“You’d think he’d believe one bad word about you? He worships you. All the men do. They’d throw me down a well if I lifted a finger to you … What about you, though, did you keep your side of the bargain? You kept the Army Council out of it?”
“Of course!” Selden snapped. “I wouldn’t dare present them with a problem like you for a third time. I’d be the one making that trip out to the forest.”
“Good. Then everyone kept their word.”
“Now, what about this proof of yours?” Strong said.
“An eyewitness saw you and Deauville talking in the Rangers club. He drew an uncannily accurate picture of you and when I showed him your photograph he confirmed it. He’ll never think of it again until I go public with revelations but then he’ll be able to back me up 100 per cent.”
“What’s his name?” Selden demanded. “No, no, no. Now it’s your turn. What happened March 22nd 1968? Quid pro quo.”
“Quid pro quo is you giving us your informant’s name.”
“Quid pro quo is us both trusting one another and being able to fuck one another, now what happened March 22nd 1968?”
A long pause before Strong shrugged.
“If there’s no wire what difference does it make?” Strong said.
“Tell me.”
“Not much to tell. It wasn’t even our fault. It was Frank Deauville. It was all him,” Strong said. “What did he do?”
“We stop the car. They’re not suspects, they’re not anything, Harry says to wave them on but Frank says no, the wee lassie might have something concealed under her dress.”
“And then what?”
“Well, we’d all been drinking a bit. It was a cold night.”
“What happened?”
“Frank looked under her dress, or tried to, and she slapped him and then he lost it. He dragged her out of the car and then the boy comes running round and he’s on top of Frank …”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Frank threw the boy off and swung his rifle round and shot him. The bullet went through his heart, killed him on the spot.”
“The whole thing was an accident,” Selden said.
I shook my head. “No, it wasn’t an accident. The girl was raped.”
“Frank’s blood was up. He was furious. We couldn’t stop him,” Selden said.
“Couldn’t or didn’t want to?” I asked.
Strong shone his torch in my face. “How do you know all this?”
“I’m a detective. I find shit out.”
“OK, now you know what happened. What’s the name of this eyewitness?”
“Who shot the girl?”
“What’s got into you, Duffy?” Strong said, his radar pricking up by my insistence on the details.
“Who shot the girl?” I asked again.
“Frank insisted that we all shoot her. He would have shot us if we didn’t,” Selden said.
“My rifle jammed,” Strong said.
Aye, maybe so, but you pulled the trigger, didn’t you?
I turned to Selden. “And when did you recruit John into the IRA?” I asked.
Selden shook his head. “We all drifted apart after that. I didn’t know what any of them were doing until I saw Frank’s name in the paper in ’83, I think. He’d solved some kind of big bank fraud case.”
“And that’s when the blackmail started?”
“Blackmail’s an ugly word … We scratch his back and vicey versey, like you said,” Selden said.
“Who is this eyewitness?” Strong demanded.
“I’ve written down their name and address on a piece of paper. I’ve also written down my bank details and I’ve put them both in this envelope,” I said, reaching into the inside pocket of my leather jacket.
Strong took the envelope and shoved it into his sports coat pocket.
“And you haven’t told anyone else what you know?” Strong said.
“Nope.”
Strong looked at Selden and nodded. Selden took a step back away from me. “There’s been a change of plan, Duffy,” Selden said.
“What change of plan?”
“Well, you were right,” Selden said. “I couldn’t go to the Army Council with a third request to kill you in as many weeks. I’d be a joke. In fact, worse than a joke, I’d be fucking dead. So I had to keep my mouth shut about our little talk. No help coming from the high command.”
“And obviously I couldn’t bring in any of my colleagues,” Strong said.
“But for heaven’s sake, this is Ulster. It was easy enough to round up four men in Derry who would kill somebody no questions asked.”
“What four men?”
“Us four men,” they said, coming in the door.
They’d obviously been in the back of van, waiting for their cue. Double cross. He was going to take the envelope and kill me.
The leader was a pale, beady-eyed man who was an odd amalgam of a Staffordshire bull terrier and Charles Hawtrey. The other three were archetypes: an old one, a tall one, a skinny young one. You can think of them as Carry On actors too: Syd James, Bernard Breslaw, Jim Dale. No Kenneth Williams, I’m sorry to say. But it’s OK. You don’t really need to think about them at all. In forty-five seconds all four of them would be dead.
The men were carrying assorted weapons: an AK47, double-barrelled shotguns, a revolver.
Strong and Selden pulled pistols from inside their jackets.
“Six against one. Seems a bit unfair, no?” I said.
“Fuck me, Duffy, what a headache you were. It’s your own fucking fault, you know, you just wouldn’t let it lie, would you?” Strong said.