Harry's Game (15 page)

had been used sparingly and never with the cannon fodder that carried the bombs into

the town shoe shops and supermarkets, or held up the post offices for a few hundred pounds.

He'd been married on his twentieth birthday when he was acting as bodyguard to a member of the Brigade staff, at a time when relations between the divided Provisionals and officials were at an all‐time low. After the

wedding he had not been called out for some months, as his superiors let him mature, confident that he would, like a good wine, repay well the time they gave him. They used him first shortly before the twins were born. Then he took part in an escape attempt at Long Kesh, waiting through much of the night in a stolen car on the Ml motorway for a man to come through the wire and across the fields. They had stayed seven minutes after a cacophony of barking dogs on the

crimeter fence six hundred yards away had spelled out the failure of the attempt. With two others he had been used for the assassination of a policeman as he left his house in the suburb of Glen gormley. It was his first command, and he was allowed to select his

wn ambush point, collect the firearm from the Brigade quartermaster, and lead the get‐away on his own route. After that came attacks on police stations, where he was among those who gave covering fire with the Armalites to the blast of the RPG rocket launcher.

On those early occasions he had often missed with the crucial first shot, firing too hurriedly, and then had to run like a mad thing with

he noise and shouting of the soldiers behind him. They were heady moments, hearing the voices of the English troops with their strange ;>ccents bellowing in pursuit as he weaved and ducked his way clear. Amongst a small group, though, his reputation had improved, and his future value was reckoned as such that for nearly a year he had Seen left to lead what amounted to a normal life in the Ardoyne.

Vround him the army removed all but a tight hard core of activists. He was left at home, his name not figuring on the army files, his

ihotograph absent from the wanted lists.

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In their four years of marriage his wife had borne him twins, both boys, and conceived some weeks before their wedding, and two

laughters. The time that he was away preparing for London, in the linglish capital, and then hiding in Northern Ireland before coming back to Ypres Avenue was the longest he had ever been away from his family. As he sat in the room where the light began to filter its gentle way through the thin cotton curtains he reflected on the huge

icss of his disappointment at the way his wife had reacted. He was still slumped in his chair when she came downstairs, a

little after six. She came into the room on tiptoe and up behind the

chair, and leaned over and kissed him on his forehead. 'We'll have to forget it all," she said.

"The kids'll be awake soon.

They've been upset you being away so long, and the wee one has the

cough. They'll be excited. There's a dance at the club on Saturday.

Let's go. Mam'll come down, and sit. We'll have some drinks, forget it ever happened.'

She kissed him again.

'We need some tea, kettle's up.'

He followed her into the kitchen.

For Davidson, in his offices up above a paint store in Covent Garden, it was to be a bad morning. He had asked for an appointment with the Permanent Under Secretary at the Ministry of Defence. The Boss. The Gaffer. Appointments with subordinates only when there was a fiasco or a potential fiasco. Davidson had to explain that their operator had gone missing and had never checked into the address that had been suggested to him.

Davidson had been hoping for a phone call, or failing that at least a letter or postcard to the office, saying, if nothing else, that Harry was installed and working. The complete silence was beginning to unnerve him. The previous day he authorized the checking of the Antrim Road guest house‐‐discreetly, by telephone‐‐for a Mr McEvoy, but the word had come back that no one of that name had been near the building. There was no way Davidson could find out in a hurry whether the package containing the pistol sent for collection had in fact been picked up.

He told himself there was no positive foundation to his fears, but the possibility, however faint, 74

that Harry was already blown or dead or both nagged at Davidson. Nagged enough for him to seek a rare audience in the Ministry.

By early afternoon the brandies were on the table in the restaurant of the big hotel on the outskirts of the city. Both the Brigadier and the Chief Superintendent were in their own clothes and mildly celebrating the promotion and transfer of the army officer from second in command of the Brigade with responsibilities for Belfast to a new appointment in Germany.

Both knew from their own intelligence gathering agencies in vague terms of the sending of Harry and the Prime Minister's directive‐‐it had come in a terse, brief message from the GOC's headquarters. There was little more to it than the statement that a special team had been set up to spearhead the hunt for Danby's killer, and that all other operations in this direction should continue as before. During the serving of the food neither had spoken of it, as the waiters hovered round them. But with the coffee cups full, and the brandy glasses topped up, the subject was inevitably fielded.

'There's been nothing from that fellow the PM launched," muttered the Brigadier. "Long shot at the best of times. No word, I'm old, and Frost in intelligence is still leaping about. Called it a iloody insult. See his point.'

'Sunk without trace, probably. They sniff them out, smell them a nile off. Poor devil. I feel for him. How was he supposed to solve it when SB and intelligence don't have a line in? If our trained people can't get in there, how's this chap?'

'Bloody ridiculous.'

'He'll end up dead, and it'll be another life thrown away. I hope he doesn't, but if he sticks at it they'll get him.'

'I expect your SB were the same, but intelligence weren't exactly thrilled. What really peeved them was that at first they weren't supposed to know anything, then it leaked. I think the Old Man himself put it out, then came the message, and there wasn't much to show From that.

Frost stayed behind after the Old Man's conference last Friday and demanded to know what was going on. Said it was an indication of no confidence in his section. Threatened his commission and everything on it. GOG calmed him down, but took a bit of time.'

The music was loud in the dining‐room, and both men needed to speak firmly to hear each other above the canned violin strings. The policeman spoke:

'I think Frost's got a case. So have we for that matter'... in mid chord and without warning the tape ran out ... "to put a special operator in on the ground without telling ..." Dramatically conscious of the way his voice had carried in the sudden moment of silence he cut himself short.

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Awkwardly the two men waited for the half‐minute or so that it took the reception staff away in the front hall to loop up the reverse side of the three‐hour tape, then the talking began again.

The eighteen‐year‐old waiter serving the next table their courgettes had clearly heard the second half of the sentence. He repeated the words to himself as he went round the table‐‐

'Special operator on the ground without telling." He said it five times to himself as he circled the table, fearful that he would forget the crucial words. Then he hurried with the emptied dish to the kitchen scribbling the words in large spidery writing on the back of his order pad.

He went off duty at 3.30, and seventy‐five minutes later the message of what he had overheard and its context were on their way to the intelligence officer of the Provisionals" Third Battalion.

EIGHT

Harry spent a long time getting himself ready to go out that Saturday night. He bathed, and put on clean clothes, even changing his socks from the ones he'd been wearing through the rest of the day, took a clean shirt from the wardrobe and brushed down the one suit he'd brought with him. In the time that he'd been in Belfast he had tried to stop thinking in the terms of an army officer, even when he was on his own and relaxed. He attempted to make his first impulses those of the ex‐merchant seaman or lorry driver that he hoped to become. As he straightened his tie, though, he allowed himself the luxury of thinking that this was a touch different from mess night with the rest of the regiment at base camp in Germany.

He'd spent a difficult and nearly unproductive first week. He'd visited a score of firms looking for driver's work with no success till Friday when he had come across a scrap merchant on the far side of Andersonstown. There they'd said they might be able to use him, but he should come back on Monday morning when he would get a definite answer. He had been in the pub

on the corner several times, but though he was now accepted enough for him to stand and take his drink without the whole bar lapsing into a silent stare none of the locals initiated any conversation with him, and the opening remarks he made to them from time to time were generally rebutted with non‐committal answers.

It had been both hard and frustrating, and he felt that the one bright spot that stood out was this Saturday night. Taking Josephine out. Like a kid out of school and going down the disco, you silly bugger. At your age, off to a peasant hop. As he dressed himself he began to liven up.

One good night out was what he needed before the tedium of next week. Nearly six days gone, and not a thing to hook on to. Davidson said three weeks and something ought to show. Must have been the pep talk chat. He came down a little after seven and sat in the chair by the fire in 76

the front room that was available to guests. He was on his own. All the others scurried away on Friday morning with their bags packed and homes to get to after a half

day's work at the end of the week. Not hanging about up here, not in i he front line.

When the door bell rang he slipped quickly out into the hall, and opened the door. Josephone stood there, breathing heavily.

'I'm sorry I'm late. Couldn't get a bus. They've cut them down a bit, I think. I'm not very late, am I?'

'I think all the buses are on the scrap yards up the road, stacks of them there, doubles and singles. I'd only just come down. I reckon you're dead on time. Let's go straight away.'

He shouted back towards the kitchen that he was on his way out, that he had his key, and not to worry if he was a bit late.

'How do we get there?" he asked. "It's a bit strange to me moving about the city still, especially at night.'

'No problem. We'll walk down to the hospital, get a cab there into town, and in Castle Street we'll get another cab up the Crumlin. It's just a short walk from there. It won't take long, we'll be there in forty‐five minutes. It's a bit roundabout, that's all.'

In Ypres Avenue the man and his wife were making their final preparations to go out. There had been an uneasy understanding between them since their talk in the early hours after his homecoming, and no further word on the subject had been spoken. Both seemed to accept that the wounds of that night could only be healed by time and silence. She had lain in bed the first three mornings waiting for the high whine of the Saracens, expecting the troops to come breaking in to tear her man from their bed. But they didn't come, and now she began to believe what he had told her. Perhaps there was no clue, perhaps the photokit really did look as little like him as she, his wife, believed. Her mother was busying herself at the back of the house round the stove, where she kept a perpetual pot of freshened tea. All the children were now in bed, the twins complaining that it was too early. To both of them the evening was something to look forward to, a change from the oppressiveness of the atmosphere as the man sat about his house, too small for privacy or for him to absent himself from the rest of the family. It had been laid down by his superiors that he was not to try to make contact with his colleagues in the movement, or in any way expose himself to danger or arrest. It meant long hours of waiting, fiddling time uselessly away. Already he felt restless, but hurrying things was futile.

That's how they all got taken, going off at half‐cock when things weren't ready for them. Not like London. All the planning

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was there. No impatience, just when it suited and not a day earlier. Boredom was his great enemy, and the need was for discipline, discipline as befits the member of an army.

With his wife on his arm, and in her best trouser suit, he walked up his street towards the hut with the corrugated iron roof that was the social club. He could relax here, among his own.

Drain his pints. Talk to people. It was back to the ordinary. To living again.

By the time Harry and Josephine arrived at the club, it was nearly full, with most of the tables taken. The girl said she'd find somewhere to sit, and he pushed his way towards the long trestle tables at the far end from the door where three men were hard at it in their shirt sleeves taking the tops off bottles and pouring drinks. Harry forced his way through the shoulders of the men standing close to the makeshift bar, made it to the front and called for a pint of Guinness and a gin and orange.

As he was struggling back to the table where Josephine was sitting he saw a man come up to her and gesture towards him. After they'd spoken a few words he'd nodded his head, smiled at the girl and moved back towards the door.