The father and mother were still on the landing when they carried McCoy, bound to the stretcher, past them.
They looked at him as if staring at a rodent, vermin. Hate-consumed, but schooled by fear. The progress down the narrow stairs was difficult and slow, and before they were half-way, and manoeuvring on the bend McCoy heard Norah's mother, plaintive and appealing.
'Where's our girl? What's happened to our Norah?
What did he do to her?'
You'll find out soon enough, thought the Irishman. It amused him, and without the pain he would have laughed.
You'll find out and wish you'd never asked, and if they tell you you'll wish they hadn't. Always the same. Always the girls in tow, attracted like dogs to a bitch's fanny, flies in a jam pot. And always they cock it up. You're not the first, Ciaran. Just like the big boyo in Belfast. Took his bird along when they holed up in the big posh house, in the posh road and she still went in her slippers and curlers to fetch the morning milk from the corner shop. Rest of the road had it delivered. Gave it away a mile off, once the copper on car patrol spotted her. Got him nicked.
He was still wondering why the girl had betrayed him when the stretcher party carried him out on to the street.
There were television arc lights there. They'd allowed the cameramen up from the corral at the bottom of the hill. Give 'em a show, McCoy. Give 'em a picture. Don't let the bastards see you down. The spotlights were aimed at his face and blanched the skin on his bared chest, accentuating the whiteness that surrounded the bullet hole with its sparse patch of covering lint.
He shouted, 'Up the Provos,' and the policeman holding the stretcher handles behind his head jolted them hard, sending the rivers of pain flowing fast and deep. Bastards.
And all up to the bloody Arab to wipe the victory smile off their faces. The bloody Arab and his Mushroom Man.
Before they lifted him into the ambulance McCoy had lost consciousness.
The cures he'd been on, the expensive, the unpleasant and the not-so-cosseted varieties, had never lasted for Jimmy.
The craving and desire for excess of alcohol, a dose sufficient to immunize him against pressure and anxiety, remained, lingering and nagging in his life. They'd tried most of the accepted methods to wean him away. The health farm in Hampshire had cost the most, and lasted the least time when he was back in the outside world. The withdrawal programme practised at the clinic behind Brixton Station had been the most ferocious, the most scarring and the longest-running. But each broke down at the stage when Jimmy went back to his breadwinning and the sepia world of his activities demanded some softening.
He was now a low-capability drinker, a short-capacity man. When rational he could recognize the problem, when angry and disappointed he turned away from the consequences.
The flat had been empty when he returned. Helen was not there, gone to her own place. Could hardly blame her, didn't know what time he might have shown up, or in what state of tiredness. Bed hadn't been made from the previous sleeping. Washing up not done, never was, tea leaves settled in an eddy round the plug hole of the sink.
Clothes not picked up. If she'd come back she would have done the tidying ritual. But at least he wouldn't have to tell her about the car. Insurance? . . . Didn't know, be some difficult talking. She'd hate him for it. Couldn't blame her. Pride and joy . . . and up in smoke.
He unscrewed the top of the bottle, cheap brand. Filthy expensive by the time he'd paid the porter his chip, lose it all on expenses. They looked at them hard in the department, but he could lose that, hadn't eaten all day, funnel it through there. Straight, no water. Tap water would be warm, and he hadn't filled the ice-cube box in the fridge.
About an inch to start with, four gulps, needed forcing down, coiled up his guts, blazed a trail through them.
Sagged in the chair, the easy one, springs still kept in check by the upholstery, feet just reaching the table, laces at eye-level, loosened his collar. Coughed a couple of times then corkscrewed his body forward to reach the bottle and the first refill. So tired, seemed to have been moving for ever.
No thoughts, just wanting to shut it all out. Jones pulling his bloody rank, the SAS captain, and those bastards in the house. Should have been your day, Jimmy, and yet you're sent home early, and told to work a bloody shift pattern.
At first the telephone was an accompaniment to his thoughts. It took time for it to communicate urgency, and even more for it to instil the submission required for him to give up the comfort he had established for himself and hobble across the room to the table beside his bed. He deliberated whether to answer, but discipline won through.
He picked up the receiver and gave out the number, had it right too, which surprised him.
'It's Jones here, Jimmy. It's all over down at this end.'
'Congratulations.' Jimmy had difficulties, the word was slow coming.
it's not like that, Jimmy. We have McCoy, but the Arab's gone. He's loose.'
'Not so bright then. Which clever bastard let him slip?'
'He went when you were there, Jimmy, so cut the quips, before the cordon . . . '
'I was on my bloody own, wasn't I? Can't be round the whole house. He didn't come through the front.' All the same, bloody buckpassers brigade.
'Don't come the maudlin, Jimmy. No one's criticizing you. It's a statement of fact. He's loose with a minimum of five hours' start. I want you at the West Middlesex, and now. Not hanging about, but down there now. They're patching McCoy up, and we're keeping the surgeons off him till we've had a preliminary. After that he goes under, has his surgery, and they dig your bullet out of him.'
'Leave the bloody thing there.'
'Don't screw me about, Jimmy. We have to know what the Arab is at. McCoy has to tell us.'
'You've got others who can go and do it.' Why wouldn't the bloody man get off the line and leave him to the bottle and the chair? Why Jimmy, why not one of the young ones who fancied their hand at interrogation? Budding Skar-dons all of them, looking for another Klaus Fuchs to break, looking for a reputation.
'Jimmy, stop waffling, stop boozing, and get off your arse. The Yard's down there. I'm on my way. I've sent a car for you, be at your door in about ten minutes. Put your head under the tap and be there. I want you to talk to McCoy, that's all.'
Even with the drink Jimmy knew why he had been called. Just like Jones, the way his mind worked. Who'd be on the same wavelength as this Irish bastard, who'd be able to frighten him, or win him, or batter it out of him?
Not a copper, not one of the bright lads transferred from Intelligence Corps, not old Jonesey himself. Another thug, that's what he wanted, and put them together. Two rats, both hungry, in the same hole. Two cockroaches disputing the one patch.
Jimmy sat up, breaking his cat-nap as the car drove through the wide gateway and into the hospital forecourt.
Sleep when you can, basic rule, fit it in with the opportunity, always the same when the other lot dictate the time-table, hold the initiative. Time now to regret the whisky, hadn't been much left in the bottle, motion of the car didn't help. Head spinning, uncontrollable circles.
The half-light was beginning to simper through and the nineteenth-century blocks were heavily outlined against the coming dawn. Blue and white signs pointed in every direction, CASUALTY, MATERNITY, X-RAY, OUTPATIENTS.
Ward names, recalling local dignitaries and benefactors.
He saw the police van and the group of uniformed men outside casualty, and the car pulled up there. Jones was waiting for him. He saw Jimmy's appearance and winced, distaste on his face.
'We don't have long. The surgeons are impatient. Want to get their hands on him. Police haven't had anything out of him. Laughs at them. He's weak, but should survive.
Reckons he's the cat's whiskers - probably the morphine.'
Jones led the way through the corridors beyond 'Casualty', past the red-eyed junior doctors and nurses who whiled the night away waiting for the road accidents and the self-damaged d
runks. By the staircase there were plain-clothes men, cigarettes cupped in their hands, the whole place deathly quiet and accentuating their echoing steps. They went up the stairs on to the first floor and towards the ward entrance to their right.
Jones said, 'Fifteen minutes' maximum. You and me. I'll take the notes. Just get the bastard talking.' He showed his I/D card to the two policemen outside the door short of the main communal ward area, and went into the private room. It was barely big enough for a bed, a table and an upright chair. They'd worked a small chest in there as well, and the two men had to ease their way round the obstacles to get to the bedside. There was a nurse sitting at McCoy's feet, short and West Indian, her feet dangling above the floor, waiting the requisite time before removing the thermometer that stuck out like a battleship's gun from the Irishman's mouth. The two men said nothing, allowed her to examine the thin glass tube, write down the results of her study on her clip board, and go when she was ready.
She moved past them, avoiding their eyes, and went out into the corridor. The detective who had been sitting in the room followed her. Jimmy took the nurse's place on the bed, Jones the vacated chair.
Picking at his nose, Jimmy said, 'My name's Jimmy. I'm here till we've finished with you. After that you'll get the surgeon. But not until we've chatted. Doesn't matter to us whether it's ten minutes, ten hours, ten days . . . '
'That's not what the doctor .. .' McCoy spoke with a faintness, whispering.
'Fuck the doctor, McCoy. The medics come back through that door when we say so.'
'They said -
'Well, they got it wrong. Don't you follow in their tracks. We've all the time in the world. You haven't.
You're short of an exit wound, right?'
McCoy turned his head toward Jimmy, managed to lift himself fractionally so that he could see into the eyes, grey-blue and pitiless, rimmed with red. There was a man like that in Armagh City, came to do the executions, seemed to matter less to him than culling a pig on market Thursdays.
'I know about that bullet. I fired it. Not a good shot, should have killed you. Was ahead of you all yesterday.
Fired first at the meeting when your gun was still waving about, followed you out, trailed you all the way. Then you gave me a good clear shot while you stood on the pavement, couple of bloody gooks. pathetic stuff, McCoy, and you supposed to be an expert. Short of men on your side of the water, are they?'
Good stuff, Jimmy-boy, thought Jones. Nothing to write down yet on the pad, but setting him up well. Kicking the boy's vanity, needling him and hard.
McCoy could remember, though his concentration surged and ebbed, the time the army had lifted him years before. There had been a roughness, but a certain set of rules about it all. Pinioned him not gently, but they'd never given him the fear that they'd kill him. This man was different. Not a soldier, not a policeman . . . different. An enemy.
'Wasn't me on the gun.'
"Course it wasn't you on the gun- That was the sharp end, wasn't it? Didn't expect you'd be there, didn't expect you'd be standing by the window when we all started blasting. Left the man's bit to the kiddie, did you?'
'Famy wanted to shoot, that's what he came for.'
Jones's pencil started to move, first words on the virgin paper. A name at last to put to the face. Not really important, but tidier. Made it all neater when you had a caption for the picture. And all those hours they'd put in just to get the name, and now they had it it was irrelevant
- not worth a damn alongside the usefulness of having the face. Jimmy would have registered it, too: it would have given him the kick he needed to get on top. Be no stopping him now.
'He's worse than you, and that's fucking useless.' Jimmy's voice was quiet, casual. As if the conversation were about the visiting centre-forward between strangers on the terraces. McCoy could follow the technique, was aware of it, but too tired, too hurt, too drugged to combat his adversary.
'He's not finished, the boy.'
'Only because he's running. Running with the mess in his pants, and the bog paper in his hand.'
'He'll bloody show you, you Britisher pig.' Out in the corrider where nurses and doctors waited, gathered beside the police guard, they heard the Irishman struggling to shout. They looked at their watches, noting how much longer the questioning could continue.
'He'll show us how fast he can run.'
'He's not finished. What do you think I stayed behind for? Why hole up, if not to give him time? I wasn't there just so he could scarper. He's set to blast you, you and the Yiddisher.'
Jimmy laughed, exaggerated, loud, ridicule. 'He'll never see him.'
'He'll see him and he'll get him.'
'What do you think we're going to do, you pig-thick ape? Parade him up Whitehall? Stick him in a coconut shy? You had your chance, and you buggered it.'
'You can't keep him close all the time. He'll have to put his feet on the ground .. .'
'There's only one place.'
'Right,' hissed McCoy. Jimmy could see him quivering, chest shaking, breath panted in the emotion of the dispute.
'The airport. Up the steps the little man goes and your hero makes his last stand,' Jimmy gabbled the words out, maintaining the momentum. McCoy was with him.
'Right, right first bloody time.'
Jimmy said nothing. Sudden, total silence. The noise stillborn, the voices aborted. McCoy's eyes closed tight shut. The enormity of what he'd said, slow in dawning then overwhelming. Betrayed him. Ciaran McCoy, volunteer and officer in the Irish Republican Army, had betrayed him.
'Holy Mother of Jesus, forgive me.' His lips barely moved with the formation of the words that Jimmy did not hear.
Jimmy stretched off the bed and walked towards the door, Jones a pace behind. He said, distant, matter of fact.
'The surgeon only gave us fifteen minutes. We reckoned that would be enough. And we were right, Ciaran, we've four and a half to spare. So it's over to his tender hands now. Hope the bloody knife's blunt.'
McCoy did not see him go. In his life he had never known such abject misery.
The diversion along the park wall and then the search for the bridge crossing of the Thames had cost Famy a considerable detour, switching his journey from six miles to nearly nine. The pale shiver of light was spreading as he came to the cohorts of warehouses and offices that marked the outer perimeter of Heathrow. He felt new confidence now that he was alone and on his back the new clothes, blue jeans and a pale-green shirt. It had been a clear night and the housewife who worked a long day's shift had seen the opportunity to leave her husband's washing out on the garden line. A bonus for Famy as he had gone on his way.
New clothes that would render obsolete the description given to the police in Richmond.
Famy recognized the danger of moving too far a distance inside the airport before he had solidified the cover that he regarded as essential to protect himself later in the day.
The detail he had studied and accepted as he had run.
Now all he needed, he told himself, was time. Time to move to the position that he must have. Time to be ready for when the El Al landed. Must be there for the first one.
They'd take him out, send him home, rid themselves of Sokarev. And so easy to know, once he was there. Can always tell when a big man is flying, or one they think highly of. The security, that's what gives it away, what makes it so obvious. But had to get there, and then stay and wait and watch; watch for signs that meant Sokarev was coming. Had to get there, to where the first El A1 flight would take on its passengers, and then be patient and observe, and look for the security men; the hard-faced men who would tell him the quarry was close.
In Fatahland they would be waking now. In the tents set among the scrub and the rocks his colleagues in arms had passed a night spent dreaming of an opportunity such as he had been given, awaiting it as their own one-time destiny. The new day would be coming over the camp.
The same sun rising across the mountain to the east of Nablus where the
road ran on down to the Jordan valley, where his father would be out of his bed, and his mother already in the kitchen outhouse behind the bungalow, and his brothers dressing for school. And in Haifa and Netanya and Ashkelon and Beersheba the Jews would be waking too. All would say his name when the next evening came.
Some with adulation, some with resignation, some with detestation. The blow he prepared to strike would be mighty, to many millions it would shatter the foetid complacency, and to those who lived on the far side of the wire and the minefields and who longed to cross over he would bring hope and aspiration. There was a pounding of excitement, close to purest happiness.
Inside the perimeter he skirted the road that ran adjacent to the runways and across the acres of dividing clipped grass, keeping back from the vague traffic flow, seeking the shadows. He appeared to any who might notice him as one more from the ranks of the thousands of immigrant workers, the lifeblood of the airport, on his way to another day at work, washing dishes, sweeping concourses, cleaning lavatories. His bag seemed not to weigh so heavily, the roar of the big engines lightening the load. He was very near to the estuary of his mission.
Back in Lebanon they had told him about the tunnel that was the sole route from the outside conurbation to the heart of the airport complex. They had showed him a photograph of its entry, pointing out the footpath that ran separate to the vehicle road. If there was security that path could be guarded — too simple, too easy, and risks should not be taken, not when the scent was so strong. He saw the bus queue, a short hundred yards up the hill from the entry tunnel, a straggled line of brown faces, of turbans and saris, many carrying the bags that contained their working overalls, bags that were so similar to the one that rested by his feet when he joined them. Infiltrate where you will not be noticed, that is what they had told him; there is a time for combat uniform and a time for camouflage. And the bus when it came would take him to the central terminals. He must look there for the canteens and rest rooms where the workers gathered for their breaks.
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