‘I can surely see, sir, yes. I put that very thought to Alderson, about an hour ago.’
‘And how did he react?’
‘He reiterated his story that he hadn’t left his house on that night, sir.’
‘He would, you know, he would.’
‘Yes, sir. I appreciate that. But we still have to find the evidence to support your view that he’s guilty, before we can arrest him.’
‘Then you should get about it, Peach. Use all the resources of your team to secure the arrest of Alderson by the end of the weekend. Or the arrest of someone else, of course.’
Covering himself with that blanket injunction, T.B. Tucker departed majestically to the pleasures of his weekend, leaving DCI Peach to gather his frayed resources for an assault upon the crime face.
SEVENTEEN
Cafferty wasn’t important. He was just the driver. His skills might mean life or death for his passenger, but he wasn’t a soldier. He wasn’t fighting glorious battles for the Cause. He wouldn’t have the glory of this latest achievement. That would rightly go to the soldier.
Patrick Riordan’s thin chest swelled automatically with the vision of glory as the car moved swiftly through the city streets. The fight would go on until the vision was fully achieved and Ireland was freed for ever from the English yoke. The whole of Ireland, not just the present Eire. Those mealy mouthed politicians on both sides might think they’d made a settlement with their Sunningdale Agreement and all the subsequent climbdowns, but this period was no more than an interlude. The real Irishmen like him felt closer now to a united, independent Ireland than they’d been for centuries, and it would be men like him who would scale the last barriers. He would be one of the real patriots who achieved the final victory. His name would go down in Irish history.
He did not realise that it is the men with the ideas, not the soldiers who force them through, who go down in history. The men who for centuries have used people like Patrick Riordan never tell them that.
Pat had known tonight’s target well, thirty years and more ago. They’d grown up in the same Belfast suburb, attended the same primary and secondary schools. Fitzpatrick was six years older than him, so they hadn’t spoken much at school. ‘Fitz’ had been a hero of the rugby team, towering above all others in the line-outs, shrugging off tackles, forcing his way over the try-line with lesser bodies clinging ineffectively around his shoulders. Schoolboys remembered that kind of picture long after others had been forgotten.
But Riordan remembered much more vividly how Fitzpatrick had spoken for the Cause, how bright and articulate he had been for Ireland in those heady days in the Eighties and Nineties, which were long gone but sometimes seemed but yesterday. Seamus Fitzpatrick had stood head and shoulders above his peers, morally as well as physically, and his eyes had blazed with the righteousness of the Cause as he urged young Irishmen to join him.
He was James Fitzpatrick now, not Seamus. He had made his peace with England and taken the tyrant’s gold. He had condemned the IRA when they conducted the great bombing of the centre of Manchester in 1996. He had turned traitor to the Cause he had once espoused. He was a prominent supporter of the Labour Party now, a man who spoke at conferences and had risen steadily through the council ranks of local politics. People had spoken of him as a possible Labour MP and it had looked for a time as if he might take that route.
But local eminence was more his line. He wanted to be a big man in the city of his choice, Manchester. This was the place where he had made a name for himself through his successful business and his well-publicised work on the council. This was where he had gained much publicity and secured the moral high ground locally by his instant condemnation of the IRA bombing which had devastated the city centre. He had been prominent in much of the subsequent redevelopment, securing central funds, driving through the plans, and suggesting the architects who had seen proud new buildings rise from the debris.
Well, nothing came without a price, in Patrick Riordan’s view. And tonight the man who had grown up in Belfast as Seamus Fitzpatrick was going to pay the price of his treachery.
Cafferty was nervous. It didn’t affect his driving, which came to him automatically, but he was crouched tensely over the wheel. He answered Riordan’s questions in monosyllables; eventually he made it clear that he didn’t want to talk at all unless it should be absolutely necessary. ‘Suits me, Mick!’ said Pat Riordan, smiling a superior smile in the passenger seat. You couldn’t expect men who weren’t soldiers to be as cool and confident as he was.
James Fitzpatrick was speaking at a Labour party meeting about future policies. The party committees were anxious to be prepared for the next election, which wasn’t due for another couple of years but might come at any time, with Europe in chaos over its currency and the economic recession showing little sign of abating. It looked from the opinion polls as if Labour would walk in on the back of the discontent which economic troubles always brought to an existing government. But you needed to have policies formed and a manifesto prepared against the possibility of a snap election. You couldn’t trust those Tories: that was one of the few old saws guaranteed a chorus of approval at a Labour party gathering.
The meeting wasn’t in any of the city’s major meeting places. Crowds at party gatherings were thin. Except in the months before an election, only the keenest attended. The attendance at this one was a little bigger than usual, because James Fitzpatrick had a loyal local following to add to the surprising number of party officials who felt it their duty to be there. But the numbers didn’t warrant a major hiring fee. This gathering would be in a large, single-storey building, some way from the city centre.
Pat Riordan had examined the place carefully three days ago and concluded that it leant itself admirably to assassination.
In truth, he would probably have decided that whatever the venue. Like many a man bent upon glory, Riordan was impatient for action at almost any price. Glory is a dangerous aspiration. It upsets the judgement. Men in pursuit of glory are careless of their own lives as well as of those they plan to terminate. The delusion of an honourable death makes men careless of danger and leads to reckless decisions. The man who thought himself so cool made one of those now.
The large, shabby building was a former storage facility. It had large doors at the front, but no other means of entrance or exit. A man planning murderous violence should have preferred at least one more entrance, which would have accorded him a greater element of surprise and a better possibility of a swift getaway.
The building was also at the end of a cul-de-sac. No professional killer liked that. Psychologically, it made you feel trapped: with only one exit, you felt like a rat running along a single drainpipe. It faced you with an immediate tricky decision. Did you park your getaway car near the entrance, risking curiosity and suspicion? Or did you park it outside the cul-de-sac altogether, on the busy main thoroughfare at the end of it? This made you much more anonymous, but meant you would have to race the best part of two hundred yards on foot to your waiting car, probably with people in frenzied pursuit.
Patrick Riordan decided that they would park beside the entrance to the hall.
This meant they had to be there early, to secure the place they wanted. They parked an hour before the scheduled time for the meeting. Cafferty reversed the VW CC GT carefully into position, eight yards from the high doors, facing straight down the narrow little street. It was a stolen car, and it was the sort he’d wanted, fast and sleek. And its owner was away for the weekend, so that its absence would not be swiftly reported.
Riordan stuck the red rose sticker which was the Labour Party emblem predominantly on the side of the windscreen. That would insure them against any challenge as to their presence here, he thought, and he was right. No curious eyes moved any further than that cheerful English symbol. He and Cafferty disappeared swiftly from the scene.