‘I have the connection,’ she said, her voice steady and calm. ‘It’s not Fryer. It is Belfast Heights. That’s your link, sir. That’s where our killer met him. The Heights is our key, and I am willing to bet that it will open our killer’s front door today,’ she said.
Chapter 12.
Sheen let Aoife focus on the road as she sped from the hospital to the Heights. As she indicated left off the Antrim Road and swung into the main entrance she explained the connection.
‘So you are saying that whoever busted Fryer out of here, must have met him here? As in he was one of the inmates?’ he asked.
‘Sort of,’ she said.
‘Right,’ said Sheen.
‘The RUC uniform, the police issue truncheon, and the near match on the DNA; taken together they point us in the direction of Cecil Moore’s brother,’ she said, her voice raised to a half shout to overcome the background whine of the straining car engine.
‘Whom we know is dead and buried,’ said Sheen.
‘Yes, but Irwin also said that his wife, Moore’s sister in law that would be, suffered from mental health issues, and that it was a strain, a contributing factor in her husband’s suicide,’ she replied.
‘Are you saying that Moore’s sister in law is somehow behind this? The person who visited Fryer was definitely a man; our E-Fit gives us that much for certain. Adeola was clear about that, if nothing else,’ said Sheen.
‘I think the bastard has been hiding in plain view since John Fryer walked out of here. We have his DNA from Esther Moore’s bath and I think we are going to get his name. If we look in the right place,’ she said, and then pumped the brakes without warning. Sheen felt the car skid on the stone covered surface, the sound thunderous for a couple of seconds. He was thrown forward, the seat belt biting hard into his chest and shoulders.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he said. Aoife stared straight ahead, the ghost of a smile playing on her lips.
‘And this is it,’ she said.
They had reached a fork in the road where deciduous trees and big shrubs formed an island. The lane they were on divided, one path leading right, the other to the left. A rectangular municipal sign, corroded at the edges to rust, read Belfast Heights Psychiatric Hospital in faded white letters. Sheen could see directions. He strained his eyes to read. Right, Secure Unit, below it details of regulation visiting times, the name of the Chief Executive and his qualifications. This was where he and Aoife had gone the day before, until very recently the long term abode of John Fryer. On the left, he read what he had overlooked the day before: Non-secure Unit, the same blurb and administrative details printed below.
‘We were looking for our man in the wrong part of the hospital, in the wrong visitors’ book,’ said Sheen. Aoife’s smiled, started to nod.
‘This is where our murderer must have found out about John Fryer, it’s why he chose him,’ she said.
‘One hospital,’ said Sheen.
‘Two units,’ she said. Aoife slotted the car into first and they moved off, another spin of the wheels, this time taking the left hand path.
The non-secure unit was more modern than the secure, and looked more conventionally hospital like than the Victorian castle feel of the secure unit across the slope of Cave Hill. But it had the same sterile odour of disinfectant muddled in with the gassy, institutional smell of unaired rooms.
At the reception desk Sheen glanced up, saw a CCTV camera. No doubt this place was running off the same shoe string budget as the secure wing, and probably the same self-defeating system of recording over and ultimately erasing any evidence which the eye above the desk managed to capture. They would be lucky if they had their man on camera. That said, if Aoife’s hunch was correct, they may not need his face on the screen to catch him.
The woman who had buzzed them in listened as Aoife explained what they needed; the signing in book used by visitors, and a full register of patients. She made a quick call during which Sheen heard his name being mentioned.
‘Thanks for waiting, that’s fine. Here’s the visitor log, this one goes back two years, there are others, but I think they are stored in the basement area, we would have to ask the caretaker about that, and he’s not in today,’ she said. She was about 5,6”, short brown hair, looked and sounded like she was from Eastern Europe, though her accent had the tell tale dip at the end of her sentence that suggested she had lived in Belfast for some time, or at least mastered English in the city.
Sheen took it from her, and opened it at the most recent page, scanned down the list of names, flicking between the scribbled visitors’ signatures and the largely capitalised names of the patients. He had moved through ten double pages, gone as far back as a full year of records, and was almost about to ask Aoife to double check what he had just surveyed when he found what he wanted. The signature was a spidery scrawl, totally impossible to make out, but the patient name in column two was printed and clear.
P MOORE
‘Look,’ said Sheen. Aoife was at his side, he felt her clutch the arm of his jacket and an absurd schoolboy tingle of excitement shivered through Sheens legs and groin. Aoife took the ledger from him and turned it round to show the woman, one finger on the name.
‘We need the records for this person, full name, home address, anything else you have,’ she said.
‘Please follow me,’ she said, moving from behind her desk, and walked down the corridor to Sheen’s right. At regular intervals along the wall faded impressionist prints hung. Their frames were screwed securely to the wall; the covers looked like plastic, not glass. She stopped at a door, a rectangular box with a fire extinguisher attached to the wall outside.
‘This is the Day Manager’s office here,’ she said sifting quickly through a fair sized bunch of keys, which she produced from the pocket of her fleece jacket, then unlocked the door. She opened it and reached inside, a second later the light blinked to life, yellow, florescent. The room was windowless; the ceiling was low, felt like a converted store cupboard.
Sheen assumed she was going to go for the computer but instead she walked to the single grey filing cabinet adjacent to the desk, turned the small key waiting in the lock and pulled open the drawer that was second from the bottom.
‘This drawer and the one underneath has a full listing of all patients. Those deceased are removed, transferred patients take their records when they go, we keep files for those discharged. I have been here for more than two years and nobody has died during that time, so there you go,’ she said.
‘Thank you,’ said Aoife. She had already started on the cabinet, was flicking through the files rapidly. He knew what she was looking for, the name they wanted; P MOORE.
‘Not a bother at all,’ she said, smiled at Sheen and left. Sheen joined Aoife. She slammed the first drawer closed with a clatter, then jerked the bottom one open. The first drawer probably went up as far as R. If they were going to find what they came for, it would be at the bottom, or not at all. Aoife slowed, the crease of concentration folded between her eyes sharply. She was quietly mouthing the names.
‘McCloud, Morris,’ she stopped abruptly. ‘Bloody Moore,’ she said softly. She was looking up at him, her eyes full of light, victory. Aoife reached in and snatched the file from the drawer. She raised herself up, shoved the tidy arrangement on the day manager’s desk out of her way and slapped down the brown manila file. Sheen stood next to her, close enough to taste a mouthful of the apple perfume. She opened the file and they both scanned the front page simultaneously, Aoife’s finger tracing the lines of information methodically. Sheen read the first section, then scanned on down the page, searching. His eyes focused on what he wanted, just as Aoife’s finger stabbed the same place on the page.
NAME: Moore, Patricia Ann
DOB: 1.8.60
DATE OF ADMISSION: 12.1.2013
DIAGNOSIS: Schizophrenia, Paranoid/Mania.
He stopped reading, scanned further down the page and found the home address, a street in Bangor, Co. Down, ab
out twenty miles out of Belfast along the coast. Then the final piece of the puzzle, the name to the face on their E-Fit, he was sure of it.
NEXT OF KIN: Christopher Aaron Moore (son).
No mobile telephone number, just a landline for the home address.
‘That’s our boy, Aoife,’ said Sheen. You got him, well done,’ he said. He wanted to shake her hand, hug her, kiss her, but instead he nodded like a donkey and smiled. ‘Bloody well done,’ he repeated. Aoife smiled back, but then her face returned to a set mask of concentration. She reached for her phone.
‘Not yet. We need to get to this address,’ she said. Sheen waited for long enough to hear Aoife begin speaking to Irwin on the phone. He quietly left the office and retraced his steps back to the reception desk. He had an idea, and they should have time for him to check it out.
‘Hiya, any luck?’ asked the woman. She flashed the same smile. Sheen waved a hand, maybe yes, maybe no.
‘You might be able to do something else for me, though,’ said Sheen, smiling back her. ‘The patient we mentioned, Patricia Ann Moore, if she is available, I would really like to speak with her,’ he said. This was thin ground. Speaking to a witness in an informal way was one thing, but speaking to minors or those who had mental instabilities was a no man’s land, at very best perched right on the periphery of the PACE codes of practice. Something she hopefully did not know. She shrugged and her smile faltered, then faded away to a look of genuine lament.
‘Well, you know, you could try, but I doubt you will get any words in return,’ she said.
‘Why?’ asked Sheen.
‘Patricia has gone. Lights are on, but no-one has been home for at least a year,’ she said.
‘Still, I’d like to see her, please’ said Sheen. The woman nodded, walked once again from her station and set off, this time going the other direction down the corridor. Sheen followed, reached into his jacket pocket for his phone with the E-Fit.
‘It said on her file that she has a next of kin, a son. Does he ever visit?’ he asked. She slowed a little, he could see from her face she was thinking, and then she nodded.
‘Used to, but not for a good long time. He used to walk her round the gardens when it was not raining,’ she said.
‘And?’ asked Sheen.
‘And after Patricia started to become more and more withdrawn, he visited less and less. It happens. She probably did not even notice,’ she said.
She stopped; they were standing outside mesh reinforced glass double doors, beyond looked like a common room for the patients. Sheen could see men and women in dressing gowns, some walking slowly, and aimless looking. Others sat in high backed arm chairs, thousand yard stares. Suddenly, Sheen did not want to go any further, he wanted to prolong his conversation, flirt with the woman, and remain in the land of the sane.
‘Do you recognise this man, is this her son?’ asked Sheen, showing her the E-Fit.
‘That’s definitely him,’ she said immediately, not even a second of hesitation. She visibly shivered. ‘I would recognise those eyes anywhere; creepy.’ It was enough, Sheen knew he had his man, and there was really no need to take this any further. Still, he pushed the door open and walked in.
‘Thank you for your help,’ he said.
‘Welcome, Patricia in in her usual chair, right over there,’ she said pointing through the door to a chair which was facing the big window running along the east wall of the building. The door swished closed behind Sheen. The first thing that struck him was the view, nothing less than breath taking. The wooded area that bordered the grounds dropped steeply away before him. Beyond was the whole of Belfast, opening into the wide arms of the harbour. Sheen tugged his eyes from the scene before him, as he walked round the arm chair. The vista, so stunning in that clean, clear Belfast light of morning, was wasted on Patricia Moore.
The woman looked eighty, not in her mid-fifties as her file stated. Grey silver hair, thin, unkempt and too long, flowed in two rivers either side of her face and over her shoulders. She looked like one of Macbeth’s three witches as he had always imagined them. Her blue eyes were open, saucer wide, almost luminescent in her gaunt face. Patricia’s mouth was slack, it sagged open on one side like a split bag of grain. He hunkered down and brought his face close to the vacant one in front of him.
‘Mrs. Moore,’ he said, softly. He took one of her limp hands in his, skin soft, hard wires and skeleton just beneath. Mrs. Moore, the same name as their victim, one woman dead, one living dead. ‘Patricia, I am from the police,’ he went on, feeling stupid. One or two other patients had now stopped what they had been doing and watched his antics in mute interest. Sheen kept talking.
‘This is about your son, Patricia. This is about Christopher, it is important that we speak to him, he may be in some danger,’ he said. Sheen thought he saw something, the faintest glimmer of recognition in her eyes at the mention of Christopher’s name. He had a regular little audience now. Sheen gently patted the woman’s hand, and let go, relieved to remove it from his own. He stood up, and walked to the door. As he pushed it open, Sheen froze, dead. The hairs on the back of his neck were raised, a shiver of goose flesh prickled up his arms, down his back, creeping horribly.
She was laughing; it was shrill, piercing, and terrible. Sheen turned around. The cackling laugh rang out again. A male patient in dark blue pyjamas and green dressing gown frowned and slapped both his hands over his ears, started to back away from her. Sheen didn’t blame him.
‘Jesus,’ he said, and got out of there, her laugh chasing him.
Sheen walked down the corridor, and stopped to look at one of the prints which hung on the wall. This one was part of a Jackson Pollock, called Black and White, for pretty obvious reasons. The chaotic drips and slashes of paint seemed frenetic, yet also had their own form of order. If you could see insanity under a microscope, that is how it would look.
Christopher Moore had crossed that line. Sheen hurried back to Aoife, because there was more to follow. Just like that snippet of slash and drips, what they had been served up so far was just part of the picture that Christopher wanted to paint.
Chapter 13.
Cecil set his mobile down, on the desk by his first floor window in the Bad Bet in Tiger’s Bay. The parked cars lined the hushed sidewalk and all was calm, Sunday morning coming down. Cecil appeared serene too, but that was only on the surface. His mind was in full production mode, the gears and pistons whirring and hissing at an industrial pace. He had just finished a phone call from his man inside Springfield Road PSNI station. It had been a brief conversation, mostly one way, a simple warning which his man had delivered.
They were on their way. Coming to lift him, there was not much time.
Jackie Coyle had squealed Cecil’s name, claimed he had ordered the petrol bombing of the lower Shankill. Apparently he had named the whole crew he was working with, including the Turk and his nephews. But that was not Cecil’s problem, the Turk could deal with all the other little piggys involved. No, it was Jackie Coyle who was Cecil’s problem. Now there was no trail of breadcrumbs leading to his door, this was the word of a grass, plain and simple, no evidence to hold him.
Or perhaps not so plain, not so simple, he had watched many of his contemporaries go down hard in the 1980s, and do long stretches on the word of a tout. Back then, Cecil found it necessary to get his hands very messy on more than one occasion, he had culled both the weak and good men who knew them, because loose lips most certainly were not going to sink Cecil Moore’s ship. Against all of Cecil’s meticulous planning, his ship was taking on water, fast.
Cecil sighed, if it had been the petrol bombs on their own, as he had told them, then this would not be half as bad. But the man had put a bullet in Scotty Wood’s skull; the whole shebang had turned into a bigger deal. Cecil had been explicit; no guns. Even in a safe pair of hands, a loaded gun tended to have the trigger pulled, sooner or later. It was as much as guaranteed. A black cat sneaked out from behind the wheel of a parked car
and skulked across the street and under another motor.
He checked his watch; nearly five minutes had passed since his warning call. He could probably make a run for it. But that was never going to happen. Cecil had not raised himself up to stand on the corpses of his enemies, and God forbid, some of his still loyal friends, by running like a dog every time he took a hit, every time the water started to leak in and the sinking feeling started.
He pulled open his desk drawer, rummaged past the spare packets of batteries and pens with lids missing, until his hand came upon one of his burner Nokia mobiles, still in its sealed plastic packet. He opened it quickly using a pair of scissors, inserted the sim card which came with it, and turned it on. Cecil frowned, his face a picture of pain as he punched the number he needed into the phone, raised it to his ear, waited. He licked his lips, but his tongue was as dry as a Baptist’s wake. For the first time in the ten or more years since he’d stopped smoking, Cecil wanted a feg, a nice B & H tar stick that would tear through his chest like a bush fire and steady his nerves. Cecil could hear the ring tone on the other end. This was a special number, one that Cecil had kept in the back pocket of his mind for a long time. Politics, it was not for the faint hearted, that much was for sure.
BLEEEP BLEEEP
If that bitch McCusker had done his bidding when he had texted her, this might not have been necessary. He would have been able to get to Coyle through one of his boys in the PSNI, maybe.
BLEEEP BLEEEP
The wee bitch needed a correction, a reminder, to teach her how their arrangement actually worked in practise. She was worth reminding, that the girl was potentially very valuable indeed, more so, Cecil mused, than the determined little madam even gave herself credit for. She had legs as the saying went, oh by Christ she did, and in the world they were living in these days, with Fenian’s overrunning the police and Provos making laws in Stormont, yes she was going to go very far. And Cecil would be there too, riding along. Yes, she was a long term investment, like a gilt edged bond, worth waiting for pay day. No need to cash her in just yet, or at least not entirely. Not that she did not deserve it after what she had done. Bitch deserved it.
Blood Will Be Born Page 24