Cause of Death by Andrew Nott

Author:Andrew Nott [Garrett, Geoffrey and Nott, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472108043
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

10

The Irish Connection

Many people have lived to regret going to the newspapers with their stories. Christopher Downey lived twenty-nine days.

The Irishman contacted the News of the World and offered to tell how he had been kidnapped and tortured by the IRA. Within a month a masked gunman appeared at his door and fired eight shots from a Browning .22 target pistol.

Downey was forty-one years old, a ladies’ man, a suspected terrorist – and my first gunshot-murder victim.

I was, to say the least, apprehensive about dealing with a shooting. In the autumn of 1973 guns were still a rarity on British streets. I didn’t really know what to expect or how to act, although, on arrival at the murder scene, I felt I should be doing something to instil confidence in those around me.

The police were in a similar situation since few of them had ever been involved in the investigation of a gun murder.

Fortunately, help was close at hand in the shape of Jim Biggs, a bluff, likeable and, most importantly, highly experienced forensic scientist who had also been called out on the job.

It was clear to me that he had taken charge of the situation because the senior officers were staying well back while he went through his obviously well-practised routine.

It was 1.30 a.m. and Ackroyd Street, Openshaw, Manchester, had been sealed off. The police had got lights to illuminate the body, which was lying face down. I could see that the shirt and vest were bloodstained and there was more blood on the ground beneath the dead man.

Jim was prowling around the grim scene like a tiger, moving from one vantage point to another. Starting from the head, he moved in an anticlockwise direction around to the side and then to the feet and around once more to the head, completing 360 degrees, taking it all in. He’d stop, notice something, appraise the situation, give it time to make sense in his own very logical fashion, log it in his mind for notation, then start again, his face a picture of concentration, brow furrowed, eyes narrowed. Focused. Everyone left the expert alone to do his work. Interruption was unthinkable.

When the spell was finally broken and he looked up and saw me he smiled an acknowledgement. I stepped the few paces forward to join him, awaiting instructions.

After a brief silence, I assumed in respect for the dead man, he took a breath while still looking down at the corpse and whispered conspiratorially out of the side of his mouth so no one else could hear, ‘What do we do now, Geoff? This is my first shooting.’

Christopher Downey had abandoned his home in the New Lodge area of Belfast after falling foul of both sides of the Ulster conflict. He was arrested by the Army after suspicions arose that he was a member of C Company of the Provisional IRA’s Third Belfast Brigade. After twenty-four hours’ questioning at Girwood barracks he was released without charge.

Later Downey was picked up by IRA men and beaten in a punishment ritual.

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