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the way they want it to be. But there are probably more hidden agendas when it comes to the political affairs of Northern Ireland than there are hidden snakes in a South American rainforest and we’ll only get to know about them when we tread on them’.
    ‘Is that what you think might be happening here, sir?’
    ‘Ollie, we’ve had two murders in the last three days. One victim was a former IRA gunman who murdered a serving police officer and the other was someone whose family suffered at the hands of the IRA when they abducted his mother. I’d bet my life that there’s something going on here that we’ve yet to find’.
    ‘You’re convinced the two cases are linked then, sir?’
    ‘Yes, I am’ Jeff replied. ‘I just don’t know how yet’.
    ‘Well coming back to O’Connell and Carson … O’Connell made a full confession which formed the basis of the prosecution case but the shadow that’s always hung over it all is that the body of James Carson has never been found’.
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Padraig O’Connell had always refused to say what he did with it’.  
     
    When they got to the address they had for the late Barry Murphy neither Jeff nor Ollie could resist being impressed by the appearance of such a grand property sitting behind wrought iron gates on a private road that nobody would just ‘pass by’.
    ‘It looks like BM Cars served its owner well, sir’ said DI Ollie Wright. ‘The company had a turnover that ran into millions after Barry Murphy had built it up over the last twenty years’.
    ‘You say that the rest of his family weren’t involved in the business?’
    ‘No they weren’t, sir’ Ollie confirmed. ‘There seems to have been some kind of rift between Barry and the rest of his family. None of them were employed in the company in any way and the only investment had come from Barry Murphy. He was the sole shareholder’.
    ‘So where did he get his initial investment from?’
    ‘That’s not clear at the moment, sir’.
    ‘But if I know you it will be before long’.
    Ollie smiled. ‘Thank you, sir’.
    The door was opened by a young woman in a white shirt that she was wearing outside her short black skirt. She introduced herself as Tabatha Murphy’s sister Jade Matheson and she  led them through into a large round hallway with a high ceiling and doors going off to the left and right. Straight ahead of them was what looked like the lounge area and just to the left of that was a circular staircase going up to the first floor landing which was visible above them as it went all the way round. It wasn’t the biggest of such houses that Jeff had ever seen but it was certainly one of the most ostentatious. Everything about the decoration and the furniture shouted loudly that the people who lived here had pots of money but not necessarily much taste. He and his late wife Lillie Mae had often said that even if they won the lottery and had millions at their disposal they wouldn’t use some of it to fund a move out to a house like this in an area like this. They wouldn’t have felt right although since she’d passed away he’d had more time to reflect on what their future might’ve looked like. And they would’ve been happy anywhere as long as they were together with their son Toby.   
    ‘Very real wives of Cheshire’ Ollie whispered to Jeff.
    ‘You’re not kidding’ Jeff whispered back, looking round.
    Jade Matheson had bottle blond hair and false nails that she’d left unpainted. She had short black leather stiletto boots and spoke with an accent that suggested to Jeff that she was a Northerner who didn’t want to sound like one. He hated that. She explained that her sister Tabatha was busy in a meeting with her solicitor and wouldn’t be long. When Jeff asked Jade what the meeting was about she said that her sister was securing her financial position following her husband’s death.
    ‘Really?’ Jeff questioned. ‘With all due respect, her husband is barely cold.