Recovering Commando Box Set

by Finn Óg

  “Sinead!”

  “Yeah,” she croaked.

  “Try to get a cop. Try to get a cop to talk to me. Explain who I am and give him the phone.”

  “Ok,” she said, moderate relief entering her voice.

  He heard her crackle and stumble around a little, and then he could just about make out her pleading with someone.

  “Please can you help me? I’ve a man on the phone – he’s on the way. His daughter could have been here and we can’t find her.”

  “His daughter was here – at the harbour?”

  “Maybe, we don’t know. But we can’t get her. We don’t know how to find her.”

  “What age is she?”

  “Seven. Isla. Isla Ireland.”

  There was ear-splitting silence. Sam imagined the man checking notes or turning away to speak into the chest mic on his radio.

  “What’s happening, Sinead?”

  But Sinead wasn’t listening. He suppressed an urge to shout down the line at her. Then he could hear her muted talking over the din of the taxi.

  “She was here on holiday, with her friend Molly. Molly’s mother is Sal. Sally.”

  There was a crackle on the line.

  “Sam?”

  “Yes?” he choked.

  “What’s Sally’s second name? What’s Molly’s surname?”

  Sam began to shake his head. “Fuck, Sinead, I don’t know. I can’t remember. Fuck. I can’t remember.”

  He couldn’t believe he didn’t have that vital piece of information. In that moment he felt every ounce of incompetence of his past bear down on him. Of all the negligence, this seemed his greatest.

  “We don’t know. Well, now is hardly the time, is it, officer?” he heard her say. “The man’s daughter is missing. Now where can he find some information?”

  More battering and rumbling and then she spoke into the phone. “We have to go to the hospital, Sam.”

  “Does he think she’s in the hospital?”

  “If she’s not there, then that’s good news. All the injured are at the hospital.”

  “Can you go? Now?”

  “Yes, but there’s a problem.”

  “What?” Sam’s heart was hammering.

  “They don’t know which hospital.”

  “Like – how many are there?”

  “The most badly injured have been taken to Belfast.”

  Sam turned to the taxi driver. “Take me to Belfast.”

  Sinead heard the order. “Sam, we don’t even know if they’re—”

  “I know, Sinead.”

  “How?” She was pleading now.

  “I don’t know how, but I know. I’ll go to Belfast, you go to … I don’t know – you go to the closest one, and then the next closest one. Go now. Please, Sinead.”

  Grim was late to the party. He’d been shopping at an outdoor outlet mall with his wife. He didn’t carry a mobile phone because he didn’t see the point in telling the Brits where he was all the time.

  He stared at the television in the living room of his own home. He was in his slippers and he was smoking a cigarette. A suited young reporter was telling the national news how much was unknown about what had happened.

  There was one soothing piece of information, though: the driver of an at-present unidentified car that had been close to the centre of the explosion was believed to have died.

  Well, thought Grim, at least that was something.

  He put on his shoes, wrote down the number of his preferred solicitor, loaded up with three boxes of fags and waited to be arrested.

  “They’re not here.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Coleraine. Causeway Hospital.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “There is no woman with children.”

  “Are there children?”

  “One. Not Isla.”

  “Could it be Molly?”

  “No. It’s a boy. That’s all I know.”

  “Are there dead there?”

  Sinead paused. “Yes. But I think it’s an adult.”

  “You think?”

  “They won’t tell me anything about the dead person but I know it’s only one.”

  “So it could be Molly’s mum?”

  “I don’t think so. I’m thinking it was whomever was in the car.”

  “What do you know about the car?”

  “They’re saying here that it was the bomb – that the bomb was in the car – a car bomb.”

  “And why do you think the dead person in your hospital was in the car?”

  “’Cos it’s not a body, as such. I spoke to one of the orderlies outside. She said it’s, you know …”

  “Pieces.”

  Silence.

  “Ok, next one.”

  “Leaving now.”

  Although neither knew it, the manager passed Sam at that moment heading south. He hadn’t been quite so slow on the uptake as Grim and had packed a bag and made for the border as soon as news had broken.

  “Where are you going?” His wife had found him rooting in the wardrobe.

  “Free State,” he’d replied over his shoulder.

  “Prick,” she’d spat. “There was wee uns injured in that y’know.”

  “Not here,” he’d rounded on her, his finger pointing to the ceiling, performing a tiny circle. He stared hard at her, imploring, warning.

  She didn’t care. “If you had a hand in that,” she pointed back at him, “don’t come back.”

  He leaned in towards her, neck out, teeth gritted in a whisper. “Wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”

  “Aye, well, it did. Now fuck off to yer Free State.”

  She’d gone downstairs and he’d gone to the car. He cursed the fact that he’d helped Grim out – that he’d been to Ballycastle the day before. He thought about his destination and doubted whether he’d be back this time.

  “Where’re we for?”

  Sam turned to the taxi driver and wondered himself. Which hospital would be on intake – would it matter? They’d go to the Royal, wouldn’t they? Trauma experts. Troubles experts. Gunshot specialists.

  “The Royal.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “West. West Belfast. Come off the motorway in a couple of miles.”

  “This all to do with that bomb, is it?” asked the driver with sympathy.

  “Aye.”

  “You’ve someone missin’?”

  “Yes,” said Sam.

  “Y’er daughter, is it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fuck, brother, I am sorry to hear that. I’m sure she’ll turn up.”

  “Come off up here, turn left at the roundabout and the entrance is on the right. It’s like a warren in here. I don’t know exactly where A & E is.”

  “We’ll find it, buddy, don’t worry.”

  Sam began to shake. For the first time in his life he thought he was about to cry in fear. His legs extended in the footwell and he pressed his back and hips into the seat with such force that it jumped a click. The driver looked round at him momentarily, and was about to say something soothing, which might have been a very bad move, when the phone rang.

  “Sinead,” he said, eyes staring ahead, jaw trembling, his hand shaking.

  “She’s here, Sam.”

  “Alive?”

  “Alive.”

  “Injured?”

  “Scrapes.” She broke down.

  “Only scrapes?”

  “Yes, yes, yes, Sam.” She was breathing through her nose. “Cuts and scrapes.”

  “What else, Sinead. What is it?” He could hear her gulping and choking. “Sinead, tell me what it is. Just get it out.” He listened to her distress while navigating with hand signals for the driver: we’re not stopping.

  “It’s Molly. She’s gone.”

  Sam blinked hard, breathing through his nose. “Does Isla know?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  “Sal?”

  “ICU. In Belfast. Cr
itical.”

  “Ok,” he said, the tears now hammering down his cheeks. “Ok. Thank you. Thank God. Can she talk?”

  “I don’t know. I can see her. She’s in a bed through a window, but I can’t talk to her. I’m not related – they won’t let me.” With that Sinead completely broke down, convulsing.

  “Thank you, Sinead. Thank you so much. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll be there soon.”

  14

  Three weeks.

  It took three weeks for them to determine that Molly’s mum wouldn’t be able to attend the funeral. She was still on a ventilator at the hospital where she worked, oblivious that her husband was having to bury their child.

  Sam didn’t want Isla there. He refused to allow that memory to remain with her. Perhaps that was the wrong decision, but it didn’t feel like it.

  He went. He watched a child be buried in the pursuit of an Ireland that wasn’t one inch closer to birth as a result of her death.

  He made his way slowly back to the boat. He knew he was heading for a shutdown – his mind going dark, shutters banging closed, all peripheral vision blinded. The worst of it was, he didn’t care – he craved the focus that was coming his way. Perhaps, in preparation, that was why he had insisted Sinead stay with them.

  “You need your space,” she’d said.

  “Maybe. But this might be best for Isla. I don’t know why,” he’d replied, and refused to rationalise his request further than that. “But if you need to get back, honestly, it’s no problem.”

  “No, not at all, of course I’ll stay. But you have to tell me as soon as you want me to go. You need to promise me that.”

  “I will, honestly.”

  Isla was scanned. She was prodded and paraded around, observed closely by doctors, new and old. A steel line of stethoscopes. Unbelievably, she’d walked out the hospital door two days after she’d been wheeled in.

  Sam refused to think beyond thanks that his child, who had been sitting opposite her friend, had survived while her friend had died. He was not at all sure he had the capacity to deal with all this again – the repair, the shock, the constant scare and worry for his little girl. Was it a message? Was it his fault – payback for his past?

  It was easier to imagine the former, so he allowed his weakness to gradually creep over him, his rage to build. It came easier than the alternative.

  The manager took a dander around the village most mornings, breathing in the sea air and stretching his legs. Then turned and strolled through the few red-brick rows to a teahouse with which he was becoming accustomed.

  Greenore was a port town on the edge of Carlingford Lough – nicely forgotten – its streets embroidered with doily windows and well-swept steps. At fifty, Hagan brought the average age down by half.

  The cups in the tearoom were ancient and cracked with deep brown crazing in keeping with its beige backstory. There was a museum of sorts, quirky old stuff on the walls, a fridge from the seventies with sweets from the nineties.

  It was a place of gossip and rumour, where a twitch of a net curtain was enough to set the news on fire. So the manager got out front and centre with his own story, targeting those who would talk before an alternative could be created for him.

  His days were spent in idle irritation reading the local rags and staring at the old curved screen in his room. Then, when it got dark, he took another turn as far as the ferry terminal, such as it was. He stood bent at the railings and stared across the lough to the north, a separate country. Gradually the notion crept in that he would never be able to return there unless by virtue of extradition, which itself seemed inevitable. The blinking lights of an occupied territory made him maudlin, and he slowly rose and ambled back to his digs.

  And he waited.

  Isla was back in Sam’s cabin at night. It just worked out that way – nothing said. He simply found her moving that direction when he told her it was bedtime; he had no objection. Sinead took Isla’s cabin and for a week they lived like that, saying not very much but going for walks and watching movies. Every now and then Sam cast off and they motored round the islands, sitting in the cockpit, looking out more than in. He wanted the salt air to tire his daughter so that she might get through the night. Sinead made lots of tea and Isla drank half cups.

  He was back to watching her flickering in her sleep. He read endlessly about counselling – where to get it and how; the different types – behavioural, eye movement, mindfulness; and the symptoms – depression, abnormal behaviour. None were a fit for what Isla had been through or how she appeared to be dealing with her pain. Post-traumatic was the closest, but what about bereavement – and how do you deal with that twice? Isla would never get over the murder of her mother, Sam was sure, but to endure the horror and mindlessness of what had happened to Molly overwhelmed him, as he was sure it would her, eventually.

  He got up and went above, leaving the window cracked so that he would hear Isla if she moved. In the table he found a bottle of Pusser’s Rum: gunpowder-proof. He sucked the cork out as quietly as he could manage, but he got caught.

  “Share a splash?” He poured a liberal amber measure into a heavy tumbler and handed it to her. “Careful with that.”

  The dark liquid caught Sinead by surprise nonetheless, tears welled in her eyes and she caught a cough. She waited to recover, pulling Isla’s duvet tighter around her shoulders.

  “We are so silent,” she said, at last.

  “I know.”

  “I feel like I’m intruding.”

  “Why?”

  “I think you might talk more if I wasn’t here.”

  Sam didn’t know what to say to that, so there was yet more silence for a while as the heat slipped down their necks like diesel to an engine and they waited for it to ease their dialogue.

  He poured again, then spoke. “I think she needs to talk to a professional.”

  “Agreed.”

  “I think we need to start that soon. PTSD is no joke.”

  Sinead noted the we. “She’s been through so much. I really don’t know how she’s still so, like, brilliant.”

  “She’s like her mam,” Sam said absently, and the comment hung between them, but not uneasily, which was strange.

  They drank and Sam heeled the bottle again.

  “Will I leave you off – maybe tomorrow?” she asked softly.

  Sam looked at her. He wanted to speak, but couldn’t.

  “I think it’s maybe best I give ye some space. But I’ll be around, any time ye need.”

  He closed his eyes and nodded slowly.

  “They know.”

  “Sorry?” Libby wasn’t apologising, she was confused.

  “The MIT team is looking into the bomb.”

  “I wasn’t sure if it would go to major investigations or stay within branch.”

  Old units had new names, but old hands had old references. Special Branch had been replaced with Crime Ops and its ground teams with a letter and number, but the spooks still called it what it was – a unit going its own direction. Both knew that Special Branch wasn’t really an investigative unit, it was more about gathering intelligence – and where it suited, preventing crime. The Police Service of Northern Ireland had a high-ranking senior who liaised with MI5, but it was hard for Libby to imagine that the sharing of information was fulsome or done with good grace.

  “How clean is your house?” Her superior seemed relaxed given the stakes.

  “We’re tidy. It’s the opso’s gig to square everything away, really, and I can see they’ve been working hard on it.”

  “And the paper trail – the bookings and logs? That’s the type of thing a QC is likely to go for. You know how they love a file full of documents.”

  Libby was familiar with the forensic comb of those at the bar. Caped crusaders in ridiculous headgear poking and nipping at any detail overlooked. Inconsistency was the ally of any barrister; the ammunition with which to fire doubt into a courtroom. Doubt led to quashed convictions and emba
rrassment for security folks.

  “Everything is in order, but I’ll have another walk through with the ops officer.”

  “Soon, Libby.”

  “What do they know?”

  Her superior was quiet for a moment, then she heard him sigh. “They know who was behind the attack.”

  That came as a relief. “So they don’t know we were watching them?”

  “As things stand that is not an issue that has been raised.”

  “That’s … odd, is it not?”

  “They’re busy. In time they may make an assumption.”

  “Then they’ll come looking for evidence.”

  “Of which there ought to be none.”

  “Understood.”

  “They have made one request, though.”

  “Yes?”

  “They want the suspects placed under surveillance.”

  Libby paused, struck by the irony. “Who do they want specifically?”

  “Curiously, they have a shortlist, and I imagine you may know where to find these people.”

  Libby could detect a smugness on the encrypted line.

  “They’ll want the boss watched,” Libby said. “Have they got the other names?”

  “They think they do, and they’re not wide of the mark, to be fair. They want the man Grim, they want the manager, they want the mother of the bomber – although I cannot see the advantage frankly, and they want a handful of has-beens who have nothing to do with anything.”

  “So, as we were, really.”

  “Better. If they think we are keeping an eye on them, then they won’t deploy their own.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “So let’s see how it all shakes out, Libby. Everything up to this point destroyed. Everything from this point on logged meticulously, please.”

  “Understood.”

  Sam became increasingly uncomfortable with Isla’s apparent indifference. He could detect very little adjustment in her state of mind. After a quiet week, in which she had said nothing, she appeared to revert to her old self – playing, chatting – she even laughed on one occasion. Sam was inclined to throw an arm around her, to expect her to visit in the night, but she had taken back to her own cabin at bedtime, and to reading again, and drawing.