Yield Up the Dead

by Derek Fee

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Detective Constables Harry Graham and Peter Davidson were already at their desks when Wilson entered the squad room. He had contacted both of his former colleagues the previous week to bring them up to date on his new responsibilities. He also contacted Eric Taylor to invite him back into the squad but Taylor declined.

  ‘When will the new recruits arrive?’ Graham asked.

  Wilson looked through the glass panel of his office and saw that the Chief Constable was as good as his word. There was a stack of files sitting on his desk. ‘As soon as possible,’ Wilson looked at his watch. ‘You have twenty-two minutes to bring me up to date on Baxter, Weir and most of all Sammy Rice.’ All three had international arrest warrants out against them for the murders of Grant, Malone and O’Reilly. A whiteboard in the corner of the squad room had photos of Baxter, Weir and Rice at the top. Beneath each photo was everything that was known about their whereabouts. Wilson noticed that there was very little change to the board since he’d left. The lack of momentum was the death knell of any investigation. After listening to Harry and Peter, it was clear that no progress had been made. It was self-evident that people cannot just disappear. Baxter and Weir would eventually resurface when they thought the hue and cry had died down. Sammy Rice was a different matter. Sammy had businesses to run and mouths to feed. If those businesses were neglected, cash flow would cease and the gang would disintegrate. According to Harry and Peter, Rice’s main competitor, Gerry McGreary, was already encroaching on Rice’s territory. Old Willie Rice, Sammy’s father, had pulled himself out of the bottle and was trying to hold things together until his son reappeared. Wilson wasn’t happy. The investigation had stalled so he needed to create some new momentum. He would need his additional recruits immediately. ‘Sammy’s car?’ he asked.

  ‘Stopped by the uniforms two days after Sammy disappeared,’ Graham said. ‘Being driven by two gobshites who claimed they found it abandoned in East Belfast.’

  ‘Where exactly did they find it?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘Over by Queen’s Road,’ Graham answered.

  ‘What the hell was it doing over there? Does Sammy own any property in the area?’

  Graham shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Well, find out! You don’t leave a BMW 7 series in the street over by Queen’s Road if you don’t have business in the area.’

  Wilson’s phone started ringing. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was just after nine o’clock. Shite, it was the first day of school and he was late for a meeting with the headmaster.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Jock McDevitt was sitting by the window in Clement’s Café on Donegall Square. The crime business was slacker than usual, and McDevitt hadn’t had a front-page story since Maggie Cummerford was sentenced. Maggie was the gift that was continuing to give. McDevitt had lodged an advanced payment of £10,000 in his account from a publisher who commissioned him to write a book about her case and trial. He contemplated making news out of Wilson’s investigation into a thirty-eight-year-old murder, but his editor had laughed him out of the room. There was no traction in identifying who killed a couple of kids a generation ago. He took a bite of his fruit scone and washed it down with a mouthful of coffee. That asshole Richie Simpson was late. He must have been out of his mind agreeing to meet yesterday’s man. Even in his heyday, Simpson wasn’t capable of producing enough copy for a page five story. He’d probably been led astray by the excitement in Simpson’s voice. He looked out through the window at the activity on Donegall Square. The girls were out in their summer dresses and you could forgive people for thinking that Belfast was like any other sun-kissed city in Ireland. You had to dig below the surface to find the bitterness that still drove the sectarian divide. Triumphalism made sure that the sectarian pot was kept boiling. McDevitt turned back to the inside of the café as Simpson dropped into the chair facing him. He’d heard that Simpson was on a downward spiral since Carlisle had retired and the UDU had imploded in his wake but nothing prepared him for the state of the man in front of him. Simpson looked like a derelict. He cursed himself for accepting the meeting. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Aye, and a couple of them scones,’ Simpson said. ‘I didn’t have time for breakfast this morning.’

  McDevitt waved at the waitress and when she arrived gave her Simpson’s order and asked for a refill of his coffee. ‘So, how have things been, Richie?’

  Simpson kept his gaze on the waitress’s ample derriere as she walked away. ‘Not so busy, Mr McDevitt. I’m on the lookout for a job but things are a bit slack right now.’

  I’ll bet, McDevitt thought looking at the state of Simpson. He looked like he hadn’t washed for a month and that during that period he’d slept in his clothes. He’d seen tramps that looked more employable. ‘Yeah, the modern economy is a bitch. What can I do for you?’

  Simpson looked around furtively. He saw the waitress approaching with their order and he stayed silent.

  McDevitt smiled as the waitress placed their order on the table. Simpson was making a credible attempt at piquing his interest. As soon as the plate of scones was placed on the table, Simpson fell on it like a hungry locust. The food had superseded the purpose of the meeting. Hunger banished all other thoughts.

  ‘I can do something for you.’ Simpson was spewing crumbs of scone over the table as he spoke. ‘I have information that could be very useful to you.’

  ‘What kind of information?’

  ‘Ever hear of Alan Evans?’ Simpson had spent the previous evening at Belfast Central Library in Royal Avenue reading everything they had on Evans.

  McDevitt ran the name through his memory banks. ‘Some kind of commie politician from the 1980s. He was a bit of a minor shooting star. Right in the middle of making a name for himself he disappeared.’

  Simpson slurped some coffee into his mouth. ‘He propagated the idea that the “Troubles” weren’t a sectarian conflict but part of the class war. Some people thought he went a bit far when he called for Russian soldiers to replace the British Army as a peacekeeping force. The guy was a dingbat. How would you like to know where he disappeared to?’

  McDevitt sipped his coffee while Simpson attacked his second scone. How far had Simpson fallen? At least he wasn’t offering to divulge the resting place of Jean McConville. Alan Evans had been a nobody who was trying to whip up the working class to attack their betters and not each other. In retrospect maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. He wondered how much interest there would be if Simpson could actually provide the goods. It might just be enough to get him back on the front page. And there might even be a follow up book to his Cummerford tome. ‘Tell me more.’

  ‘I’d love to, Mr McDevitt but we’ll have to discuss money first.’ More crumbs of scone flew across the table.

  ‘What did you have in mind?’

  ‘£10,000.’

  ‘You’re havin’ a laugh, Richie. You obviously haven’t met my editor. He makes Scrooge look like Bill Gates. I think that he actually stitches his pockets. What sort of information are we talking about here?’

  Simpson finished his coffee and called the waitress. He ordered a refill and two more scones. ‘Say I could give you the exact location where Evans is buried.’

  ‘I don’t think it was ever proved that he was murdered.’

  ‘I have a map showing where he was buried.’ Simpson stopped while the waitress deposited his coffee and scones. ‘I mean the exact location,’ he added as soon as she left.

  ‘Yeah, and I have the original map to Flint’s treasure.’

  Simpson stopped attacking his scones. ‘I’m not jokin’ Mr McDevitt.’

  McDevitt noticed that Simpson was ignoring the scones. He must really be serious. ‘And the provenance of this map?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where did you get the map?’

  ‘After we settle on the money.’ He started on the first scone.

  ‘I could probably get you £200.’

  ‘You’re jokin
’. I’m not givin’ it for less than £5,000.’ Simpson spewed out more crumbs.

  ‘Get real, Richie. You’ve got three big problems. First, you’ll have to convince someone the map is genuine. Second, you have to find someone who gives a shit about digging Evans up and third, you go to the police with this and they’ll give you their thanks and that’s all. Maybe I can get you £500 but that would be pushing it.’

  Simpson stopped eating and thought for a few moments. The mangy bastard was right. ‘A grand, I’m not going lower than a grand.’ He didn’t think he was going to get ten grand but five had been his bottom price. Fuck Jackie Carlisle, he was continuing to screw him from the grave.

  McDevitt was about to offer £750 but he was getting bored with the negotiation. ‘OK, a grand it is.’

  Simpson put out his hand.

  ‘Stop kiddin’, Richie. I don’t carry a grand around in my back pocket. But everyone in Belfast knows that I’m a man of my word, and if I say I’ll pay a grand, you can take it to the bank. Now where did you get the fucking map?’

  Simpson explained about finding the stray boxes from the UDU office and how the map had, more or less, literally fallen into his hands.

  McDevitt’s mind was working overtime. He was trying to make the connection between Carlisle and Evans. He concluded that there wasn’t any. Why then would Carlisle be in possession of a map showing the burial place of someone who had been ‘disappeared’? The common perception was that the IRA was the organisation responsible for the majority, if not all, the people who had “disappeared” in Northern Ireland. Something here didn’t gel. ‘I want to see the notebooks,’ McDevitt said.

  ‘Not part of the deal.’ Simpson hadn’t had time to examine all the notebooks. He had no idea what nuggets might be contained in those he hadn’t yet read.

  ‘Five hundred extra if you deliver me all of the notebooks.’

  ‘Two grand.’

  McDevitt thought of the advance for the Cummerford book sitting in the bank. ‘One grand extra.’ He had no doubt that his editor wouldn’t stump up more than a grand total so the investment in the notebooks would be his.

  Simpson didn’t reply immediately. The notebooks he had examined already were full of crap. It was a better than even bet that the rest would be the same. ‘OK, two grand for the map and the notebooks.’

  McDevitt signalled to the waitress and made the sign for the bill. ‘We’re off to the bank, Richie boy. Then we’re off to whatever hovel you’re inhabiting these days. I want those notebooks and the map asap.’ He pulled out his mobile phone and called his assistant at the Chronicle. ‘I want everything we have on Alan Evans, minor politician from the 1980s, on my desk in one hour. Hop to it.’ He closed the phone and dropped a £20 note onto the metal plate containing the bill. ‘OK, Richie, let’s go and see what I’ve just bought for myself.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Wilson was rethinking his decision to continue with the PSNI. The meeting with Davis and the other senior officers had left him wanting to eat his own head. Those participants who were not trying to climb up the new boss’s behind were busy trying to show how bloody clever they were. Spence would never have put up with that level of fawning and self-aggrandisement. But Spence was gone. His fellow senior officers didn’t seem to realise that they were employed to fight crime. They had subjugated that responsibility in their desire to climb the greasy pole of career. He hadn’t said a word, praying that others might follow his lead and the meeting would be cut short. He was sadly mistaken. If this was the future, Wilson wanted no part of it. Then again, what part of ‘adapting to change’ hadn’t he understood? He’d had bosses before Spence, and he had survived them. As soon as he returned to his office, he started on the personnel files. He was surprised to find a note on top from the new Chief Constable making ‘suggestions’ as to who might be suitable. There was no direct instruction. It was subtler than that. Nothing ever changes. He could select whomever he wanted but the boss had already reviewed the candidates and had a view. There were ten files in all, five for a new sergeant and five for a new detective constable. The Chief Constable’s note had suggested strongly that diversity should be employed; one Catholic, one Protestant, one man, one woman. So be it. Wilson had reviewed the sergeants first and was forced to agree that the CC’s proposal was the best. He had set that file aside. He now had his man and his Protestant. Now, he needed to find the perfect woman who was also a Catholic. There was only one woman among the candidates for detective constable and surprise, surprise, she was the candidate suggested by the CC. So, Wilson could have any candidate he wanted as long as it was the two suggested by the CC. That wasn’t exactly true, but it was the way it had turned out. Wilson sent an email to each of them requesting their attendance that afternoon for interview one hour apart. He had just put the eight files of the unsuccessful candidates away when his phone rang.

  ‘You have a visitor,’ the desk sergeant informed him.

  ‘For God’s sake I’m only in the place five minutes and I have a visitor.’

  ‘It’s Willie Rice.’

  ‘Put him in an interview room. Maybe he’s come to confess to some crime. He’s guilty of enough of them.’

  Wilson went into the squad room. ‘Harry, with me, we’re having a visit from Willie Rice.’

  ‘The Willie Rice,’ Harry said.

  ‘Is there another one?’

  ‘Room one,’ the desk sergeant said when Wilson and Graham entered the reception area. ‘Tea and biscuits?’

  Wilson gave him a look that would wilt flowers. The two murder squad detectives went down the corridor to the interview rooms. Wilson noticed on the door to the interview room that the top screw holding the number ‘1’ had fallen out leaving the number hanging upside down. He made a mental note to bring this up at next week’s senior officers’ meeting.

  Willie Rice was sitting at the table set against the side of the room. He didn’t stand when Wilson and Graham entered. Neither policeman spoke as they took the seats directly facing their visitor.

  ‘Morning, Willie,’ Wilson said as soon as he was seated. Willie had cleaned up his act since the last time Wilson had met him. For a start, the room didn’t stink of alcohol and stale farts. Willie’s face, however, still bore the ravages of his addiction to the Devil’s buttermilk. His nose was bulbous and purple, and his cheeks were lined with broken veins. Even in his cleaned-up version Willie looked like an overweight extra in an episode of The Sopranos. ‘What can we do for you?’ Wilson asked. ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that you’re ready to cop to something?’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Rice said. ‘What are you doing to find my son?’

  Wilson looked at Graham. ‘What are we doing to find Sammy Rice?’

  Graham shrugged. ‘You mean Sammy Rice, the fugitive from justice? The Sammy Rice we have the international arrest warrant out for.’

  ‘I think that’s the one that Willie means,’ Wilson said smiling.

  ‘I don’t think he wants to be found,’ Graham said.

  ‘Very fucking funny.’ Rice leaned forward. ‘You two should go on stage together. Sammy’s been missing for nearly two months. He’s never gone this long without contacting me. I’ve even filed a missing person’s report. What the fuck are you people doin’ about it? Bloody useless Peelers.’

  It was as good an example of parental care as Wilson had seen. At least from someone with Willie Rice’s pedigree. ‘We’re more than anxious to find Sammy. In fact, he could be the key to providing us with information that could clear up three murders. Maybe you could point us in the direction where we should concentrate our efforts.’

  Rice slammed his fist on the table. His cheeks became more florid. ‘Something’s happened to my son. I can feel it in my bones. Sammy went off the rails a wee bit over the last year. That bitch he’s married to screwed his head up. She’s coke mad. But he takes care of his old man now that his mother’s dead. He wouldn’t leave me like this without a word. And he wouldn’t le
ave the business.’

  ‘What have you heard?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘Nothing, that the problem.’ Rice sat back. ‘If a flea farts on the Shankill, I’m the first to know about it. There isn’t a word about Sammy out there. It’s like he’s vanished. Someone knows what happened to him but everyone’s keeping a tight arsehole.’

  ‘I thought that you people liked to advertise a kill,’ Wilson said. ‘In gang wars up to now killers have been rushing to claim their handiwork.’

  ‘We found his car,’ Graham said. ‘Two idiots picked it up over near Queen’s Road. They claim it was abandoned over there. They watched it for a few days before nicking it. They claim they know nothing about Sammy’s whereabouts. They’re just a couple of car thieves and their records bear that out. We have the car with the technical people but they haven’t found anything useful in it. What would Sammy be doing over by Queen’s Road?’

  ‘He has some property over there,’ Rice said.

  ‘We’re going through the property register,’ Graham said. ‘So far we haven’t found any property in East Belfast.’

  ‘It won’t be in his name,’ Rice said. ‘It’s probably in some company’s name. I’ll get his accountant to dig it out. ‘

  ‘What do you think has happened to him?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘I’m scared he might be dead.’ Tears welled up in his eyes but didn’t flow.

  For a moment Wilson was sorry for Rice. The man was a thug and had been involved in violence for most of his adult life. But he was also a father and in that moment the father dwarfed the thug. But it would be stupid to forget that the essence of the person was the thug. ‘And?’

  The tears vanished from Rice’s eyes. ‘McGreary’s behind it somewhere. I’m not saying that he pulled the trigger himself but he’s behind whatever happened to Sammy.’

  ‘And if that’s the case, where’s Sammy?’