DCI Wilson: Nothing But Memories Part 1

Nothing But Memories.

Derek Fee.

For Aine.

All secrets are deep. All secrets become dark. That's in the nature of secrets.

Cory Doctorow, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town.

CHAPTER 1.

Jim Patterson looked around the bar of `The Auld Sash' on the Woodvale Road and let his glance fall across the faces of the regular after-work drinking crowd. 'The Auld Sash' was a typical West Belfast working cla.s.s pub with the regulation dark brown tobacco stained ceiling and dirt ingrained linoleum floor added to a selection of faces which would not have been out of place in the saloon scene of 'A Fistful of Dollars'. Every time Patterson entered this dingy hole he pulled himself up to his full height with pride at his position of a 'regular'. It was only within the confines of the 'Auld Sash' that he felt truly at home. Here, he could sit over a pint of Guinness and listen to the other patrons as they sounded off on the latest happening in sport, their conquests with the members of the opposite s.e.x or their opinions on the politics of Northern Ireland. Although peace had been declared, the denizens of the 'Auld Sash' longed for the days when they could dish out various types of murder and mayhem on the Catholic residents of the province. The regulars of the 'Auld Sash' had status in Protestant West Belfast princ.i.p.ally because the tavern had been home to one of the most ruthless gangs of Loyalist paramilitaries. There, amid their cronies they could boast of their crimes in the certain knowledge that not a single word would be pa.s.sed to the Security Forces. No regular of the 'Auld Sash' had ever been known to gra.s.s on a comrade. No matter how obscene or heinous the crime, 'mum' was the word.

Patterson himself had no truck with violence. He would have shat himself if anyone had proposed that he join the paramilitaries but his otherwise boring life was enhanced in the eyes of those he encountered by his acceptance among the drinkers at the 'Auld Sash'. Jim Patterson was the quintessential voyeur who lived through the exploits of the patrons of The Auld Sash. He also had enough good sense to have the opposite of a photographic memory. Whatever Patterson heard within the confines of the 'Auld Sash', he allowed to stimulate him then he instantly forgot.

He sat, as usual, alone, a copy of the `Sun' newspaper stretched on the bar beside his half empty pint gla.s.s. He raised his gla.s.s to his lips and flicked the newspaper to page three for what must have been the fiftieth time. Four bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s dominated the page. His eyes scanned the headline-`Double Dollop of Delicious Dollies'. The twenty-first equivalent of news for the ma.s.ses, two semi-nude girls cupping their ample bosoms in their small hands, stared back at him. Not a word on Iraq or Afghanistan. Just s.e.x and the bizarre activities of so-called celebrities. He took a slug of his Guinness and let his eyes fall again on the 'double dollop'. The girls had huge b.r.e.a.s.t.s and inviting smiles. Patterson ran his tongue around his lips licking the remnants of the Guinness froth from his lank blond moustache. He wondered what it would be like to cup a pair of those b.r.e.a.s.t.s in his bare hands. The thought caused a smile to run along his thin lips. He was almost thirty years old and he had yet to savour the delights that he daily examined in the pages of the tabloids. He flicked the newspaper over so that the back page was facing upwards.

From one of the corners of the pub Joe Case watched the man he was about to kill go through his daily routine with the newspaper and the pint of Guinness. A man of habit our Mister Patterson, Case thought as he watched his intended victim stare into his newspaper. You could set your clock by Patterson if you had a mind to. If it was six o'clock, then you could be sure that Patterson was in the `Auld Sash' having his evening pint. Case leaned back in his seat and sucked hungrily on his pint of Guinness. He had been watching Patterson for three days. Shadowing the creep had been a breeze. The dossier he had received on the little t.o.s.s.e.r had been thin but accurate. Patterson's was a life in which there were no unexpected turnings. It was a 'bed to work' existence with the regular evening drinks at the 'Auld Sash'. Case had followed when Patterson left for work in the morning and was ensconced in his corner of the pub by the time Patterson arrived in the evening. Being a true professional, he knew that there had been no rush to finish the job. The mark suspected nothing and in any case hurrying would only increase his chances of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g-up. And Case certainly wasn't going to screw-up. Just that fair haired weed at the bar and three more like him and he could slip away from the G.o.d-forsaken kip that was Belfast.

The fact that Patterson was a frequenter of the `Auld Sash' had thrown Case at first. The pub was a known haunt of the local members of the Ulster Defence a.s.sociation and its sister hard-line group the Ulster Volunteer Force. More than one of the pot-bellied patrons now standing at the bar had been guests of Her Majesty for their excesses in `culling' the growing Catholic population and sometimes for the excesses in culling each other. But all that was over now. Back then in the 'Troubles' there was a smattering of politics on the side of the paramilitaries now it was just plain gang warfare. There were now as many reformed murderers in Ulster as there were in Bosnia. And only the bleeding heart liberals were talking 'war crimes tribunal' or 'truth and reconciliation'. A load of bollox, Case thought. The Protestant politicians still liked to talk about representing the 'majority' but demographics and Pope Benedict were working against them. Everybody knew that the Catholics bred like rabbits. Case looked over the rim of his pint gla.s.s at Patterson's slight figure. If the little b.a.s.t.a.r.d had been a member of the UVF, it would have put a right royal screw on his plans for him. But his luck was in. It hadn't taken long to learn that Patterson was just a hanger-on. A p.u.s.s.y. Rubbing shoulders with the hard men of Protestant Belfast probably gave him a hard-on. But that would all be over soon.

Case glanced at his watch. The large red digital display blinked out the figures 7:50. In exactly ten more minutes Patterson would wrap up his newspaper and drop it into his pocket, drain the last of his Guinness and begin to make his way back to his garret in Leopold Street where a plate of microwaved c.r.a.p awaited him. It wasn't a long walk but it was the last that Patterson would ever take. Case looked up towards the window of the pub. Even through the grime on the gla.s.s pane and the filthy net curtain, he could see the water streaming down the outside of the window. Filthy b.l.o.o.d.y night, he thought to himself. There won't be many people on the streets on a night like this. A fine night to get this little job out of the way.

Case turned back towards the bar in time to see Patterson fold his newspaper and drop it into his pocket, then pick up his pint gla.s.s and drain the contents.

Showtime. Just like clockwork, old son, Case said to himself. He watched Patterson push open the pub door before standing up, hunching his black donkey jacket around his broad shoulders and following.

A sheet of icy cold rain blew directly into Case's face as he pushed open the door to the street. The warm dry interior of the pub was in direct contrast to the cold wet surroundings of the Woodvale Road. Patterson was twenty yards ahead of him hugging the walls of the terraced houses which lined the street. A quick glance in both directions was enough to a.s.sure Case that the streets were empty. Even the citizens of Belfast, inured as they were to living in one of Europe's dreariest cities, couldn't face the dismal streets with cold rain streaming down.

Case fell into step behind Patterson staying close to the wall. He moved quickly and silently on his rubber-soled running shoes so as to close the distance between him and the man in front.

As Patterson turned the corner, a wintry breeze pierced his cheap anorak and chilled his whole body. He could feel the water seeping through the cloth of his trousers causing the bottoms to stick uncomfortably to his shins. He cursed the rain and the cold. But most of all he cursed the winter and he cursed Belfast. He thought of the application form for emigration to Australia sitting on the mantelpiece of his tiny bedsit. Why not, he thought pushing himself closer to the red-bricked wall in a vain attempt to mitigate the impact of the rain. There was nothing to lose. No family, no friends, just a grubby bedsit and a life on the edge of redundancy. Things couldn't be any worse on the other side of the world. At least the sun shone in Australia. Patterson was vaguely aware of the sound of footsteps behind him. Not the clip of leather but the sucking sound of rubber. He turned and recognised one of the men he'd noticed sitting in the corner of the `Auld Sash' hurrying along behind him.

Case was about twenty feet from Patterson when he removed the Browning automatic from the inside pocket of his donkey jacket.

The distance between the two men closed. Fifteen feet, then ten. Case glanced around one last time. The rain soaked street was still deserted. He slipped the safety catch to off and pointed the gun at the back of Patterson's head.

Patterson heard the soft click of the safety release above the spiting sounds of the rain. He was about to turn again and look at the source of the sound when an explosion went off in his ear and a sharp blow struck the back of his head flinging him forward. He was dead before his body hit the wet pavement in front of him.

Case stood over the fallen man and clinically pumped two further bullets into the already shattered head. He replaced the gun in the pocket of his jacket and hurried into the darkness of one of the adjoining streets.

CHAPTER 2.

Detective Chief Inspector Ian Wilson of the Criminal Investigation Division of the newly const.i.tuted Police Service of Northern Ireland eased his bulk into the rear of the police car. "No siren," he said and then dropped into silence. It was three hours beyond the end of his shift and he had been thinking of a gla.s.s of hot whiskey in front of his television set when the call had come in about the body in the Shankill. He glanced to his side at the neatly packed blue plastic suit that sat on the seat beside him. How many times had he donned a suit like that in the past twenty years. Too many, he thought. The Peace Process had returned Northern Ireland to some kind of normality. Not so many gratuitous murders these days. Terrorism and sectarian murders may be a thing of the past but the feuds between the UDA and the UFF had ensured that the body count hadn't diminished. That meant that Wilson and his team in the Belfast Murder Squad were under constant pressure to solve murders where there was b.u.g.g.e.r all chance of finding the culprits. Add to the terrorist body count the occasional 'straight' murder and you were looking at the most experienced set of murder detectives in the United Kingdom. Wilson looked out at the rain-soaked streets of Belfast. A couple of years ago he would have seen them as glum and threatening. But Belfast had taken on a new character since the official end of hostilities. There was a gaiety about every day life which most of the inhabitants of Ulster had almost forgotten existed. He was sure that the Victorian side-streets had not changed physically. The cramped brick buildings which had been built to house the shipyard workers at the end of the nineteenth century maintained their dour utilitarian outlook but the air that surrounded them contained a new element - hope. Wilson too had hoped for an end to the death and destruction. His complete career in the Royal Ulster Constabulary and now the Police Service of Northern Ireland had been spent at the pit face of the 'Irish Problem'. He had viewed at the closest possible proximity the torn and broken bodies which were the fruit of the three hundred year old tribal conflict between the Catholic and Protestant communities in Northern Ireland. A spasm gripped his stomach as he realised that he was on his way to view yet another body in circ.u.mstances which were suspiciously similar to those which had obtained during the almost thirty years of conflict. He ripped open the pack that contained his blue plastic suit and shook it out. The car swung around the corner beyond 'The Auld Sash' bar and came to an immediate stop. Wilson slipped off his overcoat and immediately shivered. I'm too old for this, he thought as he slipped his feet into the blue leggings. He struggled into the upper part of the one piece suit, zipped it up and sat back.

"We're there, boss," the young policeman at the wheel said glancing over his shoulder.

"Ay, that we are," Wilson replied pushing himself up from his slouching position. His hand moved slowly towards the handle of the door and he pushed it as though it resisted the pressure of his hand. The door swung open and he climbed slowly out of the rear of the car.

"Filthy night, boss," a policeman approached the car and held the door wide so that Wilson could exit with ease. The constable wore a black waterproof poncho over his uniform.

Wilson pulled the white plastic gloves out of his pocket and slipped them mechanically on his hands as he looked ahead. The earlier heavy rain had turned into a light mist that the Irish call a soft rain. It was the most insidious kind of rain. A grey spray of tiny droplets barely containing any liquid. However, its softness was an illusion. If you stood about in rain like this for any period of time it would drench you to the skin. Wilson surveyed the scene in the street. It was one he had looked upon too many times in his career. Two mobile units had arrived as soon as the call had been received that a body had been found. They had immediately sealed off the area with crime scene tape. Because of the rain they had already erected a yellow plastic canopy over the body to protect whatever evidence remained at the crime scene and the two ark lights that had been set up on either side of the plastic cover cast a ghostly light over the proceedings. A generator hummed in the distance. Moving about under the tent he could see the shadowy figures of the SOCOs in their blue plastic overalls.

"No sign of the Doc," he said glancing along the street. Other than the police activity, the street was completely empty. The inhabitants of the Shankill had decided to ignore the death in their midst.

"He's due any minute," the policeman said.

Wilson glanced at his watch and looked through the front window of one of the terraced houses. Through the meshed curtain he could just discern the green of a football pitch and he remembered that Manchester United were playing in the Champion's League. The citizens of Belfast were obviously much more interested in the fortunes of their favourite team. Dead bodies had been two a penny in Belfast for much too long to cause a stir among the local population. He made his way slowly towards the canopy and signed the attendance sheet before slipping under the crime scene tape.

"What do we have, Billy?" Wilson asked the larger of two uniformed policemen standing outside the canopy.

"Some poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d with half a head," the Constable replied. "SOCOs inside looking for evidence. We touched nothing and as far as we can tell neither did anybody else."

"No last words by any chance?" Wilson asked more in hope than anything else.

The police constable named Billy turned his eyes skywards. "Wait until you see the body. Somebody wanted to make sure that this guy died and that he stayed dead. My guess is that he didn't even get the chance to say 'Ah s.h.i.t.' never mind tell some pa.s.ser-by the name of the man that nailed him."

He pulled aside the yellow plastic sheet of the tent and revealed to Wilson the corpse lying p.r.o.ne on the wet pavement. Two members of the forensics team were taking photographs of the body and the surrounding area.

"h.e.l.lo lads," Wilson said entering the tent. "Filthy night. What have we got?"

The man taking the photographs turned to face him. "So far we've got f.u.c.k all." He nodded towards three sh.e.l.l casings each circled with white chalk. "That's the limit of it. If there was any other evidence, which I doubt, then it was washed away long before we arrived. No muddy footprints. No hairs. No strands from the jacket. No blood under the victim's fingernails. We've got nothing other than one very dead citizen and three sh.e.l.l casings."

"Mind if I take a look," Wilson didn't wait for an answer before moving to the body. Christ Almighty, he thought as he looked down at the corpse. As far as he could tell, the first shot had been from the rear and it had removed the top of the man's head sending slivers of brain and cranial blood in streams across the pavement and the wall of the adjacent house. The poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d would have died instantly. Wilson patted his pockets instinctively. His mind and every pore in his body cried out for nicotine. He hadn't smoked in a year but if by chance his searching fingers had come upon a packet, his resistance would have immediately crumbled. He pushed the thought from his mind and knelt beside the body.

'Pencil?' he said to the SOCO closest to him holding out his hand. A short stub was dropped into his open palm. The three copper sh.e.l.ls had been ejected onto the pavement. The killer was so confident that he wouldn't be caught that he didn't mind leaving the police a few shreds of evidence. He picked up one of the sh.e.l.ls with the pencil and lifted it towards his face. It looked like a nine millimetre. Ballistics would be able to tell him whether it had been fired from a known pistol.

'Bag,' Wilson said. The SOCO produced a plastic bag and opened it. Wilson dropped the sh.e.l.l into the open bag. He picked up the second and third sh.e.l.ls and repeated the process. As the last sh.e.l.l hit the bottom of the bag the SOCO immediately zipped it closed All the weapons in Northern Ireland had supposedly been 'de-commissioned' but only a fool would believe that there weren't still caches of arms hidden for the day that might come again. There were enough pictures of balaclava wearing fools brandishing all manner of weapons to show that there were still a healthy number of guns on the street. You don't convince people who have spent generations learning hate to immediately embrace their former enemies. There had been a lot of hot air spouted in the pursuit of peace and reconciliation but it would take more than the ending of hostilities and the establishment of a devolved a.s.sembly in Stormont to wipe away the years of mistrust. Wilson took the sealed plastic bag and dropped it into his pocket. At least there was one nine millimetre pistol which had not been handed in.

"Let's find out who this poor b.u.g.g.e.r is," he said pulling at the fingers on the gloves. He bent carefully over the body and slipped his fingers into the side pocket of the black jacket the corpse was wearing. Empty. He repeated the procedure on the other side and pulled out a cinema stub, a used bus ticket and a Bic pen whose clear plastic had been chewed through at the top. He carefully transferred the useless tickets and the pen to evidence bags. He moved on carefully to the trousers pockets. His fingers moved reluctantly. There was an element of violation in examining the contents of a person's pockets. Even if that person had recently become a corpse. Wilson pulled out the contents of the right hand trouser pocket. There were a half dozen pound coins and some small change. The left hand pocket produced nothing. Wilson dropped the coins into an evidence bag. He moved the body slightly and saw the copy of the tabloid newspaper staring up at him. Rain had soaked the pages and they began to disintegrate as he turned the body. The two smiling girls with the large b.r.e.a.s.t.s evaporated as the paper fell to pieces. Wilson let the body return to its original position and stood up. So far not a sc.r.a.p to identify the corpse. It was likely that something would be found somewhere on the body that would yield a name and an address but Wilson would have to wait until the body had been transferred to the morgue to carry out a detailed search. The canopy moved above his head and he turned to look at the bland round face of Detective Sergeant George Whitehouse.

"Boss," Whitehouse said in mock surprise. "I thought that you'd be at home with your feet up before the fire by now."

"The call came in as I was about to head home," Wilson said wearily. He looked down into his sergeant's face. The two men were the Mutt and Jeff of the PSNI. Wilson was muscular and stood at well over six-feet while Whitehouse was built closer to the ground at something just over five and a half feet. The face that Wilson stared into was that of a Prussian pikeman and could have been taken directly off his forefather who had lined up along the Boyne in 1690 to fight for King William against the Papists. Woodhouse's jowls gave him the appearance of a bulldog but the rest of the face was without feature. The nose was neither to large or too small and his eyes were blue but without the depth and liveliness normally a.s.sociated with that colour. Whitehouse had a build which was normally called 'brick s.h.i.thouse' he was almost as broad as he was tall and looked like it would take a tropical hurricane to topple him. His paunch hung over the belt of his trousers a testament to his liking for Guinness and the lifetime lack of exercise. His blue plastic suit was XXL and was still bursting at the seems. Wilson had often surmised that George's family name certainly hadn't started out as Whitehouse. But who was going to quibble about a bit of foreign ancestry. George Whitehouse was as British as the Queen of England. On second thoughts he was probably just a little bit more British.

"I thought that I'd save you the trouble of rousting me," Wilson said returning to his examination of the body.

Whitehouse bent to examine the corpse. "Somebody surely wanted this poor sod dead," he said standing up. "Anyone who thought that those rats had given up is whistling up a gum tree. f.u.c.king murderin' IRA b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."

"Let's not jump to any rash conclusions, shall we George," Wilson peeled off the surgical rubber gloves. In Whitehouse's book every murderer was an 'IRA b.a.s.t.a.r.d'. "So far all we've got is a dead body and the fact that somebody put three shots into his head." He handed Whitehouse one of the plastic evidence bags. "This is all I got out of his pockets."

"Five will get you ten that the stiff is a Prod," Whitehouse glanced quickly at the contents of the evidence bag before dropping it into his pocket. "We're right in the middle of Prod territory here." He followed Wilson out from underneath the canopy. "Didn't one of their people say one time that they weren't gone away. Well he got it right. I knew the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds couldn't stay away from killing for very long."

"Look out, George," Wilson said running his fingers through his sodden hair. "Your prejudice is beginning to show. I don't want any rushes to judgement on this one and I certainly don't want one of my officers shooting his mouth off as to who might be responsible until we're a lot further along on this investigation. Do I make myself clear?" Why me? Wilson was thinking. Why did it have to happen on my patch? Something inside him told him that there was a s.h.i.t load of trouble a.s.sociated with this case and that most of that s.h.i.t would be dumped on him if he failed to come up with a perpetrator quickly. Just when he was thinking that he would be back to good old solvable murder cases along comes a heap of c.r.a.p like this. Somewhere in the back of his mind he remembered one of his lecturers at police college telling the cla.s.s that eighty percent of murders were committed by a family member or a close friend. In those far off days before the 'Troubles' began in earnest, a detective might have one or two unsolved cases in his complete career. For some reason, usually the difficulty in establishing a motive or because the perpetrator was known but couldn't be brought to justice, those cases might stay open until the day the detective retired. Right now Wilson had worked on more than two dozen unsolved homicides and he was reckoned to have one of the best conviction records in the PSNI. The usual motive for sectarian murder was simply - religion. The perpetrator was generally totally unknown to his victim who was usually picked at random and there were always half a dozen witnesses who were ready to stand up and swear that the prime suspect was miles way when the deed was done.

"Yes, boss, I've got that." Whitehouse said through clenched lips. "But I'm still willing to lay odds that it turns out to be our Taig friends."

Wilson wiped the rain from his face. "I'll grant you that this looks like an execution. And I don't mind telling you that I'm s.h.i.t scared of this case already. Most of the terrorists you and I know would need a machine gun to be sure of a kill. This one smells like a professional hit. Given the delicate political situation we have at this moment in time there's going to be a lot of heads looking over our shoulders on this one. So let's play it cool. No mentions of the IRA until we have something concrete. And I mean very concrete."

"The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds'll never admit it. No claim, no blame. That the game they're playin'."

Wilson sighed. Whitehouse had been his second-in-command for the past five years and he was well aware of his sergeant's dislike for the terrorists of the IRA. Wilson himself hated all murderers whichever side of the religious divide they came from. But Whitehouse was a firm believer that the only way to solve the IRA problem was to shoot six hundred Republicans overnight. Whitehouse was in good company. However, the Peace Process was rapidly turning yesterday's terrorist into to-day's politician. It had happened all over the world so why should Northern Ireland be any different. Nelson Mandela, Robert Mugabe, Jomo Kenyatta, Ya.s.sar Arafat, the list went on and on. Now the names of the most prominent IRA and UVF men would have to be added to it. That might stick in the throat of men like Whitehouse but there was little or nothing that they would be able to do about it. Wilson could feel the rain penetrating the neck of his suit. The top of his jacket would be getting a soaking but his vanity precluded him from putting on the hood which hung over his upper back. He would have to get out of this weather soon or he would be in the same condition as the poor man under the canopy.

"I want to cover all the possibilities on this one," Wilson said. "Whoever pulled the trigger knew what he was doing and he definitely didn't want the victim to survive. My guess is that the second and third shots was for insurance but any fool could see that the first bullet had done its business. That means it could be drugs or some kind of vendetta which carried over from the past. I want to know everything there is to know about that man on the pavement. I want to know his name, where he lived and whether he was 'connected' with some paramilitary outfit. I want his relatives and friends questioned. And I want every house on this road canva.s.sed. If anyone saw or heard anything I want to know about it. Use the uniforms. Did you call in Eric?"

"He should be on his way," Whitehouse said.

"When he arrives put him in charge of taking the statements."

A smile creased Whitehouse's thick lips. "He'll have his work cut out. You know where you are, boss. This is three wise monkey country. n.o.body here will have seen or heard anything. And if they did, they certainly won't be telling us about it. As for SOCO,' he nodded at the ghosts in their blue suits. 'Those poor b.u.g.g.e.rs will be out all night looking for clues and they'll probably come up with nothing."

"That's Eric's problem. As far as SOCO is concerned they work on the theory that someone pa.s.sing through an area always leaves a trace. Let's not be too pessimistic. You stick with getting the information on the dead man. We'll set up an incident room in the Squad-Room at the Station. I'll be Senior Investigating Officer, you'll be my number two and we'll make Eric office manager. We'll hand out the rest of the work later. Make sure SOCO develop the photos of the corpse tonight and have them on my desk first thing to-morrow morning. If our friend did leave any trace when he pa.s.sed through I want to know p.r.o.nto." He pulled another evidence bag containing the sh.e.l.ls from his pocket. "Get these over to ballistics. Looks like a nine millimetre and I want to know whether the gun has been used anywhere in the Province."

"Is that all," Whitehouse said lifting his head from the notepad on which he had been writing.

"For now," Wilson said smiling.

A door opened behind his back and an elderly woman stuck her head out.

"I knew it wasn't over," she said looking directly at Wilson and Whitehouse. "Them murderin' b.a.s.t.a.r.ds will never give up the gun."

"We'll be taking statements shortly," Wilson said. "If you saw or heard anything we might catch the murderer quicker."

"Faith, I'll be no help to you. I'm almost blind and I'm as deaf as a post but if I was a man I'd get myself over to the Falls and I'd string up the Taig b.a.s.t.a.r.ds by their b.a.l.l.s."

She banged the door closed before Wilson could make any reply.

He saw that Whitehouse was smiling to himself. "Looks like they're going to have to teach people how to spell reconciliation before they can expect them to know what it's about."

The smile faded from Whitehouse's face. "There's a lot of people like that old woman about. It won't end that easily."

Wilson ignored the remark. He didn't want to believe that it wasn't over. The general population was tired of war without end and so was he. "n.o.body thought to bring a couple of umbrellas, I suppose," he said to Whitehouse.

"I was at a Lodge meetin' when my b.l.o.o.d.y bleeper went off," Whitehouse said. "I barely got a chance to pick up this b.l.o.o.d.y suit." He squirmed as though he just remembered how uncomfortable he was in the suit.

Wilson had a bizarre mental picture of Whitehouse's mobile phone going off in a roomful of grown men dressed in regalia and with their left trouser legs rolled up. He was aware that most of his colleagues were members of Masonic Lodges and the Orange Order. Although he had been born a Protestant he had never been attracted by either the Masons or the Orange Lodge. Not that he hadn't received invitations. As soon as he had joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary he had been inundated with funny handshakes and invitations of membership. But something inside stopped him from accepting. Maybe it was that old line of Groucho Marx I don't want to be a member of any club that would have me as a member- that preyed on his mind. He knew that his decision not to join either organisation had hampered his career such as it was but that was life. He owed n.o.body and n.o.body owned him.

"I'm out of here," Wilson said. "Before I get my death of cold." He turned to Whitehouse. "You stay with the stiff. The Doc should be here in a minute but I don't expect the pathology to tell us anything. Let's have an autopsy done as soon as they can organise it at the Royal Infirmary. And don't forget. Keep that big gob of yours shut on this one."

"Roger," Whitehouse said and started back towards the canopy.

Wilson walked to the police car and pulled off his plastic suit. He put on his overcoat and slid into the back seat. He'd been right about his jacket. The neck was soaked and he felt uncomfortable. A chill ran down his back but he wasn't sure it was from the effects of the rain. He didn't like what he had just seen. It was obviously a professional hit. He could hope that it was something to do with drugs but the corpse didn't look like he had two pennies to rub together. No, this one looked like a return to the past and that didn't auger well for a quick resolution. And there would be pressure. The peace between the two communities was new and fragile. Both sides were scared out of there wits of breaking it. The people of Ulster would not forgive those who had taken their hope away. The dead body on the pavement was innocuous enough, even as a victim. But if that body signified a return to violence there would be h.e.l.l to pay. And right in the middle of this huge s.h.i.t pit stood Detective Chief Inspector Ian Wilson.

CHAPTER 3.

Wilson opened the door of his neat semi-detached house in Malwood Park and tossed his heavy overcoat over the bottom of the banisters. Two white envelopes sat on the mat just inside the door masking the letters W and C of the word WELCOME which was still barely visible on the worn brown weave. He thought the positioning of the envelopes appropriate since his welcome in the house had always been unclear during the period Susan had been the mistress of it. He picked up the letters noticing that both had on the front the dreaded rectangular plasticated slot for his address. A major decision faced him. Did he really need the kind of aggravation that these letters were about to bring him? Deciding that he didn't, he tossed the envelopes on the tablet of the hall stand. He'd open them in the morning. Maybe.

The house in Malwood Park was, like many aspects of his life, a carry-over. His job in the PSNI wasn't the well thought out career decision which marked the current entrants. He was a copper because his father was a copper and what was good enough for his father would certainly be good enough for him. There could be no thoughts of University or even Teachers Training College. The pay and prospects in the old RUC were more than any young man could want. But good and all as they were, his wife had wanted more. Susan wanted the house in Malwood Park even when he knew in his heart and soul that he couldn't afford to give it to her. He'd listened to the admonishments of his parents and he bore the puerile gibes of his colleagues but he'd bought Susan the house she coveted. They lived among the bankers and the stockbrokers in the ritziest area of Belfast and somehow they'd struggled through the first few years of the mortgage with Susan's salary making up the shortfall.

He climbed the stairs slowly heaving with the effort of pushing his large frame up the wooden steps. G.o.d, but he was cold and tired. And wet, but mostly tired. He went into the bathroom and started to peel off his clothes. His shirt stuck to his back and he was forced to open the b.u.t.tons before he could remove it. Every piece of clothing felt like it had been penetrated by the insidious cold wetness. He dumped the clothes in a heap in the corner of the bathroom and stood naked before the full length mirror. Where was the young giant of the RUC rugby team gone? He was twenty, no nearer thirty pounds overweight but his six feet four frame carried the excess easily. It was the face which looked back at him from the mirror which struck him most. The face bore the vicissitudes of life more than the body. The once lively blue eyes were dull and dead, hooded by heavy eyelids. His lantern jaw seemed to hang off the end of his long face and his once prominent cheekbones were beginning to be obscured by creeping folds of soft white flesh.

You need six months in the country, my boy, he spoke to his image as to some long lost friend but in his own mind he doubted whether six months would be enough to revitalise that dead face.

He stepped into the shower and turned the water to full heat feeling the hot droplets sting and redden his skin. Gradually he felt the warm stream wash away the cold.

When he'd finished showering and drying himself, he walked into the back bedroom. He had moved out of the room he and Susan had shared for the ten years of their marriage the week after she died. It had been a week of sleeplessness. He had lain in their bed each night with his eyes jammed shut waiting for sleep that never came. His mind refused to permit him to glance towards the foot of the bed where he fully expected to see a ghostly apparition of Susan standing over him reprovingly. If there was a life beyond death, Susan would know the depth of his betrayal of her. The sleepless nights finally convinced him that he should leave the room to her ghost. The cleaning lady maintained the room as a mausoleum for his dead partner. He put on his bathrobe and went into the kitchen. Food was normally something he pushed down his throat in the police canteen. He took no pleasure in eating. The fridge was as bare as usual and green mould was beginning to consume a block of cheddar which dominated the empty s.p.a.ce around it. He removed the mouldy cheese and a beer from the fridge. After carefully cutting away the mould, somebody had told him that it was carcinogenic, he cut several slices of cheese and put them between two pieces of stale bread. It was time to switch off his mind and switch on the television. He carried his beer and his makeshift cheese sandwich into his living room and switched on the BBC. He prayed for something light hearted to appear. As the screen brightened the news reader sat staring directly at him presenting the evening news. He half listened to the catalogue of the days atrocities from the Occupied Territories, Sierra Leone and the Congo. The cheese sandwich tasted like sawdust and he had to occasionally dislodge clumps of bread from the top of his palette with slugs of beer. Bloodied and torn bodies continued to roll across the television screen making no impact on the already immunised audience. The newscaster had commented that some of the images might cause distress. Wilson wondered to whom. He glanced at his watch and prayed for the last ten minutes of the programme to accelerate.

"On the home front," the news reader continued over a picture of Stormont Castle. "The Alliance Party has renewed its demand for the setting up of a South African style 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission'. Lord Alderdice said that the Commission should have the widest possible remit to examine some of the atrocities carried out during the 'Troubles'. He believes that without the severest examination of the actions of all the parties now involved in the political re-construction of the Province, the process of healing the wounds of sectarian strife will not be fully attained. The Unionist majority and Sinn Fein have expressed themselves as being sceptical to such a development. A spokesman for the Unionist Coalition said that the members of his Party believed that there was little to be gained from raking over the events of the past. The proposed Truth and Reconciliation Commission might in fact be counter-productive and lead to a return to conflict." The picture changed to the wet Belfast street which Wilson had left some time before. "In Belfast this evening, a man has been murdered." The camera panned across the scene of the shooting catching the PSNI officers in their flak jackets cradling their machine guns. Deep red cranial blood still stained the rain washed path. The corpse had been removed before the arrival of the television crew but the cameraman made up for the deficiency of a body by the close-up of the b.l.o.o.d.y footpath. The face of a well-known politician appeared on the screen mouthing the usual anodyne c.r.a.p about 'heinous crimes and a population under threat, will this butchery never end etc.'. He had seen the same face wheeled on time after time. Perhaps only one tape existed which the television station played for every murder. He looked for the legend 'library pictures' on the screen but didn't find it. "The PSNI Press Office has stressed," the newscaster continued. "That there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that the murder was motivated by sectarianism. A team of crack Murder Squad detectives has already been a.s.signed to the case and every avenue of enquiry would be explored."

Wilson raised his beer and toasted the screen as the news reader smoothly moved to the next story. G.o.d bless the good old Press Office. Thirty odd years of practice had made them experts at pa.s.sing the right message. Now was the time to a.s.suage the fears of the man in the street. Don't panic, folks. There certainly wasn't a vicious sectarian killer on the loose. Don't worry. The bad old days will never come again. It was his misses what done it. Blew his head off and then gave him another one for good measure. In a pig's a.r.s.e, he thought. Somebody had wanted that poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d dead and the man who had pulled the trigger knew what he was about. This wasn't a random sectarian kill.

He didn't even get his ten minutes, he thought. The first sectarian killing rated ten minutes, the five hundredth ten seconds. He picked up the remote control and was about to press the off b.u.t.ton when the weather map appeared on the screen. The satellite picture showed banks of dirty black clouds spreading from Newfoundland to Ireland. They were in for a prolonged period of `typical' Irish weather. He flicked the 'off' b.u.t.ton on the remote control and watched the screen go progressively blank. There would be no solace from television. He picked up a Stephen King novel from the coffee table and started towards the bedroom. He needed a good belt of unreality.

CHAPTER 4.

Case watched the same newscast on his small television and laughed out loud. He filled himself another gla.s.s of Bushmills and toasted the newsreader.