by John Steele
Jackie Shaw grips the arms of the aisle seat on the Airbus A319 as it banks over the thrashing grey reach of the Irish Sea and prays again that he won’t die today. He’s lost count of how many times he’s implored the good Lord to spare him, despite how much he dreads the next five days. But surely one funeral is enough for the week, not that his sister Sarah would shed a tear for him anyway. He glances out of the window to his left, barely tilting his head as if the slightest movement might send the aircraft spiralling into the hungry expanse below.
The woman next to him, an attractive blonde he’d place in her mid-thirties, gives him a pitying smile. It doesn’t afford him much comfort but the attention from an attractive woman is welcome.
He is an open-featured man, with solid country cheekbones and hair that is still mostly black with a light dusting of white. His frame is robust and his stomach flat. A farmer’s build, his da used to say. He wears a simple T-shirt with jeans and boots.
Now the plane is making its way up the great funnel of Belfast Lough towards the industrial gateway of the Harland & Wolff shipyard and, beyond, the city. It’s like a wind tunnel, this gully of mountains on the County Down and Antrim coasts. Another jolt of turbulence rocks the A319 as if the Almighty Himself were trying to shake the passengers from the fuselage like the last drops from a bottle. Jackie’s T-shirt is soaking on his back. He closes his eyes.
‘I like your ring. It’s very pretty,’ says the blonde woman. He opens his eyes to find her smile has a hint of intensity. She is English, possibly from the Midlands.
‘It’s a Claddagh.’ He looks down and is surprised to find he’s been rubbing the ring, nestled on the third finger of his right hand, with his thumb. The woman’s gaze drifts to his left hand, free of jewellery.
‘It’s Irish.’ He thinks he’s made it sound like a rebuke and is sorry. Almost in way of apology he adds, ‘I’m from Belfast.’
Undaunted, the woman gives him a sideways grin. ‘You could never tell. So, does it have a special meaning? It looks a little heavy on the symbolism.’
‘The hands stand for friendship, the crown for loyalty and the heart represents love.’ He thinks he sounds like a museum guide and, in an attempt to close the conversation down, he adds, ‘It was a gift,’ with some meaning.
Her smile takes on a spiky aspect and her voice lowers. ‘As I said, it’s very pretty.’
He follows her gaze to the knotted, discoloured blur on his right forearm. The scar, angry and callused, was a favourite topic of speculation with those who worked with him. For those who were old enough to remember his hometown from the seventies to nineties, it was cause for caution too. Jackie tilts his head back and grips the armrest again. The woman turns to look out the window.
He screws his eyes shut. Grits his teeth. Breathes deliberately. The aircraft continues to shudder as it is battered by the air coming up and across the lough. He can hear every pitch and moan in the engines. This fear, this engulfing phobia of flying, came to him in his twenties. When he was younger still, he relished travel. It was something glamorous and placed him at the centre of things: those who knew him would be thinking of him abroad, would be speculating on what he was doing.
To his mother at church, ‘Have you heard from your Jackie?’
To his father at the football or in the pub, ‘How’s your Jackie getting on?’
He’d felt proud that his parents could share in that attention. Even Sarah had a begrudging admiration for him back then. Now he fears dying with unfinished business on his ledger. His mother has been dead these many years, and his father joined her just three days ago. His sister has no time for him.
But more than that, he knows he’s done wrong. Real wrong that can’t be amended. He doesn’t have nightmares, doesn’t drink to excess. He doesn’t feel guilt in his day-to-day. But when he flies, when his life is in the hands of a pilot he’ll never meet – in the hands of fate, or God, whatever floats your boat – he remembers he has blood on his hands. And he doesn’t want to die before some form of absolution.
The plane is descending now and he can see his fellow passengers looking excitedly left and right. Across the aisle a small girl with Chinese features yelps in short, high-pitched gulps. He can’t tell if she is laughing or crying until her companion, an older woman smiling and speaking what he recognises as Mandarin, leans forward into his line of sight. Even then he isn’t sure if the glitter in the older woman’s eyes is fun or malice. Cantonese, he can speak to a degree; Mandarin, no. To distract himself, he fiddles with the pre-paid mobile phone he’s picked up for the trip. He can’t stand the devices, but it’s a necessary evil for calling Sarah on the hoof while he’s over.
Then East Belfast comes into view.
He’s lived in some of the world’s great cities: London, New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong. In all of them he’s seen a scramble for space, buildings wedged in at awkward angles crowding against one another. But as they finally descend over the Holywood Road and Sydenham, he thinks Belfast has never been like that. Maybe the pounding she took in the Blitz and the more recent years of domestic bombing have aired her out. You can breathe in this city.
And despite all that had happened when he lived there before, despite his apprehension and the coming funeral, he is glad to be home.
He mourns Gordon for a moment.
He wonders if Billy and Rab are still there. He wonders if they are still alive.
He wonders if Eileen is still there. Still in Ravenhill.
#
Jackie exits the baggage claim area through the arrival doors and arrives in the main concourse. A sign reads: Welcome to George Best Belfast City Airport. Georgie didn’t have his name attached when Jackie was last here and, whatever he thinks of Mr Best, it’ll always be the plain old City Airport to him. It’s strange, hearing the accent everywhere after so many years. His stride slows as he soaks it all in.
Then he stops dead. Sees J. Shaw scribbled in a lazy hand on plain white cardboard. The man holding it is quite tall, over Jackie’s five-nine anyway. He is wearing a pair of brown corduroy trousers and a grey shirt with a darker shade of jacket. The jacket is buttoned and Jackie recognises the bulge of a weapon under his left arm, likely a shoulder-holster.
‘Mr Shaw, welcome back.’ The accent is clipped public school, delivered in a bizarre nasal burr.
It is late Wednesday afternoon. Jackie’s father will be buried on Friday morning and Jackie has a return flight on Sunday evening. He set down on his homeland soil less than twenty minutes ago, and a life he left behind twenty years ago has already caught up with him.
He sighs, says, ‘It feels like I’ve never been away.’
The man has large eyes, almost protuberant, in a soft fleshy face with the beginnings of flaccid jowls either side of a prominent chin. A wiry scrub of receding brown hair creeps forward across his scalp as the man’s face glides into a smile. The face reminds Jackie of the Toby jugs found in endless antique shops in the West Country of England.
The nasal burr: ‘Excellent, excellent. Well, let’s be on our way, shall we?’
With that, the man strides off to the car-hire desks. Jackie shrugs his coat on and swings his holdall over his shoulder with just a little more force than is necessary. The man stops in front of a kiosk and begins meticulously folding the cardboard sign, making crisp, sharp creases along the smooth, white surface while Jackie, blank-faced, strides up to the desk and takes care of the paperwork necessary in order to pick up the Toyota Corolla he booked online. They walk together to the car and, once inside, Jackie breaks the silence.
‘Judging by the accent you aren’t Special Branch, so my guess would be Security Service.’
‘Well done you.’
He thinks, So, you’re MI5. So, you’re a wanker.
Knew which flight he’d arrive on, knew which car-hire company he’d use. The spook probably knows more about the next couple of days’ arrangements than he does.
Jackie tries pressing a little more. ‘What’s your name? At
least, what’s your name today?’
‘Stuart William Hartley, but Stuart will do. And welcome home, Jackie. I hear it’s been a long time.’
A bloody long time, he thinks, over twenty years. And yet, as he stole nervous glances out of the window of the Airbus, he was amazed how little had changed. At least from above.
Jackie says, ‘What are you, my chaperone?’ He looks this man Hartley up and down with a wry smile. ‘Bodyguard?’
‘Oh heavens, no. Among other things, I’m your welcoming committee. Shall we make a start? It’s a good twenty minutes to the hotel and the traffic will be getting heavier.’
Jackie thinks, He wants me aware that he’s in control of this situation, that he knows all there is to know. Bastard. He checks his mirror, focuses on reversing out of the parking space, determined not to betray any emotion.
‘GCHQ have been busy,’ he says. ‘I didn’t think I’d have merited all this attention. Shouldn’t they be listening in on the Russian Embassy and monitoring the emails of Iranian diplomats?’ He puts the car in first and nods his head. ‘Oh yeah, they monitor everybody’s emails these days.’
Hartley is silent, staring out of the window with a look of disdain as they ease into the traffic on the Sydenham by-pass. The roads aren’t too congested yet, despite being close to four on a Friday afternoon. As they turn back towards the city on the A55, Hartley begins fiddling with a pen and readjusting his jacket at regular intervals. By the time they reach the Clarawood and Braniel estates, bullying up to the ring road on either side, Hartley is wiping his mouth with a tissue as if he’s just eaten something sour.
The scene is a riot of colour and symbol: Union Jacks, Ulster Flags, Saltires. They fly from lampposts or gable walls, at times conjoined to form emblematic Siamese triplets. Red, white and blue bunting is strung above the road, creating a web of colour, and the kerbstones have been painted in the same colours, even a postbox. The day is clear and there is a strong breeze. Every banner clinging to its flagpole is streaming in the chill air.
‘What’s going on?’ asks Jackie. ‘It’s October.’
‘Yes,’ says Hartley. ‘This kind of display isn’t confined to the summer marching season any more. It’s been a year-round practice for some time now.’
Practice? thinks Jackie. Dear God. Which Mayfair club did they dig this idiot up in?
Hartley says, ‘You haven’t kept up with events here while you’ve been off gallivanting, have you.’ His condescension is thickening the air in the car.
‘You should know. You’ve been keeping such a close eye on me.’ Christ, in this short space of time Jackie finds he hates this man.
‘Things have intensified since the vote to limit the number of days the Union Flag is flown from City Hall. The general consensus among the loyalist population is of an eroding of Protestant, unionist culture. I shouldn’t think it’s as serious as the bad old days though.’
‘You were here during the bad old days?’
‘Good God, no. I was off in various embassies occupying myself with our European allies.’
Daddy pulling strings, most likely at the insistence of mummy, to keep Stuart away from those savages across the water, thinks Jackie.
Hartley then says, ‘You shouldn’t have come back, Jackie, funeral or not. You were out, kept your nose clean and were away long enough for people to forget. You put this life behind you. If you are seen, there’s no guarantee that you’ll catch that return flight – or any flight ever again.’
‘It’s my father’s funeral. What would you do?’
‘My father lives in Cheltenham and spends his days having cream teas and driving in the Cotswolds. He’s been dead a long time.’
There is a period of silence as they turn onto the Castlereagh Road, heading out of the city and into the hills.
‘Are they all still here? In Belfast?’ Are any of them landfill out in the lough? he wonders.
He can always hope.
Hartley snorts. ‘They all still live on the same bloody road.’
Jackie thinks, Shit.
‘Billy Tyrie is in among the middle classes on Ravenhill Park. Probably because of the easy access to his lawyer, who lives a couple of doors down. It’s rumoured Billy has the biggest garden in the area because he needs the space to bury the bodies. We believe he has a hand in over 70 per cent of violent crime and 79 per cent of rackets in East Belfast. The only thing we haven’t connected him to is the drug trade – surprisingly, considering he’s the East Belfast Brigadier of the UDA. Imagine the godfather of East Belfast organised crime attending Neighbourhood Watch meetings …’
#
The Corolla eases into a parking space in front of the La Mon Hotel and Country Club. It’s about six miles and twenty minutes from Jackie’s father’s house, where he grew up. That’s a fair distance in Belfast, where you can take your life in your hands crossing from one street to another, and not because of the traffic. This is far enough away for anonymity, close enough to access the church and cemetery.
He sees a heavy-set man with a short, tidy haircut get out of a dark blue BMW about twenty yards away. The man leans against the side of the car and works hard at looking casual. Jackie would lay odds the car is armoured. By the size of him, the man could be too, and is more likely carrying similar firepower to Hartley. Hartley himself has visibly relaxed.
The La Mon is a pleasant, well-kept hotel on the outskirts of East Belfast. It sits in a pretty rural setting, nestled in the Castlereagh Hills, just as it did in 1978 when the Provisional IRA detonated a bomb that resulted in twelve deaths and more than thirty horrific injuries in the Peacock Room restaurant. The dead were effectively burned alive. The device had been constructed to ignite a cocktail of petrol and sugar, a huge tongue of flame some 40 feet high and 60 feet wide, which would stick to the skin of all those it touched. The twelve who died, swallowed by the napalm-like fireball, were Protestant. Jackie was young but remembers the fury in the community: the vitriol of men his father knew, the empty talk of revenge and violence when they’d had a few jars. One of the dead was an off-duty police officer. The others were civilians.
He rubs his face and rolls his head back, closing his eyes. Without opening them he says, ‘Do you know about the bombing here in the seventies?’
‘Of course. Quite the atrocity, I believe.’
‘Weren’t two of the bombing team rumoured to be working for MI5 as informants?’
‘Like I said, before my time.’
Jackie sighs and opens his eyes and the hotel is back in his view. Families mingle with businessmen wandering in and out of reception, and a shapely blonde is jogging past their car and heading towards the BMW. The man waiting there doesn’t give her a thought as she passes.
‘He’ll be one of yours then,’ says Jackie.
‘Well, he certainly isn’t one of those thugs you ran with. What I said stands: you shouldn’t have come back. Nevertheless, we think Tyrie isn’t aware you’re here, although I would imagine the thought has entered his mind in the circumstances. He now lives about a mile further up the road from your father’s house. Simpson is halfway between. Fingers crossed they won’t bump into you.’
Jackie opens his door and clambers out of the car with a little less vigour and grace than he’d like, particularly in front of Hartley. The Security Services man eases himself up and out of the Corolla, unfolding his long limbs with a gentle grunt. Jackie nods to the BMW and the man standing next to it.
‘You can tell your man he’s a bit obvious. I made him in two seconds. You can imagine how much he’ll stick out to the dissidents.’
‘That’s rather the point,’ says Hartley. ‘Prevents me from being the target.’ His thin mouth slithering into a grin, he sets off towards the BMW and his colleague.
Jesus, Jackie thinks. I got out of this life all those years ago and in twenty minutes I’m already bone tired of it all over again.
He runs his hands over his crew-cut, stretches to straighten out a few k
inks, and slings the bag over his shoulder. As he sets off for the front door of the hotel he hears that public-school nasal whine again.
‘Oh, and Jackie – Eileen’s got kids now. She moved on and so should you. Forget her, go to the funeral, keep your head down and piss off out of here. There’s a good boy.’
CHAPTER 3
1993
The sound of the automatic being cocked in the passenger seat was like nails on a chalkboard to Jackie as he cruised the Ford between the Ravenhill and Woodstock Roads. The sodium lighting and drizzle dappling the pavements gave the streets the appearance of shiny orange peel, but the area between the pockets of lampposts remained cloaked in dim shadow.
Belfast was a dark city at night. At another time that would have been an advantage, for himself and Marty sitting next to him, but not at that moment.
At that moment he was craning over the steering wheel as he drove down a deserted Cherryville street looking for Shanty McKee and his fucking Jack Russell terrier. He was gripping the wheel tight, controlling the urge to punch Marty because he wouldn’t stop playing with the gun. He was looking for McKee because said gun was supposed to deposit at least one 9mm round in each of his knees.
Jackie glanced in the rearview mirror and spoke as softly and calmly as he could manage to the boy sitting there.
‘Harold.’
Not softly enough. Harold still jumped at the mention of his name. Poor bastard, thought Jackie. I’d jump too if I was shopping my best mate to avoid a kneecapping for myself. Harold lived in the Chesham area, an enclave of semi-detached houses a mile away, and had got into a bit of light house-breaking with his mate Shanty. Shanty had been dating a wee girl from the Woodstock Road, who’d broken up with him after he kept pushing her to forego a condom when they drove up to Helen’s Bay of an evening for a little back-seat wrestling in his car. It seemed Shanty took rejection hard, because he encouraged Harold to keep watch while he broke into the girl’s house one evening and deposited the previous day’s dinner, digested and all, on the wee girl’s bed. When the girl’s uncle, who was a member of the local UDA, heard about the fruits of Shanty’s labours, he put the feelers out and poor Harold was grassed up as Shanty’s lookout. Shanty went to ground but Harold fessed up to Shanty’s one weakness: his Jack Russell, Ally, who had been staying with Shanty’s sister since the incident. Shanty still walked the terrier faithfully at the same time every night in order to keep Ally regular. Dogs should reflect their owners, thought Jackie.