Recompense by Howard Lycett & Forces

Author:Howard Lycett & Forces [Lycett, Howard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-03-30T22:00:00+00:00

Beechfield Street, Short Strand

There were the sounds of kids playing noisily in the playground of the McArthur Nursery School. He could hear the kids but could not see them.

The school was on the other side of a peace wall, a red brick divider over ten feet high with a larger metal fence on top to stop missiles being thrown over from the Loyalist or Nationalist community.

She lived on the front line, her home covered by CCTV cameras.

He knocked on the front door and stepped back down off the front step. She had been expecting his call and was happy to arrange his visit. Pops must have still been in touch with his old agent. Strictly against the rules, but then again rules had never stood in the old man’s way in the past.

A middle-aged man opened the door. He looked at the new arrival with suspicion.

“I’m Phil, I have an appointment to see Mrs Fitzpatrick,” he explained.

The man pointed inside and followed Johnno into a second, secure holding room. He closed the door behind them and operated an electric switch which double bolted the front entrance. He noticed it shut with a clunk, possibly it was lead lined.

After a rough search a second inner door was released, and he was allowed access into the house.

She was waiting to greet him but stayed back until her bodyguard had disappeared before she spoke.

“So, young man, let me look at you.” She raised her glasses to the bridge of her nose and walked around him.

“I wonder if that little arse of yours is as fast as your Granddad’s,” she teased.

“What did that old bastard call me - Kate Fitzpatrick. ‘Machine Gun Kate’ or Agent Credlin?”

“He called you Ma.”

She smiled and led him into an airy kitchen. There was a smell of recent paint and freshly baked bread.

Over a cup of tea, they discussed the past and present. She had a twinkle in her eye every time she mentioned ‘That old bugger.’

His Granddad had recruited her when she was at a crossroads in her thinking, swaying from armed conflict to political settlement. The Ballot Box, not the ArmaLite.

“I called him ‘Bucky’ because he would buck anything in a skirt,” she admitted.

“Including you, Ma?” he teased.

She looked flushed and sheepish. Her hair dyed raven black, she was a big buxom woman, her large cleavage on display. She would have been a stunner back in her day and he didn’t doubt for one moment that his old Granddad hadn’t at least tried to make a pass at his agent.

Ma had been involved in a number of skirmishes with both the police and the army. Some male members of her organisation had started becoming jealous of this jumped-up woman’s success and began to start making remarks about her ability to pull off spectacular successes against the security forces.

His Granddad had stepped in, recruited her, even whisked her away to safety when she was about to be arrested and interrogated by the Provos’ infamous ‘Nutting Squad’, a group of assassins who provided internal security for the Republican movement.

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