Yield Up the Dead

by Derek Fee

  Reid sighed and stood up. She hated writing the reports and would usually take any opportunity to take a break but this was ridiculous. She followed the assistant into the morgue where the bodies were stored. The assistant withdrew corpse after corpse. One of the compartments was tagged but empty. Reid walked along the line of corpses. One of the bog corpses was missing. She examined the tags of the other two. It was the woman from the first grave. She took her mobile from the pocket of her white coat and called Wilson.

  ‘Stephanie.’ He hadn’t expected a call from her so soon.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Back at the office, is there a problem?’

  ‘You could say that. You should get over here as soon as you can. We’ve lost one of your corpses.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The woman from grave one.’

  ‘I was afraid that might happen. I’ll be right over.’

  Wilson was back at the Royal Victoria twenty minutes later. During the trip from the station, he had given himself half a dozen metaphorical kicks in the arse. As soon as he had guessed that Jennifer Bowe was a spook, he should have put a guard on the morgue. Now she was gone. When he arrived, he went immediately to Reid’s office.

  She was sitting white-faced behind her desk when he walked into the room. ‘How am I going to explain this?’

  He remained standing. ‘It’s not your fault. I’m to blame. We held a briefing yesterday evening and I learned that Jennifer Bowe didn’t exist. Her student card for Queen’s University was a fake. She didn’t appear on any database. It was clear that she was a spook. I should have immediately placed a guard on the morgue. You’ve got lots of CCTV around the place.’

  ‘It seems to be everywhere.’

  ‘Where’s the security office?’

  ‘In the main building.’

  ‘Call them and tell them that we’re on our way.’

  ‘I’ve already reported that we’d lost a body. They said that they’d send someone over.’

  ‘Forget it. This is a police matter. We go there. Make the call.’

  She picked up the phone and did as he said. ‘The head of the security team will meet us at the control room.’

  The control room was locked and they pressed the button requesting entrance. The door swung open when they identified themselves. The control room was exactly what it said on the tin. A security guard sat before a bank of screens showing different areas of the hospital. The control panel in front of him allowed him to change the views and to control the individual cameras. As soon as they entered, a man dressed in black trousers and a black windcheater with the logo of the hospital on the front came towards them. He held out his hand. ‘Mal Donaghy, chief of security.’

  Wilson took his hand. ‘Detective Superintendent Wilson and this is Professor Reid.’

  Donaghy took Reid’s hand. ‘We haven’t met but I’ve seen you around. So you’re missing a corpse?’

  ‘That’s the nub of it,’ Wilson said. ‘But not just any corpse, you’ve heard about the bodies recovered from Ballynahone bog.’

  Donaghy nodded. ‘Aye, I saw a piece on the television news. There were three bodies recovered.’

  ‘Well, now there are only two,’ Reid said. ‘I have never lost a body before.’

  ‘It wasn’t lost,’ Wilson said. ‘Someone took it.’ He turned to Donaghy. ‘That’s why we’ve come to you.’

  ‘When was it taken?’ Donaghy asked.

  ‘We locked up as usual about six o’clock last night,’ Reid said. ‘We only noticed it was missing this afternoon. ‘

  ‘We need to look at the overnight footage from the cameras at the morgue,’ Wilson said.

  Donaghy spoke to the man at the controls.

  They watched as the controller played with buttons and levers. ‘Let’s start at six o’clock and move forward,’ Wilson said. ‘Let’s have the main camera at the entrance.’

  The screen in the centre of the panel came to life and they saw the area in front of the morgue. ‘You’re sure everything was secure when you left?’ Donaghy asked.

  Reid didn’t bother to answer and Donaghy understood the message from her silence. The picture on the screen moved forward quickly and Reid and her assistant could be seen leaving the building after everyone else had departed. The picture gradually darkened as night fell. The time clock in the corner of the picture raced ahead. It was showing just after four o’clock when a black SUV pulled up in front of the building. A man wearing a hoodie and a pair of dark glasses exited from the rear and took something from his pocket and pointed it at the camera. The screen suddenly went green.

  ‘What the...’ Wilson said.

  ‘It’s a laser,’ Donaghy said. ‘He’s pointing a bloody laser at the camera.’

  Wilson cursed under his breath. ‘He knew exactly where it was located. Switch to the cameras inside the morgue. Move the time along to four ten in the morning.’

  The camera was focussed on the front door, which swung open within a minute of the SUV’s arrival.

  ‘So much for locking up securely.’ Reid watched as a man in a hoodie with dark glasses entered the morgue. He was holding a small contraption in his hand. Suddenly the picture on the screen disappeared and was replaced with a series of horizontal lines.

  ‘Electronic jammer,’ Donaghy said quietly. ‘It’ll take out every camera in the morgue.’ He tapped the controller on the shoulder. ‘Try the camera in the storage area.’

  A picture of the area where the bodies were stored appeared on the screen. As the time advanced it too descended into a series of horizontal lines.

  ‘Back to the outside camera,’ Wilson said. The screen went green. ‘Move it ahead.’

  The timer in the corner moved forward. After three minutes, the picture cleared and the SUV was seen speeding away.

  ‘Shit,’ Wilson said. Although he was annoyed, he was forced to appreciate the professionalism of the crew who’d taken the body. Three minutes in and out. ‘Can you make me a copy of the arrival and departure of the SUV? And I want a picture of the guy with the jammer in his hand.’ He knew he was whistling in the wind. They would never identify or find the SUV. If he had to guess, he would say that the SUV was already somewhere in England. And so were the crew who’d removed the body. They would never see Jennifer Bowe, or whoever she was, again either. Maybe it was the spook equivalent of not leaving a comrade on the battlefield. More likely it was engineered to ensure that the investigation into who Jennifer Bowe really was would be dead in the water. He couldn’t imagine anyone at headquarters being bothered by the disappearance of a body. In fact, their approval for the operation might have been sought. He realised that his request for a copy of the CCTV was perfunctory. Jennifer Bowe was gone. He hoped that whoever had her would give her the decent burial she deserved. He shook hands with Donaghy, gave him his card and ushered Reid out of the security control room.

  They walked back toward the morgue. ‘I should have anticipated this,’ Wilson said. ‘When O’Neill started poking around looking for background on Jennifer Bowe, bells must have started ringing somewhere. We’ve probably been monitored from the start of the disinterment of the bodies. They knew exactly where they were stored and they mounted an operation within a matter of hours. Impressive.’ For no reason at all a picture of Jack Duane crossed his mind.

  ‘I suppose that screws up your investigation,’ Reid said as they entered the morgue.

  ‘On the contrary, Bowe was a distraction albeit a very interesting one. Now, we can concentrate on finding who murdered Evans, and why. And if we can match the DNA of the third body to Cummerford we might put another crime to bed.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  Chief Superintendent Yvonne Davis was trying to compute the information that she was receiving. She knew that she was staring at the man facing her. It could have been because she found Ian Wilson attractive and charming but the real reason was that her mind was reeling from the words that were coming from his mouth.
She had been told that Wilson was just about the most dangerous employee she could have been given. The word on him was that he was unmanageable. But looking at his handsome face and listening to his soft Ulster accent could beguile a woman, except Yvonne Davis wasn’t easily beguiled. She was beginning to understand the veracity of the rumours. Wilson had just finished briefing her on the disappearance of the body from the Royal Victoria and the possibility that the woman in the second grave was Francis McComber. His briefing was full of words that sent shivers up her spine. She almost fainted when he expanded on his theory that it was either the British or Irish security services who had stolen the body of the woman they knew as Jennifer Bowe. Davis didn’t live in a world where bodies were stolen by people who were effectively spies. Wilson was the one who was bringing these kind of people into her life.

  ‘You’ll have to report it to HQ.’ He leaned back in his chair. Davis’s face was several shades whiter than it had been when he entered her office.

  Davis made an effort to pull herself together. She pulled a few strands of hair away from her face and brushed them to the side. ‘How am I going to explain that we’ve lost a body that might be important in our investigation? That bastard Nicholson is watching every move I make. I’m beginning to feel that they’re waiting for me to screw up so that they can get rid of me.’

  ‘Now you’re being paranoid,’ Wilson said. In general, it was the boss’s job to calm the staff. The boot was on the other foot here. ‘You’ve only been in the job a wet week. Even an arsehole like Nicholson knew that it took time to master a new job. So a corpse was taken from the Royal Victoria, so what? You can put the blame on me for not putting a guard on the morgue. But even I didn’t think that they had the capacity to put an operation like that together so quickly. If we really wanted to follow up, we could check the arrival of a military transport at the airport last night and departures sometime around five o’clock in the morning. But that’s not going to happen. The corpse that was taken disappeared thirty odd years ago and nobody even reported her as a missing person. It’ll go down as a black mark against me. Now we can concentrate on Evans and Francis McComber.’

  ‘We already know who killed McComber. What more can we learn?’

  ‘I interrogated Maggie before Jennings pulled me off the case. One of the memories she has of the day was a big man loading something like a body into the trunk of his car before dropping her in the middle of a housing estate. We can suppose that whoever that man was, and I already have my suspicions, knew about Ballynahone bog. And it might even be his own private burial ground.’

  ‘Who are we talking about?’

  ‘Who would Lizzie Rice turn to in order to get rid of a body? Her husband was one of the main Loyalist paramilitaries at the time. I think Maggie’s “big man” was Willie Rice.’

  ‘You can think what you like but what can you prove?’

  Wilson smiled. ‘You’re right. I’m waiting for the forensic report. We have the bullet, which we’ll be able to match to a gun. If the gun still exists. I doubt we’ll find any of Rice’s DNA on the bodies. It would have degraded by now. So there’s no real evidence linking Rice to the murders of Evans and Bowe. But he doesn’t know that. I’m going to get him down to the station and grill him. We’ll let him think we have a little more than what we actually have. I don’t expect him to break down and admit the murder but we might learn something that will be useful to us.’

  Davis was gradually regaining her composure. Wilson was right. She had no role in the disappearance of the body. She could lay that at his feet. His theory of the involvement of the security services was just that, a theory. There was less than one minute of video footage and no one could be clearly identified. Jennifer Bowe had disappeared once before, why shouldn’t she disappear again? ‘Sounds like a plan.’

  ‘What’s the story on Simpson?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘I almost forgot. Headquarters has agreed to his request. They’ve already contacted the witness protection programme and there’s general agreement that if he co-operates, he’ll be looked after.’

  I hope he likes sheep shearing, Wilson thought. ‘Good, I’m expecting a call from him. I’ll pass the message on and I’ll send Browne and Graham to pick him up.’

  ‘What’s you next step on Evans?’

  Wilson stood up. ‘I’m going to see Maggie Cummerford tomorrow. I need to tell her that we’ve found her mother.’

  ‘The DNA is confirmed.’ ‘No, but it will be.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  Wilson stood in front of the whiteboard for the six o’clock briefing. He outlined his theory concerning the disappearance of Jennifer Bowe from the Royal Victoria. DC O’Neill had already pinned up a still photo of the hooded figure that exited from the SUV. ‘My guess is that we’ll be able to clean Jennifer Bowe off the board in the next few days. Someone at HQ will decide that despite the photos taken by FSNI at Ballynahone, and despite the photos taken at the autopsy, she was a figment of our imagination. She never existed.’ He tapped the photo on the whiteboard. ‘And this guy also never existed.’

  ‘What a crock of shit, boss,’ Harry Graham said. ‘Makes you wonder why we bother when some arseholes can wander around doing pretty much as they please. And all because it’s in the interest of national security.’

  I suppose that I can stop looking for information on her?’ O’Neill asked.

  ‘No matter how hard you tried you wouldn’t find anything,’ Wilson replied. ‘Jennifer Bowe was a made-up person. She was a waste of our precious time and we have enough on our plate. Don’t think that I’m not pissed with what happened. I’d love to drag those guys in the SUV into the light but I have to accept that it’s not going to happen and move on.’

  ‘What about Evans?’ Harry Graham asked. ‘If Bowe was on him, the murder could have something to do with the spooks.’

  ‘They’re arseholes,’ Wilson said. ‘But I don’t think they would kill one of their own. Evans was being monitored. I haven’t got a clue why. His politics were flaky at best.’ He glanced at the white board, but there was nothing new on Evans. ‘I suppose that we’re lucky that the guys who took Bowe didn’t want him. He’s still in a compartment at the Royal Victoria, so we continue to examine the evidence. Nothing from FSNI?’

  ‘I’m on the phone to them all day,’ Graham said. ‘It’s coming, but so is Christmas.’

  Wilson smiled. ‘It looks like Harry and I are not making any great advances on our case.’ He turned to Browne. ‘Rory, anything from the CCTV?’

  ‘Nothing so far, boss,’ Browne said. ‘But now that Siobhan has been freed up we can get ahead a bit faster. We’ve collected the CCTV from all the industrial buildings in the area. It’s of variable quality. Some of it can go straight in the bin. Peter and I have been examining it but so far we haven’t hit pay dirt but there are still plenty of disks to go through.’

  ‘We know that Best was in that warehouse,’ Wilson said. ‘We just need to place him there around the time Sammy disappeared. I hope that we haven’t let out the news that the large bloodstain has been attributed to Sammy?’

  All four members of the team shook their heads.

  Harry Graham’s phone rang and he moved away from the group. He spoke for several minutes and then moved back to the whiteboard. ‘That was FSNI.’ He picked up a black felt pen and wrote under the picture of Alan Evans, “Bullet.22 calibre, gun probably Beretta 70 used in five sectarian murders in 1970s and 80s.”

  Wilson remained silent as he assimilated the new information. He had dismissed the idea that Evans was a sectarian murder. Now it appeared to be back on the table. What had Evans done to attract the attention of a sectarian hitman? Given that it was a thirty-year-old crime, it was entirely possible that the man who pulled the trigger might be as dead as Evans. And it was equally possible that the gun was probably lying at the bottom of the Lagan. They would take the investigation as far as they could but unless they located some evidence he doubted that th
ey would put anyone in the dock for the murders of Alan Evans and Jennifer Bowe. He didn’t like mysteries that could not be resolved. ‘I don’t want anyone outside this group to know any details on either of our investigations until I’m ready to tell them,’ Wilson said. His mobile phone started to ring. He took it from his pocket and saw that it was Richie Simpson. ‘Richie.’ He started moving towards his office and motioned for Browne and Davidson to join him. As soon as he entered, he set his mobile on speakerphone and put it on the desk. ‘I’ve put you on speaker,’ Wilson said. ‘DS Browne and DC Davidson are listening in.’

  ‘Enough of the chit-chat, what’s the story on protecting me?’ Simpson’s voice was laced with tension.

  ‘Castlereagh has agreed,’ Wilson said. ‘We’ll bring you in, take a statement and then you’ll be in taken into protective custody.’

  ‘No can do, I’m not going back to Belfast. McGreary and Best will get to me.’

  ‘Think about it, Richie,’ Wilson said. ‘We’ll get you out of Northern Ireland as quickly as possible but we need to interview you locally. We’ll keep you well away from McGreary and Best. And as long as you keep your end of the bargain, we’ll keep ours.’

  There was silence on the phone and the three police officers looked at each other. The silence lasted so long that Wilson wondered whether the line had gone dead.

  ‘OK.’ Simpson said at last.

  The men listening let out a collective breath. ‘We need to pick you up,’ Wilson said. ‘DS Browne and DC Davidson will do it personally. Where are you?’

  Simpson gave them the address of the B & B in Atlantic Way. Wilson quickly estimated the best route and the time. ‘They’ll be with you in about two and a half hours. Stay in your room and don’t contact anyone else. You’ll be in the station tonight and transferred to the mainland tomorrow.’

  ‘Don’t get me killed.’ Simpson’s voice was shaking.

  ‘You’ve done the right thing, Richie,’ Wilson said. ‘You won’t be safe until McGreary and Best are put away. Sit tight, my team are on the way.’ The line went dead. Wilson turned to Browne and Davidson. ‘Pick up a car downstairs. The quickest route is through Omagh. For God’s sake get there before he changes his mind. Call me as soon as you pick him up, and again when you’re almost back in Belfast. And remember no interrogation in the car. You can talk about football, politics, women. Anything but what happened in the warehouse. Got it?’