Death to Pay by Derek Fee Read Free Book Online

like-minded citizens would attempt to repeat the South African example of dragging the miscreants responsible for the ‘Troubles’ before a committee of their peers and have them recant their evil ways.  Wilson didn’t think she had a hope in hell of getting such a committee off the ground. Ulster was not South Africa.
    The group at the table were clearing up their papers. The two men packed their briefcases, briefly shook hands with Wilson and departed. Wilson noted that the woman, Ellie Smith, hung back slightly.
    ‘Ellie wanted specifically to meet you,’ Kate said as the two women approached him.
    Wilson looked at the woman at Kate’s side. She had dark hair cut in pageboy fashion and an angular face that obviously didn’t smile too much. No feature stood out. Her eyes were brown but not sparkling, her nose was neither big nor small, and her mouth was a thin line with virtually no lip showing. The one feature that struck Wilson was her physique. She was at least five feet nine and had shoulders to match. He guessed that she was somewhere in her late thirties.
    ‘Oh, and why is that,’ Wilson held out his hand.
    ‘Two reasons,’ Ellie Smith had a distinct South African accent. She took his hand and shook it vigorously.  ‘I was brought up in the Transvaal and you know how we are about rugby. I saw you play for Ireland when you toured SA. You were way ahead of your time.’
    Wilson had heard this so many times that he didn’t bother to blush. ‘And the second reason?’ he asked.
    ‘I’m a criminologist, and I hear that you’re the top gun in the local detective world.’
    Wilson glanced at Kate. ‘And who might have told you that?’
    ‘It’s the word around,’ Smith said smiling. ‘Don’t worry Kate is a paragon of discretion when it comes to you.
    ‘Ellie worked with the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and she’s also a bit of an athlete,’ Kate said. ‘She swam for South Africa internationally.’
    Ergo those shoulders, Wilson thought.
    ‘I saw you on the television this evening,’ Smith continued.  ‘You’re the SIO on the murder of that woman in the Shankill. The killing is still going on here?’
    ‘I don’t think that this one is sectarian,’ Wilson said simply. ‘It’s always a possibility. I’m sure scores are still being settled in South Africa. What about that Terreblanche fellow?’
    ‘Some resentments run deep,’ Smith said. ‘Our psyches are strange things. That’s what reconciliation is all about. Unless we can reconcile the hurt that’s been done to us the wound festers, and bad things can ensue. I’ve outstayed my welcome. You really were something on the field.’
    ‘I was my pleasure and a lot of fun,’ Wilson said.
    ‘I hope we meet again,’ Smith said. ‘We could have a good natter about rugby.
    ‘I am going to have to tie you up,’ Wilson said to Kate as soon as they were alone. ‘You’re supposed to be slowing down not taking things on, and this Truth and Reconciliation thing is going precisely nowhere. You’re twenty years too late. Most of the principles on the Ulster side are dead, and most of the principles on the mainland are tending roses in Sussex and have no interest in exposing their wrongdoing. Unlike the South Africans, the Irish don’t want to remember: They’re still busy trying to forget.’
    ‘That’s so bloody typical of you,’ Kate was more than usually brisk in stuffing papers into her briefcase. ‘Anything I believe in doesn’t count. You’re trying to control me. You’ve made me pregnant and now you want to decide what I should think. Soon you’ll want me to give up my stupid job so that I can stay at home and take care of your child.’
    ‘You’re a brilliant barrister with a fantastic future but this reconciliation idea is a caprice,’ he hoped this would sooth her. He wasn’t ready for a session with an angry Kate McCann. ‘Stick to what you do well. Our lives are about to change in a way