Free Cold by John Sweeney Page A

attack at the Tower of London. The bomb you made and planted would have killed the head of MI5, the head of the Met, the head of the RUC and a British prince. But the detonator didn’t work, so you said.’
    ‘The detonator was a dud.’
    ‘The intel report says “no record of an active detonator”. The bomb didn’t go off because there was no detonator. Point being, Joe’ – and here the muzzle shape waved at him again, pointedly, through the cloth of Donnelly’s coat – ‘it was always a dud. You built the bomb. You supplied the dud. That makes you a British spy.’
    It was cold on the hill, but Joe licked his lips as if they had been dried out by great heat.
    ‘The evidence in our hands makes you a British spy.’
    ‘Then your evidence is wrong. I’m no British spy.’
    ‘Then who the fuck are you working for?’
    ‘No one.’
    ‘You’re a bomb-maker. But you deliberately make a bomb that doesn’t go off. Why?’
    ‘North Korea.’ Joe paused and looked out over the gravestones marching up and down the hill. ‘Here in West Belfast, you learn to hate the British,’ he continued. ‘Our time in North Korea made me realise that however bad the British are, however heavy the RUC, however much our people are discriminated against, it’s nothing like as bad as how the regime there treats ordinary people. Killing Chong was the moment I woke up, Declan. The killing, the hating, you’ve got to be brainwashed to do that. And my brainwashing has worn off.’
    Joe paused to let this sink in. Then he added: ‘If you’re going to shoot me, get on with it.’
    Donnelly exhaled; his face, turned grey by too much prison, stared out at the low-rise housing on the slopes, the cluttered blocks and terraces of Belfast City, and the great yellow shipyard crane below.
    ‘The strange thing is, Joe, I knew. You do my job, you run an IRA brigade . . . you kill the British, you kill bad Irishmen, you trust good Irishmen, you turn crooked people like the bent copper. You develop an instinct. I knew you’d changed after North Korea.’
    ‘Are you going to shoot me?’
    Donnelly pulled the gun from his coat and pointed it directly at Joe.
    ‘My question stands,’ said Joe.
    ‘You saved my life by killing that fucking sadist Chong. You didn’t just save me but the other boys too. So run, Joe, run. But if we ever find you again, wherever you are, you’re a dead man. Understood?’
    ‘. . . Mr Tiplady? Mr Tiplady?’
    Joe made no reply.
    ‘Mr Tiplady, may I have your full attention?’
    Joe came back from the cemetery to the employment tribunal.
    ‘There’s no record of an active logbook, Mr Tiplady.’
    ‘Just because you don’t know about something does not mean it does not exist,’ said Joe. ‘Call the day manager and ask him for it. But it’s probably best not to mention that you’re looking for the logbook in relation to this,’ he added.
    Mr Brooks jolted awake. ‘Why not?’ he asked.
    ‘Because the day manager and I had a disagreement,’ said Joe.
    ‘Are you suggesting that he may be in some way biased against you?’
    ‘Perhaps.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because he’s a fecking bully.’
    ‘Please respect the tribunal by minding your language,’ said Alison. ‘I’m afraid that our guidelines forbid the introduction of fresh evidence at the fact-finding stage.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘You should have raised the issue of your so-called logbook at the preliminary stage.’
    ‘I thought this was the preliminary.’
    ‘I’ve already told you this is the fact-finder. Is there anything else you’d like to say?’
    Joe shook his head.
    ‘Very well. The tribunal will reconvene at two thirty. Mr Tiplady, we will see you then. In the meantime, please don’t discuss our proceedings with anyone else. Do you understand?’
    ‘Yes, I understand.’
    He walked out of the frosted-glass box into a bigger, open-plan glass box, and took the lift down and stepped out onto Piccadilly.
    The rain had stopped and