Field of Blood (31 page)

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Goss lay on the floor of the upstairs landing, his face washed by the ceiling light.

He was awake and his hand rested lightly across his holster.

Prentice was perched on the chair in the hall, head lolling, but his eyes open.

Ferris and McAnally were in the lounge. Ferris sat cross‐legged on the carpet, McAnally lay on the sofa. Mostly Ferris talked, softly, not disturbing the night, mostly McAnally listened.

`They never had a hope of hurting you, not a thousand to one. It was just a gimmick, Gingy, just piss and wind. They're trying to frighten you, and you can't

be scared by piss and wind, Gingy.'

There was a flicker of a smile on McAnally's face, a nervous little smile. `They scared me.'

`What did they do to scare you? They put mortars into a built‐up housing estate,

an estate full of young women and kids. That's what they were prepared to do to

scare you. God, Gingy, you turned your back on those people, people who'd do

that. They could have killed a

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**couple of kiddies, they could have sliced a couple of women, but that would have been all right if they'd scared you.'

`You ever been scared, like I was scared in there?

'Once, maybe once.'

`You know what it is, when you don't think you can stop yourself pissing.'

Ònce.'

`Probably long ago, you've likely forgotten what it was.' `Pretty recent.'

McAnally brightened. `Give it.'

`V.C.P. on Divis, a car broke us. We had two bursts on an Armalite. I was a bit scared then.'

`Shit.'

`That was all round me, wasn't in the bloody distance like those mortars.'

`The Armalites didn't have your name on them, the mortars had my name ... you

know the car ... ?T

'The car in Divis?

'I was on board.'

`Didn't you know, because you were in the car ...?T 'Know what?

'That's why you were pulled, because we saw you in the car.'

`Shit . . .' McAnally leaned forward. Ì was on board, it wasn't me on the Armalite.'

`Good to know,' Ferris said dryly.

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McAnally grinned, rueful. `Wouldn't have scared you if I had been on the Armalite, couldn't hit a bloody house ... R.P.G.'s good. You ever fired an R.P.G.?

'Not our weapon, Gingy. Enemy weapon. We use a thing called a Milan, bigger and better, I've been on exercise when they've fired a live Milan. It's a pretty big bang.'

Gingy mused, `R.P.G.'s right for here. Wouldn't want anything big.

And you want it dead simple. When the first one reached here all the stuff about

it was in Russian and Arabic . . .' Again the grin. `That's why we made such a cock

at the start. We got better.'

`That's behind you, Gingy,' Ferris said, a sharp cut in his voice.

`What's ahead of meet

'Everything's ahead of you.'

Èasy enough to say.'

Ìt's true.'

McAnally swung his legs off the settee. He was crouched down, his eyes level with Ferris's eyes. His hands were groped out ahead of him and Ferris took them

and held them between the palms of his own hands. McAnally stuttered for the

words before finding them.

`Gingy McAnally, Provo, what's he to you? What's Gingy McAnally to David

Ferris, Brit officer? You can't bloody answer.'

Ì can't answer.'

`What am I to you? Find an answer for me, you bloody have to.'

`You're a loser, I want to see you win. All the time with the R.P.G. you were losing, all you were getting closer to was three lifers in the Kesh.'

`What's it to you if I win?

'I told you at Springfield. It's still the same. If you win then thirty evil sods get put away. If they go away, you've won. You win, and Roisin wins, and your kids win.

I'm going to help you win. I'll put it better, Gingy, I'm going to bloody make you

win. I'm going to stand beside you right up till you go into the box, because when

you've finished in the box then you've won.'

Ì'm a Provo, you're a Brit officer.'

`When you've won, when you've gone from this crap place, it won't matter a shit

what you are, what I am.'

`You'll stand beside me ... If they come for me, would you step in front of meet

'Yes,' Ferris said.

Ferris saw the wetness in McAnally's eyes. McAnally pulled his hands back from

Ferris's grip.

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`For a Brit officer you're an idiot.'

`Probably.'

Ferris was exhausted, drained. He tipped McAnally's legs up onto the cushions, and pushed his body over so that his face was against the settee's back. He fetched two blankets and covered him and watched until the pant of his

breathing subsided, until he was asleep.

A few minutes past five in the morning, and bitterly cold in the Turf Lodge estate,

Mrs Chrissie O'Rourke came out of her house, and Mr Pronsias Reilly closed the

door shut behind her. The low gate between the front garden and the pavement

was held open by Father Francis. A black dark shivery morning, and Mr Pronsias

Reilly was well pleased that Mrs O'Rourke had dressed fast and without

complaint. But it was big enough bait to cause her to hurry ... If you want to see

your daughter there is no time like the time now ... she'd responded well enough.

The solicitor's car was parked in front of the house. His fingers fumbled with the

key and the lock. He was nervous, he was taking a chance being this involved. He

was further over the line than he would have cared. He heard a car door open from down the Drive and under a damaged lightpost. He heard the footsteps approach quickly. Father

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**Francis held Mrs Chrissie O'Rourke's arm, as if she was in need of protection.

Mr Pronsias Reilly saw Frankie Conroy coming close. `You're set?

'We're fine,' Mr Pronsias Reilly said.

`Who is it?' Father Francis asked, unable to disguise his anxiety.

`No one for you to worry yourself with,' Frankie said. He took Mrs Chrissie O'Rourke's hand. `Do what they tell you, Missus, just as they tell you. Remember

what we're trying to do ‐ What we're trying to do is to get your Roisin and your

grankids back to you. And, Missus, we're trying to save your family from the shame of touting ...'

She had just come from the house where there was still some warmth in the pipes, and now she was in the cold, and her glasses were steaming over with mist, and her eyes were bright and blurred and wide behind the lenses, as she looked up into Frankie's face.

`Missus, all I'm doing is for your family ... Missus, you have to slide something to Roisin, and you have to tell her that it's for Gingy. It's personal from me to Gingy.

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Gingy'll understand what it is and why it's sent him. It has to get to him, Missus ...

Missus, you have to do it good and quiet. No one has to see you, Missus.'

He smiled to comfort her, and to strengthen her, and then he winked to her. His

hand went to his donkey jacket pocket, and he took out and palmed to Mrs Chrissie O'Rourke a small crumpled tight handkerchief.

`You'll not be forgetting, Missus?'

And Frankie was gone, striding away into the shadow deeps.

Father Francis didn't understand, and the puzzlement bit lines into the youth of

his forehead. Mr Pronsias Reilly understood, and he could smile because nothing

could be traced to himself. Mrs Chrissie O'Rourke plunged the handkerchief into

her overcoat pocket.

Mrs Chrissie O'Rourke was harnessed into the front passenger seat, and Father Francis leaned forward from the back of the big saloon and put his hands on the

shoulders of the old lady, and believed in his act of charity.

`Who else'll be there, Mr Reilly?' Father Francis asked.

Ì rang the News, they'll be there, if the buggers can get out of bed. The News'll

pass the word.

Mr Pronsias Reilly drove away fast from the Turf Lodge estate and out onto the

main road that would take them east from the Falls and through the centre of the

city. They cut past the City Hall that was to Mr Pronsias Reilly only one more symbol of the old Protestant ascendancy, and past the Magistrate's Court where

he earned his living behind the wire fences that protected the building, and he took his right turn opposite the Oxford Street bus station where more than a decade before the Provo bombs had made a Bloody Friday that matched the Brit

army's Bloody Sunday in Derry. He took the Albert Bridge over the Lagan, and then left past the nationalist ghetto of Short Strand ‐ he

had clients in the dingy and near‐derelict warren of Short Strand. Another left, and another right, and he was out onto the open speedway of the by‐pass, and

the signs at the roadside directed him towards Holywood.

When his foot touched the brake, when the car began to slow, he turned to Mrs

Chrissie O'Rourke.

`Just as we told you, Mrs O'Rourke.'

Ahead of them, stretching away on the righthand side, were the perimeter lights

of Palace Barracks. They passed the first corner's watch tower. Past the lit main

gate, past the length of the barracks frontage onto the main road. He could not

park in front of the barracks. He took the right turn into the housing estate, and

he saw a crouched soldier beside a front garden hedge, and he cut his headlights.

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In front of him the street was sealed with white ribbon, and behind the ribbon were policemen and soldiers and behind them he could see a flat‐top lorry and a

van. Frankie had given it to him straight, Frankie hadn't told him an untruth. The

bastard tout had been softened, and his woman and his kids had been jazzed. He

parked. He was well short of the ribbon barrier.

As they left the car, a soldier approached them. The solicitor and the priest each

held an arm of the elderly lady.

`Good evening, my son,' Father Francis said politely.

The soldier muttered something, inaudible, and backed away. Another quiet

smile from Mr Pronsias Reilly. The Brit squaddies were always impressed by a clerical collar, like a magic bloody pass‐word. They went to the main road, and both Mr Pronsias Reilly and Father Francis had tight holds on the slender arms of

Mrs Chrissie O'Rourke. They walked past the high wire mesh fences, and the long

coiled lines of barbed wire, and the sentry boxes, and the arc lights.

Approaching the main gate, Mr Pronsias Reilly swore quietly to himself. No bloody photographer in position yet.

They came to the gate, the big barrier confronted them. A place as bright as daylight. Soldiers watched them from the front of the Guard House.

`She's in there, Mrs O'Rourke, she's in there with your grankids,' Mr Pronsias Reilly persisted into Mrs Chrissie O'Rourke's ear, and Father Francis smiled courage into her face. `Just as we said ...'

She nodded her head. Mr Pronsias Reilly thought she would do them well. She was a frail and pitiful sight. Father Francis thought she would turn the heart of any sinner, even the heart of a British soldier.

They came to the barrier. A corporal came forward.

`What's your business?

'My girl's inside there, and I've come to see her.'

`Who's your girl?' The first glimmer of confusion from the corporal.

`She's Roisin McAnally, that's her married name, to me she's Roisin

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**O'Rourke. She's with the tout McAnally. She's with my grankids. I've come to

see her.'

`You're joking, aren't you ...? In the middle of the night, you've got to be joking.'

Ì'm not going till I've seen her.'

The corporal shifted his weight from right foot to left foot. Officer's job, this was.

`Who are you, gentlemen?

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'Pronsias Reilly, solicitor at law.'

`Father Francis Kane. Mrs O'Rourke is my parishioner.'

Ì'm here to ascertain that Mrs O'Rourke's rights are not abused.' Ì've come to offer any guidance to Mrs O'Rourke that she might

seek.'

Definitely a bloody officer's job.

Ì'll have to ask ... You can't stand there, this is M.O.D. property.'

Ì'm staying where I am, till I've seen my girl.'

A car pulled up on the far side of the road. A young man jumped from the passenger seat. Mr Pronsias Reilly saw the bag slung over the young man's shoulder, and a camera hung round his neck. The car drove away in search of a

parking place.

Mr Pronsias Reilly was smiling.

`You'd better get your officer, Corporal.'

Rennie arrived. He was puffed with temper, barging his way into the hall of the

house.

In the hall were Ferris and Prentice, and Sean Pius McAnally. Goss

was on the landing, leaning over the bannister rail.

Baby Sean was howling from somewhere behind Goss, and there was

the clattering of Roisin's feet in the bedroom above the hallway. `Does she know?' Rennie snapped.

`She knows something's messing us, she doesn't know what,' Prentice said.

`Worst luck, she was already awake to get her packing done when the officer came. Andy has her boxed in the bedrooms.'

`How is she with her Ma, Gingy?' Rennie asked.

`She's as married to her as she is to me,' McAnally said. The sleep was still in his face.

`What'd she be like if she saw her Ma?

'You couldn't depend on how she'd be. She'd bawl, that's certain. I don't know how she'd be.'