by Derek Fee
‘Just after the death of Mr Rice’s mother.’
‘When you went missing?’
‘Yes.’
Wilson withdrew a second photo from the file and presented it to Best. ‘I am showing Mr Best a photo of some bloodstains on the ground of Mr Rice’s warehouse. What can you tell me about these bloodstains?’
Best examined the photos. They should have cleaned up after killing Sammy. He should have known the pedantic Peelers would eventually find the warehouse. ‘Nothing.’
‘What would you say if I told you that the bloodstain on the right has been identified as yours?’
‘I had a nosebleed when I was there. I bled like a stuck pig.’
‘Was the bloodstain on the left present when you visited the warehouse?’
Best handed back the photo. ‘I’m not sure. I was too busy bleeding all over the place.’
‘What would you say if I told you that the bloodstain on the left belongs to Sammy Rice who is currently missing?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Is that a “no comment”?’ Browne asked.
‘No, I never saw that bloodstain before. As far as I’m concerned it could belong to anyone.’
‘So,’ Wilson said. ‘You haven’t visited the warehouse since you were invited by Mr Rice and where you had a substantial nose bleed.’
‘No, I haven’t visited the warehouse since I had the nose bleed.’
Wilson put the photos back into the file. ‘Thank you, Mr Best. And please accept my apology for detaining you for an extended period.’ He nodded at Browne who declared the interview terminated and turned off the tape. Wilson watched as Best stood and went to the door. ‘We may need to speak to you again soon,’ he said as Best put his hand on the handle.
Best turned and looked at him.
Wilson smiled. If looks could kill, he thought. He took the file from the table and he and Browne walked to the squad room. Harry Graham joined them at the whiteboard. ‘Best was involved in Sammy’s disappearance,’ Wilson said as they entered the room. ‘He might not have pulled the trigger but he was there. Sammy’s crew worked Best over in the warehouse. People like Best live on their reputations. He would never have forgiven Sammy. I don’t know how he got Sammy to that warehouse on his own. But he did. Harry, go through every frame of CCTV from the area of the warehouse for the day Sammy disappeared. Find me something that shows Davie Best or someone from McGreary’s gang in the vicinity.’
‘OK, boss.’ Graham started to move away.
‘And Harry, find Richie Simpson and bring him in. Apparently, he was in the Brown Bear last night talking about having killed someone. I don’t think in his wildest drunken dreams he could have killed Sammy. But I want to know whether it was drink-talk or if there was something behind it. Any news on Sammy’s or Willie Rice’s DNA?’
‘You’re not going to believe this, boss,’ Graham said. ‘We don’t have a DNA sample for either man. Strange that, eh!’
‘Very strange,’ said Wilson.
‘Rory, get Siobhan to put Davie Best’s mugshot on the whiteboard. He’s my number one suspect for Sammy Rice’s disappearance.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Richie Simpson was no longer in Belfast, and he felt the better because of it. That morning he woke and realised that he was belted into the passenger seat of an old Mercedes. There was an overpowering smell of stale urine and it took several minutes, and the examination of the wet patch on the groin of his jeans, to realise that he was the source of the smell. Although his head was pounding, he used what little willpower he had to think back on the past twenty-four hours. The events came to him in flashes and as they accelerated so did his sense of disquiet. He had broken with the habits of a lifetime. At the orphanage, he was taught to speak only when he had been spoken to. Listening was a virtue and as a good Protestant he should try to be as virtuous as possible. His two mentors, Jackie Carlisle and MI5, reinforced the message he received as a small boy. Jackie’s mantra was simple: you already knew what you thought, the object of the exercise was to find out what everybody else thought. MI5 was like a giant vacuum cleaner pulling in information from hundreds, maybe thousands of touts like him. In his case, if he didn’t have anything solid to report, his imagination was active enough to produce something credible. His memory of the Brown Bear was sketchy but one thing was certain. He had shot his mouth off. He felt his stomach heave when he realised what he might have said. In the pantheon of arseholes he would rank as one of the highest. His big fucking mouth had probably succeeded in getting him killed. He couldn’t be that stupid. It had been an attempt at death wish. He climbed out of the car and stood on the footpath. Someone had driven him home. Slowly, the memory of the driver formed a picture on his brain. It couldn’t have been, not Jock McDevitt. Davie Best wasn’t going to just kill him. That would have been far too easy. He was going to suffer before he went. He rushed home, had a shower, put on new clothes and collected his money. Then he packed a bag. He went to Belfast Central train station and looked at the board indicating departures. The train for Derry would leave in thirty minutes. He bought a ticket and went to the cafeteria. He bought two cups of black coffee and a full Irish breakfast. When he looked at the plate of food swimming in grease his stomach heaved again, but he tore into it with gusto. He needed to think and he wouldn’t be able to while his brain was still addled. People in Ulster held that the best cure for a hangover was a plate of fried sausages, black pudding and bacon. He hoped that they were right. The train from Belfast to Derry has only two sections that one could consider to be of interest. The first is as it passes through Antrim town and runs along the northeast corner of Lough Neagh. The second is where the train line reaches the northern coast at Portstewart and then hugs the coast on its way to Derry. However, scenery had little effect on Simpson. He spent the one and a half hour trip trying to devise a strategy that might keep him alive. When he arrived in Derry, he examined a map of the North West of Ireland. He needed a location where he could lie low. Maybe in a week or two his comments in the Brown Bear would be forgotten. He smiled. That genie was out of the bottle. He had been present in the warehouse when Sammy Rice had been murdered. He had pulled the trigger even though Best and Ray Wright forced him. His evidence would certainly put both men in jail. But he would go there too. At least he would be alive. His best chance of survival had been to keep his mouth shut and he had blown that. As he examined the map on the wall of the station, his eyes fell on the small seaside town of Bundoran in the south west of Donegal. He went to the Ulsterbus depot in Foyle Street and bought a ticket. As he sat in the bus waiting for it to pull out of the depot, he wondered whether Davie Best’s arm could reach into the Irish Republic. He was still suffering the effects of the hangover and slept fitfully during the two-hour trip traversing the county of Donegal. It was early evening when he finally came fully awake and saw that he was arriving at his destination. He took his bag and descended from the bus. He walked the short distance from the station to a street called Atlantic Way. The first building he came to was an imposing residence with a large sign offering bed and breakfast for the princely sum of thirty-five Euros. It looked ideal. Ten minutes later he dropped his bag on the floor of a small room on the second floor. He flopped down on the bed. He was four hours away from Belfast. It didn’t sound like a lot but it was enough to convince him that he was safe ... for the moment.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
As soon as Davie Best was released, he picked up two gang members, both of whom he had recruited, and went looking for Richie Simpson. His interview with Wilson had convinced him that the Peelers weren’t about to drop Sammy’s disappearance. McGreary and he had developed the plan to get rid of Sammy on the hoof and that had been the cardinal mistake. If he had learned one thing during his army career, it was that planning trumped action every time. McGreary’s desire to avoid an all-out war with the Rice faction meant that there had to be some ambiguity about Sammy’s disappearance. If the body didn’t
turn up, who could say that Sammy was dead? That would be Wilson’s problem. He had no idea where the body was and since Best and Wright were the only ones who knew, he would never find out. The weak link was Simpson. He could kick himself for not taking care of him right away. If the Peelers had found Simpson’s and Sammy’s bodies in the warehouse, hot guns in hand, maybe this shit-storm might have been avoided. Best spent half an hour on the phone putting the word out that a reward was available for the man who indicated the current whereabouts of Richie Simpson. The two men he sent to Simpson’s address had torn the place apart but there was no sign of their quarry, nor any indication as to where he might be. There was no point in freaking out. Simpson would surface somewhere and when he did Best would be waiting for him, and one loose end would be eliminated.
Gerry McGreary was still sitting at the table in the back corner of the Queen’s Tavern when Best entered. It was most unusual to find the head of the gang still holding court so late in the afternoon. McGreary was a morning person and by early afternoon he had already handled the day’s work and was relaxing at home.
‘Davie, boy.’ McGreary nodded at one of his men to make room for Best at the table. ‘Good to see you out so soon.’
‘No problem, Gerry.’ Best took the proffered seat and nodded at the barman for a drink.
McGreary smiled exposing a set of tobacco-stained teeth. ‘You were a long time. We were gettin’ worried.’
The barman put a pint of lager on the table in front of Best and he drank half the glass in one swallow. ‘They kept me sitting in an interview room for three bloody hours. That arsehole Wilson was off supervising digging up that guy who’s buried up in Antrim somewhere.’
Gerry McGreary hadn’t survived the “Troubles” and the ensuing chaos in which he had established one of the most effective criminal gangs in the province by trusting even his closest comrades. Too many men were languishing in jail on evidence provided by a “trusted” colleague. So, when Davie Best had spent most of the day being “interviewed”, McGreary’s well-attuned antennae had begun to twitch. ‘So when Wilson arrived what did you discuss?’
Best looked into McGreary’s eyes. They were slightly hooded and Best had been around his chief for long enough to recognise the look. He took a long breath. He decided that full disclosure was in order. ‘Wilson found the warehouse where we killed Sammy. There were two bloodstains on the ground close to each other. The smaller stain belonged to me from the time Sammy’s guys lifted me and beat the shit out of me. The bigger bloodstain belongs to Sammy.’ He put up his hand. ‘I know, I know. We should have cleaned up. But everything was done without a plan. It was eighty per cent execution and twenty per cent planning instead of the other way around.’
‘Wilson has marked you for eliminating Sammy?’ McGreary asked.
‘Maybe.’ Best knew there was danger in agreeing the possibility. They had been whittling away at the Rice empire but Willie still had enough firepower to make a decent fight of a turf war. If Best were to be arrested for Sammy’s murder, there would certainly be a reaction from old Willie. Best was beginning to find himself between a rock and a hard place. ‘They haven’t a shred of evidence. We have the gun. Only Ray and me know where the body is. They have a bloodstain on the floor of a warehouse indicating I was there. So what, they can’t prove that I was there when the second bloodstain was made. If we keep a tight arsehole, there’s nothing that Wilson can do.’
Gerry McGreary had been known as “Slim Ger” when he had played for Linfield. As soon as he stopped training, his body had blown up like a balloon. He shifted uneasily in his chair and ran his fingers through his mane of steel-grey hair. Best was right. Eliminating Sammy had been opportunistic rather than planned. That meant that all eventualities had not been covered. The Devil was always in the detail. The man that believed that he had committed the perfect crime was a deluded fool. He was aware that Best had ignored the biggest loose end. McGreary prided himself on the fact that he knew if a flea farted in Belfast. He had heard about Richie Simpson shooting off his mouth the previous evening. He didn’t give a shit about Davie Best and Ray Wright going down for Sammy’s murder. Davie was a good boy but good boys were a dime a dozen. However, he had been in the warehouse just before Sammy was dispatched. Conspiracy to murder was still on the statute books so he risked going down along with the other two idiots. ‘What about Simpson?’
Best now knew that McGreary had the same information he had about the drinking bout in the Brown Bear. He had carefully ignored Simpson in his analysis of their situation. Now it was time to come clean. ‘I’m on it. On the surface it looks like Simpson has done a flit. I sent a few men around to his place but there was no sign of the bastard. I’ve put the word out in Belfast and if he surfaces, I’ll be there. As soon as I find him, he’s dead.’
‘And if you don’t find him?’ McGreary asked.
‘I’ll find him.’
McGreary stood up. ‘I’m off home. I won’t sleep sound in my bed until Simpson is in the ground. And neither should you, Davie.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Wilson held a briefing at the whiteboard. Davie Best’s photo had been affixed to the board directly under a photo of Sammy Rice and a line drawn between the two. The annotation “prime suspect” had been added beside Best’s photo. Wilson had decided to concentrate the efforts of the team on finding Rice. There may, or may not, be a body buried in Ballynahone so there would only be an investigation when one was discovered. He was sure that they had a lead. There wasn’t any evidence yet but every solution to a crime begins with a hypothesis. Testing that hypothesis turns up evidence that either confirms or rejects the premise. The main problem at the moment was establishing the larger bloodstain as belonging to Sammy Rice. ‘Rory, would you brief the team on the interview with Best?’
Browne coughed to clear his throat. He proceeded to give a fairly clear exposition of the interview.
Wilson turned to Harry Graham. ‘Have you put in a request for the CCTV footage?’
‘Yes, boss. The disks should be here tomorrow.’
‘As soon as they arrive, I want you to go through them. If there’s a lot of footage, Siobhan will help.’
The new recruit nodded vigorously.
‘Where can Willie be found these days?’
‘During the day,’ Peter Davidson said. ‘He’s in the back bar of the Brown Bear. He’s moved into Sammy’s house in Ballygomartin Road. It’s a far cry from his own two-up two-down in Malvern Street. Sammy’s missus is barred from Belfast at the moment. She shacked up with some Dago golf professional in the Costa. Willie has a few old friends living down there that keep an eye on her.’
‘I need to talk to him,’ Wilson said. ‘And I don’t want to spend the evening searching Belfast for him.’
Davidson took out his mobile phone. ‘I’ll make a call.’ He walked to the other end of the squad room.
Wilson and the rest of the team watched Davidson talking animatedly on the phone.
‘Willie’s in Ballygomartin Road,’ Davidson said when he re-joined the group. ‘I have a number so we can call ahead.’
Wilson turned to Browne. ‘Rory, you’re getting to meet all the bad guys in one day. Call the number, Peter. Rory and I will be there in fifteen minutes.’
Willie Rice was too old to lead a gang of young men. But what could he do? In the absence of his son, someone had to take the reins. Also, he’d been obliged to give up the drink temporarily. That sat badly with him. His wife had been murdered, his son had disappeared probably for good and he had very little to live for. He would gladly have handed the crew over to the next generation. But he didn’t like any of them. They weren’t the same kind as Willie and his mates who had started the crew. The people Sammy brought in were a ruthless bunch of bastards. He stared over at the man sitting across from him. He was ostensibly his minder but Willie could see that if it were required his minder would put a bullet in his skull. He wanted out. If it was proven that McGrea
ry had killed his son, he was prepared to go out in style and take McGreary with him. There was a ring at the door and Rice motioned to his minder to answer it. Peter Davidson had called ahead and he knew it was Wilson. He wondered whether there was anything new on the search for his son. The minder returned to the living room closely followed by Wilson and a young peeler who Rice didn’t recognise. He muted the television as they entered. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘Good evening to you too,’ Wilson said. He stood aside. ‘This is Detective Sergeant Rory Browne.’
Browne nodded.
Rice looked at the young man. ‘Are you a fuckin’ Taig?’
Browne didn’t answer.
The name was Protestant, but you never could be sure. ‘Where are you from?’ Rice asked.
‘DS Browne joined us from Coleraine,’ Wilson said. He removed a series of A4 pictures from his inside pocket. He selected a picture of the warehouse and handed it to Rice. ‘Do you know this building?’
Rice took a cursory look at the picture. ‘Never seen it.’
‘It belongs to one of Sammy’s companies,’ Wilson said. He took a second photo and passed it to Rice. ‘We found those bloodstains on the floor of the warehouse. We’ve identified the smaller stain but we haven’t been able to identify the bigger one. Somebody bled profusely on that floor. There’s a good chance that the person who produced that stain is dead.’
Rice handed back the photo. ‘And where do I come into all this?’
‘The bigger stain might belong to Sammy,’ Wilson said.
‘And it might not,’ Rice said.
‘We need Sammy’s DNA to check it out,’ Wilson said.
Willie Rice left school at fourteen. In the past fifty years, he hadn’t read a single book. If a documentary programme came on TV, Willie’s first reaction was to switch channel. His knowledge of DNA and how it worked was almost non-existent. However, he did know one fact. The Peelers could use DNA to put you at the scene of a crime. Willie and his son, Sammy, had used their friends in high places to avoid having to give blood samples and DNA to the Peelers. But this was a dilemma. Rice wanted to find out what happened to his son. Maybe giving DNA would advance that process.