by Derek Fee
‘I think that we’re clear on the purpose and how the technology operates,’ Nicholson said. ‘Perhaps we should get on to the meat of the presentation, if you’ll excuse the pun.’ He smiled in a self-satisfied manner.
‘So this is the rough image from the first site.’ Keane pushed his glasses up on his nose. He didn’t appreciate Nicholson’s discounting of the technological complexity of his work. ‘The images can, of course, be improved by a propriety computer programme which we have back at the office. These are what we call “field images”. On this one you can quite clearly see that two bodies have been buried at this location’ He removed a pen from his top pocket and traced the anomaly on the screen.
‘You obviously have much more experience interpreting these images,’ Nicholson said. ‘But I have to confess that all I can see is a rather fuzzy cloud.’
‘That is the anomaly,’ Keane said. ‘And I can assure you that when you dig at the location you are going to find two bodies.’
‘And how can you assure us of that?’ Nicholson asked.
‘You can take it as gospel,’ Nolan said. ‘We’ve worked with Dr Keane before and he’s never been proved wrong.’
Keane preened. ‘Shall I continue?’
‘Please do,’ Nicholson said.
Keane tapped some keys on the laptop. ‘This is the image from the second site.’ He used the pen to show the fuzzy image. ‘This is a single body.’ He looked around the table. ‘We’ve finished surveying the area and we have left the site.’
‘Do you have any idea when the bodies might have been buried?’ Davis asked.
‘That is not the purpose of the GPR,’ Keane replied. ‘They could have been buried last week or twenty years ago.’ He looked over at Stephanie Reid. ‘Your pathologist might be able to answer that question when she has the subjects on her table.’
‘Thank you, Dr Keane,’ Nicholson said. ‘I don’t think that we need to detain you any longer. Perhaps you’d be so kind to furnish us with a report detailing your findings?’
Keane closed the laptop and put it into a messenger bag. ‘That is part of our brief.’ He stood up, bowed slightly to the assembly and left.
As soon as the door closed Nicholson turned to Nolan. ‘Where do we go from here?’
‘You dig,’ Nolan said simply.
‘And who will enlighten us on the procedure for that?’ Nicholson looked around the table.
‘Jack,’ Nolan said looking at Duane.
‘We’ll need a JCB to dig down close to the bodies,’ Duane said concentrating his gaze on Stephanie Reid who he noted with dismay was continually staring at Wilson. ‘It’s not exactly an archaeological dig. Those bodies have been down there for thirty years. It’s been our experience that the flow of water in a bog and its acidic nature is very detrimental to the preservation of DNA evidence. So I wouldn’t hold out much hope there. Professor Reid probably knows better than me but the bodies will be pretty well preserved. The water inhibits decomposition so there’ll probably still be skin and hair. We should be able to have the bodies on the surface in reasonably complete condition in two days, maximum. The collection of whatever evidence is in the area of the grave could take longer. You might want to sieve the earth that’s removed.’ He looked at Nicholson. ‘The options are yours. I assume JCBs are readily available?’
Nicholson looked at Davis.
‘We’ll have one on site tomorrow morning,’ she said.
‘So,’ Nicholson said. ‘Do I take it from what you said that we have very little chance of recovering evidence as to who might have put these people in the ground?’
‘That’s the gist of it,’ Duane said.
‘Three more murders to add to the three thousand or so on the unsolved list,’ Wilson murmured.
‘You said something, superintendent?’ Nicholson said.
‘Just reflecting on the difficulty of solving thirty year old crimes, sir.’ Wilson added a sigh to show his frustration.
Reid smiled from across the table.
‘Professor,’ Nicholson said. ‘Do you have anything to add?’
‘I tend to concur with DCI Duane,’ she said. ‘As soon as the bodies are exposed our friends from FSNI will have to do their collection of the evidence. I’d like to visit the site as soon as possible after the disinterment but I have no desire to contaminate a site which may produce so little direct evidence.’
‘In summary,’ Nicholson said. ‘We will proceed with the disinterment of these three bodies starting tomorrow morning. Present will be Superintendent Wilson who will be in charge assisted by DCI Duane. A team from FSNI will be present and will begin work as soon as the bodies are disinterred. Professor Reid will be kept informed and will decide when she wishes to visit the site. Until the work is completed the whole of the Ballynahone bog is off limits to the public. No statement will be made to the press until the bodies have been disinterred. Are we all agreed?’ He looked around the table and registered the nodding of heads. ‘Chief Superintendent Nolan, if you would remain behind. I’d like a word.’
Wilson and Duane were the first to stand followed by Reid and the man from the FSNI. Wilson stood close to the door and Reid brushed him as he allowed her to pass.
‘You busy,’ she whispered.
He slipped out directly behind her. ‘You obviously have been.’
She smiled. ‘Conference in Oslo, boring as hell but one must keep the side up. I need a drink.’
‘A woman after my own heart,’ Duane chimed in from behind them. ‘I’d love to invite.’ He paused for a second and smiled. ‘The two of you.’
Wilson saw that they weren’t getting rid of Duane. ‘I need to check in back at the station. Let’s meet at the Crown in an hour.’
‘Perfect,’ Duane said leaning to take Reid’s right hand and kissing it.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The murder squad room was a hive of activity when Wilson arrived. He had phoned ahead from Castlereagh to ensure that all the staff would be present for a briefing. He stood at the whiteboards with the team in a half-circle around him.
‘I’m not going to go into details of the operation at Ballynahone,’ Wilson said, ‘except to say that it looks like we have three bodies.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Graham said.
‘Exactly,’ Wilson continued. ‘Just what we don’t need at the moment. I don’t have much time. Bring me up to date on the Sammy Rice situation and the whereabouts of Richie Simpson.’
‘I spent most of the day harassing FSNI to do the DNA testing on the hair from Rice’s house,’ Browne said. ‘There’s a backlog and we‘re not a priority. I’m hoping that we have something early tomorrow morning.’
Harry Graham took over. ‘I’ve been trawling through the CCTV from the area around the warehouse from the day we think Sammy disappeared. There’s a hell of a lot of it, boss. And not a lot of it is relevant to the warehouse. Could take bloody days before I locate something.’
‘I’ve been out and about,’ Peter Davidson said. ‘There’s no word on the street about Sammy but the McGreary crew are getting frantic about the search for Simpson. Someone wants him, and they want him bad. I think Siobhan has come up with something.’
They all turned to face the new female member of the team. She blushed. ‘I decided to review the CCTV from Belfast Central Station. I only had a photo of Simpson to go on but Harry helped me out.’ She nodded towards her colleague and pinned an A4 photo print to the whiteboard. ‘This is an image of Simpson standing on a platform at Belfast Central. You can see from the panel above his head that the next train due in is heading for Derry.’ She pinned a second print to the whiteboard. ‘This shows Simpson boarding the train. I’ve requested CCTV from Derry train station and from the Ulsterbus Terminal on Foyle Street. It should be here by tomorrow.’
‘Good work, Siobhan,’ Wilson said. ‘We’re more than a few steps ahead of McGreary on finding Simpson.’
‘Don’t bet on it, boss,’ Davidson said. ‘McGreary ha
s put the word out province-wide. He has connections all over, especially in Londonderry.’
‘I’m off to Ballynahone first thing tomorrow morning,’ Wilson said. He was sorry that he had agreed to the drink. Work was piling up and he couldn’t really afford to socialise until his plate became a little emptier. On the other hand, he wasn’t about to deliver Reid into Duane’s waiting arms. He wondered whether he was feeling jealous. Part of his agreement with Reid was that there was to be no possessiveness. That was fine in theory but difficult in practice. He wanted the briefing over so he could get to the Crown. ‘In the meantime Rory will manage things here and I’m always reachable on the mobile.’
‘I’m sorry, boss,’ Browne said. ‘We don’t have the resources to follow all the lines of enquiry. How long will the Ballynahone business go on?’
‘The bodies should be up in a day or two,’ Wilson said. ‘But that may only be the start of our troubles. We have to assume that the three people were murdered before they were interred. That means we could be launching an investigation.’
‘Into a thirty-year-old murder,’ Graham said. ‘Surely that’s the business of the Historical Investigations Team.’
Wilson winced inside every time he thought of his brush with historical crimes. ‘They’ll only review a previous investigation. If the people in the bog were murdered, there’ll certainly be an investigation and that means us.’ He glanced at his watch. It was an hour and fifteen minutes since he left Castlereagh. He knew he was being irrational but he needed to get to the Crown. ‘Rory, you’re in charge. I’ll contact you from Ballynahone.’
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Gerry McGreary was also looking at his watch. It was four hours beyond the time he normally quit the Queen’s Tavern but he was still seated at his corner table talking bullshit with members of his gang. He knew that his presence was creating a level of tension but that wasn’t a bad thing. Somewhere out there was a man who presented an existential threat to McGreary. His extended presence in the Queen’s was intended to show his crew just how seriously he took that threat. The reports coming in during the day made it clear that Simpson had run. The question was, where had the little bastard run to. He certainly wasn’t in Belfast. He tried to put himself in Simpson’s shoes. Mainland Britain was a big place. It would be easy to hide there. He could have caught the boat at Larne and been in Stranraer in a couple of hours. A few hours later he’d be lost in the Highlands. But would he feel safe? There would always be the chance that someone would recognise him. He would still be Richie Simpson and his name could appear in a local newspaper. He would constantly have to look over his shoulder. If he were Simpson, he would be looking for a solution to the problem that would include an element of safety. That meant that Simpson was holed up somewhere formulating a plan. They would have to find him before he was able to put that plan into action. One of McGreary’s contacts in the PSNI had informed him that Ian Wilson was also looking for Simpson. That increased the threat that Simpson posed by a factor of ten. His contact also informed him that Wilson was sure he had found the site of Sammy Rice’s murder. Simpson could place McGreary at that site. McGreary had spent no little time formulating a plan for his own safety. He could throw Davie Best and Ray Wright under a bus by pinning Sammy’s murder on them. Unfortunately, while he had a certain amount of trust in his crew, Ulster had a habit of throwing up “supergrasses” who would spray shit over everyone they knew. Whoever said, “dead men tell no tales” had got it right. He glanced again at his watch. There was no point in hanging on here. Best knew that his skin depended on finding Simpson, so there was nothing McGreary could do for the moment. He envisioned that little rat Simpson in his little hidey hole. What morsel could he put on the table to attract that rat out of its hole?
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
By the time Wilson arrived, Jack Duane had Reid squeezed into a corner of “his” snug. The Garda officer was so close to Reid that he was almost sitting in her lap. He didn’t try to hide his disappointment when Wilson pushed in the door and sat down on the opposite side of the table. Wilson could see the look of relief in Reid’s eyes.
‘I thought you’d forgotten all about us,’ Duane said.
‘Hardly,’ said Wilson giving Reid a reassuring smile. He wasn’t about to leave her defenceless against Duane’s charms. On his way from the station to the Crown, he had been reassessing his feelings towards Reid. He wasn’t sure that the “adult” approach to their relationship suited him. He wasn’t so out of touch with popular culture that he’d never heard of “friends with benefits”. He just wasn’t sure that it was part of his make-up. One thing was for sure, he’d been more nervous about Reid being with someone else than he would like to admit. He knew he was being stupid. Reid was her own woman. She had been to a conference in Oslo where men probably dominated. She would be drinking in the bar and it was inconceivable to him that men wouldn’t try to hit on her. He had begun to feel those first pangs from the fork of the green-eyed monster. Was he really so shallow that he’d already moved on from Kate? She was supposedly the love of his life. She had carried his child. But Kate was gone, for good. He looked across at Reid. He knew that he wanted to be more than a “friend with benefits”. The barman stuck his head through the hatch and Wilson ordered a round of drinks.
Duane finished his pint of Guinness. ‘I wish to God that there was a pathologist as attractive as Steph in Dublin. Most of the people who do the cutting for us are old farts who smell of stale tobacco and alcohol.’
‘A girl could get a swollen head from Jack,’ Reid said. ‘I don’t think there’s any doubt that he has kissed the Blarney Stone.’
‘That’s only for tourists,’ Duane said. ‘I always tell it as I see it.’
‘Special Branch in the south must be different from Special Branch up here,’ Wilson said. ‘Our crowd are a bunch of liars.’
Duane feigned being hurt. “And here was I thinking we were getting along so well.’ He put his arm around Reid. ‘Aren’t we just the perfect happy band to be disinterring bodies?’
Wilson and Reid both smiled. The drinks arrived and Wilson paid.
Duane lifted his drink with his free hand. ‘To the happy band.’
Wilson and Reid joined the toast. Reid sipped her drink and then manoeuvred herself out of Duane’s arm. ‘You guys will have to excuse me. I need to powder my nose as the Americans say.’ She slid along the seat away from Duane who was preparing to move to allow her to pass. Instead she moved in Wilson’s direction and brushed past him on her way out of the snug.
‘You lucky bastard,’ Duane said as soon as the snug door closed.
‘How so?’
Duane winked. ‘There’s something going on between you and the good professor.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Wilson said defensively.
‘I mean you’re screwing her.’
‘How did you work that out?’
Duane smiled. ‘I’m a detective.’
Wilson picked up his drink and took a deep swallow. If Duane had noticed the chemistry between him and Reid, others would too. That was the kind of rumour that could easily gain traction, so it wouldn’t be long before Kate heard it. Why did it always come back to Kate? Why should he care if Kate knew about him and Reid? Kate was the one who finished with him. God only knew what Kate was up to. Maybe she had already found someone new. This train of thought was toxic. It would have to stop. But how could he stop it?
Reid returned to the snug and made a point of sitting beside Wilson.
Duane finished up his drink. ‘I’m off,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow’s a big day and I’ve intruded enough into your evening.’ He bent down, kissed Reid on the cheek and extended his hand to Wilson. ‘You make a fine pair.’
Reid was about to react but Wilson squeezed her arm. Instead she smiled. ‘You’re quite a character, Jack.’
‘You’re quite a character yourself, Steph. I’m going to enjoy working with you,’ Duane said as he left the snug.
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Reid waited until Duane would be out of earshot. ‘Thank God you arrived when you did. That man has more arms than an octopus.’
Wilson smiled. ‘I have a feeling that Jack’s bark is worse than his bite.’
‘I don’t know about that but I was beginning to wonder whether I was going to be obliged to protect my virtue.’
‘How was Oslo?’
‘Oslo was boring. Conferences have two purposes, network and ass-kissing. Neither is of interest to me. Why do you ask?’
‘Because you never said you were going.’
‘My God, it’s true.’
‘What’s true?’
‘As soon as an alpha male comes sniffing around, the incumbent starts getting twitchy. You’re jealous.’
‘I am not.’ Wilson insisted.
Reid leaned forward and kissed him lightly. ‘You have nothing to worry about. Nobody has interfered with your property.’
Wilson finished his drink. ‘This conversation is getting out of hand. I’m ravenous, how about dinner.’
She finished her drink. ‘Lead on, alpha male.’
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
There were more than twenty people stationed at the now permanent roadblock into Ballynahone bog. The sunny weather had broken and the sky was full of threateningly dark clouds. The small Ulster Television van of the previous day had been replaced by its larger brother with a tripod and camera already perched on the roof. The BBC News had also sent a van, an indication of public interest into the “disappeared”. Davis, who wanted to see the dig site for herself, had joined Wilson on the trip to Ballynahone. Cameras flashed at them as they stopped at the barrier and reporters shouted inaudible questions while shoving out recording devices. It was only the beginning. The media would have a feeding frenzy when the bodies were finally exposed. Wilson noticed McDevitt at the back of the bunch and when their eyes met the journalist winked. The story had obviously become important enough for McDevitt to cover in person. The uniform manning the roadblock raised the barrier to permit them entry. They drove the fifteen hundred metres or so to where a JCB stood with a group of people surrounding it. Wilson and Davis descended from the police Land Rover and joined the group. Jack Duane stood in the centre of the gathering giving orders to the machine operator. Listening on was the FSNI team already suited up in their plastic jumpsuits.
