Adrian McKinty - The Cold Cold Ground

“Wrecks her hair, doesn’t it,” Matty offered.

5 a.m. Templepatrick

The army had the whole village sewn up and a brigadier general told Brennan that we were surplus to requirements.

“We were ordered up at four in the morning for this!” Brennan said furiously and after some negotiation we were allowed to set up our three Land Rovers further along the road.

“They’re on the way! Attention!” one of the squaddies yelled and the soldiers stiffened. We did not. Instead we fidgeted in our body armour and Crabbie explained to the reserve constables that because this was both out of regular hours and perilous we could claim hardship allowance and danger money at the same time.

At 5.30 a.m. two police motorcycles were the heralds for two fast-moving army Land Rovers, two equally speedy police Land Rovers and two bullet-proofed Jaguars that presumably contained the Prime Minister and her staff.

I didn’t see her. All I saw was a blur.

“Was that it?” Matty asked me. Nobody knew the answer and we got back in the Rovers feeling deflated.

Fifteen minutes later on the way back to Carrickfergus we were diverted to young Shane Davidson’s muse, the Kilroot Power Station, where there was trouble.

6.10 a.m. Kilroot

Two dozen workers backed by another hundred and fifty men from God knows where had formed an illegal picket line in front of the power plant. The shift change was trying to get in and if they couldn’t all the lights in north Belfast and East Antrim would be out, which wouldn’t impress Mrs Thatcher during her news conference about how everything in Ulster was just tickety boo.

We parked the Land Rovers a hundred metres away.

“Machine guns away, lads,” Brennan ordered and we advanced with side arms only. In my case this was an easy instruction to obey since my SMG was still back on my hall table in Coronation Road.

“You lads wait here, I’ll go talk to the fucking scum,” Brennan said with the diplomatic savoir faire we had all grown to know and love.

“I’ll go with you,” Sergeant Burke said and McCallister gave me the nod. I sighed and joined them. We walked to the picketers who were holding up signs that said “Thatcher = Traitor” and “No Deals With Terrorsits [ sic ]”.

The headman was frickin Councillor George frickin Seawright who was rapidly becoming the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of my little drama.

“You have to let the day shift in. This is an illegal picket!” Brennan said in a voice that you could have heard at the top of the power station’s six-hundred-foot chimney.

“We will not countenance deals with the blackguards in the H Blocks! Mrs Thatcher and the British government will know our wrath as the Amalekites knew the wrath of the Lord! Just as the Sodomites have tasted the fruits of their evil ways. Just as the Antichrist in Rome felt the wrath of the Lord’s divine justice!” Seawright yelled in his apocalyptic Glaswegian accent.

Chief Inspector Brennan hooked his thumbs under the Velcro straps of his flak jacket. “I just saw Mrs Thatcher. We were part of the honour guard at the airport and after telling us what a lovely day it was she assured us all to a man that no deal would ever be done with IRA terrorists!”

There was a cheer from some of the picketers. Seawright seemed to waver and Brennan grabbed the initiative. “Ok, lads, you’ve had your fun, now let these hard-working lads through to do their job!”

“Aye, let them though,” someone yelled from the crowd.

I walked over to the first car waiting beyond the picket line.

The driver was a thin, jumpy young man with tissue paper plastered over his shaving cuts.

“Drive in, mate, don’t stop and you’ll be fine,” I told him.

“It’s me mother-in-law’s car. She’ll go ape if they break me windows.”

“Didn’t I just say you’d be fine? Drive, or I’ll bust your bloody windows.”

He set off and the others followed behind. And with that the night shift went in and day shift came out and heat and light and power flowed to the citizens of Ulster and for once the Amalekites were triumphant.

7 a.m. Carrickfergus

Back in the RUC station we began hearing rumours that not one but two hunger strikers had been given extreme unction (or as the Proddies insisted upon calling it — the last rites).

Two hunger strikers on the same day. Jesus. Already shops and businesses in Belfast were telling their staff to stay away in anticipation of a massive riot.

Mrs Thatcher had planned a full day of events but at 8.15 she flew out on an RAF aircraft to London, which could only mean one thing: the rumours were bloody true.

I somehow kept my eyes open until 9.15 and then I walked home, checked under the Beemer for bombs and drove to Ballycarry.

10.30 a.m. Ballycarry

A country chapel overlooking Larne Lough and Islandmagee and beyond that the North Channel and the blue, hazy outline of Scotland.

Lucy’s Moore’s coffin just in front of the font where, presumably, she had been baptized and confirmed.

“Lucy Mary Patricia O’Neill,” the Priest said.

They had given her double protection. The mother of God. The patron saint of Ireland. It hadn’t helped. About fifty people were crammed into the chapel.

I watched and listened. Prayed.

The service ended in tears.

She was waked at The Harp and Thistle four doors down the street. I went there and took a cup of tea and a sandwich and sat by myself.

I wasn’t going to impose. This wasn’t the appropriate venue. Claire, the sister, came to me. I didn’t go to Claire.

“You’re the peeler?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Let’s talk outside.”

We walked round the back of the pub. Sheep fields and Larne Lough and the North Channel and Scotland again.

“Kill for a ciggie,” she said.

I gave her one of mine and lit it for her.

She was a chubby, attractive lass, about thirty, with dirty-blonde hair in a Lady Di haircut.

She pointed back at the chapel. “We had to get special dispensation because of the suicide thing.”

I knew what she meant.

We smoked and didn’t say anything.

“Go on, ask the questions you’ve been asking everyone else,” she said.

“Did she ever confide in you about the baby? Make you promise not to tell your parents?”

“Nope. We weren’t that close. Big age gap. But still, a thing like that …”

“After she went away did she ever call you?”

“No.”

“When was the last time you got any communication from her?”

“About a month ago. A wee letter. More of a note really. Posted in the north. I looked at it yesterday. There were a few others before that. They don’t really tell you anything except that she was alive.”

“She never mentioned that she was pregnant in any of them?” I asked.

“Not once. I still can’t really believe that.”

“She was pregnant. And she did give birth.”

“Then why? Why would she kill herself?” Claire said.

“I don’t know. I’d like to see those letters, especially the later ones. When you get back to Dublin, you couldn’t send them on to me at Carrickfergus RUC?”

“Of course … I don’t think they’ll help you though. There was nothing odd in any of them. Except of course that the whole thing was odd. Running off. Running off to the Republic. And why wouldn’t she mention that she was up the spout? To me? Her sister?”

“Because she knew she was going to have to give the baby away. She wasn’t going to have the abortion, but for some reason she couldn’t keep the baby.”

“What reason?”

“I don’t know.”