DCI Wilson: Nothing But Memories Part 4

CHAPTER 11.

Wilson stood at the front door of the police station. Most of the fortification which had marked the station in the 1980's and 1990's had been removed. The few bits of concrete which had been left were now the subject for the cameras of foreign tourists on the "troubles' tour. Tennent Street Station now presented a more benign face to the public. The rectangular building had begun its life as a brewery and despite its conversion to a police station many years before, still had a faint smell of beer in the air surrounding it. Wilson wasn't sure whether he preferred the new approach or the old Fort Apache-like fortifications. The concrete remnants of the protective barrier only remained because the overhaul budget had run out. Unlike the pieces of the Berlin Wall there was no value on the concrete which had protected the PSNI from the people they were employed to protect. He sniffed the air. No beer smell this evening. Full scale rain was up there somewhere and the light stuff that blew through the open door and ran along his cheek like fine oil was simply the precursor of more substantial rain to come. Just at that moment the rain started in earnest. For the past ten years he'd thought of himself like a medieval lord looking out from his moated castle, he'd had the impression of being besieged by some outside foe, someone unknown, but dangerous. Separated from the danger by the dark ma.s.ses of concrete and mounds of sandbags looking for all the world like a row of basking whales on a dark November evening. Future generations would look at photographs of the barricaded police stations and wonder whether their forefathers had been mad.

He stuck his arm out through the open door of the station and turned his palm upwards. His skin was covered instantly in a thin film of water. Belfast wasn't immune to pollution. He withdrew his hand and rubbed it on the side of his grubby anorak. If he'd opted for an evening at home in Malwood Park, he would toss a few logs on the fire, open a bottle of Black Bush, microwave a lasagne and watch Inspector Morse solve a nice clean crime in nice clean sunny Oxford. But for some silly reason he had foregone that pleasure out of some feeling of empathy with his new outcast colleague. The more he thought about the similarity of their situations the more it bothered him. He shuffled from one foot to the other. n.o.body in the station ever invited him for a drink. He was not 'one of the boys' and he hadn't invited a woman out since the death of his wife. He wondered what else he and Moira might have in common. The evening ahead filled him with trepidation. One drink and he would be off home to Inspector Morse and the lasagne.

He felt rather than saw the presence of someone behind him.

"Ready," Moira stood directly behind him stuffing a handful of computer printouts into a well-worn black attache case. A wide grin covered her face and her earlier gloom appeared to have disappeared.

Wilson looked furtively around the hall. The Duty Sergeant stared in their direction with a leer on his face. Screw you, Wilson thought. The news would be around the station before they had their first order in. The inferences people would make would not be very complementary for Moira.

"Let's get on," Wilson smiled warmly at the young constable. "I've a thirst that'd do justice to a camel."

As he walked through the door, Wilson flicked up the hood of his anorak. "Where's your car?" he asked "I wouldn't dignify my mode of transport by calling it a car," she nodded at a battered and rusted white Lada looking abandoned in the corner of the car-park. "My Polish made chariot - without horses of course."

He looked in the direction she indicated. "We better go in mine," he said. "The weather's too bad for push starts."

"No Lada jokes, please. I've heard them all," she said following Wilson at a run across the parking lot.

Wilson settled himself in the driver's seat of his Toyota Corolla and flipped open the pa.s.senger door. He put the key in the ignition but didn't turn it.

"I don't want you to take this in the wrong way," Wilson said staring out through the water streaming down the windscreen. "But I think that we shouldn't go local."

Her lips curled into a knowing smile.

"Most of the lads from the Station drink locally and I don't want a sea of faces staring at me every time I lift my pint. This is only day one. Let's give them a bit of time to get used to you."

"You're the expert around here," she said maintaining the smile. "If we go local tongues will wag. If the look on the Station Sergeant's face is anything to go by they may already have started. To be honest I wouldn't feel comfortable in a cop bar right now so let's go somewhere quiet."

"I think that you have a future in this business, Constable," Wilson smiled and flicked the ignition switch and the Toyota's engine sprang into life. "There's a couple of yuppie pubs on the Malone Road where money is more important than religion. If you can deal with the sound of mobile phones ringing every second or so we could head up there."

Wilson manoeuvred the car carefully through the crowded carpark towards a barrier between the remains of what had been two mounds of fortifications. Like a mining district it was difficult to put back the police stations in Ulster to their original state. There would always be a scar of what had been. Water ran down the s.h.i.+ny black raincoat of the constable on duty at the barrier and there was a suggestion of reluctance in the man's salute as he raised the barrier to permit the Toyota to enter the outside world of Belfast. The city they entered was grey and dark. The clouds were so low and heavy that they appeared to be right on top of them. It was not the kind of weather which lifted the spirits. He piloted the car down the Shankill Road and on towards the Westlink and then southwards to the Malone Road. He tried to remember what Belfast had looked like before the bombings and the 'peace wall' dividing the communities had turned the city into an obstacle course for motor transport. Normality had gradually returned to the city but there was still an edge to people's thinking. The fat lady hadn't exactly finished singing. Peace had brought prosperity. And prosperity had lured the speculators who had started to re-develop the city and provide jobs. The whole thing had even s...o...b..lled like the economists predicted and a minor economic miracle had ensued. House prices escalated and most of the population were basking in a secure future. It was even possible that Protestants and Catholics would begin to see each other as fellow human beings. But there were still b.u.g.g.e.rs out there who could screw the whole thing up. Some idiots didn't want peace and prosperity. There were still religious bigots keen on fighting the religious wars of the Middle Ages. Wilson prayed silently that whoever had killed Patterson wasn't one of those religious bigots. The peace and prosperity were as weak and fragile as a new-born baby. A series of sectarian murders could be the torch-paper that would set off the whole cycle of violence again.

"It's amazing but you remind me so much of the first RUC man I ever saw back in County Tyrone," Moira's voice cut across his thoughts.

"Well it wasn't me."

"I know that," she laughed, "It's just that he had exactly the same build as you. A great big bloke. Tall and strong like a big black mountain. His head was like a giant white globe held in place with a neck like a tree-trunk. Dressed in the long black coat and with a big pistol strapped to his hip he looked like some kind of ogre to us kids."

"All us Protestant RUC men look alike. Haven't you heard that? We're all big burly blokes. Just look at George." A wide smile creased his face.

"In a way you are, you know. It always amazed me that the RUC constables always seemed to be bigger than the rest of the population. Like the Protestants were breeding some sort of supermen just to look after them. I remember seeing the constable towering over my father who was no small man himself. But he cowered before him. The whole scene made the constable grow bigger while my father seemed to grow smaller."

They approached the lower Shankill Road. Wilson waited in a line of traffic before turning onto the Westlink and heading south. Because of the filthy weather, the road was relatively clear of traffic. The office workers had cleared off early.

"At least you seem to have respected your first constable," Wilson moved the car up through the gears.

"I suppose you're correct up to a point."

"Why only up to a point?" Wilson asked.

"Because whatever respect I might have had for him died the day I saw a photograph of him in our local paper. He was standing in about eighteen inches of water in a stream with a big stick in his hand and appeared to be about to unleash the most almighty blow on a poor girl who was on her knees in the water. All that force and strength was just being used to beat up on a poor defenceless girl. It's pretty hard to respect someone who'd do a thing like that. We're only public servants whether we work in the Ministry of Social Welfare or for the PSNI. If we can show that we're honest and fair with all sections of the community then we'll have done a good job."

Wilson knew that there were too many people in Ulster who had had Moira's experience. There were times that he could imagine Whitehouse wielding that baton to the shouts of encouragement from his Orange brothers. But it was worth remembering that everyone is a product of his or her upbringing. If George was a bigot then someone had fed him that particular line of bulls.h.i.+t.

"Good luck to you," Wilson said. "You may have three A-levels and a university degree but you still have a lot to learn about human nature. That poor stupid copper was only doing what he and a large proportion of the population thought was right. People don't like change. In fact they hate change and they'll resist it with every fibre of their being. That's a fact of life. And a lot of them are willing to fight and die to preserve the status quo. Their actions sometimes reduce them as human beings."

They drove on in silence until they left the city and began to enter the more obviously prosperous suburbs of the Malone area. He turned onto Balmoral Avenue.

"Do you like computers?" Moira asked breaking the silence.

"I'm afraid I missed the computer boat," Wilson smiled. "Computers, videos, even microwaves. All that kind of stuff is a mystery to me."

"I'm crazy about them," she said as Wilson pulled into the courtyard of a pub called the `Windsor Arms'. "I did a course while I was stationed in Strabane. I really got into it."

The threat which had been implicit in the dark clouds had been real and the light rain had been replaced by the heavier variety of the previous evening. The two police officers sat staring out through the rain stained car window. Wilson switched off the car and the windscreen wipers stopped in mid sweep.

"Don't ask me why but I guessed that new technology would be your game alright." Wilson smiled at her enthusiasm. The coldness her recollections had engendered had evaporated. "You people with the big brains are always looking for ways to exercise them. Let's get ourselves that well deserved drink."

They sprinted through the heavy downpour and arrived almost together at the door of the pub. At the last moment, she slackened her pace slightly to allow her superior to pa.s.s through first. Their bodies touched as they crowded into the doorway and Wilson quickly moved ahead. They stood in the hallway of the pub and shook themselves like a couple of wet dogs.

"If I remember well, this place has a real log fire," Wilson said pus.h.i.+ng open the lounge doors. "Ah! There we are." He led the way to where a half dozen logs burned brightly in an open grate, pulled out a chair and placed it directly in front of the fire. "What would you like?" he asked.

"Double vodka and orange, please," she set her briefcase on the floor, took a chair and put it beside Wilson's and removed her coat. "It's been that kind of day."

Wilson went to the bar and returned with a pint gla.s.s of Guinness and a tall gla.s.s containing an orange liquid which he laid on the table before her.

He was suddenly struck by the fact that this was the first time since his wife died that he had taken a woman for a drink. What the h.e.l.l was he thinking? This wasn't a date. This was his new officer. He was being kind and considerate to someone who happened to be a woman. It was just a bonus that she was young and attractive. "Good luck," Wilson said and without waiting for her response he took a long swallow of the black liquid. "By G.o.d, I needed that." He laid the gla.s.s on the table and flopped into his chair immediately feeling the warmth of the alcohol and the fire coalesce into a general feeling of wellbeing.

She sipped her drink and laid her gla.s.s beside Wilson's. "It's great that we all have computers now." she said after settling herself in her chair.

"From what I hear they're a waste of b.l.o.o.d.y time," Wilson slipped off his anorak and laid it on the back of a chair. "I know they perform all sorts of miracles but I couldn't tell you the number of times I've walked past someone looking up the newspapers or booking their holidays when they should have been working. A couple of years ago some boffin type gave me a training course on them. He lost me when he started to talk about something called binary numbers. That's was when I decided to leave the computers to educated young people like yourself"

"I spent the best part of the day on one of the terminals" she pulled a sheaf of computer printouts from his briefcase. "I tried to do some correlations on the Patterson case."

"And what brilliant insights did the magic machine give you?" Wilson took another swallow from the Guinness gla.s.s and looked at the ma.s.s of paper she was spreading on the table.

"The computer doesn't give you insights," Moira said picking out one of the sheets. "It only saves and sifts information. The main computer links to the Criminal Records Bureau database in London. It has a store of information on every murder in the United Kingdom. You know the kind of thing that you find in the case file: name, address, religion, social status. Then we get some more pertinent details like the results of the pathology like the location and extent of the wounds and the type of weapon used."

"Etcetera, etcetera," Wilson said cutting into what he thought might be a never ending list. The lads from the squad should be here, he thought. She might be a Catholic but she was exactly the same as every young enthusiastic Protestant copper Wilson had met. He'd just put in ten hours at the office and he had opted to be bored out of his tree with this young computer nerd.

"Yes," she said some of the enthusiasm draining from her face. "Anyway," she launched forward again. "To get to the point." She noticed Wilson gazing into outer s.p.a.ce. "I ran this guy Patterson through the database. The modus operandi was unique. Thousands of people have lost their lives in Northern Ireland but most of them have been either caught in explosions or wasted in a hail of bullets. Those who have been executed were in general lifted first, interrogated somewhere, shot in the back of the head and then dumped where they could be found. Patterson looks more like a gangland killing than a sectarian murder."

"So far you're teaching your grandmother to suck eggs," Wilson said sipping his Guinness.

"I don't think that Patterson was a random victim," she watched Wilson's face as she took another sip from her gla.s.s. Wilson's brow was furrowed.

"I knew that the minute I saw the body," Wilson said. "I didn't need to spend endless hours staring at a b.l.o.o.d.y blue blinking screen. It was too d.a.m.n professional. Too d.a.m.n cold. Too emotionless. Too gangland. Except that Patterson had no previous. As far as we're concerned he's snow white." His mind flitted to a mental picture of Patterson's bed-sit. Who would want to remove such an insignificant human being? "Did the magic machine give you any clue as to the motive? In the end it's all down to motive. If we can find out why someone wanted to kill a nonent.i.ty like Patterson then we'll be half way to a solution. Without a motive Patterson's file will join all those back at the station that have become as cold as a block of ice. If there's no motive or if the killer simply picked Patterson at random then we're up the creek without a paddle. That's what's such a pain in the a.r.s.e working in this Province. Once they get a l.u.s.t for blood they don't care who they kill. But rest a.s.sured that there's a motive in this case. Patterson wasn't just murdered, he was a.s.sa.s.sinated. That's the difference. Someone wanted him in particular to die. Somewhere in his nondescript pathetic life there is a nugget which will tell us why someone wanted him dead. Count on it. If we find that nugget then we'll be on our way. "

"So far I've found nothing that could be called a motive," she said. "But let's just suppose that the IRA or some crazy splinter group are responsible. Why should they claim this kind of murder at this point in time? As far as they're concerned sectarian killing is a thing of the past. They know that killing an ordinary unconnected Prod will raise the hackles of the UVF or the UFF. Okay things are always tense but everybody wants peace. If Patterson was killed because he was a Protestant then whoever's behind the killing looks like he wants to re-start hostilities. I just can't believe the idea that he was targeted by a terrorist splinter group anxious to get the war going again."

Wilson drained his gla.s.s. He'd almost forgotten what it was like to have such boundless enthusiasm. If she lasted a couple of years on the Murder Squad a lot of that youthful exuberance would be well and truly dissipated. But she was right about one thing. Whatever the pols might say Northern Ireland was still a tinderbox. Yes the big boys had all moved on. They'd signed up to the Good Friday Agreement and appeared on television saying they were sorry for what they did but beneath them the rats were still around. Only now that their political justification had disappeared they had simply become gangsters. Just like their counterparts in London or Birmingham or Glasgow they had established their turf and they had entered the world of free criminal enterprise as though to the manor born. They had embraced drugs, prost.i.tution and protection. They were making money and if the social system that protected them was attacked by some idiot killing for religious reasons they would be forced to retaliate with inevitable knock on consequences. It didn't bear thinking about.

"Some of the many people I've run across in this job don't always think with what's between their ears," he said laying down his empty gla.s.s on the table. He laughed. "Even those lucky enough to have had something operational between their ears."

"Another one," she said quickly finis.h.i.+ng off her own drink.

"Trying to b.u.t.ter up the boss," Wilson barely had the words out of his mouth when his mobile phone began to play the Ode to Joy. "Hold on a minute," he said as she started to rise. He took the mobile from his pocket and listened without speaking. "There won't be time for another one to-night. Let's go," he said closing his phone and pulling his anorak from the back of the chair. "Some b.a.s.t.a.r.d's just topped two men at a filling station across the river on the Newtonards Road."

CHAPTER 12.

Case stood in the telephone box on Donegal Square in the heart of Belfast and slowly composed a number in London. It was time to report in. Case's body was still buzzing from the excitement of the hit. Everything was going like clockwork. Just doin' my f.u.c.kin' thing, he thought to himself as he composed the numbers. Everybody's got to be good at something and he was good at killing. A man has just got to love his job to be good at it and Case loved his job. The adrenalin rus.h.i.+ng around his body was ample proof of the pleasure he got from killing. They'd been right in the Regiment, he had a talent for it. The shrinks who had booted him out of the Army had been right. Joe Case was one sick, f.u.c.ked up bunny. Maybe he got his violent streak from his dad. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d had f.u.c.ked off as soon as young Case had been born and had never been seen again. His mother had looked at his scrunched up red face in the hospital and decided that she didn't want the ugly bundle. So she had dumped him into care. His old gran had retrieved him and spent the last years of her life looking after him. When she died his mother reappeared looking for her inheritance which happened to include him. That's when the fights at school began. He was little but he could give as good or better than he got. n.o.body screwed with Joe Case. His mother encouraged his talent for violence. And by G.o.d she'd used it. He was twelve years of age when she'd shown him how to roll the poor suckers she brought home to screw. Sometimes he went over the top on the violence bit but n.o.body seemed to care. The old sc.u.mbags he rolled never went to the police. They didn't want their better halves to know that they were s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g an old slag. He made ten times as much from mugging as his old woman could make on the game. Then the old b.i.t.c.h had sold him on to the pimps, pushers, villains and loan-sharks who ran the East End. And he'd loved every minute of it. He wasn't the biggest but when things got violent Joe Case was the bloke they sent for. They introduced him to shooters and he had taken to guns like a duck to water. He'd stand for hours in an empty warehouse in the Docklands and blast the s.h.i.+t out of tin cans. But that's where it ended. n.o.body used shooters back then. They just waved them around to scare people. That was when he decided that he wanted to be in a business where people used shooters all the time. The Army were happy to sign on a fit young lad with no hint of a police record. It hadn't been hard for him to become the star in basic training. He was fit, tough and he had this natural talent with weapons. There was no type of gun he couldn't master in double quick time. His complete disregard for his own safety and incredible endurance put him at the top of his cla.s.s for physical training. The books were a different matter. It wasn't that he was dumb, he just didn't take to it. Nothing from the printed page seemed to stick in his head. At the end of basic training, one of his instructors suggested that he try out for the SAS. Why not, he thought, the more action the better. During his basic training with the Regiment, he'd met and married Norma. That's when the trouble started. They say it's everyman's dream to marry his mother but he'd actually done it. That was the nightmare. Who would have thought that the skinny little b.i.t.c.h was a bleedin' nympho? Every man in his training squad had been in her pants. They laughed their a.r.s.es off the day he married her and he didn't even know why. Two months after they were married he came home and found her in bed with some big black soldier. He'd beat the b.a.s.t.a.r.d unconscious and then started on Norma. His officers could have overlooked the black man but n.o.body was amused by the way he'd left his wife. So, they'd posted him to wherever the action was, Northern Ireland, then Iraq and Helmand before he did a second tour in Ulster. The army was the happiest time of his life. Most of the regular soldiers used to p.i.s.s themselves when their units were transferred to a hot spot but not him. What was the point of being trained up to the hilt if you never got the chance to use the things you learned. He loved war the only problem for him was that there wasn't enough of his kind of war. f.u.c.k the rules of engagement. If some raghead wanted to get it on then Joe was ready to oblige. He thrilled every time he thought of the action. Being dropped in by chopper, doing the business and then being ferried out before the opposition arrived. It was heaven. Just like appearing in a Rambo film every day of the week. And n.o.body could touch him. During his time in Northern Ireland, he discovered his second talent; he could mimic any accent. He could speak in a Belfast brogue that would convince even a Shorts and Harland s.h.i.+p-worker or he could drink with the locals in a border pub without raising the slightest suspicion. His superiors quickly realised his usefulness and started using him on undercover work. He specialised in frequenting well known IRA drinking dens and keeping his eyes and ears open. But it was flat beer when compared with blowing the s.h.i.+t out of a couple of Provos. He needed action. No buzz made Joe a very angry boy. The maggot in his brain needed to be satisfied. One night he picked up a girl in a drinking club on the Shankill Road. She was just a slag just like his mother and his wife so he beat her senseless. The bra.s.s weren't too pleased with that one and he spent two months in the stockade. But the maggot kept chewing away. Two weeks after the Army put him on the streets again, he beat another b.i.t.c.h senseless. This time the bra.s.s couldn't take it and handed him over to the shrinks. He laughed when he thought about his sessions with the shrinks. They p.i.s.sed themselves when they unlocked what was in his head. Then they couldn't get him out of the Army quick enough. Best thing that ever happened. There was plenty of freelance work in London for blokes with b.a.l.l.s who could use shooters. A man with a talent like his was never going to starve.

The phone at the other end rang twice.

"Yes," the voice on the other end of the line was clipped and cold.

Case listened without speaking. He wondered what the man behind the voice looked like. That was one of the snags of being a professional. You never got to see the face of the man you worked for. You could never tell whether the b.a.s.t.a.r.d was chuffed with what you'd done or not.

"Number two has been taken care of," Case said unable to keep a tone of self-satisfaction out of his voice.

"Congratulations, Mr. Case," the voice said without emotion. "Keep me informed."

The phone went dead before Case could say 'Yes sir." He would have liked to describe the mayhem he was leaving behind him but it was his experience that the blokes who gave the orders seldom wanted to know about the dirty stuff. Death for them was like watching television. They knew that the 'dead' guy got up and walked away when the camera was switched off. The bosses never equated what they wanted done with blood and s.h.i.+t all over the place.

He left the phone booth and began walking slowly back towards his small flat. The a.s.sa.s.sin of a few hours ago had become an ordinary Belfast working man. Only two things could tie him to the murder in Charlton's Garage: the Browning sitting snugly in his inside pocket and the dossier on Stanley Peac.o.c.k, former petrol pump attendant. He ducked into an alleyway and took the two A4 pages which described what had been Peac.o.c.k's life out from his inside pocket. Might as well get rid of them here, he thought. He produced a Zippo lighter from his jacket pocket, flicked the flame into life and then touched the naked flame to the white typing paper. The two pages caught fire and burned away in a few seconds. Bye, bye, Mr. Peac.o.c.k, he thought as he dropped the charred remains on the wet ground. There was only the Browning but n.o.body in Belfast was going to question a man who could produce a bona fide Special Branch ID card. So, no loose ends.

"Sweet Jesus," Moira surveyed the scene of devastation inside the tiny attendant's cubicle at Charlton's Garage. The concrete floor was covered with a dark slick of deep red blood and the gla.s.s walls of the booth were streaked with blood. A single naked hundred watt bulb cast an eerie light on the dead bodies as it swung gently from the ceiling impelled by the rain-soaked wind which entered through the open door. A pool of vomit lay directly outside the door.

"Stand back," Wilson said pulling on Moira's arm. "It's a crime scene."

Two uniforms had already reached the scene and were standing well back from the booth.

"I know, boss," she said choking back the bile that rose instantly in her mouth. The last thing she wanted to do right now was to get sick. That would undermine her completely with her new colleagues.

"Someone has barfed," Wilson said glancing at the vomit. "I doubt it was the killer. Probably some poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d who happened on the scene," he glanced over his shoulder at the uniformed policemen stationed at the edge of the garage. "Or maybe one of the uniforms. Anyway SOCO will have to bag it but I doubt the a.n.a.lysis will do us any good."

Wilson was careful to stay outside the door of the booth and looked inside. Two men lay dead. One wore the uniform of a petrol pump attendant and had been shot several times in the head. The man's head lay in a pool of thick red blood was split open like a cracked coconut. The second man in the small cubicle lay propped against the stanchion. He was dressed in windcheater and cheap jeans and his head hung to the side of his neck giving his body the appearance of a discarded Pierrot doll. The killer had blown a hole in his throat which had almost severed his head and the front of his windcheater was drenched in bright red blood. There was no point in checking their pulses. Both had been killed with a single shot and the pump attendant had been shot in the head for good measure. Wilson's stomach turned and it wasn't because of the sight. He'd already seen enough corpses to ensure that his sensibilities had not been a.s.sailed at the sight of two more. He was beginning to get a very nasty feeling. Three deaths in two days. Very professional hits. Wilson's stomach heaved again. He'd bet a month's pay that this was the same guy that did Patterson. He took another look around the booth and noticed four sh.e.l.l casings. The killer hadn't bothered to clean up. He obviously wasn't worried that the police would find the sh.e.l.l casings. He'd done his job and moved on. What the f.u.c.k was the killer up to? This s.h.i.+t was liable to start a small war.

The air outside the gla.s.s booth stank of petrol fumes but Wilson preferred it to the coppery stench of fresh blood in the booth. A police car and van pulled up on the station forecourt some distance from the booth. George Whitehouse alighted from the car and some of the forensics team disgorged from the van.

"Busy week, boss," Whitehouse said a bag containing a plastic overall to Wilson, "I see you've taken to travelling with your new 'friend'," he nodded in Moira's direction before starting to don his own plastic overall.

The emphasis on the word 'friend' was clear. Everybody and his neighbour would now know that he and Moira had left the station together and had arrived at the crime scene together. Somebody might even have seen them having a drink together and already the station rumour mill would be putting two and two together and getting five.

"Now, now, George," Wilson said pulling himself up to his full height. "Jealousy will get you nowhere," he poked Whitehouse in the chest with his finger. "I'm old enough to be her father and I feel it. Furthermore if I catch any idiot spreading rumours about me and Constable McElvaney I'll see to it that they're pounding a beat in South Armagh next week. Spread the good word, George. I want everybody to know who they're playing with."

"Okay, boss, okay" there was a look of apprehension on Whitehouse's otherwise bland face. "Just making an observation."

Yeah, sure, Wilson thought turning towards the shattered booth. The forensic team were already setting up crime scene tape and arc lights. "I've got enough problems without adding you and your mates to the list. We've got two stiffs inside," he nodded at the booth. "One of them has got two bullets in the head and one in the heart. The other boy was shot only once. Conclusion, somebody wanted the boy in the pump attendant's uniform stone dead and wasn't taking any chances. The lad who was shot in the throat probably didn't die straight away but the killer didn't bother to give him a coup de grace. He got who he came for. The hit was very professional. We've picked up four sh.e.l.ls. In my opinion the second poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d happened, as you would say George, to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I want you to supervise the forensics examination. I don't want SOCO to miss anything" He pointed out the sh.e.l.l casings on the floor of the booth. "Get those to ballistics and put a rush on it. We'll have to wait for the report but I'd bet a pound to a penny the two blokes inside were killed with the same gun that killed Patterson."

A series of arc lights suddenly lit up Charlton's petrol station like a Christmas Tree. Wilson looked beyond the glare of the lights to the dark deserted street. Police Landrovers had been drawn across each end of the road and the area around the petrol station had now been sealed off with streamers of plastic crime scene tape. Uniformed RUC men with Heckler and Koch automatic rifles stood stationed along the street.

"My gut is kicking up on this one," Wilson said as he and Whitehouse walked away from the garage. "Three men dead in two days scares the living h.e.l.l out of me. If we don't break this case soon then there's going to be retaliation and that means more dead bodies, and lots of them. This guy is on a killing spree and we have no idea where or when it's going to end."

"Somebody wants to start trouble," Whitehouse said defensively. "In the past we know who that usually was."

Wilson ignored the remark. "I'm becoming more convinced that we have a new player in the game. And a very dangerous player he is too. Some things don't quite gel." They crossed the road from the booth. "Why these guys? Why Patterson and why this poor a.s.shole. If it's the same killer and I'm sure it is, what has he got against the men he kills. Patterson didn't have either a friend or an enemy. And then he's too d.a.m.n professional. Most of the so-called gunmen in this town wouldn't have been able to hit that booth with a burst of automatic fire. If they had managed to hit it, they'd probably have succeeded in breaking every pane of gla.s.s and leaving the two occupants completely untouched. But not our boy, he marches in cool as you like, fires two shots and scores two hits. Then he stands over the attendant's body and delivers a coup-de-grace." He looked along the darkened doorways which lined the street. "I bet, Sergeant, that if your boys look really hard, you're going to find some trace of our friend in one of those doorways." He was beginning to get a feel for his new adversary. The killer was cool and calculating. "He waited, sheltered in one of those dark hollows, until he couldn't wait any longer. The second man must have bothered him. I get the distinct feeling that our man likes to leave things all neat and clean. Let's get the photograph boys and the forensics people in here." Wilson stood up and turned towards the door.

Moira appeared at Wilson's shoulder. "The garage owner's just arrived, sir. The pump attendant was one Stanley Peac.o.c.k. He's got an address in Sydney Street. No ID. on the second man yet. Peac.o.c.k was on the late s.h.i.+ft. Due to finish at eleven."

"Any next of kin?" Wilson asked.

"Wife or at least partner," she replied. "So the owner thinks. He isn't big on human relations. They operate the basic employment contract - the staff worked and he paid them. End of story."

Whitehouse studiously ignored his new colleague. "Sydney Street. It looks like two more Prods bite the dust."

Wilson nodded in agreement. "It's a safe bet."

"If this new player of yours is a rogue, he's got b.a.l.l.s of steel. Once in here he wouldn't stand a dog's chance of gettin' out," Whitehouse said "But he did," Wilson started back towards the petrol station. He was dealing with a ghost or someone very familiar with the area. Maybe not someone from the area but at least someone who had spent some time casing the petrol station and its environs. n.o.body would have noticed him as he checked out his victim and established his escape route.

"George, check if anyone at the petrol station saw a stranger lurking around the area over the past few days," Wilson said. He doubted it would lead to anything but you never knew. Thirty years of 'troubles' had led the citizens of Belfast to ignore people they did not recognise. It was just another puzzle to add to those already occupying his thoughts.

Moira and Whitehouse fell into step behind their chief. Each avoided looking at the other.

"I hope you weren't planning on an early night," Wilson said glancing around the a.s.sembled ranks of PSNI men. He could feel the resentment coming off them with the steam from their breath. It was cold and wet and combing the area for evidence was going to be a s.h.i.+tty job. "I want this street fine combed," he addressed the grumbling policemen. "Everything is to be bagged and handed to SOCO." He turned to face Whitehouse. "Every house is to be canva.s.sed and I want the results of the canvas written up and on my desk to-morrow morning." He turned to Whitehouse and Moira. "Time to give the bad news to the next of kin. This is one of those occasions when it's useful to have a woman constable on the team. Eh, George?"

Whitehouse ignored the remark.

"And since Constable McElvaney is new to this business, I think I'll go accompany her." He turned to Moira. "Let's go tell Peac.o.c.k's nearest and dearest that they've been bereaved before some 'presst.i.tute' from the 'Sun' beats us to it."

CHAPTER 13.