The Journeyman Tailor

8

He watched the major ease back into his chair. The map of the operation plan that he had drawn was left on the easel. The Assistant Under-Secretary knew all their names, bar the one. Hobbes, scratching the side of his face. The Assistant Chief Constable, making his notes.

The colonel of Army Intelligence, paring his nails. Howard Rennie, gazing out of the window. The young woman was the only outsider, and she stared throughout at the ceiling.

The Assistant Under-Secretary of the Northern Ireland Office tilted his head to see the map better through his bifocal spectacles.

The Special Air Service always drew good plans. There was the Killyman Road where it ran out of Dungannon towards Maghery.

Below the road was drawn the web of streets of the housing estate.

Above the road was the shaded line marking the perimeter fence, and the square block in red was the old house round which the barracks had been built. It was a good map and it had been a concise briefing.

The question before the Task Co-ordinating Group was whether to sanction the plan. The final approval rested with the Assistant under-Secretary.

The young woman had made no contribution to the meeting, and twice had to conceal her yawns. Rennie had started to excavate the bowl of his pipe and used his coffee saucer for the debris. The major sat patiently, his arms folded. The Assistant Chief Constable and the colonel, wily and experienced men, were content to wait on the Assistant Under-Secretary.

Hr shuffled his papers. All their eyes were on him now.

"Isn't there another way…?" His voice was high-pitched, sibilant, They gave him no help. It was only the fourth time that he had sat in on Task Co-ordinating Group. They seemed to mock him, the Assistant Chief Constable and the colonel, as if he were merely squeamish. The major met his questioning glance and didn't respond, as if his job was completed. Every time there was an ambush shooting his Secretary of State was forced onto the defensive. Rennie, billowing smoke from his new-filled pipe, screened himself. A community worker had told him recently that Special Air Service ambushes were the best recruiting sergeant the Provisionals had. The man from Five, Hobbes, looked back at him, through him, as if no possible alternative existed to the action that was proposed.

There was this young woman sitting behind the man from Five.

"… There is always an alternative way, surely?" The Assistant Under-Secretary fixed on her. She was yawning again. He thought she yawned because she was tired, not because she was bored. She was appallingly dressed. A skirt that was too short, a hideous mauve blouse, a cardigan that was too large, and a handbag in which he could comfortably have hidden his briefcase. He had not been introduced at the start of the meeting. Clearly not a secretary because she had no paper, no pencil, just a rather lovely smile that went with the yawn.

Like his own niece, who'd back-packed round Australia, who couldn't abide…

She looked at her watch, said decisively, "No, there isn't."

"I beg your pardon…"

She said brusquely, "There is no other way."

What he had wanted was for the debate to start. Debate he could influence. He turned away from her. "I think we might explore alternatives. We are looking, after all, at a situation in which lives are.. ."

‘’Listen…’’.

He turned sharply to face her.

‘’Please don't interrupt me…"

I said for you to listen."

He saw that her eyes were a very pale shade of blue. He thought her hair to be truly golden. She had a clear voice, not loud and not hectoring. He felt afraid of her.

She said, "I'm what's called a handler, I handle an informer. Are you with me? My informer is always at risk, and my greatest priority is to protect that man. There is going to be a heavy-calibre machine-gun attack tomorrow on the Dungannon barracks. My informer is going to be a part of that attack. His boss – that's the Officer Commanding East Tyrone Brigade – knows the exact time, and the place. My informer also knows the time and the place. There is a strong suspicion in the East Tyrone Brigade of an informer in their ranks.. . therefore the O.C. will not brief the remaining members of the active service unit until the last moment. To protect himself my informer must go through with the attack.

"So explore your alternatives to our proposal… We can do nothing.

We can allow P.I.R.A. to take over the home of a 71- year-old woman and blast the daylights out of the camp, and have them laugh themselves sick at our lack of preparedness. Or we can set up roadblocks round the town. That will cause them to abort, hold another inquest, check who knew, identify and eliminate my informer. Or we can watch them into the house, surround it. lay siege to it, starve them out and arrest them all, in which ease my informer goes to prison where he is of little use to me . Or, we can let matters run their course, as outlined to you. I cannot agree to anything that jeopardises my informer."

The Assistant Under-Secretary looked round the table for support and found none. He saw the fresh skin of the young woman's face, and the eyes that showed no doubt. He assumed she used so large a handbag the better to conceal a firearm. He believed he saw a young woman of quite terrifying certainty, and that he was watched by every one of the men round the table for his weakness and for his strength.

He said, "You want my blessing for the killing of three, or four, young men…"

No emotion, no drama. "I want a guarantee that my informer will not be put at risk, which is to say identified as such, tortured for all he knows, and shot. Any alternative you choose will do just that. Cost him his life and the security services a priceless asset."

His voice was a whisper He saw Rennie, the big policeman whom he thought to be an honest man, lean forward and cup his ear. He felt quite sick. "I never thought to have such hateful power. So be it."

Rennie carried the tray with the coffees that he had poured.

He passed the cup and saucer, and the sugar.

Hobbes said, "I thought that went rather well… Thank you, Howard

… Very well, in fact. Such a change when we're not at each other's throats."

Rennie said, smiling wickedly, "Don't delude yourself. You got a soft ride because the common enemy was in attendance. If the big man from Stormont hadn't been there I'd have had you on the floor squealing for mercy. There's no love on our side for your cowboy operations, Mr Hobbes. Best you remember it. It's just that an idiot like the Stormont fellow closes ranks… and Cathy. did well.. ."

"I told her she shouldn't come dressed as a navvy. Impertinent young woman."

"She's your jewel, perhaps the best reason we have for tolerating you

"What do you think is the prospect," Hobbes asked with studied politeness, "of your being able to raise, for example, a biscuit? "

The Assistant Under Secretary reported back to his Secretary of State. The Secretary of State expected to be told when a major stake-out was in place.

She was quite extraordinary, really. Only a slip of a thing.

Verbatim, she picked me up, shook me, then put me gently back in my chair. I'll try to think of it as part of my learning process. When i was at Trade and Industry, if any young woman, any woman at all had spoken to me like that then she'd have been looking for a new career later that very same day. She talked me through a world of informers.

It has been in my mind all the way back here that some poor devil out there, in that cruel wilderness, is the pawn of that young woman.

His life must be one long terror… She certainly terrified me and I'm on the same side, at least I think I was. I'm not proud of myself, but I acquiesced…"

It was the third time that Jon Jo Donnelly had read the letter.

There was no signature, only the typewritten legend, the name of a man who had gone to the gallows in a British gaol more than fifty years before. The first time he had merely read it, hardly taking it in. The second time he had boiled with anger, checked himself with difficulty from tearing and burning the pages. The third time he felt only overwhelming loneliness. The people below, the young couple from Cork, were watching their television. It was out of the question that he should go downstairs and talk with them, look for their companionship.

He was alone. It was the new way, men operating alone, the control of risk.

They had no feckin' right, not from Dublin, to write that first page, that first part.

"… We have to demand that greater care is taken on all operations carried out in our name. Very large resources are allocated for the operations inside the British mainland, necessitating cutbacks in funds for the many commitments that burden us. The families of men imprisoned in the twenty-six counties and the six counties suffer considerable privations, and it is essential that those families believe that money allocated to the Organisation's overseas active service units is not wasted money.

"We regard the South London attack as a disaster. The deaths ot two small girls have caused us to face widespread criticism at home, and given our enemy a capital propaganda coup. Such errors cannot he condoned. We understand the difficulties of operating on the mainland but require much greater care in pressing home the attack on the nominated target.

"Sadly we have been given further occasion for complaint. The shooting of Beck was unsatisfactory. Each time that we fail to execute a member ol the Crown forces we provide the enemy with the opportunity to ridicule us. We expect greater resolution in the carrying out of attacks, The Crown forces oppressing our people in the six counties are ruthless in the murder of volunteers. We should be no less determined when we strike back at them…"

The men in Dublin had no greater worry, Jon Jo thought, than whether or not they had lost a police tail. They risked nothing. They never carried firearms. They never had to scrub, fast, the explosives traces from their bodies. They had their women waiting for them. They had the bar on the corner. No man in Dublin was as alone as he was.

"… As to targets: every target must have a national profile. The execution of an army recruiting officer is forgotten by the British public within hours. The British are a complacent and apolitical race, if they are not shocked they are not interested.

"Brighton they will not forget. Downing Street will be remembered for years to come. Future targets will be selected on the basis of their capacity to damage the enemy's security system., Railway stations, airports, and defence installations are to be given priority

… We are investigating the further supply of mortars and of R.P.G. 7s. Progress has been made in the use of lasers to detonate pre-placed explosives…

The graves of many martyrs cry etcetera, etcetera.’’

It was just cow shit. Some of the targets on the list were down- right suicidal. Did they want him dead? Is that what they wanted? Him in a box and the big crowd walking behind to the church on Altmore? More feckin' use to them dead, was he?

Did they want to write a song about him, was that it?

"The radio said

There was another shot dead

And he died with a gun in his hand,

But it didn't say why

Billy Reld had to die…

He died to free Ireland."

Billv Reid, volunteer was shot dead 15th May 1971, and there was a Billy Reid Commemoration each year, and a Billy Reid Memorial Band. There would be a Jon Jo Donnelly flute and pipe band, for Jon Jo Donnelly dead.

Just not possible, most of what the list called for. Secret Intelliigence Service, Century House. Security Service, Curzon Street. Ministry of Defence, main building. Just not possible for Jon Jo. Director General, G.C.H.Q., Cheltenham. Chief of the General Staff. Oh, yes, certainly.

Should be able to manage that. Shouldn't be more than a twenty-four-hour guard twelve deep for one of those. Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Head of the Civil Service. Possible for an arsehole sitting in Dublin and writing cow shit…

Alone in his room in the house in northeast London, the unlovely, uncomforting room. Attracta was in his mind, and his boy.

He stood up, turned out the light and opened the curtain. He saw her, and he thought she was white-faced and too proud to weep as the home they had made together was wrecked. He saw that she held little Kevin against her body. It was what he had brought upon her. The smashing of her home.

Jon Jo worked at the list, to find what was possible.

It was Bren's second day in the office. The office was an offshoot of the Department of the Environment. He had been allocated a room on the second floor at the back of a new building that was called Progress House. Room 2/63/B was protected by a Chubb lock in addition to a Yale lock. Hobbes had introduced him to a manager, explained that Mr Brennard was the new representative of Audit and Cash Flow Control from London. Any file he wished to see, it would be provided. The manager was plainly anxious to have nothing to do with him. He gave him one swift look, hostility and nervousness mingled, and closed the door on him. For the second day, Bren had studied the new Downpatrick sewage scheme and the proposed extension of the dual carriageway out of Strabane, and the proposed revision of the salary structure for clerical workers at the Department's main office.

His room was a model of Civil Service Spartan. His table, his chair, and two more chairs under the Venetian blind which was drawn down over the window. There was a map of Northern Ireland all over one wall, a calendar beside the door, above a hip high wall safe. On a shelf behind his chair were three telephones, one black, one green, and one white. Song Bird's line, the switchboard's line, and the third one, which was purring at him.

"Yes?"

"Me, out the main door, turn left, 150 yards or so, same side, a bus stop. I'll pick you up in twenty minutes, the Astra."

Bren took the Browning pistol from the safe and tucked it into the back of his waist. He took his anorak from the hook on the door.

He sat again in his chair. Every five minutes he checked his watch. It was what he wanted, more than anything he knew, to be with Cathy Parker.

Twenty minutes after her call, to the minute, she drew up at the bus stop. He smiled his surprise at her. She looked terrific.

He shouted, "Where's my red coat?" It had been on the hook beside the front door the night before, it was not there now.

His mother was close to him, getting the older children ready for school. She eyed him. Must have been needling her, sensing there was crisis between the two of them and not knowing the cause of it.

Siobhan called, "It's dirty."

"I wants it."

"It's for the wash."

"Shit, woman, I want my red coat."

He saw Francis, his satchel over his shoulders, back away from him, and Doloures watched him with a coldness because she was her mother's child and schooled to despise obscenity.

Siobhan came out of the kitchen. She carried a crumpled red anorak, and there were dirt stains on it and paint smears.

"There's your coat, if it's important to you to look like: tinker

…"

"It is."

It was past the time he was usually gone when he was going to work, so she would have known that he was ducking out, and he'd said that he wasn't taking the kids to school.. She threw him the coat to catch.

Siobhan flounced past him and threw on her own winter coat, and she picked up little Mary and pushed Francis and Doloures and Patrick out through the door, slammed it after her. His mother went into the kitchen. He leaned against the wall in the hallway and the emotion boiled in him. He heard Siobhan's car starting up, reluctantly, outside.

He didn't know whether he would see the kids again, and he hadn't said goodbye to them.

Fear and helplessness welled in him. He was trapped by the bitch. He could remember the first time…

They had been four years in England. Francis was born, and Doloures. Patrick was started. A good little business going, a fresh start, and more on the black than shown to the Revenue. A painter/decorator business in Acocks Green in Birmingham. Doing his own thing and also called in by the big builders, plenty of work and the past buried. Coming back late, drink taken, and waved down by the feckin' coppers. Blood test, urine test, three times over. He had a bank loan on the van and a mortgage on their brick-built home, two bedrooms and a back garden and perfect.

He could work out what had happened. They'd a Paddy in the cells, and they'd pumped his name into the computer. Booked him on Drunk in Charge, then held him on the Prevention of terrorism. All spilled out by the computer. 1974, five years, possession of a Luger pistol and Thompson sub-machine gun, Belfast Crown Court. 1979, three years, conspiracy to cause. explosions, Dublin Special Criminal Court. Less than frank, they’d said with the building society. Less than honest, they'd told him with the bank. Big trouble… He was looking at a driving ban, the calling in of his mortgage, the winding up of his loan, plus an exclusion order. She'd come to the cell, the third day. Very quiet, just business, none of the swagger and bully of the detectives.

She’d worn a navy suit. She'd had a typed-up exclusion order and the drunk in charge paperwork in her hand. She had stood in front of him, torn them both up, and gone to the lavatory and flushed them away. He could remember it still, the way that he had feckin’ dribbled his thanks to her. He’d eat from the bitch’s hand, then, now. They had walked out of the police station and left behind the detectives and the desk sergeant, and she'd looked at the lot of them as if they were beneath her contempt. In a cafe down the road, over two cups of tea that she paid for, she had told him she would be in touch, said she'd see him. A small smile on her face, like she'd know where to find him.

Vinny drove.

Jacko from Pomeroy was in the passenger seat, and Malachy from Coalisland was in the back with Mossie.

Vinny thought it downright daft to wear a bright red coat, the sort that couldn't help but be noticed. But he was only Vinny Devitt, the driver, and Mossie Nugent was the big cat… Not for Vinny to ask why.

They went up the mountain first, to the derelict barn that was screened by a conifer plantation. No talking in the car, the talking would be when it was over, time then for the laughter and the cheering and the unzipped excitement.

At the barn they collected the gun from the O.C. and the Quartermaster. It was for Jacko, and Malachy would feed the belt. Easy enough for Vinny to see that Jacko and Malachy knew the weapon, bloody great heavy thing… It was the first that Vinny knew of the plan, and Jacko and Malachy. They were talked through it by the O.C.

There was an old bedspread in the barn, pink flowers on yellow, and they wrapped the 50-calibre in it and carried it back to linear.

All of them quiet in the car when Vinny drove back onto the road that ran down the mountain from Altmore.

One of them had a beard that covered his throat. One of them had long greased hair onto his shoulders. One of them looked to be from the Pacific islands, perhaps Fijian. One of them was the cardboard city man. They all knew Cathy.

Bren watched from the colonel's office. It was her world and not his.

There was no tension in the room The colonel had gone because it was not his world either The plan was on the colonel’s desk with the coffee cups and the plate of biscuits and the ashtray that was already filled.

She hadn't talked about it in the car, just told him to drive to Dungannon, said what time they were expected, allowed him to get on with the job of reaching the barracks on her schedule.

They were planning a killing. That was their world and Cathy was a part of it. The world was Cathy and the calm light of her eyes, and it was four men wearing bulky black overalls and woollen caps that were folded up and could be pulled down for balaclavas.

No fuss and no hurry. Time to pour more coffee.

Bren knew they had been in the Colonel's office for hours because the room was fogged with cigarette smoke. On the floor, discarded amongst the big olive green back-packs, was the all-in anthology of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare, open now at Act Two, Scene Two, King Lear.

Bren saw that she was not interrupted. She was part of their territory, as if by right… Bren wondered if it were just because she was a woman, or how it was that she had earned the respect of those hard men. Hard? Of course they were bloody hard. They were going out killing with no more fuss than Bren managed when he was off down to Mr Manjrekar's corner store With his weekend shopping list. He wondered whether Mr Willkins had the least notion of what was planned that morning, and whether Hobbes sat beside a telephone and waited for news.

He just wanted to be a part of her world, and share the light and warmth as did these four men.

Cathy said, ‘’..He’s wearing the red coat, that's what we agreed. He’d bloody better well better he wearing it. He's a dozy slob, but i think he took it on board. So just don't spoil my day, there's good darlings, just don't forget that it's a red coat, and if, God help us, they turn up in Pink Panther suits, my man is heavy, he’s big, he’s late thirties, going bald at the back, and he limps. And we don’t shoot limping grouse, do we? not out of season, anyway, eh, David?’’

Nothing flamboyant, not theatrical, None of the leadership crap, and nothing that was an excuse for feminine softness. She was amongst her own.

Cathy said quietly, "Good luck."

The semi-detached and whitewashed houses climbed the hill to the west of the Killyman Road. The barracks on the far hill, across the road, across the rough ground, behind the steel perimeter fence, dominated the estate. Smoke from living-room fires pushed from the chimneys. A child played in the road in front of his house with a tricycle. A doctor hurried back to his car. A baby, tightly blanketed in its pram, bawled with healthy lungs. A woman put down her heavy shopping bag, reached for her house keys. A young man walked to the newsagents for cigarettes, went slowly because he had time to kill and no work to go to. The estate ignored the soldiers who looked down at them from the watch- towers of the barracks, didn't speak to the soldiers when they patrolled through the back streets.

Mrs Byrne hung out her washing and didn't think much of the chances of it drying.

It was the Donnelly woman at the door.

Siobhan forced the smile, and she took the eggs. She said that it was so kind of her to think of them for fresh eggs again, they tasted so much better, didn't they, than the eggs from the shops. She enquired, caringly, whether the house was repaired. She told her that her Mossie had been busy, so busy, that was why he hadn't been round to help her with the house repairs.

Siobhan didn't ask her inside. She took the eggs on the doorstep. She was alone in the house and it was the way she wanted it. Grandma was gone walking Mary in the pushchair. Too great a confusion for Siobhan Nugent to invite her neighbour in for a cup of tea and a gossip about whose daughter was pregnant, whose son had found work, whose father was taken sick, whose uncle had gone bankrupt… Too great a confusion because of her husband… She closed the door.

She went back inside Too great a confusion for her. Her Mossie a tout, and her Mossie was gone today without explanation. After she had come back from the school, Siobhan had listened to every news bulletin on the B.B.C… coming close to one o'clock. One day it was going to be on the radio…

There were two in the ditch on the east side of the Killyman Road, where the brambles grew across the banks, hiding them. There were two in the car parked between two blocks of garages at the top of the estate.

All the men could see the front door of Mrs Byrne's house, in the first row of houses that faced the barracks.

No chat, no cigarettes.

They were readied, the guns were armed.

Mossie Nugent's mother's cousin lived in the second line of house's. It was the sort of estate that he thought Siobhan might have wanted to live on, if they had not been so far down the I lousing Executive list, if they had not had to live with his mother.

Vinny Devitt was driving… They had come the long way, down to Edendork, then back towards Dungannon on the country road that would bring them to Killyman Road about opposite the road into the estate. Jacko not able to stop talking, yapping louder and faster the closer they came to the estate. Malachy breathing harder, like he'd a blockage. Vinny missing two gear changes, as if he were first time on a driving test. Mossie shared the back seat with Jacko and the 50-calibre that was wrapped in the old bedspread, pink flowers on yellow…

Devitt, driving like the little arsehole he was, turning into the estate.

Pretty quiet 'cos it was lunchtime. Lunchtime in the officers' mess across the Killyinan Road and up the hill.

Mossie pulled the snub barrelled pistol from his pocket, held it against is chest. His hands sweated inside the thin rubber gloves.

‘’You right, Malachy? Vinny?"

Jacko quiet, Malachy heaving breath. Vinny Devitt pulling on the brake.

A dozen paces from the car to Mrs Byrne’s front door. Number 17.

Mossie felt his flesh shiver inside the quilting of the anorak. He climbed out. He walked, stiff-legged, from the car to the door of Mrs Byrne's. On the pavement, outside her door by the young cherry tree, he looked right and he looked left, and he saw no one. It was lunchtime. He held the pistol hidden inside the anorak. He looked behind him. Three white faces in the car staring back at him… Shit, and there was a car coming down the road, maybe 100 yards away, should be in and out of sight by the time it got level. Remembering what the bitch had said to him. Didn't know when, didn't know from where. Trying to remember each last word the bitch had said to him…

He rang the bell. Christ, and he wantei d to piss. They had both doors part open behind him, ready to come running when he bullocked inside, and he could see Jacko's legs half out and the jutted tip of the old bedspread, pink flowers on yellow. Wait till the car is past, you daft buggers Taking her time, Mrs goddamn Byrne. He tucked the pistol further into his anorak and turned his back on the road. He’d bundle her back in. His job, to watch Mrs goddamn Byrne, while Devitt stayed in the car, while Jacko and Malachy put the 50 -calibre up in the front bedroom.

"Who's wanting me?"

He spun She was a tiny woman, nothing to her, at the side of the house, holding a big plastic basket of washing.

It was because he had turned, because he faced up the road and into the estate, that he saw two men jump from the car stopped on the rold.

The frozen moment…

Mossie looked up the road Two men spilling from a car, black overalls, black balaclavas, black short -barrel rifles. Jacko, his back to the men, bent under the weight of the old bedspread, and At Malachy halfway round the car to help him. Mis Byrne piping, What's you wanting,,?"

He turned again, There were two more men, dark dressed, coming up the road, threatening, into the estate, armed.

The first shots.

Nugent wheeling, spinning

The windscreen in front of Devitt frosted, then holed, then disintergrated. Vinny Devitt’s head, gone.

He was holding the pistol out in front of his chest, and the tiny woman heaved the washing basket at him. There was a shirt snagged on his shoulders and a pair of knickers falling from the red material of his anorak. He threw the pistol at Mrs Byrne and ran.

Jacko was on his back, and writhing, and the bedspread that was half across him and the weight of the heavy machine gun pinioned him. He never saw Malachy.

A shot clattered into the masonry above him. He ran past the front of the next house. Another shot. He half tripped on low wire dividing two front gardens, stumbled, regained his balance. The whine of a ricochet going off the pavement and by him. He turned into the path between the houses. His ears were deafened. His eyes were misted. He charged through a dug vegetable garden, slithering. No more shots, not since he had found the cover of the houses. He launched himself at the garden's back fence, battered his way through it. There was open waste ground ahead of him.

Mossie ran as fast as his damaged hip allowed.

He ran for his life and the red anorak billowed from his body.

Bren saw it all from the watchtower.

He was back from the firing slit, behind the sentry. Cathy was beside him, reaching onto her toes for the height she needed and peering through binoculars.

Bren could hear the shots.

It was a tableau in front of him. It was a grandstand view. He felt as though he had been hammered with a fist into the pit of his stomach.

There was just the bile taste in his mouth.

He looked straight through the broken windscreen of the car and he could see the slumped head of the driver. He looked past the offside of the car and he could see the young fellow, jeans and denim jacket, lying still on his stomach. He looked past the near-side of the car and he could see the thrashing arms of the third man He looked past the car and he could see the two soldiers walking easily down the slope of the hill, their weapons at their shoulders No haste, no urgency. And there were two more soldiers jogging up the road to meet them, one circling, _ still jogging, backwards, to cover behind them. But there was no movement, it seemed, anywhere in the estate, not even a door slammed.

One of the soldiers bent over the man on the ground at the nearside of the car, then lifted the cloth beside the man, lifted it away from a heavy machine gun by the look of it. The soldier crouched once more over the man. Bren heard the shot.

The helicopter was already in the air, coming low over the watchtower, deafening the peace.

Bren yelled, "Are you satisfied…?"

Cathy didn't raise her voice. "It was to protect the source."

"Is any source worth that, bloody tell me?"

She lowered the binoculars. She looked him square in the eyes. "The source is worth everything."

The helicopter perched in the grassy patch beside the Killyman Road.

The four soldiers loped towards its open door. The bodies they left behind them.

The fight had gone from him. He swayed on his feet. He felt her hand at his elbow. Cathy steadied him.

"How far will you go to protect the source?"

"As far as it takes," Cathy said.