Dead Rat

by Derek Fee

  Fiona Russell had rarely seen a better performance. Wilson had an answer for every question. If he had leaked the information to the IRA, he would have covered his tracks. ‘We’ll leave it there for this morning.’ She nodded at Kane, who did the closing remarks and gave the time before switching off the machine.

  ‘We’ll examine your computer and the phone logs this afternoon. I’ll arrange interviews with your team for tomorrow morning and we’ll finalise the investigation with a second interview tomorrow afternoon. I think I should be ready to report to the deputy chief constable tomorrow evening.’

  ‘I’m currently handling two murder investigations and might be adding another in the next few days. I’d like to get back to my job.’

  ‘That depends on whether I can clear you.’

  ‘Of course,’ Wilson said. He stood up and left.

  ‘What do you think?’ Russell asked when the door of the interview room closed.

  ‘It was all very plausible,’ Kane said.

  ‘Was Armstrong guilty of murder?’

  ‘Who knows.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Peter Davidson hadn’t bothered to turn up at the station. The morning was cold and wet, and Irene’s bed was warm and cosy. Nothing was going to happen until Wilson proved himself innocent and Jennings uncoiled his scaly body from round him. If the briefing the previous evening was anything to go by, Browne was not yet ready to be entrusted with an investigation. The Royce case had hit the buffers, and he could see that Browne was floundering. Depending on how long Wilson was going to be sidelined, it would be up to Graham and him to keep the ship on course. It was after ten when he smelt the bacon frying in the kitchen and roused himself from the bed. He’d attended a retirement party recently where the retiree broke down and cried. When he was asked why, he said his wife didn’t want him at home. Davidson was looking forward to having days with absolutely nothing to do but lie in the sunshine by the pool knocking back Pina Coladas. But that was several months away. After breakfast, he would skip across the road and get Cooney’s signature on the piece of paper that would allow them to drag Simon Jackson to the station. Wilson would break him, and when he did, the whole dirty business about Jackie Carlisle’s death would come out.

  As soon as he had finished his breakfast, Davidson crossed the road to the Cooney house and was obliged to stand at the door while old man Cooney read the typed statement and signed it. He’d put out a request to the mobile phone manufacturer concerning the phone found in the VIP lounge. Soon he would know where it was bought and that would close the investigation for him. He walked away from the house feeling rather pleased with himself. In fact, he was so pleased that he didn’t notice the man who exited a car down the street and made his way up Cooney’s drive.

  Cooney cursed when he heard the bell ring. He’d just signed the bloody statement and that wretched detective fellow was back at the door. He was preparing his broadside when he opened the door to a fresh-faced young man. ‘Not today,’ he prepared to close the door but the young man stuck a warrant card in his face.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, sir,’ the young man said.

  Cooney held the door. He hadn’t realised that the warrant card was no longer visible and neither had the young man introduced himself by name. ‘What now?’

  ‘My colleague who was here a moment ago, DC Davidson, I hope that his business with you was concluded satisfactorily.’

  ‘Yes, it was,’ Cooney attempted to close the door again but the young man’s foot was stopping him.

  ‘What exactly was his business?’

  ‘For God’s sake, don’t you people talk to one another. I was signing a statement about the fellow I saw outside Carlisle’s house the day he died.’

  The young man looked down the street, but Davidson had already disappeared. ‘Thank you, sir, you won’t be bothered again.’

  The foot was no longer blocking the door and Cooney took the opportunity to slam it shut. ‘What a bunch of idiots,’ he said under his breath.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Siobhan O’Neill was having a bad day. And it wasn’t just because she was fighting down a feeling of dread about dropping her boss in the proverbial. She had been sleeping badly and was awakened at three o’clock in the morning by a call from her mother’s care home. Her mother had taken a ‘turn,’ which could have meant anything, and she should get to the home as quickly as possible. By the time she arrived, the ‘turn’ was over and her mother was sleeping peacefully. The on-call doctor informed her that her mother had had a mini-stroke and they wouldn’t know the full impact until they examined her. Given that she no longer communicated anyway, and that she had no idea where she was or who her daughter was, estimating the effect of the stoke was not going to be easy. When her mother had first been diagnosed with early dementia, she had immediately accepted that her future was going to be dominated by her mother’s condition. She accepted that recognition would gradually slip away and that her mother would, with each passing day, retreat into her own private world. What she found difficult was that the mental disintegration was accompanied by a physical degeneration that rendered her mother incapable of making a cup of tea or feeding herself. And now they were rapidly approaching the other aspect that she had accepted, her mother’s death. Although she had somehow dragged herself to work, her mind was still half in the care home. The other half was at Musgrave Street station, where the rumour mill had it that Wilson was being interviewed. She looked across at Browne and Graham and they looked to be in a similar subdued mood. They were like children whose parents had disappeared for a surprise holiday and left them to fend for themselves. The over-riding feeling was ‘what do we do now?’

  She withdrew the disk with the traffic CCTV from its plastic sleeve and inserted it into her computer. She looked at DS Browne and saw that he was looking at her. Did he suspect that she had leaked the information on Armstrong? She would follow Duane’s advice and let the situation play out. She had already decided that if Wilson was about to go down, she would stand up and admit her guilt. She understood Duane’s point that HQ would continue to point the finger at him, but she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if he paid for her sin. She turned on her computer and brought up the CCTV file. Searching the grainy images was boring but maybe that was what she needed.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Rory Browne was tired asking himself ‘What would the boss do?’ Deep inside he knew that he was no Ian Wilson. But he was the SIO and he had to develop his own lines of enquiry. It was easier said than done. The Royce investigation had ground to a halt. Forensics had come up with nothing. There was no physical evidence. The gun was a dead end. They hadn’t come up with a motive for the killing, and he had no idea how Royce’s former career as a PSNI officer fitted into the jigsaw. There was no prime suspect; in fact, there were no suspects at all. And yet someone wanted Royce dead. Somehow he was going to have to develop a motive. The atmosphere in the squad room resembled a morgue. A tangible air of despondency hung over the place. O’Neill looked like someone had just kicked her favourite dog. Graham’s normally cheery face wore an unaccustomed frown. And Davidson hadn’t even bothered to turn up. It was a sign of the times. Browne glanced at his watch. It was almost twelve o’clock. He picked up the murder book and started to look at what little evidence there was, beginning with the finding of the body.

  His phone rang and he saw Wilson’s ID on the screen.

  ‘Boss.’

  ‘I’m thinking of having a coffee in The Galley café at the Titanic Centre,’ Wilson said. ‘Would you and Harry like to join me?’

  ‘Fifteen minutes.’ Browne signalled to Graham that they were on their way.

  Wilson was getting to like the coffee at The Galley. He had no doubt that Jennings and the gang at HQ wouldn’t appreciate him contacting his team while on suspension, but that wasn’t going to stop him, and as long as they didn’t find out, what harm could it do. He was sitting at one of the tables in th
e Atrium when Browne and Graham approached.

  ‘Not banged up yet, Boss?’ Graham said, as he pulled up a chair.

  ‘Before your behind gets used to that chair,’ Wilson said, ‘three black coffees please.’

  ‘Come on, Boss,’ Graham said. ‘I’m a married man with three kids. Every penny counts.’

  Wilson handed over a ten-pound note. ‘And bring back the change mind.’

  ‘How did it go?’ Browne asked.

  ‘The way it always goes. There was a certain amount of shadow-boxing, but I get the impression that Superintendent Russell is a pretty serious person. She’ll look at the evidence and make her mind up.’

  ‘She?’

  ‘Yes, our friend from Edinburgh is a woman, and a pretty smart one if I’m not mistaken.’

  ‘A woman won’t suit Jennings,’ Browne said.

  Wilson smiled. He would bet a month’s pay that Jennings had been counting on a lodge brother being the investigating officer. Count one for the good guys.

  Graham returned and distributed the coffees. Then dropped a series of coins on the table. ‘What’s the story?’

  Wilson sipped his coffee. ‘I don’t think Russell will be influenced by Jennings. The fact that she’s a woman means that there’ll be no special handshake. I was a little worried about that aspect until I walked into the interview room at Musgrave Street. I think she’ll give me a fair shake and it’s as much as I can ask for under the circumstances.’

  ‘You’re not being replaced,’ Browne said. ‘Davis has nobody available, so I have to report to her directly. I’m floundering, Boss. There are no lines of enquiry.’

  ‘That why I’ve asked you and Harry here.’ Wilson looked at the two expectant faces and realised that if he had a major fault it was keeping a lot of his cards too close to his chest. He was the one who was continually rabbiting on about the importance of the team when in reality he was a bit of a grandstander. ‘I haven’t been exactly up front with you guys.’

  Over the next hour, and another coffee, he told them about Royce’s retirement and the link to Colin Payne who died in an agricultural accident that wasn’t. He explained Reid’s part in getting the inquest reopened, and he disclosed his meeting with Mouse and Donaldson. Finally, he told them about his trip to Rathlin and his meeting with Pearson. When he was finished, he didn’t like the look on their faces.

  ‘You didn’t trust us,’ Browne said.

  ‘Of course I do.’ Wilson knew that the words sounded empty in the light of his behaviour. If there were a course on leadership, his conduct wouldn’t be held up as a paragon.

  ‘That was quite a lot to keep to yourself all the same,’ Graham said. ‘We’ve been thinking that we’re a group of dopes because we can’t generate lines of enquiry while you’ve been sitting on all this stuff.’

  ‘In a way I was just trying to connect the dots. Rory’s visit to the Drugs Squad was a part of that process.’

  ‘You’ve connected some of the dots?’ Browne asked.

  ‘Enough to keep us moving forward. McDevitt will be writing an article in tomorrow’s Chronicle about the reopening of the inquest into Payne’s death. That should stir things up among the murdering bastards. They’ve been sitting pretty since the initial inquest concluded that the death was an accident. A conclusion of unlawful killing will open the whole can of worms, and those who have been sleeping well in their beds will be having sleepless nights instead. When things begin to fall apart, we’ll be around.’

  ‘What about Royce?’ Graham said. ‘Maybe he murdered Payne because he was fingered by him.’

  ‘On the surface of it, I don’t think so. I think Royce was a patsy, or maybe he just drew the short straw. In any case, his retirement ended the investigation into corruption in the Drugs Squad, which was the objective of the exercise. Royce discovered God in Rathlin, and it looks like his involvement in Payne’s death weighed on his conscience. Maybe he returned to Belfast to put things right.’

  ‘It was good that you could use your connection with the professor to get the coroner to reopen the inquest,’ Graham said. ‘A former PSNI officer who retired from the force under the cloud of corruption wouldn’t have had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting a new inquest. And without a new inquest, no crime and no murder.’

  ‘You’re right, Harry. I’ve been thinking about that. Unfortunately, Royce isn’t here to tell us what his plan was, but I have a feeling that he had one. He was happy on Rathlin, and he would have stayed there indefinitely if he didn’t feel he had something important to do.’

  ‘Where do we go from here?’ Browne asked.

  ‘Professional Services won’t give us any details of what they were investigating,’ Wilson said, ‘so we have to assume that it has something to do with stealing and reselling drugs, or maybe the unit was in cahoots with the drug runners or pushers. It could be any of those.’

  ‘How are we going to find out?’ Graham said. ‘Drugs are not our area of expertise.’

  ‘And I wouldn’t bet on any help from Pratley or Wallace,’ Browne said. ‘I wouldn’t trust that Wallace guy as far as I could throw him.’

  Wilson looked at Graham. ‘Go back to the shelter tomorrow and go through that place with a fine-toothed comb. If Royce was on a crusade to put things right, he would have had some evidence. In the meantime, get the team to do a bit of investigating into our friends in the Drugs Squad. McDevitt’s story will appear tomorrow morning. Let’s see if they react.’

  ‘What are you going to do, Boss?’ Graham asked.

  ‘I’m going home and I’ll probably spend the afternoon watching westerns,’ Wilson said. ‘In case you hadn’t heard, I’m on suspension.’

  Browne stood. ‘I have to pay a call. Two coffees is my limit.’

  Wilson waited until he was through the toilet door. ‘Moira’s back.’

  ‘No way,’ Graham said.

  ‘She’s in Vice at the moment, but I have to work out a way to get her back in the squad.’

  ‘What does that mean for Rory?’

  ‘I don’t know, but she’s too good at what she does to waste her time picking up Toms and Johns.’

  They both looked up as the toilet door opened and Browne reappeared.

  ‘Good luck with that, Boss.’

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Russell and Kane spent the afternoon going through Wilson’s computer and examining call logs from both his mobile phone and his landlines. It was the kind of tedious investigative work that was the bread and butter of Professional Services. Russell was pleased that her younger colleague was competent, thorough and possessed computer skills that she could only dream of. They made a good team. By the end of the evening, they had managed to clear Wilson’s computer and his phone logs. Russell was a twenty-year veteran of the ‘Complaints’ and as soon as she had read Wilson’s personnel file she had formed an initial opinion that he was innocent. If he weren’t, it wouldn’t be the first time that her intuition let her down. The interview and the examination of his computer and phone logs only confirmed her initial impression. But this was Northern Ireland and there were political overtones to every aspect of life. Over lunch, Kane had clued her in on the internal politics that might be affecting their investigation. Despite his success, the hierarchy, or at least some elements of it, didn’t like Wilson. Although Kane didn’t say it outright, Russell had the impression that the rank and file felt the allegation had been a put-up job by the DCC. Russell would have to walk carefully. An innocent conclusion might not be universally popular. But that wasn’t her problem. So far there wasn’t an iota of direct evidence that Wilson had leaked information. She was turning over the last pages of the murder book when she came to a photo of the whiteboard that had been taken before it was dismantled. Most of Wilson’s case against Armstrong was there for all to see. She noted the handwritten word ‘tout’ beside Armstrong’s photo. Anyone with access to the Murder Squad’s room could have seen that whiteboard. She supposed that meant most of the
staff of the station. And what of Wilson’s hypothesis that the security services had leaked the information to avoid embarrassment? It was as reasonable as the information coming from the PSNI. From what she had learned from Kane, Armstrong wouldn’t be the first person thrown to the wolves in the history of the province. She looked at her watch and nodded at Kane. It was time to interview the chief super.

  Davis greeted the two investigators warmly, made the introductions and ushered them to the ‘soft’ section of her office, where tea and coffee had been laid out. She allowed Kane to play mother. It was the first time in her career when there was a serious subject under discussion where all the participants were female.

  Russell waited until Kane finished before putting her mobile phone on the coffee table. ‘I’m afraid this has to be a formal recorded interview.’

  ‘I’m in your hands,’ Davis said.

  ‘During the Spalvis case, were you in close consultation with DS Wilson?’ Russell asked.

  ‘Yes, we had a debriefing most evenings.’

  ‘So, you were aware of the direction of the investigation?’

  ‘In the main, yes.’

  ‘What do you mean by ‘in the main’?’

  ‘As the chief superintendent of the station I try to give direction and pass on messages from HQ. I do not carry out investigations myself. Of necessity, I am informed of the general direction of the investigation but not of every specific piece of information.’

  ‘At what point did you become aware that Minister Noel Armstrong was a prime suspect?’

  ‘When Wilson established that the alibi he provided for the Bridget Kelly murder was suborned.’

  ‘Are you aware of the name of the police officer who suborned this alibi?’

  ‘I am informed but with the added proviso that the witness is unreliable and in any case is resident outside the United Kingdom.’