Cry of the Needle

by Radford, Roger

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to announce it myself and I’m going to tell Teresa’s story.’

  ‘But Kieran, you can’t tell them you’re ex-IRA. The British public’ll hate you for it,’

  ‘We were internal affairs, Sean, you know that. We never laid a finger on a Brit. The British Army has no record of us.’

  ‘What about our own, Kieran? We have enemies.’

  ‘It was an unwritten law. We did what we had to do. There was no room for traitors. Anyone who grasses, even now, is a dead man walking. Anyway, there were only two people who knew our true identities, and they’ve both passed on.’

  Callaghan again looked questioningly at his leader.

  Kelly laughed. ‘Don’t worry, man, they died with their boots off. One of them was a guy from Derry. Had a heart attack. Died the next day in hospital without regaining consciousness.’

  ‘And the other?’

  ‘The other was Father Seamus O’Hare. I heard that he died in his own bed from old age a year ago.’

  Callaghan was shocked. He knew that O’Hare had administered the last rites at all of their executions, but they had always remained fully disguised in their balaclavas. There was never a hint that the priest knew the identities of the executioners. Kieran had always said someone from the outside had hired the cleric.

  ‘God, that priest must have been one tormented individual,’ Kelly went on.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He’d be forced to administer the last rites to our victims, and then he’d have to hear my confession.’

  ‘You mean—’

  ‘Yeah, I knew that he couldn’t tell anyone else. You might say that absolution was my insurance policy. It was our little secret.’

  Callaghan found himself shaking his head in disbelief. He knew that the man before him was a highly complex individual, but there was a dark side that seemed to extend beyond the bounds of duty. Nevertheless, he was not about to question the motives of a mind that was far more intelligent and more ruthless than his own. ‘It was a dirty business we did, to be sure,’ he said simply.

  ‘It was necessary, Sean, just as this is necessary. There are some things in life where the end justifies the means. When you know that injustice will never be corrected without coercion, you use coercion. Anyway, one man can make all the difference. Take Herzl for instance.’

  ‘Who?’ the older man queried.

  ‘Herzl was a bearded Jew who said more than a hundred years ago that if you will it, it is no dream. There would have been no state of Israel if that man hadn’t inspired his people with the dream of their own country.’

  ‘We dreamed of a united Ireland, Kieran, but it didn’t come.’

  ‘Not yet, my friend, but it will.’ Kelly leaned back in his chair, clasped his hands around the back of his neck and gazed at the ceiling. In a saintly murmur, he repeated the mantra of Theodore Herzl.

  ‘Three up, two down,’ said Commander Bob Simmons, and handed his colleague a five-page dossier containing an assortment of graphs. ‘And I’m not referring to the rooms.’

  Dai Hopkin studied the report. The radar had done its job well. ‘The three upstairs are obviously the hostages because this shows extremely limited movement. The other two appear to be moving around freely. Only two, that’s a relief.’ The negotiator was suddenly distracted by the familiar throb of a helicopter that appeared to be heading their way. ‘For fuck’s sake, Bob, get that damned chopper away from here.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Listen, Bob, you’re either with me or against me. You know how I operate. I don’t want some kudos-seeking fly-boy giving my hostage-takers the heebie-jeebies. They hear that thing and they might panic, boyo. I want calm, dead calm. Jesus, they’ll fuck everything up before I even get a chance to talk to the bastards.’

  Simmons was reticent about confronting a man who had become a living legend in the Met, but he felt he had to stand his ground. ‘Look, Dai, they’re pros in there. They expect choppers to be flying around. If we let them get used to the idea, it’ll make it easier if we ever have to use one.’

  To give Hopkin his due, he recognised the sense in what Simmons was saying, but it still made him uneasy. He hated edgy hostage takers.

  ‘Okay, but if Kelly objects and lets off any more fireworks, we pull them out.’

  ‘Okay, Dai,’ Simmons compromised. He knew that the Welshman had a hundred per cent record for saving lives in these sorts of situations.

  That’s why he’d put the man in charge in the field. There had been more than a few raised eyebrows among his men, but reputation counted for everything in the Met. They had to understand that you couldn’t afford to fuck about with the mediocre, not with the whole world looking on. He’d never worked with the fat man before and he was eager to find out what made him tick. ‘Dai,’ he asked hesitantly, ‘what made you go into this line of work?’

  ‘Why did you become a copper, Bob?’ the Welshman countered.

  Simmons breathed deeply and stroked his lantern jaw. He pondered for a few seconds, then, ‘for the public good. Anyway, I was born to it. My father was a copper.’

  ‘Yep, for the public good, boyo,’ said Hopkin, ‘although sometimes I think they don’t appreciate us.’ He swivelled in his chair and peered out at the cottage. ‘No, I was once an ordinary bobby on the beat just like your good self. I was wet behind the ears. I was slimmer and fitter then. I thought I could handle any situation. You know, brute force and all that. It all changed one day when I was the first copper on the scene at an abduction. It was a cottage not much different from this. It involved a kid. The man was the kid’s father. He had a shotgun and was threatening to kill the boy and himself. The kid was only five. The father was a schizoid. The shit could have hit the fan at any time and we were all vulnerable. I was all for taking the guy out.’ The Welshman hesitated, as if overwhelmed by the memory.

  ‘So what happened?’

  Hopkin swivelled back to face his gangling colleague. ‘A man called Tommy Smith is what happened. He was the first negotiator I’d ever seen in action. You know, the hardest job is to sweet-talk a crazy. They’re totally unpredictable. Anyway, it took two days of painstaking negotiating to secure the boy’s release. Smith didn’t get flustered, not once. He just played the anchor for the man to latch onto in one of his saner moments. It was an education, a real education. You ask me why I’m a negotiator. It’s because it saves lives more effectively than any other course of action open to us. That boy, his father and God knows how many coppers could have died if it wasn’t for Tommy Smith. It proved to me that one man could make a difference, and I wanted to be that man.’

  Simmons shook his head in awe, then, ‘rather you than me, Dai.’

  ‘It’s common sense really, boyo. You put yourself in the hostage taker’s shoes and try to think like he does. People like people like themselves. It’s the old salesman’s adage.’

  ‘What about the poor buggers being held in there?’

  ‘They’ll either be survivors or succumbers.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, it works like this: survivors engage in activity, physically and mentally, that leads to a greater chance of surviving a hostage situation, while succumbers engage in activities that increase the probability of their being harmed or killed.’

  ‘That covers a multitude of sins and virtues, Dai.’

  The Welshman stroked his heavy jowls. ‘Look, Bob, survivors try to hide any hatred or anger they might feel towards their captors. They don’t act with any hostility. They don’t get fucking uppity. They stay confident, but they don’t flaunt it. They concentrate on survival and on doing what’s necessary to survive.’

  ‘And succumbers?’

  ‘Ah,’ Hopkin sighed, ‘those poor bastards do everything to stand out to their captors. They might be too subservient or they might be the opposite. They might plead or beg, or they might show open hostility. For them the futu
re holds only negatives, and all they succeed in doing is fucking with the heads of the people I’m trying to talk into letting them go.’

  ‘I wonder which of those poor bastards over there fall into which category.’

  ‘If I do my job right, they’ll all be survivors despite themselves.’

  Just as the Welshman finished speaking, an excited constable entered the van waving a piece of paper. ‘I think we’ve got a name, sir. A man called Parsons rang in to say he used to work with a guy whose wife committed suicide after being given an epidural by Dr Townsend during childbirth.’

  ‘What’s his name, dammit?’ Simmons spat through pursed lips.

  ‘Kieran Kelly, sir.’

  ‘An Irishman,’ said Hopkin. ‘A fucking Irishman.’

  ‘Ex-IRA, Dai?’

  ‘Maybe. I want to know everything about him. I want to know what he eats for breakfast, and I want to know how many times a day he craps. Meanwhile, keep everything under wraps.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean do not under any circumstances reveal his identity at this stage,’ said the Welshman forcefully. ‘Do you understand me, Bob? I must be allowed to judge the timing of any revelation. Get the media and tell them that if any of them steps out of line, they might end up facing charges of being accessories to murder.’

  It was fast approaching nine in the evening and Kieran Kelly was eager to make his second broadcast to the world. The helicopters flying overhead had been a minor distraction. They could buzz around all they wanted, as long as nobody interfered with the transmission of his message. This time he’d rock the establishment to its very foundations. He’d already dangled the carrot in front of the media, and with Proctor’s death adding a little spice, they were falling over themselves in a frenzy of speculation. He had prepared the tape to feed directly into his website. With a single click, people would be able to listen to the damning evidence as many times as they cared. The voice of Jack Proctor was about to rise from the grave and haunt a swathe of politicians, not least the pompous bastard upstairs.

  Kelly donned his headset and cleared his throat. He picked up the voice distorter. This would be the last time he would use it. The next time the world would have a real voice, a real face, a real person. Not some maniac in a balaclava.

  ‘Good evening, world.’ he began stridently, ‘Here I am again as promised. As you all know, the chairman of Parados Pharmaceuticals is no longer with us. What I am about to play to you is the reason why Mr Proctor took his own life. It is a recording of a conversation between himself and one of my guests, the right honourable, or rather dishonourable, Secretary of State for Health. You may wish to hear this recording a few times to make sure your ears aren’t deceiving you. To do so, press the play icon at the bottom left of your screens. Here goes…’

  With this, the Irishman activated the recording and sat back to listen to Stephen Sellars talking his way out of politics and into jail. The conversation between the minister and Proctor may have lasted less than a minute, but the Irishman believed it would be enough to switch the public from anti-balaclava to pro-balaclava.

  ‘So there you have it, ladies and gentleman,’ said Kelly when the recording had finished, ‘corruption in all its glory. Kickbacks to help get a new drug on its merry way down our throats, regardless of whether we might choke on it. Time is money, folks, when you’ve got to get a new drug on the shelves. You all know the nursery rhyme, don’t you: this little piggy went to market, this little piggy went home, and that fat little piggy upstairs went squealing all the way to the bank. Tomorrow evening at the same time I will make another revelation. Meanwhile, over to you, Prime Minister.’

  Kelly rose from his chair. It was time to visit a couple of his guests. He had told Sean to deal with Townsend. He couldn’t even bare to be in the same room as the man who had crippled his Teresa. He removed his balaclava and swung firstly into the room containing the errant politician. Sellars looked up at him with the eyes of a Basset hound who had just crapped on his owner’s new carpet.

  ‘What price the premiership now, fat man?’ said the Irishman contemptuously.

  Sellars turned away from the accusing glare. He had already known his career was over, but listening to the evidence of his own corruption was about as chastening as it could get.

  ‘Maybe a spell in jail will make you a reformed man, Sellars,’ Kelly went on, ‘or perhaps hara-kiri would put you out of your misery. No, you’re not the suicidal type, are you? I think you might need an injection into the spine. It’s a painkiller you know. However, injected into the wrong place it doesn’t kill pain. It kills you with pain. Makes you wonder why it ever got passed by your Government, doesn’t it?’

  It was not that the Irishman’s heavy sarcasm was lost on his hostage. It was just that Stephen Henry Sellars no longer had the energy to defend what was in essence indefensible. The health secretary simply no longer cared what happened to him.

  ‘Cat got your tongue, shit-face?’ Kelly spat, and left the room. This was another one that he’d leave to Sean. He entered the room opposite and stood facing Jonathan Tring, who was still engrossed in the television punditry that had followed the broadcast. ‘Look’s like the shit’s hit the fan, Professor, doesn’t it?’

  Tring used his remote to turn down the sound before replying, ‘I hope it gets the Government to meet your demands.’

  ‘But you still don’t think they will.’

  ‘It doesn’t really matter what I think, does it?’

  The Irishman scratched the back of his neck. ‘You know, Tring, I don’t really know what to think of you. You’re pretty cool under pressure, aren’t you?’

  ‘Don’t let appearances fool you.’

  ‘You know when I was a boy in Belfast, we used to play a game. We’d see who could hold their hand over a candle the longest. The pressure was never on the weakest guys. It was always on the strongest, those who needed to win in order to gain their place in the hierarchy. Do you need to win, Professor?’

  ‘I just want to get out of this alive and in one piece.’

  ‘So do I, Professor, so do I. But there are some things more important than life or death.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like principles. One should be prepared to die for one’s principles.’

  ‘That’s fine by me. As long as you don’t take anyone else with you.’

  ‘Innocents, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, innocents.’

  ‘Show me one person in this world who says he’s innocent, Mr Tring, and I’ll show you a liar.’

  ‘Surely, it’s a question of degree. If everyone were punished for their mistakes it would be the end of civilisation. It’s civilised to show mercy.’

  ‘It’s Christian to show mercy, Mr Tring.’

  ‘You’re a Christian, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m a Catholic, Mr Tring. I kill people and then I go to confession. God is in the mercy business, not me. And He’s not much good at it either.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Watch tomorrow night’s broadcast and you’ll see what I mean.’

  With this, Kelly turned and left the room. He felt a grudging respect for the scientist, but that was all. When push came to shove, Tring was as expendable as any man that got in his way.

  CHAPTER 20

  THE SIEGE – DAY THREE

  ‘Have you read this?’ stormed Dai Hopkin, flinging the newspaper onto the ops control table.

  Bill Simmons looked down at the Evening Standard headline: BALACLAVA-MAN EXPOSES ‘CORRUPT’ MINISTER.

  ‘So they’ve given him a nickname, so what?’

  ‘I don’t care about that headline. I’m talking about the sidebar by Tring’s girlfriend.’

  The commander’s eyes quickly scanned the article in which Fiona Harrington described how she and Jonathan Tring had sought to expose the corruption at the heart of the Government, and how the hostage takers were now using it to their advantage. Fiona Harrington
made clear that her lover was the true hero in the whole sordid affair.

  ‘She’s got a fucking nerve not informing us,’ Simmons seethed. “I’m going to read the bloody riot act to her editor.’

  ‘Waste of time, boyo. Cat’s out of the bag, look you. Anyway, it might work to our advantage. Our Mister Kelly has reason to be grateful to at least one of his captives. Maybe the Stockholm syndrome will come into play.’

  The quaint-talking Welshman was just about to continue with his theorising when his attention was drawn towards the awning of the ops van. Standing alongside a burly young constable was a fresh-faced blonde girl. He looked down at the front-page picture of Fiona Harrington, and then looked up again. ‘Well, talk of the devil.’

  ‘May I come in, Commander?’

  ‘No, you may not, young lady. This is a restricted area.’ The police chief’s beady eyes narrowed as they turned towards his minion. ‘You know that Constable.’

  ‘Sorry, sir, but she said it was very important.’

  Simmons scowled. He wasn’t having any reporters in his own domain. ‘Wait there,’ he said gruffly, ‘we’ll come outside.’

  Relieved at the opportunity to leave the fetid atmosphere of the van, Hopkin followed his colleague down the steps and out into air that had been freshened by an early morning shower.

  ‘You must be very proud of yourself, young lady,’ said Simmons scornfully.

  If Fiona Harrington was intimidated by the man towering over her, she didn’t show it. ‘We had no idea about this planned abduction,’ she said firmly. ‘It was all just an incredible coincidence.’

  ‘So your boyfriend’s not in on it then?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘He soon might be,’ Hopkin interjected.

  Fiona Harrington stared at the rotund figure before her with a mixture of puzzlement and hurt.

  ‘This is Inspector Dai Hopkin, Miss Harrington,’ Simmons explained, ‘he’s our chief negotiator.’