Death to Pay

by Derek Fee

  CHAPTER 24

  Nancy Morison was more than a little tipsy. She’d spent the morning at the funeral of her good friend, Lizzie Rice. She had been one of those who had gone from the house in Ballygomartin Road to Townsend Street Presbyterian and on to Balmoral Cemetery. And her feet could tell the tale. She’d put on her most comfortable shoes, but they weren’t snug enough to counteract the hours of standing and walking. Still it was a wonderful service. The pastor had given a beautiful speech, and the singing of the hymns had been heavenly. Sammy put on a spread at the Black Bear public house with sandwiches and plenty of booze. There had even been rousing renditions of the ‘Sash’ and ‘The Protestant Boys’. In all, it had been a lovely day except for the fact that she would never see Lizzie again. They had both been born on Malvern Street six months apart. Lizzie was the elder, and those six months set her out as the senior partner for all their lives. Lizzie led, and Nancy followed. Lizzie was the boss of their class at school with Nancy her able lieutenant. Lizzie always got the best-looking boy friends. Billy Rice had been the handsomest young man in the Shankill, and Lizzie had set her sights on him. Nancy wanted him too but when Lizzie told her that she was going to have him, she dropped out of the race. She giggled to herself. Billy’s looks didn’t last long. He took to the lager like it was mother’s milk and his slim figure soon ballooned. She’d looked at him at the funeral, and he looked fucked. It wouldn’t be long before he’d be following Lizzie. She stumbled a little. How many vodkas had she had? She tried to count back, but the drinks kept flowing so it was all a blur. Sammy must have put a fortune behind the bar, although she’d heard that he owned the ‘Black Bear’ so he was really paying himself. She stopped and opened her bag. She had had a packet of ciggies earlier in the day, and she was sure that she still had at least one left. She had a Eureka moment as she discovered a battered cigarette at the bottom of her bag. She pulled it out and stuck it in her mouth. There was no sign of her lighter in the bag. Where the fuck was the stupid little bugger? She swirled her hand into the mass of rubbish in her bag but there was no sign of the lighter. A young man passed her by and she moved to ask him for a light, but he was past her before she could get the words out. ‘Fucker,’ she called after him. She stood on the path with the bent and broken unlit cigarette in her mouth. She had difficulty remembering where she was. Her total concentration was on getting a light for her cigarette.

  ‘Hi, Nancy.’

  Nancy turned her concentration from the cigarette to the sound of someone calling her. She looked at the road and saw that a car pulled up beside her. A young woman lowered the window and was speaking to her. She smiled although she didn’t recognise the figure in the car. She bent her knees slowly and looked into the car. The silly bitch at the wheel was wearing one of them hooded things that hid her face. Maybe she can give me a light. Nancy staggered over to the side of the car.

  ‘Get in. I’ll drive you home,’ the young woman said opening the door for her from the inside.

  ‘Do you have a light? ‘ Nancy said although it came out as jewhavalit.

  ‘Yes,’ the young woman said. ‘Get in.’

  ‘Fuck it,’ Nancy said and got in the car.

  They immediately moved off from the kerb. Nancy’s bag was still open, so she closed it. She looked up at the woman driving. ‘I don’t know you,’ Nancy slurred the words. She was happy to be in a car because of her aching feet. ‘Whose cub are you?’

  ‘You met me once,’ the young woman said and took a Taser from the side pocket of the car and it one movement pressed it to Nancy’ side.

  A bolt of electricity shot through Nancy. She convulsed, and collapsed in her seat.

  ‘Just think about ice cream,’ the young woman said giving Nancy a second jolt.

  They drove in silence now out of Belfast on the B102 through Andersonstown and on to the Stewartstown Road. When they reached the southern suburb of Dunmurray, the young woman turned left into the countryside. She had selected the site over the past few days. It had to be quiet, but the body had to be discovered quickly. They drove for half an hour before they came to the spot she had chosen. She pulled into the side of the road and looked across at Nancy. Seventy kilos, she estimated. It would be a haul, but she would manage it. The house was being constructed twenty yards from the road. The foundations were already put down and concreted. Blocks were stacked around the foundations to facilitate the bricklayers’ work.

  Nancy Morison began to stir. She looked out the window of the car and saw that she was in the countryside. She was confused and feeling more than a little sick. She could taste bile in her mouth so a puking session wasn’t too far away. She remembered walking along Cambrai Street in the centre of Belfast. She was desperate for a ciggie. Then she remembered looking for a light. She suddenly became very afraid. She looked beside her and saw the woman in the hoodie with the electrical gadget in her hand then she felt the bolt of electricity hit her again, and she lost consciousness.

  The young woman dragged Nancy Morison out from the passenger side of the car and hefted her up with difficulty onto her shoulder. She marched along the rough stone path leading to the foundation staggering over the uneven ground. The old woman was a dead weight, but she managed to get her up onto the concrete foundation.

  Nancy came around and found herself lying prone on her back looking up at the sky. This was a nightmare. It must be the drink, she thought. She saw dark clouds scudding across her vision. Looks like rain, she thought. She wondered what she was doing here lying on her back on the cold concrete. She remembered the electric shock and felt her bladder collapse and warm pee flood her knickers and form a pool around her bottom. Suddenly, there was a face directly above hers. She had no idea who her tormentor was. ‘Please,’ she forced the word out of her mouth.

  The young woman looked at her as though she were some kind of specimen. ‘It’s important that you don’t move during the next part of the operation,’ she said. ‘So I’m going to have to give you another little shot.’ She held up the electrical gadget with the two points like horns and rammed it into the old woman’s chest.

  Nancy’s body convulsed, and she voided herself. The smell of fresh excrement was immediately in the air.

  The young woman picked up and large concrete block from the nearest stack and held it as high as she could before smashing it down on Nancy Morison’s head.

  The concrete block split the old woman’s skull as though it were a coconut. The point of impact was the forehead and crown of the head. Brains and cranial blood spilt out onto the concrete foundation. Death was painful but instantaneous.

  The young woman looked at the body for a few moments and then smiled. ‘By the way, thanks for the ice cream,’ she said.

  CHAPTER 25

  The smell in the apartment was heavenly when Kate pushed in the door. It had been a tough day and although Kate had prepared herself mentally for the rigours of full-time work and pregnancy, she was ready to accept that she was feeling more tired that she had anticipated. She threw her briefcase down in the foyer and made directly for the source of the smell.

  Wilson was standing in the kitchen with a tablet opened on the counter in front of him. Several pots were on the go on the stove. He turned quickly when he heard Kate behind him. ‘Welcome, stranger,’ he said moving towards her and hugging her.

  ‘Tough day at the office?’ she asked. Wilson cooking generally meant that he needed a major unwind that could not be attained by his usual jogging routine. She noticed that he had already been at the wine.

  ‘Terrible, you?’

  She threw her jacket onto a couch. ‘Snap.’

  He moved quickly to the fridge and removed a bottle of white wine. ‘A glass of Black Oystercatcher will help reinvigorate you.’ He poured a glass and offered it to her.

  She took the glass and sipped. It was cold and clear and fruity, and it tasted wonderful.

  ‘I have a Thai Green Curry Chicken with sticky rice on the stove. Have a shower and
meet me here in ten minutes.’ He patted her on the behind and pushed her in the direction of the bathroom.

  ‘You shouldn’t make me jealous.’

  ‘You have nothing to be jealous of,’ he lied as he pushed her a little harder towards the bathroom. He lied so easily. But then again, he was an expert at it. Stephanie Reid awakened in him that old urge, that old excitement of the chase that he had given up the evening he had seen his wife expire on her hospice bed. The bastard he thought he had banished, was still just beneath the surface. The ‘new’ Ian Wilson was just a skin-deep version of the womaniser he thought he had sloughed off. Perhaps he should expose his real self to Cummerford. He wondered would she be so happy to unmask the rotten truth that he was probably responsible for his wife’s cancer. Not totally responsible but not innocent either. And last night he was close to reliving history because of those old urges. He poured himself another glass of wine, former rugby star, top cop, philanderer, cheater and liar. That might certainly make good copy and titillate Cummerford’s editor.

  Kate came back into the living area wearing a white terry bathrobe with her hair balled up in a towel. She clinked glasses with him. ‘That was wonderful.’ She drank and then put her arms around him. ‘I love you.’

  ‘I love you too.’ He looked for the lie but didn’t find it. He really did love Kate.

  She kissed him lightly and stood back. She opened the bathrobe to expose her stomach. She was beginning to show. She took his hand and placed it over her naked stomach.

  He knew that inside there was the child he had always wanted. ‘Our supper will be overdone if we don’t make some headway,’ he reluctantly moved his hand.

  ‘Did you feel anything?’ she asked.

  He shook his head, then bent and kissed her. It hadn’t been such a shitty day after all.

  Moira McElvaney was burning the midnight oil. Brendan was leading a seminar and wouldn’t be free until ten o’clock. They organised to have a late dinner. She hadn’t felt like sitting alone in her flat, so she decided to go through some of the boxes that had arrived from the warehouse in HQ where the old files were kept. She asked for files from the seventies and eighties relating to the activities of the Ulster Volunteer Force and, in particular, the woman’s branch of the organisation. Some organ of the security apparatus had penetrated every paramilitary organisation in Ulster on both sides of the sectarian divide. The Royal Ulster Constabulary, the forerunner of the PSNI, and the Ulster Defence Regiment had links and sometimes, although it would never be admitted, cross-memberships in Loyalist paramilitaries. Military Intelligence was concentrated on the Republican paramilitary groups. The result was that an enormous amount of documentation had been generated by the plethora of undercover agents in the various organisations. That was just problem number one. Individuals with divided loyalties wrote much of the documentation so that reports generally contained a small nugget of information hidden in a mass of fictional narrative. That was problem number two. Moira had already ploughed through several documents referring to the women’s branch of the UVF only to find that they were so heavily redacted as to be useless. Whole paragraphs were obscured by heavy black lines. She flipped over move pages and read the inarticulate ramblings of an RUC plant in the Shankill Branch of the UVF. Lizzie Rice’s name was prominent as were several others while other names had been redacted. It was all very anodyne stuff. Marches were planned; clothes were made from flags; money was collected and houses were set alight. Anodyne. She glanced at her watch. It was twenty minutes to ten o’clock, and she had managed two one-inch files since seven o’clock. It was too much like hard work. She hoped that Brendan was in the humour for dinner, drinks and a hefty bout of lovemaking. She wondered whether there was any future in their relationship. In six months, he would be heading back to Harvard and she would still be chasing criminals around Belfast. She had been down the marriage road and had seen at first hand how two people can make a career out of hurting each other. Right now, she would settle for the drinks, the dinner and the lovemaking. Tomorrow would be another day.

  CHAPTER 26

  ‘What sort of day do you have?’ Wilson said popping a second capsule into the coffee machine. His head was not exactly in great order due to a combination of Black Oystercatcher and Chianti washed down with Jameson. The good news was that he and Kate were totally reconciled, and he had promised himself to stay as far away as possible from Stephanie Reid within the confines of his job. Kate and their unborn child were his priorities.

  ‘The usual, court, court and more court,’ Kate wolfed some toast and marmalade. ‘Followed by meetings with clients at the office,’ flakes of toasted bread flew from the corners of her mouth. ‘So a pretty full day.’

  ‘So when can we expect a slowdown?’ the coffee was beginning to take effect.

  ‘I’m planning my schedule with the clerk in Chambers. I’ve told him to give the briefs to some of my colleagues who are in urgent need of money.’

  ‘But people are still asking for you?’

  ‘It’s nice to have a reputation but not when you’re having a baby.’

  ‘And the Truth and Reconciliation Committee?’

  ‘On the back burner as we agreed. Ellie Smith has taken over.’

  ‘What’s her interest in Northern Ireland? Doesn’t she have enough to do in South Africa?’

  ‘She was born here, I mean Belfast. Emigrated to SA when she was a child I think. Her father was a mining engineer or something. Anyway, she’s a tough nut. She worked with Desmond Tutu on the South African Committee. She has a first in law from Stellenbosch University.’

  Wilson’s phone started to do a whirling dance on the breakfast bar between them. He grabbed it before it went over the edge and pressed the green button. He listened for a few minutes. ‘Tell McElvaney to get a car and pick me up in ten.’

  Kate stared at him across the breakfast bar.

  ‘Another older lady found murdered on a building site in Dunmurry. Someone caved in her head with a concrete block.’

  ‘Late to-night?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘I wonder will we ever be a normal couple.’

  He walked around the breakfast bar and kissed her. ‘That depends on your definition of normal,’ he said.

  The building site at Dunmurray had already been ringed off by crime-scene tape when Wilson and Moira arrived. Two police cars blocked off traffic on both sides of the road, and a diversion had already been put in place. A small van and a car were already within the cordon, and Wilson assumed these vehicles belonged to the builders. The site was in a secluded area and screened from the road by a row of bushes and trees. The builders had already laid a rough roadway of large stones to allow them to bring lorries directly up to the area where the house would eventually stand. Wilson nodded at Moira, who signed both of them in. They dispensed with the plastic jumpsuits since the builders, and the local police had already contaminated the scene. A policeman led the two detectives along the stone path to the foundations.

  ‘Where are the builders?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘In the van having a cuppa,’ the policeman replied. ‘They’re looking the worse for wear and I don’t blame them. I’ve been on the Force for fifteen years, but I’ve never seen something like this.’

  The woman was lying on the concrete plinth that would eventually hold the house. She was spread-eagled and the concrete block that killed her was still resting on her head. It was delivered with enough force to crush her skull. Blood and brain caked her brown hair.

  ‘The pathologist and the forensic?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘On the way,’ Moira answered.

  ‘I think it’s safe to assume that this has something to do with the Lizzie Rice murder. Looks like we may have a serial killer on our hands.’