by Fee Derek
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Jock McDevitt was hiding in the office of the Chronicle on Royal Avenue. His meeting with Wilson had done nothing to lessen the apprehension he’d been feeling over the past few days. Maybe he was being paranoid, but it didn’t help that the guy he thought was watching him was sitting behind him in court for most of that day. He filed his copy several hours previously, and he was spending his time following up on a few of the stories he intended to tackle as soon as Cummerford was dispatched. He could see the trial was coming to its conclusion, and he was looking forward to seeing the woman herself in the witness box. Knowing Maggie, it would be a spectacle worth watching. Criminal activity was heating up in Belfast. McGreary’s takeover was initially peaceful by local standards, but his crew were beginning to go a little overboard in the area of punishment. It was a good story to follow on from the Cummerford trial. He looked at his watch. It was half past ten and it was already dark outside. Too dark to walk home. He would have to take a cab. He picked up a couple of travel brochures from his desk. His newly found literary agent had suggested he leave Belfast for a couple of weeks to begin work on the Cummerford book. McDevitt was enthusiastic about the idea. If he were sitting in a villa in Cephalonia, he wouldn’t have to be looking over his shoulder at someone staring at his back. He picked up his messenger bag, and started for the lift. As soon as he exited the office, he looked in both directions. There were few enough people on the street, and a black cab sat idling ten metres to his right. He was about to raise his hand when the cab came forward slowly and stopped beside him.
‘Looking for a cab, pal?’ the driver said from the other side of the front seat. He was wearing a baseball cap that came down over his eyes.
‘Absolutely,’ McDevitt responded. He opened the back door of the cab, and was about to enter the rear when a cloth bag came over his head, and he was pushed roughly into the back seat. He fell headlong and felt someone climb in after him. He heard the roadside door open, and a body pushed him upright, and climbed in the other side of the cab. He started to scream but both doors were already closed and the cab was moving off at speed.
‘Shut your fucking mouth or we’ll have to shut it for you,’ the accent was thick Belfast.
McDevitt immediately stopped shouting. The timbre of the voice told him that the speaker meant what he said. He was having difficulty breathing with the hood over his head. He knew it was important to stay calm, but he was fighting with his bodily function to avoid soiling himself. In the past, he had interviewed many people who had the same experience he was presently undergoing. They all stressed the importance of not over-reacting. They attributed their survival to that fact. He had also seen the bodies of several people who had spent the last minutes of their lives with a hood over their head while pressed between two thugs in the back seat of a black cab. They were not pretty sights. The driver had reduced speed, and they were driving through central Belfast at something approaching the speed limit. There was total silence in the vehicle. McDevitt had no idea whether they were driving north, south, east or west. He thought about the movies where the victim in his position heard train whistles, and could feel when they were travelling over cobbles or tram tracks. It was all a load of bollocks. He was scared shitless and totally disorientated by the darkness. His mind was dominated by the thoughts of his impending demise. The idea of listening for a train whistle didn’t even rank. There were less stops and starts, and he assumed that they were leaving the city. The men on either side of him were much larger than him. He could feel his shoulders butting up against their arms. He didn’t want to die. He had so much to live for. He was about to become an author, and possibly a best-selling author. Who knew what door that might open? His agent was even talking about a movie deal. He really couldn’t be about to die just when things were going so well. However, people who were obviously not first-timers were taking him for a ride. After about half an hour, the cab pulled onto a rough road with lots of potholes, and finally came to a stop. The doors opened, and McDevitt was manhandled out of the rear. The hood was kept firmly on his head as he was marched along a gravel path. He heard a door open, and he was ushered inside some kind of dwelling. He was in urgent need of the toilet, but he was too afraid to ask. He was pulled forward, and finally pushed into a chair. Nobody had spoken a word. Eventually the hood was removed from his head, and he found himself staring into a bright light cast by an electric lamp pointing straight at his face. His eyes hurt, and he raised his hands to cover them. His hands were grabbed by someone behind him, and pulled behind his back. His wrists were crossed, and he felt a cable tie being tightened on them. He looked down to avoid the light. Slowly his eyes were becoming used to the glare. He saw that he was in some kind of barn possibly attached to a farmhouse. The man who had been behind him came to the front. He now had two men standing directly in front of him. He lifted his head, and saw that they were wearing balaclavas with holes for their eyes and mouths. It was a good sign. He wouldn’t be able to identify them. If they weren’t wearing balaclavas, he would have been worried.
‘Jock fucking McDevitt!’ It was the man who had told him to shut up who spoke. ‘You are a wee fucking nuisance.’ He struck McDevitt across the face with his open hand. The blow knocked McDevitt sideways and he and the chair tumbled to the floor. The side of McDevitt’s face stung. Two pairs of hands lifted him roughly from the floor and placed him back on the chair. A balaclava-covered face appeared directly in front of him, and he looked directly into a set of dead eyes. “What are you?’
McDevitt’s jaw hurt. ‘I’m a wee fucking nuisance.’
‘That you are, Jock.’ The man removed his face from in front of McDevitt. He walked around to his left side. ‘In fact, you’re a wee fucking interfering nuisance.’ He drew back his fist, and he hit McDevitt full in the side of the face.
This time McDevitt went flying to his right. He hit the ground with his right shoulder. He had often heard that people saw stars when they were knocked out, and at that moment he was ready to believe it because something was happening inside his head that was completely new, and strange. There was a loud buzzing in his head and he was on the edge of passing out. Then the pain from his jaw reached his brain, and he tried to scream but no sound came. He tried to move his jaw, but the pain was excruciating. They’ve broken my jaw, he thought. Hands grabbed him again, and lifted him back into the chair. As soon as he was settled, the balaclava-covered face appeared in front of his eyes again. ‘What are you, Jock?
McDevitt lifted his head. He wasn’t a brave man, but he wasn’t a coward either. He just wished they would get on with it if their intention were to kill him.
‘I said what are you, Jock?’ the man shouted in his face.
McDevitt could feel the side of his face was already swollen. He ran his lips around his mouth, and spoke with difficulty. ‘I’m a wee fucking interfering nuisance.’ The words came out slowly, separately and indistinctly. He looked to the side, and saw the red glow of a cigarette out of the corner of his eye. There was someone else in the barn. Someone he couldn’t see clearly because of the bright light. But he could see that it was someone who didn’t feel the need to wear a balaclava.
‘That’s a good boy, Jock.’ The man with the thick Belfast accent spoke again. ‘Do you know what we do with wee fucking interfering nuisances?’
McDevitt shook his head.
The man slowly withdrew a handgun from the pocket of his jacket, and held it in front of McDevitt. ‘Are you a religious man, Jock?’
McDevitt shook his head.
‘No need for prayers then.’ The man laughed and moved behind him. ‘We can get right down to business.’
McDevitt felt the muzzle of the gun pressed into the back of his neck. He heard the click of the cocking mechanism as clearly as if it was the sound of doom. He wondered whether it would be one of the last sounds he would ever hear. McDevitt’s mother had been dead for more than fifteen years but right now he wanted to call for he
r. His heart was beating so wildly that he was afraid it would break through the walls of his chest. He waited and closed his eyes as he heard the hammer fall. He slumped forward but felt no pain. Then he heard the sound of laughter behind him.
‘The poor cunt shat himself,’ the man who had tormented him said. ‘Put him in the boot of the car. I’m not going to smell that all the way back to Belfast.’ He put his face in front of McDevitt. ‘Be careful with the questions, Jock. The next time, it’ll be for real.’
McDevitt’s feet had lost their power and they half dragged him out of the barn. As he was being pulled along, he saw the man in the corner drop his cigarette and crush it beneath is shoe.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Wilson woke with a start. He could hear a phone ringing but it was somewhere in the distance. He looked quickly at his watch. It was just after 1 am. He quickly rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and went to find the phone. It was the first call he’d had at the new apartment, and he was slightly disorientated. Finally, he found the phone, and lifted the handset. He could tell it was Jock McDevitt at the other end of the line, but he couldn’t understand a word he was saying. It sounded like Jock was speaking with a couple of large marbles in his mouth.
‘Steady, Jock,’ he said. ‘Speak slowly, I can’t understand you.’
There was another outbreak of garbled conversation from McDevitt. Wilson heard the word royal and hospital in different sentences. Eventually, McDevitt stopped, and there was a gap.
‘Superintendent Wilson?’ the voice was authoritative and calm.
‘Yes.’
‘You’re a friend of Mr McDevitt?’
‘Yes.’
‘My name is Doctor Crean. I’m the consultant in charge of A and E at the Royal Victoria. Your friend arrived here in some level of distress this evening. He has some facial injuries, which appear to have been inflicted in some sort of fight. We have been insisting that he call the police but he requested to speak with you first. I think it would be advisable if you came to the hospital. Mr McDevitt is being somewhat difficult.’
‘Keep him there. I’m on my way.’
Wilson arrived in the car park of the Royal Victoria ten minutes after he received the phone call. He ran up the steps leading to the A and E Department, and went immediately past the reception area into the cubicles at the rear. A porter tried to stop him, and he flashed his warrant card as he brushed past the outstretched arm.
‘McDevitt?’ he asked the first nurse he met.
‘Are you his friend?’
Wilson nodded.
‘The last cubicle on the left.’ She hustled off quickly.
Wilson pulled back the plastic curtain on the last cubicle, and saw Jock McDevitt lying on his back on a bed. He had a large ice pack over the side of his face. His eyes were closed, and Wilson could see bruising and a red streak under his left eye. Someone had worked him over, but that someone had been careful not to do too much damage. On a scale of one to ten, McDevitt received a beating somewhere between two and three. Wilson would have to see the ice pack removed to determine the exact level. From what he could see, it was sore but no real damage was done.
McDevitt opened his eyes as Wilson entered. ‘About bloody time,’ the words were delivered slowly, and as distinctly as the bruising on McDevitt’s jaw would allow. It sounded like he had received a major shot of novocaine.
‘Don’t worry, you’ll live.’ Wilson pulled up a chair and sat down. ‘What happened?’
It took over a half an hour for McDevitt to relate his ordeal. The story unfolded slowly, and with a certain degree of wincing as each word was pronounced.
‘Very professional,’ Wilson said as soon as he had extracted most of the story from McDevitt. ‘I mean the guy who worked you over. Tomorrow, I want you to write down everything you remember about the guys that lifted you. Not just the stuff about their size, or the colour of their balaclavas, but what they wore, how they sounded, how they smelled. Everything that you can remember. Right now, I can tell you that if they had really wanted to hurt you, they would have. This was just a message. Your doctor was right about the police report. You never know when you might need a paper trail. After you write out everything for me, we’ll make a copy and you can file a police report.’
McDevitt shook his head. ‘No report,’ he said.
The curtain moved again and a young Asian doctor entered the cubicle. ‘Superintendent Wilson?’
Wilson nodded. ‘Doctor Crean?’
‘No, Doctor Crean is the consultant. I am Doctor Ashok. Mr McDevitt has had a very shocking experience. However, he is not badly hurt. His jaw is not broken, just badly bruised. He will be perfectly well in several days as long as he continues to apply the ice pack.’ He handed Wilson an envelope. ‘This contains a discharge paper and a prescription for a mild painkiller. I have included several tablets to help him through the night. It is important to take the painkillers over the next few days. He can keep the tee-shirt and training bottoms, but since they are mine, I would appreciate it if he could return them to me as soon as possible.’
‘Where are his own clothes?’ Wilson asked.
The young doctor looked down. ‘We have them bagged outside, they are not in a condition to be worn.’
Wilson looked at McDevitt who was looking sheepish. Wilson hadn’t thought anything about his attire. He could see that McDevitt had decided to leave some details out of his story. He took the letter from the doctor. ‘Thank you, doctor. I’ll take care of him.’
‘Please, we need the bed for another patient. If he has any further problems, he should see his GP.’ Dr Ashok hurried away.
Wilson turned and extended his hand to McDevitt who took it. He pulled the journalist upright, and McDevitt climbed off the bed. He continued to hold the ice pack to his injured jaw.
They left the cubicle and Wilson saw that a closed plastic bag had been left strategically in their path. He picked it up and handed it to McDevitt. ‘When you write your account of last night’s happening, I’d be grateful if you’d include all the details.’