Dermot was too old nowadays to lie up in ditches, with his binoculars trained on houses and garages, so he was glad when Piggott acquired a couple of surveillance vans in which he could sit in comparative warmth, parked up, with his camera trained through a slit in the side. The vans were repainted frequently so they didn’t get noticed.
He walked under the bypass and into Andersonstown. Ahead of him he saw Paddy O’Brien’s bar on the corner. It had tried to tart itself up for a while, in recognition of the new affluence of the city, for a brief time even offering a gastro pub menu. But the overt hostility of its hardcore clientele had discouraged middle-class customers. Within six months the place had reverted to what its habitués insisted it should always be – a man’s saloon.
The barman was already pulling a pint of Murphy’s before Dermot was through the door. When the thick brown stout was halfway up the pint glass, the barman paused to let the foam settle, then filled it to the top. With a wooden paddle he cut off the towering creamy head and placed the pint on the bar.
Dermot grunted thanks and looked around the pub. He liked coming here, finding a comforting, almost nostalgic pleasure in the place. It was an informal meeting place for many of the former Provisional IRA volunteers he had served with, especially those who were down on their luck. A few were in here already, crouched over the paper and a pint they’d nurse through lunchtime. I’ll be like that soon, he thought with an intense bitterness. He wasn’t going to work today, not after his last conversation with Piggott.
Above the bar there was a framed black-and-white photograph of the hunger striker Bobby Sands, with a one-word caption underneath: Loyalty.
Loyalty: the word turned to ashes in Dermot’s mouth. Once it had been the maxim of his professional life – loyalty to the cause, to the organisation, to his superiors in the hierarchy. It was a principle he’d carried over to The Fraternity, squashing his doubts about Piggott; helped, he had to admit, by the fact that the money was so good. A state pension didn’t get you far – barely drinking money – and in their new roles as Establishment politicians, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness didn’t seem interested in establishing a fund for the foot soldiers who had got them where they were.
Dermot had never had money before, and he realised how easily he had got used to a comfortable life: the satellite dish on the roof bringing him all the Sky sport anyone could watch, and Cath her beloved films; the holidays on the Costa Brava each February, getting away from the grey, dank cold. And the prospect of retirement to that small cottage in Donegal he and Cath had often dreamed about. Two more years with The Fraternity and he would have been free and clear. Only now he’d been pushed aside.
Piggott had been clinical. ‘I need a younger man in charge of operations. You’ll be running security from now on.’
Security in the old days was a big, important job, when British intelligence was everywhere and intense precautions had been necessary to keep the Provisional IRA from being totally infiltrated. Now it just seemed to mean making sure Piggott’s car and driver showed up on time, or locking the office’s desks so the cleaning ladies couldn’t snoop around. It was a dogsbody job, and Dermot was sure it was going to involve dogsbody pay. He’d be as badly paid and treated as Malone, who was nothing but a thug.
Piggott hadn’t even had the courtesy to tell him by whom he was being replaced. Or to cushion the blow by praising his work. There had been no feeling in Piggott’s voice, no concern whether this change would sit well with Dermot.
The barman was suddenly there again, though Dermot had barely touched his pint. He looked up at him from his bar stool, his disgruntlement showing on his face.
‘Sorry to hear about Aidan Murphy,’ the barman said, polishing a glass with a tea towel.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Oh,’ said the barman, putting the clean glass on a shelf above the bar. ‘I thought you’d have known. Being as you work together and all.’
Dermot pushed his pint away, and it sloshed sloppily on the mahogany top of the bar. He said angrily, ‘Why don’t you spit it out, seeing as you know so much and I don’t?’
The barman raised an apologetic hand. ‘Sorry, Dermot. His hand got all smashed up. He said he’d had an accident…’
Dermot stared at the barman. ‘What are you saying? If it wasn’t an accident, what was it?’
The barman shrugged, as if to say ‘you tell me’. ‘All I know is that they—’ he caught himself – ‘is that his hand was broken half to smithereens. He won’t ever have full use of it again.’ The barman sighed loudly. ‘And him so young.’
And he went down the bar to check on another customer, while Dermot took in what had been said. He reached for his pint glass, and drained half the contents, medicinally rather than for pleasure. Christ, he thought, what had they done to the kid? All right, he had a big mouth, and he should learn to keep it shut – but not this way. He didn’t need teaching a lesson.
It’s Piggott, he thought.
He doesn’t give a shit, he realised, with an anger he hadn’t felt for years. Well, we’ll see about that, he told himself.
7
The flat was on the first floor of a red brick house just a quarter of a mile from the university, on a quiet side street which stopped in a dead end against the black iron fence of a small park.
On the ground floor a door led to another flat, but Liz went straight on up the stairs and let herself in through her own front door.
She put her bags down and did a quick recce of her new quarters. Two bedrooms – room for her mother to visit, she thought – a large living room, simply but comfortably furnished, with a kitchen and a small breakfast alcove. Perfect – nothing too large to keep tidy; nothing so small to feel cramped. Someone had even come in and put tea and coffee on the kitchen top, and fresh milk in the fridge.
The bigger bedroom had a pleasant view of the park, where children were playing on swings and slides. She started to unpack and was just finishing when she heard a faint creaking from the door to the flat. Then a step, and another step.
Liz tensed, listening. She must not have closed the door properly. Looking around, she saw there was no phone in the bedroom – that would have to change. She took a deep breath and went out of the room and into the hall, wondering whom she was going to encounter.
A little girl with a mop of brown curls and big brown eyes was standing there, staring at Liz. She wore pyjamas decorated with colourful lollipops.
‘Hello,’ said Liz with relief. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Daisy,’ she said, and with great formality extended a hand.
Liz shook hands, suppressing a smile. ‘Pleased to meet you, Daisy. I’m Liz.’
Daisy nodded sagely, then suddenly declared, ‘I’m not precocious, you know.’
Liz regarded the girl with amusement. ‘I’m sure you’re not,’ she said.
‘One of my teachers at school told my mother I was. They didn’t think I’d hear,’ she said, a little guiltily.
‘Never mind,’ said Liz. ‘It’s not a bad thing. Do you live downstairs?’ she asked, gesturing with her head towards the floor.
‘Yes,’ said Daisy. ‘Are you going to live here now?’
‘I am. We’ll be neighbours.’
A woman appeared in the doorway, white-haired, too old to be this girl’s mother. She looked at Liz with a worried frown. ‘I’m sorry, miss,’ the woman said, with an accent that marked her out as local. ‘She was just being curious. Come along, Daisy. I’ve got your supper ready.’
But Daisy didn’t move. Looking at Liz she said, ‘Are you the lady Mummy knows?’