Dick Francis's Refusal by Felix Francis

Northern Ireland in general and Billy McCusker in particular.
    I was surprised to find that far more British soldiers were killed in Northern Ireland during the Troubles than have died in both Iraq and Afghanistan put together. More than seven hundred British servicemen lost their lives as a result of Irish terrorist action between 1969 and 2001, but none of those deaths could be laid at the door of Billy McCusker.
    According to Paddy, Billy had left the security forces well alone and had concentrated on killing members of the minority Catholic community.
    Even though there was a mass of information on the Troubles, there were only two short references I could find to any Billy McCusker. The first was a brief account in official court papers of the outcome of a trial for murder at Belfast Crown Court, where McCusker had been convicted of killing one Darren Paisley by nailing him to a wooden floor in a disused factory and leaving him there to die of thirst. According to the report, McCusker claimed to have informed Paisley’s father where to find his son, but Paisley Senior denied ever having received such a message.
    There was a small picture accompanying the report, a police mug shot of McCusker taken soon after he’d been arrested. I studied the image intently. It was nearly twenty years since it was taken, but the features were very distinctive—high cheekbones and a low, protruding brow that gave his eyes a deep, sunken appearance.
    The second mention was in a list of prisoners released from the Maze prison under the terms of the Good Friday Peace Agreement. Billy McCusker had walked free after serving just two and a half years of a life sentence by somehow convincing the government of the day that his murder of a fellow Protestant was a sectarian offense.
    Other than that, there was nothing else. I searched through the online archives for Northern Irish newspapers from the
Belfast Telegraph
to the
Carrickfergus Advertiser
, but there was not a single mention of anyone called Billy McCusker. He had obviously been very proficient at keeping his name out of the media.
    Honest Joe Bullen appeared several times in the Manchester and Liverpool dailies, especially in reports of betting-shop takeovers, but there were no references to Billy McCusker as being the owner of the company.
    Could Paddy O’Fitch have been wrong?
    I doubted it. Paddy was a walking encyclopedia when it came to racing matters, and his fear of McCusker had been genuine and unquestionable.
    The phone on my desk started to ring.
    I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to midnight—just as before.
    â€œWhat do you want?” I said, answering.
    â€œAh, Mr. Halley,” said the now familiar voice. “How good of you to answer your phone. Did you have a good day at Newbury races?”
    â€œThat’s none of your business,” I said.
    â€œOh, I think it is,” he said in his condescendingly humorous tone. “Everything about you is now my business.”
    â€œAnd how about the other way round?” I said. “Are
you
also my business?”
    There was a slight pause. “Mr. Halley,” he said, all humor having disappeared, “you will find out that I will very much be your business if you don’t do as I tell you.”
    â€œWhy would I do what a kidnapper and a murderer says?”
    â€œWho says I’m a murderer?”
    â€œI’m sure Darren Paisley’s father would, for one.”
    There was a much longer pause from the other end of the line. I wondered if it had been wise to declare my hand so early. Once upon a time, I’d managed to defeat another particularly nasty villain only because he had underestimated me as a foe. There would be no chance of that now.
    â€œI will send you a report. Sign it.”
    â€œI will not,” I said. “I only sign reports I write myself.”
    â€œMake it easy on yourself. Sign the report now and save yourself a lot of grief.