‘Any name ring a bell?’ the MI5 man asked. ‘Of course, some will still be on working-out schemes or weekend release. Others might be under surveillance. I’ll go through RUC Special Branch and get a fix on each. Either way I’ll arrange to put some pressure on. See they’re paid a visit.’
Pritchard jabbed a finger at the screen. ‘I’d try McEoin, I remember him. He used to make some really tricky devices. Milk churns with a bomb within a bomb. You’d do a controlled explosion, walk up to it and then a separate secondary hidden in the base would go off. I lost two mates through him, the bastard. About 1975,1 think.’
Boffin tapped in the follow-up code and waited for McEoin’s details to swipe onto the screen.
‘There you are,’ Trenchard said. ‘Living in retirement with his dying mum in Newtownhamilton. Last Int summary in late May.’
‘Too late,’ Harrison said. ‘AIDAN was already active in Belfast by then.’
Trenchard fiddled with the brim of his fedora, feeding it through his long fingers in a circular motion. ‘We can still give him a tug. Maybe something got overlooked.’ He didn’t sound convinced.
Harrison said: “There was another name I thought I recognised.’
Obligingly Boffin returned to the menu list.
‘Dougan, H.,’ Harrison said. And even as he said the name an involuntary chill quivered down his spine. For a moment he was back there at the derelict on the Ballymurphy estate. Ten years earlier, then just a captain. Inching up the collapsing staircase, searching out the sniper’s nest. The come-on of spent cartridges. The moment’s hesitation that had saved his life. One footstep away from the pressure mat and the hidden bomb in the wall that would have cut his body in half.
‘Dougan,’ Harrison repeated dully. ‘Oh, yes, Hughie Dougan. You must remember him, Don. He’d just come out of the Maze after serving a nine. Within a week he’d done a runner to the south and was back in business.’ He.turned to Trenchard. ‘Didn’t your lads in 14 Int pick him up?’
‘Yes, we caught him crossing the border. But I’m afraid you’re barking up the wrong tree there. Hughie Dougan is dead.’
Boffin had now punched up his details:
DOUGAN, Hugh, Joseph.
Born: Belfast, 2 April 1935 Married: Mary Florence McKearney (Deceased: 1979) Daughters: Clodagh, Maria (B. 1965) Single. Currently working in Canada. Caitlin, May (B. 1975) Married. Currently resident in Belfast. Occupation: Electrician Service Career: Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (1953-65) Rank: Sergeant Served: Kenya (Mau Mau) and Cyprus (EOKA) Convictions: Unlawful assembly 1970 (Conditional discharge) Riotous behaviour 1971 (Fined) Bomb making and conspiracy to cause explosions 1975 (Nine years — Maze) (Released 1984. Broke probation and absconded to the Republic. Recaptured Co. Armagh 6 months later) Bomb making and conspiracy to cause explosions 1984 (Nine years — Maze) (Release 1993) Killed in car accident Co. Sligo in the Republic, June 1993.
FILE CLOSED
‘Well, that’s one more bastard off the list,’ Pritchard said dispassionately.
10
Harrison spent the remainder of the afternoon drafting his thoughts on the course the AID AN campaign might take and his recommended plans to counter it. The more he wrote, the more it resembled a battle campaign for the streets of Belfast. As Pritchard had warned him, it was exactly what PIRA wanted. But what else could he do? The government needed answers and he’d been chosen to provide them.
It was seven thirty when he left the Section office, so absorbed in his work that he completely forgot about the supper party he was due to go to that night until he was heading home in the taxi. Pippa would be furious; she had their host, a wealthy industrialist who lived at Albany in Piccadilly, firmly in her sights as a prospective client.
But, as the cab arrived at the end of their street in Pimlico, he realised that his late return would be the least of their troubles that night.
‘Looks like the ratpack’s onto something,’ the driver observed. ‘Not your house, is it?’
Harrison peered through the glass partition with a sinking sensation in his stomach. He could see the cluster of journalists and photographers by the railings, the terraced Victorian town house floodlit by a television news team.
‘Drive on,’ he ordered.
Paying off the cab at the far end of the street, he entered an alleyway between the end-of-terrace house and the antique shop on the corner. It led behind the back-garden walls of the houses, the gates long ago nailed up for reasons of security. With the aid of a dustbin, he scaled the wall. In the process he ripped his trousers on the broken bottle-glass embedded in the concrete capping before he dropped down into a dense bed of hydrangeas.
Cursing, he fought free of the shrub and made his way up the path and across the crazy-paved patio. The French doors were open and Pippa, dressed in blue satin finery, was standing by the fireplace which was filled with a display of dried flowers.
She turned sharply. ‘Christ, Tom, you gave me a fright!’ She took in his dishevelled state. ‘What on earth have you been doing?’
‘I thought I’d avoid that lot outside the front door.’ He looked down at his torn and flapping trouser leg. ‘Maybe it wasn’t such a bright idea. Sorry I’m late, I got held up.’
‘Never mind about that,’ she snapped, her cheeks pink with anger. ‘Why have we got the press camped on our pavement? They’ve been there for half-an-hour. What the hell happened at that press conference this morning? Have you read the Standard? Surely you didn’t give them our address?’
‘Don’t be stupid. It’s you who is listed in the telephone book. I expect they’ve been telephoning all the Harrisons in London since the paper came out.’
‘No one phoned here, Tom, and I wouldn’t say you lived here — I’m not that daft.’
There came an embarrassed cough from the corner. For the first time Harrison noticed his father-in-law sitting on the sofa in tuxedo and black tie. His collar was loose and he had a brandy glass in his hand. A nervous smile played on the broad, veined face. ‘Ah, Pippa, my dear, that could have been my fault, Someone phoned about an hour ago while you were upstairs getting changed. Asked to talk to Tom, so I said he’d be here any minute.’
‘They didn’t leave a name?’ Pippa asked.
Brigadier Mervin Maddox looked suitably sheepish and ran a hand over his neatly raked silver hair. ‘ ‘Fraid not. Can see why now.’
Her face softened. ‘You weren’t to know, Dad.’ She turned to Harrison. ‘It’s all down to that damn Mullins woman. I didn’t trust her the moment I set eyes on her. Anyway, it’s too late now. I’m going to pack a bag.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Harrison asked. ‘I didn’t know we were staying over after supper.’
She stared at him in amazement. ‘What supper, Tom? Apart from being an hour late, your American friend has blown that right out of the water — and my contract with it, I expect. We can hardly go with that lot trailing after us. And we can’t stay here with half of Fleet Street outside — certainly not in the middle of this IRA blitz. It’s an open invitation.’ She paused to draw breath, just. ‘We’re going to have to stay with Dad while we put the house on the market.’
Harrison blinked. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Pippa.’
Her eyes were afire with anger. ‘That’s what this means, Tom. If the press know where we live then those Irish bastards can find out. You can go swanning back to Belfast, but it’s me who’ll get the letter bomb or my car blown up. I don’t trust those thickos to work out whether you’re actually here or not. I’m not sure they’d even care. So why don’t you just stop arguing and pack an overnight bag.’ She spun on her heel and marched from the room.