Authors: Gerald Seymour
'Norah, listen, because this is very important if we are to help this man' - the superintendent spoke softly, paternal, a voice to be trusted — 'you have to tell us where in the house is the other man. The one on your bed is the Irishman, where is the other one, the Arab?'
She looked into the face that was very near to her, tired and haggard eyes, stubble beginning to show, white collar fringed with grime. So he knew what he was up to, the man McCoy. She wanted to scream with laughter. It was as he'd said it would be. Buying time for his friend, and how much purchased? How many hours? Four, five perhaps? And they didn't know. Tricked by a man with one good arm and half his chest shot out. All these coppers, and McCoy had done them. But there was no hysteria, too exhausted for that. Only a slow smile that rimmed the bottom of the young fresh cheeks almost of sympathy.
'He's been gone a long time,' she said. 'He went right at the start. Just ran through the house. There's only Ciaran . . . '
'Bloody hell,' said the superintendent, kindness evaporating from his mouth.
'We'll go and get the bastard.' The captain said it over his shoulder, already half out of the van.
The superintendent sat back in his chair. 'And you haven't come to tell us this to save your father and mother, haven't mentioned them. Nor to help the troops who were going to break in, less than an hour from now, and risk their bloody lives. Not on your list, right? Only thing that matters is that Ciaran gets his bloody treatment. Straight in on the National Health. Makes you want to puke.'
She was satisfied with herself now. They saw the defiance come to her, chin jutting out.
'So where's the Arab?' Different tone, harsher, games completed.
'He didn't say. Just ran through the house. Went through the back. Hours ago.' The last spat out with relish.
'Where to, for Christ's sake?'
'I said, he didn't say. Ciaran said the whole thing was to win him time.'
'And how long have you known him, this McCoy?'
'Two weeks.'
'And you knew what he'd done?'
'I knew.' And she smiled again. Pretty smile, the superintendent thought, pretty face. Just as they all are when they meet their McCoys. Screwed her, and screwed her life. Par for the course. He climbed out of the van to begin formulating his plans for the manhunt that would not get operational till first light, still more than ninety minutes away.
The split board that Norah's father had so long meant to repair betrayed to Ciaran McCoy the approach up the stairs of the SAS sergeant. The creaking whine when the soldier eased his weight on to the divided wood broke through the thin sleep, causing him to sit up sharply, a reflex before the agony jolted him down. He was aware of the rifle immediately, nestling in his hand and pressed to his thigh, but when he motioned his shoulders seeking the shape and familiarity of the girl he realized she had gone.
He took his hand from the butt of the rifle and felt the pillow and the shoes and the magazines. Confirmation if he had needed it. There was a whisper from the stairs, a hiss for quiet, then the drumming of feet, the moment of assault. For a fraction of time he had capability to make the decision that would determine whether he raised his gun and armed the grenades, or whether he submitted . . .
but his mind was incapable of clear thought, and his instinctive reactions too dulled. When the sergeant came through the door, finger poised on the trigger of the Sterling sub-machine-gun, McCoy lay where he had slept, gun barrel prone on the bedspread and offering no threat.
That he lived through those three seconds as the SAS man acclimatized himself to the light of the room was dependent on the soldier's training and expertise, and his knowledge of when it was necessary to shoot, when not. He assimilated the atmosphere of the room, saw the crumpled figure, the barrel that pointed nowhere, the hand removed from the immediate proximity of the grenades. And then there were others crowding into the bedroom, three, four and five more, standing high over McCoy. The light was switched on. One pulled the gun from his hand, removed the bullet from the breach, scooped up the grenades. They ran their hands over McCoy's trousers, checking him for more weapons and lifted him without violence from the bedclothes before ripping back the pale blue sheets. When they laid him down again it was on the hard-coiled springs of the bed.
Ciaran watched them as they worked quickly and with thoroughness round the room, no words spoken, acknowledgement that each knew what was expected of him. End of the road, Ciaran boy, but not the end his imagination had ever entertained when he played his war games. He'd thought they'd shoot. Flattering himself. Couldn't take the great Ciaran alive, without a whimper, without the mighty bang-out. Too big just to finish up this way. Deceived himself. Unimportant, though, and he didn't care. Get so tired, such exhaustion, that you don't give a damn what happens. Glad in a way that it's over. Whichever way, with the living or the dead, unimportant, just the relief that it's completed. And the Arab had had his start, had his opportunity. And he must go through it all again, the poor bastard. And on his own. And you're out of it, Ciaran boy, clear and finished and safe.
The captain bent over him.
'Get the doctor up here.' Me said it without emotion, matter of fact. 'Pity the bloody thing wasn't six inches across. Would have saved us all a load of trouble.'
Through the door McCoy could hear the voices of Norah's parents, frightened, gabbled and seeking the reassurance of the soldiers. There were feet on the staircase, a diffusion of voices, orders being given, and then the arrival of the doctor.
'Make a habit of this caper?' The doctor had his hand on McCoy's pulse, but his eyes, puckered with the distress of an old man, wandered from the wounds to the already healed scar in McCoy's side.
'I don't mind shifting him,' said the superintendent. 'But I don't want him under anaesthetic yet. He's some talking to do before we get that far. We'll chat him in the ambulance and when they're cleaning him up.'
The father and mother were still on the landing when they carried McCoy, bound to the stretcher, past them.
They looked at him as if staring at a rodent, vermin. Hate-consumed, but schooled by fear. The progress down the narrow stairs was difficult and slow, and before they were half-way, and manoeuvring on the bend McCoy heard Norah's mother, plaintive and appealing.
'Where's our girl? What's happened to our Norah?
What did he do to her?'
You'll find out soon enough, thought the Irishman. It amused him, and without the pain he would have laughed.
You'll find out and wish you'd never asked, and if they tell you you'll wish they hadn't. Always the same. Always the girls in tow, attracted like dogs to a bitch's fanny, flies in a jam pot. And always they cock it up. You're not the first, Ciaran. Just like the big boyo in Belfast. Took his bird along when they holed up in the big posh house, in the posh road and she still went in her slippers and curlers to fetch the morning milk from the corner shop. Rest of the road had it delivered. Gave it away a mile off, once the copper on car patrol spotted her. Got him nicked.
He was still wondering why the girl had betrayed him when the stretcher party carried him out on to the street.
There were television arc lights there. They'd allowed the cameramen up from the corral at the bottom of the hill. Give 'em a show, McCoy. Give 'em a picture. Don't let the bastards see you down. The spotlights were aimed at his face and blanched the skin on his bared chest, accentuating the whiteness that surrounded the bullet hole with its sparse patch of covering lint.
He shouted, 'Up the Provos,' and the policeman holding the stretcher handles behind his head jolted them hard, sending the rivers of pain flowing fast and deep. Bastards.
And all up to the bloody Arab to wipe the victory smile off their faces. The bloody Arab and his Mushroom Man.
Before they lifted him into the ambulance McCoy had lost consciousness.
The cures he'd been on, the expensive, the unpleasant and the not-so-cosseted varieties, had never lasted for Jimmy.
The craving and desire for excess of alcohol, a dose sufficient to immunize him against pressure and anxiety, remained, lingering and nagging in his life. They'd tried most of the accepted methods to wean him away. The health farm in Hampshire had cost the most, and lasted the least time when he was back in the outside world. The withdrawal programme practised at the clinic behind Brixton Station had been the most ferocious, the most scarring and the longest-running. But each broke down at the stage when Jimmy went back to his breadwinning and the sepia world of his activities demanded some softening.
He was now a low-capability drinker, a short-capacity man. When rational he could recognize the problem, when angry and disappointed he turned away from the consequences.
The flat had been empty when he returned. Helen was not there, gone to her own place. Could hardly blame her, didn't know what time he might have shown up, or in what state of tiredness. Bed hadn't been made from the previous sleeping. Washing up not done, never was, tea leaves settled in an eddy round the plug hole of the sink.
Clothes not picked up. If she'd come back she would have done the tidying ritual. But at least he wouldn't have to tell her about the car. Insurance? . . . Didn't know, be some difficult talking. She'd hate him for it. Couldn't blame her. Pride and joy . . . and up in smoke.
He unscrewed the top of the bottle, cheap brand. Filthy expensive by the time he'd paid the porter his chip, lose it all on expenses. They looked at them hard in the department, but he could lose that, hadn't eaten all day, funnel it through there. Straight, no water. Tap water would be warm, and he hadn't filled the ice-cube box in the fridge.
About an inch to start with, four gulps, needed forcing down, coiled up his guts, blazed a trail through them.
Sagged in the chair, the easy one, springs still kept in check by the upholstery, feet just reaching the table, laces at eye-level, loosened his collar. Coughed a couple of times then corkscrewed his body forward to reach the bottle and the first refill. So tired, seemed to have been moving for ever.
No thoughts, just wanting to shut it all out. Jones pulling his bloody rank, the SAS captain, and those bastards in the house. Should have been your day, Jimmy, and yet you're sent home early, and told to work a bloody shift pattern.
At first the telephone was an accompaniment to his thoughts. It took time for it to communicate urgency, and even more for it to instil the submission required for him to give up the comfort he had established for himself and hobble across the room to the table beside his bed. He deliberated whether to answer, but discipline won through.
He picked up the receiver and gave out the number, had it right too, which surprised him.
'It's Jones here, Jimmy. It's all over down at this end.'
'Congratulations.' Jimmy had difficulties, the word was slow coming.
it's not like that, Jimmy. We have McCoy, but the Arab's gone. He's loose.'
'Not so bright then. Which clever bastard let him slip?'
'He went when you were there, Jimmy, so cut the quips, before the cordon . . . '
'I was on my bloody own, wasn't I? Can't be round the whole house. He didn't come through the front.' All the same, bloody buckpassers brigade.
'Don't come the maudlin, Jimmy. No one's criticizing you. It's a statement of fact. He's loose with a minimum of five hours' start. I want you at the West Middlesex, and now. Not hanging about, but down there now. They're patching McCoy up, and we're keeping the surgeons off him till we've had a preliminary. After that he goes under, has his surgery, and they dig your bullet out of him.'
'Leave the bloody thing there.'
'Don't screw me about, Jimmy. We have to know what the Arab is at. McCoy has to tell us.'
'You've got others who can go and do it.' Why wouldn't the bloody man get off the line and leave him to the bottle and the chair? Why Jimmy, why not one of the young ones who fancied their hand at interrogation? Budding Skar-dons all of them, looking for another Klaus Fuchs to break, looking for a reputation.
'Jimmy, stop waffling, stop boozing, and get off your arse. The Yard's down there. I'm on my way. I've sent a car for you, be at your door in about ten minutes. Put your head under the tap and be there. I want you to talk to McCoy, that's all.'
Even with the drink Jimmy knew why he had been called. Just like Jones, the way his mind worked. Who'd be on the same wavelength as this Irish bastard, who'd be able to frighten him, or win him, or batter it out of him?
Not a copper, not one of the bright lads transferred from Intelligence Corps, not old Jonesey himself. Another thug, that's what he wanted, and put them together. Two rats, both hungry, in the same hole. Two cockroaches disputing the one patch.
Jimmy sat up, breaking his cat-nap as the car drove through the wide gateway and into the hospital forecourt.
Sleep when you can, basic rule, fit it in with the opportunity, always the same when the other lot dictate the time-table, hold the initiative. Time now to regret the whisky, hadn't been much left in the bottle, motion of the car didn't help. Head spinning, uncontrollable circles.
The half-light was beginning to simper through and the nineteenth-century blocks were heavily outlined against the coming dawn. Blue and white signs pointed in every direction,
CASUALTY, MATERNITY, X-RAY, OUTPATIENTS.
Ward names, recalling local dignitaries and benefactors.
He saw the police van and the group of uniformed men outside casualty, and the car pulled up there. Jones was waiting for him. He saw Jimmy's appearance and winced, distaste on his face.
'We don't have long. The surgeons are impatient. Want to get their hands on him. Police haven't had anything out of him. Laughs at them. He's weak, but should survive.
Reckons he's the cat's whiskers - probably the morphine.'
Jones led the way through the corridors beyond 'Casualty', past the red-eyed junior doctors and nurses who whiled the night away waiting for the road accidents and the self-damaged drunks. By the staircase there were plain-clothes men, cigarettes cupped in their hands, the whole place deathly quiet and accentuating their echoing steps. They went up the stairs on to the first floor and towards the ward entrance to their right.