A Box Full of Darkness (Wilson Book 5) (15 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Wilson laid the photograph before him on the desk. He stared at the faces, and the background. He wondered what significance the photo had, and why it had been delivered to McDevitt in such a sinister fashion. Although he had no reason to assume that it related to the murders of Mallon and Lafferty, he placed it in the file. There was something special about the murders of the two young men. Somehow all the events in his life were connected; his ejection from the murder squad, the posting to the task force, Sinclair and Jackson. And he almost forgot, Kate. He sketched out the questions on his pad of paper and started to draw lines between them. Someone wanted him examining those specific murders. A whole scenario had developed with him in the centre. He had no idea what part he was playing in this particular drama. Was he the protagonist? Or was he the fool? Whatever it was he wasn’t going to solve the crime by sitting on his arse in his office. But where could he go? The telephone rang, and he rushed to pick it up.

‘Ian.’

“Stephanie.’ He realised that it was probably the first time he had said her name naturally. ‘You sound tired.’

‘Two autopsies this morning and a lecture to prepare. As Agatha Christie might have said “death never takes a holiday”. Today is your lucky day. One of the interns managed to locate the files you were looking for in double quick time. It’ll only cost you the princely sum of £50.’

‘Great, cheap at twice the price.’

‘I’ll send them over to you.’

‘No,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ll collect them myself. Please keep them under lock and key until I arrive.’

‘OK.’

The line went dead, and Wilson held on waiting for a click that would indicate that his phone had been tapped. It never came.

Wilson was a regular at the morgue at the Royal Victoria Hospital. He parked his car in the visitors’ car park in front of the red-bricked two-storeyed building. He entered the front door, and made immediately for Reid’s office. The smell of chemicals in the corridor leading to the autopsy rooms was overpowering. He wondered how Reid could work in such an atmosphere every day. Forget about the atmosphere, he wondered how anyone could make a profession out of cutting up dead bodies.

Reid was seated behind her desk, and working on her computer when he pushed open the door to her office.

‘That was quick,’ she said saving her work, and closing down her computer. ‘These files must be really important.’

‘I have no idea how important they are,’ Wilson said sitting in the chair on the other side of her desk. Reid had dispensed with her habitual white coat and was dressed in her usual office outfit of white blouse and black skirt. The jacket that accompanied the skirt was hanging on a coat hanger in the corner of the room. ‘But I didn’t want them disappearing in transit. There are a lot of strange happenings since I took on this case.’

Reid smiled. ‘Such as, your ex-partner turning up in McHugh’s. It put a bit of a damper on our first date.’

Wilson nodded but didn’t reply. Had it really been a date?

‘I suppose she didn’t happen on us by chance,’ Reid said.

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘How did she know we were there?’

‘I’d like to have the answer to that question.’

“But you do have some ideas.’

‘I think someone bugged my phone.’

‘And why should they inform Miss McCann? What was in it for them?’

‘That’s something else I’m not too clear about.’ Maybe it had something to do with turning the screw on him.

Reid looked into his eyes. She had never seen them looking so lifeless. ‘I didn’t want to pursue it last night but the performance was out of character. I don’t know her very well, but I didn’t think she had the ability to blow like that.’ It wasn’t by chance that her nickname for Kate was the “Ice Queen”.

‘Neither did I. She’s been a little on edge since she lost the baby.’

‘Do you think she’s on something?’

‘Drugs? Not a chance. Kate hates drugs and anything to do with them. Why do you ask?’

‘Her pupils were dilated, and I noticed a rash on the side of her neck. It’s possible that her doctor put her on painkillers after the miscarriage. She should have come off after a couple of days, but maybe she’s still taking them.’

‘Would she have mood swings?’

‘Absolutely.’

  Wilson really wanted to believe the painkiller theory. Perhaps it accounted for her behaviour towards him. But Kate was an intelligent woman. She would have known the risks associated with overuse of painkillers. ‘That could be it. For the last few weeks, her moods have been all over the place.’

Reid could see the hope suddenly burst in his eyes, and she felt despondent. As long as he still had feelings for Kate McCann, she would never have him. And she didn’t want him if he desired another woman. She wanted him to desire her. She needed to get off the subject of McCann. ‘What about those autopsy files?’ She stood up and went to her filing cabinet. She removed a key from her blouse pocket, and opened the steel lock. She took out two bulky files, and placed them on the desk. ‘£50 upfront,’ she said smiling.

Wilson took five £10 notes from his pocket and laid them on the table. ‘Tell the intern, thanks.’ He pushed the notes towards her. Then he picked up the files. Each consisted of a pocket file containing photos and diagrams along with a report of the autopsy. ‘You’ve already examined them?’ he asked.

‘I had a quick look. It was a reasonably professional job for the time. The pathologist simply did the job required. The cause of death wasn’t in doubt.’

‘So nothing strange or notable?’

‘Not with a cursory examination.’

‘Were any bullets recovered from the bodies?’

‘I think so.’ She took one of the files from his hand, and flicked through the contents. ‘Here, she bent back the file. Four bullets were recovered from,’ she glanced at the name on the file. ‘Lafferty. They were handed to the RUC officer who attended.’

‘Do they have his name?’ Wilson asked.

She examined the file further. ‘Sergeant Ramsey.’

‘Now that rings a bell.’

‘You know him?’

‘We’ve met.’ He bundled up the files. ‘I’ll have to go through these in detail.’

‘Anything else I can do to help?’

‘You’ve already been a great help.’ He put the files under his arm and stood. He was finding it more and more difficult to leave his meetings with Stephanie Reid.

‘What about our screwed-up date? When are we going to do it properly without an intervention by Miss McCann?’

Wilson smiled. He wanted to do it again soon but the prospect that Kate’s behaviour was in some way attributable to the drugs she might be taking was too seductive. ‘Soon,’ he said. ‘When the dust settles on this investigation.’

‘You can run but you can’t hide.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Wilson rejected the idea of returning to the office. His wife had often accused him of using his office at the station as a womb; somewhere he was happy and safe. Perhaps she had been right but he certainly didn’t feel warm and safe cosseted in Dunmurry with Sinclair and Jackson. It was still relatively early and since the sun wasn’t yet over the yardarm, a drink was out of the question. That limited his possibilities. He piloted his Saab 93 across the river towards his new accommodations. Fifteen minutes later, he was sitting at his IKEA style dining table with a fresh cup of coffee and two autopsy files. He picked up the file on Cormac Mallon and opened the pocket spilling the photographs of the corpse across the table. He carefully laid out the photographs in two lines. They were black-and-white shots taken by a pathologist’s assistant. Mallon had been a handsome young man, even in death his features were regular and he had a full head of bushy, black hair. He might have been caught sleeping if it wasn’t for the two neat bullet holes in his chest. The entrance holes were discoloured and ringed in black where the heat of the round burned the skin as it entered the body. There was no sign of cordite on either wound indicating that the shots were fired from a distance. He sipped his coffee as he turned his attention to reading the pathologist’s notes. He saw at once that the pathologist had been as professional as Reid. The autopsy was textbook. The organs were removed and weighed. The examination of the state of the body had been thorough. Cormac Mallon had been a healthy young man with many years of life before him when he had been gunned down. The internal damage to young Mallon had been significant. One of the bullets had ricocheted off his rib cage and had bounced around his chest ripping through organs as it went. He looked to see whether a swab had been taken of his hands for signs of cordite. No swab had been taken. Wilson assumed that the pathologist had either decided that the young men were not handling weapons or the theory of shots fired in both directions had been developed later. As Reid indicated, two spent bullets had been removed from the body. One was badly mashed while the second was fairly intact. It was a little known fact that 9mm slugs fired from a distance do not have significant stopping power. The slug is small and doesn’t develop high kinetic energy. The pathologist noted that the slugs which were removed from the body during the autopsy were bagged and handed to the RUC officer attending, one Sergeant Albert Ramsey. Wilson carefully collected up the photos and replaced them in the pocket file. He picked up the second file and repeated the process. He first laid out the photos taken of Lafferty’s corpse. As he looked at the young man’s face, he was instantly reminded of the man he had met lying in his deathbed in Beechmount Parade. The son had been the image of his father. He could only imagine the pain the elder Lafferty had suffered at the death of his son. Michael Lafferty would carry that pain with him to the grave. Sean Lafferty had been shot a total of five times. Two of the shots had hit his lower limbs and shattered his right leg and left thigh. Three bullets had hit his upper torso. One had punched a hole through the left side of his neck and two had struck his chest. One had been a direct hit to his heart. Wilson assumed that either the neck or the chest wound would have proved immediately fatal. He hoped that the additional shots had hit him on the way down. He looked along the line of photos and thought about the futility of mindless murders like these. He finished his coffee, and started on the autopsy report. He thought of himself as he read dispassionately about how pieces of metal had ripped a young body apart. It was the kind of reading that should bring tears to the eyes of any person with even a spark of humanity in his being. And yet he could be reading a report in a newspaper for all the impact it had on him. Perhaps Kate was right after all. Many years of looking at broken bodies and interviewing the monsters responsible had drained the humanity from him. Or perhaps the lack of sensitivity was a defence mechanism, which allowed him to continue to do his job. Yes, he was a copper and some of his colleagues managed traffic flows and some helped old ladies across the road but that wasn’t what he did. He swam in the pool with the sharks. He dealt with those who saw their fellow men as something to be used, abused and dispatched. It was his job to make sure that the sharks were brought to justice. His life was really that simple. He collected up the photos and put them back in the pocket file. He suddenly felt very tired. The light faded with the approach of night and he realised that he had spent several hours poring over the files. In his other life he would have given this job to Moira, and she would have relished it. He was glad that she was probably sitting in a classroom at Harvard using her brain and away from broken bodies and heartless killers. He moved to the couch and lay down.  Within seconds he was asleep.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Jock McDevitt was hiding in the office of the
Chronicle
on Royal Avenue. His meeting with Wilson had done nothing to lessen the apprehension he’d been feeling over the past few days. Maybe he was being paranoid, but it didn’t help that the guy he thought was watching him was sitting behind him in court for most of that day. He filed his copy several hours previously, and he was spending his time following up on a few of the stories he intended to tackle as soon as Cummerford was dispatched. He could see the trial was coming to its conclusion, and he was looking forward to seeing the woman herself in the witness box. Knowing Maggie, it would be a spectacle worth watching. Criminal activity was heating up in Belfast. McGreary’s takeover was initially peaceful by local standards, but his crew were beginning to go a little overboard in the area of punishment. It was a good story to follow on from the Cummerford trial. He looked at his watch. It was half past ten and it was already dark outside. Too dark to walk home. He would have to take a cab. He picked up a couple of travel brochures from his desk. His newly found literary agent had suggested he leave Belfast for a couple of weeks to begin work on the Cummerford book. McDevitt was enthusiastic about the idea. If he were sitting in a villa in Cephalonia, he wouldn’t have to be looking over his shoulder at someone staring at his back. He picked up his messenger bag, and started for the lift. As soon as he exited the office, he looked in both directions. There were few enough people on the street, and a black cab sat idling ten metres to his right. He was about to raise his hand when the cab came forward slowly and stopped beside him.

‘Looking for a cab, pal?’ the driver said from the other side of the front seat. He was wearing a baseball cap that came down over his eyes.

‘Absolutely,’ McDevitt responded. He opened the back door of the cab, and was about to enter the rear when a cloth bag came over his head, and he was pushed roughly into the back seat. He fell headlong and felt someone climb in after him. He heard the roadside door open, and a body pushed him upright, and climbed in the other side of the cab. He started to scream but both doors were already closed and the cab was moving off at speed.

‘Shut your fucking mouth or we’ll have to shut it for you,’ the accent was thick Belfast.

McDevitt immediately stopped shouting. The timbre of the voice told him that the speaker meant what he said. He was having difficulty breathing with the hood over his head. He knew it was important to stay calm, but he was fighting with his bodily function to avoid soiling himself. In the past, he had interviewed many people who had the same experience he was presently undergoing. They all stressed the importance of not over-reacting. They attributed their survival to that fact. He had also seen the bodies of several people who had spent the last minutes of their lives with a hood over their head while pressed between two thugs in the back seat of a black cab. They were not pretty sights. The driver had reduced speed, and they were driving through central Belfast at something approaching the speed limit. There was total silence in the vehicle. McDevitt had no idea whether they were driving north, south, east or west. He thought about the movies where the victim in his position heard train whistles, and could feel when they were travelling over cobbles or tram tracks. It was all a load of bollocks. He was scared shitless and totally disorientated by the darkness. His mind was dominated by the thoughts of his impending demise. The idea of listening for a train whistle didn’t even rank. There were less stops and starts, and he assumed that they were leaving the city. The men on either side of him were much larger than him. He could feel his shoulders butting up against their arms. He didn’t want to die. He had so much to live for. He was about to become an author, and possibly a best-selling author. Who knew what door that might open? His agent was even talking about a movie deal. He really couldn’t be about to die just when things were going so well. However, people who were obviously not first-timers were taking him for a ride. After about half an hour, the cab pulled onto a rough road with lots of potholes, and finally came to a stop. The doors opened, and McDevitt was manhandled out of the rear. The hood was kept firmly on his head as he was marched along a gravel path. He heard a door open, and he was ushered inside some kind of dwelling. He was in urgent need of the toilet, but he was too afraid to ask. He was pulled forward, and finally pushed into a chair. Nobody had spoken a word. Eventually the hood was removed from his head, and he found himself staring into a bright light cast by an electric lamp pointing straight at his face. His eyes hurt, and he raised his hands to cover them. His hands were grabbed by someone behind him, and pulled behind his back. His wrists were crossed, and he felt a cable tie being tightened on them. He looked down to avoid the light. Slowly his eyes were becoming used to the glare. He saw that he was in some kind of barn possibly attached to a farmhouse. The man who had been behind him came to the front. He now had two men standing directly in front of him. He lifted his head, and saw that they were wearing balaclavas with holes for their eyes and mouths. It was a good sign. He wouldn’t be able to identify them. If they weren’t wearing balaclavas, he would have been worried.

‘Jock fucking McDevitt!’ It was the man who had told him to shut up who spoke. ‘You are a wee fucking nuisance.’ He struck McDevitt across the face with his open hand. The blow knocked McDevitt sideways and he and the chair tumbled to the floor. The side of McDevitt’s face stung. Two pairs of hands lifted him roughly from the floor and placed him back on the chair.  A balaclava-covered face appeared directly in front of him, and he looked directly into a set of dead eyes. “What are you?’

McDevitt’s jaw hurt. ‘I’m a wee fucking nuisance.’

‘That you are, Jock.’ The man removed his face from in front of McDevitt. He walked around to his left side. ‘In fact, you’re a wee fucking interfering nuisance.’ He drew back his fist, and he hit McDevitt full in the side of the face.

This time McDevitt went flying to his right.  He hit the ground with his right shoulder. He had often heard that people saw stars when they were knocked out, and at that moment he was ready to believe it because something was happening inside his head that was completely new, and strange. There was a loud buzzing in his head and he was on the edge of passing out. Then the pain from his jaw reached his brain, and he tried to scream but no sound came. He tried to move his jaw, but the pain was excruciating.
They’ve broken my jaw
, he thought. Hands grabbed him again, and lifted him back into the chair. As soon as he was settled, the balaclava-covered face appeared in front of his eyes again. ‘What are you, Jock?

McDevitt lifted his head. He wasn’t a brave man, but he wasn’t a coward either. He just wished they would get on with it if their intention were to kill him.

‘I said what are you, Jock?’ the man shouted in his face.

McDevitt could feel the side of his face was already swollen. He ran his lips around his mouth, and spoke with difficulty. ‘I’m a wee fucking interfering nuisance.’ The words came out slowly, separately and indistinctly. He looked to the side, and saw the red glow of a cigarette out of the corner of his eye. There was someone else in the barn. Someone he couldn’t see clearly because of the bright light. But he could see that it was someone who didn’t feel the need to wear a balaclava.

‘That’s a good boy, Jock.’ The man with the thick Belfast accent spoke again. ‘Do you know what we do with wee fucking interfering nuisances?’

McDevitt shook his head.

The man slowly withdrew a handgun from the pocket of his jacket, and held it in front of McDevitt. ‘Are you a religious man, Jock?’

McDevitt shook his head.

‘No need for prayers then.’ The man laughed and moved behind him. ‘We can get right down to business.’

McDevitt felt the muzzle of the gun pressed into the back of his neck. He heard the click of the cocking mechanism as clearly as if it was the sound of doom. He wondered whether it would be one of the last sounds he would ever hear. McDevitt’s mother had been dead for more than fifteen years but right now he wanted to call for her. His heart was beating so wildly that he was afraid it would break through the walls of his chest. He waited and closed his eyes as he heard the hammer fall. He slumped forward but felt no pain. Then he heard the sound of laughter behind him.

‘The poor cunt shat himself,’ the man who had tormented him said. ‘Put him in the boot of the car. I’m not going to smell that all the way back to Belfast.’ He put his face in front of McDevitt. ‘Be careful with the questions, Jock. The next time, it’ll be for real.’

McDevitt’s feet had lost their power and they half dragged him out of the barn. As he was being pulled along, he saw the man in the corner drop his cigarette and crush it beneath is shoe.