DCI Wilson: Nothing But Memories Part 23

"Maybe I'm not so sure that I want to continue to be a policeman."

"Then that would be a pity," the Chief Spook said. "Perhaps you should discuss this with your lady friend. As a QC she should be able to give you valuable advice."

So they knew about Kate and him. They would have a complete dossier on him. His affairs. His betrayal of his wife. It would all be used to discredit him if he went any further. Wilson could feel the anger boiling up inside him. They had him where they wanted him and he was beginning to realise it.

"I dare say that some snotty rag might run the risk of publis.h.i.+ng your sordid little story but we still control enough of the press to make sure that the great unwashed British public give as much credence to your utterances as they do to those of foreign politicians. Think about it for a second. You're a disaffected man, Chief Inspector. You haven't been promoted in the past ten years and you resent it. In a station of over one hundred people you don't have one person that you can call a friend. And then there is the question of your s.e.xual peccadilloes. That could see you out of the Force without a pension. You cheated on your wife even when she was dying horribly. What will Joe Public think of that?" The 'Home Office' man's tone never changed by as much as a decibel. There was neither anger nor jubilation in it. He removed a batch of photographs from a briefcase at his feet and tossed them on the table in front of Wilson.

The Detective Chief Inspector picked slowly through the ten or so black and white photos.

"You have some very peculiar drinking companions," the 'Home Office' man continued indicating some photos of Wilson, McElvaney and Cahill in the Republican Club." I wonder what could we make of that little gathering and your current dalliance of course." He indicated a photo of Wilson and Kate McCann making love which had undoubtedly been taken by a hidden camera in his house. "If you are unwise enough to pursue this matter, we'll break both you and your lady friend. I wonder will her obvious affection for you survive that."

Wilson fought to control his anger. He wanted to jump on the supercilious b.a.s.t.a.r.d and tear his living heart out. He took a deep breath and tossed the photographs of Kate and himself back on the pile. "You're nothing but sc.u.m. Do you know that. How the h.e.l.l do you people live with yourselves?" He turned and looked at Jennings and the Chief Constable. "And you'd let them get away with this s.h.i.+t?"

The look on both men's faces answered the question for him.

"I can understand your indignation," the Chief Spook said. "But it's over."

"I just go back to my little office and forget that all this happened."

"Just so. You're a good policeman. It would be a pity to lose such a good officer."

Wilson looked at the photos spread on the table and then at the DCC. Jennings' lips moved slightly.

"Don't say anything, Sir," Wilson said. "Or I'll smash your b.l.o.o.d.y head to pieces. I'll see you at the funeral along with all the other hypocrites." He turned and left the room.

CHAPTER 50.

They sat at a table in the corner of the lounge at the 'Crown'. Wilson was on his fifth whiskey and Kate held his hand while she stared into his eyes. The news from Kate's former boss at the Chambers in London hadn't been good but had confirmed what Wilson already knew. The 'powers that be' wanted the whole matter of the Belfast murders swept under the carpet. Kate's boss had been unequivocal, the matter should be dropped immediately.

"It can't end like this," Wilson said for what seemed like the fifth time.

"You've got to let it go, Ian," she said. "It's over. You can't bring back George and the man who killed him is dead."

"But there's someone behind this whole mess and that's the one I want," Wilson was beginning to slur.

"You can't go there. One thing I've learned in the course of my career is that justice is a somewhat elusive concept. Sometimes the guilty go free even after lengthy due process."

"But that doesn't make it right," Wilson lifted his hand to signal to the waiter but Kate caught it and returned it to the table between them. "That smarmy b.a.s.t.a.r.d Jennings and his spooky friends will have won."

Kate could see his eyes become gla.s.sy and his head began to droop. Life was cruel if someone with the integrity of Ian Wilson could be crushed at the whim of some faceless bureaucrat. But that was the way things were whether they liked it or not. The five people who had lost their lives for no good reason were only a drop in the ocean of deaths for no good cause. The men who wielded power at the centre would retire with their pensions and tend their rose gardens. Jennings would use his acquiescence to curry favour with those who could help him progress his career. His integrity level was zero but that was his trump card. Meanwhile their eyes and ears would be upon Ian and people like him. She glanced around the lounge. n.o.body appeared to be taking a blind bit of notice of her and Ian. But that could be very far from the truth.

She ran her hand along his face. She felt a patch of wet where a tear had slipped from his eye. "Time we were away," she said tossing back the remnants of her drink. "A taxi home this evening I think. We wouldn't want to give Mr. Jennings and his friends the chance to cas.h.i.+er you. You'll stay with me to-night."

"Kate you are much too good to me," Wilson stood up heavily. He lifted his gla.s.s. "May G.o.d in his mercy be kind to Belfast," he announced to the room.

EPILOGUE.

Sir Jeffrey Huntly OBE, MP sat between two plain clothes police officers in the back of a black BMW sedan as they pa.s.sed through the gates of New Scotland Yard. He was sweating profusely and had been since he had been approached by the two officers at his office at the Houses of Parliament. Huntly was frogmarched between the two officers to an unmarked office on the third floor of the building which housed the Metropolitan Police. One of the police officers knocked on the door, opened it and ushered Huntly inside before withdrawing.

Huntly, his heart pounding like a drum, looked around the room. Three men stared back at him. An older man sat at the only desk in the room while a second much younger man stood at the edge of the desk. The both had hard craggy faces and carried themselves like military officers. The third man sat at the back of the room away from the two others. He was the only one that Huntly recognised and he was surprised to see the Prime Minister's Principle Private Secretary looking at him.

"Sit down," the man behind the desk ordered.

"I am a Member of Parliament not a dog that you can order around," Huntly fought to get a grip on his racing mind. He didn't like this situation and he particularly didn't like the fact that these people felt they could p.i.s.s on him. He glanced at the Principle Private Secretary. "I shall complain to the PM about your insolence."

The man behind the desk smiled. "Please do so. The PM told me that if I wished to drop you off the top of this building I could do so. I suggest that you sit down and speak when you are spoken to."

Huntly was aware that neither of the two men facing him had introduced themselves and that fact bothered him greatly.

"You've been a rather naughty boy," the man behind the desk began when Huntly sat down. "We've been aware of your little scheme in Belfast for some time but we had difficulty tracking your man Case down. Oh, by the way, there was a shoot out in Belfast today and Case ended up being shot dead."

Huntly's face collapsed. His mouth was flapping open and shut but no sound was coming from it. He appeared to age by ten years in the past minute.

"I see the penny has dropped," the man at the desk said. "You now realise that you are here because you are responsible for launching a scheme which has led to the death of at least five people. If you were to go to court, you would spend the rest of your miserable life in jail." He stopped speaking and stared at Huntly. " We have had a certain amount of difficulty with your motivation but we think we've got there finally. You can interrupt me if I've got something wrong. We've interviewed some of your former colleagues who also enjoyed what was available in Dungrey and they have been delighted to put everything down on tape. It appears that the MP was considering you for the post of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland." Huntly was nodding his head. "As a back bencher you were pretty anonymous but as Secretary of State your face would be all over the newspapers and the television. Somebody might remember. So you decided to eradicate those you had already abused as children. A sort of double whammy for the poor unfortunates. You must have been out of your mind to send someone like Case to do your dirty work. The man was a psychopath. If it was up to me alone I would have you before the courts and you would never see the light of day again."

Huntly buried his head in his hands. "I couldn't risk accusations for something I did more than twenty years ago. I didn't want to end up like Savile and those aging TV people being paraded in front of the press and dragged before the courts. I can see now that I was unhinged but it looked like the only way out at the time."

"Case is dead and will never be seen again," the man behind the desk said. "Now all we have to do is deal with you." He turned and looked at the PM's Principle Private Secretary who rose and stepped forward. Without speaking he removed a sheet of A4 paper from his doc.u.ment case, placed in from of the man at the desk and retook his seat. "The PM's office has been kind enough to draft your resignation from Parliament," the man at the desk said. He tossed a pen on top of the sheet of paper. "Sign it."

"And if I don't," Huntly said.

"You really don't want to go there."

Huntly picked up the pen and started to read the letter.

"I didn't say read it, I said sign it."

There was so much menace in the tone that Huntly immediately complied and tossed both the resignation letter and the pen back on the desk.

The young man standing at the edge of the desk picked up the resignation letter and handed it to the PM's Principle Private Secretary who placed it in his doc.u.ment case. Then he stood up and left the room without speaking.

"Good," the man behind the desk said. "I a.s.sume that you have some patch of land somewhere out of the way in Cornwall or Skye or some other G.o.dforsaken place that you can disappear to. We should be very mad indeed were we ever to hear from you again. The two gentlemen who accompanied you here are waiting outside. They will escort you from the building where you will obtain a taxi. Your office at the House has already been cleared and the boxes sent to your residence. And I think that concludes out business." He nodded at the young man who moved behind Huntly and raised him from the chair.

Huntly's body had taken on a whole new shape since he had entered the room. The confidence and the stature were gone and replaced with a bent back and a hangdog demeanour. The man had been broken in fifteen minutes. Huntly shuffled to the door and the young man ushered him out.

The man behind the desk opened a drawer and removed a bottle of Laphroaigh and two gla.s.ses. He poured a generous measure into each gla.s.s. "Your people did well, Peter," he said.

The younger man took the gla.s.s, toasted and took a large swallow. "We used a lot of resources on that idiot. I would have preferred to have followed the PM's advice and drop him off the roof."

"The PM never said that," the older man said. "I was interpreting." He smiled. "As a professional I think that copper in Belfast did a pretty reasonable job. Pity we're going to have to keep an eye on him."

"And Huntly?" the younger man asked.

"Now it's your turn to interpret, Peter," the older man said draining his gla.s.s.

end.