Nothing but Memories (DCI Wilson Book 1)

by Derek Fee

  As soon as the two detectives had closed the door, Robert Nichol stood up and walked slowly to the window. He pulled aside the curtain and watched them make their way towards their car.

  "Rotten bastards," Nichol said under his breath. "Dredging up that filthy little bollocks Jamison after all these years." The dirty little boy had deserved to die. He had cheated shamelessly on him flaunting his new role as a rent boy for all and sundry. He could just about remember the rage he had felt at the time. It had surged through his body and had turned him into a wild animal whose anger could only be satisfied by the letting of blood. Sweat began to break out on his forehead as he re-lived the moment he had ended Jamison’s life. He ran his hand through his steel grey hair. Billy had saved his bacon on the Jamison business but the price had been high. He'd been forced, very reluctantly, to step aside and leave Billy in sole control of the Ulster Democratic Front. The party he had helped found was like a baby to him and Billy had demanded that he hand over that baby because of one little transgression which was easily swept under the carpet. And he had reluctantly agreed. He thought that he would never hear the name Jamison again. He shuddered as he thought what might happen if the police opened up that particular can of worms. He didn’t think that there was a statute of limitation on murder. He could go to jail for the rest of his life but he would not be alone.

  He returned to his chair and flopped into it. Patterson and Peacock, how well he remembered those two boys. He had a mental picture of both Patterson and Peacock as fresh-faced ten year olds. Jesus had called both of them just as he had called Jamison. Except for them he had used an assassin as an intermediary. He had seen a report of Patterson’s death on the television and had read about it in the newspapers. The details had been skimpy but it appeared to be a normal sectarian killing. Then a day later Stanley Peacock had been murdered and he had felt a profound feeling of disquiet. He sighed for his former charges. They'd been such beautiful boys. What a pity that they had grown up. And yet he had denied them to Wilson. His feelings of self-preservation had told him that it would be very dangerous for him to admit that he knew them well as boys in Dungray. Surely the Lord was not going to let them punish him after all this time.

  "Detective Chief Inspector Wilson," he said quietly to himself. Where had he heard that name before? Although he had been forced out of Ulster's political life he still kept in touch with all his old friends. There was something about DCI Wilson that he should know but he was damned if he could remember what it was. He smiled to himself. There was no need to worry. Jamison was simply a putrid corpse who had momentarily surfaced to bother him. He could be just as easily buried again. There was no evidence linking him to the youth. Not a shred had been kept. He was completely safe. The Lord still had work for Robert Nichol to do. Wilson could yap about his feet like a dog but he could not hurt him. However, a few phone calls would not go amiss. Those who Nichol had served in the past would have to be reminded of their obligations to him. The evil policeman would have to be restrained before he did any lasting damage to God's servant.

  CHAPTER 27

  Wilson’s sense of apprehension, which had been rising since the first moment he had laid eyes on Patterson's corpse, had reached mountainous proportions. As the investigation evolved, the cocktail was becoming more explosive. Three men had been murdered in cold blood apparently by a professional. The only connection between two of those men led to a bizarre unsolved homosexual murder where the file had mysteriously gone missing. The latest piece of the jigsaw, Nichol and his shadowy paramilitary past, only added to Wilson’s mounting apprehension. Wilson was an old time policeman. He liked solving crimes and he liked putting the culprits behind bars where they belonged. During his twenty year career in the police force he had come to hate one word - political. Crimes that were ‘political’ were ten times harder to solve. ‘Political’ prisoners made a laugh of the penal system and ‘political’ murderers where released to walk the streets after serving only a fraction of their sentences. Evidence against ‘political’ criminals conveniently disappeared. Colleagues could not be trusted as shadowy individuals who operated with carte blanche from their political masters manipulated the investigation. He was beginning to get the feeling that the Patterson and Peacock murders could turn out to be ‘political’ and if that was the case he was in deep trouble. Jennings would jump gleefully on his inability to solve the crimes and attempt to force his retirement.

  As soon as they had returned to Tennent Street, directly after their interview with Nichol, Wilson had instructed the young constable to dig up everything the PSNI had on Nichol. The file on the Jamison murder might no longer exist but there should be sufficient material in the archives to get a fix on the ex-warden of Dungray. He had also put in a call to one of his contacts in the 'Belfast Telegraph' and a file on Nichol would soon be dispatched to Tennent Street. Something very rotten was going on and experience told him that the man who slipped the string on the sack would have to jump out of the way pretty damn quick if he was to avoid the shit.

  "DI Wilson," Jennings’ Secretary said formally as Wilson entered Jennings' outer office. "The DCC is waiting for you." She immediately pressed a button on her secretarial set. "DI Wilson is here," she announced.

  Wilson walked to the office door and opened it. He’d expected the call from the DCC’s office since he’d arrived back from interviewing Nichol.

  Jennings was seated in his elevated position behind his desk. Wilson's eyes were again drawn to the prominently positioned photograph of a smiling Jennings shaking hands with Billy Carlile, Mr. Politics of Ulster. Knowing the `great man' wouldn't do Jennings any harm in his quest for the job of Chief Constable of the PSNI. Carlile was well known for supporting his own men.

  "What's this I hear about you broadening the Patterson and Peacock investigation?" Jennings said sharply looking up from the papers on his desk.

  "You're very well informed," Wilson said. He wondered who Jennings' informant was. "DC McElvaney found a link between the two men. It's a bit of a shot in the dark but both just happened to be residents in Dungray Home for Boys at the same time."

  Jennings shuffled uneasily in his chair.

  Jesus Christ, Wilson thought. Why the hell is everybody suddenly on edge? Whitehouse he understood. But the DCC was another matter. The shit was getting very close to the fan.

  "That's not all," Wilson said watching the DCC closely. "McElvaney's a bit of a computer buff. She’s also keen, hard-working and perseverant. I’m beginning to think that she’ll make a hell of a good detective. She found the connection by slaveing all night over a hot machine. During her investigation, two strange things happened. Firstly, she tried to access the file of Robert Nichol who was the director of the orphanage during the period both Patterson and Peacock stayed there. The file is restricted and none of our passwords will open it."

  Jennings nervously shuffled the papers before him on the desk.

  "You may remember Nichol because he was active in Loyalist politics in the early seventies then dropped out of sight,” Wilson continued. “Secondly, it appears that Nichol was questioned in a murder case. The body of another ex-resident of Dungray named Jamison was found dismembered and distributed throughout various parts of North Belfast. DC McElvaney tried to locate the file on this case in our archives but it seems to have gone for a walk. And nobody knows where it's gone to.”

  "I understand you've been to see Nichol," Jennings said.

  Wilson noticed that the DCC had dropped his affected English accent. The effort of keeping it up and keeping his nerve at the same time was obviously too much for him. That was bloody fast he thought to himself. Nichol must have been on the phone as soon as they had left his house. "Yes, I interviewed him," Wilson said.

  Jennings sat stiffly in his chair. His hands were pressed together in his praying mantis pose. "I have to say, Inspector, that I don't like the direction this investigation is taking," Jennings said slowly as though dwelling on every word. "Do yo
u have any concrete evidence linking Nichol with either the Patterson or Peacock killings?"

  "Not directly," Wilson replied. "But I suspect that he knows something about the two men which could help us in our enquiries."

  "That's not good enough," Jennings said.

  "No, what's not good enough is that this man's computer file is restricted which is impeding our investigations and that the file pertaining to a serious crime has apparently been purposely removed from our archives. That's what's not good enough."

  "This may be the last opportunity I have to tell you that you are currently talking with a superior officer," Jennings' normally pallid face was streaked with red. "Therefore you will treat me with respect and you certainly will not tell me what is and what is not good enough. Do you understand?"

  "Yes sir,"

  "Good," Jennings relaxed slightly. "The reason Nichol's security file is restricted is that he was involved in our intelligence gathering operations the details of which are still highly confidential and sensitive."

  "I'm sorry sir but I don't like the sound of this at all," Wilson said. "Are you telling me that Robert Nichol is effectively off limits?"

  "What I'm saying," Jennings leaned forward across his desk, "is that Robert Nichol was part of an intelligence operation which I cannot discuss with you. If you have concrete evidence linking him to the murder of either Patterson or Peacock, you may pursue the matter. If not, he's to be left alone. His security file stays locked. Understood?"

  "Perfectly," Wilson said trying to suppress his anger. "And the missing murder file on Jamison?"

  "I shall issue an instruction to archives to carry out the most thorough search and to report their findings to me. Have I made myself perfectly clear?"

  Wilson stood up. "Perfectly, Sir," he laid on the sarcasm.

  "Then you may leave."

  Wilson strode towards the door and pulled it open. He marched out banging the door behind him.

  The Secretary jumped at the sound and returned to her typing.

  What in God's name had he done? Wilson asked himself as he closed the door to the outer office. He'd already slipped the string to the sack and he was being advised to jump back before the shit began to fly. It remained to be seen whether he had sufficient brains to accept what might turn out to be good advice.

  DCC Jennings cracked his knuckles and ran through the possibilities in his mind. He perceived Ian Wilson as a definite threat to his ambition of one day reaching the highest level in the Force. Somehow he would have to get the bastard off this particular case. Wilson was the anomaly that the Force could well do without. If only the man would retire, he could promote Whitehouse and then he could sleep easily at night knowing that somebody was covering his back. Maybe Billy could help. Jennings looked at his watch - it was almost five o'clock. Billy would be in the offices of the Ulster Democratic Front. Jennings picked up his private phone and began to dial.

  CHAPTER 28

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "It'll never happen," Simpson said.

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

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

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

  "Yes, Roy," Carlile said affably.

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

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

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

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

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

  "We could take care of Nichol ourselves."

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

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

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

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

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