Shadow Sins (DCI Wilson Book 2) (6 page)

CHAPTER 15

Richie Simpson was a creature of habit. As a full time official of the Ulster Democratic Union, he could spend his day pretty much as he wished, but it always involved a pint of Guinness in the Auld Sash pub in West Belfast at exactly 11 o’clock every day. It wasn’t so much the drink that attracted Simpson to the Auld Sash, it was the location of what he termed his ‘clinic’. He always sat at a table in the back corner of the bar where he received his ‘clients’, individuals who wished to have the assistance of the UDU in their dealings with the Northern Ireland Executive. Simpson had attained the mantle of a ‘Mr. Fix it’ over the years and he prided himself on the very wide range of contacts he could call on to make sure that something could be done for the ‘little people’ who would cast their votes religiously for the UDU.

Simpson was just settling into his seat when DCI Ian Wilson pushed open the door and entered the sparsely occupied bar.

“Oh, shite,” Simpson said under his breath as Wilson approached his table and then sat directly facing him.

“Top of the mornin’, Richie,” Wilson said as he took his seat. Wilson hadn’t seen Simpson for more than half a year, and he was struck by the man’s appearance. Wilson tended to think of people in terms of the animals they reminded him of. Chief Superintendent Spence was big and warm and reminded Wilson of a great black bear. He had already classified Richie Simpson as a rat and Richie had certainly become more rat-like since Wilson had seen him last. Simpson had started a moustache that had grown sideways rather than down, which enhanced his likeness to a rodent.

“What do you want?”  Simpson wrinkled his nose. “You’re messing up the nice smell in here.”

“I had no idea you were so fond of the smell of stale Guinness and week-old urine.”

The barman placed a pint of Guinness in front of Simpson and looked at Wilson who ignored him.

“Slainte,” Wilson said nodding at the pint of Guinness.

Two men and a woman entered the bar and upon seeing that Simpson was occupied made their way to the bar.

Simpson took a sip from the Guinness and replaced the glass on the table. “Get on with it. I have ‘clients’ waiting.”

“No doubt you’ve heard about the burning of Saint Cormac’s Catholic Church on Saturday nigh,” Wilson said.

Simpson didn’t reply.

“We’ve confirmed that the body found inside was the Parish Priest, and that he was dead before the fire was set.”

“And this concerns me how?” there was a smirk on Simpson’s face.

“You’re the general Protestant dogsbody in the area, so I thought that you might have some idea who set the fire and killed the priest.”

“If the people around here knew who offed the Taig priest, they’d most likely insist that we strike a medal for them.” Simpson drank from the glass leaving a residue of white foam on his moustache. As he replaced the glass on the table, he sucked the white foam into his mouth through his lower lip.

“Who said it was a they. Maybe it was a he.”

“OK they’d pin a medal on him if they knew who he was.”

“You’re not being very cooperative, Richie. That’s not like you. Rumour has it that being cooperative is part of your skill set.”

“Maybe I don’t know enough to be cooperative.”

“Richie, we’re both busy men. I need to know if there was any Protestant paramilitary involvement in the burning of Saint Cormac’s? We need to eliminate the possibility that some of your headbanger friends might have been practicing for the Twelfth of July.”

“Not as far as I know,” Simpson took another sip from his Guinness. “But you know how it is. A group of the boys might have been on their way home from the pub and got the idea that they’d like to see a bonfire.” He exploded his hand outwards. “Puff. End of one Fenian church.”

“And the priest?”

“Could be collateral damage,” Simpson smiled.

“Richie, you disappoint me. We’re going the distance on this one so you better pass along the message that when I find the culprit, he’s going to get the stretch he deserves irrespective of who he belongs to.”

“There’s a nasty rumour in some quarters concerning you,” the smirk on Simpson’s face grew wider. “Some say that your bosses want rid of you. They think that you might be happier running a small Plod Station somewhere deep in the countryside.  That might not suit your new lady friend.”

Wilson leaned across the table and grabbed Simpson by the throat. “Listen to me, you piece of shit. You can say whatever you like about me but never mention anyone connected to me. Got it.” He was aware of activity at the bar and looked over to see all the occupants of the pub staring at him. He let Simpson go. “I know you’re bad news, Richie. I know there’s something out there that if I knew it, I could put you behind bars. Right now, I don’t have the time to make you a special case, but that may change. Just keep that in mind.”

Simpson looked at the bar and shook his head. The barman and his customers resumed their conversations. Simpson knew that if Wilson concentrated on him that something would surface and that would be dangerous for him.

“There was no official involvement in the burning,” Simpson said finally. “Now fuck off and leave me alone.” He said the latter remark in a high voice so that all the occupants of the pub could hear clearly.

“I think I’m going to think about giving you special attention,” Wilson said as he stood up. “Every time I meet you, I feel I should take a shower immediately afterwards. Maybe I should find out why I feel like that.”

Simpson picked up his pint with a hand that shook perceptibly and raised it to his lips.  He drank deeply before replacing the glass on the table.

Wilson smiled. He had been on the Force long enough to know when he had rattled someone. Simpson certainly had something to hide or even maybe several somethings. Finding out what that something might be would depend on Wilson having a lot of spare time.

CHAPTER 16

“This is very dangerous, Your Grace,” Monsignor Devlin stood in front of a roaring fire in the reception room of the Bishop’s Palace in the Malone area of South Belfast. “We should have kept you totally out of the picture. It would have been better to have maintained contact with the police at my level.”

Bishop Charles Carey sat in a leather wingback chair facing the fireplace. “Malachy, you’re giving me a headache, and you’re blocking off the heat from the fire. Would you for the Lord’s sake put your behind into a chair and relax yourself? ”

The Monsignor made his way to a chair on the opposite side of the fire and sat down. “We should never have agreed to you being interviewed by the police.”

“I am not being interviewed,” Bishop Carey placed his two hands on his ample stomach. “I am simply helping the police with their investigation into the murder of one of the priests from my diocese. What is dangerous is you fretting and looking nervous.”

“I didn’t like the way Wilson looked around the rectory,” Devlin said. “We tried to leave it in such a state that there would be no questions asked. However, I got the distinct feeling that we might have made a mistake in our haste to clear up.”

“But everything has been cleared up?” Bishop Carey asked. “You managed to remove everything from the rectory.”

“It was all on the bonfire yesterday morning. Father Gilroy is who we say he is. Our only problem now is to keep the Chief Inspector pointed in the direction of the murderer and away from Father Gilroy.”

“That may be more difficult than you think,” Bishop Carey said leaning forward. “You haven’t been here very long, Malachy. Because if you were, you might have heard about Ian Wilson. In a Province that is top heavy in corruption and cronyism he stands out a little. Not only is he not a Mason, he is not a member of the Orange Order. In other words, the only club he belonged to was his rugby club. Given that the PSNI is riven with Masons and members of the Orange Order, you can imagine Wilson has qualities other than membership of clubs that has assisted him in rising through the ranks. Strangely enough honesty, integrity and intelligence actually can manage to overcome nepotism and cronyism. Lucky for him that he didn’t become a Catholic priest. He would have gotten nowhere.” The Bishops stomach heaved like a liner on an ocean wave as he chuckled at his own joke. “Ian Wilson is not to be trifled with and certainly not to be underestimated.  There is a group within the PSNI who would dearly like to see him removed to somewhat less controversial work. If he becomes our problem, it is among his superiors that we will have to seek a solution.”

Devlin’s brow creased. “I wonder are we doing the right thing in erasing a part of Father Gilroy’s life that may be germane to the motivation behind his death.”

“That’s the trouble with all you smart lads. You mull things over too much. Since Gilroy came back from Canada, he’s been a model citizen. I’ve seen to that. Things are at such a stage in this Province that the killing of a priest could be motivated by any of a dozen reasons. We seem to have a monopoly on religious bigots any of whom could have taken it into his head to burn down a church and kill the parish priest. It would be best for you to leave Wilson to do the investigating while you stick to your administrative and pastoral duties.”

Devlin looked into the Bishop’s eyes. They were dark pools with unknown depths. Bishop Carey would have been completely at home in fifteenth-century Italy. Machiavelli wrote about such men. The Bishop was not the most intelligent man that Devlin had ever met but he certainly was one of the most cunning. He broke eye contact with the Bishop, who appeared to be looking right through him. He was aware that he wasn’t being told the whole truth and he was more than a little surprised at what they had found in Gilroy’s house. Despite the protestations of the Bishop, he was convinced that Father Gilroy was certainly not a model citizen. Material that could have incriminated Gilroy had been burned in the grounds of the Bishop’s Palace making him an accessory after the fact to any crimes that Gilroy might have committed. He had immediately made his confession to the Bishop and received absolution, but the legal system would not absolve him so easily. His duty was to protect the Bishop at all costs, and that is what he had done.

“So we’re agreed,” the Bishop broke the silence. “You leave Wilson to me.”

“If that’s your wish.”

“You are one of the most intelligent priests that I’ve met, Malachy. And I have no doubt that you think that you’re a lot smarter than Ian Wilson. That may be true in the sense that you are better educated and more widely read. Wilson doesn’t depend on intelligence alone. He’s the kind of policeman who sniffs the air to find his way through the labyrinth. That puts him in my realm. I’ll deal with Ian Wilson. You can count on that.”

CHAPTER 17

Wilson stared at the computer screen. The first page of a twenty-four page questionnaire from PSNI Human Resources stared back at him. The initial e-mail said that it would take less than thirty minutes to complete the questionnaire, but it had taken more than fifteen minutes to scan the fifty or so questions concerning training that he, as a senior officer was obliged to complete.  He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He would just rest for a moment before tackling the questionnaire. The job was changing too much for him. Being the senior officer of the Murder Squad had become a managerial job. It was all about staff appraisals, staff training, budgeting, financial accounting and human resource bloody questionnaires. He joined the police to catch criminals and put them where they could do no more harm. Maybe it was time to consider some other line of work. What the hell could he do other than police work? He could always ask Kate to canvas her corporate friends to find something useful for him to do. That would inevitably mean more computer work, more questionnaires and more administration. He would have to think seriously about the future. They were living together for almost three months now and despite their job commitments, he had to admit that their relationship was improving by the day.  She was the one good thing in his life and he was going to do whatever it took not to lose her. And if that meant leaving the Force, then so be it. His thoughts segued to his dead wife. The marriage was a mistake from the beginning. They married because she was pregnant and three weeks into wedded bliss she’d had a miscarriage that left her without the possibility of further children. Maybe they should have walked away then before he inflicted more hurt on her than any woman should have to endure. He could blame his philandering on the loss of the child, but he was cheating with women before and after his marriage. He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling.  Thinking about Susan and his possible role in the stress that may have caused the cancer always brought pain and the realisation of what a bastard he really was.  He never discussed the guilt feelings with Kate. That would be exposing a side of him that he wanted to keep hidden from the outside world. It was the deep dark secret he had to keep within himself. The world at large could think that Ian Wilson was mister nice guy but he would always know the truth.

He tilted his chair forward and looked at the screen. Question 1 stared back at him. Reality bites.

He had reached question twenty when Harry Graham knocked on the door and entered.

“Meeting with Bishop Carey set for two o’clock this afternoon,” Graham said taking the seat directly across from Wilson.

“Did the Monsignor resist?” Wilson asked pressing the ‘SAVE’ box on the screen. There was no way he was going to repeat the exercise he had already gone through.

“Did he ever.” Graham smiled. “You really hit the nail on the head there. It took me all of fifteen minutes to get him off the ‘you deal with me’ track. I think he understood that we weren’t about to budge on the meeting with Carey.”

“Good man,” Wilson said.

“How did it go with Simpson?”

“Pretty much as I suspected. Killing the priest was not part of the M.O. of the other church burnings. Simpson played it for the ‘Auld Sash’ gang but in reality, the Protestant boys probably had nothing to do with it. I’m not totally ruling them out but looking for a bigot in a haystack is going to waste a lot of police time that we don’t have. One thing though, every time I meet Simpson I get the feeling that there’s something there that I should follow up.”

“He was a bit of a bully boy in his earlier days,” Graham said.

“No it’s not that. It’s like an itch that I haven’t had the time to scratch.” He saw the confused look on Graham’s face. “Sometimes I wonder what the hell I’m talking about myself.”

“So we’ll see the Bishop at two?” Graham asked.

“I’ll take Moira with me on this one. It’s home ground for her.”

“Boss, I don’t need to be sidelined on this,” there was a catch in Graham’s voice. “I need the profile.”

“No way. This is a one off. I’d like you to write up the search of the rectory yesterday. Then follow up on the post mortem report and collect the DNA results. Get on to forensics and see if anything came up during the search of the rectory. I’ll be bloody surprised if they even found a hair out of place. I’ll type up something on the Simpson meeting. We need to keep the Murder Book up to date. Now I have to finish this important questionnaire for Human Resources. You get busy.”

As soon as Graham left the office Wilson picked up the phone and dialled Moira’s mobile number.

“Boss,” Moira said on the other end.

“How are the statements going?”

“We’re pretty much there. We’ve got the signed statement from Colette Doogan with her solicitor present. We’ve got a copy of the 911 call and the two officers who attended have been contacted and will produce statements by this evening. I’m at the hospital right now organising statements and collecting the results of the examinations. I certainly would not like to be in the Super’s shoes. He must have taken complete leave of his senses. Assault is a shoe in and if they add the sexual to it, he might not escape without spending some time behind bars. If I were him, I would already be checking availability at some of the most salubrious establishments run by Her Majesty’s Prison Service.”

“It certainly doesn’t look good. I need you back here by one thirty at the latest. We’re going to interview Bishop Carey this afternoon, and I want you there with me.”

“Is this a religious issue?” Moira laughed into the phone. “Or do you need a woman.”

“You’re simply the best woman for the job,” Wilson said appreciating her humour. “By the way, how do you people address a bishop?”

“The same way you people do, Your Grace. I’ll be back by one thirty.”