Now and in the Hour of Our Death (12 page)

He crested the hill and saw the car he was expecting in the inn's car park. The battered old Lada was close to a fuchsia hedge. It was too thick for anyone to burst through on the left side of the car. Ahead, a tall brick wall blocked access to the car park where the summer's purple and scarlet fuchsia blossoms lay scattered on the tarmac like tiny, dying ballerinas. A cattle lorry hemmed in the vehicle on its right.

As Sammy propped his bike against the hedge, he could hear the lowing of the beasts in the transporter and caught a whiff of their barnyard smell. He bent and tried to look in through the car's windows, but they were obscured by condensation. His contact, code-named Spud, must have been here for a while. Sammy rapped on the window.

When the window was lowered, Sammy found himself looking into a pair of green eyes with a triangular brown segment in the iris of the left. The rest of the face was unremarkable. No moustache. His sandy hair was short, but not cropped like a soldier's. Sammy knew that a military cut stood out like a neon sign, even when the troops were off duty and wearing civvies. The Provos had a habit of killing off-duty soldiers and members of the Ulster Defence Regiment, civilians who worked as part-time soldiers and who had replaced the auxiliary police force, the B-Specials. In a small community, the UDR volunteers were well-known, easy targets, and very vulnerable to sneak attacks.

A cigarette drooped from the man's lips and jiggled when he said, “Get in.” The door was pushed half-open. “You're late. You'd me worried.”

Sammy climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the door. “I come as quick as I could. I fucking near didn't come at all.” Sammy picked his nose.

“I was going to give you ten more minutes and then I'd've been off.”

“You can fuck off anytime you like. I'd like to see the back of you for good and all. Six months you've had me at this. And haven't I given you good stuff?” Sammy wondered at his own bravado. The man in the driver's seat was built like a brick shit-house, and Sammy knew too bloody well that a word from him in the right place and he wouldn't be seeing Spud again. He'd not be seeing nobody never again. They'd find him lying in a ditch with a green bin bag over his bullet-smashed head and a twenty-pound note, his Judas money, clutched in his hand.

“Don't be like that, Sunshine. Here, have a fag.” Spud pulled out a packet of Gallaher's Greens and offered one.

Sammy took it and accepted a light. He clutched the cigarette between nicotine-stained knuckles. His fingers were trembling. Maybe he shouldn't have said what he just had. Spud, not Jesus Christ, was going to be Sammy's sure road to salvation.

“Have a draw on that and take a grip on your knickers. I can wait.”

“That's easy for you to say.” When the Provos found out that one of their own had turned informer, they did not put much stock in a few acts of contrition by way of penance. They were more prone to blowing off an offender's kneecaps—or putting a bullet in his head after they'd wrung as much information out of him as they could.

He saw Spud glance in the rearview mirror. He was jumpy, too. Maybe all of these E4A men were trained to be careful. They'd need to be. They were the ones that worked with—Sammy hesitated over the word—informers.

“Here,” he heard Spud say as he handed over an envelope. “Maybe that'll help you calm down.”

Sammy took the envelope.

“You're not going to check it?”

“Nah.” Sammy could feel the banknotes. “I trust you. I fucking well have to, don't I?”

“Sure, you know you can do that.” Spud spoke softly, like a mother to a frightened ten-year-old. “You and me's got to be mates, haven't we?”

“Aye.” It was true they had. Sammy's narrow shoulders relaxed. “I suppose so.”

“Come on, Sammy. We
are
mates.”

The hell they were, but who else could Sammy trust since he'd turned? Maybe this RUC man was just playacting. Sammy had heard that the E4A officers were trained to make friends with their sources—he preferred that word to “touts”—to gain their trust. Try to get into their minds. Was that all Spud's friendship was about?

“If we're such good pals, why won't you tell me your real name? You know mine.” Sammy hadn't meant to sound querulous. He picked his nose. He always did that when he was nervous. And why wouldn't he be nervous? The envelope made a crackling sound in his hand. It wasn't the money he'd come for. It was the promise—

“Come on, Sammy. You know I can't do that. Still doesn't mean we're not…”

“Friends. Aye. I know.”

“And friends tell each other things, don't they?”

“I've two things for you, but I'm not telling you unless…” He thrust the envelope at Spud. “I don't want your money no more. I want you to keep your promise. I want into one of them witness-protection deals in England. You promised…”

“And?”

“You fucking well promised,” Sammy shouted.

There was a loud “Bang!”

Sammy ducked behind the dashboard. “What the hell was that?”

“There's beasts in that there lorry. One must've stamped a hoof.”

Sammy straightened. “I near shit myself. I thought it was a gun.”

“Come on, Sam. Don't be so jumpy. What's really bothering you?” He sounded like a mummy again.

Sammy's façade of toughness cracked. “I can't take it no more. I'm scared. I'm all on my own…”

“You've me. I look after you. Don't I look after you?”

Sammy nodded.

“'Course I look after you.” He offered the envelope. “And the money's not bad. Twenty quid a week.”

“I told you, I don't want the fucking money.”

“Jesus Christ.” Spud let an edge creep into his voice. “I thought you and me was friends.”

Sammy's head drooped.

“Come on, Sam, are we not?”

“I'm fucking well petrified.” Sammy's lower lip trembled.

Spud laid a hand on Sammy's shoulder. “I know.” He forced a short laugh. “I get windy myself sometimes.”

“Do you?” Sammy lifted his head. His black eyes darted from side to side like tiny trapped animals. Then he looked into Spud's. “Honest to God?”

“Your lot shoot peelers.”

Sammy saw him glance in the rearview mirror. “Right enough.”

“Takes guts to do what we do. I think you're a brave man, Sammy McCandless.”

“Honest to God?”

“Honest. Here.” He reoffered the envelope. “Take it. You've earned it.”

Sammy did. He fingered the envelope. “The money'll come in handy. I'm saving it up for when I get out of Ireland.”

“Good idea. Mind you, the witness-protection blokes'll give you your pocket money … when we do get you out.”

“They will, won't they?”

“You hang on to the cash. That's your regular weekly in there, and you didn't drag me out in the pissing rain just to get that. There's a bonus for good information. You said you'd two things to tell me.”

“And I'll get the bonus?”

“Come on, Sam. You know the rules. You give me the information, and if it pays off, your next envelope'll be a damn site fatter than that one. Could be five hundred.”

“And you will see about getting me into the witness-protection thing?”

“Tell you what, Sam. If what you're going to tell me is really good stuff, I'll try.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart.”

You're hearing what you want to hear, Sammy told himself, but where else could he turn? He tossed his cigarette butt out of the car. “Fair enough.” His finger guddled in his nostril. “The first one's a sure thing. I brought in a shipment last night. Half a dozen ArmaLites and a wheen of Semtex from over the border. I stashed them in an old grave in Ballydornan churchyard.” Sammy knew what the Security Forces could do once they'd got their hands on the weapons. They could fit one of the weapons with a miniature transmitter and use its signals to track the guns to their final destination. The British army called that technique jarking. Or perhaps they could nick the blokes that came to collect the cache.

“When's the pickup?”

So they did want to lift the collectors, and one of them might be Erin. Good thing Cal hadn't said when. Sammy fished in his raincoat pocket, produced a peppermint, and popped the white sweetie into his mouth. When he spoke, his words were indistinct and the inside of the car was filled with a minty smell. “I don't know. You just arrange to find them.”

“Hardly worth the effort. When'll they be picked up?”

“Jesus, are you deaf? I don't fucking well know.”

Spud took out his packet of smokes. He lit one for himself. He did not offer one. “And you want me to get you into a witness … You're doting if you think a few rifles in Ballydornan churchyard is worth that.”

“Look … I'll phone you if I find out.” And I'll make sure that Erin doesn't go, he thought.

“That's better.” Spud drew on his cigarette. “Sorry. Want another one?”

Sammy grabbed the packet and helped himself. “What are you going to do?”

“Leave it to me, and don't you worry, Sam. If me and my lot think going after them and the blokes that come to get them would blow your cover, we'll just let the hare sit. You're far too good a man to risk.”

“I am, amn't I?”

“You're bloody right. One of the best.”

“Right enough. And you
will
ask about the other?”

“I might, but you said you'd two things for me.”

“Aye.” Sammy tripped over his words in his hurry to satisfy. “There's something big on. Really big. Don't know what it is. At the Kesh. Soon. I overheard things…”

“Like what?”

A shadow fell over the car. Sammy looked up. A man had moved between the Lada and the cattle truck. Spud's hand went to the glove compartment. Does he have a gun in there? Sammy wondered. He wasn't going to wait to find out. He whispered, “I'm off,” and bolted.

As soon as he'd wheeled his bike to the exit from the car park, he looked back. The stranger was hauling himself into the cab of the cattle lorry, and the Lada was reversing. Sammy guessed the stranger had asked to be given room to get his big vehicle out.

The lorry driver finished reversing and ground the gears as he moved into first. He passed Sammy on his way out and took the road toward Strabane. Sammy remembered the abattoir where the occupants of the cattle lorry were going. He gave a little shudder and then cycled out of the parking lot, following in the muddy backwash of the lorry's rear wheels in the downpour of a Tyrone Sunday morning.

 

CHAPTER 11

VANCOUVER. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1983

There was hardly a cloud over English Bay, a mere ruffle of white on the water. The wind would be coming from the west at about ten knots. That should send
Windshadow
scudding through the water without heeling too much. In stronger blows, Tim reveled in storming along, but Fiona had to work to convince herself that the boat wasn't going to capsize.

Fiona strode toward Burrard Civic Marina, where Tim kept
Windshadow,
now known affectionately to both of them as plain
Windy.
She shifted her sports bag to her other hand. The bottle of Chardonnay, wrapped in a heavy sweater, should be safe enough. The wine was a peace offering for the way she'd behaved last night. An evening that had started so well had fallen apart when Jimmy Ferguson had appeared out of nowhere like a pantomime demon. Dammit, she'd tried to persuade Tim not to join the Fergusons for that after-dinner drink, but Tim, typical of the man, hadn't wanted to hurt anybody's feelings.

As she crested the hill in Vanier Park, kites still flew, the smaller dominated by a massive contraption with a large, round head and great, long, skinny tail. It was often here. Tim said he thought it looked like a giant sperm. That was part of what she liked about the man. He had a delightful way of putting an eccentric spin on ordinary things.

She looked across False Creek to the city centre. Harsh, angular towers stood against the soft sky. She could make out the red bricks of Saint Paul's Hospital hiding behind the tall condominium blocks on Beach Avenue. Jimmy and his wife lived in one.

Last night, Fiona had tried to sound interested when, after insisting on buying everyone a drink, Jimmy had chuntered on about how smashing his apartment was—great views, lots of space, clean as a whistle. He said it was a hell of a sight different from the cramped terraces of the Falls Road. Mind you, he missed the
craic
, the cheerful banter so beloved by the Irish. His neighbours in the multistorey building weren't ones to stand and blether in the hallways. Still, there were no house-to-house searches by the Brits. She'd flinched when he'd said that.

He'd insisted that she make a visit, if possible before Siobhan went back to Montreal in another two weeks. “You two'll have a lot to talk about, so you will.”

Fiona shuddered at the very thought of rehashing the past with Siobhan, particularly that part that still gave her nightmares, like the one on Thursday night.

Jimmy had given her his business card with his phone numbers and had taken Fiona's number in return. The last thing Jimmy'd said when Tim finally made their excuses was, “Give us a ring and we'll have the pair of you over for a wee bite to eat.”

Jimmy was going to be disappointed. Fiona had no interest in maintaining that acquaintance—she had barely known the man in Belfast—their only connection was Davy.

And Davy
wasn't
in Vancouver. Tim was.

As she turned into the marina, she saw him taking off
Windy
's navy-blue sail cover. She would make it up to him today. It had been cruel of her last night to brush him off with a perfunctory kiss and the excuse that she was really tired. But she'd needed to be on her own. She hoped he'd not bring up the subject today.