Out of the News Corp offices and away from the absurdly named Special Investigations Unit I ploughed ahead with what I believed were my own journalistic ambitions.
I sat contentedly in a first-class seat on a flight to Ireland paid for by News Corps.
Ron Wood from The Rolling Stones sat down next to me in First Class. When I told him I was afraid at take-off and touchdown he insisted on holding my hand through it all.
‘I know what women are like; my wife Jo’s exactly the same.
Here’s my hand. Go on – hold it.’
I held Ron’s hand and looked out of the window. I could see the khaki-coloured Irish Sea dotted with boats and liners. I held my breath at a sudden flood of sentiment – Ireland. A sign as the plane landed read ‘Welcome to Belfast’.
I told Ron I worked for The News of The World. and he as a response gave me his home phone number and invited me to his home to meet his family and his wife Jo.
I hugged him goodbye and went to collect my bag. I didn’t think he meant it but it was a nice gesture.
I bought a cup of hot tea from the takeaway stand and stood shivering in the cold, clutching the polystyrene cup with raw, red fingers, watching the taxis pull up. As my taxi reached the city, I looked out of the window at the dark and poverty-stricken place. I felt a painful pang of loneliness; sometimes having no family made me feel rootless and flimsy – as if I could just blow away and no one would care.
Greg Miskiw the editor had given me a story on the UDA and duly sent me it. It was to find out what was going on between the terrorist factions of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). They were busy blowing each other up and the news of the bloodshed had reached the mainland.
‘Hit the ground running,’ the editor told me harshly, which meant no dossing in the hotel or sightseeing.
I had asked the hard-working librarian at the newspaper library to send me as much info as possible on the UDA, which I’d downloaded to my laptop. I read it all during the flight and by touchdown I felt much better informed.
I had booked into the Clinton suite at the Europa Hotel. It was a good suite paid for by The News of The World. . I ordered a steak, with a side-salad and a large glass of strawberry milk. The steak was so good I rang down for half a bottle of red wine to do it justice. When I had finished, I followed it up with a phone call for half a bottle more. It was all covered by the paper, so I made the most of it.
Steam rose from the bath. My body felt relaxed in the hot water. I sipped the wine and let the alcohol dull the pain of loneliness. The room was cosy but I wanted to be with someone not all alone.
At eleven, wrapped in a thick towelling robe and lying on the bed, I tucked into a packet of cheese and onion crisps from the room’s mini bar. I opened a bottle of brandy and a tin of Coke. I searched around in the fridge and found a family-size bar of fruit-and-nut. This was the life! I knew I was eating too much food but I was trying to stuff down the feelings of a terrible emotional loneliness.
My mobile rang.
Greg’s voice sounded stroppy and I could hear the clink of glasses and pub noises.
‘Are you there – you sound odd?’
‘I’m eating – what’s up?’
‘Chris, news has just come in about Kim Basinger buying a holiday home in a village in the mountains near Donegal.’ He sounded excited. ‘Since you’re out there, get yourself across there and interview her about living in Ireland and that fracas she had with Alec Baldwin before you cover the UDA story – OK? Since you’re not the paper’s private eye anymore – you get paid as a freelance hack ok? That means you don’t get a penny for doing it unless it makes the paper.’ I felt sick with hatred for him.
‘OK. Fine. Fluff first. That’s what I like about The News of The
World. , it knows what really matters.’
‘How the fucking hell would you know'
‘Sorry.’
‘Just get on with it.’
‘OK – sorry.’
I put the phone down, sipped the Coke and cognac and tried to feel better, but I was angry. He was a big bully. How did a degree in journalism really help you when all journalism really was was making others open up to you – it took charisma rather than a degree. I felt a bit unconfident – I didn’t have charisma either.
I got up early the next day and drank a large coffee to ease my thumping hangover. I hired a soft top car as it was on offer from Avis. The sun was up and I drove with the roof down, letting the wind rasp through my hair. The road leading to the west of Ireland was somehow foreboding and claustrophobic – like approaching the ends of the earth. I felt as if someone had wandered over my grave. I travelled through Dungannon, then Ballygawley, past secluded farmhouses and on into Donegal.
I shivered. It all seemed so backward and shut off from the rest of the world. Why would Kim Basinger consider living here? This is like the film Deliverance, I thought grimly, driving as fast as I could.
Once settled in a hotel in town, I was met by a photographer, Abraham who the paper had bought on board to work with me on the story. He had dark hair, blue eyes and a friendly, flirty smile.
‘I’ll drive you around later, if you like? Have your lunch and I’ll pick you up around three and we can go and get some pictures of
Kim’s new home.’
He returned at three on the dot. ‘Do you like scenery? We have some of the most spectacular around here – really delightful. I could show you, Chris. It’s a lot prettier than London. But it depends what turns you on,’ he leered at me good-naturedly.
I smiled at him. ‘OK, lead the way.’
We got into his blue Peugeot and he drove around Donegal and out along the road towards what he said were ‘the mountains’. ‘Has no one showed you the mountains? They’re spectacular. Spooky too.
You’ll see. They say they’re haunted. There’s a legend around them.
‘Yes,’ he paused. ‘There’s also an amazing empty old house around here. It’s built in the middle of a forest. It’s a total gothic monstrosity. The owner says it’s haunted. He’s let it go to rack and ruin, and some say the IRA use it to torture people and leave their bones in the basement.’
‘I’ve time to see the mountains but no time for torture chambers.
That’s not my thing at all!’ I felt a little afraid. This was IRA territory.
Nothing had prepared me for the beauty of the scenery we were driving through – the rich, red earth that climbed and dipped in sensual, brown curves, the rolling hills and waterfalls.
‘Chris, look, this is the mountain itself – they say it’s haunted. No one likes to go there after dark.’ He smiled. ‘Legend has it that the spirits judge a couple on whether there’s true love there or not. If they feel the couple is in love, they bless their lovemaking by giving them a Hart. But they have to bathe in the green algae lake.’
I laughed. ‘Great fantasy story. Typical Irish-legend crap, though, isn’t it?’ I said, wrinkling my nose.
He smiled at my cynicism. ‘Yes, we’re a bunch of fucking old women, aren’t we.’
We parked the car and walked in silence for half an hour through the woods until we reached a clearing.
We were looking up at the forest that spread before us in a rolling, verdant glen. An arrogant grey sky hung above it, claiming the rolling mountains as its own. At the centre of the beauty, lying like a jewel, was a lake covered by light blue algae.
‘Quite something, isn’t it? Oh God, you do like it, don’t you? You
OK?’
‘Shit – sorry – it’s made me feel weird. I don’t know why – free or something. Weird. It’s romantic as hell, isn’t it? I can see why a Hollywood Chris like Kim Basinger would want to live here now!’ He looked me up and down.
‘I’d love to fuck a girl’s brains out here and check out that ol’ legend, ’he laughed.
I turned to him and smiled dismissively. Even though he’d been ribbing me, he walked on with his head down like a rejected schoolboy.
I swigged back a can of warm Coke and let it fizz down my throat. The near-flat drink had a pleasant taste. I breathed in the sweet mixed scent of honeysuckle and bluebells seeping from the woods.
Abraham now went on, ‘About 50 years ago a young girl was found dead in the lake. Creepy, huh?’
‘No shit!’ I felt sick. Why had he saved that morsel till now?
‘Right, let’s go – beautiful or not – its creepy.’
‘The girl had been missing for weeks. Her mother said she had gone for a date with a new boyfriend but no one knew who he was.’
I watched him out of the corner of my eye; he was clearly enjoying himself.
‘Hey, you’re really freaking me out!’
I walked back to the car ahead of him. The story of a young girl being murdered in that remote spot upset me.
Back at the hotel, I made enquiring pretext phone calls to local estate agents to find out the location of Kim Basinger’s holiday home. Abraham lay sprawled on the bed, watching me admiringly as he smoked a cigarette. Then he made a sharp intake of breath.
‘There’s a big IRA convention tonight. We could shimmy on along there. Might be good for you to see the boys? Any interest in the IRA, Blondie-locks? I could show you all the main players, then we could go for a drink after?’ He picked at his teeth and feigned nonchalance.
I thought of the jaded stories I worked on for the paper that always seemed the same.
‘Yes, I’ll go with you. If I don’t, I’ll only sit on my own watching rubbish on television.’ I smiled at him and felt excited. We drove for miles into the dusky countryside until we came to a narrow country lane. A group of journalists waited outside a picturesque old stone-walled pub. A yellowy light shone from a lattice window into the growing dark. One by one, as midnight neared, tall figures began to emerge.
I held my breath. Abraham was nudging me excitedly.
‘See him, it’s John O’Neil [not his real name]. Real hard man.
Responsible for all the bombs in London in the ’70s.’
The heavy-set male looked as if all humanity had somehow been squeezed out of him.
‘The head of the Hydra!’
‘Sure. Hey, that’s very army-speak!’
I eyed O’Neil. If I could become a confidante of a man like that, I would be invaluable as a journalist. The ambitious side of me was coming to the fore and overriding my fear.
‘Can we meet him? Any chance?’
‘Don’t be so silly! He’s an unreachable. They have to protect themselves against spooks.’
‘Who?’
‘Spooks, ghouls, gooks: the secret services, Chris. Mind you, if one went near them they’d cut them into pieces.’
‘Yes, I have heard.’
I swallowed hard. ‘Introduce me to someone in charge here!’
‘I don’t know the any of the IRA leaders personally. Chris! You lot from London are real hard-arse, aren’t you? You can’t meet him – no way! None of us ever have.’
‘I’m going to give it a try!’
I stepped forward purposefully.
‘Stand back.’ He reached out and gave me a vicious shove that toppled me backwards in the darkness with a light scream.
Abraham came running over. He scolded me as he helped me out of the ditch. ‘This isn’t London! You’re not interviewing MPs and their simpering wives.’
I picked myself up and wiped the wet mud off my ruined clothes.
‘Do you know who you just smacked into? He’s one of the IRA’s top guys. Lucky for you he seemed distracted. Anyone else might have been dragged into that pub and given a beating!’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Michael Mc Kay [not his real name]’
Mc Kay! I looked over at the backs of the group of men. This was a splinter republican group who were opposed to the peace process and wedded to the armed struggle. They had disagreed with the main body of the Provisional IRA.
I drove back to Belfast the next day and rang a cop who was the friend of a guy who had once sent me his CV to do surveillance work. I was in luck – he was available for lunch. He gave me the name and phone number of a UDA man, whom I rang and arranged to meet in a nearby bar. He told me a story about what had been going on with the UDA, but it didn’t ring true.
I went back to the hotel, where I lay on the bed and felt like a failure. My mobile rang as I was in the bath. It was the UDA man.
‘I’ve got the info you wanted. It was a consignment of guns that came in. Someone grassed on us and the guns got taken. We thought it was A company that did it, so we offed one of them.’
I would have to check it with my cop. I rang the cop and arranged another candlelit dinner for two in the most expensive restaurant in town. I plied him with ice-cold champagne, with cops we were told to spare no expense. The booze flowed and he confirmed all the information.
After returning to the hotel. woozy from the champagne, I got into my robe and wrote the story up on my laptop before filing it over to the news desk.
I got back to London late on Saturday night and then on Sunday morning went to buy the paper at my local newsagents on the corner. There it was – a middle-page spread, my story, my investigation..... with the by-line Lennie Fitzpatrick, Special
Investigations Department emblazoned across it.
I was sobbing and crying as I made my way back to my apartment. Perhaps it was cuntish to cry but it was the pettiness of it that got me. Fitzpatrick was a made-up name and Greg had put it on my story. I had been booted out by a cyber hacking private investigator I had bought in – John. I had found myself a story and I had proven it with guts and skill and it had gotten published. Why then hurt any possible career I was trying to get by leaving my name off of it?
I rang Greg at his home.
‘Why are you ringing me at home on a Sunday?’
‘I hate your guts.’
‘Are you mad?’
‘My by-line – my bloody story you bully.’
‘ You told me that the UDA were dangerous. I was trying to protect you by keeping you hidden and leaving your name off of the investigative story.’
‘The UDA know who I am.’
I slammed down the phone and felt sick. How could I ever get known on Fleet Street with him cobbling me all the time. I felt like I was doggy paddling for shore and very tired and someone kept making the shore further and further away.
I hung up and sobbed into my pillow in agony. Two weeks earlier he had given a story of mine on Harold Shipman still lying in the morgue to another reporter for their by-line even though the story was mine. He wanted me to disappear, it was clear.
After an hour I remembered something. I rang the newspaper library. ‘Give me all you have on a man called Michael Mc Kay – pictures, words, all of it.’
‘OK, Chris, but I need a clue what is he? Crime or what?’
‘He’s Real IRA.’
The stuff later came spewing out of my porter’s fax machine. Was he evil? I chewed my lip. The IRA. Yes, people said they were evil, and Mc Kay was a Godfather.
It was London soon after Omagh. I sat in my silver open-top Lotus and chatted to Greg on my mobile. He was busy telling me about all a man he had in the
Special Investigations Unit who could place anyone’s whereabouts just by having his mobile phone number. He had just found out where Jude Law was on holiday and was cock a hoop. I yawned, why was he so taken by Jude Law! I still loved him, despite he and I no longer worked together and my income once at 100k was now at nil. Greg’s new blonde reporter/lover was in charge of the Investigations Unit along with him. I felt odd about it. I felt that the position should have been mine.
Greg was in his element over his new investigator hacker he had stolen off John Boyall and I felt a bit hurt.
‘Chris! I’ve got this fucking guy and he’s.... o’ God he’s so fucking good. He can plot up where people are..... o’ just by having their mobile numbers. The skies the fucking LIMIT for me now with this guy who can blag mobiles.’
He was talking about Glenn. Greg was making me slightly sick. What sky was the limit – what did he think he was doing – curing cancer. Not only that I knew all about phones and what you could or couldn’t do. Years ago a man in the investigations industry had carried out phone tapping - Mr Cador Pendry. He was soon chucked to the media by the industry and closed down. Greg didn’t know that. He sounded like a love sick puppy who was going to get both of them in the shit.
I was struggling for my rent now. I earned nothing. What was going on at the paper? Was this John’s doing – I was confused.
All I knew was I wasn’t sexually jealous of Greg’s new blonde but his feeling of excitement over Glenn made me feel wretched especially as I knew phone manipulation was all illegal. I pushed it out of my mind.
I was covering my own stories but I had to get them into print to get paid. A contact I had made gave me a Real IRA tip off. I sat in my car. A leather-clad figure astride a 750cc bike sweltering in the London heat nodded at me and then zoomed off along Whitehall weaving in and out of the traffic. I watched him as I
hung up on Greg.
It was like an oven in the car and smelt of my Youth Dew. I opened the window to clear the stuffiness and wiped away a crease of sweat clinging to my forehead. I switched on the radio to hear news that a pub in London’s West End had had a nail bomb blast; 13 people had been badly injured. I turned off the radio. It was the third pub bombing in a month yet the Unit wasn’t bothered. I picked up my mobile and rang Piers Erskine the CEO of Corporate Intelligence Services and asked him who may be stupid as to fool around with phones for The News of The World. Piers said he didn’t know but he’d ask around– he too hated that kind of thing. It was ok for PI’s to work for the media but watch what you do!
I pulled over in my car, the photographer I was using for my Real IRA story I was currently working on, a solidly built man, climbed into the car clutching an oversize long-lens Nikon camera.
‘Has Graham Johnson not come out yet, for fuck sake?’ His cursing was low and deep in an accent from somewhere just south of Newcastle.
I cleared my throat and felt irritated.
‘No, our orders from the paper are to sit and wait for him – then go on to the Real IRA’s secret meeting in Kilburn.’ I eyed the freelance photographer. ‘We’re to infiltrate the private IRA meeting. We’ve to go undercover as Real IRA supporters and try to find out why they’re in London when all these pub bombings are going on. It’s very cheeky!’
The man with the Geordie accent looked back at me. ‘Did they give you a photo ID of the terrorists?’
‘Yes – we’ve got the British intelligence files from our political editor’s MI5 contacts.’ I showed him the photos.
‘These are the ones that will be attending the meeting on our patch.
Patrick Gracey [not his real name] and the other one Mc Kay and .
. .’ I searched through the three buff-coloured British intelligence files. Four sticky Mars wrappers and two empty packets of chocolate buttons tumbled out of the glove compartment as I searched for my notebook. I felt ashamed. I had tried to stuff my loneliness with endless confectionery.
‘Mc Kay is their military leader.’ I pored over the grainy photograph and thought of how dangerous Mc Kay was. He would be under surveillance as soon as he stepped onto English soil. The idea excited me.
‘David Morton [another photographer] has gone after what he thinks is him just arrived at Heathrow.’ I looked again at the black and-white photograph of a man of about 45: dark brown hair, a savage face. He looked the same as when I’d first met him that dark night in the countryside of the west of Ireland.
‘These men are here to try and raise funds for the Real IRA.’
Rain covered the car’s windscreen and I felt a familiar surge of claustrophobia.
‘He’s a psychopath, you know, the Real IRA leader! Pure evil so they say,’ I said, to break the uncomfortable silence in the car. The photographer was looking out of the window and appeared not to be listening. ‘Do you think he is real evil?’
‘S’pose so,’ he managed to answer without opening his lips. I felt irritated by his surly presence. What’s the matter, baby? Want to be with the wife instead of carrying out surveillance on the Real IRA?
The mood lifted a bit with the arrival of Graham Johnson. Graham Johnson had brown hair and was a big hit with girls. He was friendly, we had often worked together and I was looking forward to our usual repartée.
‘What exciting things have you roped me in on now, Chris?’ he asked as he clambered into the car, bringing with him the smell of cologne and cigars.
‘The political editor has sent us to cover this secret Real IRA meeting in Kilburn. Mc Kay’s going to be there. He wants us to go undercover as supporters.’ I smiled at Graham Johnson and broke into a laugh when I saw his face crumble.
‘Great fun!’ he said. ‘I just feel like getting tortured by dangerous terrorists!’
The air was balmy; the rain had cleared, giving way to a blue sky and a weak white sunshine. The photographer had got out and was trying to flag down a cab. There wasn’t room for us all in my twoseater car, so he was going to make his own way to the meeting and catch up with us there.
‘That snapper was a real woos.’
‘Why?’
‘I want to be with my wife, not meeting the Real IRA. It’s dangerous. We don’t get paid enough,’ I whined in contemptuous imitation.
‘Grass him up immediately, Chris, and he’ll get the sack. You know how The News of The World. hates anyone who isn’t a workaholic.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Come on, let’s go. By the way, I’m meeting up with MI5 before we go inside. They’ll give us a bit of a low-down on these characters. Mc Kay’s one of the splinter group’s current leaders.
He’s lethal – have you shot soon as look at you, or rather give the order to . . .’ Graham Johnson paused, seemingly deep in thought.
‘My guess is they’ll advise us to play it straight with high-ranking terrorists like that around – tell them we’re Press and ask them outright what the hell are you doing in London.’
But while we were on our way to Kilburn, we got a call from one of the staff on the news desk to say that the meeting was now set for the following night. Graham Johnson had been trying to read the intelligence files on his knee but he now made me pull up in a side street in the middle of nowhere and got out. He looked over at me before he strode off. ‘These guys never turn up to first meetings. You know that by now, don’t you, Chris?’
I rang my contact to check out the IRA meeting. He confirmed it had been changed to the following night.
My mobile rang, it was Graham Johnson.
‘MI5 says the Real IRA meeting is set for tomorrow afternoon. I’ll pick you up tomorrow at around twelve. Be ready.’
The next morning was a warm April day. We drove from leafy central London into the more down market area of west London, turned and parked outside a Catholic Church.
‘Off you go,’ ordered Graham in a dry voice.
‘Oh! Thanks! I go while you sit here in the getaway car in safety?’ I queried mockingly.
I got out of the car and made my way into the hall.
‘Is there a meeting in here?’ I asked, looking around a dreary room that stank of beer.
An old woman I took to be the proprietor said, ‘No, but there’s a party on in our back room, love.’ The slightly built Irish woman then held open a curtain to reveal a large gathering of men in dark suits who looked deep in conversation.
I craned my neck at the gathering and spotted Mc Kay. My chest tightened as I caught sight of his face from the side with his clearly defined features in profile.
I bit my lip, made my way outside back to the car and scratched my head nervously. ‘It’s them. Mc Kay.’ I swallowed hard. ‘Mc Kay’s there. Oh God. What the fuck is he doing in London? He knows the place will be swarming with security.’
I marveled for a minute at his daring. ‘Oh, hang on! That’s what everyone’s supposed to think – what a great recruitment drive.
He’s showing off. He’ll probably recruit hundreds out of it.’
Graham looked at me. ‘Does that impress you?’
‘No.’
Graham smiled. ‘Chris, come on – let’s be brave. MI5 have them in their sights.’
I looked at his face as he pulled on his coat. Why did civilians always see MI5 as all-powerful when in fact they were usually to be found frantically flapping about in desperation against the tide of terrorism? Mc Kay was a major force to be reckoned with.
The family meeting had broken up in the tiny bar and the careworn woman was handing round plates of sandwiches. Again I caught sight of the man who had pushed me into a muddy ditch in Ireland.
Oh, God. I have to stay away from him – keep away. He makes me feel weird – like he’s whisky and I’m an alcoholic.
I felt I was going to hyperventilate. Will he remember me? No, course not.
I felt in my handbag for the brown paper bag I’d been told to carry for my panic attacks. ‘Breathe into it slowly and calm yourself,’ the therapist had told me. Just hearing it rustle reassured me – I wasn’t going to be able to bring it out in this setting.
A man with white hair approached me – Pat Blair [not his real name]. I could hardly wait to spill the words, ‘We’re Press.’ As soon as I’d said it, I felt relieved. The paper could not now force me to go undercover as a Real IRA supporter.
‘Follow us over and come up to the attic, where you can meet our leaders.’
As soon as the men from the meeting showed their faces at the door, they were led up the stairs. I whispered to Graham.
‘Shit, the bloody Real IRA. I’m afraid.’
My mind ran over the book I’d been reading about the Troubles, The Dirty War by Martin Dillon. The methods of torture the IRA used on spies when they caught them were horrifying: kneecapping, electrocution. I swallowed hard.
A thick throaty Irish accent behind us said, ‘Up the stairs, woman!
Keep going up till you can’t go any further.’
I kept my eyes straight ahead. Maybe they were going to showboat and bump off two journalists. Al Qaeda didn’t seem to mind beheading us. A quick slideshow of horror played in my head until I felt completely paranoid.
The room in the attic was dank. At the back hung a large tricolour flag, taking up all of the wall space.
Outside in the street there was shouting. The far right had gathered in a tiny crowd. I knew it would be the BNP.
At the back of the room stood Mc Kay, his dark-brown hair greying at the temples. He was incredibly good looking with his narrowed flinty grey eyes and flawless skin, well-shaped hands and sharp, polished nails.
He radiates power, I thought curiously. It’s affecting me. It’s his air of omnipotence. I could feel my eyes flicker over him. I shuffled my feet nervously, dug my nails into the palms of my hands and tried to concentrate on what the speaker was saying about the English illegally occupying their country. Two journalists from the broadsheets turned up. I recognized one of them from The Times.
A voice reached me. It was Graham Johnson whispering in my ear.
‘Speak, speak. Come on, Chris. Ask the scumbags a few questions.
I feel like I’m on my own here!’ He looked at me intently. ‘Chris, you’re miles away. This isn’t like you! CHRIS.’
I focused on his face.
‘Shit, sorry, Graham.’
I turned towards the Real IRA terrorist making the speech and cleared my throat.
‘I can’t,’ I whispered to Graham.
Something inside me was reacting to Mc Kay. I could feel it bomb the pit of my stomach and then rise like a tight bubble up my torso into my throat, choking me, preventing me from asking questions.
Graham Johnson’s face was peering into mine and he was whispering at me again.
‘Chris, what’s up with you? You’re fucking miles away! Usually you have the story in the bag after the first few minutes.’ He studied my white face in surprise.
‘Sorry, Chris. I didn’t know you were feeling unwell. Must be all the fag smoke in this filthy attic.’
We went downstairs into the clearer air of the bar. I looked up. Mc
Kay descended the stairs slowly, like an Emperor, looking at me with his direct stare as he reached the bottom. We held each other’s gaze. I spoke, knowing I had to find out why he was making me feel so attracted to him it coiled around me like a snake inside my mind.
‘Join the Press for a drink, Mr Mc Kay?’
‘I don’t drink.’
He looked back at me, his face stony with disgust at my arrogance in communicating with him. I leaned back against the bar as he walked on.
Speak. Speak! Go on, do it, I urged myself to speak to one of his guards.
‘I would like a contact phone number for Mr Mc Kay, please. I may need to interview him.’
The Irishman walked over to Mc Kay. I heard murmured conversation followed by laughter. He returned and pulled out a roll of paper from his pocket and a biro, scrawled a mobile number on it and handed it to me with a grin on his face. Mc Kay watched the whole thing from the door, unsmiling. I knew if he looked back before he left, I had him. I kept my eyes on him. He left without a backward glance.
Oh, so it’s going to be like that, is it?
Back in the car I found it hard to swallow the McDonald’s Graham Johnson had fetched. I sipped at an ice-cold coke. Graham was excited.
‘Mc Kay made my blood run cold – he controlled the whole room.
He’s extremely dominant and an intellectual – what a powerful mix! Did you notice the way the other top Real IRA men grovelled around him as if he was God himself?’
‘No. Yes. Did they? I didn’t notice,’ I murmured
Didn’t notice! I feel like I’ve just been infected by some kind of virus.
Graham bit his hamburger and sipped his drink through a stripy straw. He began to chew, tomato sauce covering his lips. ‘The military can’t get near him. He can just walk down a London street and we can’t touch him.’
‘Graham, stop talking – please.’
Graham looked across at me, seeing my face screwed up tightly in pain.
‘Hey, Chris – you all right?’ He looked at me with affection.
‘You’re tired. Come on, let’s get you home. Shame you’re not in the office anymore.'
‘Yes, please, I need something. I’ve an awfully bad migraine. It’s making me feel sick.’
Holding my throbbing head, I couldn’t stop thinking about the effect Mc Kay’s presence had had on me. It had been like catching flu. Now I felt sick with it – whatever it was.
I pulled myself together and looked out of the car window at
London’s nightlife. ‘Remember we investigated that cult last year, up in Birmingham, and the leader was highly charismatic? Before the silly unit was set up and we actually carried out investigations.’ I knew this would sound strange to Graham Johnson, who was busy licking his salty fingers. ‘He had that Messianic Cultish air like he controls others for something higher something we can’t see – something evil that lurks in the darkness I want to expose and reach?’
‘No, but go ahead.’
‘Well, the Real IRA almost seems like them somehow – know what I mean? Not one bit like the old Provisional IRA. They seem to have formed a cult around Mc Kay. They are Vatican are they not – well Catholic – well he’s one of us - oh, I don’t know what the hell I mean – a host for the devil?’ I bit my lip.
‘Can you feel it in him? I can, I can sense that he is carrying a force that isn't human - like Brady but not programmed to kill innocents this time but to blow up a town and let the 30 women and children who died as a blood ritual. Do I sound mad?’
I fell silent and stared out of the window thinking I’d probably said too much that sounded cray cray.
Graham Johnson called the newsdesk.
‘I’m coming in now – to write something up. Meeting up with my
MI5 chap first in Shepherd’s Market.’
I glanced at him. I didn’t want to meet his po faced flunky school chum.
‘I’m sorry about not being myself in the meeting, Ralph. You must have felt pretty much on your own. I’m not part of the paper anymore though – I’m out on my own now.’
‘Forget it. You were OK,’ he said, smiling at me good-naturedly.
Later that night, tucked up in bed, I found the day and Mc Kay’s effect hard to shake off.
Thoughts of Mc Kay crawled over me like ants. I tossed around in bed. I felt flooded with another kind of self. I thought of him and me naked, intertwined and grabbing at each other.
I got out of bed feeling like I was going mad.
Downstairs, I turned on the light, poured a glass of cold milk. I drank it back and felt better immediately.
I got out of bed and fetched Mc Kay’s mug shots.
I finished the milk and retrieved the screwed-up roll of paper from my handbag. Mc Kay’s mobile number.
I dialled it and a gruff voice answered. I held it silently to see if I could hear anything useful in the background, then hung up soundlessly. It wasn’t Mc Kay’s number. As if it would be. Bet it was one of his lackeys. I took the silent phone back up to bed with me.
Perverse thoughts of Mc Kay came to me incessantly.
A part of me like the blonde Charlie in the movie 'The Long Kiss Goodnight' had come to life inside of me and was seeking Mc Kay. I felt truly alive – only when she came alive inside me. Who was she and why wasn’t she real? Why was she a ghost who came to life only when something dark and evil appeared over the horizon.
I felt like I was going mad. I felt as if my mind had been taken over by something foreign that only wanted terrorist leader and biggest threat to the Brits, Michael Mc Kay – his details his plans and his ass on a plate to end the Real IRA for ever.
'When the Real IRA get hold of you, no one will be able to hear your screams,' warned Terry o Harkin an INLA contact of mine.
The Real IRA had attacked London the previous summer. MI6 had been struck with a mortar grenade and before that the
Hammersmith Bridge had been bombed. Now, in March 2001, it had been the turn of the BBC and everyone was wondering who would be next. I knew it was Mc Kay. I could feel him. He was my mark and I focused on him like a predator telling myself this way how good journalists felt.
I went out and walked across the blue and white Tower Bridge near to my home. I bought a toffee apple from the vendor halfway across and watched the speedboats run underneath. They had filmed the action scenes of many films here and I was lucky to live in such a historical part of London. It was a beautiful warm spring day and American tourists were still in evidence around the Tower of London. I imagined the IRA making their getaway along the river Thames after shooting at the MI6 building and wondered about the mind that had planned it. It was Mc Kay. I knew it – I could smell his ambition.
My mobile rang.
‘That evil bastard, Chris,’ Greg started forcefully. He was still running the SIU and unbeknown to me they were phone hacking top political figures and Milly Dowler. The Real IRA all used pay as you go phones.
And so as a last resort he had to call me.
‘Who?’
‘The Real IRA - Michael Mc Kay.’ I jumped at the sound of the name.
Greg went on, ‘You’re one of the few who has met Michael Mc Kay. I want you to go back to Belfast. Interview Mc Kay for Alex
Marunchak – sound him out! I want to know what he’s really like.
Is he really the leader of the Real IRA? Why is he attacking London? Make him open up to you! Then do what you’ve always
wanted to do for us – write, and I’ll add your by-line this time. You get me some exclusive material. Hole up there for a few weeks; I’ll cover the expenses. Do whatever you have to do, Chris.’
‘OK.’ I felt sorely rejected by Greg – he was still dating Terrania. A staff party had been held in an art gallery and when Greg didn’t invite me I rolled up anyway and she looked stunning in a pink tutu. Greg had ushered me out, spitting at me. ‘You’re not welcome here, my girlfriend’s here.’
The idea of being face to face with Mc Kay again made me feel afraid.
I telephoned a republican contact I had made through another journalist. ‘Can you fix it for me?’ I asked him. I tried to take a breath of calm. Mc Kay would be impossible to reach. There was no way a man like him would grant me an interview.
‘Unreachable,’ Greg had once called them.
‘Wait a while then ring me back. I’ll put it to one of Mc Kay’s boys.’
‘Tell him I’m the one he pushed into a ditch.’ I rang him back in an hour.
‘Eight o’clock next Thursday evening. Come alone to a place just outside Dundalk village. We’ll make contact and let you know where nearer the time,’ the deep voice advised me. I felt sick to my stomach.
‘I didn’t think Mr Mc Kay gave interviews?’
‘You must have a really big pair of tits.’ I could hear him silently smirking down the phone.
‘Tell him I’ll be there.’
I hung up, my heart beating fast. I didn’t want to go it felt out of my league. I didn’t feel like a real journalist – I felt like an idiot out of her league with dangerous terrorists who hated the English. The hungry sick part of me rose up inside me, out of control, like it could smell nearby that there was food.
Dalkey, Ireland was the haunt of moneyed celebrities. Most of them had built their homes on the cliffs overlooking the sea. I pulled my cardigan around my shoulders, it was cold.
I stared out of the wet hotel window across the bay and felt incredibly lonely and depressed. My new boyfriend, a twenty one year musician called Paul Edward Stevenson from Dungiven. Paul was thundering out self-composed masterpieces on the hotel’s baby grand piano. He was a nice boy, but he had a terrible temper and he was Irish which meant he reminded me very much of my adoptive father. Our child sides got on and we laughed a lot and so I carried on with him – but sex was horrible, I was frigid with him. Oddly my sexual side could only ignite for a target for this odd hidden side of me I had no control over.
I had brought Paul with me for company, but now I was beginning to regret it. Shit, I’m lonely. Cold rose inside me. Please make it better – someone, something, make me feel at home or connected to the world. Out of the window I could see a wintry sun fluttering honey light onto the sea, which surged toward the land and rippled onto the shore. It was cold outside and you could feel it in the air even indoors. Damp, salty Irish weather. As the window was slightly open, I could smell the seaweed and see long-tailed rats that were clambering amongst the rocks leading down to the sandy beach. I took a deep breath and spoke loudly. ‘Paul, stop playing will you?’ His audience glared at me and I looked downwards, not trusting myself entirely.
‘I hate Ireland. It’s all grey, salty and tragic,’ I finished overloudly, trying to vent my hatred at the people in the bar who I felt had unfairly judged me as a bitch.
‘You should have stayed at home, Chris and not fancied yourself as Lois Lane, the intrepid investigative reporter!’ Paul looked around, grinning at the people who had been admiring his playing. I hated him for enjoying playing the part of the martyr to my harridan girlfriend.
Later, full of well-cooked fresh salmon, we left the hotel and caught the train to Dublin, then crossed the city streets on a bus, heading to Dundalk and my rendezvous with the Real IRA leader, Mc Kay.
I hung out of the window of the bus and pulled on a cigarette, lost in daydreams. The twilight over the countryside was breathtaking, the smell of damp hedgerows made me feel alive. Paul slept beside me, only to wake up as we pulled into no go IRA area, Dundalk.
We ate chicken burgers at midnight and chatted to the person who worked in the all night burger bar. He made us two plates of fries covered and I covered mine in mayonnaise. I picked at the fries and flicked through the County Louth Yellow Pages in search of a cheap B&B. I was still in a dreamy mood. I fiddled with a dirty teaspoon on the long bar and let it make tiny splatters. Paul ordered some homemade fruit cake from the counter.
Mc Kay’s world was a dangerous one. I had no idea where to get a smell of it or a feel for it. Oh God – why am I here? It’s stupid – scary and stupid and all because I’ve got some kind of pervy draw to him. Poor Paul was in danger and all because I was ill and some kind of addict.
At 2 a.m., we still hadn’t found a B&B. Tired and fed up, we booked into an expensive hotel – The Fairways.
‘Why are you upset?’ Paul began as he lay on the bed. ‘You’ll get a good story. I don’t know why you don’t believe in yourself a bit more. You’ll be fine with Mc Kay and get all his secrets out of him. Don’t allow yourself to be alone with him though, Chris!
Keep it all above board and safe.’
He leaned over and caressed my face.
‘Let’s order up some hot chocolate and some biscuits and see if we can’t find a movie.’
‘Mm, yes.’
I woke up and was surprised to see sunlight bursting through the open blinds. Paul sprang out of bed, showered, dressed, and then went outside to wait for me. When I emerged half an hour later, he was sitting on a wooden fence across from the entrance to the hotel, chewing on an egg sandwich he had taken from breakfast.
Cars streamed past. The air smelt wet, earthy.
A bus ride took us back into Dundalk and then we took another bus to our final destination.
A marine-coloured sky was holding the heat of the fine spring day. Puffs of white cloud hung heavy over the mountains. I felt overfed and heavy from too much food the night before.
‘It’s a bit chilly,’ Paul shivered in his thin, sleeveless T-shirt.
‘Let’s go and have a quick drink in the local bar before we shoot off then, or we’ll look suspicious to anyone who might be watching.’
The air was awash with the smell of wood-rose that came from the fields surrounding the 1930s style houses.
‘One drink, then we’re off,’ Paul parroted relieved.
The bar smelled of stale stout and the walls were peeling peach paintwork. We sat opposite a large cabinet of stuffed wild birds. A long corridor of old, dusty lino passed the toilets. Paul sighed and looked down at his pint. Our glasses of Guinness had steamed up the edges of the glasses. It tasted thick and creamy and we both began to loosen up a bit.
Paul smiled at me indulgently, the beer foam lining his upper lip, but then my attention was distracted by three men who had come in. They avoided looking at us and then took places at some tall red stools at the bar.
As Paul got up to go to the toilet, they stood up in unison. One got up and covered the door. Another put his arm around my shoulders and grinned into my face.
The third, short and wiry with ginger hair, went after Paul in the bathroom and I heard him kicking the metallic door of the toilet cubicle open.
I felt light-headed.
The heaviest one spoke. ‘The boy has to fuck off. You’re here because you’ve been invited. If all’s OK, Mc Kay will give you an audience.’
I looked over at Paul as he returned.
‘Paul, wait for me at the airport. I’ll join you there by this evening. There’s a hotel in Balbriggan – Balbriggan Court. Wait for me there.’
The interview was underway.
The dark-haired man spoke while pulling on my arm roughly.
‘Don’t be so fucking sure you’ll be back.’ I Chrised at him, he was trying to scare me.
I knew I had to try to be brave.
‘Paul, wait for me. I’ll join you there this evening after the interview.’
They took me into a terrace house. A woman in jeans and jumper with straggly hair sat on the sofa and reached out, gesturing for me to hand over my handbag. I gave it uncertainly and reluctantly. I had no choice. The thorough search of my Gucci handbag eventually revealed some wages slips from a company called Ciex Ltd.
The woman’s hard hazel eyes met mine and she spoke in an Irish accent.
‘Who are they?’
I looked back at her and tried to muster some courage that I did not feel.
‘A little company who are checking out the newspaper I used to work for. They hired me to find out about them. I kept their payment slips for the tax man. They’re spying on the paper I used to work for – they’re MI6 – they don’t like what they’re up to – using the SAS – pinging phones.’ It was true.
The woman asked again – this time louder.
‘What’s it got to do with The News of The World. ?’
I knew it was useless to explain the ins and outs of how the paper was an illegal mess and MI6 didn’t like it.
The tallest of the men from the pub with a pockmarked face came towards me and jabbed at my face with his lit cigarette.
I felt my bowels soften.
The woman with the blonde hair and hazel eyes looks at me evenly – something about her made me respect her.
‘Tell us who you really are.’
The man with the pockmarked face spoke up.
‘Tell us the truth or I’ll put you in the oven and turn it on.’
The others dragged me towards the oven. With what seemed like prior practice, they pushed my head inside it. I smelled the stink of gas. Their feet were on my hands and ankles.
‘It’s a private bloody security firm but it’s got nowt to do with me.
I truly am just a journalist.’
I wasn’t. How could I tell them that I was there because I was insane?
‘Are you fucking joking with us?’
A voice piped up. ‘We’ve got one of the dirty whores – she’s another Nairac.’
( Nairac was an SAS man who had come to a no-go area in Ireland undercover as a friendly passer-by and had been killed as a spy by the IRA. It is said that his remains were ground up and fed to the pigs, and he was tortured so badly his gums and three teeth were found under Drumintee Bridge half a mile from where we were.)
I felt my face numb over and my eyes fill with tears. They put me in a cream painted front parlour and told me to wait.
Why did I come here? It was Mc Kay. I wanted to meet him again. I wanted to spy on him – yet why? Who for? The hidden side of me wanted it not the me who was out now. I just wanted to go home.
Oh God. I hope they do kill me. I have no home to hurry back to anyway. No husband, no Hart, no family and I don’t like people - I get used and abused by them.
I rattled the doorknob. The man with the pockmarked face opened the door and came marching up to me. He put his pitted face very close to mine. I stood, hardly able to move. Why did I think getting down and dirty with Mc Kay would cure me? It was like the paper thinking listening in to answer messages was going to make it a better newspaper.
I didn’t get on with women and could not open up to men. I lived on a planet that I had not been welcome on since birth. I was still an outsider. What was wrong with me?
For the next four hours, I sat alone in that empty room. I stood up when I heard footsteps approaching the door. He was there with his pockmarked face. He spoke on a mobile in front of me and laughed.
Three young boys dressed in scruffy combats and army boots stuffed me into the back seat of a stale-smelling, rusty car and drove for half an hour or so before pushing me out into the freezing night.
‘Fuck off, Brit!’
The door slammed shut and they were gone. I listened as the sound of the rattling engine got fainter and fainter.
I still had my handbag with me and I had money in it. The folded notes added up to three hundred pounds. They must have seen it but they hadn’t touched it. These men had left the world of petty crime behind long ago. I set off stumbling in the dark along the unlit country lane, hoping the moon would light up the way.
As I walked, my mind was filled with memories of Childhood holidays in Ireland. Hot summer days swimming in the Dublin
Liffey with no knickers on and the man I called ‘Daddy,’ making me swim harder. I could see his face as I looked up from the cold brown water. He was always so very angry that I never became as good a swimmer as the others.
Maybe an hour later I realised I’d reached a dirt track that led up to a village. It was the same village I had began from. I could see the pub where earlier I had sat with Paul. My instinct was to run but run where? This was their village. I must leave as if I was not in a hurry or afraid. I needed brandy first. I headed away from the previous pub, though, and veered towards the warm comforting yellowy lights of one round the corner. When the blonde barmaid asked me what I wanted, I ordered a glass of brandy and sipped it to take away the shock and to plan my exit without being overwhelmed by fear.
The pub had an old-fashioned jukebox, there were pictures of men hurling on the wall and a fire that burned in the grate. The smells made me relax – beer and cigarettes. But the light-heartedness of that afternoon with Paul seemed years away. A local who I had seen before, the old one with tears in cornflower blue eyes, smiled at me. And then, as if in slow motion, the same dark-haired man who had held me already that day came into the bar and said to the old man, ‘We’ll look after her now, Mick. Thanks.’
Mick looked away with his cornflower eyes. The dark-haired
Irishman grabbed me by the shoulders.
Oh no! No! No! NOT BACK TO THAT STINKING ROOM!
The idea of escaping had been uppermost in my mind. Now I knew the worst. Mc Kay would want to see me. I felt like screaming it.
I’m not a journalist – I’m mad - please just ignore me and my madness and please just let me go free.
The man led me outside again, into the country air, which now had a real bite to it. I breathed in the night. The tall pine trees were solid and reassuring but I was too wrapped up in my own dread.
I was walked up the street to the shabby terrace house, and this time the front door opened onto a room full of men. There was the smell of cigarettes and alcohol. I felt I was going to retch. Retch up all the madness that had made me come seeking Mc Kay to find something in him that I perversely craved. The faces before me blurred. I kept my head down. I did not want to see them. They wanted to rip my Englishness to pieces. Why? I didn’t know shit about the conflict I was just there for a shag.
I sat on top of an unmade bed.
‘Are you a friend of Mc Kay?’ As soon as it was out, I wished that I had not spoken.
‘Aye – why? What’s it to you?’ He leant up against the white wall with his brown T-shirt and faded jeans, watching me with his muscled arms folded.
‘He hates me, doesn’t he? He hates me because I’m English.’
‘He just wants to know what he’s meeting before you’re with him is all. We do this to all journalists. D’you know Martin O’ Hagan and that cunt liam clarke?’
‘I do yes. Why is Mc Kay so suspicious?’ I felt sick I knew O’ Hagan had been kidnapped by this brigade and slapped about.
‘Because you may be an intelligence woman.’
‘I only came here because I was invited.’
Outside the condensation-covered window, the rain now beat a drumbeat of ridicule against the pane in a rat-a-tat-tat.
‘If Mc Kay thinks you’re up to no good, there’ll be one bullet right there.’ He pointed to the middle of his forehead. My eyes met his and I saw he was assessing my fear. He looked at me. Then he came over and lay down on the bed next to me, his cratered face very close to mine. We lay fully dressed on his metal-framed bed. His breath smelled like oranges. In here, just the two of us in the silence, it was warm and humid.
A knock at the door reverberated through the house.
Men came up the stairs, through the door and into the bedroom. I could hear what sounded like dozens of pairs of hobnailed boots clattering on the stairs. It sounded as if the whole village was on their way up to see me.
I’ll be sick and choke myself! It would be a way out.
‘May’s waiting for her.’ The accent was very deep and the words growled out.
Steve stood up. ‘Orders are to take her to the house. He’ll decide what’s to be done with her. Not you. She belongs to us.’
Hogan held out a pill and a glass of tap water. ‘Better you sleep.’
My eyes met his. Some part of me didn’t want to leave him. I was somehow bonded with him. I looked at the grey capsule; it was going to affect me and make me lose control. If I didn’t take it, he could force-feed it anyway.
He sipped from a brown hip flask and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His face was devoid of expression. I swallowed the pill. My head throbbed violently. How could I have fallen asleep? I sat up disorientated in an icy bed. Another strange bedroom; I felt sick with fear and self hate for my need to meet pure evil.
I rubbed my head and remembered the drug Hogan had given me. I felt a stabbing pain in the pit of my stomach.
What are they going to do with me?
Would they stick to the rules and not kill a journalist? I got up and walked around tentatively. There was no sound as I went to the bedroom door and down a long flight of stairs, my feet silent on the steps. In the kitchen were empty glasses and I took a stale sandwich and stuffed it down, finishing off the dregs of water from a dirty glass.
I looked out of the kitchen window as my head pounded. Some of the windows were covered with French-style shutters.
I heard car doors slamming outside and men’s voices. Dread surged through me. I looked over the sill, pure fear choking me.
He’s there. It’s Mc Kay. I could just make out his voice.
Mc Kay appeared at the door. His bottom lip curled. My heart skipped a beat and thumped fear into my dry mouth. All this way to see him. I must try to be a professional journalist.
He ushered me down to the kitchen. Over by the gas cooker, one of the other men unloaded a shopping bag.
The sky was a cold grey outside the kitchen window. Furious whirlpools of comet-like light twisted around the lowering grey clouds. Clouds of rain congregated in a scowling throb suspended over the wood.
Mc Kay kept laughing while he sat at the table. I let my eyes slide over that sculpted face, the straight nose and the defiant grey eyes of the Real IRA Commander. He was so very hard to fathom. He displayed nothing. Everything was hidden. His Special Branch profile would contain exactly what he wanted it to.
From somewhere, an old memory came back to me.
‘I’ve cleaned up for you, Daddy. I’ve painted a picture for you,
Daddy.’ There would be no answer. The silence ran through me and I felt utterly desperate. Desperate and afraid. I thought of the times when my father would pull back my bedcovers and I would be trapped by fear as he ran his hard, strong hands over my warm, Hartish skin. I remember, strangely without the usual guilt, thinking that I had ruined my parent’s marriage by being a temptation. I had enjoyed it. No, don’t think that. But it’s true.
No you are not bad. Not. Bad.
Out of the silence, Mc Kay spoke.
‘You’re here to talk to us then for The News of The World. ?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who asked you to speak?’
He sounded mean. There was thick dark treacle in his voice.
How did he come to be as he is? How did my Irish father get so mean too?
Mc Kay could smell my fear. He could also sense my attraction to him.
‘Let’s get moving before the light fades,’ said Mc Kay. ‘We’re going to take you into the woods for a treat.’ He laughed and winked at one of the men. ‘You’ll look at what’s there, then tell your country that we have control of all IRA weapons. The governments know that, but they’re busy trying to keep it out of the media. They came to us – begged us – but we ignored them.
We’re in control – not the Provos.’
His grey eyes narrowed and I could see how arrogant he was. What did I know of politics I worked for a rag. I was here because I wanted him as a lover. Why? I knew it was cover.
A weak sun filtered through the tops of the trees, the leaves forming a blanket against a blue sky.
I could feel my feet cold and wet. . A stream bubbled near our path. The fuzzy mauve rockiness of the mountains was over to my right, the air smelt of moss and fiery orange lichen.
After an hour walking into the deep woodlands, I feared that they we were lost. I glanced at Mc Kay and saw he had been watching me.
The smoke he exhaled from his cigarette was visible in puffs.
Steve Hogan had gone on to the arms dump they wanted the British media to know about and me to write about.
It began to rain, a light hail.
I looked at Mc Kay and his dark hair. The rain was soaking us with its fine mist. The chill had sunk in, in that wet, vile way that a virus spreads into the blood and the bones. The floor of the wood had some bluebells.
Mc Kay stood in front of me.
‘I think you’re here for me – is that true?’
It was.
I felt ashamed.
‘Maybe.’
‘Lay down.’
I complied. But the Real IRA Commander liked it rough. Mc Kay pulled at my knickers. He took off his trousers and pulled off his underpants. He broke down the boundaries of my body; his bones crushed into mine.
I moved my head back to look at things upside down. The oak tree near where we lay had a powdery bark and smelt of damp sawmills. Rainwater like crushed diamonds over overgrown grass, damp underneath us.
He had no keys.
The rain turned into a swift, merciless spattering of white stones as another hailstorm opened itself over the wood. We were pelted as we lay naked on the forest bed amongst nature, wet and sore he began to go down on me. The icy sharp hailstones ceased and sunlight flooded gold through the treetops. A rainbow appeared in the sky. I realized that I was ill.
Mc Kay jumped up and looked down at me as if in shock.
‘Right. You’ll go back and tell the British public that we want the
British off our land and DO NOT consent to power sharing!’ His voice was curt, commanding and back to business.
‘Power sharing – don’t consent to it – ok - I understand.’ I had no idea what the fuck he was on about. I wasn’t even a proper journalist I barely read the damn papers. I put my clothes back on, eager to cover myself, feeing afraid. We walked on again in silence for another 20 minutes, until we came to another large clearing. Steve Hogan stood watching us arrive, his breath making little puffs of smoke in the cold forest air.
‘What kept yous?’ He shouted at me. ‘Right, bitch, dig there with your hands until you find bones.’ He pointed to the mud. I looked down at it.
‘No, no, I can’t.’
‘Just fucking do it.’
I fell to my knees and grovelled in the cold hard soil until my hand hit something hard. I Christed to scream, thinking it might be a skull.
‘What the fuck is the stupid English whore doing?’ said Mc Kay.
‘Fucked if I know.’
‘Digging for her friend, Nairac.’
‘She misses him, that’ll be it.’
‘Sure, she’ll have some digging to do; that whore got made into cans of McGrath’s dog food about 20 year ago.’ They both laughed.
I struggled to my feet and wiped my face with the back of my hand. They led me on until we came to an underground hideaway. An arms dump. I was to be shown it. It was opened by lifting hidden filthy chains. They both jumped down and then helped me down. It was an arms dump in the floor of the forest, covered up with dirty beige tarpaulin, and neither of them seemed to want to draw it back.
‘Where’s the Sam-7s?’ I asked.
Steve answered. ‘Don’t go getting all smart arse on me, or I’ll lock you up down here and leave you to the worms.’
I looked over at Mc Kay for protection.
Mc Kay spoke. ‘Leave this journalist arsehole to me.’ He leaned forward and pushed me hard. I toppled forward, banged my head on something hard and landed with a thump on the floor of the dump. The crisp leaves against my pale cheek where I fell smelled like a Childhood walk to school in splashy red wellington boots. War journalist? I felt like an idiot searching for a key to free me yet I was free. I had to be mad. It scared me.
Hogan was walking about eating a bread roll. My joints ached from the endless hours of walking in the cold that I’d just survived. Mc Kay had disappeared and there had been no goodbyes from my new lover.
Hogan took me to his audi, allowing me to sit in a seat this time, and we made the long drive along the high-bushed lanes into Dundalk village. He then put me on a bus. I was too exhausted to speak. I took one long last glance at the man with the pockmarked face whom I had shared a bed with. It was a fragile sunny day steeped in silence, gold grass everywhere. All I could hear was my own rapid heartbeat and the panic inside my head. I tried not to remember the whole experience as I sat and silently screamed.
The sun was just coming up, bright white even at seven in the morning. A sheep stood silhouetted, an opaque shadow on a mountaintop. There was the peculiar tranquility of a day that had not yet fully woken up. I cleaned my face with a bottle of Evian and some tissues from my bag. I stared out of the window and thought about what had happened. I had acted terribly unprofessionally on an assignment for the paper. I saw my face reflected in the bus window and knew that I was a crazy nutbag. I had got the exclusive interview that The News of The World had wanted after all yet it had not been what I really wanted.
My story made front page and centre page spread. Entitled, ‘Our
Girl Gets Inside The Real IRA.’ Greg had publicly labeled me as one of the Special Investigations Unit for the first time since Rebekah had formed it. I was shocked that Greg had actually put my name on a story produced by the Special Investigations Unit that I had been a part of since its inception. They also called me
Our Girl - an honor usually kept for my old friend, Mazher Mahmood.
Greg joked over the headline saying that in reality the Real IRA Commander had got inside me.
Ironically I was moving upwards as a journalist – my willingness to risk my life had paid off. I was busy getting the attention of real writers and real newspapers.
Liam Clarke, the editor of The Sunday Times rang me to congratulate me – ‘No one gets so close to the Real IRA, Chris.’ he said admiringly, ‘How did you do it? Want to cover some stories for me on the UDA?’
I begun to work for Liam, the Sunday Times editor.
I was now working as a broadsheet journalist getting my sole byline on stories about the INLA and the UDA in The Sunday Times alongside Christine Amanpouri and it should have felt good but it didn’t. I still didn’t feel my own person. I was also going to get killed if I continued to wander lost amongst the devils not knowing who the hell I was. Searching for something that felt like my freedom.