into Castlereagh and you'd come out minus a couple of fingers and with a few bones bent out of shape. And it wasn't a myth. Twenty-four hours, maximum, that was the longest anybody ever lasted before they spilled whatever beans they had to spill.
Connor was a little fat boy, but hard as fuck. He lasted more than twenty hours, and after that SB had a grudging respect for him.
Later, he was bundled back into a car boot and returned across the border before the weekend of Dublin jollity was over. Once back in the city, with his right hand short of a pinkie, I'd told him in no uncertain terms that if he breathed a word to anyone about what had gone on Special Branch would spread the whisper that he'd come up with the information willingly.
All that was required of him was that he went back to his seedy little existence, and when called upon for information, he would give it. Otherwise he'd be lifted for another night or two at the castle, or bubbled to the Provos. Some choice: lose a couple more fingers or have a paving slab dropped on your head. No wonder we ended up with more supergrasses than Kew Gardens.
All that has stopped since Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley started their power-sharing love fest. I wondered what Sundance and Trainers made of it. After all those years fighting with the UDA, and the Prod 'never surrender' business, that was exactly what the Loyalists – and Nationalists – had done. They probably saw it as a total waste of a war. I doubted I'd ever ask them. I liked having teeth and unbroken bones.
As for Connor, he'd kept well quiet about his little visit to the castle and done as he was told. But even better than that, he'd become a Dublin Sinn Fein councillor a year later. It meant the Brits had a source there, too.
I looked out of the window as we nudged through the outskirts. The driver was right. Dublin had gone from rags to riches since Ireland had joined the EU, and it obviously wasn't just the Irish themselves who were fuelling the economic miracle. We passed a billboard advertising a newspaper. All the text was in a foreign language, but I recognized 'Polski'. 'You got many Poles here?'
'They even have their own TV show. Good people, I like them. We have all sorts. We got those Lithuanians, Africans, Spanish, and loads of those little Chinese fellas. We've even got a mosque.'
'That it?' I was looking at a silver pole pointing skywards over the city centre.
He chuckled as he wove in and out of the traffic. 'Bertie Ahern wanted to build some sort of sports stadium, but in the end they decided on a spire instead. We call it Bertie's Pole . . . or the Stiffy on the Liffey.' His face creased into another thousand lines. He enjoyed that gag so much he jumped the lights. Not because he was impatient, he just hadn't seen them.
We drove down a street I sort of recognized. I remembered it in a shit state, women selling fruit and veg and bits of fish from babies' prams. Now there were African hairdressers, Arab delis, Chinese restaurants and loads of Internet shops. Places selling coconuts and all sorts. It reminded me of parts of New York, the city where you think everybody smokes because the new laws have driven the lot of them outside.
And judging by the size of the huddle puffing away on the pavement, TVZ 24's entire staff had been recruited on the other side of the Atlantic.
32
Glass doors hissed open. Ahead, a torrent of water coursed down a huge angled sheet of steel. Beautiful people glided over white tiles doing important things with a mobile in one hand and a paper cup of cappuccino in the other.
I went up to the reception desk. An entire wall of flat screens showed footage of Pete fucking about with his cameras, getting ready to film. A tickertape caption announced the sad death of one of the station's finest cameramen.
'Hello, my name's Nick Stone. I'm here for Moira Foley.'
The girl had a little Bluetooth thing in her ear. She gave me a big smile and tapped her keyboard.
'She is expecting me. We spoke this morning.'
I'd called on the pretext of seeing Moira about my invoice. I needn't have worried about getting a meeting. She was the one who asked me.