‘You’ve no way out, Maire,’ says the first man.
‘Your fingerprints are all over the room,’ says the second.
‘Christ, there’s even your saliva in his pubic hair.’
‘You filthy little slut, Maire. You really want that to come up in court? You want your ma and da to hear you were sucking the dick of some poor bastard you were setting up to be shot?’
She’s ready for them. ‘You’ve nothing. Sure I was with him. Sure he “picked me up”. Not me, him. Sure he insisted on coming home with me. But he was drunk, became violent. He was trying to rape me, so I ran. What the hell would you have done?’
‘Just at the very moment your good friend Joseph and his mates happen to arrive to murder him. What a coincidence, Maire. What a fluke of timing.’
‘I dunno anything ’bout that. You’ve no evidence to say that. I was in a bar, he picked me up. I was fool enough to go with him.’ Even if she’s not kidding herself, maybe she can somehow dent their certainty. She forces on, trying to convey confidence not desperation. ‘That’s my only crime. Maybe there was some eejits following him. So what? Nothing to do with me. He’s a bad man who tried to attack me. Look at the size of me – what chance would I have had? Now I wanna solicitor.’
‘You can have a solicitor, Maire. Won’t do you any good. There’s only one way out. You tell us everything you know about Joseph Kennedy and his friends – it’s OK, it’ll just be between youse and us, no one else’ll ever know – and maybe we’ll cut you some slack.’
‘It’s your life, Maire. Your future. Think about it,’ says the second man. They leave the room and she is escorted back to her cell, the barred door clanging shut behind her, the bare walls closing in on her life.
Later that day, she sees a solicitor and offers the same account she’s given her interrogators. They were right; the solicitor tells her the evidence, the coincidence of timing are stacked against her. The rape allegation gives her a chance, but only a small one. She’s come up with it late and there’s not even any bruising.
Maire knows only one thing for certain. It looks like they don’t have anything on Joseph. If she grasses – tells them Joseph did it – and his friends find out, she’s dead. There’s no greater sin than to turn informer. Not even Martin could save her – probably wouldn’t even want to. The story always has the same ending. A lonely grave in some anonymous damp patch of field.
The next day, another spell in the interview room, this time with her solicitor present. Her interrogators arrive together and say nothing. Instead they produce a pair of shoes from a bag, the shoes she wore on the night, and hand them to her.
‘We’ve cleaned them for you, Maire,’ says one. ‘You can have them back after the trial if your prison governor allows it.’
‘Careless of your friends to leave them behind,’ says the other. They walk out with a mocking grin.
‘Might be best to own up, Maire,’ says the solicitor later. ‘Say you knew nothing about the plan to kill him. We’d go for aiding and abetting an abduction. You might get away with five years. You’d only serve half.’
Her third night in the cell is the worst. All exits are closed and it seems a one-way street to conviction and branding as a criminal. If she confesses, the full dirtiness of what she’s done need not be revealed. Her ma and da can be spared that shame. After more than two decades of the ‘war’, her community will understand her getting caught up in it. Though what a pity, they’ll say, that clever little Maire McCartney, with the whole world at her fingertips, chose to spoil everything.
What if there’s not even that deal without their piece of flesh? Everything she knows about Joseph. The names of his friends. She feels a shiver of terror.
By the night’s end, she’s come to one conclusion. She’s not a committed warrior willing to spend a lifetime in prison for the ‘cause’. She doesn’t know where it will lead – but it’s time to negotiate and see what cards she’s got left to play.
A woman police officer arrives with breakfast.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ says Maire. ‘I wanna speak to my solicitor.’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ says the woman.
‘Whaddya mean? I’ve made a decision. I need to see her.’
‘No, you don’t. You’re leaving.’
‘What?’
‘I said you’re leaving. Seems like you’re a lucky girl.’
‘You joking? That’s bad taste . . .’
‘It’s not a joke, Maire. Pack your things, your da’s coming to fetch you.’
An hour later she finds herself walking past the front desk and out to the car park. It’s a journey of utter unreality. Maybe it’s some kind of trap. But there, in the flesh, is her da. Stephen has been allowed through the gates and security barriers and is waiting. As she nears the car, he gets out and hugs her. They drive in silence, no questions asked, no answers given. When they arrive home, it’s the same, her mother waiting quietly for her.
‘Welcome home, love.’ It’s all she says.
That evening, Martin comes for tea, the entrance as nonchalant as ever, the chitchat light and jokey. In front of her parents, no reference is made to the last three days. As they’re clearing the plates, she catches Martin nodding at them. They retreat to the kitchen to wash up. He closes the door behind them.
‘You’ll get your scholarship at Trinity, you’re that smart,’ he begins. ‘Working-class Catholic girl from the North – just what they need to move with the times. But you’ll leave this city and head down to Dublin now. I got friends who’ll put you up till we find you something permanent. Only a couple of months now. Maybe you can take some time abroad. I’ll see if I can raise some money.’
‘Did you know, Martin?’ she asks.
‘Know what?’ He sounds sharp, hard even. It’s unlike him.
‘Joseph said you approved it. I mean using me.’
He shakes his head slowly, closing his eyes and rubbing them with his hands. ‘Jesus, Maire, you should know me better. I’m not even going to discuss that.’
‘Well, he said you would.’
‘He said that?’
‘Yes.’ Her brother says nothing. ‘And the plan itself? Seducing him? Shooting him?’
‘Don’t go there. It’s past now.’
‘Joseph told me it was just to interrogate him.’
‘Fuck’s sake, Maire, you’re not that naïve.’
She wants to cry but mustn’t let herself. ‘I believed him, Martin. He promised. He said it was propaganda. To show they could run a Special Branch man out of town.’
‘He said that?’
‘Yes. Several times over.’
‘OK.’ He shakes his head and looks away from her. ‘Look here, Maire, I’m not going to piss on Joseph. He’s important in the movement. You can’t expect me to do that.’
‘I wanna see him. Ask him myself.’
‘That won’t be possible.’ His eyes pierce her in that way she knows he won’t be contradicted. She looks down, silent. ‘You’re not to see him again, Maire. There’s to be no contact ever again. From you or from him.’
She feels tears welling and tries to suppress them. There’s no point in arguing. Instead she asks the obvious question. ‘Why did they let me go?’
‘You’re small fry, they’ve bigger fish. Maybe they didn’t have enough on you. Maybe they wanna see where you’ll lead them. Use you as bait against your own side. That’s why you gotta leave. That’s a reason you can never see Joseph again.’ He pauses. ‘Not the only one, mind.’ She feels herself crushed. ‘And there’s another thing, Maire. Some will say they only let you go ’cos you grassed. Another reason you gotta go.’
‘Jesus, Martin, you should know me better than that.’ She grimaces. ‘Christ, that’s what you just said, isn’t it?’ He doesn’t answer – there’s nothing more to say. Her destiny, for now, is out of her hands. ‘OK, when?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow!’
‘That’s right. You better start packing.’ Her brother grasps her shoulders and speaks with a searing passion. ‘You were never meant for this, Maire. You’re the lawyer. Maybe politics one day. You’re the ballot, not the bullet. Never forget that.’
The next morning, her father drives her to Victoria Bus Station to catch the express coach to Dublin. She’s been given an address and fifty pounds. She’s never felt so alone.
A few days later, Martin visits her in Dublin. It’s been arranged that she’ll live with a Mrs Bridget Ryan, whose daughter, Bernadette, is serving time for possessing explosives. As a contribution to her board and lodging, Maire will help look after Bernadette’s three children. The husband’s no good – he was once in the movement but forced out because of his drinking. The arrangement will last the full three years of Maire’s degree.
‘You can call it your prison if you want,’ says Martin, ‘but it’ll give you a better chance than the real thing. Now, you, work hard. Don’t socialize. Don’t look for friends. No boyfriends. Trust no one. Get your degree. And then get the fuck out of this island and make something of your life.’
As she watches him disappear, Maire begins to understand the worst of what she’s done. It’s not about being used, or luring a Brit peeler to his death, or shaming her parents, or losing Joseph.
It’s that she made an error. A huge, life-changing, potentially life-destroying error. If she’s managed to get away with it, if she’s been given a second chance, she promises herself one thing.
She will never again make such an error. Not ever.
CHAPTER 3
Twenty-six years later, UK General Election night, Friday, 5 May. 2.41 a.m.
‘I, the Acting Returning Officer for the constituency of Lambeth West, hereby give notice that the total number of votes given for each candidate was as follows . . .’
Anne-Marie Gallagher squinted down at an army of flashlights, TV cameras and microphones. The next five minutes would shape the next five years of her life. Yet, until one day and one conversation three months before, what now lay before her would have seemed unreachable.
‘They’re imploding,’ cried out her head of chambers, Kieron Carnegie, flicking through the newspapers. ‘Those smug idiots are imploding. Split from top to bottom.’
‘There there, Kieron, we don’t want you imploding too.’ She spoke with a hint of Celtic tinge too polished to place.
He rounded on her. ‘But it’s our chance. This time, even after the last mess, we might actually get back into office.’
She observed him fondly – still, in his early sixties, a craggily attractive man with a rich voice and greying blond hair hanging down to his collar. He had a reputation as a Lothario of the law but had never tried it on with her. From the day she joined Audax, her body language had said no to affairs.
For his part, Carnegie still saw the smart, pretty, petite twenty-three-year-old with the quick brain and spiky wit who had brightened his office the moment she’d stepped into it twenty-two years earlier. The same straight, dark-brown hair that settled in a bob above the join of her neck and shoulders. The same fringe falling over her forehead like wisps of fresh grass. The elegant little nose. The small mouth and curve of her lips. The tiny gap between the whiteness of her front two teeth. The same aura of untouchability.
‘I have an idea.’
‘Oh?’ She went on instant alert; Carnegie’s ideas could be dangerous.
‘I never personally wanted to enter politics.’
‘You’ve always cultivated the party’s leaders.’
‘Me cultivate the leaders?’ His eyebrows jumped in horror.
‘Sorry, Kieron.’ She grinned. ‘They cultivated you.’
‘I’d never have hacked it as a Member of Parliament. Don’t have the discipline.’ He paused. ‘You do.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘I only joined the party a couple of years ago.’
‘I know. But you’re getting noticed. Appearances on Newsnight and Today, pieces in the Guardian. The go-to lawyer for comment on human rights.’
‘It’s nothing more than a sideshow to my work here,’ she protested.
‘Listen,’ he said, pointing at the headlines yelling disarray at Westminster, ‘there’s no solution to this but an early election.’
‘So?’ she interrupted.
‘There’s going to be a vacancy in Lambeth West.’
‘What do you mean? Harry Davies is the candidate there.’
‘Not for much longer. Few know it but he’s had a stroke. The medics have told him he’s got to take it easy.’
‘So?’ she repeated.
‘You live there. You’re attractive and articulate. You have a rising profile. Put your bonnet in the ring, my dear.’ He launched his most extravagant smile. ‘And I will do a little moving and shaking in the background.’
For once, she did not return the smile. She felt a stirring, an echo of youthful ambition that had seemed irretrievable. ‘If I were to do this, I’d enter the goldfish bowl. The media would scrutinize me, try to rake over my past, exercise their bloodlust.’
‘Are you afraid of that?’
For a woman so quick on her feet, it took a split second longer than usual to find a response. ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,’ she quoted.
‘Franklin Delano Roosevelt, inauguration speech, March 1933.’
‘Yes.’
‘Then that’s your answer, isn’t it?’
Carnegie’s forecast was accurate. The government moved from bickering to in-fighting to self-destruction. No alternative could be formed to command a majority. The only way out was an immediate General Election. There was a vacancy at Lambeth West.
Anne-Marie cross-examined herself, both present and past. Since her reinvention after Dublin and entry into a different world, she had not come face to face with anyone who remembered her. Standing as an MP would expose her but, in a national election, an unknown first-timer would attract only local attention. In any case, there had been no shame in adopting her new life. The circumstances could even win her sympathy. Which left the two jeopardies. The knowledge of the dead and disappeared had vanished with them. The chance of any credible, living witness emerging this many years later was too remote to stand in her way. She could not always hide from risk.
‘OK,’ she told Carnegie. ‘I’ll give it a go. But don’t you forget it’s your fault.’
The first hurdle was the panel to select a shortlist of candidates. The males were easy meat but then came the formidable Margaret Wykeham, the well-bred chair of a progressive school to which she would never have sent her own children. ‘Ms Gallagher, your grasp of the issues is formidable,’ she began. ‘But perhaps we could know a little more about you.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Anne-Marie was prepared for it. ‘After university, where I graduated with first-class honours, I joined Audax Chambers. There, over the years, I have been lucky enough to form firm friendships and eventually to oversee the expansion of its human rights practice.’
‘You were at university in Dublin?’
‘Yes, that is correct.’
‘And, before that, one has rather little sense of your background. Your family, for example.’
‘Mrs Wykeham,’ stated Anne-Marie with cool deliberation, staring at the emerald brooch pinned on the bosom of her interrogator’s cashmere sweater, ‘this election is not about whether I was born with a silver spoon or a poor mother’s saliva-wetted finger in my mouth. I am a self-made woman. I am happy to discuss my professional life, even happier to discuss the problems that confront our country. But the condition of my candidature is that I will not speak in public beyond those.’
The die cast, she fired a defiant stare at the panel. After a silence interrupted only by the rumble of a passing train, grins began to spread across the faces opposite, including Margaret Wykeham’s.
At an open meeting three weeks later, constituency party members selected her as their candidate with an overall majority o
n the first ballot.
During these weeks Anne-Marie came to wonder at her gift for artifice. She felt a sheen of hardness beginning to cloak her like a sleek, well-tailored suit. What surprised her, once she had entered the fight, was her will to win.
‘Jonathan Alfred Ashby, Conservative, 24,317,’ continued the acting returning officer. The sitting MP maintained a rictus smile below bulging eyes.
‘Brian Hugh Butler, Liberal Democrat, 2,318.’ The forlorn loser failed to disguise a murderous intent towards his one-time partner in government.
‘Joy Freedom, Hen Party “Backing Genuinely Free Range”, 141.’ A figure buried inside a giant yellow chicken costume did a hop.
‘Anne-Marie Gallagher, 25,779.’ An eruption of shrieks, youthful OmiGods, cheers and whistles exploded through the hall. ‘And I declare that Anne-Marie Gallagher has been duly elected Member of Parliament for Lambeth West.’
Amid the racket, the outlandishness of the moment seized her. The cheers went silent; she was confronted by a mass of mute, mouthing faces. There was something unreal about it. She had a déjà vu of another moment of unreality in her previous life; it chilled her like a blast of arctic wind.
Catching herself, she moved along the row of beaten rivals, shook hands – a pat on the beak for the hen – exchanged false congratulations on a campaign well fought, and approached the microphone.
‘There are so many people to thank, particularly the acting Returning Officer and his most efficient staff.’ She spoke with crystal purity, realizing that any delay in this traditional act of courtesy would show an unwise contempt for election-night protocol. ‘But before I give other thanks,’ she continued, ‘and while this hall commands its brief moment of attention, there is something I want to say.’
She paused, her smile yielding to a cool intent. Right up until the last minute, she had not been sure of what she might say. Now, in this crucible of democratic fervour, hundreds of eyes bearing up at her, TV cameras trained on her, an unexpected sense of destiny tugged.
Perhaps Kieron Carnegie had been right. Perhaps this was her time, her chance at last to cash in years of slog in the mire of law chambers and courts, and the frustrations of committee rooms and thwarted campaigns.
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