Marius

by Laurence Todd

  I fired questions at Mahoney about Johnnie, hoping he had a few small snippets of information, but he didn’t know who he was, where he lived or what he did for a living. He didn’t know if Johnnie was Irish or where Seamus would go to meet him. He didn’t know how or where Seamus first met Johnnie.

  I had no valid reason to hold Mahoney in custody, certainly nothing I could justify whilst looking Smitherman in the eye. I could have released him at this point, and I should have done. But, because he was a surly bastard and I disliked him, I arranged for the desk sergeant to hold him in custody a while longer. Mahoney went to protest but I cut him off.

  “It’s just routine whilst inquiries are ongoing,” I assured him as I tried to suppress a grin, watching him being led along to the cell block.

  *

  By late afternoon, the five other suspects who’d been brought in had all been questioned and three had been released on police bail without charge, though two were still being held while their alibis were being checked. All their addresses had been searched and nothing found. After a while all their alibis checked out. We’d turned up nothing. The only vague lead was for someone called Johnnie, the name ending either in ie or y. All had been questioned regarding when they’d last seen Seamus Drew, and their answers were not too dissimilar to those given by Drake Mahoney. Nobody had seen Seamus during the past week.

  Back in the office, I requested details on all and any terrorist suspects, possibly of Irish descent, named Johnnie, surname unknown and no description available. There were only two people on file who came under this heading. One was sixty-six and living in a nursing home just outside Peacehaven, but the other was a Johnny Meads, aged thirty-four and living in Hendon. He was listed as a subscriber to An Phoblacht and known to have been present at a number of rallies where Irish republican speakers had taken part.

  I raced to Hendon along the A41 with the siren wailing. Meads was home. I questioned him for several minutes about recent events, but he could successfully account for his recent movements. He worked nights as a forklift driver at a supermarket storage facility in Finchley, and a quick call confirmed his presence every night he was supposed to be there. He’d been at work the past two evenings and his wife confirmed he slept during the day.

  MI5 confirmed it had had no leads provided by informers or agents working undercover in areas where IRA sympathisers were known or suspected to be active. No one knew of anyone called Johnnie. Several suspects had been brought in for questioning but nothing substantive had been gained. We were faced with the worst possible scenario: an enemy we didn’t know and couldn’t see.

  On the way back I detoured via Stoke Newington to call at Seamus Drew’s flat. Theresa answered the door. I said I just had a couple of questions, and she let me in. She was no longer crying but her eyes were red, and the sense of deep melancholy from inside the flat was almost a tangible entity.

  “Mum’s asleep. She’s very upset, so she’s taken a sedative to knock herself out.”

  I didn’t want to be here any longer than necessary, so I began.

  “Did Seamus ever mention anybody called Johnnie to you? Not the John Spencer you mentioned, another person.”

  “Yeah, he did.” She walked into the small kitchen. I followed. The bacon smell had sadly dissipated: a pity as it was now early evening and my appetite had returned. She sighed.

  “So, what about Johnnie?” I asked.

  “Seamus was always talking about him, saying what a great bloke he is and how one day he’s going to put a spark up the Brits’ arse and get them chasing their own tails.”

  “What do you think he meant by that?”

  “He didn’t say, but it was always Johnnie this and Johnnie that. God, it was sickening, it was almost like he fancied this bloke or something.”

  “Do you know where he used to meet this Johnnie?”

  “He didn’t live round here, I know that. Seamus always had to take the tube or bus to meet him.”

  “You know where to?”

  “I don’t, no. But I think it might have been South London someplace.”

  “Why d’you think that?”

  “Because I remember him once saying someone he knew got on the bus in the West End, and they chatted until he got off.”

  She didn’t know where he got off the bus. I apologised for interrupting her evening and left.

  In the car I checked messages before leaving to drive back to Battersea, and saw an email from Taylor, sent a few hours ago. Her older sister Penny had left her husband that morning because he’d been caught cheating on her; she’d arrived at Taylor’s flat early afternoon in an extremely distressed state, and was going to be staying overnight. Penny was in floods of tears wondering if she’d done the right thing leaving her husband, and was in need of lots of TLC and emotional support, so would I mind not coming around that evening? She finished the message with a series of hearts and kisses, which didn’t make not being able to see her any more palatable. I read the message again and sighed.

  Almost as soon as I’d stopped reading, I felt strangely deflated. An empty feeling overtook me. After a day like today, when I’d had to tell a mother her son had died a horrific death, hear her cry like her soul was aflame, and then deal with people like Drake Mahoney, knowing Taylor was there made things bearable. But now, at short notice, she wasn’t.

  I drove to Acton slowly, feeling very lonely. There was nothing to rush back for.

  F O U R

  Monday

  NO FURTHER EXPLOSIONS overnight and no suspects apprehended, but no one was being complacent and assuming we’d heard the last from these bombers, and the substantial terror threat level was being maintained. There was a continuous visible police presence at all London’s mainline railway stations and key tube stations like Westminster, and extra security around the Palace of Westminster. The confirmation that the bombs were the work of dissident IRA had seen anti-terrorist police raiding the homes of leading IRA sympathisers all over the weekend but, thus far, nothing had been turned up. Other than the name Johnnie, we’d heard nothing which gave police any leads.

  To Smitherman’s office first thing for a meeting with Colonel Peter Stimpson. I’d sooner start the week with a raging toothache. Stimpson was section chief in that part of MI5 Special Branch worked and liaised with, and he had the emotional range of a metronome. He was the very dictionary definition of smug, existing in that domain of the twilight world where what he said was treated as though it was the word of God, and his fiat remained unchallenged. The difference between God and Stimpson, though, was that God didn’t believe he was Peter Stimpson.

  I sat in my usual spot, and Stimpson sat at an angle where he could see both me and Smitherman. He put down his cup and saucer. Smitherman’s secretary never ever gave me tea or coffee in a bone china cup and saucer. She never even offered me tea or coffee. It was a good day if she even acknowledged my existence.

  “Morning, sir.” It hurt calling Stimpson that, but it had to be done.

  “DS McGraw.”

  He looked at a file for a moment, then began.

  “The reports we’ve seen concerning the two recent bombs have reaffirmed our belief there’s an IRA sleeper unit out there somewhere that’s now been reactivated. Why now and by who we don’t know. There are no significant anniversaries we know of coming up, and there’re no major talks planned between any of the main parties, so at present we can only speculate.”

  His voice was pitched as though he were addressing a room full of people instead of just a captive audience of two.

  “I gather some progress has been made looking for the bombers?” He looked at me.

  I explained what had happened over the past thirty-six hours and what the Branch had been doing, who we’d spoken to, what leads we’d followed up. I omitted any reference to Johnnie as it was still just a name with nothing behind it.

  Stimpson nodded. “Well, gentlemen, we must begin to raise the ante. These people are out there somewhere and
we’ve got to find them.”

  “Can I ask something?” I ventured.

  Smitherman nodded.

  I looked at Stimpson. “What’s the basis for your belief there even is an IRA sleeper unit out there?”

  “That, I’m afraid, is classified information, DS McGraw. You just need to know we think there is one and your job is to do everything you can to track it down and eliminate the threat it poses.” He gave me a look suggesting any follow-up question was pointless.

  Smitherman nodded at me, which I took to mean my involvement was at an end. I returned to my desk.

  *

  The CCTV footage for the area by Regent’s Park, where the first explosion had occurred early Friday morning, had been examined in depth. All the CCTV film going back several hours had been screened very carefully. The car with the explosives was spotted being reversed into a parking space just before 10 pm, which meant it had been in the area nearly six hours before being detonated. After it was parked, a man was seen to exit the car and walk across the road towards the Park Village West apartment complex, but, even with the camera at maximum zoom, he was too far away to get a clear image of his face. The bright streetlights nearby didn’t help either. The man pressed a few buttons on the outside touchpad and then entered the premises. Either he was a resident there or someone had given him the passcode.

  Apart from a few passing cars and stray pedestrians, the area was largely quiet after 1 am until the car exploded at 3.55 am. The car, a Citroën, had been stolen from Tooting a few days earlier. An appeal had been made asking if a car with this registration had been seen anywhere since being stolen three days earlier, but so far no information had been received.

  I requested a list of all the residents in the apartment block this person had been seen to enter. There were twelve apartments in the complex, and nine were occupied by families of Middle Eastern origin. Of the three other families, two were English and the other was French. I ran all the names through the Branch database, and came up with nothing against anyone. I then counterchecked, inquiring if any of them were known to anyone we had on our database, and again drew a blank.

  But someone clearly knew the man who’d entered the complex, as he’d had the passcode. The complex had a resident warden responsible for upkeep, emptying bins and other sundry tasks, but nothing was known about him either. No one answering to this man’s description had been seen leaving the complex when police had ordered the premises to be evacuated while the area was being searched.

  Why this block? What was so significant or strategic about this location someone should choose to detonate an explosive device? Other than an Army Reserve centre and some rich residents, there was nothing remarkable about this corner of Regent’s Park.

  I saw Stimpson leaving, said a silent hallelujah to myself, and pretended not to see him when he looked in my direction. This wasn’t difficult. I could cut him dead if he and I were the only two people in a telephone box.

  Smitherman was behind me, indicating he wished to see me. I went to his office again.

  “Right, Rob, you heard Stimpson. MI5 believes there’s a sleeper cell somewhere and we’re going to help them find it,” he said very firmly.

  He then outlined my next task. I was to go back at least twenty years in the files we had on all known or suspected IRA personnel and sympathisers, and I was to list every name known and put it next to a proven conclusion.

  “So what it means,” he said, “is if you find, say, a Joe Smith on our files in 1995, you then have to find out what happened to Joe Smith. Is he dead, in jail, relocated, whatever? That way, slowly but surely, we begin eliminating suspects. Then any who’re on our files as actual or potential IRA but who can’t be accounted for are potential candidates for our IRA sleeper cell, and we can go from there. You clear?”

  I said I was. “What if everyone’s accounted for?”

  “Then we try something else. You need to be quick with this one, Rob, but all the records are now computerised, so it shouldn’t take too long. Christ, when I first became a detective, a job like this would have meant hours of having to look through filing cabinets full of dog-eared folders, usually all out of sequence as well. It’d take forever. Bloody detectives today don’t know they’re born.” He smirked to himself.

  I returned to my desk and went back onto the Branch database, bringing up a list of all known or suspected active IRA personnel on our files, going back as far as Brighton’s Grand Hotel bombing in the mid-eighties, which I’d made my starting point. There were over a hundred names listed.

  But information technology had made this chore much less time-consuming. The majority of names on the list already had what we referred to as a final destination; we knew what had become of them and where they were now. The list was divided into two sections: those we knew or suspected were still involved with or sympathetic to the IRA, less than twenty, and those who’d dropped off the radar as far as IRA activity was concerned but whom we still kept an eye on. All those suspected of being involved had been brought in and interviewed, and they’d all been cleared of any involvement in the recent bombings.

  Of those below the radar but still on file, some had emigrated; several were dead, were still in prison or had served time behind bars but had since been released and were now living quietly in London, Ireland or the USA. Charles Doyle was listed alongside his known activities, but categorised as inert. Cormac McGreely’s name was listed amongst those known to have died. Three women mentioned on the list had either married or remarried and were living under different surnames. No further activity was listed.

  Twelve names could not initially be accounted for. I scrolled down the lists of last known addresses and ran a scan looking for current occupants. Four turned out to be occupied by the same family and the person concerned was still living there with nothing more listed against the name. This left eight.

  I entered the eight names into the database and requested the last known information about them. Six were returned with addresses gleaned from the Inland Revenue, which meant they were in gainful employ but, for whatever reason, hadn’t added their names to the electoral register. There was nothing new listed against any of the six names. A depressing pattern was unfolding.

  Two names, however, were still unaccounted for. I brought up the files for the two in question. Details were sparse and there was very little listed against their names: no account of any known activity.

  It was ultimately an exercise in futility, but I ran every name through the database once again and received exactly the same answers about exactly the same people in exactly the same order. I cross-referenced several randomly chosen names against others and logged in known IRA activities, hoping for a connection, but drew another blank. The same two names were still unaccounted for.

  I could see names dancing an Irish jig before my eyes when I reported my lack of any meaningful progress to Smitherman, having accounted for every known IRA person on our files, and finishing with my being unable to find any details about the two names on the list.

  “And you won’t either,” he said, looking serious, “because they’re MI5 informants. Their details are kept in a separate file, authorised access only. It definitely wouldn’t be them.”

  I thought about the implications of what Smitherman had said for several seconds.

  “So we’re looking for new kids on the block,” I said resignedly.

  Smitherman looked out of the window. He had the hangdog expression of someone who’d just been told the last train home had left without him. “So it would appear. MI5 and the Branch have brought in several people but we’ve uncovered nothing. Informers have been pumped for information but nobody knows anything. There’s nobody new on the scene, or at least nobody we know about. Even in Belfast, anyone suspected of being in the Real or the Continuity IRA has been accounted for. If you’re right, it could be we’re stuck unless and until these people make a mistake.”

  “But they’ve had access to Semtex
. That’s not sold over the counter, so someone must be supplying them.”

  “Very true,” Smitherman agreed. “On the other hand, if it’s a sleeper unit, the Semtex might already have been in their possession. They could have had it for years. We’ve just got to hope these people slip up somewhere.”

  *

  A message left on my desk said I’d missed a call from someone at the London Evening Standard, and I felt my heart race. Only one person there knew my number. There’d also been a text message left on my iPhone: Got something for ya, McGraw, alongside a smiling emoji. I returned her call.

  “Hi,” she said, sounding pleased to hear from me. “Sorry about last night, but I did tell you my older sister’s a basket case, didn’t I? Anyway, she’s decided to go back home and see what they can work out. She left this morning to meet her husband for breakfast, and I’m hoping it goes well for her. So, anyway, I’ve looked in our files and found a few articles about the accident you mentioned. Looks like one hell of a crash from the wreckage, I’m not surprised no one survived. I’m uploading it into a file as I speak and I’m about to email it over to you.”

  “Thanks, that’s a big help.”

  “So, I’ll see you tonight?” Her voice was soft and enquiring.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said eagerly.

  “Great. Really looking forward to seeing you. I love you, McGraw.” She rang off.

  A warm glow came over me and I felt exactly as I’d done the night before my first ever date as a teenager. I was almost giddy with excitement at the thought of seeing her later.

  The email arrived a few moments later and I opened it. Attached was a lengthy Evening Standard article taking up two whole pages, headed London family dies in Dorset conflagration. The accompanying picture of the shells of two cars and a caravan, happily not in colour, both burnt out and with debris scattered across a wide area, showed no signs of burnt bodies. The report was largely a factual account of the crash, with police speculating on how the two vehicles had collided headlong with each other, which, given the presence of butane gas in the caravan, had caused an explosion which had been heard almost two miles away. How the crash had occurred had not been definitively explained, though the speculation was that one car had swerved into the path of the other; it was possible that the driver of the Citroën had been drinking and had somehow lost control of the vehicle, though the bodies were too badly burnt for this to be ascertained. The views of Dorset police DI Peter Marbutt were included and they largely accorded with what he’d told me last Saturday.