Read Online In the Morning I'll Be Gone by Adrian McKinty - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Adrian McKinty
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surprised if the writ of Queen’s law ran true here.
Unemployment was well over fifty percent and the houses were hastily built low-rise and terraced jobs owned by the biggest landlord in Europe, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Not that that was any kind of a boast. A third of the homes were boarded up or otherwise derelict and the rest were in various states of disrepair. Gangs of children and packs of stray dogs roamed the neighborhoods. Garbage and old clothes lay strewn or stacked in little Charles LeDray–style pyramids. All the trees that had been optimistically planted on the estate were gone to bonfires, and the menagerie you saw through the windscreen included horses and goats, which had been let loose to graze on the landscaping between the brown low-rise tower blocks.
Some kind of empty factory was an eerie red shell to the west, and to the north there was the strange, looming presence of the Donegal mountains.
“If you want to bottle out of this, I can turn us round easily,” I said, seeing the look on her face.
“I’m not remotely worried,” she lied.
Once upon a time this had been a sought-after place to live. A bold, gleaming 1960s slum clearance project, and it had stayed that way for a few years at least. Derry had largely escaped the worst of the Troubles until that fateful day: Sunday, January 30, 1972, when British Army paratroopers had overreacted to reports of an “IRA sniper” and shot dead thirteen unarmed people during a civil rights march.
IRA recruitment had soared overnight, and within months vast tracts of Derry had been effectively ceded to the paramilitaries.
“Look in the glove compartment. There’s an address on a piece of paper. What’s it say?” I asked Kate.
“22H Cowper Street.”
“OK, Cowper Street. I think I know where that is.”
I drove deeper into the Ardbo Estate, through crumbling tower blocks and terraces, until I found Cowper Street. I wasn’t enjoying the look the kids were giving me as I drove my BMW past them. Thirteen-year-old boys with mullets, spiderweb tattoos, and denim jackets who would just love to steal and joyride a car like this.
None of the houses had numbers and I had to drive round the loop twice, which was plenty of time to attract attention. I finally realized that No. 22 was a four-story tower block constructed from cinder blocks and a dirty, slate-colored concrete. Windows had been put in on all the lower floors and graffiti told me that this was the territory of the Irish National Liberation Army—yet another of the many nationalist paramilitary sects.
I parked the BMW outside No. 22, got out, and waited for the pack of kids to approach.
“Say nothing,” I mouthed to Kate. “And try not to make eye contact.”
“I live here, Sean. You’re treating me like I’m a green lieutenant on his first tour of duty in Vietnam.”
“This isn’t Rathlin Island, love. Just do as I say, OK?”
The roving gang of boys approached.
I gave two pound coins to the tallest and meanest of them, who was going with the skinhead/denim jacket/hobnail boot look and who happened to be carrying a piece of wood with a nail sticking out the end of it.
“There’s ten quid more in it for you when I get back, if, and only if, there’s not a scratch on this vehicle,” I told him.
He sized me up and nodded. “Aye, I’ll fucking see to it,” he said.
I thought it was about a fifty-fifty shot whether he’d steal it or guard it.
“All right, let’s go,” I said to Kate.
There was a slight twitch to her lip, which might have been the first sign of nervousness she had exercised that day.
“The Francis Hughes Hunger Striker and Resistance Fighter Memorial Block,” No. 22 Cowper grandly called itself.
Over the entrance there was a massive graffiti mural of a paramilitary gunman holding a Kalashnikov in one hand and an Irish tricolor in the other as he led an assorted group of refugees through an apocalyptic landscape. It was actually
Unemployment was well over fifty percent and the houses were hastily built low-rise and terraced jobs owned by the biggest landlord in Europe, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Not that that was any kind of a boast. A third of the homes were boarded up or otherwise derelict and the rest were in various states of disrepair. Gangs of children and packs of stray dogs roamed the neighborhoods. Garbage and old clothes lay strewn or stacked in little Charles LeDray–style pyramids. All the trees that had been optimistically planted on the estate were gone to bonfires, and the menagerie you saw through the windscreen included horses and goats, which had been let loose to graze on the landscaping between the brown low-rise tower blocks.
Some kind of empty factory was an eerie red shell to the west, and to the north there was the strange, looming presence of the Donegal mountains.
“If you want to bottle out of this, I can turn us round easily,” I said, seeing the look on her face.
“I’m not remotely worried,” she lied.
Once upon a time this had been a sought-after place to live. A bold, gleaming 1960s slum clearance project, and it had stayed that way for a few years at least. Derry had largely escaped the worst of the Troubles until that fateful day: Sunday, January 30, 1972, when British Army paratroopers had overreacted to reports of an “IRA sniper” and shot dead thirteen unarmed people during a civil rights march.
IRA recruitment had soared overnight, and within months vast tracts of Derry had been effectively ceded to the paramilitaries.
“Look in the glove compartment. There’s an address on a piece of paper. What’s it say?” I asked Kate.
“22H Cowper Street.”
“OK, Cowper Street. I think I know where that is.”
I drove deeper into the Ardbo Estate, through crumbling tower blocks and terraces, until I found Cowper Street. I wasn’t enjoying the look the kids were giving me as I drove my BMW past them. Thirteen-year-old boys with mullets, spiderweb tattoos, and denim jackets who would just love to steal and joyride a car like this.
None of the houses had numbers and I had to drive round the loop twice, which was plenty of time to attract attention. I finally realized that No. 22 was a four-story tower block constructed from cinder blocks and a dirty, slate-colored concrete. Windows had been put in on all the lower floors and graffiti told me that this was the territory of the Irish National Liberation Army—yet another of the many nationalist paramilitary sects.
I parked the BMW outside No. 22, got out, and waited for the pack of kids to approach.
“Say nothing,” I mouthed to Kate. “And try not to make eye contact.”
“I live here, Sean. You’re treating me like I’m a green lieutenant on his first tour of duty in Vietnam.”
“This isn’t Rathlin Island, love. Just do as I say, OK?”
The roving gang of boys approached.
I gave two pound coins to the tallest and meanest of them, who was going with the skinhead/denim jacket/hobnail boot look and who happened to be carrying a piece of wood with a nail sticking out the end of it.
“There’s ten quid more in it for you when I get back, if, and only if, there’s not a scratch on this vehicle,” I told him.
He sized me up and nodded. “Aye, I’ll fucking see to it,” he said.
I thought it was about a fifty-fifty shot whether he’d steal it or guard it.
“All right, let’s go,” I said to Kate.
There was a slight twitch to her lip, which might have been the first sign of nervousness she had exercised that day.
“The Francis Hughes Hunger Striker and Resistance Fighter Memorial Block,” No. 22 Cowper grandly called itself.
Over the entrance there was a massive graffiti mural of a paramilitary gunman holding a Kalashnikov in one hand and an Irish tricolor in the other as he led an assorted group of refugees through an apocalyptic landscape. It was actually
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