Yield Up the Dead Read online

  ‘I don’t like it,’ said McGreary as he picked up his five ounce Waterford Glass tumbler and took a taste of his Bushmills twenty-one--year-old Madeira finish whiskey. McGreary was born in the backstreets behind the Shankill but he’d taken to the good life as a duck takes to water. ‘Simpson is a loose end. He knows we’re the ones that got rid of Sammy and now he’s been seen talking with that little rat, McDevitt. I definitely do not like it.’

  Davie Best sat in a chair directly facing his chief. The two men were physical opposites. Best was one hundred and eighty pounds of well-honed muscle. The muscles on his forearms stood out making his tattoos from his British Army days more prominent. ‘Simpson‘s not a problem as long as we have the Beretta that put the slug into Sammy’s head with his fingerprints all over it. We hand that gun over to the Peelers and friend Simpson is toast.’

  McGreary savoured another sip of the golden liquid. ‘McDevitt’s a dangerous wee bastard. He’s worse than a crab for gettin’ under rocks. If he gets a whiff of who put Sammy away, he’ll ferret out the rest of the story. And don’t forget, Wilson is back in the equation. He’s not just going to drop lookin’ for Sammy.’

  ‘I thought we were rid of that bastard. I’m surprised that someone hasn’t put a bullet into him before now.’

  McGreary held up his glass and swilled the contents. ‘Maybe we were hasty in making Sammy disappear. We could have just shot the bugger and had him found down a lane in South Armagh.’

  ‘The idea of dumping him was to make sure that the Peelers didn’t come after us; no body no crime.’

  ‘I don’t like loose ends,’ McGreary said more to himself than Best.

  ‘You want me to get rid of Simpson?’

  McGreary looked at Best. He used to think that the hard men from the Seventies and Eighties were the toughest he’d encountered but Best and the new recruits he’d brought along were something else. The majority of them had seen action with the British Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. They were a well-trained and murderous bunch of bastards. McGreary wouldn’t like to admit it but they scared the shit out of him. ‘You still think he might be useful as a patsy if the Sammy thing blows up?’

  ‘We get the gun to the Peelers and he’s the one in the frame for killing Sammy. He’ll try to drag us into it but we’ve developed alibis for both Ray and me that’ll be impossible to break. But a wink is as good as a nod to men like Wilson. We have two choices; we let the whole Sammy Rice thing die down or we get rid of Simpson.’

  McGreary thought for a second. ‘And if Simpson were to be found dead with the gun in his possession, there would be no way he could implicate us. Set something up in case we need it. The man’s life is a train wreck; I’ve heard tell that he’s depressed. Maybe he might commit suicide.’

  Best smiled. ‘Leave the arrangements to me. I’ll handle it.’

  ‘And what are we going to do about auld Willie?’

  ‘Death by a thousand cuts,’ Best said. ‘We’re taking him down brick by brick. His revenue is cut by forty per cent and we’re pushing further into Rice territory every day.’

  ‘There’s goin’ to be a reaction.’

  ‘Then we’ll get the guns out. Why don’t you try to talk to Willie? He doesn’t have the capacity to fight a war.’

  McGreary smiled. Best had never seen a turf war in Belfast. As soon as the Good Friday Peace Agreement was signed, the paramilitaries were wondering what to do with themselves and all the firepower they had collected. The easy answer was to have a good old Irish turf war. Bodies littered Belfast for a few weeks until everyone came to their senses. ‘I’ll think on it.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Wilson picked up a copy of the Chronicle on his way to the station and saw that McDevitt was as good as his word. The front page was dominated by the map showing the burial place of Alan Evans, small time politician but more importantly one of the “disappeared”. If the information proved valid, it would give hope to the families of other “disappeared” that someday their family members might be located. If the information proved valid. But that was a big ‘if’. McDevitt was a newshound. He was the kind of journalist who lived and breathed the front page. And the Chronicle wasn’t exactly the Boston Globe. So, he doubted that the process of checking out a Jock McDevitt story bore any similarity to that described in the film Spotlight that he’d seen during his ‘holiday’. McDevitt could look forward to a few more days of front page coverage before something more newsworthy replaced his Evans’s pieces. Wilson was more tired than usual. He had been burning the midnight oil bringing himself up to date on the investigation into the deaths of Grant, Malone and O’Reilly. Big George Carroll, the driver of the car for the first two killings and the man who had thrown O’Reilly out a window to his death, had been co-operating and the murders were in effect solved to the extent that the murderers were known. Getting his hands on Baxter and Weir for the murders of Grant and Malone, and Sammy Rice for the murder of O’Reilly was proving difficult. Baxter and Weir had fled Scotland for God knew where, while there was no sign of Sammy either locally or at his villa in Spain. He would have to wait until the men he sought raised their heads above the parapet before he could sign off on the killings. He could use the downtime to try to put some sense on his living arrangements. The apartment in Queen’s Quay was supposed to be a stopgap but it was taking on an air of permanence. In a way he was happy to continue as he was. There was a level of comfort having the number of a landlord to call when something went wrong. He wasn’t, nor had he ever been, good at DIY. In effect, he had been downright bad at it. He had just signed a lease for a year and that meant that he could put a decision on whether he needed to own his living accommodation on the long finger. The Queen’s Quay apartment had a second bedroom which could be used by his mother and his stepfather should they decide to visit Belfast. He was settling down in his office steeling himself before opening his emails when his phone rang.

  ‘Good morning, Superintendent Wilson.’

  He was not yet used to the voice of his new boss so he didn’t reply immediately.

  ‘Superintendent Wilson.’

  ‘Good morning, ma’am,’ Wilson said. ‘It’s totally appropriate for you to call me Ian while I’m aware that it would be totally inappropriate for me to call you Yvonne.’

  ‘Ten minutes in reception, Ian. Our presence is requested at a meeting in Castlereagh.’ The phone went dead.

  But she had called him ‘Ian’. They were advancing. Maybe it would turn out alright.

  Half an hour later Wilson and Davis sat in a meeting room in PSNI HQ in Castlereagh. The other participants had not yet shown up and Davis did not know the reason they had been summoned. A uniformed female police officer served them coffee and biscuits. After ten minutes, Chief Constable Baird, his personal assistant and one of the newly promoted Assistant Chief Constables entered the room. Baird sat at the head of the table. They sat facing Davis and Wilson.

  ‘Assistant Chief Constable Nicholson,’ Baird said introducing the senior member of his entourage. ‘Meet Chief Superintendent Davis and Detective Superintendent Wilson.‘ There was a general nodding contest between Wilson, Davis and Nicholson.

  Wilson examined the new ACC. Nicholson was three inches over six feet and was rapier thin. His white shirt hung on his thin shoulders. His hair was fair and lank and his face had the pallor associated with alabaster. Wilson was reminded of Shakespeare’s warning – Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look, such men are dangerous. He decided that in this case Shakespeare had probably got it right.

  ‘I have a busy schedule this morning and this meeting is an addition. We have how long?’ Baird looked at his PA.

  ‘Five minutes,’ the PA said.

  ‘You’ve seen the Chronicle?’ Baird asked.

  Wilson nodded but Davis shook her head. The PA removed a photocopy of the front-page from a file and pushed it across the table.

  ‘What do you think?’ Baird asked looking at Wilson.

  Wil
son hesitated deferring to his superior.

  ‘Go ahead,’ Davis said.

  ‘It’s a fantasy,’ Wilson said. ‘McDevitt is a sensationalist. He’s been off the front page since the Cummerford trial ended, and that’s not his style.’

  ‘So you think that there’s no basis to his story?’ Baird asked.

  ‘If there is, it’s accidental. Nobody has even heard of Evans. Why should someone have “disappeared” him? I’ll check the missing persons file from the time.’

  Baird looked at his PA.

  ‘It’s on your computer,’ the PA said to Wilson.

  Baird turned to Wilson and Davis. ‘I want an assessment on this story before close of play this evening. The Minister was on the phone to me first thing this morning. He wants to know when we’re going to start digging. Do either of you know what searching for this body could do to our budget?’

  Welcome to the big time, Wilson thought. Baird might be learning that it’s not so much fun being the top dog. ‘No, sir,’ said Wilson facetiously.

  Baird raised his eyebrows and then smiled. He stood up. Nicholson and the PA joined him. ‘An assessment by this evening, report to ACC Nicholson.’ Without another word, the three left the boardroom.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Davis said still reading the article.

  ‘That was pressure from the Minister on our new Chief Constable.’ Wilson picked up his coffee and sipped it. ‘Nice coffee.’

  ‘To hell with the coffee, how are we going to check out this story by this evening?’

  Wilson took another sip. ‘The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer.’

  ‘I hadn’t marked you down as a comedian.’

  Wilson continued to drink his coffee. ‘It’s the motto of the US Army Engineers. Now the new motto of the PSNI.’

  Davis pushed her untouched coffee away. ‘Finish up your damn coffee, it’ll be my bum in the wringer if we don’t report to Nicholson. What are you going to do?’

  ‘I suppose I should start by having a chat with McDevitt.’ He decided not to impart the information that he was friendly with McDevitt and that he had foreknowledge of the front-page story. He finished his coffee and stood up.

  Davis folded the copy of the Chronicle story. ‘I barely have my feet under the desk and I’m about to be landed with a major problem that involves the Chief Constable and the Minister for good measure. Jennings could be right about you. You’re attracted to trouble like flies are attracted to ...’

  Wilson cleared his throat. ‘Ma’am, please remember that you’re a lady.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Since it was too early in the day to countenance a visit to the Crown, Wilson and McDevitt snared a table by the window of Clement’s Café. It was the same table where McDevitt and Simpson had concluded their deal on the map and Carlisle’s notebooks. But McDevitt had no intention of telling Wilson that little bit of history.

  ‘I knew it.’ McDevitt had a wide smile on his face. ‘I knew the story would put them into a flap.’

  Wilson thought that McDevitt did really look like an evil pixie when he smiled like that. ‘You are incorrigible. I thought you might be winding me up last night. You should have checked the story out before you went to press.’

  ‘Did Woodward and Bernstein check out Deep Throat’s information on Watergate? My source is totally reliable.’

  ‘I have a strange feeling that most professional journalists spend eighty per cent of their time checking stories out and twenty per cent writing them up. With you the percentages are probably reversed. I need to know who your source is.’

  McDevitt put his right palm over his heart. ‘Put me in jail, give me the rubber hose treatment, do with me what you will. I’ll never give up my source.’ He removed his hand and picked up his cup of coffee. ‘Anyway the bugger would be absolutely no good to you. He can’t even spell the word provenance.’

  Wilson explained the situation with the Chief Constable. ‘I have to make an assessment by close of play this evening. If I say your story is a heap of rubbish, there’ll be an outcry that we could have returned one of the “disappeared” to their family. If I say that your story smacks of the truth, the Chief Constable will blow his budget. If I get it wrong and the budget is blown for nothing, I’ll have to start looking for a new job. Do you really want to do that to me?’

  ‘Are you willing to take my word for it?’ McDevitt asked.

  ‘I’d prefer something a little more concrete in terms of corroboration. But go ahead.’

  ‘There’s a lot I can’t tell you because it would expose my source. I’m convinced that the map is genuine. I have no idea who murdered Evans or why but I think if you dig up the part of Ballynahone bog that’s shown on the map, you’ll probably find the body of Alan Evans.’

  ‘You can’t provide me with any corroboration that I can present to the Chief?’

  McDevitt shook his head. ‘Today the story is that Evans’s body is in Ballynahone bog. Tomorrow’s story is that the PSNI has decided or not decided to dig the body up.’

  Wilson picked up his coffee and sipped. It was only marginally better than the coffee in Castlereagh. McDevitt wasn’t helping him. The business about the source was pure bullshit. McDevitt wasn’t giving him up because he had some further use for him. That meant that the source was someone who was ‘connected’ or who had been ‘connected’. In six hours, Wilson would have to report to Nicholson and there was only one more person he could turn to for an opinion on McDevitt’s story.

  ‘Ian, I am genuinely sorry that I can’t give up my source.’

  ‘I know.’ Wilson drained his coffee and stood up.

  McDevitt watched the big man leave the café. He might have been wrong but it seemed like Wilson’s shoulders were a little more hunched than usual. The past few months had been tough on the PSNI man. The fact that his relationship with Kate McCann was history was bad enough but he had been obliged to prove that the father he idolised was involved in the murder of two young men in the 1970s. Those two setbacks alone would lead most men to look like they had the troubles of the world on their shoulders. On the positive side, the PSNI might soon be digging up Ballynahone bog that would give him lots of column inches and further endear him to the editor of the Chronicle.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Willie Rice wasn’t big on either reading, listening or watching the news. He learned everything he needed to know from the people he met in the course of his daily rounds. That meant most of the patrons of the Brown Bear public house in the Shankill Road. His day was taken up by trying to maintain control of the territory his son, Sammy, had carved out in the new peaceful Belfast. The family business had moved seamlessly from managing a paramilitary force to managing a criminal enterprise encompassing drugs, prostitution and protection rackets. The Rice enterprise was worth millions of pounds annually, most of which Sammy had secreted overseas. Therein lay the major problem. Sammy was such a secretive bastard that he alone knew where the money was. But Sammy was gone and it didn’t look like he was coming back. That meant that the accounts in Switzerland and Lichtenstein, or wherever the hell they were, were untouchable. Willie cursed when he thought of the money they had built up ending up in dormant accounts that would eventually be divided among the partners of some private bank. Their enterprise was still churning out money but in nothing like the volumes as when Sammy was in charge. Willie was seventy and he knew that he was not capable of maintaining his hold on their territory indefinitely. Maybe twenty or thirty years ago he would have been able to put up a decent fight against the incursions of McGreary. Drugs were the main source of the Rice revenues and drugs were a young man’s business. Also the toerags involved in the drugs business were nasty bastards. McGreary wasn’t the only threat to the Rice family. The vacuum left by Sammy’s disappearance was being filled from both ends of the crime spectrum. Experienced operators like McGreary were at one end and new entrants to the drug business and prostitution were at the o
ther. Willie Rice was being squeezed in the middle. And like a rat trapped in a corner, Rice knew only one reaction, and he was prepared to spill blood to reduce the pressure. He generally liked to walk from his home in Malvern Street to his ‘office’ in the rear of the Brown Bear. Given the phoney war situation that he found himself in, he was always accompanied by one of the younger members of his gang. His stroll along the Shankill Road involved passing several newspaper shops that he usually ignored. Today, he was stopped in his tracks by a hoarding advertising the Chronicle. The white poster screamed in large black letters ‘Chronicle Reveals Burial Place of Disappeared Politician Evans.’ Rice stood transfixed in front of the placard for several minutes before entering the shop and buying a copy of the paper. He folded it carefully and deposited it in his pocket. Alan Evans. He tried to remember what the man had looked like but the image was unclear. Rice had, in his time, murdered many times. He didn’t dwell on what he had done. The faces of the dead didn’t interfere with his sleep. Many had died in reprisal for IRA attacks on Protestants. They had been nameless and faceless as far as he was concerned. Poor sods who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Others had been suspected IRA men. They’d been lifted and interrogated, then tortured and dispatched. They got everything they deserved. They had signed on as soldiers and their deaths had been part of the package. There had been very few like Evans. Willie Rice had been one of the elite hit men operating in Belfast in the Seventies and Eighties. He wasn’t a ‘Mad Dog’ or a ‘King Rat’; he didn’t have a nickname, had never appeared in the newspapers and was known for his trade only by those who needed his services. Out and out assassinations were a rarity. So the Evans’s murder was fairly unique. The order had come from someone higher up the food chain, and it had been accompanied by five grand in cash. In 1984 that was real money. Rice didn’t know why Evans had to end up buried in the bog, and he didn’t need to know. His involvement in politics was based on a simple premise -- the Taigs were trying to take over his country and if he had to kill every last one of the bastards to stop them then that was what he was prepared to do. As soon as he arrived at the Brown Bear, he made his way to the table at the rear that acted as his office. He ordered a pot of tea and removed the paper from his pocket and laid it out on the table. It took him a few seconds to recognise the copy of the rough map he had drawn after he put Evans in the boghole. He quickly scanned through the article. It was mainly about Evans’s career and his disappearance on his way home from a rally in Downpatrick. Rice didn’t appear anywhere in the story. And there was no reason why he should. It had been a clean kill and the burial went according to plan. But somehow the map he’d drawn had found its way into the newspaper. What class of asshole keeps something like that? Could that small piece of paper link him to the murder and disappearance? He doubted it. It was his handwriting but it was his handwriting from more than thirty years ago. He dumped the paper on an empty chair as soon as his tea arrived. He had more pressing problems. If Wilson didn’t come up with something on Sammy’s disappearance soon, the phoney war was going to be turned into a real war. Rice had nothing to lose. He poured himself a cup of tea. He always fancied going out with a bang. And he wouldn’t be going out alone.