'Now, don't mess me about, sunshine. It's a murder inquiry. We get impatient quickly.'
'We knew one of them.'
'Which one?'
'One was an Irishman.'
'I said, and I said it clearly, don't mess me about. I haven't got all bloody day to be playing games.' Their two faces, the one bearded and with traces of acne, the other stubbled and tired, were less than a foot apart. The man from the commune looked away, then said:
'There was a girl who used to live here. Eilish McCoy.
One of the men was her brother. He's called Ciaran. I know because she once showed me a picture of him, in a sort of uniform. Taken back in Ireland. He just turned up here about a week ago, asked for a room, said he had some people coming. Said they needed…'
The Inspector said, 'Somewhere quiet, somewhere to lie up?'
'Something like that.'
'And the other one, the second one?'
'We never heard his name.'
'Was he Irish?'
'No.'
'Look, boy, last time, don't screw me about.'
'I'd say he was an Arab.'
'And no name, didn't McCoy call him anything?'
'They didn't mix with us. They were either out or in the room. The second one only came the night before last.
There was no name.'
'You say McCoy said he had 'some people coming'?'
'He told me there were three others, only the one showed up.'
A detective came into the room. In his hand, held gingerly between thumb and first finger, was a four-by- two-inch note-book. it was over in a corner. Left behind. It's Doris Lang's writing, no doubt on that. I've seen it in the station. Her week's log of the comings and goings. Seems she searched these buggers' room on Friday night, again yesterday afternoon. There's a bit about what she found, and a description of the two men. Proper detailed one.'
The Inspector went out of earshot into the corridor and said to the detective, 'Get on to division, tell them to call Special Branch, and shove over all the stuff on McCoy.
And tell the people upstairs to get a move on, we'll have half bloody Scotland Yard here by lunch-time.'
When he reached his office back at the police station an hour later the desk sergeant was there to greet him.
'There's been a man called Jones on the phone for you.
One of the spooks from the Security Service. Said something about a note-pad. Wants to come up and see you as soon as you've ten minutes to spare him. Number's on your table.'
'Coming up in the bloody world, aren't we?' said the Detective Inspector as he went into his office.
TEN
Like an incoming ocean tide that thrusts its way into rock gullies and crevices so the name of Ciaran McCoy swept through the many departments of Scotland Yard. Photo-graphic section, fingerprint section, Special Branch and its Irish section, Murder squad, Criminal Records, Liaison Regional Crime. The name was telephoned to the Commander in charge of Special Branch, and to the Assistant Commissioner (Crime). Meetings were hurriedly convened, and at the centre of them were the suitably doctored files passed on from Leconfield House the previous night.
The photograph of McCoy was rapidly reproduced, and despatched to all police stations in the Metropolitan area.
The photofit team began work on a compilation of the unknown Arab's features, using principally Doris Lang's written description, written by a trained hand, and also including the sketchier accounts of his appearance as given by the occupants of the commune. Teleprinter messages from the Royal Ulster Constabulary headquarters at Knock Road on the east side of Belfast carried more information on the Irishman. The decision was made to release the picture of McCoy at lunch-time for the Independent Television current affairs programme that would be on the air at that time, and for a BBC newsflash.
That was when Norah saw the picture.
Her father always insisted that the television should be on during the formal eating of the Sunday roast, because he liked the farmers' programmes. After the music had faded away and the end-title shot of a threshing machine had disappeared behind a hill the screen went to black before the appearance of the 'Newsflash' symbol. The three people round the table, Norah, her mother and her father, all stopped eating and turned their attention to the set, food still on their forks. The item lasted a minute or so, the first forty seconds taken up by pictures of the comings and goings in Englefield Road. A policewoman had been found in a commune. Dead, strangled.
'Bastards,' Norah's father muttered to himself. 'Bloody bastards.'
Police were anxious to trace a young Irishman. Name -
Ciaran McCoy. The picture came up then, and stayed on the screen for twenty seconds. Half this time had elapsed before Norah recognized the boy she had lain beside at the swimming pool, the boy she had kissed, and who had left her so abruptly last Thursday night. She could see it was a police photograph, a man just taken into custody, aggressive and caged. But it was still the same man, the lines of a mouth whether set in anger or friendship change little, only superficially.
'Little swine,' her father said. 'We should string them up. Only thing they understand.'
Norah had said nothing. She put her head down and close to the food lest her parents should see the tears that welled up in her eyes. She had bolted her food, made an excuse and run through the front door. She walked endlessly that afternoon, conscious of an overwhelming feeling of shame, of having been dirtied in some way.
When Jones came back from the police station he brought with him photostats and transcripts of the note- pad.
Duggan and Fairclough were waiting in his office.
Duggan said, 'He's blown it, hasn't he, our little boyo?
Lost his safe house, lost his base. His picture will be plastered everywhere by tonight, all over the television, and front pages of the papers tomorrow. And now he's running, concerned with his own survival. Not what you'd call an auspicious start for what he's after.'
'Meaning what?' said Jones.
'That it may well be over for him. His concentration now is how to stay free. Does a man in his position go walking through a police cordon, cordon forewarned, cordon with a description? Does he, hell! He stays out.
Packs it in.'
'That's one viewpoint.' Jones acknowledged the argument, but looked sceptical.
'The other view takes a different course,' Fairclough joined in. if we look at the Palestinian, or Arab, or whatever he is, we can come out with a different answer.
He's been through a crisis before, in France on Thursday, and he's still on the move. Look at it from his point of view. If he doesn't go on what does he go back to? They won't welcome him with open arms back in his camp.
He'd be a miserable failure. Fiasco. It's when the suicide mentality breaks through. The harder the going gets the more he will be prepared to risk his own life in order to succeed.'
'And the conclusion from that?' asked Jones.
'The conclusion from that is that the Arab is now extremely dangerous. Tiger in the long grass with half his guts shot out. He's a killer still, more so, only thing we can be certain of is that. But he's at a disadvantage, and that's positive, and consolation for us.'
