Yield Up the Dead

by Derek Fee

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Wilson was having a quiet evening in. He thought about calling Reid but he discarded the idea. If forced, he might admit that there had been a subtle change in his relationship with his “friend with benefits”. Perhaps Reid was right and the sight of another alpha male sniffing around had exposed his growing feelings for the pathologist. In any event, he decided that it would be better to leave well enough alone and continue their relationship as it was. And yet, when he entered the apartment the first person he thought of calling was Reid. He opened the fridge and saw that she had thoughtfully included an additional steak in the purchases she had deposited on her last visit. Again, he felt the inclination to call and ask her to come over. Neither Duane nor he had taken lunch and his stomach was beginning to rumble. He tossed the steak on the ridge pan and found the remnants of a salad, which was just about edible. He was about to sit down at his small dining table when the buzzer went. His heart jumped when he thought that it could be Reid. He picked up the handset of the intercom.

  ‘It’s your new best friend bearing gifts.’ McDevitt’s voice was unmistakable.

  ‘Piss off, I’m tired and hungry and if you come up here you might add irritable to an already long list of negative emotions.’

  ‘That’s no way to speak to a friend who has helped you break cases.’

  McDevitt was like one of those flies that you swat and swat but always comes back for more. Wilson pushed the button on the intercom that opened the hall door. He opened his apartment door and returned to his seat at the table. There was no way McDevitt was going to interfere with his need to put food into his stomach. He heard the door close behind his back and looked up as McDevitt sat in the other chair at the dining table. He placed a six-pack of Guinness in front of Wilson and three black Moleskine notebooks in front of himself. ‘Where do I find the glasses?’

  Wilson’s mouth was full so he didn’t bother to answer and simply nodded at the press to the right of the cooker.

  McDevitt took two glasses and opened a can of Guinness, which he poured carefully into one of the glasses before leaving it in front of Wilson. He repeated the process for himself. ‘Cheers,’ he said raising his glass.

  Wilson ignored him and continued eating.

  ‘Tough day at the office, I see.’ McDevitt sipped his drink.

  ‘If you’ve come here to get a story for tomorrow’s paper, you are sadly mistaken.’ Wilson’s stomach was no longer rumbling. The steak had disappeared as had most of the droopy salad. He stood up and put his plate, knife and fork in the dishwasher. He picked up his glass as he passed the table and sat down on his couch facing the window that looked out on the city.

  ‘Tomorrow’s Chronicle has already been put to bed.’ McDevitt joined him bringing along his glass and the notebooks, which he laid on the coffee table. ‘You’re in piss poor form. Although, I suppose spending the day digging up dead bodies is not conducive to good humour. I hear from the Royal that they received three bodies.‘

  ‘You have touts everywhere.’ Wilson sipped the Guinness. It tasted good, like mother’s milk.

  McDevitt smiled. ‘Sources, I have sources everywhere. There’s a lot of nervousness in town about who might be put in the frame for planting three bodies in a bog.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ Wilson looked across the city. The murder of the three people they had dug up happened more than thirty years previously. It was even money as to whether the perpetrator was sitting out there somewhere or under six feet of earth in Milltown or Dundonald Cemeteries.

  ‘Assuming that one of the bodies is Evans, any idea who the other two are?’ McDevitt asked.

  ‘Not a clue, if they’ve been down there for thirty years we may never know. Starting tomorrow we’re going to make a damn good effort to find their identities.’ Wilson finished his Guinness, rose, went to the table and returned with two cans. He handed one to McDevitt and opened the other for himself. “What sort of arsehole kills three people and buries them in a bog?’

  ‘The kind of arsehole that Jackie Carlisle knew.’ McDevitt pulled the tag at the top of the can.

  Wilson sat up straight. ‘Spit it out.’

  McDevitt carefully poured the contents of the can into his glass. ‘You remember those journalistic ethics we talked about some time back. Well, sometimes we have to put those ethical considerations to one side. Mind you, I’d never hand a source over on a court order.’

  ‘I know you’re too much of a professional for that. If you’ve come here to tell me where you got the map, get on with it, man.’

  ‘I got the map from Richie Simpson.’

  ‘That’s a name that’s been cropping up a lot lately in dispatches. And where did Simpson say he got the map?’

  ‘When Carlisle retired he took all his papers from the office of the UDU away with him. It appears that the remover left at least one box of goodies behind and Simpson took it away with his stuff when the party went belly up. He was going through some of Carlisle’s papers when the map fell out.’

  ‘So, somehow Carlisle knew where Evans was buried.’

  ‘And had known for years, maybe even since the day that Evans was murdered.’

  ‘Carlisle was involved in the murder?’

  ‘Thirty years ago, Jackie Carlisle was involved with some pretty unscrupulous characters. He changed his spots around the time all the others recanted and apologised for murdering people. Then he morphed into the glad-handing politician we all knew and loved. Have you ever seen his house in Hillsborough?’

  Wilson shook his head.

  ‘Let’s just say that politics has been good to Jackie Carlisle.’

  ‘I don’t take Carlisle for a trigger man,’ Wilson said.

  ‘Neither do I. But I bet he knew plenty of people who’d put a bullet in you as quick as look at you.’

  ‘But why Evans?’

  ‘Damned if I know. I heard somewhere that you’re a detective.’

  ‘It could hardly be politics. Could it be money or, God forbid, women?’

  McDevitt shrugged. ‘All Carlisle’s papers went up in smoke as soon as he died. It was the dying man’s last request apparently. I would have given a pretty penny to have had the opportunity to examine those papers before his widow incinerated them.’ He picked up the notebooks from the coffee table. ‘Simpson also found these notebooks in the box that he took in error. There were others but he claims they contained nothing of interest.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Destroyed. These are the only written words left by Carlisle. He wife didn’t leave as much as a postage stamp.’

  ‘Which seems to indicate that Mr Carlisle had a lot to hide.’

  ‘There are quite a few men and women in this province in a similar position.’

  ‘Do you think that Simpson has any idea about what Carlisle might have been up to?’

  ‘Simpson was Carlisle’s boy. He was on the lowest rung of the food chain. That’s why the UDU folded when Carlisle retired. Everybody knew where Simpson stood in the pecking order.’

  Wilson held out his hand. ‘Show me the notebooks.’

  McDevitt passed them across. ‘Half is in English, the other half is some kind of code he appears to have made up for himself.’

  Wilson flipped through one of the notebooks. The handwriting was small but clear. ‘Carlisle was no brainbox. I can’t imagine that a code he dreamt up is unbreakable. Can I hold on to these?’

  ‘One condition.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You find something interesting, I’m the first to know.’ He could see doubt on Wilson’s face. ‘After all, I bought those notebooks with my own money. I own them.’ McDevitt went to the table and retrieved the last two cans of Guinness. ‘Deal?’ He handed a can to Wilson.

  ‘Deal,’ Wilson said reluctantly. He took the final can from McDevitt.

  ‘Good.’ McDevitt pulled the tab on his can and filled his glass. ‘Now that I’ve proved myself to be your best new fri
end yet again, tell me what you found today and who the hell is that joker from the south?’

  Wilson slowly poured the can into his glass. ‘I know I’ve said this before, you are incorrigible.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Wilson stood before the whiteboards in the murder squad room. The other members of the team stood in a semi-circle around him. ‘We have three bodies from Ballynahone bog, one man and two women. The man and one of the women were in one grave, and the second woman was buried alone. For the moment, we have no identification on any of the corpses but we must assume that the man will turn out to be Alan Evans. So our first task is to identify the female bodies.’

  ‘Does this mean the Sammy Rice investigation is put on hold?’ Browne asked.

  Wilson had spent a large part of the night thinking about the disposition of his limited resources. ‘The short answer is no. Sammy has been missing for more than two months. Every day that passes makes it less likely that we’re going to be able to come up with his body or any evidence as to who might have killed him.’ He looked at Browne. ‘Is there any news about the hair you took from Ballygomartin?’

  Browne shook his head. ‘We might hear something today.’

  ‘You and Peter will continue with the Sammy Rice investigation,’ Wilson said. ‘For the moment Harry and I will deal with the bodies from Ballynahone bog and we’ll share Siobhan.’ It was the best he could do. Browne was new to Belfast and Peter was an old hand. So they should make a solid team. ‘I’m going to be in and out so if anyone needs me I’m on the mobile. As soon as we identify the bodies and have a cause of death, I’ll discuss the situation with the higher ups and we’ll decide where the investigation will go. We’re going to have a lot of balls in the air and it’s important that we don’t drop any of them. We‘ll try to have a daily briefing and Siobhan will keep the whiteboards and the books up to date. Anything else?’ No one responded. ‘OK, Harry my office now.’

  As soon as Graham entered, Wilson instructed him to close the door. He brought him up to date on his conversation of the previous evening with McDevitt. The three Moleskine notebooks were on his desk. ‘What do you think?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Graham said. ‘Carlisle’s political. I could never see a reason why either side of the sectarian divide would want to get rid of Evans. He was just a communist with a small following. Carlisle was connected to the Loyalist community and there’s no apparent reason why they would want Evans dead. He wasn’t advocating a split from Britain.’

  ‘And Simpson?’

  ‘He would have been a young boy when all this happened. He stumbled upon Carlisle’s involvement and made himself a few pounds. That his style.’

  ‘Then why has he disappeared?’

  ‘The word on the street is that shooting his mouth off in a pub has made some people very nervous. You know what they say ‘three people can keep a secret as long as two of them are dead’, and Belfast is a city full of secrets that more than three people know.’

  ‘Simpson is a person of interest. Maybe not for the bodies in the bog but he wouldn’t have skipped town if there wasn’t a good reason.’

  Wilson’s phone rang and he picked it up.

  ‘How are you this morning?’ Reid’s voice came over the line.

  He wanted to say all the better for hearing your voice but he said. ‘Fine, how are things your side?’ He pushed the speaker button on the phone. ‘You’re on speaker phone.’

  ‘You and your friend Duane have furnished me with plenty of work. I have three bodies for the table. Do you have any preference about the order in which I should process them?’

  ‘Do the male first,’ Wilson said. ‘We need to establish his identity. What’s the chance of recovering DNA?’

  ‘I won’t know until I get the bodies cleaned up. There’s one of your forensic people here to gather up the mud we’re going to clean off the bodies and collect up the bits of garments that are left. If there’s any useful evidence to be collected, your forensic people are doing you proud. Are you sending anyone over?’

  Wilson looked across at Graham. ‘Harry Graham will be with you within the hour.’

  ‘Pity, I was hoping you’d come yourself.’

  Wilson turned the speaker off. ‘I’ll call back this afternoon for an update.’

  ‘See you soon...’ She cut the line.

  ‘You heard, ‘Wilson said.

  ‘On my way.’

  Wilson looked at the three Moleskine notebooks. He had examined all three after McDevitt left his apartment. They were, indeed, written in a mixture of English and Carlisle’s own code that involved letters, numbers and symbols. There was no way he was a code breaker and to his knowledge PSNI did not employ one either. He had racked his brain but so far he had come up with no one who was a recognised code breaker. He was about to fire up his computer to check his emails when his phone rang.

  ‘Superintendent Wilson?’

  ‘Yes.’ Wilson didn’t recognise the voice.

  ‘George Tunney from FSNI, I did some work for you on the case of the elderly ladies being murdered.’

  Wilson remembered Tunney from his last visit to FSNI. ‘Yes, George, what can I do for you?’

  ‘My colleagues from Ballynahone sent me over the handbag that was recovered from one of the graves. I’ve cleaned it off and examined the contents. There was nothing much of interest. The purse contained about fifteen pounds but there was also a student’s card from Queen’s University with a picture of a very pretty girl on it.’

  ‘Is there a name on it?’ Tunney had a habit of beating around the bush.

  ‘Yes, it’s laminated so it’s quiet easy to read. The young lady’s name is Jennifer Bowe. I’ll be making a full report of the forensic examination but I thought that you might like to know her name.’

  ‘Thank you, George. You’ve been a great help.’ Wilson was about to ring off when he stopped. ‘Maybe you can help me with something else. You don’t happen to have someone over there who can break codes.’

  Tunney laughed. ‘Not exactly in our remit. But there is a guy in Queen’s University that might be able to help. I don’t know whether he considers himself a code breaker but he’s certainly interested in puzzles.’

  Wilson picked up a pen. ‘Name?’

  ‘Professor Michael Gowan, he’s a philosopher I think.’

  Wilson wrote the name. ‘Thanks George, you’ve been a major help. You’ll email the report on the contents of the bag as soon as it’s ready?’

  ‘Of course, nice talking to you.’

  Wilson looked up the number for Queen’s University and phoned. He asked for Professor Gowan and ended up speaking to a secretary. Professor Gowan had a full morning of lectures and tutorials. He could meet Wilson at three o’clock that afternoon at the philosophy department office at 25 University Square. Wilson wrote the appointment into his agenda. He tapped on the glass window of his office and pointed at Siobhan O’Neill. When she responded he crooked his finger and motioned her to his office. She arrived with a pen and pad in hand.

  ‘Jennifer Bowe,’ he said as soon as she entered. ‘That’s spelled B-O-W-E. She was a student at Queen’s University in 1983. FSNI found a student’s card with that name in a handbag we retrieved from the first grave at Ballynahone. I want you to look up missing persons for 1983. Pull me the record for the disappearance of this Jennifer Bowe. Contact Queen’s and ask for a transcript of her studies. Get on to Social Welfare and any other government department that might have information on her. Unfortunately, I don’t have a birth date for her but she must have been born in the early sixties or possibly late fifties. By close of play this evening, I want to know everything there is to know about Jennifer Bowe. Got it?’

  She finished writing on her pad. ‘Got it, boss.’

  Wilson leaned back in his chair. Where did the student fit into this? Evans had nothing to do with Queen’s University. Why was Jennifer Bowe buried along with Evans? They’d been working on th
e hypothesis that some paramilitary group had murdered Evans. There was really no basis for such a hypothesis other than the modus operandi. Harry was right, why should either side have wanted to get rid of Alan Evans? What if the motive wasn’t politics but sex? Evans was a forty-year -old man and Jennifer Bowe was probably somewhere in her twenties and they had been buried together. Perhaps it was time to pay another visit to Karin Faulkner. He was about to pick up his phone to call her when it started to ring.

  ‘Superintendent Wilson?’ The voice was a man’s.

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘This is Richie Simpson.’

  Wilson could hear the stress in the voice.

  ‘What can I do for you, Richie?’

  ‘I hear that you’ve been looking for me.’

  ‘Yes, it seems you were making some pretty outlandish claims in the Brown Bear a few days ago.’

  “Who told you that?’

  ‘We had Jock McDevitt in. He pulled you out of the Bear before you managed to get yourself into deeper trouble than you’re already in. We’re not the only ones looking for you. McGreary and Best are tearing the city apart. You’re in a very tight spot, Richie. Where are you?’

  ‘Somewhere safe.’

  ‘With McGreary and Best on your tail, nowhere is safe. Tell me where you are and we’ll bring you in.’

  ‘I wouldn’t last a day. McGreary has people everywhere.’

  ‘OK, so why are you calling me?’

  ‘I have information for you but I don’t want to give it in Belfast. I want you to get me to the mainland. It has to be somewhere safe and then I’ll talk to you.’