Shadow Sins (DCI Wilson Book 2) (27 page)

Harry Graham was driving the unmarked police car in the direction of the South City when Wilson’s mobile started to ring.

“We picked him up on the Upper Malone Road heading towards the city almost twenty minutes ago according to the time stamp,” the Chief Super Traffic said. “He’s headed towards the Lisburn Road.”

“Lisburn Road,” Wilson shouted at Graham.

              They were twenty minutes behind, Wilson thought. A lot could happen in twenty minutes. It was a miracle that they were in the position they were in. All they could do now was to pray that the Bishop would still be alive when they reached their destination.

Bishop Carey looked into Mulholland’s face. It was contorted as though the man was having a stroke. Mulholland’s eyes were bulging from their sockets. His thin mouth was slightly open and appeared to be frozen in place. A gurgling sound came from his mouth. Carey was petrified beyond anything that he could imagine. He tried to move, but the ligatures held him firm. Mulholland had been approaching him with his knife in hand and had then suddenly stopped, remaining frozen to the spot.

“Please, God,” the Bishop prayed. “Please save me.”

Five yards away lights were flashing in Mulholland’s head. It was as if some of the circuits in his brain had been crossed and emitted sparks as they touched. It was his own private fireworks display.

“They turned into the driveway of a derelict building halfway along the Lisburn Road. It’s a sharp left turn for you into a laneway which leads to a large building,” the Chief Super’s voice came over the line. “It looks like that’s their destination. You’re fifteen minutes behind.”

Wilson relayed the information to Graham and the car sped forward. They were already on the Lisburn Road. “There,” Wilson pointed to the lane on their left and Graham swung the wheel sharply. He accelerated along the driveway until they saw the derelict edifice directly before them. There was no sign of the Mercedes.

“Around the back,” Wilson shouted and Graham continued around the left side of the building.

The Mercedes sat with both the driver and passenger doors open. Graham brought the police car to a stop directly behind it. The rear of the building was a mass of entry points. All the doors had been removed as had all the windows. The building itself consisted of three floors and must have contained more than forty individual rooms.

Wilson climbed out of the car and stood for a moment taking in the scene. “The last thing we want to do is to spook Mulholland. If he’s already topped the Bishop there’s nothing we can do. If the Bishop is still alive, we don’t want to instigate and precipitate events. In other words, neither of you will take any initiative. You follow my lead. Let’s try the closest doorway.” Wilson took the lead and made his way slowly through the open doorway.

They moved in unison into the darkened building. Wilson took a pencil flashlight with a strong beam from his pocket and shone it on the room they had just entered. With his other hand, he removed his Glock from its holster. When the building had been in use this room had probably been part of a kitchen. Some of the plumbing was still visible although most had been removed. The walls were pock marked where generations of vandals had worked out their frustrations on the plastered walls. He shone the light overhead and saw that the ceiling had been torn down. The walls were smeared with a green-brown substance which Wilson didn’t much fancy. The smell of urine and shit was overpowering. Only those who had given up on life would live in such a dank hole. He left the back room and entered another room directly in front. This room suffered the same level of destruction as the first. The floor had initially been wooden but several boards long the side of the room had been removed. Wilson shone his flashlight on the gapped boards and motioned for Moira and Graham to be careful how they proceeded. He stopped and listened. He could hear the sounds of someone crying in the distance.

Mulholland wanted to speak, but he couldn’t. He saw the Bishop on his knees in front of him and he looked at the knife hanging in his right hand. Bits of his brain were still operational, and he knew that he had brought the Bishop to his hiding place to obtain justice for the wrong that had been done to him. The Bishop was babbling. Mulholland wanted to hear what the man was saying but his ears couldn’t make sense of the sounds. His right hand still gripped the knife. It took a monumental effort of will to raise his right hand. His left hand hung useless at his side. He was aware that something very much out of the ordinary was happening to him. He had overdosed on drugs before, but he had simply passed out and been lucky enough to have been revived in the emergency room at the hospital. This was a totally different experience. Something weird was going on inside his head. He felt that he was about to die. The Bishop was babbling in front of him. He needed to kill the bastard.

Wilson moved into the centre of the building. There was a large vestibule with a shattered staircase leading to the upper floors. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and shone his light upwards. The banister had been removed from the stairs and several of the uprights of the steps had been broken. The only noise in the building was coming from somewhere above him.

“Tread softly on the stairs,” Wilson whispered as he put his foot on the first step of the stairway.

He moved up the stairway as carefully and as rapidly as he could. It was important not to freak out Mulholland. By all accounts, the young man was unhinged, and he had already killed two people. Killing a third would not necessarily pose a problem to him. The noise that Wilson was beginning to identify as praying was becoming clearer. The trio of police officers reached the top of the stairs and started to make their way towards the rear of the building and the room that seemed to be the source of the only noise in the building.

Mulholland stood above Bishop Carey who was on his knees with his head bent towards the floor. The Bishop was babbling without a stop, a great gushing of words emanating from his mouth. The priest would have to die to expiate the hurt he had caused him. The knife felt strange in his right hand. He didn’t seem to have the force necessary to drive it into the kneeling man. He pulled back the knife and was about to strike when a light was shone in his eyes. He thought it was simply another explosion of light similar to those he had been experiencing for the past ten minutes.

“Drop the knife,” Wilson said as he entered the room. He immediately took in the scene. Bishop Carey was on his knees praying for his life with Mulholland standing over him knife in hand. There was something strange in the look on Mulholland’s face. His eyes were red and bulging and his face misshapen and frozen in a rictus of hate. Wilson watched the hand holding the knife. It was moving in slow motion.

“Don’t do it,” Wilson said raising his gun. “I’m Detective Chief Inspector Wilson. It’s over.”

Mulholland stared at the man behind the light. He’d said something, but Mulholland could make no sense of the words. It was like he was hearing the man speaking through water. He saw the gun extending from the man’s right hand and wondered why the man was pointing the weapon at him. Then he looked down at the man kneeling at his feet. He suddenly felt very tired.

“Just put the knife down,” Wilson said continuing to point the Glock at Mulholland. The scene before him looked like a tableau with the Bishop on his knees, head bent and Mulholland standing over him knife in hand. Neither man had moved since Wilson entered the room.

Bishop Carey’s head came up slowly and he blinked as he took in the two men and one woman crushed into the doorway. He recognised Wilson at the head of the trio. “Shoot him,” he screamed. “He killed Gilroy and Reilly, and he’s going to kill me. Shoot him for God’s sake.”

Mulholland could hear the man on the floor beneath him screaming and wondered what was happening. He could see flashes of light before his eyes like camera flashbulbs going off on a continuous basis. Everyone was speaking but he could make no sense of what they were saying.

“Nobody shoot,” Wilson shouted.

“Kill him,” Bishop Carey’s face was a mask of hate, the words from his lips accompanied by a stream of spittle. “In God’s name, I’m asking you to kill him.”

“Drop the knife,” Wilson said again. Despite the Bishop’s exhortations, he had no intention of killing Mulholland. However, it was a fluid situation, and things had a bad habit of going horribly wrong. Mulholland remained immobile. The knife was loose in his hand but that could change in an instant.

Mulholland wondered who the people in the doorway were and why one of them seemed to be addressing him. He tried to control the electrical impulses going crazy in his head. He forced his head to look down at the man at his feet. He needed to kill him. He started to move the hand holding the knife.

Wilson saw the movement of the knife hand. It appeared to be moving in slow motion. He wasn’t sure that the motion was itself slow or whether time was telescoping for him. He fired aiming at the right arm. The explosion of the Glock reverberated around the small room and there was a scurrying sound to Wilson’s left. He whirled the gun to cover the area where the sound came from. He saw the disappearing tail of a giant rat as it disappeared behind an area of broken wainscoting. He turned back in time to see Mulholland collapsing on the floor.

“Ambulance,” Wilson said simply as he entered the room and kicked the knife away from Mulholland’s right hand. He put the safety on his gun and dropped it into his pocket. Professional Standards would need to take possession of it later.

Moira already had her mobile phone out and was giving directions to the dispatcher. Harry Graham walked into the room, picked up the knife and dropped it into an evidence bag.

Wilson lifted Bishop Carey to his feet and ripped the tape from his ankles. He unwound the tape from the Bishop’s hands. “It’s over,” he said simply as he looked into the Bishop’s cold dark eyes.

“I’m lucky to be alive, and it’s no thanks to you,” the Bishop pushed Wilson aside and walked to where his jacket lay on the ground.

“You need to come with us,” Wilson’s eyes followed the Bishop but he was aware of Moira tending to Mulholland. “We’ll need a statement about this whole business. Gilroy, Reilly the whole damn mess.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, “ Bishop Carey said. “This man, who is very obviously out of his mind, abducted me today, and I am sure he expected to kill me. I have no idea whether it was him who murdered Father Gilroy or Father Reilly. That’s up to you to establish. He may indeed be the ‘priest killer’ that Chief Inspector Harrison spoke about at the press conference. All I know is that he is very possibly deranged.”

A smile flitted across Wilson’s full lips. It was going to go to the wire. The Bishop was going to hold out on the cover-up. “The man’s name is Noel Mulholland,” he said.

“We didn’t do introductions,” the Bishop said quickly.

“You met him once before when you were the
notaire
of a clerical enquiry,” Wilson continued.

“You’re out of your mind Chief Inspector,” the Bishop laughed haughtily. “Before to-day I have never seen this man in my life and to my recollection, I have never acted as a
notaire
in a clerical enquiry. I would be quite happy to make an appointment to give a short statement,but right now I need to get out of this dreadful place and back on my schedule.”

Wilson turned and looked at Moira who was on her knees beside Mulholland.

She looked back at Wilson. “He’s Okay. He won’t be using that arm for a while, but that’s going to be the least of his problems. I’m no doctor, but it looks like he’s had some kind of stroke. His eyes are way back in his head and he doesn’t seem capable of communicating.”

The sound of a siren could be heard from outside.

“Harry, go below and get the Paramedics up here pronto.”

Graham immediately left the room and could be heard descending the steps.

“I need a driver,” the `Bishop said. “Your man Graham will do.”

“He’s not available,” Wilson said. “This is a crime scene. We need him here.”

“What about my car?”

“Same problem, CSI will want to go over it with a fine tooth comb.”

“Then how do you suggest I get to my appointment with the Deputy First Minister?” the Bishop asked.

“Call a taxi,” Wilson said and moved to where Mulholland was lying on the floor. Moira had pulled his tongue out to ensure that it couldn’t impede his airway.

Wilson knelt beside Mulholland who was lying motionless on the ground. He put two fingers on Mulholland’s neck and felt a strong pulse.

Two paramedics burst into the room and bundled Wilson and Moira out of the way. The two police officers withdrew and stood by the door. There was the sound of more sirens outside and within a minute three uniformed officers appeared at the door of the room. Wilson put up his hand to stop them from entering. The crime scene had been contaminated enough already. Beyond the three uniforms, Wilson could see two crime scene investigators donning oversuits. He looked around and noticed that the Bishop was nowhere in sight.