Resurrection Man Read Free Page A

stared at the lines and circles that proposed something beyond the capacity of maps. His markings were like the structure of a language. He expected to hear its guttural sound being pronounced on the streets. He imagined being addressed in it. It would be arcane, full of sorrow, menacing.
    Ryan had been working with Ivor Coppinger for two years. Coppinger was more deeply involved. It was Coppinger for instance who conducted meetings in parked cars with off-duty police and UDR men. There were intricate relationships involved once the contact was made. Knowledge became a form of suffering. In the end the information became almost incidental. Coppinger listened to terrible things about ambition, parenthood.
    Early that morning he had gone with Coppinger to the Albert Bridge. A chemical tanker had been parked on the bridge with a bomb on board. He got to the scene just as the area was being sealed off. They were waiting for someone from the fire brigade to identify the cargo. The lorry was on the pavement with its hazard warning lights on. The man from the fire brigade could not read the cargo labels without binoculars. While someone went for them they stared at the orange decals at the back of the tank, symbols of mass panic and death by inhalation. The bomb disposal men were moving slowly up the Albert Bridge Road, pausing at intervals as if they were aware of other signs, not easily detectable: a shift in the breeze, a magnetic tug of warning in the currents of the Lagan beneath the bridge. Before they reached the lorry the detonator had gone off without piercing the tank. The man from the fire brigade said afterwards that it contained dry-cleaning fluid.
    Coppinger had told him about Constable McMinn and Frames McCrea. McCrea had crashed through 164 checkpoints in stolen cars. McMinn had been picked to catch him because he was a part-time rally driver. There was a network on the outskirts of the city to which he belonged. Sullen men working in garages, stripping engines on oil-soaked benches, grinding down valves, increasing ratios, moving towards devout moments of speed and power. Small local papers carried intense motor-sports coverage, photographs of morose champions.
    McCrea had become a matter of legend. He was at the centre of mystical events. The cars he stole had been pepperedwith bullets. He had jumped a checkpoint ramp and landed on the Stockman’s Lane motorway access. He stopped outside Tennant Street RUC station every night and held the horn down to provoke a chase.
    When McMinn rammed him off the road in Amelia Street the reaction was extreme. Two nights ago McMinn and his partner were dragged into the Victoria bar. They were forced to crawl on their hands and knees. They had to walk like chickens. McMinn was taken into the toilets where a shot was fired into the wall beside his head. He was forced to eat shit.
    Coppinger pointed this out as an indication of the feelings aroused. The deeply felt immunities of the hero had been breached.
    That afternoon Coppinger put the medical report of the first knife killing on Ryan’s desk. After death the head had been almost severed from the trunk. There were two depressed fractures of the skull, fragments of glass embedded in the face. The root of the tongue had been severed.
    Later that afternoon Ryan drove Coppinger out to the scene.
    ‘They would’ve parked the car there,’ Coppinger said, pointing to the mouth of a small alley.
    ‘Drag marks,’ Ryan said, examining the pavement. There were bloodstains against the wall. There was nothing to distinguish the bloodstains or the doorway where the body had been left, but they both had a sense of familiarity, of scenes repeated in history.
    ‘They would have done your man out of view in the alley,’ Coppinger said, his finger describing their progress, ‘dead or near enough.’
    ‘He was strangled, cut to pieces.’
    ‘I reckon they kept him alive though, until they got here. They wanted him to know who was doing