Field of Blood (23 page)

was the kitchen, the second door was the living room, the third door was the bedroom.

It took them a moment to find the light switch by the door. It was a tiny room, big

enough only for a double bed and a small wardrobe and two wooden chairs. The

bed was lengthwise against the far wall. They had come in at a rush and now they

were leaden in their tracks because there was only a girl in the bed. She was a pretty little thing, youngfaced as if she were just out of school, and she had tousled, curling, auburn hair. She was sitting up in the bed, the straps of her nightdress on her shoulders and the sheet held vice‐like over her chest.

Ferris saw the grin on Fusilier Jones's mouth.

`Sorry for the intrusion, Miss, but I have a warrant,' the Inspector intoned. Ì'm here for Kevin Muldoon.'

For Fusilier Jones and his mates, tipping a bare‐arsed girl out of bed at 05.35 on a wet December morning made soldiering worthwhile.

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**`He's not here,' she was defiant, lovely, blazing eyes.

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A squaddie opened the wardrobe, touched the Inspector's arm for attention and

shone a torch onto a crumpled heap of a pair of trousers and a shirt and a jersey

and a man's shoes.

The Inspector's smile was mirthless, not matching Fusilier Jones's happiness. The

Inspector pushed past Ferris and the squaddies, he went to the bed, and heaved

the bedclothes down onto the floor. All the soldiers in the room saw her legs and

the gold below her stomach, and one sniggered, and they all saw the pyjama bottoms abandoned by her feet. The Inspector caught at the girl's arm and pulled

her off the bed. Ferris and his Fusiliers took the cue and slid the bed back.

The man lay on his side against the wall. He was naked, he was shivering, his face

was livid red. He held one hand over his privates, the other was raised to protect

his head.

Ferris stared down at him, fascinated.

Rifle barrels and Sterling barrels were turned on him. Ferris saw the scar across

the bridge of his nose. He thought that if the man had worn trousers he would have hurled himself at his captors. A man can't fight without trousers.

`Hands above your head, Muldoon,' the Inspector said dispassionately.

The hands were raised, then snatched by a constable, and the handcuffs clicked

into place.

Kevin Muldoon was dressed in the clothes that had been thrown in haste onto the cupboard floor, the shirt and jersey pulled over his handcuffed wrists. The Inspector recited the terms of the Emergency Provisions powers as the trousers

were drawn up over the knees of the man.

The crowd of armed men in the room eased back to allow Muldoon and his escort

to be run out of the bedroom, away across the hallway and out to the landrovers.

`What is he?' Ferris quietly asked the Inspector. `What is Kevin Muldoon?'

The Inspector turned on him a supercilious glare. `What's that to an infantry lieutenant?

'I helped pull in McAnally.'

Now the interest sparkled on the Inspector's face. `He's the top boy. He runs Brigade.'

Ferris looked back and through the open door of the bedroom, and the open front door. He looked out into the night where the street was alive with the sounds of the soldiers and police and their vehicles. He understood why McAnally

was a diamond in Rennie's scheme. He understood why McAnally had squeezed

his hand tight to confirm the trust. He thought that he had achieved something

after all in the weeks

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in Belfast, and the achievement was the arrest of a naked man who hid on the floor under his bed.

Ferris said, `That's a great man to put away.'

Ìf we put him away . . .' The Inspector shouted from the hallway, Àre you dressed yet, lady, I've not all day.'

`McAnally will put him away.'

,if you think P.I.R.A.'s going to lie down under this one then you're a green young

soldier, Lieutenant. There's going to be all hell over this one ... Lifting Kevin Muldoon's the easy bit, putting him away is going to be bloody, bloody hard, whatever that creature McAnally says now ... or didn't they tell you that? Didn't

they tell you that going supergrass is no picnic? I tell you this. If McAnally sees this through when it gets hot, then it'll be a bloody miracle.'

The girl stood in the doorway of the bedroom. She was dressed. There was a constable in front of her and one behind her, and still she showed no submission.

She looked as though she would spit in the faces of the soldiers and police.

The Inspector said evenly, `We'll be on our way, lady ...' He turned to Ferris. Ìn

my job I don't see much sign of miracles.'

The door of the maisonette was too damaged to fasten shut after them, and they

left it open, with the lights on in the hallway and the bedroom, and with a guard

outside to await the arrival of Forensic.

The police landrovers were pulling away as Ferris came out onto the street. There

was the first grey smear of the daylight hovering over the roofs and chimneys of

the street. He had seen the man who ran Brigade, and the bastard was in no way

different to the hundreds of men of middle age that he saw on the Falls every day

that he was out footslogging on patrol.

Roisin McAnally sat in the police canteen at Springfield Road.

Her back was to her husband who stood with a powerfully built detective and whispered the names and peered through the small slit he held open in the venetian blind.

She thought she was being smothered with capable attention by the two

policewomen who tripped around her and her children. They had found a

portable high chair for Baby Sean; they had brought chips and sausages for Little

Patty and cut the sausages for her; they had discovered some Space War comics

for Young Gerard. She was proud of Young Gerard. Her son turned the pages automatically and showed no sign of pleasure. She was proud of her boy because

he gave nothing to the bitches who fussed around him. She could have kicked 123

Little Patty who ate as though this were the first food she had taken in a week.

And Baby Sean didn't give a shit, because Baby Sean smiled in wide‐faced

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**happiness at the policewoman who made contorted grimaces across the high

chair tray, Baby Sean didn't give a shit that his father was a tout.

There were the sounds of the landrovers arriving in the yard below the canteen

window. Though he whispered, she could clearly hear her husband.

`That's Ollie O'Brien.'

`Brigade Quartermaster, Gingy.'

`That's right, Mr Rennie.'

She had heard many names spoken. She had heard the names of Joey

McGilivarry and of Tom McCreevy and Joey Mulvaney and Billy Clinch and Dusty

O'Hara ... She knew them all. She used to neck with Dusty when she was seventeen, used to let his hand into her blouse but not down her jeans. And Billy

used to bring her money when her man was in the Kesh. And there had been a

night the year before when Joey had called and if it hadn't been curse time she'd

known that she'd have taken him upstairs because the kids were asleep in bed.

And Tom sang a dream in the bar on a Saturday night, sang of bloody victory.

And Joey had gone serious with her sister, till he'd got nicked and she'd gone to

Canada.

And more names ... A policewoman had her hand on Young Gerard's arm and asked him if he'd like some food now, and smiled sweetly at him when he dumbly

shook his head. It was a dream she couldn't wake from. There were policemen coming into the canteen and making a noise and laughing too loud, because a few minutes before they had been out on the streets and afraid and so they had

to crack a big laugh now to show how brave they were. They carried their trays

past Roisin McAnally and the two policewomen and the kids, and they all

dropped their voices then, and they all looked the other bloody way, and they all

pretended there was nothing that was special about the family at the table.

`That's Kevin Muldoon, Mr Rennie.'

`Tell me who he is, Gingy.'

`You know who he is.'

`You tell me, Gingy.'

`He's the Commander of Belfast Brigade, Mr Rennie.'

With both her hands she clasped Young Gerard's head, and she pulled it close to

her mouth and she kissed his hair. When she let his head go free he said nothing,

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and went back to turning the pages of the comic books. Little Patty had tipped

the brown sauce on the table and the policewoman said it was nothing and was

wiping it with a tissue.

She couldn't cry. If she hadn't cried in the landrover, she couldn't cry in the police canteen.

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There was a splash of thin sunshine as the rain cleared briefly over the Belfast dawn, and the landrovers carried the haul of prisoners from Springfield Road to

the Castlereagh Holding Centre. All but two of the men and women named by Sean Pius McAnally had been successfully lifted. Only one of those held had tried

to resist arrest and he would have a technicolour eye by lunchtime and two constables would wear facial sticking plaster for the rest of the week.

Mr Pronsias Reilly was woken by the clock radio beside his bed. He always started

the day with the downtown headlines. The first news bulletin of the day usually

let him know whether he was required early at the Magistrates, whether he could

go straight to the Crumlin Court House. It was only after the headlines and the weather that he realized the omission. No announcement of a charge against Sean Pius McAnally. If a man had been charged with 'Tenner' Simpson's murder,

and with the murder of two 'tecs, then the Press Office would have been crowing

the news like an early morning cockerel to the News Rooms. And he had heard

on the vine that the chemical tests on McAnally's clothing would stitch the case

tight against him.

For Mr Pronsias Reilly, dabbing on the pre‐shave lotion, groping for his battery razor, there was only one conclusion to be drawn from the downtown headlines

... Sean Pius McAnally had made a deal.

Alone, in his bath, walking on the Sperrins, sailing on Carlingford, alone in his private and most honest thoughts, he would not have regarded himself as a fellow traveller with the P.I.R.A. But he was a Republican, he was a believer in a

United Ireland, and he hated the Protestant ascendancy. He had lived too long inside the Catholic minority ever to abandon his roots. He was a self‐taught lawyer before gaining his exam passes at Queen's University.

He remembered the woman who had come to his office. He remembered what

he had thought of her. He remembered the fierce loyalty of the woman to her imprisoned man, and her faith was in a fucking tout.

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He had been, the previous year, calling on a client in Whiterock and his car had

been hijacked by some kids. He had shouted and screamed on the pavement and

a big man had come to him, a man with a bullet wound in the throat. The man

had calmed him and walked away, and twenty minutes later the man had come

back at the wheel of his car and not a scratch on it. He had tried to pay the man,

and the man had refused. Mr Pronsias Reilly didn't know what ranking Frankie Conroy held in the Organization and didn't ask. Three times since Frankie Conroy

had escorted women to see him and consult with him when their man was inside.

One turn deserved another turn.

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**He rang the number of Frankie Conroy.

He heard the sleep‐filled voice repeat the number he had dialled. He didn't introduce himself.

`You might wonder whether Sean Pius McAnally has gone supergrass.'

He put down the telephone.

The Secretary of State was taking his breakfast of toast and orange juice in the

flat over his office in the Castle, when his civil servant brought in the morning's

newspapers.

À bit damned early, Fred.'

Ì've been with the police since five. Belfast Brigade in its entirety is currently enjoying the hospitality of Castlereagh Holding Centre.' `That's damned good.'

Ìt's gone like clockwork, so far.'

The Secretary of State looked keenly at his civil servant. `You'll keep that clock

wound . . . if we fail with this one we're all for the rubbish bin.'

Ànd if we win, sir, then it's P.I.R.A. Belfast, that's on the dust cart.' The civil servant put down the newspapers, smiled briskly, and let himself out.

The Secretary of State reflected that his political and public career depended on

a turned Provo carrying through an act of betrayal against the Organization he had sworn allegiance to.

He glanced at the front page of the Newsletter. More demands from the

Protestant politicians for his resignation. He picked up the Irish News. A Catholic

leader said he was tainted with bias and should be sacked as a gesture to the nationalist population. God alone knew that he did his best for the bloody place,

and God alone knew where he'd find some thanks for his efforts.

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Frankie turned into the Drive and braked.