Dark Circles

by Derek Fee

  ‘Am I the only one here who thinks that Rice has been a bit heavy handed in cleaning up?’ Jennings asked.

  Lattimer and Carlisle looked at each other.

  ‘Given the level of experience of the Circle members, we could have come up with a more subtle solution,’ Jennings continued.

  ‘Did you ever meet Grant?’ Carlisle asked.

  ‘No,’ Jennings replied.

  ‘Pompous little Yid bastard,’ Lattimer interjected.

  ‘We would have needed leverage to keep Grant quiet,’ Carlisle ignored Lattimer’s interjection. ‘And we didn’t have any. The Circle has been manipulating events in Ulster for more than one hundred years. In that time the man in the street has had no inkling of its existence. It is imperative that it continues to be the case.’

  ‘Rice is a liability,’ Jennings said. ‘He and his parents were useful in manipulating events during the “Troubles”, but he may have outlived his usefulness. We have to recognise that we are now in bed with criminals. And criminals cannot be trusted.’

  Neither can senior police officers, Carlisle thought but didn’t say. ‘What’s done is done. Malone and Grant were potential threats to the existence of the Circle. Their demise removes that threat and for that we have to be grateful to Rice. We’re counting on you, Roy, to make sure that these two dreadful accidents remain just that.’

  This was the opportunity that Jennings was waiting for. Ensuring that the Malone and Grant murders never saw the light of day would provide him with leverage in the Circle to ensure that he would ascend to the top job in the PSNI. He wanted to smile but kept his face hard. ‘You’re asking a lot, Jackie. Although I owe a lot of allegiance to the Circle, I am, after all, a policeman.’

  ‘And a good Ulsterman,’ Carlisle said quickly. ‘We’re talking here about the maintenance of the status quo in Ulster. We are the glue that keeps this Province together. The Brits would have abandoned us years ago if it wasn’t for the influence of the Circle.’

  Jennings smiled. This was an authentic flash of the old Jackie Carlisle. ‘Calm down, I already said that I would do whatever was necessary. I understand the remit of the Chief Constable runs out towards the end of next year.’

  A leopard never changes his spots, Carlisle thought. Jennings was an ambitious little bugger. The job of Chief Constable at the PSNI was a heavy price to exact for keeping a few accidental deaths quiet. ‘So I hear,’ Carlisle said. ‘I think you would make an excellent replacement for the incumbent. It’s about time we had a true-blue Ulsterman in charge of the Force again.’

  Lattimer glanced at his watch. ‘Are we done here?’ he asked.

  ‘I think we have an understanding,’ Jennings said.

  CHAPTER 8

  Wilson was in a quandary when he left the Royal Victoria. Officially, there was no murder. However, he respected Reid’s professional opinion. The question was whether that was enough to bring the matter upstairs. Grant’s death was certainly more exotic than the usual Ulster death. But Grant wasn’t the first man to breathe his last breath wearing female clothing while suspended by the neck. Although there were no defensive wounds, in Wilson’s humble opinion there were enough discrepancies to warrant at least a further investigation. One thing was certain, if Grant had been murdered, someone had gone to considerable lengths to conceal the fact. The level of inventiveness indicated the presence of someone who was no stranger to murder.

  Instead of returning directly to the office, he telephoned Detective Sergeant Moira McElvaney and arranged to meet her in the Crown Bar in Great Victoria Street. He was already seated in one of the snugs in the bar with a pint of Guinness in front of him when she entered. It was Wilson’s curse to be surrounded by attractive women. While Kate McCann and Stephanie Reid owed their high cheekbones and blonde hair to Scandinavian forebears, Moira McElvaney was one hundred per cent Irish colleen. Her slightly freckled pale face was topped by a mass of flaming red hair. Her features were completely symmetrical, her nose and ears were perfectly shaped, and she possessed the most sparkling green eyes that Wilson had ever seen. She had a body to match her face, although many would consider her to be on the skinny side. Her smile widened as she entered the snug.

  ‘Boss,’ she said plonking herself into one of the button-back leather couches. ‘I like the new office arrangements.’

  ‘I wish.’ Wilson returned her smile.

  ‘You look worried,’ she said. ‘Secret meeting in your favourite pub so early in the day, I smell trouble.’

  ‘I think that maybe your nose is in perfect working order,’ he said simply. He waved at the barman. ‘What’ll you drink?’

  ‘Policewoman on duty,’ she said. ‘Perhaps a cup of peppermint tea is in order.’

  Wilson ordered the tea and watched the barman wince. He avoided the man’s eyes by sipping his Guinness.

  ‘What’s up?’ Moira asked.

  ‘I’m just back from an autopsy at the Royal Victoria.’

  ‘That wasn’t part of your agenda for today.’

  ‘I know but Professor Reid called me in.’

  Moira raised her eyes to heaven. ‘She doesn’t give up easy.’ She took the cup and saucer from the barman and stirred her tea before removing the tea bag. Stephanie Reid was not one of Moira’s favourite people. She didn’t like the way that Reid continued to throw herself at Wilson. As far as Moira was concerned, Wilson was spoken for. If not, she might have thrown herself at him, despite the fact that she had a very presentable boyfriend.

  They toasted each other silently. ‘It wasn’t like that,’ he said. ‘She was called out by accident to a death by asphyxiation. The person in question was David Grant.’

  Moira sipped her tea. ‘It’s in the late edition of the morning papers. I don’t know where these people get their information from.’

  Wilson could make a very good guess. The police officers and the ambulance crew would be the perfect starting point. He took a USB from his pocket. ‘Take a look at these photos when you get back to the office. Reid took them at the scene. It appears that Grant was into kinky sex. He was dressed in women’s underwear and had hooked himself up to a noose tied to a stair post. It’s what they call erotic asphyxiation. The lack of air is supposed to heighten the sexual experience.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it.’ She took another sip out of her cup.

  ‘It’s not something you should try at home. Anyway, Reid wasn’t totally convinced that the death was accidental and she found a few discrepancies in the autopsy.’

  ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘I trust Reid’s intuition but if I bring this upstairs there might be a view that I’m trying to instigate a high profile investigation on very flimsy evidence.’

  ‘Nobody would accuse you of that.’ Moira finished her tea. She’d never pictured Wilson as the paranoid type.

  ‘I want you to get over to Grant’s house and tape the place up. If there’s any evidence, I don’t want it screwed up. Find Grant’s next of kin and contact them. His body is at the Royal and probably will stay there until the inquest. Reid intends to push for a murder conclusion with the coroner.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Off the top of my head, I think if it was a murder – a very elaborate one. A speeding car might have knocked him down, and that would have been an accident. But we would have looked for the speeding car and the person driving it. This way, we might think that it was either accidental or suicide. There’s nobody to look for.’

  ‘Look, Boss. I trust your instincts, but you know that the good professor doesn’t overly impress me. I know bugger all about erotic asphyxiation but if someone hooks himself up to a noose that may actually end up killing him, either they mean to die or it’s an accident. I don’t want to burst your bubble, but it just might be that Reid wants to involve you in a little drama so that she can stay close.’

  ‘I wouldn’t sell Reid short if I were you. She’s a lot more than a pretty face.’ The door of the snug opened,
and an attractive woman stuck her head inside. Wilson did a double take before confirming that the woman was not Kate. He let out a sigh of relief. He would hate to get into something in front of Moira. The snug door closed slowly.

  Moira noticed his reaction and the relief that followed. The Boss hadn’t been himself over the past few weeks. He wasn’t open to talking about it but there was definitely something up. He wasn’t a hail-fellow-well-met but she hoped that he considered her a friend as well as a colleague. If he did open up, it would be in his own good time. ‘Maybe so but this is a bit flimsy,’ she said.

  ‘Put a bit of crime-scene tape around the house and get Harry working on a profile of Grant. The least we can do is look into the possibility.’

  ‘The Prosecution Barrister in the Cummerford case wants to see you as soon as possible. It looks like we’re going to be tied up with the McIver and Cummerford trials over the next few months so the question is do we really have the time to “look into” Professor Reid’s possible homicide.’

  ‘Humour me.’ Wilson signalled the barman for the bill.

  ‘What about the Chief Super?’ she asked.

  ‘Leave him to me. I’ll square things as soon as I get back to the office.’

  The barman arrived, and Wilson rooted around in his pocket for the change.

  ‘You OK, Boss?’ Moira asked.

  Wilson didn’t answer because he probably would have said something like ‘not too bad for someone whose life is heading down the toilet at breakneck speed’. His relationship with his partner was disintegrating by the day. The business with Ronald McIver had hit him hard. McIver had been a member of the team and was about to go on trial with one count of manslaughter and one count regarding the unlawful death of his wife. Both had happened on Wilson’s watch and there were those in the Force who wouldn’t forget that fact. Rumour around was that Wilson was on the slide. Maybe the rumours were true. ‘Look at the photos and print them up,’ he said. ‘Preserve the scene and get Harry onside with the profile. If I remember right, Peter has some contacts in the sex industry. See if Grant is known around the BDSM scene. I’ve got a lecture at the Police College this afternoon. I’m supposed to keep the cadets amused. I’ll be back in the office tomorrow so I expect you’ll already have something for me to go on.’

  Moira stood up. ‘This could be a monumental waste of time.’

  ‘Either that or we can get David Grant some justice.’

  CHAPTER 9

  Moira sat at her computer in the squad room in the station. Detective Constables Harry Graham, Peter Davidson and Eric Taylor stood directly behind her. The photos taken by Reid, in the hallway of David Grant’s house, were displayed as icons on the screen. Moira had already admonished her colleagues who had guffawed at the first sight of David Grant’s suspended body.

  ‘Put the photos up again,’ Harry Graham said.

  ‘Only if you agree to behave like Detective Constables in the PSNI and not like a crowd of titillated schoolboys,’ Moira said.

  ‘Sorry, Sergeant,’ Peter Davidson said. ‘It’s not every day that we see a gasper. In fact, it’s the first time in my twenty years on the job that I’ve come across one.’

  Moira brought up a long shot of the hallway. The three men behind her moved closer.

  ‘Poor bastard,’ Davidson said.

  ‘Poor unlucky bastard,’ Graham echoed. ‘He must have been in the middle of getting off when the chair slipped.’

  ‘Reid thinks he was murdered,’ Moira said bringing up a close-up of Grant’s face. ‘He wasn’t hung, he was asphyxiated.’

  ‘Same difference,’ Taylor said.

  Moira brought up the images one after another. They were not the kind of images she would like those who loved David Grant to see. She wondered how they were going to keep them from his family. She would leave that one to Wilson. ‘Obviously not, the Boss wants us to look into it.’

  ‘What about upstairs?’ Graham asked.

  ‘The Boss will handle that,’ Moira replied. ‘We need to get the scene taped up. It’s more than likely that the attending officer, and the ambulance crew, and even Reid compromised the scene. But we may as well see what we can preserve.’ She turned to Graham. ‘Harry, the Boss wants you to run up a profile on Grant. He was a Belfast City Councillor and a leading lawyer, so there’s probably a lot of Press on him. Don’t approach the newspapers. Most of what you need is probably on the Internet. Peter, the Boss reserved the best job for you. You’ve still got contacts in the BDSM scene?’

  Davidson nodded and his two male colleagues stared at him.

  Moira ignored their looks and continued. ‘The Boss wants you to check around and see whether Grant is known on the scene. Eric, check into Grant’s movements over the few days before his death. Keep it low-key. We don’t want anyone going off on a flier and reporting to the Press that we’re looking into the death. One thing I want to emphasise, nobody, and I mean nobody, outside this office is to see these photos. I’m going to print off one set for the whiteboard. It’ll mean someone’s job if the Press get their hands on them.’

  ‘What will you be doing while Peter is putting his life on the line in an SM club?’ Graham laughed.

  ‘I’m going to be interviewing the officers who discovered the body.’ Moira pulled the USB from the computer and switched it off.

  CHAPTER 10

  Wilson was a regular performer at the Police College. The fact that he was a former Irish international rugby player, and a senior officer, went down well with the young cadets. Over the years, he had got his patter, and the jokes that seemed so natural, off pat. He had expected his overall negative mood to influence his performance, but once he started he was on autopilot, and he had received the more or less obligatory standing ovation at the end of his speech. The Principal of the College invited him for a drink, but he declined citing tiredness and the need for a decent night’s sleep. The Principal was a big rugby man himself and displayed mild annoyance at being denied a good chat and several rounds of drinks on the College’s expenses. When Wilson arrived at the apartment, he parked the car. At first, it took him some time to turn off the ignition and when he did, he sat silently watching other occupants of the building return for the evening. It was the first time that he didn’t want to enter the apartment. The arguments with Kate had been increasing and the last thing he wanted was to launch into another one. Eventually, he opened the car door and rode the lift to the penthouse. He slowly entered the key in the lock and quietly entered the apartment.

  ‘How did the autopsy go?’ Helen McCann asked as soon as he entered the living room.

  Wilson was a little taken aback by the question. ‘Usual autopsy,’ he said moving to the bar. He poured himself a large Jameson. ‘Anything for you?’ he asked Helen.

  ‘Gin and tonic and heavy on the gin.’

  He poured the drink as requested and handed it to Helen. ‘Sláinte,’ he said touching his glass to hers.

  ‘I don’t hold with Gaelic,’ she said not drinking. She touched her glass to his. ‘Ulster,’ she said.

  Wilson didn’t care much for what people said when they toasted, so he answered with the same.

  They both drank, and Wilson moved to the picture window. Helen followed and stood beside him.

  ‘You were telling me about the autopsy,’ she said.

  ‘Was I?’ Wilson thought back to the conversation when he entered. It hadn’t registered with him that he had been talking about Grant’s autopsy.

  ‘Yes, I read about the poor young man in the paper. It was some sort of sexual thing.’

  ‘Erotic asphyxiation,’ Wilson said.

  ‘Which is?’ she asked.

  Wilson made an attempt to explain Grant’s preferred method of sexual arousal to his partner’s mother. The sanitised version didn’t pass muster.

  ‘I see,’ she said when he’d finished. ‘So, he was some kind of sexual deviant.’

  ‘I suppose it depends on your definition of sexual deviancy.
What was considered deviant yesterday is common practice today.’

  ‘So why the urgency for the autopsy?’ she asked.

  So why all the questions? Wilson thought. Then he remembered the flood of questions from the cadets. It appeared that both the young and the old have the time to think up a surfeit of questions. ‘There are some discrepancies in the autopsy.’

  ‘What kind of discrepancies?’ she asked.

  Wilson was tiring of this conversation. At that moment, there was a noise from the hallway and they both turned to see Kate enter the open plan living room. ‘Kate, darling,’ Wilson moved towards her but she evaded his embrace.

  ‘Into the whiskey already,’ she said dumping her expensive leather briefcase beside her desk.

  It was going to be one of those evenings, he thought.

  ‘Kate,’ Helen moved to her daughter and hugged her. ‘You’re looking so tired. Have you eaten today?’

  Wilson could see the tears welled up in Kate’s eyes as she withdrew herself from her mother’s arms.

  ‘It’s been a bit hectic,’ she said as she slipped away from her mother’s arms and flopped onto the settee.

  ‘I’ll get started on dinner,’ Wilson said. ‘I’ve no idea what’s in the fridge so it’ll have to be pot luck.’

  ‘Count me out,’ Kate said.

  He looked at her and saw that she was on the verge of tears, again. He was now walking on eggshells. The smallest remark would be enough to set her off. ‘What about you, Helen?’ he asked.

  ‘I had an absolutely huge lunch,’ she replied. ‘Anyway, I have to meet some friends for drinks. I’ll phone for a taxi from my room.’ She slipped quietly away.

  For once Wilson wished she had stayed.

  ‘What are you working on?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ Kate replied bundling and removing papers from her case before dumping them on her desk. ‘The Prosecution is trying to move up the date of McIver’s trial. I’m trying to delay it a bit so I can concentrate on the Cummerford defence. Oh Christ but I’m so tired.’