by John Steele
He stopped to look back rather than risk stumbling on the uneven ground and saw that he was right. He had lost sight of Declan and another man in the murk of the inner park but the man in leather jacket and blue jeans was giving chase. He raised his gun at the sight of Jackie. Jackie took off again.
He’d run, walked, biked and played in this park countless times as a child. He’d fumbled with girls as a teenager in the very bushes where he’d hidden from the triggermen. It seemed surreal that he was now running for his life through the trees and shrubs where he’d played at soldier as a boy. Adrenaline coursed through his body and he felt no pain in his nose from the head-butt, but he tripped on a huge tree root erupting from the grass at the foot of a massive elm. To his own amazement he didn’t go down but stumbled, pitching forward with his body parallel to the ground, before regaining control of his stride. They were approaching another large thicket of foliage partly hiding an angular black hulk rearing against the Prussian blue of the night sky: the old park-keeper’s house, now derelict. As he reached the large brick house now fallen to ruin, he vaulted the waist-high, rusted garden gate.
The house was the stuff of children’s nightmares. A decayed husk, all sharp pointed roof and hollow-eyed windows, inky black inside. The garden was wild and overgrown, a long-dead paddling pool discarded in a corner and a washing line still attached to one pole, the line trailing down and disappearing into the long grass. Jackie had to step over beer cans and bricks, ensuring he didn’t stand awkwardly on the rubble and go over on his ankle. He could hear the gunman approaching at a cautious pace and yanked the washing line from the pole. It gave with an angry snap. It was answered by a loud, sharp crack. He ducked into the grass, easing his jacket off, leaving him in a grey T-shirt. His breathing was an exhausted rasp. He saw the large man step into the garden. The man would see him in a second. Jackie’s jacket hung from his right hand. He almost laughed when he saw the killer’s face shrouded in a balaclava, a walking cliché. The man caught sight of the grey T-shirt and turned, the gun coming to bear on Jackie’s chest. Jackie spat an obscenity and threw his jacket at the gunman. The man fired three shots wildly, the muzzle flare tracing a short arc in the dark. Two bullets shredded the jacket. The third missed Jackie by inches; he felt the whisper of the round as it passed him. Then he ran at the man, getting in close. With the gunman momentarily confused, Jackie put everything he could into a shoulder charge. He connected, winding the man. Both of them went sprawling in the long grass. Then, gripping the rope, he encircled the gunman’s neck with the washing line and moved awkwardly behind the killer. At first he thought the thin line wouldn’t find purchase but, after a moment, it bit into the wool of the balaclava. There was a rasp as the gunman’s windpipe felt the sudden, crushing pressure. The killer dropped his weapon and clawed at the line.
Jackie grimaced and shoved a knee into the man’s back. They both sank slowly down in the grass and he kept pressure on the man’s spine, using his knee for leverage as he felt the life seeping from his pursuer. His fingers felt as though they might be severed as the taut rope gouged them, but his mind was blank. Something had taken over, some animal rage, and he couldn’t stop himself killing this man. Even if he wanted to.
Then two large shadows appeared and rough voices ordered him to stop. He saw more guns, one of which he dimly recognised. The new arrivals levelled their weapons at him and shouted. Their voices were a loud, brusque clamour in the stillness of the park and he snapped back to reality. A Ruger Security Six revolver. Gannex jackets. A Heckler & Koch MP5 sub-machine gun. The taller of the two policemen leaned forward and gently but firmly prised the rope from his hands.
CHAPTER 26
Saturday
‘Jesus, Jackie. What have you done?’
A hand, shaking slightly, hovers over Sarah’s mouth and he can see she’s swallowing hard. He wonders if he shouldn’t have let things be and not called. But if things go badly later, he doesn’t want to never have seen his last remaining blood relative again, his big sis. He wonders at the emotion welling in him when they’ve hardly seen each other over the last two decades. But, blood is blood.
Even the dog walkers are sitting this one out as the weather has taken a turn for the worse. The sky is so filthy-grey it looks like the Almighty has spilt ash from His fag end all over it, and the clouds are straining hard for a heavy downpour. Jackie and Sarah sit on a bench in the grounds of Stormont Parliament Buildings in the late afternoon while the city gets its dinners ready and checks the night’s TV schedule. Up on the hill to their left sits the Portland stone facade with its six classical pillars, one for each county of Northern Ireland. Formerly Parliament buildings, now home of the power-sharing executive. The statue of Carson, from this distance, looks like he’s giving a two-fingered salute to the mucky weather.
Jackie gives her a lop-sided grin that spasms into a grimace as his bruised cheek rages at him. She flinches in sympathy.
‘There’s nothing permanent. I’ve had worse,’ he says, pointing to his face, ‘except for my nose. It hurts like hell.’
All Sarah can muster is, ‘Oh, Jackie.’
He takes her hand in his, shifts to face her on the bench and says, ‘I thought when I came home for Da’s funeral – I hoped – the past would be left well alone. It hasn’t been. It’s caught up to me and matters are coming to a head. Tonight.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means I’m going to put an end to some things.’
‘Some things, or someone?’
His stomach lurches: she thinks him capable of that. Then he realises that he is capable of that. Just ask Rab Simpson. Danny McCardle too.
At least she doesn’t know. She never will, if he has anything to do with it.
‘I’m just going to take care of some stuff from the past. You were never really touched by my job when I was in Bendigo Street with Da. I didn’t want either of youse involved and there’s no reason for that to change now.’
‘But we were involved, Jackie, whether you wanted us to be or not. How could we not be, knowing what you were living with, going through? I’m your sister, for God’s sake. He was your dad. We both loved you.’ She says, quickly, ‘Love you.’
‘Sarah, I know it wasn’t easy on you carrying what I did while I was undercover. And then you had to deal with the fallout when I had to disappear.’
‘Da was fine when you left.’ She sees his expression and adds, ‘I mean he coped.’
‘Coping wasn’t exactly his strong point. If he had a strength it was the amount of abuse his liver could take. I thought he’d completely collapse after I had to disappear. More out of fear of Tyrie and Simpson than anything.’
‘You think he was scared of that shower of cowboys?’ says Sarah, laughing. It’s a hard, bitter sound. ‘Sure, he thought they were scared of him, the father of Jackie Shaw. You’ll never know how proud Dad was of you. Me too.’
She squeezes his damaged hand.
‘To live with those animals and risk what you did? There’s not many could do it, Jackie. But you did. And because of who you were, because you were a policeman, Da never thought for one second that crowd would touch him if they knew the truth. For all their violence he knew them for the cowards they are.’
‘It’s a quaint thought,’ says Jackie. He isn’t sure that Rab was a coward. That flavour of psycho isn’t really scared of anything. Billy, he doesn’t know. But he’ll find out in a couple of hours. ‘But I didn’t talk to him enough, Sarah. I didn’t trust him. I never told him anything because I didn’t trust him.’ He looks at her with a frown. ‘I thought he might speak out of turn in a bar some night and get me killed, maybe himself and you, too. I thought he was just a drunk.’
‘He was a drunk,’ says Sarah, ‘but he was your dad and he’d have done anything for you. Anything to protect you.’
She can see that he’s retreating into his head, and she knows that isn’t always a healthy place for him to be. She shakes his hands to bring
him out of himself.
‘He told me once, you came into some pub drunk, ready for murder. He said a couple of times he was worried you were doing things that didn’t sit right with you, or you were fighting with yourself over something. In his way, he tried to calm you down, or take a bit of the stress off. But he was never good at expressing himself, especially after Mum passed.’ Sarah fishes in her bag for a tissue. ‘He apologised to me, you know. When he knew he was dying. He said he was sorry that he couldn’t leave much behind other than the house, but he was glad that Tom had done well and we were okay financially.’
She wipes her eyes, but the tissue is already damp from the drizzle enveloping them.
‘He talked about you. How he had nothing to pass on to you. No heirlooms. But then he smiled and said he hoped the one thing he might have passed on to you was Belfast.’ Her brow furrows. ‘The Belfast he remembered. As it was and could be. I think that was it.’
Thoughts of a car ride through the city and stories of Ma Copley and ‘Stormy’ Weather swim through Jackie’s mind. The Markets, Sandy Row, the Shankill, and his da sitting next to him, sharing his past and that of the city. And the story of a beating at the hands of the Army and a moment of kindness from a republican gunman.
Jackie is blinking hard, trying to focus on the sodden ground at his feet. There’s nothing he can think to say. Sarah wraps her arms around him and hugs him tightly. They rock back and forth on the bench and he blurts out, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ over and over. It almost hurts more when his sister tells him it’s okay, she loves him, he’ll always be her brother, no matter what.
‘Why don’t you just turn away from all this, Jackie? Come home with me. We’ll have dinner, you, me, Thomas and the kids and you can stay in our house. We’ll spend the day together tomorrow and you can fly back to England in the evening. In a wee while we’ll come over and see you.’
He smiles and pulls away from her a little to look into her eyes. The fact is he can’t because, if the past has been festering away for twenty years, it could fester for twenty more. And he can’t leave family here without taking care of Tyrie. He has to know that chapter is closed. But he hates having to disappoint her again.
‘No, Sarah. I can’t. And you can’t be touched by this.’
‘I am touched by this, Jackie. I’m your sister, how can I not be? And Dad was touched by it too back then, but that was okay. That was okay for both of us, because back then it seemed the right thing to do. It seemed necessary. But now? Can’t you just let it go?’
Maybe she’s right. If he just disappeared again, would the machine grind on, Tyrie and Cochrane ruling their own little fiefdoms and the rest of the country left at peace? Or would Sarah and her family suffer? Billy was never interested in targeting families, and he’d done what was required: Rab Simpson is dead, by his hands.
But what about Cochrane? Jackie killed one of his too. Would he be benevolent and leave Jackie’s family be? And Eileen? If Billy ever found out about Jackie’s affair with her there’d be hell to pay; would Tyrie turn on Sarah and hers? Who would bring Tyrie to account for what he did? Hartley? MI5 weren’t interested in prosecution, only information, ‘keeping a lid on’. They wouldn’t be interested in protecting Jackie’s kin, either, if there wasn’t an angle for them involved. No, the past has to be laid to rest. This has to be done.
‘I’m sorry, Sarah.’
He expects her to rail against him. Instead, she looks sad and resigned and small.
‘It was twenty years ago. You’re twenty years older, you and the rest. But never the wiser. Men in this country hardly ever learn and they never grow up. And it’s the women who are left with the consequences.’
She’s right. The number of widows across Northern Ireland. The number of kids raised by a single mother. He thinks if his father had gone first, his mother would have coped better than Sam ever did, God love him. Billy has a wife and two kids. Cochrane is a husband.
There is nothing he can say, so he stands and manages, ‘Come on. I’ll see you for that Sunday dinner tomorrow,’ because he doesn’t want to leave with a silence between them.
The rain is gathering strength now. She stands wearily and hooks her arm through his. They walk back to the austere gates of the Stormont estate, their cars parked just beyond. Both of them are soaking. She doesn’t comment on his change of car, although he knows she will have noticed. She has always been sharp in her observations, but perhaps she has reached a point where she would rather not know any more.
They embrace below the giant stone posts and black and gold wrought iron, all flames and lions. The gates to the kingdom. She’s crying. It is almost camouflaged by the rain.
‘Be careful Jackie.’
Then she gets into her car and pulls out into the busy current of early evening traffic.
#
The Claddagh ring comes off his finger with a sharp protest, biting the lacerated skin of his finger. He breathes in with a hiss as it comes away, and drops to his haunches next to freshly turned soil, a rich earthy musk coming from the ground. Roselawn Cemetery is empty and the light has all but faded. Jackie is self-conscious as he stares at the grave, trying to envisage the man lying six feet below. He hadn’t had a chance to look at the open casket before the funeral. Hadn’t really wanted to because all of the memories that had survived the bullshit filter in his head were of a much younger Sammy Shaw. Fishing off Ardglass Harbour. Kicking a football. Aborted camping trips in rain-lashed Tullymore Forest. A Northern Irish childhood in the company of a loving father.
He almost loses his balance as he grasps for a small stick to his right, really no more than a twig. Then he places the Claddagh ring heart-down on the earth and, his tongue poking out in concentration, positions the end of the stick on the flat silver.
Splinters of memory: a thin sharp object and Rab Simpson’s gaping mouth. He drives them away, shaking his head and whispering curses. Then he leans down hard on the stick, pushing the ring deep into the sodden soil so that his fingers are coated in dirt when he’s finished burying the silver with his father. He’s glad it’s still raining as he raises his face to the sky, the fresh fall of drizzle washing the tears from his cheeks. Then he rises with a groan and walks towards the car, a short clamber over the cemetery gates away.
#
Around him, the city is gearing up for a Saturday night on the town. Packs of young men and women are entering off licences, stocking up on early-evening lubrication before they hit the bars and clubs later in the night. Fathers and families are tripping out of takeaways with Chinese, Indian or deep-fried food, the Saturday-night treat while they hunker down in front of the TV. In the four quarters of Belfast local pubs are filling ready for the latest instalments of the ongoing soap operas of life in the close-knit communities of Sydenham, Falls, Shankill, Tigers Bay and New Lodge. And Ravenhill.
Jackie parks on the Ballymiscaw Road, a thread climbing to the rolling Craigantlet Hills. He sits in darkness with the city spread before him. Belfast is a huge, shimmering wishbone, clinging to the river and branching out to embrace the sprawling swell of Belfast Lough on its Antrim and Down shores. He can see the glass dome of Victoria Square, lit from within. The glass and steel tombstone of the Obel building sits across from the Odyssey Centre and new Titanic Centre. And towering over them all stand the giants: Samson and Goliath, the massive gantry cranes in the shipyard.
Jackie inserts his sim card into his mobile again and checks for texts or missed calls. Nothing. He throws Rab’s mobile in the grass next to the car and puts its sim card into a plastic bag lying on the passenger seat. He performs a last-minute check that he’s got everything he needs.
Then he is ready. He puts the car in first, eases onto the road and begins the steady descent into the east of the city.
CHAPTER 27
1993
Having taken the rope from his hands, the tall cop proceeded to shove Jackie to the ground, giving him a mouthful of earth. He heard a pained gru
nt, probably the IRA gunman getting similar treatment, then a bored, rehearsed declaration from the policeman that they were RUC, and the legal warning every peeler learns by heart.
Jackie heard the hoarse rasp of cuffs being tightened. A few moments later he got the same treatment. There was a swish of feet trampling overgrown grass and the babble of voices some way off. He heard the low squawk of police radio and then he was being lifted by several strong hands and shoved towards the gate of the abandoned garden. A couple of uniforms were milling around in the area of the park next to the deserted house. Then a man in a suit and overcoat materialised out of the dark.
Gordon Orr said, ‘Are you all right?’
Jackie sighed in pure relief. He nodded as Gordon gestured for a uniform to take the handcuffs off again.
‘Sorry about that,’ said Gordon. ‘Just a wee show for the other boys we’ve lifted. No reason to let them know you’re a cop if they don’t already.’
‘No bother. Your timing couldn’t have been better.’
‘For you or the other fella?’
Jackie rubbed his right wrist where the cuffs had gouged into the flesh. It was a fair question, and begged another: would he have taken a life if the cavalry hadn’t shown up? As far as he’d been concerned, only one of them was walking back out of that long, wild grass. He might have killed the first gunman with a second shot if the Walther hadn’t gone flying. It was a question he didn’t want to contemplate. He was relieved he hadn’t taken a life.
‘Who are the uniforms?’
‘HMSU.’
Jackie was thankful there hadn’t been any further violence. Headquarters Mobile Support Unit was trained by the SAS, hardly known for their restraint.
