guns or explosives. There was the bleeper, the size of those carried by a hospital doctor or a Telecom engineer. The bleeper's frequency would be monitored twenty- lour hours.
He could not imagine why any man or woman would turn informer, Had to be in love with death, no question.
He could not imagine how the handlers had the guts or the simple cruelty to shepherd and corral the poor bastards, but he would learn.
The darkness had gathered inside his room.
He found it at the bottom of the file. Seven sheets, stapled together, marked SONG BIRD. No name, no address, no photograph.
The meeting of the Task Co-ordinating Group was over. The major from the Special Air Service had gone fast, with the Chief Superintendent from Special Branch. The colonel from Army Intelligence was on his way to the senior officers' dining room with the Assistant Chief Constable.
Only the two of them left behind, Hobbes and that bloody dour Ulsterman.
'Did they slap your wrist good and hard?'
Howard Rennie was the great survivor. Hobbes knew the history. A part of the war since the beginning. A sergeant in 1969 when it began, an inspector when the British had first sent over their cowboys to trample on half- decent covert work, a chief inspector when the Provies had been on the verge of extinction through the Supergrass programme where he had been responsible for cajoling the informers into the witness box, to come up with the evidence that convicted the fat cats, until the system had been thrown out by the judges as weak law. Now he was a superintendent in Special Branch. He worked in close liaison with a division of the Royal Ulster Constabulary that went under the title of E4. The Provos, his enemy, knew all about E4. Not many others did.
It was a miracle that Howard Rennie had climbed to superintendent rank, because he had sought no favours on the way up. There was no other man in Northern Ireland that Hobbes would have rather had on his side than the huge wide-shouldered Ulsterman, from whom a civil word was hard, bloody hard, to coax.
'I was sorry you lost your player.'
'Water under the bridge, Howard.'
'Wouldn't have been lost, not if I'd been running him.'
‘’I don't doubt it.'
There was Rennie's smile, not the smile of a man who was amused If Rennie had had his way, then Hobbes and his kind would have been on the shuttle flying home There would have been just one Source Unit, his, the Royal Ulster Constabulary's. No players handled by Five or by army intelligence…
'I suppose you shipped out that Faber? I didn't rate him.'
Hobbes gathered his papers. 'You'll surprise me one day. Yes, we sent him back.'
'And you'll replace him?'
'We already have,' Hobbes said curtly.
'What's your new baby like?'
Hobbes looked into the grey eyes of the policeman. 'Oh, the usual thing, another Englishman who doesn't know his arse from his elbow sent to interfere in the war that the R.U.C. have presided over so successfully that it's been running more than twenty years…'
'Fuck you, Hobbes.' There was a clout across Hobbes' back.
The story was part of police headquarters folklore. Rennie, new to E4, and meeting for the first time his opposite number from army intelligence. The military boasting that they were running a hundred players. Rennie, all humble, saying that he only had ten… and then very quietly going down the army's list of a hundred, pointing out some who were dead, and several who were in gaol, and one who was in Australia… Everybody at police H.Q. told Hobbes that story, except Rennie.
'Remind me, Howard, where's Jon Jo Donnelly from?'
'He's East Tyrone. Spreading a touch of panic over there, is he?
Tweaking the old lion's tail, eh? Up Altmore mountain. A few little bombs, a few hits, it's too sad. Tell them what happens over here every day. His wife's there…'
'Hassling her, would that bring him back?'
'Doubt it. More likely make him bomb a bit harder, shoot a bit siraighter. They're tough people there, hassle washes off them.'
'Be a start, though…'
Rennie was at the door. 'Don't try giving me instructions, Mr Hobbes.'
' Just a request, Howard, and make it good and heavy hassle.'
'Christ Almighty, you're not in bloody insurance…'
Her clothes were old and dirty. He had put on well-pressed grey flannels, well-polished shoes, a check shirt with the collar undone and a lambswool sweater that his mother had sent him his last birthday, and his anorak.
'We're only going for a drive, aren't we?'
'… 'only going for a drive', Jesus! Down there they scent everything that is out of place. They know the faces and the cars that have the right to be there. That I can't help. But I can help that you don't look like you're trying to sell a policy at the weekend. Get those off.' And she was gone.
He could smell the clothes the moment she came back through the door.
There was the mischief smile on her face. 'Get those on.'
'From downstairs?' The trousers were caked in mud.
'Correct.'
'He's not there.' There were still sweat patches under the armpits of the jersey.
'Second-class lock,' she said.
'Don't they have baths down in Tyrone?' The anorak was torn in the sleeve, too large for him, looked to have been rolled in sheep droppings.
She stood back. 'You are so wet behind the ears we could shoot snipe off you. Dear God.' The smile was back on her face and she reached up and ruffled her fingers through his hair, wrecking the parting. It was the only morning that she hadn't called to take him out to run. He didn't think she had slept on any of the other nights. He saw her bite at her lips, as if that were the way she regained her control of herself.
There was a Subaru pick-up outside the house. It was filthy. There were two bales of hay loosely roped down in the back.
'What's this then? Local colour?'
She told him to drive. She unlocked the car and passed him a Browning pistol from the glove compartment and a magazine, told him to put it inside the anorak. She showed him the map and told him where to go.
She was asleep before they were out of Belfast.
6
It was the story that the child loved best, the story that had no ending.
'The length and breadth of Ireland, wherever men yearned to be free, they spoke the name of Shane Bearnagh Donnelly. There were few enough priests left living by the English, and they were thrown into filthy prisons and starved, and many were tortured then hanged. There was the walking gallows. A huge man, an Englishman, used to walk Ireland. He wore on his shoulders a harness on which four men at a time could be hanged. But the priests were brave in their faith, and they prayed for the safety of Shane Bearnagh…
'For year after year, Shane roamed on Altmore mountain. The men with him were gradually hunted and killed by the English, but Shane, they could never capture. More soldiers were sent to Altmore barracks that’s now in the bracken and trees where the road runs on to Pomeroy, where we get the blackberries…
'Shane took cattle from the English, and hid them up in the caves on Altmore, and the caves are still called Shane Bearnagh’s stables. Shane used to watch the soldiers searching for him from the high ground, and some old people like your Grannie would call that Shane's chair, and sometimes Shane's Sentry-box. Shane had a wife now and a fine small boy. his wife gave up her home, and she came to live with her man on the mountain, shared his
