Field of Blood (22 page)

Ì'm not doing this because . . .'

`Doesn't matter why you're doing it.'

Ìt's for my missus, and the kids, you got that? 'Got it, Gingy. And good luck.'

Ferris walked away. Rennie was striding back to McAnally, testing a personal radio against his ear. McAnally lost Ferris amongst the mess of uniforms as the

115

soldiers made for their vehicles. There was the shouting of orders, and the Saracens and the landrovers were filling fast.

The police sergeant was behind McAnally and holding his Sterling readied, as if

safety was from now on a dubious matter. Rennie took McAnally's arm and led him back to the landrover.

The long column of vehicles spilled out into the Springfield Road.

Going fast, going for surprise. Through the road blocks that were already in position to seal off West Belfast.

The column was splitting, dividing, hiving off its parts.

He couldn't remember the bloody words. It had been easy enough to remember

the bloody words when he was in his cell. He wouldn't have long. They'd told him

that. Just long enough to get the missus

dressed and the kids into their clothes and the cases packed. Not long enough for

a bloody debate.

Hammering up the Springfield Road, heading for Turf Lodge. A traitor coming under the cloak of darkness with the soldiers and the policemen, coming back to

his home.

Bravo Company and Charlie Company of 2 R.F.F. and some two hundred

policemen were on the move, out on the streets.

Thirty‐one names shared out amongst the soldiers and the police for lifting.

Ferris rode in the front of his open landrover, behind him was a Saracen and two

police landrovers.

In the breast pocket of his tunic was a 4" x 2" photograph of a middleaged man, features indistinct from magnification, with the over‐stamped name across the base of the picture of Kevin Muldoon. In the pocket, against the photograph, was

his notepad and the pencil‐written address on the top sheet where Kevin

Muldoon was thought to be sleeping.

`What have we got, Mr Ferris?' Fusilier Jones asked cheerfully. À good fat cat?

'Do you think they'd tell the Poor Bloody Infantry, Fusilier Jones, if we were going for a fat cat or a bottle washer?'

He could see and hear again the evening when he had been in McAnally's cell at

Castlereagh. He had willingly joined the conspiracy to turn a fighter ... Bugger what the fighter had done. He had upset the flywheel of a man's soul. He shook

his head, to Fusilier Jones he seemed dazed, because he wondered how Gingy McAnally would be when he had to stand face to face with what he had done.

116

`You alright, Mr Ferris?'

When he reached Number 63 The Drive in Turf Lodge then Gingy McAnally would

know what he'd done.

Ì'm fine, thank you.'

The landrover stopped at the cordon that was half way up the Drive. Beside McAnally, Rennie leaned forward and talked urgently through the driver's

window to a uniformed Inspector. There were voices, urgent and hushed

sweeping into the back of the landrover, Protestant voices of the Province and faraway English voices. Rennie was satisfied. He tapped the driver's shoulder.

He saw his own home in the landrover's lights. He felt sick. He saw his own curtains and his own door and his own front gate. The headlights were cut. There

were the shapes of men running as shadows past the windscreen of the

landrover. His eyes were closed as Rennie pushed

114

115

**him firmly towards the back doors. He opened his eyes. Rennie was pressed against him, crouched under the low roof of the landrover. There was the smell of

Rennie's breath and of old cigarettes and of the exhaust fumes. The doors opened.

Rennie led McAnally up to the front door. Only the two of them going up the path.

`Knock her up.'

Rennie had taken his place behind McAnally.

Almost diffidently McAnally rapped on the door. Behind the door was the quiet

of a sleeping home. He tugged savagely at the short crop of his hair. He heard Rennie breathing impatience behind him. He hit the door with his fist, then craned forward to lift the letter box flap and listen. An upper room light fell onto the front garden. There were policemen cursing softly and scurrying to new shadows when before they had been hidden. A noise upstairs, an opening door.

He pressed his mouth to the letter box flap.

`Roisin, it's me, Gingy.'

More lights, and a fast footfall on the stairs, the drumming on the boards, the squeak of the pram's wheels, the growl of the bolt being drawn.

She wore a nightdress of pink flannel. There was a dressing gown slung over her

shoulders that she held secure at her throat. She looked full into his face, and her chin was loose and her mouth was wide and her eyes were staring in

astonishment. There were a hundred questions on her lips, and each one stifled.

117

Her arms were rising up, to take her man against her, and then she saw the hulking shape of Howard Rennie, and the beam from the opened door caught the

policeman crouching with a rifle at the front gate. There was a small choke in her

throat, a waking from a dream. Her arms fell to her side, and the dressing gown

slid to the floor.

Rennie shoved McAnally inside the door. `Get on with it, Gingy.'

She backed into the pram, winced. She was going for the stairs. McAnally surged

forward, caught her with his hands. She was looking back past him as Rennie led

the stream of uniforms and weapons into the hallway. There was no part of it that she understood. McAnally's hands were on her hips, feeling the bones of her

body through the nightdress. He forced her onto the first steps of the stairs and

held her when she stumbled, and drove her up, and all the time she was gazing,

dumbstruck, back at the police in her hall.

They reached the top of the stairs. He led her to their bedroom. He heard the catarrh cough of Little Patty. He saw their bed, and Baby Sean asleep under the

ceiling light and half covered by the bedclothes.

Ì've done it for you.' A desperation in McAnally's voice.

Her lips were apart, she was shivering as if in shock.

Ì've done it all for you.'

There were low, muffled voices rising from the hallway, and the static

scream of a radio set.

Ìt's all for you, and for the kids ... That's why I've done it.' Through the thin wall, Young Gerard's bed sang as he turned in it,

and again the hacking throat of Little Patty.

`We're going to be alright. It's going to be a new life. We're going

to have a new life ... that's what they're going to give us.'

Now she understood. Her hair was across her face, ignored. She

pushed him harshly from her. He could see the shapes of her body. He

could see the anger settling on her forehead.

Ìt's what's best for us,' he said aloud. `You've touted?' she accused.

`For all of us, for you and me and for the kids ...'

`You've gone supergrass, you've gone tout ...? Jesus ... Sean, tell

me that's not true.'

He might as well have smacked his fist across her face.

`Get yourself dressed, get the kids dressed, get your clothes in a case.' `Have you

gone tout, Sean, not really ...?' And no more doubt on

her face, only a world collapsing.

118

Ì was going down for twenty fucking five years,' McAnally shouted.

Ìs that what you fucking wanted? Did you want me away for twenty‐five

years? Did you want me away till I was old, you were old, till the kids

were gone. It's us first, it's no other bastard first in front of us.'

His words blasted at her. She seemed to sag as if her strength had

gone from her.

`You bloody damn fool, Sean.'

`Get the kids dressed. Get yourself dressed.'

`What did you do it for?' Her voice was a murmur. She slipped down

onto the bed. Her fingers were at her mouth. Her nightdress had

tumbled from her shoulder.

McAnally caught his wife's chin, pulled it up from her hands. Ì did

it for twenty‐five years of my life, and that should be good enough for

you.'

Her head fell back onto her fists, the tears began. `Mrs McAnally . . .'

Rennie was framed in the doorway.

He spoke brusquely. His words cracked through the room. `Mrs

McAnally, there are certain facts about your husband's situation that

you should understand. Your husband has made a full statement con

cerning his criminal activities while a member of the Provisional I.R.A.

Your husband has implicated many of the senior members of the Organ

ization. In return for your husband going into the witness box and giving

sworn evidence against close to thirty men, he has been guaranteed

personal immunity from prosecution. He has also been promised the

116

117

**chance of making a new life for himself with you and your children at a place

where you will be safe from the Provisional I.R.A. You should do as you're asked,

Mrs McAnally. You should get yourself and your children dressed.'

She sobbed, `You've turned my man into a bleeding tout.' `Converted terrorist, we call it.'

Ì hope you're proud, of what you've done to us.'

`He's more than lucky to have had the chance to turn. You've got less than ten minutes to shift yourselves.'

Ànd if I won't ... ?T

119

'Then you never see your husband again, as long as you live, Mrs McAnally,'

Rennie said. Ànd your children will never see their father again ... I can't see the point of argument.'

Her glance, loaded with anger, slashed past McAnally and rested on Howard Rennie. He stared her out. She heaved the nightdress over her head, and tossed it

behind her. For a moment she was still on the bed, naked, white, defiant. Then

she shook with her crying. She took her underclothes from the chair and dragged

them on automatically and without thought, and her jeans and her sweater and

her socks and her sneakers.

Ìt'll seem better later on, Mrs McAnally, and it'll seem a hell of a lot better than you staying on.'

`We've never had a tout in our families before.'

`Probably because there's never been any one before with the guts.' Rennie closed the bedroom door silently behind him.

`Roisin, a life elsewhere for all of us has to be better than you here and me in the Kesh on twenty‐five.' McAnally's hands were fidgeting uselessly in front of his stomach. She tossed back her head, fastened her hair ponytail with an elastic band. He turned for the door.

`Where are you going?'

`To get the kids up.'

`Don't you bloody go near my children.'

He stalked to the wardrobe. He remembered the door was always stuck because

the wood was warped from the damp. He wrenched it open. Baby Sean had

started to cry. There was only one suitcase in the wardrobe. It was the suitcase in

which she had packed her sparse trousseau for the honeymoon in Bray. He pulled

out the suitcase and unzipped it. There was pale green mould inside. He was wiping it furiously away with the sleeve of his anorak.

Six minutes later they were gone from Number 63.

Two white‐faced, button‐lipped children and a baby who was crying fervently and Roisin McAnally, and Sean Pius McAnally who had turned supergrass, were

hurried through an avenue of armed policemen down their front path, through their front gate, across the rough pavement and into the back of the landrover.

All along the Drive the upstairs lights were on, and the upstairs curtains were heaving. The neighbours saw a policeman lift Little Patty up into the landrover,

and saw a suitcase passed in after her. The neighbours would like to have seen the faces of McAnally and his missus, that would have been gilt on the ginger, but

the early morning darkness denied them that pleasure.

120

Over his radio Rennie broadcast to the Ops Room at Springfield that the trawling

in of the McAnally family was complete.

The landrovers revved their engines. The street was bathed in moving headlights,

and then the night quiet fell again on the Drive in Turf Lodge.

Roisin McAnally allowed her husband to hold her hand in the back of the landrover. Her ankles were against a police constable's boots, and Little Patty was on her knee and Baby Sean was gurgling on her shoulder and Young Gerard

was clinging to her elbow. He held her hand. She made no attempt to hold his.

She was dead to the comfort of his hand. She was not crying any more. She would not let the constable sitting opposite her, with the Stirling on his knees, see her crying.

Over the radio came the coded message to announce that the lifts were in progress.

The squaddie in the centre of the three hung by his arms from the shoulders of

the other two men. His legs swung free as they stampeded across the inner hallway of the maisonette block. He jack‐knifed his knees up and thrust the soles

of his boots into the lightweight door. The door caved in. Ferris was behind the

squaddies with a uniformed Inspector. The light from the landing half lit the hallway, showed them the closed doors leading from it. The first door they tried