by Anne Emery
“Yeah, I can see that.”
“Anyway, I’m just at the stage of filing the claim right now. So early days yet. But if things go as they should, the mother and children will be in line for a substantial award of damages, which will allow them to get the hell out of the housing estate into a safer, more comfortable home and get their lives back on track.”
“Well done, Montague!” said Brennan.
Monty heard a tea kettle whistling in the kitchen, and Gráinne said she had a couple of plates of scones and biscuits left if anyone was still hungry. Brennan offered to assist in the serving and got up and followed her out.
“How did you manage to pull that off?” Brennan called out from the kitchen.
“Some cloak and dagger stuff with the UDA. All in a day’s work for a Belfast solicitor!”
Monty sat back to savour his drink and his accomplishments so far on the case. When he looked around, he saw Lorcan Burke and his comrades staring at him intently. Ronan was gazing into the middle distance, his face suddenly pale and drawn.
Monty was taken aback. Was it something he said? Must have been the reference to the UDA. “I’m not working with the UDA,” he tried. “I know how that would go over in this room. The UDA guy is the defendant. He was driving . . .” Monty wound down. Nobody had cracked a smile.
Chapter XXVI
Brennan
Brennan had remembered nothing about the assassination attempt except the sound of the shots, Ronan falling, Brennan dropping down beside him, prayer after prayer, then the police and ambulance screaming to the scene. But the morning after Ronan’s homecoming, while he was thinking of something else entirely — that being the sixth book of Saint Augustine’s De Musica — the sound of a voice came into his head. A peculiar voice. And he realized with a start that he had heard it the instant after he fell to his knees. A man had said, “That won’t save you, you papish fu—” And he clammed up, as if someone had given him a clout to shut him up. And then footsteps and they were gone. The voice had a rasping sound to it, a damaged sound. So Brennan now had information that he had not consciously possessed before. Whether it would be of any use in identifying one of the attackers, he didn’t know, but he wanted to pass it along. To someone. The peelers? That would be the responsible, civic thing to do. But the blood running in his veins was the blood of the Fenian Burkes of Dublin and Belfast. And the instinct of a man born to generations of rebellion was to inform his own side only. He had no idea how to contact the men who had questioned him after his release from the hospital.
“Does that narrow things down for you at all?” he asked Ronan across the breakfast table. “Know anyone who sounds like that?”
“Not straight away, I don’t, but . . .”
“Now it could simply be someone disguising his voice, or someone jittery with nerves, or someone with a sore throat.”
“Or,” said Ronan, “someone with an injured throat.”
That was Brennan’s thinking as well. A man who had suffered an accident. Or a wound. “So where do I go with this information, Ronan? The fellas who came for me at the hospital, asked me some questions, I wouldn’t know how to reach them.”
“You leave that with me, Brennan. You’ll be hearing from them.”
Gráinne answered the telephone that evening, said, “He is,” and handed Brennan the receiver. A man greeted him and said a car would come by to pick him up in half an hour’s time.
Precisely on time, a new-looking grey car pulled up. As Brennan watched from the window, a man got half out of the driver’s side, made some kind of hand signal to the two bodyguards on the night shift, and then settled back into the seat. Brennan went outside and approached the car. He recognized the driver as the man who had given his name as Cathal and the passenger as the other nattily dressed IRA man who had questioned him. He opened the back door and got in.
“Good evening to you, Father Burke,” said Cathal. And the other man nodded and said, “Father.”
“Perhaps we can put ourselves on a first name basis and you can call me Brennan,” he said. “Ahem.”
The unnamed-till-now man gave a good-humoured little laugh and said, “I’m Francis. Now I understand you’ve remembered something about the shooting.”
“Just one thing, and it won’t take long to relate. After the shots were fired at Ronan and he fell, I moved towards him. He wasn’t far from me. I knelt down and began to minister to him. Initially all I recalled after that was fear and rage and confusion, and the effort to keep praying and keep Ronan from slipping away. Then, today, in a moment of calm when my mind was on something else, I remembered the sound of a voice coming from the direction of the shooter or shooters.”
“Yes?” Francis prompted.
“The man said, ‘That won’t save you, you papish fuck.’ Or fucker. But he never finished that last word because, I’m thinking, someone else hit or nudged him to shut his gob. Not too bright. Anyway, he shut right up. And they took off.”
“Two of them, then,” said Cathal.
“Seems so. But the distinctive thing about this is the fella’s voice. It was breathy, ragged, raspy. It sounded to me like the voice of someone whose throat was, well, damaged. I knew an opera singer once who had an injury to his larynx, and his vocal folds, or vocal cords . . . well, I realize I’m drawing a conclusion here that might not be justified.”
“No, Brennan, you’re grand,” Francis assured him. “That’s good information.”
“And that’s all I have.”
“All right, then, we’ll let you go. We’ll be looking into it.”
Brennan had no doubt about that. “All right, lads. I’ll leave it in your hands.”
Both men thanked him, and he got out of the car. His questioners drove away.
Monty
On Monday there was a break in Monty’s tripped-and-fell-in-the-pub case. This was hardly on a par with the fatal injury claim on behalf of the Flanagans or the multi-million-dollar products liability suit that had brought him to Belfast, let alone the murder cases he had tried back home, but Monty had a duty to pursue all the claims that crossed his desk, no matter how humble. And now here was a “without prejudice” offer from the defendant pub owner to pay a cool £650 to the plaintiff who tripped on a loose flagstone in the floor of the darkened pub. “Without prejudice” meant there was no admission of liability that could be used against the defendant in future proceedings if the thing didn’t settle. Monty called the client, gave him the facts, and told him the wee packet of money would change hands tomorrow. The client was not impressed, but Monty drove home the fact that he was fortunate to be getting anything at all. And he’d be lucky to get a pint in the pub again. Monty would likely forget all about it by the end of the week.
It was getting dark before he got to the work he really wanted to do: draft the papers for the estate of Eamon Flanagan and his dependents. Winnifred, Kate, Clare, Darren, Dermot, and Timothy Flanagan, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The defendant of course was Colman William Davison. Monty had worked with a medical expert to confirm that a front-on strike by a motor vehicle could have caused the injury to Mr. Flanagan’s leg and propelled him to his death below the Ammon Road Bridge. He had the evidence of glass in the jeans. Also confirmed were the whereabouts of the insured driver, Davison, so the writ could be served on him and notice given to his insurance company. Once Monty got a response from the solicitor representing the insurer, he would serve the statement of claim on the lawyer and wait to receive a defence. Monty considered which witnesses he would be calling if the matter went to court. His medical expert and the pathologist who prepared the autopsy report, and Vincent McKeever and George Ayles, the auto repair man, for sure. Monty knew there was more to the incident than a guy exceeding the speed limit late at night on a country road. The driver had pulled a knife on McKeever. McKeever would be a reluctant witness, to put it mildly, and Monty would have to issue
a subpoena to get him before the court if the case didn’t settle.
And then there were the bullet holes in the rear bumper, which put the car in proximity to the shooting of Fritzy O’Dwyer shortly before McKeever encountered the car. And there was Monty’s covert operation, the furtive nighttime taxi ride, where he heard of paramilitary and possibly even official involvement in the killing. This meant a whole other can of worms. Monty hoped he would not have to peer down into whatever was writhing around at the bottom of that can, but it might be unavoidable. It might be necessary to involve the Royal Ulster Constabulary, because he might need a police witness to testify about the shooting, to give a context to why Davison might have been in such a hurry that he either failed to see Flanagan on the bridge or saw him but failed to stop after hitting him. There was a whole host of unanswered questions about the events of November 14, 1992, including: what was Colman Davison doing at or near the scene of the crime?
Night had fallen by the time Monty had completed the drafts of his papers and left the office. A couple of other late-working keeners were emerging from the building and he exchanged a few words with them, then headed out to his car. It had started to rain, and his shoes made a squishing sound on the pavement. There weren’t many people out and about. It was cold and windy, and a blast of wind blew the rain into his face as he strode along, head down, wishing he had worn a raincoat with a hood. Suddenly, he heard the sound of another pair of feet splashing through the rain behind him. He reached the curb and was about to cross the street when a car came roaring out of the intersection. Monty turned so the wave of water from the wheels wouldn’t get him face-on, but the car slowed as it approached him. Thoughtful driver, slowed and veered away to lessen the impact. After it passed, Monty crossed the street. He was in sight of his car now and increased his pace. The footsteps behind him speeded up as well. He turned to look over his shoulder, and a man in a hooded windbreaker closed in on him. Monty backed away and the man put his hands up in the air, as if to say I’m not armed. Then he reached up and pulled his hood off. He had dark, neatly combed hair and a muscular build. There was something familiar about him.
“Mr. Collins,” the fellow said.
He tried to place the guy. He had seen him recently. Where?
“I have to speak to you.”
“You mean you . . .”
“I did, yeah. I waited for you at your office, but there were people around. So I followed you.”
“You’re familiar. Right. Ronan’s party. Band mate with Lorcan.”
“Aye.”
Monty remembered his name then. “Why didn’t you just phone me, Carrick?”
He shook his head. “Is that your car?”
He knew it was Monty’s car. He followed as Monty headed towards it. Monty didn’t like what was happening here, but he wanted to find out what it was all about. He knew full well that Lorcan Burke was IRA — he had served time for membership — and this fellow likely was as well, but so were half the other people he had met at Ronan’s. He wanted to believe there was no reason for anyone in the Burkes’ circle of acquaintances to wish him harm. Wanting to believe something didn’t make it so, but he would play it by ear and hope he was not making a big mistake by remaining with this person in the darkness of the street. He unlocked his car doors and gestured to the other man to get into the front passenger side. When they were both seated, Carrick pulled out a pack of smokes and offered the pack to Monty. Monty shook his head, and Carrick lit one up for himself.
Carrick got right to the point. “This case you have going against the UDA man. I’m here to warn you to drop it.”
Monty felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold Belfast rain. “And what happens to me if I don’t?”
“Nothing.”
“Well, then . . .”
“Nothing happens to you.”
What was he getting at? Was this a threat against Monty’s family? Surely not. This guy was a friend of the Burkes. Whatever could be said about the Burkes here in troubled Belfast, they were strong family men. Monty could not imagine any of them threatening harm to someone’s wife and children. Would their friends and comrades-in-arms be as sensitive to family sanctity? What did Monty really know of their murky world of warring paramilitaries?
“Nothing happens to you,” Carrick repeated. “But something happens to people you know in this city.”
“How? What are you saying, Carrick? My case is a hit and run. It occurred right around the time of the shooting of an . . . of a Republican named O’Dwyer. I know that. But the guy I’m taking to court is a member of the Ulster Defence Association. Why would you care what happens to a UDA man? Your people have been at war with the Loyalist paramilitaries for more than twenty-five years.”
Carrick’s gaze was intense behind the smoke in the car. “There is way more to this than you know, Mr. Collins. Step away from it. Drop it.”
“What you have to understand here, Carrick, is that I owe a duty to the family of Eamon Flanagan. Those children and their mother are going through hell right now, and it’s not going to get any better for them unless they get compensation for Mr. Flanagan’s death, compensation for the loss of his support of the family.”
“Maybe something can be done for the family. Money could be found, maybe not in the amounts you have in mind, but —”
“There is only one way for them to get the level of support, the amount of compensation, they need and deserve, and that is through a finding of fault on the part of the defendant driver and a payout by his insurance company.”
“All I can do here is urge you, again, to back away from it. For the sake of others who could be hurt . . .”
“If you’d just explain —”
“Including your friend, Father Burke.”
“What? You can’t be serious. Nothing about this could possibly affect Brennan Burke. It all happened over two years ago.”
Monty knew Brennan would not involve himself in any violent activities, so what was Carrick getting at? Then it came to Monty with a pang that Brennan had in fact got involved in something and that Maura had got herself mixed up in it, too. That ridiculous episode when they tarted themselves up like a pair of yokels from the American South and questioned some Loyalist hard-ass in a bar in east Belfast. But that was about what? A bombing that took place back in 1974. How could that be related to the events of November 1992? And they had got away with their little charade, as far as anybody knew. Well, Monty knew it himself. There had been no fallout coming Maura’s way, so not likely any for Brennan either.
This fellow Carrick might well have a motive of his own for wanting the events of November 14, 1992, kept under wraps. So Monty was not about to fall for this obvious play on his sympathy, on his friendship with Brennan Burke. Brennan could not conceivably have any connection with the murder of an IRA man more than two years before.
“Carrick . . .”
“There is a whole lot more to this than you know. I’m sorry. Truly. But give it up.”
“I don’t appreciate you strong-arming me like this, Carrick. I have a client with a righteous case, and I intend to see justice done for them. No matter what.”
“You want to tell that to Father Burke when —”
Monty pictured the scene in Loyalist east Belfast. Father Burke, posing as a hick, an anti-Catholic bigot. Him with his doctorate from Rome and his appointment as choirmaster in that holy city. He said to Carrick, “What to tell Father Burke? Tell him to say three Hail Marys and if that doesn’t do the trick, call the papal crisis line, one-five-five-five-VATICAN!” Monty imagined Burke making the call, using the southern drawl he had affected as Duane Ballard. He had to smile.
Carrick shot him a look of disgust. He opened the car door, threw his cigarette to the pavement, and ground it out with his heel. Without another word, he pulled the hood up over his head and walked away into the night.
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Chapter XXVII
Brennan
It didn’t take long for the ’RA to find a suspect to match Brennan’s description of the raspy voice. He gave them the information on Saturday morning and on Monday night Brennan was in the car with Cathal and Francis, heading across the city to the east bank of the Lagan. Cathal was the wheelman, Francis was the front seat passenger, and there was a third man present, sitting beside Brennan in the back. It was the fellow who looked like a boxer. He introduced himself as Mick.
“We put some feelers out to our sources,” Cathal said, “asking if they know of a Loyalist paramilitary with a raspy voice.”
Brennan wondered if there were any dissident Republicans with a voice defect. How could Cathal and his men be so sure it was someone on the other side?
“Could have been any number of the Orange fuckers,” Mick replied to Cathal. “Wearing their voices down belting out the ‘Famine Song’ over the Lambeg drums in front of Saint Patrick’s holy Catholic church on the twelfth of July.”
“He’s right,” agreed Francis, “but we eliminated all of them. Except one.”
“Eliminated . . .”
“Not literally, Brennan. Eliminated them from consideration in our search, with one exception. We eventually got a name. Willie John Craig. Vicious wee get, member of the Ulster Red Hand Commando. And connected with the UDA. Took a bullet in the throat two years ago. We had a couple of false starts trying to find the bastard, but we’re acting on a good tip right now as to where he is tonight.”
“Em, what’s going to happen now?” Brennan asked.
Mick answered. “We’re going to lift him, engage him in conversation, and you’re going to tell us whether we have the right man. I hear you’re an expert in singing, choirs, all that, so you know voices, right?”