Pray for Us Sinners (27 page)

“Could we use something with a timer?”

“I doubt it. The Brit bomb-disposal boys will be everywhere. It's going to take someone on the spot.”

Sean bit his lip. He didn't like it. Not one bit, and yet the target was too good to miss. “We might not be able to get the attack squad out.”

“So? McCutcheon's expendable.”

“He is not,” Sean's voice was icy.

“It's not for you or me to decide. That'll be Turlough's call.” He draped one arm round Sean's shoulder. He flinched from the man's touch. “Come on, Sean. Sooner or later, Davy's really going to fuck up. I told you he's past it. We might as well get some use out of him now.” He took his arm away and moved toward the big Philips television set. “Anyway, the lads'll be back from Libya after the middle of this month. We'll have more explosives experts than we'll know how to use.”

Sean said levelly, “You are talking about a no-hope mission.”

Brendan smiled. “Not at all. We'll get started on the logistics tomorrow.” He turned the on switch. “
Match of the Day
'll be on in a minute,” he said, “'Spurs and Manchester.”

 

THIRTY-NINE

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3

Marcus sat in the frayed armchair, feet propped up on the candlewick bedspread, and wondered what the hell he had let himself in for. For two months he had become another man. Mike Roberts might have developed more sophisticated tastes in Canada but would be no stranger to squalor, scruffy boozers, and the premises of “turf accountants,” as bookies styled themselves.

Living as a slum Catholic for the last month had been an eye-opener. Marcus could understand now why Captain Warnock had said it was more attractive for men to be PIRA volunteers than unemployed greyhound walkers.

And Mike had new friends, big Eamon and wee Jimmy, and an avowed interest in joining the Provos. He had fallen hopelessly for Siobhan Ferguson, but was the kind of man who would be too proud to go begging her to reconsider what she had repeated three days ago when he had brought her back from Gransha, that she thought it better if he didn't come round anymore.

Never mind Mike Roberts. Marcus Richardson loved Siobhan, and she was wrong about him. He knew he was a different Marcus from the apolitical ATO who had come back to Ulster. He hadn't been able to ignore the daily carnage in the streets of the city.
His
city.

He'd felt completely at home on Gransha, with its peace and its memories—or had until she'd knocked his world askew. His Ulster roots went deeper than he had recognized. And he'd come to understand from what he saw daily, and from his conversations with Eamon and Jimmy, that the situation in Ulster was more complex than a simple Catholic-versus-Protestant-faction fight with the army in the middle. Great wrongs had been done to the Catholic minority. The scars and the wounds went back so far, and recent history was nothing to boast about. Since partition in 1922, the Orange Order had ruthlessly kept the Fenians in their place. There had been anti-Catholic discrimination in jobs and in housing. Gerrymandering—the redrawing of electoral boundaries to ensure that the Catholics could never form majorities—was rampant.

At first sight, it seemed simple to characterize the Protestant Loyalists as evil men. They weren't. They were scared men, terrified of the prospects of a united Ireland in which they would become a minority in a Catholic country. Scared men do evil things. They were wrong to try to cling to power like the white South Africans, but, like the Boers, the Protestants had been in the country for hundreds of years, and it was as much their home as it was the Catholics'. Loyalist paramilitary organizations, the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Red Hand Commandos, and the Ulster Freedom Fighters had been formed to oppose the PIRA and to keep Ulster part of Britain.

The violence was the work of a small number of hard-liners on both sides of the sectarian divide. The great majority of the population abhorred the killings and wanton destruction, wanted to live in peace and find a politically workable solution. But no one could see what that solution might be. Marcus certainly could not. He still wanted to nail the bomber and his superiors, and not just so he could hold the major to his promise about the SAS. It wouldn't halt the war, but he was convinced that, however the conflict was to be resolved, bombings were not the way to achieve political ends.

Marcus had known fear when the van bomb blew in the Falls. He'd had to force himself to go under the cinema marquee. It had been hairy enough defusing the pub bomb, but at least he was trained for that kind of work. Civilians weren't, and they must live with fear every day of their lives.

He ran a hand through his hair. What a cock-up. Ulster and its complexities, Siobhan gone, and as far as his mission was concerned, he was getting nowhere. Meeting McCutcheon had been promising, but that fizzled out when McCutcheon had had his questions answered. He'd said he might ask about, but how close was Marcus to meeting senior Provos? He hadn't a clue. Certainly he hadn't learned enough to bother making an appointment with the Dr. Kennedy who was to be Marcus's contact with the major.

Marcus stood up and toyed with a photograph that lay on his table among the books about Alberta and the green folder. The Mike Roberts folder. That face in the snap, he looked at it closely, belonged to the man the major thought was one of the M62 bombers. There'd been no sign of him in the pubs or bookies'. No Provos, no idea when or if he'd hear from McCutcheon again, and no Siobhan. Bugger it.

He looked over into the corner where he had piled his dirty clothes. He really should take them to the launderette. He'd get them washed on his way to the pub. He'd have to go down there again tonight and pretend to be enthralled by Eamon's repartee. Maybe Jimmy would be in. He'd not been for the last couple of nights. Marcus could at least ask him how Siobhan was. Maybe enquire obliquely about McCutcheon. And then what?

He moved to the window, pushed aside the grey net curtains, and peered down the length of narrow Robina Street. A young woman was walking toward number 10. She had long blond hair, and—he sighed—for a moment she reminded him of Siobhan. He watched her approach, seeing her hair—wishing. Christ. It
was
Siobhan.

Marcus dropped the curtain. He grabbed his notes and the photographs from the table. He shoved the papers under his bed, reached into the corner of the room, and stuffed his dirty clothes in after the green ring binder.

Someone knocked on the door. “Coming.”

The bloke who had been pissed off because Mike had been too long in the bathroom stood there. “Roberts?”

“Aye.”

“There's a bird to see you.”

“Thanks.” He pushed past and saw her standing on the pavement. “Siobhan?”

“Can I come in?”

*   *   *

Two miles from Robina Street, the air in another room was warm and muggy. A chlorine stink filled Brendan McGuinness's nostrils. He sat on a slatted, backless wooden bench dressed in nothing but a damp towel that bore the slogan, “Ormeau Baths. Property of Belfast City Corporation.” He had difficulty seeing because the humidity fogged the lens of his spectacles. His feet rested on duckboards, and he had an uncomfortable feeling that he might catch athlete's foot.

He squinted through the fog. None of the changing cubicles was occupied. A fat man with sagging breasts, his torso as hairy as a gorilla's, rotated under a freshwater shower. The sound of the spray echoed from the tiled walls. Brendan had not expected the place to be busy on a Wednesday. He'd been right.

The door of the changing room opened and a towel-clad newcomer crossed the duckboards and sat on the bench beside Brendan. He carried a second towel and began to dry his short-cropped hair, the towel over the sides of his head effectively shielding his face from the man in the shower.

Brendan had to strain over the splashing of the water to hear the newcomer's words.

“Wilson hits Thiepval at ten on the eighteenth. They'll take him by a roundabout route to Hillsborough, but he'll have to cross the Ravernet River. The convoy'll be two army Saracens and an armoured Mercedes. He'll be in the Merc. He'll be on the Ravernet Bridge between eleven thirty and twelve.” The short-haired man stared at the floor as the fat man left the shower and went into one of the cubicles, closing the door behind him. Then he asked, “Any sign of Roberts?”

“Roberts? The Brit? Aye. The information officer of Second Battalion and me had a word.”

“What about?”

“One of our New Lodge fellows, Colin Heaney”—

“Lad with a cleft lip?”

“Aye. He'd reported to his battalion IO that some fellow in New Lodge, back from Canada, was an explosives expert. He defused a bomb in their pub. Heaney wanted to know if he should try to recruit him.”

The short-haired man grunted. “And?”

“The IO said to hang on 'til he'd spoken to me. I told him to tell Heaney to keep an eye on Roberts but to keep away from him for a wee while.”

“Fair enough. Now you know where he is, you can sort him out whenever it suits us.”

“He'll keep 'til I'm ready.”

“Right. Now, Ravernet Bridge, eleven thirty to noon on the eighteenth.”

Brendan nodded once to indicate that he had heard clearly, then rose and walked to a cubicle. As he dried his left foot, he peered balefully at a bunion and hoped to God he had not picked up any fungus in these grotty public baths.

*   *   *

Marcus tried to apologize because his room was so dingy, but she brushed aside his protestations. He took her coat and hung it behind the door. She'd taken the armchair, leaving him nowhere to sit but on the bed.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” he asked, hoping she'd say yes.

“No thanks.”

“Oh.”

“I didn't come for tea.”

“I'm glad you came.”

She shook her head and he wondered how many times he'd seen her toss her bright mane.

“I had to talk to you,” she said. “It's stupid.”

“No, it's not.”

She crossed her legs, folded her arms, put a hand on each shoulder, and leaned her face against a forearm. “I shouldn't have come.”

“Siobhan.”

She looked into his eyes. “Damn you, Mike Roberts. I've cried myself to sleep every night.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. I'm the one that should be sorry.”

“Why?”

“Because I thought I meant what I said, except I didn't get it quite right.” She unfolded her arms and rubbed the back of her neck. “I said I could fall in love with you.”

He slipped off the bed and stood close before her. “I love you, Siobhan.”

“I know. I know.” He saw her tears start.

He bent and kissed her and the kiss was returned.

“I love you, Mike.” She stood and he held her to him, lips on hers. His hand found her breast, soft through the stuff of her blouse, the nipple hard beneath his palm. He felt her teeth on his lower lip and her breath sweet on his.

She stepped back and he watched her undress, without coyness, without false modesty, baring her body for him: alabaster skin, coral nipples—pink reefs in the shining sea of her long, gold hair. He brought her to him, soft against his shirt, and brushed her lips with his, tasting her, the sweet and the salt of her, breathing the perfume of her, feeling her yield to his touch. He put his mouth to her nipple, taking in the firmness of the rosebud and soft strands of her hair. She shuddered and pulled his head against her breast.

“Siobhan,” he murmured, “Siobhan,” as he stripped and, naked himself, enfolded her, holding his hardness against the softness of her belly.

She surprised him with the ferocity of their first lovemaking, pulling him to her, onto her, into her, ravenously wanting, taking until both were spent, humid and drowsy, lying on the small bed. She surprised him with the tenderness of their second lovemaking, seeking, exploring, learning, finding out. Languorous, rhythmic, timeless.

He lay, head on her breast, fondling the curve of her hip, looking at the beauty of her, taking her in with all his senses. He knew, beyond doubt, with a certainty that scared him, that life without Siobhan Ferguson would be no life at all. “I love you,” he said.

When she said, later, that she really must go home, they dressed, and he walked her to her house, held her, and kissed her, feeling their parting like a physical pain, knowing then that he would never find, nor want to find, another Siobhan.

He wandered back to Robina Street, thoughts flogging like a headsail with a broken sheet. He knew he must stop lying to her, prayed that she would understand when he eventually explained who he was. Had she really meant what she had said on Gransha, that she wouldn't care if he was a British soldier?

 

FORTY

TUESDAY, APRIL 9

Davy leaned against the wall beside the makeshift bar, sipping his stout. He looked at the other men in the room, seated at tables or standing in knots around the walls. It was the same old crowd and some younger ones he hadn't seen before. There was no sign of the singer.

One of the newcomers, a lad of nineteen or twenty, with a pasted-on sneer and a ferocious squint, harangued the rest of his party, declaiming his loyalty to Ireland and his hatred of all things British. The little shite would ignore his disapproval when it came to accepting his dole money.

Jesus. Words. The country was drowning in words. Davy ignored the tirade.

Through the smoke haze he could see tears in the wallpaper where strips hung down, limp and ragged. Someone had tried to brighten the place up by tacking posters to the walls. A man with muscles like an ox held a surprised-looking carthorse above his head with one hand on a poster proclaiming: “Guinness is good for you.” It is, Davy thought, in good company.

He was here because his house had become cramped and empty all at the same time. Cramped because for the last week, since he had met young Roberts, he had seen, more clearly than ever before, the narrowness of his own horizons. It was something the youngster had said about Canada. “No one there gives a shit if you're Catholic or Protestant.”