The Truth Commissioner (38 page)

When Fenton is called, his name stripped of its former rank seems to hang naked in the air. However, as instructed, he remains
in his seat and instead Anderson rises and approaches the bench where he makes a request that Fenton's testimony should be
given in closed court because there is the possibility of state security being compromised and that Fenton deserves the protection
of the court.

‘As has already been established by the authority of the Commission,' Stanfield says wearily, ‘only the defendants have the
right to request a closed court and it is the expressed wish of the Walshe family that these proceedings remain open. In relation
to the question of state security no public-interest immunity certificates have been presented and so your request is denied.
Thank you, Mr Anderson. Now let Mr Fenton take the stand.'

As Fenton passes him Anderson gives him a smile of encouragement, then Stanfield begins by asking him to introduce himself
and his connection with the case. He gives them his name and former rank, where he was stationed, the broad outline of his
former duties and experience.

‘And when did you first encounter Connor Walshe?' Stanfield asks when he's finished.

‘I first came across Connor in January of that year. I can't remember the exact date but it was towards the end of January.'
He glances involuntarily at the two women staring at him then continues, ‘Connor was suspected of being involved in some incidents
of petty crime – vandalism, making a nuisance of himself, that sort of thing. There were also some break-ins and his name
was mentioned to us as a possible suspect.' He spares them the details – it's one of the few kindnesses he can give them.
‘A boy fitting his description had been seen leaving one of the premises in question. We picked him up and informally asked
him what he knew about it. Connor denied any knowledge of any wrongdoing and we let him go again. There wasn't enough evidence
to charge him with anything so we gave him a word of warning and sent him on his way.'

‘When did you hear he was missing?'

‘The thirteenth of May. His mother reported Connor missing at the station.'

‘And what were the results of your inquiry?'

‘No trace of Connor was found. There were apparently no witnesses to what had happened or where he had gone. We did over two
hundred interviews and did door-to-door but nothing to assist us was produced. At that particular time it was difficult to
get people to talk openly or come forward and that undoubtedly hampered the inquiry.' He glances down at Young and Anderson
and they nod in encouragement. ‘Some time later, certain sources supplied us with information that he had been abducted by
the IRA and taken to a different location.'

‘And did these sources say what had happened to him?'

‘No, no one appeared to know. We conducted searches locally and further afield but without success. The police on the southern side of the border also conducted enquiries but equally without success.'

‘And do you know the identity of those who abducted Connor?'

‘I might surmise it was the work of the local unit of the Provisional IRA but I wouldn't be able to identify the actual people
involved.' He stares at the back wall of the chamber. ‘We had no specific information or intelligence as to who these people
might be.'

‘And what do you think happened to Connor?'

‘Again I can't say but there must be a significant possibility that it was something serious.'

‘Thank you, Mr Fenton,' Stanfield says but as he sees Fenton about to leave the stand, ‘I think Mrs Walshe's advocate, Ms
Clarke, would like to ask you some questions.'

Fenton stares at the young woman coming towards him and thinks she hardly looks old enough to be a lawyer. She stares back
at him and he sees that in her hand she's carrying a cassette player. He doesn't understand and looks at Anderson and Young
whose angled heads are almost touching and when they finish speaking to each other Young shrugs his shoulders at him then
Anderson rises and says that it's expressly forbidden under the remit of the Commission to make recordings and he wishes to
lodge the strongest objection to this breach of procedure.

‘The purpose of this equipment,' she says, ‘is not to make a recording that as Mr Anderson quite rightly points out would
be a serious breach of procedure, but to play a tape relevant to the case.'

‘I object,' Anderson says, still on his feet and looking flushed in the face and angry. ‘We had no prior knowledge of this
tape nor were we given an opportunity to listen to its contents.'

‘Please come forward Mr Anderson and Ms Clarke,' Stanfield says in an obviously weary tone. Fenton half turns to listen to
what he has to say. ‘Mr Anderson,' Stanfield continues, ‘can I just remind you that this is not a court and that it would
be in everyone's interest if you could switch out of adversarial mode and concentrate on giving your best services to the
establishment of a communal truth. Your client is not on trial. And, Ms Clarke, can you assure me that this tape is of legitimate
concern to this hearing and relevant to our purposes?'

‘I can, Commissioner, and believe it's an important part of the story of Connor Walshe.'

Stanfield glances to where Matteo and Laura are sitting. Matteo is nodding his head as if he needs encouragement to approve
the playing of the tape. He looks at Ms Clarke who seems preposterously young, hardly older than the students he used to lecture,
and tells her to proceed.

‘This tape has been authenticated by Mrs Walshe and Connor's sister as being his voice.' She hands a piece of paper to Stanfield.
‘Independent experts have also verified that the tape has not been tampered with in any way so with the Commission's permission.'
She sets the player on the front desk and Fenton watches her press the play button. He grips the lectern a little tighter
and tries to think of being in the van and anonymous miles of roads spooling endlessly in front of him. Of towns and cities
glimpsed at dawn and still asleep. Of roads climbing over the mountains where thick swathes of trees border the broken and
fraying edges of his journey. He thinks of sleeping on the pallet of clothes, his face close to the roof of the van, of Florian's
house in the woods. And then into his futile attempts to fashion an escape from the terrible openness of the moment where
he feels as if he's standing on an exposed plain devoid of any feature that might shelter, he hears the voice of Connor Walshe.
And then he's transported once again, despite the resistance of his will, to all the places he heard that voice, the voice
that is instantly recognisable, and there's the same pleading, the familiar edge of desperation that he heard in it the very
first time, but this time there's no pretence of bravery, no attempt at bravado or aggression. The voice fills the chamber
with its whimpering, broken stammer of words and it flows down through the rows of seats and laps round Michael Madden like
the water laps and slurps round the jetty at the lake. He wants to walk away, return to the house and find Ramona sleeping
in the bed, have her look up and then offer him the warmth of her embrace. Instead all he can do is fidget until Mairead rests
her hand on his arm in a gesture that's meant to calm him and then she tells him to sit outside in the foyer and she'll get
him when he's called.

Fenton leans his forearms on the lectern and keeps his eyes focused on the back of the chamber. ‘And they said that they'd
get me shot if I didn't tout for them. Said they'd put me in a car and drop me off where people'd be waiting for me to give
me a head job.' The voice is high pitched and rising on a wave of breathless insistence, the fear its own lilting descant.
On and on it tumbles from the player in a frantic scramble to find some exoneration, some hope of absolution. ‘They give me
money but hardly anything and I didn't do it for the money but because I was scared and they kept saying what would happen
if I didn't help them.' The voice beats against the walls of the chamber like some moth trapped in a tremble of confusion
and looking for release. Stanfield looks down on the listeners and sees their eyes drop to the floor as a kind of collective
embarrassed shame settles on the room because they know they're listening to the voice of a boy who's about to die and they
know that their presence intrudes even all these years later and that their places should be taken by a priest or his family,
someone, anyone, who will put a hand on his shoulder and tell him that everything will be all right. They want the tape to
stop. They don't want to hear the rest about how Fenton gave him money to supply information, of the places they met. They
want the tape to finish, to be able to loosen the coiling ligature of words that constricts and chokes their own sense of
who they are and replaces it with a helplessness that pulls everything away from them like some sucking tide going out. And
then it does. But the silence that follows the whispering final slither of words lasts only for a second and then there's
the voice of a boy asking, ‘Can I go home now?' And again when there's no answer, ‘Can I go home now?'

The waiting area forbids smoking so Madden goes to the toilets and lights a cigarette. His hand is shaking and he stumbles
over striking the match. He leans against the white-tiled wall and inhales deeply.

The clunk of the player being switched off is what everyone wanted but now to Fenton the silence is even more terrible than
the words. Stanfield, however, feels a flicker of admiration for her sense of theatrics as Clarke pauses for maximum effect,
resisting the temptation to speak while the voice still echoes in the four corners of the room. Fenton glances at Young and
Anderson but for the first time they're not looking at him and he knows they've cut him loose, that no one's standing shoulder
to shoulder.

‘Isn't it true that Connor was working for you?' Clarke asks after a few moments have passed. ‘Just as he claimed.'

‘I didn't say any of those things to Connor.'

‘With respect, Mr Fenton, I asked you if it was true that Connor Walshe was working for you, working for the police?'

‘He didn't work for us. We didn't employ him in that sense of the word.'

‘In what sense did you employ him then?'

Fenton considers before answering. He has no capacity for lying and no skill in choosing evasive words and he tells himself
that if he's to try, it will mean throwing away some part of himself that's important to him, that it will damage the little
legacy he has left from all the years of service he gave.

‘In the fight against terrorism it was of crucial importance to gather intelligence. We needed that intelligence to try to
protect life. People were dying – we had to enlist as much information as possible.'

‘So you enlisted Connor?'

‘We met him from time to time in the same way we met many people.'

‘How many times did you meet him?'

‘I don't have a record or an exact number.'

‘Five or six? A dozen? About how many, Mr Fenton?'

‘Perhaps half a dozen. I don't remember exactly.'

‘And you paid him?'

‘Small amounts of money. Not very much.'

‘So what are we talking about? Five or ten pounds? More?'

‘I think mostly about ten pounds.'

‘Each time?'

‘No, not always. Sometimes no money was paid.'

‘And in return, Connor gave you information?'

‘There wasn't much information. Sometimes I think he just wanted to talk as much as anything.'

She pauses and touches the cassette player with her hand. ‘Connor said he was threatened, forced to supply information.'

‘No one said those things to him. No one threatened him or said he was going to get shot.'

‘So why do you think he said those things?'

‘I would guess because he was frightened and because in the situation he later found himself in, he'd little choice about
what to say.' Fenton stares at her. She looks no older than her twenties; about the same age as the young woman he met on
the mountain that morning when the slopes of Donard were shawled in snow. That same day he fell on his descent. And what does
she know except books and examinations that take place on paper? He feels a growing sense of anger and wants to tell her that
every day he was examined by what he had to see and do and maybe that sometimes it was hard to know what the right answer
was.

‘Mr Fenton, you are aware of Connor's age?'

‘Yes.'

‘So you knew he was a child?'

It feels like he's falling now, powerless to stop himself, carried by a cold rush of water. ‘Yes,' he says as he stares at
her but sees neither fear nor hate in her face, only a calm resolution, smooth like the slabs of granite, but he can't let
it take him and so he struggles against it, determined to break his fall. ‘I don't think you understand what we were dealing
with …'

‘I understand that you were dealing with a child,' she interrupts, her voice flecked with the first trace of an impatient
insistence.

‘Ms Clarke, please let Mr Fenton finish what it is he wants to say,' Stanfield says.

‘Unless you were there, unless you lived through it, you can't understand what it was like,' Fenton says. He wants to tell
her what it was like to enter the bar after it had been sprayed, about the smells, the sounds, what he had to see. He wrants
to tell her about what fear feels like when it takes up residence in your stomach, about the heave and churn that accompanied
the worst moments, but he doesn't have the words. He stares out at the gathered audience and tries even though he knows the
attempt is doomed to failure. ‘Things were falling apart, society was falling apart. When you reported on duty you never knew
what was going to happen, what you might have to deal with. People were dying. Men, women,' he pauses, ‘and children, too.
We were in a war, things change in a war. Things happen that shouldn't happen.'