Yield Up the Dead

by Derek Fee

  Ian Wilson had just finished a Skype call with his mother. Because of the time difference she had been in the middle of making dinner and had continued the conversation while she chopped vegetables and prepared fish. It all seemed so normal. When she asked about what he was up to in Belfast he talked about drinking with friends in the Crown. He tried to reflect her normality but he didn’t have a normal life. It wasn’t normal to be involved in digging up a body that had been laid in a bog thirty years before. It wasn’t normal to be searching for the body of a ruthless gangster who had disappeared off the face of the earth. His life was just about as far from that of his mother’s as you could get. Somewhere in the past he had friends. But they had normal lives. They married, bought a house, had two point four children and a humdrum job that paid the bills and the golf club membership. As time went on, the people he called friends fell by the wayside. Policemen don’t have friends. Just like policemen don’t have families. He’d already had enough to drink, but he poured himself a Jameson as a nightcap. He sat back and watched the lights of the city away to the west. It looked so peaceful. But looks were deceiving. Beneath the light was the darkness. Somewhere out there a woman was being raped. She probably wouldn’t report it because unless there was brutality involved it was a normal occurrence. In another part of town a group of nascent criminals were beating up some old drunk for the few pounds in his pocket. And somewhere else someone was thinking about murder. There were more than three thousand unsolved murders in the province most dating from the ”Troubles” but some were in the recent past. It seemed in Ulster old habits died hard. He sipped his whiskey and like clockwork Kate McCann came into his mind. He wondered what she might be up to. Perhaps she spent the evening at the theatre or the opera, clinging to the arm of someone with a normal job and a normal life. Kate was gone and while somewhere in his mind he hadn’t yet fully accepted that as fact, he knew that the daily flagellation associated with thinking of her would have to stop. He would have to move on. He drank his whiskey and looked out at the city. If you could forget about the darkness beneath, it looked beautiful.

  Rory Browne turned in the bed and lay on his back. The young man he just had sex with was fast asleep beside him. Browne was castigating himself for being so stupid. On the surface, the PSNI was one of the most politically correct employers in the province. But the rank and file didn’t exactly share the opinion of the Policing Board and the hierarchy. So it was better to keep the question of one’s sexuality to one’s self. He had picked up his companion in a gay bar in Donegall Street. It was his first foray into the gay scene in his new home. There was one gay bar in Coleraine and out of necessity he had resisted the temptation to become a patron. He had known he was gay since his mid teens. Although he made several efforts to follow the path of his school friends, his dates with girls generally ended in disaster. He threw himself into his schoolwork. It was preferable to be known as a swot than gay. By the time he went to university he was ready for his first sexual experience. One of his classmates picked up on his vibe and invited him back to his rooms for a drink. One thing led to another and his cherry had been well and truly popped by the time he staggered back to his digs in the morning. He was promiscuous at college but as soon as he joined the police he put his sexuality aside. It wasn’t unusual for policemen to have failed marriages or failed affairs. He joined the usual locker room banter but he kept his sexual life for his holidays and breaks away. He was sure that no one at the Coleraine station knew of his sexual orientation. That’s what made his interview with Nicholson so strange. He lay staring at the ceiling. Being a gay policeman was not an oxymoron. There were plenty of policemen who had come out. There were even a couple who got married. He wondered whether Wilson had sussed him out. He didn’t seem to be the sort who cared. Browne had heard of Wilson’s reputation as a lothario but it didn’t seem to fit. He rose quietly, put on his clothes and slipped out of the room.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Wilson passed by the station before heading for Ballynahone to hold a quick briefing with his team. There were three orders of business. He needed to know whether the blood at the warehouse belonged to Sammy Rice, the CCTV from the warehouse area would have to be collected and reviewed and Richie Simpson was to be located. He left it to DS Browne to hand the jobs out since he intended to spend the day at Ballynahone. According to Duane, this could be a make-or-break day in the search. Castlereagh had approved only a search of the immediate area indicated on the map. Once that was completed, Ballynahone would be left with whatever secrets it contained. The ground radar crew were already at work when Wilson arrived. After listening to McDevitt the previous evening, he was not surprised to find a couple of people wandering around in waxed jackets. A van with the UTV logo on the side was parked on the edge of the crime scene tape but there was no camera in evidence. Someone with half a brain had organised for a couple of local uniforms to stand guard at the crime scene tape blocking the entrance to the bog. It was a beautiful summer day with just a few puffs of white clouds floating across a perfectly blue sky. It was Wilson’s experience that death and the burying bodies was generally associated with rain. He had been drenched at more than one funeral. He descended from the police Land Rover and immediately there was a flutter of activity among the four journalists standing by the roadblock. Wilson brushed past them without responding to their shouted questions. The radar crew were at work about a kilometre into the bog and he could see the X-ray machine being manhandled over the rough ground.

  ‘Fantastic day.’ Duane was sitting on a camp chair watching the crew.

  Wilson was astonished. If he’d drunk as much as Duane, he would still have been in his bed. He certainly wouldn’t have been sitting in the middle of a bog enjoying the already hot sunshine. ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘We started at seven,’ Duane said. ‘You Northerners aren’t the only ones with the work ethic.’ He produced his flask and two cups. “Ready for a cup of coffee? It was made on a real coffee machine at the hotel this morning.’

  Wilson nodded. He obviously needed more practice at drinking. ‘No progress?’

  ‘Not so far.’ Duane handed across a cup of steaming coffee. ‘Probably another day in the can, at least the lunch at the Maghera Inn is up to scratch. On my last dig in County Louth, the food in the local hostelry wasn’t fit for human consumption. There’s another chair in the crew’s van. Pull up a pew. It could be a long day.’

  Wilson didn’t need another day in the can. Every day was vital in the hunt for Sammy Rice, whether he turned out to be alive or dead.

  ‘You don’t look too happy at spending another day in my sparkling company.’ Duane sipped the hot liquid.

  ‘Things to do, places to go,’ Wilson said. He walked to the van, removed a camp chair and placed it beside Duane’s.

  ‘I see the vultures are circling.’ Duane nodded towards the roadblock.

  ‘Aye, and it can only get worse.’ Wilson sat down and sipped his coffee.

  ‘I hope you brought your sun tan lotion,’ Duane laughed.

  ‘No cards today?’

  Duane finished his coffee and tilted his head back. ‘No, today we enjoy the sun. God only knows when we’ll see it again.’

  Wilson finished his coffee and followed Duane’s example. He leaned back and allowed the sun to warm him. He spent ten minutes thinking about what might be happening in Belfast before the heat lulled him into sleep. It was over an hour later when he felt Duane’s hand shake him awake.

  ‘We’re needed,’ Duane said simply. ‘No show of excitement, mind, but we might have something. We don’t want the journalists alerted. We’re just going to have a quiet word with the crew.’ He stood up and motioned for Wilson to follow. They walked the hundred or so metres to where the crew had stopped working.

  ‘What have you got, Keano?’ Duane asked.

  The chief of the radar crew looked harshly at Duane. ‘I don’t appreciate the Keano crap,’ he said. ‘You can call me
Dr Keane or Tom, but not Keano.’

  ‘Ok, Keano,’ Duane said. ‘Sorry Dr Keane. So what have you got?’

  ‘An anomaly.’ Keane pointed to a fuzzy image on the screen.

  ‘Umm!’ Duane stared at the screen. ‘You’ll need to up the magnitude of the rays.’

  Wilson looked at the screen. It was a mass of swirling clouds as far as he could see. If there was an anomaly there, he was damned if he could see it.

  Keane fiddled with a few knobs on the machine and turned to look at Duane, who nodded.

  The machine made a loud whirring noise. ‘It’s not dangerous to stand near the machine?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘Afraid for your jewels, are you?’ Duane laughed. ‘The rays penetrate the ground. They’re directional and the sides of the machine are lead-lined so that none of the operatives have problems producing children. Well, not caused by the machine anyway.’

  The machine stopped and Keane started to turn dials and check levels. Eventually there was a picture on the screen.

  ‘No excitement now, lads.’ Duane peered at the image.

  Wilson followed his gaze but saw only another pattern of fuzzy lines.

  ‘Bingo,’ Duane said.

  Keane looked at the two policemen and smiled.

  ‘We have something?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘We certainly have something,’ Duane looked at the screen again. ‘No jumping in the air while we’re being watched. What do you think, Kean... Dr Keane?’

  ‘I’m not sure but it looks like two bodies buried in the same grave.’ Keane moved his finger over one of the fuzzy marks.

  ‘Two bodies.’ Wilson followed Keane’s finger. He’d expected to see skeletons but saw nothing that he could identify as a body.

  ‘Looks that way,’ Keane said. ‘Of course, it could be a man and a dog. We’ll only know when they’re dug up. But right now it looks like two bodies.’

  ‘What’s next?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘That’s up to you,’ Keane said. ‘We’ve a half day to finish the marked out area. We can pull out now or finish the job.’

  ‘Can I make a suggestion?’ Duane said.

  ‘You’re the expert,’ Wilson said.

  Duane bent forward toward his companions. ‘We’re being watched and we don’t want to give away what we’ve found. So, we mark this spot with a GPS and we let Dr Keane and the boys survey the rest of the area. That way we won’t alert the journalists. Our bosses will have to consider the impact of what we might find down there.’

  ‘You’re sure there are two bodies?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘That’s what it looks like,’ Keane said. ‘But we won’t know for sure until your forensic people organise the dig.’

  Wilson was ready to accept that one of the bodies was Alan Evans, but who the hell did the second body belong to? ‘OK, let’s go with Jack’s suggestion. I’ve got to inform my boss.’ He started walking back towards the van.

  Duane fell into step beside him. ‘If you intend to call your boss immediately, I suggest that we take a little walk until we’re out of sight of the journalists.’

  They started walking away from the roadblock and further into the bog. As soon as they were out of sight of the journalists, both men took out their mobile phones and moved away from each other.

  ‘Yes,’ Davis’s voice was business-like.

  ‘It’s your favourite superintendent,’ Wilson said.

  ‘Cut the bullshit. Do you have news?’

  The effects of the drink had obviously worn off. ‘The ground radar crew think they’ve located what looks like two bodies.’

  ‘Think, two bodies.’ Davis’s voice was strident. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned looking at those pictures is like looking into a bush. The chief of the crew is pretty sure there are two bodies in one grave.’

  ‘Shit, it might not be Evans after all. What’s next?’

  ‘There are a group of journalists staking out the site. Duane and I made it all look natural and the radar crew are continuing with the operation. We don’t want news leaking out before we’ve had time to consider future actions. We’ve marked the spot with a GPS marker.’

  ‘Well done.’ Davis’s voice was calmer now. ‘I’ll pass the word along to Nicholson. You stay on-site until the radar crew are through. I’ll get on to the local police and make sure that the site is cordoned off. In fact I think we should block all access to the bog. It won’t take the media long to sniff out that we’re on to something. This second body bothers me.’

  ‘It bothers me too. Unfortunately the only way we’re going to find out who exactly is down there is to dig them up. You better get on to Castlereagh and get budget approval for the next phase of this operation.’

  ‘I’m not going to be very popular with HQ.’

  ‘Nothing to do with you, I’m more worried about what’s going to happen when we dig them up. What I don’t need at the moment is spending resources investigating a thirty-year-old murder or murders.’ Wilson had been down that road and he didn’t want to go there again.

  ‘Keep me informed.’ The line went dead.

  Wilson looked over and saw that Duane was still talking on the phone. He started to move toward Duane but the Garda officer moved in the opposite direction. Wilson got the impression that Duane didn’t want his conversation overheard. He wondered why.

  Duane cut his conversation and re-joined Wilson. ‘You get a reaction?’

  ‘There doesn’t appear to be much joy in PSNI circles at the news. How about you?’

  ‘Same story, the people who count south of the border don’t want the past raked up. Some of the people who might be involved are now politicians in our jurisdiction.’

  They walked slowly back towards the site where the radar crew were working. ‘How do we organise the dig?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘Remove the scragh with a JCB, and then your forensic pathology team will have to do their job. The people down below were most probably murdered. Bogs are good for preserving organic material. That’s why bogs all over Europe have yielded up bodies with pretty good skin and hair condition. The down side is that the flow of water through the bog isn’t very good for the preservation of DNA. In other words, you may not have much evidence concerning who put the bodies in the bog.’

  They came over a small hillock and started to walk back towards the radar crew’s van. As soon as they came into sight, Keane started in their direction. He was walking slowly and methodically.

  ‘Oh! Oh!’ Duane said. ‘I don’t like the way Keane is moving towards us.’

  The two men stopped where they were and awaited Keane’s approach.

  ‘You’re not going to believe this,’ Keane said when he joined them. ‘We started a new pass and lo and behold I think we’ve located another one.’

  ‘What!’ The word exploded from Wilson’s lips.

  ‘Shush,’ Duane said. ‘Speak normally.’

  “There’s another one down there for sure,’ Keane said. ‘It looks like someone was using this spot as their private burial ground.’

  ‘Mark it and keep going,’ Wilson said. ‘God only knows how many more bodies you’re going to find.’

  Duane smiled. ‘Looks like we need to retrace our steps and get back on the phones.’

  ‘Lots of people are going to be very unhappy at this particular piece of news.’ Wilson turned and started walking back the way they came. Three bodies might be just enough to put the search for Sammy Rice on the back burner.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  The meeting took place in the conference room of PSNI HQ in Castlereagh. The chief constable was on business in London, so Nicholson took the chair and sat at the head of the table. To his right was Chief Superintendent Bill Nolan of the Garda Siochana Special Branch and on his left was a department head from the Forensic Service of Northern Ireland. Ranged around the table were Davis, Wilson, Duane, Dr Keane and Professor Stephanie Reid. After Nicholson had welcomed the colleagues from the south,
he invited Dr Keane to outline his findings.

  Keane tapped a few keys on his laptop and turned it to face the assembly. ‘What you’re looking at is the image from the first grave site.’ He could see from the faces around the table that he was going to have to get basic. ‘Ground penetrating radar, or GPR as we call it, is a geophysical tool for finding bodies which have been clandestinely buried. It is one of a series of tools that have been used by law enforcement agencies to locate bodies but over time it has proven to be one of the most effective. There are situations where it is less effective than some of the other geophysical tools for example when a body is buried in very dry soil. However, in the present case where there has been a lot of fluid movement it is perhaps the ideal tool.’ He looked around and saw six sets of eyes staring intently at him. The seventh set of eyes, which belonged to Jack Duane, was staring intently at the lady who had been introduced as the pathologist. Keane ignored Duane. He was now in full pedagogic mode. ‘GPR systems work by sending a tiny pulse of energy into a material via an antenna. An integrated computer records the strength and time required for the return of any reflected signals. Subsurface variations will create reflections that are picked up by the system and stored on digital media. These reflections are produced by a variety of material such as geological structure differences and man-made objects like pipes and wire. Depth of GPR penetration depends on the material being surveyed and also upon the antenna frequency being used. For instance, GPR will penetrate ice, rock, soil and asphalt differently due to each material’s unique electrical properties. Lower frequency antennas will generally penetrate deeper, but there is a loss in resolution with the drop in frequency. Soil conditions can vary greatly, which in turn affects GPR penetration. In general, dry sandy soils with little salt content return excellent survey resolution, but heavy clay-based soils are difficult to penetrate with GPR. In some situations, penetration depth may be limited to a few feet or less within clays, whereas pipes residing in sandy soils could be detected at depths up to 30 feet.’ Keane stopped and looked around the table. ‘Any questions?’