“Civilisations rise and fall and rise and fall, and eventually the sun goes out and the earth dies and then all the suns go out, and all the civilisations die and eventually entropy maximises, the second law of thermodynamics wins, and there’s nothing in the universe, no light, no atoms, nothing … But just because the world’s ending, doesn’t mean you give up. It was the great heretic Martin Luther who said ‘If the Apocalypse was coming tomorrow, today I would plant a tree.’ Wise words. And that’s how we win: by sticking up a middle finger to the darkness closing in. I’d love to shoot you, John. For all your crimes and lies. I’d love to do that. But I’m not going to. And I’m not going to arrest you, either. On your feet. Back over the border. Any funny business and it’s a bullet in the brain. Pick up my vest and leather jacket. Hold them out in front of you.”
He picked up my gear and started walking towards the river.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“We’re going to spin this as a mad vendetta by a clearly unstable Harry Selden against the Carrickfergus RUC who had been hassling him about a dead drug dealer and a missing persons case. Your name won’t come up. I made sure Harry didn’t tell the IRA Army Council that you’d been compromised. They all still think you’re pure.”
“What are you going to do?”
“We’re going to run you as a double agent, John. The IRA will get you a new handler and you’ll tell them you had no idea what Harry was up to. You’ll tell them everything we want them to know from now on, but this time you’ll be working for the good guys. If you’re worried about Special Branch not believing me, don’t be. I’ve got your whole confession on tape. Lawson recorded it with the high-gain antenna. You don’t need wires when you have one of those.”
“Shit,” he said. “Where are you taking me now?”
“Special Branch. There’s a Superintendent Baker that I may have offended with a joke about Willie Nelson. You might help me get on her good side.”
Strong looked down. “I’m sorry about all this,” he said.
I had no compassion for him at all. “You will be, mate. You will be.”
We walked back across the River Cor and I handcuffed him at the car and put him in the back of the Beemer.
“We’ll get your car out of the sheugh and fixed and back to your house. Appearances will be everything here. You didn’t know what Harry was up to and you were home the entire evening. Savvy?”
“Savvy.”
I patted the BMW’s roof and drove north.
The radio crackled back into life when I got within range.
“Inspector Duffy! … Inspector Duffy! … Inspector Duffy!”
“This is Duffy, what’s up, Lawson?”
“Oh sir, it’s Sergeant McCrabban, sir, he’s dying!”
28: DETECTIVE SERGEANT JOHN ‘CRABBIE’ MCCRABBAN
The Royal Victoria Hospital.
Casualty.
John McCrabban in emergency surgery for an AK 47 slug in his stomach.
Lost a lot of blood in the ambulance.
Should have been with him.
Should have been there with him instead of chasing down a traitor.
Screech of brakes as the BMW pulled into the ambulance bay.
“You can’t park that here!” a policeman said.
I showed my warrant card. “Inspector Sean Duffy, RUC. If that man in the back of the car gets out I’ve told him you’ll shoot him, so you’ll have to shoot him. He’s very dangerous.”
“Yes, sir.”
Inside the hospital.
Doctors and nurses in the trauma wards. A busy night for the RVH.
Lawson saw me at the Reception Desk.
“Sir!” he said.
He’d been crying.
“How is he?”
Lawson shook his head. “I’m so sorry, sir. I didn’t realise how badly he was hurt. I was checking the bodies and waiting for Special Branch like you said. I didn’t realise Sergeant McCrabban was unconscious until Superintendent Baker showed up and I went looking for him.”
“How was he in the ambulance?”
Lawson sniffed. “Haemorrhaging. He’s lost so much blood. I don’t think … The men in the ambulance said he wasn’t …”
“Oh God.”
I turned to the nurse at the desk. “Where’s John McCrabban?”
“He’s in the OR.”
“Where is that?” I demanded.
“Sir, you can’t go in there. It’s a sterile environment. You’ll have to wait here.”
I waited.
And waited.
Helen and the boys arrived.
I hugged Helen. I hugged the boys.
Beth and Emma arrived. Beth was in tears. “Oh my God, Sean.”
We paced the corridor.
Waited.
Lawson talking to me at the Coke machine.
“I didn’t realise he was hit, sir. I didn’t know he was down. He told you to go. I thought it was just a scratch, I—”
“Ssshhh. It’s going to be OK. How can a bullet kill John McCrabban? It would be like a bullet trying to kill a fucking oak tree.”
Beth, Emma and I played with Crabbie’s boys.
We got Helen a cup of tea.
Seizing a moment when the kids were quiet, I went to the Catholic chapel and had a heart-to-heart with the Virgin.
“Yeah, I know. I know. I fucking know, OK? But this will be the last time. Just this last time and I won’t ask any more,” I said.
29: THE CHIEF CONSTABLE
If you really have to get shot, Belfast is one of the best places to do it. After twenty years of the Troubles and after thousands of assassination attempts and punishment shootings Belfast has trained many of the best gunshot-trauma surgeons in the world.
After four hours Crabbie was discharged from the OR and given into the hands of some of the best nurses in the world.
The head surgeon talked to Helen.
She hugged him and turned to us. “They think he’s going to pull through.”
Tears.
The complete waterworks from all of us.
From the OR to the recovery ward.
There was Crabbie. Bandaged. Sedated. Plugged in.
Only Helen allowed in to see him at first. But then the rest of us permitted to stand by his bed “as long as we were quiet”.