In the Morning I'll Be Gone (35 page)

“Get out?”

“Aye, get out, and I don’t need to tell you that you better not try any sudden moves, ’cos, you know . . .”

“You’d fucking shoot me,” I said.

“I really would,” Dermot said with a little chuckle.

“I don’t doubt it.”

I got out of the van while the second man dragged Ricky’s body from the front cab and tumbled it into the back. Poor Ricky. He was a good bloke. I knew almost nothing about him but I’d liked what I did know.

Dermot patted me down and the second terrorist closed the two rear doors of the Ford Transit. He went back to the front cabin and got inside.

“Destroy the radio, take the log books, throw the keys away!” Dermot said.

Dermot walked back over to me.

“I watched you change shifts at eight o’clock. Now is it six hours on and six hours off or twelve hours on and twelve hours off? Or maybe four?” Dermot asked.

“Twelve.”

“So your friends won’t be by for you until eight tomorrow morning?”

“That’s right.”

“If you’re lying . . .”

I had always found it difficult to lie to Dermot. “It’s the truth. Twelve-hour shifts.”

“Radio check, anything like that?”

“Nothing like that, Dermot. The new shift comes in and reads the log. That’s it.”

Dermot nodded. “Well, that gives us a few hours, then, doesn’t it?”

“I suppose so.”

“Have a wee seat there, Sean. Just there on the ground. That’s right.”

I sat down on the moss.

“It’s a lovely night, isn’t it? A gorgeous night. Crisp, cold. Morrigan the crow is flying tonight, isn’t she? Looking down with her black eye. Looking down on you and me,” he said.

“Yes, Dermot.”

“Do you ever read Hobbes, Sean?”

“No, Dermot.”

“You should. It’s all there.”

He squatted in front of me, pointing the 9mm casually in my direction. “The state of nature is a state of war.”

“I expect you’re right, Dermot.”

“I am right! Look at us! We exterminated the great grazing herds of mammoth, elk, and buffalo. We grew in numbers, painted images on cave walls, and we drove our poor cousin
Homo sapiens neanderthalis
to the fringe of the western sea. That wasn’t very nice, was it?”

“No, Dermot.”

“And when the ice retreated and a time of plenty began we turned our bellicose passions inward! Inward, Sean. We just can’t help ourselves,” he said, and for emphasis poked the barrel of the Glock into my chest.

“No, Dermot,” I said, trying not to sound afraid.

He gave me that easy handsome grin of his and patted me on the head.

“You get it. I know you do. You were always a smart lad. ‘War is the locomotive of history.’ You know who said that, don’t you?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Trotsky! Come on! You knew that, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Trotsky. I visited his house. They’ve buried him in the front garden. Imagine that. Huge place. Lovely part of the city. Very close to the house of Fri—”

“Dermot, I think we should bloody go!” his mate said.

Dermot turned on him furiously. “Don’t you fucking interrupt me, you fucking ingrate!” he screamed.

“All right, take it easy,” his friend said.

“And don’t fucking tell me to take it easy!”

“OK.”

Dermot turned back to me. “Now where were we?”

“Frida Kahlo.”

“Oh aye. Forget that. It’s not important. The point, Sean, is that violence is the only way to bring down the Empire.”

“Gandhi?”

“Fucking Ben Kingsley is the exception that proves the rule! Right?” he said.

“Right.”

“On your feet. Walk to the car.”

“OK, Dermot.”

“Yes, Dermot, no, Dermot, OK, Dermot, is that all you fucking say? Jesus!”

He gave me a shove and looked at me with utter hatred for a moment, but then he put his hand under my shoulder and pulled me upright.

“Come on! Let’s go over to the house. We’ll be more comfortable there. We’ll take him with us, Marty. I’m sure Sean’s got a lot more information he’s willing to spill.”

“Not the house. It might be bugged, they might be listening in,” the second man said.

“We just killed the listeners, Marty,” Dermot said, and then he turned to me.

“Is it bugged, Sean? You can tell me, just between us, like.”

“No. There are no bugs. We didn’t want to have anything in the house to give the game away. It was all just observation.”

“And then what? What were you supposed to do when you saw us? Don’t lie to me, Sean boy!”

“As soon as we saw you guys appear we were supposed to call the SAS Rapid Response Unit. They would have been down here sharpish.”

“A death squad.”

“No. We wanted to take you alive. You were a potentially valuable source of intelligence what with the whole Gaddafi angle and everything.”

Dermot nodded. “Aye. That makes sense. Of course, I would never have told youse anything.”

I nodded.

“Come on! This way, Sean boy.”

We walked around the bend in the road, where a black sports car had been parked. Dermot put a gloved hand on the back of my neck and squeezed.

“And speaking of valuable sources of intelligence. You don’t mind coming for a wee ride with us, do you, Sean my lad?”

“No,” I said.

“You’ll like the wheels. Toyota Celica Supra. Bit of a squeeze in the back but you won’t mind that either, will you?”

“Not at all, Dermot.”

“It’s just a short run for you anyway. We’ll go to the house. I mean, why not, eh, Martin?”

“You’re the boss,” Martin said.

Dermot grinned at me and looked at his watch. “Not too long now anyway, Sean,” he said.

“Too long for what, Dermot?”

“We’ll talk over a cup of tea,” Dermot said. “Here, mate, put those on for me, will you?”

It was a pair of handcuffs. I put them on with a bit of give in both wrists but Dermot quickly saw through that little scheme and squeezed the ratchets so that they were good and tight. He pushed me into the back of the Toyota. Martin kept the 9mm pointing at me while Dermot drove.

“Not too long for what, Dermot?” I asked again.

“Until Guy Fawkes Night!” Dermot said, laughing.

Somehow in the hilly half-mile between the scrapyard and the safe house he managed to get the Celica Supra up to 70 miles per hour. We pulled up to the cottage with a squeal of brakes and the smell of burning rubber.

“This isn’t exactly low key for an IRA car, is it?” I said.

Dermot laughed. “That’s what everybody tells me!” he said delightedly. “Last time I saw you I couldn’t even drive!”

“Out!” Martin ordered.

I got out. Dermot produced a key and let himself inside.

“So MI5’s been all over this place?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I hope you didn’t touch my tea. It was vacuum sealed. If you’ve gone and spoiled it there will be hell to pay.”

“I don’t know about that,” I said.

“Why don’t you have a seat in the living room there, Sean, while I get the kettle on. Martin, do me a favor and keep an eye on him. A beady eye. He’s a character is Sean, could get up to anything.”

“How long are we going to stay here?” Martin asked. “The original plan’s fucking broke, isn’t it?”

“Aye, it’s broke. We’ll debrief Sean here and then we’ll head up to London,” Dermot said.

This remark sent me into something of a tailspin.

He was letting me know where he was going to go next and he wouldn’t do that if he was going to let me live at the end of it.

I sat on the dusty living-room sofa while Martin anxiously looked at his watch and tried to get the radio station he wanted on my Walkman. When he took off his balaclava I could see that he was a bit of an ugly spud—red hair, a shock of teeth pointing in all directions, a prominent broken nose, hollow cheeks, blue-white chip-butty skin. I didn’t recognize him from any of the mugshots of the Maze escapers so he must have been someone new, someone not on the books. You didn’t need to be Henry Higgins to figure out that his West Belfast hardman accent meant that he was trouble.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t just go, like now?” Martin said, looking at his watch again.

Clearly whatever was going to happen was going to happen soon. Tonight possibly. Something big. A real show to impress the folks back home and Irish America . . .

Dermot came back into the living room two minutes later with three cups of tea.

“Only powdered milk, I’m afraid, Sean,” he said, handing me a Mickey Mouse mug. “Milk, one sugar, that’s right, isn’t it?”

Unless someone had been in touch with him about my tea habits his memory had gone all the way back to the sixth-form study when as Head Boy and Deputy Head Boy we’d made tea and biscuits for the other prefects every lunchtime. Fifteen years ago in that heady school year of 1968/69 when the whole world seemed to be on the verge of some great spiritual change.

Spiritual shitstorm more like.

“Ta,” I said, and sipped the tea.

He sat facing me on the opposite sofa. “So the MI5 were in here looking for us, eh?”

“Yeah, and the SAS.”

“The SAS too.” Dermot whistled.

“And Special Branch.”

“How did youse find out about this place?”

“An anonymous tip to the confidential telephone.”

He nodded. “And how long have you been out in that van, if I may enquire?”

“About ten days.”

He sipped his tea and narrowed his eyes.

“That’s a lot of faith in an anonymous tip.”

“Well, we were clutching at straws, really. We had no idea where you were,” I said.

“I wonder who Mister Anonymous was?” Dermot asked semi-rhetorically.

“I have no idea.”

“You’re still an RUC detective, aren’t you, Sean?”

“Uh, it’s a little bit complicated.”

“That sounds intriguing.”

“I was drummed out of the police by Internal Affairs. They said I ran some guy over in a Land Rover.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

“It wasn’t me. I was fitted up for it. And there were other things. Insubordination. Disobedience of a direct order.”

“You were always such a good boy in school.”

“Be that as it may. I pissed off the Chief Constable and I was a convenient fall guy.”

“So what are you now if you’re not RUC?”

“I was taken back on a temporary basis. MI5 got the RUC to take me back and put me in Special Branch.”

“Why?”

“To help look for you.”

He nodded sagely and folded his gloved hands under his chin. “I see, so it was all about me, then, was it?”

“What was?”

“You noseying around my family and friends, asking questions about Lizzie Fitzpatrick’s death.”

“Oh, that? Initially that was about you, but then I got sidetracked. I didn’t like the fact that everyone was willing to let Lizzie’s death become a cold case.”

“And did you find out who killed her in the end?”

“No. Not yet.”

He sipped more of his tea. “I’m not sure I believe you, Sean.”

“Well, it’s the truth. If I’d had more time, more resources, maybe I would have been able to come up with something.”

“Resources. Ha! Look at me and Marty here, we have nothing and yet we’re about to change the world!”

“That’s right!” Marty said.

“Well, we have my knowledge of chemistry, of course! Never much use for it in school but now you should see what I can do! For instance, did you know that in a decomposition reaction the result is usually exothermic. You’re probably wondering what a decomposition reaction is, aren’t you, Sean?” he said, and gave me a friendly tap under the chin.

“Yes, Dermot.”

“Well, decomposition reactions occur in materials such as trinitrotoluene (TNT) and nitroglycerine. The molecules of these materials contain oxygen. When the molecule decomposes, the products are combustion gases, which are produced at extremely high temperatures, generating resulting high pressures at the reaction zone. Fascinating, no?”

“Extremely. Is it OK if I ask you a question, Dermot?”

“Perhaps.”

“How did you get the bomb into Brighton, through all that police security, I mean?”

His eyes widened and Marty stopped messing around with my Walkman. Both men looked at me in horror.

“Say that again,” Dermot commanded.

“I was just curious how you got the bomb into Brighton. I mean, the place is swarming with peelers. How could you risk getting it through a roadblock?”

“What bomb do you mean, Sean? Specifically.”

“The truck bomb that you’re going to blow up outside the Conservative Party conference.”

He breathed a sigh of relief.

Martin laughed.

“You’re a good guesser, Sean, I’ll give you that much, but you haven’t quite got it right, have you?” he said.

“It’s too much of a coincidence. Why else would you be down here near Brighton when there are, no doubt, safe houses all over the country?”

Dermot grinned and nodded. “But let’s talk about you, Sean. I never figured you for a traitor.”

“Traitor how?”

“Working for the Castle.”

“The police, you mean?”

“Aye, the fucking SS RUC. How’d that come about? Was it the money? I’ve heard you get paid quite a bit.”