by James R Benn
I went through the Taggart file I had been provided. It was obvious it was only part of what they had on him. The file cover was blank and smelled of fresh-cut paper along the edges, as if it had just come out of the box. I thumbed through what they'd given me, certain that anything important was sitting in the original restricted file on the other side of those iron bars.
There was the standard background history about his family in Dublin. The first surprise was that his mother, Polly, had been Protestant, disowned by her family when she married Brian Taggart, a Catholic. Jack Taggart had been raised a Roman Catholic and left home in 1916 when he joined the Irish Volunteers to fight for independence. His father died two years later in the influenza epidemic, and in 1920 his mother remarried--to a Protestant this time. The report noted that the marriage had been arranged by her family, so she must have been taken back into the fold at some point.
In 1921, shortly after the birth of their new child, Polly and her husband were caught in a cross fire on a Dublin street between the IRA and the Royal Irish Constabulary. Both were killed. Not an uncommon event, unfortunately. I wondered what share of the hatred Red Jack carried came from the losses he endured in the first two decades of his life.
There were blank spaces in the chronological record before his service in the Spanish Civil War. After his return, minus most of the men he'd brought with him to fight in the Republican Brigade, he recovered from his physical wounds and drank his way through his emotional ones. He married and cleaned himself up. His wife had twins, and he obtained his position with the Irish Hospitals' Sweepstake. The report noted matter-of-factly that the sweepstake tickets sold in the U.S. provided a conduit for funds to be channeled back to the IRA, as Clan na Gael added significant sums to wire transfers as well as to the hard cash delivered across the Atlantic. Jack Taggart seemed to have been tamed by his marriage and his nearly legitimate job.
In early 1941, he dropped out of sight. His wife and two children no longer lived in Dublin, and the file showed no trace of their whereabouts. There were no surveillance photos. All the good stuff was hidden away. I figured that's when the IRA chief of staff sent him to Ulster to work with the IRA Northern Command. Maybe he brought his family with him, under an assumed name. Or perhaps they'd moved to one of the border counties, so he could slip across for a visit when things got too hot in Ulster. Wherever his family was, it must have been before the IRA chief of staff found out Red Jack had been cooking the books.
Two years later, Eddie Mahoney is sent north to set things right, and nothing works out the way anyone planned. Slaine O'Brien hobnobs with the likes of Jenkins and Taggart at the same time she's trying to keep a lid on sectarian violence. Mahoney is just doing his job, and before he can finish his Agatha Christie, he's facedown in a ditch. Sam Burnham and Pete Brennan are caught up in it somehow, and they end up dead before their time.
I opened the next file, the one Major Cosgrove had assembled containing details of unsolved incidents. The most recent was the murder of the RUC constable in Dromara. DI Carrick had just come from his funeral when I first met him. Four shots in the back, almost on his doorstep. Attributed to the IRA. No suspects.
A week before, the body of a Protestant member of the Ulster Volunteer Force--not that there were any Catholic members--was found on the outskirts of Castlereagh, just to the east of Belfast. A hood was tied over his head and he'd been shot twice in the heart. The report mentioned that he was thought to have split off from the Red Hand, dissatisfied with what he considered to be a lukewarm response to Republican violence. No suspects.
A garage had blown up in Shankill, the Catholic neighborhood in Belfast. The body of a man, burned beyond recognition, was found along with bits and pieces of bomb-making equipment. It appeared he had been bound to a chair and left to watch his own bomb explode. No suspects.
A British soldier killed, struck by a vehicle on a deserted road. Catholic, no suspects, may or may not have been connected with sectarian violence. The reports went on and on, about evenly divided between sides, the Catholics slightly higher in the corpse count. Some were obvious targets of opportunity, in the wrong place, presenting an easy kill. Others, like the bomb maker and the UVF man, were definite extremists, killers who would have taken many more lives. I could feel sorry for the poor soldier, run down walking a country road at night. But a guy making bombs? No, that was beyond me. IRA bombs had killed too many innocent civilians during their S-Plan, and I didn't want to read about any more mothers getting blown up while pushing baby carriages to market. The same went for the UVF guy, breaking away from the Red Hand. If they were too tame for him, he would have been certain to spark another wave of reprisal killings.
There were two other killings among all the other deaths that matched these two. Dangerous, extremists both, one IRA and one Red Hand. If I eliminated those, and the deaths that were possible accidents or attributed to more personal motives, there were very few left. The constable from Dromara and a Catholic dockworker from Belfast, beaten to death, the letters IRA carved in his forehead. Maybe one was payback for the other, or maybe the whole chain of events went back to the last century.
What was important was the pattern. Bad guys with big plans on both sides were ending up dead. And Slaine O'Brien was working with both Red Jack Taggart and Andrew Jenkins. Was she running her own assassination bureau? Who would be better at getting close to Republican or Unionist extremists? Were Jenkins and Taggart killing their own or sharing information, letting each other do the dirty work for MI-5?
And most important, was that such a bad idea? I couldn't say. Nothing was as it should be here. It was not the Ireland I had expected. I shut this file.
Adrian Simms's was last. His dossier wasn't restricted and looked worn at the edges, like any cop's personnel file. I leafed through copies of his application to join the RUC, a few minor commendations, and other police forms for expenses, lost property, all the usual chickenshit paperwork law enforcement bureaucracies love. But this wasn't his official RUC file. MI-5 seemed to be keeping tabs on the RUC. There was a report on his bank records, about a year old. He had nearly two hundred pounds saved, a nice sum, but nothing that signaled payoffs. One sheet was headed "Known Associations" and listed the County Down Orange Society, which nearly every Protestant belonged to. He'd worked for Jenkins Foods Ltd. when he first moved to the area. So that's how he'd come to be so chummy with Andrew Jenkins. There were several entries about his attempt to join the Royal Black Knights. Poor Adrian. I wondered if he was surprised to find he was ineligible because he had a Catholic skeleton in his closet.
Then I saw a familiar name. McBurney, my pal the snotty Protestant bank manager. A letter to him detailed the background check the Royal Black Knights had conducted into Adrian's family history in Dublin. He had been raised from the age of two by a widowed aunt after the death of his parents. He'd been brought up as a good Protestant in the Church of Ireland. His aunt and both parents had been Protestants, as well as his grandparents on both sides. It even noted that he moved north to Ulster when he was old enough to leave the care of his aunt, in order to live and work under British rule. The letter writer--it was unsigned--concluded that Adrian Simms would be an excellent candidate, except for one thing. There was a stepbrother from an earlier marriage, and that connection, even though no fault of Adrian's, precluded his acceptance. He went on to say that copies of birth certificates and other documents would follow. McBurney had mentioned those as well, but they weren't included in this file.
It didn't say which Protestant parent had committed the youthful indiscretion. It hadn't mattered; Simms was out, and his social-climbing wife had been unhappy. I guess he'd hoped that they wouldn't dig that far back. Maybe that was the reason he went north, to escape the Holy Roman stain on his family history.
No bank records, no photos, nothing to link Adrian Simms to anything incriminating. But I did have the word of a Catholic janitor that he'd seen Simms kidnap Pete Brennan near the Northern Bank
in Armagh. It would probably be the end of Micheal, or at least his job, if he spoke up against a Protestant RUC man who was friendly with Andrew Jenkins. I had to find another way. Simms was not going to escape justice. I shivered, the chill of the enclosed room seeping into my bones. I was sick at heart, wishing I didn't have to read these secret histories of betrayals, death, hate, and lost hope.
I thought again about the matched killings of extremists from both sides. It had a logic, a symmetry that made terrible sense to me. Balance. It was all about a very delicate balance.
Less than two years ago, back in Beantown, I would've thought such a thing crazy. Now I was in the lair of my family's sworn enemies, nodding my head at the soundness of the idea. Slaine O'Brien was doing her job, and doing it well. Did Cosgrove know? Or didn't he care how she got it done? There must have been lots of money involved but that probably wasn't important to MI-5. Getting the job done was. Keeping a lid on things so Allied troops could move peacefully through Northern Ireland on their way to the next invasion. But now somebody had thrown a monkey wrench into the works, and we had Krauts and a well-armed IRA faction to worry about.
I was going to have to confront Slaine about Taggart. Why hadn't she used her relationship with Taggart to recover the BARs? Was it possible that she had an arrangement to turn a blind eye when she needed him to carry out a killing? Or maybe he no longer had possession of the guns, didn't know where they were, and she saw no reason to end a useful arrangement. I thought it might be possible. But she'd nearly broken down when we were alone. Did that signal a more vulnerable side of her? Could the Slaine O'Brien I'd held in my arms do all this, conceive of all this, and see it through?
I might have to find out. I pushed back from the table, a feeling of intense weariness washing over me. I could have laid my head down on the hard wood surface and fallen asleep. I looked at my watch, and it was half past one. I was hungry and needed a cup of coffee.
"You want me to give these to you?" I said to Hawkins, gathering up the files.
"Yes, sir. Please pass them through the slot."
"Must be a lonely job down here," I said, still trying to get a response from the man.
"The day does sometimes go slowly, sir, but I don't mind. Not much else to do."
"Why not ask for a transfer?"
"Here's why," he said, rapping on his right leg, the sound of knuckles on wood echoing in the room. "Lost my leg at Narvik. Lost my wife and son in Coventry when the Germans bombed it. There's not much for me to do but file papers and be glad I still have a job to do. Anything else, Lieutenant?"
"No, nothing. Thanks for your help. Sorry, about everything."
"Same here," he said, and with that I understood why he said so little.
CHAPTER * TWENTY EIGHT
I FOUND MAJOR Cosgrove and Slaine waiting for me. In a rare moment of courtesy, the major invited me to lunch in the Stormont officers' mess. I followed them upstairs to more open and elegant surroundings. The dining room was paneled in dark walnut, buffed to a high shine. Soft carpets graced the floor and paintings hung along one wall, huge landscapes of castles and knights on horseback. Probably Irish lands and English castles.
It was very civilized, so civilized that it was hard to believe we were only two floors above evidence linking Slaine O'Brien, if not all of MI-5, to murder. I stared at an English knight on one of the canvases, his black armor gleaming and a long sword held out before him. He was right over Cosgrove's head, one black knight watching over the other. I decided this was not the time or place to accuse either of them of their crimes.
"Well, Boyle, did you find anything of value?"
"There's very good background material in those files. Could be helpful, I suppose. But no smoking gun."
"What did you expect to find in our file on Constable Simms?" Slaine asked. "He's never been investigated for anything; there's just the usual accumulation of data."
"You've looked at it?"
"Yes, to see what you found so interesting about the man. There's not much, I'm afraid."
"No. Major Cosgrove, did you know Adrian Simms was blackballed when he asked to join the Royal Black Knights?" A waiter appeared with the wine Cosgrove had ordered, and we waited in silence as he poured.
"I had no idea. I am not an active member. I travel too much and I can only attend meetings sporadically. But membership is useful for staying in touch with that stratum of Ulster society."
"Which stratum is that?"
"Those Unionists who are not bomb throwers. They want to maintain their connection with Great Britain but at the same time they wish for a stable society here, for all."
"Like the banker, McBurney," I said.
"Exactly. Good man, McBurney."
"He actually employs a Catholic. The bank janitor."
"Things won't change overnight, Boyle. Hiring one is better than killing one, I say. Don't you agree?"
I didn't answer. I raised my glass, thought of a few Irish toasts, then thought better of it and downed half the wine.
"I may see McBurney tomorrow evening at Brownlow House, if I can get away. Some sort of event honoring members from the American lodges. I shall ask him about your suspicions."
"I hope you have better luck than I did."
"So were the files a waste of time, Billy?" Slaine asked.
"No, I got to see a nice picture of you. They brought in the surveillance photo of your meeting with Jenkins. Do you document all your contacts like that?"
"Yes. It's part of our record keeping. It comes in handy if we're building a case file. And photographs can be used in other ways if the informant ceases to be cooperative."
"Blackmail?"
"Don't be melodramatic, Boyle!" Cosgrove said. "Once an informant betrays his organization, we need to keep him on a tight leash. He needs to know if he tries to run, we will show the photographs to those who will be interested. It's all part of the game. They come to us in the first place, after all."
The soup arrived. It was potato and leek, steaming hot, and very good.
"How did Jenkins become your informant?"
"Ancient history, Billy. The soup is good, isn't it?"
"So he's been one a long time?"
"Boyle, it is bad form to discuss informants, even here in the officers' mess. One never knows," Cosgrove said, glancing at a passing waiter.
"Sorry. Professional curiosity, that's all. Without mentioning any names, how do you feel about depending on informants? Back in Boston I was always worried that they might turn on me, and the next meeting would be a setup."
"You have to be careful, it's true," Slaine said. "We have many sources of information, though. I think I'd hear if something was afoot. And you forget, Billy, we are not the police."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that retribution would be mine," Cosgrove said, slurping down the last of his soup.
"Did one of those sources tell you about the murder of Pete Brennan?" I asked. "You never said how you got word so quickly. Was it the RUC?"
"Ha! Do you call your FBI every time there is a murder in Boston? I think not," Cosgrove said.
Slaine stayed quiet as the waiter removed the soup bowls.
"So who was it?" I asked.
"Excuse me, sir," a waiter said, handing Cosgrove an envelope. "Your office said to give this to you straightaway." Cosgrove tore it open, read it, and handed the paper to Slaine.
"Speak of the devil," he said. "Andrew Jenkins is dead."
"Oh, that can't be true," Slaine said.
"What can't be true? That's he's dead?" I asked.
"No," she said, looking me in the eye. "That he killed himself. It says he was found hung from a rafter in a small warehouse in Lisburn. Andrew Jenkins will have a lot of things to answer for in the next life but the sin of suicide will not be one of them."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Mr. Jenkins spent his life clawing his way to the top," Cosgrove said. "As you've discovered, he provided us with certain in
formation. Often that information benefited us, and he was well paid for it. Other times, the information he gave us benefited him. He was a man who held only one life dear. His. I quite agree--he was not the suicidal type."
A waiter came to the table, three plates of lamb chops and boiled potatoes at the ready.
"Oh dear," said Cosgrove as he pushed his chair back. "Those look delicious."
* * *
ON A PERSONAL level, I thought Cosgrove was more distraught over the idea of the lamb chops going back to the kitchen than the image of Jenkins dangling at the end of a rope. I was wistful about them myself. It took him about five minutes to get a staff car and driver for us, and then we were off, exiting the formal gardens surrounding Stormont and heading for the main road that would take us south to Lisburn.
One of the first things I saw was a bombed-out stadium. It looked like it had just been hit.
"What's that?" I asked.
"The Oval. It's a football stadium. Not American football, the real thing," Slaine said. "The Germans bombed it in 1941. They were probably aiming for the dockyards or the railway station and released their bombs too early."
"Bad luck for Glentoran," the driver said. "I'm a supporter."
"That's a team, Billy, and he's a fan," Slaine explained.
"Thanks. I'm a Red Sox supporter myself. Ever hear of them?"
"You mean like garters?" the driver asked.
"Never mind."
Cosgrove laughed and I gazed at the gritty city landscape. We were nearing the Belfast dockyards, one of the busiest harbor areas in Europe now. Troopships, tankers, Liberty Ships, and destroyers were lined up to unload or refuel. Trucks rumbled by, heavy with the material of war brought by ships. A column of GIs crossed the road in front of us until finally an MP let us through.
"Have you seen all this before, Boyle?"
