“Ivy McAleese,” she said.
“Well Mrs McAleese, Constable Lawson here will take your statement,” I said. Lawson flipped open his notebook and began writing down the woman’s litany of complaints. I listened with interest: kids, drugs, loud music. The old bird didn’t know how lucky she had it. She and all the good people of Belfast and the north Belfast suburbs: lucky. These were the good days. Couldn’t they see the future? Entropy maximising. Neighbour against neighbour. Blood feud. The disintegration of this lost lonely province into warring camps. The falcon cannot hear the falconer … And good luck getting the cops then, love. Call 999 and it’ll just ring and ring and ring.
But we’re not quite down that shit hole yet, are we?
When the old lady had given Lawson a pageful I thanked her for her cooperation and ducked under the police tape with my young colleague and lifted the sheet from the body.
The crossbow bolt had hit the victim close to his left shoulder. There was very little bleeding on the denim jacket around the wound but there was a lot of dried blood on either side of his stomach … ergo he’d been shot in the chest first and he’d managed to make a run for it. Run almost up to his front door before they’d shot him again in the back.
“What do you know about what happened, Lawson?”
“Until forensic conclude their inquiries we don’t really know anything, sir.”
“Who found the body?”
“Mrs Deauville, this morning.”
“Where was she last night?”
“In the house, I believe, husband never came home so she went to bed.”
I touched the victim’s hand. Ice cold. Rigor. Dead about nine or ten hours.
“So he’s been here all night too?”
“So I gather, sir, although forensic will confirm that.”
“Sergeant McCrabban said on the phone that he was a known drug dealer.”
“We ran the victim’s ID through the computer and half a dozen arrests came for drugs and drug possession in Bangor and before that London. He’s from here originally but he’s lived mostly in London, if his charge sheet is to be believed.”
“That’s why I’d never heard of him. When did he move to Carrick?”
“According to the local residents about four weeks ago.”
“Ah so he was the new drug dealer on the block.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What type of drugs?”
“Sergeant McCrabban had Sergeant Mulvenny go through the house with his canine team.”
“Sniffer dogs. Good thinking, that. What did they come up with?”
“Nothing, although Sergeant Mulvenny says Felix got excited.”
“Who’s Felix?”
“He’s the heroin dog.”
“Did you find any heroin?”
“No, but Sergeant Mulvenny thinks there may have been some in a couple of empty paint tins at the back of the house.”
“So he’s moved the drugs off site.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ll have to look into that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, now. Our victim. What do you see in front of you? We don’t always have to let forensic tell us everything. We can make a few deductions on our own, can’t we?”
“Yes, sir. Uhm, well, the victim’s boots are clearly very expensive so he must have been making a lot of money.”
I clocked the boots and yes they did look expensive. Snakeskin cowboy boots with flat soles. Slippery flat stoles that must have been a bugger to run in. If he’d been wearing sneakers the poor bastard might have lived.
“What else do you see, Lawson?” I asked, looking into his eager blue eyes. He was still a junior detective but Lawson wasn’t like the usual time wasters they gave you to fill out your CID team. Lawson was smart and he had peeler wisdom beyond his years. Sooner or later some git from Belfast would spot his talent and promote him to detective sergeant and poach him away to the fraud squad or Special Branch. Five years from now – if I was still alive – I’d probably be working for him.
“Not much bleeding from the crossbow bolt, is there?” he said.
“No. There isn’t. So what does that tell you?”
“It wasn’t the primary wound?”
“Exactly.”
“Oh I see, sir. There’s blood under the body. So he was shot in the front first, he turned, ran, and then they shot him again in the back?”
“That would certainly be my take. He must be lying on the first bolt, which is in his stomach or chest. You can’t really hide a crossbow behind your back as you’re walking towards someone, so I’d guess that the assailant was in a vehicle. And unless it was a drive-by (and I’ve never heard of a crossbow drive-by) Mr Deauville was probably approaching the vehicle, offering to sell them drugs.”
Lawson nodded in agreement.
“What else do you see? Tell me about the leather jacket. Where would you get a fancy jacket like that, Lawson?” I asked, feeling the jacket’s soft leather sleeve.
Lawson also felt the sleeve. “From Slater and Sons in Glasgow, sir. Three hundred and fifty quid. He liked the style so much he brought two of them. Got a fifty quid discount.”