by Derek Fee
CHAPTER 12
Case stood in the telephone box on Donegal Square in the heart of Belfast and slowly composed a number in London. It was time to report in. Case's body was still buzzing from the excitement of the hit. Everything was going like clockwork. Just doin' my fuckin' thing, he thought to himself as he composed the numbers. Everybody's got to be good at something and he was good at killing. A man has just got to love his job to be good at it and Case loved his job. The adrenalin rushing around his body was ample proof of the pleasure he got from killing. They'd been right in the Regiment, he had a talent for it. The shrinks who had booted him out of the Army had been right. Joe Case was one sick, fucked up bunny. Maybe he got his violent streak from his dad. That bastard had fucked off as soon as young Case had been born and had never been seen again. His mother had looked at his scrunched up red face in the hospital and decided that she didn't want the ugly bundle. So she had dumped him into care. His old gran had retrieved him and spent the last years of her life looking after him. When she died his mother reappeared looking for her inheritance which happened to include him. That's when the fights at school began. He was little but he could give as good or better than he got. Nobody screwed with Joe Case. His mother encouraged his talent for violence. And by God she'd used it. He was twelve years of age when she'd shown him how to roll the poor suckers she brought home to screw. Sometimes he went over the top on the violence bit but nobody seemed to care. The old scumbags he rolled never went to the police. They didn't want their better halves to know that they were screwing an old slag. He made ten times as much from mugging as his old woman could make on the game. Then the old bitch had sold him on to the pimps, pushers, villains and loan-sharks who ran the East End. And he'd loved every minute of it. He wasn't the biggest but when things got violent Joe Case was the bloke they sent for. They introduced him to shooters and he had taken to guns like a duck to water. He'd stand for hours in an empty warehouse in the Docklands and blast the shit out of tin cans. But that's where it ended. Nobody used shooters back then. They just waved them around to scare people. That was when he decided that he wanted to be in a business where people used shooters all the time. The Army were happy to sign on a fit young lad with no hint of a police record. It hadn't been hard for him to become the star in basic training. He was fit, tough and he had this natural talent with weapons. There was no type of gun he couldn't master in double quick time. His complete disregard for his own safety and incredible endurance put him at the top of his class for physical training. The books were a different matter. It wasn't that he was dumb, he just didn't take to it. Nothing from the printed page seemed to stick in his head. At the end of basic training, one of his instructors suggested that he try out for the SAS. Why not, he thought, the more action the better. During his basic training with the Regiment, he'd met and married Norma. That's when the trouble started. They say it's everyman's dream to marry his mother but he'd actually done it. That was the nightmare. Who would have thought that the skinny little bitch was a bleedin’ nympho? Every man in his training squad had been in her pants. They laughed their arses off the day he married her and he didn't even know why. Two months after they were married he came home and found her in bed with some big black soldier. He'd beat the bastard unconscious and then started on Norma. His officers could have overlooked the black man but nobody was amused by the way he'd left his wife. So, they'd posted him to wherever the action was, Northern Ireland, then Iraq and Helmand before he did a second tour in Ulster. The army was the happiest time of his life. Most of the regular soldiers used to piss themselves when their units were transferred to a hot spot but not him. What was the point of being trained up to the hilt if you never got the chance to use the things you learned. He loved war the only problem for him was that there wasn't enough of his kind of war. Fuck the rules of engagement. If some raghead wanted to get it on then Joe was ready to oblige. He thrilled every time he thought of the action. Being dropped in by chopper, doing the business and then being ferried out before the opposition arrived. It was heaven. Just like appearing in a Rambo film every day of the week. And nobody could touch him. During his time in Northern Ireland, he discovered his second talent; he could mimic any accent. He could speak in a Belfast brogue that would convince even a Shorts and Harland ship-worker or he could drink with the locals in a border pub without raising the slightest suspicion. His superiors quickly realised his usefulness and started using him on undercover work. He specialised in frequenting well known IRA drinking dens and keeping his eyes and ears open. But it was flat beer when compared with blowing the shit out of a couple of Provos. He needed action. No buzz made Joe a very angry boy. The maggot in his brain needed to be satisfied. One night he picked up a girl in a drinking club on the Shankill Road. She was just a slag just like his mother and his wife so he beat her senseless. The brass weren't too pleased with that one and he spent two months in the stockade. But the maggot kept chewing away. Two weeks after the Army put him on the streets again, he beat another bitch senseless. This time the brass couldn't take it and handed him over to the shrinks. He laughed when he thought about his sessions with the shrinks. They pissed themselves when they unlocked what was in his head. Then they couldn't get him out of the Army quick enough. Best thing that ever happened. There was plenty of freelance work in London for blokes with balls who could use shooters. A man with a talent like his was never going to starve.
The phone at the other end rang twice.
"Yes," the voice on the other end of the line was clipped and cold.
Case listened without speaking. He wondered what the man behind the voice looked like. That was one of the snags of being a professional. You never got to see the face of the man you worked for. You could never tell whether the bastard was chuffed with what you’d done or not.
“Number two has been taken care of,” Case said unable to keep a tone of self-satisfaction out of his voice.
“Congratulations, Mr. Case,” the voice said without emotion. “Keep me informed.”
The phone went dead before Case could say ‘Yes sir.” He would have liked to describe the mayhem he was leaving behind him but it was his experience that the blokes who gave the orders seldom wanted to know about the dirty stuff. Death for them was like watching television. They knew that the 'dead' guy got up and walked away when the camera was switched off. The bosses never equated what they wanted done with blood and shit all over the place.
He left the phone booth and began walking slowly back towards his small flat. The assassin of a few hours ago had become an ordinary Belfast working man. Only two things could tie him to the murder in Charlton's Garage: the Browning sitting snugly in his inside pocket and the dossier on Stanley Peacock, former petrol pump attendant. He ducked into an alleyway and took the two A4 pages which described what had been Peacock's life out from his inside pocket. Might as well get rid of them here, he thought. He produced a Zippo lighter from his jacket pocket, flicked the flame into life and then touched the naked flame to the white typing paper. The two pages caught fire and burned away in a few seconds. Bye, bye, Mr. Peacock, he thought as he dropped the charred remains on the wet ground. There was only the Browning but nobody in Belfast was going to question a man who could produce a bona fide Special Branch ID card. So, no loose ends.
"Sweet Jesus," Moira surveyed the scene of devastation inside the tiny attendant's cubicle at Charlton's Garage. The concrete floor was covered with a dark slick of deep red blood and the glass walls of the booth were streaked with blood. A single naked hundred watt bulb cast an eerie light on the dead bodies as it swung gently from the ceiling impelled by the rain-soaked wind which entered through the open door. A pool of vomit lay directly outside the door.
"Stand back," Wilson said pulling on Moira's arm. "It's a crime scene."
Two uniforms had already reached the scene and were standing well back from the booth.
"I know, boss," she said choking back the bile that rose instantly in her mouth. The
last thing she wanted to do right now was to get sick. That would undermine her completely with her new colleagues.
"Someone has barfed," Wilson said glancing at the vomit. "I doubt it was the killer. Probably some poor bastard who happened on the scene," he glanced over his shoulder at the uniformed policemen stationed at the edge of the garage. "Or maybe one of the uniforms. Anyway SOCO will have to bag it but I doubt the analysis will do us any good."
Wilson was careful to stay outside the door of the booth and looked inside. Two men lay dead. One wore the uniform of a petrol pump attendant and had been shot several times in the head. The man's head lay in a pool of thick red blood was split open like a cracked coconut. The second man in the small cubicle lay propped against the stanchion. He was dressed in windcheater and cheap jeans and his head hung to the side of his neck giving his body the appearance of a discarded Pierrot doll. The killer had blown a hole in his throat which had almost severed his head and the front of his windcheater was drenched in bright red blood. There was no point in checking their pulses. Both had been killed with a single shot and the pump attendant had been shot in the head for good measure. Wilson's stomach turned and it wasn't because of the sight. He'd already seen enough corpses to ensure that his sensibilities had not been assailed at the sight of two more. He was beginning to get a very nasty feeling. Three deaths in two days. Very professional hits. Wilson's stomach heaved again. He'd bet a month's pay that this was the same guy that did Patterson. He took another look around the booth and noticed four shell casings. The killer hadn't bothered to clean up. He obviously wasn't worried that the police would find the shell casings. He'd done his job and moved on. What the fuck was the killer up to? This shit was liable to start a small war.
The air outside the glass booth stank of petrol fumes but Wilson preferred it to the coppery stench of fresh blood in the booth. A police car and van pulled up on the station forecourt some distance from the booth. George Whitehouse alighted from the car and some of the forensics team disgorged from the van.
"Busy week, boss," Whitehouse said a bag containing a plastic overall to Wilson, "I see you've taken to travelling with your new ‘friend’," he nodded in Moira's direction before starting to don his own plastic overall.
The emphasis on the word ‘friend’ was clear. Everybody and his neighbour would now know that he and Moira had left the station together and had arrived at the crime scene together. Somebody might even have seen them having a drink together and already the station rumour mill would be putting two and two together and getting five.
“Now, now, George,” Wilson said pulling himself up to his full height. “Jealousy will get you nowhere,” he poked Whitehouse in the chest with his finger. “I’m old enough to be her father and I feel it. Furthermore if I catch any idiot spreading rumours about me and Constable McElvaney I'll see to it that they're pounding a beat in South Armagh next week. Spread the good word, George. I want everybody to know who they’re playing with."
"Okay, boss, okay" there was a look of apprehension on Whitehouse's otherwise bland face. "Just making an observation."
Yeah, sure, Wilson thought turning towards the shattered booth. The forensic team were already setting up crime scene tape and arc lights. "I've got enough problems without adding you and your mates to the list. We've got two stiffs inside," he nodded at the booth. "One of them has got two bullets in the head and one in the heart. The other boy was shot only once. Conclusion, somebody wanted the boy in the pump attendant's uniform stone dead and wasn’t taking any chances. The lad who was shot in the throat probably didn’t die straight away but the killer didn’t bother to give him a coup de grace. He got who he came for. The hit was very professional. We've picked up four shells. In my opinion the second poor bastard happened, as you would say George, to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I want you to supervise the forensics examination. I don't want SOCO to miss anything" He pointed out the shell casings on the floor of the booth. "Get those to ballistics and put a rush on it. We'll have to wait for the report but I'd bet a pound to a penny the two blokes inside were killed with the same gun that killed Patterson."
A series of arc lights suddenly lit up Charlton's petrol station like a Christmas Tree. Wilson looked beyond the glare of the lights to the dark deserted street. Police Landrovers had been drawn across each end of the road and the area around the petrol station had now been sealed off with streamers of plastic crime scene tape. Uniformed RUC men with Heckler and Koch automatic rifles stood stationed along the street.
"My gut is kicking up on this one," Wilson said as he and Whitehouse walked away from the garage. "Three men dead in two days scares the living hell out of me. If we don’t break this case soon then there’s going to be retaliation and that means more dead bodies, and lots of them. This guy is on a killing spree and we have no idea where or when it’s going to end.”
“Somebody wants to start trouble,” Whitehouse said defensively. "In the past we know who that usually was."
Wilson ignored the remark. “I’m becoming more convinced that we have a new player in the game. And a very dangerous player he is too. Some things don't quite gel." They crossed the road from the booth. "Why these guys? Why Patterson and why this poor asshole. If it's the same killer and I'm sure it is, what has he got against the men he kills. Patterson didn't have either a friend or an enemy. And then he's too damn professional. Most of the so-called gunmen in this town wouldn't have been able to hit that booth with a burst of automatic fire. If they had managed to hit it, they'd probably have succeeded in breaking every pane of glass and leaving the two occupants completely untouched. But not our boy, he marches in cool as you like, fires two shots and scores two hits. Then he stands over the attendant's body and delivers a coup-de-grace." He looked along the darkened doorways which lined the street. "I bet, Sergeant, that if your boys look really hard, you're going to find some trace of our friend in one of those doorways." He was beginning to get a feel for his new adversary. The killer was cool and calculating. "He waited, sheltered in one of those dark hollows, until he couldn't wait any longer. The second man must have bothered him. I get the distinct feeling that our man likes to leave things all neat and clean. Let's get the photograph boys and the forensics people in here." Wilson stood up and turned towards the door.
Moira appeared at Wilson's shoulder. "The garage owner's just arrived, sir. The pump attendant was one Stanley Peacock. He's got an address in Sydney Street. No ID. on the second man yet. Peacock was on the late shift. Due to finish at eleven."
"Any next of kin?" Wilson asked.
"Wife or at least partner," she replied. "So the owner thinks. He isn't big on human relations. They operate the basic employment contract - the staff worked and he paid them. End of story."
Whitehouse studiously ignored his new colleague. "Sydney Street. It looks like two more Prods bite the dust."
Wilson nodded in agreement. "It's a safe bet."
"If this new player of yours is a rogue, he's got balls of steel. Once in here he wouldn't stand a dog's chance of gettin' out," Whitehouse said
"But he did," Wilson started back towards the petrol station. He was dealing with a ghost or someone very familiar with the area. Maybe not someone from the area but at least someone who had spent some time casing the petrol station and its environs. Nobody would have noticed him as he checked out his victim and established his escape route.
"George, check if anyone at the petrol station saw a stranger lurking around the area over the past few days," Wilson said. He doubted it would lead to anything but you never knew. Thirty years of 'troubles' had led the citizens of Belfast to ignore people they did not recognise. It was just another puzzle to add to those already occupying his thoughts.
Moira and Whitehouse fell into step behind their chief. Each avoided looking at the other.
"I hope you weren't planning on an early night," Wilson said glancing around the assembled ranks of PSNI men. He could feel the resentment coming off them
with the steam from their breath. It was cold and wet and combing the area for evidence was going to be a shitty job. "I want this street fine combed," he addressed the grumbling policemen. "Everything is to be bagged and handed to SOCO." He turned to face Whitehouse. "Every house is to be canvassed and I want the results of the canvas written up and on my desk to-morrow morning.” He turned to Whitehouse and Moira. “Time to give the bad news to the next of kin. This is one of those occasions when it’s useful to have a woman constable on the team. Eh, George?"
Whitehouse ignored the remark.
"And since Constable McElvaney is new to this business, I think I’ll go accompany her." He turned to Moira. "Let's go tell Peacock's nearest and dearest that they've been bereaved before some ‘presstitute’ from the 'Sun' beats us to it."
CHAPTER 13
Wilson piloted the Toyota through the deserted streets of West Belfast lost in thought. Two professional killings on his patch in such a short space of time was certain to bring all kinds of shit down on his head. The brass in Castlereagh would be watching events with more than their usual interest. He had never been near the top on their list of high fliers but he was well aware that he topped their list of people they could easily do without. More than once a Lodge brother had stood in the wings waiting for him to fall on his face. The drop had been avoided only with large helping of good fortune. Maybe his luck was about to run out. These killings could be the loose canon that was finally going to blow him out of the water. The stakes were too damn high. The Province was living on a knife-edge between peace and a full scale return to violence. Nobody in their right mind wanted a return to the bombing and killing but history had already proved that there were a lot of people in Ulster who could be described as having mental aberrations. The politicians would be running around like chickens with their heads chopped off trying to keep the lid on the rapidly boiling kettle. There was a more than even chance that some crazy was already planning a retaliation for Patterson. Peacock’s death would only add to the pressure. If the situation boiled over, heads would roll and the first sacrifice would be the senior investigating officer.
