by Anne Emery
Brennan waited, with a sense of foreboding, for the unwelcome tale to unfold.
“Fritzy O’Dwyer was a psychopath, a vicious, heartless killer. Unpredictable and out of control. A definite liability to the Army. The Irish Republican Army, I mean. They wanted him out of their hair. But nothing was done about him until a small group of IRA volunteers came up with a plan of their own, a plan that would not have been authorized from the top.
“The Browning nine millimetre is a weapon typically used by the British Army, so the idea was to have O’Dwyer executed by a UDA man using a British Army type of gun, creating the suspicion that someone in the military was a party to the plan. The information I have is that the boys who orchestrated this scheme told Fritzy to drive out to the Ammon Road. They knew the road was almost certainly deserted in the wee hours, and they could pull their cars over to the side of the road, and the trees would obscure the view of them. The bait they used to lure Fritzy out there was a story that they had a possible informer in their midst and they wanted him interrogated. I don’t mean Colman Davison, the Loyalist whom the IRA had blackmailed into informing for them. I mean they pretended there was someone who had betrayed them, made up a name. They said they would transport the alleged traitor out to this remote site and consign him to the tender mercies of Fritzy O’Dwyer. This was O’Dwyer’s forte, extracting confessions from people under — let’s call it duress. So he was keen. But he was a paranoid, suspicious fucker as well.
“There must have been something that raised O’Dwyer’s suspicions that night. It wouldn’t take much. So he brought someone else along with him in the car. I can only conclude that this was a hostage of sorts. If the lads, his own people in the IRA, tried anything with Fritzy, he’d use this young fellow as a shield. Or so the thinking goes. The hostage was a tourist, a blow-in from the continent, here for an extended ramble around the countryside. O’Dwyer was seen talking with him in a bar earlier that night and being uncharacteristically generous with drink. Plied the poor devil with liquor until his judgment was gone. We can’t even speculate on what kind of story Fritzy gave him to get him in the car, but he did.”
The unwelcome truth was dawning on Brennan now. The young rambler would be the Dutch backpacker. Brennan had known his name; what was it? Van der Meer. And Tom Burke was there, too. Must have been. The incident on the Ammon Road and the incident involving the Dutchman turned out to be one and the same.
“So the three cars converge on the scene. Davison’s, O’Dwyer’s, and that of the rogue IRA unit who are going to have O’Dwyer whacked. Three cars, all these people, the whole thing has the makings of a major clusterfuck. You just knew it would go wrong. And that’s why a young IRA volunteer who would not normally have anything to do with an execution — more of an intelligence officer type man — had been brought to the scene that night. This young fellow had occasionally acted as Davison’s ‘handler.’ He met Davison from time to time and collected the information Davison provided about the UDA. The presence of this person, a fellow with a pleasant, calming manner, was intended to reassure Davison, so Davison would not be spooked and bolt before the plan could be carried out. I don’t imagine this lad was told what the real purpose of the mission was that night.”
This, Brennan reasoned, was how Tom had ended up in the midst of the shambles on the Ammon Road. Tom’s name would probably not escape the lips of Reddy O’Reilly, but now that Davison had pulled the pin on the Ammon Road conspirators, Tom Burke’s name would be one of several on the casualty list.
Reddy resumed his narrative. “From this point on we have the evidence provided by Davison after he was named in a lawsuit for personal injury. I think you know what I’m talking about. Once he was identified as the driver of the car that hit the man and knocked him off the bridge, Davison knew he was fucked. So he turned Queen’s evidence, as we know all too well. So. November 1992. They all arrive on the Ammon Road. The boys get Davison in the car with them. He doesn’t know why he’s been summoned. They’ve got the Browning pistol all cleaned up for the hit, and they’re going to put it in Davison’s hand and force him to shoot Fritzy O’Dwyer. But across from them in Fritzy’s car, something happens to alarm the young, drink-sodden tourist in the passenger seat. For whatever reason, he comes flying out of the car. And he’s got a Stillson wrench in his hand, a pipe wrench. Something Fritz would have in the car for his work. This item in the dark could easily be mistaken for a gun, the jaws of the thing looking like a grip, and the long barrel of it. We’ll never know what was going on in his mind, what he was trying to do. Fritzy has his window open and shouts something at the tourist. Davison doesn’t know what he said. But anyway, the men in the IRA car see this fellow running towards them. So one of the men grabs the gun, aims it at this out-of-control stranger coming at them, and fires. In self-defence, in defence of the lads in the car. Puts three bullets in him, kills him. Only later does the shooter realize this is a completely unconnected individual. An innocent bystander, so to speak. The tourist likely had no clue that Fritzy was IRA or even what the IRA stood for. But he’d met Fritzy and now he was dead.
“So the IRA contingent have a dead body on their hands. But before they can deal with that, they have to deal with Fritzy. They pile out of their car, hand the gun to Colman Davison, and force him to go and blow Fritzy away. How do they get an armed man to do their bidding? One of them has a weapon of his own trained on Davison. So Davison gets to Fritzy, who’s trying to turn his car around. Fires one bullet through the open window and hits him in the neck. A couple of the other fellows pull Fritzy out of the car and make Davison shoot him again, to make sure he’s dead. He fires a few more rounds. But then Davison whips around and manages to knock the gun out of the hand of the man who has him covered. Knocks him off his feet long enough for Davison to get in his own car and take off. With the Browning.
“Davison reasoned that if anyone tried to pin the shooting on him, he would take his IRA handlers down with him, by directing the police to this gun. He drove away as if the furies were after him. Which they were. They fired a couple of shots at his car, trying to stop him, but then they had other things to take care of. They left O’Dwyer by the roadside, but they had an innocent victim that they had to take away and bury. Which apparently they did. And they got rid of O’Dwyer’s car somehow; it’s never been seen again.
“So Davison got away and he kept the pistol as his insurance policy. I heard he had a confrontation with somebody on the road that night, pulled a knife on him. If he settled for a knife at that time of night after what had just occurred, that tells you how protective he was of that Browning pistol! He was thinking straight enough that he didn’t want anybody to see that gun on him.”
Brennan had many questions, most of which he had no desire to ask. But he gave voice to one. “How did a Loyalist end up stashing a gun with a Catholic priest?”
“I can’t quite imagine the conversation between the two of them, but Davison could not lodge the weapon with the Loyalists, because he’d be terrified they’d find out he’d been an informer for the IRA. And he no doubt figured that if the priest told the authorities about the gun, it would spell trouble for the Republicans. Davison told someone in the IRA that he had placed the gun with a trusted person as insurance. If they protected him, he’d protect them by keeping the gun — and its history — out of sight. I know enough about the former priest there to know he wouldn’t do anything to stir up trouble for anybody, on either side. For him, it was probably ‘out of sight, out of mind’ with respect to the Browning.
“Sometime this past winter one of the lads here in the Kesh found out — there was an informer or a slip of the lip — about the hiding place. He passed the word to someone on the outside. And of course that’s when the fates converged on you, Brennan. The course of justice in bringing the shooters of November 1992 to court was the course of justice you have been convicted of trying to pervert.”
Brennan’
s mind reeled with the enormity of what he had been part of, however unwittingly. And his experiences with the police and the courts and the prisons illustrated all too starkly what lay in store for Tom. And Aoife and their children.
Reddy said, “It’s ironic, given the chaos out there on the Ammon Road, but these rogue Republican plotters almost pulled off the attempt to portray this as another instance of collusion. The investigation went nowhere. Many people believed that the RUC were simply letting it slide. It was just the murder of another IRA terrorist.” The lawyer suddenly looked exhausted. “If word gets out of this ham-fisted effort to make the killing look like a Loyalist hit with a gun supplied by a member of the British Army — and word surely will get out — it will be a major setback for the claim we have been making for years, about the very real collusion that has gone on here. The authorities will say the IRA faked this and all other instances of apparent collusion!”
He paused and then looked intently at his client. “Brennan, I know it wasn’t you who went into Saint Matthew’s the second time and retrieved the gun. But it was someone who is the same size as you, the same colouring, and someone you were willing to take an enormous risk for. I’m not the only person who will have figured that out. If, as seems likely, a member of Ronan Burke’s family was involved in the shooting of the Dutch tourist and the conspiracy to kill Fritzy O’Dwyer and pin it on the UDA, that individual will be charged with murder. And Ronan will go down in the fallout from the actions of his family. If Ronan actively took part in a cover-up, or an effort ‘to pervert the course of justice,’ there will be criminal charges as well as political consequences.”
Brennan was heart-scalded hearing this. He said, “After all Ronan has tried to do to bring peace to this country. If there is a new elected assembly and if the Republicans are to be represented, he’ll get the votes. He’s a shoo-in for the position. He’s vastly popular in Nationalist areas —”
“Was a shoo-in, Brennan. It’s over for Ronan.”
* * *
The stark fact of Ronan’s downfall sent Brennan into a new spiral of despair, which inevitably resulted in another bout of drinking, and, when the poitín ran out, another onset of the DTs, the shakes, the sweats, and the night terrors. He hardly had the energy to walk to the visitor’s area to see Ronan and Gráinne for their scheduled visit. What on earth could he say to Ronan, knowing what he knew from Reddy O’Reilly?
But Ronan wasn’t there. Gráinne had come by herself. Brennan began a greeting as he approached the cubicle, but he was brought up short by the appearance of his cousin’s wife. She looked grey, haggard, older than her years. No wonder, given what her son and husband were going through.
He sat across from her and said, “Gráinne, a mhuirnín, you must be going through hell. This is the last place you should be. You look as if you need a good, long rest. Even better, a holiday far from this bitter place.” He knew he wasn’t making any sense. Rest? A holiday? Shut your gob, Burke, before you make things any worse.
“No, no, I wanted to see you, Brennan, God be good to you.”
She chattered away about Aideen’s studies at university, about the ceasefire holding, about the changes in Belfast city centre, where some of the imposing steel gates had been replaced with less intimidating barriers. Then she faltered into silence.
“Where’s the oul fella today?” Brennan tried, in an effort to lighten things up.
She looked at him without replying. Her eyes had a haunted look. Brennan was alarmed. But he couldn’t bring himself to speak.
Finally she said, “Ronan is . . . He’s not the man I took back into my life four years ago.”
Oh, God of mercy and compassion. Brennan knew. Ronan had gone back on the drink.
There wasn’t much to the visit after that. It was unbearable seeing her walk away, promising gamely to come and see him again soon.
Brennan was about to leave the cubicle when he got word of another arrival. Lorcan’s friend Carrick. The young fellow sat down and started gabbling away, and Brennan could hardly follow him. He was still poleaxed by what he had learned about Ronan. He made a superhuman effort to nod and mumble occasional replies to his guest. Finally, Carrick got up to leave.
“It pains me to see a man like you in a state like this, Father Burke. You have my full sympathy. And it didn’t have to fucking happen. If only your pal Monty had been open to finding another solution to that family’s problems, the Flanagans. Or at least waited till you had flown back to Canada.”
Brennan forced himself to tune in. “What are you saying? Monty wouldn’t have known what the fallout would be for starting that lawsuit. He wouldn’t have known about my family’s involvement. Certainly not my involvement.”
“He knew. I told him.”
Brennan was silent.
“I tried to warn him off, slow him down at the very least, said this would all blow back on you. Your mate Monty only laughed.”
“What?” Brennan could not have heard him right. “Are you telling me he laughed?”
“Yeah. He made a joke. Said something like, ‘Just tell Brennan to say three Hail Marys and ring the Pope’s help line.’”
What?! Brennan remembered Monty’s call to the abbey. What had Monty asked him? Whether Brennan had any concerns about the Flanagan lawsuit. And Brennan had told him no. He had wondered about the question — it made no sense to him — but he had put it out of his mind. He sure as hell didn’t know that Monty had been warned. Brennan knew that Tom Burke had, at some place and some time, killed an innocent man in what he thought was self-defence. Brennan had no idea then that there was any connection between that and the debacle on the Ammon Road. And if he had known, what then? Monty would have proceeded with the lawsuit anyway. How could he do otherwise? Brennan would never have tried to block a righteous lawsuit for a deserving family.
But could it have been delayed until Brennan was safely away? Monty had a deadline and had to be back in Halifax, but he would have handed it over to another lawyer. He would have done that at some point anyway. So maybe it could have been postponed. In the end, though, what burned into Brennan’s soul was the fact that his best friend had been warned that this would bring grief down on Brennan and had laughed and blown him off with a joke.
And here he was in Long Kesh, after enduring beatings and an unjust trial. Here he was for six long excruciating years.
* * *
He spent a sleepless night shaking, sweating, and gasping for a drink. At the very lowest point, at the dread-filled hour of three o’clock when all defences are down, what he wanted more than a drink, more than a smoke, more than joining his body and soul with that of a woman, more than any of this, Brennan wanted revenge. Revenge on the unjust judge who had condemned him, on the violence-crazed police at Castlereagh who had beaten him black and blue, on the government in London that permitted this to happen to Irishmen day after day after day, and on the security forces that kept the system in place. And what about Monty Collins, his closest friend? Till now. Till Monty had dismissed out of hand any concern for Brennan, flipped him off with a laugh. Should he, too, feature in Brennan’s fantasies of revenge?
Gone from Brennan’s mind were the doubts and scruples that were the usual cause of sleepless nights for him, misgivings about the way the IRA — and his family — had prosecuted the war against the occupying forces of the North. Deaths caused by the IRA were regrettable just as were deaths caused by the other side, even if the IRA had not “started it,” had not been the ones to initiate sectarian attacks against the people of the North in the late 1960s. But the respective responsibilities of the various factions, and the subtleties of just causes and just methods, were not what occupied his tortured mind tonight. If Brennan were able to get up and walk out of this prison camp, he would head for the nearest . . . what? IRA safe house? Or Ronan’s place? Could Brennan support what his cousin had worked so hard for, détente with the regim
e that had brutalized him and so many others like him? Or would Brennan be a dissident Republican? Would he have to side with the diehards who believed that anything less than a complete victory would mean that all the patriots in times past had died in vain? Fuck it; he wanted revenge. That’s all there was to it.
He then turned his mind to his new cellmate, Owen, who was a prince among men compared to O’Morda on his former wing. Owen had something Brennan dearly wanted: two big bottles of prison-made hooch. Poitín stashed under the lower bunk. It was half six in the morning. Brennan had degenerated to the point where he would start drinking at half six in the morning, but not to the point where he would steal the stuff from a fellow prisoner. There was only one thing to do: wake Owen out of a sound sleep for Brennan’s own selfish needs. So that’s what he did. Owen said to take one bottle and leave him the other. Brennan spent the next two hours nursing the foul-tasting, mule-kick-strength brew and then got dressed and ready to perform the sacraments.
Some of his fellow prisoners had asked him to say a Mass for them so he headed to the chapel. As the clock struck nine, he stood at the altar raising a trembling hand to make the sign of the cross. “In ainm an Athar agus an Mhic agus an Spioraid Naoimh. Amen.”
The men were respectful and attentive. It was not as large a congregation as there would have been back in the days when Mass was the only occasion when the prisoners could get together and pass notes, exchange information, and hatch conspiracies, but it was a decent turnout. Brennan did his best to sing the Mass parts in Irish and to perform the ancient ritual with dignity and reverence. But the reality was that he was nearly paralytic with drink, and the effects became more pronounced as the Mass went on. He didn’t trust himself to say much of anything by way of a homily; he wasn’t of a mind to get up and hector his fellow prisoners about living an irreproachable life. He managed to slur his way along until he got to the consecration. It was the most sacred moment of the Mass, a moment that often transported Brennan to another state of being, a communion with the Absolute, a moment of ineffable peace. But today, as he raised the round white host and began the words of consecration, he felt his legs give out beneath him. The next thing he remembered was waking up and looking into the face of a man. It was Turlough, picking him up off the floor, carrying him in his arms. “Father,” he was saying, “God bless you, but you’ve had a wee fall.”