Though the Heavens Fall

by Anne Emery

  “Don’t look at me like that! I just respect him as a man of God. But I have to say he is pleasing to the eye!”

  “That must be why she made me lug a big fuckin’ poster of him home on the plane, the wife. Made me buy it for her, frame and all, and we didn’t even have time to get it crated for the flight. The glass cracked. I told her that would happen. She’s still got it up on the wall of her flat.”

  After a minute or so of quiet drinking, Ruby asked, “How’d you like the South? Can’t beat it for the weather, for sure. Everybody must have been jealous of you coming back to Belfast with a real American suntan!”

  “Suntan? That’s what we were expecting when we signed up. Sun, sun, sun. But, no, we had to go out and buy raincoats.”

  “Well, aside from that,” said Ruby, “were you sorry to be leaving the United States? It’s a big country. Too bad you didn’t get to see more of it.”

  “Aye, we wished we’d had more time there. I wanted to see the Grand Canyon, and my wife wanted to see New York. But we were a long way from those places.”

  “Next time,” Ruby assured him.

  “Mmm.”

  The door opened then, and the conversation in the bar fell to a murmur. Glasses were held in mid-air as everyone eyed the man who had just walked in. Brennan could feel the tension even though he had no idea who the fellow was. His hair was buzzed to his scalp and his eyes looked like slivers of pale blue ice; he had so much bulk under his plain black windbreaker that Brennan wondered whether he had on a bulletproof vest. The chilling eyes fixed on Brennan, and then on Maura. Was this lethal individual on to them? Brennan made an effort to show no interest; he let his eyes light upon the new arrival and then move on to others in the Iron Will. He sipped his beer as if he hadn’t noticed who was in the room and who was not.

  MacAllan was summoned to attend the newcomer. He left his drink on the bar, excused himself, and walked over to the man. Brennan watched the two exchange some kind of silent communication and move off to a quiet corner of the pub. For the first time since beginning this charade, Brennan allowed thoughts of the Dublin bombing to come into his mind. As he eyed Brody MacAllan across the room, he pictured the man sitting in a car laden with explosives as it drove into Talbot Street just before rush hour, when it would do the most horrendous damage and cause the most deaths and grievous injuries. Brennan saw in his mind the images of the bombed-out street, the rubble, the terrified and injured people, the mangled corpses. Including that of his friend and teammate, Paddy Healey. He pictured Paddy, his fair hair flying in the wind as he ran down the pitch and tried for a goal. Brennan willed himself to stay in character, to see out the whole foolish pantomime until the end. He sent up a silent prayer that he would not fail in his endeavour, and that he would get Maura safely out of the Iron Will and out of east Belfast before things went, well, south.

  He leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Get up and walk out now. I’ll follow after I finish my beer. To make it look real, I mean.”

  For once, she didn’t give out to him about being gallant; that said it all about the atmosphere in the place. All she said was “Getting up will draw too much attention. We’ll wait it out.”

  MacAllan and the sinister looking newcomer remained in intense conversation for several long minutes, then the cold-eyed man gave him a terse nod, scanned the personnel in the bar once more, and walked out. MacAllan returned to the bar, and Brennan as Duane offered to buy a round again.

  “Same for you, sir?”

  “Aye. Thank you.”

  “Ruby?”

  “Nothing for me, hon. Two was plenty. And I think maybe you’ve had enough yourself, don’t you? I mean, you’re not used to it, darlin’.”

  Duane winked at MacAllan, who smirked back at him, man to man. Let the little woman think Duane Ballard hardly ever touches the stuff; good way to maintain family harmony. Then Ruby Jean suggested that it was time they said goodbye and returned to the hotel. Have an early night. Big day tomorrow, bus leaving early for a trip to — bless her, she remembered to use the Loyalist name for it — “Londonderry.”

  Duane clapped his new friend on the back, said how pleased he and Ruby Jean were to meet him, and expressed the hope that he would make it back to America again before too long. He went up to the bar and paid for MacAllan’s drink, pretending to fumble with the unfamiliar currency, and then the outlandish couple left the bar. They were careful to stay in character when they got outside and exclaimed about all the sights in southern cornball dialect.

  Then they hoofed it out of east Belfast to the city centre. “I suppose you’ll want to go home and change into a soutane or vestments for Mass, Father, as an antidote to your Catholic-hatin’, redneck persona tonight.”

  “It’s either that or my drinking clothes.”

  “What tiny, particular subset of your wardrobe is reserved for those rare, exceptional occasions when you go drinking, Brennan?”

  He raised his eyes to a cold, uncaring heaven. “She does my head in, this one.”

  “You’re well able to handle it, Burke. The verbal abuse, I mean, if not the liquor. Let’s get back to the flat and ditch these outfits before somebody sees us and has us deported.”

  They hailed a taxi, and Duane asked to be taken to the campus of Queen’s University. Brennan didn’t want anyone making a connection between the two gaudy tourists and Monty’s address in south Belfast. They found nobody in residence when they arrived at the flat. Monty had the children out somewhere. They shed their costumes for normal attire, Brennan had a shave, and they set out on foot to find a place to lift a glass. Not that there was any shortage of bars. They decided to keep walking till they got to Morrisons, found a table, and settled in for a pint. Or two. They chatted about inconsequential things, and Brennan had a couple of shots of whiskey to complement the Guinness. He felt the tension ebbing away. It wasn’t long before they were reminiscing about the time they travelled together all the way from Kentucky to Norn Iron. “I’m thinking our adventure should be immortalized in song,” he said.

  “You’re too right, Father. Should it be in the classical tradition or more of a Gregorian chant?”

  “A hurtin’ tune, country style. ‘The Ballad of Duane and Ruby Jean.’ You start.”

  She thought for a bit and then resumed her Kentuckian voice:

  I seen you settin’ on that bar stool

  Far from Kentucky, lookin’ like a fool.

  While a gun-totin’ stranger looked you in the eye

  And you lookin’ back and sayin’ do or die.

  Brennan polished off his latest drink and added to the composition:

  I ain’t a-feared a no gun-totin’ man.

  He’s only a varmint that I’m better than.

  My trigger finger’s got a awful itch;

  I jes might plug that son of a bitch.

  Mercifully a session of real music started up, and the two composers had to postpone completion of their corn-pone opera. “You know,” Maura said, “‘The Ballad of Duane and Ruby Jean’ is so far from what I hear you sing in Mass, Father, so far from the repertoire of your heavenly choirs, that I’m a-feared you might be possessed by the devil.”

  “When I’m possessed by the devil, you’ll know it, you little rip.”

  “Wouldn’t know whether to take that as a threat or a promise,” said a young woman, who plopped down at the table next to them. Her boyfriend tripped over the table leg before finding his place on the chair. The pair of them were well on, but there was more to come. A companion managed to handle three shot glasses and three pints and land them safely on the table. The female of the group returned to her earlier observation. “I wouldn’t mind a bit of deviltry coming my way from him,” she said, pointing her pint glass at Brennan.

  “Pay her no mind,” her boyfriend said, “whether it’s you or any other bloke that walks into this place. She’d
get up on a stiff breeze.”

  “Whoa!” said Maura. She leaned across the table towards Brennan, so they could talk without their every word being made scandalous by the crowd beside them. Seeing her lean towards him gave rise to scandalous thoughts in his own mind, and he made a determined effort to banish them, to concentrate on what she was saying as she spoke animatedly of the wonderful time the children, Normie and Dominic, were having in Dublin. She’d been talking to the oldest son, Tommy Douglas, in Halifax, and his band had a gig coming up at a university dance. Against his will, Brennan pictured himself walking at her side through the streets of Dublin, or Belfast, or Halifax, pictured himself as the father of her children. Stopped before anything more graphic came into his sozzled brain.

  He got up for another round of drinks, gulped one shot of whiskey while waiting for the two-part pour of his Guinness, and added another shot to his order. He knew he’d had enough but, well, he wanted more. He also needed a smoke. He lit one up, took a few long drags, and received a much-needed hit of nicotine, then squashed the rest of it out in an ashtray and returned to the table. He sat across from her, an attentive audience, as she regaled him with comical tales of Monty and the unpleasant surprises that had sandbagged him in the courtroom. Monty. His best friend.

  One of the fellows at the next table leaned over and whispered to him. He turned from the MacNeil to listen to the interloper. “What’s her name, the one you can’t tear your eyes away from? What’s her name?”

  Brennan tried not to react to the insinuation. He came up with an answer in Irish, “Ar Éirinn ní neosainn cé hí.”

  “Spoken like a true gentleman,” the fellow said. Apparently he was not quite as thick as Brennan had thought. “Lads!” the fellow called out then to the band, who had just come back from a break. “Give us ‘Ar Éirinn Ní Neosainn Cé Hí.’ We’ll all have a dance.”

  The band did the old, traditional ballad and did it well. Everyone who wasn’t legless got up to dance and that included Brennan, who still had legs under him, though he didn’t know how long he would. He took the MacNeil in his arms, cautioning himself not to hold her too close, and they waltzed to the beautiful song. As always, he couldn’t stop himself from singing along.

  Aréir is mé ag téarnamh um neoin

  Ar an taobh thall den teora ’na mbím,

  Do théarnaigh an spéirbhean im’ chomhair

  D’fhág taomanach breoite lag sinn.

  Do ghéilleas dá méin is dá cló,

  Dá béal tanaí beo milis binn,

  Do léimeas fá dhéin dul ’na comhair,

  Is ar Éirinn ní neosainn cé hí.

  When the dance was over and he relinquished his hold on her, she said, “I have to say you sang that more beautifully than you did ‘The Ballad of Duane and Ruby Jean.’ What do the words mean?”

  Last night as I strolled abroad

  On the far side of my farm

  I was approached by a beautiful woman

  Who left me distraught and weak.

  He skipped a few of the more romantic passages and ended with the last line, “For Ireland I’d not tell her name.”

  Chapter XI

  Monty

  Vincent McKeever had agreed, with obvious reluctance, to meet Monty on Sunday afternoon. The rendezvous point was a wooded area off the Colinglen Road southwest of the city. Monty had no trouble finding the road but it took a few minutes of driving before a young man popped out and signalled him to stop. He parked and they walked into the shelter of the trees. Vincent McKeever was of medium height, wiry, and sandy-haired. He looked nervous, with one leg jiggling as he leaned with his back against a tree, his eyes constantly scanning the area around him. As if anyone would spot him out here.

  “What are you worried about, Vincent?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Who do you think was in the car you saw that night?”

  “I don’t have a bloody clue. But whoever it was, he pulled a knife on me. And you’re asking why I’m worried?”

  “A knife?”

  “You heard me.”

  “All right. This won’t take long. Tell me what you saw that night.”

  “Me and my girlfriend were . . . out for a walk, and the car comes flying in.”

  “And this was on the Ammon Road where O’Grady’s is, and the bridge.”

  “Yeah, I heard it come squealing off the road and into the . . . it’s a wee wooded area just off the road. It was a fine, warm night. Me and my girlfriend were in there.”

  “Right, so you heard the car, and then what happened?”

  “I heard it, so I got up . . . I walked out from the trees where we were, and there it was in kind of a clearing with bushes around. I was going to give out to the man about tearing around the countryside and maybe running people down. I went up to his door, the driver’s door, and yer man gets out and has a knife in his hand. One of those flick knives, or switchblades, whatever you call them. I backed away ’cause I didn’t want that going into my gut.”

  “What did the man look like?”

  “I had my eyes on the blade, for fucksake, not on the colour of the fella’s eyes, or what kind of shirt he had on that day.”

  “Fair enough. But you could tell whether he was tall or not.”

  “A short wee get.”

  “Shorter than you.”

  “Aye.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “Fuck off is what he said.”

  “What did he sound like?”

  “What do you think? He sounded like a fella telling someone to fuck off. So I did.”

  “Was he alone in the car?”

  “Yeah. The light went on when he opened his door. Nobody else in there.”

  “What did you see of the car?”

  “A Ford Orion, only a few years old. I only saw the arse end of it before I fucked off.”

  “So what did you notice?”

  “I didn’t take the time to read the number off the tag, if that’s what you’re asking. The car was black or dark blue. I saw a couple of bullet holes in the bumper. And the shots fired were only a short time before that, so you can draw your own conclusions. I don’t know any more than that, and I don’t want to know. Nothing else I can tell you. I have to be somewhere.”

  “Hold on a second, hold on. You heard shots fired?” He looked even more wary then, aware that he had blurted out new information. “Tell me.”

  “Yeah, I heard them.”

  “Shots where?”

  “Back along the road.”

  “In what direction?”

  “I don’t know. Way down past the bridge. I guess.”

  “So the bridge was between where you were and where the shots were fired.”

  “Yeah.” He made the sound of several shots in rapid succession.

  “How many shots did you hear?”

  “I didn’t fucking count them, man. Seemed like a lot. A burst of gunfire and then, a few seconds later, some more. I looked at my girlfriend and she looked at me, and we were thinking we were going to get out of there, and then I heard the car coming.”

  “And you saw how many bullet holes in the back of the car?”

  “I think it was two.”

  “What time of the night was this?”

  He shrugged and then said, “One o’clock, maybe, in the morning. Something like that.”

  “How were you able to see, if it was nighttime?”

  “What? Now you’re saying I didn’t see anything? That suits me fine. Can I get you in as a witness if the wee bastard tracks me down? You can tell him, ‘Forget it. Don’t worry about this eejit. He didn’t see a thing.’”

  “I know you saw the man, the car, and the bullet holes.”

  “There was a bit of a moon out, all right?”

  “All right.
Thank you, Vincent. The Flanagan family will be most grateful.”

  “Right. They can make a fine speech over my grave.”

  * * *

  Monty wanted to keep his research under the radar as much as possible, though he could not have said why, given that the shooting in the small hours of the morning of November 14, 1992, was a matter of public knowledge, and asking about it would not necessarily raise suspicion. About anything, really. But he was representing the Flanagan family, and he did not know what had happened to their father; if it was connected to the shooting, it would obviously be a sensitive matter. So he decided to take a walk to the city library and look through the newspapers, in whatever form they were available, for the days immediately after November 14. It didn’t take long for him to find a series of stories about the shooting of Francis “Fritzy” O’Dwyer, who was known to be a member of the Provisional IRA. O’Dwyer was described by unnamed sources as “one of the hard men from the Short Strand.” His body was found “riddled with bullets” by the side of the Ammon Road after the Royal Ulster Constabulary received an anonymous phone tip from someone who had heard shots just before one o’clock that morning. There had been no arrests; Monty knew the murder had never been solved.

  He didn’t have much of a foundation on which to build a case. A dead man in the water. A car that may have been involved, or not. A driver who, what? If he had a gun, he wouldn’t have settled for pulling a switchblade on McKeever. But he did have bullet holes in the back of his car. Was he a witness to the shooting? It didn’t stretch the imagination to conclude that a car happening by the scene of the crime might get fired upon. And McKeever heard two bursts of gunfire. The police had found nothing to suggest a hit and run. But what else might they have that could further Monty’s investigation? Would they share any of their information with him? Only one way to find out.

  It took a few exasperating phone calls on Monday morning, and a few instances of being placed on hold, but he finally secured an afternoon appointment with the lead investigator into the death of Eamon Flanagan.