Death to Pay

by Derek Fee

  ‘The good Dr Guilfoyle.’

  ‘It’s Professor Guilfoyle to you. He’d like to meet you.’

  Wilson raised his eyebrows. ‘Surely a member of your own family should handle the ‘my intentions are honourable’ conversation.’

  ‘He’s a clinical psychologist, and he’s done some work for the FBI.’

  Wilson’s eyes rose for the second time.

  ‘I know how you feel about profilers and the like, but Brendan is just interested. I think he finds the criminal scene in Belfast a little tame and Lizzie Rice’s murder is a bright spot in his otherwise boring lecture schedule.’

  ‘Not a consultation,’ Wilson said. ‘A drink.’

  ‘Agreed. Can I show him the crime scene photos?’

  ‘If you take them home this evening to examine them, make sure nobody outside the team sees them.’

  ‘Understood. Tomorrow evening for the drink.’

  ‘Unless the Loyalists set the town on fire.’

  Moira exited the office, and Wilson was left alone with his thoughts. And those thoughts turned to riots. Every time either the Loyalists or Republicans didn’t like something they would take to the streets. Groups preparing to riot throughout the world should first employ one of the professional rioters from Belfast to train up the learner-rioters in their country. A subject for the riot was not really necessary. The recent ‘flag riots’ were one of the best examples. The streets of Belfast were turned into a mess because the City Fathers had decided to only fly a flag on certain days of the year over City Hall. So what, said the majority of the population. Not so, said the professional rioters. Their itchy fingers sped to their mobile phones or their tablets and Twitter was alive with arrangements to riot. Times and places were transmitted and for the uninitiated rioter, a Google map could be appended. Technology was shown to be riot friendly. With great reluctance, Wilson returned to his computer. He would give the blasted e-mails one hour of his time.

  CHAPTER 10

  Sammy Rice walked away from the Mortuary at the Royal Victoria Hospital. He hadn’t liked what he had seen. Someone had really gone after the poor auld biddy. They had cleaned her up and they had tried to hide her injuries by covering the back of her head, but he had insisted on seeing the full extent of the damage. He was no stranger to death, but this was something else. A bullet in the back of the head was Sammy’s style. He didn’t hold with the hands-on stuff, although he had those in his employ who would positively salivate when they got the opportunity to inflict pain. Lizzie wasn’t the best mother in the world, but she’d been his mother and that’s what counted. She had fed him and clothed him and on the weekend, she’d combed the lice out of his hair and squeezed them between the nails of her thumbs. She brought him up as a good Loyalist. He believed Wilson and the pathologist about the cancer. Lizzie smoked like a chimney and drank like a fish, so he supposed it was inevitable that some form of cancer would catch up with her eventually. He hadn’t shed a tear over her not because he didn’t think it was manly, but because he hadn’t felt grief at her passing. He was more pissed that his holiday had been interrupted than at the fact that he had seen the women who had bore him lying on a cold slab. The fucked-up holiday wasn’t the only thing that was pissing Sammy off. His control of the Loyalist enclave of West Belfast and the financial benefits that flowed from that control depended on his personal prestige. His position as a Godfather had been established and cemented by the ruthless way he climbed the ladder and how he dealt with pretenders to his throne. The fact that someone had the audacity to murder his mother was a direct threat to his prestige and by extension his position. He would have to be seen to deal effectively and viciously with whoever had killed Lizzie. That meant he would have to get his hands on the murderer before the peelers. He would have been confident of that if it was anyone other than Wilson who was investigating the murder. He had several informants in Wilson’s station, and he owned them body and soul. He would get his people on the ground to start beating the bushes to see what they might flush out. He would find out what track Wilson was on and he would try to get ahead of him. And when he found the fucker who tried to piss in his ear, he would hand him over to people who would do things to him that would make him wish he had never been born.

  ‘It’s kickin’ off,’ Ivan McIlroy, Rice’s lieutenant, said with a smile as he entered the back room of the Black Bear public house which was Sammy Rice’s office.

  ‘Fat fuckin’ good it’ll do,’ Rice said

  ‘The boys are out to make a point,’ McIlroy sat down at the table with Rice. ‘You can’t swan into the Shankill and kill a Loyalist. It also gives them a bit of diversion. Are you goin’ to turn up?’

  ‘Are you out of your fuckin’ tree? I’m grievin’ for my poor dead mother. ‘ Rice lifted a glass of whiskey and downed the contents. He looked over at the corner of the room where Billy Rice sat slumped in a chair. ‘What a fuckin’ lump of shit. That I would end up like that. Toss a whiskey into the cunt.’

  McIlroy nodded at the barman who brought a whiskey and laid it before Rice’s father.

  ‘We have a real fuckin’ problem here, Ivan. That tosser,’ he nodded in the direction of his father. ‘Has no fuckin’ idea what happened. He saw nothing and heard nothing. Drunk as a skunk. He’s about as much use to us as a fridge is to an Eskimo. We have to get to our people in the peelers. We need to know exactly what Wilson is up to. I want a copy of everything that he has. The photos, the forensic report, what line of enquiry he’s following. Everything. We’ll keep the pressure up with the riots every evening except on the day of the funeral. I want you to spread the word among the troops. Anyone who brings me information about the murderer will be taken care of.’

  ‘What about the Taigs?’ Ivan asked.

  ‘It’s possible but why would they bother? What would they have to gain? It’s more likely someone on our side. Maybe McGreary wants to muscle in. Maybe he’d like to show that I’m not the force I once was. ‘

  Maybe if you didn’t spend so much time in Spain, McIlroy thought but didn’t say.

  ‘You should have seen her head, Ivan. Someone wanted her dead very badly.’

  ‘If he’s out there we’ll find him.’

  ‘I don’t just want to find him. I want him here and when I get him, I’m goin’ to put his balls in a vice and squeeze until they burst.’

  CHAPTER 11

  It was nearing eight thirty when Wilson opened the door to the apartment he shared with Kate McCann. Since a mini-riot was taking place on the doorstep of the police station, it had taken him some time to get away. The riot hadn’t really developed along the usual lines and had consisted more of a protest by residents that one of their own had been murdered in her home. There was a storm out there, and it probably wouldn’t burst until the killer was found. As Wilson opened the door, he heard the sound of voices coming from the living room. That could only mean that Kate was holding some kind of meeting. Which meant that it was probably the committee she formed to pressure the Northern Assembly and the British Government to set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It was a subject on which they had opposing views, and he needed to listen to her committee’s ramblings like he needed a hole in the head. His heart sank and for a moment he thought of retracing his steps and heading for the local hostelry. Instead, he simply sighed and marched straight into what he perceived to be the lion’s den. There were three strangers seated with Kate at their living room table. A series of papers was spread out across the table and for a few moments the group were unaware of his presence so engrossed were they in their meeting.

  ‘Ian,’ Kate finally noticed his presence. She tried him with her most dazzling smile. Please don’t make a scene, it said. ‘We’re just about to wrap up.’

  ‘Don’t let me interrupt you,’ Wilson said.

  ‘Let me introduce you to the other members of the committee.’ She turned to the three people at the table. ‘This is George Carney from the Human Rights Group, Greg Ferri
s from Worldwide Watch and Ellie Smith, who has just joined us from South Africa. My partner Ian Wilson.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ Wilson said pleasantly. He was a little dismayed that one of Kate’s hobbyhorses was raising its ugly head again. From time to time, she and other like-minded citizens would attempt to repeat the South African example of dragging the miscreants responsible for the ‘Troubles’ before a committee of their peers and have them recant their evil ways. Wilson didn’t think she had a hope in hell of getting such a committee off the ground. Ulster was not South Africa.

  The group at the table were clearing up their papers. The two men packed their briefcases, briefly shook hands with Wilson and departed. Wilson noted that the woman, Ellie Smith, hung back slightly.

  ‘Ellie wanted specifically to meet you,’ Kate said as the two women approached him.

  Wilson looked at the woman at Kate’s side. She had dark hair cut in pageboy fashion and an angular face that obviously didn’t smile too much. No feature stood out. Her eyes were brown but not sparkling, her nose was neither big nor small, and her mouth was a thin line with virtually no lip showing. The one feature that struck Wilson was her physique. She was at least five feet nine and had shoulders to match. He guessed that she was somewhere in her late thirties.

  ‘Oh, and why is that,’ Wilson held out his hand.

  ‘Two reasons,’ Ellie Smith had a distinct South African accent. She took his hand and shook it vigorously. ‘I was brought up in the Transvaal and you know how we are about rugby. I saw you play for Ireland when you toured SA. You were way ahead of your time.’

  Wilson had heard this so many times that he didn’t bother to blush. ‘And the second reason?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m a criminologist, and I hear that you’re the top gun in the local detective world.’

  Wilson glanced at Kate. ‘And who might have told you that?’

  ‘It’s the word around,’ Smith said smiling. ‘Don’t worry Kate is a paragon of discretion when it comes to you.

  ‘Ellie worked with the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and she’s also a bit of an athlete,’ Kate said. ‘She swam for South Africa internationally.’

  Ergo those shoulders, Wilson thought.

  ‘I saw you on the television this evening,’ Smith continued. ‘You’re the SIO on the murder of that woman in the Shankill. The killing is still going on here?’

  ‘I don’t think that this one is sectarian,’ Wilson said simply. ‘It’s always a possibility. I’m sure scores are still being settled in South Africa. What about that Terreblanche fellow?’

  ‘Some resentments run deep,’ Smith said. ‘Our psyches are strange things. That’s what reconciliation is all about. Unless we can reconcile the hurt that’s been done to us the wound festers, and bad things can ensue. I’ve outstayed my welcome. You really were something on the field.’

  ‘I was my pleasure and a lot of fun,’ Wilson said.

  ‘I hope we meet again,’ Smith said. ‘We could have a good natter about rugby.

  ‘I am going to have to tie you up,’ Wilson said to Kate as soon as they were alone. ‘You’re supposed to be slowing down not taking things on, and this Truth and Reconciliation thing is going precisely nowhere. You’re twenty years too late. Most of the principles on the Ulster side are dead, and most of the principles on the mainland are tending roses in Sussex and have no interest in exposing their wrongdoing. Unlike the South Africans, the Irish don’t want to remember: They’re still busy trying to forget.’

  ‘That’s so bloody typical of you,’ Kate was more than usually brisk in stuffing papers into her briefcase. ‘Anything I believe in doesn’t count. You’re trying to control me. You’ve made me pregnant and now you want to decide what I should think. Soon you’ll want me to give up my stupid job so that I can stay at home and take care of your child.’

  ‘You’re a brilliant barrister with a fantastic future but this reconciliation idea is a caprice,’ he hoped this would sooth her. He wasn’t ready for a session with an angry Kate McCann. ‘Stick to what you do well. Our lives are about to change in a way that neither of us can understand. We’re going to have a real living breathing other human being to take care of. Right now, you need to be making allowances for the future by focusing on what’s absolutely necessary.’

  ‘And, of course, I suppose you’re the judge of what’s absolutely necessary’. The colour rose in Kate’s cheeks. ‘I saw the way you preened when Ellie mentioned your television appearance. I suppose that was part of your focusing.’

  ‘Think about it, Kate. I know you believe in what you’re doing but the powers that be don’t want it. They’ve never wanted it. Sometimes you have to let something you really believe in go.’

  ‘And you’ve experienced this?’

  ‘I wanted to get the people behind some of the murders I investigated but for various reasons, they were not to be got. I believe in justice, but we can’t always have it. I’m a pragmatist.’

  ‘Or a coward.’

  Wilson was stunned.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Kate said quickly. ‘That was supposed to hurt, I shouldn’t have said it. You the finest and most honest man I’ve ever met. It’s just that I want to contribute.’

  ‘You will. But not by tilting at windmills.’

  ‘How about this is my last tilt?’

  He smiled and threw his arms around her and kissed her hard on the lips. ‘The last tilt, OK,’ he said when they disengaged.

  ‘I’m sorry about the preening remark. You looked very handsome on TV.’

  Wilson did his best impression of someone preening. ‘Now I definitely need my pre-dinner drink.’

  ‘Oh, dinner?’

  CHAPTER 12

  Brendan Guilfoyle, Visiting Professor of Psychology at Queens University, sat cross-legged and naked on the bed in Moira McElvaney’s apartment. He and Moira had eaten dinner and then made love and now he was sitting examining the Lizzie Rice murder scene photos.

  Moira ran her fingers along his back. ‘I think you only came here this evening because of those photos.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ he turned a photo over. ‘I needed dinner because I hadn’t eaten all day.’

  She pulled him back onto her making sure not to damage the photos. She loved the soft lilt of his Boston accent. ‘I am going to kill you, Brendan Guilfoyle.’

  ‘Well if you do. Please choose another method than our friend in these photos.’ He kissed her lightly and put the photos carefully on the floor beside the bed. ‘Round two,’ he announced as he pulled her on top of him.

  ‘Now that’s what I call a good old-fashioned murder,’ Brendan said when they had finished making love. ‘I love a bludgeoning. It’s so basic, so much a part of our simian past. And very, very personal.’

  ‘Wilson wasn’t totally convinced about meeting you,’ she puffed up the pillows behind her head.

  ‘And I cannot wait to meet him. I’m sick of hearing about the great man. And I’m more than a little jealous. You have blown this guy up so high that I feel like accusing you of hero worship. You haven’t fucked this guy, have you?’

  Moira looked harshly at him.

  He smiled. ‘OK, you haven’t fucked him but you’ve wanted to.’

  Moira reddened.

  ‘ My God I’m right. I bet I’m right.’

  ‘You self-righteous American bastard. You can psychoanalyse your students but keep your grubby mind off me.’

  ‘I saw the guy on TV to-day, and I don’t really blame you.’

  She aimed a playful punch at him.

  ‘Seriously, he looks the part. The other two guys were hogging the limelight. Especially, the little guy who looks like a leprechaun on speed. Your buddy dominated the screen. I bet every lady in the audience was ogling him. And you say he’s smart too. My God, how did you manage to keep your hands off him?’

  ‘He’s spoken for,’ Moira swung her legs over the edge of the bed. ‘His partner is beautiful, sexy and one of
the top barristers in Ulster. And she’s pregnant.’

  ‘Barrister, that’s a lawyer right?’

  Moira smiled and nodded. She was getting very fond of Brendan Guilfoyle. He was intelligent and funny and a whole lot better in bed than her ex-husband. Sometimes she wondered where it was all going. Brendan was only in Belfast for one year. Then he would be returning to his real life at Harvard, while she would still be chasing miscreants around the dingy back streets of Belfast. She was happier than she had been for some time. Although she was enjoying the banter with Brendan concerning Wilson, she was also realising that there might be something to it. Maybe she spoke too much about him to Brendan and God forbid some of her colleagues. Wilson was always going to be out of reach for her. Brendan was her here and now, and she was going to enjoy every minute with him.

  ‘Coffee or round three,’ she asked.

  ‘What’s that expression you guys have ‘need you ask’?’

  CHAPTER 13

  Wilson rose earlier than usual. He had been awake since six o’clock and had decided to get up and go for a jog along the Embankment. He loved an early-morning jog not only for the fact that it blew the cobwebs of sleep away. He was able to mull over what was on his mind as his feet pounded the pavement. Although he had learned to disguise his limp when he walked, he had never, and would never, regain the fluidity in his running style he had had before his injury. As he started his run, his mind was focused on Lizzie Rice’s murder and the possible motivations behind the killing of a woman in her mid-sixties who had been for some considerable time in the wastebasket of Ulster’s politics. He would have to put the issues of motive on the backburner until he knew more about Lizzie’s life. He was quite sure that there was more than one skeleton in Lizzie’s cupboard, and he would have to dislodge them all before he could discount them as possible motivations. As his feet pounded the concrete, he considered the past day and the information they had gleaned. He concluded that they were no nearer to finding the killer than they had been the previous morning. Murder investigations were process, and as with any process there had to be forward momentum. Standing still was not an option. Every day would have to show some progress in identifying the killer. He was well into his fifth kilometre when his mind switched from Lizzie Rice to Kate. Their conversation of the previous evening troubled him. Was his concern with Kate’s working life really centred on the wellbeing of their unborn child or was she right in thinking that he was trying to control her? He was in no doubt that she believed it was the latter although the accusation had come out in the heat of argument. He tried to examine his motives. Did he really want to curtail Kate’s professional life because he wanted to turn her into a wife and mother? She was one of the most brilliant lawyers of her generation. She would, in the not to distant future, be offered a place on the bench with the possibility to contribute not only to the dispensing of law but also to the making of law. Did he really want to deny her that future? He was still struggling with the answers to these questions when he reached their apartment. He had time for a shower, and then he’d make Kate breakfast as a peace offering. The smell of frying eggs greeted his nostrils as he pushed open the door to the apartment.