Harry's Game (20 page)

'We "want his name." Cut the softness. The crisis of the interrogation. She has to go on from here. But the little bitch was sticking.

'I don't know his name. He was hardly there. He just came and went. It was only about six hours, in the middle of the night.'

'He was in your house. Slept ... where did he sleep? ... in the back room? ... yes, we know that.

He's on the run, and you don't know his name? Don't you know anything about him? Come on, Theresa, better than that.'

'I don't know. I don't know. I tell you I just don't ... that's honest to God. He came in and went upstairs. He was gone before morning. We didn't see him again. We weren't told anything.

There was no need for us to know his name, and when he came we didn't talk to him. That's the truth.'

Behind the girl, and out of her sight, the army officer put up his hand for Rennie to hold his questions a moment. His voice was mellow, more reasonable and understanding to the exhausted girl in the chair four feet in front of him.

'But your father, Theresa, he'd know that man's name. We don't want to bring him in. We know what happened that night, up in this man's room. We know all about that. We'd have to mention it.

They'd all know at home. How would your Dad stand up to all this, at his age? There's your brother. You must think of him as well. It's a long time he's been in the Maze ... it would go well for him.'

'I don't know. I don't. You have to believe me. He never said his name. It's because he wasn't known that he came, don't you see that? It was safe that way. Dad doesn't know who he was.

None of us did.'

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'You know why we want him?" the detective clipped back in, swinging her attention back into the light of the room away from the peace she found in the shadows round the soldier.

'I know.'

'You're sure. You know what he did?'

'I know.'

'Did he tell you what he'd done?'

'No.'

'How did you know?'

'It was obvious. I've never seen a man like it. He had a hand like an old man's. It was all tied up.

Like a claw. I can't say how he was ... it was horrible.'

'What was his name? We want his name.'

'You'll get me killed for what I've said. So help me, Mother of Jesus, he never said his name.'

The inspector pulled a photokit picture of the man from a brown envelope, and flipped it across the table to the girl. She looked at it briefly and nodded. Then she pushed it back to him.

'Take her down," he said to the policewoman. The two went out of the interview room and away towards the station's cells. He went on, 'Bugger it. I thought we had her. I thought it was all going to flow. I have a horrible feeling the little bitch is telling the truth. We'll have another go at her in two or three hours or so, but I don't think she knows any more than she's said. It makes sense. A strange house, strange people. They're alerted someone is coming. They stick their noses into the box, and he's a bed for the night. Come on. Let's get a nap for a bit. and then one last bash at her.'

After they had gone Theresa sat a long time in her cell. She was alone now, as the policewoman had left her. In her own eyes the position was very clear. The army had pulled her into the station to question her about the man who had stayed at the house, the man she had gone to in the middle of the night. The man who had killed in London, was on the run, hunted, and in bed couldn't screw. They

had pulled her in because they thought something she knew was the key to their finding the man, arresting him, charging him, sentencing him, and locking him away to become a folk hero 104

in the ghetto, however many years he rotted in a cell like this one. If she was not vital to their case then, as they said themselves, would they have sent the troops and the pigs to collect her? When he was arrested and charged and all Ballymurphy knew she had spent two days in the station being questioned ... what would they say? Who would listen when she denied she had ever known his name? Who would walk away satisfied when she said she had given no information that in any way led to his capture? Who would believe her?

In the legend they'd weave her name would figure. She went back again over all that she could remember of what she had said to that bastard copper. The one who shouted in the front.

Nothing, she'd said nothing that helped them. She'd looked at the photograph, but they knew that he was the man. All they needed was his name, and they didn't know that, and she hadn't told them. But how had they learned of the night? She had told girls, some, a few, not many.

Would they betray her? Her friends in a chatter in the bog or over coffee break at the mill, would they tout to the military?

So who was going to believe her now?

She had heard what the IRA did to informers. All Ballymurphy knew. It was part of the folklore, not just there, but all over the city where the Provos operated. The vengeance of the young men against their own people who betrayed them was vicious and complete. There'd been a

girl, left at a lamp post. Tarred and feathered, they'd called it. Black paint and the feathers from a stinking old eiderdown. Hair cut off. She'd talked to a soldier. Not loved him‐‐not cuddled or kissed him. Just talked to him, standing with him outside the barracks in the shadows. A boy who lived on the street they'd shot him through the kneecaps. He hadn't even been an informer. "Thief was the word on the card they hung round the gatepost where they left him. Provo justice. She hadn't known him, just knew his face. She remembered him on the hospital crutches when he was discharged. Ostracized and frightened. They killed girls, she knew that, and men whom they reckoned were informers. They shot them and dumped their

bodies, sometimes rigged with wires and batteries. Making a stiff into a bomb hoax. Then they lay a long time in the ditch waiting for the bomb disposal man to work his way through his overnight list and come and declare the body harmless. And all the reporters and photographers were there.

It was very easy to imagine. A kangaroo court in a lockup garage. Young men with dark glasses at a table. Hurricane lamp for illumination. Arms tied behind her. Shouting her innocence, and who listens? Pulled from the garage, and the sweet smelliness of the hood going over her head, and bundled into a car for the drive to the dumping ground and the single shot.

She wanted to scream, but there was no sound. She quivered on the bed, silhouetted against the light biscuit‐coloured regulation blanket with the barred‐over light bulb shining down on to her. If she had screamed at that moment she would probably have lived. The policewoman would have come and sat with her till the next interrogation. But in her terror she had no voice.

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She knew they would come again and talk to her, perhaps in another hour, perhaps longer.

They had taken her watch and she had no sense of time now. When they came again they would ask her if she had ever seen the man on any other occasion. They would ask that over and over again, however many times she maintained she'd not set eyes on him since the night at her house. They would go on asking that question till they had their answer. They would know when she was lying, especially the quiet one behind her, the Englishman. She was tired, so tired, and slipping away. Could she keep up her denials? They would know and she would say. Before morning they would know about the dance, how the man had been there with his wife. They had taken him away. So why did they still need the name? Confusion and complicated argument swayed and tossed through the girl. They had taken him but they didn't know him. Perhaps they had not made the connection, and then what she might say in her exhaustion would weave the net round him. Betray him. Play the Judas. If she told the English officer it would be treachery to her own. The pigs would be out for him, pulling him into another police station, and she would wear the brand. Tout. Informer. Despised.

She looked round the brick and tile walls of the cell till she came to the heavy metal bar attached to the cell window that moved backwards and forwards a distance of two inches to allow ventilation to the cell. As it was winter and the window tight shut, the bar protruded from the fitting. She estimated that if she stood on her bed and stretched up she could reach the bar. Very deliberately she sat up on the bed. She moved her skirt up over her hips and began to peel down the thick warm tights she was wearing.

When the policewoman came to her cell to wake her for the next rou nd of questions Theresa was very dead. Her mouth was open, and icr eyes bulged as if they were trying to escape from the agony of lie contortions. The nylon had buried itself deep into her throat, caving a reddened collar rimming the brown tights. Her feet hung ictween the side of the bed and the wall, some seven inches above he floor.

i;rost was wakened by the duty officer in intelligence headquarters without explanation. The message was simply that he should be in icadquarters, and that "all hell is about to break loose." By the time ic reached the building there was a report from the police station waiting for him. It covered only one sheet, was slashed to a minimum and was signed by his own man who had been present at the interrogation.

Theresa ... was interrogated twice while in police custody in the presence of myself, Detective Inspector Howard Rennie, Detective Sergeant Herbert McDonald and Policewoman Gwen Myerscough. During questioning she identified the photokit picture of a man wanted in connection with the Danby killing as a man who had stayed in her father's house around three weeks ago. After the second session of questions she was returned to her cell. She was found later hanging in the cell, and was dead by the time medical attention reached her.

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Signed,

Fairclough, Arthur. Capt., Intelligence Corps.

No marks for grammar, thought Frost, as he read it through.

'Where's Fairclough?" he snapped at the duty officer.

'On his way back here, sir." It was a time for short direct answers when the big man was in this sort of mood.

'How long?'

'Should be here in about ten minutes, sir." Then the sparks will come. Poor old Fairclough, thought the duty officer. Rather him than me.

The colonel went to the filing cabinet behind his desk and unlocked the top drawer, pulling it out on its metal runners and rummaging around for his dog‐eared Ministry of Defence extension numbers book. It was a classified document and also listed the home

telephone numbers of senior staff at the Ministry, military and civilian. He found the number of the Permanent Under Secretary that Davidson worked to, and dialled the Surrey area code and then the six digits.

'My name's Frost. Army intelligence in Lisburn. It's a hell of an hour but something has come up which you should be aware of. This is not a secure line, but I'll tell you what I can. We were passed some information from a section of yours about a girl. That was yesterday morning.

She was brought in yesterday afternoon and questioned twice. You know what about. She knew the man we want, identified the picture, and said he'd stayed in her house within the last month. Found her about three‐quarters of an hour ago hanging in her cell. Very dead. That's all I have. But I wouldn't care to be in your man's shoes when the opposition find out about all this.

Thought you ought to know. Sounds a bit of a cock‐up to me. Cheers.'

The Permanent Under Secretary had thanked him for the call and rung off.

Frost locked away his directory and pocketed the keys as Fair clough came in a fraction behind his knock.

'Let's have it, Arthur.'

'We got it out of her that the man stayed at her old man's place. She said they weren't given his name, and that she never knew his name. I think she was levelling with us. We left her for a 107

couple of hours and when they came to get her out to bring her back up she'd strung herself up with her stockings. One thing should be straight, sir. She was treated quite correctly. She wasn't touched, and there was a policewoman present the whole time.'

'Right. Put it all down on paper, and soon. I want our version on this out fast. The information from London, on which we pulled her in. It seems to have stood up? It was real stuff?'

'No doubt about that. She'd been with him, all right. No doubt.'

Fairclough went out of the colonel's office to type his report. Frost was back on the phone to army public relations, another bedside telephone waking the early morning sleeper‐in. He suggested that when the press inquiries started coming the men on the information desk should treat this very much as a police matter involving a girl picked up by the army for routine interrogation. He then called the head of Special Branch, first at his home where he was told he was already at Knock Road headquarters, and then at his office there. His own people had briefed him. With the slight diplomacy that he

timid command he made the same sugggestion about press desk uMtment as he had made to

his own people.

"You want our people to take the can?" said the policeman. 'Inevitable, isn't it? Your police station, your interrogation. Don't how we can end up with it.' 'Your bloody info set the, thing up.'

'And good stuff it was too. There should be an inquiry at that damned station as to how it happened.'

'The Chief Constable in his wisdom had made that point. I think we should meet for a talk about the next move, if there is one, or this rail will be dead in no time.' "I'll call you back," said Frost, and rang off. Half‐cock operation and the poor sod, whatever his name is, puts it right under our noses. And we drop it. Poor devil. And on top of thit we let the girl kill herself, which puts a noose round his neck and a bag over his head. We've done him well today. Desertion's the 'cast he's justified in doing.