The shock of his words hit her like a punch to the stomach. ‘Shirley! Oh, God, no…’
He grasped her arm to stop her moving. ‘There’s nothing you can do. She’s dead.’
She stared at him in angry disbelief as though it were his fault. ‘That can’t be, Hal.’ She hesitated, allowing the words to sink into her befuddled mind. Little Shirley, dead? ‘And her mother Gwen — is she…?’
‘I checked for you, they’ve taken her to the Middlesex.’
‘I must go.’
‘Leave it, Casey. She lost half her face in the blast and God knows what other injuries. My guess is she’ll be in theatre for most of the night. Sorry.’
She stared back across the circus as the young dancer’s stretcher disappeared into the ambulance and the doors slammed shut. It was all so final. Her eyes prickled with tears that for some obscure reason refused to flow. Instead she felt the tight knot of anger expand in her chest until it threatened to suffocate her.
She only half heard Eddie Mercs’s words in her ear. ‘You saw it all, Casey, I didn’t. This is your story.’
‘What?’
His eyes were fierce slits. ‘You’ve got to write this one. For that girl and her mother. For that Expo…’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Eddie!’ she retorted, angry that he could even think of the newspaper at a time like this.
He shook his head. ‘That man died to save you and Candy. You owe it to all of them to tell the world how it was, Casey. You owe it to yourself.’
She stared at him as though he were mad.
Mercs said softly: ‘Remember, a reporter first, a human being second.’
His words left her stunned and reeling, grasping for reality. But as she looked around her, she could already see the words of rage forming into sentences in her head. An inner voice was dictating in her brain. A power that was out of her control. She felt a sudden urge, a need to get them down on paper. To capture them before the moment was lost.
More ambulances were arriving to ferry away the injured; it was now the turn of those who had been less seriously hurt.
‘I’ll have to go with Candy,’ she murmured.
Her daughter had been listening to what Mercs had said. With a serious expression on her face, she said: ‘He’s right, Mum, you’re a journalist. You must write about what happened, about that nice man.’
Hal had emptied the film from his camera and now held it out to Casey. ‘If you want, I’ll go with your daughter and see she’s okay. I’ve got a good bedside manner.’ He winked at Candy who blushed; she would clearly have no objections to a good-looking escort. ‘You can take my film back with you.’
At that moment a paramedic approached. ‘Excuse me, will you come along with me please…’
Casey looked to Mercs and Hal Hoskins, then at her daughter for confirmation. Candy smiled tightly and nodded.
Her mother turned to the paramedic. ‘Sorry, I’ll have to come along later. I’ve got a story to file.’
4
The telephone call came out of the blue. Peter Rawlings was sitting down to a TV supper with his wife and two daughters in the Belmont suburb of east Belfast when the Ulster Unionist Party headquarters rang.
‘Dove,’ was the codeword the caller used.
‘Where?’
‘The Europa. Ask for Mr Montgomery.’
‘When?’
‘Now.’
Damn. Rawlings, a senior political adviser to the party, was beginning to understand how the American worked. He recognised the need for secrecy and for security, but such summons, at short notice without warning, were still inconvenient and sometimes irksome.
He telephoned his friend, Ian Findlay, a similar adviser to the hard-line Democratic Unionists, and passed on the news. Findlay, who lived farther out of town, agreed to pick up his colleague from his home on his way into the city centre.
While he waited, Rawlings made his excuses to his wife and went upstairs to the bedroom where he changed back into his suit.
Then he slid the steel security box from under the bed, pressed the coded combination and. removed the documents. They had been there, ready and completed, awaiting this call for two weeks.
Findlay arrived and the two Protestant political advisers drove off towards the Europa Hotel in Great Victoria Street.
Rawlings’s friend was in a bad mood. ‘I thought seriously about wearing my bowler and Orange sash.’ He was a staunch ‘no surrender’ Paisleyite; he didn’t like the American or appreciate the man’s interference in Northern Ireland’s affairs.
‘Not very diplomatic’
‘I don’t feel very diplomatic, Peter. We’re being crushed between a rock and a hard place. Since ‘69 we’ve given the Papists everything they want. Disbanded the B Specials, surrendered Stormont, changed the voting system and introduced positive discrimination in housing and jobs. And still it isn’t enough! Goddammit, Peter, we’ve got nothing left to give.’
Except our surrender, Rawlings thought, but said nothing more to deepen Findlay’s depression.
The Europa was busy, its public bar and restaurant bustling with revellers, and they went unnoticed to reception and had the dour desk clerk call the man they had come to see.
‘Mr Montgomery says go up, someone will meet you at the lift.’
An American in a grey-flannel suit was waiting for them on the second floor. He was wary and uncommunicative with alert eyes and close-cropped hair.
Bald eagle, thought Rawlings mischievously as the man escorted them to one of the small syndicate meeting rooms. It was opened by another bodyguard of almost identical, mean mannered appearance.
Senator Abe Powers III was seated at the head of the table, his shirtsleeves rolled and the colourful floral tie loose at his neck. A bottle of mineral water was open in front of him.
It was too stagey, Rawlings decided at once. This was American can-do, will-do bravado. An extension of the breakfast business meeting and solve-the-problem-before-nine corporate philosophy.
‘Nice to see you again, gentlemen.’ Powers rose from his seat, towering above them and offering a handshake of bone-crushing sincerity. But he was not one to dwell on pleasantries and, as soon as they had taken their seats on either side of him, he launched into the fray. ‘I hope you have some positive answers to my first proposals?’
Rawlings dipped into his briefcase and dropped the papers on the table. ‘We had no problem with that.’
The American’s bleak grey eyes switched to Findlay. ‘And the Democratic Unionists?’
‘We agree,’ he replied grudgingly, slapping his document down with undisguised contempt. ‘With such trivia we could hardly do otherwise.’
There was a ghost of a smile on Powers’ face, or was it just a tic of mild irritation? ‘Much of the world’s problems stem from trivial matters. And, trivial or not, you may be interested to know that we now have full and unanimous agreement between all parties on the following points.’
He perched a pair of gold-rimmed, half-moon reading glasses on his nose before consulting his notes. ‘That the philosophy and spirit of these talks shall be — quote — “to put the past behind us, to live with and recognise present practicalities and resolve our differences in the interests of our children’s future”.’
Findlay almost yawned. ‘Rhetoric’
Abe Powers shook his head. ‘Not rhetoric. I assure you I intend to keep firmly to the letter and spirit of Clause One in all negotiations. It was a similar preliminary agreement that paved the way for the Israeli-Palestinian accord. So if you have an attitude problem, Mr Findlay?’
A shake of the head.
‘Then, the other clauses agreed,’ Powers continued, ‘are for a new Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland, incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights. A new cross-border economic and trade institution to be formed between Ulster and Dublin and a new scheme to encourage integrated housing with subsidised rates or mortgages…’