keep him safe and read the inscription on the back, which said that saying the prayer regularly would keep the person safe. She read out that it had often been carried into battle and the holder would never fall into the hands of an enemy nor would poison ever have an effect on them. Shorty got up, weaved his way past us and went into the kitchen, bringing back with him a bottle of bleach. He thumped it down heavily on the coffee table and challenged Mary, ‘Go on then, drink that, missus, and show me how powerful your prayer is!’
Mary was embarrassed and left the room, taking the bleach with her, while I stood there shaking with anger. I could have planted one on him right there and then. He seemed to lose control because he got up, went to the bottom of the stairs and put on the jacket that had been sent over to him. ‘What are you doing?’ I said.
‘I’m goin’ down to Annie’s Bar to get a fuckin’ drink,’ he replied, belligerently. Part of me wanted to open the door and kick him the fuck out into the street, but the sane part of me said I should stop him. I grabbed him around the shoulders and tried to persuade him that it was foolish to go to the pub; besides, the word hadn’t come from the Derry side that he could leave the house. He became aggressive and lashed out at me. I was about to grab him again but decided to hit him instead, then I hit him once more just for Mary and St Joseph. He was now trying to kick out at me so I threw him onto the stairs and grabbed him by the throat.
‘Listen to me ya wee cunt, you don’t seem to realise the trouble you’re in. Just about every policeman, every soldier and every informer in Derry is looking for you and if they don’t get yee, half the population of Derry will string you up by the balls for the fuck-up you and your friends made out at Altnagelvin last week. On top of that the word amongst the boys is that you and your friends weren’t supposed to do what you did.’
He tried to speak but I was choking him. As I eased my grip he wheezed, ‘That’s a load of shite. The job was given the go-ahead.’
I told him I couldn’t care less but he was going nowhere. I let him up and ordered him back into the living room.
‘I’ll get you fucking shot for this,’ he said, looking into the mirror at the blood on his lips and nose.
‘Finish your drink and get to sleep.’ I wasn’t sure of the importance of what I’d just heard or the ramifications of beating up an IRA volunteer. As I went to sleep I decided this guy had to go. Doreen and the boys had all steered well clear of my house because of the danger of being seen coming and going, which was good security but didn’t help me when I needed to speak to them.
The next day I walked down to Fleming’s to see if Lynn Fleming was around. She and Doreen were good pals and I felt sure that she was bound to know that I was keeping someone from over the town. Luckily, Lynn was coming around the corner and I stopped her. ‘Lynn, I’m having problems with the young guy I’m looking after,’ I said. It was Lynn who suggested that to get Shorty sorted out I should go over the town and see Martin McGuinness.
***
When I knocked on the door of his Brandywell home, Martin McGuinness was sitting on the sofa with a pink safety pin in his mouth, changing his baby’s nappy. The famous Derry IRA commander spoke through his teeth as he enquired how he could help, and I wondered how many times in these typical domestic situations McGuinness had to deal with callers making some kind of complaint, seeking advice or looking for help from the IRA. I had been lucky to catch him, so to speak, as the legend went that he was more often than not on the run across the border from the Brits and the cops. To get an audience with him was fortunate.
I briefly explained the problem with Shorty, who was still billeted in my house even though he was currently Derry’s most wanted man after the Agate murder, and outlined our problems, including my scuffle with him the night before.
McGuinness immediately understood the gravity of the situation and put the baby down on the sofa, keeping a close eye on it. He turned to me and said with a smile, ‘So, you want rid of him, do you?’
I thought for a second and then replied, ‘No! Not until it’s safe for him. But he needs to be told that he can’t go to the pub or be seen in the area.’ I also explained how Shorty had threatened to have me shot for restraining him.
Martin stood up and ushered me to the door. ‘What’s your name again?’ he enquired.
‘Willie Carlin,’ I replied.
‘Anything to John Carlin?’
‘No, but I have heard of him.’
‘So, you’re not in Sinn Féin?’
‘No.’
‘Right, Willie, leave that with me and I’ll see somebody after and get it sorted out for yee, okay? In the meantime, you tell him that if he attempts to leave your house again, he’ll be in deep trouble.’
I realised immediately that McGuinness meant what he said; one word from him and for us the Shorty problem would quickly be over.
At half past ten that night, a man came to our door and asked to speak to Shorty alone. Mary and I sat in the kitchen with Mark, who had become friendly with Shorty because when he was sober and not being cocky, he was quite likeable. After a short while, Shorty and the man came into the kitchen.
Shorty put out his hand and shook Mark’s hand. Then he turned to Mary and said, ‘Mary, I’m sorry about the other night, it was only the drink talkin’.’ He then produced the St Joseph’s prayer from his jacket and asked her if he could keep it. Mary smiled and nodded. He came around to my side of the table and put his arms out to give me a hug. I stood up and put my arms around him. I patted him on the back. ‘You take it easy.’
For a brief moment I thought he was going to cry. The man who had come to collect him thanked Mary, winked at Mark and within minutes they left by the back door. At last we were over our ordeal.
Over the following days, the protests and marches subsided. Jeffrey Agate’s funeral was a very sad affair. The sight of his poor wife standing by his graveside will be ever fixed in my memory. She was just an ordinary working-class girl from Newcastle in the north east of England, thrust into this extraordinary situation and consumed by grief. As I watched, I just couldn’t get my head around the reason for his murder. For a murder it was, and even ordinary nationalists, who whilst not agreeing with the IRA could sometimes understand their rationale, did not agree with this killing. After all, the IRA claimed to be protecting the people of Derry from the British Army and the RUC. However, the reality for Derry people was that far from protecting them from these occasional thugs, anyone in Derry, even unarmed businessmen, were fair game to be murdered so long as it suited whatever screwed-up strategy the IRA thought they had. The IRA never admitted its involvement in Agate’s murder, but later in the year they made a veiled attempt to explain the thinking behind it. The killing only strengthened my resolve to keep working in my undercover role, which was still tentative at this stage.
On 14 March 1977, another business manager, James Nicholson, was murdered as he visited the Strathearn Audio factory, in west Belfast. Like Agate he was English and, like Du Pont, the factory employed mainly Catholics. The outcry that followed led the IRA’s Northern Command to issue a notice in Dublin through The Irish Times, stating, ‘In all cases, those executed by the IRA played a prominent role in the effort to stabilise the British-oriented Six County Economy.’ The notice added, ‘Those involved in the management of the economy served British interests.’ However, there is no denying this was yet another squalid murder in the IRA’s leftist phase, when they behaved like the ultra-left gangs causing mayhem in Europe such as Germany’s Baader–Meinhof
