think of them. But you’ve just got to get on with it, you know? Otherwise you may as well just pack up and go home’.
‘ You’re very wise for one so young’.
‘ I had my moments when it happened. I wanted to find the coach driver and kill him. He survived, you see, and the unfairness of that drove me mad for weeks. All my friends at the time went on about what goes around comes around and that he’d get his but I really don't believe in all that shit. It’s just a platitude. The only time someone gets what they deserve is when someone makes it happen’.
Ian went cold. ‘ So you do understand the need for revenge?’
‘ I can see why people are driven to it, yes, because I’ve been there. I understand anyone who seeks justice when they feel they’ve been wronged against. Too many bad people get away with it, Ian and I’m not arguing for vigilantism but yes, I can understand the need for revenge, I really can’.
Graham met Tommy Millar when they joined the RUC on the same day. They moved up the ranks together before Tommy went into special branch and Graham stayed put. Graham called his friend on his personal mobile.
‘ Is this line secure, Tommy?’ Graham asked.
‘ You know the answer to that’ said Tommy. He was sitting at his desk at the office. He hadn’t heard from Graham in a while. ‘ What’s up?’
‘ I need some information on someone and I don’t want to request it officially through the usual channels’.
‘ Can I ask why not?’
‘ I have my reasons, Tommy, and you owe me one. Remember?’
Tommy couldn’t get out of that one. A few months ago his wife had accused him of having an affair with another woman and Graham had provided him with a false alibi that got him off the hook. He did owe him one.
‘ Name?’
‘ Duncan Arthur Laurence. His evidence was enough to arrest Derek Campbell and his gang twenty years ago and get them sent down. He then died in a car accident on the Antrim Road on October 25 th 1992’.
Tommy wrote down the details. ‘ And you think there’s more to it than that?’
‘ In that last chat we had, Jamie Robertson told me that Derek Campbell had found out that Duncan Laurence was alive. We both know that a lot of people died conveniently during that time and I want to know if it’s true in this case. I want to know if Laurence is alive and if so where he is’.
Most of Derek Campbell’s political contacts had turned their backs now that they were preening themselves at Stormont. They all seemed to be taking it for granted that he wouldn’t open his mouth and drop the lot of them right in it up to their necks. All the money he used to make from his enterprises had gone into the pockets of those who now claim to have a democratic mandate from the people. He’d risked his life over and over again and made hard cash for everybody but himself. Derek had been the employee, the commander of field operations, the one who hired the men and women who carried out the orders, the one who made sure none of the shit could ever be traced back to those who put rosettes on at election time and shuttled backwards and forwards to Westminster. But none of them now wanted to be reminded of the sacrifices Derek had made which was why he was more than suspicious about what Peter Irvine wanted from him.
Peter Irvine lived in a fortified bungalow on the edge of Ballymena but it still felt like light years away from the kind of estate that Derek was used to. When he’d been released from incarceration he’d gone back to the same council house that had been his family home for nearly thirty years. During that time it had been modernised and changed, the toilet moved from downstairs to upstairs, the bathroom fitted with a shower, the kitchen fitted out with units from one of
‘ You’re very wise for one so young’.
‘ I had my moments when it happened. I wanted to find the coach driver and kill him. He survived, you see, and the unfairness of that drove me mad for weeks. All my friends at the time went on about what goes around comes around and that he’d get his but I really don't believe in all that shit. It’s just a platitude. The only time someone gets what they deserve is when someone makes it happen’.
Ian went cold. ‘ So you do understand the need for revenge?’
‘ I can see why people are driven to it, yes, because I’ve been there. I understand anyone who seeks justice when they feel they’ve been wronged against. Too many bad people get away with it, Ian and I’m not arguing for vigilantism but yes, I can understand the need for revenge, I really can’.
Graham met Tommy Millar when they joined the RUC on the same day. They moved up the ranks together before Tommy went into special branch and Graham stayed put. Graham called his friend on his personal mobile.
‘ Is this line secure, Tommy?’ Graham asked.
‘ You know the answer to that’ said Tommy. He was sitting at his desk at the office. He hadn’t heard from Graham in a while. ‘ What’s up?’
‘ I need some information on someone and I don’t want to request it officially through the usual channels’.
‘ Can I ask why not?’
‘ I have my reasons, Tommy, and you owe me one. Remember?’
Tommy couldn’t get out of that one. A few months ago his wife had accused him of having an affair with another woman and Graham had provided him with a false alibi that got him off the hook. He did owe him one.
‘ Name?’
‘ Duncan Arthur Laurence. His evidence was enough to arrest Derek Campbell and his gang twenty years ago and get them sent down. He then died in a car accident on the Antrim Road on October 25 th 1992’.
Tommy wrote down the details. ‘ And you think there’s more to it than that?’
‘ In that last chat we had, Jamie Robertson told me that Derek Campbell had found out that Duncan Laurence was alive. We both know that a lot of people died conveniently during that time and I want to know if it’s true in this case. I want to know if Laurence is alive and if so where he is’.
Most of Derek Campbell’s political contacts had turned their backs now that they were preening themselves at Stormont. They all seemed to be taking it for granted that he wouldn’t open his mouth and drop the lot of them right in it up to their necks. All the money he used to make from his enterprises had gone into the pockets of those who now claim to have a democratic mandate from the people. He’d risked his life over and over again and made hard cash for everybody but himself. Derek had been the employee, the commander of field operations, the one who hired the men and women who carried out the orders, the one who made sure none of the shit could ever be traced back to those who put rosettes on at election time and shuttled backwards and forwards to Westminster. But none of them now wanted to be reminded of the sacrifices Derek had made which was why he was more than suspicious about what Peter Irvine wanted from him.
Peter Irvine lived in a fortified bungalow on the edge of Ballymena but it still felt like light years away from the kind of estate that Derek was used to. When he’d been released from incarceration he’d gone back to the same council house that had been his family home for nearly thirty years. During that time it had been modernised and changed, the toilet moved from downstairs to upstairs, the bathroom fitted with a shower, the kitchen fitted out with units from one of
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