Harry's Game Part 14

" "Course it isn't. Doesn't matter that. They must be a bit touched up then over there, if they send a man over on his own, to find us just like that.'

Duffryn spoke.

'But it all fits with what we had from the hotel. The army man and the RUG. The bit we had about them putting a man in and then not telling the bra.s.s. We thought we'd caught the b.u.g.g.e.rs griping about it. It has to be some nonsense drawn up by one of them b.a.s.t.a.r.ds sat behind a desk in London, in the Ministry.'

Duffryn was little more than a name to the commander. He looked at him with interest.

'You had a line on the man first, right? Through his accent? Where is he now? What's covering him?'

'He's at the guest house, where he has his lodgings. It's called "Delrosa", run by Mrs Duncan, off the Broadway. She's all right. He's there in a back room that he rents. The front and back are watched at the moment and the lads have been told in the last hour or so that if he goes out he's to be tailed. But they must stay right back.'

'And the girl you've talked to, won't she warn him?'

'We told her not to. I think she understood. She won't do anything,' Frank said.

The commander lit his fourth cigarette in less than half an hour, pulled at it, forcing the smoke down into his throat.

'I think we want him before we hood him. We would like to talk to him for a bit first. Pick him up and bring him in for a talk. Does he work?'

'In a strap yard. He leaves to walk there about eight, just a few minutes after perhaos.'

'Take him when he's walking. On the main road, get him into a car and take him up the Whiterock, into the Crescent, the house there we've used. I don't want him killed unless it's that or he's away. Remember that, I want him chatted with.'

For Frank and Seamus it seemed the end of their part in the evening. They rose out of the chairs, but were waved down by the commander.

'Where's Downs now?'

The Brigade quartermaster said, "The message came through just before I left to come here. The wound he got, it's a light one, in the arm. Flesh. It's being fixed up now by the quack in the "Murph. He's okay, but he hasn't gone home yet. The quack will want to keep an eye on him for the next few hours.'

The Brigade commander talked to no one in particular.

'What do they say when a driver's been in a crash? A lorry driver, bus, heavy truck? That sort of thing. What do they say? Send him straight back out again. Don't hang about fidgeting and mumbling about it. Get stuck in again. Downs can go on this one. His nerve wasn't too good last night. He'll need this to get him back into scratch again. He'll want to retrieve himself a bit. Get him here in an hour. Downs can finish him after the talking to.'

It amused him: the fox turning back on the hound.

For Frank and Seamus the briefing was finished. They went out through the back of the house to where a car was parked some three hundred yards away, keys in the dash. Frank would drive on to the doctor and drop Seamus near his home.

Seamus Duffryn was frightened for the first time since he had become involved with the movement. He'd been present three months earlier at an interrogation. A kid from up in Lenadoon. The charge was that he had betrayed colleagues in the movement to the military. The m.u.f.fled screaming of the youth was still in his ears, bouncing and ricocheting about. They'd burned his naked stomach with cigarette ends while he was strapped in a chair, with a blanket over his head folded several times to deaden the noise. He'd screamed each time the glowing ash met his skin, from a deep animal desperation and not with hope of release. Seamus Duffryn had become involved that night, and would become involved again tomorrow. The paper stuff he did, that was unimportant. This is when it mattered and you were either in the movement or you were out of it. There had been an awful, shaming thrill through his entire body when he saw the light grey material of the boy's trousers turn to heavy charcoal. As the urine ran down the kid's leg there'd been the steam rising through the trousers, and the hood had gone on, and the gun had been c.o.c.ked. At the moment they shot him the kid was still screaming but uncontrolled.

If McEvoy was British army, how would he take it? Duffryn wondered. That was a nothing from Lenadoon. McEvoy would be different. How would he stand up to their interrogation and the ritual end?

He would find out by tomorrow night. He hurried on his way through the night to his home and his mother.

After he'd made his phone call to London Harry had spent the rest of the day in his room. Before dark he gazed mindlessly into the abstract of roofs and walls that was the view from his window. He had not gone down to Sunday high tea, and to Mrs Duncan's inquiries only replied that he thought he had something of a chill coming on. He was going to have an early night, he shouted through the door. She had wanted to bring him a hot drink in his room, but through the closed door he managed to persuade her that there was no need.

He wanted to be alone, shutting out the perpetual tension of moving in company and living the falsehood that had been planned for him. That girl. It had upset him. Created imbalance in the delicate poise he had taken up. Blown by a silly girl who couldn't stop talking. Up on a mountain, wind and rain, like some cigarette advertis.e.m.e.nt, and he'd chucked the whole operation. Ridiculous and, worse, so b.l.o.o.d.y unprofessional. He brooded away the hours. He'd put faith down on the line of a girl who's address he didn't even know. What in Christ's name would they be thinking in London when he put the request in for the special treatment for Harry's bit of tail? Go raving mad, wouldn't they? And reckon he'd twisted. No way they wouldn't. And they'd want to get him out.

He'd heard all the radio broadcasts, searching for the formula announcement that would end it all. Arrest ... Man wanted for questioning ... London murder ... Big operation ... Tip off ... Appear in court. That would be the jargon. There had been nothing.

He had steeled himself to what he would do if he heard of the capture of the man. He'd be out of the front door, straight out, with no farewells or packing or luggage, on to the Falls, and turn right along the main road, and then right again before the hospital and on down to the Broadway barracks, and in through the front door ... But without the news he couldn't end it. He had to stay, finish the job. No arrest and it was all a failure, abject and complete. Not worth going back for, just to report how it all got b.o.o.bed. Didn't really matter what Davidson said. No arrest, no return.

But where was the b.l.o.o.d.y army. Why wasn't it all wrapped up? Big enough, weren't they? Got enough men, and guns, and trucks. He's out there just waiting for you to go and get him. The National bulletins traced their way round the news; there was nothing from Northern Ireland.

The frustration mounted in Harry, welling up against his reason and his training. How much information had he pushed at them in London over the last two, three weeks? How much did they roani? All sewn up, it should be, cut and dried, taped and parcelled--and now more delay. Through Josephine, streak of b.l.o.o.d.y luck there, about as much information had come out as he was ever likely to get his hands on. The long term adrenalin was fading ... he wanted out ... he wanted it over ... but when it was finished.

As the dusk came he unwrapped the Smith and Wesson. After locking the door he took the weapon to pieces and laid it out on a handkerchief on the bed. With a second, dirtied handkerchief from his pocket he cleaned the firing mechanism, then rea.s.sembled the gun. He would take it with him next morning to the yard. Put it in the bag where the sandwich box went. It was a sort of therapy, the gun, the instant pick-me-up. It had gone wrong. Nothing on the radio when there should have been. The girl, that was where it had gone wrong, with that b.l.o.o.d.y girl. Lovely face, lovely body, lovely girl, but that was where it all loused up. Nothing else, that's the only point where it's gone wrong, but that's enough. Gossip, don't they, and she won't keep her mouth shut any more than the rest of them. Like she talked about Theresa, so she'll talk about me. A lonely man in a back room bed-sitter. The gun was insurance, the disaster was less distinct.

When he went to bed he lay a long time in the dark of the room thinking about Germany, the family, home and the people with whom he worked. The other officers, easy and relaxed, none of them knowing where Harry was, and few caring. He envied them, yet felt his dislike of that easy way of life. His distrust of the others not committed to the front, as he was now, was all-consuming. It was only rarely that he turned his mind to his wife and the children. It took him time, and with difficulty he recreated them and home on the NATO base. The chasm between their environment and Harry's was too difficult for him to bridge. Too tired, too exhausted.

His final thought was salvation and made sleep possible. Of course the man was in custody, but they'd be questioning him. It would take thirty-six hours at least. They wouldn't rush it, they'd want to get it right. Tomorrow evening they would be announcing it, and then home, and out of the hole, another forty-eight hours perhaps, and then out.

In the early hours of that Monday morning, while Harry alternately dozed and dreamed in his bed, and while the Brigade nucleus sat up in Andersonstown waiting for Downs to come, Davidson in the Covent Garden office was scanning the first London editions of the papers.

Both The Times and the Guardian carried reports from Northern Ireland that the Provisional IRA were claiming that British intelligence had launched a special agent into the Catholic areas, and that people in those areas had been warned to be especially vigilant. Both the writers under whose byline the stories appeared emphasized that, whether true or false, the claim would have the effect of further reducing the minimal trust between the people of the minority areas, the front line housing estates of the city and the security forces. There was much other news competing for s.p.a.ce--on the diplomatic front, the state of the economy, and the general "human interest clap trap" that Davidson raged about. The Belfast copy was not prominently displayed, but to the man propped up on his camp bed it presented a shattering blow. He lay deep in news print and pondered his telephone, wondering whether there were calls he should make, anything he could usefully do.

Those bungling idiots had still failed to pick up the chap Downs and the girl Josephine. Near a day to get them, and nothing to show for it. He was astonished, too long after the war, too long after the organization had run down, too many civilians who'd never been up the sharp end. Without the arrest the scheme of which he was an integral part would collapse, and at a rate of knots. In all conscience he could not ring that man Frost again, supercilious b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and once more expose himself to that sarcasm. On the wall by the door the clock showed after two. For a moment he comforted himself that Harry might see the report for himself and do a bunk on his own.

No, that wouldn't fit, sc.r.a.p men don't take The Times or the Guardian, that wouldn't match the cover.

Davidson tried to shut the problem out of his mind, and closed his eyes. He fumbled unseeing above him till his fingers caught at the string that hung down from the light switch. By the time he drifted into sleep he had worked out his immediate future. The early retirement and professional disgrace, and all because that hoof-footed army couldn't pick one man up. The unfairness of it all.

Frost had gone to bed a little after midnight, and lain half awake expecting the phone to ring, and unwilling to commit himself to the task of sleeping. It had to come, the message that either the man or the girl had been found. The bell's shrill insistence eventually woke him. The army in Ardoyne reported no known entries or departures at the house in Ypres Avenue. He authorized the unit to move in and search at 05.30 hours.

After that he slept, safe in the knowledge that Monday would be a real day, a real b.u.g.g.e.r.

The doctor had cleaned the wound. He'd found the damage slight, lessened further as the cotton wool and spirit cleaned away the caked blood that had smeared itself on the upper part of the left arm. A small portion of flesh had been ripped clear close by the smallpox vaccination scar. There was an entry and exit wound, almost together and one, and after he had cleaned it thoroughly the doctor put a light lint dressing over the pale numbed skin.

'You can move yourself around a bit. If you need to, that is. But if possible you should stay still, take it quiet. Go put yourself in the easy chair out the back, and get a rest or something.'

'Is it serious? Will I be left with anything?" asked Downs.

'If you look after it you'll be okay, nothing to worry about, nothing at all. But you must go easy to start with. The only problem is if it gets infected at this early stage. But we'll see that doesn't happen--yes?'

The doctor had been a.s.sociated with the fringes of the movement since the start of the violence. He asked no questions, and needed few answers. Once every fortnight or so he would hear the square of gravel flick once, twice, against his bedroom window, and in his dressing-gown he would open the door to a casualty too sensitive to face ordinary hospital treatment. He had made his att.i.tude clear at least three years earlier, that there was no point them bringing men to him who were already close to death. Take them to the RVH, he'd said. If their wounds were that bad they'd be out of it for months anyway, so better for them to get top medical treatment in the best hospital than the hand-to-mouth service he could provide. He handled a succession of minor gunshot wounds, was able to remove bullets, clean wounds and prevent sepsis setting in.

He was sympathetic to the Provisionals but he gave them no material support other than the late-night ex officio surgery. Perhaps if he had been born into the ghetto he would have been one of them, but he came from off the hill, and went to medical school after sixth form secondary education. Though they had his sympathy he reflected he was a very different person from the hard, wild-eyed men who came to him for treatment.

Downs was very white in the chair, his s.h.i.+rt ripped away on the left side and his coat, holed and b.l.o.o.d.y, draped over the back. He heard the faint knock at the door down the corridor at the front of the house. There was a whispered dispute in the hall. He heard that distinctly and twisted himself round in the chair to see two men push their way past the doctor and into the room.

There was a tall man, in jeans and a roll-neck sweater. "The Chief wants you. He's waiting in Andytown now. Said he wants to see you straight away.'

The doctor remonstrated, "Look at the state he's in. You can see that for yourself. He should be here all night, then go and rest. He's in shock.'

'No chance. He's wanted at a meeting. There'll be no permanent damage if we take him?'

'You're setting back recovery time, and adding to the risk of infection.'

'We'll see you get a look at him tomorrow. Right now we have to go. Come on.'

This last was to Downs. Twice he looked backwards and forwards from the messenger to the doctor, willing the doctor to be more insistent. The doctor didn't meet him, avoiding the pleading in the man's eyes. The tall man and his colleague took hold of Downs under his armpits and gently but decisively lifted him towards the door.

The doctor said, "You may need these to pull him up a bit, if there's something that he has to do. Not more than a couple at a time, after that he has to sleep. If he takes them they'll help him for a few hours, then it's doubly important that he rests.'

From the high wall cabinet in the back room he took down a brown pill bottle, half filled with tablets, half with a wad of cotton wool.

They always said they'd come back, but few did. If they needed further treatment they headed south, where they could lie up more easily away from the daily tensions of the perpetual hunt by the military for men on the wanted list. The doctor watched them carry the man to the car and ease him into the back, propped up against the arm-rest in the centre of the seat. He wagered himself the pills would be in use before lunchtime.

The drive between the doctor's house and the meeting place in Andersonstown took twenty minutes. They helped the wounded man out of the car and in through the back entrance the way the night's other visitors had come. Irritably he shrugged them off him once he was inside the scullery, and independently followed their instruc tions up the stairs and in through the second door on the left of the landing.

Only the Brigade commander had remained to see him.

'How are you, Billy? Have they fixed you up all right?'

'Not so bad. It's only in the flesh. Not much more than a graze, the thing went straight on through. It's bandaged up now and the doc says it's clean.'

'I heard a bit about it on the radio. Said you didn't get a shot into the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, you didn't hit him. Said his brat got in the way and you didn't fire. Is that right?'

'It's not as simple as that." Oh, Christ, not an inquest now. Not why, wherefore, how and when at this time of night. "I fired once and missed, then when I had a clear shot at him the kid came right across. She was right in front of his body and his head. I couldn't see him so I didn't fire.'

The Brigade commander was still smoking, in front of him the clear gla.s.s ashtray mounted with a score of filtered ends steeped in the grey powder he flicked continuously into the bowl. The debris was left in a circle round the ashtray where it balanced on the blanket over the bed.

'If you'd just fired, child and all... then you would have got him, yes? If you'd just gone right on through with it Rennie would be dead, right?'

'Is that what they said on the radio?" Downs was peeved by the reception, not used to being challenged and questioned. "Is that what Rennie is saying, on the radio? If I had fired through the kid then I would have killed him?'

Who did this b.u.g.g.e.r think he was, thought Downs. When was this miserable sod out with an ASU? When did he expose himself? All right for those who give orders and send kids out to carry bombs into tuppenny-ha'penny supermarkets. Get out on the streets at night, know the silence of waiting, the terrible noise of action, feel a nine-millimetre slug hit you. Then come quizzing me. Anger rose in him, but not sufficient for him to shout, to release him from the discipline inculcated into him. Can't shout at the Brigade commander. That's mutiny.

'I don't know what Rennie is saying," said the commander. "The radio said the child was in the way and that you didn't fire. That's all. There's no criticism of you. I know of no cause for criticism.'

Cunning sod. "There shouldn't be. Rennie was no soft one. He moved b.l.o.o.d.y well.'

'One or two people, who don't know the facts as we do, might feel if they only had half the story that Billy Downs had b.a.l.l.sed it up, gone soft on the job. If they hadn't the big picture, and knew it all, they might say Billy Downs was sent on a job, and when one of the copper's brats got in the way that then he held his fire." Downs didn't really know the commander, he was from a different part of the city. They had had no real dealings before, but rank separated them, and dictated that he must let him have his say. "These people, they might recall that when we shot Scan Russell, of the UDR, in New Barnsley, that he had his kids draped all over him. Now two of them were wounded, but Russell was still shot dead. The order had been to shoot him. Now we all know that it wouldn't be fair to put your escapade tonight in the same category. And we know that your nerve is as good as ever. That you are one of the top soldiers we have. We know that, don't we, Billy?'

'You know it's b.a.l.l.s," said Downs. "I'm not soft. My nerve hasn't gone. We're not fighting five-year-olds. Is that what you're saying, that we kill wee girls? Are you saying that I should have fired straight through the girl? Is that what you think I ought to have done?'

'Don't get ratty, Billy. It's just we have to be careful that people who don't know the circ.u.mstances might think that. They might point out that getting you that close to Rennie took a deal of time, and that then the front runner botched the whole b.l.o.o.d.y thing ... because a kiddie got in the way. That's nonsense, Billy." The voice droned on, repet.i.tion of failure dragging itself through Downs. He had to sleep, to rest, to escape from this room with this boring and nagging wh.o.r.e of a man.

'We know it's not true, Billy. We know there was a good reason for you not to shoot. We know you couldn't see the target. We know Rennie wasn't straightforward. I don't know how many other people feel the same way. But that's enough of that. n.o.body will have a leg to stand on by tomorrow night. Right, Billy? We have a little job tomorrow, and by the time that's done they'll be silenced.'

Downs looked away, broken by the twisting of the screw. Self doubt rampant. The commander crushed the ego out of him.

'I'm the only one of Brigade group that knows about London. We've kept it tight for your protection. It's worked pretty well... up to now. There's a difficulty come up. The Brits have put a man in to find you. An agent. McEvoy. Harry McEvoy. Lodging down in Broadway. There's a split in their top ranks about him. We think London wanted him but Lisburn didn't.'

He let it sink in, watched the colour return to the man's face, watched the fear come back to his eyes and saw the hands begin to clasp and activate.

'His job, the agent's job, is to find you. Perhaps to kill you, perhaps to take you in, or just tell them where to go. We fancy he wants to kill you. He's been near to you already. He tipped the troops that picked up the girl that hanged herself. We think she did that rather than tell about you. Rennie was the one that questioned her. He chatted to that girl till she was ready to hang herself. You couldn't kill him when his brat jumped in the way. You had no cause to be soft with Rennie. You'll have a chance to let people know what you're made of, Billy. Tomorrow we're going to lift this fellow that's come for you, and we'll talk to him, then we'll hood him. That's where you come in. You'll shoot him, like you shot Danby, like you should have shot Rennie.'

Downs felt faint now, exhausted by the sarcasm of the top man. He nodded, sweat rising from his crotch across his body.

'When it's over we'll send you down to Donegal. Sleep it all off, and get fit again. Tonight you'll stay in Andytown. You'll be taken there now, and they'll pick you up at six-fifteen. They'll have the guns when they meet you. This will sort it out, I think. Be just the right answer to those who say that Billy Downs has gone soft.'

He wanted out, and this was the chance. They were showing him the way. The way to do it properly, not so as you were looking over your shoulder for half a lifetime, and running. The official way, that was how it was done. One more day, one more job. Then out. Leave it to the cowboys. The heroes who didn't hold their fire, who shot wee kids. Squeeze the trigger right through the scream of a five-year old. Was that Pea.r.s.e's revolution, or Connolly's or Plunkett's? Was it, h.e.l.l. Leave it to the cowboys after one more day.

SEVENTEEN.

The long night was coming to its close when B Company swarmed into Ypres Avenue. The column of armoured cars had split up some hundreds of yards from the street, and guided by co-ordinated radio messages had arrived at each end of the row of bleak terraced houses simultaneously. The first troops out sprinted down the back entrances behind the houses, taking up positions every fifteen yards or so of the debris-strewn pathways. From the tops of the Land Rovers searchlights played across the fronts of the houses as the noise and banging in the street brought the upstairs lights flickering on.

The major who commanded the company had received only a short briefing. He had been told the man they were looking for was named Billy Downs, the address of his house, and that he was expected to search several houses. He was thirty-three years old, on his fourth tour to Northern Ireland, and as a company commander in South Armagh on his last visit had witnessed four of his men killed in a culvert bomb explosion. His hatred of the Provisionals was deep rooted and lasting. Unlike some of his brother officers who respected the expertise of the opposition he felt only consuming contempt.

What Downs was wanted for he hadn't been told, nor what his status was in the IRA. He'd only guessed the reason for the raid when they unpinned the picture from the guardroom wall and gave it him. It was the photokit that had gone up five weeks earlier after the London shooting and remained top of the soldier's priority list. The intelligence officer down from Lisburn noticed the flash of recognition spread across his face as he looked down at the picture.

Once the street was sealed there was time to work carefully and slowly along the road. No. 41 was the third house they came to. The soldiers banged on the door with their rifle b.u.t.ts. The few who had seen the picture of the man they wanted were hanging on the moment of antic.i.p.ation, wondering who would come and open the door.

From upstairs came the noise of crying, steadily increasing to screaming pitch as the family woke to the battering at the wooden panels. Downs's wife came to the door, thin and frail in her nightdress and cotton dressing-gown. A tiny figure became silhouetted against the light from the top of the stairs when she drew back the bolts, turned the key and stood against the soldiers. The troops in the search party pushed past her, huge in their boots and helmets and flak jackets. They raced up the stairs, equipment catching and bouncing off the bannisters. A lieutenant and two sergeants. All had seen the picture, all knew what they were there for. The officer, his Browning pistol c.o.c.ked and fastened to his body by a lanyard, swung his left shoulder into the front bedroom door, and bullocked his way to the window. The man behind switched on the light, covering the bed with his automatic rifle.

Two faces peered back at the intruders. Saucer-eyed, mouths open, and motionless. The troops patted the bodies of the children and pressed down in the bed clothes round them, isolating the little humps they made with the blankets. They looked under the bed and in the wardrobe. There were no other hiding places in the room, and that effectively exhausted the possible hiding places.

They had come in hard and fast, and now they stopped, halted by the anti-climax of the moment.

The lieutenant went to the top of the stairs and shouted down.

'Not here, sir.'

'Wait there, I'll come up.'

The major came in and looked slowly round the room.

'Right, not here now. But he has been, or she's a dirty little b.i.t.c.h round the house. There, his pants, vest, socks. I wouldn't imagine they lie round the house too long.'

By the window was the crumpled pile of dirty clothes underneath the chair that Downs used to hang his coat and trousers on at night.

'Get her up here," said the major. "And get the floorboard chaps. He's been here pretty recently. May still be in the house. If he's about I want him found, wherever he is, roof, bas.e.m.e.nt if there is one, wherever.'

She came into the room, her two youngest children hanging like monkeys over her shoulders, thumbs in mouths. Like their mother they were white-faced, and s.h.i.+vering in the cold away from their bed clothes.

'We were wondering where we might find your husband, Mrs Downs.'

'He's not here. You've poked your b.l.o.o.d.y noses in, and you can see that. Now get out of here.'

'His clothes are here, Mrs Downs, you and I can both see that. I wouldn't expect a nice girl like you to leave his dirty pants lying on the floor that many days.'

'Don't be b.l.o.o.d.y clever with me," she snarled back at him. "He's not here, and you can see that, now get your soldiers out of here.'