Field of Blood (52 page)

41

`Bravo 41 . . .' Ferris said into the radio mouthpiece clipped to his tunic collar.

Around him the patrol had sunk to cover and defensive fire positions. Roddy's face was misting with a flicker of interest.

`BRAVO 41 ... GLEN ROAD POST OFFICE ROBBED BY ONE ARMED MALE.

DESCRIPTION IS BLACK JACKET, BLACK CRASH HELMET. ESCAPED ON BLUE

MOTORCYCLE INTO TURF LODGE. POLICE MOBILE IN CHASE. YOUR

POSITION? OVER.'

`The Avenue, Turf Lodge.'

`WAIT OUT . . .'

Ferris shouted, `Post Office on the Glen Road. One armed male. Black crash helmet. Blue motorcycle.'

He saw his squaddies checking that their rifles were armed. He saw Roddy groping numbly for the fastening strap of his waist holster.

Frankie sped down the Crescent. As he swung into the alleyway linking the Crescent to the garages, the police landrover was reaching the entrance to the Crescent. He bounced down the alleyway, and swerved among the ruts to get to

the garage entrance. He heaved the door open, drove inside, cut the engine. He

shed the crash helmet and tossed the

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Luger into a corner. He went out and closed the garage door behind him and fastened the padlock. He crossed to a back garden and climbed over the fence and was gone.

`BRAVO 41 ...

`Bravo 41.'

`POLICE MOBILE'S LOST HIM. WENT DOWN AN ALLEYWAY BETWEEN TURF

LODGE CRESCENT AND TURF LODGE DRIVE. POLICE MOBILE NOT KEEN TO

FOLLOW ON FOOT. GET YOURSELF THERE AND SWEEP. OUT.'

Òut.'

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The section came fast into the Drive.

Oldest bloody trick in the book, Ferris thought, as he pounded up the pavement

hill, using a motorbike to get down an alley that was too narrow for a landrover to

follow.

There was something hostile about the street, something that he couldn't finger,

something about there being no one on the street.

`What are you going to do, David, what's your procedure?' Roddy was at his shoulder, heaving. His questions snuffed out Ferris's thoughts.

Roddy was panting as if he hadn't run two hundred yards since he crossed East

Falkland island. For Christ's sake ... it wasn't a bloody chat‐up in the Mess. This

was hunting an armed man. There was something ... Shit, something, and he couldn't find it.

He saw the boy limping down the hill of the Drive towards him. He saw the boy

with his stick. The face of the boy was familiar. He had seen the face in torchlight when it was screwed in pain, and he had seen the face in the headlights of the vehicle park as the boy was lifted into the ambulance. He felt the weight of the

boy in his arms.

`Hello, you won't remember me . . .'

The boy stared up at Ferris, no sign of remembering him.

Ì took you down to hospital when you were ... when you were hurt.'

The boy looked away from Ferris. He seemed to wait for permission to walk on.

`Have you seen a man on a blue motorcycle, with a helmet?'

The boy gestured with his stick behind him.

Ìs that where you saw the man and the bike, lad?'

Again the boy pointed.

`How long ago?

'No time ago, mister.'

The section ran forward, and the boy lurched away.

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,

black crash

**There was a shout from a squaddie on the far pavement to Ferris. A shout of

triumph and success.

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Ferris saw the motorcycle. Ahead of him, in the failing afternoon, the motorcycle

was stood at the side of the road, against the gutter of the pavement, and there

was the shine of a crash helmet that was placed on the pillion seat. Ferris didn't

have to tell them, the squaddies had fanned out on either side of the motorcycle,

and his corporal had taken one squaddie and gone up the alleyway to secure the

rear of the homes on the side of the Drive where the motorcycle was parked.

Ferris looked ahead of him, and behind him. No sign of the boy, and the Drive was empty. He looked at the windows of the houses and there were no lights lit,

and there were no pale faces staring out at the patrol.

There should have been ...

`That's a good show, latching onto it so soon,' Roddy drawled. `Please don't talk

to me,' Ferris snapped.

`You don't have to be scratchy. It's not the Maze break‐out, it's only

a Post Office . . .'

`Don't you see something's wrong ... ?'

Ferris's voice tailed into the quiet of the Drive. His squaddies were watching him.

Jones was at his shoulder, and his lips were narrow and his finger white against

the trigger guard. A cat scurried from under a car, and from instinct four rifle barrels followed it over the first yards of the dash.

He walked to the motorcycle, and Jones walked behind him, backwards and

covering his officer, and Roddy went with them and thanked the Lord they didn't

have the likes of this one in the Guards.

Ferris stood at the side of the motorcycle. His thighs were within a foot of the rider's seat. He crouched down and the dome of the crash helmet was level with

his eyes.

Something was wrong.

Ferris laid his rifle on the tarmac. He slipped to his knees. He edged the fingers of his right hand forward towards the engine parts. The tips of his fingers hovered

over the metalwork, feeling for heat. A slow smile spread on his face. He dropped

his fingers onto the metal, and felt nothing, no warmth. He had found the something that was wrong. Jones was looking down at him.

Ferris winked at Jones.

He depressed thèSpeak' button on his radio.

He spoke quietly, privately into his microphone. `Bravo 41, Bravo 41...'

`COME IN BRAVO 41 . . .'

Roddy strolled to the far side of the motorcycle.

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`Bravo 41. Clever games in the Drive. We are outside Number 46. We have a blue

Suzuki motorcycle like the one in the Glen Road, we

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have a black crash helmet, and the engine's cold. This machine hasn't moved anywhere . . .'

`Take a peep at this,' Roddy called.

I... There's not a soul on the Drive. It's never like that, not at this time . . .'

`Here's his shooter, David.'

Ì'm requesting the help of Bomb Disposal. In the meantime I'm

going to have my hands full evacuating the nearest houses. I'm not in

much of a position to mount a search. Over.'

`BRAVO 41 ... WAIT OUT.'

Ferris turned to the Scots Guard officer. `Sorry, what was it?

'He left his shooter here.'

To prove his point, to display the Luger, Roddy lifted the crash helmet from the

pillion.

Rennie came into the bar.

They were playing cards. Prentice and Goss, Gingy, McDonough and Astley. They

were playing poker for pennies.

Gingy saw him first. Gingy saw that Detective Chief Inspector Howard Rennie had

been weeping, crying his bloody eyes out.

21

In the rain, the crowd stood on the pavement outside the cream and honeysuckle

majesty of the Crown Court. They were mostly women in the crowd, and some

had brought their toddler children, and some held placards that had been made

and given them by the Sinn Fein workers. Mostly they were from the families of

the accused men. There were the wives and the mothers and the cousins of Fatsy

Rawe and Bugsy Malone and Noel Connelly and Brennie Toibin and Joey

Mulvaney and Dusty O'Hara and Billy Clinch and Ollie O'Brien and Joey

McGilivarry and Tom McCreevy. There was the brother of Mrs Oona Flaherty.

There was the aunt of the Chief ... Waiting on the pavement outside the Crown

Court building was someone who was family to each of the men named by Sean

Pius McAnally, the supergrass. They had been on the pavement since dawn, just

as they had waited all through the previous morning, the Monday morning,

before the word had spread that the Prosecution had sought and obtained an adjournment of a day. On the

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**Monday morning the crowd had been raucous in its denunciation of the Show

Trials and the Paid Perjurers to the microphones of the television crews and of the B.B.C. radio and downtown. Then, running from the Court House, Mr

Pronsias Reilly brought word that the Prosecution had won an adjournment. The

word was that the Prosecution didn't have their tout to crawl into the witness box. And the word, spoken quietly, was that the death of a Brit officer before the

weekend had shattered the resolve of the informer.

Amongst the Sinn Fein workers and the local journalists who knew the habits of

the police, it was said that the supergrass was always brought early in the morning to the Court House in an armour‐protected saloon car with a back‐up behind and hurried into the building through a side door at least two hours before

the court was due to sit. Some of the workers and some of the journalists had been at the main gates of the Crumlin court since six in the morning. They said

that McAnally was not inside. They said that they would swear that McAnally had

not shown. The Magistrate had come with his bodyguards, and the Prosecution

had come with the detective who had been assigned to him for the duration of

the Preliminary hearing, but of the star and the centrepiece of the Prosecution case there was no sign.

The camera crews and the journalists were no longer interested in the relatives and their slogans ‐ yesterday's news, yesterday's chip wrappers. There was a growing excitement amongst them, a feeling of anticipation. If the supergrass didn't show, if the Prosecution collapsed, if the accused walked free, then that was one hell of a story, that was front‐page, that was the lead on the lunchtime

bulletins.

Suddenly there was movement. The cameramen jerked their heavy equipment

onto their shoulders. The crowd of relatives surged towards the gates and the stone‐faced policeman.

Mr Pronsias Reilly skipped down the steps of the Court House and jogged to the

gate. The crowd pushed round him, and the cameramen jostled for vantage

views of his beaming face, and the microphones were clustered under his chin.

Ì have just come from the meeting in the Magistrate's room, a meeting which was called for by counsel for the Crown. The Prosecution asked for a further adjournment. I can tell you that I and my colleagues objected strongly to further

delay and pointed out to the Magistrate that this case was being heard with considerable and unusual speed at the demand of the Crown. His Worship has 292

compromised. The court will sit at two this afternoon, and if the Prosecution are

then unable to produce their witness, then their case is over, finished. I hope for a satisfactory outcome at two o'clock this afternoon . . .'

The wife of Ollie O'Brien kissed Mr Pronsias Reilly wetly on the cheek, and repeated it for the photographers who had missed the first time.

The Secretary of State said, `You know what I should be doing now, Fred? I should be emptying my drawers, piling my papers in the middle of the carpet, and setting fire to them. Isn't that what a general does when he's in full retreat?'

The civil servant said, `Not your fault, Minister. It shouldn't be your head.'

`The Prime Minister rang this morning, before I'd even had breakfast. The Prime

Minister said that as a result of my advice, the Cabinet had been led into a cul‐de‐

sac from which it could not escape without humiliation. McAnally not showing in

court, that's humiliation in the P.M.'s book . . . God, this bloody place . . . I'm not prepared to wriggle over a resignation. I'm going to get it over with.'

Ì'd leave it until after lunch if I were you, sir,' the civil servant said.

`To what purpose?

'Only that the ending of a political career is not something to be rushed . . . Now, Confederation of Industry's outside, you've an hour with them. Security

meeting's at eleven. Lunch is with the G.O.C. and the Chief Constable . . . Oh, and

the flowers you wanted were sent.'

The wind blustered round the flowers, and the rain burgeoned on the petals. The

colour bloom would be short‐lived in the cemetery in winter. He could not see the

grave because his view was obscured by the ranks of the umbrellas and the backs

of the Honour party. There was the volleyed crash of blank cartridges. His own flowers, a bunch of early daffodils, were buried beneath the carpet of wreaths. He

thought it was a good turn‐out, considering the weather. He thought it was the

same sort of turn‐out that he would have had if he'd been blasted when he was

with the R.P.G., when he was hitting `Tenner' Simpson. The Last Post was played, and the face of the young bugler quivered. One by one the mourners left.

He saw David's father and mother, and he saw his Commanding Officer who

walked crisply with his hands clasped behind his back inside a knot of the Battalion's officers, and he recognized the girl who had been at the Midnite Club

who wore a black silk coat and who held a crumpled envelope in her black‐gloved

hand. When the people had gone, when the troops had marched away, when the

gravediggers had had their fags and set about their work, Rennie came to his 293