Silence (17 page)

All over the park the curling embryonic signs of spring glittered as Major George Hannon took his afternoon walk in determined good spirits. He skirted around an onrush of excited schoolchildren and pressed on along a path through the trees. He’d left the café with a coffee in hand and felt buoyed up by his surroundings and the countless signs that winter was over; the sense of creaturely occupancy amid the bushes and undergrowth; life shining and crawling onward in its endless war against death.
Mother Nature keeps her eyes wide open
, he thought with satisfaction. She knew instinctively how to outmanoeuvre the darkness that threatened to extinguish everything, even the sun and the stars.

He walked under trees that were already sprouting tender little leaves, almost hiding the skeletal branches. Feeling the warm sunshine on his face, he reflected that it was the perfect moment for a prayer of thanksgiving, but it had been years since he had mouthed anything holy, and he was reluctant to start now in case he might undermine his sense of enjoyment.

This feeling of light winning the battle over shade brought his mind back to the personal war he had waged during the Troubles. He thought of the informers he’d handled back in the days when he worked for the Ministry of Defence, when intelligence gathering was pure power, when a single phone call could decide whether a man lived or died, when he was effectively carving out the history of Northern Ireland, before that history was handed back to the squabbling politicians who mired it in sectarian point scoring and flag waving. He missed that sense of control and precision, manipulating hidden strings within the paramilitary gangs. However, the faces and voices of that era were far removed from this spring afternoon and his bright path through the trees.

He was sipping his coffee, listening to the birdsong piping overhead when the figure of a man seated on a park bench distracted him. He blinked but the figure remained silhouetted against the sunlight. For several moments the major stood motionless, studying the figure’s outline against the trees, stark as a freshly revealed target, an old ghost sitting in the sunlight. The major felt irritated rather than alarmed; his cheerful vigour drained away.

He approached the bench, and the elderly man glanced up at him and then looked away. His gaze was empty, without intent or focus. On his lap, he clutched a thin black briefcase.

Hannon stared vengefully at the man and sat down beside him. What was he doing here, disturbing the happy peace of his daily walk, like some half-dead corpse from the past seeking reanimation?

‘I had to see you,’ explained the man, sensing the major’s hostility. ‘This is urgent. There was no one else I could turn to.’

‘That’s not the case, Hegarty.’ Hannon frowned. He stared straight ahead of him. ‘I’m retired. It’s extremely dangerous to contact me like this.’

‘I’ve killed a man.’

The major sighed heavily.

‘Who?’

‘A shadow from the past. It was either him or me.’

‘How did he trace you?’

Hegarty croaked his explanation. Hannon felt his spirits flag, infected by the old spy’s doomed air.

‘I need your help.’

‘I can’t help you any more.’

‘Then let me preface my request.’ He shifted his briefcase in Hannon’s direction. ‘The gun in my case is pointed at you. Like I said, I need your help.’

Hannon stared at the briefcase. He considered the possibility that the spy was bluffing and discounted it.

‘You’d shoot me here in broad daylight?’

‘Believe me, it would be less messy than the last shooting.’

‘How much do you need?’

‘How much what?’

‘Money. How much to get you out of the country and off my fucking back?’

‘I don’t need to go anywhere right now. What I want are answers. A week ago, I arranged to meet a priest and now he is dead. Then a woman claiming to be a journalist almost lured me to my death. Who’s pulling the strings? Is the journalist on the MOD’s payroll?’

‘I’m out of touch. I don’t have those kinds of answers.’

The hand holding the object inside the briefcase shifted it closer to Hannon.

‘Then you must go looking for them.’

‘All you’re giving me is an assumption. What makes you think that the MOD would use a journalist and her accomplice to assassinate you? They don’t strike me as professional killers.’

‘Perhaps the MOD persuaded them to intervene.’

‘The MOD has its pick of agents. They don’t have to go with anyone they can
persuade
to do the job. If they wanted you killed they would have arranged for it to resemble an accident.’

‘Like Father Walsh?’

Hannon left the question unanswered and sighed. Hegarty was another searcher and puzzler trying to discover the hidden truths of the past. Like the priest and his journalist friend. He stared at the light fading through the trees with dismay. Everything precious about the afternoon was lost; cold shadows contending with the sunlight in every corner, the gracious burst of early spring warmth dissolving away. Hannon remained motionless, leaning away from Hegarty as much as he could. He grew aware of the vastness of the silence in the darkening trees.

‘What else is inside that briefcase of yours, Hegarty?’

The spy sniggered nervously but didn’t reply.

‘Why did you arrange to meet the priest? What makes you so worried the MOD is out to kill you? What secrets are you carrying that might make you their target?’

‘A copy of your old files. The ones you handed over to me.’ Hegarty smiled and a drunken glow lit his eyes. Hannon saw the excitement of a man addicted to secrets and betrayal.

He tried his best to smile back. Inside, however, he felt hollow. He wondered if Hegarty had noticed the inner slippage, the psychological tremor induced by the mention of the files.

‘You’re devious,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to grant you that, but foolhardy, too. Now I understand why your life is in so much danger. You should have stayed on the run, or got into some nice little racket, fuel smuggling or extortion. Small-time stuff. Nothing as big as holding on to those secret files.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m not so dumb as to carry them with me. I think more than one step ahead.’

‘Where are they, then?’

‘Why do you think I’d tell you? Let’s just say they’re in a very safe place, and if anything happens to me I’ve left strict instructions that they should be posted to all the newspapers in the country. I think of them as my insurance policy.’

Hannon stared at the spy’s feverish-looking eyes. He saw betrayal upon betrayal, the reckless, heedless descent of an old spy into loneliness and death. Hegarty was like a lame dog that had been kicked out into the wilds to fend for itself. He might have a few old bones buried in places, enough to gnaw on for a few nights, but bigger, stronger animals were already circling him. If the MOD knew about the secret files, it was unlikely that he’d survive another week, unless they had some secret purpose for him, one final suicidal mission. The thought gave him some satisfaction.

‘I’ll dig up whatever information the MOD has on the journalist,’ said Hannon. ‘If she was working with Walsh, there’s bound to be a file on her somewhere. Come back here in a week’s time and I’ll have it for you.’

Hegarty removed his bony hand from the briefcase.

‘Consider it a deal.’

‘Does that mean you’re not going to shoot me?’

‘Just answer me one more question. I want the truth now and no more bullshit.’ Seeing the major squirm with apprehension made him more confident.

‘I can only promise not to lie,’ said the major with a thin smile.

‘Who was in charge of the rogue police unit Walsh was researching? Who allowed them to wreak such havoc?’

Hannon leaned back and tried to look the part of a respectable retiree enjoying the faint sunshine. He wondered whether Hegarty expected a truthful answer or not. He was bound to an unbroken code – surely the spy knew that – a brotherhood of denial and silence.

‘There were so many intelligence units back then. Operations hidden within other operations. The whole system was run on a need-to-know basis, otherwise the networks would have collapsed.’

‘I want the name, you bastard.’

‘You should do what I do, Hegarty,’ the major said coldly. ‘Keep your fucking head down and watch your back. This is still a treacherous, violent little country.’ He shifted uncomfortably and tried to regain an upright bearing. ‘Is this why you’ve risked meeting me today?’ he continued. ‘To rake over the past?’

A grimace tugged at Hegarty’s lips.

‘You’re being evasive. Why won’t you give me the name?’

‘I’m protecting my privacy, not a gang of murderers. If there was such a unit operating it wasn’t on my watch.’

‘So that is all you’re concerned with? Protecting your privacy.’

‘Why should I let the past intrude on my life? It is of no concern to anyone.’

Hegarty leaned his face towards him, at once angry and vulnerable, like an offended beggar.

‘Who wiped your slate clean of all your meddling in this shitty country?’ he hissed. ‘Who purged you of everything rotten? Who made you pure and worthy of this bright afternoon?’

Hannon leaned back into his corner of the bench. He tried to maintain his composure. He did not take kindly to the inquisition but in the circumstances, with Hegarty’s gun still in his briefcase, he could not rise and walk away.

With increasing venom, Hegarty threw accusations at him, blaming him for the deaths of different agents, unsolved murders and other dark deeds from the Troubles. Hannon waited for him to finish his tirade. Hegarty’s scrawny little face was lined and pale. A more dangerous light glittered in his eyes as he made impossible demands for the truth. Worse than impossible – crazy. He should not even be thinking about such topics. The spy was unravelling, realized Hannon, a threat to all who encountered him.

‘Are you sick?’ asked the major when he stopped for a breath.

‘No.’

‘Then why are you so eager to dig up the past and search for these ghosts?’ Hannon grimaced. ‘Why the interest in past causes and retribution? You’ll never find answers in the fog of war. You’ll only flounder helplessly in the quagmire, like poor old Walsh did, becoming more weary and entangled by the day. Take my advice: crawl out while you still have the chance.’

‘Bad things were covered up.’ Hegarty’s face looked up at the sun, revealing his hawk-like profile. ‘When that happens, there will always be someone searching for the truth.’

Hannon was unmoved by the veiled threat. He wanted nothing more than to continue his path through the fading sunlight and trees, and for the spy to be gone with his battered-looking briefcase.

‘There’s a detective working on Walsh’s accident,’ said Hegarty. ‘He’s interested in his research.’

‘We’ve had police investigations before.’ Hannon smiled. ‘They never get very far.’

‘This one seems more keen than usual. I’ve spoken to him on the phone. He must have got my number from Walsh’s records.’

‘Why don’t you help him? Maybe he’ll find the answers you are seeking.’

Hegarty grimaced.

‘If he finds out who I am, he’ll arrest me for murdering the man in the hotel. And then I’ll spend the rest of my days in jail. If the paramilitaries don’t get to me first.’

‘Then you really are in a fix.’

‘You concentrate on digging up what you can on the journalist,’ said Hegarty. ‘I’ll look after the detective. We’ll report back to each other next week.’

‘Very well.’

Hegarty got up and limped off. ‘You’d better not let me down,’ was his final warning.

The sun had disappeared, replaced by something else – the sharp empty feel of winter. Hannon remained on the bench long after Hegarty had left. The advance of darkness was unflagging – the gathering shadows, the dark birds roosting in their nests high in the trees – like the weight of the past bearing down upon the present. Hannon absorbed it all with a precious sense of lingering life and hope.

Men like Hegarty were a species in peril, he thought; eventually their butchered bodies ended up face down in the dark little ditches of border country. He felt genuinely sad at the thought of what lay ahead for the spy. And more than sad, angry. Hegarty had been one of his most useful recruits, and his betrayals had played an important role in convincing the IRA to abandon its terror campaign. He wished the spy had retired to a quiet corner of the country, become a man of modest means and sober habits, like himself, rather than scuffling about in the dirt of his own grave.

Yet there was a sneaking euphoria to be experienced in darkness and death, especially when one man’s demise meant another would live and breathe more easily. He stared at the unmoving trees, smiling at the notion that he was a spectre himself in the fading sunlight. Today and yesterday, the present and the past: really, there was no chance of ever separating the two. This feeling of vengeance more than compensated for the loss of his pleasant afternoon walk and the warmth of the spring sunlight on his face.

He sat stiffly in the corner of his bench like an actor waiting for his moment to return to the stage. In the fading light, the rest of the park turned into a desert of empty paths and shadows.

A flash-in-the-pan rainstorm kept Daly confined to his car outside an abandoned cottage, the roof hammering with raindrops, the windscreen wriggling with the distorted shapes of trees. He switched off the engine. The silence within the car felt equal to the silence emanating from the cottage. He rolled down his window, and listened as the ditches deepened their gurgling. He drove off again, bumping cautiously along potholed roads and then even more cautiously over rush-grown lanes.

The detective was driving through border country, following Walsh’s dated map. It was the best guide he had to tracing the homes of the murder triangle victims, to untangling the network of minor roads the killers had once used. It struck him that this journey through the back roads was like travelling into that strangest of places – the past. The idea of summarizing what had happened along these roads daunted him; there were so many personal tragedies on both sides of the community, the murders of so many innocent Protestants and Catholics left unsolved, so much rumour and suspicion, that only bewilderment and fear remained.