Northern Spy

by Flynn Berry

  I can’t get full. Nothing is connecting. It’s like trying to plug an appliance into a foreign socket, like this food carries the wrong voltage. My stomach feels as hollow as when I started.

  I fill another plate with kedgeree and soda bread. Normally my breakfasts involve a fair amount of labor, of retrieving Finn’s spoon from the floor, fetching another serving for him, encouraging him not to rub his eyes when his hands are coated in yogurt. This sort of experience should be a welcome break, and maybe it would be, if I’d paid for it myself, but none of this is free. The IRA is paying for it.

  Anyway, I’ve grown used to the pace of eating with Finn, the constant catching and righting, offering, chatting, and anything else can feel flat, lifeless. This sort of meal is nice, but so is having my son lower his fist and blink at me through lashes sticky with yogurt, trusting me to fix it.

  Damian appears in the doorway and pours himself a coffee. “Are you having any?” I ask, nodding at the banquet.

  “No, I’m not eating,” he says firmly, like he’s fasting. I wonder if it’s a mark of respect for his victim, or if his nerves are sharper on an empty stomach.

  He carries his coffee out of the room. I move away from the table, too, like it’s the scene of a failure, though I’m not sure whether the failure was in not abstaining from the food or not enjoying it.

  * * *

  —

  At eleven, Damian will switch on the radio in our room, so anyone passing might believe him to be inside, on the phone. I will arrange my book and scarf on a chair in the walled garden, like I’ve just wandered off for a moment. Enough of the other guests and staff will have seen us over the course of the morning that their accounts will overlap. If they are questioned, it will seem like we never left the property. Which is only contingency anyway, said Damian, since the police will assume the sniper fled the area, and that anyone staying at Ballyrane is harmless.

  “People make assumptions,” Damian said last night. He told me about a magician who made his audience believe he’d teleported. The theater went dark, and the magician appeared in a spotlight at the back of the theater, and then instantly in a spotlight on stage.

  “How?” I asked.

  “He just ran really fast.”

  In the walled garden, I settle in a chair with my book. Wind stirs the fruit trees. After a few minutes, I slip out through the bottom of the garden to meet Damian. At the edge of the property, he retrieves the rucksack he’d hidden late last night. He tightens the straps over his shoulders, and we start to run through the woods. Damian runs like a soldier, with his arms low. At first I struggle to keep up with him, and then a tension snaps, and I’m at his heels.

  We cross a stone bridge over the Blackwater. This is the nearest road to the scene, and I’m to wait here as a lookout. Damian pulls camouflage fatigues on over his clothes. He changes into army boots, then removes the rifle from his bag and chambers it.

  I watch him disappear through the trees. Soon I can’t hear any sounds except the river, and the leaves tossing. A cold film of sweat forms on my face. Lord Maitland’s group is only a short distance upstream. He is standing in the water, around the next curve in the river.

  MI5 might have decided to let the assassination proceed after all, for some reason, some political purpose. That might be why no one has given me any instructions. I think of Maitland’s aged, reddened face, of his round voice. He has no idea how scared he should be. These might be his last seconds on earth.

  Or Damian’s. Special Forces officers might be surrounding him, their rifles drawn. They might be about to shoot him. Marian might ask me if I tried to stop them, to save him.

  I want to drop to my knees. Wind pulls at my clothes, and I try to decide whether to scream, to warn Maitland, or Damian. I’m gasping air into my lungs when Damian appears through the trees, running toward me. I’m too late. I scramble to hold out his shoes, and open the rucksack for his fatigues and boots. He fieldstrips the rifle and stuffs it into the bag. Our movements seem clumsy and slow, even though in seconds we’ve dropped the rucksack into the river from the bridge and taken off at a sprint.

  Back in the garden, his face is white, and his hands shake.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  He says, “I missed.”

  35

  Icarry Finn into his day care and kneel to unbutton his coat. “How was your weekend?” asks Gemma, one of the other parents.

  “Oh, fine.”

  “Do anything fun?”

  “Not really. I had a work trip.”

  We drove back from Mallow on Saturday morning, after an interminable afternoon and evening at Ballyrane. News of the assassination attempt had broken, and the guests discussed it all through dinner. I kept waiting for one of them to look at Damian or me and say, “It was you, wasn’t it?”

  When we reached Belfast, we drove straight to a safe house in the New Lodge to be debriefed. Seamus asked me about our stay, about the length of the bridge and the width of the river, about Damian’s mood before and after the shooting.

  “Is he under suspicion?” I asked Marian, once we were alone.

  “No,” she said. “Damian’s whole family is IRA. Both of his parents were in prison during the Troubles.”

  “He’s in love with you,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “Are you with him?”

  “No, not that way.”

  Maitland had shifted his weight, and the bullet went past him into the gorse. Then, in the chaos, Damian couldn’t get a clear shot at him without possibly hitting the ghillie or one of the women. Seamus is furious with him, but not worried about his loyalty.

  “How was your weekend?” I ask Gemma.

  “Terrible,” she says cheerfully. “Both boys had colds.”

  We talk for a while about infant Calpol, hot broth, menthol compresses, and I become aware of a sort of prickling, all over my body, a delight in being here, in this room, with my son holding on to my knees.

  * * *

  —

  At work, Clodagh and I are making tea in the staff room when a man sprints past the open door. From the other direction comes a thump, the sound of something heavy being thrown against the wall. The moment seems to freeze. Steam twists from our mugs, a plate rotates in the microwave. I wait for the lockdown alarm to ring. There might be a gunman in the building.

  We should lock the door and hide under the table, but instead I follow Clodagh out into the hall, and we move slowly toward the newsroom. I feel the strap of the lanyard around my neck, and the teeth of the clip holding my hair in place.

  We push open the heavy door to the newsroom, and noise rushes out. Everyone is up from their desks, standing in groups or shouting into their phones.

  “What’s going on?” asks Clodagh.

  Nicholas says, “The IRA just called a cease-fire.”

  PART THREE

  36

  None of us leaves the office, really, for the rest of the week, except to sleep for a few hours or record an interview. Nicholas begins showering at his tennis club, to avoid driving all the way home to Carnlough and back. Every day at five, I take the bus to Greyabbey, collect Finn from day care, give him dinner, and drive back with him to the office, where he sleeps in a travel crib next to my desk while I work.

  We are all working flat out. Everyone is listening to our broadcasts now, we need to get this right. At schools, the normal lessons have been abandoned, and students are listening to us instead. Pubs are selling out of beer every night as people crowd in to watch the news, argue, celebrate.

  It’s only a cease-fire, though. It only means the IRA has agreed to the government’s condition of a pause in the violence, so negotiations can proceed. At any moment, the cease-fire could fall apart.

  And it might be a trick. The IRA might have announced the cease-fire out of war-weariness, they might be
using this time to rest and reorganize, to resupply. I know from Marian that their weaponry is low, that the fishing trawler loaded with gelignite is currently moving toward Ireland. It might already be off the coast, though Marian can’t ask anyone. She said you never ask about an operation outside your unit.

  At the office, we eat sesame noodles and fried rice, washed down with bottles of Coke. Senior politicians arrive to be interviewed before we can even sweep the mess of takeaway containers into a bin, and someone is often asleep on the sofa in the glass box. After midnight, I drive home with Finn tucked into his car seat, past the nighttime fields and orchards, feeling hopeful, expansive.

  We broke the news of the cease-fire. We want to be the ones to break the news of a peace deal. Simon has a bottle of Taittinger on his desk, and we’re waiting for the moment to open it.

  The clock keeps ticking. One day without the cease-fire being broken. Two. Soon we reach twelve days, the longest period without an incident since the conflict began.

  Our program this week is a panel on what peace would mean for investment, for tourism, film shoots, the arts, though the panel members aren’t politicians, they’re students from Belfast secondary schools. Two of them have lost a parent in the conflict. One boy lost his little sister. On air, the students are thoughtful and wry and tough. One girl lives in Ardoyne, and she and her sister keep painting over the paramilitary murals on their road, even after some lads have threatened to kill them for it. They painted extra letters onto one mural, changing it from Join the IRA to Join the Library.

  At the end, Nicholas says, “That’s all the time we have tonight, thanks for joining us on Behind Politics,” and then pushes his chair back from the microphone, looking at me through the glass with a dazzled expression. It’s the best broadcast of my career. Dozens of people call in to say they pulled over to listen more closely, or because they were crying too much to drive.

  On Friday, the government and the IRA issue a joint statement. The negotiations are progressing but will take time. They ask for our patience.

  Some people believe we’ll have peace by Christmas. Wishful thinking, maybe, but the two sides must be close to a settlement, or the talks wouldn’t have been made public.

  We’re almost safe. Once a peace deal is announced, I won’t need to be scared anymore. No one will be chasing me, or Marian. We’ll have made it.

  37

  When Eamonn appears at the far end of the beach, I move toward him, almost running, and say, “Was that it? Was that the trawler?”

  Last night, a fishing boat sank in the Irish Sea, off Skerries. The crew were rescued by a launch from a nearby cargo ship. The story was only a small news item, with nothing about the boat’s cargo, or why it sank.

  Eamonn says, “That was it.”

  I start laughing, shoving him so he stumbles back. “No!”

  Eamonn nods, laughing, too. “So thank you,” he says. “Thank you, Tessa.”

  I frown, confused, and he says, “Where do you think we picked up the chatter? We heard them talking about it inside a Fetherston Clements property.” The tip had come from Marian.

  That night, she meets me on the lane. “I told you,” she says. “I told you which side I’m on.”

  * * *

  —

  At the Christmas tree market in Greyabbey, I buy a wreath and push it home hooked onto the handle of the pram. The holiday has become appealing again. I have plans to hang a stocking for Finn, to open an advent calendar with him, to bring him to hear carols, to make a Yorkshire pudding on Christmas itself.

  In his pram, Finn scrunches up his nose to imitate me sniffing. Cars drive past us with Christmas trees roped to their roofs. Already the air has turned festive, and in a few hours, when the temperature drops, this drizzle will turn to snow.

  * * *

  —

  The snow falls all through the night, and in the morning the sky is eggshell blue. Marian wants us to go skiing in the Mournes.

  “Can one ski in the Mournes?” I ask. I hadn’t known that was an option. There aren’t any chairlifts, obviously.

  “We’ll have to hike up in skins,” she says. Tom has already left with Finn for the day, I’d been wondering what to do with myself.

  When we arrive, the mountains are smooth white ridges against the sky. The storm has left behind almost two feet of powder, a historic amount, not seen in decades. We strap into skins and start climbing. Our grandfather taught us to ski, and I imagine he’d be proud to see us on this mountain.

  At the peak, we stop to catch our breath, then point the tips of our skis down the slope. Marian is level with me in the pines, her shape appearing and disappearing between the trees. We race down the mountain, and the air fills with the regular, rhythmic sound of our skis turning in the snow.

  We’re alone. We could be in the Alps, we could be skiing the backcountry in Klosters or the Val d’Isère, not that I’ve ever been to either. When we reach the bottom of the slope, we’ve left two perfect, curving trails down the mountain. Neither of us can stop laughing, and we hike up and race down again and again.

  After coming home from the mountains, we make fondue. Marian boils the oil while I cut bread into cubes. I have a fondue set, a brown crock and two long forks. We’re both so hungry that we start cooking before changing out of our ski clothes, absurd in our henleys and thermal long underwear.

  * * *

  —

  The next morning, I’m fixing breakfast for the baby while thinking about stretch-mark cream. I’m wondering whether to buy some, if it can work after the fact or if that ship has already sailed. I don’t know what makes me look up. When I do, two men in black ski masks are standing on the other side of the garden wall.

  38

  The men don’t move. They might have been standing there for a long time. Above them, a few leaves twist on the winter trees. My entire body is given over to sheer panic.

  The bowl of porridge I am carrying over to Finn crashes to the floor, splashing my feet and shins. He watches me from his high chair beside the sliding door. The men will be able to see him from their position. And they know I’ve noticed them. I can’t see their faces under the masks, but their eyes are fixed on me.

  I won’t be able to free the baby from the high chair straps and reach the front of the house in time. They will beat me to the road.

  Blood roars in my ears. The men are coming over the wall now. It’s happening too quickly. Already they’re dropping onto my lawn, in their boots and canvas army jackets. They aren’t holding guns, but both of them are taller than me, and bulkier.

  Finn starts to whine with hunger, pointing at the bowl. I cross to the sliding door without knowing what I’m about to do, if I’m going to turn the bolt, but then I’m grappling with the handle and wrenching it open. I step out into the cold air and shut the door behind me.

  Through the glass, Finn lets out a wail. The men are already halfway up the lawn. I hold my hands in the air, and they stop walking.

  “Come on, Tessa,” says one. “Time to go.”

  They wait for me to move toward them. “I can’t leave my son in there. It’s not safe.”

  The men consider me, the holes in their ski masks stretched tight around their eyes and mouths. The shorter man’s lips are a dark color, like he hasn’t had enough water.

  Behind us, Finn screams, fighting against the straps. If I were to lift him, he’d stop crying right away, he’d blink, his wide eyes looking around him with relief, and curl into me.

  “I’m going to come with you,” I say, “but first I’m going to drop my son at my neighbor’s. She lives right up the road, we do it all the time. I’ll tell her my aunt’s ill.”

  “You have one minute,” says the shorter man. “If you tell her to call the police or if you try to run, we’ll kill you and your baby. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”
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  He stays outside, and the other man follows me into the house. My hands shake as I open the buckles on the high chair. Finn twists, reaching his arms toward me. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, you’re okay, mam’s here.”

  He breathes in shakily, clutching my hair, looking over my shoulder at the man. I grab his nappy bag and blanket and open the front door.

  “Stop,” says the man, and I wonder if this was a game, if he was only pretending to let me leave. I cradle Finn to me, one hand shielding his head. The man points at my feet. “Put on shoes.”

  I look down. My bare feet are livid and red from the snow. I push them into a pair of fleece-lined boots and hurry down the path before he can change his mind.

  Finn clasps his arms around my neck. I cover the side of his face in kisses as we walk, murmuring to him, breathing in his smell.

  When Sophie opens her door, I say, “My aunt’s ill. I need to go to the hospital. Can you mind Finn?”

  “Oh, of course.” Sophie holds out her arms, and my throat aches as I hand him to her. Finn’s still right here. I can see him, I can hear him. We haven’t been separated yet. He’s listening to my voice, with his eyes on my face. If I were to lean forward just a few inches, he’d clamber back into my arms.

  “Is there anyone behind me?” I ask, trying to keep my voice light.

  Sophie’s eyes flare. She glances past me, then gives a small shake of her head.

  “I need you to call DI Fenton at Musgrave station and ask him to take Finn somewhere safe.”

  Sophie’s face doesn’t change, but she says, “Get inside.”

  “Please do it.”

  I lean forward to kiss Finn, then turn down the path. After a few paces, I hear her front door close behind me, and the deadbolt shut. She’ll be lifting her phone any second now and dialing the police.