Trust her, p.9
Trust Her, page 9
Eamonn says, “Does she know what Niall’s been spending the money on?”
“Books and food, she thinks.”
“Is she sure about that?” he asks. “Because depending on what he’s using the money for, she could be up on charges of funding terrorism.”
“But then you’d have a word with the prosecutor, right? And the charges would be dropped.”
Eamonn shakes his head. “Her immunity from prosecution isn’t a blanket agreement, covering all crimes. Marian wasn’t working with us when she sent him the money, she did that on her own.”
Part of me is disappointed at how easily Eamonn is taking the bait. If he had any decency, he’d be offering to help Marian without asking for something in return, and that’s not where we’re heading.
“Has Marian spoken with Niall since leaving the North?”
“No,” I say. “She has different priorities now. She’s working for the air-ambulance service, she’s married, she has a baby. She’s not still wrapped up in the conflict.”
Quietly, Eamonn says, “Funding terrorism has a minimum prison sentence of six years.”
“Right, okay,” I say, and I don’t need to fake the indignation in my voice. “Then let’s hope no one finds out, since you won’t be helping us.”
I rise from my chair, and Eamonn stays seated, watching me. I start toward the door, and he says, “Look, there is one thing we can do.” I fold my arms over my chest, waiting. “Marian can ask to visit Niall in prison.”
“Catch yourself on. Why would she do that?”
He says, “If Marian gets information from Niall for us, then we can say she was working with us all along, and sending the cash was to warm him up. She’ll be protected.”
I shake my head. “We’ve spent three years in hiding, and you want her to toss that away?”
“Where is Niall serving his sentence?”
“Castlerea.”
“So all the way out in Roscommon. Medium security. What was he arrested for?”
“A cashpoint robbery in Dundalk,” I say, and Eamonn nods. He says, “Castlerea’s small. I doubt another IRA prisoner is in there. And visitors can ask for individual rooms if there are any safety concerns.”
“Even if no one else sees her, what about Niall? What if he decides to tell someone?”
“You said that Marian was like his family. Would he do that to her?”
“I can’t believe you’d ask this,” I say, which is true enough. “Do you’ve no shame, Eamonn? How do you sleep at night?”
“I don’t much, to be honest,” he says, and fair enough, his face does look weary.
“Why can’t you talk to Niall yourself? Why do you always make other people take the risk?”
“What exactly do you think I’ve been doing here for the past five years? Do you think I’ve been safe all this time?” he says. Five years, then. Eamonn has been in Belfast for five years, which I didn’t know before. It’s small, but it’s not nothing.
“Castlerea’s two hours from Dublin. Marian doesn’t need to tell Niall her address, or her new name. Visiting him wouldn’t exactly narrow down her location. You should give her the option,” he says, and I let out a bitter laugh.
“Every time I give Marian an option, she wrecks my life.”
“I thought you’d forgiven her,” says Eamonn.
“So did I.”
Eamonn listens with his elbows on his knees, leaning forward. Earlier, when I came inside the house, Eamonn stepped forward and lifted his hands slightly, like he was about to hug me, then thought better of it.
I knew I was attracted to Eamonn before, but I’d assumed the way things ended three years ago would have doused any chemistry, that my mind would override any attraction. Apparently that’s not how it works. A large part of me doesn’t trust Eamonn, and another large part wants him to sit closer to me.
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Let’s slow down,” says Eamonn. “Tell me about Niall.”
“Do your own research.”
“Right, correct me if I’m wrong on this,” he says. “Niall’s younger, and he joined the IRA when he was a teenager. Mostly he did their driving on the robberies.” I wait, listening. Marian said Niall was a good dancer, she said he could have become a professional, if any adult in his life had the cop-on to notice.
“You met Niall on five separate occasions, and you were terrified of Seamus but never of him. You thought Niall seemed sweet.”
“This isn’t a game, Eamonn. You don’t get points for your memory,” I say, which Eamonn ignores.
“Since Niall was a driver, he could have been moved anywhere in the IRA, after their active-service unit broke apart with Seamus’s death and Marian’s disappearance. He could have been a driver for the army council,” says Eamonn. “When he was arrested, Niall didn’t turn state’s evidence, clearly. He kept his mouth shut, which means all his links in the organization are intact.”
I pull my focus tighter, since this is the weak part of the plan, the creaking stair that I have to force myself not to rush over. This next part has to go perfectly, not a single mistake. Eamonn has to agree to meet with me instead of Marian. “My sister won’t speak to you,” I say. “She hates you.”
“What, more than you do?” asks Eamonn gently.
“You didn’t turn me into a murderer,” I say. “Marian killed Seamus at the farmhouse because you’d left us to die.”
“Tessa—”
“We were raised Catholic, Eamonn. She thinks she should go to hell for killing him,” I say, which is not true. As far as I can tell, Marian feels guilty about everything in her life except Seamus. “She’ll never agree to work for you again.”
“Then we can’t help her,” says Eamonn. “Try asking her to visit Niall in prison. And she doesn’t have to meet me, she can pass along any information to you.”
I don’t answer. Now that I’ve offered him the idea, Eamonn needs to talk me into it. I have to act reluctant, which isn’t so hard. I can think of a dozen reasons this is a horrible idea.
“You’re asking me to risk my life.”
“How many locks are on your front door?” he asks. “Three? Four? But it’s only been three years, so you remember what it’s like to feel safe,” he says, and I picture pushing Finn in his pram, the sunshine pouring down on us, not looking over my shoulder, just walking.
“You’re right, I do remember feeling safe. It was before I met you.”
“You want the conflict to end, Tessa.”
“It doesn’t matter what I want,” I snap. Parts of this conversation are fake on my end, and parts must be fake on his end, glittering, artificial shards, but surging under and around those shards is something real, a strong, dark tide.
“That’s exactly what Seamus would want you to say. He’d be delighted to hear it.” Eamonn rubs at his jaw. “The last time we met in Ardglass,” he says, “the IRA had just called a ceasefire. Do you remember? You were walking on air.”
“What good did it do? We’re right back where we started.”
“We’re not,” says Eamonn, his voice steady.
“You can’t have me believing we’re on the edge of a peace deal, not again.”
“We’re not where we started anyway,” says Eamonn, but I don’t believe him. I know, in my bones, that the conflict won’t end in my lifetime. We’re all trapped in it, caught in lockstep.
He says, “You knew, back then, the ceasefire was down to the work you’d done, and Marian, and all the other informers.”
“This isn’t my job, Eamonn. You’re the one who signed up for it. Because, what, you’d watched too many films? You thought it’d be exciting? An interesting life?”
“Come here to me, Tessa. You know that I was born in Northern Ireland,” he says. “My childhood was a lot like yours.”
“Are you saying you joined the security service because you were traumatized? Even if that’s true, which I doubt, we’re not the same. I’ve a son.”
“And you’re all right with Finn growing up in a house with extra locks on the door?”
“Don’t you dare. My son feels free as a fucking bird, I make sure of that.”
Eamonn’s eyes are intent on mine, and for a moment I forget about Royce, I forget that this is staged, I forget my actual reason for being here, like somehow the conversation has spat us out onto some vast, icy plain.
“What happened, Eamonn?” I ask. “When you were a kid.”
“I can’t tell you the specifics, but you can imagine, can’t you?” he says, and I don’t think he’s lying. I can imagine it, of course I can. A shooting, or a stabbing, or a bomb.
Eamonn says, “If you don’t think the conflict’s going to end anytime soon, that’s all the more reason for Marian to get her situation sorted.”
“Get herself backed up by you again, you mean,” I say, and Eamonn nods. And there we are. There’s our plan, with Eamonn thinking it was his idea. I close my eyes, like the reality of the situation is just now coming home to me.
“Well, look, I hope your team are delighted, Eamonn. Is this like a freebie, is it? Digging the two of us back out of the rubbish heap you threw us on.”
Eamonn breathes hard down his nose. I realize that I’ve never seen him angry before, not once. He says, “I was there, Tessa. I was outside the farmhouse.”
“You’re lying.”
“I was outside the farmhouse with twelve special-forces soldiers. They were ready to storm the building.”
“No. I would’ve seen them.”
“It was an SAS unit, Tessa. It’s their job not to be seen.”
“If that’s true, then why didn’t you send them in?”
“A siege would have been dangerous,” he says. I shake my head, even though I’d had the same thought at the time, running through the positions, the crossfire. I remember huddling on the mattress, thinking that if there were a siege, we’d be killed.
“It was already dangerous.”
“We thought Seamus was bluffing. Marian had been interviewed by the IRA before and released, I was confident she knew what to do. But then the two of you were taking off across the field, and I was about to send our men in when the building went up. We were ordered to stand down.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He says, “The river behind the farmhouse was frozen solid, do you remember? I was running across it when the farmhouse exploded.”
I picture Eamonn standing on the frozen river, watching the debris raining down, while on the other side of the farmhouse I was sprinting, tearing away across the field, the snow scalding my bare feet.
“Then why didn’t you come and find me afterward? Why didn’t you send me a message?”
“We don’t contact informers once they’ve left, for their own safety,” he says. “I did ask to visit you, but the request was denied. My supervisor said it was an unjustifiable risk for you.”
“Right.”
Eamonn lifts his gaze toward the ceiling. Slowly, he says, “I made thirty-six requests to see you.”
I blink at him. He says, “Are you not going to ask the question, Tessa? Are you not going to even ask?”
“What question?”
“How do you think I saw your signal? I’ve been checking the balance on that card every day for the past three years.”
Fifteen
A train is ticking past our house. Finn watches it with his hands pressed to the glass, and I lean beside him, my arm around his shoulders. Anyone looking out the train will see us, a small boy and a woman with dark hair, for a second, two, before the train is gone, gliding south across Dublin. They won’t know who we are, or why we’re here. Our window is only one of the thousands they will pass on their way home.
“Right, time for bed,” I say, as Finn yawns. “Off we go.” He turns from the window, padding down the hall to his room. After reading aloud from Roald Dahl, I reach over to switch off the lamp. Finn rotates his muslin blanket until he finds its tag, tucking it against his chest, and I close my eyes, resting my forehead against my son’s. Soon his breathing slows and deepens, and I feel sleep coursing through his body and into mine, some deep frequency, like sonar.
Unwinding myself from the bed, I tuck the blanket around his shoulders and step into the hall. What I’d like to do tonight is pour a large glass of red wine and watch television, but I need to catch up on the work I missed this afternoon while meeting Eamonn, so instead I carry my laptop to the armchair in my bedroom and open a document.
While I work, darkness falls over Dublin, shadows folding over the roofs and sheds and garden walls. Past my bedroom window, trains slide past on the elevated tracks, the gaps between them growing longer as the night wears on. Not trains, technically, light rail. They’re almost silent, only a whistling sound, a faint clacking of their carriages on the tracks.
I am typing in the document when something makes me lift my head. A train is stopped just behind our house. It’s late, past midnight, this must be one of the last trains of the night. My fingertips flex away from the keyboard. Trains never stop here.
The train hangs on the tracks outside our house, its strip-lit carriages glowing in the darkness. I blink, and when my eyes open, I expect to see two men in black ski masks standing at the train doors. They must have pulled the emergency brake to stop the train here, and now they will force open the doors and start crawling down the high stone wall into my patio.
The laptop tilts on my knees and I catch it in midair before it crashes toward the floor. No one’s standing at the train doors. I can’t see a single passenger onboard. It’s a signal problem, probably. Moments later, there is a sound of pressure being released, and the train eases forward on the tracks, gliding out of view.
The watch on my wrist pings. Sit down, it says, take a breath, because it thinks I’m sprinting, it thinks that’s why my heart is racing. Piss off, I think, undoing the clasp and dropping the watch to the floor. I rub my forehead, telling myself it’s all right, I’m only tired. I save my document and walk down the hall to check on Finn. He is asleep with his head tipped back on the pillow, his mouth parted. He’s fine, we’re grand, we’re safe. Those men aren’t here. The IRA wants something from me now, they’re not going to hurt me.
* * *
• • •
Marian meets me on my lunch break in Merrion Square. She arrives late, breathless, pushing Saoirse in her pram. “I saw Eamonn yesterday,” I say, as she drops onto the bench beside me.
“Jesus,” says Marian. “What did he have to say for himself?”
“He told me he was at the farmhouse. He said armed officers were ready to extract us.”
“He’s lying.”
“I’m not thick, Marian. I know he’s lying.” The only reason Eamonn didn’t look guilty when we faced each other under the railway bridge is that he has so much practice pretending.
“He wants you to visit Niall in Castlerea,” I say, and Marian nods. The weeks start to unfold in front of me. Marian meeting Niall in prison, myself meeting Eamonn at the safe house, Royce checking on my progress, breathing down my neck.
“How am I meant to keep them apart?” I say. “What if they both turn up at my house at the same time?”
“Eamonn never came to your house before.”
“But this might not be anything like last time.”
“Eamonn might not even recognize Royce,” says Marian. “He can’t know the faces of every single IRA member, and no one thinks Royce is important anyway. He was let out of prison after turning religious, all that clabber.” The police must think Royce is some sad case, living in a tower block and going to mass every day. Both of which are true, probably, fitted in alongside his other activities.
Saoirse starts to fuss in the pram, and Marian says, “Here, she wants me to walk.” We leave Merrion Square, wandering toward Dawson Street, and then through the gate into Trinity. We cross Front Square, circling under the college’s worn stone halls. “How was it anyway?” asks Marian. “Seeing Eamonn.”
“I gave out to him, like we’d talked about. I think it came off, he didn’t seem suspicious or anything. But I lost track of what I was doing a few times.”
“Don’t worry about that. You wouldn’t want to seem like you’d already run it through.”
“He seems different. Eamonn was confident before, do you know the way? I remember thinking he was out of his mind not to be scared.”
“He seems scared now?” asks Marian sharply.
“No, it’s not that. I can’t put my finger on it yet, but he’s different,” I say. I lean my head back, looking up at the slate roofs and stone chimneys.
“Ah, no,” says Marian. “I bet he’s every bit as confident as he was back then, and he only wants you thinking he has changed. He’s playing at something here.”
Marian leaves to bring Saoirse home for a nap, and I stand outside the Arts Block, surrounded by students. During my fourth year at Trinity, Marian came to visit me. The visit was not, by any measure, a success. One night during her visit, while I was cooking us dinner in the tiny communal kitchen of the student halls, Marian said, “I thought you were a Marxist.”
“I am,” I said, taking a box of spaghetti from the press, leaning down to spark the flame under the pot.
“Then why are all of your friends rich? Their parents all have second homes.”
“Not all of them,” I said, though Marian was right. I was often invited to stay in their guest rooms, to swim in their pools and drink their wine. I was a good guest, easy company, putting a load of wet beach towels in the wash, bringing back fresh figs from the local market. I was always invited back.
When the water boiled, I dropped a fistful of spaghetti into the pot. “Where was the last one?” asked Marian. “Majorca?”
