by Ian Rankin
Smylie read one of the slogans aloud. ‘“Irish Out”.’ He turned to Yates. ‘What? All of them?’
Yates smiled. ‘The Catholics write “Troops Out”, so the loyalists write “Irish Out”. They don’t see themselves as Irish, they’re British.’ He looked in the mirror again. ‘And they’re getting more vicious, loyalist paramilitaries killed more civvies last year than the IRA did. That’s a first, so far as I know. The loyalists hate us now, too.’
‘Who’s us?’
‘The RUC. They weren’t happy when the UDA was outlawed. Your man, Sir Patrick Mayhew, he lit the fuse.’
‘I read about some riots.’
‘Only last month, here in the Shankill and elsewhere. They say we’re harassing them. We can’t really win, can we?’
‘I think we get the picture,’ said Smylie, anxious to get to work. But Rebus knew the point the RUC man was making: this was their work.
‘If you think you get the picture,’ Yates said, ‘then you’re not getting the picture. You’re to blame, you know.’
‘Eh?’
‘The Scots. You settled here in the seventeenth century, started pushing around the Catholics.’
‘I don’t think we need a history lesson,’ Rebus said quietly. Smylie was looking like he might explode.
‘But it’s all about history,’ Yates said levelly. ‘On the surface at least.’
‘And underneath?’
‘Paramilitaries are in the business of making money. They can’t exist without money. So now they’ve become gangsters, pure and simple, because that’s the easy way to make the money they need. And then it becomes self-perpetuating. The IRA and UDA get together now and then and discuss things. They sit around a table together, just like the politicians want them to, but instead of talking about peace, they talk about carving up the country. You can extort from these taxi firms if we can extort from the building sites. You even get cases where the stuff the one side has stolen is passed on to the other for them to sell in their areas. You get times when the tension’s high, then it’s back to business as usual. It’s like one of those mafia films, the money these bastards are making …’ Yates shook his head. ‘They can’t afford peace. It’d be bad for business.’
‘And bad for your business too.’
Yates laughed. ‘Aye, right enough, overtime wouldn’t be easy to come by. But then we might live to retirement age, too. That doesn’t always happen just now.’ Yates had lifted his radio transmitter. ‘Two-Six-Zero, I’m about five minutes from base. Two passengers.’ The radio spat static.
‘Received and understood.’
He put down the receiver. ‘Now this,’ he said, ‘this is Belfast too. South Belfast, you don’t hear much about it because hardly anything ever happens here. See what I mean about two cities?’
Rebus had been noticing the change in their surroundings. Suddenly it looked prosperous, safe. There were wide tree-lined avenues, detached houses, some of them very new-looking. They’d passed the university, a red-brick replica of some older college. Yet they were still only ten minutes from ‘the Troubles’. Rebus knew this face of the city, too. He’d only spent the one tour of duty here, but he remembered the big houses, the busy city centre, the Victorian pubs whose interiors were regarded as national treasures. He knew the city was surrounded by lush green countryside, winding lanes and farm tracks, at the end of which might sit silent milk-churns packed with explosives.
The RUC station on the Malone Road was a well-disguised affair, tucked away behind a wooden fence, with a discreet lookout tower.
‘We have to keep up appearances for the locals,’ Yates explained. ‘This is a nice part of town, no mesh fences and machine guns.’
The gates had been opened for them, and closed quickly again.
‘Thanks for the tour,’ Rebus said as they parked. He meant it, something Yates acknowledged with a nod. Smylie opened his door and prised himself out. Yates glanced at the upholstery, then opened the glove compartment and lifted out his holstered pistol, bringing it with him.
‘Is your accent Irish?’ Rebus asked.
‘Mostly. There’s a bit of Liverpool in there too. I was born in Bootle, we moved here when I was six.’
‘What made you join the RUC?’ Smylie asked.
‘I’ve always been a stupid bastard, I suppose.’
He had to sign both visitors into the building, and their identities were checked. Later, Rebus knew, some clerical assistant would add them to a computer file.
Inside, the station looked much like any police station, except that the windows were heavily protected and the beat patrols carried padded vests with them and wore holsters. They’d seen policemen during their drive, but had acknowledged none of them. And they’d passed a single Army patrol, young squaddies sitting at the open rear door of their personnel carrier (known as a ‘pig’ in Rebus’s day, and probably still), automatic rifles held lightly, faces trained not to show emotion. In the station, the windows might be well protected but there seemed little sign of a siege mentality. The jokes were just as blue, just as black, as the ones told in Edinburgh. People discussed TV and football and the weather. Smylie wasn’t watching any of it. He wanted the job done and out again as quick as could be.
Rebus wasn’t sure about Smylie. The man might be a wonder in the office, as efficient as the day was long, but here he seemed less sure of himself. He was nervous, and showed it. When he took his jacket off, complaining of the heat, there were large sweat marks spreading from beneath his arms. Rebus had thought he’d be the nervous one, yet he felt detached, his memories bringing back no new fears. He was all right.
Yates had a small office to himself. They’d bought beakers of tea at a machine, and now sat these on the desk. Yates put his gun into a desk drawer, draped his jacket over his chair, and sat down. Pinned above him on the wall behind the desk was a sheet of computer print-out bearing the oversized words Nil Illegitimum Non Carborundum. Smylie decided to take a poke.
‘I thought Latin was for the Catholics?’
Yates stared at him. ‘There are Catholics in the RUC. Don’t get us confused with the UDR.’ Then he unlocked another drawer and pulled out a file, pushing it across the desk towards Rebus. ‘This doesn’t leave the room.’ Smylie drew his chair towards Rebus’s, and they read the contents together, Smylie, the faster reader, fidgeting as he waited for Rebus to catch up.
‘This is incredible,’ Smylie said at one point. He was right. The RUC had evidence of a loyalist paramilitary force called Sword and Shield (usually just referred to as The Shield), and of a support group working out of the mainland, acting as a conduit through which money and arms could pass, and also raising funds independently.
‘By mainland do you mean Scotland?’ Rebus asked.
Yates shrugged. ‘We’re not really taking them seriously, it’s just a cover name for the UVF or UFF, got to be. That’s the way it works. There are so many of these wee groups, Ulster Resistance, the Red Hands Commando, Knights of the Red Hand, we can hardly keep up with them.’
‘But this group is on the mainland,’ Rebus said.
‘Yes.’
‘And we’ve maybe come up against them.’ He tapped the folder. ‘Yet nobody thought to tell us any of this.’
Yates shrugged again, his head falling further into his body. ‘We leave that to Special Branch.’
‘You mean Special Branch were told about this?’
‘Special Branch here would inform Special Branch in London.’
‘Any idea who the contact would be in London?’
‘That’s classified information, Inspector, sorry.’
‘A man called Abernethy?’
Yates pushed his chair back so he could rock on it, the front two legs coming off the floor. He studied Rebus.
‘That’s answer enough,’ Rebus said. He looked to Smylie, who nodded. They were being screwed around by Special Branch. But why?
‘I see something’s on your mind,’ said Yates. ‘Want
to tell me about it? I’d like to hear what you know.’
Rebus placed the folder on the desk. ‘Then come to Edinburgh some time, maybe we’ll tell you.’
Yates placed all four legs of his chair on the floor. When he looked at Rebus, his face was stone, his eyes fire. ‘No need to be like that,’ he said quietly.
‘Why not? We’ve wasted a whole day for four sheets of filing paper, all because you wouldn’t send it to us!’
‘It’s nothing personal, Inspector, it’s security. Wouldn’t matter if you were the Chief fucking Constable. Perspectives tend to change when your arse is in the line of fire.’
If Yates was looking for the sympathy vote, Rebus wasn’t about to place a cross in his box. ‘The Prods haven’t always been as keen as the Provos, have they? What’s going on?’
‘First off, they’re loyalists, not Prods. Prods means Protestants, and we’re dealing only with a select few, not with all of them. Second, they’re Provies, not Provos. Third … we’re not sure. There’s a younger leadership, a keener leadership. Plus like I say, they’re not happy just to let the security forces get on with it. See, the loyalist paramilitaries have always had a problem. They’re supposed to be on the same side as the security forces, they’re supposed to be law-abiding. That’s changed. They feel threatened. Just now they’re the majority, but it won’t always be that way. Plus the British government’s more concerned with its international image than with a few hard-line loyalists, so it’s paying more attention to the Republic. Put all that together and you get disillusioned loyalists, and plenty of them. The loyalist paramilitaries used to have a bad image. A lot of their operations went wrong, they didn’t have the manpower or the connections or the international support of the IRA.
‘These days they seem to be better organised though, not so much blatant racketeering. A lot of the thugs have been put off the Road … that is, put off the Shankill Road, as in banished.’
‘But at the same time they’re arming themselves,’ Rebus said.
‘It’s true,’ added Smylie. ‘In the past, whenever we caught them red-handed on the mainland, we used to find gelignite or sodium chlorate, now we’re finding rocket launchers and armour-piercing shells.’
‘Red-handed.’ Yates smiled at that. ‘Oh, it’s getting heavy duty,’ he agreed.
‘But you don’t know why?’
‘I’ve given you all the reasons I can.’
Rebus wondered about that, but didn’t say anything.
‘Look, this is a new thing for us,’ Yates said. ‘We’re used to facing off the Provies, not the loyalists. But now they’ve got Kalashnikovs, RPG-7s, frag grenades, Brownings.’
‘And you’re taking them seriously?’
‘Oh yes, Inspector, we’re taking them seriously. That’s why I want to know what you know.’
‘Maybe we’ll tell you over a beer,’ Rebus said.
Yates took them to the Crown Bar. Across the street, most of the windows in the Europa Hotel were boarded up, the result of another bomb. The bomb had damaged the Crown, too, but the damage hadn’t been allowed to linger. It was a Victorian pub, well preserved, with gas lighting and a wall lined with snugs, each with its own table and its own door for privacy. The interior reminded Rebus of several Edinburgh bars, but here he drank stout rather than heavy, and whiskey rather than whisky.
‘I know this place,’ he said.
‘Been here before, eh?’
‘Inspector Rebus,’ Smylie explained, ‘was in the Army in Belfast.’
So then Rebus had to tell Yates all about it, all about 1969. He wasn’t getting it out of his system; he could still feel the pressure inside him. He remembered the republican drinking club again, and the way they’d gone in there swinging wildly, some of the toms more enthusiastic than others. What would he say if he met any of the men they’d beaten? Sorry didn’t seem enough. He wouldn’t talk about it, but he told Yates a few other stories. Talking was okay, and drinking was okay too. The thought of the return flight didn’t bother him so much after two pints and a nip. By the time they were in the Indian restaurant eating an early lunch in a private booth a long way from any other diners, Smylie had grown loquacious, but it was all mental arm-wrestling, comparing and contrasting the two police forces, discussing manpower, back-up, arrest sheets, drug problems.
As Yates pointed out, leaving aside terrorism, Northern Ireland had one of the lowest crime rates going, certainly for serious crimes. There were the usual housebreakings and car-jackings, but few rapes and murders. Even the rougher housing schemes were kept in check by the paramilitaries, whose punishments went beyond incarceration.
Which brought them back to Mary King’s Close. Were they any nearer, Rebus wondered, to finding out why Billy Cunningham had been tortured and killed and who had killed him? The letters SaS on an arm, the word Nemo on the floor, the style of the assassination and Cunningham’s own sympathies. What did it all add up to?
Yates meantime talked a little more freely, while helping Smylie polish off the remaining dishes. He admitted they weren’t all angels in the RUC, which did not exactly surprise Rebus and Smylie, but Yates said they should see some of the men in the Ulster Defence Regiment, who were so fair-minded that their patrols had to be accompanied by RUC men keeping an eye on them.
‘You were here in ’69, Inspector, you’ll remember the B Specials? The UDR was formed to replace the B Spesh. The same madmen joined. See, if a loyalist wants to do something for his cause, all he has to do is join the UDR or the RUC Reserve. That fact has kept the UDA and UVF small.’
‘Is there still collusion between the security forces and the loyalists?’
Yates pondered that one over a belch. ‘Probably,’ he said, reaching for his lager. ‘The UDR used to be terrible, so did the Royal Irish Rangers. Now, it’s not so widespread.’
‘Either that or better hidden,’ said Rebus.
‘With cynicism like that, you should join the RUC.’
‘I don’t like guns.’
Yates wiped at his plate with a final sliver of nan bread. ‘Ah yes,’ he said, ‘the essential difference between us. I get to shoot people.’
‘It’s a big difference,’ Rebus suggested.
‘All the difference in the world,’ Yates agreed.
Smylie had gone quiet. He was wiping his own plate with bread.
‘Do the loyalists get aid from overseas?’ Rebus asked.
Yates sat back contentedly. ‘Not as much as the republicans. The loyalists probably rake in £150,000 a year from the mainland, mostly to help families and convicted members. Two-thirds of that comes from Scotland. There are pockets of sympathisers abroad – Australia, South Africa, the US and Canada. Canada’s the big one. The UVF have some Ingrams submachine guns just now that were shipped from Toronto. Why do you want to know?’
Rebus and Smylie shared a look, then Smylie started to talk. Rebus was happy to let him: this way, Yates only got to know what Smylie knew, rather than what Rebus suspected. Toronto: headquarters of The Shield. When Smylie had finished, Rebus asked Yates a question.
‘This group, Sword and Shield, I didn’t see any names on the file.’
‘You mean individuals?’ Rebus nodded. ‘Well, it’s all pretty low-key. We’ve got suspicions, but the names wouldn’t mean anything to you.’
‘Try me.’
Yates considered, then nodded slowly. ‘Okay.’
‘For instance, who’s the leader?’
‘We haven’t breached their command structure … not yet.’
‘But you have your suspicions?’
Yates smiled. ‘Oh yes. There’s one bastard in particular.’ His voice, already low, dropped lower still. ‘Alan Fowler. He was UVF, but left after a disagreement. A right bad bastard, I think the UVF were glad to be shot of him.’
‘Can I have a photo? A description?’
Yates shrugged. ‘Why not? He’s not my problem just now anyway.’
Rebus put down his glass. ‘Why’s that?’<
br />
‘Because he took the ferry to Stranraer last week. A car picked him up and drove him to Glasgow.’ Yates paused. ‘And that’s where we lost him.’
15
Ormiston was waiting at the airport with a car.
Rebus didn’t like Ormiston. He had a huge round face marked with freckles, and a semi-permanent grin too close to a sneer for comfort. His hair was thickly brown, always in need of a comb or a cut. He reminded Rebus of an overgrown schoolboy. Seeing him at his desk next to the bald and schoolmasterly Blackwood was like seeing the classroom dunce placed next to the teacher so an eye could be kept on his work.
But there was something particularly wrong with Ormiston this afternoon. Not that Rebus really cared. All he cared about was the headache which had woken him on the approach to Edinburgh. A midday drinking headache, a glare behind the eyes and a stupor further back in the brain. He’d noticed at the airport, the way Ormiston was looking at Smylie, Smylie not realising it.
‘Got any paracetamol on you?’ Rebus asked.
‘Sorry.’ And he caught Rebus’s eye again, as if trying to communicate something. Normally he was a nosy bugger, yet he hadn’t asked about their trip. Even Smylie noticed this.
‘What is it, Ormiston? A vow of omerta or something?’
Ormiston still wasn’t talking. He concentrated on his driving, giving Rebus plenty of time for thought. He had things to tell Kilpatrick … and things he wanted to keep to himself for the time being.
When Ormiston stopped the car at Fettes, he turned to Rebus.
‘Not you. We’ve got to meet the Chief somewhere.’
