Woman of State

by Simon Berthon

  ‘OK, let me think about it.’

  ‘You can’t pull out now, David. It’s your duty to your country. And to your fellow citizens. Peace or terror. Your choice.’

  ‘Christ, Jimmy, you make it hard, don’t you?’ They drove in silence through the detritus-strewn suburbs of north Dublin. After a full five minutes, Wallis uttered a single, familiar word. ‘OK.’

  Brooks understood that Operation Hawk was compromised; but not, in his view, fatally. A source told him that the news of a second disappearance, combined with the telltale evidence of blood in the abandoned car, had produced a justified paranoia in Martin McCartney and Joseph Kennedy. They were travelling everywhere together, linked by an umbilical cord, attended by escorts almost every waking hour. Their capture would now have to be both opportunistic and risky.

  Brooks heard that the two men and their hangers-on were intending to celebrate a birthday at a pub called the Black Brimmer. It lay just on the Irish Republic’s side of the border. He told Wallis that McCartney, as the leader of the faction, was now the priority target but repeated his promise that he would restrict his involvement in the McCartney disappearance to the capture only. It would require surprise and split-second timing.

  As before, Brooks chose the anonymous peace of the riverside to take a Sunday afternoon stroll with Wallis. He was concerned by Wallis’s appearance. In the intervening weeks after the O’Donnell disappearance, he seemed to have aged and grown unkempt, the sign of a man not properly looking after himself. Not taking pride. Perhaps in emotional difficulty. Brooks waited till they had agreed the operational detail – where Wallis seemed as perceptive and meticulous as always – before gently tackling him.

  ‘David,’ he said in his most affectionate tone, ‘you look exhausted.’

  Wallis tried to raise a grin. ‘Working too hard, I expect.’

  ‘My dear chap, you don’t need to do that. Don’t worry, you’ll fly through your master’s. I’ll see to that.’

  ‘I’m sure you will, Jimmy.’ Brooks welcomed the sardonic note, more like the Wallis he knew. ‘Actually, I reckon I could make a good lawyer.’

  ‘Waste of your talents. But, of course, if you want a quieter life—’

  ‘Who knows what one wants?’ Wallis interrupted. Momentarily, his face carried the gloom of the condemned man. Then, suddenly, it brightened, with the magnetism that could cast a heroic sheen on him. ‘For fuck’s sake, Jimmy, let’s cut the agony-uncle crap and get this thing done.’

  Wallis slapped him on the shoulder and marched off. It was the last time the two men breathed on each other.

  Brooks read, as he had so often before, the recording that followed that final meeting.

  17 April 1994

  Saw Jimmy. We struck a deal. I will see this through and help in the concluding operation. But it’s on condition that the brother is not to be harmed. They can remove him from the scene. He can disappear for a few months. And, when they’ve got what they wanted, they allow him to reappear. Jimmy agreed he’ll have no power left with the other three gone. He’ll be unable to cause trouble. I told Jimmy I won’t allow him to rest if this agreement is not kept.

  Brooks closed the file, carried it upstairs to his safe, and locked it away. He took off his reading glasses, rubbed his eyes, and crept down the passage to the bedroom. He shuffled in, the usual floorboard emitting its signature creak, lowered himself onto the bed and removed his slippers. He laid his head on the pair of pillows and awaited sleep. Beside him, Dorothy stirred.

  ‘You really loved him, didn’t you?’ she said.

  ‘He was a beautiful young man,’ replied Brooks.

  ‘Well, we may have had our loves, Jimmy, but we’ve cared for each other.’ He stayed silent. ‘Haven’t we?’

  ‘Yes, dear.’ He returned her pat on the arm. ‘We survived.’

  That night, Anne-Marie read the same diary entry – the last in the extracts she had been given: ‘. . . the brother,’ David had recorded, ‘is not to be harmed.’ Yet Martin had disappeared, never to reappear. They had killed him – a sacrificial victim for a so-called peace. It meant they had also betrayed David. She fought to repress a welling of atavistic fury at the treachery of the British state, even to one of its own.

  CHAPTER 28

  Post-election, Saturday, 20 May

  The information he had just received from Amy left Carne no choice. The prospect appalled him. He knew it would be decisive for his relationship with Anne-Marie – perhaps even, he sometimes dared to hope, for his future life, too. He texted her that he had some news; she replied that she normally kept Saturday nights sacrosanct but he could come to her flat from 9 p.m.

  She greeted him with obvious pleasure, which only increased his fears. She saw through him instantly.

  ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘Chasing them, more like,’ he replied. The smile he attempted faded to a pale dullness.

  ‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it?’ It was an assertion, not a question. ‘Something that’s not good.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘That’s why I need to see you.’

  He followed her into the sitting room and she waved him towards the sofa.

  ‘Drink?’

  ‘Better not.’

  He pulled the ring box from his pocket, opened it and handed it to her. She held it for a while, then placed it on the glass table. The way she peered down at it left no doubt. She went to the bathroom; he could hear a tap running and imagined her rubbing her face and wiping her eyes. He felt like a criminal intruder on private grief.

  After a few minutes, she returned, forcing a smile.

  ‘I shouldn’t have taken it to show you,’ he said. ‘I’m breaking every evidence rule in the book.’

  ‘We made an agreement,’ she said. ‘Wherever it leads.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten.’ He paused. ‘I’m hating this.’

  ‘It’s OK. Go on.’

  The ring has your prints on it.’

  ‘Yes, it would.’

  ‘And there’s a lock of hair in the box. With your DNA.’

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘That’s why your girl took those swabs.’

  ‘Yes.’ He searched for an excuse. ‘We’d have had to do it sometime. No one was closer to him than you.’

  ‘It only means I gave him a ring. He gave me jewellery, too. I showed you.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. Her reply told him she was holding back. Whatever the consequences, he had to find out if she had been there at the final moment. He played his card. ‘The angle of the ring in the remnants of clothing as it lay beside the skeleton suggests that it was placed there after he’d been taken to the field. Otherwise it wouldn’t have lain so flat.’

  ‘What do you want from me?’ She had bought his bluff. He had never felt so cheap.

  ‘I want you to go on trusting me. And I want to know what happened. What really happened. I can’t force you. But I don’t believe we can have freedom with each other unless we share everything.’

  She walked over to the screen of glass and stared out. It seemed the longest wait of his life. Finally she turned, walked into her bedroom and reappeared with an overcoat.

  ‘Let’s go for a walk in the park.’

  Monday, 25 April 1994, the small hours

  She dreams the front doorbell is ringing. Or thinks she does. As sleep is dragged from her, she realizes the ringing is repeated and urgent. She checks her bedside clock – just past 1.30 a.m. There’s a tap on her bedroom door.

  ‘There’s someone wanting you, Maire.’ It’s Mrs Ryan’s voice. She forces herself out of bed and opens the door. Mrs Ryan stands there in a dressing gown, hair netted, expression grim. ‘You better get dressed and go with him.’ Her tone allows no dissent.

  ‘What’s it about, Mrs Ryan?’ she asks, her stomach churning.

  ‘You better come down, love, and speak to him yourself.’ She sees the sympathy in Mrs Ryan’s eyes of someone who has watched others
marched to their doom.

  At the front door is a man in a woolly hat and denim jacket.

  ‘Who are you? It’s the middle of the night.’ Her hushed voice seethes at the intrusion.

  ‘I’ve been sent to bring you,’ he says. ‘They’re holding your friend David. He’s asking for you.’

  ‘Whaddya mean, holding David?’

  ‘They got him, you need to come,’ he insists.

  ‘It can’t be him, it’s a mistake. He’s gone home.’

  ‘It’s not a mistake,’ he states flatly.

  ‘Oh, God.’ She knows it’s for real – some sort of reality that will fracture her. ‘Who sent you?’ she whispers.

  ‘Joseph. Joseph sent me.’ She drops her head and closes her eyes. ‘And Martin’s been took,’ he continues. All she wants is to go back to bed, for it to be a bad dream.

  ‘Took by who?’ she asks.

  ‘Brits, of course. Who fucking else?’ His question doesn’t require an answer. ‘You gotta come.’

  She reopens her eyes – he stands watching her, motionless, waiting. She has to go. Whatever David’s captors want out of her, she must try to help him.

  ‘OK, gimme a minute to grab some clothes.’ She returns to her bedroom. It’s 1.38 a.m. She assembles a small pile on the bed. From the basin she grabs hairbrush, toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant. She removes the holiday snap of the McCartneys and Kennedys from the chest of drawers and adds it. Anything to remind them that the man they’re holding is with Martin McCartney’s sister and they should spare him.

  She knows enough about these people to calculate the ghastly process that might linger on. She cannot remember her dates and adds a couple of tampons. She rummages through the chest of drawers and finds the earrings and bracelet he left her. She will wear them – it might help. What else has David given her? There’s the birthday card with the sweetness of his message. She retrieves it from under the bedside table.

  She hears a brisk hoot from the car below, draws back the curtain and mouths, ‘I’m coming.’ She steps into her black-leather skirt – she doesn’t want to wear jeans – pulls her red sweater over her long hair, slides on ankle boots, grabs her coat, descends the stairs and clicks the front door quietly behind her.

  The driver hovers on the pavement. Close up she still does not recognize him, and he does not introduce himself. He beckons her to follow him to a dirty brown Datsun parked across the road. He points to the back door and she opens it to let herself in. He jumps into the driver’s seat, turns the rear-view mirror to check her, readjusts it and accelerates through the darkened city. It’s nearly 2 a.m. and the street lights are off. There’s only the hum of the engine, the driver’s curses at red lights and occasional oncoming night buses. Soon the brick-sided streets of urban life give way to open road, monotonous white lines in the middle illuminated every now and then by beams from small-hour headlights.

  With the palms of his hands guiding the steering wheel, the driver rolls a cigarette with his fingers. She cannot help a twinge of admiration for his dexterity. He lights it and inhales with a long sigh of relief. The sweet smell wafts into the back and a wave of nausea rises within her. She keeps silent, knowing that any protest will only draw his contempt. She tries to distract herself by watching road signs, calculating distances, how far they’ve gone, how far they might have to go, what their average speed is, when the next bend in the straight road heading north will come.

  ‘Where are we heading?’ she asks.

  ‘You’ll know when we get there.’ She could have written the answer before she asked the question. Mind games will not dismiss the swirling thoughts. Perhaps it might not turn out so badly after all; perhaps she can talk them out of it, make them see there’s no point, that David is harmless. If he’s done something stupid, let him melt away if he promises never to come back. Then she remembers the words ‘Martin’s been took’ and knows it can only turn out badly. It dawns on her. Is she to be punished too? Otherwise, why exactly do they need her?

  ‘Did I have a choice?’ she asks him.

  ‘No.’ She cranes her head to catch his eyes in the mirror. They remain blank, an unreadable threat.

  They pass a sign to Dundalk. She remembers the last journey in the coach up this road and back, David pissing in the coach park. What was he doing back in these parts?

  ‘You can at least tell me which side of the border,’ she says.

  This time he answers. ‘They took him into the North.’ He pauses. ‘Safer on home territory.’ His voice is bleak.

  They turn west onto a B road, white lines still giving her something to stare at, and then onto lanes, only faint shadows of hedgerows brushing past. Despite the twisting narrowness, he maintains his speed and she rocks from side to side, grabbing armrests to steady herself, a helpless petal in the storm.

  ‘You’re driving too fast,’ she says.

  ‘We’ll get there quicker, won’t we?’ He draws on the cigarette, the paper crackling and retreating to the edges of his thumb and forefinger. He opens the window to hurl it out – she feels the wind hit her like the slap of a man’s hand.

  They turn onto a lane, which begins to climb. Steep dips and rises alternate with sharp curves as they corkscrew up a hillside. They gain height, occasional twinkles of light appear below. Finally, they turn into a track, juddering across potholes and rough stones, every limb shaking and cold. Ahead she sees a weak light from a farmhouse. They pass it, take a turning and jerk to a halt by a barn. He throws open his door and opens hers.

  ‘Follow me.’

  She gathers the small bag with her hurriedly assembled belongings and follows him inside. She sees men ahead sitting on bare wooden chairs. Two lamps hang from steel beams supporting a sloped corrugated-iron roof. A desolate, low-lit torture chamber, windowless and airless. She sniffs a background smell of cow dung, or is it silage? She’s disoriented by the lights and bareness, unable to trust her senses.

  One man rises from his chair and comes over to her. Joseph.

  ‘Thanks for coming, Maire,’ he begins.

  ‘I was told I had no choice.’ Her reply has no fight.

  She follows him towards the chairs. Two men sit on them – as with the driver, she does not recognize them – rise and nod to her. One is slim and tall, wearing a dark beard and spectacles; the other squat with curly brown hair. They could be lecturers she can imagine shuffling around the corridors of Trinity.

  In the farthest chair, facing the corner, his back to her, a figure slumps, bound to the frame by taut ropes. A thick bandage is wound around his head, below hangs the waterproof nylon jacket, then his jeans-covered legs splayed out in front. There’s enough muscle left to hold his head in place. He’s alive.

  ‘Wait here,’ Joseph orders her. ‘We’ll turn him round.’

  The squat man joins Joseph and they take one side each, lifting him by the armpits, the strapped chair revolving with him. She sees bruises on his cheek and blood seeping from his teeth and mouth. They unpeel the bandage layer by layer, finally revealing a black eye mask, ensuring his total blindness.

  ‘We’ll leave that on for the moment,’ says the squat man. He raises his voice. ‘David.’ A low moan comes back. He increases the volume. ‘David Vallely!’

  Two mumbled, fragmented words are just audible. ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘Mind your language, David,’ the tall man says with deliberate calmness. ‘There’s someone here to see you.’ Another moan.

  Joseph removes the mask. David’s eyes flutter and then blink more slowly as he adjusts to the light. She senses him bringing the faces in front of him into focus.

  ‘It’s me, David. Maire.’

  ‘Why?’ he groans. ‘Why you, Maire?’ He looks up at Joseph and across to the two men. With an agonized bellow, he cries, ‘Why don’t you just finish it?’

  The tall man lets the desolate cry drift into the night. ‘We can’t do that, David. Not till you tell us what’s been happening. For Maire’s sake, you need to spe
ak. That’s why we’ve brought her here. So she can advise you to help us. Then we’ll go easy on you.’ He pauses, moving closer to David. ‘And her.’

  ‘Don’t you touch her!’ His screech is deafening, scaring her.

  The squat man allows the cry to fade. ‘You owe Maire an explanation, too, David. Look at the trouble you’ve got her into. You speak to us and she’ll be fine.’

  ‘She knows nothing,’ he says. ‘And I’ve nothing to say to you.’ He allows his head to drop. ‘Just do what you want with me,’ he whispers.

  ‘What have your friends done with her brother, David?’ he asks. ‘That’s the least you owe her.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘OK, David,’ says the tall man, ‘let’s try again. Who are you?’

  ‘My name is David Vallely,’ he says hoarsely, ‘doing an MA in law at Trinity College, Dublin.’ The squat man jumps at him, smashing a knuckleduster-covered fist into his face and mouth. Maire cringes at the moist crunch of steel on flesh and teeth, and the bloody spurting spume.

  David sinks further. There’s silence, interrupted by the tall man. ‘This is getting us nowhere. We need to finish it.’

  The squat man goes over to him, whispers in his ear, then stands beside Maire holding the knuckleduster to her cheek.

  David’s face raises itself, as if lifted by some external force pulling from above. The sight of the squat man holding his hand by Maire’s head seems to rouse him. He mumbles.

  ‘Speak more clearly, David,’ barks the tall man.

  Maire is surprised at his tone. She’s assumed Joseph will be running this macabre exercise. But it’s clear by now that the other two men are in charge. The ammunition of her connection to Joseph is valueless.

  ‘They said they wouldn’t kill him.’

  ‘Say that again,’ says the tall man. ‘Clearly now.’

  David shouted. ‘They said they wouldn’t kill him.’

  ‘You mean not like Sean Black and Brendan O’Donnell.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he whispers. There are tears in his eyes. ‘They promised me they wouldn’t.’ He looks up at Maire. ‘Because he’s her brother.’