Field of Blood (30 page)

`You mean it, don't you? You mean it that they'd never get close to us.'

`You'll be where there are no prisons, where kids don't get kneecapped, where Roisin will know you're coming home in the evening. You'll be where proper people are.'

McAnally dropped his head down onto his hands that were splayed out over the

table. `Shit, I want to believe you.'

The van was in front, once bright red, now battered, the loudspeakers on the roof. Behind the van was the flat‐top lorry, nearly blocking the street. Behind the

lorry and arse about to it was the Cortina, Frankie at the wheel.

Frankie was following the second hand of his watch. When it crossed the hour he

hooted his horn.

`The people you're with now, Gingy, they're not setting you up in a shooting alley. They're going to protect you, they're going to care for you. Get that straight in your mind, Gingy, it's a guarantee of safety. When you've been in the

witness box, you're not just going to be chucked out on your own, you're going to

be looked after. Believe me...'

The building shuddered, the tremors swinging the ceiling light. Then

the blast of the sound of the explosion. Ferris sat rooted, the words

blocked in his mouth, his mind. McAnally set his throat to scream. The next blast

and after it the sounds of crashing glass, and the

161

curtains over the sink swept back in the draught.

`Don't just bloody sit there.' Rennie had catapulted into the kitchen. Rennie tore

at McAnally's sweater, heaved him out of his chair and

dragged him into the hallway. The area under the stairs was open plan. Rennie threw McAnally into the corner, covered him with his body.

Prentice was by the front door with his pistol drawn, crouched low.

A third explosion, nearer than the first, further than the second.

Ferris had watched Rennie's action, had watched the protection of McAnally. He

realized he was still sitting at the kitchen table, and there was glass scattered between the Tennants cans, and there was a cold wind hammering through the

window. He heard Goss shout that he had Roisin and the kids between the sofa

and the interior wall.

Then there was a fourth explosion.

A guarantee of safety.

He slid off his chair and down onto the floor.

12

`Gingy McAnally is a lying tout.'

The voice spilled across the length and breadth of the Palace Barracks. The voice

carried over the roofs of the old military buildings, through the doors and windows of the modern family quarters. A whole Battalion force and all their wives and all their children heard the denunciation of Sean Pius McAnally.

`Gingy McAnally is a paid perjurer.'

Buried beneath Rennie's huge body, squashed down into the corner beneath the

stairs, McAnally heard his name, hugely amplified, echoed out into the night. The

explosions were just a memory, a memory that was a minute old.

`Gingy McAnally is a traitor to his people.'

There was distant and sporadic gunfire, one burst from a machine gun and several isolated single shots. Then there were fire bells and ambulance sirens.

`We know where you are, Gingy. We'll always know where you are.'

Ferris ran from the kitchen down the hallway. His rifle was behind the door, still

wrapped in Rennie's car rug. Ferris took his rifle, slapped a magazine into its body. He came back to the foot of the stairs. He could see McAnally's head protruding from under Rennie's armpit.

`When we're ready to come for you, Gingy, we'll know where you are, we'll know

where to come.'

162

There was a hard knock at the front door. A clipped military report advised that

soldiers were in position around the house, that it was secure against attack.

Then a silence around McAnally and Rennie and

154

155

**Ferris and John Prentice in the hallway. Ferris saw the way that Rennie's arm

was close on McAnally's shoulders to stifle the shivering. Big, brusque bugger he

might be, but he understood a tout's fear. The bellowing voice was gone. The rhythm of the shouts was broken. Instinctively Ferris knew that the attack was finished. He stood up. He stepped over Rennie's legs and went into the living room. The television was playing, and he realized that through the bombardment

and the broadcast voice calls he had not heard the television. There was a comedian on the screen and the studio audience was braying with laughter. He

went to the settee and looked behind, and down onto the jumble of bodies and

arms and legs.

Ìt's alright now, it's over,' Ferris said.

Andy Goss pushed himself upright. He had a Walther pistol in his hand.

`You can put that away.' .

Goss cleared his pistol, made it safe, slid it down into his shoulder holster. Roisin McAnally lay prone over her children. Her face was twisted in cold, controlled fury.

Àre they alright?'

"Course they're alright,' Goss barked back at Ferris.

Ferris went back to the kitchen. He filled the kettle, put it on the stove.

`. .. It's a guarantee of safety ...'

He thought of the Mess at Springfield Road, and Sunray presiding at dinner. He

thought of Bravo's commander who soldiered in the relaxation of knowing that a

thousand Northumberland acres waited for him whenever his father thought fit

to retire. He thought of the Intelligence Officer who had briefly, just once, showed the scab of his flesh, and whose friends across the water drove Porsche

sports cars or Alfa Romeos. He thought of the Chaplain who drank a couple of bottles of whisky a week and preached on Sundays that God was on the side of 2

R.R.F. For Sunray and Bravo's commander and the Intelligence Officer and the Chaplain it was all a game with a playing time of sixteen weeks. Christ, but it was

a bloody long game for Sean Pius McAnally, and for Roisin, and for her kids.

Nothing make‐believe in the game of the supergrass and his dependents. Up to

that time Ferris had played the Battalion's game, up to the time of the thudding

163

explosions of the mortar bombs inside the perimeter of a fortified army base, up

to the time of a mechanical voice jeering into the night that an informer was marked down for execution.

The kettle was whistling.

Ferris heard McAnally's whimpering voice from the hallway.

`How did they know, Mr Rennie, how did the buggers know I was here?'

Rennie, cold and hard. `Just a random chance, Gingy. They came up lucky, that's

all.'

`They knew I was here.'

`Just a guess that proved right, they couldn't have known.'

`You told me I was safe. Mr Ferris said I was safe.'

`Listen to what I say ‐ it was just luck.'

Ferris ignored the kettle. He stood in the kitchen doorway. Roisin had come to the living room's door. She was holding Baby Sean tight against her shoulder.

She was white‐faced, she was a sleepwalker. Ferris went down the hall, past Roisin, to the telephone. He dialled Brigade Ops at Lisburn Headquarters.

`Lieutenant Ferris, 2 R.R.F., on secondment to Police Headquarters. There was a

mortar bombardment a few minutes ago at Palace Barracks, Holywood. Have

any other military installations been targeted tonight ... Thanks.'

One base only had been hit. The answer was clear on Ferris's face.

`Tell me how they knew.' McAnally shouted into Rennie's face.

Rennie shouted back. Ì don't bloody know . . .' Their faces were inches apart.

Rennie dropped his voice. Ì didn't tell them, Gingy.'

McAnally stared at Ferris. He was crying out for reassurance. Ferris couldn't speak

to him. He went back into the kitchen to make the tea.

McAnally said, `You've got to get me out of here.'

Rennie said, `We're not moving anywhere, not while it's dark.'

Later the owners of Loud and Clear Public Address would report that a van had

been stolen from their premises out on the Twinbrook estate, and a haulage company would complain of the hijacking of a flat‐top three‐tonner on the Glen

Road. And when Forensic had eventually finished with the van and the lorry those

firms would have their vehicles returned to them.

When the soldiers ventured out from Palace Barracks and retrieved the van and

the flat‐top lorry there was little for them to examine. The wooden floorboards of

the lorry were dented and splintered from the impact of the mortar's baseplate,

164

and wired to the amplification system in the back of the van was an Aiwa cassette player. Neither the lorry nor the van was entered before Felix and his bomb squad had cleared them for possible booby trap devices. The bomb squad

officer was always 'Felix' in Belfast. He appreciated his code name, and reckoned

that a sense of humour went with the job.

`Shouldn't be too much trouble to identify the miscreants,' he said cheerfully to a

Detective Inspector. Ì imagine you'll run a voice print on a hundred thousand Micks, and that'll tell you who the new Sean Connery is. Piece of cake I'd say ...

What's inside?'

156

157

**`Four firings, all detonated.'

`We'll scratch around in daylight and see what's what,' Felix said.

The blue lights of the bomb squad convoy winked away out of the estate.

Detectives moved from house to house in search of an eye witness, and the search was fruitless. Further into the night a burned‐out car was found deep in the trees off the Bangor Road.

After the arrival of a Press Liaison Officer from Lisburn the Commanding Officer

of Palace Barracks agreed to meet the assembled reporters at the main gate. The

advice that he had been given was not to respond to questions, only make a statement and ignore interruptions.

`This was a particularly cowardly attack and I can say in all honesty that only incredible good luck prevented the death or maiming of any of my soldiers' wives

and children. That no casualties were inflicted was in no way due to the terrorists'

aim ... Without regard for the safety of women and children they sprayed this base with four high explosive mortar shells ... I'm not prepared to discuss our security arrangements ... two shells landed harmlessly in the parade ground, thank God. One shell hit the roof of a storage shed. The fourth shell impacted against a garden fence in the married quarters area . . . A tape recording? I know

nothing of a tape recording played during the attack ... The motive of the attack

is perfectly clear in my mind, the motive was to kill my soldiers and their families

... I said, I know nothing of any tape recording, and that's all I have to say.

Goodnight to you, gentlemen.'

He was flushed and angry as he walked away from the chorus of questions prompted by the reporters' sight of the Loud and Clear van. He had been given

no option on whether or not he should play host to a Converted Terrorist and his

165

brood. A bloody headquarters order ... The Press Liaison Officer, a damned idiot,

told him that he had done well.

The reporters went back to the housing estate and filled the pages of their notepads with quotes from the householders on the text of the message

broadcast to Gingy McAnally, perjurer, traitor, and tout.

Frankie Conroy returned the mortar tube in person.

`You did well,' the man said shrewdly, `to know where he was.' Frankie chuckled,

the puckered hole in his neck wobbled. `They'll

need a lorry to carry the bog paper to clear up McAnally's shit.' `You did well, but you had the luck.'

`We're just starting,' Frankie said.

*

Roisin's bedroom was on the front of the house, and the glass there was not damaged. She could be alone there with her children. The warming ache of the

Rioja had gone from her head with the first of the explosions, replaced by just a

pain that needled into her mind.

She had not spoken a word since the 'tec, Goss, had heaved himself off her body,

his hand on her hip. She hadn't spoken to Gingy, because she wouldn't have known what to say to him, nor to bloody Rennie, nor to Ferris. By the time that

the shouting had died, and the ambulance wail had faded, she had gathered her

children to her and climbed away up the stairs. None of the men had tried to stop

her going, bloody good riddance on all their faces. In the way, wasn't she? All the

bloody men clustered round her Gingy, bloody flies on jam, trying to put some spine in the poor bastard.

How could she have known that this would happen? She had only told her Ma where they were. That wasn't touting, that was for the good of them all, for the

good of her Gingy.

In her bed, with Young Gerard against her back, with Baby Sean close against her, with Little Patty's sleeping head close to her eyes, she thought that it was a

question of what was worse. Worse to be hunted out in a Brit base, or worse to be

at home and amongst her own and to be reviled as a tout's woman.

Into the small hours.

Rennie had gone.

Soldiers had come with hammers and nails and chipboard, and sealed up the kitchen window from the outside.