Nothing but Memories (DCI Wilson Book 1) (24 page)

CHAPTER 28

Billy Carlile and Richie Simpson sat across from each other in Carlile's office in the headquarters of the Ulster Democratic Front in Sandy Row just outside the centre of Belfast. The office was sparsely furnished being dominated by a large antique desk surrounded by four wooden straight-backed chairs.

              Simpson finished relating the substance of his telephone conversation with Whitehouse.

             
"I knew that business would come back to haunt us," Carlile said smashing a thin bony fist into the solid oak desk. The six foot long surface was his workplace and was strewn with papers relating to his work as a Member of Parliament. "The question is what are we going to do about it?"

             
"According to Whitehouse there's no problem for the moment but who's to say that things will stay that way." Simpson had seen the brooding look on Carlile's face before and it generally boded ill for somebody. "I said at the time that we should have let the bastard swing."

             
"You're the last person in the world that I need telling me `I told you so'," Carlile's face reddened. He looked at his lieutenant who he had dragged from the hands of the paramilitaries and made into a semi-politician. Simpson was smooth enough to utter a 'sound bite' on the evening news without using the words 'fucker' or 'Taig'. But that was where it stopped. He had long ago realised that the UDF was a personal vehicle and that while minnows like Simpson might well like to jump aboard, the vehicle would scarcely outlive his own death. But that wasn't going to be his problem. He was interested in the present. The future could take care of itself. If Nichol threatened his vehicle, then Nichol had better watch out.

             
"There were reasons at the time as to why we covered up for that pederast," he said his lip curling as he pronounced the final word. "The people who drop their money onto the collection plate might not have been so happy to contribute if they knew that one of the leaders of the organisation had sexual feelings for every young boy under his control. That man was insatiable. All that 'Lord's work this' and the 'Lord's work that' counted for nothing. I took the damn man at his word. Then he goes and gets himself involved with a young man who ends up chopped to pieces. No, Richie, Nichol was a bigger liability than either of us realised. Throwing him over-board was the only thing we could have done. It was him or us and we made the right decision. As long as the cover-up is tight there's no way Wilson can drag up the past." he stared at Simpson the question unasked but hanging in the air.

             
"Of course the cover-up was tight," Simpson had taken care of it himself with the active assistance of Whitehouse and some of the other boys at Tennent Street. "There's nothing in existence to link Nichol with Jamison. Relax. Like Whitehouse says, so far we don't really have a problem."

             
Carlile lifted his eyes up to heaven. "Richie, sometimes your lack of intelligence boggles even my mind. We got Nichol out of the limelight but we couldn't turn him into a heterosexual overnight. The man may be laying low but he hasn't changed his spots. If Nichol cracks, then sooner or later it's going to come out that I was involved in helping to place a known homosexual in charge of running an orphanage we controlled. How do you think the devout Protestant people of Ulster are going to see that?"

             
"It'll never happen," Simpson said.

             
"Never happen my behind," Carlile said. "If Wilson gets his hooks into him, that's what's goin' to happen. Whether we like it or not."

             
Simpson was about to reply when the telephone on the desk between the two men rang. Carlile nodded and Simpson picked up the phone.

             
"It's Jennings for you," Simpson said handing over the phone to his mentor.

             
"Yes, Roy," Carlile said affably.

             
The leader of the UDF listened carefully to Jennings' report of his meeting with Wilson and the progress on the Patterson and Peacock murders. He let the Deputy Chief Constable tell his story with the minimum of interruptions.

             
"Don't worry, Roy," Carlile said when Jennings had finished. "We're well aware of the gravity of the situation and we'll take the necessary steps to get the thing sorted out. You and I should meet soon. I heard that the traitor in Downing Street wants to name a new Chief Constable. I think your name should be thrown into the hat." 'Keep them in your debt and you'll keep them in your pocket' was part of his political creed. He could almost feel Jennings' pleasure at the suggestion exuding across the phone line. When Jennings had expressed his gratitude, Carlile rang off and slammed the phone down.

             
"It's started," he said hunching his thin shoulders. "They're starting to run for the hills. Oh they're not saying that they're going to defect but that's what they'll do when the boom comes down. They're Lundys every man jack of them. That, of course, was our most senior police contact beginning to get the wind up. And he's only the tip of the iceberg. If he folds and Whitehouse follows him then there'll be no telling where it'll end." But he could guess that it might end with him in court on charges of perverting the course of justice. That would be the end of Billy Carlile MP, MEP. That would be the end of the UDU and the final stop on the 'gravy-train' would have been reached. He was too old to go to jail and he had had money for too long to give it up without a fight. "We're going to have to do something and fast."

             
"As I see it, Simpson said. "There are two options. Firstly, we can cause a diversion. Get the paramilitaries to launch a sectarian murder campaign so vicious that it'll swamp the murders that Wilson is investigating right now. There are enough psychopaths running around in the UVF and the UFF to make that a reasonable option. The question is what do we offer in return. What do we have that the paramilitaries might want to have? Nothing."

             
"What’s the second option?" Carlile asked.

             
"We could take care of Nichol ourselves."

             
"You mean, of course, that he’s getting on a bit and that the Grim Reaper could be induced to arrive a day or two early," Carlile said choosing his words carefully.

             
Simpson nodded. He stared at Carlile fancying that he could see the wheels whirling inside his head. There was nothing more dangerous in the world than a cornered politician.

             
"That would be a great pity," Carlile said. "Robert Nichol served the cause of Ulster loyally. His loss would be a severe blow and we would labour long and hard to survive it. I suppose I can leave the arrangements to you?" Carlile turned and looked through the window of his office out across the rooftops of Sandy Row. "The end justifies the means," he said in a soft whisper.

             
As usual, Simpson thought. He stood up to leave and saw that Carlile had disappeared into another world. If there had been a bowl of water handy Carlile would probably have washed his hands. He moved slowly to the door of the office. All his life he'd wanted to be a politician. To that end he had followed the great man around like a faithful puppy learning every facet of the visceral politics of Ulster. He had joined the UDU to get away from being a killer. He realised that he had not succeeded.

“What a fucking mess,” Carlile said to himself after the door to his office closed. “Thirty years building up a political organisation from the backstreets of Belfast to the farmlands of Fermanagh and the whole edifice could come crashing down just because of Robbie Nichol.” Carlile turned and glanced at the photo montage on the wall behind him. He’d been a leading figure in Northern Irish politics for what was almost a lifetime. He had come to prominence as a street politician after the political fabric of the Province had collapsed under the weight of the violence of the ‘Troubles’. While the Unionist political elite had grown further from their constituency among the rank and file Protestants, Billy Carlile had taken their places by concentrating on grassroots Unionist values.  The civil rights disturbances of 1969 had changed the face of Ulster politics forever and had signalled the death knell of rule by the patricians. The era of the terrorist had arrived. And Carlile had been one of the first to recognise the emerging Protestant paramilitary structures as a future power base. He had quit the party of the patricians and had a popular political organisation which for a long time did not attempt to hide its association with the Protestant 'hardmen' who were then establishing themselves in the Loyalist ghettos. The same party leaders who turned their backs on him had been only too willing to crawl back in order to use his contacts in East and West Belfast to raise a secret Protestant militia. He had cleverly resurrected the idea of Sir Edward Carson, Ulster's first Prime Minister, by recreating the local militia staffed mainly by experienced ex-soldiers. The patricians in the Unionist Party had initially clapped him on the back. They thought that his newly created `force' would be instrumental in protecting their farms and their big houses. After the new militia started to cull the Taigs, the Unionist leaders weren't so sure that they should be associated with sectarian murderers. It offended the sensibilities which had been developed on the playing fields of Eton. Carlile moved on to the second phase of his operation. While maintaining his contacts with the 'hard men', his public utterances took on a less radical tone. He distanced himself from the new criminal element which had taken over the organisations he had helped found. His anti-Catholic invective was reserved for closed meeting. He had succeeded in becoming a mainstream politician by grabbing the `middle ground' between the paramilitaries and the retreating patricians. The vehicle he had used to accomplish this feat was the Ulster Democratic Front. The new party embraced the most fundamental type of Loyalist Protestantism and overnight raised him from a controlled Unionist politician into a populist demagogue. He stood at the pinnacle of his powers being recognised by the majority of civilian Protestants and their militant brothers as the epitome of a recalcitrant Ulster. The namby-pambies of the Unionist Party might hand over Ulster to the Papists but he would go to his grave crying 'No Surrender'. This philosophy ensured that he was elected in whichever political contest he entered and he was currently a member of both the British and European Parliaments. The wall of Carlile's office in Sandy Row were covered with photographs of him in the company of the `good and the great' of world politics. In common with the godfathers who ran the Protestant areas, his commitment to the Protestant people of Ulster had not been without its reward.

His flinty grey eyes looked straight ahead. “No Robbie, you’ll not bring me down with you,” he said softly.

It was almost time for Case to go to work again and it was feeling good. He climbed quietly out of his landlady's bed making sure not to wake the old bag in the process. Betty Maguire had proved as saucy as she had pretended. They had spent the day between screwing and pouring copious amounts of vodka down Mrs. M's throat. The more she drank the more performance she demanded from him and he had satisfied all her little fetishes. Eventually fully sated by sex and vodka the slut had fallen asleep. She wasn't the oldest women he had ever screwed. That distinction belonged to one of the old slags his mother hung around with. He was barely twelve years old when she had pulled him on top of her drunken body and helped him inside her. That type of experience wasn't to be found on the pages of the 'Joys of Sex'. He didn't mind giving it to the old biddies. What he did mind was listening to the drunken life stories. Mrs. Maguire had fairly bent his ear while he'd been pokin' her. He had a friend to the death. He could count on Mrs. M. no matter what. That might be useful over the next few days. He pulled on his trousers and left her bedroom closing the door noiselessly behind him. Moving along the narrow corridor, he entered his own room and locked the door. There was a certain thrill to be had from living right in the centre of his killing ground. Out there on the streets, the police were probably turning the place inside out looking for him and all the while he's sitting right in the middle of them givin' them the finger. The fuzz were so fucking dumb that he could have knocked off half the population of Belfast before the bastards would catch on to him. He looked at his watch. It was six-thirty five. Outside it was already dark. He pulled back the dirty curtains and watched a veil of black clouds from the direction of the Black Mountains roll over Belfast like a dark blanket. If he'd have ordered the weather he couldn't have made a better job of it. He prised up the loose floorboard and lifted out the steel suitcase which contained his weapons. Taking care to follow the opening sequence exactly, he composed the combination and flicked the switches which released the lid of the case. He removed the Browning and a clip of ammunition. He had planned to-night's killing as to be a door step job, a classic IRA assassination. Taking up the classical firing position he pointed the Browning at the cracked mirror on the tallboy. A thrill ran through him. This was the very last sight on earth that to-night's victim would have. He felt the surge of power.

              He slowly came out of the firing position and sat on the bed methodically braking down and cleaning the individual parts of the Browning. Lovingly he brushed the dark matt metal of the gun's barrel with the soft cleaning cloth. He stroked the metal as he would a woman's breasts. It was his only true friend. A friend who never disappointed him. Every person in the world that he had trusted had finally betrayed him. That's the way it happened with all of them. His mother used to be his friend but then she tried to turn him in. Norma was his friend until he caught her fucking the black man. The officers in the Regiment were his friends until he was court marshalled. Well fuck 'em. He didn't need anyone except Mr. Browning as his friend. He finished cleaning the gun and re-assembled it. He slipped the weapon and the 13 round ammunition clip into the pocket of his reefer jacket. A two page dossier on his next victim sat on the bed beside him. He picked up the closely typed pages. The title page bore the legend `British Army Intelligence' and beneath it `A report into the activities of Leslie Bingham'. A large red `CONFIDENTIAL' had been stamped across each of the pages. Having friends in high places was the only way to go. It was a pity that all Leslie Bingham had in high places were enemies.