A Box Full of Darkness (Wilson Book 5) (20 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Wilson was surprised that there was still room in the spectators’ gallery in Court No. 1 at Laganside. He edged around to the right-hand corner to try to get a better view of Kate, who was sitting facing the Judge allowing the spectators a view of her back. Although it was difficult to be sure, he thought she looked paler than the last time he’d seen her. Maggie Cummerford was in the witness box. She looked even slighter than he remembered. She appeared to have disappeared into herself. It was the perfect picture of the poor abandoned waif that she had been. Kate’s junior was handling the cross-examination, which was centred, on her memories of her mother and their life in Belfast. Wilson looked at the jury and saw that they were lapping up the story of the poor abandoned young girl. Wilson had seen too many trials not to recognise the plan. Cummerford’s life would be dissected and she would be presented as the real victim of the events, which led to the murder of three elderly women. He could see that the woman in the witness box had entered fully into the role.  And if he knew Maggie, it would be a consummate performance. He concentrated his gaze on Kate hoping that there was some way she would feel his presence and turn to face him. Normally, she would have been writing her notes or in conference with her team while the preliminary cross-examination was taking place but she appeared strangely lethargic. He looked across the gallery and saw McDevitt writing into his large notebook. Two places down from him a young man was tapping on the keys of a laptop computer. He made a mental note to tell McDevitt to move with the times. As his eyes moved around the gallery, he saw a face staring directly at him. Helen McCann was shooting daggers with her eyes in his direction. He was the first to break off eye contact. He could feel Helen’s eyes still on him.

‘What a performance!’ McDevitt had left his seat and stood in front of Wilson. ‘That woman has a future on the stage. She has the jury eating out of her hands.’

Wilson glanced at the witness box and saw the four- year-old frightened girl that Maggie Cummerford had been. ‘She has to go down,’ he said absentmindedly. ‘She murdered three elderly ladies.’

‘Those are the facts,’ McDevitt said. ‘That’s what Gold stuck to during the prosecution case. We heard all about the murders and the investigation. But the defence is ignoring the crimes and concentrating on the impact on that poor young girl. It’s all about the emotion, and juries are swayed by emotion. Your ex is playing a blinder.’

‘Just wait until Gold gets at her.’

‘He’s going to have to walk a very careful line. They’re setting her up as the real victim. Not only did the murdered women take her mother away from her, the RUC screwed up the investigation. If he attacks her, he won’t get any sympathy from the jury. He’s between a rock and a hard place.’ McDevitt followed Wilson’s gaze and saw Helen McCann staring in their direction. ‘If looks could kill, you’d be stone dead.’

‘She’ll go down,’ Wilson said simply nodding towards the witness box.

‘But for how long?’ McDevitt said. ‘I’ve got fifty quid that says she gets ten years, out in six.’

Wilson thought about taking the bet but he knew McDevitt was probably right. ‘Two years per murder, doesn’t seem just.’

‘The lady holding the scales is blind,’ McDevitt said.

‘What about your case? Hodson throw up anything new?’

‘Another avenue of enquiry has opened up. Where it’ll lead is anyone’s guess.’

‘Ready to throw the towel in?’

‘Not yet.’ Quitting wasn’t his style and he had made a promise to Michael Lafferty. Perhaps he had been presumptuous. He’d made progress, but just not enough.

‘Back to the grind,’ McDevitt said heading back towards his seat.

Wilson had no grind to go back to so he sat and watched the proceedings. He hardly listened to the evidence. He was concentrating on Kate. Perhaps they were ill-fated from the start, but it was difficult to forget the good times. Kate glanced back to the spectators’ gallery and their eyes met for a fraction of a second. He was sure that she had seen him but hadn’t shown any recognition. He stood up. He hadn’t come to see what was happening in the case. He’d come to see Kate and he’d received the answer to the question that was bothering him. He pushed open the door to the corridor and almost ran directly into Peter Davidson.

‘Boss, didn’t expect to see you here,’ Davidson said. ‘Is McDevitt inside? I’m going to strangle the little bastard. He stitched us up putting that picture in the
Chronicle
.’

Wilson frowned. ‘That’s down to me. I shared and maybe I shouldn’t have. Any news on Sammy?’

Davidson shook his head. ‘Nothing. The forensics boys have been over his car with a fine-tooth comb and there’s nothing strange there, nothing from the airports or the ports, nothing from the Garda Siochana. The man has disappeared from the planet.’

‘We might be forced to accept the obvious conclusion.’

‘We’re not there yet. Sammy’s father is trying to keep the crew together. He’s even quit the booze and Jimmy McGreary is hovering in the background. Nobody wants a turf war. There’s too much collateral damage. But in the last few months Sammy’s crew has lost Ivan Mcilroy, Boyle and Big George Carroll.’

‘If Sammy’s no longer in the land of the living, there’s only one man with the balls to remove him. For my money, McGreary won’t have done the dirty work himself but he’s somewhere behind in the shadows.’

Davidson rubbed at his chin. ‘Sammy’s a major player, boss. Taking him out would be a high risk strategy.’

‘Not if they knew that he was about to go down on Big George’s evidence,’ Wilson’s mobile beeped and he took it from his pocket. The text was concise,
Major Alfred Crookshank, Palace Barracks, 15:00
. He smiled as he put the phone away. Sinclair had been obliged to come through. ‘Somebody will eventually crack. I’d put my money on Best as the triggerman. If I’m right, and I think I am, we’re not going to see Sammy in the flesh again.’

‘Christ, boss, I wish you were back with us. Harry and I are wandering around like two chickens with their heads chopped off.’

‘No new appointments?’

‘Rumour has it that the Chief Constable is off and the reorganisation delayed until the new man is in the chair.’

Wilson remembered a quote from the famous Roman general Petronius Arbiter that one of his lecturers at Police College had a particular liking for. He wasn’t sure of the exact quote but it went something like:
we trained hard, but it seemed every time we were beginning to form up into teams we were reorganised
. It appeared that nothing had changed in over 2,000 years. That meant that there was still a chance that the new man would scrap his predecessor’s plan. At last a ball looked to be bouncing in his direction.

‘How’s the case going?’ Davidson asked.

‘Making progress and, by all accounts, waves.’

Davidson smiled. ‘What’s new?’

‘Anything else I should know?’ Wilson asked. ‘I’m out of the rumour mill out in Dunmurry

‘No, it’s the quiet before the storm. If you’re right about Sammy, the storm might not be too far away.’

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Wilson decided to drive directly to Holywood. It was approaching one o’clock and he was thinking about lunch.  He needed time to develop a strategy for his meeting with Crookshank. Holywood is a small town of about 15,000 souls situated between Belfast and Bangor in County Down. Wilson had two reasons for not returning to Dunmurry. The first was that he had no desire to add the ever-willing Sergeant Jackson to his interview with Crookshank. The second was that Holywood was home to one of his favourite hostelries, the Maypole Bar, known to locals simply as Ned’s. The bar is one of the most unprepossessing pub buildings in Northern Ireland but in Wilson’s humble opinion no visitor should leave Ulster without a visit to Ned’s. He found parking on the High Street and made his way to his destination. He procured what is generally accepted to be one of the best pints of Guinness in the Province. Ned’s didn’t do food but that lack could be remedied as soon as the pint was dispatched. Wilson sat in a corner and ran through the situation on his investigation. It was fairly certain that the two young men were killed by some undercover group of the British Army. The MRF was the most likely culprit. But who were the individuals who had been in the car at the junction of Beechmount Parade? And what series of events had led them to fire on the football game? The fact that the security forces were involved meant that he would probably never get to the real answer to either of those questions. Locked away in a cupboard somewhere there would be a report on the incident that would be so heavily redacted as to be useless. Some bright, young official at the Ministry of Defence would have been given the job of reducing what really happened at Beechmount Parade to a meaningless jumble of words. Whatever he learned from the military might be meaningless but it was the next step and he had to go there. The miscreants might not end up in the dock. No, that wasn’t right, the miscreants would certainly not end up in the dock. But that was never his problem. It was his job to gather all the evidence and point the finger at those responsible. Dispensing justice was someone else’s job. He finished his pint and contemplated a second before deciding against. He might need all his faculties to deal with Crookshank. He bought a sandwich and made his way to the Esplanade. He sat on a wooden bench and gazed across the inlet from the Irish Sea. There were a couple of large vessels heading out to sea. He wondered where they were heading. Considering the trajectory of his life he could just as easily have joined them. He looked back at the city of Belfast in the distance. Maybe it was time they took a break from each other. He was beginning to think that he was the origin of his own problems. He had never played the PSNI game. That was the route that Jennings and his ilk took. So, he couldn’t really cry when people like Jennings and ‘The Gravedigger’ took their chance to piss on him. He managed to screw up his relationship with Kate. Again it was totally down to him. He was out of his comfort zone with her. What the hell had he been thinking? He was shacking up with a woman who was well out of his league in every respect. She was part of the Northern Ireland establishment and it was only a matter of time before she became attorney general. He was only good at two things: chasing an oval ball around a field and investigating murders. The former had been taken from him by the pieces of shrapnel still floating around in his leg. It was looking increasingly like the latter was about to be taken from him as well.

Palace Barracks occupies the site of a palatial house known as "Ardtullagh", the home of the Bishop of Down and Connor. The barracks is situated on the outskirts of Holywood and covers an area of four square-kilometres. Wilson arrived at the main gate at ten minutes to three o’clock giving him ten minutes to locate Crookshank before the appointed time. The guard at the gate examined his credentials and rang ahead before removing a substantial barrier. Wilson then drove through a chicane of large concrete blocks before making his way to a car park on the right hand side of the site. Inside, the barracks was like a small town with tree-lined roads with living accommodation on either side and Wilson was suddenly aware that this was a place where families lived. He parked in an empty bay and made his way to the administration building, which was a two storey red-bricked building directly behind the car park.  In the reception, he was directed to an office on the first floor. He knocked on the door and a clipped accent bade him to enter.

Major Alfred Crookshank stood as Wilson entered. He was dressed in an open-necked khaki shirt displaying on his epaulettes a single crown signifying his rank. He walked from behind his steel desk and extended his hand towards Wilson. ’Welcome to Palace Barracks.’ Crookshank had an educated Scottish accent.

Wilson took his hand. ‘Thank you for agreeing to see me at such short notice.’

‘Please sit down.’ Crookshank indicated a chair in front of his desk and returned to his seat.

Crookshank looked to be in his mid-thirties and was lean and fit and a head of prematurely grey hair topped his thin face. He had the type of body that was associated with a runner. His upper lip had a thin military-style moustache and he sat ramrod stiff in his office chair. He looked like every other British Army officer that Wilson had ever met. When demobbed, he would be known as the ‘Major’ in whatever Lowland village he decided to settle in.

‘What can I do for you?’ Crookshank asked when they were settled.

Wilson explained that he was examining the murder of two young men in Belfast in 1974, and he had reached a point in his investigation that indicated that the young men had been victims of a British Army shooting which led back to Palace Barracks.

‘I hardly think so,’ Crookshank said. ‘Of course, I wasn’t here at the time but I don’t think we went around shooting innocent people at random. So you’re from the Historical Investigations Division?’

‘Not exactly,’ Wilson answered. ‘I’m in a special unit reinvestigating the crime.’

‘At forty-two years remove?’
Crookshank couldn’t hide his amazement.

‘Not easy, but like you, I do what I’m told. I understand that a unit called the Military Reaction Force made up of cowboy squaddies operated out of this very barracks.’ Wilson removed a copy of the photograph of the MRF from his inside pocket and placed it on the desk. ‘Recognise the background?’

Crookshank pulled the photograph towards him and examined it. The photograph showed what he recognised as a cordoned-off area at the rear of the barracks. It was currently being used as a storage area. He’d never seen the photograph before and he could scarcely believe the sight of British soldiers in civilian clothes cradling weapons like a group of 1920s Chicago mobsters. He looked up at Wilson. ‘I don’t understand.’ He pushed the photograph away. He’d received instructions from the office of the General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland to deal with Wilson and answer any of his questions politely but firmly. ‘I wasn’t here when the events you describe happened. I wasn’t even in the army. If you want information on the events in the 1970s, I suggest that you contact someone who might actually be helpful.’

Wilson could appreciate Crookshank’s position. He knew that he was being a bit of an asshole asking to see him. In effect, the request for a meeting had been a feint. He had simply been pulling Sinclair’s chain, and pulling the British Army’s chain at the same time. That was a high-risk strategy. The British Army was the sleeping giant in the Northern Ireland scene. Poking it with a stick risked a reaction. He didn’t need confirmation that Sean Lafferty and Cormac Mallon were murdered by a covert group of British soldiers. He wanted to know who they were. And why the RUC had covered-up the murders? He had no doubt he wouldn’t find the answer by looking closely at the MRF. Nobody had ever looked into the activities of the MRF and nobody ever would. He had no doubt what might happen to him if he became the first. ‘I’m sorry I should have been more explicit about my enquiries.’ He picked up the photograph and replaced it in his pocket.  ‘Maybe we can take a look at the staging area that was in use in the early 1970s.’

‘I don’t see the utility, but I’ve been asked to facilitate you.’ Crookshank put his jacket on and started for the door.

They walked through the barracks to the rear right hand side. Wilson could see that every effort had been made to give the soldiers living on the base the feeling of an English village. The recreation areas were tree-lined and the whole feeling was one of gentle peacefulness, probably in direct contrast to the tension and activity that would have been present when the MRF was in residence. They arrived at a large set of steel doors. Crookshank nodded at the soldier on guard who opened the doors for them. The enclosed area was about half the size of a soccer pitch. There was a slightly rundown red brick building along the left-hand side that had obviously been a barracks. The area in front of the barracks was tarmacked and was currently covered with miscellaneous stores. Towards the right of the open site was the area where the transport had been located and where the photo had been taken.

Crookshank watched Wilson as he moved around the area. He wondered what the man could possibly gain from looking at the piles of stores.

Wilson walked to the barracks and looked in through the windows. The rooms were empty but had once housed the quarters of men who had gone hunting the IRA on the streets of Belfast. They fought the kind of guerrilla war they had learned in Malaya and Kenya. He turned and rejoined Crookshank at the gate. He had poked the beast enough. Someone in the office of the Officer Commanding would know that he was focusing his attention on the army and he was sure that there would be a reaction. He just wasn’t sure what it was going to be. He held out his hand. ‘I’m sorry for taking up so much of your time.’

Crookshank took his hand with a certain amount of relief. ‘Sorry I couldn’t be much help.’

‘I think I got what I came for. Thank you again.’

Wilson walked back to the car park. He was aware that he had gained nothing of direct benefit to his investigation. He would have to wait and see how the beast would react.