“Nice way of putting it.”
“It’s going to get worse before it gets better, don’t you think?”
I nodded. “Aye, I do.”
“Have you handled a murder before, Sean?”
“Three.”
“A triple murder or three separate murder investigations?”
“Three separate.”
“What, may I ask, were the results of those murder inquiries?”
I winced. “Well, I found out who did it on all three of them.”
“Prosecutions?”
“Zero. We had good eyewitness testimony on two but no one would testify.”
Brennan took a step backwards and regarded me for a second. He opened my raincoat. “Is that bloody Che Guevara?”
“It is, sir.”
“You’re a big pochle, aren’t ya? You turn up at a crime scene with no gun, wearing trainers and a Che Guevara T-shirt? I mean, what’s the world coming to?”
“A sticky end more than likely, sir.”
He grinned and then shook his head. “I don’t get you, Duffy. Why did a smart aleck like you join the peelers?”
“The snazzy uniforms? The thrilling prospect of being murdered on the way to work every morning?”
Brennan sighed. “Well, I suppose I should leave you to it.” He tapped his watch. “I might be able to get a wee Scotch and soda at the golf club.”
“Before you go, sir, I’ve one question. Who will I get to work this one with me?”
“You can have the entire resources of the CID.”
“What, all three of us?” I asked with a trace of sarcasm.
“All three of you,” he said stiffly, not liking my tone at all.
“Can I put in a secondment request for a couple of constables f-”
“No, you cannot! We’re tighter than a choir boy’s arse around here. You’ve got your team and that’s your lot. In case you hadn’t noticed, mate, civil war is a bloody heartbeat away,
“Thin blue line, sir?”
“The thin blue line! Exactly!”
He poked me in the middle of Che’s face. “And until the hunger strikes are over, matey-boy, you’ll get no help from Belfast either. But you can handle it, can’t you, Detective Sergeant Duffy?”
“Yes sir, I can handle it.”
“Aye, you better or I’ll bloody get somebody who can.”
He yawned, tired out by his own bluster. “Well, I’ll leave this in your capable hands, then. I have a feeling this one is not going to cover us in glory, but we have to file them all.”
“That we do, sir.”
“All right then.”
Brennan waved and walked back to his Ford Granada parked behind the police Land Rover. When the Granada had gone, I called Matty over.
“What do you make of it?” I asked him.
Matty McBride was a twenty-three-year-old second-gen cop from East Belfast. He was a funny-looking character with his curly brown hair, pencil thin body, flappy ears. He was little was Matty, maybe five five. Wee and cute. He was wearing latex gloves and his nose was red, giving him a slight evil-clown quality. He’d joined the peelers right out of high school and was obviously smart enough to have gotten himself into CID but still, I had grave doubts about his focus and attention to detail. He had a dreamy side. He wasn’t fussy or obsessed, which was a severe handicap in an FO. And when I had politely suggested that he look into the part-time degrees in Forensic Science at the Open University, Matty had scoffed at the very notion. He was young, though, perhaps he could be moulded yet.
“Informer? Loyalist feud? Something like that?” Matty suggested.
“Aye, my take too. Do you think they shot him here?”
“Looks like it.”
“March him out here and then chop his paw off with him screaming for all and sundry?”
Matty shrugged. “Ok, so they killed him somewhere else.”
“But if they did that, why do you think they carried the body all the way over here from the road?”
“I don’t know,” Matty said wearily.
“It was to display him, Matty. They wanted him found quickly.”
Matty grunted, unwilling to buy into the pedagogical nature of our relationship.
“Have you done the hair samples, prints?” I asked.
“Nah, I’ll do all that once I’m done with the photos.”
“Who’s our patho?”
“Dr Cathcart.”
“Is he good?”
“She. Cathcart’s a she.”
I raised my eyebrows. I hadn’t heard of a female patho before.
“She’s not bad,” Matty added.
We stood there looking into the burnt-out car listening to the rain pitter-patter on the rusted roof.
“I suppose I better get back to it,” Matty said.
“Aye,” I agreed.
“Is the cavalry coming down from Belfast at all?” Matty asked as he took more pictures.
I shook my head. “Nah, just you and me, mate. Cosier that way.”
“Jesus, I have to do this all by myself?” Matty protested.
“Get plod and sod over there to help you,” I said.
Matty seemed sceptical. “Them boys aren’t too brilliant at the best of times. Question for ya: skipper says to go easy on the old snaps. Do you need close-ups? If not I’ll skip them.”
“Go easy on the snaps? Why?”
“The expense, like, you know? Two pound for every roll we process. And it’s just a topped informer, isn’t it?”
I was annoyed by this. It was typical of the RUC to waste millions on pointless new equipment that would rot in warehouses but pinch pennies in a homicide investigation.
“Take as many rolls of film as you like. I’ll bloody pay for it. A man has been murdered here!” I said.
“All right, all right! No need to shout,” Matty protested.
“And get that evidence lifted before the rain washes it all away. Get those empty suits to help you.”
I buttoned my coat and turned up the collar. The rain was heavier now and it was getting cold.
“You could stay and help if you want, I’ll give you some latex gloves,” Matty said.
I tapped the side of my head.
“I’d love to help, mate, but I’m an ideas man, I’d be no use to you.”
Matty bit his tongue and said nothing.
“You’re in charge of the scene now, Constable McBride,” I said in a loud, official voice.
“Ok.”
“No shortcuts,” I added in a lower tone and turned and walked back to Taylor’s Avenue where the police Land Rover was parked with its back doors open. There was a driver inside: another reserve constable that I didn’t know, sitting on his fat arse reading a newspaper. I rapped the glass and the startled constable looked up. “Oi, you, Night of the Living Dead! Close them rear doors, and look alive, pal, you’re a sitting duck here for an ambush.”
“Yes, sergeant,” the unknown constable said.
An idea occurred to me. “Shine your headlights onto the field, will ya?”
He put the headlights on full beam giving Matty even more light. I looked for a blood trail from the road to the
