Nothing but Memories (DCI Wilson Book 1) (20 page)

CHAPTER 24

              It was a bad day in the life of Ian Wilson. As he'd become older, he'd realised that alcohol didn't agree with him but that didn't stop him from over indulging now and again. As he left the weekly management meeting, he headed straight for his office and the biggest mug of coffee obtainable in Tennent Street. The weekly meeting with his colleagues was usually difficult enough to take, but this morning's effort had pushed him to the limit of his self control. Nobody with a pounding head wanted to listen to other people's petty problems and his colleagues were past masters at elevating the trivial to the heights of importance. He could tell from their expressions that they had smelled the booze on him. Poor old sod, they would think to themselves. Used to be a good copper but gone to seed since his wife’s death. Then the snickering would start. His throat felt raw and tender. He slid into the narrow space behind his desk, drained his coffee and signalled to Davidson to bring him a refill. He looked at the mass of papers littering his desk and his stomach turned. To-day was not the day to view grizzly photos or read graphic descriptions of torn flesh and ruptured organs. Davidson entered the office and poured the contents of a coffee pot into the empty mug sitting on a beer mat which was placed close to Wilson’s right hand.

             
"It's like that is it, boss?" Davidson said retiring towards the door.

             
"You playing at being a detective again," Wilson said eyeing the mug of steaming black liquid at his right hand. "It's worse than that."

             
"Did you take any paracetamol?" Davidson asked.

“Yes,” Wilson said curtly.

“And try a few mints. This office smells like a brewery.”

             
Wilson burped. "Thanks for your kind offer of assistance. Your concern has been noted. I’ll include the phrase ‘full of the milk of human kindness’ on your next assessment." He waved the detective constable back towards the squad room.

             
Somehow, Wilson thought, he would have to slip away for a few hours sleep. Alcohol and lack of sleep were a bad combination for someone in his line of work.

              Wilson looked up and saw McElvaney standing at the door with a sheaf of computer paper in her hand. It was the last sight in the world he wanted to see.

             
“Look, about last night,” Wilson began

             
“Yes,” she interrupted quickly. She squeezed into the office and pulled the door behind her. “I wanted to thank you for making my introduction to the squad so easy. I really appreciate your efforts to help me to settle in but I think that we should curtail the socialising until I’m more integrated into the wider group. Two nights in a row might be considered by some people as inappropriate.”

             
“You’re quite the diplomat,” Wilson took a slug from the mug of coffee and wondered why he bothered with alcohol. “But of course you do have a point. I’m sure that you’ll develop a circle of friends of your own age over time.”

             
“Don’t get me wrong. I do appreciate what you were doing but I’m alright now.”

             
“I only wish that I had been the one to clarify the situation,” Wilson drained the coffee mug. “So what can I do for you?”

"I think that I've got something." The young constable's eyes were shiny with excitement.

              "OK let’s hear it." Wilson motioned to the space directly before his desk.

              "I've found a link between Patterson and Peacock," she couldn't keep the excitement out of her voice. "It’s tenuous but at least it’s something. They were both orphans and residents of a boy's home called Dungray at the same time in the early nineties."

             
Wilson lifted his head and grimaced as though in great pain.

             
"I know it's pretty feeble stuff but you asked me to find a link between the two dead men."

             
Wilson picked up the mug of black coffee before realising that it was empty. "OK," he heard his voice rasping as he replacing the cup on the mat. "Stop playing `McElvaney, Ace of Detectives' for just one second and think about what you just said. This city is so small that you can usually find some link no matter how tenuous between any two of its citizens."

             
"That's not all," she interrupted her superior. "The man who ran the home at that time was a Robert Nichol." She paused to let the name sink in.

             
"So," Wilson said.

             
"Nichol should have some sort of security or social welfare or at least employment file but there's nothing on record about him. Every piece of government information on this man is restricted and none of our codes can access the computer files."

             
Wilson looked up into McElvaney's face. This was one weird situation. It took some level of authorisation to pull individual files so there was no doubting that Robert Nichol was an important man is some person's eyes.

             
"That's not all," she said without trying to hide her excitement. "I cross-checked Nichol against all the other PSNI files and this is what I came up with." She tossed the computer print-out onto Wilson's desk.

             
Wilson looked at the faded typescript on the lined computer sheets and a blinding pain shot through a point directly between his eyes. "Tell me," he said pushing the sheets back towards her.

             
"This is a computer résumé of a murder case in which Nichol was interviewed," she said. "It was the only reference to Nichol in all the old RUC files. It appears that a young man's dismembered body was found in North Belfast and that there was some reason at the time to believe that Robert Nichol was involved in the murder."

             
"Right," Wilson said draining the coffee. "Has the original case file been digitised yet?” He was beginning to wake up.

             
“If it has there’s no record of it on the computer.”

             
“What about the original file?  Is it still in the archive?”

             
"I've already looked," she said smugly. "The case file's gone missing."

             
Wilson sat upright in his chair. "What do you mean `the case file's gone missing'? Files don’t just go ‘missing’. Somebody must have taken it out."

             
"So you would think," she replied. "There's a gap where the file should be and the filing clerk doesn't know where the file is to be found. The take-out sheet is also missing so we have no idea who was the last person to view the file. "

             
"Now that is strange," Wilson said trying to clear his head. Maybe she had hit on something here. He was so desperate for a break that he was willing to clutch at any straw. "Here," he pushed the coffee cup across the desk towards her. "You go and get me another cup of that muck. I need to have both the brain cells that haven’t been destroyed by Jameson in action to-day." He reached across the desk for the pages of computer printout and read slowly through the lines of faint print wondering if the PSNI would ever find the money to buy decent printing equipment. Robert Nichol had been one of a series of suspects in a bizarre and macabre murder of a fifteen year old youth whose dismembered body had been found at three different locations in North Belfast. It felt strange to read the details of a murder case which didn't have a sectarian motive. The computer file gave only the basic details but there was no doubt that unlike ninety nine per cent of the province's murders this one had been motivated by something other than politics. Even from the scant information on the sheets, it was clear that the investigating officers were of the opinion that they were dealing with a homosexual crime. The post mortem had revealed that the youth had had anal sex shortly before his death. The case had remained unsolved. He reached the end of the short report. The names of the investigating officers were appended to the bottom of the final page. One of them had been a Detective Constable George Whitehouse.

             
Moira entered the office just as Wilson finished reading the computer file. She laid the mug of steaming black coffee beside her boss and stood back. "Well, what do you think?"

             
"Are you absolutely sure about the file in the archives?" Wilson asked. "It hasn't just been mislaid."

             
"I don't think so," she replied. "The clerk wasn't too co-operative but I could see that he thought it had been lifted."

             
"Maybe someone took it out for consultation," Wilson sipped the coffee and burned the tip of his tongue.

             
"That’s probably why the take-out sheet is missing."

             
"What have we got?" Wilson said. "The two men the murderer definitely wanted out of the way have only one connection that we can locate. They were both residents of an orphan's home in the early nineties. The file on a murder which involved the director of the home is missing and his intelligence file can't be accessed. The murder link obviously fizzled out otherwise he'd have been charged."

             
"There's one other piece of information you should know," she said.

             
Wilson looked up from his desk.

             
"I ran a check on the dead youth," she paused for effect. "He was in Dungray at the same time as Patterson and Peacock."

             
"Now that's a coincidence," Wilson said and pushed his chair back until it came to rest against the partition. Perhaps she had struck something alright but where would it get them. Three dead men had all been residents in a Belfast orphan's home. One had been murdered in gruesome fashion twenty years previously while the other two had been killed by a professional in the past week. Then there was the business of the missing file. He needed to know more. He pulled open his desk drawer and took out the school copybook he had removed from Patterson's bedsit. He flipped open the front pages and stared at the crude drawings. A homosexual murder and drawings of homosexual acts. Was there a connection? Would that connection lead him to the killer of Patterson and Peacock or would it send him on a wild goose chase? He looked through the glass partition which separated him from the squad room and his gaze fell on the burly figure of Detective Sergeant Whitehouse sitting at his desk. Wilson motioned for him to join them in his office. There was going to be no opportunity to slip off home for a sleep today.

             
Whitehouse was standing at the doorway by the time Wilson put down the coffee cup.

             
"Any orders, boss," Whitehouse studiously ignored Moira.

             
"Yes," Wilson said. "Moira here may have found a slim connection between Patterson and Peacock." Wilson noticed that Whitehouse winced at his use of McElvaney's first name. A good Prod didn’t address the enemy by their Christian names. "Both of them were residents of an orphans home called Dungray in the early nineties."

             
"That's some sodding slim connection all right" Whitehouse said keeping his gaze fixed on Wilson.

             
"Agreed," Wilson said. He noticed the tick in Whitehouse’s eye when he had mentioned Dungray. "Do you remember anything about Dungray yourself George?"

             
"Never heard of the place," Whitehouse replied.

             
"That's strange," Wilson said. "An ex-resident of that home managed to get himself killed more than twenty years ago." Wilson had forgotten the dead youth's name. He picked up the computer sheets from the desk and scanned the file. "A young kid named Ronald Jamison was found in various bits in rubbish bags around North Belfast."

             
"So," Whitehouse said.

             
"So," Wilson repeated. "Maybe its nothing but then again maybe there's some kind of connection. That's what we're going to find out. You worked on the Jamison case."

             
"I don't rightly remember," Whitehouse said. "Twenty years is a long time. I was a young wet-behind –the-ears detective constable. They might have included me in the investigation but I really can’t remember."

             
"It's in this small memo," Wilson held up the sheets of computer printout. "Moira cross-checked the files for mentions of Robert Nichol and ran across this one." He stopped. Whitehouse had definitely winced when Nichol's name was mentioned. Don’t ever be a poker player, Wilson thought. George’s face was an open book. Something was badly wrong here. "You wouldn't happen to know where I could find the full file on this case?" Wilson asked.

             
Whitehouse shuffled his feet. "Nobody tried the archives, I suppose."

             
"It appears the file hasn’t been digitised and there's an empty space in the archives where the file used to be," Wilson said. "Come on, George. You’ve got a good memory when you want to. You worked on the case. What do you know about Robert Nichol?" Wilson was watching for the involuntary reaction. He got it. Another wince and a bead of sweat exiting from the hairline. There was something to hide and George was in the know. Wilson could smell the work of the Lodge brothers above the stench of booze in the office.