Shadow Dancer

by Tom Bradby

  After he had left, Allen nodded at Ryan and, as if to answer an unspoken query, he said, ‘He’s straight.’

  They walked back out down the steps. The sun was shining brightly now and it was almost warm. For a few moments, Ryan watched the three senior officers inspecting their recruits – pausing, talking to animated faces beneath shiny peaked caps.

  He turned away and walked back to his car. As he got in, he saw Allen walking towards him. He started the engine and wound down the window.

  ‘I’ll see you later,’ Allen said. He was leaning on Ryan’s door with both his arms outstretched. ‘And, at the risk of sounding patronizing, don’t forget that it is us against them at the end of the day. All of us against all of them. Don’t make it personal.’

  Ryan looked at Allen as he edged ahead. ‘I don’t think it’s quite as simple as that, is it?’

  There were three of them in the car and Gerry was trying not to drive too fast. They had come down the Grosvenor Road because the young ‘dickers’ he had out had told him there was no checkpoint there.

  They turned left onto the Westlink. It dipped down, with high walls on either side of it, and ahead of them they could see a huge Union Jack fluttering above a tall building, with a statue of a man on a horse. Gerry thought these things were easier when it was raining and he was not enjoying the sunshine.

  But he wasn’t worried.

  He turned left off the Westlink, taking the car up to the bottom of the Crumlin Road. He could just about see the Crumlin court and prison ahead of him as he turned right onto the Antrim Road.

  There was still silence inside the car and he found himself enjoying a sense of comradeship. They were three professionals and they could look after themselves.

  Eventually they pulled in through an old, shabby set of metal gates and bumped slowly over the potholes into the middle of the car park. Gerry brought the car to a halt and looked through the windscreen at the crumbling red-brick structure ahead of them.

  ‘All right, Martin,’ he said, without looking back, ‘take us through it.’

  Mulgrew pulled himself forward into the gap between the seat. ‘Simple. She comes here to the dogs – we’ll check on the night that she does arrive – and we shoot her in the bar where she always sits. Simple. She’s pregnant as well.’

  ‘A pregnant RUC reservist,’ Gerry said. ‘Two for the price of one.’

  They stayed for a few minutes, but there was really nothing further to see and Gerry turned the car round and headed back towards the gates. ‘Right, I see what you mean. Simple in, simple out. I don’t want any more fuck-ups. If it is that simple, then do it.’

  A man was walking across the face of the gate with a tiny dog and Gerry slowed but didn’t stop. He wanted to be away from here.

  ‘And if it’s simple, there’d better not be any fucking tout mucking it up,’ he said. He smiled and looked at them both – first at Mulgrew and then at Paddy. ‘Whoever he is, we’ve got to find him. Understood?’

  They were back on the Antrim Road now and there wasn’t much traffic.

  Gerry looked over his shoulder at Mulgrew. ‘You’re a quiet bastard, Mulgrew, do you know that?’

  There was no reply.

  ‘Make a great tout. See everything. Hear everything. Know everything. Never bloody say anything.’ Gerry laughed. ‘But then we all would, right?’

  They drove back up the Grosvenor Road in silence and then down the Falls towards Beechmount. Gerry stopped outside a newsagent and looked over his shoulder. ‘Give us the bat, Martin.’

  Gerry put the baseball bat under his jacket and both Paddy and Mulgrew followed him across the road.

  There was nobody in the newsagent except the owner himself and Gerry could see fear written all over his face. Gerry slapped open the counter and pushed the man into a small back room. ‘Watch the door, Mulgrew,’ he said.

  The man was small, with a largely bald head and thick black glasses. He was overweight and Gerry knew he had a wife and five children – maybe he needed the money and that was why he was being so sodding difficult.

  ‘I believe there are two matters before us, Mr Macauley,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not frightened of you and your thugs.’

  ‘Oh, please,’ Gerry said, ‘do spare us your little show of bravery and courage.’ He pulled the bat out from under his jacket and began to tap it menacingly against his leg. ‘Now, as I said, there are two matters before us. Non-payment of our little “insurance” fee and – almost worse – a call made to the RUC to complain—’

  ‘Go to hell,’ the man said.

  Gerry thought his fear was hidden behind his glasses. He was very small and Gerry was looking down at a few long strands of greasy black hair. He thought how much he hated ugly people. ‘Mr Macauley, don’t be brave; it really does no good.’

  ‘Piss off.’

  Gerry felt the rage explode in his head. He took out the bat and swung it across the man’s back. He let out a yelp like a frightened animal and collapsed, Gerry instinctively kicking him in the process. He squirmed on the floor and Gerry smashed the bat down on his legs, hearing the bones fracture as he did so. The man was screaming now and Gerry hit him savagely again and again, enjoying the sense of the damage and pain he was inflicting. The man’s screams were hysterical and Gerry lifted the bat to smash his shitty little bald head …

  Paddy grabbed his arm. ‘Enough, Gerry, for Christ’s sake.’ There was fear and confusion in his face. He led him out into the shop itself and Gerry saw the doubt in Mulgrew’s eyes too. He felt dazed and shaken. Paddy suddenly stopped. ‘Christ, you’re not wearing gloves. We need to get the fucking bat.’ He turned back and retrieved it, sticking it under his raincoat. ‘Take the car,’ he told Mulgrew, and then he and Gerry were out in the street, crossing to the other side and slowly walking up Beechmount Avenue. Gerry knew there was a safe house at the top and he fumbled in his pocket for his collection of keys. Paddy had the door open before he could find them and they were inside. The house stank of damp and decay and Paddy took them straight through to the kitchen. It was filthy, the side and sink covered in unwashed mugs and plates. Paddy turned the cold tap on and took the bat out from under his coat. He began to wash the blood off and it ran down into the dirty crockery and saucepans. He swore and smashed them about, to disperse the water and blood. He took off his jacket, which was also covered in blood, and stuffed it into the sink, before turning to Gerry and doing the same.

  Whilst his brother finished, Gerry waited in the other room, gathering himself. It was filthy in here, too, cigarette ends everywhere, and his hands were still shaking. He sat down on the chair, such as it was, and closed his eyes. A kind of calmness eventually descended.

  When he opened his eyes, his brother was standing before him. ‘That was unnecessary,’ he said.

  ‘Fuckers need to be taught,’ Gerry replied.

  Paddy sat down opposite him, on a rickety wooden chair by what was left of the fireplace. ‘If you ask me, I think things are getting to you at the moment.’

  ‘I don’t believe I was asking you.’

  Paddy didn’t reply and they sat in silence.

  It was guesswork, of course, and slow work at that, but instinct told McIlhatton this man would be going in, so he followed him down the stairs to the underpass and watched carefully as he approached the entrance.

  The man fumbled for his pass, put it round his neck, and then walked straight through without stopping.

  The policeman didn’t seem to take much notice of him and certainly didn’t look closely at the pass.

  It was a different policeman from yesterday, too.

  McIlhatton turned right just before the entrance and climbed the stairs up to the other side of the street.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  RYAN LIT A CIGARETTE, SHUFFLED HIS FEET AND LOOKED AT THE OLD blue Cavalier. He realized this was becoming a habit.

  In theory, on his calculation, there was little risk, but there was also little doub
t that it was totally unnecessary. But was that right?

  The reality was that, since his return here, the whole thing had been preoccupying (haunting, you might even say) him in a manner he didn’t think was healthy. And then, last night, he’d played the whole event – the whole disastrous, tragic patrol – through in his mind. He was shocked at how strong the images still were.

  And the truth was simple. Straightforward and simple. He held himself personally responsible for Declan Walshe’s death. And the worst of it was that he knew it wasn’t self-indulgence.

  As he’d lain awake last night, staring at the ceiling, the clearest image in the darkness had been not of the incident itself, nor even of the dead boy’s face.

  No, the clearest image had been the look on Smiler’s face just before they’d gone out. He’d seen the look and he’d known the man was cracking up. They’d done five months and twenty-five days and, for all of that time, in the cramped, uncomfortable, filthy fucking barracks, Smiler had been bullied – relentlessly – by Jacko and the rest, and he, the platoon commander, had known then, as he knew now, that he was not doing enough to stop it. Some of it was good-humoured, certainly, and some of it was inevitable, and he’d done his best to try and keep Smiler’s morale up, talking to him about his family, helping him with his divorce papers. But, in his heart of hearts, he’d known that in the last month or so it had gone beyond the acceptable. On that last day, he’d seen Smiler’s face before the patrol and he’d known, without any doubt at all, that Smiler was on the edge.

  And he’d still taken him out.

  Ryan chucked his cigarette into the flower bed and got into the car. He thought briefly about the risk again, but he knew the car was old and shabby and he was feeling bolder. He turned left into Balmoral and slowly moved forwards in the traffic, trying not to think about it and failing.

  What got to him now was not so much the death – the murder – and Christ knows he’d tortured himself enough about that, but the lies. So many fucking lies.

  Lie one: that the soldiers shouted at Walshe three times to stop before opening fire.

  Lie two: that Walshe had a suspicious bulge in his pocket that looked like a handgun.

  Lie three: that the soldiers had asked Walshe to turn out his pockets and it was this that caused him to run.

  Facts: Declan Walshe was just an ordinary Catholic boy who was stopped in a completely routine way. The RUC detectives with them were at the other end of Beechmount Avenue and he, Lieutenant David Ryan, was looking down the street, wondering if there was any immediate threat.

  It was Smiler (he later learned) who stopped the boy, and Smiler who threatened to kick his teeth out. When the boy ran, it was Smiler who shouted at him (‘You Fenian cunt…’) and Smiler who shot him first. Jones, inexplicably, had also opened fire (Ryan had not been able to make sense of his thought processes, such as they were, either at the time or since).

  He crossed the roundabout at the bottom of Balmoral and felt his mind clearing. The traffic was still heavy and it took him a minute or so to get up to the Andersonstown Road.

  He turned right and edged slowly down towards Milltown, asking himself as he did so whether he would really have done anything differently. They were his people, his soldiers, and he’d lied to protect them, but Christ, fuck it…

  Sometimes, he wanted to find Walshe’s parents and apologize. No, he wanted to find Walshe’s parents and tell them how fucking sorry he was. He wanted to explain that … explain what? That they’d been attacked three times during that tour in the same area? That one of his soldiers had lost an arm? That they only had five days to go and he’d been counting them down like his life depended on it? That the atmosphere in the barracks was crap and Smiler was being bullied and that he knew about it and that there was absolutely fuck all he could do about it except try – repeatedly – to talk some fucking sense into Jacko?

  It didn’t add up. As an excuse for all those lies, it justified nothing.

  Another of his father’s pearls of wisdom: ‘Tell the truth. It’s always simpler.’

  And another: ‘Actions have consequences.’

  He was at the bottom of Whiterock now and he wound down the window a touch. It was cold outside and he thought it might snow.

  He jammed on the brakes at the zebra crossing. He hadn’t seen the woman and he felt the sweat in his palms again. Two hundred yards or so further on – it seemed longer when you were walking and worrying about being shot – he turned into Beechmount. He looked at the mural – a hand breaking free of its chains, set against a picture of Ireland – and pulled over on the right-hand side of the road, stopping about 20 yards further on. He kept the engine running. He thought he could hear his heart beating.

  But he felt nothing. This was the spot, and he could have described, to the inch and to the second, where it had happened and when, but it was daytime now and, across the road, three young girls were running back from the shop and a man was dragging along his dog. He closed his eyes and tried to picture it, but realized the images weren’t going to come. He got out of the car and leaned over the top of it. He lit a cigarette and then closed his eyes again. He could hear the shouts now and could remember turning round to see the kid running, briefly. He could see the rifle at Smiler’s shoulder and he could remember wondering what in the fuck was happening, and he could recall thinking, the second it had happened, that he wasn’t going to be getting home now – because, for those last few weeks, that was all that was on his mind – and then he could remember the sight of the boy’s face on the tarmac and the sudden desire to vomit and …

  ‘Are you all right, wee son?’ The old woman was looking at him quizzically. She had a bag of shopping in one hand and a dog lead in the other. She looked concerned, genuinely friendly and concerned, and he made a sound – part snort, part shrug – designed to indicate that he was all right without actually speaking.

  He got into the car and slowly pulled back onto the left-hand side of the road. He turned round a little further up – by the wall with ‘IRA’ written in huge letters on it – and then brought the car to a halt again. He breathed in deeply. After a few minutes he turned on the radio. The news was coming on and it told him that the funeral of Declan Martin, the young man killed in an IRA attack that was foiled by the security services, was about to begin.

  There was no reason to go – and every reason not to. A few years ago two corporals had strayed accidentally into a funeral procession and had been dragged from their cars, beaten, brutally tortured and finally murdered. It was dangerous and unnecessary, but in that second, as he moved slowly forwards again, he knew where he was going.

  The RUC would be there, he reasoned, and he wanted to see Colette with her own people – wanted to see who she was with and how they were together – and he was, after all, an intelligence officer.

  And of course, in this moment, the truth was that he didn’t give a fuck about risks and ground rules.

  *

  Almost as soon as Colette pulled the door of the house shut, she felt the tension.

  She saw two Land Rovers cross the top of Leeson Street and, as she turned onto the Falls herself, she watched them join the end of a long line. There must have been thirty or forty big blue armour-plated Land Rovers in all, lining both sides of the road.

  She wandered down towards them. It was snowing gently, light flakes drifting slowly into her face. She pulled her red hat and scarf out of her pocket and wrapped herself up.

  Up ahead of her, she could see two great Tricolours hanging from the top of the Divis Tower. She felt curiously empty.

  As she approached, she began to get a sense of how many peelers there were: hundreds, literally, perhaps 500 or more, all dressed in full riot gear, like a black space-age army from a future century.

  Briefly, she considered turning back, but she decided she ought to go on. Duty, she thought, and that almost made her smile.

  She reached the foot of the tower. The peelers here had almost co
mpletely encircled the mourners, and both sides stood close to each other, the peelers standing casually behind them with their visors up and their batons idle. They had left a tunnel at one end and Colette walked through it to where Gerry and Paddy were standing at the front. They nodded to her and she took her place beside them.

  She looked around her. She thought they were like two armies before a battle and she looked at the enemy and hated them.

  They waited patiently for the coffin to emerge and she stamped her feet gently to keep her circulation going. Gerry and Paddy stood beside her; they all knew it was going to be a difficult day. It had already begun badly; Declan Martin’s mother apparently didn’t care much for militant republicanism and had agreed to a ‘proper’ funeral only under duress.

  However he’d got involved, Declan Martin had been killed in action whilst serving in the Irish Republican Army, and Colette knew that the turnout today was designed to honour his sacrifice. All the senior members of the IRA in Belfast were there and most were preparing to carry the coffin at some point along the route.

  The IRA wanted to bury him as a soldier, the RUC wanted him buried as an attempted murderer, killed whilst attacking one of their own. She knew that any attempt to fire shots over his graveside would provoke instant and ferocious intervention. The air was heavy with hostility.

  Everyone understood that Martin had been killed in the attack on Derek Henderson a few days before, but she knew their sympathies lay entirely with his family and with the IRA. Regardless of his intentions, to most of the people around Colette his death was the result of a policy of political assassination. She knew they had no thoughts for his potential victim.

  The snow wasn’t settling, but the air was cold and Colette rubbed her hands to keep warm. There was so much anger here, she thought. A crowd of people who would have given anything for some enemy blood.

  Around her a few people talked quietly, but most stood in silence, waiting for the procession to begin. A black hearse reversed slowly round the corner, ready to take the coffin on to the cemetery after the funeral. Members of the media had gathered amongst the mourners, trying to roll their cameras discreetly on some of the faces the journalists recognized. They were quickly warned off, the bigger men walking to stand with their backs to the camera lenses. The threat was unmistakable and the cameramen switched off and waited for the coffin to emerge.