Chapter Eight
I should have been happy
now that I had a job lined up, but some days I couldn’t seem to get my act
together. Memories of Marie didn’t help. Nor did those lingering memories of
another civil conflict in another land: memories brought back so vividly by
what I had seen in Belfast.
It was
a whole lifetime ago, or so it seemed, when I made that last flight into
Sarajevo from the American base at Incirlik. I went in under the pretext of
delivering a load of food and medical aid. While I was making out the flight
plan, they told me that a cease fire was in operation so there’d be no trouble
getting into Sarajevo Airport. As it turned out, I was lucky not to get my ass
blown right off. When we landed I counted six small bullet holes in the
tailplane. A guerrilla unit was hidden in the hills overlooking the airport and
they’d been taking pot-shots at us. While we were unloading, they dropped a
mortar bomb alongside the runway which was probably meant to frighten us. It
did its job.
Of
course everyone got a bit annoyed about it all and someone went off to see the
UN commander and lodge a complaint, for all the good that would do. The
UNPROFOR was there as a peacekeeping force because no one wanted to fight an all-out
war just to impose a solution in Bosnia. NATO and the US had ideas about what
should happen, but they didn’t want to get bogged down in a bloody ground war
in which troops got killed. Bosnian civilians getting killed was another
matter, something they all stoically accepted.
I sat
it out at the airport for an hour or two and then I decided it was high time I
got myself into the city. I fixed up a lift with an aid lorry that was carrying
medical supplies into the city from the airport. The driver was a Brit, a young
WRAC driver who said she’d been out there all of two weeks and was scared
shitless by the indiscriminate shelling. I told her I’d been back there all of
two hours and I knew how she felt.
We
were about a mile from the city boundary when mortar bombs started to explode
nearby. It didn’t look like it was going to stay too healthy round there, so
the driver put her foot down with the aim of running the gauntlet, but the
lorry in front suddenly slowed down and then came to a juddering halt. The
other driver seemed intent on not moving any farther so I climbed out to see
what was bugging him. The road ahead was blasted apart with such a huge
shell-hole we hadn’t a hope in hell of driving past. The upshot was we just sat
there scratching our heads while more and more mortar bombs rained down on us.
We had no real shelter so, after a few minutes, me and the girl crawled under
the lorry and we just waited for a direct hit to wipe us off the face of the
earth. Every thump hit us hard in the chest and threw up a shower of mud and
stones which rained down on the vehicle.
“You
know,” the girl told me, “Getting shit scared is very easy out here. You just
turn up and tell yourself you want to get out alive. The rest is very easy.”
“You
scared now?”
“Too
right.” I felt her go tense as another shell screamed close overhead and
pounded hell out of the ground just yards away. Chaos erupted and my ears felt
like they were being forced back into my head. It seemed like we were about to
don heavenly wings and get ourselves out of there on a one-way ticket.
“You
okay?” I asked the girl when my hearing began to return.
“Hell,
no. I’ve just wet my knickers.” She started to sob.
“Tell
your boss you fell in a puddle.” I hugged her and then she wrapped her arms
around me. I wondered who was comforting who.
Not
long after, there was a lull in the shelling and the girl made to get up, but I
held her back. “There’s gonna be snipers out there. Wait until it gets dark.”
“I
never thought it would be as bad as this,” she sobbed. “I’m going to die here.
I just know I am.”
“Think
positive,” I told her although my own thoughts were far from positive. “Tell
yourself you’ll live through this. Tell yourself you’ll be able to give your
grandchildren a graphic account of what it’s like.”
“I
won’t have grandchildren. I’ll die here. Right now.”
I
figured she might be right about that.
But I
was wrong. About an hour later, darkness fell and the shelling stopped again.
That big shell hole still made it impossible to drive on so we just walked into
the city, leaving the trucks out there on the road. The girl’s uniform had
dried out, but she still looked vulnerable as she went off to find her own
unit. Something about the way her shoulders were hunched told me she was no
happier about the whole damned mission than I was.
I made
my way to George Quinlon’s base and told him what had happened. He didn’t come
up with much sympathy, told me to get my ass down to where the press corps was
being briefed. In the event I missed the briefing at the Residency and I found
the press corps in the ruined basement of this big hotel near the city centre.
One
man I immediately recognised was that freelance photographer called Joe
Bickford. He was a giant of a man with a head for strong drink and a heart for
small kids. He was working on the story of how the shelling of Sarajevo was
turning the kids into prematurely senile vegetables before they even learned to
walk. It took a lot out of him.
Some
of the guys there knew that the UN commander was in the city, but no one could
pinpoint exactly where, which was probably deliberate on the part of the UN. A
simple matter of self-preservation. I went back to Quinlon and he told me to
get the hell out of Sarajevo. He’d just been thrown out of the UN forward
headquarters after letting fly with the wrong words, something akin to accusing
the UN of corruption. Anyhow, he didn’t want me tainted with any backlash, so
he told me to clear off for a few days. I figured he was holding me in reserve
in case he failed to patch up the division between himself and the western
powers.
I went
back to the cellar and pitched in with the press corps guys. Eventually we
settled down for what sleep we could get in the basement. In the course of the
night Joe told about what was happening to the kids in Bosnia and I sensed that
it might be important. Not to the military chiefs back home, but to humanity as
a whole. One particular story he told me concerned a bunch of kids in Mostar.
Something
about Joe’s description of the violation of the kids must have struck home
because the next morning I decided the UN commander could take second billing
and I went with Joe to this run-down home for orphaned kids.
The
destruction of the Muslim area of Mostar was worse than in any other part of
Bosnia. Virtually no building of any size was left intact. The ruins were left
with no water supply, no electricity and the local people spent their lives
hiding out in cellars. Getting aid to those people was difficult to say the
least because the warring armies commandeered it once it was on the road. When
armoured support was sent in, the Serbs found ways of stopping it.
We
approached through the Croatian part of the city which, by contrast, was
relatively undamaged. According to Joe, the staff at the children’s home had plans
to get the kids out but they couldn’t because the big-hearted guys behind the
gun-sights thought it wasn’t a good idea. Joe was real pissed off about that.
He wanted them kids out far more than he wanted the dramatic photo opportunities
they gave him. As it turned out, he didn’t get any pictures that morning. The orphanage
had taken a direct hit during the night. Three of the staff and twenty two of
the kids got themselves a one-way ticket out of Mostar and out of this life.
We got
to see the mangled bodies, but I still don’t talk much about that. It turns my
guts inside out just to remember it.
Joe
and I did what we could to help the rescue workers get the survivors out of the
wrecked building. Then we went back to Sarajevo and the hotel basement where we
pulled out the booze and got stoned out of our minds.
“You
ever seen the like before?” I asked him.
He
looked at me through glazed eyes. “Yeah. I seen it in ’Nam and I seen it in
Cambodia. Wherever toy soldiers get to shoot off their guns. I seen it. There
were women and kids just shot to hell in those places. Trouble was, they were
American guns and American toy soldiers that did the shooting.”
“Victims
of war,” I said callously, and he spat at me. Quite right, it was a dumb thing
to say and I hated myself for saying it.
“You
know what victims of war are, Henry? They’re people. Human beings with feelings
just like you and me. And when it’s kids, they’re people who get hellish scared
at what the big guys do to them. You ever thought of that, Henry? It’s soldiers
and airmen like you that do it! They go out there and they kill the kids!”
“I
ain’t never bombed a kid,” I told him.
“How
d’you know who you’ve dropped bombs on, asshole?”
“I
never killed a kid knowingly,” I said.
“Knowingly
or not, you’ve done it, Henry. Your bombs sure as hell killed innocent kids. Government
flyboys did it when Kennedy gave the orders, they did it for Johnson and they
did it for Nixon. And when Uncle Sam sent you off to war and told you to drop
bombs, you just went off and dropped bombs. And you’ll do it again. And more
women and kids will get killed. And there’s always someone like you to callously
tell me it’s an unavoidable fact of war.”
“We
Americans ain’t too much involved in this war, Joe,” I reminded him.
“Ain’t
involved? Henry, I hear stories that Clinton wants to send in the bombers. They
tell me he wants to drop more bombs around here, and guess who’s gonna get
killed. The kids and the innocent civilians, that’s who! I hope to God he has
second thoughts.”
I
didn’t listen to him too closely then. In fact it took me some hours to fully
accept the truth of what he said. And when I had come to terms with it, I felt
like shit because I knew that, sure as hell, one day I would be fighting in a
war like this. When the time came, I’d have to do what I was told to do.
Kill
people.
I
reckoned I couldn’t live with that hanging over me.
Next
morning, when Joe went back to the orphanage to see what help he could give, I
went with him. Bodies still lay amidst the wreckage of the building, tiny
mangled kid’s bodies and it tore the guts out of me to see it. Once incident in
particular knocked the shit out of me, a little girl trapped beneath a fallen
beam, but I still don’t like to talk about that.
The
airport was open again by now, but I didn’t give a damn. I stayed around to
help save a few more kids. Later, my co-pilot was ordered to take charge and
return the ship to base.
That
was when they posted me AWOL.
It was
three days later when I made my way back to the airport and hitched a lift back
to Incirlik on a US Herky Bird. By then I was officially in the shit good and
proper. When I got back to base I told my CO I’d had enough and wanted out of
his air force. He told me to shape up, and I told him to go to hell. Then he
said he’d see me court-martialed if I didn’t obey orders.
And he
meant it.
*
I had a month to kill
before I started work with American Interstate so I called Penny and told her I
was planning on coming back to Belfast. I’d already had it out with mom and
dad. They didn’t like the idea none too well, but they accepted the fact that
they were not going to stop me.
I got
a kick out of hearing Penny’s voice which I hadn’t fully expected. She wasn’t
as classy as Terri McDolan, but she was far better in bed. She sounded surprised
at first, then guardedly pleased, and she insisted I stay with her. That offer
sealed the whole thing for me.
Two
weeks after the funeral I took a red-eye 747 to Heathrow and then caught a
British Airways Shuttle to Belfast’s Aldergrove Airport. It was mid-day and
raining heavily when the Shuttle touched down, which pretty well set the scene
for what lay ahead. I picked up a hire car at the airport and headed towards
the city. A thunderstorm hit the area while I was driving down off the
mountain, lashing rain obscuring the view ahead and violent lightning flashes
backlighting the black clouds. Something started to jar my nerves when I got
closer to the city and I was certain it wasn’t the weather. It was the place.
Something about it bugged me and I couldn’t shake it off.
I
drove straight to Penny’s apartment. It was a bit of a pain, driving on the
left with a floor gear change, and the traffic real busy despite the weather. I
was tuckered out when I pulled up outside the tenement block so I sat in the car
for a few moments, wondering if this was such a good idea. Then I went up to
the apartment.
Penny wrapped
her arms about my neck just as soon as she got the door open but that was to be
expected. She was wearing jeans and a sweater and had her hair tied back in a
scarf, like she’d been dusting and polishing up to the last minute. A curious
discomfort came over me. For some reason I couldn’t help comparing Penny’s raw
sexual appeal with the refined but muted sensuality of Terri McDolan. Penny won
hands down, and I quickly wiped the thought of Terri McDolan from my mind
before it could do me any harm.
“How
did the funeral go?” The words came out while Penny was still hugging and
kissing. The warm vibrancy of her body quickly came flooding back, a promise of
real turn-ons to come.
“Wet.
There was a bad storm.”
“I
wanted to send flowers but I didn’t know the address,” she said as I settled my
suitcase into her bedroom. She’d cleaned up the place some since I was last
there, but maybe that was for my benefit.
“I
guess we didn’t think of that sort of thing when we parted.” My mind was
working back to the aftermath of the bomb.
“How
long will you be staying?”
“As
long as it takes to find out what really happened to Marie.” I decided to say
nothing about the job, not yet. “I’m in no hurry.”
“Don’t
stick your neck in too deep, Henry. For my sake.”
“Your
sake?”
“Okay,
for your own sake. Just listen to reason, will you. I don’t want anything
happening to you. I really don’t.”
I
grimaced. Shades of Chief Hanson’s warning. “I don’t aim to end up like my kid
sister.”
“You
sure of that?”
“Sure,
I’m sure.”
After
that we kissed and groped on the bed for a while but jet-lag was taking its
toll and I needed to get some sleep. Penny was wise enough to see that and
after a while she left me to slide between the sheets alone while she went back
to the kitchen. I went out like a snuffed candle and woke up around six o’clock
that evening.
In the
kitchen I found Penny still working, cooking a hot evening meal. She had on a
light housecoat and I could see straightaway she was wearing nothing beneath
it. No bra, no pantyhose… absolutely nothing. It wasn’t any accident and,
despite my fuddled brain, the message didn’t go unnoticed.
“Recovered?”
she asked, smiling over her shoulder.
“Enough.
You want to come to bed before I get dressed?”
I
didn’t need to ask twice. She walked over to me and planted a wet-lipped kiss
right on me. So she had none of the finesse that I’d seen in Terri McDolan? It
didn’t matter. Penny was for real while Terri was a plastic doll. Besides, I
knew it was going to be damn good when we got it together again. Good and
right.
*
I don’t know what woke me
during the night, but the first thing I was aware of was the scent of Penny
beside me. That soft, fresh scent of her body and the fragrance of her hair.
She was breathing softly, enclosed in vestiges of sleep.
I
shifted closer and put one arm about her, tingling with the soft touch of her
skin. I pressed my body against her back and drew my legs up to mould myself
against her while she lay with her knees drawn up to her chest. Then I kissed
her neck and was rewarded by a slight moan as she stirred. I had woken her.
We lay
together for some time, comfortable and content in each other’s closeness,
until she rolled over, poking me in the ribs with a loose elbow. Then she
kissed me, softly on the lips. No effort to break through into my mouth, just a
chaste pressing of lips on lips.
“You
feeling randy again?” she asked, switching on a bedside lamp.
“You
know me, usually ready for anything.”
“Anything?”
“You.”
“And I
want you.”
*
Afterwards, the impish
grin on her face told me it had been good for her also. She reached out and
held me tight and I laid my head against her neck listening to her heartbeat as
it slowly returned to normal. It was so peaceful and comfortable, it felt
right, to be with her and I knew that I had not dreamed that moment of union.
It had been real.
I must
have dozed for ten minutes or so before coming to and realising she was cuddled
up close with her head nuzzling my neck. The bedside lamp was still on. I
thought she was asleep so I kept still, trying not to disturb her. To occupy my
mind, I dropped down to a more mundane level of thought and began to plan what
I would do now I was here in Belfast; my line of enquiry.
But
Penny wasn’t asleep. “You’re thinking,” she whispered, slowly uncurling from my
grasp. “I can tell by the way you’re holding your muscles tight.”
“I
thought you were sleeping.”
“Just
enjoying you quietly. You were thinking, weren’t you?”
I
rolled over on my side to face her. “Sure I was thinking. Thinking about where
I’m gonna start asking questions. I was wondering if I’d get any more out of
Tessie Gidley. I doubt if I’m flavour of the month with her any longer.”
“She
won’t talk to you again. Stay away from her, Henry.” Penny switched off the
lamp and then ran a finger up my chest, teasing the hairs in its path.
“What
about Billy Gidley? He’s supposed to be the boss of the company, isn’t he?”
Penny
didn’t answer. She pulled herself closer and I could feel her warm skin like
soft silk against me.
“Where
can I get hold of Billy Gidley?” I persisted.
“If
you must, you could try him at home.” Her voice couldn’t hide her reluctance to
tell me what I wanted to know. “Most days he does his paperwork at home and in
the evenings he goes round all the clubs to make sure the girls are not being
molested.”
“Keeps
a protective eye on them?”
“He’s
a big man and most trouble makers don’t dare argue with him.”
“I
hope to hell he does better for you than he did for Marie.” I clasped her
tightly, her breasts crushed against my chest. “Say, do you know all the other
girls on their books?”
“Not
all. Most of them.”
“Christine
Fisher?”
Penny
didn’t answer at first. She just reached out and switched on the bedside light
again, without any apparent reason. She blinked and rubbed her eyes when it
came on. “Who told you about Christine Fisher?”
“It
came up some place. You know her?”
“Of
course I know her. It’s the name she uses, but probably not her real name. Stay
away from her, Henry. They say she’s big trouble.”
“That’s
what I heard. What’s her scene?”
“They
say she pushes coke.” Penny sat up and leant over me, eyes sort of enquiring.
“What’s it got to do with Marie?”
“She’s
American, she’s a stripper and she’s a red-head. Apart from that, the name came
up some time. I figure I gotta check on everything that comes my way. Some of
it might mean something.”
Penny
frowned, turned away and said nothing. After a minute or so she lay back and
stared at the ceiling. “You’d be wasting your time. Marie wouldn’t get mixed up
with the likes of her, even though Fisher is American.”
Maybe,
I thought, then again, maybe not. “What about…” I paused, wondering if I was
asking too many questions too soon. Trouble was, I was trying to fill in gaps
in a conversation that sounded real but was actually filled with holes you
could drive a tank through. “What about the Irish American Woman’s Aid Centre?
What do you know about that?”
She
sighed like she was getting sore at me. “If you want to know about them, you
should read the papers. They’re constantly getting themselves in the news. They
pretend they’re trying to help girls in trouble and all the time they’re
spreading Republican propaganda.”
“What
sort of girls?”
“Eh?”
“You
said they help girls in trouble. What sort of girls? What sort of trouble?” I
knew the answer, of course, but figured Penny might give me a new angle on the
operation.
“Usual
sort of thing. Young girls wasting their lives on the street. Unwanted pregnancies.
That sort trouble.”
“Unwanted
pregnancies. You mean they help girls like Marie?”
She
looked at me with an expression that made me shiver. “Keep away from that
organisation, Henry. They’re big trouble.”
“Big
trouble. That’s what you just said about Christine Fisher.”
“And
it’s what I told Marie so I’m telling you the same. Keep away from them.” She
pointedly switched of the lamp and turned away from me.
I
didn’t reply and shortly after that I guess I must have dropped over to sleep.
Around
an hour or so later I was woken by a single gunshot. It happened so near and so
sudden it sounded like a bomb exploding. It knocked me out of my mind partly because
it was so unexpected and partly because I still had memories of other
explosions. Not just the bomb that went off in the city last time I was here, I
also had vivid memories of those bombs in Sarajevo, and they were real shit.
I sat
upright in the darkness before I was fully awake and reached for a light switch
but couldn’t find it.
“Wassamatter?”
Penny reached out a warm hand across my crotch.
“Didn’t
you hear that? It was a gunshot!” I was getting my brain back into gear.
“So
what?”
“For
Chrissake, Penny! It was nearby!”
I felt
her sitting up in the darkness. “There must be a British patrol in the area.
One o’ them Republican bastards will be taunting them. Forget it, will you.”
I slid
out of bed, crept slowly to the window and peered round the drape. Drizzly rain
was still falling and I could see a soldier crouched in a doorway opposite, lit
up by a solitary street lamp. Stupid jerk, I thought, didn’t they teach them
how to keep in the shadows? Other vague figures flitted around farther down the
street.
“It’ll
go quiet now,” Penny mumbled from the bed. “Some bloody sniper will have
crawled into the area and let off a round to put the wind up the Brits. The bastard
will have run back to his own side of the peace line by now.”
“And
these guys outside?”
“Will
get cold and wet for the rest of the night and not know why. Come back to bed,
will you?”
I
shivered but stayed by the window, naked and shivering. “What about the police?
What do they do about this sort of thing?”
“You
really are green, aren’t you? Straight out of the trees.”
My
eyes were getting used to the dark and I could make out Penny sitting in the
bed with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. “So answer the
question,” I said.
“This
is West Belfast, Henry. There’s a police station about half a mile away in
Tennent Street and they say it’s the busiest in Europe, but one thing they
can’t do is actually police West
Belfast. They patrol the streets in daylight in armoured cars with army support,
but they don’t actually police
anything.”
“They
say there’s parts of New York like that.”
“I
doubt it. I doubt if any of the New York police are constantly protected by
army patrols while they’re out in the streets.”
She
was right and I backed down. I began to make my way back towards the bed. “How
do people round here live like this? I mean, how do they stand it?”
“They
overdose on Valium mostly. Then they enjoy a few mental breakdowns and the odd
suicide or two. All the things people like you don’t get to hear about in the
States when your fine Republican friends spout off in Congress about British
oppression. When was the last time one of them actually saw a bomb explode in
the streets of his home town? When was the last time one of them saw a relative
with his kneecaps drilled way by a Black and Decker?”
I slid
into the warmth beside her. “That’s politics for you.”
“Politics
be damned. And you can tell your friends I said so when you get home.”
I lay
down in the warmth of the bed and felt Penny cuddle up beside me. Within
minutes her regular breathing told me she was asleep again. I lay awake for
another hour waiting for a second gunshot. All I heard was the occasional noise
of the Brits moving about in that dismal Belfast street.
They
were welcome to it.
The
sound of running water woke me up next morning. I lay there in the bed for some
minutes, getting used to the strange darkness. Instinctively I reached out once
again for a bedside lamp which wasn’t there. Wrong side of the bed, wrong
bedroom. It wasn’t until that moment I fully recalled exactly where I was.
I
leaned over and switched on Penny’s bedside lamp. Then I rolled back to my
side, slowly sat up and fumbled around for my watch. It was gone nine o’clock.
I staggered to the window and stared out at the grim scene outside. No
soldiers, just dull buildings and the odd dull figure hurrying along a dull
street.
The
bedroom door opened and Penny came in, straight from her bath. She stood there
for a moment looking at me, framed by the light from the hallway. She had a
towel wrapped round her head, but she wore nothing else.
“Feeling
better?” she asked.
“Better?”
“You
were pretty good during the night,” she said, letting the towel drop to the
floor. “I figured if you were on good form, we might…”
I
grinned in anticipation. “Uh-huh. Guess I’m ready for it.”
*
Later I turned on the
small television Penny had in her kitchen and watched a magazine programme with
some guy talking to a local politician about the chances of peace in Ireland
that year. It was all hogwash, of course. Even here in Belfast they hadn’t
clued up to the idea that they were hoping for a cease fire, not peace. They
didn’t even seem to be too sure about the difference. And it didn’t take much
imagination to see that real peace wouldn’t settle over Ireland until at least another
generation or two had grown up, physically and mentally. Still, talk of a cease
fire was a step in the right direction.
Soon
after breakfast I drove into the city and went to see Chief Inspector Rourke. I
was still feeling pretty up-tight because of the way the guy had been holding
back on me and I wanted a few honest answers from him before I tackled anyone
else. I was shown into his office by the same smart little doll who had met me
at the airport the first time I arrived. The Gidleys didn’t have a complete
monopoly on attractive women in Belfast.
Rourke
looked dead-pan at first, not sure why I was calling on him. I suppose he had a
right to be puzzled.
“I
thought you’d gone back to the United States, Major Bodine.”
“I
did. And it’s Mr Bodine. Remember?
“Yes,
of course. What can I do for you, Mr Bodine?”
I sat
down, looked him in the face and opened up. Didn’t see the point in beating
about the bush. “You can start by coming clean with me, Chief Inspector. Tell
me everything you know about my sister’s murder.”
That
seemed to catch him on the hop. “Come clean with you?” He frowned, buying some
thinking time. “I can assure you that we’re not holding anything back from you,
Mr Bodine. What exactly do you want to know?”
Not
holding back? He was shifting more lies, but what the hell. I sighed and tried
again. “Let’s start with that cab driver. What was his name? Sammy Wilde? What
can you tell me about him?”
“Sammy
Wilde?” Rourke put his finger tips together and looked up at the ceiling. He
looked like he was busy mentally balancing discretion against truth. A small
slice of truth won the day. “I assume the Gidleys told you about him. He wasn’t
a very nice character; you might as well know that. They say you shouldn’t
speak ill of the dead, but the fact is Sammy Wilde had a finger in just about
every dirty game going.”
“Like
what?”
“He
was a pimp, he collected extortion money on behalf of the UVF, he was a petty
thief and we were about to jump on him for drug peddling.”
“You
were about to jump on him? You mean someone conveniently beat you to it?”
Rourke
ignored that comment. “I’ve told you the truth about Sammy Wilde. Was it an
honest enough answer, Mr Bodine?”
“It
fits with what I already know. Has he… what’s the term you British use… done
some porridge?”
Rourke
laughed at my awkward attempt at their version of English. “Yes. Sammy Wilde
has done time. I don’t have the facts in front of me, but I believe he’s done
at least two spells inside Crumlin Road jail. What else do you want to know?”
“Why
was my sister in the cab?”
He
coughed, just enough of a cough to tell me he was about to clam up on the
truth. “We understand she was being driven to her work. I told you that.”
“Tessie
Gidley told me Marie wasn’t supposed to be dancing at the Blue Taboo Club that
night. But you say that she was going to the Blue Taboo to work. It doesn’t add
up. So I figure that someone’s lying to me.”
Rourke
leaned back in his seat and his face went all grim. “We were under the
impression that your sister was being driven to her dancing job. If Mrs Gidley
has said different to you, we’ll talk to her again.”
“You’ll
tell me the outcome?”
“Of
course.”
“Okay.
So, who planted the bomb?”
He
shrugged his shoulders. “We don’t know. Possibly the Provisional IRA. Maybe another
Republican group. There’s more than one.”
“But Anfo
isn’t their normal trademark these days, is it? Don’t they prefer Semtex or Co-op?”
“They
use whatever they can get hold of.” Rourke’s brow furrowed deeply and I figured
I had wrong-footed him. He began to talk quickly. “It’s become increasingly
difficult for the Provisional IRA to get hold of Semtex. Anfo is easily made up
using the sort of materials you find on a farm: fertiliser and fuel oil.
Ireland is just one big farming country, you know.”
“Sure.”
I could see I wasn’t going to get any more useful material out of him and I
rose to leave. “Just one more thing. What do you have on Christine Fisher?”
“Who?”
His brow creased even deeper and he turned suddenly menacing.
“Christine
Fisher. You’ve heard of her?”
“Should
I have?”
“She
was a stripper, Chief Inspector. I was told she was into narcotics.”
“Who
told you that?”
“Heard
it in passing. Heard also that the Brits have been trying to trace her.”
His
expression turned suddenly black, like I’d stepped on a raw Irish nerve with a
heavy American boot. “Drug enforcement is the responsibility of the drug squad,
Mr Bodine. I’ll make some enquiries.”
“Sounds
like you’ve quite a bit to ask about. You’ll tell me if you get any good
information on what really happened to Marie?”
His
lips barely parted. “Of course we will.”
Somehow,
I just didn’t believe him.
As I
was leaving, I could hear some raised voices behind me. Someone was getting the
sharp edge of Rourke’s tongue.
It was
still wet outside and felt like it was going to rain for ever, but I left the
car in a city parking lot and walked about a bit, just trying to get my mind in
tune with the feel of the place. It wasn’t easy, not with so much evidence of
violence and intolerance scattered about on every street. I passed an army
patrol in one street and wondered idly if they were connected with the poor wet
guys I’d seen during the night. They sure looked pissed off and that told me
what they thought of Ireland.
Eventually
I found my way back to the Billy Gidley office and went upstairs. The same
stupid blonde tart stared at me as I went in, still chewing her gum.
“You
again? What do you want?”
“Mrs
Gidley. Is she in?”
“No,
and you’d better not be bothering her, so you hadn’t. She’s none to please with
you.” The blonde turned her attention back to her typewriter.
“What
about Mr Gidley?”
“He’s
not here.”
“Where
will I find him?”
“At
home.”
“What’s
his address?”
“None
o’ your business.”
That
was it. I’d had enough of this little bitch. I leaned across the desk and
grabbed at the neck of her sweater, pulling her face close to mine. Her jaw
dropped open and I could smell cheap perfume mixed with the smell of bad breath.
“Listen,
sister, it seems like there’s no one else here to see what’s gonna happen in
the next few minutes. Now, are you gonna tell me how to find Billy Gidley or am
I gonna beat it outa you?”
She
told me.
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