Death on the Line

by Derek Fee

  ‘Harry’s working on it.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘Don’t worry, he’s one of the best. And he’s a father, so he’s as committed as you to finding out who the boy is and how he came to be on your table.’

  The paninis arrived and Wilson dived on his immediately. Reid sat looking at her plate.

  ‘You need a holiday,’ Wilson said through a mouthful of bread, red peppers and salami. He could have kicked himself for the triteness of his suggestion. Wasn’t ‘you need a holiday’ something that everyone said when they saw someone down. Inside he felt it was going to take a little more than a holiday to fix Reid’s bout of ennui.

  ‘Fat chance.’ She picked up one half of her lunch but didn’t eat. ‘People keep dying for all kinds of strange reasons. It’s not the job. I love what I do and I’m bloody good at it. I suppose for a change I’d like to deal with live people.’

  ‘Can you ask to be shifted to another job at the hospital?’ He was aware that his suggestions were getting stupider by the minute.

  Her eyebrows rose. ‘You are aware that I’ve spent more years than I care to remember studying to be a pathologist and that I’m the professor of pathology at a teaching hospital. Can you imagine me in A&E?’

  Wilson decided to change tack. ‘I’m going to see Jock this evening in Craigavon. Would you like to come along?’

  She took a bit of her panini. ‘That’s the first sensible suggestion you’ve made since you walked in here. I’d love to come along.’

  ‘I’m possibly going to be out of Belfast for the next couple of days.’ Or the next couple of weeks or months, he thought but didn’t say.

  ‘On the McDevitt thing?’

  He looked around before nodding.

  ‘Why are you acting so damn peculiar?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m acting peculiar!’ He looked straight ahead. ‘I’ll tell you on the way to Craigavon.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Wilson assembled the team as soon as he returned from lunch. It was with a sense of embarrassment that he briefed them on the meeting in Davis’s office. As usual he had preceded the briefing with the warning that the contents of the meeting were not to go outside the squad room. ‘The new situation means that the disposition of resources we decided on this morning is in the toilet. Harry will stay on the child case. Rory, you’re with me in Aughnacloy, and so are you, Siobhan. Gibson will be working with us.’ He saw the look on Browne’s face. ‘The crime was committed in Armagh’s district so we have to keep them onside officially. Most of the uniforms will be from Armagh and we can keep him busy taking care of them. Both of you can move to Aughnacloy if you want.’ He already knew that would be a negative for O’Neill. They both shook their heads. ‘OK, I’ll arrange transport for the three of us each morning and back in the evening.’ Davis will be happy with the reduced cost he thought. ‘That means Peter is on the Carlisle case. Harry and Peter, I realise that you will be able to make only limited progress, but the word from on high is that the Kielty murder is the top priority. Any questions?’

  Nobody looked particularly happy but nobody said anything.

  Wilson continued, ‘I’m going to interview McDevitt this evening and afterwards I’ll check out the incident room in Aughnacloy. If my experience so far with Gibson is anything to go by, I don’t expect very much, so when we get there tomorrow the first order of business is going to be making a list of what we need and sending it to Santa.’ His attempt at humour drew a muted response. ‘In the meantime, Siobhan I need you to pull out all the records relating to the mid-Ulster UVF. I want to know who the characters are and I want photos if possible. Same with the local IRA units, characters and photos if possible. Rory, I want you to get up to speed on the Kielty case. Get onto FSNI and tell them about the change in responsibility. All forensic results are to be forwarded to me and only me. Again, apologies Harry and Peter for leaving you out there, but I’ve no choice. It’s going to be a busy period so let’s not hang around.’

  Wilson went back to his office and slumped into his chair. Three cases running at the same time was way beyond the capacity of his team. The dead boy was straightforward. Someone had battered him to death and it was a good bet, given his age, that the someone was either one or both of his parents. So lucky old Harry, he had probably the easiest task, find the name of the child, get the parents in and interview them into the ground until one of them spills the beans. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but it should be textbook. Carlisle was a different matter. He was on a fishing expedition and like any fisherman he knew that sometimes there was something on the line but mostly you caught nothing. Peter was a damn good detective and nobody knew the Shankill and the relevant characters better than him. But if Carlisle really had been murdered it would have been political and that meant messy. He couldn’t leave Peter out there for too long alone digging around into something that could be potentially dangerous. Peter was getting on in years and he would dearly like to give the speech at his retirement party. He thought about abandoning the Carlisle investigation but rejected the thought. Carlisle had his finger in a lot of pies and any one of them could provide the motive for sending him to an early grave. He looked into the squad room. They were a good team. And he certainly didn’t want to put any member in danger because of a lack of resources. It was nearing three o’clock and he had promised to pick up Reid at five for the trip to Craigavon. He looked at the pile of paper on his desk and decided he had time to put a very small dent in it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Siobhan had produced ten possible interventions by the PSNI that could have involved the dead child. Harry was on number three. He had obtained a photo of the child from Professor Reid’s assistant. It made unpleasant viewing and he was aware that it didn’t give a completely accurate representation of what the child looked like due to the bruises and abrasions. His original plan was to call the officer who had made the report and interview him or her over the phone. He quickly realised that he was not being serious enough and decided to visit each officer with photo in hand. He started in his own station with a visit to CID. Two of the cases had been dealt with in-house and neither of them was related to the child at the Royal Victoria. The third possibility had been dealt with by Musgrave station, one of the largest police stations in Belfast. Harry showed his warrant card at the gate and was let into the ultra-modern building. He passed through the entrance and made his way to the CID offices. He was happy enough to be acting on his own. After the boss’s latest briefing, he’d had a quiet word with Peter, who wasn’t so happy to be manning the Carlisle investigation alone. Harry couldn’t disagree with Peter. Carlisle had been heavy duty and looking into a death like his could be very bad for the health. The death of the boy held no such problems. He found his way to the CID office, which consisted of one large room with ten desks, five of which were occupied. He made straight for the desk where the sole female in the room was seated. ‘DC Bradley?’ he asked as he stood before the desk.

  ‘Who’s asking?’ She didn’t bother to look up from her computer.

  Graham looked down at her. He hadn’t met her before but knew she was one of those female officers about whom you would make two deductions, both possibly wrong. The first was that she could handle herself in a fair fight with a man, and the second was that she would probably prefer the company of women to men. Her hair was blonde and cut as short as a man’s and she wore a man’s blue work shirt open at the neck. As Graham’s father would have said, she was built like a brick shithouse and her biceps strained the material of her shirt. This lady was a regular at the gym. ‘DC Harry Graham, we spoke on the phone.’

  He was surprised when she looked up to see that her face was attractive and very female. She smiled and pointed at the chair beside her desk. As he sat down he saw a photo on her desk of her with a man and a child. Just shows how wrong you can be, he thought. He’d have to give up making snap judgements about people.

  ‘Show me the photo,’ Bradley requested.

  Gr
aham took the photograph from his pocket and handed it to her.

  She looked at the photo for several minutes and her face gradually darkened. ‘It’s difficult to be certain but it looks like a boy named Josh McAuley.’ She returned to the computer and tapped several keys. Her printer spat out a report that Graham had already examined. ‘About a year ago, we were called to a domestic disturbance in a derelict house on Earlscourt Street. Man and woman supposedly going at it hammer and tongs. When we arrived the commotion was over, but we entered the property anyway. The place was in a mess and we found a small boy hiding in a room full of trash and rat droppings. We called a social worker, but the kid’s mother returned before she arrived. It didn’t look like the kid had been hit during the fight, but he was carrying too many cuts and grazes, so we reported it. Mother’s name is Gillian McAuley. The boy’s father was long gone and the woman wouldn’t give us the name of the man that she’d been fightin’ with. She was obviously a junkie. The wee lass was as skinny as a rake and had more tracks than Northern Ireland Railways. The house was in a terrible state. The social worker probably followed up but for us it was over. There was a wee mini-market at the end of the street. I bought some chocolate and brought it back for the kid. Poor little bugger, he was curled up in a ball and didn’t know how to accept the gift. It was one of those cases where you wanted to get the poor wee wretch away from his mother. I know the foster system isn’t perfect, but anything was better than where he was.’

  ‘Any idea if she’s still at the same address?’

  She tapped some keys and then turned the screen around to Graham. ‘She’s been picked up twice for soliciting over the past year. Let out after a night in the cells. Jesus, but I hate men. Wait until you see her. How they have the heart to abuse her I don’t know.’ She turned the screen back.

  Graham had been writing in his notebook. ‘Can you print that sheet off for me?’

  She hit one of the keys and handed over the sheet that exited from the printer. ‘Maybe the wee bugger is better off wherever he is.’

  ‘The pathologist thinks that he was beaten to death. Maybe he is better off, but nobody had the right to inflict that much pain on another human being. We’re going to find out who killed him and we’re going to put the bastard away.’

  ‘When you do, give him or her one for me.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Wilson picked up Reid from the Royal Victoria at five o’clock. It was a little early, but he didn’t want to be delayed by rush-hour traffic and, if he was honest, he was anxious to see McDevitt and assure himself that his friend was on the mend. He’d had a difficult call with his new colleague, DS Gibson, who certainly wasn’t happy to have been taken off the case. Considering the sensitivity of the investigation and the possible repercussions of a failure to find the murderer, one thing that he didn’t need was a senior member of the team harbouring a gripe. He picked up the A12 at the end of Broadway and he was out of Belfast in good time. As soon as they hit the M1, he started his tale about how he had landed the investigation into the shooting at Aughnacloy.

  ‘Does this mean that you’ll be moving down?’ Reid asked.

  ‘No, it’s not really worth it, and O’Neill is looking after her sick mother so we’d need transport anyway. And I suppose I’m getting addicted to sleeping in my own bed.’ He waited for her to continue the conversation, but she looked straight ahead. As soon as he had picked her up, he’d noticed that there was still something on her mind. He wished she would come clean with him about whatever it was, principally because he didn’t want to interrogate her. ‘Harry found the boy’s name; it’s Josh McAuley. His mother is a junkie who was living in a deserted house on Earlscourt Street but might have moved on. Harry will catch up with her.’ He glance over at Reid but saw that the news hadn’t impacted as much as he had hoped. His options had run out. If there was something bothering her and it had to do with their relationship, he wanted to know now before the situation, whatever it was, became irretrievable. He decided it was time to take the bull by the horns. ‘I know that something is bothering you and I’d prefer to hear it now than at some later date when the situation has festered.’

  She turned and looked at him. ‘My God, you think this is about you and me, don’t you?’

  He didn’t take his eyes off the road ahead. ‘Not really. In fact, I’m hoping that it’s not.’

  ‘The whole world doesn’t revolve around you. Other people have lives too.’

  He had no desire to turn an exposition into an argument. ‘If it’s not about us then what’s the matter? I’m a good listener, in fact sometimes I think that the PSNI pays me just to listen.’

  ‘Modesty doesn’t become you, Ian. From what I’ve heard you weren’t very modest when you were playing rugby for Ireland and I think that back there in the recesses of your mind you quite fancy yourself as a detective.’

  They were skirting the issue and it looked like an argument was in the offing. ‘If it’s not about us, and I don’t think it’s really about my lack of modesty or any other of my less than praiseworthy characteristics, then what the hell is on your mind that’s so difficult you can’t bring yourself to tell me?’

  ‘My mother is coming to visit.’ The words came out as though fired from a cannon.

  Although their bodies were not in contact, he could feel the tenseness in her. ‘That’s it?’ he asked. ‘The fact that your mother is coming on a visit numbs your very sharp mind?’

  ‘I knew you wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Then help me understand.’ He was no stranger to mother issues. After the suicide of his father and the discovery that his mother had been having a long-term affair, he had repudiated her. He had discovered only recently that he had done her, and perhaps also himself, a major disservice by jumping to the wrong conclusion. His actions had caused both his mother and him pain that could so easily have been avoided if they had been honest with each other. ‘It’s not an area that I’m unfamiliar with.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘My mother didn’t just walk out on her husband, she walked out on my brother and me. I was sixteen years old and a damn sight shyer than I am today. My brother was twelve, a sensitive and intelligent boy. One night she kissed us as we went to bed and the next morning she was gone. She’d met an American plastic surgeon at a conference, bedded him on the first evening and by the end of the week had made a plan to spend the rest of her life with him, to hell with her husband and two children. She left with only a suitcase of clothes. I searched the house to see whether she’d taken any of the photos of my brother and me, but she hadn’t. We were cut out of her life with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel.’

  ‘That was almost twenty years ago. Surely you’ve had contact down through the years?’

  ‘Birthday and Christmas cards for the first few years. I burned them. Then I was in college and she wasn’t so much in my thoughts. She visited once when I was twenty and my brother was sixteen. It was weird. I didn’t recognise her. There was a nip here and a tuck there. She was a walking example of her husband’s skill with the knife. We had lunch at Simpson’s in London, all very civilised. I think that she might even have been as embarrassed as we were. Thank God, the meal didn’t last too long.’

  ‘And that was the last time you saw her?’

  The tension was gone and she was totally relaxed. She’d hated him initially for forcing the story out of her but he had been right to persist. And he was a good listener. ‘No, that was five years ago, here in Belfast. There had been a little more nipping and tucking, but the scalpel can’t fight time. She was tanned and looked ten years younger than her chronological age, but she seemed empty inside. We met for a drink at the Europa, where she was staying. I got the impression that she wanted a rapprochement with me, but I wasn’t ready to slough off the past. She hadn’t seen my brother since the lunch in London. He prefers to consider her to be dead. He felt the initial rejection much stronger than me. Perhaps because he was younger. She seemed s
ad that he had cut her out of his life so completely.’

  ‘And now she wants to see you again?’

  ‘The e-mail was cryptic. This is a woman I haven’t spoken a word to in five years. And even then it was half an hour over a cocktail in the bar of the Europa. She’s visiting Belfast and she wants to stay with me. Stay with me, Ian. I could handle two years in the Congo, but when I read the words stay with you my knees went weak. I have no idea why she’s coming to Belfast or what she wants. I sent back an e-mail asking a series of questions. Was it a medical issue? Etc. But got no reply. It hurts me to discover that I’m not as strong as I think I am.’

  Wilson had been driving on autopilot. At junction 11 he had left the M1 and taken the M12 and then Seagoe Road in the direction of the hospital on the southern side of Craigavon. He slipped his left hand across and took Reid’s hand. ‘We’ll get through this together.’ He thought about his own situation and the time he had lost. ‘Maybe something good will come from it.’ He was only a couple of minutes from the hospital.

  ‘I don’t associate my mother with good things,’ Reid sighed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  McDevitt had been moved to a private room. He was no longer on the critical list and the bed in ICU was needed. A uniformed policeman was seated outside the door of the room. Wilson had bought a box of chocolates at the shop on the ground floor and he tried to hand them off to Reid as they entered the room. She refused to take them but smiled at his attempt to pass his gesture to her. There was no way she was going to promote his macho image. McDevitt was lying in bed with his head raised. Most of the tubes that had been a prominent part of the photo on the front page of the Chronicle were gone, but he was still connected to a heart monitor and oxygen tubes still fed him through the nose. Wilson was again struck by how slight he appeared. And also by how little he knew about Jock the person. When McDevitt entered hospital, Wilson had been asked for the next of kin. He knew that McDevitt had been married at least once and had an ex-wife living somewhere in England but Wilson had no idea where. He also didn’t know whether there had been any issue from the marriage. He had been obliged to leave the next of kin section of the hospital admission form blank. Wilson and Reid moved closer to the bed and Reid bent and kissed McDevitt’s cheek.