Reaper

by Hurley, Graham

  He saw it when he went in for the morning update, the head and shoulders shot, Scullen sitting in a car, slightly out of focus, staring straight ahead through the windscreen. Miller had pinned it to the noticeboard across from his desk. If he looked up, he couldn’t fail to see it, a reminder, a taunt.

  Charlie sat down in front of the desk. Miller had his head in the paper. He didn’t look up. Charlie opened the file in his lap. He’d spent the best part of the previous evening with an agent he was running in Londonderry. They’d met in a big DIY store on the outskirts of the town, and driven in Charlie’s car to a remote part of the Sperrin Mountains. The road was bare and exposed, winding up the mountainside. They’d talked for an hour and a half, the window an inch or two open, Charlie listening for movement in the windy darkness. Anyone driving up the road, he’d spot several miles away. Anyone approaching on foot might be a trickier proposition.

  Miller, in the office, looked up. His eyes, Charlie noted, went straight to the photo of Scullen.

  “What happened?” he said.

  Charlie told him. The source, highly placed in the Derry Brigade, had the confidence of some key people. Over the past six months, since the deaths of the Hunger Strikers, he’d kept Charlie briefed on the biggest of the current issues: the strength of the call for revenge, and precisely what shape that revenge might take. The conversation had ranged far and wide, but the name that came up time and again was Scullen’s. He’d become a very powerful man. He’d secured a perch for himself at the very top of the organization. He’d been given a large budget, and the pick of the best men, and remarkable freedoms. He’d rebuilt the ASUs, and insulated them from the home-based Brigades. He’d created an army within an army, and placed himself at its head. So far, so good. But Scullen had enemies in the movement, increasingly powerful, and in the judgement of Charlie’s source, these enemies were close to having Scullen by the throat.

  Miller looked up.

  “Why?” he said.

  Charlie’s finger found a phrase he’d noted from the cassette recording in the car. It had struck him at the time.

  “Because he thinks he’s the Crown fucking Prince,” he said. “Direct quote.”

  Miller nodded, unsurprised. “So what?” he said. “He’s very good. Better than the Chief.”

  “The rest don’t see it that way.”

  “They don’t?”

  “No. The word they’re using is undemocratic.”

  “Undemocratic?” Miller laughed. “Since when have the Provos been interested in democracy? Is this something new? Have you briefed me on this?”

  Charlie smiled for a moment, then returned to the file. “There’s more,” he said, “which might help. Apparently there’s another big row. About means and ends. Chiefly means.”

  Miller nodded again, impatient now. “They want her dead,” he said, “we know that. That’s what it’s all about. That’s why we’re here.”

  “Ah …” Charlie held up a cautionary finger, “but how? How will they do it?”

  Miller looked at him. “If I knew that,” he said, “the game would be over. We’d all be back home. Doing something half useful.” He paused. “So what are you telling me? What did your man say?”

  Charlie shrugged. “The word is, Scullen has something big in mind. Something a bit special.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What kind of thing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does he know? Your source?”

  “No.” He paused. “That’s the point. No one knows. Scullen’s stepped right out of channels. Not even the Chief knows.” There was a long silence.

  “The Chief protects him,” Miller said. “No Chief. No Scullen.”

  “Precisely.”

  “So what does he think? The Chief?”

  Charlie’s head dipped towards the file again. “I gather he’s reserving judgement.”

  Miller nodded. “Makes a change,” he said tartly.

  There was a long silence. One of the Unit’s three-tonners ground past outside. Miller leaned back in the chair and gazed up at the ceiling.

  “So what do you think?” he said at last.

  Charlie hesitated a moment. “I think we need him off the plot,” he said, “fast.”

  Miller let the chair tip forward again and looked him in the eye. “That’s what Dublin was about,” he said, “in theory …”

  “I know.”

  There was another silence. The truck had come to a halt several blocks away, the engine still running. Miller was still looking at Charlie.

  “So where do we go from here?” he said. “What about your young lady? Up in Andersonstown? What’s she been telling you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “No,” he shrugged, “she says there’s nothing to tell.”

  Miller watched Charlie for a moment longer. Then he folded his paper and put it carefully to one side. He opened a drawer and produced another file. Charlie looked at it. Miller had stencilled the word “Reaper” on the front. The file was no fatter than a month back. Miller opened it, checked something, and glanced up.

  “We have a friend in the Garda,” he said, “you’ll know that.”

  Charlie nodded. There’d been talk of a source in the Irish police for a while. He even had a name. The Badger. “Yes,” he said, “I’d heard.”

  Miller nodded. “Our friend has been involved in the Garville Street inquiry. Evidently they’ve put the forensic together and one or two other clues we left around. Our friend has lifted a copy. He sent it through.”

  “Nice of him.”

  Miller nodded. “Yes,” he said, “the job’s got our signature all over it. The Garda knew we were there. They’re livid.”

  “How livid?”

  “They’ve sent a copy to Downing Street. Back door job.”

  Miller leaned back, watching Charlie carefully, letting the implications sink in. To date, with backing from the very top, they’d got away with it. But now it suddenly looked very different. If the Garda really did go public, there’d be some hasty realignments. Nineteenth would be for the chop. The RUC would have a field day. MI5 would nod wisely and permit themselves a discreet smile. Special Branch would piss themselves. Horrible. Quite horrible.

  Charlie glanced up. Miller was still looking at him. The two men said nothing, then Miller’s eyes strayed again to the picture on the wall, and Charlie began to understand the way he’d been lately, withdrawn, watchful, quiet. Miller got up and walked across to the window. He had his hands in his pockets. He sounded tired.

  “We need some action, Charlie,” he said quietly. “We have one or two things to prove.” He glanced round. “You get my drift?”

  Charlie nodded. “Yes,” he said.

  “Talk to the girl again.” He paused. “And try to forget you’re bloody Irish!” He glanced round. “That possible?”

  Charlie looked at him, saying nothing.

  SIXTEEN

  It took an hour for Buddy to make the arrangements for Dublin, and a day to convince Jude it was worth going.

  The arrangements couldn’t have been simpler. Mary O’Hara had left a card with a Dublin number. Buddy was to book a flight, ring the number, and everything would be taken care of. The ticket would be paid for, a hospital would be alerted, and an ambulance would meet the flight at the airport.

  Putting the phone down, he told Jude the good news. She nodded, a small white face on the pillow, a towel still wrapped around her head after the morning shampoo.

  “Fine,” she said, “have a good time.”

  “You’re coming with me.” Buddy frowned. “That’s the whole point.”

  She shook her head. “No,” she said, “I’ll stay here and tidy up.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  “I mean it.” She smiled. “The first bit, anyway.”

  Buddy, astonished, had gone through it all again. He reminded her about Pascale, her suitability for t
he operation, the efforts he’d made to try and get them both to the clinic. He told her about his visit to Harry, his bid to borrow fifty grand, his tour of the oil companies up in Aberdeen, the journeys he’d made, the hands he’d shaken. He even told her, in detail, about the interview he’d given to the girl at the local paper. He found a copy of the article. He showed it to her. She glanced at it, read the headline, gazed for a moment at the shot of herself, sitting on Duke.

  “You had no right,” she said, “without asking me.”

  Buddy looked at her. He was furious. “I was trying to help,” he pointed out, “I was trying to get you better.”

  “But you just went and phoned this girl up? My wife’s a cripple? Help us make it through? Was that it?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Wonderful.”

  Buddy walked into the kitchen. Counted to ten. Walked back again. She was watching his every move from the bed, determined to finish what she’d started, no matter where it led.

  “So what did she say? This … girl?”

  “She listened. I did most of the talking.”

  “I bet.”

  He rounded on her. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I bet she sat there, listening to you talking about me.” She paused. “You tell her about the old days? The horseriding? All that shit?”

  “Yes.”

  “What else did you tell her? You tell her how we screwed? What kind of positions? How often? How horny I was? Always bothering you?”

  “I told her I loved you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah!”

  There was a long silence. Buddy circled the bed. At the hospital, they’d warned him that this would happen, that Jude – one day – would offload all the bitterness, all the rage. At the time, he’d nodded, accepting it, a perfectly reasonable reaction, easy to understand, easy to forgive. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “I shouldn’t have done it.”

  She looked at him. The last thing she wanted was an apology.

  “It was my body,” she said bitterly.

  Buddy nodded. “Yeah …” he said, “and my life.”

  There was another long silence. Buddy sat down. Miles above them, he could hear the thin, high whine of a passenger jet. The main airway to the States lay over the house. During the summer, lying on his back in the garden, Buddy had often watched the planes, tiny silver fish in an ocean of blue. Jude had been there too, bikini and garden gloves, squatting amongst the flowers, up to her elbows in soil, grubbing out the weeds. They’d have tea together. They’d talk. They’d laugh. Later, they’d go to the pub, roll back late, tumble around. Now, Buddy studied his hands, not looking at her. Where did all that go, he wondered, what kind of people were we then? He sat back in the armchair, letting the anger drain out of him. Jude was crying, big tears, rolling down onto the pillow, anger and frustration, not grief. Buddy watched her for a moment, then began to get up, reaching for the ever-present box of Kleenex.

  “Don’t,” she said, “I don’t want you to.”

  Buddy shrugged, collapsing back into the chair. The row had exposed them both, and he knew it. “I’m sorry,” he said again, “I mean it.”

  Jude sniffed. “Doesn’t matter,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do about it.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “I know you don’t. But it’s true, my love.”

  “Who says?”

  “Everyone. Everyone you talk to. The doctors. The physios. Even the nurses. People know. They just know.” She paused. “That’s the shame of it. If I was a pet, you’d have put me down by now. Put me out of my misery.”

  “I love you.”

  “Yeah …” she nodded, blinking, “I know. That’s why you’d have put me down.”

  They talked all day. What began as a row became, in the end, a debate, Buddy the reluctant participant, Jude forcing him time and again to acknowledge the facts. Her life was effectively over. It had become, in essence, a list of jobs, someone else’s jobs, Buddy’s jobs. She took no pleasure from that, from the knowledge of it. Buddy listened to her quiet analysis, recognizing it for what it was, careful, emotionless, quite empty of bitterness or self-pity, but at the end of it all he simply shook his head, and said there was no argument. Everyone had a right to life, he said. Even her.

  Jude had smiled at this. It was, she said, a very unhandicapped view. He ought to try it one day, try getting into her bed, or her wheelchair, cutting off nine-tenths of his body, compressing a fifteen-hour day into movements of his head and neck. Life, she said, was a gift. But if the thing didn’t work any more you could send it back. That’s where she was. That’s what she thought. And if he really loved her, really wanted to do what was best for her, then he’d buy several bottles of decent champagne, and a dozen or so tablets, and they’d get smashed first, so the rest of it wouldn’t feel so deliberate. Buddy watched her, nodding in mock agreement.

  “OK,” he’d said. “But I’ll come too.” He smiled. “That OK?”

  “You’re crazy.” She smiled a small smile. “Crazy man.”

  “I mean it.”

  She looked across at him and shook her head.

  “You don’t,” she said, “you’re just confused.”

  “Wrong.”

  “Right. You’re confused because you can’t get the rest of it out of your head. The way we were.” She paused. “The way we were was great. I mean it. It’s never been better than that. Never. But this—” she turned her head away – “this is a joke.”

  Late in the evening, drunk again, they arrived at a deal. Jude would consent to go to Ireland, and on to Boston. Pascale would operate, the Irish charity would pay, and if nothing happened afterwards – no sensation, no movement – they’d order the champagne and the pills. The champagne they’d split. Jude would have the pills. This arrangement might be painful to discuss upfront, so from now they’d refer to it by code. The codeword would be Bollinger. Bollinger, insisted Jude, would be exactly what the word suggested. There’d be lots of fizz, lots of bubbles, an hour or two’s dreamy conversation, and then she’d go to sleep.

  Watching her talking, past midnight, stretched out beside her on the bed, Buddy yawned.

  “End of story?” he suggested.

  Jude grinned, life not quite so bad anymore, remembering the first time, in the horsebox, miles from anywhere, Duke outside, tied up to some tree or other.

  “Yeah,” she said, “happiness always smelled of horseshit. You know that.”

  *

  Back in Belfast, Connolly phoned the number Ingle had given him.

  He’d been living with Mairead full time for three weeks now, using the flat off the Ormeau Road as a study during the day. The arrangement was working well, better than he’d ever anticipated, and even Liam was beginning to accept it. The wooden glances over breakfast were becoming rarer, and the boy had even enquired about the possibility of Connolly joining him for a game of football. There was a park down the road. He played there with his mates. They sometimes needed a referee. Connolly would do nicely. Connolly, flattered, had exchanged glances with Mairead and said yes. He knew nothing about football, but he suspected that was irrelevant. Rules had ceased to matter in West Belfast for more than a decade. Having a referee was simply a passing whimsy, this season’s little joke.

  Connolly phoned Ingle from a call box opposite the City Hall. When he got through, there was a recorded message referring him to another number. Connolly wrote it down and looked at it. 0836, he thought. One of the new mobile phones. He dialled the number. It answered on the second ring, and Connolly recognized Ingle’s voice at once, the flat South London accent. There was music in the background, something heavy, Led Zeppelin.

  “Yes?” Ingle said.

  “It’s Connolly.”

  “Yes?”

  “We need to meet.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight. Half past five.”

 
“OK.”

  The phone went dead and the music stopped. Connolly hung up and left the booth. On a news stand beside a chemist was a billboard for the evening paper. In heavy black scrawl it read “Informers Crippling IRA – Say Police”.

  Connolly left the University at five o’clock, and took the bus to the Central Station. The station was busy with commuters leaving the city for the suburbs and he had to push his way up the escalator and onto the crowded concourse. Ingle was standing outside the Whistle Stop bar. He was wearing a long, grubby raincoat, and a pair of plimsolls. His hair was as lank as ever, and he needed a shave.

  “Terrible weather,” he said, “always fucking raining.”

  Connolly shrugged. “You get used to it,’ he said, “after the first ten years.”

  They walked back down to ground level. Ingle’s car was parked beside the station. They sat inside, the engine on, the heater running. Connolly could hear the rumble of trains leaving the station near by. He looked across at Ingle.

  “Been here long?” he said.

  “Five minutes.”

  “I meant Belfast.”

  “Oh,” Ingle shrugged, “a while.”

  There was a silence. The windows of the car had clouded with the warmth. Connolly wiped a small square in the cold glass. Coats and anoraks strode past outside. Ingle shifted his body in the seat. The car was too small for him. He turned sideways, his back to the window, looking at Connolly.

  “Well?” he said.

  Connolly took his time, remembering Scullen’s careful instructions.

  “There’s some people I met …” he began.

  “Yeah?”

  Connolly nodded.

  “Yeah,” he said, “Republicans. Highly placed.”

  “Names?”

  He glanced across at Ingle. Ingle had a small notepad out. His pencil broke on the first letter. He fumbled for a biro, and took the top off with his teeth.

  “Well?” he said.

  Connolly shrugged. “Dunno.”

  “They don’t have names? Nicknames? Nothing?”

  Connolly frowned, remembering the way Scullen had put it. Give him a taster, he’d said. Give him one name. Just one. Give him mine. Connolly looked up.