Autobiography of an Assassin:: The Family Read online

  Autobiography of an Assassin:

  The Family

  M. T. Hallgarth

  Copyright © 2015 M. T. Hallgarth

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,

  or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents

  Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in

  any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the

  publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with

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  concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

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  To Diane, my dearest wife, for all her continued support and encouragement.

  Contents

  Cover

  THE FAMILY

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE

  THE FAMILY

  family (‘faemili ‘faemuli) n. pl. – lies.

  1. a primary social group consisting of parents and their offspring.

  2. one’s wife or husband and one’s children.

  3. one’s children as distinguished from one’s wife or husband.

  4. a group sharing a common ancestry.

  or in our case

  4. a group sharing a common intent

  ‘ASSASSINS’

  * Definitions are taken from the 1989 edition of Collins’ Concise Dictionary Plus

  CHAPTER ONE

  Patrick is one of the original members of the Family – in fact, its first.

  We had first met one Monday morning, in early September 1969, in an office overlooking the Victoria Embankment and the Thames. Patrick had been so laid back; he was almost comatose. I was relaxed, but not as relaxed as he had been. About my age, height and build, he had seemed pleasant enough. A thatch of thick wild, almost unkempt black hair, gave him a bit of a vagabond appearance and, with his soft Irish lilt, you may have been forgiven for thinking that he might have been a ‘traveller’. Patrick had been clean shaven in those days – the beard had come later, in the early eighties. It had been his broad grin that had been most infectious – it is a grin that rarely leaves his face, even today, all those years on. It was to be our induction session into Section 9, given by the then head of Section, Sir Peter N…. He had been aided by a number of his senior staff, including Ralph H…, Section 9’s coordinator who had recruited me back in Vietnam; and who had also recently recruited Patrick at an Irish mental hospital, where he had been sectioned under the Irish equivalent of the Mental Health Act.

  Patrick had been born in the county town of Kilkenny, his father an owner of a bar in the town, his mother being the head cook and bottle washer.

  The bar is still there, a lovely long bar, with highly polished wood throughout – and the best pint of Kilkenny beer that you could wish for.

  On leaving school, Patrick had been expected to work in the bar and gradually take over its running, from his father…but he had other ideas and ambitions. Patrick had wanted to join the ‘An Garda Síochána’, the Garda, the Irish Republic Police Force. In part, this desire might have been prompted by the fact that his childhood sweetheart, Cassie, had also planned to join the Garda. And, that had been that – they had both joined the Garda, together. Then, a couple of years later, they had confirmed their undying love for each other by getting married. For a while, the happy couple had lived above the bar, but it did not offer them the privacy that they had craved for. Houses in Kilkenny had been too expensive for them to rent, even on their combined Garda salaries, so they had moved to a little cottage on the outskirts of Kells, a small town, some fifteen kilometres south of Kilkenny. It had meant a short commute, and they had purchased a little green Morris Minor, to whisk them to and from their little ‘love nest’ and the reality of community policing.

  The intelligence and ingenuity that Patrick had brought to his comparative lowly role, within the Garda, had not gone unnoticed by his Sergeant. The Sergeant had asked Patrick if he could turn his attention to the updating and correlation o
f the ponderously inefficient record systems, held at the station. Covering the whole of Kilkenny County, the Garda records had comprised of rows of filling cabinets, containing draws crammed full of manila A4 folders, which in turn, had been jam packed with typed forms, multiple carbon copies, statements, records, and anything else thought to have been of relevance. Stored by family name, in simple alphabetical order, they had once been expertly navigated through by a Records Sergeant, who, over many years, had been responsible for their compilation and care. Give the old Garda officer details of a crime and he would go and lay his hands straight on the files of a selection of possible suspects, relying on his knowledge of local criminals to provide a remarkably accurate list of probable villains. However, the old officer had retired and, without his considerable expertise, the Garda record filing system had fallen into a state of administrative decay. It had become almost impossible to use. What many would have considered to be a wearisome tedious task, Patrick had approached with enthusiasm. It had represented an intellectual challenge to him, something for him to apply his own thoughts and logic to resolving. Don’t forget, this was in the days before computers; all records would have to be manually created, validated and verified, stored in card boxes or banks of filing cabinets – no hard disk storage or access, back then.

  The first thing that Patrick had done was to create a simple master index. Starting with the letter ‘A’, he had gone through each police record folder, recording the person’s name and address on the far left hand side of an index sheet; which had simply been large sheets of A3 graph paper laid out lengthways, on their sides. Across the top of the graph paper, he had headed up each individual column with a category: a column for Male or Female; date of birth; five columns for ranges in height; and another five for weight ranges; then there was column for hair colouring. The next ten columns he had given over to recording the nature of the criminal activity of the person: Crimes of Violence; Sexual Assault; Armed Robbery; Extortion; Theft; Burglary; Soliciting; Drunk and Disorderly; Motoring; and a final column marked ‘Other’. To each of these columns, Patrick had then categorised and had encoded the specific offences recorded on the record sheet, included those that been suspected, but not proven. This had been painstaking, methodical work; with every record being carefully and thoroughly scrutinised – every record being diligently checked and validated. After two months of solid hard work, Patrick had completed the master index and had been ready for the next stage – the creation of a card index system for each one those categories that he had identified. That way, with an index for each category, by using a straightforward matrix and looking through the uncomplicated card files, a Garda officer could simply determine a list of possible suspects: broken down, cross referenced and correlated by sex, age, height, weight, hair colouring and type of crime. Four civilian typists had been assigned to Patrick for him to supervise, in the creation of the card index system. With each typist taking an index, in turn, and working off Patrick’s handwritten master index, it took but a short while to type up each card within a category, and file it within its allocated card index box. Within three weeks of starting the task, the four hard working typists had almost finished…save for the one who had been typing up a sub-index, listed within the ‘Other’ category – encoded ‘NATs’. She had recognised some of the names that she had been typing, so had asked Patrick what ‘NATs’ had stood for. It had been a question that Patrick had not anticipated and, because of its sensitivity, had not wanted to broadcast his answer in front of the other three clerks. The typist, who had asked the question, had been known by Patrick for years – since he had been a child, in fact. A close friend of his mother; she had been his baby sitter on a Friday and Saturday night, when his parents had been busy in the bar beneath. Taking a blank card, he had quickly scribbled some words on to the back of it and had shown her what he had written: ‘Nationalists – Sine Fein and IRA’. And, it had been with those few scribbled words, that Patrick had unknowingly signed a death warrant – his own!

  CHAPTER TWO

  The following morning dawn had just broken when Cassie had come out of the cottage door and had made her way down to the green Morris Minor, parked at the end of the cobbled stoned footpath.

  From under her arm, she had taken two brand new learner plates. Each emblazoned with a large red ‘L’, she had tied them securely to the spindly bumpers of the car – one on the rear and one on the front. That day, Cassie had intended to learn to drive. But first, she had needed to clear the dew that had formed over the windows of the small car. Using the back of her left hand, she had cleared most of the moisture off before unlocking the car and getting into the driver’s seat. Grabbing hold of the steering wheel, and using her bottom to slide the seat forward on its runners, Cassie had adjusted the position of the seat to suit her small frame. She had then adjusted the interior mirror, so as to properly see out of the rear window, which, along with the other windows of the small car, had been gradually fogging up with condensation. Without giving it a second thought, Cassie had turned the key in the car’s ignition and had pulled out the starter knob; her intention to start the car and use the warm air from the heater to demist the car’s interior. As the starter solenoid had spun into life to crank the flywheel of the cold engine – the pipe bomb had detonated. Wired in series to the starter solenoid, it had been crudely attached underneath the floor pan with agricultural bailing twine. Placed for effect, directly underneath the driver’s seat, a substantial amount of the blast had been deflected straight up, from off the road – causing the majority of its contents of six inch nails to shred through the car’s interior. On hearing the muffled explosion, Patrick had sprinted down the cottage path to the car. The driver’s door had been blown wide open by the blast…and there was poor Cassie – or what had been left of her. By the nature of the homemade explosive, which had been used in the manufacture of the crude bomb, the blast had not been large and, in itself, may not have had proven lethal. The lethality had come from the six inch nails with which it had been packed. The standard issue thick black stockings, which Cassie had worn under the dark blue skirt of her uniform, had hung in strips down both of her legs, entwined with flesh that had been flayed and shredded down to the bone. But most of the deadly sharp nails had passed on up through the leather of the driver’s seat, directly into the soft flesh and tissue of Cassie’s lower body. These vicious projectiles had continued on, upwards – tearing the very fabric of Cassie’s abdomen, as they had gouged their way deep inside her. Despite her horrendous injuries, Cassie had been alive – just, when Patrick had reached her. Dropping down on to his knees, he had leaned into the interior of the car, reaching out with both arms to cradle the partially eviscerated frame of his wife. Not daring to look down at the gore, which had filled the foot well of the car, he had tried to comfort her with soft, soothing, caring words. He had spoken of his undying love for her, the things that they had done, and all the things that they would do…in another life. Then he had slowly brought up his right hand, kissing her continually on the cheeks and lips, as he had gently caressed her neck and had lovingly choked the last remnants of life from her torn violated body.

  The bomb had been intended for him but, because of the nature of the incident and the organisation behind it, Patrick had known that he would get no help from their nearby neighbours…they would be far too scared – far too intimidated to get involved. Apparently, he had then returned back to the cottage; washed his hands and face; taken off his soiled bloody uniform, putting on a clean one, in its place; and then had retrieved his grandfather’s World War One service pistol, a Webley Break-Top Revolver Mk VI, and a box containing fifty rounds of .455 calibre ammunition. From a lean-to, attached to the cottage, Patrick had wheeled out his prized Triumph motorcycle and, kicking into life, had sped off towards Kilkenny. The desk sergeant, on duty that morning, had later given evidence that he had not noticed anything unusual when Patrick had signed into the station, a short while later. He had also not
thought it at all unusual, when Patrick had informed him that his wife would not be signing in for duty, that day: ‘time of the month!’ The Records Room, in the Garda Head Quarters, had been ransacked; cards, record files and papers strewn all over the floor, the empty draws of filing cabinets pulled out and left discarded where they had been dropped. Patrick had ignored all this disorder, and had walked straight through the rubbish strewn room into the adjoining Evidence Room. Here, he had gone directly to a large box clearly marked: ‘Dental Evidence’ and, on opening it, had rummaged under the collection of plastic false teeth and dentures that it had contained. With a sigh of satisfaction, he had taken out a card box file marked: ‘NATs’, which he had hidden there, only the day before. Opening the box, he had taken out all of the record cards that had been neatly filed inside – and had placed them carefully in the large inside pocket of his tunic.