‘You are joking, I hope,’ said Shepherd, as he scrutinised the photograph. It was a head-and-shoulders shot, ten inches by eight, of a woman in her mid-thirties with shoulder-length wavy red hair and freckles across her nose. She was laughing and there was a sparkle in her green eyes. ‘Elaine Carter,’ said Button.
‘Pretty,’ said Shepherd.
‘Possible serial killer,’ said Button.
‘Ah,’said Shepherd. ‘I thought serial killers were all middle-aged white males.’
‘That’s if you believe in profiling,’ said Button. ‘Elaine here is a special case.’ She passed over another photograph, of a man lying face down on a terracotta tiled floor, a pool of blood around his head. ‘Her husband was Robbie Carter, an RUC Special Branch officer. An inspector.’
Shepherd looked at the photograph. The hair at the back of the man’s head was matted with blood. ‘She killed her husband?’ he asked.
‘Spider, your psychic skills leave a lot to be desired. We’ll get on a lot quicker if you let me tell you what we know and you make the occasional grunt.’
Shepherd looked more closely at the photograph of the dead man. There were smaller pools of blood around his knees.
‘Robbie Carter was shot by an IRA execution squad in nineteen ninety-six,’ continued Button. ‘They gunned him down in front of his wife and young son.’ She slid five photographs out of the file and spread them in front of Shepherd, like a poker player displaying a winning hand. She tapped the photograph on the far left. ‘Adrian Dunne. He was caught fleeing a punishment shooting a year after Carter was killed. He’d used the same gun as he had for the Carter killing and was sent down for life. Released under the Good Friday Agreement.’ She took another photograph and placed it on top of the first. It was a crime-scene shot. The body in it was naked and lying face down. There were gunshot wounds to the man’s head and knees. ‘Dunne was killed two weeks ago.’
She ran a red-painted fingernail down the photograph next to the one of Dunne. This man was the oldest of the five, with thinning grey hair and the ruddy cheeks of someone who had spent a lot of time outdoors. ‘Joseph McFee. Left the Provos once the Peace Process got rolling and is thought to have joined the Real IRA. He didn’t actually shoot Carter, and no evidence was presented that suggested he was carrying a gun, but he got life as well, plus additional life sentences for killing two British soldiers and three other policemen. He was released two months after Dunne.’
‘Is it just me or is the world going crazy?’ asked Shepherd. ‘He murders two soldiers and four coppers and we let him out?’
‘It was part of the Peace Process,’ said Button. ‘That was the deal.’
‘Then the deal sucks, as my son would say. What we’re saying is that if you murder a drug-dealer you’ll spend twenty years plus behind bars. Kill a copper or a soldier and they’ll let you out early.’
‘You won’t hear any arguments from me on that score,’ said Button. She took a photograph from the file and laid it over the head-and-shoulders picture of McFee. It was from a crime scene, an almost exact match of the first. ‘McFee was shot last week.’
She paused to make sure she had his undivided attention. ‘Both men, McFee and Dunne, were shot with the same gun. Robbie Carter’s service revolver.’
Shepherd quirked an eyebrow. ‘Open and shut, then?’
‘If it was, they wouldn’t have called us in,’ said Button. ‘Carter’s gun was never found. His wife said she had no idea where it was and there was a suggestion that the killers took it with them.’
‘Is that possible?’
Button shrugged. ‘Elaine Carter didn’t mention the gun being taken at the time but she was pretty forthcoming with other details. In fact, it was her recollections that helped put the execution squad behind bars. So we’re assuming that the gun wasn’t taken at the time. The rifling on the bullets used in both killings is an exact match to those on record for Carter’s gun. A Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum.’
‘Nice gun,’said Shepherd. ‘Not regular police issue,though. Back in the nineties the RUC were using the nine-millimetre Smith amp; Wesson 5904.’
‘Back then Special Branch were allowed a degree of flexibility in their choice of handgun,’ said Button. ‘The Magnum would be a man-stopper, I gather.’
‘It would do a lot of damage, that’s for sure,’ said Shepherd.
‘All guns issued to officers are test-fired at the PSNI’s Weapons and Explosives Research Centre and they keep a ballistic report on file along with a sample casing and an expended round,’ said Button. ‘WERC gave our technical people their samples and the report and, as I said, the bullets are a match. So, now we’ve got two of Carter’s killers dead, and three still alive. For the time being, at least.’ She pointed at the photograph in the middle. ‘This is Gerry Lynn. A hard man, is Mr Lynn. He’s the one who shot Carter in the legs. They went in to kill Carter, so the shots to the knee seem to have been nothing more than badness on Lynn’s part. Ballistics showed that his wasn’t a killing shot. He was released after serving three years, again under the Good Friday Agreement.’ Shepherd looked expectantly at the file, but Button shook her head. ‘Mr Lynn is very much alive, but is obviously a little jittery.’
‘Under police protection?’
Button chuckled. ‘Far too macho to let the police take care of him,’ she said. ‘The IRA have him under wraps. He’s been their golden boy since the Northern Bank robbery in December two thousand and four.’
It had been Ireland’s biggest ever raid. A group of men had kidnapped bank employees and got away with twenty-six million pounds, which, by all accounts, had swelled the coffers of the IRA. ‘Lynn was involved in that?’
‘That’s the intel the RUC had, but it was never proved.’
‘They never found the bulk of the money, either,’ said Shepherd.
‘It’s been laundered by now,’ said Button. ‘And if Lynn kept any, it’s well hidden.’ She tapped the photograph second from the right. ‘The driver, Willie McEvoy, was the first to be caught and was sentenced to life. Released six years ago under the Good Friday Agreement. Now he’s a drug-dealer in East Belfast. Heroin, cocaine, cannabis, you name it, Mr McEvoy can supply it. He’s been refusing police protection, no doubt because he’s afraid it’ll cramp his style.’
Shepherd picked up the fifth photograph. ‘This one I know, of course,’ he said.
‘Ah, yes, he’s quite the celebrity,’ said Button. ‘Noel Kinsella. He fired one shot in the Carter house, which missed. Bullet ricocheted off the floor and smacked into a kitchen cabinet. Once Lynn and Dunne were taken into custody, Kinsella did a runner. He was located in the States and the authorities started extradition proceedings but even after Nine Eleven the Americans were loath to do anything to offend the Irish-American lobby so they entered a legal limbo. Then Kinsella had a change of heart, stopped opposing extradition and agreed to fly to the UK.’
‘Because he knew that under the Good Friday Agreement he wouldn’t do any time?’
‘Exactly,’ said Button. ‘He pleaded guilty, showed no remorse, was sentenced to life by a very angry judge, and was out on the streets by teatime. The thing that set alarm bells ringing was that the killing started after he agreed to come back and face the music.’
‘The last straw, is that what you mean?’
‘At least the others served some time, even if only a few years. But it was all over the papers that Kinsella was coming back into the welcoming arms of Sinn Fein and that he wouldn’t be doing any time. There’s even talk of a role for him in the Northern Ireland Assembly.’
‘Is that possible?’ asked Shepherd.
‘The way things are going, you can’t rule it out,’ said Button. ‘It’s Alice in Wonderland territory.’
‘Two murders don’t necessarily mean there’ll be more,’ said Shepherd.
‘Two murders with Robbie Carter’s gun can’t be coincidence.’
‘If it’s the widow, good luck to her,’ said Shepherd.
‘That’s a gut reaction,’ said Button.