A Darker Place

It was a thought that wouldn’t go away and he went down to the bar and ordered a large whiskey since he was off duty, took a newspaper to a corner table and sat there, pretending to read it, but thinking.

Major Sanderson, the commanding officer, glanced in. ‘I see you’ve got a night off, Giles. Lucky you. I’ve got a general staff meeting at the Grand Hotel. Your leave’s been approved, by the way. Starts Sunday. Two weeks, so make the most of it.’

He went, and for a moment there was no one else in the bar except the corporal behind the counter busying himself cleaning glasses. Jean Murray peered in at the door.

The corporal said, ‘You can’t come in here, you know that.’

‘It’s all right,’ Roper told him. ‘She wants me.’ He swallowed his whiskey, got up and joined her in the corridor. ‘What have you got for me?’

‘I’ve spoken to Kenny, and he says he’ll see you, but it’s got to be tonight, because he’s starting the practical side of his finals for his degree at Queen’s University tomorrow.’

‘That’s fine by me.’

‘I’m finished in an hour. I’ll meet you on the corner by Cohan’s Bar, and no uniform, like I said.’

‘No problem. Where are we going?’

‘Not far. Half a mile maybe. You know where the Union Canal is? He has a room he uses for his work in what used to be a flour mill. You’ll need a raincoat. It’s pouring out there.’

‘Sounds good to me,’ Roper told her.

He returned to the bar, ordered another whiskey and sat in the corner, thinking about it. His boss was out of the way at his staff meeting, there was no point in discussing his intended adventure on the streets of Belfast after dark with anyone else. There were risks, but risk of any kind had been so much a part of his life for years now that it was second nature.

He would go armed, of course, his usual Browning Hi-Power, but a backup would be a sensible precaution, and he drank his whiskey and went along to the weapons store, where he found a Sergeant Clark on duty.

‘I’m going on the town tonight, out of uniform, special op. I’ll have the Hi-Power, but is there anything else you could suggest?’

Clark, who regarded Roper as a true hero, was happy to oblige. ‘Colt .25, Captain, with hollow-point cartridges. It’s hard to beat. There you go.’ He placed one on the counter and a box of ten cartridges.

‘So that will do it?’ Roper enquired.

‘With this.’ Clark produced an ankle holder in soft leather. ‘Nothing’s perfect, but in a body search, when somebody finds an item like a Browning, they tend to assume that’s it.’ He smiled cheerfully. ‘You just have to live in hope. Sign here, sir.’

He pushed a ledger across and offered a pen. Roper said, ‘I knew I could rely on you, Sergeant.’

‘Take care, sir.’

In his room, Roper changed into a pair of old comfortable trousers, not jeans, because it made the ankle holder more accessible. He carefully loaded the Colt with six of the hollow-points and checked that he could reach it easily. He wore the bulletproof vest, a dark polo-neck sweater and a navy blue slip-on raincoat he’d had for years. He didn’t wear a shoulder holster and simply put the Browning in his right-hand pocket. He peered out of the windows, old-fashioned street lights aglow now in the early evening darkness, rain hammering down, although when didn’t it in Belfast? He went through his narrow wardrobe, found an old tweed cap, pulled it on and went downstairs.

The guards on either side of the gate stayed in their sentry boxes. They knew him well. After all, everyone did. ‘A hell of a night for it, sir,’ one of them called cheerfully as he raised the bar. ‘Whatever it is.’

Roper smiled back just as cheerfully, pausing for a moment, looking out into that Belfast street that as far as he was concerned was like no other street in any city in the world.

‘All right,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Let’s get moving.’ He slipped out and turned towards Cohan’s.

Jean Murray stood in the entrance of the bar, sheltering from the rain. She had a large old-fashioned umbrella ready and seemed impatient. ‘So there you are. I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.’

‘Will I do?’ Roper asked.

She looked him over. ‘I suppose so. But keep that gob of yours shut. You sound as if you’ve been to Eton or somewhere like that.’ She opened the umbrella. ‘Let’s get moving.’

He fell into step beside her as she walked rapidly. ‘A rotten night for it.’

‘Don’t rub it in. I’ve only had a sandwich all day and I’m starving.’

He kept up with her obediently, passing through one mean street after another, the river not far away. ‘A hard life, living in a place like this.’

‘Well, the British government in London never gave a damn about Belfast, that’s for sure. The forgotten city. Did you know the Luftwaffe blitzed it worse than Liverpool during the war?’

‘I suppose they were after Harland & Wolff and the shipyards. They built the Titanic here, didn’t they?’

‘Jesus and Mary, that’s history, mister,’ she said. ‘It’s what happens now that’s real and the future of this country.’

Jesus and Mary. Strange on the lips of a young Protestant girl, and he slipped a hand in his pocket and found the butt of the Browning, and then she laughed harshly. ‘What in the hell is getting into me, talking like a fugging Fenian? It must be the weather.’

They had moved into an area of decaying warehouses and a place where the Union Canal emptied into the river. There were narrow decaying Victorian buildings, like something out of Dickens, an old iron footbridge and a sign saying Conroy’s Flour Mill. An old-fashioned lamp was bracketed above the door, illuminating the area, and there was a light at the window above it.

‘Here we are,’ she said, and led the way up a narrow wooden stairway. The door at the top stood open, light shining down. ‘Kenny, we’re here,’ she called, paused for a moment so that Roper could see the table in the centre of a sizeable room, littered with a variety of technical equipment, tools and vices. She stepped forward, Roper following, his hand in his pocket on the butt of the Browning.

The door slammed behind him, the muzzle of a pistol was rammed against the side of Roper’s skull, and a hard Ulster voice said, ‘Easy, now, or I’ll blow your brains out. Hands high.’ Roper did exactly as he was told. He was patted, the Browning soon found. ‘A Hi-Power? You’ve got taste.’ He was pushed towards the table. ‘Over there and turn.’

Roper did and found himself facing a small wiry young man, hair almost shoulder length, a Beretta automatic in his left hand. He wore an old reefer jacket, dropped the Browning into his right pocket and grinned, making him look quite amicable.

‘The great man himself.’

‘And you’ll be Kenny Murray?’

‘As ever was.’

‘And there’s no Howler?’

Murray laughed. ‘Not here, bomb man, not here. It exists, though. I’m working to perfect it all the time.’

‘I’m impressed you’d bother,’ Roper said. ‘After all, your purpose is to make bombs explode.’

‘It is indeed, but the scientist in me can’t resist a challenge.’

Roper turned to Jean, who had taken a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and was lighting one. ‘Oh, Jean, you disappoint me, turning out to be a decent Catholic girl after all.’

‘And you thinking I was some Prod bitch. All the worse for you.’ There was anger there, but perhaps at herself.

‘So what’s the reason for all this? If you’d wanted to shoot me, you would have,’ he said to Kenny.

‘You’re absolutely right. I’d love to have taken care of that, but I’m under orders. There are those who would like to have words with you. Information’s the name of the game. Our bombmakers would appreciate the chance to squeeze you dry. So let’s get going. You first.’

‘If you say so.’

Roper opened the door and stood for a moment at the top of those dark stairs. He found the rail with his left hand and started down. There was only one thing to do and he’d only get one chance, so halfway down he slipped deliberately in the shadows, cursing and gripping the rail, reaching for the Colt in the ankle holder. In the ensuing scramble, he dropped it in his raincoat pocket.