White Church, Black Mountain

by Thomas Paul Burgess

  Then the whole Pandora’s box of state-sanctioned Loyalist murder gangs might be flung open.

  Heads would have to roll.

  Senior people would have to fall on their swords for the sake of the collective good.

  Christ, the Chief Constable would eviscerate the both of them in a heartbeat.

  And there was Joe Breslin.

  Eban Barnard was unaware of it, but both officers knew that he was still alive.

  Knew of his whereabouts.

  Where he lived and worked.

  Had already written to him as standard procedure since Barnard had requested his case be reinvestigated.

  It was now a matter of record.

  The poor cunt was between a rock and a hard place through no fault of his own.

  How could he possibly know that one of his assailants would go on to become one of the most senior officers in the Royal Ulster Constabulary?

  They would have to bring him in.

  Question him on the incident.

  Open it all up again for the guy in an attempt to clarify Eban’s story and possibly bring Alex’s accomplice to trial.

  The two policemen’s minds were racing.

  All the while, Watson was trying to read Coulter’s expression.

  They had worked together for some sixteen years and had established what he believed to be a solid professional relationship.

  But this was beyond the pale. Virgin territory.

  Trying now to assess the man’s character in the face of these unique circumstances, Dan Watson realised he knew little or nothing about which way Sam Coulter might jump.

  Nothing could be taken for granted.

  If only he hadn’t invited him to stay in the room.

  Perhaps he could have fixed all this himself.

  Nobody would ever need to know.

  Lean on Eban Barnard.

  Find something to bring pressure to bear.

  Let sleeping dogs lie.

  Bury it.

  *

  In their silence, Eban could feel tangible vindication.

  He could smell their fear and confusion as they wrestled with the potentialities of what he had told them. He could read the men’s thought processes. Could ascertain the wheels and cogs whizzing around behind their eyes as they considered their options.

  The harsh strip lighting in the room seemed to glare even brighter.

  It was as if all three had been caught in the dazzling burn of a camera’s flashbulb and held there.

  Eban massaged the throbbing in his left upper arm, and smiling wryly, broke the silence.

  He couldn’t resist it.

  “Well Inspector Watson… got your attention now?”

  There was no reply.

  “Still want me to talk to a shrink?”

  “Why didn’t you warn him?” It was Coulter.

  Eban had forgotten that the other man was in the room.

  “What?”

  “Why didn’t you warn your brother? You might have saved his life.”

  Watson thought he could read his colleague’s play.

  Guilt.

  He figured that Coulter was on board with a damage limitation brief that he himself favoured. That the sergeant was about to concoct some nonsense about withholding evidence leading to a murder. That Eban Barnard was, de facto, an accomplice in his brother’s assassination.

  Brilliant!

  But when Dan Watson looked into Coulter’s face, he wasn’t so sure.

  What he saw there was someone genuinely trying to understand.

  Someone who was functioning on an emotional level, not a professional one.

  “Why didn’t you warn him?” the sergeant asked once again.

  “They shot him within two days of Gatusso leaving,” said Eban. “Look at the dates.”

  “You could have warned him.”

  “Oh really, sergeant?” said Eban defensively. “And say what? ‘I know what you did, I saw you all those years ago… and now I’ve told the Provos about it!’”

  He wanted to laugh dismissively but nothing would come.

  “You could have used the confidential telephone line and—”

  “ENOUGH!” screamed Eban. “If you want to arrest me on some bullshit charge, then do it… that’s why I came in here in the first place, remember? But we all know that’s not going to make it go away… right, Inspector Watson?”

  Now that it was out and he had no further use for his reluctant confessor, he wanted to see the detective squirm.

  Watson was staring intently at a coffee stain on the thin grey carpet at Eban’s feet, still considering all the angles. He opened one of the folders on his desk and stared at it for a long time.

  Finally he spoke. “What I’m asking you now, I’m asking you as a favour… for the force… for the men who looked up to him. Don’t take this any further. What good can it possibly do?”

  Eban replied caustically, “We’ll let the family of his victim be the judge of that, will we?”

  He rose as if to leave and extended his hand toward the folder Watson had been reading.

  “I’ll be on my way… or are you going to charge me with aiding and abetting a terrorist organisation in the murder of your colleague?”

  Watson was marshalling his temper. He had decided on an appeal to the man’s reason.

  “Don’t be so bloody stupid! From here it looks like a bloody mess from start to finish. Leave it alone… Christ, look what it’s done to you, man; carrying this around with you for so long!”

  “Maybe I might borrow some of your professional detachment, detective,” replied Eban sarcastically.

  Watson shook his head. “Alex was a young man—”

  “So was I,” said Eban bitterly.

  “I’m not seeking to justify what he did… but times were different then…”

  “Yeah… right… is this the new beginning we’ve been promised: turning a blind eye to sectarian murder?”

  “Joseph Breslin didn’t die. He survived the attack…”

  Eban Barnard was dumbstruck. Elated.

  “Joseph Breslin? His name was Joseph Breslin?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Not dead?”

  “He lives with his mother and sister. I have the address.”

  “How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”

  “Why would I lie?” He closed the file and handed it to him.

  “Keep it. If there’s a message in all of this, it’s to let it go… get on with the rest of your life. That’s what Joe Breslin has done… why can’t you?”

  Eban’s head was reeling with the news that the man he had seen tortured and left for dead was still alive. He could finally look again into this man’s eyes and tell him why he had run.

  Why he didn’t help him.

  Ask his forgiveness.

  If he had the courage.

  After all these years.

  He pointed at the tape recorder on the table.

  “I want all of what’s recorded. I want it transcribed… I want it all written down somewhere as a matter of record!”

  Coulter came from behind him, placing a hand on his arm.

  “For Alex’s reputation… He was your only brother, for Christ sake… there must have been something between you?”

  “Something between us? Aye… about ten years in age and a whole miserable fucking lifetime ever since.”

  48

  “And how does that make you feel?” asked Dr Amanda McCabe, fingers linked, hands below her chin, eyebrows raised in benevolent inquiry.

  Emily twisted her tear-stained handkerchief a few more times around her fingers and tried hard for something to say.

  “Sad, I suppose.”

  She had been meeting with her psychotherapist every week for the last month and frankly was beginning to question the validity of this increase in visits and expenditure.

  “And your mother… how does she feel about all of this?”

  “She says I can g
o back and stay with her at any time; just to say the word.”

  There was a long silence.

  Dr Amanda McCabe was thinking about attending little Audrey Thompson’s birthday party. She was wondering whether enough time had passed since her own daughter Katie and her two friends had terrorised young Audrey in a cyber-bullying incident on social media.

  “I mean, I haven’t decided definitely or anything…” prompted Emily.

  Dr Amanda McCabe looked directly at her with blank eyes and nodded in vacant affirmation.

  “I have been looking at Tuesday’s education supplement in the Guardian. There’s a job in Dudley, in a primary school there, that would suit me.”

  Another long silence.

  Emily felt awkward and attempted some humour. “Although, if you know the Dudley accent, well, it’s like learning a foreign language…”

  Dr Amanda McCabe beat out a little rhythmic tattoo with a pencil on her front teeth.

  She was thinking about her husband Gary’s new secretary and whether she should be worried about their lunchtime squash games together.

  “I have been working on my children’s book – you know,The Witch; Rag-Nag-Hag-Bag – Rosemary says she may know an illustrator…”

  Another long silence.

  “I know that you don’t think she presents a strong role model for young girls, but – the witch, I mean… not Rosemary…” Emily trailed off.

  Dr Amanda McCabe reached for her pad and pen and wrote something down.

  Emily was encouraged.

  “I don’t know if I should tell Eban how seriously I’m thinking about moving back to England. After all, we’ve talked before about how I’m not responsible for anyone else’s life… or their behaviour…”

  Emily bit her bottom lip.

  “I know no-one can make me feel how I sometimes do; I know you said I choose to feel that way.”

  Dr Amanda McCabe looked directly at her once again with blank eyes, and nodded in vacant affirmation.

  “It’s just, I’m not sure I can go on with this level… this lack of commitment…” She was tearing up again.

  “My mother keeps going on about me not getting any younger…”

  Emily blew her nose and looked at Dr Amanda McCabe, desperate for validation.

  Another long silence.

  Eventually the therapist leaned forward, proffering a box of Kleenex. Emily’s stomach tightened.

  Please don’t ask, ‘and how does that make me feel?’ Please don’t ask, ‘and how does that make me feel?’ Please don’t ask, ‘and how does that make me feel?’…

  “And how does that make you feel?” asked Dr Amanda McCabe, sitting back into her chair, fingers linked, hands below her chin, eyebrows raised in benevolent inquiry.

  49

  Unbeknownst to Emily Atkins, across town in the Royal Victoria Hospital Cardiology Unit, Eban Winston Barnard was having to face up to more hard truths.

  Mr Ashook Khan had travelled from the interior-landscaped gardens and Japanese fountains of his private clinic in Malone Road and was slumming it for two of his scheduled days a week with the NHS proletariat.

  “You seem a little agitated Mr Barnard… are you under any stress at the moment?”

  Eban had to stop himself from laughing out loud.

  ‘Stress’ wouldn’t begin to approach; couldn’t begin to describe how he had been feeling.

  But he’d had enough professions of his circumstances and his angst to do him a lifetime and he wasn’t about to engage this balding, dapper, rotund consultant with any more of it.

  “You mean other than from having to attend here this morning?” he quipped.

  “Quite so… quite so…”

  The doctor’s mobile phone buzzed on vibrate. He looked at it quickly. “Excuse me, I have to take this.”

  Mr Khan proceeded to speak Gujarati in an animated fashion whilst Eban looked around the room and wondered why the senior physicians always called themselves ‘Mr’ instead of ‘Dr’, like they had nothing to prove.

  Mr Khan ended the call, smiled and reassumed what he imagined constituted his bedside manner.

  “Can you slip off your jacket, please, and I will take your blood pressure.”

  He did so and sighed. “160 over 85… that is not good for someone like you.”

  “Someone like me?”

  “Do you smoke Mr Barnard?”

  “No…” said Eban, lying through his stained teeth. “Well, I did… but I gave up.”

  “And when you were smoking… how many a day?” asked Mr Khan, wrinkling his nose at the smell of cigarette smoke permeating Eban’s clothes.

  “About twenty a day.”

  “I see… I see,” he said, flipping through a file in front of him. “I have here the results of your stress test… not very good I’m afraid.”

  “Well, yeah… I’m a little out of condition.”

  “Oh dear me, no… that’s not what this is about I’m afraid.”

  Eban thought to himself, Here it comes. The moment that every middle-aged man with no health history to speak of dreads.

  “I’ve never had a stay in hospital overnight in my life!” he blurted out, realising how foolish and irrelevant that sounded.

  “Unfortunately that is about to change,” said Mr Khan. “I am reading that you suffer from angina. Your left arm, the left side of your face… no?”

  “Maybe… sometimes,” said Eban unsure, defensive.

  The door opened behind him and a porter stood there with a wheelchair.

  “I have arranged as a matter of some urgency for you to undergo an angiogram. This is a short, non-invasive procedure that will determine the extent of the narrowing of your arteries and how advanced your heart disease has become.”

  Mr Khan was inviting Eban to climb into the wheelchair.

  “The nurse will bring you back here afterwards and we can discuss the results and how we shall proceed.”

  Eban weakly complied.

  As he was pushed down corridors full of men, women and children sat atop trolleys and gurneys awaiting attention, he struggled to take in what Mr Khan had said, and the speed of events unfolding.

  “Just keep your feet on the footrests,” was all the porter said as he weaved his way in and out of a semi-bedlam.

  Through A&E, with the wails of people in pain and shock, and the whiff of diarrhoea.

  Through X-ray, where broken individuals hobbled and hopped around on crutches and in slings. Down to theatre, with its Do Not Enter red-lit admonishments, swinging double doors and irrefutable, antiseptic, clinical finality.

  Here he was given a relaxant, told to get undressed and to put on the gown provided.

  Then to lie down on the trolley and wait.

  Everyone was very nice.

  The surgeon on duty – speaking from behind his green surgical mask – explained what was going to happen in some unnerving detail.

  “An area of skin in the right groin will be cleaned and shaved. This is to allow access to the arteries through which we will access your heart arteries. We’ve given you a local anaesthetic to numb the skin over this blood vessel. After that you will feel very little discomfort. A tube is placed into the blood vessel of the groin. It carries the dye directly to the blood vessels of your heart, which we can see on the X-ray screen. You can choose to look at the pictures if you wish. At different times you may be asked to take a deep breath and to hold it for a few seconds while the camera moves around you. At the end of the test it’s quite normal to feel warm and flushed when some dye is pumped in by machine. This lasts about five or ten seconds and may be associated with the feeling that you are emptying your bladder… please try not to do that though.”

  Eban heard himself laugh, a little manically.

  As he could only see the man’s eyes, he was unsure if it was meant to be a joke.

  *

  The procedure itself was over with quite quickly, and after a short wait to ensure the wound had closed to the n
urse’s satisfaction, a porter arrived, and worryingly quipped, “I hope you’ve brought your pyjamas.”

  Eban was returned forthwith to Mr Khan.

  “That wasn’t so bad… was it?” The physician had changed from his dark suit into a white medical coat. Eban was unsure whether this signified anything.

  “Well… not for you maybe…”

  Mr Khan didn’t laugh.

  Eban reflected on his penchant for making impromptu quips at inappropriate times.

  A number of X-rays of Eban’s heart were pinned to an illuminated wall screen.

  He had looked once at the pumping organ during the procedure but couldn’t maintain his gaze.

  It was just too unsettling to see your own beating heart up there on the screen, pulsing and pushing dye and blood around the tributaries, deltas and inlets of the muscle.

  He had thought about the stripped-bare tree in the back garden below his window, with its delicate ecosystem of branches that would grow new leaves in the spring.

  He had thought about aerial maps he has seen of the Mississippi Delta and the Florida Everglades. How the streams and rivulets of water somehow found their way unerringly into the Gulf of Mexico. The Ganges. The Amazon. The Nile. They all found their way home.

  And he wondered about his own circulatory system.

  How he had ignored it, fucked with it, disrespected it. And how life had countered in this most severe of natural disasters.

  “Not good I’m afraid,”’ intoned Mr Khan. “Not a laughing matter at all in fact.”

  “I didn’t mean to seem—”

  “This is how things will proceed.” Mr Khan had adopted a more officious and formal manner now.

  “Under certain circumstances we could try an angioplasty technique. This inflates a small balloon to open the artery. The procedure is much like the one you just went through… but with more risk. We might also have looked at inserting a stent… this is a wire mesh tube which remains in the vessel, keeping the plaque pushed outwards.”

  Eban nodded to convey measured and considered understanding of the information being imparted, but beads of sweat were popping out like orbs on his forehead.

  “However,” continued Mr Khan, “in your case I don’t believe that we have the luxury of these approaches…”