The Cold, Cold Ground

riot gear, I grabbed two reserve constables and we signed out a Land Rover.
    Someone had hijacked a bus and set it on fire on the Shore Road so I drove the Land Rover along the back way. We came down into Belfast from the hills through the Protestant district of Ballysillan, which was decorated with murals of masked paramilitaries holding assault rifles and zombie armies holding Union Jacks.
    We drove along the Crumlin Road and turned into the Ardoyne, a staunch Catholic estate just a couple of streets awayfrom a staunch Protestant one – in other words, a real high heat flashpoint area.
    “Does anybody know where Laganville Road is?” I asked.
    Crabbie unfolded a street map and gave me directions.
    We got lost twice but finally made it.
    It turned out to be a small dead-end terrace, with a large graffito running the length of three houses that said, “Don’t Let Them Die!” referring, of course, to the hunger strikers.
    It was teatime on a Saturday night and things looked quiet. The football matches were all over and no one was thinking about going out just yet. Maybe we could creep in and out without ever being noticed.
    I drove past the GAA club where the tipster had made his phone call.
    “Matty, you get out and dust for prints,” I said.
    “Why me?”
    “Cos you’re the bravest.”
    “No, I’m not.”
    “Just get out. You’re the FO, come on.”
    Matty was reluctant to leave the safety of the Land Rover so I sent one of the reservists with him. He was called Brown, twenty-two, a carpenter in real life. Matty looked shit-scared. Both of them were in full riot gear and twitchily holding their Sterling sub-machine guns. It made me nervous. “Under no circumstances are you to fire those fucking guns, is that understood? We’ll be right at the end of the street. If there’s trouble, point the guns but do not bloody shoot them.”
    “What do we do?” Matty asked.
    “Come running down to us if there’s real bother, ok?” I told them.
    Brown and Matty nodded.
    We drove down to #44.
    It was derelict with the windows boarded up and the front door kicked in. I parked the Land Rover and McCrabban,myself and the other reservist got out.
    “I’m going in, lads. Keep an eye out for booby traps. He said we’d get a surprise and this would be perfect for a concealed explosive device.”
    “In that case, I’ll go first, Sean,” Crabbie said.
    “How come you always get to be John Wayne?” I said. “You just hold here, Crabbie. Stay well behind me, the pair of you. And if I’m killed, all my albums are to go to Matty, he’s the only one that will appreciate them.”
    “I’ll take the country albums and any of the non-poncy classical,” Crabbie said.
    “Fair enough. Now stay back, both of you.”
    I was being flippant but dozens of police officers had been killed in booby traps over the years. It was a classic IRA tactic. You call in a tip about a murder, the police go to investigate and they trip a booby trap or the provos remotely detonate a landmine or pipe bomb. Sometimes they place a time-delayed device in a car in the street so they can get the rescue workers too.
    I walked down the front path.
    The smell of shit and piss hit me straight away.
    I looked for wires, loose paving stones or any obvious trips.
    Nothing.
    So far.
    I drew my revolver, turned on the flashlight and walked into the house.
    It was completely gutted. Holes in the roof that leaked water, a few hypodermic syringes.
    The stairs were wrecked and the stench of mildew was overpowering.
    “Everything all right?” McCrabban shouted from out in the street.
    I walked into the downstairs living room and the kitchen. More garbage, drug paraphernalia, water dripping down fromthe ceiling. I tracked through the entire ground floor and the back yard. I couldn’t get upstairs because of the destroyed staircase but it was obvious that no one had been in here for some time.
    So why had he sent us here? Just because he could? A power trip? Was he watching us from a location across the street, laughing?
    “There’s nothing here!” I yelled back.
    “Let’s get back to the Land Rover then. There’s trouble!” McCrabban said.
    “What kind of trouble?”
    “Bunch of lads outside the GAA club.”
    I went back outside. Matty and Brown were running down the street towards us. They were being chased by a dozen lads with hurley sticks and bottles.
    “Don’t run, you pair of eejits,” McCrabban was muttering to himself.
    “Ok,