by Derek Fee
‘Then you’ve been told lies.’
‘You didn’t go to Lizzie’s funeral?’
‘I haven’t been back to the Shankill in years. We moved out here more than ten years ago. My husband, God rest him, won a couple of pounds, and we managed to buy this wee place.’
‘Do you remember any of the women in the photograph?’
‘It was years ago. I’ve lost contact with everyone.’
‘You’ve read about Lizzie and Nancy’s murder. Both of their heads were crushed in. Do you have any idea why someone should kill them like that?’
Joan Boyle’s face went white and her hands shook. The photograph dropped from her hand and fell on the floor.
Davidson bent to pick it up. He put it on the coffee table facing Boyle.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I have a bit of Parkinson’s, and you’re beginning to upset me.’
‘There’re eight women in that photograph. Two of them have died naturally, and two have been murdered. We think that the reason those two women were murdered has something to do with this group of women. We think that the four women still alive are in danger. It’s vitally important you tell me anything you might know that will help us find the person that killed Lizzie and Nancy.’
Boyle removed her glasses and rubbed her hand through her hair. Then she looked left again. ‘I know nothing. Now I’d be grateful if you’d leave me alone. I’m an old woman, and you’ve upset me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Davidson said standing up. ‘Whoever killed Lizzie and Nancy is still out there. They may be finished, but we don’t think so. If you remember anything, I suggest that you call me immediately.’ He took a business card from his pocket and left it on the coffee table at the same time he lifted the photograph and put it in his pocket. ‘My mobile number is on the card so you can reach me day and night.’ He started toward the door of the living room. ‘Thanks for the tea.’
She followed him out of the living room and opened the door for him. ‘I’ll call if I remember anything,’ she said before closing the door.
Davidson walked down the short drive and stood beside his car at the pavement. He looked back at the house in time to see the curtain flutter from the window of the front room. Joan Boyle had a secret all right. It might just be the secret that’s getting her old friends killed, but she wasn’t about to give it up yet. That meant that the secret was deep and dark. He wondered just how deep and dark it might be.
She watched the car pull away from the pavement. She hated the Peelers. At one time, they were all for the Loyalists, but now they were licking up to the Taigs. An independent police force, my arse. She moved to a small desk in the corner and opened the top drawer. She took out the same photograph that Davidson had shown her. Those were the days. They ruled Belfast with Lizzie as their leader. Now the Taigs were part of the Government. She spat out of the corner of her mouth. If only they hadn’t killed the bitch. That was the beginning of the end. The bitch deserved to die, but it pissed off the top brass in the organization. There was no way she was going to inform to the Peelers on her comrades. Even if it cost her life.
CHAPTER 50
Wilson’s mind was in turmoil when he reached the station. He made his way to his office and closed the door. Moira, Ronald and Harry were in the squad room but the look on his face was enough for them to give him a wide berth. His and Kate’s child was dead. That wasn’t quite true. Their child had just never existed. He was neither a philosopher nor a doctor, so he wasn’t about to argue with himself about whether the child comes into being at the moment of conception or at the moment of birth. The reality was simple. There would be no child. Well not this time anyway. Time would heal the hurt. Kate must be feeling absolutely dreadful. This morning when she woke she had life growing in her womb. This evening all traces of that life would have been scraped and washed away. He held his head in his hands. He had told Kate that nothing would change but deep inside, he knew that things would never be the same again.
‘Boss,’ Moira had opened the door and stood in the gap.
He looked up and could see from her face that she was seeking some explanation for his mood. ‘Kate lost the baby,’ he said. ‘A miscarriage, I’d be grateful if it didn’t go any further.’
‘Sorry, Boss,’ she came inside and closed the door behind her. ‘Poor Kate, she must be devastated, how is she?’
‘They’re keeping her in overnight. She’s distraught. Blames herself but according to the gynaecologist it happens all the time. Nobody’s to blame.’
‘I know,’ Moira said. ‘I’ve been down that road myself. I didn’t even know I was pregnant, so I suppose that’s a plus for me. There was no anticipation, just the loss. She’ll get over it.
‘That’s what worries me. I know Kate, and I know her response will be to throw herself into her work even more than before. Kate doesn’t accept failure easily, and for her, she’s failed to hold on to her child.’
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Moira said. It’s going to hurt like hell. When I miscarried, I went over everything I’d done in the preceding days to see whether anything I did was responsible for the miscarriage. They told me the same; that it happens all the time, but I still wanted to blame myself. If she wants to talk to someone who’s been there, I’d be happy to help out.’
‘Thanks, the offer is appreciated.’
Moira looked at the big hulk sitting behind the desk. He looked strong and weak at the same time if that was possible. Not weak maybe, but vulnerable. She’d never thought of him as vulnerable, but now she saw that he was just as human as everyone else. If he had been a friend instead of her boss, she would have hugged him. But he wasn’t a friend. He was one of her heroes. She supposed that eventually all heroes turn out to have feet of clay. ‘I’d better get back to examining those documents,’ she turned and left the office.
Wilson contemplated going home but dismissed the thought. His second thought was to head for the Crown and bury himself in a bottle. That wouldn’t help either him or Kate. He would hang on in the office and wait until it was time to go to the hospital. Work was the immediate answer. He would take a leaf out of Kate’s book and bury himself in his work. The pointless plodding might help to erase the memory of the child that never was. He was wiping a tear from the corner of his eye when the phone rang.
‘I hear that you’ve been looking for me,’ Sammy Rice’s voice came over the air. Wilson immediately threw off his grief like an old overcoat and became professional. He had stood up to fifteen New Zealand giants doing the Haka and he was a superintendent in the PSNI. He proved he was a man, and it was time to start acting like one and to stop acting like a wounded animal. ‘I want to have a word with you. Can we meet?’
‘We’re talking now and that’s as good as it’s going to get for the minute.’
‘I hear that you lifted Davie Best last night. I hope to God nothing has happened to him.’
‘Maybe, it’s not me that has him.’
‘Let’s say that you lifted him because you think McGreary had McIlroy hit. In that case, you’d probably torture him until you got something, then shoot him and bury him in a bog somewhere.’
Rice laughed. ‘That might be a plan. If it was me that lifted him.’
‘If that were to happen, it’s likely that tonight or tomorrow one of your men would end up in an adjacent bog hole, and on it would go until the whole bog was used up and there’s only you and McGreary left to go at it mano a mano.’
‘Sounds plausible.’
‘I’m going to find whoever killed McIlroy. If McGreary ordered it, I’m not going to rest until I put him in jail. But if Davie Best doesn’t reappear soon, and I mean very soon, it won’t only be McIlroy’s killer who will be enjoying Her Majesty’s pleasure.’
There was silence on the line.
‘You fuck this up, Wilson, and the someone that will end in a bog hole might be closer to home. I understand your misses is some hotshot barrister. We wouldn’t want anything to go w
rong now would we?’
Wilson felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Red mist floated around his eyes. Rice was a lucky man that he wasn’t standing in front of him. Wilson would gladly have gone to jail just to pound that evil face to a pulp. He used all his powers to pull himself back from the brink. ‘I’m going to give you a pass on that threat on account of your grief for your mother. But if you ever threaten either me or a member of my family again, I’ll throw away my warrant card and come looking for you. Davie Best free tonight.’
‘I’ll pass the word along.’ The line went dead.
The miserable little git; Wilson thought as he put the phone on the table. A Muppet with a bouffant blond hair and a fake tan, he would tear the rotten bastard limb from limb if he even approached Kate.
‘Wilson won’t bring me in even to consult?’ Brendan Guilfoyle was sitting cross-legged on the bed in Moira’s flat.
‘No chance,’ Moira said lying back on the pillows. ‘He has you in the same bracket as mystics and fake psychics. You know his mantra, plod, plod, plod. He doesn’t believe in intuition, female or otherwise, and he doesn’t believe in hunches.’
‘I wouldn’t have guessed that a woman was involved in the two murders of the women. It’s not a woman’s MO. A woman might stab or shoot, but she’ll generally prefer some quiet method like poison. A woman who likes caving in the heads of her victims, damn but this is an interesting case. The MO is very important to this person. In fact, the MO is central to the motive. You don’t just wake up one morning and decide to go knocking the top of someone’s head off like you would a boiled egg.’
‘I sometimes wonder whether you’re with me because you like me or because you want the inside track on our investigations.’
He jumped up and threw himself at her kissing her liberally about the face. ‘I don’t just like you, Munchkin. I loves ya.’
She pushed him away. ‘Get off. You’ve had your ration for today. I’m just wondering where we’re going with this thing.’
He fell back on the bed and lay beside her. ‘You’re the detective. You tell me.’
She turned her head and looked at him. She really did love him, but she also loved her job. Right now she didn’t want to think that someday she might have to give one up for the other. ‘But you’re the psychologist and profiler. You know everything about me and those things you think you don’t know you’ve worked into my profile. So where are we going with this thing?’
‘I can’t say that I haven’t been thinking about it. I think you’d love Boston. It’s full of Irish. It’s would be just like being at home for you. That is if you were willing to try it. ‘
‘And what would I do for a living?’ She crooked her elbow and put her head in her hand so that she was looking directly into his face.
‘We have cops in Boston too. You, being a sergeant and all they’d probably jump at the chance to recruit you.’ He ran a finger through the edge of her flaming red hair.
‘So I’d be a detective like I am here?’
‘Probably not at first, you’d have to retrain and do the beat for a while. Every cop wants to be a detective. You’d have to compete.’
‘And I’d have to wear a gun?’
‘What the hell is that fucking great big Glock 17 on top of the closet?’
‘How did you know where I kept my gun? Have you been snooping?’
‘Look around. This place is smaller than Mickey and Minnie’s mousehole.’
‘Point taken. So I’d have to give up my job and move to another country where I don’t have the right to reside. I’d have to apply, retrain if accepted, walk a beat for how many years and compete for a job I already have here. Sounds like a deal.’
‘Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that.’
‘And what did you conclude?’
‘We need another plan.’
Wilson wasn’t usually a clock-watcher but today hadn’t been a usual day. As soon as the small hand hit the seven and the large hand the twelve, he dropped everything and made his way to the Royal. Kate’s room was on the third floor, and he went there directly. He pushed open the door as quietly as he could, and entered the room. Kate was lying on the bed with her head turned away. She was making soft sleeping noises. He walked quietly around the bed until he could see her face. A certain amount of colour had found its way back into her cheeks and the bags that had been around her eyes in the afternoon had all but disappeared. However, there was something new in her expression. Maybe it was just his imagination but there was a tinge of sadness etched on her beautiful features. There was a chair on the side of the room close to the door. He took it and placed it where he could see her face. Then he sat quietly and watched her. He had been in the room for about an hour when the door opened, and a nurse entered.
‘Oh,’ she said when she saw Wilson.
‘I’m Kate’s partner,’ Wilson said. ‘She’s been sleeping since I arrived.’
‘The doctor gave her something,’ the nurse picked up the chart and examined it. ‘I don’t think you can count on her waking this evening. She’ll be ready to leave first thing in the morning so maybe you should think of coming back then.’
‘I think I’ll stay a bit longer, if that’s all right.’
‘Of course,’ the nurse moved silently to the door and left them alone.
CHAPTER 51
The evening light was disappearing over Belfast as she sat in her car in Archvale Gardens. For the first time on her trail of vengeance, she was hesitant. Her kit bag lay on the passenger seat beside her. It contained the same range of equipment she had used on Lizzie Rice. The ball hammer was new, but the poncho had been washed and was ready for use again. The Taser was charged, and the tear gas canister refilled. She had been sitting in the car for over an hour. She remembered a saying she had heard: a weak man has doubts before a decision; a strong man has them afterwards. Was she beginning to have doubts or was it just her abhorrence at the sticky black-red liquid that poured from the heads? Or was it the coppery smell? There was no doubt that these women deserved to die. They had murdered her mother in cold blood, and the police had done nothing about it. She had the police file on her mother. It was easy to classify her as a missing person, easier than looking for her body and bringing her killers to justice. That role was left to her. Initially, she took on the mantle gratefully. Her mother loved and cared for her. It was the least that she could do to return that love by wreaking vengeance on the people that murdered her. She glanced at her watch. It was approaching ten o’clock. Joan Boyle lived less than one hundred meters from where she was sitting. Boyle was guilty of murder. The question was whether she had the stomach to kill once more? Wilson was flailing around in the dark. As things stood she wondered whether he would ever find her. Perhaps like the Shankill Butchers she was going to get away with murder. Except she wouldn’t call it murder. It was retribution. She would have to face the sticky liquid and the copper smell again. She picked up the small kit bag from the floor at the passenger side of the car and stepped onto the pavement.
Joan Boyle was watching television. Since the death of her husband she had watched more television than she had watched in her whole life before his death. Her son told her to get out more. She should join clubs and meet people. After all, sixty wasn’t such a great age. She knew a woman down the road who had recently remarried at seventy. Her son wanted her to find someone who would be a companion for her in her old age. While she might have valued companionship, she wouldn’t have minded having a little more sex. She had tried to concentrate on the television, but she was disturbed by the visit from the detective. There had always been a chance that what they had done would come back to haunt them. She always assumed that when it did come it would have been in the shape of the law. She followed the newspaper reports on the disappeared in Northern Ireland but never saw a report on Francis McComber. She had no idea where the body had been interred. The boys had taken it away and that had been the end of it as far as they were
concerned. The sound of the doorbell startled he. Who could be calling at this time of night? She stood up slowly. It was probably some group of ruffians. She’d heard that they pushed lighted newspaper containing dog shit through the letterboxes of old people. Maybe she should get herself a man after all. She stood up and started for the door. There was no lighted newspaper with dog shit in the hallway. She moved to the door and made sure the chain was on. She opened the door and saw a young woman on the step.
‘Good evening,’ the young woman said. ‘I’m collecting for the poor in Africa. If you can’t afford money, I’d be happy to take any old clothes that you can donate.’
Joan Boyle looking into the young woman’s eyes. They were deep and blue and earnest. ‘Wait here, I’ll be back in a minute.’ She left the door ajar and went toward the back of the bungalow where her bedroom was situated.
The young woman slipped her hand around the corner of the door and released the chain. She entered the hallway and closed the door. She quickly took in the surroundings. The living room was on the left and the kitchen and dining room on the right. The bedrooms were to the rear. She removed the Tazer from her bag and moved stealthily towards the back of the house.
Boyle was rummaging through her old clothes when she felt an incredible pain in her neck, and her legs collapsed under her. She tried to shout, but she found that she had no voice. She had fallen on her side and all she could see were a pair of shoes. Gradually, the pain subsided and she was able to turn her head. The young woman was standing above her. ‘Bitch,’ she squeezed the word out of her mouth.
‘That’s the kettle calling the pot black,’ the young woman said. She had withdrawn a plastic poncho from her bag and was slipping it over her head.
