by John Steele
It hadn’t been difficult to slip the bag containing Rab’s photographs and the mobile phone sim card over the wall of the yard at the back of Adrian Morgan’s terraced house in the Holylands. An alleyway ran the length of the rear of the row of houses and Jackie had moved easily in the shadows where twenty years earlier a British Army patrol might have been crouching on night manoeuvres. The thump of dance music radiated from the front of the house, along with the clatter and chatter of people in various states of inebriation. The precursor to a midnight trip to a club no doubt. Jackie had made a short telephone call, tipping off the PSNI that Morgan’s house contained material related to a double murder at Ardenlee. He stressed that officers should search the yard of the house.
Now in custody, Morgan would plead he was abducted from Club Realm, perhaps set up. But he had no name to pin on Jackie, his number was on Rab’s phone and it would look suspect that he hadn’t reported his abduction on Friday. It was hard on Morgan but if you played with wild animals, sooner or later you’d be bitten.
‘Here’s the kicker,’ he says. ‘There was a photograph of Mrs Cochrane in a compromising position with Rab Simpson.’
Billy’s face lights up in a smile that gives the oil rig at the shipyard a run for its money. Arrest and trial is one thing, but personal ruin is a whole new level of pain for a man like Cochrane. Christmas has definitely come a couple of months early for Billy Tyrie.
‘Cochrane’s bitch and Rab? He was shagging her, like?’
‘Giving her one for Ulster.’
‘You’re a fucking dynamo, son.’
‘I never said any of this was my doing,’ said Jackie. ‘You ask me, Rab and this McCardle boy shot each other. Maybe Morgan did them both. It could even have been on Cochrane’s orders. Someone in Cochrane’s group, probably some player in RAAD, saw a chance to make a grab for power and tipped off the peelers.’
Billy’s mouth is stretched in a wide grin, but some of the light has gone out behind the eyes. He leans forward, his body language a six-foot question mark.
‘Did you just say player?’
It’s Jackie’s turn to smile.
‘Isn’t player the sort of word a peeler would use?’
Jackie’s hand tenses on the polymer grip of the Ruger SR9 semi-automatic. He says, ‘The penny drops.’
‘A fucking peeler? We thought you were a grass, but a peeler?’ says Billy, his forehead a mass of ridges in the orange light of the city. ‘But you killed people. You killed Tommy and Danny Moore. You killed Rab.’
Jackie levels the Ruger at Billy’s face. Tyrie doesn’t flinch. He has to give him credit, Billy’s a gangster, but he’s got some class with it.
‘I’m retired,’ says Jackie, ‘and for the last time, I did not shoot Tommy. Or Danny.’ After a second he adds, with less surety, ‘Or Rab Simpson.’
‘You’re fucked,’ says Billy. ‘When you pulled that gun on me you made a huge mistake.’
Jackie nods in the direction of the dark tunnel mouth on the other side of the footbridge.
‘Nobody’s coming,’ he says. ‘The Indians have already seen to the cavalry.’
Tyrie spits a gob of phlegm at Jackie’s feet.
Jackie goes on: ‘See, I don’t know if you knew what Rab and Tommy were up to, back then. They’d brought in Danny Moore and taken me to Holywood to kill me. But here’s what I do know. Rab had a grudge. He didn’t like me. It’s the default position for a few people I know. Maybe he didn’t like me getting in his way in the organisation. Maybe he thought I was a bit suspect, already thought I was grassing to the peelers.’
Billy’s fists clench and unclench. A jet screams off from the airport headed across the water and Jackie waits until it is up and over the lough before he continues.
‘I was a policeman: Special Branch. Someone called in an IRA hit on me. Branch got a tip-off, maybe from Rainey. After that night, the RUC investigated further and leaned on various sources. Turns out Rab had reached out to the Provos, and James Cochrane in particular, to have me killed. Rab used some contacts to get word to Cochrane that I was responsible for the shooting of a young Catholic lad. Rab was the real shooter. Cochrane set me up for a hit the night I disappeared. Rainey was supposed to be hit too, when I met him up in Cregagh Glen.’
No reaction from Tyrie. He could have known everything, or nothing, about that night.
‘The Provos got over-zealous when they followed me, tipped me off, and Tommy rolled out Plan B: Rab gets Rainey to Holywood, Tommy and Danny take me, then we’re both supposed to be shot there and then.’
‘But you weren’t,’ says Billy.
‘Maybe that was the start of Rab’s relationship with Cochrane, maybe not. I think you knew and that’s part of why you wanted Rab dead, alongside the drug dealing and the fact he was a homicidal maniac. He was in bed with republicans and that made him a liability.’
Tyrie’s face is a granite cliff face, expressionless. His breath is seething through gritted teeth.
‘But did you know,’ says Jackie, ‘he was up to more than the drugs? Did you know he was pimping?’
Billy fires a sharp look at Jackie, murder in his eyes. It is a more controlled ghost of the same look Simpson gave him in the house in Ardenlee Avenue this morning.
‘Girls from Eastern Europe. Did you know he was running them? Using European men as muscle and the women as whores? For fuck’s sake, they could have been trafficked. Did you know that, Billy? That he was running girls?’
Billy takes a step towards him and Jackie grips the Ruger more tightly. Tyrie takes another step, closing the distance between them. Jackie lowers the gun and risks a shot at Billy’s feet. An ascending Boeing smothers the report. Tyrie flinches as the bullet strikes the grass – but takes another step.
‘Did you know?’
Billy Tyrie stops dead at the sound of the new voice. His face crumbles, and his eyebrows knit as if in pain. Jackie’s companion is stepping off the footbridge onto the island, having circled around from the far bank. Eileen Tyrie strides into the light.
‘Did you, Billy? Did you know Rab Simpson was a bloody pimp?’
Tyrie looks at Jackie, momentarily broken. ‘Did you bring her here?’
‘You did,’ says Jackie. ‘She hates you. She wants you burned just as bad as I do.’
‘Damn the two of you,’ says Eileen. ‘You’ll not talk about me as if I don’t have my own voice.’
She covers the ground to where they stand in long, fluid strides.
‘Did you know that Rab was running girls?’ she says again.
‘No, I did not,’ says Billy.
Jackie believes him. There was no angle for Tyrie in Rab’s pimping, as far as he can see. Eileen doesn’t look so convinced but keeps her counsel, drilling holes in her husband with her eyes.
‘Nineteen ninety-three,’ says Jackie.
Billy turns to him again. ‘What about it.’
‘The bomb at East End Video.’
‘I remember.’
‘It was intended for you.’
‘Sure, we all know that,’ says Billy, spreading his arms wide like a preacher delivering the good word. ‘But they got the wrong address, didn’t they? That cunt Cochrane wasn’t as smart as he thought.’
‘No,’ says Jackie, ‘they got the right address. They just got the wrong time.’
‘What?’
‘There was a flat above the rental shop,’ says Jackie. ‘That was your place, wasn’t it, Billy? That’s where you used to take the wee girl, Kim Clarke, when you wanted some private time with her.’
Eileen’s mouth tightens and her eyes narrow to coal-black slits.
‘Her da, Harry, hated you, especially after the bombing,’ says Jackie. ‘My own father never knew why. Harry never spoke of it. Maybe he was scared. Maybe he couldn’t bring himself to talk about it. But I know, Billy. You were taking that wee girl up to that flat for sex. She was what, fifteen? Maybe sixteen?’
‘Shut up,’ says Billy, low.
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‘Do you remember how Rab set up surveillance gear when we were staking out Cochrane’s house back then? He was good with cameras – video cameras – wasn’t he?’
‘You’re talking shite.’
‘A bit too good. He rigged your wee love nest,’ says Jackie, reaching into his inside pocket. He produces a photograph and holds it up to the light. It is a couple – a coupling – on a bed, on all fours. The girl’s face is mid-cry. The man behind her is grinning with a fierce intensity. He is younger and leaner but it is, unmistakably, Billy Tyrie. The girl is Kim Clarke. The photograph is dated in ballpoint pen: January 1993. An address is scribbled on the back of the photograph in Rab Simpson’s hand. It is the address of East End Video.
Billy’s face is a monument to rage, his lips so thin his mouth is a papercut.
Rab’s photo collection was the gift that kept on giving and he’d spotted the hidden-camera-style shot of Billy and the Clarke girl among some of the oldest photographs in the set. Rab had played that one close to his chest, probably expecting McCardle to interrupt back at Ardenlee and take care of Jackie. The shot of Billy Tyrie with an underage girl was valuable leverage. It was the photograph Jackie showed Eileen that afternoon, when he convinced her to come to Victoria Park. Something changed in her then. She has been on a slow fuse since. Now she ignites.
‘You bastard!’
Billy crumples under her fists. He covers his head as she pounds at him and kicks with her boots at his shins. He pleads with her, a loop of please, Eileen, please, love. Their hands flap at each other like children in a playground tussle. Jackie feels awkward, like a voyeur, and thinks of Rab spying on couples in other intimate moments. Billy’s voice is becoming clearer, stronger. It is competing with the roar of a cargo plane landing at the airport. He finds purchase, grips Eileen’s hands in his left and balls his right hand in a fist. He tenses. Jackie raises the gun again and makes to strike Billy with the butt.
‘Go ahead!’ screams Eileen. ‘Sure, you may as well! It’s about the only thing you haven’t done to me!’
Her words stop her husband in his tracks. Her pure, white fury. Eileen is livid, her breathing heavy and ragged.
‘Go on,’ she goads, ‘hit me. You’ve cheated on me. You’ve lied to me over and over. You’ve neglected me and left me lonely, and alone. No one will go near me for fear of you. One man who did is God knows where now, chopped up in bits.’
She drops her head.
‘And you’ve humiliated me and your daughters.’
The part of Tyrie that took over a moment ago, the animal rage, is subsiding again and he is shrinking before her.
‘Hit me. It’s no worse than what you’ve done to me already.’
His hands fall to his sides, limp. His shoulders hunch and he sags.
‘Eileen, love,’ he begins.
She snatches the Ruger from Jackie and shoves the barrel into her husband’s temple before either man can react. They both stare, dumbfounded, at her.
‘Don’t say my name. Don’t say your daughters’ names. You’re no husband. You’re a father in name only. You had sex with a bloody child. God knows who else you’ve been with. You’re nothing to us. You have no family.’
Jackie thinks this must be over now. He waits for the sudden angry flame, the gout of blood and the ragdoll frame collapsing on the damp grass.
But Eileen belts Billy hard across the face with the pistol. Tyrie yelps in pain; Jackie flinches. Eileen looks her husband up and down with a withering glare and hands the gun back to Jackie.
‘I’m done,’ she says and walks off towards the footbridge. She looks beautiful, her stride confident. Jackie thinks Billy probably never wanted her as much as he does now. Or maybe that’s just him.
‘So, that’s it,’ says Billy. ‘Are you going to use that gun on me now?’
‘This is for personal protection only.’
‘Too bad you have to hide behind it.’
Jackie keeps his gaze steady and focused on Billy’s eyes as he throws the gun to his right. There is a soft splash from the moat.
‘If you think you’re up to it, come ahead,’ he says.
Tyrie glares, fuming, desperate to rebuild some of his ruined ego. His instinct is to dominate, intimidate and destroy. To terrorise. But Jackie is not scared. He has seen, done and lived enough today to be strong in the face of Billy Tyrie. He holds the man’s gaze until the blaze dies in Tyrie’s eyes and the defiance in the man’s stance fades. ‘I didn’t think so,’ he says.
‘So what? Do you beat me? Give me a kicking?’
‘I can’t be arsed. You’re not worth it.’
‘Take me to the police? Presumably you’re going to see me punished for what I’ve done.’
‘This isn’t about punishment,’ says Jackie. ‘It’s about accountability.’
‘Where are my men? The ones in the car?’
‘Alive. It depends on how cooperative they were as to how sore their heads will be.’
‘Who’s got them?’
‘That’s the least of your worries right now. There are copies of the photo of you and Kim, and a few other bits and pieces, in an envelope that’s being couriered to the Belfast Telegraph as we speak. The rest of the boys in the East Belfast Brigade won’t be too impressed.’
‘They’ll kill me.’
‘Maybe, if they find you.’
‘You’re letting me go?’
‘It’s done. You’re ruined. Eileen has called the other Belfast Brigadiers by now. You’ve probably got about ten, maybe fifteen minutes before they show.’
‘You know, there’ll just be another like me in the future.’
‘Maybe, maybe not. At least these days youse aren’t dignified with any title other than criminal or gangster. You, Cochrane, the whole shower of you.’
He begins walking towards the footbridge, leaving all of this, the last twenty years, behind. At the bridge he turns and looks back once. Tyrie is on his knees in the centre of the island, the grass smooth in the bald light of the industry around him, like a broken groom without a bride on a wedding cake.
Jackie breathes in the night air. His chest expands and he closes his eyes for a moment. Then he heads for the Sydenham bypass. He looks into the maw of the tunnel. The car is gone and there is no trace of life. He steps into the shadows by the side of the road and sets off, against the flow of traffic.
CHAPTER 29
1993
The room was bare concrete with a steel toilet in the corner. A holding cell. Spotless and reeking of disinfectant.
Vapid coffee and a grease-soaked bacon bap. He devoured it.
Beyond the wall he heard the muffled sounds of Castlereagh police station and detention centre as it went about its daily grind. He glanced up at the CCTV camera in the corner and thought of Rab Simpson and his electronic surveillance on Cochrane. There was every chance one of the gang would sit on this bench one day. If they lived long enough.
MSU officers had bundled Jackie into the back of a Land Rover outside the factory in Holywood and taken him straight to Castlereagh. A couple of Branch officers had driven to Palace Barracks to inform the British Army of developments and discuss a strategy for his extraction from the UDA, while some uniforms were at the Royal Victoria Morgue, finding a John Doe to match Jackie’s height and build. The search would extend to other counties if a suitable body wasn’t on hand. A tattoo artist in Antrim Army barracks was being driven to the city, tasked with the ghoulish job of replicating his loyalist tattoo on the John Doe’s arm. A roadblock shoot-out would then be staged near Holywood and word circulated that Jackie Shaw was dead, several high-powered British Army rounds having taken his face off as he fled a UDA meet in the town.
A couple of female uniforms would now be on their way to Thomas Cowell’s house where they would inform his girlfriend, Sarah Shaw, of the night’s events, and tell her that her brother was being flown to a military base in Gloucestershire. Sarah would be asked to inform Samuel Shaw of the news
and arrangements would then be made to fly sister and father to England at a later date to see Jackie.
The debrief had been exhausting. Gordon had been joined by a detective inspector from CID and the Deputy Head of Special Branch. Gordon’s gentle encouragement had been tempered by restrained scepticism from the Deputy Head and open hostility from the DI. CID and Branch were awkward bedfellows at best and the bad blood caused by CID running Rainey without telling Branch had heightened tensions. Upon conclusion, the Deputy Head had offered a brusque handshake and strode out of the interview room. The DI had sniffed and shuffled papers before giving Jackie a stare and also exiting.
‘McCandless,’ Gordon had said. ‘In his mind, you’re a liability.’
‘Bastard,’ said Jackie, rubbing the tattoo on his forearm.
‘One of a few I could mention. And boy, does he love his work here.’ The big man gestured to the walls of the interrogation room with a dark look. ‘There’ll be people across the water can remove that,’ Gordon had said, pointing at the red hand and Quis Separabit motto Jackie was still rubbing.
‘I’d kill for a drink.’
Gordon had left the room, returning a minute later with a bottle of vodka. Food and coffee followed and now he waited in an empty cell for the word to leave for RAF Aldergrove.
Time passed at a crawl. It felt as though he’d been in perpetual motion over the last days and weeks and now, sitting alone in a concrete box, the minutes seemed to decompress. He fidgeted and fretted about Sarah. About his da. And he thought of Eileen.
‘You’re up.’
Gordon entered with a coat and black hood and muttered, ‘Sorry,’ before placing it over Jackie’s head. The coat covered his tattoo. Anonymity was all. He stumbled into the corridor, Gordon’s arm guiding him, and felt another take a grip on his shoulder. For a mad moment he thought he was going to die. Then an English voice said, ‘Apologies for the inconvenience, Mr Shaw. We’ll have this off you as soon as you’re in the car.’
