Sabbathman

by Hurley, Graham

  Cousins was on his feet again. From a cupboard in the corner he produced a tin. On the lid it said ‘Sharp’s Toffees’.

  ‘Are you sure you’re not hungry?’

  ‘Yes. It’s OK, thanks. I had something on the plane.’

  ‘Coffee? Tea?’

  Annie shook her head. She wanted this to be over. She wanted to be back in her flat in Kew with Alan Kingdom, and a couple of bottles of good red wine, and nothing to think about but each other. Flowers, she thought. He sent me flowers.

  Cousins sat down and opened the tin. Inside was a copy of one of the standard-issue contact notes in use at Gower Street.

  ‘This might sound a bit brisk,’ Cousins began, ‘but there isn’t much time.’

  Annie looked across at the contact note. Upside down, she recognised the name. ‘Bobby McCrudden?’ she said. ‘My Bobby McCrudden?’

  ‘Yes.’ Cousins nodded.

  Annie watched him leafing through other documents in the tin. Bobby McCrudden had been the best of the contacts she’d made during her last nine months in Belfast, a small, slight, crop-haired man with a huge pair of glasses and an almost permanent scowl. As a Sinn Fein councillor, he’d run a series of community programmes in Andersonstown and had taken a stand against pro-violence elements in the republican movement. He was tireless and extremely brave. Two of his brothers had been murdered by the Loyalists and his own home had been attacked at least twice. Since early summer, his wife and kids had been living behind steel shutters while Bobby himself moved from address to address every few days. The last time Annie had met him, he’d been wearing protective body armour, a Kevlar chest and backplate he’d acquired from the widow of a murdered IRA intelligence officer.

  By now, Cousins had found what he was after. It looked like a map. He gave it to Annie. A small town near Portadown was circled in red.

  ‘Tandragee?’ she said.

  ‘Yes. There’s a bar called Flaherty’s. It’s across the road from the Catholic church. Everyone knows it. McCrudden will be there tonight. Half-past nine.’

  ‘Tonight?’

  Cousins nodded. He was looking at his watch. ‘I spoke to him yesterday. He’d been in touch through Lisburn. Asking for you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He says he needs to talk. But only to you.’

  ‘What about?’

  Cousins smiled. He was holding the photo, peering again at the face in the background. ‘Our friend,’ he said.

  ‘Quinlan?’

  ‘No.’ Cousins shook his head. ‘Sabbathman.’

  ‘Bobby McCrudden? Wants to talk about Sabbathman?’

  ‘That’s what he says.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Annie gazed at him, wanting to believe it. To the best of her knowledge, McCrudden’s cover was still intact, partly because his commitment to the peaceful advance of the republican cause was so total. His dealings with Annie had always been on this basis. He wasn’t a tout. He didn’t take money. He wasn’t under Brit control, hoovering up every scrap of information he could find. On the contrary, he was a dedicated grassroots politician who would, when it served the cause, do business with the Brits. But only with Annie. And only at a time and place of his own choosing.

  ‘But what’s the hurry?’ Annie said. ‘Why tonight?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How did he sound? On the phone?’

  ‘Anxious.’

  ‘He’s always anxious.’

  ‘Very anxious. He said he needed to get it over with.’

  ‘What? Get what over with?’

  Cousins was frowning now, visibly impatient. ‘God knows,’ he said, ‘I imagine that’s why he wants the meet.’

  Annie nodded, accepting the logic. ‘So you want me to go?’ she said. ‘You want me to be there?’

  ‘Obviously.’ Cousins got up and went to the phone. He dialled a number and waited for it to answer. ‘The next shuttle’s at five o’clock. I’ve got the duty major from Bessbrook on stand-by to meet you at Aldergrove. He’s handling arrangements their end.’

  The number answered. Cousins bent to the phone and asked for a minicab.

  Annie was still looking at him. ‘What arrangements?’ she said.

  ‘Tandragee for a start. There’s no way you’re walking into a meet like that without support. The duty major’s organising five guys and a couple of cars. Two of the guys I know personally. They’re first rate. At the airport you’ll get radio frequencies and the full brief. The major’s name’s Mike Stanton, by the way. Little guy. Red hair.’

  Annie looked at the map again, impressed by the planning. Cousins had thought the thing through. No doubt about it. She glanced up. ‘Is this why you got me back from Dublin?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So what are we expecting from McCrudden?’

  ‘A name.’

  ‘For Sabbathman?’

  ‘Jackpot?’ Cousins grinned. ‘Yes.’

  He looked at her a moment, then sat down again. The Green Slime, he said, had identified what they called ‘the fault line’ in the Provisional leadership. One faction, heavily represented in Sinn Fein, were not only talking to the Brits but to the loyalists too. The hard men, with no appetite for peace, were determined to wreck both sets of negotiations. To that end, they’d been planning a spectacular, something unusual, something on the mainland, something to truly focus the public’s attention. On all three counts, Sabbathman fitted the bill. Thus, Cousins’ excitement. And thus, now, the urgency. It was already Saturday. Tomorrow, Sabbathman would probably strike again.

  Annie nodded. The Green Slime’ was service slang for Army Intelligence. On occasions, they could be remarkably astute.

  ‘And what about O’Keefe?’ she said, picking up the photo. ‘Where does all that fit?’

  ‘Spoiling operation. Classic poison ivy. Peace depends on London talking to Dublin. If the Brits think Dublin are gun-running, where does that leave negotiations?’ He nodded at the photo. ‘Reilly’s spot on. All it takes is a guy to switch consignments. The rest takes care of itself.’

  ‘Thanks to your customs friend.’

  ‘Yes.’ Cousins smiled. ‘Quite.’

  Annie looked at the photo again, the fleshy lips, the startled expression. ‘Poison Ivy’ was the phrase you used in the intelligence game when you knew you were dealing with planted evidence. Cynics swore it flourished in Belfast. Something to do with green fingers and the incessant rain. Annie smiled. Cousins was right. If the hard men in the north wanted to strangle peace talks, they could do a whole lot worse than smearing Dublin.

  Annie put the photo to one side and folded the map. ‘Say he has a name tonight?’ she said. ‘Bobby McCrudden?’

  ‘Then you pass it on. There and then. Stanton’s boys have airborne assets at Bessbrook. They’re tasked to move on ten minutes’ notice.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘From 18.00 tonight.’

  ‘Are you serious? You think we’re that close?’

  ‘Yes, otherwise …’ he shrugged, ‘… I wouldn’t be putting you through all this. Dublin’s a bonus. You did well. Very well. But Belfast’s where it begins and ends.’ He stood up. ‘I imagine you’ll need a change of clothes. Under the circumstances.’

  Annie gazed up at him. Clean knickers were the last thing on her mind. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I suppose I will.’

  ‘You’ve got a credit card?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Use it at the airport. Keep the receipts. Anything up to …’ He frowned. ‘Say three hundred.’

  ‘For underwear?’

  ‘For whatever.’ He paused. ‘You’ve still got the combination for the safe house? Fitzroy Avenue?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. It hasn’t been changed. There’s a hire car waiting for you at Aldergrove. Avis. Sort out the batting order with Mike, then go to the safe house. There’s a holdall in the wardrobe in the top bedroom. Blue thing. You’ll find a weapon inside, and some ammunition. The radi
o’s there, too. But make sure you get the frequencies from Mike. OK?’

  The doorbell chimed. Cousins was already half-way down the hall by the time Annie got to her feet. She put the map and the photo in her bag. The last ten minutes had left her feeling slightly dazed.

  Outside, on the pavement, Cousins was holding the back door of the minicab open. He bent over her as she slid in. She could smell the brandy on his breath.

  ‘Lucky thing,’ he said, grinning, ‘I feel quite envious.’

  For the second time that day, Annie found herself at Heathrow. She tried to phone Kingdom at her flat but there was no answer. She put the phone down, checking on the departures board again, wondering how best to kill the forty minutes before the five o’clock shuttle. At length, she dug in her bag and found the card that Francis Wren had given her on the bus. She’d been meaning to phone him since yesterday.

  She dialled the number, taking the party invitation at face value, using his Christian name when he finally answered. She explained about Andrew Hennessey, the mysterious apparatchik from Smith Square. In the taxi, yesterday afternoon, he’d tried to pin her down about the approach to Willoughby Grant. He seemed to know that Wren had authorised the leak about the secret talks. When she paused for breath, Annie heard Wren chuckling. In the background, low, she recognised an aria from Turandot.

  ‘You don’t care,’ she said, ‘if Five know too?’

  ‘Not in the slightest.’

  ‘You know how vindictive they can be? The lengths they go to sometimes? Pensions and so forth?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And none of that bothers you?’

  Wren apologised, ever the gentleman. He said he was grateful for the trouble she’d taken. It had been kind of her to try and protect him, kinder still to make the call.

  ‘No problem,’ Annie said, ‘I just thought it might have been important, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh, it is, it is.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I didn’t authorise it. It wasn’t my idea at all. In fact I was rather against the notion. Given the delicacy of the … ah … circumstances, I thought it was an extremely foolish thing to do.’

  Annie was frowning now. There were bits of this conversation that didn’t quite fit.

  ‘So who authorised it?’ she said, ‘Who told you to brief me?’

  The chuckle again. More Puccini. ‘Hugh Cousins,’ he said, ‘who do you think?’

  Half an hour later, the Belfast shuttle boarding, Annie was still trying to get through to Bobby McCrudden. She knew he was permanently on the move, two or three different addresses every week, but the one number she’d always trusted was the family home, the neat little council semi in Andersonstown where his wife and kids still lived. Annie had met McCrudden’s wife, Darina, on a number of occasions. She was a handsome flame-haired woman with a slight limp from a teenage car accident, and she normally had a fair idea of her husband’s whereabouts. If Bobby McCrudden was really in Tandragee, if the meet was genuine, then Darina would know.

  There was a problem, though, with the number. The first time Annie tried it, she got a strange whine she’d never heard before. She dialled again, checking the number in her book, and this time she got a different tone, the signal that meant number unobtainable. Phoning Directory Enquiries would have been a waste of time because the home number had always been ex-directory, so Annie dialled Curzon House instead, getting through to Registry, checking in with her PIN code, and asking the girl on the duty desk to access McCrudden’s file. She did so, returning within a minute with a six-digit number. Annie thanked her. The number was the same as the one she’d just tried so she dialled again, getting an identical tone, number unobtainable, and when she finally phoned the operator and got him to check the line, he too sounded puzzled.

  ‘Doesn’t ring in at all,’ he said, ‘can’t think why.’

  Annie thanked him, stooping to retrieve her bag and running across the concourse towards the Belfast gate. She’d phone again from Aldergrove, she thought. And if there was still a problem, she’d bring the operation to a halt until it was sorted out.

  It was raining when Annie got to Belfast. The plane bumped down through low cloud and she barely had time to register a blur of sodden fields before they were swooping over the perimeter fence, the pilot throttling back as the wheels hissed on the wet tarmac.

  Mike Stanton, the duty major from Bessbrook, was waiting for her at the arrivals gate. He was wearing civilian dress but there was a uniformed driver with him, a tall corporal with a thin pencil moustache and watchful eyes. Stanton led the way to a secure RUC interview room while the corporal went to the cafeteria for a tray of coffees. The interview room was small and bare and Annie was about to sit down at the single table when she spotted the phone on the wall.

  ‘May I?’

  Stanton, unpacking his briefcase, told her to go ahead and she dialled Bobby McCrudden’s number again. This time, to her surprise, it began to ring. McCrudden’s wife answered, a deep voice with a rich Belfast accent. Annie asked for McCrudden.

  ‘He’s not here. Who is this?’

  Annie gave her name.

  McCrudden’s wife remembered her at once. ‘Dear God,’ she said, ‘I thought you’d gone?’

  ‘I have.’ Annie paused. ‘Had.’

  ‘Back now, though? Can’t leave it alone?’

  ‘Something like that. Where’s Bobby?’

  ‘He’s away to the west. In that car of his brother’s.’

  ‘Gone long?’

  ‘Half an hour ago. You’re unlucky not to catch him.’

  ‘And back tonight?’

  ‘Back in town, yes.’

  Annie nodded, doing the calculations in her head. Bobby McCrudden’s movements fitted perfectly. His brother’s car was famous for breakdowns. To get down to Tandragee in time for the meet, he’d need to be on the road already and ‘the west’ was as close as he’d probably come to sharing the destination, even with his wife.

  Annie bent to the phone again. She could hear the kids in the background and the signature tune from Blind Date on the television. Under the circumstances, it seemed nicely appropriate.

  ‘By the way,’ she said, ‘your phone’s been out of order.’

  ‘I know. It went out this afternoon. Just for a couple of hours.’ Darina laughed. ‘Probably the rain.’

  Annie returned to the table. Stanton was studying a large-scale map of Tandragee. The place was bigger than she’d expected and Flaherty’s Bar was ringed in red chinagraph. Stanton pulled up a chair for her and began to run through the brief, indicating on the map where he intended to position his Q cars. The Q cars from Bessbrook were mainly unmarked Escorts or Astras with Northern Ireland plates and a fancy radio set-up concealed in the dashboard. The evening’s operational call-sign was to be ‘Greenglass’. Annie would be ‘Greenglass One’.

  Annie listened to the briefing. The deployments were sensible and she said she anticipated no problems with McCrudden. Stanton nodded, glancing up from the map. He was quietly spoken, with a flat Home Counties accent. He didn’t smile much, which Annie found oddly comforting. People who smiled a lot, she thought, often had things to hide.

  The corporal arrived with the coffees. Stanton told him to pull up a chair, his finger still anchored on Flaherty’s Bar, his eyes still on Annie. He had a terrible complexion, his skin pitted with acne scars.

  ‘You’re sure you don’t want anyone inside?’

  ‘Positive.’ Annie nodded at the map. ‘You’ve got line of sight front and back. I’m not that delicate.’

  ‘And you’re happy with the comms procedures?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Stanton grunted, spooning sugar into his coffee, running quickly through a pencilled checklist. If McCrudden came up with a name, Annie was to pass it on at once. The Q cars were in contact with Army headquarters at Lisburn and with the standing SAS detachment at Bessbrook. London had given the operation the highest priority, and a name wou
ld trigger an elaborate snatch operation. He didn’t go into details but his manner left Annie in no doubt about the importance of what was about to happen. This was a weekend when reputations – perhaps even careers – would be made or lost.

  ‘You’ll be making your own way to Tandragee?’ he said.

  Annie nodded. ‘No problem.’

  Stanton hesitated a moment, ever the perfectionist, then reached for his briefcase and shrugged. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘if that’s what you prefer.’

  The two soldiers escorted her out of the interview room and said goodbye on the concourse. When they’d disappeared towards the car park, Annie went to the Avis desk. She’d half-anticipated some kind of escort en route to Tandragee and she was glad that no one was insisting. The tricky parts of operational life in Northern Ireland were always the beginning and end of any journey. The end of this one – Flaherty’s Bar in Tandragee – was now covered. She had total confidence in Stanton and the plans he’d made. That left the start of the journey, leaving the airport, and this she knew she could sort out herself. Her two years in Belfast had taught her a great deal, but the most important lesson of all was the absolute need for self-reliance. Keep things simple. And keep things to yourself. That way, most of the time, you’d get by.

  At the Avis desk, she gave the girl her name. The girl consulted a board at the back of the booth. When she turned back, she offered Annie a key.

  ‘It’s a white Cavalier,’ she said, ‘out in the car park, off to your left.’

  Annie smiled back, refusing the key. ‘Some other car, please,’ she said. ‘I hate Cavaliers.’

  ‘Really?’ The girl looked startled but didn’t argue. There were three rows of keys on the board at the back.

  ‘Something a bit nippy, too,’ Annie said, ‘if you have it.’

  ‘Same class?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Use my Visa if there’s an authorisation problem.’

  The girl looked at the board again. She gave Annie a key from the bottom row. ‘Golf GTI,’ she said, ‘brand new.’

  ‘Colour?’

  The girl looked at the board again. ‘Red.’

  ‘Perfect,’ Annie said, ‘I hate white, too.’