Now and in the Hour of Our Death (15 page)

Balls. If this fucker had any proof, Sammy knew he would have been nicked and charged. The big man was bluffing. Sammy folded his arms across his chest and smiled. Bluff away, you big cunt, you're getting nothing from me.

“You think it's funny?”

Sammy inclined his head as if to say, “What do you think, you Prod git?” but he reminded himself,
Nothing
, Sam. Say
nothing
. He stared up. One, two, three …

The man's words were slow. Measured. “Sammy, you've been in here for six hours. Your mates know you've been in here. We'd a young lad like you in here about a year ago. We knew he was a Provo … just like you. Kept his mouth shut. Just like you. It's a dead giveaway. Man up on a GBH charge? Offered an out and he says nothing? They teach you to keep your traps shut, don't they?”

This shite was on a fishing expedition. He didn't know that Sammy was a Provo, but the thick peeler thought he could trick him into confessing. Twenty, twenty-one …

“Pity about the young fellow. Nothing I could do would persuade him to work with us.”

Good for him, Sammy thought, and you'll not turn me neither. He took comfort from the thought. Counting the holes had helped, but he didn't need to do it anymore. He
knew
this shite couldn't get to him, no matter what he said.

“Didn't matter. We used him anyway.” The man lit another smoke. “Just put the word out that he'd turned.”

You bastard. Sammy didn't need to be told what would have happened after that. “His friends interrogated him for seven weeks.”

Sammy shuddered. The handcuffs bit into his wrists. He glanced back to the ceiling, but there was no solace to be had in telling his rosary of tile holes.

“He signed a confession … and the poor bugger was innocent.” The big man inspected the lit end of his cigarette. “I suppose when they keep on hurting a man, he'll do anything to make them stop.”

Sammy knew.

The man's voice turned cold. “Now you think about it, Sam. You can work for me, or we'll keep you here for another forty-eight hours, then let you go. That'd be long enough to persuade your mates that we might have got to you. They'll debrief you, Sam.”

Of course they fucking well would. The Security Forces weren't the only ones with effective interrogation units. He'd be taken to a safe house, questioned, maybe for days, but, he reassured himself, his mates would soon see that he'd been loyal—wouldn't they?

“One of our blokes is round at your house now. He's leaving you a wee present.”

The cell grew suddenly colder.

“Then a little birdie'll put out the word. Your mates pay a lot of heed to evidence that a man's working for us.”

Despite the cold Sammy felt, his palms were sweating. Could the bugger do that?

“If they think that, Sam … and it won't be a kneecapping.”

Sammy shuddered. In a barn, last year, he'd had to hold a young lout down. The youth had been convicted by the Provos of selling drugs. His howling as a Black & Decker drill had torn into his kneecaps had been masked by the screams of pigs being butchered in the barn.

“I'd not be in your shoes, Sam.”

Sammy looked into the big man's eyes. They were cold. Unrelenting.

He lit another cigarette. “It'll be like the other fellow I was telling you about. It wasn't pretty what they did to him.”

Sammy wanted to run, to get out of the fucking cell, to get away from the big, relentless man who sat back in his chair, smoking. But Sammy couldn't run, not from the cell, not from the trap the big man had set. He didn't want to listen. Tried to shut out the man's voice, but he couldn't put his hands over his ears. Not while he was wearing handcuffs. The man's words drove into Sammy's soul as viciously as the electric drill had ripped into the knees of the screaming youth in the barn. But the big shite was bluffing. He'd never set anyone up. Wouldn't be able to set Sammy up either. All that talk about planting evidence. Bullshite. It had to be.

The man let smoke trickle from his lips. Sammy would have killed for another cigarette. “You remember Finn McArdle?”

Christ Jesus. Finn. That fucking turncoat had got his last Easter. He'd been lifted for a petty crime—just like Sammy had. Been in the pokey for three days, then let go—like this bastard was saying he'd keep Sammy and then let him go. A few weeks after Finn got out, rumours started. Sammy had heard that the Provos' intelligence men had found money in Finn's mattress … telephone numbers … no one saw Finn for a couple of months.

“Friend of yours, was he?”

Sammy shook his head. He wasn't going to admit to having known anyone in the Provos.

“He's … no, he
was
the young lad I was telling you about. The one who refused to help me. I hear your lot found a stack of money in his mattress.”

Sammy jerked back in his chair. How in the hell could the big peeler know that … unless…? Holy Mother of God. Sammy knew how a fox must feel when the jaws of the leghold slammed shut.

The man stood, then walked round and stood behind Sammy's chair. He bent and whispered in Sammy's ear. “I told you, Sam, one of my lads is at your house now.”

Sammy felt his tears start.

“If you don't help me out, Sam, your lot'll do to you what they did to Finn McArdle. I've a strong stomach, but I had to go out to the road where they'd dumped him. A .357 Magnum makes a hell of a mess of a man's head. I bloody nearly threw up.”

Sammy did. The puke burned his throat. The stench filled his nostrils, stifling the stink of his fear. He heard the man's footsteps, felt a hand on his forehead, forcing his head back, forcing him to look into eyes that smouldered.

“You're stuck, Sammy, but if you work with us, there's a way out.”

Sammy still said nothing. His eyes held pleading enough.

“Bit of information here and there. I'll look after you. If things get a bit dicey for you, I'll get you over to England into the Witness Protection Programme. They'd hide you. Give you a new identity. Money.”

Sammy wiped his lips with the back of one shackled hand. No. He'd not turn. He'd not. He sat up straight, jerked forward, and spat at his tormentor.

The big man pulled out a hanky and wiped the spittle from his shirt front. “Maybe you need time to think it over.” He tossed the handkerchief to Sammy. “Here, clean yourself up.” He turned, left, and slammed the door behind him.

The crash sounded to Sammy like the closing of the gates of purgatory. The lights in the cell went out. He'd been left alone in the dark with only the stink of his own puke and his thoughts.

If he didn't go along with the CID man—Sammy's stomach heaved at the thought of what would happen to him if his friends thought he was grassing. He knew he couldn't face that. Couldn't. He was deathly afraid of physical pain. And he had no doubt that his police tormentor would carry through with his threats. He'd been the one who'd fucked Finn. He'd not hesitate to fuck Sammy.

But if he did grass, how would he be able to live with himself? It wasn't called turning for nothing. You had to leave everything behind. Friends of a lifetime. Erin. He'd have nothing—except the fear of discovery. He picked his nose, and his captive hand dragged over his chin.

Maybe—maybe he could pretend to cooperate with the peeler, get out of this hellhole, and go straight back home and make a clean breast to Cal. It would be like being an altar boy after confession. Sins absolved, ready for a fresh start.

But Cal O'Byrne wasn't a priest. Cal would report to Provo command, and Sammy knew that, even if he did tell everything, he'd never allay the suspicions of the senior men. They couldn't afford to take risks that anyone on the inside might be working for the British. The greatest threat to Irish revolutionaries had always come from within their own ranks. Once he'd opened the door to their thinking that they couldn't trust him, they'd want him out of the Provos—and there was only one way out. Sammy rocked in his chair. A keening sound slipped past his lips.

Could he run from the peelers
and
the Provos? Not a fucking chance. Where'd he go? He'd no money, didn't even have a passport. That only left England, and England …

He remembered something the big man had said, something about the Witness Protection Programme. Maybe there was a way, but if he took it he'd be no better than Art O'Hanlon or Mollie MacDacker. And he'd have to live with that—forever. It wouldn't matter to his friends whether or not he'd believed in the Cause, had taken risks for Ireland. All that would count would be that he'd been the lowest slimy shite in the world as far as they were concerned. A man had to have a crumb of pride.

Sammy started to pace, but in the dark, he blundered into the wall. His nose bled, and the blood and his tears made runnels down his lips on their way to join the vomit on his shirt front.

He groped back to the chair and sat, elbows on the table, head propped in manacled hands that spread like the supplicant hands of a pietà.

He was hardly aware that the lights had gone on and the door had opened and closed. He looked up and saw, blurred through his tears, a man standing across the table. Sammy sniffed, wiped each eye. It was not his previous tormentor. The newcomer had an open face and green eyes. There was something wrong with his left eye, a brown triangle in the green of the iris.

“Jesus, Sammy,” he said softly, “you look a right mess. Did my mate belt you one?”

Sammy shook his head.

“You'd better clean yourself up. Gimme your hands.”

Sammy obeyed and felt the handcuffs loosen and slip away. He chafed his wrists.

“There's a basin in the corner.”

Sammy went to the basin, splashed cold water on his face. He hoped to God the cold would bring down the swelling under his eyes.

“Use the towel.”

Sammy dried his face. The towel was blood-streaked when he hung it on a rail under the sink.

“Come and sit down.”

Sammy sat. He felt like a spaniel obeying its master's every command.

“Let's have a look at you.”

Sammy felt a hand under his chin, stared into the green eyes with the brown triangle.

“You'll live.” The new man sat. “Fancy a smoke?”

Sammy nodded.

“Here.” He gave Sammy a Gallaher's Green.

The smoke burned Sammy's throat, which had been rasped raw when he threw up. He coughed harsh, tearing hacks.

“Take it easy,” the man said. “You'll strangle yourself.” He sounded concerned.

Sammy looked up and saw a broad smile and, despite himself, responded.

“That's better, Sunshine.”

“The name's Samuel.”

The man laughed. “I know that. My mate … the one who was in here before … told me.”

Sammy's smile fled.

“Bit rough on you, was he?”

Sam nodded.

“He can be like that. Pay no heed. He'll not be back.”

“Thank fuck for that.”

“So”—the man lay back in his chair—“did you get a chance to think over what he talked to you about?”

“About grassing?”

“About helping us.”

“Aye?”

“And?”

“I dunno.” Sammy picked his nose, clasped his hands, and stared at the wall, the floor, then the policeman. “Look. Tell me about that witness-protection thing.”

“Sure. We've been running it for a while. When you get into it, we take you to England, give you a new identity, a whole new life … after you've done a few wee jobs for us.”

Sammy hesitated.

“We'd look after you. We'd not throw you to the dogs, Sammy.”

“Your mate said he would.”

“Yes”—the word was drawn out—“but only if you don't cooperate. If you
do,
I'll look after you. Be your friend.”

Sammy closed his eyes. God, he needed a friend, but not like the lads he went smuggling with or the Donegal men who helped them. They were all right to sit down with, have a pint, a cigarette, a few laughs, but they weren't real friends. Not like Cal or Erin O'Byrne—he
would
have to abandon her. He'd miss them both. A man couldn't live without other people he could trust and who could trust him in return. Friends. The kind who would leap into a swollen river if he was in it drowning. The kind who would jump over the fence of a bull pen and distract the animal when he'd fallen in the mud and the beast was set to gore him. The kind of friend a man only made in childhood—but kept all his life. He'd miss—but then, if the peelers carried out their threat, he'd miss them all anyway. Forever.

And he
had
to choose. One or the other.

He took a very deep breath, opened his eyes, and whispered, “All right.”

“Great.” The man put one hand on Sammy's shoulder and offered the other. Sammy accepted the handshake and was warmed by the contact.

“Now,” the man said, “I'll tell you how it's going to work.”

Sammy listened.

It took an hour to explain about dead-letter drops, safe meeting places, cover stories, the use of public telephones, how to spot a tail, how to listen for a bug on home telephones—all the hole-in-the-corner details of informing.

They'd both need code names. The peeler laughed. “Why not what I just called you? Sunshine for you and … Spud for me?”

“Spud? You're not a Murphy, are you? You know as well as I do that every Murphy in Ireland's nicknamed Spud.”

“Do you think I'd pick a code name that would give anyone a lead to my real name?”

“I suppose not.”

“Bloody right. Now, do you understand all that I've told you, Sunshine?”

Sammy nodded.

“Come on, then,” Spud said, rising, “let's get you out of here. You'll not have been in long enough for your friends to suspect a thing. You just tell them we had you in, ‘to help us with our enquiries.' And do you know what?”