Connections (33 page)

And it made me think. There's nothing worse than being called in to help out with someone else's crisis, and it's a lot worse if you don't know what it is.

This was the point at which I realised with full force how trying to avoid the Irish Farm investigation had led me to this point: on the verge of obliging mystery men by conducting assassinations for no reason I knew of. I was truly up shit creek. I might have to get out. The marriage was over, the business would have to go, which was a pity, but worse things happen at sea and I was on my way. They'd held this Irish Farm business over me for long enough, I reckoned, but the threat was only good for as long as I wished to live and work in Britain. I was still hoping Robinson didn't know about it.

Robinson, meanwhile, was not pleased with me. He said, “This is a generous offer, Mr Hope.
”

I told him, “Very generous, but regrettably, I'll have to turn it down. I don't believe you will ever be prepared to break your employer's confidence and tell me what all this is about. And I can't proceed on that basis. You wouldn't trust yourself to a surgeon who hadn't told you what your complaint was or how he meant to deal with it. You wouldn't go to law, I imagine, without disclosing all the facts of your case to your lawyer, uncomfortable as they might be. Not if you had any sense, that is.” And, congratulating myself on this little speech, I finished my pint and went to the bar to get another, to give him time to think.

When I got back to the table he had thought. He gave me a sombre look, made sure we were still far away enough for the other drinkers in the pub – an office romance – not to overhear and stuck the knife in. “I didn't want things to get to this point, Mr Hope, but I'm afraid you have little choice.
”

“
Really?” I asked, knowing what was coming.

He knew. “I've been told an associate of yours has given information about some events which took place in Sligo. It seems there's some prospect of a trial. I've been asked to tell you that unless you co-operate they will take matters further. I gather there's a chance you could be tried and sent to jail. I
think you know what I'm saying, and I say it with reluctance, but that is your situation, Mr Hope.” He added, “I believe there is a witness prepared to come forward with evidence.
”

I took that in, trying not to show him what bad news this was.

Ireland – hundreds of years of horrible violence, treachery and betrayal and even in these days of alleged peace and reconciliation I was still stuffed. Someone was prepared to turn Queen's Evidence. Someone had turned me in to the British Government, which was aching to turn me in themselves. How fast patriotism becomes treason in this wicked world. Not that you could really excuse what happened on that Sligo farm. An indulgence from the Pope couldn't excuse it.

Who'd betrayed me? I thought I knew. When you want to find out who did anything to you it's best first to look close to home, the closer the better. Yes – I thought I knew who'd done it.

I became downcast and angry and said, “This is very bad, Mr Robinson. I'll need time to think.
”

“
I don't think you have time to think,” he told me. “Pugh tells me the authorities are ready to act very quickly.
”

“
How quickly?” I asked him.

“
I should say within days, rather than weeks,” he told me. “I'd prefer an answer now, but I suppose I could wait until tomorrow.
”

They weren't going to give me any time to manoeuvre. “Mr Robinson,” I said weakly, “why do you want me? It's obvious I'm reluctant, in spite of your generous offer. Wouldn't you be better off with a willing associate?
”

“
You come very highly recommended,” he told me. “And you've already studied the gentlemen we're talking about.
”

“
Let me put it another way,” I said. “Mr Pugh has a friend, Mr Prothero, and Mr Prothero has trained staff accustomed to this kind of work. I'm sure you could persuade him to get his men to help.
”

“
Oh no,” said Mr Robinson, shaking his head. “That wouldn't do. That wouldn't do at all. I suspect he doesn't want to involve himself, but, more importantly, I don't want him involved. I
believe if he were something might very well go wrong. I'm sorry, Mr Hope. You're our man.” He added, “I must go now. I have another meeting. I suggest you think this over. I'll ring you tomorrow morning, at ten, and discuss the final details, such as payment, time and place.
”

He said goodbye and we shook hands and off he went. I saw him raise his arm just outside the pub and get into the taxi he'd hailed.

I sat there feeling angry and then got up and went straight to Pugh at the Home Office. I stood in front of his desk and I said, “I've just had a word with our friend Mr Robinson. He wants me to do a little job for him without asking any questions. I'm not going to ask you if you know about all this, because you won't tell me. He says if I don't do what he wants you'll shop me over the Irish Farm business.
”

“
I'm afraid that's true, Sam,” said the little prick.

I got up close to the desk and looked down at him. “Look, pal,” I said. “That was war. Not technically. We weren't supposed to call it war. But privately nearly all of you did – especially your pals in the MoD and security forces. It was war – we won one or lost one – the Paddies were the enemy. That was your attitude, that was your terminology.” I was at breaking point, or trying to seem so.

He looked at me sternly from behind his desk. “This is no longer entirely my affair. I've been told Mr Robinson's needs have a high priority.” He was uncomfortable. So was Robinson. They all were. Funny.

“
So high you send civilians round to threaten me?” I said. “Why can't your own security forces do what he wants? And how high does this fucker go?
”

“
You can't ask me that,” he told me.

“
But I am. How high?
”

“
I'm not my own master,” he said.

“
When have you ever been?” I got him by the collar. “How high? How high?” I was yelling.

“
Sam – you've got to do this. Or you'll end up in jail,” he was gasping.

I heard the door open behind me so I knew a couple of reluctant men in uniforms were behind me, hoping nothing would happen. I stuck my face right into Adrian Pugh's and said, “Who's the informant, Pugh? Who is it?” He was choking but he knew his men were there. So he didn't really mind rasping out, “Roderick. Your brother Roderick.
”

I dropped him back in his chair like a bag of spuds and he sat there, a bit red in the face, but pleased with himself for the blow he'd struck. I turned round and walked right out. I heard Pugh behind me saying to the guards, “Leave him.
”

I walked back through fog, which suited me. I didn't want to look at anybody and I didn't want anyone to look at me. I'd suspected it had been my own brother who'd betrayed me.

There'd been five of us on that mission, Roddie being a replacement because Russ had broken his leg playing football on Wimbledon Common the day before. It had been too late to get one of the others so it was go short-handed or take Roddie, who was on leave from his regiment and said it would be a bit of fun. I hadn't wanted it, but he was keen – so I let him come. The others – Kemal, Hoppo
et al –
were the dregs, the scrapings, and Roddie was my brother and a lieutenant in a bloody Guards' regiment. Yet when the time came for someone to play Judas – guess who it was? He'd name the other blokes, too. The thought sickened me.

I should say now what happened that night in Sligo.

It was a nasty business, I'll confess it. A mission which went bad; unnecessary deaths; an enquiry. And I'd been in command.

And it all came down to Russ rendering himself unfit for duty. If we'd been in the army I'd have had him up on a charge, but this was Sam Hope's Irregulars, not the Queen's Own Rifle Brigade.

At nine on the night of the mission we were in enemy territory, twenty miles outside the Fermanagh border and therefore well into the sovereign state of Eire, where we shouldn't have been. Which was why it was us and not the British Army. If we were caught we'd be described as a rogue element rather than an invasion.

Our task was to take out two men army intelligence said were lying low on a farm west of Sligo who were wanted not just by the Brits but by the Irish too. It was Saturday, which was, the reports stated, when the young couple who ran the farm, who both had a Republican background, went to a dance in Sligo, taking their baby with them and leaving it with friends while they went off to enjoy themselves.

We parked our vehicles under a hedge near the track which led up to the farm and, wearing black clothes and balaclavas, set off. A dog started barking as we got close to the farm and Scottie sped off at a low run to deal with it. We hiked on a bit faster and by the time he'd cut the dog's throat – it was chained up – we were there.

Goolies and Alibi went off to the right of the farmyard, where there was a big barn and a tractor shed, while I went inside with Scottie and Roddie to search the farmhouse. Roddie and I did the ground floor, while Scottie started upstairs. By then I didn't think our targets were in the house. Then Roddie and I went up, fast, to join Scottie.

Meanwhile there were no shots from the direction of the barn, so probably Goolies and Alibi hadn't yet found anybody. They might have disposed of the targets quietly but we'd agreed that, the place being so remote, there was no real need for silent combat.

There was an attic and Roddie and Scottie had boosted me up there when Kemal whistled from outside, the signal that someone was approaching. I got down from the attic fast and as we all moved to the top of the stairs I heard a vehicle grinding up the track to the farm. I still didn't know what Goolies and Alibi were doing. I crouched at the top of the stairs with Scottie and Roddie and watched the young couple come in, he looking frightened, the woman, holding her baby, with her mouth open in shock. Kemal was behind them, holding his gun on them.

Evidently they'd left the dance early for some reason, which was bad luck; bad luck destined to get worse – becoming, thanks to brother Roddie, more like tragedy. They'd probably only got involved because a grandfather had been in the Easter
Risings. Or because sometimes it's healthier to go along with the boys.

Now all we had to do was keep a gun on them until we'd done what we had to – search the farm for the IRA men, kill them if we found them, go home quietly if we didn't.

By the time I'd reached the foot of the stairs, Roddie just behind me, Scottie behind him, Kemal had herded his captives into the sitting-room to my right and was standing in the doorway, still pointing his gun at them. I heard the woman say, “Don't kill the baby,” and saw Kemal, gun in hand, make a conciliatory gesture with his arms, as if to say “Not unless I have to”. We didn't speak unnecessarily in these situations, so as not to be identified by our accents.

It was a pity, what happened next. There was a shot from the yard and then through the open kitchen door I saw a man in corduroys and a jacket come running in with a gun in his hand. He veered towards the inner door of the kitchen and I shot him dead from the foot of the stairs. He fell down on the threshold, near the picture in the hall showing the couple's wedding day.

Goolies appeared in the kitchen doorway. He held up one finger to me, pointed with the same finger at the man I'd just shot, then held up two, indicating that he and Alibi had got the first man outside and the one I'd taken out was the second. There weren't any more.

This left Kemal in the other doorway, still guarding the couple and their baby, me in the hall, with Roddie and Scottie behind, Goolies in the kitchen and Alibi keeping watch outside. The two IRA men had been neatly taken out. Mission accomplished speedily and all's well. We would have tied the couple up, pulled the phone out just in case and gone home. A call from a safe place later would have seen them released. No damage.

Agreed, the bloke decided to charge Kemal. He was obviously out of his mind. Kemal just stepped back a pace, held the gun on him steadily and said, “Get back, man,” letting on he was more from Shepherd's Bush than Belfast, but otherwise, no harm.

Roddie shot him. From behind me – I felt him lift his arm – he shot him. The young farmer just fell dead in the hall. His wife,
babe in arms, rushed forward, to help her husband, presumably. And bloody Roddie shot her, too, and another shot he put into her either killed or wounded the baby. We didn't stop to find out.

I couldn't believe it. My brother, a trained soldier, not in a panic situation, had turned a simple mission into a slaughter of civilians. We all stood there for a second, with the smell of blood and cordite all round. I heard Roddie say, “For Queen and country,” as if he'd been at Rorke's Drift for three weeks. Then Scottie moved, disarmed him from behind and got him in stranglehold. We all turned round and left in a sober mood, Scottie frog-marching Roddie and Alibi joining us in the yard. We set off, me in front, past the body of the IRA man and the dog and took the lane towards our vehicles. Somehow in the lane Roddie became unconscious. I don't know how that happened because I never tried to find out.

We got back across the border and then they got us, very fast, out of Northern Ireland by army helicopter. I won't forget the journey back, where no one said a word. Even Roddie shut up, after he came round, when he saw the faces.