by Tom Bradby
He also thought about Gerry McVeigh and wondered why Long had been so interested in him.
When he got home again, he wanted to talk, but realized there was no-one he could really talk to. He thought of talking to his mother, but knew he would end up being irritable with her and then disliking himself as a result. He wanted to talk to his father.
He watched News at Ten and noticed it had more on Gingy Hughes. He switched off the television halfway through the report and then wondered why he had. That is the reality, he thought. It didn’t make him feel very comfortable.
Finally, he made it to the narrow single bed. He found it impossible to stop thinking of his father and of the bullies’ voices. ‘Ryan’s daddy’s dead. Ryan’s daddy’s dead. Ryan’s daddy’s dead. Who’s going to be a mummy’s boy now?’
‘Enough.’ Colette walked forward and switched off the television. Mark and Catherine looked like they had been hypnotized. ‘Dinner,’ she added.
Mark scowled. ‘Grandma lets us watch the news.’
‘You don’t like the news.’
‘We’re allowed to watch it.’
‘Not any more.’
She had just got them into the kitchen when the television went on again. They were all there, for once, and Paddy and Gerry wanted to watch UTV’s news.
Colette had cooked Mark and Catherine hamburgers and chips and she put the plates in front of them and got the bottle of tomato ketchup out of the cupboard.
She went back into the front room to watch the news.
A reporter’s voice. Monotone. ‘Detectives believe that Mr Hughes and his wife were abducted by one of the IRA’s Internal Security Units … They were brought to this remote hillside in east Tyrone where they are said to have been repeatedly tortured … Early this morning, Mr Hughes is said to have been taken out – bound and gagged with a hood over his head – and marched down this lane …’
The camera was moving down the lane for dramatic effect.
‘Mr Hughes is said to have begged for his life. Mrs Hughes, too, begged for her captors to spare him. The men forced him to kneel and forced her to watch as they shot him …’
Colette looked at Paddy, who was sitting closest to the door. He looked … strange. Frightened?
A shot of a house on an estate in Armagh. It stood in darkness, as if a ghost, the light from the houses to the left and right spilling out onto the street. ‘Tonight there was no sign of life at the Hughes’s home in Armagh city. Mr Hughes’s mother said she did not wish to give an interview, though she told the local newspaper she believed her son was completely innocent…’
‘Like fuck,’ Gerry said.
A shot of the outside of RUC headquarters at Knock. ‘The RUC would not comment on the case tonight, except to deny that Mr Hughes had been involved with them in any capacity …’
‘Lying bastards,’ Gerry said.
He was in the far chair and there was a hole by his feet where the pipe bomb had gone through the floor. ‘Another one gone,’ he added, and Colette could tell he was trying to get Ma to rise.
‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t say things like that, Gerry,’ Ma said quietly. ‘Not in this house.’
Colette saw the tension in her mother’s face – she was sheet white – and she could tell Gerry relished the challenge. ‘So you want us to be nice to the touts?’
‘I don’t think anything is served … by that kind of cruelty.’
‘If we don’t deal with them we’re finished.’
‘It is so unkind.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Ma. You might not have noticed—’
‘Just leave Ma alone, Gerry,’ Colette said. She hadn’t meant to intervene. She could tell Gerry was in a mood to fight.
‘Ah, another tout-lover.’
‘Just leave it. I’m no more a tout-lover than you are.’
‘Well, don’t you want us to be kind to them too?’
Ma leaned forward. ‘Gerard, this is getting to you and it is about time you realized what it is doing.’
‘And you’re just like the bloody rest of them. I don’t know why we bother, I really—’ Gerry was shaking his head.
‘It is about time you stopped thinking that you know best all the time.’
Gerry exploded. ‘For Christ’s sake! I can’t stand this. I can’t stand it!’ He was on his feet now. ‘People have died for this. People have spent years in prison – and this is the result.’ He mimicked his mother’s voice. ‘You’re so unkind.’
Colette could see her mother was hurt. ‘Just leave it, Gerry. This is not the time.’
‘Well, when is the time? We’ve all made sacrifices. At least Dad wouldn’t have wanted us to sell out. And what about Sean?’
‘ENOUGH.’ Paddy was on his feet. ‘That’s bloody well enough.’
Gerry sneered. ‘And you as well?’
‘Leave it out, Gerry. I am with you, but that is below the belt and you know it.’
Gerry looked at Ma and could clearly see she was crying. He turned on his heels and, a few seconds later, they heard the front door slamming.
Colette went to sit on her mother’s chair and put her arm around her. Paddy sat and watched the television in silence.
Colette found herself thinking, not of the row but of the fear on Paddy’s face – and on Ma’s, too.
McIlhatton watched his breath. It was a cold but clear day, and he looked up at Big Ben. It looked staggeringly beautiful set against a blue sky and he found it dazzling. You could say what you liked about the Brits, but they certainly built extraordinary buildings.
He heard the couple next to him muttering in Japanese. He thought they must be nuts standing here so patiently in this kind of temperature. He looked at the policeman opposite and, when the man caught his eye, he looked away.
There was a sudden short burst of a police siren. There was a murmur from the small crowd. McIlhatton looked up again. The cameras clicked and the Japanese woman yelped as a grey Jaguar swept past them into the House. Eddie McIlhatton looked into the window and felt a frisson of excitement as he caught a brief glimpse of the man they were going to kill.
He looked at his watch. It was 3.05 p.m. exactly.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE SCREAM MADE HER SIT BOLT UPRIGHT. FOR A FEW SECONDS SHE felt disorientated, and then she realized it was Mark who’d screamed. He was mumbling now, babbling incoherently. She listened but could make no sense of what he was saying. She turned over and put her hand down to comfort him. He didn’t wake.
‘Is it OK?’ Catherine asked.
Colette got out of bed and stepped over to touch her head. ‘It’s all right, love. He’s just talking in his sleep.’ She bent down and kissed her and then lay back on the bed. She felt wide awake. Mark began to babble again. She wondered what he was having nightmares about.
She found herself thinking of the meeting that she hadn’t turned up to, and for the first time she felt afraid, wondering what they would do. She thought how ruthless the Brit was. He hadn’t seemed like the rest of them, but maybe that was just for show.
She drifted off to sleep and found herself dreaming of Davey. He was walking along a beach somewhere – it looked like Donegal – wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He was walking backwards, but she simply couldn’t hear what he was saying. With each step, she could see the desperation growing on his face, then, suddenly, he was pointing agitatedly at the ground and she looked down to see Mark, covered in blood. She bent down and touched him. He was so cold and, when she looked up, it was not Davey but Ryan who was standing over her. He was smiling, but she couldn’t work out whether it was compassion or contempt…
She woke up. She could feel the sweat on her body and she sat up in bed. The house was silent, though she could hear some dogs barking in the distance. The curtains were open a fraction and they were billowing out gently with the breeze. She heard a familiar sound faintly in the distance and then it was drowned out by the sound of the dogs again.
When they stopped, s
ilence returned.
Then she heard it. A single Land Rover door slamming, then several. She heard shouts and she shivered, but didn’t move. She didn’t think it could possibly be for her. Not now.
There was a moment’s silence again and then she heard the crash of the sledgehammers. Before she could gather herself, the front door gave way. They were shouting now. She heard them pounding up the stairs and she just had time to stand up on the bed and cover herself with a sheet before they were in and she was blinded by the torchlight.
‘Mrs McGraw?’
‘For Jesus’ sake!’
‘Mammy.’ Catherine said.
‘It’s all right.’
‘You’ll have to come with us, Mrs McGraw.’
‘For Christ’s sake.’
‘Now.’
‘Mammy’ Catherine was crying.
Colette saw one of the soldiers stumble forward as the door behind him was pushed open.
‘For the Lord’s sake!’ Ma said.
The soldiers turned their torches round and Colette could see them now. Two great figures, impossibly large in this small room.
‘Get out of my house,’ Ma said.
Colette heard a quiet voice in the corridor answer and the soldiers turned their torches back in her direction.
‘Please give me a moment to dress,’ she said quietly.
‘Dress now,’ one of them said and they didn’t move.
Colette heard the voice behind them again and she watched as they withdrew. As the door shut she turned on the light and picked up her jeans off the floor. She was just pulling them on when the door opened again and she looked up to see the soldiers grinning. ‘Bastards,’ she said, quietly.
She put on her shoes and bent down to hug Mark and Catherine. Both clung to her. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘It’s all right. I’ll be back soon.’
She stood up and the two soldiers grabbed her arms. As she was pulled out onto the landing, her mother said, ‘No. Leave her, for Christ’s sake.’
There was a commanding air to her voice and the soldiers stopped.
‘Don’t make this difficult, Mrs McGraw,’ a big RUC man said.
‘We’ve had enough.’
‘We’ve all had enough.’
‘Leave her.’
‘She’s going. It’s up to you whether you make it easy or difficult.’
Ma looked at the man and Colette saw the strength and venom in her face. ‘You’ll regret this,’ she said.
The RUC man turned back to her. ‘Get her out,’ he said and the soldiers needed no second cue, pulling her down the stairs. Colette saw her mother’s face twisted in uncharacteristic hatred and heard her scream, ‘Bigots!’
It was dark outside. She could see lights on in the houses opposite and saw one or two faces in the windows. There were three or four Land Rovers in the street and soldiers and policemen everywhere. As she was dragged away from the house, she found herself biting her lip and trying to stop herself crying.
They pushed her towards the back of a Land Rover. The men inside reached down for her and pulled her in. It was warm and she felt the press of male bodies.
Then she saw him. She saw his boots first, and his jeans – immediately noticeable amongst the uniforms – and then she found herself looking into his face. He didn’t smile at her – he betrayed nothing – but she felt a sudden strange sense of relief.
She looked into the faces of the others and saw a mixture of hostility and interest. She looked back at Ryan. He was staring at her. She realized once again how big he was, his black curly hair crushed against the roof of the Land Rover. She noticed his hands – large, strong hands. She looked at the gold signet ring on the little finger of his right hand.
She could feel the warmth of his body because his knees were touching hers.
He turned to look at the other policemen and she studied his face again. She noticed the size of his nose and the thickness of his eyebrows.
She looked down and was conscious of his eyes on her again. She closed her own eyes and tried to think of the children. She found herself thinking of Ryan instead and, after several minutes, she looked up to find he was still staring at her.
They pulled into Castlereagh and the policemen bundled her out of the back, away from him. She held his gaze until she was through the entrance.
The holding centre hadn’t changed – it still looked like a Portakabin – and she was signed in, searched and then taken down the corridor to the women’s cells at the other end. Outside the newly painted, dark-blue cell doors, the inmates’ clothes hung, concealed, so that no-one could tell who was being held, but, as Colette passed, someone shouted encouragement.
‘I’m Richard McIlwaine, Republican. If you’re Republican, tell them nothin’. Nothin’.’
They were at the end of the corridor, but Colette broke free and dashed back to bang on the outside of the cell door. She shouted, ‘Richard, it’s Colette.’
The uniformed officers took her arms and dragged her away, but the man was still shouting. ‘Tell ’em nothin’, Colette. Nothin’.’
Then she was in the cell, sitting alone on the green iron-framed bed with its brown plastic mattress. There was no ventilation and no natural light. The bed and the chair were chained to the floor and the sheets were synthetic and disposable. At night, it was always freezing cold, and she shivered at the thought of it.
She sat in silence.
A few minutes later the door opened and two uniformed constables took her up to one of the interview rooms. She was left alone briefly and then the Brit arrived. He had a big fat man with him, dressed in a grey suit with a thick mop of grey hair.
The man placed a file on the desk and leaned over the back of a chair towards her. ‘Mrs McGraw, you were let off a very serious crime and spared a long gaol sentence at the behest of my colleague here and I think you owe him an explanation.’
He looked over towards Ryan, who was sitting in the corner of the room. Ryan stood. He crossed his hands and forearms in front of his chest. ‘What happened, Colette?’
‘I want to see my solicitor.’
‘In a minute.’ The man’s voice was harsh.
He opened the file and pushed a white booklet across the table, turning it round so that she could read the front page. ‘In the meantime, you’ll want to have a look at that. It’s your witness statement – your confession – and I think you’ll find that is your signature at the bottom of it.’
Colette said nothing for a long time.
‘I just can’t do it,’ she whispered.
The man brought his hand crashing down onto the table. ‘You’ve got no bloody choice.’
‘I can’t do it.’
‘You’ve got no choice.’
He twisted the chair round and sat down. ‘Look, let’s consider the consequences. Your family, for example. What’s going to happen to them? Your kids are still young, aren’t they?’ His tone was patronizing. ‘They were lucky the other day. But I suppose, now the Loyalists know where you live, you wouldn’t really expect to be so lucky next time, would you? Terrible to think what a pipe bomb could do to Mark or little Catherine.’
She looked up at him. ‘You pig.’
‘We deal in harsh realities here, Mrs McGraw. You bring it on yourself. Which bit of the Bible is it? Those who live by the sword…’ He got up to leave. ‘We both have the same Bible, after all.’
Colette stared intently at the table as he closed the door behind him.
Silence.
Ryan walked over to the table to take the seat opposite her. He lit a cigarette.
Silence again.
‘What happened?’ he said eventually.
‘I was busy.’
‘You’ll have to do better than that.’
She looked up and smiled sourly. ‘I was looking after my children. Understand that?’
‘This isn’t a picnic club.’
‘Oh, really. I’d never have guessed.’
Ryan stood
up, turned the chair round the right way and sat down again. ‘How is Gerry?’
Colette was looking down again now. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.’
‘Well, that’s the first lie of today.’
‘If you say so.’
‘What has he been doing?’
‘Like I said, I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.’
Ryan put his right elbow on the table and leaned forward. ‘Let’s start again, shall we? What does Gerry think about what is going on at the moment?’
‘Why are you so interested in him?’
‘We’re starting at the beginning. He’s a significant figure …’
‘Well, you’ll have to ask someone else. I don’t know. I haven’t seen him and we’re not close anyway.’
Ryan leaned back. ‘Do you have anything for us?’
‘No.’
‘Nothing at all?’ Irritation was creeping into his voice now. ‘You’ve heard nothing at all since you got back?’
She shook her head.
‘What have you been doing? Who have you been seeing?’
‘My family.’
He was about to go on when she cut him off. ‘There’s a bit of unhappiness at the moment. All this talk of peace.’
Ryan continued, as if talking to a child. ‘Who is unhappy and why?’
‘They think the leadership is getting too tied up in politics. They think they’re being conned by the Brits.’
‘Who thinks this? Gerry?’
She stopped again, took a cigarette from the packet on the table and leaned back. He made no move to light it for her.
‘It’s what I heard.’
There was a note of finality in her voice. She looked into his eyes and could see the irritation there.
‘From whom did you hear it?’
‘It’s what people are talking about.’
‘People? Everyone?’
‘Not everyone.’
‘Names?’
She shook her head. Ryan stood.
‘You’ll have to do better than this.’ He looked at her for a response. ‘You’ll have to do better than this, Colette, or this is over and we’re in trouble.’