign of activity. The kitchen units were in need of updating, and the fridge and cooker had seen better days. The family Rice didn’t benefit greatly for their dedication to Ulster Unionism. He went back into the corridor and climbed the stairs to the two small bedrooms. The front bedroom measured twelve feet by nine and contained a double bed, a tallboy and a wardrobe. Wilson opened the wardrobe and saw it contained an assortment of winter clothing and a number of items, mainly female, with the Union Jack motif. Billy and his wife would have required a visit their local haberdasher if they received an invitation to the Queen’s Garden Party. The back bedroom measured nine feet by seven and contained an old wooden single bed that had been slept in recently and not made up. Perhaps this was Billy’s room after an evening on the cans. It was nothing out of the ordinary for the average working class Belfast family. It was apparent that all the action had happened downstairs.

As Wilson descended the stairs, Moira was talking to a young woman clad in a white plastic over suit in the hallway. The woman was carrying the obligatory black doctor’s bag.

‘Boss, this is the pathologist, Professor Reid,’ Moira stood aside.

‘Detective Superintendent Ian Wilson,’ he proffered his hand. ‘Where’s old Carmody?’

‘Somewhere up the Zambezi,’ Professor Reid took his hand. ‘Gone for a year at least to help our African colleagues discern the cause of death of their stricken citizens.’

Wilson sized up the new pathologist. She was about thirty-five, had a good figure, and she was certainly attractive. She wore her curly blond hair short. Her skin was either naturally sallow, or she had recently acquired a tan. Either way her skin colour contrasted very well with her blond hair.  ‘You look too young for this game. Most of our pathologists have been old codgers.’

‘Your reputation precedes you, Superintendent.’

‘All good I hope,’ Wilson said.

‘Probably deserved,’ she lifted up her bag. ‘Now that we’ve observed the preliminaries, perhaps we had better get to work.’

‘ I thought you were spoken for,’ Moira said as soon as Reid was out of earshot.

‘What?’

‘There was more than a bit of flirting going on there. I don’t think your very pregnant partner would appreciate it.’

‘That American psychologist boy friend of yours is having a negative effect on you.  I suppose it could simply be the Catholic upbringing that sees sin everywhere you go. Get Peter on the phone and have him organise the house-to-house. Harry can set up the murder book as usual. I was thinking of making you SIO on the next murder case, but this one is too big.’

‘What’s with the crowd outside? And he’s not my boy friend.’

‘If you want to continue to work in West Belfast, you’re going to have to get up to date on your Loyalist iconography. That dead woman was once one of the most powerful women in this community. She headed the Shankill branch of the women’s UVF, and she was at the front of every demonstration that took place in the 1970’s and ‘80’s. Her husband, Billy, who is currently in the Royal Victoria Hospital where we are going next, was also a major character in the UVF but even more importantly her son, Sammy, is the current bull goose in this area.’

‘That’s why the crowd?’

‘That’s why the impending evening demonstrations just around the corner will make the fracas about what flag is flying over City Hall look like a church picnic. Get on with the phone calls.’

Moira moved to the front door while Wilson returned to the living room. A forensic technician was photographing the body and the room in general. Professor Reid was standing by the door.

‘No problem with cause of death,’ she said as Wilson joined her.

‘But I want to know what particular blunt object caused it and I want to have a decent idea of what time it happened. Her husband will be no good on time of death. Whoever killed her sent him bye byes. How soon will you have her out of here? I’m a bit nervous about the crowd. The sooner we have these people back in their houses the better.’

She nodded at the photographer. ‘As soon as he’s finished we can bag her and tag her.’

‘And I want those photos on my computer first thing tomorrow morning,’ Wilson saw the photographer toss his eyes towards heaven but decided to ignore him. He turned to Reid. ‘You’ve covered a lot of these cases.’

‘You mean why didn’t I throw up like half the people who’ve seen her?’

Wilson thought of Moira’s reaction. ‘Sort of.’

‘Two years with Doctors without Borders in Goma in Northern Congo can have a very serious effect on your sensibilities. This is pretty basic stuff in comparison to the aftermath of a Mai Mai raid on a village. The first few times I got sick and despaired of the human race. Then I just got down to the work of cataloguing the depravity.’ She turned to the photographer. ‘You finished yet?’

The photographer sighed, packed up his gear and headed toward the door.

‘First thing tomorrow morning on my computer,’ Wilson said as the photographer passed him. 

‘We’ll have her shipped to the Royal Victoria,’ Reid said. ‘I’ll try to schedule the autopsy for tomorrow morning, and I’ll get a tech on the job of identifying the blunt object. Don’t send one of your more squeamish colleagues. It could be messy. Now I’d appreciate it if you’d piss off. There’s a lot of bone and brain fragments to collect. I’m sure you have something more useful to do.’

So much for the flirting, Wilson though as he made his way back into the hallway. Maybe Moira should have seen that conversation. On second thought maybe it was better that she hadn’t.

CHAPTER 4

Billy Rice was still in A and E at the Royal Victoria Hospital when Wilson and McElvaney arrived.

A young Pakistani doctor holding a clipboard met them at the entrance to the ward area. ‘Someone sprayed his face with what was probably Mace, but we can’t be sure what the composition was because it has all evaporated. However, Mace would be a good guess considering the state of his eyes. They’ve been burned, but they’ll recover. He was so inebriated when he arrived that we had to put him on a drip. There’s a mark on his head where he received a blow. It wasn’t a heavy blow, and I don’t think it was inflicted purposely. It’s probably the result of a fall. There are two marks on his neck and some localised burning. I would estimate that he was hit with some kind of disabling weapon like a Taser. I’ve seen similar marks in Pakistan.’

‘A Taser, are you sure,’ Wilson asked.

The young doctor nodded.

‘What would the effect of being hit by the Taser be?’ Moira asked.

The doctor looked at Moira. ‘I thought that you people were trained on this stuff.’

‘Humour me,’ Moira said.

‘Different people have different reaction to being Tasered. However, I assure you that it’s definitely uncomfortable. Some people compare it to touching a live electrical outlet except that it’s not localized to the point of contact. It has a more full body effect where muscular control is limited for the duration of the cycle charge. It is normally described as ‘muscle lock up’ because you’re generally unable to move. The whole effect is not about pain but incapacitation in order to keep someone down and away from you. The pain generally goes from mild to moderate depending on the charge from the weapon.’

‘But it’s impossible to obtain a Tazer in Great Britain,’ Moira said.

‘They can be bought in most of the US states,’ the doctor said. ‘You can even go on Youtube and learn to build your own. It doesn’t take a genius to put a few proprietary items together, and you have the added advantage that you can add a bit of zing to the customised weapon.’

‘And was Mister Rice hit with something having a little extra zing?’ Wilson asked.

The doctor thought for a moment. ‘Difficult to say. The fact that he was already heavily intoxicated would not have helped. That and the blow to the head could have kept him out a little longer than normal. I’m sorry, but I can’t be more exact than that.’

‘So what’s his condition?’ Wilson asked.

‘In general, his injuries are fairly light. He should be discharged sometime tomorrow.’

‘Good then there’s no problem in interviewing him,’ Wilson said.

The doctor shook his head and pointed at the last cubicle.

Wilson pulled aside the curtain to the cubicle and ushered Moira inside. The air was redolent with the smell of stale beer and fresh farts. Billy Rice had been in the cubicle only a few hours, but he had already established his own unique environment. Lying on the bed, he resembled something like Ayres Rock. His stomach, which had always been significant, had reached gargantuan proportions since Wilson had seen him last. Two large gauze circles covered his eyes, and a drip had been inserted in his right wrist.  There was a plaster on the side of his head.

‘It’s Detective Superintendent Wilson. How are you, Billy?’ Wilson said easing the curtain around the cubicle back into position.

‘Fuck you, how do ye think I am?’ Rice shouted while remaining immobile. ‘Lizzie’s dead. Some bastard caved her head in. That boy doesn’t know what they’ve done. Just wait till Sammy hears.’

‘What happened?’ Wilson asked.

‘Fucked if I know. I was watched the TV, don’t ask me what was on I never take a blind bit of notice of the damn thing. There’s a knock at the door, and I tell them to piss off but they’re not listening. So I get up and open the door. As soon as the door opened the bastard sprayed some shit in my eyes, the pain drove me up the wall. They pushed me back into the living room, and hit me with some electrical gizmo.’

‘So Lizzie wasn’t at home?’

‘Bingo, every Wednesday like clockwork. She normally gets home before ten.’

‘And what time did the doorbell go at?’

Rice thought for a moment, and the effort seemed to tax him. ‘If I’d been payin’ closer attention to the TV I’d have a guess, but I was into the cans.’

‘How many were there?’

‘I have no idea. The minute I opened the door I was hit in the eyes. Then I was electrocuted or something, and everything went blank. It’s the fucking Taigs. Lizzie was a thorn in their side for years. You drag a few Taigs into the station and beat the shit out of them until they squeal. If you don’t Sammy will.’

‘Why didn’t they hurt you, Billy? You were heavily involved yourself.’

‘Hell if I know,’ some tears flowed out of Rice’s right eye.

Wilson wondered if it was the result of the spray or was Rice crying for his dead wife. If he was a betting man, he would have chosen the spray.

‘So they targeted Lizzie. Any idea why?’

‘Who can tell with the Taigs? Bloody vermin.’

‘Sammy having any business problems these days?’ Wilson asked.

‘My son doesn’t have business problems for too long. He takes care of business problems.’

‘No reason why some of his associates would target Lizzie?’

Billy Rice snorted. ‘Whoever did this is mad or crazy or both. You don’t bash in Lizzie Rice’s skull and make any long-term plans. The word’ll be out on this tomorrow, and the whole of the Shankill will be looking for the bastard. And when he’s found, we won’t be needing the help of the peelers.’

‘We’ll be in touch,’ Wilson said pulling back the curtain and allowing Moira to leave.

‘Piss right off.’

‘Just what we don’t need,’ Wilson said walking along the passageway between the cubicles. A load of idiots trying to ingratiate themselves with Sammy Rice by bringing him the head of some poor unfortunate who had nothing to do with murdering Lizzie. However, Billy is right on one count. Whoever killed Lizzie Rice is one crazy bugger. It was a high-risk murder right in the middle of a staunchly Protestant area of Belfast. It either took amazing guts or more than a little foolhardiness.’