One Belfast city centre club I frequented was a desperate place. I only went because I needed the company and it had one great redeeming feature: an enchantingly pretty waitress called Danielle. As I left one night I found her at the door and asked if she wanted a lift. She smiled and said yes, and I drove her to her home off the Falls Road.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing at my beeper.

I explained I paid an agency to notify me of messages and warn me of explosions and shootings.

“What do you do?” “I’m a journalist. I need to know these things.” She was silent for a minute. “I’m sorry, but I told my local OC (Officer Commanding) I thought you were a peeler.

“I gave him your car number and all. Jesus, I’m sorry, but you could be in real trouble here, you know?” “You gave the IRA my car number? You followed me out of the club?” She nodded. “I did, aye, last week.”

It was my turn to be silent. Finally I said: “If you thought I was a police officer, why did you accept a lift from me?” She looked away. “Because I kind of sort of liked you, if you know what I mean.”

No, there’s no making sense of that. The next Sunday she was working at the club again — heavens, she was pretty — and she gave me a wink. “I seen the OC,” she whispered, “and you’re dead on, so you are.”

“You want a lift again tonight?” “I do, aye, but not so direct, if you get my drift.”

Once we got back to my place I asked her about herself. No, she wasn’t in the IRA, but she did what she could for it. Meaning? Oh wee things, like holding open the flaps of letter boxes. What? She told me the IRA would remove the outer flap on a letter box, but leave the inner one. It would be attached to a piece of string and girls such as Danielle would hold the flap open inside the house from a distance, using the string, while an IRA sniper deep in the hall would wait for a soldier to come into distant view down whatever street the letter box commanded. A single shot and the girl would release the string and the rest of the foot patrol would see nothing.

“You’ve actually done this?” “Aye, a few times. It’s very borin’, an’ all, specially when f*** all happens,” she said, grumpily.

“You ever do this when a soldier got shot?” “Worse luck, no.”

“Danielle, if you had, you know you would have been guilty of murder, legally and morally.”

“Me? Guilty of murder for holding up a wee letter box? Away and shite.”