Nothing but Memories (DCI Wilson Book 1) (21 page)

             
"For God’s sake. That was an age ago. In that time we’ve had fires and floods and God only knows how many changes of personnel. The case files was probably taken out and lost. Every time they renovate this dump half the paper goes missing." Whitehouse shuffled his feet and the sweat was now exiting from his hairline in globules. "I've handled dozens of cases in the meantime. How the hell can you expect me to remember the details of any one particular case?"

             
"Maybe this'll refresh your memory," Wilson handed Whitehouse the computer output. "Read it."

             
Whitehouse read slowly through the sheets his lips moving as he verbalised the words. When he had finished he handed the pages back to Wilson.

             
"Well," Wilson said. "Anything coming back?"

             
"Bits," Whitehouse said. "As far as I can remember we interviewed most of the people who knew Jamison but we didn't really get anywhere. The kid had been fucked up the ass sometime on the night he died.” He looked at Moira expecting to see her wince at his use of crude language but she just stared at him. “We never found out were he'd spent the evening or who he'd been with. We were swamped with murder cases at the time so when it didn't break quickly we were forced to let it go."

             
"But you did interview Nichol?" Wilson asked.

             
"Only for background," Whitehouse added quickly. "He wasn't really a suspect. The kid was an orphan. He'd spent time in a home run by a religious group that Nichol was involved with. Big sodding deal. We found that he’d gone on the game as a rent boy selling his ass to anyone with twenty quid in his pocket. The theory at the time was that he had picked up some john, they’d screwed and then something went pear shaped and the john ended up killing him. We trawled the homo scene but nothing turned up. It was before DNA and there was a whole load of other shit going down so we were forced to let it go."

             
“That’s a good boy, George,” Wilson smiled. “See how much you can remember when you put your mind to it. And the interview notes?”

             
“In the case file,” Whitehouse said avoiding eye contact with his superior.

             
Wilson was remembering the scenario he had developed during the visit to Patterson’s bed-sit. It bore a remarkable resemblance to Jamison. “Did you check out the orphans’ home?”

             
“Now you’re pushing me, boss,” Whitehouse said. He wiped his face with his handkerchief.  “If only I had them notes to refer to. Like I said it was a hell of a long time ago.”

             
"And the only set of interview notes were in the missing file," Wilson said.

             
Whitehouse nodded.

             
"And the orphan's home would be Dungray I suppose."

             
"I don't remember," Whitehouse said.

             
"Was there anything more to this guy Nichol than being the warden of an orphan's home?"

             
"Like what?" Whitehouse said belligerently.

             
"Like, are you bloody thick," Wilson shouted. His head was pounding. Getting the information out of George was worse than pulling teeth. "Like, was he involved with any grouping? Like, was he political? Like, is there something I should know about this man?"

             
Whitehouse stood silently for a moment. He looked into Wilson's face and knew that he wasn't getting away without an answer. "At the time," he said forcing the words out. "Nichol was a front man for one of the Protestant organisations, I don't remember the name of it. They weren't exactly paramilitaries."

             
"They weren't exactly boy scouts either as I remember it," Wilson said.

             
Moira stood watching her two superiors. She was impressed by Wilson’s tenacity.

             
"Maybe we'll have a little talk with Nichol," Wilson said tilting back in his chair. "Revive some old memories. Maybe he remembers Patterson and Peacock. Maybe he knows why somebody wanted them dead. Then I want to find out why his computer file is restricted and when and how the Jamison file went missing."

             
"I need to get back to work," Whitehouse said. "Things have been piling up on me over the past week."

             
"I thought that you might like to join me when I interview Nichol?" Wilson said.

             
"What the hell do you want to interview that old bastard for?" Whitehouse said. "He's probably dead anyway and I bet that if he is alive he knows bugger-all about either Patterson or Peacock."

             
"Find out whether Nichol is still in the land of the living," Wilson said to Moira. "And find out where he might be located." He looked towards the doorway and saw that Whitehouse was listening attentively. "I thought you were in a hurry back to your work, George."

CHAPTER 25

Whitehouse looked around the deserted street before he opened the door and stepped into the public phone box. His nose immediately detected the ammoniacal smell of stale urine. The floor of the box was littered with wet pages torn from the telephone book which hung from a chain attached to the side of the cabin. The inside panels of the telephone box were covered with Loyalist graffiti and explicit sexual advice. One crude cartoon depicted a nun fellating a character wearing a tall mitre. He kicked the paper littering the bottom of the cabin into a corner and picked up the phone. He should have made the call from the Station but you never knew who might be listening. All the boys in the squad were true blue except for McElvaney but it was Wilson who posed the main problem. Even after ten years, he still wasn't sure what made the bastard tick. His chief was an obstinate swine who would never bow to intimidation. He could never understand how a man who had been given every opportunity to become one of the boys always managed to misunderstand the invitation. Wilson certainly didn't belong to that group of PSNI officers who saw themselves as being the true protectors of Protestant Ulster. Well that was his tough sodding luck. DCI Ian Wilson wasn't going any further in the Force. Not only that but the day was fast approaching when the powers that be would have to do something about him. He composed the number and waited while the phone rang out.

             
"Yes."

             
Whitehouse immediately recognised Simpson's voice on the other end of the line. "You know who it is?" he said. Although he'd found no evidence to prove it he was certain that Simpson's phone was being monitored by either the Special Branch or Military Intelligence. In any case he wanted to keep his relationship with Simpson strictly their business.

             
"Go ahead, " Simpson's tone was as smooth as velvet.

             
"You told me to inform you if anything happened down here."

             
"I'm listening," there was a note of interest in Simpson's tone.

             
"It appears that our new Catholic constable has found a link between the two dead men," Whitehouse began. "Both the bastards spent time in Dungray during the early nineties."

             
"Why should that bother us?"

             
"They've latched on to Nichol. The sodding Taig dug up a fragment of a computer file on the Jamison business."

             
"I thought all traces of that affair had been erased." A profound feeling of unease swept through Simpson. That old pederast bastard Nichol had almost ruined them once before and the affair was going to come back to haunt them.

             
"Don't worry," Whitehouse interrupted Simpson's thoughts. "We destroyed the Jamison file years ago. There isn't one single scrap of paper left. But that doesn't mean that some bollocks didn't leave a short sodding description of the case on the computer by accident. I've read the file. It says bugger all. Nichol has nothing to do with the murder of either Patterson or Peacock and as soon as Wilson and his tame Taig find that out they'll piss off and leave him alone."

             
Simpson's mind was working at a mile a minute and all he could foresee was a disastrous event. Opening up the Nichol can of worms would inevitably lead back to his political masters who had worked so diligently to bury the affair. If that happened there would be hell to pay. Wilson was the key to the whole bloody thing and he was about the only person that they couldn't get to.

             
"Is there any way to get Wilson off the track?" Simpson asked hopefully.

             
              "Wise up," Whitehouse laughed into the black mouthpiece. "You know Wilson as well as I do. If you try to throw him a shimmy, you'll only make him twice as anxious to get to the bottom of what happened to Jamison. Let him talk to the old fucker. Tell Nichol to keep his big trap shut and you're in the clear. The connection is slim so next week the sodding Taig'll be off on another lead."

             
"Holy Shit!" Simpson could feel a wave of panic pass through him. "This was your fucking baby, you stupid bollocks. You were supposed to bury that deeper than the holds of hell. The last thing in the world we needed right now was for that old chestnut to reappear.” If Whitehouse had been in front of him he would have hit him. “Let me think for a second." The wheels inside his brain were moving so quickly that he couldn’t concentrate properly. The possibility of the police opening up something so potentially damaging to his boss and their party had thrown him into a blind panic. "I want to know exactly what's goin' down and when. If he's goin' to interview Nichol I want to know the when and the where."

             
Whitehouse could hear the fear in Simpson's voice and it threw him. Simpson didn't scare easily. "Don't worry I'll keep on top of it," he said.

             
"You bloody better," Simpson said. "You've fucked up enough already by not covering up the traces. Don't balls this one up."

             
The line clicked and Whitehouse was left listening to outer space. He slammed the receiver back on to its cradle and kicked the ball of wet paper on the floor of the cabin. It was all that bloody woman’s fault. If she hadn't been nosing around on the computer, the Nichol business would never have come to light. As soon as they could get Wilson out of the way, she was going to find herself back on the beat whatever the new policy on Catholics was. George Whitehouse was going to take care of that personally.

             
He stood in the phone box for several moments weighing up the situation. Simpson's reaction had surprised him. Maybe there was more to this than met the eye. Perhaps he should take advice from elsewhere. The Master of the Lodge should know about the latest developments. He picked up the phone and dialled the number of PSNI Headquarters in Castlereagh. "I'd like to speak to DCC Jennings," he said as soon as the operator came on the line.

Simpson walked to the sideboard in his living room and took out a bottle of Bushmills whiskey. He poured himself a large shot and then slumped into an armchair. Yesterday his main purpose in life was to keep a lid on Protestant retaliation for three murders. A full-scale return to violence might cause the Brits to cut the Province loose. The great British public would probably clap until their hands fell off if that came about. The threat from Nichol was much greater. Nichol could undermine the Ulster Democratic Front. He took a long slug of the amber liquid. There was a big difference between keeping the lid on sectarian retaliation and having the Nichol affair blow up in their faces. He drained the glass. He'd never understood why they hadn't let Nichol take the fall for the Jamison business. There would have been political fall-out. But they would have managed to survive it. The situation was quite different now. If it ever came out that a major Protestant political grouping had suppressed evidence and instigated a cover-up of a murder just to protect their political reputations, the Party would be finished and they might all go to jail. He didn't need to be a rocket scientist to realise that this thing was too big for him. It was going to require major muscle to keep the lid on whatever Wilson managed to come up with and he just didn't possess that kind of juice. He stood up, walked reluctantly to the telephone and dialled a number.

             
"It's Richie. Is he there?" Simpson asked when the telephone at the other was answered.

             
"Yes, Richie," the deep bass voice of Billy Carlile came on the phone.

             
"We've got a major problem," Simpson began. "I've just had that idiot Whitehouse on the line. Somehow the investigation into the two men murdered in West Belfast this week has got around to Robert Nichol."

             
"What!" the air exploded across the telephone line. "How the hell did that happen?"

             
"It turns out that the two murdered men were residents at Dungray in the early nineties. Some smart arsed policeman came up with Nichol's name and they think he might be able to help them with their enquiries."

             
"The stupid meddlers," the anger was evident in Carlile's voice. "That business was dead and buried. We had assurances."

             
"Whitehouse or somebody else on the inside screwed up. Some fool didn’t wipe the computer file. There was a reference to Nichol in some note about the Jamison murder."

             
"I don’t believe this is happening" Carlile said. "We need this problem like we need a hole in the head. The British are about to drop the boom on us and something comes up that could remove us from the political scene altogether. This has all the ingredients of a disaster. We've got to talk face to face. If we don't do something about this right away it could get out of hand. Meet me at my office in fifteen minutes."

             
Simpson replaced the phone. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he shouted. The whole bloody house of cards was going to come tumbling down because some son of a bitch had topped a couple of orphans. Why couldn't the bastard have picked on some other section of the population? Why in God's name hadn't they thrown Nichol to the wolves when they'd had the chance? He ran the palm of his hand over his stomach trying to dispel the pang of fear which gnawed at his entrails.