Provo

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Relatively speaking – everything in Northern Ireland was relative – the area was secure, not plagued by the violence suffered by the communities in and around the city centre. Most of her neighbours were young and professional class. Despite this she maintained a strict personal security. Each time she drove into the street she checked for the obvious signs of surveillance; each morning, when she went to the garage at the rear of the house where she had a first-floor flat, she checked the car for bombs before she started it, even though she had fitted the garage with special locks and an electronic door. Even when she went out to dinner in what was considered a secure area, with friends or colleagues, she timed the interval between ordering a meal and its being served in case someone on the staff was a Provo or UFF informant and had recognized her, had delayed the meal while a hitman was summoned.

Her cover story matched what appeared to be her life-style. She had lived in England for eight years, married, but was now divorced and living off the settlement paid by her former husband while she looked for a job. In case either side – PIRA, the UDA or the various organizations springing from them – had sources in the estate agent’s office from which she had rented the flat, every month a cheque was paid into a bank account she had established. And in case the same organizations had a source in the bank, the money was paid from another account set up in England by a man alleged to be her former husband. In the flat itself, in case she was burgled, she kept solicitors’ letters referring to the case, as well as the divorce papers themselves.

She hung up her coat, placed the Browning in the bedroom, and went to the kitchen. It was a strange life, she would have admitted; most people would not understand it. But in the end you were who you were. Even at the beginning . . .

. . . she was nine, almost ten; long legs and awkward body. It was spring, going on summer, the children playing at the foot of the hill above the town. The game was hide and seek, the children divided into teams. She was on the catcher team, hunting through the trees and undergrowth for those hiding from them. The wood was quiet. She paused, not moving, not even shifting balance, totally alert, listening for the slightest rustle which would tell her where her quarry was hiding.

The teams changed, the hunters becoming the hunted. Some of the children hid in pairs, but she was different, preferred to be alone, to take her chance alone.

The tree was covered with foliage. There was barely enough time to pull herself up and conceal herself before she saw the searchers below. The blood thudded through her head and she did not dare breathe. She knew the boys were looking for her, knew they knew she was close by them, looking at them. For five minutes she looked down on them, willed them not to look up, willed them to look for her somewhere else.

They moved off and she knew she had won, tasted the triumph and waited for them to come back, waited for the excitement of the moment again. The thudding eased and she was aware of the other sensation, though she would not have been able to express it, perhaps not even to identify it. Not just the emptiness of suddenly being out of the game. Something else. The emptiness of no longer being on the edge, no longer being in danger …

The following day she checked the reports for fresh information on Clarke and Milligan. The two were still on the move, one in Belfast and one in Londonderry. Plus a third gunman – Black, Alex – the intelligence on Black’s movements from an SAS observation post.

Hanrahan reached the pick-up point thirty seconds early. The evening was dark and it was drizzling slightly. He waited, hunched against the weather, then the car stopped, the back door opened, he stepped in and the car pulled away. The men in the front seat were in their late teens, he guessed, certainly not in their twenties. The way they had all begun, what he himself had been like so many lifetimes ago.

‘Which side?’

‘Left.’

Hanrahan’s mac was wet; he took it off and placed it on the seat. The man in the front passenger seat turned and handed him the gloves. Hanrahan pulled them on then took the Kalashnikov. The others were jumpy, he sensed, almost too keen, would go ahead with the job even if the Prods were waiting for them. It was already two minutes to seven. The car turned into Tennent Street. He checked the gun and wound down the window. The takeaway was fifty yards away.

‘There he is.’

The driver pulled in to the pavement. Slightly too fast, Hanrahan thought, might have given the target some warning. He pressed the trigger and the car screeched away.

Farringdon was informed at eight the following morning; at 8.30 he included the information in his first meeting of the day with Cutler. Cutler had been Dol, Director of Intelligence, Northern Ireland – the most senior MI5 position in Belfast – for the past three years; for the past eighteen months Farringdon had been his deputy.

The previous evening a man with links to the UFF had been gunned down in the Shankill, responsibility being claimed by the Provisional IRA. Cutler’s briefing was to the point. The normal sort of job – the shrug said it – except that the driver of the vehicle used for the killing hadn’t dumped it quickly enough. An RUC undercover car had spotted the vehicle, recorded as having been stolen earlier, and had arrested the driver for taking and driving away. At first it was thought that he had stolen the vehicle for a joy-ride; only later had it been tied in with the shooting. The driver’s name was Flynn. During his interrogation he had admitted involvement in the shooting, but had denied knowing the identities of the others. Under pressure, however, he had given a description of the hitman which matched that of a Frank Hanrahan, a known Provisional IRA gunman with a prison record. Because of the possibility of Flynn being turned and acting as an informant, RUC Special Branch had been informed and had taken over the case, and had in its turn informed MI5.

‘When are they picking up Hanrahan?’

‘Now.’

‘Any possibility of turning him?’

‘Probably not.’

‘Who are you assigning to the case?’

‘Nolan.’

Nolan was relatively new, but she had come to him with a background unsurpassed by many of her more senior colleagues.

‘Fine. Keep me informed.’

The interview room at Castlereagh was bleak and featureless, the desk and chairs of grey metal. Nolan sat patiently and watched the interrogation. Hanrahan against Brady – who had been with her in the forward surveillance car in Beechwood Street – and a Special Branch inspector named McKiver.

We all know why we’re here, Frank. So what were you doing on the evening in question? How can you account for your movements? What were you doing between five in the afternoon and ten that evening – the hours were deliberately vague and loose, an attempt to draw Hanrahan in, make him admit something, anything, that they could check out. What clothes were you wearing, Frank? Same clothes that forensic are looking at now? You know about forensics, of course, what they’ll be looking for? Fibre matches between your clothes and the car, traces of lead on your coat where you fired the gun.

Hanrahan was looking at his interrogators, absorbing their questions but saying nothing, not even acknowledging their presence.

They would get nowhere, Nolan knew: Hanrahan had done his time before and would do his time again. Not the breathtaking cold of the nights during the Blanket Protest, when the IRA prisoners had refused to wear uniforms; not the cells smothered with human excrement as they had been during the Dirty Protest which followed. Fifteen years, even twenty, cut by half in line with official policy, but a long time anyway.

Be careful with the questions, the interrogators knew. When Hanrahan was sent to Crumlin Road he would be debriefed by the IRA security section within the prison. Then the Provos’ intelligence people would try to establish what the Brits or the RUC already knew from the questions his interrogators had asked him.

You won’t make it this time, Frank. The two SB men were facing him, the use of his first name sometimes friendly, more often threatening and hostile. You remember what it was like when you were young, Frank, just imagine what it’ll be like this time. So why do it, Frank, you hadn’t done a job for a long time, why now?

Clarke, Milligan and Black still on the move – Nolan had checked that morning. Plus two more overnight – Lynch and Hoolihan.

Hanrahan’s face was as grey and expressionless as the walls of the cell, eyes staring straight ahead, the thin scar which Flynn had described and which had pointed them to Hanrahan down the corner of his left eye. Somebody grassed, she read it in his face, somebody turned stag and when they find out who the boys will take him for his cup of tea.

The first day of the interview ended and Hanrahan was returned to the cell.

The overnight reports on the Provisional gunmen came through an hour before the interrogation of Hanrahan resumed the following morning. The five gunmen still on the move, now joined by a sixth – Lynan. Foot soldiers, Nolan knew, expendables like Hanrahan.

The interview recommenced at eight. Overnight they had assessed the possibility of Hanrahan cracking, had also looked at the possibility of Hanrahan turning, of Hanrahan becoming a CT – converted terrorist. Had gone through the files for the single piece of intelligence which might provide the key – gambling debts or affairs with other women were favourites; once it had been found that a Provo shooter had been having an affair with the wife of an RUC man.

You know the results of the forensics, Frank. You know we can put you in the car and that we have witnesses to say that that was the car used for the murder on Tennent Street. You know that we can prove that you fired a gun that evening. So be fair on yourself, Frank, have a think about it.

Hanrahan still had not said a word. Would not say a word, the interrogators knew. At eight that evening they finished the second day. The following morning they would formally charge him and the following afternoon, unless he said something worth listening to – unless he said anything at all – they would give up on him as they had known they would from the beginning, and Hanrahan would be detained at Crumlin Road jail. And two months after he would appear before a single judge sitting in a so-called Diplock Court – no jury because of the threat of intimidation – and be sent down for the required period.

That evening they scanned the Hanrahan file for what Nolan assumed would be the last time, that evening she returned to the flat in Malone Park and thought about the man who had still said nothing, about the details on his file. At six the following morning – two hours before Hanrahan’s last interview was due to begin – she returned to Lisburn; at seven she made the request, at 7.45 she ran through the updates on the Provo gunmen still on the move in the North.

Clarke and Milligan. Black and Lynch. Hoolihan and Lynan. Plus a seventh.

McGuire. Not seen for four days.

She knew who and what he was but checked on the computer anyway.

McGuire, Kevin. Born 11.4.59. Married, two children. The details flickered on to the screen. Not a bomber or gunman, one of the men who ran the bombers and the gunmen. What the intelligence services would call an LO, a liaison officer.

She ran the reports together, logged a synopsis, and requested immediate reports on McGuire once he was sighted. Logical, she thought. The troops on the move and the handler out of sight. Almost too logical.

She left the office and went to the interrogation centre at Castlereagh. Brady and McKiver were eating breakfast in the canteen; she collected a coffee and joined them.

‘No problems about me asking a couple of questions today?’

McKiver was the problem, she and Brady had agreed: McKiver didn’t even think MI5 should have been informed. The last day, they understood, therefore nothing would happen. Therefore she could join in.

‘Fine.’

They went to the interrogation room, McKiver and Brady taking their usual positions along one side of the desk, the prisoner opposite them.

The forensics, Frank. Confirmation that the car was the murder vehicle and that you were in it. Ballistics suggest that the weapon has also been used in three other killings. The chances of them being put down to you, Frank. Might not carry in court, of course, but could affect the sentence.

Hanrahan sat impassive and said nothing, not even a flicker in the eyes. No response when they offered him coffee or a cigarette. At 10.30 they broke for five minutes. And when they returned Hanrahan would sit in the same position and not move until they led him out after charging him. There was a feeling of inevitability about the way they left the room, the knowledge that they had been through it before.

The documents she had requested had arrived. They probably wouldn’t work, but it was worth giving it a try. She wouldn’t mention it to McKiver though; despite his appearance and manner he was a good operator, knew when he was winning and when he was losing. And as long as he stood even the faintest chance he’d hang in. But the moment he knew he’d lost he saw no point in carrying on.

They returned to the interrogation room.

The evening in question, Frank. What time did they pick you up? Where did you leave the car after the job? What did you do after? Who told you about the job, gave you the instructions? Who decided it should be you, Frank, who gave you that pair to babysit?

There was no response, no reply or change in the facial expression.

‘You were inside with Slattery, of course.’ It was the first time Nolan had spoken. Fergal Slattery, gunman and bomber. So what the hell did Slattery have to do with it, thought McKiver. Slattery had decided to call it a day, of course, get out while he could, but what bearing did it have on Hanrahan?

‘You know what Slattery said, of course, don’t you, Frank?’

So what the fuck should I know about what Fergal said, they read it in his face, in his eyes. Read something for the first time.

‘He said that his children were nearing the age when they would be caught up in it, and that he didn’t want them to go through what he’d gone through.’

The curtain drew again across Hanrahan’s face.

‘Good kids, Frank. How old are they now?’

She’s blown it, Brady saw the look in McKiver’s eyes as he glanced at Nolan. We had him going, were about to turn him. Now she’s threatened his kids. Okay, so they weren’t about to turn him, weren’t about to make him even say a dickie bird. But kids were out of it. No way they threatened anyone’s kids, not even someone like Hanrahan’s.

‘Good school reports, Frank. Boy did well at GCSE, A levels in a couple of years. The girl also expected to do well.’ She put the copies of the reports on the desk. ‘Pity they’re going to end up like you, though. Because you know what’s going to happen when you go down, don’t you, Frank? The boy will end up like that pillock who was supposed to get rid of the motor. Be with you in the Crum by the time he’s twenty. If he’s lucky.’ She leaned forward and moved the reports slightly. ‘Same with the girl. End up pushing a pram for the rest of her life with the kids strung along behind and somebody like you for her husband.’

Know what I mean, Frank? Know what I’m talking about? ‘Pity really.’ As if there was an alternative. It was in her voice, in the way she leaned forward again and began to take the reports away then left them on the table. She sat back and the interrogation continued.

So what about the day in question, Frank? Where were you that afternoon? Go for a drink at dinner time? Where’d you go, what did you have? There were no answers, no movement in the body or the face. What about after, Frank? Did you go straight home? Or to a bar? Tell the lads the job was done?

‘What’s on offer?’ Hanrahan stared past the two men at Nolan. No other words, no change in the face or the eyes. Just the three words.

‘Good A-level results for the boy. You’ll have to kick his arse, of course, make sure he doesn’t let up.’ I can fix the grades, but not that much, not so much it would make everyone suspicious. ‘Place at a good university.’ She looked straight at him. ‘On the mainland. Not Dublin, not Trinity. You wouldn’t want him becoming a thinking man’s Provo, would you, Frank?’

Hanrahan smiled, Brady suddenly thought, Hanrahan the hard man actually fucking laughed.

‘Same for the girl.’

Hanrahan’s head and eyes dropped as quickly as they had risen and the interview continued.

So what about the gun, Frank? What about the fact that three other jobs have been done with it? Who did you see after? Suppose you had a Black Bush, celebrate like? Them telling you what a good job you’d done?

‘What do you want?’ It was only the second phrase Hanrahan had spoken since his arrest.

‘You in the sweenies.’

She had balls, McKiver made himself admit. Nobody got anyone in what the Provos nicknamed the sweenies. The security section was the unit of the Provisional IRA which dealt with those suspected of being agents or informants for the Brits or the RUC. Get somebody in there and you struck gold.

Somebody else might have picked up on Nolan’s suggestion, Brady thought; somebody else might have reinforced her offer about the kids. Somebody else might have blown it. Instead McKiver sat still and impassive, as if he and Brady were no longer there, nobody speaking – neither them nor Nolan nor Hanrahan. Five minutes, ten, gone fifteen. McKiver didn’t even dare look at his watch. Probably twenty-five, almost half an hour. Nobody come in, dear God, nobody knock on the door and blow it.

‘How?’ Hanrahan had looked up again. How will you get me off the charge? How will you swing the forensics? How will you do it in a way that guarantees I don’t get my brains blown out by my own people?

‘You’re charged, put in the Crum, appear before the court. With the evidence against you, you don’t stand a chance. Except we’ll change something. Everyone will know you’re guilty but you’ll get off on a technicality.’

‘Guaranteed?’

‘Guaranteed. You don’t do anything for us until you’ve walked.’

Hanrahan wrapped himself inside himself again, head sunk into his chest and shoulders rounded. Not the way he had sat earlier, however, not the stance of prolonged and stubborn resistance. Everyone came to the end of the road sometime, he thought. Everyone came to the point where they looked back and saw what little they’d had, and how much more they wanted for their kids. Where they realized that all this stinking fucking cesspit was about was giving your kids a better start than you had.

‘A good job afterwards.’ He looked again at Nolan. ‘The girl as well.’

‘Agreed.’

The village of Rathmeen was tucked inconspicuously into the rolling hills some ten miles south of Lough Neagh, the border with the Republic twenty miles to the south as the crow flies, and the main A3 road between Craigavon and Armagh four miles to the west. The country road which wound down from the hills and ran through it served as its main street, most of the shops clustered round the small square in the centre and the houses running in terraces away from it.

Father Donal McGinty left shortly before eleven, driving south then picking up the A28 to Newry. The morning was cold and crisp, fresh snow in the fields. Half an hour later he drove through the town and began the climb up the hill to the border at the top. The first checkpoint was half-way up, the soldiers and police armed and wearing flak jackets, the machine gunner positioned in the sangar to his left and the Land-Rovers parked in the middle, armed patrols moving up the pavements behind him and a surveillance helicopter hovering in the sky to his right. The line of cars edged forward; he handed his driving licence to the RUC policeman, waited as the man scanned the details and waved him through. Ten minutes later, in the toilet of the Carrickdale Hotel, nine miles north of Dundalk, he took off the dark suit, ecclesiastical collar and black shirt, and replaced them with a sweater and sports jacket.

When he reached Dublin it was a little after two. He parked near the post office, put on an overcoat, and walked down O’Connell Street. The Joyce Bar at Madigan’s was almost empty, only three people left from lunchtime. He asked for roast beef and Guinness and sat with his back to the wall opposite the bar from where he could see both the stairs at the rear and the door at the front. Conlan entered ten minutes later, bought a drink and sat at a table to his right. McGinty waited ten minutes, then rose and went to the toilets on the left of the stairs. As he came out, exactly two minutes later, Conlan went in. The envelope was switched as they passed.

McGinty finished his drink and returned to the car. The envelope which Conlan had passed to him contained a sheet of instructions and a second envelope. McGinty read the instructions, walked to the office of the Irish Times on D’Olier Street and placed an advertisement in the paper for the day after next, paying cash.

The afternoon was growing dark. He left Dublin and began the drive north, changing back into the priest’s collar and black shirt and suit in a lay-by near Dundalk and reaching Rathmeen in the early evening.

Three mornings later McGinty drove to Aldergrove and caught the 1030 shuttle to London Heathrow. He was wearing his cloth of office. The flight was on time and because there was no computer file on him he passed through the security and immigration checks at both ends without being stopped.

In Belfast the morning had been cold but dry, at Heathrow it was beginning to drizzle. He ignored the signs to the cab ranks and walked briskly to the underground, choosing a seat next to a door. It was late morning, the stations busier as the train approached central London. The train reached Piccadilly, the platform crowded, people getting on and off. He sat still and waited. The doors began to close. Without warning he rose from his seat and squeezed between them, glanced left and right to check if anyone had jumped off the train after him. On the wall next to the exit was an underground map. He appeared to study it, waiting until the platform was almost empty, then walked briskly up the stairs marked no entry, turning sideways against the people coming the other way. At the top the hallway opened out, escalators leading up. He hurried past the busker playing Dvořák, checked if anyone had followed him, and took another escalator down. At the bottom he turned right again, along a second passageway marked NO ENTRY, and on to the Bakerloo Line platform. A train was leaving, the platform emptying. He ignored the exit signs and took an iron spiral stairway at the end of the platform to the labyrinth of interconnecting passageways at the bottom. Only when he was sure he was not being followed did he rejoin the Piccadilly Line, leave it at Finsbury Park in north London, and take the 106 bus to Stoke Newington.

Abney Park cemetery was on the right, entered through a set of large wrought iron gates. Opposite was a line of shops, two of the windows boarded up, and a café on the corner, flats above them and street stalls along the wide pavement outside. The pavements were wet, the coloured lights glowing on the stalls. McGinty left the bus, crossed the road, and went through the gates.

A straight gravel drive led from them to a dark red brick church 150 yards away. The first section of graves was well tended, the grass cut and the gravel of the drive free from weeds. Fifty yards in, however, it changed abruptly, as if he were crossing a border. The graves – with the occasional exception – were badly kept, weeds and grass growing round and over them. The church itself was drab, almost dirty, grime on its brickwork and the heavy wooden doors padlocked. Beyond it the cemetery degenerated into a jungle. The traffic hummed in the background and the water dripped from a broken gutter. McGinty confirmed he was alone, counted eight bricks to the right from the corner, three up, removed the loose brick, placed the envelope in the space behind, replaced the brick and left.

Walker wiped the condensation from the café window and confirmed that no one had gone into the cemetery after him and no one had followed as he left. She was wearing denims, sweater and a donkey jacket, her hair tucked under a woollen hat. She bought another cup of tea and waited. After half an hour she left the café, turned left down Stoke Newington High Street and right along Stoke Newington Church Street. A hundred and fifty yards along she turned right into Fleetwood Street, a cul de sac with the southern side wall of Abney Park cemetery at the bottom. It was empty. She checked again that she was not being followed, climbed the wall, dropped on to a path which was overgrown, the brambles reaching across it, and made her way to the church at the centre.

Eight bricks from the corner, third up – the drop was one of five she used. She removed the envelope, zipped it into an inside pocket, replaced the brick, and walked quickly through the trees and shrubs growing between and in some cases through the graves, to the northern side of the cemetery. The undergrowth was thick and the headstones ran up to the wall. She climbed on one, checked that the small crescent of houses on the other side was deserted, and dropped over. Only when she had returned to the flat near Primrose Hill did she open the envelope and decode the instructions inside, burning them when she had read them.

Her meeting with Saunders was at eight. She telephoned Iberia, the Spanish national airline, and booked a flight to Seville for the following morning, leaving the return open.

Saunders’s day had been straightforward, no big stories and no scares that another paper had something he had missed. By five he had finished what he considered a minor item on the separation of the Duke and Duchess of York but which would still make the front page, copied it on to a floppy disk, entered the names and home telephone numbers of two new contacts into the computer notebook, and left the building.

He returned to the flat, copied the article and the contacts on to the relevant files on the PC in the spare bedroom which also doubled as his study – the bed a fold-up and the bookshelves filled with reference books – booked a minicab, then showered and changed. Forty minutes later the telephone rang and the minicab controller informed him that the car was waiting. He put the computer notebook and Cellnet in his pocket, locked the flat and was driven to Joe Allen’s.

Philipa Walker arrived ten minutes later.

Sometime, he assumed, she would agree to go to bed with him. Meanwhile she was good company – intelligent and attractive.

Sometime, she assumed, he would let slip the remark that would give her the way in. And if he didn’t, or if he wasn’t the key she wanted, then she would have to look elsewhere. Meanwhile he was good company. Except that she was already three months into the schedule Conlan had given her.

‘So what are you doing this weekend?’

‘Wiltshire.’ Wife, the girls and the ponies. ‘How about you?’