Stephen Leather - The Bombmaker

'What the hell's going on?' asked Martin.

Denham pulled an apologetic face. 'Not here,' he said.

Martin looked down at his socks. 'They took my shoes. And my belt.'

'I do apologise for that,' said Patsy. The custody sergeant handed Martin his belongings. The two Special Branch officers waited while Martin sat down on his bunk and slipped on his shoes and belt, then they escorted him from the cell block, through the custody reception area and up a flight of stairs to a white-tiled canteen, where a group of uniformed officers were drinking coffee.

'Tea?' asked Denham.

'Coffee. White. One sugar.'

'Let me get them, Liam,' said Patsy. She went over to the counter while Martin and Denham sat at a corner table.

Denham dropped his tweed hat on to the table. There was a small red fishing fly close to the brim. 'You don't fish, do you?' he asked as he sat down.

'No. No, I don't. Sorry.' Martin felt suddenly ridiculous apologising for not being an angler. 'Look, what the hell's this all about?'

'Let's wait for Patsy, shall we?' said Denham. 'Save us going over the same ground twice.'

Patsy came over with three mugs on a tray. She nodded at one. 'That's yours, Mr Hayes. I put the sugar in for you.' Martin took his mug. Patsy put the tray down and passed one of the mugs over to Denham. He sipped his tea, then nodded his appreciation at Patsy as she sat down.

'How long have you known your wife, Mr Hayes?' asked Denham.

'Ten years.'

'And you met where?'

'Trinity. She was studying English literature.'

'And do you know what she did before that?'

Martin stared at the man for several seconds. Denham returned his stare with no trace of embarrassment, waiting for him to speak. 'No, not really,' said Martin eventually.

'What we're going to tell you is going to be something of a surprise, I'm afraid,' said Denham. 'A revelation. Please, bear in mind that we're here to help you.'

'We're on your side,' added Patsy.

They nodded in unison. Martin felt as if he were a child being humoured by two adults, and he resented the way they were treating him. He had a sudden urge to bang his hands on the table, to scream at them to stop patronising him and to find his wife and daughter. He forced himself to stay calm. He couldn't afford to lose his temper, not in a canteen full of policemen. 'Just tell me what the hell is going on,' he said.

Denham and Patsy looked at each other. There was an almost imperceptible nod from Patsy, as if she were giving Denham permission to go ahead. Martin wondered what role she played in Special Branch. Denham had retired, so maybe she'd taken over his job. Or perhaps she'd been his superior.

'Your wife, Mr Hayes, was once an IRA bombmaker.'

Martin's head swam. The walls of the canteen seemed to bulge in and out, and for a moment he felt as if he was going to faint. His eyelids fluttered and he tried to speak but no words would come. A feeble 'What?' was all he could manage.

'She manufactured explosive devices for the Provisional Irish Republican Army.'

'No,' said Martin flatly. 'You're not talking about my wife.'

'It was before she was your wife,' said Denham. 'When she was in her early twenties. Before she met you.'

'You're telling me that my wife is a terrorist?'

'Oh no,' said Denham quickly. 'Oh no, that's not the situation at all.'

'But you said she was an IRA bombmaker?'

'She was recruited by the IRA during her final year of university.'

'At Trinity?'

Denham shook his head. 'Queen's University. Belfast. She got a first in electrical engineering.'

Martin laughed out loud. 'Andy can't change a plug,' he said.

Denham took a packet of cigarettes and a silver lighter from the pocket of his raincoat. 'She was recruited by her boyfriend at the time, and was trained by one of their most experienced bombmakers. He was killed a year after she graduated.'

'The boyfriend?'

Denham smiled thinly. 'The bombmaker. Her mentor. She took his place. But by that time, she was working for us.' Denham put a cigarette between his lips but Patsy pointed at a sign on the wall. NO SMOKING. Denham groaned and put the cigarette back into the packet.

'Hang on a minute,' interrupted Martin. 'First you tell me she's an IRA terrorist, now you're saying she works for Special Branch?'

'Worked,' said Patsy. 'Past tense. This is all past tense, Mr Hayes.'

'She'd never really been political,' continued Denham. 'I think she got talked into it by the boyfriend.' Patsy flashed Denham a warning look and he smiled at Martin. 'Ex-boyfriend,' he said. 'They were only together for six months or so. He probably only got close to recruit her.'

Patsy was smiling at Martin again, as if trying to let him know that Andy's love for him wasn't in dispute.

'We'd had her under surveillance, almost from the moment she was recruited, but she got wind of it. Smart girl, she was. Took the wind out of our sails by approaching us. We persuaded her to stay with them. Did a hell of a job, for nigh on three years. Until the accident.'

'Accident?'

Denham scratched at a small wine-coloured birthmark on his neck. 'She'd let us know where her bombs were going to be used, and what sort they were. Our bomb disposal boys always had the edge. They knew which ones were booby-trapped, and how. Some we'd let explode, providing there was no risk of loss of life. We'd release stories to the media that soldiers had been killed, or that a bomb disposal officer had died. Others we'd pretend to stumble on. Get the army to send a patrol through the area, maybe have a guy out walking his dog pretend to find it. There were a million and one ways to make it look as if the IRA had just been unlucky.'

There was a peal of laughter from the uniformed policemen at the neighbouring table, and Denham waited for the noise to die down before continuing.

'Your wife saved many, many lives, Mr Hayes. She deserved a medal. She played a most dangerous game -not a day went by when her own life wasn't on the line.' He paused, tapping his fingers on the packet of cigarettes. 'What happened was a terrible, terrible accident. A small bomb, a few pounds of Semtex. Set to go off with a timer. It had been placed on the Belfast-to-Dublin rail line, under a bridge. There were two booby traps – a mercury tilt switch, and a photoelectric cell. Nothing major – the bomb disposal boys were dealing with half a dozen similar bombs every week. Your wife had tipped us off that the bomb was being set, but she didn't know where on the line it was going to be placed. We were waiting for the coded call.'

Patsy sipped her tea, her eyes never leaving Martin's face, as if she were assessing his reactions to what Denham was telling him.

'The call came, but before we could react to it, a group of schoolchildren found the bomb.'

'Jesus Christ,' whispered Martin as he realised where the story was heading.

Denham nodded. He moved his face closer to Martin's and kept his voice barely above a whisper. 'Four boys died. One crippled for life. It wasn't her fault. It wasn't anybody's fault. It was just one of those things.'

'Jesus Christ,' said Martin again. He slumped back in his seat.

'Drink your tea,' said Patsy.

Martin lifted his mug to his lips, barely conscious of what he was doing or where he was. The Andy he knew, the woman he'd married, the woman he'd shared a bed with for almost a decade, had nothing in common with the woman that Denham was talking about. An IRA bombmaker? A Special Branch informer?

'She walked away,' said Denham. 'Told her IRA bosses that she'd built her last bomb. Told us the same. They tried to talk her out of it, and so did we. But she was adamant.'

Martin remembered how Andy had always hated to see reports of bombings on television. How she'd sat with tears streaming down her face on the day that the bomb went off in Omagh in Northern Ireland, killing twenty-eight people. He'd sat on the sofa next to her, holding her but powerless to stop her tears. At the time he thought he understood why she was so upset. Everyone in Ireland was shocked to the core by the horror of the bombing, but now he knew that there was another reason for Andy's grief. She'd had to live with the deaths of four innocents on her conscience, and knowing what a loving, caring, sensitive person she was, he realised that the strain must have been unbearable.