The Journeyman Tailor (42 page)

He thought he was about to wet himself. If he hadn't been petrified still, mind swirling on the Protestants, then he'd have turned to run.

He heard the light chuckle, like the man in the darkness knew he was scared half to death.

"Heh, it's me, it's Jon Jo."

"Shit, you . . ."

"It's Jon Jo, and I'm back."

The Quartermaster wiped the sweat off his forehead, felt the rubbery weakness in his legs. "Jesus, you give me a turn . . . Jon Jo, feckin'

great to have you back, big man."

"Good of you to say that."

"How's you, how's Jon Jo?"

The Quartermaster knew that Jon Jo Donnelly was thirteen years younger than himself. He could remember his own slow advancement through the Organisation, and he could remember the shooting star that had been young Jon Jo before he had gone away. Right from the day of his recruitment going his own way. Calling for a weapon to be brought to him, or for explosives, never discussing and never justifying, his own man. The Quartermaster wouldn't have dared say so, but the way Jon Jo Donnelly treated those around him was like dirt.

He had been told once that Jon Jo had gone to shoot a U.D.R. man the far side of 'gannon, and he’d found on his way to the hit a policeman, off duty, walking his child on the roadside, and he'd shot him instead, and finished him between the eyes with the kiddie half over him. A feckin' haul man, and the world a safer place with him on the mainland.

"I heard there was a tout on Altmore."

The Quartermaster gulped. "I know nothing . . . but they took the Riordan boy."

"Did you reckon Patsy Riordan could have touted?"

"Honest?"

I’m asking what you thought."

I thought the boy was an idiot," the Quartermaster blurted. The rain spat on the shoulders of his jacket and the legs of his trousers. Iwas quiet around them, He could hear the television from next door. He thought that if Jon Jo Donnelly were back then the killings would go harder, and the army would sit heavier, and that the Brigade officers would be dragged from their houses more often for the cells at Gough Holding Centre. He hated the cells, and the detectives, and the snipe of the questions and the curl of the cigarette smoke, and the hammer of the doors locking and closing, and the high bars on the windows.

"You keep your silence."

"You don't have to worry about me, Jon Jo."

"I wouldn't ever worry about you ..."

And he was gone. The Quartermaster's knees shook. He reversed his car and thumped the kerb opposite and the rain pelted into the windscreen and twice he cut the verge as he drove to get his daughter from her friend's.

Hegarty crossed the bar to him. The dog followed the old bastard to where Mossie sat alone. Mossie thought it a crying shame that the dog's coat wasn't brushed to rid it of the burrs and the knots. Hegarty leaned across the table, stale tobacco breath in Mossie's face.

"He's back, Mossie, I's seen him," he whispered.

"Who's back?"

"Jon Jo's back."

"That's not safe talk."

"I's seen him on the mountain. I's seen him where he left his guns before he went away."

"That talk's not good for you."

"I's not afraid. Just telling you that he's back," and he shuffled himself back to the bar and his drink.

The light flashed. Bren wriggled to pull the headset over his ears. He had the pencil light and his biro and the pad of paper. It was Jimmy.

Song Bird had telephoned that Jon Jo Donnelly was back, living rough on Altmore. Cathy was half across his body, reading the message.

"About bloody time," she murmured.

Bren thought of how, one after the other, Hobbes would hear, Rennie would hear, and Wilkins would hear and he might even clap his hands and say that it was all going according to plan. And there, in that sodden, freezing hide, on the edge of the great God Almighty plan, Bren thought, what he minded most about was the sweet weight of her against her against his right side. Digging into the left side of him, where they Could be reached, were the rifles, on safety. The back-up thought he would just be the bloody gun- bearer for her. He didn't know whether they were right.

"When this is over ..."

"Oh, for Christ's sake."

"You are coming out of here...’’

"Not again."

"Even if I have to take you kicking and screaming . . ."

"Do piss off."

"I am going to put you what you are safe and where there is a normal life to be lived. I am going to do that before it is too late for you. I love you ..."

"Watch the bloody screen," she said.

He stared at the farmhouse on the screen, at the light from an upper window on the back yard. He saw nothing move. He wondered if she would think the more of him if he shot Jon Jo Donnelly.

19

He lay on his back.

There was the glow and the wetness of her body against his.

Jon Jo Donnelly and his Attracta after the collapse of love- making.

It was what he had cried for during the months away. She nestled against him. He was back and he was home.

It should have been beautiful.

She hadn't talked to him of danger, she hadn't demanded of him when he was leaving. He had the new route into the farmhouse, in the shadow of the lean-to where the logs were stacked, and through the larder window that she had left unlocked, squeezing inside. If the house were watched then he would not be seen because he did not have to use the back door and the front door that were obvious. She hadn't questioned him about England, not about a schoolboy and not about two schoolgirls.

It should have been wonderful.

There had never been a tout on the mountain. There had been touts in Belfast and in Derry and in Newry and in Lurgan. There had never been a tout identified on Altmore . . . When he had been home, before he had gone away to England, there had twice been a suspension of operations because of tout fear. After the search up beyond old Hegarty's home, a mile beyond him, where the cache had been found with the R.P.G.7 and the two rifles and nothing other than information could have taken the soldiers to that corner of a field. After the controlled explosion of a culvert bomb on the Ballygawley road, in place three days, and no military activity prior to the helicopter coming over, repeated sweeps, with the electronics, there had been the second tout hunt. It was four years back and it was two years back, and each time the outsiders had been called onto the mountain to sift for evidence. Nothing

decided, nothing proved, but the unit had been stood down each time for a month, and the outsiders had moved among the volunteers with their sharp questions...Who knew of what operation? Who had been told? Who knew the locations of the caches and the identity of targets He had been questioned himself by a bald bastard with a squint and a Derry accent. There had never been a tout found on the mountain. He knew the way of touts. There would be no scramble to clear a unit from an area, not the way the handlers directed their player. They chipped at an Active Service Unit, a man here and a man there, lifted, a weapon here and a made-up bomb there, recovered... He knew about the money and he knew about the threats. He knew that men were trapped with money and bludgeoned with threats. He knew how the handlers gained their players There was no mercy for touts. There was no sentiment, Touts was for killing.

He lay on his back and she was cuddled close to him and sleeping, and the poison of a tout on the mountain filled his mind.

"Can you not sleep, Jon Jo?"

He kissed her.

"Thinking."

"You don't have to be gone, not yet."

"Thinking on what you said."

"What did I say?"

"You said there was a tout on the mountain, you said that's why I was better away . . ."

"Who knows you're back?"

" There's just two. The O.C. and the Q.M., it's all."

"If it wasn't wee Patsy, who might it be?"

Her fingers played in the hair on his chest. Her nails furrowed in his skin. There were some who took women when they were away, and one had gone in London to whores. There were some who screwed the girls that were in the A.S.U.s over the water. He had never met the woman or the girl that matched his Attracta. Never wanted to. He felt the soft blackness of her hair on his shoulder.

"Mossie Nugent was looked over. It was Mossie that named Patsy."

There was quiet wonderment in her voice. "Mossie's been a good friend to us. He's done all the painting and papering for us. Plus the electrics when it all fused. I give him eggs, and Siobhan, because Mossie'll not take money from me . . ."

"It's Mossie that's pointed at."

"I'd give my life to Mossie and know it were safe. I'd give him your life ..."

"I'm just telling you what I'm hearing."

"What'll you do, Jon Jo?"

"It's not right, it's not for talking about."

There was the anger of her breath against his skin. "He's been my friend."

He started up. He heaved himself onto his elbow. He looked down at her. "What's that mean?"

"When you weren't here, and Kevin and I were alone for bloody months on end, Jon Jo, he was my friend."

"But ..."

"But nothing - would you kill him, Jon Jo, my friend?"

"If it was him ..."

"Would you kill him for touting, or would you kill him because when you were away he was my friend?"

Her fingers held tight in the hairs. The pain stung him. He had been a boy when Mossie Nugent had first gone to gaol. He had been a child and first learning to kick the gaelic ball from his hands and to swing the hurley stick. He could remember when Mossie had gone down for Possession and he could remember the talk in the village when Mossie had been arrested again in the Free State. He had been the volunteer, the kids hanging at his ankles and the old men buying him drink in the bar, when Mossie Nugent had come back from England. Clever, sharp, good at what he did, and Jon Jo had thought him an arse crawler.

Clever at setting up, sharp on his reconnaissance, good at his planning, and an arse crawler because he always wanted to be praised ... He could not remember when, in three years, Mossie Nugent had fired a rifle nor when Mossie Nugent had detonated a bomb . . . And now Mossie Nugent was Intelligence Officer and knew each move and knew each target. The man was in his mind, with the shambling walk from the injury that was always the excuse for not firing, not detonating.

Jon Jo said, "He has a bad leg."

"He fell off a ladder, everyone knows that."

"And he ran from the S.A.S. feckers who shot the Devitt boy and Jacko and Malachy . . ."

"You'd kill him? Wouldn't matter what I said?’’

He said, heavy, "Touts is for killing. Doesn't matter who they are, doesn't matter what friends they have, they're for killing . . . Time I was gone."

When he was out of the bed he pulled the sheets and blankets back over her. The fear of the tout had broken the loving. He dressed in the darkness and he sensed that she had turned away from him. When he was dressed he picked up her nightdress and carried it to the bed, and put it underneath the bedding to warm it for her. He kissed her and there was no response from her. Last thing, he lifted the Kalashnikov rilfle up from the carpet and held it loosely in his hand as he stood at the door and looked on her.

He went to stand by Kevin’s bed, to kneel and kiss the boy's cheek and then he went out through the kitchen where he took the food that she had made
him, through the
larder window, under the shadow of the farm buildings, through the cover of the hedgerows, up into the mountain. He would sleep, and after he had slept he would think on a meeting with Mossie Nugent.

He listened to Hobbes on the secure telephone. The voice was distant and without emotion. He'd taught Hobbes. Hobbes was his creature.

"... Yes, I confirm it, they're back and they've their heads down. The weather? Well, it's foul, it's like it always is. They've the right clothing, they're well dug in. I appreciate it isn't a picnic, but it's what they're trained for, Ernest. They've a meeting scheduled with Song Bird, sometime in the middle of the day. They had the camera on the farmhouse all night, saw nothing, not sight nor sound of him. The dog didn't even bark. He's there, somewhere, that's certain. It's only a matter of time."

Wilkins stood in the Emergency Operations room and held the telephone tight against his ear. He was shaved, showered, and dressed.

His concession to a crisis was that his suit jacket was on the hanger at the back of the door and his waistcoat was unbuttoned and held together by the chain of his watch.

"You're not pushing them too hard?"

"They know they'll get a good kick from me if they don't manage the business, Ernest. She's in great form, as you'd expect. She's satisfied with Brennard, says he's standing up well. Actually, that's like getting an Oscar from her ..."

"There is the back-up."

"It's our show, Ernest, and if we can manage it on our own then that is how it will be, that's what I've told her. Quite frankly, I hope we piss all over those policemen."

"Safety must come first."

He put the telephone down. Bill was doing the duty watch, and had been late in with all the familiar excuses about roadworks on the Hammersmith flyover ... If it went wrong, if it wasn't safety first and it failed, then, by God, oh yes, Hobbes was for the jump, oh yes . . . and for himself, if it went wrong, the Cornish cottage, and the endless damp, and oblivion.

"He's back, Mossie, and I'm chancing my neck telling you."

"Why's that?"

"He's like a mad bull, all strung up. He's not the Jon Jo I knew."

"No reason for me to be feared of him."

"He's talking about touts, he's asking about Patsy Riordan."

"That was settled."

"He's asking whether Patsy Riordan was the real thing."

"What's that to me?"

"He's on the mountain, it's like it's festering in him, that there's a tout.

He won't move till he's satisfied."

"Why's you telling me?"

"This is friend's talk, Mossie. Get yourself the hell out of here if there's things you can't answer. Watch yourself, God knows where he'll come from, but don't be there if you can't take the questions."