Dave said, ‘I’ve often wondered how people have managed.’
‘It’s been bloody hard,’ said Patrick harshly. ‘While the bigwigs ponce about in Downing Street and Stormont, the rest of us poor sods have been left out in the cold. You’ve heard the expression ‘jobs for the boys’? Well there have only been jobs for the top boys. It’s a disgrace.’
Dave stayed silent, and Patrick continued. ‘As I said, when Adams and McGuinness got into bed with you lot, the problem was how to stay loyal to the Movement while not getting left out. There weren’t many options, and when you saw an opportunity you had to grab it quickly.’ Suddenly he dropped the third person. ‘So I did.’
‘Tell me about the opportunity.’
‘A new company in Belfast needed some technical assistance. It was a consultancy,’ he added, ‘and I guess you’d say I became their consultant.’
‘Consultant in what?’ asked Dave slowly.
‘Technical aspects of security,’ said Patrick a little grandly. Listening in the Control Room, Liz reckoned he’d prepared this answer before. ‘Several of the employees of the firm were old colleagues of mine.’
‘Where is this company?’
‘Right in the centre of Belfast– just off Castle Street.’
That’s about the first concrete information he’s offered, thought Liz, wondering again why she found him familiar. And Castle Street also rang a bell. You had to admire Dave’s handling of this man: the good agent runner never hurried the agent and took care never to prick the balloon of his ego. Dave was doing well on both counts.
Just then another audio channel broke in. ‘Control, this is Air Three. We have a white builder’s van just off Queen’s Parade on Southwell Road. It’s double-parked and been there for some time. But on our last pass a guy was unloading bags from the back.’
‘These bags – can you describe them, Air Three?’ asked Purvis tensely.
‘Look to be canvas, long – probably three or four feet. Something like sports bags for cricket kit.’
Cricket kit in January? wondered Liz. It didn’t seem likely. She studied her laptop – the van was only a few hundred feet from Dave’s car. ‘I don’t like the sound of this,’ said Liz softly, and Purvis nodded.
‘Do you want us to take another look?’ asked Air Three.
Purvis turned his head, and Liz shook hers. It was too risky; even in Northern Ireland people noticed a helicopter if it hovered too obviously.
‘Negative,’ said Purvis. ‘We’ll deal with it.’
Purvis switched to another channel, while Liz tried to focus again on Dave’s conversation. He was saying to Patrick, ‘And are you happy working there?’
‘I was at first, especially as I was told that the firm’s profits were going to help the Cause. It was a legit business but also a holding action, if you see what I mean, until the time came when the peace process fell apart and the struggle began again.’
His agenda’s clear at any rate, thought Liz, wondering how many former Provos shared his views. One hundred, as Binding had suggested? Maybe more? The thought was depressing, and frightening – former terrorists waiting like crows for the fragile peace to crack so they could come in and finish the job, starting the whole futile spiral of violence all over again. Was the man unloading a van one of them?
She listened tensely as Purvis gave instructions: ‘Corner of Southwell Road and Queen’s Parade, a white van parked and unloading. Can you check what’s being moved? Go easy; this might be hostile.’
On one of the monitors they had a distant overhead view from the helicopter of Southwell Road. It was clear enough for them to see two police cars shooting up it at speed, their lights flashing but no sirens audible over any of the channels. Good, thought Liz – Dave and the informant couldn’t see the police cars from where they sat, and they wouldn’t hear them either.
The two police cars stopped suddenly, one at each end of the double-parked van, so that it couldn’t move. But then the picture disappeared, and Liz could no longer see either the van or the police cars. The helicopter must have turned away, and the monitor’s screen showed only blue sky, then the dull pea-green expanse of the Lough.
Dave was asking, ‘Can you tell me about your technical work?’
‘No!’ The man called Patrick was almost shouting. ‘I’ll tell you what you need to know.’ There was an edge to his voice now.
‘Fair enough,’ said Dave steadily.
‘The business turned out to have a retail side I hadn’t been told about.’
‘What are they selling?’
‘What aren’t they selling is more like it. They flog stolen lottery tickets, stolen booze, and foreign women.’
‘Any guns?’ asked Dave quietly.
There was silence in the car; for a moment, standing in the Control Room, Liz worried that the audio connection had been lost. She wondered what was happening with the builder’s van.
Then Patrick said, not answering Dave’s question, ‘Worst of all, they sell drugs.’ He snorted with contempt. ‘We never touched drugs. It was a punishable offence to have anything to do with them. They could destroy our communities.’
‘So this consultancy is really just a front for criminal activity of all kinds.’
‘Looks like it.’
Suddenly there was the crackle of the police radio. ‘Control, we’ve stopped and searched. Nothing to worry about. It’s bags of curtain rods – the van driver owns a decorating shop down the road in Ballyholme.’
Whew, thought Liz, and noticed Purvis was smiling. He turned up the volume on Dave’s conversation.
‘Why are you talking to me?’ asked Dave, sounding more assertive now. Liz reckoned he was probably thinking what she was – that this wasn’t a matter for MI5, but for the new Northern Ireland Police Service. It sounded like a well-organised racket – a menace to be sure, but straightforwardly criminal, and no concern of theirs.
Patrick seemed to bristle. ‘If you’re not interested, just say so, and I’ll be on my way.’
Dave ignored him. ‘You know as well as I do that this sort of stuff is a matter for the police. So why did you want to tell me about it?’
Patrick must have decided he had been opaque for too long. He said, ‘The company I’m talking about is called Fraternal Holdings.’
Bingo, thought Liz. Things were starting to fall into place – and now she knew why this man was familiar. He had been the old man in the Astra, the one who left the Fraternal offices in a rage. He was getting his own back now, it seemed.
‘The boss isn’t Irish, but he calls himself a Republican. He says we’ve all been let down by Adams and McGuinness. What he really wants to do is kill policemen – and he wants to kill one of your lot, too. He says that will demonstrate that the war goes on.’
‘What?’ exclaimed Dave, unable to contain his surprise.
‘That’s what I’m telling you,’ said Patrick, and Liz could imagine him sitting there with his arms folded, smugly certain that he had justified this rendezvous.
‘Let me get this straight,’ said Dave. ‘You’re telling me you’ve gone to work for a boss who claims to share your nationalist ideals, only to discover he’s running rackets of every conceivable sort all over Belfast. And now you’re saying he wants to kill policemen and an MI5 officer. I don’t get it.’