Ravenhill: Jackie Shaw Book 1 - the first in an electrifying new thriller series

by John Steele

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  His passengers direct him to follow the Ravenhill Road to its end then drive across the Albert Bridge Road to the nationalist Short Strand. He’s amazed to find the Short Strand is nothing more than a strip of asphalt now, with a couple of new apartments facing onto the river. The sense of menace the place engendered in the past, when it was a nest of PIRA activity, is gone. Following directions, he cuts through the area and finds a vacant lot where Mountpottinger Police Station once stood. He remembers the brick and concrete monstrosity topped by a blast wall which was hammered by terrorist rocket and gun attacks throughout the Troubles.

  Now they are on the lower Newtownards Road and the flags are back, augmented by bunting and a long, unbroken mural dedicated to chronicling the very organisation he had run with in a different time – a different lifetime – the Ulster Defence Association.

  They turn off into a side street and he’s told to stop in front of a small club with steel shutters. It is one of many private drinking clubs scattered around Belfast, Protestant and Catholic, and staunchly working class. Jackie’s senses are heightened: he can smell the clean, soapy scent of one of his companions, the heavy, gritty musk of tobacco from the other; feel the crisp, sharp bite of autumnal air and note the cars parked, one of them an incongruous Porsche. He spots graffiti daubed on the door of a house opposite – Blacks out! White Ulstermen only! His companions get out of the car with him and one of them approaches the door and batters on the heavy steel. The one with the knife stays close behind.

  A heavily-built man who appears to be in his thirties opens the door. Jackie is ushered inside and the other two take their leave. Inside, the big man ups the ante with a leather shoulder-holster and what looks like a Smith & Wesson revolver. Jackie’s stomach has calmed but his face feels as though it’s on fire. His heart pounds. The man looks solid but is slow and out of shape. Jackie isn’t a young man but he has tried to look after himself and it’s not a certainty that the revolver is loaded, nor that there is a bullet in every chamber. Then he realises there is a second man in the narrow corridor they occupy, and his pistol isn’t in a holster. With his free hand the second man opens a door off the corridor and ushers Jackie through.

  He enters a room bare save for a couple of wooden chairs, a stage and some paramilitary banners hung on the walls. Despite the strip lighting, the room retains a gloomy air. With its stark walls and stained concrete floor it could be a slaughterhouse rather than a drinking den. A third man sits on the edge of the stage and watches as Jackie is led to one of the wooden chairs. Jackie’s hands are left free and he crosses his arms. The figure, still and silent on the stage, covers its nose and mouth with its hands as if fending off some kind of stench. Then it barks.

  The sound is cracked and guttural: a literal, feral bark. The room is so bare of feature that the reverb is sharp and loud. Jackie locks his arms tighter and keeps his eyes levelled on the figure. This man wants him confused and off guard. And he’s fucked if that isn’t exactly what he’s achieved.

  What the fuck? thinks Jackie. Struggling to maintain his composure, he hears a snarl. It is a human sound but not coming from a place of reason.

  The figure snaps to its feet and takes a jerking step forward. Jackie’s hands ball tightly into fists under his crossed arms. There is still a good six or seven yards between them but he is readying himself for a fight. The figure is still taking ragged, jerking steps towards him, the mouth still covered.

  The man appears to be unarmed and looks sleek and strong, lean like a bantamweight with a degree of definition showing through the T-shirt. More a Carl Frampton than a Barry McGuigan and in better shape than Jackie. The fact he has a couple of mates with handguns standing at the door could be a deciding factor, too.

  The figure gives one final growl, feints forward and drops his hands.

  And smiles.

  It is Rab Simpson.

  But he doesn’t exactly look like Rab Simpson. ‘Homer’ is gone. This is Rab’s better-looking, up-market, fully organic brother. There is a healthy colour in the face, the overbite has gone and the man is groomed.

  ‘Jackie Shaw, what about ye?’

  ‘I’m all right Rab. You’re looking well.’

  ‘What the fuck’s wrong with your voice, Jackie? You sound half-fucking-English.’

  ‘I’ve been living in different places. The accent has rounded out a bit.’

  ‘Watered down, you mean. We not refined enough for you?’

  Throughout this exchange Rab Simpson has been smiling, his arms hanging relaxed by his sides and his body language casual. Now he grabs a chair, his movement quick and wired like he’s high on something. Jackie is reminded how hair-trigger the change in Rab’s mood and movements can be and he is wary of the fact that the man in front of him has lost none of his speed. And that they last parted on less than amicable terms. Most likely Rab Simpson isn’t best pleased by the fact that Jackie is still breathing. Rab sits in the chair and crosses his legs loosely, the model of indifference. He asks one of the men to bring drinks and cocks an eyebrow when Jackie defers.

  Jackie says, ‘Driving.’

  Rab says, ‘So, the elephant in the room. Where the fuck have you been for twenty years and why are you not dead?’ In another of those lightning moves he holds up his hand, palm out. ‘I’m not expecting an answer now. It’s all pretty much by the by anyway, despite what happened with Tommy and Danny. And now here you are, sitting in front of me large as life.’

  He accepts a drink from one of the armed men, some kind of spirit by the look of it.

  ‘Now, I’ll not say I was all that cut up when we heard you’d been shot, Jackie. You had a lot of potential and you were handy enough in a fight, like. But you were always a bit quiet, like you were watching all the time. And you’re still wearing that Fenian ring, I see. I just didn’t trust you. There were times I would’ve knocked your balleeks in, but Billy liked you, so I had to hold off.’

  Jackie fingers the Claddagh ring and concentrates on remaining neutral. That was always the key with men like Rab: neutrality. He’d seen men speak back, just an offhand comment, and be beaten to a pulp or worse for it. He’d seen men kowtow and mewl, and be taken apart for showing weakness. So he breathes, steadily and quietly.

  ‘Then we find out you’re alive. A contact in the peelers saw your body – well, a body. He took a wee photo for us. The body was your height, your build, wearing your clothes. Even had your tattoo. The face was mashed up because you’d gone through the windscreen when the Army shot up the car. Now, the body was wearing that cheap watch of yours, but that ring, mate, that Fenian fucking ring, wasn’t on the hand and you never went anywhere without that ring on you.’

  Jackie’s concern had been somebody spotting him, word spreading that the ghost of Jackie Shaw was walking around, fit as a fiddle on the Ravenhill Road. But all this time they had known he was alive and, when his father passed away, they must have known he’d come home.

  ‘You couldn’t stay away, could you? You were spotted down by the park.’

  The old boy at the memorial. He must have recognised Jackie. Maybe it was the bastard Fenian ring. Oul’ lad could have made a quick phone call on a mobile when he got round the corner. Then the Eastern European guys were given orders to pick him up.

  Rab leans in towards him, elbows on knees.

  ‘I really don’t care where you’ve been all this time. But there’s something very wrong with what happened that night and why it wasn’t your body the Army shot up. I’m wondering if the Army shot up the car at all, or if it wasn’t all rigged. My money is on you being a fucking grass. So why shouldn’t I have you shot right now and dumped in the Lagan?’

  Is that a rhetorical question, thinks Jackie. The two men at the door haven’t budged so he guesses there is no immediate prospect of a bullet in his head, but you never knew with these boys. Rab smiles.

  ‘It’s all a question of supply and demand,’ he says, leaning back in his chair. ‘You see,
Jackie, I meet a demand in East Belfast, for high quality illegal substances. It isn’t always easy to meet that demand because the youngsters these days just can’t get enough of that shite, but I do my best. It’s a community service, so it is.’ He spreads his arms as wide as his pearly-white grin. ‘But I have a potential obstruction to my supply and I need someone to give me a hand removing it. Are you feeling me?’

  Jackie cocks his head.

  ‘The bulk of my supply comes from the west of the city. From the Shankill, just like these two boys keeping us company.’

  Just like yourself, thinks Jackie.

  ‘They’re associates of mine, but they aren’t on the same team. They’re not taigs, like, but they work for another organisation of a similar nature to ours.’

  UVF, thinks Jackie.

  ‘Unfortunately, one of my colleagues in the UDA, a man of some influence, doesn’t have the same spirit of enterprise as myself. Things have changed since you disappeared, but this fella doesn’t see that we have to move with the times. He’s still giving it “No Surrender”. So I’m forced to make use of some of our guests from further afield.’

  The Slavic-sounding guys, thinks Jackie. He says aloud, ‘And your colleague doesn’t like the idea of your mates here bringing drugs into East Belfast via their Shankill supply, or you distributing on his patch.’

  ‘Who the fuck said it’s his patch?’ Rab moves forward a fraction, fists clenched. A knotted cord of veins claws up his throat.

  ‘Just trying to understand how I can help you out. I’ve been away. I’m trying to put things together here,’ says Jackie.

  Rab gives the armed men a brief glance then continues, an edge to his voice now.

  ‘So here’s the craic. I want you to kill Billy Tyrie for me.’

  Jackie just manages to catch himself before he can say, Are you out of your fucking mind?

  ‘There it is,’ says Rab. ‘I’ll supply a gun, you take him out.’

  Jackie is a relative unknown in the area after so long away. He hasn’t been in the UDA for twenty years. While Rab knows he’s breathing, Billy may not. So Jackie isn’t a threat to Rab: he’s a resource.

  He says, ‘You wouldn’t be setting me up, Rab, would you?’

  ‘Why would you say something like that to me after all these years?’

  ‘You know, once bitten …’

  Simpson’s expression flatlines along with his tone. ‘If you do Billy, you can slink off back to wherever it is you were hiding. If you don’t, I’ll kill you myself in this fucking room.’ He flashes those pearly whites again. ‘And I’ll shoot your fucking sister before my tea tonight.’

  CHAPTER 5

  1993

  The police lifted Marty in the alley and interviewed Harold and Shanty back at Castlereagh RUC station. Later, they’d hear Marty took a kicking in the back of the Land Rover for calling the peelers Black Bastards. He also took up residence in a cell in Crumlin Road prison for possession of an illegal firearm.

  That was after Jackie had ducked back into the bar and dumped the jacket he was wearing. The RUC came into the bar and performed a search on the basis they’d had a tip-off there could be an IRA gun attack on the place that night. Those forced to abandon their precious drinks and line up along the walls thought it more likely they were raiding the place for UDA materiel. The Lagan Lodge bar was a notorious hang-out for members. The heavy fug of smoke drowning the bar was thickened with the hatred radiating from the drinkers.

  Jackie had lined up against the wall opposite the counter with the rest and was told to face the plaster. He smelled the stench of tobacco and heard the heavy footsteps of the policemen, weighed down by body armour and weaponry, making their way slowly up the line, occasionally asking for ID and throwing the odd question at patrons.

  A black-gloved hand touched his shoulder and a clipped voice, drenched in irony, said, ‘Evening, sir.’

  ‘Evening.’

  ‘Chilly night out, isn’t it, sir?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. I’ve been in here.’

  The glove came off and a large hand grabbed his arm and turned him around.

  ‘You’re a bit cold. Are you sure you weren’t just outside?’

  He looked into the face of a tall, strong-featured man with a thick moustache and intense blue eyes. There were sergeant’s stripes on the man’s rifle-green coat.

  Jackie said, ‘I’m not feeling the best, so I’m not. That’s why I was here, just having a couple of hot whiskies.’

  The police sergeant leaned in closer. ‘I don’t smell any alcohol on your breath,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t mind coming outside and answering a couple of questions, would you, sir?’ The peeler gave Jackie an exaggerated look of concern. ‘Have you a coat you can put on? It really is chilly out tonight.’

  ‘You wouldn’t believe it. I’d a jacket on me when I came in here. Then I went to the bog and somebody nicked it while I was away from my seat.’ Jackie looked left and right conspiratorially and added, ‘They’re a bad lot in here.’

  He got an appreciative smattering of sniggers along the line of drinkers. The sergeant stepped back and indicated to a couple of constables to escort Jackie out to the Land Rovers parked in front of the bar.

  Outside he could see a couple of policemen talking to Harold, one of them holding a notebook and scribbling the odd entry. Another two were talking to Shanty, who sat in the back of one of the Land Rovers while an RUC constable leaned against one of the open doors. He held Marty’s pistol in a clear plastic bag. The other Land Rover’s back doors were closed. Jackie assumed Marty was inside.

  The crackle of police radio traffic was sharp in the night air and the angry buzz of helicopters could be heard drifting across the city. There were at least two up, probably Army surveillance of West Belfast: maybe a shooting or suspect device had been reported. Jackie heard another RUC patrol responding on the radios and it was clear that this unit had called for back-up, probably after discovering Marty’s weapon.

  On the corners opposite and to their left, policemen with more H&K submachine guns trained their sights on the nearby streets, covering their colleagues from potential ambush. The officer on the opposite corner was sighting his weapon intently down the road leading towards the republican Short Strand.

  Jackie’s escorts had tightened their grip on his arms as they exited the narrow front door of the bar. Now he could feel the pressure squeezing the muscles of his forearms, although he wasn’t handcuffed. He breathed deeply and swallowed as they approached the open rear of another Land Rover. He knew it might hurt to breathe that deep again for a couple of days after the peelers had finished with him. He hadn’t been lifted before but he’d heard plenty of stories.

  They gave Jackie a shove into the back. He sat heavily on one of the leather bench seats along the side, the two RUC men clambering in to face him in silence. They sat like that for minutes. Jackie didn’t know if the peelers had seen him duck in the side door of the bar before they got to Marty; it could have been how cold he was when they got up close to him in the bar that raised suspicion. Maybe they’d smelled the night air on him, or even the smoky coal fire aroma of the chimneys outside. Maybe they just didn’t like him giving them lip.

  He tried to focus on one of the coppers’ boots opposite but found his mind straying. Where was his da? His sister? Would they have any idea what was happening to him? How could they – none of the cowboys he ran with gave a shite if he got his bollocks kicked in; Rab Simpson wouldn’t be running to contact his next of kin. The peelers had nothing on him, he knew. He hadn’t handled the gun and no one in that bar would grass him at least, but it rankled, the thought of pissing blood for a couple of days for the likes of Rab. Then he thought of what could happen if he didn’t take his medicine for the organisation. He crossed his arms, willing himself not to fidget.

  He thought of the RUC sergeant in the bar. A big fucker, he reminded Jackie of a boy in his old school called Geordie Plant – a bruiser who’d tortured
a few of the kids in his days in the playground. Jackie had spoken back and ended up with a date and time to fight the bastard on the football pitches. He remembered the anticipation, the sickening realization that the hour was rolling around, the long slog to the pitches. The cold tightening in his groin as fear took hold; he felt it now. He’d taken a pretty bad kicking that day too.

  The sergeant clambered in with another couple of policemen. The back of the Land Rover was crowded now as they closed the door behind them. The sergeant sat and took his peaked cap off, looking at the badge of a harp and crown on the front, and laid it gently on the seat next to him before he spoke.

  ‘I know that was you ran in the side door. I also know that you’re well aware I can’t prove a thing.’

  And I’m aware of what’s coming, thought Jackie, and I wish you’d get on with it.

  ‘Youse think you’re something, don’t youse?’ said the sergeant. ‘Think you’re fighting the Provos, for God and Ulster, all that shite.’

  The first blow slammed his skull off the inner metal skin of the vehicle and the dim interior light flared to searing white in his vision. The second blow, on the left side of his head forced him downwards and into a crouch.

  Good for him, bad for the peelers. He curled into a fetal ball and covered his head and crotch and, in the confined space and wearing cumbersome flak jackets, the police struggled to cause real damage. They rained blows on the back of his head, his spine, his side. It hurt, it stung, his kidneys took some punishment, but his face and vitals were protected. And for the rest of the men who delivered the beating, that would probably have been enough. It was a message, nothing more. But the sergeant was determined to make his mark, literally.

  Someone took a handful of hair and yanked hard, jerking Jackie’s head back long enough for someone else to land an awkward punch on his left cheek. Awkward, but it stunned him, slowed his reactions, and let the RUC men land more accurate, powerful blows on his face. Now he could feel the wetness under his nose as it bled. The gloves were off, literally; knuckles gashed his cheek just under his eye and he hoped it hurt the peeler as much as it stung him. After a couple of good shots his mouth began filling with blood as he bit his tongue and his inner cheek was lacerated.