A Box Full of Darkness (Wilson Book 5) Read online

  Jackson took the list and moving aside, dialled the number for Mallon. After speaking for some minutes he rejoined Wilson. ‘He’s at work but he can see us in about an hour and a half.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Christian Brothers Grammar School, he’s a teacher there.’

  Omagh is the county town of Tyrone and it situated where the rivers Drumragh and Camowen meet to form the Strule. The town has a population of around 20,000 and was the site of one of the worse bombing atrocities carried out by the IRA. Although what the locals call a “garrison town”, the population of Omagh is predominantly Catholic. The journey from Belfast had been uneventful and silent. Wilson spent the time watching the landscape of Ulster flying by. It was a normal Irish day with the sun trying bravely to pierce the clouds and the occasional shower of rain sprinkling the journey. The countryside was green and lush. They passed through some of the best land in Ireland and the reason the original Gaelic inhabitants had been expelled to make way for Scottish Presbyterian settlers. Jackson steered the car into the car park on Kelvin Avenue across the road from a shopping centre. The sign at the entrance to the car park said “pay and display”. Jackson parked and placed a sign on the dashboard indicating that the occupants were police on official duty. They walked around the corner at the top of Kelvin Avenue and found themselves almost in front of the Christian Brothers Grammar School. A large sign hung over the entrance announcing that the school was celebrating 150 years of educational excellence. They were approaching the entrance when a man in his late fifties came through the door and walked towards them.

  ‘Ciaran Mallon,’ he said holding out his hand. ‘I thought that it might be better if we didn’t meet in the school proper, and I wasn’t sure whether you knew Omagh well enough to give you an alternative meeting place.’

  Mallon was perhaps six inches shorter than Wilson, and was of slight build. If it could be said that people grow to resemble their jobs, then it would be true to say that Mallon looked like a teacher right down to the horn-rimmed glasses and leather patches on the elbows of his herringbone tweed jacket.

  ‘Detective Superintendent Ian Wilson.’ He took Mallon’s outstretched hand and shook it.. ‘I completely understand.’ He noticed several faces in the windows of the school overlooking the entrance. ‘This is Sergeant Jackson.’

  Jackson simply nodded and made no attempt to shake hands.

  ‘Teaching is a very sensitive profession at the moment,’ Mallon said moving them away from the school and towards Kelvin Avenue. ‘The headmaster is hypersensitive about abuse, and the appearance of two senior police officers to talk to me would undoubtedly start tongues wagging. I’m dying for a coffee and there’s a Subway around the corner and I’d be delighted to treat you if that’s alright with you.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Wilson said heading back the way they came. He’d seen the Subway at the corner of the shopping centre close to where they’d parked the car. ‘As I’m sure Sergeant Jackson has already explained, we’re from a PSNI task force and we’re investigating the shooting of your brother in 1974.’

  ‘After forty-two years,’ Mallon said. ‘I’ve heard of cold cases but this one must be well and truly frozen.’

  ‘A murder case is never closed,’ Wilson said. ‘You’re the only member of your family in Northern Ireland?’

  They had reached the small commercial centre and the Subway was directly in front of them.

  ‘My parents are dead.’ Mallon pushed in the door. ‘My sister is a nurse in Australia. She never comes back, wants to forget about Ireland. She’s made a new life for herself and her family, and more power to her. My brother’s in Canada. He’s an oil engineer out in Alberta. Coffees?’

  Wilson looked at Jackson who remained stoic. ‘Speak up, sergeant. Would you like a coffee?’

  ‘Yes please, Americano, black.’

  ‘White with sugar for me,’ Wilson said. ‘What do you teach?’

  Mallon ordered the three coffees. ‘English,’ he said passing two piping hot cardboard cups to Wilson and Jackson. ‘Can we sit?’

  ‘Of course,’ Wilson said and they moved to a table in the corner well away from the other patrons. ‘I hope we’re not interfering with your schedule.’ Wilson said as soon as they were seated.

  ‘I’m on a free class at the moment, and I’ve arranged with a colleague to fill in if I’m not back in time. How can I help you?’

  ‘You were one of the players in the football game?’ Wilson blew on his coffee.

  ‘I was,’ Mallon said.

  ‘I’m trying to get a feel for what happened that evening,’ Wilson said. ‘I’ve already spoken to Michael Lafferty.’

  ‘How is Mr Lafferty?’ Mallon sipped his coffee. ‘I heard he wasn’t well.’

  Wilson stared at Mallon. His hair was almost totally white and curly. He had a chubby open face that might be considered attractive by some women. But the impression he gave was one of extreme gentleness. Wilson could see him being a popular teacher with teenagers. ‘I’m afraid he‘s not too good. Can you remember what happened that evening?’

  ‘Like it was yesterday.’ Mallon sipped his coffee. ‘It was our nightly habit to have a football game. The streetlights were the goal posts and were generally stoutly defended. Some of the lads played in a local league and had the smell of themselves, but mostly we just enjoyed the kickabout. We didn’t take much notice of traffic that passed on Beechmount Avenue. The game was in full flow and suddenly there was the sound of gunfire. I thought that it might be a few streets away but then I felt something hit my left hand. It was like a bee sting only a lot sorer.’ He held up his left hand to show a middle finger was missing. ‘I felt another sting in my right side and I fell down. A lot of the lads hit the deck as soon as the firing started. Cormac and Sean were a bit slow at getting down. They turned to see where the firing was coming from. I shouted at Cormac to get down, but just then he was hit and fell anyway. Same for Sean. Then it was chaos. People flooded out of the houses and there was wailing and shouting. I can’t remember whether I passed out or not, but I woke up in hospital the next day.’

  ‘Did you see who did the shooting?’ Wilson asked.

  Mallon closed his eyes. ‘I saw the flashes before I was hit. They came from the top of the road and I remember a dark car just idling.’ He opened his eyes.

  ‘Were you interviewed by the police?’

  ‘Not that I can remember. I came to before they put me in the ambulance and there was a brusque RUC sergeant pushing people around. My father was already dead and my mother was out that evening. She had to go to the morgue to identify Cormac. She told me that there was an RUC sergeant there who simply whipped the sheet off my dead brother’s body. It sounded like the same fellow who was organising things on the street. My mother never used bad language but she described the man as a callous bastard.’

  ‘No one took a statement from you?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘No,’ Mallon finished his coffee. ‘I was in hospital for going on a month. As soon as I got out, we moved to Omagh. My mother was from the town and my grandmother was still here.’

  Wilson was trying to think of another question.

  ‘Sir,’ Jackson said. ‘I’m away to use the toilet.’

  ‘Off you go,’ Wilson said.

  Mallon waited until Jackson was out of hearing. ‘I don’t like your sergeant. He has the look of Brutus about him. I’d watch out for him if I was you.’

  ‘Are you psychic?’ Wilson smiled.

  ‘Somewhat.’ Mallon returned the smile. ‘Maybe it’s something that happened to me when I was shot.’ He removed a small box from his pocket and pushed it across the table. ‘Put this in your pocket now.’

  Wilson did as he was instructed. ‘What’s in it?’ he asked.

  ‘Something I’ve been keeping for a day like this. I don’t know much about you but I had a chance to Google you and you seem to be a decent policeman. There’s a bullet and a cartridge in the box. My sister picked them up d
uring the chaos, and she gave them to me before she left for Australia. She had an idea that they might come in useful some day.’

  ‘What happened to the rest of the bullets and cartridges?’ Wilson asked watching the door to the toilet.

  ‘I don’t know but my mother said the place was swept clean by the next day. You wouldn’t even know that two young men bled out their lives on the street.

  ‘You weren’t angry that Cormac never got justice?’

  ‘I was sixteen-years-old, Superintendent. We moved to Omagh as soon as I was out of hospital and I was into a new school and facing my GCSEs. I had a deformed hand, which was the subject of a lot of bullying. So my plate was pretty full. I felt Cormac’s loss. He was one year older than me and was my best friend. You talk about psychic, but I could feel him around me for years after he died. And strangely, I felt him close to me when I woke up this morning. If he’d lived, he would have been fifty-seven next week. Yes, I want justice for him, and knowing this Province as I do, I have no great expectation of getting it.’

  ‘Is there any possibility that either Cormac or Sean was involved with some branch of the IRA?’

  Mallon laughed. ‘People used to say that my brother and I were joined at the hip. Wherever he went I went and vice-versa. If he’d been involved, I would have been the first to know. I can state categorically that he had no political affiliation at all.’

  Jackson returned from the toilet and retook his seat.

  Wilson felt the weight of the small box in his pocket. ‘You never know when justice might arrive,’ he said standing up. ‘We’ve taken up enough of your time and I’m sure you have a classroom full of kids waiting.’ He extended his hand. Mallon took it and the handshake was firm. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  Mallon nodded.

  Wilson watched the slight figure as Mallon headed back to the school. If this were the investigation of a current crime, he would have felt that it was the start of what could prove to be momentum. He had real evidence of the crime in his pocket. It was not evidence that would stand up in court. The bullet and shell could have come from anywhere. There was no chain of evidence. There was no proof that they were collected on Beechmount Parade on the day of the shooting. Sixty or more rounds had disappeared. Sixty or more shells had disappeared. It was a hell of a coincidence, and Wilson didn’t believe in coincidence.

  ‘Back to Belfast?’ Jackson said as he started the car.

  ‘Aye,’ Wilson said. His mind was racing. His team in the murder squad was tight-knit and trustworthy. He wished he had them around him right now. He glanced over at Jackson. I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could throw you; he thought and closed his eyes.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Wilson sat in his office in Dunmurry. The small box that was passed to him by Mallon sat on the desk in front of him. He made sure that Jackson was nowhere to be seen before removing the box from his jacket pocket. The box itself wasn’t much bigger than a matchbox. He slid the top off and saw that there was both a bullet and a shell sitting on top of a wad of cotton wool. The bullet was a 9mm Parabellum, typical of the rounds that would fit a Sterling machine gun. The shell was a small brass cylinder. He used a pencil to remove the shell from the box. He held it upside down before his eyes. There was no reason to believe that the shell he was holding in his hand was fired on that fateful night in 1974. So, what use could he make of the bullet and the shell? He could tell Sinclair about the find and request to have the bullet matched against other shootings before or since the Mallon and Lafferty murders. But that would involve a level of trust in Sinclair that he didn’t have at the moment. He could go back to Tennent Street and ask Harry Graham or Peter Davidson to process the bullet. Since it had nothing to do with their current cases, they would be placing their careers in jeopardy, and there was no way that he wanted to do that. He could go himself to the Forensic Service of Northern Ireland and request an examination of the bullet and shell. He had no idea how much such an examination might cost, but he wouldn’t care about the cost. However, there was a better than even chance that such a request would find its way to Sinclair’s desk, and he would have to explain why he didn’t go the official route. Investigating murders required resources. The only resource he had was a sergeant he didn’t trust. He realised he had no basis for his lack of trust of Jackson. After all, the man had done nothing to justify mistrust. However, he had lived with his old sergeant, George Whitehouse, while knowing full well that he was reporting his every movement to DCC Jennings. So, he would live with Jackson and his close connection with Sinclair. The question was, who was Sinclair’s close connection? Sooner or later he would have to solve the question of resources, especially if he was going to become a lone wolf in the case of Mallon and Lafferty. It wasn’t in his nature to act outside the procedures. This was a first. He was aware that he wasn’t exactly fulfilling his role. He was supposed to whirl around like a loose electron giving the impression of great activity in the pursuit of justice for two murdered young men. In reality, he was simply a piece of camouflage for the incredible incompetence of the initial investigation. It wasn’t a role that he was entirely comfortable with. He liked to solve crimes. It was what he did. He knew that, deep down, he wouldn’t be happy to produce an anodyne report stating that the RUC investigation was a sham and that given the forty-two year gap and the apparent lack of evidence nothing could be achieved by pursuing the culprits. That conclusion would not do service to the dead, or their relatives. He would prefer to sit beside Michael Lafferty’s bed and tell him why his son had died, and who had killed him. Without resources, and with Sinclair and Jackson watching his every move, he was unsure that the result he sought was possible. He dropped the shell back into the box and slid the lid into place. As he did so, his door opened and Sinclair stuck his head around the corner.

  ‘Still around,’ Sinclair said entering the office. ‘I hear you had a busy day.’

  I’m sure you did, Wilson thought. ‘We got to interview Michael Lafferty and Ciaran Mallon. The latter lives in Omagh so I suppose we did have a busy day.’

  ‘Learn anything new?’ Sinclair sat in the visitor’s chair.

  ‘Is there anything new to learn?’ Wilson was fond of the Irish habit of answering a question with a question.

  ‘I think that you’ve been landed with a very difficult case. There wasn’t much evidence to start with, and it was a hell of a long time ago.’ Sinclair noticed the box on the desk in front of Wilson. He was about to formulate a question but thought the better of it.

  Makes me think why did I get the case, Wilson thought. He saw the question in Sinclair’s eyes. Then he saw it pass. The expression changed to smugness. Sinclair would find out everything in time. Sergeant Jackson would be instructed to find out what was in the intriguing little box. And Wilson would let him, when the time was right. ‘Everyone is entitled to justice no matter how long it is in coming,’ he said.

  ‘So, you’re actually thinking about solving this case.’

  ‘I think about solving every case. That’s what we’re paid for. There’s some bastard out there who cut short the lives of two young men. I’d like to find him.’

  ‘And if he’s dead?’

  ‘I’ll be able to tell the families of the young men. Maybe it’ll bring them a bit of closure.’

  ‘Have you ever thought that it might frustrate them?’

  ‘It might. But they should know who and they should know why.’

  Sinclair looked at his watch. ‘We’re on overtime and since there’s no money for overtime, I suppose we should pack it in for the day. Any idea what’s on the menu for tomorrow?’

  ‘I’m going to annoy the hell out of Sergeant Jackson.’

  Sinclair’s eyebrows rose. ‘How so?’

  ‘There has to be some record somewhere in the old RUC files of who was in charge of investigating the murders. Mallon mentioned that some RUC sergeant seemed to be in charge at the murder scene, and later at the morgue for the identification o
f the bodies. I’d like to find out who that sergeant was and have a few words with him.’

  ‘I’m sure Jackson will be praying for you.’ Sinclair stood up. ‘It’s traditional for me to invite new recruits for a drink. I’m partial to the Silver Inn on the Stewartstown Road. Would you like to join me?’

  ‘Thanks for the invitation but I’m afraid I have to decline. I have an appointment this evening in town and I don’t want to turn up the worse for wear.’

  Sinclair smiled. ‘You have a reputation for being fond of the ladies.’

  ‘An unearned reputation, I’m afraid. I have to meet some of my rugby buddies,’ Wilson lied. ‘It could be a long night.’

  Sinclair opened the door. He didn’t seem too put out by Wilson’s refusal of his invitation. ‘‘See you in the morning. Don’t be too hard on Jackson if he fails.’

  ‘I’m sure Sergeant Jackson can take care of himself. Enjoy your drink.’

  The door closed and Wilson was alone again. It was a feeling that described his new life. His partner had sent him on their “break”. The brains at HQ had reorganised him out of a job he loved. His one protector and mentor, Donald Spence, had been put out to grass. It appeared that all the supports he had grown used to had all been removed in one go. And then there was his posting to what most of his colleagues would consider a non-job. The Chief Law Officer was on record that investigating the crimes of the past was a waste of police resources and simply a sop to the public. Most of the politicians probably agreed with him but didn’t have the balls to cast off the past entirely and leave bereaved families without any hope of closure. Many of the bereaved would die with a forlorn hope of finding the culprits still in their hearts. Sinclair sold it as a family liaison job but Sinclair and Jackson weren’t exactly the family-friendly type. Special Branch was just that -- special. So he had to assume that at least one of his new colleagues were in the task force for a reason. He had to assume that the reorganisation of the murder squad was a convenience to get rid of him out of the station and into his current position. Someone was playing silly buggers with him. And he should probably assume that Kate kicking him into the kerb also happened for a reason. If someone was messing with his head, they were doing a pretty good job of it. He took out his mobile phone. It was a quarter to six in the afternoon. The Judge in the Cummerford trial had the habit of closing proceedings for the day at four-thirty. He opened his messages hoping to find something from Kate but was disappointed. He didn’t believe in “breaks”, probably due to the fact that he had never been on one. He assumed that there was a “break” protocol that he was completely unaware of. All his life he had believed in “putting the fish on the table” as one of the lecturers at Police College called it. If the “fish” wasn’t immediately exposed, it tended to rot. And that was his greatest fear with his relationship with Kate. If the issues between them were not addressed immediately, he had no doubt the “break” would take on a permanence he would like to avoid. He still loved her very much but something had inextricably changed. He didn’t know whether his efforts alone would be capable of redressing the situation. Kate had made it clear that she had no desire to discuss their particular “fish”. He picked up the box from the desk and turned it over in his hand. He slipped it into his pocket. He felt tired. It had been a busy day. He felt like a drink on the way back to his new digs. He opened his email: nothing from McDevitt. He picked up his mobile and scrolled the contacts. He stopped at McDevitt’s number and called it.