Maid of the Mist (11 page)

He had left Stirling to do the report, but when he got back to the station he threw out most of what he'd written and had a go himself. If Stirling had put as much effort into it as into writing his now aborted press statement then it wouldn't have been so bad. He told him that. Stirling sulked. They bickered on and off throughout the afternoon. Their plan to get pissed wasn't mentioned.

Corrigan spent an hour driving around looking for Lelewala, but nobody seemed to know anything, least of all Tarriha, who was carried out of Whiskey Nick's legless and thrown in the gutter. He was sleeping it off in a cell downstairs in the station.

At home in his damp apartment, Corrigan lay in the bath, then lay on the sofa, then lay on the floor. There was nothing on the TV worth watching, his collection of CDs bored him. The owner of the apartment, Mrs Capalski, the Polish harridan, called by to collect the rent. To
demand
the rent. He always paid, and he always paid on time, but she always demanded it as if he was a student or a murderer or somebody equally disreputable. When she'd gone he took a bottle of whisky down from a cupboard then poured it into a silver flask and took a walk along the river, sipping. Thinking. Thinking about Northern Ireland, his real home, and why he couldn't go back.

It had been a typical Crossmaheart summer. Rain smacking like bullets into the metal sheeting that had served as the barracks roof since the bomb attack a month before. The arrhythmic rat-tat-tat was annoying, but at least it kept him alert. It was easy just to drift away in those long, silent nights. Watching, watching, watching
nothing,
then
something,
something that turned out to be
nothing.
Nothing between the last drunk rolling home from the Ulster Arms and the first hum of a milk float four hours later. He wasn't allowed a newspaper or a book or a radio, nothing that would distract; and ironically it was the lack of
distraction
that usually edged him towards sleep. Although not, of course,
to sleep.
That could be a fatal mistake. What it did encourage was a kind of horse inertia, standing up, eyes open, but unfocused, the mind and the memory in a slightly different, somehow better place. A place where he had something better to rest his arse on than a wooden bench, where he could tap his toe to the country and western that
he knew
oozed out of Radio 2 in the middle of the night. A place where he could unlock the door and lay out a saucer of milk for the tabby,
something
that was
nothing,
who always came sniffing just before dawn. But this night there was the rain, and it saved him. The recent spate of kneecappings in the town had made it difficult to get any of the local tradesmen to carry out repair work. The army sappers were trying to cope with the rebuilding of their own bombed-out base in Belfast and could only vaguely promise a date several weeks in the future.

He yawned. He was thinking of the girl in the hardware store who'd refused to serve him because he was a cop, but who'd still flirted shamelessly with him. The double-edged sword. They could arrange to meet, have sweaty dangerous sex, or she could lure him into a trap and her mates would blow his head off.

The rain stopped just as suddenly as it began. It wasn't over for the night. It was just God reloading. But it stayed off long enough for the summer heat to steam back up through the tarmac outside the station.

He was watching the steam, eerie in the dead-of-night silence, when the bulldozer came into view.

It was a good half-mile away along the Main Street. It stood out yellow like a fallen moon against the darkness, its bucket held high. There was no sound but the quiet hiss of the steam, and for several moments he thought he might be imagining it, that he had slipped into that other place. But no, it was there. And it was coming.

He hesitated. There was a slight incline on the Main Street and the bulldozer appeared to be freewheeling. It could just be a farmer or a builder getting an early start. But it was
too
early. Corrigan picked a pair of binoculars up off the otherwise bare table before him, and focused in. His mouth went dry. The driver was wearing a balaclava. It was summer and it was warm, and in this part of the world knitted winter garments meant only one thing. And behind the vehicle,
glimpses.
Shadows. The shape of a head.
Heads.
Feet. Shuffling. Jogging.

Ordinarily there was a garrison of twenty-five. Tonight there were just three. There was a police dinner in Belfast. A police dinner masquerading as a rugby-club dinner. Only someone, somewhere, knew their rugby, and now there was death coming along Main Street in the shape of a bulldozer with a bomb in its bucket and an IRA unit using it for cover. It had been tried before, at a neighbouring station. The bulldozer to smash through the wire fence surrounding the barracks. Then setting off the bomb and blowing the station to bits and the active service unit waiting impatiently to massacre any survivors.

Corrigan pressed the alarm button.

It was not so loud that they would hear it down the street. Thirty seconds long, and Constables McDermott and Hamilton were stumbling into the room before it had run its course.
The rain.

They didn't speak, at first. They struggled into their green trousers and shirts. Their boots were off. They were strapping on their pistols. They looked out of the letter-box-shaped opening, and their faces blanched, and they knew.

'Shit,' McDermott said.

'Shit,' said Hamilton.

'Shit,' McDermott said again, 'what'll we do now?'

'Well, we could run away,' Corrigan said, 'but it mightn't look very good on our records.' He smiled. His lips, in
seconds,
had dried and cracked. The smile
hurt.
His heart raced. They had trained for this a hundred times, but they had trained with a full squad, not with a skeleton crew. The training had presumed at
least
equal terms. The presumption had been presumptuous.

Death was rolling down the Main Street.

Any second the bulldozer would lose the benefit of the incline. As soon as it hit the flat end of the street it would roar into life. And then death would be rushing
and
rolling towards them.

They ran out of the sentry post and into the armoury. They chose sub-machine guns. They attempted to load up with quiet proficiency. But it was impossible. They mad cackled as they forced the magazines in with shaking hands.

'This is fucking crazy,' McDermott said.

Hamilton giggled.

'One thing we gotta get,' Corrigan said.

'What's that?' McDermott asked.

'Outta this business.'

It was a two-storey building. A house. It had belonged to a butcher once. Apt, in hindsight. A big house with security cameras and a lengthy extension on the back, and Portakabins beyond that. All surrounded by sandbags and a huge wire fence. But nothing that would withstand the kind of force that was trundling along Main Street.

They left the armoury and ran through the canteen to the back of the station. They opened the door and hurried between the Portakabins to what they knew as the tradesman's entrance. It wasn't quite that. It was a small gate in the wire fence that they used occasionally for civilians who didn't want to be seen entering the station in full view of the public, and occasionally for smuggling out prisoners to waiting ambulances, prisoners who'd accidentally fallen down steps.

They weren't perfect.

And they were scared.

The back gate led on to the black remains of a burnt-out shopping centre. It had fallen vacant during the last economic downshift and been destroyed for fun by a passing arsonist. The police had discouraged any rebuilding, preferring to have a derelict rear buffer rather than renewed development that could be hijacked by the IRA.

Corrigan snapped open the lock, peered out, then ran first out on to the weed-strewn lane-way that ran between the station and the shopping shell, then on beyond and into the ruined structure. He not only had the benefit of age and experience, but the benefit of shoes. The other two hopped and winced and giggled as they raced across the ruined floor, jagging their feet on rusted cans and the smashed green glass of cider bottles. Above their heartbeats they could hear the rumble of the bulldozer. It was close, and closing.

Corrigan came to the crumbled far wall. Hamilton and McDermott ducked down beside him and peered out. They were almost level with the bulldozer. The driver was fiddling with the controls. The others – he counted six – were checking their weapons, still in its shadow. They too wore balaclavas. And carried big fucking guns.

They walked right past.

Corrigan suddenly felt better. They were behind them now, and undetected. They had the advantage of surprise.

According to the book they should shout their warnings now, read them their rights, arrest them before any damage was done.

But nobody had brought the book. And even if they had, the classification on the spine would say
fantasy.
It was not how they lived. It was not how they survived. This was war.

McDermott raised his gun. Corrigan put a hand on the barrel and forced it quietly down. He shook his head.

The driver jumped down from the cabin. He landed badly and went over, but he didn't yell. One of the others helped him up and then handed him a rifle. He leaned on it. The bulldozer continued on its way. It was about forty yards from the station.

The IRA squad spread itself out along the road in a loose semi-circle, then crouched down on the damp tarmac. They had a new confidence now, based on the certainty that the station was under-strength and the revelation that the sentry post was either unmanned or the sentry was asleep.

They waited for the station to explode.

Corrigan could have stopped it.

But then there would have been no excuse.

The bulldozer rammed into the wire, dragging it inwards. It tore, it screeched metal on metal and nails on blackboards and then the bucket thumped into the front of the station and it blew.

Pooooowchhhhhhhhhhh . . .!

Corrigan and his men ducked down behind the wall. Grabbed on to it. Feared that it would collapse on top of them. The roar was tremendous. For a hundred yards on either side of the road windows imploded, roofs rose and rubble rained. Corrigan looked to the station, but there was nothing to see except a cloud of dust and a sudden spit of flame.

And then, after perhaps thirty seconds, just an awful silence.

The IRA waited for the first glimpse of the survivors.

The police waited on Corrigan's lead.

The residents lay silently in their beds, clutching each other, wondering if this was
the end
but too scared to inquire.

And then at a nod the gunmen stood and began to spray the ruined, burning building with bullets. They were happy that it was destroyed, unhappy that there were no obvious signs of life. They were pleased that they had struck another blow against the British presence in Ireland, disappointed that they were reduced to shooting bricks and mortar.

Another lull. Time to fade back into the welcoming countryside, bandit country, into the safe-houses, to hide their weapons in their underground bunkers, to clean and scrub and remove every trace of gunpowder. To return to work. To the fields. To the factory. To the pub. To the very Civil Service.

But then there was a voice from behind.

'Top of the morning to youse, lads.'

They turned, and in the act of turning, they died.

Corrigan, Hamilton and McDermott, shooting from the hip and evening up the score.

Corrigan spat into the river. There had been no medals. There had been a trial. For murder. The Crossmaheart Massacre. Proof of the police's shoot-to-kill policy. They had, of course, been acquitted. It was a British court with a British judge and no jury. Not guilty of murder, and the judge had refused to consider a lesser charge of manslaughter. They'd walked free, but they would never walk free in that country again. Too many people out for revenge. A danger to his colleagues. A whip-round and a quietly arranged transfer to a police force on the other side of the world.

What had he left behind?

Nothing.

What could he go back to?

Nothing.

What did he have here?

Nothing.

He looked at the river. He had reached the top of the Falls. Lelewala had rowed over. The Lelewala of legend. She had reached out to her lover, and he to her. But whom did he have to reach out to? And who would reach out for him?

He took another drink.

He had come to a decision.

He would have to join a dating agency.

Corrigan was always a light sleeper, even with the drink.

There was an instant when his eyes fluttered, ears pricked like a dog.
Something.

Shapes in the darkness. A whisper.

He threw himself suddenly to one side, grabbing for his gun, forgetting that he no longer kept it by his bed, as he had in Ireland. As he fell he scrambled for another weapon, alarm clock, a paperback, but there was nothing. He hit the floor and rolled; he struck legs, there was a shot and a barked scared admonishment, and then half a dozen lights went on and there were eight men and eight guns pointed at him. He froze.

The police.

But not
his
police.

Corrigan blinked from murderous eye to murderous eye; beads of sweat on straining brows, fingers shaking on triggers; he had only luck and unprofessional hesitation to thank that he was not already dead.

All he could say was: 'What?'

His head throbbed; he tried to peer through the fog- what was . . .

They closed in, hauled him up on to the bed, threw him face down. Searched him. It didn't take long. All he wore was his underpants. They flipped him on to his back. He looked at them; he was shaking, and he could hear the shake in his faked laugh. 'OK. . . OK lads. April Fool. Though I should point out that it's September.'

They were rifling through his belongings.

They were wearing rubber gloves.