The Prime Minister thanked him and rang off. He hurried from his study to the Humber waiting outside the front door of the official residence. He was late for the House.
The Army Council of the Provisional IRA, the top planning wing of the military side of the movement, had noted the killing of Downs. The Chief of Staff had received a letter from the Brigade commander in Belfast relaying the collapse of their man’s morale and his failure in the last two missions assigned to him.
The two members of the Council who had been asked to report on the practicality and desirability of further assassinations in the political arena, particularly the plan involving the British Prime Minister, delivered their assessment at the first meeting of all members after the Ardoyne shoot-out.
They advised against the continuation of attacks on the style of the Danby assassination. It had, they said, been disastrous for fund-raising in the United States: the picture of Mrs Danby and her children at the funeral had been flashed across the Atlantic and coast to coast by the wire syndication services. The Provisionals’ supporters in the States reported that November’s fund-raising and on into December would show a marked drop. They said that if there were a repeat or a stepping-up of the tactics the results could prove disastrous. And money was always a key factor for the movement: RPG7s and their rockets did not come cheap, not from Czechoslovakia or Libya nor from anywhere else.
The Chief of Staff summed up that in the foreseeable future they would not consider a repetition of the Danby attack, but he finished: ‘I still defend the attack we carried out against Danby. That bastard deserved to go. He was a straight, legitimate target, and it was well done, well carried out. They acknowledge that on their side, too. There’s been no trumpeting on their side even though they’ve shot our lad. They’ve been keeping their heads down for more than a week.’
There was criticism in the Council, that had not been voiced while Downs was still on the run, of the way the Chief of Staff had monopolized the planning of the attack. That would stand against him in the future, being one of the factors in his eventual replacement and consequent demotion.
Little of the credit for the killing of Billy Downs landed on Davidson’s desk. It jumped with no small agility to the name of Harry McEvoy via the desk of the Permanent Under-Secretary.
Frost put in a long and detailed complaint about the amount of work the independent and, for so many days, unidentified agent had meant for the security services. He logged the man-hours involved in the search for Harry at the scrap yards, and for the girl round the Clonard, and described them as wasteful and unprofessional. The control of the agent received scathing criticism, particularly the inability of London to reach their man when they wanted to draw him out. The paper concluded with the demand that such an operation should not be repeated during the following eighteen months that Frost would be on the staff of Northern Ireland headquarters.
The Under-Secretary who had a copy of the document forwarded to him read it over the phone to Davidson. The response was predictably angry.
‘He forgets it was over there and on his side of the fence that some big mouth let the cat out of the bag.’ Davidson already had the transcript of the interrogation of the stricken Duffryn. Still suffering from shock, the young man had given Special Branch all of his limited knowledge of the Provisional IRA and its affairs relating to Harry McEvoy.
‘He forgets that our man got the fellow, not all their troops and police and Special Branch and SIB, and whatever they call themselves, SAS and the others.’ Davidson roared it into the receiver.
The Under-Secretary soothed. ‘They have a point, you know. This bit how you couldn’t reach him, and he didn’t stay where he was supposed to, that was a bit irregular.’
‘The way they clod about over there, I’m not surprised he didn’t go to the house they fixed for him. The fact is we were set a mission, and carried it out, with success. Is that cause for a bloody inquest?’
Davidson had not been told how Harry had died. That was to be kept very close in London. ‘Need to Know’ was being applied with rigour. The Under-Secretary decided that if the PM wasn’t on the list then Davidson ranked no greater priority.
‘Of course the mission was a success, but it’s put a great strain on inter-service and inter-department co-operation. The feeling at MOD is that a similar operation would not be mounted again. That means, I greatly regret to say, that the team we set up to direct our man will have to be dismantled.’ There was no change in his voice as he delivered the hammer blow. It gave him no pleasure, but Davidson was so excitable that one really did have to spell it out in simple words and get it over with. He went on: ‘I did have hopes at one stage that if this went off without a hitch we might have had something a bit more regular going through Dorking. Make a habit out of the place. But that’s not to be.’
Davidson could recognize the shut-out. The shouting was over. He asked, ‘And what now? What happens to me?’
‘It’s recognized here, Davidson, that in fact you did very well on this one, particularly in the preparation of our man. You made him ready for a difficult and dangerous task, which was subsequently carried out with great expertise. You must not take all that Frost says too seriously. You’ve a great deal of experience to offer, and this showed in the way you got the fellow ready. I want you to think about it carefully, and not come to any hasty decision, but the feeling is that there’s a good opening abroad for you.’
Here it comes, the old pay off, reckoned Davidson. What would they have for him, sewing blankets in the Aleutians?
‘You’ve built up great experience of counter-terrorist operations.’?The civil servant kept going — don’t lose pace, don’t let him interrupt — ‘I won’t beat about the bush. Hong Kong wants a man who can advise them on the posture they should be in. Now don’t say anything hasty, the terms are first class. You’d get more than I’m getting. Good allowances, good accommodation, and pretty much of a free hand. Probably live off expenses and bank the rest, I’d say. Don’t give me an answer now, but sleep on it and call me in the morning. Cheers, and we all think you did well.’
The conversation was over.
Davidson ranged round the office, fumbling at his papers, diving into the drawers of the old wooden desk. He aimed a kick at the folded camp bed away in the corner, not used since the last Sunday night of his vigil. It took around an hour to find the will and inclination to exert some order to the anger of his feelings. The documents and maps of the operation filled two briefcases. The rest was government property. Some bloody man could clear that up. Sort it out themselves.
He made a call to his wife. Didn’t speak much, just said he’d be home early, that he had some news, they would be going out for a meal. Then he locked up. He’d thought about Harry considerably since the shooting, and by the time he had reached his commuter train his rage had subsided and he brooded in a corner over the evening paper about the young man who had died in Belfast… sent away across the water with all that damn-fool optimism coursing through him.
For days Mrs Duncan talked of little more than the strange events that preceded the death of her favourite lodger.
That the man who shared her bathroom, her front room and occasionally her kitchen, who lived in her best back bedroom should have turned out to be an English agent was rather too much for her to serve out in a single session of conversation. Her neighbours came several times to hear the full saga, culminating in the eye-witness description of the final shoot-out beyond the front garden gate.