Twisted Agendas (26 page)

After the detective was satisfied the recorder was functioning, he leaned toward Danny. “Let’s get this over with as quickly as we can, eh? I’m going to ask you questions and,
if you answer them truthfully, we’ll be done before you can say ‘Bob’s your Uncle.’” Long front teeth and incisors appeared when he smiled. “That sound fair,
lad?”

“Yes.”

“What say we begin before Bill gets back?”

“Fine.”

After he switched on the tape recorder, he gave Danny the same caution Moore had given him the previous day.

“What’s your full name?”

“Danny Francis Connolly.”

“Where do you live?”

“42 Chumley Street, W6.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-one.”

A barrage of questions about his family and upbringing in Northern Ireland ensued, which Danny answered without hesitation. After twenty minutes, Danny asked about the whereabouts of the water
and the detective explained his colleague had probably got waylaid but was sure he’d return shortly with it. The recorder switched off and the detective inserted the other side.

“When did you come to London?” he asked.

“In May.”

“Why?”

After he explained, the detective opened the file, read for a minute and then stared at Danny. “What part did you play in the bombing on Hammersmith Bridge?”

A shock wave ripped through Danny’s chest. “
I
wasn’t involved in that.”

“We agreed we’d get this business over with quickly, Danny. What part’d you play?”

“I know nothing about a bomb.”

It was suddenly surreal. The word ‘bomb’ had been used in conjunction with his name.

“Where were you that night?” the detective asked.

Danny thought for a moment. “I think I was home.” He pondered again. “Yes, I definitely was.”

“Anyone with you?”

“No.”

“So no-one can vouch for your whereabouts?”

Danny leaned slightly across the table toward him. “You must believe me. I had nothing to do with that bombing.”

“So you’ve had something to do with
a
bombing, then? Which one?”

“I haven’t bombed anything.”

“An innocent man was murdered on the bridge by the IRA,” Detective Tompkins said. “He’d just got engaged three weeks before.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“His fiancée will never get the chance to be his wife. Can you imagine how that poor woman feels?”

Danny met his gaze and didn’t immediately reply. “I’m sorry for her loss.”

“Prove it. Tell me what part you played.”

“No part. I’m innocent.”

The door opened and Moore entered with a yellow envelope in his hands. He tossed it on top of the table and then sat with his eyes riveted on Danny for a minute though it seemed much longer.

“You’ve made a mistake,” Danny said, to end the horrible silence.

“No more bullshit,” said Moore. “What’s your job in the cell?”

“What cell?”

“You their bomb maker?”

“This is crazy.” Danny began to rub and squeeze his forehead. He pulled his hand away abruptly. “I wouldn’t know
how
to make a bomb.”

“Don’t fucking-well lie to us,” said Moore. He pounded the table with the side of his fist. “Were you planning to make mix?”

“What’s mix?”

Moore leapt up, planted his hands on the surface of the table and leaned over toward Danny, a feline snarl on his face now. The action was so unexpected, Danny instinctively reared back raising
his hands.

“Steady on, Bill,” Tompkins said. “There’s no need to scare the lad. He’s going to tell us everything.”

“He’s a murdering Irish bastard.”

“Easy, Bill.” Detective Tompkins turned back to Danny. “Tell us about the fertiliser we found.”

That’s what had made the detective so excited at his home. It made sense now. Danny couldn’t understand how they’d found out he’d bought it in the first place. Had his
Irish accent alerted the cashier and he’d called Special Branch? Did MI5 monitor all sales of fertiliser?

“This is all a big mistake, I bought a few bags a couple of weeks ago. I was going to do the lawn and repot some plants.”

“It’s late summer,” Tompkins said. “People do that in spring.”

“I promised my flatmate I’d do it when I moved in and just never got round to it. You can ask Julia. She owns the house and she’ll verify this. Honest.”

“Where’s the rest of it?”

“There isn’t anymore.”

The detectives exchanged a hasty glance.

“You use the rest to make the mix they bombed the bridge with?”

“I don’t know anything about what happened on the bridge. Please believe me.”

“How do you know Patrick Scully?” Detective Tompkins asked.

“Who?”

“Patrick Scully.”

Danny paused. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“I told you he’d lie,” Moore said. “First he lies about the fertiliser and now he’s letting on he doesn’t know Scully.” He glared at Danny.
“Listen Paddy, you must think we’re bloody idiots.”

Moore rose and began to pace, smacking a fist hard into the palm of his hand every time he reached each end of the interrogation room. The door opened and a female detective put her head
inside.

“Ian, you’re wanted on the phone.”

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Tompkins said, and switched off the tape as he rose.

At the door, the detective turned his head and regarded Danny before he left. A bolt of shock made his heart race. It was verified now. The stranger wearing the handsome denim shirt the day
Danny stood with Piper outside the house where Benjamin Franklin had lived, the same man who’d been lurking near her home was a British detective.

Back pressed against the wall, Moore stared at Danny. Trickles of sweat ran from Danny’s underarm. His scalp felt suddenly itchy. He wanted to scratch it, but something warned him not to
raise his hand.

“Are you going to tell me now how you know Paddy Scully?” Moore said finally.

“I don’t know him and I want to see a lawyer.”

“Let’s see if I can jog your memory.”

Moore sat again. He opened the envelope. He took out a wad of photographs and set one in front of Danny. It was a mugshot of Pat. He set down another of Pat in the company of two men Danny
didn’t recognise. Then one of Pat and Piper together. Another photograph of Piper and Danny walking along Hammersmith Broadway followed, then one of Finty and he sitting at a café on
Chiswick High Street just the previous week. Finally he laid down a shot of Finty and him lying on the grass at Saint James’ Park, on the day Finty’s puppy had chased one of the ducks.
Danny was shaken.

“Do you remember him now?”

“I know him as Pat. I never knew his last name.”

“Don’t mess with me.”

“It’s the truth. He rented a room from her.” Danny pointed to Piper’s photograph. “I didn’t know him very well. I only met him a few times. Even Piper
didn’t see a lot of him. Just because we’re both from Northern Ireland doesn’t mean we all know each other, you know? I swear I really don’t know him.”

Mounting panic and Danny’s lack of control were making him talk too much. Instinct warned him not to show any fear. He wanted a lawyer, yet to demand one again risked being
inflammatory.

“The Civil Administration Team trained you well,” Moore said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Leaning forward, the detective eye’s narrowed. “I’m a lot tougher and nastier than the IRA bastards who’ve trained you not to answer questions.” He paused and
stared. “I’m going to give you one last chance. Who’s in your cell?”

While it was excruciating, Danny kept his eyes locked on the detective’s. To look anywhere else would be construed as guilt, evasion at the weakest.

“I’m not in any IRA cell.”

“You’re part of Scully’s. Admit it.”

“I swear to you, I’m not.”

Moore rose and came swiftly round to the other side of the desk. He grabbed Danny by the hair and pulled him out of his chair.

“AHHHH. Stop. AHHHHHH.” Danny raised his hands, put them on top of Moore’s and tried to pry them off. He couldn’t. It seemed all the hair was being ripped out his scalp
in a single piece.

The detective dragged Danny across the room and slammed him against the wall, kicked his legs apart and pushed his right knee hard into his groin. His pubic bone throbbed sharply. Tears smarted
in his eyes.

“Tell me what I need to know, you stupid Mick.” He jerked his head toward Danny as if he intended to give him a headbutt, but instead slapped the side of his face hard with his open
palm. “You’re in the IRA. You had an arms dump at your house. Admit it.”

“I can’t admit what isn’t… ”

Wrapping his huge hands around Danny’s neck, the detective began to squeeze. “Confess.”

“I’m not in any cell.”

“Confess,
now
.”

Danny couldn’t speak. The detective’s thick fingers tightened until Danny was certain his Adam’s apple would be pushed out the back of his neck. He had an urge to cough
violently, but couldn’t. More tears streamed from his eyes. Moore’s furious expression began to soften, then blur. Danny’s heart drummed in his ears. Tighter and tighter the
detective squeezed. The walls and ceiling grew indistinguishable. Just as he was about to pass out, Moore released his grip. He dragged him back by his hair to the desk and swung him into the
seat.

Danny laid his forehead on the desk’s surface and struggled to breathe. His body trembled. He felt he was going mad. He wanted to beg for his release, wanted to howl with anger, wanted to
kill the detective. Desperate to exert a fragment of control over his predicament, he searched for something only he could do to himself, something that did not originate from this man’s
absolute power over him. Something only he would know. He bit into the lining of his inner lip. It hurt, yet the pain was hugely empowering. He could be as strong and resilient as the detective. He
bit harder until he tasted blood.

The door to the interrogation room opened. As he pushed up with his hands, Danny braced to meet Moore’s evil gaze. He wasn’t there. The photographs, envelope and file were gone also.
He turned his head slowly toward the door as the detective with the snow-white scar entered carrying the file and photographs. He came up to the desk and started the recorder. Leaning toward it, he
said the date and time.

“What’s your name,” he said to Danny as he leaned back in his chair.

“I gave it already. It’s on the tape.”

“What’s your name?”

“Danny Connolly.”

“Your full name?”

“Danny Francis Connolly.”

“Where do you live?”

“I demand to see a lawyer right now.”

“What’s your address?”

He no longer knew exactly how long he’d been in detention, though it was definitely longer than forty-eight hours. He knew that because one of the friendlier detectives
informed him on his way back to the cell after one interrogation that they’d obtained a court order allowing him to be held for another five days. How many interrogations had there been?
He’d lost count. It was now just a stream of constant comings and goings between the cell and interrogation room. Often, it was just one detective present during a session, sometimes two.
Sometimes it was a ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine. It took Danny a while before he’d latched onto that tactic.

Detective Moore had assaulted him three times now. He’d made him stand spread-eagled leaning into the wall supported only by his fingertips for an hour at a stretch. He’d also hit
Danny on the sides of his face with his open palm and twisted his arms, though he’d been careful not to leave any permanent marks. Danny demanded to have a doctor examine him after the last
attack. Although his demand had been ignored, it resulted in his being permitted to shower and shave. Food had also been provided a few times. Gruel-like soups, unappetising watery potatoes,
liverish textured beef, too dry chicken, corky parsnips and French beans so overcooked the beans had fled their pods. Despite its putridity, he’d eaten it all. Under his arms, his shirt had
begun to stink. His shirt and trousers were grimy and disheveled but he no longer cared.

Danny fully understood now what innocent young men had endured back in Northern Ireland when they’d been taken in for questioning by the British army. His father had also often been on his
mind. He’d always thought him the most unreasonable, the most pig-headed, controlling man he’d ever known, but he was a lamb in comparison to these wolves. Danny was too stressed and
frightened to appreciate the irony of this. Irony was intellectual. Irony had its place in normal life only.

As the cell door opened, Danny rose from the narrow bed. He swung his feet slowly to the floor and obediently walked out into the corridor. A minute later, he entered the familiar detectives
general office with its dying spider plant and rows of desks. A woman laughed loudly. He raised his head toward the sound. Seated at a desk almost twenty feet away, was Finty with her back to him
smoking a cigarette. She was chatting to the female detective whose laugh had prompted him to look over in the first place. The detective met Danny’s glance and then turned back and laughed
at something Finty said, at the same time pushing what looked like a large scrapbook across the desk toward her.

His legs began to tremble violently. He felt himself fall toward the floor. The detective escorting him seized his right arm, pulled him up and pushed him into the interrogation room before he
shut the door

“Are you okay?” Detective Tompkins asked, the sleeves of his denim shirt rolled up to his elbows. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Sit down, mate.” He nodded at
the detective who’d escorted Danny into the room. “I’ll call if I need you.” Turning back to Danny, he said, “You recognise someone on your way here, maybe?”

“I’m entitled to a lawyer. You’ve now held me longer than forty-eight hours.”

“We’ve got someone coming in to see you.”

The image of Finty sitting so casually at the desk would not leave Danny’s mind. Was she being questioned about her association with him? It hadn’t looked like a formal interview.
She’d been smoking and laughing. Was she in the Special Branch? Had they planted her at the
Institut
? The strain of detention was making him paranoid. Danny didn’t know what was
real anymore.