/News/World/Politics/14.06.98: London, England. Unionists and nationalists, loyalists and republicans, Protestants and Catholics came together on Good Friday two months ago in a historic effort to overcome the violence and mistrust of the past, and to forge a new future for the people of Ireland. After three decades of conflict, the deaths of over 3000 people, and the serious wounding of tens of thousands, peace between England and Northern Ireland has finally been achieved with the signing of the Belfast Agreement.
The Democratic Unionist Party remains opposed to the Agreement; however, the majority of paramilitary groups have honored the calls to ceasefire and decommissioned their weapons, while army troops have withdrawn from sensitive border areas. This end to the Troubles has come at high cost, and while the ink is yet fresh on the page, the scale of this achievement cannot be ignored. At last, Northern Ireland's people can glimpse peace./
/Memo
Protective Marking: Secret.
Clearance: Security Check
To: Republicanism Task Force
From: Decade. Chief of London operations, Secret Intelligence Service, Counter-terrorism Section.
Date: May 1, 1998
Subject: New intelligence
The home office is receiving intelligence concerning DUP-backed protests of the Belfast Agreement in London. Date of protests still unknown, though likely to be in the next few months. Leader on the ground is rumored to be D. Fitzgerald, former leader of The Cause and wanted in connection with the 1986 bus depot bombing, among others. Location of Fitzgerald is unknown, though he is suspected to be based in South London. Keep eyes on known associates. If Fitzgerald is sighted, report immediately. Do not engage./
There was a man watching her.
True, a lot of men were casting their eyes on her - this was a pub, they were all drinking, and Brigid knew how to earn herself good tips. This man, though, hadn't ordered a single thing from the bar. And every time she caught a glimpse of him through the press of people, his face was turned directly towards hers.
Her hand drifted towards the cigarette pack that she had stashed just under the counter, but she stopped herself. She wasn't going to let some idiot who wore sunglasses indoors make her nervous. Instead, she grabbed a handful of glasses from the shelf and began filling pints from the tap. The glasses never quite seemed to lose their sticky beer-coat, no matter how many times she washed them. She wondered if the beer just condensed out of the air, like dew. Her grandmother had once told her that dew was laid out by faeries every morning; maybe there were beer faeries as well.
The loud clunk of bottles on the bar made her look up.
"God, my feet are killing me!" Abigail moaned. She was standing at an awkward angle on the other side of the counter, presumably trying to massage one of her aching feet. The mass of dark curly hair pulled high on her head threatened to whip a customer across the face whenever she turned.
Brigid laughed and picked up the tray loaded with empty beer bottles. She dumped the bottles into the bin with a crash of glass. "I told you not to wear those shoes to work." They didn't have any kind of dress code, but Abigail did tend to dress as if she was at some flash club instead of a neighborhood pub. Brigid herself was in her usual work uniform of low-cut black top, dark denim jeans, and black flats. She liked the way the dark colors contrasted with her pale skin and light blond hair. The only adornment that she ever wore was an old wooden-beaded rosary, wrapped thrice around her wrist. Two black and white feathers were tied alongside the cross; they tickled her skin whenever they brushed against it, but she was so used to the feeling that she hardly noticed anymore.
Abigail made a face. "I had to wear them - I'm going straight to George's when the match is over, and he likes the way they make my arse look."
A collective cheer interrupted the two women's conversation. Brigid glanced up at the television screen at the end of the bar. Normally she would have been just as focused on the match as the pub's patrons, but her mind was on other things tonight.
"Hey Abs - you seen that man in here before? The one by himself in the corner?"
Abigail stood on her tiptoes and peered into the crowd; Brigid wished that she wouldn't make it so obvious that she was looking. "The nutter with the sunglasses on?"
Brigid nodded, brushing her long hair back over her shoulder.
"No, I don't think so. What kind of idiot wears sunglasses indoors?"
"No idea," Brigid said. "Just some nutter, probably."
"Oi, Barkeep!" The shout pierced the general hubbub of the room. "Where're those lagers?"
"They're coming, aren't they!" Abigail shouted back.
Brigid loaded the pints that she'd just poured onto a tray; she was about to pass the tray off to Abigail when an impulse struck her. "Why don't we swap," she told her friend. "You can kick off your shoes back here for a while, and I'll do the running out."
The relief was visible on Abigail's face. "Bridge, you're a life saver!" She practically dashed behind the counter. "Watch out for the one in blue, he's handsy."
Brigid took the tray of lagers and made her way deftly through the jostling crowd, dodging the occasional "accidental" hand-to-rear brush with a coy smile and, where she didn't think it would do any harm, a wink. She passed a woman who had just lit a cigarette; Brigid plucked it from her hand and dropped it into the woman's glass.
"Smoking is outside only, house rules."
"Since when?" the woman protested.
"Since two months ago."
The woman cursed her. Brigid knew how she felt.
Her arrival at the group standing directly beneath the television was greeted with a cheer. Half a dozen hands - some more coordinated than others - grabbed at the glasses.
"Here's my oracle!" one of the pub's regulars, Paul, said. He threw an arm around Brigid's shoulders, staggering a little as he did so. "I've got twenty quid on Manchester, they're down by one, and Dougie has offered me double or nothing. Shall I take it?"
"Take it," Brigid said with full confidence. She tucked the now empty tray under her arm, and used the motion to dislodge Paul's arm. "Barclay always gets his mojo back before the end."
"Come on now, that's cheating!" Dougie interjected. "She's always right, you can't ask her!"
They'd had too much to drink already, Brigid could tell. She didn't want an argument to start. "I'm not always right, you know that, Dougie. Anyway, you could make the same guess too, if you only paid attention. People will tell you anything if you watch them long enough." This brought her mind uncomfortably back to the man who was still watching her from the corner. "Then you wouldn't be about to lose forty quid. Barclay's been using this lame duck strategy off and on all season."
"I'd like to watch you for a while," Paul said, grinning stupidly.
Brigid smiled back at him. "James might have a problem with that."
"Where is that git, anyway?" one of Paul's friends asked. "Haven't seen him all night."
"Business meeting," Brigid said vaguely.
"In the middle of a match? Mental."
A mix of cheers and groans brought the group's attention back to the match, and Brigid used the opportunity to slip back into the crowd. She made her way around the room slowly, taking drink orders and scooping up empty glasses and bottles. Every now and then she stopped to chat for a minute with some regulars.
At last, her tray full again, she stopped at the stranger's corner. A small group of friends was sharing one side of his table, but he was making no effort to interact with them, or even to make it appear that he was part of their group. Either he wanted her to notice him watching her, or he was too inept to realize his mistakes.
Or he was just a nutter. You never could be sure in Chiswick.
He was still wearing his sunglasses; the cheery lights of the pub were mirrored back to her beneath a rakish mop of blond hair, keeping her from reading his expression. It was a cheap trick, one that government men favored. But now that she was right in front of him, she could see that his white linen suit was of good quality, and he wore it as if he'd been born wearing a suit. More likely a businessman down from the city, then.
Brigid balanced her tray carefully and stood in front of him with one hand on her hip. "Something you'd like?" she asked with a sweet, ever-so-slightly suggestive smile. The man's expression didn't change from the cocky half-smile that he'd been wearing all evening, and his eyes - or sunglasses, anyway - never left her face.
"A cranberry juice, if you'd be so kind," he said in a pleasant voice.
Brigid raised an eyebrow. "That it?"
"For now." Was there a suggestion in his tone? She couldn't tell. In any case, he didn't appear to be rising to her bait at all.
"Be right out," she said. As soon as her back was to him, her smile turned into a scowl. Smarmy git. Who wears a white suit to a pub, and doesn't drink? And she still didn't have any better idea as to who he was or what he wanted.
She deposited her tray on the bar counter and pulled a cigarette from her hidden pack. She could run out the back, take a couple of puffs, and be back before anyone noticed. "Abs, I need four pints of beer, a stout, and a cran." She flicked on her lighter as she turned to go, but before she could so much as inhale, the cigarette was snatched from her lips.
"What's wrong, love? Someone bothering you?" James asked; she hadn't noticed him emerge from the back room.
"Nothing I can't handle on my own," she said, a little defensively. She wouldn't mention the stranger; no sense in getting him worked up over nothing.
James tossed the cigarette into the bin, then wrapped his arms around her, easing her irritation a little. She loved that she could look directly into his eyes without having to stand on her toes. Even if it meant that he didn't like her wearing high heels; but they hurt her feet anyway.
"Have you had your apple yet today?" he asked, again.
She suppressed a fresh surge of irritation. She was so sick of bloody apples; but she shouldn't complain. Before James, it had been a long time since anyone had cared so much about her well-being. "I had one at lunch, remember?" Brigid ran her fingers through his thick, curly brown hair, then lowered her voice. "There's no need to be so nervous."
"I'm not nervous," he said in that brisk way he had when he was lying. "Are you sure they'll be here? It's getting late."
Brigid kissed him quickly on the lips, then broke away from his embrace to help Abigail fill the drink orders. James followed her behind the bar, distractedly returning greetings from the people who noticed him.
"They'll be here," Brigid said quietly. "Dillon always keeps his word." She grabbed a small glass and went to fill it with cranberry juice; but when she squeezed the nozzle, nothing happened. "Oi, Abs! When was the last time you filled the juice?"
Abigail was down the other end of the bar, passing out bottles of ale. "Dunno," she called back without looking at Brigid. Brigid sighed, and crouched down under the counter in search of a new bottle. She had to move a pair of sparkly silver, four-inch heels out of the way. James leaned down over her.
"How long has it been since you've seen him last?" he said in a tense voice. "Maybe he doesn't always keep his word these days. And anyway, you never talked to him, only his cousin."
Brigid pulled out the new bottle of cranberry juice and stood. James was hovering so close that she barely avoided cracking her head on his jaw. "They'll be here," she said as soothingly as she could, looking longingly at her cigarettes. "Now get back to the office with Dennis before someone drags you out for a chat or a pint."
James bristled a little at being told what to do, but he left. Brigid glanced over at the table in the corner, curious to see what the stranger's reaction would be to seeing her with James; but he was still just watching her with that infuriating non-expression.
"Abs," she called to her friend, "do me a favor and run this juice out to the idiot in the sunglasses."
Abigail's face paled a little, and at first Brigid thought that she was afraid of the man for some reason. But then she asked, "Can I go barefoot?"
Brigid smiled. "No. Put on your shoes."
Brigid surreptitiously watched her friend weave through the crowd on her spiked silver heels, the cranberry juice sloshing dangerously in its glass. Abigail reached the stranger's table without incident - but just as she was leaning forward to hand over the drink, a woman in the crowd bumped up against her. Abigail had been waitressing for half her life, and Brigid had seen her save entire trays full of glasses from just such a threat without ever missing a step.
This time, however, Abigail let one of her heels fold underneath her ankle, and she pitched forward onto the table. The glassful of juice arched through the air and landed with a splash onto the man's fine white jacket. He pushed his chair back with a startled cry, then looked back up at Brigid, his suit dripping.
Brigid pretended not to have seen, and set about clearing empty bottles off the bar. She was hard-pressed to keep a smug smile from her face. So, he was human after all.
Apart from his initial surprise, the stranger responded with good grace, allowing Abigail to help mop up the excess juice from his jacket. Then he resumed his seat at the table, and resumed watching Brigid. Brigid clenched her jaw a little in frustration. Just what the hell did he want here?
"He said don't bother bringing another," Abigail said as she returned to the bar with the empty glass and a handful of napkins dripping red juice. "You know, for a nutter, he's not hard on the eyes. And that's a nice suit - think he's well off?"
Brigid raised an eyebrow. "Going to throw George over for a nutter in a fancy suit?" She didn't wait for an answer, and pushed a fresh tray of drinks over. "Here, for Paul and the gang." The match was in its final seconds, and Manchester had pulled ahead.
Abigail started to protest the errand, but at Brigid's look she closed her mouth and took the tray. It was the woman's own bloody fault for wearing those stupid shoes. She was off shortly anyway, while Brigid looked to be stuck here with the stranger all night. He hadn't even gone to the washroom to clean up.
As the match wound to a close, the current of the pub began to change. Many left, taking celebrations or commiserations out into the street, while others - regulars, mostly - settled into tables for quieter conversations. Brigid payed little attention to the opening and closing of the door, and so it was with a jolt of surprise that she turned from wiping down the back counter to see a pair of familiar green eyes looking back at her from across the room.
He looked the same as he always had. Tall; deep brown hair tinged with red. The laugh lines around his eyes were new, but then he was always laughing, Dillon was. There was a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth even now.
She used to imagine what she might say if she bumped into him out of the blue again, after so long. How long had it been? She'd tried to count the years a few times since running into Eddie last month, but most of those days had passed in a blur of cheap cigarettes and even cheaper whiskey. Not that her time with Dillon had been any different.
She'd tried to decide what she would say, knowing that she was going to see him again tonight - but she hadn't been able to think of a single thing.
But it didn't matter, because she couldn't risk speaking to him with that stranger watching. She didn't trust men in suits on principle.
Instead, she threw Dillon a quick hand signal, one that they'd used in the old days. Left door, it meant. Dillon winked back, and with a nod at the two men who were with him, led the way into the hallway behind the bar, where the washrooms and the back office were located. It was an effort, but Brigid managed to prevent herself from watching them go; her heart was pounding in a way that it hadn't done in a long time. She didn't know if it was from seeing him again, or if it was the thought of getting back into the game after so long. She'd loved the game, almost as much as she'd loved Dillon.
"I'm off then," Abigail said, bringing Brigid back to the present. She limped behind the bar and collected her purse.
"Cheers," Brigid answered with false emotion. She risked a quick glance at the stranger; he didn't appear to have taken any special notice of Dillon or his friends.
Abigail lowered her voice to a whisper. "Are you going to be alright with that man still here? I don't think he knows that you told me to spill the cran on him, but still…"
Brigid laughed, a little genuine mirth creeping back into her voice. "James is in the back" - she'd almost said Dillon - "and the place is hardly empty. And anyway, I can take care of myself." She tapped her foot against the baseball bat that she kept on the floor behind the bar.
Abigail grinned. "Right. Ciao ciao!" They traded air kisses, then Abigail headed out the door.
~~~~o~~~~
Over the next hour, the pub slowly cleared out. Brigid sat and chatted with Paul and his friends for a time. After they'd gone, she busied herself tidying up the pub. It took longer than usual; James usually helped her, but he was still closeted in the back with Dillon and the others. She wished that she was back there too. She couldn't keep the worry from her mind.
However, she couldn't leave the bar yet. There was a couple in one corner, snogging quietly - she was going to have to toss them out soon - and in the other corner, the man in the white suit was still watching her.
She finished drying the last of the glasses and put it away with a loud clink. The kissing couple looked up at last, and made a giggling exit. As soon as the door swung shut behind them, the man in the white suit stood. There was a lurid red stain across his left breast and lapel.
Brigid leaned on the counter, with one foot resting on her baseball bat. The crucifix dangling from her rosary scraped against the wooden counter top with a familiar, reassuring sound, the feathers brushing lightly against her wrist. She ignored the man as he took a seat at the bar, and instead focused on lighting a cigarette. She took one long, glorious drag, and exhaled a stream of smoke. The nicotine hit her bloodstream, and she felt her nerves begin to relax at last. She'd make sure to put it out before James came back.
A polite cough drew her attention to the stranger, who was leaning back in one of the tall bar chairs, as relaxed as he had been all evening.
"You've got red on you," she told him helpfully, and smiled at the flash of irritation that crossed his face.
The man took off his sunglasses and tucked them into his jacket pocket, revealing a pair of light blue eyes. He was young - younger than she was, probably. "It's going to be illegal to smoke in bars soon," he said.
Brigid took another puff. "Then I'd better enjoy it while I can."
"You can make the choice to poison yourself if you like, but secondhand smoke is far more deadly than what you're inhaling, you know."
She'd just about had it with this man. It wasn't generally good business to be rude to the patrons, but she had no desire for his repeat business. He hadn't even bought anything. In fact, he'd cost her one glass of cranberry juice. "If you don't like it, you can leave."
The man smiled at her, a cocky, insolent sort of smile. "I'll go soon enough; but not until I've had a chance to speak with you, Miss Coleman."
Brigid took a long, deliberate drag to mask her surprise. "Then you may as well leave now. My name isn't Coleman, it's Drury."
"Ah yes - your nominal marriage to Mr. James Drury. Although, as your husband's name isn't Drury, but Rafferty, that should make you Mrs. Brigid Rafferty. If you were actually married, that is. Which you aren't."
Brigid narrowed her eyes slightly. "If we're talking about names, shouldn't you be telling me yours?"
The man's smile never wavered. "Of course, how rude of me. My name is Simon - Jack Simon."
He held out his hand, but she didn't take it. Who did he think he was, James Bond?
"Mr. Simon," she said, giving him her sweetest smile, "I'm afraid you're still mistaken. Whether I'm married to James or not is beside the point - my name is Brigid, yes, but I've never had the name Coleman." Out of his line of sight, she used her foot to tip the bat up on end and rested it against her leg and the cabinet, where she could reach it quickly. Just in case.
"No?" Simon's smile widened. "You are the woman that I saw at the South Kensington Tube station a month ago, speaking with Eddie Corrigan. I know, because I followed you back here."
He'd followed her? Shit - she'd never even picked him up. She'd been out of the game for too long. And she'd known that it was a mistake to talk to Eddie; but he'd recognized her, and had been so happy to see her…and she hadn't been able to resist getting news of Dillon.
Simon continued speaking, carefully watching her face for her reactions. "Eddie Corrigan made two trips to this pub in the last month. Interesting, since I've been watching him for some time, and he'd never previously shown any interest in visiting Chiswick. So naturally, my attention turned to the person whom he was visiting - you."
Brigid didn't respond. Her cigarette had burned down to a stub already; she felt a twinge of guilt as she lit another, but ignored it. Smoking helped keep her mind sharp.
"It wasn't easy at first to discover who you are. You appeared in Chiswick four years ago, though where you came from no one has been able to tell me. You began working in this pub, and soon became the lover of the owner, Mr. James Drury, formerly Rafferty. His identity has never been much of a secret; but as he was never a major player nor has any connections to anyone important, we have little interest in him. You, on the other hand…"
Brigid fiddled with her rosary absently, cigarette held loosely in her fingers. "Me?" she asked, when Simon didn't continue.
"You were a dead end, as far as Chiswick and James Rafferty were concerned. But when I returned to Corrigan, it all came together."
He was so proud of himself and his amateur detective work. The bat was pressing against her leg, and there were five strong men in the back room at this very moment, just a shout away…but she needed to know exactly what he knew first. And what he wanted.
Simon steepled his fingers, still smiling that pleased smile. "Eddie Corrigan, young cousin to the notorious Irish Nationalist Dillon Fitzgerald. We've been hearing for quite a while now that Fitzgerald was planning on coming out of retirement, but haven't been able to get our hands on anything concrete. Most of his old friends are in jail, or else scattered in the wind. Including his former lover and right-hand man - or should I say, woman - Brigid Coleman.
"Her whereabouts have been a mystery for the past twelve years. Oh, there have been rumors - she's fled to America; she's hiding in Europe; she's drunk herself to death in Thailand. The only thing we do know for sure is her description: average height, light blond hair, and" he paused, his pale blue eyes meeting hers, "golden-brown eyes. Although, I'd say they're more amber than golden."
Brigid averted her eyes, and tapped her cigarette ash into an empty glass. A part of her was terrified that he'd managed to discover her identity; but all the time that he'd been speaking, she'd been watching him, and he'd told her enough for her to make a good guess as to who he really was. Besides a smug English bastard.
"MI-6, is it, then?" she asked, dropping her carefully cultivated London accent for her native Irish one. "Let me guess - you're fresh out of training, bright and eager to serve Queen and country, and this is your first assignment. Babysitting the young cousin of an irrelevant, former Nationalist. But you got lucky and tracked down someone from the old organization who used to be someone; you think that by bringing me in, you can show your superiors what skill and gumption you have, and get moved up the ladder quicker. Maybe to a more interesting post on a foreign station, where you can really prove yourself."
His face was clouding, and she knew that she had him pegged. "But trust me, I'm not worth that much, even if you can prove who I am, which I doubt. You can arrest me, and maybe something from a dozen years ago will stick, but not for long. I'm a respectable member of society. My youthful indiscretions are behind me and anyway, Ireland and England are at peace now. No one cares anymore."
She inhaled on her cigarette, and blew the stream of smoke into Simon's face. He waved it away.
"You may not care about poisoning yourself or the people around you," he said irritably, "but I would think that you'd at least have the sense not to smoke in your condition."
Brigid froze, the cigarette just touching her lips. How could he possibly know about that? She and James hadn't told anyone; she hadn't even told Abs yet.
He smiled at the look on her face. "It turns out that it's not so difficult to con a doctor into revealing a patient's private health information. And I think you're overestimating your chances with the court. Your fingerprints are in the system, from one of your 'youthful indiscretions'. Something to do with assaulting an officer with a fish?" He raised an eyebrow.
She shrugged as nonchalantly as she could manage, feeling more and more off balance with every word. "I was thirteen."
"Hm. Well, we found a match for those prints on an unfinished bomb in a raid twelve years ago - the exact same type of bomb that was linked to a number of explosions in Belfast, explosions that were credited to Fitzgerald's organization. Including the blast at the bus depot, that killed or injured nearly twenty people."
Brigid's stomach twisted at the memory of that mission. Everything had gone wrong; no one was supposed to have been hurt - and there had been Dillon, assuring her that it was alright, that those poor people had died for the good of the Cause.
Shouldn't people be more important than a cause? she'd asked him.
He'd looked at her uncomprehending, and answered, People are the Cause, love.
She had never been able to believe in it as much as he had.
Simon continued on blithely, "I can arrest you, certainly. And you will be convicted, and that poor child of yours will be born in prison, and given away to some new, happy family, to grow up without ever knowing your name." He shrugged. "Or maybe Mr. Rafferty will want to keep the child; but if we arrest you, we may as well arrest him too. He won't spend near as much time in prison as you, but who will look after the child for those first few years? Neither of you has any living relatives."
Brigid rubbed her thumb along the cross dangling from her wrist; the carved figure on the surface had long ago been worn down to nothing. She glanced towards the hall. Did Simon know that Dillon was here, now?
"You don't think I'd be so stupid as to come here without telling my superiors first?" Simon said with a chuckle.
"You aren't here to arrest me," Brigid said, stabbing out her cigarette on the bar counter, "or you wouldn't be sitting here chatting. So what do you want?"
Simon abandoned his casual air for the first time and leaned forward onto the bar, his blue eyes bright. "What I want," he said, "is Dillon Fitzgerald and his entire organization. And you can give them to me."