Field of Blood (19 page)

Castlereagh. Alone with McDonough and Astley, in oil‐fired warmth, lit by bright

fluorescent strips, McAnally talked. He wore clean socks that they had brought him, and new underwear, and he was allowed a razor for his personal use, and he

was cocooned from the breathing and dying of the city.

A comedian from cross‐Channel played at the Opera House, and told the B.B.C.

Northern Ireland interviewer that he always liked to play in the Province because

the audiences were the best in the United Kingdom, and the interviewer gave him a tired grin and wondered why the star needed to be so patronizing.

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An industrialist from Germany came and looked at the dead De Lorean car

factory and talked to the Chamber of Commerce of a thousand chemical plant jobs, and the businessmen clapped him and wondered why he had lied.

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**A Royal cousin‐in‐law journeyed to the Province and planted a tree and

opened a children's wing at a hospital, and spoke from a prepared text of the courage of the civilian population, and the nurses wondered what option anyone

had but to show courage.

As the Secretary of State flew to Heathrow he mused to his civil servant whether

back‐bench oblivion might not be preferable to the running of Northern Ireland.

The flowers were dying on William 'Tenner' Simpson's grave.

A young part‐timer in the Ulster Defence Regiment was outside his mother's house in Finaghy cleaning his car when the assassins came for him, travelling by

motorcycle, and sprayed at him with a Mauser and missed and decapitated his mother's cat, which was probably why the incident rated space in the English newspapers.

A man was shot dead in his house in Newtonabbey, but the police press desk told

the journalists not to concern themselves because it was only family, which was

why the killing didn't go cross‐Channel.

A boy of sixteen years, five months out of school, appeared before the city Magistrates charged with writing down police car number plates as they left Andersonstown R.U.C. station.

The Chief Constable issued a warning that men prominent in public life should take especial precautions against Republican gunmen ... A Guards battalion

completed their tour and sailed home on the Liverpool boat, and more than a hundred were sick with relief and alcohol before they docked ... A priest issued a

statement to the Irish News complaining of army brutality in Ballymurphy ... A Protestant politician called a news conference to denounce the Security Forces softly softly approach to terrorism.

Outside of the perimeter of Castlereagh, the days slipped by, unmemorable and

unremarkable.

Each in his differing way, McDonough and Astley were good at their work.

They were trained to show no animosity to the informer. They listened to the catalogue of hits and attempted hits and aborted hits without ever revealing their disgust. They had both been on the course with the English psychiatrist who

had talked of body language communication with the informer. Nothing that

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they heard appeared to shock or horrify them. Not the death of a constable, not

the blinding of a soldier. McDonough always probed for the information. Astley

always wrote the verbatim at the second table. Through the passing days they saw the growing cockiness of McAnally, as if he revelled in the attention given him. They let it ride, they made no attempt to deflate that

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cockiness ... Soon enough Gingy McAnally would be put to the test, and then the

louse would need all his cockiness.

`. . . I wanted to get the Pig in the middle. I reckoned if I got it in the middle that I'd do the squaddies inside. If there's a Pig out then there'll always be half a dozen squaddies in the back. A Pig's a sitting duck arse for an R.P.G. We were down in

Beechmount, there's plenty of Pigs come up the Falls through Beechmount. We

took over this house ... There was just an old gasser in the house, Fatsy watched

him, I went upstairs with a young lad ... didn't have a name, not to me. It didn't

bloody work like it should have done. We had the window open, of the front bedroom ... Shit, it stank in the old gasser's bedroom, he slept on bloody newspapers . . . It didn't work because the Pig braked just as I was on the trigger.

Once you start on the trigger you can't help yourself, it's like pissing. The squaddie braked just as I was firing, when I was still on the engine. The engine went up, only did a bit of damage to the driver, didn't even kill him. I went down

the bloody stairs, like I got the claps. You know what Fatsy was doing? I'm hitting

a Pig with a bloody R.P.G., and Fatsy's supposed to be minding this gasser, and

Fatsy's got the back off his telly and he's fixing the line hold for him. You know

what, Fatsy went back and finished the job three days later. That's rich ... The lad and I and Fatsy, we got out the back of the house, and belted . . .'

'Fatsy was who?

'Fatsy Rawe . . . we belted down Iveagh Parade to where the motor was. Bugsy

was on the motor. We went down Broadway. I reckoned we got out just before

the blocks went in. It was a real bad one because the kid didn't show who was to

take the R.P.G. We had to keep it with us. Couldn't hang about, could we? ...'

`Who's Bugsy?'

`We call him Bugsy, he's Eamonn Malone ... You know what ...? I pissed myself in

the car. I pissed myself down my leg. I went home to my woman and I had to go

straight upstairs and change my pants, so she wouldn't see. I got a load of stick

for that one, they said I should have held the fire, or got the Pig in the middle.

Those bastards, they don't know what it's like on the R.P.G. You have to line the

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R.P.G. up, and if you fire it in a room you're dazed afterwards, I know. You try telling the bastards . . .'

`Who were they, Gingy, who gave you stick?'

`Jimmy Flanagan, Noel Connelly, Brennie Toibin, they were Battalion ... They gave me some stick because they said the R.P.G. warheads were gold dust, they

said I only wounded the squaddie and didn't get all the rest with him. But they split their heads when they heard the kiddie hadn't turned up to take the R.P.G.

At least he got a beating. It was gold dust, the R.P.G. Because we hadn't dropped

it, Bugsy took the R.P.G. home. It was behind his sofa for a week ... That's a bloody

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**laugh, his missus was screaming blue about it, so he told her to fuck off and cracked her. The whole thing was a shambles . . . I mean, we got one squaddie,

but one squaddie isn't worth an R.P.G. round. Well, it isn't, is it? It was just bloody cowboys ...'

The Secretary of State was rarely invited to Downing Street other than for Cabinet. He was in London every week of the year, whether the Commons were

sitting or whether in recess, but he seldom received the summons.

Inflation was down, the pound sterling was steady, unemployment was at last bottoming. Central government's posture was buoyant and aggressive. It was

trumpeted that the nation's health was improving. Only Northern Ireland cracked

the mould of success.

The Secretary of State had not raised the matter of immunity for McAnally at Cabinet. On the aircraft over he had decided to broach the issue in private to the

Attorney General. And callow fellow that he was, the Attorney General had slipped the word to the Prime Minister. Sometimes the Secretary of State, from

the distance of his proconsulship in Belfast, believed that his colleagues in Cabinet only broke wind if they had first received the Prime Minister's

permission. An hour after his conversation with the Attorney General, and barely

back at his desk in the Northern Ireland Office, the Secretary of State had received the call.

They met in the Prime Minister's personal office, with a Principal Private Secretary taking notes. The walled garden outside took his attention for a moment before he was waved to a chair. It was well cut down for the winter.

Because it was warm and damp the songbirds were in force on the lawn. Nice little things ...

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`The Attorney General, quite rightly, brought this matter to my attention. You are asking for immunity for a man who slaughtered a courageous judge and two

dedicated police officers. You are suggesting that the man who took three fine lives should be allowed to walk free, and given the chance to begin a new life at

the expense of our taxpayers.'

`Putting McAnally away, Prime Minister, would win us a skirmish. Giving him immunity provides the opportunity for us to win a battle . . .' The Secretary of State quite liked that. Fred had fed it to him in the drive across Whitehall.

`The idea of this man having immunity is one I find repellent.'

`The reality of Northern Ireland is often repellent, Prime Minister, as I'm sure you've found from your visits.' Good one ... the Prime Minister came at Christmas

to be photographed with the troops, particularly enjoyed being photographed while wearing a Marine beret or a flak jacket.

Ì don't think public opinion would stand it, and I for one ...'

`We can handle the public opinion side. There's enough chaps at Army and Police

Headquarters to handle that.'

Ànd what if you don't deliver?

'That's the gamble.'

`What's to stop him accepting our immunity, and then retracting, and going free?

'There's nothing to stop him.'

`That's a dreadful answer.'

Ìt's the truth.'

Ìf that's your final word then my mind's made up, no immunity.'

The Secretary of State stood up. His arms were folded easily across his chest.

`Very good. Thank you for the decision. Let's hope there are no leaks . . .'

He knew the Prime Minister. He knew the neurosis on the leakage of confidential

information. He saw the angry frown settling on the forehead.

`. .. Let's hope there are no leaks from Castlereagh or from Headquarters. I'd hate

to have it thrown back at me that by sending one man down for a life sentence

we had passed over the chance to put away the nucleus of the Provisional Brigade staff along with elements of Battalion command and a bus full of Volunteers. I'll do my damnedest to see that doesn't leak, and to see that it doesn't come back to your door, Prime Minister. Thank you for your time.'

He turned. He wondered if he would have reached the door before he was called

back.

`Your job depends on it, on him not retracting.'

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`People's lives depend on him not retracting. Thank you for the decision. To give

this creature immunity hurts me as much as it does you, but you've made the right decision. Good day, Prime Minister.'

`There were too many getting lifted. I says, I says Gingy McAnally's not going to

be one of them. It was just after I'd done the Pig. There was guys getting lifted

every bloody morning round West Belfast. I'd had one go in the Kesh, and I wasn't going back inside, not just for hanging about and waiting to see who was

going to tout next. If it hadn't been for the problem with the R.P.G. then I might

have stayed. I went to see Joey ‐ that's Joey Mulvaney. Joey says to me that I'd

used the last of the warheads they had for the R.P.G. He said they'd get some more, that they were down south. He said they had a stack of them down south,

but he said that South Armagh wanted them, and Derry had chipped in for them.

He was pretty good to me, Joey Mulvaney, he didn't bullshit me. He said it would

be weeks before Army Council's

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**Quartermaster let them go. He said that I'd had two firings and that the boys

down in Armagh and Derry were bleating for a bloody go at it. He said they'd need warheads to train with. He said we were bottom of the list . . .'

`Joey Mulvaney was . . . ?T

'Two Battalion, O.C. ... I wasn't a marksman ... well, I'd been out with an M16, but I don't reckon I hit the wall behind the squaddie. Marksman's a different thing . . .'

`Date, place, who you were with?

'Christ ... September, must have been the eighth, 'cos it was the day before Roisin's birthday . . . I didn't want to go, I said I had to buy her something, I went and then had to leg it down to the Avenue to get her something. I didn't get to

Royal Avenue, I went to Smithfield, I bought her a new iron . . . well, it wasn't new, it was seconds . . . We had three rifles. We were behind the wall at Milltown

boneyard, waiting for the squaddies to come out of the Andersonstown barracks.

That's when it was, where it was ... Joey was one of the rifles, Dusty was the other

...'

`Dusty?'

'O'Hara ... Damien O'Hara. Billy Clinch took the shooters off us at the bottom of

the graveyard. Dusty nearly shot him, he fell over a stone and he hadn't gone to

Safety. Fierce bloody language Billy used on him. I was no marksman ... I wasn't

anything on the explosives. All our bombs came up in kits from Monaghan. The

feller down there made them up, and they came in pieces to be assembled up in

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Belfast. I wasn't going to touch no bloody bomb. He was a watch mender, the man that made the bombs, so he always used old watches for the timing that had