‘What about Ireland?’ I asked.
‘Where were you in March ’88, boss?’
I smiled to myself. ‘Well, funnily enough, I was here … in this very nick. I’d been in the Met a couple of years and I was here working on the crime squad. Why do you ask?’
‘March 1988 is the reason I’m in the shit now.’ There was another creaking sound from the cubicle. Doug had returned to his sitting position. I figured I had about four minutes to find out what it was he wanted me to understand.
‘Something happened to you?’ I asked.
Doug laughed, but not in humour, more a mixture of scorn and irony. ‘You could say that. But it could have been worse. I wasn’t beaten to a pulp by a mob and then shot in cold blood.’
The penny dropped. March 1988: a month and an event burned into the memory of every British soldier. Andersonstown, Belfast: the murder of two Corporals who had inadvertently strayed into the path of the funeral of IRA member, Kevin Brady. Television news teams in attendance had recorded and described a scene of unspeakable horror as the soldiers had been dragged from their car, tortured and then shot with their own weapons. Never before had the British public witnessed such an event. Not that that provided any consolation to the Corporals’ families and friends, but many believed it changed public opinion to such an extent that it acted as a trigger to commence the Northern Ireland peace process.
‘You were at Andersonstown?’ I asked.
‘I hope you’re prepared to listen … to try and understand. I’m not stupid, Mr Finlay. I know they’re probably recording this and I know this might be my one and only chance to explain what happened last night. I also know that any minute now, SO19 will come bursting through the door behind you.’
As Doug spoke and as my own personal memories of that day returned to me, I shuffled across the room and placed my back against the exit door.
‘I’m standing against the door, Doug,’ I said. ‘They’ll have to come through me.’
Video footage from Andersonstown had been on television the day it happened and, such was the public horror, for a long time afterwards I’d tuned into every channel I could, so obsessed was I with understanding what had happened.
Eight years prior to the murders I had been ambushed by the IRA while returning to my squadron base from a meeting in Castlederg. I had made similar mistakes to the two Corporals, I’d been armed with just a pistol, hadn’t checked my route and I’d nearly paid the ultimate price. I’d been very fortunate. When the firefight was over, three of my attackers were dead and another was on the run. I’d been shot in the foot and had just one round left in my magazine. I’d often wondered whether I would have had the courage to use it on myself. The way the murders at Andersonstown had taken place had triggered nightmares, repeated and frequent. In them I would be ambushed and find myself held down by a tangle of hands that stopped me from moving or escaping. It never ended well. I would see the barrel of my own pistol turned on me, be unable to resist and realise I was about to die. And at that point, I would wake up, soaked in sweat, shivering and with my heart pounding, grateful that, in my case, it was only a dream.
And now, I found myself wanting to hear what Doug had to say. I knew that by standing next to the door and by telling the listening negotiators where I was and why, I was sending a message the decision-makers were not going to like. But this had now become personal. Doug Powell knew things, things that I wanted to know, and I wasn’t planning on our dialogue ending before he had the chance to tell me what they were.
I wondered what was taking Sue so long. ‘You were there?’ I asked again.
‘I was, but that’s only part of it. I was Royal Scots. We were on QRF that day – the Quick Reaction Force. One of our lads was observer on the Lynx helicopter that was doing the eye-in-the-sky job. The crew saw what was going down and called it into the Ops room at Lisburn. We all thought it was another attack by the protestants, nobody realised they were army.’
‘That’s what I heard, Doug. They accidentally strayed into an area that had been declared out of bounds. There was nothing you could have done, really.’
‘It was only down the road from Milltown Cemetery, for Christ’s sake. The RUC managed to save a terrorist that attacked that funeral, why not our guys?’
‘I know,’ I replied. ‘I think everybody at the funeral thought it was another attack like the one in the cemetery, too … So is that behind what happened with you last night?’
The earpiece voice spoke again: ‘Get away from the door, Finlay.’
Where was Sue? I thought again. I ignored the voice. ‘So, what happened last night?’ I asked again, trying to change the subject from the Irish murders.
‘I lost it. I knew it would happen one day, I just knew it. I lost it at home once when the kids were roughhousing with me. We were wrestling over the remote for the TV. They jumped on me and I had a panic, threw them off, broke the TV screen. The missus went crazy.’
‘You have children?’
‘Yeah, two – a boy and a girl.’
Doug laughed. ‘Stronger sperm, boss. That’s what they say, good seed produces girls.’
I laughed too. And I hoped the control room were listening. As things stood, Doug and I were chatting and building a rapport. Given time, the negotiating team knew that I would try and move the dialogue onto the here and now, the situation that we found ourselves in and how we might peacefully resolve it. Whoever it was speaking in my earpiece just needed to listen … and to back off.
‘So you get the picture?’ said Doug.
‘I think so. When they tried the station stamp stunt on you it triggered a reaction.’
‘They don’t know how close we came, how close I came to going the same way as those two lads.’
‘Last night, you mean.’
‘No, no, no … not then! I mean back in Ireland. Now listen…’
I listened. I listened while another soldier-turned-cop explained how he had faced death at the hands of a mob. He explained how, just three days after the Andersonstown murders he had been called with his mates from the Royal Scots as back-up to support some lads who were under attack by rioters in the Enniskillen area. About a hundred youths were throwing rocks and petrol bombs and had managed to set an RUC Land Rover ablaze. The soldiers had been well armed – all carrying the SLR – the .762 calibre self-loading rifle – but their rules of engagement prevented them from opening fire. None of them wanted to be facing a murder charge for shooting a petrol bomber.
With the smoke from the burning Land Rover and numerous other small fires blocking their vision, Doug and five other young squaddies had become separated from their main force. The rioters had spotted the opportunity, upped the volume of missiles and had eventually driven the small group of soldiers into a cul-de-sac, a blocked off street with no escape route other than straight through the missile throwers.
The soldiers were isolated and frightened. They faced being burned, hit by a rock, or worse, if a gunman should target them. They pointed their weapons at the youths but were met by jeers and an increasing level of missiles as the crowd drew closer. Doug then described what had happened next.
‘We panicked. I don’t mind telling you, I was fuckin’ bricking it. They were kids, just like us. We were scared of them and scared of opening up on them. I kept thinking, this isn’t happening; it’s some kind of crazy nightmare. One of the lads got burning petrol on his legs. Just as we’re trying to put it out one of the scum tried to grab his SLR. Fuck me, it all kicked off then. I had my safety off and was gonna shoot the fucker when, out of nowhere, an armoured RUC truck came up behind the rioters. They legged it.’
‘Nick of time.’
‘Exactly. But we were kids, Mr Finlay. We’d all heard stories about what the IRA did to people they captured, and we’d all seen what happened to the two signallers. We thought we were goners. My mouth was dry as sandpaper; I couldn’t even talk about it for ages after.’
‘What happened to the lad that was on fire?’
‘Ah, he was OK. The flames didn’t touch his skin. He got pissed up like the rest of us, but that was no cure. Now it seems that every time I get crowded in, memories of that day just blot everything else out. I lose it … just lose it, and woe betide anyone close to me.’
‘So, why did you need me to hear you out?’
‘Like I said. McNeil says you are a top bloke and that you were someone the lads knew they could turn to if they were in the shit.’
‘But that was twenty-odd years ago?’
‘I know, I’m sorry. I should have explained. I heard what happened to you last year when the Real IRA tried to blow you up. Rumour was that a copper who’d been SAS had been the target. I asked McNeil, he made a call to Hereford and in no time, we knew it was you. I’m kinda hoping that you’ll put in a good word for me. I’m finished in the job, I know that, but I’ve still got a family and responsibilities. If I go down for this, if they stick me in prison, they’ll be the ones that suffer.’
‘It would help if you came out now, surrendered straight away.’ That would give me two minutes, I thought. Enough time to ask him where I could find McNeil.
‘Only if you promise to speak up for me, to explain. It’s only people like you and me understand, boss.’
Giving such an undertaking wasn’t going to be too difficult. The bigger question was whether it would have any effect. I was mulling things over in my mind when an object slid across the floor from beneath the cubicle door. It came to a stop right between my feet. I looked down. It was a small knife, maybe a four-inch blade, stainless steel and with a black handle. There was a dark stain on the blade that looked like blood.
‘Doug,’ I said. ‘Your knife ended up right between my feet. Can I assume this means that you’re coming out?’
I spoke clearly, aware that my words were being intently listened to. The control room would now know that the weapon was secure and that a peaceful resolution was within my grasp.
‘Entry team stand down.’ The words in my earpiece were clear. The door behind me wasn’t about to burst open. I might just get the chance I needed.
I leaned down, deftly picked up the knife by the tip of the handle and, with my free hand, opened the door behind me. Sue was on the other side. She held out a clear-plastic weapons tube. I dropped the knife in and turned back towards the room.
‘Doug, I’ve just given the knife to someone in the corridor and I can confirm that it’s safe for you to come out.’
The cubicle door creaked further opened. A figure emerged.
Doug Powell looked dead beat. He was in shirt sleeves, his clip-on tie tucked through an epaulette over his left shoulder. His white shirt was splattered with blood and bore all the tell-tale creases and dirt marks of the scuffle that had caused his violent reaction. He half smiled and then did something that caught me completely by surprise. He held out his right hand.
I held back for a moment, unsure whether I was being tricked or whether the greeting was genuine. I nodded and winked at him. As I held out my own hand, I trusted that my message was clear.
Whatever I could do to help, I would.