Field of Blood (50 page)

Ì'll probably be out with one of the foot patrols, probably not out

with the mobiles.'

`That's more like it. I've a couple of Scots Guards in. They take over

from us. It would thrill the pants off them if you take the lieutenant on

walk‐about, show him the ropes, give him a feel of things.'

Ferris swore to himself. No bloody chance of quitting foot patrol now. `Be a pleasure.'

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`That's grand ... nothing wrong is there, David? 'Never been better.'

Èxcellent. What time do you want him?' Òps Room at fifteen hundred.'

The Adjutant tramped noisily away, whistling.

Ferris finished his breakfast and went off to beg a stamp from the kitchen corporal.

`They said you was a tout.'

Ànd I never was.'

Ì know you was never a tout.'

Frankie smiled down at the pinched defiant face of Mattie Blaney's boy. The boy

was the last of the cogs for the wheel trap that he had fashioned in the fifty hours since he had seen the officer from the window of Roisin's bedroom.

The boy supported himself with a metal stick. He was mobile, after a fashion. He

was as agile as any of the others who had had the plastic knee‐cap fitted at the

Royal Victoria Hospital.

`Does it hurt you much?

'Not so's I'd notice,' Mattie Blaney's boy lied. `You can stand on it?'

"Course I can stand on it. Standing now on it, aren't I? 'Could you stand on it a long time?

'I could.'

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`Like two hours?

'If I wanted to I could. Why should I want to?

'They made a mistake with you.'

Ì was never a tout,' the boy blurted.

`You was blamed for something you never did.'

`Right I was.'

`We think you're too good a kid to walk away from us. We think you're still one of

us, even after what we did to you.' Frankie gave the boy a cigarette, and struck

the match for him, and watched the boy choke on his first inhalation, and cough

the smoke out of his mouth. `There's been a hell of a row about what happened

to you ... I still trust you, boy.'

'Wha's you want from meet

'Not what I want from you, it's what the Organization wants from you. We want

you to mind something.'

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`What do you want minded?

'You don't ask questions, not when you work for us. We're trusting you. We's saying you wasn't a tout. No bugger'll ever again say that Mattie Blaney's boy touted.'

`You know what they did to meet

'They was wrong to do it, they'd no cause to do it.'

`They burned me with a fag ...' The boy held the cigarette close to Frankie's nose,

close enough for him to feel the ash heat. `They put the boot in on me, then they

hooded me, then they shot me fucking knee off ... I told them I was never a tout.'

Ìf any man says you're a tout, he'll have to say it to my face, if you's help me.'

Mattie Blaney's boy wasn't much more than a child. He was a thin little scarecrow. He wore running shoes split at the toes, and jeans that were knee-patched, and a sweater that had come down from three brothers. Mattie Blaney's

boy nodded his trust to Frankie Conroy. When they walked away Frankie had to

curb his impatience because the boy hobbled awkwardly after him.

Frankie took him from the Drive into the narrow footpath that divided the gardens of 50 and 52. They could just walk side by side. The alley was wide enough for a running man, or for a man on a motorcycle. He felt bloody tired. It

had been a hell of a drive to Limerick, and he'd had to find the cottage out on the

Clare side of the city. And when he'd found the man the bastard had said that for

that sort of work he needed clearance from Army Council, and he needed

permission from the Quartermaster General for the gelignite and for the

detonator. They were funny bastards down south when it was joining‐up time with Northern Command or Belfast Brigade. Frankie had pleaded that he didn't

have the time to wait on the authorization, and the bastard hadn't been easy to

twist because he'd wondered who'd dropped his

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**name. Frankie had said that the name came from the Chief, and that was true.

The bastard had been suspicious as a virgin nun, and hard bloody going because

Frankie couldn't understand all the Clare accent chatter, and the bastard blinked

at the Belfast talk ... What did Frankie want? Frankie wanted the same as the bastard had done before ... Four hours of talking, and a half‐bottle of Paddy, and

finally the bastard had said he'd do it.

Frankie had gone to sleep in the chair by the fire. The bastard had woken Frankie

in the chair and handed him the cardboard box, and the bastard had told Frankie

how it should be done. He had come back over the border on an Unapproved 278

Crossing. He hadn't met a block. He'd been wetting himself all the way towards

the border in case he hit a block and the cardboard box was opened.

The rough back road at the end of the alley that served the pre‐cast concrete garages for the residents of the Drive and the Avenue was rutted and pot‐holed.

He was certain it would work. Frankie Conroy had to be certain. It was down to

him. Fucked if he was going to sit in another bloody house with an Armalite and

wait for a patrol and for the officer. He thought that with his plan he could guarantee that the officer would come. Guarantee? ... that was bloody rich.

Christ, he was doing his bloody best.

He led Mattie Blaney's boy to the third garage in the back road. The doors were

old and sagging, but there was a new padlock on the clasps. He had the key and

he opened the door. He checked both ways and saw nothing and nobody to

disturb him. He pushed Mattie Blaney's boy in ahead of him, into the dark interior

of the garage. The boy hadn't gone easily. Frankie wondered if they'd done his knee in a place like this. The garage was empty ... there were few enough cars owned in the Drive or the Avenue, if a bugger had a car then he kept it in front of

his windows, where he could see it. He went to the back wall, to a heap of plastic

sheeting. He pulled back the sheeting and displayed to Mattie Blaney's boy two

Suzuki 125cc motorcycles, blue painted, identical. He bent down and pointed behind the far wheels of the motorcycles, showed the boy two black mouth-guard crash helmets. He unwrapped a strip of sacking and stood back to let the

boy see two Luger pistols.

Jesus, and hadn't he worked since he had flogged back from Limerick ... worked

tòloan' the motorcycles, worked tòborrow' the helmets, worked for the

Lugers, worked to àcquire' the garage, worked to find the trap for the officer.

He covered the pistols and laid the sheeting back over the motorcycles.

The boy watched him. There was no awe on his face, no admiration. `He'll have

to be a right fool,' the boy said coldly. `Who?

'Who you're going for.'

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`Why's he have to be a fool?'

There was almost a sneer at the boy's mouth. `They did this two years

ago, the I.N.L.A. did it. The peelers'll know this one.'

Ìt's not for the police,' Frankie said angrily.

Ìf it's for the Brits it might work. The Brits isn't permanent here like

the peelers, they mightn't know about it.'

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Frankie smiled and tried to be the boy's friend and patiently explained

to him what he wanted.

The tunnel corridor echoed to the crack of the warder's shoes.

The Chief thought that the shits always shod their shoes with metal, toe and heel, as if it gave the shits some authority. Each man in the long file was escorted by a warder down the steps from the gaol, through the tunnel corridor under the

Crumlin Road, up the steps and into the basement of the Crown Court.

He felt the winter dampness on the prison walls. The younger men in the file looked to him for leadership, for defiance, and he had nothing to give them ...

Shay and Eug and Dommy looked to him, and Fatsy and Bugsie and Dusty and

Phonsie. They looked to him as if he had some bloody magic ... and when he turned to them suddenly, when they hadn't expected it, he could see their resentment, their belief that he was to blame for having called back Sean Pius McAnally from the South.

Beneath the court he was locked into a cell by himself.

The Chief sat on a wooden bench. There were names scratched and biroed and

pencilled on the walls. He saw names that he knew, the names of the men who

were his contemporaries as he had come up in the Organization, men who were

rotting in the Kesh on Tenners and Fifteens and Lifes.

There was a rattle of keys. The cell door opened, and Mr Pronsias Reilly bobbed

inside. The Chief smelt the aftershave and the talc powder.

Mr Pronsias Reilly came close to the Chief.

`Frankie's going this afternoon, going for bloody broke. If you're a praying man,

you should be bloody praying the sun's shining on Frankie's arse this afternoon . .

.'

The saloon bar of the big road house on the A31 beyond Guildford was empty but

for them.

Goss leaking in the jacks, and McAnally at a corner table with his back to the wall

and trying to pretend he could read a newspaper, and Prentice drumming his fingers on the counter and waiting for the skimpy

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**girl to take time off from glass polishing. Rennie had said that McAnally should

arrive pickled, and stay pickled through Friday evening, and through Saturday, 280

and they'd dry him out on Sunday and give him a bomb to get him to sleep, and

bounce him into court on Monday morning.

He reckoned they'd managed to get McAnally quite respectable. The suit had been dry‐cleaned, and unless you looked hard you couldn't see the vomit stains.

Not that the runt was saying much, so the sooner the pickle was inside him the

better. For himself, he wasn't fussed about getting back to Belfast, but Andy was.

Andy was bloody fretting over his lady. He'd learn. When the door was slammed

in his face, he'd learn.

`Two halves of draught lager, love, and a large Scotch.'

Fine for McAnally to be pissed on the flight, not so fine for Goss and

himself. Goss came to him at the bar as he was paying. Goss was staring

along the bar at McAnally.

`He's a horrible little turd, isn't he?'

Prentice laughed out loud. `Did you expect a bloody saint?

'I was standing in there, having my pee, and I thought ‐ up your zipper, Andy, on

with your smile, and go back out there to that horrible little turd.'

`Like I said, he's no more than you'd expect,' Prentice said quietly. `You know what I hate about him? He's never been one bloody bit

sorry for what he did. You ever heard him say that he regrets blowing

away an old man and two young coppers? Have you hell.' Ìt's your bloody job, Andy,' Prentice said. `Then it's a rotten bloody job.'

Prentice took his glass of lager and McAnally's Scotch and walked to the corner

table. He saw Goss drain his glass and head for the door. He'd have gone to sit in

the car. No one said it was easy, cuddling up to a supergrass. He thought that he

didn't care who he was cuddling with. He thought he was a good bloody 'tec for a

rotten bloody job. And in the evening it wouldn't be John Prentice who'd be cuddling up to the supergrass, it would be the Brit officer, and John Prentice would be at the bar, and getting well pissed.

A warm smile gathered at Prentice's mouth.

`Double Scotch, Gingy, what the doctor ordered. Crack it down you, lad.'

`What's with him?' McAnally gestured towards the door. `Something about the car. Get it down, Gingy, then we've time for

one more. We'll not get any more once we're with the Air Force ...' `What was he

saying to you?

'He was saying the car had a rotten bloody engine. Myself, I don't care. If the engine gets us where we want to go then I'm happy. I'm

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not fussed as long as we get where we want to go. You understand me, Gingy?

Another of the same won't see you wrong, right?'

He was still smiling when McAnally drained the Scotch and belched, and he went

back to the bar to get the glass refilled.

He had been in the pub, and he'd tried to pee away the pints that he had drunk

while Mattie Blaney's boy waited outside with a packet of crisps and a chocolate

bar. It was a cold afternoon, but Frankie Conroy was sweating. He thought now

that he might have been better on an Armalite, that what he'd managed was too

bloody elaborate, but he had got it, and he was stuck with it.

He pushed the motorcycle down the alley and into the Drive, and the boy came

after him with the crash helmet under his arm. He took the motorcycle fifteen, twenty yards down the Drive from the entrance to the alley so that it couldn't be

seen by a man standing at the top of the alley at the garages.

The two pounds of industrial gelignite were strapped to the inner top of the helmet, with the detonator and the bicycle lamp battery that provided the power

to explode the gelignite when the circuit was tripped. Frankie had the coat collar

of his jacket turned up and he wore his wool cap low down on his forehead as if