Field of Blood (14 page)

when the victory wasn't closer times five. After five years times five his mother

and her mother would be dead, and Roisin would be age lined and ‐ shit ‐ Young

Gerard might be in another cell in the block.

Day after day in the caravan near Vicarstown he had sworn to himself that he would never go back, never reinvolve himself in the Organization ... because he

would disintegrate under the weight of another five years times five.

He had told the bird about the Kesh. When the bird had the freedom to fly, and

when it perched in the branches over the caravan door for the bacon rinds, he had told it about the compounds and walls and cell blocks and keys and bars and

watch towers of the Kesh. The bird knew what the hell it was about. The bird could fly from the trees by the caravan and soar in the winter winds high above

the canal. He had once gone into the library in Monasterevan and he had found a

book on Falconry on the shelves ‐ first time in God knew how long that he had taken a book from a shelf ‐ and he had read about the equipment used by people

who kept tamed birds of prey. He reckoned it was all shit. He reckoned the hoods

and jesses and the leash and the bells were the same words as compound, wall,

cell block, key, bar. To trap that bird and tame it would be to sentence his kestrel to the Kesh. In his mind he could see the bird, and he wondered if the farmer, his

mother's

72

73

71

**cousin, had come to the caravan to feed it. He wondered if the bird waited for

him, or if the bird had flown.

The cells were sound proofed. He was alone and stifled in his own silence.

They wouldn't hurt him, not like they had the last time. Who needed to be slapped and kicked and punched when they had six more days of him in

Castlereagh, and a year on remand, and twenty‐five more years in H Block 7?

Jesus Christ ... and he had sworn an oath, an oath of loyalty on the landing above

the stairs of his Da's house, and never had a doubt that he could handle the bloody oath.

The cell door opened. McAnally hadn't heard the footsteps approach down the outer corridor.

The policeman looked at the prisoner curiously, like he was a bloody freak.

`You alright, McAnally?'

Why shouldn't he be alright? Only got six more days and then a year on remand

and then twenty‐five years in H Block 7.

McAnally nodded his head. So bloody tired, and a pain behind his eyes, and the

figure of the policeman in the doorway was blurred. The policeman spoke with an

English accent, one of the bastards who had come across the water to do a dirty

job. They were always the worst, the English ones. They had a bolt to run to, back

home.

`Bring your tray here, McAnally.'

Without thinking he picked the tray off the cell floor and carried it to the policeman. There was a trolley in the corridor, and another policeman who eyed

him with distrust and dislike.

`What time have you, sir?' McAnally asked.

`What time? Breakfast time, of course.' And the policeman was laughing with his

mate as he closed the door, locked it.

He hated them, because they were the enemy. And when he had the R. P. G. in

his hands, then the bastards wouldn't be laughing at him. He tried to remember

the feel of the R.P.G. So bloody long ago ... Two days ago.

`What happened last night?'

Armstrong passed the marmalade to Ferris. He had been on Ops Room duty

when Ferris had returned from Castlereagh. `Not a lot.'

72

Wilkins slid the butter dish across the table. `You slunk in last night like the world was on your shoulders.' From the Chaplain's room, enjoying a coffee, he had seen

Ferris returning to their room;

Armstrong persisted. `Something must have happened for them to want you

down at Castlereagh.'

Ì was put in with McAnally.'

`What on earth for?'

`To turn him,' Ferris snapped. `What else could it be for?

'Shirt on, old chap, just asking.' Ànd now you know.'

Wilkins said, `Hope of a supergrass, eh? That's big time for a platoon

commander.'

Armstrong said, Ì suppose he's all wet round the privates now he's

in the cage.'

Ì'm trying to eat my bloody breakfast.'

,is this going to happen often?' Armstrong was filling his coffee cup. `What's it to you?'

Ìf you're going to be swarming off to Castlereagh then George and

I are the buggers who're going to be covering your rosters, that's what

it's to do with us.'

`My advice, David,' Wilkins said deliberately, `don't get involved.' Ferris clattered his chair back. A triangle of toast was buttered on

his plate, untouched. He stormed to his feet.

Ì didn't bloody ask to be involved. I was told it didn't matter a toss

what I wanted.'

'Supergrass is police work.'

`Pity nobody said that last night, when I was hijacked.'

`Not a chance, not if he's like he was when I had him yesterday.' The detective,

McDonough, had done five years in Criminal Investigation, was reckoned a good

interrogator.

`You weren't there for the last session, I was,' Rennie said harshly. Ànd he had

his soldier friend for Horlicks before we tucked him up ... There's a good chance.'

`He's going down for triple murder. What's on offer for him?' Astley was younger

than McDonough, more obviously keen.

`Nothing specific's on offer, but McAnally's a shaky boy right now, and needs to

be kept shaking.' Rennie closed the file.

73

`You're on hand this morning, Mr Rennie?' McDonough asked.

Rennie hesitated. `Not this morning, got some business. After lunch I'm here.'

`Nothing on offer then?' Astley was polishing his spectacles. More of a

schoolmaster than an interrogator.

`For a few names, for jumping up in the witness box, there might just be no recommended minimum,' Rennie said.

Òut in seven years, fifty bloody per cent remission.' McDonough's lips twitched

in disgust.

`Like I said, for a few names.'

74

75

**The Secretary of State stood bareheaded in the light rain. This once he had contradicted the Detective Inspector who was responsible for his personal safety.

The Detective Inspector would have had him stay in the church after the service,

and avoid the graveside because there was a crowd gathered at the church gate,

and they had jeered the Secretary of State on his way in, and when the body was

down and covered their inhibitions would be slight. He had insisted that he should go to the graveside whether or not the threat existed of kicks and fists and

stones.

William 'Tenner' Simpson was being buried in a village churchyard north of Ardmillan, within sight of the dark islands littering the inshore waters of Strangford Lough. It was Protestant country. It was the country of people loyal to

the Crown.

`Yet, 0 Lord God most holy, 0 Lord most mighty, 0 holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.'

Not a wet eye in sight, the Secretary of State thought. These were not whining

folk. They stood straight‐backed, straight‐faced. They ignored the Secretary of State as an unwelcome interloper. He would not be ignored at the church gate.

When he left the consecrated ground the crowd would angrily show their gut feelings for the security policy over which he presided.

'Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body

to the ground.'

The Prime Minister had been on the telephone before he left Stormont. Prime Minister's Questions in the House that afternoon, and a question down calling yet

again for the Secretary of State's resignation and demanding to know what action was being taken against the Republican gangs who could assassinate a 74

judge in broad daylight . . . He would dearly like to have told the Prime Minister

that a Sean Pius McAnally was to be charged with Billy Simpson's killing. He had

only replied that a man was helping police with their inquiries, and heard the whistle of impatience on the scrambled line.

Èarth to earth; ashes to ashes; dust to dust.'

The soil scratched the coffin wood.

The Secretary of State felt the light tap on his shoulder, and turned to his civil servant.

`Bit soon, Fred,' the Secretary of State mouthed.

`No one here will miss shaking your hand,' the civil servant said. `You've been photographed here, that's good enough.'

He flushed. He walked away from the mourners. The civil servant was at his side.

There were eight detectives in a wall around him. They went out through the gardener's gate of the churchyard to where his car and the back‐up were parked

alongside the grass cuttings and the compost heap. Uniformed policemen were

holding back a knot of sullen‐faced men and women. The widow was still at the

graveside. He

might get away without an incident. The detectives were hurrying him, almost forcing him to run. The crowd loathed him because they held the man from Westminster responsible for the atrocities of the Provisionals . . . The back door

of the car was open for him. The civil servant nudged him forward, pitched him

down into his seat. The cars surged forward. For a moment a woman's face was

pressed against the armour‐plated window by the Secretary of State's head. He

heard her howling at him, couldn't understand what she told him. A constable heaved her back, and the car and the back‐up were away.

`What did she say, Fred?

'She said, "You'll be making him a supergrass, the rat that killed our Billy, and giving him immunity", that's toned down a bit.'

`The man who killed a judge get immunity for grassing? Over my dead body.'

McDonough smoked a pipe. Astley lit a cigarette. McDonough was pacing. Astley

lounged against the wall.

McAnally sat at the table.

`So you haven't an offer to make to me?'

Astley shook his head.

McDonough said, `What's on offer, Gingy, is three life sentences ...'

75

`What about a bloody offer?

'With a recommendation of a minimum number of years to be served.'

`We reckon the judge'll recommend twenty‐five, Gingy,' Astley said. `He's hardly

going to go easy when it was one of his own.'

The breath sighed in McAnally's mouth. Sometimes he could see Astley's watch.

He had been in for an hour. There had been long, aching silences. They didn't seem to be interested in talking to him, they seemed prepared to let him sit at the table and brood on twenty‐five years.

`You've got a problem, Gingy,' McDonough said earnestly.

`Twenty‐five fucking problems.'

`That's quite witty, Gingy.' Astley chuckled.

McAnally scratched his forehead. He thought of his oath. He thought of Roisin and Young Gerard and Little Patty and Baby Sean. He thought of the men who

had been on the hit with him, and the men who had brought him up to Belfast

from the caravan. He thought of a life sentence in H Block 7. He had no stone in

his shoe, no splinter of glass to press against his toe. They always called him

`Gingy'. Whether they shouted at him, whether they whispered at him, he was always `Gingy'. His friends called him `Gingy', his friends on the R.P.G. team, and

the men he had known in the Kesh who were still in the cells there, behind the

wire there. Who were these bastards to call him `Gingy'?

76

77

**The quiet was broken by Astley's hacking cough, a smoker's cough. Then, after

he had cleared his throat and snorted into his handkerchief, the quiet was back

again and simmering through the room.

`What's the best that could happen?' He heard his own voice booming back from

the walls.

`That "Tenner" and his two 'tecs could walk through the old door,

that's about the best that could happen ... but they won't come through

the door.' McDonough was beating his pipe bowl into the tinfoil ashtray

on the table. `So I don't know what's the best that could happen.' `Don't piss on

me.' McAnally's eyes raced between the two men who

watched him without passion. `What are you offering me?

'We're not in the offering business, Gingy,' Astley said.

`We don't have to offer you anything, Gingy,' McDonough said. `We've got three

life sentences on you,' Astley said. `With a minimum recommendation,'

McDonough said. `What I'd suggest, Gingy . . .'

76

`Listen carefully, lad.'

`. . . is that you have a little think, on your own ...' `Try and think what we might be grateful for.' `There's just a possibility, Gingy . . .'

`No more than a possibility.'

`. .. that we might get a judge to forget the minimum recommendation,' Astley

said.

Ìf we were to say that we were really grateful,' McDonough said.

`Why don't you have a little think, Gingy?' Astley's hand was on McAnally's shoulder. He jerked him upright, and frog‐marched him to the door.

`Some quiet thinking, Gingy,' McDonough said.

Middle morning in Turf Lodge. The patrol moved circumspectly through the