Signed,
Fairclough, Arthur. Capt., Intelligence Corps.
No marks for grammar, thought Frost, as he read it through.
‘Where’s Fairclough?’ he snapped at the duty officer.
‘On his way back here, sir.’ It was a time for short direct answers when the big man was in this sort of mood.
‘How long?’
‘Should be here in about ten minutes, sir.’ Then the sparks will come. Poor old Fairclough, thought the duty officer. Rather him than me.
The colonel went to the filing cabinet behind his desk and unlocked the top drawer, pulling it out on its metal runners and rummaging around for his dog-eared Ministry of Defence extension numbers book. It was a classified document and also listed the home telephone numbers of senior staff at the Ministry, military and civilian. He found the number of the Permanent Under-Secretary that Davidson worked to, and dialled the Surrey area code and then the six digits.
‘My name’s Frost. Army intelligence in Lisburn. It’s a hell of an hour but something has come up which you should be aware of. This is not a secure line, but I’ll tell you what I can. We were passed some information from a section of yours about a girl. That was yesterday morning. She was brought in yesterday afternoon and questioned twice. You know what about. She knew the man we want, identified the picture, and said he’d stayed in her house within the last month. Found her about three-quarters of an hour ago hanging in her cell. Very dead. That’s all I have. But I wouldn’t care to be in your man’s shoes when the opposition find out about all this. Thought you ought to know. Sounds a bit of a cock-up to me. Cheers.’
The Permanent Under-Secretary had thanked him for the call and rung off.
Frost locked away his directory and pocketed the keys as Fairclough came in a fraction behind his knock.
‘Let’s have it, Arthur.’
‘We got it out of her that the man stayed at her old man’s place. She said they weren’t given his name, and that she never knew his name. I think she was levelling with us. We left her for a couple of hours and when they came to get her out to bring her back up she’d strung herself up with her stockings. One thing should be straight, sir. She was treated quite correctly. She wasn’t touched, and there was a policewoman present the whole time.’
‘Right. Put it all down on paper, and soon. I want our version on this out fast. The information from London, on which we pulled her in. It seems to have stood up? It was real stuff?’
‘No doubt about that. She’d been with him, all right. No doubt.’
Fairclough went out of the colonel’s office to type his report. Frost went back on the phone to army public relations, another bedside telephone waking the early morning sleeper-in. He suggested that when the press enquiries started coming the men on the information desk should treat this very much as a police matter involving a girl picked up by the army for routine interrogation. He then called the head of Special Branch, first at his home where he was told he was already at Knock Road headquarters, and then at his office there. His own people had briefed him. With the slight diplomacy that he could command he made the same suggestion about press desk treatment as he had made to his own people.
‘You want our people to take the can?’ said the policeman.
‘Inevitable, isn’t it? Your police station, your interrogation. Don’t see how we can end up with it.’
‘Your bloody info set the thing up.’
‘And good stuff it was too. There should be an enquiry at that damned station as to how it happened.’
‘The Chief Constable in his wisdom had made that point. I think we should meet for a talk about the next move, if there is one, or this trail will be dead in no time.’
‘I’ll call you back,’ said Frost, and rang off.
Half-cock operation and the poor sod, whatever his name is, puts it right under our noses. And we drop it. Poor devil. And on top of that we let the girl kill herself, which puts a noose round his neck and a bag over his head. We’ve done him well today. Desertion’s the least he’s justified in doing.
Harry heard about the girl, with the rest of the province, on the early morning radio news bulletin. It was second story after the European Economic Community all-night talks. The item was brief and without explanation.
‘In Belfast a girl has died after being taken to a police station in the Falls Road area. She was found early this morning hanging in her cell and was dead by the time she reached hospital. Police named her as nineteen-year-old Theresa McCorrigan from Ballymurphy. An investigation is being carried out to find what happened. The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association have issued a statement calling for a full and independent enquiry into the death. They allege two armoured cars and troops were used yesterday afternoon to arrest the dead girl from her home.’
Harry switched off the radio. He felt numb. No more playing about. No more kindergarten. These were the powers of the forces at work. A simple, ordinary, decent girl. Wants to get screwed by a bloke who cannot make it. Tells the girls in the loo about it, bit of a giggle, have a laugh together. Thirty hours later she’s so terrified that she puts something round her neck and steps off. Throttled. A bit randy, and talks too much… and now she’s dead. Harry remembered her. Across the far side of the club: in with the toughies and the big kids near the bar. Rolling a bit. Too much gin, and not enough chips to soak it up.
He was the cause of the fear. He was responsible for the agony of the girl, before she slung whatever it was underneath her chin, and swung off into the void. Had she even been questioned by then, he wondered? Had she been able to say anything? Or was it all a lot of boasting?
They all listen to those bulletins, Harry reflected, every last one of them, catching up on the night’s disasters, funding themselves with conversation for the day. Josephine would be no different. She would hear it, making her face up, having her breakfast, washing her smalls, but the transistor would be somewhere in her home. She’d hear it, and she’d put it together. Was she that fast, that clever? Had to be, it was there on a plate, and what then?
Harry would have to wait to find out. She wasn’t doing tea this week, had a different shift at work. He’d have to wait till the weekend and their next date. Have to sit it out, Harry boy, and sweat it out, and see how bright she is, and if she is bright what’s she going to do about it.
He went down the staircase, across the hall, and out to the street. He heard Mrs Duncan calling after him about his breakfast, and ignored her as he kept on going up the pavement and turned left towards Andersonstown. It took him a good hundred yards to swallow the emotion and regain control. As he walked he set out the position, making in his mind a chess-board of his job. Pawns, that’s where she rated, and pawns were expendable. Bishops and knights hurt more but they could also be lost. He and the man he was hunting were the queens of his game. The superstars, and second only to the kings, who were sacred and inviolate. If, as the queens were moved round the board, the pawns toppled over, then that was the nature of the game he and the man played. There was no time to lament the loss of pawns.
The old theme song. It had been different in Aden. There had been no involvement there. Nothing personal. A clear enemy, all that was on the board was black or white but definite. Now all the squares were grey, and the figures too. Even the two queens. There would be a problem for an outsider in picking one set of pieces from another.