Thrown Down (27 page)

‘Yes but it was a war and in the end she couldn’t do it. It didn’t make any difference to how I felt about her’

‘So how did they get her to agree in the end?’

‘She knew that the IRA were after her and it wouldn’t end well. They told her that they would make sure the IRA got to know that all her family had been British informants, which they hadn’t been, but it would have led to their certain deaths. That’s when she finally agreed. They took Patricia over to London somewhere to have her baby and then moved her out to Australia. They didn’t give her a new identity because they didn’t consider it to be a big enough risk all the way out there but I do know that they hid her emigration just to be on the safe side and  arrival t. They moved me to London and I got a job as a civil servant, met a girl and got married. We have three grown up daughters and a grandson called Zach who my wife and I absolutely idolize. My wife knows nothing of my past. She knows me as Robin and that’s that. I have to say we’ve been very happy although I’ve never stopped thinking about Patricia and our son’.

‘How did you know she gave birth to a boy?’

‘They told me’.

‘So a very sensitively primed sectarian situation involving informants and IRA men like Padraig O’Connell ended up with you playing dead, Patricia being sent to Australia, and your son growing up without a father?’ said Ollie. ‘Is that what you’re saying here?’

‘In a nutshell, yes’ James confirmed. ‘I lost the love of my life because of all the double dealing’.

‘Why are you breaking your cover now, Mr. Carson?’ asked Jeff.

‘I’m not. When I leave this room I’ll go back to being Robin Fletcher. I just wanted to say that I’m sorry that you’ve had to clear up some of this mess but that I never wanted to abandon Patricia and our child and I’m sorry that it turned out the way it did for our poor son. I knew that special branch wouldn’t have joined up all the dots for you and I still have a sense of loyalty to the regular police force. These things are always complicated. They’re never about straight forward police work. This case has been thrown down from the troubled history of places like Northern Ireland and sometimes you’ll never get to the bottom of everything that happened. But like I say, I hope I’ve helped you fill in some of the gaps. Now if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I have a train to catch back to London. I really am sorry for what my son did but if I and Patricia had been allowed to be his parents’ things might not have turned out this way. I know I may come across as somewhat duplicitous in some of the things I say. But the years have softened the hard line I took back then. That and the fact that I never stopped loving Patricia’.  

THE END

But DSI Jeff Barton will be back in ‘NO SPOKEN WORD’

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