The Cold, Cold Ground

by Adrian McKinty

  After Internment ended and the prisoners were released it was decided that IRA volunteers would only get jail time if they were actually convicted of a crime: murder, conspiracy to cause explosions, possession of illegal weapons, etc. Initially, however, IRA prisoners had been granted a Special Category Status because their offences were considered to be political in nature. But then in 1976, on a whim, this status had been revoked by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The prisoners had protested in various ways, most famously by refusing to wear prison clothes and smearing excrement on their cell walls.

  In 1979 the Tories were returned to power but of course Mrs Thatcher had refused to “give in to terrorists” and would not backtrack on the Special Category Status. The hunger strikes had begun. I’d been sympathetic. Bobby Sands, Frankie Hughes and the others were merely attempting to return things to the status quo ante of 1976.

  Bobby Sands’s election to parliament and death after sixty-six days on hunger strike had been the media event of the decade in Ireland and IRA recruiters were now having to turn away hundreds of young men and women. It did my heart no good at all to know that I was working for the same people who had been responsible for such utter incompetence.

  Matty drove up to the Maze Prison walls, which were grey and thick and topped with coils of razor wire.

  I turned off the tape of Led Zeppelin’s Presence album that despite a dozen listens, still sounded crap. Matty breathed a sigh of relief.

  It was raining hard and the prison officer did not come out of the guard hut to check the warrant card I was holding up.

  That too inspired zero confidence.

  “All you need is a hijacked police Land Rover and anybody could get into this joint,” I muttered to Matty who was sitting beside me in the front seat. Neither of us were even in uniform. I was wearing a black polo-neck sweater under my leather jacket and he was wearing some kind of white pirate blouse thing that he must have seen Adam Ant sporting on Top of the Pops.

  The thick steel gate slid across on rollers and I drove to a small car park in the lee of a brown concrete watch tower.

  “It’s going to be terrible in here, isn’t it?” Matty said.

  I nodded grimly. I could only imagine what the hospital wing of the prison looked like with a dozen emaciated men hooked up to drips – dying by heartbreaking degrees while family members wept and priests gave extreme unction.

  “Aye, Matty, I think so.”

  Fortunately we’d come early. It wasn’t nine so the hacks wouldn’t be out of bed yet and the rain had kept away the demonstrators we’d been told to expect outside the prison gates.

  Scowling, a chubby, blue-faced man regarded me through bullet-proof glass.

  “Sergeant Duffy of Carrick RUC. I’m here to see Seamus Moore,” I said.

  “Sign here,” he replied, passing me a clipboard through a horizontal slit.

  I signed and passed the clipboard back.

  He did not inspect my ID. I gave Matty a wry look and shook my head. A buzzer sounded and a metal gate opened.

  With that we were into the main prison compound.

  There were eight H Blocks in separate wings for Republican and Loyalist prisoners – in fact separate wings for the various Republican and Loyalist groups. There was a Provisional IRA wing, an INLA section, a UVF section, a UFF/UDA wing and areas for various other smaller factions.

  We parked the Rover and got out.

  “Sergeant Duffy?” an aged, grey moustachioed, sad-faced man in a prison officer’s uniform asked me from under a giant black umbrella.

  “That’s me.”

  “I’m Davey Childers, RUC liaison.”

  We shook hands.

  “We’ve arranged to have you meet Moore in the visitor’s area.”

  “He’s not in the hospital?”

  “Oh no, he’s only been on hunger strike for a week. That’s not necessary yet.”

  I looked at Matty and we were both relieved.

  We went through a series of narrow-fenced easements topped with razor wire until we came to a bunker-like one storey building that was also surrounded by a razor-wire fence.

  This place was not like the Victorian prisons of England with their imposing red-brick and neo-gothic architecture that was supposed to impress inmates with the power of the state; no, this place looked cobbled together, shoddy and temporary and the only thing it impressed upon you was how current British policy on Ireland was dominated by short-term thinking.

  We walked through a set of double doors, checked in our weapons, patted an amiable sniffer dog and immediately saw a fairly healthy looking Seamus Moore sitting waiting for us at a long Formica table. He was bearded, long-haired and wearing pyjamas. He was smoking a cigarette and drinking what looked like a mug of tea.

  “I didn’t know they were allowed tea,” Matty muttered.

  “Don’t comment on it, we don’t want him to take the huff and storm off,” I hissed.

  We sat down opposite and I did the introductions. Seamus was a good-looking wee skitter with green cat’s eyes, arched eyebrows and a bit of a sleekit grin; he had a violet-coloured scar running from his chin to his lower lip but that didn’t detract from his easy-going, handsome face. He was thin, of course, but he didn’t look emaciated. He was in for possession of a stolen shotgun, which had only garnered him a two and a half year sentence. Why he had taken it upon himself to go on hunger strike was a bit of a mystery to me. You could understand why a lifer or a ten-year man would do it, but not someone who’d be paroled in twelve months. Maybe it was just to establish his credentials and he’d be one of the ones who pulled out of it in a fortnight “after listening to the pleas of his family”.

  “You’ve got five minutes, peeler,” he said. “I’ve got a phone interview with the Boston Herald at half nine.”

  “All right. First, let me say that I’m very sorry about your wife, Seamus. I was the one who found her,” I said.

  “Ex-wife.”

  “Regardless. Ex-wife.”

  “Suicide, right?” he asked.

  “That’s what it looks like.”

  “Silly bint. And she’d got herself knocked up, hadn’t she?”

  “Where did you hear that?” I asked.

  He laughed and blew smoke. “You hear things, you don’t know where,” he said.

  His attitude needed serious work but that was not a job for me – I had to be relatively gentle with him. At any moment he could turn round and waltz back to his cell and there wouldn’t be a damn thing I could do about it.

  “When did you last hear from Lucy?”

  He shook his head. “Jesus. Last November? After the divorce came through. She said I owed her two thousand pound for her car which was total bollocks. We agreed to give that wee Mini to my ma. I didn’t owe her bloody anything.”

  He stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray, lit another and looked at his watch.

  “I heard that she ran away to Cork,” he added.

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “Cos she sent postcards to her ma and her sister Claire. I mean, who fucking runs away to Cork? Stupid wee milly. If you’re knocked up ya go to fucking London and get it fucking seen to.”

  “I would have thought you’d be upset that she’d gotten pregnant while you were stuck in here?”

  “What the fuck do I care? We were divorced. She could marry fucking Prince Charles as far as I’m concerned.”

  “So you haven’t heard from her at all since Christmas?”

  “Nope,” he said with thin-lipped finality.

  “Did you ever threaten her at all, Seamus?”

  “Did I fuck. I haven’t wasted two seconds thinking about her since last year.”

  “So you wouldn’t have objected if she’d taken up with someone else?”

  “Are you deaf, peeler? I’ve fucking told ya, I didn’t give a shite.”

  I rubbed my chin, looked at Matty, but he said nothing.

  “Borrow a smoke?”
I asked.

  “Help yourself,” he said.

  I lit a Benson and Hedges and gave Matty one.

  “What makes a man want to starve himself to death?” I asked.

  “For Ireland!” Seamus said vociferously.

  “You know what my barber said?”

  “What did your bloody barber say?” he asked.

  “He said that nationalism was an outmoded concept. That it was a tool capitalists used to divide the workers and keep them down.”

  He shook his head. “In a free Ireland, rich and poor, Catholic and Protestant will be united!” he said.

  “Do you really believe that? Is that what’s happened in the Republic?”

  He stood up. “I’ve had enough of you, peeler. I have important people to talk to.”

  “Seamus, sit down. You told me you’d give me five minutes. Come on, mate. Is neamhbhuan cogadh na gcarad; má bhíonn sé crua, ní bhíonn sé fada,” I said in the glens dialect of Irish that I had grown up with.

  He was taken aback by the Gaelic and blinked a couple of times before sitting down again.

  “Can you think of any reason why anyone would want her dead?” I asked.

  “Somebody topped her?” he asked with what looked like genuine surprise.

  “We’re awaiting the coroner’s verdict on that. It seems like a suicide but you never know. I was just wondering if anybody would have wanted her dead.”

  Seamus shook his head, but I could tell he was thinking it over.

  “I don’t think so,” he said at last.

  There was a but in there.

  “But …” I began.

  “Well,” he looked behind him and lowered his voice. “The old-timers might not have taken too kindly to her getting knocked up while I’m up for me stretch.”

  “Even after you got divorced?” I said.

  Seamus laughed. “In the eyes of the church there is no divorce, is there?”

  I was about to follow up on this but before I could a voice yelled to us from the other side of the visitor’s room.

  “What is going on in here?”

  I turned and saw Sinn Fein President, Gerry Adams, and another tall man that I didn’t know, marching towards us. Matty and I stood up.

  Adams was furious. “Are you a peeler? Are you a cop? Who gave you permission to talk to one of the martyrs?” Adams demanded.

  “Shouldn’t you wait to call them martyrs until after they’re dead?” I said.

  This was the wrong thing to say.

  Adams’s beard bristled.

  “Who gave you permission to talk to our comrade?”

  “I’m investigating the death of his ex-wife.”

  The other man got in my face. “You are not permitted to talk to any of the prisoners in our wing of Long Kesh without a solicitor being present,” he said in a soft southern-boarding-school/almost-English accent.

  “Seamus doesn’t mind,” I insisted.

  The other man ignored this. “Seamus, get back to your section. Remember you’ve got a phone call with America this morning!”

  “Ok, Freddie,” Seamus said and, with a little nod to me, walked quickly towards the exit.

  “And now, you might want to be running along, peeler,” Freddie said. He was a big lad, six three and built, but he was relaxed and he wore his size well. He had a dark complexion and he was wearing a tailored blue suit and a green silk tie. His black hair was tied back in a ponytail. A little badge on his lapel said PRESS OFFICER. Adams was in his bog-standard white Aran sweater and he looked scruffy in comparison with his companion. The contrasts didn’t end there. Freddie had dark brown, almost black, eyes and a long, continental nose and he was a good-looking cove and he knew it. Adams’s vibe was all puffy left-wing history teacher, with his full beard, thick glasses and unkempt brown hair flecked with the occasional strand of grey.

  “You’re not Freddie Scavanni, are you, by any chance?” I said to the second man.

  He was taken aback. “What of it?” he asked, visibly nonplussed.

  “I’ve been trying to have a wee talk with you too,” I said. “I called up Sinn Fein twice yesterday, I got nowhere.”

  “We don’t have wee talks with the peelers,” Freddie said.

  Adams and Freddie turned to go.

  “Hold the phone, lads, this’ll only take two seconds,” I begged them.

  “We have a busy morning, we have to get back to headquarters,” Adams said.

  “I just need one second of your time, boys,” I said, getting in front of them.

  It was alleged that Gerry Adams was on the IRA Army Council and thus could pretty much have anyone in Ireland killed at any time if he wanted. His “Get out of our way, constable, or you’ll regret it” stare was therefore a solid down payment on a year’s worth of nightmares.

  “Aye, let’s get some fresh air, Gerry,” Freddie said.

  “Wait! You’re going to want to listen to this: I think we can help each other,” I said.

  “How so?” Adams asked.

  “I spoke to you, yesterday, Mr Adams, I’m the lead investigator into the death of Tommy Little and I need to speak to Mr Scavanni about Tommy. Tommy was on his way to see Mr Scavanni when he disappeared.”

  I had hoped to maybe surprise Adams with this information but he obviously knew it already. It made sense. Scavanni wouldn’t still be working for the movement if he hadn’t been investigated and cleared by the IRA.

  “Now what we probably have on our hands here, Mr Adams, is a serial killer preying on homosexuals. That’s a pretty sensational story and as soon the Ripper Trial concludes in England, the British tabs are going to be desperate for something like that until the actual Royal Wedding. This is where our interests coincide. You’d like the press to keep its focus turned on the hunger strikes but if this serial-killer story gets momentum, it’s going to be bad news for you and your lads. Imagine dying for Ireland and nobody cares because the new Irish Ripper has taken all the headlines. They’re not going to like that, are they?”

  Adams shook his head dismissively “I don’t like your flippant tone, young man. It’s trivializing an important matter. Now, if you don’t mind—”

  “An IRA man is mixed up with a gay serial killer? Is that really a distraction you can afford to have this summer? Wouldn’t you rather have your boy Scavanni cooperate with us, tell me what he knows, help me catch this nutcase and hey presto: distraction over, hunger strike number one story again and the brave struggle by your volunteers can resume its rightful place on all the front pages.”

  Adams looked at Scavanni who merely shrugged.

  I could see that it made sense to both of them.

  “Again, I don’t like your tone, but in this case I suppose our interests do converge. We, uh, we have not made much progress finding out who killed Tommy Little,” Adams said.

  “Mr Scavanni?” I said.

  “I’m not sure how I can help. Tommy never made it to see me that night but if you want to chat about it come to my office at noon today. Bradbury House #11,” Scavanni said. “I’ll give you fifteen minutes.”

  “See, I knew we’d all become fast friends,” I said with a wink at Matty.

  “Maybe we could all go to the pictures some time,” Matty said dead pan.

  “Aye, if those cheeky boys would only stop blowing up all the cinemas.”

  They walked away from me in disgust.

  When they were gone Matty and allowed ourselves a little laugh.

  I was quite pleased with our work and after we got back in the Land Rover I put in a tape of Stiff Little Fingers. It was bucketing now and the rain was coming in sideways from Lough Neagh. Matty was no Stiff Little Fingers fan and was less impressed with what we had achieved. “That was a waste of time,” he muttered.

  “We got an interview with Scavanni.”

  “What’s that, another bloody trip to Belfast? Another pointless interview. He’s IRA, he’s not going to tell us anything. And if he did, what difference would it mak
e? He says Tommy Little never made it to his house and if that’s a lie the IRA would have found out about that and he wouldn’t be standing next to Gerry bloody Adams, would he?”

  It was a valid point but I didn’t like Matty’s negativity.

  If McCrabban disagreed with you he just sat there and said nothing.

  And if he agreed with you, he also just sat there and said nothing.

  “I just don’t see where this gets us in either investigation,” Matty went on.

  “We’ve made progress! I don’t think the husband had Lucy killed,” I replied as I flipped the volume and the window wipers to maximum.

  “We didn’t think he’d had her killed before. We didn’t think anybody had her killed,” Matty protested.

  We drove through the gates past a long line of protesters, journos and other rabble gathering outside the fence.

  “Bloody hunger strikers, they’re never going to win,” Matty said sourly.

  “What’s the matter? Don’t you ever root for the underdog? You’d be on the side of the Sheriff of Nottingham.”

  “We are the Sheriff of Nottingham, Sean.”

  I pulled over the Land Rover at a spot where cameramen were jostling for position on a little hill that gave you a shot down onto the H Blocks themselves.

  “Hey friend, I’ll give you twenty pounds if you’ll let me take some snaps from the roof of your vehicle,” a Yank photographer said to me as I walked round to the passenger’s side.

  “The cheek of ya. This isn’t Bongo Bongo Land mate. We are the incorruptible representatives of Her Majesty’s Government. I will, however, accept a hundred-quid donation to the police widows benevolent fund and you’re to be quick about it.”

  He climbed onto the bonnet, took some nice shots and gave me two crisp fifty-pound notes.

  I gave one to Matty and kept the other.

  Matty put the Land Rover in gear and headed for the M2 motorway.

  “Where to?” he asked.

  “Betty Dennis Florist on the Scotch Quarter in Carrick,” I told him.

  We avoided the rush hour and were back in Carrickergus in fifteen minutes.

  A dock strike had been called so there were panicked queues of people outside the supermarket and the grocers but no one wanted to waste their few coppers on flowers so I had no problem at Betty Dennis’s. I bought carnations, which are a nice neutral sort of flower. Boring yes, but neutral.