by John Steele
He stood to put his mug in the kitchen and have a smoke in the back yard, but his father said, ‘Don’t go.’ It stopped Jackie dead in his tracks.
Samuel Shaw said, ‘Do you fancy a drive?’
#
They had done this when he was a kid. On a Friday evening his father would take him down Templemore Avenue in their beat-up old Morris to the sweetie shop for chocolate-covered fudge, caramels and Italian ice cream. Sometimes they’d take a drive up to the fire station on the Upper Newtownards Road and, if the engines were in, the firemen would let him sit in the cab.
Now they drove in Jackie’s Ford towards the city centre with his da holding sway like a tour guide.
The Markets: ‘Ma Copley was a hard woman, used to organise the bare-knuckle boxing just over there. There used to be grass, Chapel Fields, and men from all over Belfast would come to fight. I saw Cuthbert Carr and Barney Ross box to a standstill there. The peelers never did much about it and a couple of them got in on the fights.’
Sandy Row: ‘Billy Moore used to sell fruit and vegetables off a horse and cart. In the evening he’d ride the horse to the pub and tie it up outside, like a cowboy. Sometimes he’d leave it overnight if he’d had too much to drink and the landlord would feed it.’
The Shankill: ‘There was a man, “Stormy” Weather. He was a fighter, used to fight “Silver” McKee down at the markets. Great trade union man, Stormy. Always fair, so he was.’
It was a different Belfast. A past Belfast full of larger than life characters and all of them from the working-class areas. His father knew more tales of the Protestant areas but Jackie knew there were similar stories and legends in the Falls and beyond.
Driving back home they passed by the end of the Short Strand. The road was quiet save for an RUC Land Rover patrol.
His father said, ‘I used to work on Mountpottinger Road, just off there. I worked for a man called McManus, owned a print shop, hauling paper stock and ink rollers.’
Jackie hadn’t known that his father had worked in the sole republican enclave in East Belfast.
‘You were just a wee baby then, but things were really bad. You could lie in bed and listen to the gun battles all over the city. My mate on the Lisburn Road had rounds ricocheting off the tiles of his roof. But I never had no trouble at McManus’s place. Everybody knew I was a Protestant and nobody cared.’
The car was entering the Lower Newtownards Road now. A republican tricolour mural was facing off across the thoroughfare with King Billy, resplendent on the wall of a warehouse opposite.
‘So one evening, I was locking up the print shop and a British Army patrol came along. They stopped me and asked for ID, so I showed them my driving licence. One of them, an Englishman, says, “What’s a proddie from the Ravenhill Road doing working in the Short Strand?” and gives me a shove with his rifle.’
The squaddie had probably used stronger language, but Sam Shaw had always been shy about swearing around his children.
‘I said that I worked for Mr McManus and I was locking up. They put me up against a wall, spread-eagled, and searched me. Of course I’d nothing dodgy on me. Then one of them whacked me in the back of the legs with his baton and the lot of them gave me a pasting. I tell you, son, never let it be said your average British soldier isn’t impartial; they hate us just as much as they hate the Catholics.’
He laughed then, this man, without a trace of bitterness. It was a genuine, if hopeless, laugh and Jackie thought that he had never met a gentler soul than his father. The oul’ lad might be fond of the drink, but he was too tender for this world, especially Belfast, and he’d been paying for it for years.
‘They made a right mess of me,’ said his da, ‘and then they drove off. Left me lying there, all bloody, like, in the street. And do you know what happened?’ His father laughed again. ‘A fella came up to me and says, “Are you all right, Sam?” He was a young fella at the time. He helped me into a bar on the corner and I knew rightly it was an IRA bar. But they cleaned me up and made me a cup of tea. Offered me something stronger but I had to get home to your mommy and she’d have smelled the drink off me. The fella says, “Any more bother, Sam, you let me know. I’ll make sure you’re all right,” and then I thanked him and I walked home. Walked home, through the Short Strand.’
His father shook his head in wonder and tutted.
‘Your mommy wasn’t too happy at me being late, but they did a good job of cleaning me up in that bar, so I didn’t look too bad. She was shocked at my bruises and what-have-you, but a lot worse could have happened to you back then, and you were thankful for small mercies. I never told her what happened and she never asked. Sarah never knew. You’re the only one I’ve ever talked to about it.’
His father sounded surprised at his own revelation. Jackie was silent. He was afraid to speak in case he might cry. Then his father said, ‘I never saw that fella again. Your mother made me leave the job, for me own safety, like. But the fella who was so kind to me was a big man in the Provos, so he was. Name was Cochrane. He was shot by the Army back in the eighties.’
His father shook his head slowly.
‘I think he had a son, though. Probably still lives about the Short Strand.’
#
It was late afternoon when they got back to Bendigo Street and schoolkids were making their way home. Scruffy boys were kicking footballs against gable walls while awkward-looking wee girls tried to talk to them and huffed when they were ignored. Wee girls not far off the age of Kim Clarke and Sally Hunter.
It was a good story his father had told. Sam was from a generation who’d known life before the Troubles and still had faith in the kindness of strangers. Jackie marvelled at Belfast. An act of kindness from a terrorist to his father; that same terrorist’s son might be culpable in the bombing murder of innocent men, women and children; and the man who received that kindness has a son, a policeman, who considered neglecting his duties to see that second-generation terrorist dead.
Small world.
He shook his head as he opened the front door of the house.
‘Are you all right, son?’
‘Yes, Da,’ said Jackie. ‘I was a wee bit confused about something, but I’m clear as a bell now.’
And then Sam ‘Ruger’ Rainey approached and said, ‘You’ve been summoned.’
#
In actual fact, they’d all been summoned, the core of the Active Service Unit. They were in Billy’s house, a rarity for all of them. Billy shared the sofa with a disconsolate Rainey, all hangdog jowls as he sucked on a cigarette. Rab was quietly fuming in the corner, his wiry frame all awkward angles on an armchair. A crackle of violence charged the air. Jackie couldn’t help feeling he was being sized up by Simpson and wondered if word had somehow got out about his catching up with Shanty and his subsequent bender. Tommy sat on the floor, his back propped against the wall, eyeing the Sega Megadrive and Desert Strike game cartridge under the TV.
Billy ground out his smoke in a glass ashtray, and said, ‘Un-fucking-believable.’
Rainey scratched his head. Rab glared at his Converse trainers. Tommy sat calmly. Jackie didn’t have a notion what was going on, which seriously scared him. He held his peace.
Billy went on, ‘This fucker’s charmed. I mean, he’s been blessed by the fucking Pope or something.’ He hurried to add, ‘If I actually believed in that shite.’
Rab said, ‘He must have known. He had to have known. This kind of thing doesn’t happen twice.’
‘I don’t know, Rab,’ said Rainey. ‘Once is chance, twice is coincidence.’
‘You’re full of shite,’ said Rab, glaring.
Jackie said, ‘Look, I don’t mean to be slow but what are we talking about?’
‘You don’t mean to be a cunt, but you are,’ spat Rab.
The others stared at Rab and it looked like Simpson was burning through all the self-control he could muster not to launch himself at Jackie, all knees, fists and feet.
‘Enough!’ said
Billy. ‘This is exactly what I don’t want happening. Back-biting, people turning on each other.’ He pointed a finger at Rab as if training an attack dog. Simpson sucked at his tombstone teeth in aggravation, his skin the colour of old paper.
‘We’d another day and time to hit Cochrane,’ said Billy, turning to address Jackie. ‘Everything worked out, all the logistics. Rab’s video surveillance had shown a short window of opportunity when Cochrane’s bodyguards change over outside his house. Danny Moore was going to help set it up from the bus depot on the Short Strand. It was going to be quick and simple: shoot him on the street, use the confusion to get away. Sounds risky but it would’ve worked. Now the fucker’s street has a police and Army checkpoint set up in it, outside the RUC station. Another at the opposite end. The whole street’s sealed off.’
Jackie felt his pulse quicken and he willed the hairs on the back of his neck to lie back down. He forced his tongue, swollen and clumsy, to move.
‘And when were youse going to tell me about the job? I was going to be in on the hit, wasn’t I? Or am I out to pasture now?’
‘You’ll watch your fucking tone, Shaw,’ whispered Rab. ‘You’re just a fucking driver. A lackey. Lackeys don’t have a say.’
‘I’ll not tell you again,’ said Billy. He kept his eyes on Jackie and winked. ‘It’s no small thing, being the driver on a job. Man runs most of the risks of the trigger men without taking the glory.’ Then he turned to Rab and said, ‘You’ll be relying on this man to get you in and out when the time comes, so let’s have a bit of respect.’
‘So, what’s the next move?’
It was Tommy. His eyes were hooded, as if he were bored by the bickering.
‘We bide our time. I will see that bastard shot dead, and all good things come to he who waits.’ Billy turned to Rainey, sitting next to him on the sofa, a nodding dog. ‘Now, Ruger, I’m dying for a cuppa. Away and wet the tea, will ye?’
CHAPTER 20
Saturday
He awakes to the sound of his mobile phone’s shrill alarm at 08.30.
A couple of hours’ sleep. Better than nothing but he craves a strong coffee. Jackie drags his carcass out of bed and showers in scalding water, then towels himself off vigorously, his skin tingling. Calling room service, he orders a pot of hot coffee and dresses for the day ahead. As he pulls a sweater over his head, he takes a look at himself in the mirror.
He’s in good shape for his age. Jackie could give plenty younger than him a decent run in a half marathon. Last night has left him with no more than a small cut on his lower lip, but he’d winced as he towelled his hair off this morning. The legacy of Ray clouting him in Hartley’s office.
The coffee arrives, delivered by a pretty girl who vaguely reminds him of someone from the past, and he asks her if he might borrow a screwdriver from maintenance as he has a problem with the wheels on the bottom of his suitcase. The girl smiles and says she’ll take care of it, not noticing that he doesn’t actually have a suitcase, only a holdall.
Taking stock of his situation as he drinks his coffee, Jackie concludes that things are pretty grim. He’s due to fly to England in two days and, before then, is expected to kill two powerful players in the UDA, Billy Tyrie and Rab Simpson. He is no closer to achieving either hit and probably has MI5 watching him day and night.
What to do, he thinks, but take the initiative?
The pretty girl returns with the screwdriver. Five minutes after she leaves he throws a jacket on, locks the room and goes for a walk in the grounds of the hotel, all wide expanses of lawn edged by clumps of trees and bushes. The trees are almost bare as winter approaches. He wanders along the perimeter, keeping an eye out for anyone following or hotel security cameras. No one is there and the cameras are pointing towards the hotel, or the fence that rings the property. A little before the fence, beyond the skeletal trees, is a small, sunken stream with a shallow but steep bank edging it, below the range of the cameras’ view.
Jackie wanders towards the stream then turns, having another quick check for anyone watching him. A cook walks around the corner of the building with cigarette and lighter in hand. There is no one else outside. Dropping to a crouch, he eases himself quickly over the edge of the bank. Digging in his heels to arrest his fall, he makes his way down to the water and the small branch he left upright in the darkness in the wee small hours, wedged in the silt of the stream bed as a marker. Rolling up his sleeve, he digs under the silt and finds the dark package he has hidden. The revolver is carefully wrapped in a plastic film then sealed in a plastic bag. Glancing up at the lip of the bank to check he is alone, Jackie removes the gun. It and the rounds inside are dry.
He buries the plastic and tucks the gun into his jacket pocket, then picks his way carefully along the stream to a point a few yards away from the gate of the hotel, where the lip of the bank is crowded with shrubbery. The hotel cameras are trained on the gate several yards away and the area is quiet. After scrambling up the bank, he walks on to the driveway leading back up to the front door of the hotel and makes for his car. He has his hands in his pockets, negating the heavy sag that would be clearly visible thanks to the .357 Magnum.
Nearing his car, he sees a man standing by a flower bed having a smoke. When the man sees him coming from the direction of the gates, he stares for a beat. The Toyota was driven back by Ray last night, and Jackie had to wait in his room before slinking his way through the grounds and burying the revolver. As Jackie opens the Toyota’s door and climbs in, the young Five man now on baby-sitting duty throws the cigarette on the ground and says something under his breath. Jackie puts the car in gear and heads for the city.
#
Ardenlee Avenue is a broad, tree-lined artery connecting the Ravenhill Road around its mid-point with the Cregagh Road to the east. Once a modest middle-class area with a mix of professionals, civil servants and self-starters, the real estate at its Ravenhill end has increased significantly in worth. Large, three-storey Victorian structures or bulky, squat detached houses are the order of the day. Jackie parks his car in a cul-de-sac a couple of minutes’ walk away. Evading surveillance is generally easier on foot. As is breaking and entering.
He walks to a broad expanse of school playing fields, the property of a preparatory school for Belfast’s sole public school. It is 09.30 now, but the street is still quiet as he slips through a gap in the railings and strolls around the periphery of the fields, keeping an eye out for anyone following. A school minibus is parked near a small concrete structure he takes to be changing rooms. A rival school ready for a rugby match.
When he exits the fields through the open gates, Ardenlee Avenue is ahead, running across the top of a short street. Jackie makes for it at a good pace. Turning on to Ardenlee, he finds himself in the middle of its affluent stretch. He sees Audis and Mercedes parked in driveways. And there, parked two houses down opposite where Jackie stands, is a silver Porsche. In a sense, it is just as out of place among all of the modest but expensive automobiles as it was on a small terraced side street off the lower Newtownards Road.
Rab Simpson’s house is the last of a slew of large detached homes next to a row of tall Victorian townhouses. A narrow alleyway separates the property from the first of the townhouses and, Jackie knows, continues behind them. Jackie makes a pass on the other side of the street, taking in the exterior of Simpson’s property. There is a camera above and to the right of the front door, another perched on the eight-foot wall running along the alley-side of the house. A six-or-seven-foot brick wall surrounds the garden at the front. No doubt there are another couple of cameras at the rear.
Jackie walks for another thirty yards, stops and checks his mobile. Satisfied that any tail or surveillance unit has lost him, he crosses over the avenue and doubles back. As he nears Simpson’s place he hunches his shoulders and slouches, taking in the front of the property out of the corner of his eye. He can see a security alarm box above the large bay window at the front of the house.
Jackie
walks on past the row of Victorian townhouses next to Simpson’s home. At the end of the row is the other end of the alleyway which curves behind the houses. He enters the alley, looking for all the world as if he belongs. Behind the houses, high brick walls crowd in on either side of the narrow concrete walkway. The highest floors of the townhouses can be glimpsed above the wall on one side, the tops of trees in expansive gardens on the other.
As he walks towards Simpson’s place at the end of the alley, Jackie sees a discarded, empty plastic crate. He picks it up and carries it with him. Near the end of the alley is a large green wheelie bin, half-full. He lifts it to prevent the wheels causing a small racket on the rough concrete and carries it a couple of yards to the high wall of Simpson’s property. Two cameras are positioned on top of the wall, taking in the path leading from Ardenlee Avenue, and Simpson’s back garden.
Jackie works fast, nervous that anyone passing the end of the alley will see him. He props the wheelie bin next to the wall of Simpson’s property, below the cameras. Ducking out of sight of the avenue again, he shoves the revolver deep into the back waistband of his jeans. The last thing he needs is for it to fall out in the next thirty seconds. Next, he carries the crate to the foot of the wheelie bin. Then Jackie backs up, takes a run at the crate and springs from it on to the lid of the bin, bouncing on the plastic and levering himself on to the top of the brick wall. His stomach flat on the lip of the wall, he quickly yanks the wire leads out of each camera then drops into the garden.
He estimates there are five or six yards of lawn to the window at the rear, north-eastern corner of the house. The room behind it is darkened and unoccupied. Jackie takes the mobile Simpson gave him out of his jacket pocket and, concealed by shrubbery, texts: Trouble. Need meet now, Low N’Ads Rd club. Will bethere in 10 mins. Mobile on silent mode,he places it on the earth at his feet and takes the Magnum revolver from his waistband. No further cameras cover the patch of garden between him and the window. The wall is high enough, the garden big enough and the neighbours far enough, that Jackie should be unseen if he makes it to the window, and there is no sign of guard dogs. Things didn’t exactly work out with Shanty’s terrier, after all. The thought of McKee drives a dull, cold wedge through his stomach. After ensuring the rounds are in the chamber, he tests the trigger pressure of the gun.
