Evidence of Death

by Peter Ritchie

  The girl who took the call had to work hard to contain her excitement. Nine calls out of ten were nutters or trivia, but this was in a different bracket. She’d read the papers and any mention of Belfast men made her pulse race thanks to the headlines screaming about out-of-control terror gangs and the arrest of UVF leader Jackie Martin.

  ‘Is there anything else, caller?’ the girl asked, hoping that there was.

  ‘These guys are UVF, dangerous and have said that if the police corner them they’ll shoot it out.’ He smiled and put the phone down.

  Nelson walked back to the car tucked away in a cul-de-sac and settled down till it was time for his next call. He pulled the collar of his jacket up and closed his eyes, although he had no intention of sleeping. He was calm now. Earlier, on his drive back into town, he’d been nervous about being stopped and the script being changed. It was all about timing, but he knew he also needed a bit of luck for everything to fall into place at the right time. The soldier in him knew that something would go wrong. But there was no point in worrying about it so he would take it as it came. All that mattered was that he settled his scores. He’d already taken care of Donnie Monk, and Jackie Martin probably wouldn’t drink another pint till he was an old man.

  The wheels started to turn. The information from Crimestoppers was passed to the night-shift intelligence section in Fettes and the warning lights started to flash. Once Fisher and McLean were flagged up as high priority, a call was made to Thompson, who was still sound asleep, worn out from the strain of the operation. The intelligence officer briefed her and that weariness was forgotten as her mind fired up a need-to-do list in her head. She had a one-minute cold shower to clear her mind and then called McGovern.

  ‘I’ll take the early turn. It might be a long day, so you come in a bit later in case we need to be relieved. Is that okay with you?’ She wanted to be sure that McGovern was in agreement.

  ‘Makes sense, and let’s hope this gets these two off the street at least. I’ll call Grace to let her know, if you want to get on and call the troops out early.’

  McGovern put the phone down. ‘The girl’s learning, no doubt about it,’ he said, rubbing the stubble on his chin.

  ‘What’s that?’ his wife mumbled, only half-awake.

  ‘Nothing, honey, just go back to sleep. Work to do.’

  She’d been with him through dozens of night call-outs, and, as always, she didn’t go back to sleep but pulled her legs over the edge of the bed and stretched her arms. ‘Tea?’

  ‘Definitely. Remind me to buy you dinner after this job.’ He pulled her towards him and kissed the top of her head.

  McGovern called Macallan, who struggled to wake up but gradually realised it was her phone ringing rather than a dream. He chatted idly to her for a few moments until he was sure she was in a fit state to take in information then briefed her, sticking as closely as he could to what he’d been told by Thompson. Passing inaccurate information could be fatal, and he was too long in the tooth to make that mistake.

  ‘I don’t get it, Jimmy. It’s too clean. Who would know that much information about those guys? You’ve seen how tight they keep it. I know we can only go with the information we’re given, but I’d really like to know who gave it, wouldn’t you? I’m going to call Felicity out to help you. You need all the hands and brains you can get on board. I think we should have enough evidence by the close of play today to arrest them, but if you get them on a dope and firearms deal then so much the better.’ She thought for a moment. ‘When I get clear at Leith I’ll head up to Fettes to see how it’s developing. Best of luck, and be careful, Jimmy.’ She normally would have said it without worrying, but she meant it this time.

  She glanced across the bed at the form under the duvet and smiled as she realised Fraser hadn’t moved; call-outs had never been part of his job description.

  Next, Macallan called Young, who hadn’t slept anyway and was still grappling with all the pieces of information swirling round her mind. She could make some bits fit together but not all of them – there was a piece missing.

  ‘I think this is it, Grace. Nelson might still be keeping his head down, but whatever happens today, he’s involved.’

  ‘I know. It’s driving me mad as well, but we are where we are. I’ll see you at Fettes at some stage. Please just go through it all again in case we can help the team out.’

  A full firearms unit was on standby within an hour and East Fettes Avenue was within sight of Fettes, which made it easier to get them ready and in place. Thompson agreed with the uniformed senior officers that when they were certain that they were approaching the right car they would call in the firearms and arrest teams to take Fisher and McLean out of the game. With any luck this would be with minimum force, but they all knew what the Belfast men were capable of and no one was under any illusions.

  Thompson got a call from the OP at Fisher’s house telling her that his lights were on and they’d seen him at the window. She breathed a sigh of relief that at least they knew where he was.

  At the same time that Thompson was briefing the firearms officers, Billy Nelson was parking the 4x4 in East Fettes Avenue with that first bit of luck that he needed. If he’d been even a couple of minutes later he would have run into two of the surveillance team, who’d been sent to see if there was a car matching the description of the one passed to Crimestoppers, but he saw the car lights crawling along the avenue and slipped under a parked van, watching them stop momentarily opposite the 4x4.

  ‘Too close, Billy boy,’ he said under his breath, but he realised they’d taken the first bit of the story.

  When the car disappeared he got back up, pulled his woollen hat low over his ears and headed for Stockbridge, where the streets were starting to buzz with early workers. He found a phone box and called Fisher.

  ‘Jesus, Billy, I’ve been climbing the fuckin’ walls! Have you seen the papers?’

  ‘It’s okay – we’ll keep our heads down for a while and it’ll blow over, I’m telling you. I need you and Rob to do a job for me. It’ll be a good earner and we’ll take off for a few weeks in Spain after that. I’ve got it all arranged, passports sorted and we’ll have a good time. We deserve a bit of a break from all this shit anyway.’

  He told Fisher to call McLean and pick up the 4x4; the keys had been left under the front offside wheel arch. He gave them an address in Glasgow to take it to and deliver the goods. There was ten kilos of coke concealed in the car, and when it was dropped off the payoff would be put into a safe account and they could be on their way.

  ‘Are you sure? They could be watching us for all I know.’

  ‘Well, just check it and lose them, Dougie. Christ, you know how it’s done.’

  Fisher agreed, and anyway he wanted to do something rather than sit and worry in his flat. He called McLean, who wanted to get on with it – the prospect of fucking off to Spain appealed to him.

  ‘I want to get the fuck out of Edinburgh, Dougie, and not come back. When we’re there maybe we should top Billy and be done with it. We’ll end up dead with that fucker leading the way. I’ll come round and get you later when I’m ready.’

  Nelson found an early-morning café serving breakfast and ordered the full whack but could only eat part of it. What was the point of life if you couldn’t enjoy bacon and eggs?

  He drank coffee slowly and, when one was finished, ordered another. Nelson had played his hand but still had a bit of time to kill. He would have to wait till he got the call from Fisher that they were on their way and then he would make his move. He had to get back into his house. The guns were stashed under the floorboards, and he would just have to ride his luck that he could get in and out without the police interrupting. By the time he was leaving the house they should be fully distracted by events in East Fettes Avenue.

  44

  Macallan nodded and scribbled some notes as the scientist spoke to her on the phone. They’d found a couple of hairs on Joe Fleming’s clothing, and they were
sure they didn’t belong to the father or son. She perked up even more at the second bit of information.

  ‘The other thing is that I think we have a partial fingerprint in the sprayed blood mentioned to you before. That almost certainly happened when they were cleaning up. You’ll have seen it yourself. Clark says they were wearing latex gloves, but they’re prone to tear at the fingertips with any heavy friction. I think we can safely say there was some heavy friction that night. It’ll take a few days to run the tests, but we’re making progress all the time.’

  Macallan immediately called in Baxter. ‘I think we’re on safe ground now so regardless of what happens today we’ll go ahead and arrest them.’

  ‘Sounds good to me, and more will turn up over the next week, that’s certain.’ He nodded towards the cup in his hand. ‘Fancy a brew?’

  ‘Let’s do that then head up to Fettes to see how it develops. Don’t think I could keep my head focused here when there might be an arrest.’ She chewed the edge of her forefinger and worried.

  When they arrived at Fettes the call had come in to say that Fisher and McLean were on the move and that the surveillance team were with them. They had hardly settled down with another coffee when another message came in from the CID. Macallan took the call and what little colour there was in her face drained in shock. She put the phone down.

  ‘A neighbour of Donnie Monk noticed his door was open this morning and had heard a disturbance in the early hours. Thought he was drunk again. Her old man went in to check and found him dead with a toilet brush rammed down his throat.’

  Macallan shook her head, knowing they were being outplayed. ‘Jesus.’

  Nelson was heading back towards his house and made a detour to cut through a series of gardens to the rear of the terraced villas where he lived. He slipped the bedroom window that he’d left unlocked and climbed into the house, keeping the lights off as he lifted the floorboards concealing the leather sports bag with the two guns and ammo. He took off his clothes and went into the bathroom to wash before changing into fresh gear. Although he was quiet, the bug picked up the sounds of his movements. The information was relayed back to Fettes, and they called the OP that was monitoring the front of the house.

  ‘We haven’t seen any movement and there are no lights on. He definitely didn’t go in the front door.’

  Both men in the OP studied the image from the high-powered camera trained on Nelson’s door. They moved its angle to the windows. After about two minutes they saw it – a shadow moved across one of the bedrooms.

  ‘There’s movement in the house, but we can’t see who it is. We’ve no surveillance team here if it’s him. Instructions?’

  McGovern was in the coordination room with Macallan, Baxter and Young. ‘We need to keep the backup here till we see what happens with Fisher and McLean,’ he said. ‘He had to come in through the back gardens. One of you needs to get there on foot as soon as to watch if he exits. If he does, do not approach him. We don’t know if he’s armed.’

  One of the surveillance officers in the OP dropped everything and ran to cover the back of Nelson’s house.

  The police weren’t the only ones waiting for Billy Nelson. In a van parked in the same street two men sat, watching his place. They saw the policeman run from a house opposite. ‘What the fuck is that?’ the driver asked in a strong, East Belfast accent.

  ‘Don’t know, but let’s just wait it out.’ His companion spoke calmly and in the same accent.

  Nelson was ready. He took the new phone out of his pocket and called Fisher. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘We’ll be at the car in a couple of minutes. We’ll let you know when we’re on the road to Glasgow.’

  Nelson called a taxi and told the operator where to pick him up. He climbed out of the bedroom window, made his way back across the gardens and waited behind a fence till he heard the sound of the taxi coming to a halt. He then walked out into the street and straight into the cab.

  The surveillance officer pulled out his radio and called McGovern. ‘That’s him into a fast black, Jimmy, and heading towards town.’

  The two men in the van saw it and followed the taxi towards town. They had a motorbike in the back; when they were ready they’d dump the van and use that for the job.

  ‘What the fuck is he up to? Is he going to join them?’ McGovern said anxiously. He passed the information to Thompson.

  ‘They’re only a couple of hundred yards from the car, Jimmy. Will keep you informed. Please keep the air clear now as we need to coordinate with the firearms team.’

  ‘It’s Friday,’ Young said behind them.

  Macallan looked round at her. ‘What?’

  ‘I know where he’s going. It’s Friday – that’s it. It’s Friday prayers. That’s what this is about. He’s settling scores. It was there all the time. That’s what those visits to Potterrow were about.’

  ‘Are you sure? What about this car?’

  ‘It’s a diversion. He’s going to the mosque.’

  ‘Come on!’ Macallan shouted at McGovern and they ran out of the building towards East Fettes Avenue.

  Fisher and McLean saw the car and breathed a little easier. Fisher checked under the wheel arch and found the keys.

  ‘Thank fuck, now let’s get out of here,’ he said to McLean with more confidence than he felt. As he pushed the keys into the lock they were both startled by the noise.

  They hadn’t paid enough attention to the vans parked about thirty yards either side of the 4x4. The firearms teams spilled out onto the road and in a few seconds they were covered from all angles. They stood motionless and looked towards each other, realising they’d been set up – just like Jackie Martin.

  Thompson got out of her car and walked towards them, wanting to see the two men up close when the arrest was made. Macallan and McGovern were running round the corner of Carrington Road into East Fettes Avenue when Fisher said, ‘Fuck it,’ decided to try and break through. He turned the key in the lock.

  Nelson had rigged the car using a simple device. There was no need to take the risk of trying to get explosives – the flammable-vapour technique would do the job if he was careful. There had been some problems with it in the past, but they were usually down to lack of care, and as a soldier with explosives training he knew what he was doing. Most of the work had been concealing the gas bottles so nobody would get spooked if they looked through the windows.

  After he’d parked up, he’d opened the valves for a slow release, and by the time Fisher and McLean arrived the car would be a bomb just needing a spark. He’d broken the interior light carefully and made sure that it would come on when they opened the car door. It was simplicity – and it worked perfectly.

  The car blew. A huge fireball engulfed the two Belfast men and three of the firearms team who’d gone in too close. Luckily, most of the others survived their injuries because of the protective clothing they were wearing for the job. Thompson was blown off her feet and suffered burns to her arms and face.

  ‘Fuck!’ Macallan pulled herself up off the ground and checked her reflection in a car window that was somehow still intact after the explosion.

  Her chest heaved with a combination of shock and the adrenalin flooding her system. She looked like something from the Night of the Living Dead, but what was almost comical was that a concrete lamp post had been between her and the blast, resulting in an unaffected clean line from her face down through her torso. Her legs were undamaged, but the rest of her was torn, filthy and bloody, and she wasn’t sure whose blood it was. Some of the people near the centre of the explosion had disappeared, and she was pretty sure she was wearing some of them now.

  She lifted her arms in slow motion and found they were working. There were whistles going off in her ears. She knew that was how it was after a blast and hoped there would be no permanent damage. McGovern appeared in front of her and looked worse than she did, but he was a tough bastard and the rumour was the only way to kill him was a stake through the
heart. He was shouting at her, but it sounded like they were submerged in water. She raised her hand slowly, palm up. ‘Get a car. For fuck’s sake get a car.’

  He didn’t get it. ‘What do you mean?’

  She read the words on his lips rather than heard them and looked around her – at the carnage, the shock and the dead. She walked clumsily over to one of the wounded firearms officers and took his sidearm. He didn’t object; he just wanted the pain to go away.

  ‘Get a car, Jimmy. I’m going to kill that bastard.’

  Nelson sat in the taxi and savoured the blue lights and two-tone horns going off everywhere. The booby-trapped car had worked. All the cops would be heading towards Fettes as he went for the mosque.

  He pulled out the guns and checked them again. He’d filled the pockets of his jacket with ammo and he was ready.

  The driver looked in the mirror and nearly stalled the car.

  ‘Just drive and you won’t get hurt.’ But he had his first bit of bad luck then. They were stuck at lights for a minute and a half as a line of emergency vehicles bombed through, so Nelson decided it was time to bail out, and the driver shook uncontrollably as he was given the largest tip of his life.

  ‘Enjoy it, son,’ Nelson said with a smile as he turned and headed for the mosque a hundred yards away. He felt fine with it, and he was nearly done. The pain in his gut would soon be gone, and if nothing else they would all remember the name Billy Nelson for a long, long time.

  There were quite a few people about, but they hadn’t noticed him carrying a weapon in each hand because they were spooked and distracted by the sounds of the emergency vehicles. Like deer on the savannah they knew there was danger, sensed a predator nearby, but didn’t know in which direction to bolt.

  Nelson hadn’t even noticed the car pulling up on the opposite side of the road. Macallan got out slowly, her head still spinning with shock. She hadn’t spoken to McGovern on the way to the mosque – he was hardly in any better shape than she was.