Blood Will Be Born

by Donnelly, Gary

‘Firstly, however,’ he said, a big grin spreading over his face, ‘firstly we should celebrate. Young lady! Champagne, your best,’ he called, and the waitress promptly scurried away.

  ‘Charlie, listen to me, I don’t want Champagne. I don’t want anything. In fact I think it best I leave,’ she said. Charlie wagged a finger at her. He drained the rest of his whiskey and set the glass down with a rap.

  ‘Nonsense, champagne it must be. This is a celebration Aoife, for a well-deserved promotion. Serious Crimes is lucky to have you,’ he said.

  Charlie, you are very sweet, and you are a good man, and thank you for all the coaching and help you gave me, I know I would never had got the job without your help, but –’

  ‘They are lucky to have you. I have never in my days worked with someone who was able to do the job in Community Relations as well as you. You’re smart, you’re fair and you,’ he said, pointing at her, ‘are going to be a great detective.’

  But in Community Relations her name was dirt, and reputations had a habit of following you, especially as a woman. The waitress arrived with a bottle of cheap looking fizz in a silver bucket. She set two flutes down and uncorked it with a muted pop, filled their glasses. Aoife picked up one of the fortune cookies from a small bowl in the middle of the table and cradled its delicate shell between her palms.

  ‘To you, Aoife, you knock them dead kiddo,’ said Charlie. He was smiling, holding up the flute, his eyes glazed. What a waste of time, whatever his supposed news for her was, it could not be that important, probably just a ruse to get her back in the sack. She crushed the shell of the cookie between her hands and then dusted the broken bits on the stained white table cloth, reached for her purse and pulled out twenty quid, looked at the bottle on ice and then took out another twenty plus a ten. She dropped it on the table on top of the cookie dust. Charlie was watching her, mouth open, eyes not understanding.

  ‘Aoife, darling, what are you doing, we’re having a toast here. To you,’ he said, weakly lifting his glass. She stood up, grabbed her bag and coat and took the bit of paper from the fortune cookie, then shuffled out of the booth.

  ‘I have to go Charlie, and I think it’s best if you and I are not in touch, for a while,’ she said, turning before he could say anything else. She marched away, past the waitress in the shadows who stared at her with big brown eyes, past the bar with no-one serving. She paused to read her fortune, frowned then dropped it on the floor and kept walking. From behind her, Charlie’s voice, loud and full of afternoon drink:

  ‘Aoife stop, we need to talk. I’ve messed up, badly, I need to explain. Aoife! Aoife! Wait, I’m sorry. Whatever happens, I want you to know that I’m sorry,’ he called. She pushed the restaurant door open and stepped out into the bustle of a Belfast Friday afternoon, creating her destiny with confident strides, and leaving Charlie Donaldson’s apologies and the warning she’d found in the fortune cookie behind her.

  Chapter 4.

  Granny stared at him, open mouthed, then snapped it closed like a turtle. Christopher eased himself into the two-seater settee opposite her chair.

  ‘Who are you? What do you think you’re doing in my home?’ Then, before Christopher had a chance to respond: ‘I was just about to watch my show.’

  ‘Well, let’s go back to who I am not. As you said, I am not Cecil,’ said Christopher.

  ‘If its money you’re after you may sling your hook, for I have none,’ she said, face set. Christopher told her that theft was not his intention, though he noted she was sporting a fair sized sapphire on her right hand, too big to be the real thing. Something like that could go for a grand in the Cash Exchange in the city centre. She squinted at him through her thick spectacles.

  ‘You know my name. So do I know you? Let me get a better look at them eyes.’

  She adjusted her position, craning forward, moving her arm from the chair as she did so. She seized something from the table, faster than Christopher had given her credit for. Like a rat. Christopher could only stare at the plastic alarm on a draw string now clasped in her hand. It was concealed behind the ashtray. She jabbed the red button, glared at him triumphantly.

  Christopher’s paralysis broke. He whipped the truncheon from the smooth nylon lining of his jacket, pouncing up from the settee as he did so. He swung it through the air in a tight arc, all of him lazered in on the blinking alarm and the scrawny claw that continued to jab at it. The hard wood truncheon connected and Granny’s hand gave a brittle crunch, the alarm dropped to the floor, and she threw her head back, the cords in her neck like metal rods sheathed in thin paper. Her first scream, hoarse and brief, was followed by a big gasping inhalation, then a long, sharp howl which tailed off first into a whimper.

  ‘Bastard! Cecil will take your life for this.’ Her left hand was swelling and turning purple.

  ‘That was worth a rap on the knuckles, Esther,’ said Christopher, voice steady, but his heart was yammering. He needed to switch on. The old woman had managed to check him, his next move needed to be smarter still, and fast. He rested the truncheon on the settee, then scooped the alarm off the floor and examined it. He found the number he was looking for.

  ‘Here’s the deal Esther. I’m going to make a phone call and tell them that everything is A OK. You are going to keep your wee mouth closed and in exchange I will keep this,’ pointing at the truncheon, ‘away from that.’ He pointed to her damaged hand. ‘Then, you and I will be able to have a civilized chat. Deal?’ She blinked away tears from her eyes and nodded once.

  Christopher got up and lifted a cordless phone from its cradle by the door. He punched in the number printed on the back of the alarm and a woman’s voice answered. He gave Granny’s user I.D that was written on a sticker under the emergency number, confirmed the address and identified himself, Cecil Moore, Esther’s son.

  ‘Ma accidently pushed the button. Aye, she surely was wearing it. Just glad I was here, she got herself into a right fluster, you know how they get? Ok, thanks very much for your help. You have a good weekend. Oh, aye, thanks love, you enjoy the twelfth weekend too, we will,’ he said and ended the call, his eyes on Granny throughout. Christopher held the alarm, still flashing, by the string and let it pendulum back and forth, like an old fashioned hypnotist. Granny watched it move, and blink. Seconds passed. The alarm stopped blinking.

  ‘Now, that’s magic,’ said Christopher.

  The laughter erupted, surprising him almost as much as his Granny, who flinched and then shrunk away, as though it were a contaminant. He wanted to stop, but Christopher simply could not. He laughed until his face ached and his eyes streamed, leaving the balaclava damp against his cheeks. He screeched until he was gasping for air. Christopher tossed the alarm on the carpet and gripped the settee. His outbursts had been a problem since puberty, but recently things had started to get much worse, and in moments like this Christopher was certain he was

  Mad?

  He was losing control, in a way that he may not be able to regain it at all. Hearing Daddy’s voice was one thing, a welcome gift of great value. But this was bad, and if he didn’t catch a grip soon, the old witch would make another move, she had it in her. If she somehow got the better of him (an absurd idea, and a truly horrible one which, until this moment, he had not even conceived of), he would never complete Daddy’s mission, he’d be dead if she managed to call Cecil. But there were worse things than death. If he lived he’d end up locked away. People would not understand, they’d say he was nuts, like his mother. At that, the boiling spring inside him went cold and quiet again, the laughter stopped as abruptly as it had begun.

  ‘Who are you?’ said Granny.

  ‘Don’t you know Esther? You can’t remember me?’

  ‘I know what you look like, sitting there.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Granny did not reply but eyed his attire up and down, disgust evident, but no more afraid now than she had been when he first surprised her. ‘An IRA man you mean? Yes, I suppose I do at that. But this here is not exa
ctly an Armalite rifle, is it?’ He lifted the truncheon from the settee and slowly waved it at her. She did not respond. ‘This is police issue and proper: RUC. This is a skull cracker.’ He thwacked the stick into his gloved palm. ‘A Provo, or maybe I should say a mongrel, Fenian taig bastard with an RUC truncheon, that’s something you don’t see every day.’ Granny’s face shifted from confusion to recognition, and then, most pleasingly to fear. Her voice small and quaking:

  ‘Christopher? Christopher, is that you?’ she asked. Christopher slowly unrolled the balaclava from his face and made it a beanie hat again. He observed her coldly, the residue of his false tears cold on his skin.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘What for?’ asked Christopher. She paused before answering, choosing her words like chocolates from a mostly empty box.

  ‘For what was said. What I said. That time, to you and your Da.’ Straight to the nub; she remembered. But did she recall it as Christopher could? The memories planted in fear by a child have the deepest roots of all and they live on, nourished by the bitter waters of injustice.

  Twenty five years ago, her skin more taut, more meat on her bones, her hair fuller and still a lot of depth and thickness to her grey. She had her Bible under one arm and Uncle Cecil by her side, while his Daddy marched him away from her door.

  Don’t bring him back here! Don’t either of you come back here! You or that mongrel Fenian taig bastard.

  ‘Where’s your Bible, Esther?’ asked Christopher.

  Her eyes moved to the shelves on the wall to his left. He saw it; top shelf, big book, bound by brown crenelated leather. He got up and slid the book from the shelf, just about able to hold its weight with one hand. He rested it on his knees.

  ‘That was a long time ago, Christopher,’ she said. Christopher noted her tone, reasonable, gentle and the fact that she had started to use his first name. But she was not going to oil her way out of this, she had outfoxed Christopher once, and once was enough. Her puffed-up hand was twitching to a beat of its own. He would never be able to get that ring off easily now, even if he had wanted to.

  ‘A long time ago Granny dear, but that diatribe of yours caused a lot of damage, a lot of pain. Not that you are interested.’

  ‘I am,’ she said.

  ‘No matter, that’s not the real reason I am here. The real reason, you could say, is that.’ He nodded to the wall above the mantelpiece where a rectangle of orange, bobbled wall paper was a deeper shade than the rest of the chimney breast. Christopher recalled the big print of Ian Paisley, the firebrand preacher, in full voice outside Belfast City Hall, the epitome of all that was fixed and immutable in the world. The sign behind him in massive red letters:

  ULSTER SAY’S NO!

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

  ‘Last time I was here, it was Ulster Say’s NO! No?’

  ‘It didn’t work there no more,’ she said, sniffing and raising her eyes to the ceiling, haughty on matters of hearth and home. Then, back to sweetness and reason, ‘I told you I’m sorry. About all of it.’

  ‘The big Ian we used to know has gone away; from his pulpit, from your wall, and from your mouth Esther. I heard you interviewed in the news a while back saying what a great thing it was that all parties had voted to work together to support our ‘wonderful new PSNI,’’ he said. No response from Granny.

  ‘What they did, when they destroyed the RUC, it killed my Daddy,’ he said, pointing the finger at her. She looked away, but answered this time, wire in her words.

  ‘Your beloved Daddy killed himself,’ she said.

  ‘Shut your mouth!’ he yelled, and she did, but the words stayed as Christopher opened the Bible and thumbed through the pages, then stabbed his finger on the passage he wanted.

  ‘What I said on the TV was no different from anyone else, Christopher,’ she said.

  ‘It was different from you. The old you,’ said Christopher.

  ‘God’s sake boy, grow up!’ she shouted. ‘Times change, sometimes everything changes!’

  ‘But not for the better,’ whispered Christopher. He started to read:

  ‘Whatsoever causes you to sin, cut it out. If your arm causes you to sin, cut it off –‘

  ‘Stop it! Listen to me,’ she said. She was crying again.

  ‘If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.’

  ‘I said sorry. They will know it’s you, that you’ve been here,’ she said.

  Christopher clapped the Bible closed, stood up. He rolled the balaclava over his face, pulled out the hunting knife, and unlocked the blade with a click. The upper portion was serrated, like a saw. He put the knife on the mantel beside the clock, still crunching off the seconds. Granny whimpered.

  ‘It’s that tongue of yours, Esther,’ said Christopher, lifting the truncheon from the sofa. ‘Always was your problem.’

  ‘Your Fenian cunt of a mother stole my son! Nothin’ good could come from it, and look at ye! Look at ye!’ She spat loudly, and a string of saliva landed and clung precariously to the head of the truncheon. Christopher flicked it to the floor.

  ‘Ah, Granny,’ he said and raised the truncheon over his head like a tennis player ready to serve. She started to scream. ‘Flattery will get you nowhere,’ he said.

  One good hit, a policeman’s whack, was all it took.

  Part 2:

  Blood On The Streets.

  Chapter 1.

  Belfast, Northern Ireland, present day. Saturday 10th July.

  Fryer was awake.

  The only sound in his hospital cell was the faint drone from the overhead florescent tube. It cast a weak yellow light but shadows remained. Outside the clock tower struck two bells. Fryer was sat on the thin mattress, watching a shadow in the space beneath his desk. He did not blink, and his eyes slowly filled with tears that trickled down his face. His vision started to blur and as it did he saw something slither in that pocket of darkness. Fryer scrubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, scrabbling for the Buzz Lightyear torch. It was child friendly; tough, moulded plastic, no glass or removable sharp edged lens.

  Weak white light filled the cavity. There was nothing there. The painted green floor merged seamlessly into the wall of the same colour. He lifted his nose and inhaled slowly, got the lingering farty smell of overcooked cabbage, the ever present liquorish undercurrent of disinfectant. But he could not detect its smell; the caged animal smell, mixed with rotten potato mould.

  The Moley had been close in the wet room, Ade sensed it, spooked him. Made sense. When you owned a dog, some were going to hear it bark, and hear it howl. Bark and howl, like Shane, his Boxer cross. A memory, glinting like a poison shell on the shore of Fryer’s mind: Fryer rushing to decant the blood from Shane’s still warm body, crying as he did it and saying sorry over and over again. He had needed to work fast, before the blood thickened and spoiled, painting himself into a safe space.

  Fryer shook the thoughts away. Without the pink pills he could remember things that he would gladly bury forever, some good, most bad. Cradling his baby son in the night so many year’s before, and the news that the young man he had become had died. Killing Shane and using his blood, Jim Dempsey leaving him here, comrades no more. And the night him and Mooney had killed that young fella, McKenna. That was his name. Killed him and Disappeared him in the bog. Killing was never a problem for Fryer, but he had a code, and that night, he broke it. And he had to pay: the very same night the Moley had found him. Fryer had even recalled where he had locked up his old black taxi. So much else was gone, but these things he knew. And he recalled what the kid, Christopher, had said: By the 1st of July be ready, be clean; no pills.

  ‘If you play cationic, play a dummy John, they will soon start to treat you like one, and that’s going to help us get you out. But those pills cloud your brain, John,’ the kid had said, tapping his forehead, looking at Fryer. To Fryer, anyone whose chin and temples were not yet grey was a kid, even though most of the black Irish still remained in him. But Fr
yer was no kid . That he knew all too well.

  When Christopher first started to visit, Fryer was suspicious. After a few weeks of silence from Fryer and lots of talk from the kid, Fryer looked forward to seeing him. Christopher brought rolling tobacco, he was always on time, Friday morning, 10am. That mattered; another living soul you could depend on. You lived and died by routines in the Heights.

  The kid appreciated that the world had fallen down the rabbit hole. IRA men who had been in prison with Fryer, men like Jim Dempsey, were wearing suits and ties and in Government with true blue loyalists, and all of them sucking on the tit of Westminster, pumped full of money, making them fat, and sleepy and corrupt. You had to hand it to the kid; he had a way with words. He told Fryer the story of his peeler father and how he had strung himself up after the RUC was disbanded, his medals worthless, his commendations defunct.

  ‘How would you feel about shaking things up a little, John? How would you feel about shaking things up a lot, starting with Jim Dempsey?’ said Christopher, smiling at him.

  ‘Are you a Dissident?’ Fryer had asked.

  ‘Do I look like I am some kind of drug dealing half-wit, being run by Special Branch?’ he asked. Fryer had shook his head. ‘No, you are correct. I am not. I am the orphan child of the Good Friday Agreement, John. I am the new you, but in a world where there are no more rebels and no real loyalists. Follow me, John. I will set you free.’ Fryer said he could be persuaded, anything to pay Dempsey a visit.

  After that, Fryer had started to talk; he told him everything. He explained how to plan and carry out a good operation, how to wire together a simple booby trap, and an incendiary bomb, how to petrol bomb a vehicle (not as easy as it sounds). Fryer gave him the location of arms dumps, information that no interrogator was ever able to break from him in Castlereagh. Finally, Fryer told him about the Moley, its need for blood, and how he fed it. The kid showed no surprise, and told him not to fear.