The Journeyman Tailor (34 page)

Shit, and he was his own man. Shit, and he had the laugh on all of them. None of them knowing, all of them ignorant, that Mossie Nugent was his own man. The smile played at his lips. It was when he could cope best, when he was alone with himself and the night was around him, when he had the laugh on all of them. There was the rap at the window of his car.

He saw the O.C.'s face, grinning. He wound down the window.

"Surprise . . ."

"Missus gone in, I'm not. We's going for a drink after. You're not going in?"

"I am not. Just seeing who is, like to know."

"She's a respected woman . . ."

"You heard it from London today?"

"Big bomb, no warning, I heard."

"Jon Jo's coming,"

Mossie said quietly, "Is that right?"

"Jon Jo's sent for."

"That's good."

The face was gone from the window. She hurried down the road towards the car, skipping between the rain puddles. She sagged into the seat, and the breath was out of her. Siobhan said that terrible things had been done to the boy and that his chin bone was half blown away.

Mossie didn't answer her. She said that Mrs Riordan was a brave woman and that her husband was scum and drunk and bad-mouthing his son. Mossie started up the car. She said that she didn't care about the money. He reversed away up the lane to the junction. She was crying, and she asked him how long it would go on, the killing. He told her to clean her face and he drove towards the village bar.

The bar was full, like it was Friday evening or Saturday night. He pushed his way through with Siobhan holding his hand and letting him lead. If Patsy Riordan had been shot by the army or blown away by his own bomb then the bar would have been empty and the drink would have been taken at the Riordan house. The bar was in celebration because the body of a tout had been brought back by the undertaker.

Loud music from the speakers and the steady chime of the fruit machine and belly laughter and shouting. He found the corner of a bench, room for Siobhan and if she pushed then room for him when he was back from the bar. He wormed forward towards the bar counter.

He was a big man in the Organisation and that was known to every man and woman in the bar, not what he did but that he was important. His shoulder was slapped, his hand was shaken, he was made welcome.

The pint for himself, the gin and bitter lemon for herself, and a drink for Bernie behind the bar. Back to where she sat. A place made for him to sit. The bar swam with noise and smoke.

Mother of God. It was her.

Sitting across the far side of the bar.

He saw her and then the pitch of the bodies between them hid her.

He saw her again. She seemed to have a map in front of her.

She drank from a Guinness glass.

He jabbed the stomach of the young man beside him.

"The girl across the bar, who's she?j"

Nearly gone, pissed up. "Australian, Bernie said, car's broke, waiting for a mechanic to come out Be lucky . . ." Christ, she'd no right . . . Shouldn't have been there . . .

He felt the cold shiver in his body and the music and the laughter belted in his ears.

He saw the red gold of her hair.

15

It was the moment the music died.

It was the moment between the laughter bursts.

It was the moment that the gap in the bodies had opened and he could see across the bar. He could see her face quite clearly and there were the pouch bags at her eyes and her shoulders were hunched, like she hadn't slept.

It was the moment that Bernie, from the bar, shouted across at her,

"Heh, Miss, no sign of the mechanic you're waiting on . . ."

Mossie sat with his pint glass in front of him and not more than an inch of it drunk. The O.C. was at the bar, and along from him was the Quartermaster, and on a stool was Hegarty with the dog curled at his feet.

Mossie saw her. She looked up. She seemed to blink, like she'd been far away.

". . . No sign of him."

She called back, "Never mind, he'll be . . ."

Eyes turning to her, snaking at her, and the rich English cut of her accent hanging in the bar.

Her voice, like the record had changed, like she'd bitten her tongue, like she was awake and alert. Her voice like the Australians from the television. "Yeah, well, won't be much longer. He said he'd come, but thanks ..."

And the music played. The machine belted Country and Western from the speakers. But no laughter to go with the music. No one in the bar looking at her, not even Mossie who dared not stare across at her. He saw the O.C. move. The O.C. was at the side of the Quartermaster. The O.C. whispered urgently into the Quartermaster's ear. The Quartermaster was slipping from the bar, drink abandoned, and had his hand on the arm of a young

fellow and was talking at him urgently. And Hegarty was tugging at the O.C.'s sleeve and his sharp finger stabbed in her direction.

Mossie quiet and into the hair that fell over Siobhan's ear. "Don't say nothing, don't do nothing."

"Does they know?"

"Just shut your face."

The O.C. was moving. He was drifting along the bar. Short exchanges, fast unheard orders. Shit, and why didn't she move? He watched the O.C. Christ's sake, why didn't she go? He looked to the door. Two of the men that the O.C. had spoken with stood across the door. Her knees would have been locked and her mind would have blanked out, too feckin' scared to move or to think. He felt the pulse of his heart. The O.C. spoke only to the men he could rely on, the men who took his orders. See nothing and hear nothing and know nothing, the creed of Altmore. All the others, who would see and hear and know nothing, backed from the floor of the bar to the walls and the tables and benches and chairs at the side, and all that could had their backs to the young woman with the gold red hair . . .

The O.C. was bent over Mossie's shoulder. "She's Brit army, surveillance, Hegarty's seen her on the mountain."

Mossie said, shrugged, "Hegarty's not the full shilling. I wouldn't break anyone's neck on that daft bugger's say so."

The O.C. insisted, "Saw her up on Logue's Hill, with a weapon, and a soldier with her."

Mossie said, anxious, "Be careful. If she's a Brit, she'll have backup."

Bernie behind the bar was bawling that it was time when it was twenty minutes to closing, and draping the cloths that dried the glasses over the pump handles of the beer, and yelling that it was time for good folks to be getting home, and reaching up to throw the switch that killed the music. The quiet in the bar, and the O.C. looked back to Mossie and jerked his head for Mossie to follow him. It happened fast. .

. The O.C. and the Quartermaster and two of the young fellows that the O.C. had spoken to, strong and hard, round the table where she sat.

Mossie couldn't see her. The crash of a glass and the scrape of a table tipping over. Mossie saw Hegarty leaning on the bar and his face was expressionless, and the dog slept at his feet as as if nothing would wke it. Fifty men and women in the bar, crouched over tables at the walls and seeing nothing and hearing nothing and knowing nothing. He saw the gold red of her hair amongst the mass of them and they dragged her towards the door.

Bren paced.

A telephone rang. Jocko languidly lifted it, jnst gave his name and listened. He replaced the telephone.

Jocko said, "The governor down in Duugannon. She should have cleared out of his area by now, hasn't called through. That's all."

The cardboard city man lounged, his chair tilted, his boots on the table. "We'll stay on . . ."

There was the O.C. and the Quartermaster holding her, and two of the young fellows. She seemed to go easily.

Siobhan was sheet-white beside him. "What's you going to do?"

"Wait here, love. Don't move."

It was automatic to Mossie. His life was compartments. On the mountain he was the man of the Organisation. He was her man, Cathy Parker's, he was Song Bird, in the darkness of car parks off the area, in the night blackness of farm gateways and road lay-bys away from his home. He had been called. He started to push himself up from the seat and there was the strength of Siobhan's hand on his knee as if she tried to hold him down. It was necessary for him to belong, it was his survival that he was a part of them. He knew that he hurt his Siobhan but he pulled her fist from his thigh. There was the pleading in her face and the pain screwed her mouth. Nothing said. When he had her hand off his thigh then it was limp. The palm of his hand scratched on the single small diamond of the ring he had given his Siobhan for their engagement. She would never understand. He stepped forward. He edged past the men and the women who would see and hear and know nothing. She grabbed at his coat and he broke her hold, he went toward the door. The prayer was in his mind, that it would be fast. If it were not fast. . . If it were not fast then Cathy Parker, Miss Parker, the bitch, would talk ... If she talked . . . He swung his poor leg. He passed old Hegarty, sitting on his stool, supping his beer, dropping crisp flakes down to his dog.

He walked out into the night.

They were at the back of the parking place . . . There was no backup. Christ. Now he could only pray that it would be fast . . . They were behind the cars and near to the shadow shape of a tractor, grotesque shapes, dancing in the high light thrown from the gable end of the bar.

The Quartermaster and one of the lads held her, and Mossie saw the whip of her head going back as the O.C. punched her. Where in God's name was the young man, the one that minded her and didn't speak?

Her arms were pulled back and the punches were going into her. They didn't shout questions, like she was not softened enough, and she didn't scream her cover back at them, like there was no point. He stood by the door of the bar. It was where the compartments of his life merged. He was Mossie Nugent, Intelligence Officer, and he was Mossie Nugent, Song Bird, and he knew he would lift not a finger, nor raise his voice, to aid her.

"Are you not going to help the boys?" the grate of old Hegarty's voice behind him.

Mossie said, "They're not needing help. It's four of them, and a bit of a girl."

"She's a Brit spy."

"So you've said ..."

Blows going into her, and a boot onto her knee or her shin. He wondered if she'd seen him. He was rooted. There was old Hegarty's sharp whistle and the dog came back off the grass to heel. He knew that the Hegarty house had been searched more often over the last twenty years, and in the campaign before that, than any other house on Altmore, and he knew that fifteen years back Hegarty had taken a bad, bad, beating from the police and been an old man then.

"She was just an idiot to be here," old Hegarty said, and was away up the road, not waiting for the end.

Mossie watched. He thought she was about to go down. If she went down, she was done for. There was the punch into the stomach that seemed to bend her and he thought that if she had not been held then she would have gone down. He told himself that there was nothing he could do. She should never have been there ... It was when he knew that she was about to go down that she seemed to pull the Quartermaster's arm across her face. His shout slashed the night air.

The Quartermaster lost his grip on her, staggered away clutching his bitten hand. So fast, the movements. Her free hand swinging the short hook into the throat of the one who held her other arm. The O.C. threw himself at her. The beam of the high light caught them. They thrashed, rolled, struggled, on the ground, and all the time the O.C. was swinging at her to beat her head back onto the gravel. Again, so fast . . . The O.C.

was pitched onto his stomach. Her knee was into the small of his back.

His right arm was twisted up towards his shoulder, and there was the crack of his wrist breaking and then his moan of pain.

The crowd was behind Mossie. They had spilled from the door. They would have seen what he saw. There was a young man backing away from her and the fear of her glistened in his eye. There was the O.C.

writhing. There was a man down and with his legs flailing haphazard strikes into the gravel. There was the Quartermaster bent over the pain of his hand and hugging the shadow safety of the fringe of the light.

The young man, backing away, shouted which was her car, and he had the power over the crowd, and there was a slow surge towards the green Astra, until it was surrounded. She rocked on her feet. Mossie thought her strength had gone. He stood with Siobhan beside him and he watched her. She reached inside her coat, and pulled at her sweater and there was the glimpse of her white skin and suddenly the dark outline of a pistol.

Mossie saw the petrol cap of the car thrown up over the heads of the crowd, and there was the flash of a match and the crowd started back, and the flames burst across the car, shafted through the interior of the green Astra.

He could see her face, he could see the set of her chin.

She walked towards him and she held the pistol loosely against the seam of her jeans. The car burned behind her. No one blocked her way.

There was blood dribbling from her lip. She was silhouetted against the flames. He thought it was only the will-power that kept her on her feet.

She walked deliberately, as if each step was a challenge. She looked into the face of each man and woman that confronted her. She looked through Mossie. He saw the blood running down her jaw and the pain in her face and the strength that carried her on, and out into the road.

She walked, slowly, never hurrying, away down the road and into the night.

The radio operator's head ducked, the concentration immediate. The woman scribbled on her pad.

Earphones off. "Emergency, 242's signal ..."

The man behind her on the radio racks swinging the dials in front of him.

Jocko and Herbie grabbing weapons from the floor, running for the door. Feet pounding on the staircase.

The second operator hurrying across the area, thrusting the paper with the co-ordinates into the cardboard city man's hand.

Bren dragged, then pushed, down the stairs, out into the night sprinting for the car where the engine already roared.