Dark Circles (29 page)

CHAPTER 70

Two men sat in a Saab 9-3 fifty yards down the road from Jackie Carlisle’s house. They had been in position since early morning, and the floor of the car was littered with empty hamburger cartons and crushed cardboard coffee cups. The man in the passenger seat wore a white jacket buttoned to the neck. To a passer-by he might possibly be an off-duty chef. They had been in place for more than three hours when the gates of Carlisle’s driveway opened, and a car rolled slowly out. They watched carefully as the car passed them ensuring that the driver was Carlisle’s wife. They waited ten minutes and then the driver started the car. He stopped outside Carlisle’s house. The passenger picked up a bag from the space beneath his feet and left the car. He walked up the drive and knocked on the door.

Several minutes elapsed before Jackie Carlisle opened the door.

‘Mr Carlisle.’ The man smiled. ‘My name is Bradley Mills and I’ve been sent by the hospice in Ballynahinch.’ He held up his bag. ‘I’ll be coming to give you regular injections to combat the pain. Towards the end I, or one of my colleagues, will be here every day.’

‘Aye, come on in.’ Carlisle opened the door wide and stood aside. He would have preferred a woman, but one couldn’t be choosy. The male nurse followed Carlisle through the living room and on into the conservatory where the invalid slumped back in his favourite couch. He was glad the nurse had come. The pain was becoming so heavy that the painkillers the doctor had prescribed were no longer capable of combating it.

The male nurse opened his bag and removed a syringe and a small bottle of liquid. He carefully filled the syringe with the liquid before removing a rubber band. Carlisle held out his right arm.

‘We’ll start on the left if you don’t mind,’ the nurse said.

Carlisle sighed and held out his left hand. The nurse gripped it harder than Carlisle would have liked. Mills wrapped the rubber band around his bicep. Carlisle noticed that the nurse was wearing surgical gloves, and he didn’t remember seeing him put them on. He felt the needle enter his arm and watched as the nurse pushed in the plunger. Those gloves had been on the nurse since he had arrived, he thought as the morphine hit his bloodstream. They say that a drowning man sees his whole life flash before him. Jackie Carlisle saw the equivalent through his morphine rush. Episodes from his own life played across his eyes as he seemed to float above them. His school friends playing football, the excitement and camaraderie of the ‘Troubles’, his political career, rubbing shoulders with the great and the good. His eyes were glazing over. He glanced at the nurse and saw that he was watching intently. He looked down and saw the syringe still sticking in his arm. Everything was growing dim, but he was feeling euphoric. He thought he could see his long dead parents in the distance.

‘Everything alright, Mr Carlisle?’ the nurse asked.

Carlisle smiled and finally understood. Now there would be no pain at the end. His suffering and that of his wife was at an end. ‘Thank you,’ he said and closed his eyes for the last time.

The nurse waited several minutes and then checked for a pulse. There was nothing. He placed Carlisle’s fingers on the syringe and the plunger. He removed the hand and wrapped it around the bottle and put the fingers on the rubber band. That should be enough to convince anyone that Carlisle had botched a morphine injection. He took a mobile phone from his pocket and took a photo of the dead man.

The nurse left the house and carefully closed the front door. He went to the Saab and sat in the passenger seat. He nodded at the driver, and they pulled away from the kerb.

Helen McCann sat in the Business Lounge at Belfast International Airport. Through the window, she could see her Lear jet sitting on the tarmac. Some of her friends considered the purchase of the plane a caprice, but as soon as she had bought it, she had set up a small aircraft leasing company. The jet more than paid for itself, and she had the use of it whenever it wasn’t leased. She glanced at her watch. They would be airborne in half an hour, and she would be in the south of France two hours later. She was exhausted from her visit to Belfast. She had never anticipated that anyone, especially not her daughter’s partner, would become a threat to something that was part of her life’s work and legacy. She smiled. He even stumbled across Carson Nominees.

              The Cayman-based company had been her brainchild. She conceived it in order to store the flood of money pouring into Ulster from the US, the UK and Europe – money that was intended to keep the zealots on both sides of the religious divide from each other’s throats. She saw the flood of money as a business opportunity and she managed to make the members of the Circle very wealthy. Along the way, she bought bureaucrats, Members of Parliament and judges. And lots and lots of police officers. What a pity Wilson wasn’t open to being bought. Named in honour of Sir Edward Carson, the man who created Northern Ireland, she buried Carson Nominees and its ownership deep, but unfortunately not deep enough. That was something she was going to devote herself to in the coming days. Carson Nominees had served its purpose. It would disappear and positions it had established would be wound down. She would have to create a replacement, but that wouldn’t be difficult. A mobile phone in her handbag buzzed. She picked out the cheap mobile she had purchased the day before and looked at the screen. She opened the message. The picture on the screen brought her no joy. She had known Jackie for almost forty years, and she consoled herself for her part in his death by the thought that what she had done was to relieve both him and his family of pain. There were now several degrees of separation between the three dead men in Belfast and the Inner Circle. She removed the chip from the phone as her pilot entered the lounge and made directly for her. He picked up her bag and led her out of the lounge. As she passed a waste bin, she dropped the phone in. The chip would end up on the runway. She looked at the rain clouds that were beginning to billow over the airport. Thank God she was leaving this terrible place.

CHAPTER 71

As so often happened in Ireland, the good start to the day was illusory. By late morning, dark rain clouds had swept in from the Atlantic Ocean and were in the process of drenching the Province and all who ventured outside. The three police Land Rovers made their way along the narrow laneway into Tullymore Forest. Wilson travelled in the passenger seat of the lead vehicle which also held George Carroll, seated and chained to a uniformed officer in the rear. They were at the point where Carroll was directing the driver to their destination. Reid hadn’t been available but had cleared her agenda and was only fifteen minutes behind them. They retraced the route that had been taken by Boyle the previous day, and pulled up finally into the clearing where Boyle’s death had taken place.

Wilson descended from the Land Rover and entered the clearing. Despite the rain, he could see a large stain of blood on the short grass. He looked across to the other side where a mound of earth indicated a freshly dug grave.

Moira joined him. She nodded at the earth at the other side of the clearing.

‘Tape the area off,’ Wilson said. ‘Get the uniforms on the job. And have them put a canopy over the whole of the clearing before the rain ruins whatever evidence there is. What’s the story with SOC?’

‘They’re on the way,’ she said heading back to the second Land Rover.

The officer chained to Big George climbed out of the first Land Rover. They came to stand beside Wilson.

‘Is that it, George?’ Wilson indicated the heap of fresh earth.

Rain was streaming out of Big George’s dark hair. He nodded sending particles of water flying up and down.

‘Put him back in the car,’ Wilson said. He started to walk around the edge of the clearing examining the trees. He saw the bullet by chance. He had no doubt SOC would have found it, but there it was and it would probably corroborate Big George’s account of what happened.

Moira was already in her plastic suit, and she tossed one in his direction. ‘Find something interesting?’ she asked.

‘A bullet embedded in a tree.’ Wilson pulled on his blue plastic suit. ‘That bullet might verify Big George’s story.’

‘He’s like a big child,’ Moira said. ‘I’d hate to see him go down for life.’

‘He’s a brief’s wet dream,’ Wilson said. ‘He already has you in his corner. How do you think a jury will respond when his whole life is put before them? Don’t worry about Big George. He’s going to spend several years feeding the ducks in some open prison.’

‘The dynamic duo.’ Reid came up behind them and put her arm around Wilson’s shoulder. ‘Absence really does make the heart grow fonder. Haven’t seen you lately.’ She ignored Moira.

Wilson could see the hard look on Moira’s face, and he smiled. He wondered what would become of him when his protector was three thousand miles away. ‘He’s in that mound over there,’ he said to Reid. ‘Shall we go take a look?’

‘I’d go anywhere with you,’ Reid said.

Moira sighed. She wondered whether Reid knew that Wilson and Kate had split. ‘I’m too old to witness these futile mating rituals,’ she said.

‘And how is that lovely young professor chap you can be seen fawning over?’ Reid asked moving off in the direction of the mound. ‘Scene of crime?’

‘On the way,’ Wilson said falling into step beside her. ‘Maybe ten minutes.’

She looked around the clearing. ‘I think the victim lost most of his blood. Any idea how he died?’

‘He was decapitated.’

She stopped and looked at him. ‘That would certainly explain the blood.’

Wilson looked over her shoulder and saw two police vehicles arriving. ‘Looks like SOC are here.’

‘Let’s wait,’ Reid said. ‘They can help to disinter the body properly. How’s life with the Ice Queen?’

‘Looks like Moira had a point. I thought we’d moved beyond the sparring.’

‘I can’t wait around forever.’ she smiled. ‘Although there’s no sign of Prince Charming on the horizon. So you’re still my number one choice.’

The Chief of the SOC team joined them. ‘What have we got?’

Wilson told him. ‘Let’s just get the body disinterred so that Professor Reid can have a look. Also I found a bullet lodged in that tree over there.’ He pointed out the tree.

‘No problem.’

Twenty minutes later a canopy was set up over the clearing, and the remains of Owen Boyle had been exposed. Reid bent over the body and examined it. ‘Neat job, he must have had practice,’ she said from the kneeling position. ‘There’s no question about what killed him.’

‘A case of beginner’s luck.’ Wilson was standing behind her and saw the Hi Point still held in Boyle’s right hand. ‘Bag the gun,’ he said to one of the SOC team. ‘I want to know yesterday whether the slug that’s dug out of the tree was fired from that gun.’

‘I’m done here,’ Reid said. ‘As they say in the cop shows, “bag him and tag him”. I’ll see him on the table as soon as I can fit him in.’ She stared at the giant in the rear of the police Land Rover. ‘I suppose this is one of those open-and-shut cases.’

‘Yeah,’ Wilson said. ‘Thank God for that. Now we need to talk to the man behind all the mayhem we’ve been experiencing.’

‘Who is it?’ she asked.

‘Sammy Rice.’

‘Son of the already-dead Lizzie?’ She started pulling off her blue suit and was pleased to see that Wilson was taking more than a passing interest in her body.

‘The same,’ he said, aware that Reid was putting on a bit of a show but unable to take his eyes off her.

‘I think we deserve that drink, don’t you?’ She threw her protective suit over her arm and picked up her bag. ‘My God, here comes the Rottweiler just on cue. Do you have her trained to interfere with my plans to seduce you?’

‘We’re wanted back at the station,’ Moira said joining them.

‘Spoilsport,’ Reid said and started to move away towards her car.

‘Have we got Rice?’ Wilson asked.

‘Peter’s been over Belfast with a fine toothcomb. There’s no sign of Rice. The radio is reporting the death of Jackie Carlisle. You know the line, “at his home after a long illness”.’

‘Call Peter, tell him to get on to our contacts in the Gardai. Rice might have gone South. Get them to watch their ports and airports. We have to nail that bastard. We have to find out why he had Malone, Grant and O’Reilly killed.’

‘It’s already done, Boss. Wind it down. We’ll get Rice and we’ll get Baxter and Weir. It’ll just take time.

Wilson and Moira stood in the squad room in front of the whiteboard. Wilson traced the evolution of the investigation with his finger. From the victims, to the identification of Baxter and Weir, and on to Big George and Sammy Rice. He picked up a black marker and drew an arrow from a picture of Big George Carroll to a picture of Sammy Rice. ‘Where the hell have you got yourself to?’ he asked circling the picture of Rice with the marker. He then drew a box and drew an arrow from Rice’s photo to the box. Inside the box he wrote ‘Carson Nominees’ and directly under it ‘The Circle’.

‘What’s the Circle, Boss?’ Moira asked.

‘A figment of McDevitt’s imagination.’ He added ‘I hope’ in his own mind.

‘I wanted to end on a high,’ Moira said.

‘It is what it is. Someone has been pretty damn clever keeping themselves out of the picture. It’s a step too far in the imagination to think that Sammy was capable of setting up a complicated financial scam. That wasn’t his style. He was a criminal and a thug.’ He took the marker and drew five thick circles around the box he had drawn. ‘I’m going to put a photo in that box some day and people like Sammy Rice are going to help me do it. Meanwhile you have a plane to catch.’

Helen McCann sat on the veranda of her villa in Antibes and looked across the blue waters of the Mediterranean. She felt confident that she had protected the Circle and herself. Carlisle was gone. He was the only one that could identify her. But Wilson had got a sniff of the Circle. And like the good gun dog he was, he would continue to root away until he exposed them. She had already identified him as an existential threat to her organisation. She would have to work out a plan to neutralise him, a plan that would destroy him without killing him. She picked up a glass of chilled white wine from the marble table beside her chair and sipped it. She already had something in mind.