Death to Pay (33 page)

The man who asked the question signalled to the other two that they were leaving. The man behind McIver let his hair go, and his head fell forward.

As soon as they were outside the warehouse, Sammy Rice whipped off his balaclava.

‘Want us to do it?’ one of the men asked.

‘No. If it has to be done, I’ll do it myself,’ Rice said. McIver put him off his game. He thought they were going to have to beat a confession out of him.  Normally, people who were beaten to a pulp begged to be killed just to stop the pain. McIver begged to be killed without taking a punch.  ‘Leave him. I’ll deal with him tomorrow. There’s someone I have to talk to.’

Maggie Cummerford was in the newspaper office when the message came in that the body of a woman had been found in a house in South Belfast. The first transmission was closely followed by a police APB for Detective Constable Ronald McIver.  She quickly checked the address and saw that the woman was found in McIver’s house. The police were even getting in on the killing act, she thought. She wondered whether she should go there. Wilson would be at the house. A little additional taunting might do him some good. She decided that there was no point. The poor man was up to his ass in corpses and there wasn’t even a gang war to blame for it. She had made her contribution, but it was almost time to disappear and leave him with his mystery cloaked in an enigma. She enjoyed her little joust with Wilson. In a way, he was a worthy opponent but this time the deck was stacked against him. Two more days and she would be on a flight to the States. There was no better country in the world to disappear in than America. It was big and full of people who didn’t want to be found. For God’s sake, they were still looking for Weathermen, who disappeared themselves during the 1960’s. She gave her mother some degree of justice. All the women present should have suffered the same fate as Rice, Morison and Boyle. But she was not a psychopath. She laughed. At least, she didn’t think so.

Sammy Rice swirled a snifter of brandy and took a sip. He was sitting in the front room of his house in Malone Park, and DCC Roy Jennings was seated directly across from him.

‘Are you sure he wasn’t involved in your mother’s death?’ Jennings asked.

‘I don’t think so but he did kill Ivan. He blabbed like a baby, and we didn’t even lay a hand on him. Guilt is eating the poor bastard up. He wouldn’t have been much use in our business.’

‘What do you intend to do?’

‘I’m going to take the fucker out into the woods and put one into the back of his head. Then I’m going to bury him. It’s what my people expect. I can’t allow him to kill one of my men and walk away.’

‘You mentioned something earlier about Wilson.’

Rice related the incident at Kate McCann’s office. He could still feel the pain in his hand and the indignity of wilting under Wilson’s pressure grip. ‘I want that bastard.’

‘I detest him, and I’ve tried to nail him on several occasions, but he’s got more lives than a cat. However, with a little bit of thought we may have him this time.’

‘How so?’ Rice sipped from his snifter.

‘McIver is a member of his team. McIver has murdered an upstanding citizen and his wife. The case will be all over the papers, and a few judicious words to a journalist would be enough to cast aspersions on the man responsible for monitoring McIver’s actions. The McIver case could be used to shine a spotlight on Wilson. I might be under considerable pressure to require his retirement.’

‘You’re a devious bastard. I’m glad you’re on my side,’ and you’ll stay on my side, as long as I outrank you in the Order, he thought. ‘So what does that mean?’

‘You have to cut McIver loose tomorrow morning. There’s an APB out on him. Drop him off where there’s a police presence, and he’ll be picked up in no time. We need a court case to see Wilson off.’

Rice sat back. ‘My people expect me to take care of this. You don’t kill one of my men and not end up in a hole in the Mourne Mountains. That’s normally non-negotiable. This is going to be a difficult one for me to square. McIver’s going to get what, fifteen years for the two murders.  He’ll plead diminished responsibility. I’ve seen what’s left of him, and he’ll get it. He might be out in five after a couple of years of psychiatric care.’

‘McIver isn’t the target.’

Rice nodded and drained his glass. ‘I’ll do it.’

CHAPTER 61

Wilson slept fitfully and had risen at six o’clock. He had been sitting at Kate’s desk for two hours drinking coffee and sketching on a writing pad. Some things were clear while some required clarification. McIlroy and McIver knew each other. How they knew each other needed to be clarified, but Wilson would bet that they had been at school together. Their ages made that conclusion possible. McIlroy recruited McIver to report on the Lizzie Rice investigation. That was confirmed by the presence of the roll of bills in McIver’s drawer. The big question was whether McIver had had his finger on the trigger when McIlroy was shot. After examining all the possibilities, Wilson had come to the conclusion that he had. The Glock would test positive and that would confirm that Ronald McIver, a Detective Constable in the PSNI, had shot and killed Ivan McIlroy. McIver had gone to ground, but would be caught eventually. The case would be spectacular. A double murderer, one from whatever motive his barrister would ascribe and the second a mercy killing under extreme stress. It would be a circus and a perfect case for Kate McCann. However, the stain on him and his team would be harder to wash away. He didn’t heard Kate but he smelled an omelette from the kitchen.

‘Breakfast is ready. Have you worked it out?’ she asked.

‘More or less,’ he folded the papers he had been scribbling on and turned to face her. ‘It isn’t pretty, and I may not come out of it unscathed.’

‘Just remember, you didn’t do anything,’ she moved toward the breakfast bar.

‘That’s the point,’ Wilson stood and followed her. ‘If I’d been on the ball, I would have noticed McIver going downhill. Maybe I’m not fit to lead a team.’

‘Don’t talk rubbish. Nobody could have seen McIver killing his wife coming,’ she put a plate containing an omelette in front of him.

He dug his fork into the omelette. ‘There are those who will not take such a charitable view of my actions. They’ve been waiting for me, and now they have a chance of getting me.’

‘Maybe that’s what you want. Our minds work in mysterious ways. Maybe you’re being forced in a direction you really want to go.’

Wilson put a forkful of omelette into his mouth. Maybe he was tired dancing the dance. He couldn’t see an alternative, but the image of Mary McIver had been added to the catalogue of horrors imprinted on his mind. The job ate people. It had eaten Joe Worthington, and it had eaten Ronald McIver. He wondered who it would eat next.

The nine o’clock briefing was a morose affair. Eric Taylor briefed the team on the events of the previous day ending with the discovery of Mary McIver’s body at the house. There had been no sign of Ronald McIver but the uniforms were on the look out. Wilson took over with his theory on McIver being the shooter in the McIlroy murder. McIver’s Glock had been handed over for examination to see if it had been the gun that had killed McIlroy.

‘Eric,’ Wilson said. ‘You stay on this one. Find me the link between Ronald and McIlroy. My guess it’s the school, but I might be wrong. I put you on the docket for the examination of the gun, so forensics will get back to you. And I also want you to liaise with the uniforms on the search for Ronald. We need to find him as soon as possible. I don’t like the idea of him rambling around out there. Moira has some ideas on the Rice/Morison/Boyle murders.’

Moira came forward and explained her examination of the police files. ‘One of the boss’s predecessors, DI Jack Armstrong, seems to have taken a particular interest in Lizzie and her gang. The Boss and I are going to meet him at ten thirty. We should be on our way, Boss.’

Wilson glanced at his watch. It was nine thirty.

Portaferry is a small town located approximately 30 miles from Belfast at the southern end of the Ards Peninsula, near the Narrows at the entrance to Strangford Lough. It is the kind of pretty seaside village that attracts the elderly and holidaying families. Wilson and Moira were lost in their thoughts during the hour-long drive along the shores of Strangford Lough. A stiff wind was blowing a fine mist of rain across the grey waters of the Lough when they arrived at the Haven Nursing Home on the Shore Road within sight of the marina. They entered along a tree-lined drive and pulled into the parking lot. The Haven was a purpose-built home comprising three red brick two storied buildings. Wilson gazed out over the finely manicured gardens and saw the waters of the Lough in the distance through the trees. He could imagine spending the end of his days in such a peaceful setting. He followed Moira into the door with the large white ‘Reception’ sign over it.

Moira moved to the reception desk and spoke to the lady behind the hatch. ‘We have to sign in,’ she said when she returned to where he was standing.

‘Are they afraid we’ll run away with somebody?’

She raised her eyebrows. Wilson’s and her phones rang simultaneously. They both grabbed at their phones and answered.

Wilson listened wordlessly and then cut the line.

‘Thanks,’ Moira said and turned her phone off. ‘They’ve got him.’

‘Aye, thanks be to God. He’s being taken to the station.’

‘No mobiles inside,’ the receptionist said from the hatch. ‘It bothers the guests.’

‘Armstrong is waiting for us in the sunroom at the rear,’ Moira pressed a button on the wall, and the door sprang open. 

They entered a large room where a dozen ‘guests’ were arranged in a semi circle around a television. Only two guests appeared to be concentrating on the programme, the rest displayed no interest. An old lady stopped Moira as she moved round the edge of the semicircle.

‘Have you come to take me home?’ the old lady asked pleading in her voice.

‘Yes,’ Moira said gently. ‘But first we have to take our tea. I’ll come and find you when we’re ready.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ the old lady said and moved on.

‘My granny was in a place like this,’ Moira said by way of explanation. ‘I hope Armstrong isn’t gaga.’

Two people sat at either end of the sunroom. One was an old lady of indeterminate but extreme age, and the other was a man of perhaps seventy-five.

‘DCI Armstrong?’ Moira said as she approached.

The man in the wheelchair laughed. ‘Been a long time since someone called me that.’

They introduced themselves and flashed their warrant cards.

Wilson pulled two chairs over and he and Moira sat down on either side of Armstrong. ‘How long have you been retired?’ he asked. He could see how slight Armstrong was even though he was wrapped in a blanket. His body appeared to be tiny, and his head was large in comparison. He was almost completely bald, and his pate was a mass of liver spots.

Armstrong thought for a second. ‘Twenty-five years, I suppose. I did a bit of private work when I left but then the wife died suddenly, and I wasn’t much at looking after myself. There was some drinking and health problems, and here I am. What can I do for you?’

‘You’ve read the newspapers about the spate of murders,’ Wilson said.

‘Aye, and I’ve seen you on the television. You’re the SIO. I see old Donald Spence is still about. He was a kid when I ran the murder squad.’

‘We have three dead women, Lizzie Rice, Nancy Morison and Joan Boyle’ Wilson said. ‘We’ve been back through the files, but we can’t come up with a motive. The only lead we have is that they were all members of the woman’s branch of the UVF in the Shankill at the same time. We’re hoping that you can help us.’

‘Morison and Boyle were in the gang with Lizzie?’ Armstrong asked.

‘Yes, we found a photograph of all eight members of the Shankill Branch of the Women’s UVF. All three are in the photo.’

Armstrong’s face hardened. ‘That crowd were worse than a witches’ coven. They had more evil in them than a group of Satanists. I tried as hard as I could to pin something on them but Lizzie was like Teflon back then. You could get her behind bars, but the politicians would have her out before you could say Jack Robinson.’

‘She disappeared off the scene pretty quickly,’ Wilson said.

‘That’s what alerted me,’ Armstrong coughed into his hand. ‘She was a fixture for more than ten years then poof she was history. It doesn’t happen like that.’

‘You have a theory?’ Wilson asked.

Armstrong wheezed and when he spoke it was like the words were passing through a gravel bed. ‘I had a dozen of them at the time. I looked at every crime that occurred about the time she fell from grace. We had a couple of well-known sectarian serial killers active at the time so we were pretty much overloaded. Although I tried, I couldn’t tie Lizzie to any of the active murder cases.’

‘But you didn’t stop there?’ Wilson wanted to give the old man a chance to draw his breath.

Armstrong smiled. ‘I heard about you. You didn’t need to be a copper. You had all that rugby stuff going for you until you walked into a bomb.’

‘Shit happens,’ Wilson said.

‘Your rugby mates could have fixed you up. Got you a nice well-paid job, but you went back to the Force. They say you’re good. Maybe even as good as I was.’ His lined face cracked into another smile.

‘You found something that might have been linked to Lizzie being closed down?’ Wilson said.

‘You are good,’ he wheezed. ‘A disappearance, a woman called Francis McComber, a Protestant and a single mother without any connection to the paramilitaries. She was walking along the street one minute with her little girl in tow, and she just vanished into thin air. The little girl was found in a housing estate just outside Belfast.’ Armstrong drew a long breath. ‘It was assumed the mother couldn’t deal with the child and had skipped across the water. The girl was questioned but at six years of age, she didn’t make much sense.’