Free Out of Nowhere by Gerard Whelan Page B

messenger from hell. But he said nothing, and the abbot told him Philip’s story.

16. The Special Case
    ‘Brother Philip,’ the abbot began, ‘is the only Irish monk here. The basic purpose of this abbey is to train novices, and our order prefers to train its novices in countries other than their own. Philip came to our doors about ten years ago, shortly after we first arrived here. He asked to join the order. For various reasons, not least his age, it would have been unusual for him to be posted here in Ireland, even if he was accepted. But after he told me his story I arranged for him to join, and pulled some strings so that he could stay with us for his novitiate and afterwards. I might have done better to send him away, I don’t know. But he was a special case.’
    He paused. He was a man careful with words. He preferred to take his time, to find exactly the right expression.
    ‘Philip,’ he said, ‘was a terrorist – over across the border there. I use the word ‘terrorist’ as neutrally as I can. One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom-fighter. In my experience their methods tend to be identical – a freedom-fighter is what history calls a terrorist who succeeds. I don’t presume to judge others. I try not to have opinions on things which are none of my business. I fail, of course, but when I do have opinions on such things I keep them to myself.’
    He was watching Stephen carefully as he spoke, as thoughfor a reaction to the news of Philip’s past. But Stephen just thought that at least now he understood Philip’s familiarity with guns.
    ‘Philip was never a bomber,’ Paul went on. ‘He was a specialist, a marksman. But many of his friends dealt with explosives. One day, one of these friends asked Philip to do him a favour – to store some explosives in his house for a day. At the time Philip lived with his parents and his younger sister, whom he especially adored. He didn’t want to endanger or incriminate them by keeping explosives in their house, but it was an emergency. His friend was holding the explosives for a bombing team that was due to plant them that night. He’d received a tip-off that his own hiding-place was known, and that he himself was to be arrested that day. In the circumstances, Philip decided to take the risk. His family fully supported him in his activities. Far from condemning his involvement, they were proud of him. But Philip didn’t tell them about the explosives, because he didn’t want to worry them.
    ‘Philip was working all night that night – at his legitimate job, I mean. He warned his family that someone would be calling late to collect something from their house. There had been other such occasions, although never involving material such as this. But Philip’s family trusted him implicitly and never asked questions. At such times they went to their beds early and listened to the quiet footsteps downstairs in the middle of the night without going down. The idea was that they could never be forced to identify anybody they had never seen. This of course is not so, as anyone who’s had dealingswith an army fighting terrorism will tell you – one can be made to do all sorts of impossible things. But anyway, Philip gave the spare key of his parents’ house to the leader of the bombing team and told him exactly where he had hidden the material.’
    He paused again, and looked down at his feet.
    ‘Something went wrong,’ he said quietly. ‘Perhaps all the moving around had made the explosives unstable – there’s no way of knowing now. At any rate, the material detonated when the bombers tried to move it. Everyone in the house was killed, both the bombers and the sleeping family. Four people in the adjoining houses – including two small children – were also killed, and several maimed.’
    He stopped speaking. There was silence for a while.
    ‘And Philip did … what?’ Stephen asked.
    ‘He left the world. He felt he’d killed his family. At