The Wild Heart (12 page)

     ‘ And you’re going for him?’

     ‘ Once we find out where the house is, yes’.

     ‘ And what else?’

     ‘ Campbell has made contact with a far-right group who’ve been involved in torching Asian-owned businesses around the northwest. We’ve known for a long time that there’ve been links between loyalist paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland and far-right groups here on the mainland and we’re hoping to pull them all in at the same time. When Freddie Burnside found out about you he sent the group to take some pictures just to confirm that it was you’.

     Ian wished he could close his eyes and turn into somebody else. Just when he thought his life might be getting simpler it just got a whole lot more complicated.

     ‘ So was Kevin stealing stuff from me to make bombs with?’

     ‘ Looks that way’ said Alice ‘ Campbell wants to use the far-right group to plant the bombs for him in the hope that it will trick the IRA back into the armed struggle’.

     ‘ But somebody more powerful than him must be pulling his strings? He can’t just have walked out of prison and straight into all this on his own?’

     ‘ We’ve had our suspicions for some time about Peter Irvine, the unionist MP and his links with a woman called Angela Patterson. She used to be Angela Kerr?’

     ‘ Well, well, well, that’s a bolt from the past. Angela Kerr. I knew her a long time ago’.

     ‘ I know. Well we think she’s bankrolling the whole scheme and that she and Irvine are using Campbell to carry it out’.

     ‘ And finding me has given them a nice wee bonus’.

     ‘ We want you to eliminate Campbell, Ian. He’ll get to you and when he does we want you to deal with him’.

     ‘ And after that?’

     ‘ Just this one last mission, Ian, and then you’ll be free. I promise you that’.

     ‘ I’ve asked my lover to move in with me’.

     Alice couldn’t believe how naïve and stupid Ian was being. ‘ You’ve done what?’

     ‘ I’ve asked my lover to move in with me’ Ian repeated. 

     ‘ Well you’ll just have to tell him you’ve changed your mind’.

     ‘ No way. He’s moving in with me and that’s final’.

     ‘ But Campbell could use him to get to you! Are you out of your mind?’

     Ian wouldn’t hear a bar of Alice’s objections. ‘ Look, after what you’ve told me today I’ve got a better chance of protecting him if he’s at my place than if he stays at his own’.

     Alice was exasperated with Ian and couldn’t say much more to him without them getting into a fight. So she handed him the file she’d brought for him. It was a dossier on Mark, everything about him from where he attended school to who all his friends were.

     Ian was fuming. ‘ Is this meant to imply a threat of some kind?’ he demanded.

     Alice answered in measured tones. ‘ You can take it, Ian, however the bloody hell you like but hear this, our operation is not going to be compromised by your private life and it wouldn’t be in Mark Earnshaw’s interests if he got in the way’.

     Halfway through the morning Kevin’s wife Sandra came storming into the site and sought out the bloke Ian had taken on to cover for Kevin. She began to inflict a barrage of verbal abuse on a bewildered looking Malcolm before Ian went over and told her to lay off him. She then turned her fire on him.

     ‘ Don’t you fucking tell me to lay off!’ she raged ‘ If I can’t feed my girls this week it’ll be his fault! He’s stolen my husband’s job!’

     Ian took a deep breath. He was in no mood for her antics after his meeting earlier with Alice. Sandra was standing there in her pink sweat suit and white trainers. She was dripping in rings, bangles, and earrings, and her dyed blond hair was tied back to the point of severity. She was wearing no make-up but the expression in her eyes was the unmistakable stain of pure anger. The rest of the lads had stopped whatever they’d been doing and were watching the drama being played out.

     ‘ I took Malcolm on, Sandra’ said Ian, firmly. ‘ Because your husband seems to have forgotten he has a job I pay him to do’. He’d love to tell the stupid bitch what the real story was on her total fucking
wanker of a husband. That would take the wind out of her fucking sails.

     ‘ And why did you do that, eh? After all the work Kevin’s done for you all these years’.

     ‘ Sandra, I had no idea when Kevin was going to be back’ said Ian. ‘ What was I supposed to do? We’ve got a lot of work on and not even you know where Kevin is’.

     ‘ Well I’ve had the police round asking me about … they think Kevin might have murdered that
policeman … ‘ she broke down and cried. Ian put his arms out to comfort her but she pushed them away. ‘ Don’t you touch me! It’s the fault of all you Irish! You’re poison. Do you hear me? Poison!’

     Ian recoiled. He understood she was upset but he’d only let her go so far with her nasty remarks. The rest of the lads gathered round and Sandra leaned on Len who put his arm round her.

     ‘ I can’t believe it, boss’ said Len, doing his best to comfort Sandra. ‘ Kevin murdering a policeman? It can’t be. They’ll have made a mistake Sandra, love. You’ll see’.

     Oh no they haven’t, thought Ian.

     ‘ I want his money’ Sandra demanded, between sobs and wiping her face clean with her hands ‘ What he was due’.

     ‘ Of course, Sandra’ said Ian. ‘ Come into the office and I’ll sort you a cheque’.

     ‘ I want cash!’ she screeched. If he gave her a cheque, as soon as it was paid in it would all be swallowed up by the overdraft she’d run up. She really didn’t know what she was going to do. She was already on a credit blacklist because of her debts. Kevin’s wages had been her only lifeline. 

     Ian drew breath. Jesus, she was pushing her luck. ‘ Then I’ll tell you what he’s due and have it ready for you later. I’ll even bring it round’.

     ‘ Go on, Sandra’ said Len ‘ Go with the boss and get things sorted. Is there anything any of us can do?’

     Sandra shook her head.

     In the office Ian made Sandra a cup of tea and she sat down. He worked out what Kevin had been due and said he’d bring the cash over to her later when he’d had a chance to go to the bank.

     ‘ What are you going to do for money when this runs out?’ asked Ian.

     Sandra shrugged ‘ Go on the social I suppose, nothing else for it. I just wish I knew where he was so I could get the police off me back. I told them that … wait a minute, who told them that he’d gone to Belfast anyway? Was it his parents? Or was it you?’

     ‘ It was me, Sandra’.

     ‘ You fucking bastard!’

     She leapt out of her chair and went to slap his face but he was too quick for her and grabbed her arm before she was able to make contact.

     ‘ Don’t even try it, sweetheart’ he said, seething. ‘ Because if you do I’ll forget that you’re a woman’.

     ‘ Well what would you know about women?’ she sneered ‘ A fucking
poofter like you!’

     ‘ That’s enough!’.

     ‘ Gay, straight. It doesn’t matter in the end. You’re all Irish navvies who shouldn’t be here’.

     ‘ Oh don’t you get me started, lady’.

     ‘ I don’t want to have anything more to do with my so-called husband, no matter what’s been going on and I’ll make damn sure the girls don’t either. And I’ll be cutting all ties with his Mum and Dad and all. Me Mam will look after me and the girls. She always said he was a no good Irish navvy and that I shouldn’t have married him. I should’ve listened to her’.

     Ian bristled. ‘ Sandra, you’re Kevin’s wife. He may need you’.

     ‘ Tough! I need. Do you hear me? I need! I need money for me and the girls and he’s just gone and made sure we’ll go without. That coppers' family won’t go without, will they? Oh no, they’ll get thousands in compo. If Kevin is involved then I won’t get a bloody penny!’

     Ian stood back and shook his head in disbelief.

     ‘ What the fuck is up with you?’ she demanded. ‘ I’m going to sue for all the emotional trauma. I’ve seen all the adverts on the telly about it. Oh yes, somebody is going to fucking pay’.

     ‘ Sandra, if your husband has murdered a policeman, then where do you think the compensation is going to come from?’

     Sandra shrugged her shoulders. ‘ I don’t care. But if the copper’s family get something then it’s only fair that I should too. I’m just as much of a victim’.

     Ian felt sorry for Sandra’s daughters. They’re stuck with just her now. ‘ Why don’t you think about getting a job?’

     ‘ How can I get a job? I’ve got the girls to look after’.

     Ian flinched. Her voice was like a fucking drill. ‘ Sandra, they’re both at school. You could get something part-time’.

     ‘ No I couldn’t. The girls need me. Besides, they don’t give decent jobs to good white English people these days. They only give them to immigrants who’ve come to sponge off this country. It does my head in when I see all these asylum seekers getting everything’.   

     ‘ How can they have a job and be sponging off the country at the same time, Sandra?’ He was heartily sick of lazy English fuckers like Sandra using the presence of immigrants as an excuse for not getting off their fat arses and finding work.

     Sandra didn’t answer. 

     ‘ Well like I said, Sandra, I’ll be over about five with the money. Okay?’

     She turned to the door and then paused ‘ How do your lot sleep at night?’ she asked.

     ‘ I beg your pardon? Who do you mean exactly by my lot?’

     ‘ The Irish! How do any of you sleep at night knowing that for all these years you’ve brought all this trouble to England?’

     ‘ Sandra, you know nothing about the history of Northern Ireland, nothing at all. But let me ask you a question. How do you sleep at night knowing that your husband has done a disappearing act and the police want to question him about a murder, and yet you, his wife, couldn’t give a shit about him? As long as you’re alright it doesn’t matter to you that he could’ve been using my yard for criminal reasons. No, as long as you get your cash, as long as you’re alright’.

     ‘ Well at least Kevin’s a real man’ she taunted ‘ At least he doesn’t sleep with other men’.

     Ian was incandescent with rage ‘ Get out, Sandra. Get out before I change my mind about the money’.

     ‘ You can’t! It’s Kevin’s money!’

     ‘ Exactly. Kevin’s money. I’m under no obligation to pay it to you so like I said, get out before I change my mind’.

     As soon as Kevin Matheson was arrested Alice got on the phone to Ian. She told him that the Police Service of Northern Ireland had received a tip-off that had led them to a fairly unremarkable house in Larne, Co. Antrim. Nobody else had been in the house at the time leading Alice to conclude that Kevin had been hung out to dry and seen as expendable which was why they hadn’t killed him. She said the arresting officers had found Kevin in a terrified state and arrested him for the murder of P.C Stuart Wheeler. He’d confessed outright and agreed to co-operate.

     ‘ So what’s he saying?’ Ian asked.

     ‘ He’s telling us that some sort of low level bombing campaign is being planned for Manchester and our colleagues in the Greater Manchester force are now aware of it. He says he was told to hand over the building materials he’d stolen from your yard to someone he never saw. He was told to
drive them to an industrial estate in Stockport at a certain time late at night and park in a viaduct under a railway line. His instructions were to wait in the van but to leave the back doors unlocked and not to look round. All he was aware of was two bodies clearing the contents of his van out and loading them into another one parked next to it. Once they were done they hit the side of his van as his signal to drive off. He never saw any faces. They’ll be taking him back over to Manchester in a couple of days and he’ll go away for a long time’.

     ‘ And what’s the latest on Campbell?’

     ‘ He’s on the mainland and we believe he’s in Manchester’.

     ‘ So he’s close’.

     ‘ Yes, Ian. You really do have to watch your step now’.

     Natalie had cooked pork chops for tea. When Shaun came in just after six he said he was ravenous. He always was when he’d been on a punishment beating.

     The young lad in question had been stealing cars from a working-class estate on the outskirts of East Belfast and taking them for a ride. The police had not been able to apprehend him mainly because the local community had all refused to give them his name even though they knew damn well who it was. But they had their own way of dealing out justice and that’s when they’d called for Shaun to get onto it.

     Shaun and four others had burst into the end council house the lad shared with his parents and four younger sisters. They’d found him sitting in the living room with his mother. They were watching ‘Neighbours’.

     His mother was pleading for them to let him be as she screamed and cried and tried to hold onto him. But they had him out of the house and into the back of the car in seconds. It was broad
daylight. Nobody came to see. Nobody would ever say anything. They knew better than to get involved and not even his mother came running after them. Her sixteen year-old son with his freckles and ginger hair was beyond her help and all she could do now was pray that he came back to her in one piece.