Twisted Agendas

by Damian McNicholl

“Why are you telling me this?”

  “His fiancée will never get the chance to be his wife. Can you imagine how that poor woman feels?”

  Danny met his gaze and didn’t immediately reply. “I’m sorry for her loss.”

  “Prove it. Tell me what part you played.”

  “No part. I’m innocent.”

  The door opened and Moore entered with a yellow envelope in his hands. He tossed it on top of the table and then sat with his eyes riveted on Danny for a minute though it seemed much longer.

  “You’ve made a mistake,” Danny said, to end the horrible silence.

  “No more bullshit,” said Moore. “What’s your job in the cell?”

  “What cell?”

  “You their bomb maker?”

  “This is crazy.” Danny began to rub and squeeze his forehead. He pulled his hand away abruptly. “I wouldn’t know how to make a bomb.”

  “Don’t fucking-well lie to us,” said Moore. He pounded the table with the side of his fist. “Were you planning to make mix?”

  “What’s mix?”

  Moore leapt up, planted his hands on the surface of the table and leaned over toward Danny, a feline snarl on his face now. The action was so unexpected, Danny instinctively reared back raising his hands.

  “Steady on, Bill,” Tompkins said. “There’s no need to scare the lad. He’s going to tell us everything.”

  “He’s a murdering Irish bastard.”

  “Easy, Bill.” Detective Tompkins turned back to Danny. “Tell us about the fertiliser we found.”

  That’s what had made the detective so excited at his home. It made sense now. Danny couldn’t understand how they’d found out he’d bought it in the first place. Had his Irish accent alerted the cashier and he’d called Special Branch? Did MI5 monitor all sales of fertiliser?

  “This is all a big mistake, I bought a few bags a couple of weeks ago. I was going to do the lawn and repot some plants.”

  “It’s late summer,” Tompkins said. “People do that in spring.”

  “I promised my flatmate I’d do it when I moved in and just never got round to it. You can ask Julia. She owns the house and she’ll verify this. Honest.”

  “Where’s the rest of it?”

  “There isn’t anymore.”

  The detectives exchanged a hasty glance.

  “You use the rest to make the mix they bombed the bridge with?”

  “I don’t know anything about what happened on the bridge. Please believe me.”

  “How do you know Patrick Scully?” Detective Tompkins asked.

  “Who?”

  “Patrick Scully.”

  Danny paused. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”

  “I told you he’d lie,” Moore said. “First he lies about the fertiliser and now he’s letting on he doesn’t know Scully.” He glared at Danny. “Listen Paddy, you must think we’re bloody idiots.”

  Moore rose and began to pace, smacking a fist hard into the palm of his hand every time he reached each end of the interrogation room. The door opened and a female detective put her head inside.

  “Ian, you’re wanted on the phone.”

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” Tompkins said, and switched off the tape as he rose.

  At the door, the detective turned his head and regarded Danny before he left. A bolt of shock made his heart race. It was verified now. The stranger wearing the handsome denim shirt the day Danny stood with Piper outside the house where Benjamin Franklin had lived, the same man who’d been lurking near her home was a British detective.

  Back pressed against the wall, Moore stared at Danny. Trickles of sweat ran from Danny’s underarm. His scalp felt suddenly itchy. He wanted to scratch it, but something warned him not to raise his hand.

  “Are you going to tell me now how you know Paddy Scully?” Moore said finally.

  “I don’t know him and I want to see a lawyer.”

  “Let’s see if I can jog your memory.”

  Moore sat again. He opened the envelope. He took out a wad of photographs and set one in front of Danny. It was a mugshot of Pat. He set down another of Pat in the company of two men Danny didn’t recognise. Then one of Pat and Piper together. Another photograph of Piper and Danny walking along Hammersmith Broadway followed, then one of Finty and he sitting at a café on Chiswick High Street just the previous week. Finally he laid down a shot of Finty and him lying on the grass at Saint James’ Park, on the day Finty’s puppy had chased one of the ducks. Danny was shaken.

  “Do you remember him now?”

  “I know him as Pat. I never knew his last name.”

  “Don’t mess with me.”

  “It’s the truth. He rented a room from her.” Danny pointed to Piper’s photograph. “I didn’t know him very well. I only met him a few times. Even Piper didn’t see a lot of him. Just because we’re both from Northern Ireland doesn’t mean we all know each other, you know? I swear I really don’t know him.”

  Mounting panic and Danny’s lack of control were making him talk too much. Instinct warned him not to show any fear. He wanted a lawyer, yet to demand one again risked being inflammatory.

  “The Civil Administration Team trained you well,” Moore said.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Leaning forward, the detective eye’s narrowed. “I’m a lot tougher and nastier than the IRA bastards who’ve trained you not to answer questions.” He paused and stared. “I’m going to give you one last chance. Who’s in your cell?”

  While it was excruciating, Danny kept his eyes locked on the detective’s. To look anywhere else would be construed as guilt, evasion at the weakest.

  “I’m not in any IRA cell.”

  “You’re part of Scully’s. Admit it.”

  “I swear to you, I’m not.”

  Moore rose and came swiftly round to the other side of the desk. He grabbed Danny by the hair and pulled him out of his chair.

  “AHHHH. Stop. AHHHHHH.” Danny raised his hands, put them on top of Moore’s and tried to pry them off. He couldn’t. It seemed all the hair was being ripped out his scalp in a single piece.

  The detective dragged Danny across the room and slammed him against the wall, kicked his legs apart and pushed his right knee hard into his groin. His pubic bone throbbed sharply. Tears smarted in his eyes.

  “Tell me what I need to know, you stupid Mick.” He jerked his head toward Danny as if he intended to give him a headbutt, but instead slapped the side of his face hard with his open palm. “You’re in the IRA. You had an arms dump at your house. Admit it.”

  “I can’t admit what isn’t… ”

  Wrapping his huge hands around Danny’s neck, the detective began to squeeze. “Confess.”

  “I’m not in any cell.”

  “Confess, now.”

  Danny couldn’t speak. The detective’s thick fingers tightened until Danny was certain his Adam’s apple would be pushed out the back of his neck. He had an urge to cough violently, but couldn’t. More tears streamed from his eyes. Moore’s furious expression began to soften, then blur. Danny’s heart drummed in his ears. Tighter and tighter the detective squeezed. The walls and ceiling grew indistinguishable. Just as he was about to pass out, Moore released his grip. He dragged him back by his hair to the desk and swung him into the seat.

  Danny laid his forehead on the desk’s surface and struggled to breathe. His body trembled. He felt he was going mad. He wanted to beg for his release, wanted to howl with anger, wanted to kill the detective. Desperate to exert a fragment of control over his predicament, he searched for something only he could do to himself, something that did not originate from this man’s absolute power over him. Something only he would know. He bit into the lining of his inner lip. It hurt, yet the pain was hugely empowering. He could be as strong and resilient as the detective. He bit harder until he tasted blood.

  The door to the interrogation room opened. As he pushed up with his hands, Danny braced to meet
Moore’s evil gaze. He wasn’t there. The photographs, envelope and file were gone also. He turned his head slowly toward the door as the detective with the snow-white scar entered carrying the file and photographs. He came up to the desk and started the recorder. Leaning toward it, he said the date and time.

  “What’s your name,” he said to Danny as he leaned back in his chair.

  “I gave it already. It’s on the tape.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Danny Connolly.”

  “Your full name?”

  “Danny Francis Connolly.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “I demand to see a lawyer right now.”

  “What’s your address?”

  Carrot and Stick

  He no longer knew exactly how long he’d been in detention, though it was definitely longer than forty-eight hours. He knew that because one of the friendlier detectives informed him on his way back to the cell after one interrogation that they’d obtained a court order allowing him to be held for another five days. How many interrogations had there been? He’d lost count. It was now just a stream of constant comings and goings between the cell and interrogation room. Often, it was just one detective present during a session, sometimes two. Sometimes it was a ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine. It took Danny a while before he’d latched onto that tactic.

  Detective Moore had assaulted him three times now. He’d made him stand spread-eagled leaning into the wall supported only by his fingertips for an hour at a stretch. He’d also hit Danny on the sides of his face with his open palm and twisted his arms, though he’d been careful not to leave any permanent marks. Danny demanded to have a doctor examine him after the last attack. Although his demand had been ignored, it resulted in his being permitted to shower and shave. Food had also been provided a few times. Gruel-like soups, unappetising watery potatoes, liverish textured beef, too dry chicken, corky parsnips and French beans so overcooked the beans had fled their pods. Despite its putridity, he’d eaten it all. Under his arms, his shirt had begun to stink. His shirt and trousers were grimy and disheveled but he no longer cared.

  Danny fully understood now what innocent young men had endured back in Northern Ireland when they’d been taken in for questioning by the British army. His father had also often been on his mind. He’d always thought him the most unreasonable, the most pig-headed, controlling man he’d ever known, but he was a lamb in comparison to these wolves. Danny was too stressed and frightened to appreciate the irony of this. Irony was intellectual. Irony had its place in normal life only.

  As the cell door opened, Danny rose from the narrow bed. He swung his feet slowly to the floor and obediently walked out into the corridor. A minute later, he entered the familiar detectives general office with its dying spider plant and rows of desks. A woman laughed loudly. He raised his head toward the sound. Seated at a desk almost twenty feet away, was Finty with her back to him smoking a cigarette. She was chatting to the female detective whose laugh had prompted him to look over in the first place. The detective met Danny’s glance and then turned back and laughed at something Finty said, at the same time pushing what looked like a large scrapbook across the desk toward her.

  His legs began to tremble violently. He felt himself fall toward the floor. The detective escorting him seized his right arm, pulled him up and pushed him into the interrogation room before he shut the door

  “Are you okay?” Detective Tompkins asked, the sleeves of his denim shirt rolled up to his elbows. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Sit down, mate.” He nodded at the detective who’d escorted Danny into the room. “I’ll call if I need you.” Turning back to Danny, he said, “You recognise someone on your way here, maybe?”

  “I’m entitled to a lawyer. You’ve now held me longer than forty-eight hours.”

  “We’ve got someone coming in to see you.”

  The image of Finty sitting so casually at the desk would not leave Danny’s mind. Was she being questioned about her association with him? It hadn’t looked like a formal interview. She’d been smoking and laughing. Was she in the Special Branch? Had they planted her at the Institut? The strain of detention was making him paranoid. Danny didn’t know what was real anymore.

  A three-inch thick cardboard box lay beside the tape recorder on the table. Tompkins drew it toward him. After opening it, he pushed it halfway across the desk. “Have you ever seen these?”

  The tip of Danny’s tongue was already pushed against the roof of his mouth in preparation to deny he had. When he looked inside the box, his tongue retracted and came to its natural resting place against the back of his lower teeth again. The walls of the room started to close in.

  “Well, have you?”

  The handgun was easy to deny. He’d never seen that before. The compulsion to also deny he’d ever seen the sawn off shotgun was very strong, but the analytical side of his brain won out.

  “I think I recognise the shotgun.”

  “Oh, I’d say. Your prints are all over it.”

  “I can explain that.”

  “I’m all ears.” The detective sat back in the chair. He placed his hands behind his head as if he were about to be entertained.

  “It was in the wardrobe of the room I stayed in when I first came to London. When I first saw it, I thought it was a toy and took it out to look at it. That’s why my fingerprints are on it. But then whoever owned it took it away and I never saw it again.”

  “You sound nervous.”

  “It’s the truth. I swear.”

  The detective unclasped his hands, put them on the desk and began to interrogate Danny, asking the same questions repeatedly, demanding to know everything about the period he’d lived at Piper’s, about Pat and Danny’s part in the bombing of Hammersmith Bridge and how he’d come across the shotgun. It was as if he were looking for the slightest inconsistency with which to pounce and shred apart the truth. Without warning, he’d change the subject and pepper Danny with questions about his current residence, the fertiliser and the whereabouts of the main arms dump. Every time the detective nodded or agreed with something Danny said and he believed he was getting somewhere, Tompkins would switch the subject back to Pat, the fertiliser or shotgun and ask about his fingerprints being found on it.

  “This isn’t good,” Detective Tompkins said. He’d been staring at him silently for a minute now. “You could be in serious trouble. You’re looking at five to six years for the arm’s dump. Another five for possession of a sawn off shotgun.”

  “You didn’t find that thing at my house.”

  “Who says we didn’t? You?”

  “You can’t prove it’s mine.” Danny rubbed the heavy stubble on his chin.

  “Look at the facts. You lived in a house with a guy who’s a known IRA terrorist. We’ve got proof he was involved in the Hammersmith bombing, as well as the shooting of a police officer two months ago. We’ve found bags of fertiliser in your home. You’ve got a dump somewhere. And mix was used to make the Hammersmith Bridge bomb. We’ve got your prints on a shotgun. You’re going down, mate.”

  A flash of hot sweat soaked Danny’s chest and back.

  “I want a lawyer now.”

  “I’ll arrange it.”

  The detective rose, picked up the box of evidence and left the room. He realised the detective was right. Danny had no idea how he could prove his innocence. It was his word against the police and his Irish nationality and accent would count against him in an English court. Danny sat rigid and stared at the two-way mirror across from him. No longer did he believe the detective was arranging for a lawyer, but rather was on the other side of the mirror with a group of other policemen scrutinising his reactions. He summoned every remaining ounce of self-possession and stared into the mirror to show he was neither afraid nor intimidated.

  “A solicitor’s on his way,” Tompkins said, as he came in and took a seat. Danny turned away and focused on a part of the wall where the paint bubbled just beneath the ceiling.
“I can’t see how a lawyer’s going to be able to help you. Can you?”

  “I’m not talking anymore until a lawyer comes.”

  “Here’s the thing, Danny,” the detective said. He intertwined his thick fingers and leaned across toward him. “All my colleagues think you’re guilty. But I don’t. My gut feeling is you’re innocent.” He fell silent until Danny looked at him. “You want to know why I think that?”

  Danny shook his head.

  “Because the IRA never cooperate. From the moment they enter an interview room, they say nothing even though the Terrorism Act doesn’t give them a right to silence.”

  “Why can’t I leave then?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “What’s to work out?”

  Tompkins smiled in the same patronising way his father sometimes did. “Here’s what I think we can do to sort this mess out for you.”

  Danny said nothing.

  “You’re Irish and still fairly new to London and you’ve already… ” He laughed, but it sounded fake, “Let’s put it this way, you’ve had the misfortune of falling in with an IRA man. The way I see it, this IRA breakaway faction’s stepping up its campaign over here and we need eyes and ears on the ground.” He paused. “You hear what I’m trying to say, Danny?”

  “No.”

  “You’re smart.”

  “I don’t.”

  “You could go into pubs where IRA sympathisers and volunteers socialise and behave like you’re a patriotic Irishman who hates the English. After a while, these blokes would trust you and you could do a bit of sniffing around for us. You know, things like where new cells are being organised and who at the telephone companies and driving license departments is providing them with intelligence on the whereabouts of potential targets.”

  “Be an informer?”

  “A British agent.”

  “Informers get a bullet in the head.”

  “This is London, not Belfast. You’d be working with handlers whose job is to protect you. We’d never put you in danger.”

  “I’ve never been interested in politics. They’d spot me as a fraud a mile away.”

  “You’re a resourceful bloke. We’ll even pay you.”