Pray for Us Sinners

  “You know. Provos.”

  “What’s it to you?”

  Marcus held up his hands, palms out. “The half of fuck all. Honest.”

  “Look, mate. A bit of advice. I know you’re just back from Canada and all, but there’s questions you don’t ask round here.” Eamon looked along the bar as if to see if anyone had overheard. “People that ask questions like that can find themselves in deep shit. D’you hear about the fellow last night up in Andersonstown?”

  “No.”

  “One kneecap blew off and a bullet in the back of his head. They found him on a bit of waste ground. Twenty pounds in his hand. Fucking tout.”

  Marcus had a sudden image of the man called Fred. If they think you’re a bad fucker—head job. Marcus took a long drink. “I don’t like the sound of that.” He looked round the room. Several more men were at the counter. Another three tables were occupied. The level of noise had risen and tobacco smoke fugged the air. No one was paying any attention to Eamon and him. “I’ll keep my trap shut in future.”

  “I’d do that if I was you.” Eamon finished his pint and looked at his empty glass.

  Marcus waved to Liam and pulled out two more pounds.

  Eamon smiled. “Aye. Well. We’ll put it down to you just being back from being away and say no more.”

  “Right.” It was time to change the subject. “I’m busting. Here. You pay.” He gave the money to Eamon. “Where’s the pisser?”

  Eamon pointed across the room to a door with frosted glass in its top half. “Through there and across the yard.”

  Marcus walked past the nearest table. Harelip was stabbing a nicotine-stained finger at the youth opposite. “Away off and chase yourself…”

  Marcus pushed his way past the other patrons. The door opened onto a small yard, lit by a single bulb behind a wire-mesh screen. At its far side a three-quarter cement wall stood beneath a corrugated-iron roof. Wiggly tin, he thought, and immediately banished the army slang for corrugated iron. Marcus Richardson might think about wiggly tin. Mike Roberts would not.

  Marcus rounded the wall. A second bulb, hanging from a flex, threw a weak pool of light onto the concrete floor of the enclosure. The floor sloped down to a galvanized iron trough at the foot of the wall. A sheet of aluminum stretched from the trough to waist height. Along the top of the metal a single, verdigris-encrusted pipe sprayed a thin trickle of water down the aluminum and into the trough. A rivulet of piss and disintegrating cigarette butts flowed weakly toward a metal grille. He unzipped.

  A fat man, face wrinkled like a dried-out chamois leather, came in. He ignored Marcus and looked down. “Come on, you useless bugger. I’ve worked for you for sixty years. You work for me.”

  Marcus heard the plashing and the man muttering, “Thank you.” He winked. “Better an empty house than a bad tenant.”

  “Right enough.” Marcus finished and zipped his trousers. And this undercover stuff was meant to be exciting? A whole two weeks of dingy bars, betting shops, his cruddy bed-sit. Not a decent bird in sight, unless he fancied the scrubbers that worked at the Gallagher’s cigarette factory: a lovely lot with their hair under scarves to hide their plastic Spoolies hair curlers, shrill laughs that would cut tin, coarse complexions, fat calves like Mullingar heifers.

  He headed back. James Bond would be in the Ritz-Carlton, vodka martini in one hand, the other up Pussy Galore’s skirt. Right up. And Marcus Richardson, at least, would be in the comfort of the officers’ mess.

  He stopped. Dead. A rat crouched in the corner of the yard. He felt his gorge rise and hairs on his arms stiffen. He hated rats. They terrified him. The one by the wall was huge, seemed to be as big as a Jack Russell. Its fur, black in the dim light, was mottled with patches of mange and its tail looked scaly and nacreous, like the skin of a decaying snake.

  Marcus hugged his arms round himself and willed the creature to go.

  It sat upright and preened its whiskers with tiny skeletal hands, clearly oblivious to the man who stood so close. Marcus watched as its nose whiffled, scenting the air, scenting the man. The rat fell to all fours and hunched its narrow shoulders. He saw its teeth, yellow as the gleam in its bright eyes. It hissed.

  Marcus took a step back. The rat advanced. One skittering step. Two. It sat upright, glared at him, and hissed again.

  Marcus fled into the pub.

  Eamon asked, “You all right?”

  Marcus nodded.

  “You look like you seen a ghost.”

  “Rat. Huge bugger.”

  Eamon laughed. “You’re an explosives man but you’re scared of rats?”

  “I hate them. There aren’t any in Alberta.”

  “You’d better get used to them here.”

  “Shit.” Marcus closed his eyes. Rats in the yard. Pints of Guinness, a thick brickie for company, and a roomful of dull-faced men with poor haircuts. Not a woman in the place. The chances of finding out anything useful? Next to nonexistent. James Bond? Shit. He’d have one more pint—any more and he might fall on his arse, or worse, give himself away—and then home.

  Eamon handed Marcus his pint. “Get that down you and never worry about the odd rat.” He handed over some change. “I suppose you tip barmen in Canada. We don’t. I don’t want you giving Liam big ideas. He’ll expect all of us to do it.”

  “Sorry. Cheers.” Marcus was searching for something to say when someone started banging a glass on a tabletop. At one of the centre tables a small man in painters’ overalls stood, waiting for something. Marcus recognized him. He’d been up at the bar a while ago. His sandy hair and narrow face, which earlier had made Marcus think of an underfed fox terrier, were hard to forget and—Christ! He’d seen that face before. In a photograph. What was the man waiting for?

  “Oh God,” he heard Eamon mouth. “Jimmy’s going to recite.”

  “Jimmy?”

  “Aye. Jimmy. Jimmy Ferguson. He thinks he’s William Butler Yeats.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  THURSDAY, 21 MARCH

  Two men stood side by side on the back row of the terraces, faceless at the periphery of the crowd at Dunmore Stadium. The light from the arc lamps illuminated the track but left the upper levels in darkness. As the spectators on the lower levels watched six greyhounds tear round the oval in pursuit of the electric hare, the two bent their heads close in conversation.

  Brendan McGuinness wanted to leave as soon as possible. He hated public places but had bowed to his companion’s assertion that the best place to hide a tree was in a forest. None of the small mob of punters stood anywhere near. There was no one within earshot. “So,” Brendan said, “back of the Antrim Hills, tomorrow night. You’ll arrange for our British friends to go out?”

  “Aye. Two Rovers.”

  “Good. It’s set at our end.” Brendan hunched into his mackintosh. The drizzle was cold. “What about the prime minister?”

  “Harold Wilson’s coming.”

  “When?”

  “Jesus Christ, he only won the election three weeks ago.”

  “I need to know.”

  “For fuck’s sake, I told you it’ll be April. I’ll give you the word as soon as I hear. Chapter and verse.”

  “Do that.”

  Brendan’s companion, a squat, broad-shouldered man, ground his teeth. “McGuinness, let’s you and me get something straight. I’m the one sticking his neck out. I don’t take fucking orders like some volunteer from the back of the Falls. I’ll deliver, but I don’t work bloody miracles. Clear?”

  Brendan shrugged. It was risky working undercover. His informant had the right to be pissed off. “Clear.”

  “All right. Just you remember.”

  “I will. We need all the stuff you can give us, like the word on that wee skitter Cathal Fogarty. We seen to him.”

  “I heard.”

  “Sergeant Dunlop was running him.”

  “He lives in Dunmurry. Eleven Grange Park.”

  “Eleven?”

  “Aye.”
br />   Brendan made a mental note of the address. “Dunlop’s getting to be a nuisance.”

  “There’s another nuisance. The Brits have put a fellow called Mike Roberts in New Lodge. He’s to get to know the Provos. Maybe try to join.”

  “Roberts? He’s to try to infiltrate us.”

  “Aye. He’s been out about two weeks.”

  “Two weeks?”

  The squat man stamped. “Jesus, my feet are foundered.”

  “Never mind your feet. What’s this shite after?”

  “The usual. Names, ammo dumps. Low-grade stuff.”

  “He’s been out two weeks and you didn’t let me know?”

  “Brendan, he’s not worth worrying about. He’s some kind of independent. Works for a Major Smith. They’re a couple of amateurs.”

  “You let me be the judge of that. You finger him for me, and this Roberts is going to have a motor accident.”

  “Not yet. Let him alone for a while.”

  “Why, for Christ’s sake?”

  “Why not wait until we could maybe use him?”

  “How?”

  The squat man shrugged. “Turn him. Make him a double agent. Waste him when we can set his death up to embarrass the Brits. I don’t know, but we’ve more important things to worry about just now than some overgrown Boy Scout.”

  “You don’t think he’s a threat?”

  “Not alive. If he disappears or ends up dead in the next week or two, the fucking security people’ll be all over the Falls looking for him or who killed him.”

  Brendan realized that his companion had a point. “Tell you what. I’ll have a word with the IO of Second Battalion. Have him put out the word for volunteers to keep away from strangers in New Lodge. I’ll tell the IO to report to me if this Roberts does start to get close.”

  “Then what?”

  “Give Roberts the word we want to meet him but keep him hanging about until it suits us, then him and me’ll maybe have a wee chat. With a bit of luck, he’ll keep until after we’ve got that bastard Wilson.”

  Down on the track, six more dogs were manhandled into their starting cages, each impatient to pursue the quarry that would soon appear.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  SATURDAY, MARCH 23

  Davy huddled inside his raincoat. The night was as bitter and dark as half a yard up a chimney. What did he expect at the back end of March, a fucking heat wave? He folded his arms and tucked his chin into his collar. If the target didn’t come soon, he reckoned, he was going to freeze to death. His fingers were numb and his nose, still full of the cold, dripped. He rubbed the ache in his thigh.

  Jimmy’s right, Davy thought. I am getting too old for this. Three o’clock in the morning is past my bedtime. I should be in my warm bed instead of lying in a ditch behind a blackthorn hedge beside a back lane in the Antrim Hills.

  He wondered how Sean had found out that an army patrol would be using this road and would be coming in two Land Rovers. Intelligence must be getting better. Not that it mattered. Knowing was Sean Conlon’s job; acting was Davy’s. He hunched his shoulders against the March wind. A snatch of a song came unbidden. The tans in their great Crossley tenders were rolling along to their doom. Tonight was like the old days. Rebels lying in wait for the British … With their hand grenades primed on the spot. His two companions had grenades—old Mills bombs, relics of the First World War—to finish the job the mine would start, and their ArmaLites at short range would be lethal weapons. He preferred his Heckler and Koch MP5 K SMG. It might not have the light armour-piercing capability of the ArmaLites’ .223 bullets, but it had a better rate of fire. He would soon be firing at British soldiers with the kind of weapon that was standard issue to their military police.

  Davy looked over to the men with him. He didn’t know their names, nor they his. The younger of the two was a right doubting Thomas, him and his, “How do you know that the wheel of the Rover’ll go over the trigger plates?” “Because,” the older one had been quick to point out, “there’s nowhere else for the tyres to go but in the ruts of the lane.” He’d said that with a bit of respect in his voice, and added, with a sideways look of raised eyes to Davy. “It’s your man’s first time out.”

  Everyone has to have a first time, Davy thought, but it’s not going to be much of an initiation if the bloody troops fail to appear. How the hell could the CO have been so sure they would come this way, and that there would be two armoured Land Rovers?

  He heard a new sound above the howling of the wind in the leafless blackthorns. One of the others had heard it, too. Davy saw the man duck as a glow appeared over the top of the hill to his right. Headlights reflecting from the low clouds. Two sets. Just like Sean had said.

  He hunched into the ditch, closing his eyes to protect his night vision. He heard the whine as one driver changed down to negotiate the incline. The second vehicle followed suit. Would his companions remember what to do? He’d deal with any survivors of the first Rover. The other men were to take out the second one—and its occupants.

  Any minute now. He covered his ears. The sound of engines neared, he could smell the exhaust fumes, but the noises passed and faded into the distance. For Christ’s sake. He opened his eyes to see taillights vanishing to his left.

  The younger of the two men swore. “Fuck. The fuckers drove over the verge. They never used the ruts. Now what the hell are we going to do?”

  Shit. He’d have to dig up the mine, head for the car, and get the hell out of here. Tomorrow he’d have to face Sean. “You two wait.” He hauled himself upright, limped toward a gap in the hedgerow, and stepped through onto the lane, casting back and forth to make sure the coast was clear.

  “Hey,” one of the men called. “Hey, do you hear another one?”

  Lights flashed over the far hillcrest. Was there a third Rover, a second chance? Davy turned back into the ditch, motioning with one hand. Down. He scuttled away and saw his companions crouch as he threw himself into cover and folded his arms over his head. There was something different about the engine note.

  He was blinded by the glare as the mine smashed the night. The thunder of the detonation echoed from the surrounding hills. He’d got the British bastards. Davy jumped up and waved his two companions forward. “Come on.”

  It would take the first two Rovers ten minutes to get back here, so there’d be time to finish the one they had hit and get out. He ran from the ditch, ahead of the others, through the gap and into the lane.

  He heard the staccato ripping as one of the men behind tore off a fully automatic burst. Davy slammed to a halt. Christ! It wasn’t an army vehicle. A car lay on its side, one wheel spinning. A second burst tore past him, spanging sparks from the rear axle.

  “For fuck’s sake, stop firing!” He saw flames licking out from under the chassis. The blast had set the grass of the lane afire, red tongues casting an eerie light. A man lay beside the vehicle, howling on and on. How the hell had he got out? Davy glanced at the car. The driver’s door was gone. The blast must have hurled the man clear.

  Davy ran on, careless of the pain in his leg, careless of the hand trying to restrain him. He reached the man, knelt, and dropped the SMG. He smelled scorched flesh, sweet like roast pork. By the light of the flames he saw the blisters on the man’s face. His trousers were shorn at the thighs, where his legs should have been. Dark stains spread slowly through his coat, dark as the earth beneath his stumps.

  The man turned wide eyes on Davy. “Help me. Oh, Jesus. Help me.” Over and over.

  One word was torn from the vehicle, high-pitched, terrified. “Pleeease.” A child’s voice.

  Davy stared up, closed his ears to the begging that had turned to racking sobs, and ran to the car. No matter how hard he strained, the rear door handle wouldn’t budge.

  “Pleease…”

  He saw a face upturned, eyes reflecting the flames, mouth wide, a girl’s face. A little girl’s face. He saw her scrabbling at the glass, tearing her fingernails, tearing his heart.
He tried again. Someone was pulling him. “Get the fuck away.” He struggled but was thrown to the ground. The blast as the petrol tank blew scorched over him. Someone had him by the arm, was hauling him to his feet. “Here’s your gun.” He grabbed it. His companion tugged at Davy’s sleeve. “Come on to hell out of it. They’re coming back.”

  Davy saw the twin beams in the distance, knew the Rovers had turned. He stared at the inferno, heard the roaring of the flames, and smelled his own hair charring.

  He stumbled after his two companions, but the throbbing in his leg was only an ache. The pain was inside his head, where he still heard, above the flames, above the rasping of his laboured breathing, one shrill word. “Please.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  SATURDAY, MARCH 23

  It bothered Marcus, the picture of the bleeding heart of Jesus—face of perpetual sorrow—hanging over the iron-framed bed. The damn icon was there when he retired, there when he rose. He grasped the cheap frame, twisted the dusty cord, and faced the picture to the wall. The lime-green paint beneath stood out against the olive drab of the rest of his room. Years of dirt and neglect.

  He ambled over and sprawled in a poorly sprung armchair. The fabric was faded—green with the shadows of what must once have been scarlet tea roses. The weave was frayed at the ends of the arms.

  Two weeks gone now and nothing, absolutely nothing to show. As for friendly Ulster folk? The blokes who rented the other two rooms barely bade him good morning. He’d had a brilliant debate when one seemed to think that Marcus had been in the bathroom long enough.

  “Would you get the fuck out of there?”

  “Fuck off.”

  A positively riveting conversation. What was it about the inhabitants of New Lodge? They went about their cramped little streets, living cramped little lives, talking to cramped little people like themselves, folks they had known forever. They ignored newcomers. The only contacts he had made were Eamon Laverty and Liam the liverish landlord. He knew the name and the face of Jimmy Ferguson.

  It irritated Marcus that he had not recognized the man immediately from a photograph the major had produced weeks ago. Once he had made the connection, he’d hoped that he might be onto something, but then he remembered that the major had dismissed Ferguson as an old has-been. All Eamon had said was that Jimmy knew more Yeats poetry than any Irishman alive. Marcus didn’t doubt it. The trouble was he’d been sent out to find Provos, not music hall acts.