The Minister of State for Northern Ireland, Edward Hargreaves MP, teed off in afternoon sunlight. He shaded his eyes as the ball soared up and away into the sky above the Old Course at St Andrews. It drifted, veering to the left, and began a slow descent. It bounced three times and disappeared into a patch of gorse.
“Bastard,” he said, and handed the club to the caddy without looking at him.
“Bad luck, Minister,” the third man present said as he placed his tee. A gun bulged at the small of Compton’s back as he bent over.
Hargreaves was glad his new Personal Protection Officer was reasonably affable, unlike the sour fellow he’d had before, but did they have to give him someone so good at golf? Compton’s perfect swing sent the ball off to land precisely between two bunkers, an easy chip away from the green.
Today had been rotten so far, and would likely worsen. The phone at Hargreaves’s hotel bedside had woken him at eight, bearing bad news. Hargreaves had found Michael McKenna to be entirely objectionable on the few occasions they’d met, so he felt no grief, but the trouble his killing would stir could derail years of hard work.
The hard work of Hargreaves and the Secretary of State’s predecessors, admittedly, but still.
God help him, he might even have to visit the forsaken place again this month. He’d just returned from a solid week there, and surely that was enough? Had it been up to Hargreaves he would have cut the hellish waste of land adrift years ago. But there were those in government, and in royalty, who felt some misguided sense of duty to the six counties across the sea, so it was his burden to carry.
Now Northern Ireland’s factions had finally agreed to share governance amongst themselves, Hargreaves’s role was largely a matter of passing papers on to the Secretary for signing, so it wasn’t altogether a disaster. Just as long as the natives behaved, that was.
The phone in his pocket vibrated. The call he dreaded. He answered it with a heavy heart.
A woman’s voice said, “The Chief Constable is ready to speak with you now, Minister. It’s a secure line. Go ahead.”
“Good afternoon, Geoff,” Hargreaves said. “What have you got?”
“Not a great deal,” Pilkington said.
Hargreaves didn’t like the Chief Constable, but he respected him. Geoff Pilkington was a hard man who had worked the streets of Manchester before climbing the ranks. He was one of the few Chief Constables who had done any real police work in his career, rather than using a public school and Oxbridge education to grease his way into the position. He took grief from no one, but had a keen political savvy that belied his rough exterior. He knew when to shout, and when to whisper. If Pilkington had aimed for Parliament instead of the senior ranks of the force, Hargreaves was sure he’d have been in the Cabinet by now. He had taken the top job in the Police Service of Northern Ireland as it completed its transition from the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and it had been a testing time. But he had weathered it, achieving the impossible by earning the respect of the whole of Northern Ireland society, albeit begrudgingly from some quarters.
“Who was it?” Hargreaves asked. “Loyalists? Dissidents?”
“Neither, we think. It was done at close range, no sign of a struggle. We’re pretty sure it was someone he knew.”
“His own people?” Hargreaves walked after his ball, Compton and the caddy following.
“Unlikely,” Pilkington said. “There’s been no indication of a split. Even if there was, they wouldn’t want to rock the boat. Not now they’ve got their feet under the table at Stormont.”
“Then who? I have to tell the Secretary something.”
“We know he was doing business with some Lithuanians, bringing illegals up over the border from Dublin. Girls, mostly, for the sex trade.”
“I didn’t think McKenna’s lot were into all that. More the Loyalists’ forte.”
“The official line from the party is no criminal activity at all, but they don’t control what individuals choose to do. Leaves people like McKenna with a little more freedom to operate. If there’s money in it, they’ll do it. And whatever the party says, the money still flows uphill.”
It never ceased to amaze Hargreaves that people would vote for criminals in full knowledge of their nature. He doubted there was a more cynical electorate in the world. The average Northern Irish pleb could read between the lines of a speech better than any professional political analyst, disbelieving every treacherous word. Yet still they voted as predictably, election after election. He wondered why they didn’t just have a sectarian headcount every four years and be done with it.
He’d desperately hoped for a Cabinet spot, anything, in the last reshuffle. As it turned out, he didn’t even get Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the job no one wanted. No, he was the fucking assistant to the job no one wanted. He ground his teeth as he walked.
“So, do you have anything to link them?” Hargreaves asked.
“Not directly. We’ve very little solid information to go on at the minute.”
“What do you have?” Hargreaves stopped to allow Compton and the caddy to catch up. He would bring Compton jogging in the morning, get him match fit.
“We’ve got his last movements. He owned a bar on the Springfield Road. His brother’s name’s on the licence, but it was his. He gave a drunk a lift home from there, then the barman received a call from him thirty to forty-five minutes later. He said he’d left the drunk home, then gone to the docks to meet someone on a matter of business. We’re still checking CCTV footage from the route, but what we’ve got so far shows him driving alone. The last camera caught him on York Street, turning under the M3 flyover and into the docks. We reckon whoever did it met him there. Forensics are still going over the car, but I doubt they’ll get much. It was a clean job. Professional.”
Hargreaves felt a small trickle of relief. “So, we don’t think it was political, then? I don’t need to tell you how troublesome it would be otherwise.”
“No, Minister, you don’t. Early indications are a business deal gone sour. We’ve already questioned the drunk, but he didn’t know much, despite who he is.”
The trickle of relief halted, and Hargreaves set off towards his ball again. “What do you mean? Who is he?”
“Gerald Fegan. He’s suspected of as many as twelve murders, two while he was on compassionate leave from prison for his mother’s funeral. He was convicted of the butcher’s shop bombing on the Shankill in 1988. Three died in that, including a mother and her baby. He was a foot soldier, and one of their best, or worst, depending on your point of view. A killer, plain and simple.”
“And he isn’t a suspect?”
“Not at the moment. He’s been quiet as a mouse since he got early release in . . .”
Hargreaves heard the shuffling of paper.
“At the start of 2000. From what I understand, he’d been suffering some psychological problems before his release, and he’s taken to drink in recent times.”
The trickle of relief started again. “I see,” Hargreaves said as he neared the gorse patch that had devoured his ball. “So, it’s not political. Let’s try and keep it that way, shall we?”
“Of course, Minister. The politicians on all sides are gearing up to make the most of it, but that’s only to be expected. Don’t worry, we’ll keep a lid on it.”
“Good man,” Hargreaves said. He hung up and returned the phone to his pocket as he kicked at the gorse. “Now, where’s that bastard ball?”