We’re at a call house in the Ardoyne, a foul dump of a place. The whole fucking edifice, Mack says, is rotten. The entire fucking structure is riddled, he says. But this presents us with a great opportunity. For information. How do we know it’s not a set-up? Big Bik McQuillan says to him. How do we know, if this fucking thing is as riddled as you say, that this isn’t some attempt to set us all up? The information is good, Mack says. The information is quality. We have our own sources, he says to us. We have our own confirmed channels. This isn’t a one-way fucking street, he says to us.

So what’s the game? Mad Frank Marby says. The game is this, Mack says, and he introduces two guys that have come over to the Ra from the FSV, and one of them is Jimmy McNulty, the brother of Rab and Joe McNulty, who were taken out by the Ra over false claims to the Europa bombing. I can see he knows who I am. That’s fucking one of the McNulty boys, Barney whispers to me.

I’m Jimmy McNulty, he says, and this is Pat Allardyce. I’m aware that there is some bad blood between us and some people in this room, he says. I lost my two brothers over it but we’re all on the same side. Always were. There was just some dispute over tactics.

Right, and taking the blame for fucking shite you didn’t even do, Barney says to him. Shut your bake, Oddjob, Mack says, don’t start with that bollocks now. But McNulty continues as calm as you like. That too, he says, that too. Although I’d say we took the credit more than the blame. Fucking smart cunt, Barney says. We had our reasons at the time to believe that certain operations (that’s the phrase he used, certain operations) had been carried out by foot soldiers of the FSV when in fact they had been carried out by the brave boys of the IRA. Brave boys. He was pressing all the right buttons. The relevant fantasists have been dealt with, McNulty says. Certain operations, brave boys, relevant fantasists: that’s the story of my life, I’m thinking. Then I says to him: what about my ma? Are you going to bring my ma back to life? Am I supposed to work with the cunts what blew up my own ma?

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