Death to Pay (19 page)

The local shop was only a few minutes away, but he would have to walk a considerable distance to find a shop selling SIM cards. He walked along trying to erase from his memory the prone body lying in the corridor of his old school and his part in putting it there. He eventually found the shop he was looking for and bought the SIM card he needed. He didn’t bother to look up at the ceiling directly over the cashier’s head. If he had he would have seen the small camera taking a perfect picture of his face.

CHAPTER 39

‘Where’s the fucker?’ Sammy Rice was feeling human again, and he wanted to get on with the search for the killer of his mother. He had given that task to Ivan McIlroy and suddenly there was no sign of the bastard. He looked at the two young men in the front room of his house in Ballygomartin Road.

‘No idea, Chief,’ one of McIlroy’s minions answered.

‘Wrong fucking answer.’ Rice grabbed the young man by the throat and forced him back against a wall. ‘You’re telling me that he’s disappeared off the face of the earth?’

The man’s head was forced up, and his voice croaked. ‘We’ve tried all the usual haunts, and he’s not answering his mobile.’

Rice removed his hand from the young man’s throat. ‘You don’t want to get me angry. Get out on the streets and find him. I want McIlroy here now.’

The two men quickly left the room, and Rice heard the outside door closing. The quality of his men had gone through the floor. Five years ago, the people he hired looked like they could go twelve rounds with Joe Frazier. The current crop looked like they’d have difficulty going one round with David Bowie. Lizzie was in the ground, and Billy was back in his hovel in Malvern Street. He stuck two hundred quid into the auld man’s pocket before he left. The off-licence would be ringing up the till for the next week or so. He flopped into one of the armchairs situated on either side of the bay window. Billy was fucked. The drink was killing him, and he didn’t have the sense to kick it. It wouldn’t be long before he’d have to plant him too. His mind was only semi-clear, but he knew he was going to have to solve the riddle of Lizzie’s murder. It was something to do with him. He remembered the state of the auld bitch when he had picked her up from the mortuary. They didn’t just kill her, they’d almost left her without a head. The people he dealt with usually put a bullet into someone. The business with the head was strange. He thought about Jimmy McGreary. The fat bastard was capable of coming up with something like that. Their territories were banging up against each other. McGreary grabbed the most lucrative area of central Belfast. Now that peace reigned, more or less, the centre of Belfast had taken off. Despite the recession, business was booming and the yuppies, or whatever they called them these days, flooded into the upmarket developments close to their work. They had the money, and they had the need for recreational drugs. The visiting businessmen had the need for female companionship, and the businesses needed additional security. McGreary stole his pot of gold.  Lizzie’s death could have been a feint against him, a pinprick to see how he would react. He tried to remember whether McGreary had a mother. He had never seen or heard of one. How to react? That was the problem. A turf war was out of the question. McGreary and he had similar numbers of men. They’d just end up pissing the peelers and the politicians off.  He needed McIlroy. Ivan wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he was a gutter rat. Now he disappears just when he needed him most. Rice lifted his head slowly. He began to think the unthinkable. Perhaps McIlroy had gone over to the other side. McIlroy on McGreary’s crew would spell the end of him. He had no doubt that the next few days would be the defining moment for him as a criminal boss. The streets of Belfast would run red with blood before he would go down.

CHAPTER 40

Two police cars were pulled up outside the derelict building in the dock area of East Belfast when Wilson arrived. The phone call had come in just after two o’clock in the afternoon. The uniforms had contacted him as soon as they had verified that there was a body. Wilson picked up two white jumpsuits and threw one of them to Moira. She caught it while she was still signing them both in.

‘Maybe we should think of investing in a couple of these things for ourselves,’ Wilson said slipping the jumpsuit on. He pulled his shoulders in to accommodate the XXL version of the suit and told himself that not only was increased exercise necessary but so was a diet. The takeaways would have to go but considering his and Kate’s lifestyle that would be difficult to accomplish.

‘Is this our man again?’ Moira asked climbing into her suit.

‘Let’s go and find out,’ Wilson led the way into the building. He looked around the entrance. The foyer looked like a hurricane had hit it. Bits of masonry had been gouged from the walls, and some of the ceiling had collapsed. Where plaster still existed on the walls the graffiti spray painters had done their work.

‘It used to be a school apparently,’ Moira said as she joined him in the foyer.

‘I remember something like this,’ Wilson said looking around. ‘But it was before education became important.’

A uniform appeared at their side. ‘He’s down there,’ he pointed the length of the corridor.

‘Were you the first on the scene?’ Wilson asked.

The young officer nodded.

‘Give your name to DS McElvaney. We’ll need to talk to you later. and forensic will need to have elimination prints and DNA.’

Moira pulled her notebook from inside her suit and wrote the officer’s name.

‘Let’s take a look,’ Wilson said. He could see the shape of the figure half way along the corridor. The ground was littered with masonry, broken glass and plastic bottles interspersed with used syringes and condoms. The building had probably been used as a squat until it disintegrated to such a state that it was unliveable even for junkies. The forensics team were going to have a merry old time going through this mess. The body was lying on its side. He wouldn’t disturb it until forensics had photographed the scene. He removed a pen flashlight from his inside pocket and shone it on the face of the corpse. He bent to get a better view of the face. ‘Oh, shit,’ he said and cut the light off.

‘You know him?’ Moira asked.

‘Ivan McIlroy, he’s Sammy Rice’s right-hand man. If Lizzie Rice was bad, this is a disaster. We could be looking at a body count in double figures before we’re finished here.’ Wilson stood up straight.

‘His head looks to be in one piece,’ Moira said.

‘He’s been shot,’ Wilson said simply. ‘Two by the look of it. We’ll confirm when we flip him over. Ivan lived by the sword, so I suppose it’s no surprise that he died by the sword. Sammy has lost his mother and his right-hand man in the past few days. He’s not going to be a happy bunny, and he’s not the kind of man who’ll spend a lot of time sitting around wondering what to do next. That means we’re looking at a hell of a lot of trouble.’

A noise at the end of the corridor indicated the arrival of the forensic team. ‘You people are keeping us busy these days,’ the team leader said.

‘Tell me about it,’ Wilson moved aside and he and Moira retraced their steps back along the corridor. His mind was racing. It didn’t compute. Three murders in as many days, two of elderly women on whom excessive violence was enacted. Now a third more classical Belfast hit. Something was going on but he had no idea what it might be. If McGreary was to be believed, there was no turf war. Lizzie was ancient history, and Nancy Morison was a nobody. But Ivan McIlroy was a heavyweight, and he was current. He was looking into Lizzie’s background for the motive, but perhaps he had been mistaken after all. Maybe it was about Sammy after all and McGreary had sold him a dummy. Perhaps Jennings was right to have McGreary pulled in. If so, it would be the first time Jennings called it right. Wilson’s hypothesis regarding the murders of the two women would be in tatters. His whole team would be following a line of enquiry leading nowhere.

‘We have to stop meeting like this,’ Stephanie Reid’s voice cut into his thoughts. ‘I can see why Charlie needed a sabbatical. Although I’ve never heard of people calling Africa a sabbatical.’

Wilson smiled. ‘Just trying to keep you busy.’

‘Or trying to avoid that drink and what might follow.’

Moira joined them and Reid made a cat hissing sound.

‘I think they’re ready for you inside,’ Moira said sharply.

Reid hissed again and made her way into the building carrying her small leather bag.

‘I really do not like that woman,’ Moira said. ‘I always trust my first impressions, and that woman turns all my alarm bells on. And if she hisses like that at me again, I’ll give her a punch she won’t forget.’

‘And she’d have you for assault, and she would have won.’

‘Have you ever wondered why she’s not married?’

‘We know nothing about her,’ Wilson said watching Reid climb into her plastic suit. ‘Maybe she was and is no longer.’

Moira reddened. It was a remark too close to the bone. ‘I put mine in jail. I wonder what she would have done with hers. Perhaps she’s a Black Widow.’

‘And maybe she’s just a diversion, and we don’t need to be diverted right now,’ Wilson turned back to Moira. ‘As soon as they’re finished, I want to take a look at the body again. In the meantime, I’m going to find somewhere locally that serves a decent coffee. I’ve had my full dose of Stephanie Reid for to-day, and I don’t want to be around when she exits. Don’t let them take the body away until I’ve taken a second look at it. ‘

‘What about time of death, cause of death, stuff like that,’ Moira said.

‘Your business,’ Wilson made a cat hissing sound as he walked away.

When Wilson returned half an hour later Reid had already left. The crew from the Mortuary were loitering beside their van having a cigarette. Moira was in the foyer of the building.

‘So,’ Wilson said as he joined her. ‘Time of death, cause of death, stuff like that.’ He smiled.

‘Certainly last night, two shots to the chest, she won’t have anything exact until she does the autopsy.’

‘Let’s go look,’ he motioned over his shoulder. ‘We don’t want the body crew getting antsy.’

Ivan McIlroy was lying on his back. His shirt and jacket were stiffened with blood from his wound. Wilson looked at the face. No marks. He wasn’t tortured. He picked up the corpse’s hand and looked at the wrists. No ligature marks. He wasn’t tied up either. ‘So he wasn’t brought here,’ he said more to himself than to Moira. ‘We’ll need to know from Reid, whether he was killed here or was he moved. My guess is that we’re standing on the murder spot, but I want to be sure. So the question is, why would McIlroy come here alone with somebody who wanted to kill him?’

‘Maybe it was a meeting between the second level of the Rice gang and some other gang,’ Moira said.

‘These people own snooker halls, pubs and bingo halls. That’s where they hold their meetings. Places they control and where it doesn’t matter if they’re seen. This smacks of either a punishment shooting or an abduction. Since there are no marks on the body, I’m inclined to discount both. Let’s wait until Reid digs the bullets out and we’ll see if the weapon has been used before. Call the body crew in. We’re done here. Forensic will collect a dozen refuse bags of rubbish, and I pity the poor devil that has to sift through it. ‘

CHAPTER 41

Wilson went straight to Chief Superintendent Spence’s office as soon as he returned to the station. Spence was in a meeting, but he finished immediately and invited Wilson in.

‘Tell me the rumour I just heard isn’t true,’ Spence said as soon as Wilson settled himself in a chair.

‘I don’t know what the rumour is, but I can tell you that it’s true.’

‘Ivan McIlroy, for Christ’s sake. Killing McIlroy is tantamount to declaring war,’ Spence opened the top drawer of his desk and took out a small white cylinder. He shook two pills into his hand and slapped them into his mouth.

‘I thought you were off the pills.’

‘I’m back on now that I know McIlroy is dead. Tell me about it.’

Wilson outlined the phone call followed by the discovery of the body. He explained their visit to the derelict building.

‘Have you heard the call?’ Spence asked.

‘Not yet. They said they sent me something on the computer. The techs are also tracking the phone. The call was made from a mobile. If the guy who made it knows what he’s doing, it’ll probably end up as a dead end.’

‘Ivan McIlroy, for Christ’s sake.’

‘You already said that.’ Wilson smiled. ‘Do you want to pop a few more pills?’

‘Wait till Jennings hears.’

‘You think that he hasn’t. He’s probably had to change his beautifully pressed bottle green uniform trousers twice since he heard the news. A feud between two Protestant groups is not a pretty sight.’

‘We’ve got to keep a lid on this.’

‘I think that might be a little difficult. Too many people are now aware that Ivan is no longer in the land of the living. It may be that Sammy hasn’t heard the news, but I’d be willing to wager my next months pay that he has. So what did you have in mind in terms of keeping a lid on it?’

‘We’re screwed. Sammy’s the kind of idiot who’ll react without thinking. I won’t even make a guess at the number of bodies before the tit for tat can be stopped.’

Sammy Rice was in the back room of the ‘Black Bear’. He gathered together his four most trusted men. The news of McIlroy’s death shook him to the core. He could ignore Lizzie’s death as a one off but McIlroy was central to his business, and his murder was highly significant.

‘Any of you jokers have any idea what Ivan was doing in that school?’ Rice asked.

Four blank faces looked back at him. These men had already seen examples of Sammy Rice’s famed temper, and none of them wanted to be the butt of it.

‘Somebody must know what the fucker was doing there,’ Rice leaned forward and shouted.