by Shaun Clarke
She reached for another cigarette, changed her mind, and finished off her glass of wine instead. Cranfield silently topped up her glass and let her continue.
‘Me and Peggy, God help us, were in a state of shock, but thought that at least the worst was over. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. In fact, for us it was just beginning. For the next couple of days, when we dared to venture out, the men in the street would shout filthy comments and often spit at us. Naturally, when the men did it enough, the women followed suit. After a couple of days of this, we were both terrified to go out – we lived practically door-to-door – but on the fourth day the bastards came for us.’
She had another drink, almost finishing it all. As Cranfield topped her up, she lit another cigarette, inhaling deeply and exhaling as if she couldn’t breathe properly. Eventually, back in control, she continued her dreadful tale.
‘They dragged the two of us out of our houses at the same time. They were like one of those lynch mobs you see outside British courts when someone’s raped or murdered a child – all punching, spitting, trying to tear our hair out. In the event, with regard to our hair, they were wasting their time.’
She had another drink, took a deep breath, let it out with a shuddering sigh.
‘We were tied to lampposts. One of our neighbours, a woman, hacked our hair off with scissors, leaving both of us practically bald. Then a man came along with a bucket of hot tar and painted us with it – head, face, neck, arms and body, even our bare legs. When he had finished, his cronies, brave men one and all, threw bucketfuls of chicken feathers over us, until we were thoroughly tarred and feathered. They left us there, tied to the lampposts, for the passers-by to enjoy.’
‘Christ!’ Cranfield whispered.
‘Ironically, it was a British Army patrol who released us, though they weren’t sympathetic. “Fenian whores!” one of them muttered as he cut through the ropes. “You fucking deserve what you get.” My mother, when she found out what had happened, said practically the same thing. So did Peggy’s mother. That was what we got for bein’ too young and not all that bright. It traumatized me for years.’
She stood up, drained her glass and set it back on the table, then turned to face Cranfield. ‘I never forgave my mother for that. Never did, never will. Nor did I forgive those bastards who tarred and feathered me, then left me tied to that lamppost, for everyone to laugh at. When I’d recovered from my shock – and that took months, not days – I packed up and went alone to London, to make a new life for myself. I ended up, wouldn’t you know, as just another Irish tart at King’s Cross, doing lots for a little. Then I got my senses back, moved down to Mayfair, and learnt that being a whore for the wealthy was a lot easier, and certainly more lucrative, than spreadin’ my legs for the poor. One of the people I fucked in my Mayfair flat was from British Intelligence.’
‘Which gets you to me,’ Cranfield said.
‘Right. After getting rid of my accent – the last reminder of my roots – I moved to Dublin, did the tourist and middle-class trade, and picked up a few wee jobs for your fine friends in Whitehall. I returned to get my own back on the bastards … and that’s why I’m here with you.’
‘But you don’t have to be here with me,’ Cranfield told her. ‘As you well know, it isn’t a job requirement.’
‘I like to make my own choices occasionally … though I never do it with men I might care for.’
‘That puts me in my place.’
‘Yes, Randolph, it does. You’re my little convenience.’
Leaving him flushed with anger, she went into the bathroom, took her time showering, then returned to the bedroom and got dressed. As she was doing so he cooled down and soothed his wounded pride by watching her put her clothes on, piece by piece. It was as good as a striptease.
‘Going back home could be dangerous,’ he told her. ‘You’d better be careful.’
‘It won’t be dangerous if you lift O’Leary out. In that sense, his concerns are mine. I don’t want him talkin’.’
‘He’s as good as gone,’ Cranfield said.
Dressed and with hair combed, Margaret picked up her travel bag and walked up to the bed, where Cranfield was stretched out on top of the sheets, still completely naked.
‘Are you stayin’ here?’ Margaret asked him.
‘Only long enough to finish the wine,’ he said, ‘and get my breath back.’
She smiled, then leaned down to kiss him lightly on the lips. Straightening up, she said: ‘You take care, Randolph.’
‘I will,’ Cranfield replied.
Margaret nodded and left the room.
Cranfield looked at his watch. Seeing that it was just after noon, he picked up the telephone. Calling a direct line to Lisburn HQ, he used a code-name that got him Captain Dubois.
‘Cranfield here,’ he said. ‘What’s happened at lunchtime?’
‘A good lunch was had by all,’ Dubois replied, ‘and only one guest was missing.’
‘Do you think it worth collecting him?’ Cranfield asked, knowing that Dubois was referring to Michael Quinn.
‘I think he has a lot to answer for,’ Dubois replied, ‘so you should go and fetch him.’
‘Will do,’ Cranfield said. Grinning like a Cheshire cat, he put down the receiver, hurried into the bathroom, showered, dressed and left the room – still carrying his Browning in the cross-draw position under the jacket of his immaculate pinstripe suit.
Once outside the hotel, he caught a taxi to the Stanley Street RUC Station, by the Grosvenor Road, where a Q car, driven by Sergeant Lovelock, was waiting to take him to the lower Falls and Quinn’s house.
‘You got here just in time,’ Sergeant Lovelock informed him as soon as he was in the car. ‘Quinn’s discovered the OP opposite his house and all hell’s broken loose.’
‘Damn!’ Cranfield exclaimed softly, feeling fear for the first time, realizing, as the Q car shot out of the car park, that everything that could possibly go wrong was about to do so.
This time he had pushed his luck too far.
Chapter 14
‘I can smell something, I’m telling you,’ Taff insisted, whispering, crouched up on the floor of O’Leary’s loft and looking around him as if doubting his own sanity. ‘I’ve smelt it for the last couple of days. It’s the smell of …’
‘You’re just imagining it,’ Lampton replied, also whispering. ‘It’s because we’ve been cooped up here so long. We haven’t had a wash or a shave, we shit and piss in those plastic bags, and on top of all that, we haven’t slept properly for days, so naturally we’re inclined to think we can smell ourselves. You’re just …’
‘I don’t think he’s imagining it,’ Gumboot said. ‘I think I smell it as well.’
‘Has anyone shit their pants?’ Ricketts asked bluntly.
‘No!’ they all said in turn.
Ricketts glanced around the loft space, which remained surprisingly neat, considering how long the four of them had been secretly living up there. The Nikon F3HP heavy-duty camera with long-distance lens and D image intensifier, mounted on a tripod, was positioned just to the left of the peephole, being used only on special occasions. The STG laser surveillance system, tuned in to the probe in the wall adjoining Quinn’s house across the street, was still at the peep-hole and working all the time, except when one of the men removed it temporarily to check the street or use the Thorn EMI 5kg hand-held thermal imager presently strung around Lampton’s neck. Four sets of Gore-tex-lined Danner boots were standing in neat rows along one wall, as the need for silence had forced the men to remove them.
Even though they had been compelled to eat, wash, urinate and defecate up there, the wrappers from the only kind of food they had been able to have – the dry, high-calorie rations normally kept in their Escape Belts, such as biscuits, cheese, chocolate and sweets – as well as from moisturizing cloths, disposal towels and toilet paper, had been placed carefully in a large plastic bag hung from a nail on one of the walls and tied with string arou
nd the top. The vacuum flasks, now all empty, and water bottles, most of them nearly empty, were stacked neatly with the remainder of the rations in a noise-cushioning blanket in a corner of the loft. Most important, the sealed plastic bags for their excrement, urine and used toilet paper were in three larger plastic bags resting on the floor of the adjoining loft, which they had used as a toilet.
It was to the latter that Ricketts now cast his experienced eye.
‘The bags?’ he asked.
‘They were all sealed after being used,’ Gumboot said, ‘and I personally examined every one of them.’
‘Anyone piss and shit in the same bag?’ Lampton asked over his shoulder while eyeballing the street through the peep-hole.
‘No,’ Gumboot said.
‘No,’ Ricketts added.
There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment, then Taff said: ‘Oh, Jesus, I did that the first time … before you told us that we should keep them apart. Christ, I…’
‘Piss and shit mixed can sometimes make the bags burst,’ Lampton reminded them. ‘I hope to God …’
‘Damn!’ Ricketts exclaimed softly, then hurriedly crossed the loft, at the crouch and stepping carefully from beam to beam, until he reached the adjoining space. There, he bent over, sniffed at the large bags, then checked the floor directly below them. A mixture of excrement and urine was dripping out of one of the rubbish bags, on to the floor. It was then dripping down between the joists and soaking through to the ceiling of the house below. ‘Damn!’ Ricketts exclaimed softly again. He turned back to look at the others, including the stricken Taff. ‘One of the disposal bags has leaked and soaked through the floor to the ceiling of the room directly below, in the house next door. That’ll give us away, I fear.’
‘It already has,’ Lampton replied, still at the peep-hole. ‘One of the neighbours has just crossed from this side of the street – I think from the house next door – and is talking to Quinn. She’s jabbing her finger in this direction.’
‘Bloody ‘ell!’ Taff exclaimed softly. ‘I didn’t mean …’
‘It’s not your fault,’ Lampton replied firmly. ‘I should have told you about that deadly mixture before you used the first bag. My fault, Taff. My apologies, men.’ He glanced through the peep-hole again, took a deep breath, then said: ‘Yes, damn it, she’s obviously told Quinn about the stain on her ceiling. He’s just shouted into his own house, to call out a whole bunch of his hard men – four men. An ASU, no doubt. Yep, they all have guns. They’re crossing the street to the house next door.’ Lampton took another deep breath, then let it out again. ‘Fuck! They’ve just gone out of view. That means they’re entering the house.’ Turning back to face his men, he said: ‘Get on that radio, Gumboot, and call up a QRF to help bail us out of here. Ricketts, you keep the trapdoor in that next loft covered with your Browning. That’s where they’ll be coming up. But don’t shoot unless someone aims at you – we don’t want a riot. Taff, while Ricketts holds them at bay – which can only be temporary – you and I will have to pack up this equipment and have it ready for moving out. OK, men, shake out!’
Gumboot was already on the radio, calling for back-up from a QRF, or Quick Reaction Force, when Ricketts clambered over the joists to press his back against the bricks, raise his knees and aim his handgun two-handed at the trapdoor of the adjacent loft. Even before Lampton and Taff had begun dismantling and repacking the audiovisual surveillance equipment, Ricketts heard footsteps coming up the stairs from below, then the whispering of men on the landing directly below the trapdoor. Something clattered then squeaked – obviously a stepladder – prompting Ricketts to release the safety-catch of his Browning and hold the handgun firmly, applying pressure equally between the thumb and fingers of the firing hand. Waiting for the first man to appear, he took controlled, even breaths.
Completely ignoring Ricketts, Lampton and Taff got on with the business of dismantling the surveillance equipment and placing it back in reinforced canvas carriers. As they did so, Gumboot finished relaying his message to the Stanley Street RUC station, switched the set to ‘Receive’, then slithered sideways to glance down through the peep-hole. After noticing only that many of the neighbours were coming out of their homes to see what was happening, he withdraw his handgun and aimed it at the trapdoor in the adjoining loft, determined, on the one hand, to give covering to Ricketts, and on the other to keep his eye out for the arrival of the badly needed QRF.
The trapdoor squeaked, shook, then was suddenly flipped over by a human hand. A man’s face appeared, his eyes too wide as they adjusted to the sudden gloom, then his second hand appeared, trying to aim his Webley.
‘Halt!’ Ricketts bawled. ‘Security forces!’
A single shot from the man’s pistol reverberated through the loft and the bullet ricocheted off the wall high above Ricketts’s head. The man was firing wild and blind, but that made him no less dangerous, so Ricketts returned the fire with a double tap, which sounded like a deafening thunderclap in the confined space. The man’s hand seemed to explode, spurting blood, bone and flesh. He screamed, dropped his pistol, then dropped back down through the trapdoor, knocking the steel ladder over as he crashed to the floor below. The other men down there cursed and bellowed instructions at one another. A woman further down screamed. Then a fusillade of pistol fire, shot vertically by the men below, straight up through the ceiling, turned the floor of the loft into a convulsion of spitting wood and billowing dust.
Ricketts pressed himself into the wall, then inched his way around it until he was closer to the open trapdoor. He leaned forward and emptied the rest of his 13-round magazine, aiming down through the trapdoor. There were more shouts and screams.
He pressed himself back against the wall and reloaded with a full magazine as the anticipated volley of return fire came from below, with the bullets smashing up through the floor in more spewing dust and wood chips, then ricocheting off the roof above his head. Even as Ricketts leaned forward to shoot down through the trapdoor hole again, Gumboot was inching forward with his High Power in one hand and a Royal Ordnance G60 stun grenade in the other.
Ricketts nodded.
Gumboot pulled the pin, dropped the grenade down through the hole, then threw himself back just as more shots were fired up through the ceiling. Dust and wood splinters spat up from the floor of the loft as the stun grenade exploded below with a loud bang and a blinding flash, leading to the cessation of the gunfire and a lot more cursing. Before the PIRA team could recover from the shock – for the stun grenade is essentially a diversionary device – Gumboot had shuffled forward again with another grenade in his hand.
‘Smoke grenade,’ he whispered.
Ricketts nodded again, then glanced at Lampton as Gumboot pulled the pin of the smoke grenade and dropped it down through the opening. Exploding almost instantly, the grenade filled the hallway below with smoke, which had everyone coughing even before it drifted up into the loft. Seeing what was happening, Lampton, who had just finished packing the surveillance equipment, nodded and picked up another canvas bag, from which he withdrew four SF10 respirators. When the men had put them on, to protect themselves from the smoke, which contained elements of burning CS gas, Lampton returned to the peep-hole, looked down on the street below, then stuck his thumb up in the air, indicating that the QRF force had arrived.
Wearing his respirator, and with his Browning ready to be fired single-handed, Ricketts moved forward to the opening and looked down into the smoke-filled hallway. The ladder was lying on its side where it had fallen, but otherwise the hallway was empty. From the ground floor, Ricketts could hear the hysterical babble of a woman – obviously the housewife – and more cursing and coughing from the PIRA men.
Ricketts dropped down through the hole and landed in the hallway just as gunshots were fired out in the street. He moved quickly along the passage, holding the Browning two-handed, kicking the two bedroom doors open, one after the other, and turning into the rooms ready to fire.
&n
bsp; Both bedrooms were empty.
As Gumboot dropped down behind him, likewise wearing his respirator and holding his Browning two-handed, Ricketts hurried down the stairs, to the short hallway with the front door at one end and the living-room door to the side. As the door was open he went in, still preparing to fire. The room was empty, though filled with smoke and CS gas, so he checked the kitchen and back door, finding the latter locked. Satisfied that the house was empty, he hurried out to the hallway, just as Gumboot was pressing himself to the wall, his Browning still held two-handed, to tentatively stick his head around the door frame and look out into the street.
More gunshots rang out.
Gumboot disappeared outside and Ricketts followed him out, dropping low as he burst out of the front door, swinging the handgun from left to right, covering a wide arc. Women screamed, men hollered, and the spectators scattered. One woman was coughing and wiping her streaming eyes with a handkerchief, a man was squatting on the pavement with blood streaming from his head and shoulders – the results, so Ricketts surmised, of his own blind shots through the trapdoor hole – and a QRF team composed of British soldiers and RUC officers, all wearing flak jackets and carrying assault rifles and truncheons, were pouring out of Saracens to take command of the street.
Two other QRF teams had also arrived. One, consisting entirely of British Army troops, was rushing into O’Leary’s house to help Lampton and Taff carry out their kit and equipment as quickly, and as securely, as possible. The other, composed of flak-jacketed RUC officers, was returning the gunfire of two PIRA men who were covering Quinn as he pushed the struggling O’Leary into the back of his car and followed him in with a pistol to his head. One of the PIRA gunmen managed to get into the car also, but the second was cut down as it roared off along the street and disappeared around the corner.
