were called to a tout hunt.
Across the mountain they also watched the Riordan home, saw a man go out to feed his caged birds, saw a youngster in a garage working at the engine of a motorcycle.
He lifted the green telephone. He had let the bell ring for a full half minute. He had been by the door, his coat on, his briefcase in his hand, when the bell had started.
Hesitant, 'Yes, can I help you?'
A woman's voice. 'Hello there, I was wondering…'
Brisk. 'I think you have the wrong number.'
'It's for Song Bird.'
Christ… snatching for a pen from his inside pocket, for paper.
'Yes?'
'I'm Siobhan Nugent, his wife. He told me to ring you…'
The telephone was Bren's link with the jungle. He heard the des-peration of the woman. He tried to be gentle. He heard the choke in her voice. She was to ring back. He went through the procedure. In exactly ten minutes she should telephone again.
Frantic now. Ringing the number for Cathy, waking her by the sound of it, being given a meeting place, being told when she would collect him, given the numbers to call for back-up. Asking for Rennie at Lisnasharragh barracks, couldn't be reached. Asking for a major at Lisburn H.Q., told there were no personnel available. Asking for an Assistant Chief Constable at R.U.C.'s Knock Road, hearing the dry chuckle, telling him it was panic time, giving him the co-ordinates, being told there would be Divisional Mobile Support Unit presence in the area, and the radio code they could be reached on, grovelling thanks to the Assistant Chief Constable. Picking up the green telephone on the first ring.
It was the fear that she communicated to him, it was her fear that was still with him all the time until Cathy came for him.
She thought the young woman was wonderful, the one that Mossie called the bitch. So calm, and such a lovely face…
'There is absolutely nothing for you to fret over. I'll take care of everything. Just trust me, Siobhan…'
There was a young man behind her and when she turned away then he went to her car and opened the door for her, like a gentleman. The faces of her children were pressed against the back window.
'Super children, Siobhan, you must be very proud of them. No worries now, I'll see you're safe, that's a promise…'
10
Bren watched.
Hobbes blanched.
Cathy explained.
'It's what has to be done. There isn't another alternative…'
They were in Hobbes' house, they had driven to that privileged community on the north County Down coast. They were in the kitchen at the back of the house and through the picture window were the small lights of coastal freighters in the Belfast Lough. The sink was piled high with the plates and cooking dishes that would stay there until the
'daily' came in the next morning. The table was littered with used glasses from the dinner table and finished bottles and emptied ice boxes. The smell in the kitchen was that of vindaloo sauce. Hobbes' guests were still in the dining room, and Bren could hear their laughter.
Bren thought that Cathy cared not a damn that she had disturbed Hobbes' dinner party.
'It'll take the flak off him. It'll give him a breathing space. He was thinking on his feet, really well. If he hadn't been sharp then he was in for the hood and the bullet. It's just that he's too good to lose…'
It was where they all lived, the best and the brightest of the British administration seconded to Northern Ireland, in the big houses in the little lanes that led down to the beaches and rock shores of the Lough.
It was the area of the cruising R.U.C. cars and the security cameras and the multiple alarm systems. It was the territory of the Assistant Under-Secretaries and the Senior Principal Executive Officers, and it was reckoned to be beyond the reach of the arm of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Where there were good golf courses and good squash complexes mid good restaurants, and good expenses to pick up the tabs. The drink was in them, the first and the finest, and their chatter and joking bayed from the dining room into the kitchen that was harsh lit by the neon strip.
'I think he's stronger now that Siobhan's alongside. If we can steer him through these next few days, if we can deflect them, then we've saved him. It's that important. I want to let it run, Mr Hobbes.'
Bren watched.
Hobbes cleared the dregs at the bottom of each bottle on the kitchen table, poured them into a used glass, drank fast and the red wine dribbled from the side of his mouth.
Cathy stood solidly in the centre of the kitchen, arms folded across her chest, stared at him, dared him to refuse her.
He was rocking on his heels. Bren thought him in shock. It was Hobbes' decision. Bren thought he had the right to be in shock. The decision wouldn't wait on a carefully drafted paper, nor a committee, nor could the decision hang in the air for a week's reflection. There was none of the arrogance he had seen in Hobbes before. Hobbes was pale, breathing too fast, drinking too quickly. He thought Cathy had been brilliant, and he thanked God, which for him was not often, that he was just the bystander. He thought Cathy had been brilliant because she had simply, clearly, laid out the facts and then driven them home, a hammer on a nail head. There had been no panic, less emotion. The facts were so simple. It was Mossie Nugent's life, Song Bird's life
… it was Patsy Riordan's death, a nothing kid's death. There was no escape for Hobbes.
She played for life and she played for death. Bren did not know where she found the strength.
Hobbes said, 'You give me no choice.'
Cathy said, 'Thank you.'
Hobbes said, 'I feel like I want to throw up.'
Cathy said, 'Please yourself, Mr Hobbes.'
Hobbes said, 'It's just a fucking awful job.'
Cathy said, 'And hand wringing won't make it a better job.'
Hobbes swayed as he led them into the hall. Once he grasped the bottom of the banister rail. They passed the open dining-room door.
The laughter and the conversation cut. Bren saw the eyes peering at them through the doorway. The men wore suits, the women were dressed well. He thought that some of them round the dinner table would have known, in general terms, what was Hobbes' work, and they would have been curious. They would have allowed their imagination to let rip at the reason for the young man and the young woman, casual and scruffed, who had taken their host from the table and into the kitchen. It was a real war, that sort of crap, that intruded into a private dinner party, Bren thought it was that sort of shit. Hobbes let them stand in the hall, and he went into the living room that was well furnished by government procurement standards, and he pushed a small chest aside, near the fireplace, and exposed the wall safe. He took a key from his pocket and unlocked the safe and took out a thin envelope, passed it to Cathy. He relocked the safe and heaved the chest back, flush to the wall again.
He had no more to say.
Hobbes showed them to the door.
They walked off down the drive under the brightness of the security lights.
Cathy chuckled, 'He's going to be a ball of fire the rest of the evening, the life and soul of the party.'
Bren stopped at the car. It had welled in him. 'What you do, don't you care?'
'Christ's sake, it's not a big decision. It's not strategic. It doesn't have to go to Curzon Street or up to Cabinet. It's just day in day.. listen, young man, you are just a little cog, so am I. East Tyrone, Song Bird, just one operation running here, and over each hill there's another.
