Death to Pay

by Derek Fee

  Boyle was slowly coming back to herself, but her arms and legs wouldn’t obey her brain. She wanted to lash out but as hard as she tried she couldn’t move her limbs. ‘You’re her cub,’ she said through bared teeth. ‘You killed Lizzie and Nancy.’

  The young woman smiled and nodded. ‘I wished they had known why they died, but I was new to this killing business. At least, you know why.’

  ‘Your mother was a skank who opened her legs for anyone. And you’re a murdering bitch.’ The young woman pressed a black thing against her neck, and she felt a jolt of pain running through her. She was still looking at the woman when she saw her removing a hammer from her bag. The scream she let out was internal.

  ‘Enough of the social chitchat,’ the young woman said. ‘I’m afraid this is going to hurt.’

  Ronald McIver sat on the toilet in the small bathroom of his house. His Glock 17 sat on his lap. It had already made two trips into his mouth, but he had been unable to pull the trigger. He couldn’t leave Mary with the mess of blood and hair to clean up along with the detritus of his life as a policeman. He wondered whether they would pay his pension if he topped himself. It wasn’t exactly the kind of question he could ask Human Resources. On the other hand, he didn’t know how long he could play the hiding game. He stood up and looked at himself in the mirror. Christ, he thought, you won’t have to pull the trigger soon. He looked like death warmed over. His eyes were sunken in his head, and black bags had suddenly appeared under his them. His skin was pale and lifeless. There were only two choices. He could either hand himself over now and end the torment, or he could brazen it out and hope that the whole affair went away. The latter choice was perhaps wishful thinking but up to now there wasn’t a scrap of evidence against him. He had thrown the shell casings away after wiping them clean. Nobody had seen him, and the gun had been cleaned and re-cleaned. Maybe, just maybe, getting away with it wasn’t wishful thinking after all.

  CHAPTER 52

  Wilson arrived at the Royal at 8 a.m. and went directly to Kate’s room. He found her sitting on the bed fully dressed. He moved towards her but saw on her face that now was not the time for hugs and kisses.

  ‘The bloody doctor left an hour ago to prepare my discharge papers,’ Kate’s tone was angry. ‘One hour to prepare a single sheet of paper letting me out of this place. No wonder the Health Service is in crisis.’

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Wilson asked. He was totally unprepared for Kate’s anger.

  ‘That’s a stupid question. I’ve just terminated my first pregnancy and had the last vestiges of my child scraped from my womb. How the hell do you think I feel? I need to get out of here and back to work. I’m due in court at ten o’clock.’

  ‘Don’t you think that you should at least take the day off.’

  ‘That’s the last thing I want to do. If I had to sit at home, I’d only spend the day feeling sorry for myself. A fat lot of good that would do. If you want to make yourself useful, you could find out where that bloody doctor has got himself to. Probably down in the cafeteria scoffing bacon and eggs.’

  Wilson went down the corridor. There was a single nurse manning the station. ‘Miss McCann is waiting for her discharge letter,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll find out what’s the delay,’ the nurse picked up the phone and dialled a number. She spoke quietly into the receiver before replacing it. ‘They’re having a team meeting at the moment. They should be finished in twenty minutes or so.’

  Wilson conveyed the news to Kate.

  ‘I’m out of here,’ she said standing up. ‘The can sent the discharge letter later. I phoned my PA and the office is sending a car for me.’

  ‘I’ll drive you,’ Wilson said.

  She stood facing him. ‘There’s only one rule. We don’t talk about what happened yesterday. It’s over. The gynaecologist explained everything. It was nobody’s fault. It was just nature at its most evil. We’ll continue as we were before I got pregnant, but we will not speak of the miscarriage for a long time.’ Tears began to stream down her face. ‘At least, until the pain is gone. The drama ends here.’

  Wilson held her in his arms and kissed her wet cheeks. He wanted to tell her that the pain would pass, but he knew it would sound trite. He could feel her arms squeezing him.

  She released her grip on him and pulled her head back. She took a handkerchief from her handbag and dried her cheeks. ‘I’m going to look a sight in court this morning,’ she said. ‘I don’t want this getting out. Sympathy from my colleagues would be just too much for me.’

  The nurse from the station entered the room and handed Kate a white envelope. ‘I told them you were insistent.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Kate said graciously. She turned to Wilson. ‘Now let’s get to hell away from this place.’

  Wilson sat in his car outside the station for more than an hour. From the outside, it looked like Kate had already assimilated the experience and was ready to move on. Deep in his heart he knew that this was a camouflage of her true feelings. Regaining an even keel was not going to be an easy exercise.

  The desk sergeant called him over as he entered the station. ‘Message for you,’ he said. ‘Bloke named Davie Best walked in here last night and said to tell you that he wandered off for a couple of days, but he was headed home.’

  ‘How did he look?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘Like he went ten rounds with Mike Tyson.’

  Wilson shook his head and made for the squad room. The team, minus McIver, were busy at their desks. McIver was a problem in the making, and he wondered whether he should advise upstairs that some action might have to be taken soon. He knew that McIver liked working with the Murder Squad but there was obviously a personal problem, and a change of duty might be in order. ‘Briefing in ten,’ he said as he entered his office. He switched on his computer and checked his latest e-mails. A short message from forensics told him that the gun used to kill Ivan McIlroy did not appear on any of the databases. The bullets were indeed 9 mm Parabellums and the gun could have been any that used that calibre. Another dead end on top of all the other dead ends he experienced lately. He deleted a series of e-mails that he was required to read concerning new procedures for setting budgets and appraising staff. When he screwed up using the old system, someone would come and show him how the new procedures worked. It saved having to bore himself to death reading the meanderings of some accountancy geek. He was satisfied with his morning’s venture into the world of administration by the time he took his place in front of the whiteboards. McIver had made it to the office, and it looked like he had managed to shave, an advance on his appearance of yesterday. However, the razor didn’t managed to remove the haggard look from his face. ‘No news, or indeed bad news on the bullets retrieved from McIlroy’s body,’ Wilson began. ‘There’s no match for the gun in the database. We’re looking for a 9millimetre pistol.’ The assembled team laughed. ‘I know it’s a needle in a haystack. It’s the favourite handgun in this part of the world. Belfast is full of them, etcetera, etcetera. Eric, how are we doing on McIlroy’s timeline?’

  Eric Taylor came forward and pointed at the timeline he had sketched on the whiteboard. ‘We have a pretty good idea how he spent his day. His colleagues are not so happy to fill in the gaps because some of those gaps might incriminate them. We’re pretty sure that he was meeting someone on the business level. He was asked whether he wanted someone along, but he was very dismissive of the need to have a minder. This leads us to believe that he didn’t recognize the person he was meeting as a threat. However, he didn’t tell any of his colleagues who that person might be. One item we haven’t located is his mobile phone. That would have given us direct information on the people he called, but we’re working with his provider to see what calls were made to and from his mobile. We’ve returned to look at his movements the day prior to his death, and we’ll go back further, if you think it’s useful.’

  ‘If he met the killer alone,’ Wilson said. ‘It’s logical that if they had earlie
r meetings, he would have done those alone as well. Check back and see who he met during the past week on his own.’

  ‘OK, Boss,’ Taylor said. ‘But the guys we’re using for information are not the most open, or we have to suppose not exactly trustworthy.’

  ‘I don’t suppose anyone has come forward who saw people around the school on the evening in question?’

  Again Taylor stood toward the front. ‘We put out a request for witnesses using the Police Confidential line, so far nothing. The school is in an area that’s up for redevelopment. The only people around at night are gangs of youths up to no good. I wouldn’t expect too much.’

  ‘OK, we need to concentrate on the timeline and the calls. People like McIlroy don’t use paybill phones, and they scatter SIM cards around like confetti. Forensic get anything on the call?’

  ‘Nothing from voice recognition,’ Harry Graham said. ‘They can’t even tell if it’s a man or a woman. They’re concentrating on identifying the number the call was made from. It’s a long shot, but it might pay off.’

  Wilson turned to Peter Davidson. ‘Peter, your visit with Joan Boyle?’

  ‘I’ve written up a report, Boss,’ Davidson was sitting on a desk facing the whiteboard. ‘It should be in your e-mails. She knows nothing. She doesn’t recognize the photo of the women’s UVF group, and she lost contact with Lizzie Rice and Morison years ago. All they ever did was make sandwiches and bake cakes. It sounded cut and dried, but I didn’t believe a word of it. She tries to come across as a little old lady but there’s a bit of steel about her. She knows something, and she wasn’t about to tell me. It’s a secret, and that’s the way she intends it to remain.’

  ‘If we bring her in can we crack her?’ Wilson asked. He looked towards the end of the room, and saw the Desk Sergeant waving at him. When Wilson caught his eye, the Desk Sergeant pointed upwards. The message was clear.

  ‘Maybe or maybe not,’ Davidson swung his legs. ‘She’s a tough old bird. Whatever she knows concerns them all. It’s just a matter of how deep and how dark the secret is.’

  Wilson was aware he would have to wrap things up quickly. ‘I trust your nose, Peter. We’ll take a second crack at Boyle. If she won’t open up, bring her in. Moira, you go with Peter this time. I’d like your opinion of this tough old bird. What’s the story on the police files?’

  Moira cleared her throat. ‘I’m up to the nineteen eighties. Lizzie was a heavyweight in those days. Very involved but nothing could ever be pinned on her, lots of innuendo. If we get a lead from Boyle, I can hone in on the time period and see what your predecessors wrote.’

  ‘It’s looking like Boyle is the key. Get out there straight away and break her. We need a motive, and we need it yesterday.’

  ‘And what will you do, Boss,’ Moira asked. ‘A visit to the Mortuary at the Royal?’

  ‘You are a very bold lady,’ Wilson said. Reid had been the furthest thing from his mind over the past eighteen hours. ‘In fact I’ll be communing with my betters.’

  ‘You managed to get Best back safe if not totally sound,’ Chief Superintendent Spence said as Wilson planted himself in a chair in his superior’s office.

  ‘You heard?’

  ‘A flea doesn’t fart in this station that I don’t hear about. That’s what they pay me the big bucks for.’

  ‘Listening to flea farts. I thought you were paid the big bucks for dealing with bad boys like me.’

  Spence smiled. ‘The DCC wasn’t best pleased that it was you that managed to get Sammy on side. I wonder whether he would have been more pleased if Rice and McGreary launched World War Three. By the way, you look like shit. Anything I should know about?’

  Kate’s admonishment was at the front of Wilson’s brain. ‘Nothing much. A serial killer has bashed in the heads of two sixty odd year old women. Oh, and let’s not forget the lieutenant of a major crime boss has been found with two slugs in his chest, and we’ve narrowly avoided a turf war. Other than that everything is hunky dory.’

  ‘How are things downstairs?’

  ‘The team is working its collective butt off and my overtime budget is going ballistic.’

  ‘Get a result and everybody will forget about the overtime.’

  ‘Don’t get a result and Jennings will pillory me.’

  ‘I trust you so much I told the DCC that you’d close both cases in a couple of days.’

  ‘Thanks heaps, we’re royally stuck on the Rice and Morison killings, and we have no idea who McIlroy was meeting at the school. That means we’re nowhere on both cases. A couple of days was perhaps a little bit optimistic.’

  ‘Like I said I trust you. Well done on the Best issue. Please try to make me look good to the DCC.’

  Twenty minutes after the end of the briefing McElvaney and Davidson pulled up outside Joan Boyle’s small bungalow in Archvale. They made their way to the front door and pressed the bell. No answer. Davidson pushed again only harder. There was no answer and no movement from inside. Davidson walked to the side of the house and looked in the window of the living room. He could see a light coming from the television in the corner. ‘The television’s on but there’s no sign of Boyle.’

  ‘I’ll go round the back,’ Moira skirted the side of the house. There were two large-sized windows at the rear. She looked in the first one. The curtains were closed but there was a gap in the middle. The room contained a single bed, a wardrobe and a small chest of drawers. There were football posters on the wall. This wasn’t a lady of a certain age’s bedroom. She moved to the second window and pressed her face against the glass. The first thing she saw was the streaks of blood, which seemed to cover every wall. She looked down and saw a pair of feet protruding from the edge of the double bed. ‘Oh Christ,’ she said and ran quickly around to where Davidson was standing in front of the door. ‘Break it down,’ she shouted.

  ‘What?’ Davidson said.

  ‘Break the fucking door down,’ Moira shouted. ‘Joan Boyle is in the bedroom and from the amount of blood, she’s fucking dead.’

  Davidson pulled out a pack of skeleton keys from his pocket and started working on the lock. It clicked open within twenty seconds. He pushed it in noting that the chain was no longer on the door. They were completely fucked. He led the way along the hallway toward the rear of the house treading carefully as he went. He pushed open the door to the bedroom and looked at the body of Joan Boyle spread out on the floor. The top of her head was a bloody mess, and the room was covered in blood. ‘Oh, fuck. Better call the Boss.’

  Moira pulled her mobile phone out and dialled Wilson’s number. ‘Boss,’ she said breathlessly when he answered. ‘It’s all gone to shit. Joan Boyle’s been murdered. You don’t have to ask, yes her head’s been caved in.’

  CHAPTER 53

  The squad cars started arriving within minutes of Moira’s phone call. Crime-scene tape was immediately set up around the house. Moira and Davidson stood at the front door and allowed the uniforms to get on with their job. Forensic and the pathologist were already informed so there was nothing to do but wait for their superior.

  When Wilson arrived in Archvale, he looked along the rows of small bungalows. He was reminded of the song ‘Little Boxes’ by some American folk singer. The only difference here was that the little boxes were all painted in various colour. The street on which Joan Boyle lived was a mass of patrol cars and police Landrovers. The car dropped Wilson at the edge of the gathering, and he walked slowly to where Moira and Peter stood in front of the house. This death answered some of the questions that had been running around inside his head. The motive was the Shankill Branch of the women’s UVF. Three of the women in the 1980’s photograph had now met their death violently. That clarified the issue. It was about them, and something they were involved in. There were only two more questions to answer. What had they done and who wanted to avenge it? What they had done must have been serious if the aggrieved person thought that they had to die like this.

  ‘Boss,’ Moira came
forward as he approached the house. ‘What a fuck up.’

  ‘Stupid woman,’ Wilson said taking a white plastic jumpsuit from a uniform at the edge of the tape. He slipped into the suit. ‘If she’d opened up to Peter yesterday, she might be alive to-day.’ He looked toward the edge of the police perimeter, where a group of onlookers had already assembled.

  ‘Maybe it was coincidence,’ Moira said. ‘I mean Peter’s visit yesterday and her being murdered. Maybe the killer had her on the list all along.’

  ‘She was certainly on the list, but I’m not so sure about the coincidence. Maybe she was watching Boyle and when Peter turned up, she decided to move up the plan to kill her.’ He moved past Moira and into the house. ‘You and Peter stay out. You’ve already contaminated the scene.’

  ‘We were very careful, Boss,’ Davidson said.

  ‘I know but let’s make life as easy as possible for forensics,’ Wilson entered the small hallway. The inside of the house was neat but a little run down. The doors needed painting, and the flowery wallpaper was from another era. The front of the house consisted of two rooms, a living room and a separate dining room leading to a small kitchen at the rear. Wilson walked through the three rooms without seeing anything out of the ordinary. He looked in the empty single bedroom at the rear. The football posters were faded and curled up at the corners, and the duvet cover on the bed had a football motif indicating that it had been bought for a child or a teenager at the most. It had been some time since anyone had used the room. He walked gingerly across the hallway avoiding drops of dried blood on the floor. The trail of blood led to a door at the back of the hall. It was a small bathroom. He could see drops of water on the bath. He closed the door and moved to the main bedroom. Joan Boyle lay on the floor on her back. The top of her head had been demolished and a mixture of dark cranial blood; bits of skull; brains and hair had spilled out onto the worn carpet on which she lay. A large pool of blood ran from her head to the edge of the bed where a bundle of old clothes had been thrown. He bent down and saw the burn marks on her neck. The tazer was applied several times. He stood up and looked round the room. There were strips of blood on the ceiling and on the walls. Moira was right, it was a complete fuck up. Wilson retraced his steps, and he went into the small living room. There was a series of photos on the mantelpiece over the fireplace. Joan Boyle had a husband and a son. There was no sign of either in the house. The next of kin would have to be informed. He went to the small sideboard near the door and opened the top drawer. It was full of photographs most of them turned sepia from age. On the very top was the photograph that Peter Davidson carried in his pocket. He picked it up. It was the group of eight women. Peter had shown her the photograph, and she disavowed any knowledge of it. Yet, it was on the top of the pile. Wilson replaced it.