A Box Full of Darkness (Wilson Book 5) Page 6

  McDevitt pulled the notebook from Wilson’s grip. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Now that you ask . . .’ Wilson said.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Wilson wasn’t sleeping well but that was to be expected. Every time he turned in the bed he expected to find a body and when he didn’t his eyes popped open. He tried going to bed later and later each night but five o’clock was the latest he managed to sleep. His mind was racing as soon as he woke. He wanted to think that Jennings was behind his transfer to the task force, but he was beginning to doubt that conclusion. There was a whole Province in which to find him an appropriate position but he was put into the care of Chief Superintendent Sinclair and Sergeant Jackson. Why? He already decided that Jackson wasn’t a colleague; he was more of a minder. It was his second morning on the job and he was having musings that had no basis in fact. He got out of bed and looked at his watch, it was four thirty. Outside, day wasn’t even thinking of breaking across Belfast and he was wide awake and ready to go. He went to the cupboard and removed a pair of jogging pants, a tee shirt and a hoodie. He slipped quickly into the clothes and headed for the lift. Two minutes later he stood in the dark on Queen’s Quay and sucked in the sea air streaming down the Lagan. There was a threat of rain in the air as he tried to work out a suitable run. He decided to head out of the city in the direction of Titanic Quarter. He ran along the side of the Lagan and turned at the top of Queen’s Quay until he reached the Belfast Harbour Marina and on into Old Channel Road. As he ran along, he turned over in his mind the events that led to his break with Kate. He could easily blame it on the miscarriage, but even before they had lost the child he was afraid that neither was comfortable in the world of the other. The wind was blowing from the north east and directly into his face hitting him with a light spray of soft rain. He felt good for the first time in days and realised how important endorphins were in his life. His bad leg ached a little and he slowed the pace of his jog. He wondered what Kate was doing at that moment. Perhaps she was lying in bed thinking of him, but it was more likely that she would be at her desk planning her day in court. Her strategy for Maggie Cummerford was sound; deflect the jury away from the crime and concentrate on the motive. Drag every ounce of sympathy out of the jury for the poor little six-year-old girl who had her mother cruelly taken from her. What did he care whether Maggie went down or not? He did his job and now it was up to the justice system to do theirs. He turned at the junction of Old Channel Road and Queen’s Road and retraced his route. He glanced at his watch when he arrived at his starting point: five-thirty. Two hours to kill before he could start for Dunmurry.

  Sergeant Simon Jackson was standing at the door to Wilson‘s office when Wilson arrived.

  ‘You’re an early riser, sergeant,’ Wilson said as he removed the key to his office from his pocket and opened the door. He had found the key on the inside of the door and although he never before locked his office door, something told him that he should do so now in order to maintain a level of privacy. Given his background in Special Branch, he had no doubt that a locked door wouldn’t present an obstacle to Jackson or one of his former colleagues,

  ‘Always was, sir,’ Jackson stood aside. ‘Habit of a lifetime, we don’t usually lock our office doors around here.’

  Wilson smiled and cast a glance in the direction of Sinclair’s office, which had the appearance of being securely locked. ‘We all have lifetime habits, sergeant. One of mine is to lock my office door. Now, please tell me that you have the information I requested of you yesterday evening.’

  ‘Mostly, sir,’ said Jackson holding out a sheet of paper. ‘Mallon’s old man passed away but I’ve managed to locate relatives of both the deceased.’

  Wilson took the paper and looked down the list of names and addresses. ‘Well done, sergeant. We have a pretty full day ahead of us.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we discuss your plan of action with the chief superintendent, sir?’ Jackson asked.

  ‘I don’t think we should bother him with anything as trivial as my plan of action which I assure you is pretty flexible. I have the impression that Chief Superintendent Sinclair has other more important matters on his mind. Of course, if he said something to you.’

  ‘No, sir,’ Jackson said a little too quickly. ‘The chief superintendent said nothing.’

  ‘OK.’ Wilson consulted the list. ‘I see that Mr and Mrs Lafferty still live in Beechmount Parade. Let’s drop by and see how they are.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we telephone first?’ Jackson asked.

  ‘No. If they’re not in, we’ll move on to the second name on your list. ‘

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  They parked in the same spot they had done the previous day. Wilson wanted to walk the area again. Belfast was a very different place from the day when a car had stopped at the corner of Beechmount Parade and ended the life of two young men engaged in an innocent game of football. Although he hadn’t yet received any communication from McDevitt, he was willing to bet that the two deaths didn’t merit more than a few column inches. In modern Belfast such events were impossible. A lot of innocent people had to die in order for the public to recognise that the perpetrators of such horrors were indeed monsters needing to be removed from society. Wilson and Jackson walked slowly along Beechmount Parade until they reached the house occupied by the Lafferty family. They pushed open the small cast iron gate and walked to the front door. Wilson pushed the bell and waited. He could hear a shuffling inside and when he glanced to the right, he saw the curtain flutter on the window. He waited patiently until the door was finally opened by a woman who looked to be in her seventies wearing a flowery housecoat.

  ‘Mrs Lafferty?’ he said.

  ‘Aye.’ Her grey hair was tied back. She was small and slight and had a curvature of the spine, which caused her to crane her head to look into Wilson’s face.

  Wilson removed his warrant card from his pocket and held it out to her. ‘My name is Detective Superintendent Ian Wilson and this is Sergeant Jackson. I wonder if we could have a word with you and your husband.’

  The woman looked confused. ‘We’ve no truck with the Peelers. We’re quiet folk here.’

  Wilson withdrew his warrant card and replaced it in his pocket. ‘We’re from a PSNI task force, and we’re looking into the death of your son, Sean.’

  ‘Sean’s been dead these many long years,’ the woman said. ‘You’d best come in. The neighbours’ll be wonderin’ what’s goin’ on.’ She opened the door fully to admit them and stood aside.

  Wilson was obliged to duck his head as he entered the doorway. He and Jackson stood inside the entrance hall and waited while Mrs Lafferty closed the door.

  ‘Michael,’ she called from the hall. ‘Two peelers lookin’ into Sean’s murder.’

  Wilson noticed the use of the word ‘murder’.

  A voice came from a room on the side of the corridor. ‘Tell them they’re forty-two years too late.’ There was a racking laugh and then a fit of coughing.

  ‘Michael’s not well,’ Mrs Lafferty said as she led the way down the hallway. The Lafferty residence was in that state that estate agents would call ‘a bijou residence requiring some updating’. A flight of ceramic ducks of different sizes flew along the wall beside the stairs leading to the upper floor. The wallpaper was at least twenty years old and in places it had started to come away from the walls. It was matched by the carpet which Wilson could see hadn’t been cleaned since the day it was laid. Wilson and Jackson walked the few steps toward the rear of the house and Mrs Lafferty led them into a small room, which was dominated by a single bed of the type found in hospitals. A pale and emaciated man lay on the bed. Michael Lafferty wasn’t just ‘not well’ he was at death’s door. And Wilson could see from his face that he knew it.

  ‘I’m glad I lived to see this day, ‘said Michael Lafferty as he tried to push himself up to get a better look at his visitors.

  ‘I’m Detective Superintendent Wilson.’

  ‘I heard
you at the door,’ Lafferty said straining. ‘My ears are about the only part of my body that are still in perfect working order.’

  Wilson walked forward and assisted Lafferty to sit upright.

  ‘Thanks,’ Michael Lafferty said. ‘Sinead, we’re not inhospitable people. Go you and make the superintendent and his pal a cup of tea. ‘Virtually every word was accompanied by a wheeze. ‘Sit you down, Superintendent.’ Lafferty cast his eyes in the direction of the single chair in the room. ‘The hospice loaned us this bloody bed but it takes up the whole of the room. I want to die in my own house, you see.’

  Wilson sat in the chair. ‘We’re taking another look at Sean’s murder.’ He felt good using the right word.

  Lafferty laughed and the effort seemed to tire him because his head went back against the pillow.

  ‘I said something funny?’ Wilson said.

  ‘Yes.’ Lafferty moved his head forward again. ‘You said another. That should mean that it was already looked into thirty-eight years ago but that would be a lie.’

  ‘You mean there was no investigation?’ Wilson looked at Jackson who had his notebook out.

  ‘Divil the one,’ Lafferty smiled. ‘You’re the first peeler that we’ve seen who mentioned Sean’s name since the ambulance picked him up off the road outside.’

  ‘No one interviewed you after the murder?’ Wilson asked. He saw the mottled nature of Lafferty’s skin.

  ‘Isn’t that what I said, man?’ A flash of anger crossed Lafferty’s emaciated face. ‘I’ll say it one more time. You’re the first peeler we’ve seen investigating Sean’s murder. Mind you we had plenty of visits from the peelers and the military after Sean died. But none of them were investigating his death.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Wilson said.

  Lafferty took a deep breath. ‘For months after Sean’s death, this house was raided and torn apart by RUC men and soldiers. They were supposed to be looking for evidence that Sean was a member of the IRA.’ A gob of spittle crept out of the corner of his mouth. ‘They broke every stick of furniture we owned but none of them ever asked for a statement on my son’s murder.’

  There was a box of tissues at the side of the bed. Wilson removed one and handed it to Lafferty.

  ‘But perhaps your son was a member of the IRA,’ Jackson said.

  ‘Wash your mouth out,’ Lafferty said dabbing at the corner of his mouth with the tissue. ‘The boy’s head was full of football and girls. There was no room inside for politics or trouble.’ He glanced to his right at a photograph of a young boy on the wall. ‘He had a head of woolly black hair and could run as fast as the wind. He thought that he was going to be the next George Best and have girls hanging off him. The only consolation I have from the cancer is that I’ll be seeing him soon.’

  ‘You remember that night?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘That’s not the question, Superintendent. It’s whether I could ever forget it. Do you have any children?’

  ‘No,’ Wilson said. In that moment he realised that he had lost someone.

  ‘Then you a lucky man. You’ll never have the grief of picking up the broken body of your only son in your arms in the middle of a street. Over the years, I’ve watched pictures on television from places I’ve never been and seen people just like us crying over their dead children. Every time I’ve seen those pictures, I’m back in 1974, and I only have to stand at my window and I can witness the horror all over again.’

  Sinead Lafferty returned and handed Wilson a saucer with a teacup already filled. ‘I’ve no place to put a teapot and cups down so I had to doctor the cup with milk and sugar myself. I hope it’s all right for you.’

  ‘It’s fine.’ Wilson took the cup. ‘Tell us what happened?’

  ‘The boys were having their usual kickabout on the street.’ Lafferty wheezed as he spoke. ‘I was standing at the window watching them and hoping that a ball didn’t come flying through my window. Can you pass that glass of water?’

  Wilson handed his tea to Jackson and reached for the glass of water that was beside the bed. He held it so that Lafferty could drink.

  ‘Thanks.’ Lafferty took a sip of water. ‘You’ve got a kind face, Superintendent. I rushed out of the house and ran to Sean. He was lying on his back and his chest was covered in blood. I didn’t have to check to know that he was gone. I just cradled him and cried.’

  ‘You heard the shots?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘There was a burst of machine gunfire from the top of the road and suddenly all the players were on the ground.’

  ‘How do you know it was machine gunfire?’

  ‘I was in the army, five years,’ he said looking at Jackson. ‘Like that bloke there. I know the type. It was a Stirling. No, it was two Sterlings.’

  ‘Simultaneous firing?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘No, one slightly behind the other.’

  Wilson did a simple calculation. The Sterling held a magazine of 9mm Parabellum rounds; two bursts meant that a maximum of sixty-eight rounds had been fired. ‘Did you look towards the top of the road?’ Wilson retook his tea and sipped. He noticed that Jackson had also been supplied with a cup.

  ‘I did. I only saw the tail of a blue car disappearing. Whoever fired the shots must have been in that car.’

  ‘Did you tell the police about the car?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘I tried but nobody was listening to me.’ Lafferty’s head was back against the pillows.

  ‘Did you follow-up with the police enquiry team?’

  Lafferty made a noise in his throat. ‘Police enquiry team my arse. I went to the station every day for a month. They left me sitting for hours before telling me to be off home.’

  Wilson finished his tea. He wasn’t sure that they had learned anything but he was bothered by the absence of a proper enquiry and the callous way the grieving family were treated. And then there was the absence of a ballistics report.

  ‘Will you promise me something, Superintendent?’ Lafferty said.

  Wilson nodded.

  ‘You look like an honest man. I think you might stand a chance of finding out who murdered my son. Promise me that if you find the name of the man who murdered him and I’m still alive that you’ll come back and tell me.’

  Wilson passed his cup to Jackson. ‘Be a good man and give those cups back to Mrs Lafferty.’ He turned back to the bed. ‘It’s the coldest of cold cases. There’s no evidence collected or left. I’ve got to be honest with you. There’s very little chance of me finding out who murdered your son. But I promise you that if I do find out I will be back.’

  Michael Lafferty lifted up a skeletal right hand and extended it toward Wilson. ‘Thank you.’

  Wilson shook the bony hand. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’

  Lafferty let his hand go. ‘It’s a little late but it’s appreciated.’

  Wilson turned and saw that Jackson was at the door. Sinead Lafferty was nowhere in sight so they made their way to the front door by themselves.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  They exited onto the footpath of Beechmount Parade. Wilson thought about the lives of the people in the house he’d just left. One was turning the key on Heaven’s gate and the other looked bent and beaten by life. They had suffered the ultimate tragedy. They had lost their only child and it hadn’t been through accident.

  ‘Do you think that was wise, sir?’ Jackson asked as soon as they were on the footpath.

  ‘Do I think what was wise?’

  ‘Making a commitment like that.’

  Wilson hadn’t been aware that Jackson had overheard his final conversation with Lafferty. ‘I wasn’t conscious that I had made a commitment.’

  ‘You used the word “promise”, sir.’

  ‘Then I suppose that I must have meant to use it.’ He was well aware of what he had just done.

  ‘I just don’t think it was wise.’

  ‘Well, thank you for your observation, sergeant. It has been duly noted. What do you think of the interview?’

&n
bsp; ‘Sir?’ Jackson replied.

  ‘You listened to Michael Lafferty’s story, what do your well-honed investigative instincts pick out of his narrative?’ Wilson started walking back towards the street where their car was parked.

  Jackson’s face looked blank. ‘Nothing new, we already knew that the boys were fired upon from the top of the road, possibly by someone in a car. Am I missing something, sir?’

  ‘There were two bursts from a Sterling machine gun. Sixty-eight possible rounds fired and not one single bullet or spent cartridge collected. A blue saloon car disappears, and there’s no search record for the car in the file. Was a blue car found burned out anywhere close to the attack? That was the normal pattern for a UVF/UDA attack. Steal a car in some Loyalist area, kill a few Catholics and burn out the car. I’ve already concluded that the investigation was a shambles. What I really want to find out is, why was it such a shambles?’ He pulled out Jackson’s list from his coat pocket. There were four more names but only one of them was a Mallon. ‘Who is this Ciaran Mallon, Cormac’s father?’

  ‘Brother,’ Jackson answered. ‘The parents are dead.’

  ‘And the other three on the list?’

  ‘Players in the football game.’

  ‘What about the guys who were hit?’

  ‘One was hit in the spine and is a paraplegic. He moved to England, lives in some village close to Birmingham. The other one hit was Mallon.’

  ‘Then let’s go see Ciaran Mallon.’ He looked at the address on the list. Mallon lived in Omagh in South Tyrone. Not exactly around the corner, he thought. It was about an hour’s journey by car from where they were standing to the centre of Omagh. He had no desire to spend an hour in the car with Jackson but he knew that if he insisted on travelling alone, Sinclair would hear of it immediately. And probably forbid it. It was best to keep relationships cordial. ‘Give him a call, tell him who we are and tell him we’re on the way.’