“That doesn’t make sense,” he said. “If they don’t want you, why bother?”
“Do you read much?” she asked.
He turned back to her. “No. Why?”
“There’s a little book called
Yosl Rakover Talks to God
. It turned out to be a hoax, but it appeared to be written by a Jewish man hiding from the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto. The most awful things have happened to him, but in the end, he stands up to God. He says, ‘God, you can do what you want to me, you can degrade me, you can kill my friends, you can kill my family, but you won’t make me hate you, no matter what.’ ’
Marie gave a long sigh. “Hate’s a terrible thing. It’s a wasteful, stupid emotion. You can hate someone with all your heart, but it’ll never do them a bit of harm. The only person it hurts is you. You can spend your days hating, letting it eat away at you, and the person you hate will go on living just the same. So, what’s the point? They may hate me, but I won’t hate them back. They’re my family, and I won’t let their hate push me away.”
Fegan studied her skin’s tiny diamond patterns stretching across the back of her hands, the fine ridges of the bones, the faint blue lines of her veins. “I’d like to read that book,” he said.
“Well, you can go to the library. I don’t have it any more. When I was seventeen, my father showed my copy to Uncle Michael. Uncle Michael made me tear it up. He said it was Jewish propaganda. He told me to remember what the Jews were doing to the Palestinians. I remember thinking it strange at the time. He didn’t say the Israelis; he said the Jews. I don’t think he’d ever met a Jewish person in his life, but still he hated them. I just didn’t understand it. Funny, I hadn’t thought about that book in years, but I’ve been thinking about it ever since Uncle Michael died.”
A minute of quiet passed, both of them sipping their drinks, before Marie said, “Seeing as we’re asking difficult questions, why did you come in here to hide?”
“Too many people here I used to know,” Fegan said. “I can’t listen to them.”
“You’re a respected man around here,” she said.
“They don’t respect me. They’re afraid of me.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
Fegan plucked at the beer can’s ring-pull. “You know what I did?”
“I’ve heard things,” she said. Her shoulder brushed against his and he shivered. “Listen, I’ve known men like you all my life. My uncles, my father, my brothers. I know the other side, too, the cops and the Loyalists. I’ve talked to them all in my job. Everyone has their piece of guilt to carry. You’re not that special.”
The last words were softened with kindness.
“No, I’m not,” he said. Somehow, he liked that idea.
“Anyway, I don’t think you’re like that now,” she said. “People can change. They have to, or there’s no hope for this place. Are you sorry for what you did?”
“Yeah.”
“It shows. On your face. In your eyes. You can’t hide it.”
Fegan wanted to look at her, but he couldn’t. He ran his finger around the can’s opening, feeling it bite at his fingertip. Words danced just beyond his grasp.
“I should go,” he said, raising himself off the seat. He stepped out of the cubby-hole and turned, ducking down to see her. “Can I come and see you later?”
Marie’s mouth opened slightly as she considered it. “I don’t know,” she said. “I was going to take my wee girl out for a walk after tea, if the weather stays clear.”
“I could come with you.”
She closed her eyes and inhaled. After an eternity, she opened them again and said, “Okay. You can come with us. I live on Eglantine Avenue.”
She told Fegan the house number. He smiled once and left her in the alcove.
17
The Minister of State for Northern Ireland had been sitting in the back of the car for more than twenty minutes, and they had travelled less than two hundred yards. Compton and the driver sat up front, staring at the back of a bus. The constant blaring of horns and rumble of London traffic did nothing to ease Edward Hargreaves’s headache. The vibration of his phone only soured his mood further.
The voice told him the Chief Constable was on the line.
“Geoff,” Hargreaves said.
“Good afternoon, Minister,” Pilkington said.
“Please tell me we’re making progress on the Belfast situation.”
“Some. Our colleagues have sent a man in to see what’s going on.”
“And?” Hargreaves asked, impatient. The car advanced another five feet closer to Downing Street. “I’m meeting the Secretary and the PM shortly, and I need something to tell them. Was it this Fegan character?”
“We simply don’t know, Minister. Circumstances point to him, but McGinty says otherwise. He says the Lithuanians got McKenna, and my men got Caffola.”
“
Did
your men get him?” Hargreaves asked. He knew the answer, but found amusement in irking the Chief Constable.
“Certainly not, Minister. He’s using it for propaganda, trying to better his position in the party by grabbing headlines. He gave a speech a couple of hours ago saying he’ll recommend the party withdraws its support for the PSNI if some of my men don’t swing for it. The brass neck, as if it was up to him.”
Hargreaves couldn’t help but smile at Pilkington’s predicament. “Yes, I’ve got a transcript in front of me now. He’s a clever bastard, that McGinty. And the Unionists are already making noises about walking away from Stormont. This needs to be nipped in the bud, Chief Constable. If our man can’t get to the bottom of it, you’ll have to be prepared for sacrifices.”
A second or two of silence passed before Pilkington said, “Are you suggesting I allow my men to be charged with Caffola’s killing when I know they’re innocent? Minister, let me make it clear: I will not throw good police officers to the wolves for the sake of political expediency. If you think—”
“How noble of you,” Hargreaves interrupted. “Political expediency is our stock in trade, Geoff; you should know that better than anyone. How many little transgressions have you let slide to keep the wheels turning, hmm? How many robberies have gone unsolved on your watch for want of a little effort? How many punishment beatings have been ignored for the sake of a quiet life?”
“Minister, I really don’t—”
“Don’t lecture me about expediency, Geoff.” Hargreaves felt his smile stretch his dry lips. “How many of your men would be standing trial if not for expediency?”
Pilkington sniffed. “I won’t dignify that with an answer, Minister.”
“Sacrifices,” Hargreaves said. “Everyone must make sacrifices for the greater good. Keep me informed.”
He hung up without waiting for a response.
18
Davy Campbell stood at the bar, alone, conscious of being the only man here not wearing a black suit. The sideways glances had started as soon as he entered McKenna’s, murmurs passing from person to person, heads nodding in his direction. They recognised him; they knew he was the one who had drifted to the dissidents in Dundalk. He waited for a challenge, some demand to know what he was doing back in Belfast. None came, perhaps out of respect for the departed. Had he been a stranger, he would have been tackled within seconds of entering. This wasn’t the sort of pub you just dropped into for a quick drink as you passed by. Peace only went so far.
The late Michael McKenna’s bar might have been a dive, a place for lowlifes to swill, but there was no denying they served a decent pint. Campbell raised the pint of dark Smithwick’s ale to his mouth, and its cool smoothness slicked the back of his throat.
“You’ve some fucking nerve, boy.”
Campbell didn’t turn his head. Eddie Coyle’s reflection stared back at him from the grubby mirror behind the bar. He stood a full six inches shorter than Campbell, his thinning blond hair standing in tufts above his round face. Campbell wiped foam from his beard.
“What are you doing here?” Coyle asked. “You get fed up playing toy soldiers with them cunts in Dundalk?”
“Something like that,” Campbell said.
Coyle stepped closer. “What, you think now Michael’s gone you can just waltz back in?”
“I’m just having a pint, Eddie, all right?” Campbell turned to face Coyle. “You want to have one with me, dead on. If not, then fuck off out of my face.”
Coyle’s eyes narrowed. “You what?”
“You heard me.” Campbell placed his glass on the bar.
A smile crept along Coyle’s lips, wrinkling his blotchy cheeks. “Did you just tell me to fuck off?”
“I think that was the gist of it, Eddie, yes.” Campbell smiled. “If you don’t want to take a drink with me, then fuck off. Clear enough?”
He was aware of the punch coming even before the man who threw it. Campbell had learned many years ago that to best a man in a physical struggle, all one need do is keep one’s balance while throwing the other’s. Coyle made the simple error of sacrificing balance for power, and all Campbell had to do was raise his left forearm, guiding that power past him, and Coyle’s weight would follow. Like so.
Coyle sprawled into a line of bar stools and landed on his back, cursing. He found his feet and came again. Once more, Campbell diverted the blow, sending Coyle to mash his chest against the bar. Coyle turned, ready to swing again, but Campbell was quicker. He got hold of Coyle’s blond hair with his left hand and formed a fist with his right. He slammed it into Coyle’s upturned face until his knuckles were slick with red. Campbell released his grip on Coyle’s hair to let his chin bounce off the bar with a satisfying thump.
The rest came at him then. Campbell didn’t know how many, but a wall of black-suited men collapsed on him. He felt one hand grab his hair, another his ear, while a pair gripped the lapels of his denim jacket. The fists raining down on him blocked one another, rendering them all but harmless, as he brought his forearms up to cover himself.
“Hey, hey, hey!” A small body squeezed itself between Campbell and the angry mob. “Leave him! He’s with me.”
“But look what he did to Eddie,” one of them protested.
“Eddie started it,” Patsy Toner said. “Now leave him alone. Right?”
“But—”
“Leave it!” Toner pointed a stubby finger at the nearest of them. They backed away, grumbling and cursing. Toner grabbed Campbell’s elbow. “Come on, for fuck’s sake.”
Campbell grinned as Toner dragged him out to the street, his senses buzzing.
“What the fuck are you at?” Toner asked, his watery eyes incredulous, his mouth gaping under his thick moustache.
“He was asking for it,” Campbell said.
Toner straightened his black tie. “Jesus Christ, Davy. Eddie Coyle’s an arsehole, everyone knows that, but you don’t beat the shit out of him in front of his mates. Not if you’re looking to make friends around here.” He wagged a finger at Campbell. “Just remember I’m taking a big risk for you.”
Campbell inclined his head towards the Jaguar at the curb. “That yours?”
“Aye,” Toner said, seeming to grow a full inch taller.
Campbell wiped blood from his knuckles with a handkerchief. “Well, quit yapping and take me to McGinty.”
McGinty’s jacket was slung across the back of a chair, his tie loosened, and his sleeves rolled up. He stood in the bereaved mother’s living room as if it were his own house, and he the master of it. The politician’s face hardened and slackened as he spoke on a mobile phone. He took a last drag on his cigarette, then threw it into the fireplace.
Campbell and Toner waited in the doorway, watching. Toner leaned close and whispered, “Looks like there’s trouble. I think the higher-ups didn’t like what he said at the funeral.”
McGinty snapped his phone closed before Campbell could reply, and scowled as he waved Toner over. They both glanced back at Campbell as they spoke, but theirs weren’t the only eyes on the prodigal Scot. The debris scattered around the room told of many people having been here a short while ago, but now only a few remained. They all eyed Campbell as if he might pocket any unguarded valuables. With a self-important flourish, Toner beckoned.
McGinty extended his hand as Campbell approached. “Good to see you, Davy.”
“You too, Mr. McGinty,” Campbell said, matching the other’s hard grip.
“Did you get bored pissing about with McSorley and that shower of shit he runs with?” McGinty’s grin was wide and his eyes were cold.
“They didn’t know what they were at,” Campbell said. “I shouldn’t have gone near them.”
McGinty’s grip tightened. “That’s right, Davy. You shouldn’t have. That annoyed a lot of people, especially the dear departed.”
Campbell prised his hand away. “See, that was the thing. When I heard about Michael, it got me thinking. I made a mistake. I’m really sorry, Mr. McGinty. If there’s anything I can do to make it up to you, I will.”
