Knife Edge (2004) (20 page)

No obvious resentment. If anything, there was only indifference.

That was probably only too true, he thought. Years since he had served in the province, but watching the passing scene it might have been yesterday. There were a few stark reminders: a boarded-up shop or gutted building, or some scarred and blackened patches on a roadway from burned-out car or petrol bomb.

He could feel his escort’s eyes on him. Major Nick Fisher was a commando like himself, with only a few months’ difference in age and service between them.

He was doing what he was told, and no more. Showing him the main centres of defence and, when necessary, attack. Where the commando patrols met or overlapped those of the army and the police. Road blocks. They were passing one now and it was manned, two grinning faces changing to stiff backs and salutes when officers were sighted.

Since his brief service here, he had noticed a lot of changes. Improvements, if they could be called that: anti-riot shields and CS gas grenades, flak jackets and night vision equipment to seek out the hit-and-run attacker who might otherwise slip past the most vigilant sentry or outpost.

No wonder they tried to keep each man’s tour of duty to a minimum.

And the hostility was there, even when it was covert and often hard to recognize. The ordinary marine from the mainland had to get used to it, or go under.

A brick, or a petrol bomb, hurled without warning and usually from the back of a crowd, became an everyday possibility. It would bring no retaliation, other than the Corps’ own brutal humour.

Some marines had been badly injured by potatoes used as missiles, each one carefully spiked with old razor blades. A very senior colour sergeant who had seen almost everything in the course of his service had said, “If I catches one of them brave bastards, I shall stick a couple of blades where they ’urt most, an’ ’e’ll not be able to ride ’is bike for a month or two without rememberin’ it!”

One of the injured marines had apparently laughed about it.

But it was hardly what they had joined up for. Ross thought of a recruiting poster he had seen on his last visit to Plymouth.
Join the Royal Navy and see the World.
Some wag had printed underneath it,
Join the Royal Marines and see the Next!

He turned to the other major and said, “I believe you’re going on a bit of leave soon?”

Fisher came back from his thoughts.

“Next week. June – my wife – is going into hospital. Stomach trouble.” He sighed. “She tells
me
not to worry. She’s the one who does that.” He gestured toward the street. “This place is doing it!”

They were passing a hospital, and Ross saw the driver turn his head to eye a couple of nurses waiting for a bus. He noticed that the building’s ground floor windows were protected by wire netting. The nurses were both in uniform. Was that protection, too?

It never failed to remind him of Glynis, and the carefully worded letters he had written to various addresses gleaned from people she had known and worked with in Hong Kong. Some had been returned,
Not known at this address,
or simply,
Gone away.
Others had vanished. On his last assignment in Hong Kong, when he had visited the old sick quarters, some one had told him that Glynis had quit to take care of her husband, who had suffered a severe stroke. It had brought back the old memory, the golf clubs in the other bedroom. What Diamond had been doing when he was taken ill.

He thought of Souter in that bare office, with his U.S. Marine Corps paperweight.

You never married? Can’t say I blame you.

The girl named Sharon had probably seen that in the file, too. And wondered, if she cared enough.

Perhaps Clive Tobin had had second thoughts about coming to Ulster after all. Not his scene. Going to somewhere more newsworthy, and more exciting. Following the sun. And she would be with him.

The driver said, “Looks like trouble, sir.” He braked very slightly, and Ross saw the other marine move his submachine-gun closer to his waist.

A police car was parked at the roadside, and two officers of the R.U.C. were standing by another group outside yet another pub. One was making notes in his book; the other was watching a man sitting on the curbside, a bloodied handkerchief pressed to his nose while one of his companions was trying to tie a bandage around his wrist.

Ross noticed that the second police officer was leaning against a lamp post, head slightly turned, as if listening to something. Ross heard it: an ambulance was on its way. He had one hand resting casually on his open holster.

The driver said, “That’s Jimmy Doyle, sir. Local bookie. Always a bit slow paying out the winnings, is Jimmy!” He chuckled. “He had it coming!”

This was one marine who knew the Londonderry beyond the barbed wire and the sandbags of company headquarters.

Major Fisher grunted, “Drive on.” He dropped his voice. “Bet you’re sorry you came, Ross.”

At last the ice was breaking. Perhaps Fisher had thought he was being relieved. Sent home.

He would know about the regular communications from Colonel Souter’s department. They made Ross different. An interloper.

Fisher was saying, “I heard we were getting a visit from that television chap, Clive Tobin. God knows what he’d make of this potmess.”

They both laughed. So much for security.

The driver had been holding the intercom to his ear, watching the ambulance pass, lights flashing, perhaps on its way back to the hospital with the wired-up windows. Jimmy the bookie . . .

He said, “‘Foxtrot’, sir.”

Major Fisher touched Ross’s arm and smiled.

“Return to H.Q., Ross. It seems our V.I.P. has arrived after all!”

Ross thought of the hotel where Tobin and his party would be staying while they were in Londonderry. Used mostly by visiting government officials, possible targets, as Souter’s aide had described them, it was built like a comfortable fortress. But a fortress all the same.

He saw an armoured car driving slowly in the opposite direction. The army: the next patrol sector. The headlights blinked, a fist poked through an open shutter and gave a thumbs-up. How would Tobin find an angle, a story to his taste? Surely he would not bring Sharon into this atmosphere of patent hostility?

Through the gates and barriers, and past the guardroom with its sentries and the duty officer, a young subaltern who looked as if he was not long out of school. Eager, and very aware of two majors in one car. Going through the
formalities. Ross saw the shadow above one of the outbuildings, a hidden marksman. In case the ID or password was incorrect.

He wondered what the young subaltern thought about it.

“Major Blackwood, sir!” It was a corporal he had seen a few times on guard duty.

“What is it, Harwood?” He only remembered the name because he had had to write a lengthy piece about the naval commodore who had won the first sea battle of World War Two, when the German pocket battleship
Graf Spee
had been scuttled at Montevideo, rather than surrender. A less than significant affair when compared to the carnage which would follow, but Harwood had always stuck in his mind.

“Visitor to see you, sir. Asked for you personally. Cleared by security, of course, sir.” He could have winked.

She was standing in the guardroom beside a long table, her back turned, replacing some things in her handbag.

Another corporal, much younger than the one called Harwood, was hovering on the far side of the room, obviously relieved as he said, “Major Blackwood, miss.”

She faced him, and held out her hand. “You see, Ross, I couldn’t stay away!”

She wore a two-piece suit in what he had heard Joanna describe as houndstooth tweed, with a dark green scarf knotted around her throat.

He said, “You look wonderful,” and released her hand, having taken his time over it. Expecting her to raise the barrier. He knew the two corporals were watching with interest, and some one else, a defaulter of some sort, was peering through the bars in the cell block. It would soon be all over the company H.Q. And who could blame them? She looked stunning.

She said, “I just had my bag searched.” She held up her hand again. “It’s all right. I think he was more embarrassed
than I was, poor lad.” She bent over the bag for a minute and he saw a lock of hair fall across her forehead, as he remembered.

“Clive’s at the hotel. I thought I’d call and see you before we go there. You’re looking well . . .” She pretended to shiver. “God, it’s like Fort Knox around here.”

She was gazing at him in the direct way he had not forgotten. “I’ve been wondering how you were making out.” The eyes moved around the guardroom, the harsh lights overhead reflecting on the honey-coloured hair. “The Bloody Hand of Ulster, and all that.”

“I’ve thought about you, Sharon. Quite a lot.”

For an instant, he saw the uncertainty. Like a warning. Then she reached into her bag and pulled out a little package. She held it out.

“A bit late, I’m afraid.” He opened it; it was the handkerchief he had used to mop up the spilled champagne, beautifully pressed and tied with a piece of ribbon. “Just in case you couldn’t lay your hands on another ironing board.”

She zipped the bag shut and looked up briskly. “Shall we go? You can tell me what’s been happening while we drive.”

He took her arm and guided her toward the steps and the barbed wire.

There seemed to be far more people hanging around than when he had arrived. She was probably used to it. Took it for granted.

The same subaltern was on duty. She offered her hand to him; he hesitated, then lowered his head to kiss it. When he straightened up again his young face was pink with embarrassment and pleasure.

The car was waiting, a military police vehicle parked close behind it with the engine running.

Ross climbed into the car and sat beside her. The driver was another redcap.

“Seat belts, please, miss. And, er, sir.”

She fastened the clip and placed her bag between them.

“Just to be on the safe side,” she said.

The barrier was still there.

Early morning, and the sky was clear and drained of colour. It was Sunday.

Ross Blackwood had already lowered a nearside window and could hear the mutter of the engine, like an intrusion. Once a busy T-junction, with traffic lights to control the ebb and flow of daily life, nothing moved here now, and where there had been buildings, a few shops and some offices, there was open space. Only the shape and direction of the road could be identified on the map.

“Pull over and stop here. This should be about right.”

He glanced at the driver, Corporal Dick Harwood. Only a few weeks, but it felt as if he had known him for years.

It was like that in the Corps. But he could never claim that he had got used to it.

When the engine stopped the silence and stillness were all the more intense. There were some carefully arranged piles of bricks and other debris left by the bulldozers until another day. Tomorrow. He opened the door and stretched his legs. One building remained, but was already partly demolished. It must have been stronger than the others. He looked at the bulldozer tracks across what had been a strip of parkland, perhaps with gardens where people had walked their dogs, or waited for friends or lovers. The ruin nearby had been a police station.

He glanced at his watch. Clive Tobin would be here soon. Right now, if he was as punctual as usual. What would he discover this time? He had been out and around
with him every day for a week and he felt no closer to him. Sometimes abrupt and impatient, Tobin also had an indisputable ability to hit the nail on its metaphorical head in his search for background and truth. Without prejudice, without criticism. Once he had said, “In this work I have to be a neutral. I can’t afford to be biased.”

Harwood commented, “Some one’s up an’ about, sir. The God bosun, anyway!”

Ross heard the church bells and thought of the old photograph in the study, the foundation of which now lay somewhere buried under a new motorway.
Where no birds sing.

“Here he comes, sir.” Harwood swung out of the car and straightened his beret.

What did he think about all this, Ross wondered. A waste of time? A big name over here just to please the brass?
Roll on my twelve.

It was the same minibus Tobin had been using since his arrival, with just enough room for his cameraman, picture editor and driver. No armed guards, nothing which might antagonize one faction or the other. But even Clive Tobin, an accepted celebrity, must be uneasy sometimes.

“Ah, Ross, on the ball as usual!”

He was wearing a black leather jacket with a pair of binoculars hanging around his neck, and dark sunglasses. When he removed them to stare around at the demolished site, he showed no sign of strain or tiredness.

“This the place?” He kicked at a loose stone. “They’ll be throwing up new buildings everywhere once they can make a little peace for themselves.” He kicked another stone. “Tell me about it.”

Ross pointed at the remaining ruin.

“Police station. Came under mortar attack. Sparked off
the massive countermeasures about seven years ago. Operation Motorman, it was called. Over twenty thousand troops were used to clear the old no-go areas. Even the navy took part, and brought landing craft all the way up the River Foyle. Made things a lot easier to contain.”

Tobin nodded. “Unless you lived here, of course.” But he smiled. “You’ve done your research – that’s good. I understand you were far away at the time. Far East, wasn’t it?”

Ross heard the others climbing down from the bus. Sharon Warwick was not among them.

“You’ve done your research too, apparently.”

The cameraman looked around and said, “Not much here, Clive.”

Tobin waved his sunglasses. “Just a few shots, Mark. The usual. For openers.”

The others moved away, glad to be doing something.

Ross said, “Sharon taking today off?”

“Hardly. I expect she’s told you, I drive them all the way!” He looked at him keenly. “You like her, don’t you? I can always tell, with people I care about.” He was watching the camera crew now, but did not appear to see them. “She’s a good girl. She puts up with a lot, especially from me!” His arm shot out. “No, Mark, more to the left, those trees, or what’s left of them!” He nodded. “That’s the ticket, man!”