Though the Heavens Fall

by Anne Emery

  Aoife said, “She’s managed to land herself a man in spite of it all, as I acknowledged in the song. You may have heard of Bertie Breannacht?”

  “Blondy fella? In a recent film about spies?”

  “That’s him. He and Fiona are getting married next month.”

  “Lovely,” he said. “Congratulations.” Then he remembered something from his childhood, something his mother always said. It was bad manners to congratulate the bride-to-be. Why was that? Something about maintaining the image that the man had done the chasing. Well, whatever the case, Fiona had not taken offence.

  “And we plan on having a family,” she said, “so that will cut into my swanning around on the stage. Small price to pay. Who was doing the honours with your wee bit of libel this time round, Aoife? It wasn’t Lorcan.”

  “Carrick. He missed the night of your party. And he missed his calling. He should be on the stage.”

  “Can’t you see the reviews? IRA bloke slays them in the aisles!”

  “Fiona, for feck’s sake, keep it down!”

  “Everyone in the room down there knows it, or Lorcan wouldn’t have let them past your door. Lorcan! That brother-in-law of yours . . . if I were a casting director . . . ‘Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look!’”

  “He let you past the door.”

  “I told him I’m the quartermaster of the Ballyobarmy Brigade, Second Battalion. But I was only acting.” She threw out her arms like the quintessential ham actor.

  Her sister laughed and said to Brennan, “Isn’t she a terror? You can see why we banished her up here by herself. What are you doing up here by yourself?”

  Fiona pointed to a bunch of papers on the desk. “Answering my fan mail. I just can’t keep up with it.”

  “Really? It could be true,” Aoife said to Brennan.

  “No, I’m planning the menu for the wedding. Porridge and a few lumps of mutton. Can you think of anything else?”

  “No, you’ve got it covered. Now we’ll leave you to it.”

  “Lovely to meet you, Brennan. I hope meeting us won’t put you off seeing us again.”

  “I’d be charmed to see you again.” He’d have been content to just stay on in the room and gaze at her, but he dutifully left her to plan her marriage to another man. Damn his eyes.

  He returned to the party and when he saw Lorcan alone, he approached him and asked if they could speak privately. Lorcan led him into a tiny room that had a desk and chair and computer, and little else.

  “Who do suppose tried to assassinate your father, Lorcan?”

  “If I knew, you’d have read the news of a fella with his head blown off and a sign pasted on his corpse saying, ‘This is for Ronan Burke.’”

  “You must have some suspicions.”

  “The Loyalists would be terrified of someone like my old man gaining power in this place. He’s brilliant, he’s popular; someone like that would gain power and influence by the force of his personality. He’d put the rest of them in the shadows. And Nationalists would benefit as a result. The Loyalists see any benefit to us as a loss to themselves. They’re terrified of that.”

  “But wouldn’t feelings run just as strong on the Republican side, among those who don’t accept the peace process? Those who want to finish the job, overthrow the government of this illegitimate little state, and unite the six counties with the twenty-six in the South? Those who feel they’re being sold out?” Like Lorcan himself, Brennan refrained from adding.

  “You’re suggesting one of our own lads did this.”

  “Not suggesting. Asking if there is anything to it.”

  “There isn’t. Nobody in the Republican movement would take out my father. And you can be sure we’re going to track down the bastards who did this. We won’t have any more trouble from that lot, whoever they are.”

  Monty

  It was time to gather more evidence in the Flanagan case. After dutifully attending to some Canadian Earth documents and a couple of his Ellison Whiteside matters, Monty turned to the Flanagan file and did an inventory. He had the autopsy report on Eamon Flanagan and the time of the shooting of Fritzy O’Dwyer. He had spoken to the cop who had investigated Mr. Flanagan’s death, not that he’d got much from him beyond an estimate of the time when Flanagan must have fallen. He now had the name of the driver, Colman Davison. He had Vincent McKeever’s account of his run-in with Davison. McKeever had heard shots just before Davison’s car came flying down the road and turned in to the woods, Davison’s car with the bullet holes. The next move was to go and talk to the man who had done the repairs on the Ford Orion. Monty had already performed a little experiment on that model of car himself. He knew from the autopsy report that Eamon Flanagan had been around the same height as Monty himself, so he had gone in search of an Orion of the same era, had spotted several over the course of a few days, and found one parked on a street in the city centre. He walked up to it, stood with his leg against the front bumper, and confirmed to his satisfaction that an impact with the bumper could indeed result in a fracture of the kind sustained by Flanagan.

  Monty got into his car and drove across the Lagan to east Belfast, out to the Upper Newtownards Road, and then turned off. The shop wasn’t hard to find, and he pulled in. There was a man out in the yard, and Monty asked him whether George Ayles was around. George was just putting the finishing touches on a job and would be available in a wee minute. Monty could go inside and have a seat by the parts desk.

  Ayles came in about fifteen minutes later, wiping his hands on a rag. “You wanted to see me?”

  Monty stood to greet him and said, “Yes, Mr. Ayles. I’m hoping you can help me.” He explained who he was and why he was there and could practically see the man closing down on him as the context became clear.

  “There is of course no problem with your work, Mr. Ayles. I’d just like a few details to help me get some compensation for the widow and the five children.”

  No problem from the point of view of the law, or the quality of the repair job, but maybe a problem with local paramilitaries who wouldn’t appreciate George Ayles or anybody else grassing to lawyers about things that went bump in the night in Belfast.

  “We know it was Mr. Davison driving that night,” Monty said in an effort to reassure him. “All I need is the details of the damage to the car.” He would want a formal statement later, one from George Ayles and another from Vincent McKeever, and they would be served with a subpoena if the case went to court, but he didn’t get into that.

  It took a bit more persuading, but Ayles finally relented and said he would go and look at his records from November 1992. He returned a few minutes later with a sheet of paper. He read off the details. The shop repaired the rear bumper where there were two bullet holes. No, he didn’t remember finding the slugs embedded in the bumper; if so, he would have disposed of them. There was a dent in the left front bumper, and that was repaired. Monty kept a poker face when he received that crucial bit of news, evidence that the car had run into something. Driving on the left-hand side of the road, hitting something with the left side of the bumper. Something at the side of the road. He tried to sound casual as he asked, “What did Colman have to say about that? The dent in the front?”

  “Said he veered off course when the bullets hit, and he ran into a tree. Then he got back on track and kept going on his way.”

  “Any sign of that? Bark, splinters?”

  Ayles merely shook his head. Finally, though, he said, “Left headlight was smashed and had to be replaced.” This was getting better by the minute! More good evidence of an impact.

  “Did he say anything about anybody else being in the car with him?”

  “I don’t know if I ever asked him.” Ayles looked at the paper in his hand, thought for a second, then said, “I know we had a bit of a conversation. I think I said something like, ‘Good thing you were able to get back ont
o the road, with all that going on.’ And he said, ‘It’s times like that when you’re glad you’re alone.’ Or ‘At least I had nobody screeching at me from the passenger side and adding to the stress.’ Something like that, anyway.”

  That confirmed what McKeever had said, that Davison was alone in the car.

  Monty asked for a photocopy of the work record and, again, George Ayles was leery. But Monty again brought up the plight of the five fatherless children. And the auto repair man, being a decent sort in spite of his fear of retaliation, took the page to the copier in the corner of the room and made a copy while Monty looked on. I, Montague M. Collins, QC, do say and I do verily believe that this is a true copy of the original document that I saw on the premises of the George Ayles Auto Repair Shop on the 28th day of March, 1995. Monty thanked him and let him get back to his work.

  There was something to check back at the office, so Monty set out for the city centre, trying not to get his hopes up. He would be looking for a little piece of evidence that, if it had been there at all, probably had not survived the fall to the rocks below the bridge. The police had found Flanagan’s body during their search of the area following the anonymous call about the shooting. They called for an ambulance — the second ambulance to be deployed to the Ammon Road that night — and Eamon Flanagan was taken to hospital. As soon as Monty got into his office, he dug out the medical information on Flanagan. One of the things that had been noted was the clothing he had on, and the parts of the clothing that were torn or damaged. He scanned the report until he found a reference to the front of the left leg. He had been wearing blue jeans and the jeans were torn below the knee where the leg was broken. Was it possible that . . . Eureka, there it was! Two tiny slivers of glass stuck in the threads of the left leg of the jeans. The slivers, some of them at least, had been driven in so hard that they stayed in place through the trauma of the fall.

  The smashed left headlight of Colman Davison’s Ford Orion had left its evidence on the leg of the late Eamon Flanagan.

  Chapter XXV

  Monty

  Ronan Burke was released from hospital on Friday, March 31, nearly two weeks after the attempt on his life. He was weak and in pain, and he would require nursing care at home, but he was out. Ronan was front-page news in Belfast, and the story was covered in the Irish Republic and on the BBC. One paper described Ronan as “one of the future leaders of a new era in Northern Ireland, an odds-on favourite to be elected to a new assembly with power shared between Unionists and Nationalists.” Gráinne decided to hold an open house that evening to celebrate. Drinks and tea and some snacks, nothing too elaborate. Brennan invited Monty to join in. “It’s not an all-night hooley. She’s having it early, so she can get him tucked into bed early. Otherwise, he’ll be shattered.” An early night was fine with Monty. He had been in the office since seven that morning, working on the papers for the Flanagan case. He was ready to down tools by four o’clock. He headed for Andersonstown.

  He could hardly get in the door, there were so many on hand to welcome Ronan back to the land of the living. There were some serious-faced, muscular men in attendance and out on the street. It looked like several sets of bodyguards. That was all but confirmed when Monty spotted Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams in the gathering; no doubt there were other major figures Monty didn’t recognize, who also required protection.

  At one end of the room were two young guys with guitars. Monty recognized the shorter, leaner of the two as Ronan and Gráinne’s younger son, Lorcan. Monty, a musician himself, took note of the full, warm sound of Lorcan’s Gibson J-45 guitar. The other fellow was bigger and had a schoolboy kind of haircut, but a closer look at his face revealed a harder edge. They played some patriotic songs but nothing overly militant. They took a break, and the bigger fellow went off somewhere, leaving Lorcan playing softly on his Gibson. Monty went over to introduce himself.

  “Hi Lorcan. I saw you at your brother’s wedding, but we were never introduced. I’m Monty Collins.”

  Lorcan gently laid down his guitar and shook Monty’s hand. “Right, you’re Brennan’s mate from Canada.”

  “That’s right. Beautiful sound, your J-45. Buddy of mine has one. We have a blues band back home.”

  “Oh, aye? I love the blues. We don’t hear enough of it around here. Of course you could say we live the blues around here!”

  “True enough.”

  “What do you call yourself, your band?”

  “Functus.”

  “Doesn’t get any bluesier than that, whatever it means.”

  “It’s a legal term.”

  “Me and Carrick there, and a couple of other fellas, had a punk band. Called ourselves the Gobscheiss Militia.”

  “That’s great, even better than Functus! You guys aren’t playing anymore?”

  “We’re on hiatus. Until the other two finish doing their whack out in the Kesh.”

  It took a second before it sank in; people here were so casual in the way they referred to the prison terms their friends and family were serving. He merely said, “I don’t envy them.”

  “Tell me about it. I did a wee stint out there myself. You may not have that crime in Canada. It’s called ‘getting in with the wrong crowd.’”

  “Nothing in our Criminal Code like that, no, or half the teenage children in our country would be locked behind bars.”

  “Maybe I’ll emigrate over there. But my work is not finished here.” He gave a little laugh, but there was no humour in it. Monty assumed that “getting in with the wrong crowd” was a euphemism for being a member of a proscribed organization, that being the Provisional Irish Republican Army. And his work for that organization was yet to be completed.

  “So,” Lorcan was saying, “with my mates in the H Blocks, it could be awhile before anybody hears the Gobscheiss Militia again.”

  “I’ll keep checking in Rolling Stone for the announcement of your reunion.”

  They talked music for a few more minutes until Monty saw a break in the line of well-wishers approaching Ronan. Tom and Aoife and their two little kids were saying goodbye, so Monty waited, then excused himself and crossed the room.

  “Welcome to the throne,” Ronan said when Monty reached him. “I feel I should have people kissing my ring!”

  “And well you should, Ronan,” Monty replied. “According to the press, you’ll be the Holy Irish Emperor once the Holy Irish Empire is put in place here in the North. So how are you feeling?”

  “No complaints. I must get up and circulate like a normal human being.” It took him a couple of attempts, but he got up on his feet and stood. People broke into applause.

  Brennan came over then, with the politician from Dublin. Monty tried to remember his name and got it just in time. “Hello, Mr. Cagney,” he said, putting out his hand.

  “Dinny,” the man said as they shook.

  “Dinny has some good news for us, Monty,” Brennan announced.

  “Oh?”

  “The information gathered by Father Burke here has turned up aces,” Cagney told them. “I understand there was a bit of undercover work involved, Father.”

  “Call me Brennan. Or, as some folks in a certain east Belfast saloon call me, Duane.”

  “A job well done, Duane.”

  “I didn’t act alone, but my co-star is away at the Grand Ole Opry.” Or whatever the equivalent might be in Dublin, where Maura and the kids were staying this weekend.

  The politician said, “Brennan’s information from America shows that MacAllan’s papers were falsified. And I handed over those details, along with his photo and the statement of the witness who saw him in one of the bomb cars, to Garda Sullivan in Dublin. And, after doing some more work on the file, he personally provided the RUC with copies of everything. The officer he is dealing with here in Belfast was impressed with the evidence and told Sullivan he will be looking into it.”


  Brennan said, “It’s about time, seeing as the peelers have had incriminating evidence against scads of suspects since 1974.”

  “I know, I know. But Sullivan tells me this RUC man is a good, honest copper. So there’s hope that somebody will finally be arrested and brought to justice for the Monaghan and Dublin massacres. And it’s not stretching things to picture MacAllan grassing on the others to get a better deal for himself. But one way or another, once the police take action against one of the killers, this could provide the momentum for a reopening of the investigation into the rest of them. Even with only one going to court, the shameful inaction of the police and security forces, and their collusion with their favoured terrorists, will be made public all over again. So, there’s hope, thanks to you people.”

  “Well, of course, it was Ronan who got the whole thing going.”

  “Oh, his name will be high indeed on the roll of honour.”

  Brennan raised his eyes to the firmament. “Paddy, my dear old friend, for you and the thirty-three other innocent souls who were taken that day, the waiting is nearly over.”

  Cagney then said his goodbyes because he had to get back to Dublin. He called out to Ronan across the room, “It won’t be long, Ronan, till you and I meet at some kind of official hooley as members of our respective parliaments, as soon as they set one up here. Or, better still, one parliament for the entire island. Whatever it turns out to be, I’ve no doubt you’ll be elected in a landslide. Tiocfaidh ár lá!” Everyone in the room raised a glass and repeated the Republican rallying cry. Our day will come!

  Eventually, McGuinness and Adams departed with encouraging words for Ronan, and the crowd thinned out. Then it was just family gathered in the sitting room, plus Monty and a small group of young fellows Monty didn’t know. They spent most of their time huddled with Lorcan.

  During a lull in the conversation, Monty broke his own good news to Brennan. “You’ll be pleased to hear this, Brennan. The Flanagan children are going to have their day in court. I have an expert who will give an opinion that Eamon Flanagan was hit by a car, and I have confirmation that the car was fully insured. I shouldn’t get too cocky; all my years in the practice of law have taught me to look for a bad moon rising over any case I take on.”