Though the Heavens Fall Read online

  “Hi, Katie. Monty Collins here. I can call back if this is a bad time.”

  “No, no, you’re grand.” Raised hopes were audible in her voice. “Did you find something?”

  He had to “manage expectations” as the workplace expression went. The chances of the family seeing any money out of this were so remote as to be non-existent. “Not really, but I think it would be a good idea for me to see the area where your father died. Could you take me out there?”

  “Em, well, I don’t have a car, but . . .”

  “No, no, I didn’t mean . . . I have a car here. I could pick you up whenever you can get free.”

  “Now’s not good. School’s finished for the day, and I’m here with my sister and brothers, and Mam is in bed, so there’s no one else . . .” Monty heard a prolonged wet cough in the background then. “Don’t be spewin’ that in her face, Timmy! Mr. Collins? Wait, I see Mrs. Hamill across the street. She must be off work today. She sometimes comes in when Mam’s not able. I can ask her to come in. So you can collect me whenever you like.”

  She gave him the address and said it was in the Musgrave Park area of the city. She provided excellent directions, so he left the office and got himself on the A12, then the M1 motorway, and drove to the home of the Flanagan family in the suburbs south of the city. The family lived on Clarkson Terrace in a semi-detached house of light-brown bricks with a tiled roof. The dark-brown door and window frames were in need of paint, but it was a nice-looking street. Monty knocked on the door and heard a squeal and the patter of little feet approaching. When the door opened, he looked down to see three little kids: a blond boy of six or seven, with what looked like porridge all over his face and T-shirt, a girl of eight or nine, and another boy a year or so older. The older two were wearing school uniforms, bottle-green sweaters with the school crest, shirts and green ties on both, a grey skirt on the girl and grey trousers on the boy. Three pairs of big sky-blue eyes gazed up at Monty.

  “Let the man inside!” Katie admonished them, shooing them away from the entrance.

  “Who do we have here?” Monty asked. “My name is Monty.”

  “I’m Timmy!” the smallest boy shouted. “I’m having my birthday Saturday week! I’m going to be seven! I’m getting a cake and a bag of oranges!”

  The two older kids looked shy and gave their names as Clare and Dermot.

  “Go and change out of your uniforms now, so we can keep them clean, and not have this fella —” she pointed to Timmy “— spewing and spilling stuff all over them and me having to wash them again. The state of you!” she said to Timmy. The older two left and pounded up the stairs. Then Katie said, “Where’s Darren?”

  “He’s got the football today,” Dermot called down.

  “All right. I’m going to ask Mrs. Hamill to come and keep watch over youse till Mam gets up. And I’m going out for a bit of fresh air.”

  Timmy looked pleased. “Tell her to bring us some biscuits!”

  “I’ll tell her no such thing. If she brings some biscuits, fine. If not, they’re not to be mentioned. Right?”

  “But she might forget!”

  “That’s a chance you’ll have to take.”

  “Aww!”

  “Why don’t you go colour a picture of the kind of cake you’ll be wanting next week.”

  “Yeah!” He made a flying leap towards the stairs, missed his landing, and fell, but got up and ascended the steps. “Do we have a brown crayon? I don’t want pink like Clare’s!”

  Katie rolled her eyes in Monty’s direction and said, “If you’ll wait here a wee minute, I’ll go across and fetch yer one across the street. Excuse the state of the place.”

  “The place is just fine, Katie.”

  And it was. The furniture was old and nicked, the green painted walls scuffed, and the carpet worn bare in spots, but the room was clean and well organized. There were a couple of tin whistles on the coffee table and a mandolin in the corner, battered but fully stringed. A built-in bookshelf contained books for all ages, including classics and art books and one about the law. Monty picked it up. Hear the Other Side, the autobiography of Dame Elizabeth Lane, who, Monty read, was the first woman appointed a judge of the British High Court. He was interested to see that she had attended McGill University in Montreal. The book was well thumbed. He remembered Katie saying she had wanted to become a solicitor, her ambition already relegated to the dust bin.

  A few minutes after she left, Katie was back, with a woman of fifty or so carrying a large tin. Monty hoped it was full of biscuits.

  “All right. We can go.”

  “God go with you,” the woman said.

  “Oh, Mr. Collins, this is Mrs. Hamill.”

  Monty said hello.

  “How well do you know the place out there, Katie?” Mrs. Hamill asked.

  “I’m not sure, but . . .”

  “Why don’t you ring Hughie and have him go with you?” the older woman suggested.

  “Well . . .”

  “Go on now and ring him. Or, what time is it?”

  “It’s half four. That means he’s . . .” Katie began.

  “At McCully’s,” Mrs. Hamill concluded. “Still, you’re better off with Hughie to help you find the place if you’ve never been there, Katie.”

  “It’ll be no trouble to stop by McCully’s and pick up Mr. Malone,” Monty assured them, “as long as you can provide directions to the . . . bar?”

  “It’s up on North Queen Street,” Katie said. “I’ll know it when I see it.”

  “That’s good enough for me. Let’s motor.”

  He followed Katie out of the house. When they got into his car, she said, “Oh, I have this for you. It’s from Mam.” She pulled a sheet of paper out of her handbag and passed it to him. It was a handwritten letter addressed to Mr. Monty Collins and signed by Winnifred (Winnie) Flanagan, thanking him for assisting the family with their difficulties and assuring him that she would provide any information he required. Well, that was good to know. He had the mother’s authorization to represent the family. He had, as well, one more person to disappoint when it all came to naught.

  “She said, Mam did, that we’ll pay your fees on time. You don’t have to worry about that.”

  Monty knew that a lawyer’s fees were far beyond the capacity of this family, especially if, as expected, the claim went nowhere. And, unlike the situation back home in Nova Scotia, there were no contingency fees here; a solicitor couldn’t arrange to take thirty percent of the proceeds as payment for his or her services. “You tell your mother this will be what we call pro bono. There are no fees when it’s pro bono.”

  “Oh, we couldn’t . . .”

  “The law has spoken, young lady.” He turned and smiled at her.

  She laughed, a little embarrassed, and nodded her head.

  He started out for the city centre. It was getting dark, and Katie directed him into a couple of wrong turns, but Monty assured her he didn’t mind. “Sometimes that’s the best way to get familiar with a new place.”

  “You’ll be able to qualify as a tour guide if you keep travelling with me,” she said. “I know I’ve seen the bar.”

  “We can pull over and ask somebody.”

  “Sure, if I don’t see it soon.”

  “We’ll ask that guy right there.” Monty had looked over the pedestrians on North Queen Street and adjudged one of them in particular, a fellow with a red nose and an unsteady gait, to be a man well acquainted with establishments serving strong drink.

  He stopped beside the man, and Katie rolled down her window and called out, “Excuse me, sir, could you tell me where McCully’s bar is?”

  “You’re headed straight for it. Just keep going past McGurk’s, and it’ll be on your left.”

  “Thank you!”

  After Monty had gone a short distance, Katie pointe
d to a building with a purplish-red and white painted exterior. “That’s McGurk’s,” she said. “Got bombed. Fifteen people died.”

  “When was that?”

  “Years ago. Long before I was born. The peelers and the Brits told everyone it was a Republican own-goal, but it wasn’t.”

  “You mean they claimed Republicans did it but . . .”

  “Yeah. They put out the story that it was the ’RA. That it was IRA fellas in the pub, that they set a bomb and killed their own people. But it was Loyalists, and the Brits and the police knew it all along and lied about it.”

  This was the sort of knowledge that formed the life of a young person growing up in Belfast.

  “There it is! McCully’s.” Katie directed his attention to a tiny, dark little bar up the street a ways on the other side. It sported a Guinness sign and a tattered tricolour flag above the door.

  “Let’s see if we can find a parking spot.”

  “No, you just stop out here. I’ll go in and get him.”

  She hopped out and went into the bar. Two minutes later she reappeared with Hughie Malone, who was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “You get in the front, Hughie. You’ll be able to show him how to get there.”

  “’Bout ye, Mr. Collins?”

  “Fine and dandy, Mr. Malone. Yourself?”

  “I’m stickin’ out, thank you. Now you’ll be wanting to turn around. We’ll go through the Falls.” He directed Monty southward and then west. They drove into Divis Street, which became the Falls Road. A Republican heartland in west Belfast, with the murals to prove it.

  “I don’t imagine many Loyalists venture into this area,” Monty said.

  “We’ve a fence up to discourage them. And to discourage our own lads from venturing into Loyalist territory. We’ll take a detour for a minute. Turn right at the next corner.”

  Monty followed Malone’s directions until they were on Bombay Street. “There’s one of our ‘peace’ lines. We’ve dozens of them all over the city. In Derry and other places, too. Comical name for it, wouldn’t you say?” It was a massive wall of concrete, with a steel mesh fence along the top and a layer of metal in the middle. “It’s supposed to keep the Taigs from getting at the Prods, and the Prods from getting at the Taigs. Catholics and Protestants. But you’ll also see a kind of back porch on the houses on this side of the street. Get out and have a gander over there. You’ll see it’s not a porch where you’d want to sit out on a fine, warm evening.” Monty got out of the car and went to take a look. The porch was in fact a cage enclosing the rear of the house. When Monty was behind the wheel again, Malone stated the obvious: “They’re to protect the houses from whatever gets lobbed over the wall from the Shankill side.”

  Monty drove back to the Falls Road, and Malone continued his reporting from the war zone. “See the road to the right, Whiterock Road. That’s where the Kelly’s bar bombing was. Brits announced it was the ’RA that set the bomb, but the truth came out later. It was Loyalists. My brother and his pals were in there having a jar. Got out just in time. Well, in time for the UVF to fire on the survivors being pulled out. But my fellas managed to get away. Three others eventually died, and more than sixty were injured.”

  Monty wondered what on earth it would be like to bring up a family here, with these dreadful stories on everyone’s lips. He returned to the conversation with Hughie Malone, who was cataloguing more of the atrocities visited upon the residents of the Falls.

  “And if we’d taken another route,” he said to Hughie, “we’d be seeing Loyalist places the IRA had blown up, I assume.”

  “No denying it,” Hughie replied. “There does be guilt on all sides here. We’ll come back via the Shankill. That’s where the Prods are, so you’ll see where the ’RA attacked bars and other establishments there. We could have gone out on the motorway but I’m taking you on the scenic route now.”

  “The Via Dolorosa, you mean.”

  “Aye, plenty of sorrows to go round in this place. Keep to the left here, Mr. Collins.”

  “Monty.”

  “Left here, Monty. We’re going to take the Andersonstown Road and then we’ll go a long way on the Stewartstown Road . . .” Hughie continued to give directions until they were out even beyond suburbia. After many twists and turns, Monty was not sure he would have any idea how to get back on the main routes. They finally turned into a narrow road, and Hughie announced, “This is it, the Ammon Road.”

  “What brought Mr. Flanagan way out here?” This might be a delicate question but one relevant to the events of November 14, 1992.

  “Eamon grew up in this area, moved into the city for work when he left school. He still knows . . . he still knew some of the fellas he grew up with, and he’d come out here once in a while to have a pint with them. There’s the place there, O’Grady’s. We know he was in O’Grady’s the night he was killed. We’ll go in.”

  On a fact-finding mission or to wet the throat of their tour guide? Either way, it couldn’t hurt. “Sure,” Monty said and pulled in beside the old, white thatched-roof cottage that was now O’Grady’s bar. There was only one other vehicle, a passenger van with a good few years on it. But when they went inside, there were a dozen or so drinkers, all men, sitting or standing at the bar. They all eyed the newcomers, and a few of the eyes rested on young Katie Flanagan, but none of the stares were unfriendly. Or creepy. The barman and a couple of the regulars recognized Hughie Malone and greeted him. There was nobody at the tables, so Monty headed for the one in the front window. When Hughie and Katie were seated, Monty offered to get the drinks. Katie asked for a mineral; she wasn’t particular about what kind, so he got her a sparkling lemon and lime. Hughie requested a Guinness and a shot of Bushmills. “Crossing the sectarian boundary with that,” he said, pointing to the Bushmills bottle, and two fellows at the bar had a chuckle. Monty took a Guinness for himself as well.

  When they all had their glasses in front of them, and all had taken their first sips, Monty asked, “Do these people live nearby? There’s only one car out there.”

  “Well, some live nearby and others not so near, but O’Grady’s young fella gives them a spin home at closing time. You could say their policy is slán abhaile. Safe home.”

  “Very good. Now, where are we in relation to the bridge where Mr. Flanagan . . . had his accident?”

  “Look out the window there and to your left. About a half a mile down that way is the bridge.”

  “So Mr. Flanagan would have been here in the bar and then presumably he departed on foot and walked to the bridge. Where would he have been going at that time of night?”

  “Most likely heading to Assumpta’s place to stop for the night.”

  “Who is that?”

  “She’s his aunt. Not my side of the family, not a Malone. Flanagan side.”

  Monty turned to Katie. “Would your dad do that once in a while, stay out overnight? Or was this unusual for him?”

  “He did it sometimes. Not very often. But Mam would tell us he was at Auntie Assumpta’s.”

  After spending a good part of the evening here in O’Grady’s, Monty imagined. “How would he get out here, without a car of his own?”

  “It was someone from his work, as far as I remember,” Katie replied. “A man who lived out here somewhere and went back and forth by car. Sometimes Da would get a lift with him.”

  “Come here to me,” Hughie said to the elderly barman. “This man is looking into Eamon Flanagan’s death. And this is Eamon’s wee girl, Katie.”

  “Oh, aye?” The barman gave Katie a nod and a look of sympathy.

  “Could you tell us of any man who was here that night? It was the night of the shooting up the road.”

  “I was right here behind the bar and I didn’t see or hear anything of note. Too busy with my bottles and taps.”

  There was some murmuring around the bar. T
hen one man in his thirties spoke up. “I was here myself.” He twisted around to address an older fellow a few barstools away. “You remember it, Fergus.”

  “I do.”

  “We were both here, and we didn’t — well, speaking for myself — I didn’t hear a thing. No sound from the bridge down there.” He pointed in the general direction. “And I didn’t hear any shooting from up there.” The other direction. “It’d be too far away, for the sound to carry. You, Fergus?”

  Fergus just shrugged and got busy with his pint.

  Katie looked downhearted, and Hughie restless. They finished their drinks, said thank you to the barman and the others for trying to help, and made to leave the bar. Monty was the last out and he closed the door. He heard it open behind him and a man say, “Bloody fags. I’ve got to give them up. They’ll have me bankrupted.”

  Monty turned and saw that it was the older man, Fergus. He had taken a cigarette out of its pack and was heading outside for a smoke. “Hold up there,” he said, so low that Monty could barely hear him. Katie and Hughie kept walking, but Monty hung back. The man lit up his cigarette, then spoke again. “There was a young lad. Him and his lady friend, out on a walk that night and looking for a bit of privacy. I didn’t hear about this till, I don’t know, a few months ago. The lad came of age, old enough for the drink, and in he came to O’Grady’s. Had a few pints and wasn’t accustomed to it. Made him talkative, I suppose. I heard him whispering to a pal of his, saying he’d been in some kind of confrontation with a fellow in a car. It was ‘the night they shot Fritzy.’ Lad’s first name was Vincent. That’s all I know.”

  And with that he walked away, to stand in front of the windows of O’Grady’s and enjoy his smoke and be seen not talking to anyone who had been asking questions.

  Monty met Katie and Hughie at the car, and they all got in. Monty recounted the story Fergus had told. Katie made no reply, but Hughie took up the slack. “A confrontation, a fella in a car, the night Fritzy O’Dwyer had the head blown off of him.”

  “Who’s O’Dwyer?”

  “Nobody now. He was a Provo. Lived in the Short Strand, when he wasn’t living on the outskirts of Lisburn, if you know what I mean.”