by Finn Óg
“You can go, wee love, soon. I promise.”
Her little feet picked up pace and she cast a call over her shoulder. “Thank you, Daddy.”
He smiled. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
Isla looked apprehensive but said nothing.
“It’s quite important and you’ll need to think about it.”
They got into the dinghy and motored the short distance to where their boat, Siân, was moored – the most static she’d been for months. Below deck he made her get the books out and began fumbling around in the galley.
“Sketty bolognaise?”
“Yes, please. We’re not going sailing again, are we?”
“What?”
“You said you want to talk about something. Do you want to leave Ireland again?”
“No, love,” he said soothingly. “I was wondering how you’d feel about someone coming to mind you for a few days.”
“Who?” Isla asked, interested. She hadn’t been exposed to anyone other than her grandparents in years.
“A friend of mine – you met her once, very briefly.”
“What’s very briefly?”
“Quickly. You said hello to her once.”
“I don’t remember.”
“She’s really nice.”
“Is she as old as you?”
“I’m not old, Isla.”
“Yes, you are, Daddy.”
“She’s …” Sam paused, unsure, “she’s probably about the same age as me.”
“Why do you not know what age your friend is?”
Sam had never thought about that before but some things are so important when you’re wee.
“I think you’d like her.”
“What’s she called?”
“Sinead.”
Isla’s head was between the clutches of two colouring pencils. “Ok.” She shrugged as if it were no big deal.
But to Sam it was closer to an ordeal.
Safe houses were hard to come by and Grim had few options. Sympathy for the struggle had waned significantly. The most effective operators were all in jail. Fundraising efforts were pathetic and they relied on smuggling and cigarettes these days or taxing criminals, so there was no money, which meant the families of those in prison were pretty pissed off. In the old days the movement would have supported them but there just wasn’t the cash for that carry-on any more.
Morale was low, and households that had once harboured a regard for those prepared to keep fighting for a socialist united Republic of Ireland were scarce. Grim cast around for weeks for a place for the kid to stay. Eventually he found a family of diehards in a County Antrim seaside town, but he knew as well as anybody that diehards stood the greatest chance of being monitored. Beggars can’t be choosers, he reasoned, and accepted the offer.
It niggled at him, though. The level of infiltration among the ranks was grating. The Brits always seemed one step ahead. All that the remaining republican groups could manage were small acts – incendiaries or shots fired. Such skirmishes got reasonable publicity, for sure, but they failed to capture any real attention or give the impression that there was still a movement worth joining and fighting for. They’d been forced to fashion small improvised devices, house them in plastic lunch boxes and attach them to vehicles using the magnets from stereo speakers.
There was no formal organisation. Disparate groups tried to follow one another’s efforts to make it look like a campaign but it was hard work, especially when there was no coordination. As soon as approval was given for an attack, details somehow leaked out and the target car was suddenly inspected. Some of the devices didn’t explode, which suggested tampering. Their organisation was leaky and they were all too aware of it.
The targets were usually peelers – police officers or prison guards. Above all, Grim and his comrades wanted to kill fellow Catholics who had joined up. The aim was to frighten other young Catholics away from any notion of joining the new police force and making the Police Service of Northern Ireland the enemy, as the old RUC had been. The PSNI was, in Grim’s opinion, becoming far too acceptable to the Irish nationalist population north of the border. They needed an identifiable adversary now that the British military had withdrawn. Without an enemy, after all, there could be no war.
“I’ll take the job.”
“Really?” said Sinead, probing.
“But I might need a vehicle.”
“Oh?”
“It’s not important but I thought something was insured when it wasn’t. It lapsed while we were at sea and I’ve been driving around for a month with no cover.”
Sinead knew better than to tut. She waited.
“And I’d also like to take you up on your offer if that’s still ok.”
Sinead realised what a big deal this was and so tempered her pleasant surprise. “Great.”
“If you’re able to cover the cost of a hire car, then we’re on. For three days.”
“You could take my car when I come north?” Sinead suggested.
“You’ll need it, I’m afraid, to take Isla to school. Our van is, well, flat-packed.”
“No problem.”
“How are you with boats?”
“I think I’m about to find out,” she said brightly.
“I’ll make sure she’s tied up in a marina or at a pontoon or something.
“Ok,” said Sinead. “It’ll be fun. Girls together.”
“It might well be,” said Sam believing it as he watched Isla sleep.
Perhaps a change from looking at him all evening, every evening, would do her good.
It certainly wouldn’t do him any.
If he couldn’t sleep before, he certainly wasn’t going to sleep now. Anthony wasn’t used to the sound of the sea but he guessed it was close – although he wasn’t allowed to find out for himself. It washed and crashed and roared every night as he waited for the car and minded his manners with the people downstairs in this small house.
He didn’t quite understand what was going on. His hosts were an older couple and their son, who looked to be in his forties. None of them appeared to work. The son seemed odd. Stupid, Anthony concluded. He’d glimpsed an IRA tattoo on his upper arm, faded to the colour of seaweed, as he left the bathroom one morning. He also had some home-made inkings on his hands but Anthony never had the courage to look at them long enough to work out what they said. They gave him the impression the man had been to jail.
Anthony reckoned that might be why he’d been placed with this family. Every army needs its unquestioning foot soldiers and the son was probably one of them. Anthony observed the whole thing with interest – sponged it up. He decided he wouldn’t become just another follower like the unemployed son with the grubby tattoos. He would be like Grim.
Sam got off the Enterprise train at Dublin’s Connolly Station. He normally enjoyed travelling by train but he’d spent the whole journey worrying about Isla’s quiet thoughtfulness. Would she think Sinead was there as part of a plan to introduce a mother figure? And if she did, might she be right?
The introduction had gone surprisingly well. Sam had rather anticipated a pushback from Isla – a bashful pleading with him to change his mind, but she hadn’t kicked off. In fact, she hadn’t seemed at all worried – which ought to have pleased him yet instead he found himself slightly deflated by her ambivalence towards his departure. He knew it was selfish; he understood that it was part of his neediness for her. He would miss her like mad, even if it was only for a few days.
Sinead, however, appeared to be a natural.
“Hello again, Isla.” She had started with an uncharacteristic babble. “You won’t remember me but we met when you guys got off the boat in Dungarvan. It was pouring rain that night and you were so hardy – you’d sailed such a long way.”
“I remember,” said Isla brightly. “You had yellow shoes on.”
“Yes, I did!” said Sinead.
Well, fuck me, thought Sam.
“I like yo
ur dungarees,” Sinead had rattled on, and the next thing Sam knew the two of them were looking at the dresses Isla had been drawing in her fashion-designer book.
He might as well have been abroad.
Out of shame the yard owner’s son had driven him to the train. He’d also allowed Sam to tie the boat up to the pontoon to save Sinead from having to use the dinghy.
He left Dublin Connolly by the side entrance and headed west, allowing the twinkling chat of the chancer to fill his senses as he weaved his way through the market towards O’Connell Street. Sam reckoned it would take him forty-five minutes at a good pace to get to the courts. He loved the roguery of inner city Northside Dublin; everyone had a wisecrack, and comments to strangers were framed as instantly familiar.
At the complex he set about his recce. Parking was a nightmare – there were few options within sight line of the enormous round building but no shortage of traffic attendants. That meant if he hired a vehicle, he would have to keep it moving. Not ideal if he needed a quick extraction.
Across the road was a small garage selling cars and offering valeting. He tried the half-suited man behind the counter. “Any chance I could hire a car here?”
“No luck, buddy,” the man said. “We’re all about sellin’ the yokes here.”
“If I was to pay cash and leave a vehicle on the forecourt but have access to it in the case of an emergency, how would you feel about that?”
“Eh, what sort of emergency are we talkin’ about here, buddy?”
Sam thought for a moment. It went against the grain for him to give anything away, but this job was more official than anything he’d been involved in since he’d left the navy, so what the hell.
“I’m looking after a witness in a trial across the road.” He motioned at the courts.
“Like a bodyguard?”
“Pretty much.”
“Are you, like, a Guard?”
“No, private hire.”
“Right.” The man was sceptical.
“I don’t think I’ll need the car. It’s just in case I need to get her away in a hurry. But there’s very little risk here, to be honest. I’m just building in contingencies.”
“How long, and how much cash are we talking?” the man asked.
“A week. How much are you looking?”
“A grand,” said the man.
“I can’t even do half that,” said Sam turning away. “But, listen, thanks for your time.”
“What’s the case?”
Sam turned back and summed it up. The story was all over the news anyway. “A bloke who groomed a special needs woman.”
“Groomed, me hole,” said the man, disgusted. “He raped and murdered her.” He reached below the counter to a shelf that would have been at eye level when he sat. He lifted a picture frame and spoke as he held it facing himself.
“You’re minding a witness for him or against him?”
“Against – for the prosecution.”
“Then why aren’t the Guards minding her?”
“It’s complicated. Bit bizarre but the man got bail, so—”
“Read that, yeah,” said the man before turning the picture towards Sam. “That’s me girl there,” he said. “Gorgeous, wha?”
Sam looked at the image of a teenager standing with the man in front of her, held by the arm by a woman who could have been her mother. The grip was affectionate but somehow firm.
“She’s a special kid too,” said the man. “So, yeah, ye can have the car, buddy, and I’ll get you a fine fast yoke and I’ll park it right there.” He pointed to the traffic on-slip.
“Right,” said Sam, rather taken aback. He had forgotten how, like Liverpudlians, many Dubs would give you the shirt off their backs no matter how little they had. He fished in his pocket to draw out some cash.
“No money, buddy,” the man said. “Just look after your witness and send that bastard to Portlaoise.”
“I don’t really get the location,” said Grim.
“Neither did I,” said the manager, before his bald head tilted back with the pint and his thick neck chugged the beer down his throat.
The pub was one of the few places the pair thought they could talk. They were well enough known to be left well enough alone. This was a “no customers required” sort of establishment. A camera at the door threw up an image on a screen at the bar and a buzzer prevented entry until the bar person was satisfied that they knew the customer. In the past there had also been a cage but that had gone since the threat of attack had diminished.
“So what’s there? Why’s he so keen on that address?”
The manager sighed. “It’s just an office.”
“It’s obviously not just an office.” Grim looked at the manager who stared straight back, reluctant to elaborate. “Fuck’s sake,” he said, angry that his former cellmate was so reluctant to trust him with the information. There had always been grit between them because the boss was closer to the manager and the pair occasionally kept Grim out of the loop.
“If he finds out I told you, he’ll not be happy.”
“If you don’t tell me, he’ll need to find someone else to rear his chicks,” said Grim.
It was understood that the boss couldn’t incubate “volunteers” without his permanent security shadow ticking them off, one by one, like a skulking fox. Without the loyalty of the two men facing one another the boss would get nowhere – his pedigree as an unreformed republican was such that he couldn’t brush his teeth without the Brits knowing about it, so he needed lieutenants who could get stuff done.
The manager waited a while, pouting gently as he thought.
“He thinks the office is where they’re doing the donkey work for a future inquiry.”
“Another one?”
“The whole nine yards – who did what, who knew what, what we did, what they did, collusion …”
Grim snorted. Collusion. A word now woven into the fabric of the Northern Ireland conflict. A word to describe the flow of information from rogue members of the security forces to loyalist paramilitaries who hated the IRA. Bad cops and soldiers unable to beat the burden of proof had occasionally passed on the names, addresses, routines and movements of suspected IRA members. Such information was hungrily received by opposing gunmen loyal to the union with Britain. The outcome had been predictably bloody and frequently botched.
“Why would the boss want to destroy an inquiry? Sure, that’s to our advantage – exposes the police and the Brits.”
The manager’s eyebrows raised in agreement. “That’s what I thought too, but then he explained it – there is no good outcome for us. He says the office location is where they’re poring through old records – the ones held here anyway. Others will be in London, he reckons.”
Grim’s face screwed up. “Looking for what?”
“IRA agents – touts. The boss thinks they have lists of who was working for the Brits all along.”
Grim was incredulous. “Well, what’s to lose? Again, that’s good for us. If they show that the IRA was run by the Brits, then the peace process goes to hell in a handcart, dunnit?”
“If you take a simple view, it does. The boss doesn’t see it that way.”
“Well, how does the boss see it,” said Grim, affronted at being thought of as dim.
“It’s complicated. But aside from the political stuff he sees it as a chance to show them that we know where they work in secret, and that we have moles of our own. He reckons that will send a strong message to Whitehall that we are not to be fucked with.”
“So how does he know about this location?”
“Sorting office, I’d say. He has a few people in there. They keep an eye out for specific names. When a letter arrives with a new address on it, they take a snap on their phone and pass it on later.”
Grim thought for a moment. The boss knew the tricks from his time in IRA intelligence, before he broke rank over Sinn Féin’s pursuit of the peace process.
“How did he know wh
at names to look for?”
“Sure, that’s easy,” said the manager. “Who leads inquiries?”
Grim considered. There had been plenty of inquiries into matters connected to the Troubles. Many held in public. “Barristers, retired judges?”
“So he had his people keep an eye out for various names – especially the retired ones, especially the ones who sent him down or refused him bail.”
“Right,” said Grim, impressed but confused. “But how did he know that any of these people were working on collusion?”
“I’d only be guessing.”
“Well, guess then,” said Grim, increasingly irritated.
“Well, politicians have been calling for an inquiry into collusion for a long time, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So the Brits are gonna want to make sure that whatever is in the records isn’t too damaging, right?”
“Correct,” conceded Grim.
“They want the story to favour them.”
“I’m with you.”
“So they’re gonna do a bit of work to see how bad it’s likely to be before they decide whether to give in and allow the inquiry or whether it’s gonna dig up too much awkward shit.”
Grim just nodded.
“They need to make sure that nobody finds out who the real informers in the IRA were, right?”
“In case they’re close to the ones who made the peace deal,” said Grim.
“Exactly. So what’s the best way to do that?”
“Find the evidence first, destroy it, then call the inquiry?”
“Well, yeah,” said the manager, “but more than that. What do they do about people who aren’t on board the peace train – people like us and the boss, for example. If there are people out there still prepared to kill cops and blow stuff up, then isn’t it in their interests to suggest that the likes of you, me and him were the informers?”
“Ok,” muttered Grim, slowly understanding what the boss might be up to. “So he’s worried they’ll out him as a tout to protect the real informers?”
“They’re dirty enough.”
Grim shifted on his butt cheeks, a tightener. “I still don’t see how he knew all this work was happening, though?”
