Field of Blood (28 page)

The side fences separating the small back gardens were waist‐high. Her foot sunk

into the flowerbed as she levered herself up and over the

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**fence and into the next‐door garden. The curtains at the back of the house were drawn. She climbed the second fence.

The kitchen door of the house of the woman with a push chair was unlocked.

She went inside. She tiptoed through a polished, scrubbed‐down kitchen ‐ house‐

proud bitch ‐ and into the darkened hallway.

On the low table near the front door, and beside the army dress wedding photograph was the telephone.

`Remember this, Gingy, he can't touch you. The time that he could hurt you is gone. You go in there and you do your stuff, and you remember that his days for

frightening folks are over.'

If Sean Pius McAnally could not confront the Chief with a direct accusation then it

was a waste of time, everybody's time, to consider that the supergrass could stand up in court and survive hostile crossexamination. Rennie, pacing near the

window, knew that. McAnally, sitting at the table, knew that. Prentice and McDonough and Astley, standing between the door and McAnally, knew that.

Obvious to every man in the room, and unsaid, was the clear fact that McAnally

had to be able to level his charge into the Chief's face.

`What's the big deal?' McAnally snarled. `Who said there was a problem?

'That's the boy,' Rennie said.

`He doesn't scare me, Mr Rennie.'

`Nice to hear that, Gingy.'

`Where was he when I was with the bloody R.P.G., close quarters?

'The Chief hasn't the bottle you've got Gingy.' McDonough swallowed hard, as if

speaking made him sick.

Astley said, `He'd have been playing with himself, Gingy. What he wouldn't have

been doing is putting himself up the sharp end.'

Prentice said, `When you go in there and face him you really kick his balls. You

give him interest on what he did to you.'

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McAnally's cheeks were flushed. His voice was loud. `You think I'm scared, don't

you? That's what you think, isn't it?'

Rennie smiled. `Just show us that you're not scared, Gingy.'

If he came through this then he might come through the crossexamination. If he

failed this then he would fail in the witness box. Rennie was sweating. Mid-December and the central heating turned too high. He wiped his forehead.

Ì'm not yellow, Mr Rennie.'

Ìt's not his fault, Ma. They've brained him, see ... You have to tell people that it's not our Gingy they've got. He's like a man I don't know. Ma, I saw what you said

on the telly last evening. That's why I've called you. Ma, something'll be sorted out. Ma, I don't know what's for the best. Gingy's all changed, like they've done

his mind ...'

Doggedly Mrs Chrissie O'Rourke repeated the question that had been twice

asked and twice ignored. It was the question she had been told to ask until it was

answered.

`Where are you, Roisin?'

A long pause, and then a small voice. `That doesn't matter to you, Ma.'

`Where are you?

'We have to help ourselves, Ma. You can't help us.'

Ì've the right to know where my girl is, where my grankids are.'

Mrs Chrissie O'Rourke stared down at the blank sheet of paper on the pad beside

the telephone. She didn't doubt what she was doing. She knew Frankie Conroy to

be a decent man. Since he had called the first time to her house she had asked

around about him. She had asked Father Francis when he had come to visit and

commiserate. She had asked the solicitor when he had come. Both the priest and

the solicitor had said that Frankie Conroy was a decent man. No doubts in her mind. She thought the solicitor was flash, but she had a small love for Father Francis. The priest was what any Ma would want of a son. And he never slagged

the Provies. Slagged the Brit army, but no one in the parish had ever heard him

slag the Provies. A little bit she trusted the solicitor. Father Francis she trusted all the way. She heard the words spoken in a hush on the telephone and wrote them

down.

The policeman had lightly taken the Chief's arm as they came out of the cell and

into the block corridor. The Chief shrugged the fist away. The policeman didn't make a big deal of it. All the policemen wore their identification numbers on their

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uniform tunic shoulders. They could all be identified, and they would all know that the prisoner from the last in the line cell on the ground floor of the block was rated as P.I.R.A. Brigade Commander, Belfast. The Chief knew that these were the old sods, those who worked inside at Castlereagh, old sods who had wormed

their way out of postings to the front line of West Belfast or South Armagh or the

Fermanagh border or Derry. The old sods looked over their shoulders, and

thought of the day when a man like the Chief might have his freedom again, and

might remember a policeman's face, and put the face to a name, and the name

to an address. No big deal for this policeman. He allowed the Chief to walk without his fist in the Chief's sleeve.

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**In the hours that he had been in custody the Chief had not fathomed the evidence against him. His questioning at the hands of a Detective Sergeant and a

Detective Constable had been cursory, and had seemed to involve his daytime movements of ten, eleven days back. Of course, he hadn't answered the pigs.

The Chief had set himself to shut his mouth and keep it shut. What puzzled him

was that the detectives seemed to think his silence a small matter. Other than the detectives and the escorting policeman he had seen no other person during

his time in custody. His stomach growled, the wind bulged like a knot in his belly.

They came out of the cell block and through the covered walkway and into the

Interrogation Block.

The policeman knocked on the door of the third Interrogation Room on the right

side of the corridor. There was an indistinct shout from inside and the policeman

opened the door.

The Chief saw the two 'tecs. The same men as the time before, and the time before that. An easy smile from the older one, like they were old friends. The Chief broke wind, and went to a chair at the table. The younger one grinned too.

The Chief sat. What had the bastards to smile about?

`Detective Sergeant McDonough . . .'

`Detective Constable Astley . . .'

Ì know your bloody names,' the Chief said. He was sitting, they were both standing.

`Just the rule book,' McDonough said.

Silence ... as if the 'tecs were waiting for something, as if they had no questions.

The Chief saw the remote camera, aimed down at him from high on the wall.

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Because the Interrogation Room was sound‐proofed noises could not escape,

and no outside noise could come in. The Chief did not hear the approach down

the corridor outside.

The door opened. The Chief looked up sharply. He saw Rennie in the doorway. He

had once ordered the killing of Rennie. He knew Rennie from his photograph, the

photograph fitted the face in the doorway. The face was expressionless. Their movement had been imperceptible, unnoticed by the Chief before it was

completed, but McDonough and Astley were now positioned between the Chief

and the door. It was crowded in the doorway. Behind Rennie was another

detective, a younger man, and behind him were two uniformed policemen. The

Chief blinked. He couldn't help himself. He had seen the face that was half-hidden behind Rennie's shoulder. A nervous, peering, gawping little face, Gingy

fucking McAnally's face.

Rennie said, `Get on with it, Gingy.'

The Chief understood. The anger surged in him. His fists were clenched. He saw

the hands jump from the pockets of McDonough and Astley.

`Learned your fucking lines, Gingy?' the Chief shouted.

'That man is the Chief of the Belfast Brigade. The man briefed me on the attack

on Mr Justice Simpson ...'

The Chief's voice smashed through McAnally's hesitant recitation. Ìs your bloody

wallet full, Gingy? Filled your bloody wallet up, have they?

'That man explained to me how Simpson was to be taken out ...'

`You're going to be stiffed, McAnally.'

`He set up the whole attack. I told him that it couldn't be done, but he wouldn't

have anything of that ...'

`You won't live to spend their fucking money.'

`He said that I was the only one he could lay his hands on who had the training to

use the R.P.G. without practice.' McAnally was gabbling, charging out his words.

`You've shamed your family.'

`He had the map out, he went over the plan on the map. It was his plan . . .'

`You think you'll ever be safe from us, Gingy McAnally ‐ you, or your woman, or

your brats?'

McAnally turned to Rennie. He was pulling at Rennie's coat. `Stop him, don't let

him say that ...'

`You'll be shot. You'll be pissing down your leg when you're shot.'

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`That one, the Chief, he made me do it. Without him I wouldn't have done it ...

You're going down, you're going down for bloody life, you're going to the Kesh,

you bloody filth ... I'll be fucking laughing when you're in the Kesh.'

The Chief saw the hysteria rising in Sean Pius McAnally, saw the saucer eyes, saw

the opened mouth from which the shrieking spat. The Chief saw Rennie look away. The Chief saw that Rennie wouldn't help the bastard. 'Course he wouldn't

help him ... If he helped him now then he'd never stand on his feet later, not later when it mattered.

The Chief stood. Not fast, but deliberately. He came round the table. He moved

very slowly. His eyes were fixed on McAnally's, he trapped the tout with his eyes.

The 'tecs, McDonough and Astley, were shoulder to shoulder, and ready for him

if he charged, and behind them was Rennie. He couldn't get at McAnally with his

fists or his boots. He could reach the bastard only with his eyes and with his voice.

He saw the fear spreading on McAnally's mouth.

`You're dead, Gingy, you're dead for what you've done,' the Chief whispered.

`You're dead in the street, Gingy, before you get near a bloody court. Look at me,

Gingy ... you're dead before you'll spend the bloody money they're paying you.'

Rennie shoved McAnally out through the door.

The Chief saw a momentary flash of the pale white face of the tout.

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**`You're gone, Gingy. You're gone to a traitor's grave.' The door slammed shut.

Frankie Conroy smiled a wide and bright smile.

`You did well, Mrs O'Rourke. You've done the best thing that you could have done. I'll get her back to you, Mrs O'Rourke, her and the kids. You done really well.'

Frankie Conroy was hurrying on his way from the back door of Mrs Chrissie O'Rourke's house in the Drive, Turf Lodge, and out over the back fence, and across another garden to his car.

There was no rain now. The clouds had slipped away east over the city that lay

scattered and sprawled below the Turf Lodge estate. The light fell on the dark slopes of the Divis mountain above him. Hidden on the wild, rock‐strewn

bracken‐covered inclines of the mountain was the arms cache that he would draw upon when he began the process later that day of prising Roisin McAnally

away from her husband. He knew the way of the supergrasses. If the woman 154

stayed with the man then the chances of him reaching the witness box were increased. If the woman quit her man then those chances were diminished. With

the weapons that were hidden on Divis mountain lay his first and best chance of

reaching to the fears of Roisin McAnally.

Palace Barracks, Holywood, wasn't bad for him. Could have been worse. Could have been Thiepval at Lisburn, could have been the camps at Ballycastle or Ballyclare.

He could get close enough to Palace Barracks to scare Roisin McAnally witless.

Scare her so that she reckoned she was safer at her Ma's than she was in the protective care of the squaddies and the peelers.

They had left Prentice to watch McAnally.

They were out in the corridor for the conference.

Through the high small window in the door Rennie could see McAnally in profile.

McAnally sat in his chair, and his hands were tight together around a steaming coffee mug and trembling so that he didn't trust himself to take the mug to his

mouth. He lowered his chin to the rim of the mug, and when he drank there was

coffee spilling from his lips.

Rennie watched Prentice offer McAnally a cigarette. McAnally took the cigarette.

The coffee was smeared on the table, and Prentice wiped it away with his handkerchief, and was trying to laugh as he lit the cigarette for McAnally.

Disgust on Rennie's face.

`That's just one, and he's got to do that thirty more times ... O.K.,

the Chief's the hardest one for him, but none of them are that different. There are no bloody Volunteers on McAnally's shopping list, they're all Brigade and Battalion. They're all quality, and they're all going to stick our Gingy through the hoop like the Chief did, right ... and if the Chief can make that sort of mess of him, what state's he going to be in when he's been messed thirty times?'