by Derek Fee
Simon Healy stood as Moira entered the office. He was an exceptionally tall man standing at least six feet four. Like Wilson, he towered over her. But unlike Wilson, he was a bag of bones. Knees and elbows stuck out of his dark blue pin-striped suit. His face had the pallor associated with office work, and his attempt at a smile barely opened his small mouth. ‘Detective Sergeant McElvaney.’ He affected a confused look. ‘Please come in. I’m sorry, but I can only give you ten minutes. I’m extremely busy today.’
Moira shook the hand extended towards her. ‘I’ll try to be as quick as possible.’ She sat in the chair Healy indicated to with his hand.
‘I’m slightly confused by your visit,’ he began. ‘We’re all extremely shocked by Brian’s demise, but we had been led to believe that it was a sudden death occasioned by some genetic problem.’
‘My visit is completely routine,’ Moira began. ‘The pathologist hasn’t yet come to a conclusion on the cause of death, and we are simply making enquiries that may help her to finalise her report for the coroner.’
‘And how can I help? I have no knowledge of poor Brian’s health.’
‘So he had a good attendance record?’
‘The best, a cold or a flu maybe but nothing out of the ordinary.’
‘And what exactly did he do here?’
‘And that would be relevant because?’ Healy asked.
‘It might indicate a high level of stress with implications for the condition of his heart. I wasn’t aware that your work here was of a confidential nature.’
Healy thought for a moment. ‘I can’t image that his work would have overstressed him.’
Moira smiled reassuringly. ‘While I’m willing to accept your assurances, the pathologist must make up her own mind. And I promise you that your opinion will be relayed to her, but I must also present all the facts. I’ll be speaking with his football friends later.’
Healy rubbed his pointed chin. ‘Brian was involved in working through tenders for infrastructure projects. It’s rather mundane work, which involves checking the prices submitted by various contractors, in order that the selection of the contractors can be as transparent as possible.’
‘He was very conscientious?’ Moira asked.
‘Extremely. He went through every tender with a fine toothcomb.’
‘I suppose a lot of money was involved.’
Healy’s face took on a smug look. ‘More than one billion pounds in some years.’
‘I could well imagine that managing that amount of money might be stressful for certain individuals.’
‘Brian was a drone. He had no direct responsibility for either selecting the contractors or the conclusion of contracts. So in effect he had no responsibility for money.’
Moira was writing in her notebook. ‘You’ve been very helpful, Dr Healy.’
Healy stood. ‘We haven’t heard any news of Brian’s funeral. I assume his parents will let us know.’
‘The body hasn’t been released yet. I’m sure his parents will be in touch.’ She put her notebook in her pocket, shook hands with the man and left the office.
Healy watched her as she walked down the corridor. He thought she was very attractive, and the red hair was spectacular. He’d never heard of the police following up on a natural death, though. As soon as Moira was out of sight, he called his secretary. ‘Bring me the files Malone was working on,’ he said curtly. Maybe there was more to Malone’s death than bad genes.
CHAPTER 38
It was Jackie Carlisle’s habit to have a mid-morning snooze. His medication was of the heavy variety. During his days as an active politician, he had slept little, but he now found himself dropping off in mid-morning and early afternoon. The naps were unintentional. He had so little of life left that he resented the period when he was not actively involved in it. His discussion with Jennings had left him despondent. He was in no doubt that Jennings would concentrate all his efforts on ensuring that Roy Jennings survived. Whereas he had employed whatever brainpower he had left to come up with a series of scenarios aimed at extricating them from their predicament. None of them left him feeling confident. He spent a little time sitting in his garden. His wife brought a blanket and wrapped him up against the cold. He was reminded of Don Corleone’s death scene in The Godfather. Perhaps he would go the same way, asleep in his favourite chair in his garden.
When he awoke from his nap, he was immediately aware that someone was sitting with him. His eyes gradually focussed and he saw that Helen McCann had joined him in the garden. He smiled when he saw her.
‘Welcome back,’ she said returning his smile.
‘It’s a kind of victory every time I wake up these days,’ he said. ‘It comes with the realisation that some day I won’t.’
She flattened her skirt. ‘If it’s any consolation, it’s the same for all of us.’
‘I expected someone, but I didn’t know it would be you.’ He felt a sudden chill and pulled the blanket around him. He could see the edges of a copy of the Chronicle on the seat beneath her.
‘The day is so beautiful I wanted to come back and enjoy the garden with you.’ She picked up a cup that sat on the wicker table between them and sipped.
He knew it was a lie, but he played along. ‘Having you here reminds me of the good old days.’
‘In retrospect they weren’t so good, but we did what we had to do to preserve this Province.’
And your wealth, he thought but didn’t say.
‘I love this house,’ she said.
He laughed. ‘You can’t have it. Anyway, I can’t see you ever living in Ulster again.’
‘On days like this I could. But how many days like this are there?’
‘Too few,’ he said reflecting on the twenty six thousand days he had already spent on the planet. He had multiplied it out one day. Twenty six thousand, it didn’t seem a lot when you said it like that.
‘Your boy is out of control,’ Helen said quietly.
‘It hasn’t been concluded that it was him.’ Again the shiver. ‘We shouldn’t rush a judgement.’
‘We agree. But we should have a contingency plan.’
‘You have something in mind?’ he asked.
‘A Belfast solution to a Belfast problem,’ she said. ‘There’s a well-tried option for getting rid of complications.’
Carlisle smiled. People like Helen McCann might use violent men to accomplish their aims, but they could never stoop to talk about murder without using circular language. ‘Do we really need to go there?’
‘Don’t be obtuse, Jackie. The era of the Mad Dogs is over. There’s a big picture here and your boy is crapping all over it.’
Carlisle was taken aback by the change of language.
She continued. ‘You brought him into our business, and now you have the solution in your hands. Maybe it’s about time for another turf war with one major casualty.’
Carlisle pointed at the paper. ‘That’s only speculation. That boy could have pitched himself out of that window.’
‘It has transpired that the murders of Malone and Grant were a screw-up.’ She picked the paper from beneath her bottom and checked the lead story. ‘This O’Reilly chap was an accountant. It’s not a big step for the police to find out that he knew Grant. You and I have already made that step. Wilson will start to connect the dots unless we provide him with an event which leaves him at a dead end.’ She looked at the old man wrapped in the blanket. He looked like one of those shrivelled bodies that are pulled out from a bog somewhere, a hollow skin where the inside has disintegrated. He’s no longer up to the job, she thought. She was wasting her time.
Carlisle could see her watching him and sensed what she was thinking. Together they had been a part of Ulster’s history for more than forty years, but he could see from her flinty gaze that she would sign his death warrant without compunction. ‘If it’s established that he killed that boy, I’ll make the arrangements,’ he said.
Helen McCann finished her coffee a
nd stood up. ‘I love your garden,’ she said looking around at the shrubs and trees that were beginning to bloom. She longed for her villa in Antibes, the bougainvillea running along the outer walls, the purple flowering of the jacaranda trees, and the heat of the spring and early summer. It was so far from the grimy streets of Belfast, so far away from murder and death.
CHAPTER 39
Like so many times before, Wilson knew that the case was at a crossroads. Solving a crime depended on momentum. Statistics showed that there were ninety unsolved murders in the whole of England since nineteen seventy. In the same period, there were more than three thousand two hundred and sixty nine unsolved murders in Ulster. There was a population of fifty three million people in England, and one and a half million in Ulster. You didn’t have to be a mathematical genius to analyse the data. The chances of getting away with murder in Ulster were considerably higher than they were in England. It could be that the officers of the PSNI were dumber than their mainland counterparts, because it certainly wasn’t because Ulster’s criminals were smarter. The statistic constantly played on Wilson’s mind. It was all about momentum, momentum, momentum. Each day had to produce some piece of the puzzle that moved the case forward. If that forward momentum was lost, the team soon floundered, and the case was heading towards the unsolved archive. He was afraid that was the direction in which the Grant and Malone cases were headed. He’d read and reread the forensic report on Grant looking for any shred of evidence. There was nothing. There was no evidence of murder except for Reid’s assertion. What if Reid had got it wrong? He was spending all his resources trying to solve three as yet unrelated deaths. Maybe Reid was pissed that she hadn’t been able to find the cause of Malone’s death. A lethal injection of potassium chlorite lacked proof. Young men dropped dead every day of the week. They needed evidence not conjecture. The only point that nagged at him was the efforts of Jennings and Reid’s boss to have the investigation shelved. What possible motivation could these two disparate men have to quash a police investigation? He drew three circles on his notepad and wrote the name of a dead man in each circle. He then drew lines between the three circles with arrows going back and forward to each. If the same murderer killed all three, there had to be a connection. So far, his team had found nothing. Grant was a minor politician with aspirations, Malone a worker bee in a government institution and O’Reilly an accountant with a prestigious firm. He continued to doodle on the page running his pen again and again over the lines connecting the three circles. He hated hypothesising. His methodological approach required evidence not intuition. He looked at the last note Moira had sent him regarding her Malone investigation. Brian Malone’s parents were collecting his body at the morgue at midday. He looked at his watch. He had half an hour to get to the Royal Victoria. He’d call Reid on the way.
Wilson parked in his usual spot in front of the two-storey red-bricked building. An undertaker’s car was parked at the side entrance. He made his way to Reid’s office, and found the pathologist in conversation with a man and woman dressed in funereal black. Dark lines streaked the woman’s normally pale face. It was evident to Wilson that she hadn’t slept in days. The man’s head was continuously bent forward as though some weight were pulling it down. Wilson entered the office. ‘Professor Reid,’ he said as he entered.
‘Ah, Detective Superintendent,’ Reid played her part, ‘I’ll be with you shortly.’ She hesitated for a second. ‘Please excuse my bad manners. Mr and Mrs Malone, may I introduce you to Detective Superintendent Wilson. Mr and Mrs Malone are here to collect the body of their son.’
Wilson came forward and extended his hand. ‘I’m sorry for your trouble,’ he said as he shook both hands.
‘I’ve got some papers to prepare, if you’ll excuse me for a few moments.’ She slipped quietly out of the office.
‘Professor Reid told me about your son,’ Wilson said as soon as she left the room. ‘It was very sudden I understand.’
Mrs Malone removed a handkerchief from her pocket and started to cry.
‘Our lad was twenty-eight years old,’ Mr Malone spoke with a pronounced Tyrone accent. ‘The boy was the picture of health, a sportsman too. We’re trying to find out from the Professor what killed him, but it appears to be unclear.’
This type of interrogation was difficult for Wilson. ‘The funeral will be in Tyrone I suppose?’ he asked.
‘Day after tomorrow,’ Mr Malone said suppressing a sob.
‘This is a terrible time for you, I know. Young people are so stressed these days. Perhaps your son was worried about something,’ Wilson said.
‘On the phone every second day he was.’ Malone’s mother sobbed. ‘Only interested in that damn job and his sports, didn’t have a care in the world.’
Mr Malone shook his head. ‘He never bothered us with his problems.’
‘I suppose you’re heading directly for Tyrone?’ Wilson asked.
They both nodded.
‘Do you need any help here in Belfast?’ Wilson asked.
The Malones looked confused.
‘Maybe you need someone to pack up your son’s stuff?’
‘We couldn’t ask,’ Mrs Malone half-stammered.
‘I have some contacts,’ Wilson said. ‘It’s the least I could do. I could have your son’s effects sent on to you.’
The Malones looked at each other. ‘We really couldn’t ask,’ Mr Malone said.
‘You didn’t ask. I offered.’
Mr Malone fished a set of keys from his pocket. ‘We’ll pay any costs,’ he said handing the keys to Wilson.
‘I’ll get the address from Professor Reid, and I’ll make the arrangements. I’m sure you’ve got enough on your plate.’
Reid re-entered the office. She handed an envelope to Mr Malone. ‘Brian is ready. The undertaker has already removed him to the car.’
Mr Malone took the envelope from Reid. ‘Thank you for everything.’ He turned to Wilson. ‘And thank you, Superintendent, you’ve been very kind.’ He took his wife’s arm and led her from the office.
‘How’d it go?’ Reid asked when they had left.
Wilson tossed the set of keys in his hand.
‘How do you feel?’ she asked.
‘Shit.’
Brian Malone’s apartment was situated in a two storey with attic red-bricked house in Fitzroy Avenue. Wilson found the key to the main door and pushed it in. Malone’s one bedroomed apartment was on the left of the hallway and included the bay window looking out onto the street. Wilson entered the small living room. This was the room where Brian Malone’s short life had ended. He felt no reverence. He had too often invaded the space occupied by people who had died violent deaths. He walked slowly around the room. It was the typical bachelor pad. The 50-inch flat screen TV dominated the room. Across from the TV was an L-shaped fabric couch, a small wooden coffee table stood in the space between the TV and the couch. A couple of posters adorned the otherwise bare walls. If the posters meant anything, Malone supported Liverpool Football Club and liked the music of the Arctic Monkeys. Wilson withdrew a pair of surgical gloves from his pocket and put them on. A small bookcase was in the corner of the room across from the entrance. Wilson rummaged among the books on the bookcase. They were a varied lot, basically divided between best-selling thrillers and accountancy manuals. A small photo of Malone’s parents looked out from the top shelf of the bookcase. Beside the photo was a British Telecom router. Wilson passed through the living room into a narrow galley kitchen. He opened the fridge and saw the usual staples. He opened the four kitchen cabinets but found nothing aside from crockery and cutlery. He moved on to the small bedroom containing a queen-sized bed, a wardrobe and a chest of drawers. He made a quick search but found nothing of interest. The bathroom, likewise, produced nothing. He made his way back to the living room. While he was not up to the standard of the forensic team, Wilson felt that if there had been anything out of place, he would have noticed it. He was wondering what the hell Brian Malone had done
to get himself killed when his eyes fell on the router. If there’s a router, there’s usually a computer. Wilson found no Internet device. Maybe he missed it. He started to search again, looking for a laptop or a tablet, anything that might have used the Internet. Fifteen minutes later, he concluded that there was no computer, or Internet device, present in the apartment. The search was another dead end in an investigation of dead ends. He felt shit for the way he had duped the Malones out of their keys for nothing. In compensation, he would organise to have Malone’s scant personal effects packed up and sent to his parents. It was the least he could do.
CHAPTER 40
Sammy Rice spent the morning dealing with business. Big George had driven him to the Brown Bear where he had an office above the bar. Rice ran a diversified business. If all his interests had been in the official economy, he would have been a conglomerate. Aside from his legitimate businesses of taxis, building construction and pubs, he had interests in drugs, protection, prostitution and people trafficking. The legal side of his businesses were necessary to launder the proceeds from the illegal side. Sammy Rice was rich beyond his wildest dreams, but still lived, for the most part, among the people who had made him rich, the Loyalists of West Belfast. Rice hadn’t bothered to read the Belfast Chronicle. As far as he was concerned, O’Reilly had joined Grant and Malone in the morgue, and all three were no longer a threat to his business. He was more than pissed off with Jackie Carlisle and the toffee-nosed fuckers he represented. He’d been paying tribute to Jackie and his friends for more than twenty years. Theirs was a symbiotic relationship. He had the muscle and the money-making machine. They had the connections with the bankers, politicians and judges. His business was turning over millions and without them he would have had a hard job hiding it all. But he was beginning to be a force himself. Soon, he wouldn’t need them and their so-called financial acumen. He had money stashed all over the place, some of it in banks and some invested in legitimate business. So Jackie and his friends were outliving their usefulness. By midday, he had already snorted £300 worth of coke and drank half a bottle of Remy Martin. He was feeling like a Lord of the Universe.