Field of Blood (32 page)

`You know the cow's sat down in the middle of the bloody road, and she's a Provo

lawyer with her, and a bloody dog collar ... and she's three photographers and a

camera crew. If they don't meet, then I'll have a Habeas Corpus action in court this morning, and if the judge has Roisin in Chambers and she spills that she wanted to see her Ma

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and was prevented, then we're in deep shit. If she sees her Ma, then that's the end of it, they can't go to the High Court.'

Rennie was thinking aloud. Ìt's nothing to do with Roisin needing to see her Ma,

Gingy. It's about pressure, it's about Provie pressure to break her away from you.

Got it, Gingy? Is she going to stand up to that pressure, Gingy?

'I don't know ...' Misery in McAnally's whisper. Ì just want her with me, don't know . . .'

`She's your fucking wife, Gingy ... How can I know if you don't know?

'I can't lose her.'

`Give it a rest, for Christ's sake.'

Ì don't want them to take her from me.'

Ìt's a bloody lottery, how she'll react.'

Ìt's not my fault, Mr Rennie, I didn't tell the Provos where I was, where my family

was,' McAnally shouted. Ìt wasn't me that told them where to chuck their bloody

mortars. It wasn't me that told Roisin's Ma where we was.'

Ferris heard the noise at the top of the stairs. Ferris saw Roisin, and Goss was restraining her, and the kids were round her legs.

`Too late for worrying who told her. The old cow's at the gate and that's the bloody end of it . . .' Rennie's voice cut. He looked into Ferris's face, and followed his eyeline, followed it to the top of the stairs, followed it to Roisin's drawn, devastated features.

Ì want to see my Ma,' Roisin said.

Rennie shook his head grimly. The world falling on his shoulders. Was it worth the effort? All the bloody effort ... No effort at all to have slapped Sean Pius McAnally into the Kesh for three lifers ... Made the big effort, the big bloody effort for the big bloody success.

`They're just trying to take you from me,' McAnally called to his wife.

Ì want to see my Ma.'

`Don't you see, Roisin . . .'

`We're free, aren't we?' she snarled. `We're not bloody prisoners. I want to see her.'

`You're quite right, Mrs McAnally, you're free,' Rennie had regained control. He

spoke carefully. `You are not a bloody prisoner. Of course you can meet with your

mother, of course you can slide back into your bloody cess‐pit if you want to, and

turn your back on your husband. Of course, you can dirty your hands with Provo

work if you want to. You're not a bloody prisoner. You're quite free to chuck up

the chance of a new life.'

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`She's my Ma.'

Ànd he's your husband,' Rennie said.

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**Roisin came down the stairs. She was carrying Baby Sean. The men in the hallway backed away from her, made room for her. Ì'll need my coat,' she said.

The barrier rose, and the landrover came slowly out from the barracks. There wasn't much room for the driver, but enough. He was able to bend his way between the photographers and the centre of the road where Mrs Chrissie

O'Rourke sat with Mr Pronsias Reilly and Father Francis.

They had done the interviews.

Ì'm just here to try to get the chance to see my daughter who was kidnapped out

of her house by the Army. I want her to come home to her Ma, to come back with

my grankids. I don't want her to be a part of the lies that man of hers is telling,

getting good men locked up on his lies. I want the chance to tell my girl to her face that she's to come home, and have nothing of all these lies. Her Da's in bed

sick with worry over this. We've always been a good family, there's never been anyone in our family that's not loyal to Ireland, that's what I've come to tell her.'

Ìt's my belief that Mrs McAnally is being held in these barracks against her will.

As a solicitor I'm not prepared to stand idly by and watch the rights of the individual jeopardized in the interests of Show Trials.'

`The O'Rourke family are valued and loved members of my congregation, and that includes Mrs Roisin McAnally. They say she's in protective care, with bombs

raining down on her in the night. She'd be safer where she belongs, and she belongs back in Turf Lodge.'

On they waited. From time to time flash bulbs lit the darkness, and the soldiers

stood with their weapons in a hostile and frustrated line at the Palace Barracks gates.

And behind the soldiers a major stood with his head cocked down to his shoulder

the better to hear the message transmitted to his personal radio.

Time slipping by.

And Mrs O'Rourke wondering whether she'd ever get the damp of the roadway

out of her skirt.

And Mr Pronsias Reilly thinking of a lost breakfast.

And Father Francis concerning himself that he had made no arrange

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ment for a colleague to take eight o'clock Mass.

A light rain in the air and the wind, and a pastel touch of morning

light in the east, above the roofs of the barracks.

And breakfast television came and recorded the litany, and packaged

their tape for the studios and transmission.

And the major listened to the message, acknowledged it curtly, and reckoned that soldiering in Northern Ireland was a greater shower of wet shit than he could

ever have believed possible. He strode forward, through the line of soldiers, ducked under the painted barrier and came to stand in front of Mrs O'Rourke.

`You are to see your daughter. Follow me, please.'

Mr Pronsias Reilly grinned as he and Father Francis helped the old lady to her feet. Both men made a play of wiping the road dirt from her coat. They walked

with her, in the steps of the major, to the barrier.

Mrs Chrissie O'Rourke doubled herself awkwardly under the lowered pole. Mr Pronsias Reilly bent to follow.

`Just Mrs O'Rourke, thank you. On her own ... If her daughter, quite voluntarily,

agrees to meet her, then she hardly requires legal advice and spiritual guidance.'

They watched her go, a tiny sparrow figure beside the major, through the doorway of the Guard House. A minute later a landrover backed up hard against

the Guard House verandah's steps. The cameras clicked. There were some

amongst the photographers who said they had glimpsed the dark long hair of Mrs Roisin McAnally, wife of the tout.

Roisin had taken the baby with her, never without the baby. Little Patty was between Young Gerard and Andy Goss. Goss was reading her a story, a soft-spoken voice heading for a lived‐happily‐ever‐after climax. Little Patty was fine,

would cope with whatever, but Ferris bled for the boy. He knew no way to fracture the stolid mask of contempt Young Gerard showed to his father. And Gingy seemed not to notice. He was pacing from room to room. He was passing

Ferris. He grabbed at Ferris's arm.

`What you said last night . . .'

Ìf I said it, then I meant it.'

`You said some daft things.'

Ànd meant them.'

`Really meant them?'

`You're going to win, Gingy. I promised to help you to win.'

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`That's your word.'

À promise is always binding.'

`You said you'd step in front of me.'

Ferris felt McAnally's clawing through his jacket, to the skin of his arms.

Ì promised.'

'When'll I see you?

'Rennie can fix it. When you shout, then Rennie will make it work.'

The hand loosed from Ferris's sleeve. Young Gerard's head was

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**down, so that he did not have to meet his father's eye. Andy Goss read on, he

too would have heard, but he stayed with the momentum of a story of ogres and

a shining prince and danger.

From away across the barracks came the thunder of a landing helicopter.

She was crying. There were no sounds to her crying above the crash of the rotors.

She was waist‐strapped in her seat deep in the fuselage of the Wessex, and she

had Baby Sean tight against her chest, and her tears ran on the thin hair of his head. With the R.A.F, loadmaster, Prentice was helping the flotsam family up through the hatch ... Young Gerard and Little Patty and Sean Pius McAnally, and

Goss was passing up the case and the bags. They were a fugitive family.

Young Gerard had taken the seat beside his mother. Without ceremony Goss

yanked him out of it, dropping him down on the far side of the fuselage, and pushed McAnally in next to Roisin.

The door slid shut. The engine noise soared, and the Wessex swayed in the moment before lift‐off.

`What'd she say?' McAnally shouted.

`For me to go back.'

`What'd you say?

'That I'd married you.'

`What's that mean?

'That I'm your wife.'

Ìs that why you stayed?

'It'll do for now.'

She twisted her head so that she could see out through the cleaned porthole windows of the helicopter. They hovered for a moment over the parade ground.

She saw the tiny figures of the Brit officer and the 'tec Rennie. They were the men who had trapped Gingy. She couldn't hold the flow of the tears ... She had

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met her Ma for four and a half minutes. They had been alone along with the duty

roster forms on the wall and the fire buckets on the floor. Her Ma had said that

her Da was ill, that if she didn't break with Gingy now she might never see her Da

alive again. Her Ma had said she had nothing to fear from coming home. Her Ma

had said that Gingy had made his family like lepers. Her Ma had palmed her a crumpled handkerchief, and she had felt the hardness inside the cloth. Her Ma had said to be sure to give the handkerchief to Gingy.

She had to loosen her safety strap to get her hand in her pocket, to reach for the

handkerchief. She passed it to Gingy. She looked out through the porthole at the

close‐set streets of the

city, that gave way to the greens of Ormeau Park, and the greyness of the river,

and the red rust of the gasometers across the water.

Gingy screamed. She spun to see him. His eyes were closed, his chin was jibbering, and all the time the howl of his agony. She saw his feet threshing, as if to kick away something on the fuselage floor. The handkerchief was tight in his

hands and he struggled for the strength to rip it, shred and destroy it. She saw a

moment of light beneath his shoes.

She saw a single bullet.

Christ . . . Christ Almighty.

One bullet, on the floor of the helicopter. A small revolver bullet.

She tried to take his head in her hands.

Ì didn't know . . . God knows I didn't know.'

Prentice was crawling on the floor in front of McAnally, one arm on the flailing legs, scrabbling for the bullet. And all the time the screaming of the tout's wound.

Ì didn't know, Gingy ... Believe me. My Ma just said ...'

Prentice had found the bullet and shouted, `You're a bitch of a woman.'

She was sobbing into Gingy's shoulder.

`My Ma just said ... God forgive me, I didn't know, Gingy.'

Her hand was over his mouth to stifle the screaming, and when she had killed the

sound then he trembled, like a naked man in snow.

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To most of those who met him John Prentice was a rough, tough policeman, a little of a lout, who would ride his way across people's feelings, a man who didn't

give a damn what he said or to whom he said it, a man without the softness of

sentiment. Howard Rennie knew better. Rennie had been the older man who had

nursed Prentice through his marriage break and his divorce. Rennie knew the 177

man behind the front. On the long weekend drinking marathons, Bushmills and

stout, Rennie had discovered the young detective. Rolling, staggering drinking sessions through Saturday mornings and afternoons and evenings in the little hotels on the Antrim cliff coast, had shown Rennie that Prentice had a well hidden caring streak. There if dug for. All the 'tecs drank too much, and better that it was public drinking, far better when the 'tec was falling round in full view.

Better than when it was a big bottle in a lonely room, because that was the route

to a police issue pistol

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**barrel poking up into a 'tec's mouth. Rennie liked the man, liked his company

when he wanted to get pissed, when he wanted to forget Godfathers and widow‐

makers and mercury tilt time devices. Rennie was proud to have pulled him back

from the brink of resignation when his girl gave him the boot.

Prentice had sworn and spat at Roisin McAnally in the helicopter, and had pocketed the bullet, and had known perfectly well that the woman hadn't an idea

what she was doing when she had passed the handkerchief to her husband.

He had seen the way she had clung to Gingy for the remainder of the flight in the

helicopter. When they had landed at Thiepval in Lisburn, she had hung on his arm, like she'd fall if he didn't lift her, and Goss had been left to carry Baby Sean and Little Patty.

The house was pretty much of a disaster. Thiepval was the old barracks of Northern Ireland Headquarters. By squaddy's standards the quarter was