Field of Blood (18 page)

disguised. No Volunteer could finger him, nor a Company officer, nor the men who ran the skeleton staffs of the Battalions. Those who formed his Brigade companions were friends from the beginning of the war. He liked to read of the

frustration of the Prime Minister, expressed in British newspapers, at the inability of the Brit forces to trap and capture him.

The Chief was a militarist. He had studied the history of the freedom wars. He fought a battle of attrition. It was the attrition of his own comrades that had brought him to the command of the Belfast Brigade. He believed in no sudden stroke that would collapse the British administration and the Protestant

resistance. He rarely made speeches, but when he talked late at night to his cronies, and they sat around him in a respectful silence, then he talked of striking at the defenceless base of the powers of occupation ‐ hitting the policeman overseeing the school road‐crossing, the headmaster who was a part‐timer in the

Ulster Defence Regiment Reserve, the unarmed prison officer coming off duty.

The Chief would have preached to his faithful that if the ordinary man walks alone in the shadow of death while the big men of the community are cluttered

with bodyguards, then the ordinary man will lose confidence in the Brits' ability

to protect him. 'Tenner' Simpson was an exception. 'Tenner' Simpson was a good

target, a popular target with the boys, good for the boys in the Kesh doing their

tenner handed down by Simpson. The Chief would fight until he was captured or

shot dead

by the Army's S.A.S. or M.R.F. squads or the police Support Units. He had a deep

contempt for the former fighters who had discarded the Armalite and taken to electioneering as candidates for Provisional Sinn Fein. He despised them because

he reckoned they'd sold out of the only game that mattered, the fighting game.

He was contemptuous of them because he reckoned that campaigning for

housing conditions and drains and bus routes was the poorest substitute to beating the Brits where it mattered, on the street battlefield. What was relevant

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was sending Brit soldiers home in boxes, and having the police band play the death dirge into Roselawn.

He was a lonely man. When he had been a street aggro organizer he had been able to swim with the crowds. When he had been rated as a marksman, one shot

only and that a killing shot, he had moved with the companionship of the Volunteers. When he had led the First Battalion, he had still moved with a kind of

freedom. He was lonely because the commander of the Belfast Brigade had to be. And lonely, too, since the death of his wife. Mary was an indifferent replica of his wife, younger and prettier but nothing in comparison. The Brits killed his wife, that was what he said ... On the afternoon after a dawn army raid on his home,

she had taken an overdose. He had been away, down south, negotiating with the

Army Council for a shipment of weapons. The army had come and wrecked his house, they had torn up the floorboards, ripped open the thin Housing Executive

walls. She had emptied a bottle of Nembutal down her throat. The Brits had killed her ... It had never crossed his mind that any responsibility for her death lay with him, that the O.C. of the First Battalion had in fact brought the soldiers into his home.

A lonely and desperate man sought by thousands of troops. A ruthless and skilled

man hunted by thousands of policemen.

Because the Chief had dedicated his life to the campaign to drive the Brits at barrel point from the Province, he was a man of rare calibre in the Organization.

Beyond the windows of the maisonette in which he stayed the afternoon was going and the evening closing down on the street outside. The downtown radio

headlines had told him of the unsuccessful raid on the supermarket in Andy'town.

The headlines in the morning would tell whether there had been success for the

sniper A.S.U. in Clonard. The war went on, in failure and success, the war of attrition.

Rennie had met Ferris at the entrance to the Interrogation Block, taken him from

the escorting constable.

`What am I here for?' Ferris said aggressively.

`You're here because I said I wanted you here.'

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**`That's not a reason.'

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`You're here because what you can do in Castlereagh is a damn sight more important than anything you'll do traipsing the streets,' Rennie said.

Àre you going to tell me?'

They went into the Interrogation Room. Bare walls, no decoration. A table and two chairs. Ferris faced the two detectives already there.

`This is DS McDonough . . . this is DC Astley . . . David Ferris, Lieutenant.'

They shook hands, Ferris and McDonough and Astley, with caution. `Sit down, David.'

Ferris sat at the table. The policemen all stood. He felt the damp in

his clothes from the day's rain, he felt the twelve‐hour stubble on his chin.

`You have a line into McAnally, and that's a line we're going to hang onto. Trust is the name of the exercise, and McAnally trusts you. You're going to believe me when I tell you that we are doing our damnedest to get McAnally immunity ... in

return for the full works ...'

`How full's that?

'P.I.R.A. Belfast Brigade, and going into court to give evidence. It's a hell of a chance that we're taking, David. What I'd say to you is that without your co-operation the chance isn't worth taking.'

And the damned Intelligence Officer had advised that he shouldn't get involved

... Jesus.

Ferris remembered the faces of McAnally. The face in the back of the car, nervous. The face in the P.‐check on the Drive in Turf Lodge, frightened. The face

in the yard at the back of 63, broken. The face in the cell block the previous night, despairing. He wondered what the face would have been at the moment of firing

the R.P.G., at the killing of a judge and two policemen.

`You'd better bring him in,' Ferris said grimly.

McAnally was at the table. He knew it was different. More than two 'tecs in the

Interrogation Room told him the rule book was out of the barred window.

Ferris was opposite him, sitting as well. The big 'tec, Rennie, was behind Ferris.

The other 'tecs were behind him.

It was hard for McAnally to concentrate. All the good news was

spilling out of Ferris's mouth and into his ears. All the bloody good incredible news.

`You're going to get immunity, Mr McAnally ... the problem is that

we can't say that for definite, not now, not at this moment, but we know you're

going to get it. It's got to go to the D.P.P., and then to

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the Attorney General, and he'll have to clear it in London. Because of who you are, and what's involved, you're going to get immunity but the nobs in London have to give the green light. That's going to take a few days . . . Before we get it for definite you've to trust us, Mr McAnally. We've five days left, and then the police have got to lift the men you've named. You see, under the Prevention of

Terrorism Act after seven days you're either to be charged or released. After seven days you go into protective care, and the lifts are on. If you're not released and you're not charged then everyone'll know that you've turned, and they'll run.

They'll vanish. And your evidence will be of no use. You've got to start talking to

Mr Rennie and his colleagues now ... I know that you're going to get immunity. I

really believe that, Mr McAnally . . .'

Ànd a new life?

'A new life for you and Mrs McAnally and for your children.'

Òut of here?

'Right away from here ... It's going to happen, Mr McAnally. You believe me, Mr

McAnally?

'I believe you.'

Ànd they're going to trust you, Mr McAnally, that you'll go through with it.'

Ì'm going to do it, Mr Ferris. I bloody swear I'll do it.'

`Stand up in court, Mr McAnally.'

`You can trust me, Mr Ferris, as I trust you.'

There was no weight on his soul. He arced his neck back as if that was the way to

prove to himself that the weight was gone from his back. He thrust out his hand.

He saw the officer hesitate, and then respond. Their hands met. He felt only the

sense of the freedom.

And McAnally was laughing, laughing back at the officer, and gripping his hand.

He didn't see the slow satisfied smile on Rennie's face. He was laughing fit to bust, he was laughing so that his shoulders quivered, and his hand and the officer's hand banged on the table as he laughed.

He was still laughing when he heard the rasp of Rennie's voice.

`Very good, Gingy, now let's start earning that immunity.'

No one had been to visit her, not through the whole day.

But then Roisin McAnally had been out and away from the Drive until the late afternoon. Her Ma had been in the house, her Ma didn't always hear the door knock. Her Ma had been there from lunchtime looking after Little Patty and Baby

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Sean, and Young Gerard had been at school. She had been into the city. She had

sat for more than an hour in the waiting room of the offices of Mr Pronsias Reilly.

She had

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**spent a black taxi fare both ways because she couldn't wait for the buses. Most

times Mr Pronsias Reilly acted as defending solicitor for men from Turf Lodge.

She hadn't an appointment, hadn't found a telephone in Turf Lodge that was coin

box and working . . . and over her dead body would she have gone crawling to a

neighbour to use a phone and know they were listening from the front room to

what she said in the hall ... she'd sat for seventy minutes in the waiting room outside Mr Pronsias Reilly's office, and been told first that he was in court and expected back, and then that he'd gone across to Crumlin Road Remand Wing for

a prisoner interview ... He wouldn't be back. She had never before met Mr Pronsias Reilly. He was just a name that she'd heard of until she had seen his photograph on the wall of the waiting room ‐ fat and sleek and doing well from

the Legal Aid, doing bloody well from the boys who were behind the wire. She had to have a solicitor. She had to have a solicitor to bang on the gate at Castlereagh and demand access to Gingy. He was her man ... She'd packed her

Ma off and protesting that she'd help with the tea ... What bloody tea? Sausages

and spaghetti hoops ... She couldn't stand Ma fussing her, and fussing the kids,

not when Gingy was in Castlereagh ... There was a sale of clothes at the church in

the morning, she had to go for the sale, had to find shoes for Little Patty, had to

get the shoes before she could think of going back to the city on another day in

search of an interview with Mr Pronsias Reilly.

`Ma . . . Ma . . .'

She was in the kitchen. She was frying the sausages slowly. If she fried them too

fast they burned and the goodness was wasted. She heard the piercing voice of

Young Gerard.

`You come here, Ma.'

She was in time to see on the television the familiar flashback pictures of Judge

Simpson's car. She stood in the doorway. She could hear the sizzling of the sausages on the ring. Young Gerard turned to her.

`They showed two peelers getting buried ... did our Da blow the fuckers out?'

She turned, and went back to the kitchen.

`Bring Patty, Gerard,' she called. `Your tea's ready.'

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Rennie paced the Interrogation Room, never speaking. McAnally talked.

McDonough sometimes prompted, mostly sat quiet at the table facing him,

nodding encouragement.

Astley sat at the table that had been brought in and placed behind McAnally and

filled the pages of a notebook. Always begin at the beginning, Rennie taught his

interrogators. They

had started with Sean Pius McAnally's release from Long Kesh four years before.

There were no time limits set against them now, they would talk deep into the night. The bastards always amazed Rennie. The matter‐of‐fact description of a killing with an R.P.G. A constable's life swept away, and told like it was the scoring of a goal on a Corporation soccer pitch, and names named like they were

the other boys in the team. Later, he would slip out of the room to telephone his

wife and warn her that he would be late home, again.

He had sent Ferris back to his barracks before the note‐taking started.

I... Shay was on lookout, Shay saw the landrover turn into Whiterock. There was

this gap between the garages. I couldn't see the landrover, not till after Shay shouted . . . Eug passed me the R.P.G. when Shay shouted. We'd been there three times before in two weeks. I fired. Dommy took the R.P.G. off me. We didn't stop about, we just pissed off. I knew I'd hit it ... We ran to Flaherty's place.

He'd got some cans in the fridge. We had a few cans, then we went home. It was

really good, the R.P.G., went a dream. Eug drove me home from Flaherty's . . .'

Stroke of luck, latching onto the Ferris boy, Rennie thought.

While Sean Pius McAnally gushed his recollections to his interrogators, Belfast spluttered and coughed and existed through the winter days.

Every morning and every afternoon and every evening the rain dripped down onto the streets outside the high fences and the tin walls and the locked doors of