Despite the downpour the DUP were electioneering in Victoria Estate. Dr Ian Paisley himself riding atop a coal lorry. “Do not allow the British Government to bow their knee to terrorists! Vote DUP!” Paisley was bellowing in an Old Testament prophet voice. Behind Paisley was Councillor George Seawright, originally from Glasgow and now the most militant and crazy of the DUP’s rising stars. There were dozens of DUP security men walking alongside of the coal lorry. And behind them there was another coal lorry piled high with boxes of foodstuffs and milk that were being given out to anyone who wanted one. The boxes were stamped with the words “EEC Surplus Not For Resale”.
Bobby Cameron beckoned me over to the lorry. “You like bacon?” he asked.
“Who doesn’t?”
“Fucking Muslims and Jews. Here,” he said. He offered me a box of German bacon. I shook my head. “Take it,” he insisted.
“Ta,” I said and grabbed the box. “And Bobby, listen, times are tough so you might want to rethink the rates you’ve been charging for protection around here.”
“Have people been squealing to you?”
“Nobody’s been squealing but times are tough.”
I left him to it and headed for my house. I put the bacon in the fridge, grabbed a book at random, stuck
I thought about him. About what had just happened. There was no getting away from it. “What the hell have I done?” I said to myself. Was I a fairy? A homo? A queer? Well …?
Unlike those crazy Prods, I needed someone to talk to but there was no one. I lit and crumbled the rest of the cannabis into a tobacco-filled cigarette paper and got in the bath. I smoked the spliff, coasted on the paraffin fumes, and opened the book. It was a volume of German poetry. A birthday gift from an uncle that I’d never opened.
I read Goethe, Schiller, Novalis.
Inward goes the way full of mystery.
Indeed.
14: THE APARTMENT
And then … nothing. Twenty-four hours of nothing. Not so unusual in the life of a copper. Action stations, red zone, 100 mph and then zilch. Another reason why you need a good book.
Zilch in our case meant no leads, no further developments, no witnesses, no tips to the CID or the Confidential Telephone. The gay angle was probably hurting us. No one wanted to leave a tip about a homosexual murder. Not everybody in Ulster was George Seawright crazy but this was Northern Ireland in 1981 which was slightly less conservative than, say, Salem in 1692. If they knew anything about such things it probably meant that they were queer too.
Procedure keeps you going. I checked for bombs under my car and drove to work. We tabbed the files, filed the reps. I called up the DMV and found out that Shane drove a VW Beetle. I pestered Special Branch about Tommy Little until a chief super came on the blower to tell me that I was barking up the wrong tree, that the police’s intelligence was very good and that if Tommy Little was a player he was a minor actor in the play.
We interviewed Lucy Moore’s pals in person and got nothing from them. We examined the Boneybefore postcard and the only prints were mine and the letter carrier. We looked and looked again for any links between the victims but there were none that we could find. We checked for Tommy Little’s missing Ford Granada but came up empty. I examined the music scores and played the records. I looked at the “hit list” and asked Crabbie to see if there were any links between the people there. Again none beyond the obvious. The inferences we drew from our inquiries took us down several blind alleys just like in a real labyrinth.
On Tuesday afternoon we got a fax from the coroner’s office. Sir David Fitzhughes, the Coroner for East Antrim, had read Dr Cathcart’s pathology report and our notes and had issued a preliminary finding of death by suicide on Lucy Moore. The full inquest would be in November but this preliminary finding was enough to have Brennan breathing down my neck to bin the case.
On the one hand we didn’t know where Lucy had been staying since Christmas. On the other hand hiding a pregnant woman wasn’t a crime. Not even in Belfast. Brennan wanted my full attention on the murders. The patho said Lucy killed herself, the coroner said Lucy killed herself, the papers said Lucy killed herself.
I wasn’t that happy about it. I agreed to suspend the investigation but not close the case. I wrote “Possible suicide” on the file.
I completed my psych profile of the killer. It was standard stuff from the Wrigley-Carmichael index: A white male, 25–45, moderately high IQ, almost certainly an ex-prisoner, and almost certainly a sex offender of some type. We ran the names through the database. We got twenty-three matches but no one who was still around. Every single one of them was living in England, Scotland or further afield. As soon as they got out of prison sex offenders fled Northern Ireland because they knew that sooner or later they would be kneecapped or murdered by a paramilitary chieftain looking to make a name for himself.
In a normal society that’s where you’d look for your leads.
But this was not a normal society.
No leads. Brick walls. And then there was Shane. Shane boy was as bent as a five-bob note. Billy and Shane jungled up together? Or was Shane a heroic loner in a murderously intolerant world? If Shane and Tommy Little were having an affair, Shane might have killed him to cover it up. Anything could have happened: lovers’ quarrel, fear of exposure, you name it. Sure he talked the talk about incurring the wrath of God from the IRA but in the heat of a fight you don’t think of such things.
The problem with Shane was his alibi. After Tommy Little left he said that he played snooker with Billy and the other lads until midnight. They would cover for him as a matter of course.
I thought about the angles. Shane didn’t seem like the type who embraced opera and Greek culture, but you never knew, did ya? It would be nice to have a nosey around his place …
On Tuesday night Laura and I went to see
Laura asked me about Heather. I told her part of the truth. A reserve constable who was a little drunk and freaked out after a riot in Belfast had briefly come on to me. She was, I added, married.
“You’ve every right to see whoever you want, we’re not really going out,” she said.
“I’m not going to see anybody else,” I told her.
I walked her to her apartment door but she wouldn’t let me in for a coffee. I didn’t mind. She kissed me on the cheek and said something about the weekend.
I said something in reply.
I was distracted.
I was thinking about that other kiss.
Trying to get it the fuck out of my mind.
On the way home from the station I met Sammy, my Marxist barber, walking his bulldog. He told me that I looked depressed. I said that I was. He said that it wasn’t surprising because the collapse of capitalism was imminent. He said that this was a reason for celebration, not anxiety, and that I should start listening to Radio Albania on the shortwave.
I went home, made myself a vodka gimlet and found Radio Free Albania. Sammy was right — it did cheer me up. The Americans were denounced, the Russians were denounced, Mao was praised, Comrade Enver Hoxha’s achievements at chess, athletics, in research physics, agricultural innovation were all saluted …
Wednesday morning: I checked under the car for bombs, drove to the cop shop and sat staring at McCrabban’s ugly mug from 9 until 10.
“Crabbie, you want to go up to Belfast with me?”
“What for?”
