Field of Blood (24 page)

Far up the road he saw the police landrovers, and beyond them, parked at the side of the road, was a removal van.

That was all he needed to see. He reversed and drove away.

Frankie Conroy had told the Chief that Gingy McAnally was playing stone statues

in Castlereagh, and all the time the bugger was touting ... Shit Almighty, Gingy

McAnally had been briefed on `Tenner' Simpson by all of the Brigade.

He had been strip‐searched. His legs had been prised open and a cold dry hand

had felt in his crutch, and the cheeks of his arse had been opened for a mirror examination. He had been weighed. He had been asked if he wished to see a doctor. He had signed for his meagre possessions. His signature was his only active co‐operation in the Castlereagh reception process. The Chief sat now in a

solitary cell.

He had no way of knowing how many men had been lifted with him, but he had

seen the numbers of the vehicles in the yard at Springfield Road. The numbers of

Saracens and landrovers added up to a big lift.

Confusion, anger, frustration, swam in his mind. What had the pigs got on him?

What had the pigs got lined up and ready and waiting for him? No detective had

yet bothered to talk to him. He was in bloody solitary.

They had taken the Chief's watch. He had been in the solitary cell probably for less than twenty minutes, and it seemed to be for bloody ever. Many times, dates

spread over many years, he had been lifted. This was a changed time. Never before had the bastards seemed so confident.

Frankie came within sight of the maisonettes.

There were landrovers outside the block, and uniformed policemen, and as he cruised gently forward he saw two detectives coming out of the doorway and carrying a plastic bag between them that was filled with clothes.

Frankie knew the block. He knew it was where the Chief was currently sleeping.

He set off to check the homes of Ollie O'Brien and Joey McGilivarry and Tom McCreevy. He knew what he would find. His face was grim set.

When he saw the landrovers at Ollie O'Brien's in Andy'town, he muttered

soundlessly to his chest: `Gingy McAnally, you're fucking dead. So help me, you're dead, you fucking tout.'

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Rennie had said to him that he shouldn't try to talk to Roisin until they were in the safe house. Rennie warned him that she would be in shock, and that he should take it slowly. Rennie played the marriage bloody guidance priest with him. Rennie had talked to him quietly by the window after the men had been brought into the yard. They would have the morning together, what remained of

the morning, and after lunch Rennie would come to the safe house and he would

explain to Roisin what was happening and then she'd see it easier.

Didn't see it so bloody easy now, did she? Hadn't bloody spoken to

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**him all the time they had been in the canteen, and he'd seen the vicious look

on her face when Little Patty had come to sit on his knee.

Rennie had gone when the landrovers had left for Castlereagh.

There was a uniformed Inspector at the next table to them, who cleaned his fingernails with a used match, and there were the policewomen who'd become tired of clearing up Little Patty's food and of finding new comics for Young Gerard, and there were two constables who sat at tables that were a little away

from them and acted as watchdogs to stop any man using the canteen from coming too close to them.

Abruptly, the Inspector looked at his watch, like it was an afterthought and he was caught by surprise ... Bloody liar ... The Inspector stood, motioned for McAnally to come and waved to Roisin and the kids that they should follow ...

acting like he'd get a bloody disease if he spoke to them. Roisin had Baby Sean

on her shoulder. McAnally picked up Little Patty. He put out his hand for Young

Gerard to take, and the kid stuck his hands down into his pockets. He'd belt the

bugger if he did that tomorrow.

The Inspector led, the family following, and after the family came the

policewomen and the two constables. They came out into the yard. It was quiet

outside. The family crossed the yard. It was as if they were now unremarkable and uninteresting. McAnally couldn't see anyone watching them. He could see soldiers and police going about their work, but he shifted Little Patty higher on

his shoulder and tried to walk taller.

There was an escort of policemen and three landrovers waiting for them. He couldn't turn, not to face Roisin. He felt Little Patty flinching against his shoulder as he walked closer to the landrovers.

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`Well done, Mr McAnally.'

He stopped. He swung and saw Ferris. Ferris was coming forward, walking fast,

from behind him. He saw the officer smile hesitantly. His face was still smeared

with camouflage cream.

Ì really meant it when I said it before, well done. I admire what you've done.'

Roisin was at his shoulder. He felt her eyes on him. Ì told you why I did it.'

Ferris said, `Doesn't matter why, only matters what you're doing.' McAnally peered into Ferris's face. Ì did it so's I wouldn't go to the Kesh.'

The officer was shaking his head, laughing gently. `Rubbish, if you'll forgive me,

Mr McAnally. You turned your back on something evil, that's why I admire what

you've done ...'

Roisin was staring at him, contempt at her lips, and she seemed to mouth the word èvil', as if it were an insult to her religion. `You know fuck all.'

`Try me, Mr McAnally, try me some day. Come back and tell me

whether it was just staying out of the Kesh, or helping to destroy something that's rotten in this community ... You should be very proud of him, Mrs McAnally.'

`Keep her out of it.'

Ì read up about the kestrel, Mr McAnally. Lovely bird. Free to every limit. Free as

your children should be, free as Mrs McAnally should be.'

McAnally came close to Ferris.

`Why am I important to you?' he said hoarsely.

`You want to know?

'I want to know.'

Ì can't change the course of this war, can't move it an inch. You can change it,

you can cut away something that's foul. I can't but you can. Compared with what

you can do, I'm wasting my time. I'm insignificant, all of us here are irrelevant, if we're compared with what you can achieve.'

Ì've done it for myself, myself and my family only.'

Ì don't think so.'

`Why don't you ever listen?

'Mightn't believe what I'm told.'

McAnally went to the landrover. He waited at the back doors to help Roisin climb

up inside.

10

The landrover carrying the McAnally family jerked to a halt. The rear doors opened, flooding the interior with light. The escorts jumped down. They were in

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the middle of a housing estate. Past the bodies of the constables he saw small front gardens with low white‐painted fences, and windows slung with net

curtains and decorated with pot plants. The houses were of soft brick and whitewood facing and were semi‐detached. A constable reached back into the landrover to lift out the one suitcase.

`Let's get you comfortable, Mrs McAnally,' the Inspector said brusquely. Àlways

get the ladies comfortable first, isn't that right, Mr McAnally?'

McAnally reckoned it would have hurt the Inspector to call her `lady', and him

`Mister'. Roisin, beside him, snorted.

She went first, carrying Baby Sean. He went after her, with Little Patty. Young Gerard ignored his father's hand to help him down, and

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**a constable's hand, and wriggled out on the seat of his trousers and dropped

onto the roadway.

Just an ordinary estate, if McAnally kept his eyeline low. An everyday estate for

everyday people. They were the end righthand house of a cul‐de‐sac.

The Inspector looked sharply round him, as if on an ordinary and everyday estate

there could be danger. `Straight in, please, Mrs McAnally.'

McAnally looked for further horizons. On the rising ground behind the houses he

saw the corrugated iron screen fencing, and the coiled barbed wire. He saw a perimeter guard tower, blacked and draped in camouflage netting and further protected by a rocket screen. They were on a sloping hillside, the Shorts aircraft

factory and the waters of Belfast Lough were below them.

Palace Barracks. Every man who had ever sworn the oath to the Organization knew about Palace Barracks, Holywood. The lore of the Palace Barracks was rooted in the activities of the Special Branch and Intelligence Corps interrogators

a dozen years before, and thèfive techniques' used on the Provo suspects in the

early years of the war. Hooding, the noise machine, standing against the wall on

tiptoe, deprivation of sleep, absence of food, those were the Famous Five that had been imported to Northern Ireland after successful use in Aden, Cyprus, Malaya, wherever any little nationalist runt gave two fingers to the Brits. More than two thousand men had gone through Holywood before the interrogators

packed up, locked up, and went to Castlereagh. Palace Barracks had reverted to

its previous role, home for a long‐stay married accompanied battalion of the regular army. The Palace Barracks into which Gingy McAnally and his family had

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been brought was base for eighteen months for the Devons and Dorsets and their families.

Across the cul‐de‐sac a woman was bent and was picking up by hand the last of

the leaves to fall on her handkerchief lawn and was placing them one by one into

a plastic supermarket bag, and when she saw the flotsam spill out from the landrover opposite she put down her bag deliberately and went back into her house and firmly closed the door.

Roisin McAnally had seen the woman. She gazed expressionless at the slammed

door. At the entry to the cul‐de‐sac were two women, one with a push chair and

baby, one with a soldier husband, and their mouths moved in unheard talk, and

the woman kissed her soldier on the cheek, and they looked one last time at the

family and the soldier went one way and the woman with the push chair went another. She saw the young face of a woman at a window, and when she met the

stare the curtain fell and hid the face.

She followed the Inspector up the narrow front pathway, and he took a key from

his pocket and opened the front door.

She turned her face away from Baby Sean and back towards

McAnally.

`You know they think we're shit, don't you?' He didn't answer.

If the Inspector had heard, he gave no sign. At a brisk pace he led

Roisin McAnally around the house. It was furnished, army issue, for a

junior non‐commissioned officer. A through living room with a worn

sofa and chairs around a gas fire, a table at the far end beside the glass

doors out onto the back garden, no pictures on the walls and the last

of the ducks in flight had a chipped wing.

Ìt's the best we could do in the time we had, Mrs McAnally ... and

it's safe here, that's the main thing. It's a bit bare, but it'll be quite

comfortable.'

Of course, it was beyond the Inspector's reasoning that Roisin McAn

ally had never felt anything but safe in Turf Lodge, and could never

feel anything but danger if she was sleeping in the heart of a Brit army

barracks.

Up the stairs, feet padding on the carpet, the Inspector and Roisin

McAnally and Young Gerard staying close to her, and McAnally left

behind in the living room holding Little Patty's hand and carrying Baby

Sean.

`Three bedrooms upstairs, Mrs McAnally. One's a double bed, one's

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twins, one's single. Bathroom, loo, hot water all the time, much as you

want. It's not that bad, is it?

'How long are we here?

'That's not for me to say. Mr Rennie'll be down, he'll decide that.' Ànd what do

we decide?' she snapped.

`Your decision's been made, Mrs McAnally. Your husband's decided

for you, that's why you're here.'

The beds were unmade. There were neatly folded piles of blankets

and sheets and pillows on the mattresses.

She came down the stairs after him. `My baby'll want milk.' Ìn the fridge, Mrs McAnally.'

Everything organized, everything planned, and the Inspector seemed

to tell her that after life in Turf Lodge this must be bloody paradise.

She went into the kitchen to find milk from the fridge.

She heard McAnally's voice from the living room.

`Have you chucked someone out? Have you turfed someone out to

make room for us?'

She heard the Inspector's voice.

`Came vacant last week. A corporal was shot in Short Strand. The

bullet did his spine, paralysed him. They flew him to Stoke Mandeville

in the U.K., his wife's gone with him, and their kiddies. That's why the

house is free.'

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**She was frozen at the open door of the fridge, her hand was on the milk bottle.

She couldn't help herself, she had to hear what her man replied. There was a long

silence.

Ì'm sorry,' McAnally said.

Jesus, God Al‐fucking‐mighty. Sean McAnally telling a Prod peeler that he was sorry a squaddie had got himself taken out of Belfast on his back.