Page 114 of Hang on St. Christopher

CHAPTER18

THE INTERVIEW

Cue the dramatic music. The low clouds. Cold north air like a lens of ice. The sun a yellow goblin glow in the east. (Yes, it was still July.) Two Land Rovers in convoy heading for the border. Two incongruous white police Tangi Land Rovers on a country road, driving through the treeless iron starkness of the Mourne Mountains.

Cows, sheep, boggy fields, bleak moorland, stone walls.

Raptors following our progress and curving through the hill country on easy thermals.

Morrigan one of those raptors.

Morrigan the crow.

Goddess of fertility. Goddess of war.

The song of the armor plate. The song of the specially reinforced police Land Rovers’ tires. The whir and throb of the fuel-injected eight-cylinder engines. If you could taste a song, this song would taste of blood, sulfur, saltpeter, and, of course, fear.

We were wearing civilian clothes but with flak jackets over the top. We were armed with sidearms and had access to MP5s. This was no joke.

We drove down in convoy on the B219, to the border crossing west of Newry.

Crabbie and I were driving Land Rover 1 with Lawson, two of our trainees (DC William Mitchell and DC Judy McGuire) in the back. The second Land Rover contained DS Anthony Clare and DCI Stan Preston up front, and DI Siobhan McGuinness and DI Michael O’Leary in the back.

I’d been against bringing the trainees, but Chief Inspector McArthur told Lawson he thought it was a good idea, and Lawson didn’t want to go against him when he could easily have yanked me out of this little op in the first place. And he was probably right. Good experience for them. Trip over the border. Insight into Garda procedure. A chance to interview a genuine, honest-to-God monster.

As additional security, we were escorted to the border by two armored army Land Rovers, although they would not be allowed to continue down over the border itself. When a British army patrol slipped over the border into the Republic of Ireland without permission, it always ignited an international incident.

The radio crackled, “Border approaching, two hundred yards.”

The army Land Rovers pulled over.

The Northern Ireland–Republic of Ireland border had many formal crossing points and many more informal crossing points. We’d decided to cross at one of the informal roads to avoid the border traffic.

We were met on the other side of the imaginary line by an Irish police Range Rover driven by Inspector O’Neill.

We stopped, and I made the necessary introductions.

“Inspector O’Neill, may I introduce Superintendent Clare of Special Branch...”

Et cetera.

We all stood around the border looking like idiots for a minute. “Well, shall we go?” Superintendent Clare asked.

“Yes, let’s go.”

We arrived at Dundalk Garda at ten in the morning.

The interview was supposed to start at lunchtime but we got a call from O’Roarke’s lawyers saying that their client had been delayed until two p.m.

We had cheese-and-pickle sandwiches at the station and kicked our heels.

At two p.m., we got a phone call from O’Roarke’s lawyers saying that their client was at a construction site and wouldn’t be able to make it until five.

At 5:15, we got a call saying that their client was having dinner with his family and now wouldn’t be in until six. At 6:05, we got a call saying that O’Roarke was on the way, and at 6:30 we got a call stating that he would be at the station at 7:30.

He actually arrived at eight.

It was completely childish, dicking us about like that. Classier paramilitary commanders wouldn’t have done it, but judging from the shit-eating grin on O’Roarke’s face as he walked in, he loved it.