Northern Spy(50)

“You could collect your pension,” I say. “You could let the IRA set you up with a villa in Bulgaria.”

“Most people stay,” says Marian, ignoring my sarcasm. She says most former members, given the option, choose a room in Divis tower over a villa abroad. It makes sense. How could you leave a country after fighting a war for it? They’ve been in the thick of things for years, they don’t want to miss whatever happens next. What would they even do in Bulgaria?

I hate to say it, but we have that in common. When I travel, even to someplace more beautiful, more civilized, a part of me is always aware of my distance from the center, the source of life. When the plane lands back in Belfast, even in spitting rain, even when the city is at its most bleak and littered, I think, Right, we’re back, let’s get into it.

On one holiday, Tom got annoyed with me for reading the news from home, and it did seem like a failing that I couldn’t pick up a local paper and transfer my interest. I couldn’t explain how it felt like a moral duty to follow our news, like my responsibility to listen and understand. Maybe it wouldn’t in a region where the news wasn’t so volatile, where if you looked away for a minute the whole place wouldn’t slide into an abyss.

“You’re provincial,” said Tom, and he was right. We’d been in Rome for three days, and every morning I’d checked the weather for Belfast first, like that mattered more.

I tell Marian about visiting her safe house yesterday. “How was Niall groomed?”

She frowns. “Niall wasn’t groomed. He went to Seamus every month for a year asking to join.”

“Why?”

“He grew up in care. If anyone has seen how our system’s not working, it’s him.”

“He asked what you want for Christmas,” I say, and Marian smiles. “This isn’t fair on him. He has no idea what you’re doing, he thinks you’re his family.”

“I am his family,” she says.

“You’re a tout, Marian. You’re lying to him.”

“He’d understand eventually. I’m still working for the same goal, just in a different way.”

I wince, shifting against the seat.

“What’s wrong?” asks Marian, and I gesture at my chest.

“I haven’t had time to pump.”

“Oh, go home.”

“I’m supposed to meet Eamonn. Mam’s minding Finn.”

“You could get mastitis.”

“If I get mastitis because of this,” I say through my teeth, “I’ll kill you.”

Marian hands me a capsule of evening primrose. “What’s it for?” I ask.

“Stress.”

“How many can I take?”



* * *



—

On the beach, I talk to Eamonn with my coat wrapped over me while warm liquid seeps under my shirt, down my bare stomach. My milk let down. This was not one of the problems I’d anticipated with breastfeeding. Or informing, for that matter.

“I can’t stay long. My mam can only mind Finn until seven.”

“That’s fine,” says Eamonn, sounding preoccupied. He wants to talk more about the meetings at Gallagher’s. “How does Marian act around them?” he asks.

I shrug. “She seems natural.”

He kicks at the sand, then says, “Do you think Marian has really changed?”

“Sorry?”

“There’s always the possibility that Marian is a fake defector,” he says. Behind him, gray waves roll in from the sea. “The IRA might have sent her to give us disinformation.”

“You don’t actually believe that.”

“They’ve done it before,” he says.

“Is that why you wanted me to meet her unit?”

“No. But you know Marian better than I do. Does she seem at all scared around them?”

“If she couldn’t hide her fear by now, she’d already be dead. Who is this coming from?”

Eamonn doesn’t answer. So much information is being gathered here, and I don’t even know who for. The station chief? The head of MI5? The queen?

“In July, Marian told us about an arms drop in an orchard in Armagh. We’ve had it under surveillance for months. Yesterday the service sent a drone with thermal imaging over the orchard, and it’s empty. Nothing’s buried there.”

“They must have moved it, then. Your surveillance must have failed.”

“That’s possible,” he says. “Or the actual arms drop was somewhere else.”

“How can you say that? Marian just put a listening device inside the Balfour for you.”

“We haven’t picked up anything relevant from it yet.”

“What were you expecting? To hear an army council meeting the next day?”

“I haven’t met with Marian for over six months,” he says. “She’s back in the fold. There’s concern that I may have lost control.”

“You were never controlling her.”

“Of the situation, I mean,” he says. “Her loyalty isn’t set in stone. It could change at any moment, given the right pressure.”

I remember Marian dancing with Damian at the wedding. Would that be considered pressure?