Field of Blood (7 page)

Ferris stood behind the landrover peering down the length of Divis Street.

Cars, taxis, lorries wafted past them. They were ignored by Ferris. A getaway car

would be different.

There was no pursuit from the roundabout.

The detectives from the back‐up had first spilled out of their seats and sprinted to the wreckage of the Rover. The one in the back was young, new to plain clothes.

He held a Sterling sub‐machine gun in his right hand and aimed it at pedestrians

who sought to come forward towards the raging inferno that was the Rover, and

was shrieking obscenities and weeping. The front seat observer of the back‐up sprayed the flames with an extinguisher.

Hopeless, bloody waste of time. When the extinguisher was virtually empty he realized that all his efforts to damp the fire had been at the front of the car, where his friends had been. He carried on with the foam, spraying until the black

seat‐belted shapes were doused in a white shroud, until there were no more flames in the charred interior of the Rover. He dropped the extinguisher into the

roadway. He walked over to the new boy, still yelling.

33

`Do us a bloody favour and shut your face.'

There were more sirens in the air, converging on them. He had lost his

colleagues, he had lost his charge.

He went to his transport.

`What have you put over?'

The back‐up driver said, `Just a Contact. That it was an R.P.G., that it was a hit . .

.'

He took the microphone, stretching the length of its cable away from the window. In front of him the Rover was smouldering dark smoke.

He could see the police and the troops who had sprinted down from the Court House.

`This is Foxtrot Zulu 24. Timed zero nine zero seven. We have lost Jupiter. R.P.G.

direct hit. Jupiter is dead ... so are my bloody mates ...out.'

He walked away from the car and was sick on the raised stonework of the roundabout.

Each man in the car had a critical role in the execution of the plan.

All the previous week the lookout man who had given the signal had tracked and

tailed the judge's transport. The man who had stayed with McAnally was

regarded as an expert in the use of a folded stock M16, he was responsible for the

safe escape. McAnally was the marksman, and he had scored. Crucial now to the

escape from the hit scene was the driver.

The driver of the getaway had first come down Clifton Street, then taken the sunken dual carriageway of the Westlink under the bridges that led to the Shankill Road and Divis Street. When the Westlink surfaced to ground level at the

Grosvenor Road he had gone hard right and right again to insert himself amongst

the modern terraces of Cullingtree. He was doubling back as he swept past the kids playing outside the crumbling escarpment of the Divis flats. The description

of the car would by now have been broadcast over the police and army nets, and

the car would have been identified as heading south‐west along the fast road that hooked onto the motorway.

His only participation in the Organization was as a driver. He reckoned he was the

best, and there weren't many who told him otherwise. Always the need to shift

the first car at speed away from the scene. The car wheels screeched as they curved and bounced over the rough broken ground in front of the flats. There was

a sharp confident smile at the driver's face. It was what he was good at. The car

34

lurched onto Divis Street. The plan called for him to drive most of the length of

Divis Street, as far as the Library, go right into Sebastapol, left into Odessa, right into Clonard, right into Kashmir, left into Bombay. In Bombay Street there would

be two cars waiting for the break‐up of the team.

They were in the traffic stream. The smile wiped from the driver's mouth. They

were slowing. Fucking lorry in front winking its back brake lights. Not the time for the driver to settle back in his seat and pick his bloody nose, not before the first car switch, not before the split. He swung the wheel, he jerked the car out into the on‐coming lanes. His foot stamped down on the accelerator. No power in a

bleeding Ford. He ground past the lorry.

`There's a fucking block . . .' McAnally screamed.

38

39

**McAnally had seen the Fusilier who was positioned furthest down Divis

Street. The red and white feathers of the hackle had caught his eye.

All together the four men in the car saw the landrover parked across

the centre of the road.

`Shit . . . Christ . . . Fucking Jesus . . . Bust the bastards . . .' Curses swimming in the ears of the driver.

The driver saw the tall upper body of the soldier behind the landrover. He felt the

frightened pants of McAnally's breathing on his neck. The man beside him was dragging the rifle from under his knees. He heard the unison clatter of two rifles

being armed.

The driver saw for a fleeting moment the staring young face of the soldier who

was low at the front of the landrover.

There was a hospital outpatients' van heading towards him. Fuck it, let it look after itself. He was back into the on‐coming lanes. With all the impetus he could

kick out of the clapped‐out Ford he swerved past the tail of the landrover. The rifles in the car were on automatic. A stink of cordite in the car, and the hammer

sounds of the firing. McAnally was shouting behind him, the driver couldn't understand the words. The driver saw the soldier who had been behind the landrover hurl himself down onto the road.

`Down ... down ...' the driver yelled. He saw the solitary soldier who had been placed in a doorway behind the landrover. He was the wrong side for his riflemen.

The driver took the car straight towards the soldier and when he cowered away,

then the driver wrenched his car back onto the track of the road. He heard the 35

scream of the van's horn ... Fuck you, mate ... he heard the single report of a rifle shot that had missed.

They swept on up Divis Street, and took the right into Sebastapol. They were all

yelling, laughing in the car, and slapping the driver's back.

Ferris climbed to his feet, spared a moment to wipe the wet dirt from his camouflage trousers. He looked in front of him and behind him. He saw his Fusiliers sprinting back to his position. His driver stood by the bonnet of the landrover and his face was creased as if he had been presented with a puzzle to

which he could not fathom the answer. Already a crowd had gathered on the two

pavements to watch him.

A child with a shrill, cutting voice called out, 'Heh, Mister, the Provies wiped you on the ground. The Provies made an arsehole of you, Mister.'

Ferris depressed the Speak button on his radio. His hand was shaking. He could

barely hold the button down.

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland had once been considered an

ambitious member of Cabinet. Too ambitious, had been the verdict of certain colleagues in government. They were highly placed, these colleagues, high

enough on the ladder of influence to speak into the Prime Minister's ear when they stood on tiptoe. So this ambitious man had been given responsibility for the

United Kingdom's warring province some eighteen months earlier. It was a pretty

damned awful job. He gained very little credit when the violence diminished, the

laurels went to the Generals and the Chief Constable. When the wheel turned, the media splashed gory headlines and the Secretary of State took the brickbats.

He was no longer ambitious.

He had flown into Aldergrove that morning and then been lifted by RAF

helicopter to his residence and office at Stormont Castle. Questions in the House

of Commons and a dinner for American industrialists had taken him to London. A

barrage of accusations of incompetence from the Protestant M.P.s, and vague promises of economic commitment had been the order of the previous day. Now,

back to the treadmill. Back to the misery.

On the castle lawns he smilingly shook hands with the helicopter's pilot. His face

was masked in a fraud of confidence. It was part of his work to seem unmoved by

catastrophe, to appear saturated in optimism. His bodyguards flanked him as he

walked briskly towards the Castle's side door. He always walked briskly, not because he was an athletic man, but because that was the instruction of the Detective Inspector from Scotland Yard who headed his security detail.

36

Waiting on the steps at the Castle's side door was an Ulster‐born civil servant, a

gaunt and cheerless man.

When the civil servant was on the steps it only added to bad news. The Secretary

of State was without an overcoat, the rain was flapping on his jacket, staining his

tie.

`Morning, Fred.' The Secretary of State liked to call his advisors by their first names, to create a team atmosphere.

`Morning, Secretary of State.'

The civil servant had fallen into step beside him, taking precedence over the two

secretaries who had come over from London.

The Secretary of State smiled loosely. Ì've had a good night's sleep, I've had a good flight, I'm as ready as I'll ever be. Give me the gloom.'

Ìt's been a bad morning for the Province.'

`My memory doesn't stretch back to a good one.' The flippancy was a disguise.

They went into the Secretary of State's office, palatial and yet comfortable. A warm and friendly room, subdued lighting, new‐cut flowers on the table by the

window that was screened with blast‐proof glass.

The Secretary of State said abruptly, `Well, don't hang around, Fred.'

40

41

**`They've murdered a judge.'

The Secretary of State looked at the floor. He saw the blades of wet grass at the

side of his shoes. His lips pursed. A judge ... `Details.'

`Half an hour ago. P.I.R.A. have already claimed it, that's in the last five minutes.

Mr Justice Simpson, Billy Simpson. Always gave ten years for conspiracy or firearms possession ... You know, "Tenner" Simpson.'

`Wasn't there any damned protection?' the Secretary of State flared.

`He had five with him, three in the escort, two in his own car. His car took a direct hit from an R.P.G.‐7 rocket. There were two detectives with him, and they died

with him.'

Ànd no arrests.' The Secretary of State tried to be angry. Òf course, no arrests.'

`No arrests.'

The Secretary of State stared into the lined, fleshless face of his civil servant. `So what do I do?

'I suggest you speak to the Prime Minister ... sorry, but that's what you ought to

do first. Then a statement to camera for the lunchtime bulletins. Then a meeting

with the Chief Constable ...'

37

Ì'm turning into a bloody parrot, you know that? I haven't the faintest idea of what I'll say that I haven't said before. I detest this place, Fred. I detest it because it has rubbed all sense of shock and outrage from my mind.'

The Secretary of State sagged into an easy chair. He heard his civil servant let himself out of the room. When he was alone, when he had calmed his thoughts,

he was able to remember Billy 'Tenner' Simpson. One of a golfing four at Shandon Park, a pretty good player and near to scratch. A small, round,

unsmiling man with a detective to caddy for him, who had not had much that was

nice to say about the Secretary of State's game. All the usual phrases cavorted in

the Secretary of State's mind ... Senseless murder ... bestial cowards . . .

determination of our government ... all decent‐minded people . . . personal loss

... never be deflected . . .

He reached for the telephone. He asked the switchboard for Downing Street.

Ì thought you should know, Prime Minister, it's been a bad morning for the Province . . .'

Ferment in Springfield Road barracks. Always the same after a major incident.

Local commanders always saturated their areas after a nasty one. Road blocks, foot patrols, and mobiles. No local commander would have it said that his response was lacking. Saturation in the Falls and

Clonard and Springfield and Beechmount and Ballymurphy. Kick the backside of

a platoon lieutenant or a uniformed R.U.C. sergeant who ventured to ask what they were searching for. Good reaction time was what mattered.

The Ford had been found, and collected from Bombay Street. It had been towed

into the yard at the back of the barracks. It was surrounded by traffic warning signs and a scrawled notice that read DON'T TOUCH ‐ WAITING ON F-PRINTING.

Fusilier Jones stared at the car. Nobby's bullet hole was there to see, side of the

boot entry, not too far from the back passenger seat, but just too far, worst fucking luck. He could see into the back seat through the open window.

`Bugger me . . .'

Fusilier Jones spun away from the car and doubled towards the Ops Room to find

his lieutenant.

`He's sure?' asked Sunray.

The coded radio callsign of the Commanding Officer was Sunray. He

enjoyed it, he encouraged its use. He had been heard to remark that it

38

emphasized the Battalion's active service and operational role. He