James Craig - What Dies Inside

The scowl grew deeper. ‘So?’

‘So,’ he smiled, ‘I need you to tell me where he is.’

‘No idea,’ she shrugged. ‘I haven’t seen Gerry for ages.’

Stepping away from the doorway, Cahill reached down to pick up his underpants. ‘I know you’re lying, but I couldn’t give a fuck, one way or the other. You’ve got twenty-four hours to find the little wanker for me.’

‘How am I supposed to do that?’ she sneered. ‘He could be anywhere.’

‘That’s your problem,’ Cahill replied, carefully sticking one leg into the pants, wobbling slightly but just about managing not to fall over. ‘Find him, or it’ll be time for me to see if they’ve got a spare cell in Holloway — with your name on it.’

Martin Palmer took a bite out of his jumbo iced finger and chewed happily. It was his second pastry in quick succession but he felt no sense of guilt. Sitting in the otherwise empty cafe in the middle of this desolate part of West London, it seemed to him that comfort-eating was entirely acceptable. Indeed, if it wasn’t for the fact that his mother persisted with her ludicrous attempts at getting him to stick to a diet, he wouldn’t even have given the matter a second thought. When would the stupid cow realise that he was still a growing lad with a naturally healthy appetite? His increasing weight was a sign of rude good health. On the spot, he made a vow that the next time she tried to fob him off with a plate of fish and steamed vegetables, he would throw it back at her.

From behind the counter, a radio played Stevie Wonder’s, ‘I Just Called To Say I Love You.’ Happily mumbling the chorus to himself, Palmer shoved the remains of the cake into his mouth, washing it down with a swig of tea, and let his gaze return to the yellowing newspaper cutting lying on the table. The news story, from The Times , was the total sum of the intelligence MI5 had collected on Rose Murray in the last eighteen months.

English heiress turned IRA sympathiser given a suspended sentence

ROSE MURRAY, daughter of an English Baron, was given a suspended six-year jail sentence at the Old Bailey yesterday after taking part in a bungled raid on her father’s London flat in an attempt to raise funds for the IRA.

Murray and two accomplices were arrested by police in possession of a haul of Old Master paintings and a selection of other valuable artworks, after Clive Wilson, a doorman in the building, raised the alarm. Trying to make good their escape, gang member Terence Donovan attacked Healey with a hammer, causing him serious head injuries which have left him permanently disabled.

Donovan was given a ten year sentence, while Ivor Hogan was given eighteen years. Citing Murray’s previous good character and taking account of evidence that she had been coerced into taking part in the attack by Donovan, her lover at the time, the judge, Sir Reginald Walsh, decided that the heiress should be spared jail. ‘I trust,’ he said, summing up, ‘that you have learned a valuable lesson in all of this and that your dalliance with dangerous men like these is now over.’

Head bowed, a tearful Murray mouthed ‘thank you’ from the dock before she was whisked away to an unknown location.

Murray, 24, has enjoyed a privileged upbringing. Her father, Baron Murray of Sheffield, is a landowner descended from King Charles II and a staunch supporter of the government’s fight against Republican terrorists. After attending the exclusive Latymer School for Girls in North London, where fees run to almost?700 a term, Murray went to Oxford, where she was captain of the university lacrosse team. It was at a debate at the Oxford Union that her radicalisation began. When Sinn Fein poster boy Brendan Keating turned up to support a motion calling for the end of the British ‘occupation’ of Ireland, Murray was swept off her feet. They had a short and tempestuous affair, at the end of which she had abandoned her studies, renounced her family and dived headlong in to the murky world of London’s Irish community.

Rose’s mother, the former debutante and stalwart of the Home Counties social scene Jacintha White, has loudly and publicly disowned her daughter on more than one occasion. Her father, however, has maintained a dignified silence. While friends say that the Baron is mortified by his daughter’s antics, he hopes that things will eventually sort themselves out. Father and daughter had been estranged for several years before the botched robbery. There has been recent talk of a possible reconciliation, but this has yet to be confirmed.

Re-reading the piece, Palmer snorted with disgust. ‘What a load of old nonsense!’ The girl behind the counter gave him a funny look, but said nothing. As he slipped the article back into his pocket, he contemplated the deal that Murray was rumoured to have struck with Special Branch whereby, in exchange for staying out of jail, she had agreed to snitch on her terrorist chums.

It sounded plausible enough but begged one important question: if Rose was keeping up her end of the deal, why hadn’t they caught Durkan yet?

By all accounts, as far as Rose Murray was concerned, Durkan was rather more than a ‘chum’. According to the Gower Street gossip, the little so-and-so had gotten her pregnant. She hadn’t kept the baby, but the couple were still an item. ‘I’m sure that the Baron is delighted,’ Palmer grunted to himself as he watched the backed-up traffic slowly grind to a halt on the road outside.

Finishing his tea, he was contemplating asking for a third cake when he looked up just in time to see Murray herself appear from the front door of Harding Smith House. Pausing on the pavement, she seemed unsure which direction to take, before turning to her right and heading off towards the tube station at a brisk pace. Palmer hesitated. Should he follow the woman? Or should he search the flat? As he hummed and hawed, Murray disappeared down a side street and the decision was made for him. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a selection of coins while peering at the bill that had been left under his plate. Carefully counting out the correct amount, plus a small tip, he placed the money on the table and struggled to his feet, heading for the door.

Named after a long-forgotten politician, Harding Smith House was a 28-storey, 198-unit North Kensington tower block designed in the 1960s by Hungarian architect Erno Goldfinger. A sinister-looking building, with a separate lift and service tower, it was built by the Greater London Council in the early 1970s as social housing, just at the time when tower blocks were going out of fashion. A familiar procession of horror stories about women being raped in lifts and children being offered drugs led to the block being described by the local MP as ‘the worst place to live in London’. Under newly introduced ‘right to buy’ legislation, Mrs Thatcher’s government was trying to sell the flats to tenants at rock-bottom prices, in the hope that that would lead residents to drive an improvement in living conditions.

As of right now, that hope was still to be realised. Like an intrepid explorer, Martin Palmer tentatively made his way through the lobby of the building, head down as he tried to avoid stepping in something unpleasant. Even breathing through his mouth, he was almost overwhelmed by the stench of ammonia that came from every corner. As he approached the lifts, Palmer nervously patted the Browning Hi-Power in the pocket of his jacket. If any of the natives came after him, at least he could defend himself. Rose Murray had a flat on the sixteenth floor. Relieved that the lifts were working, Palmer pressed the button and waited patiently. When one finally arrived, the door shuddered open and an emaciated man scuttled out, head bowed. Ignoring the MI5 agent, he skipped towards the front door and disappeared on to the street. Just another junkie loser , Palmer thought grimly as he stepped inside, still breathing through his mouth.