Dark Circles (5 page)

CHAPTER 11

Sammy Rice lifted his head and snorted hard to get all the cocaine into his nose. The white powder had an almost instantaneous effect. Deep in his brain the drug interfered with his chemical messengers, the neurotransmitters that nerves use to communicate with each other. It blocked norepinephrine, serotonin, dopamine, and other neurotransmitters from being reabsorbed. The result was a chemical build-up between nerves that caused euphoria. ‘Yes,’ he shouted as the high hit him. Rice had been using more and more cocaine since the death of his mother. As a major supplier of drugs in Belfast, he had always steered clear of his own product but over a period of a few months, he had gradually become his own best customer.

Big George Carroll and Rice’s new number two, Owen Boyle, watched as their chief strode up and down the living room of the house he occupied in Ballygomartin Road in West Belfast. Neither man dared speak. Rice had always had a hair-trigger temper, but the cocaine had led to an increase in his irritability and paranoia. He was the godfather of a major crime ‘family’ in West Belfast. The core of the family had been established during the ‘Troubles’, and that core had segued without difficulty from terrorism to criminality. In the process, Rice and his lieutenants became wealthy men.

‘What the fuck do you mean by it goes further?’ he shouted at Boyle.

Owen Boyle was as hard as they come but he wasn’t overjoyed at working for a man who would kill as quickly as he could praise. He cleared his throat. ‘We’ve had some smart arse look at the stuff we took from Malone’s and Grant’s places. It looks like Grant went outside for some financial advice. He passed all the shit that Malone gathered on to some accountant friend of his to do a forensic audit.’

‘Forensic audit my arse,’ Rice shouted. ‘I told you to clear this fucking mess up, and you told me that you’d done it.’

Boyle could feel his sphincter loosen. He looked at Big George and saw the spaced-out look on his face. Big George always seemed to be on another planet. Maybe that was the best place to be when Rice was on the rampage. ‘We thought that we’d got to him before he’d had time to do anything about the papers but we were wrong. The bastard had digitised everything that Malone had taken from the Infrastructure Agency and Grant had already emailed them to his mate.’

‘Digitised,’ Rice looked confused. ‘What the hell is digitised?’

‘He turned it into a computer file,’ Boyle explained.

‘So it could be rambling about out there.’ Rice stood directly over Boyle. ‘Does that mean we have to kill every bollocks in Belfast before we’re safe? Those papers get out, and I go to jail. Do you understand that?’ He grabbed Boyle by the throat and lifted him out of his chair. ‘And I’m not going to jail.’

Boyle stared into a pair of dilated black pupils. He was surprised at the strength of the hold that Rice had on his throat. He was about the same height and weight as Rice but he wasn’t about to fight back. ‘We know who the guy is.’ His voice was a squeak.

Rice released his grip on Boyle’s throat. ‘If you want something done, you have to do it yourself. I can trust no one. What’s the fucker’s name, and where do I find him?’

‘Why don’t you let me handle this Sammy?’ Boyle’s voice was reassuring. ‘We’re in the clear so far. Malone and Grant are out of the way, and no one is the wiser.’

‘Bloody bitch,’ Rice said returning to the table where another line of cocaine was waiting to be snorted.

‘What?’ Boyle asked. This was the new Sammy Rice. You never knew where Sammy’s brain was these days.

Rice rolled up a £50 note. ‘Bloody bitch of a wife, she’s down in Spain shagging some no-talent golf pro. The boys in Malaga are laughing up their arses at me. As soon as we clear up the mess here, I’m going to go down there and give both of them concrete boots.’ He smiled then bent and snorted the remaining line of coke.

Boyle watched as the coke hit Rice’s brain. His eyes followed Rice as he moved around the room. He wondered how much longer this could go on before their operation would be affected. Neither he nor many of the men in the organisation wanted to work for a drugged-up crazy.

Rice whirled around. ‘What’s his name and where do I find him?’

Boyle was confused. He wondered were they talking about the accountant or the golf pro. Since he had never been to Spain, he assumed it was the accountant. ‘His name is Mark O’Reilly and he works for Watson Accountants in Windsor House in Bedford Street.’

‘Where does he live?’

‘Apartment on the fifth floor of the Tannery Building in Castle Street.’

Rice smiled. ‘Perfect. I have something in mind for Mister O’Reilly. Is he a Taig?’

‘I don’t know,’ Boyle said. ‘We’ll have the lads over from Glasgow again?’

‘No need. I’ll take care of this myself.’ Rice pointed at the figure of Big George sitting stoically in the chair. ‘Myself and George’ll handle it.’ He walked over to the table and cut another line of coke.

Police Constable Jimmy Corr and his partner Rebecca Higgins were about to go out on patrol when Moira intercepted them. ‘You’re going to be a little late this afternoon,’ she said showing her warrant card.

Corr raised his eyes to heaven. He was geared up for the evening, and he obviously didn’t want whatever it was Moira was offering. He made a big deal of examining her warrant card. ‘Big time detective, eh! Call my sergeant and he’ll arrange an interview.’

‘Detective Sergeant,’ Moira said sharply as she thrust her warrant card into Corr’s face. She looked at Higgins and saw a pained look on her face. Nobody liked being paired up with an arsehole.

‘What?’ Corr said pulling himself up to his full height of six feet two.

Better men than Corr had tried to intimidate Moira. He was the old-school RUC man, big and broad and bluff. His face was craggy and what people called ‘lived in’, while the purple streaks on his nose indicated the sign of a little too much whiskey having been imbibed. She could imagine him yearning for the old days when he could bash a Catholic’s head in with impunity. Thankfully, those days were gone. Higgins was maybe fifteen years his junior. She was wearing a bulky stab vest, but Moira could see that beneath it she had an athletic body. She was not exactly pretty, her chin was a little too square and manly, and her blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail. ‘You address me as Sergeant, and if I want to interview you now, I’ll interview you now. I’ve arranged with your Sergeant for the soft interview room. You can lead the way.’  She saw Higgins smile.

‘What’s the problem?’ Corr asked when they had installed themselves in the easy chairs of the soft room.

‘David Grant.’ Moira took a notebook from her pocket. ‘I asked for your report, and they gave me this.’ She held up a copy of a report sheet and dropped it onto the table.

‘The sexual deviant that hung himself,’ Corr laughed. ‘That was some fucking sight.’ He looked at the paper on the desk. ‘So, what’s your problem?’

Moira smiled. ‘It’s what they might call “report lite”. You’re not exactly Charles Dickens in the description area.’

‘We followed up on a call,’ Corr said. ‘When we got to the house, the occupant was dead having hung himself. The doctor was called, and that was the end of our involvement. It was cut and dried. What else was there to say?’

‘Tell me everything and I mean everything,’ Moira said. ‘From the moment you picked up the radio call until you left to resume your patrol.’ She turned to face Higgins. ‘Anything he leaves out, feel free to interrupt.’

Corr removed his notebook slowly from his breast pocket and flicked through the pages. ‘We received the call from dispatch at ten thirty. One of Grant’s colleagues rang in to say that he hadn’t turned up at a meeting, and they were worried about him.’

Moira made a note to enquire with the dispatcher as to the name of the colleague. ‘Go ahead,’ she said looking up from her notebook.

‘We knocked on the door and got no reply,’ Corr continued. ‘Then I looked through the letterbox and saw the body hanging at the end of the hall.’

‘The light was on in the hallway?’ Moira asked.

‘Yes,’ Corr replied. ‘The place was lit up like a Christmas tree.’

‘What did you do then?’ Moira asked.

‘I kicked the door in, so I did. Took it right off the hinges.’ Corr’s chest puffed out.

‘Was there a deadbolt on the door?’ Moira asked.

Corr looked at his partner. ‘We didn’t see one,’ Higgins said.

Moira made a note. ‘Okay, you’re inside. What did you do next?’

‘It was pretty obvious that the man hanging at the end of the hallway was dead,’ Corr said. ‘His tongue was protruding, and his face was purple. I didn’t want to disturb anything in case the scene wasn’t kosher.’

‘Something bothered you about the scene?’ Moira asked.

‘I’d never seen anything like that before,’ Higgins interjected. ‘You couldn’t put your finger on it but it looked off. Maybe it was because it was my first time. It looked a bit staged. I don’t know.’ She looked at her partner. ‘We were both a bit shook up.’

‘So you didn’t check for a pulse?’ Moira asked.

Corr and Higgins looked at each other and didn’t answer. After a delay, Corr said, ‘The guy was dead.’

Moira could understand their reluctance to check the body. ‘What did you do then?’ she asked.

‘Constable Higgins went to the car and radioed for the doctor and the ambulance,’ Corr said. ‘We secured the front door and waited for the doctor.’

‘Did you check the remainder of the house?’ Moira asked.

Corr and Higgins exchanged a look before Corr said, ‘No.’

‘What happened when the doctor came?’

‘She gave us a bollocking because we called her out,’ Corr answered. ‘Said we should have called the GP.’

‘She seemed pretty professional,’ Higgins added. ‘Did some of the things that we should have thought of, like taking photos with her mobile phone.’

Corr shot her a look.

‘What happened next?’ Moira asked.

‘She examined the body,’ Corr said quickly. ‘By then the ambulance crew had arrived and were waiting for her to finish.’

‘Did she take down the body?’ Moira asked.

‘The ambulance crew did that,’ Corr answered. ‘When they took the body out, we secured the door. We put a call in to the station to have someone come out and finish the job properly. It wouldn’t take long for some villain to suss the place out and remove whatever was saleable.’

Moira made another note. If Grant had been murdered, the scene had been well and truly compromised but that would be up to the chief of the forensics team to conclude, if the investigation ever got that far. ‘Anything else?’ she asked.

The two constables exchanged a look and shook their heads in unison.

Moira closed her notebook and replaced it in the pocket of her coat. She took two business cards from her pocket and handed one to each of the constables. ‘If you remember anything, contact me.’

‘So it was murder then,’ Higgins said taking the card.

‘We’re looking into the possibility,’ Moira said.

‘Whether murder or not the man was engaged in a wicked act, maybe he deserved to die,’ Corr said putting the business card into his breast pocket.

‘Judge not and ye shall not be judged,’ Moira said just loud enough to be heard as she made her way to the door of the soft interview room.

CHAPTER 12

Peter Davidson watched the barman pull his pint of lager before setting it in front of him. He was sitting in the Rex Bar in the middle of the Shankill Road. One pint wasn’t generally enough for him to get a buzz on, that would be three pints down the road. Davidson had spent the afternoon and early evening looking up contacts from his former life as a member of the Vice Squad. It had been two years since he had switched to the Murder Squad, but many of the denizens of the demimonde of bondage, domination, sadism and masochism were still alive and kicking, and none of them had ever run across David Grant. It was a walk down memory lane that Davidson didn’t particularly enjoy. Like many who have to deal with the seedier side of life, he had partaken of the forbidden fruit himself, and it had cost him his marriage. His five years in Vice had led directly to him sitting alone in this bar waiting for the moment when the level of alcohol hit that critical point that banished all memories.

‘DC Davidson as I live and breath.’

Davidson turned and gave a half smile. ‘I heard you were back in town.’

‘Aye, they couldn’t get along without me. After that Cummerford woman stained her panties, my phone was ringing night and day with offers to replace her.’

‘It’s nice to be wanted.’ Davidson nodded to the barman. ‘What’ll you have?’

‘My shout,’ the man said quickly. ‘After all the
Belfast Chronicle
is paying.’

‘Two double Jameson,’ Davidson said to the barman. He didn’t like the Press much but his new companion was a horse of a different colour. Jock McDevitt wasn’t just a journalist; he was a drinking buddy from the old days. Davidson had been a contact who had become a friend. McDevitt’s great skill was that he could get a rock to talk. He stood only five feet six in his stocking feet and weighed sixty-five kilos soaking wet, but his open face exuded empathy. When you talked to Jock, you felt that you were the only person in the world for him. His concentration on you and your problems was total. ‘I see you didn’t overdo the deep fried Mars bars when you were in Glasgow,’ Davidson said.

McDevitt smiled, and the glow of that smile washed over Davidson. ‘I never took to the deep fried Mars bar. Can’t say that I didn’t enjoy Glasgow though. Same type of villains we have here in Belfast but a lot more of them. However, the
Chronicle
found my weakness, they offered me a lot more money than I was making. It appears that Miss Cummerford did substantial damage to the reputation of the paper. Not so good to have a serial killer on the payroll. At least, I haven’t killed anyone. Well, not yet anyway.’ He smiled and touched his glass of whiskey to Davidson’s. ‘To the good old times.’

‘Maybe they weren’t so good.’ Davidson took a sip of his whiskey. It could be a coincidence that McDevitt had strolled into the Rex, but Davidson didn’t believe in coincidences. McDevitt was the best newshound he’d met, and he’d landed on Davidson for a reason. DS McElvaney’s words of caution were rambling around in his brain.

‘Being alive is the good times.’ McDevitt smiled. ‘What are you up to these days?’

‘Murder Squad.’ Davidson decided to keep his answers as short as possible.

‘Beats Vice. You guys have been busy lately. I hear Cummerford and McIver are up for trial soon.’

‘You said it.’ Davidson took a slug of his whiskey and chased it with a mouthful of lager. He was beginning to feel good.

‘Anything else of interest?’

‘As in?’

‘A little bird tells me that you’ve been a busy boy this afternoon,’ McDevitt said nodding at the barman and indicating the empty glasses.

‘What kind of little bird would that be?’ Davidson asked.

‘The kind that wears a studded leather bikini and likes to administer punishment to bad boys.’ McDevitt took a £20 note from his pocket and dropped it on the bar.

‘I didn’t know you moved in those kinds of circles.’ Davidson looked at the double Jameson that had arrived before him. He was entering dangerous territory. He recalled McElvaney’s threat. He had no doubt that she would carry it out.

‘I move in every kind of circle,’ McDevitt said. ‘You wanted to know whether David Grant was in the BDSM world.’

Davidson picked up his whiskey. ‘If you say so.’

McDevitt sipped his whiskey. ‘We’re being fed the line that he died while performing a particularly dangerous sex act. Something in my gut tells me that we’re being fed bullshit. I need to know whether my gut is still operating properly.’

‘Although Grant was only a City Councillor, he was a personality,’ Davidson said picking his words carefully. ‘We’re just stitching up some of the details. Like was he part of the BDSM scene, or was he simply someone who tried gasping and didn’t do it properly?’

‘I heard from another little bird that there are some pretty interesting photographs of the scene. The
Chronicle
would pay good money if they could get their hands on even one photo.’

Davidson downed his whiskey. ‘Thanks for the drink.’

‘I find out things, Pete. Just like the old days. If you share with me, I’ll share with you.’

‘I’ll pass the word along,’ Davidson said. ‘This time I don’t think that any of your little birds will be carrying warrant cards.’ 

Stephanie Reid was just about as tired as she had ever been and that was saying something. She had been on her feet since she had entered the Royal Victoria at eight in the morning, and it was now almost exactly twelve hours later. It appeared that there was an epidemic of unexplained deaths in Belfast. She had already dealt with six corpses most of whom had died suddenly, but the reasons had lurked deep within their bodies. Right now she was looking forward to a hot bath and a glass of chilled Sauvignon Blanc accompanied by the music of James Taylor. She sighed as she watched her assistant wheel in yet another body.

‘The last one,’ he said sheepishly.

She contemplated telling him to take the corpse back and she would autopsy it tomorrow, but who knew what tomorrow would bring. She walked to the trolley and picked up the tag attached to the corpse’s toe. ‘Brian Malone, age twenty-six, massive heart attack’ she read. Age twenty-six and massive heart attack didn’t usually go together. The assistant removed the cotton sheet from the body and displayed the corpse. It was immediately apparent to Reid that Brian Malone was not your typical heart-attack victim. In life he had been reasonably fit. The body was lithe, and he sported a six-pack that most men would have been proud of. It just showed that even the fit could harbour a small defect within their physiology that would be their undoing. ‘Get him on the table,’ she said heading for the sinks in the corner of the room. It was now her task to find the defect that had led to the death of an otherwise healthy man. This was the aspect of her job that she loved the most. In some ways it was similar to the job that Wilson did. He searched among the evidence to find the motive and the murderer. She dissected bodies looking for clues of frailty that had led to death. Her spirits lifted appreciably when she thought of the man she dreamt about consistently. Although she told herself many times that the pursuit was futile, she still harboured somewhere within her the hope that someday the situation would turn in her favour. The loss of Wilson’s unborn child had the potential to create fissures between him and Kate McCann. The thought flashed through her head and she despised herself for it. If a man came to her, she wanted it to be because he desired her. She walked slowly to the table where Brian Malone lay and picked up a scalpel. ‘Now let’s find what genetic flaw caused the Grim Reaper to come looking for you.’

Moira McElvaney enjoyed the evening at the cinema followed by dinner and a bout of lovemaking with her lover Brendan Guilfoyle. They had been together for almost nine months and Brendan’s one-year sabbatical at Queen’s University was coming to an end. That meant decision time was approaching, and Moira had decided that she would concentrate on enjoying the now and put off the decision that she dreaded until the last possible moment. In three short months, Brendan would be returning to his job as Professor of Forensic Psychology at Harvard University. He had already asked her to go with him, but she hadn’t replied. She liked the idea that he told her continually that he loved her. That wasn’t the problem. She had already loved one man and he had responded by beating and humiliating her. He had justified his action by calling it love. Love was a many-splendoured thing. It could be used to justify both care and incredible cruelty. She was certainly over Michael Regan, but that didn’t mean she didn’t wake up in the middle of the night running a hot sweat thinking of the beatings she received at his hands. At least she had been instrumental in putting the bastard where he belonged – behind bars. Too many women hung on hoping wife beating was a phase, only to find that it was a way of life. The current situation with Brendan was different. He was an intelligent and articulate man. He could hold his own in any company and had embraced Belfast with enthusiasm to the point where his normal Bostonian accent had taken on a distinctly Northern Irish twang. But what she liked most about Brendan was that he was fun. You could never be depressed in his company, and she could feel herself lighter when she was with him. Maybe that was love, but the spectre of her failed marriage always haunted her. Then there was her job in the PSNI and Wilson. While she might have wondered if what she felt for Brendan was love, she had no doubt about her feelings for her job. Her heart lifted every morning when she woke and realised that another day full of challenges was waiting for her. She fell into police work rather than chose it as a profession, but it had turned out to be the perfect fit. The thought of giving up her job for a life with Brendan filled her with a kind of weird dread. Almost as much dread as never seeing Brendan again. And then there was Wilson. She had been initially attracted to her boss. Who wouldn’t? He might have been the perfect man if it wasn’t for the fact that he was alleged to have slept with every female police officer his own age, and quite a few considerably younger. She had been disappointed when she discovered that he already had a lover, but since then their relationship had changed, and she saw him now as more of a mentor than a potential lover. He was her teacher, and she felt she had so much more to learn from him. Leaving with Brendan would cut that learning short. She was mulling through these thoughts when she realised that Brendan was no longer in bed with her. She slipped out from beneath the duvet, and making the minimum amount of noise made her way into the living room where she saw Brendan hunched over her laptop. She snuck up behind him.

‘I hope you’ve got some clothes on,’ Brendan said without looking up. ‘Otherwise you’re giving the guy across the way a peek.’

‘What the ...’ She leaned over Brendan’s shoulder and saw that he was examining the photos that Reid had taken of David Grant. She tried to hit the power off button of the computer, but Brendan blocked her. ‘You have no right.’ She started.

‘I’m expecting an email from Harvard.’ Brendan cradled her head in his arm over his shoulder. ‘And given the time difference I thought I’d check up now. You didn’t turn off the laptop and guess what popped up when I hit the button.’ He turned and saw that she was naked. ‘Want to discuss this or should we head back to bed?’ He smiled.

‘I’ll throw on a robe.’ She turned and headed back to the bedroom.

‘That’s what I call an ass,’ Brendan said admiring the view.

She gave him the middle finger as she entered the bedroom.

‘Interesting,’ Brendan said as they sat and flicked through the photos. ‘A gasper.’

‘Maybe,’ Moira said. ‘The pathologist doesn’t like the look of it.’

‘The guy I read about in the paper?’

‘That’s him.’

‘What does the ME think is wrong?’ he asked.

‘We don’t call them MEs here. You’re supposed to be the bloody expert. What do you think is wrong?’

He blew the photos up to the full magnitude and went through them one by one. ‘I’ve seen a few of these in the States. Hell of a way to die. Did you look at the scene yet?’

‘This only came up today. We haven’t had a chance yet. I’m going there tomorrow.’

‘Your ME might have something, but that’ll depend on what you find at the scene. If the guy is a real kink, there’ll be other stuff around.’

‘Stuff?’

‘Sex toys, magazines, more paraphernalia. The kind of things that you keep under your bed and you don’t want your mom to find out about.’

She made a note to look under Brendan’s bed the next time she visited his flat. ‘But do you see anything out of place?’

‘The position of the chair isn’t quite right, but that kind of thing can happen. No,’ he flicked through the photos again, ‘it looks like the guy was trying to get off by asphyxiating himself.’

‘Fat lot of use you are.’ She slapped him on the head.

He stood up and grabbed her around the waist. ‘Who the hell can concentrate on a crime scene when there’s a woman with an ass like yours around?’

‘What about your precious email?’

‘To hell with the email,’ he said picking her up and heading for the bedroom.