Death to Pay (27 page)

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.

The forensic team had arrived by the time Wilson had carried out his cursory examination. He prayed that this murder site would yield more than the previous two. At least, he now knew where he had to concentrate.  He joined Moira and Davidson on the driveway into the house and slipped out of his jumpsuit. A uniform took it from him and placed it in a refuse bag. ‘Peter, we’ll need to carry out a house to house. At a wild guess, I’d say we’re looking at some time last night. Round up a few uniforms and start now while the iron’s hot. You can start with that lot,’ he nodded at the group of onlookers. He noticed Maggie Cummerford in the middle of the group taking notes as she talked to what he assumed were neighbours. He caught her eye and beckoned her to the crime-scene tape.

‘When you didn’t turn up at the briefing this morning, I thought we were finished with you,’ Wilson said.

‘Since the profile’s finished, and I didn’t get anything that the other reporters had except for the woman angle,’ she pulled a small recorder from her pocket. ‘Do you have any comment on the latest murder? On the record of course,’ she clicked the button and shoved the recorder towards his mouth.

Wilson stood quietly until she pressed the button shutting the recorder off.  ‘How did you get here so fast?’

‘Radio tuned to the police frequency, is there a serial killer murdering old ladies? Did this old lady know the other old ladies? Is it open season on old ladies in Belfast?’

Wilson yawned. ‘Not trying to start a panic are we?’

‘Am I boring you?’

‘I’m sure my superiors will be holding a press briefing later to-day. Don’t forget all those questions about the serial killer. That’s what sells papers. Got a name for her yet?’

Cummerford laughed. ‘Why not the old-lace killer? By the way, my editor is not so impressed with my profile of you.’

‘Told you I was boring.’

‘I wonder is there any way that we can make you more interesting.’

‘I’ll leave that with you,’ he looked along the road and saw the blond mop at the top of Stephanie Reid’s head bouncing along with her business-like stride. He moved away from the tape and met her as he was entering the gate. Reid was already suited up in her blue jumpsuit.

‘Who’s your little friend?’ she asked.

‘Journalist.’ 

‘Close friend?’ she smiled.

‘No. The body is in the back bedroom. Time of death exact as possible would be useful.’

She looked to where Moira and Davidson were standing. ‘Oh my God, the Rottweiler’s here,’ she made a growling sound as he walked up the short driveway and into the house.

‘Is there any chance that Reid is on the killer’s list?’ Moira said as she joined him. ‘If not I might be tempted to bash in that head myself.’

‘We have our line of enquiry,’ Wilson said. ‘Those eight women or even a smaller group of them were involved in something pretty nasty. They pissed off someone so badly that more than twenty years later, somebody has come back to seek revenge. We need to find out what the nasty deed was, and who it affected. Those documents that you’re making such heavy weather of must contain some, or all of the answer.’

‘Look, Boss,’ Moira didn’t like defending herself, but she was busting a gut for her boss. ‘During the seventies and the eighties half of Belfast was informing on the other half who were themselves at times informing on the other half. So just about everybody was saying something about somebody. It was like the Salem witch thing. If you didn’t like someone, you put out a story about them. The documents are full of crap and if there’s any mention of someone with a bit of power the heavy black pencil has been used. In other words, I’m doing my best.’

‘I wasn’t criticizing,’ He put his hand on her shoulder. ‘I know you’ve been burning the midnight oil on this one, but now that Boyle is no longer with us that’s where our best chance lies. Peter can handle things here.’

Moira pursed her lips. ‘So I get to spend my day reading twenty-year old rumour and innuendo.’

‘If that’s where the answer lies, you’ll be the first to crack the case.’

‘Meanwhile Peter will be out here doing the real detective work. Who said that it isn’t a man’s world?’ Moira noticed Reid exiting from the front door of the house. ‘Tell Peter I’m taking the car.’ She strode down the road.

‘Did someone take away the Rottweiler’s bone,’ Reid said as she joined Wilson.

‘I always think that it’s a mistake to make an enemy when one doesn’t have to,’ he said. ‘And I certainly wouldn’t want to have DS McElvaney as an enemy.’

She laughed. ‘OK, forget the crack about the bone.’

Wilson smiled. He liked women with a sense of humour.

‘See I can make you laugh.’

‘Time of death?’

‘Working solely on temperature I would say somewhere between nine and eleven o’clock last night. I may be able to give a more exact time when I examine the contents of the stomach. It appears to be raining older ladies.’

‘That and our friend McIlroy.’

‘They’re connected?’

‘I doubt it. Except that it’s a bit of a coincidence him being gunned down this week, and I don’t really like coincidences.’

‘I’ll autopsy her tomorrow. I’d love you to attend. I feel we’re really getting to know one another. But I suppose I’ll get the Rottweiler again.’ She walked off in the direction of her car growling as she went.

CHAPTER 54

Detective Constable Eric Taylor was a methodical policeman. He was the epitome of Wilson’s commitment to plodding. In his ten years in the Murder Squad, he had never actually broken a case, but he had generally provided some nugget of information that allowed Wilson and his old sergeant George Whitehouse to catch the criminal. He spent two days digging away at the Ivan McIlroy murder without turning up anything that might be considered a nugget. He revisited the crime scene and spoke to many of McIlroy’s friends and acquaintances and still nothing. He spent an hour listening to the phone messages on the Crimeline and nothing. His primary objective was to develop a timeline of McIlroy’s movements prior to the murder. However, criminals didn’t exactly advertise their movements. McIlroy’s circle was made up of people in the same business, and they were reluctant to discuss whether or not they had seen or met with the dead man in the two days before his death. Taylor read and reread his notes. He examined the crime scene photographs and the forensic evidence. The obvious conclusion was that McIlroy’s murder was the result of a falling out among thieves. Wilson had discounted the possibility that McIlroy had been the first casualty in a gang war. Taylor had spoken to McIlroy’s wife and two of his girl friends, and they had all ruled out a crime of passion. McIlroy didn’t display or attract passion. The women were universally scared out of their wits by him. Where to go next? While Wilson, McElvaney and Davidson had gone to the latest crime scene, Taylor had decided to take a second trawl through the denizens of the ‘Black Bear’ public house. All conversation stopped as he pushed in the front door of the pub. He looked behind the bar. There was no sign of a coffee machine. ‘No chance you have a coffee machine, I suppose?’ he asked the barman

‘Yes,’ the barman picked up a jar of instant coffee and a kettle from the back of the bar. ‘This do you?’

Taylor sighed. He was a bit of a fanatic about coffee. ‘Aye, make me a cup.’

The barman opened the jar of instant coffee. ‘I think it’s been about two years since anyone asked for a coffee.’ He scraped at the jar with a spoon. ‘I don’t suppose it’s gone off.’ He deposited the spoon of dubious coloured granules into a cup and plugged the kettle into an electricity socket. ‘It was an American tourist on a ‘Troubles’ tour. He sipped the coffee and left it on the bar. I don’t think he liked it.’

‘Forget the coffee,’ Taylor said, the sight of the granules had been enough. ‘Give me one of those yuppie waters and open the bottle in front of me.’

‘We don’t often get peelers in here,’ the barman flipped the top off a bottle of water and put it and a dirty glass on the bar. ‘Two in one week, are you guys turning this into one of your haunts? That’d be some fucking joke.’

Taylor ignored the glass and drank from the bottle. He wondered who else had been to the pub. It was his job to research the timeline. ‘Fat chance of that. When was the other Peeler in?’

‘Two or three days ago, having a right old natter with Ivan.’

‘Gerry, need you a minute,’ a man wearing a leather jacket called from a corner table.

The barman immediately left and went to the corner. Taylor looked into the mirror at the back of the bar. The leather jacket had pulled the barman down to him by gripping his collar and was whispering in his ear.  He watched the barman nod and then make his way back to the bar.

‘That’ll be two pound fifty,’ the barman said when he had taken his place behind the bar.

Taylor finished the contents of the bottle and tossed three pounds in coins onto the bar. ‘Keep the change.’

‘No,’ the barman scooped up the coins and sent them into the till. He returned with a fifty pence piece making sure the other customers in the pub saw him returning the change.

‘Pity about the coffee,’ Taylor said. ‘I think you and I are going to meet again very soon.’

Ronald McIver sat alone in the squad room. The other members of the team were either out at the Boyle murder site or following up on the Rice and Morison cases or trying to find him. He knew he needed psychological help. Perhaps a couple of visits to a shrink would get the snakes out of his head and make him whole. Maybe. He wasn’t sleeping, and he couldn’t stop his eyes from darting from face to face wondering whether they could detect in his face that he was a murderer. His concentration was gone to pieces. He’d tried to focus on the tasks that Wilson had given him, but he found his mind wandering or maybe not even wandering but not there at all. Eric Taylor was on the McIlroy case full time. There was very little to work on but Eric was methodical. He would eventually find a scrap of evidence, and he would prod away at it until he opened it fully. It would lead to another piece of the puzzle and so on until it arrived at him. There was a sense of inevitability about it. He leaned forward and held his head in his hands. He was so bloody tired. He wanted to confess and go to sleep. But as long as there was a chance that he could get away with killing McIlroy, he was going to take it. The chance might be slim, but it existed. He needed to get out of the office. He was convinced that Wilson was watching him. No, he was sure that Wilson was watching him. Maybe Wilson already knew. But how could he? There was no evidence. He was in the centre of the investigation, and he knew that they had found nothing to incriminate him. McIlroy was already on his way to being designated as another unsolved killing. There were hundreds maybe even thousands of them in the Province. He turned as the door to the squad room opened, and he watched Eric Taylor enter and move to his desk.