Don Trenchard pulled over to the side of the road that ran parallel to the stony beach. It was bleak and windswept, just the distant figure of a man throwing driftwood for his mongrel dog at the water’s edge.
Dull scudding cloud merged with the grey racing current of the North Channel, the horizon indistinguishable between the two. Only the ghostly outline of the Belfast-to-Douglas ferry, floating somewhere between sky and sea, gave any perspective to the distance.
In the passenger seat John Nash looked away from the beach to the neat pebbledashed bungalows with their trimmed hedges and wind-stunted cypresses, eucalyptus and acers. The heartland of respectable Protestant Ulster. Cultureless seaside suburbia with its net curtains, a healthy fear of God and an Orange Lodge hall in a community that had scarcely been touched by over twenty years of violence.
Trenchard wound down his window, allowing the salty air to gust in. ‘Christ, John, a man could die of boredom here.’
Nash smiled, turning up the narrow collar of his leather bomber jacket. ‘I can think of worse ways to die.’
‘But not in a worse place.’
The MI5 man looked at the car clock. ‘Will he show?’
‘He’ll show. They’ll be watching us now, checking that no one is following. Another ten minutes, I’d guess.’
In fact it was nearer fifteen. On the beach the man with the dog had walked away before the pale blue Datsun approached from the opposite direction. It parked facing them, leaving a gap of some twenty-five metres. Two men, two blank faces indiscernible behind the gleam of the windscreen glass.
Nash drew the 9mm Browning from beneath his seat, held it low between his legs, and began to check the magazine.
‘You won’t need that,’ Trenchard said tetchily. ‘I’ll go and speak to them. You come when I call.’
He opened the door, climbed out and slammed it shut. It was bracing, hardly summer weather. The wind buffeted him, tousling the tight gold curls of his head, dragging at his trousers.
The driver of the Datsun ran down his window.
‘Hello, Spike,’ Trenchard said. The muscular young man, who wore a denim jacket over his T-shirt, merely nodded and leaned back so that the Englishman could see his passenger. ‘Hello, Billy.’
William Frederick Baker was huge, with the body of a heavyweight wrestler who had gone to seed. The rosebud mouth was too pink and too feminine for the flat bruiser’s face with its broken nose. ‘It’s been a long time, Mr Smith. I was starting to think you’d deserted us.’ ‘
Trenchard ignored the jibe, but knew what he meant. In recent years the relationship between the Protestant paramilitaries and the security agencies had cooled, the RUC making its presence felt in the hard-line Loyalist ghettos, old favours forgotten on orders from Whitehall. The Anglo-Irish Agreement had started the rot and it had been downhill ever since.
‘Fancy a stroll, Billy? I’ve someone I’d like you to meet.’
Spike gave his master an inquiring look, but the big man just shook his head dismissively and began struggling to extract his bulk from the confines of the seat.
The generously cut material of his fawn suit flapped around him as he made his way to the pavement, the wind snatching away his breath. Trenchard beckoned to Nash, then stepping down onto the shingle began walking slowly along at Baker’s side.
As the MI5 man caught up with them, Trenchard said: ‘Billy, I’d like you to meet my boss, Mr Jones. Mr Jones, this is King Billy. Billy Baker.’
They stopped walking and the two strangers shook hands, each taking stock of the other. Baker’s huge grip was strong and prolonged as the lashless powder-blue eyes seemed to bore into Nash’s with the disturbing power of a hypnotist. He said: ‘Mr Smith and Mr Jones. Not a comic double act, I trust?’
A joke, but there was no humour in it. Just letting them know that he knew the names didn’t mean a thing. And that he was in no mood to be messed about.
Nash said: ‘We need your help, Mr Baker.’
King Billy began to walk on slowly, one ponderous step after another. ‘Then things must be bad.’
‘They are,’ Trenchard confirmed.
‘The bombings on the mainland, I suppose? It would take that to bring you people scurrying out of the woodwork.’
‘That’s a bit unfair,’ Nash said.
Billy Baker’s rosebud smile deepened. ‘You think so? Was a time when Mr Smith here would phone me and say there’s a dead Provo in a field shot by our boys. Be a good lad and claim responsibility, will you? There’s a drink in it for your trouble.’
Nash glanced at Trenchard, his disapproval plain.
Trenchard said: ‘Things have changed, Billy. More rules, more regulations.’
‘Tell me about it,’ King Billy returned icily. ‘Now you treat us like we’re fucken taigs, or worse. And what have we done to deserve it? We’ve been called more British than the British and this is our punishment. I think the British Government has forgotten the difference between right and wrong. I’m not in the business of doing favours any more. If you want favours, go visit the Mountview social club on Enfield and ask for Mad Dog. See if he’s feeling any more obliging than me.’
‘We have, and he isn’t.’
Nash said: ‘You haven’t even asked what we want.’
Billy Baker shuffled to a halt and spared him a contemptuous glance. ‘Everyone knows what you want. I know. Mad Dog knows, the fucken IRA knows — the whole of bloody Ulster knows. You want the AID AN bombers.’
Nash saw no point in prolonging the conversation. ‘That’s right.’
‘Then go to your mate Gerry Adams in Andersonstown and ask him. I’m sure he’ll oblige.’
‘Be reasonable,’ Trenchard said.
King Billy pulled an innocent po-face. ‘You mean dear old Gerry’s not saying? My-my, well, you certainly find out who your real friends are when you’re knee-deep in shite, don’t you?’
‘We need to know, Billy/ Nash pressed.
The big man stared out at the leaden murk of sky and sea. Suddenly the rush of the waves on the shingle sounded very loud. ‘There’ll be a price to pay.’
‘Name it,’ Nash said.
‘Representation at the Abe Powers’ talks.’
‘Not possible, Billy. All paramilitaries are excluded.’
‘And no internment for my people.’
‘It’s not in my power to offer,’ Nash replied. ‘That’s between London and Dublin.’
‘But you’ll draw up the internment lists when the time comes? They’ll only know who to go for when you tell them.’
Trenchard knew he had a point. ‘Go on.’
‘Take out Mad Dog and his gang. The whole lot. If you need it, I’ll supply the membership list. A few names that’ll surprise you.’
Nash sensed King Billy hadn’t finished. ‘And?’
‘Am I currently in the frame for any misdemeanor?’
The MI5 man glanced at Trenchard who shook his head.
‘Then I want a seat — or an appointee — at the Powers’ talks.’
‘You’re a paramilitary leader,’ Nash hissed.
The rosebud smile stretched like elastic into a long, thin grin. ‘I deny that. I just run a drinking club — can’t be held responsible for what the members do. Like the internment lists, politicians are obliged to believe what you tell them. If I can identify the AID AN members, then I expect my name to be removed from any of your paramilitary membership lists.’ ‘
Trenchard sighed. ‘It’s not possible, Billy.’
Nash stepped up beside Billy Baker and stared out to sea at his side. ‘A seat at the talks, it means that much to you?’
The big man turned, his short white hair tugged by the offshore breeze. ‘It’s my friggin’ country too, Mr Jones.’
‘Can you deliver?’
‘Try me.’
‘Deliver, Billy, and you get your seat.’