Nothing but Memories (DCI Wilson Book 1) (26 page)

              Wilson was in mid-sentence when his mobile phone rang. He reached into his pocket and switched the unit off.

             
"Blast that bloody thing," he said removing his hand from his pocket and resuming eating.

             
"Aren't you going to answer it?" Kate asked. She was surprised and more than a little annoyed with herself at how quickly they had fallen back into the old routine. If it wasn't for the pain he had caused her by his rejection she might have imagined that London had been a dream. Maybe it was the human condition to let bygones be bygones. She had known from the moment that she had met him that he was the ‘one’. There had been plenty of men before him but she had never felt the depth of emotion for them that she had felt for him. Sometimes she wanted to kick herself for feeling the way she did. She had graduated top of her class at Queen’s University which proved that she wasn’t exactly dumb but how could she correlate her intelligence with her need to be loved by Ian Wilson.

             
"Don't you start behaving like a school-teacher," he forked some sweet and sour pork into his mouth and washed it down with a glass of Cote du Rhone Villages. He was feeling good for the first time in months. For once the mellowness wasn't associated with large quantities of booze. He was simply happy to be in the company of the woman he had been willing to leave Susan for. Why did the bloody mobile have to ring just now? Over the past two hours he had managed to forget Tennent Street, Ulster, killings. Couldn't the bastards have given him at least one evening of total relaxation? What were his needs against the reason his mobile had rung. In all likelihood somewhere in his area a human being had probably just died violently.

             
"You know that you really want to respond to the call," she looked at him reprovingly. "I've been around you enough to understand your code of loyalty to the job. What are you waiting for? Answer the bloody thing."

             
He looked at her. The drinks in the 'Crown' and the wine had added colour to her face. What a stupid bloody fool he'd been. What sort of idiocy had made him inflict his own guilt trip on the woman he had professed to love? Somehow he was going to make it up to her.

             
"They'll start getting frantic if you don't call in soon," she said breaking his train of thought. "It may be nothing. Why don't you find out?"

             
He stood up. "I suppose I'd better because I'm not going to be allowed to sit here all night enjoying myself without you reminding me of my duty to the good people of Ulster."

             
She watched him as he reluctantly pulled the mobile out of his pocket and switched it on again. He always reminded her of one of those big ageing bears on a natural history television programme. The ambling creature was still strong enough to lash and maim those around him who threatened him but the realisation was beginning to dawn on him that with his strength rapidly disappearing his days were numbered. She had never before noticed the crows feet which extended from the corner of his eyes. The skin on his face looked soft and puffy. Maybe he was suffering from burnout. If he was, he wouldn’t be the first police officer to hit that particular wall. Nobody knew better than her the legion of enemies he had amassed during his years on the Force. The wolves scented blood and they were gathering to pull him to pieces. Maybe he would be smart enough to give them all the finger and get out completely. No matter how hard she wished for it she knew that it would never happen. He was like one of those heavy dray horses who when set free immediately look for a carriage to be hooked up to. He'd been born to be a copper. In any other job he would have shrivelled up and died.

His mobile started ringing as soon as he switched it on.  He listened without speaking and then said Ok before cutting the communication.

              "Jesus Christ but there's no rest for the wicked," he said pushing his unfinished meal away. "It looks like our friend with the nine millimetre has been out and about again. Somebody just murdered some poor bastard over beside the New Lodge. The brass want me to drop whatever I'm doing and get over there straight away."

             
"If that’s the case don't let me keep you," she felt like screaming. "Just find the bastard and shove the result up Jennings and the rest of them. We can always pick up where we left off." She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice but she wasn't' quite sure how well she was succeeding.

             
"You can be sure of it," he hated the job at moments like this. "Look, maybe I could call around later this evening."

             
"Remember what I said in the 'Crown'," she said fighting with her desire to say 'why not'. "We can't start from where we left off. Let's take it easy for a while. You get yourself off and find that bloody murderer. I'll settle things here."

             
He stood looking down at her. "I'm glad we got together again."

             
She thought before replying. " We’re not there yet, Ian. You’re just lucky I took pity on you, ye big oaf."

             
He leaned over quickly and kissed her hard on the lips. "I'll give you a call in the morning," he said when they both reluctantly broke off the kiss.

             
              He squeezed her hand and then made for the door.

"Shit!" Wilson punched the steering wheel of the Toyota as he took his place behind the wheel. Why couldn't the bastard have taken a holiday to-night? He was feeling more emotions than he felt was good for him. Sure he wanted to catch the bastard with the nine millimetre but he also felt that if Kate and he had been permitted to spend the evening together they would inevitably have ended up in bed. He hadn't had sex since his wife died. That was bloody ironic because he had put it about enough when she was alive. He felt the need to make love to a woman stronger than he had ever felt it before. He took one last look at the exterior of the restaurant and started the car. He drove from Donegal Square up Royal Avenue and on into York Street. The wall of the dockyards ran parallel with his route as he drove towards the address on Meadow Street which had been the scene of the latest murder. Even from the scant details he had received on the phone, he had no doubt that the killing in Meadow Street was the work of the same man who had killed Patterson and Peacock. Ballistics would set a seal on it but in his mind it was already a sure thing. The ballistics tests were only a formality. This latest killing might be the straw that would break the camel’s back. Four murders in the space of a few days would have the Protestant psychopaths champing at the bit. Blood would have blood as Mr. Shakespeare wrote on one occasion. But why was it happening now? Who could be crazy enough to start a sectarian war when the mood of the people was for peace? Maybe he’d already had his chance to find out and failed. The pressure to get him off the case would mount. And always in the background were the shadow men. The puppet masters who saw themselves as the defenders of the realm and who would stoop to any kind of dirty ploy to attain their aims. He crossed the Westlink motorway and continued on past the York Dock before turning into Duncairn Gardens. He wondered whether he'd already had too much of Belfast. Sometimes Jennings' threat of a beat in South Armagh actually appeared attractive beside ten more years on the city streets. Maybe he'd be able to have some class of a life with Kate if he could only get away from the mean streets. He looked out at the rows of dirty terraced houses. Belfast was the best candidate for urban renewal he'd ever seen. Maybe if they tore down the ghettos the sectarian divide might also disappear. Was there some sociological reason why the areas of greatest sectarian conflict were also the most run-down and dirty? On the Falls and in the Shankill, it was simply different coloured rats in the same sewer tearing at each other while in middle class areas life went on as usual. There was no sectarian strife in Malwood Park. No graffiti of hooded terrorists decorated the walls in Malone, Dunmurray or Hollywood. None of his yuppie neighbours feared the knock on the door which was the prelude to a sectarian murder. They sat safely in their middle class homes while the rats in the Shankill and the Falls devoured each other.

              The yellow strands of crime scene tape restricting access to the murder spot that had been set up across the junction of Lepper Street and Duncairn Gardens. Wilson pulled the Toyota into the side of the road and got out. A light hazy rain swirled around in the grey light cast by the street lamps. A single young constable stood guarding the orange and red luminous tape. With his laminated black body armour slung outside his regulation raincoat, Wilson thought that he didn't so much resemble a policeman as a creature from one of George Lucas' space movies. The street was deserted except for the constable. He flashed his warrant card at the young policeman and made his way up the twenty yards of Lepper Street which separated Duncairn Gardens from Meadow Street. The scene he encountered when he turned into Meadow Street was so usual as to be boring. A bank of arc lights shot streams of cream coloured light into the hall-way of a house thirty yards in front of him. An ambulance and two police cars were parked in front of the house and he noticed the technical people's van ten yards further on. He walked slowly towards the garishly lit scene. He was ten yards from the house when Whitehouse exited from the front door and stepped onto the path.

             
"You're just in time," Whitehouse opened his white overall and stuffed his notebook into the side pocket of his coat. "We were about to move the stiff," he stood back to reveal the corpse lying on his back in the centre of the hallway.

             
"You've too much delicacy for this job," Wilson said pushing past his sergeant. "Don't you ever think that somebody might be listening."

             
"The deceased's name is Leslie Bingham," Whitehouse glanced at his notebook. "We're runnin' him through the computer. I'd bet a month's pay the slug checks out with Patterson and Peacock. The fuckin' bastard is going' after Prods. It's got to be Cahill or one of his crew."

             
And I'd bet a month's pay that Leslie Bingham turns out to be an ex-inmate of Dungray, Wilson thought to himself. "Any family?" he asked moving to the body.

             
"Wife and one kid," Whitehouse replied. "Usual story. Knock on the door. Bang, bang. The wife can't think of any reason why it should have been him. She was still hysterical when I got here. I only managed to get a few words out of her before the medics sedated her."

             
Wilson looked at what was left of Bingham. The shots had all been aimed at his head and it didn't look like any of them had missed. The side walls of the hallway were sprayed with flecks of dark red cranial blood and the door at the end of the corridor was splattered with a tapestry of red blood interspersed with grey tissue which he recognised as brain. The pattern reminded him of the red splattered cards in a Rorschach test. Bingham had been dead well before he hit the ground.

             
"Where's the wife and kid now?" Wilson asked automatically.

             
"Next-door neighbours," Whitehouse replied. "She’s probably out cold by now from the size of the injection they gave her."

             
"What else do you have?" Wilson asked.

             
"Sweet FA. Three slugs dug out of the wall. Nobody seen leaving the scene. Just a matter of waitin' for the sodding phone call."

             
"Is he connected?"

             
"Ask your Taig friend, McElvaney. She’s probably the one runnin' him through the computer."

             
"I thought I told you about the 'Taig' shit. Drop it. What else do you have? Anybody see the bastard?"

             
"Wise up," Whitehouse replied. "Nobody will admit to seein' anything. Right. The wife thought he was away a bit long so she went to investigate. That's the way she found him. The bastard must have used a silencer. The television was on. We haven't completed the `house to house' yet but my guess is that like the rest of them we won't turn up a hair. The lab boys should be here shortly."

             
"When can we expect something from ballistics?"

             
"Do we really need to go down that road? We’ll get the slugs over there as soon as we can and put an urgent on them. They might have something for us tomorrow. If we’re lucky. They can't tell us anymore than we sodding well know, can they? It's the same gun and the same bastard and he's laughin' at us."

             
Wilson stood over the stricken man.

             
"As they say in darts," Whitehouse said. "Nice grouping."

             
The sight was grisly. Seeing the inside of a man's head scattered about a confined space was apt to turn the stomach of even the most battle-hardened copper. Wilson wondered how Bingham's wife had reacted to the sight. At least he was dead, his wife would carry the mental images of this night with her for the rest of her life. He wondered who the killer had really hurt the most. Mrs. Bingham was just another victim of Northern Ireland's reign of violence. It was hard to disagree with the logic that said the dead were the lucky ones. Whitehouse was right. They didn't need the results of the ballistics tests to know that he was looking at the handy work of the `professional'. There was a surgical precision about the killing which showed that the assassin's hand hadn't even so much as slightly wavered when he'd fired. The bastard who did this was a cold bloody fish, he thought. It took nerves of steel and skill to shoot with such calm assurance. The murderer was bloody good at his job.