by John Steele
Tommy roared, ‘I swear, I’ll fucking shoot you now if you don’t leave it!’
‘As opposed to shoot me later?’
For the first time, the quiet man turned in his seat to face Jackie. The harsh lighting of the carriageway sent bright muzzle flashes across his eyeballs in the dark. Tommy probably had a gun somewhere on him. The man was calculating now, most likely weighing up the damage if he did put a bullet in Jackie’s head there and then. For his part, Jackie was calculating his chances of walking away if he flung himself from the Range Rover at forty miles per hour on a tarmac surface. Danny was checking activity in the back seat in the mirror and stealing glances at Tommy next to him. They were approaching Holywood and there was a collection of rooftops and spires to the right. A set of traffic lights were looming up ahead, a stone railway bridge just beyond on the left. Tommy shifted in his seat.
Danny said, ‘All right, it’s a fair question. If I thought they were opposed to the organisation, and a danger to the organisation, then maybe I could do it.’
‘Do what?’
‘Jackie, come on.’
‘Do what, Danny?’
‘Fucking shoot him. Now turn here,’ said Tommy.
They turned left, under the stone bridge and onto a narrow road, which curved to hug the shoreline of the lough. Tommy gave brief orders as they passed a bar, a post office and a couple of old terraced houses and drew up in front of a small factory. A sign above the door identified it as Down Shire Litho Ltd, a printing company.
They got out of the car and Tommy walked to the front door, sorting through keys on a chain. Danny brought up the rear. There was a short, narrow corridor on the other side of the door; no more than two of them could stand side-by-side. No one bothered to lock the front door as Danny closed it behind them. They walked down the corridor towards a closed door, the upper half a large pane of frosted glass with a harsh light burning through it. Jackie took in two rooms of office space on the right and two small storage rooms on the left. All were deserted, although a couple of chairs and a metal rubbish bin were left in one of the offices. The little they could see of the interiors was thanks to the lighting from the glass window of the door at the end of the corridor.
Tommy stopped and gave Danny a brief look. Jackie was sandwiched between the two men but he fancied his chances against Moore if pushed. However, if Tommy were armed he wouldn’t make it to the front entrance.
Tommy opened the door to reveal the shell of what had once been a printing works. Strip-lighting gave the room a cold appearance: more empty shelving, chipped and pitted long wooden tables, hardened ink spills on the floor. And standing next to a couple of heavy metal rollers, giving them an aimless kick while dragging on a cigarette, stood Sam ‘Ruger’ Rainey.
Jackie let a little of the tension seep from his body. The quartermaster was here. They were to be armed, probably with guns out back or in a van parked outside. Rab and Billy must be on their way. Now he just had to find a way to delay or abort the attempt on Cochrane.
Then Tommy drew a handgun from his waistband and shot Rainey through the shoulder.
The big man made a strange gulping sound and burning embers from his cigarette bounced off his tracksuit top as he staggered with the punch of the bullet. Jackie was shoved hard in the back and stumbled forward. Tommy cursed as Rainey refused to go down, and shot him in the stomach. Ruger grunted and collapsed in on himself, ending up in a curled heap on the floor. Jackie turned to find Danny Moore pointing a revolver at him. Rainey’s cigarette lay smouldering next to a crusty tin of ink. The report of the handgun reverberated around the empty space.
‘You, on your knees.’
Jackie was looking at Danny and felt a moment of confusion as the man’s mouth remained still. Then he realised the order came from Tommy. He turned back to look at him.
‘On your knees. Now.’
Jackie slowly lowered himself. Rainey was rocking slightly as he lay on the floor but was silent. Shock was probably setting in, fast.
‘Tommy?’ said Jackie.
‘Grass,’ said Tommy. He gestured at Rainey with the gun, then spat a gob of phlegm on the big man.
‘And you, Danny?’ said Jackie. ‘How long have you been in on this?’
Danny remained silent.
‘Since yesterday,’ said Tommy.
‘How do you know Ruger’s a grass?’ said Jackie. ‘He’s one of Billy’s closest friends.’
Tommy said, ‘Mount Vernon. This fat fucker’s up there all the time, shagging that wee whore of his. Billy’s thought there’s a grass in Ravenhill for a while. That’s why I was brought in: internal security, better if I’m not local. Gives me a clear perspective.’
He leaned against one of the pillars, folding his arms loosely with the gun dangling from his right hand.
‘When the Cochrane hit was called off it confirmed the Brits or the peelers must have a source. Billy cooked up another, bogus hit and fed it to Rainey. Lo and behold, the security forces set up shop in the Fenian bastard’s street. That’s when we knew it was him.’
He nodded at the body on the floor. Jackie could hear a low, wheezing moan.
‘So we watched his wee girl’s house. Followed him from it a couple of times. He drove out to Nutt’s Corner in Antrim, always late at night. Jumped in and out of different cars, met different men, always in pairs. One night, we recognised an RUC detective from CID. It just confirmed what we already knew. Two nights ago we called in on his girl, had a chat with her.’ A leer sloped across Tommy’s face. ‘She’s still alive because she didn’t know what he was up to.’
‘How do you know? Maybe she played youse.’
‘After the treatment she got, we’d know if she was talking shite. So here we are.’
‘And why am I here? Am I a grass as well?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Tommy, ‘are you?’
‘Catch a fucking grip. Sure I didn’t know about the second Cochrane hit until it was already aborted. Danny knew more about it than me.’
Tommy shook his head.
‘No, he didn’t. We never told him. Like I said, Billy just made it up to check on Rainey. But you will keep using words like “aborted”. And you will keep asking questions like in the car. You sound an awful lot like a fucking peeler.’
‘If I was, would I have broken Peter Rafferty’s kneecaps? Would I have gone on donation runs on the Cregagh and Woodstock?’
‘Well, there’s the problem. You stopped Rab doing his job on that fucker owned the shop on the Cregagh. And Rab does love his job.’
Jackie knew he wasn’t getting out of the room alive unless he could take control of the situation. Rainey was as good as dead; there was nothing he could do for him. Moore was a new recruit; this level of violence would be frightening to him. Danny was like most of the UDA, striving to be the big man and playing at soldiers, but essentially a coward relying on the protection of the pack. Tommy was the threat.
He tried another gambit. ‘Where’s Rab?’
‘On the road back to Belfast by now. He brought this grass bastard out here, told him there was a meeting. When he heard me at the front door he’ll have told Rainey he was popping out the back for a piss, then got in another car and driven off. Essentially, he was never here.’
‘Does Billy know about this?’
‘About him,’ Tommy said, kicking Rainey, ‘yes. About you, not yet. But Rab can spin it. You were involved with Rainey. You turned up hoping to save your mate, you had to be dealt with. Billy’s known Rab a long time, he’ll believe him. And Rab’s a lot more valuable to us than you ever will be.’
Jackie said over his shoulder, ‘And what makes you think you won’t end up like me, Danny? They’ve nothing on me, no proof I’m a grass or a threat. But Rab doesn’t like me, so I have to go. No rhyme or reason to it.’
Silence from behind. Tommy was watching Danny dispassionately.
Jackie said, ‘Do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing and you’ll be in my shoes
with a gun pointed at your head. Am I a taig? Am I in the Provos? Or the INLA?’
Silence. Rainey rolled over on the floor.
‘I know you’re scared now, Danny. You’re holding a gun but you’ve probably never been trained how to use it. You’re pointing it at a man; you don’t really know why. You’re scared of Tommy and scared of Rab. And you should be–’
‘That’s enough,’ said Tommy.
‘–because this will be you some day–’
Tommy unfolded his arms and raised the gun, levelling it at Jackie.
‘–and you’ll be on your knees–’
‘Just like Tommy,’ croaked Rainey.
The room froze, a sealed-off capsule, the world outside non-existent for all of them. Then a scorched, gurgling laugh bubbled up from Rainey, a hideous sound.
‘Tommy’s on his knees,’ a gasp, ‘a lot of the time when Rab’s about. Just in front of his crotch.’
Tommy turned to look at the dying man.
‘How’s the carpet burn, Tommy?’ said Rainey. He was struggling to form the words.
Tommy took a position standing over Rainey, straddling him. Jackie could see Ruger’s face now. It was contorted in a smile of pure agony.
Rainey said, ‘You fucking homo cun–’
Tommy shot him in the face. He held the gun with both hands. His eyes were wild.
Jackie heard a whispered, ‘Shit!’ from behind.
Tommy squeezed the trigger again and another round took another part of Rainey’s face away. The body jolted as though shocked with an electric charge. There was another bark from the handgun and this time the body hardly responded. Rainey was nothing more than meat now, the empty factory a slaughterhouse. Jackie was transfixed.
Tommy let out a yell and unloaded the magazine into Rainey’s ruined face. The bullets tore through flesh, tendon and finally bone. The muzzle flared, illuminating Tommy’s face distorted in a scream. The noise was deafening. Bullets were passing straight through Rainey’s head and ricocheting off the stone floor beneath. There was a flash as one took out the strip-lighting above.
Then Tommy’s head snapped back. His arms moved upwards, sending the last couple of shots into the wall on the left. His head lolled forward, his knees gave and he collapsed on the ground in a heap next to Rainey.
Danny Moore ran for the door. Scrambling over to the two bodies in the centre of the floor, Jackie winced and looked away from what was left of Rainey’s face. A small hole was drilled in Tommy’s forehead, barely graced by blood. Both men were dead.
There was a bang as Moore flung open the front door, then three sharp cracks followed by the heavy thump of dead weight hitting the floor.
Jackie walked to the corridor and saw the body of Moore lying half in, half out of the building entrance. He raised his hands and walked slowly towards the threshold, glimpsing shadows flitting in front of powerful headlights. There were other lights too, blue lamps, and he saw the snout of a Land Rover on the left of the open doorway. There were shouts coming from outside, angry commands. A hail of hoarse orders and rebukes. He edged to the doorway, standing over Moore’s corpse.
‘Police,’ said Jackie. ‘Police. I’m a policeman!’
CHAPTER 28
Saturday
He listens to the low scream and checks the magazine on the Ruger semi again. The noise from an Airbus shifts to a low roar as it skims, then touches down on the runway at Belfast City airport.
Jackie stands next to the River Conn in a steady drizzle on the southern perimeter of Victoria Park. He can see the island in the centre of the narrow stretch of water circling the park, lit by the lights of the airport on its western and northern periphery. The island is connected to land by a single footbridge. He turns to take in Samson and Goliath to his back, the giant gantry cranes towering over a swathe of powerful arc lights in the shipyard.
His target should be there any time now.
He turns to his companion. The figure stands in silence, staring at the cars flitting along the bypass, which hugs the eastern limits of the park. The Belfast to Bangor train line runs parallel to the road. Crowding beyond that are the regimented terraced streets of the loyalist stronghold of Sydenham. The four-lane road and slim rail link hold the snaking streets back like a defending wall.
Jackie had recovered the gun from his father’s house, ducking into the alleyway that ran behind it and vaulting the back wall. It was a simple job to pick the lock and grab the Ruger and ammunition from its hiding place. He had exited the way he’d entered. Now Rebecca Orr’s car was parked where he’d left it, at nearby Sydenham train station. It was there he’d met the silent figure standing next to him.
His companion turns at the sound of a vehicle entering the parking area at the entrance to Victoria Park through a small tunnel under the bypass. The island in the middle of the park is swept by headlights, like searchlights hunting a fugitive. There is only one car, as Jackie had stipulated on the phone. A pause is punctuated by the rising and falling clatter of a train passing on its way to Bangor. He checks his watch: 11.25 p.m.
He shoves the semi-automatic into the waist of his jeans to the right of his stomach as the headlights die and a lone figure emerges from the driver’s-side door. No doubt there are more men in the car, although he’d given clear instructions that Billy Tyrie should come alone. The figure looks around. Satisfied he has arrived first, he looks back at the car, which coughs to life again and turns out of the car-park. It enters the tunnel as a large Airbus takes off, roaring overhead, undercarriage not yet withdrawn into its belly. The heavy whine of the jets swallows the sound of the car, just as the darkness of the tunnel swallows its headlights.
Jackie turns to his companion and says, ‘Time to go.’ The figure moves off at a crouch, mumbling into a mobile phone. The drizzle is subsiding some but the ambient noise from the airport, road and shipyard persists, the sounds of a city on the move, and will continue for a while yet before retiring for the night. Tomorrow will be quieter, the shipyard silent, Belfast nursing a Sunday-morning hangover as it traipses to the newsagent for the papers.
The figure is now standing stock still on the island looking around. His face is in shadow but his bulk and the arrogance in his stance belong to Billy Tyrie. His hands are deep in the pockets of his heavy wool coat. After a minute, he produces a packet of cigarettes from the right pocket. The flare from his lighter makes a 1930s horror film poster of his face in the dark. He succumbs to nerves and looks back at the dark mouth of the tunnel, across the footbridge, some 400 yards away.
‘Hands in front of you. Turn around.’
Tyrie turns slowly, the tip of his cigarette like a warning light in the dark. Jackie can’t believe it was only three days ago he strode on the beach at Cloughy, Eileen’s lover neatly sliced and wrapped in bags. It seems a lifetime ago.
‘Jackie, you’re looking well.’
In truth, Jackie looks wretched. His jeans are soaked from wading through the moat to get to the island. His eyes are tired and raw and his face is battered and bruised from the fight at Rab’s house. But he feels calm and centred and has the Ruger in his hand. For now, he’s accepted that he has taken life and, while he’ll have to deal with it for the rest of his days, he knows he’s lucky to be breathing. At least for the moment.
‘Where’s your Claddagh?’ says Billy.
‘Turn the pockets of your jacket inside out.’
Tyrie does so. They are empty save for a packet of cigarettes and a cheap disposable lighter. Jackie waits as a large Boeing taxis somewhere behind him, its shriek passing slowly.
Then he says, ‘Are you armed?’
‘Should I be?’
‘Hold your coat open and turn around.’
Tyrie complies, spending longer than necessary checking out the parking area and tunnel. He has a snub-nosed revolver tucked into the waistband at the back of his jeans. Jackie leans over and wrenches it out, then tosses it into the moat surrounding them.
Billy says, ‘
Rab Simpson’s dead. The PSNI found him at his house at Ardenlee with the body of another man. There are already rumours of them killing each other in a drug deal gone wrong.’
Jackie doesn’t move an inch or make a sound. He knows the lights of the airport and shipyard behind make him little more than a silhouette. Billy is growing nervous and talking to cover his discomfort.
‘Terrible sad to see such a loyal volunteer come to such a violent end. But then, drug dealing? Rumours of collusion with republican sources in the drug business? What can you expect?’
Jackie reaches his right hand around his back, to the waistband of his jeans.
‘I have to thank you, Jackie. A job well done. I warned you not to cross me and – fair play – you didn’t. You’re a good man.’
‘There’s good news and bad news.’
‘What?’
‘Which do you want first?’
‘All right,’ says Tyrie, cockiness returning, ‘I’ve had a jar before coming here. I’m buzzing a bit. Give me the good news.’
‘Your old mate, James Cochrane, is being lifted by the PSNI as we speak.’
Billy’s eyebrows peak in curiosity. ‘Do tell.’
‘The man who was found with Rab in Ardenlee Avenue had both Rab and James Cochrane’s numbers on his mobile phone. A known republican and member of RAAD, Danny McCardle.’
Jackie checks for a glint of recognition on Tyrie’s face in the glow from the airport.
Nothing.
‘Seems it also had the name of a young man from the Markets on it too, a Gerry Simmons. This boy Simmons was shot dead last year, a good friend of a known dealer and associate of Rab, Adrian Morgan. The cops suspected it was drug related. McCardle mustn’t have bothered organising his numbers very often. Maybe he was using his own supply and got careless.’
‘Is it enough to have Cochrane put away?’ Tyrie can’t hide the eagerness in his voice. It smacks of desperation.
‘Could be. Ballynafeigh Police Station received a tip-off this evening that a house in the Holylands had evidence related to the murders at Ardenlee. The drug dealer, Adrian Morgan, was arrested at the house. He’ll be more than happy to help police with their enquiries. If they don’t do Cochrane for murder, they can certainly link him to Simpson. God knows what the cops have turned up already in Rab’s house and they’ll probably find more in Cochrane’s.’