The Truth Commissioner

by David Park

  We’ll have you home soon. It sounds to Gilroy that the words make him an old man found wandering the streets, or some kind of ill person being conveyed to his final resting place. And then he understands the significance of what’s happened.

  ‘Am I called?’ he asks, already knowing the answer.

  ‘Yes,’ Sweeney tells him as he switches off his mobile.

  ‘It’s bad then?’

  ‘It’s not good, Franky.’

  ‘How bad?’

  ‘We’ll have to wait and see,’ Sweeney says, turning his head away to look out at the city streets. ‘Someone must have got to him.’

  ‘Ours or theirs?’

  ‘I don’t know, I just don’t know. He looked sound, there’s no way we could have seen this.’

  ‘It’s all over when you’re not sure if you’ve been screwed by one of your own or the Brits,’ he says, pauses for a moment while he angles himself towards Sweeney then says in a lowered voice, ‘For what it’s worth, I didn’t kill the boy.’

  ‘We all did what we did. We don’t need to talk about it.’

  ‘Ricky, I want you to know didn’t kill the boy. I didn’t kill him and I didn’t want anyone else to kill him.’

  ‘We shouldn’t talk about it now, Franky. We shouldn’t talk about it now.’

  ‘And I’ll have to appear?’

  ‘There’s no way round that. We’ll work out the right things to say. We’ll say it’s an attempt by the securocrats, by the remnants of the RUC and those opposed to the process to damage it, we’ll say whatever it is we have to say. But it’s a bollocks, Franky, no two ways about it. Madden looked sound, like we could depend on him. I don’t understand.’

  Sweeney goes on talking but Gilroy turns his face away from the flow of his words and stares out as the streets gradually become the ones he thinks of as his own but they bring no sense of security and instead he has to blink away his breath streaming before him as he runs, a boy with his head bruised and damaged like rotting fruit and wreathed by twigs and last season’s windfall apples. Whatever happens now he knows it’s over. The idea he once played with has come for him and it’s no longer dependent on what he wants. They’ll stand by him – they never give up their own – he knows that, but whatever happens he’s damaged beyond repair. He knows it and the whole world knows it and as soon as a respectable time has elapsed they’ll pension him off, find him some new backroom job, or say his health has necessitated his retirement from public life.

  Sweeney’s still talking, trying to reassure him as much as possible, trying to absolve himself of the blame, but he doesn’t blame him. He just wants him to be silent now, to let him finish his journey in quiet. They pass a mural with a picture of a British soldier and the slogan that says it’s time to go and for the briefest of seconds he smiles. A time for peace. He closes his eyes and tries to shut out Sweeney’s voice and then he thinks about the phone calls that he has to make and bowing his head the car is suddenly filled with his own silence.

  Madden Hurries from the building. He knows he doesn’t have much time and he’s lucky enough to catch a taxi almost immediately. Luck is what he needs now if he’s to get out of this place and where he needs to be. It’s a risk going back but as he gives the taxi driver the address he’s lodged in his memory, he tells himself that he can make it. What will happen to him if he stays is a confused tangle of possibilities but what he’s certain about is that these are people who don’t like to be crossed and he puts no confidence in talk of new eras and rusting guns. So he urges the driver to go as quickly as he can and tells him there’s a plane that has to be caught and when the driver tries to engage him in conversation he makes it obvious that he’s not interested in talking.

  He should feel lighter having cast off this thing that’s festered inside his head for so long but instead there’s only a sense of shame that the world knows what he’s held so carefully in secret and as they pass strangers on the pavements and drivers sitting in their cars, it feels as if he’s been branded with it for all to recognise. And it suddenly strikes him that there’ll be no casting off, no simple putting behind him, that what he said will journey with him wherever he goes, and all he’s done is allowed it to emerge whole and completely formed into the light. And when Rafferty comes and sits in the kitchen for his tea like a workman taking a break from some bit of house repair, there’s blood on his knuckles. The gun sits on the table beside his plate and it must be his imagination but it’s as if there’s a cold metal smell from it, perhaps of oil, but something that jars and seems out of place on the table and in a kitchen. When Rafferty holds the big mug of tea his knuckles fastened to the handle are red and broken skinned and when he’s finished he smokes a slow cigarette and says almost nothing to him as if he’s below his notice, and he smokes it as if he really enjoys each second and has no thoughts other than the satisfactions of the moment.

  There’s little traffic to slow them and he thinks of driving Ramona back from the beach, of how it felt to be taking her home and see her sleeping at his side trusting him to bring her safely there. And he longs for that unravelling ribbon of houses and businesses, those disconnected places where everything exists in its own space and nothing has to overlap or cramp into lives that endlessly intertwine until they rub each other raw. The world he sees from the taxi is small and bitter like the tight clench of a child’s fist and he wants to be gone from its reach and never come back so when they begin to climb out of the city he doesn’t look back.

  The house looks just as he left it and he tells the taxi driver that he’s just collecting his bag and that he’ll only be a second but as he rings the doorbell he feels frightened. He hears voices before it’s opened and then it’s Kirsty holding open the door and her face is how he thinks his must look, and it makes him angry that people have to feel this way.

  ‘You really screwed up, Michael,’ Downey says. ‘You’ve really shit in the nest.’

  But he doesn’t answer and brushes past him and up the stairs to his room. His bag is already packed and he grabs it and heads back down the stairs.

  ‘Hold it right there,’ Downey says as he slams the front door shut and bristles himself into his full height. ‘I’ve been told you’re to go nowhere, Michael son. They’re on their way and it sounds like you’ve got a lot of explaining to do. Kirsty, go and tell the taxi to clear off. Pay him and tell him he’s not needed now.’

  ‘Don’t do that, Kirsty,’ he says, ‘because I’m out of here.’ But as he steps forward he’s pushed in the chest. He looks at Kirsty and she’s turning from one of them to the other.

  ‘Kirsty, do it now.’

  ‘I need to get the money,’ she says and goes into the kitchen.

  Madden weighs up his chances but the hall is narrow and the door is blocked by a bigger man who looks securely wedged against it so after a second he says, ‘OK, I’ll wait,’ and he turns and walks slowly into the kitchen but as he’s followed he suddenly swings his bag in Downey’s face. A raised arm parries it from a full connection but it still catches him on the side of his head and momentarily knocks him off balance but as he tries to rush past him Downey reaches out a long arm and catches him by the shoulder then shoves him back into the room. Against the weight of Downey he stumbles backwards and hits the edge of the table as his opponent sees his opportunity and presses him back until he’s bent over its top. He’s pinned down and Downey’s face creases in a smile as he secures his hold on him and one hand tightens round his neck.

  ‘Going nowhere, Michael. Not until you’ve faced the music. And then we’ll say where you’re heading. Kirsty, don’t just stand there – for frig’s sake get the money and get rid of the taxi.’

  Out of the corner of his eye he catches her hurrying past and then as he feels Downey’s fingers press into his neck she’s there standing behind them and he glimpses her over Downey’s shoulder and thinks it’s the end. It’s not Downey but she who’s going to finish him off and he blinks his eyes in fear as the c
arving knife moves towards him and when he opens them the knife is pushed tight against Downey’s windpipe and her other hand is pulling his head back by his hair to meet the knife’s sharp caress.

  ‘Let him go, John, let him go.’

  ‘What the fuck … Are you off your head?’ Downey’s eyes roll back white but he holds himself motionless.

  ‘Let him go now or I’ll slit your throat from ear to ear, so help me God I will.’

  For a moment Downey doesn’t move a muscle and then Madden feels the pressure on his neck slowly release and he slides out from under him and going behind him he puts his hand over hers and carefully takes the knife without moving it from its position. Downey goes to speak but he tells him to be quiet and presses the knife tighter against his skin. All his anger now is in his hand and it trembles under the intensity of its surge.

  ‘In the utility room,’ she says and at first he doesn’t understand but she points with her hand and he starts to sidle Downey slowly forwards, a shuffling step at a time. She goes before them and he hears the rattle of keys in her hand then when Downey tries to speak again he whispers, ‘Don’t tempt me,’ and lets the knife angle a little as if it’s feeling for the perfect place. At the doorway he shoves him into the small, narrow room and as Downey stumbles forward she slams the door and turns the key in the lock. Almost immediately there’s a rush of curses followed by violent kicks against the door and then they stand looking at each other as if neither of them can fully understand what it is they’ve done until she says, ‘Take me with you.’ He hesitates and she says, ‘Anywhere,’ and he nods as the door thuds and vibrates with Downey’s attempts to kick it down then tells her to grab a bag and a passport but to do it very quickly. He hears her frantic footsteps on the stairs, the crashing of drawers, and he stands with the knife in his hand and feels the rush of adrenalin flooding over his fear.

  She’s back in an almost quicker time than he could imagine possible and as the door begins to slowly buckle they’re out of the house and into the taxi. They hold each other’s hand in the taxi and when she starts to shiver he puts his arm round her and tells her everything will be all right. That everything will be all right. And as they head for the airport and the first flight out of the place to which he knows he’ll never return, he closes his eyes and thinks of the lake, tries to remember how each morning the earliest light begins to shape and burnish the surface of the water into some new shimmer of life.

  As Fenton drives up to his house and parks he’s glad that Miriam’s car isn’t there – he doesn’t want to talk, doesn’t want to go over what’s happened even though he knows that in a short while his words will be in the brightest of spotlights for everyone to read. The taste of his sickness lingers in his mouth and he wants a drink but as he switches off the engine he sits perfectly still and holds the steering wheel with both hands. He wishes that he were about to set off on another journey, drifting once more past sleeping towns at dawn, on motorways in the soft cocoon of dusk, on mountain roads that traverse thick swathes of forest, and all where he’s unknown and no more visible than a grain of sand on the world’s shore. And what’s the greatest trick of them all, the very best bit of magic that he wants to learn, but to make someone disappear? He’ll go away; now is the time. He’ll go away, disappear, and let it all play out without him somewhere far away that’ll take him but not judge him.

  He’ll be an embarrassment to those still serving, part of their past that they want to shed like some mottled skin. And how would any of them ever know what they’d do until they’d stood where he had? Do they really think it’s possible to sit in civilised comfort and complacency and judge a man who’s facing a furnace, who every day feels the flames flicker against his face? He’s been used and spat out, pensioned off with every other inconvenient legacy of the past. But even though he tries he can no longer summon the protection of anger and what he feels is something opening up inside him as if all the high places are falling away and he’s got nothing stretched out in front of him except a great expanse of open plain where he’s exposed to the rising heat of the sun and no matter how far he walks there’s no sign of reaching any destination.

  He gets out of the car and thinks he’s going to be sick again but it passes and then he’s inside and his fingers are punching the security code to a house that feels emptier than he’s ever known it and its silence is heavy and layered like the thick settle of snow. He goes to the kitchen and takes a drink of water, swirls it round his mouth then spits it out. The phone rings but he ignores it and then after it’s fallen silent he goes upstairs to the bedroom. For a second he thinks of trying to fall into sleep but he knows the phone will ring again and that people will want to speak to him, some for good reasons, some for bad ones, and instead he goes to the wardrobe and opens the little safe that sits on the top shelf and takes it out. He hurries out to the car – he doesn’t want to meet Miriam returning from her father’s. He doesn’t want her to see him because he thinks that if she sees him now she will see a change in him because, in some way he doesn’t fully understand, he will look different to her. And he doesn’t want to have to answer the questions that she will surely ask. He doesn’t want to answer anyone’s questions ever again.

  He drives slowly into the Mourne Mountains as already the light begins to slip away, leaving their contours smudged with a vagueness that gradually smothers their definition even as he draws closer. He follows the main road skirting their edge and then cuts inwards down narrower ones bordered by mountains and forest until they bring him to the car park at one of the reservoirs. There are no other cars and the picnic tables sit forlornly empty as a fine rain starts to spray across the choppy stir of the water. A crow with its wings spread for balance is perched on the edge of a yellow rubbish bin and scavenging its contents. It’s a silent place and as the light fades it pulls the mountains closer, their rocky outcrops smeared into the sky’s greyness. Occasionally the white specks of sheep stutter across the lower slopes and at intervals dark shafts of birds spear the lowering lour of sky. He flicks on the wipers to keep the windscreen clear – it seems important to see it all, to take in everything that he won’t see again – but after a while they beat like a drum in his ears and he has to turn them off. He wonders what it must be like to sleep in a forest, to sleep in a secret place that no one else can find. The gun is cold in his hand as he slides it out of the black leather holster. Never in thirty years has he ever fired one in earnest. Never in thirty years has he even needed to point it. Everything was secret, everything was somewhere else and he arrived at the places where they’d been used only in time to see their results, the human debris discarded and blanket covered. Everything was falling apart, breaking up in front of their eyes, and they were supposed to work some miracle, to hold it all together when it was hard to hold yourself together. It couldn’t be done, things got broken and damaged. Things merged into one another the way now the sky and the water are a grey mirror of each other with only the little wind-stirred spurts of white signifying which is which.

  This is the way it was when Connor Walshe’s white face came swooping out of the gloom, running with his excited little litany of names, of what he’d heard and what he’d seen, bringing his capture home to the nest, full of his own importance. Gilroy’s name among them. Now Fenton believes that’s why he was never to be a father, because one day he would kill a boy. Not only destroy one boy, but two. Two boys who thought he would look after them and tried to shelter inside his protection. So what does it matter if he meant them no harm? It’s right that he’s come to this place and it feels now like the bleak and barren heart of the world. His hand tries to caress the handle of the gun but its cold metallic reality resists his attempt. He wants it to be part of his body, for it to snuggle warmly against his skin, even for a second, but as he slips off the safety catch he feels only its scorn. The glass in front of him is steamed with his breath, shutting out the view. He raises the gun and holds it to his temple. He holds it a long
time until his hand is perfectly steady and then he sets it on the seat beside him. The car is cold – he switches on the engine and makes the demister blow the windscreen clear. Then as the finest of rains slants in squally flurries across the glass and dimples the water stretching before him, he presses his fingers to the temple where a moment earlier the barrel of the gun had nuzzled and tries to still the spreading tremble of his fear.

  Stanfield feels nervous AS he enters the apartment block. He glances back to see Beckett driving off but then shrugs off his sudden squirm of apprehension. What happened was outside all possibilities of his control and certainly not in the anticipated script. Of course they could destroy him with the photographs but he knows that this would be an act of spite and that they are unlikely to waste what power they think they hold over him out of personal animosity, well certainly not Walters – he’s less sure about William. No, they will come back again with other requests and to do that they need to hold their trump card in reserve rather than play it wastefully. And of course he will tell all parties that he did everything inside his power to propagate whatever version of the truth to which they chose to adhere. He was powerless in the face of the outburst, as shocked as anyone – not by the claim but by the fact that it found a voice from the same side. The only thing nobody yet knows is that he has an escape exit of his own and although he hasn’t yet posted his letters he will do so in the morning and then at the first opportunity he’ll be gone and off the public stage and out of public life for an appropriate period, then when he decides the time is right to make a return he’ll limit himself to backwater stuff. Anything will do to keep the wolves from the door. Perhaps even a little lecturing might do the job and he’s started to think that he should rationalise his assets in a couple of years, sell his increasingly valuable London home and buy a property abroad. Somewhere in the sun, somewhere it will warm the marrow of his bones and slow his decline into old age. Perhaps it’s the heat of the sun he needs to stir the flame of his being, to keep him alive in his body and his mind.