‘ I need your help,’ Henry begged him. ‘Two police officers have died within the last week, another has been shot, and another is having his balls squeezed — and the thread through them all is that squad. The more I find out about it, the less I like — and my testicles are starting to hurt quite badly.’
Willocks’ gaze drifted around the cards in the room, all sent in sympathy for his departed wife.
He laughed to himself and said, ‘Don’t suppose it matters now she’s gone.’ He turned to Henry.
‘ You’ve only scratched the surface,’ Willocks commented, when fifteen minutes later he had listened to Henry’s very edited version of events. ‘Come with me, Henry, let’s go to my thinking shed.’
He led the detective through the house and out into the garden at the rear. The rain had stopped and the cloud had thinned considerably. They walked down a path to the garage and entered it by means of a door at the back. Inside it was dark and Willocks pulled a light switch. A series of three spots came on, revealing a workshop with lots of pieces of furniture scattered about the place in different stages of renovation. A workbench was covered in tools of all descriptions. Fumes which Henry assumed were paint-remover or turps pervaded everything.
‘ Don’t light up, whatever you do,’ warned Willocks with a laugh. ‘Leave the door open, it’ll clear. This is where I spend my spare time. Buy crap, make it look good, sell at car boot sales. My hobby,’ he said proudly.
Henry, to whom anything in the sphere of DIY was an anathema, tried to look impressed. He sat on a newly renovated chair, while Willocks perched on a stool.
‘ The NWOCS is a police unit which is out of control,’ the former senior officer declared. ‘It’s like a private army and its little Adolf Hitler is Tony Morton. It was a badly conceived set-up in the first place, one of those knee-jerk reactions to a particular problem which existed at that time in the mid-1980s. You know the sort of thing — let’s set up a squad.’
Henry nodded. The police service’s answer to everything: set up a squad.
‘ It has no parameters, no terms of reference, no rules by which to work, and most importantly of all, no control. It stood alone, ostensibly an offshoot of the Regional Crime Squad, but in reality it declared UDI. There was no one to oversee it, probably because no one thought it belonged to them. It did what it wanted to do, and still does. It continues to have good results against organised crime, but in reality those results mask something that is very, very bad. This is because the man who championed its formation and the man who runs it are corrupt and in co-hoots with organised crime.’
Henry found himself becoming angry. ‘Well, why didn’t you do something about it? It was your job, wasn’t it?’
Willocks smiled at Henry. He understood the detective’s annoyance.
‘ I was asked to investigate when some doubt was cast about unsafe convictions. I looked at a handful of people the squad were responsible for convicting, and each claimed they had been framed. Some lied, of course, but some told tales which began to hold water. I delved. I was devious. I bugged places and people… and the more I did so, the more I uncovered — until I began to realise that here was a group of police officers who were controlled by, acted with and protected criminals — particularly Ronnie Conroy.’
‘ What, everyone on the squad?’
‘ No. Most of them are pure, honest, good cops. But there is a nucleus of officers who are corrupt. They all circulate around Tony Morton. Never more than ten officers, I suspect, but because they’re backed by Morton they carry the weight and control and monitor what the clean officers do.’
‘ So, again, why didn’t you do anything?’ Henry accused him.
‘ What did they do to you, Henry?’ Willocks asked, looking directly at him, evading the question.
‘ What d’you mean?’
‘ You said they had you by the balls. You weren’t very specific. What was it? Did they con you into taking a bribe? Set you up with a woman and film it, then threaten to tell your wife?’ Henry coloured up and the wily old man knew he had hit a nerve. ‘Does that begin to answer your question, Henry? I fell foul of them. I was naive enough to think I could pull a woman who was almost three times younger than I was. In fact, she was only fifteen. Looked nineteen. Acted thirty. And I did it, God, I did it… then I saw the still photos, then I saw the video footage, and then I saw the written statement complaining of rape and the doctor’s testimony to go with it… And then I saw Tony Morton’s face and thought about my wife. I caved in immediately.’
‘ They know how to intimidate, lie, cheat, cover their tracks. They are very dangerous, completely ruthless.’
‘ Do you think they’d murder?’
They were back in the living room, chatting over a cup of tea.
‘ Maybe, though I never uncovered it,’ said Willocks. ‘Wouldn’t surprise me to learn that they’d murdered people to silence them. Usually they’re a bit more subtle, like they were with you and me. Put people into impossible situations, or pay them off, or frighten or harass people, do whatever suits their circumstance — and don’t forget the double-edged sword. They’ve got cops and criminals doing the work for them. It’s bad enough being leaned on by a cop. Having a criminal do it as well…’
‘ So that’s what I’m up against.’
‘ No, it’s more than that. There’s the political angle too with McNamara. He’s very influential and can bring pressure to bear in other ways.’
Henry blew out his cheeks. ‘You’ve blitzed me.’
‘ I thought I might.’
‘ How do they operate?’
‘ They facilitate crime. They allow Conroy — who is probably one of the biggest and wealthiest criminals in the country — to operate unmolested. In return they get paid big money from his gun and drug dealing and all other sorts of criminal activities. And Conroy gives them a succession of sacrificial lambs — sometimes spectacular busts which boost the standing of the squad. Which is why it has been allowed to continue for all this time. It gets results but they are not as a consequence of police work, they’re as a result of corruption.’
‘ I’m going to get them,’ Henry said firmly. ‘I’m not going to allow them to beat me.’
Willocks looked sadly at Henry. ‘Don’t put yourself in peril, lad. These men will not give up and they can destroy you far easier than you them. You tell me two cops are dead, so if you make a mistake and they find out what you’re doing, you could be dead too. In the name of justice these people need to be stopped… but for God’s sake don’t do it at the expense of your life.’
Chapter Twenty-Five
The sky was very dark. Out across the Irish Sea, forks of jagged lightning scorched down into the water. Henry drove back slowly along the Promenade. Big spats of rain splodged onto the windscreen, slowly and almost thoughtfully at first, then grew heavier. Henry flicked on the wipers and headlights.
It was 2 p.m. He had eaten no lunch and his empty stomach gurgled noisily in accompaniment to the thunder which suddenly roared overhead.
He drew into the kerb opposite the Big One on the Pleasure Beach and sat there with the engine idling. The car which pulled in seventy metres behind him went unnoticed by Henry, for his thoughts, black as the sky, dominated his whole being. They were in a whirl of conflict and disbelief.
A police department out of control. Working alongside criminals and bent politicians for financial gain, apparently capable of killing people who got in their way. Or so it seemed.
Yet what about the trigger to this last week’s events, the murder of Geoff Driffield and others in the newsagents? What had Driffield done to incur their wrath? Had he uncovered something and had he told anyone else, or had they got to him before that and silenced him?
Henry realised he might never know.
The thunder overhead seemed to rock the small car. The rain was so dense, Henry could hardly see.