Maitland looked at Nash; Nash looked at Maitland. Both men looked down at their feet.
‘Oh, shit!’
Heathcote chuckled, dropped his visor and scrambled out of the stream. His was a slow, waddling walk back in the wake of the car into which Nash, Maitland and the SO 19 marksman had scrambled in undignified haste.
Trenchard approached the old brewery building in a kind of daze. His mind was racing back over the years. Like blurred photographs in the pages of a book being flicked through. Nothing definite, just glimpsed images that seared through the eye and etched themselves in the back of the brain. Barely remembered, but never forgotten. The old days. Indelible. The dirty rain of Belfast, the bombed-out ghettos on the Peace Line. The sanity saving black humour in the squalid barracks, the smell of sweaty feet, polish and graphite oil, far worse than any back-to-back terrace. Ugly contorted faces screaming their stupidity and their bigotry. Old ladies smelling of lavender and offering cups of sweet milky tea. The strut and swagger of the flute bands. But most of all the unremitting boredom, the sheer tedium of routine patrols, day in day out, week in week out. Nothing ever happening. And then the sudden gut-wrenching fear. The explosions, the hysterical crowd, gunfire, the stink of CS and the crack and thwack of baton rounds. The absolute paralysing terror of it all.
And the teenage girl, sitting on the campus lawn and smiling bashfully at the camera, University of Ulster emblazoned on her sweatshirt.
Now he turned the corner of the building and saw the figure in the entrance portico. In the shadow, face hidden by a balaclava, the pistol held in a double-handed grip.
‘Forward, slowly now,’ McGirl said. ‘Nice and steady.’
Trenchard edged forward, tugging the cable as it became snagged at the corner of the building.
‘You can leave it here,’ the gunman said.
‘I’ve been authorised to talk to you.’
‘Then you can use this telephone — from the other end of it.’
‘No,’ Trenchard insisted. ‘Face to face. Inside.’
McGirl’s laugh was harsh. ‘So you can report on everything you see? I don’t think so.’
‘I don’t intend leaving.’
‘The Brits are giving us hostages now, are they?’
‘You’ve got three innocent people in there. Let’s talk about it.’
‘Piss off!’
A second dark figure appeared at McGirl’s side. Despite the balaclava, there was no mistaking the female shape. The voice confirmed it. ‘What’s going on?’
Keeping the gun levelled, McGirl glanced over his shoulder. ‘This prick is offering himself in return for the other three. Some sort of fucking hero.’
‘Hello, Clodagh.’
Her dark eyes bored out of the holes in the balaclava, seeing, but not believing. Unsure.
Trenchard said: ‘It’s been a long time.’
Still she stared. He watched her lips as slowly they mouthed the name. ‘Chris?’
He nodded. ‘Chris Walsh. It’s been a long time. We need to talk.’
McGirl took a sideways step. ‘You know him?’
She took a long, slow, deep breath. ‘Oh, yes. I know Chris Walsh.’
‘We need to talk,’ Trenchard repeated.
Clodagh hesitated for a moment, then said decisively: ‘Bring him in.’
In the darkness of the entrance, Trenchard was frisked, bound and had a strip of cloth tied around his eyes before being guided up the stairwell to the dilapidated office suite on the top floor. When the blindfold was removed he was standing in a darkened room with old blankets nailed to the windowframe. Boxes of provisions were scattered around, a stove, and two Armalite rifles rested against one wall.
‘You’re planning a long siege,’ he observed.
‘You’d better believe it,’ McGirl said. ‘Let the SAS come bustin’ in here and they’ll be in for a nice surprise. In fact I’m quite looking forward to them trying.’
‘You could be bluffing.’
Clodagh stripped off her balaclava, shook her hair free. She said icily: ‘It’s no bluff. If anyone forces an entrance, they’ll get blown to smithereens, but forgive me if we don’t show you where everything is.’
‘You can’t possibly get away with this.’
‘We’ll see,’ McGirl said. ‘We’ve got hostages and they’ll be the first to die if anyone rushes us.’
Trenchard indicated the covered window. ‘There’s a whole army of armed police and SAS out there. They’ll just sit it out and wear you down.’
‘We’ve just got to wait until the Trafalgar House talks are concluded,’ Clodagh said. ‘We’ll be part of any final deal.’
‘Not if you’re holding hostages, you won’t. The government won’t allow a gun to be held to its head.’
McGirl sneered. ‘And they won’t let hostages get in the way of a peace settlement. They want it too badly’
‘Wrong,’ Trenchard replied. ‘But there is a way.’
‘Is this a negotiation?’ Clodagh asked sarcastically.
‘If you like. You’ve got three innocent people in there. A woman and a child, and a man whose only job in the army is purely humanitarian, — to save life and property-Release them and keep me. Then we’ll allow you to sit this out until the talks are finished. And the government won’t object if your release is part of the final deal.’
McGirl glanced sideways at Clodagh to gauge her reaction; he sawnone. ‘Harrison isn’t so innocent,‘he snarled. ‘Youmusthave read the press stories. Setting us up for an own goal ― The one that killed Hughie Dougan.’
Trenchard shook his head. ‘That wasn’t Tom’s idea. It came from MI5. Tom just carried out the orders did what he was told.’
Clodagh’s eyes narrowed. ‘Harrison didn’t know my father was the one killed at Deptford. You don’t see*n surprised.’
He hesitated before replying, wondered if this was the time to say it. ‘I knew, Clodie, I saw his Celtic bird ring at the mortuary… and I knew the girl who was killed couldn’t be you. Too short from what I was told but I didn’t say anything.’
‘Why not?’
Trenchard shook his head. ‘I’ll tell you* but not like this. Just you and me, in private.’
‘I don’t trust him,’ McGirl said. ‘Divide and rule. He’ll just try and drive a wedge between us. And don’t believe any of this crap about letting the hostages go and getting a deal. If we win through, it’ll only be from a position of strength.’
Trenchard ignored him, looked directly at Clodagh. ‘Five minutes, that’s all I ask.’
The short silence was heavy, the atmosphere in the small room claustrophobic and charged with an electee tension. At last she said: ‘You’re the last person in the world I’d trust, Chris — God, I don’t suppose that’s your name for a rr*inute But I’ll give you five minutes. For my reasons, not yoi*rs’
‘It’s a mistake,’ McGirl warned.
‘Please, Pat, leave us. Shut the door. I’ll be all right.’
The terrorist glared at Trenchard, shook his head in disapproval, and left the room.
Trenchard watched him go. ‘Is there anything between you two?’
‘Not really. What’s it to you?’
He shook his head. ‘You’re not going to believe what I’m going to tell you.’
Her smile was bitter, resembling a snarl. ‘That’s true enough, so it is. I wouldn’t believe you if you said the Pope was Catholic’ She waved the automatic in her hand. ‘In fact I don’t know why I don’t shoot you now. No one has caused me the pain you did, Chr’