THE ASSASSINATION OF MARGARET THATCHER

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No. We'll not do that.'' A touch: hand brushing arm. ''Show me this thing. Whatever it is I'm here for, wasting time.'' Five years earlier, the CBC had reported on the death of Lord Louis Mountbatten, who had been killed by an IRA bomb. In the end, what may have been the I.R.A.’s most consequential and transformative decision, abroad and at home, was to have Sinn Féin campaign openly for Sands: the hunger and the ballot paper. Asking people in Fermanagh and South Tyrone for their votes accomplished more than asking Whitey Bulger for guns. More victories at the polls for Sinn Féin followed Sands’s, along with the day-to-day tasks of holding office. That work included dealing with constituents who didn’t want bombs in their neighborhoods. Not to you. Anyway, I don't know why you bothered. You can't see the front gates from this side. You need to go out of here,'' I said pointedly, ''and turn left.''

He takes up the widowmaker, lays her tenderly across his knees. He tips his chair forward, and because I see his hands are once more slippery with sweat I bring him a towel and he takes it without speaking, and wipes his palms. Once more I am reminded of something priestly: a sacrifice. A wasp dawdles over the sill. The scent of the gardens is watery, green. The tepid sunshine wobbles in, polishes his shabby brogues, moves shyly across the surface of the dressing table. I want to ask: when what is to happen, happens, will it be noisy? From where I sit? If I sit? Or stand? Stand where? At his shoulder? Perhaps I should kneel and pray.As much as anybody would need to know. That's to say, not that you're anything special. You can be a help if you want, and if you don't want, we can do accordingly.''

Mail columnist Stephen Glover dismissed the story as “dangerous nonsense”. Writing on Monday he said: “What I object to is not Hilary Mantel’s detestation of Thatcher, warped though I believe it to be. It is the suggestion that she could, and should, have been bumped off as though she were some deranged South American dictator … If it weren’t for the persistence of this story about Sheila Joplin and the stew, I would have thought, in later life, that I had dreamed Mary.’ I could give you a string of names,'' he said. ''They were in the paper. Two years, is that too long to remember?'' You think you're on my side?'' He was sweating again. ''You don't know my side. Believe me, you have no idea.'' Crown, Hannah (12 October 2009). "Brighton bombing: 25th anniversary of Sir Anthony Berry's death remembered". Thisislocallondon. Archived from the original on 4 June 2011 . Retrieved 14 October 2009.

Thatcher 'barely escaped death'

Two years before, he had met with Jo Berry, daughter of Sir Anthony Berry, at her request. Her extraordinary act of reconciliation wrongfooted him. “I was prepared for anger; I could have dealt with that,” he told her in a subsequent meeting. “What I wasn’t prepared for was someone to listen to me. Or even forgive me for killing your father.”