Death to Pay

by Derek Fee

  The offices of Kate McCann and Company were located in an office building on Oxford Street just around the corner from the Royal Courts of Justice on Chichester Avenue. Wilson pushed open the door to the reception area on the second story. Kate’s office covered the whole of the second floor and consisted of the reception area, three offices on one side of a corridor that ran the length of the building, and a large conference room occupied the other side. Studded walls enclosed the offices while the conference area was an all-glass affair. This was not the traditional law office with walnut panelling, antique partner’s desks and dusty cupboards. The office was one hundred per cent Scandinavian chic. Glass and plastic were the dominant materials. Wilson could see one of Kate’s juniors working away inside the conference room that also doubled as the company’s library. Rows of leather bound law books covered the solid walls of the room. Wilson glanced at his watch. It was almost twelve thirty. Kate’s office door opened abruptly, and he looked up to see Sammy Rice and a short man wearing a suit standing directly in front of him.

  ‘Mr Wilson,’ Sammy Rice said. ‘Didn’t expect to see you here.’

  ‘Nor I you, Sammy,’ Wilson stood up to his full height, which was some four inches taller than Rice. ‘I though that you and I had an understanding.’

  Rice looked like he was thinking deeply. ‘You have me there, Mr Wilson.’

  ‘Oh ye of short memories,’ Wilson waved an admonishing finger. ‘Remember I advised you to stay away from certain people.’

  Rice smiled. ‘Oh that,’ he looked at the suit beside him. ‘My solicitor and me are here on business. We’re looking to change our legal representation and my man here suggested that I talk to Miss McCann. Wonderful woman by the way, attractive and brilliant, what a combination.’

  Wilson looked beyond the two men and could see Kate readying to leave. ‘I’ve taken enough of your time,’ Wilson said extending his hand to Rice.

  Rice took Wilson’s hand and was not ready for the pressure that was immediately exerted on his fingers. He tried to resist, but he was too late. Wilson continued to squeeze, and it was all Rice could do to resist from screaming.

  ‘I think I remember that understanding now,’ he said slowly through clenched teeth.

  ‘Good I was hoping that you would,’ Wilson released his grip.

  Rice shook his hand to re-establish circulation and made for the door. ‘You’re fucked,’ he said under his breath as he passed Wilson.

  ‘What was all that about?’ Kate asked as she exited her office.

  Wilson kissed her lightly on the cheek. She had recovered most of her colour. ‘Mr Rice is an undesirable character. He’s been on the wrong side of the law since he was strong enough to heft a Molotov cocktail.’

  She smiled wanly. ‘You could say that about most of the people who cross the threshold of this office.’

  ‘But Mr Rice is a special case. He operates a diversified business that involves drugs, prostitution, protection and loan sharking. He could be described as a social entrepreneur since he was operating a system of payday loans long before the term became respectable. I have no desire to waste time discussing Mr Rice when my stomach is rumbling.’ He could almost touch the elephant in the room, but he could see that they were both ignoring it. It would become the subject that could never be discussed.

  ‘Good,’ Kate pushed him towards the door. ‘I concur. He just wasted half an hour of my time bullshitting me on how he wishes to change his legal representation. I got the distinct impression that his objective was something else. Perhaps it has something to do with that pissing contest in reception.’

  Wilson held the door open for her. ‘You’re the local here. Where are we going?’

  ‘You invite a girl to lunch, and you haven’t even made a reservation,’ she said as they exited onto Oxford Street.

  He hung his head. He felt they were playing a scene from a movie.

  ‘Just as well. I’m due back in court at two o’clock, so I suggest we make our way quickly to the Garrick on Chichester Avenue. They serve a mean pie.’

  He held out his arm, and she took it. ‘I heard the news you’ve got another body. I hope that’s the reason for the belated lunch invitation.’

  ‘I couldn’t face the office,’ he said as they turned left in Chichester Avenue. ‘Three dead women and a dead gangster and I haven’t got a single lead. I can just imagine Jennings bending the Chief Constable’s ear. There’ll be lots of ‘I told you not to promote him’ going down and there is absolutely no doubt that if I don’t produce the goods in the next few days, there’ll be a move to get me off the case.’

  ‘So is this a working rather than a recreational lunch. Have you any idea what my time costs.’

  One of his problems was that he did have some idea. ‘Let’s try both. You’re a lot smarter than me so let me run a few things by you,’ he pushed open the door of the Garrick and ushered her in. Every head in the room turned when they entered. Most waved at Kate. ‘Legal colleagues?’ he asked.

  ‘By and large,’ she said and steered him in the direction of the back bar.

  CHAPTER 55

  The team assembled, again minus McIver, at two o’clock in front of the whiteboards. A photograph of Joan Boyle was affixed to the board bearing the pictures of Lizzie Rice and Nancy Morison. A line of black whiteboard marker connected the three photographs. The essentials of what they knew about Joan Boyle had been written beneath her name. Davidson was busy during lunch.

  Wilson was feeling re-energised after spending just over an hour with Kate. The miscarriage wasn’t mentioned, and their embryonic child was dispatched to the dustbin of history. Wilson wondered what had happened to the embryo, but decided that he really didn’t want to know. He found comfort in the philosophical argument that life didn’t exist until the child was born. He found it strange to converse so naturally with Kate. She was so compartmentalised that she had already put the event behind her. He’d always admired her incisive brain, but he was again reminded that there were other aspects of her character that he had not yet probed. He appreciated her grasp of detail as she questioned him about the facts of the three cases. He realised that he had been foolish trying to keep their worlds apart. It wasn’t always cataclysmic when worlds collide. Sometimes they coalesced to form something bigger than the sum of their parts. ‘Joan Boyle,’ he tapped the photo. ‘Former member of Lizzie Rice’s group, Peter interviewed her yesterday and called it right when he said that she was hiding something. Moira, briefing on finding the body.’

  Moira stood forward and ran through the events of the morning up to the arrival of Wilson.

  ‘Thanks,’ Wilson took over again. ‘The pathologist thinks she died sometime between nine and eleven last night. We’ll have a better idea after the post mortem. Peter, the house-to-house?’

  Davidson explained the extent and results of the house-to-house investigation. ‘I intend to return to interview the couple who saw the young woman at the door sometime around ten. Hopefully, they’ve been talking about the earlier interview, and something else may come to light.’

  ‘Do we think that Boyle was killed because she was about to tell us something?’ Harry Graham asked.

  ‘Good question, Harry,’ Wilson said. ‘It’s certainly a coincidence, and I don’t generally like coincidences. It’s something that we have to bear in mind. It could mean that someone was watching yesterday when Peter interviewed her.’

  ‘Or she could have spoken to someone on the phone,’ Moira said.

  ‘Harry, check the phone records. Any calls in or out. I don’t anticipate a timeline problem with Boyle. Harry and Peter will liaise to produce a timeline from yesterday morning until her death.’

  Graham and Davidson nodded and took notes.

  ‘Things are beginning to crystalize,’ Wilson said. ‘We still don’t have a motive, but the Boyle murder allied to the Rice and Morison killings point to the activities of the eight ladies in the photograph. Three of these ladies are s
till alive and despite our best efforts, we have been unable to locate them. I don’t know what that means but we can’t count on their help in establishing the motive.’ He turned and looked at Moira. ‘That makes the police files the only avenue we have.’

  ‘I would hold out much hope, Boss,’ Moira said. ‘I’ve already been through two boxes.’ She pointed at two Xerox boxes sitting on her desk. ‘I’ve still got two to go but quite honestly so far it’s been mostly rubbish and heavily redacted rubbish at that.’

  ‘It’s all we’ve got for the present. We need motive, if we’re going to catch the killer and without it we’re just moving around in the dark hoping to stumble over something. You know the mantra, plod, plod, plod.’

  ‘I’m on it, Boss,’ Moira said.

  ‘Eric, where are we on the McIlroy case?’ Wilson asked.

  Taylor hesitated before speaking. ‘Still on the timeline. Nothing new.’

  ‘Maybe all four killings are connected’ Moira said.

  ‘Almost certainly not,’ Wilson said. ‘The women are certainly connected both through the photograph and the MO of the murders. McIlroy is an outlier. I’m not saying that the same person didn’t kill all four but certainly if they did, the motivations are different. McIlroy could have known the killer and been prepared to expose her, and maybe he died for that. However, I doubt he had anything to do with the motive for killing the women. Anyone else?’

  The team shook their heads.

  Wilson noted that McIver was absent. He was going to have to decide what to do with him sooner rather than later. ‘Ok, let’s keep at it.’ He turned and walked toward his office.

  Wilson flopped into his chair. They were making progress, but it was painfully slow. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Four murders in one week, probably a record even for peacetime Belfast. They uncovered very little real evidence at any of the murder sites. He flayed the chief of the forensic team, but he knew that they couldn’t find what wasn’t there. Whoever was murdering the women was incredibly careful. The level of violence would have left her covered in blood. She couldn’t just walk around with blood streaked hair and clothes. That meant that she had some means of covering herself. He would see what forensic came up with from the Boyle house, but he wasn’t hopeful. The McIlroy shooting posed a different problem. There was too much evidence. The derelict school was used by junkies and teenagers as a drug den and probably also for illicit sex. The forensic team had a hell of a time collecting samples and the report had run to thirty pages, but there was no evidence of any known felon being in the corridor. He tilted his chair forward and noticed Taylor at the door.

  ‘A word, Boss,’ Taylor said closing the door behind him.

  Wilson pointed at the chair in front of his desk. ‘What’s up, Eric?’

  ‘I wasn’t exactly telling the truth at the briefing. About the timeline, I mean.’

  Wilson sat forward and opened his hands. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I visited the Black Bear this morning trying to tie up the timeline. It’s been a bitch because none of McIlroy’s gang will open their mouths about his movements. The barman made me for a copper and then let slip that McIlroy was in conference with another policeman a few days ago.’

  ‘And,’ Wilson said.

  ‘Some of McIlroy’s people were sitting at a table and as soon as the barman mentioned the policeman he received the signal to shut up.’

  ‘It would be naïve for us to think that people like Rice and McGreary didn’t have contacts in the Force. The questions are who exactly was meeting with McIlroy and why?’

  ‘The barman is off at six. I was thinking I could have another chat with him. Bring him in if necessary.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Try to be circumspect. The poor bastard is probably shitting himself, so try not to put him in more trouble than he’s in already. I’ll be here late. I have a mountain of paperwork to go through. Get back to me on this.’

  ‘Ok, Boss, will do,’ Taylor stood up and left.

  Wilson sighed and looked at his watch; two forty. Four hours of paper pushing. He didn’t know whether he was ready for this. He pulled a file towards him and opened it slowly. He had just started to read when his phone rang.

  ‘Press conference at HQ at three thirty,’ Chief Superintendent Spence was sparse with words.

  ‘That should be fun,’ Wilson said.

  ‘The DCC wants a briefing paper on the Boyle murder and the state of the investigation by three o’clock. Joe public wants to know why someone is murdering people who are already in the waiting room for Heaven. And he wants to know what we’re doing about it. The Chief Constable is shitting bricks, and the politicians are ringing his phone off the hook. The DCC thinks it’s time he paraded the officers who are responsible for the debacle, so you and I are to be in attendance. We’ll leave here at three fifteen. Send the brief directly to the DCC with a copy to me. Be careful, Ian, there may have to be a sacrificial lamb on this one.’

  ‘Understood,’ Wilson said and broke the connection. He looked through the glass surround of his office until he caught Moira’s eye and beckoned her into his office. ‘I have need of your excellent skill in composition,’ he said when she entered.

  CHAPTER 56

  Wilson considered most police briefings as a monumental waste of time. He had some respect for the briefings that consisted of showing the public a photofit of some miscreant they were searching for and enlisting their aid in apprehending him. He could not abide the farce where they appeared before the public ostensibly to seek the aid of the public simply because they didn’t have a clue themselves. The latter type of press conference only served to verify for Joe Public that in this particular case, they had their heads up their arses. Therefore, it was with great reluctance that he had allowed himself to be coerced into appearing on the podium next to his superiors. DCC Jennings led their little parade into the pressroom followed by Chief Superintendent Spence with Wilson bringing up the rear. His two superiors were in green dress uniform, while he was in civilian clothes. About a dozen journalists were assembled before them and television cameras from the main television channels were already set up. When they reached the podium, DCC Jennings took the centre chair with Spence on his right and Wilson on the left. The Force’s Press Officer introduced them, and Jennings read from his script. The crimes they were examining were horrific, they were following certain lines of enquiry, and they were expecting an arrest soon. Wilson noted that the word ‘imminent’ had not been used. As soon as Jennings had finished he threw the meeting open for questions.

  ‘I have a question for Superintendent Wilson,’ Maggie Cummerford had jumped up immediately Jennings had finished speaking. ‘What connection do you think there is between the murders of the elderly women and the murder of Ivan McIlroy?’

  Jennings reluctantly pushed the microphone towards Wilson. ‘I’m not sure that there is a connection and if there is one, it’s tenuous. We have a very definite line of enquiry in the case of the murders of Lizzie Rice, Nancy Morison and Joan Boyle. We are still examining the evidence in the case of Ivan McIlroy.’

  ‘Does that mean that you think the same person is responsible for all four murders?’ Cummerford asked before any of her colleagues could ask a question.

  ‘The killer may be the same person or there may be two separate individuals,’ Wilson pushed the microphone back to Jennings.

  The DCC launched into a long monologue on the value of the PSNI, much of which had no relevance to the crimes under discussion but which would delight his political masters. The hierarchy, the Minister, the Chief Constable and himself were doing their utmost to bring the criminal, or criminals, to book. If they were unsuccessful, it would obviously be because their underlings had failed them. Wilson and Spence were firmly staked as the sacrificial goats. Jennings wound up the proceedings in order to show that he had pressing issues to attend to.

  ‘What was that about?’ Maggie Cummerford said as she joined W
ilson in the group trooping out of the pressroom.

  ‘I think it’s called ass-covering in the States,’ he replied.

  ‘Do you have time for a drink?

  ‘Not right now, I have to travel back to the office with my boss. I have to reassure him that in case of a catastrophe, I’ll fall on my sword.’

  ‘Come on, it’s not life or death.’

  He smiled. ‘Of course not, it’s much more serious than that.’

  Moira closed the buff cover on the file she had been reading and placed it on the pile she had already examined. She tried to remain dispassionate as she read. The files catalogued the atrocities carried out on the Catholic population of Belfast. Moira had given up the religion of her birth during her teens and if requested to state her religion in a questionnaire, she would have oscillated between ‘none’ and ‘lapsed Catholic’. She knew that police files relating to the activities of the IRA and the INLA mirrored the files she was examining. However, something in her upbringing made her consider atrocities against her co-religionists as somewhat graver than those against another group. She wondered whether the change had been brought about by her relationship with Brendan. Unlike her, Brendan had never cast off the religion of his birth. Jesuit schooling consolidated his faith. He was a regular Sunday attendee at Mass, and he had even succeeded in dragging her, not exactly kicking and screaming, to church for the past two Sundays. She supposed that he was hoping for a renaissance of her faith that might earn him God knows how many indulgences and ease his way into the Kingdom of Heaven. There was a possibility that he was succeeding. She had banished the old religion to the back of her mind and hadn’t thought of resurrecting it until Brendan came along. Maybe it would be one of the things she would have to thank him for when he boarded the jet back to the States. She picked another file out of the Xerox box and was about to start when she took up the file she had been examining earlier. She flicked through to near the end and read through a heavily redacted report by one of Wilson’s predecessors concerning the activities of Lizzie Rice and her lady friends. Something about the tone of the report grabbed her attention. It was not so much what was written but the way it was expressed. The writer didn’t like Lizzie Rice and was convinced that she was behind several attacks on Catholic families. He also intimated that Lizzie might have been involved in more serious crime. She looked at the name on the bottom of the report and removed her notebook from her bag. She wrote ‘DI Jack Armstrong’ and circled the name several times with her pen. She looked up and saw that only she, and McIver were in the squad room. McIver was staring into the open drawer of his desk. She noticed him carrying out a similar action several times a day. He was either concentrating very heavily on the contents, or he was on ‘planet McIver’ again. She watched as he closed the drawer and locked it. Maybe it was her female inquisitiveness, but she was intrigued by what might be in that drawer. She put the buff folder back on the pile and pulled the new file towards her. She started to read.