Lies of Silence

by Moore, Brian;

  “Who is he?”

  “Special Branch. His boss is the head of the antiterrorist squad.”

  She looked at him. “What do you think it is?”

  “I don’t know. Let me get you a drink and then I’ll find out.”

  The bar was already filling up for the cocktail hour. As he signaled a waiter and ordered drinks he felt the same tremor in his body as he had felt driving toward the Clarence with a bomb in his car. He did not want her to see his agitation, but she looked at him and at once put her hand on his sleeve. “Are you all right, Michael? Have a drink. You can phone him later.” He shook his head, smiled at her, then went out into the main lobby. He did not want to phone from the hotel’s administrative offices. It was not a conversation for others to overhear. He went across the lobby and saw that there were three pay telephone booths beside the main cloakroom. One of them was free. He went in and used a phone card.

  “Detective Inspector Randall, please.”

  “Who’s calling?”

  “My name is Michael Dillon. I’m returning his call.”

  Almost as though he were on the other line, Randall said, “That you, Mr. Dillon? Randall speaking. How’s the weather in London?”

  “It’s sunny.”

  “Ah, you’re lucky. You know, it’s a fact that the weather’s always better in London than it is here. Did you have a good weekend, then?”

  “Yes, thanks. What did you ring me about?”

  “Well, I’m calling about a young man called Kevin McDowell. We picked him up over the weekend. I have a feeling he might be one of the ones we’re looking for.”

  At the cloakroom next to the booth Dillon was standing in, a uniformed porter was handing a gentleman his umbrella. Simultaneously, the head porter came out of the cloakroom, nodding to the gentleman, then going on out into the main lobby. The head porter, a dignified figure wearing a top hat with a thick gold band around it and a frockcoat with gold arm-facings, had been introduced to Dillon earlier that day. Now, seeing Dillon in the telephone booth, the head porter smiled at him and tipped his index finger to the rim of his hat in a respectful, but jovial, salute.

  “Hello?” said Randall’s voice, back in Belfast.

  “Sorry. You were saying?”

  “Well, if he’s the one you saw that night, we’d have a very good start. What I’m asking is, could you come and have a look at him? I mean, you could come over and go back on the same day.”

  “Well, I’ve just started work here,” Dillon said. “I’m going to be very busy for the next day or two.”

  “Maybe toward the middle of the week, then? We’d bring you over and send you back, of course. And you wouldn’t have to worry. Nobody would know you’d been here.”

  “Have you told my wife about this?”

  “No, not yet. After all, you were the one who saw his face.”

  “Well, don’t mention it to her, will you? I’d rather you didn’t worry her just now. She’s quite highly strung.”

  “Yes, right. So, when do you think—Wednesday or Thursday? I mean, if he’s not the right man, we don’t want to hold him any longer than necessary.”

  “Look. I’ll have to speak to my bosses here.”

  “Of course, of course. Maybe after you’ve spoken to them you can give me a shout?”

  “All right.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Dillon. Oh, by the way, I don’t have your phone number. Do you have one?”

  “It’s 935-6841.”

  “Right. Thanks again. So I’ll expect your call tomorrow morning, then? Is that OK?”

  “Yes.”

  He put the receiver down and stood in the telephone booth, looking out at the porters, the lobby, the people coming into the hotel through the revolving doors. He saw them hesitate in the moment of coming out of the moving doors, saw them look about, choose a direction, and move off toward it. An elderly man with a rose in his buttonhole embraced a middle-aged lady who had hurried to greet him. A man in a tan suit, entering the lobby, looked around, then waved to a stout man who sat in a lobby armchair, a white Panama hat resting on his knees. It was like a scene in a film. He was not part of this film. It was not part of his life.

  When he went back into the hotel bar he saw Andrea turn anxiously in his direction. “Well?” she asked.

  He sat down. He had ordered a gin and tonic and now he drank some of it. “Tell me,” she said. “What is it? Is it something about Moira?”

  He told her. As he spoke, he could hear the murmurs of other conversations, the faint noise of glasses being placed on tables, distant laughter from the area around the bar. He heard these things at a remove as though he had gone slightly deaf. His voice, telling her, seemed to be the voice of some person other than himself.

  When he had finished, she reached across the table and put her hand on his. “Don’t,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t do it. Why should you? You’ve done enough. You told the police when it really mattered—when you had a bomb in your car. But this is different. If you identify this Kev, it will be like putting out a contract on your own life. Moira’s the one who wants to fight the IRA and make herself a hero. OK, let her do it. But why you? Didn’t you once tell me enough people have died for Ireland? Not that you’d even be dying for Ireland. You’d just be a statistic in this mess. And what about us?”

  She was crying. He looked at her and knew that what she said was right. That it was what he wanted her to say, wanted someone to say.

  “Wait,” he said. “Don’t cry. You’re right. The other day when I told the priest I’d identify that kid, I was being stupid. Because the important thing is us. Not keeping the police happy. Not getting back at the IRA. The minute we got out of Northern Ireland I saw this thing for what it was. A moronic bloody mess. To hell with it.”

  “Do you mean it?”

  “Of course I mean it.”

  “Oh, my God,” she said. “Michael, that’s great.”

  “So, it’s settled then,” he said. “I’ll ring him up in the morning. What should I say?”

  “Just say you don’t want to do it. Say you’re not really sure you saw his face. Say anything. They’ll get the message. People don’t testify against the IRA. The police are used to it.”

  “But what about Moira? What if they try her next?”

  “But she didn’t see him, did she?” Andrea said. “The police know that. Come on, let’s have another drink. I’m shaking. You’d think it was me they’d phoned.”

  He signaled to a waiter. The voices of people at the tables around him became louder as though his deafness had cleared. If he refused to testify, the news would quickly get back to the kitchen of some row house on the Falls Road, or a cellblock in Long Kesh prison. There, the ones who made the decisions to kill informers would know that fear had made him hold his tongue. The priest would believe that his warning had been heeded. The police would have to release Kev for lack of evidence. The IRA would not bother with Moira. She knew nothing, she was just some woman talking out against them and the IRA did not heed women. He was their target: he had always been their target. They were already planning other murders, other bombings. Tomorrow, when he told the police, it would be over.

  The waiter brought them their second drink. Lightheaded with relief, he began to tell Andrea what he knew about the Wellington Hotel: how it had been the favorite hotel of Eastern potentates, at the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851; how Oscar Wilde had been booed and spat upon when he spoke at a banquet there; how the main dining room was celebrated for its extravagant murals painted by the Spanish artist José Maria Sert, who had stayed there in the twenties with Diaghilev and Serge Lifar.

  Andrea, listening, laughed and made fun of his enthusiasm for the hotel’s artistic links and, when he had signed for the drinks, they took the tube up to Hampstead and ate dinner in a little Greek taverna, a few streets from their flat. Not once, in the entire evening, did either of them mention the police or the pas
t. It was not until they lay together in the dark, listening to the tick of the grandfather clock in the hall, that she said, “Why don’t you ring them before you go to work? That way, we’ll have it over with.”

  “All right.”

  She held him then, kissing him. “Let’s go away somewhere next weekend,” she said. “Somewhere in the country.”

  “Good.”

  She slept. He did not. Tomorrow morning he would make the telephone call. It was the right thing to do. It was the only thing to do. By making the phone call he was protecting Andrea as well as himself. By making it he was also protecting Moira, mad Moira with her idea of an anti-IRA crusade. By making the call he would put an end to all of this. It was an accident that he had been the manager of the Clarence at a time when the IRA was planning to murder one of its enemies. It had nothing to do with him.

  He did not sleep. He lay, hour after hour, in the suburban stillness of the night. If he had agreed to cooperate what good would it have done? The IRA would still break into people’s homes, and terrorize them, and use them to help carry out their murder plans. Because people, ordinary people, would always be afraid. And people, ordinary people, would be sensible and see that their lives were more important than whether Catholics in Northern Ireland were given their fair share of jobs and votes. It did not matter one jot in the history of the world whether Ireland became united. Northern Ireland was not an occupied country like France under the Nazis. The majority of its people wanted it to remain as part of Great Britain. There was no reason to go on risking his life.

  But, there, in the dark, those arguments raced in his mind, angry, declamatory, as though he had been accused. By phoning the police tomorrow and refusing to testify, he would be admitting that he was afraid, that, again, the IRA had won.

  Outside, in the avenue, in the first light of day, he heard the sound of birds waking, beginning their territorial calls. And at last, weary, he fell asleep. When he woke an hour later it was to the sound of a telephone ringing.

  Andrea had already got out of bed and gone into the hall to answer it. He heard her speak. “Yes, he’s here. Who’s calling? Hold on, please.”

  She came back into the bedroom. “It’s Moira.”

  At once he felt his heart thump. “What’s happened?”

  “She wants to speak to you.”

  Naked, he ran into the hall and picked up the phone. “Hello?”

  “Sorry to disturb you,” she said. “The Ormonde gave me this number.”

  “That’s all right. What’s up? Are you OK?”

  “Yes, I suppose so. I’m calling you because I had a visitor last night.”

  “Who?” he said, and heard the tremor in his voice.

  “A priest. A Father Matt Connolly. He says he was at school with you.”

  Relief made him lean back against the wall and catch his breath. “What did he want?”

  “He says the police have lifted his nephew.”

  “His nephew?”

  “Yes. Kevin McDowell is his name. It sounds as if he’s the Kev—the awful one, do you remember?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anyway, this priest said he’d spoken to you before you left and you told him that if you could identify any of those IRA, you bloody well would. Is that true?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “He was in a panic. He wanted me to stop you. Now that they’ve found this wee bugger he knows you could put him away for a good few years.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “I said if my husband would do that, then I certainly wouldn’t try to stop him. Michael?”

  He waited. She did not speak for a moment and then he realized that she had begun to weep. “What is it?” he said. “What’s wrong?”

  “He said the IRA knew you saw Kev’s face. They know you’re going to testify. He says he doesn’t want to see you killed. He was in a state, I tell you. But he made me mad. He’s an irritating wee sort, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Anyway, I sent him away. Then I lay awake all night thinking. And in the middle of the night I realized that when you phoned the police that morning, it wasn’t because you wanted to get rid of me—”

  “Of course it wasn’t!”

  “All right, all right,” she said crossly. “I just said I was wrong. You did it because you thought it was the right thing to do. And now you’re going to do it again. But, Michael, listen. What Mama said is right. It’s just madness. It’s not worth it. And in the middle of the night I thought: he’s doing this because he wants to show he’s not afraid, the way I said he was. Listen, don’t heed what I said. It was wrong. If anything happens to you now, I’ll have to live with it for the rest of my life. And I don’t want that. Do you hear me, Michael?”

  “That goes for both of us,” he said. “I don’t want anything happening to you, either. Now, listen to me. I’m going to call the police this morning. I’m not going to testify. It’s a pity to let those bastards get away with it, but still …”

  “Oh, God.” He heard her catch her breath. “Listen, do it now, will you? And, listen, that Father Connolly wanted to know where he could reach you in London. Of course, I didn’t tell him. Look—he’s in with the IRA, I’m sure he is. Is there any way you can reach him? He’ll pass the word on to them.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  “Is it?” she said. “Michael?”

  “What?”

  “Listen, I want to ask you something. I’ve been thinking. Was it my fault or yours? I mean, did you ever love me? It wasn’t just my looks, was it?”

  “No,” he said. “No, it wasn’t.”

  “You did like me, didn’t you?”

  “I still do.”

  “Well …” She was silent and then said, “I’ll say goodbye now. And don’t forget. Ring them up right away.”

  “I will. Take care of yourself, Moira.”

  “Goodbye, then,” she said again.

  Andrea, wearing her pink-and-gray dress, stood at the bedroom door, looking out at him. “What was all that about?”

  He told her. “That priest worries me,” she said. “If he’s scared, then you should be too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look, I’ll make some coffee. It’s only seven. Is it too early to ring the Inspector?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well, call him anyway. Try?”

  “I’ll wait till eight,” he said.

  They went together into the kitchen. He was thinking of Moira. He went to the window. Sunlight filtered through the leafy branches of the oak tree outside. “Look,” he said. “It’s a lovely morning.”

  “Is it?”

  “Now, stop that.” He went to her and kissed her.

  “Is there any way you can get in touch with the priest?”

  “I could ring around, I suppose. Look, it’s all right. We’re in London. They don’t know where I am.”

  “He told them you’d testify. They’ll listen to him.”

  “Make the coffee,” he said. “I’ll make the toast.”

  “Ring the police. Please? Now?”

  “All right.”

  He went back into the bedroom and found the special telephone number Randall had given him. He looked again at the bed where he had lain awake for most of the night, thinking of this moment, this call. In a shutter flash of memory, in the mirror of the front room in Winchester Avenue Kev lifted his woolen mask and scratched the sore under his left eye: he saw again the boyish face, the feminine mouth, the sharp pointed nose.

  He went out into the hall. Andrea was in the kitchen with her back to him, putting bread in the toaster. He dialed the number.

  “Belfast Central.”

  “May I speak to Inspector Randall, please? This is Michael Dillon calling.”

  “Mr. Dillon,” a new voice said. “I’m afraid Inspector Randall isn’t here. He’s in Armagh today.”

  “Is Ch
ief Inspector Norton there?”

  “No, he’s with him, I’m afraid. If you want to leave a number I could ask Inspector Randall to ring you when he gets back.”

  He gave the number at the Ormonde. “What time do you expect him back?”

  “After lunch sometime. I’ll be speaking to him later on this morning. Is there a message I could give him?”

  “Ask him to ring me. I have to speak to him myself.”

  “OK, then. I’ll give him your number.”

  When he went back into the kitchen he realized that Andrea had been listening. “When will he be back?” she asked, before he had spoken.

  “After lunch.”

  “Maybe you should try to get hold of the priest?”

  “Stop it, will you?” he said. “Don’t nag me about it.”

  “I’m not nagging you.” There was an edge of anger in her voice.

  “I’m sorry. Shit, I hate doing this.”

  “I know.”

  But after breakfast as they walked down to the tube station she said, “I am worried, you know. Will you promise me one thing? Phone me at the BBC as soon as you’ve spoken to him.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  They boarded the Northern Line tube train at Chalk Farm and changed at Tottenham Court Road, going their separate ways. In the station at the top of a long flight of elevator stairs he kissed her goodbye and watched as she went down in the morning rush. When he came out of the Underground at Green Park station and walked up Park Lane, the sky had darkened as it had the day before. Soon, it would rain.

  At the entrance to the Ormonde the head doorman, recognizing him, saluted. “Morning, sir.”

  “Morning.”

  Harper was now on leave and as Ronny Pomfret was in a meeting with some marketing people and Helibron, the other assistant manager, had not come in yet, Dillon was nominally in charge. At once he was plunged into the familiar morning rush, checkouts, a conference with the banqueting department, a dozen minor crises which must be dealt with.

  Shortly after ten when Helibron had arrived to take over, he went into the administrative offices and sat down at Harper’s desk, which overlooked the park. He rang the switchboard. “This is Michael Dillon speaking. I’m taking over for John Harper for the next few weeks. If there are any personal calls for me, put them through to this desk, will you? I’m expecting a call from Northern Ireland today. Make sure I’m paged. I don’t want to miss it.”