by Derek Fee
Spence stopped pacing long enough to pull a bottle of whiskey out of the bottom drawer of his desk. He pointed the bottle at Wilson, who shook his head. Spence poured himself a large measure. Glass in hand he resumed his pacing. ‘Any press present?’
‘Not when I was there. It went across the radio as a domestic. They might get interested later if it turns out to be a cluster fuck.’
‘Christ, Ian, this could finish us. Jennings will be all over this like a rash, and the fickle finger of fate will be pointing directly at us.’
‘Calm yourself, we both know that if anyone is going to pay a price here, it’ll be me. I just don’t want you to run out on me.’
Spence took a slug of his whiskey. ‘I have less that a year left before I get my pension. There isn’t a lot they can do to me so I won’t be running out on you but we’re going to need a damn good explanation for why we didn’t act when McIver went off the rails.’
Wilson pushed himself out of his chair. ‘I’ve had enough for to-day. We need to talk to Ronald.’
‘That bad,’ Kate said when she looked up from her desk into his face.
‘Worse,’ he forced a smile. He went to the desk and pulled her up from her chair. Her features were still pallid, and he hadn’t seen her smile lately. He hoped that the pallor, and the sad demeanour would leave soon.
‘I was worried about you,’ she held him tight.
‘It’s nothing that a few whiskeys won’t cure,’ he kissed her lightly on the forehead. He thought he could feel the absence of the bump in her stomach pressing against him. He reflected on the woman in the flower dress lying back in the chair at the McIver house. She entered the world an innocent. He had no idea of the journey that brought her from that innocent baby to dying with a plastic bag over her head.
Kate closed the legal papers she had been examining. ‘Ok, first the whiskey and then you’re going to walk me through it. I held dinner.’ She eased him away aware of his reluctance to let go. He looked tired. Maybe he was as tired as she was. She didn’t like to look at her face in the mirror these days. When she found out that she was pregnant, the thought of the baby frightened her. The law was her life. Wilson fitted rather neatly into that life, but she had been afraid that a child might not. She sometimes thought about her own upbringing. Helen McCann was never going to win mother of the year. She had been packed of to Victoria College as soon as humanely possible, and her mother was not exactly a constant visitor. Helen was too busy making money for herself and her friends to actually mother her. The law became her mother and father. She had no desire to inflict the same childhood on someone else. So, all in all, the miscarriage was probably not such a disaster. Perhaps she had even willed it on herself. It was not a thought she was comfortable with. She went to the bar and poured them both a liberal shot of whiskey. When she turned she saw that he was standing at the picture window looking out over the city. She didn’t need to offer him a penny for his thoughts. Maybe his thoughts were as dark as hers. She came behind him and held his whiskey out. He took the glass from her hand and turned to face her.
‘Cheers,’ he touched his glass to hers and drank the contents in one gulp.
‘Cheers,’ she said sipping her whiskey. ‘That’s what I call a drink.’
He walked to the bar and poured another large measure.
‘It isn’t a solution,’ she said joining him.
‘There isn’t a solution. I get to swim around in a bowl of shit every day, and I’m supposed to remain sane. One of my team has been unravelling for weeks, months maybe. I don’t know. I missed it because I’m so bloody bound up in my own life. This evening he went home, fed his wife a glass of barbiturates and then put a plastic bag over her head. Have you any idea what it takes to do all that?’
‘While you’re swimming around in the shit I get to clean up the aftermath. Yes, I do have some idea of what it takes because I have to listen to and defend the people who do those horrible things. I have to look at the reasons they set their house on fire with their children still inside. I get to hear their rambling about why they had to decapitate their partner because there was a snake coming out of their head. I get to make sense out of the senseless. I get to defend the indefensible. I feel your hurt because I’ve felt it myself. The problem is that this is the life we chose. The problem is, we’re both good at what we do.’
Wilson finished his drink and went to the bar to replenish his glass. ‘It’s all so bloody pathetic. I can still see her sitting in that chair with her mouth hanging open. I know I’m not guilty of that poor woman’s death. I even think that she might be better off. I’m just pissed that I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t see McIver unravelling to this extent.’
‘He’ll get help. Talk me though what happened and let’s see if I can help.’
He sipped his whiskey. ‘What the hell will become of us?’
‘Che sera sera, there’ll be plenty of time to worry about that. Let’s forget tonight that tomorrow we both have to get back in that bowl and swim.’
Moira was sitting in Bar 12. Brendan was late, something about a tutorial. She’d seen the way some of his female students looked at him and wondered if he was seeing someone else. She was so tired that she didn’t care. She was on her second drink, and she knew there would be more. The Fenian bitch in her was rising to the surface. She was getting the eye from two guys sitting at one of the tables. She hadn’t returned their come on looks, and she was only short of taking her lipstick from her bag and writing ‘Fuck Off’ on her forehead. After two days of ploughing through the shit of the past, she didn’t need to listen to some arsehole’s chat up line. She glanced at her watch, eight o’clock. If Brendan didn’t turn up soon, she was going to head home for a long hot bath and a bottle of wine. She had picked up a brochure from a travel company, and she laid it on the bar in front of her. She opened it at the long-haul section and looked at the photograph of a beach somewhere in Thailand. The water was azure blue and the sand a crystalline white. There was nobody on the beach, and a hammock hung from two trees in the corner of the picture. That’s what I want. No, that’s what I need. She tried to remember whether she had any holidays coming. Two weeks of nothing. The thought was so appealing that she wanted to rush out and book right at that moment. One of the guys at the table decided to try his luck. She caught him rising from his seat out of the corner of her eye, and she turned her full bitch look on him. It was enough to cause him to swing around her and look for an imaginary friend outside the front door. She smiled inwardly but kept the bitch face on.
‘I do not like that look,’ Brendan said from behind her back.
‘And I don’t like people who sneak around,’ she swivelled on the barstool. ‘Did you get tired of being adored by eighteen year olds?’
‘Tough day, eh,’ he motioned to the barman. ‘Pint of Guinness and whatever the lady is having.
The two guys who had been eyeing her were throwing dagger looks at Brendan. She decided to increase their pain by giving him a big wet kiss. ‘You don’t know the half of it,’ she said.
‘Hey, you try fighting off five or six eighteen year olds who want your body. Now that’s my idea of a tough day.’
The waiter put a pint in front of Brendan and a double vodka and a bottle of tonic in front of Moira. Brendan looked at her, and she held up two fingers.
‘I mean it’s my third,’ she laughed.
‘Don’t worry I got it,’ he sipped his drink. ‘Now tell.’
Once he had turned on the faucet, Moira couldn’t stop. She told him about Joan Boyle, ploughing through the old police files and the altercation with McIver. By the time she was finished, they needed another drink, and she motioned to the barman for a refill.
‘You’re going to feel like shit in the morning,’ Brendan said.
‘It won’t be anymore shit than I feel now.’
Brendan motioned to the barman and cancelled the drinks. ‘What have you got in the fridge?’
She laughed.
‘Who do you think I am? I’m a working girl. The fridge is empty.’
‘I’ve got a plan. There’s a store down the road. I’ll pick us up the making of Penne arabiata, and a bottle of wine. You take a hot bath, and by the time you’re finished dinner will be on the table.’
She finished the dregs of her drink. ‘I could get to love you.’ She picked up her bag unaware that on her mobile phone was the text of the APB for Ronald McIver.
Big George deposited the Peeler at the warehouse in East Belfast. Two of Sammy’s men wearing balaclavas pulled McIver from the back seat of the Volvo and carried him inside. They strapped him to the chair recently vacated by Davie Best. There were blood spots on the floor under the chair, but McIver didn’t bother with them. He put up zero resistance. He didn’t really care whether he lived or died. He was aware at some level that he had been abducted and there was a good chance he would end up in a bog hole somewhere. It didn’t matter. Mary was dead, and he didn’t have anything else to live for. He assumed he had been lifted by members of Sammy Rice’s gang meaning that they now knew he had killed McIlroy. They might kill him for that. If they didn’t, he’d be arrested for killing his own wife. It was six of one and half a dozen of the other. The lights were switched off in the warehouse as soon as the men in balaclavas left. McIver let his head fall forward. He was tired right down to his very bones. He was caught. There was nothing to fear now except death, and he had no fear of that. Maybe now he could sleep. He closed his eyes, and he saw Mary in front of him. In his mind’s eye, she was young and vibrant and alive. He slept for the first time in days, and he was unaware of how long he’d slept when he was shaken awake. He looked up and saw three men wearing balaclavas staring into his face. One of the men moved behind him and pulled his hair back roughly.
‘Tell us about Ivan,’ one of the men stood forward.
‘It was an accident,’ McIver said. His throat and lips were dry. He was amazed at how calm his voice sounded. ‘Didn’t mean it. I only wanted to get out. McIlroy wouldn’t let me and he was going to hurt me, so I pulled my service revolver.’ He swallowed hard. ‘Gun went off. Two shots one after the other at close range. Fucking accident.’ He started laughing. ‘All this mess because of a fucking accident.’
‘Where’s the gun?’ the man asked.
‘My house. Are you going to kill me?’
Nobody spoke.
‘Please kill me. I don’t want to live. I’ve nothing left to live for.’
The man holding his head back took a carpet knife out of his pocket and looked at the man asking the questions. The man shook his head, and the carpet knife went back into the first man’s pocket.
The man who asked the question signalled to the other two that they were leaving. The man behind McIver let his hair go, and his head fell forward.
As soon as they were outside the warehouse, Sammy Rice whipped off his balaclava.
‘Want us to do it?’ one of the men asked.
‘No. If it has to be done, I’ll do it myself,’ Rice said. McIver put him off his game. He thought they were going to have to beat a confession out of him. Normally, people who were beaten to a pulp begged to be killed just to stop the pain. McIver begged to be killed without taking a punch. ‘Leave him. I’ll deal with him tomorrow. There’s someone I have to talk to.’
Maggie Cummerford was in the newspaper office when the message came in that the body of a woman had been found in a house in South Belfast. The first transmission was closely followed by a police APB for Detective Constable Ronald McIver. She quickly checked the address and saw that the woman was found in McIver’s house. The police were even getting in on the killing act, she thought. She wondered whether she should go there. Wilson would be at the house. A little additional taunting might do him some good. She decided that there was no point. The poor man was up to his ass in corpses and there wasn’t even a gang war to blame for it. She had made her contribution, but it was almost time to disappear and leave him with his mystery cloaked in an enigma. She enjoyed her little joust with Wilson. In a way, he was a worthy opponent but this time the deck was stacked against him. Two more days and she would be on a flight to the States. There was no better country in the world to disappear in than America. It was big and full of people who didn’t want to be found. For God’s sake, they were still looking for Weathermen, who disappeared themselves during the 1960’s. She gave her mother some degree of justice. All the women present should have suffered the same fate as Rice, Morison and Boyle. But she was not a psychopath. She laughed. At least, she didn’t think so.
Sammy Rice swirled a snifter of brandy and took a sip. He was sitting in the front room of his house in Malone Park, and DCC Roy Jennings was seated directly across from him.
‘Are you sure he wasn’t involved in your mother’s death?’ Jennings asked.
‘I don’t think so but he did kill Ivan. He blabbed like a baby, and we didn’t even lay a hand on him. Guilt is eating the poor bastard up. He wouldn’t have been much use in our business.’
‘What do you intend to do?’
‘I’m going to take the fucker out into the woods and put one into the back of his head. Then I’m going to bury him. It’s what my people expect. I can’t allow him to kill one of my men and walk away.’
‘You mentioned something earlier about Wilson.’
Rice related the incident at Kate McCann’s office. He could still feel the pain in his hand and the indignity of wilting under Wilson’s pressure grip. ‘I want that bastard.’
‘I detest him, and I’ve tried to nail him on several occasions, but he’s got more lives than a cat. However, with a little bit of thought we may have him this time.’
‘How so?’ Rice sipped from his snifter.
‘McIver is a member of his team. McIver has murdered an upstanding citizen and his wife. The case will be all over the papers, and a few judicious words to a journalist would be enough to cast aspersions on the man responsible for monitoring McIver’s actions. The McIver case could be used to shine a spotlight on Wilson. I might be under considerable pressure to require his retirement.’
‘You’re a devious bastard. I’m glad you’re on my side,’ and you’ll stay on my side, as long as I outrank you in the Order, he thought. ‘So what does that mean?’
‘You have to cut McIver loose tomorrow morning. There’s an APB out on him. Drop him off where there’s a police presence, and he’ll be picked up in no time. We need a court case to see Wilson off.’
Rice sat back. ‘My people expect me to take care of this. You don’t kill one of my men and not end up in a hole in the Mourne Mountains. That’s normally non-negotiable. This is going to be a difficult one for me to square. McIver’s going to get what, fifteen years for the two murders. He’ll plead diminished responsibility. I’ve seen what’s left of him, and he’ll get it. He might be out in five after a couple of years of psychiatric care.’
‘McIver isn’t the target.’
Rice nodded and drained his glass. ‘I’ll do it.’
CHAPTER 61
Wilson slept fitfully and had risen at six o’clock. He had been sitting at Kate’s desk for two hours drinking coffee and sketching on a writing pad. Some things were clear while some required clarification. McIlroy and McIver knew each other. How they knew each other needed to be clarified, but Wilson would bet that they had been at school together. Their ages made that conclusion possible. McIlroy recruited McIver to report on the Lizzie Rice investigation. That was confirmed by the presence of the roll of bills in McIver’s drawer. The big question was whether McIver had had his finger on the trigger when McIlroy was shot. After examining all the possibilities, Wilson had come to the conclusion that he had. The Glock would test positive and that would confirm that Ronald McIver, a Detective Constable in the PSNI, had shot and killed Ivan McIlroy. McIver had gone to ground, but would be caught eventually. The case would be spectacular. A double murderer, one from whatever motive his barrister would ascribe and the second a
mercy killing under extreme stress. It would be a circus and a perfect case for Kate McCann. However, the stain on him and his team would be harder to wash away. He didn’t heard Kate but he smelled an omelette from the kitchen.
‘Breakfast is ready. Have you worked it out?’ she asked.
‘More or less,’ he folded the papers he had been scribbling on and turned to face her. ‘It isn’t pretty, and I may not come out of it unscathed.’
‘Just remember, you didn’t do anything,’ she moved toward the breakfast bar.
‘That’s the point,’ Wilson stood and followed her. ‘If I’d been on the ball, I would have noticed McIver going downhill. Maybe I’m not fit to lead a team.’
‘Don’t talk rubbish. Nobody could have seen McIver killing his wife coming,’ she put a plate containing an omelette in front of him.
He dug his fork into the omelette. ‘There are those who will not take such a charitable view of my actions. They’ve been waiting for me, and now they have a chance of getting me.’
‘Maybe that’s what you want. Our minds work in mysterious ways. Maybe you’re being forced in a direction you really want to go.’
Wilson put a forkful of omelette into his mouth. Maybe he was tired dancing the dance. He couldn’t see an alternative, but the image of Mary McIver had been added to the catalogue of horrors imprinted on his mind. The job ate people. It had eaten Joe Worthington, and it had eaten Ronald McIver. He wondered who it would eat next.
The nine o’clock briefing was a morose affair. Eric Taylor briefed the team on the events of the previous day ending with the discovery of Mary McIver’s body at the house. There had been no sign of Ronald McIver but the uniforms were on the look out. Wilson took over with his theory on McIver being the shooter in the McIlroy murder. McIver’s Glock had been handed over for examination to see if it had been the gun that had killed McIlroy.
