THE SECRETS AND SUBTERFUGE BEHIND NOTORIOUS KILLING

Henry Hemming attempts to make sense of double agent Frank Hegarty’s murder — and explain why the man believed to have given the order was shielded from consequences

The circumstances of Frank Hegarty’s tragic death are by now well known. Popular in greyhound racing circles in the North West, the 45-year-old had risen through the IRA ranks in his native Derry. By 1986 he was sufficiently trusted by Martin McGuinness to be tasked with helping to identify safe locations in the Republic for some of the vast cache of arms delivered to the Provos by Colonel Gaddafi.

But Hegarty was leading a deadly double life. He had been recruited by British Military Intelligence six years earlier, and had been passing information about IRA arms and activities to his handlers. Much of it was low level, and some of it was not acted upon, but the location of the Libyan arms dumps was seismic.

The political backdrop made it doubly significant. The Anglo-Irish Agreement had just been signed, but Margaret Thatcher had already been stricken with a bad case of buyer’s remorse, suspecting Garret FitzGerald of dragging his feet on promised security co-operation. Hegarty’s information was passed on to Dublin as a test of the Irish government’s resolve by the British authorities, who knew full well what the consequences would be when gardaí raided the three dumps in Sligo and Roscommon, seizing an arsenal of brand-new assault rifles, along with ammunition explosives and handguns.

Spirited to a safehouse in the south of England by the British military, he pined for home. Back in his home city, the shockwave of the discovery spelled danger for McGuinness. He repeatedly visited the informer’s family, vowing Hegarty would be protected if he returned home. Those promises proved hollow. His body was found dumped on a border road with four bullet wounds in the head just three weeks after he unwisely returned.

Not surprisingly, the Hegarty family never forgave McGuinness, who remained keenly focused on the fallout from the murder. When the investigative journalist Peter Murtagh travelled to Derry to speak to the Hegarty family, his interview was interrupted by republicans who escorted him outside where McGuinness was waiting in a car. He warned the reporter off in unmistakable terms.

TERRORIST CAMPAIGN

There are many other characters in the tragic drama that led to Hegarty’s murder. Many strands were ultimately woven into a peace process and Henry Hemming tries to make sense of them in this narrative. These elements are sharply reflected in Jon Boutcher’s recently published Kenova report, in which one figure stands out.

It seems likely that Freddie Scappaticci, the double agent who headed the IRA’s feared ‘nutting squad’ pulled the trigger. After an ITV documentary on McGuinness’ involvement in Hegarty’s killing aired, the former enforcer approached the programme makers, who taped him describing Martin McGuinness as ‘evil’, claiming the Derry IRA man ordered the killing. “It’s not important who pulled the trigger,” he says, but lets slip some previously unknown details about the killing.

The RUC launched an investigation into McGuinness’ involvement but it ran into the sand, because he was being protected at a higher level. He and Gerry Adams had been identified as leaders who could edge the IRA towards peace, even as their terrorist campaign was at its height. The MI5 strategy is outlined in a taped conversation obtained by investigative journalist Peter Taylor in which an intelligence officer seeking to recruit an agent talks of a “long-term operation spanning 10 to 15 years that would push policies that would encourage Sinn Féin’s journey towards peace”. This was in the early 1980s, 13 or 14 years before the eventual IRA ceasefire.

The extraordinary relationship between Derry businessman Brendan Duddy and the MI6 chief Michael Oatley highlights McGuinness’ central role in that long-term strategy.

Duddy and Oatley — who narrowly missed out on the top job in MI6, ‘C’ in James Bond parlance — had operated a 15-year secret back channel, with Duddy passing messages to McGuinness and other IRA figures. At one stage in 1975, they had come close to ending the Maze hunger strike.

Their relationship had ripened into friendship; with Oatley about to retire in 1990, Duddy invited him to dinner in his Derry home. After they had eaten, McGuinness arrived unexpectedly. A face to face encounter between a senior IRA figure and his counterpart in MI6 was unprecedented in the midst of a conflict that claimed dozens of security forces’ lives that year alone. Duddy withdrew and the two men talked for hours.

McGuinness spoke of his dream of fly-fishing in Scotland, revealing he had drawn up a list of rivers, and nearby B&Bs. Oatley realised that he was talking to someone who was already contemplating the end of the IRA’s campaign, and more relaxed days when the unthinkable might become achievable. Shortly after that conversation, the Provos launched a mortar attack on Downing Street that had Jon Major and his cabinet diving under the table, but the peace process was already under way.

WORLD OF MIRRORS

The world of mirrors set out in this book cost many lives and threw up many dilemmas. For the spymaster, the central question — often sidestepped — is whether protecting your agent trumps the harm that might result. Hegarty was protected at least once; his handlers had chosen not to raid an arms dump under his control, and an Armalite from the stash was used to kill a soldier. He died because an agent had to live. That balance changed, though, when Hegarty disclosed the giant arms dumps in the Republic. An agent died, because the stakes were stacked too high against him.

McGuinness may never have been a British agent but he was clearly seen as someone who had to be protected, even as the IRA’s campaign was at its height. Adams likewise; within minutes of a UDA attempt to kill him, a British Army undercover team took out the gunmen.

The RUC launched an investigation into McGuinness’ involvement but it ran into the sand because he was being protected at a higher level. He and Gerry Adams had been identified as leaders who could edge the IRA towards peace

The Troubles ended essentially because elements on both sides played a long game. The intelligence agencies looked beyond politics, as did Adams and McGuinness, notwithstanding what was said in public. In McGuinness’ case, it is instructive that he was fascinated by fishing, and cricket — both pursuits requiring patience and guile.

Much of this book will be familiar to students of the Troubles. In truth, Hemming’s work contains little that is original; the book opens with a detailed and at times lyrical description of Hegarty’s recruitment on a Derry road “when winter is tightening its grip on the landscape and the lane glitters with frost”. The attribution for details here, and in some other incidents he describes, is vague or nonexistent.

Hemming is at his strongest when he considers the amoral world of agent-running, where the British government has consistently resisted underpinning legislation, with the advice to the intelligence agencies essentially: “Don’t get caught.”

When one considers the many attempts to derail Jon Boutcher as his Kenova team investigated the activities of Scappaticci, it is clear that little has changed. As historian Peter Hennessy observed: “Secrecy is as much a part of the British landscape as the Cotswolds.”