Death to Pay (23 page)

As soon as Wilson returned to his office, he arranged for FSNI to carry out an examination of the McIlroy shooting. He wanted to know, in particular, what height the shooter might be. There was no need for a return visit to Carrickfergus a simple report would suffice. He rushed off a report on his visit to FSNI and his conversation with McGreary. He had already added ‘shot by someone he trusted or knew’ and ‘why the deserted school?’ to the whiteboard containing the information on the McIlroy murder. He looked through the glass window and saw that only Moira and McIver were at their desks. His watch said eleven thirty, and he would expect the team to assemble at midday. He kept his gaze on the squad room until he caught Moira’s eye, and he motioned for her to join him.

‘That was one pissed off pathologist this morning,’ Moira laughed as she entered his office. ‘She must have spent an hour getting herself made up to knock your socks off, and then I turn up. Not a happy bunny as they say.’

‘I spoke to her on the phone.’

‘And she didn’t bite your head off?’

‘You’re making a mountain out of a molehill.’

‘Just make sure you don’t trip over that molehill.’

‘That’s not why I wanted to talk to you. I want you to keep an eye on Ronald.’

‘The guy has just recently moved to another planet,’ she said. ‘He opens his desk drawer, looks in it and then closes it twenty times a day. If you look at him, he breaks out in a sweat, and he’s developed this far away look. What’s going on?’

‘Trouble at home. His wife has early dementia, and I think it’s beginning to get to him. He looks like shit. I think that he may be unravelling. I suggested that he look for help for Mary, but I’m beginning to think he’s the one that needs to see a shrink.’

‘We need all hands on deck right now. What do you want me to do?’

‘Just keep an eye out. If he starts to go off the wall, we might have to look for a replacement.’

‘Good luck with that.’

Ronald McIver’s ears were burning. He watched the Boss and the DS talking in the Boss’ office, and he was certain sure that he was the subject of their conversation. McElvaney was a dead giveaway. She had glanced twice into the squad room where he was the only occupant. He knew how important it was to remain normal in this situation. But since killing McIlroy his emotions were all over the place. In the twenty years that he’d been a police officer he’d never had occasion to draw his gun, never mind shoot another human being. He had qualified on the shooting range every year in order to continue to hold a personal weapon, but he never imagined that he would have reason to use it. He’d heard it said that you are never the same after killing, and they were right as far as he was concerned. If he’d killed in the line of duty, his weapon would have been confiscated, and he would be having a dozen sessions with a shrink. He still had his gun, and the sessions with the shrink were out of the question. His only possibility of staying out of jail was talking to nobody about McIlroy. But the guilt was eating him up inside. He’d joined the Murder Squad to catch people who had done what he had done. The knowledge that he was as bad as some of the bastards he put away ate at him.  The Boss and his pal were on to him. It wasn’t possible, but he didn’t like the way they looked at him. Behaving off beam would only raise suspicion. But he always had Mary’s condition to fall back on. A tear crept out of the corner of his eye, and he quickly wiped it away.

The team were all assembled for the midday briefing. Wilson noticed that Cummerford had taken up her usual position at the rear of the room. The tone of her articles on the Rice and Morison killings was measured, and she hadn’t descended into too much speculation. Also it was clear that she wasn’t using a lot of the information she was picking up at the internal briefings, and that she was sticking to the line being put out by the PSNI Press Office. So, all in all, she wasn’t the impediment to the investigation that Wilson assumed she would be. Wilson stood in front of the whiteboards where amendments had already been made following his visit to FSNI and Moira’s attendance at the autopsy. ‘So,’ he started. ‘We now have a vital piece of new information. The killer of Lizzie Rice and Nancy Morison was most probably a woman. That changes the direction of the investigation.’ He pointed to a copy of the photograph of the Shankill Branch of the UVF appended to the whiteboard. ‘We need to find all these women, now. One of them may be the killer or the killer may be after the whole group. Peter will be talking to Joan Boyle, the woman we’ve identified from the photo this afternoon, and it’s important that we get information on the activities of the group but also on the whereabouts of the other women. Eric, anything further on the car that lifted Nancy Morison?’

Eric Taylor moved forward and stuck a photo on the whiteboard. ‘This is the best enhancement we can get of the person driving the car. It’s about as useful as a midget in a basketball game in terms of identification. We can’t even tell for sure whether it’s a man or a woman. The hood of the fleece is covering most of the head. My guess is that this person was very well prepared for the abduction.’

‘What about the traffic cameras?’ Wilson asked.

Taylor took another photo from a file and stuck it on the board. ‘This is the best shot of the interior of the car taken by a traffic camera. It has been enhanced. You’ll note that the passenger is clearly identifiable as Nancy Morison, but you’ll also notice that the driver’s face is a blur. The best guess I can get from the traffic guys is that there was some kind of privacy tape put in strips across the driver’s side which allowed the driver to see out through the gaps but which blurred the image for the camera. We’re dealing with someone who’s pretty smart here.’

Wilson looked at Moira. ‘Anything on the background check?’

Moira said. ‘I’m still searching through the police reports on UVF activities in the seventies and eighties which covers Lizzie’s involvement. Nothing so far.’

Wilson turned and looked at Ronald McIver who seemed a million miles away. ‘Ronald?’

‘Boss,’ DC McIver jumped as though he had been startled.

‘Anything?’ Wilson asked

‘No, Boss. I’m drawing a blank.’

Wilson looked at Moira and she raised her eyebrows as a signal of understanding.

‘OK, let’s move on to McIlroy. Moira the autopsy.’

Moira put down the coffee cup she had been drinking from. ‘Ivan McIlroy was shot twice in the chest at close range; the estimate is two to three meters. In other words, by someone at the other side of the corridor in which they were standing. The pathologist removed two bullets.’ She walked forward and stuck a photo of a two bullets on the whiteboard. ‘These are two 9 mm Parabellum slugs. They are currently with Forensics for comparison testing and for identification of a possible weapon.’

‘I’ve asked FNSI to look at the trajectory of the bullets to give us some indication of the height of the shooter’ Wilson said. ‘That way we’ll be able to say for sure that the Rice and Morison killings are a separate crime from the McIlroy killing.’

‘The killers might be different but the motive might be the same,’ McIver said.

‘What?’ Wilson said.

‘Well, for example,’ McIver continued. ‘If the killings are intended to put pressure on Sammy,  they could be carried out by a group which had both a male and female assassin.’

‘That’s possible but a bit in the realm of conspiracy theory’ Wilson said, and he wanted to add that perhaps McIver was reading too many Dan Brown books. ‘We won’t separate the killings until we have all the information.’

‘Forensic will be back on the bullets by this afternoon,’ Moira said. ‘I put a rush on the testing.’

Wilson frowned. This would be reflected in the cost and would impact on his budget. ‘Last point. We have a possible abduction.’ He explained his conversation with McGreary. A look at the change of expression on the faces of his team was enough to tell him that they all understood the implication. ‘This is only hypothetical at the moment. I’ve asked the uniforms to keep a look out for either Sammy or members of his inner circle. I’ve put the word out that I need to speak urgently to Sammy.’

‘Jesus,’ Peter Davidson said softly. ‘Back to the bad old days. If Davie Best is murdered, that’s it. It’ll be tit for tat killings until they run out of foot soldiers.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ Wilson said. ‘So I want all of you to spread the word. I need to speak to Sammy, and I need to speak to him today. So far, Best is not even technically missing, and we have no evidence to confirm that he has been abducted. If we can nip this thing in the bud, it will be better for all concerned. Especially for Sammy and the goons that carried out the abduction. We need to get Davie Best back alive and in the best condition possible.’

Wilson was just settling himself in his office when Maggie Cummerford knocked on his door and entered.

‘Interesting briefing,’ she said sitting in his visitor’s chair.

‘And confidential,’ Wilson said.

‘I stick to my agreements,’ she pulled out a series of pages from her messenger bag and tossed them on the desk in front of him. ‘My profile of you. Not quite so gushing as that piece on your partner but probably more positive than you expected. Over the past week, I’ve spoken to people who played rugby with you and worked with you and even quite a few who claim to have slept with you. I don’t know how my editor will react. I think he might consider my views on your personal life might need to be toned down, but I do have sources for every statement.’

‘And I thought that I was universally popular,’ Wilson said picking up the pages. ‘When can I expect to see this in print?’

‘That’s my editor’s decision. There’s even a chance that he may not publish it at all. But my guess is that he will. Possibly if you manage to solve either the Rice and Morison case, or the McIlroy case.’

‘You sound a bit downbeat. I thought the action of two concurrent cases to report on would be a reporter’s dream.’

‘I’m getting bored with Belfast. It rains too much, and everybody is hung up on religion. It’s like living in the Bible Belt in the States without the compensation of the weather.’

‘No place is perfect.’

‘But some are better than others.’

‘Are you ready to tell me how you got Jennings to permit you to have such access to our investigation?’

‘Not yet.’

‘You’re an interesting person, Maggie.’

She smiled. ‘After researching you, I’m really worried that’s a come-on.’

He laughed. ‘No I mean it.’

‘You don’t know the half of it,’ she said and picked up her bag.  ‘Let me know what you think of the piece.

CHAPTER 48

Kate McCann sat at the defence table in Belfast Crown Court and adjusted her gown while listening to the opposing barrister rip into her client. Lunch had been a tuna sandwich and a coffee, the lot consumed in five minutes so that she could attend a client meeting in the middle of what was a difficult trial.  Her client, an Irish woman of thirty five, was seeking a Crown Court writ for the return of her two sons who had been abducted and taken to Latvia. Her husband was fighting the writ and had used the well-worn technique of blackening his wife’s character in order to resist the issuance of a writ that Kate would then try to internationalize. She had warned her client that her character was going to be dragged through the mud and to be prepared for the vicious attack from her husband’s barrister. Despite the warning and considerable preparation, her client was becoming increasingly emotional as charge after charge was laid against her. This was the part of the law that Kate hated most, the vilification of one party, usually the innocent one. The emotional garbage that was being stored up by the attack on her client would linger long after this case was settled. She looked up and saw that the line of questioning of the opposing barrister equally perturbed the female judge. The problem was that Kate had sometimes behaved in a similar manner as her esteemed colleague. In representing the interests of her client it was often necessary to destroy someone’s character. It was not the most pleasant of tasks, but she was committed to helping her client recover her children. The opposing barrister was winding up as Kate looked through her notes. By the time she glanced up, she saw that the judge was looking at her. She couldn’t remember her opponent’s last question, but that didn’t matter. She was suddenly very warm, and she could feel sweat on her forehead. Something was happening that she didn’t understand. Her stomach cramped. She knew that something bad was happening, and that she needed to get out of court and into a hospital. She stood up and suddenly the room started to spin around her. She looked up at the judge and saw her through a fog. Then everything went black, and she fainted.

Wilson rushed into the Gynaecology Ward at the Royal Victoria and went directly to the reception desk. ‘Kate McCann,’ he said breathlessly.

The receptionist looked at her computer and then picked up her phone. She spoke into the receiver for a few minutes. ‘The consultant is with her now. Perhaps you could take a seat, and we’ll call you when she’s through.’

Wilson reluctantly moved away from the reception desk and took a seat in the waiting area. The message he’d received was that Kate had fainted during a court case and had been brought to the Royal Victoria as a precaution.  He’d been told not to worry, but that was ridiculous. His pregnant partner had fainted and been rushed to hospital, of course he was going to bloody worry. It was at moments like this that Wilson wished that he hadn’t given up smoking. He looked at the other people in the waiting area and considered bumming a cigarette from them. What was he thinking of? He glanced at the wall and saw the no-smoking sign. He would have to go outside to smoke and there was no way he was leaving the waiting room until he found out what was happening. He stood up when he saw Kate’s gynaecologist coming towards the reception area.