Read In the Morning I'll Be Gone for Free Online Page B

Mirror . I read the Mirror and smoked a tab.
    The headline was about magician/comedian Tommy Cooper, who’d had a heart attack the previous night and died live on TV. Everyone thought it was part of his act and continued laughing while he struggled for breath on the stage floor. “It was the way he would have wanted to go,” many of Cooper’s friends were quoted as saying, but you couldn’t really believe that.
    Tom and Kate entered ten minutes later. Tom was wearing a black polo-neck sweater over a pair of brown slacks and brown tasseled loafers. He was trying hard to be casual but there were bags under his eyes and his face was ashy. Kate was wearing a white shirt and faded blue jeans. Tom was carrying a tape recorder, she a briefcase. He set up the tape recorder, hooked it to a microphone, and pressed record.
    “8:01 p.m., 16 April 1984, Bessbrook, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Interview with Sean Duffy, formerly of the Royal Ulster Constabulary,” he said.
    “Still formerly, eh?”
    Kate opened her briefcase and passed me a sheet of paper. It was a legal document temporarily reinstating me into the RUC until December 31, 1984, with the rank of detective inspector.
    I looked at it and then at her. She could tell that I wasn’t pleased.
    “What’s this 31 December bullshit?”
    “I’m afraid it was the best we could squeeze out of the Chief Constable,” Kate replied.
    “He really doesn’t like you,” Tom added.
    “Where’s my letter from Thatcher?”
    “The prime minister was apprised of your request and declined to sign a letter of apology or regret at your allegedly unfair treatment by Her Majesty’s government,” Kate said with an attempt at a sympathetic smile.
    “Did you even ask?”
    “Yes, we did ask.”
    “That sour old bitch!”
    I looked at her and at Tom and at the black tape spinning round on the recorder.
    “Sean,” Kate said softly. There was something odd about her face, something difficult to explain. Under that severe brown bob she was attractive and intelligent, but you couldn’t tell what she was thinking or where she was from or even how old she really was—I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that she was twenty-two and fresh out of Oxford or fifty and a long-standing veteran of the Cold War.
    “This is the best we can do, for now,” she continued.
    “It’s not good enough. I want full reinstatement and an apology. Those goons called me a “Fenian bastard,” practically to my face. Do you have any idea what it’s been like putting up with bollocks like that over the years?”
    Of course they didn’t. Not really. Their religious wars were done. The English had got over all this hundreds of years ago.
    Tom drummed his fingers on the table.
    I looked up at the ceiling. What was I going to do? Go to bloody Spain? Eat tapas and listen to frigging flamenco?
    “I’m willing to drop my demand for a letter of apology but I’m not going to compromise on anything else,” I said.
    Tom shook his head at Kate, as if saying, I told you so, he’s a fucking prima donna.
    “Sean, look, this is the best deal we were able to get. A temporary reinstatement, a return to the CID. Your old rank back! It took a lot of haggling to get just this through the RUC hierarchy.”
    “It’s worthless. All this means is that come 31 December I’ll be chucked out again on my ear,” I said, waving the paper like a sadder and wiser Neville Chamberlain.
    “No, that’s not the case,” Kate insisted.
    “So what does it mean?”
    “It means that you’ll be temporarily reinstated with a proviso that at the end of the year the reinstatement will be made permanent . . . if certain conditions are met.”
    “And what are those conditions?”
    “That you do no harm to the reputation of the RUC, that you don’t violate any direct orders from senior RUC officers, and, finally, that MI5 gives the Chief Constable a favorable report on your activities with this service.”
    I wrinkled my nose