by Menon, David
‘ This wasn’t how it was supposed to be, Freddie’ he said, his voice heavy. He hadn’t counted on a parade or anything when he came out of the Maze but he hadn’t counted on getting little more than a cold shoulder from folk. The other punters in the pub acknowledged him with a smile, a nod, a wink. One or two even shook his hand but then they were gone, seemingly unwilling to exchange any further. It made him angry. They were a bunch of ungrateful bastards. He’d spent twenty years inside for them.
‘ It’s certainly not how it was, so it isn’t’ said Freddie as he rubbed his chin before beginning to roll himself another cigarette. Freddie had gone down with Derek but on the lesser charge of extortion and had served ten years before being released. Since then he’d been working in one of the big DIY superstores on the outskirts of Belfast. He and Derek had known each other all their lives, they’d grown up on the same street and gone to the same school. Freddie had joined Derek’s gang when he was starting out. He was Derek’s number two. He’d been the only one there when Derek came out of the Maze. Derek’s son Shaun hadn’t bothered to turn up and his wife Gillian was too busy drinking herself into an early grave to worry about her husband coming out of gaol after twenty years.
‘ This lot don’t know what fighting is all about, Freddie’ said Derek. ‘ Even our Shaun left Jamie Robertson to us, said he didn’t want to get involved’. He shook his head with a mounting sense of gloom. ‘ Robertson had informed on us to that DI Armstrong character and he, my own son, said he was leaving it to us to sort out. My own bloody son too wrapped up in his drugs trade and his bunch of bloody working girls to work with his old man’.
‘ Shaun’ll come round, Derek’ said Freddie, although he doubted that. ‘ It’s the Judas we need to concentrate our energies on, Derek’.
Derek took the pack of photographs out of his jacket pocket and laid them out on the table. The very sight of the man in the pictures, older face, different name, but same look of Judas in his eyes, made Derek’s skin crawl.
‘ You’re right there, Freddie, so you are’ said Derek, clenching his fist. ‘ I could ring his fucking neck with one hand so I could’.
‘ We need to watch it there, Derek’ said Freddie ‘ If we’re right about what happened to him then he won’t exactly be left uncovered. They’ll want to protect him’.
‘ There’s always a gap’ said Derek. ‘ I just hope our man is up to it, that’s all. I have my doubts about him, Freddie’.
‘ We have to work with him, Derek’.
‘ Well we haven’t much choice, Freddie’ said Derek. He looked round the bar again. This was where he used to be able to command the attention of thirty or forty willing volunteers for his campaign against republicanism. This was where he’d planned the killing, the murders, the battles to stick it into the Fenian trash. Since he’d been released he’d noticed there weren’t many of this kind of pub left. Now it was all theme bars to do with Australians or some other shite and the lads and lasses were all lapping it up. Had they forgotten what sacrifice meant? He wished to God he could reach out and grab back those old times. He’d been a somebody back then. He didn’t know what he was anymore.
‘ He’ll do it, Derek, I’ll make sure of that. He has his instructions and he hasn’t let us down so far’.
‘ When does Peter Irvine want to see us?’
‘ Sunday morning’ said Freddie ‘ Straight after morning service’.
‘ Do we know what it’s about?’
‘ No. All his people said was that we had to keep it buttoned. Tight’.
It was Saturday night and Ian had arranged to meet Mark downtown.
‘ I was surprised to get your call’ said Mark after they’d hooked up outside the old Midland Hotel.
‘ I was surprised I made it’ said Ian.
‘ So why did you?’
‘ Because I can’t get you out of my head’.
They made their way down to Canal Street and it was packed. The early evening sunshine had brought everybody out and there was a real party atmosphere. They got a couple of pints from VIA and were lucky enough to find a table on the cobbled pavement next to the canal itself.
‘ You haven’t been down here before, have you?’ Mark asked. He could see that Ian wasn’t quite at ease with his surroundings.
‘ No. Do you come down here a lot?’
‘ A couple of times a month’ said Mark. ‘ Depends what me and my mates fancy doing. Whether we want to go out for a few drinks or whether it’s just laughs and talk over a meal we’re more in the mood for’.
‘ Can I ask if you always come down here on the pull?’
Mark laughed. ‘ Are you trying to find out how much I play the field?’
‘ I suppose it’s something like that, yea’.
‘ Or if I’m the sort who’ll dump you once I know I’ve got into your heart just because I’m young and therefore I can?’
‘ Somebody as good-looking as you has every right to make the most of his chances’.
‘ Well you’ve no need to worry on either score’ said Mark ‘ But I’m flattered that you take such care’.
‘ I take care over everything’ said Ian ‘ It’s in the nature of what I do’.
‘ There you go again’.
‘ What?’
‘ Talking as if you live half your life in some kind of parallel universe’.
‘ Chances are more easily afforded when you’re as young as you’.
‘ So you’ve got a thing about the age difference between us?’
‘ I’m thirty-eight, you’re twenty-three. I’m bound to be a bit doubtful about it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it does my ego the world of good to know that you want me but I don’t understand what it is you see in me’.
‘ And it makes you feel better to believe that I’m just playing with you?’
‘ Better?’
‘ Makes it easier not to give in to your feelings’ said Mark.
‘ What are you doing to me? Whenever I think of you I feel like I’m unravelling’.
‘ And that’s a bad thing?’
‘ I didn’t realise how easy it would be for the right guy to do’.
‘ So I’m the right guy then?’
‘ You certainly don’t miss a trick’ said Ian.
Mark thought Ian looked the business in his blue jeans, white linen shirt, black leather single-breasted jacket, big chunky silver watch on his hairy wrist. He didn’t know if he preferred him all washed and scrubbed up like this or all dirty at the end of the working day when his signature smell was strongest. He was definitely a meat and potatoes man as opposed to a quiche and salad one, a pint of bitter, not a vodka and slimline.
‘ So when you said that life for you was alone’ said Mark ‘ Can you tell me what that was all about?’
Ian looked down at his beer. ‘ It was about a long time ago back in Ireland’.
‘ Was it something to do with the troubles?’
‘ Yeah, it was to do with the troubles’ said Ian.
‘ You’re a deep on alright, Taylor’.
‘ Am I?’
‘ It’s part of your charm’.
‘ Do you fall in love easily?’
‘ You ask me a lot but you don’t give much away about yourself’.
‘ Sorry’.
‘ It’s okay. I’m just letting you know and the answer is no, I don’t fall in love easily. Do you?’
‘ No. It’s only happened once before’.
Mark smiled at the implication of what Ian had let slip and then smiled even more when he saw Ian blushing.
‘ Do you realise what you just said to me?’ said Mark.
‘ Yes, and I’m going to get another round in before I say anything else I shouldn’t’.
Ian went to the bar and brought them a couple more pints out. If somebody had told him a few weeks ago that he’d be sitting here with Mark he’d have told them they were on drugs. If he’d known this was going to happen when he’d gone into Conor Nau
ghton’s flat and blown his brains out he’d have considered it some kind of sick joke. That was the trouble. The other side of his life wasn’t exactly compatible with falling in love.
‘ Do you have any family over here, Ian?’ Mark asked when Ian returned with their drinks.
Ian shook his head. ‘ No. Look, do you want to go and get something to eat?’
‘ Yeah, I’m famished’ said Mark who noted the quick change of subject.
‘ Where do you fancy going?’
‘ This is Manchester. We can get whatever we want’.
‘ Yes, but it’s Saturday night and we haven’t booked anything’.
‘ So?’
‘ So why don’t we head back to my place and we can order some takeaway? I’ve got loads of wine and beer at home. We could send out for pizza, Chinese, Indian …’ he was caught by the filthy, wild look in Mark’s eyes that so turned him on. ‘ … what are you thinking?’
Mark grinned all over his face. ‘ I’m thinking that I could eat chips out of your boxer shorts whilst you were still wearing them’.
CHAPTER FIVE
The next morning Mark and Ian were sitting up in Ian’s bed eating toast and drinking tea.
‘ At least we’re using plates this time’ said Ian.
‘ Yes, that was a very amusing little game we played last night’.
‘ We should be locked up for what we did’.
‘ Go on then’ said Mark ‘ Bring out the handcuffs’.
They laughed and Mark stroked the side of Ian’s face. It was clear that this big Irishman carried a lot of demons around but he’d wait until he was ready to bring them out and when he did, Mark would clear up whatever mess they left. He had no idea what they could be but he reassured himself with the thought that he’d be worried if a man of thirty-eight years old didn’t have baggage or demons of some kind or another.
‘ The only time I eat breakfast at home is on the weekend’ said Ian
‘ You don’t get time in the week?’
‘ Well we’re on site by eight o’clock and not having breakfast before I leave means more time in bed. And haven’t you noticed that wherever there’s a building site there’s always a greasy spoon café nearby that serves all the egg and bacon rolls a bricklayer can lay his hands on?’.
‘ Yes I’ve noticed’ said Mark, smirking. ‘ Well I’ve noticed all the builder totty in such places anyway’.
‘ Behave’.
‘ You weren’t saying that last night’ said Mark as he placed a piece of toast in Ian’s mouth. ‘ In fact, you were positively encouraging me to misbehave’.
Ian fingered the corner of Mark’s mouth ‘ That’s because you’re so good at it’.
Mark took the plate from Ian’s hand and placed it next to his own on the bedside table with the mugs of tea. He moved on his lips and kissed him. ‘ Enough of breakfast’.
Once their desires had been sated, they wrapped around each other and although he’d never needed anyone to hold his hand through life, Mark felt the most incredible sense of peace. He ran his fingers through the thick black fur on Ian’s chest.
‘ Ian, you really don’t have to wonder about me, you know’ said Mark.
‘ I know’.
‘ So you’re not wanting to hold back anymore?’
‘ I’m working through it’.
‘ And you can tell me anything, you know, anything at all’.
Ian squeezed his new lover. ‘ Maybe one day’ he said. He didn’t have the first idea about how he could tell Mark that he was an assassin for the state and that he’d dispatched dozens of men to their deaths in the line of duty. That didn’t make for very easy pillowtalk.
‘ It’ll be time for lunch soon’ said Mark.
‘ What are you doing for it?’
‘ Going over to my brother’s in Whaley Bridge. They’re not doing it until four though so I’ll get the train from Piccadilly later’.
‘ Do you want to come back here tonight?’
‘ If you want me to?’
‘ I do’ said Ian ‘ Very much’.
Mark smiled to himself. This was a result.
‘ Mark, I’ve been meaning to ask you’ said Ian. ‘ What happened to your parents?’
Mark waited for a moment and then told the story. ‘ They’d been on a coach trip to London for the weekend with my Dad’s work. On the way back the driver fell asleep at the wheel and crashed the coach into the central reservation of the M1 which sent it flying across the opposite carriageway. Dad died instantly, Mum died the next day of her injuries’.
‘ And how old were you?’
‘ Fourteen’.
‘ So what did you do?’
‘ Well my maternal grandparents moved in with us initially but they soon realised that my brother Simon and I could cope by ourselves. I’ll miss my parents to my dying day and sometimes it cuts through me like a knife when I think of them. But you’ve just got to get on with it, you know? Otherwise you may as well just pack up and go home’.
‘ You’re very wise for one so young’.
‘ I had my moments when it happened. I wanted to find the coach driver and kill him. He survived, you see, and the unfairness of that drove me mad for weeks. All my friends at the time went on about what goes around comes around and that he’d get his but I really don't believe in all that shit. It’s just a platitude. The only time someone gets what they deserve is when someone makes it happen’.
Ian went cold. ‘ So you do understand the need for revenge?’
‘ I can see why people are driven to it, yes, because I’ve been there. I understand anyone who seeks justice when they feel they’ve been wronged against. Too many bad people get away with it, Ian and I’m not arguing for vigilantism but yes, I can understand the need for revenge, I really can’.
Graham met Tommy Millar when they joined the RUC on the same day. They moved up the ranks together before Tommy went into special branch and Graham stayed put. Graham called his friend on his personal mobile.
‘ Is this line secure, Tommy?’ Graham asked.
‘ You know the answer to that’ said Tommy. He was sitting at his desk at the office. He hadn’t heard from Graham in a while. ‘ What’s up?’
‘ I need some information on someone and I don’t want to request it officially through the usual channels’.
‘ Can I ask why not?’
‘ I have my reasons, Tommy, and you owe me one. Remember?’
Tommy couldn’t get out of that one. A few months ago his wife had accused him of having an affair with another woman and Graham had provided him with a false alibi that got him off the hook. He did owe him one.
‘ Name?’
‘ Duncan Arthur Laurence. His evidence was enough to arrest Derek Campbell and his gang twenty years ago and get them sent down. He then died in a car accident on the Antrim Road on October 25th 1992’.
Tommy wrote down the details. ‘ And you think there’s more to it than that?’
‘ In that last chat we had, Jamie Robertson told me that Derek Campbell had found out that Duncan Laurence was alive. We both know that a lot of people died conveniently during that time and I want to know if it’s true in this case. I want to know if Laurence is alive and if so where he is’.
Most of Derek Campbell’s political contacts had turned their backs now that they were preening themselves at Stormont. They all seemed to be taking it for granted that he wouldn’t open his mouth and drop the lot of them right in it up to their necks. All the money he used to make from his enterprises had gone into the pockets of those who now claim to have a democratic mandate from the people. He’d risked his life over and over again and made hard cash for everybody but himself. Derek had been the employee, the commander of field operations, the one who hired the men and women who carried out the orders, the one who made sure none of the shit could ever be traced back to those who put rosettes on at election time and shuttled backwards and forwards to Westminster. But none of them now wanted
to be reminded of the sacrifices Derek had made which was why he was more than suspicious about what Peter Irvine wanted from him.
Peter Irvine lived in a fortified bungalow on the edge of Ballymena but it still felt like light years away from the kind of estate that Derek was used to. When he’d been released from incarceration he’d gone back to the same council house that had been his family home for nearly thirty years. During that time it had been modernised and changed, the toilet moved from downstairs to upstairs, the bathroom fitted with a shower, the kitchen fitted out with units from one of the local suppliers. Everybody knew where Derek lived but none of his former masters had ever suggested fortifying Derek’s family home. Loyalty only knew one direction as he’d already found out. The front door opened as Derek walked up to it. Freddie Burnside had driven him there and would be at his side throughout the meeting.
Peter Irvine’s parents had moved over to Northern Ireland from Scotland in the 1920’s when the republic had gained its independence and Protestantism in the six counties needed fortification. Michael Collins and Eamonn D' Valera were the only political figures on the island of Ireland that anybody took any notice of at the time and his parents had wanted to change that. Peter’s parents had both died before the abomination of the Good Friday agreement had been rubbed in the noses of the Unionist people. They’d turn in their graves if they knew that their son had last month taken tea with Catholic priests after listening to a Catholic school choir with a Secretary of State for Northern Ireland who’d once called for British withdrawal from the six counties of Ulster.
Peter Irvine tended to dominate every situation he was in. He was in his early fifties, a big man with an absolute faith that the Pope was the anti-Christ. He’d never had any time for those unionists who asserted that there could be no peace without compromise. Appeasers were his natural enemies. There could be no peace until nationalist aspirations had been stamped out once and for all.
