Dark Circles (8 page)

CHAPTER 19

The body of a man was laid out on the steel table when Wilson entered the autopsy room. His chest looked like a patchwork quilt where Reid had sown him up. On the drive to the Royal Victoria, Wilson had been mulling over the fact that McDevitt was about to make public the investigation into Grant’s death. In less than twenty-four hours that particular cat would be out of the bag. It meant that the clever dick who had set up the perfect murder would know they were after him. The killer had gone to considerable pains to hide the fact that Grant had been murdered. Which meant that there was possibly a deep secret behind the death. The fact that his plan had been rumbled so quickly would upset his applecart. The question was, how would he react? The secondary question was, why had it been necessary to murder Grant? What was the deep dark secret that had to be protected? Now there was the urgent summons from Reid. It was all getting very complicated. He tried to ring Reid from his car, but the call went straight to voicemail. His message was curt; he was on his way to the Royal. There was no one around when he arrived. He assumed that Reid and her assistant had taken a late lunch. He moved to the table and looked at the tag attached to the man’s toe. This was Brian Malone. Despite being kept chilled, Malone’s body had taken on a distinctly blue tint. He could see that Reid had done a more than professional job, and the undertakers would have to be equally professional in ensuring that Malone’s family would be spared the sight of the results of the autopsy. He was about to carry out a closer examination of the body when the door to the room opened, and Reid entered like a white-coated whirlwind. The buttons of her white coat were undone exposing a white blouse tucked into a knee-length black skirt. Her blonde hair was tied back with two ringlets freed on either side of her head and hanging in front of her ears like sideburns.

‘I just got your voicemail,’ she said joining Wilson at the autopsy table. ‘The bloody mobile is acting up, or my provider is delaying my messages. Hope I didn’t spoil your lunch.’

‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘Your text allowed me to slip away quietly.’

‘I hope that I can make the intrusion worth your while,’ she smiled, but it was a tired smile.

‘You look beat,’ he said.

She nodded at the corpse on the table. ‘Remember I spoke to you about Brian Malone.’

‘Remember I told you that you were becoming paranoid.’

‘Yes and that pissed me off. So I’ve spent this morning going over the autopsy again and when I still couldn’t find why his heart stopped, I took a magnifying glass, and I went over the body inch by inch.’

‘And?’

‘I found this.’ She opened Malone’s mouth, pulled out his tongue and held it back. ‘Take a look.’ She nodded at the magnifying glass that was on a tray upon the table.

Wilson lifted the glass and held it over the area beneath her fingers. He saw the red dot. ‘Looks like a needle mark.’

‘It is a needle mark.’

‘And it’s important because?’ he asked.

‘There isn’t another needle mark on the body. Malone wasn’t an intravenous drug user. Even if he had been he wouldn’t have used his tongue. There are no veins. I found his GP through the patient register and asked whether he’d had an injection lately, and the answer was negative. The question now poses itself, how did Malone get the needle mark?’

‘You did a toxicity screen?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘Nothing. They found no toxic substance in Malone’s blood.’

He saw a smile on her full lips. ‘But you expected that.’

‘They did find something.’ She dropped Malone’s tongue back into his mouth. ‘An elevated reading of NaCl.’

‘I failed chemistry at school,’ Wilson said putting down the magnifying glass.

‘Sodium chloride, or common salt. We all have a level of salt in our blood and normally I wouldn’t have taken any notice of this reading.’

‘And the significance of this elevated level is?’

‘I’m pretty sure that someone killed Brian Malone by injecting potassium chloride into his tongue. The compound breaks down into both potassium and chlorine. The chlorine binds with the human body’s naturally occurring sodium to create the NaCl. Too much potassium in the body causes tachycardia which leads to ventricular fibrillation and a resultant fatal heart attack. The fact that it’s undetectable means whoever injected him didn’t want us to know that he was murdered.’

‘But he only had a heart attack. People survive heart attacks.’

‘Ventricular fibrillation requires immediate defibrillation. Cardiac arrest is an emergency that demands speedy intervention. CPR has to be carried out in order to circulate oxygenated blood by external mechanical means. If CPR is withheld from the victim, death is assured.’

‘You’re reading too much Sherlock Holmes,’ Wilson said. ‘You have me buying into the David Grant theory but this is taking it a bit too far. There’s a level of sophistication here that we don’t normally get in Northern Ireland. Even when MI5 took people out, they used the ‘sledge hammer’ technique. Collateral damage is the name of the game in Ulster. You’re talking highly organised professional killers. I couldn’t name one person in this Province with the finesse used in this case.’

‘But such people do exist, and they can be employed.’ She moved closer to him. ‘I don’t normally buy into conspiracy theories, Ian, but these two men were murdered within hours of each other. I’ll stake my professional reputation on it.’

He smelled her perfume and looked into her blue eyes. They were wet. He wondered whether she was afraid, but from what he knew of her, she didn’t do fear easily. ‘The
Chronicle
is going to run a headline on the David Grant investigation tomorrow morning. If there is a murderer out there, he’s going to know that his ploy with Grant didn’t work. If the same man killed Malone, he’s going to wonder whether we’re on to that one as well. I don’t like it. It sounds political, and that means messy.’ He made up his mind quickly. ‘We’ll investigate Malone as part of the Grant case. We can look at commonalities between the two men. Maybe we can develop a hypothesis for a motive. However, we’ll have to tread softly. The kind of people who kill like this are best left sleeping. The more they think we’ll never get them, the safer we can sleep.’

‘Talking of sleep.’ She wanted to let herself fall into his arms.

He seemed to anticipate her body movement and held her shoulders with his hands. ‘Take a break. You’ve done a fabulous job. You can leave it to me now.’

‘Careful as you go, Ian. I really do care.’

Wilson let her go and moved towards the door. So do I, he thought, but he didn’t say it.

CHAPTER 20

Jackie Carlisle lived with his wife in a converted coach house in the Hillsborough, an exclusive residential area to the south of Belfast. It was a fine stone building that had been updated with style and was a residence befitting a man who had worked tirelessly for the people of the Province. Since his retirement, Carlisle tended to spend the greater part of the day in the conservatory that had been added to the rear of the original property. He had installed a wood-burning stove so that even on the coldest of winter days the glass room was warm and welcoming. He was seated on his favourite couch, which gave him a view of his garden as well as the driveway. He heard the car crunching on the gravel before he saw it pull into the area beside the house. He stood up slowly, made his way to the front door and opened it. He watched as Helen McCann exited from the rear seat of the Mercedes Saloon. He’d known her for more years than he cared to remember, but he always smiled in admiration when he saw her. She was approaching sixty but she had maintained a beauty that still caused men to turn their heads when she passed. The light tan she continually sported perfectly set off her blonde hair and her Scandinavian good looks.

‘Helen.’ He held out his two arms and embraced her.

Helen air-kissed his cheeks. ‘It’s good to see you.’

‘Will you ever age?’ Carlisle asked standing aside to let her enter.

‘You ought to be in this poor old body.’ She entered the house and looked around. The place had been modernised since she had seen it last. As she passed, she looked into a kitchen. There was so much brushed metal it could have passed for the deck of the Starship Enterprise. ‘I see you’ve been busy,’ she said.

‘Sure it makes Agnes happy, and an auld man has to spend his money somewhere.’ He took her by the arm and led her away from the kitchen. ‘Let’s go through to the conservatory. I need the warmth these days.’

They walked to the rear of the house, and Carlisle led her to an easy chair before taking his customary seat on the couch.

Helen McCann sat and crossed her shapely legs. She smiled when she saw the way Carlisle looked at them. ‘There’s still an old rake in there somewhere, Jackie,’ she said. But, that wasn’t what she was thinking. Carlisle was only half the man she remembered. She hadn’t seen him in over a year, and she was taken aback at the rapidity of his aging. His trousers hung off his skeletal body, and bony knees protruded through the fabric when he sat. She noticed a slight tremor in his hands. He was a man in serious decline.

‘Don’t tell Agnes that. She’s of the opinion that I’m dead downstairs. Can I offer you tea or coffee?’

‘No thanks, I don’t have much time. I’ve a board meeting at four o’clock.’

‘Always intent on the business.’ He smiled. ‘So, to what do I owe the pleasure?’

‘I just had lunch with Ian Wilson at Deane’s,’ she began.

He interrupted. ‘A dangerous man, Helen, a dangerous man to those that love Ulster.’

‘Our meal was disturbed by some journalist or other, McDevitt I think his name is.’ She could see that Carlisle recognised the name. ‘It seems that he’s written an article that will appear in the
Chronicle
tomorrow morning on the police investigation into David Grant’s death.’ She watched him turn a whiter shade of pale. ‘It seems the pathologist has concluded that Grant was murdered, and she’s passed that message to Wilson who, being the good little terrier that he is, has taken the bone and is heading off to play with it. I don’t have to tell you that when he gets stuck into something, he follows it to the end.’

Carlisle was well aware of Ian Wilson’s capabilities.

‘You’re shocked,’ she said.

‘The job was given to specialists. They guaranteed that the deaths would go unnoticed.’

‘But Grant’s hasn’t.’

Carlisle tried to pull himself together. ‘Jennings will put a stop to the investigation. Once we get Wilson off the case, we can bury it. It won’t be the first time we’ve had a murder investigation quashed.’

‘What about the pathologist?’ Helen asked. ‘There’ll be an inquest. She’ll stand up in front of the coroner and insist that Grant was murdered. The Press will be on hand and maybe a few concerned citizens will wonder why the police are doing nothing about it. The response has to be two-pronged. Jennings will have to put pressure on to have the investigation quashed, but we absolutely need to get the pathologist to revise her opinion.’

‘I’ll get on it immediately.’ Carlisle made to rise, but was having some difficulty and sat back instead.

‘Things are getting untidy.’ She straightened her skirt. ‘It should never have come to this. Rice and his organisation are a risk to us. They act without thinking, and that has never been a trait that the Circle has endorsed.’

‘They’ve had their uses,’ Carlisle said.

She looked at him. She normally didn’t feel empathy with people she did business with but Jackie Carlisle had been more than a business acquaintance. He had played an integral part in helping her and her husband create a business empire, and as such he had almost passed into the prized category of friend. She was sad to see that he had disintegrated so much. She wondered whether he could be trusted to derail Wilson and his pathologist friend. Inside, she didn’t think so.

‘We must preserve the Circle at all costs,’ she said. ‘We are where we are right now, there’s no point crying over spilt milk. We need to consider whether someone might have to be sacrificed.’

A smile flitted across Carlisle’s lips. My God, what a woman, he thought. Whoever said to shoot the women first had certainly got it right. Helen McCann was as tough as they come. She would be prepared to sacrifice him and many others like him to preserve her precious Circle. ‘Word on the street is that Rice has become a cokehead since his mother’s murder. If we decide to jettison him, there may be consequences.’

‘I’ve studied the man,’ she said. ‘He’d squeal like a stuck pig.’

‘Let’s just think about it as a back-up plan. Rice has resources that we need for the moment. I’ll get on to Jennings, and I’ll try to have the pathologist woman silenced. If that doesn’t work, we’ll look at other possibilities.’

She glanced at her watch and stood up. ‘You should have passed this one upstairs. There’s no way we would have sanctioned murder until all other avenues had been explored. It was a mistake and now we have to put it right.’

Carlisle stood with difficulty and faced her. ‘My knees are giving me trouble,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘I’ll make the calls immediately. This investigation has to be nipped in the bud.’

‘I know, old friend.’ She patted his hand. ‘When this is over, we’ll talk again.’

They walked through the house to the front door. ‘It’s a lovely place you have here,’ she said looking around the well-developed garden. ‘It’s a grand spot to spend your reclining years.’ She air-kissed his cheeks and strode purposefully towards the waiting Mercedes.

Carlisle watched her as she seated herself in the rear of the Mercedes. She was the most formidable woman he had ever met, the First Minister the Province should have had. He had spent his life climbing the greasy pole. On his way up, he was admitted to many rooms. He always thought he had reached the top room only to find that there was a room above to which he was not yet permitted entrance. He knew Helen McCann had admittance to the room above the one he was currently in. He wondered whether there was a room to which even she could not gain access. He couldn’t even speculate on who might inhabit such a room. He would never find out. He had reached his peak; all he could do from here was fall. Killing Grant and Malone had been a risk. However, he had considered it a calculated risk. Maybe that had been a mistake. His faith in Rice had been undermined. Maybe Sammy would have to be thrown to the wolves, and maybe he wouldn’t be alone. A shiver ran down his spine.