Free Dead Man Running: A True Story of a Secret Agent's Escape from the IRA and MI5 by Martin McGartland

new teapot and saucepans to cook with. I didn’t feel like using any of the dishes or cutlery that were in the flat because they were cracked, chipped and old. I was missing Angie and the kids desperately and I thought that if I made the house more habitable, more pleasant to live in then I might be able to persuade Angie to bring the boys over to Tyneside so that we could live together as a family once again. I feared for Angie, wondering if the IRA bastards might haul her to one of their meetings, occasions when a number of IRA thugs question and cross-question someone, trying to confuse them so that they end up telling them everything they want to know. I had witnessed such meetings before, grown men reduced to rambling, babbling figures unable to think or speak straight for fear of what might happen to them. These wretched wrecks usually ended up telling their IRA inquisitors everything they wanted to know whether it was the truth or not. In that way the IRA would not only discover facts and information they could use on future occasions when questioning others who lived in Republican West Belfast, those tens of thousands of Catholics who allegedly lived under their protection but who, in reality, lived in abject fear of the strict discipline imposed on innocent people by the so-called Irish Republican Army. I wanted to call Angie every night to tell her how much I missed her, to apologise for leaving her alone with the kids, for involving her in the mess that my life had become since working as an agent for the Special Branch way back in 1987. Very occasionally I did call her, though I knew I was taking a risk. We would weep together during those phone calls for we loved each other and needed each other. Angie had shown remarkable bravery in those months that I had been recovering, understanding that she could not, must not, see me for fear that she might be later picked up and questioned by the IRA. She had no fear for herself but only for Martin and Podraig, frightened that her young sons might be left without a father or a mother. Angie, in fact, had known nothing, absolutely nothing, of my life as an agent for British Intelligence working inside the IRA’s intelligence wing, providing information to the Special Branch. There were two main reasons why I told Angie nothing of my undercover work; one was the fact that if she knew nothing she couldn’t tell anyone anything; the other the fact that she would have thoroughly disapproved and persuaded me to stop working for the British. In our infrequent telephone calls I would beg Angie to bring the kids to England, to escape the politics, as well as the bombs and bullets of Belfast. I urged her to come to England for the safety of living in peace on the mainland where I would be able to care for and protect her and the boys in a way I could not while they continued to live in Northern Ireland. For her part Angie was torn between leaving her family with whom she was very close, her friends, whom she relied on for support, understanding and sympathy, and living in England, a strange country she had never even visited, in a town she didn’t know, surrounded by total strangers. ‘Can you understand the Geordie slang?’ she asked one night during a phone call. ‘Not to begin with,’ I told her, ‘but the people who live here are really kind, the salt of the earth.’ ‘But I’m told strangers can’t understand what they’re saying,’ she said, sounding worried. ‘It’s not that bad; you’ll get used to the accent,’ I told her, trying to bolster her confidence, encouraging her to take the great leap, leave Belfast and come live with me in Newcastle. After three weeks Angie phoned and suddenly asked, ‘Would I come across on the ferry?’ My heart leapt and I could hardly contain myself, suddenly chatting 16 to the dozen as I felt the excitement buzz through my body. ‘You’ll come then?’ I asked, expectation in my voice. ‘If you really want me to.’