Выбрать главу

‘Seems to talk OK, then loses us for a moment, or a word, or sometimes in the middle of a word, and then comes back… his talk’s like us mostly but it comes and goes… it’s not just as if he’d been away as he says. Then all his talk would have gone, but it only happens with odd words.’

It was enough to cause him anxiety, and it took him half an hour to make out a painstaking report for his superiors setting down all the information he had available on the man called McEvoy. The responsibility would rest higher up the chain of command as to whether or not further action was taken. He would keep up surveillance when he had the manpower.

There were difficulties of communication in the city and it would be some days before his message could be passed on.

* * *

Private Jones was on board the 15.30 Trident One back to Heathrow. He was out of uniform but conspicuous in his short haircut and neatly pressed flannels. He had been told he would be met by service transport at Heathrow and taken to Northolt where he would be put on the first flight to Berlin and his new posting. It had been impressed on him that he was to speak to no-one of his encounter the previous night. The incident was erased.

* * *

Interrogation was an art of which Howard Rennie had made himself a master, an authority, skilled at drawing out the half-truth and capitalizing on it till the flood-gates of information burst. He knew the various techniques; the bully, the friend, the quiet business-like man across the table — all the approaches that softened the different types of people who sat at the bare table opposite him. The first session with the girl had been a gentle one, polite and paternal. It had taken him nowhere. Before they went into the interview room for the second time Rennie had explained his new tactics to the officer from army intelligence. Rennie would attack, and the Englishman capitalize on it. Two men, each offering a separate tempo, and combining together to confuse the suspect.

The detective could recognize his own irritability. A bad sign. One that demonstrated the hours he’d put in that week, the sleep he had forfeited. And the girl was playing him up. They’d given her the easy way. If she wanted to play it like the boyos did, then good luck to her. But she was tired now, dazed by the surroundings and the lights, and hungry, having earlier defiantly refused the sandwiches they brought her.

‘We’ll start at the beginning again, right?… You were at the dance last night?’

‘Yes.’

‘What were you wearing? We’ll have that again.’

‘My pink dress.’

That much was established again by the detective. They’d got that far before. He’d done the talking. The army captain had said nothing as he sat behind the girl. A policewoman was also in the interview room, seated to the side of the desk and taking no part in the questioning. The questions came from the big man, directly opposite Theresa, just across the table.

‘Your home in Ballymurphy… it’s a hideout?’

‘No.’

‘It’s used as a hideout. We know that. It’s more we want. But it’s where the boyos lie up?’

‘No.’

‘We know it is, you stupid bitch. We know they stay there.’

‘Why ask me, then?’ she shouted back.

‘It’s used as a hideout?’

‘You say you know it is.’

‘How often?’

‘Not often.’

‘How many times in the last month? Ten times?’

‘No, nothing like that.’

‘Five times, would that be about right? In the last month, Theresa?’

‘Not as often as that.’

‘How about just once, Theresa? That’s the one we’re interested in, just the once.’ It was the officer behind her who spoke. English. Soft voice, different to those RUC bastards. She sat motionless on the wooden chair, hands clenched together round the soaked and stained handkerchief from the cuff in her blouse.

‘I think we know one man came.’

‘How can I tell you…?’

‘We know he came, girl, the one man,’ the big Branch man took over again. ‘One man, there was one man, wasn’t there? Say three weeks ago. For a night or so. One man, yes or no?’

She said nothing.

‘Look, girl, one man and we know he was there.’

Her eyes stayed on her hands. The light was very bright, the tiredness was ebbing over her, swallowing her into itself.

‘One man, you stupid cow, there was one man. We know it.’

No reply. Still the silence. The policewoman fidgeted in her seat.

‘You agreed with us that people came, right? Not as many as five, that was agreed. Not as many as ten, we got that far. Now, understand this, we say that one man came about three weeks ago. One man. A big man. He slept in the house, yes or no? Look at me, now.’

Her head came up slowly now to look at the policeman directly in front of her. Rennie kept talking. It was about to happen, he could sense it. The poor girl had damn all left to offer. One more shove and it would roll out.

‘You don’t think we sent out all those troops and pigs just for one girl if we don’t have it cast iron why we want to talk to her. Give us a bit of common. Now the man. Take your time. Yes or no?’

‘Yes.’ It was barely audible, her lips framing the word with a fractional fluttering of the chin. The army man behind her could not hear the answer, it was so softly spoken. He read it instead on the face of the detective as he sighed with relief.

‘Say it again,’ Rennie said. Rub it in, make the girl hear herself coughing, squealing. That keeps the tap flowing. Once they start keep up the momentum.

‘Yes.’

The detective’s face lost some of its hostility. He leaned forward on the table. ‘What was his name? What did you call the man?’

She laughed. Too loud, hysterically.

‘What are you trying to do to me? You trying to get me done in? Don’t you know I can’t… I couldn’t anyway, I don’t know it.’

‘We want his name.’ Cut the softness. The crisis of the interrogation. She has to go on from here. But the little bitch was sticking.

‘I don’t know his name. He was hardly there. He just came and went. It was only about six hours, in the middle of the night.’

‘He was in your house. Slept… where did he sleep?… in the back room?… yes, we know that. He’s on the run, and you don’t know his name? Don’t you know anything about him? Come on, Theresa, better than that.’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know. I tell you I just don’t… that’s honest to God. He came in and went upstairs. He was gone before morning. We didn’t see him again. We weren’t told anything. There was no need for us to know his name, and when he came we didn’t talk to him. That’s the truth.’

Behind the girl, and out of her sight, the army officer put up his hand for Rennie to hold his questions a moment. His voice was mellow, more reasonable and understanding to the exhausted girl in the chair four feet in front of him.

‘But your father, Theresa, he’d know that man’s name. We don’t want to bring him in. We know what happened that night, up in this man’s room. We know all about that. We’d have to mention it. They’d all know at home. How would your Dad stand up to all this, at his age? There’s your brother. You must think of him as well. It’s a long time he’s been in the Maze… it would go well for him.’

‘I don’t know. I don’t. You have to believe me. He never said his name. It’s because he wasn’t known that he came, don’t you see that? It was safe that way. Dad doesn’t know who he was. None of us did.’