the lesson was that the handlers had moved too fast. A query from the colonel, the increasing quantity of 'traces' on a south County Down man, presumably rising in the Organisation – questioning whether it would be a suitable time to pull him into Gough Barracks, Armagh, and let the Southern Region crime squad fellows have him for seven days and three sessions a day.
Agreed.
Last item before coffee, and Hobbes broke his silence.
'Dungannon, I thought, was good.'
The major said, 'It was first-class information, made it pretty straightforward.'
The colonel said, 'A good example of what can be achieved when we all pull together.'
The Assistant Chief Constable said, 'Invaluable source, your Song Bird, would there were more like him, but I'd say we got away with it by the skin of our teeth. Parading their weapon was critical. But I'm getting it on the grapevine that one of the team got clean away.'
The major said softly: 'A householder was right behind the target. It was very responsible fire control…'
Rennie spluttered on his pipe.
Hobbes smiled. 'Yes, Howard.'
The smoke clouded Howard Rennie. He let them wait. He coughed from the depth of his throat. 'If the safety of Song Bird, whose identity Mr Hobbes is unwilling to share, has been preserved then the shooting was justified. If the risk to Song Bird has been increased, then the operation was a disaster. Time, gentlemen, will tell us whether self-satisfaction is in order.'
Hobbes bit at his lip. 'Thank you, Howard, I'll minute that.'
He put the milk bottle down onto Mrs Byrne's kitchen table. The petrol was amber in the clear bottle. He put the box of matches beside the bottle.
The O.C. said, 'It's a nice kitchen, missus.'
She told him what she had seen.
She talked because of the threat to her kitchen of scattered petrol and a thrown match. And she talked to the O.C. because her nephew's wife's brother was on remand in the Crumlin Road gaol, and because her neighbour's cousin had been under psychiatric treatment for two years in Belfast after four days in the Castlereagh holding centre. And she talked because she had seen three young men cut down by the soldiers, no warning shout, no chance to surrender, not even a priest allowed near them for an hour. She talked.
'You're sure on that, missus…?'
'Jesus was looking for him. He went by Mrs Hylton's door, half fell on her fence, then by Mrs Smyth's door, then he went down the side of Mrs Smyth's, I don't know how they missed him, God is my witness, one of them was not ten feet from him. I thought he was dead, all fast I was praying for him. Bright coat he had but it was like they didn't see him. Definite, he had Jesus watching for him, and he'd a bad leg and he didn't run that quick. It was just butchery, what was done to the rest of them…'
There was a washing basket, filled, beside her kitchen door. Mrs Byrne rummaged in the bottom of it, and there was her grin that was a little bit of mischief, and she handed the O.C. the short-barrelled pistol that had been thrown at her.
'And they didn't see that either, the soldiers…'
He apologised to her, and meant it, and he took away with him his matches and the milk bottle that was filled with petrol.
The O.C. went back to his home, to write letters for hand delivery, to send a message for a meeting.
There was the stinging blow of the fist against Mossie's cheek.
The O.C. snarled in his face, 'There's three men dead.'
'You've no call to be accusing me.' Tears welling in his eyes.
'They let you run.'
'Who told you?'
'I was told.'
'Who?'
'The woman, she sees it all.' 'You's taking her word, not my word?'
'She says they let you run.'
'Is you blaming me for running?'
'Why'd they let you run?'
'To prove myself, what do I have to do? Have to get myself feckin' stiffed?' Mossie yelled back at him.
'She says…'
'Been sneaking round her, have you? Shame, that's what you should have.'
'What she says was..'
'And you wouldn't feckin' know what happened, 'cause you weren't there, 'cause you're never there, too feckin' important to be…'
The O.C. had him by the throat. The O.C. was smaller than Mossie and reaching up to snatch at the flesh under his chin.
The barb sunk home. The hatred, and the hesitancy. 'O.C. s is never operational, every bastard knows that.'
'I went, I was there, I was lucky.'
The anger in Mossie was fear. Good act, played well, because the fear was real. The hands came away from his throat. He didn't know whether he was believed. If he was not believed…
The O.C. said, grim, 'There was three men shot dead. There was one who ran. The one who ran can't go fast. The one who ran was right in view of the soldiers, past two houses. You tell me, Mossie, because you was there, you tell me why one, only one was able to run from the soldiers. Tell me, Mossie…'
Better when they were shouting, face to face, easier eyeball to eyeball.
He'd had five years to prepare himself to answer the accusation. Five years of churning the question in his mind. Was he a tout? Five years to prepare the answer, and never knowing when the question would come. He had just run, panicked, hadn't even seen the bastard soldier, only heard the crack of the bullet against the wall, then the ricochet whine. The question was with him…
'I don't know.'
'You're staying here. You'll stay while I'm gone. You think of running, and you think where you'll go. You run now and that's my answer.'
Mossie stood his full height… fight, to fight was the best, fighting for his life.
'You're not fit to lead, you're rubbish. If Jon Jo Donnelly was here.. . You're not fit to be in Jon Jo's shoes.'
He saw the loathing in the O.C.'s eyes. 'My question, why'd they let you get clear? Just you, why? You run and I've my answer, and Jon Jo isn't here.'
Mossie was left in the barn. There was nowhere to run to and there never had been.
The O.C. came back to the barn in the middle of the afternoon, driving his tractor with the trailer bumping behind. The tractor, open-topped and without four-wheel drive, had been in his family since before he was born. He had driven it first when he was too small to sit on the seat and reach the wheel and the pedals. There were hay bales on the trailer.
Standing behind him, gripping his shoulders, was a man who had come from Lurgan in answer to a summons. The O.C. was elaborate and careful because he assumed, always, that he was watched. He assumed always, too, that his enemy had him under surveillance from cameras and from the soldiers of the Close Observation Platoons and from the police of the E. 4 section. He had not met the man from Security before, never had cause. The man wore heavy-framed clear-glass spectacles to disguise his face. If they were under surveillance, it would not be thought unusual, shifting bales of hay.
They splashed through the puddle in the doorway, below the broken guttering. Mossie sat facing the doorway, knees against his chest, arms around his knees.
The O.C. and the man from Lurgan dumped down the bales of hay they had carried inside.
'So, you's Mossie Nugent…'
The man from Lurgan had a voice from far down in his throat.
