Lies of Silence

by Moore, Brian;

  At the main gates of the university he stopped to let a graduating party cross the street. The new graduate came first, pretty in her rented gown, her legs attractive in black stockings and patent leather pumps. Behind her, her parents, dressed in their best, and her brother and sister, making jokes, all of them proud of the one who was now adding a small cubit to their family’s stature. In a few hours, joyous and triumphant, they would head up the road to the Clarence for a festive lunch. Or would they?

  It depended on him.

  The white Ford had followed him, always three car-lengths to the rear, but as he turned into the Malone Road he saw it veer off and disappear. Did they have someone inside the hotel, waiting for his arrival? It could be anyone, staff, a guest, or even someone who had come in to have breakfast in the dining room. One thing was certain. He was still being watched.

  Ahead now was a sign:

  THE CLARENCE HOTEL

  BAR—RESTAURANT

  He stopped the car opposite the sign, waiting for a break in traffic which would allow him to turn into the hotel entrance. At the entrance, lined up at the security gates, was a queue of four cars. He watched the oncoming traffic and when he saw his chance swung his car across the road and joined this queue. For a moment he thought of surreptitiously signaling to one of the security men and telling him to detain the car for inspection. But the IRA knew the guards never inspected his car. And what if a guard opened the trunk and the bomb exploded here at the gate?

  Billy Craig, a retired policeman, dressed as usual in a black police sweater with black leather elbow pads, was in charge of the security team which checked over incoming cars. A car had just been cleared and was moving toward the gates. Billy hobbled forward to open up but, just then, saw Dillon’s little red Renault join the queue. At once he held up his hand officiously, stopping the other car and waving Dillon on through. As Dillon’s car passed, Billy called out, “Morning, sir.”

  Dillon waved to him. The area in front of the hotel’s main entrance was used only for pickup and delivery of guests and luggage. As he drove past the entrance, going around to the visitors’ car-park in the rear of the hotel, he saw that the main lobby was crowded with people. In the car-park at the rear there were four spaces reserved for the senior staff. His space was just below the windows of the Emerald Room, one of the banqueting rooms adjoining the main restaurant. The car-park was already crowded and a tour bus, waiting for a French group, was stationed awkwardly in the center. He had seen the French group in the dining room last night, middle-aged teachers and civil servants from Brittany, anxiously studying the strange menu, prudently choosing to drink beer instead of the overpriced wine.

  He maneuvred the Renault around the tour bus. Just beyond the bus, two cars had moved into vacant parking places, and now in a flurry of opening doors, their occupants were getting out. They were locals, middle-aged men with that bluff quick Ulster way of talking. Two of them, younger than the others, wore electric-blue jogging suits, and as Dillon drove up they stepped in front of his car with hard stares, as though he had just made an illegal parking move. One put up his hand, signaling him to stop. Dillon obeyed, surprised, and, as he did, the other passengers came out from between the cars, four men in dark clothes surrounding a tall, elderly figure who was wearing an ill-fitting gray suit and a celluloid clerical collar. As the old man came out, shielded by the others, the young men in jogging suits moved on in front of him, hurrying toward the hotel’s rear entrance.

  The tall old man was now directly approaching Dillon’s car. His face, weathered by the rain and wind of a lifetime of open-air meetings, had the staring vacant look of a gargoyle on some cathedral buttress. When he was directly in front of Dillon’s car, he turned and waved to him, absently, as though he was the grand marshal in a parade. His minders, the young men in jogging suits, were now at the hotel’s side entrance, holding open the doors.

  Dillon did not wave back. The old man lumbered on toward the hotel door. He watched him, the Reverend Alun Pottinger, the “mad dog of Protestant Ulster,” as his enemies called him, going in to a breakfast for his overseas supporters, a breakfast at which he would deliver his usual sermon of religious hatred. The way was now clear for Dillon to park his car. As he moved it into his allotted space he looked up at the windows of the Emerald Room above him. Sitting at a dozen tables in the room were men and women who were not locals. They looked like Americans. They were, he realized, the Canadian Orange Order supporters who had come to hear Pottinger speak.

  He switched off the ignition. His heart beat irregularly as though it belonged in some other body. He looked again at the window which faced him. The head table was right by the window. It was not yet filled. As he watched, Pottinger and his group arrived in the room. People stood up to applaud, as, shaking hands, Pottinger moved through the room and, after a moment of consultation, took his place at the center of the head table, less than twenty feet above Dillon’s parked car.

  Dillon stared at Pottinger’s back as Pottinger sat down. The minders in jogging suits moved up to the window. One of them stood, looking down at him. And, watching him, Dillon knew. The IRA are not bombing the hotel. I am here to kill Pottinger. There will be no warning. The bomb will go off very soon.

  But why would they want to kill Pottinger? They had never tried to kill him before. It was said Pottinger’s anti-Catholic rantings were the greatest propaganda benefit the IRA ever had. But they had picked this parking spot, they had picked this day, this time. They said, “If you’re not out of the hotel car-park five minutes after you go in, we’ll know you double-crossed us.” If I get out of the car now and walk away, Pottinger and his Canadian friends will be blown sky-high. And I will have killed him.

  The minder kept looking down at him. Dillon took his keys from the ignition and got out of the car. As he walked away from his parking space he passed the windows of the main restaurant which adjoined the Emerald Room. The lower sashes of the windows were open, for the morning was warm. He heard people speaking French. He looked up, listening to that tongue he had learned. At a table beside the window one of the tourists, a gray-haired woman in her fifties, was telling the others that today’s breakfast was included in the price of the hotel room, but that lunch, later, at the Giant’s Causeway, would be an extra charge. An old man with a thick Breton accent said that they should all eat up, because this breakfast where you got eggs, bacon and good bread was probably better than the food they would be offered for lunch.

  Dillon stared at the old man. You will never eat lunch again. By lunchtime, most of your group will be dead. Tonight, television pictures will show the bomb damage done in this hotel. Tomorrow, newspapers in Brest or Dinard may run your photographs and interview those few of you who survive. But for the rest of the world it will be the Reverend Pottinger’s photograph which will be seen in the press. You will be killed by people who do not know you, who will never see you, who do not care if you live or die. Your friends at home may have warned you that it is dangerous to come here. It is no more dangerous than crossing a street in Dinard, but that small statistic will not help you now.

  He stood, staring. They were schoolteachers, civil servants, small business people. They had families in France who depended on them. He looked back at the windows of the Emerald Room where Pottinger’s Canadian supporters had begun to applaud. They, too, have families who depend on them.

  And I have Moira. Moira, who I planned to leave.

  He turned away from the window and walked out of the carpark, passing the hotel’s front entrance. I am going away from the phone. Is there a phone in Murray’s shop? Do I still have a chance to ring the police?

  Jack, a uniformed doorman, came down from the main entrance carrying a departing guest’s suitcases. “Mornin’, Mr. Dillon.”

  “Morning, Jack.”

  “Big day coming up,” Jack said.

  “It will be that, all right.”

  He walked on, going down the driveway toward the security gates.
All at once he had the feeling that he was being followed. He looked back. A delivery boy, who could not have been more than twelve or thirteen years old, was walking some thirty paces behind him, carrying a floral arrangement in a wicker basket. When he looked at the boy the boy stopped and pretended to rearrange his flowers. He could be an IRA lookout. It was said they used children for these jobs.

  The security gates were closed so, to save time, he walked through the security hut to reach the street. The guards were doing a careful search of car occupants this morning, going over them in a strict body check. Pottinger’s presence in the hotel would be the reason for that. He looked at his watch as he came out onto the Malone Road. It was eight thirty-five. He had been inside exactly seven minutes.

  Traffic was heavy on the Malone Road. There was no sign of the white Ford. At the taxi stand outside the hotel, four taxis waited in a queue. None of them was green. The delivery boy came out into the street and, ignoring Dillon, went off in the direction of Shaftesbury Square.

  Two streets away the traffic lights went red, halting the flow of cars and allowing Dillon to cross the road. Why did they ask me to go into Murray’s and buy something? Is it to give them time to bring the taxi up?

  He looked back at the hotel. At the far end of the street the delivery boy, still holding his floral basket, was talking to a tall girl who wore a long yellow muffler wrapped around her neck, although the morning was warm. They were not looking at him. He walked on and pushed open the door of the little shop. It sold newspapers, sweets and cigarettes and had four rows of shelves lined with tinned goods, dairy items and cold meats for sandwiches. There were three people waiting to pay for their purchases at the lone checkout counter. As he opened the door of the store he saw the girl in the yellow muffler crossing the street behind him, coming in his direction.

  It is happening. It is happening just as they planned it. We are all part of the team, I, the delivery boy, that girl, the people in the white Ford, the masked ones at my house. The bomb is in place. It will go off any minute now. I have one more thing to do. Buy something here, cigarettes, sweets, so that they will have time to bring the taxi up. When I get in the green taxi it will all be over.

  The people in the checkout queue moved forward. He looked around the shop. He saw no pay phone. He looked out of the shop window. The girl in the yellow muffler was standing outside on the pavement, her back to him. Suddenly, in a rush, he pushed past the people in the checkout line and leaned over the woman at the cash register. She looked up at him, a stout, redfaced woman with bad teeth.

  “Is there a phone in here somewhere?” he said. “Please, it’s an emergency.”

  She looked at the other people in the queue, then looked at him. “There’s a phone in that wee room back there. That wee office. Go ahead.”

  He ran down the aisles of tinned goods. At the far end of the store was a white door, its upper panel clear glass. Inside, he saw rows of shelves, a jumble of cartons on the floor, and in the middle of the room a cluttered desk with a phone on it. He pushed the door open. He picked up the receiver. In that instant it was as though he heard the flat Belfast voice say, do a nut job on her. Trembling, he looked back at the door. Framed in the glass panel, staring in at him, was the girl in the yellow muffler. At once he bent over and dialed 999. He looked again as the phone began to ring. She was gone.

  On the third ring a voice said, “Belfast Central.”

  “I want to report a bomb.”

  “One moment.”

  There was a click and a new voice answered. “Right. Where are you?”

  “I’m in a shop called Murray’s across the road from the Clarence Hotel. The bomb is in my car in the hotel car-park. I left it there about eight minutes ago.” Suddenly he realized they would think he was an IRA man. “I’m the hotel manager,” he said. “The IRA put the bomb in my car and made me drive it there. They’re holding my wife at home. They’re going to kill her because I’m phoning you. They’re watching me now.”

  The voice was calm, quick. “What’s your home address?”

  He gave it. The voice said the police would be on their way to his house immediately. It told him to go back to the hotel, give a bomb alarm, and evacuate the hotel at once. It asked where was his car exactly, what make it was, did he know where the bomb was hidden in it, and what was his name.

  The voice then said, “Look, Mr. Dillon, they may phone in a warning to the hotel. Usually, they just want to damage the hotel.”

  “No. I didn’t tell you. Alun Pottinger’s giving a speech in the hotel. He’s there now and my car is parked just under the window of the room he’s speaking in.”

  “Go back to the hotel at once. Do what I said and wait for us at the front door. We’re on our way.”

  He put the receiver down. He stood in that small room, amid the jumble of cartons printed with the names of food items, looking down at the small desk, littered with bills, a Rolodex file, a pair of spectacles, a tabloid newspaper, open at a photograph of a girl smiling up at him, holding her hands over her naked breasts. Above him, growing louder as it stationed itself in the sky above the Malone Road, training its spy cameras on the streets below, the corncrake chatter of a British Army surveillance helicopter drowned out all other sounds. Was it coincidence, or could the response to his alarm be so sudden?

  He pushed open the door of the little storeroom and ran out into the shop. He saw no sign of the girl in the yellow muffler. The few customers in the shop went on with their purchases, impervious to the familiar racket in the sky. The woman at the checkout called, “All right, love?” as he waved to her and ran out into the street. He rushed into the oncoming traffic, holding his hand up like a policeman as he skipped across to the other side. He ran toward a queue of cars at the security gates, calling to Billy, “Open the gates, get rid of those cars. Bomb scare.”

  Billy pulled the gate open and he ran through it, winded now as he rushed up to the hotel’s front entrance. He ran across to reception and told Maggie Donlon, “Put it on the speaker. We’re evacuating the hotel. Put on the fire alarms. Have someone check all the rooms. Hurry.”

  “What is it, Michael?”

  “A bomb.”

  As he spoke he heard police sirens outside, impatient at being stalled in traffic. He ran back to the front door. Two police armored cars were coming through the gates, hooting at other cars to move aside. Behind him, he heard Maggie’s voice on the public address system. “Everyone must leave the hotel at once. Leave the hotel at once.” The fire alarm bells began their shrill, trilling sound. People were beginning to pass him, going out of the front doors of the hotel. They were, surprisingly, not pushing or running. He heard voices behind him asking, “Is it a fire? It must be a fire.”

  The first police armored car pulled up with a jerk in front of the hotel. He raised his hand, signaling, as four policemen, armed and in flak jackets, tumbled out of the rear of the car, advancing on him. “Are you the manager?”

  “Yes. The car’s in the car-park at the back. I’ll show you.”

  “Where’s Dr. Pottinger?”

  “In the banquet room,” he said, surprised.

  “Take us there, will you?”

  When the police ran in at the revolving doors, Jack, the doorman, was pinning the panels back to allow the stream of people to get out. Dillon, with the police at his heels, ran through the lobby, raising stares from the exiting guests as he and the police rushed into the banqueting room corridor. Coming toward him, hurrying, were the two minders in blue jogging suits and behind, flanked by his four assistants, the tall, scare-crow figure of Pottinger. The police, recognizing Pottinger, at once surrounded him, clearing a way as they hurried him through the lobby. “This way, Reverend. Quick, now.”

  “What is it, what’s up, is it a bomb scare?”

  Dillon, forgotten, stood watching them go. The fire alarms sounded again and again. The public address voice repeated, “The hotel is being evacuated. Everyone must leave at once.�
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  Suddenly, a police sergeant, leading a second team of heavily armed policemen, stood in front of Dillon. “You’re Mr. Dillon? Right. Where’s the car?” And they were off again, running to the rear entrance which led from the dining rooms to the carpark at the back of the hotel.

  The French tour bus was still blocking the car-park exit. People were running to get to their cars but the police shooed them off. “No time,” they called. “Get out of here.”

  The sergeant turned to him. “Which one?”

  He pointed. “That one. The Renault.” The sergeant pulled out a shortwave radio and spoke into it. Dillon did not hear what he said. The bomb would go off at any moment. He wanted to run out of the car-park.

  The sergeant shouted to one of the other policemen, “Get that bus out of here.”

  As the policeman ran toward it, Dillon saw the French tourists coming into the car-park, heard the French voices, confused, alarmed, “C’est une incendie? Non, il dit que c’est une bombe.” The tourists began to hurry toward their bus, but the driver, with a policeman directing him, swung the bus around and drove out of the car-park, leaving the tourists panicky, abandoned, in this foreign place.

  He ran toward them, telling them in French to hurry down to the gates, forget about the bus, hurry, quickly, quickly. Their faces stared at him, and then they turned away, frightened, obeying him.

  He looked at his car. There was a policeman standing near it. The policeman seemed afraid. The sergeant and the other two policemen were running around clearing the car-park of people. He looked at his watch. It was almost nine. But now, if things had gone as the bombers planned, Pottinger’s audience would have finished their bacon and eggs and Pottinger would be on his feet, beginning to speak. He looked at the little red Renault, sitting empty under the Emerald Room windows, and, turning away, hurried after the French tourists, ignoring the police sergeant, who seemed to have forgotten him. As he did, amid the shrill fire alarms, the shouts, the clatter of the surveillance helicopter above, he heard a new sound of sirens. Two Army Land Rovers raced into the car-park. Soldiers tumbled out of both vehicles as they slammed to a stop. An officer with the rank of captain spoke to the police sergeant who, turning, called, “Mr. Dillon. You’re wanted here.”