Field of Blood (12 page)

Ì'll run him down to the barracks, have an ambulance rendezvous there. Snap them up on the radio ... Come on, son.'

He lifted the boy up in his arms. He felt him struggle, and then wince from the pain. He heard him cry out. He could sense what it would mean to the child, to be

held in the arms of a British officer, and he thought he could sense the agony that

would follow a bullet fired at point blank range through the bone and muscle and

tissue of a knee‐cap, and that was after the cigarettes, and after the beating. He

held the child against his chest, tight so that he couldn't fight him. He walked to

the landrover and climbed in, and the boy was cradled in his lap.

`They wouldn't do this to each other if they lived in a bloody zoo,

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**Mr Ferris,' Fusilier Jones observed, and slapped his hand onto the gear stick.

`Just get the thing moving, Jones ...'

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He didn't know what to say to the boy. He did not know how to comfort a child

who had a shattered knee‐cap and whose stomach was burned. He wedged his

rifle between the seats and held the boy closely and tried to protect him from the

lurching journey of the landrover.

`So what sort of a lad is your Ferris?'

Rennie, thank God for it, had been given a gin by the Commanding Officer.

Sunray had a Scotch, and the Intelligence Officer had a half‐pint silver beer tankard cupped in his hands.

À very professional young officer, proved that by his actions yesterday.' Sunray

sat at the desk of his office, his fingers played with a paper knife.

Ì'm not interested in his professional abilities, sir. What's his personality. Frankly, please.'

`Pretty much the same as everyone else,' the Intelligence Officer said cautiously.

Ìf he was pretty much the same as everyone else I wouldn't have bothered to come. If he wasn't different I'd be at home now in front of my bloody fire. If you

can't be straight with me then I'm wasting my time, and I'll leave you in peace . . .'

Rennie drained his glass, slapped it down on the polished table at his elbow. Ìf

you are able to be straight with me then ... then Mr Ferris might just be very useful to me ... Colonel, if it wasn't important, then I wouldn't be here.'

Sunray had little time usually for policemen in the Province. This man he could respect. A rough‐cut stone, and a hard, tired face.

`Tell him, Jason.'

`There's no family tradition in the army, he's not the sort we usually get. He tried for a University commission, but he didn't get the college marks so he went to the Royal Military Academy, came to us that way. He's in our Regiment, but I wouldn't say he's part of us. Tried to leave us last year when we'd finished in Crossmaglen. He went for the Special Air Service selection course. Understand me, it's not against him, but S.A.S. evaluation of him was that he lacked the necessary cutting edge for that outfit . . .'

Sunray cut in. Ìf the army was confined to graduates and S.A.S. qualifiers it would be a pretty small army. Wouldn't have me for a start.' ,

`He's a quiet man, Inspector Rennie, doesn't put himself about. If we have a Mess

thrash, then he won't be there, not his scene. He'd

regard the likes of me as a black and white merchant, therefore a bit stupid.'

'

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Sunray said, `His men are quite obviously fond of him. Which may not always be

a good thing.'

`He has a pig‐obstinate streak. If something's stuck in his head then it's time wasted to try and talk him out of it. And he's a doubter, if you know what I mean.'

`What does he doubt?' Rennie asked.

`What we're doing here, what else? ... Example, he bawled me out the other day

after he'd P.‐checked this McAnally creature, before the R.P.G. hit. I said he should wake up to the fact that we were fighting psychopaths, he was jabbering

about human beings. We had a bit of a stand‐up.'

Ìt's what I hoped to hear,' Rennie said. Ì'd like to borrow Mr Ferris from you, Colonel.' Rennie smiled. He held out his glass. Ànd I'd be obliged for the other

half.'

The ambulance was already waiting inside the barracks yard when Ferris brought

in Mattie Blaney's boy. The tears had stopped. Ferris thought it must be the shock setting in.

His squaddies hadn't talked on the drive back to the barracks. It was as if a message had sunk through to all of the soldiers in the landrover; if the enemy would do this to a child, to one of their own, then what would they do to a soldier

if they were ever able to lay their hands on him, what would they do to a plain clothes soldier of S.A.S. or Mobile Reconnaissance Force or Intelligence Corps ...?

And the thought was enough to make Ferris shiver.

The priest had arrived at Springfield Road. The squaddies called him `F Two' or

the Fucking Friar. He was Father Francis . . . It was said that he spoke the Gaelic

language as a first choice, and was more fluent there than in English. Whenever

there was an incident he was always fast down to the barracks from Turf Lodge.

He was young, not out of his twenties and wore short‐cut hair and heavy pebble

glasses over pink cheeks that were hardly ready for the razor. The officers in the

Mess all reckoned that he prayed on bare knees each night for the ground to open up and swallow all of the British army in Northern Ireland and then close over and suffocate them. The priest made a point of brushing against one of Ferris's soldiers as he went forward to watch the boy being lifted into the rear of

the ambulance, and he could have walked round the soldier. He seemed to

whisper in the ear of the boy before the doors were closed.

Ferris felt the anger rising in him. They were told always to be polite to priests.

Headquarters laid down that the priests were a moderating

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**influence on the community and were a necessary vehicle by which to detach

the population from the clutches of the Provisionals. Headquarters only talked to

the bishops.

`Quite a nice class of parishioner you have, Father Francis ...' Ferris said.

`Mr Ferris, isn't it? I presume it's what you wanted, Mr Ferris, a boy knee‐capped,

or a man executed.'

`What I wanted? . . . Absolute bullshit.'

The priest glared at Ferris. Òbscenity is usually the hallmark of a second‐rate vocabulary. You lifted Sean McAnally, a good family man, a man living in the South and trying to renounce violence, you lift him when he comes home to see

his wife, and then you make your vicious insinuation in the media . . .'

`What the hell are you talking about?

'You let it be known that an informer had led you to Sean McAnally. You know

what happens to informers, Mr Ferris. That's why I say with confidence that the

mutilation of this child is what you wanted.'

The priest turned to walk away.

`That's just not bloody true,' Ferris called after him.

The priest swung to face Ferris. Ì haven't the time to stand around, Mr Ferris. I

have to go to the Royal Victoria Hospital to offer consolation to a small hurt child while the surgeons rebuild his knee‐cap. They do a good job, but he'll never run

again. Then I have to go to his mother. Someone has to try to sweep up the filth

left by your dirty tricks.'

The priest was gone, out from under the arc lights, out into the night. The high

iron gates closed behind him.

Ferris shook his head, as if there was a bad taste in his mouth and a pain in his

forehead. He had heard the phrase ànonymous tip‐off' on the radio, and he'd wondered, and he'd had a laugh to himself about it when the Intelligence Officer

had explained the ploy. Christ, what a bloody awful place. He had used his sleeve

to wipe the tears off the child's cheeks.

The Intelligence Officer was standing in a doorway, watching. He would have heard the exchange.

'Sunray's office, David.'

Ferris went to the Weapons Pit, aimed at the sand, cleared his rifle, and headed

for the Intelligence Officer. He felt betrayed. There was a sort of a truth in the 63

accusation of F Two. `Psychological Warfare' the Intelligence Officer called it.

`Dirty Tricks' the priest called it. And both knew they were right ...

He followed the Intelligence Officer to Sunray's office.

He saw Rennie sitting in an easy chair, with a glass in his hand, 'and comfortable.

Sunray didn't offer Ferris a drink. He went straight to the point. Detective Chief

Inspector Rennie had made an unusual request

that Ferris be from time to time available at Castlereagh. There was nothing frivolous about the request, and he had been convinced of the urgency of the matter and so had waived the normal etiquette of consulting with Lisburn

Headquarters. Ferris should put himself at Detective Chief Inspector Rennie's disposal. Ferris looked at his watch. Near to ten o'clock.

`Let's shift ourselves, young man.' Rennie acknowledged the drink with a nod to

the Commanding Officer, and led the way out.

Ferris travelled in Rennie's car. Hell of a job holding a Self Loading Rifle in some state of readiness while sitting in the passenger seat of a saloon. There was a police landrover behind them. Rennie drove fast, eyes alert and scanning the road ahead and the pavements. There were occasional bar crawlers meandering

on the streets' sides. Generally the pavements were deserted.

The silence was broken by Ferris as they came off the Grosvenor Road to cross the centre of the city. He wouldn't have spoken while they were in `hostile'

territory, wouldn't have distracted the driver.

Ìt wasn't true that we were acting on a tip‐off for McAnally ... whoever put that

out should be bloody well ashamed of himself.'

Ì put it out,' Rennie said. Ànd, Mr Ferris, it'll take a lot more than that to shame me.'

Ìt was a kid.'

Rennie looked away from the road, looked into Ferris's face.

Ì've been fighting this war for more than fifteen years. In that time a few things

may have happened that I regret having happened. But I don't need a lecture on

mistakes from someone who's been here eight weeks ... there's a war going on

here, Mr Ferris. You want some victims of the war? Try the Pentecostalists hymn‐

singing when they're shot down, try the nurses who're going to bed when the hostel's bombed, try the folks having a meal out at the La Mon when they're incinerated. I care about those victims, worshippers, nurses, folks having their dinner. I care about them more than I care about a Provo kid getting his knee blown.'

Ànd the kid isn't what I've been dragged out for?' Ferris said brusquely.

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`Don't tell me you're knackered, lad, we're all knackered. And don't tell me it's unfair, because everything that happens in this God‐forsaken place is unfair.

Listen, my mates are buried here. That's why I care about winning this war. That's

why mistakes don't keep me awake.'

Ì'm listening.'

`So listen, and don't interrupt.'

Ferris grinned. `Let's have it, Mr Rennie.'

`First the logistics. We're allowed four interviews with a prisoner in any one day,

and the day finishes at midnight. We'll be at Castlereagh at eleven, and we've had

three sessions with our laddie ...'

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**`With McAnally?

'Do us a favour, young man, shut up ... I have one more hour with McAnally before I have to tuck him up for the night, and I don't get back to him until he's

had his cooked breakfast in the morning. That's the logistics. Now the history ...

In the old days, when the police role was upgraded to primacy over the army, we

were given the job of criminalizing the paramilitaries. We had to get them into court and win a conviction on a criminal basis ‐ murder, attempted murder, possession of firearms, membership of a proscribed organization. No witness'll dare to come forward, can't blame them, so we used to be a bit physical in persuading the "freedom fighters" to sign away their liberty. They confessed and the courts locked them up, and the politicians across the water got faint‐hearted

and started screaming. We were filling the Kesh up, putting the bastards away ...

That's history. Castlereagh's wired for cameras now. There are uniforms crawling

up the bloody corridors. Confessions don't come easily any more. Got the

picture?'

They were out into the south‐east suburbs. Tree‐lined roads, solid family houses.

Homes for the Protestants to sleep safe in while the war was fought in their name

away in the ghettos, away to the west of the city.

`Got it.'

`So, we had to find another way. We have one thing going for us here, it's the only bloody thing. We have money, we have as much money as we can spend.

We had to stop thumping the confessions out of them, and we started to buy the

information we required. We bought informers ... Twenty‐five a week in old notes, or fifty, or up to a couple of tons if the leak was good and sharp. P.I.R.A.

doesn't like informers, so the bodies started showing up on the wasteground. Our

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informers were getting the message that it wasn't a pensionable job. We moved