DCI Wilson: Nothing But Memories Part 3

"Okay, let's go meet the rest of the team," Wilson said as they rendezvoused in the reception area of the station. The phrase 'into the Valley of Death rode the six hundred' flashed through his mind. "Don't expect to be greeted with open arms."

"I've learned in the last two years to expect precious little, sir" Moira looked directly into Wilson's face, "You give me the chance and I'll show you what I can do."

Wilson started out the door. "As far as I'm concerned you're a member of my team, and that means what it always has. You get a thousand percent support from me whatever the situation. I suppose that I'm an anomaly for Northern Ireland. I was born religiously neutral."

The animated conversation in the squad room died as Wilson stood in the doorway with Moira standing directly behind him.

"Gentlemen," Wilson could see from their silent faces that word had already reached them. Mark up another success for the Tennent Street bush telegraph. "You'll be pleased to hear," he continued, "that our sterling efforts have been recognised and that the Deputy Chief Constable himself has decided to boost our ranks. This young lady, and here I emphasise the word lady," Wilson stood aside to reveal Moira completely, "will be joining us as of to-day. I'm sure you'll all make Constable Moira McElvaney welcome."

Five pairs of eyes glared in the direction of the doorway. If Wilson had been introducing a new Protestant colleague, there might have been a rush to be the first to pump the new man or woman's hand. And with those handshakes an important number of messages would be pa.s.sed. This time n.o.body moved.

"Such enthusiasm," Wilson forced a smile. "Well Constable," Wilson took Moira's elbow and led her into the room. "That wizened old reprobate on the left is my number one man, DS George Whitehouse,"

Whitehouse remained stock still refusing to acknowledge the introduction.

"Moving clockwise," Wilson continued ignoring the intended insult to Moira, "we have Eric Taylor, Ronald McIver, Harry Graham and Peter Davidson."

Wilson had expected Whitehouse's reaction but he had wondered how the others would react. He stared hard at Eric Taylor.

Taylor cleared his throat and moved forward. "Welcome to the Squad," he said extending his hand towards Moira. "I suppose that'll be the end of the dirty joke sessions."

"Only if the jokes are lousy," Moira pumped his hand.

Peter Davidson looked sideways at Whitehouse and then followed Taylor's example.

Two in, three out, Wilson thought. It could have been worse but it could have been a d.a.m.n sight better. The atmosphere was bound to be charged for a couple of days but then it would work itself out. He could never see Whitehouse condescending to drink with his new colleague but as long as they could work together Wilson wouldn't care about their social arrangements.

"You're in luck joining us at this point in time," Wilson said turning to face Moira. "You are currently standing in the Incident Room for the investigation into the death of one James Patterson." He nodded to a whiteboard on which a series of stark black and white photographs of the Patterson murder scene were affixed. "Patterson was shot in the head last night by an a.s.sailant or a.s.sailants unknown. You are going to have the pleasure of a.s.sisting the best Murder Squad in Great Britain in bringing the perpetrator or perpetrators of this crime to justice. Eric, update on the enquiry please."

"Nothing, boss," Taylor began. "Whoever did the shooting didn't leave a trace behind. Not so much as a hair from his head was found at the sight. The SOCOs swept up a load of s.h.i.te at the scene but nothing that appears to tie in to the killing. The pathologist has finished with the body. The autopsy showed up nothing new and the body is being transferred to the morgue. The basics you know. Only interesting item is that Patterson appears to have been into self mutilation. The pathologist found scars on his arms which were consistent with self-inflicted cuts from a razor blade. If we don't need the body for any further tests, they want to get him in the ground straight away. Since he hasn't any money to speak of the state will have to cough up for the pine box. Nothing exceptional on our victim. He was born, he lived and he died. There's no news on the gun. That's where we stand for the moment."

"Thanks, Eric," Wilson turned to his Detective Sergeant who appeared to be sulking at the rear of the office. "George, any news on whether our boy was a 'player'?"

Whitehouse stared straight ahead his lips clenched tight.

"DS Whitehouse," the smile had faded from Wilson's face. "I asked you a question. Answer it."

Whitehouse pulled in air noisily through his nose. "No, Sir," he said barely opening his mouth. "There's no criminal record. And he's not on the terrorist database. So it seems that he doesn't have any connection with a paramilitary organisation. But we're still checking."

Wilson turned to Davidson.

"Did you check his movements?"

Davidson shot a sideways glance at Whitehouse before answering. "Shortly before the killing he was in The Auld Sash on the Woodvale Road. It appears that he dropped in regular as clockwork for an evening pint."

"There's a mob that hangs out in The Auld Sash, isn't there?" Wilson said. "Maybe he was part of it. You're the expert on this kind of thing, George. Who do the mob from The Auld Sash belong to? UVF, UFF, LFF?"

Whitehouse stared at Moira. "I have no idea, boss. I didn't even know that a mob hung out there."

Wilson sighed. So it was going to be like that, was it. He really didn't need the additional aggravation. If Whitehouse was going to continue acting coy around McElvaney, then the investigation might be compromised. He wasn't going to let that happen.

"Eric," he said. 'Any news from the lab boys on Patterson's bed sit?"

"Nothing, boss." Again the sideways glance at Whitehouse. "No sign of visitors. No fingerprints other than the dead man's. I checked with vice and they've never run across Patterson. It all a big zero."

"Nothing from the neighbours either," McIver offered without being asked. "Patterson was a solitary bloke. Kept himself to himself. n.o.body remembers him having a visitor of either s.e.x. The only sound they ever heard from his room was the television or radio. The walls of that house are so thin that you could hear a budgie s.h.i.t in the room next door. Sorry, boss, but we seem to be drawing blanks all over."

"Okay, boys," Wilson said. "I want the bloke who topped this Patterson character and I want him yesterday. I want every shred of evidence looked at again and again until we find something that links this guy to politics or religion or s.e.x or whatever the h.e.l.l reason got him killed."

"Wrong place, wrong time," Whitehouse said through clenched lips.

"We're all aware of your theory, George. Now can it. Moira will be the 'receiver' on this case." He turned towards her. "In case you don't know the jargon that means that you've got the s.h.i.t job of sifting everything that comes in relating to this case. And I mean everything. Neither George or myself will have time to go over all the bits and pieces that come via the public but we need to see what's important. It's your job to know what's important and what's not. So get working on the statements that Eric collected last night, review the pathology evidence and go through the photographs. I want you operational as soon as possible."

"Thank you, sir," Moira said enthusiastically.

Wilson turned and walked towards his gla.s.s walled den. In the reflection of the gla.s.s, he saw Whitehouse glaring at Moira who was installing herself at the only empty desk in the room.

"George, you, in my office now," Wilson said from the door of his office.

Whitehouse moved reluctantly after his chief.

"Come in and close the door," Wilson took his place behind the desk.

Whitehouse squeezed into the tiny office and searched for a clear s.p.a.ce to plant his feet. The only clear floor stood on either side of a pile of doc.u.ments rising like a stalact.i.te towards the ceiling. Whitehouse put one foot on either side of the doc.u.ments and pulled the door closed behind him.

"Now," Wilson began raising his eyes slowly from the desk until he was staring into Whitehouse's scowling face. "I'm depending on you to make sure that there's no nastiness out there."

"A woman and a b.l.o.o.d.y Taig," red lines stood out on Whitehouse's normally pale face. "We've made it our business to put people from her side behind bars."

"You're a good copper, George, but sometimes you're a right cretin. The only side that woman is on is ours. I need this kind of s.h.i.t from you like I need a hole in the head. McElvaney is an experiment and experiments have a time limit. So, if everybody relaxes, we can get over this hump together. This Patterson business is starting to give me a pain in my gut. I'm beginning to get one of my flashes and it says that whoever whacked Patterson isn't finished. That means that if we don't find out who did it then we could be looking at a complete resumption of hostilities. I don't want that on my conscience."

"We already know who did it," Whitehouse said. "Some Fenian b.a.s.t.a.r.d did it. Forget about the motive. Hunt out every IRA b.o.l.l.o.c.ks and give them to me for a couple of days. I'll give you your murderer."

Wilson leaned back in his chair. "Let's try to use normal police procedure on this one," he said sharply. "I've just been with the DCC and he has handed Moira McElvaney to me. That means that I'm responsible for her and that I'm going to make d.a.m.n sure that n.o.body f.u.c.ks around with her on my watch." His voice hardened. "Do I make myself clear. If there's so much as one ounce of intimidation, I'll come down like a ton of bricks on whoever is responsible. I've heard said that some of our colleagues sympathise with the aims of the Loyalist paramilitaries and I've even heard that some of them were responsible in the not so distant past for leaking details of suspected IRA men to the death squads. If I ever located such a man I'd fry his a.r.s.e in h.e.l.l. McElvaney is off limits."

Whitehouse didn't reply. The red streaks on his face were beginning to coalesce and purple patches began to appear. His shoulders slumped. His eyes became gla.s.sy. "This isn't my RUC," he said simply.

"It isn't even the RUC anymore, George. We're now the Police Service of Northern Ireland. It's all change at the station and we have to be prepared to change with the times." Whitehouse looked like his favourite dog had just died. The man was certainly a bigot and possibly a misogynist but now his whole safe world was collapsing around his ears. And he certainly would not like it.

"Boss," Whitehouse squeezed the word out of his throat. "Maybe I don't fit into this new Service. I joined up because I sincerely felt that our way of life was under threat from the Fenians. They were the terrorists. They bombed and shot their way to the table and now they're going to feast on our bones."

"Don't be so b.l.o.o.d.y melodramatic" Wilson was developing what he called his 'evening headache' and it was only early afternoon. First Jennings, then McElvaney and now Whitehouse. He was a policeman not a b.l.o.o.d.y psychologist. "You joined up for the same reason that most of us joined. It was a b.l.o.o.d.y good job and it gave you a good living."

"Aye but now it's all going to change," the colour in Whitehouse's face had returned to normal. His jowls appeared to hang lower on his cheeks. "New name, new uniform, new shield. They've kicked out too much at the same time. I used to be proud of where I worked. Now we're going to be handed over little by little to the Taigs. It's a b.l.o.o.d.y insult to all the brave men who died to hold back the tide of terrorism. The war in Ulster isn't over. It's only suspended. The Taigs won't be happy until they're joined to their Papist pals in the South. They won't get that in my time so when they realise that they'll dig up the guns and the bombs again. We've always been the front line against the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who're tryin' to end the rule of law in this province. The thin blue line stopping a Papist take-over of Ulster. How many funerals for blown-up or a.s.sa.s.sinated colleagues do we have to attend before we refuse to buy the line that we're like the police on the mainland?" He turned and looked through the plate gla.s.s window at his new colleague. "And now we have to grasp the snake to our bosom."

"If you ever quit this job you'll find a new vocation with a dog-collar," Wilson said trying to lighten the mood. He knew that George wasn't alone in thinking that there was too much change on the way. For men like him, born in the nineteen sixties into a Protestant-dominated world, the thought of power sharing and working alongside Catholics in jobs that were traditionally reserved for Protestants was anathema. He had recently attended a management seminar where the problems a.s.sociated with the change were discussed and he was told to empathise with people like George. But not while I'm in the middle of a murder investigation, he thought. His head was pounding now. "I understand where you're coming from, George. But we've got to move on and we've got to take our responsibilities whatever the politicians get up to."

Whitehouse didn't reply. He just stood there wearing his hang dog look.

Wilson picked up the Patterson file from his desk and handed it to Whitehouse. "Give this to Constable McElvaney on your way out. I want every available man on this case. If we are talking IRA then I want a name and a number. And I want it yesterday. Got it."

Whitehouse leaned forward slowly and took the file. As he stood back his right foot caught the edge of the doc.u.ment stalact.i.te and files cascaded across the floor tumbling into other stalact.i.tes which crumbled in their wake. He bent down in a vain effort to stay the domino effect.

"For Christ sake, leave them, " Wilson waved his hand at the outer office.

Wilson surveyed the ma.s.s of doc.u.ments strewn around his floor and rubbed the palm of his left hand across his forehead. The headache which had begun in Jenning's office and was reaching a crescendo. He opened the top drawer of his desk and flipped the top off a tube of strong pain-killers. He popped two tablets into his mouth and swallowed them. It would take at least ten minutes for the drugs to take effect. Then he could think about calling a secretary to help clear up the mess. He sat with his head in his hands looking out at the still silent squadroom. McElvaney sat at her desk staring at the file which Whitehouse had dropped wordlessly in front of her. Now I know how Christ felt in the Garden of Gethsemane, he thought.

CHAPTER 9.

Moira read the last page of the Patterson murder book and closed the file. She tossed the buff coloured folder on top of her tiny steel desk in the squad room, let out a deep sigh and stretched in her chair. A strong vodka and orange and a hot bath was what she needed right now. The squad room was deserted. All her new colleagues had departed. Thankfully they hadn't bothered to proffer any invitations for a drink. She couldn't have handled that. She'd known that working with six men was going to be difficult. The smell of testosterone was palpable in the room reminiscent no doubt of the locker-room of the Los Angeles Rams. However, her options were limited. It was apparent that she was never going to become one of the boys. That just wasn't going to happen. They were wearers of the sash to a man. Their Thursday nights would be spent in the company of like-minded individuals trading peculiar hand shakes with one trouser leg rolled up. She smiled at the mental picture of the exposed hairy legs. Was she totally mad? What the h.e.l.l was a Catholic woman doing in the middle of colleagues who were either Masons or members of the Orange Lodge or maybe even both? The only thing they had in common was that they were coppers. Maybe that wouldn't be enough. She stretched her arms upwards and brought her hands together it mock supplication. Who would be a newby in an all male Protestant squad? That was the inevitable process of integration but it might last a bit longer in this case. She allowed her arms to drop as she sank into her chair. For the moment and for the foreseeable future she would have to be 'hail fellow well met'. That would mean laughing at any asinine jokes that would really be intended to put her down either as a woman or a catholic. Eventually she might be admitted to the after-work drink ritual. But that would depend on whether her new colleagues would appreciate being seen with her in their usual watering holes. She came from a town with two Chinese restaurants, one of which was the catholic Chinese while the other was the protestant Chinese. After all this was Ulster. What the h.e.l.l am I doing here? she thought. More importantly what the h.e.l.l am I trying to prove? There were women detectives all over the United Kingdom. Some had been in the job for eons more than her. Also some of those women were also Catholics. So there was nothing special about her. Why then did she feel like she was a test case? She looked towards the end of the room where Wilson sat pouring over files. His desk lamp illuminated his face. He definitely doesn't want me here, she thought. But he has to play along with the game. They had leaned on him to take her. Everybody would be waiting for her to screw up and when she did they would dump on her like a ton of bricks. And I asked for all this, she thought. She felt a sudden dart of pain in her stomach and wasn't sure whether it was hunger or fear. Don't be such a wet, she thought. You knew what you were getting into. n.o.body said it was going to be a rose garden and anyway what do you care. Two years at the most and then it will be back to Strabane and a bit of family support. Her eyes began to fill as she thought of her parents. They were so d.a.m.n proud of her. She had worked hard to get into University. After the African adventure she managed to land a good job with the Ministry of Social Welfare. Her parents thought that she had hit the jackpot with her marriage to an up-an-coming accountant. Then it all went down the toilet starting with the day her husband had decided to show her his true colours by giving her a good thump. She'd given him the mightiest kick in the b.a.l.l.s she could muster and then packed her clothes. That was the end of the marriage and the job at the Ministry. Her parents tried to convince her to go back but she'd hit a watershed. No son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h was ever going to lay a hand on her again. They had stood by her when she had joined the Police Force. And her mother had shed buckets of tears when she had been posted to Belfast but at least she had made it to detective constable. She had seen tears form in her father's eyes also but he wouldn't allow himself to show weakness in front of her. He was too old-school for that. A tear crept out of her eye and she brushed it away. Maybe she was a bit old-school herself. Christ she had to get out of this mood or she would be on the next train home. She looked down at the file on her desk. The details were skimpy. She thought that perhaps Sergeant Whitehouse was right. On the surface it looked like James Patterson had joined the long list of sectarian murders. There were no witnesses to the event and there appeared to be no clues as to who might have been responsible. The murder appeared to be a cla.s.sic act of mindless violence. A death based on no other motive than religion.

She glanced up at Wilson's office and remembered how chuffed she had been when she'd heard that he was going to be working for the most famous detective in the PSNI. She was pleasantly surprised when she realised that the legend was actually flesh and blood just like everybody else. She a.s.sumed that it was the same with all heroes. From a distance they appeared to be supermen but up close they were pretty ordinary. It wasn't Wilson's fault that the recruits had pictured him as some kind of Irish Dirty Harry. What they would have got in reality was a soft-spoken gentle giant who wore a stained sports coat and a shirt that looked like it hadn't seen an iron in months. She picked up the file and walked towards Wilson's office.

"Excuse me sir," she remained at the door to the office.

Wilson looked up slowly from the papers he was working on. "Constable McElvaney, what can I do for you?" he said in a bored tone. It was going to be difficult not to think of the young woman in front of him as the 'father of all things for to bother him'.

She held up the resume of the Patterson file. "I've been reading this file, sir, and I can't help thinking that there must be some way we can get the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who're doing these killings. There must be some way of putting the evidence together so that we can put them away." She didn't usually use strong language but she realised that within the context of her current situation a concession to the vocabulary of her colleagues would be a necessity.

Wilson stared at the young woman wedged between the door-jams of his office. My G.o.d, he thought, what wouldn't I give to return to the state of innocence in which crimes of murder could be solved by diligent policework. The sifting of facts and the testing of hypotheses was the stuff of cla.s.sic detection and had no relevance to solving crimes in the province of Ulster. This was the land of the informer and the super-gra.s.s. It was the land of the confession beaten out of the miscreant during his six days of incarceration in Castlereagh. What price police work in a province where a serial killer can give an interview to a mainline British newspaper concerning his crimes and still walk free? Maybe the idea of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission wasn't such a bad one after all. It was high time that the Province gave up its psychopathic killers to justice. The families of the dead and injured deserved no less. It was time to dig out the King Rats and the Mad Dogs and to be rid of them forever. He looked into McElvaney's fresh freckled face and wondered whether he should begin the process which would result in destroying the innocence and replacing it with hard-bitten cynicism. There was a major job of mentoring to be done here and he realised that if Constable McElvaney were a man he would have jumped right into the role. Mentoring a woman, especially for someone with his chequered s.e.xual past, might raise more problems than it was worth. The common perception was that he had screwed most of his female colleagues. That wasn't quite true but he had never taken advantage of his rank while pursuing his colleagues. They had all come willingly.

"When you were on the beat did you ever help out in a murder enquiry that was sectarian?" he asked.

"Once or twice," she replied.

She was leaning against the door-jam now in a pose which in other circ.u.mstances Wilson might have considered provocative. For G.o.d's sake, he gave himself a mental slap in the face. You're old enough to be her father. "How did it go?" he said putting the cap on his pen. "Did they collar anyone for the crime?"

"Everybody in town more or less knew who was responsible but there was no evidence and his alibi was rock solid. He was lifted and interrogated but nothing came of it."

"Welcome to the real world," Wilson said looking directly into those hazel eyes. It was day one and he was going to have to get his head around the fact that he was going to spend a lot of time around a very attractive young woman that he could not possibly touch. It would be a difficult enough task for an ageing Lothario. "A group of suspects with cast iron alibis is an Ulster phenomenon."

"How can we win in a situation like that?" she asked.

"Moira," he was about to add darlin' but stopped himself just in time. He covered the hiatus with a smile. "To-day, I'd like to begin your initiation as a real murder squad officer by telling you a few home truths."

Wilson beckoned her into the room.

"That file in your hand," Wilson began, "const.i.tutes all we know about that particular crime. You know that we call it the murder book." The look on her face said 'don't treat me like a child'. "In other words there's no further evidence, no new witnesses, in short, nothing else. Most of the murders we do solve are the results of either confessions by the perpetrators or information provided by informants. Confessions are always dodgy and since the `supergra.s.s' period there's been a distinct lack of individuals willing to put their entire kith and kin at risk by informing on their mates. So we're left with the files. You've been told that this job was paperwork, paperwork and even more paperwork. There is no super detecting work. We will not sift clues and develop startling conclusions. That's Agatha Christie and Jessica Fletcher. You've read the file. What do you think of the Patterson case? Is it a sectarian murder?"

"I know next to nothing," she sat gingerly on a pile of folders. "But if we're going to play the Socratic game that we did in tutorials in college so be it. There's always a motive. That motive might be sectarian which might make the victim random or there might be a motive which concerns this victim alone. Since we cannot test the hypothesis concerning the sectarian motive because of the random nature of the victim, then we should begin by testing the hypothesis that the victim was intended and that there is a motive. If we find nothing in that direction then we would be justified in accepting that the killing was sectarian."

Not just a pretty face, Wilson thought. "Your approach is right of course and I'd agree if this murder had taken place on the mainland. A large proportion of murders are domestics and another major category is targets of opportunity, criminals killing each other or murders committed in the course of another crime. The killer and the victim are generally known to each other. Police work consists of rooting around in the rubbish of human relationships until a motive for X to murder Y is found. It might be money or s.e.x or both or any combination of factors but once you've found it you're half way to solving the crime. Let's get back to the case in point. Patterson had no family, no friends, no pets even. He was a loner who apparently didn't bother a soul. We've only just scratched the surface of his life but for the moment that appears to be it. So what are we left with. George's theory - an act of mindless violence . The wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could just as easily have been any other citizen. We've had too many examples of that kind of crime to discount the possibility. That means no motive other than religion. We could waste a lot of time following your approach. In the meantime the pressure cooker begins to boil. We don't locate your motive and the boys who still have a gun buried somewhere in the back-garden decide that the scores have to be evened. Then we're not looking at one murder but two and possible three or four before we can put a stop to the mayhem. This is not Police College and this is not the Big Island. So we start by showing the men with the guns and the public that we're looking at the bad boys for this one. If in the course of our enquiries we stumble across drugs or women or men for that matter then we go in that direction. But first we try to contain a reaction. Not cla.s.sic police response but par for the course. This way n.o.body gets to drag us back into the maelstrom."

"You make it sound so d.a.m.n futile," there was a note of tiredness in her voice.

"Just remember that you're talking to an old cynic" He had no wish to cut off the young woman's enthusiasm completely. "Sometimes we do some police work and we nab a real bad one. But generally the real b.a.s.t.a.r.ds deal with each other. I suppose you've heard about the `Shankill Butchers' case."

"We discussed it during training," she said.

"It wasn't exactly our finest hour in this station. Eighteen people murdered on our patch. Most of them mutilated with hatchets and knives. The early victims were Catholics. Then it was anyone who got in their way. We did all the police work, forensiced the evidence until we were blue in the face but in the end of the day we couldn't break the suspects' alibis. We knew that Lenny Murphy and his pals were the culprits but we just couldn't nail the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Thousands of hours of careful police work and the murderers were still on the streets. Just when we were despairing of ever gettin' the swine, the IRA took Lenny out and the rest of the gang folded. We jailed them but they discovered G.o.d and now they're rambling the streets just like you and me. They hacked people to death and they're back in society. It's just another example of justice Ulster style. Depend on one set of psychopaths to take out another and let the justice system deal with the camp followers. We don't have to agree with it but when you've been here as long as me, you'll settle for what you can get."

She smiled "What's that line from Gilbert and Sullivan 'a policeman's lot is not a happy one."

"Ain't that the truth," Wilson smiled back. It was quite a while since he'd smiled with one of his colleagues. "Receive any warmth from your new colleagues?"

She rubbed her hands together theatrically. "A cold wind has been blowing all day. I appear to have upset the equilibrium of the squad room," she lifted herself gently off the folders making sure not to tip them over.

"Don't worry. They'll come round," he lied knowing full well that it would be a cold day in h.e.l.l before George Whitehouse would accept her. "n.o.body said it was going to be easy." He leaned forward. "You can always demand a transfer."

She threw her eyes up to heaven. "Every one of our conversations contains an exhortation from you for me to quit and go back to where I come from. I could develop a complex, sir. I could begin to feel unwanted. If I weren't so thick skinned." Christ, I'm flirting with this guy, she thought to herself. She could feel a blush rising in her face at the thought.

Wilson saw her cheeks redden. I've gone too far, he thought. And it wasn't fair. She was having a difficult time with the other officers. It was time that he gave her a break "What about a drink after work?" he asked before he'd thought about the ramifications.

"Thank you, boss," she said formally. "I think I'd like that."

"OK," Wilson felt that he had been hooked on his own line. He was suddenly embarra.s.sed and shifted awkwardly in his seat. "Outside the station at eight o'clock. In the meantime why don't you run along and learn how to play with our computers. Take along the Patterson file and see what you can come up with."

"By the way," she said looking back into the squad room. "I don't like mentioning it but there's a funny smell in the squad room underneath the normal male smells of testosterone and farts."

Wilson smiled. "Before it became a police station the building was a brewery and they never quite got rid of the smell of stale beer. Don't worry you'll get used to it."

CHAPTER 10.

Case was getting slightly p.i.s.sed off. He stood sheltering from the rain in a doorway across the road from Charlton's Garage in the Newtonards Road on the Southern sh.o.r.e of the Lagan River. The heavy rain which had threatened all day had finally started to fall. Away to his right a neon light tried in vain to pierce through the enfolding mist while overhead the rain fell from an impenetrably dark sky. Water vapour sprayed into his face but still his eyes remained fixed on the gla.s.s booth in which two men sat talking and smoking. A combination of rainwater and condensation had made the gla.s.s of the booth almost opaque and Case was forced to strain his eyes in order to concentrate on the object of his attention. Theoretically this should have been the easiest of kills. The man he was straining to see was a well built young man of about twenty-eight and according to Case's own timetable the guy should already be explaining himself to Saint Peter. He smiled at the thought of Saint Peter drumming his fingers impatiently over the non-arrival. The plan had been screwed when he had arrived at the garage and found his intended victim was deep in conversation with a visitor. The hitch was unforeseeable but would only serve to delay the inevitable. The filthy weather had reduced business at the filling station to a trickle and he had watched the attendant leave the booth on only two occasions to dispense petrol. He glanced at his watch: it was almost eight o'clock. He stuck his head out from his shelter and looked in both directions. The normally busy street was dark and virtually deserted. A few stragglers, bundled up against the rain and cold, rushed unheedingly along the street anxious to reach the comfort of their homes. Case was completely impervious to both the cold and the damp which easily penetrated the narrow opening in which he had chosen to wait. He had been trained to ignore the elements and concentrate all his attention on one particular task. Soon he would have to make his move, visitor or no visitor.

He pulled a small pa.s.sport photograph from his right hand pocket and examined the face yet again. There could be no mistakes. Everything had to be done correctly and on time. One mistake could screw up the whole operation. He shuffled his feet in impatience. Get out of there you stupid f.u.c.ker, he addressed his thoughts to the visitor to the booth as if trying to will the man to leave. His hand slid into his inside pocket and closed around the handle of the Browning. He couldn't wait any longer. Both of them would have to go. He pulled his balaclava further down over his eyes and left his doorway shelter. The deserted street was a near perfect killing ground. The dim light from the booth illuminated the silhouettes of the two men.

He smiled to himself as he slipped quietly across the road. The majority of Belfast's citizens were cursing the weather while for him it was a G.o.dsend. As he crossed the thirty yards which separated him from the petrol attendant's booth, his view of the two men became clearer. His target was wearing a blue overall and was sitting with his feet perched on top of a small cluttered desk. The second man sat facing the door, his chair wedged against one of the angles of the booth. As he approached, he heard the two men burst out laughing. It had to be some b.l.o.o.d.y good joke. It wasn't a bad thing to die with a smile on your lips. He continued at the same pace satisfied that neither man appeared interested in him. He approached the booth and pulled the gla.s.s door open. By the time the men's eyes raised to face the open door, the Browning was already in his hand. The smiles froze on the men's faces then faded to fear. Case saw a level of understanding strike them as he raised the gun. They knew they were about to die. The noise from the first shot ripped through the confined s.p.a.ce of the booth. The bullet pa.s.sed through the attendant's head before shattering the gla.s.s panel directly behind him. Case swung the gun in a smooth movement and fired just as the second man began to rise from his seat. The bullet caught him in the throat and he was flung back against the steel stanchion which held the gla.s.s panes together. He gurgled like a baby through the torrent of bright red arterial blood which was already issuing from the gaping hole in his neck. Case didn't have to examine either man to know that they were both dead. He moved quickly to the attendant's body and fired two more shots at close range one to the head and one to the heart. He put the Browning back into his coat pocket and turned immediately away from the petrol station. He walked briskly until he came to a corner and after turning it dropped his pace slightly. Footsteps sounded somewhere behind him. He didn't look behind but simply ignored the sounds and continued walking away from the murder scene. On these streets he was just another evening straggler caught in the rain and impatient for the warmth of his home.