Pray for Us Sinners (22 page)

She followed, feeling the roughness of the pavement through her tights. She stared back over her shoulder. Two red fire engines had arrived. Firemen, helmeted, bright in their yellow oilskins, uncoiled hoses. Two were shrugging into self-contained breathing gear. Policemen herded the remaining victims away from the scene as two ambulance attendants knelt over a woman who lay very still. Siobhan stumbled on a broken piece of concrete, stubbing her toe. “Ouch.”

He was at her side. “You okay?”

She bit her lip and mumbled, “Fine.”

He took her hand, and together they walked along the Antrim Road, away from the wreckage. Mike blasted a piercing whistle and waved at a taxi heading north along the Limestone Road where it crossed the Antrim Road. The cab slowed, turned, and headed toward them.

“Get in,” he said.

She climbed aboard and he followed, giving Jimmy Ferguson's address to the driver. Siobhan heard the driver ask, “What's going on up there?” and Mike's reply, “Bomb in a cinema.” The driver muttered, “Ah, shit.”

She turned and saw Mike looking at her, concern in his eyes. “Thanks, Mike,” she said.

“For what?”

“For getting me out of there.”

“They teach you to move fast in explosives school.”

“I suppose so, but you didn't have to go back for that couple.”

“If you hadn't told me we'd better do something, I'd have got us away as fast as I could.” It was a matter-of-fact statement.

She liked his modesty. She said, “Thanks for not playing the knight in shining armour.”

“Good God.” She heard the surprise in his voice. “Why would I?”

She took his face in both her hands and kissed him long and deeply.

“We're here, mate,” the driver said. “Two pound forty.”

Mike paid the man. He walked beside her up the path. “Are you sure you're all right?” he asked.

Her toe throbbed, but she said, “Fine.”

“Sorry about the way things turned out tonight.”

“It wasn't your fault.”

“I know, but…”

“Mike, it was bloody awful. I wonder how many people were hurt.”

“Dunno. It wasn't that big a bomb.”

“It was terrible. There'll be folks dead, or all broken up, and just because they wanted a night out at the pictures.” She began to tremble. “How's that going to win their stupid war?”

She moved against him, feeling some of the tension in her dissipating, her body comforted by the nearness of him. “And you wanted to find out what was going on over here? Now you know. That bomb was in a cinema. It wasn't a Catholic cinema or a Protestant cinema.”

He held her to him. She looked into his eyes. “Now do you still want to get to know the Provos?”

“I'd need to think about it.”

“Why? What the hell must it be like living with that sort of thing every day, year in, year out? Provos on one side, Loyalists on the other, everyone else stuck in the middle?”

“Pretty rough.”

“And you need to ‘think about it'?”

He screwed up his face.

“All right,” she said. “You give it a bit of thought. My mind's made up.”

“Siobhan?”

“What?”

“It's just … Would you not want to get a dig at the bastards who put the bomb in there?”

“I would not! And I hope you wouldn't.”

He looked at her like a chastened child.

“Think about that, Mike.”

“I will. I promise.” He held her more closely, saying, “I don't want to spoil it.”

“Spoil what?”

“You and me.”

“Nor do I.”

He bent and kissed her, and she responded to his lips, wanting him, and yet …

He said, “I want to see you again. Very soon.”

“I can't.” She felt him flinch. “At least not until Sunday. I have to go to Ballymena to visit one of Dad's sisters.” She felt him relax and kissed him.

“Sunday?” He cupped her chin in his hand. “You make a picnic. I'll bring a car.”

“All right.”

“Aye,” he said, “I'd like to get out of Belfast for a day.”

She kissed him hard, then said, “Not just for a day, Mike. If you've any wit, you'll get out of it for good.”

 

THIRTY-THREE

THURSDAY, MARCH 28

The major let Harry Swanson drive. It was a different car this time, an old Ford Consul, built like a half brick sitting on a brick. Harry turned onto the Grosvenor Road. “I thought you might like to get a look at the Falls.”

“Fine.” The major peered through the window at the mean streets of cramped terrace houses. Ahead in the distance at the corner of the Grosvenor Road and the Falls he could see the red-brick bulk of the Royal Victoria Hospital, its slate roofs glistening in the drizzle. “I appreciate you taking the time to see me.”

“No problem.” Harry braked as a red bus slowed at the curb. “I wondered how your lad was getting on.”

“That's the problem. I haven't heard.”

“How long's he been out?”

“Nearly three weeks.”

Harry shrugged. “I wouldn't worry. One of my best blokes spent six weeks before he made contact with anyone useful.”

The car passed Devonshire Street, Cullingtree Road, Servia Street, and the little playground at Dunville Park where drunks often slept away the small hours in the bus shelter opposite the Royal Victoria.

“It's a bit more than that, Harry.” The major tried to keep the concern from his voice. “I've been chewing this one over since Monday. I'd appreciate your thoughts.”

“Fire away.”

“I think I've identified the bloke I'm after.”

Harry whistled as he signaled for a right turn onto the Falls Road. “So you want to move on part B of your plan and set the bugger up, but you can't until you hear from Richardson?”

“That's part of the problem.”

Harry smiled, the dimple deep in his left cheek. “Reckon one of my chaps could find him. New Lodge's not that big.”

“I'd appreciate it if you would.”

“Done. Stupid bugger.” Harry braked as a lorry cut in front.

The major had no way of reaching Richardson unless he made contact, and he knew, if Gillespie was a traitor, the boy should be told to get out. Immediately. But then there'd be no chance to nail Gillespie the way the major had planned. His suspicions were simply not enough to build a watertight case.

Harry pointed to a multistorey building where communications aerials stuck up like ungainly Christmas trees from the flat roof. “Divis Flats,” Harry said. “One of our most important surveillance posts. Keeps an eye on the buggers in there.” He pointed to the left to the narrow streets that ran from the Lower Falls to the concrete peace line.

The major nodded and then said, “Harry. I think the mole may know about Richardson.”

“Christ. Then you've got to extract your man.”

“You think so?”

“Too bloody right.”

“I thought you'd say that, but I'm not so sure.”

“Why the hell not?”

“If I'm right, the bloke I suspect has known about Richardson from the day he went out.”

“Three weeks?”

“Give or take.”

Harry stopped at the lights, waiting for the traffic to move on Royal Avenue. “Three weeks. And as far as you know, Richardson's all right?”

“I think so. No one's turned up dead.”

The car moved across the main Belfast thoroughfare and onto High Street. Harry said, “If your suspect has known this long and done nothing, Richardson is probably fairly safe.” Harry signaled for a right turn at the Albert Clock.

The major had hoped that would be Harry's opinion. Without Richardson, he knew he hadn't a snowball's chance of nailing Gillespie. Harry drove along Donegal Quay, past the Queen's and Albert Bridges.

Harry said, “Who is your suspect?”

“I'd rather keep that to myself a bit longer.”

“Close bugger, aren't you?”

The major said nothing.

“Fair enough.” Harry ran a hand over his pate. “If Richardson has been sussed out, I don't see how he's going to get anywhere near the senior Provos.”

“I know,” the major said, “but I'm going to leave him in play. I'll think of something. I'll bloody well have to.”

On the way back to Thiepval they drove along Oxford Street, past the ruins of the bus station where, on July 21, 1972, a bomb hidden in a Volkswagen had killed two soldiers and four civilians. On that day, in incidents all over Belfast, twenty bombs were detonated by the PIRA in sixty-five minutes. Nine people were killed and 130 maimed. July 21 had been a Friday—“Bloody Friday.”

 

THIRTY-FOUR

SATURDAY, MARCH 30

Davy closed his front door. He'd time yet before Jimmy came and he'd nothing in the house to offer him. It would be good to see Jim. He hadn't been over since the pair of them had built that fucking mine. He usually popped in on Saturday, but Davy had been otherwise engaged last Saturday—in a turf pile.

And apart from his trip to Myrtlefield Park on Tuesday, he had barely spoken to another soul since. This Che Guevara “cell” business was good for security, but sometimes Davy missed being able to have a bit of a yarn with other men in the battalion. Like the old days.

Four doors down from his house he limped past Mrs. Cahill as she knelt scrubbing her sandstone step, grey sudsy water dripping across the pavement and into the gutter.

“'Morning, Mr. McCutcheon.”

“'Morning.”

Farther along Conway Street an Inglis bread van surrounded by a knot of housewives was parked beside a lamppost. Huey the driver—known here in the Falls as Shooey—on his weekly round. He'd stopped his vehicle away from the curb to avoid the shards of broken glass from the shattered light above. He'd be selling pan loaves, soda farls, potato cakes, Veda bread, barmbrack. Jim always liked a bit of barmbrack.

Davy walked along the pavement, nodding to a group of five men, one standing with a leg crooked against a red-brick wall, the rest gathered round, smoking, talking, wasting time and their unemployed lives. Young Donal Donnelly, whose dad was in Long Kesh on a possession-of-firearms conviction, hung about at the fringe of the group. Davy heard him trying to cadge a fag. Crooked Leg told Donal to bugger off.

Two boys of five or six ran one after the other, the pursuer screaming in his bird's voice, “Come back here, you wee shite. I'll fucking kill you.” He collided with a girl jumping over a skipping rope chanting, “One potato, two potato, three potato, four…” They went down in a tangle of skinned knees, tearing her tartan skirt. She started to howl.

Davy tried to block out the image of another little girl howling. He'd promised Sean four days ago, so he'd better forget about the Hanrahans and concentrate on the next job. Davy hoped Jim might have some ideas about Semtex. Shaped charges? They might as well ask him to build a fucking spaceship.

The steeple of the chapel at the far end of the terrace cast its shadow over the narrow street, and Davy felt a chill as he moved from the sunlight into the shade. He glimpsed a Saracen rumbling along the Falls Road, past the mouth of Conway Street. Two Paras in their red berets stood in the open tailgate, quartering with SLRs. The back of the bread van was open. He joined two women and waited his turn, eavesdropping.

“He never did! The dirty skitter.”

“My husband? He did so. A white pan loaf please, Shooey.”

“My God. He should be put away. That's diabolic, so it is.”

“Thanks, Shooey. I'll say so.”

They walked away, shopping bags on arms, the younger—the one with the husband—full of righteous indignation, her older, plump friend solicitous, nodding her head in sympathy.

Davy smiled. Belfast. Belfast people. They never changed. Talkative, contentious, getting on with life, trying to ignore the war. His war.

“'Morning, Davy.” The bread man, white coat, peaked bus-conductor's cap, pencil stuck behind one jug ear, leaned against the side of his vehicle. He held a long-handled stick for pulling loaves from the depths. “Grand day.”

“Right enough. Have you a barmbrack?”

Huey pulled a sliding shelf from the van and picked up a dark, flat, round loaf studded with nuggets of raisins. “Here y'are.”

Davy gave the bread man a pound and waited as he rummaged in his leather satchel for the change. “Is that it? I'll not be back 'til next Saturday.”

“It'll do rightly. Just me and McCusker now, and he doesn't eat raisins.”

“Aye. I was sorry to hear about Fiona.”

“Aye. Well.” Davy collected his change and limped home. He saw Jimmy approaching and hurried to meet him.

“How's about ye, Davy?”

“Rightly. Good to see you, Jim. You're early.”

“Aye. Them black taxis is great. Better than the bus. Just as cheap, run on time, and half the money goes to battalion.”

“Come on in.” Davy opened the door. “D'you fancy a cup of tea and a piece?”

“Great.”

Jimmy sat at the table, smoking, while Davy put on the kettle, sliced the barmbrack in half, and slipped it under the grill.

“Here,” said Jimmy, offering a packet of cigarettes. “Have a Green. They're better than your oul' Woodbines.”

“Thanks, Jim.”

“I missed you last Saturday, Davy.”

“I was out.” Davy kept his back to Jimmy as he pulled the loaf from under the element and dropped the warm 'brack onto the counter. “Hot.”

“C'mon, Davy. We've been mates a brave while. Are you all right?”

“What do you mean?” Davy spread butter.

“I read about the Hanrahans.”

The knife slipped from Davy's grasp. He lunged for it, but it clattered to the floor. He bent and straightened, holding the knife.