Irish Lady (15 page)

*

Belfast, 1995

Michael Devlin waited out the afternoon in a pub on the Ormeau Road near the Lower Falls. When the indigo blue of late dusk had turned to darkness, he made his way into Catholic Belfast and walked down Divas Street, past the Peace Line and the Conway Mill, past the mural of the Madonna and Child adorning the Brickfield's Barracks, past Dunville Park, past the spires of Saint Peter's Cathedral, past the tower and its republican slogans strung along the balconies, into the headquarters of Sinn Fein. He didn't bother disguising himself or treading lightly. They had known where he was since before he left the Maze. If they had wanted him dead he would have been.

The hallway was dark, but one room would be lit. It always was. Lighting a cigarette, Michael drew in the smoke, held it in his lungs and exhaled. The rush hit him immediately. He stepped around the corner and leaned against the open door frame watching a lean curly-haired man intent on a computer screen. “Hello, Liam,” he said quietly.

Liam McKintyre froze. He didn't have to turn around to place the clear, hard voice of the man who had been his idol for nearly ten years. Arranging his features in what he hoped was a welcoming expression, he stood and held out his hand. “How are y', Michael?” he asked as if they had seen each other yesterday. His smile faded as Michael's narrowed gaze moved over him. Shifting nervously on his feet, he lowered his hand and sat down again.

Michael straightened and closed the door behind him before pulling up a chair and straddling the seat. “I could be better if I knew what the hell is going on around here.”

Liam wet his lips. He was very pale. “I don't understand.”

“I think y' do.”

Nervously, Liam reached for the cup of cold tea on his desk. “What do y' want t' know?”

“Who killed James Killingsworth?”

“I don't know, Michael. I honestly don't know.”

“Do y' expect me t' believe that something that big is ordered without your knowledge?”

Liam lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair. “It wasn't us.”

Michael did not miss Liam's shaking hands and perspiring brow. “We've been friends a long time, Liam. Y've shared a fry at my home every New Year's Day since we were boys. I should know why I'm taking the hit for this one.”

Liam shook his head and managed a shaky smile. “I'm not in on this one, Mick. I swear it. I don't know any more than you do. I don't believe y' did it, never did, not for a minute. I told them I knew youse, that y' couldn't have done it. What it comes down to is that y've got enemies. Lately, y've taken us down a path that many aren't satisfied with. Decommissionin' isn't the answer, not until we've got some concessions from the unionists. Maybe this is some kind of ruse t' give us leverage in the peace talks.”

Michael's eyebrows lifted. “By killing the one Brit who was on our side? I don't think so.”

Leaning forward, Liam gestured with the hand holding his cigarette. Smoke swirled in the air above his head. “Think of this. The election is comin' up. If the cease-fire is no longer in place, the government will be forced t' allow us int' the talks. As it is, we're at a stalemate.”

“If the government moves quickly enough and the murderer is caught and sentenced, the public will be happy enough. Sinn Fein could lose a healthy dose of support.”

“Not if y' acted on y'r own.”

Michael's jaw tightened. “Everyone knows me, Liam. I've opposed all but defensive actions. We've had twenty-six deaths in the last five years compared to hundreds in the previous five. I've always condemned the slaughter of innocent bystanders and I'll continue t' do so, even if it means the IRA gives up its weapons first. We've gained support in every civilized country in the world, particularly the United States. Gerry Adams has been welcomed by Clinton, for Christ sake. Do y' think any of it would have come about if the same violent, indiscriminate killing had continued? Our men and women are educatin' themselves and taking that education back to the Falls. A united Ireland must include the Protestant population as well as the Catholics, with civil rights for everyone. Do y' think such a goal is even a possibility if the world continues t' think of us as cold-blooded killers? Jesus, Liam, how can y' sleep at night knowing innocent people have died on their way t' the market for a tin of biscuits?”

“They're not the only ones who've died.”

“The Prods have kept their end of the bargain,” Michael reminded him. “Until recently, there was no retaliation for IRA bombings. I'd say they've been remarkably patient, and I'll wager most Americans would as well.”

Liam ground out his cigarette in the already overflowing ashtray. “It's not me y' have to convince, Mick. I've always been with you, which is why I can't help y' now. They know where y've been. They'll know y've been here and it won't be me telling them.”

Michael's eyes were thin, dangerous slits of blue. Liam swallowed. The rest must be said, but he'd rather not be the one saying it. He tried stalling. “Would y' care for a cup of tea, Mick?”

“Aye, I would.”

Liam started to rise when Michael's hand clamped down over his wrist.

“First, tell me the rest of it.”

Liam was wise enough to know that denial would avail him nothing, not even time. His throat was very dry. “They know who y've been with.”

“And who might that be?” Michael's voice was cold, flat, completely without expression.

“The barrister, Lady Meghann Sutton.”

“Is there something y're leaving out, Liam?” The words were deceptively soft.

“Only that we know she's Meggie McCarthy, y'r mother's goddaughter raised in y'r home.”

Michael released Liam's wrist and rose. “I don't think I'll be needin' the tea after all, my friend.”

“Where will y' go?”

Without answering, Michael walked out the door and down the long hall. He had no intention of divulging his whereabouts. Liam's story had been convincing. He'd nearly believed it, until his telltale
we.

The brash young reporter wearing a badge with the London
Times
logo called out from the back of the room. “Is it Lady Sutton or Miss McCarthy?”

Meghann waited until the silence was complete before answering, a strategy she had perfected early in her career, its purpose to establish a dignified tone that few dared to cross. “Professionally, I prefer to use my maiden name,” she said quietly.

Cameras flashed, momentarily blinding her. The smell of wet wool and male bodies too long without antiperspirant wafted through her spacious office. She wrinkled her nose.

Another voice spoke up. “Is it true that you are representing the IRA activist Michael Devlin?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe that Mr. Devlin is innocent?”

“I do.”

“Will Cecil Thorndike be assisting?”

“No.”

“Is it true that you've resigned from Thorndike and Sutton and that your shares in the company have been purchased by Mr. Thorndike?”

“I have decided to resign my position from Thorndike and Sutton, but I have not sold my shares to Mr. Thorndike.”

The first abrasive voice spoke again. “Were you sacked, Miss McCarthy?”

Meghann laughed, a rich genuine sound that lit her face and brought a delicate flush to her cheeks. The effect was astonishing. A collective sigh escaped from the lips of the London reporters, and the antagonism pervasive to all legal interviews miraculously lifted.

“No, Mr. Jenson.” The humor was evident in her voice. “I was not sacked. As many of you know, I am accustomed to accepting certain clients without gratuity. Mr. Devlin is one of them. Because of the magnitude of his defense and the time constraints involved I will be unable to attend to my other clients. Therefore, in all fairness to them and to the firm, I have resigned.”

The next question, from a man she'd never seen before, was couched in conciliatory language. “Many of us would be very interested in your relationship with Mr. Devlin and how you became interested in his defense. That is, if you don't mind, Miss McCarthy.”

“Not at all.” Meghann leaned against her desk, folded her hands in her lap and casually crossed one leg over the other, a deceptively innocent pose that bought her extra time and chased every thought except one from the minds of her audience—just how long
were
Meghann McCarthy's legs under her slim, form-fitting skirt?

She spoke slowly, clearly, warming to her subject as she continued. “The murder of James Killingsworth was a terrible tragedy, not only for his family and for England, but for those who believed he was the answer to the troubles in Northern Ireland. The Peace Initiative, entered into with such hope, has foundered, leaving everyone disappointed and frustrated, none more than Sinn Fein, the political party supported by ten percent of Ulster's population. Everyone familiar with Mr. Killingsworth's policies is aware of his stand on the Six Counties of Northern Ireland. He believed in the self-determination of a secular free state, the same stand that Sinn Fein supports. As you know, representatives of Sinn Fein are currently banned from the peace talks, primarily because of the roadblocks placed in their path by Ian Paisley and the Democratic Unionist Party. Without Mr. Killingsworth's support, Sinn Fein has little hope of participating in the negotiations. To accuse Michael Devlin of murdering James Killingsworth is to ignore the last five years of Ulster's history.”

Charles Denning of the
Daily
Telegraph
pulled himself out of his absorption. “Why the last five years?”

Meghann ticked the facts off on her fingers. “In 1972 seventy IRA men were killed. In 1980, intelligence reports show the number of active IRA soldiers to be five hundred. By 1987, two years after Michael Devlin assumed his current position among the council members of Sinn Fein, only four killings were reported. Before 1985, IRA killings were indiscriminate. Car bombs were left in heavily populated public areas. Since then, except for admitted mistakes, targets have been limited to soldiers, paramilitaries, and police. Families are left alone.”

She reached behind her and held up a slim paperback. “I do not imply for a single moment that the IRA or Sinn Fein, its political arm, is blameless. What I suggest is that the mentality of indiscriminate murder has undergone a radical change for the better because of Mr. Devlin. Gentlemen, Michael Devlin's words are not the words of a murderer. I urge you to read his book.”

Once again the young reporter spoke from the back of the room, “Your name is Irish, is it not, Miss McCarthy?”

Meghann's throat closed. She had expected it, even prepared for it, but to hear the actual words was disorienting. Minutes ticked by. There was no way around it. Her credibility was at stake. Better to offer her version of the truth than to have it dragged from her.

She straightened and dropped her arms to her sides. Her voice rang out clear and cold, a tribute to her years in the courtroom. “Yes, Mr. Smythe. It is an Irish Catholic name. I was born in Belfast. My family was killed on August 15, 1969, when Protestant paramilitaries rioted and broke through the protective barriers erected by Catholics in West Belfast. The incident and the events that followed led to the Bloody Sunday massacre of 1972. Michael Devlin's mother raised me with her own children.”

The room was completely silent as if even the act of breathing had been suspended. Meghann waited until the drama of her announcement had settled before concluding the interview. “I am a barrister, and I have seen an inordinate amount of murderers in my practice. This time the wrong man has been accused.” She smiled graciously. “Good day, gentlemen. Thank you for coming.”

“If you please, Miss McCarthy.” A red-faced reporter with a perspiring bald head blushed furiously. “Will you describe your version of the riots as you remember them?”

Meghann shook her head and lied. “I'm sorry. It was a long time ago and I can't remember the details. If you'll excuse me, I'm already late for my conference call.”

Disappointed, the man nodded and followed the others out the door. Meghann waited until the sound of footsteps faded away before crossing the room to lock the door. Slipping out of her pumps, she plugged in the kettle and curled up on the window seat.

For twenty-five years she'd avoided dredging up memories of the Cupar Street riots, hoping to erase the worst of her terror. For those first few years in the Devlin household, her mind had cooperated. It wasn't until she'd lived on her own, on the outskirts of Queen's University, that her nightmares began. She would wake breathing smoke, tasting ashes on her tongue, her heart hammering, her breathing shallow and desperate, her nightgown drenched, her body drawn tight as a drum against the images that were even more colorful, more horrifying and more real than the night had actually been.

A grown woman's mind was more graphically disposed than the mind of a ten-year-old child, she rationalized. The never-ending struggle of life on the streets of Belfast and the newspapers carrying pictures of bombings and death were a constant reminder of what she'd endured. Surely, when she moved to the safety of London, where sectarian strife was nonexistent, the recurring dreams would end. And they had, until recently, after her return from Donegal.

Intuitively, Meghann knew that Michael's defense would bring back her past, and with its return her unresolved questions, her fears, and long-repressed emotions would return as well.

The teakettle whistled, but she ignored it. Pressing her hot forehead against the cool windowpane, she closed her eyes and willed the memories of that warm August night to surround her.

It had begun two days earlier, on August thirteenth, the same day Free Derry was proclaimed. There had been riots in Belfast but no casualties. The following day, Thursday, the B-Specials, a Protestant auxiliary police force armed with Browning machine guns, rolled down Divas Road in armored tanks and opened up on Divas Flats, a high-rise tenement that housed only Catholic families. A nine-year-old boy asleep in his bed and a British officer home on leave were killed.

The news spread and by Friday afternoon, August fifteenth, residents of the Falls panicked. It began on Cupar Street, the border between Catholic Clonard and the Protestant Shankill. Boards were hammered over windows, furniture loaded into vans. Trucks, bakery vans, and cars were hijacked, first to carry people and valuables out of the neighborhood and later to act as a barricade against loyalist marauders.

Meghann was returning home from a two-day musical competition in the city center. The day before, she'd been warned by Sister Mary Bernard that there was trouble in the Clonard and she should go straight home, but there was always trouble in West Belfast and her audition wasn't until the following morning. Still, that afternoon, she'd been persuaded to leave and walked to the coach stop only to find there were no coaches running. There were no coaches at the Falls Road coach stop either. Undaunted, she continued up the road at her usual pace until she heard shooting. Mill workers from Mackies' were firing into the neighborhood and there was pandemonium on the street.

Meghann dropped her music and ran toward Cupar Street. There she stopped, frozen in horror. Barricades had been erected on both sides of the road, and the charred remains of Finnegan's pub were being picked over by Protestants from the Shankill. Men from Mackies' foundry, all Protestant, carried iron bars and makeshift weapons as they made their way cautiously down Cupar to the Shankill, bludgeoning anyone who crossed their paths. Flames and the stench of petrol were everywhere. Catholic homes, one after the other, caught fire, and fifteen-year-old Gerry McCauley lay on the ground in a pool of blood.

Meghann's path was blocked by flames and boys throwing stones and armed Protestants bearing down upon her. She turned and ran back toward the Falls Road to the only safety she knew, the Redemptorist Monastery. Kneeling in the shadowy pews of the church, she prayed for an end to the chaos. Time passed. Outside, an eerie silence replaced the shouting. Cautiously, Meghann walked to the door and looked out. The street was deserted. Flames lit the darkening sky. It seemed to Meghann that the entire world was on fire. Where were the fire trucks?

Rubbing her smudged cheeks, she made her way back down Cupar Street to the remains of her home. Choking back sobs, she peered into the smoking rubble, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Where was Mam and Da and the others? Two black lumps lay in the center of the floor, one on top of the other. Meghann ventured further into the room and bent down to study the curiosities more carefully. She was ten years old and had never seen a dead body. She recognized her father's jacket and trousers, but where his head should have been was a mangled pulp of mess and blood.

“Da?” she whispered, holding out her hand, afraid to touch. Beneath him lay her mother, flat on her back. Her dark hair, normally so smooth and tidy, was caked with dirt, her face gray with ashes but still reassuringly familiar.

Meghann's voice quavered. “Mam, it's Meggie. Wake up. Please, wake up.” She was crying in earnest now, silver tracks running through the dirt of her face, her breath coming in great hiccuping gasps.

Through the darkness, a voice spoke and a gentle hand sifted through her hair. “There, there, child, it will all come about. You'll see.”

Meghann lifted her head and stared. Where moments before there had been only darkness and silence, now stood a striking woman with long red hair and green eyes dressed in the robes of a postulate. Outlining her figure was an odd pale light, or perhaps it was only the whiteness of her clothing that gave her that netherworld aura. “My mam won't wake up,” Meggie whimpered.

Her eyes warm with sympathy, the woman beckoned Meghann to her. “Poor darling. Come, sit beside me.”

Meghann felt no fear. Sighing, she sat down in the circle of the stranger's welcoming warmth and leaned against her. Within seconds she was asleep. Two hours later Michael Devlin found her alone in a corner, still unconscious, her face streaked with tears, her hand clutching her mother's brooch.

In the worst of the chaos, Annie had remembered her godchild and insisted on learning the fate of her neighbors on Cupar Street. Michael volunteered to find out and when the worst of the night had passed, he slipped through the entries and the empty, burned-out homes to the waste that only yesterday had been a neighborhood of families, grocery stores, taverns, and shops.

He took one look at the mutilated bodies of Meghann's parents and, for the first time in his life, cursed like a man.

Meghann woke and looked up, her eyes very bright against the black grime covering her face. At first she didn't recognize the thin, black-haired boy with fury spewing from his lips. But when his face gentled and she saw the blueness of his eyes, she knew him. She stood and ran straight into his arms.

Instinctively Michael closed them around her, holding her against his chest, feeling her tears soak his shirt. “Hush, love,” he murmured against her hair, “It's all right now. I'm here t' take you home with me.”

Her words were muffled against his chest. “Are they dead?”

Michael closed his eyes. Never before had such a responsibility been his. “Aye, Meggie. But you'll see them again in heaven.”

This Meghann could understand. Meghann knew all about heaven and that other place she wasn't allowed to mention.

Michael set her away from him and searched her face. “Will y' come with me now?” he asked gently.

Nodding, she tucked her hand in his and walked with him down the middle of Cupar Street, keeping well away from the dark, smoking buildings.

They were a stone's throw from the monastery when shots rang out between the men positioned at the Springfield Road barricade and the torches from the Shankill. Frozen with shock, the children watched as row upon row of homes went up in a display of fiery explosions.