Shadow Dancer Read online

  About the Book

  Colette McVeigh: Mother. Widow. Terrorist. For all of her twenty-nine years she has lived the Republican cause. Her husband was killed by the Brits. Her brothers have dedicated their lives to fighting them.

  Until she is arrested in an aborted bombing raid in London when she has to make a choice: inform and see your children again; or stay silent and watch them grow up from the inside of a prison cell.

  Her MI5 handler, David Ryan, has never questioned where his loyalties lie. But as he watches Colette put herself in increasing danger to fulfil her side of the bargain, he realises that his certainty and integrity have been fatally and irrevocably compromised . . .

  Contents

  Cover Page

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  SHADOW DANCER

  Tom Bradby

  For Claudia and Jack

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  First and foremost, I would like to thank my wife Claudia, who has been a brilliant partner in the production of this book. When I lost the first five chapters of the first draft in a domestic computer crash, she had the good sense to tell me that it might be no bad thing. Writing a first novel and, more importantly, striving to make it good, is an arduous and long process. I came to think of it as a little like climbing a mountain; every time you think you have got to the top, someone taps you on the shoulder and points to the real peak miles above you, up in the clouds. Without Claudia, it would have been a lonely ascent.

  I owe a great deal to Mark Lucas. He was recommended to me as the best literary agent in London and everything I have experienced suggests that may very well be true.

  Bill Scott-Kerr is an excellent editor and his team at Transworld extremely professional and enthusiastic in every aspect of the publishing process. Thanks, too, to my early readers: Tom Vail, Sophie Janson, Fiona Mackinnon, Mark Davey and Letitia Fitzpatrick.

  Thank you to my parents for their early comments and their endless support.

  Finally, thank you to the many people in Northern Ireland and London – officers in the RUC, MI5, Army Intelligence and current and former Republicans – who helped, but would rather remain anonymous.

  ‘I am in blood

  Stepp’d in so far, that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er.’

  Macbeth, Act III, Scene IV

  PROLOGUE

  THE BODIES IN FRONT OF HIM ROSE AND FELL RHYTHMICALLY. THE MEN were tired and wet. He watched as they widened the hole once more, struggling and slipping in the wet earth. He knew they thought this exercise was pointless and he wished that he didn’t know better.

  He listened to the sound of the spades being driven into the dark earth and he shuddered. He knew with some certainty what they were going to find.

  It was freezing cold on the mountain and it had been raining for hours. He thrust his hands deep into his pockets and felt the damp there too.

  It was a miserable place.

  He half turned and looked back towards the entrance to the quarry. The woman was still there, wearing only a thin coat, her head bowed, her face shielded by the shawl. He didn’t understand. Why would anyone want to see their child pulled from the earth?

  He heard the shouts and began to run down the muddy path, struggling to stay upright.

  As he arrived, the youngest of the constables shouted at him like an excited child. ‘We’ve found it, sir. I think we’ve found it.’

  Allen felt his anger surge, ‘Shut up, Hawkins. For Christ’s sake.’ He stepped into the hole beside them and muttered quietly, ‘Well done, well done.’

  The mud was thick and two of the men were pulling at the end of a plastic sack, trying to free it from its grave. The top was neatly tied and Allen watched as they began to brush the earth away. It was a black bag and he could make out the shape of a body. He turned away and clambered out of the hole, thinking he was going to retch. He stared into the mud for a few moments and watched the rain running in rivulets down the hillside. He felt black despair and he heard himself mutter, ‘Christ. Christ.’

  He tried to gather himself. He looked back up towards the top of the quarry. The road was empty, the woman gone.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE BAG WAS IN THE HALL, THE NEWSPAPER WAS OPEN ON THE kitchen table and time was running out.

  Colette stood over the paper, her weight on her left leg, chewing away at her fingernails.

  She wanted to shout out, ‘It wasn’t me, you silly bitch! It wasn’t me.’

  She sat down and tried to calm herself, burying her forehead in her hand. Her eyes were drawn back to the page in front of her. This morning she hadn’t been able to resist buying the newspaper, now she couldn’t resist reading it.

  The banner above the headline on the front page said, AFTER THE IRA’S BRIGHTON BOMB. The article on the features page consisted of an interview with the wife of a senior Tory politician. It was the first interview she’d ever given and she said she’d agreed to it only because she wished to promote a new scheme to train those who care for the disabled. Colette couldn’t drag her eyes away from the picture. The fucking woman was in a wheelchair, her hand – the wedding ring still visible – balanced calmly on the top of the wheel.

  ‘We tetraplegics’ – she read with a laugh – ‘envy the paraplegics who are only paralysed from the waist down’ – only! – ‘because they can dress themselves, even stand …’

  Colette covered her eyes with her hands and began to press hard, the pain blurring her vision.

  The sound of the doorbell made her jump. She tried not to look at the bag as she passed it. She opened the door abruptly and almost shouted at the young man standing there. ‘You’re early.’

  He looked confused and stammered uncertainly, thrown by her sudden and unexpected hostility. ‘Er … I … don’t think so … It is the time I was told.’

  ‘Wait here.’

  She shut the door again and went back into the kitchen, leaning against the wall and shutting her eyes. She tried to breathe in deeply and force herself to relax. She told herself again, ‘One more day. Just one more day.’

  After a few minutes she’d gathered herself as much as she was ever going to. She grabbed her small overnight bag from the kitchen table (two clean pairs of knickers and her toothbrush, cigarettes and make-up) and then stooped to pick up the grip in the hall. She handled it gently, being careful not to bang it against the door before slowly placing it on the back seat of the car.

  As they moved away from St Swithun’s Villas she looked round briefly to take a last look at the house. Then she shut herself off and tried to keep calm.

  She told herself that this was the end of the line, that it was all over. She tried to think about a new chapter, to envisage what she would do with her life. She would swim more, she decided. She’d loved sport at school and wanted to get fit again. She’d learn to sew and to knit and make clothes for the children. She would, she thought, get a job, perhaps, but as what she wasn’t sure, since she di
dn’t have any qualifications. She wondered if she might be able to train as a teacher, a career she’d considered once, years ago.

  She thought about how pleased her mother would be. There would be no more tense silences, no more pointed comments about how clingy and insecure young Mark was, no more accusatory goodbyes.

  She opened her eyes again. They were turning off the motorway now and the young man seemed to be concentrating hard. As they pulled into the entrance to Southampton Parkway station, Colette felt a sudden surge of uncontrollable panic, and she grabbed the young man’s arm, sinking her fingertips into the muscles on his forearm. ‘Go round again! Go round again!’

  He looked at her, bemused.

  She gripped his shoulder. ‘Go around again! For Christ’s sake.’

  She pointed ahead through the windscreen. He did as she demanded, the car lurching as he thrust it hurriedly into first gear and accelerated away. Colette looked over her shoulder and the young man pulled back onto the main road and headed towards the roundabout.

  ‘What was it? What did you see?’

  She couldn’t meet his eyes. ‘I’m sorry … I thought I saw something. I mean …’

  ‘Shall we go round again?’ His voice was gentle, reassuring.

  She hesitated a moment before replying. ‘Yes, yes. Drop me on the main road outside. It’s better.’

  As he pulled off the roundabout he stopped by the side of the road, flicking on the hazard lights. He seemed to have a maturity and calmness about him that belied his years.

  ‘Are you all right? Are you sure you’re all right?’

  She nodded silently and he touched her shoulder. ‘Have you still got your ticket?’

  She nodded again, not trusting herself to speak.

  The young man turned back to the wheel and switched off the hazard lights. ‘OK. I came down the motorway just to check we weren’t being followed. I’ve been looking out. It’s all right. Everything has been done meticulously.’

  She took the bag out of the back gingerly and tried to make sure it didn’t rub against her leg as she walked. She didn’t say goodbye because she had turned her mind away from him.

  She walked through the side entrance to the platform, oblivious of the details of the station and the specific age, shape or size of the other passengers. She saw figures. She felt them. A couple to her left, a man to her right. She was convinced they were watching her and she stood stock-still as their eyes bored into her. She didn’t dare look up, lest she catch their eyes. She knew they would know immediately, if they didn’t already.

  The train had pulled up before she registered it. She tried to put the bag out of her mind and to summon up some anger for that fucking woman and all her kind, who were screwing her people and had been for years. The train was pretty empty and she saw a seat and gently lowered herself into it, positioning the bag carefully between her legs. She closed her eyes and sighed deeply, her mind suddenly conscious of the sweat on her brow.

  She could feel the gun pressing against her breast.

  After a few minutes she loosened her grip on the bag and leaned back on the seat. It had been a long night without sleep and she was very tired. She felt a kind of calmness descend and she looked down to check that her clothes were still clean, neat and unruffled.

  She’d taken great pains with her appearance and it showed. She was wearing a dark-brown suede jacket, a white shirt and a plain black pair of trousers. She wasn’t wearing make-up because she knew she was pretty and didn’t want to attract unnecessary glances – and to that end she wore a black suede hat that she pulled down onto her forehead.

  She closed her eyes now and thought briefly about arming the bomb. It was the work of a few seconds in the ladies’ loo in Waterloo and then she would be away. She would make one phone call to Dublin and they would place the warning with the police. The police might play silly buggers with people’s lives and lie to the media, but what was it to her? Not her fault if they wanted to see people killed. But nobody would be killed, she told herself. That wasn’t what it was meant for.

  She picked up the local evening paper and tried to concentrate on the words in front of her. Eventually she got bored and lowered it slowly, allowing herself to look around the carriage.

  It was nearly empty. For the first time, she noticed the old woman sitting opposite was staring at her intently. Colette found her gaze unnerving and irritating and she snapped the paper back up over her face. But it was too late. The woman had seen her chance. ‘It is awfully hot in here, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘They do so often get the temperature wrong.’

  Colette lowered one side of the paper slightly and smiled over the edge of it. It was a forced smile, polite rather than interested, but the old woman smiled back and continued. ‘Are you from London?’

  Colette shook her head and would have said nothing, but the woman looked as if she would go on. ‘I’m just coming up for the night – to see friends,’ she said, and then pulled her newspaper higher to indicate the conversation was terminated.

  The woman’s inquisitiveness worried her. If this had been the start of a campaign she wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but it had been going on for two months and people were getting suspicious. She’d been especially careful in the last few days not to be drawn into conversation with anyone.

  She tightened her grip on the bag. It was close now. The neat semi-detached homes and carefully tended gardens of suburbia had given way to drab office blocks. Waterloo was only a few minutes away.

  She felt more nervous than she had ever been. She tried to tell herself it was stupid because it should be simple to leave the bag beneath a bench and quietly slip away. Then it would all be finished and she could have a hot bath and scrub herself clean at the flat in Clapham.

  The train slowed and the passengers were on their feet. Colette sat still, but so did the old woman. She could feel panic rising now and she wanted to stand up and scream. She fought to control herself. She almost shouted to herself to keep calm. She told herself there was nothing to be afraid of but an interfering old-age pensioner. She waited for her to rise and leave the train before she picked up her bag and slowly walked to the end of the carriage, pausing at the door for twenty or thirty seconds.

  The moment she set foot on the platform she knew that had been a mistake. They were close to the exit and the other passengers had cleared through. Only the old woman was there, talking to a guard whose head was bent low to catch her gentle voice above the noise of the train.

  She walked on, but waves of panic were beginning to overwhelm her. She tried to convince herself that nothing was wrong, that it would be as it had been so many times before. She saw the policeman as she heard the voice. He might have said excuse me, she couldn’t be sure, but he looked startled as she broke past him into the packed concourse.

  She heard the shout, but by now she was running, her heart pumping and her head bursting.

  The platform exit was in the middle of the concourse and she ran left, past W. H. Smith.

  Somebody shouted again. She saw only blurred faces. She lost her hat.

  She passed a line of people staring up at the departures board and then saw an exit and ran for it, experiencing as she did so a momentary sense of relief.

  She burst through the glass doors, jumped off the top step outside and crashed headlong into a woman carrying home her shopping. She recovered her balance and started to run again, turning left. The pavement was full of commuters and she dashed out into the road and ran alongside the traffic, cutting across the lanes as she went. She reached the corner and turned towards Westminster Bridge. Her lungs felt like they were bursting and she was tiring fast. Halfway across the bridge, in the shadow of Big Ben, she stopped and forced herself to look back.

  Nobody was following.

  Her feet were hurting because her shoes had heels and were not designed for running. She could feel the blood in her face.

  She realized with a jolt that she still had the bag in her
hand. The commuters plying to and fro were set for home and took little notice of her as she leaned over the bridge and dropped the bag over the side. She saw it hit the flat surface of the Thames and walked on. She looked behind her again. Still nothing.

  She had no time to plan or think, but she realized she would have little chance of escape on foot. The roadworks at the centre of the bridge had brought the traffic to a standstill, so she turned round and walked back the way she had come. She knew she had to get away quickly.

  On instinct, without reason, she hailed a taxi. The man pulled down the window. ‘Where to, love?’ he asked easily.

  He had grey hair and a pleasant face. She hesitated.

  He didn’t push her.

  She heard a siren and felt the sense of panic return. ‘Battersea,’ she said, without knowing why.

  ‘Where in Battersea?’

  She didn’t understand. ‘I’m sorry?’

  The man shook his head. ‘Whereabouts in Battersea?’

  ‘Battersea Park,’ she said. She got into the back and felt instantly safer.

  On the radio, the presenter was grilling the British Home Secretary. She listened to his silky voice.

  ‘But surely, Home Secretary, there must be something that can be done to prevent these attacks. As you are well aware, they do seem to be able to strike at will. Is it time to consider introducing internment again?’

  The Home Secretary sighed audibly. ‘Well, the legislation remains on the statute book, but whatever the frustrations – and I know it is very frustrating – I don’t personally favour that. After all, if we bring them all in, sooner or later we have got to let them all out again.’

  ‘Home Secretary, thank you very much. For those just joining us, the latest news is that London’s train stations have once again been disrupted by a series of real and hoax bombs. Commuters face another night of chaos.’

  They were nearly at Chelsea Bridge now, but the traffic had ground to a halt and she could feel the panic rising again. ‘Can I get out here?’