His last year as a policeman was a long one for Jonathan Adams. In Fermanagh, the occupants of every Protestant farmhouse along the border lived in dread. Once night fell, the phone calls started. They rang the barracks to say someone was seen in the barn, lights were seen back of the soilage pit. The dog was barking. The Catholics next door were moving guns. There were boats on the lake. A strange car had revved up on the lane. Pamela was not back. George had been to a dance across the border and his empty car had been seen near Melvin. Then the police would ring back to check the authenticity of the call. And even when they knew that there was a crisis out there, the police did not leave the barracks.

“You’ll have to hold on till morning,” the orderly would say.

They rang again and again, their voices filled with terror. “Come over now!” they begged. But who was to know what was waiting out there. Who was to know that the voice over the phone was who it claimed to be. Hysterical wives waiting the return of their husbands. UDR recruits sitting out the night by the bedroom window with a shotgun in their hand. They could have been the IRA setting up an ambush.

Shootings occurred within miles of the barracks and still the police did not venture out.

“Wait till the morning,” they said over the phone. And when morning came they did not know what awaited them. “You’re dead,” voices said over the phone. “You’re a dead man, Adams,” a whinnying voice said into his ear. “You hear me?” He swallowed and shivered. The threat was recorded and put with the other menacing voices that named names, named members of families. Under the fluorescent bulbs in the barracks those on duty sat idle as they awaited first light. Already marriages among the young men were coming under strain. Sick leave depleted the barracks staff. They returned white-faced and hung-over. And sometimes the Sergeant didn’t get home till morning as patrol groups, British Army Units, SAS undercover teams used his station as a central control unit.

The police had no say in what happened. They watched their authority eroded, and their relations with the people systematically destroyed. Whatever happened, happened in their name. They were blamed for leaving the people defenceless. Their informers turned to British Intelligence for higher rewards. Typewriters that no one could work were installed. Jonathan Adams lost touch. As Northern Ireland started to collapse, he began travelling around Fermanagh on school buses.