The Journeyman Tailor (21 page)

"You're sure on that, missus . . . ?"

"Jesus was looking for him. He went by Mrs Hylton's door, half fell on her fence, then by Mrs Smyth's door, then he went down the side of Mrs Smyth's, I don't know how they missed him, God is my witness, one of them was not ten feet from him. I thought he was dead, all fast I was praying for him. Bright coat he had but it was like they didn't see him. Definite, he had Jesus watching for him, and he'd a bad leg and he didn't run that quick. It was just butchery, what was done to the rest of them ..."

There was a washing basket, filled, beside her kitchen door. Mrs Byrne rummaged in the bottom of it, and there was her grin that was a little bit of mischief, and she handed the O.C. the short-barrelled pistol that had been thrown at her.

"And they didn't see that either, the soldiers . . ."

He apologised to her, and meant it, and he took away with him his matches and the milk bottle that was filled with petrol.

The O.C. went back to his home, to write letters for hand delivery, to send a message for a meeting.

There was the stinging blow of the fist against Mossie's cheek.

The O.C. snarled in his face, "There's three men dead."

"You've no call to be accusing me." Tears welling in his eyes.

"They let you run."

"Who told you?"

"I was told."

"Who?"

"The woman, she sees it all." "You's taking her word, not my word?"

"She says they let you run."

"Is you blaming me for running?"

"Why'd they let you run?"

"To prove myself, what do I have to do? Have to get myself feckin'

stiffed?" Mossie yelled back at him.

"She says . . ."

"Been sneaking round her, have you? Shame, that's what you should have."

"What she says was.."

"And you wouldn't feckin' know what happened, 'cause you weren't there, 'cause you're never there, too feckin' important to be . . ."

The O.C. had him by the throat. The O.C. was smaller than Mossie and reaching up to snatch at the flesh under his chin.

The barb sunk home. The hatred, and the hesitancy. "O.C.s is never operational, every bastard knows that."

"I went, I was there, I was lucky."

The anger in Mossie was fear. Good act, played well, because the fear was real. The hands came away from his throat. He didn't know whether he was believed. If he was not believed . . .

The O.C. said, grim, "There was three men shot dead. There was one who ran. The one who ran can't go fast. The one who ran was right in view of the soldiers, past two houses. You tell me, Mossie, because you was there, you tell me why one, only one was able to run from the soldiers. Tell me, Mossie ..."

Better when they were shouting, face to face, easier eyeball to eyeball.

He'd had five years to prepare himself to answer the accusation. Five years of churning the question in his mind. Was he a tout? Five years to prepare the answer, and never knowing when the question would come. He had just run, panicked, hadn't even seen the bastard soldier, only heard the crack of the bullet against the wall, then the ricochet whine. The question was with him . . .

"I don't know."

"You're staying here. You'll stay while I'm gone. You think of running, and you think where you'll go. You run now and that's my answer."

Mossie stood his full height . . . fight, to fight was the best, fighting for his life.

"You're not fit to lead, you're rubbish. If Jon Jo Donnelly was here . .

. You're not fit to be in Jon Jo's shoes."

He saw the loathing in the O.C.'s eyes. "My question, why'd they let you get clear? Just you, why? You run and I've my answer, and Jon Jo isn't here."

Mossie was left in the barn. There was nowhere to run to and there never had been.

The O.C. came back to the barn in the middle of the afternoon, driving his tractor with the trailer bumping behind. The tractor, open-topped and without four-wheel drive, had been in his family since before he was born. He had driven it first when he was too small to sit on the seat and reach the wheel and the pedals. There were hay bales on the trailer.

Standing behind him, gripping his shoulders, was a man who had come from Lurgan in answer to a summons. The O.C. was elaborate and careful because he assumed, always, that he was watched. He assumed always, too, that his enemy had him under surveillance from cameras and from the soldiers of the Close Observation Platoons and from the police of the E.4 section. He had not met the man from Security before, never had cause. The man wore heavy-framed clear-glass spectacles to disguise his face. If they were under surveillance, it would not be thought unusual, shifting bales of hay.

They splashed through the puddle in the doorway, below the broken guttering. Mossie sat facing the doorway, knees against his chest, arms around his knees.

The O.C. and the man from Lurgan dumped down the bales of hay they had carried inside.

"So, you's Mossie Nugent . . ."

The man from Lurgan had a voice from far down in his throat.

‘I am.’’

The O.C. watched. Mossie pushed himself up against the wall behind him. It was not for the O.C. to speak, he had called in the security section. He would stand aside wile they trampled through the Brigade.

He lit a cigarette. It was a sort of humiliation that he felt because until a tout was found, until the Brigade was sanitised, he had handed away his control of the war.

"I'm from the security, Mossie, I'm from the security because I've a nose for rats. What I say, Mossie, is that rats are best shot. We had a rat last month and we shot him. To me, touts is rats."

He had thought Mossie Nugent great, a fine and careful intelligence officer. He didn't know the working of South Down Brigade or the Mid Ulster Brigade, but he had once been on a hit with the Derry Brigade and he'd thought the intelligence officer of Derry Brigade was just shit, all talk. Good times he'd had with Mossie. Couldn't fault him. He saw that Mossie looked the man from Lurgan straight back in the eyes.

Mossie said, "I'm not a tout."

"Did I say you was, Mossie? Did you hear me accuse you?"

"I hear you talking of touts. I's no tout."

"My position is laid down by Army Council orders. I'll quote it for you, so there's no misunderstandings. 'We wish to reiterate our stated position on informers. No matter how long a person has been working for the enemy, if they come forward, they will not be harmed. Anyone caught touting will be executed.' Be difficult not to understand that, eh, Mossie? I'm going to ask you the question ..."

"Go feck yourselves, the both of you. I've had all I need of this joke.

Away and play somewhere's else."

"Just listen to my question, Mossie. You may want time to think on it, because it's just the one chance, Mossie. It's like the Army Council says, a tout comes forward, a tout won't be harmed. But the Army Council says also, a tout lies and is then found out, that tout's dead. I give a man the one chance to come forward ..."

"I'll remember you, you bastard, don't think I won't."

The O.C. watched. He thought the man from Lurgan terrifying, and he saw the way that Mossie's eyes never left the face of the man.

"Haven't asked the question yet, Mossie," the voice ground softly on,

"because I'm being fair with you. Can't say I'm not fair. The chance is never offered again, that's why you might be wanting to think on your answer. I told you, Mossie, I've a nose for rats."

Mossie said nothing, only stared at the man. Tense, his fists white-knuckled. Ready to spring.

The O.C. felt the shiver in his body. Frightening to him, the tap drip of the man from Lurgan's voice. He had known Mossie since he could remember. He had been at the small kids' school when Mossie had first gone to prison.

The voice beside him was chilled, quiet. "One and only one chance . .

. Mossie, is you a tout?"

"Go feck yourself."

"Is you a tout?"

"No, I'm not a tout. I'm the Intelligence Officer of this Brigade ..."

The voice beside him hardened. "You was the only one who knew."

"Not true."

"Your O.C. knew, and you knew."

"Not true."

"Who else knew?"

Mossie's finger stabbed at him. "Ask him."

The O.C. flinched.

The man from Lurgan turned slowly, precisely for a big man, towards him. "You told me it was just him and yourself. Who else knew?"

The O.C. blurted, "No one else knew."

He saw the finger again pointing at him. "You lie. What did vou say yourself? You said, 'How long was the little bastard there?' When the Riordan kid brought the tea. I've given my life to the Organisation. I's done time for the cause. Before you look to me you should go talk with the little bastard . . ."

The man from Lurgan spat, "You didn't tell me."

He said, weak, "I hadn't remembered . . ."

Mossie, shrill, "Go look at Patsy Riordan. Go look at anyone else he's forgotten."

They let Mossie go, let him walk back to his home. The O.C. talked with the man
from Lurgan about the kid who was not the full shilling, who was just used to run messages, On their lips was the name and the history of the kiddie who could have been good on the gaelic team, Under-19s. Patsy Riordan.

"I had no choice."

There was wonderment in her voice. "You gave them his name?"

"I gave them his name or I was gone."

He had shouted at the little ones to drive them from the room. He had slammed the door on his mother. Mossie sat on the bed and cupped in his hands was the whiskey bottle. He felt the shake in his body.

Siobhan stood above him. He drank from the neck of the bottle.

"She's a grand woman, Mrs Riordan ..."

"Gone. They don't finish till they've it out of you. You can't stand against them. Don't you understand, it's torture, it's beatings ... I had to."

"He's just a simple, stupid boy . . ."

"I was dead."

"He's never done you no harm ..."

Slowly, trying to control the splutter of his voice, he explained to her what must be done.

He told her the way he thought it would be. He had bought himself time, that was all. He was still the suspect and he would be watched.

There was a chance, possible, that the security could tap into a phone.

He would not dare to use the telephone at home, nor could he dare to drive to Dungannon and use a public telephone. He would be followed.

"Should you be using the bleeper thing?"

"You needs to slip away, natural, not in a bloody helicopter so's the whole mountain knows." It would be the living death. It would be five years, ten years, twenty years, of living with minders and with fear at his shoulder. To press the bleeper was the last resort.

"What do you want me to do?"

He breathed deep. He involved her.

"You go
the town. You take the kids, like it's just visiting . .

He wrote the number on the inside of his cigarette packet and slid the tinfoil wrapping back over the number.

". . . You ring this number. You ring it for as long as it takes. Might be a man, might be a woman. They may make you ring them twice. You have to tell them it's for Song Bird, that it's a meeting you need, no feckin' about, right now. They'll tell you where. You go where they tell you. Tell them what happened to me, and tell them I named Patsy Riordan."

"What'll happen to Patsy Riordan?"

"Not my worry."

He slumped on the bed. He lay in the darkness and he smelled the whiskey on his shirt front. He heard Siobhan rounding up the kids, telling his mother that she was taking them out, going visiting.

Not Mossie's worry, what happened to Patsy Riordan.

She was seen to drive away. She was identified when she turned from the lane onto the road from Aghnagat to the village. It was seen that the children were with her. The men resumed their watch on the bungalow. There were no curtains drawn. They saw Mossie Nugent moving inside the bungalow, silhouetted against the lights.

The men of the security section gathering on Altmore came from Lurgan and Armagh city, from south County Down and from north County Antrim, from the villages of west Tyrone and east Derry. They came because they were called to a tout hunt.

Across the mountain they also watched the Riordan home, saw a man go out to feed his caged birds, saw a youngster in a garage working at the engine of a motorcycle.

He lifted the green telephone. He had let the bell ring for a full half minute. He had been by the door, his coat on, his briefcase in his hand, when the bell had started.

Hesitant, "Yes, can I help you?"

A woman's voice. "Hello there, I was wondering . . ."

Brisk. "I think you have the wrong number."

"It's for Song Bird."

Christ. . . snatching for a pen from his inside pocket, for paper.

"Yes?"

"I'm Siobhan Nugent, his wife. He told me to ring you . . ."

The telephone was Bren's link with the jungle. He heard the des-peration of the woman. He tried to be gentle. He heard the choke in her voice. She was to ring back. He went through the procedure. In exactly ten minutes she should telephone again.

Frantic now. Ringing the number for Cathy, waking her by the sound of it, being given a meeting place, being told when she would collect him, given the numbers to call for back-up. Asking for Rennie at Lisnasharragh barracks, couldn't be reached. Asking for a major at Lisburn H.Q., told there were no personnel available. Asking for an Assistant Chief Constable at R.U.C.'s Knock Road, hearing the dry chuckle, telling him it was panic time, giving him the co-ordinates, being told there would be Divisional Mobile Support Unit presence in the area, and the radio code they could be reached on, grovelling thanks to the Assistant Chief Constable. Picking up the green telephone on the first ring.

It was the fear that she communicated to him, it was her fear that was still with him all the time until Cathy came for him.

She thought the young woman was wonderful, the one that Mossie called the bitch. So calm, and such a lovely face . . .

"There is absolutely nothing for you to fret over. I'll take care of everything. Just trust me, Siobhan . . ."