ran off across open ground so that the soldiers would follow him. He saved his wife and his son and drew away the dragoons. In his ears he could hear the thunder of their horses' hooves and he could hear them yelling their excitement as if he were a fox they chased. He led them on, across moorland, through forests and all the time they were gaining on him. When they were close to him, when the breath was panting in his lungs, when the leading soldiers were little more than a sabre's cut from him, Shane reached a gorge. A hundred feet below him the mountain river tumbled on sharp rocks.
The sides of the gorge were too steep for him to scramble down. Shane jumped. Jesus was with him, and the Mother of Mary. He jumped the gorge, and the gorge was too wide for the horses of the dragoons to follow, but Shane Bearnagh had jumped it. He was gone into the trees leaving them to curse their anger. If you know where to look, if you go to the gorge, there is said to be the place where you can see, set in a stone, the footprint of Shane Bearnagh's boot, where he leaped from to clear the gorge…'
'Did they ever catch him, Ma?'
It was the story without a finish.
'It's time you was asleep, Kevin.'
Ronnie's voice was low, as if the suspicion of being overheard was always with him, even in the heart of a Special Branch section in the core of Lisnasharragh barracks. Bren sat against the back wall, listened. Cathy Parker was in front of Rennie's desk, straight backed on a hard chair, sometimes giving him her attention and sometimes staring vaguely out of the one window. Rennie was talking softly but urgently.
Palsy Riordan had been taken into police custody. First to Dungannon police barracks and then to an interview room at the regional holding centre in Gough barracks, Armagh. He would be held overnight, and interrogated.
Attached by a tangle of wires to Rennie’s desk telephone was a small tape recorder. Next to the desk was a black and white television set and a radio, both on a wheeled table beside which was a computer console. There were two filing cabinets, each with a padlocked bar running top to bottom that prevented their being opened.
The following morning he would be taken back to Dungannon, and released.
'That’s it…' Rennie reached into a desk drawer for his pipe.
' Thank you.'
'coffee?'
'No, thanks.'
'Perhaps your colleague would like coffee?'
'He wouldn't, no.'
The pipe was filled, lit. 'Heh, come off your high horse, Cathy.'
'We don't want coffee, thank you.'
Rennie leaned further forward, waving away the pipe smoke. No longer the policeman of Special Branch, no longer trying to play the cold man who didn't know emotion. Trying now to play the friend.
'Cathy, you know what you're at? You know what you're into… ?'
'I don't need telling.'
'You know what'll happen?'
'I'm not a fool.'
Sharp, staccato. 'Heh, Cathy, it's a big boys' game out there.'
'Don't patronise me.'
'That's speeches, Cathy, that's not you.'
There was the flush on her face, Bren saw it. She seemed so small to him, and he could see that her eyes blazed back at the big detective, and her chin jutted defiance at him.
More matches, more tobacco smoke.
'I've done what I was asked.'
'And I'm grateful.'
'I'm not asking for bloody thanks. I want paying in kind.'
'What's that mean?'
'I want Song Bird.'
She snorted. 'Go jump…'
Rennie slammed his fist on the desk and said so softly Bren hardly heard him, 'I want Song Bird's name and I want partial control.'
She shoved her notepad into her handbag. The bag was formidable, heavy leather, she handled it like a weapon. She pushed herself up out of the chair.
'No way, no bloody way.'
'You owe it me…'
Bren watched.
She turned to him, 'Come on.'
Rennie hissed, 'You stay where you bloody are. Parker, you are the biggest pain up my arse. Don't play the arrogant English Miss with me
…'
She smiled. Bren saw the slow spread of the grin across her face, like she loved the hard-edged policeman. 'And don't you go getting yourself a coronary, Howard.' ‘'I want him.'
'Well, get it into that thick Ulster skull that you shan't have him.'
'I'll go to Hobbes…'
'Wasting your time.'
'I'll cut you off.'
Her laugh was a tinkle. 'Then I'll do without you.'
Rennie was up out of his chair. He was pacing the room, his clenched right fist pounding the palm of his left hand for emphasis. 'You can't go on as if you're the only person fighting this war… You have to share the pressure… Go on like this, Cathy, playing the bloody queen and all of us dancing for you, and you won't have a friend left, not a bloody squaddie and not a copper, you'll be alone. .. we're not all dirt, Cathy, we're not every one of us idiots. And you don't have the God-given right to walk into our backyard and piss all over us. If you're alone, Cathy, then you're finished…'
She stood. 'So be it.'
Rennie came to her, put his hands on her shoulders. 'Understand me, you can't do it alone.'
'You’re shouting, Howard.'
He shook her, as if to exorcise the exasperation. 'Did you sleep last night?'
She moved his hands off her shoulders. 'Why not?'
Damn you, because of the Riordan boy…'
She went to the door. She gestured for Bren to follow. 'I'll he in touch Howard, and thanks for the help '
They had held him for twenty four hours. He had been brought to them three times for interrogation. To D.S. McDonald it was just routine. Most of the Provo names in the area were brought in at least once a year, sometimes twice. D.S. Browne would have said that Patsy Riordan, courier, look-out, errand boy, had done well. Doing well was buttoning the lip and looking at the ceiling and refusing to answer any questions beyond name and address. They were taught how to do it, and taught well. It was very rare that you would get a Provo to incriminate himself during questioning.
D.S. Browne and D.C. McDonald had been given no operational reason as to why the boy should have been singled out for questioning.
Twenty-four hours after they had picked him up they set him down in the Market Square of Dungannon. Joseph Browne liked his fishing.
He liked particularly to go after good-sized pike. When he had hooked them, played them, netted them and weighed them, then he slid them back carefully into the water. They seemed to take a moment to sense their surroundings, then dived for the cover of the reed beds. He thought of the pike when they let Patsy Riordan out of the car.
A moment's hesitation, then the kid was running for Irish Street, gone from sight.
At the end of the day she heard his key in the door.
Mrs Riordan asked her boy where he had been.
