Northern Spy

by Flynn Berry

  It was exciting in the beginning, when the unrest started. No one wants to admit that, but it has to be said. In the first few weeks, when the protests and riots and hijackings began, the conflict was disruptive, rippling across ordinary routines. You couldn’t take your usual routes. Certain intersections would be barred by a crowd—mostly young men, mostly shouting, some with their shirts off, some throwing rocks—or by a bus that had been tipped on its side and set on fire. Sometimes we stood on the roof of Broadcasting House and watched black flags of smoke rising around the city. While working, or traveling across Belfast to my flat, I felt resourceful and competent simply for doing what I’d always done.

  One morning a news crew from America was in the café around the corner from my flat. The reporter wore construction boots, jeans, and a bulletproof vest. I watched him with curiosity and scorn at his precautions, his self-conscious air of bravery. I thought, You’re only flying in, you don’t live here like I do.

  I’ve often wondered what it would be like to live during the Blitz, and now I think I know. At first, the fear and adrenaline were sharpeners, they did make you more awake. Happier, even. Nothing was dull anymore. Every act—stringing up wet laundry, buying a bottle of beer—felt significant, portentous. It was a relief, in a way, to have larger things than yourself to worry about. To be joined by other people in those worries.

  I recently read a scientific paper that said that murder victims, before they die, are flooded with serotonin, oxytocin, hormones that create a sense of euphoria as the body tries to protect itself from the knowledge of what’s happening. That’s how I think of myself during those first weeks now.

  * * *

  —

  At my desk, I write Nicholas’s introduction for Rebecca Main. I polish the rest of the running order, call press officers, and answer emails, with one eye on the news bulletins flowing in from our outside sources. One says that the power stations are concerned about blackouts. The thunderstorm is expected to reach land by evening. I think of Marian, watching the storm come in. The clouds might have already started to darken at the north coast, over the fishing boats in Ballycastle harbor, the rope bridge, the sea stacks. She might be swimming, if the sea isn’t already too rough. We always joke about being part selkie. I check my phone, though she hasn’t written back yet.

  Before our guest arrives, I sit outside on the fire stairs eating a Mars bar and drinking a cup of tea while Colette smokes a cigarette. She’s from west Belfast, too, Ballymurphy. She knows my cousins, my uncles.

  “How’s Rory doing at school?” I ask.

  “He still hates it. Who can blame him?”

  “Is it the kids or the teachers?”

  “Both. He says he wants to go to St. Joseph’s, can you credit it?”

  “Jesus, things must be bad.”

  Colette sighs. “I’m thinking about getting him a dog.”

  Last summer, Colette was walking down the Falls Road when a car bomb exploded. She was thrown to the ground by the blast, but made it home with only bruises. At work the next day, she looked at Esther like she was mad for suggesting some time off.

  “Who’s on Politics tonight?” she asks.

  “The justice minister, Rebecca Main. Have you ever had her?”

  Colette is the makeup artist for all the guests on the evening news, politicians, academics, actresses. They often end up telling her their secrets in her makeup room, her wee confessional.

  She nods. “I liked Rebecca.”

  “Did she tell you anything?”

  “No. She’s cleverer than that.”

  Colette stubs out her cigarette. We pull ourselves to our feet and she keys in the security code for the fire door.

  * * *

  —

  The justice minister arrives, with two close protection officers. She shakes Nicholas’s hand, then mine. Our runner wheels in the trolley and sets about pouring her a coffee from a silver carafe. I don’t ask her officers if they want anything. They always say no, even to sealed bottles of water.

  We move toward the studio. I step into the sound booth, and John nods at me, fiddling with his vape, while Dire Straits pours from the speakers.

  “Enjoying yourself in here?”

  “Quiet before the storm,” he says.

  “No, this one will be a doddle.”

  We both look up. On the other side of the glass, Rebecca Main slips the headphones on over her ears. Nicholas says, “Can you hear all right?” She nods, clasping her hands on the table.

  Above the soundboard, a television screen shows BBC One. The evening news is about to start, when the hour turns over. Across this building, in the main studio, our presenters will be under the lights, waiting to read the day’s headlines.

  Our runner comes in. “Does Nicholas have water?” I ask.

  “Shit.”

  “You’ve time.”

  After he leaves, John murmurs, “Is he new?”

  I nod. “Everyone has to start somewhere.”

  “Mm-hmm.” John adjusts the soundboard, and the frequency needles swing, yellow, red, blue.

  “Do you need to practice the top?” I ask into the microphone, and Nicholas shakes his head.

  John pulls up our music. I lean forward and say, “Thirty seconds, Nicholas.”

  When the six o’clock news bulletin finishes, our on-air light turns yellow. Nicholas reads my introduction, then says, “Thank you for joining us, Ms. Main.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “You’ve recently introduced a bill to loosen the safeguards on investigatory powers. One provision in the bill would allow the police to hold a suspect without charge for thirty days. Why now? Wouldn’t you say our police need more regulation, not less?”

  “We’re living in a difficult time,” she says in a clear, low voice. “Terror groups don’t want us to adapt, they don’t want us to rise to meet them. This bill will greatly reduce their ability to maneuver in our society.”

  “Perhaps,” says Nicholas, “or perhaps introducing these measures will benefit them by further alienating more of our population from their government. You might be creating new recruits.”

  “Not at all. These are simple, sensible measures,” she says. My pulse is speeding and my face feels hot, as usual. Thousands of people are listening around the province. Nothing can go wrong while we’re on air.

  One of her close protection officers is in the hall and one is in the studio, standing in the corner. Through the glass, I can see the white of his shirt and the spiral of his earpiece.

  “But thirty days—that’s internment, isn’t it?”

  “The police need time to gather the evidence for a prosecution, in order to prevent further offenses.”

  “The current limit is thirty-six hours. That’s quite a dramatic increase, isn’t it?” I hold down the microphone and say into his earpiece, “Two thousand percent.”

  “Two thousand percent,” he says. “It will be the longest detainment period in Europe.”

  “Well, we’re able to make these decisions independently, to respond to our own particular circumstances.”

  John says to me, “Do you have music for the end?”

  “I’ll send it to you.”

  Nicholas asks about other particulars of the bill, then turns to the threats made against her. She brushes them off, making a joke about the security preparations that must be in place for her to attend one of her son’s rugby games.

  With a few minutes left, I press the microphone again. “You wanted to ask her about the pamphlets.”

  “Let’s talk about the mailings your party has been sending to houses in Belfast,” says Nicholas. “Do you not consider it divisive, asking citizens to spy on their neighbors?”

  “Look, these incidents take planning,” she says. “Everyone should know how to spot suspicious behavior. This i
sn’t about snooping on your neighbors, it’s about preventing the next attack.”

  When I look up from my notes, my sister is on the television screen. Her cheeks are flushed, like she’s been out in the cold.

  She is standing with two men outside a petrol station, by a row of fuel pumps. Her ambulance must have been sent out to a call, though for some reason she isn’t wearing her uniform.

  “The police are appealing for witnesses after an armed robbery in Templepatrick,” says the closed caption. A ringing starts in my ears. Only Marian’s face is in view of the security camera, the two men are turned away.

  “Tessa?” says John, sounding panicked, and I send him the music clip without really looking away from the television.

  “Are we over time?” I hear my voice say.

  “No, we’re bang on,” he says.

  Marian has something in her hands. She is leaning down and pulling it toward her. It takes me a moment to understand what I’m watching, as her hair and then her face seem to disappear. When she straightens, she’s wearing a black ski mask.

  3

  Irush out of Broadcasting House and turn north toward the police station. If I were to run in the opposite direction, toward her flat, Marian might answer the door. She might stand there, under the yellow paper lantern in her front hall, and say, Tessa, what are you doing here?

  I sway on my feet, trying to make a decision. Her house isn’t far. Marian lives in south Belfast, on Adelaide Avenue, a quiet row of terraced houses between the railway line and the Lisburn Road. I could be there in twenty minutes. The pedestrian light flashes and I force myself to cross the road. Her flat will be empty, she’s meant to be on the north coast through Friday. She isn’t answering her phone. On my way out of the building, I rang mam and Marian’s best friends, but none of them have heard from her.

  The police station stands behind a tall corrugated steel fence. I speak to the desk officer seated behind a bulletproof window. Distortions in the glass ripple over his face, and I can’t tell if he understands, if I’m making any sense. A woman outside his booth, in tears. The officer must be used to it, he doesn’t seem at all alarmed by my distress. He rests my license in a slot on his keyboard and slowly types in my name. He doesn’t hurry, even though someone might be watching from across the road. The IRA always seems to know when someone from the community has gone to the police. If anyone asks later, I’ll say I came here for work, for an interview. I dry my face with the back of my hand, then he points me toward an antechamber.

  Two soldiers with automatic rifles order me to remove my shoes and bag. I hold my arms out at my sides, barefoot, in a linen summer dress. The soldiers’ faces are blank. It occurs to me that, in this moment, they might be more scared than I am. If I had a bomb strapped under my dress, they’d be the first in the station to die.

  “Hold out your hands,” says one, and wipes them for explosives residue. I have a sudden fear that I might have touched something, at some point in the day, that there will be flecks of gelignite or Semtex on my palms. The soldiers wait until the machine sounds, then unlock the antechamber door. A constable escorts me across the courtyard and up to an interview room in the serious crime suite.

  The room has a panoramic view over the city, the roofs and construction cranes, to the dark shape of Cave Hill in the distance. I’m watching clouds surge behind the hill when the detective arrives. He is in his fifties, in a crumpled suit, with an expressive, lined face.

  “DI Fenton,” he says, shaking my hand. “We’re glad you came in, Tessa.”

  He opens a notepad, searches his pockets for a pen. The disorganization might be a tactic, I think, a way to put people at ease.

  “I understand you’d like to talk about Marian Daly,” he says, and I frown. He says her name like she’s a known figure. “Can you state for the tape your relation to Marian?”

  “She’s my sister.”

  “Do you know where Marian is at the moment?” he asks.

  “No.”

  I want to say, Actually, we do know where she is, she’s on the coast near Ballycastle, she’s out hiking along the cliff path, she’s on her way to visit Dunseverick castle.

  “She arrived at the service station in Templepatrick in a white Mercedes Sprinter van,” he says. “Have you ever seen that vehicle before?”

  “No.” Marian drives a secondhand Polo, with an evil-eye charm hanging from the rearview mirror. Nonsense, obviously, but you can’t blame her, her ambulance has been at the scene of enough road accidents, she has spent hours crouching on broken glass at the edge of a motorway.

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes,” I say, my ears still ringing.

  “When did your sister join the IRA?” he asks.

  “She’s not in the IRA.”

  The detective tips his head to the side. Past the window, thunderclouds ripple behind the council blocks. Slow traffic moves along the Westlink.

  “She participated in an armed robbery this afternoon,” he says. “The IRA has claimed it.”

  “Marian’s not a member of the IRA.”

  “It can come as a shock,” he says, “to learn that someone you love has joined. It can seem completely out of character.”

  “I’m not in shock,” I say, aware of how unconvincing this sounds, aware that my face and throat are sticky with tears, that the collar of my dress is damp.

  “Why was Marian with those men at the service station?”

  “They must have forced her to go with them.” He doesn’t respond, and I say, “The IRA makes people do things for them all the time.”

  “Marian was carrying a gun,” says the detective. “If that were the case, why would they give her a gun?”

  ”You know that’s common. They force lads to carry out punishment shootings for them.”

  “As part of their recruitment,” he says. “Is Marian being recruited?”

  “No, of course not. They must have threatened her.”

  “She could have asked for help. She was surrounded by other people during the robbery.”

  “There were two men with her and both of them had guns. What do you make of her chances?”

  The detective considers me in silence. Outside, one of the construction cranes starts to rotate against the heavy sky. “Are you saying your sister has been abducted? Do you want to file a missing persons report?”

  “I’m saying she has been coerced.”

  “Marian may have kept her decision to join to herself.”

  “She tells me everything,” I say, and the detective looks sorry for me.

  I think of Marian’s flat, of the cake of soap next to her sink, the food and boxes of herbal tea in her cupboards, the string of prayer flags at the window, the paramedic’s uniform hanging in her closet, the boots lined up by the door.

  “Marian’s not a terrorist. If she’s playing along, it’s only so they won’t hurt her. She’s not one of them.”

  The detective sighs, then says, “Do you want a tea?” I nod, and soon he returns with two small plastic cups.

  “Thanks.” I tear open a packet of sugar, and the act seems uncanny, doing something so ordinary while my sister is missing. The detective wears a wedding ring. I wonder if he has children, or siblings.

  “Where did you and your sister grow up?” he asks over the rim of his cup.

  “Andersonstown.”

  “That’s a fairly deprived area, isn’t it?”

  “There are worse places.” My cousins from Ballymurphy teased us for being posh. The houses on our council estate were only about a foot wider than the ones on theirs, but still.

  “High rates of alcoholism,” says the detective. “High unemployment.”

  He doesn’t understand, he’s not from our community. At midnight on New Year’s Eve, everyone on our estate came outside, and we joined hands in a circl
e the length of the street and sang “Auld Lang Syne” together. After my father left, our neighbors gave us some money to hold us over. My mother still lives there, and she has done the same for them when they have their own lean stretches. No one has to ask.

  “What religion is your family?” he asks.

  “I’m agnostic,” I say.

  “And the others?” he asks patiently.

  “Catholic,” I say, which he already knew, of course, from our names, from where we grew up, in a republican stronghold. The police won’t enter Andersonstown without full riot gear.

  “Are any of your family in the IRA?” he asks.

  “No.”

  “No one at all?”

  “Our great-grandfather was a member.” He joined the IRA in West Cork, and fought in a flying column. Traveling across the island, sleeping under hedgerows, running ambushes on police stations. They were, he said, the happiest years of his life.

  “Did Marian romanticize his past?” he asks.

  “No,” I say, though when we were little, we both did. Our great-grandfather sleeping out on Caher moor under a Neolithic stone table, or piloting a boat around Mizen Head, or hiding from soldiers on an island in Bantry Bay.

  “So you and Marian are from a republican family?” he asks.

  “Our parents aren’t political.”

  My mother was always polite to the British soldiers, even though as teenagers, two of her brothers were beaten up by soldiers, spat on and kicked until they both had broken ribs. She never shouted at the soldiers, like some women on our road did, or threw rocks at their patrols. I understand now that she was trying to protect us.

  “What about their parents?”

  I shrug. My granny was unconcerned by the bomb scares during the Troubles. I remember her arguing once with a security guard trying to evacuate a shop, saying, “Hang on, I’m just getting my sausage rolls.”

  The detective leans back in his chair. If he asks about my uncles, I’ll have to tell him the truth. My uncles go to Rebel Sunday at the Rock bar, they sing “Go Home British Soldiers,” “The Ballad of Joe McDonnell,” “Come Out Ye Black and Tans.” It never goes beyond that, though, beyond getting trolleyed and shouting rebel songs.