Harry's Game

by Gerald Seymour

  ‘Just follow the Derry road, and wake me up when we get to the top of the Glenshane,’ she’d said.

  The road slipped economically through the countryside till Harry reached Toome, where the Bann came through, high and flooded from the winter rain, forcing its strength against the medieval eel-trapping cages that were the lifeblood of the town. He slowed almost to a halt as he gingerly took the car over the ramps set across the road in front of the small, whitewashed police station. Yards of bright corrugated-iron sheeting and mounds of sandbags surrounded the building. It looked deserted. No bulbs showing at the top. After Toome he began to pick up speed. The road was straight again, and there was no other traffic. In front was the long climb up to Glenshane in the heart of the Sperrins. The rain gathered on the windscreen, horizontal when it came but light and occasional.

  As he came to the hills that divided the Protestant farmlands of the Ulster hinterland from Catholic Dungiven and Derry, Harry spotted a damp, out-of-season picnic site on his right, and pulled into the car park. There was a sign marking the Pass and its altitude, a thousand feet above sea level. He stopped and shook Josephine’s shoulder.

  ‘Not so much of the blue skies and the promised land here. Looks more like it’s going to tip down,’ he said.

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Come on, Mr McEvoy, we’re going to do some walking and talking. Walking first. Up there.’ She pointed far out to the right of the road where the hill’s squat summit merged towards the dark clouds.

  ‘It’s a hell of a way,’ he said, pulling on a heavy anorak.

  ‘Won’t do you any harm. Come on.’

  She led the way across the road and then up the bank and through the gap in the cheap wire fence where a succession of walkers had made a way.

  Farther on there was a path of sorts to the top of the hill, made by the peat cutters at first and then carried on by the rabbits and the sheep. The wind picked up from the open ground and surged against them. Josephine had pushed her arm through the crook of his elbow and walked in step half a pace behind him, using him part as shelter and part as battering ram as they forced their way forward into the near gale. High above, a buzzard with an awesome dignity allowed itself to be carried on the thrusts and flows of the currents. Its huge wings moved with only a minimum of effort, holding position a hundred and fifty feet or so above the tiny runs fashioned by the creatures the bird lived off. The wind stung across Harry’s face, pulling his hair back over his ears and slashing at his nose and eyes.

  ‘I haven’t been anywhere in a wind like this in years,’ he shouted across the few inches that separated them.

  No reply. Just the wind hitting and buffeting against him.

  ‘I said I haven’t been in a wind like this in years. It’s marvellous.’

  She rose on her toes, so that her mouth was in under his ear.

  ‘Wasn’t it like this at sea, sometimes. Weren’t there any gales and things all those years you were at sea?’

  The cutting edge of it chopped into him. Retreat. Back out.

  ‘That was different. It’s always different, sea wind, not like this.’

  Poor. Stupid. Not good and not convincing. He felt the tightening deep in his balls as he went on against the wind. Up a cul-de-sac and got cornered. Slackness. The elementary error. He flashed a look down and behind to where her head nestled into his coat. He contorted his head to look into her eyes, and saw what he expected. Quizzical, half-confused, half-amused: she had spotted it. The inconsistency that he’d known the moment he’d uttered it. Phrase by phrase he went over it in his mind, seeking to undo the mistake, and evaluate its damage. The second time he’d said it, that was when she would have been sure. The first time, not certain. The second time, certain. He’d semaphored it then.

  There were no more words as they went on to the summit. The low jigsaw of clouds scudded above them as they clung together against the power of the gale. In spite of the heaviness of the cloud there was a clarity to the light of the day. The horizon was huge. Mountains to the north and south of them, the road leading back into the civilization of the hill farms to east and west.

  A few yards beyond the cairn of stones that marked the hilltop the rain running down over the years had sliced out a gully. They slid down into it, pushing against the sandy earth till they were at last sheltered. For a long time she stayed buried in his coat, pressed against his chest with only her black tossed hair for him to see. He felt the warmth from her seeping through the layers of clothes. For Harry it was a moment of beauty and isolation and complete tenderness with the girl. She broke it suddenly, crudely and fast.

  ‘You slipped up a bit there, Harry boy. Didn’t you? Not what I’d have expected from you.’

  Her face was still away from his. He couldn’t see into her eyes. It hit home. He said nothing.

  ‘A bit mixed up then, weren’t you, Harry? Your story was, anyway. Merchant seaman who was never in a storm like they have in the Sperrins? A bit of a cock-up, Harry.’

  She’d relaxed in her voice now. Easy. In her stride. Matter-of-fact.

  ‘Harry,’ and she twisted under him to turn into his face and look at him. Big eyes, mocking and piercing at the same time, and staring at him. ‘I’m saying you made something of a slip-up there. Not the first that you’ve had. But a good old balls-up, a right big one. Harry, it’s a great bloody lie you’re living. Right?’

  He willed her now to let it go. Don’t take it to the brink where explanation or action is necessary. Leave the loophole for the shrug and the open door.

  In the town his inclination would have been to kill her, close his fingers on that white, long throat, remove the threat that jeopardized his operation. But on the mountain it was different. On the moorland of the upper hills, still crouched in the gouged-out hollow, and the wind singing its high note above and around them, it seemed to Harry ridiculous and time-wasting to deny what she had said. It wasn’t in his orders to go strangling girls. That was logical as the solution, but not here. Out of context.

  ‘It’s a bad place this for strangers these days, Harry. It would be rather worse if the boyos find your story isn’t quite so pat as it should be. If they find you’re rather more of a handful than they took you for, then it could be a very bad place. We’re not all stupid here, you know. I’m not stupid. It didn’t take the world to put eight and eight together after Saturday night, or ten and ten, or whatever you thought too much for an “eejit” Mick girl who’s an easy lay. It wasn’t much I said to you. Just a little bit of chat. But there’s half the British army round the wee girl’s house for Sunday lunch. What did they find to talk to her about? God knows. Do you know, Harry? It was enough for the poor wee bitch to hang herself, God rest her. I mean, you weren’t exactly covering your tracks, were you, Harry?’

  The eyes that drove into him were still bright and relaxed, looking for his reaction. As he listened she grew in strength and boldness. She would close for the kill. She would make the point. Sure of her ground, she began to goad him.

  ‘There had to be something odd about you. Obvious. No family. But you come right back into the centre of Belfast. But you’ve no friends. No-one knows you. People might have gone to a quiet place on the outskirts if they just wanted to come back and work. You’ve not come to fight, not for the Provos. They don’t go to war from a guest house. The voice worried me, till Theresa died. I thought about it and worked it out then. The accent. It’s good now. Very polished. You’re quite Belfast, but you didn’t use to be. So I don’t reckon your chances, Harry, not when the Provos get a hold of you. There is some who can talk their way out of it, but I don’t reckon you’ve a chance. Not unless you run.’

  Harry knew he should kill her. He looked fascinated at the soft skin, and the delicate line that searched down on either side of the little mound in her throat, saw the suspicion of a vein beneath the gentle surface. But there was no fear there, no terror in her face, no expectation of death.

  They’d chosen Harry as a hard man, as a p
rofessional, able to do what was necessary, to go to the limits for his own survival. He could kill a man either in heat or from cold logic, and if the man’s eyes betrayed his fear that would make it easier, remove the complications.

  The endless strands of black hair were playing across her face, taken past her eyes, encircling her mouth . . . and the warmth of her body close to him . . .

  There had not been women who had to die in Aden. He was now in an area beyond his experience. Harry had heard it said once that to kill in close combat you had to act instinctively, there were no second chances, the will to cause death evaporates quickly, and does not come again except to the psychopath.

  His hands were numbed and useless in the big gloves, and the moment had passed. He looked out on to the moorlands where the spears of sunlight played down from the cloud gaps. He had hesitated, and that would be enough. The buzzard still hovered high above him, and she was still talking.

  She was tall, but not strong, he thought. She wouldn’t be able to fight him off. He could kill her now. While she yapped on. It would be a long time before they found her. Could be the spring. She’d struggle a bit but she had no chance. But she knew he wouldn’t. He could see that. There was no fear in her. A moment had come earlier when he might have put his hands to her. It was gone now.

  ‘If I went to the bookies more often,’ she went on, ‘I’d say you were a real slow horse. I’d say not to put any money on you reaching the finish. I mean it, Harry. I’m not just trying to frighten you, or anything daft. That’s the way it is. If I was in your shoes I’d be carrying spare knickers in my pocket. Well, don’t just sit there. Say something, Harry.’

  ‘There’s not much to say, is there? What would you like to hear me say? If you go off to Portadown and see people there, they’ll tell you who I am. Yes, I’ve been away a long time. That’s why the accent was strange. I’m acclimatized. The girl – I can’t explain that. How could I? I’ve no idea about it.’

  He could not have explained why he had gone back on the resolution he’d made so few minutes earlier not to get involved in a charade of deception. There was no conviction, no belief, and he communicated it to the girl.

  ‘Balls,’ she said. She smiled at him and turned away to put her head back into the roughness of his coat. ‘That won’t do, Harry. I don’t believe you, neither do you. You’re not a good enough liar. Whoever recruited you, and for whatever, did a poor job there.’

  ‘Let it go, then. Forget it, drop it.’ Pathetic. Was that all he had to say to the girl?

  ‘Who are you, Harry? What did you come here for? When you touted on young Theresa it was after I mentioned the man that did the killing in London. Is that why you’re here? You’re not just run-of-the-mill intelligence. There’s more than that, I hope. I’d want to think my feller was a wee bit special. What’s the handle? The Man who Tracked the Most Wanted Man in Britain?’ She snorted with amusement.

  ‘But seriously, Harry, is that what you are? A little bit special? The Danby killing?’

  She gave him time now. He was not ready. As an afterthought she said, ‘You don’t have to worry, you know. I won’t split on you or anything like that. It’s the national characteristic . . . the Ulster Catholics, we don’t inform. But they don’t take well to spies here, Harry. If they find you, God help you. And you’ll need him.’

  Harry started to move.

  ‘There’s not very much to say. What do you expect me to say? Confess, dramatic revelations? Shout you down? Walk away and leave you? Strangle you? What the hell do you want me to say?’

  He got up out of the ditch and moved back towards the summit of the hill, where the wind took him and fought him, coming in crude rushes that caused him to hesitate and sometimes give ground. The rain had intensified while they had been in the ditch and now it lashed across his body. He looked only at his feet, head hunched forward, with his anorak hood up as he stumbled across the gorse and the heather, slipping and falling because he would not give the attention to the ground in front of him. He’d gone a hundred and fifty yards from her when she caught him and thrust her arm into his. They went together down the hill to the car, hurrying along the worn-out shape of the path.

  They ran the last few yards to the car. She stood shaking by the passenger door as he looked for the keys. It was raining hard now and once they were inside he switched on the heater. The water ran down the windows in wide streams, and they were as cocooned and private as they had been on the hill.

  ‘What are you going to do if you find him?’ she said.

  ‘Are we serious now, or sparring still?’

  ‘Serious now. Really serious. What will you do?’

  ‘I’ll kill him. Take him out. He’s not for capturing. We pretend he is, and they mount the thing on that assumption. But he’s dead if we get close enough to him.’

  ‘Just like that.’

  ‘Not just like that. I’ve got to find him first. I thought we had him after the dance. It hasn’t moved from there. Up a bit of a blind alley now. Perhaps that’s just talk about killing him. It should happen that way, but likely it won’t. He’ll be picked up, and it’ll have sod-all to do with me.’

  ‘Is that what you came for? Because a man kills a politico in England, then they send for you, and you come over here?’

  ‘That’s what I came for.’

  ‘There’s a thousand and more have died here since it all started. And you come because of one of them. He was . . . wait for it, I’m working it out . . . yes, he was a tenth of one per cent of all the people that have died here. That’s not a bad statistic, is it? A tenth of a per cent. He wasn’t mourned here, you know. No-one gave a damn. Pompous bugger. Always on the box telling us how well he was doing flushing out the gunmen from off our backs. Why was he so special? They didn’t send the big team over when they shot the Senator in Strabane, or the UDR man who had all the land down the road in Derry. So why have you come?’

  ‘They put the glove down, didn’t they? That’s what shooting Danby was about. To make us react and see how effectively we would counter-attack. They killed him as a test of strength. We have to get the man and the team that did it. Either we do, or they’ve won. That’s the game.’

  ‘So it’s not just Queen and Country? Forces of Right against Forces of Evil?’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with that. They’ve challenged us. Given us a bait we cannot ignore. That’s why we’re in there kicking. We have to get the killer before the next time.’

  ‘Who are you then, Harry? Who do you work for? Who pays your cheque?’

  ‘You won’t get that. You’ve too much already. Christ only knows why, I’ve—’

  ‘And where does little Theresa fit into this big act? You’re here to avenge a death. There’s been one more already. How many more people get hurt, getting in the way, to make it still worthwhile for you?’

  ‘Quite a lot.’

  ‘So, even in death, some count for more than others.’

  ‘Right.’

  She shifted the ground, and softened the attack.

  ‘What sort of fellow is he, this man you’re looking for?’

  ‘I don’t know much about him. I’ve an idea what he looks like, but not a good description. I don’t know his name. He’s a cool customer, and he’ll be a crack shot. One of the top men, but they’ll have kept him out of the main eye of things.’

  ‘When Theresa talked about him, do you know what it was made her say it?’

  ‘’Course I don’t know. How could I?’

  ‘I mean, she wouldn’t just bring a thing like that out of the blue, now would she? She said to me that the man that did the London killing was at that dance. He was there the whole time with his wife. She was looking such a misery that Theresa said she couldn’t have been getting enough. That’s how it all started. She said the cow couldn’t be having it away, then she went into her own bit. That was to back her story up. She didn’t know anything else.’

  ‘That’s the truth, Josephine?�
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  ‘She didn’t have to die, alone like that, just with those bastard coppers around her. All she knew was what I said. I doubt she even knew the man’s name.’

  She had started to shout again, spitting out the unsaid accusation at Harry. The weakness had gone. The heat of her attack burst round the tiny marooned inside of the car.

  ‘You might as well have killed her yourself, Harry. She wasn’t involved in any way at all. You came here with your challenges, and the bloody games you play. And a wee girl dies who had nothing to do with it. There’s enough innocent people killed here without strangers coming and putting their fingers in and digging out more shit.’

  She crumpled then. Sobbing rhythmically and noiselessly. Gazing into the steamed-up window beside her. The rain was still falling.

  Harry was deciding what he should do on his return to Belfast. His ego was rumpled by the way the girl had broken through him. He ought to have killed her up there on the hill, but she had said she was no threat to him and he believed it. His ego was of less importance, though, than the news she had just given him. The man who he searched for had been at the céilidh the previous weekend.

  She shook herself, trying to shrug away her misery.

  ‘Come on, I want a drink. There’s a pub just down the road. You can’t stop for the dead. Not in Ulster. Like they say, it all goes on. I should have dropped it ages ago. Come on, let’s go have a couple of hot tods.’

  She leaned over and kissed him lightly, again on the cheek.

  Then she began to adjust her face, working with deftness from the little pouch that came out of her bag, painting over the reddened and flushed valleys under her eyes.

  When she had finished she said, ‘Don’t worry, hero boy, I won’t tell the big bad Provies about you. But if you’ve ever taken advice, I’m telling you, don’t hang about. Or whatever medal you’re after will have to go in the box with you.’

  They drove down the hill to where the pub and petrol station were nestled in a redoubt cut out from the stone. He ordered the drinks she wanted – Irish, with hot water and sugar and lemon.