Pray for Us Sinners (8 page)

A ginger tomcat appeared on the window ledge, jumped on soundproof paws to the linoleum floor, sat, surveyed Davy, and began to wash. Davy watched as the animal hoisted one hind leg behind a tattered ear and began to lick its arse. It looked as though the cat was playing a cello.

“Home, are you, McCusker? Do you miss her, too?”

Fiona had left the tom behind. Davy remembered laughing when she told him the animal had been named for Bobby Greer's pet on the BBC radio serial
The McCooeys
. The fictitious Greer's cat had a taste for “soup with peas in.”

He rose from where he sat at the table, leaving the remains of his supper, glad of the animal's company. He bent and scratched McCusker's head. “It's all right for you. You can come and go as you please.”

The cat stopped washing and pushed his head against Davy's hand.

“Do you think maybe we should enroll a few cats?”

McCusker looked at Davy with pansy eyes.

Davy ignored him, his sense of frustration growing as he thought about how heavily the Security Forces patrolled the streets now. Sixteen—for Christ's sake, sixteen—sangars, fortified observation posts, armed and defended twenty-four hours a day, had been thrown up in Catholic neighbourhoods. The Brits had conducted a house-by-house census to try to identify the likely haunts of the Provos and their supporters, and the soldiers carried photo-identification cards, “bingo cards,” of known Provo volunteers to help them spot their prey.

He silently thanked Sean Conlon for persuading Billy McKee and the rest of the Belfast Brigade staff that some of the experienced specialists, the bomb makers and armourers, should be kept isolated from the rest of the volunteers. Sean had been right. McKee hadn't been so lucky. He and Frank Card had been arrested in April 1971.

McCusker made a soft mew.

Davy picked the cat up, tickling him under the chin. “The bloody Brits are the cats just now, McCusker, and us scuttling about like a bunch of mice.”

McCusker bit Davy's finger.

“Hungry?” Davy tucked the cat under one arm, lifted a small plastic bowl from beside the dresser; took two steps, one short on his bad leg, one long; opened a cupboard; and pulled out a bag of dried cat food. He put the animal on the floor and poured a few brown balls into the bowl. Only ten days ago he'd stashed the blasting caps in a bag like this. They were safe now in his hidey-hole in the room next door. He wondered when the hell he was ever going to use them.

McCusker stood on his hind legs, front claws needling well up on Davy's thigh.

“Take your hurry in your hand,” Davy said as he placed the bowl on the floor. McCusker crunched the dry pellets with audible ferocity. Davy stood for a moment watching. He was fond of old McCusker and now he was all she had left him, except for the memories.

Davy looked through the window. Gloom slid over the rooftops of the city, gloom shrouded in factory haze and drizzle. The undersides of low clouds, just visible in the gap between the terrace houses, reflected the wan glow of neon streetlights.

Ah, bugger the Security Forces. He'd sat here feeling sorry for himself for a week. It was time to stir himself, go and have a jar and a bit of company.

The clock on the wall said 6:10. He'd have to wait. Although Army Council frowned on drinking, they bent their own rules in the face of reality. Volunteers were only to avoid pubs before 7
P.M
.

Davy went back to the table, sat, and pushed the dirty plates away. Fiona wouldn't have let him get away with that. Feeling guilty, he rose, carried them to the sink, and started to scrub off the congealed fat.

McCusker looked up at the sound of the dishes clanking. He stopped and sat alert, ears pricked, whiskers pointing forward. Davy was sure that cats could pick up messages through their whiskers from other galaxies. As silently as he had entered the room, McCusker left through the still-open window.

Davy called “enjoy yourself” after the departing tail. He wished McCusker well on his nocturnal pursuits, but feared for the mice that skulked in the shadows.

The image of cowering mice lingered as he took his Dexter raincoat and duncher from a peg on the door and let himself out.

Davy moved slowly through the narrow backstreets and alleyways. The Falls had suffered badly in the early days of the rioting, when Protestant mobs torched houses and pubs with homemade Molotov cocktails.

He turned a corner where his usual pub, the Arkle Bar, used to stand, its fallen masonry and blackened beams mute reminders of the ferocity of Loyalist hatred that burned like the petrol they used to torch the building.

The wind blew drizzle into his face, chilling him. He turned into a back alley, rutted and muddy. His leg ached. He stopped to massage his thigh, bending his head to the rain, failing to pay attention to his surroundings.

“Evening, sir.”

Davy stiffened then straightened up slowly. A British soldier in a mottled Denison camouflage smock and combat helmet—so he wasn't a Para, they wore different helmets—blocked the end of the alley. Where the hell had he come from?

“Dirty night, sir.” Glaswegian by the burr.

“Right enough,” said Davy.

“On your way home, sir?”

“Aye.” Jesus, the obvious next question was “Where do you live?” It would be difficult to explain why he was heading in the wrong direction.

The soldier lowered his weapon, the raindrops coursing along the dark metal barrel. “You're lucky, sir. Me and my mates are stuck out here for a fair few hours yet.” He pointed out into the street beyond.

The rest of the squad would be out there, crouched in doorways, quartering the road. “Aye,” said Davy, thinking
, and you want me to say thank you, don't you, you skitter?
“It's a good thing you are; we could use a bit of peace and quiet.” He was relieved to see the young man smile. “I'll be getting on, then.”

“Right, sir. Safe home.” The soldier stood aside, letting Davy walk past the rest of the detail, meeting no one's eyes, keeping his head down. Despite the pain in his thigh, he managed to disguise his usually rolling gait. He'd not give the bastards anything to remember him by.

He did not look back until he had crossed the road and walked into the shadows of another side street. He stopped, leaned against a wall, and rubbed his thigh, hard, with the heel of his hand. Jesus, but it ached. Still, only a wee way to go. He continued, past a small tobacconist's, mesh-wire-grilled windows, spilling a tiny pool of lighted comfort into the dark. Just round one more corner and three houses along. The door was shut. He rapped on the peeling-painted wood with his knuckles.

The door opened and a white-haired man peered out. He sneezed, sniffed, and wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve. “How's about you, Davy? Come on in.”

The small living room of the house had been made into a bar. Men in collarless shirts and V-necked pullovers sat at tables or lounged against the walls. The air was blue with tobacco haze and smelled of unwashed undervests.

He forced his way to the bar, exchanging greetings with the men he passed, men who had known him in the old days, men who had no idea that Davy was now an active Provo.

“How's about you?” The barman leaned over and shook Davy's hand.

“Rightly. Gimme a half-un.”

The barman handed Davy a glass of whiskey. Davy paid and found a chair at a table close to the bar. Acknowledging the beery greetings of the other occupants with a nod, he sat, lit a Woodbine, and sipped his whiskey, grateful for its warm, peaty taste. He tried to ignore the whining about the injustices of being a Catholic in Ulster. If the Provos hadn't taken him in, he might have become just like the rest of these deadbeats. Jesus.

He finished his drink and was wondering about having another when he saw a man stand at the table opposite. The lad was about twenty—jeans, shirt, a woolen scarf loose round his neck. He was unshaven, his eyes unfocused, and he swayed slightly. He tilted his head back and opened his mouth.

The notes were pure and sweet, the words sad and lovelorn. He sounded like a young John McCormack.

The winter it is past and the summer's come at last,

The birds they do sing on every tree,

Their little hearts are glad,

But mine is very sad,

For my true love is far away from me.

The final line of the verse hurt. God, it hurt. Davy could see her, black hair, chuckling eyes. He mouthed the words of the chorus: “So straight I will repair to the Curragh of Kildare, and it's there I'll find tidings of my dear,” as the hum of conversation died.

Despite the ache for her, Davy let himself be soothed by the music, lulled by the words. While the other men pounded out their approval, he rose and bought another whiskey, a double. The boy started to sing “The Legion of the Rearguard.” Davy turned his back to the bar. In the far corner three men were waving fingers in the air in time with the music. Two held two fingers aloft, the other a single digit. So the first two were locals from the 2nd Battalion and the lad with the one finger up was a visitor from 1st. He'd be down from the Upper Falls or Andersonstown or Ballymurphy. Their area of operations covered Lisburn and the surrounding countryside, too.

Davy searched his memory. First Battalion's CO was that shit Brendan McGuinness. One of the stop-at-nothing boys. The kill-women-and-children rebels. Davy spat, found an empty bit of wall to lean against, and listened to the words.

Eager and ready to defend you for love of you they die.

Proud march the soldiers of the rearguard.

Soldiers, he thought. Right, not murderers. Och, to hell with it. The song went on. As long as the youngster was going to perform, Davy would sit here, listening, enjoying, remembering—and wishing that Sean would get in touch. If Davy could no longer be a lover, at least he could be a soldier. But when would the call come?

 

THIRTEEN

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20

Angus McKenzie, the Glaswegian private who had stopped Davy McCutcheon on his way to the pub, hefted his SLR. Up ahead, the sergeant ordered a halt. McKenzie squatted on the pavement. He was sick of Belfast. He'd not had a job in Glasgow since he'd left school, and the recruiting poster had seemed attractive: a grinning squaddie in a swimsuit, arm round a stunning bird, blue water, palm trees. “Join the Army and see the world,” it said. He spat. “See the world?” And he'd got fucking Belfast. Still, his regiment was on roulade, only here for six months, and those six months would be up at the end of this week. Two more days, then back to their depot in Scotland. Couldn't come soon enough.

As last man in the file he could see the rest of the squad, hunkered like him. He took off his caubeen and ran his fingers through his hair. He wished they were allowed to wear steel helmets, but some brass-hatted bastard had decided that helmets were seen as threatening by the civilian population. And self-loading rifles weren't?

He heard the sergeant yell, “All right. Move yourselves.”

He crammed his caubeen back on his head, careless of the beret's bright red hackle, then stood and trudged along the Belfast street. He paid little attention to the lout leaning against a house on the corner, blowing his nose into a large white handkerchief.

*   *   *

It had been a short flight from Belfast's Aldergrove Airport to Heathrow. The major paid the cabby, went through the building's front doors, and took the lift to Sir Charles's fourth-floor office.

“Come in, Major. Have a seat.”

Major Smith sat. “Thank you for seeing me, Sir Charles.”

“Tea?”

“No thank you, sir. I'd better get on with my report.”

“Are you getting close?”

“Not yet, sir.” Major Smith saw Sir Charles's eyebrows move closer to each other as furrows appeared on the man's forehead. “But I'm making progress. I've a pretty good idea where our man's not, where to concentrate now, and how to do it.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, sir, Harry Swanson's been most helpful, even if he wasn't too happy about my suspecting any of his Fourteen Intelligence people and insisting we clear them first.”

Sir Charles smiled. “He'll survive. Some of Swanson's mob come from the Republic of Ireland or the Catholic slums of Belfast.”

“Yes, sir. We concentrated on Thirty-nine Brigade. You said the mole was working in their tactical area.”

“Quite right.”

Major Smith pulled a file from his briefcase. He stood, placed it on the desk, opened the file, and bent over. “Here's the chain of command of a Fourteen Intelligence company detachment seconded to the Second Paras. Field-intelligence NCOs, Intelligence subaltern. Staff captain, Intelligence.” The column was marred by a cross-check. “All these men are utterly reliable.”

“Good Lord, and you've done this for all of Swanson's command?”

“Just the ones with Thirty-nine Brigade, sir.”

“You've been hard at it, Major.”

Major Smith permitted himself a brief smile. “Gillespie, the RUC man, has been most helpful. A bit suspicious at first. You were right, sir, about the police not trusting the other intelligence services. He's an amazing repository of all kinds of information about the PIRA.”

Sir Charles smiled. “And you've given him no reason to suspect what you're really after?”

“None, sir, and that's been all to the good. I'm pretty sure now the man we want is somewhere in the RUC Special Branch.”

“Go on.”

*   *   *

The dicker stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket and ambled along the street in the opposite direction as the British squad approached the corner.

In an upstairs room, six houses from the corner, a man dressed in overalls pulled on a pair of rubber gloves. He'd seen the hanky signal and knew the soldiers were on their way.