The agent looked at me. He nodded.
— We’re boring you, Tyrone?
— Is it over? Can I go?
I crushed my cigarette in the royal cup. The handler looked slightly annoyed. He sighed. He opened a leather satchel.
— Go? Of course we’re going to let you go. But before that, I’d like you to take a quick look at this.
He took a plastic bag from his satchel. A small transparent pocket that he placed in front of me. Inside, three crushed bullets, deformed from an impact, and a label tag folded in half.
I sat down. My legs wouldn’t support me.
— Take the packet, Tyrone.
I rubbed my hands on my thighs. I was sweating.
— Are you afraid of bullets? That doesn’t seem like you, Meehan, said the red-haired handler.
He emptied them out on the table.
— Go on, take one.
— To put my prints on them? What do you take me for?
The agent smiled.
— Do you know the calibre?
I shrugged, and held out my hand.
— 45 ACP, Tyrone. Ammunition from the Thompson submachine gun.
The handler got up and dropped a bullet in my palm.
— Are you beginning to get an inkling why you’re here?
I looked at the piece of copper. I shook my head. No. I didn’t understand.
Then he unfolded the yellowing tag and placed it in front of my cup.
Red handwriting:
Daniel Finley/Aug/14/69.
I let the bullet fall. It slipped between my fingers like sand.
— My God, I said.
I crossed my arms behind my neck, elbows raised, forearms pressed against my ears, eyelids closed. I lowered my head. My mouth was open, my jaw hurt. I was suffocating. I could hear my heart beating. I was in Dholpur Lane, in the smoke of the tear gas.
— Danny didn’t suffer. He died almost on the spot, said the redhead.
Our street. The barricade. His wide eyes. His surprise.
— Your first bullet was close to his heart. We pulled the others from his hip and his thigh.
— You know nothing, I murmured.
— Everything, Tyrone, we know everything. Our men were in the crowd. Two of them were there when you shot. They testified, the spy asserted.
— Stumbled and fired, added the handler.
— Yes, stumbled and fired. It was an accident, Tyrone. We know that.
My hand was shaking like it did in prison.
— Before we’d even retrieved the weapon, we knew, Meehan.
— And then there was that song, the agent came out with.
He turned towards the man from the Special Branch.
— How did that song go again? You remember, Will?
The other nodded.
— Sure I remember!
Then he sang softly:
Danny fell for Ireland
Shamefully murdered
But with his old Thompson
His comrade in rage
Sent the killers back to hell.
—‘His comrade in rage’! They did well to come up with that, grinned the agent.
— I have to be honest with you, when that ballad started doing the rounds, we had a good laugh, the handler told me.
The agent put his hands in his pockets.
— It’s true. It seemed strange to us to see Finley’s killer being applauded by his widow the day he was buried. But you know what? We decided not to interfere. We let it go. It’s important not to crumple beliefs.
— In fact, you created the ideal martyr and we helped you become the perfect hero, the handler added.
They laughed. I kept my eyelids closed.
— Pay close attention, Tyrone.
The agent’s firm voice.
— Look at me.
I opened my eyes again. Coloured dots danced in the neon light.
He crouched down, level with me.
— Either you leave here and you tell the IRA everything, or you decide, like us, not to interfere with this fairy tale.
The handler held out a glass of water. My eyes were fixed on the film poster. A realist drawing of a woman protecting her head and shouting, and the birds attacking her. ‘It could be the most terrifying motion picture I have ever made’, said the ad. Terrifying. I felt nothing, neither cold, nor hot, nor fearful. I was empty inside. I drank. The water bore through my stomach. The rain was hitting the window. I looked at my pyjamas, my bare feet on their floor. I was no longer anyone. They were all talking at the same time.
— To own up ten years later, that’d be taking some risk, wouldn’t it?
— It would be better to leave the martyr and the hero in peace, don’t you think?
I asked for another glass of water.
— What do you want?
My voice, throat dry and lips burning.
— To protect you, Tyrone.
— Answer me, for Christ’s sake!
— For you to help us.
— Never!
— Think of Sheila, Tyrone. A decent, vulnerable woman caught up in the war. I’m not so sure she’d enjoy Armagh Prison.
— And Jack? Your son, Meehan? A simple signature and we can send him to serve out his sentence on the mainland.
— Can you imagine that, Tyrone? An IRA man? A fucking Fenian? A killer of Brits flung into a Scottish cell crammed full of murderers?
— And as for you, do you really want to go back to your shit?
The agent got up. He gave the others a signal. The handler left the room, followed by the hunter. The agent stayed there alone with me, in front of the open door. He spoke to me very quietly. A low voice.
— The IRA keeps saying that it wants peace? Well, on our side, too, we want peace. So let’s make it together, this peace. You and us, Tyrone.
— I’m not a traitor.
— But who said anything about being a traitor? What you’ll be doing is the opposite, it’s heroic. You lot are always saying that you have to make war to have peace, and I’m proposing you declare war on war.
— This is bullshit!
— Think what you like, smiled the British agent. You’re fucked, Meehan. So instead of me finding a reason for you, you might as well find one yourself, okay?
— You dirty bastard!
— Filthy scumbag! Fucking bollocks! Dirty Brit! Knock yourself out. Though I will tell you that it never works with a guy who thinks he’s being forced. I prefer willing men. And you are willing, aren’t you, Meehan?
— Let me go.
— I’m offering you a brand-new conscience.
I closed my eyes. Jack’s respect, Sheila’s love.
— When you go to the trouble of becoming a hero, you may as well accept the Nobel Peace Prize, don’t you think?
The agent placed a hand on my shoulder. The pressure of his fingers. A moment both brutal and soothing.
— Regret spoils life, Tyrone. We will help you to rid yourself of it.
I met his eyes.
— And, you know, by lying about Danny’s death, you had already started down this path.
I put my head in my hands.
— I’ll leave you be a moment, Tyrone. Not to reflect, but to collect yourself. If you need us, we’ll be in the corridor.
14
There was a habit Sheila had had forever. Even when she was still at home with her mother, when her father was interned, she used to enter contests in newspapers and department stores. She’d fill out questionnaires to win promotional discounts, a fleece-lined dressing gown or the Christmas turkey. When I was locked up, my wife took up her pencil again. She’d tick off boxes, look up answers in the dictionary, slip her name into contest boxes. For her it was a way of waiting, of killing all that time without me. When I was in the Crum, she won a sewing kit in a wicker basket, a 24-piece set of silver-plated cutlery, a football, an alarm clock, chocolates and dozens of discounts. When I got out of the Kesh, there was a new armchair in the living room, first prize from Stewarts. One day, she won her weight in wool after answering five questions about knitting.