Blood Will Be Born

by Donnelly, Gary

  ‘Let’s go Daddy O,’ said Christopher. Fryer looked at him sourly and stuck it into first gear. The sky was monochrome grey and threatening rain, but Christopher’s heart was sunshine. When the laughing spasm started, he did not even try to stop, despite John Fryer’s insistence that he shut the fuck up.

  Chapter 5.

  Sheen joined the crowd mourners, eyes open, on the hunt for John Fryer. Question was; would he be able to pick Fryer out, aged, and probably in disguise? Above him, seeming close enough to touch, low cloud moved stealthily over the top of the Black Mountain, not quite reaching the words printed out in plastic sheets. He had seen a message printed there on his first morning in Belfast, but now it had changed, keeping up with the times. VIVA GAZA had been replaced. Instead, it now read: RIP COMRADE DEMPSEY.

  Sheen turned into the grounds of Holy Spirit, found a raised standing position, the doors of the church and entrance of the car park in clear view. The numbers continued to increase, it was like a crowded tube platform, he felt his personal space close up, gentle nudges from both sides as others shuffled to make space for new bodies. From behind him, the sound of a car door, latching open, and then thudding closed.

  The memory was suddenly in his mind, visceral and clear. The sound was the key that opened the lock. A car door opening and slamming closed, but this one in Sailortown years before, followed by the sound of feet running off. In the church grounds, the crunch of feet on the gravel, as the person who had just closed the car door (or, perhaps, it was a black taxi, one that had been parked and he had not noticed?) now approached. Sheen held his breath, waiting. Any second now, the owner of those feet would come up beside him and it was going to be John Fryer, but not as he looked today. He would be young, his hair still glossy and dark, the same man who had left the car bomb ticking while children played in the street. Sheen would turn and look him in the eye and he would know, with absolute certainty.

  ‘All right mate,’ said a voice. It was an old man, not a young one, soft red features and wet eyes. He was wearing a tan coloured rain coat, buttoned and belted, the smell of recently extinguished tobacco mixed with a stronger waft of moth balls hung around him. Sheen nodded, unsure of how best to respond. A London accent could attract attention, questions. The car park was almost full, and Sheen could hear the approaching sound of pipes playing, followed by a hushing down from the mourners, hats came off heads. Dempsey’s body was about to arrive, it was time to honour Ireland’s dead.

  ‘We were daft to have thought we’d put this sort of thing behind us. The past haunts us here, mate. Too many skeletons in the cupboard,’ he said in a whisper, the high, hospital smell of moth balls wafting at Sheen with the words.

  ‘Aye,’ whispered Sheen in return with a nod. The man was right.

  The funeral cortege had now turned into the narrow entrance gates. Dempsey’s coffin, draped in an Irish tricolour flag, was balanced on the shoulders of six men, three on each side. He recognised the two who were walking at the front of the coffin. Most people would; leading republican figures, household names in Ireland, Britain and beyond. Photographers, laden with cameras and bags padded quietly to preferred vantage points, snapping hungrily; they wanted the picture which would paint a story of where the Peace Process had come to over the 12th of July. Sheen scanned the faces of the mourners as all eyes locked on the coffin. No John Fryer.

  Overhead, he became aware of the rattle and growl of a helicopter, and glancing up, he saw it move in a wide circle above them watching, probably snapping photographs of its own.

  The coffin had stopped at the steps of the church where a priest had emerged from inside the open double doors, flanked by two kids, a girl and boy, both dressed in white robes. From within, Sheen heard the muted sound of an organ playing. He ran his eyes back and forth over the faces now forming a line behind the coffin. No alarm bells went off. He stepped aside to let the man in the tan trench coat get through. The photographers headed for the gate. They knew where the real action was going to take place, where Dempsey’s body would be lowered into the ground, perhaps to the stiff applause of a volley of rifle fire.

  The grainy film footage Sheen had once seen of the loyalist killer, shooting at mourners in Milltown Cemetery, played briefly in his mind. Stone had been trying to get away, headed for the M1 motorway where a van at first waited, then drove off, leaving him to his fate. All filmed by the world’s media, who would also be present today.

  If Fryer was going to appear, Sheen would find him at Milltown. He still had time, but he needed to get there quickly; walking was not an option. He took out his phone, scrolled through the contacts until he found the name he was looking for, pressed it, and walked away from the church entrance, willing Gerard, the taxi man, to pick up. At last, he did.

  ‘Gerard, I was wondering if you wanted to earn an extra few bob this afternoon.’ Gerard paused for a beat before replying that he was interested. Sheen quickly summarised where he was and where he wanted Gerard to take him. He quoted a price, what he hoped would be generous money in any man’s terms.

  ‘And I am going to need you to wait for me, on the hard shoulder of the M1. That’s where you’ll drop me so I can access Milltown from the rear,’ said Sheen. He held his breath, waiting for Gerard to back pedal, tell him it was too risky, thanks but no thanks.

  ‘I will be with you in twenty, agreed?’ said Gerard.

  Agreed.

  Chapter 6.

  Fryer had barked at the kid to shut up, but he had kept laughing, all the way from Poleglass. They had driven down the M1, avoided west Belfast. As he drove past the back of Milltown Cemetery, he slowed and scanned the area. This was going to be his access point. A helicopter rattled overhead, probably tracking Dempsey’s funeral on its way down the road. Fryer’s eyes locked on something and his jaw clenched.

  There was a car parked on the verge of the motorway just ahead. Hazard lights on, taxi sign on the roof. It was the exact spot he planned to use. And now there was a car waiting where none had any business to be. He passed the taxi, shot a glance inside, but it was empty, and then he saw its bonnet was open, a man half concealed with his head in the engine, legs visible. Fryer’s eyes followed the broken path into the cemetery until he focused on what he knew he would find. One odd man stood out, closer to the motorway, his back to the granite cemetery wall, wearing a tan jacket. The man watched the cemetery, scanned the motorway, and for a millisecond, Fryer and he locked eyes over the distance.

  ‘Shit,’ he hissed. The taxi was obviously a decoy; the man in the cemetery was Special Branch, maybe undercover army. Either way, his plan was fucked, and he would need to think of another way in. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest, the bomb bag suddenly too tight and too heavy. He reached for one of his pre-rolled smokes and sparked it up, sucked deeply, his heart mellowed a bit. Fryer glanced at the kid. The laughing had stopped, but his eyes were gleaming. The fake taxi, the two undercover guys, this was unexpected, but not insurmountable. Question was, how did they find out?

  ‘You alright John?’ said the kid. Fryer switched his attention back to him.

  ‘Dead on kid,’ he said.

  The kid started to fidget, and talk to himself, quickly and quietly, like a man in a trance. Fryer sighed, drove on, listened to the whispering patter of the kid’s voice beside him as he passed Grosvenor Road, Divis Street and the bottom of the Falls, then Peter’s Hill and the Shankill before coming off at Clifton Street and turning left up the Crumlin Road. The kid had stopped talking, they sat in silence.

  Fryer saw the entrance to the industrial estate on his right and pulled in. It offered them a secluded inlet. He stopped the taxi, got out and kept his head down as he got the wheel chair out and unfolded it. The kid went to the boot, took his Daddy’s Ruger pistol and unfurled the Union Jack flag. He sat down slowly in the wheelchair, concealed the gun beneath the flag draped over his lap. Looked ok, nothing too suspicious, his shaved head made Fryer think of a cancer patient.

 
‘We walk from here. I’ll get you as close to the camp as I can,’ said Fryer, pushing the wheelchair up the entrance ramp of the industrial estate and out on to the Crumlin Road. The day had started to brighten, sunshine breaking through the low cloud. The kid glanced up at him, serious. Fryer caught a glimmer of something in his eyes, initially saw fear but quickly placed it as something else; indecision. The kid wanted to tell him something. He thought of the decoy taxi and the man who watched and waited at Milltown.

  ‘You haven’t been talking to anyone, like to one of your Da’s old mates have you?’ said Fryer, still pushing, but slower now. As he walked, the pieces fell into line, events he’d failed to question, his heart had been ruling his head after losing his chance with Ava. The peelers had done some fast work in finding the kid’s family home. And the kid had been out and about on Sunday morning, Saturday afternoon too now he thought about it.

  ‘The only person I talk to is Daddy,’ he said

  ‘Don’t fuck me around kid, if there is something I need to know, I need to know it now. Partners, right?’ he said. The kid stayed silent, the wheels of chair squeaked in time. Now he could hear the faint sound of music, the protest camp. Fryer stopped, rested his weight on the handles.

  ‘I’ve asked Daddy if it is OK to tell you, John, but he has not got back to me,’ he said quietly. Fryer’s fists tightened on the handles. This was it. The kid knew something; maybe the peelers had been on to them all along, maybe the whole thing was a set up; he’d been a stooge doing MI5’s dirty work by killing Dempsey.

  ‘This is goodbye, talk to me,’ he said.

  ‘Who else will know the whole story, after we are gone? The glorious things we will set in motion?’ he said. Come on kid, he thought, spit it out.

  ‘John, there’s another bomb. A final spectacular that will really set the night on fire,’ he said. Fryer’s mind swerved to keep up. Not what he saw coming. The kid started to laugh, he kept repeating ‘set the night on fire,’ again and again between fits of hysterics. Fryer could feel the wheel chair rock against his grip.

  ‘Kid! Be cool, fucks sake, tell me what you know,’ he said. The kid sobered up, but made no sense.

  ‘Suffer the little children, John, it is God’s will, Daddy told me so,’ he said, then broke off into a high peel of giggling; it was like a wild dog, not a man. That phrase, the one about suffering children, the kid had said it last night. A fire bomb, on children, Fryer let go of the handles of the chair and walked round so he could see the kid. He had a thick stream of snot running from one of his nostrils, his eyes deranged and full of confusion. Fryer pulled hard on the bomb bag, almost dragging the kid from his seat. But he already knew the answer to his question even as he growled it, his face pressed into Christopher’s.

  ‘Where did you put the bomb?’ he said. The kid’s eyes widened, and then, of course, the laughing started, but not before he spoke one more word, the worst word Fryer had ever heard.

  ‘Culturlann,’ he said.

  Fryer let him go, stepped back and swung his right arm in a tight, vicious arc. His elbow connected with Christopher’s jaw. Fryer felt it splinter, and the kid’s head jack knifed with elastic energy, left to right, and returned to rest on the bomb bag. His jaw hung open at a crazy angle, his eyes were rolled back in his head. Fryer grabbed the handles of the wheelchair, turned it and pushed it back inside the entrance of the industrial estate, vaguely aware that his arm had opened, hot blood from elbow to wrist. He dug into his back pocket, felt the cuffs, pulled them free, and latched one round the kid’s wrist and clicked it tight. He locked its pair to the metal arm of the wheel chair.

  He checked his watch, it had gone 11.30am, Dempsey’s funeral would be at the cemetery gates but Fryer was not interested. It would take him twenty minutes to get to the Culturlann, and Ava. He got into the taxi, breathing like a beast, and took off. Fryer cursed and cried, and repeated the same thing again and again, as he drove like a man possessed.

  ‘I will save you, I will save you, I will save you,’ he said.

  Chapter 7.

  At the same moment Christopher Moore dropped the spare keys for the padlocks into the slops bucket, Aoife spotted Cecil and his men during the wreath laying at the City Hall Cenotaph. Cecil had positioned himself close to the ceremony where the television cameras could pick him out. When the main body of the parade started moving south, Cecil and his men did not follow them; they slowly started north, and then veered west. She had kept her distance, and at the bottom of the Shankill Road she lost them, spent twenty minutes wandering up and down between Peter’s Hill and North Street, almost walked straight into them as they left a greasy spoon café, lively conversation in full flow.

  Aoife ducked into a doorway, pretended to be on her phone. She heard them pass, and sneaked a look as they walked off. Cecil Moore was with two of his Glasgow pals she had seen at the Bad Bet and one younger man, bigger set, probably the bodyguard. Cecil was holding their attention as they marched off, the bodyguard watched the road, the others watched Cecil. They stopped, as Cecil delivered his punchline, rough laughter erupted from his companions. If Cecil was mourning his dead mother, or saddened by the loss of his henchman, Nelson, he was hiding it well.

  Her phone lit up, a message from Sheen. He had left Dempsey’s funeral, had gone ahead to Milltown. She was in the process of replying, looked up at the sound of a vehicle stopping. A black taxi, red tail lights aflame, had halted a little further up. Cecil and his group got in. The taxi’s engine laboured to life and it drove off without indicating, away from her and up the Shankill Road.

  Aoife pocketed her phone and quickly legged it across the road, searching the oncoming traffic for another taxi, or a bus, seeing neither. She turned and squinted after Cecil’s taxi but it was gone; she’d lost him. Aoife started walking, then stopped, better to think. He could be going anywhere, but chances were Cecil was going to follow the Shankill up to Woodvale, then all the way down to the junction of the Crumlin Road and Twaddle, where the Orange protesters waited. He had promised as much on the news last night. All she needed to do was head him off.

  A taxi approached, one free space. She stuck out her thumb, and the driver slowed abruptly, and stopped to let her in; her lucky day. Progress up the Shankill Road was slow, the drone of the taxi’s engine competing with a crying infant beside her. Almost a half an hour had passed by the time she paid the driver and got out, then walked the short distance along the Ballygomartin Road to get to the junction with Twaddle Avenue. The Orange protesters were about 500m away, and sure enough, there was Cecil and his cronies, about a further fifty metres ahead of her, walking and talking. Aoife slowed down; pulled out her phone, Sheen needed the update.

  Five missed calls, two from Paddy Laverty, three from Marie, plus a text. She had not heard her phone beneath the din of the taxi journey.

  CALL ME NOW!

  Aoife stopped, staring at the three words, her heart a ball of lead on a rubber band, falling away into her gut, her mouth sandpaper dry. Something bad had happened. She stabbed at Marie’s name on her call list, missed it, nearly dropped the phone, pulled it into her chest and managed to make the call, holding the phone to her ear, listening to it ring as Cecil and his group marched further ahead. Marie’s voice, wild and urgent, behind it, outdoor sounds of shouting, disorder.

  ‘Aoife! Aoife!’ she said, panicked. Aoife’s heart rebounded on its rubber band, walloping back up in her chest.

  ‘Where’s Ava!’ she screamed.

  ‘He shot that man. He shot that police man, I think he’s dead. There was a big explosion, the place is on fire everything is burning,’ said Marie. She was speaking without pause, a flow of babbling panic, clothed in tears, her breath hitching and sobbing loudly into Aoife’s ear. Aoife gritted her teeth, felt her fingers dig into her palm as she clenched her fist, struggling to retain control.

  ‘Breathe, answer my questions. Where is Ava?’ she asked. Sobbing from the phone, gasping, Jesus was Ava dead? Then, at last
Marie spoke.

  ‘A man took her, he has her,’ said Marie. Aoife uttered a high pitched yelp, and then jammed her knuckles into her mouth, biting down hard, focusing on the clasping pain. ‘The Culturlann’s burning, Ava’s gone,’ she said. Aoife’s head was racing. She closed her eyes, piecing together the fragments Marie had manged to relay. A bomb, a policeman shot, Ava kidnapped? It did not make sense. And that place was full of kids; Marie said it was in flames.

  ‘Marie, where did this man go? Where did he take Ava?’ she asked. Her baby girl, it was all that mattered, God forgive her, even if every other child was killed, Ava was all that mattered to her. Marie did not reply directly, her voice had slowed now, Aoife could hear the flatness of severe shock taking control.

  ‘They said that he just walked in, he was looking for Ava, was calling her name, he knew who she was,’ said Marie.

  ‘What do you mean, he knew her? Who was he Marie? Where did he go? Speak to me,’ she said, marvelling at the steadiness of her own voice.

  ‘He shoved her into a black taxi and then drove it off, up the Falls Road. He said he was her Granda, kept shouting he was her Granda,’ said Marie.

  ‘A black taxi? Was he on his own, this man, or was he with someone?’ asked Aoife, but Marie said nothing. It was all she was going to get from her. Aoife killed the call, turned and started to run back in the direction she had just come. She’d done twenty steps then stopped. Where was she running to? The Falls? It was three, maybe four, miles away and she had no car. Sheen. She pressed his number, he answered on the first ring. No time for long explanations.

  ‘Sheen, I think John Fryer has just kidnapped Ava from the Culturlann, it’s on the Falls Road. There was an explosion. I can give you directions, please go, I’m too far away,’ she said. There was a three second pause, Marie’s final words buzzing like a fat blue bottle in her brain. He said he was her Granda, said he was her Granda, he said he was her Granda.