There was never a one of all your dead, more bravely died in fray, then he who marches to his death in Toomebridge town today.
That was too grim an omen to start my day. I’m not normally given to superstitions, but I made a U-turn and headed back to Antrim. I didn’t want to push my luck.
As a private investigator, I was a flop. Try as I might, I could not come up with a plan for solving these murders or preventing the next one. Every solution seemed to raise more questions than answers. The most likely theory, that of a latent vendetta, made the most sense but I was hesitant where Thomas Walker was concerned. If Walker was avenging his family’s murders, why wouldn’t he seek to replicate the crime? What is the point of dropping warnings like bread crumbs and picking off Taggarts one by one? Uncle Fergus was shot at very close range. There were powder stains on his shirt. Fergus wasn’t weak and he wasn’t stupid. Why would he let a guy like Thomas Walker get that close?
If it wasn’t Walker, then who? Was it someone related to the newspaper clippings? Why did Fergus save two articles about crimes fifteen years and eight years ago? Why did he have a picture of a box of guns? Fergus wasn’t killed with an assault rifle.
I kept thinking about the Bridget McGregor Trust. McLaughlin said his investigation was blocked by a bunch of red tape. McLaughlin had no jurisdiction in Dublin and had to work through the Dublin police. That required something akin to an international warrant. And of course, the jackpot question, ladies and gentlemen: why did Fergus defer distribution of his estate until the killer was caught? Was it because he suspected involvement of a family member, or was it to protect the beneficiaries? These questions all needed answers and I didn’t have them.
McLaughlin had called me late last night and said, “There’s a unionist bar called Willy’s Pub, where my officer spotted Walker. It’s always been a UVF and LVF haunt and probably a watering hole for a bunch of former gang members as well, like your Butchers. I’m going to pay the bar a visit tomorrow. Come along if you like.”
When I finished my run, I had just enough time for a shower and a quick breakfast before heading over to the station. McLaughlin wanted to hit the bar at the lunch hour. Physically, I felt fine. Mentally, I was frustrated, confused and exhausted, and to make it worse, I hadn’t spoken with Catherine for two days. The six-hour time difference made connections difficult. I had intended to call her last night, but I was so tired I fell asleep.
Just after eleven o’clock, I took a seat in McLaughlin’s unmarked Skoda and the two of us headed off for West Belfast. Willy’s Pub was a block or two off Shankill Road in a staunchly unionist neighborhood. Lampposts were painted red, white and blue and Union Jacks flew from houses, stores and street signs, reminding you, just in case you forgot, that you were in the UK and this was solid loyalist territory.
Willy’s Pub sat directly across the street from a huge mural painted on the side of a three-story brick building. It depicted a young King William III sitting high upon his rearing white horse, gleaming sword in hand, with the date 1690 prominently displayed behind him. That was the year that Protestant William III, Prince of Orange, defeated Catholic King James at the Battle of the Boyne. Protestants 1, Catholics 0.
It was almost noon and there was a smattering of customers in the dimly lit bar. Pictures of Reverend Ian Paisley and assorted Protestant political leaders hung on the walls. Colorful shields of the UDA, UVF, UDR and other paramilitary brigades were hanging over the bar. Ominously, the largest poster on the back wall depicted a paramilitary fighter dressed in black with a balaclava covering his head, under a banner reading: ULSTER OR DIE. Other plaques in the room cheerily declared, AN ULSTERMAN HAS THE RIGHT TO DEFEND HIMSELF, FOR GOD AND ULSTER and the ever-popular MY ULSTER BLOOD IS MY MOST PRECIOUS HERITAGE.
Behind the bar was a middle-aged man in a blue T-shirt. Tall, thin, ruddy-faced and clearly suspicious of two people he didn’t know, he looked us over and said, “Gents, what’ll it be?”
“Two pints of Gat,” McLaughlin said and slid onto a stool. I sat down next to him.
The bartender looked at us like a cautious dog might eye an offering of meat from a stranger. He pulled the draught lever over a pint glass and said, “I don’t know you two, do I?”
McLaughlin shook his head. “Probably not. It’s been a long time since I worked in this neighborhood. I’m trying to catch up with Thomas Walker. I heard he was in here a couple days ago.”
“Wouldn’t know him.” The bartender finished his pour, let the foam settle and placed the two pint glasses of Guinness in front of us. “That be all? Four pound forty.”
McLaughlin placed a five on the bar. “We need to talk to Walker.”
“I told you, I don’t know him. Who are you anyway? This isn’t the kind of place where people ask a lot of questions. Folks around here don’t take to outsiders asking questions. I knew I didn’t like you two when you walked into my bar. Finish your beer and be off.”
McLaughlin flipped open his wallet to show his PSNI star. “I should have figured,” the bartender said with a sneer. “Well, I don’t have to like you, I don’t have to serve you and I don’t have to give you any information. I don’t know anybody named Walker.”
“You’d be doing Mr. Walker a favor. He’s violating his parole. His home address is no longer valid. I could throw him back into the yard, but all I want to do is talk to him. I need a current address and a current report, so why don’t you help me out? Where does he live?”
“I don’t know. That’s a fact. I don’t know.”
“When does he usually come in?”
The bartender shrugged. “Sometimes in the evening. He was here a couple of days ago. He’s not a regular, just comes in from time to time when he gets some money. He’s not a troublemaker. Oh, he gets a little juiced, makes a little noise, him and some fellows get to singing some old marching songs, telling stories about the Troubles and cursing the Catholics, but there’s nothing against the law there. Why the hell are you chasing him? He’s an old man, white hair, walks with a limp and a cane. Why is the parole board hassling the man? They should just let him be, he couldn’t be a problem to nobody.”
“Limp or not, he’s going back to the prison for VOP unless I talk to him.”
The bartender gave us a sour look. “If I see him again, I’ll be sure to tell him to go by his parole officer and update his info.”
“No, I want to see him personally.”
“You ain’t no different from any other police stiff. He can see anybody he wants. Now you guys drink up and get out of here.”
McLaughlin took out his card and placed it on the bar. He took a sip of his beer and patted me on the back. “Liam, when do you suppose was the last time the health department went through this rattrap?” He looked around. “Do you think they’d find a violation or two?”
“Oh, I bet they’d find a hundred or more, starting with that bolted back door. It’s a flat-out fire trap. Then there’s the cracked window, the mouse hole in that wall and I haven’t even seen the toilets. I figure the health department would shut this place down in an instant.”
“I agree. Probably cost the owner a pretty penny to correct all the violations before he could reopen. Might take weeks, even months.”
“I’d guess the fines alone would cause this joint to shut down,” I said. “Probably lose its license as well. I know one thing—when the Department of Health gets through with this place it will definitely improve the neighborhood.”
“Do you want to know something interesting, Liam? The new Minister of Health is a republican, imagine that. Yep, she’s a member of Sinn Fein and a good Catholic woman. I wonder what she’d think of this rat’s ass bar and all these hateful loyalist slogans hanging on the walls?”
The bartender pocketed the card. “All right, you made your point.”
“Good. When you see Walker, you give me a call and I’ll come out. If you run a trick on me, if you tip him off, Willy’s will be a shelter for battered and abused wo
men next week.”
He wiped his hands on a towel and said, “I’ll give you a call when I see him, but that’s as far as I go.”
We left the bar to some very unfriendly stares and headed back to Antrim. Once in the car, I took out my cell phone. I hadn’t spoken to Catherine since the day before yesterday. It was only six in the morning, but she might be awake. I texted her to call me.
“Why did we come out here, Farrell? You don’t think Walker’s the killer.”
“I’m just following up a lead. He’s not my first choice, but I’ve been wrong before. We might as well keep tabs on Walker. He might know why those pictures are being circulated.”
I had to admit, doubts were creeping into my mind as well. Even before our visit to Willy’s. I still believed that Walker was a prime suspect. He met all the qualifications. He was a living remnant of the Taggart/Walker feud and his brother’s murder could provide the motivation. The picture of the Walker house, the wake, the warnings, they all pointed to a Walker. But standing in that low-life bar, my instincts were telling me to look elsewhere. How is an impoverished old guy with a limp, hanging in ratty bars, going to coordinate a series of murders in Antrim? Is he going to show up at my uncle’s farm, limp up to him with his cane, take out his gun and shoot him at close range? Is he going to steal and drive a sixty-thousand-dollar truck? Is he going to figure out where I live and FedEx a calling card to my house in Chicago? None of those scenarios made any sense for a guy like Walker.
“Walker’s got to be in his late sixties, early seventies, right?” I said. “He’s an old man now, locked up in prison for almost forty years, probably just a tired old guff. I’m growing doubtful.”
“Old man? He’s younger than I am. Am I a tired old guff? Don’t answer that. But now you’re doubtful? Are you coming around to my way of thinking? It seems to me that you’re backing off your vendetta theory and that puts you smack in the middle of relativity.”
“Maybe. To tell you the truth, I don’t know what to think. It could be an old vendetta. It doesn’t have to be Walker. It could be some other unionist from the past who carries a grudge against the Taggarts, maybe even a former Shankill Butcher who knew about the Walkers. A vendetta makes as much sense as anything else. But going into that bar, seeing the trash that’s hanging out there, I find it hard to believe that a washout like Walker is behind it all.”
“We’ll get the guy, Liam. Sooner or later, something will break. Whoever he is, it’s obvious he’s not finished yet, that’s for sure.”
I nodded my understanding. Not exactly encouraging, but true. The killer was still out there and he wasn’t finished. I checked my phone. Nothing from Catherine. Wake up, Cat, I thought. Return the text. Give me a call. I need some encouragement.
* * *
“INSPECTOR, I’D LIKE TO follow up on some loose ends,” I said when we arrived back at the station. “Specifically, the two newspaper articles in Fergus’s folder.”
McLaughlin went into his file cabinet and pulled out his Taggart file, which was getting thicker every day. “We’ve looked into them, Liam, and we didn’t see any connections. The first article concerned the murder of a Protestant aid worker on June 23, 1999. The worker’s name was Vernon Bishop. He was coming out of an Antrim restaurant with his wife when he was beaten to death by a single assailant with a lead pipe. The perpetrator was apprehended later that night and held in jail, right here in this building, until his trial. Bishop’s wife ID’d the perp, there were two other witnesses, he had blood on his clothes and he had no alibi. His conviction was never in doubt. The trial was short and he was given a life sentence. As far as I can tell, it had nothing to do with the Taggarts.”
“Who was he?”
“An IRA bomb maker named Seamus McManus. Real bad sort. Very skilled at his craft. We always believed he was a central figure in several IRA bombings. He was arrested and convicted in 1977 for setting off the bomb at the Belfast Arms Hotel. He served twenty-two years and was paroled in 1999 because of the GFA’s early prisoner release program. No sooner does he get out of the can than he clubs an innocent aid worker.”
I was floored. Seamus McManus was the main reason I had to leave Northern Ireland. “I know that guy,” I said. “I played him for information when he was arrested in 1999. We heard that McManus was back in the bomb-making business and was in the middle of a plot to blow up an Orange parade.”
“How did you learn that? From your uncles?”
I nodded. “They said that a splinter group called the Real IRA was intending to plant a car bomb alongside the Orange parade route. There were bound to be multiple deaths and injuries. McManus was arrested for killing that aid worker, and his apartment had a stash of explosives and maps of the parade route. My station chief knew that McManus could finger the rest of the RIRA brigade, but McManus wouldn’t say a word. Westerfield came up with the idea of planting someone in the cell with McManus, pretending to be another IRA street fighter, and maybe he’d open up. I volunteered.
“McManus was told that I was arrested for trying to shoot up a Protestant church. McManus said he was proud of me. We sat there cursing the RUC, the UVF, the queen and the prime minister and by the end of the day, I had the names and locations of all of his co-conspirators. I found out what was going down in Portadown. If we hadn’t stopped it, it would have been a bloodbath. Lives lost, people injured. That attack could have been a major setback to the peace process.
“I was able to give eight names to Westerfield, who passed them along to the RUC. The RUC arrested them all, confiscated bombs and assault rifles and threw them all into prison.”
“Seriously? That was you? I remember the sweep. You did a great job.”
I nodded. “But it was bittersweet. That operation was the main reason I had to leave Antrim. My uncles discovered I was an operative, my cover was blown and the CIA sent me back to Chicago. I suppose that’s why Fergus saved the article. I know I should be proud of the job I did, but it’s a sad memory for me. It destroyed the relationship I had with my uncles.”
“Well, I’m sorry it affected your relationship, but you put a lot of bad guys away.”
“I assumed they all went to prison for a long time. What happened to McManus?”
“He went back to prison in 1999 and that’s where his story ended. You might say it was jailhouse justice. His throat was slashed and he was found stripped naked in the yard with a rat painted on his chest. So your uncles ended up blaming you? They weren’t RIRA, were they?”
“No, no way. They were staunch nationalists, they were members of the IRA, but they were politicians, not street fighters. By 1999 they were working hard for peace. But to their way of thinking, I was disloyal. I had betrayed my people. They felt I could have handled things differently without spying on Catholics and turning them into the RUC. It was a bad ending.”
McLaughlin put his hand on my shoulder and looked at me sympathetically. “You did the right thing, Liam.”
“I don’t think so. I lied to my family. I deceived them and conned them and abused their confidence. I could no longer be trusted. That’s never the right thing to do. Fergus sent me away, told me we had nothing more to say to each other. I was devastated. Since I’ve returned I’ve learned that he was sorry about the whole thing as well. I’m pretty sure that’s why he saved the article. Maybe he meant to call me and reconnect and the article was a reminder. I doubt it had something to do with recent death threats. Does it raise suspicion in your mind?”
“I’m quite sure that recent death threats aren’t coming from Seamus McManus. He’s dead and buried.”
“But maybe one of McManus’s kin? Isn’t that the reason we’re chasing Thomas Walker? A pissed-off relative who wants to settle the score?”
“There’s a big difference between Walker and McManus. There was a prominent feud between the Taggarts and the Walkers. The other night your uncle Robert practically confessed to firebombing Walker’s house and killing everyone inside. What connecti
on could there be between the Taggarts and McManus?”
“He was killed for being a rat, for giving up the names of the RIRA. Suppose someone in his family found out that I was the one who pumped him for the names and got him killed?”
“How would anyone know it was you? McManus didn’t know you personally, did he? You didn’t give him your real name, did you?”
“Of course not. I was Danny Foy. McManus didn’t know who I was and he only saw me for two days. But there were other people involved. Prison authorities, agency staff. My uncles were able to find out.”
He shook his head and twisted his lips. “It’s a long shot. Not impossible, but highly unlikely.”
“What about the other newspaper article, the one about the murder in 2008 at the Maghaberry Prison?”
McLaughlin pulled out the clipping. “Sean Lefferty. IRA gun runner. Killed by other inmates in Maghaberry, probably loyalists. He was found with a knife in his back. Lefferty was a major prong in the IRA’s gun smuggling network and was responsible for bringing in tons of weapons during the seventies and eighties. He was on our radar for years. He actually traveled to Libya and connected with Ghadaffi. Lefferty was a huge arrest for us—”
I stopped him. “You don’t have to go any further, Inspector. He was arrested in 1999 because I fingered him. Me! Lefferty was one of the names given to me by McManus. He also gave me Lefferty’s address where the weapons were stashed. Not only did the RUC grab Lefferty, but they seized a huge cache of RIRA weapons. The question is why did my uncle save these particular clippings? Could it be that somehow these guys had resurfaced and were threatening my uncle? Is that why he feared for his life?”
McLaughlin chuckled. “Unless their name is also Lazarus, they have not resurfaced. They are both underground for good.”
“Not funny. You know what I mean. Maybe there’s a member of the family carrying the torch, gunning for my uncles. Or me!”
The Trust Page 21
