Death to Pay

by Derek Fee

  The Black Bear was the kind of Belfast pub that could be used in a scene from a spaghetti western. The exterior of the pub hadn’t been painted in twenty years and the small amount of blue paint that remained was flecked and blackened by pollution from cars. Inside was a mirror image of the exterior. The ceiling was a dark-brown colour not from paint but from the nicotine deposits of generations of smokers. The plastic covering on the seats that were attached to the walls had long ago split and the foam inside exited like some hidden creature every time a patron sat down. The tables spread around the room were so heavily stained that their original colour remained hidden under layers of cigarette burns and spilt alcohol. The ambiance was completed by the faint smell of ammonia and farts that emanated from the toilet area. Detective Constable Ronald McIver sat in the back room of the Black Bear. He had been to the toilet twice in the last ten minutes, and he felt a third piss coming on. In normal circumstances, he would be worried about his prostate but being in the Black Bear as Ivan McIlroy’s guest was apt to make most men nervous. They had been at school together so he had the measure of the man. McIlroy had been the school bully who ran the establishment in place of the Headmaster. Most of the students had celebrated when he decided to leave school early. The celebration was short lived however. McIlroy became a fixture at the school gate initially to collect whatever money the students might have and later as the purveyor of illegal substances. The PSNI file on McIlroy was a lengthy one but despite more than a dozen arrests, he had spent no real time behind bars. McIver knew that McIlroy was certainly a sociopath and quite possibly a psychopath. When McIlroy had invited him for a drink in the Black Bear, McIver knew that there was no possibility of turning down the summons. To get to the Black Bear, he had had to run the gauntlet of the rioters in the Shankill but he was assured a safe passage in McIlroy’s company

  ‘Shitty business, eh,’ McIlroy said after their drinks were delivered.

  ‘Aye,’ McIver decided to keep his contribution to the meeting as short as possible.

  ‘Lizzie Rice I mean. Some fucker waltzes into Malvern, opens Lizzie’s head like taking the top off a boiled egg and then just fucks off. Shitty business. Lizzie’s lying in Sammy’s place at Ballygomartin. Are you goin’ to pay your respects?’

  ‘I don’t know Sammy,’ there was a slight catch in McIver’s voice.

  ‘How long have you been a Peeler?’ McIlroy scratched at a pimple on his neck.

  ‘Twenty-two years.’

  ‘And you’re still a fuckin’ constable. Are you dumb or somethin’?’

  ‘No, I’m just not pushy.’

  ‘Your little wifey’s a teacher, right?’

  McIver could feel a bead of sweat running down his brow. ‘Was,’ he said simply.

  ‘You’ve got a nice little life goin’ there, Ronald me boy. Especially since you were such a fuckin’ wimp at school,’ McIlroy sat back and laughed. ‘I remember I used to take your lunch money and give you a couple of slaps about the head for good measure.’ The laughter expelled a rush of fetid breath. ‘You and wifey’ are lucky I didn’t kill you.’ The laughing stopped abruptly.

  McIver looked into his tormentor’s eyes. The pupils were dilated. McIlroy was on something, and it wasn’t just Guinness. Ronald McIver wanted to shit very badly.

  ‘Sammy needs a favour and you’re goin’ to be happy to oblige him,’ McIlroy leaned forward. ‘He wants to find the fucker who topped his mother and who could blame him. He knows that Wilson wants the same thing, but Sammy would prefer to have first dip at the bastard. Are you with me?’

  McIver nodded.

  McIlroy put a wad of cash on the table. ‘A little present from Sammy,’ he said. ‘Take it.’

  McIver hesitated.

  ‘I said fuckin’ take it, you piece of shit,’ there was menace in McIlroy’s voice. ‘Think about little wifey. I’m sure she wouldn’t like bein’ raped.’

  McIver stretched his hand out to take the money and McIlroy grabbed it. ‘Sammy wants to be first. I want to know everything that’s goin’ on with Wilson. When you find who murdered Lizzie you contact me, understood?’

  McIver nodded. McIlroy released his hand and pushed the money towards him. ‘Never forget, we own you.’

  It was dark when DCC Roy Jennings drove through the gates of the imposing Georgian building in Malone Park, one of the most exclusive addresses in South Belfast. The house boasted four magnificent bay windows at the front, and the garden was well-developed and tree lined. Jennings pulled up before the entrance and exited from his car. The front door had been left ajar, and he walked straight into the living room on the left of the door. Shelves of books lined the walls. A log fire was blazing in the ornate fireplace.

  ‘Worshipful Master,’ Jennings said as he entered the room.

  Sammy Rice turned away from the fire and looked at the second most important policeman in Northern Ireland.

  ‘I’m sorry that I couldn’t attend your mother’s wake,’ Jennings continued as Rice walked towards him. They exchanged a Masonic handshake, and Rice led his Lodge Brother back towards the fire.

  Rice went to a drink’s trolley and poured a large brandy. He held it out to Jennings, who shook his head. ‘Don’t worry. I understand,’ he sipped the golden liquid and sat in a leather wing backed chair on one side of the fire. He pointed at a similar chair on the opposite side. ‘Not too many of our respected Lodge Brothers thought it appropriate to mix with the riffraff from the Shankill.’

  Jennings sat in the chair Rice had indicated. ‘It’s difficult. Your public reputation conflicts with your position within the craft.’

  ‘We must remember that we are all on the level. Why did you ask to see me?’ Rice asked.

  ‘The Chief Constable and myself totally understand the reasons behind the riots. Your mother has been callously murdered, and your people wish to express their anger and hurt. However, there are many in the Province, who are also members of our Brotherhood, who do not see a value in disrupting economic life.’

  ‘As a businessman I can understand their point of view. The problem is that we have no idea who’s behind Lizzie’s murder. My colleague on the sectarian divide told me that his crew have no involvement in the murder, and I believe him. Otherwise, I would have been organising retaliation. There’s always the possibility that the murder was intended to undermine my position within East Belfast. What has Wilson found out?’

  Jennings was continually struck by the way in which Rice could change from the street thug to the semi-sophisticated businessman and Lodge leader. Sammy Rice was a dangerous adversary but could be a useful ally. He was a man that Jennings had long ago decided that he needed to have on his side. ‘Nothing. I mean it. He has no clue why or who. The forensics came up with nothing. It looks like whoever did it knew what they were doing, but it doesn’t look like a professional killing. Professionals don’t commit murders with a ball hammer.’

  ‘Ever heard of Richard Kuklinski?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Aka ‘the Iceman’,’ Rice continued. ‘He claimed to have killed more than 100 people. Some of them he killed on the instructions of the Mob in New York, but he also killed people who rubbed him up the wrong way. And he wasn’t particular about the method. He shot, stabbed and bludgeoned his victims to death. That’s why I haven’t excluded a professional hit. Maybe Lizzie is a message for me.’

  Jennings leaned forward feeling the warmth of the fire. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  Rice took a long drink of his brandy. ‘Gerry McGreary has been trying to push into my territory. If anyone has an interest in hurting me, it’s him. Get Wilson to lean on him. Have the uniforms hassle his people.’

  Jennings looked at the Worshipful Master of his Lodge. He was being asked to assist one criminal enterprise by putting the full weight of the PSNI on the other. He had no doubt that Rice was going to use his mother’s death to extend his control to another area of Belfast. It policing terms it didn’t really matter whether th
ey were dealing with a single criminal enterprise or with two. ‘And the riots?’ he asked.

  ‘Lizzie is being buried tomorrow. There’ll be no riot tomorrow night as a mark of respect. That could be the end of it. Always assuming that I hear nice things about McGreary.’

  You devious bastard, Jennings thought with grudging admiration. Turning his mother’s death into a grab for territory was a masterstroke. ‘Worshipful Master,’ Jennings nodded and rose from the chair. ‘It is a pleasure to be of assistance,’ he said as he headed toward the doorway of the room.

  CHAPTER 21

  Belfast, 1983

  The little girl sat where she had been told to by the woman called Nancy. She had chosen the biggest ice cream in the shop, and she was busy licking it before it defrosted, and she lost half of it. Occasionally she heard a scream from the room directly up the stairs. Somebody was very sore because she couldn’t remember either her or Ma ever screaming that loudly, and sometimes she felt very hurt. She was left sitting on the stairs alone, although the woman called Nancy came to the top of the stairs and looked down on her from time to time. She looked sharply upstairs every time she heard a scream. She wondered where Ma was and why she was crying when they got out of the big man’s car. Ma wasn’t normally sad, and the little girl had never seen her crying like she had cried in the street. The screaming stopped, and four women came out of the room at the top of the stairs. They were laughing and happy. The big blond woman with the hard face took a packet of cigarettes from her pocket and offered some to her friends. They lit their cigarettes and sat at the top of the stairs looking down at the little girl as she finished her ice cream. They smoked and laughed among themselves for a few minutes until they had finished their cigarettes, and then they went back into the room. They were only there a short time when the screaming started again. The ice cream was gone, and the little girl wanted to see her Ma. She had been with the women when they came into the building, but she hadn’t been with the group smoking cigarettes at the top of the stairs. I want my Ma, the little girl intoned to herself, and tears began to fall from her face. The screaming was louder than ever up the stairs, and then it stopped abruptly. The woman called Nancy came out of the room, and came down the stairs. The little girl pointed at the blood on Nancy’s shirt and said ‘You hurt yourself.’ Nancy’s face was very white, and she rubbed at the blood on her shirt. Nancy said something with a bad word in the middle. Ma didn’t let her say bad words, although the children at school used bad words to her. The other women came down stairs and passed her by. She noticed that none of them looked at her. I want my Ma, she said a little louder now. The blond woman hit her on the head and told her to shut up. The other women returned with the big man, and he was very angry. They all shouted at each other, and the little girl got very afraid. She started to cry, softly at first but then louder and louder. The man and the women ignored her, and continued to shout at each other. Finally, the big man picked her up. He didn’t hold her like Ma did. He put her under his arm and took her out of the building. His car was on the corner, and he opened the very back where it was dark, and he put her in. Then he closed the back down, and everything went black. The little girl was crying and screaming for her Ma. She was very afraid, and she felt pee running down her leg. She was a big girl and didn’t pee like a baby anymore, but she couldn’t stop the flow. The women told her that everything was going to be OK, but deep down, she knew that nothing would ever be the same again. And it was never going to be alright. She lay down across a big rubber tyre and cried until she fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 22

  Wilson returned from his morning run and opened the apartment door. There was no smell of coffee, and he hadn’t really expected it. Kate had chosen her painting faster than usual, and he could see that her interest in networking was lower than on similar occasions. She put her green spot on the painting, wrote a cheque for the requisite amount and they both headed for home. Not a word was said in the car. Kate had gone to bed immediately they returned, and he was left to nurse a glass of Jameson on his own in the living room. It was happening again and as usual it was his stupidity that was going to ruin everything. It was like he had some kind of self-destruct button attached to his brain that caused him to screw up relationships. He convinced himself that nothing happened. Kate was over-reacting. He had simply been conversing with an attractive woman, and a colleague to boot. It would all blow over but he would have to give Stephanie Reid a wide berth for a little while. He didn’t think about the Lizzie Rice murder for the whole of his jog. Maybe it was just as well because he was far from even starting an investigation. He went into the kitchen and prepared Kate’s favourite breakfast, an omelette made with only the white of two eggs and coffee. He covered the omelette pan and popped two pieces of brown bread in the toaster. It was time to brave the bedroom. Kate was sitting up in bed surrounded by legal papers.

  ‘I have your breakfast on the go in the kitchen.’

  Kate looked at him but didn’t speak.

  ‘I’m just taking a shower,’ he announced.

  ‘You do love me,’ Kate said from the bed as he was pulling his wet tee-shirt off.

  ‘Totally and completely,’ he said sitting beside her on the bed.

  ‘What about that woman last night?’ At the gallery, Kate was struck by a bout of déjà vu. She was the other woman when Wilson was married, and now she wondered whether the boot was going to be on the other foot.

  ‘I told you she’s a colleague from work. Since you hadn’t arrived, and since she and I didn’t know another soul in the room, we started talking to each other rather than stand around like a couple of idiots.’

  ‘I hate being jealous. We can’t deny that you come with a reputation, and I’ve been in the character assessment business long enough to know that people don’t really change. They tell you that they have but in my experience there’s little change in people’s character once they’re out of their teens. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life having to watch you like a hawk or listening to rumours of how you’ve made a fool of me with someone.’

  ‘If we’d have been talking last night, I would have told you of an additional complication.’

  Kate put the legal papers aside and stared at him. ‘I don’t like the sound of this.’

  ‘You remember that journalist, Maggie Cummerford, the one that broke the story about me being investigated by Professional Services Division.’

  ‘Vaguely. She was fired or something.’

  ‘She was put on the social pages for six months. Somehow she is back as a crime reporter, and she’s managed to convince HQ to allow her to do a profile on me in the context of the Rice investigation.’

  ‘My God but you attract them like flies.’

  ‘It has nothing to do with me. Jennings has stuck her on me, for some reason or other, and since he’s involved I’m worried that there might be a plan afoot to undermine the investigation and get at me that way.’

  ‘Go and take your shower before some woman or other jumps out of the wardrobe and lands on you. We can mull over the reasons you’ve been saddled with the journalist over breakfast.’

  The mood in the Murder Squad room hadn’t improved overnight. On the way to the station, Wilson passed by the detritus of the previous night’s riot. Three idiots were stupid enough to leave their cars available for burning. Tear gas canisters had been pushed into the gutters, and he noticed one or two rubber bullets that hadn’t been collected as mementos, just another night of madness and mayhem in Belfast. The nine o’clock briefing was a disaster witnessed by an elfin Maggie Cummerford always tapping away on her damn laptop. The team had reviewed all the evidence or what little of it there was, but they had come up with nothing new. It was beginning to look like Lizzie Rice’s killer was going to get away with it. The funeral was scheduled for eleven o’clock.

  ‘Nothing from the phones?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘A load of shite,’ DC McIver replied. ‘We’ve wasted a lot of reso
urces following up leads to nowhere.

  ‘Anything more on Lizzie?’ Wilson looked at Moira.

  ‘Nobody’s talking,’ Moira said. ‘At least not to me. I hate saying it but maybe Peter should be the one pursuing this line. I haven’t heard one bad word about Lizzie. There’d be a bit of a contrast between Saint Lizzie of the Shankill and the woman accused of assault and abuse of her Catholic neighbours.’

  ‘What about the wake?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘The usual suspects,’ Peter Davidson said. ‘The good and the great of local and national Loyalist politics, community leaders and just about every Protestant resident of West Belfast. I didn’t stay long, the procession stretched half-way down Ballygomartin Road. Billy was sober for a change, but he looked like shit. I can’t believe that we got absolutely nothing from him. He was there. Maybe he was part of it.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Wilson said. ‘If it was the reverse, I’d be willing to buy it. Lizzie was always the hard one. Billy was a bit of a fellow traveller. He did his stint in Long Kesh, but he wasn’t capable of much more than leading a riot. Unlike Lizzie, she was capable of anything. That’s why her background is so important. Peter, maybe you should talk to some people you know and see if anything useful falls out. According to Moira’s profiler friend,’ Wilson smiled when he saw Moira redden. ‘The crime was very personal. The killer was someone who was hurt very badly by Lizzie, and this is revenge. Lizzie did enough bad things that affected the lives of her victims. This is our usual needle in a haystack search. He put his hand on Davidson’s shoulder. ‘You and I at the funeral. We leave here at ten thirty. No need for uniforms. Let’s see who shows up.’